This is a great distro. I've supplied this to single moms who need computers for their kids. I can use older machines which are cheaper and they love it.
That's great! The older hardware may not last forever, but it'll do them good for quite a while, rather than throwing away the old hardware and spending a ton on new computers.
How old hardware can you use it on? I got an old gaming desktop that ran win xp with asus p5k mobo and 7990 video card. Its been retired for a bit but if it can run mint maybe I can give it away instead of putting it in the recycling bin.
I have been using Linux Mint for at least 5 years on a daily basis in a professional setting and I never look back. It's a fantastic distro that "just works". Kudos to the Mint team and thanks for your great video!
We must be cosmically connected. I just last night downloaded and flashed a USB boot drive of Linux Mint to install today. Excellent again sir! Hope you are well!
100%. For new linux users, there is no better hassle free distro than Mint. Kudos to Clément Lefevre and his team for an unwavering commitment over the years to develop and polish this Linux gem.
The best Linux distro for me as well, although I chose MATE instead of Cinnamon. The proper usage of Desktop icons, system tray icons, minimize/maximimize/close buttons and the overall choice of configuration tools make this the PERFECT working environment for me. This is how a DESKTOP operating system needs to operate.
MATE: easy to learn, visually direct, and comfortably traditional. The MATE desktop does not get in your way: you simply get things done. Just click the Menu button and launch the apps!
I agree as well, - there's something wrong with Cinnamon, and CPU load and lags are the least of those concerns... IMHO Cinnamon does not offer ANY extra functionality...
As someone who is playing around with Mint 20 with the Cinnamon desktop having used Mint 19 before that, I’ve made a few observations: * The System Settings app is basically seems like it’s modeled after the macOS System Preferences app which organizes all the different “System Preference panes” into rows based on general categories. What differentiates Mint from macOS here is that you can also access the system preferences options via the preference menu item in the Mint Menu where upon you are presented with a list of options you can choose from which loads a separate app for each preference category. The System Settings app just basically provides an alternate interface for accessing these all in one app. Since all these Settings apps are really doing is just editing a text-based config file store in a system directory, you could actually manually adit these settings yourself and in some cases you need to to config advanced settings not made available via a settings app, such as setting refresh rate before Mint 20. * Warpinator is very much like the Airdrop feature in macOS & IOS/iPadOS. * Mate by the way is a fork of the discontinued Gnome 2 desktop (Pronounced Gu-nome not like the garden gnome) by an Argentinian programers who didn’t like the direction Gnome 3 went in. Cinnamon is an attempt to take certain things people liked about Mate/Gnome 2 and merge them with certain updated features of Gnome 3 to form something of a compromise between the two. * For anyone who doesn’t know this already, if you want to try one of the other desktop environments after installing say the Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition then you can do so by simply downloading it from the software store. This includes other options such as KDE, for example. Once installed, you can choose which desktop to use for your user session via a button on the login-in screen. Thus you can have multiple desktop environments installed at the same time or switch between as you like. The KDE desktop environment comes with a number of apps specifically written for it that are installed when you install KDE and these run under Cinnamon too. These includes some games, an alternate text editor and terminal app, graphics and media apps, and many others utilities and apps. You can install these apps separately from KDE itself but I believe you will have to still install parts of the KDE desktop software needed to allow these GUI apps to run under Cinnamon (some sort of KDE API layer I believe).
Well, all I have to say is...color me impressed! I started my Linux Mint install at 5:30 PM, it took me until 7:00 PM to install the OS, fix the missing WiFi connectivity issue (put the install media back in the DVD drive, run Device Manager to load the proper drivers, then reboot and configure WiFi), load Zoom and Chrome (required for class) and confirm functionality. As compared to my first Linux experience back in 1997ish, which was a Red Hat distro with lots of icons on drop down menus that didn't work, absolutely no standard of comparison. This is far, far superior - best of all, Win 7 is still available via dual boot. Well done! 👏👏👏
Only one issue, with a simple solution: while setting up my printer (HP LaserJet 6MP via parallel printer port) I had some difficulty with really slow printing (12-15 minutes to print a test page). Apparently during the upgrade from 19 to 20 the printer drivers got broken, and the solution (for now, anyway) is to use a USB to parallel printer converter cable. Swapped in a different cable, and a test print now takes about 15 seconds. 👍
I've been using 19.3, Cinnamon for a while, and I'm very happy with this OS. It gives me a comfortable user interface, as a former Windows user, and gives me pretty much all of the same features that Windows did, even down to formatting USB drives, networking, and fast operations. I'd expect the same from 20x, but will also likely wait a couple months before making it my 'daily driver'. You can tell the pioneers - they are the ones with the arrows in the back!
That "comfortable user interface" has nothing to do with Mint, that is just the DE (desktop environment), you can use Cinnamon on any distro. Cinnamon is nice, I use KDE though (and I experiment with tiling window managers). It seems a bit faster and I love the window rules (no titlebar and buttons in my case). "formatting USB drives" is just a matter of a third party program which you can also install on any distro (all software on Linux).
@@twb0109 It still is not an intrinsic part of a distro because you can interchange it. You can put any other DE on Mint and Cinnamon on any other distro and functionally nothing changes, just the big buttons on which users click.
Love the old school feel of this channel, its very 80s/90s BBC TV! Well explained content too. For me I've jumped ship from Ubuntu and am now sitting happily in the Linux Mint camp. The implementation of Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04 was I think a huge mistake, and my signal to move on to a new distro. I love how Mint feels familiar in the daily use of the OS, but also distinctly Linux... Its like WIndows 10 but with the crap removed, and Ubuntu without the pigheadedness!
I agree about Snaps, especially when several months ago I played around with Ubuntu some and had several Snap apps that just would not run. Even deleting the entire Snap framework and going the regular .deb route with Ubuntu had problems. No distro I ever use from here on will include Snaps. Mint has been amazing.
I never thought that Mate was due to the drink, which is traditional in my country (Uruguay) as well as in Paraguay or Argentina. If anyone wants to know it is like a tea and can be drunk with cold or hot water and bitter or with sugar, but the traditional way is hot and without sugar. It is a tradition from many years ago among the Gauchos (cowboys) to drink it in meetings and share it among friends while singing typical songs around a fire. Also in my country it is very common to see people of all ages drinking it in public areas (of course, not right now due to the pandemic). Thank you Christopher for such an interesting video as always.
@@Sebastianlogin No sabia que en Peru tomaban mate tambien, se que en algunas regiones de Brazil lo toman. No conozco el origen del mate pero imagino que es mas una tradicion de culturas indigenas. Seria interesante saber como lo preparan ya que hay varias formas segun los paises. Un saludo y gracias por el comentario ;)
Uy !! El Mate si que es horrible, de los brebajes de América del Sur creo que el té de Coca es mejor y más nutritivo. Nosotros en Costa Rica no ocupamos Mate, acá degustamos el mejor café del mundo, es tan delicioso que a veces me tomo 8 tazas, creo que por eso tenemos un montón de Peruanos y Argentinos que no han querido volver al sur desde que probaron nuestro cafecito.
I first tried Linux in the early 2000s and then as a main operating system in 2010. I was so happy to go back to Windows (XP at the time) and fairly quickly too. Professional applications and specialised programmes were either poorly implemented or unavailable on Linux at the time. Reliability and niggles always were popping up. Very annoying and unacceptable for any serious user. I dabbled a few more times, but had avoided Linux a bit, in around 2017 I tried again and was shocked with the gigantic improvements all round. The kernel had matured to become seemingly stable and bulletproof. The fact most people spend 99% of their time on the browser it makes it a rather moot point these days. I would now happily swap over. Linux has come of age AT LAST! It is smooth fast and reliable with whatever distro you care to choose and capable of doing any task often using less machine resources. I also have an old laptop now running a lightweight distro and it has saved that machine from the scrappers. Really runs well. Love your videos...I almost believed I was watching on the BBC. (When it had programmes like yours).
I remember trying Red Hat, and Mandriva back in the late 90's. The problem was always no drivers for the video adapter so it ran 640x480 16 color mode. Even if it did have support for that video adapter it had better be ISA or PCI. Using one of those "AGP" video cards was asking for trouble. Many times there were no sound drivers unless it was a "Creative Sound Blazster Pro or 16", and no modem drivers available (Win Modem). If you didn't have a 3com, or Intel NIC you could forget that working as well. Printer or Scanner drivers were almost none existent unless you had a dot matrix printer. USB support was hit or miss so you better stick with the PS2 or Serial mouse. Now it's different as Linux usually picks up devices better than Windows 10. That's really saying something since Windows 10's hardware database and driver updates are mountains above what they were for Windows 7. Linux to me then, was for machines that sat in a corner and chugged serving files, DHCP, Gateway / Proxy duty, webserver, or email.
@@LionWithTheLamb Those are some memories. I used Red Hat back then. Probably 4.2 or 5.0. My machine was pretty well supported as it was a 1994 vintage Pentium 90 (with the then-famous FDIV bug.) I didn't get into using it as my desktop until the early-mid 2000s.
Martin D A, I 100% agree. Your history is similar to mine, to the point of bring some memories. Tried Linux (Red Hat and other distro I can't remember) in early 2000s, when it was trendy but came back to Windows 98 in a hurry. Today we have some great and easy to use distros but most because that bearded old farts developing it threw the towel or simply died, otherwise we would not had even mouse or a graphic interface. Many of the obstacles to make Linux popular were overcome, but to my view, the road is still long. Too many distros, too many egos, and too many pitty bureaucracy like that Chromium browser thing explained in the video. For a non-initiated, the amount of distros is daunting. Thanks God we have people like Chris who explain complex things in a calm and pleasable manner. . As for Linux Mint, is it really necessary to download a +100MB app to create a bootlable media (that Etcher app)? I mean, just one screen and a couple buttons? Ah, and it's Windows 7 forward, so if you have a spare computer with only Windows XP or Vista, you can't create a simple flash drive. As I said, the road is still long.
Yeah, it can run 20 percent of programs of windows now, use wine and you can bump that up to 80 percent but not stable, i pulled these numbers out of my ass but I'm betting I'm pretty generous with these numbers.
As always, a great presentation. Good to get the low down on Mint 2.0 from somebody so knowledgable and patient enough to clearly explain how it all works. Thank you, Christopher, and I have shared this video with friends.
Have played with Linux for over 20 years, this is by far the best distro that I have ever tried. Might finally make me a believer. Have switched 3 computers from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. After several weeks of use I am quite happy ..
Great video. I love Mint for new users. (I use Arch, BTW). Just a note: Xfce was originally written in X Frameworks, hence XFCE (X11 Frameworks Common Environment). However, it is no longer written in XF, and thus is now (per the Xfce team) simply written as Xfce, not XFCE.
