I think they should improve their website download page, and have an easier installer before I can recommend it as a first distro to someone. But that’s just my opinion. Some people even get Arch as their first distro, so…
I’m brand new to linux and was just trying to install something on a partition and I couldn’t figure out how to do it with either fedora or mint, they kept giving me errors and asking about mount points and stuff I didn’t understand. Then I tried EndeavourOS and the install was so painless, it just asked for the partition and did the rest for me. It also worked with my wifi card out of the box as an added bonus. By far the easiest experience so far. The little bit of googling I had to do to figure out how to use pacman and yay was not a big deal compared to actually getting started with Linux.
This might not count as Arch, but that’s my experience at least.
Yeah, every experience is valid! I was just stating my opinion about the general state of Linux installers, but the experience varies alot from person to person. Glad you made it to Linux tho 😄
Haha, yeah, that’s the beauty of how easy it is to just make some installation media and try them out. Certainly wasn’t meaning to come off as argumentative, sorry if I did!
Debian is not a good distro for the tech illiterate. The point of Linux Mint is to be a good entry point for people to Linux, some will stick to it and that’s fair cause it’s a good distro, some may move past it. Debian isn’t very friendly to noobs. Ubuntu is just garbage, I’d love it to be good but snaps are just that awful.
I stuck with it because it worked and I could do all my electronics, software, 3dp development. It’s kind of nice to mostly forget about the OS and just get projects done.
I guess I just think that it’s one of the easiest desktop environments for a transitioning Windows user to get used to despite the fact that I’ve personally used Linux for over 25 years starting with old school Red Hat 5 command line.
It doesn’t default to dark themes like many DEs do lately…
There’s other things … Desktop shortcut naming… idk
I like the idea of switching to Linux to break the strangle of windows on my hardware but I don’t know if all my games on Steam, Wargamings launcher and Automatic1111 will work properly if I made that switch. I installed Mint for a friend because I’m semi-literate and feel like messing with that…cmd window “terminal” to do…literally anything installation wise would get irritating.
I want a Linux that is as easy to use out of the box as windows. Will Mint be that way or will I have to spend 5 hours figuring out special words for commands any time I want to install something?
Not all of your games will work on linux but thats not a linux problem but a game developer fault. You cant do anything about that by switching to a different distro. Especially those fps games with intrusive kernel level anti cheat will never be supported. Go to protondb and look up all the games that you need and see what works. I personally made the switch and simply stopped playing those that doesn’t as for each that doesnt work theres a dozen of them that does. Proton really is a godsend.
And installing anything on linux isnt such voodoo magic that you have to worry about. For example flatpak lets you do “flatpak install something” and everything is done without you opening your browser and downloading stuff, going through a lengthy annoying installer. If you want to completely avoid opening terminal then some have appstore like discover on nobara which is simply microsoft store but actually usable. For those that arent on repo you can still download a package and install like windows. Linux really isnt that hard and i would even say its easier than windows if you get one of stable ready to run distros that simply works without any tweaking. It took you years to get used to windows so everything different looks difficult when it just takes a month or 2 to get used to it. If you dont want to make the jump then dual boot it and use it for a while till youre ready to remove windows completely.
You can install Mint alongside Win in a dual-boot configuration … then you can switch to it to figure out the gaming situation. (You just need to learn how to do that dual-boot install carefully. I recommend reading in the LM forums to learn that: forums.linuxmint.com ) OR you can install LM on a second drive, as many have.
As for stuff in the terminal, if you ever need to use it, you’ll probably be able to find what commands you need online and copy/paste. There are a lot of thing you can do in the terminal, but it isn’t required much. As for installing software, it’s significantly easier and more convenient than in Windows. It works more similar to Android or IPhone, where there’s a shared place to get them from and they will all be updated through that as well, instead of having to launch the application and have it check for updates, download/install them, then relaunch.
Steam itself works fine on Linux. I don’t think I have a single game in my library that doesn’t work. I’m using Arch (btw) and I’ve found that for my use case (internet browsing and video games) that I haven’t had any major issues.
