Mint OS, a basic overview.

Why even bother?

In today's world, when you say, pick a random desktop computer typically you'll find that it's operating with Windows. Despite Windows being a popular desktop OS, it has greatly deviated from the standard. Just because something is popular, doesn't make it the correct method nor the standard. I am going to assume I don't need to explain too much here considering its kind of obvious to most people that "modern" popular software just isn't what it used to be. This is where Linux comes into play, not only does it give you control over your computer or "machine", but you can make your experience with technology in general so much more pleasant. There is a misconception that "linux is difficult", to this I say remember when you first learned to walk or ride a bike. Your used to the easy training wheels, they make you feel safe. This general idea applies the same way throughout life, anything you may not be used to is always intimidating of course.

With this idea in mind, what is the most convenient and easiest way to return to normalcy? This is where Mint comes into play. Mint is the most popularly used "Linux" distribution widely used today for many good reasons. Its open source, adheres to unix philosophy, and naturally is easy to use out of the box. This makes it a great choice. Not only is it for refugees running away from the abusive Windows OS, but its also great for long time veterans who have been using Linux for quite some time.

There is no rush.

Perhaps most people don't have this problem, so I'll say it for myself at the very least. Its cool to get excited about something... cool! But, you need to be careful not to get yourself in a difficult spot. Quite often I'll see something shiny that I want to tinker with, and immediatly just start configuring it. This could be bad if say you have job that is dependent on your reliable workflow. If your seriously looking at linux, I would advise to consider all the changes that you may need to make. Does your same editor for writing code work? Can any software projects you may be building transition nicely? Do all your general tools/applications transfer over? Generally speaking the answer will be yes, because actually a lot of cross compatibility efforts have been made over the years.

Lets pretend for a moment Intellij doesn't have a linux download (it does). I want to use this example because its the "recommended editor" for my Java class at my school and lately people have taken interest in me using Neovim. Sometimes, whatever tools your used to using, maybe like microsoft office, aren't available or easily setup. In these moments its important to recognize and accept the alternatives, in this case, our pretend situation, that is Neovim. Keep in mind, It could take a weekend to a week of setting up Neovim to intuitivly understand whats going on and to get it working for yourself, so I'm using an extreme example here. At first your overwhelmed, but if you have the courage to pull through, commonly you'll actually have an even better setup than what you are used to. This process will force you to learn your tools, which in turn will make you a better user of whatever said tool.

The proper strategy to do here, is to test drive. Find some un-used laptop, or even just get this running in a virtual machine just to get the feel for it. Try to go say an hour of using your new linux machine, something doesn't work? Hey you still have your old Windows computer to fall back on if your getting stressed out. Then try a day, a week, and so on.

Don't turn linux into your identity

On the internet, when looking up "linux", you will find many varieties. All of them have an "associated user identiy". This is a trap, don't fall for it. Sure its fun in the beginning to associate with your "clan" of linux lets say, but its all just an entry point in the end of the day. Its all modular, if you don't like say the initial init system or any other part of the software of your OS of chooing, you can just change it. This is linux, litterally anything and everything you can configure/change/delete/install, it doesn't matter. There is a really rediculous "flexing" culture that you will find, well perhaps everywhere, but it really exposes itself quite often in software. This mindset has done great reputational damage to many under-rated software technologies because of ego, don't be that person. The mission is to improve the world not put others down.

Two quotes I will use for this next part. "There is always a bigger fish" from Qui-Gon Jinn, and "Comparison is the thief of joy" from Theodore Roosevelt. If you understand these concepts you can just skip the rest of this paragraph, its okay, I'm also lazy and would do the same. If you don't adhere to this mindset, you will have an unhealthy purpose which will just blow up in your face eventually. In this case we are talking about linux, but its really not just linux at all as "linux" is just a kernel, traditionally its packaged with GNU utilities. However there are also Plan9 utilities from... well the Plan9 operating system. And so here we come upon our first comparison wall. You discover that there are other operating systems other than Windows, Mac, and Linux. Now you've heard me mention Plan9, and here's one more ecosystem, BSD which is where apple basically got all their technology from and just sold it under a proprietory license. People who use Plan9 or BSD might look down upon Linux users because XYZ. But guess what, there was once a man named Terry Davis who made his own Operating system known as TempleOS made with his own programming language HolyC, made with his own compiler, made with his own pretty much everything. But guess what, before Unix existed, you had to make your own operating system for each specific computer. Meaning there could be some un-known mad man who made the "ideal system". BUT GUESS WHAT, the plot thickens, computers being so new to our history, means that the perfect individual that could have possibly ever existed, may have very well died in the medieval period because he simply didn't have access to modern technology. A lot of people seem to think technology has been "exponentially" growing in the past century or so, and sure to an extent it has. However, accepting this idea without context, does a great dis-service to all the mathematicians throughout history, who have pioneered once "un-usable" concepts.

How could you install Mint?

If I'm being honest, there are a lot of really great guides and resources out on the internet. I could make a guide, but quite honestly, the official Mint website has a great guide. If your lazy like myself, there are a ton of great youtube videos and guides online, personally I recommend "Mental Outlaw" linux mint install videos because he's a chill guy but there are also plenty others. If I were to make a guide only like maybe three people would see it anyways, and I probably can't do better than what's out there anyways.