Great video, Thanks Chris! One note; Warpinator can be loaded onto any distribution and will transfer files between any of those distros. Warpinator is also already in the AUR (Arch repository).
I found that Linux Mint makes it very easy to make a bootable USB stick by simply right clicking on the downloaded ISO file and selecting "make bootable USB stick". When I upgraded to LM20 and found that the Chromium browser was no longer routinely supported, I found that the Slimjet browser was an excellent substitute being based on Chromium. Slimjet can be downloaded as a .deb file. Thanks for the review.
Thank you for the detailed explanation with regard to the differences between Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce installs and their resource requirements, that was most useful. I've used various Mint flavors for several years now, and they have been excellent for me. Haven't installed Mint 20 yet though I get reminders that it is available... sure looks like a worthwhile upgrade.
This video convinced me to dive into Linux. I tried Mint roughly 5 years ago and I couldn't get into it. Now I'm dual booting Windows 10 and Linux Mint and I'm slowly growing and learning Linux and really enjoying it. Thank you so much for bringing Linux Mint back to my attention. I wish I could have had a computer teacher like you in school.
Mint is one of my favourite, great distro. On cinnamon, for daily tasks, fast & reliable, runs smoothly. I like warpinator, very appealing. And this Borgish green desktop, calming. Time to test new Mint. 🤖👌🏻 Greetings Chris. I hope you are doing well, stay safe! ☀️
I have been using Mint+KDE for a long time and installed Mint 20 recently. I tried Cinnamon for a few days but after using KDE since about its beginning I find Cinnamon rather lame. So I installed the XFCE version of Mint 20 and added KDE. I use surplus Dell Optiplex hardware from our local University. Performance is good. I remember when we had 10 char/sec hardcopy terminals and the fantastic performance of the new 30 char/sec terminals, then CRTs, the VT100s, WOW!. So if something takes a half second or more on my current machine that is just fine. Instantaneous performance is not necessary for me. Reliable is more important which is why I use Linux and not Windows. I enjoy your videos, Chris. Well done. Keep it up.
@@kilosierraalpha okay! Out of the three versions of Mint 20, what would be the best for my system? Specs: - CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 245 - GPU: GeForce 6800 GS - RAM: Corsair 2x4 DDR3 - MB: Asus M4N68T-M LE - SSD: ADATA 240gb SU630 - HDD: WD 120gb 7200 RPM - OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 I do plan to upgrade to the AMD Phenom II x6 1090T processor, (6-core) The OS is on my SSD, and HDD contains games, and media, documents.
@@SRC267 If you have not used Linux Mint before, I would suggest you try Cinnamon. Your specs are better than my own computer and Cinnamon runs fine on my Desktop.
@@SRC267 the biggest issue with your build (aside from it just being old) is the Geforce 6800. Nvidia in general can be hit or miss (they have a history for not being very cooperative with the linux community), especially with older GPUs like your's as its in the "too old; no longer supported". I actually recommend an AMD GPU that is at least GCN1.0 so that you can use AMD's own amdgpu driver (after enabling support for GCN1 and 2) which works very well. See here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_HD_7000_series (GCN starts with the higher end of the 7000 series and on). If you don't do that, you may be forced to use nouveau, the open source nvidia driver made by reverse engineering...which has been hot garbage when I tried it in the past. If Mint's driver manager can grab a usable one for the 6800 as the proprietary driver, always try that first. As for which desktop to use, I recommend MATE or XFCE as they are lighter on resources. Cinnamon may be a bit touchy with your 6800.
@@JerichoKru well, I've just downloaded Cinnamon now before reading this. I also did have to find legacy drivers for this card to get it working with Windows 10.
A week ago, I refurbished a 9 year old 27 inch iMac, by disposing of the HDD, replacing it with an inexpensive 256GB SSD and installing Linux Mint on it. The older, 'thicker' iMacs are easy to do a swap out of the HDD to SSD, because the screen isn't glued on (unlike the thin edge iMacs). Installing the OS was quick, so converting a big old silver paperweight into a usable system only took about 45 minutes. Overall, it was a very polished off result!
As a few have said in comments that they are now running Mint 20, I want to let you know I just yesterday installed 20 over my in place 19.03 and it went without a hitch! Very impressed with the upgrade procedure with a couple of exceptions of minor importance. It deleted a WOL package I was using, completely disappeared, and gave me 2 sound icons in the task bar. The second of which disappeared today by magic! That's all after I ran a Backup and Snapshot for good measure before taking the plunge so can now say 'go for it' if you are inclined. Only thing I didn't do was wear a full face mask while upgrading, ho hum. Well done Christopher for bringing this to the masses attention. I too love it.
Another great video! I think I just might give this a try. Forgot all about linux being awesome and free. Also love the old school feel and no nonsense style of your videos. No 5 minute stories at the start telling us a back story about "how you found this Linux distro" or low key flexing "my friends over at the mint team have just come out with a awesome new linux distro". Etc. Thats just you telling us the the What, How, and Who, of the info. And BTW ! Thats a proper PC technicians desk!!! Keep up the awesome work.
I love that you mentioned the unsettling transition between Windows 7 and Windows 8. I needed to replace a dead laptop right around the time of the release of Windows 8. I was not prepared for the horrors that awaited me. I found it to be terrible and that's what finally drove me to Linux as my primary OS, though I was able to obtain an official copy of Windows 7 for that machine to get me through the first few months. I've used Mint for the majority of my time on Linux. I even put my parents on Mint, which says a lot about how easy it is to use. I've done my share of distro hopping, for various reasons, but I find that Mint is simply the best for my needs for now and I always come back to it. But there's a reason I still keep my eye on other distros. For me, Mint was nearly perfect in the 17 series, specifically 17.1 Cinnamon which I used. After that, things changed. Series 18 added new features I didn't like, which added a bunch of hoops for me to go through in order to get things set up to my liking. It also broke the default network manager for me. That was an Ubuntu issue, perhaps even Debian. My wi-fi would rarely connect and wouldn't stay connected. This was fixed by using WICD as my network manager, but it took a while to figure that out. And in series 19, Mint added more hoops to go through, as I hated the facelift to the default desktop and panel with the grouped programs without labels. On top of that, it wasn't obvious how to go back to the classic look, under "first steps" I believe. So as new editions come out, it takes longer for me to reach a set up I like, which is quite annoying. And the MATE and XFCE editions have their own issues to get around, such as performance issues and desktop compositing.
I hated Windows 8 when it first arrived, but last year when I was looking for an alternative to Windows 7, I discovered a very handy free app called 'Classic Shell' that basically transformed the old Windows 8.1 start menu into a lovely Windows 7 one. Since discovering that, I've been using Windows 8.1 as my daily driver and it is just like being on Windows 7, but with a few nicer features like the SSD optimization and the new task manager. I intend to stick with it until Jan 2023, when it finally stops getting security updates. Classic Shell (or Open Shell as the newer one is called) can also replace the awful start menu on Windows 10 too. I've got Linux Mint on a test rig for now, but I expect to transition across fully once Windows 8.1 becomes EoL.
If you're a Windows refugee like me Mint is intuitive, comfortable & familiar right out of the box. (Mac users should feel comfortable too with a few tweaks.) Everything is where you expect and works MOL like you expect. I've tried a good half dozen distros and Mint is by far the most stable and reliable. Even the touchscreen on my hybrid laptop/tablet Fujitsu T734 works well (tho not perfect). No more distro hopping for me.
Indeed. Four out of the five computers my wife and I have now run Mint 20 MATE by default and it's excellent. The fifth is dual boot and only has Windows for 'legacy' purposes. I regard Windows as "yesterday's OS". 😁
@@VulpisFoxfire I hear ya loud and clear... I wanna put Linux Mint on my digital Dec PC rebuild then get VMware or some other decent virtual machine software and put windows 10 pro on it for steam and such
@@VulpisFoxfire There is a very good selection of Linux games on Steam, many of them ports of well known Windows games. I play TF2 on Linux often, and I get a higher frame rate than the same game on Windows.
I use Fedora 32 with Gnome on my school laptop. Originally installed 31 and upgraded via the GUI. Over the past few years a lot of Linux distros have gotten extremely beautiful to look at and are now very easy to use, even for beginners. I prefer Gnome because of the fast switching between my open applications and because of its sleek design. I don't want a messy start menu or desktop. However I do understand that some people want a more practical system. The most important thing is, that you use Linux! Doesn't matter which distro or desktop. Thanks for the video! Edit: typo
Watched your video and been wanting to try Linux for a while so took the plunge on an old Lenovo idea center, it was originally Windows 8 and upgraded to Windows 10, and became so slow it was a nightmare but always reliable and just used for browsing and watching movies, etc. What a difference Linux mint made it's even faster than when new, does everything I want from a basic system and seems to have lots more potential. A big thumbs up from me
The struggle between open standard procedures for system tasks (like installing and upgrading softwre) and proprietary "improvements" to lock users into environments appears to be endless. Don't let the lure of the "new shiny" lead you into the spider's parlour. Fortunately, even in the nadir of the Windows hegemony, the resistance survived, and we can hope it will thrive.
I'm so glad you mentioned how you can download and use Chrome as an alternative to chromium since I'm new to the Linux Mint world and some websites won't work properly on firefox.
Try brave, then. More privacy control and runs everithing like chrome/chromium. (Although I use firefox, because I love how deep I can go in the about:config settings to make it work as I need (and to respect my privacy as I deserve))
Samantha Anders nah. Mint is great for new and experienced Linux users alike. While I use Slackware and KISS Linux for more hands-on projects, it’s great to hop on Mint for other tasks, when I don’t want to bother tinkering or tweaking. It’s all Linux under the hood anyway :)
@Samantha Anders Though I am 100% on the Arch train (it really is the best distro for gaming) I have to agree with Mitchel that Mint is not ONLY for novice Linux users. Mint does specifically cater to novice Linux users but at the end of the day all Linux distributions which use Debian-packages can be tailored to whatever your needs are. It just happens to be that on some systems (Arch) it takes a bit less effort than on others (Ubuntu-based). As Mitchel says, under the hood it is all just Linux. But by default on any Ubuntu-based distro you get older software.
@Peter Jansen @adventureoflinkmk2 speaking of Arch, I know that the aforementioned ePSXe program is in the AUR. For other distros, one must either compile from source or download the Linux ePSXe zip file from their website. The AUR never ceases to amaze me! 😃
@Raphael Silverstone my only gripe with *Buntu is that as said trying to get ePSXe to work in it is a nightmare. Even if I download the Linux 64-bit version
You are the go-to chap for sane & calm explanations. There is something very reminiscent of RISC-OS in Cinnamon. I think I just time-warped back 30 years!
