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Linux Mint is probably the most recommended Linux distribution for people switching from Windows, and for good reason. It's beginner-friendly, the layout feels familiar if you're coming from Windows 7 or Windows 10, and it ships with enough graphical apps that you rarely need to touch the terminal. I've used it myself, recommended it to plenty of people, and some of them actually made the switch. That said, there were also others who kept telling me that Mint was no Windows.
My first instinct was that they simply weren't giving it a fair shot. So I sat down with one of my friends who had struggled with it, watched how they actually used the system, and came to a conclusion—they were right. Linux Mint really isn't a Windows substitute. And here are the three biggest problems I noticed that get in the way when you try to use Linux Mint as if it were Windows.
Installing apps isn't always straightforward
Granted, it largely depends on which apps you're installing
On Windows, installing an app is a well-worn ritual: you find the app you want, visit its website, download the EXE file, run it, click through the installation wizard, and that’s it—the app is installed on your computer. I wouldn't necessarily call it a “better” way to install software, but it's the workflow millions of people have internalized. Unfortunately, Linux Mint—or any Linux distribution, for that matter—takes a completely different approach.
On Linux, your distribution ships with its own official software repository. You can install apps from it through the Software Manager—similar to the app store on your phone—or from the terminal. That's the first point of friction. The next comes when you want to install an app that isn't in your distribution's official repository. You may need to add a third-party repository before you can install it. For example, on Ubuntu-based distributions like Linux Mint, you often need to add a PPA (Personal Package Archive) before installing certain applications.
Then there's the entirely new concept of package formats. On Linux Mint, the default package format is .deb. However, some applications are distributed as Snaps, while others are available as Flatpaks. To install software in those formats, you may first need to enable or install support for them. None of this is particularly difficult, but it is genuinely a different—and often unfamiliar—experience for someone who just wants to download an executable, double-click it, and start using the program.
There's no good graphical troubleshooting apps
Troubleshooting is the moment Mint stops pretending to be Windows
When your computer isn't behaving the way it should, that's already an anxiety-inducing situation. The last thing most people want is to open a terminal and start typing commands that feel like code. However, that's often exactly what you have to do when something goes wrong on Linux.
While Linux Mint has a solid collection of graphical tools for everyday use, the same can't always be said for troubleshooting. If you want to identify rogue processes, inspect system logs, or check the health of your SSD, you'll often end up on the command line. For the average user, that's a double whammy: not only is your normal workflow interrupted, but the primary way to diagnose the problem is through that intimidating terminal.
Windows, by contrast, has a solid collection of built-in and third-party graphical troubleshooting tools. I won't pretend they have award-winning interfaces—plenty of settings and diagnostics are buried behind unintuitive menus—but at least with a GUI (graphical user interface), you can click through menus, explore your options, and usually find what you're looking for.
In the terminal, there's nothing to click. You have to know precisely which commands to run, and if you get one wrong, you'll usually end up with an error message rather than a helpful prompt. There's also a fair amount of reading involved. If you haven't memorized the commands, you'll likely find yourself digging through documentation to figure out what to do. Granted, troubleshooting is inherently technical work, but Linux makes it a tad more technical than it needs to be—especially for the non-tech-savvy.
Online guides ignore graphical apps
The gap between "beginner-friendly" and "beginner guides" is real
You pick Linux Mint because it's beginner-friendly. It gives you graphical applications for almost everything, and you can genuinely get through your day-to-day tasks without learning the terminal. But the moment you want to go beyond the basics—experiment, customize your system, or fix a problem—you look up a guide or ask for help online, and nearly everything you find is terminal-first.
The typical Linux guide hands you commands to copy and paste. It rarely explains how to accomplish the same task through graphical applications—if such an app even exists—and it almost never includes screenshots. Compared to the average Windows tutorial, it's simply less approachable for a beginner.
Granted, after using Linux for so long, I do understand why. If I were writing a Windows guide, I'd add ten screenshots, arrows, highlights, and step-by-step instructions explaining exactly what to click and in what order, because that’s necessary. However, on Linux, I can often accomplish the same thing with a single command. It's dramatically more efficient for the person writing the guide.
But that efficiency comes at a cost for the reader, especially someone who's new to Linux. The standard advice is that you shouldn't blindly run commands you find online. Someone could be trolling you—or worse, acting maliciously—and there are commands that can seriously damage your system. That means you're expected to understand what each command does and how its syntax works before you execute it.
As a result, on Windows, it's much easier to skim a tutorial and judge whether it looks legitimate. On Linux, making that judgment often requires technical knowledge that a newcomer simply doesn't have yet.
Linux Mint is Windows-like—not a Windows clone
The core problem here is an expectation mismatch. Linux Mint—and every other Linux distribution, for that matter—is a different operating system. It's simply not going to match your Windows workflow in every way. You wouldn't switch to macOS and expect it to behave exactly like Windows, right?
That said, jumping from Windows to macOS can be jarring—the same is true of Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions. Linux Mint, by comparison, makes the transition much easier. Through its Cinnamon desktop environment, it offers a familiar layout along with a solid collection of graphical applications and customization options.
This makes Mint a great landing spot for Windows users—which is why it comes so heavily recommended. It looks and feels familiar enough that you can hit the ground running without slowing down your day-to-day work. However, if you want to get the most out of the operating system, you'll still need to invest time in learning how it works—just as you had to learn Windows.