The two issues I do have are:
If I go too long without updating then package dependencies get screwed and its a headache to fix. -Downloaded applications need the console to allow them to be run. (This is just a single command I have sticky noted to my monitor.)
I still have my Windows install (dual boot) as a just in case backup, but its been months since I’ve used it.
I’ve been using Linux Mint as a daily driver for ten years now.
I personally find Linux Mint to be easier to use than Windows out of the box. For example, you probably don’t have to worry about drivers at all; AMD Radeon drivers for example are built right into the kernel, they “just work.” In Windows, you have to go out to AMD’s website, download and install them.
Linux has an app-store like system called a package manager. Most–including Linux Mint–have graphical ones that work just like the Play Store on Android does, except everything that’s in there is free. On a Mint machine, you open the App Menu, go to Administration > Software Manager. To install Steam, you search for “steam” in the box in the top right, and you’ll recognize the logo.
This same task can be done from the terminal. You can open the terminal and type sudo apt install steam
I will use both approaches depending on what I’m doing at the time. Like for example, it’s faster to install multiple programs via the terminal. sudo apt install steam obs blender audacity gimp shotcut inkscape would install all those apps in one big thing, no need to sit there clicking through the app store.
Linux Mint won’t require use of the terminal very often, it has GUI menus and utilities for most things you’ll likely want to do. Sometimes, using the terminal is faster, easier, or more convenient, or just more fun. Yeah there’s fun to be had in the terminal. Get on Youtube and look up what “cowsay” does.
It seems like I can get borderlands games and tanks up and running on Mint, I’m ok with LibreOffice over Office 2010, but how does one begin to move any of this to a new OS? do I need to like take an entire day re-installing everything? Can I open it, as other have said, on an external hard drive, move stuff to the new OS, and then let it have most of the rest of the PC? (keeping maybe 500gb for windows in case I can’t find something working) how does dual boot work then? Can I just have it boot Mint all the time and then “switch user” over to windows?
How is mint day to day? This is my big concern. Something going wrong and not having the time to go digging across a dozen pages to figure it out. (I’m savvy enough to know how to work Google and get answers, but I’d rather things just work you know?) Do Nvidia drivers work the same as windows as far as manually searching for them? Who do I turn to if I have a question noone has asked before? Is there like a catalog of commands and how do I learn how to use them?
How does oen begin to move any of this to a new OS?
Your apps won’t move; the Windows version of say LibreOffice won’t transfer to Windows. Instead, you’ll install Linux, then install LibreOffice (and all your software) from the Mint Software Manager. Your personal documents and such you’ll want to save on an external drive and then copy over once Mint is installed.
Do I need to take an entire day re-installing everything?
So one thing I’ve noticed about my computing habits with Linux: I install and uninstall software much more casually than I ever did on Windows. I’ve told stories before about how my father spent about two weeks moving from one Windows machine to another, while I moved into my Linux machine in a few hours, most of which was just letting the computer run while I did yard work.
How does dual boot work then?
Assuming you have a machine that already has Windows installed on it, you will either install a new unoccupied drive, or use Windows’ tools to shrink the C:/ partition to make room for Linux. You then shut down the computer and boot to a thumb drive with the Linux Mint ISO on it. During this process, Linux will detect the Windows MBR and can automatically install Linux in dual boot mode. It’ll basically shove the Windows bootloader aside and replace it with GRUB (Grand Unified Bootloader) which includes a menu for multi-boot machines so that you can choose an OS each time you boot the machine. Choose Linux, GRUB will boot Linux. Choose Windows, it’ll launch the Windows bootloader. There are several tutorials on this, follow one.
How is mint day to day?
I find it quite reliable and stable; I have had Mint Cinnamon Edition installed on at least one of my computers continuously for ten solid years now, it does what I need it to do. It doesn’t “just break.”
Linux is different than Windows. The file system works differently, things are done in different ways, some concepts have different names. It will take some getting used to. Sure, the Cinnamon desktop looks pretty Windows like at first glance, but there are differences. I have seen folks try Linux, go to do some task, find that it isn’t done the way they’re used to doing it, immediately rage quit, and then show up on the internet saying obviously false things like “you can’t even rename a file in Linux.” Sure you can, you’re just used to the Windows way of doing things, the Linux way might be different. It will take some getting used to.