A local computer guy said Linux isn't suitable for ppl with basic computer skills, so I'm not sure what to do as I didn't want to move my parents' old XP computer over to Windows 10. I don't know if I'd need to upgrade the older computer or whether Linux Mint would run fine on it as it is. The local guy offered me a refurbished pc with Windows 10 on it - exactly what I wanted to avoid. Knowing that Mint runs out in 2023, he suggested Ubuntu, but would it be too complicated for my parents? I could set up the computer myself with advice from this great channel, but I'd like to know whether it would even be feasible. Thanks guys.
@@Uniq_Jer31vs33_GodHearsAndSees It sounds like the computer guy wants to sell you stuff. Linux Mint is a straight-forward Linux distro to use, and all that most people with "basic computer skills" want and to do these days is to run a web browser, maybe a word processor, e-mail package, watch videos, view and edit photos, etc. And all of these is easy to do in Linux Mint. With regard to Linux Mint "running out in 2023", I presume you are referring to Linux Mint 19, which offers a 32-bit version? This indeed ends support in April 2023. If you need a 32-bit OS then most major distros cease 32-bit support at this time. So you need to find out if the PC has a 32-bit or 64-bit processor. If 64 bit, there is no problem as you can run the 64-bit version of Linux Mint which has long-term-support. If not, it sounds like you have little to lose migrating the machine to Linux Mint 19 32bit. OK, so support will end in 2023. But support for XP ended a lot of years so, so you will have improved matters in terms of security anyway. And beyond April 2023, using Linux Mint 19 without support will still be a lot safer than using Windows XP. Good luck!
@@ExplainingComputers Thank you so much!!! I did wonder about that. And thanks for the really detailed explanation, I am so appreciative of that. You really do take an interest in your subscribers/ commenters. How long do you think it would take to set it up, roughly?
@@Uniq_Jer31vs33_GodHearsAndSees If you do want a 32-bit OS that's like Linux Mint, may I suggest Linux Mint Debian Edition? Instead of being based on Ubuntu its based off Debian, which Ubuntu itself is based on. It gives the same user experience you would find on the standard Linux Mint edition, but has 32-bit support.
I have migrated to linux before MS stopped supporting windows 7. In about a year, I learnt to use GIMP, Blender video editing, audacity, and ‘command line’. Best of all, python. which lead me to flask, panda, SQL. I was able to built a home webserver with a Pi4. Which i am very proud of. I am sure I could not have learnt all that, if i have stuck with Windows. My first Linux experience was Linux Mint. I later use Linux Mint 18 from USB drive for few months to see if I can live without windows, and I didn’t look back. To anyone who like learn Linux, network and Python, or let their children learn them, i recommend getting a Raspbery pi4, install the Ubuntu Mate for raspberry.
Careful: as a user of Lint 17,18, 19, 20 and Ubuntu 18 not to mention Windoze 7,8 and 10 may I suggest: 1) Etcher doesn't always work to put the ISO onto the boot usb. Therefore, learn the "dd" command from terminal as it works everytime in one line. 2) LM 20 has a couple of problems. First, it fails to recognise HP printers and there is, as yet, no solution in the LM forums. LM 17,18 and later 19.3 picks HP printers up with great ease. Second, some packages available in 19.3 and 18 aren't in LM20. For example, the statistics package PSPP (clone of propriety SPSS) in no longer possible to install under LM20 Cinnamon. This may later be repaired by updating repositories. Meanwhile, I regretfully was forced to retain the trusty LM 19.3 on the Dell Desktop and for my Windoze only HP laptop from years ago, the LM 17 Mate version has worked well. When Ubuntu went to it's latest versions, the new linux kernel failed to work utterly on older laptops but Mint had no trouble. All Linux Mint distros are simple to use for former Windows users and the available packages available via "Synaptic Package Manager" make it possible to do anything Windows can do, do it faster, do it without worry of viruses, do it without "blue screens of death" or other instabilities. Love this distro but you may wish to upgrade a few months further on and stay with LM 19.3 (any of Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce ).
I'm an old Slackware and Arch Linux user, they are my main OS systems for my personal workstation, but Linux Mint is my second option and is the OS I have installed on my son's computer and the one I recommend people to try out.
LM looks pretty cool. That said, I've been using Linux as my main OS since 1995 (Slackware) and have meandered my way amongst a half-dozen distros before finally settling on Debian. Having all my machines standardized in stock Debian makes management very easy.
@Samantha Anders I haven't used Fedora or indeed any sort of RPM-based distro for over 10 years now, so any opinion I could offer would be very out-of-date.
CHRIS! Thank you ever so much for making this video as it's very helpful. Cinnamon Mint works great on my older computer, and the price is right. Cheers!
I desagree; once you try Archlinux, it is very difficult to ´´go back´´. And about your opinion, yes; Mint20 (I tested on my desktop) is an awesome distro (Basically I think it is better than Ubuntu). For beginners, it is a good choice. (almost the only choice I'd say)
Very difficult, I agree. But I broke my system and I'm not interested in spending time tweaking it just so. I think every savvy Linux user should try Arch at some point. A neckbeard like me has come full circle. I'll take Mint or Debian any day.
Arch is for geeks who spend time playing with their system, rather than being productive on their system. I do agree though that Mint is better out of the box over Ubuntu for a lot of people (although I prefer Xubuntu or Lubuntu over Mint).
I got Mint18 in use for almost 4 years now. The box is running 24/7, current uptime 223 days. I never had any issues with updates or crashes. It's been the most reliable install of any OS I've used in quiet some time. Manjaro, Win7/10 are fine, but do wobble a bit more.
Nice review! I use XFCE on a fast-ish lappy with 16Gb but the I like instant everything... You might to mention to newbs that the updater, updates all the apps too. Not obvious to Windows user how excellent that is. Cheers. Excellent channel!
@@stanrogers5613 You have a choice whether to update or not. I guess it depends on your use case. In mine I have no problems. I run some alpha and beta apps but handle those manually. The 16 gigs helps run isolated virtualbox vms for any dodgy apps. Good thing about Linux is how much choice it gives you.
Some time ago I migrated from Ubuntu to Linux Mint, personally I like the more traditional desktop metaphor Linux Mint provides. I also believe Linux Mint is slightly less bloated than Ubuntu, but that may just be me. Cheers!
I use Ubuntu for programming and I installed Mint recently just to check it out. Mint gave me the impression of using android the very first time. It's simple enough I think my parent can even use it without much problem, which is good since an OS is supposed to be a working & entertaining environment, not asking you to be a dang mechanic. Most people just want a OS that gets the job done, without too much of manual configuration and installation, which often is not even about performance improvement in many distros. This is why Linux drives people away and even less welcomed than Android OS which basically is Linux too. It's a shame that many distro makers and geeks failed to see this and just advertise their complicated distro hard and drive more people away.
I just installed Mint 20 MATE yesterday, and added a global menu panel at the top of the screen, much like Ubuntu MATE contemporary scheme. It's just a perfect, consistent and elegant desktop. About Chromium, I just stand by the Mint side on this issue. I use Firefox by the way. Mr. Chris, have you tried the yerba mate drink? If you like your tea strong, you might also like it. I'm sure Mr. Scissors will.
@Fredd Colour Green yeah Ive played with mate on a Pi it was ok. about as good as one can get on a pi3 i guess. never played with it on my power lappy. only thing it has ever had on it is mint, kali and MX. i wiped win10 off it the 1st day.
@@excitableboy7031 ive never played with gentoo. I try to stick with DEB flavors on things i use alot. im just VERY versed with deb. I started with redhat back on redhat 4.0 but im old and forgot alot of commands LOL
As always sir, I appreciate you illustrating what makes Linux Mint so great! If you've not considered such, a video about the process of upgrading from one version to another might be a good idea. Assuming a section of your subscribers already have Mint like myself, they might not want to do a fresh install. Thanks again, & keep up the good work!
I've been using Linux Mint since version 17 and I love adore it combined with XFCE. It just works with so few problems that I cannot remember the last time I experienced a difficulty. I use a 12 year old laptop which was a low powered model when first purchased, now upgraded with a cheap SSD, because it just keeps going. It does what I want for no extra cost. I will not go back to Windows. Why downgrade? I tried several other distros, Manjaro, Peppermint and Ubuntu mainly, and researched many others and discovered that they are all great, but Mint resulted in the least problems. I stopped distro hopping when I realized that the real point of an operating system once set up is just to allow applications to work and keep out of the way. Modern Linux Mint Xfce does that perfectly.
I have experimented with other distros, but I stick with Mint. The word that always comes up for me when I think of Mint is "elegant."--And here I am thinking of Cinnamon, which is the only version of Mint I have used. Thanks for an excellent review of this great distro!
Mint has been my favourite distro for some time now. I have tried others but always end up coming back to it. Nice video with good clear explanation, seeing this and a couple of others here you have a new subscriber.
One more excellent video! Yesterday I did check my PC who is running mint and I did check for updates, I was wondering when are they delivering the next version and to night, I checked my email and found that your last video was about Linux 20 , that's great!!! I'll update my two laptops tomorrow! Thank you again for your very nice job 👍👍🙏🙏🙏🙏
I love Mint. Ever since support for Windows 7 was dropped, I only use Mint on my desktop. I still use Windows 10 on my laptop, and will continue to do so, as I want to install Office 2019 on my laptop for work and study purposes. On my 11 year old desktop computer I will continue to use Linux Mint, as nothing works better on old hardware, and I don't like to throw anything out unless it is no longer working. For now, Linux Mint is the best option for the desktop computer I have now.
Why? That's the first thing i do (after removing libreoffice* packages) on any new linux install. Then i remove firefox, mail client, chat client and use Google tools for everything. p.s. i also use nvidia driver (compile it locally) from nvidia and ukuu ;)
@@cokeforever Because now instead of being free from all the Google trackers and privacy invasion(which you get when swapping to linux, or just not using chrome and chromium based browsers in general), you jump right back into their data tracking net.
@@darkknight097 lol ))) you sound ridiculous ) 1. there is nothing about you or your browsing habbits that is special, i.e. males of your age consume on averages same porn fetishes in same quantities (sociology and psychology know everything about you); 2. your ISP tracks your every request as it is required by law; 3. you still use youtube, right? so google tracks you anyway, and so do thousands of google-afiliated websites; now look at #1 again ;)
I'm glad to hear someone as knowledgeable as you has made the same decision I made when Win 7 was killed. Give up on Microsoft and use (some form of) Ubuntu. Thanks for all your great content!
