content: I haven't had any catstrophic issues, but Mint does come with its share of minor problems, many of which you mention: file transfer problems when crossing NTFS thresholds, WIFI hiccups when coming out of sleep mode, compatibility problems with ATI/AMD or Optimus-based cards (though this has improved dramatically very recently), etc. But most of them can be fixed with very little effort, or have already been addressed via various software patches.  As for its popularity, I can only speculate that it's due to the underlying Ubuntu base, and that system's own popularity. Arch has always been somewhat of a niche community, whereas Ubuntu has been running a "user friendly" PR campaign for a decade, now -- and here comes Mint, promising to be everything Ubuntu is, only better, without all the spyware crap they introduced in Unity. Just my two coppers.