Mint Monthly News – May 2025
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4850


Mint 20.x has reached End Of Life. Upgrade options are shown in the blog.

Fingerprint Authentication
Linux Mint 22.2 will feature a brand new app called “Fingwit“, which is a fingerprint configuration tool. It detects if your computer has a fingerprint reader and lets you record your fingerprints. It then configures your system to use fingerprint authentication for:
The login screen
The screensaver
sudo commands
Admin apps (pkexec)

libAdwaita apps and patches
Starting with Linux Mint 22.2, libAdwaita will be patched to work with themes. Support for libAdwaita was added to Mint-Y, Mint-X and Mint-L. The following apps will be upgraded to their libAdwaita versions:
gnome-calendar
simple-scan
baobab

libAdapta fork
In the scope of XApp and for our own projects, libAdwaita was forked into libAdapta: LibAdapta is libAdwaita with theme support and a few extra. It provides the same features and the same look as libAdwaita by default.

Framework
The company sent Clem some of their hardware so he was able to test the Laptop 13 and the gaming Desktop already. Their products are really nice. Clem hopes to be able to review them soon and add them to our store section. This isn’t just a commercial partnership. By testing this hardware we boost compatibility for the brand and significantly improve Linux Mint. It’s thanks to Framework we implemented power profiles in Linux Mint 22.1. It’s also thanks to them that we worked on fingerprint authentication or pushed towards an HWE kernel in Linux Mint 22.2. Their hardware challenges us to do better, because it’s packed with features in need for support.

Thanks to mintcast.org for the summary.

Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” released!

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4881

How to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.2
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4882

Thanks to MintCast for the notification.

Mint Monthly News – August 2025
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4879

LMDE 7
Work has started on LMDE 7, codename Gigi.
32-bit edition no longer available. 64-bit only.

Linux Mint 22.3
Although the latest release came later than expected and we’re currently focused on LMDE 7, we’re still planning on having a Mint 22.3 release in December. The priority will be the new version of Cinnamon and shipping some of the important WIP (work in progress / planned features) which were started earlier this year:
The new menu
The status applet Wayland-compatible handling for keyboard layouts and input methods.

Thanks to MintCast for the summary.

Mint Monthly News – September 2025

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4895

The next version of Cinnamon will feature improved support for keyboard layouts and input methods. This new support is fully compatible with Wayland for both traditional layouts and IBus input methods.
The on-screen keyboard (OSK) will no longer rely on libcaribou but be implemented natively by Cinnamon.

The Cinnamon application menu was redesigned and given a new layout. It features a sidebar with sections for your avatar, places and favorite applications.

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Mint Monthly News – October 2025

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4936

Work continued on the Cinnamon menu applet. Configuration options were added to be able to move the search bar to the bottom. and to be able to position the system buttons in the sidebar.

The “System Reports” tool was given a plethora of new features and it was rebranded as “System Information”. In addition to its “System Information”, “System Reports” and “Crash Reports” pages, the tool received 4 new pages to show you more information and help you troubleshoot common issues.

A new tool called “System Administration” was implemented. Although its UI looks similar to the “System Information” tool, its goal is slightly different. This tool runs with admin privileges and focuses on administration.

LMDE 6 will reach End of Life on January 1st 2026.

XSI (XApp Symbolic Icons): To replace the Adwaita symbolic icons a new XApp project was started called XSI (XApp Symbolic Icons). All the XApp, Cinnamon and Mint projects switched to XSI.

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Mint Monthly News – November 2025

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4968

Cinnamon Menu
The new Cinnamon menu received symbolic category icons.
This was made possible thanks to the new XApp Symbolic Icons (XSI) initiative.

Linux Mint 22.3 ‘Zena’
The codename for Linux Mint 22.3 is Zena.
We covered some of the new features included in 22.3 on this blog:
System information tool
System admin tool
New Cinnamon menu
Wayland-compatible keyboard/IM handling
Improved on-screen keyboard
There are many more… the ability to pause file operations in Nemo, or snapshots in Timeshift, text messaging in Warpinator, Always-on night light, template management, per-app panel notification indicators… etc.
We’re very close to a release now. Most of the projects have been tagged and packaged in 22.3’s repositories.
We’re preparing a BETA release for the first half of this month.

