The Linux Mint team has just released Linux Mint 22, a new major version of the free Linux distribution. With Windows 10’s end of support coming up quickly next year, at least some users may consider making the switch to Linux.
While there are other options, paying Microsoft for extended support or upgrading to Windows 11, these options are not available for all users or desirable.
Linux Mint 22 is a long-term service release. Means, it is supported until 2029. Unlike Microsoft, which made drastic changes to the system requirements of Windows 11 to lock out millions of devices from upgrading to the new version, Linux Mint will continue to work on older hardware, even after 2029.
Here are the core changes in Linux Mint 22:
- Based on the new Ubuntu 24.04 package base.
- Kernel version is 6.8.
- Software Manager loads faster and has improved multi-threading.
- Unverified Flatpaks are disabled by default.
- Preinstalled Matrix Web App for using chat networks.
- Improved language support removes any language not selected by the user after installation to save disk space.
- Several under-the-hood changes that update libraries or software.
Okay so as someone who’s getting fed up with Windows and Microsoft as a whole, I’m interested in Linux.
I just wanna game and watch videos. Video calls n such with friends. Nothing too spectacular.
Now can someone who doesn’t work on computers for a living, or even isn’t a hobbyist programmer. Someone like me, who couldn’t write a line of code on their own, answer me how difficult would it actually be?
My biggest fear is that I’m convinced by all the tech nerds here who can of course run this no problem and don’t see why a beginner would struggle, and then my anxiety shoots through the roof while I have a breakdown because I just wanted to get home from work and relax and suddenly my PC is a paperweight.
Dead easy with Mint. I’ve been running it full time on my laptop for months now and my wife only recently came to find out it wasn’t windows when I was explaining Linux to her (and she’s not a technical personal - she’s the person who yells at TV remotes when they don’t work). Installation is super easy, much like installing windows - answer a few questions and off it goes. You can even install it alongside windows and pick what one you want to run on boot (I did this because of a couple windows-only apps I can’t ditch just yet). If you can figure out Lemmy, Mint will be a breeze too.
Do you sacrifice anything performance-wise by having the dual-boot?
After not even two years my beast pc I have for work has started giving me BSODs, apps crash, etc. Tried a bunch of stuff to troubleshoot hardware side, software side, short of buying new expensive parts like ram etc to test, or reinstalling the OS.
I do mostly video editing, sound editing, and Photoshop+Lightroom mainly, with some 3D, vector and stuff like that here and there. I think most of my software runs on Linux except the Adobe stuff. I’m curious to try Linux see if it would solve some of the problems but afraid that even the dual booting stuff would still be a pain if I need to switch between PS+LR to other tools a lot.
The other reply answered your performance question already, but to address your concern about switching between OS’s for different program needs - you could always run windows in a virtual machine on Linux and just use Windows and the needed Windows software that way without having to fully reboot into Windows. This is the direction I plan on eventually going someday with my own setup and using Tiny11 for a lightweight windows VM.
I just did the upgrade this morning. Shocker: super easy, went seamlessly, and didn’t make my computer unusable for a chunk of time like big windows updates do.
I recently gave thr debian based Linux Mint a try and I was pleasantly surprised.
I might ditch ubuntu for this.
Just curious, if you’re already using Ubuntu why try LMDE rather than the default version?
Of Linux mint. The Cinnamon edition that pulls a lot from Ubuntu as well as Debian. That’s what got upgraded to version 22, along with the could other flavors. But Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) does not follow the same versions & release schedule.
Mint’s ok other than that ubun taint
Years ago it was a one man show, not as much now?
I came & went from Mint 2010, I don’t remember specifics, something about network shares
My criteria is corporate or community?
Tinker or work?
Bleeding edge or just works
KDE/qt or Gnome/gtk, there are a few DE’s forked from Gnome
I like the consistency across KDE apps of being able to have a custom toolbar & shortcuts
I like community built, user friendly, KDE
Whatever you choose, install the meta package. You can add a DE, but you will have to chase weird crap & it will never be as good as a clean install
I like to install whatever I want to test on usb3 external nvme/sdd/hdd & use the Home [files] on the main machine or copy home as backup, best way to get the full effect of any distro
Just to be safe I like to have stuff from different parts of the linux world as backups
Debian
MX just works, been good since they got over their init fixation, got all sorts of user friendly stuff, 6 month release cycle, enough community to keep it working
I just downloaded Spiral linux all the nice touches, but updates direct from debian, kind of like the various arch installers, but not quite so do it yourself
I don’t really like synaptic, the text is too small, takes too long
Arch
Manjaro
As much arch as you want
Very user friendly, big community, Pamac [best package manager], rolling release
Red hat
Suze is having weirdness from corporate again
I’m on Mageia, a long history of user friendly [drak tools], stable, just works
Very good community, 18 month release cycle, nice online version upgrade, rpm packages
I love mint, and Fedora Cinnamon is my daily driver. My only problem with cinnamon is that wayland support is still being developed, so it lacks 1:1 touchpad gestures.
