Linux mint is better than Windows 10

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Glamtrains

Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Glamtrains »

It really is lame, this idea to send people distro-hopping. rather make ONE that actually works....do you even know how many more process run in the background in Ubuntu than in Mint? There is a reason why I am on a LM forum and not an Ubuntu one, as I don't want to be there just as I don't want anything Ubuntu on my laptop.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by pinballfan »

Glamtrains wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 1:42 am So how is it different from all the crapware that comes with Mint? Timeshift, Warpinator, Thinderbird, Firefox, Libreoffice....upon installation, I cannot choose not to install things I neither want nor need. Uninstalling bundled Linux bloatware in the past did break my system.
Well, at least for me, I already was using Firefox/Libreoffice in Windows, so I'd have installed it anyway. For people that don't want things permanently embedded into the OS, I can understand your frustration. At least with Ubuntu Mint, it's not giving me the same level of intrusion that I face with Win 10. It's an improvement for what I am after. I was perfectly happy with Windows 7, Vista was awful before it. If Microsoft make another numbered OS, it could be a major improvement, but as 10 currently stands, not for me.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Glamtrains »

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit was a terrible, top-heavy beast that had very few drivers for peripherals. It used Bit-Locker for security, so it alreaady sat on a Linux layer. When it locked me out of my system, I wiped the hard drive and installed Linux instead.

Firefox is on its way out; as popular as it was, it only has about 3% market penetration nowadays and I read that Clem was going to replace it with Chromium, on which Chrome and Edge are built, in the future editions of LM. As Firefox ate all of my 8GB RAM the other day, I lost my appetite for it.

My Windows 10 Pro runs like Linux, yet mostly better than some distros, it updates very easily and the entire experience is smooth, everything works, etc. I don't get the hype & hate of some, really. If you read so many comments, you realise that some people are really radical and, having grown up amid radicals and civil war, currently being governed by them, is a terrible experience. I steer clear of radicalism any day.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by GS3 »

Glamtrains wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 9:21 amFirefox is on its way out; as popular as it was, it only has about 3% market penetration nowadays and I read that Clem was going to replace it with Chromium, on which Chrome and Edge are built, in the future editions of LM. As Firefox ate all of my 8GB RAM the other day, I lost my appetite for it.
I hate to hear this. I hate to have to stop using Firefox and start using Chrome.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Moem »

GS3 wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 12:51 pm
Glamtrains wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 9:21 amFirefox is on its way out; as popular as it was, it only has about 3% market penetration nowadays and I read that Clem was going to replace it with Chromium
I hate to hear this. I hate to have to stop using Firefox and start using Chrome.
Why would you have to do that? I don't use Firefox; there are plenty of browsers that you can install if you don't like the one that comes preinstalled.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by pinballfan »

Moem wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 1:53 pm
GS3 wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 12:51 pm
Glamtrains wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 9:21 amFirefox is on its way out; as popular as it was, it only has about 3% market penetration nowadays and I read that Clem was going to replace it with Chromium
I hate to hear this. I hate to have to stop using Firefox and start using Chrome.
Why would you have to do that? I don't use Firefox; there are plenty of browsers that you can install if you don't like the one that comes preinstalled.
Does a browser need to be pre-installed at all?

It terms of what glamtrains said, Firefox having just over 3% market share makes it look weak and under used, but let's not forget that Linux is supposedly something like 2%, and I wouldn't want to drop support for that just because it isn't that popular. According to wiki, Firefox is more in use than Microsoft Edge, and is only beaten by Safari and Chrome. I've tried Chrome, and while it is responsive, I couldn't save the bookmarks for some reason. Through Firefox I've never had an issue with it. Plus I'm so used to the layout.

I think GS3 has a point about not wanting to start using Chrome. Google has a stranglehold with its search engine, if they dominate with their OS and web browser, it's starting to look as if they could control everything eventually.
Last edited by pinballfan on Wed May 05, 2021 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Moem »

pinballfan wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 5:44 pm Does a browser need to be pre-installed at all?
Yes, if you're going to make a distro and present it as fully-featured (which is how Mint tends to be presented), people will expect a browser, as well as a word processor... and arguably a mail client.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Portreve »

