Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” – BETA Release

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This is the BETA release for 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 even more comfortable to use.

New features:

This new version of Linux Mint contains many improvements.

For an overview of the new features please visit:

“What’s new in Linux Mint 22.2“.

Important info:

The release notes provide important information about known issues, as well as explanations, workarounds and solutions.

To read the release notes, please visit:

“Release Notes for Linux Mint 22.2”

System requirements:

  • 2GB RAM (4GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 20GB of disk space (100GB recommended).
  • 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).

Upgrade instructions:

  • This BETA release might contain critical bugs, please only use it for testing purposes and to help the Linux Mint team fix issues prior to the stable release.
  • Upgrade instructions will be published after the stable release of Linux Mint 22.2.
  • It will be possible to upgrade from this BETA to the stable release.
  • It will also be possible to upgrade from Linux Mint 22.1.

Bug reports:

  • Bugs in this release should be reported on Github at https://github.com/linuxmint/mint22.2-beta.
  • Create one issue per bug.
  • As described in the Linux Mint Troubleshooting Guide, do not report or create issues for observations.
  • Be as accurate as possible and include any information that might help developers reproduce the issue or understand the cause of the issue:
    • Bugs we can reproduce, or which cause we understand are usually fixed very easily.
    • It is important to mention whether a bug happens “always”, or “sometimes”, and what triggers it.
    • If a bug happens but didn’t happen before, or doesn’t happen in another distribution, or doesn’t happen in a different environment, please mention it and try to pinpoint the differences at play.
    • If we can’t reproduce a particular bug and we don’t understand its cause, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to fix it.
  • The BETA phase is literally a bug squashing rush, where the team is extremely busy and developers try to fix as many bugs as fast as possible.
  • There usually are a huge number of reports and very little time to answer everyone or explain why a particular report is not considered a bug, or won’t get fixed. Don’t let this frustrate you, whether it’s acknowledged or not, we appreciate everyone’s help.

Download links:

Cinnamon Edition:

Xfce Edition:

MATE Edition:

Integrity and authenticity checks:

Once you have downloaded an image, please verify its integrity and authenticity.

Anyone can produce fake ISO images, it is your responsibility to check you are downloading the official ones.

Enjoy!

We look forward to receiving your feedback. Many thanks in advance for testing the BETA!

47 comments

  3. In one place in notes there is info about GTK. This is no-go for some users (GTK4 started to use grey antyaliasing only and fonts are harder to read comparing to GTK3).

    Reply

  4. Very nice upgrade, I’m looking forward to it. I’m using Linux Mint on all three of my computers today and I’m really happy with it. Thank you all from me here in Sweden.

    Reply

  5. The monthly news from February mentioned a new app menu.
    Will the new app menu be available in 22.2 or will we have to wait for Linux Mint 22.3?

    Reply

    1. Hi Frank,

      We’ll have to wait for 22.3. The menu, the status applet and the wayland keyboard handling weren’t fully ready so we postponed the Cinnamon release and didn’t include it in 22.2.

    1. Not in Linux Mint 22. It is based on the 24.04 Ubuntu base, which won’t get XFCE 4.20 for the duration of its life. Ubuntu point releases do have XFCE 4.20 but Linux Mint always bases itself on Ubuntu LTS so the next version of Linux Mint that will have XFCE 4.20 will be the next major version (23) to be based on Ubuntu 26.04, which will be release April next year (and Linux Mint 23 will presumably follow a few months after that). The only desktop that is updated by a major version within a Linux Mint release is Cinnamon. The rest will at best only get minor version updates if Ubuntu releases them…

    2. @Santosh

      Linux Mint 21.2 shipped Xfce 4.18. So there is precedence of minor versions of Linux Mint getting DE upgrade aside from Cinnamon.

  9. Hello
    Up to now, about 16 hours, LM 22.2 works as advertised. I am not a high intensity user but for what I use it for, it works very well. It also helps that I finally got rid of the screen blinking problem on my main laptop. That has prevented me from trying LM 22.x up to now. Seems some Intel drivers had problems with kernels 6.08+.
    Anyway it’s all good now and the new version (even beta) really rocks.
    Keep up the good work.
    François Proulx, Longueuil, Québec, Canada

    Reply

  10. Amazing OS on my Apple discontinued MacBook Pro 2012. With 13 years of use, still works like new with Linux Mint. Since June, trying LMDE 6, waiting for version 7.

    Reply

  12. Is there any way to not have Cinnamon’s modal dialogs/screen dimming? I use my PC mainly for living room gaming with a wireless controller, the modal dialog box blocks Steam’s onscreen keyboard, the modal dialog can’t be dragged out of the way and the dimming makes it difficult to read the keys that aren’t blocked. Is this just the direction desktop environments are going because of Wayland’s security model and we end users are simply stuck with it?

