The only real issue with Ubuntu is it uses Snap app store instead of Flathub app store.

Flathub has more apps, is faster, and has some minor security improvements. Linux Mint uses Flathub.

HOWEVER, you can add Flathub as additional source in Ubuntu app store app, and use Flathub exclusively.

In that case, no real difference between Ubuntu and Linux Mint other than UI.

Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS (long-term support) releases, unless you go with LMDE which is based on Debian. There is not a major technical difference but there are political differences between the projects.

The main reason to go with Mint instead of Ubuntu is if you prefer Cinnamon over GNOME as I do, and want a distribution built around the Cinnamon desktop environment.

ubuntu makes controversial choices. Mint is explicitly user friendly, and its debian edition is like a bike with training wheels, getting you debian with extra "niceties".

LMDE (Linux mint debian edition) is, from my POV, the gold standard for noob distros. Ubuntu is explicitly like a tricycle but LMDE is like a bike with training wheels. You can eventually take them off for debian next time you change OS with less problems, if you want. I going from LMDE + Cinnamon to Debian + KDE shouldn't be an issue.

When Windows was my primary OS, I always used to lean towards Mint over Ubuntu on my laptop. Ubuntu never seemed to click for me and I'd revert back to Mint each time. Then in April 2025, I installed EndeavourOS as my daily driver and have really liked it. I don't miss Windows now.

It's really a personal preference. Download some LiveCDs and try them all, lol.

Ubuntu is fine, especially for a new user it's usually widely supported and has the most resources available.

I can't stand Gnome, though. I'd very much recommend going with Kubuntu.

I prefer Mint over Ubuntu because of the default desktop environment. Also, in Mint you can unintall apps directly from menu with right-click-uninstall.

Between those two, I would go with regular Debian, or Mint LMDE if it has to be one of the two.

Debian is much better about providing a reasonably updated desktop experience these days.

As for Ubuntu… Their engineering is bad, and they’re shady. They push their solutions over standard stuff, and their solutions are conveniently setup to allow them to close source the code if anything ever reaches wide adoption or are proprietary from the beginning.

Ubuntu is fine, though with the recent rewrite of coreutils I’d be concerned about stability and bugs. That said switching distros is pretty easy, trying other distros in a VM is easy too. I always keep my data on another disk so it’s never affected if I break something. I recommend Mint (LMDE version) and Fedora Desktop with whatever desktop environment suits you.

My complaint is that Ubuntu is flirting with becoming proprietary software. Don't get me wrong they're nowhere near closed source or such but still.

That and they have some mechanics that feel counter intuitive to me. (But that's personal taste)

I'd choose mint then. Just because it has a more "traditional windows" (don't think about 11, don't think about 11,.....vom) styled flow to it.

Both are a good as entry points ! But from what I have experimented with my friend and family that are also transitioning to Linux, Mint (Cinnamon version) is the best entry point you could dream of. They took the best from Debian and Ubuntu (not snaps obviously :p), and their desktop environment (Cinnamon) really does a great job at making you feel at home from the start when coming from Windows. Everything works out of the box.

Both are fine. Is it just a matter of preference on certain decisions.

Scroll past *** for what I think is most valuable advice

Ultimately, switching to Linux is preferable, regardless of which distro you choose, from an open source/FOSS mindset. I'm not a super techy person, and made the initial switch due to philosophical reasons and a deep, deep dislike of Windows.

Ubuntu catches a lot of heat for making controversial decisions that go against the beliefs of the FOSS community, such as proprietary app packaging with snaps, and back in the day straight up putting ads for Amazon in the os.

Mint is the golden child, mostly because it is directly based on Ubuntu, so it keeps 99% of the convenience and ease of use that Ubuntu is famous for, while removing the more controversial elements.

There is also LMDE, mint based directly off of Debian. Debian is the distro that Ubuntu, and many others, is based off of. It has a reputation for being very solid, but slow to adapt and offer new features. It is the safe, reliable choice, but "boring," so people fork it, and make newer more "exciting" distro from it. So Ubuntu is based on Debian, mint is based on Ubuntu. Linux mint Debian edition (LMDE) is based directly on Debian.

