The topic Linux Mint is skipping new releases for 7 months, but its HWE ISOs will make sure… is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
A little while ago, the Linux Mint dev team announced that it wanted to take longer dev cycles between OS updates, which means we won’t be seeing a new version of the operating system release until at least Christmas 2026. While it’s always good for dev teams to go at a steady and sustainable pace, it is sad to think that Linux Mint will basically be feature-locked until 2027 is almost here.
However, that doesn’t mean people will be stuck with an old Linux kernel until then. The Linux Mint dev team has announced a plan to release Hardware Enablement (HWE) ISOs, meaning people will still get support for their new hardware despite the feature freeze.
As announced in the Linux Mint monthly news for April 2026, the dev team has released their first HWE ISO. These are special ISOs where the operating system stays the same, but the Linux kernel it runs off gets updated to a newer version. So, while Linux Mint will still be stuck on version 22.3 until December 2026, the Linux kernel that it ships with will still get updated to support new features and hardware.
Linux Mint 22.3 was released in January with kernel 6.14. Today we’re publishing HWE ISO images for Linux Mint 22.3 with kernel 6.17. Going forward, we will publish HWE ISOs for the latest release whenever a newer kernel becomes available in the package base. Note that these ISOs are not new releases, but they are fully QA-tested and considered stable.
You can grab the new Linux Mint image over on the HWE ISO download page. Do note that you don’t have to do this if you already have Linux Mint installed on your machine. If you do, the Linux kernel 6.17 should arrive through your normal update channels. The HWE ISOs are more for when you’re performing a fresh install.