I think Mint is good enough. People will dunk on anything popular.
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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Mint was my beginner distro and is what I recommend. In my experience I was able to find a solution for most of my beginner problems by searching for a solution for mint.
linux from scratch /s
Linux Mint is good, Pop_OS! is good, Fedora is good.
Don't get mint if you'll get a remotely capable laptop or plan to game on it. Its so called 'modern' desktop environment (wich still defaults to the old X window system) feels awful to use imo and while the 'retro' ones are better there's no point in using them on a new laptop. Choose a distro that ships with KDE, GNOME, or a wlroots based desktop environment.
I've also had driver issues with it that didn't happen with Ubuntu or arch.
Pretty much every distro has a caveman compatible installer.
to those suggesting mint, any particular reasons to choose between Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce versions?
I personally use Cinnamon, which has a similar feeling to Win10. Very satisfied with it on my desktop. From what I've heard XFCE also feels similar to Windows, but I simply have just used Cinnamon ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Cinnamon or Xfce are more similar to Windows' user interface. Between those two, Xfce is more lightweight than Cinnamon. MATE is more for people who liked GNOME 2 and want that interface over what the current GNOME is.
Cinnamon would probably be the most friendly as a new user, but I personally haven't used it in years and I'm not familiar with its current state.
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I really like Fedora. Swapped to it a few months ago, my first time using Linux, and I've since only been using the Linux machine. With the KDE Plasma spin, it really is a near 1:1 UI to Windows.
I usually recommend Zorin OS to noobs, but personally I prefer arch based
mint is probably where you want to be. if you have performance issues with mint, consider MX Linux, AntiX, and EndeavourOS, in that order.
Pop OS has been pretty pain free for me
PopOS or Mint are probably the best for new users.
I’ve been using Mint and Pop!_OS on two different machines for a few years.
Neither has really required much from me as the user, although I have needed to use the terminal once on each of them.
Personally, I really like the way Pop does window tiling and workspaces.
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mint
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generally a solid choice
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you have a friend who uses it! big advantage
people who make memes about linux distros are in a lot deeper than you want to be. they have different goals.
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Mint is the best distro for the average user who doesnt want to tinker with their OS or doesnt want to waste time fixing issues.
IF Mint doesnt go well with your laptop, I would try out Fedora, which is more up to date with stuff and also very user friendly choose Fedora Workstation if you're feeling adventurous. choose Fedora KDE if you want a Windows like experience.
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memes dunking on mint are irrelevant. use what works for you & ignore the noise.
personally, mint lmde, based on debian, might be worth a once over. sounds like the stability aspect might be up your alley.
What spec of laptop are you thinking of getting?
Still shopping around, so nothing's set in stone. I'm not much of a hardware guy either, so the best I could tell you is just that I'm looking for something a step or two above 'bare minimum' for 2025. An SSD, fair bit of ram, ports for external storage so I can actually boot with another OS, maybe enough guts to run skyrim modded to the gills. Somewhere in that ballpark.
If you're getting a laptop with a graphics card, make sure you go with something by AMD. Nvidia cards will work fine enough, though for a whole host of different reasons, AMD is generally preferred for Linux.
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