Linux Mint 22.2 "Zara" has been released

Contents

Version 22.2 of the Linux distribution Linux Mint, dubbed "Zara", has now been released. Although it is primarily a product update, the developers have nevertheless made some interesting minor changes. For example, the new in-house tool Fingwit takes the user's fingerprints and then switches the system to biometric login. However, the latter only works in the screen saver, when calling "sudo" and in all applications that request system administration rights via the "pkexec" tool. The login screen is a special case: If you encrypt the home directory or use a keychain, you still have to enter a password there. Only if neither of these is the case can the login screen be bypassed with a pointed finger.

Improved XApps

Android smartphone owners can download the StyncyNotes app from the F-Droid store. It is based on the Sticky virtual notepad and even uses its file format. Notes can therefore be synchronized between StyncyNotes and Linux Mint using a tool such as SnycThing. Speaking of apps: the file sharing tool Warpinator is now also available as an iOS app.

The other new features are in the details: Those who want to rename several files and have them numbered consecutively can now prefix them with zeros, such as "045_brief.txt". Xviewer switches off EDID-based color correction by default. The video streaming application Hypnotix hides all buttons and menus in the new theater mode, the "frameless mode" hides the window frame and title bar. Hypnotix also no longer resets the volume when changing channels.

Optimized optics

Applications written for the GNOME desktop usually draw their user interfaces on the screen with the help of Libadwaita. The Linux Mint developers have modified this library so that it works with the distribution's themes –. Specifically, this currently works with the Mint-Y, Mint-X and Mint-L themes.

The Gnome calendar, Simple-scan and Baobab can be used to test how well Libadwaita applications can be overlaid onto the themes. Linux Mint 22.2 delivers these programs in their Libadwaita versions. In addition, the Linux Mint team maintains a fork of Libadwaita called libAdapta. It offers the functional scope of Libadwaita, but supports themes and includes a few unspecified "extras".

Small problems under the hood

The distribution is still based on Ubuntu 24.04. In order to support newer AMD processors, Linux Mint activates the Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) provided by Canonical. Among other things, it upgrades the newer Linux kernel 6.14. However, this does not work smoothly on some systems. This mainly affects VirtualBox users, owners of an older Intel GPU with i915 driver and computers with an Nvidia graphics card, which requires the obsolete driver version 470. The Linux Mint team advises those affected to stay with Linux Mint 22.1 and the kernel 6.8 used there. Existing Linux Mint installations should also be able to be updated to version 22.2 without the HWE.

According to the release notes, the new kernel is not the only stumbling block. Under certain circumstances, some touchpads and audio output may not work. When Linux Mint shuts down, it allows all programs that are still running just ten seconds to exit in a controlled manner. After that, the distribution immediately shuts down the associated process. Although the system shuts down faster this way, the time may be too short for some services. If you notice problems when shutting down Linux Mint, you can manually increase the waiting time in the configuration file "/etc/systemd/system.conf.d/60_custom.conf".

As with the base system, Linux Mint 22.2 receives security updates over a particularly long period of time. The Linux Mint makers promise this long-term support until 2029. If you would like to try out Linux Mint 22.2 first without obligation, write the official image to a USB stick. A live system will then start from it, in which the distribution can be explored. As always, you can choose between the Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce desktops.

(nie)