Runs great on a 2014 ASUS VivoPC mini-PC with a 2-core 1.5 GHz Celeron with only 4GB of RAM.. bought it online for twenty dollars, cleaned the dust out with a toothbrush, then installed a Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD, 256GB. Total cost: $50. Minimal setup issues.. in fact, no issues. Runs RUclips at 1080p with no dropped frames. Way more fun than Windows 10!
Just upgraded to Mint 20 today and found your video notification right now. That was on point 🙂. Especially the "whats NEW" part was very interesting. Thanks for your effort you put into this channel every day. Greetings 😋✌
I have tried Linux mint 19 and still have it on my laptop. It is a great way to for a windows 10 user to expand their computing capacity, but it is not a great replacement for windows 10 largely due to compatibility issues. However, if a person is at all into retro computing (quite a few are) I would recommend slackware. Slackware still supports not only newer x86 computers but also pentiums. My gosh I was shocked, awed, and surprised at how people overlook one of the oldest and still supported distros. And whats cool is that you can grab a handful of old linux cd's from back in the nineties and still use them. While you are not likely to find, for example, a walnut creek cd at a thrift store, you can get them from archive.org. and another benefit of Slackware is a full installation gives you the X Window System, C/C++ development environments, Perl, networking utilities, a mail server, a news server, a web server, an ftp server, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Mozilla Firefox, plus many more programs. I tell ya, cut your teeth on Mint, and then go for the gusto.
ive been running mint for 5 years and found it only crashed once of a bad update but its never slowed down it keeps going and the best thing its the easiest to learn better than windows 8.1
Linux Mint is in my humble opinion, THE best desktop OS you can get. I mean, it actually WORKS on a daily basis, without borking your computer, first time that you install an update.
Have been using Mint Xfce since 17.2 on a circa 2005/6 Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop. Now at 18.3 and still pleased with performance and functionality for a secondary machine.
Just installed Mint 20 a week ago, and it is Fantastic as always! Since Ubuntu 10, I fancy Linux for everything... Though I'm very fond of Windows too.... But, for obvious reasons as you shared in another video regarding the applications and compatibility for Office Applications between Linux and Windows. I am a content writer and clients asks a Microsoft Word, MS PowerPoint versions of documents, and I know they use only MS Office, so I can't use LibreOffice to keep the formatting correct (compatible with the clients' office applications),... Cannot use WPS, as so many features aren't there and most importantly, No Thesaurus support (I use UK English to type). Thesaurus is a daily thing I need... I tried everything, tried to create documents in LibreOffice and later format it in a Windows PC... But scaling, anchor.. Everything got messed up.... I'm compelled to use Windows on my work PC this way... If Microsoft ever launches a complete version of Office for Linux (sounds like having a Philosopher's Stone), I'll permanently switch to Linux.... ❤️
@@user-xr3rb6pn9m Yes. I tried that too, even I use Docs on Windows to collaborate with other writers, as not many people have Microsoft account. But Google Docs or Other Web based solutions lacks a lot of formatting options, and cannot use Thesaurus (synonym) shortcut, restricting productivity (replying from another google account)
Completely relatable. Though there are a few more apps like that for me. I'll recommend Softmaker Office. Never paid for the pro version, but it has macros and thesaurus support. Also my distros of choice is Fedora, Pop OS and Arch Linux)
Linux Mint was my gateway into Linux and I highly recommend it. My 10 years old desktop computer was revived with Mint and I intend to teach my son how to use Linux with this distro. And here we are, Im now a Linux user! Your explanation between cinnamon, Mate and Xfce was on point and informative. I also discover in your video how to change the refresh rate of my screen in system settings :-D Here we are...and have a good day!
Was able to easily install Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon (by booting from an SD card and using the installer) in an older HP Duo Core laptop which wasn't able to keep up with Windows. Then needed to install Real VNC Server, but kept getting an Authentification Failure an the end of the install when it was trying to associate that instance with my Real VNC account. I finally was successful by setting a root password in terminal using "sudo passwd root" and then logging on to the GUI as root rather than my normal user account by using the sweet little "Logon Window" options app in the GUI (Administration=>Login Window=>Users) to enable "Allow manual Login". Once logged in as root, I got the Real VNC installer to finish, then logged out as root and back in as my normal username. All is well! This is now my Windows 11 replacement on old machines.
If were going to switch to Linux (and believe me, dealing with Windows has gotten me close several times) I would do Mint. It's powerful, easy to use, and I like the GUI (they it looks and works out of box)
I am using Mint 20. I have been trying to get my grandson to try any Linux distro, so yesterday he tried Pop OS on live usb stick and wow it is very visually pleasing. I may have to try it on my other PC.
Last time!e i gave Linux a whirl it really wasn't suitable for my needs, but was like 15 years ago. After following your videos recently I took a couple popular distros for a spin and landed on this one. I did have some issues with dual booting windows and Linux, so ended up installing on separate drives so they were not aware of each other and use my motherboards boot menu to switch between instead, seemed cleaner to me. Coming from Windows it's been very a smooth transition to Mint and compatibility is strides ahead from my previous tries, so much so now that I'm finding less reasons to boot up the other drive containing windows. Thank you for your videos, keep up the fantastic content.
Linux mint cinnamons GUI is so clean and easy to use, very little clutter too. I think a lot of other DEs could follow its example, as its very beginner friendly. In general i think how easy it is to use makes it the best distro for anyone coming from Windows, or even starting to use computers. Its fairly lightweight too so can run well on old computers, it can do anything other distros can do, while not requiring you to use the terminal too often or mess with any settings you might not yet be comfortable changing. I think that makes it a perfect replacement for Windows, as other than software support it has all the same advantages as Windows and more. Despite what a lot of the community likes to say you dont need to use some Linux distro thats overcomplicated and designed for experienced users to get the most out of your computer either. It also makes ChromeOS completely redundant, as ChromeOS is technically a Linux distro thats made to be easy to use for beginners, but doesnt run Linux applications by default. It seems Linux Mints eventual goal is to shift focus on the Debian edition, which nowadays has a similar amount of polish to the standard edition based off of Ubuntu. This is very nice to see as a lot of people dont agree with Ubuntus recent updates, and it means Linux Mint would be directly dependent on what is already considered one of the most stable distros, rather than being a distro based off of Ubuntu, based off of Debian.
This is a great distro. I've supplied this to single moms who need computers for their kids. I can use older machines which are cheaper and they love it.
Same here, for the same success! Xubuntu is also pretty liked on old Family PCs... But it is a different "game".
That's great! The older hardware may not last forever, but it'll do them good for quite a while, rather than throwing away the old hardware and spending a ton on new computers.
What a great idea! Good for you mate!
Yes, exactly, many perfectly good old machines don't run very well on win10. This is a modern, light weight OS
How old hardware can you use it on? I got an old gaming desktop that ran win xp with asus p5k mobo and 7990 video card. Its been retired for a bit but if it can run mint maybe I can give it away instead of putting it in the recycling bin.
Watching this on a Mint 20. By far the best Linux distro for me.
At 16:08, can we all please pitch in and buy this fine knowledgeable gentleman an ultrawide monitor?
@@leeroyhuawei51 What's wrong with him using a 4:3 monitor? My second monitor is 5:4 and my main is 16:10.
I'm on Mint too but v.19.3, because I have a 32-bit machine.
same
I also went from Win7 to Linux Mint. Never consented to the Win10 license agreement and never will.
I have been using Linux Mint for at least 5 years on a daily basis in a professional setting and I never look back. It's a fantastic distro that "just works". Kudos to the Mint team and thanks for your great video!
Have to say, I've spent a lot of time distro hopping--trying out dozens of different distros--but I always come back to Mint. Thanks for the video!
I've been using Linux Mint for about 18 months. It's a good distribution for those entering into the Linux world. Have a good day, sir.
We must be cosmically connected. I just last night downloaded and flashed a USB boot drive of Linux Mint to install today. Excellent again sir! Hope you are well!
That's awesome!
Me too! 😂
Maybe you’re entangled
“Very exciting to be initializing something called Warpinator,” A little chuckle always welcome in these times!
I just use SFTP for such things. Much faster on the command line and no fuss.
I prefer not to use it as I get motion sickness very time I drop outta sub space to collect my file transfers.......
Chris has a way with words. He talks about serious things (seriously) but has lots of little jokes.
Ensign, set a course for the Linux Mint system, warpinator 20.... engage.
100%. For new linux users, there is no better hassle free distro than Mint. Kudos to Clément Lefevre and his team for an unwavering commitment over the years to develop and polish this Linux gem.
Its good for advanced users too it can handle anything anyone from beginner to advanced could want to do on their laptop or desktop
A very good presentation for people who are confused on which Linux destro to start with. I really like the dark theam as it eases the eye strain.
The best Linux distro for me as well, although I chose MATE instead of Cinnamon.
The proper usage of Desktop icons, system tray icons, minimize/maximimize/close buttons and the overall choice of configuration tools make this the PERFECT working environment for me.
This is how a DESKTOP operating system needs to operate.
I agree, got MATE as well and fell for it straight away
MATE: easy to learn, visually direct, and comfortably traditional. The MATE desktop does not get in your way: you simply get things done. Just click the Menu button and launch the apps!
I agree with you 100%: this is how a DESKTOP operating system needs to operate. In comparison, Windows 10 gets me cranky all the time.
I agree as well, - there's something wrong with Cinnamon, and CPU load and lags are the least of those concerns... IMHO Cinnamon does not offer ANY extra functionality...
I also use the MATE version of Mint still on the older 17.1 as I have no need to upgrade at this point in time unless I also upgrade my computer.
As someone who is playing around with Mint 20 with the Cinnamon desktop having used Mint 19 before that, I’ve made a few observations:
* The System Settings app is basically seems like it’s modeled after the macOS System Preferences app which organizes all the different “System Preference panes” into rows based on general categories. What differentiates Mint from macOS here is that you can also access the system preferences options via the preference menu item in the Mint Menu where upon you are presented with a list of options you can choose from which loads a separate app for each preference category. The System Settings app just basically provides an alternate interface for accessing these all in one app. Since all these Settings apps are really doing is just editing a text-based config file store in a system directory, you could actually manually adit these settings yourself and in some cases you need to to config advanced settings not made available via a settings app, such as setting refresh rate before Mint 20.
* Warpinator is very much like the Airdrop feature in macOS & IOS/iPadOS.
* Mate by the way is a fork of the discontinued Gnome 2 desktop (Pronounced Gu-nome not like the garden gnome) by an Argentinian programers who didn’t like the direction Gnome 3 went in. Cinnamon is an attempt to take certain things people liked about Mate/Gnome 2 and merge them with certain updated features of Gnome 3 to form something of a compromise between the two.
