Trying Linux Mint
- Thread starter OmniDyne
- Start date
OmniDyne
Active Member
You're so edgy.
UnholyVision
Active Member
Welcome to GNU/Linux.
I have been a Linux user for years, but made the full time switch to Linux upon the release of Windows 10. If you have any questions, need of program alternative suggestions, et cetera I'm happy to help.
multi-tasker-X
Member
i've been using it for almost 2 years,
i will probably never go back to windows
took me a while to get used to the terminal, it was scary and frustrating at first, the more i use linux, the more i love the terminal,
i do have a windows desktop, but i use it for gaming only, my main desktop and all my other desktops and laptops use linux
i think the biggest problem was that i started using ubunutu, it difficult to get around ubunutu, their menu is confusing,
mint is awesome
i will probably never go back to windows
took me a while to get used to the terminal, it was scary and frustrating at first, the more i use linux, the more i love the terminal,
i do have a windows desktop, but i use it for gaming only, my main desktop and all my other desktops and laptops use linux
i think the biggest problem was that i started using ubunutu, it difficult to get around ubunutu, their menu is confusing,
mint is awesome
UnholyVision
Active Member
Have you tried Proton yet? It might just let you replace Windows. I have gotten just about every game I have thrown at it working. It honestly could replace Windows for a lot of people in the gaming area.
One of my latest Windows games I've been playing on Linux. All from a click of install on Steam and no modifying anything.
Ubuntu Unity or Gnome? Only curious as to the horrors you faced.
They both are horrible to me, but heck all DE's are basically horrible to me now. I am a WM person. Regardless, Unity was better in some ways than Gnome Shell. At least you didn't have hot corners on by default. uugh... Gnome is slightly more able to be customized than Unity, but customizing Gnome-Shell is like customizing Windows. (In other words not much you can do). Which I think they both used Nautilus so another horrible thing to me, lol.
multi-tasker-X
Member
I haven't tried Proton, I'll have to try it in the future. I also heard steam is working on a linux client,
but even if i got steam working, i still need dolphin-emulator and it doesn't work good on linux, most updates are made for windows,
i was able to replace 98% of the windows programs except for gaming applications, skype and another chat service,
but actually i use a windows virtual machine for those few programs, and my windows 10 gaming machine is attached on the second port of the monitor, i rarely play games so it's not a big deal to have a second desktop
Im not sure if unity or gnome, but this is what i was using,
the worst thing about it is that its hard to get around, if they just had a normal menu like windows or linux mint, then i would of kept using it,
the interface drove me away, right now my linux mint interface is simple, i love it
what i hated about windows is i always have to download programs for anything simple, and i always ended up getting virus because you have to download third party programs and its all virus and spamware,
for example, in windows i wanted to rip steaming music, i had to download third party software and it takes a long time to find one and most of them arent free
on linux i just have to type this in the terminal and it works!
x = ip
streamripper http://xx.xx.xx.xx:xxxx
boom! im ripping online music,
so easy, i find most things are easy on linux and most of all,,, free!
but even if i got steam working, i still need dolphin-emulator and it doesn't work good on linux, most updates are made for windows,
i was able to replace 98% of the windows programs except for gaming applications, skype and another chat service,
but actually i use a windows virtual machine for those few programs, and my windows 10 gaming machine is attached on the second port of the monitor, i rarely play games so it's not a big deal to have a second desktop
Im not sure if unity or gnome, but this is what i was using,
the worst thing about it is that its hard to get around, if they just had a normal menu like windows or linux mint, then i would of kept using it,
the interface drove me away, right now my linux mint interface is simple, i love it
what i hated about windows is i always have to download programs for anything simple, and i always ended up getting virus because you have to download third party programs and its all virus and spamware,
for example, in windows i wanted to rip steaming music, i had to download third party software and it takes a long time to find one and most of them arent free
on linux i just have to type this in the terminal and it works!
x = ip
streamripper http://xx.xx.xx.xx:xxxx
boom! im ripping online music,
so easy, i find most things are easy on linux and most of all,,, free!
OmniDyne
Active Member
Welcome to GNU/Linux.
I'm sure I'm going to have lots of questions haha. I love Mint's UI. I no longer play games, and my computer is basically just for media now. I plan on replacing Windows on my SSD soon, as Mint is really neat, and I don't think I'll have any issues doing a full conversion.
I experimented with it a bit through the USB live version, and was attempting to fix a driver issue with the Netgear wifi adapter I have, and I couldn't get it to work. I was also getting screen tearing, even after updating the driver.
Not sure what's up with that, but maybe it's because I was using a live version?