Glamtrains wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 2:21 am It really is lame, this idea to send people distro-hopping. rather make ONE that actually works....do you even know how many more process run in the background in Ubuntu than in Mint? There is a reason why I am on a LM forum and not an Ubuntu one, as I don't want to be there just as I don't want anything Ubuntu on my laptop.
With respect, I think you misunderstand the ethos of the GNU+Linux world. As much as everyone has their favorite go-to distribution, nobody wants there to be one ring to rule them all one distro to replace them all. Nowhere else in the tech world — and quite possibly any field of human endeavor — is there the variety found here.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Glamtrains »

Portreve wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 3:24 pm
Glamtrains wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 2:21 am It really is lame, this idea to send people distro-hopping. rather make ONE that actually works....do you even know how many more process run in the background in Ubuntu than in Mint? There is a reason why I am on a LM forum and not an Ubuntu one, as I don't want to be there just as I don't want anything Ubuntu on my laptop.
With respect, I think you misunderstand the ethos of the GNU+Linux world. As much as everyone has their favorite go-to distribution, nobody wants there to be one ring to rule them all one distro to replace them all. Nowhere else in the tech world — and quite possibly any field of human endeavor — is there the variety found here.
A single, sensible distro has always been Linus' dream. And after having installed and tried some thirty distros over the past year, I echo his sentiments for good reason. We, living in the 3rd world, have hell to pay to download an ISO file just to find out the new golden distro is fraught with inconsistencies, quirks and melancholies. I would prefer to stick to one that works and I have yet to find ANY Linux distro that can wake from sleep on my Thinkpad Edge laptop, something Windows 10 Pro does very well.

As for browsers, I use MS Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Opera as these are, like Chrome, built on the open source Chromium project. Too many people think Edge is based on Chrome, maybe they missed reading classes at school. My grip with Firefox is that it ate 8GB RAM in one go, thereby bringing my one and only system crash since 2006. Mozilla should feel proud and the people shaming Chrome for RAM hogging really should open their eyes. Firefox can be a bastard.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by RollyShed »

Glamtrains wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 4:45 am My grip with Firefox is that it ate 8GB RAM in one go, thereby bringing my one and only system crash since 2006. Mozilla should feel proud and the people shaming Chrome for RAM hogging really should open their eyes. Firefox can be a bastard.
So why do I not have a problem when running it on a little laptop with 2GB of RAM? And with a number of tabs open.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by GS3 »

Portreve wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 3:24 pmWith respect, I think you misunderstand the ethos of the GNU+Linux world. As much as everyone has their favorite go-to distribution, nobody wants there to be one ring to rule them all one distro to replace them all. Nowhere else in the tech world — and quite possibly any field of human endeavor — is there the variety found here.
I am not sure about this. More choice is not always a good thing. I think Linux would gain a lot of users and market share if there could be a convergence to a unified Linux. There would be more users, more software, more market penetration.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Glamtrains »

Your computer is not my computer.

back in the day, I would run three to four browsers, each with well over forty tabs open, on just 3GB RAM. I have never seen a browser take up 8GB like Firefox did, although it only ever did it once.

Never expect others to experience what you do on your computer as there are way too many variables.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Portreve »

Glamtrains wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 4:45 am A single, sensible distro has always been Linus' dream.
I have no idea what his personal preferences or vision happen to be. All I can say is you will never find one distro which will satisfy all users. The forkability inherent in libre licensed source code, coupled with different groups' needs and wants, will ensure this variety continues.

I really like Linux Mint. It ticks every box that a distro can for me. The same can also be said of the Cinnamon Desktop, separate and apart from LM. However, you will never see me try and pretend that nobody else benefits from things which depart from that.

Moreover, I don't think such a thing would actually resolve the (as you have so described it) 3rd World issues you mention because who's to say that that One Golden Distro would necessarily play nice on your particular hardware, or that of the guy living in the house 6 km to your north?

That all said, there are many efforts afoot out there, from Ubuntu itself to LM to elementaryOS to PopOS, etc., which seek to be the awesome sauce for the home user and/or normal office user.

GS3 wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 8:40 am I am not sure about this. More choice is not always a good thing. I think Linux would gain a lot of users and market share if there could be a convergence to a unified Linux. There would be more users, more software, more market penetration.
Choice is never a bad thing; churning the muck is. I take your point. However, I really don't believe users would give two ***** about a unified Linux. Developers probably would, and that's not an insignificant thing. However, as I pointed out in this thread, Linus himself has said that a potentially viable approach to deal with what you're referring to as the "unification issue" could be containerization (snap, AppImage, Flatpak, etc.). Now, whether the GNU+Linux community as a whole will embrace that or reject it is something I think only time will tell. As I see it, the "biggest problem" with the GNU+Linux community is it's like trying to herd cats.

