Looks like Clem and his team are about to get busy. Starting with version 18.x, X-Apps as they call them for now, are going to be the base apps of Linux Mint Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE.

A lot of projects are doing their apps when they don’t find what they want. Distros like Manjaro, Solus, or elementary OS have their own applications, and it looks like Linux Mint is also going to join this crowd.

I’m not really hot about X-Apps for the moment. Let’s take for example Rhythmbox, which is not pre-bundled with Mint, it is one of my main applications. Now I don’t want to bash on Clem and its team but can they really offer a solid music player in 6 months? I don’t think so. And Banshee as a pre-bundled Mint music player is not one of the most pleasing apps to be used. Not that I don’t believe in their capabilities but if they want to build Apps for Mint, we’re expecting solid stuff for our own usage.

In my opinion Banshee shouldn’t be bundled with Mint as it is a lesser good app than Rhythmbox. And if I’m to be using Cinnamon as a Desktop Environment I would prefer to use the DE’s apps rather than having to do an extra jump for using another application. I like my OS simple to use.

And what Solus and Elementatry are doing is OK but their apps are a bit too simple for the moment. So should we expect Mint’s X-Apps to be too simple in their beginning? I’m afraid they will and it will break the nicely feel Mint has had for the last 4-5 years.

Don’t break my Mint!

Linux Mint 18 codenamed “Sarah” sould be out around June 2016.

(via news.softpedia.com and blog.linuxmint.com)