Linux Mint 23: Cinnamon Gets Full Wayland Support
Linux Mint has long been the recommendation for people who want a traditional, comfortable desktop without fuss. Its Cinnamon desktop looks and behaves like the Windows layouts many newcomers know, and the project is famously conservative about change. That is why news about Linux Mint 23 is interesting: it is the release in which Cinnamon's Wayland support is expected to graduate from experimental to fully supported.
Mint 23 has not been released at the time of writing, so everything here reflects announcements and early reports. Treat details as provisional until the official release notes appear.
Timing and base
Mint 23 is expected in December 2026, aimed at a Christmas-time release. It builds on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Resolute Raccoon, which means it inherits the Linux 7.0 kernel and Ubuntu's five-year support horizon for the underlying system. Mint releases usually follow an Ubuntu LTS by several months, which gives the project time to polish its own components.
Wayland in Cinnamon 6.8
Cinnamon has supported X11 for its entire existence. Wayland support has been developed over several releases and carried an Experimental label. With the Cinnamon 6.8 series, which Mint 23 will ship, both X11 and Wayland sessions are expected to be fully supported. Reports say the Experimental label is due to be dropped by the end of 2026.
The most important improvements are fixes to window handling under Wayland. New windows, applet popups and context menus should now appear with more accurate sizes and positions, which are exactly the sort of details that make an experimental desktop feel unfinished.
X11 stays the default for now
Despite full support, the X11 session is expected to remain the default. One report explicitly says that making Wayland the default is not confirmed. That fits Mint's philosophy: give users the new option, make sure it works, and let people move at their own pace. If you rely on tools built for X11, you are unlikely to be forced to change this time.
A new installer
Mint 23 is reported to replace the Ubiquity-based installer it has used on its main edition with the live installer already used by Linux Mint Debian Edition. Installers are the first thing a new user sees, so a cleaner and more maintainable one is a notable change, especially since the older installer has been unmaintained upstream.
Why this matters for the wider desktop
GNOME 50 has removed X11 sessions, KDE Plasma and COSMIC are firmly invested in Wayland, and Ubuntu 26.04 has made Wayland the only GNOME session by default. Cinnamon completing its Wayland work shows the broader Linux desktop converging on the same display technology. Even the most traditional desktops are preparing for a future in which X11 is a compatibility layer rather than the foundation.
Should you wait for Mint 23?
- If you run Mint 22 and it works for you, there is no need to hurry. Mint supports its releases for years.
- If you are buying new hardware, particularly with very recent processors, waiting for the newer kernel and drivers in Mint 23 may be worthwhile.
- If you want to test Cinnamon on Wayland now, try the session on a spare machine or a live USB and report problems.
How Mint upgrades work
Mint does not offer automatic major-version upgrades from the command line the way some distributions do. It provides a dedicated upgrade tool that walks you through the process and encourages you to create a system snapshot first. As always, make that snapshot and keep a backup of your personal files before moving to a new release.
Common questions
Will my existing Mint installation switch to Wayland on its own? No, upgrading does not change your session type, and you choose between X11 and Wayland at the login screen. Is Cinnamon on Wayland slower? Performance is expected to be comparable, and the project's focus has been on correctness first. Should you use Wayland as soon as it is supported? If your applications and hardware work fine, trying it is reasonable, but keep the X11 session available as a fallback for tools that expect it. When will the final release be announced? Watch the official Linux Mint blog, which publishes release notes and known issues on the day of each release.