The years go by, and I keep trying one Linux desktop distro after the other. But for more than a decade now, I come back to Linux Mint[1]. Why? It's simple: Year in and year out, Mint remains the best, easiest-to-use Linux desktop. That's the case again with the latest release, called Linux Mint 20.2[2] "Uma."
While I prefer the Gnome[3]-2-based Cinnamon desktop[4] (now up to version 5.04), Mint gives you a choice of fully supported interfaces. These include MATE[5], a Gnome-2 fork, and the ultra-lightweight Xfce[6]. Most desktop users will be pleased with Cinnamon or MATE. But if you have older low-powered systems or if you're running Linux on Chromebooks[7] or Windows 10 PCs with Windows SubSystem for Linux (WSL) 2[8], Xfce is an excellent choice.
Even PCs built in the 2000s can run Mint. If the box has a 64-bit processor, it can run Mint. The full version of Linux Mint requires a mere 2GB of RAM, but you can run it with as little as 1GB. This is not Windows -- where trying to run it on 4GB is asking for trouble.
You'll also need at least 20GB of disk space, but Mint recommends 100GB. Finally, you'll need a graphics card and monitor that supports a 1024×768 resolution. In other words, you can pretty much run Mint on any PC you find in a second-hand junk shop.
I like running the fastest and best hardware, but let's face it, sometimes we can afford the latest and hottest. That can be a real problem. For example, Windows 11 won't run on hardware dating from 2016 and earlier[9]. It also won't run on