Linux Mint - NOT "Usable Out of the Box" - Probably switching back to Windows
Linux Mint - NOT "Usable Out of the Box" - Probably switching back to Windows
My time with Linux has been equal parts amazing and absolutely infuriating. Linux Mint is NOT usable out of the box. Here have been my issues:
Nvidia GPU - Trying to figure out how to get the drivers working was a nightmare with ten million different people giving different advice on how to get it to work. Eventually I was able to get them signed and it seems to work
Bluetooth - Another nightmare. Bluetooth is terrible on Linux. It took hours to get it even remotely working ok, but I still don't think it's perfect.
Compatibility - Some things just straight up don't work for seemingly no reason. None of my controllers work with Steam, no matter how many countless hours I've spent troubleshooting.
And that is where I am disappointed. Troubleshooting Linux issues sucks. There are so many people giving their opinions and all of them are different and most don't work.
When Linux is working right it is amazing, and I love it. But right now, it just isn't as good as Windows and extremely infuriating more often than not. Guess I am going to switch back and give Bill Gates all of my info again. Really fucking disappointing
Update: Controllers seem to work after forcing compatibility mode in Steam. No idea why that was off or why Steam was essentially hijacking my controller, but it seems to work now. For everyone that helped thank you.
My friend who uses Linux mint on a hybrid nvidia laptop faces similiar issues with you. He had gone a lot of trouble on having his Nvidia GPU to work reliably and on some issues with bluetooth which can be attributed to issues with the DE's interface with the bluetooth driver/hardware. I had similar problems with bluetooth years ago when I used gnome on arch linux but it resolved itself later maybe due to some updates. Recently he was faced with problems on updates on his system which borked his DE and just landed him on a console, which was enough for him to restore his system to a previous working state. I think that the hacks and tinkers he they have done to solve the previously said problems (and others I may not be aware of) may have caused the update problem.
As for me I haven't had those problems. This was recent though because years ago you really would be doing a lot of manual tinkering to even make windows games to run on linux. I'm running KDE now on arch and it is even much more stable than my windows partition which I dual boot. Heck, its the windows updates that causes problems on my linux partition.
My friend has similar opinions with you that linux is still not as good as windows and its infuriating specially when it does not work. It may have been because both of you may have chosen a distro not right for your needs and use case. Linux Mint may be touted as a beginner distro for switchers from windows, but I think that this may not be the case for most since some of those who switch are tinkers or may have specific use cases which Linux Mint is not built in mind or incapable of offering. Using Linux though is a learning experience. It maybe easier than ever to jump on linux now but it is still fundamentally different from windows and that some steps from there does not apply here. There's a lot of suggestions and advice on this thread and I suggest that you try some of them.
Thanks so much!
If you come with expectations that you’ll just be fully catered no matter what your setup is and expect things to just work without ever trying to understand problems, you sure can be disappointed. Believe or not, most of the time those issues are out of control for Linux or the distros, as your hardware vendor made it to work on Windows and Windows only. Community is here to help you, but with your attitude it gets difficult no matter how much others try to help.
i had a similarly confusing and frustrating experience when trying Ubuntu on a netbook many years ago. It has come a long way since then but sometimes you can get a bunch of annoying issues all at once.
It could just be bad luck with the hardware you have (no one really ever cares about the bluetooth adapter in their system until it causes issues) or Mint being behind the bleeding edge.
You might find Fedora KDE to be more compatible with your setup, or you can leave it a bit longer and check back later. No harm in patience!
I've been on and off with Linux for about 15 years and just want to counter some of the people trying to troubleshoot or criticize to say: it can be really tough.
We need our computers to work and we expect things to function correctly.
I've used dozens of distros over the years. I was a super early Arch adopter, mained Gentoo for about three years, ran my own BSD server for programming projects, and still maintain several small home Linux servers. And even I sometimes want to pull my hair out trying to get semi-new hardware working right in my distro of choice. I spent three hours today fighting Nvidia and sound drivers and eventually just had to give up on that machine after being told that what I want just flat out isn't supported in Linux on the hardware I have.
Take a breath, set it aside until you're ready to take another crack at it, and know that it's a journey. You'll get there or the software will catch up and meet you halfway. No shame in being frustrated :)
Thanks so much! I appreciate it. Already giving it another go with Pop OS
There comes a time where it goes from frustrating to fun if you keep at it. You'll snap into it and be like, "I know how to fix this!" or other times you'll be furiously searching the web for your answer. I don't think you'll regret Pop!_OS. I started there and have been distro-hopping ever since. A lot is set up right out of the box in Pop.