* For anyone who doesn’t know this already, if you want to try one of the other desktop environments after installing say the Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition then you can do so by simply downloading it from the software store. This includes other options such as KDE, for example. Once installed, you can choose which desktop to use for your user session via a button on the login-in screen. Thus you can have multiple desktop environments installed at the same time or switch between as you like. The KDE desktop environment comes with a number of apps specifically written for it that are installed when you install KDE and these run under Cinnamon too. These includes some games, an alternate text editor and terminal app, graphics and media apps, and many others utilities and apps. You can install these apps separately from KDE itself but I believe you will have to still install parts of the KDE desktop software needed to allow these GUI apps to run under Cinnamon (some sort of KDE API layer I believe).
Well, all I have to say is...color me impressed! I started my Linux Mint install at 5:30 PM, it took me until 7:00 PM to install the OS, fix the missing WiFi connectivity issue (put the install media back in the DVD drive, run Device Manager to load the proper drivers, then reboot and configure WiFi), load Zoom and Chrome (required for class) and confirm functionality.
As compared to my first Linux experience back in 1997ish, which was a Red Hat distro with lots of icons on drop down menus that didn't work, absolutely no standard of comparison. This is far, far superior - best of all, Win 7 is still available via dual boot.
Well done! 👏👏👏
Great to hear of your positive Linux experience! :)
Only one issue, with a simple solution: while setting up my printer (HP LaserJet 6MP via parallel printer port) I had some difficulty with really slow printing (12-15 minutes to print a test page). Apparently during the upgrade from 19 to 20 the printer drivers got broken, and the solution (for now, anyway) is to use a USB to parallel printer converter cable. Swapped in a different cable, and a test print now takes about 15 seconds. 👍
I've been using 19.3, Cinnamon for a while, and I'm very happy with this OS. It gives me a comfortable user interface, as a former Windows user, and gives me pretty much all of the same features that Windows did, even down to formatting USB drives, networking, and fast operations. I'd expect the same from 20x, but will also likely wait a couple months before making it my 'daily driver'. You can tell the pioneers - they are the ones with the arrows in the back!
That "comfortable user interface" has nothing to do with Mint, that is just the DE (desktop environment), you can use Cinnamon on any distro. Cinnamon is nice, I use KDE though (and I experiment with tiling window managers). It seems a bit faster and I love the window rules (no titlebar and buttons in my case). "formatting USB drives" is just a matter of a third party program which you can also install on any distro (all software on Linux).
@@peterjansen4826 well, Cinnamon is entirely maintained by Mint
@Zippydsm Lee You shouldn't hop OSs if you're gonna recreate the exact same workflow that you have in the former OS xD, but it's fine at the beginning
@@twb0109 It still is not an intrinsic part of a distro because you can interchange it. You can put any other DE on Mint and Cinnamon on any other distro and functionally nothing changes, just the big buttons on which users click.
@@peterjansen4826 I'm not saying it's not xd
Love the old school feel of this channel, its very 80s/90s BBC TV! Well explained content too. For me I've jumped ship from Ubuntu and am now sitting happily in the Linux Mint camp. The implementation of Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04 was I think a huge mistake, and my signal to move on to a new distro. I love how Mint feels familiar in the daily use of the OS, but also distinctly Linux... Its like WIndows 10 but with the crap removed, and Ubuntu without the pigheadedness!
I agree about Snaps, especially when several months ago I played around with Ubuntu some and had several Snap apps that just would not run. Even deleting the entire Snap framework and going the regular .deb route with Ubuntu had problems. No distro I ever use from here on will include Snaps. Mint has been amazing.
BBC2 1975 4.30am
"Hello, I'm Dr Peter Thung and today we'll be looking at vectors."
Wonderful presentation, thx from India
This dude has become my goto for everything computer related.
I never thought that Mate was due to the drink, which is traditional in my country (Uruguay) as well as in Paraguay or Argentina.
If anyone wants to know it is like a tea and can be drunk with cold or hot water and bitter or with sugar, but the traditional way is hot and without sugar.
It is a tradition from many years ago among the Gauchos (cowboys) to drink it in meetings and share it among friends while singing typical songs around a fire.
Also in my country it is very common to see people of all ages drinking it in public areas (of course, not right now due to the pandemic).
Thank you Christopher for such an interesting video as always.
Daniel Gomez Thank you Daniel for that short history lesson. I never knew it was a traditional drink in Uruguay
Yes, the DE creator is from Argentina.
And what about Peru, there is mate here too, we're all from the tahuantinsuyo of the inca empire
@@Sebastianlogin No sabia que en Peru tomaban mate tambien, se que en algunas regiones de Brazil lo toman. No conozco el origen del mate pero imagino que es mas una tradicion de culturas indigenas. Seria interesante saber como lo preparan ya que hay varias formas segun los paises. Un saludo y gracias por el comentario ;)
Uy !! El Mate si que es horrible, de los brebajes de América del Sur creo que el té de Coca es mejor y más nutritivo. Nosotros en Costa Rica no ocupamos Mate, acá degustamos el mejor café del mundo, es tan delicioso que a veces me tomo 8 tazas, creo que por eso tenemos un montón de Peruanos y Argentinos que no han querido volver al sur desde que probaron nuestro cafecito.
I first tried Linux in the early 2000s and then as a main operating system in 2010. I was so happy to go back to Windows (XP at the time) and fairly quickly too. Professional applications and specialised programmes were either poorly implemented or unavailable on Linux at the time. Reliability and niggles always were popping up. Very annoying and unacceptable for any serious user.
I dabbled a few more times, but had avoided Linux a bit, in around 2017 I tried again and was shocked with the gigantic improvements all round. The kernel had matured to become seemingly stable and bulletproof. The fact most people spend 99% of their time on the browser it makes it a rather moot point these days. I would now happily swap over.
Linux has come of age AT LAST! It is smooth fast and reliable with whatever distro you care to choose and capable of doing any task often using less machine resources. I also have an old laptop now running a lightweight distro and it has saved that machine from the scrappers. Really runs well.
Love your videos...I almost believed I was watching on the BBC. (When it had programmes like yours).
I remember trying Red Hat, and Mandriva back in the late 90's. The problem was always no drivers for the video adapter so it ran 640x480 16 color mode. Even if it did have support for that video adapter it had better be ISA or PCI. Using one of those "AGP" video cards was asking for trouble. Many times there were no sound drivers unless it was a "Creative Sound Blazster Pro or 16", and no modem drivers available (Win Modem). If you didn't have a 3com, or Intel NIC you could forget that working as well. Printer or Scanner drivers were almost none existent unless you had a dot matrix printer. USB support was hit or miss so you better stick with the PS2 or Serial mouse. Now it's different as Linux usually picks up devices better than Windows 10. That's really saying something since Windows 10's hardware database and driver updates are mountains above what they were for Windows 7. Linux to me then, was for machines that sat in a corner and chugged serving files, DHCP, Gateway / Proxy duty, webserver, or email.
@@LionWithTheLamb Those are some memories. I used Red Hat back then. Probably 4.2 or 5.0. My machine was pretty well supported as it was a 1994 vintage Pentium 90 (with the then-famous FDIV bug.) I didn't get into using it as my desktop until the early-mid 2000s.
Martin D A, I 100% agree. Your history is similar to mine, to the point of bring some memories. Tried Linux (Red Hat and other distro I can't remember) in early 2000s, when it was trendy but came back to Windows 98 in a hurry. Today we have some great and easy to use distros but most because that bearded old farts developing it threw the towel or simply died, otherwise we would not had even mouse or a graphic interface. Many of the obstacles to make Linux popular were overcome, but to my view, the road is still long. Too many distros, too many egos, and too many pitty bureaucracy like that Chromium browser thing explained in the video. For a non-initiated, the amount of distros is daunting. Thanks God we have people like Chris who explain complex things in a calm and pleasable manner.
.
As for Linux Mint, is it really necessary to download a +100MB app to create a bootlable media (that Etcher app)? I mean, just one screen and a couple buttons? Ah, and it's Windows 7 forward, so if you have a spare computer with only Windows XP or Vista, you can't create a simple flash drive. As I said, the road is still long.
Yeah, it can run 20 percent of programs of windows now, use wine and you can bump that up to 80 percent but not stable, i pulled these numbers out of my ass but I'm betting I'm pretty generous with these numbers.
@@LionWithTheLamb Ha ha yes, that is about right...That brought it all back.
As always, a great presentation. Good to get the low down on Mint 2.0 from somebody so knowledgable and patient enough to clearly explain how it all works. Thank you, Christopher, and I have shared this video with friends.
Great, thanks.
For my computer to have minty fresh breath, I will have to install this distro! Looking forward to your next video!
Been using Arch and came back to Linux Mint. So much improvement over the last 2 years. Thanks for the review
Have played with Linux for over 20 years, this is by far the best distro that I have ever tried. Might finally make me a believer. Have switched 3 computers from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. After several weeks of use I am quite happy ..
Great video. I love Mint for new users. (I use Arch, BTW). Just a note: Xfce was originally written in X Frameworks, hence XFCE (X11 Frameworks Common Environment). However, it is no longer written in XF, and thus is now (per the Xfce team) simply written as Xfce, not XFCE.
What distro do you use?
Great video, Thanks Chris! One note; Warpinator can be loaded onto any distribution and will transfer files between any of those distros. Warpinator is also already in the AUR (Arch repository).
Thanks for this. :)
The only thing remaining is a compatible Android and iOS app
@@Sweet-Vermouth A thousand upvotes for you!
@@Sweet-Vermouth it's already available for android! (Although i usually uses kde connect because it has more features)
I found that Linux Mint makes it very easy to make a bootable USB stick by simply right clicking on the downloaded ISO file and selecting "make bootable USB stick".
When I upgraded to LM20 and found that the Chromium browser was no longer routinely supported, I found that the Slimjet browser was an excellent substitute being based on Chromium. Slimjet can be downloaded as a .deb file.
Thanks for the review.
Thank you for the detailed explanation with regard to the differences between Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce installs and their resource requirements, that was most useful. I've used various Mint flavors for several years now, and they have been excellent for me. Haven't installed Mint 20 yet though I get reminders that it is available... sure looks like a worthwhile upgrade.
This video convinced me to dive into Linux. I tried Mint roughly 5 years ago and I couldn't get into it. Now I'm dual booting Windows 10 and Linux Mint and I'm slowly growing and learning Linux and really enjoying it. Thank you so much for bringing Linux Mint back to my attention. I wish I could have had a computer teacher like you in school.
This is great to hear. Enjoy your Linux journey.
I always feel like I'm in class with a really good teacher. Thanks for your informative videos.
