Why did you switch to linux mint?

[The-Wizard]

Well after spending 10 days trying to sort out daughters note book [an ACER running Linpus] the body count now stands as Mint 2 Ubuntu 1 Windows 1 [my main and spare are now mint 64, the notebook Ubuntu 10.4 and the laptop dozes in the corner till 6pm each night when i get a video/audio call from granddaughter on MSM..[ once some bright spark finds a way through MS so i can use one of the Linux programs this will also change probably to mint 32 bit]

why did I go through the anguish of trying several Distros [I'm a glutton for punishment]
why did I go for Mint on my main puters.. all my peripherals [except digital camera] worked direct from install
Why Ubuntu on the note book .... mint didn't like the hardware and was shy on drivers.. Ubuntu worked from the box [and its more acceptable to my daughter [the old click icon job]

Did I duel boot NO... I want rid of MS [as much as possible]

I have now upgraded from a snail on steroids to a racing snake

wizard

[Ash-Lee]

I liked the look of Linux Mint as a whole. Not just the distro but also the website, forums and the support etc.

The actual software itself has proved easy to install, nicely 'polished' and in general is a joy to use. So far i haven't had to search for new repositorys for media playback and the usual post-install messing about that i have had with other distros.

I just installed it, then used it.

[Dr.m0x]

Mint is what Ubuntu used to be and should still be. The latest 10.10 is completely unrecognisable from Hardy Heron which is what I first got serious on Linux with.

I don't want significant ui or package changes with each new edition. I just want the same stuff, updated. I know the next Mint will be the new Gnome 3 ui but that isn't as big a change as Gnome > Ubiquity. It's just an upgrade really.

I got sick of having to remove a bunch of stuff from Ubuntu and replace it with other packages to make it the way I like it. I like it the way Hardy was with the exception of using Thunderbird for email. Oh yeah Mint uses Thunderbird for email. I like a single Gnome panel over twin panels - again a Mint default. I use Pidgin, Firefox, Xchat and Gimp - all Mint defaults. I don't have to struggle to install the correct codecs to watch my videos - Mint has them pre installed. The list could probably go on but it's got to stop at some point.

It's clear that the developers of the Mint main edition have very similar tastes to me with regards to the setup they like so why would I use something else and then spend significant time making it "feel right" when the Mint developers have already hit on perfection.

Thanks team. Gotta get around to donating sometime soon. I feel like such a leech.

Sent from my Desire HD pocket rocket.

[timmer1240]

Actually it was an accident I wanted to replace windows 7 with LMDE I was triple booted XP 7 and Ubuntu Karmic I screwed up lost my partition table so just went with LMDE as the only OS well Im glad it happened Loving it I liked Ubuntu but Mints even better so alls great!

[nunol]

I was using others distros but I installed Mint on other peoples computers because it was easy to use and because I didn't had to do extra configurations or codecs installations.

Eventually I installed Mint on my computer in order to provide better support and started to use it more and more. One day realized Mint 7 was my main OS.

[miez]

Heck, I even got my parents switch to Linux Mint on their laptop. Dual boot though, but they hardly ever use Windows now, since I installed it. They adore it. Specially when I tell them you practically don't have any malware for it. Big difference is how fast it is compared to Vista, wich they have on the other partition.

And most things work out of the box (Wifi, nic, printer, cd/dvd burner etc.). Only the filmscanner won't work, so they have to use it under Windows . But they can live with that.

Now they don't call me anymore for a problem with the virusscanner, or why the laptop is suddenly so slow because of spyware and all that other sh*t.

[tatsujin79]

Mint has always run well for me on my laptop. I love the direction mint is taking with gnome 3 with katya so i decided to switch back. Been trying to get a buddy of mine to use it, he says he loves it but he is just too hardcore of a gamer to switch.

[Dr.m0x]

Mint has always run well for me on my laptop. I love the direction mint is taking with gnome 3 with katya so i decided to switch back. Been trying to get a buddy of mine to use it, he says he loves it but he is just too hardcore of a gamer to switch.

Lol. That was my excuse for a long time. Eventually I got sick of the large number of hackers plaguing the fps games I enjoy. So I sold my gaming rig, purchased an xbox and never looked back.

As an aside I switched from mint 10 main edition to lmde yesterday. Dang that thing is fast. A few teething problems which I had fun resolving but now I'm real happy. Mint wins again.

Sent from my Desire HD pocket rocket.

