this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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Linux comes in a million flavors but most people should start with Mint. That sounds like a pun, but it's also true.
Mint is a nice, safe, up-to-date, simple, Windows-like choice that won't unnecessarily complicate the transition to an entirely different operating system. It has good hardware support and good defaults. Most things will feel very familiar and be very accessible. It is popular enough to find plenty of help on the internet and answers to almost every question you could have. It mostly just works and when it doesn't it's usually not a deal-breaker.
It's not my favourite distro, but you aren't ready for my favourite distro. Honestly I'm barely ready for my favourite distro. It's not elitism, it's just practicality. You'll learn as you go, and you'll eventually want to try other distros, but start with Mint, and keep a Mint system around for when you break everything else. Which you will if you start playing with other distros.
That is your opinion
Ask 100 Linux users and you will get 100 different distro recommendations for newbies.
It is one of the main reasons Linux wont be going mainstream. Not until the Linux community get their shit together and finally agree on one "good" distro.
More than 100 presumably-Linux-users seem to have upvoted my comment, so, that seems more like 100 people all actually recommending the same thing. Your assertion doesn't seem to hold water.
Yeah there are (and always will be) a lot of people who will shout noisily about their (current) favourite distro and how great it is and assert that everyone should use it, but the world is full of people like that. If you don't learn to ignore them you'll never be able to get a useful recommendation for anything.
I just bought a gaming tower. Should I go Mint, Pop OS, or something else? I've used linux a lot at work, but never really had to set a lot of the basic stuff (drivers, etc) up by myself.
Mint would still be my initial choice, unless you're really intending to dive right into playing the latest AAA games in which case Bazzite might be a better starting point.
But it's really easy to install both. You might even prefer to have both. You can install Mint on a disk partition with only 50-100GB or less. Most Linux installations will work fine with about the same. It's only once you start installing games that it's going to consume tons of disk space.
The very first question you need to answer is “am I going to want to play any of the games that literally do not work on Linux?”. That alone would be a dealbreaker for most, as the most popular games in the world don’t work on Linux (COD MP, Warzone, Fortnite, GTA online, PUBG, etc).
I use Mint and I support this message.
I have "enough" years under my belt with Linux and I still prefer Mint on majority of my "daily driver" type machines. I already spend my working hours messing around with all kinds of different systems, figuring out problems, installing new ones and so on and I'm old enough that tweaking system just for the sake of it isn't really what I'm after anymore. I just want something which doesn't crap the bed, stays out of the way and lets me run whatever software I happen to need. At least for me Mint checks most of the boxes and the ones it lacks it's pretty trivial to beat it back into submission.
I honestly couldn't agree more. From 2011 to about 2017, I was always distro hopping, trying out different things. And then for the longest time, I just stayed with Ubuntu. And now I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna fucking use Linux Mint, because it just fucking works.
Absolutely this. I like mint because I no longer like fiddle farting around with my PC. It just works out of the box. An overlooked bonus is when I need to learn how to do something the Mint forums usually have the answer, and its catered to Mint defaults. It's not the end of the world, but when answers match your file explorer, text editor, system editor etc..it just makes it easier. Compared to finding answers elsewhere that are for Debian and then having to wonder if it'll work or not based on the family lineage of the OS is just unnecessary for most people.
As I said over and over again: my biggest pet peeve with Linux is that there are often several ways to accomplish something but many are somewhat distribution specific and not really standardized.
Who doesn't love to find a tool that has install instructions like:
Just to realize that a) you're not running anything Debian based and b) you first step is now to find out how these packages are named in your package manager.
Or tutorials that tell you to do X and you only find out, that they're assuming (but not telling you) you're using Debian and some old package versions that now have a completely new syntax in their configuration, so that either the tutorial doesn't work or you maybe even f up something by changing values that you shouldn't touch.
Best is, of you find help in a distribution specific forum/wiki/... But not all problems can be found there
Specifically Mint Cinnamon. It has a UI that is very similar to what people are used to in the Windows world.
It was my go to for computers that i didn't need windows on at the time.
Now i have bazzite on my gaming pc and currently experimenting with arch hyprland on my surface go 2 that could no longer get windows updates.
Was a while since i used mint so might have improved since then, but my recommendation is peppermint , runs on lower specs , just works and comes with the all the basic stuff. Debian based , click to add extra stuff, UEFI supported
Tried to install Mint on my laptop, wouldn't work. Googled the issue, had to rename a file in the boot directory for some reason.
Tried again, wouldn't work. Googled issue, had to turn off secure boot in bios.
Tried again, installed, okay now we're cooking. Connected to WiFi, updated packages and drivers. All good, reboot. Install Steam. Login via QR code, it begins loading user data.
