The name of the next Linux Mint 17.2 release has been chosen and is going to be “Rafaela”.
The project continues with female names, so the new name should not come as a surprise.
Linux Mint is the second most widely used operating system after Ubuntu. It has a large user base and its two main flavors, Cinnamon and MATE, have a large following. Codenames are usually not that important, but they help the community identify a release much more easily than a version number, which can be confusing.
Other projects leave the naming process to the community, and that's not always the best idea. The community tends to pick weird names and developers are forced to adopt them. For example, Fedora's naming process used to follow this process, but it's now abandoned.
The Linux Mint team decided a while ago that they were only going to use Ubuntu LTS releases, and in this case, Ubuntu 14.04, which includes point releases like Linux Mint 17.2 “Rafaela”.
“The second point release of 17.x will be Linux Mint 17.2 codenamed “Rafaela”. Rafaela is a feminine form of Raphael, of Hebrew origin and means “God has healed”. The name Raphael is attested as early as 1350 BCE. It was popularized by many prominent characters and historical figures: an Archangel in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, an Italian Renaissance painter and architect, a Spanish tennis player and a Ninja turtle. Users of Linux Mint 17 and Linux Mint 17.1 will have the option to upgrade or not, and this upgrade will be easy and safe,” wrote Linux Mint project manager Clement Lefebvre.
As you can imagine, there is no release date for Linux Mint 17.2 “Rafaela”, but the first test builds should appear within the next few months.
