Could be hardware (chips desoldering themselves, data cable shorting out when heating up, broken RAM), could be software (driver issue, IOMMU configuration, etc).
I would start with testing the memory chips. If those pass, I’d try a much newer/older kernel to see if that makes the problem disappear. If that doesn’t, maybe try running the OS that came with the laptop and verify that it’s a hardware issue. If it doesn’t happen on another OS, it’s probably some form. Of software issue; in that case you’d need to catch the crash somehow, like by plugging a USB-to-serial converter into a USB port, dumping the kernel output to that, and having a second machine monitor the kernel output while you try to trigger the crash.
If all operating systems have the issue, reseating RAM and perhaps any important cables may also help.
The tricky point to your needs is getting the app’s menu bar in the top bar. The rest are easy to do with almost all desktop environments. But getting the menu bar on the top bar, I think currently only KDE supports it (with a plugin), and MATE (with another plugin).
However, if you want the general feel of how MacOS 9/X feels, then Gnome with extensions would be your best bet. The rest feel more like simpler Windows, but in a mac skin. Gnome+extensions feel more accurately like a Mac, in terms of overall usability (even if the looks aren’t 100% there). So it depends what you’re after more: the feeling of using a mac, or the exact looks of it.
kinfocenter is an application in Plasma where you can see all kinds of information about your system. So no, they are not just adding k to random words like quantum in Ant-man. :)
KDE was originally called “Kool Desktop Environment” until they renamed it, first to “K Desktop Environment” then to just “KDE”.
It was the first Linux desktop environment that tried to make all its apps look consistent. Before KDE, Linux UI apps were very inconsistent, each one using whatever UI toolkit it wanted. They likely named all of them with a K to make the naming somewhat consistent too.
Gtk was released two years later, originally only used in GIMP (Gtk originally stood for for “GIMP ToolKit”) and it took a while for other desktop environments to have a consistent look and feel like KDE did.
This is part of the motherboard and can only be changed with specific tools from the manufacturer. Back in the days there was AMIDEDOS as a dos tool to change it in AMI Bios. You would need to find out, what tool can be used to change it in your UEFI. However, it’s possible that those tools are not available to the public.
@vaionko I’ve found this (scroll down to #5 if it won’t scroll automatically). It shows some tools that can be used to change DMI information for different Manufacturers.
You might be able to flash the retail BIOS to remove the OEM stuff, but often if it’s running a specific OEM BIOS it’ll block you from flashing a retail version.
Mint is actually really good about not having weird dependency chains, and even if it did uninstalling apps would warn you about it. That is a very strange thing for people to have said. It is perfectly normal and good to have some things you don’t want or prefer an alternative to and uninstall them. Default Mint is a great sane starting point for a complete OS, and I think their updater is the best in the entire Linux world, but it’s still Linux. You can still customize it to your heart’s content. Anyone who says otherwise is just being a creep.
There are a lot of linux people out there who are…very odd. I ran into a bunch who laughed at the thought of a gui terminal server - something i’ve been working with professionally for over two decades. Some really don’t understand jack nor shit and just parrot half-truths and poor knowledge like it’s gospel. “Don’t uninstall apps, you’ll break shit!!” No, uninstalling apps improperly breaks shit…
/rant
(Btw if i see one more person wail about how terrifying it is to run DD ima choke a bitch…)
One of my big Wayland gripes is how hard it is to set up a terminal server. AFAIK the most recent gnome is the only thing that can do it and it’s session doesn’t persist over disconnects.
I actually had pretty good success using the ol’ RDP hack, both in mint and ubuntu. This is a fun guide once you get past the raging unearned elitsm “apparently this is a thing” yeah no shit idiot I used to run it on friggin’ NT
The caveat being it is sharing the local console and the session needs to be logged in on the local console first, literal screen sharing. The most recent Gnome can create a new virtual session but it is not persistent, if your network hiccups you must log in again and it is a brand new blank slate. They are getting closer though.
I ran into a bunch who laughed at the thought of a gui terminal server
I just don’t understand the terminal gatekeepers. Isn’t it nice to have GUI, you don’t have to remember endless number of commands, right?
