When I made the switch to Linux full-time almost six years ago, my first daily driver was Linux Mint. The experience was so smooth and user-friendly that I stuck with it for over a year—it just worked, and that was exactly what I needed back then.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago: I built a brand-new main PC. Shiny new hardware, but there was a catch—my go-to distro, Debian, didn’t have the drivers or firmware to support it out of the box. Trust me, I tried everything to get my Ethernet and Wi-Fi cards working in Debian. After days of tinkering and failing, I had to admit defeat (temporarily) and test out other distros while waiting for Debian to catch up with a newer kernel—hopefully something beyond version 6.13.

I tried out openSUSE, Fedora, and Ubuntu. openSUSE didn’t click with me—its package management felt overly complex, and the whole system came off as too mechanical, like it was built more for engineers than everyday users. Fedora was solid and pretty smooth, but it felt a bit bloated. Like openSUSE, it also lacks built-in multimedia support, which was a bit of a letdown. Ubuntu surprised me with how polished and user-friendly it was, but Steam just wouldn’t play nice—probably because I was running a beta release. Fair.

So, I went back to an old friend: Linux Mint. It instantly recognized my Wi-Fi card, and once I updated to a newer kernel, the Ethernet card kicked in, too. Everything just clicked. The system runs buttery smooth, all my apps work perfectly—including Steam and even Bottles—and the Nemo file manager paired with Cinnamon gives the desktop a consistently delightful experience. The regular browsing of the internet and gaming in Mint were both excellent.

Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon

Honestly, for anyone who just wants their computer to work—no fuss, no endless config rabbit holes—Linux Mint is hard to beat. It’s simple, elegant, and reliable. It just stays out of your way. It's one of the main reasons why I use Debian, by the way. And now that I’m back on Mint, I have to admit: when Debian finally catches up and supports my hardware, leaving Mint again is going to be tough.