Mint 19 Tara an honest review

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I am posting this after seeing a load of crap posted about 19 Tara, elsewhere by people who obviously don't use it every day. I do and have done so since it was released, before that I was using 18.3 which I had upgraded from 18.2.
This done using the Cinnamon desktop Environment
Installing
There have been a lot of reported problems about the install, these are being sorted. If you want to install then do so without connecting to the internet. During the install you are guided through things and it is very easy to follow. If you connect to the internet then it takes about 10 mins to complete and if not about half that time. I did a clean install as I find that works better.
After Installing
Once Tara is installed you will be greeted with the much improved welcome screen. This guides you through things that you need to do first as well as containing the Software Manager and Timeshift. I would suggest before you do anything here enable the firewall which is easy to do, through the menu applications and it is there - you will need to enter your password, the one you set during the install before you are able to get the firewall working. Then connect to the Internet and return to the welcome screen and do the updates. Note you can change the settings in update manager by pressing edit then preferences.
To round off your install visit a site like Easy Linux tips to round it off -it saves time later and it is a one off thing to do.
You may already have your printer on, in which case Tara will have added it for you once it knows that you are connected to the internet -if not then you can add it through the settings where you will find printers.

Make it Yours
The thing that I love about Mint is that you can add themes to make it personal to you. I chose the Aque theme and Humanity which are just a few of what you can chose from. As for backgrounds, Tara comes with nice ones, but if you want to use previous Mint back grounds these are found in the software manager. You could naturally chose one of your own pictures. You can change the date and time settings and the language settings and apply the language of your choice - doing all of these things will make you feel more at home.

Email & Office
Thunderbird the email client is installed by default and you can use this for any email account that you have. I have not had any problems with doing.
Libre Office is just great, if you want extra fonts ( I like Ariel) you can get these from the software manager. You can chose to say documents in many other forms and we've had no problems using MS office applications.

Everyday use
Tara is a lot quicker to load from start up noticeably quicker than Sylvia was. I love the clarity of the desktop and the fact that every application I use opens quickly. Updating is easy as if there isn't a green tick you know that you have updates available. These don't take too long to do. It is recommended that you use Timeshift and I would agree with that. Timeshift I found easy to use as it guides you through things. It probably is best to use it before doing a kernel upgrade, but I have had no problems with these so I have Timeshift settings as I think I need them. If you use Mint for more serious than social things it is best to set it to daily.

Connecting to the internet, was easy. I don't like Firefox so after downloading Vivaldi I got rid of it through Synaptic package manager (just open it and search for what you want to remove and then mark for complete renewal and apply). I had to install Vivaldi through a .deb file, but that is easy to do just follow the instructions.

Take your time to look in the software manager, because it is full of applications and if there is something you want it could be in there. I don't use any windows applications now, but in software manager there are things that you can use if you must use them. I found out that there was a non windows application that I could use here and they're IMHO a lot better.

I and most people probably won't use the terminal much, but it is handy to have some knowledge about, so search on the internet for it. I have found that the most I use is apt-get autoclean to get rid of stuff. This really isn't necessary unless you've downloaded a lot of stuff that you don't need.

Backing up is a joy to do as is restoring things - Both are done through the back up tool - I don't know how many hours I spent shouting at windows to do a back up, now my wife asks if I am okay as I am too quiet.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

I am not sure if Mint would suit everyone, superusers and hackers for example. For those coming across from Windows then yes it is a great starting point as it will remind you of the good old days when Windows had everything you needed and Microsoft were the wallet vampires they've become. What I love about Tara is that it is an improvement of previous versions and I am still seeing those changes after nearly 3 weeks of use. I've had not a single issue with it, no crashes, nothing. It boots and reboots without fail and as far as I can tell everything works as it should.
Honestly for the everyday user I can not think of a better Distro or OS at the moment, because it just does and does it beautifully so you can just get on and do what you do.
This is not meant to be definitive, just the review of an ordinary guy using Mint every day for simple things like being on here
 


BIG like on this one, Ptah, nicely put :). I particularly liked

now my wife asks if I am okay as I am too quiet.

Keep 'em comin'

Wizard
 
BIG like on this one, Ptah, nicely put :). I particularly liked



Keep 'em comin'

Wizard
Thank you. It was just bugging me that so many reviews aren't written by those who actually use things day to day and that is the only way to really judge something.
 

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