    Reply

  13. Great work and congratulations to all the team and collaborators! Looks awesome and thanks for the love put in the UI 💚

    Reply

  14. Very sad, but I will have to switch to Windows
    I have been using Mint since 2012, but recently the bugs have started to interfere with my professional activities
    Here are the most critical of them:
    1. Dbever crashes spontaneously, I reinstalled Java and looked at the bugs in the logs, nothing helped
    2. I use Clip2Net and during online communication I could not use it because my external monitor was disconnected, and Mint sent the window to the unconnected monitor
    3. The 730-15ikb laptop does not always wake up from sleep mode, which greatly affects my work. What even worse he remains in the working state and I can turn off it only by hard shut down!
    I think that these bugs are associated with the graphic environment, but I don’t want to switch to Ubuntu

    Reply

    1. Hi Tim,
      1. I suppose ‘Dbever’ refers to Dbeaver. I am running on Linux Mint 22.1 and version 25.1.1 works without issue.
      3. Cinnamon screen-saver sometimes crashes when waking up from sleeping mode and might appear as unresponsive black screen. You can try logging in with Ctrl+Shift+F1 and type `cinnamon-unlock-desktop`, then Ctrl+Shift+F7 to return to GUI environment.

  15. Hello Clem and everyone in the Mint Team. Thank You once again for all your hard work in creating this wonderful OS. Mint has become like a good friend, stable & reliable. I really pleasure to use everyday. I literally wouldn’t want to be without it now. 🙂

    Reply

  16. I really appreciate the work Clem and the team does. Even when I’ve distro hopped I always come back home to Mint. I love minut.

    Reply

  17. Nice work, the beta is very good, works fine, i love linux mint, thanks for the hard work to make this wonderful Distro.

    Reply

    1. I am happy that the fingerprint reader on my notebook will be supported with the Zara release. I don’t care about xorg or wayland.
      Hence, at least for me, the Mint team set the correct priorities.

  19. Hello Clem and team,

    Although modest, I found the updates to be extremely timely and they matched the system very well. From what I noticed, some icons also received a “revamp,” like the qBittorrent and Maps app icons. I regret that my default browser didn’t receive an icon for the system – specifically, Waterfox. However, I hope it will get a custom icon in the next update.

    In my last comment, I had asked Clem what he thought about introducing the new Adwaita fonts. I think it’s very reasonable for a system like Ubuntu, which has a visual theme connected to Africa due to its name, to incorporate these fonts. However, in Linux Mint, they don’t make much sense – at least aesthetically. Moreover, the new Adwaita fonts resemble macOS fonts in some ways, giving the system a more neutral tone. A good example of this are the fonts in ZorinOS. Wouldn’t it be worth reconsidering this for the next major update?

    Another issue I’d like to mention is the corner panel. I feel that its size is somewhat disproportionate, as it’s noticeable how wide it is. While browsing the Applets, I found one that makes the corner panel look very similar to the Windows corner panel. The Applet is called “Clean Show Desktop.” Attached are the settings I made to make it behave like the Windows corner panel.

    Anyway, these are just a few suggestions that could create a more visually pleasing effect in terms of system aesthetics.

    Once again, thank you for this amazing release, and I eagerly look forward to seeing my favorite distribution continue to improve.

    Congratulations to the entire team,

    José

    Reply

    1. You’re not required to use the Adwaita fonts.
      I use Noto, like Mint used to do a few releases back.

  21. Now please add some transparency to the menu like on windows 7 and that’d be a huge UI improvement for LM!

    Thnak you so much for all you did here!

    Reply

    2. I agree. Choice is always wonderful.

      But as you can see, most people think that LM Cinnamon has an outdated look, and I kinda think they’re right.

      Please don’t get me wrong, I love LM and what LM stands for, and I use it daily and recommend it to everyone but the UI/UX needs some work IMO.

    3. The only problem with transparency (in Cinnamon), is that if there is text or hard-edged patterns behind it, it obscures the text on the transparent item (panel, menu, or whatever). This is because Cinnamon doesn’t support blurring very well, which would solve that problem. I would love to see a blurred transparency, but transparency in Cinnamon as it is, without blur, is totally useless, in my opinion.

    4. I also don’t like transparency, it clutters my visual information and me ol’ brain likes it clean and simple.
      If the Mint Team wants to add transparency, sure, nothing to object about new visual features for everybody else, but please make it configurable either by an on-off toggle or by percentage, allowing a zero value, meaning off.

