Earlier this month The announcement of the launch of the beta version of Linux Mint 22 “Wilma” was announced and with this the features and news of this new version of Linux Mint have been revealed, which will be based on the most recent LTS version of Ubuntu 24.04.
As many will know, Cinnamon is the desktop environment developed by the Linux Mint team and it is one of the fundamental pillars of the distribution, although there are also other editions based on other desktop environments and even on Debian (instead of Ubuntu).
But we must admit, Cinnamon It is the centerpiece of Linux Mint and with the stable launch just around the corner, the time has come to know what the distribution offers us, what Cinnamon offers us and above all, if it is worth switching to Linux Mint or better to install Cinnamon.
What does Cinnamon 6.2 offer us?
Okay, on the desk side We should know that Linux Mint will offer the most recent version of Cinnamon, which is the version 6.2 and that was released a few weeks ago and among the most attractive and innovative are the support improvements for working in an environment based on Wayland.
En Nemo, it is now possible to customize the location of actions in the menu according to user preferences. "Actions" are add-ons to the Nemo file manager that allow you to connect controllers called through the context menu, loading in the same way as applets and themes.
In addition to this in Software Manager, Flatpak packages that are not verified in the FlatHub directory they are hidden by default, and XApp has been introduced: the “GNOME Online Account GTK” application, which provides an interface for managing connections to cloud services such as Google Drive and accessing data stored there.
As for the other improvements implemented (These are a few that I consider the most interesting):
- Added a search bar to the program selection dialog
- You can configure keyboard shortcuts for external (spice) components, such as actions, applets, desklets, and extensions.
- The adwaita, adwaita-dark and highcontrast themes have been added to the blacklist. If selected instead of the standard Linux Mint themes, problems may occur when displaying some new GNOME applications.
- Added support for searching using keyboard shortcuts in the keyboard settings interface.
- The corner bar applet, which sits in the corner of the screen and allows actions to be linked by pressing different mouse buttons, now supports individual actions triggered by holding down the Shift key.
- The Workspace Switcher adds support for deleting virtual desktops with a middle click.
- When using a VPN, separate wired and wireless security icons are displayed.
- A separate category for scientific applications has been added to the menu.
- In the applet that displays the list of active windows, the minimized and tiled window indicators have been removed.
What does Linux Mint 22 offer us?
Now, on the side of the changes and news presented by Linux Mint 22 “Wilma”, Outside of what we already mentioned about Cinnamon and also leaving aside the improvements it implements thanks to using Ubuntu 24.04 as a base (Kernel 6.8, packages and security improvements), there is the change from the Matrix chat network to Element following the discontinuation of Hexchat. Element is a new application developed by Linux Mint with the aim of addressing this problem with Hexchat.
On the other hand, we are told that in Linux Mint 22 in Sticky (the note taking app) can now be run from the command line, It is also possible to set the default position of newly created notes to Sticky.
The text editor Xed allows you to duplicate selected text and now has a new setting to control whether it should close when the last open tab is closed.
Other changes:
- In Timeshift, a confirmation dialog is now displayed when deleting a snapshot.
- New wallpapers
- Firefox web apps created with Web Application Manager now have a smarter menu bar and toolbar, hidden by default but visible when useful.
- In Xfce, the xfce4-xapp-status-plugin tray app now features configurable sizes for full-color and symbolic icons.
- A new thumbnail generator for Gimp files has been implemented under the xapp-thumbnailer-gimp package, available in the repositories.
- ISO images now support FAT32 in file system transpose mode.
Linux Mint 22 or Cinnamon 6.2
Now comes the important part, moving to Linux Mint 22 or better to use Cinnamon 6.2. In my (personal) case, my balance leans more towards Cinnamon, since I am not using Ubuntu or some derivative as the main system and the other is that I continue with my trusty Arch Linux.
In the case of those on Ubuntu or a derivative, They must take into account thatRight now Cinnamon is the one who weighs the most in this decision, since to be on this new version there are two ways. The first of them is using Linux Mint Beta (for the moment) or being on a distribution that already has the updated package in its repositories, for example Arch Linux.
In the case of Ubuntu and even Ubuntu Cinnamon, the version of the environment that is available is version 6.0 and you have to wait a long time before you can upgrade to version 6.2.
As for building, I personally haven't built Cinnamon since version 3.x and consulting the documentation, I see it the same as back then and it doesn't give me a good feeling, since as time has passed I think they have forgotten that small detail of updating the documentation.