Linux Mint 21.2 development cycle closes, beta ISOs could land soon

Clem Lefebvre, head of the Linux Mint project, has announced that the development cycle for Linux Mint 21.2 closed a few days ago and that “projects have been tagged, built and added to the repositories for the upcoming release". Neowin expects that a beta version of Linux Mint 21.2 will arrive first and then about two weeks later, the final version will be available.

One of the indicators that let us know that a new Linux Mint ISO is coming in the next few days is the ISO Images page. You can see which ISOs are undergoing testing and whether they passed or failed the tests, and then the release arrives a few days after passing. At the time of writing, no beta images have undergone testing so we are still a little way away from the beta release but it shouldn’t be long now.

Lefebvre also announced that the Xfce edition of Mint would ship with Xfce 4.18 and that XDG Desktop Portal support was added in Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce editions bringing global dark mode options.

The XDG Desktop Portal has three options which affect applications: prefer light, prefer dark, and let the applications decide. Some apps that support it include Firefox, Xed, Thingy, Xreader, Xviewer, and Pix. It’s also supported by many Flatpaks and GNOME/LibAdwaita apps.

In addition to these changes, the Software Manager has been given a UI refresh, includes a better scoring and sorting algorithm, and has a more tuned package list for an overall better experience. As the second point release for Linux Mint 21, it will only get updates for as long as Linux Mint 21, so that’s until 2027.

As a point release, upgrading from other Linux Mint 21 versions should be relatively easy and you should not encounter any issues. Neowin will include upgrade instructions or a link to upgrade instructions in later coverage.

Linux Mint 21.2 development cycle closes, beta ISOs could land soon