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Linux Mint 22 released: An attractive option for migrating away from Windows | Windows 11 system requirements block millions of PCs from upgrading, while Linux Mint continues to work on older hardware

The Linux Mint team has just released Linux Mint 22, a new major version of the free Linux distribution. With Windows 10’s end of support coming up quickly next year, at least some users may consider making the switch to Linux.

While there are other options, paying Microsoft for extended support or upgrading to Windows 11, these options are not available for all users or desirable.

Linux Mint 22 is a long-term service release. Means, it is supported until 2029. Unlike Microsoft, which made drastic changes to the system requirements of Windows 11 to lock out millions of devices from upgrading to the new version, Linux Mint will continue to work on older hardware, even after 2029.

Here are the core changes in Linux Mint 22:

  • Based on the new Ubuntu 24.04 package base.
  • Kernel version is 6.8.
  • Software Manager loads faster and has improved multi-threading.
  • Unverified Flatpaks are disabled by default.
  • Preinstalled Matrix Web App for using chat networks.
  • Improved language support removes any language not selected by the user after installation to save disk space.
  • Several under-the-hood changes that update libraries or software.
PostingInPublic ,

I switched my main gaming computer to Mint after testing it on a laptop. Being away from Windows is awesome. You know how everything always wants your attention on Windows? Your antivirus proudly announces its existence. Windows wants to know if it should remove some printers? Some PDF software needs updated RIGHT NOW. There’s a license change please acknowledge this 20 page document. Animated attention grabbing everywhere. I always think FUCK OFF when presented with this bullshit.

You know what - Mint doesn’t do that. I’ve not been internally shouting at my own computer since I went that way.

It is serene.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I like the way Linux handles updating software better.

On Windows, every app is installed separately so each app is internally responsible for its own updates. So you sit down to do some work, open up your productivity software and “Autodobe After360 requires an update to continue. [Yes] [Yes]” This isn’t impossible on Linux but it happens much less often.

As you say it doesn’t throw itself under your wheels as often as Windows does.

Telorand ,

You can do a lot with chocolatey or winget, but they can’t update system software. Linux package management is just better.

CybranM ,

How has your gaming journey been so far? Games and general programs are the main reason why in still on Windows

jettrscga , (edited )

I switched to Linux Mint a couple months ago and use Steam a lot. I’ve tried at least 10 games and all worked perfectly.

But I don’t do competitive multiplayer. Those are more likely to have issues with anti-cheats. Although I did try Hell Let Loose and Helldivers very successfully and those are both major online titles.

Check protondb.com if you’re worried about a specific game’s compatibility. I’ve had silver rated games work perfectly though.

Edit: Apps - Photo editing and 3D CAD are the main areas I’ve struggled with on Linux. There’s no good Adobe equivalent, and no good Fusion 360 equivalent. Free CAD exists, but that can gently fuck off.

brachypelmasmithi ,

Apps - Photo editing and 3D CAD are the main areas I’ve struggled with on Linux

Yeah, I feel that. Paint.net is the sole reason I still fire up my Windows VM every now and then.

The closest you can get is Pinta and even then, looking at the surface things may seem very similar, but the workflow is totally different (it doesn’t even have overscroll god damn it!) and the plugin scene is deader than dead. I wanted to code a proper replacement based on Pinta, but I haven’t got the motivation or time for that.

If I wanna edit an image, firing up a VM is still genuinely faster than trying to work with Pinta or GIMP or any other opensource alternative for that matter. Krita has surprisingly been pretty good at replicating the workflow, but it still falls short.

tyrant ,

I’m with you. Bricscad was the best cad I found and it genuinely wasn’t a great experience. Very laggy but it has all the professional tools and workflow I’m used to.

CybranM ,

Thanks for the link! Will definitely check out my top played games, unfortunately I play a lot of multiplayer games like Dota, Hunt, CS and War Thunder.

Photo editing and 3d modelling is something I do a lot which is a deal-breaker for me personally. Blender works on Linux afaik but stuff like substance painter/designer, Houdini, plasticity etc I don’t know

the_toast_is_gone ,

I don’t know about Hunt, but War Thunder and Dota have official Linux clients.