One thing I’ll note is Linux Mint has a pretty good onboarding process, the Welcome screen shows you how to customize the look and feel and guides you through things like a system update. Definitely do a system update pretty soon after install, before even installing any software.
Do Nvidia drivers work the same way as windows as far as manually searching for them?
This can depend on the distribution. For example, Pop!_OS ships two different ISOs, one with the Nvidia drivers already installed, one without.
On Linux Mint, there is a utility called a Driver Manager. It’s included with the OS, you’ll open that up, and click the “Nvidia” drivers instead of the 'Nouveau" ones. It’ll probably say “Recommended” next to one in green letters. Click that one then click Apply, it’ll download and install them for you. AMD is even easier; there’s nothing for you to do at all, official AMD drivers are built into the kernel.
Who do I turn to with a question noone has asked before?
You can ask in Linux communities on Lemmy, Reddit, or on your distro’s forums. Linux Mint’s forums (found on linuxmint.com) are a wealth of knowledge.
Is there like a catalog of commands and how do I learn to use them?
Linux terminal commands are just programs. “steam” is a Linux terminal command, it launches Steam if installed.
There is a built-in manual which you can access with the man command, For example, if you want to read about how to use the list command, ls, you type man ls and it’ll tell you all about it. There are commands like which and apropos which can help you find the commands you need.
There are lots of great tutorials on Youtube to get you started learning the basics, like how to move around the file system, create and delete files, etc. It can be pretty fun. You might want to spin up a Linux distro in something like VirtualBox and try one of those tutorials out before you fully install Linux on real hardware.
Appreciate you taking the time to break it down and explain it like this. I might convert an extra ssd into Mint and start there. Another user mentioned Proton, if I don’t like Linux, do I just use Disk Management in Windows to “delete” the Linux partition and then re-allocate it and install proton?
If you do want to delete your Linux partition and return that space for use with Windows…Yes I think you can just delete them via Windows disk management utilities, though there may be some task you need to do for the boot manager…I’ve actually never done that.
About Proton: You will be using Proton to game in Linux Mint; it’s not another operating system.
Proton is a compatibility layer written by Valve that allows Linux to play Windows games. If my understanding is correct, it’s a modified version of WINE that also translates Microsoft DirectX API calls to Vulkan calls on the fly so that the Linux kernel can understand them. This opens up almost every game in Steam’s catalog to Linux users. Some online competitive games intentionally still don’t work with Linux mostly because Anticheat on Linux is a whole other ball game.
Proton comes with Steam. You install Steam, you’ve got Proton.
When I convicted my dad to switch to Linux it’s what I’ve given him, and he’s been very happy with it, so I guess it’s just that it isn’t a pain for a noob and it works a lot like windows
I haven’t used mint in a while but did for a few years. The out of the box experience (at that time) was better.
Article from 2011:
Linux Mint 11 is a very respectable and speedy distribution and is comparatively very media friendly and easy to use out of the box for newcomers. These qualities likely have contributed to the operating system’s place on the Top 5 Linux Distribution list.
Take a hugely popular distro which alienates some some users with some issues or unappealing GUI choices, Mint comes along and polishes it further and you end up with a distro that is just perfect for that niche.
I think quite a few Ubuntu users migrated to KUbuntu or Mint when Canonical made Unity the default (in Ubuntu 11.04).
I remember trying Ubuntu Unity, back when I was wondering if I could be a good idea to switch Linux. But I had no patience at the time for the buttons on the opposite side of the window. I can't stop thinking that if it wasn't for that, things could have been quite different.
The best thing about Mint used to be not spending time adding nonfree software and media codecs. I don’t know whether it is still has that advantage over ubuntu.
My anecdote, granted I’m no Linux master: I recently went into a distro rigamarole, installed openSUSE, Manjaro, etc, before arriving to Mint, because I could not find one that handled my CPU and graphics and drivers setup without significant effort.
