The Linux Mint team has released the ISO images of the beta version of the upcoming Linux Mint 22.1 release. So those who are interested can download them from the official mirrors.
Linux Mint 22.1 is codenamed “Xia” and is scheduled to be released around Christmas 2024. The beta version is here to give us an early look at the new features and improvements that the Linux Mint team has built into the popular Ubuntu-based distribution.
The star of Linux Mint 22.1 is the Cinnamon 6.4 desktop environment, which has built-in Night Light, a whole new default theme, improved Wayland compatibility, simplified sound hyper-boost settings, improved notifications, improved Nemo and more.
Among other notable changes, there's a faster utility program Software Manager, an updated renaming utility files Bulky which lets you strip what you don't want from filenames, thumbnail support for .ora (OpenRaster) files, modernized APT dependencies for better package management and improved management energy.
Linux Mint 22.1 is still based on the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) series and is powered by Linux Kernel 6.8. Linux Mint 22.1 is a long-term support release and will receive security updates until 2029.
You can download the Linux Mint 22.1 “Xia” beta from the official mirrors listed below, but you should remember that this is a pre-release build.
An official announcement will be made by the Linux Mint team by the end of the week on their blog.
In the meantime, take a look at the release notes for more details about the changes this release brings.
