Linux Mint 22 is great, but are they trying to do too much?
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Their focus is still on deb packages, mostly, as for example, they're now maintaining a deb package for Thunderbird. The Software install app itself now loads much faster, with the main window appearing almost instantly.
By default, unverified flatpaks won't appear in Mint's software manager.
You do get an option to show these again in the store, with a warning telling you that it's not really secure, you won't see any user reviews, or ratings with the little stars, because this would, I suppose, make them look legit and just like other verified packages.
People WILL turn this setting back on, because not every flatpak people want is verified: Steam, Spotify, Chrome, Dolphin, VLC and more. When they do turn this on, they won't have any indication if said packages could have problems, because they won't have reviews or ratings.
Mint is now moving to older versions of a lot of default apps that are made by GNOME. So, the Font Viewer has been entirely removed from Mint's default install. it's still in the repos though. The video player, the calculator, the scanning app, the disk usage analyzer, the system monitor, the calendar, and the archive manager were all reverted to their older GTK 3 versions, because they all moved to GTK4 and libadwaita for GNOME, and this means Mint wouldn't be able to apply their usual themes to these applications.
The rationale here is that Mint likes to offer a cohesive desktop, much like what GNOME is doing, and what KDE is doing, with one set of guidelines for the user interface, and one theme. The problem is, Mint was using a lot of GNOME apps, which first, started losing their menubars for headerbars a while back, meaning the user interface guidelines were a bit muddied, and second, it meant that these apps were using the libadwaita library, which hardcodes the Adwaita theme itself. Mint could still change this theme, because there are ways to do so, but it's not very sustainable, and it would basically lock users to one single theme.
Other applications that Mint will now ship by default include a new Online Accounts app, that replaces the older online accounts settings panel.
Mint 22 also ships with a matrix client by default now, to replace the discontinued Hexchat app.
Mint 22 is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, meaning it will get security updates until 2029. This package base is also going to stay the same for Mint until 2026, as always, mint will ship minor updates, but won't move to a newer Ubuntu base.
In turn, this means Mint 22 moved to pipewire as the default, because that's what Ubuntu uses now. It also means Mint comes with the kernel 6.8, and they'll add the usual hardware enablement stack to it, meaning Mint will keep supporting newer hardware by default. This kernel is NOT an LTS version, so I would also be surprised if Mint didn't move to something newer at some point.
On top of that, Mint 22 received more HiDPI improvements in their login screen and in the boot screen as well. Their themes were also updated to work with GTK4, although they won't theme libadwaita apps, only non libadwaita GTK4 apps, which there aren't many of, AFAIK.