Review: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

Enlarge / The Cinnamon desktop in Linux Mint 17.3

The Linux Mint project recently unveiled Linux Mint 17.3. The latest release from this Ubuntu-based Linux distro just might be the best Linux desktop around.

Linux Mint 17.3 arrived a few days late and had a somewhat bumpy launch thanks to some server hardware issues that temporarily knocked the Linux Mint blog and forums offline. The final version of Linux Mint was out there, but few knew about it until a few weeks later.

This is a big release: Linux Mint 17.3 marks the final release that will be built atop Ubuntu 14.04 and marks the pinnacle of the project's plan to stop chasing every Ubuntu release and focus on perfecting what makes Mint, well, Mint. When Ubuntu puts out its next Long Term Support release in April of 2016, Mint will have to upgrade its base system.