Telorand ,

This is a great time to switch. I have Bazzite on a 2015 laptop and a Steam Deck with SteamOS, and I’m working on migrating my main gaming rig. 95% of my games run well, and the few that don’t are often tiny indie projects. Most general use apps have Linux equivalents or Linux versions.

My recommendation is to try a few distros in VMs and see if you can set them up how you’d do it for real. Then, try out a few Live ISOs to identify any glaringly obvious hardware compatibility issues you might need to solve (rare, but it happens).

Try the common recommendations like Mint or Pop!_OS, and check out gaming-focused ones like Bazzite and Garuda.

pathief ,
@pathief@lemmy.world avatar

Not the person you asked to but my gaming experience has been stellar. If you use Steam you don’t have to do anything, it all works out of the box. If you don’t play those multiplayer games with kernel level anti cheats you’ll be fine.

I was expecting a bad time and was extremely impressed. Gaming in Linux is amazing.

laurelraven ,

Some of those with anti cheat even work, I’ve been playing Helldivers 2 with no issue

Last I heard, Destiny 2 could be running fine, their anti cheat supports Linux, but Bungie still bans people for trying

thundermoose ,

Steam + Proton works for most games, but there are still rough edges that you need to be prepared to deal with. In my experience, it’s typically older titles and games that use anti-cheat that have the most trouble. Most of the time it just works, I even ran the Battle.net installer as an external Steam game with Proton enabled and was able to play Blizzard titles right away.

The biggest gap IMO is VR. If you have a VR headset that you use on your desktop and it’s important to you, stay on Windows. There is no realistic solution for VR integration in Linux yet. There are ways that you can kinda get something to work with ALVR, but it’s incredibly janky and no dev will support it. There are rumors Steam Link is being ported to Linux, nothing official yet though.

On balance, I’m incredibly happy with Mint since I switched last year. However, I do a decent amount of personal software development, and I’ve used Linux for 2 decades as a professional developer. I wouldn’t say the average Windows gamer would be happy dealing with the rough spots quite yet, but it’s like 95% of the way there these days. Linux has really grown up a lot in the last few years.

CybranM ,

Thanks for the detailed reply. VR isn’t a deal-breaker for me currently but your last paragraph is great, most of the videos I’ve watched have echoed that sentiment of “It works great… Most of the time”

I do want to give Linux a try when I have some time over for trouble shooting and fixing. I feel like a Mac person when I say that lol, “I just want it to work”

Lumisal ,

I have a dual boot, mint and Bazzite. Bazzite is great for gaming

rozodru ,

If in the future you don’t want to dual boot you should check out CachyOS. I use that as my daily driver right now and it’s great for gaming.

Lumisal ,

I’ve found I prefer Fedora over debian builds for gaming, and Bazzite also includes literally everything needed for gaming of any kind already installed. Also it being immutable is really good in particular in case a game causes system issues. Bazzite also has great Steam Deck integration and desktop interoperability if needed, and can install emulators from the get go, along with many wine configurations for older Windows games.

It’s also nice to have my work space divided completely from my gaming one, and a debian build is great for productivity programs like audio mixing, 3d printing, and art, since there’s more stability and support vs bleeding edge like fedora.

Hence my dual boot set up (with separate ssd’s).

Now I just have to get around to writing a script to clean up the grub menu, street going through making it look pretty.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Things with kernel anti-cheat aren’t going to work unless they have a Linux version. So no Helldivers, Valorant, Apex Legends, etc.

Other than that, I have yet to find a game that doesn’t work under Proton. They’ll tell you it’s Windows-only until you go into the game’s steam compatibility settings and set it to Proton Experimental and then it just installs and runs no problem. Even things I didn’t really expect to work, I booted and played Trepang2 under Proton just last night, not a problem in sight.

jettrscga ,

Helldivers 2 works on Linux by the way. It was the first game I installed on Linux and I have almost 100 hrs on it. I haven’t tried the others you mentioned though.

russjr08 ,

Along with Helldivers 2, I can confirm Apex Legends works as well. Valorant as far as I’m aware is a definite no-go though.

Just adding on, ProtonDB is a great resource for checking game compatibility!

