this comment was written on June 2025. So as of this day Mint is fabulous. And if I were to save a single distro from a burning building of all the popular distros, i would grab mint twice.
I know I know, there are many good distros, even texhnically better ones. But having used Mint as a secondary dual boot to my primary Windows, I have felt that Mint has been least annoying and actually worth retaining and updating and maintaining.
Mint is great I use it on my desktop and laptop and have been for years (I switched when Ubuntu has that unity desktop period). For Linux it’s the most “it just works” distro for me. My second choice would be manjaro, but mint also has the advantage that there is so much help for Ubuntu you can find online, that usually also works for mint.
Agree 100%. The amount of “help” content and documentation, both formal and informal, for other distros doesn’t even come close to that of Ubuntu. It’s like tenfold more. And so 90% of it becomes immediately, if not applicable, alteast in the right direction, for Mint as well.
I’m actually thinking about switching from Debian to Mint. I’m thinking that if Mint is the recommended distro for people new to Linux, they will need a big community to answer questions in forums.
With the momentum that Mint already has, it has the highest chance of succeeding as the primary distro for Linux newbies in the coming years.
some long winded thoughts…
Like every PC Semi-enthusiast sufferer of Windows, when I was looking for a Linux distro to respite,
I deliberated way too long on which distro to use.
Finally I realized that the way I use Windows, I’ll not be able to fully switch over to Linux anytime soon. So instead of burning midnight oil, one day i said fuck it, and installed Mint as a dual boot option. I spent quite a lot of time trying to make the Mint as close to my Windows setup as possible, but couldn’t do fully. Plus the VKD3D performance penalty for Nvidia GPU in DX12 games meant I was never going to ditch Windows as my primary gaming OS.
I did the same thing, but with ubuntu. Now, you and I can troubleshoot issues and have patience. But someone who is sort of reluctant to begin with, it’s a hard sell if there are hurdles.
I freaking love Linux Mint. I use it for myself because despite being the “easy” distro, it is still Linux. (Or as I like to call it, GNU plus Linux, lol) But you are still allowed to use the terminal, compile your own code, fiddle with your system, run docker, and generally do what you want with your computer without it bogging down to load ads for services that are already running in the background bogging it down more whether you pay for it or not. And since it is based on debian/ubuntu/apt, users benefit from that popularity when they look up how to do something.
I love it just as much for the non-power users. It is how I will allow my parents to keep their perfectly good laptop that collects dust instead of spending a thousand bucks on a new win11 laptop to collect dust.
Long term I assume that I will end up on Arch or a derivative, mostly thanks to Valve, on top of it being a good project to learn on.
so I’m not very knowledgeable about the Linux world, but I’m also not completely green. In my lifetime I have dabbled with trying out 4-5 distros either dualbooting or VMing, Ubuntu being my first experience.
But i feel like, as much as I love our Lord and Savior GabeN, what Valve’s doing with Steam OS is not fully how I image a PC Linux Utopia vision looks like? Maybe i am not able to word it properly, my thought salad, but it feels like there is something missing in the Valve’s approach to challenging Microsoft’s grip on PC market
I’d love to hear your specific thoughts on that one.
My comment was less about anything technical with SteamOS, and more about its popularity and the influence of gaming on the enthusiast PC market. And I’m not assuming that everybody will install SteamOS on their desktop, just thinking that arch-based distros might get a lot more market share.
I haven’t even used it, honestly. Like I said I’m using mint on everything.
it is OBJECTIVELY linux mint. Why? Because.
this comment was written on June 2025. So as of this day Mint is fabulous. And if I were to save a single distro from a burning building of all the popular distros, i would grab mint twice.
I know I know, there are many good distros, even texhnically better ones. But having used Mint as a secondary dual boot to my primary Windows, I have felt that Mint has been least annoying and actually worth retaining and updating and maintaining.
Mint is great I use it on my desktop and laptop and have been for years (I switched when Ubuntu has that unity desktop period). For Linux it’s the most “it just works” distro for me. My second choice would be manjaro, but mint also has the advantage that there is so much help for Ubuntu you can find online, that usually also works for mint.
Agree 100%. The amount of “help” content and documentation, both formal and informal, for other distros doesn’t even come close to that of Ubuntu. It’s like tenfold more. And so 90% of it becomes immediately, if not applicable, alteast in the right direction, for Mint as well.
Check out EndeavourOS instead of Manjaro.
If you only saved Mint, then Mint devs would have to do all the Debian work too?
is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Well it takes like a thousand people to make Debian, so they’d need to do a lot of work.
hmmm… tough choice… i guess… I’ll burn them all! No biases then
I’m actually thinking about switching from Debian to Mint. I’m thinking that if Mint is the recommended distro for people new to Linux, they will need a big community to answer questions in forums.
Absolutely. They will.
With the momentum that Mint already has, it has the highest chance of succeeding as the primary distro for Linux newbies in the coming years.
some long winded thoughts…
Like every PC Semi-enthusiast sufferer of Windows, when I was looking for a Linux distro to respite, I deliberated way too long on which distro to use. Finally I realized that the way I use Windows, I’ll not be able to fully switch over to Linux anytime soon. So instead of burning midnight oil, one day i said fuck it, and installed Mint as a dual boot option. I spent quite a lot of time trying to make the Mint as close to my Windows setup as possible, but couldn’t do fully. Plus the VKD3D performance penalty for Nvidia GPU in DX12 games meant I was never going to ditch Windows as my primary gaming OS.
I did the same thing, but with ubuntu. Now, you and I can troubleshoot issues and have patience. But someone who is sort of reluctant to begin with, it’s a hard sell if there are hurdles.
I freaking love Linux Mint. I use it for myself because despite being the “easy” distro, it is still Linux. (Or as I like to call it, GNU plus Linux, lol) But you are still allowed to use the terminal, compile your own code, fiddle with your system, run docker, and generally do what you want with your computer without it bogging down to load ads for services that are already running in the background bogging it down more whether you pay for it or not. And since it is based on debian/ubuntu/apt, users benefit from that popularity when they look up how to do something.
I love it just as much for the non-power users. It is how I will allow my parents to keep their perfectly good laptop that collects dust instead of spending a thousand bucks on a new win11 laptop to collect dust.
Long term I assume that I will end up on Arch or a derivative, mostly thanks to Valve, on top of it being a good project to learn on.
so I’m not very knowledgeable about the Linux world, but I’m also not completely green. In my lifetime I have dabbled with trying out 4-5 distros either dualbooting or VMing, Ubuntu being my first experience.
But i feel like, as much as I love our Lord and Savior GabeN, what Valve’s doing with Steam OS is not fully how I image a PC Linux Utopia vision looks like? Maybe i am not able to word it properly, my thought salad, but it feels like there is something missing in the Valve’s approach to challenging Microsoft’s grip on PC market
I’d love to hear your specific thoughts on that one.
My comment was less about anything technical with SteamOS, and more about its popularity and the influence of gaming on the enthusiast PC market. And I’m not assuming that everybody will install SteamOS on their desktop, just thinking that arch-based distros might get a lot more market share.
I haven’t even used it, honestly. Like I said I’m using mint on everything.