Although we're in mid-February, the Linux Mint project just published its [1]January 2026 blog . This could be seen as one sign of the pressure on the creator of this very successful distro: although the post talks about forthcoming improved input localization support and user management, it also discusses the pressures of the project's semi-annual release schedule.

The Mint project's latest post thanks a record-breaking 1,000 + donors, and talks about future plans – which may include a slower release schedule.

We covered the release of [2]Linux Mint 22.3 in mid-January, and apparently it's been a hit. The Linux Mint project received an impressive 1,393 donations last month, totalling $47,312 (£34,713) – a new record, and aside from the controversial [3]Distrowatch rankings , it is another decent measure of the distro's deserved popularity. The blog post also mentions new features that the [4]development team are working on. These show the breadth of problems that a widely used distro faces.

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The team is working on further improving Cinnamon's [6]input method support, such as automatically switching keyboard layout when choosing a particular input method – Clement Lefebvre, founder, project leader and main developer of Linux Mint, gives the example of automatically switching to a Japanese layout when the user chooses [7]mozc . Another cross-desktop issue is managing user accounts, and so the team is adding this feature to the new Mint System Administration tool that appeared in the latest version.

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Work on official Wayland support in Cinnamon continues, and one issue the Mint team is taking on is screensaver support. Currently Cinnamon's screensavers only work if you're using X11. Quite simply, Wayland has no provision for screensavers. This is by design, and the creator of [10]XScreensaver , the inimitable Jamie Zawinski, has [11]discussed the problems with some feeling :

Wayland [12]does not support screen savers : it does not have any provision that allows screen savers to even exist in any meaningful way. If you value screen savers, that's kind of a problem.

Why doesn't it? Well, I suppose the designers of Wayland

have no joy in their cold, black hearts simply do not value screen savers.

It's worth a read – JWZ always is – and the struck-out text especially speaks to us. Notably, he discusses some of the issues with trying to add support for screensavers to a Wayland compositor.

With all these efforts going on – some of them substantial undertakings – it's no wonder that the developers are feeling the strain. The final section of the blog is titled Longer Development Cycle and talks about the pressure of Mint's semi-annual point releases, ending:

With a release every six months plus LMDE, we spend more time testing, fixing, and releasing than developing.

We're thinking about changing that and adopting a longer development cycle. As it happens, our next release will be based on a new LTS and we just ran out of codenames.

This wouldn't be the first time the Mint project has changed its release cycle. Linux Mint 1.0 "Ada" was based on Kubuntu 6.06, Canonical's first ever LTS release of Ubuntu. From then until Mint 16, which The Register [13]reviewed in December 2013 , Mint tracked all Ubuntu releases, including the interim ones. Since [14]Mint 17 the following year , it switched to only offering versions based on Ubuntu LTS releases – but each major version is followed by point releases, which follow after the upstream point releases of Ubuntu LTS – and all of these receive long-term support, as does Ubuntu itself. It's a lot of maintenance work.

The Reg FOSS desk has looked at each release since [15]Linux Mint 21 entered beta , and we have noticed that only the flavor with Mint's in-house Cinnamon desktop gets a new version of the desktop with each point release. In contrast, the Xfce and MATE editions stay with the version of the desktop that they shipped with, which they inherit from the corresponding Ubuntu LTS.

As the Mint developers look for ways to reduce the effort they spend on testing and release, perhaps they might consider reducing the number of the non-flagship editions. If only the Cinnamon edition gets new desktops, then perhaps the others could be dropped to more minor releases – even if this means altering the numbering scheme.

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Or, alternatively, maybe it's time to prune the number of different editions. Back in 2018, Linux Mint 19 dropped the KDE desktop, dropping the number of desktops from four to three. Maybe it's time to do that again. We are loath to suggest it, because we're very fond of Xfce around the Irish Sea wing of Vulture Towers, but the field of Ubuntu flavours with Xfce is already served exceptionally well.

[17]Contain your Windows apps inside Linux Windows

[18]OK, so Anthropic's AI built a C compiler. That don't impress me much

[19]The big FOSS vendors don't eat their own dogfood – they pay for proprietary groupware

[20]The year of the European Union Linux desktop may finally arrive

Obviously, there is the official Xubuntu. It offers a [21]minimal install option with no Snap packages installed , for those averse to Canonical's cross-distro packaging format. There's also Linux Lite, which has neither Snap nor Flatpak; we looked at [22]version 7.6 in September 2025 , but at the end of last month, [23]Linux Lite 7.8 came out . There's also [24]Asmi Linux 24.04 which lets the user choose which packaging formats to support.

Another Ubuntu- and Xfce-based alternative distro is on its way out. The other beginner-friendly Ubuntu-based distro to come out of Dublin, Zorin OS, is [25]sunsetting Zorin OS Lite , its Xfce-based variant. One of the reasons is that the full-fat GNOME-based edition runs well – even on low-end computers – now. That applies equally to Linux Mint – and while MATE isn't quite as light as Xfce, it does run perfectly well on computers lacking full hardware 3D acceleration.

In an ideal world, we'd like to see these separate projects cooperate and maybe share some of the maintenance burden – a distro that combined Mint Xfce with Zorin OS Lite's themes and Linux Lite's handy accessory tools could be a very tempting offering – but that seems unlikely to happen. ®

Get our [26]Tech Resources



[1] https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4991

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/16/linux_mint_223_zena_officially_release/

[3] https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

[4] https://linuxmint.com/teams.php

[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aZNNMyNsr7TxmJmbjnp6jAAAAYE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[6] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Input_method

[7] https://github.com/google/mozc

[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aZNNMyNsr7TxmJmbjnp6jAAAAYE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aZNNMyNsr7TxmJmbjnp6jAAAAYE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[10] https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/

[11] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/wayland-and-screen-savers/

[12] https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/man1.html#17

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2013/12/11/mint_16_review/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2014/06/02/mint_17_review/

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/14/mint_21_beta/

[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aZNNMyNsr7TxmJmbjnp6jAAAAYE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[17] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/14/winapps_and_winboat/

[18] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/13/anthropic_c_compiler/

[19] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/12/suse_runs_ms/

[20] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/27/the_european_union_linux_desktop/

[21] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/30/xubuntu_2404_snapless_ubuntu/

[22] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/linux_lite_76/

[23] https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=9811

[24] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/15/asmi_2404_ubuntu_without_snap/

[25] https://help.zorin.com/docs/getting-started/getting-zorin-os-lite/

[26] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/