Linux Mint vs Ubuntu: 15 Facts To Know Before Choosing The Best One

The basic thing is not discussed here: Legacy and UEFI.

The Updater in Mint has made a HUGE difference from the one in Ubuntu (and Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc). It allows me to update SELECTIVELY so I don’t get the high-risk updates that break stuff and make me have to chase them down and then “downgrade” the software that caused the regression. “Broken after update” is a recurring theme in the Ubuntu Forums.

I have been a Xubuntu fanboy for years now, but between the updates and the snaps deception, I’ve made the switch to Linux Mint Xfce flavor. I also really like the cool tools that Mint offers: Like MintStick, which lets me easily format USB drives and burn .iso files effortlessly with a sweet graphical interface. The only thing I’m adding to Mint is the Lite Tweaks tool from the under-rated Linux Lite distro, which even lets me purge systemd logs that ordinarily become huge after a little time.

I am with you there. Similar with upgrade experiences from UbuntuGnome 14.04 LTS (which is my fallback home) to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
Seems like everytime I reach a really comfortable and stable experience with an Ubuntu release, I am forced to upgrade because of so-called “End-of-life” lack of security and support. I truly would prefer it if Linux does NOT end up aping the Microsoft and Apple modus operandi and continues to be the magnifıcent alternative that it was designed to be.
Long Live Linux!

I’ve used both and like them both. I always come back to Ubuntu. It has just enough uniqueness to remind me that it’s not Windows for 95% of the time (the other 5% is when I’m forced to boot up Windows for whatever reason), and I’m always able to fix issues with a little help from my (online) friends. For my purposes they’re both rock solid and awesome.

I do prefer Linux Mint, because it always “seems” to be more bullet proof, but I’m moving on I think as of 20(.04).

The Reason? One very marked downside (at least to me) is that while the Ubuntu crowd genuinely seems interested in helping people, the Linux Mint communities are filled to the *brim* with arrogance, and it starts right with the developers. Unfortunate really, but there’s a knee-jerk defensiveness that lives deep among some linux collectives that the Ubuntu guys never seemed to exhibit.

Not sure how this happened, but Mint’s forum(s) seem to deserve this reputation (perhaps a kind of stackoverflow mental positioning?), and that’s enough to sway me away. Because (as with all of Linux) sooner or later getting through the day comes down to a highly esoteric question that needs to be answered.

You missed the 16th fact, which is the one that changed my choice: Ubuntu has (unfortunately in my mind) decided to use snap for some updates. Mint, which feeds off Ubuntu rather than Debian directly, has no plans to support snap. They admit that when some package is updated via snap, they will not be able to update. Thus, as the months go by, Mint will be increasingly left in the dustbin of running old code. One wonders when Mint will become so constrained by this deficiency that it will be completely useless.

Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix for me. Best of both

Is Linux safe to use just like a windows or mac machine ?
Ecommerce and banking. Was thinking of trying linux mint.

Well, thanks u for your review. Yeah, I think both of them are very nice, but I have an other option in Linux Mint. Yes, it is an operating system for little old hardware, but if you use Linux Mint on that hardware, I think it’ll make your computer stuck for a long time. Not only Linux Mint but also Ubuntu and the whole Ubuntu-based. Sometimes, I work with my Zorin OS LIte but it sometimes make my computer stuck for some minutes. This is only my optional idea help you to make your post better if it is true. By the way, thank u for your post that I can exactly how to know what operating system I need. Hope you have a good day!
(If there are any problems with the grammar, words,… please tell me by mail and sorry for my bad English)
$ echo Thank u