Loading... Loading.. Loading.. Okay it's clearly stuck. How do I kill a process on Linux? Google it, okay that's not too hard. Try launching Steam again, same thing. Google this issue, get a lot of different potential causes, involving delving into some obscure directories.
I consider myself technologically competent, more so than the average person/consumer. I am a lot of people in my social sphere's "computer guy". Way more than most people are not going to figure this stuff out for themselves.
I'm really sorry to say but Linux is still not ready for mainstream consumers and users if this is the experience of the most recommended stable distro for the average person.
Jorge Castro of Universal Blue likes to say that the average person doesn't install operating systems, and I fully agree with him.
People rock what comes installed on their computer. Anyone who installs an OS them self is not an average user.
I think we'll see the average user start to choose Linux as more and more manufacturers ditch the Windows tax and ship computers with Linux.
You had me until the end. The “windows tax” is just passed directly to the consumer, it costs manufacturers nothing to ship with windows essentially. Most manufacturers won’t offer Linux because it doesn’t do what their customers want/need.
Dropping the Windows tax means being able to offer computers for cheaper prices, which is attractive to consumers. Several companies are offering Linux these days.
I agree with you, I'm in similar situation and yet people here will screech at you for saying stuff like that. Don't mind them.
I had the same issue with the secure boot in bios when I switched a computer to Linux Mint a few weeks ago, but it's been smooth other than that.
UEFI problems, sorry. Would have them with Windows too probably.
Unfortunately Microsoft pushed Secure Boot everywhere, so yes, for most distributions you have to turn it off (some have signed kernels or whatever).
So removing the
~/.steamdirectory after doingpkill steamdidn't help? That seems simpler than most Windows tasks. Anyway, I have Steam working even under FreeBSD.Nobody will believe that you don't have some Windows experience exceeding what you seem to consider the maximum acceptable requirement for Linux. Don't even try.
This is one of those situations where that xkcd comic about experts comes into play.
I don't know how to convey to you that 99% of the people that use Windows wont know how to do anything beyond trying to kill the app via the task manager. I'm one of them. What you said sounds like mystic gobbledygook to me.
Mass Linux adoption is still far out of reach for the average user.
I am going to invoke the XKCD comic on you in return.
I work in a library. I help people with computer issues every day on their personal computers and the public ones...
99% of people would freak out if you expected them to know what Task Manager even is, let alone what it does or how to open it.
This entire conversation is vastly overestimating people's abilities and confidence when it comes to computer use.
It's true. A friend asked for help on his new laptop and after a confusing conversation I realised he was upset because the web browser had "lost" his "bookmarks". No, those aren't bookmarks, those are shortcuts to your most recent web pages. Looks like you don't have any bookmarks. Let me show you how to make a bookmark...
He's not dumb or even inexperienced with tech, he just has a different mindset.
Wait... wait... So your average Facebook mom who has a laptop lying around that they use to watch their series in the evening, but will have to chuck it due to EOL of win10 and no win11 support, will not be able to adopt mint after she has someone install it for her, because you couldn't get a hyperspecific app to run on it? (Steam is hyperspecific in the grand scheme of things).
What a hyperbole.
Wait….do you guys think that Windows 10 “EOL” means it stops working?
doesn't mint/cinnamon have a graphical task manager? and deleting ~/.steam can be dont from the file manager
The users on Windows range from casual not techies to full on nerds. In between there are people with different interests and different tech experience. The next likely new Linux users will be at the techy end of that range. Bunching them together is really poor usability analysis. Talking about average users is also nonsense. Out of 100 users, there might be only one average user.
I've been using Linux full-time at home for 14 years+ without needing to use the command line. Linux is far from perfect, but misinformation should be avoided.
At work I need Eindows for our CAD application. FOSS CAD is OK for some use cases. But falls far short for my car design use cases.
Don’t let these responses fool you. My girlfriend games on PopOS and never had to open the terminal for anything. It just works. Most of the issues in the OP stem from using proprietary hardware, closed-source/proprietary drivers, and perhaps trying to dual-boot Windows and Linux.
Now, who is to fault for all these issues, if not Windows pushing such garbage on consumers? Linux is not there yet because Windows doesn’t want it to.
If there’s a chance of breaking the cycle and getting rid of Windows as the de facto PC OS, we need people to put in the minimal effort needed to run and maintain a computer, and to take of the training wheels supported by the Bigtech.
To understand what OP said, it’s like two hours of work maximum, even for an older person with only basic knowledge. It’s the lack of will and apathy that has Windows be where it is now.
Neil Stephenson's "In the Beginning... Was the Command Line" (1999) touches on this. He compares Microsoft to a station wagon vs Linux as a free tank. People keep buying the station wagon because no-one wants to learn how to drive a tank, even if it's free. (Apple is a luxury car in his analogy.)