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Thanks to you and jettrscga for letting me know! I think that may not have always been the case, I seem to remember Helldivers pretty specifically didn’t have Linux support when I was last playing it. Or maybe I’m just crazy.

Apex I for sure just assumed wouldn’t work, without trying, because of aforementioned kernel anti-cheat. Good to know I was wrong there even if I don’t like the game that much myself.

bricklove ,

That serenity is why I enjoy running Arch with basically nothing on it. My OS doesn’t do shit and I love it

Xeroxchasechase ,

Linux Mint was my gateway drug to linux. It’s simple and powerful! Now I’m a happy KDE user, but you never forget the first love

radivojevic ,

Plasma is quite nice now.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

It really is. I don’t get the love for the tabletish gnome interface everyone is using.

I get why some people like it, for sure. I’m just surprised so many “power users” seem to.

Nachorella ,

Power users probably just use hotkeys and type, Gnome is attractive and stays out of your way. That said - I like Plasma, too. That’s the fun of Linux, it’s so customisable to each person’s needs.

TrickDacy ,
@TrickDacy@lemmy.world avatar

KDE has continually felt less solid to me when I’ve used it, and the reviews I’ve seen of it seem to note that is still the case.

Cincinnatus ,

Less solid how? I use it everyday and don’t really notice any problems

AIhasUse ,

Yeah, it’s fantastic. I don’t know how I spent so much time in gnome before finding KDE, I can’t imagine going back. I guess there could be something better out there, I’d love to know about it if there is.

TrickDacy ,
@TrickDacy@lemmy.world avatar

Just as in general bugginess and less smooth compatibility with random apps and theming. The whole DE system dying and auto restarting itself, stuff like that. General “feeling” of solidness. I’m glad you don’t have those issues.

superkret , (edited )

Gnome is just perfect for laptops and convertibles. I can quickly navigate it using the touchpad and super key. It also has better touch screen support, and with one extension (hide top bar), literally all of the screen real estate is available for your work. Hit the super key or 3-finger-swipe up and the UI appears. Do it again to show all your applications and desktops. Or just start typing to search. 3-finger-swipe sideways to switch to another virtual desktop. All my programs are full-screen and on their own desktop. The animations are so smooth, it’s a joy to use.
And the Gnome apps are just simple and reduced to what you actually need.

On a desktop PC I prefer Plasma for its customizability and smaller UI elements. It’s better for navigating with a mouse (although you can also turn it into a Gnome-clone or a tiling WM just with built-in options). And the KDE apps feel more “professional”, with lots of additional functionality, options and settings.

I’m glad both exist.

Sparky ,
@Sparky@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

What distro are you running with plasma? I’ve had issues with instability on KDE neon, so I’m planning to switch to a different distro. Plasma is still nice, so I’m looking for inspiration for what to mix and match.

superkret ,

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

Sparky ,
@Sparky@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Nice. I’ll look into OpenSUSE!

Cincinnatus ,

Kubuntu is what I use

thearch ,
@thearch@sh.itjust.works avatar

It has a unique workflow which clicks for people like me, even if they’re on a desktop. It encourages workspaces by making creating and switching between them instant and seamless, and i like seeing all of my windows at once by just pressing the super key.

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/ff46354d-f6b9-4222-b51a-9662d03018c1.png

ThePinkUnicorn ,

Oh I love your wallpaper, do you have a link to somewhere I can download it?

thearch ,
@thearch@sh.itjust.works avatar

Sure, I use an extension to get daily wallpapers, but here’s the image for that day:

High quality link

https://files.catbox.moe/nx2sk1.jpg

Blisterexe ,

Is it a bing image of the day?

ThePinkUnicorn ,

Thank you!

uzay ,

With Overview you can get something very similar in Plasma, though you’d need to change the default shortcut to open it by just pressing the super key.

thearch ,
@thearch@sh.itjust.works avatar

However it’s not as quick, and it’s not considered the main method of navigating your windows. AFAIK you can’t switch workspaces by scrolling there or have your apps list visible.

Blisterexe ,

It got updated in plasma 6 and now its the same as the gnome version except theres no dock

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

I ran a dual-boot for a month and a half when news about Windows Recall broke, but unfortunately, my Nvidia setup experienced a lot of bugs and proved to just be too incompatible.

