To simplify it all: Debian is a vanilla OS, targeted for experienced users who install most of their software themselves, want max stability. Linux Mint is an out of the box experience, featuring most used apps being preinstalled in the system, modern theming and layout resembling Windows.
In fact all the newbies follows Debian's derivative with fancy desktop environments because they hate the command line :) No matter how much Linux world will try to mimic a main stream desktop: it is tailored for servers. So, before installing any Linux based systems, the newbies should have a good introduction to Linux maintenance, regular, not so necessarily advanced. There are also distros that allows you to do advanced things with ease and not be necessarily power user. Like openSUSE, that is constantly "underrated" because a newbie can't appreciate it enough due to a lack of simple experience. Time after time, people discover more convenient habitats. Quality design always beat appearance at the end of the race.
@@sitaroartworks I installed Linux Mint on people's laptops and they are fine with it. I don't expect 80% of computer users to know the commandline. There are GUI apps that cover most of the tasks. What an average n00b does on his computer? Surf the internet, watch movies, listen to music, use office apps from time to time and print some docs. All this works fine on the top 10 most popular Linux distros. I don't know much about OpenSUSE myself. I remember running it to see how it works. I tried plenty of distros just to see what they offer and I'm still using Mint (Mate). It always works, the issues are easy to resolve in 99% of cases as it's Ubuntu based and the same solutions work with both. The software base is huge with apt, flatpak or snap after unlocking it. The file format support kicks ass. Shit, I can even unpack .lha archives known from the Amiga. Libre Office is like 90% compatible with M$ Office already. Pretty enough as the 90% of users don't 'Wall Street' level of financial calculations or create sophisticated docs on word processor. I don't know what to say more. Games already work with Steam/Wine/Proton and there are like two dozens of emulators.
I always cringe when I hear someone refer to Mint users as though they're only noobs or beginners. I'm neither, having used Linux since the late 90's. After mucking about with nearly 30 Linux versions, I've chosen Mint as my daily distro because the installation, configuration, and updates are a breeze. It does everything I need it to do, including gaming. Mint is like an improved version of Debian. I don't hate the cinnamon Debian 12 DE, but right out of the box it has a few stumbling blocks when compared to the Mint cinnamon DE. Unless you're a script junkie, in Debian 12 not only do you have to manually do updates/upgrades through the terminal, you also have to switch to the root user and then edit the sudoers file to add yourself there before you can do those updates/upgrades. You have to manually install Timeshift, instead of it being there by default. If you installed Debian 12 via the DVD/USB iso, apt installations through the terminal likely won't work (like apt install neofetch) unless you've either configured the sources.list file to comment out the deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 12.0.0. _Bookworm_ - Official amd64 DVD ... line, or entered the desktop Menu>Preferences>Software & Updates, click on the 'Other Software' tab, and uncheck the box next to 'cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux...' Debian 12 'Software & Updates', found in Menu/Preferences doesn't actually initiate updates, and can't be configured beyond software sources. In Mint the 'Update Manager' is displayed in the taskbar by default, and when clicked shows you pending kernel, security, and regular updates. Through the GUI you're able to specify how often it refreshes the updates list, whether it shows or hides the taskbar icon, allows you to blacklist packages, and whether or not it does automatic updates . It's also found in Menu>Administration, which seems more logical than the Menu/Preferences of Debian 12. Find the Linux distribution that fits your needs and likes, and go with it. One thing I know, I'm never going back to Windows.
More people need to understand this point. Just because you can do everything manually and through the terminal doesn't mean it's practical or fun. It should always be a choice, because having both practicality and the option to tweak things to your liking is the best way. At the end of the day, I just want to do as little work as possible to have my OS working as I want to. It should "just work" and have everything I need already installed on it, so I can focus on the important stuff. But, having the option to get into the advanced side and customize every single little thing through direct commands is also amazing. Thankfully, there are many distros that do exactly this, they try to make life easier for the user but at the end of the day it's still Linux, so you can customize every little thing regardless. This is why Linux is better than Windows, there's something for everyone.
