Best windows alternative/replacement. Review on Linux Mint 14

I have been using a PC(or a laptop) for nearly 12 years - started out with windows 95. So I dont know the pre-windows 95 era OS, UIs and the like. Over the years I have maintained my laptops and systems myself and I know the pain of having a bricked PC because of a broken OS/virus infection - happened twice when using WinME. My history with MS Windows brand of operating systems will require a separate review (or several).

So, I am dodging that topic. Though I am satisfied with Windows and understand its impact on the user base, I was let down when MS dropped the ball a couple of times - WinME and Vista- I was so sick and tired of the Blue Screen of Death (or lovingly called BSOD). By that time I was doing my PG project (my college was pro-FOSS) which needed to be run from Debian, which is pretty hardcore, not for the casual users. That is exactly where Linux Mint comes in. I have been using it from Version 9 - Helena and found that it works out of the box.

Coming back to v14- Nadia, the OS has almost everything a casual PC user needs from the get go. I mostly use my PC now for watching movies, browsing, online shopping, some development work using eclipse and some light documentation. I have found that it works perfectly for my needs. The default software selection is spot on and if you have a taste for something else then you can install almost anything from ubuntu's vast repositories. I even installed and used MS Office 2007 using wine / PlayOnLinux for a while. With the current chaos over the desktop environments I was disappointed and scared even, when gnome V3 came out. I was using Linux mint 11 at that time. The Linux Mint devs stuck with the classic Gnome desktop and they created a fork - 'Mate Desktop'. But initially things were not good. When Linux Mint 12 go released I tried and switched back to v11. Same happened with v13. But I am finally happy to say that the transition from v11 to v14 is almost seamless. 'Almost' because there are still some issues with compiz and some metacity and murriane themes. But if you are not of the tinkering kind then you wont even notice them. The stability is great and it just works.

I still have a windows installation in my laptop which I use to play games - thanks to the MSDN academic alliance I got a couple of Windows 7 licenses for free. Over the last couple of years I have had a lot of issues with linux. But everything is fixed just by following the instructions provided in the ubuntu forums. I have fixed every thing from broken kernel to increasing the distance between the close and maximize buttons in window borders (i like it that way so that I don't accidentally close a window when trying to maximize it) all just by following instructions from the forums. If you think this will be time consuming and a haggle, think again. I have has no major downtime because of issues in Linux Mint. The OS installation itself is a live DVD- I watched a episode of House MD through it.  In fact being a avid torrenter (and because india has some of the suckiest internet speeds in the world) my PC runs nonstop for months at a time, still I have no problem. In fact, the time I spent browsing through the forums for linux (very few show stoppers really so more for tinkering than fixing) is less than the time I spent for installing the Device drivers, codecs, updating antivirus, cleaning up crap files and 'tuning' the OS in windows. Sometimes when your close buddy looses the driver disk that came with the laptop and asks you to do a fresh install of windows xp or vista on his laptop then you will know what I mean. This has happened to me countless times - mid install they will say "what driver CD?".

So, dont judge me if you have not been there and done that.  Ohh and I forgot, you dont have to do all these things in Linux. Most devices work out of the box - others work after you install the package needed from repository using synaptic. I have not installed a single codec so far that was not already there. No antivirus needed - unless you give root access to all programs or dont update the system at all. Crap gets cleaned from temporary folders during shutdown and there is no such thing as 'tuneup' in linux.

So gaming aside, I have been using Linux Mint for the last 4 years and I am loving it. I would definitely recommend this to my friends - I already have to many. As for me, all I need is Linux Mint and a fast internet connection to keep me happy.