If this question was asked before, I apologize in advance for the redundancy.
I recently switched from Windows to Ubuntu on my laptop. Still getting the hang of Ubuntu, but I see a lot of comments on different posts in which a majority of them point to using Mint instead.
Would the best recommendation, be to switch to Mint from Ubuntu?
If you’re already using Ubuntu, I don’t think it’s worth it. They’re fairly similar. Then again, I didn’t even get to install Ubuntu in the first place, the installer kept crashing.
Unless the laptop is a potato and you don’t have a better computer, you can try Mint, or any other distro in a VM to see for yourself.
And welcome to Linux. If someone recommends you Arch Linux, Gentoo or LFS as other newbie-friendly option, it’s a joke.
Thank you for the reply. Nobody has recommended Arch Linux, Gentoo or LFS, yet lol. But Im happy I switched from Windows to Linux. However, Ubuntu is taking me a bit to get used to. It took me a few days to get Ubuntu to even work. Thankfully, I don’t have anything on my laptop. I kept it blank for a reason to fly around and try out this OS.
It’s like a favourite drink, there’s no correct choice.
I quite like xubuntu. I know that linus tech tips recommended mint to people coming from windows.
Many have a live USB option, that’s great for trying them out.
Still getting the hang of Ubuntu, but I see a lot of comments on different posts in which a majority of them point to using Mint instead.
Ubuntu should be okay; it’s not necessarily a bad pick. However, the community has been upset with some of its past decisions and (more recently) the implementation of its vision, i.e. their enforcement of Snaps. This has eventually led to our current situation in which it has become popular to hate on Ubuntu.
Would the best recommendation, be to switch to Mint from Ubuntu?
Personally, I’ve stopped recommending beginners to Ubuntu. This is primarily for how the above mentioned enforcement has lead to broken unintuitive interactions. However, if you’ve already started using it and are content with what you have, then the negative sentiment by itself shouldn’t warrant a switch.
Though, granted, (I think) most Linux users have indulged in distro hopping; some have even made it their hobbies. So you shouldn’t feel bad about switching either. Though I implore you to practice best practices while at it:
- Keep using your home base until you’re certain of the switch.
- Don’t nuke your home base to experience another distro. Make ample use of live USBs, VMs and dual booting instead.
- Try to understand the difference between the fundaments and the auxiliary when experiencing new distros; i.e., what is and isn’t possible for you to import to your home base without outright switching.
Welcome to… being a normal Linux user
Switching distro is something every user does, thinks about doing, then does it again.
It’s normal. You just discovered a new way of using your computer, and opened a ton of possibilities in front of you, from customising your current install to the death thanks to the choice in desktops and display managers to just slap an entirely different distribution on your machine. A ton of possibles.
Try them out! There’s Live USB for about every one out there, but my favorite way is to dual-boot and see fully how the install process turns out, how the software management works, how updates occurs etc.
You’ll notice a lot is the same, a lot is different, and most any feature from a distro can be slapped on another!
To give you a taste, try openSUSE Tumbleweed - not because I think you should switch to Tumbleweed over Ubuntu, but because it’s quite different in a few key points, and I believe it is interesting for you: there’s this Rollback backup feature, a beautiful and quite simple installer, a polished user interface, a different software format, and a powerful admin tool.
Have fun with your hardware. Now backup your files and go crazy! So many out there!
(I started with Ubuntu)
I also love Tumbleweed and rock it as my daily driver!
To complement this point, OP, you can also get that sweet rollback functionality in any distro! Usually the easiest way is selecting BTRFS as your file system on install, and installing a software called “TimeShift” that will manage snapshots for you.
BTRFS can be complicated, but basically, it allows remembering the changes in files, without needing to copy the ENTIRE file. This saves a ton of space. (You don’t need to get into the weeds deep diving if you don’t want to. Snapshots are great, everything else is great, as long as you aren’t doing crazy specific RAID setups or something lol)
Otherwise, on EXT4 for instance, your rollbacks would just literally be copied files, which can eat your storage fast. :)
Tumbleweed is known for rolling (heh!) this in quite smoothly by default, but this is just an example how any distro can be tweaked how you like! (Highly recommend setting up Timeshift on ANY install.)
I absolutely second the advice in this comment: Try some live USBs or virtual machines and just play around for what feels right. Distro hopping can be lots of fun, but you’ll find one that “feels like home.”
:)
@MonkeMischief @reallyzen NIS is seriously broken in Suse and I’ve had a bug report in four at least four years and they won’t fix it. So no good in a network.
