What would you use if Mint wasn't available?

[kenetics]

I've tried quite a number of Linux distributions and there are some nice ones out there. I like Peppermint and Xubuntu, especially for low end systems. Zorin and LXLE have also run well on my computers. Ubuntu Mate is nice and Ubuntu Budgie looks promising. As you can tell, I favor the Debian/'Buntu derivatives.

[timapple]

Ubuntu-MATE or Parrot....maybe Solus

[sammiev]

Debian - Antergos - Manjaro

I'm using 5 different ones at this point but those 3 would be the ones.

[stephanieswitzer]

I used Elementary for a while. It's nice looking but IMHO it's not as fast as Mint. I like Debian for messing around with and use Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi 3's. Didn't like Solus. I use Ubuntu-Mate on my Odroid XU4. So... Mint, Debian, Ubuntu.

[Arch_Enemy]

It depends on the availability of a recent-enough version of adb and fastboot in the distro in question's repos, but...

Debian, if the Debian repos had a new-enough version.
The last time I checked, Debian didn't and there was no way I could find where I could realistically and feasibly do anything about it.

Otherwise, probably Fedora.

I'm working on a Debian 9.30 with non-free additive. at this point it looks like this will be a GO

this will be on 1 of the 4 machines initially: Just Office1. To do it I'll be changing out the 450W PSU for a new 650W and adding a 4th disc. The 4th disc for the Debian9.30 system.

There's a lot kinda up in the air right now,-- Canonical(Ubuntu) relationship to MSFT; future of LMDE. I've expressed here on occasion my feeling that I'd like to see MINT drop Canonical and work strictly on the LMDE Dist. That doesn't seem to be "in the cards"; LMDE continues as the "red head stepchild". In all fairness I think the MINT recommendation about starting with the "Main Edition" remains sound advice. Once the user has worked with Linux for a while he|she will probably be much more comfortable working in the Debian environment. If the "Main Edition" is Linux 101 then maybe Debian is Linux 201.

Just my thoughts on our question here.

The draw is, the number of Ubuntu in-house developers, as well as a myriad of contributors gives Ubuntu a large base of packages from which to choose. Almost as big as Arch's (Actually bigger, but I find more of what *I* need in Arch's repository and AUR. For example, the number of tools for GiMP is almost double...)

Interesting, because Debian's installed base far outweighs any other distribution, if I remember my trivia correctly...

[mike acker]

--snip

The draw is, the number of Ubuntu in-house developers, as well as a myriad of contributors gives Ubuntu a large base of packages from which to choose. Almost as big as Arch's (Actually bigger, but I find more of what *I* need in Arch's repository and AUR. For example, the number of tools for GiMP is almost double...)

Interesting, because Debian's installed base far outweighs any other distribution, if I remember my trivia correctly...

as far as that large base of packages goes the question I see in that is: how many do I need?

I'm INSERVICE as of today using Debian9.30

so far, so good-- some small glitches. Firefox is at version 52 -- should be at 58.

it seems that program updates are a problem anywhere you go though. I've had to update LibreOffice manually right along. LMDE/2 keeps wanting to update version 4; Version 6 is now current -- but not ready for service yet -- it has trouble with graphics.

On Debian9.30 there's trouble with gpg : it needs a dirmngr install before it will talk to keyservers. someone simply dropped the ball. too, I don't think it imported my key properly

when LMDE3 is released I may try it on the ResearchBox -- depending on how this Debian9.30 comes along.

[sammiev]

--snip

I'm INSERVICE as of today using Debian9.30

so far, so good-- some small glitches. Firefox is at version 52 -- should be at 58.

That took me about 2 min to fix.

Everything worked out of the box for me with xfce.

[bob466]

That day will never come...Mint for ever.

[lsemmens]

To answer the OP. Something else.... As to what that something else is well that is the question. I did a search on various flavours of Linux to see what had the best user experience and found that Mint was always near the top, hence my choice of mint. I've dabbled with Ubuntu in the past but have always returned to the M$ fold. This time I doubt that I'll willingly return to the dark side again as Mint has matured in recent history.

[karlchen]

My spontaneous answer after more than a month to Lucap's question (cf. the thread title in case you have forgotten what it is) would have been:
I would return to where I came from, Ubuntu, not quite sure about which DE I'd chose. Maybe I would have a closer look at openSuse as well.
Hm. Somehow reminds me a bit of this answer in a post above

One of the *buntu's, and if those would cease to be as well: probably openSUSE.

[Arch_Enemy]

PCLinuxOS, maybe Arch because I'm a glutton for punishment, or perhaps take one of my older machines out of mothballs and load Win 7 again. That is, if I can't get Win 2000 to work...

[JerryF]

I'd probably be using Windows.

[daveinuk]

After a recent install on a little 10'' netbook I'd say I could be quite happy with MX Linux, very impressive.
In fact I'd go as far to say the last time I was that impressed was when I switched to Mint !

[xdicey]

PCLOS-KDE or LinuxLite.

[PussyCat]

Currently my favoured O/S's other than Mint (and Win) are PCLinuxOS (a rolling release but recently forced to start again after the adoption of Kde5 and abrupt withdrawal of repo support) and MX-16 (and previously Mepis).

I've tried many distros over the years searching for those that fulfil my criteria and have been honed down to the above though still occasionally try others to see if I can be won over! Apart from the ability to cope with my various hardware needs, quality of the forum and remastering is important to facilitate porting to all my machines without having to maintain each individually.

[151tom]

.

[AZgl1800]

I have Peppermint 7 as one of my daily drivers and it works excellent and has excellent forum support.

I just started this ISO and it is only making 65 kbps ??
5 hrs and 45 minutes?

I deleted it.

[151tom]

.

[brvcf]

I like Mint XFCE so I would probably use Xubuntu. From what I can see it's about the same with fewer included apps.

One thing I think is superior about Xubuntu is how it handles UEFI/Secure Boot. I just spent a lot of time trying to get Mint XFCE to boot from the hard drive with Secure Boot enabled on a new Dell Inspiron 15.

I tried installing Xubuntu and it worked like a charm. I would really like to understand the difference but had only so much time to play with it before getting it back to the person I was installing it for. In the end I left Mint on it and just turned Secure Boot off.

[SwanRider]

To be honest I don't know as none of the other distros I've looked at are as nice or as easy to use IMHO - I am not going to change. I had to use windows10 the other day and was completely lost after the ease of Mint . I am just glad Mint is here and that I've found it. So I'll do my best to promote and support it