Ramin_HAL9001, 1 year ago (edited 9 months ago)

You’re not missing out on anything. Mint lets you install various desktop environments, they are all very well-configured and stable by default. You can just install the appropriate desktop environment meta-package using Apt:

• apt install 'task-gnome-desktop’
• apt install 'kde-plasma-desktop’
• apt install 'cinnamon-desktop-environment’
• apt install ‘task-xfce-desktop’

Then you can “hop” from one GUI experience to another by just logging out and logging in with a different session. You might have to add some additional Ubuntu repositories to your Apt config to get all of these meta-packages though.

Besides the desktop environment, the only other big difference between distros is how you use their package managers, which all do the same thing anyways, just with different CLI commands.

Probably the most important thing to consider in a distro is which versions of the latest stable releases of the big Linux apps are available in their distros. Arch-based distros (Garuda, Manjaro, ArcoLinux, EndeavorOS) are the most bleeding-edge but these operating systems tend to break after a software update if you fail to update often enough. Ubuntu and Fedora are the most bleeding-edge non-rolling release distros that I know of, and in my experience they never break after a software update.