UnholyVision
Active Member
The Live CD/USB isn't an actual install on the metal. (or in other words the computer). It's not really made to be your main install, but just a look into how it could run on your machine. Installing stuff via there vs from the physical hardware can be night and day. Specially speed wise as you're not locked into the slow read and write speeds of a disc or USB thumb drive. Another thing is the Live CD/USB isn't going to have the newer patches the actual install of the OS has.
What video card are you using? Also, have you tried using a compositor? (such as Compton).
OmniDyne
Active Member
UnholyVision
Active Member
I personally do not use swap in builds that have more than 8GB of ram. Because those builds with 8GB or less, I don't really use as a massive work horse per se. Then for some reason I did go over the 8GB or less ram the HDD would take over. Which prevents my system from shutting applications down to allocate more room in the memory. Honestly, in my opinion most people don't need swap. It's hard to fill up 10GB+ ram even when video rendering, 3D modeling, et cetera. (I use Blender, Kdenlive, Cinelerra-GG, Flowblade, Gimp, web browsers, et cetera all at the same time on my 32GB ram machine. Well not all rendering at once, but open with filled time-lines, filters, previews, and much more. Yet I have a hard time hitting 20gb without a bit more heavy lifting).
Edit: I would say if you're unsure, just start out with a swap partition, do some normal daily tasks. Then check a task manager or just use the command, "free -m" to see your memory usage. (The command will also show your swap usage). If you're not hitting anywhere close to your memory ram limit then you might want to disable and remove swap. "swapoff -a", use a program such as, "gnome-disk-utility" or "GParted" to delete and resize the allocated space into say your home partition. After that just edit your fstab. "sudo nano /etc/fstab" (change nano to your choice of text editor) and delete the entry pertaining to swap.
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DMGrier
VIP Member
So few things...
Your screen tearing could be caused by a few things. One, are you running the open source or proprietary Nvidia drivers? I have been using Linux for well over a decade and I have never had good luck with the open source drivers. So if anything try the proprietary Nvidia drivers. With Mint it may not be an option but if supported you could try Wayland as well to see if that resolves your problem. Caution, the Wayland display server has far matured over the years but still has a few major bugs and not all apps have been ported to support Wayland yet.
Also Linux is still working on getting the latest GPU drivers on the distributions asap but, is still far from flawless. So with Ubuntu and Ubuntu base distro's you can install a PPA that is maintained by Canonical to get newer drivers.
https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
Also Linux has had a native steam client for years now, open a terminal and type sudo apt install steam. Proton is okay, still in beta. Being you have an Nvidia GPU you are good but, I know in my testing and others I have read Proton compatibility with games can vary based on the GPU you are using. My experience with Proton has been less then pleasant.
Welcome to Linux and, as someone on here a long time ago said to me when I discovered Linux "Welcome to the command line!".
Your screen tearing could be caused by a few things. One, are you running the open source or proprietary Nvidia drivers? I have been using Linux for well over a decade and I have never had good luck with the open source drivers. So if anything try the proprietary Nvidia drivers. With Mint it may not be an option but if supported you could try Wayland as well to see if that resolves your problem. Caution, the Wayland display server has far matured over the years but still has a few major bugs and not all apps have been ported to support Wayland yet.
Also Linux is still working on getting the latest GPU drivers on the distributions asap but, is still far from flawless. So with Ubuntu and Ubuntu base distro's you can install a PPA that is maintained by Canonical to get newer drivers.
https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
Also Linux has had a native steam client for years now, open a terminal and type sudo apt install steam. Proton is okay, still in beta. Being you have an Nvidia GPU you are good but, I know in my testing and others I have read Proton compatibility with games can vary based on the GPU you are using. My experience with Proton has been less then pleasant.
Welcome to Linux and, as someone on here a long time ago said to me when I discovered Linux "Welcome to the command line!".
UnholyVision
Active Member
Only to point this out so not to waste their time. Nvidia open-source stinks and it's because of Nvidia mainly. AMD on the other hand works great with tearfree options. Though, yes they could in theory use the Nvidia drivers and use Nvidia-Settings to setup, "Force Composition Pipeline" and say "Force Full Composition Pipeline". However, none of that will work with Wayland. Wayland support for proprietary drivers isn't really there and honestly Wayland while it was forced out on Fedora it's no where near ready for proper use. Everything is still very dependent on X11 and I would not suggest anyone new to Linux go through the hassle of getting a proper Wayland setup over X11. Your DE/WM options become limited to around four options & you're running somethings in a hit or miss situation in a Wayland translation layer for X11.