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” released!

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4981

How to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.3
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4980

New OT group!

Hello everyone. Many of the members were requesting for an OT group that is techy in nature. We previously had a separate group for OT but that was considered less techy and more verbose.

To help the process, @denyallow has created a new OT group @linuxmint_ot.

Feel free to join it if you think you need to discuss something apart from Linux Mint.

However please do note that the administration of @linuxmint_ot is not within control of this group but completely under the control of @linuxmint_ot admins.

Mint Monthly News - January

Work continues on improving keyboard layouts and input methods.
Apologies for recent problems with Mint Forums.
Changes to Users and Account Details.
Cinnamon Screensaver and Wayland
Longer Development Cycle

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4991

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Mint Monthly News - February

A page dedicated to sensors was added to the System Reports tool.
The new Cinnamon screensaver is ready, fully compatibile with Wayland. and there’s a lot of good news coming along with it!

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5010

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Mint Monthly News – March 2026

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5019

Release Strategy
Linux Mint will adopt a longer development lifecycle.
The next release is planned for Christmas 2026.
Linux Mint will use the same installer as LMDE (i.e. “live-installer”).

Mint 23 Alfa
The release strategy will define the versioning and naming scheme. For now, we don’t know what the next release will be called and what version it will be… yet we had to start working on it. As a temporary measure we decided to call the next release “Alfa” and to give it version 23. Alfa is appropriately named since it’s unlikely to keep that name all the way to BETA 🙂 Anyway, developer jokes aside, Alfa is starting to look good. It currently ships with:
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS as the package base
Linux kernel 7.0
Cinnamon 6.7-unstable (including the new Wayland screensaver, which we want to test early rather than later in the cycle)
CJS 140
Live-installer (ported from LMDE to replace Ubiquity; supports OEM installations, BIOS/EFI, SecureBoot, and LVM/LUKS)

Wayland support and a unified installer shared between Mint and LMDE are significant milestones for our project.

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Mint Monthly News – April 2026

HWE ISOs released.
We’re considering adding an ALPHA phase to the new release cycle.
Screensaver Bug Fix

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5022

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Mint Monthly News – May 2026

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5025

Changes planned for Mint 23 expected in December
Significant improvements to the response time and navigation performance in Nemo.
In Nemo, Interactive Search will be replaced by a filtered view instead.
Cinnamon new screenshot tool.
Window screenshots can be taken with or without shadows
Screen screenshots can include all monitors or only a single one
Screenshots can be cropped before getting copied or saved
Cinnamon is now able to use draggable Clutter dialogs.
The colors and contrast are improved in the dark version of the Mint-Y theme.
Frames and scrolled areas, which were rectangular, are now slightly rounded, like the buttons and combo boxes.
Treeviews and listviews got rounded as well.
The Mint-Y, Mint-L and Mint-X themes now use XSI icons for GTK dialogs.
Cinnamon received support for WPA3 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 3) and OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption).
Security Updates and Project Impersonations
A severe security flaw was found in Xreader: CVE-2026-46529.
Malicious people are making fake websites which impersonate FOSS applications. Warpinator.com and hypnotix.org for example.

Thanks to mintCast for the summary.

Linux Mint News - 2026 June

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5046


Summary

1. Linux Mint developers plan to release Linux Mint 23 in December 2026.

2. Wayland is no longer experimental and will be fully supported alongside X11.

3. Wayland gains better stability, window management, multi-monitor support, HiDPI scaling, and hardware acceleration.

4. NVIDIA support improves with hardware-accelerated GBM over EGL.

5. Cinnamon adds the cinnamon-list-windows tool, sharper rendering, and systemd graphical-session support.

6. System improvements include better SSH keyring support, LightDM fixes, and faster fingerprint login.

7. Crash fixes across Cinnamon, Muffin, Xwayland, and session components improve desktop reliability.

8. A critical mintupdate vulnerability (CVE-2026-59159) has been patched for supported and End-of-Life Linux Mint and LMDE releases.

9. Linux Mint developers recommend installing the latest security updates immediately.

10. Linux Mint 23 focuses on better performance, stability, security, and production-ready Wayland support while retaining X11 compatibility.