I have always been a Windows user since xp in 2007. I loved it then, still do now 13 years later. Never could get it out of my head that Windows was meant to grow with me, and I started associating the best jobs a computer could do with Windows operating systems. I was introduced to the internet with it as a gold standard, which is why, when Windows 7 came out, and I heard about how it replaced Vista and the problems it had, I wanted in right away. Windows 7 impressed me because of the search tool in the start menu, however my first dislike of Windows came with 7 in regards to user account control and the new control panel format. I found out much later you’re not a admin but a hybrid user moderator type deal in Windows, and as someone who likes to try installing software, that really through me for a loop. It was then and there that I had to accept swallowing a hard pill, and that is, Microsoft is trying to decide what works best for me. Honestly the worst experience I had with 64bit architecture was in Windows 7 because everything would randomly disconnect. This is still the case today, and as a beta tester for Windows 10, resetting your DNS manually via command prompt became a daily occurrence just to reconnect to your Wifi and internet sites properly among other things. Forcing you to use troubleshooting wizards on a regular basis, was the first indication for me that no Windows is not the gold standard what so ever. But neither is Mac OSX. The problem with Mac is, everything Apple is restrictive by nature and when I discovered Mac, it was around the same time I discovered Linux. My introduction to Linux was on Cent OS where I spent a significant amount of time configuring server operating systems like Cent OS 6, 7 etc via SSH terminal. To this day I have a love hate relationship with the permissions system of Linux coming from Windows, where things are at least on the file management side of things, a little more intuitive if not relatively similar. Things are a lot better on Linux now than they were even 10 years ago. The truth is, what killed Windows entirely for me is that it wouldn’t install my sound driver for my laptop MSI GT680. Every Linux distribution I tried, Pop_OS, Linux Mint and other Ubuntu flavours recognized it instantly. It was then and there I knew without a doubt, my days with Windows are permanently over and what a relief it is now for me to say that. Some things Windows does better, like large file transfers, but in Linux, installing a better file manager fixes this out of the box. I can’t understand why people would use a piece of software like Windows 10 for example, where you want to fix a driver problem like installing Driver Pack Solution or even an Anti Virus and every piece of software you install is either full of ads, or puts unwanted junk programs on your system as a required dependency making your system slow and unusable. And then when that software fails to fix your problems, you’re stuck with the fallout of introducing it in your install. This isn’t the same thing like a wrong Linux upgrade, where you know and can pin point where something went wrong using terminal logs. In this sense, if you want a stable operating system that does what it says, and you don’t have to worry about issues like constantly having to switch to root to fix things, the most intuitive system I’ve ever used is Linux Mint. I have little experience with Mac, but I would recommend it over Windows any day especialy if you buy into IOS, the benefits of sync definitely are worth it however the draw back is non Mac software compatibility. The nice thing about Linux is that you don’t face these locked issues therefore making this operating system the choice of the future since times are changing and with them, decisions impacting everyone who uses platforms in the hands of people heavily investing into tyranical controlism among other problematic ideals. After all, a tool is only as good as its creation and how it is used outside of its native environment by its practical and unconventional characteristics driving the way forward. I want to experiment with Fedora, Arch and other Linux families, but I will always call Mint home for a reason. It works the way a computer is designed to, making you the user, front and center with whatever you want to use it for.

I was an avid Windows fan since Win 3.1, until the Win 10 fiasco. I had, over the years, played with Linux but found it had too many issues (for me) to bother with as a serious OS. That changed with Win 10, as it appeared Linux, at that point, was so much better. I have/had tested out hundreds of distros by then and found Linux Mint/Cinnamon to consistently work out-of-box while most of the other distros needed a lot of post install fiddling to get them working. My distro-of-choice became Mint/Cinnamon and I’ve stuck with it now for four years with not even a single issue, ever.

Comparing distros in Linux boils down to personal opinion and desires. As a 20 year user and supporter of Window, I can say after 10 years of Linux/Ubuntu there is no comparison between Win and Ubuntu. Ubuntu just works. No mandatory updates during boot. Amazingly fast boot times. Seamless backup systems. I could go on forever (or nearly). Bottom Line: (HATE windows – Love Ubuntu).

I find that I prefer linux mint over ubuntu. The main reason is that it is simpler for me when it comes to the installation of things like printers. Bluetooth and sound cards seem to work right out of the box too.
For some reason I just prefer the look of the mint desktop as well.