You're very welcome!
Linux Mint is truly a gem among all the Linux distributions!
Old linux mint was better for me in terms of design but its a nice distro..
it truly is, even Mx linux is fantastic
I love the fact that your desk is actually untidier than mine (and that's some achievement)! ;-)
Mint is one of my favourite, great distro.
On cinnamon, for daily tasks, fast & reliable, runs smoothly.
I like warpinator, very appealing.
And this Borgish green desktop, calming.
Time to test new Mint. 🤖👌🏻
Greetings Chris.
I hope you are doing well, stay safe! ☀️
Hi Elvira, good to hear from you as always. I agree the green of Mint is calming -- I find it a nice and relaxed distro to use. Take care, Chris.
Girl u so fine 😚
@@ExplainingComputers Agreed, I think the green makes it relaxing to use. and the interface is quite clean, its like a mix of XP and windows 10 lol
I see your comment everywhere, especially these kinds of videos.
These videos of yours are responsible for creating a very strange addiction in me, I am addicted to installing various Linux distros to my laptop lol.
I have been using Mint+KDE for a long time and installed Mint 20 recently. I tried Cinnamon for a few days but after using KDE since about its beginning I find Cinnamon rather lame. So I installed the XFCE version of Mint 20 and added KDE. I use surplus Dell Optiplex hardware from our local University. Performance is good. I remember when we had 10 char/sec hardcopy terminals and the fantastic performance of the new 30 char/sec terminals, then CRTs, the VT100s, WOW!. So if something takes a half second or more on my current machine that is just fine. Instantaneous performance is not necessary for me. Reliable is more important which is why I use Linux and not Windows. I enjoy your videos, Chris. Well done. Keep it up.
Is Mint good for gaming? I heard Manjaro and PopOS are the preferred ones for gaming...
@@kilosierraalpha okay! Out of the three versions of Mint 20, what would be the best for my system? Specs:
- CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 245
- GPU: GeForce 6800 GS
- RAM: Corsair 2x4 DDR3
- MB: Asus M4N68T-M LE
- SSD: ADATA 240gb SU630
- HDD: WD 120gb 7200 RPM
- OS: Windows 10 Pro x64
I do plan to upgrade to the AMD Phenom II x6 1090T processor, (6-core) The OS is on my SSD, and HDD contains games, and media, documents.
@@SRC267 If you have not used Linux Mint before, I would suggest you try Cinnamon. Your specs are better than my own computer and Cinnamon runs fine on my Desktop.
@@SRC267 the biggest issue with your build (aside from it just being old) is the Geforce 6800. Nvidia in general can be hit or miss (they have a history for not being very cooperative with the linux community), especially with older GPUs like your's as its in the "too old; no longer supported". I actually recommend an AMD GPU that is at least GCN1.0 so that you can use AMD's own amdgpu driver (after enabling support for GCN1 and 2) which works very well. See here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_HD_7000_series (GCN starts with the higher end of the 7000 series and on). If you don't do that, you may be forced to use nouveau, the open source nvidia driver made by reverse engineering...which has been hot garbage when I tried it in the past. If Mint's driver manager can grab a usable one for the 6800 as the proprietary driver, always try that first. As for which desktop to use, I recommend MATE or XFCE as they are lighter on resources. Cinnamon may be a bit touchy with your 6800.
@@JerichoKru well, I've just downloaded Cinnamon now before reading this. I also did have to find legacy drivers for this card to get it working with Windows 10.
the distro doesn't matter for gaming there all the same and have same performance.
So simple yet so powerful distro that even my old desktop run smoothly.
That means it is power efficient not powerfull
A week ago, I refurbished a 9 year old 27 inch iMac, by disposing of the HDD, replacing it with an inexpensive 256GB SSD and installing Linux Mint on it. The older, 'thicker' iMacs are easy to do a swap out of the HDD to SSD, because the screen isn't glued on (unlike the thin edge iMacs). Installing the OS was quick, so converting a big old silver paperweight into a usable system only took about 45 minutes. Overall, it was a very polished off result!
As a few have said in comments that they are now running Mint 20, I want to let you know I just yesterday installed 20 over my in place 19.03 and it went without a hitch! Very impressed with the upgrade procedure with a couple of exceptions of minor importance. It deleted a WOL package I was using, completely disappeared, and gave me 2 sound icons in the task bar. The second of which disappeared today by magic! That's all after I ran a Backup and Snapshot for good measure before taking the plunge so can now say 'go for it' if you are inclined. Only thing I didn't do was wear a full face mask while upgrading, ho hum. Well done Christopher for bringing this to the masses attention. I too love it.
Have been duel booting now for over 18 months 25% windows 75% mint. Windows for gaming Mint for everything everyday use.
@@MichaelGraham21 It depends on the game. Anything with anti-cheat/tamper will usually fail and some just wont work.
@@JerichoKru Hmmm. As a heavy Steam user myself, that is a consideration, otherwise I quite likely would have made the switchover already. :-/
I mostly play Minecraft which runs natively in linux.
@@MichaelGraham21 I am sure it could be made to work, but I find a duel boot so much easyer for me.
@@AnOliviaShapedGremlin Besides being a pain in the ass, it requires to have 2 gpus
Another great video! I think I just might give this a try. Forgot all about linux being awesome and free. Also love the old school feel and no nonsense style of your videos. No 5 minute stories at the start telling us a back story about "how you found this Linux distro" or low key flexing "my friends over at the mint team have just come out with a awesome new linux distro". Etc. Thats just you telling us the the What, How, and Who, of the info. And BTW ! Thats a proper PC technicians desk!!! Keep up the awesome work.
I love that you mentioned the unsettling transition between Windows 7 and Windows 8. I needed to replace a dead laptop right around the time of the release of Windows 8. I was not prepared for the horrors that awaited me. I found it to be terrible and that's what finally drove me to Linux as my primary OS, though I was able to obtain an official copy of Windows 7 for that machine to get me through the first few months.
I've used Mint for the majority of my time on Linux. I even put my parents on Mint, which says a lot about how easy it is to use.
I've done my share of distro hopping, for various reasons, but I find that Mint is simply the best for my needs for now and I always come back to it.
But there's a reason I still keep my eye on other distros. For me, Mint was nearly perfect in the 17 series, specifically 17.1 Cinnamon which I used. After that, things changed. Series 18 added new features I didn't like, which added a bunch of hoops for me to go through in order to get things set up to my liking. It also broke the default network manager for me. That was an Ubuntu issue, perhaps even Debian. My wi-fi would rarely connect and wouldn't stay connected. This was fixed by using WICD as my network manager, but it took a while to figure that out. And in series 19, Mint added more hoops to go through, as I hated the facelift to the default desktop and panel with the grouped programs without labels. On top of that, it wasn't obvious how to go back to the classic look, under "first steps" I believe. So as new editions come out, it takes longer for me to reach a set up I like, which is quite annoying. And the MATE and XFCE editions have their own issues to get around, such as performance issues and desktop compositing.
I hated Windows 8 when it first arrived, but last year when I was looking for an alternative to Windows 7, I discovered a very handy free app called 'Classic Shell' that basically transformed the old Windows 8.1 start menu into a lovely Windows 7 one. Since discovering that, I've been using Windows 8.1 as my daily driver and it is just like being on Windows 7, but with a few nicer features like the SSD optimization and the new task manager. I intend to stick with it until Jan 2023, when it finally stops getting security updates. Classic Shell (or Open Shell as the newer one is called) can also replace the awful start menu on Windows 10 too. I've got Linux Mint on a test rig for now, but I expect to transition across fully once Windows 8.1 becomes EoL.
If you're a Windows refugee like me Mint is intuitive, comfortable & familiar right out of the box. (Mac users should feel comfortable too with a few tweaks.) Everything is where you expect and works MOL like you expect. I've tried a good half dozen distros and Mint is by far the most stable and reliable. Even the touchscreen on my hybrid laptop/tablet Fujitsu T734 works well (tho not perfect). No more distro hopping for me.
Awesome! There's nothing standing in the way of saying Windows bye bye now. 👍
Indeed. Four out of the five computers my wife and I have now run Mint 20 MATE by default and it's excellent. The fifth is dual boot and only has Windows for 'legacy' purposes. I regard Windows as "yesterday's OS". 😁
@@Kevin-mx1vi 👍(ツ)
The only thing stopping me is knowing whether most of my Steam/GoG games can be run under Linux. Otherwise I'd have switched over already.
@@VulpisFoxfire I hear ya loud and clear... I wanna put Linux Mint on my digital Dec PC rebuild then get VMware or some other decent virtual machine software and put windows 10 pro on it for steam and such
@@VulpisFoxfire There is a very good selection of Linux games on Steam, many of them ports of well known Windows games. I play TF2 on Linux often, and I get a higher frame rate than the same game on Windows.
Nice one Christopher... always nice to see how other OS's are progressing...
I use Fedora 32 with Gnome on my school laptop. Originally installed 31 and upgraded via the GUI.
Over the past few years a lot of Linux distros have gotten extremely beautiful to look at and are now very easy to use, even for beginners.
I prefer Gnome because of the fast switching between my open applications and because of its sleek design. I don't want a messy start menu or desktop. However I do understand that some people want a more practical system.
The most important thing is, that you use Linux! Doesn't matter which distro or desktop.
Thanks for the video!
Edit: typo
Watched your video and been wanting to try Linux for a while so took the plunge on an old Lenovo idea center, it was originally Windows 8 and upgraded to Windows 10, and became so slow it was a nightmare but always reliable and just used for browsing and watching movies, etc.
What a difference Linux mint made it's even faster than when new, does everything I want from a basic system and seems to have lots more potential.
A big thumbs up from me
Great to hear! :)
The struggle between open standard procedures for system tasks (like installing and upgrading softwre) and proprietary "improvements" to lock users into environments appears to be endless. Don't let the lure of the "new shiny" lead you into the spider's parlour. Fortunately, even in the nadir of the Windows hegemony, the resistance survived, and we can hope it will thrive.
I'm so glad you mentioned how you can download and use Chrome as an alternative to chromium since I'm new to the Linux Mint world and some websites won't work properly on firefox.
Try brave, then. More privacy control and runs everithing like chrome/chromium.
(Although I use firefox, because I love how deep I can go in the about:config settings to make it work as I need (and to respect my privacy as I deserve))
@@polgzz Brave is being more of a shady company, sadly. I really like Chromium and Firefox
@@polgzz use duckduckgo
After 20 years on windows I finaly migrated to Linux mint. So far so good. I should've done this much earlier. Keep on rockin' in the free world 💪💪💪
@ the 16:00 minute mark, there was one thing missing: A sign over the crowed desk declaring "genius at work." Thank you for a very informative video.
