Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela RC has been released, being available in both the MATE and Cinnamon flavors.
Linux Mint’s Clement Lefebvre has recently published the ISO images of the Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela RC on their FTPs, being available for free downloading. There is no official announcement yet, so we can’t know too many about this release.
The final version of Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela, based on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, will be a LTS release, supported until 2019.
As a reminder, the Linux Mint developers have decided to change the code-base of both Linux Mint, and so, the future Linux Mint systems will be based only on the LTS versions of Ubuntu, Linux Mint 17, Linux Mint 17.1, Linux Mint 17.2 and Linux Mint 17.3 being forks of Ubuntu 14.04, the first Ubuntu 16.04-based Linux Mint system being Linux Mint 18.
This way, the developers have more time to work more at the Linux Mint specific software and their system get more independent.