October 2025 marked the end of Microsoft support for Windows 10. So, you can no longer expect technical assistance, feature updates, or security updates from Microsoft. With the end of life of Windows 10, tens of millions of current Windows 10 users face a difficult decision: buy a new PC that meets the Windows 11 strict requirements, while your current computer is still OK, or is there another option? You probably have heard that Linux and many distributions based on it can provide a good solution for your current computer dilemma. And one of these Linux distributions that is an excellent alternative for former Windows 10 users is Linux Mint. And as of today, we can all enjoy the new point release of Linux Mint 22.3 Zena. This Linux Mint release is an evolution of one of the most user-friendly, stable, and robust Linux distributions available today. Both seasoned Linux users looking for a great out-of-the-box experience and those looking to escape the Windows upgrade struggle will find in Linux Mint a reliable, intuitive, and powerful experience that feels familiar from the moment you first start it. In this article, we will have a look at what the new Linux Mint 22.3 has to offer. 

Content of the article

1. Introduction
2. What is new and changed in Linux Mint 22.3?
3. About the core of Linux Mint 22.3
4. System requirements
5. How to get, try, and install Linux Mint 22.3
6. How to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.3
7. How to download Linux Mint 22.3
8. How to verify the integrity and authenticity of your download
9. How to create a Linux Mint bootable USB
10. How to try out Linux Mint 22.3 before installation
11. How to install Linux Mint 22.3
12. Final words

Introduction

I always feel excited when a new release of Linux Mint is coming. Together with Zorin OS, Linux Mint has been at the top of my list of most valued Linux distributions for quite some time now. I published many articles on Linux Mint, which are now combined in my free “Linux Mint Tutorial Series” with more than 30 informative chapters for Linux Mint beginners and potential switchers. Currently, I am also working on my upcoming second book, which will be completely dedicated to Linux Mint 22.3. So I hope this indicates a bit how much I value and support what the Linux Mint team is doing for all of us Linux enthusiasts.

Here’s what the Linux Mint team is saying to all users about this release:

“Linux Mint 22.3 is a long-term support release, which will be supported until 2029. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.”

Linux Mint team

So, let’s look at what is new in Linux Mint 22.3– code name Zena.

What is new in Linux Mint 22.3

All Linux Mint enthusiasts, as well as those about to decide whether to switch to Linux and which Linux distribution to choose, are naturally excited about what this new Linux Mint 22.3 point release has to offer. Below you can find a summary of the most important improvements and new features the Linux Mint team has been working on recently.

A Fresh, Modern Application Menu in Cinnamon

The Cinnamon desktop environment’s Application Menu has received a thoughtful redesign, and it really helps the desktop feel more modern and organized. The menu now includes a full‑height sidebar where you’ll find your user avatar, quick access to your folders, and your favorite apps. The list of categories has been made more subtle, so the focus stays on the applications you actually want to launch. The categories now use the new XApp Symbolic Icons (XSI), which I will discuss later in this article. These icons are clean, simple, and monochrome. You’ll notice these icons throughout the Cinnamon desktop, in menus, buttons, and small indicators, giving everything a more consistent and polished look.

What’s great is that the new menu is far more flexible. You can hide elements you don’t need, shrink the menu down, or even turn the sidebar into a dedicated space for just your places, bookmarks, or favorites. It’s all about shaping the menu to fit the way you work.

A Much More Helpful System Information App

The Linux Mint’s long‑standing “System Reports” tool, which was introduced in Linux Mint 18.3, has received great improvements and comes now with a new name: “System Information”. The goal of the improvements is clear: make it easier for users to understand what’s going on inside their computer and help them solve hardware‑related problems in an easier way. 

Alongside the familiar sections for System Information, System Reports, and Crash Reports, the app now includes four brand‑new sections that give you a clearer picture of your hardware:

• USB – shows all connected USB devices, their speeds, power usage, and the limits of each controller
• GPU – displays your graphics card, the driver in use, and whether hardware acceleration is active
• PCI – lists internal components such as network cards or storage controllers, along with their drivers
• BIOS – provides details about your motherboard, BIOS version, boot mode, and Secure Boot status

The USB section groups USB devices by controller, so you can clearly see where everything is plugged in, and you can compare the device connection speed and power usage with the maximum connection speed and total power capacity of the controller. This information allows troubleshooting USB-related issues like unexpected transfer speed or disconnection issues.

The GPU section gives you insight into your graphics setup and whether your system is taking advantage of hardware acceleration. This is useful for gaming, video playback, or other graphics-intensive creative work.

The PCI section gives you a clear insight into the internal hardware. Having the PCI ID and the driver being used can be really helpful when you’re trying to identify a troublesome component.

The BIOS section combines all the essential information about your motherboard and firmware, including Secure Boot status.

