Hi, how's it going? I've been daily driving mint with i3 for a while now, (takes like 500mb idle ram) but I always hear mint being called a newbie distro, I know arch is harder to set up and more customizable for example, but overall im wondering, in which cases one would go from mint to another distro? what can make other distros "better" than mint? i'll end up using a window manager (i3 or if thats not availible some other lightweight one) so differences in desktop environments i dont really care that much about

Does it work for you? Yes? Then you have no need to swap distros.
When people say a 'newbie distro', it means it is simple for newcomer users to learn it, not that it is akin to a tutorial or stopgap.

You only swap distros if you have a use-case your current distro can't actually fulfill for one reason or another.

And about arch being more customizable, Mint is just as customizable. You can swap the desktop just like Arch, you can change bootloader theme, gtk theme, icon theme, etc all normal

Does it serve your needs? If yes, who cares what people think. The OS has 3 functions: keep your data secure, support and run the apps you need and get the hell out of your way.

I've used desktop Linux as my primary operating system since the early 90s. I currently use Mint.

No, you don't need to make a switch if it does what you need.

If you are happy with what you are running then there is no reason to change.

If you want to learn a new concept. Try Silverblue as an atomic distro. I really like the concept. It helps me to keep the computer “tidy”.

In the past, yes. There used to be a need to distro hop and find distros that package the applications that you wanted. Unless you were ready to compile them all yourself. Today, the biggest reason to switch would be trying immutable versus stable versus rolling distributions. Which all have their own advantages and disadvantages.

yea I don't wanna change just to be hip, I literally don't know the differences between distros, I'm just wondering if I'm missing out on something, not in like the way gui and animations works, but the other stuff

I like Mint because it just works. I see no reason to change.

Mint is not a newbie distro. I use it every day and it's fine for most needs. Distro wars have been stupid for more than 20 years.

For the most part the distros are all the same, they just configure things differently from the start or come with different packages installed. Think of it like doughnut shops, you can go to two doughnut shops and they might look a little different, be laid out a little different, ring you up a tiny bit different, but under the hood it's still a doughnut shop, a place selling fried dough rings.

The fried dough rings are the Linux kennel, the core of every distro, the color of the glaze is the distro, the "fluff" on top. You can scrape the glaze off the doughnut at one shop and put new glaze on at the other so it's a bit different, but still a doughnut.

I feel like that analogy got away from me.

So yeah, you're not really missing anything. Some people like Arch because it comes with way less preconfigured/installed so it's easier to make it exactly what you want. Newbies (I use this lovingly here) don't really care if they're using X11 or Wayland (the libraries that power how the desktop actually displays programs, sort of, massively simplifying), so they don't need Arch, they can just install a "newbie" distro and be happy. You could strip your Linux mint down to the bare bones and basically make it Arch by using a different package manager and stuff.

It's a "newbie" distro in that it's interface is very friendly. As far as it's capability, it's as good as any other distro. If you have no issues then you're already living the dream, stay there.

I literally don't know the differences between distros

Its just what they come packaged with. Its all the same kernel. Do you like the software Mint comes with? Have you felt a need to replace a bunch? Does your computer do what you want it to?

Thats really about it. Debian is "good for servers" because it comes with software for running servers. Kali is "good for hackers" because it comes with software for hacking. Mint is "good for newbies" because it comes with software newbies expect.

Thats really pretty much it. Theres nothing stopping you from installing the software you want. If you start to feel like your distro has a bunch of stuff you dont need, then maybe you can look to other distros that dont come with that stuff.

I enjoy Mint. It's my daily driver, and has been for years. I cut my teeth installing Slackware from floppy disks back in the day, and have been a *nix user/admin for 30+ years (IRIX, Solaris, AIX, HP/UX) and I'm a developer, so I think I qualify as a gray beard rather than a newbie.

It just works. Distro wars are silly, as the other commenter said.

my only issue with mint is that full version upgrades are still a hassle. if that's something that bothers you, you could switch to something else. otherwise, just keep on keeping on.

damn really? I'd never would have guessed that

the other thing is the release cycle, if you're constantly fighting that then maybe switch distros

Thats fair.

It's kind of confusing because back ten or twenty years ago that wasn't really the case. They were way more different, architected entire processes different, and were more disjointed messes with way more pros and cons different between them. That's where a lot of the distro hopping and distro wars you might hear about stem from. It was harder to change them to mimic each other.

There's some more subtle differences like some distros choose to hold back updates until they've been tested and some push them out ASAP, immutable vs not immutable. But for the most part, problems you might come across from the distro itself causing you to need to move instead of just pulling in a package are much less now.

