14 DAY TRIAL // On the first day of December 2015, Softpedia was the first to announce the immediate availability for download of the final release of the Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" computer operating system, despite the fact that no official announcement was made.
A few days later, it turned out that the Linux Mint project had a critical hardware issue with their servers, for which they apologized, so most of the website and forums were down for at least two days, but luckily the ISO images of Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" were hosted on various mirrors around the world.
On December 4, 2015, the Linux Mint developers managed to restore everything back, as well as to publish official announcements for both the Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" Cinnamon Edition and Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" MATE Edition operating systems on the project's blog.
Here's what's new in Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" MATE and Cinnamon
Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" remains based on Canonical's long-term supported Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system, just like Linux Mint 17.2 "Rafaela" was, and both editions are powered by Linux kernel 3.19 and supported with security patches and software updates until 2019.
Both Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" editions ship with the same improvements for some of the operating system's core components and in-house built apps, such as Software Sources, which is now more reliable, responsive, and fast, Update Manager, which can perform more checks, Driver Manager, which is now more robust, and Login Screen.
The Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon Edition comes with the latest Cinnamon 2.8 desktop environment, which includes a huge number of new features, such as updated sound, power, system tray and workspace switcher applets, window management, backend and settings improvements, Nemo improvements, and visual enhancements.
On the other hand, the Linux Mint 17.3 MATE Edition is built around the MATE 1.12 desktop environment, which features a revamped Application Menu, support for the Compton, Compiz and Openbox window managers, as well as screen-tearing and many other small under-the-hood improvements.
If you haven't managed to do so already, you can download the Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" Cinnamon and MATE editions right now from Softpedia. Existing Linux Mint 17.2 "Rafaela" users can upgrade to Linux Mint 17.3 today. For your viewing pleasure, below is an in-depth screenshot tour of the operating system. Enjoy!