I’ve used both Ubuntu and Mint, and I prefer Mint. For one, I never liked the default DE in Ubuntu, and yes, it was nice to install a bunch of them, but I ran into more problems with Ubuntu than I did in Mint (I used Xubuntu from 2012 until 2016 if I remember well), and I think that Mint has a lot of really useful tools incorporated in it. I haven’t formatted anything for at least two years, even thought I have used TimeShift once to revert to the day before because I screwed something up. System still runs very smoothly and with very little clutter. I love the Mint updater, I find it better than Ubuntu’s. Driver management is quite good, too. And again, I really hate the default DE in Ubuntu, I never liked how empty and impractical it was compared to a more normal desktop where everything is close at hand and where the screen estate is used efficiently. I still run a baskc version of Ubuntu on one of my old laptops, as a web server with nothing else installed on it. But I hate how things are placed on the desktop. I know I can change DE or cutomize, but… This is a server. I don’t use it enough to customize it. But anyway, to each their own. Ubuntu is a good OS. I just like Mint better.

20 years of life with Linux….
I started my Linux experience with distro called Caldera around 1998. Then I was fascinated by SUSE and after few years moved to Ubuntu. In the meantime…I worked with HP Unix, Solaris, Sparc, Win95,98,NT,2000,2008,2012, Win7 and now Win10 / Server 2016.
It doesn’t matter what you have you just have to learn how to use it…
Today, @ home I’m on Mint not planning to change to anything else.

For me as Noob Linux Mint Cinnamon was a very easy step to switch to Linux. The desktop is very familiar and since most of the things that work in Ubuntu work in Mint {including the solutions} I had no problems.

I think this article needs some copyediting. The author uses the word “both” in a strange way (“both the system” instead of “both systems” as it should be). I’m not a native English speaker either, but that’s more of a reason to make sure the article is correct, so both native speakers can read it and English as a second language students are not distracted by weird grammar and do not learn bad habits.

I Have two computers in my Home / Office. Main computer is Windows 7 Pro and the other is Linux Mint.
As a Hobby I do a lot of photography and use Photo Shop and Lightroom and they will not run on Linux. I have played with Gimp and it is not in the same league as Adobe products. I also have installed Windows 10 on a laptop and I am not a fan of it at all. I have until January to decide if I have to go to Windows 10 or a Linux Distro. If Adobe would make their products for Linux it would be a no brainier but that is not the case. I have found a program from Corel called Paint Shop that is made for Linux products and it works a little bit better than Gimp but again I favor Adobe products for photography editing.
No easy way forward I am afraid.

I started Mint Mate when I was trying to get off XP. I edited the preferences and renamed “Menu” to “Start”. I’m not sure my wife knew I changed to Linux! I’m typically short on resources, so really like Mint Mate flavor. I appreciate that all versions are built off of the LTS ubuntu. I typically wipe my machines when I do a major upgrade; so have never had a problem I couldn’t work out. EUFI and GPT took a while to figure out; but I had to deal with them in windows too…

Seeing that Ubuntu is moving away from Unity makes me want to give it another try. I think they are also making headway in the IoT side. Also, I always load Ubuntu 18.04 on any of my Windows boxes using the Windows Subsystem for Linux. This greatly enhances my functionality in Windows.

Ubuntu updates where scripts dont point to the new directories are extremely frustrating since it just adds another bunch of steps to troubleshooting. I first used Mint in 2009 i think, and it was way too light for a noob like me but I still played with it for about a month then switched to Ubuntu which was better (at the time) out of the box. Then I found beautifully simple Windows 7 and I went there.
I think Ubuntu is making the same mistakes Windows is in the sense that they want everyone to be the demographic. Taking more power away from users to make a hideous gui stay that way. Theres nothing personable about it anymore, if there ever was. Orange/purple migraine colors dont help.

Right now im running mint 19 from a live flash and its faster than my installed ubuntu and was able to stream media that I couldnt on ubuntu live disk.

