Also OP, if you want pretty and Cinnamon can’t do it for ya, you can always install KDE (my fav!) or GNOME or what have you right on top of your existing system.

Research before doing so! But it’s possible. :)

I also love Tumbleweed and rock it as my daily driver!

To complement this point, OP, you can also get that sweet rollback functionality in any distro! Usually the easiest way is selecting BTRFS as your file system on install, and installing a software called “TimeShift” that will manage snapshots for you.

BTRFS can be complicated, but basically, it allows remembering the changes in files, without needing to copy the ENTIRE file. This saves a ton of space. (You don’t need to get into the weeds deep diving if you don’t want to. Snapshots are great, everything else is great, as long as you aren’t doing crazy specific RAID setups or something lol)

Otherwise, on EXT4 for insurance, your rollbacks would just literally be copied files, which can eat your storage fast. :)

Tumbleweed is known for rolling (heh!) this in quite smoothly by default, but this is just an example how any distro can be tweaked how you like! (Highly recommend setting up Timeshift on ANY install.)

I absolutely second the advice in this comment: Try some live USBs or virtual machines and just play around for what feels right. Distro hopping can be lots of fun, but you’ll find one that “feels like home.”

:)

I agree with most folks here that usability-wise, both are truly fine! Mainly I think philosophy is where Mint might have an edge here.

Ubuntu, run by a corpo named Canonical, has had some controversial decisions in the past, such as inserting amazon ads into the system’s search feature, or “opt out” analytics being default, and lately, a system called “snap.”

Snap is controversial because it has a closed source backend, but effectively works just like its open-source counterpart, the “flatpak.” It’s packaged so the software has everything it needs to run.

Some people say they work great, others hate them, but Ubuntu doesn’t make it very easy for you to have a choice in the matter.

If you don’t like the idea of snaps, it’s a bit of a pain to get rid of it. And otherwise, Ubuntu will sneakily use it as the default way to install most software. Philosophically, this can feel a lot like why people left Windows behind!

Long term, that’s why I favor and recommend Mint to most newcomers: It doesn’t play those games, sometimes the drivers work even better, the community is fantastic, and the vast knowledge that works on Ubuntu should work on Mint too.

So that’s mainly where the difference will lie.

Either way, I wouldn’t sweat it too much while you’re learning, as long as it does what you want! And purple-orange is pretty snazzy. ;)

Mint just feels a little “cleaner” in my humble opinion. Most software you’d want the latest of, like GIMP or Discord, will be found as a Flatpak in Mint’s app store.

Hope this helps you get a clearer view!

I like that idea, although I think we need some simpler guides as to what exactly one might he getting into if they’re setting up an instance that’s not just a domain name. (Costs, potential usage blowing up, legal issues with content, etc…)

Also, I really think there needs to be a smoother way to navigate between instances. I guess, so you’re still aware of “jumping nodes”, but also don’t feel locked in there. (Although maybe I’m just a newb still haha)

Truuue!

I probably engage here a little much too, but I’m glad there’s not a ton of “You also might like based on where your mouse hovered 0.4 seconds longer” panels on every single page!

Bough it

Twish it!

Pull it!

(Yeah I know this joke is a stretch lmao)

Dammit, Manjaro. Why you gotta be WEIRD?! I used to love their branding, but they keep doing crazy things that would clearly alienate the userbase that’s left…

NGL on pretty much any install, I’d end up looking up pros and cons of every filesystem AGAIN…

… It’s BTRFS now. Simple. Easy. Lol

But it was a lotta research to reach that conclusion. So yeah I get that newbie apprehension!

Me, a long time KeyPass enjoyer:

“Y’know people keep talking about BitWarden, maybe it’s more accessible and I should give it a tr…(sees this) PFFFFFTTTT! DODGED THAT BULLET.”

If your job can be replaced with GPT, you had a bullshit job to begin with.

This one’s funny to me, because the people who WILL try to replace you with GPT don’t care if they CAN replace you with GPT. They just will.

Look at how it’s haphazardly shoved into everything for no reason whatsoever already.

A little LESS chaotically, you can use emojis to name objects in Blender now… Which, I dunno, could be kinda fun in the right doses.

This picture had me progressively laughing harder as it progressed though LOL.

Woo! ALWAYS a good day to see InkScape getting some updates! I suck at it but I sure do appreciate it. :D

I hear it’s prone to Rust.

Hey I didn’t know that! Cool! :)

I agree, because I really like their color scheme and logo. =\

That’s pretty neat. I do hope they do some solid UI/UX research on it, and figure out their own way of smoothing things out without simply “making it like Photoshop” like the grouchy masses are clamoring for. :p

Blender had some odd ideas at first, but I really appreciate their unique approach that, IMHO, makes an Autodesk product feel heavy and kludgy by comparison.

Fair. Can also cite all the Islamic iconography and sound removed from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

As for Star Wars, Han absolutely shot first. (High five)

Weren’t a lot of those wacky edits by Lucas’ own whims though? I’d say there’s a distinction between a creator editing his own work and say, Disney going “We lost the rights to John Williams, so we removed the score from the entire franchise.” Lol

Sheesh!

Ace Combat games are also on a countdown as soon as they release, because the likenesses of the planes from the defense companies expire, so they get de-listed.

You couldn’t do that with physical media. =\

So weird I’m used to hearing about FBI using us for images. 🤔 Lol

They’re editing entertainment history to begin with. Deletion is bad enough, but possibly even more nefarious is the blatant, unapologetically sneaky editing of existing media mentioned in this thread. Jussst a little bit at a time.

Unlike many videogames, TV shows, music, movies, don’t get “version / revision numbers.” Can you trust your archives to be original?

Adjust for today’s-sensibilities here, remove a now-naughty-word there…“oh, we don’t wanna pay for that song that released in 5 years before this 36 year old television program…better it never existed!”

Their goal seems to be relegating the Internet to simply being a flow of “What’s trending and making money NOW” and nothing else. Every byte electron has a dollar value.

They want generations growing up in a world where the corporate narrative is all that ever was and will be.

Today it’s talk shows and cartoons.

Tomorrow it’s biographies and documentaries. Family histories? Newspapers?

We need to stop this NOW.

Media conglomerates can’t even be relied on to be stewards of their own legacy. They’re coming for ours.

So, who’s up for another reread/watch of Farenheit 451 or Equalibrium?