Even if the distro has a bunch you don't want, uninstalling is pretty easy now with the package managers I've used. Just strip some things away and see if that's good first.

I felt going from 21 to 22 wasn't that bad, just a few console commands. You've got me wondering if I missed something now

Solaris

You just made me shudder. I learned to program na room full of Sun-3 machines (I think they were 3, not 4) running Solaris. They were ancient by the time I took the classes on them. "It's compiling" was an actual problem and took way too long.

I actually got to help replace them with shiny new Dell machines the next year while working as a student in the IT department at the college.

As you use your first distro, you may begin to realize that you need something else. Maybe you end up programming more than you thought. Maybe you prefer to have a newer version on Python. Try Fedora.

Maybe you end up gaming all the time and you don't use your computer for much else. Maybe there are some strange issues you can't be bothered to investigate and fix. Consider Bazzite.

Maybe all you do is watch a few videos and browse the net once a week. Maybe you're tired of the frequent updates Ubuntu gives you every time you open your computer. How about Debian?

Maybe you're really curious about your system. The more you know, the more you realize that the one you currently have is filled with stuff you don't really need. You hopped to Debian bare bones edition and built your own system from the ground up. It has just the packages you need, but nothing else. Maybe you realized that having newer versions of everything solves some obscure problems you've encountered, so you built one on Sid. Maybe you love the idea of a rolling release distribution. Maybe you like to say BTW...

Maybe a friend gave you a 48 port network switch and a stack of old Dell laptops from 2010s. What would it feel like to operate a small cluster?

In any case, you don't need to distrohop unless you have a reason. If there is one, go ahead If not, keep the distro you already have.

If you start watching distro review videos, you'll get the itch to hop. Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

in the best case it's that, and you wonder why it's not automatic. in the worst case half the packages on the system just brick themselves.

Switching distributions should not be done just to follow a trend, but for real reasons. For example, if you have issues with the kernel or drivers, or if there is some reason you absolutely must use a rolling release, then it might be worth considering Arch. And this is on the condition that you do not want to or cannot solve the problem on your current distribution.

Personally, I switched from Ubuntu to Arch when Ubuntu first introduced snap and my old computers, which I use as servers, started to lag terribly. So, usually, a reason like that is needed. If it weren't for that, I would still be using Ubuntu.

Also good advice.

If your computer runs smoothly and youre not having a bunch of headaches, you're generally better off tinkering with what youve got than going through the hassle of installing a whole new OS.

If your computer runs smoothly and you're not having a bunch of headaches, you're better off NOT tinkering with what you have. No point fixing what's not broken.

Could be a many reasons:

• You want to learn how things work under the hood. In that case Arch or Gentoo are a great learning experience.
• You want the bleeding edge versions of all your software, so you switch to something with a rolling release.
• You decide there's another DE you like better than Cinnamon. You could switch to a distro built around said DE.
• You want the absolute best gaming performance, so you switch to CachyOS. (I don't really expect a very noticable difference with Mint with a newer kernel and the appropriate GPU driver, though.)
• You want to reproduce your exact installation on as many computers as you like based on a single config file. You also want to easily roll back if an upgrade goes wrong. You switch to NixOS or Guix.
• Etc...

Fair, I meant it more in the user space sense. If your OS came with Blender and you never use Blender, uninstall it.

If you're happy with things and nothing is acting weird or badly, You're more or less golden, like folks are saying.

Where you might find that one day you want a newer kernel or packages (which is why you'd switch to Arch or one of its derivatives), is if you ever have very new hardware (or very old hardware that just got a driver pulled into the kernel - I own a Digidesign 002Rack that is ancient, but someone finally wrote a driver for it, and it's still a great piece of audio hardware) that only has drivers in the latest kernels.

But if you're just doing web, Office type stuff, even Steam games, you shouldn't need anything more than you have already.

I am a fan of the KDE desktop, myself, and I recommend that everyone try it out at some point. But you should be able to install it onto Mint and just choose it when you login, again, no need to change distros.

Man let me tell you that when you try to use a software and search for the docs, then you are like "the feature I need is in a newer version, which got implemented in 2022 but mint uses the version of 1993.. damn that's unlucky". and that happens to me 3 whole times.
So I still haven't switched but only because I am to lazy to backup my files right now.