And when you're a developer making a particular program, the last thing you want to see of the (to make up a number completely out of thin air) 269,476 hypothetical potential customers of yours who run GNU+Linux is that three quarters of them will not even consider buying your program unless you make a native version for their specific distro of choice (which could involve, let's say, 5 or 6 different distros and like 15 different release versions) and only a quarter would be ok with containerized version.

So, then, here's an alternative question which I pose as strictly a thought experiment. Let's say that somehow the movers-and-shakers at the top of the distribution tree for the bulk of the underpinning code say one day that they will ONLY build stuff compatible with one particular set of specs, resulting in one single distro. Now, you and Glamtrains and Mr. Torvalds get your wish: a single, unified release. How do you think the community would react to this? (Again, I only offer it as a thought experiment because in reality everyone would grab the source code and fork it back into the half-a-zillion distros we all know and love.)
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Portreve »

Glamtrains wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 4:45 am We, living in the 3rd world, have hell to pay to download an ISO file just to find out the new golden distro is fraught with inconsistencies, quirks and melancholies.
I was thinking about this and here's a follow-up question: As it relates to computers, what are your greatest challenges and burdens? While I think I might be able to guess, guessing isn't the same as knowing. What might the community be able to do to help?
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Glamtrains »

Portreve wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 3:02 pm
Glamtrains wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 4:45 am We, living in the 3rd world, have hell to pay to download an ISO file just to find out the new golden distro is fraught with inconsistencies, quirks and melancholies.
I was thinking about this and here's a follow-up question: As it relates to computers, what are your greatest challenges and burdens? While I think I might be able to guess, guessing isn't the same as knowing. What might the community be able to do to help?
The community can do well by losing the idiotic "you MUST TRY my distro" attitude and the community can do very well by losing its narcissistic aversion to everything non-Linux, or their hate of X or Y Big Tech, then fall into the trap by making wrong life choices anyhow. A people paranoid about focused advertising that will scrutinise every line of code without even remotely understanding what the real threat is about, yet being alarmist activists paranoid to the bone marrow. And always on the hindfoot, swords ready. If the community learn to be a bit more amiable and complaint with humanity...........my word, in several user forums I had my head bitten off so often, for something very trivial. With such an acidic persona, it is no wonder that 93 out of 56 million in my country use it; the rest find it more palatable to either pay for Windows or pirate it. I say again: Windows 10 Pro runs very sweet, stable, fast and predictable on my ancient December 2014 Lenovo Thinkpad with its Haswell i7 Quad chip and just 8GB RAM. Several very tiny security updates per day happen very smooth, swift and I have less BSOD's on that than I have system freezes on any Linux. The Arch community reeks of utter snobbism and a haughty attitude while punishing themselves with an OS environment fraught with quirks and inconsistencies.

Some people live for their computers while others actually have lives to live.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by JTemple »

AndyMH wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 2:32 pm Call me old fashioned, but I can't see the point of using linux and then making your desktop look like windows.
I Hear You! That's one that always confused me but then, again, I hate MS and never want to be reminded of the pain they caused me.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Tromick »

Webbie wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:27 am This is my theme I use, i call it Windows Mint :)

https://www.filehosting.org/file/detail ... s_Mint.zip

Copyright goes to both to Linux mint and Microsoft for this amazing theme and to b00merang project for the icon port. This is aimed for Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.1 and above.
ABitMenthol77 wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:48 pm I have to agree that Linux Mint is better than Windows 10 but I have a different style applied.

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Windows_Mint link does not work. Could you both upload these themes please? Thank you.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by ABitMenthol77 »

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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by sh4rkbyt3 »

I'm just happy that we have alternatives. I started with a 8-bit on a Commodore Vic 20, later a 64. Then to an IBM PC-XT which was frustrating to say the least trying to figure out MS-DOS (which I never did). Eventually when Windows 93 came out and later 95, the GUI features made it much easier for the average person to be able to use a computer for daily tasks.

When XP came out it eventually became a dream OS (sort of) after so many of the bugs were worked out. That was when I started to look at Linux, Ubuntu specifically and then Backtrack. One of my personal beef's about Windows is how they had managed to dumb down the user from understanding anything about their computer but then again most of us who own cars (today) can't work on them anymore either, short of some menial tasks. But the one overlying factor (for me) was people not having any clue about their security of their info and how non-chalant they became about it.

