Have a Minty Christmas | Linux Mint 19.3

It’s the night before Christmas and all through the shop, not a coffee has been wasted, not even a drop. A little slice of banana cream pie goes perfect with some hot coffee as I install Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia. Mint is an easy Linux Distribution to recommend to anyone just testing out the Linux waters who is more familiar with older Windows releases. Windows 10 latest incarnation has steered a few users towards alternative operating systems. I like Mint because it’s usually very stable on old hardware and doesn’t require some of the WiFi troubleshooting that other leaner distros do.

What better way to spend Christmas Eve than sitting by a looped Yule Log video listening to old Christmas standards on Apple Music? I was going to install the latest Peppermint release to be a little festive in the spirit of the holidays, but Mint seemed just as appropriate and I’m a little more familiar with older Mint releases. Think Minty green like the Grinch.

I just spent too many hours listening to Whos down in Whoville complaining about their recent Windows 10 upgrades. I’m not having any issues with my Windows 10 builds, but I do my own so I can’t really speak for anyone who’s dependent on others to set up their systems. Maybe Santa will bring them all iPad Pros for Christmas…..if they’ve been good of course.

Anyways, I thought I should probably get up to speed on some of the latest Mint enhancements, since I have recommended it in the past, and might want to check if I should continue to recommend it. In brief, the answer is “yes” I’ll still recommend it to new users.
I installed it on an old Netbook without any issues. Of course, I immediately installed the Chrome browser since that seems to be what many former Windows users still want to use.

If you’ve run Windows 10 with no issues on your machine, Mint will probably not be an issue. Some older machines that ran XP or Windows 7 I would probably replace. Old Windows 7 machines may work fine, but there could be other issues that a very old machine may pose such as the dreaded 32-bit limitation. If a machine can’t support the 64-bit architecture then I would retire it from service. I try to get the most out of older machines, but at some point, it’s not worth it especially with very good laptops available at very reasonable prices for almost any Grinch-like budget.

My daily driver runs MX, but I could see myself switching it over to Mint without any regrets if I had to, but so far MX still ranks as my favorite Linux Distribution. Most users should try a few different Operating systems and/or Distributions to see what works best for their situation. Most users are going to stick with what came pre-installed on their computers.
Well enough of this, it’s Christmas Eve and I’d better get to bed before Santa catches me awake and flies past the shop again this year. I probably didn’t need that last cup of coffee.
Merry Christmas to all!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *