Linux Mint shook up its release schedule this year and now it’s shaking up its versioning scheme as well – the next major release won’t be Linux Mint 23, but Linux Mint 27.
Releases will now be numbered by year. Linux Mint 27 will be followed by v28, and so on.
The release also sees the start of a new series of release codenames.
Mint has traditionally used feminine first names, cycling through the alphabet from Linux Mint 1.0 ‘Ada’ in 2006 through to Linux Mint 22.3 ‘Zena’ in 2026. The series returns to ‘A’ with Linux Mint 27 and the codename has been revealed as ‘Adrien’.
Yup, Linux Mint is moving to masculine names – why?
Over the years some in the Linux community have charged that Mint’s use of feminine codenames as adornment was sexist, even objectifying. While the distro doesn’t say it, I wonder if the switch, perhaps unconsciously, is a rebuff of those criticisms.
A packed release is planned
Names, numbers – whatever, right? Features and improvements are what most of us care about.
In a blog post, Mint’s Clement Lefebvre said that in over 20 years working on the Ubuntu-based Linux distribution he’s not sure that he has ever “…seen so many changes and new features implemented for a single release”.
We’ve already seen Mint’s new calendar app, Clockenstein, and ePub viewer, Book Reader. Another new addition coming is Clocks, an Android-inspired tool for setting recurring alarms with custom sounds and notifications.
It’s also developing more new apps, including a new system monitor (Superlight), a new archive manager (Unfold) powered by 7zip and a new terminal emulator (Velocity) inspired by Ghostty and Ptyxis. All written in Python and aiming to be user-friendly.
Linux Mint 27 ‘Adrien’ arrives Christmas 2026, built on top of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. From what we know so far – though there’s more details still to be revealed – it sounds like there’ll be plenty to unwrap once it’s out at the end of the year.