I posted back at the end of December about how I was transitioning over to Linux Mint on my new (new to me) computer that I had just bought. I am doing this because I am starting to get very concerned about Windows being "free" because nothing is free and Microsoft didn't get to be one of the largest companies in the world by giving things away. They are definitely doing something you would rather them not be doing with any product that they give away.
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The other concern was that even though I had them disabled on my Windows 10 machine,it was still updating my software without my permission, mostly in the middle of the night. That's some nefarious shit right there bro. I specifically disabled updates and they do it anyway? Now I wake up and my login screen is filled with widgets that I did not ask for, do not use, and do not want and the only way to get rid of them is to manually uninstall them?
Basically this started to make me feel as though I wasn't really in control of my own computer so I decided to make the switch. I wasn't prepared to totally abandon Windows but now that other computer is on the other side of the room waiting for me to have some sort of issue that I don't know how to resolve on Mint.
Now here is the thing for anyone that is thinking of transitioning to a Linux distribution: It really isn't that difficult to do but as far as installing things is concerned, it isn't like Windows. I think the Software Manager in Mint is better than Windows because all the major stuff that people use is right there and has already been checked and reviewed by the user community.
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There have only been one or two things that I have not been able to install, one of them was some sort of messaging app that is only used in Thailand, so I didn't really expect it to support that. But I'm not really all that fussed about it because Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and of course stupid FB Messenger are all supported and really easy to install.
Basically any program that you would normally have to either pay for or get a pirate version of including PS, Office, even AutoCad, all have equivalents in Linux and the best part they are free, always have been, always will be.
I'm sure some super-user out there might say that Photoshop and GIMP are not the same but for the average user, they are.
The same is true of Libreoffice or OpenOffice in comparison to MS Office. I have actually come to prefer the non MS Office suite because it isn't bogged down with bloatware that the average person isn't even going to ever use anyway. Who the hell uses Access?
I find the community online for Mint to be very helpful and I have to admit that I feel pretty fantastic when I successfully install something from the terminal / command prompt interface
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If you are some sort of Linux veteran you are probably laughing at the crudity of my descriptions of things but that's kind of helping me to reinforce my point. I am not a computer guy. I bet I know more than the average person but I am far from an expert and I found Mint really easy to use right out of the box. The only thing you really need to "unlearn" is that you can't just go to any ol' website and download whatever program is there. .exe files don't mean anything to a Linux machine and for many people that is probably a good thing because I once read a fun article about a true expert that genuinely tried to install ransomware and viruses on their Ubuntu distribution of Linux and after really really trying for an hour or so, he gave up because even though he was trying to help the malware install itself onto his machine, he couldn't make it work.
You don't really hear about people bricking their machines with malware so much anymore these days but as far as my Windows machine is concerned, my free Antivirus program has kind of become the Malware in that it is constantly hijacking what I am doing with notifications that I do not need and don't care about.
I think if you are the kind of person that uses a computer for what most people use a computer for such as email, using the internet, and messaging, then there is really no good reason for you to not at
least give Mint a try.
It boots up in half a second and is never lagging behind like my Windows machine did. I love it so far and after about 4 more months or so I am going to completely abandon Windows, hopefully forever.