Then I installed Mint (avoiding Ubuntu and its Canonicalness), and setup was very simple and everything worked out of the box. I could run Steam with external GPU without going through many workarounds or setup using nvidia prime and launchers and so forth
Stylistically I also like cinnamon, but Mint mainly was just so low hassle and simple I have to give it props for that
It’s just the easiest distro to get into coming from windows/mac. It’s more lenient about the third party/closed source software that people might be familiar with, lots of GUI tools including the Software Center that makes it easy to install things, and plenty of flavors to suit whatever feels most natural to you. It’s got a nice GUI installer and live version that is sure to make people feel more comfortable about installing an OS if they’ve never done it before, and it’s not at all fussy about the hardware it runs on. It’s also rock solid as far as I’ve experienced. And, of course, it has the benefit of accessing the huge amount of software that supports debian. Also, owing to its popularity, the community is very active and welcoming to newbies.
When I was first getting into Linux, I was definitely more experimental and tried out Fedora just to get as far from Windows as I could. Now I’m not so adventurous and just want something that provides as similar a workflow as possible to the workflow I have to use at work with windows. So it goes that, when setting up a new laptop where I want an OS that just works, I reach for Linux Mint.
Software install tool on Mint is so much faster and more intuitive than the abomination I’m using on Nobara. I appreciate their efforts to make a gaming distro and I recommend it but if you want polish and more GUI tools, Mint works.
Long time Mint user here. Switched to them ages ago because they didn’t try to “revolutionize” the desktop in the whole Gnome 3/Ubuntu Unity era, and the OS was close enough to Ubuntu that instructions and software for Ubuntu would run on it. Since then, it’s only been getting better, and they haven’t been accumulating drama (Snap, telemetry, whatever Redhat is doing, etc.). like the more popular distros have been.
I’d recommend it to new people because it Just Works, has flatpack support, is similar enough to Windows and the many Ubuntu-specific instructions in the wild apply to it.
Agreed. I was recently prepping a laptop to give to my mom, and planned to put Ubuntu on it since, y'know, it's "linux for human beings". I hadn't used Ubuntu Desktop in years, and was blown away by how unintuitive everything felt in the GUI. nothing behaved how I expected (this isn't to say it is inherently bad; this is just my experience).
Tried Linux Mint XFCE instead and was instantly relieved that it was a similar user experience to Windows (since that's typically going to make things easier for beginners).
It's also my go-to distro if I have a machine lying around that's in-between tasks and just needs a general-purpose OS for the moment.
Distrowatch's source for popularity is how often the different distros are clicked on on their own homepage... which has the toplist featured prominantly on the start page.
So their ranking completely and utterly worthless, as it's prone to manipulation and once you basically pushed your distro to the high spots it's guaranteed to stay there as a rarely used but highly rated distro is of course attracting more clicks from people wanting to know what it's actually about... see: MX Linux being on their #1 spot forever.
Its insanely popular on distrowatch. I also don’t know why
Distrowatch counts clicks on Distrowatch. People using methods like setting the distro page as new tab page or perhaps even use scripts to boost awareness of obscure distributions is a regular occurrence. Nobody can seriously tell me that PCLinuxOS having been on the top of the DW charts for a long time (it’s still ahead of Kubuntu, Genoo, and RHEL) is because of how freaking popular that thing is. I’m also very doubtful of the current popularity of MX Linux over there. No way on earth is that seriously 2.5 times more popular than Ubuntu.
Yeah I’m with you. In my case I can’t get around the cinamon gui which … reminds me of Windows 98, sorry :(
(yes, I know, calm down, I know I can install whichever interface I want but from my experience it just causes problems and at that point I might aswell just switch the distro)
It has all the goodness of Ubuntu without the noise. A common sense UI with solid default options and great customizability.
I have tried a lot of different distros and Mint is the one I keep coming back to. I run it on my daily driver laptop, my gaming rig and my media center in the living room with MythTV. Could not be happier.
I’ve tested over 40 Linux distributions over a long span of time, but I’ve never tried Mint. The reason being that all three times I’ve read something nice that inspired me to try it again the download hashes don’t match, and we find out their servers were compromised. How’s that going?
