Credit: Corbin Davenport / Linux Mint

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The Linux Mint team showed off in its October blog post progress on the System Reports tool, which is being overhauled and renamed “System Information.” The redesign is meant to assist with troubleshooting issues, which is easily one of the biggest pain points in switching to Linux.

The new System Information tool gives you an overview of several aspects of your PC. On the main “System Information” page, many system specs are listed including the kernel version, the CPU model, the desktop environment (and version number), and the display server.

Credit: Linux Mint

These are all necessary points of information for solving the most problems that come up in Linux desktops. The old System Reports dialog could give you this too, but it was presented in plaintext, so it was difficult to parse yourself.

The System Information has several more tabs that you can though. In addition to the System Information, System Reports, and Crash Reports tabs that were all there before, there are now dedicated USB, GPU, PCI, and BIOS info tabs. You can use those to check things like connected peripherals, GPU acceleration enablement, and the BIOS version.

The Mint team is also apparently developing a “System Administration” tool that will look similar to System Information but will allow you to configure deeper settings in your Mint install. The only example given was the ability to adjust boot menu settings, which can definitely be useful, especially if you don’t want to mess with configuration files.

The Mint team didn’t say when we’d get to have these new tools, but I would guess they should be here by the time Linux Mint 22.3 gets here early next year.

Either way, I’m happy to see the Mint team giving so much assistance to users who are trying to solve their own issues with their operating system. The fact that Linux places so much responsibility for system maintenance on the user is one of the reasons people avoid Linux in the first place. A well-designed and informative tool like System Information can do a lot to address that, so I’m excited to see it in upcoming Mint releases.

In the same blog post, the Mint also announced a few more configuration options for Cinnamon, like an ability to move the menu applet’s search box to the bottom of the dialog instead of the top. You can also move the system buttons to the left of the search bar, which allows the search bar to stretch out farther.

The Mint team also announced that LMDE 6 will reach end of life on the first day of the new year, January 1, 2026. You have time to upgrade to LMDE 7 until then—unless you’re running on a 32-bit processor. In that case, you’ll have to find an alternative operating system because LMDE 7’s Debian base dropped 32-bit support.

Source: Linux Mint blog