Turns out the reply in my thread telling me the best way to combat not caring about Linux is to care about Linux was absolutely correct.

I picked up a laptop, installed Linux Mint Cinnamon, and I’m already obsessed. I haven’t had this much fun with a PC in a long time and it’s just a cheapo Dell Inspiron 3520.

  • danielfgomEnglish
    29•2 years ago

    Well done man. Great choice running Linux Mint.

    Don’t see it as just a “beginner distro” because it is the king of Linux distros. I’ve been using Linux for a couple of years and after much distro hopping settled on Linux Mint Debian Edition because Mint has it all: full featured Linux with a beautiful desktop, stability, polish and user freedom.

    • @[email protected]
      3•2 years ago

      This is exactly my experience as well. I started using Linux in 2007 with Ubuntu ‘Feisty Fawn’. I have used Arch, Fedora, Debian, Manjaro and a few others as daily drivers over the years, but have used Mint almost exclusively for the past 7-8 years. Recently also switched to the Debian edition. My servers mostly run Debian, but sometimes Ubuntu.

      • @[email protected]
        2•2 years ago

        What does the Debian Edition bring that regular Mint doesn’t? My headless server is running a Debian-based distro (Raspberry Pi OS), so most of my Linux knowledge is based on Debian. Would installing the Debian Edition of Mint on my laptop make more sense (in this case) than regular Mint would? Why did you make the recent switch?

        Edit: Oh, it’s “just” Mint with the Debian DE?

        • @[email protected]
          2•2 years ago

          I got tired of the advertisements for paid Ubuntu security updates in the terminal. That’s honestly the main thing. Overall, I like the idea of Mint being based on original Debian, rather than a derivitave of a derivative. I haven’t noticed any differences from the ‘normal’ Mint, other than what I mentioned about the terminal. I don’t think there’s any reason not to install the Debian edition, but the experience will be 99.9% the same either way.

    • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘English
      3•2 years ago

      I hopped between distros every couple months, then discovered Ubuntu, which I used for years. Then Unity happened. Mint for years after that. Budgie for a little while, but hated the UX similarities to Mac. Then back to Mint. Tried Ubuntu again, but still can’t do Unity. Now I’m Fedora Silverblue on one laptop and OpenSuse on the other. I’m loving both, but I’ll probably go back to Mint soon enough. Mint now comes with GNOME as an option, right? Meh. Even if it doesn’t, I can install the DE after the fact. I’m having a hard time deciding between KDE and GNOME, honestly.

      • danielfgomEnglish
        1•2 years ago

        I tried Artix once. It was very fast but I think there was some limitations due to no systemd with some apps that required the presence of systemd.

        It sucks that some apps must have systemd on the OS to work. I wish Devs would do that because it would be nice to also have the option of running Linux with non-systemd inits sometimes.