or a distro using kde plasma.
I’m a Linux noob so I put Mint on my PC. I like it a lot, very smooth and clean looking.
i have been using mint (cinnamon) too for like a year and a half. every now and then i try another distro and a few more, but i always land back where i started. it even looks pretty with the “sweet dark v40” gtk theme.
Weird everyone suggests Mint, when it’s way less user friendly then KDE Fedora. I mean, I guess on old hardware Mint is good, but anything newer (like the last 4-5 years) Fedora is pretty much set and forget.
Same with gaming, Bazzite is a WHOLE lot better than Mint.
Mint is on kernel 6.8 what are you talking about(Alteast mainline Mint not LMDE)
I’m on Mint 22 with current laptop hardware (Intel/Nvidia) and it’s been completely plug and play, even for gaming.
I absolutely love Mint.
Desktop has both Mint and Bazzite. I use both daily.
Mint can’t natively control my display or sound, and it has had issues with internet and the Nvidia graphics card before.
Bazzite can natively control display and sound, and I haven’t had to use the CLI even once.
New Lenovo Laptop I tried both too. The mousepad and fn shortcuts for brightness and sound didn’t work on Mint. Fedora mousepad works perfectly and fn shortcuts work
Old 8 year HP 4gb ddr4 laptop neither worked well, so went with a lightweight distro that was debian based.
Old 12 year HP 16gb ddr3 laptop; mint gave internet LAN issues and DVD drive issues, keyboard shortcut for brightness issues. Fedora XFCE no issues.
Friend’s 4 year old Asus laptop; Mint gave issues with WiFi, Nvidia graphics card, and controlling screen brightness. Fedora no issues.
Another friend had similar issues with their laptop on Mint but said no issues on Zorin btw, and Zorin also worked better on their mom’s old desktop. Both are debian based interestingly enough, but Zorin is sort of paid so makes some sense I guess?..
This is all anecdotal of course, but at least based on what I’ve seen, Mint has never been as beginner friendly as it seems compared to Fedora in that it usually requires more tinkering. You even see that here with the pro mint comments suggesting some use of a CLI.
Reminder for Windows 10 users who can’t upgrade to Windows 11
/s/can’t/won’t
¿Por Qué No Los Dos?
Serious question from someone who is in this situation: What the best os for someone who want to switch from window 10 to Linux because of the eol? Is it really mint ?
Whatever you pick, first test it by running it from a USB drive first.
I switched from Win10 to Mint, and am quite happy. You can get a lot of stuff done through GUI, so you can put off learning how to use the terminal a little. If you are worried about using it, I can recommend using ChatGPT. Helped me troubleshoot a lot of issues and learning a few tricks.
Mint is fine, Kubuntu is also great.
Kubuntu uses snaps as default and I’ve had some trouble with that. My dad is using Kubuntu and there are problems with how programs communicate. Mint is probably a better choice.
I’ll admit I’m biased because I think Cinnamon is ugly. Most people seem to like it and I get it. I just wish Mint hadn’t abandoned the KDE edition. Mint is definitely a great choice though.
First step: Decide on the so-called desktop environment. A shortlist is provided below. For a new user, this should be decisive when choosing between beginner-friendly distros.
Before going over to the next (and final) step, we need to set the stage for our contenders:
- Versions of Linux Mint. Linux Mint has (rightfully so) become the face of Linux for beginners. Stand out feature would be how crazy popular it is; it’s a joy to look up your problem through a search engine and find solutions for it.
- Images of uBlue. Where Linux Mint tries to smooth the rough edges of the “traditional Linux model” as nicely as possible, uBlue’s images can be referred to as revolutionary by comparison. The model strikes some (re)semblance to what you might know from your phone or chromebook. These images aren’t even close to reaching their full potential, but have already garnered/amassed a wide audience for how they (at least attempt to) solve some of Desktop Linux’ long-standing issues. Note that finding solutions for your problems might not be as straightforward. However, documentation is decent and they’ve been very helpful on Discord.
Final step: Pick the distro corresponding to your preferred desktop environment. The list found below (ordered alphabetically) isn’t trying to be exhaustive on desktop environments.
- Cinnamon; Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition. This is their flagship and probably what people mean when referring to Linux Mint.
- GNOME; Bazzite’s GNOME. If you don’t intend to game, then consider Bluefin instead.
- KDE Plasma; Bazzite’s KDE Plasma. If you don’t intend to game, then consider Aurora instead.
- MATE; Linux Mint MATE Edition.
- Xfce; Linux Mint Xfce Edition.
I wouldn’t go uBlue personally. It is very new and I don’t like the focus. Don’t go straight to immutable Linux.
Don’t go straight to immutable Linux.
My first foray into Linux was through what you’d refer to as immutable Linux; shortly after the release of Fedora Kinoite. I’m literally the embodiment of the antithesis to your statement.
