[sf-lug] (forw)[kwlug-disc] Why I switched to Mint

[aaronco36]

Quoting from http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2022q2/015625.html :
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As an "automatic transmission" distro, oriented to ordinary desktop users, 
where everything just works, Mint/Cinnamon is way better than Fedora/Gnome 
and OpenSUSE/Tumbleweed/Plasma, for the things I've tried to do.

In Mint, and only in Mint, all of the features/setup/customization I 
wanted were either built in or trivial to configure, without the need to 
search google and follow recipes from documentation or blog posts. 
"Trivial" also means I didn't get bogged down diagnosing errors and 
figuring out why the recipes didn't work. Related to this, on your first 
boot, the Mint Welcome app runs, and it's a wizard that guides you through 
all of the most common customization requirements. Brilliant. The level of 
polish and reliability is just higher in Mint. (OpenSUSE was the worst 
overall, with Fedora in between.)

This comes at the price of up-to-date software. Mint is based on Ubuntu 
LTS. The default Mint kernel is currently 5.04 (2019), and the "Edge" 
version (Cinnamon only) has 5.13 (June 2021), 5.15 after installing 
updates. By contrast, my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed install had kernel 5.18. This 
could be an issue if you are installing on new hardware that needs the 
latest kernel.

Although one of my goals in distro hopping was to have up-to-date 
software, it turns out that I strongly dislike fixing my system when 
things break after an update. I spent too much time doing that in Fedora, 
and OpenSUSE/Tumbleweed was going to be worse (I abandoned SUSE as 
unusable before experiencing these problems though). So Mint it is.

One thing I realized: all distros suck, none of them meet my standards for 
an ethical, user-centred, modern, full featured, and reliable desktop. So 
I started thinking: if I want to contribute to the distro and help make it 
better, which organization do I want to support? Ubuntu, Red Hat and SUSE 
have desktop distros, but it's a hobby for them, since they don't make 
their money from the desktop. If I just consider distros where quality of 
life for desktop users is the primary focus of the organization, then Mint 
has the biggest user base and their distro so far comes closest in meeting 
my specific requirements. So I'll contribute to Mint.
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Since Linux Mint is based upon Ubuntu which is itself based upon Debian, 
maybe now _Mint_ is for those who can't install Debian? LOL!
-A

aaronco36 at sdf.org