finished up mint piece

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 I knew when I crowned Fedora 25 the best distro of 2016 I was going to hear if from the Linux Mint fans.
+
 How could I proclaim the best distro of the year before the latest version of Mint arrived? And indeed I did hear about it. There's nothing like some guy on the internet overlooking your favorite distro to make the hairs in your neckbeard start twitching angrily. I understand, it happens to me every time someone fails to recognize that Arch is the best distro of every year.
 
-But there's a very simple reason I didn't pick Mint as the best distro of 2016: Wayland. 
+But there's a very simple reason I didn't pick Mint as the best distro of 2016 and I didn't even have to wait to test it. The reason is Wayland. 
 
 Wayland is, for better or worse, the future of Linux and will undoubtedly be the big story of 2017 (unless Mir actually ships, in which case it might share the spotlight). What's more once you're used Wayland, at least in my experience, you'll want it everywhere. And only one of the major distros has Wayland today: Fedora.
 
-That doesn't mean that Mint 18.1, which happened to arrive the same day the Fedora article was published, isn't a great release. In fact is it. But it doesn't have Wayland. Nor will it have Wayland until Linux Mint's upstream source, Ubuntu, ships Wayland as part of an LTS release, which is won't happen until at least 2018 when the next LTS release is out. By that time, theoretically, Ubuntu itself will be using Mir and Ubuntu GNOME (and possibly others) will move to Wayland. 
-
-That means there's no Wayland in Mint's near future and it also means Mint will be a little out of the loop so to speak, which is an interesting transition for the project given that it started out with a more aggressive development pace, adopting new features and iterating quickly. All that changed a couple of years ago when Mint opted to stop chasing Ubuntu and build off the LTS cycle. 
+That doesn't mean that Mint 18.1, which happened to arrive the same day the Fedora article was published, isn't a great release. But it doesn't have Wayland. Nor will it have Wayland until Linux Mint's upstream source, Ubuntu, ships Wayland as part of an LTS release, which won't happen until at least 2018 when the next Ubuntu LTS release comes out. By that time, theoretically, Ubuntu itself will be using Mir and Ubuntu GNOME (and possibly other flavors) will move to Wayland. Then and only then will Mint be in a position to move to Wayland (and even then it may not happen right away).
 
-You might even say that Linux Mint has come of age. It's no longer quite as cutting edge as it once was, which shows itself in some important areas, like the kernel which is only at 4.4 even now. It's also plagued by the same poorly implemented update and security issues that have dogged it for years. You can keep Mint up-to-date and secure, but it won't be that way by default, and that more than anything else would prevent me from recommending Mint 18. More on that in a minute.
+That means there's no Wayland in Mint's near future and it also means Mint will be a little out of the loop going forward, which is an interesting transition for the project given that it started out with a more aggressive development pace, adopting new features and iterating quickly. 
 
-Mint 18.1 is, however, an LTS release and will be supported until 2021, which is something you won't get from Fedora. 
+All that changed a couple of years ago when Mint opted to stop chasing Ubuntu and build off the LTS cycle. Mint is no longer quite as cutting edge as it once was, which shows itself in some important areas, like the kernel which is only at 4.4 even now. It's also still plagued by the some of the poorly implemented update and security issues that have dogged it for years. You can keep Mint up-to-date and secure, but Mint actively encourages users, especially inexperienced users to avoid updates. That more than anything else would prevent me from picking Mint 18.1 over, well, any other distro.
 
 Although Mint 18.1 builds on the same set of base packages found in the previous release (Linux Mint 18.0), which are based on Ubuntu 16.04, there's still plenty of new stuff in this release to make Mint fans happy. Most of what's new is higher level stuff, the stuff that makes Mint, well, Mint rather than any underlying system changes.
 
@@ -47,18 +46,32 @@ Sure, Mint can be just as secure as any other distro, I haven't seen anyone argu
 
 In my experience though, using this setting has never caused me any problems with Mint.
 
-It's worth noting here that when I say update your kernel I mean the current point release of the kernel. For Mint 18.1 that means kernel 4.4.x, which frankly, feels terribly out of date. It could be that I've spent to much time with Arch and have been using brand new hardware a lot, but I'd hesitate to use anything less than 4.8 at this point, particularly if you have a Skylake chip. Fortunately 4.8 is available for Mint, though here you may well want to heed Mint's various scary sounding warnings since updating between kernel point releases can cause problems. Especially if you distro hasn't expressibly confirmed that everything works, which, as far as I can tell Mint has not. 
-
-In fact, while Mint's Update Manager offers quite a bit of detail about all the various kernels available it's frustratingly vague about any testing that might have been done. Is it there because it works just fine with Mint 18.1? Or is 4.8 there simply because upstream Ubuntu has pushed it out and Mint has mirrored that update? There's no information provided to answer that question.
+It's worth noting here that when I say update the kernel I mean the current point release of the kernel. For Mint 18.1 that means kernel 4.4.x, which frankly, feels terribly out of date. It could be that I've spent to much time with Arch and have been using brand new hardware a lot, but I'd hesitate to use anything less than 4.8 at this point, particularly if you have a Skylake chip. Fortunately 4.8 is available for Mint, though here you may well want to heed Mint's various scary sounding warnings since updating between kernel point releases can cause problems with your system -- especially if you distro hasn't expressibly confirmed that everything works, which, as far as I can tell Mint has not. 
 
