Clem lefebvre posted the note of Linux Mint April 2025, corresponding to March of this year. It addresses various points, but the most notable relates to the Debian-based edition, LMDE, and the possibility of it coming pre-installed on computers. In other words, it's a new development that will allow manufacturers to sell computers with LMDE installed by default, so users would no longer have to do it themselves.
OEM stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturers," and is used to refer to both manufacturers and any company, large or small, that sells computers. Individuals who want to donate or sell their equipment can also use the feature.
When we want to prepare a computer for sale, we probably don't know its future owner, so we can't choose a username and password. The manufacturers probably don't even know the language it will be used in. An OEM installation Installs the operating system, but leaves the rest of the configuration up to whoever starts it on primera time.
Linux Mint continues to improve Wayland
Among the other improvements, Clem highlights that They are working on adding support for keyboard layouts and input methods in Wayland for Cinnamon., the desktop developed by the Linux Mint project. Right now, all of this is working, but it's not perfect. This is good news for the advancement of Wayland, but it may present compatibility issues in Asian languages. Further testing is needed, so there's no guarantee that it will be available in the next release, expected in mid-2025.
Additionally, Nemo, the file manager, has been improved with a search feature that now includes a filter to find files using regular expressions that match their file names.
Finally, they're modifying how the JavaScript engine that powers Cinnamon's numbering is managed. Until now, the JavaScript interpreter used was CJS, which shared the same version as the Cinnamon desktop in Linux Mint and was only updated when the desktop was updated. From now on, CJS will use the numbering used by the Mozilla JavaScript engine. This will allow for more frequent and efficient updates, improvements will be added without having to wait for new Cinnamon versions, and the desktop will be able to use different versions of the JavaScript engine.
All of these new features will be released in the coming months.