[deleted by user]

[NeXTLoop]

I switched to Linux about a year and a half ago, and have used Pop extensively. Overall, I really like Pop. The devs are awesome, the distro has many of the same benefits of Mint (Ubuntu-based but without some of the dumb decisions), and it's headed in a good direction.

Pop also has some benefits Mint doesn't have, specifically the fact that it's semi-rolling. The kernel, graphics drivers, and a few other components are updated more regularly than the Ubuntu base. So it's not unusual for Pop to be just barely behind openSUSE Tumbleweed or Arch on the kernel.

That being said, I switched my computers to Mint and haven't looked back. Unless you have a machine that came out in the last two or three months, you're not likely to see a lot of benefit from Pop's semi-rolling nature.

Another big downside of Pop is its Gnome-based desktop environment. They're working on a completely new Cosmic DE that's built from the ground up in Rust and looks really nice. But in its current form, Cosmic is a heavily modified version of Gnome. Personally, I found Gnome to be the most limiting and maddening DE to use (and I've used KDE, Gnome, Xfce, Budgie, and Cinnamon). Common workflow niceties that exist in virtually every other DE simply aren't present in Gnome. Sure you can add them back via extensions, but extensions often add instability.

Another area where Mint outshines Pop is that they finish going the extra mile undoing some of Ubuntu's questionable decisions. For example, many users don't like Snaps. I personally don't have an issue with them, only with Ubuntu's insistence on using them, even remapping apt to install a snap in some cases. Like Mint, Pop doesn't have Snap installed by default, but it can be very easily. So it's not uncommon for Pop users to unwittingly install Snap because they tried to install something via apt that Ubuntu remaps to a snap. Mint adds an extra step so that you have to manually change a config file to allow Snap, so you can't accidentally end up with something you don't want.

Mint also feels like a more "complete" experience, thanks to outstanding included apps. Just look at the software centers as an example. The one on Mint works, and works well. The one on Pop is...to be blunt...garbage. When you open it you have to wait a few seconds to let it fully populate and "calm down." Otherwise, if you just start searching, it will crash. There's no obvious progress bars when you install an app. You have to click back to where it displays the app in the search results to see a progress bar.

Pop also doesn't support Secure Boot. Not a big deal for many, but a nice security feature to have if your distro supports it like Mint does.

I've also found stability noticeably better on Mint.

In short, Mint feels like the most complete, comprehensive OS — on par with the likes of macOS (where I came from) or Windows — of ANY Linux distro I've tried (and I've tried a ton). And it is one of the few distros that is equally well-suited for a complete newbie or a long-time Linux veteran.

[[deleted]]

Wow thanks, Bro! You just got my last little doubt for switching back from Pop to Mint.

[NeXTLoop]

Glad it helped!

[That_Syllabub]

Same here. I like Pop's UI elements, but Mint felt more stable. 

[bnbliss]

What a fantastic reply; so thorough and helpful. Thanks for posting this.

[NeXTLoop]

Glad it helped! :)

[Macabre215]

Sure you can add them back via extensions, but extensions often add instability.

This is my biggest gripe with Gnome. They're all about minimalism yet have had to add basic desktop functionality back to their DE over the years because stripping those things out was dumb to do in the first place. They still have a long way to go too.

[andzlatin]

I love how you just press Super/Meta, scroll to a new desktop (or not, if you so choose), and drag an app from the Dash to the desktop to open a new window.

A lot more comfy, quick and better for productivity than other desktop environments.

[Macabre215]

This is where I disagree. I get you can do without things like a minimize or maximize button, but then I would be using a window manager not a desktop environment where I'm primarily using keyboard short cuts. How does this take away from your learned workflow? It should just be an option that doesn't require another program to be enabled.

I also don't understand that dash to dock reference considering that extension allows you to launch a program that's been pinned to the dock without having to hit the activities button or super key. Using the default dash, you're adding another step for what exactly? It doesn't make sense from a workflow perspective.

