Linux Mint 20.1 'Ulyssa' gets a first Beta release for their upcoming LTS

I miss Cinnamon, and the ability to create desktop shortcuts with the game icon through steam

The beginner friendly thing, while absolutely true, always baffles me when people talk about it regarding Linux Mint -- it tends to sound like it's only for beginners.

Personally I'm no beginner, not by a long shot, but I like a solid distribution that just works and tends to match my preferences out of the box. I personally recommend Mint for everyone.

After reading through the Best Linux ditros for gaming article of a couple days ago, I decided it was time to begin a distro-hop and began downloading several potential Xubuntu replacements.

The first of these was Linux Mint XFCE because it keeps me close to the Debian derived Ubuntu I've grown accustomed to over the years while ridding me of Canonical's Microsoft-like "We know best" policy of forcing Snaps down everyone's throats.

The others, incidentally, are Manjaro and EndeavorOS (both XFCE); PopOS (I was really impressed with their hotkeys, window tiling, and focus on gaming); and KDE Neon because, well, I want to like KDE.

I expect it'll end up being Mint XFCE in the end, though. :)

The beginner friendly thing, while absolutely true, always baffles me when people talk about it regarding Linux Mint -- it tends to sound like it's only for beginners.

Personally I'm no beginner, not by a long shot, but I like a solid distribution that just works and tends to match my preferences out of the box. I personally recommend Mint for everyone.

it's funny that some people disagree about recommend Linux mint for beginner, but they fail to see that Mint do a great job in what's the most important thing to a beginner: Good defaults

If it wasn't for their partnership with Nvidia (Mint boxes), Cinnamon would probably have a Wayland compositor working by now.

I expect it'll end up being Mint XFCE in the end, though. :)

That's my personal favourite and is what I currently use. Incidentally, and I suspect many people started "touring" just like I did back when Gnome3 first came out coming from a Gnome2 preference at the time, after trying several I ended up with XFCE.

The funny thing is at the time I thought to myself "XFCE is a better Gnome2 then Gnome2 ever was."

I expect it'll end up being Mint XFCE in the end, though. :)

That's my personal favourite and is what I currently use. Incidentally, and I suspect many people started "touring" just like I did back when Gnome3 first came out coming from a Gnome2 preference at the time, after trying several I ended up with XFCE.

The funny thing is at the time I thought to myself "XFCE is a better Gnome2 then Gnome2 ever was."

That's kind of how I feel about Mate.

The beginner friendly thing, while absolutely true, always baffles me when people talk about it regarding Linux Mint -- it tends to sound like it's only for beginners.

Personally I'm no beginner, not by a long shot, but I like a solid distribution that just works and tends to match my preferences out of the box. I personally recommend Mint for everyone.

Absolutely. You don't have to be a 'beginner' on Linux to want an OS that you can plug in, turn on and know confidently it's just going to work. Mint is rock solid, and just has sensible defaults out of the box.

Cinnamon is customisable, a pleasant UX, with defaults that are almost perfect out of the box, I usually don't change much more than a couple of colours in the theme settings out of personal preference. It's not 'trying too hard to look modern' or 'designed by a programmer', just a happy middle ground of functional and pleasing to look at.

After reading through the Best Linux ditros for gaming article of a couple days ago, I decided it was time to begin a distro-hop and began downloading several potential Xubuntu replacements.

The first of these was Linux Mint XFCE because it keeps me close to the Debian derived Ubuntu I've grown accustomed to over the years while ridding me of Canonical's Microsoft-like "We know best" policy of forcing Snaps down everyone's throats.

The others, incidentally, are Manjaro and EndeavorOS (both XFCE); PopOS (I was really impressed with their hotkeys, window tiling, and focus on gaming); and KDE Neon because, well, I want to like KDE.

I expect it'll end up being Mint XFCE in the end, though. :)

If you still have some time for distro hop, do give a try with Fedora too. As far as gaming and work goes, with an Nvidia card, it has been a very nice experience for me. I come from Arch btw.

I've been using Linux Mint for a lot of years now, but as a user and author of a popular extension for Cinnamon, I must say, that I'm not a Linux Mint fan anymore, I basically just use it because I don't know what else to use.

It's hard to point out what exactly it is, but I think the developers lost focus, regarding trying to create a good Linux desktop experience for average Joe (new or beginner).

There is the "war" with Canonical and I simple don't understand why they spend time developing useless applications, like the Warpinator or their IPTV application which no one needs or asked for.

