Things To Do After Installing Linux Mint 20

Linux Mint is easily one of the best Linux distributions out there and especially considering the features of Linux Mint 20, I’m sure you will agree with that.

In case you missed our coverage, Linux Mint 20 is finally available to download.

Of course, if you’ve been using Linux Mint for a while, you probably know what’s best for you. But, for new users, there are a few things that you need to do after installing Linux Mint 20 to make your experience better than ever.

Recommended things to do after installing Linux Mint 20

In this article, I’m going to list some of them for to help you improve your Linux Mint 20 experience.

1. Perform a System Update

The first thing you should check right after installation is — system updates using the update manager as shown in the image above.

Why? Because you need to build the local cache of available software. It is also a good idea to update all the software updates.

If you prefer to use the terminal, simply type the following command to perform a system update:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

2. Use Timeshift to Create System Snapshots

It’s always useful have system snapshots if you want to quickly restore your system state after an accidental change or maybe after a bad update.

Hence, it’s super important to configure and create system snapshots using Timeshift if you want the ability to have a backup of your system state from time to time.

You can follow our detailed guide on using Timeshift, if you didn’t know already.

3. Install Codecs

To make sure that you don’t have issues with playing a MP4 video file or any other file formats of media, you might want to install the media codecs to make sure that most of the media file formats work on your system.

You can just search for “mint-meta-codecs” on your software center or simply type in the following command in the terminal to install it:

sudo apt install mint-meta-codecs

4. Install Useful Software

Even though you have a bunch of useful pre-installed applications on Linux Mint 20, you probably need to install some essential apps that do not come baked in.

You can simply utilize the software manager or the synaptic package manager to find and install software that you need.

For starters, you can follow our list of essential Linux apps if you want to explore a variety of tools.

Here’s a list of my favorite software that I’d want you to try:

VLC media player for video
FreeFileSync to sync files
Flameshot for screenshots
Stacer to optimize and monitor system
ActivityWatch to track your screen time and stay productive

5. Customize the Themes and Icons

Of course, this isn’t something technically essential unless you want to change the look and feel of Linux Mint 20.

But, it’s very easy to change the theme and icons in Linux Mint 20 without installing anything extra.

You get the option to customize the look in the welcome screen itself. In either case, you just need to head on to “Themes” and start customizing.