Your Old PC Isn't Dead. It's Just Running Windows.
A practical, no-jargon walkthrough for switching an old or slow Windows PC to Linux Mint Cinnamon: what it actually costs, what breaks, and how to do it without losing anything.
Tired of Windows bloat and constant reboots? Or maybe there's a laptop in a closet somewhere, or an old desktop tower under a spare room desk, that hasn't been turned on in a year because it got too slow to bother with. Before it goes in the trash or sits there collecting dust for another year, it's worth fifteen minutes to consider the third option: Linux Mint.
This isn't a pitch to abandon Windows on your main machine tomorrow. It's a practical look at what switching actually involves, what you get out of it, and how to do it on hardware that's currently doing nothing for anyone.
Why bother
Cinnamon, the default desktop in Linux Mint, looks and works close enough to Windows that most people find their way around it in an afternoon: a bottom taskbar, a Start-style menu, a system tray. The differences show up in how the machine performs, not in how it looks.
It's lighter. A clean Mint Cinnamon install typically idles around 800–900 MB of RAM. Windows 11 idles several times higher than that before you've opened anything. On hardware from 2015–2019 that struggles to open a browser under Windows 11, that difference is the whole ballgame. The machine goes from unusable to genuinely fine for email, browsing, documents, and video.
It boots fast and stays fast. Under 15 seconds from power-on to desktop on an SSD is normal. And unlike Windows, it doesn't accumulate the slow creep of background processes and forced updates that make a three-year-old install feel worse than day one.
No forced reboots, no surprise UI overhauls. Updates happen through an Update Manager you control. Nothing reboots your machine in the middle of something because a patch decided it needed to. Mint also doesn't ship the ad modules, telemetry, or bundled AI features that Windows 11 has been adding. Nothing phones home unless you deliberately run the built-in System Reports tool yourself.
It doesn't rot. Mint Cinnamon is built on Ubuntu LTS, and updates are tested before they roll out rather than pushed immediately. Timeshift, which comes preinstalled, takes automatic snapshots of your system so a bad update or a change you regret is a few clicks from being undone. People running Mint on the same install for years without a reinstall is common, not exceptional.
None of this requires premium hardware. The free version of Windows 11 needs 4 GB of RAM and a TPM chip to even install. Mint asks for 2 GB of RAM and 20 GB of disk space, full stop. That's exactly why it's the right answer for hardware Windows has already given up on.
Before you touch anything: check the hardware
Most machines that ran Windows 10 or 11 will run Mint Cinnamon comfortably. The official minimums:
- 64-bit processor (true of essentially every PC built since 2010)
- 2 GB RAM (4 GB or more for a comfortable everyday experience)
- 20 GB free disk space (50–100 GB gives you room to breathe)
- 1024×768 display or better
You can check your specs in Windows under Settings → System → About. Wi-Fi, printers, and onboard graphics almost always work without extra effort. The one hardware category that sometimes needs a manual step is NVIDIA graphics cards. Mint's built-in Driver Manager handles installing the proprietary driver after setup; it just isn't automatic on first boot the way Intel and AMD graphics are.
If your hardware is genuinely new (something from the last year or so), look for the Edge edition on the download page instead of the standard ISO. It ships a newer kernel with better support for recent chipsets and Wi-Fi cards.
Back up first, no exceptions
If the plan is to replace Windows outright, or even to dual-boot, back up anything you care about before doing anything else. Documents, photos, downloads, browser bookmarks, project files: copy them to an external drive, a USB stick, or a cloud account you already use (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox). Confirm the backup actually opens before you move on. This is the one step in this whole process where skipping it can cost you something permanent.
Download and create the installer
- Go to linuxmint.com/download.php and choose the Cinnamon edition. The current release line is the 22.x series, based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and supported with updates through 2029.
- Download the ISO (roughly 3 GB). The download page includes checksum values if you want to verify the file wasn't corrupted in transit (optional, but worth doing if you have the extra five minutes).