So, when I upgrade to a new computer later this year, I’m going to make this machine a Linux-only machine with a different distro, and then have my other PC for all my gaming needs.

Cincinnatus ,

You probably needed to download some drivers for your gpu

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

I tried several.

None of them functioned well, and over that period of time it became clear it was a system issue. But, I know there are other distros that are more Nvidia-friendly, and when the time comes, I’ll use one of those.

Thankfully there’s O&O ShutUp to turn off Windows tracking for now.

gnygnygny ,

That’s probably the main issue with Linux. Drivers. If you own many peripherals the switch is quiet impossible. Most of them are not addressed and when it is it is far to be plug and play. And wasting hours to setup one periphecal can be very frustrating.

QuantumSparkles ,

I’m really inexperienced with Linux but I’ve become interested since getting a steamdeck which uses KDE for its desktop, which I’ve enjoyed—so how do KDE and mint compare?

ECB ,

KDE: traditional desktop environment with focus on lots of customization, options, and features. Often aimed more towards enthusiasts or everyday users who want the latest features.

GNOME: non-traditional desktop focusing on simplicity. Designed to be used a very specific way to maximize productivity. Often aimed more towards corporate or professional users.

Mint uses their own desktop environment (cinnamon) which is somewhere between the two.

All of these are nice in their own way, you just need to find which one you like best!

Xeroxchasechase ,

I’ve found that kde is much more powerful, in the sense that you can do whatever you want with it, in terms of desktop experience, but maybe it’s not needed at first. Mint gives great experience out of the box, but not much you can change.

SaharaMaleikuhm ,

I use Plasma on Mint. Love my setup

Xeroxchasechase ,

Did you match the theme to look like cinnamon?

Rampsquatch ,

I made the switch to mint a few months ago. Its astounding to me just how slowly windows boots and I never noticed until I made the switch.

You got me, Lemmy. I caught the Linux from you and I can’t go back.

Buelldozer ,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

Mint boots SHOCKINGLY fast, like sub 2 seconds, on a couple of systems I have. Its basically as fast as “booting” one of my old Commodore computers!

amanda ,
@amanda@aggregatet.org avatar

Did not see “faster than Commodore 64!” coming!

Buelldozer ,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

Did not see “faster than Commodore 64!” coming!

As an American I am required by our Constitution to use bizarre units of measure. 😊

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Last I checked, one desktop computer with Mint installed = seventeen TRS-80s.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

That’s equal to 68 TI-84s!

brbposting ,

<2 seconds from powered off to being able to start to open e.g. a web browser?

If so that is indeed truly shocking. Curious what your stopwatch says from powered off to a homepage loaded ready to use.

Buelldozer ,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

<2 seconds from powered off to being able to start to open e.g. a web browser?

So that’s time on a reboot as measured from when the UEFI splash goes away to being presented with the logon screen. That feels roughly the same as Commodore’s “Ready” prompt, at least to me. Although the case can be made that the desktop should be up and loaded too. I’d have to enable “auto logon” to get that one.

Curious what your stopwatch says from powered off to a homepage loaded ready to use.

As I said to @Liz I’m starting to wonder just how fast I can make it with a bit of work. The hardware is nothing special but after the UEFI screen goes away GRUB comes and goes so fast it’s unreadable and then…you’re just looking at the logon screen.

Right now that PC is tied up running TestDisk and it’ll likely take another 2-3 days to finish. Once it’s done and I can reboot I’ll do some measuring and tweaking.

brbposting ,

Heck yeah LMK!!

Liz ,

Booting from a full power off state?

Buelldozer ,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

Reboot but a cold start isn’t exactly fair because the Commodore doesn’t have a BIOS / UEFI splash screen. Although now that you bring it up I’m slightly interested in timing it and seeing exactly how fast I can make the cold start process.

davetansley ,
@davetansley@lemmy.world avatar

Switched to Linux Mint about three years ago after being unable to take my perfectly good laptop from W10 to W11. Dual boot firstly, quickly becoming entirely Mint. It just worked. It was the first Linux distro I’d tried in about 20 years that I didn’t mess up in a week or so.

