For those yet to discover Linux Mint 19.1, just know that it's a full-featured, powerful desktop operating system with all the 'Minty' extras you'll ever need in a daily driver distro.

A new feature in Mint 19.1 is a Firewall configuration option in the "First Steps" section of Mint's welcome screen. Security focused users can quickly and easily set up a personal firewall in Mint using this featured app.

Many of the apps you’ll find in Mint are homegrown, while others are forked from upstream projects. Mint 19.1 offers, among other outstanding features, notable improvements to Xreader, one of the very best PDF readers you’ll find anywhere.

Another top shelf app is Timeshift, Linux Mint's built-in backup tool. It's featured at the top of the "First Steps" section when you first boot Linux Mint. You'll also find it in the apps menu on your desktop.

Timeshift is beyond simple to set up – open it up, check the option to use Rsync, and you’ll have enabled incremental snapshot updates where new files live in the latest snapshot, with older files hard-linked to a previous snapshot, saving tons of disk space. Then select 'next' and Timeshift will scan your disks, figure out how much space is needed to make a backup snapshot, and ask where you that backup stored. This is a good time to insert your external drive. Once your backup location is set, click OK and you're done. By default, Mint makes daily backups keeping the latest five.

For the duration of Mint's 19.x series of releases it will use Ubuntu’s constantly updated 18.04 Long Term Support package base. With Mint 19.1 Linux kernel 4.15.0-20 is standard issue. If you wish you can easily install any supported kernel that's available in the Mint repositories using Mint’s Update Manager tool.

Linux Mint 19.1 offers slick incremental improvements without drastically changing the ‘Minty-ness’ this renowned distro is famous for. The ‘Mint Just Works’ goodness that has attracted untold legions of supporters over the years shines more brightly than ever in this latest Mint release!

If you're new to the idea of Linux on the desktop, give Mint 19.1 a go and you'll likely never look back!

Enjoy!

I've discovered it! And am in the throws of upgrading one of my Dell Inspiron 1501 PCs. Report to follow.

I download Mint 19.1 MATE and did the checksum which isn't the most convenient operation but all went well. Couldn't make heads or tails out of the balance of the verification so I skipped it.

Burned the ISO image to a DVD using Brasero which went fine.
Booted that DVD to my Dell which also went fine. Clicked on the install option and ground through that. Takes a good 30 to 45 minutes of file copying. Beyond the prompts for names, some preferences and location it can run unattended.

You're best to have an ethernet connection so MINT can grab stuff off the internet. WiFi won't operate on my PC until I add the b43 Broadcom stuff in /lib/firmware/ This was taken from my 18.x PC.

I use sudo apt-get install <application> to install the packages I want. They include:

1) Filezilla
2) Geany
3) GIMP
4) LibreCAD
5) LibreOffice
6) Thunderbird
7) VLC Media Player
8) Audacity
9) Brasero
10) k3b
11) GParted
12) Arduino IDE
13) CUPS & CUPS-PDF
14) Virtual Box

k3b required extra libraries for its codecs. So does Virtual Box. I'm unable to import an appliance from my old system owing to some sort of file error. So about 6 hours in now and still not where I need to be.

As I've said in the past, none of these Linux upgrades have gone smoothly. This one is no exception.

If I can run down the file error and get my VM machine running that should do it.

Finally got VirtualBox 6.0 working. Apparently my virtual C drive on the source PC was corrupted. Happens with Windows file systems from time to time. DOS fdisk is usually used to repair the broken chains. Anyway I had an older .ova file that was clean. That one loaded and restored my entire Windows XP system and all its software. So I need to load BlueGriffon and check the Arduino IDE to complete the upgrade. Then make an image backup of the entire system. It's late now so I'm bailing out for tonight. Be back with a final update and impressions on Mint 19.1

Interesting process so far. Looking forward to the remainder of your report once everything's in place..

Last application was BlueGriffon which installed without problems. Did an image backup of the entire system too. So I've got everything working initially. Some initial observations:

1) Thunderbird now has a calendar feature which may help some. It's email account screen flashes up on the way to your INBOX. Annoying to say the least but not functionally harmful. An apparent bug the development team won't fix.

2) LibreCAD has a completely different controls layout making the program almost indistinguishable from its older version. An unexpected learning curve there.

