Linux Mint 20: My Top Linux Distro

[Music] welcome to another video from explaining computers comm this time we're going to take a look at Linux Mint 20 this is the latest version of my favorite Linux distro and Linux Mint is also a good choice if you're a Windows user who's thinking of migrating to Linux so let's go and take a closer look right here we are on the Linux Mint website where we can see what Linux Mint 20 has just been released under the codename Orianna this is an LTS or long-term support version of the operating system which will receive security and other updates until April 2025 if you're currently running Linux Mint 18 or 19 it's worth noting that these remain supported until April 20 21 and April 2023 so there's no urgency to update and personally I always wait for a few months before upgrading a critical system at the top of the page we have the opportunity to donate to those who created this free and open source Linux distro but for now we'll go to a download where we can find links for the three different versions of a Linux Mint 20 all of these are 64-bit only and realistically require a computer with at least two gigabytes of RAM and 20 gigabytes of drive space if you're wondering why we have a three download links it's because the next mint is available with three different desktop interfaces the most popular is cinnamon which is the one will mainly be focusing on in this video although we'll also take a look at ER marte under XFC II but for now i'll click on a cinnamon and then i'll find a mirror close to where I am where while we're down here somewhere there we are united kingdom i go for university of kent where a service and a download the file when this is completed the I say we've obtained needs to be written to a bootable USB drive using a program such as edger I've covered the installation of Linux Mint including dual boot in two previous videos and so here I'll provide links and install instructions in the video description and not repeat that shipped oil but in short you will create a USB Drive and we can use to boot a PC into the next mint running from that drive this that allows us to test out the operating system and if we want we can click on the install icon as we work through the resultant wizard various installation options are provided as I've covered in my other videos and here I'm just going to do a single clean install and then after the process has completed there we are we can reboot our computer right here we are booting into Linux Mint 20 which has a new circular startup animation and with the startup completely to enter my password and will arrive on the desktop and what we can see straight away is that a Linux Mint 20 is a constrained a conservative upgrade and definitely not the kind of operating system transition that occurred between for example Windows 7 and Windows 8 which gave people such a nasty shock on first boot as you can see we get this welcome screen although I should point out this is actually my second boot as I begin already toward your scaling a video recording but I've left the welcome screen here because it is a rather useful in particular if we get down to a first steps here the first thing we can see is a means of setting when you were themes available in Linux Mint changing the system colors which traditionally are based on a green for the folders and their menu highlight things like that but we can make it for example really if we wanted to what a bitter different isn't it and we can turn on this new work dock mode if we wanted to as well I think for now I'll go back though to the the standard settings below we could also choose if we want a modern or traditional panel I think I'll stick with that modern power equivalent of the taskbar in Windows and then next we can go to a system snapshots and if we launch that it allows us to set up the system a bit like restore points in Windows so berta if you have a problem of your system you can roll back to a previous position we've then got a driver manager to check for any additional drivers needed for your computer this shouldn't we need it because the Linux kernel should pick up everything on your system but if we launch this it'll just run through but to give it a password and it will have a check see if any additional drivers are required which here they aren't we've got all the drivers we need for this system and in terms of such matters it is worth pointing out that then it's been 20 has got improved support for Nvidia Optimus so go back to the welcome screen here you can see we can also run the update manager to control system updates I won't do that for now you can see the system needs some updates as little block down there saying we've got some updates required but that'll take a while I've run that a bit later and then also here we can run if we wish the software manager to install new software and we could set up the firewall the first thing we've got here is system settings I haven't missed it honestly I like system settings in Linux Mint it's one of the reasons I really like that it's mint all the settings are brought together in one place the appearance settings via user preferences but also down here the hardware settings and the administration settings and if we click for example on display here one of the nice things in the linux mint 20 is that we can finally in this screen set the refresh rate for the display we can also set scaling for the user interface we could do this previously but now in this screen we could also set fractional scaling if we're using a high DPI which is very nice indeed but in addition to that we've still got if we go back here to the top again and to appearance and font selection we can still set the individual fonts for different font element as I've done here and we can set the text scaling factor and this high level of user control of the interface is one of the reasons I really like the looks mint and it's my favorite Linux distro we just have a quick look at the menu down here you'll see there's lots of applications are pre-installed as you would expect accessories various graphical programs internet things Firefox Thunderbirds LibreOffice as you would expect sound a video we've got rhythm box for playing music celluloid for playing movies not come across that bethought very exciting all sorts of admin settings preferences as you would expect and if we go into the software and manager over there we could install software nicely easily in just a couple of clicks here we are some editors picks showing up if we wanted to install say a we could just click on click on install it would ask us for our password I'm sure there we are and if we just put that in it will get on and install the package this said I'll be saying a bit more about how Linux Mint installs new applications later in the video but for now let's launch it hits now were installed get rid of hopefully it will come up there it is and we're now rolling the the photo editor in Linux Mint 20 greetings Here I am back again and I'm now running the update manager to get everything up to date and there we are I think everything is up to date yes our system is up to date I can close that down and a little dot has disappeared from the shield down here and I'm also as you can see switch to the green version of this new Linux Mint desktop wallpaper and in fact I'm now running them explint 20 not just on this desktop computer but also here on my laptop where I've run it up from the USB Drive we created earlier and I've done this to show you this which is a tool called warp inator that's now included in the next mint and what a warp native doesn't yet it's a fantastic name yet we implement a