:)
I put Linux mint 20 about two weeks ago and updated to 20.2. Works great for my dell lattitude e5400 and makes a good performance boost with a SSD
As a long-time Linux user and sysadmin, I agree! You can’t go wrong with Mint. 👍👍
Samantha Anders nah. Mint is great for new and experienced Linux users alike. While I use Slackware and KISS Linux for more hands-on projects, it’s great to hop on Mint for other tasks, when I don’t want to bother tinkering or tweaking. It’s all Linux under the hood anyway :)
I wonder how hard or easy it is to get ePSXe to run in Mint.. it's a nightmare to try and run in Ubuntu
@Samantha Anders Though I am 100% on the Arch train (it really is the best distro for gaming) I have to agree with Mitchel that Mint is not ONLY for novice Linux users. Mint does specifically cater to novice Linux users but at the end of the day all Linux distributions which use Debian-packages can be tailored to whatever your needs are. It just happens to be that on some systems (Arch) it takes a bit less effort than on others (Ubuntu-based). As Mitchel says, under the hood it is all just Linux. But by default on any Ubuntu-based distro you get older software.
@Peter Jansen @adventureoflinkmk2
speaking of Arch, I know that the aforementioned ePSXe program is in the AUR. For other distros, one must either compile from source or download the Linux ePSXe zip file from their website. The AUR never ceases to amaze me! 😃
@Raphael Silverstone my only gripe with *Buntu is that as said trying to get ePSXe to work in it is a nightmare. Even if I download the Linux 64-bit version
Your explaining skills are superb, yet simple and straight. Kind regards, Sir.
Thanks! :)
You are the go-to chap for sane & calm explanations. There is something very reminiscent of RISC-OS in Cinnamon. I think I just time-warped back 30 years!
Today I finally decided to install Linux Mint on my computer. I'd like to thank you for introducing me to Linux.
Great to hear -- good luck! :)
A local computer guy said Linux isn't suitable for ppl with basic computer skills, so I'm not sure what to do as I didn't want to move my parents' old XP computer over to Windows 10.
I don't know if I'd need to upgrade the older computer or whether Linux Mint would run fine on it as it is. The local guy offered me a refurbished pc with Windows 10 on it - exactly what I wanted to avoid.
Knowing that Mint runs out in 2023, he suggested Ubuntu, but would it be too complicated for my parents?
I could set up the computer myself with advice from this great channel, but I'd like to know whether it would even be feasible.
Thanks guys.
@@Uniq_Jer31vs33_GodHearsAndSees It sounds like the computer guy wants to sell you stuff. Linux Mint is a straight-forward Linux distro to use, and all that most people with "basic computer skills" want and to do these days is to run a web browser, maybe a word processor, e-mail package, watch videos, view and edit photos, etc. And all of these is easy to do in Linux Mint.
With regard to Linux Mint "running out in 2023", I presume you are referring to Linux Mint 19, which offers a 32-bit version? This indeed ends support in April 2023. If you need a 32-bit OS then most major distros cease 32-bit support at this time. So you need to find out if the PC has a 32-bit or 64-bit processor. If 64 bit, there is no problem as you can run the 64-bit version of Linux Mint which has long-term-support. If not, it sounds like you have little to lose migrating the machine to Linux Mint 19 32bit. OK, so support will end in 2023. But support for XP ended a lot of years so, so you will have improved matters in terms of security anyway. And beyond April 2023, using Linux Mint 19 without support will still be a lot safer than using Windows XP. Good luck!
@@ExplainingComputers
Thank you so much!!! I did wonder about that. And thanks for the really detailed explanation, I am so appreciative of that. You really do take an interest in your subscribers/ commenters. How long do you think it would take to set it up, roughly?
@@Uniq_Jer31vs33_GodHearsAndSees If you do want a 32-bit OS that's like Linux Mint, may I suggest Linux Mint Debian Edition? Instead of being based on Ubuntu its based off Debian, which Ubuntu itself is based on. It gives the same user experience you would find on the standard Linux Mint edition, but has 32-bit support.
I use MX as my daily driver but Mint is also a great distro. I installed it in my wife's laptop and she did not understand that it was not windows🤣
I find mx a bit bloated.
lol
I have migrated to linux before MS stopped supporting windows 7.
In about a year, I learnt to use GIMP, Blender video editing, audacity, and ‘command line’.
Best of all, python. which lead me to flask, panda, SQL. I was able to built a home webserver with a Pi4. Which i am very proud of.
I am sure I could not have learnt all that, if i have stuck with Windows.
My first Linux experience was Linux Mint.
I later use Linux Mint 18 from USB drive for few months to see if I can live without windows, and I didn’t look back.
To anyone who like learn Linux, network and Python, or let their children learn them, i recommend getting a Raspbery pi4, install the Ubuntu Mate for raspberry.
Careful: as a user of Lint 17,18, 19, 20 and Ubuntu 18 not to mention Windoze 7,8 and 10 may I suggest:
1) Etcher doesn't always work to put the ISO onto the boot usb. Therefore, learn the "dd" command from terminal as it works everytime in one line.
2) LM 20 has a couple of problems. First, it fails to recognise HP printers and there is, as yet, no solution in the LM forums. LM 17,18 and later 19.3 picks HP printers up with great ease. Second, some packages available in 19.3 and 18 aren't in LM20. For example, the statistics package PSPP (clone of propriety SPSS) in no longer possible to install under LM20 Cinnamon. This may later be repaired by updating repositories. Meanwhile, I regretfully was forced to retain the trusty LM 19.3 on the Dell Desktop and for my Windoze only HP laptop from years ago, the LM 17 Mate version has worked well. When Ubuntu went to it's latest versions, the new linux kernel failed to work utterly on older laptops but Mint had no trouble. All Linux Mint distros are simple to use for former Windows users and the available packages available via "Synaptic Package Manager" make it possible to do anything Windows can do, do it faster, do it without worry of viruses, do it without "blue screens of death" or other instabilities. Love this distro but you may wish to upgrade a few months further on and stay with LM 19.3 (any of Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce ).
I upgraded to Ulyana and now I'm able to play RUclips at 720p with just an old Core 2 Duo and 2 GB RAM, amazing.
This is great feedback, thanks for sharing.
Calming you say? 🤔 I’m in. Fantastically informative (and entertaining) as always. 👍
I'm an old Slackware and Arch Linux user, they are my main OS systems for my personal workstation, but Linux Mint is my second option and is the OS I have installed on my son's computer and the one I recommend people to try out.
LM looks pretty cool. That said, I've been using Linux as my main OS since 1995 (Slackware) and have meandered my way amongst a half-dozen distros before finally settling on Debian. Having all my machines standardized in stock Debian makes management very easy.
yep I started off in redhat back in like 94ish, now I only stray from DEB based distros for playing on VM's or raspberry Pi's.
@Samantha Anders I haven't used Fedora or indeed any sort of RPM-based distro for over 10 years now, so any opinion I could offer would be very out-of-date.
CHRIS! Thank you ever so much for making this video as it's very helpful. Cinnamon Mint works great on my older computer, and the price is right. Cheers!
Great to hear!
I love Linux Mint, fast without complications, and well configurable! Great video, thank you so much!
I installed Linux Mint in Virtualbox few hours ago and proud to be join Linux/Debian family.
:)
I tried a lot of distros, always come back to Linux Mint.
I desagree; once you try Archlinux, it is very difficult to ´´go back´´.
And about your opinion, yes; Mint20 (I tested on my desktop) is an awesome distro (Basically I think it is better than Ubuntu). For beginners, it is a good choice. (almost the only choice I'd say)
Very difficult, I agree. But I broke my system and I'm not interested in spending time tweaking it just so. I think every savvy Linux user should try Arch at some point.
A neckbeard like me has come full circle. I'll take Mint or Debian any day.
Arch is for geeks who spend time playing with their system, rather than being productive on their system. I do agree though that Mint is better out of the box over Ubuntu for a lot of people (although I prefer Xubuntu or Lubuntu over Mint).
@@tenfourproductionsllc you must be a millionaire till now 😂... Talking about being productive must had made you millions i guess
Mint looks good distro for long time Windows users
It is indeed.
I got Mint18 in use for almost 4 years now. The box is running 24/7, current uptime 223 days. I never had any issues with updates or crashes. It's been the most reliable install of any OS I've used in quiet some time. Manjaro, Win7/10 are fine, but do wobble a bit more.
Nice review! I use XFCE on a fast-ish lappy with 16Gb but the I like instant everything...
You might to mention to newbs that the updater, updates all the apps too. Not obvious to Windows user how excellent that is. Cheers. Excellent channel!
That would be horrible. There are reasons - very good reasons - I run older versions of things. Not all updates are helpful.
@@stanrogers5613 You have a choice whether to update or not. I guess it depends on your use case. In mine I have no problems. I run some alpha and beta apps but handle those manually. The 16 gigs helps run isolated virtualbox vms for any dodgy apps. Good thing about Linux is how much choice it gives you.
Some time ago I migrated from Ubuntu to Linux Mint, personally I like the more traditional desktop metaphor Linux Mint provides.
I also believe Linux Mint is slightly less bloated than Ubuntu, but that may just be me.
Cheers!
I remember when mint was the one you used because they setup all the video codecs for you.
I use Ubuntu for programming and I installed Mint recently just to check it out. Mint gave me the impression of using android the very first time. It's simple enough I think my parent can even use it without much problem, which is good since an OS is supposed to be a working & entertaining environment, not asking you to be a dang mechanic. Most people just want a OS that gets the job done, without too much of manual configuration and installation, which often is not even about performance improvement in many distros. This is why Linux drives people away and even less welcomed than Android OS which basically is Linux too. It's a shame that many distro makers and geeks failed to see this and just advertise their complicated distro hard and drive more people away.
Best Linux distro I have been run it for years .
I just installed Mint 20 MATE yesterday, and added a global menu panel at the top of the screen, much like Ubuntu MATE contemporary scheme. It's just a perfect, consistent and elegant desktop.
About Chromium, I just stand by the Mint side on this issue. I use Firefox by the way.
Mr. Chris, have you tried the yerba mate drink? If you like your tea strong, you might also like it. I'm sure Mr. Scissors will.
i got away from mint on 19 and switched to MX. I kind of like MX better. seems to run faster. but I recommend mint to newbs. its a good OS
ever hear the old intro?
Install gentoo?
@Fredd Colour Green yeah Ive played with mate on a Pi it was ok. about as good as one can get on a pi3 i guess. never played with it on my power lappy. only thing it has ever had on it is mint, kali and MX. i wiped win10 off it the 1st day.