Before marriage with kids, I was a manic arch user, but now I have a wife and kid who also use the computer and laptops at home, linux mint provides this helpful situation for me
Thank you for your comment. I am not tech illiterate by any means and always give a solid effort to fix things, but the way you said what you said makes me lean toward mint. And as the other user after you said, having it “out of my way” but still able to tweak if I choose sounds like a good deal.
hello, late to the party but i am trying to dive into the world of linux and slowly break away from depending on mega tech giants. It came down to mint and debian for me. Would going with debian be discouraging ? I am not tech illiterate i should mention. Pretty decent at troubleshooting and using the internet to find solutions, thanks.
Just get LMDE and you have the best of both, like me, it works well, I tried Linux mint Ubuntu and Debian, but then found LMDE, and now I am happy no more distro hoping for me.
Mint is just a more preset Debian desktop, you can literally make Linux Mint within Debian just by installing the Cinnamon DE, installing the programs you actually want to use, and installing Timeshift you also go from something like 2500 items to 1400ish items doing this and with Debian you are a little more up to date even using the LTS version.
I am so happy I found your channel. Thank you for the great and relatable content! I went through a similar journey with linux: my ubuntu os (first linux distro I tried) was broken (by a thief who was caught, luckily) and since I had not been happy with ubuntu because of recent changes, I decided to go for debian this time. I got the KDE ui and it's awesome. Only thing is that I have to boot with F12 each time, because there is something wrong in the uefi (doesn't list debian or anything, just "2. ", no 1.... -but in the uefi boot menu I still get to choose between 1.ubuntu and 2.debian, strangely but luckily enough) I'm not sure if I should even attempt to fix that or just be happy that I have a route to get in anyways. I'm also from Germany, by the way.
I use a macbook pro 2012 with 8/500 SSD. I have installed mint but it was impossible to manage correctly the screen light control. The B43 firmware of the wifi card was correctly installed. I had lags and the user experience was not as I wanted. I returned on debian 12. After a few tweaks (I had to connect the computer with my phone)first in USB for connecting the internet) everything was ok....It works fluently so in my opinion take the model and not the copy. It's a "little" bit more difficult to install but the result is excellent
Very new to Linux, I have three systems running Linux Mint and am amazed at the features and even gaming on the OS. I really think Linux is better at gaming than Windows was.
Does Debian already include the non-OSS repos and flatpacks? If no, that is probably the most relevant thing that scares the beginners, or simply, drives into Mint configurations due to a lack of time.
I use Debian by the book (no extra packages, no extra rep) just and only Debian and backports; stable, fast and secure; no need fancy bells and whistles.
Hello, I have been using Mint for 6 months and I would like to try another distribution, I had thought about Debian, would you recommend me to make the change? The main reason is because I like to learn... Excuse my way of writing, I'm using google translate, greetings from Colombia
I love cinnamon but i run it on debian not a big difference debian definitely more difficult to get set up nvidia drivers etc but once installed set up how you like it the stability reliability is better with debian it just works i used to distro hop a bit but once set up on debian i never wanted to hop again ❤
Maybe it's just me, but couldn't get my Nvidia RTX 2060 working "correctly" with hardware acceleration on anything other than Pop_OS! I tried Mint and Fedora and none of them could either play nor edit the 10-bit 60fps video footage I had recorded. Tried all sorts of drivers on Mint and Fedora. All sorts of code "hacks." Still didn't work. On the other hand, Pop_OS! Worked right out of the box after installation.
PopOS can have the best hardware support as it's made by company that manufactures hi-end Linux laptops and workstations using latest hardware. There's probably a way to add the drivers to Mint by adding PopOS repository to Mint. I believe this issue has been solved by the community. Another thing is that Linux Mint doesn't come with latest kernel and most of the software it has in it's repo are not the newest, but already tested to be stable. What makes Linux Mint so good is that it works fine on pretty old, low end hardware with even like 2008 era integrated GPUs still being supported, using the latest drivers to squeeze full capabillities out of them. For example I have 2008 Dell D630 laptop with ancient Intel GMA GPU. I can play BluRay quality 1080p videos on it. Services like TH-cam or Netflix work pretty fine too.
