By Martin Jansen, Owner of Jansen-PCINFO
Great News! Linux Mint was recently upgraded to version 22. This is a huge leap forward for the reliable distribution that has been my standard for many years.
Mint Upgrade
The last version of Linux Mint was 21.3 which is still quite serviceable, but this new version has some fundamental features that make it the best upgrade yet – more on this later. If the user has Linux Mint 21.3 installed, a mintupgrade tool has been created to smooth the transition from 21.3 to 22. It does take two easy commands from the terminal to install mintupgrade, but first make sure you have applied all available updates through the Update Manager.
Open the terminal and type: sudo apt update followed by the Enter key. This command gives you temporary superuser access to update the system application resources.
Then type sudo apt install mintupgrade followed by the Enter key.
Finally, to start the upgrade process, type mintupgrade followed by the Enter key.
The mintupgrade will run several system checks starting with the TimeShift tool to make a backup of the current system. The TimeShift tool and backup will be necessary in case the upgrade goes badly – it rarely does.
Kudos to the Team
I am really impressed with the script behind the mintupgrade tool. My installation of 21.3 was hardly stock. I had experimented with the latest version of Wine, (Wine is Not an Emulator) and I had installed Virtualbox 7.0 with a Windows 10 virtual machine. I also had several additional repositories in my Software Sources – this to support the latest software from Google Chrome, Keeper, Teamviewer and others.
Following the steps of the mintupgrade tool, I was kept apprised of the installation and replacement of any software. The installation even downgraded some software to match the current architecture of the operating system.
Features of Linux Mint 22
One of the biggest upgrades is the kernel which went from 5.15 (in Linux Mint 21.3) to 6.8. The kernel supports basic drivers and functions of the operating system. New driver support means that Linux Mint can now be installed on the latest computers. Previously it could be a real pain to find drivers for internal WIFI cards and other hardware on a new computer, but many drivers are baked into the kernel of the new version of Linux MInt.
Besides better driver support the following list of improvements can be found in Linux Mint 22:
- The Cinnamon desktop was upgraded to version 6.2
- The Software Manager, with over 60,000 apps, loads faster
- Better language support
- Pipewire replaces Alsa as the sound server
- Themes are updated to support GTK4, graphical desktop
Despite all these changes the user experience on the desktop remains largely the same. In an ever changing world, it’s nice to see that some things don’t have to change radically.
For instance, many Windows 10 users will have to change to Windows 11 on October 14, 2025 as Microsoft will cease to support Windows 10 on that date. This means that a lot of people will need to buy new computers if they want to continue to use Windows as their operating system.
The Windows 11 desktop is completely different from Windows 10 with menu icons centered on the screen as opposed to lower left. Users need to adjust to the new layout or make some major changes in the settings to make Windows 11 look a little like Windows 10 as in this article: https://www.howtogeek.com/how-to-make-windows-11-look-like-windows-10/
Installation VIA ISO
Some pundits will say that it is better to do a fresh install of Linux Mint 22 instead of the upgrade. It is important to backup your data and apps using the backup tool in Linux Mint if you want to upgrade via ISO. Linux Mint provides this guide to ease the way: https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
My Opinion
As the October 14, 2025 date rapidly approaches, I would hate to see millions of viable computers hit the landfills. It would be much better to convert the users of these computers to Linux. Windows 10 users have to get used to a new user interface anyway, why not get used to a new operating system?
While Linux Mint is the most user friendly operating system in the world, there are many other Linux distributions available. This website has information on most of them: https://distrowatch.com/
Both my wife and I are happy with the upgraded Linux Mint 22. I believe you would be too.