Mint's big thing is cinnamon, it's desktop environment.

Desktop environments are where I think most newbies should actually be spending their time considering, instead of distros.

You can change the DE on pretty much anything, but some play better with some distros than others.

Cinnamon is very windows like. It is customizable, recognizable to a Windows user, and makes the transition from windows easier.

Gnome, and gnome based DEs, like what ubuntu uses, are more Mac like. Flowy, opinionated, and visually quite modern.

Kde plasma is more similar to Cinnamon, and is the Mac daddy of customization. Wanna do a thing? Likely, Kde will let you or you can brute force it and get it done.

Personally, I am a subby little soyboy who wants Daddy to tell me what to do, so I fucking love gnome. I love the look, I love the feel of it, and the thing I love most is that, when I first made the switch, it wasn't windows. It was different, and that was fun and let me feel like I had really made a change, and that's what for the Linux switch to stick after more than a decade of going back and forth.

My actual advice for a distro is Fedora with gnome, and few extensions. But realistically, try mint, try Ubuntu, try whatever, but spin up a virtual machine and specifically try out different DEs (there are a bunch that I didn't mention) and see which one you like. The distro is secondary, especially for a beginner

Ubuntu is fine. When you get your PC, you can see for yourself and decide. If Ubuntu just works for you, stick with it, if it is a bad experience, try another GNU/Linux distro. Be aware though that the back end of the appstore in Ubuntu is proprietary/closed-source/nonfree/bad.

Escape Ubuntu snap Armagedon, go fedora kde...

Ubuntu has ads in the OS, mint dosnt.

Installed mint on my parents laptops so they didn't become e-waste when Win11 came out. They have no issues.

Being new(ish) to Linux since that time and I found that the main distortion are better than their sub "flavours". For me anyway. I didn't like Mint LMDE or Kubuntu etc.

Use whatever feels comfortable. Both are fine. People are complaining about micro annoyances that should not really affect you at first.

When you get comfortable with Linux, you'll also get to pick sides in micro battles like KDE vs Gnome, vi vs emacs, systemd vs sysv, flatpak vs snap and all the other wonderful my-side-is-better-than-yours fights.

i am finally hoing to try Linux!

me too! i love linux and would absolutely hoe for it if i could! lol

i'll recompile your kernel for a handjob... lmao

Just use Kubuntu

My only issue with Ubuntu is that snap feels fairly clunky. That's why I moved to fedora. Also, definitely worth looking at pop os. But, all of them come down to personal preference

I think these days, Linus Torvalds moved to fedora

Ubuntu is fine. Mint is fine. If you have a newer device id pick ubuntu over mint. Its a matter of preference. If your next PC comes with ubuntu use that and see how you like it. If you dont try out mint, try out fedora KDE as well.

I use Mint and it does everything I need right from the start. Plus the forums have answers to any issues I encountered

If it comes with Ubuntu and you like it, stick with it. At least give it a try. Everyone can tell you why they dislike it, but most distro hate/discussion is pretty minor compared to like Windows versus Linux discussion lol.

It heavily depends on your needs, wants, and expectations.

In simplest terms, Ubuntu is Mac-like and Mint is Windows-like. At least, on the surface. Basically everything else is feature parity, just requires slightly different arrangements depending on which flavor you're running.

I didn't much like Ubuntu as it feels too close to MacOS to me. Primarily because I don't really like that aesthetic. Ubuntu and Mint were my first forays into Linux as well, but this was also years ago when Mint was relatively new to the scene. While I personally liked the style of Mint, at the time it just didn't have nearly enough features for what I was into.

These days I settled on CachyOS which is a fork of Arch. Cachy is aimed at gaming, but comes with a very straightforward installer with a huge amount of customization options to really make the OS your own. That's ultimately what keeps me on Arch is the genuine ease of customization at this point. Rolling releases don't bother me as i used to do CyanogenMod nightlies and this is like the big boy version of that, but I also can fully appreciate wanting shit to just work.

