I’ve seen plenty of Debian mentions, and no pushback there whatsoever from me.
But if you find yourself frustrated that you can’t just have Ubuntu without Canonical’s snaps and ads and other ickiness, Mint is exactly that. Or maybe better, I dunno. It’s super polished and full featured and stable.
And even better in this era of Windows 10 support ending, the main/default version (Linux Mint Cinnamon) looks like Windows out of the box but it installs, works, and updates at like 10x the speed. (The 10x is an exaggeration for moment to moment desktop work and latency, but for the install and especially for updates I think it’s accurate)
Yeah, it is what I’m going to install on my parents’ Win10 machines, but it is also what I use myself at home and work. There are almost no new users I wouldn’t recommend it to.
No distro is going to work for everybody, of course, and having the choice is part of the beauty. The mint project is doing great stuff though.
Yep, looks like it’s based on Ubuntu and specifically targets Windows converts with its out of box experience.
Their website is very commercial and “upgrade to pro now” though. If the distro isn’t pushy about it once installed, then maybe no big deal.
One nice thing with Mint is that it’s still funded by donations and sponsorships, and not any kind of commercial activity. It has that FOSSy aspect of being a good distro just for the sake of being good software for the world, not to be the entry point into somebody’s business plan.
It’s a distro that satisfies the side of me that’s the ADHD software engineer that wants access to the deepest most basic workings of my system, while also satisfying the side of me that’s an old man with a lot of non-computer hobbies outside work who just needs the shit to work unless I actively use my super user powers to break it.
the pro would be more ubuntu studio packages with curated and custom themes that make it look like windows/mac and other variants, which anyone can do themselves after like an hour or so googling gnome extensions and customizing them, they do look decent and ofc it goes towards continued support for both the free and pro version, if you like them its not a huge deal
Personally I think half the fun of linux is picking and customizing a de yourself to get a look only you have.
It hasn’t been pushy from my experience with it. The upsell is all on the site amd wasn’t too onerous imo.
I mostly just want shit to work too anymore. I don’t like spending my freetime fixing stuff that shouldn’t be broken. But I appreciate there being access to tinker when I need or want.
Agreed. I am currently struggling with loving an Arch/Hyprland build that does exactly what I want and nothing I don’t want, while simultaneously feeling like a loser for the amount of time I spend maintaining it or figuring out how to do some trivial tasks that take way too long because stuff doesn’t just work.
LIN 👏
NUX 👏
MINT 👏
I’ve seen plenty of Debian mentions, and no pushback there whatsoever from me.
But if you find yourself frustrated that you can’t just have Ubuntu without Canonical’s snaps and ads and other ickiness, Mint is exactly that. Or maybe better, I dunno. It’s super polished and full featured and stable.
And even better in this era of Windows 10 support ending, the main/default version (Linux Mint Cinnamon) looks like Windows out of the box but it installs, works, and updates at like 10x the speed. (The 10x is an exaggeration for moment to moment desktop work and latency, but for the install and especially for updates I think it’s accurate)
Man, this tiktokification just needs to die.
+1 for Mint. It’s what I give the elders when they need a computer.
Yeah, it is what I’m going to install on my parents’ Win10 machines, but it is also what I use myself at home and work. There are almost no new users I wouldn’t recommend it to.
No distro is going to work for everybody, of course, and having the choice is part of the beauty. The mint project is doing great stuff though.
I really enjoy Zorin. It’s based on Ubuntu from what I recall. Has great features too.
Yep, looks like it’s based on Ubuntu and specifically targets Windows converts with its out of box experience.
Their website is very commercial and “upgrade to pro now” though. If the distro isn’t pushy about it once installed, then maybe no big deal.
One nice thing with Mint is that it’s still funded by donations and sponsorships, and not any kind of commercial activity. It has that FOSSy aspect of being a good distro just for the sake of being good software for the world, not to be the entry point into somebody’s business plan.
It’s a distro that satisfies the side of me that’s the ADHD software engineer that wants access to the deepest most basic workings of my system, while also satisfying the side of me that’s an old man with a lot of non-computer hobbies outside work who just needs the shit to work unless I actively use my super user powers to break it.
the pro would be more ubuntu studio packages with curated and custom themes that make it look like windows/mac and other variants, which anyone can do themselves after like an hour or so googling gnome extensions and customizing them, they do look decent and ofc it goes towards continued support for both the free and pro version, if you like them its not a huge deal
Personally I think half the fun of linux is picking and customizing a de yourself to get a look only you have.
Themeing icons and other stuff does require external apps on gnome and can be more annoying than just using a preset theme thats nice too.
It hasn’t been pushy from my experience with it. The upsell is all on the site amd wasn’t too onerous imo.
I mostly just want shit to work too anymore. I don’t like spending my freetime fixing stuff that shouldn’t be broken. But I appreciate there being access to tinker when I need or want.
Agreed. I am currently struggling with loving an Arch/Hyprland build that does exactly what I want and nothing I don’t want, while simultaneously feeling like a loser for the amount of time I spend maintaining it or figuring out how to do some trivial tasks that take way too long because stuff doesn’t just work.
Linnux?
Saw it. Decided not to change it because that’s how somebody doing the “clapping on the syllable” thing would say it.
Check out Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE).
Yep that’s also an option if using an Ubuntu derivative at all is an issue for you.