tool called giver which allows the easy sharing of files across a local network for computers running a Linux Mint now as you can see at the moment I've brought up war pineda here when it says no other computers found so we just go back to our green desktop version of Linux Mint and go to the menu and accessories and we will not walk the native which is right at the bottom there it is doubt that and here it is running up initializing very exciting to be initializing something called warp inator isn't it and hopefully in a second it'll find yes it's found the other computer that laptop which is running from a live USB drive so it's a mint and mint and if we just click on that there we are we can see we get the screen there and we can send files by clicking on send files there's some files when playing with earlier let's browse to find a file let's go to say it pictures oh yes hamster with knots will do run t let's do hamster with nuts and it's now come up saying a waiting for approval so if we go back to a Linux Mint on the laptop you can see we've now gotten a message saying new incoming files we wish to accept it's also picked up Lea as a computer so we'll click on accept and there we are the file has come across nice and straightforward and all we need to do now is to click if we wish on the fold like on there and we can see the file in the folder it's in there's a picture we open it up oh look we've got a picture of a hamster with some nuts from my raspberry pie hamster feeder video and that basically that's how we operate at work it's a very straightforward utility to use and I should just show you the menu here where here it is a look at preferences and in preferences you can see by default files come into a folder called warp inator we can start saying automatically if we wish and we can select whether we want to prove those when the files are transferred across but really as someone used to say over television that's all there is to it Warp inator is a great included utility for transferring files between two computers running Linux Mint right here we are back again in the cinnamon edition of a Linux Mint 20 which as we've seen it's got a menu it looks like this and if we go into its display settings which are over there you might recall it's got this fractional scaling available this said as you might also recall there were two other additions over than explained 20 available with a amarte or xfce desktop and so as always you take a quick look at those as well first here we are going the Marte edition of a Linux Mint 20 and yes it is pronounced Marte and not mate as its named in Spanish after a South American drink in contrast to cinnamon Marte has fewer features it doesn't for example here and mantra preferences have a a fractional scaling we saw in cinnamon butter on the positive side the Marte version of linux mint 20 is more stable than cinnamon and uses fewer resources and this means that marte runs faster especially on less powerful hardware if we open up the menu you see it's quite distinctly different to what we see in this cinnamon edition of it Linux Mint and I have to say that personally I do prefer the cinnamon layout if you want the least resource hungry and the most stable version of Linux Mint 20 then you should opt for the xfce Edition xfce is a lightweight desktop environment and here I've installed Linux Ben 20 xfce on my old acer aspire one netbook this has a 1 gigahertz AMD C 60 dual core GPU and even on this hardware Linux Mint 20 xfce runs a pretty well as you might expect in this lightest weight edition of Linux Mint 20 we have fewer features than in cinnamon or marte for example we look again in display settings week once again haven't got the fractional scaling and if you're wondering I'm running here in a 1280 by 720 because my Acer Aspire One doesn't have a full HD display we look at the menu you will see that a once again it's different to what we saw in cinnamon or in Marte and a once again I prefer the cinnamon menu but this said it's great you can use it the XFC edition on hardware such as a stress by one which would struggle to run the cinnamon interface now as you may know Linux Mint is based on who boon to with Linux Mint 20 specifically based on Ubuntu 20 point o4 this is important because Lubuntu 20 point zero 4 uses a technology called snap as its default method for installing applications snap was created by Ubuntu developers canonical and whilst in theory of his improvements over the widely used apt advanced packaging tool many Linux users object to it and the reason I'm telling you all this is while Statesman 20 is based on a boo to 24:04 it does not include snap the practical implication is that here in the next mint 20 it's far more difficult to install the chromium browser this is because you new boon to 20 point o for chromium runs in the background is an empty application that facilitates the installation of snap packages and it does this in a manner that makes it a requirement to have snap if you wish to use chromium and whilst this doesn't happen here in a Linux Mint 20 the chromium browser remains an empty or dummy package which we can see if we look in the software manager there it is chromium browser empty package if I click on that you will see that there it is chromium browser note is no longer available as a packaging repository etc it's explained here and if you're thinking where I can't install chromium this way but I can install it via a terminal typing at sudo apt install chromium browser won't work either now personally I'm not too worried by all of this but if you do rely on the chromium browser you will need to investigate how you're going to run it in the lux mint 20 now my own solution is to use the Chrome browser which is Google's version of the open source chromium with Google technology added with Google proprietary features and as a professional youtuber energy squeek customer I have no issues using a Google software and so if you want to install Chrome which is my solution go to a google.com forward slash chrome click on that download Chrome it'll give you the writer option straight away except to install there we are that still goes through and okay on that and there we are with the download complete we can just click on a install package and there we are but if I look down here now under internet yes we've got a Google Chrome installed on this system anyway all of this has been getting rather involved so I think it's now high time to bring this video to a close since the end of support for Windows 7 I've personally been using Linux Mint for a lot of my everyday computing activities it's the operating system my first boot up every morning and using their looks Mint in that way for a good to the six months or so now it's been a very pleasant a very very nice experience very calming operating system to use Linux Mint and and therefore very pleased that we've now got released over Linux Mint 20 and I'm sure in time of it migrating to this latest version but now that's it for another video enjoy you seen Oprah's best act like button if you haven't subscribed please subscribe and I hope to talk to you again very soon [Music] you

Channel: ExplainingComputers

Views: 451,403

Rating: 4.9464674 out of 5

Keywords: Linux Mint 20 review, Linux Mint 20 demo, warpinator, Linux Mint warpinator, Linux Mint MATE, Linux Mint Xfce, Xfce vs MATE, Cinnamon vs Xfce, Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, Christopher Barnatt, Barnatt, Linux Mint 20 snap, Linux Mint 20 Chromium, Linux Mint 20 new features, Linux Mint 20 system requirements

Id: Z_ZAH7LWl-o

Length: 16min 54sec (1014 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020