Linux Mint team releases Cinnamon 6.8 desktop environment

New trackpad gestures and hibernation support

The update also adds support for hibernation through a Suspend action in the main menu.

Developers included support for the oo7 Secret Service provider and multiple instances in the Sound applet. The release features refined audio controls, improved networking, and numerous bug fixes.

Gesture enhancements include fixes for gesture cancelling, Expo, overview, and window switcher edge cases. Users also receive improvements for second swipes, mouse dragging in the overview, and keybinding switches.

Network and sound applet enhancements

It also restores the VPN overflow menu and labels network items with stored SSIDs.

The update improves identification for WPA3 and OWE wireless networks. The update resolves Wi-Fi profile issues, including duplicate entries and incorrect access point updates.

The sound applet now expands output devices by default. It keeps the input device selector visible after recording ends and displays it when multiple inputs are connected.

Window management and UI updates

The grouped window list features cleaner menus, title displays for pinned apps, and equal-width buttons for unlabeled windows.

Thumbnail previews are now scrollable if their content exceeds the available space. The desktop also improves automatic horizontal scrollbar visibility and on-screen keyboard positioning.

Performance, security, and stability fixes

Stability fixes address window shadow rendering, scrolling, popup menu handling, and on-screen keyboard positioning. Notification handling now resolves issues with removal and cleanup.

The update improves IBus input method handling, including more reliable daemon management and better keyboard layout variant application.

Security updates include fixes for PAM, Polkit, Secret portal integration, and a CWE-78 vulnerability. The desktop also improves responsiveness by performing power profile lookups, csd-media-keys proxy creation, settings file writing, and bookmark loading asynchronously.

Developers removed the OpenSearch provider and improved asynchronous operations during desktop initialization. The Settings app adds new search keywords, removes the "Looking for something else?" section, and provides a warning when a user unplugs a mounted device.

The environment no longer relies on icon names exclusive to Linux Mint themes. When the native screensaver is not in use, the desktop now watches logind for lock requests.

Integration into Linux Mint 27 Adrien

Cinnamon 6.8 is scheduled to be the default desktop environment for the upcoming Linux Mint 27 "Adrien" release. This version of the operating system is based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.

The Linux Mint team expects to release the new version around Christmas 2026.

Availability on other Linux distributions

Users of other GNU/Linux distributions can install the latest version of the desktop environment. This includes distributions such as Arch Linux that provide the newest release.