I made the switch about a two months ago. I’m using my windows side of my dual boot a hell of a lot less than I thought I would, mostly thanks to steam’s proton.
Started with zorin, but eventually landed on mint.
The file explorer has some pretty limited options, and not many features. Or at least, it doesn’t have some of the features I like by default.
It does have zorin connect, which is really nice, but I later found it it is a re-skinned version of KDE connect, so not much is lost by moving to another distro on that front.
It also seemed to not have as good windows support for certain things. BG3 kept on crashing on me for some unknown reason, with zero error messages to troubleshoot. On mint it worked first try, like it ought to.
At the end of the day, zorin just isn’t as customizable as I want, whereas mint is.
Thank you! All the advertised built-in compatibility layers seemed too promising, so I’ve been wondering how often it breaks or doesn’t work as well as another distro. Also good to know the connect stuff can be added just by installing KDE. And Dolphin probably a better file manager.
What’s your preferred file manager, if you don’t mind?
Yeah, I was a bit disappointed with the compatability as well. But luckily it hasn’t effected me too much on mint. So far only two programs I use haven’t been compatible, and even then they aren’t programs I use often.
What’s your preferred file manager, if you don’t mind?
Nemo, which is the default for mint.
Also another reason I switched to mint now that i remember, I wanted to switch to a non-Ubuntu system. The whole point of switching to Linux is to get away from all the corpos getting their hands on your system/data. Unfortunately I only learned how shitty canonical is about it after I unstalled zorin.
So I currently have mint debian edition installed.
Oh that’s great, you’re exactly the one I need to talk to then, because I’ve been debating why even go with an Ubuntu-based distro at all when it’s based on Debian, and whether or not the Debian version would be a better choice. I’ve been running multiple VMs trying to work out the differences.
Before I found Debian Mint, I wrote a script for base Debian 12.2 to auto-install wine, steam, and everything else I could think of based on what’s in Linux Mint and Garuda… then discovered Debian Mint and have been wondering if that’s my best choice, because I have no idea what I could be missing in the background on my Debian install, or didn’t set up correctly because I don’t know about it.
I also noticed that Debian Mint currently uses a newer kernel than Ubuntu Mint… 6.1.0-13 vs 5.15.0. For a newer kernel than that you have to go with the Ubuntu Mint EDGE version (6.2.0) or Arch (6.1.57-lts or 6.5.7-zen).
—
Has there been any particular thing you had to do to Debian Mint to make it work better for you?
I will say right off the bat, it sounds like you know a bit more about me, so whatever you decide will probably already be a pretty informed choice.
With that said, having used ubuntu occasionally in the past, it doesn’t feel all that different from Debian. They are roughly equally functional, performant, etc.
Before I found Debian Mint, I wrote a script for base Debian 12.2 to auto-install
I probably should do something similar, because down the line who knows, I might need a full re-install.
because I have no idea what I could be missing in the background on my Debian install, or didn’t set up correctly because I don’t know about it.
Very anecdotally, like I said there has only been two programs that I haven’t been able to get running that I really want. That’s fusion360 and dungeon draft. Both of which I could pretty easily get running in a VM.
Actually now that I think about it, there is a 3d program, and that’s fortnite. But that’s because their management doesn’t give a flying fuck about linux, and so their anti-cheat breaks the game. So no distro will be safe from that.
I also noticed that Debian Mint currently uses a newer kernel than Ubuntu Mint
Again, it sounds like you are much more informed about it than me. But personally, it hasn’t made a difference for me. I can run my games, the basic internet browsing apps that I like, etc.
Has there been any particular thing you had to do to Debian Mint to make it work better for you?
The most complex thing that needed set up was getting my drives auto mounted on startup. But debian mint has a pretty straightforward way of setting it up, so it took maybe 5 seconds.
Beyond that, it’s just been a small bit of effort setting up the programs I use. Steam, freetube, the prism minecraft launcher, my nvidia drivers, cura, KDE connect, gitkracken, vscode, vlc, etc. It is really low effort honestly, basically the same effort as windows. The software manager/library on debian has been pretty decent to me.
Again, it sounds like you are much more informed about it than me.
It only sounds like I know what I’m doing because I’ve just been doing base installs in VMs, letting them update, and then checking things like kernel options installed, etc, and comparing what apps are installed in some distros and left out of others from the main applications menu, then putting it in a spreadsheet so I can see what’s going on. You have way more practical experience than I do. I haven’t even tried any of these on actual hardware yet.
And as I was figuring that out at the Debian command line, I was just adding it all to a text file so I wouldn’t have to track down that exact info again, and then saved it as a script for automation.
If you want to see that install script, I put it here:
Has a commented summary of what it does at the beginning. Probably contains a lot of things you don’t care about, some are only in there for science. (I was adding most of the Ubuntu Studio package, for instance.) You mentioned a number of things you have installed that aren’t in there yet. I haven’t even tried nVidia drivers yet since it’s all been in VMs, that’s in a separate file for later. But you should be able to load Debian 12.2 in a VM and run this script, and it should install almost everything listed in there without a hitch. (There’s an occasional thing that requires downloading a certain version, and I don’t think it can be selected automatically. Like having to manually get the exact version of VirtualBox to download the right version toolset for it. I mention in the summary and comments where it happens.)
If you (or anyone) wants to contribute changes to that install script, feel free, I’m just working it out.
If you’re making scripts like this, you should have no problem with LMDE.
If you (or anyone) wants to contribute changes to that install script, feel free, I’m just working it out.
I might do so down the line. I’m not the most experienced with shell scripts, but I am knowledgable enough to fumble my way through a server maintenance script for my self hosted minecraft server.
