What made you switch to Linux Mint?

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Tomgin5
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by Tomgin5 »

I was running XP Pro with AUTOCAD and an old copy of OrCAD. I am retired now. My service provider told me that they could no longer support me with XP and Chrome. My computer was so full of bugs and security that It took forever to do anything. I recycled the computer and bought a new one with LM installed with a 64 bit buss and 8 gig of ram, and 500 gig HDD, and a quad Intel 2500 processor running 3.3 gig. All for $160. I them installed a partition and win 7 Ultimate 64 with AUTOCAD (old). It runs so much better than any Win system I ever saw.
I have been converting others ever since. :D
stevindm

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by stevindm »

I choose to install Linux Mint when Windows 8 came out and I had the duty to try to teach my wife how to use that horrible system on her new laptop. My laptop had Window 7 on it back then (2 years ago) and the switch to Linux Mint was pretty easy. I spent too much time on my wife’s desktop with XP on it chasing down malware and installing security updates. Linux Mint is so much easier. I keep going back to the Cinnamon desk top with what ever the latest version of Mint is available.
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rgand
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by rgand »

My first experience with Linux was Red Hat in the mid to late 90's but I wasn't savvy enough to get it configured correctly. Then I shelved the idea figuring that some day it would be more user friendly to install. The software package sat in a drawer, unused. A couple years ago I finally tossed it. Linux was always my dream, though.

Over the years, I stayed with Windows and finally ended up with Win 7 (in an attempt to get away from Windows, I briefly tried top-of-the-line Macs for both my wife and me but promptly sent both of them back once I saw how convoluted that OS was). I avoided "upgrading" my W7 as the releases of W8 and then W10 came out, not liking the way either worked. About Fall of 2015, I could see the writing on the wall that eventually I would be forced into W10 or accidentally click the icon to install it so I started researching Linux again. I tried Linux Lite since most reviews said it was the most trouble-free for a noob. Early this year, after trying LL with dual boots on a couple older laptops and being highly impressed, I decided to put it on my main computer. I went on a couple of forums to see what people were doing and many regarded Mint as possibly the best distro, Cinnamon being the most elegant and highly regarded.

I read up on all four versions of Mint 17.3 and made live boot disks of Mate, Cinnamon and KDE to try. I didn't like KDE at all and found Cinnamon way preferable. I installed it on an unused drive to see if my computer would handle it. It did, so I then put the Windows drive back in, updated the grub menu and was in business with a dual boot and an easy switch to either system exclusively by simply removing the drive I wouldn't want. I'm still using that dual boot until I can get everything I need working in Linux. When that's done, I'll go purely Linux. Cinnamon is truly the best OS I've ever tried. It's everything others have said about it and more. I tried to put it on one of my older laptops but it wasn't up to the task. I then put Mate 17.3 on both of the older laptops in place of the LL. The more I use Mint, the better I like it. I'm a total convert.
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barmorg

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by barmorg »

I've used Windows right from Windows 95 to the new windows 10, skipping 8. I've tried Linux in the past but found it complicated to set up. Recently I've dabbled in Linux again, downloading and using live versions of around 40 distros. I installed Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop; used it for a week, but there were Windows programs I just had to have. Switched back to Windows 10 for a day, and I just had to get ride of it! I installed Lint Mint Cinnamon version again and truly loving it!! By using PlayOnLinux I managed to get the Windows programs working; so far so good! Here's something I've found. Installing Windows would take me about 45-60 minutes, PLUS I would have to reinstall my programs. To install Linux Mint, ii took all of 10-15 minutes AND it had an abundance of programs already included! Impressive! One last thing and this may sound corny, but no matter which Linux version I've tried, they have some of the most beautiful backgrounds or wallpaper I've seen!
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by Portreve »

Uh... these guys:

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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by Rosko »

I didn't 'switch' to Mint as such, I 'chose' it. The 'switch' was going from Windows to Linux, once I decided do that it was just a matter of choosing a distro. I did try Linux, I think Mandrake, about 15 years ago, when Win98 was getting long in the tooth, but never could get my modem to work with it. Then I got XP and was fat and happy (and lazy) with it, so my little foray into Linux was over ... until Windows 10! (OK, Windows bashing over lol)

My requirement was something that would make for an easy transition for a Windows user (I'm still lazy ;) ) that was high in popularity (I figured if lots of people liked it there were probably few problems and would be lots of help for any that showed up.) After reading a few website recommendations I narrowed my choices down to Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Zorin & Mint.

