Welcome to mintCast

This is Episode 477!

Recorded on Sunday, January 18, 2026

… Joe; … Moss; frozen stiff, I’m Bill; thawed out I’m Majid; … Eric; …Charles; middle click paste forever, I’m Jim

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First up in the news: Mint 22.3 “Zena” released. Then lots of drivers news, new distros, AI and Apple getting sued (again)
In security and privacy:
And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Please remember if you want to follow along with our discussions, the full show notes for this episode are linked in the show’s description at mintcast.org/show-notes

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20 minutes

Mint 22.3 “Zena” released
- From the Mint blog by Clem (via londoner)
- On Jan 13^th, Clem announced the release of Mint 22.3 “Zena”, which will be supported until 2029.
- What’s new in Linux Mint 22.3
- Release Notes for Linux Mint 22.3
- If you are running the BETA you don’t need to upgrade, use the Update Manager to apply available updates.
- Upgrade instructions for Linux Mint 22, 22.1 and 22.2: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4980
- Note from londoner:- The new menu in Cinnamon has many options for configuration. However, if you still don’t like it and want the old style menu back, that is available and easily installable as an applet. See the “Classic Menu” by fredcw at https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/432
EndeavourOS 2026.01.12 Released With Linux 6.18 LTS Kernel, NVIDIA Open Modules – Majid
Ubuntu 26.04 Aims To Deliver Better NVIDIA Wayland Performance Atop GNOME – Majid
Big GPU & Kernel Update Headed to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS – Majid
Firefox 147 Arrives with XDG Support on Linux, Auto-PiP + More – Majid
GNOME and Firefox Consider Disabling Middle Click Paste By Default

WINE 11.0 Released
Adobe Photoshop 2025 Installer Now Working On Linux With Patched Wine
Microsoft Office Is Now ‘Microsoft 365 Copilot App’
Microsoft is Slowly Turning Edge Into Another Copilot App
A.I., now including advertisements!
Discord Files Confidentially for IPO
New Dell XPS 14 and 16 Announced, Ubuntu Version Coming This Year – Majid
Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Shut Down After 58 Years
Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri privacy lawsuit
- Mobile device owners complained that Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers.
- Voice assistants typically react when people use “hot words” such as “Hey, Siri.”
- Two plaintiffs said their mentions of Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants triggered ads for those products. Another said he got ads for a brand name surgical treatment after discussing it, he thought privately, with his doctor.

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10 minutes

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20 minutes (~5 minutes each)

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10 minutes

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Next Episode – 2 pm US Central time on Sunday, Sunday, February 1, 2026.
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Next Saturday we will host a Roundtable Live Stream. Please come and join us using the Discord voice channel at 2 pm US Central time on Saturday, January 24, 2026.
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Livestream information is at mintcast.org/livestream

Joe – Tllts.org, linuxlugcast.com, [email protected], Buy Joe a coffee
Moss – Full Circle Weekly News, [email protected], Mastodon @[email protected], occasionally on HPR
Bill – [email protected], Bill_H on Discord, @[email protected] on Mastodon, also checkout the other podcast I am on, Linux OTC (with Eric & Majid).
Majid – [email protected] @[email protected], Atypical.doctor on Instagram and Threads and The Atypical Doctor Podcast and also Linux OTC.
Eric – I can be reached by email at [email protected].
Charles – [email protected], Mr PDX on Discord
Jim– [email protected], GNU2Linux on Discord, The Linux Shortcut on YouTube

Before we leave, we want to make sure to acknowledge some of the people who make mintCast possible:

Bill for our audio editing and for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
Archive.org for hosting our audio files
Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo
Londoner for our time syncs and various other contributions
The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>

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Episode 477 Show Notes