[tatsujin79]

Mint has always run well for me on my laptop. I love the direction mint is taking with gnome 3 with katya so i decided to switch back. Been trying to get a buddy of mine to use it, he says he loves it but he is just too hardcore of a gamer to switch.

Lol. That was my excuse for a long time. Eventually I got sick of the large number of hackers plaguing the fps games I enjoy. So I sold my gaming rig, purchased an xbox and never looked back.

As an aside I switched from mint 10 main edition to lmde yesterday. Dang that thing is fast. A few teething problems which I had fun resolving but now I'm real happy. Mint wins again.

Sent from my Desire HD pocket rocket.

I was running lmde prior to leaving for a bit, its an awesome system. Takes a bit more care then the ubuntu based mint but is well worth it imo

[inhiway]

I installed Linux MInt because I am not a purist. I like having the codecs and the multimedia stuff ready to go as soon as the OS is installed. Don't get me wrong, installing these necessities in Kubuntu is easy enough, but with Linux Mint KDE, one or two extra steps is reduced. Being an Ubuntu derivative, installing current nVidia drivers is a cinch, too. It's a worn out clicke', but hey, "It Just Works". lol

[rmayer32]

Tried Mint a couple of years ago and thought it was ok, but I have been on Ubuntu for the last 3 1/2 years. I've used Linux in one form or another since 1999 and basically was growing tired of Ubuntu and its direction. A buddy from work was running Mint and I thought, Well I haven't tried it for a while and that was that. All of the Codecs and such that come standard in Mint are things I installed in other distros anyway so what the heck, just a little less work on my part. My laptop loves it and so does my desktop. I am working slowly to get my wife onboard and she likes it. I'm hoping one of these days to be able to wipe that Windows 7 off of her machine.

Rick

[aljoriz]

I was tired of installing the ubuntu restricted extras and mint saves me more time.

[Alaric]

I just wanted a light Ubuntu install to use the small number of programs that I use all the time. I'd used Fluxbox on Ubuntu to try to get around the bloat, but after running into Mint Fluxbox edition I was blown away at how well integrated and fast it was. It was pretty much exactly what I wanted--I love it.

[.William.]

I wanted to personalize my PC. Windows wouldn't let me do that unless I upgraded to Ultimate: Sir, please cough up $299-- !
We all know how Windows has become profitable; it was designed so that you will always need to get more additional elements to get what you want.
With a nice price attached to that. Not with Linux (Mint)...
How did I discover Linux ?
Well, I knew of Linux for at least twenty years already, but thought it was only for absolute geeks and poor Oxford University professors.
And that it had only that terminal-like environment.
One day my Windows crashed (yes, I raped Windows to get it to do what I want without spending -more- money on it).
Someone directed me to Live-CDs, and they were Linux based, and had a decent Graphical User Interface.
Three more crashes later I decided to further investigate Linux, to see if it could possibly meet my demands.
Then I started experimenting with Linuxes. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu. DreamLinux, PCLinuxOS... I ended liking Mint best for its design, it is indeed very elegant, although I would like it to be less gray by default. This since it is the first impression of Linux that former Windows users will get. First impressions are extremely important in any relationship and so too with Linux.

So, Mint team: OUT WITH THE GRAY DEFAULTS !!! (please)

Important for me opting for Mint was also the availability of proprietary drivers out-of-the-box. GNU is nice as long as it doesn't restrict or obstruct me or anything I want. And that is true freedom ! And Mint is just very accessible for anyone coming from Windows.

And I love the name Mint : Please never change that !

[w2ibc]

i kicked windows long long long long long time ago.

currently my server uses ubuntu server 10.04 CLI all the way

my tower quad core 2.4ghz 4gb ram is running Mint 10 Gnome 64bit (i will prob move it over to LMDE sometime in the near future)

1st distro i used was debian woody i think it was.. then came out ubuntu played with that for awhile, then came freespire and from FS release to its death I ran that. since then i played with fedora,mandriva,mint,slackware,mepis,and prob some others b4 i went vector linux 6 kde 3.5.10 ( i rather hate KDE4 ) then i got this new box and decided to move up to 64bit.

messed with fedora 14 64bit its ok, but flash was a prob. kubuntu 10.10 64bit was ok cept its KDE4, ubuntu 10.10 64bit was ok.. but i dont like what i read about all the big changes they are going to make.. so i remembered mint.. downloaded a copy of mint 10 64bit burned it installed it and enjoy it. so far everything just works. been playing with LMDE on vbox so sometime in the future ill prob install the LMDE

[lmintnewb]

Cause I've always admired the opensource movements ideologies.

