I’d like to hear people’s journeys and motivations from people who switched over the last few months, and if there were particular challenges that were faced.
I’d like to hear people’s journeys and motivations from people who switched over the last few months, and if there were particular challenges that were faced.
I switched to Mint in March. I have to use W11 for work and I thoroughly hate it. I did not want all the ads and AI stuff that come pre-packaged. I also did not want to upgrade my pc - I have an arbitrary rule that I’m only allowed new hardware every 10 years, so I have another 2 years left until I can upgrade.
So I used all my anger and pettiness, went on youtube to see how difficult it’d be to install Linux. The first video I found was Zorin vs Mint, and I thought Mint was a good fit for an absolute noob like myself. I really did not want to faff with learning commands and stuff so I was very pleasantly surprised with flatpaks and whatnot. Overall I’d say it was a very good experience, I’m just annoyed I’ve not done it earlier.
How do desktop functions perform on Linux Mint compared to Windows on your current machine, qualitatively speaking? I’ve kept my parents’ 13 year old laptop alive with Linux, a replacement battery and SSD, so 2 more years should be no problem unless your needs drastically change.
You’ll find there are dozens of ways to “install” an app on Linux, in varying degrees of portability, ease of install and ease of upgrade.
It’s an absolute joy, although I am a little annoyed at the random freezes I sometimes get, like when everything stops responding with no rhyme or reason. At least when Windows crashes, it crashes good and just reboots. But Mint needs a hard reset. Other than that, I managed to get all my games to play thanks to Lutris so I couldn’t be happier! I’ve had some tiny tweaks to make, for example my sound got crackly after some update, but thankfully there are tons and tons of troubleshooting that basically take your hand and guide you through what you need to do to sort issues. I’m immensely grateful for all those forums.
Your mention of a laptop reminds me I also installed Mint on my 16 year old lappy, it’s quite slow but it actually works with all the OG hardware (bar a new battery)!