@@excitableboy7031 ive never played with gentoo. I try to stick with DEB flavors on things i use alot. im just VERY versed with deb. I started with redhat back on redhat 4.0 but im old and forgot alot of commands LOL
Mint 20 can use zfs file system it faster lol😅
As always sir, I appreciate you illustrating what makes Linux Mint so great! If you've not considered such, a video about the process of upgrading from one version to another might be a good idea. Assuming a section of your subscribers already have Mint like myself, they might not want to do a fresh install.
Thanks again, & keep up the good work!
Just finished a new build and have Linux for the first time. Thanks for the great vids, loving Linux mint so much more than Windows!
Sounds like you are a convert! :)
I've been using Linux Mint since version 17 and I love adore it combined with XFCE. It just works with so few problems that I cannot remember the last time I experienced a difficulty. I use a 12 year old laptop which was a low powered model when first purchased, now upgraded with a cheap SSD, because it just keeps going. It does what I want for no extra cost. I will not go back to Windows. Why downgrade? I tried several other distros, Manjaro, Peppermint and Ubuntu mainly, and researched many others and discovered that they are all great, but Mint resulted in the least problems. I stopped distro hopping when I realized that the real point of an operating system once set up is just to allow applications to work and keep out of the way. Modern Linux Mint Xfce does that perfectly.
Switched from Ubuntu to Mint 8 years ago, still using it and never moved back.
I have experimented with other distros, but I stick with Mint. The word that always comes up for me when I think of Mint is "elegant."--And here I am thinking of Cinnamon, which is the only version of Mint I have used. Thanks for an excellent review of this great distro!
Mint has been my favourite distro for some time now. I have tried others but always end up coming back to it. Nice video with good clear explanation, seeing this and a couple of others here you have a new subscriber.
Thanks for sharing your video. Hope you are continuing to recover.
Thanks.
*3:35** Windows 8 was so bad Microsoft had to release a second version of it called 8.1*
At least they are listening to the users unlike Gnome developers.
@@gamunu.b *unlike foofke
One more excellent video!
Yesterday I did check my PC who is running mint and I did check for updates, I was wondering when are they delivering the next version and to night, I checked my email and found that your last video was about Linux 20 , that's great!!!
I'll update my two laptops tomorrow!
Thank you again for your very nice job 👍👍🙏🙏🙏🙏
I love Mint.
Ever since support for Windows 7 was dropped, I only use Mint on my desktop.
I still use Windows 10 on my laptop, and will continue to do so, as I want to install Office 2019 on my laptop for work and study purposes.
On my 11 year old desktop computer I will continue to use Linux Mint, as nothing works better on old hardware, and I don't like to throw anything out unless it is no longer working.
For now, Linux Mint is the best option for the desktop computer I have now.
"If you want to install Chrome..."
How about no.
Why? That's the first thing i do (after removing libreoffice* packages) on any new linux install. Then i remove firefox, mail client, chat client and use Google tools for everything. p.s. i also use nvidia driver (compile it locally) from nvidia and ukuu ;)
S C Google is trash
@@cokeforever Because now instead of being free from all the Google trackers and privacy invasion(which you get when swapping to linux, or just not using chrome and chromium based browsers in general), you jump right back into their data tracking net.
@@darkknight097 lol ))) you sound ridiculous ) 1. there is nothing about you or your browsing habbits that is special, i.e. males of your age consume on averages same porn fetishes in same quantities (sociology and psychology know everything about you); 2. your ISP tracks your every request as it is required by law; 3. you still use youtube, right? so google tracks you anyway, and so do thousands of google-afiliated websites; now look at #1 again ;)
@@darkknight097 people like you are the reason why linux is seen as a tech elitist centipede
I'm glad to hear someone as knowledgeable as you has made the same decision I made when Win 7 was killed. Give up on Microsoft and use (some form of) Ubuntu. Thanks for all your great content!
Runs great on a 2014 ASUS VivoPC mini-PC with a 2-core 1.5 GHz Celeron with only 4GB of RAM.. bought it online for twenty dollars, cleaned the dust out with a toothbrush, then installed a Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD, 256GB. Total cost: $50. Minimal setup issues.. in fact, no issues. Runs RUclips at 1080p with no dropped frames. Way more fun than Windows 10!
Great to hear! :)
Just upgraded to Mint 20 today and found your video notification right now. That was on point 🙂. Especially the "whats NEW" part was very interesting. Thanks for your effort you put into this channel every day.
Greetings 😋✌
I have tried Linux mint 19 and still have it on my laptop. It is a great way to for a windows 10 user to expand their computing capacity, but it is not a great replacement for windows 10 largely due to compatibility issues. However, if a person is at all into retro computing (quite a few are) I would recommend slackware. Slackware still supports not only newer x86 computers but also pentiums. My gosh I was shocked, awed, and surprised at how people overlook one of the oldest and still supported distros. And whats cool is that you can grab a handful of old linux cd's from back in the nineties and still use them. While you are not likely to find, for example, a walnut creek cd at a thrift store, you can get them from archive.org. and another benefit of Slackware is a full installation gives you the X Window System, C/C++ development environments, Perl, networking utilities, a mail server, a news server, a web server, an ftp server, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Mozilla Firefox, plus many more programs. I tell ya, cut your teeth on Mint, and then go for the gusto.
ive been running mint for 5 years and found it only crashed once of a bad update but its never slowed down it keeps going and the best thing its the easiest to learn better than windows 8.1
Linux Mint is in my humble opinion, THE best desktop OS you can get. I mean, it actually WORKS on a daily basis, without borking your computer, first time that you install an update.
I agree, Mint just gets on with the job.
Have been using Mint Xfce since 17.2 on a circa 2005/6 Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop. Now at 18.3 and still pleased with performance and functionality for a secondary machine.
Mint 20 will go on the newer HP laptop.
Just installed Mint 20 a week ago, and it is Fantastic as always! Since Ubuntu 10, I fancy Linux for everything... Though I'm very fond of Windows too....
But, for obvious reasons as you shared in another video regarding the applications and compatibility for Office Applications between Linux and Windows. I am a content writer and clients asks a Microsoft Word, MS PowerPoint versions of documents, and I know they use only MS Office, so I can't use LibreOffice to keep the formatting correct (compatible with the clients' office applications),... Cannot use WPS, as so many features aren't there and most importantly, No Thesaurus support (I use UK English to type). Thesaurus is a daily thing I need... I tried everything, tried to create documents in LibreOffice and later format it in a Windows PC... But scaling, anchor.. Everything got messed up....
I'm compelled to use Windows on my work PC this way... If Microsoft ever launches a complete version of Office for Linux (sounds like having a Philosopher's Stone), I'll permanently switch to Linux.... ❤️
What about Google Docs? Same compatibility issues?
@@user-xr3rb6pn9m Yes. I tried that too, even I use Docs on Windows to collaborate with other writers, as not many people have Microsoft account. But Google Docs or Other Web based solutions lacks a lot of formatting options, and cannot use Thesaurus (synonym) shortcut, restricting productivity (replying from another google account)
Completely relatable. Though there are a few more apps like that for me. I'll recommend Softmaker Office. Never paid for the pro version, but it has macros and thesaurus support. Also my distros of choice is Fedora, Pop OS and Arch Linux)
Nice vid as always! ;).
How? It was release 10 minutes ago and 16m long?
Nicolas Chapados Girard I’m sure it is good cause i watch all of his videos and are always good ;).
True, but I make sure it is :)
Linux Mint was my gateway into Linux and I highly recommend it. My 10 years old desktop computer was revived with Mint and I intend to teach my son how to use Linux with this distro. And here we are, Im now a Linux user!
Your explanation between cinnamon, Mate and Xfce was on point and informative. I also discover in your video how to change the refresh rate of my screen in system settings :-D
Here we are...and have a good day!
Was able to easily install Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon (by booting from an SD card and using the installer) in an older HP Duo Core laptop which wasn't able to keep up with Windows. Then needed to install Real VNC Server, but kept getting an Authentification Failure an the end of the install when it was trying to associate that instance with my Real VNC account. I finally was successful by setting a root password in terminal using "sudo passwd root" and then logging on to the GUI as root rather than my normal user account by using the sweet little "Logon Window" options app in the GUI (Administration=>Login Window=>Users) to enable "Allow manual Login". Once logged in as root, I got the Real VNC installer to finish, then logged out as root and back in as my normal username. All is well! This is now my Windows 11 replacement on old machines.
If were going to switch to Linux (and believe me, dealing with Windows has gotten me close several times) I would do Mint. It's powerful, easy to use, and I like the GUI (they it looks and works out of box)
I started on mint but switched to Pop OS since its so visually pleasing, im not a hardcore linux user so having a smooth GUI is essential for me
Try Manjaro.
I am using Mint 20. I have been trying to get my grandson to try any Linux distro, so yesterday he tried Pop OS on live usb stick and wow it is very visually pleasing. I may have to try it on my other PC.
Yeah, Gnome... meh...
Last time!e i gave Linux a whirl it really wasn't suitable for my needs, but was like 15 years ago. After following your videos recently I took a couple popular distros for a spin and landed on this one.
I did have some issues with dual booting windows and Linux, so ended up installing on separate drives so they were not aware of each other and use my motherboards boot menu to switch between instead, seemed cleaner to me.
Coming from Windows it's been very a smooth transition to Mint and compatibility is strides ahead from my previous tries, so much so now that I'm finding less reasons to boot up the other drive containing windows.
Thank you for your videos, keep up the fantastic content.
Great to hear of your experience with Linux. :)
Linux mint cinnamons GUI is so clean and easy to use, very little clutter too. I think a lot of other DEs could follow its example, as its very beginner friendly. In general i think how easy it is to use makes it the best distro for anyone coming from Windows, or even starting to use computers. Its fairly lightweight too so can run well on old computers, it can do anything other distros can do, while not requiring you to use the terminal too often or mess with any settings you might not yet be comfortable changing.
I think that makes it a perfect replacement for Windows, as other than software support it has all the same advantages as Windows and more. Despite what a lot of the community likes to say you dont need to use some Linux distro thats overcomplicated and designed for experienced users to get the most out of your computer either. It also makes ChromeOS completely redundant, as ChromeOS is technically a Linux distro thats made to be easy to use for beginners, but doesnt run Linux applications by default.
It seems Linux Mints eventual goal is to shift focus on the Debian edition, which nowadays has a similar amount of polish to the standard edition based off of Ubuntu. This is very nice to see as a lot of people dont agree with Ubuntus recent updates, and it means Linux Mint would be directly dependent on what is already considered one of the most stable distros, rather than being a distro based off of Ubuntu, based off of Debian.