- Write the ISO to a USB drive (8 GB or larger; it will be erased) using a free tool:
- Rufus (Windows only, the most common choice)
- balenaEtcher (works from Windows, Mac, or Linux)
- Ventoy (a good option if you expect to boot multiple ISOs from the same drive over time)
Installing it
Restart the computer and boot from the USB. The exact key varies by manufacturer, but it's usually F12, F10, Esc, or Del pressed right at power-on to bring up a boot menu.
This drops you into a live session: Mint running entirely from the USB, nothing on the hard drive touched yet. Poke around, connect to Wi-Fi, make sure things look right. When ready, double-click Install Linux Mint on the desktop and work through the prompts:
- Language and keyboard layout
- Internet connection (recommended, so updates and codecs install alongside the OS)
- Check the box for multimedia codecs and third-party software
- Installation type:
- Erase disk and install Linux Mint: replaces Windows completely
- Install alongside Windows: dual-boot, choose at startup which one to load
- Manual partitioning, for anyone who already knows they want it
- Timezone, username, and password
The whole thing usually runs 10–20 minutes. Restart when prompted, pull the USB, and you're in.
First things to do after that first boot: open Update Manager and apply everything, then check Driver Manager for any proprietary drivers it's recommending. This is where an NVIDIA card, if you have one, gets its real driver installed.
What replaces what
This is usually the part people worry about most, and it's the part that matters least once you've actually sat down and used it for a day. Nearly everything below installs free, in one click, from the built-in Software Manager.
| Windows app | Mint equivalent | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Office | LibreOffice or OnlyOffice | Opens and saves .docx / .xlsx cleanly |
| Outlook | Thunderbird | Mail, calendar, contacts |
| Photoshop | GIMP | Steeper learning curve, but capable |
| Illustrator | Inkscape | Vector graphics |
| Windows Media Player | VLC | Plays nearly anything you throw at it |
| Notepad / Notepad++ | Xed (preinstalled) or VS Code | Xed for quick edits, VS Code for real work |
| File Explorer | Nemo (preinstalled) | Same idea, different name |
| Paint | Pinta | Simple raster editing |
| WinRAR / 7-Zip | Archive Manager or PeaZip | Handles .zip, .rar, .7z, etc. |
| Chrome / Edge | Firefox (preinstalled), or Chrome | Chrome installs fine if you'd rather keep it |
Gaming deserves its own line: Steam runs natively on Mint, and Proton (the compatibility layer bundled with it) handles a large share of the Windows game library without any extra setup. For the handful of Windows-only programs with no real Linux alternative, Bottles or Wine can sometimes run them, but that's a last resort, not the plan.
Making it feel like yours
Right-click the desktop or the panel to get to Themes, applets, and layout options: nearly everything visual is adjustable through a graphical menu, no config files involved. A few worth knowing about from day one:
- Timeshift (preinstalled): snapshot your system before any change you're unsure about
- Synaptic Package Manager: more control over installed software than the standard Software Manager, if you want it
- BleachBit: optional cleanup tool for temp files and cache
- KDE Connect: a Spices applet that gives you phone notifications, file transfer, and clipboard sync with an Android phone, roughly what Phone Link does on Windows
The Welcome Screen that opens after your first login has guided links into most of this, and the Linux Mint forums are active and genuinely helpful if something doesn't behave as expected.
The honest bottom line
Most people are doing everyday computing comfortably within a day or two. If full commitment feels like too much right away, dual-boot first: keep Windows as a safety net, boot into Mint when you want, and make the switch permanent once it's clear you don't miss anything. For an old laptop that's currently doing nothing, there's no real downside to trying it: the worst case is you learn it's not for you and the machine is exactly as unused as it was before.
For a small business, this isn't just a personal-computer trick: it's a way to get another year or two out of a backup machine, a point-of-sale terminal, or a spare workstation without spending on new hardware. If you've got old equipment sitting around and aren't sure whether it's worth reviving or replacing, reach out. Happy to give you a straight answer either way.
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Most of what I write about comes from real conversations with small business owners. If something here connects to what you are working through, let's talk.