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
Is there something wrong with mint?
Personally the ui looks a bit outdated and there's less customization than most other distros
The installer if pretty nice as is the post install I will give it that. Maybe that is the most important part.
I guess I just am surprised by how many people choose it as their "windows replacement" when it is very non windows like.
Also: it is ubuntu tainted, that is never good. Then cinnamin, mate, or lxde which are kind of a pain in the ass unless you are willing to put up with it because you like it.
Lack of any real searching in the ui, a terrible file manager, an older kernel, and so on.
I migrated my mother to GNOME (on Debian), that's very much unlike Windows, but she immediately got it. The overview of open programs is similar to what she knows on Android, for example. She is someone that struggles with email attachments from time to time, but GNOME works well for her.
It does not have to look like Windows to work for people. People use phones a lot more these days and those do not run Windows (hopefully, at least, cause that's dead).
If they have never used windows, most things will work. It is people coming from windows and doing more than email. Gnome is fine... If you don't do anything with it. If you do you are adding extensions.
Oh, you can do serious work with GNOME, most people try to force it into something that it is not.
This video gives a good overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbDLfRjam0E
I know many people that prefer GNOME for their work in IT. I prefer Sway, but use GNOME on phones and tablets, where it works great for me.
Yes I know gnome. Linux has been my primary OS since around 2001. It is funny because even in the video you shared, he suggests adding Gnome tweaks, which was kinda my point.
Personally, Gnomes constant movement drives me nuts, and the focus on one thing at a time is really a pain in the ass. But I do happen to have a laptop with it on it, and given the smaller screen real estate and the type of tasks I do with it, it works ok. Like you mentioned.
But for a windows user coming to linux It is all the little things, particularly the file manager and context menus. Why do I need to open an application when I should be able to right click extract to zip folder name, delete zip in one move?
Clipboard: Gnome has no clipboard. Unless you add an extension. This one drives me a little crazy because the clipboard I use is shared with my phone and tablet and has functions and actions.
And if you are fancy (like using Windows attempt at tiling) Gnome doesn't do that either.
I get people use gnome, but I find it tries to hard to be not enough. Why isnt the terminal in the file manager window when I want to work that way for example.
GNOME has a clipboard by default--actually it has two: Ctrl-C/X and middle click send to both clipboards.
As for terminal in the file manager, by default you can right click on empty space in the file manager and "open in console".
Well, yes cut/paste. But there is no built in clipboard that you can interact with. Can you open the clipboard and choose things from 5 items ago or yesterday for example? Looking at Gnome right now just to check, and it can only offer to add one or an extension. Funny playing with the default capture cased a clipboard emoji to go to the cut paste.
As for the console: you can open the console. But you cant have it be tied to the file manager. As in it opens a window in the file manager, and you can use both at the same time, including linking them if you want.
Seems to me that this is a good use case for an extension.
Which is what I said: gnome is useless by default, and then you start adding extensions to fix everything. Then they break on update and you realize why am I wasting time with this?
Breaking on updates is not good, I agree. I only use one extension (Tiling Window Manager), haven't had any problem with updates and don't find it useless by default. Would you agree that an extension-based design is OK here and the implementation needs work?
No. A functional clipboard in a gui based desktop environment is pretty much a minimal requirement.
The cant open a console inside of a the file manager I can live with, that is more a nice to have.
A matter of preference.
1 reason it's wrong to me: https://nosystemd.org/
Under "Notable bugs and security issues" there is a big list of issues which were all (afaict) fixed many years ago.
There have been reasonable philosophical objections to systemd, some of which are still relevant, and as that site shows there are still many distros without it, but for the vast majority of desktop users who want something that JustWorks... using a mainstream distro with systemd is the way to go.
This blog post from pmOS covers some of the pain of trying to use KDE or GNOME without it.
I suspected nosystemd.org had not been kept up to date with the issues... indicated by it proposing some distros that kinda dont exist any more.
Still worth consideration.
Some may realise they do not like that philosophy, and prefer a philosophy that empowers them more deeply with simpler software they could comprehend more easily in its entirety, than mere convenience of going with the popular thick opaque plastic wrap over complexity. Some may prefer a more unix-philosophy of "do one thing, well", than a gestalt of a pretense of that in a complicated monolith doing all things (arguably if not poorly, precariously, with a single point of failure/usurpation).
It’s interesting there’s still resistance against systemd in 2025. It’s running just fantastically in many distros. I don’t get the hate against it.