[kwlug-disc] Zorin vs Mint

[Charles M]

CR is installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on all the machines we refurbish
now. Previously we were using Xubuntu (2010-2024), and Linux Mint
XFCE. We switched to Cinnamon for a couple of reasons: most of what
folks are asking for are laptops, and XFCE lets you overdrive (blow)
the speakers past 100% volume, and, more importantly, we're starting
to see a few more 6th gen+ laptops - which are more Cinnamon capable.
(Though we still refurbish lots of 3rd - 5th gen stuff too).

One nice thing to come out of this is the GNOME background, it makes
doing modifications from a BASH script a bit simpler. We're not doing
quite as much customization as we were before in our script, but the
Cinnamon switch is a relatively recent thing.

The biggest issue with LM for us was that previous versions used some
old kernels that didn't support newer hardware.

I loved Xubuntu, and still prefer to use it for some things (Handbrake
works better under it than LM XFCE), but over the years we ran into
several problems: I think it was 20.04 or 22.04 that had a CUPS issue
where if you tried to change a driver it would just hang forever.
While I appreciate seeing crash messages, they happened very
frequently when an update was applied and some service just needed to
be restarted - nothing if you know what you're looking at, but to
others it was a scary message. LM XFCE would show errors, but only if
you clicked on the Status report in the toolbar - a bit less in your
face, and perfect for those who know what to look for.

LM Cinnamon can still be overdrive speakers, but you have to
purposefully open the audio mixer and check the option to do so - it's
not a slider past 100% like on XFCE.

We maintain current versions of LM Cinnamon, LM XFCE, Xubuntu, Ubuntu,
Kubuntu, Debian Trixie (net installer), Debian Bookworm, and Ubuntu
Server on our PXE server. We also have some older versions of PoPOS
(22.04) and KDE Neon as well, in addition to tools to wipe drives
(DBAN and PartedMagic). So if anyone wants to netboot an installation
feel free to drop in on our Tues/10am-noon, Wed 1pm-4pm drop in hours.
All the installs are a live installation. While we have a
Xubuntu-autoinstaller we don't use it anymore, preferring to use BASH
scripts to install extra software, generate a PDF of hardware specs,
and apply some fixes to hardware we know have issues. Using BASH
scripts to do this has had the side effect of some nice community
support - folks involved in other projects have made some nice
contributions to our scripts, and they get shared with the wider
community.

Cheers,

Charles

On Wed, 26 Nov 2025 at 23:04, Chris Irwin via kwlug-disc
<kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2025 at 05:52:06PM -0500, Jason wrote:
> >I started using Mint a very long time ago, and I just stuck with it, as it
> >has the standard apt package system, the UI with XFCE is pretty clean, and
> >for the most part, the OS doesn't get in my way.
>
> I've been using GNOME since 1.4 around ~2001, and Wayland pretty much
> since it was available.
>
> I'm so used to the GNOME workflow as it has evolved that I'm quite
> bothered on other environments. But it would be the same for anybody
> used to a particular environment.
>
> >I did test out Fedora when I first built the PC, but I really had
> >issues with GNOME and Wayland, and eventually switched back to Mint
> >after I borked my install.
>
> I've been using Fedora since 2012, and my current system was installed
> 2017, and has been migrated across several laptops since (I haven't
> re-installed). So it can be fairly stable.
>
> (Note: I did have to do one manual step during the Fedora 43 upgrade.
> Apparently a migration script didn't run during the Fedora 36 upgrade,
> and the mis-configuration finally caught up to me).
>
> >I game using Steam and Proton, using AMD GPU drivers, and the kernel is
> >pretty up to date. I have details on my PC build here:
>
> My gaming PC still has Windows for one specific reason: I don't use it
> for anything important, and it was easier at the time.
>
> It has dual-booted Linux in the past, but then I'm tempted to do some
> web browsing, so I need to set up a password manager. And my .bashrc
> should probably be copied over. Next thing you know, I'm babysitting
> home-directory syncing.
>
> I'm actually looking to switch it to Bazzite, though -- Basically an
> Atomic Fedora version of SteamOS. Specifically so it's not "a computer".
> In this case I don't care that it's Fedora based, it's just that SteamOS
> isn't generally available yet.
>
> --
> Chris Irwin
>
> email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
>   xmpp:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
>    web: https://chrisirwin.ca
>
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-- 
Charles
Mastodon: @chaslinux at techhub.social