It took my old laptop dying on me for me to finally ask my geeky neighbor to install Mint on another laptop I had around.
It’s been a few hours and Omigod. Why did I waste so much time? It works. It’s easy and intuitive. It makes sense. There’s no bullshit.
I still have to make Antidote talk to Libre Office, but whatever. The rest feels good and natural.
So please whoever is here because you’re contemplating switching: do it yesterday.

  • Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 天前

    Congrats, that’s almost exactly how I felt when I switched a year or two ago. I did a bit of distro hopping after a few weeks, and quickly resettled on Bazzite, but it was a universal experience of stuff just working better without any bullshit I didn’t add myself.

    • MarieMarion@literature.cafeOP
      0·
      9 天前

      Lemmy because of the Reddit API debacle.
      The Linux community because I’m a far-left activist who needs to get away from BigCorpo out of general principle, but I’d been using Windows since 3.0 and it was daunting.

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      9 天前

      It’s true that stumbling on Lemmy usual la happens after quite some time on Linux, not the other way around.

      What’s great is that OP is gonna be finding a lot of Linux stuff on Lemmy!

      • Guiorgy@lemmy.ml
        0·
        9 天前

        I was never much of a social person, have barely used Reddit, I just randomly felt trying lemmy to see if it’s any less toxic than Phoronix 😂

      • MaxLemminist@lemmy.mlBanned
        0·
        9 天前

        I’m also a Lemmy first then Linux example.
        Hard not to get indoctrinated here by all the Linux enthusiasts.
        So thank you all I guess?

    • MarieMarion@literature.cafeOP
      0·
      9 天前

      When I feel it’s time to spread my wings. I’m still stuck on Libre Office freezing whenever I ctr-tab between windows. Baby steps, unfortunately.

      • Eugenia@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        9 天前

        Try OnlyOffice (the appimage). It’s more compatible than LibreOffice for MS formats. Alternatively, consider downloding the LibreOfficeFresh appimage, which is the latest version (Linux Mint’s is 2 years old). When you download an .AppImage file, you right click it, Properties, and you mark it as executable. Then, run it. Always download appimages from the developer’s source site, not from third parties.

        • MarieMarion@literature.cafeOP
          0·
          9 天前

          Not sure what an appimage is, but I picked OnlyOffice in what’s called Logithèque in French, and maybe Software manager (or “repository”) in English? Main menu / Administration / Logithèque.
          After an in-depth trial of at least 4 minutes, I can say I love it, and it works fine.
          You now have the unending gratitude of a random French woman.

        • Guiorgy@lemmy.ml
          0·
          9 天前

          AppImage may be up-to-date now, but it has no self update mechanism, so a Flatpak is a better choice IMO

          • Eugenia@lemmy.mlEnglish
            0·
            8 天前

            I personally can’t stand flatpaks, they’re too large to update its libs every few days. On a 4 MB/sec line that I’m, it’s not a good option.

  • GloomyDorje@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 天前

    When i switched to Mint i had a bit of a learning curve, not all things worked completly out of the box. I’d like to encourage you to not give up on it, problems are solveable. The Linux Mint Forum was a great help for me (still is)

    • XiJinpingStanAccount@lemmy.ml
      0·
      9 天前

      Also something new people don’t realize is that Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. If you can’t solve your issue by searching for mint you can usually find a solution meant for Ubuntu or Debian that will work.

      • Guiorgy@lemmy.ml
        0·
        9 天前

        Yes, though slight caveats: Mint has 2 branches, 1 based on Ubuntu, as you said, but the other one based on Debian skipping Ubuntu actually, since there are a lot of things they are dissatisfied with Ubuntu, and one among them are snaps, so if you see anything regarding snaps when searching Ubuntu threads, disregard them completely.

    • MarieMarion@literature.cafeOP
      0·
      9 天前

      Yes. Well no, not yet. To be One of you, I need to say the Sentence:

      Now let me tell you why your distro of choice is Not The Right One.

      Here. Done. (Phew. I couldn’t list many. I’ve heard of Mint, Fedora, and Pikachu. Even then, Fedora might be a Pokemon, not sure.)

      • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
        0·
        9 天前

        If you want a very stable server = debian

        Hybrid server+gaming = openSUSE Tumbleweed

        If you hardcore probably Arch :D

        If your are in ultra instinc you make your own OS :D

        • lost_faith@lemmy.ca
          0·
          9 天前

          If your are in ultra instinc you make your own OS :D

          One day maybe. I have thought about doing this, but I just want it to work when I only have 4hrs to myself after work. I’d say my distro but it’s prolly the wrong one, hehehe 🤪

      • Handles@leminal.spaceEnglish
        0·
        9 天前

        I’m pretty sure Fedora the Pokémon wears a Pikachu in the movie adaptation, so close enough 🤣

  • lobut@lemmy.ca
    0·
    9 天前

    I had an old laptop that I didn’t swap over yet just because I had a few things set up and didn’t feel like moving it. It then harassed me to move to Windows 11. Also, when I tried to remote desktop, it was like, you gotta pay me for professional edition.

    I’ve paid for Windows so many damned times, so I was like screw it and put Mint on it and donated to it as well.

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 天前

    Awesome. I remember that same feeling. For me that experience was slightly tainted by being really picky about customizations but then I found out quickly that literally any customization is possible. As a friend put it: most OSes are like buying a house. Using Linux is like being your own architect. You can use someone else’s blueprints and be fine. But anything you wanna change about that blueprint is probably doable. In any case, you’re in charge of your house, not some asshole CEO.

  • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    9 天前

    It took my old laptop dying on me.

    same here and it’s lead to me having a job for the last 24 years – i would have been a factory worker like my brother, cousins and father if it weren’t for my computer dying on me.

  • MaxLemminist@lemmy.mlBanned
    0·
    9 天前

    just did it yesterday.
    Got the purple kernel panic screen and figured i KILLED MY DESKTOP.
    Second time all went well.
    Very happy