Nice username, lol.
Agreed, I wasn’t even looking for the Win 7 experience, I was just still getting the hang of Linux and Mint was repeatedly recommended everywhere I looked. At this point I’m just comfortable with Mint and so I stick with it, and since I value reliability of cutting edge, it gives me what I need in a computer.
Coming up on 10 years since I switched from windows to Linux. I tried Ubuntu and absolutely hated it, so much so that I switched back to windows at first. But I kept reading and tried ZorinOS, and that got me comfortable with Linux, it was a little buggy but I could understand it.
After a few months with ZorinOS I switched to Linux Mint and have been running Mint for 9 years. Recently my 76 year old mother who has trouble with some basic computer stuff said she’d like to try Linux and asked me to help her, I made a live USB of Mint for her to try and she told me “I can understand this, it’s like windows 7!”. If she can get Mint, I feel totally confident recommending it to new users.
Yep, I ran Mint on a system 76 laptop for 8 years. Just retired it because the hardware is starting to give out, the OS is still running strong.