My switch to Linux started 1,5 years ago with Manjaro KDE - and since then, I am still a fan of KDE, which is kind of “Windows UI done right” for me. Ergonomic, configurable, consistent. I also find Pantheon, Enlightenment, and Budgie to be cool concepts, but from a practical side, KDE is a no-brainer for me.
Mint comes with Cinnamon by default, and I guess that’s what you’re using. For me, Cinnamon is too old-fashioned, it’s like you’re back to at least Windows 7 timing. Some people like it, but for me it’s just old and out of touch with the progress of UI’s.
GNOME used in Ubuntu is good with app theming (yay for adwaita!), it is unique and minimalistic, but its overall design is just…not for everyone, and customization is heavily tied to unsafe practice of plugins which has been exploited many, many times.
With all that said, try everything out in a VM or something and see what’s good for you. There are really no wrong choices!
Personally using the latter, appears to have the best support and more configuration options compared to alternatives, as well as advanced options like GPU passthrough etc, though it has a bit more of a learning curve, and each alternative option should be fine.
My switch to Linux started 1,5 years ago with Manjaro KDE - and since then, I am still a fan of KDE, which is kind of “Windows UI done right” for me. Ergonomic, configurable, consistent. I also find Pantheon, Enlightenment, and Budgie to be cool concepts, but from a practical side, KDE is a no-brainer for me.
Mint comes with Cinnamon by default, and I guess that’s what you’re using. For me, Cinnamon is too old-fashioned, it’s like you’re back to at least Windows 7 timing. Some people like it, but for me it’s just old and out of touch with the progress of UI’s.
GNOME used in Ubuntu is good with app theming (yay for adwaita!), it is unique and minimalistic, but its overall design is just…not for everyone, and customization is heavily tied to unsafe practice of plugins which has been exploited many, many times.
With all that said, try everything out in a VM or something and see what’s good for you. There are really no wrong choices!
I totally forgot about using a VM, can you recommend one besides virtualbox?
VMWare, GNOME Boxes, QEMU+virt-manager
Personally using the latter, appears to have the best support and more configuration options compared to alternatives, as well as advanced options like GPU passthrough etc, though it has a bit more of a learning curve, and each alternative option should be fine.