I installed Linux Mint for the first time on my personal Laptop just a few months ago, and it ran so well that I didn’t want to mess with it to try out different distros.
But today, my company’s IT department announced that they have some spare old Laptops to give away (technically because they didn’t meet the specs for Windows 11, didn’t stop the IT department from giving them out with Windows 11 pre installed though)
So now I got a few devices to play around with!! They’re a Precision 7530 and a Latitude 7390 2-in-1!
I already got ZorinOS running on the little guy because apparently Zorin is nice for Touchscreen support. For the big guy I was initially thinking that I could try Bazzite, but the installer was like “Intel UHD Graphics aren’t really recommended” so I might try something else first. Any recommendations? I mainly just want to try as many different flavors of Linux as I can haha
Mint is very boring and middle of the road, exactly as a default recommendation should be. They are also very protective of the user experience. They are unlikely to embarrass me.
Mint has a familiar UX if you are new to Linux. It is not nearly as foreign or locked down as GNOME. It is not as configurable and complex as KDE. There are good GUI tools for most common tasks.
Mint does not change too rapidly or have too many updates but the desktop and tools are kept up-to-date.
They are being very conservative with the Wayland transition. But nobody on Mint is moaning that Wayland is not ready. They are very protective about the user experience.
And there is really no desktop use case that Mint is not suitable for.
I do not use Mint but it is a very solid recommendation for “normal” users.
I think Pop!OS is back to being that too and COSMIC is Wayland only (so no future transition to manage).
See this one is confusing to me. It is very different.
You are greeted after install to configure mirrors. What is a mirror? The dialog offers no help, there is no apply, or maybe this one. so you click “restore to the default”. What does that do? And then down the side what is a PPA? Should I have a PPA (answer is NO, you should not). Additional Repositories, auth keys, maintenance…Fix merge lists…
Where is the clipboard? Oh there isnt one. And typing clipboard doesnt offer one. Typing clipboard into software sources offers too many (25 of them!).
Mint is alright I don’t want to come across as bashing them. I just am surprised it is so highly recommended that is all.
I always broke it before long, but that is the Ubuntu curse: super fragile and always breaking.