Just sit back and work on one issue at a time until it works. Check into and learn how to setup Timeshift (basically system restore), you may thank yourself later. Though, Debian is pretty damn hard to break without actively trying to break it.
fucking hate bluetooth ngl, it's a horrendous standard that doesn't do what I want it to do and even when it can it fails horribly and is unbearably unreliable
how did you install the nvidia drivers btw? I thought in mint there was a "driver manager" thingy that installed it for you with one click
Bluetooth works great in Android for me though... once the devices have been paired, they connect the moment they are available and it just works.
However, for some reason on PC it's often quirky (Windows or Linux). My PC bluetooth works through a dongle so I wonder if an integrated card would do better.
Also, most devices will not keep more than 1 pairing, so it will be annoying if you plan to be jumping around between computers. But that's not the fault of the protocol, in theory remembering multiple pairings can be supported if the devices wanted to implement that.
i have one laptop with one of the new internal Intel wifi cards and it works pretty well, but all of my other devices don't work that good. I just hate that you can't use the microphone and headphones at the same time with most Bluetooth devices without getting horrendous quality, if that was improved I might use it a bit more
However, for some reason on PC it's often quirky (Windows or Linux). My PC bluetooth works through a dongle so I wonder if an integrated card would do better.
Is it an USB dongle?
If so, make sure to add a short USB-A to USB-A cable between your PC and the dongle. Interference is a serious issue on USB 2.4 GHz wireless dongles when directly connected to a mainboard.
It was that easy this time around, because I'm dumb. The last time I never said I needed to sign them in the installer so I had to do it manually
oh are you using secure boot? my condolences
You use popos like a pro 👑
Those are not normal problems. Linux generally does work out of the box unless you’ve got weird or new hardware.
Mint usually does the trick ez peasy and that’s why it’s recommended so much. BUT, sometimes it craps on your hardware. I’d actually suggest trying a different distro before you make up your mind. Some are newer than mint and might work where mint doesn’t.
Might I suggest fedora workstation or popos? Fedora and the rpm fusion team make installing nvidia a breeze and it’s running pretty recent kernels and code. I’ve never run popos but it seems to be gaming focused and people generally like it.
If your having the same issues, then you probably do have some hardware incompatibilities. And if that’s the case, you have my condolences-you’d be better off just sticking with something that works - aka windows.
But please do believe me/us when I say you shouldn’t have to work that hard - mint is either too old, or you’ve got wonky hardware that is going to be a pain no matter what.
I appreciate the response. I fixed my current issue, but honestly I'm thinking off messing with other distros. We'll see.
Looks like you used hardware that was designed for windows and are blaming it now on Linux.
I am not understanding the issue you have that requires signing of drivers.
Yes some Bluetooth devices lack the support from the manufacturer's for Linux, the Controllers i have used work great, at least for my needs.
Controllers have better support Linux for ages. Not understanding the issue here either.
Troubleshooting on Windows sucks at least to the same degree. The same non specific error message gets you 50 possible solutions.
No need to announce your departure.
The reality is, people will be using Linux on Windows hardware, people won't build special computers just for Linux or buy a premade Linux computer, they'll flash Linux on their Windows computer expecting it to work and get annoyed if it doesn't, the person in the post is making very valid points and those issues should be worked on
I absolutely disagree with you. If a manufacturer does not care about Linux support, it's on the manufacturer. Do not blame the thousands of unpaid volunteers and a few paid ppl for not supporting a specific BT chip or controller or whatever.
The signing issue is so on OP cause disabling secure boot or using a supported distro like ubuntu could have fixed that, and yes you can run Windows 11 with Linux dual boot without secure boot.
I'm venting because I don't understand how the experience is so vastly different for people. And what do you mean hardware designed for windows? Literally the only thing is the NVIDIA gpu
Not the guy your responding to and I 100% get your frustration, but I want to provide a little anecdote.
Back in November, I built a new desktop to replace my 7 year old one and put OpenSUSE on it. No matter what I tried, I could not get either Bluetooth or WiFi working. I tried updating drivers, restarting controllers, reinstalling the OS, replacing the OS with Mint. Nothing worked.
I did a lot of searching over the next few days, and it turned out that my motherboard was so new that it's built in WiFi chip did not have Linux drivers yet. Like at all.