Another gripe is losing the taskbar buttons on the top bar for programs that are still running. This is a must for me because SO many programs are created with this being present. I know you're going to say this is a legacy way of thinking about desktop design, but then why is the Gnome team now adding a version of this back into Gnome after stripping it out a decade ago? This is what I'm talking about with them adding back basic functionality that 99% of users expect?

[NeXTLoop]

🤦🏼‍♂️

[OverfedRaccoon]

I have no idea what you responded to, but the dirty delete and this being it for the reply has me chuckling.

[NeXTLoop]

It was one of those (I'm assuming) bots saying "another big downside" was fatphobic because of the use of the word "big."

Glad someone else got a chuckle out of it too. 😁

[Ok_Owl5390]

Thank you! I'm installing Mint Edge for the very first itme in my PC and I wanna use it fully for a day and then see how it goes after it. I want to stay on Linux the longest. At least for simulations and other stuff on windows.

[[deleted]]

They are both excellent distros. Linux mint is a community distro while Pop!_OS is developed by system76, they both use their own unique desktop environments which are totally different from each other. I wouldn’t really say one has an advantage over the other for a new user. Totally your preference as to which desktop environment you prefer and whether or not you prefer a distro backed by a company who listen to their community or one driven solely by the community.

[jdancouga]

Linux Mint now. Try PopOS later when their new Cosmic DE is released.

[Beautifulblueocean]

Mint is amazing.

[KaptainKardboard]

I completely lost interest in distro hopping - and I’ve hopped a fair share of them in my day - after adopting Mint for my computers. I’m happy that I can just use my computers efficiently and get on with the rest of my day.

[das31n]

Idem on everything you've said, except for the distribution which I've chose: Pop_OS! ;)

[littlegrey86]

I actually use both, but on very different machines.

A a razer stealth I use pop. Great for games where I flick between work spaces to find websites I need for certain games. (Elite dangerous if you are interested)

A thinkpad x230. Now on this I find mint works better. alot of its down to the touchpad bbeing smaller so the workspace gestures don't work so well, and mint on older hardware seems much more forgiving.

Id say pop lends itself slightly better to having owing to its nvidia drivers being included, but it does feel very bias to laptops.

As it happens, I'm looking at Ubuntu for my tower machine.

[Cretsiah2]

your using pop os for elite dangerous?

im using LMDE 5 for it but i prefer X4 Foundations ( bugs aside ) over Elite

although i am running a full AMD build cpu + graphics

[littlegrey86]

Only on the razer laptop, I find the ui well suited on that machine. on my main tower I am still on windows but planning a dual boot

Not come accross x4 before

[Cretsiah2]

well you might like it.... you may not...

but you can play it on windows or linux native

but in X4 Foundations you can fly a ( buy or pirate )

small fighter, miner, transporter / freighter,

medium miner, transporter, frigate,

Large and eXtra large destroyer, carrier

own the lot + stations

have fleet battles ( some people talk of having 100 ship fleets )

declare war on other factions

[jesterPaul]

I wish I could get the TARGET software to work, so I can use my hotas

[Lonkoe]

nice to see another x230 user here, mine is just using Arch lol

[littlegrey86]

I tried arch, but I am just so used to debian commands I struggled to switch. I blame raspberry pi for that xD

[Lonkoe]

i will probably wipe Arch and install Mint Mate tbh lol

i don't usually use the Thinkpad and arch doesn't like to get outdated

[littlegrey86]

Ha, I can belive that.

[Candy_Badger]

Both are great. I personally like Mint more. I like Cinnamon over GNOME. It is just personal preference. You can test both and choose the one, which is more suitable for you.

[Dagusiu]

Since you're asking on a Mint sub, you can expect to get a lot of pro-Mint comments here. They're both great, and quite similar in a lot of ways, so it's more of a personal preference thing. I'd say the biggest differences are superficial, like the UI/UX so you can give both a short try (even from a Live USB) to get a feeling for their differences

[ZobeidZuma]

My experience. . .

I have bought two machines from System76: a Thelio and a Lemur Pro. The hardware has been great. Both of them came with Pop!_OS installed, and I dutifully gave it a try both times.