Ubuntu never got past the Live CD stage, I just didn't like the Unity Desktop.

Lubuntu was more to my liking in looks, I installed it and used it for a little while. It was good enough but I found myself still wanting to use Win10 instead of Linux so went on to see if there was anything better.

Mint was my next trial and, like so many have already written, it just worked. It was very easy to find my way around, I liked the layout of the 'Menu', the 'Panel' was easy to setup and everything was very intuitive for me. Within a week Mint was my go to OS.

Zorin didn't even get a look, Mint was everything I wanted, it just works!
D-man

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by D-man »

I had nearly 20-year-long experience being an average user of Windows (in the beginning I did a lot of "clicking-here-and-there" activity just to see how things would work; it was helpful enough during that era when it was not easy to find guides): starting from Windows 3, followed by 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7 and finally 10.
I did not know about other OS.

The first Linux distro I tried was Ubuntu 10.04 in 2010. At that time I liked certain things about Linux. They definitely sounded like significant advantages to me (in comparison to how Windows worked). Although I did not have enough opportunities to use that distro (as it was not on my own computer) - just happened to randomly use it for several months. I was still not confident about installing it on my own computer (whether I would be able to do it well and to have enough time for getting acquainted with the OS that was absolutely new to me).
Since 2012 I have had some regular experience with Ubuntu 12.04 (which has been not on my own desktop computer either) but not really more than browsing and dealing with some office tools.

I can say that up until 2015 I never tried checking out what other Linux distros existed.
I knew that Windows 7 (that was then my laptop's OEM OS) was going to be "replaced" with Windows 10 and I realized that I had liked Linux even with that tiny experience I had had. So I thought of giving a try to Linux and prepared myself to find time for getting used to it (as I later realized it did not require much time to get used to Linux Mint). First I thought of trying Ubuntu again. But what made me stop was their default DE (did not try Xubuntu / Lubuntu / Kubuntu). I have used GNOME 2 in 12.04, which has looked OK and much more convenient than Unity. I spent several days browsing the net at my spare time and found out that Linux Mint seemed to be the most excellent replacement for Ubuntu ever possible for me (just an average user).

I found this great forum and saw that kind people here would help really well and promptly. So I did not have to worry about possible hardships while mounting the OS. I found lots of very helpful threads and tutorials as well. So I finally burned a DVD with Mint 17.2 Cinnamon and got it flawlessly mounted alongside "remainings" of Windows 7. I should explain that 2 weeks before that I made an unlucky decision upgrading Windows 7 to 10 to see what it would be like. After testing Windows 10 for more than a week I absolutely disliked it. In my opinion, it had no useful benefits. The most notable thing was its new ugly look. There were also the notorious privacy issues (but I guess any of their product could be subject to these issues, at least the OS starting from 7). A lot more facts were Windows' old disadvantages that I do not need to mention.
Finally I decided to downgrade back to Windows 7 and try dual-booting with Linux Mint. I confirmed I was sure to downgrade it. And when I got back to computer I found the computer rebooting and trying to boot into Windows 7. It failed. No repair tools helped. As I later found out, other people who had that issue ended up re-installing Windows. That was absolutely not what I needed. At that time I left those Windows "remainings" just in case I would repair it later. But later I realized that I did not really need anything from Windows. So I just formatted all Windows partitions to EXT4.

