Ever dismissed Linux Mint as “too beginner-friendly” for your workflow? Wondered why so many users stick with it despite its “simple” reputation? I did the same thing until I discovered three features that completely changed my mind.
Why I used to dislike Linux Mint
Like most people, my Linux journey started with Ubuntu. From there, I slowly drifted through different distros and desktop environments until I eventually landed on Garuda Linux—which I’ve been using for the past five years. It’s Arch-based, runs KDE Plasma, and has everything I want in a distro. Naturally, I started recommending Garuda to other Linux users, but they’d always tell me they were perfectly happy with Mint. So I figured I should actually try it and see what I was missing.
Looking back, I can only assume I was deep in my “Arch phase” at the time—because I really didn’t like Mint. I wanted immediate access to cutting-edge packages, having KDE Plasma was non-negotiable, and I craved deep customization options and powerful features that let me optimize every part of my workflow. Coming at Mint with this mindset, the distro felt too basic and too beginner-focused, so I wrote it off and moved on—until now.
Why I Just Can’t Love Linux Mint
It takes more than stability and reliability to woo me!
So, what’s changed now?
Following Windows 10’s end of life, there’s been a noticeable exodus of people moving away from the operating system. One of my friends was part of that wave and installed Linux Mint on their old PC. Since I’m the “Linux expert” of our group, they’ve been asking for advice and suggestions on specific features and settings—and I feel a bit embarrassed to admit this—but I never realized Mint offered so many powerful options.
I’ll admit I never really dug through the Control Center to analyze everything it offers. But I’m also confused about why no one—including Mint users—actively talks about these features. What’s more, why don’t the Mint developers advertise them? Because in some ways, Mint is legitimately more functional than KDE Plasma—something I never thought I’d say.
Here’s a quick overview of three criminally underrated Linux Mint features that have completely changed my opinion of the distribution.
I’m specifically talking about Linux Mint’s Cinnamon edition, which is the distro’s flagship version. These features are Cinnamon-exclusive and don’t apply to the Xfce or MATE editions.
If you poke around Cinnamon’s settings, you might’ve noticed there’s a feature called “Actions” tucked away in the Control Center. Open it, and you’ll see a list of options like “Converting Image Format” or “Copying Name to Clipboard.” Unfortunately, there are no tooltips or context about what these features actually do. After researching online, I learned that these add new options to the right-click context menu. However, when I enabled some of these options, nothing appeared. I eventually brushed it off as a buggy feature and moved on.
Turns out, I was wrong. These actions require certain dependencies to be installed before they work—and enabling an action doesn’t automatically install those dependencies. You can check what’s needed by heading to the Cinnamon Spices website and navigating to the Actions tab. For example, “Convert Image Format” needs ImageMagick installed, and “Copying Name to Clipboard” requires xclip. Once I installed the dependencies, the Actions appeared exactly as promised.
But here’s where it gets really powerful—you can define your own custom actions. Head to ~/.local/share/nemo/actions/ and create your own “.nemo_action” files. You can write Bash scripts and set them up as right-click menu entries—letting you automate file operations, run custom workflows, or trigger specific commands with a single click. You can check out this three-minute YouTube video to get a clear idea of how it works:
You can map touch gestures to terminal commands
Cinnamon lets you map touchpad and touchscreen gestures to terminal commands—meaning you can trigger Bash scripts, launch apps in specific configurations, or automate workflows with simple swipes and pinches. Out of the box, Cinnamon assigns sensible defaults, like switching workspaces with three-finger swipes, but the real power comes when you start customizing.
For instance, I’ve configured four-finger pinch gestures to zoom in and out on the desktop—perfect for when I need a quick magnifier. I’ve also mapped a four-finger swipe right to launch Nemo tiled to the left edge using a custom terminal command. What makes this especially compelling is that gestures work for both touchpads and touchscreens.
This is one of the reasons I now consider Linux Mint among the best distros for laptops. You’re getting rock-solid hardware support thanks to Ubuntu’s stable base, combined with what might be the most advanced gesture system on Linux. If you’re someone who prefers navigating with your touchpad over typing keyboard shortcuts constantly, Cinnamon’s default gesture implementation is unmatched—even better than what GNOME or KDE Plasma currently offer.
I Finally Bought a Linux Laptop, Here’s What I Chose and Why
It was inevitable.
It’s almost as customizable as KDE Plasma
When I first tried Cinnamon, I checked the Themes section and found just three default themes with some accent color options. Sure, there were “advanced options,” but nothing substantial—no clear way to download themes, no obvious graphical tools. Coming from KDE Plasma, this felt incredibly limiting.
However, now I know that Cinnamon can use any GNOME theme because it’s built on the GTK framework. Suddenly, the massive library of GTK themes available on sites like GNOME-Look became accessible. You can download GTK themes, extract them to ~/.themes/, and apply them through Cinnamon’s settings—and they work beautifully. There are also dozens of themes on the Cinnamon Spices website worth looking into.
After learning about this, I customized Cinnamon to look like macOS, and it looks absolutely amazing.
Linux Mint deserves more credit than its beginner-friendly reputation suggests. These three features prove Cinnamon offers genuine power-user functionality that rivals any desktop environment. If you’ve been dismissing Mint like I did, give it another look—you might find your forever distro where you least expected.