Recently bought a new laptop and decided to distro hop. Tried various flavours of Fedora, and a few others, but ultimately came back to Mint. None of the others worked quite as well as Mint does for me (though I really liked KDE Plasma, and Gnome surprised me once I finally discovered extensions!)

laurelraven ,

You can put Plasma on Mint, I’m running that right now myself

When I rebuilt my PC I was planning something similar, got two nvme drives to dual boot, but started with Linux Mint… And never wound up installing Windows on the other, never felt the need, so I finally last night formatted it for more room for all my games

davetansley ,
@davetansley@lemmy.world avatar

I did try running Plasma on Mint, but it was never quite as good as on Fedora or as smooth on Mint as Cinnamon.

Honestly, I think I just like the simple uniformity of Cinnamon. It’s dull and predicable, but really, really solid.

laurelraven ,

I really liked Cinnamon but switched mainly because I kept having occasional video problems that didn’t seem to affect KDE… But, that might have been the lack of a proper video driver, I’ve not tried switching back since fixing that

At this point, I’ve found enough with KDE that I like having in my workflow that I’ve been reluctant to try switching back

Rooki ,
@Rooki@lemmy.world avatar

Linux Mint is just great :)

NateNate60 ,

Agreed. I managed to get my grandpa onto Linux using Mint on his old computer. He said the interface resembled classic Windows and was up and running in less than five minutes. I just had to show him how to use the software manager and that’s it.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I got my aunt’s laptop on Mint. Was unusable with Win 10, like click the start button, wait 4 minutes and then the start menu opens. Took right to it, especially since she’s been using an Android tablet for just about everything so she knew what an app store was. “Linux calls it a software manager” was all the training required.

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

It’s also got so many features that just make sense, like extending to separate monitors being automated, or when you download multiple files they’re automatically zipped to conserve space.

I did love Mint.

c0smokram3r ,
@c0smokram3r@midwest.social avatar

I use mint btw 🌿

Cincinnatus ,

I tried Linux Mint for like a day or two when I left Windows, but then I tried Kubuntu and after that I didn’t have a need to try anything else

cRazi_man ,

It’s all about finding the distro that works for you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Thank you. That was what really pissed me off when I finally switched to Linux. Suddenly it went from OS wars to sub-OS wars.

Like the first day I installed Mint I asked a question and some guy told me that Mint sucked and I should use some other distro. You’ve all been trying to get people to switch to Linux for years and now you give them shit when they are using a distro you don’t like? The fuck?

cRazi_man ,

The Linux community really lives up to the meme sometimes.

Resol ,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

Still waiting for someone to say “I use Arch btw”

I DON’T use Arch, btw. But I might accept the challenge of trying to install it one day, seems like a fun way to learn how Linux actually works.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Arch is a bitch and a half to install on anything because it doesn’t come with anything. You want network drivers? Fucking install them yourself, asshole, Arch don’t do fuck all without being commanded to.

As a result, the only thing Arch actually does come prepackaged with is the sense of smug superiority you get upon completing a build with it.

Resol ,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

The Arch users that say RTFM all the time.

At least it’s not Gentoo.

the_toast_is_gone ,

Those people are stupid. The entire point of having so many limits distros is so that every use case is covered. I’ve used Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Arch, Void, even dabbled in Gentoo, and I can tell you that there’s a valid reason to use pretty much all of them, and also valid reasons not to use any particular one of them. “You do you” should be the dogma of the Linux community, not “You do me.”

rozodru ,

that’s generally how it works with Mint. you install it, use it for a week or two and then move onto a distro that better suites your needs. Mint is a fantastic introduction and sure many will stick with it for awhile I think most move on from it fairly quickly.

elucubra ,

“most move on”?

Source? because I believe it’s quite the opposite.

rozodru ,

sorry I’m new to Linux but most of the people I’ve spoken to on various linux discords the consensus seemed to be that Mint was fantastic to start out on but most moved on to something else after awhile.

drphungky ,

most of the people I’ve spoken to on various linux discords

Might have a teensy sample selection problem there haha

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I have not moved on. I think most Linux distros would suit most people’s needs and I think a lot of Linux users greatly overestimate what the average person does with a computer, which mostly involves staying within a web browser. That’s why Chromebooks are still a thing. A cheap web browser is all a lot of people need. So if you get them to switch to Mint (or any distro), they don’t really have much of a reason to switch.

