When it comes right down to it, I am just a casual Linux user. I don’t use it for my job. I do write some small applications, but I am not a big developer. My main purpose is to just use my computer to run a few applications to do basic tasks such as manage my finances, browse the internet, write some articles, etc. So, the actual Linux distribution doesn’t really matter.
If I had a job in the Linux world, that would be different. I would be using a distribution to would be equivalent to what I used on the job. So, for that reason, Linux Mint works great. It’s very familiar to other operating systems. My wife can sit down and use it with no problems at all.
Old Hardware
I’ve recently been able to get new use out of old hardware by installing lighter weight Linux distributions.
Chromebook
Veronica explains video on installing Linux on a Chromebook: Linux on a Chromebook
I have an old, out of support Chromebook. I like the keyboard, it’s solid. So, I was able to install a copy of Xubuntu Linux on it following instructions in the “Veronica Explains” video and found on the Mr. Chromebox website. That worked well, but the machine is severely limited in what can be done due to the small amount of storage on the Chromebook.
I tried a couple of other distributions before settling on Xubuntu. A particularly wanted to get Alpine Linux installed, but Alpine did not have support for the old wireless on the Chromebook. The Chromebook doesn’t have a network jack, so using that method for getting on the internet wasn’t an option. It looked like you could probably add support for the old wireless in Alpine, but that was getting a little more difficult than I could handle.
HP Pavilion DM4
I also drug out an old HP laptop that was gathering dust in the closet. It had been my laptop, and then my wife’s until the battery could no longer hold a charge. On this one, I installed Arch Linux without much problem.
I followed the instructions from this video from Learn Linux TV. That worked out well. I added XFCE as the desktop environment and bought a new battery from Amazon. The computer now has a new lease on life.
Tiling Window Managers
In exploring how to get more from old hardware, I explored tiling window managers. You can use a tiling window manager instead of a desktop window manager like Cinnamon, XFCE, KDE, Gnome, etc.
I played around some with the i3 window manager. Tiling window managers are a tinkerers delight. You can configure it to be just the way you like it. If I could have successfully installed it on the Chromebook, I would have been pretty happy with it.
People that learn a tiling window manager can move extremely quick among applications. I feel that developers that are working with a large toolchain (code editor, compiler, debugging, database integration, version control, and so on) can really benefit from mastering a tiling window manager.
To me, the reasons for using a tiling window manager like i3 is either to capitalize on the lighter resource requirements or to maximize your workflow as a systems engineer or developer. So, me being a more casual user, it really doesn’t work for my situation.
Multiple Environments
Working in Windows, there is only one desktop environment and that is Windows. One of the cool things about Linux is that you can have multiple desktop environments and select the desired one when you login. My primary desktop enviroment on Linux Mint is Cinnamon. In the past, I have also played around with Mate, and XFCE and had them all installed at the same time. That was the same was with playing around with i3. I was able to select whether I wanted to login to the Cinnamon desktop or go into the i3 Window manager. This did create some issues in i3 because of applications that load a startup applications on my system. So, that did cause me some additional issues.
Other Thoughts
I have been using Linux Mint on my primary desktop through several versions. I usually use the update manager as each new version of Mint was released. I also try out a lot of applications. I am worried that I have a lot of junk just hanging around on my hard drive from applications that I tried out and abandoned. I do try to keep a clean machine, but this has been going on for a few years now.
I am debating doing a clean install when the next version of Mint is released. That means wiping the hard drive and reinstalling all of my applications. So, got to have a good backup of everything so I can easily restore configurations for those key apps.
Mint has been so solid for me over the years, I don’t know that I would consider another distribution as my daily driver. If any, it would probably be Arch.