The Linux Mint team has published its October 2026 monthly development update, outlining several features planned for the next version, including improved hibernation support, three new desktop applications, and a preview pane for the Nemo file manager.
One notable change concerns power management. Linux Mint is preparing to restore hibernation support, which has been unavailable by default because Ubuntu disabled it. Unlike regular suspend, hibernation saves the current session to disk and completely powers off the computer, preserving the session without using battery power.
To simplify configuration, developers added a dedicated Sleep Modes page to the System Administration tool. Alongside hibernation, it supports Hybrid Sleep, which combines suspension with saving the session to disk, and Suspend-then-Hibernate, which switches from suspend to hibernation when the battery is critically low.
The Nemo file manager is also getting a new preview pane, accessible using the F7 keyboard shortcut or a button in the status bar. It supports images, audio, and video files and displays additional metadata, such as when a photograph was taken and which camera was used.
Another major addition is Superlight, a new system monitoring application. It provides graphs for CPU, RAM, swap, GPU, network, and disk activity, along with temperature and fan speed information. Users can inspect running applications and processes, customize the displayed columns, and monitor battery status and charging history.
Superlight also includes a storage analysis section that breaks down disk usage. Besides showing which directories and files occupy space, it can identify storage used by Steam games and Flatpak applications.
Linux Mint is also developing Velocitty, a new terminal emulator featuring a tab overview, customizable color palettes, and flexible tab management. Similar to a web browser, tabs can be reordered, moved between windows, or detached into separate windows.
The terminal lets users select their preferred shell, configure startup commands, and shorten displayed paths. Tab colors change depending on the active session, distinguishing root access, remote SSH connections, and running processes. Custom tabs can be bookmarked with predefined names, colors, and commands to make frequently used sessions easier to access.
The third new application is Unfold, a lightweight archive manager designed for viewing, creating, and extracting compressed files. It uses 7-Zip and 7zip-RAR and supports their available encryption formats, including password-protected archives.
Finally, the Linux Mint team announced Xenity, a fork of Zenity 3.44 based on GTK3. It maintains the same functionality, appearance, and command syntax as the original. Xenity has already been added to the Linux Mint 22.x and LMDE 7 repositories, while Cinnamon spices previously relying on Zenity have been migrated to the fork.
All previewed features are still under development and planned for the next Linux Mint 27 release, codenamed “Adrien,” scheduled for launch around Christmas.
Image credits: Linux Mint
