10 REASONS why Linux Mint is the desktop OS to beat in 2023

welcome back today we're here to go on a loving tirade about Linux Mint Linux Mint is uh the desktop that I have been running on The Daily for well over a year now and it's probably the first time in some time where I've settled into one particular desktop and it got me thinking what is it about this project that keeps getting better for me as an end user and then it dawned on me it's kind of cuz Linux Mint is as far as I can tell the best desktop Linux distribution I know it's always a bit bardy making those sorts of claims on the internet because there's always going to be somebody who disagrees and with good reasons but I'm going to try and give you 10 of the reasons why I believe in 2023 taking into account some of the recent announcements that Linux Mint have made why I think Linux Mint deserves a place as the Supreme desktop alternative to Windows and Mac so let's let's jump [Music] in the first reason I think Linux Min should be considered as the Supreme desktop Linux distribution is because of its user oriented design each of the design decisions that the Linux Min team have made and continue to make over the years seems to have the user the end users interests in mind when you think about some of the other big desktop players in the space today I'm thinking auntu manaro and others there have been decisions that have been made that weren't always in the best interest of the user both in design and in backend stuff and financing and a bunch of other stuff but it always seems like at least from where I'm sitting watching Linux Min as a project for over 10 years that they iterate with the end user in mind not only is the development cycle fed by the what the end user of Linux Mint uh would want but also the UI decisions and the decisions to keep the UI more or less the same and keeping it accessible for the new user there's a bunch of ways that this particular factor is going to filter in to all of the different parts of what makes Linux Mint a fantastic project but number two is Simplicity and consistency this is something that I think I really noticed uh back in the day I used to look at a desktop like cinnamon and go y it's just a bit Bland like there's not enough fancy stuff there's not enough animations there's not enough translucency there's not enough cool stuff for lack of a better word and then I realized that at the end of the day everyone is going to change their Linux distribution to suit their needs but everybody has to start somewhere and when you have a user interface that has a lot of cool stuff but no Simplicity it ends up being a huge barrier to entry so cinnamon seems to strike an almost perfect middle ground on a knife edge between having enough enough customization to satisfy a power user but having enough Simplicity and consistency that your average user who doesn't want to mess with their PC can feel at home and more often than not they obviously lean into the the way that a Windows PC operates it's shocking to me just how much I can get done on a Linux Mint distribution within 30 minutes of installing it and I think that says wonders for how both simple and consistent Linux Mint as a desktop project has been for so long number three transparency this is a big one and I think it's something that I have come to appreciate even more as time has gone on because of the fact that the Linux Mint uh team and their development cycle does seem to be very focused on the end user they're actually really good at explaining if you go digging on their blog why they make the decisions that they make and as time has gone on they've also become really transparent with how they make their funding for example so Linux Min are primarily a donations based funding so every month they post an update and they give a just a list of who donated what and which companies are sponsoring them that month and when they make Financial deals that might benefit the project like the deal they made with Mozilla to ship a standard version of Firefox instead of a customized version that had affiliate links in it that was financially benefiting mint uh they do disclose that to the end user base and I feel like the transparent that the mint Team have with their end users helps Foster this trust and consistency in their project that keeps users coming back and keeps users donating like if you run down the list here and look at how many people have made more than one donation it's pretty astounding and I think it speaks volumes for how people feel about the development and the team behind this project number four pragmatic iteration so what I mean by this is that the open source world and desktop specifically is always growing and changing it seems like there's a new shiny thing to try out pretty much with every release and a and a project likeed Fedora or Arch or mangaro or whatever it is is a fantastic way to try out those new shiny things however mint takes a more pragmatic approach there's no better example of this than with the display server for those who aren't aware a display server is kind of like the interface between your hardware and uh and the software running it projecting it as a display that you can interact with the display server that Linux Mint uses is one that's old it's pretty Antiquated it's X or xor or X server uh whereas most modern distributions are shifting towards Wayland which is more capable when it comes to um scaling and all that kind of stuff but it's also been problematic as it's rolled out mint has taken a more pragmatic approach of do our end users want this yes or no and then gradually working on it now up until very recently uh I was under the impression that there was no work being done on whand adoption and that kind of had me worried cuz I didn't want to see a massive break however in true Linux Mint form they have had some work going on it in the background and on their most recent blog posts they did actually mention uh we are starting work on whand it's not going to be ready for some time cuz we're still kicking the tires we want to make sure it's done right and I think that is typical of what I've come to see from this project over many many years and the fact that they can keep a pragmatic iterative approach makes them a very stable project to keep coming back to also they have a back door in that if the burning ship of auntu was to go down completely and at any point Linux Mint decided that they needed to completely switch codebase they do because they've already put the work in to make a pragmatic alternative to the auntu based Mainline Edition in Debian in the Linux Mint Debian Edition which in itself is a fantastic project and a fantastic distribution to run so they might not always be the first to adopt new stuff but they're often one of the best when it comes to implementing and stabilizing some of this stuff for the end user this also allows users to enjoy what they love without unnecessary change being forced on them and it's those kind of decisions that usually force people to change which distribution they want to run or abandon Linux altogether so reason number five is that Linux Mint Embraces the the value of a first impression finally I felt like for a long time I couldn't recommend the Linux Mint project just because of how poor their website was well over time their first impressions have continued to improve and it's gotten to the point now where I'm not outright offended by the theming that