With the poor reception of Ubuntu 11's "Unity" desktop, many Linux users have swiched to the increasingly popular Mint Linux distribution. Mint focus on usability by providing a more familiar environment and bundling a number of commonly used non-open source software packages.

The default Mint 11 Desktop.

The Mint desktop is a customized version of the Gnome 2 desktop. At a glance, the desktop appears similar to Windows with a "start" menu, a task bar, and file icons on the desktop.

Pleasantly, it defaults to the correct date format, something a lot of Linux distros get wrong.

The menu is split in to two sections.

The left column contains "Places" and "System" items, similar to those found in the Gnome 2 "Places" and "System" menus.

The right columns contain a list of installed applications. By default, it shows a list of "favorite" applications using large icons. Clicking on the "All Applications" button displays all installed applications, grouped in to common categories.

The search bar at the bottom enables searching through all of the applications by typing part of the application name.

It is a little awkward repeatedly moving the mouse over the "Places" and "System" column and then selecting "All Applications", as most of what I want to do involves randomly accessing applications that are not all listed in the "favorites".

Like most Gnome based desktops, files are managed through the Nautilus File manager.

Mint has a unique software manager with its own software repository. Like most Linux software package managers, you simply select an available program and it installs it from the Internet.

The Mint Control Panel organizes available settings in to a simple list of control panel applet icons.