It is very new
This is factually true. So I can’t simply deny that. But being more precise is helpful:
- Fedora Atomic, the family of distros that enable uBlue, has been in the works since 2014. This eventually culminated into the release of Fedora Atomic Workstation in 2018, which was the name of Fedora Silverblue before the name change.
- The first commit of uBlue as a project happened over three years ago.
- The 1.0 release of Bazzite happened over a year ago.
- By contrast, Linux Mint has been out since 2006.
and I don’t like the focus.
Could you be more elaborate 😜?
They will get a little more respect from me when they stop trying to target programmers and gamers. Because of course everyone uses Steam and VScode. It just feels very much like it is being run by young edgy programmers. It is the same group that is trying to force crappy “dark mode” everywhere.
What’s the bigger program is the lack of internet knowledge about how to fix problems. With Ubuntu and Debian there are tons of stack overflow pages on all of the various issues. Sure things have changed over time but it still the most documented distro. I can look up “how do I fix X Linux Mint” and I will get an answer. With the Bazzite immutable base almost all of the help online will be useless.
So in short I wouldn’t recommend something like Bazzite. Immutable Linux requires that you understand Linux under the hood. Also I am strongly against distros that need to market themselves as gaming.
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Thank you for the reply! And apologies for the late response*.
First of all, I owe you another apology for the deleted comment; I was still in the process of cooking and accidentally sent the undercooked message.
They will get a little more respect from me when they stop trying to target programmers and gamers. Because of course everyone uses Steam and VScode.
As per its README (I’m paraphrasing):
Bazzite started as a project to resolve some of the issues that plague SteamOS:
- Mainly out of date packages (despite an Arch base).
- The lack of a functional package manager.
- Issues pertaining to persistence of installed software across updates. (Reinstalling that obscure VPN software you spent an hour trying to get working in SteamOS isn’t fun.)
- No easy full disk encryption OOTB.
- No Secure Boot support.
Like, SteamOS is a pretty cool operating system that allows both Linux enthusiasts and Linux newbs to enjoy playing (most of) their favorite games on Linux. But the former may find it too restrictive, while the latter may want to import that experience over to other devices. Bazzite aims to be that solution. Were it not for the success of the Steam Deck (and by extension SteamOS), such pressing need wouldn’t even have arisen. So Bazzite isn’t trying to target gamers as “an easy way to attract users” (or whatever the insinuation may be); its raison d’être is to address SteamOS’ limitations.
Regarding the targeting of programmers, you could be right on that. But I suppose it’s fine as VS Code’s inclusion (and other goodies) is only confined to the respective
-dximages. I regard Bluefin (and Aurora; its KDE Plasma spin-off) as the opinionated distro its maintainers like to use for themselves (i.e. programmers). I’d argue this actually makes it suitable for most people. But your average Linux user is a lot more sensitive towards ‘bloat’. So it’s definitely not for everyone.It just feels very much like it is being run by young edgy programmers.
I guess my reply would be that I simply don’t feel that way. And factually, it’s being worked on by people that work (or have worked) at places like Canonical, Red Hat and (even) Microsoft. So, while that doesn’t necessarily dismiss them as being “young edgy”, it does make it easy to trust and be confident in their proficiency and competence. I wonder what other distros are maintained by such a star ensemble.
It is the same group that is trying to force crappy “dark mode” everywhere.
This is probably some meme or meta joke/reference I didn’t get. Please feel free to enlighten me.
What’s the bigger program is the lack of internet knowledge about how to fix problems. With Ubuntu and Debian there are tons of stack overflow pages on all of the various issues. Sure things have changed over time but it still the most documented distro. I can look up “how do I fix X Linux Mint” and I will get an answer. With the Bazzite immutable base almost all of the help online will be useless.
I admitted to as such in my first comment. But, what if, instead of looking up questions in your favorite search engine, you visit their support channels and get the exact answer within a couple of moments? This last bit has been based on my own experience*.
Immutable Linux requires that you understand Linux under the hood.
Instinctively, I just absolutely have to disagree on this. The most clear-cut counterexample would be how NixOS -the granddaddy of
immutableatomic distros if you will- doesn’t adhere to many Linux conventions (including FHS). Therefore, “understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood” might have even been detrimental and wasteful for the many things you’d have to unlearn.Beyond the overlap in Linux 101 that most distros adhere to and/or the basics everyone should know about their operating system, could you please demonstrate how “understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood” becomes necessary with atomic distributions?
mint is good, pop!os is also good, i use and recommend endeavouros as arch-but-easy. tbh just about any popular distro these days is prolly gonna do fine for the average user.
Anything Arch based has a higher chance of breakage. The trade off is that you get very new packages frequently
Such a decisive question. I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily a “best”. Mint is an EXCELLENT choice. So too would be Fedora (Fedora KDE edition I’d recommend for most) or OpenSuSe Tumbleweed.
Just pick what looks decent to you and give it a shot.
Mint is the best to start tbh.