If you don’t want GUI, then just use terminal.
Personally, I’m not afraid of terminal or anything, it may be even the faster way of doing things. But I like GUI, where every option is just laid out for you.
The most ridiculous thing was i clearly explained this was for users on a closed network to have a machine they coukd rdp to for email and browsing. I mean yeah you can totally access your mail via terminal but there’s a reason I haven’t done that outside postfix checks since 1997
And boy do those people get pissed off when you don’t just accept their “expert” advice even though they are telling you to do the ONE thing they were requested NOT to suggest (I had actually already tried most of what they had suggested anyway).
Those applications uninstalled just fine without any dependency issues last time I tried Mint.
If you’re unsure, make a snapshot of your current VM state (if your VM software supports it). Then just uninstall the junk you don’t need until Mint breaks. Restore snapshot, test some more, and so on. Those on real hardware should use Timeshift to create snapshots.
Tip: Run sudo apt autoremove package in the terminal so you can see which dependencies that are removed.
Worth mentioning that apt generally asks if you want to continue after listing what it's going to remove so this ought to be safe to do, because you can always say no.
Caveat: It's vaguely possible ultra-rare configurations might blast through without asking. If in any doubt, backup or take a Timeshift snapshot, or whatever your system does, before adding or removing software. Overkill? Maybe. It'd only really need to be the first time before you know what your local apt does.
Traditionally on Ubuntu-based systems, those packages get installed as dependency of a meta package that pulls the entire desktop experience, for instance on Ubuntu this is ubuntu-desktop (the default GNOME experience), kubuntu-desktop (the KDE Plasma experience) and so on. I believe this won’t be much different for Mint.
The consequence of uninstalling such package is removal of the meta package. You can totally do that, but then the dependencies (so the cinnamon desktop with everything that makes it Linux Mint) are due for autoremoval of no longer needed packages (so apt autoremove would remove it all) unless they’re marked as explicitly installed and needed by you. Unless they’re “optional” dependencies. It’s hard to tell precisely what will happen without access to actual Linux Mint, but in theory you can just cherry pick whatever you want from that big chunky meta package, or remove it all and only reinstall stuff that interests you.
I personally wouldn’t bother and just set my default apps to my preference and if the app menu is too crowded I’d hide them using something like Alacarte (old school GNOME menu editor). That way you know that full system upgrades wont cause any problems, and you effectively replace apps as you desire.
And it’s true that for lightweight system with only what I need, something like Debian or Arch would be much better. My experience is that usually modifying easy-to-use distribution is (while perfectly possible) more effort than building one from the ground up.
Yes, but it has netinstall and you can choose to only install the base system. You then boot to tty and apt install anything you want.
Beware, it’s much harder to get complete OS this way, and even with working DE you may still miss something like userspace drivers, firmware, crucial services like NetworkManager, bluetooth etc. You’re on your own with finding out how Debian works
I’ve done pretty much that, by way of debootstrap. It’s a fun way to set up a system.
I think that live-task-non-free-firmware-pc (gotta have the nonfree apt.sources tho), linux-image-amd64, sudo, and systemd-timesyncd are just enough to get started. Then add gdm3(which pulls in a bunch of gnome), and a terminal (I like kitty & ptyxis).
If you're looking for candidate apps to consider removing, du -sh /usr/bin/* /usr/lib/* | sort -h is one quick way to find some that use significant amounts of space. On my system for example that points out things including blender, chromium, firefox, libreoffice, llvm, gcc, java, and pandoc as using a lot of space. It may not catch everything but it's better than just guessing.
It’s very simple in Mint, just right-click it in the menu, click Uninstall, and see if it warns you about dependencies.
Thunderbird, Hypnotix, Hexchat and Firefox can be uninstalled safely for sure, I recommend against uninstalling the Update Manager and strongly recommend against uninstalling Python, as some other programs may/will depend on those
From the system’s DMI. You can check it yourself with dmidecode. Those values are largely unchangeable, and those that are, will probably require a tool from the vendor to change, which are usually for internal use only within their company.
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