@darius in some ways i use it for reasons of being almost anti-interesting, but i always feel kind of obligated to plug the "debian stable is actually a pretty great desktop" POV, having pretty well migrated everything back to it after some years of ubuntu on laptops.

@darius my laptop still runs @elementary, though i haven't upgraded it in many years (no in-place upgrades). even that older version of their DE is quite pleasant and their general UX focus is commendable!

@darius i've been using pop os for the last three years because I game+dev, works well outof the box.

@darius would avoid Ubuntu on account of snaps, rest is up to you.

@darius Mint's a good choice. I personally like #EndeavourOS since it has all the pros of #Arch without the convoluted setup process. The only gripe I've had with Mint is its desktop env. being buggy with lower-end graphics cards. I love EndeavourOS since I never have to add a PPA for extra packages.

@darius was in a similar situation a few months ago. landed on Debian stable, no regrets at all so far.

@darius I won’t evangelize for one in particular, but it’s always worth noting (once) that I too was Debian-based until Something Happened that put me on a different distro family.

I now run Debian-based systems on everything *except* my dev rigs, which can enjoy newer software than Mint offers, and much newer than Debian-stable.

I thought the stability Debian offered was the main thing, but with a snapshot-based FS, the main thing is access to current releases, and I’m a happier programmer.

@darius Debian. It got much easier to install third party drivers.

For desktop environment:

KDE: You want to look at a pretty DE
Gnome: you want to be frustrated
Cinnamon: you want gnome
MATE: idk why you'd choose this
XFCE: You want a DE to be boring and functional*
LXQt: you have an old computer
Custom setup with a lightweight WM: you want to think about Linux instead of gender*

* My preferred options

@darius Simply plain Debian stable with flatpak for selected applications or even some container based solution for other stuff, e.g. apptainer or docker just in case. It is more than enough for any practical use.

@darius #TuxedoOS from @tuxedocomputers

@darius I am using Debian since 2000. Before I had SuSE. I use Debian stable. Over years with XFCE, which also runs well on older machines.

@darius I have been happy with MX linux...do take into account that I am not a dev of any sort, and just wanted something that worked fine for me.

@darius

try mint and report back, I’ve been interested to hear what it’s like!