And I agree with the above commentor that the Ubuntu community is vastily overrated. My questions are only answered with more questions even though I try to be as nuanced as possible, and then downvoted and lost in eternity behind more difficult questions like “How do you turn on the terminal”….

As soon as im done streaming this video im installing mint and never looking back. How can the derivative be so much faster, sleeker, and smartly designed?

Unity destroyed alot of support for Ubuntu, but now you have lots of choice. There is alot of value in ‘out of the box functionality’ especially with Ubuntu/Mint where upgrades can be problematic so better to do fresh install. I think Linux Mint with MATE desktop environment is the perfect office OS duento stability, out of the box functionality and especially with 19.0 just everything seems to work perfectly. As with others, Cinnamon doesn’t give me anything useful, and just uses more resources and used to be buggy.

Ubuntu occupies that weird situation as it is itself based on Debian, so it’s difficult to argue that the base system is better. Only thing I don’t like about mint is there are some high level arrogant people on the discussion forum, who admins often support, and they can make it terrible for everyone else.

I used to go for all the derivative versions until I realized if I like Cinnamon, as an example, I just hook up my Ubuntu installation to the Mint repositories and install it. Never really understood all us vs them. It’s all great!

Mint has never called my attention to try because of the Cinnamon DE style, yet I recommend it sometime for new comings to the Linux world.

I agree with the assertion that Ubuntu is a resource hog when compared to LM. I remember in the early Ubuntu days when it touted itself as a smaller, lighter alternative to the Giants of Windows and MacOS. Such isn’t the case anymore. It is sad to see that severely appealing promise dissolve.

Nice comparative article. I used Ubuntu for ~5 years. I hate gnome DE, so I switched to Linux mint 18.3 now 19 cinnamon desktop.
Few things I would like to share:

In Mint, you can choose wallpaper slideshow right from settings which I never found working in gnome tweak tool.

Few keyboard shortcuts in Mint are duplicated & you need to select the action whereas it’s easy in Ubuntu manually.

When you select properties of say music files, it doesn’t provide details like the artist, album in that field which you get to see in Ubuntu.

Dist upgrade is easy in Ubuntu while I had a painful experience in Mint 18.3-19!

I find Mint easy to use currently with a not significant difference between both.

I thought OpenSuse & fedora before choosing Mint, but I wasn’t convinced as felt both are crazy to install & use from a non-geeky view.

I am loving Linux mint cinnamon and there is never been faced any problems, in the case of Ubuntu display problems are the first one to be encountered and after finding out the workaround you will face another problems which are really troublesome.
So in my opinion Linux mint is the best distro.

I use Linux Mint 19 and 18.3, both work well, I have used Ubuntu, and some lighter distros on the Raspberry Pi and Asus Tinker Board. For me it comes down to the target architecture, and since I have all older machines that are resource constraint I like the Mint distro, but if I was to get a new machine I would be installing Ubuntu. That said I do find most of my queries answered on the Ubuntu forum or Stack Overflow, anyhow I hope my 2 cents helps someone ?

I have to disagree with your position in regards to the community aspect. I tried switching from Windows to Ubuntu almost 8 years ago. I would post questions on Ubuntu forums and almost every one went unanswered. I ended up going back to Windows. Mind you, I’m a fairly tech savvy user. I search forums for answers to questions before I ask. Fast forward to about 2 years ago, I decided to try out Mint. I ran into similar problems as I did with Ubuntu. The only difference was that the community answered closer to 95% of my questions. I haven’t touched Windows since. On top of that, since people have answered my questions, I’ve learned a lot about how Linux works and have, in turn, helped a few people on the forums along the way. And now that I’m more comfortable with the file structure, kernels, update processes, package managers, etc, I’ve started experimenting with Arch and Fedora. The bottom line is Mint definitely has a much more active, albeit smaller, community.

Linux Mint is better, it has all the VPN stuff built in, loads of stuff just works straight after install