Linux Mint 20.3

Mint 20.3 Review

After a few of my friends were talking about trying out Linux, I decided to try out a few other distros that were recommended for “beginning” users.

From personal experience I know that a rolling release is probably not the way for a beginner to go, due to the possibility of something going wrong with an update, which may be a little more frustrating for someone with less experience.

Mint has a very easy installer, even for those that don’t have any experience with Linux. It asks a few simple questions like username, name of the computer, etc, and then it finishes up, tells you to remove the installation media, and reboots. Simple and easy.

Linux Mint 20.3 uses Cinnamon 5.2 for a desktop environment. I think this is one of the best environments for Windows users to be comfortable in. It is a fork of the old Gnome 2 desktop. I’m not a fan of the current Gnome 3/4, and it woulld be alien for a windows or mac user to attempt to switch to. It is simple, stable, and customizable.

Mint also uses kernel version 5.4, which has many improvements, especially for AMD users.

Dark Mode

It boggles the mind that a multi-billion dollar software corporation like Microsoft can’t figure out how to make a dark theme that actually works. Some other OS’s don’t do a very good job with this, either.

Dark mode is very near and dear to my heart (and eyes.) I have impaired vision due to a combination of retinopathy and fuchs dystrophy, which makes it virtually impossible for me to see a window with a light background and dark text. Dark mode makes it so that I can use my computer without eye strain.

Mint hits it out of the park. Dark themes are flawless, except for the usual issues with flatpaks not finding the dark theme. Its a “feature” not a bug…

Applications

I’m not going to really bother talking about applications because most linux distros are all the same same. Since its Ubuntu based it has a huge selection of available native software support, and when you add Flatpaks…

Gaming

Steam Proton, Wine, and Lutris. Flawless Linux gaming experience. The new kernel really improves AMD graphics support, which my desktop uses. My notebook uses Nvidia optimus, which also seems to be working great. Driver installation is simple using the included driver manager.

Steam Proton is great. It allows most windows titles found on steam to run perfectly under linux. I play a variety of games including some MMO’s and none of them have any issues. Some games have native support for linux under Steam, like Stellaris.

Backups

Mint uses Timeshift to make backups. I bought a cheap Passport external USB drive that I formatted in ext4 and I send all my backups to it. I also backup my pics and documents to Dropbox.

Summary

Mint is a great choice. Its solid, built on an ubuntu/debian base, visually attractive, and it works with a minimum of fussery. It is extremely easy to maintain, super stable, and the dark mode is pretty well perfect.

Ten out of ten, would recommend.