    6. Jose, I’ve tried the Blur Cinnamon extension, and have the utmost respect for its developer. However, it’s not really very usable. It does ok for the panel background (until you move a window behind it, then its limits become obvious), but the blur in the menus aren’t nearly there yet. It squares off any rounded corners if your theme uses them, and only shows a blurred desktop background, not any icons or windows that are behind the menu. So if you’re using a maximized window and open a panel menu, you suddenly see a blurry desktop background in your menu. So it’s kind of useless in that regard. The best solution would be for Cinnamon to directly support it, which it kind of does, but it’s slow and glitchy. They just need to polish it and work out the glitches, and it’ll be ready to go.

  22. Thanks a lot for all the efforts Clem & team. Couple of things I observed.
    1. fingwit wasn’t available as soon as I installed beta version.
    2. I installed it via terminal, but it says no finger print reader found. While my laptop has a finger print reader. Could this be a driver issue? hardware is functional in Windows.

    I understand that these issues could be usual in beta release. I really appreciate some clarity.

    Reply

  23. Thank you, Mint team! Great work as usual!

    I especially love the blurred transparency on the login screen! I wish we could see that in Cinnamon transparent elements as well (panel, menus, etc.).

    I also appreciate the Software Manager redesign. It looks like you fixed the odd padding on the right side between the slider and the edge of the window.

    If I could pass along a feature request for Software Manager (I also made a feature request on the Linux Mint github, but I’ll pass it along here as well, just in case)… Anywhere that Software Manager lists packages (for example, on the start page shown in your image in the “New Features” web page, searches, etc.), instead of showing different entries/buttons for both Flatpaks and System Packages, I would like to see them combined, in order to shorten the lists and alleviate any confusion for new users. So, for example, let’s say you search for Blender. As it is now, it shows two packages: One with a Flatpak symbol, and one without any symbol. If this happens, make Software Manager just show one entry/button, with both the Flatpak “box” symbol for Flatpaks, and the LM logo for System Packages, in the corner of the same button. This would give people less to have to sort through when finding software to install, and would allow them to easily know which packages have both options available.

    Another feature request for Software Manager would be to add a section at or near the top of the start page (where it currently shows “Featured” packages), where any “New” packages are listed. So, when there are packages that didn’t exist before and have been just added to the repositories within the last month (or two weeks, or whatever time frame seems reasonable), they are listed at the top. This would make discovering new software more intuitive, in my opinion.

    Reply

    1. Ad this to my last feature suggestion: Or, instead of new packages within the last month or whatever, show the 9 most recent new packages, sorted by most recent to least recent. That might make it more consistent looking on the start page.

  24. Thank you guys for the blur in the login screen, it looks much better than before, and much more modern and elegant, I hope that in the future you will add more blur options in Cinnamon, like for the panel and the menus/popups, it would look very good and modern!

    Also I hope the Wayland sessions gets finished soon!

    Thank you for the good work Linux Mint team!

    Reply

  26. So great!
    I just found out about the new tone of blue in the theme too: I was using a different theme especially because of that, excited to see the changes 🙂
    Thanks!

    Reply

  27. Hi, LM Team! XFCE beta live-session test:

    1) The xfce4-datetime-plugin is outdated and useless, besides it has no icon in the toolbar settings. The native time app-indicator does the same, so the outdated plugin should be deleted.

    2) The xfce4-weather-plugin doesn’t work, there was the same issue in the previous release. You might take the deb-package of the plugin from Voyager Linux, where it works.

    3) The icon-sets in the “Appearance” settings are not cached, that’s why they show yellow exclamation marks (there was the same issue in the previous releases). This command might help:

    for d in /usr/share/icons/*; do sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f $d; done

    That’s all, so far. Good luck! 🙂

    Reply

  28. Hello,

    Congratulations on your release of Beta 22.2.

    I had an idea I wanted to share with you.

    Why don’t you consider becoming official maintainers of Cinnamon packages for Debian ?

    This is what many people at Ubuntu do, they wear both hats, and it’s beneficial to everyone, including Debian and Mint users, as well as, of course, Ubuntu users. Some Linux kernel maintainers work on the Debian kernel. And there must be other examples of this type if you look around.

    You could then debug and maintain Cinnamon ahead of the release of LMDE and Mint 2x.xx, which would facilitate the development and release of your two in-house operating systems.

    You would also be closer to Debian/Ubuntu developers. This would allow you to better express your needs and expectations to this Debian/Ubuntu developers.

    What do you think ?

    Best regards.

    Reply

  30. Linux Mint 22.2 its working pretty good, only Hypnotyx its not working, in 22.1 Hypnotix works fine, thanks again for your hard work in this wonderful distro

    Reply

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