Switch to Linux Mint

I've used various versions/distros of Linux since 2005 with Fedora 4. However at the time it was great to use for server web hosting, but still very much an enthusiasts OS for home use. A lot of what you wanted to do needing the command line. And for many as soon as you mention Linux they still think of the command line. But a lot has changed in the last 20 years.

Distros such as Ubuntu started to make it more user friendly and a real alternative to Windows for home users. But for years it still wasn't quite there. But additions such as repositories and built in software managers where you can find most software to install with a single click has changed a lot of things.

The one issue has always been gaming. It was never great for this. but Valve changed this with their development of Steam OS and their Proton Windows compatibility layer. The launch of the Steam Deck showed Linux was finally a serious contender for gaming. I've owned a Steam Deck since launch and have been really impressed with what Valve have achieved. They have constantly worked on both the OS and Proton to keep making more games compatible. Last time I checked over 19000 games in the Steam library are verified as 100% compatible. And more are added weekly. I've tried a lot of games that are still marked as unknown and most work perfectly, just needing controller setup and manual setting of resolution.

And Valve have passed this compatibility on to Steam for Linux. So install Steam on a Linux install and it automatically includes Proton to run Windows games. So as Valve continue work on it this benefits ever Linux Steam user.

Anyway, I bought my son a new Acer Nitro Gaming Laptop for Christmas and had his older Windows 11 HP laptop spare. Windows hasn't been working well for some time on it, plus I hate Windows 11. So instead of reinstalling Windows I wiped it and installed Linux Mint, and so far it's worked perfectly.

I recently had to get my wife's HP x360 laptop working. It was taking 20 minutes to boot! The OS was messed up so I also ditched the HDD and replaced it with a SSD and it now boots in seconds and is like a new system. But it still took over an hour to install Windows. Linux Mint took 10 minutes to install on the other PC. And the huge difference was once the install was complete Linux Mint restarted, asked me to remove the USB stick, asked me to set a password, and then I was at the desktop. I checked and no drivers were needed. Everything was working out of the box. The audio, the graphics were correct, WiFi was already setup and working as I had to supply the password during setup. Even Bluetooth was working. And within seconds it informed me it had found the network Brother printer and it was setup and working. I've been testing lots on it and not found many issue yet. In contrast after Windows 10 was installed on the other laptop it had to go through all the setup screens and then once at the desktop more rubbish. And even then there were still exclamation marks next to lots of hardware so I had to search the Hp website for drivers. The 2 finger scroll feature of the touch pad is still not working. Linux Mint by contrast just worked. No drivers needed.

So I'm continuing to play around with this Linux Mint install and I'm very impressed. Other than specific software such as Adobe or Microsoft Office pretty much everything is available. I've setup Spotify, Chrome, Firefox, Brave. Tested the current version of Thunderbird mail client and it's far easier to use than Outlook. so I've sticking with it. Add a new email account and it auto finds the servers needed and sets them up for you. None of the messing around with entering SMTP servers manually.

OS itself obviously anyone coming from Windows will be a bit worried. But Mint especially is designed to be very similar to Windows, You still have your taskbar and start menu. the control panels allow far more settings than Windows does these days. I'm using Mint Cinnamon but it's also available with other desktops. Cinnamon is my preferred one as it's clean and easy to configure. And everything is fairly obvious. Keyboard shortcuts can be slightly different and things such as creating s shortcut on the desktop works slightly differently, but a quick Google answers such questions.

The other advantage of Linux is free opensource software. Much of it has come a long way. Things like the 3D renderer Blender now gives 3DSMax a decent run for it's money, and a fork from that called BforArtists takes it and makes it more user friendly. GIMP is still going as a decent image editor alternative to Photoshop for the general user. But this is one area where Linux still lacks a bit. Photoshop is still the best, but that is changing. A new product called Affinity was released last Autumn and it's a serious contender to Adobe. It's free and includes their versions of Photoshop, illustrator and Indesign all in one package. This isn't yet on Linux but it's early days and it does work via Wine (but I've not tried that yet). A replacement for Adobe Premiere is however available that is better in many ways, called Divinci Resolve. This is already an industry standard video editing and post production suite. The only main Adobe package I use that has no direct alternative is After Effects.