linux mint It is one of the most popular Linux distributions. Far from being limited to recycling what comes from Ubuntu, this derivative has managed to develop its own approach and ecosystem that has given it a great identity and cemented it, in the opinion of many, as the best alternative to Windows.

Mint’s success is based on putting almost all the meat on a spit that hasn’t always been looked after in the Linux spectrum: design. Linux Mint, at least in its default edition, it uses a desktop (graphical interface) called Cinnamonwhich is a fork of the popular GNOME and excels in being a balance between the limitations of the original project and the almost infinite possibilities of KDE Plasma at the configuration level.

In Cinnamon, the user will find a desktop with a Windows-like layout and a simple, familiar and easy-to-understand presentation. It also has powerful customization options, but without being overwhelming, providing a more customized experience for the average Microsoft user.

In addition to a well-designed desktop and a powerful yet simple setup, Linux Mint pre-installs a a large number of applications and tools that are generally easy to use and which provide features such as snapshots, driver manager (Drivers) and the firewall, which we will cover in more detail later.

Adding to its own strengths is the fact that it comes from Ubuntu, so Linux Mint benefits from the high percentage of third-party software available for the distribution developed by Canonical. However, it’s important to note that the spinoff was openly against one of Ubuntu’s flagship technologies, the universal Snap package format, so instead it uses Flatpak, which is officially community-based and primarily powered by Red. Hat.

After revealing a little about Linux Mint’s key points of success and the main inconsistencies it maintains with its parent distribution, I will mention five aspects that a user should consider when using this operating system (or a Linux distribution, which for accounts is both).

Don’t forget to enable codecs in the installation process

There is a step in the Linux Mint installation process that allows you to install multimedia codecs. This step is very important if the user wants to have support for playback of rendered content in proprietary formats such as H.264 and H.265, so it is advisable to check the box. If not, the user can get the codecs through the welcome screen, after clicking the “Let’s go there!” button, or by installing the following metapackage, which can be found with Synaptic via the word install mint-meta-codecssearched for using the phrase “Multimedia Codecs” in Software Manager or installed using the command below.

sudo apt install mint-meta-codecs

Allows you to manage images using the TimeShift function

TimeShift is a graphical tool designed for creating incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals, providing a way to restore previous system states and roll back applied changes. It has some other similarities to macOS Time Machine and Windows System Restore. Its presence by default gives Linux Mint a lot of value, especially considering that the use of this type of mechanism is not very standardized in Linux.

TimeShift is capable of taking snapshots via RSYNC or using the native snapshot function of the Btrfs file system. Since Linux Mint uses EXT4 by default, RSYNC can only be selected in the steps to configure automatic image generation.

Other important steps are the selection of partitions that the user wants to back up, the periodicity of snapshots and the selection of user folders. The configuration is similar to the installation of a Windows application, so the user, once he understands what he is reading on the screen, will be able to complete the process without much complications.

Check the driver manager

The driver manager is one of the main strengths of Ubuntu that Linux Mint inherits. The Linux kernel, due to its purely monolithic nature, does not make installation easy. Drivers so the presence of such a tool is greatly appreciated.

The Linux Mint (and Ubuntu) driver manager is in charge of searching Drivers official from NVIDIA, which in most cases is necessary even for basic computer use.

The user only needs to open the “Driver Manager” and wait for the tool to execute search process and then install Drivers suggested, if any appear. In case you want to play or use the latest model of NVIDIA graphics card, it would be a good idea to configure the graphics driver repository in advance, which facilitates access to a very current version, if not the latest, official driver of the green giant.

Check and apply updates

There is nothing here that is not common among operating systems. Using updates is crucial to getting the latest patches to fix software bugs and vulnerabilities that have been discovered, so it’s a good idea to open the corresponding tool from time to time to make sure everything is fine.

Getting and applying updates is as easy as hitting the Reload and “Install Updates” buttons., in this order. However, when you first open the tool, you may see a notification that a new version of the update manager is available. In that case, you need to follow the given step and click on the “Apply Update” button.

Another aspect to consider is the proposal to change to a local server, before which it is advisable to answer “No”, at least from Spain.

Enable the firewall

And the last important point is to activate the firewall, which is a very important part mainly to block incoming traffic as a barrier against the possibility that it is malicious. linux mint it uses Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) for this task.whose translation into Spanish is an uncomplicated firewall, and it is just that a simple and easy-to-use firewall.

UFW is managed through the command line, but luckily it has an official GUI called GUFW (GUI for Uncomplicated Firewall) that makes it much more user-friendly. With GUFW, the user can use a pre-configured rule that covers a large number of applications and games, create a simple rule for a specific port, or an advanced rule that allows working with a number of ports. In addition to allowing or denying incoming or outgoing traffic, it is also possible to block explicit ports.

However, configuring a firewall, even a simple one like UFW, becomes a complicated task for users, so we will only recommend at least enable via the “Status” switch.. That way you at least get protection by default, which at the end of the day is better than nothing.

Conclusion

As we can see, Linux Mint is an operating system that tries to make the user’s work easier, it is even simpler and better designed than Windows itself in many ways, so getting used to it is only a matter of time, whether the hardware responds as it should, and it is that Linux is unfortunately still incompatible with a large number of components even today.

However, despite the good work of those responsible for the distribution, the project has an important Achilles tendon in the lack of plans to adopt Wayland, the graphics protocol that has been trying to replace Xorg for fifteen years. Wayland brings some security improvements, notably the fact that applications using Xorg have access to all content on the screen, and that applications running on top of Xorg can record all keystrokes regardless of the window being written to. Another aspect is HDR, whose chances of reaching Linux go through Wayland for now.

Linux Mint, like any human creation, is not perfect, but in the global computing industry today, it is one of the best operating systems out there.