And now I am happy to solely use Linux.
I have tried Cinnamon and Xfce so far. I like both. I ought to mark Cinnamon as my top choice.
abaneyone

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by abaneyone »

After reading about Linux Mint 17.3 and using it on Windows 10 via Virtual Box I realized that I like it better than Windows. After completely installing it, I see that it's faster and smoother than any windows I've ever had! Plus I believe that it's more secure. I can hardly believe how great Linux Mint is! It's like I bought a new laptop! :D
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by Amii_Leigh »

Fear. Really. Just about a month before I finally switched to Linux, someone had put a message on my screen as I was checking my online funnies and I wanted to know how they managed that. I foolishly allowed them access to my machine, thinking surely they would enlighten me as to how they achieved it. However, this never happened and they gave me this long song and dance about how they needed to 'fix' my computer. Though they wouldn't admit that there wasn't really anything actually wrong with my computer.

Thinking that they would only allow me out only if I were to do something drastic, I shut off my computer, waited for a half hour, then turned it back on. The invader was gone. I installed a firewall, and shut off still more things in my browser and operating system. All I could think of is that they had somehow manipulated Javascript inside my browser, since I was using WinXp back then, my browser wouldn't update either. Antivirus for WinXp was getting to be problematic since WinXp wasn't getting any more updates, but the antivirus was, but it wouldn't work with the operating system. The antivirus was configured for Win7 or worse, Win ten.

I realised I had two options. Either I went with Windows seven, which I wasn't sure would even run on my computer, then run the risk of accidentally 'upgrading' to Win ten. I'd seen what that looked like on my roomie's computer, and seen how they had frightened him into taking Win ten lock, stock, and barrel.I even had to configure it for him. I even installed Spybot Anti-Beacon and Never 10 on it.

I'd been using WinXp for the better part of ten years. Before that, I'd used Win2k until I *had* to take WinXp from a friend of mine. Before Win2k, I used Win 98, and before, Win95. Out of them all, my favourite was Win2k. It didn't seem very likely that microsoft would relent and bring back an updated Win2k.

I'd been attempting several times over the years to switch to Linux, I had tried with Mandriva, twice, Ubuntu, once. Both of those times I'd opted for dual boots, after the initial joy over getting it to work, I'd discovered that I couldn't continue to play my games, or I tried to install a screensaver and screw up the system, or every time I wanted to use the printer, I'd have to reinstall the printer driver. These problems would haunt me every time I had tried Linux before.So, I"d usually spend most of my time on Windows, playing my online games.

However, this time, I followed a friend's advice and downloded Linux Mint Cinnamon. This had to be good. Because I just love Cinnamon, why else? I loved the desktop, the system found all my usb stuff with no issue, not like Ubuntu before, when I had to tell it where it was each time I rebooted.I slept on it, then installed it the next day. I breathed a sigh of relief after it rebooted, and praised the lord in heaven. I was free of microsoft. Well, somewhat.
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by Nic-Mint »

Being a Unix professional, there is no way I will work all day on a Windows workstation. But company policy, the desktops we get are Windows.
Years ago Unix admins convinced our boss to get us another desktop to run Linux. It was just easier for us to manage Solaris and AIX boxes from Linux than Windows. Similar tools, X, command line, ... Now a days I run Mint over VirtualBox so I can share between the corporate applications (on Windows) and my Linux tools.

I first started with Suse and RedHat since that is what we were running on the servers. Then Ubuntu, then Mint. Ubuntu shot themselves in the foot with Unity (IMHO) so the switch to Mint was a savior for me. I use it as a workstation, so no need for sound, movies, gadgets and gizmos. I turn off most visual goodies and effects.

Keep it clean, stable and allow users to turn off the gadgets and I`ll be happy for years!
pdhunter1987

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by pdhunter1987 »

I was sick of windows, my friend I worked with gave me a disc with Linux Mint 11 Cinnamon.

Tried it, loved it and ditched windows completely from that time, in 2011 until this day, Linux full time.

As alot of people, tried many different distros hopping constantly finally returned back to Mint 17.3 and now 18 with KDE.

