Today the new version of Linux Mint was released, 22.2 named “Zara”.

Linux Mint is known as one of the most popular Linux distributions for beginners, being based on Ubuntu LTS — providing good stability — and featuring a graphical interface with a desktop paradigm similar to Windows.

Main changes

Sticky Notes

Linux Mint 22.2 comes with improvements to sticky notes, such as now having rounded corners and support for Wayland, which is the most modern desktop technology — standard in most distros such as Fedora, Arch, and Ubuntu. In the latest Mint updates, support for Wayland in its interface, Cinnamon, has been improved.

New look of sticky notes

Login Screen

The login screen has been updated with a new look featuring a blur effect and user avatars:

Fingerprint Authentication

Linux Mint 22.2 includes a new application called Fingwit, which allows you to register fingerprints and use them to unlock the screen, in Sudo, and in administration applications.

LibAdwaita Compatibility

This is, in my opinion, one of the best changes.

LibAdwaita is a library created by GNOME to follow its design guidelines, maintaining a consistent look across all programs — similar to how Apple does with Cocoa. However, it comes with the drawback of having a completely out-of-place look on distros that don’t use GNOME, such as Linux Mint.

Previously, Linux Mint used older versions of GNOME applications that did not use the library to maintain consistency. However, now they have started modifying it so that the global theme is applied:

As we can see, applications like Gnome Calendar — which use the library — now have their theme more consistent with the system’s defined theme, unlike previous versions where, regardless of the theme, they would always have the same look.

The fork is available on GitHub under the name LibAdapta.

How to update

To update Linux Mint to the latest version, it is recommended to first make a backup of your files, which can be done using the distro’s own tool, Timeshift.

After that, go to the update manager, click “Edit” and then “Upgrade to Linux Mint 22.2 Zara”:

Then, restart your computer and you should have the latest version installed.