Hi, my name is Bay Ahmed, the man behind baytecka.com, and as you may notice, I stopped writing articles on my website for a long time.
Not because I ran out of topics, and not because I lost interest in tech news and innovations. I simply stopped, the way people stop going to the gym or stop calling an old friend — gradually, then completely.
My decision to stop writing wasn't random. I paused new articles to take a software engineering course — I wanted to bring my readers something more than tech news, maybe a program or a service that actually solved a problem for them. I enrolled in an ALX online course meant to last one year, planning to keep half an eye on tech news and post occasionally when I could.
Three months in, the pace outran me. I deferred twice, then the program itself was discontinued — and I was left with neither real progress in the course (I had stalled on C) nor a habit of writing. What followed was over a year of frustration and low motivation. I would often start an article draft, only to leave it unfinished for days or weeks until the content became outdated, at which point I would abandon it entirely.
This time, I decided to start from the one thing that had quietly sabotaged every previous attempt: the machine I write on. This article is about the first decision I made when I chose to start writing again: which operating system I would work on
That may sound like a small thing. For me it was not. Choosing a system is where I have derailed myself before. I have known Linux for about fifteen years, and in that time I have installed, configured, broken, and reinstalled more distributions than I can accurately count, and moved back and forth between Linux and Windows depending on the task. Each time, the setup became the project. The articles never followed.
So this time I made the decision quickly and deliberately: Linux Mint Cinnamon will be my main system for writing, programming, and everyday work, with Windows running in a virtual machine when I need it for tutorials.
This article explains why I chose Mint, what I intend to build on it, and — just as importantly — what I have decided not to do.
Why I chose Linux Mint Cinnamon
The honest answer is not that Linux Mint is the best distribution. It is that Mint is the distribution least likely to distract me from the actual work. It's based on the Ubuntu LTS base making it a rock solid and very stable distro,and comes with the cinnamon desktop environment, clean by design and powerful when needed.
I did not seriously consider a distribution that expects me to build and maintain it like Arch Linux or arch based distros. There is real value in that kind of system, and I have learned a great deal from it in the past. But learning by maintenance is a full-time hobby, and I already have one goal that needs my attention. If I have to choose between understanding my init system deeply and publishing an article this month, I am choosing the article.
On the other hand, Fedora was the most tempting alternative. It ships recent software, it is close to where Linux is actually heading, and writing about Flatpak, SELinux, and Wayland from daily use would give me genuinely current material for Baytecka.
I did not choose it for two reasons. The first is the hardware: my machine is an HP EliteDesk 800 G2 SFF business desktop with an intel i5-6500 CPU and integrated graphics, and I want a system that asks nothing unusual of it. The second is the release cadence. Fedora moves quickly, and moving quickly means it sometimes introduces big changes to software I use every six months, and I don't want to occasionally lose an evening to something that broke.
I know myself well enough to know what an unplanned evening of troubleshooting does to a writing habit that is only a few weeks old.
I may still install Fedora into a virtual machine. I want to write about it. I just do not want to depend on it yet.
Ubuntu LTS was the closer call, and for a while it was my default answer. It is stable, it is documented better than almost anything else, and every problem I am likely to hit has already been solved in public by someone else.
What decided it against Ubuntu was smaller and more personal: the desktop, Canonical pushes some heavy-handed changes with every release transforming Ubuntu to a Snap-only distro. I don't actually have any issue with snaps, they are good and reliable even not fast, but I just don't want the company behind my main OS to decide what I should choose or use. If an app works well as a standard DEB package, why change it to a snap package that downloads from a closed source proprietary store.
I am coming from Windows 11, I want to be free and productive on day one, and I don't want to spend my first week debloating a system to undo what the company behind it forces me to use.
This matters less than the internet suggests. Mint is built on the same Ubuntu base, which means Ubuntu's documentation, packages, and answers apply to me anyway. I get the ecosystem without the interface adjustment.
So Linux Mint wins by subtraction. It gives me a desktop I do not have to think about, a base with fifteen years of accumulated answers behind it, and an update model that does not surprise me. It is not exciting. That is the point.
The best thing I can say about Linux Mint is that I expect to forget it is there. After fifteen years of noticing my operating system, that sounds like progress.
