It took longer than usual, but Clem Lefebvre has not missed his monthly appointment to explain the new developments that have occurred in the last month regarding its operating system. Starting from the beginning, the code name of Linux Mint 22.2: «Zara». The Debian-based version, LMDE 7, will have «Gigi. Clem has had space to, in some way, thank PewDiePie's promotion of his operating system, as he even made videos about it. Although, it must be said, the latest news is that PewDiePie has switched to Arch Linux with Hyprland.
Now fully immersed in the new features that Linux Mint 22.2 will bring, The Mint-Y theme will be a little more refined. For starters, it'll have a bit more blue in it. Apparently, it's something they're doing everywhere: it's been done on mobile, on desktop, and all over the web. Gray is rarely completely gray:This is done to give the gray a slightly metallic look and a more modern feel. Pure gray is neutral; it can be perceived as cool or warm depending on its surroundings. By increasing the blue (or, in GitHub's case, both the green and blue) we force it to appear cool.«.
Linux Mint 22.2 is coming in the second half of 2025.
Another reason all this makes the interface look more modern is that it's the current trend. The colors Linux Mint uses are more like 10 years old, and that makes it look a bit dated.
On the other hand, changes have been made to the XDG Desktop Portal XApp to support accent colors. XApp scans the GTK theme for a color called "accent_color," and if present, provides it via the XDG Settings API. It will work in all three editions (Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce).
With the release of Linux Mint 22, GNOME applications that use libAdwaita were downgraded to GTK 3 so they could continue to work properly on Mint-supported desktops. This was a temporary solution. Now, with the Mint-Y theme update, the same colors as libAdwaita are used, and the library has been made to match the theme's accent color.
Although they haven't said anything, Linux Mint 22.2 is expected to arrive in July or August of this year with the changes explained here and others that we'll discover in the coming weeks.