I’m not a big gamer, I’m not a coder, I’m just someone who wants a working web browser, an office suite and a way to play audio and video. Anything else is a bonus but not something I really need in a notebook. So Mint is fine for me.

Theharpyeagle ,

I’ve installed Mint on pretty much any old machine I can get my hands on. Right now I’m using it with KDE as my daily driver and couldn’t be happier.

I’d say for most people coming from windows, there’s little in the way of expected functionality that would be included in other distros.

  • signed, a Mint simp
Toes ,

I’ve tried dozens over the years and I keep finding myself going back to kubuntu. It just works

Nugget ,

I tried Linux Mint on my old XPS laptop and the battery life is, unfortunately, a nonstarter for me. It lasts about 2 hours running Linux versus up to six on Windows (thanks to battery settings). It also doesn’t hibernate properly. I wish it had worked for me

Olgratin_Magmatoe ,

It may be worth doing more distro hoping. It sometimes takes a few to get it right for your needs/use case.

paraphrand ,

What’s the known good battery management distro? If there isn’t one, that seems like something that should be an area of focus.

kopasz7 ,

I heard even though Pop os is ubuntu based, they use different power management. I’m mainly a desktop user so I can’t quantitativly comment on battery life.

moontorchy ,

I was recently surprised by Debian 12. Tried it on my Dell laptop and getting better battery life than Pop!_os. Try this installer which makes life so much easier :)

Blisterexe ,

I use fedora with auto-cpufreq and it gives battery life that lines up with reviews of the device

minibyte ,

Zorin is another sexy option.

TrickDacy ,
@TrickDacy@lemmy.world avatar

I’d try fedora or pop os. I never really liked mint personally

PanArab ,

That’s most likely a driver issue. I don’t know if this is something that’s easily fixed. Linux is better on open hardware.

CMahaff ,

I know for me, at least with gnome, toggling between performance, balanced, and battery saver modes dramatically changes my battery life on Ubuntu, so I have to toggle it manually to not drain my battery life if it’s mostly sitting there. I don’t know if Mint is the same, but just throwing out the “obvious” for anyone else running Linux on a laptop.

davetansley ,
@davetansley@lemmy.world avatar

For some reason, Mint doesn’t provide access to the power profiles out of the box… no idea why. I just install a Cinnamon applet called “Power Profiles” and it gives me the same systray switcher as Fedora.

Fresh install of Mint was giving me about 2 hours battery life. By switching to Power Saver profile, I can get up to about 6-8 hours. I mostly only need to go to Balanced or Performance when gaming.

SpaceNoodle ,

My old Microsoft Surface is running much better now that it’s running Linux Mint.

vikingtons ,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

I’m curious about these, do the surfaces still require the use of (or benefit from) custom kernels?

SpaceNoodle ,

AFAIK they still benefit from custom kernels, but don’t require them. I believe support continues to make it into master, so it likely won’t be the case forever.

vikingtons ,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

excellent, glad to hear

HC4L ,

Just switched after seeing how much of my Steam library I could play on my Deck. Just have to switch back for BF5 sometimes and I don’t miss Windows at all. Very nice experience.

ABCDE ,

How much does it play and what about a GPU in terms of compatibility?

gamermanh ,
@gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

If it runs on proton it runs on mint

The only issues I’ve had are the companies who refuse to enable the Linux versions of their Anti-Cheat, everything else has run and run better than Windows

I use a 2080ti and even with that negative it only took about 15 minutes of fiddling to get my GPU working just fine in everything

conciselyverbose ,

Nvidia is less consistent, but there are distros that do the work to make it work reasonably. You do want to check for how well a distro supports nvidia before choosing it if that’s you card, but my experience has been fine.

The biggest limitation game wise is multiplayer games with invasive anticheat, but you can check specific titles on protonDB to see how well they work. Non steam games (again, excluding anticheat) also mostly work, but other launchers can involve more setup compared to just using steam’s built in translation.

