As a long term user of Microsoft Windows, Fedora, Ubuntu and Linux Mint, I have seen some of the more intricate tantrums a Windows or Linux operating system can throw. My first Mint 20 installation was in early April 2020, even before Mint 20 was released. I have had the unique opportunity to compare it with Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu 20 for day-to-day work and use, and have made some interesting discoveries. Read on to find out.
I agree to some extend. After distro hopping for years I decided my top distro should be Linux Mint Cinnamon … and it was for around 3 years until I met Plasma 5.x and felt in love. Since Mint does not include this desktop environment I started distro hopping again and after quite some time my new top distro became Kubuntu, where I can do all those thing mentioned in the article with no hassle, I still remember the good times with Mint though.
Hi Roel,
Overall your blog is good. But I’ve found the following somewhat misleading:
1.“because the Ubuntu Operating System is build on top of UNIX”:it should say, ubuntu is unix like os.
2.“With it’s initial release in 2016, Linux Mint has made a lot of headway”: mint initial release was in 2006.
3.“xcfe is the most lightweight, and therefore the fastest”: Lightweight doen’t mean fastest, maybe what you meant was lightweight and fastest.
If you what users to experience the same feeling as Windows UI but be on Ubuntu Users should review and checkout LinuxFX now WindowsFX for a easy transition, AD integration and full desktop experience and tools. go to or search for linuxfx
How to do this with LinuxMint: force the screen to sleep immediately. For example: going for a break, it make sense to lock and put the screen in sleep mode (ie. the screen display is turned off).
On Ubuntu 20.04 Gnome, hit Alt-L. Is there an equivalence in LinuxMint?
I am talking about putting the monitor to SLEEP. Which means the screen is totally black in a state which consumes the least energy.
In Linux Mint Ctrl-Alt-L merely locks the screen. The monitor is still powered on. You can see the clock moving in on top of the dimmed wallpaper.
To see the difference. Go to LinuxMint, Power Management. Set “Turn off the screen if inactive for 15 minutes”. Now do Ctrl-Alt-L, look at the screen (you still see the wallpaper). Don’t touch your computer and wait for 15 minutes. Now the screen is totally black.
This is this black screen that I am looking for a way to trigger immediately.
I’ve been using Mint for some time. Lately it’s management of laptop sleep modes has annoyed me. The most annoying habit is that if the power is disconnected and the battery runs low, then without warning, it immediately shuts down and I can lose some work. I would prefer it tell me by showing a notification or sticking a window in my face. A little red icon in a dock is not good enough to notice the power is out. I don’t see any way in settings to warn me or even sleep instead of shutting sown. My 15 year old OSX on my PowerBook does this so I don’t know how such an obvious feature is not included as standard.
The least annoying habit it has, that I have only been seeing lately, is when opening my laptop up from sleep it wakes up then puts itself back to sleep! I then have to press keys to get it’s attention. And then need to cancel those random keys in the password entry. This happens both with and without power connected.
I have used Mint continuously since 2011. After Mint 17.3 the number of bugs increased with each release. I tried installing Mint 20 to a specific partition. It ended up creating an extended partition and an EFI partition and ignored my chosen partition. The Mint team stated it is an upstream bug and apparently will make no effort to fix the bug. That was he last straw! I am in the process of moving all my laptops to a Debian based distro.
I have been a Linux Mint Cinnamon user since they ended support for Windows 7. I have since found out I can do more on Linux Mint than I could ever do on a Windows OS. My wife’s Laptop has Windows 10 installed on it and when I need to go on that it is beyond ridiculous. In fact, one night, not long ago, on the internet, she so pissed off at that computer, she beat it to death
You can also change this is in Mint Button > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts