I use Mint and I support this message.

it’s just practicality.

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.

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.

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.

Specifically Mint Cinnamon. It has a UI that is very similar to what people are used to in the Windows world.

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.

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.

So honestly, which percentage of your game collection runs on Linux? Because I've looked into doing this just a few months ago, and unless the industry had some kind of mass exodus, less than 10% of my games run on Linux, and that's a generous estimate.

Not defending Windows or anything, this is just my experience.

People will just keep using insecure windows 10 versions.

Its boring. You open a web browser or Steam, you do a thing, you go to sleep.

Again… So much proprietary software is the industry standard, particularly Adobe, and much of it is Linux-compatible, making it not so easy to make the switch as a freelancer

There are ways to disable Windows updates. This is what I have done to allow me to keep using my reverb G2. Of course I don't use my windows PC as my daily so I keep it air gapped for security

No Dell below us, above us only Pi

Congratulations on the downgrade. You've gone from an OS that will support your hardware from at least 10 years, to maybe 7 years of support.