Switching to Linux Mint - Day 1: Install, Wifi Issues, and Update Errors
Waking up dreadfully early one morning, I landed on watching a video about somebody’s 30-day review of switching to Linux.
There are a lot of pain points for me. I have been seeking greater technological independence. I’m currently on a path of rejecting Big Tech for a lot of reasons. Partially because of the surveillance and privacy, partially because of the ads and AI embedded so deeply into the ecosystem, and partially because of the greater social consequences of not doing so.
It didn’t take much to sell me on undertaking this journey myself. I had an old laptop at home literally collecting dust so I immediately proceeded to install Linux Mint on it.
As I understand it, Linux is not an operating system itself, so much as a collection of similar operating systems. Each Linux OS is called a distro. Different distros each have their own pros and cons or are more specialized to certain tasks, like gaming for example.
Linux Mint is widely considered the best distro for beginners switching from Windows, so I headed over to their website and followed the instructions. It was an easy painless process. The hardest part was finding USB drive around the house.
Once I got up and running, I immediately ran into my first issue. The computer could no longer detect any WiFi. After a quick search, I learned that it was likely a missing driver for the WiFi adapter.
You’ll learn quickly to scour the forums for solutions when switching to Linux. Sometime the answers aren’t always clear, and sometimes there are multiple correct answers. In this case, that particular driver did not come preloaded on Linux Mint and I had to manually install it. Once I found the solution in this video, it was remarkably easy. Literally just a few command lines in the terminal, reboot the machine, and it was good to go.
Updating your OS is pretty simple. You type a few commands lines in the terminal.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
You’ll have to get used to using the terminal. I discovered there was one issue. While not critical, I wanted to follow up on it as part of the learning process. Many people before me have had and solved the same issue, so I just used the terminal commands they shared to clear it up.
I’m getting in the habit of searching everything. I will copy the error message from terminal and paste it right into my search engine followed by “Linux Mint” and I’m usually able to get some traction. I will also search many of the command lines others offer to learn more about what they do.
So far, Linux is remarkably cleaner than Windows. My start bar isn’t trying to force ads on me or force me to use any AI features. While I understand there is a learning curve ahead, I can already see myself not wanting to go back.