Most products aren't created with Linux in mind, so compatibility isn't a concern. It's up to the community to create patches & drivers to make things work, and it can take a bit to get things working.
I'm genuinely sorry you had the experience you did, but I hope that if you do return to Windows that you'll give Linux another try in the future. Search your products to see if others have had issues, along with potential solutions, before you dive in.
I’m venting because I don’t understand how the experience is so vastly different for people.
It's always going to be a driver issue. It takes time and money to develop drivers for *nix, so most manufacturers don't bother. It's the most significant issue *nix has to deal with and if it wasn't an issue, no one would deal with Windows.
Mint isn't the platform for gaming on Linux. It's way behind on a lot of things like display drivers. Try something like Bazzite or Nobara that have a ton of tweaks for both Nvidia and steam. Honestly, I'm really shying away from recommending Mint to new users, it's getting really stale.
Bazzite has been great for me. Bluetooth, Nvidia GPU, controllers, Bluetooth controllers all worked out of the box, and it's based on Fedora so you get all of those perks, and the rollback feature, which comes by default, works (to an end user) rather like timeshift (I think - it lets you return to the previous working configuration if an update has a problem, which admittedly did happen to me recently, I just rolled back and waited for the devs to fix the problem the next day, lol).
It doesn't have a live boot option so it just has to be installed to try it, which is disappointing.
But I totally get if OP wants to take a break and maybe come back to Linux in a few years, because Linux will keep getting better and Windows will keep getting worse.
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had so much trouble with Linux. I understand the frustration that comes with Unix based OSes especially after being a heavy Windows user for years.
I did a bit of searching on your profile and saw you’re dual-booting with Windows on the same hard drive. I personally had issues with trying to set that up myself (Windows is a finicky, jealous b****). My own solution was installing my distro of choice onto a separate hard drive - if you can eventually do that I recommend it.
I know you’re getting a lot of flak for your post but it’s good to see honest opinions from people who genuinely want to try Linux but aren’t necessarily the same level of hyper-nerd as the typical demographic here.
Having information from a wider opinion pool will help in understanding how to get Linux to more of the population - but that’s a side tangent.
It’s encouraging to see that you are still open to trying in the future and taking a break from it can help you clear your head and come back with fresher eyes.
Unfortunately I don’t have much experience with NVIDIA drivers, and probably a similar amount of troubleshooting as Mint but I’ve found EndeavourOS to be friendlier to a middle-upper tech/gamer use case. Mint, for me, seemed cold and “office”-y and didn’t work well for me as I don’t only use my browser and word processor.
That said, distros are an almost ridiculously personal choice and part of that is trial and error. If you haven’t gotten the chance I recommend test driving a couple other distros in an Oracle VM (for user-friendliness) so you can decide what you like the feel of before committing to an install again, if and when you feel ready.
Good luck and godspeed until then.
Thanks for the reply. My next build will not have windows on it at all, If I can help it. Honestly mint is great and was working amazing until I had to reinstall it.
in the beginning I dual booted too and windows did cause some strange issues, but they disappeared when I disabled fast boot from somewhere in windows settings.
also I distrohop every now and then, and a I had trouble installing nvidia drivers a few times. on distros that earlier had no trouble at all with it. bluetooth works great on my pc, which was a pleasant surprise. I don't own a controller, but I heard that PS4 controllers work best.
all of your existing hardware may not be supported, but in the future you may want to search and check if the peripheral or component you are buying will play nice with linux if you want to move in that direction.
People are downvoting your comments about your actual experience and that’s not helpful.
Folks, please don’t downvote an unpopular (to you) opinion. Instead, try to prove for more info and provide your expertise to help someone try to have a better experience. The point is to help someone learn how to enjoy Linux, not hate them for not liking it. Don’t be counterproductive and solidify a bad reputation of Linux users.
It's probably because I come off as a whiny bitch, which I do. Lol just frustrated.
Thanks so much seriously. This is great
Linux Mint is NOT usable out of the box.
I set Mint up for my 65 year old mother about 4 years ago, and she hasn't had a single issue since. I think it's less about Mint being usable out of the box and more about Mint not doing what you want out of the box...
I can see everyone down voting you to oblivion... And that's sort of fair. But that's beside the point.
I was having trouble with NVIDIA while using mint early on and decided to switch to Fedora. Maybe try that once. Fedora has better defaults for nvidia.
Use the KDE Plasma spin btw. See if it works.