Hate sleazy megacorps and corp greed, control freaks ... etc. Microsoft is every bit as scummy and greedy as any other megacorp. Sheesh, they spend almost as much time in anti-trust court and settling out of court anti-trust lawsuits as they do outsourcing everything they can to the 3rd world, lol.

Probably why they are famous for making buggy, insecure and crappy software. Then having the audacity to charge big bucks for it. Plus Bill gates named an entire corporation after his own penis. That's just flat out arrogant, don't care how ya look at it. ... lol.

Have always disliked Bill. He's on record as having said the internet was "a passing trend". If he had his way it would've been too. Gee wonder why like 78% of web servers are running apache. Not only cause it's better. Also cause it's making information freely available.

Bill G wanted everyone to have to pay through the nose for software. Microsoft has done no end of sleazy moves to try to suppress linux. Like ensuring drivers wouldn't be made available. etc. US govt alone could save 9BILLION/yr by switching to opensource software. In most cases they'd even get better software for free.

9,000 MILLION dollars is a lot of money. That could be going to actually help people or do something productive. I'm sure M$ has plenty of lobbists in Washington. Passing out bribes ... errrr I mean campaign contributions though.

Really switched cause M$ doesn't earn it's keep. If they are going to charge people big money, then they should at least give them good software. They don't, full of bugs and limitations. One too many let downs and thought hey, always knew linux was the way to go. Why am I dealing with this crap ?

Led to Mint and am very happy so far with it. Not a linux or mint guru yet. But can do anything and everything I could need on a desktop. Just from mint's GUI. So switched to linux for technical, financial and moral reasons guess you could say.

[Nightstrike2009]

In a nutshell Unity sucks totally and I just a poor imitation of gnome-shell, which in its-self is just eye candy it wasn't broke but they tried to fix Ubuntu anyhow, now we are jumping ship we raised our opinions and were ignored which left us no option but to distro-hop. Also I started to use Linux because of its "community spirit" and "Kudos system" not to be lectured to and ignored by corporations which is why I also left Windows behind.

[georgegerm]

i was an ubuntu lover for a long time. the wanted to do an lts install of ubuntu. and decided after reading some comments how mint is easier out of the box. so since it takes no time to get the data out to external disk, decided to try go mint. never been back to ubuntu. and now with this ubuntu 11 which changed all things quite a bit, (I still think it should be called unity 1 not ubuntu 11.) there is less of a chance i will go away from mint. my only concern is how mint develops without big brother ubu being what i was. but i am 99 percent sure gnome 3 will move forward with mint on it to infinity and beyond!
ease of use is of course not a dirty word as some linux purist try to make you think. i do wish ubu goes back to its older ways. they are needed in the community so much. and they have done a lot to move the open source than anyone i can think off. ps. i do like the default progs, thunderbird, firefox vs evolution and chrome. i wish mint to pack in office libre, and do a better up to date clamav (for windblows disks). but on the average the mint people seems to know how i like it. oh yes need a boot screen changer would be nice, but not a most.
contribute if you can!
viva el minto revolution.

[AdamS]

I switched to Linux mint this round for one reason.

Ubuntu made me do it.

One word sums it all up.

UNITY

Thou, it looks like theemahn will also be striping Unity from UE 3.0.

But at this point, I am just loving mint. I will most likely use both.

[Nexus]

I was shown linux for the first time about 5 years ago when I tried, Arch Linux at the urging of a friend, it didn't sit well with me so I continued on with Windows until I stumbled on Ubuntu Studio about 2 years ago. I tried it, and liked it for the most part but found it to be a bit bloated for my needs, though it came with many programs I liked.. I was on distro-watch and saw a Mint Release notice and decided to give it a try after I'd already looked at OpenSUSE, Fedora, Gentoo and a couple of other Distros as replacements for Ubuntu Studio. I was happy with what Mint offers, though not so much the color theming (something I still don't really like, green just isn't me...), but Linux DE's are very flexible when it comes to themes so a quit stop at Gnome-look.org takes care of my only real complaint. Been using Mint ever since, though on occasion I'll still swap between Mint and other Distributions just to evaluate them, usually for no more than a couple of days then I usually back up anything I feel like keeping wipe the HDD and take 20 minutes to re-install Mint and all the programs I commonly use.