The computer I am using
My workstation as I said before, is an HP EliteDesk 800 G2 SFF with the following specifications:
| Component | Specification |
|---|---|
| Computer | HP EliteDesk 800 G2 SFF |
| Memory | 16 GB DDR4 RAM |
| Storage | 500 GB Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD |
| CPU | Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 530 |
This is not a modern high-end computer, but it is more than capable of handling my current needs. The SSD should make the desktop responsive, while 16 GB of RAM gives me enough room for a browser, writing applications, recording the screen and doing some basic video editing, and a virtual machine with moderate settings. For the work I am describing in this article, nothing more is required.
I am also writing this on purpose from older hardware. A large number of people reading a Linux blog are running exactly this kind of machine — a refurbished office desktop bought for very little money, kept alive because there is no good reason to replace it. If Mint works well here, that result is more useful to those readers than another review written on a new laptop.
Using Windows inside a virtual machine
Although Linux will become my main operating system, Windows will remain part of my workflow.
I want to use a Windows virtual machine for testing tutorials, checking Windows settings, and preparing screenshots for articles. This approach should make it easier to switch between systems without rebooting the computer every time I need to verify a Windows instruction.
Because the computer has 16 GB of RAM, I will start with moderate virtual machine settings rather than allocating too many resources. A reasonable starting configuration is:
| Setting | Starting value |
|---|---|
| Memory | 8 GB RAM |
| CPU | 2 virtual cores |
| Storage | Around 100 GB, dynamically allocated |
| Network | NAT for normal internet access |
| Display | Standard virtual display for desktop tutorials |
The virtual machine will be used mainly for desktop applications, system settings, screenshots, and instructional testing. I do not expect it to replace a physical Windows installation for gaming ( I use Steam on Linux for gaming, so that's covered), heavy video editing, or demanding graphics work.
Before making significant changes inside Windows, I can create a virtual machine snapshot. This will allow me to return to a known state after testing software or changing system settings. Snapshots are useful for experiments, but they are not a substitute for a real backup.
I will use VirtualBox to run Windows 11 inside my main Mint OS, as it provides a more nice GUI and an easy to use interface. In the time of writing this article, there is an issue on mint that prevent VirtualBox from being installed correctly, so I had to use the instructions from the official VirtualBox website to install it.
Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list ( don't replace debian with ubuntu , or you will get an error when updating repositories).
deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/oracle-virtualbox-2016.gpg] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian noble contrib
Then add Oracle public key for verifying the packages signatures:
wget -O- https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc | sudo gpg --yes --output /usr/share/keyrings/oracle-virtualbox-2016.gpg --dearmor
To install VirtualBox, I did:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install virtualbox-7.2
What I want to learn and document
This new setup will support several connected areas of learning and writing.
First, I want to document Linux Mint itself: installation, updates, useful settings, software management, backups, and troubleshooting. These articles will be based on actual use rather than generic lists of commands.
Second, I want to explore programming through small, practical projects. I have started the CS50x course for that.
Finally, I want to continue writing about Windows, Android, iOS/ macOS, and Linux news and applications, and productivity tools when those topics are relevant. Using multiple operating systems gives me a useful perspective because I can compare workflows instead of discussing only one platform.
What I will not do this time
I do not want to spend weeks switching between distributions in search of a perfect system. I also do not want to install dozens of applications before I have a real need for them.
I will not measure the success of this setup only by benchmark scores, desktop customization, or the number of packages installed. A successful workstation is one that helps me write, learn, test, and publish consistently.
I also want to avoid turning every article into a race for search traffic. Search optimization is useful, but it should support helpful content rather than replace it. The best articles I can write will be based on real problems, clear explanations, and practical testing.
And I am not going to wait until I feel motivated as well, that was the mistake that cost me the last few years. I kept waiting for the enthusiasm to come back first, as if it were a prerequisite. It is not. The writing comes first, badly and briefly if necessary, and whatever motivation is still available shows up somewhere after that. This article is proof of the method rather than the result: I did not want to write it either.
Final thoughts
Linux Mint Cinnamon gives me a base I do not have to argue with. Windows in a virtual machine keeps my Windows tutorials possible. The rest is repetition.
This is not a dramatic restart. It is a practical one. One computer, one operating system, one virtual machine, and one article at a time.
If you are reading this because you also stopped doing something you used to care about, the distribution is not the part that matters. Pick the boring option, finish the setup in an afternoon, and go make the first bad thing.