And you could stay in mint for years and barely have to use bash, and when you do there is a well stocked forum, so it is sometimes even easier than windows to troubleshoot.
RIP your inbox lol. Like others have said though whatever you choose test it out booting off a USB first, fwiw I’d vote try FedoraKDE, but more importantly I’ll add this:
Whatever you choose it will be different and it will be an adjustment in some capacity, and that’s ok! And don’t be scared of the terminal, always keep back ups just in case but you really can’t fuck up tooooo bad unless you’re using sudo and then just be real careful. Watch a few youtube videos on something like “linux terminal basics” or “bash basics” and follow along like you’re taking a class, it’ll really help you get familiar with it. It’s a great thing to know how to use, these days if I know how to do it through the terminal I usually will instead of puttering through a gui honestly.
I recommend Linux Mint with the default Gnome/Cinnamon desktop. I think it’s the most “Windows-like” (You can add other desktops later on without having to reinstall anything. KDE Plasma is really nice). The installer found all my hardware for me and set it up, including my network printer. It installed my nVidia drivers (even gave me a choice of several with a ‘Recommended’ one at the top).
The LibreOffice suite is already included, which should take care of your productivity needs. (It recognizes and can read/write MS-Office documents). Thunderbird will take care of your email needs.
There’s also a utility called TimeShift, which works like Windows System Restore. Since you’ll be making a lot of changes the first month or so, it’s a great way to undo any screw-ups. Make sure you create a Restore Point before you do any serious fiddling. Even if you make your system unbootable, you can boot from a Linux Mint flash drive and run TimeShift that way, too.
Gaming is awesome. Steam has a native linux client, which uses a version of Wine called Proton, which has all the settings needed to run your games. Basically, everything I bought on Steam under Windows, runs in Linux. (NOLF 1 was the only game I couldn’t get to completely work. No music, I think the game uses DirectPlay for music, which no games seem to use anymore).
Distro-hopped a lot till I landed on Manjaro with XFCE desktop environment. Been daily driving it for about a month now without any complaints. There is an option to install with NVIDIA drivers as well.
praying for valorant to get a mac port before they kill win10. the second we get that port, i am nuking windows from my drive
I don’t think they are going to support Mac. If you want to play Valorant you need to have Windows on bare metal. The company ships mandatory malware and there is nothing you can do.
Ironically Roblox doesn’t work on Linux(On Wine at least not sober).
Using roblox to talk about linux
It once played perfectly fine under WINE, then Roblox explicitly blocked it for no good reason.
Microsoft added a CoPilot icon to my Windows 10 Taskbar yesterday. It looks to me like they’re not going to take “no” for an answer.
They also added a “it’s time to upgrade to Windows 11” full screen message on my login screen (with the option to decline in tiny text).
That was my thoughts, too. So, now I’m running Mint on my gaming PC and the one hooked up in my living room for streaming. I tried Kubuntu, and liked it, but KDE Wayland was giving me issues. Installing a different desktop environment just introduced more problems, so I went with a different distro with the DE I wanted, which was Mint with Cinnamon. Now, life is good.
Ughh my RDP into work is the only reason I have a minimal windows install :/
I love mint, but I can’t get work’s IT support people to go near it (needs the preshared key and some settings to get their Sharepoint VPN working). It grates having to boot into windows!
Really hope more people at work ask for Linux support and I don’t need 11, but not holding my breath. :)
What flavor do you recommend?
The Steam Deck and it’s desktop mode are why I decided to try jumping head first into a single boot of Bazzite on my main computer, it’s basically like using a Steam deck, just across four monitors, a year in and I haven’t looked back.
I learned of bazzite today and will be trying an install soonish
I put Mint on a PC for my dad because it’s first thing easy for him to use and second a 32-bit machine and Mint the best choice I found that runs on that.
Closer to the EoL time, someone is going to release a version of Linux that is basically windows, with a super locked down interface etc to make it so newbies can install and use with zero CLI or setup.
Or at least some serious consumer-grade onboarding.
Presumably it will have reduced functionality to make it as stable as humanly possible too.
And they’ll probably become one of the larger distributions until people get the confidence to “upgrade” to a more complex one.
If they can get a version that just runs all Windows programs (not just games) out of the box without user modification then great. I’d consider that to be an actual Windows replacement.
If all you’re running is a browser and some light office suite use then great, Linux can do that now. Otherwise what people saying “just switch to Linux” are really saying is “stop using your PC”.
is this not what the steam deck os will eventually offer? cause I can see myself using that on my desktop eventually
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Didn’t know that was a thing outside of steam deck.
But yeah I’m waiting until the last moment because it’s likely that’s when the best contender will appear.
I think they’re working on it, I could have sworn they said they were but a quick Google search shows nothing for me…
I saw someone posted bazzite as an alternative to steam os, but I’d just rather wait for whatever valve puts out at this point. I trust them to make it happen a little bit too much lol