Thanks, I might try that if a new install doesn't work
I guess there's difference with the gpu model too, because for me it has been the opposite: mint works without issues and fedora has been a nightmare, especially the kde spin one. last time it killed itself afrer the first updates. nobara was almost perfect but I could never figure out why it can't turn the monitor back on after it has turned off.
I know. That's why the live usbs are a life saver. I really just use the live usb to test everything out.
I use Pop!_OS and have had zero issues getting my Nvidia GPU to work on it, so that or a similar Linux distro that has good Nvidia driver support might be worth checking out.
565 drivers now support Wayland on PopOS
About NVIDIA: yeah, Nvidia on Linux is a big, big mess. Things are improving but it's still a pain in the ass sometimes. Maybe some of your issues could be solved by changing to another Desktop Enviroment.
About Bluetooth: I don't know how recent your hardware is, but maybe changing to a newer kernel (preferably a more up to date Distro, like Fedora) would solve it.
About Compatibility: I don't know what controllers you are using. I personally had issues with Xbox Wireless Controller drivers, and after some searching I easily fixed it with xpadneo, maybe that could help.
Mint is usually a great distro for beginners, BUT it sometimes sacrifices shiny new updates for stability (which is a good feature of Mint), that's why I recommend you to try Fedora. Good luck with your Linux adventure 😃
Thanks for the response I appreciate it
Normally I don't suggest distro-hopping for newbies but sometimes it's a good idea to try a couple distro before settling in. Since there are tons of different hardware, some distros offer a better out of the box solution for some hardware.
Try openSUSE Leap for instance.
Also someone suggested trying KDE Plasma on Mint, so try that first. It might alone solve your problems.By the way, if your need for Windows can be covered on a virtual machine, go that way instead of dual boot. Windows really can mess with your bootloader.
As a daily OpenSUSE user on both my work and personal machine I'm not sure if I would recommend for a first timer, I feel like it makes a lot of assumptions as how much the user knows
They just need to learn how YaST works and it's done mostly. They won't even need terminal for anything. I installed openSUSE Leap on my sister's PC and she's using it without any problems for quite some time (Though gotta admit installing Xbox controller driver was a hassle, maybe it's not like that for Tumbleweed). She previously used Manjaro, Pop!_OS, and Mint and she had problems with all. Leap is pretty much perfect. (Let me put nazar amulet here 🧿)
While KDE plasma can be made to work on Mint (I've done it as a PoC) it is NOT something a beginner should be doing because a) it's an unsupported config and b) you need to pull in non mint repositories to get the plasma files, and then you'll be fiddling around to get it working again when an update breaks something.
If Mint has been troublesome then popOS ubuntu and Fedora would be better choices.
Maybe Linux isn't the solution you are looking for in this case? I use Linux whenever I can, especially at home because I have far fewer problems than with windows. But it's not a panacea, and if it's easier to use windows then use windows.
That's the thing, I've loved Linux when it's worked right. I want to use it full time. My first install, after fixing everything, was going great. I had to reinstall because I messed something up, and now I can't fix any of this.
Use Pop Os, perfect for nvidia GPU support out of the box.
I can't because I have a dual boot with windows and secure boot has to stay on
You can absolutely dual boot PopOS! and Windows. The only real issue you'll run into is Windows update is destructive--so you'll have to manually keep fixing systemd boot to ensure your PopOS! instance can continue to boot after Windows update.
Why does secure boot need to stay on?
Even so, you should be able to sign the drivers and use the boot shim if you really want to go through that process.
I appreciate the response. What would you recommend as the easiest way to test different distros easily? Vm?
Ventoy with all the distro LiveUSB images you want to try on it. You should be able to configure them as if they're installed, unless you have to reboot. If your issues are hardware based, you'll have a tough time doing anything useful on VMs. If you find you have to reboot to do anything, you're probably going to want to actually install it. But you should get an idea of how things will go with a distro by doing this.
Thanks!
I think you are addressing the issues wrong.
Unsupported hardware is a reality in Linux, even if I didn't find any in the last 10+ years, my needs are much more limited.
Controllers do work just fine, as well as Bluetooth, in my experience. Maybe share some issues and let's see why.
Troubleshooting in Linux means understand why stuff don't work as you expect, not copypasta 50 different solutions. There are 50 solutions because there are 100 ways to do stuff and different distros and versions out there. The "unified" experience is from the windows world, not the Linux world.
Nvidia is a known issue on Linux, prrprietary drivers kind of sucks and there are no good open ones, at least for newish nvidia cards. But again, my experience with nvidia has always been very good, with proprietary drivers.
