Reasons To Love Linux Mint

If you’ve ever looked into nan Linux operating system, chances are beautiful bully that you’ve tally crossed a mention of Linux Mint. And if you’ve done immoderate digging, past you’ve astir apt publication accounts of personification aft user, pundit aft pundit proclaiming that Linux Mint is nan astir user-friendly distribution connected nan market.

I’m present to backmost that declare up.

Yes, Linux Mint is 1 of (if not the) champion Linux distributions for caller users.

But what is it astir Linux Mint that makes it truthful bully for those who’ve ne'er touched Linux?

Let maine explicate precisely why this declare has been existent for immoderate clip and will astir apt stay truthful for nan foreseeable future.

What Is Linux Mint?

First off, Linux Mint is an unfastened root operating strategy that is based connected Ubuntu. It uses nan aforesaid package head (APT), nan aforesaid entree power strategy (AppArmor) and strives to beryllium arsenic elemental arsenic possible.

One of nan first things users announcement astir Linux Mint is nan desktop environment, which is called Cinnamon. The Cinnamon desktop offers an contiguous familiarity because it resembles Windows. That’s right, if you’ve ever utilized Windows, you’ll consciousness correct astatine location pinch Linux Mint and Cinnamon.

Cinnamon offers each nan accustomed features: a panel, commencement menu, strategy tray and clickable icons. If you’ve utilized immoderate loop of Microsoft’s OS since Windows 95, you’ll consciousness correct astatine location connected Cinnamon.

Click nan Start button, and you’ll spot a desktop paper that gives you speedy entree to each of nan installed applications. You’ll besides announcement that location are plentifulness of preinstalled apps, specified arsenic Firefox, LibreOffice, a backup tool, multimedia players, a fingerprint configuration instrumentality and truthful overmuch more. Out of nan box, you’ll find Mint has everything you request to get started pinch imaginative and productive projects — aliases conscionable to support you entertained.

Of course, nan user-friendliness goes good beyond nan desktop and preinstalled applications. In fact, location are tons of mini tweaks recovered pinch Linux Mint that travel together to make this specified a awesome action for those caller to Linux.

Let’s return a look.

It’s nan Little Things

System Reports

When you first commencement utilizing Linux Mint, you’ll yet spot a mini shield icon popular up successful nan strategy tray. Click connected that icon to unfastened nan System Reports app, wherever you tin position strategy reports, strategy accusation and clang reports.

The champion point astir nan System Reports app is that it gives you a helping manus to make Linux Mint moreover much user-friendly.

For example, you mightiness beryllium prompted to instal nan basal codecs for multimedia. On immoderate distributions, you person to do a spot of investigation connected really to instal those codecs, and this process tin alteration from distribution to distribution.

On Linux Mint, you’ll beryllium prompted to click a fastener to instal those codecs (Figure 1).

You mightiness besides beryllium informed that you tin group up nan strategy reconstruct inferior (which I highly urge you do). Again, this is simply a speedy click distant from wrong nan System Reports tool.

Updates

Updates are besides taken attraction of very easy pinch Linux Mint. You’ll beryllium alerted to immoderate updates from nan strategy tray. Click nan icon to unfastened nan Update Manager, wherever you tin click Install Updates to return attraction of nan task.

Desklets

Desklets are for illustration widgets you mightiness find connected macOS, Android aliases iOS. These mini applications widen nan characteristic group of your Linux Mint desktop.

To adhd a desklet to Cinnamon, right-click connected immoderate unfastened spot connected nan desktop and click Desklets. From nan resulting model (Figure 2), you tin prime a desklet and past click + to adhd it to your desktop.

Out of nan box, you’ll find 3 available: Clock, Digital photograph framework and Launcher. You tin click nan Download tab, wherever you’ll find plentifulness of different disposable desklets, from to-do lists, clocks, calendars, notes, artillery level indicators, big checks, media controls and overmuch more.

The Menu

The Cinnamon Menu (Figure 3) offers 4 components:

• Favorites: Upper information of nan sidebar, wherever you tin pin apps for speedy access.
• Power: Lower information of nan sidebar, wherever you tin fastener nan screen, powerfulness disconnected aliases restart your machine.
• Search: Top of nan menu, wherever you tin hunt for installed applications.
• App list: Main section, wherever you tin scroll done a categorized app listing.

You’ll besides find 2 different categories wrong nan Cinnamon menu: Administration and Preferences. Administration is wherever you return attraction of tasks for illustration users and groups, login window, fingerprints, backups, package sources and more. This information of nan paper is each astir managing your system.

On nan different hand, nan Preferences paper is conscionable that: user-level bits specified arsenic relationship details, web configuration, backgrounds, Bluetooth, color, day and time, font action and more.

Web Apps

Finally, location are web apps. If you don’t cognize what these are, deliberation of them arsenic a website that is rolled into an easy-to-use desktop application. Essentially, web apps portion distant astir of nan web browser’s components until it’s thing much than a model lodging nan website successful question.

Some web browsers see a characteristic that allows you to create web apps from pages, but Linux Mint includes a dedicated app for this purpose. With nan Web Apps app (Figure 4), you tin move immoderate website into a web app. The beauty of this is that it declutters your web browser, truthful you don’t person a bazillion tabs open, thereby making your browser much businesslike to use.

Once you create a web app, you tin motorboat it from nan Cinnamon desktop menu.

The point astir Linux Mint is that nan developers person gone retired of their measurement to guarantee that everything ties together beautifully successful specified a measurement that anyone (and I do mean anyone) tin usage Linux Mint arsenic not conscionable an preamble to Linux, but arsenic a full-time operating system.

If you’re willing successful giving Linux Mint a try, download an ISO from nan official site, pain it to a USB thrust pinch a instrumentality for illustration UnetBootin, insert nan USB thrust into a spare machine, footwear it up and instal it. You won’t regret nan 5 to 10 minutes you’ll walk during nan installation.

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