I guess it will come in the near future. The Linux Mint Team prepared a very new mutter version some months ago which makes it basicly ready for wayland
With Debian having wayland and pipewire and mint without wayland and having a mix of pipewire and pulseaudio I prefer Debian. I was a fan of Mint in the past actually not.
Hi, sorry for the way I write, I'm using google translate, I've been using Linux Mint for a while and it's going very well for me but I'd like to try other distributions to learn more... Could you please recommend one, thank you very much
Linux Mint turned out to be completely shit for me, it took me 8 hours to actually install it and start it up so that everything loaded as needed and even after that, it started stuttering and lagging. everything besides terminal was laggy asf and really annoying. -rep for Mint
I RECOMMEND SPARKY 7 to everybody-- it's BASED on DEBIAN 12-- is VERY simple- easy to use-- POWERFUL- lots of GOOD tools you will actual;ly use -- and is FASTER than standard mint by a long shot...
To simplify it all: Debian is a vanilla OS, targeted for experienced users who install most of their software themselves, want max stability. Linux Mint is an out of the box experience, featuring most used apps being preinstalled in the system, modern theming and layout resembling Windows.
@@canotikmint is not the most stable lol, ever try using a kill switch with any vpn.
@@k5hv >using a vpn
In fact all the newbies follows Debian's derivative with fancy desktop environments because they hate the command line :) No matter how much Linux world will try to mimic a main stream desktop: it is tailored for servers. So, before installing any Linux based systems, the newbies should have a good introduction to Linux maintenance, regular, not so necessarily advanced. There are also distros that allows you to do advanced things with ease and not be necessarily power user. Like openSUSE, that is constantly "underrated" because a newbie can't appreciate it enough due to a lack of simple experience. Time after time, people discover more convenient habitats. Quality design always beat appearance at the end of the race.
@@sitaroartworks I installed Linux Mint on people's laptops and they are fine with it. I don't expect 80% of computer users to know the commandline. There are GUI apps that cover most of the tasks. What an average n00b does on his computer? Surf the internet, watch movies, listen to music, use office apps from time to time and print some docs. All this works fine on the top 10 most popular Linux distros. I don't know much about OpenSUSE myself. I remember running it to see how it works. I tried plenty of distros just to see what they offer and I'm still using Mint (Mate). It always works, the issues are easy to resolve in 99% of cases as it's Ubuntu based and the same solutions work with both. The software base is huge with apt, flatpak or snap after unlocking it. The file format support kicks ass. Shit, I can even unpack .lha archives known from the Amiga. Libre Office is like 90% compatible with M$ Office already. Pretty enough as the 90% of users don't 'Wall Street' level of financial calculations or create sophisticated docs on word processor. I don't know what to say more. Games already work with Steam/Wine/Proton and there are like two dozens of emulators.
I always cringe when I hear someone refer to Mint users as though they're only noobs or beginners. I'm neither, having used Linux since the late 90's. After mucking about with nearly 30 Linux versions, I've chosen Mint as my daily distro because the installation, configuration, and updates are a breeze. It does everything I need it to do, including gaming. Mint is like an improved version of Debian.
I don't hate the cinnamon Debian 12 DE, but right out of the box it has a few stumbling blocks when compared to the Mint cinnamon DE. Unless you're a script junkie, in Debian 12 not only do you have to manually do updates/upgrades through the terminal, you also have to switch to the root user and then edit the sudoers file to add yourself there before you can do those updates/upgrades.
You have to manually install Timeshift, instead of it being there by default.
If you installed Debian 12 via the DVD/USB iso, apt installations through the terminal likely won't work (like apt install neofetch) unless you've either configured the sources.list file to comment out the deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 12.0.0. _Bookworm_ - Official amd64 DVD ... line, or entered the desktop Menu>Preferences>Software & Updates, click on the 'Other Software' tab, and uncheck the box next to 'cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux...'
