Long time Windows user here. I’ve been a M$ sysadmin at a large healthcare conglomerate for 20+ years. It’s all M$ products that I work with.

Anyway…I’ve dabbled here and there with Linux, ran it in VM’s or dual booted, but I’ve always gone back to my comfort zone of Windows.

I’ve “recently” (last 6 months") tied Kubuntu and I did like it, but really hated Snap, so about 3 weeks ago I jumped to Mint. Now I know that both distros are Linux training wheels, but I have to say that I’m really impressed! I forget how fast and responsive Linux is without all the bloat that you get with Windows. The main detractor of sticking with Linux before was gaming, but with Lutris now filling in that gap, there’s nothing holding me back.

For the first time, I would really recommend Linux to friends and (selective) family.

Long story short, after 25+ years of using Windows almost exclusively, I’ve finally made the jump and just blew away my entire M$ partition and I don’t feel bad in the least.

I’m sure I’ll be hanging around this sub for a long time, and I’ll make a jump to a more traditional distro like Debian or Suse. but for now, I’m really impressed with how far Linux has come.

<p>

Edit- Wow, thank you for all the love and support! I’m very happy to hear that I"m in good company with Mint. <p>

I love all the great suggestions too for Vbox alts and game launcher. Gotta love this community. <3

  • MangoKangaroo@beehaw.org
    25·
    5 months ago

    Welcome to the party! Never let anyone get you down for using a “beginner” distro; it’s perfectly valid to want a system that just works. :)

      • MangoKangaroo@beehaw.org
        5·
        5 months ago

        Shoot, I’d probably be one of them if not for my need to have Wayland and slightly newer libraries for my A770.

          • MangoKangaroo@beehaw.org
            2·
            5 months ago

            I’m watching Cinnamon’s Wayland rollout with great interest. No Pipewire sharing yet (among other things), but I’m excited for the future.

      • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        5 months ago

        I installed my first distro, slackware, from diskettes in the 90s, so Im not exactly a newbie. I now use Mint ( just works but you can get under the hood fine), with both a dual boot windows and a VM for when I don’t want to reboot, since I use a few programs that are windows only. The setup works fine for me. That said I’m playing with NixOS. Definitely not for the masses, but awesome.

    • agr8lemon@lemmy.zipOP
      8·
      5 months ago

      Thanks! It’s great to read in there that even some of the seasoned Linux folks use Mint!

      • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
        1·
        5 months ago

        I use linux for a couple years as a server and for 6-9 months as a daily. Am also a sysadmin.

        Mint works great but is very simple. Ubuntu works good as well but the proprietary snap store is shit imo Switched to debian & kde yesterday and am already fully set up. Not without any hickups but a great experience so far. Maybe try a second hard drive to switch out and install debian if you’re feeling like it. Its pretty cool.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
      3·
      5 months ago

      Well, it’s not like more advanced distros are built to not work. Rather, they work better for different focus points.
      So, I would encourage people, especially those with a techy background, to take a look around eventually, but yeah, your conclusion to that journey may as well be that Mint was nice, actually.