Former distro hopper settling down with Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon

[banjodaddy]

I have tried many different operating systems and about every DE out there. I would see something new and shiny on DistroWatch and boom, download and install. My wife called it an addiction but it was fun, yet I always found myself falling short. I came close to settling down with Mint 18.1 KDE, but for me it was annoying when I would fix one problem and create two more. I discovered my favorite desktop was Cinnamon, and through so many installs I can't even remember, I would come back to Linux Mint. Now I'm installing Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon on all my computers. Everything works out of the box and it's miles and miles better than Ubuntu. Unity DE was my most hated and I dealt with dinosaurs distros like Red Hat 9 and Fedora Core in college. Any other former distro hoppers out there that settled down with Mint? People say Linux Mint is for beginners and you should move on to a more challenging distro. Why? Why not just use what works? That makes more sense to me.

[MintyO]

Welcome to the forums! Not really had anything on my internal drives other than Mint, but sure I've hopped and might hop some more in the future. There sure are pretty or light and spartan or.. distros out there, but for me Mint and it's many flavors seem to bring the important bits together.
Edit: seems like I thought I was reading a different forum section...well, welcome can't hurt.

[jimallyn]

I started out with Mandrake, then shortly switched to Xandros. I used Xandros up until I installed Mint 17. Xandros spoiled me. They just had everything working right, and I didn't mind a bit paying 89 bucks each time a new version came out. I am now using Mint 17.3 Cinnamon, and find it in the same category as Xandros was: everything just works. When I install on friends' computers, I usually install 18.x. I guess I've never really been a distro hopper, at least not in the sense of regularly changing my daily driver. I do have 25 or 30 (maybe more) different Linux versions installed in VirtualBox, though. I have all 4 desktop versions of 17.x installed, and all 4 desktop versions of 18.x installed. That way, when somebody asks a question about something other than 17.3 Cinnamon, I can try it out in VirtualBox so I at least kinda sorta know what I'm talking about. I also use VirtualBox for trying out lightweight distros to install on older (some would say obsolete) hardware. But for my daily driver, I don't foresee changing to anything other than Mint any time soon.

[Pierre]

People say Linux Mint is for beginners and you should move on to a more challenging distro. Why?

People could also say " Microsoft Windows is for Beginners,
and that you should move on to a more challenging operating system ".


- - and that statement - would be very true.

[Moem]

People say Linux Mint is for beginners and you should move on to a more challenging distro. Why? Why not just use what works? That makes more sense to me.

I agree with you. Some people confuse 'easy to use ' with 'unsophisticated' or something that lacks features. They're wrong and I see no reason not to stick with what works; Mint is easy to use not because it's simple, but because it's userfriendly.

Some people feel that you should start on a light motorcycle (they're not wrong there) and after that, you should by definition move on to a heavier/bigger bike. But if you master a lighter bike well, you can ride circles around those on heavier bikes because your bike is more agile and easier to handle. The analogy falls apart somewhat, but my (light, agile) bike doesn't.

[MintBean]

Welcome aboard.

I'm actually going the other way- starting to hop a bit, although I suspect I'll end up back with Mint eventually. Have you tried Antergos? I've just installed that in Cinnamon flavour and it looks nice so far. Feels a bit snappier than Mint actually, probably as a result of not having that Ubuntu base which seems to become more of a resource hog with each release.

[austin.texas]

if you master a lighter bike well, you can ride circles around those on heavier bikes because your bike is more agile and easier to handle.

You sure got that right... Put me on a 250cc Kawasaki Ninja and anyone on a big cruiser will be eating my dust...

[thom_A]

I used to do the same thing. I dual boot with Windows and there is this multi-boot utility called WinSetupFromUSB which allows you to add any number of bootable ISOs in one USB stick, limited only by its capacity.

I have settled with Cinnamon and KDE. It could have been Xfce, instead of Cinnamon, but after setting up preferences like themes, menu config, icons, panels, etc., they feel the same to me. I love Xfce, but I had to pick one. Cinnamon has slight edge on the magnifier feature, where you don't need a modifier (like Super key) to toggle it. KDE because I like Dolphin and Kate, even though I don't like the default Breeze flat theme.

[The Old Timer]

I run several Linux Distros on different computers around my house and radio shop.

[Citizen229]

I suppose it depends on what your definition of distro-hopping is. I did actually distro hop until I fell in love with the simplicity of the XFCE environment. That narrowed the playing field down. Mint XFCE my be my number one but I still do like to check out other peoples distro when they do new releases. Just live iso exploring. Not installing The only one I havent been able to let go of yet is Manjaro. It is a rolling release, and that is the only thing that rubs me the wrong way. I loved mx16's usb/iso tools, I wish that was in every version of mint. Every distro has pros and cons. I actually had to write them on paper and evaluate. Silly I know. But with so many options, it just made sense. For me as a newb it really came down to support.

[Lemongrass38]

Any other former distro hoppers out there that settled down with Mint? People say Linux Mint is for beginners and you should move on to a more challenging distro. Why? Why not just use what works? That makes more sense to me.

I agree with you. My opinion:

We could ride our bike using the rear wheel only, but we usually don't need this. Computers, just likes bikes were invented to help people somehow. So I don't think it's necessary to use hard ways to get things done in Linux, nor there is a need to use another distro just because there's no need to do tech-savvy things in Mint. However the possibility exists to do tech-savvy things.

[The Old Timer]

I loved mx16's usb/iso tools

That's one thing really neat about these two distros is they are both loaded with useful software at install.

antiX / MX-16 Metamorphosis
antiX-16.1 Berta Cáceres

[banjodaddy]

I'm glad to know others have had similar experiences. I was torn between Linux Mint and Peppermint 7, but Peppermint only comes with LXDE. It was a bit too simple for me and I really liked Cinnamon since the first time I tried it.

[Lucap]

Have you tried Antergos? I've just installed that in Cinnamon flavour and it looks nice so far. Feels a bit snappier than Mint actually, probably as a result of not having that Ubuntu base which seems to become more of a resource hog with each release.

Antergos Cinnamon Minimal ISO looks pretty awsome for building your own desktop , I need to check that out.

[MintBean]

Antergos Cinnamon Minimal ISO looks pretty awsome for building your own desktop , I need to check that out.

The minimal refers to the installer - whether you use minimal or live as I did you end up with the same system, and I'm told the live gives the easier experience. What you end up with is pretty much an Arch rolling install, but without the overcomplicated installation procedure.

If you're running a laptop with both onboard and discrete graphics, DO NOT select the option to add proprietary gfx drivers during install. That's the one mistake/headache I encountered. Other than that, calm seas. Drop us a post if you have a crack at it. Interested to see what you think.

[Lucap]

That's a shame about the Minimal as i'm fedup with Distro's being full of stuff i will never use but i'll still give the Live version a go.

If you want to start a thread in the Chat about Linux section for alternative Cinnamon Distro's i'll post in there when i try it over the next few days when i get time.