Steam, I used it trough wine to run windows games on Linux, with good success (1 game, so YMMV), and I found it amazing that it was even possible to do. But never used controllers
Honestly I am just going to try a reinstall and see if that works.
Keep on your "windows mindset", won't be very good on Linux i guess.
Maybe a fresh install could help if you made too much of a mess, who knows.
Still won't fix your problems unless you find a way to address the issues. Maybe post them here so that we could help.
You're actually right about this. I guess I've just gotten used to discarding most of the "advice" people give and also recognizing when somebody actually knows what they're talking about.
I'm sorry you've had this experience. Hopefully you'll be willing to give Linux another try again in the future and some of your issues have been addressed.
I appreciate it
Wasn't a fan of mint when I tried it. IMO, I found popOS to be an overall better experience when I first started using Linux and have since switched back to it after having a few issues on Fedora.
You might give that a shot especially if you are using nivida. PopOS hasn't given me much grief (aside from Gnome but that's more a personal distaste for it)
Even after being on Linux for a year and considering myself a fairly capable guy in tech, Linux is kind of a pain in the ass if you're doing more complicated things like in my case music production.
But it sounds like you've had an even worse go doing normal things which sucks. I feel for you man. I hope your next go is better.
It took me a few tries and Windows being a privacy nightmare to switch. It can be done but it wasn't (and still isnt) easy.
I've been using Linux Mint for 2 weeks now. Everything worked out of the box. No nVidia driver problem, controller works fine, can't speak for Bluetooth since I don't use it. I only scratched my head on the Joplin synchronization with my phone using Syncthing, which was fixed after maybe 10min of tinkering. Haven't rebooted to my backup windows install since. 10/10 would recommend.
I started using mint a year ago and had no such issues. What hardware are you running out on?
System: Kernel: 6.8.0-53-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.6 tk: GTK v: 3.24.41 wm: Muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 22.1 Xia base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble Machine: Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING v: Rev X.0x serial: <superuser required> part-nu: SKU UEFI: American Megatrends v: 5013 date: 03/18/2024 CPU: Info: 12-core model: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2 rev: 0 cache: L1: 768 KiB L2: 6 MiB L3: 64 MiB Speed (MHz): avg: 2321 high: 3800 min/max: 2200/4672 boost: enabled cores: 1: 2200 2: 2200 3: 2200 4: 2051 5: 2200 6: 2200 7: 2200 8: 2200 9: 2200 10: 2200 11: 2200 12: 2200 13: 2200 14: 2200 15: 2200 16: 2200 17: 3800 18: 2200 19: 2200 20: 2200 21: 2200 22: 2200 23: 2057 24: 3800 bogomips: 182408 Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA GA104 [GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Lite Hash Rate] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: nvidia v: 550.120 arch: Ampere pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: none off: DP-1,DP-2 empty: DP-3,HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 08:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:2489 Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X: loaded: nouveau unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa failed: nvidia gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch display-ID: :0 screens: 1 Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2560x1440 s-dpi: 96 Monitor-1: DP-0 size-res: N/A Monitor-2: DP-2 pos: primary res: 2560x1440 dpi: 108 diag: 690mm (27.15") API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2 drv: swrast surfaceless: drv: nvidia x11: drv: nvidia inactive: gbm,wayland,device-1 API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 550.120 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 Audio: Device-1: NVIDIA GA104 High Definition Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 08:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:228b Device-2: AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 0a:00.4 chip-ID: 1022:1487 Device-3: Focusrite-Novation Scarlett 2i2 4th Gen driver: snd-usb-audio type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-3:2 chip-ID: 1235:8219 Device-4: PreSonus Audio ATOM driver: snd-usb-audio type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 5-1:2 chip-ID: 194f:0206 Device-5: Blue Microphones Yeti Stereo Microphone driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 5-2:3 chip-ID: b58e:9e84 API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-53-generic status: kernel-api Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active 2: wireplumber status: active Server-2: PulseAudio v: 16.1 status: off (using pipewire-pulse) Network: Device-1: Intel I211 Gigabit Network vendor: ASUSTeK driver: igb v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:1539 IF: enp4s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> Bluetooth: Device-1: ASUSTek Broadcom BCM20702A0 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-1:2 chip-ID: 0b05:17cb Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 4.0 lmp-v: 6 sub-v: 220e Drives: Local Storage: total: 2.27 TiB used: 165.04 GiB (7.1%) ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 42.9 C ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 QVO 2TB size: 1.82 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> Partition: ID-1: / size: 921.69 GiB used: 165.01 GiB (17.