Linux Mint 22.2 ‘Zara’: More Excellence From a Consistently Outstanding Distro

This week, our Linux distro gadabout takes a look at both the Cinnamon and Mate editions of Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara,” and finds absolutely nothing to complain about.

The FOSS Force Distro of the Week — Linux Mint

With the recent release of Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara,” one question stands above all others: What happened to the name starting with the letter “Y”?

A little history: Linux Mint’s releases are named using women’s names presented in alphabetical order by first letter from release to release, but with names always ending with the letter “A.” Many years ago (somewhere around the release of “Cassandra”), I asked lead developer Clement Lefebvre what he was going to do when he got to “Z,” and he said he’d start over with “A” but end the name with an “E.”

Naturally then, when the last release — “Xia” — was replaced with the current release — Zara — questions were raised in the forums about the missing code name beginning with the letter “Y.”

While we wait for an answer to this – ahem – pressing question, let’s take a look at what’s new for Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara.”

Downloading Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara”

In case you don’t know, Linux Mint is available in three primary flavors that are named after the desktop environment they feature — Cinnamon, Mate, and Xfce (plus, there’s a fourth edition — LMDE — that’s based on Debian, making it something of another animal entirely). For this look, I downloaded the Cinnamon and Mate versions to put on two separate laptops.

The downloads — about 2.9 GB each for Cinnamon and Mate — went pretty much flawlessly. Being a hugely popular distro for nearly a couple of decades, there were many download mirrors to choose from. I went with a Canadian host and they went off without a hitch, so thanks Manitoba Unix User Group, for providing Linux Mint the space on your servers.

Based on Ubuntu, Linux Mint 22.2 features the Linux 6.14 kernel and the Ubuntu Noble package base, and will receive security updates until 2029. According to Linux Mint’s wiki, future versions of Linux Mint until 2026 will use the same package base as version 22.2, “making it trivial for people to upgrade.” Minimum system requirements: at least 2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended), 20 GB (100 GB recommended), and a monitor with 1024×768 resolution or higher.

After a few minutes of downloading for each of the laptops, then letting the Ubiquity installer do its thing, we were ready to go.

According to a recent report from ZDNet’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, who is a long-time Linux user and a dyed-in-the-wool Linux Mint fan, Linux Mint 22.2 using the 6.14 kernel by default is not the complete story:

“While there have been some reports that Mint 22.2 now uses the Linux kernel 6.14 by default, that’s not quite true,” he wrote. “If you upgrade your system, like I did, the standard Mint Linux kernel remains the LTS Linux kernel 6.8, specifically 6.8.0-79. That’s because 6.14 is only supported until February 2026, while 6.8 is supported until April 2029.

Linux Mint 22.2 has several improvements worth noting: specifically a new full screen option for the Hypnotix IPTV player for watching internet streams, a version of the libAdwaita library to support themes, and various artwork improvements.

One of the distro’s features is a fingerprint manager to provide authentication on computers with supported fingerprint readers. Called Fingwit, this application detects if the computer has a fingerprint reader and lets the user record their fingerprints, configuring the system to use the saved fingerprints for sudo commands, admin apps, and to unlock your screensaver. You can also program Fingwit to use fingerprint authorization in the login screen.

Welcome to the 21st century…

The Software Manager has also gotten an overhaul, arguably making it more attractive than the distro’s software managers of the past. It also better explains the difference between Flatpaks and system packages for those new to the Linux world.

Using Linux Mint 22.2 Cinnamon/Mint

After the first order of business — updating the distro to apply the latest security and bug fixes — both of my machines tended to take very well to Linux Mint 22.2. Being new to both desktop environments entailed a bit of a learning curve for me, but after several minutes of poking around, augmented by a Google search or two, we were up and running.

The Welcome Screen for Linux Mint 22.2 leads the user through a list of post-install instructions, such as updating the install, setting desktop colors, taking a system snapshot, accessing the driver manager, and adjusting system settings. It also includes a link to the Software Manager and a link to set up a firewall. While all of these were helpful after the initial install, it’s good to know that they’re there even though they may not be used much going forward. The Welcome Screen also has Documentation and Help links on a side panel for those who may need them.

There are plenty of apps installed by default, but then you might expect that from a distro as well-maintained as Linux Mint. Of course, it includes the usual suspects that come with any Ubuntu download, including the latest Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client. It also includes the LibreOffice suite, which is a plus for those of us who write, as well as the GIMP image retouching and editing tool. If you’re a gamer, Linux Mint 22.2 offers support for Steam, which allows you to run games just as you would on Windows.

Using Linux Mint 22.2 — both the Cinnamon and Mate editions — was an exercise in computing at its best. Both desktop environments are clean and clutter-free, with the graphic design of things like the Nemo file manager being crisp to the eye. The Software Manager makes it easy to pick whatever apps you want, but for the first time in a long time I didn’t have to add software because everything I needed was in the original install.

One caveat: The Cinnamon edition on the Dell laptop never broke a sweat while multitasking but the Mate desktop on the ZaReason machine got a bit warm, especially when playing games or watching videos on Facebook. However, this could be a hardware issue.

Final Thoughts

With its latest release, Linux Mint proves once again why it’s consistently one of the leading projects in the Linux universe. In the plus column are a well-edited wiki, a worldwide community available to help, and a distro that includes all the right software. Also, some of the improvements that have come with this version – Fingwit alone would be a significant leap forward – shows that moderate advances can be downright revolutionary.

In the final analysis, the improvements in “Zara” continue the Linux Mint tradition of providing a stable, user-friendly distro, making it a solid choice for both new and experienced users.

However, you have to wonder why they skipped the letter “Y” in the version’s naming convention. But we may never know.

Download Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” from the Linux Mint website.

Do you have a distro you think would make a great feature for FOSS Force’s Distro of the Week? Don’t be shy—let us know! Offer your suggestions in the comments below (or use the “contact us” link under our masthead) and we’ll make an effort to make it so… No suggestion is too mainstream or too niche—let us know what you’d like to see!

And suddenly, we’re feeling like having an Elton John moment…