HC4L ,

Short answer because I’m drunk but I have to admit I’m somewhat older so I play a lot of indie titles. And one of the few triple A games that I play (BF5) forces me to boot into Windows but that is a fraction of what I play.

I use Discord, Steam and Firefox mainly and don’t do much productivity wise so probably a biased experience.

My 6750XT was automatically installed and had no work from it whatsoever.

ABCDE ,

That’s quite similar to me. I have an Xbox for Game Pass (Fortnite with the missus and whatever goes on there that looks interesting); a Mac for work/studies/games which are compatible and not intensive; and a Deck for other stuff, so I can see how much is compatible. Every time I think ohh, I’d like to play that (properly), the thought of going back to Windows makes me baulk. What mid-to-lower-range GPU should I be looking at, AMD also?

radivojevic ,

Tbf, most distros work on older hardware.

n2burns ,

Eh, depends how much older. My daily is a Thinkpad x201, and while I love Linux Mint, every once in a while I get curious about other distros. However, as many times as I’ve tried, there’s a bunch of distros whose LiveUSBs just won’t boot (for example Pop! OS).

GnuLinuxDude ,
@GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml avatar

I wish I could get an x201 with an identical form factor and keyboard, indicator lights, etc, but otherwise upgraded components (cpu/ram/display/ports). That is my dream.

I also have an x201, but it runs too warm and too noisy for me to keep up with it. I now have an M1 Macbook which I use Asahi Linux and macOS on with about a 50/50 split. But the x201 feels better in the hand and on the desk.

n2burns , (edited )

100%. I know this computer is getting to the end of it’s life. I’ve upgraded it as much as possible (SSD, 8GB of RAM, new battery) and it still lives almost completely on it’s dock.

I’ve previously looked into converting it to a USB or bluetooth keyboard, and now I’m curious if I could convert it to a KVM console for a SteamDeck. I’m not quite sure yet if this idea is brilliant or brain-dead (probably both).

EDIT: Instead of KVM console, I think the more modern term would be a Lapdock.

radivojevic ,

I think, realistically, anything up to 10 years ago can run most distros. Some better than others, of course, because of the DE load.

I’ve got kde neon on a 2013 MacBook Air and it’s great. I also have put Ubuntu budgie and SDesk on an old HP Chromebook with 4gb of ram. And, obviously the 16gb disk is crippling, but it runs better than expected haha.

BigDaddySlim ,
@BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world avatar

Not entirely true in my case, I’ve got an old Inspiron 530 that I have been trying to figure out what to do with. Well it ran Vista from the factory so that’s worthless now, so I figured I’d try putting Linux on it. Every single distro I tried installing just wouldn’t get past the splash screen. Mint, Ubuntu, Arch (GUI and manual installer), Pop_OS, ChimeraOS, nothing. Trying different USB media writing methods did nothing or made it not even show as a bootable device. Finally got Xunbuntu to work on it and even that took 3 attempts to install.

I’ve got a more recent HP that was originally Win 7 that did have a much higher success rate and an old Acer laptop that straight up will not boot Linux without a high amount of errors or just completely borked graphics even with multiple distros.

But I’m also an idiot so it’s probably me.

DaddleDew ,

I revived a 15 year old laptop by installing Linux Mint on it (and replacing the hard drive for an old SSD I had kicking around). It does everything a modern laptop would do except play new games now.

MataVatnik ,
@MataVatnik@lemmy.world avatar

Mint is so user friendly

cheeseburger ,
@cheeseburger@lemmy.ca avatar

Mint is mint! I’m using Debian Edition of Mint; according to the Mint forums the package backports for LMDE6 will be worked on after everything with LM22 is complete, and LMDE7 is for when a new Debian comes out.

Buelldozer ,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

I didn’t realize that LMDE existed until I read your comment. Now that I know it does I’m going to try it as an alternative to LM 22. I gave LM22 a spin yesterday and I don’t like some of the changes, particularly around the Online Account manager. It’s not quite as fresh as LM22 but it is using a newer Kernel than 21.3 which would be nice.

