The last time I tried a Samsung phone I returned it the same day I got it. The competing OS elements from Samsung’s ROM and the standard Android UI were really really off-putting to me. I can get an app having a unique style, but this was different OS elements looking and working differently.

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Cinnamon has an official Ubuntu flavor now. I would recommend that over Mint, since mint is LTS-only. You can also do KDE-Plasma, but my personal preference is Cinnamon.