-Since at least part of the point of reviewing a distro is be the canary in a coal mine so you don't have to I went ahead and updated the kernel to 4.8 and... nothing bad happened. For the record I do the majority of my testing on a Lenovo x240 i5. I always start with a virtual machine install and then also install it on actual hardware using a separate partition from my main OS installation.
+While Mint's Update Manager offers quite a bit of detail about all the various kernels available it's frustratingly vague about whether or not a given kernel has been tested, especially in light of all the scare-tactic warnings. Is kernel 4.8 there because it works just fine with Mint 18.1 and I can upgrade to it? Or is 4.8 there simply because upstream Ubuntu has pushed it out and Mint has mirrored that update? So far as I can tell there's no information provided to answer that question. Since at least part of the point of reviewing a distro is be the canary in a coal mine so you don't have to I went ahead and updated the kernel to 4.8 and... nothing bad happened. For the record I do the majority of my testing on a Lenovo x240 i5. I always start with a virtual machine install and then also install it on actual hardware using a separate partition from my main OS installation.
 
 ## MATE
 
-Linux Mint MATE edition 
+Linux Mint MATE edition started live as a kind of GNOME 2.x clone, but has since morphed and evolved into a desktop that sits somewhere between the old GNOME and Xfce. It's relatively lightweight, but it's not militant about its minimalism. If you've got older hardware it makes a great option.
+
+This release sees MATE updated to version 1.16, which is chiefly notable for bring quite a few more GTK+ 3 components. The session manager, terminal, notifications and policykit library are all now GTK+ 3. That means MATE now relies on the cairo drawing library throughout and themes can take advantage of the simpler CSS-based theming tools without worrying as much about the non-GTK+ 3 elements in MATE.
+
+MATE 1.6 seems a couple of other changes in the main Menu, notably some improvements to the search features. The Google custom search engine option has been replaced with DuckDuckGo and Wikipedia searches are now localized and will send you to the Wikipedia domain for your language. Online search options can of course be disabled in the preference.
+
+MATE also gets the same set of X-apps updates mentioned in the Cinnamon section and one other change I did not mention up there -- Rhythmbox replaces Banshee as the default music player. That means no more relying on the half-broken, tangled mess of code that is mono just to play some music. The Update Manager in Linux Mint MATE is the same as well, so everything that applies to the Cinnamon release applies here as well.
+
+If that sounds like nothing much is new in MATE 1.16, well you're sort of right. I consider that a good thing. MATE has been a stable, lightweight desktop that does what a desktop needs to do and gets out of the way the rest of the time for quite a few releases now. There are of course lighter weight options, but MATE does a nice job of finding the midpoint between bare bones and bloat. The move to GTK+ 3 won't be noticed by most, but it cleans up some of the last rough edges I've found in MATE. If you're looking for a desktop that just works, is easy on your processor, graphics and RAM, MATE makes an excellent choice. 
 
 ## Conclusion
 
-Does Mint 18.1 deserve to wrestle the best distro of the year title from Fedora? For me, in a word, no. Mint 18.1 makes a good update to the 18.x line, but it lacks anything compelling and the dissappointing defaults for the Update Manager would stop me from installing Mint for anyone but experienced users who know how to update their software from the command line.
+Does Mint 18.1 deserve to wrestle the best distro of the year title from Fedora? For me, in a word, no. 
+
+Mint 18.1 Cinnamon continues to refine the traditional desktop UI model and makes an easy transition path for Windows refugees than Unity or GNOME Shell. But I'd still probably suggest running Cinnamon atop another distro. The Update Manager mars the experience of Mint and is too critical a part of the what makes a good distro to gloss over. If you're comfortable taking charge of updates yourself or just don't care about security all that much then it probably won't bother you.
+
+Likewise MATE continues to be an impressive effort, but I enjoy it atop other distros much more than Mint, particularly both Ubuntu MATE and the Fedora MATE spin.
+
+In the end Mint 18.1 lacks any compelling, must-have updates and the disappointing defaults for the Update Manager would stop me from installing Mint for anyone but experienced users who are comfortable updating their software from the command line.
+
+One of the things I have always liked about Mint is creator Clément Lefebvre's take up upgrading. Too many Linux users seem to be a hurry to update to the latest and greatest, Lefebvre's take is refreshing: if your system is working the way you want, are sure you want to upgrade? 
 
-That said, MATE continues to be an impressive effort and I enjoy it atop other distros, particularly both Ubuntu MATE and the Fedora MATE spin.
+That might seem at oods with my gripes about the Update Manager, but it's not. Security updates and bug fix updates are always welcome, but an entire distro update can be a huge undertaking and is not without risk. If it ain't broke... With that in mind, I would say that moving from Mint 18.0 to 18.1 is probably not worth it if 18.0 is working well. Both are long term support releases and will be supported until 2021.