A new System Administration tool

Next to the updated and improved System Information tool, there is now also a new System Administration tool. It looks quite similar to the System Information application, but System Administration runs with administrator privileges and mainly focuses on system‑level settings. At this moment, it has just one page, which is the Boot Menu page. Here you can choose whether the boot menu appears at startup and how long it stays visible. This is helpful when you have a dual‑boot system or when you have the need to switch between different kernel versions. You can also add custom boot parameters, which can be necessary when dealing with specific hardware quirks or driver issues.

New XApp Symbolic Icons

Linux Mint 22.3 introduces a refreshed look thanks to its new XApp Symbolic Icons (XSI) set. These icons are clean, simple, and monochrome, which means they stay sharp at any size and look great whether you prefer a light or dark theme. You’ll see them throughout the system, in menus, buttons, and small status indicators. This gives the desktop a more polished and consistent feel.

What is also good is that these symbolic icons don’t just improve the visual experience, but they also make life easier for application developers. Instead of every application requiring its own set of icons, developers can now rely on this shared collection. That means fewer mismatched icons, faster development, and a more unified look across the whole desktop.

The XSI set also fills in gaps where symbolic icons were missing before, and it adds new ones when needed. The result is a cleaner, more cohesive interface without the need for apps to ship their own icons or fall back on icons that don’t quite fit.

Nemo Gets Even Better in Mint 22.3

The file manager Nemo in Mint 22.3 brings with version 6.6 a set of small but genuinely helpful refinements that make everyday file management feel smoother and more intuitive.

The headline improvement is the ability to search filenames using regular expressions. You could already use regex inside files, but now you can apply that same precision directly to filenames. Just toggle the new regex option in the search bar and craft exactly the pattern you need.

File operations also get a welcome upgrade: you can now pause and resume transfers. If you’ve ever started moving a huge folder at the wrong moment, this is a simple but welcome addition.

Dual‑pane browsing becomes easier as well. Linux Mint 22.3 enables you via a dedicated dual‑pane button in the toolbar to switch to a two‑column layout for comparing folders or dragging files between them.

And for anyone who works with templates, Nemo 6.6 introduces a straightforward template manager in the Preferences panel. It keeps your document templates tidy and easy to manage.

These aren’t flashy changes, but they’re the kind of thoughtful touches that make Mint’s file manager feel even more polished and pleasant to use.

New Thunderbolt module

A new configuration tool was implemented to support Thunderbolt. It enables configuration for attached Thunderbolt devices and hubs.

(image source: https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_zena_whatsnew.php)

Improved Night Light applet

In Cinnamon 6.6, there is a new Night Light applet implemented to reduce eye strain and sleeping problems. It reduces blue light and also enables scheduling for the most important moments of the day, namely when it is getting darker. When it gets darker, the color temperature of your screens should shift towards the orange spectrum (below 6500 kelvin) to compensate for that. Because the amount of reduction is a matter of taste, as we are all individuals who perceive light in different ways, the color temperature can be changed manually via a slider.

Note: You should only change the color temperature if you are not working with color-critical applications, such as photo editing, as you will compensate for it and completely disturb your output. So, correction of color temperature is only acceptable for non-color-critical applications such as word processing and reading of documents.

Improved on-screen keyboard

The on‑screen keyboard application Onboard in Cinnamon has been improved. It now blends beautifully with the rest of the desktop’s refreshed look. The improved on‑screen keyboard also makes typing more convenient. You can switch input methods directly from the keyboard itself, and overall handling of layouts and languages in Cinnamon 6.6 has improved. 

Other Cinnamon improvements and changes

Beyond the features described above, Linux Mint 22.3 and the improved Cinnamon desktop environment have picked up a whole collection of smaller improvements that make the desktop smoother and more enjoyable to use.

• The window manager has seen a lot of behind‑the‑scenes work to play more nicely with Wayland, which is becoming increasingly important for the future of Linux desktops. 
• Hot corners now stay active even when an app is running in full screen, which makes navigation feel more natural.
• Fractional scaling also gets smarter. You can now decide whether the system should scale things up or down, which is very handy if you’re juggling multiple monitors with different resolutions or HiDPI levels. 
• Suspend has been added as an option for low‑battery situations.
• Improved support for keyboard layouts and input methods
• The Alt‑Tab switcher can be set to only show windows from the monitor you’re working on, which keeps things tidy on multi‑screen setups. Window tiling options are now neatly grouped, making them easier to find.
• Apps can now display small badges on their icons to show unread notifications.
• The theme selector has also been refined. Advanced options are better organized, with themes grouped by family and variations, so it’s simpler to pick the look you want.
• The Workspace Switcher can display icons for the apps open on each workspace, which makes it easier to see where everything lives at a glance.