3) FF removed its search field using the URL field instead. Yahoo is the default search engine. You can set it to google but you'll suffer a little bit doing so. It isn't on FF's search engine list. So you need to go somewhere else. Videos seem to play fine so they got that glitch smoothed out.

4) Haven't burned any CDs, DVDs or BluRays yet. Don't know what issues (if any) I'll run into with licensed codecs.

5) My Arduino IDE has yet to be tested to see if it will flash the MEGA2560 processor. Further testing required there. On the "to do" list.

I've launched all the other applications and they are fine. Haven't really put anything through its paces yet. As for Mint 19.1 it seems to run well but so did 18.x

Conclusions:

Mint 19.1 doesn't offer anything over and above 18.x as far as I'm concerned. Certainly not worth the time, effort and frustration to upgrade to it. Which I did as a clean reload of everything (most labor intensive). I did this as a hands on learning exercise. Real user, with real PC and an actual upgrade experience. For new O/S loads, wheels up is your only option starting from a blank page.. Going with the most recent version makes sense.

Good report. Task nicely done! Like you I don't 'need to' upgrade to each new series when it becomes available. But I like to because I enjoy experiencing the new features and incremental improvements that Mint's developers include release after release. Besides, if I don't stay up to date then when a major change is made moving from an older release might be more a problem than if I'd stayed current all along.

You're right though. Mint, whatever release we're running, is up to each and every computing task we ask of it and then some! New users, just starting with Linux on the desktop, could not choose a better, more polished, fully capable OS to start with than Linux Mint's latest version!..

George - It's a good O/S just not easy to install and load with software. If you hang in there, which requires some level of technical knowledge, you can get a system up and running. VirtualBox and k3b presented the most problems to install. Especially k3b which is impacted by the fighting going on over licensed/proprietary software it needs to run. There are work arounds but none are smooth, simple and easy. For the user that just wants to plug and play, that is. About 95% of who is using a PC these days.

I've said this before, PCs are on their way out. And have been for some years with the advent of trendy/flashy smart phones. And those phones are very impressive regarding what they can do. Well beyond the old PC and the phone fits in your pocket. Linux will live a good life, but not on has been PC hardware. Except for a small group of kooks like me that cling to the past and find comfort there. I'm an analog man in a digital world with all its implications.

I'll keep my Mint 18.x PC around for months just in case I need something. The Mint 19.1 will assume a place on my desk probably today. And I'll use it daily. FF seems to go out of date weekly so I may dump that in favor of Chrome. We'll see how it goes. But I can browse, search the net, send/receive emails, etc. which is fine.

The heavier duty applications LibreCAD and KiCAD I run on the Raspberry pi. BIG HDMI monitor and more processor power make it a better platform for me. I've got 7 computers in the shop and 3 in the house. Plenty to get the jobs done.

K3b, excellent as it is, was developed specifically for the KDE desktop environment. Installing it on a desktop like Mate' requires a large number of base KDE libraries be installed along with the software itself to make it feel at home.

Normally I install extra software on Mint using either Mint's Software Manager (best suited to new users) or the Synaptic package manager. These two apps flag needed dependencies, which are then installed as part of the software package I've chosen to run. Never had anything extra I've installed this way not be fully up and running once the installation is done.

A slick feature in Mint is the ability to run 'FlatPak' software packages. These are found in the Software Manager and labeled as such. 'FlatPaks' are complete ready to run 'universal' software packages with all dependencies included. Locate the software you want, run the 'FlatPak' installation, and instantly your new software is ready to work with.

Easy to see how installing all the extras you need to work with would make an otherwise simple Linux Mint OS installation a time consuming process. On the other hand, for the typical 'daily driver' 99% Linux Mint user, Linux Mint 19.1 'right out of the box' provides virtually everything needed and then some.

A new user's installation experience with Mint will be nothing like the far more complex setup you need for the work you do, and that's really a good thing! Otherwise Mint would not have attracted the world wide acceptance and massive following it enjoys.

Extra software someone wishes to install as time goes by is available through Mint's Software Manager, and that task is as simple and straightforward as anything can be..

I'm still waiting for someone else to jump in here with their MINT 19.1 installation experience(s). As for VirtualBox and k3b, I was able to locate, download and install the libraries they required. Just some fiddling around that's all. Not many of us out there doing such things, however.

As of about 1 hour ago, I've gotten the MINT 19.1 system on my desk. And this post is the first from that system. So far so good. Need to put some time on it.