[Billthedrill]

I finally got torqued off at yet another Creator's Update that failed late last week, sucking up all my high-speed bandwidth for the month (second time in a month, incidentally, both 1703 and 1709 took a dump on one of my four computers and not the same one) - anyway, slid a new SSD into the smaller box and installed 18.3 Mint last night. Flawless. Within one hour I had a new OS from scratch, functioning email, word processing, music, and YooToob on a functioning browser (I was a little worried about the codecs but it was perfect). That's it. I don't have to spend days troubleshooting Redmond's screwups four times a quarter.

The downside is that I have to give up certain games that I enjoy. These don't like VirtualBox so I'm going to have to play with WINE, but it's a small price to pay.

I've used other Linux implementations but this one seems as smooth to install and with the lowest learning curve I've seen to date. So far very impressed.

It really didn't have to be this way. I like Windows 10 if they'd just leave it alone. Mint will be fine for 80% of what I want to do and that's going to have to be enough. When I finally do get decent bandwidth, and it's coming, I'm really not sure it will be worth going back to Windows.

[Westbrook]

If your CPU has virtualization support, use a windows virtual machine for your games and other stuff you can’t get on Linux.

[enduserindy]

I followed a link in this story to the crossover 17. That sounds interesting. Wonder how broad a spectrum of windows programs it will run.

[Bob434]

[[ The downside is that I have to give up certain games that I enjoy.]]

Nope nope nope=- dual boot- it takes a little knowhow to do but is worth it

[TomGuy]

I bought a Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon about a year ago. I find it rather clunky. When I really need to do a serious task, I return to Win7 laptop or desktop.

Wine — a complete waste. Every program I tried in it would either not load at all or only load part of the GUI. And these were programs designed for Win98/XP/Win7.

I could no see the advantage of using a VM to run old programs. It is much easier just to use the Win7 laptop or desktop.

I have thought about updating to Mint 18.3, but have read some commentaries that the upgrade could be problematic.

I still list Linux and Mint in the hobbyist category.

I have an extra hard drive with the original Win10. I did not like the GUI and it seemed very limited in allowing the users to make their own choices. I have no intention of switching to Win10 as long as my Win7 laptop and desktop are still running.

[dennisw]

I am in the same boat as you. Going to install Linux Mint on an SSD and give it a trial. I have already gone live with Mint on a flash drive to see what’s up but I really need to install Mint and then install software I need. To really test it.