About the core of Linux Mint 22.3

The regular Linux Mint, so not the LMDE Debian edition, is always based on the LTS releases of Ubuntu. The Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat LTS (Long Term Support) release came out on April 25th, 2024. Linux Mint 22.3 is based on this same Ubuntu 24.04 LTS foundation. Every Ubuntu LTS release receives 5 years of standard security maintenance. So, Ubuntu 24.04, and therefore Linux Mint 22.3 as well, will be supported and will receive security updates until April 2029.

Linux Mint 22.3 is based on Linux kernel 6.14. All point releases (22.X) benefit from the Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel series. HWE makes sure that the newest devices will be better supported. 

System requirements

To be able to run Linux Mint 22.3, here are the minimum hardware requirements:

• RAM: 2GB (4GB recommended for comfortable usage)
• Free disk space: 20GB (100GB recommended)
• Screen resolution: 1024×768 

How to get, try, and install Linux Mint 22.3

Linux Mint 22.3 is directly available for all of you, in variants with the Cinnamon desktop, Xfce desktop, and MATE desktop. You can install Linux Mint 22.3 from scratch or soon via an upgrade. It will be possible to directly upgrade from Linux Mint 22, 22.1, and 22.2.

How to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.3

If you have already installed the BETA release of Linux Mint 22.3, then you don’t need to upgrade at all. In that case, just open the Update Manager and apply available updates.

If you are currently on Linux Mint 22, 22.1, or 22.2, you can find the upgrade instructions here:

If you want to download Linux Mint 22.3, create a bootable USB stick and install from scratch, then continue reading.

How to download Linux Mint 22.3

If you are not a Linux Mint user yet, or if you want to try it first before installing, or if you want to do a completely fresh install of Linux Mint 22.3, you can download one of the variants of Linux Mint 22.3 from the Linux Mint website. Here you can find all available editions, like Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE.

Downloading the new Linux Mint is incredibly easy. To do this, follow the steps below:

1) Go to https://linuxmint.com/download.php

On this download page, you see 3 variants that you can choose from based on 3 different types of desktop environments: Cinnamon Edition, MATE Edition, and Xfce Edition. Cinnamon is the flagship desktop environment and the most popular desktop environment offered by the Linux Mint team, and also my favorite.

2) Press the Download button for the Cinnamon Edition.

A new page opens with the option to download via torrent or directly from a large number of Download mirrors.

3) On this page, scroll down until you reach your country or the most nearby country. In my case, I can choose from 5 different mirrors in the Netherlands.

4) Choose one of the mirror websites and click on it to start the download.

How to verify the integrity and authenticity of your download

It is important to have proper information on both the integrity and authenticity of your ISO image. You need to be sure that the image file was 1) correctly and faultlessly downloaded, and 2) that the image file is the same file the Linux Mint team has created and is not tampered with.

You can read all about how to do this in my article “How to verify your Linux Mint ISO image file“.

How to create a Linux Mint bootable USB

One of the many powerful features of Linux is the ability to start a distribution directly from a USB stick, without affecting your hard drive and the operating system on it. It is therefore not required to perform a complete installation to use or try out Linux before actually installing it.

You can read all about how to do this in my article “How to create a Linux Mint bootable USB in macOS and Windows“.

How to try out Linux Mint 22.3 before installation

The nice thing about having this magical, fresh Linux Mint bootable drive is that you can try Linux Mint now on whatever desktop or laptop you want, without impacting the existing content on your hard drive. The environment you will start from your USB device is called a Live Environment. From here, you can try Linux Mint 22.3 before deciding to install it.

To try Linux Mint 22.3 on a PC or Mac, you can read all about how to do this in my articles “How to use Linux Mint without installing on a PC” and “How to use Linux Mint without installing on a Mac“.

How to install Linux Mint 22.3

Based on the above, you know now how to download Linux Mint, how to create the bootable Linux Mint drive, and how to start the Linux Mint Live Environment. Now it should be relatively easy to start the actual installation process and successfully install Linux Mint on your hard drive. The icon to start the installation process is already available and ready to use on the desktop of your Linux Mint Live Environment, so in my article ”How to install Linux Mint on a PC or Mac“, I will explain how to continue from there and install Linux Mint on your PC or Mac.

Note: In all situations where you do an upgrade or a fresh install, it is always wise to perform a backup of your important data first.

Final words

Linux Mint 22.3 is not a revolution, but an evolution. And, although not for everyone, for me, that is a good thing. I don’t want my system to get a complete overhaul every time a new major release or point release of an Operating System is introduced. I like stability and reliability first, and of course, then some nice additional improvements are OK to enhance an already perfect user experience. And that is what the Mint team is bringing us with Linux Mint 22.3: a great long-term support foundation for our productive and leisure computing needs. I think you will really enjoy the new Linux Mint 22.3!