I’ve been daily driving Linux Mint on my new to me Dell Latitude laptop (see previous post) for a week now, so I though now was the right time to do a post on the chosen operating system. Drawing comparisons with Windows 10, which I’ve used extensively, and to a lesser extent Windows 11, Linux is favourable.
The operating system, specifically Linux Mint 22.2 Cinnamon, is a critical part of of the computer, and is what we see every time we log on. The operating system opens applications, includes drivers that enable the various components to work (including WiFi, keyboards, mouse etc.), and controls the overall functions of the PC. Pretty much every electronic device including smartphones has some form of operating system software.
Installation was straightforward enough from a USB installation media, which booted into a version of the operating system to allow for initial testing. Straight away it recognised the built in WiFi card. From past experience, whilst Linux is very compatible with most hardware, most WiFi chip sets have never worked out the box and have almost always required some form of fiddly manual driver installation. I may be lucky and have one of those compatible chip sets, but either way it’s certainly an improvement from the last time I used Linux (on a slightly knackered HP laptop that I haven’t properly used in quite a while).
Then came the stumbling block. After installing Linux Mint on the solid state drive, I couldn’t get it to boot. Verifying the laptop was recognising drive, I tried every way to resolve the issue, including re-installing. The errors being given didn’t make sense, as when searching online seemed to relate to dual boot systems where Windows and Linux are installed on the same device, with the option to switch between the two. I then tried a BIOS reset which worked, and Linux Mint booted straightaway (and has reliably booted ever since).
I’ll do a longer article on why I choose Linux Mint, amongst the many different versions of Linux available, but in summary it’s due to the interface. I’ve used Linux Mint and Ubuntu before, and whilst Ubuntu is probably the more polished version, its interface is more Mac or iPhone/Android like, and can be quite different to Windows. As I still use Windows 10 on my desktop and Windows 11 on a work laptop, something similar in layout to Windows was preferred for ease of switching between the systems. Linux Mint shines in that respect, and the interface has a layout similar to Windows (particularly closely resembling the XP/Vista/7 era of Windows).
Performance wise, Linux Mint is much less resource heavy than Windows, rarely exceeding 2GB usage of RAM. It boots quite quickly (though not as quick as Windows 10 or 11), but once going there’s near zero lag, unlike Windows which glitches or freezes from time to time. The only time I’ve notice Linux Mint slow down is when I open up the Teams for Linux application.
Lastly, the big downside with Linux is the lack of compatibility for Windows applications (hence the reason why I’m sticking with Windows 10 on my gaming/productivity desktop). That being said, there’s versions of many open source applications for Linux that are also available on Windows, such as Mozilla Firefox (the preinstalled web browser), and LibreOffice (though only the key elements of the LibreOffice suite come pre-installed). There’s a built in software manager (similar in a sense to Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store), for downloading additionally software, but where everything is free. With cloud computing and things like OneDrive being available through web browsers, there hasn’t been any general office type task I haven’t been able to do with Linux Mint yet.
No doubt I’ll write more on the Linux subject in the future, but for now it’s safe to say that Linux Mint is doing a great job, and I’ve no plans to change the operating system anytime soon.