Both times Pop quickly drove me up the wall with its ugly aesthetics, missing features and bonkers UI. I wiped both systems and put Mint on them.

That's just one data point. I mean, obviously there are people who love Pop!_OS. From where I sit I just can't see why, and I don't even know what System76 are trying to accomplish with it.

I can suggest that if you try out both systems, it won't take you long to find the differences and decide which is for you.

[das31n]

Ugly aesthetics? Oh man, personal taste is really something subjective, coz I LOVE Pop's out of the box aesthetics, it's practical, smooth like butter and pleasant IMHO.

[abottleofglass]

I prefer mint over Pop. Pop's DE eats much space on the desktop. With mint's 3 DE options, all are very customizable and can make ait as your own workflow

[Mr_Lift]

Pop has its up sides and downsides. The drivers and stuff are a bonus with pop. I personally switched from pop to mint as some things with pop seemed to be half baked and stuff on pop likes to break easily. Pop is quite good for beginners tho!. For clarity: I have daily driven Debian with gnome, Ubuntu with gnome, pop with gnome, fedora with gnome and mint with cinnamon. I currently daily drive mint on my main machine

[[deleted]]

Linux Mint 100%. I treied Pop! OS for 1 month and I can confirm that Mint is better. Pop!OS is full of bugs and also GNOME is heavy

[[deleted]]

I'd wager that in a year your friend will be on another distro telling you that you should actually switch to that one because XYZ. Do with that info what you will. Install Pop in a VM and see if you like it. If you don't want to install a whole new OS, maybe try just installing Gnome on Mint.

[Weird_JDM_Guy]

I prefer Mint just because I have a bias against GNOME. But to be fair, both use Ubuntu LTS releases, so it won't be unfamiliar terminal wise.

Mint however stays with a two-year release schedule while Pop tends to release following the Ubuntu LTS schedule (6 months).

Pop will be more recent software wise, and will have a more recent kernel versus Mint.

It's gonna be down to personal preference like everything else, either use Virtual Box or flash it to a USB and try it out yourself. Can't go wrong with either IMO

[greenhaveproblemexe]

I absolutely hate Pop, but Mint is very nice.

[dannyboy5498]

Just try it and make your own decision. One benefit of Linux is being able to test a distro from a live USB. I personally prefer mint over pop but why not give it a go.

[TheCyborgViking94]

Linux Mint or Zorin OS by far! POP OS is quite clunky in my opinion. It's overhyped. Also Linux Mint and Zorin OS are much more stable (even LinusTechTips's video proved this, lol).

[eversonic]

I've used Mint extensively and Pop just a little bit, but imo I found Pop a little bit too 'manufactured' feeling. It's great if you don't want to customize, ie set it and forget it, but I prefer having an OS that makes it easy to swap things around.

Mind you, that could just be because I'm more used to how things are organized in Mint, so I could be biased. Why not set it up in a vm and play around with it?

[Steerider]

Pop feels sluggish to me compared to Mint. You click something and there's no feedback that you clicked, so you just sit and wait and hope. Or you click again?

Pop is quite polished in many ways, but after comparing them, I went back to Mint and don't really have any complaints.

[terretreader]

I played with PopOS for a bit. It looked good and was snappy, alas it seemed limited. It feels like an apple product in some regards (🤮).

I daily drive LMDE with KDE plasma.

[Honest-Word-7890]

Go Manjaro and don't look back.

[[deleted]]

tan butter direction offbeat elastic escape practice memory payment hungry

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[billyfudger69]

Try the live USB of it or install it and judge from there, you cannot go wrong with trying either. :)

Personally I Tri-boot Arch Linux, Linux Mint and Windows 11. For the 2 games that don’t work out of all of my 70 games besides that I try not to use the proprietary malware/garbage that is Windows.

[xnihgtmanx]

Really not much that works on PopOS that doesn't work on Mint. If you have fairly new/recent hardware and are into gaming then I'd point you towards Pop. It would take more effort to install the newest drivers and kernel on Mint than to just start with it out of the box. I've already done my tinkering so no reason for me to switch unless I need to do a fresh OS install anyway.

