Linux Mint may look a bit outdated and doesn't benefit from the Latest and Greatest version of some programs (ala Arch), but it still provides an excellent out of the box experience. It's been my daily driver for a production environment for years, and I've converted older family members to use it as their daily driver without issues. (They prefer it over Windows!)
I did recently encounter a bug where it would fail to install the latest version if Secure Boot was enabled at the time of installation, but that was due to a key signing issue/expiration from upstream (Ubuntu) and the developers have already promised a new approach that would address and future-proof that in the upcoming version. It was my first time in years I hit a stumbling block on installation.
That aside, the onboarding process has only gotten better and is now outstanding. (It has a little Welcome program that walks you through setting up system snapshots, proprietary drivers, and even enable automatic security updates. It's accessible and actually helpful to newcomers.) The distribution upgrade utility is simple, works well, and does a good job of nudging when it's time to upgrade (without making you feel forced). It also anchors to Ubuntu LTS releases, which means you actually don't need to upgrade often if the feature set does the job for you. In terms of usability, I think we hit the Year of the Linux Desktop a while ago (for general productivity users).
In short, I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Mint to someone who is either new or willing to give up some of the bleeding edge opportunities for stability, and I think it has been able to consistently deliver an excellent out of box experience for years now.
Mint also has a Debian edition that is nearly the same great experience as the Ubuntu one. Later this year it will be updating to the new Debian 12.
I have been pleasantly surprised by Mint’s point releases. Since they are really only packaging changes to Ubuntu (“Mint” is only something like 400 packages on top of Ubuntu) they have the time to really put in a lot of work on the environment and desktop experience. The point releases have all been very good changes for me.
If it works for you then use it, however if you want the latest packages you’ll have to NOT use the LTS releases in which case be prepared to do a FULL REINSTALL every time a new version comes out.
Or use the LTS but use Snaps for those applications that you want to have the latest versions of. Snaps are getting better and I think eventually you won’t notice the difference between them and native apps, except for the space they just up. But that goes for Flatpak too.
Personally I use Linux Mint Debian Edition because I’m not happy with the way Canonical is going. In most cases the “old” apps are fine for me, but if I felt need the newest version I’ll use a Flatpak.
Another rolling option is OpenSuse Tumbleweed however, being a Mac which uses proprietary WiFi drivers, your WiFi will break with kernel updates, which can be irritating, unless you have ethernet.
Thanks. Not full wayland protocol support and have a bugs, but something is greater than nothing. UPD: The utilization of the Internet channel has also increased
I asked chatGPT what Wayland is since the article contains no explanation
In this context, “Wayland” refers to a protocol and a display server protocol used in Linux operating systems. It’s an alternative to the more established X Window System (X11). The article highlights that Firefox version 121.0 has integrated support for Wayland by default, indicating that the browser can now utilize Wayland’s capabilities directly on modern Linux desktops without relying on XWayland compatibility layer, thereby enhancing performance and compatibility with the native display server protocol.
Explained by someone that doesn’t know the technical side super well.
1: It’s a new protocol for displaying. The main difference from X11, as I understand it, is a simplification of the stack. Eliminating the need for a display server, or merging the display server and compositor.
2: Some things impossible (or difficult) with X11 are much better supported in Wayland. Their not necessarily available, as the Wayland protocol is quite generic and needs additional protocols for further negotiation. Examples are fractional scaling & multiple displays with differing refresh rates.
Security is also improved. X11 did not make some security considerations (as it is quite old, maybe justifiably so). In X11 it’s possible for any application to “look” at the entire display. In Wayland they receive a specific section that they can draw into and use. (This has the side-effect of complicating stuff like redshifting the screen at night, but in my experience that has fully caught up).
3: If you’re interested, are in desktop application development (but I have no experience in that regard) or have a specific need for Wayland.
4: I think X won’t die for a long long time if “ever”. I’m not super familiar with desktop app development, but I don’t think it requires more work to keep supporting X.
On the other hand, most of the complaints about Wayland I’ve heard were ultimately about support. At some point, when you’re a normal user, the distro maintainer should be able to decide to move to Wayland without you noticing, apart from the blurriness being gone with fractional scaling.
I’m not super familiar with desktop app development, but I don’t think it requires more work to keep supporting X.
It doesn’t depend that much on desktop application developers, but on GUI toolkit developers. It does need more work for GTK and Qt devs to support both. But the outcome will likely depend not that much on ammount of work as on “political” decisions. RedHat are now somewhat actively forcing Wayland in their distros. They also have their impact on GNOME, so it’s not impossible that due RedHat’s decision GNOME and then GTK (that is now developed mostly by GNOME developers, despite being GIMP Toolkit initially) will ditch X “just because”.
End user Application developers usually don’t deal much with Wayland or X — they just use toolkits (GTK or Qt for the majority), and toolkits do all the under the hoof work for them.
Wayland is a Display Server Protocol, meaning it is a specification of how a program wanting to display something like a window communicates with another program, the display server, which handles drawing to the screen.
It matters because it vastly simplifies and modernizes display server infrastructure.
X is huge, with many parts from the 80s and 90s that were simply not needed today, creating a fully compliant X Server with all extensions was pretty much impossible, which is the reason pretty much only X.org existed as a full implementation.
Some benefits for users are no screen tearing, VRR and support for more complicated setups like having multiple monitors all with a different refresh rate, which was a pain in the ass on X but is no problem on wayland.
X is going to die, especially with the fact that frredesktop and the two big DEs, GNOME and KDE are working on it. Some distros come with wayland by default already.
linux
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.