I made the switch about a two months ago. I’m using my windows side of my dual boot a hell of a lot less than I thought I would, mostly thanks to steam’s proton.
Started with zorin, but eventually landed on mint.
I’m trying to narrow down today’s distro choices, would you mind telling why you switched away from Zorin?
The file explorer has some pretty limited options, and not many features. Or at least, it doesn’t have some of the features I like by default.
It does have zorin connect, which is really nice, but I later found it it is a re-skinned version of KDE connect, so not much is lost by moving to another distro on that front.
It also seemed to not have as good windows support for certain things. BG3 kept on crashing on me for some unknown reason, with zero error messages to troubleshoot. On mint it worked first try, like it ought to.
At the end of the day, zorin just isn’t as customizable as I want, whereas mint is.
Thank you! All the advertised built-in compatibility layers seemed too promising, so I’ve been wondering how often it breaks or doesn’t work as well as another distro. Also good to know the connect stuff can be added just by installing KDE. And Dolphin probably a better file manager.
What’s your preferred file manager, if you don’t mind?
Yeah, I was a bit disappointed with the compatability as well. But luckily it hasn’t effected me too much on mint. So far only two programs I use haven’t been compatible, and even then they aren’t programs I use often.
Nemo, which is the default for mint.
Also another reason I switched to mint now that i remember, I wanted to switch to a non-Ubuntu system. The whole point of switching to Linux is to get away from all the corpos getting their hands on your system/data. Unfortunately I only learned how shitty canonical is about it after I unstalled zorin.
So I currently have mint debian edition installed.
Oh that’s great, you’re exactly the one I need to talk to then, because I’ve been debating why even go with an Ubuntu-based distro at all when it’s based on Debian, and whether or not the Debian version would be a better choice. I’ve been running multiple VMs trying to work out the differences.
Before I found Debian Mint, I wrote a script for base Debian 12.2 to auto-install wine, steam, and everything else I could think of based on what’s in Linux Mint and Garuda… then discovered Debian Mint and have been wondering if that’s my best choice, because I have no idea what I could be missing in the background on my Debian install, or didn’t set up correctly because I don’t know about it.
I also noticed that Debian Mint currently uses a newer kernel than Ubuntu Mint… 6.1.0-13 vs 5.15.0. For a newer kernel than that you have to go with the Ubuntu Mint EDGE version (6.2.0) or Arch (6.1.57-lts or 6.5.7-zen).
—
Has there been any particular thing you had to do to Debian Mint to make it work better for you?
I will say right off the bat, it sounds like you know a bit more about me, so whatever you decide will probably already be a pretty informed choice.
With that said, having used ubuntu occasionally in the past, it doesn’t feel all that different from Debian. They are roughly equally functional, performant, etc.
I probably should do something similar, because down the line who knows, I might need a full re-install.
Very anecdotally, like I said there has only been two programs that I haven’t been able to get running that I really want. That’s fusion360 and dungeon draft. Both of which I could pretty easily get running in a VM.
Actually now that I think about it, there is a 3d program, and that’s fortnite. But that’s because their management doesn’t give a flying fuck about linux, and so their anti-cheat breaks the game. So no distro will be safe from that.
Again, it sounds like you are much more informed about it than me. But personally, it hasn’t made a difference for me. I can run my games, the basic internet browsing apps that I like, etc.
The most complex thing that needed set up was getting my drives auto mounted on startup. But debian mint has a pretty straightforward way of setting it up, so it took maybe 5 seconds.
Beyond that, it’s just been a small bit of effort setting up the programs I use. Steam, freetube, the prism minecraft launcher, my nvidia drivers, cura, KDE connect, gitkracken, vscode, vlc, etc. It is really low effort honestly, basically the same effort as windows. The software manager/library on debian has been pretty decent to me.
Thank you again for the feedback!
Good, probably for the best.
It only sounds like I know what I’m doing because I’ve just been doing base installs in VMs, letting them update, and then checking things like kernel options installed, etc, and comparing what apps are installed in some distros and left out of others from the main applications menu, then putting it in a spreadsheet so I can see what’s going on. You have way more practical experience than I do. I haven’t even tried any of these on actual hardware yet.
And as I was figuring that out at the Debian command line, I was just adding it all to a text file so I wouldn’t have to track down that exact info again, and then saved it as a script for automation.
If you want to see that install script, I put it here:
https://github.com/mateomaui/DebianInstall/blob/main/debian-install-3-apps-or-no-nvidia.sh
Has a commented summary of what it does at the beginning. Probably contains a lot of things you don’t care about, some are only in there for science. (I was adding most of the Ubuntu Studio package, for instance.) You mentioned a number of things you have installed that aren’t in there yet. I haven’t even tried nVidia drivers yet since it’s all been in VMs, that’s in a separate file for later. But you should be able to load Debian 12.2 in a VM and run this script, and it should install almost everything listed in there without a hitch. (There’s an occasional thing that requires downloading a certain version, and I don’t think it can be selected automatically. Like having to manually get the exact version of VirtualBox to download the right version toolset for it. I mention in the summary and comments where it happens.)
If you (or anyone) wants to contribute changes to that install script, feel free, I’m just working it out.
Honestly, yeah…
I don’t play it very often. I only ever play it when my girlfriend and her friends rope me into it.
Honestly installing it on a VM and checking around is a huge chunk of the experience, so you’re not missing much.
Hell yeah.
If you’re making scripts like this, you should have no problem with LMDE.
I might do so down the line. I’m not the most experienced with shell scripts, but I am knowledgable enough to fumble my way through a server maintenance script for my self hosted minecraft server.