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 ID-2: /boot/efi size: 95 MiB used: 32.7 MiB (34.4%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 35.0 C mobo: 38.0 C gpu: nvidia temp: 48 C Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 0% Repos: Packages: 2166 pm: dpkg pkgs: 2160 pm: flatpak pkgs: 6 No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/1password.list 1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/1password-archive-keyring.gpg] https://downloads.1password.com/linux/debian/amd64 stable main Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com xia main upstream import backport 2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe multiverse 3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse 4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted universe multiverse 5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ noble-security main restricted universe multiverse Info: Memory: total: 64 GiB note: est. available: 62.7 GiB used: 4.1 GiB (6.5%) Processes: 470 Power: uptime: 15m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 255 target: graphical (5) default: graphical Compilers: gcc: 13.3.0 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.21 running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.34
Just a heads up, if you want that to be more readable, put it in between two sets of 3 backticks (```):
System: Kernel: 6.8.0-53-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.6 tk: GTK v: 3.24.41 wm: Muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 22.1 Xia base: Ubuntu 24.04 nobleI have pretty similar hardware, but I do not have an NVIDIA card. Can confirm that Bluetooth is pretty dog shit most of the time, but I generally use wired accessories (preference). I did have some pretty good luck with an ASUS bluetooth adapter which worked better than the onboard one. Controllers work great with steam both wireless (save BT issues) and wired. I also run Fedora on all my machines so I couldn't speak to anything Mint specific but I have been running Linux for a very long time and have found that some distros have better support for newer hardware than others.
Mint is fantastic and that community does great work, all systems I manage that I do not own (family) run Mint. It is what i would recommend for any new linux user. However, for your use-case it might not be a terrible idea to give something else a try (if you haven't already).
There will always be troubleshooting that needs to be done regardless of the OS, as others have said, hardware manufacturers do not take (desktop) Linux seriously unfortunately.
I'm having this issue, I don't want to switch OFF of mint since it's so familiar now, but I would like better nvidia support. Tried arch a few times but really struggled
Just commit some time into learning on how to enable/install (proper) nvidia support on arch (even if you don't understand nothing at all and/or feel very uncomfortable doing so) and it'll be a smooth ride after that.
Bluetooth - Another nightmare. Bluetooth is terrible on Linux.
Shitty dongles is shittier in Linux, that's true. Never ever had a problem with Bluetooth on laptops.
None of my controllers work with Steam, no matter how many countless hours I’ve spent troubleshooting.
They work with games outside of Steam? If true is a Steam problem, not a Linux one. "But it works with Steam on Windows", well Valve can fuck up and introduce a bug on the Linux version.
Bruh. You been on here for two days complaining about something where you've been told exactly what the issue is, and it's not your Mint install, Linux, or anything else about the same system or with the community you're asking for help in.
You're not doing the work to find the issue, or help the people trying to debug with you. You're actually seemingly going out of your way to not be helpful and just complain, and that's a YOU problem. Have fun on Windows 👋
Are you fucking serious? I've followed all the god damn advice I was given and have spent over 10 hours troubleshooting this ONE issue and nothing has worked.
That's what atomic distros are for. Detecting problems at the development level, not the user level. Might give one of them a try. And get rid of the dual boot, that's just pain in the ass
I'm just trying a reinstall. I'm thinking something happened when making the Bootable usb.
Nope I was wrong. A fresh install didn't work
Research before going with a distro helps. Like why didn't you look into compatability for your hardware first? That would have given you ideas as to what issues you may face.
The issues you are having many others don't. You getting angry at people who have commented is comical. Like relax dude.
Just because your setup didn't work as you expected "out of the box" doesn't mean that's the case 100% of the time.
Linux is great for a daily driver. Use whatever tools you want. Just stop bitching. Are a kid? Because your behavior points that direction.
The Linux community is generally helpful, and if you don't work with the folks trying to help, you won't make any progress.
Calm down.
Linux Mint is recommended for everyone as the first distro to try. How did I make the wrong decision there?
By not doing proper research. And "everyone" is a stretch. Had I been involves in suggesting a distro I would have asked what hardware they had.
I agree that linux is difficult t best for a desktop. I use MacOS for my desktop system. Its very linux-like under the hood, but it just works. In my opinion its way better than Windows.