Linux Mint 22.2
Linux Mint 22.2 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2029. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable.
Linux Mint 22.2 "Zara"
Linux Mint 22.2 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2029. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable.
Sticky notes feature rounded corners:
They're now compatible with Wayland.
A new d-bus method was added to reload the notes.
An Android companion app called StyncyNotes was written by Graham Bygrave. It's available at https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.grating.styncynotes.
The login screen looks better than ever thanks to the addition of a blur effect in the panel and the dialog box.
Support for user avatars was also added.
In addition to fullscreen, Hypnotix now supports two additional modes.
In "Theater Mode" all the controls and menus are hidden so your TV programme fills the entire window:
In "Borderless Mode" hypnotix even hides the window borders and the titlebar. You can still move your window around with the mouse by pressing the 'Alt' key. This is ideal to watch TV when your window is tiled to the side or the corner of the screen.
Hypnotix received performance improvements. It is faster at startup and during search operations when dealing with large playlists.
Hypnotix now inhibits the session when playback is active.
The sound volume is no longer reset when you switch channels.
Linux Mint 22.2 features a brand new XApp called Fingwit.
This application is dedicated to fingerprint authentication.
Fingwit detects if your computer has a fingerprint reader and lets you record your fingerprints.
It then configures your system to use fingerprint authentication for:
Note: If like most users you use home directory encryption or a keyring, the login screen still requires you to type a password. If you don't, you can configure Fingwit to also use fingerprint authentication in the login screen.
LibAdwaita was patched to work with themes.
Support for libAdwaita was added to Mint-Y, Mint-X and Mint-L.
The following apps were upgraded to their libAdwaita versions:
XDG Desktop Portal XApp now supports accent colors. It scans the GTK theme for a named color called “accent_color”. If this color is present it provides it via the XDG Settings API.
Put simply this changes the accent color in Flatpak libAdwaita applications based on your chosen GTK theme.
This works in Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce. All that is needed is for the theme to define its “accent_color”.
Note to theme artists: This is a one-liner in your GTK CSS.
@define-color accent_color #9ab87c;
To prepare for the future and potentially write applications "in libAdwaita". The library was forked into a new XApp library called libAdapta.
https://github.com/xapp-project/libadapta
LibAdapta is libAdwaita with theme support and a few extras.
It provides the same features and the same look as libAdwaita by default.
In desktop environments which provide theme selection, libAdapta apps follow the theme and use the proper window controls.
LibAdapta also provides a compatibility header which makes it easy for developers to switch between libAdwaita and libAdapta without requiring code changes.
In Xviewer, the EDID-based color correction is now configurable and disabled by default. This feature was counter-intuitive and conflicted with the color management handled at hardware and desktop level.
A new thumbnailer was written for cover art in .aiff audio files: xapp-aiff-thumbnailer.
An iOS version of Warpinator is available at https://apps.apple.com/mu/app/warpinator/id1609289992.
In the WebApp Manager, the webapp description field is now editable.
When renaming multiple files and using enumerations, it is now possible to use leading zeros, define the starting number of the enumeration and its increment step.
The last renaming operation is also remembered and pre-selected.
We added a little bit of blue in our theme.
This is common practice in UI design. It’s done on mobile, desktop and all over the web. Grey is rarely completely grey, it usually has a little bit more blue in it than red and green.
Take your color picker and check the grey on GitHub. It’s not #f8f8f8, it’s #f6f8fa. Firefox does that well, Google docs, Trello etc..
The reason this is done is to make grey slightly more metallic looking and appear more modern. Pure grey is neutral, it can be perceived as cold or warm based on its surroundings. By bumping the blue (or in the case of github both the green and the blue) we force it to look cold.
Interestingly libAdwaita also just did this.
If you update your Flatpak libAdwaita applications you’ll see they now use #222226 for dark and #ebebed for light.
Because there are many libAdwaita apps already in Flathub and since our own theme is already quite close to it in terms of colors, we’re adapting Mint-Y to use the same colors.
The difference in the light theme is subtle. The headers go from #e8e8e8 to #ebebed.
The difference is more visible in the dark theme, which also affects dark apps and the panel and cinnamon clutter elements in the default theme. This one is going from #2b2b2b to #222226 and #404040 to #2e2e33. It looks more modern but also much softer than before.
These changes bring the following improvements:
The Software Manager welcome screen looks better than before.
Help was added to explain the difference between Flatpak and system packages.
When an update requires a reboot the Update Manager now shows a reboot button.
The accuracy of the search results was improved in the MATE application menu.
Linux Mint 22.2 features a Linux kernel 6.14 and an Ubuntu Noble package base.
Linux Mint 22.2 will receive security updates until 2029.
Until 2026, future versions of Linux Mint will use the same package base as Linux Mint 22.2, making it trivial for people to upgrade.
Until 2026, the development team won't start working on a new base and will be fully focused on this one.