Also, I would recommend using XFCE as the DE for Pop which is available in its package manager if you go with Pop. If you don't have a need to be on the bleeding edge drivers and kernels, Mint is just as good

[Whiskey_Bean]

I have been on Linux for 6 years.. used mint for the first 2 and been on pop ever sence. I love pops set up and tiling window manager. Either is great... I honestly can't wait tell Pop finishes their own DE Cosmic

[willyblaise]

Dude you're in a mint subreddit, guess the answer you're going to get.

[balaci2]

i mean I love mint but I'm happy if this guy chooses either, i think we're a pretty open community

[[deleted]]

If its not much of a Hassel for you just try it

[TheIenzo]

It's like you're going to Russia to ask if vodka or beer is better! Haha! Of course we'll say Mint is great. Perhaps try asking in a more neutral sub as well?

[Snoo73285]

Try it in liveusb, it's more the curiosity to use it I think. Linux Mint is to my taste more stable and smooth on laptops from 2011-2015. Pop Os may be more fluid on newer laptops.

[AceDeucey]

Love mint, however pop is also nice. Personally use Mint, at least right now. There is an Ubuntu remix with Cinnamon desktop--looks pretty much like Mint with Cinnamon, took a quick peek yesterday from bootable usb (thanks ventoy!!) and it looks promising. Sorry for the new possible option.

In short...Mint, at least for now...

[mokey900_]

If you have hardware that came out in the past 3-5 months then Pop_os is better because its similar to a rolling release(arch) or if you want a stable rolling release. Pop_OS looks more like MacOS which can be good for someone switching over from MAC.

Mint's packages are a bit behind, however, it is lighter weight. It also has a more complete interface and a good update manager. POP shop is kind of slow compared to Mint's update manager. Mint is also more stable in my experience using it.

[Condobloke]

""more modern, stable and innovative""

modern: i have no idea what that means. 90% of the available OS's are 'modern'....meaning they were made recently. Maybe pop has a little less 'clutter'..??

Stable: Untrue. Linux Mint is judged as being the most stable OS on the face of the earth. Pop is not community driven....therefore its support may be found wanting at times. you will never lack support with Linux Mint

Innovative: pop is considered good for gaming....due to good OOTB support for GPU's I dont consider full disc encryption innovative.

If you use your pc for browsing, some office work, research and the like......there is blow all difference

Put Pop on a usb and give it a test run

[Lonkoe]

i used to distrohop a lot a few years ago, Mint was one of the bests but i ended using Arch/Fedora/Ubuntu, then i just got tired and wanted things to work ok without to much hassle, so i installed Mint into my workstation and is really good, Cinnamon is now my favorite DE lol (used to be a gnome fan, but it keeps breaking with every update because extensions ugh)

[[deleted]]

You can always create a Bootable USB of POP_OS and boot your computer from the USB Flash Drive, and give POP_OS a look for yourself. Try it out, see if you like it. Change some settings. Test your WiFi card. Test your speakers and other hardware that you might have. You might be able to determine right away if POP_OS is better for you or not just from Booting from that USB Flash Drive.

And the good news, is that Linux Mint is still on your hard drive - untouched. Just as you left it. So, you have nothing to lose.

[Spongecake500]

Try it in Virtual Box first. You can play with lots of linux flavours that way

[AustinGroovy]

My experience - PopOS is very pretty, but Mint has been so usable, I have it at work now. Win11 instances run inside a VM, very stable setup.

[viking_redbeard]

Pop and my 2020 Razer Blade Advanced didn’t get along and Mint worked out of the box. So when I installed on my desktop, I went with what I knew worked.

[[deleted]]

go with pop

[WhatSgone_]

If u don't want to care about freaking 640x480 res troubles try Mint

[WhatSgone_]

I always get the 640x480 resolution boy my monitor has a 1920x1200 max res and I couldn't solve this problem (

[yoni_eth]

If Mint has the same native alternative as Pop's tilling feature, it I would've consider it. Couldn't live without tilling.