In 5+ years of OSS, only once have I even heard of hashes not matching and a build server being compromised, and it was fixed within 30 minutes. It was also a very big deal.
Basically, what you’re saying and what a quick search on Google shows seems to suggest user error.
Lol, well there’s no way I can “prove” it not having taken screenshots and archived them. It’s been well over five years since the last time. I’ll save you the humble boast, but no user error here regarding verifying ISOs.
Serious question , my laptop is getting old. 7-8, years now I don’t want to put money in tech for w new one. I want to use it with Linux , as I just use for very Norma stuff and Zero gaming. My use cases will be use of office, use if browsers, simple image editors, pdf reader and manipulation, copying images from to and from HDD , copying media to HDD etc. Connecting iPhone, android for file uploading download etc.
I don’t want hassle of
Find a reaposiroty, install an extra ackages except for softwares
Give any command viq terminal. 3.find any dependency for ANYTHING
Use it as regular person
What Linux will just work? I mean simple install and start using.
I’d recommend you just try one of the mainstream distros with gnome or KDE. Something like Ubuntu, mint, fedora etc and see if you like it. There’s going to be a short period where you’ll need to adapt to the new environment, but you’ll be fine afterwards.
iTunes will probably be the toughest. I lean on iTunes for syncing files, media, local backups and if I had to ditch Windows tomorrow and decided Linux, I would set up iTunes in a Windows VM since I don’t think there’s any other workaround currently.
There are still random snags and blocks to things you will probably expect or want to be able to do.
That being said, it’s sooooo much better than is was. If those snags are minor and not irritating for you, you’ll be able to work around them, I think.
And the wider community can be friendly and helpful, though not always empathetic / fully understanding of the lack of Linux knowledge you might be starting from, (again) in my experience.
Haven’t tried to print anything yet either…printers always seem to Bork on nearly every OS…
Edit: first installed Linux mint this week on a dell XPS laptop.
how about using winword ? and excel. I know there exists alterntives on linux, but I have seen that open office wrekcs havoc on document formatting. is there a if not as good as , but next to good word editor for linux and is it out of box ?
Sorry, not actually used any Linux office packages yet. Briefly used office365 online, which was, as you’d expect, more or less the same experience as windows / Mac.
Have had a look around and there are, apparently, as many opinions about which Linux office suit is best as there are possible usage situations or different office suits… 🥲
Get a Thumbdrive and flash it with Ventoy, load it up with every ISOs you want to try and vive each one a go, the one that works nest for you, is the one you keep.
Does Mint support arm64 yet? I would be ecstatic for a mint VM in parallels on my MacBook but last time I tried I couldn’t I don’t think. Stock Ubuntu is just… okay but I always loved the out of box experience and look and feel of mint it was my choice for dual booting years ago on old windows laptops
Mint removes everything that makes Ubuntu bad and they have a version with the same features but Debian based and because Ubuntu is pushing snaps so much they have been thinking of making LMDE (Linux Mint Debian edition) the new default
Yeah true. I went through the arch process to learn about Linux though so it was worth it in the end but I still have no clue about selinux, apparmor etc that are shipped by default in other distros. Also the need for firewalls/antivirus which isn’t really an issue in Linux but still.
on my office machine: I have Ubuntu(23.10) in its full glory. it is a good distro. I really enjoy gnome shell with Wayland.
on my home machine: I won’t let a single proprietary prpgram exist on my Debian. and the only wm would be i3(with xfce as a backup, and as a source of other common programs like terminal).
I’ve used mint in my university(default distro there), which I also enjoyed for its familiarity to users coming from proprietary operations systems.
my foray into GNU/Linux(from w*ndows) was thanks to Tails, which made me appreciate how different an OS can be(actually, my first computer had Ubuntu 4.10. the computer lasted for less than 2 years. hence I don’t count it).
and I’ve also helped many friends set-up distros like zorin and peppermint.
at the end of day, no matter the distro, it’s GNU/Linux. and that’s all that matters.
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