Things in the world of desktop Linux have improved so much that I’ve just wrapped up moving to using Linux Mint 20.2 & the Cinnamon desktop as my primary OS.

Achieving my standard triple monitor setup by way of the laptop screen and two external monitors “just works” now… I’ve never before seen anything beyond a dual monitor setup work without manual configuration. The monitors are connected via a Sabrent TH-3DP2 adapter. Unplugging or re-connecting the dock doesn’t even cause things to freak out… it functions just like Windows and macOS, which is something I never thought I’d get to say.

Application-wise, virtually every vendor who offers a Linux version of their software provides a natively packaged version for the current Ubuntu LTS release. Since Mint 20 is built atop Ubuntu 20.04 (the current LTS) I can have all the convenience and polish it provides while not having to dip into Flatpaks or Snaps for much of anything. For example, I installed native packages for all of these today:

And that’s all on top of what’s in the stock repositories and the pre-installed apps!