Mint do a great job, married with 2 kids and a full time job, I simply don't have time to mess around with my system like I used to. Mint is awesome it works, it's stable and we can all use it easily.

Remember this, as long as you use your computer and it works, use that. The computer is not just a play thing it's what you use to get work done. Taken me years to learn that! :P
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by GoLinux »

My first experience with Linux was around 2002 with Knoppix. After trying a dozen or so distros I settled on Mepis for many years.

Once (sadly) development for it ended, I tried Mint LMDE Cinnamon, as I wanted to try a rolling distribution. Few weeks ago I was about to upgrade to LMDE 2, but decided to give a try to Mint 18 Mate.

After a few initial hiccups with making it go along with my other Win computers over my home Wi-Fi network, I am finding it more stable and smooth running than LMDE Cinnamon on my aging laptop (see my sig).
Mint 20.2 Cinnamon 64bit
Acer Aspire 7750G-6645, Intel i5-2450M, AMD Radeon HD7670M - 1GB

Mint 19.1Cinnamon 64bit
HP EliteBook 2540p, Intel i7-L640

Mint 18 Mate 64bit
Samsung NP300U1A-A01US, Intel i3-2357M
killer de bug

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by killer de bug »

pdhunter1987 wrote:The computer is not just a play thing
Maybe it's not just a play thing, but for me it's important to have fun using it. I want to learn how it works. That's the important stuff. I don't mind if it breaks from time to time, as I learn in the process of fixing it. That's the reason behind using Linux.

But I agree, the fact that it works so well is also highly important. :wink:
pdhunter1987

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by pdhunter1987 »

killer de bug wrote:
pdhunter1987 wrote:The computer is not just a play thing
Maybe it's not just a play thing, but for me it's important to have fun using it. I want to learn how it works. That's the important stuff. I don't mind if it breaks from time to time, as I learn in the process of fixing it. That's the reason behind using Linux.
Couldn't agree more, killer de bug!
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absque fenestris
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by absque fenestris »

No user account, no spyware (I hope), no bloatware, no silly updates, no whatever... :D - also to demonstrate friends & relatives how up-to-date software run on older devices :lol:
FullTimer1489

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by FullTimer1489 »

One word "Mate"

Ubuntu went with Gnome 3 I do not like it. So I switched. :)
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by majpooper »

FullTimer1489 wrote:One word "Mate"
One word here as well "Windows"
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by inkoalawetrust »

(I cant install linux mint because i was told it would have a chance of breaking windows so ill just say why i WOULD like to have linux mint on my computer)
I have been using and seeing windows everywhere since i was a little kid so i would want to have a change for once
if you think you have a bad computer then think that someone has a worse one.
MintBean

Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by MintBean »

inkoalawetrust wrote:(I cant install linux mint because i was told it would have a chance of breaking windows so ill just say why i WOULD like to have linux mint on my computer)
I have been using and seeing windows everywhere since i was a little kid so i would want to have a change for once
That's a shame. Whilst it's possible, as long as you follow the install instructions carefully (and it's not rocket science) it's unlikely you'll bork your Windows disc. You can get a fresh 500gb disc for just a smidgin over £40 and install on that with no risk to your Win install.
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Re: What made you switch to Linux Mint?

Post by inkoalawetrust »

MintBean wrote:
inkoalawetrust wrote:(I cant install linux mint because i was told it would have a chance of breaking windows so ill just say why i WOULD like to have linux mint on my computer)
I have been using and seeing windows everywhere since i was a little kid so i would want to have a change for once
That's a shame. Whilst it's possible, as long as you follow the install instructions carefully (and it's not rocket science) it's unlikely you'll bork your Windows disc. You can get a fresh 500gb disc for just a smidgin over £40 and install on that with no risk to your Win install.
i have no windows installation disc neither any money or credit card even so i cant just buy a new hard disk and its not like i even know how to replace computer hardware also the computer case is locked and we dont have the key
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also im in greece not england
if you think you have a bad computer then think that someone has a worse one.
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