Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu or Debian.
Linux Mint comes bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications and can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to include some proprietary software, such as multimedia codecs.
The project is being actively developed by the Linux Mint Team and community.
Linux Mint was based on Ubuntu using its package repositories and using it as a codebase.
From there, Linux Mint followed its own codebase, building each release from its previous one, but continued to use the package repositories from the latest Ubuntu release. This resulted in making the base between the two systems almost identical, guaranteeing full compatibility between the two distributions rather than having Mint become a fork.
As of Linux Mint 13, there are two main editions of Linux Mint
developed by the core development team and using Ubuntu as a base.
One includes Linux Mint's own Cinnamon as the desktop environment while the other uses MATE.
Linux Mint also develops an additional version that features the Xfce desktop environment by default
but has generally had secondary priority and is usually released somewhat later than the two main editions.
Linux Mint is a helpful first step to understanding Linux or as a simple free operating system.
The guides and tutorials cover nearly every element of the build and the active community is always willing to help.