[Beta] Linux Mint 22.3 Zena to be released soon
Linux Mint 22.3 will be called Zena. The first beta release of the update will be released soon.
Clement Lefebvre, of the Linux Mint developer team, wrote that Mint 22.3 will come with more improvements such as pausing file operations (e.g. copy, move) in the distro's default file manager, Nemo. Snapshots in the Timeshift app will also be pausable. The Warpinator app, which is used for sending and receiving files, will gain an option for text messages. Night Light, which is used to manage the color temperature of the screen, will get an always-on toggle. The update will also add template management, and offer notification indicators on a per-app panel basis.
In my previous coverage, I reported about the refreshed Cinnamon menu (refer to the screenshot below) with symbolic category icons, based on XApp Symbolic Icons. Mint 22.3 will also ship with a System information tool, rebadged from System Reports. And it will add a System admin tool with some advanced options.
(Image courtesy: Linux Mint Blog)
Mint 22.3 will also improve the on-screen keyboard experience, along with a Wayland-compatible keyboard/IM handling. That said, don't expect any major upgrades to the Wayland session just yet. Mint 23 which could be released next year may bring further improvements to Wayland, but in an experimental form. Nothing is set in stone, so things could change. In case you missed it, KDE has announced its plans to go Wayland-only in the future. Fedora 43 has already done that.
The current version of Mint is 22.2 Zara. Linux Mint Debian Edition 7, aka LMDE 7 was released last month. Check out my article about WinBoat, if you want to run Windows apps on Linux.
The beta version of Linux Mint 22.3 will be released in the first half of this month. It is unclear whether the stable version of the update will be released before the end of the month, as was originally planned.
I like Mint but yeah its dragging its feet too much on Wayland. By now we should have had a stable Wayland option in Mint. But its kind of the stuff we deal with in Linux desktops. Fragmented and slow progress.
Sorry, but not looking for Way-in-lala-land. I’m looking forward to the X11Libre packages.
I wish there was Arch or Fedora based Linux Mint.
‘Tis the Debian way.
I really like Linux Mint, but the lack of Wayland is what made me move to something closely similar – TuxedoOS, because it has Wayland and KDE. I’m still not a fan of KDE, but maybe after a while it will grow on me, I don’t dislike it in any way, just indifferent and would’ve preferred to kept using Cinnamon, preferably on Mint, but I can’t. The problem with fractional scaling of the screen on a laptop with a small screen and a big resolution made me do this more than anything else. On my PC with a big monitor it looks OK, but not on a laptop.
Wayland still needs to improve a lot, but for me it has been pretty functional and I like it better than X11.
Maybe when Mint officially starts supporting Wayland I will move back. I hear Fedora might be good too, but I’m OK with what I have now and I don’t want to be distro hopping anymore.
TuxedoOS looks interesting. Fedora is great too, and KDE is, in my opinion, a lot better than GNOME. But, I prefer Mint Cinnamon because it just works.
When Linux Mint goes with Wayland as default I will try to get back to it. Tuxedo seems similar to Mint, because it’s based on Ubuntu/Debian just like Mint, so it has same packages and more or less everything.
When I tried Bazzite, some things were missing in their packages and I felt like a fish out of water, I don’t know if the same will be if I tried to move to Fedora so I’m not risking it. I looked at some market share for Linux distros and it showed Ubuntu having 39% of all market share and after that Debian. So in a way I feel like using something that’s a derivative of those two might be a good choice as they would have the most support.
Bazzite is quite good, it had NVIDIA drivers ready to use, unlike Fedora. However, Bazzite is immutable, and that’s no good for power users. Ubuntu was cool, I still have a DVD of 9.04.
Choosing the distro with the most support is a wise thing, you can easily troubleshoot issues. That’s one of the reasons why I recommend Mint or Fedora. Want the latest features? Go with Fedora. Want a super stable OS that lags behind in features? Mint.