I recently switched from Windows 11 to Linux Mint on my main computer.
So far, so good. I wish I had looked into this sooner.
Microsoft has simply pushed me to my limit with:
Being forced to use CoPilot by default.
Windows is now taking screenshots of my desktop and storing them on their cloud for their “recall” feature.
Making it even harder to sign into Windows without a Microsoft account.
Then there is the annual subscription for Office… ugh!
(sorry for the rant)
Wondering if anybody else here has migrated over to a Linux distro recently?
How is it working for you?
Any tips on software for Linux to help me completely replace Windows functions?
I really want to dive down the rabbit hole with the sovereign computing idea and dump all the corporate middlemen.
It’s not bad to want privacy, right?
I’m not doing any nefarious stuff with my computer. I just don’t want Microsoft looking over my shoulder when I log into my bank account to pay my monthly bills…etc.
Welcome to team Linux! I have been on linux for many years, and recently started running Mint as well. I’ll give you a few tips that might be helpful.
Mint ships with Timeshift, which makes “system restore point” style snapshots, similar to Windows restore. It is generally a good idea to have this enabled.
Reach for the Software Manager first when thinking about adding new software. There is a huge variety on there, and it let’s you avoid having to worry about dependencies as you might when downloading software from a 3rd party website.
Some equivalent software on Mint for various Windows apps:
Use Case
Windows app
Linux Mint options
Web browsing
Edge
Firefox, Chrome, Brave
Email
Outlook
Thunderbird
Office suite
MS Office
LibreOffice, OnlyOffice
PDF viewing
Adobe Reader
Xreader, Okular, Evince
Video playback
Movies & TV
Celluloid (built-in), VLC
Music player
Winamp
Celluloid, Rhythmbox, Clementine, Strawberry
Image editing
Photoshop, Paint
GIMP, Pinta
Screenshot/annotate
Snipping Tool
Screenshot (built-in), Flameshot
E-books
Kindle
Calibre
For the odd program that has no Linux equivalent:
“Bottles” is a friendly GUI on top of Wine (a Windows app compatibility layer) with “environments” for apps or games (Gaming / Software presets, etc.). You can also reach for vanilla Wine itself for more difficult use-cases where there may be info on WineHQ for making a particular app work.
As a last resort, if necessary, you can install Windows in a virtual machine, and leverage it only for the rare app that has no Linux equivalent and isn’t compatible with Bottles or Wine.
Reading about Jitsi. It looks like a good replacement for MS Teams.
But, their website shows 8 different projects. (I need to read through it)
Maybe I should use this on one of my minisfourms devices, then use my laptop with Mint as a client.
Is the Software Manager similar to the Marketplace in Start9?
The software offered there has been tested and approved?
Linux is fun!
It is taking me back to the 80’s when I would type Basic into my C64 from the computer magazines to play simple games.
The Software Manager has a variety of content with different levels of review and controls in place. “System Packages” are built and signed by trusted maintainers (Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint developers), and so would be highest on the trust level.
For Ubuntu’s “main” repo (which Mint uses heavily), new packages go through a “Main Inclusion Review”, where Canonical looks at quality, maintainability, and security, and the security team tracks CVEs and issues fixes.
Other sections (like Ubuntu’s “universe”) are community-maintained: still built from source and signed, but not all get deep security auditing.
The other registry mechanism on Software Manager are Flatpaks. This has it’s own separate review system in place. New apps are submitted as a pull requests on GitHub to the Flathub repo. There is a human review and automated checks:
Verify the app ID/domain belongs to the submitter
Check it follows Flathub’s requirements and policies
Build and test that it does what it claims and uses reasonable permissions
Once accepted, builds and updates are then automatically built from the manifest. Existing apps don’t necessarily get a full manual re-review for every update, though they’re still subject to automated quality checks.
Mint also distinguishes “verified” Flatpaks, and by default I think it hides “unverified” ones unless you tick “allow unverified flatpaks” in Software Manager, which is Mint’s way of nudging users toward better-vetted apps.
We also had a discussion about Jitsi on another thread here. I use it for my one-on-one sessions with folks. Currently, I use Linode as a hosting service for it and my website, but planning to start moving to self-hosting after StartOS 4.0.0 (with clearnet support) is released.