ClydapusGotwald ,

Too bad Linux can’t run all my games yet. If it could I’d switch in a heart beat

GregorGizeh ,

Let me preach you the gospel of

bazzite.gg

A user friendly, steam OS like distro specifically made for gaming. About as difficult to set up as a new smartphone, and comes with all the goods needed for gaming preinstalled, like steam, wine (lutris), and various other compatibility features.

It is also an immutable distro, which essentially means you can’t break your system*. If you mess something up you can simply roll back to an earlier configuration.

*you certainly still can, but you would have to actively try

Kecessa ,

Tried it this week, video signal would cut off as soon as there was a tiny bit of load on the GPU (like intro videos in a game would be too much)… I’ll have to experiment some more but you can’t blame people for using the option that just works when switching OS probably means troubleshooting for tens of hours…

GregorGizeh ,

I certainly dont blame them, I just made the switch from windows myself a few months ago and have been amazed by my problem free experience.

Perhaps it isnt as effortless for everyone depending on the hardware, I have to concede, but my experience has been nothing but brilliant. My biggest gripe so far has been that the open source rgb controller needs to be set manually for my keyboard (which isnt much of a gripe really).

Telorand ,

Have you experimented with the Proton version? Video playback in games is commonly problematic, and sometimes switching to the GE version, Experimental, or a downgraded version will fix it.

Check ProtonDB and see if there’s a tweak you should make. I had to downgrade the Proton version in River City Girls to get video to work properly.

Kecessa ,

Yep, tried with Jedi: Fallen Order on the EA app via Lutris using Proton, same thing with Helldivers 2 and Pillars of Eternity on Steam, as soon as there was load on the GPU the display signal would stop (and it wasn’t just graphics not being loaded, it would switch to displaying my laptop input instead of my desktop display).

Telorand ,

Weird. I wish I knew more about that stuff to offer you better suggestions.

Blisterexe ,

What gpu do you have?

Kecessa ,

6650xt

I’ve got the whole day tomorrow to start over from scratch, I tried reinstalling to an external drive and I didn’t have a taskbar and wifi didn’t work, so clearly there’s something wrong somewhere…

Blisterexe ,

Bazzite is a small distro that isnt very well tested on desktops, have you tried something like pop, mint, zorin or fedora?

quarterlife ,

I’m not sure what you mean by that, it’s directly built on Fedora which is probably one of if not the best workstation OS.

Blisterexe ,

And it does a bunch of custom stuff that can break

quarterlife ,

Such as?

Blisterexe ,

Being immutable, the whole steam install with gamescope, the preinstalled packages are quite different, and a bunch of other stuff

quarterlife , (edited )

It’s the same RPM that’s installed in workstation from RPM fusion. There’s nothing custom about that.

Gamescope is also an RPM, it’s a slightly newer version than what Fedora packages but it’s packaged the exact same way. Neither of those are likely to break because they are fundamental to the basic functionality of the deck images.

Additional pre-installed packages are added, but existing packages are not touched.

It’s immutability comes directly from silverblue and kinoite, again nothing custom there.

Blisterexe ,

The fact it adds a bunch of shit through rpm’s doesnt negate the fact that that can break stuff

quarterlife ,

Smells like FUD to me.

Sharkwellington ,

I installed Bazzite earlier this month as a dual boot and have been very happy with it. A lot of stuff just worked on bootup, haven’t installed a single driver, and that’s including my AMD GPU, just installed a game, plugged in my controller, and it played. Most games seem to run better than Windows. Fullscreen mode is a lot less annoying to tab out of - there isn’t the annoying momentary black screen, tab just happens. OBS seems to finally be on the level of Windows performance, although some of my favorite extensions are Windows-only. That’s been something of an annoyance, a lot of stuff is Windows-only, but usually if I Google “[program] Linux” I’ll get a workaround or substitute. I still leave Windows installed because of anti-cheat nonsense, but I rarely boot into Windows anymore.

Kind of meandering but that’s my experience so far. Overall pretty satisfied.

tabular , (edited )
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

Which of your games doesn’t work? Do they happen to be multiplayer?

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Ive been willing to skip the like 2% of games I have that won’t play on it, personally.

Blisterexe ,

Have you checked protondb.com?

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