Debian 12 'Software & Updates', found in Menu/Preferences doesn't actually initiate updates, and can't be configured beyond software sources. In Mint the 'Update Manager' is displayed in the taskbar by default, and when clicked shows you pending kernel, security, and regular updates. Through the GUI you're able to specify how often it refreshes the updates list, whether it shows or hides the taskbar icon, allows you to blacklist packages, and whether or not it does automatic updates . It's also found in Menu>Administration, which seems more logical than the Menu/Preferences of Debian 12.
Find the Linux distribution that fits your needs and likes, and go with it. One thing I know, I'm never going back to Windows.
More people need to understand this point. Just because you can do everything manually and through the terminal doesn't mean it's practical or fun. It should always be a choice, because having both practicality and the option to tweak things to your liking is the best way. At the end of the day, I just want to do as little work as possible to have my OS working as I want to. It should "just work" and have everything I need already installed on it, so I can focus on the important stuff. But, having the option to get into the advanced side and customize every single little thing through direct commands is also amazing. Thankfully, there are many distros that do exactly this, they try to make life easier for the user but at the end of the day it's still Linux, so you can customize every little thing regardless. This is why Linux is better than Windows, there's something for everyone.
Before marriage with kids, I was a manic arch user, but now I have a wife and kid who also use the computer and laptops at home, linux mint provides this helpful situation for me
Thank you for your comment. I am not tech illiterate by any means and always give a solid effort to fix things, but the way you said what you said makes me lean toward mint. And as the other user after you said, having it “out of my way” but still able to tweak if I choose sounds like a good deal.
hello, late to the party but i am trying to dive into the world of linux and slowly break away from depending on mega tech giants. It came down to mint and debian for me. Would going with debian be discouraging ? I am not tech illiterate i should mention. Pretty decent at troubleshooting and using the internet to find solutions, thanks.
Just get LMDE and you have the best of both, like me, it works well, I tried Linux mint Ubuntu and Debian, but then found LMDE, and now I am happy no more distro hoping for me.
Lmde is very good 👍
Good video and I agree with you as I use both Debian 12 and Linux Mint on my machines.
Mint is just a more preset Debian desktop, you can literally make Linux Mint within Debian just by installing the Cinnamon DE, installing the programs you actually want to use, and installing Timeshift you also go from something like 2500 items to 1400ish items doing this and with Debian you are a little more up to date even using the LTS version.
I tried Spiral Linux. I prefer Spiral to Debian 12. If I compare Spiral vs Linux Mint, both are good especially to new users in Linux Operating System
Debian does have links for live ISOs with different desktop environments. They're just harder to find because their website is atrocious
I am so happy I found your channel. Thank you for the great and relatable content! I went through a similar journey with linux: my ubuntu os (first linux distro I tried) was broken (by a thief who was caught, luckily) and since I had not been happy with ubuntu because of recent changes, I decided to go for debian this time. I got the KDE ui and it's awesome. Only thing is that I have to boot with F12 each time, because there is something wrong in the uefi (doesn't list debian or anything, just "2. ", no 1.... -but in the uefi boot menu I still get to choose between 1.ubuntu and 2.debian, strangely but luckily enough) I'm not sure if I should even attempt to fix that or just be happy that I have a route to get in anyways. I'm also from Germany, by the way.
the story about thief and ubuntu actually sounds interesting
Good brother . I appreciate your contents , do not stop making contents.
I use a macbook pro 2012 with 8/500 SSD. I have installed mint but it was impossible to manage correctly the screen light control. The B43 firmware of the wifi card was correctly installed. I had lags and the user experience was not as I wanted.
I returned on debian 12. After a few tweaks (I had to connect the computer with my phone)first in USB for connecting the internet) everything was ok....It works fluently
so in my opinion take the model and not the copy. It's a "little" bit more difficult to install but the result is excellent
Very new to Linux, I have three systems running Linux Mint and am amazed at the features and even gaming on the OS. I really think Linux is better at gaming than Windows was.