I have only skimmed the comments so someone might have already mentioned it, but distrowatch.com is an excellent site to get your head around the differences between distros. For instance, they have a direct comparison page that will list all the package and kernel versions side by side. Here is Mint and Arch - as you can see, Mint is at a 6.14 kernel (fine for most apps and hardware) but Arch has the very recent 7.2.11, which if you have very new hardware, could matter to you.

I run Debian, which has even older packages and kernel, and everything works great. Very recently though, I switched my firefox to the flatpak version, because the Debian package version didn't have the fairly recent Split View feature, where you can put two sites side by side in your browser window - this has been desperately needed for as long as we've had wide screens. So that's one example of a more recent package being more desirable.

And speaking of Flatpak, that's yet another reason not to sweat your distro, cause you are not just limited to your apt packages, you can use snaps, you can use flatpak, You can use Nix. There's endless ways now of getting the latest version of anything, on any version of Linux.

Don't sweat it.

If it ain't broke

I've been using Linux at home since 2007. In the early-mid days, I tried a lot of different distros. For the last 10 years or so, I'm pretty much only running Linux Mint (Debian edition) on my PCs.

All of the distros run the same applications and do the same things.

Mint is behind on getting wayland support, if you're a gamer who uses a high resolution/high refresh display, something a bit more cutting edge might be in order, but only in that case.

I've used Mint for about five years now and I see absolutely no reason to switch. It does what an OS is supposed to do, run my computer with minimal hassle.

I've been using Mint for ten years because I like the features that make it a newbie distro - the Cinnamon desktop has all the important things in the same places Windows does and it integrates new features six months after they're released, to give them time for testing and bugfixing before use.

Short answer, no. Don't worry about the long answer and keep doing what you're doing.

Nothing wrong with it. Its ok to go hopping if you want. But also ok to just...stick with it.

I mean the main thing that makes Mint Mint is the desktop environment (cinnamon). I often argue that this interface is dated and will drive away users looking for something more modern. But functionally, it's perfectly fine.

Personally, I just think it's fun to install different distros and see the way they handle things and find one I like the most, but I've never used one that was unacceptable (except Ubuntu).

The difference between distros is just what they come packaged with. i.e. which kernel, systemd, desktop environment, update manager, package manager, etc.

if it aint broke it dont need fixin

I was setting up mint for my mom the other day, and put kernel 7 on it, i thing it has been enabled recently as an option.

If you want newer packages, yes. Mint is based off Ubuntu 24 LTS and honestly the jump to Ubuntu 26 is worthwhile if you prefer wayland.

Pika OS will ship a few WMs presetup and will be on Debian Sid. Interesting alternative. Personally, a stripped down Ubuntu 26 with your WM will give you the best stability and support.

Uh, there's definitely some different kernels. Cachy etc apply a lot of patches focused on speed and performance. That said there are other distros that offer the cachy patched kernel.

There are also server focused kernels. There is a ton of stuff "in the kernel" whether it's applied to yours is a different question. So it's not that simple.

But with flatpak etc, I'd say the real choice these days is immutable, stable, or rolling.

Do you really think that matters in OP's context?

Of course I was simplifying things

I went from Mint to CachyOS for gaming reasons, on the whole I enjoy it more tham Mint for pretty much everything. It’s just a bit more streamlines and organized, and software storage isn’t as much of a mystery box.

That being said, Mint is a great OS that I didn’t have any issues with outside of some headaches when it came to running some games. If it’s not limiting you with what you need it for then there’s no reason to jump ship if you like it.

I've always thought of Mint as a newbie-friendly distro because there is a convenient UI for everything that you want to do, but that doesn't mean it's somehow limited for more advanced users.

It's friendly to new users but does not block things that more advanced users would want. I don't think there's any reason to stop using it as you become an advanced user.

The only reason to switch would be if some other distro has a specific selling point that you want to try. I've tried a few of them and always just end up going back to what I'm familiar with.

Neither you nor I can say with 100% certainty it does or doesn't. They didn't go deep on their hardware that I saw. All I was pointing out was that that was a bit much of a simplification. There are reasons to look at the kernel. Just not a lot of them. Largely I agree with you though. Debian, fedora, or any of their offshoots on hardware from the last ten years potato potato right?

But on a potato. I have an old laptop with a core 2 duo in it. A late 2000's laptop that only ran windows 7 at best. It's still surprisingly capable despite its age. Put something like a modern fedora on it, though that's a different story. It becomes slow almost to the point of being frustrating to use. No matter which desktop environment I'm using. Drop MX or similar and it's a whole different experience. Part of it kernel patches, part of it run times. Even i3/i5/i7 haswell or older can see a solid boost on kernels not compiled with modern processor extensions primarily in mind.