Is Linux Mint Burning Out? Developers Consider Longer Release Cycle
8 115BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Mint developers say they are considering adopting a longer development cycle, arguing that the project's current six month cadence plus LMDE releases leaves too little room for deeper work. In a recent update, the team reflected on its incremental philosophy, independence from upstream decisions like Snap, and heavy investment in Cinnamon and XApp. While the release process "works very well" and delivers steady improvements, they admit it consumes significant time in testing, fixing, and shipping, potentially capping ambition.
Mint's next release will be based on a new Ubuntu LTS, and the team says it is seriously interested in stretching the development window. The stated goal is to free up resources for more substantial development rather than constant release management. Whether this signals bigger technical changes or simply acknowledges bandwidth limits for a small team remains unclear, but it marks a notable rethink of one of desktop Linux's most consistent release rhythms.
8 comments
I approve (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @06:12PM (#65983474)
Outside of needed security fixes, the rapid release cycle can get to be a real pain in the ass.
Re:I approve (Score: 5, Insightful)
by hazem ( 472289 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @06:17PM (#65983482)
As someone who always waits for the "xx.3" versions (and often skips the even ones), I do too.
I've been using Linux since the 90s and when I was younger, I loved tweaking and getting the newest stuff. But these days I want it to "just work"(tm) and not have the UI and features not change a lot.
Re:I approve (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @06:29PM (#65983504)
As someone who always waits for the "xx.3" versions (and often skips the even ones), I do too.
I've been using Linux since the 90s and when I was younger, I loved tweaking and getting the newest stuff. But these days I want it to "just work"(tm) and not have the UI and features not change a lot.
Yes. OS providers like Microsoft have forgotten the purpose of an operating system, They believe that the purpose of computing is the operating system, when in fact, it is supposed to allow us to run the programs we work with, then get the hell out of the way.
Maybe yearly feature releases for Mint.
Re:I approve (Score: 5, Insightful)
by taustin ( 171655 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @07:13PM (#65983586)
Yes. OS providers like Microsoft have forgotten the purpose of an operating system, They believe that the purpose of computing is the operating system,
Not really, Microsoft believes the purpose of an operating system is to a) generate income for Microsoft, and b) generate tons of personal data they can sell to advertisers and AI con artists.
Re:I approve (Score: 5, Interesting)
by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:56PM (#65983778)
OS providers like Microsoft have forgotten the purpose of an operating system, They believe that the purpose of computing is the operating system, when in fact, it is supposed to allow us to run the programs we work with, then get the hell out of the way.
Indeed. The purpose of an OS is to make things possible and to bother you are little as possible. Same, incidentally, for Office programs. MS seems to instead optimize "engagement" with their OS and Office programs, i.e. they waste as much of your time as possible with far too deep menu structures, changing things around, minimal customization for users, low/no customization persistence, and other crap that makes their stuff a permanent load on your attention capacity.
Essentially, they are doing "attention economy" instead of "professional tool economy" and it is a massive problem now. The second indicator is that reliability and security are slowly getting worse and worse. They probably cannot fix that anymore and hence need to be replaced. In Europe, that process has started.
Re:I hope not, it's my favorite! (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @06:46PM (#65983524)
Mint is the best out of the box experience for me, and just a hassle-free daily driver. The community is so nice, friendly, and helpful, it is the opposite of the stereotype of just answering "RTFM" and whatever criticisms people had about forums in the 90s. I hope it stays strong, I donate every time I do a new install or upgrade to a new version. In case it does languish, is there anything anyone would recommend that ticks all the same boxes for being a friendly end user desktop experience with a classic Windows 2000-like desktop that has support/compatibility with such a wide and fairly current and stable variety of packages (debian)?
I'm going to be teaching a class in Linux operations, and that RTFM issue morphed into a noob asking a question, then an experienced user answering "Oh, that's easy!" then launching into a solution that leaves the noob more confused than before. Funny thing is, while canvassing for students, I got a lot of more experienced people who offer to teach.
And here's where it gets odd. I have picked a person to assist with teaching. A woman who pretty much lives in Terminal. I do both GUI and terminal, and plan on learning from her as well. And part of the reason why I chose her is that she isn't doing the typical guy thing. She's an apt teacher. Most guys I know want to impress others with how much they know, more than teach others.
Re:I hope not, it's my favorite! (Score: 5, Funny)
by gardyloo ( 512791 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:16PM (#65983720)
She's an apt teacher.
I see what you did there.
Linux Mint is in trouble (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Excelcia ( 906188 ) on <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @06:27PM (#65983502)
The community over at Linux Mint is showing the pressure. Under the gun, and unable to process even basic issues, they turn on users and blame them for problems and bugs they experience, telling them their use case is flawed when the reality is they just don't have the resources to deal with the issue. Now, not having the resources is one thing, and a fair response. But turning it back on the user and telling them their use case is flawed when they experience is the tail wagging the dog.
Another community I saw this in for a long time, and I really thought the project would implode, was the Palemoon browser. They got behind when webcomponents became a thing and they could keep up with changes. They too would blame the user when yet another web site that didn't work on the browser was encountered, telling them they should be using the site, should complain about the site, and why would they need a site like that anyway??
Palemoon dragged themselves out of it. They buckled down, and it's almost back to being a useful browser again. But the community at Mint concerns me. They are on the down swing. User blaming and load shedding are just symptoms of a larger issue. Too much work for too few volunteers. They also don't have a good end-to-end workflow strategy. By that I mean in many cases they don't seem to treat the OS as a coherent whole that is used for actual workflows from beginning to end. Pieces that have no replacement are deprecated while resources are spent on pieces that have many duplicates.
I'm concerned.