I know Debian still supports 32-bit and with LMDE you can technically still install Mint on a system no longer supported by the Ubuntu based Mint.
Does Debian already include the non-OSS repos and flatpacks? If no, that is probably the most relevant thing that scares the beginners, or simply, drives into Mint configurations due to a lack of time.
I use Debian by the book (no extra packages, no extra rep) just and only Debian and backports; stable, fast and secure; no need fancy bells and whistles.
i would rather use mint because everything works out of the box
Mint is ok. Debian is the best.
Hello, I have been using Mint for 6 months and I would like to try another distribution, I had thought about Debian, would you recommend me to make the change? The main reason is because I like to learn... Excuse my way of writing, I'm using google translate, greetings from Colombia
@@lmx-vz4bl LMDE 5 for now
Can you do a video on LMDE please, and I would like to install your Linux assistant on my LMDE installation, thanks Bob in the UK.
I've found debian 12 has more bugs than linux mint 21.2 (out of the box)
i am using debian 12 after watched your video of cinnamon desktop environment debian 12
I have use cinnamon on debian for some years now it's a great combination
I love cinnamon but i run it on debian not a big difference debian definitely more difficult to get set up nvidia drivers etc but once installed set up how you like it the stability reliability is better with debian it just works i used to distro hop a bit but once set up on debian i never wanted to hop again ❤
It's easy. Linux Mint with Cinnamon on desktops and laptops, and Debian on servers. You're welcome.
Debian is lighter, faster
And also better and have too more options to do
Maybe it's just me, but couldn't get my Nvidia RTX 2060 working "correctly" with hardware acceleration on anything other than Pop_OS! I tried Mint and Fedora and none of them could either play nor edit the 10-bit 60fps video footage I had recorded. Tried all sorts of drivers on Mint and Fedora. All sorts of code "hacks." Still didn't work. On the other hand, Pop_OS! Worked right out of the box after installation.
PopOS can have the best hardware support as it's made by company that manufactures hi-end Linux laptops and workstations using latest hardware. There's probably a way to add the drivers to Mint by adding PopOS repository to Mint. I believe this issue has been solved by the community. Another thing is that Linux Mint doesn't come with latest kernel and most of the software it has in it's repo are not the newest, but already tested to be stable. What makes Linux Mint so good is that it works fine on pretty old, low end hardware with even like 2008 era integrated GPUs still being supported, using the latest drivers to squeeze full capabillities out of them. For example I have 2008 Dell D630 laptop with ancient Intel GMA GPU. I can play BluRay quality 1080p videos on it. Services like TH-cam or Netflix work pretty fine too.
I think the Cinnamon desktop is the best DE in my opinion, but the lack of Wayland is a worry.
I guess it will come in the near future. The Linux Mint Team prepared a very new mutter version some months ago which makes it basicly ready for wayland
Thats good news then, it will come eventually I know.
With Debian having wayland and pipewire and mint without wayland and having a mix of pipewire and pulseaudio I prefer Debian. I was a fan of Mint in the past actually not.
Mint is my second favorite distro its great and is a great recommendation for a beginner
Hi, sorry for the way I write, I'm using google translate, I've been using Linux Mint for a while and it's going very well for me but I'd like to try other distributions to learn more... Could you please recommend one, thank you very much
@@nelsonmacias396 debian
Linux Mint Debian Edition
*drops the mike.
Linux Mint turned out to be completely shit for me, it took me 8 hours to actually install it and start it up so that everything loaded as needed and even after that, it started stuttering and lagging. everything besides terminal was laggy asf and really annoying. -rep for Mint
Disculpen nada que ver con el video. Alguien pudo instalar Mongodb en linux mint? Me es imposible en la última versión Victoria
I RECOMMEND SPARKY 7 to everybody-- it's BASED on DEBIAN 12-- is VERY simple- easy to use-- POWERFUL- lots of GOOD tools you will actual;ly use -- and is FASTER than standard mint by a long shot...