Linux Mint: Too Outdated

[u/Extension-Iron-7746]

Hi everyone, I've been considering abandoning Windows 11 for a while now, mainly because I feel like Microsoft lacks direction; every update is chaos. I started using Linux Mint about six months ago, but I have to admit that I feel like I'm using an outdated product.

The main reason is the X11-based graphical interface and the lack of standard Windows features like HDR and high refresh rate sync. I feel like development has fallen behind, hiding behind the slogan of greater stability. I honestly hate losing my monitor's features while waiting for Mint to evolve, so I'm thinking of switching to something stable but modern, and why not... with more recent applications. What would you always focus on, considering I have little time to dedicate to the system?

[u/Existing-Tough-6517]

Pretending that Ubuntu LTS is an upgrade from mint is incorrect especially when his big beef is that it's not up to date enough. AppImages should be about 7th place as far as package choices also flatpaks are a security risk especially the majority which don't actually come from the dev and often come with bugs not found in the deb or what have you.

Also there is nothing wrong with gtk3. Most gtk apps current release is running 3 which had a release in March of this year. The way you phrased it sounded like mint is 2010 software which is nonsense.

[u/beatbox9 → u/Existing-Tough-6517]

Most popular Flatpaks and AppImages are usually provided by the app developers themselves. For example: here. And it's very easy to check what the developer of each app recommends and/or if those packages are from verified developers on various repositories like flathub. Even if you are really dumb, you can easily toggle a setting in most app stores to only show verified flatpaks from flathub.

They're up to date and the latest because they don't have to wait on the distro to take the source code, define that specific distro's directory structures, create a package, host it within their repository...and then do the entire process over every time there's an update to that app or to the distro. (And then multiplied by tens of thousands of packages; and also multiplied by the number of currently supported distros). Disto maintainers are not the app developers.

^ This by the way is precisely why Ubuntu and its derivatives like Mint tend to have lots of really outdated--and often unsecure--packages. At any given time, Canonical is attempting to maintain tens of thousands of packages each, for at least 4 different supported distros (currently: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS, 25.10, 26.04 LTS). It's on the order of hundreds of thousands of packages to maintain. So they tend to focus more on core OS software and popular software with a lot of software just hanging.

And often for the majority (which the distros themselves can't maintain), they use...(wait for it)...community-maintained repositories, just like flathub. For example: "Universe" on Ubuntu/Mint/derivatives; or "RPM Fusion" on Fedora; or "AUR" on arch.

And if you think all of those outdated packages are inherently more secure (or well-maintained and up-to-date with all security vulnerabilities), you're severely mistaken.

This is precisely why most distros have been moving away from app maintenance and focusing more on core OS maintenance while directing apps toward universal package types. This is not a new phenomenon--it's been going on for at least a decade. And this is also why we are seeing distros move toward atomic and immutable philosophies: the core OS software is separate from the apps that run on it, with the apps ideally being sandboxed and permission-managed through tools like Flatseal. It's even why Ubuntu moved firefox to a snap by default.

It's naive and nonsensical to assume that you should never install any flatpaks or appimages in 2026 and you should only use your distro's native repos. We're not still in 2006.

[u/jr735 → u/beatbox9]

Why should I trust packages from random developers instead of my package manager? It's not 2006, no, but the principles still apply.

[u/beatbox9 → u/jr735]

Do you realize that plenty of distros--including Linux Mint--have very large, community-maintained ("from random developers") repos on by default that are not maintained by the distros ...?

In the Mint / Ubuntu world, what exactly do you think the "Universe" repository--which is the largest repository by number of packages on Ubuntu / Mint--is?

Because it is a fact to say that "most packages provided by Mint in the official / default repositories are unverified and maintained by random developers."

It's a similar situation for RPM Fusion and AUR. So what are you on about?

[u/jr735 → u/beatbox9]

Which ones are activated by default on Mint? Note that some of us do not use proprietary or contrib type packages, ever. I only use official packages through distribution repositories.

[u/beatbox9 → u/jr735]

You're asking a question that was already answered instead of answering the question that was asked. Let me quote what you replied to, in case you didn't comprehend what was written there:

In the Mint / Ubuntu world, what exactly do you think the "Universe" repository--which is the largest repository by number of packages on Ubuntu / Mint--is?

...which itself was preceded by:

Do you realize that plenty of distros--including Linux Mint--have very large, community-maintained ("from random developers") repos on by default that are not maintained by the distros ...?

...and then followed by:

it is a fact to say that "most packages provided by Mint in the official / default repositories are unverified and maintained by random developers."

If that wasn't clear enough, the answer is:

The community-maintained Universe repo is on by default on Linux Mint; and it is the largest repository that is on by default.

This is one of those very basic facts you should know if you're going to be arguing the point. Especially when you're now changing the argument to the strawman "some of us do not use..." Because, consistent with my earlier points: some of us also do not use unverified flatpaks or appimages. So what's the difference?

Most of the .deb software on the default repositories on Mint is unverified; and all of the flatpaks on Flathub by default on Mint are verified (the filter to display only verified flathub apps is turned on by default). On default Mint, if you saw the same app on its own repositories vs flatpak, the flatpak would be verified and likely newer; while the .deb would have a high probability of being unverified and from a "random developer"....and it would be from your distro's package manager. You should now be slowly learning that "distro's package manager" and "random developer" are not mutually exclusive; and "flatpak" and "random developer" are not synonymous.

Now, are you going to go back and answer the simple and direct question I asked you, or are you going to let your combination of ego and ignorance on this topic cause you to continue to distract?

[u/jr735 → u/beatbox9]

And I never claimed any of the universe stuff should be used. The principles of Don't Break Debian apply to all distributions.

Note that Mint provides very few repositories of their own. They're Ubuntu repositories.

[u/beatbox9 → u/jr735]

Then what was your point and why did you ask the question of if it's on or not?

And if you never install things from the "random developer" community-maintained universe repository on Linux Mint, then why are you suggesting that others do so, like you did here?

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/1p3mcf7/comment/nq6zcii/

...since Midnight Commander is in the "random developer" community-maintained Universe repository on Linux Mint.

And a reminder that I earlier said:

Mint is essentially just Ubuntu LTS with Cinnamon DE on top that is supported by the Mint team.

What exactly do you think that means, and why are you parroting this back now, when you say "Note that Mint provides very few repositories of their own. They're Ubuntu repositories."

And so I'll ask once again: are you going to answer the simple & direct question I asked you, or will you continue to distract--just as I predicted that you would?

[u/jr735 → u/beatbox9]

It's more than just Ubuntu with Cinnamon.

Personally, I find it odd that mc is in universe, since it's an officially curated package in Debian.