I’ve been having a big think over Linux distros. See, I’ve been looking back at my still-new Linux experience of nine months, and wondering how my own journey can help other people get started with FOSS operating systems. Whenever the topic of a Windows refugee-friendly OS came up, I would recommend Linux Mint because, first, it’s the one everyone says, and second, it was the Linux OS that I started with, fresh off Windows.
I always follow that up with a comment about how you don’t have to stick with Linux Mint if you don’t want to. You can do what I did, which is to dip your toe into the Linux distro water and find something that suits you better. But if I’m setting up Linux Mint as “my first Linux distro,” why not just skip the middleman and get right into the distros that have a bit more meat on them?
Much as I love KDE’s beautiful themes, Mint is just… easy. I’ve spent so many years hunting dependencies like lost scrolls in ancient tombs and beseeching ancient wizards of the right incantation to fix my Bluetooth that I just quit. As soon as it stopped being broken, I stopped trying to fix it. Mint hasn’t broken on me. Everything works exactly as intended, right out of the box, with few exceptions.
I have been dreaming of this day for ten fucking years. For now? Hon, I am good. I’m not having to spend hours digging for old posts on AskUbuntu or some other forum for the solution to errors no one else has had since Obama’s era.