If you’ve been thinking of switching to Linux, one of the options you may have come across is Linux Mint. What is Linux Mint, though, and should you use it?
What Is Linux Mint?
Linux Mint is an operating system (OS) that you can use to replace Windows on your machine, though you could also use it alongside it. It has much the same “feel” as Windows, though it’s a lot more intuitive and also allows you to tweak many more settings to your taste.
Within the wild abundance of Linux distros—think of them as flavors of the open-source OS—Linux Mint is based on the same architecture as the much more well-known Ubuntu. It’s maintained by a team of volunteers, headed by French computer scientist Clement Lefebvre.
The focus of the Linux Mint team is very much on usability. Unlike other Linux distros that leave you to figure out how to use them, Mint offers a lot more handholds. This doesn’t mean you’re restricted like with Windows or, worse yet, macOS, just that there are some guardrails that let you get acquainted with your new OS.
Linux Mint vs. Windows: How Different Are They?
Mint can do pretty much anything you need it to do. Like with any distro, installing Linux Mint can be a bit tricky, but once it’s living on your machine you’ll quickly find that you won’t need to adjust all that much if you are coming from Windows.
For example, you interact with Mint through a graphical user interface (often referred to as a GUI) that will strongly remind you of Windows, or at least from before Microsoft overhauled the experience. (Mint actually has several GUIs available, read about whether to go with Cinnamon or Xfce.)
You also control Mint through a similar menu, which is found behind where Windows used to keep the Start button—it even reacts to your keyboard’s Windows key, if you have one, which on Linux is nicknamed the Meta key.
From there, you can navigate to the many programs that come pre-installed, most of them reliable open-source alternatives to commercial counterparts. Instead of Photoshop you get GIMP as a free alternative, instead of Microsoft’s office suite you get LibreOffice, the list goes on (we have compared MS Office vs LibreOffice).
Note though that some people see this as a strike against Mint, as Linux users who want their OS “pure” feel it’s a little bloated. I don’t disagree with this assessment, in all honesty, and thus delete any programs I don’t use. With Linux, there’s no such thing as non-removable bloatware.
Adding and removing programs is easy, too, on Linux Mint. There’s a software manager that lets you browse to all the programs available via Mint’s main repository, which is a collection of all the programs that will work with it. It’s a one-click install, and it’s all free.
Living the Terminal Life
Another great advantage over Windows is that Linux has a much, much nicer terminal. Where in Windows the command prompt is something you use as a last resort, in Linux you can make it the centerpiece of your computing experience. This is a good thing.
Though the Linux terminal is slightly terrifying at first, once you get used to it you’ll quickly learn to love it. There are things that are simply easier to do in the terminal than via the GUI, and I quickly got the knack for figuring out what to do where. Launching programs is best through the menu, I’ve found, while manipulating files and their contents is often quicker with some terminal commands.
Mint vs Ubuntu: Is Linux Mint Better?
Of course, if you’ve already decided to move away from Windows, you may be wondering why you should choose Linux Mint over Ubuntu, the much more popular option and one that’s often lauded as the best Linux distro.
The argument between these two is one that has dominated many message boards over the years, with some excellent points made by both sides. Though there are some technical reasons to prefer the one over the other, something I get into more in my article comparing Mint versus Ubuntu, overall I think it does come down to personal choice.
For example, I switched to Linux mainly because I was fed up with Windows. I was using Windows 8 and it was awful. You had to make so many changes to make it work, and you even had to have a Microsoft account to log in, which disrespected my privacy.
However, I had grown up using Windows, and I didn’t want to completely re-learn how to use my PC—controlling your computer with the mouse is in many ways a good thing.
Linux Mint was a perfect fit for me, because it had the Windows feel. I had a start screen, I could find programs easily through the menu, and many things I could do simply by right-clicking, like customizing my desktop.
Ubuntu, on the other hand, felt more like Mac, an OS I have never gotten along with. I had my start screen, I could install programs via a window in a GUI, and if I ever needed questions answered, there were forums overflowing with helpful people—Ubuntu has all this, too, mind, this is purely about preference.
Having used both before settling on Mint, I recommend that anybody looking to switch over does the same. They’re both great OSes and work extremely well, without corporate shenanigans.
Should You Use Mint?
For me, Linux Mint has become my default OS on all my laptops and I recommend anybody to give it a try. You’ll never believe how much more free you’ll feel after leaving Microsoft behind, and the transition will be a lot easier than you think. If you want to give Mint a spin, you can download it from the official Linux Mint site.
