Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” Is now available for Download
Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” released! – The Linux Mint Blog
Switching my computer from Windows to Linux is one of the best decisions I have ever made🔥👌
I just briefly went through what's in the update. It's mostly visuals and some minor integrations? Or am I missing something?
Its a point release, so that's to be expected.
They also updated to kernel 6.14 and updated mesa to 25.0.7, which means for people like me with a Radeon 9060 XT, it's no longer necessary to use a PPA for updated mesa.
oh god i'm nervous i just switched from windows to linux in march and this will be my first big update :o
I've been running Mint since 17.x and have only had one upgrade fail in all that time. You're very unlikely to have a problem, but backup your system just in case!
ooh i have timeshift automatically set up anyway :)
Or use something like TimeShift and set it to automatically create backups.
Before I switched to the boringly stable Bazzite, TimeShift was a godsend. I was able to learn so much about Linux just by not having to worry about fucking up my install because whenever I did, it was trivial to rollback.
You got people like this guy and then you got me who had to reinstall mint 3 times because of upgrade and compatibility issues and then I eventually gave up on it 😭😭
And that happened in the span of one month too.
Eventually switched to Kubuntu and now I use Arch btw WITH BTRFS 🤤
Worth mentioning you are a okay not to update.
I adore the Linux community because it's collectively so nice. If you cock it up, someone here will help you fix it.
so far it's been so good! i think the only issue i've had with linux is that it will randomly freeze everything (usually if I try to load a tab in librewolf/chrome that's a chonky boi or if i'm in zoom) on my laptop and i have to hard reset and i can't figure out how to search for it because i really don't know what causes it :(
I'm in the same boat! Gonna update tomorrow when I'm not sleepy
Wayland still in experimental mode? :(
yes
Woohoo. After a hardware upgrade that requires kernel 6.14 or newer I've been stuck on arch. Time to breakout the old drive and try an upgrade.
Fedora also has up to date kernels, if you wanted to run something other than Arch.
At the time of myhardware upgrade it was only arch and nix that supported 6.14.
I've got mixed feelings about Fedora. I spent 10 years using a mix of Fedora, Red Hat, CEntOS, and Red Hawk at work so I'm very used to it.
However some of the decisions Red Hat the company have been making make me hesitant about it's future. It also makes me feel like I'm at work when I use it at home.
It's not a bad linux family at all and if I was setting up a production server CEntOS would probably be my choice.
I use nobara which is a fork of fedora it's pretty good. Though the update manager gui is complete crap for how slow it is.
Have always wondered how badly it could bork my system if I tried to "turn" my beautiful Kubuntu install into a Linux Mint install.
Anyone has any advice or experience of doing it without butchering everything? And yes, I would like to stay on KDE.
Mint has no KDE install which makes it a hazzle to setup and fragile to upgrade. You also wouldn't gain anything, because they are both ubuntu based systems. Not worth it imo, like a sidegrade.
You can transplant your desktop onto anything, the configuration is stored in .config and .local in your home folder. Bring those to another distribution with the same software (copy while you are not logged in, ie while in live cd or reuse the home partition without formatting) and it will look the same.
If you are currently running Mint 22.1, the upgrade will show up in the Update Manager > Edit menu.
Edit: I updated my machines this way. I'm guessing it isn't set to automatically move one from kernel 6.8 to 6.14? I can obviously change the kernel via the Kernels menu in Update Manager, I'm just wondering why this wasn't automatic.
i was going to amend my other comment.
according to this in the release notes:
===
HWE kernel issues
To provide support for newer AMD processors, Linux Mint 22.2 ships HWE Kernel 6.14.
This kernel however has issues with:
Virtualbox
Old Intel GPUs which use the i915 driver
Old NVIDIA cards which use the 470 driver (this driver is no longer supported by NVIDIA and thus doesn't support newer kernels)
If you are affected by one of these issues, we recommend you install Linux Mint 22.1 instead, which ships with LTS kernel 6.8.
You can then perform an upgrade towards 22.2 without switching towards the HWE kernel.
===
i ran lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display' and i confirmed i was running i915 but i'm also currently on 22.1 with kernel 6.8; so does that mean i can upgrade normally and not worry about the kernel?
It also says I'm using i915 but I bought this laptop a year ago... so I suspect many Intel GPUs use that driver?
Edit: According to https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v6.14-rc3/gpu/i915.html
The drm/i915 driver supports all (with the exception of some very early models) integrated GFX chipsets with both Intel display and rendering blocks.
does that mean i can upgrade normally and not worry about the kernel?
Yeah, just doing the upgrade via Update Manager > Edit menu leaves you on the 6.8 kernel. Confirmed with all three of my machines I upgraded.
Two of them I have since put on kernel 6.14 via Update Manager > Kernels, after updating to Mint 22.2 and seeing it still on kernel 6.8.
I ran it it remotely logging in from RustDesk while working. Jellyfin (caddy), Copyparty, and my Pihole all run on that machine and it finished and all continued working after it restarted.
Time estimate: 10 mins
Sorry for a noob question, but is there a recommended flavor (xfce/mate/cinnamon) for a 2010 era laptop, or is there no reason not to use cinnamon?
Cinnamon uses slightly more resources than the other two. But, it's lightweight enough I doubt you are going to have an issue, even with a computer of that era.
I’d say RAM is going to be the largest performance bottle neck for a desktop environment on an older machine. 4gb of RAM? don’t bother with cinnamon, you’ll likely have a much better experience with Mate or XFCE. 8gb is about where I’d even bother to test out cinnamon.
You should probably take a look into puppy Linux, if low specs. Otherwise anything with xfce should run better on it.
I ran Puppy off of a 4gb USB for almost 2 years when the hard drive crashed in my desktop years ago. As far as the "it just works" OS's go, it was fantastic.
Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution that works well!
Hard to say without specs. I'd go with XFCE and then MATE right behind it. With a lower end PC, I doubt it could handle the fanciness of Cinnamon and still run software
But it's 2024 🤔
After using Fedora for a few days I do not care for the desktop environment and hot keys
But holy fuck how have I been sleeping on toolboxes?
The dev environment is great, I’m loving it. I even installed fedora 43 in a container to test out some rocm features and I didn’t even need to reboot.
What desktop environment are you using, KDE Plasma?
But yeah, Bazzite is immutable Fedora, and distrobox is essential (and comes pre-installed).
It doesn't seem like that big of an update. Unless you need something listed in the release notes, you can stay where you are. I am running 21.3. It is good until 2026. My configuration is a bit complex and I hate spending the time to update.
I updated last night and don't see much of a change in my experience other than my toolbar icon look different. I streamed fo 2.5 hours on Arma Refroger no issues
As usual, my timing is impeccable. I just downloaded 22.1 last night lol
Head on over to Update Manager > Edit and upgrade to 22.2!
Thank you for this
Good job!