Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Secure Your Home Network: Why Mint Linux?

I've recommended Mint Linux before, but this is a great overview of why users new to Linux should consider Mint.

Tomorrow we'll talk about how a seasoned IT guy has moved from Windows to Linux.  Spoiler alert: it's less technical work to make Linux work right than it is to make Windows work. 

13 comments:

  1. I've been using windows sooo looong. Not sure I could make something new work for me. I have so many documents.
    I have had tiny thoughts about Linux, but I am not technically savvy.

    I caught a reference to older computers. Perhaps I could take one of my older laptops to try Linux on before I mess up my main one. :)
    Thanks!

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    1. Understand that the Linux distros usually including office software that is able to read and write to Microsoft formats. And Linux can also read and write to ntfs file formats.

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  2. Hi Linda,

    Yes, you do that. I was running Linux Mint on a 12 year old netbook until something broke I could no longer replace. It was slow but it ran.

    You can also run Linux Mint off a DVD or flash drive without installing it.

    Finally, you can run Linux Mint on the DistroSea website.

    Jay

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  3. Thank you, Jay. I had never heard of DistroSea before.
    My gosh. 84 versions of Linux!
    And two that are Mint.
    Goodness gracious.
    Much appreciated. God bless.

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  4. I have been using Mint for over 10 years now. I prefer the Mate desktop version as I find it to be simpler, and closer to the look and feel of the older Windows 9x and XP that I prefer.

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  5. T Town, I went to that DistroSea, but I did not see Mate. Can you enlighten me on that? I did like Windows XP.
    Thank you!

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    1. I did a search for linux mate demo and came up with the following URL:
      https://distrosea.com/start/linuxmint-22.1-mate/

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    2. LindaG, MATE is a desktop environment software layer. Linux Mint offers MATE, Xfce and Cinnamon to manage the menus, icons and windows on your desktop.

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  6. Mint is OK, I've run it, and Ubuntu, in the past. But, there's a way I like to set up that I've not been able to puzzle out how to do with anything but Debian. (Dual boot a small Windows install, and Linux on encrypted partitions. Most Linux OS installers will encrypt, but only if it takes over the whole drive. Debian's partitioning step lets you manually set up an encrypted volume, and LVM volumes inside that.)

    I've run Linux since the late '90s. It used to be way harder.

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  7. I recently installed Linux Mint on a computer I was given. I had been using Ubuntu on its predecessor but had become unhappy with all of the overhead, the user interface and the use of SNAP packaged programs.

    I am lovin' it (Linux Mint).

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  8. Thank you all for all the information! A lot to think about. :)

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  9. I just installed Linux Mint on an old MacBook Pro that couldn't run the Mac OS without long lag times on every click. Still getting used to Linux but it's turned this old hardware into something worth using.

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    1. I have a few Mac from 2015 vintage at work with wifi, camera, and 8Gb memory. Ubuntu runs just fine on that old hardware and it has USB A so one use a PC keyboard and mouse and have ports left over.

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