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I Gave Up on Windows 11. Linux Mint Is Simply Better in 7 Big Ways (PCMAG) (www.pcmag.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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[–] 18 points 7 months ago (11 children)

I have used every Linux distribution for the past 20 years. I stayed with Linux Mint because it's up to date, pretty but simple, and reminds of Windows 98/2000, i.e. no fluff.

A good reminder that most versions of Linux now have a live ISO version that doesn't require you to install it and destroy your computer in the process.

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  • [–] 25 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    There's also this if you want to do simple tests for a lot of different distros

    https://distrosea.com/

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago* (5 children)

    One can argue that Linux Mint isn't that up to date. But in my opinion, it's up to date enough.

    It's new enough that you're not living in the digital medieval era, and at the same time, any software installed is for the most part mature, well tested, and stable. And I find that more important than bleeding edge versioning.

    And on the few occasions where I need something newer than what can be found in the standard repos, there's always the option of building from git or adding additional sources.

    I've been a linux user off and on in varying capacity since the 90s, combined with some FreeBSD, but linux was only a secondary OS on my desktop until I made the complete switch once I saw the trajectory of Windows 8.

    Mint reminds me of how Windows 7 was designed: Simply a good OS.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (3 children)

    I think it might give you problems if you try to install it on brand new hardware though, because Mint uses an older kernel by default

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, but it's easy to work around.

    Source: I bought a brand new Lenovo Legion autumn 2024, and the GPU needed a very recent nvidia driver, which in turn needed a newer kernel than what was available by default. I had to install a mainline kernel, and download nvidia driver from their site. Took maybe 30 minutes to get it up and running properly.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah but it's harder when something else is incompatible, like WiFi on a laptop, or Ethernet on a desktop. Not so easy to update the kernel without internet. I wonder if it would be possible for the installer to include multiple versions of the kernel to choose from.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    You've never had to bike over to a friend's house 8km away to download a modem driver and copy it onto a floppy and bike back home only to realize that the floppy had bad sectors and you had to do it all over again, and it shows.

    That's just the way network hardware has always been, regardless of OS.

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