Linux Mint has released its May 2026 update, detailing several desktop improvements planned for the next 23 release, scheduled for Christmas this year.
Nemo, the default Cinnamon file manager, will experience improved response times and navigation by updating its directory rendering methods.
According to the devs, in Cinnamon 6.6, Nemo introduced a 200 ms delay between clicking a directory and the display of its contents. While intended to smooth rendering, this delay caused all directories to take at least 200 ms to display, even if they could load faster.
With the last changes, Nemo now adapts its rendering mode based on context. Some directories are displayed immediately, without delay, resulting in more responsive navigation.
Interactive Search in Nemo is being redesigned as well. Currently, users can search within a directory by typing, with the query appearing in a small entry at the bottom-right corner. The file view jumps to the first match, and users can navigate between results using the arrow keys.
The new implementation introduces a filtered view. When users type, the query appears in a prominent search bar that remains visible. The file view displays all matching results at once, eliminating the need to cycle through individual matches.
Another highlight is that the upcoming Cinnamon 6.7 desktop environment will include a dedicated screenshot tool. This utility supports window screenshots with or without shadows, captures from all monitors or a single monitor, and cropping before saving or copying.
The tool also addresses differences between client-side and server-side decorated windows. For server-side decorated windows, shadows can be recreated as in Cinnamon’s Muffin window manager. If shadows are not requested, the tool removes semi-transparent pixels from the corners.
Dialog handling is also being improved. Cinnamon now supports draggable Clutter dialogs that stay on top but do not lock the screen, allowing users to move them aside and interact with other applications before responding.
The Mint-Y theme is also being updated for better dark-theme contrast. Frames and scrolled areas now feature slight rounding to match buttons and combo boxes, and treeviews and listviews also adopt rounded styling. Plus, Mint-Y, Mint-L, and Mint-X now use XSI icons in GTK dialogs, ensuring file chooser dialogs in applications like Xed use the same icon set as Nemo.
On the networking side, Cinnamon now supports WPA3 and OWE. Just to note that WPA3 is the latest Wi-Fi security standard, while OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption) enables encryption for compatible open wireless networks.
Last but not least, the update includes a security warning for Xreader, Linux Mint’s document viewer. A severe vulnerability, CVE-2026-46529, allowed a PDF to execute malicious code if a user opened the file and clicked a link inside it.
This flaw has been resolved in Xreader 4.6.4, with a backport available as version 3.6.7 for older Linux Mint releases. The Mint team reminds users to keep security updates installed.
For more details, see Mint’s May newsletter.
I stopped using mint after they blocked snaps with default setup.
Seeing Linux Mint evolve over the past 10 years has been quite a journey. The OS has become a staple in the technology world.
Thank you for keeping me up-to-date with changes coming this Christmas, with the release of LM 23.
Unfortunately, the already outdated Linux Mint will be even more outdated when they switch to this slower release cycle. It will probably be even more stable as a distro and OS, but at the cost of being even more behind times.
I think part of their outdatedness comes from using Cinnamon as a main DE and Mate and XFCE as second and third. It’s not bad to have those DEs as options, but even their flagship DE is so very outdated and slow. They dropped KDE support and their flavor with that DE in favor of focusing on more outdated DEs. They still don’t have proper Wayland support and the main developer of the project says Wayland support won’t come in fullest until at least 2028, meanwhile most distros have not only embraced Wayland, but some even dropped support for X11.
I don’t want support for X11 to be completely dropped, but it shouldn’t be the default environment anymore, because Wayland brings so many benefits and feels so much faster and more suitable for modern hardware that when I look at Mint, I cannot help but feel it’s stuck in the past. I used it and when it was my first distro, I thought it was fine, but when I couldn’t scale the UI on my laptop and had to explore alternatives, I found Tuxedo OS, which is if Mint was using KDE and Wayland instead of Cinnamon and X11 and now everything feels so much better, responsive and faster and scaling works as intended. It’s such a basic feature and the fact that the Mint team is overlooking it and thus makes Mint impossible for me to use, I cannot recommend Mint to anyone unless they have some seriously old computer and can’t run something new and modern. KDE is a much better option than Cinnamon.