That said, Ubuntu is arguably the most popular distro because of its similarities to Mac and the "It just works" vibes it tends to give off these days.

The best part of Linux is how easy it is to check out a new flavor and see how you like it. And once you do find the flavor that suits you, the mega nerds in that particular community have probably already figured out how to do that thing you want. And if those folks didn't for any reason, the folks at AUR* probably did.

*AUR = Arch User Repository and is an unregulated repository of whatever anyone clever enough to develop for Arch has come up with. Peruse and download at your own risk, but there's some genuinely awesome and useful tools out there.

My problem with Ubuntu is the way snaps are so closely tied to the distro. If they were optional, I would have just stuck with it. But I also like Mint anyway. It's just good.

Ubuntu is the only distro I recommend against. Too much shitfuckery from Canonical. It's basically the Windows of Linux distros. I recommend Zorin to new users.

I think most of the complaints are about some choices Canonical (the stewards of Ubuntu) have made in the last few years. Most notably recently is the change from gnu coreutils to the rust uutils coreutils rewrite.

Ubuntu is fine, people's objection to it is largely ideological. For a band new user you probably wouldn't notice. Ubuntu also has a more modern desktop than Mint, and a much larger user-base and therefore much more guides and support, though Mint is based on Ubuntu so it's probably not that different.

The big thing with Ubuntu is that you are sort of at the behest of whatever Canonical want. They have a track record of pushing their own way of doing things and not really giving a damn whether or not users like it. The big one is Snap, their attempt at a universal app packaging pipeline which uses a proprietary backend. Snap does have some benefits over flatpak from an engineering standpoint, but many dislike them. If you feel ideologically opposed to Snap, just use Debian, it's easy enough to install these days. It is also worth noting that Snap can be removed from a fresh install pretty easily.

Honestly, each has a different feel. You just have to get in there and see how it goes. When you land on the right one, you will feel it.

Pick any distro and just start trying to live your life in there. A lot of beginners, including myself, will distro hop on look and feel. Ubuntu looks neat or Mint is more like windows. Elementry OS has that glossy vibe. Which is all a ton of fun, but look and feel goes out the window when you find out that program you need for work is packaged as an RPM but not DEB and now you gotta install it from source. And don't get me wrong. Always tinker, research and discover solutions. I'm just saying as you get more experienced, the distro hopping decision becomes more focused on ease of use rather than look and feel. So save yourself some time and just focus on using whatever distro you installed. The sooner you start trying to live in a distro the sooner you see what works out of the box, what takes some tinkering, and what is just way harder than it needs to be. As you do research on the issues you run into you may find another distro is better suited to your workflow.

I have some systems with newer hardware that would probably work fine on Debian, but drivers aren't native and it's going to require installing from source/recompiling a newer kernel and troubleshooting for an hour or a day or days lol. In these cases it is easier to install a distro that already has the driver packaged in its repo ready to go.

I will say most of those issues lead me to and have been resolved by Fedora. But I still have a couple systems where Ubuntu is just easier for what those systems are doing because it has specific drivers ready to go easier than Fedora.

If you read this and are over there wanting the complete opposite experience to tinker with everything and have it be as hard as possible... See Alpine linux, which I will master someday lol.

Linux Mint Debian Edition

Just a heads up, Mint is an Ubuntu system with their customization.

I like the Cinnamon edition, personally. I have a laptop running it, and it's been a very smooth experience.

Normally I would say that you should pick the one YOU like. Because everyone has their own favorite. But in the case of Ubuntu, I would say you should go with any other distro. Ubuntu is becoming the Windows of the Linux community.

Flip a coin.

just use LMDE

have fun :)

Ubuntu does some things people don't like, but as a first distro I wouldn't agree that those things matter much. Especially considering that it's by far the most supported distro. Most Ubuntu support/info also applies to Ubuntu based distros, like pop os, which I also would recommend personally. Distro choice both matters and doesn't, with the caveat that it mostly matters what it's based on. Ubuntu based is going to give you all the easiest software support.