My first computer ran on MS-DOS, and I've seen Windows hiding DOS deeper and deeper behind the GUI. And now AI... ugh. I've been tinkering with Linux on old laptops so I'm ready for the move, it's just finding the time.
Which is exactly what I said, just in shell commands because that's quicker for me. Except
pkill steamkills everything containingsteamin the process name,steamis a little bitch spawning a lot of them. Quicker."Task manager" is not some fundamental term either. Someone who hadn't use Windows, if there were many of such people, wouldn't know that it's a GUI application listing running services and some of the processes.
If you are going to measure it by what advanced users are used to not being immediately understandable for others, then it is.
Its absolutely ugly and has a very non modern interface, anyone who tries it as their first OS will probrally be convinced Linux is stuck in 2005. Tbh Fedora should be considered the default these days.
What even is this comment lol
Fedora is a distro, not a desktop environment. Your desktop environment is going to dramatically change your look and feel of your OS.
I don't know how anyone can say windows 11 with all its ads and basically the same UI as windows XP from 2000 "looks better" than something like hyprland, i3, KDE, or gnome.
I don't agree with them but I also disagree that 11 looks like XP. they are very far from each other. XP looked better even. I'm not joking.
I guess I should clarify that it's mechanically the same operating system for over 20 years.
Keybinds on tiling window managers was such a game changer of how I daily use my operating system that now I never want to go back to the traditional method.
And yes there's a fresh coat on things like file explorer or various programs but win11 compared to win10 is basically the same thing with no innovation, just more ads, telemetry, spyware, etc.
We still have windows 7 PCs in the shop at work and it looks the same to me as my work windows 11 laptop.
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir on the fediverse haha
Windows interface is also stuck in 2005, and the evidence suggests most people prefer that. Many people claim they want modern interfaces, but then people get literally angry whenever Microsoft tries to update it and almost nobody ever uses any of the "modern" features they add. Mint is a perfectly fine choice for most people, who are perfectly happy to be stuck in 2005.
Does it? Most people are spending all their time on their cell phone these days, and that's much closer to Gnome's UI. But yeah, anyone accustomed to windows will be better on Mint and cinnamon, however everyone else will be better off on Gnome.
This post literally about Windows 10, which is not on anyone's phone. That's the reason I'm making that specific recommendation.
that does not make it 2005 design. if your metric is familiarity, then even kde plasma 6 will be "2005 design"
Thing is, everyone has a phone now, and they spend an inordinate amount of time on it. Though I'm not excited about recommending Fedora either, the fact that it doesn't enable non-free software by default causes a bunch of issues.
I'm with the other guy. My phone is a touchscreen while my computers (my dual monitor gaming PC, especially) are not. The ways we interact with each of them are fundamentally different, and their interfaces reflect that.
In fact - my laptop and my gaming PC both have LMDE installed, but their DE setups differ from each other because of the simple fact that I use them differently. Both use Cinnamon, but customized for each computer's specific use case.
Yeah, but I really don't want my computer to look like my phone. And I hate that they keep moving toward that and "app-ifying" computers (specifically windows).
You might not, but it's certainly easier to use devices when they behave in similar ways. Like I usually install linux on my relatives PCs simply because if they run into an issue I can troubleshoot it much faster.
Im just saying Gnome is the most popular choice on Linux and for a good reason, its a modern UI
You do realise that even though it's not one of the official Mint variants, it's still possible to install Gnome on Mint with minimal fuss?
There are people that still install and run KDE and that hasn't been a Mint variant for some time now.
Or are you saying that Gnome should be the default variant because it's "modern"?
The monkey's paw curled a finger when they took off in that direction. Most old Linux/X applications will run fine under any window manager / desktop environment and, by and large, inherit the look and feel of that environment. Modern Gnome apps say "no" to that and look like Gnome apps wherever they are.
Since the Mint team are forking Gnome apps precisely to avoid that behaviour, I'd say Mint isn't going to adopt Gnome proper any time soon, but as I said, you can install it if you really want.
Defaults matter because most people just don't change them. Also that's a terrible idea, you'll run into loads of issues and a lack of support for troubleshooting.
As far as I know Mint and Fedora have the same choice of Desktop Environment more or less, I'm really curious to know what you refer to when you say "modeen interface"
I used modern gnome and I seriously don't understand how it's "more modern", most changes feel a downgrade, I cannot divide apps by categories anymore, I only have a big menu that takes all my screen and shows me like 15 apps at a time, unlike "traditional" desktop apps I can control with Alt+Some keys I have the same toolbar filled with burger menus and icons with no text so difficult to use, gnome file manager is objectively inferior in features to Nemo, and don't get me started on the desktop, when you click an application icon on the application bar it doesn't even minimize like on every other desktop interface.
Either ubuntu ships a broken version of gnome or it just sucks, and there are also all kind of management issues that make development very inefficient.