they use in fact the amount of customization they give you the amount of gorgeous wallpapers they give you the amount of polish that has gone into their website rewrite uh etc etc over the last 3 years Linux Mint has really turned the corner from being a very average looking desktop to something that actually looks in its own way very clean and elegant and minimalistic which brings me to my next point which is number six utility there's something so refreshing about mint's minimalism and utilitarianism in that even though when you're first presented with a Linux Mint desktop there doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on I mean it's a desktop there's a panel there's some stuff in the corner called a system tray but below the surface as you start digging away at what this thing can do and some of the tools that are built into it I got to say there's actually a lot of stuff that you can do out of the box here that a lot of power users and normal everyday users really appreciate for example the integration between time shift and the system the driver management the update manager the software manager all of these custom tools that the Linux Min team have continue to develop and roll out over the years and tackled multiple toolkits along the way continue to show show just how good some of these tools are not just for the fact that they are not bloated and uh a mess to look at but the fact that they actually do have a lot of power behind them uh a recent example of this one would be the fact that they now have a bulk file renamer again it's just not something that they had kicking around in the background before but as they continue to add features to it that their user base seem to be looking for and as the cinnamon desktop grows in its capacity it's great to see Linux Mint hold on to its minimalism while giving a lot of fantastic options for the burgeoning power user stability honestly the stability of the Linux Mint project has been one of the things that I've appreciated most over this last year the fact that I have installed an OS that is effectively based on an OS that came out almost 2 years ago at this point and the fact that it is stable it runs like a dream it gets updates when I need it with the recent addition of the edge ISO I now have compatibility with any recent Hardware straight from the install I can upgrade to a newer version of the kernel from the update manager if I so choose the fact that when a new release of Linux Mint comes out I can do minor updates and major ones without having to do a fresh install means that this system has been really stable for me and has been settled for a long time and could continue on something that we can't say about every open source project out there and when you do have issues they actually give you the courtesy of a tool that can help report on your system and give any crash reports that you might come across so that you can try and troubleshoot those more effectively number eight integrity and privacy I think this is something that we have come to Value more as time has gone on uh because of the fact that at the end of the day a distribution or a project has to make money and the amount of backd door deals that get done that don't always get disclosed or the changes that get made to benefit a project financially are sometimes hard to reconcile uh some of the movements that red hat have made uh under the jurisdiction of IBM uh has made the community pretty salty and maybe the same could be said for canonical and auntu however Linux Min over here in their own little lane uh still manages to create a distribution that their user base likes and they also with that transparency have built up a decent reputation for privacy in that they don't have any Telemetry enabled by default in any of their system now obviously when it comes to uh thirdparty software like Firefox and Thunderbird there is definitely going to be some Telemetry present there you can turn it off if you want however the system itself doesn't collect any Telemetry now there's pros and cons about just the functionality of telemetry but at the end of the day for people that value their privacy they're upfront they say that they don't collect any and they don't and I think that's a really important uh selling point if you will for a project that's free uh for to switch people over because at the end of the day Windows and Mac are both becoming very very encroaching in terms of just how much data they collect from their users and so I think giving them a polished alternative is a great way to start that process of becoming more aware of where your data is and how it's being used number nine a respect for the free and open source World honestly I don't need to say too much about this one in my mind Linux Mint is a gateway to the open source world for so many people because of the fact that they use recognizable Brands like Firefox and Libre office and other things like that it also puts the open source best foot forward in that it doesn't take an absolute purist approach but at the same time it does respect a user who wants to remain as open source as possible by opting in to things like restricted codec or Hardware drivers that are proprietary Etc the fact that Linux Mint continues to tow that line between being privacy and open source and free and open source respecting but at the same time being an Easy distribution to get into Linux I think is very well done finally the last reason that we should all agree that Linux Min is the Supreme desktop distribution in 2023 is because the documentation and support for this distribution continues to grow when it comes to the official documentation that's out there there used to be an official PDF manual that they used to put out with every release as time has gone on that's become a little bit odious and so what they do instead is they have an official installation guide that's available from the Linux Mint website you can download that in whatever format or language you so desire and they also have a slowly developing user guide that's available on their website that's kept up to date as opposed to these old PDF versions but the fact that there is documentation both official and then a wealth of support available from their forums which I've always found to be a great place to lurk and find solutions to things and the fact that it's based on the world's most popular Linux distribution being auntu it's not hard to find solutions for the things that you need so whether you are into gaming or just wanting to run your home office or whether you are a student or whatever your use case might be Linux Mint seems to provide the best of all worlds when it comes to running Linux on your desktop for yourself are there better options out there for Enterprise absolutely are there better options for a pure gamer absolutely but I don't think there is a better option in 2023 for the vast majority of PC users in the world if I'm wrong let me know in the comments below thank you so much for watching I'll see you in the next one [Music] bye [Music] n

Channel: InfinitelyGalactic

Views: 188,769

Keywords: infinitelygalactic, technology, linux, open-source, free software, ubuntu, alternatives to windows, alternatives to macos, distro reviews, app reviews, linux mint, linux mint 21.2, best desktop linux 2023, best linux distro 2023, best windows alternative, best macos alternative

Id: 6Tln-eBAq-k

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2023