The Linux Mint team has picked a festive deadline. The next version of Mint, Linux Mint 27 “Adrien”, is scheduled for Christmas 2026, and it’s shaping up to be one of the biggest releases in the project’s history. Here’s what has been announced, what’s still a preview, and what it means if you’re thinking about a Linux Mint laptop this holiday season.

Everything below comes from the Mint team’s own monthly updates at https://blog.linuxmint.com. Features are labeled as previews because that’s exactly how the Mint team describes them: still being worked on and planned for the next release.

What’s confirmed so far

In the September 2026 Monthly News (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5086), project lead Clement Lefebvre confirmed:

Name and version: Linux Mint 27 “Adrien.”
Timing: the release is scheduled for Christmas. No exact day has been announced yet.
Base: Ubuntu 26.04.
Editions: at least three: Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE.
New numbering: the version number now reflects the upcoming year, and point releases are going away. After 27 comes 28, then 29.
New naming: after running from “Ada” to “Zena” with girls’ names since 2006, Mint is starting a new series with boys’ names.

Two more changes were confirmed earlier in the year. Mint has moved from a six-month cycle to a yearly one, which Clem says has let the team take on projects that would previously have been “too large or ambitious.” And Mint will now use the same installer as LMDE, the live-installer (March 2026 Monthly News: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5019).

As of the October 2026 update (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5093), there’s no public beta yet. In September Clem said the team expects to be “very busy during the beta phase,” so a beta should come before the final release.

Cinnamon goes Wayland-ready

For Cinnamon users, the headline is Wayland. According to the June 2026 Monthly News (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5046), Wayland support in Cinnamon “feels solid” and is “almost on par with X11.” It will no longer be labeled experimental: in the next version of Cinnamon, both X11 and Wayland are planned to be fully supported.

Improvements listed by the Mint team include:

Better sizing and positioning for new windows, applet popups and context menus
Better multi-monitor and KVM switch support
Hardware acceleration across the compositor and session, including NVIDIA
Full HiDPI support, with crisp icons and fixes for Chromium-based apps
Fixes for many Wayland crash scenarios

Other Cinnamon and desktop work from this summer:

Fcitx5 input method support with Wayland/X11 parity, plus a new keyboard layout viewer (July 2026 Monthly News: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5050)
Smoother panel behavior around fullscreen windows (July 2026)
Easier fingerprint login in the Slick Greeter login screen: just place your finger on the reader, no need to press Enter afterwards (June 2026)

On GitHub, the Cinnamon development branch is currently in the 6.7 series and targets “adrien” (https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon). The final Cinnamon version number for Mint 27 hasn’t been announced.

New desktop apps planned for Mint 27

The longer cycle gave the team room to build a whole set of new apps. All of these are previews, presented as planned for the next release.

Superlight (system monitor). Graphs for CPU, RAM, swap, GPU, network, disk I/O, temperature and fan speed, plus per-app and per-process resource use. Laptop owners get battery status and a history of charge level and power draw. A Storage page breaks down disk use, down to which Steam games and Flatpaks are taking up space. (October 2026: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5093)

Velocitty (terminal). A new terminal with tab overview, color palettes, drag-and-drop tabs between windows, and custom saved tabs for your projects and SSH sessions. Tabs change color for root (red) and remote (blue) sessions. (October 2026)

Unfold (archive manager). A deliberately simple tool for viewing, creating and extracting archives. It’s built on 7zip and supports password-protected archives. (October 2026)

Clockenstein (Calendar) and Clocks (alarms). A new calendar app that works with local calendars, Google Calendar and CalDAV services like Nextcloud, with reminders that show up even when the app is closed. The Cinnamon clock applet still shows your events from the panel. The companion Clocks app handles recurring alarms with custom sounds. (August 2026: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5067; September 2026: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5086)

Xepub (Book Reader). An EPUB reader inspired by Kindle and Kobo, with bookmarks, highlights with notes, and quick dictionary or Wikipedia lookups. (August 2026)

A redesigned Library. The desktop “Library” (Thingy) now groups documents by type rather than by app, and you can create custom groups. (August 2026)

Nemo preview pane. Mint’s file manager gets a preview pane for pictures, audio and video, toggled with F7. (October 2026)

Laptop-friendly system changes

Several planned changes are especially good news for laptop owners:

Hibernation is back. A new Sleep Modes page in the System Administration tool makes Hibernation easy to set up. It also adds Hybrid Sleep and Suspend-then-Hibernate, which suspends normally but hibernates when the battery gets critically low, so your session survives a dead battery. (October 2026)
Kernel management, simplified. Kernel management moves from the Update Manager to the System Administration tool. You pick which kernel series to track and how many older kernels to keep, and old kernels are cleaned up automatically. (July 2026)
System-wide environment variables get their own settings page. (July 2026)

What isn’t announced yet

To keep this accurate, here’s what the Mint team hasn’t published yet:

An exact release day (the target is “Christmas”)
A beta date
The final Cinnamon version number
The default kernel in the final release. A March 2026 development build used Linux kernel 7.0 (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5019), but the final kernel hasn’t been confirmed.

We’ll update this post when the Mint team announces the beta and the release.

Already on Linux Mint 22? No rush

According to linuxmint.com (https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php), Linux Mint 22.x is a long-term support release supported until April 2029. If you’re on Mint 22.3 today, you can wait for Mint 27 to be released and for the Mint team’s official upgrade instructions before deciding when to move.

Want Linux Mint on a laptop this holiday season?

At The Linux Laptop Company, Linux Mint with Cinnamon is a choice on every laptop we sell. We install current Linux Mint on new Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Asus notebooks, test the Wi-Fi and other radios, and you keep the manufacturer’s warranty. Mint 27 isn’t out yet, so laptops ordered today come with the current Linux Mint release.

Before a laptop leaves us, every available Linux OS package update is installed. Firmware and BIOS updates are applied when they’re available and compatible with current stable kernels. On dual-boot systems, only the Linux side is updated.

Linux Mint laptops: https://thelinuxlaptop.com/linux-mint-laptops/
Shop all Linux laptops: https://thelinuxlaptop.com/products/
Leaving Windows 10? https://thelinuxlaptop.com/windows-10-end-of-life/
Comparing options: https://thelinuxlaptop.com/best-linux-laptop-2026/

FAQ

When is Linux Mint 27 coming out?

The Mint team has scheduled Linux Mint 27 “Adrien” for Christmas 2026. No exact date has been announced (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5086).

What is Linux Mint 27 based on?

Ubuntu 26.04 (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5086).

Why 27 and not 23?

Mint is switching to yearly releases with no point releases, and the version number now reflects the upcoming year. Mint 27 will be followed by 28 and 29 (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5086).

Which editions will be available?

At least Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5086).

Will Cinnamon support Wayland?

That’s the plan. The Mint team says that in the next version of Cinnamon, both X11 and Wayland will be fully supported (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=5046).

Is Linux Mint 22 still supported?

Yes. Linux Mint 22.x is supported until April 2029 (https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php).

Can I get Linux Mint on a laptop from TLLC?

Yes. Linux Mint (and LMDE) can be selected on our laptops: https://thelinuxlaptop.com/linux-mint-laptops/