I eventually started cleaning up and repairing many of the regular viruses, PUPs and malware including root infections on other peoples computers solely because I learned which tools to use and developed a process to not infect the computer further. Not quite enough to make it a full-time job but I probably could have? Instead, I did small-time advertising locally in my area and built up a clientele that made the side money worth it. Considering what local shops or groups were charging at the time I was way more than fair and beat almost all of their prices quite easily. But more importantly I attempted to teach them how these infections occurred and what people could do with their personal data. I didn't understand all of the process of each infection but I learned enough to be able to stop them in their tracks and disable and remove them from peoples computers.

The slow deep dive for me to learn Linux occurred as XP became more popular because there was so many holes in the OS. Couple that with people's ignorance of their computers and it was a functional disaster recipe.

But that's also when I ran into a brick wall. Ubuntu community wasn't exactly overly-friendly to n00bs and Arch Linux even less so. I eventually moved back to Windows out of necessity at the time and occasionally bounced back and forth with Ubuntu and Backtrack. The good part was I was at least learning more about some of the infections (to a point) and better able to do my paying hobby of working on computers. I would try to pass on some of what I learned to my customers to better help them see me less often. At the same time I was learning to build computers and mod them somewhat. I eventually moved on to the Tails distro out of frustration with the Ubuntu and Backtrack communities. I liked the concept of it being a one and done distro which inherently made it somewhat safer but it was impractical for me for daily use.

That's when I happened upon Mint finally. A much friendlier community that welcomes n00bs like me and is willing to help. Is it better than Windows? Nope, it's completely different in the sense you have more control. Is Windows better than Mint? Nope, I think it's easier for the average person who just wants to do certain tasks and friendlier in the sense they can click on an icon and get instant satisfaction(?) and yes it is easier to use. But at the cost of security or a basic understanding of what they're trading off in many ways.
There will never be a perfect OS, ever! To me it's like smart phones. You get used to what you start with and you feel more secure in what you do know rather than what you don't know. That false sense of security is enough for most to be happy with their choice and I think in part an OS is the same way. By OS I mean Windows, Linux, Apple and their products.
The advantage I have with Windows/Linux is I can go to any computer store and get plug in parts at a reasonable price (minus GPU's right now lol). Apple? I have to pay proprietary prices for proprietary parts that are generally marked up severely. That's why I never learned any Mac OS. And what I said earlier about people being more secure in what they know was Steve Jobs brilliancy in marketing. He flooded elementary, middle and high schools with free or low cost Mac equipment cultivating his own future market consumers.

Digression time...what I can say in regards to the non-sensical debate about OS's? Whether you want to call Mint and OS or not, is that Mint IS the best distro (IMO) and the most welcoming community as a whole.
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Re: Linux mint is better than Windows 10

Post by Luke Johnson »

Glamtrains wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 9:21 am Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit was a terrible, top-heavy beast that had very few drivers for peripherals. It used Bit-Locker for security, so it alreaady sat on a Linux layer. When it locked me out of my system, I wiped the hard drive and installed Linux instead.

Firefox is on its way out; as popular as it was, it only has about 3% market penetration nowadays and I read that Clem was going to replace it with Chromium, on which Chrome and Edge are built, in the future editions of LM. As Firefox ate all of my 8GB RAM the other day, I lost my appetite for it.

My Windows 10 Pro runs like Linux, yet mostly better than some distros, it updates very easily and the entire experience is smooth, everything works, etc. I don't get the hype & hate of some, really.
Noob here. My experience with Win 7 Ultimate was relatively positive, although some things really annoyed me. I'm definitely switching to Linux, but these days, Cinnamon got me thinking about details.

In a thread here, I complained about some calendar issues. I don't remember ever experiencing something like that in Win 7. I always trusted the date the calendar was showing. Maybe I'm being pedantic, but attention to detail matters to me.

I still don't want to get a rolling edition, because the users of those editions seem to spend a lot of time updating stuff, backing up their data, trying out the updates in virtual machines, waiting to see if other users noticed something was off in a new update. Anyway, now that I'm in the rabbit hole, I'll probably distrohop through the summer until I'm comfortable.

I thought that the RAM use in Win7 was bad. Now I'm in a live Mint session. System monitor shows I'm using 72% of 16GB RAM. I close Firefox, and I'm down to 55%. Now I'm at 47% with LO Writer and Falkon up. I would have expected a smaller percentage in this domain.
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