I think Linux desktop distros should focus the coming time on making Windows games run flawlessly and also continue to make improvement to the overall Linux desktop for enterprises (e.g. a little thing like the change Canonical did to the installer, so you can now domain join upon installation, means a whole lot regarding that).

Here are my wishes for Linux Mint:

1. Support the fantastic work regarding Wine.
2. A true real alternative to Microsoft Office.
3. Better interoperability with Windows environments.
4. Better Cinnamon development experience and documentation.

There is the "war" with Canonical and I simple don't understand why they spend time developing useless applications, like the Warpinator or their IPTV application which no one needs or asked for.

Really? I thought these were probably useful for some of their users. I mean I don't personally have a use for them and you don't have a use for them, but it's a bold claim that nobody asked for them.

And which "war" are you talking about? Not going with Snaps? Saying that they need to prepare for the possibility that Ubuntu might not always be available for them to base their distro on, after Canonical explicitly said so?

I think Linux desktop distros should focus the coming time on making Windows games run flawlessly and also continue to make improvement to the overall Linux desktop for enterprises (e.g. a little thing like the change Canonical did to the installer, so you can now domain join upon installation, means a whole lot regarding that).

Here are my wishes for Linux Mint:

1. Support the fantastic work regarding Wine.
2. A true real alternative to Microsoft Office.
3. Better interoperability with Windows environments.
4. Better Cinnamon development experience and documentation.

Ah. This was about what you want, not about what other Mint users want. I don't agree with your wishlist BTW, so I guess I now get to claim nobody asked for these things either. (I won't though, because that would be silly.) Also, I think you're either seriously overestimating the Mint team's resources or grievously underestimating the development effort needed to produce a world class office suite.

The last point might be valid. Can't really say as I've never even used Cinnamon.

In my opinion Mint is still doing what they were always doing and trying to provide a stable Linux distribution with a good out-of-the-box experience. Gaming might not be a big focus, but that's perfectly fine. They're not doing anything to hinder my gaming either.

Here are my wishes for Linux Mint:

1. Support the fantastic work regarding Wine.
2. A true real alternative to Microsoft Office.
3. Better interoperability with Windows environments.
4. Better Cinnamon development experience and documentation.

Of those, 3 and 4 sound more or less reasonable although they're not my priorities and probably aren't the priorities of all that many desktop Linux users. I don't know anything about the current state of the Cinnamon development experience and documentation, but I'm willing to believe it needs some love, and Cinnamon is a Mint schtick, so fair enough.

But 1 and 2 are a terrible idea. Not that those things shouldn't be done, but they shouldn't be done by a Linux distribution. Wine should support the fantastic work regarding Wine, Libreoffice should continue building a "true real alternative to Microsoft Office". Those things aren't Mint's business, and they're big projects. If it used a bunch of resources to try to do them it would not have enough left to keep being a good Linux distribution--and it wouldn't even help much. In the case of item 2, if they did that by trying to create a brand new office suite from scratch it might actually make things worse--they'd end up with a half-assed office suite that, if they really worked at it, might get just far enough to pull some development energy away from Libreoffice and I suppose the K stuff, without actually creating anything worth using. So no, Mint should absolutely not fulfil your wishes 1 or especially 2.

After reading through the Best Linux ditros for gaming article of a couple days ago, I decided it was time to begin a distro-hop and began downloading several potential Xubuntu replacements.

The first of these was Linux Mint XFCE because it keeps me close to the Debian derived Ubuntu I've grown accustomed to over the years while ridding me of Canonical's Microsoft-like "We know best" policy of forcing Snaps down everyone's throats.

The others, incidentally, are Manjaro and EndeavorOS (both XFCE); PopOS (I was really impressed with their hotkeys, window tiling, and focus on gaming); and KDE Neon because, well, I want to like KDE.

I expect it'll end up being Mint XFCE in the end, though. :)

If you still have some time for distro hop, do give a try with Fedora too. As far as gaming and work goes, with an Nvidia card, it has been a very nice experience for me. I come from Arch btw.

Y'know, Fedora used to be a regular part of my distro-hopping, and now I don't remember why I stopped including it. Okay, you've convinced me to give it a look again. Thanks!

(...)Personally I'm no beginner, not by a long shot, but I like a solid distribution that just works and tends to match my preferences out of the box. I personally recommend Mint for everyone.

Absolutely my opinion, too!