I have learned a lot from looking at other people’s working hardware and software, and I wish I’d started recording mine years ago. However, in the spirit of “the second best time to plant a tree…” this is my current hardware and software stack as of June 2026.

TL;DR: Long time Windows user trying an alternative to Windows 10 on hardware that Windows 11 won’t support. Part 1 covered why and how the install was done and Mint tweaks on initial load. This post looks at initial impressions, basic software replacements, lessons learnt and next steps.

Initial impressions

Coming from Windows, booting into a desktop that looked at least familiar was a big plus. With a little bit of fiddling, all of my existing hardware was working and I could use all 3 screens including the laptop one which no longer needed a microscope to read. I had customised the wallpaper and that was about it. Now it was time to try to get to work.

I am probably over the top in wanting to keep a close eye on our finances. They are slightly more complex than the norm as I follow a modified version of the barefoot investor “buckets” system, we have a hobby business, and a loan to a family member that we are tracking. Until recently this was managed through separate spreadsheets. This was OK, but when we needed to find out our annual expenditure for pension forecasting, getting to the number was time-consuming. We are moving into retirement now and may need to look more closely at expenditure in various areas. I wanted a better way to look at this.

Why have a daily note?

I wanted to have a place where I could plan and track what I was doing through the day. I’ve experimented with kanban boards, pomodoro, Eisenhower matrix, and various other productivity techniques. The approach that has worked best for me was timeboxing. When I was working, I’d use the daily note to timebox my day and follow progress in the right hand sidebar with the Day Planner plug in. I have recently retired and am not currently timeboxing. I still have appointments and tasks that I need to do, and the existing format still works for me even though my day is not as structured as it was.

TL;DR: Long time Windows user trying an alternative to Windows 10 on hardware that Windows 11 won’t support. Part 1 covers why and how the install was done and Mint tweaks on initial load. Further posts will look at alternatives to Windows programs used and other challenges encountered.

Background

I started my PC journey with an early IBM PC and DOS on the command line way back when PCs were first a thing. I looked at Windows 2 and deleted it in horror, was sucked into Windows 3.1.1 with a corporate job, and apart from a brief affair with OS/2 Warp I have stuck with Windows through its various incarnations (apart from Vista, obviously 😱).