Nonsense! If you can get one current/reasonable aged GPU to run you can another. I have used a range of GPU's with the same titles no problem. AMD 2200G APU's, RX550, Vega 64, GTX 970, GTX 1080 Ti, and RTX 2080Ti. Unless you're using something like a old ATI card with the Radeon drivers that has no AMDGPU or AMDGPU Pro driver support you should be fine. Yet, some games do need tweaking to work, but 70% of the time it's audio related so "WINEPREFIX=~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/268050/pfx winetricks xact" and fixed. The others are usually 5% simple fonts, 5% DRM (which may never work), 1% needs a registry entry with Winecfg (This is quiet rare), 2% need to rename a file to bypass a launcher, 10% you need a simple launch option via steam, 3% need to change to Steam beta to use the higher version of Proton, 1% need to use a newer open-source or proprietary driver, & 3% Core component of the game just isn't supported yet. (Could come or never come).
I'm not trying to say Proton is perfect. By all means in no way is it perfect. You sometimes have to use Winetricks to do just as I stated, but GPU related issues are so so rare. My current collection of games is in the thousands and I've only had one title I needed to use such a fix to disable NVAPI & NVAPI64.
What? Linux has the quote on quote latest drivers. That doesn't make any sense. It would be dependent on your Distro. Other distributions make it so much easier to get the latest and greatest drivers. For example on Arch, "sudo pacman -S nvidia" and you have the latest non-beta driver. No tty and no PPA nonsense. Also, driver support is based on kernel version and distro's such as Ubuntu or other derivatives tend to use a much older kernel. Mind you Ubuntu's newest release has a higher kernel, but still light years behind in terms of updating it. When time comes users will need to patch or update their kernels to use higher drivers again on such distros.
Nonsense! If you can get one current/reasonable aged GPU to run you can another. I have used a range of GPU's with the same titles no problem. AMD 2200G APU's, RX550, Vega 64, GTX 970, GTX 1080 Ti, and RTX 2080Ti. Unless you're using something like a old ATI card with the Radeon drivers that has no AMDGPU or AMDGPU Pro driver support you should be fine. Yet, some games do need tweaking to work, but 70% of the time it's audio related so "WINEPREFIX=~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/268050/pfx winetricks xact" and fixed. The others are usually 5% simple fonts, 5% DRM (which may never work), 1% needs a registry entry with Winecfg (This is quiet rare), 2% need to rename a file to bypass a launcher, 10% you need a simple launch option via steam, 3% need to change to Steam beta to use the higher version of Proton, 1% need to use a newer open-source or proprietary driver, & 3% Core component of the game just isn't supported yet. (Could come or never come).
I'm not trying to say Proton is perfect. By all means in no way is it perfect. You sometimes have to use Winetricks to do just as I stated, but GPU related issues are so so rare. My current collection of games is in the thousands and I've only had one title I needed to use such a fix to disable NVAPI & NVAPI64.
DMGrier
VIP Member
UnholyVision, I think we have some miscommunication and maybe on my part but let me correct.
"Everything is still very dependent on X11 and I would not suggest anyone new to Linux go through the hassle of getting a proper Wayland setup over X11."
True, but many of the issues which he is complaining about are known X display server issues. Anyone worth their salt using Linux knows the X display server is a damn mess with all the cobbled together code, security issues and what, like four people in the world who actually knows how the X display server works from the ground up. Wayland comes actually setup in most large Linux distro's. It is something you simply toggle between at the login screen. May not be an option for Mint and I did outline that Wayland is not flawless either. Depending on the distro very easy to test though
"What? Linux has the quote on quote latest drivers."
Not true, well depending on how you phrase. So first off, Linux Mint is not a rolling release, so stop riding the merits of Arch Linux. You are right, Linux disto's do get the latest drivers but, on disto's that are six month releases or LTS they always have issues with offering it's users the latest available drivers from the hardware vendor in the stock repository. I can install the latest Ubuntu release (or one of its variants) and see in the default repositories I do not have the latest proprietary video drivers available to me. In order to get those in the most reliable way would be to use the PPA on the ubuntu based distro's OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED BY CANONICAL. It is not suggested by any Linux user worth a damn to pull down the ones from Nvidia, so how would you purpose installing the latest proprietary drivers on a non rolling release? For his GPU it might not be a problem but I am addressing the known issue of people who do use the bleeding edge of hardware but want a stable release. I was more referencing the fact that if you game on Windows then you are probably used to your Nvidia drivers letting you know when to update or even them after a while being included in the Windows updates on Windows 10, it is not that flawless on Ubuntu or it's variants without the PPA.
Let's be honest, Proton is F***ing awesome piece of tech and I will tell you I have had several issues with certain titles in my steam library. I am more or less making sure the Windows users don't think it is a flawless as so many people I have seen put out on youtube. A specific title for example where your performance and compatibility will vary is Doom 2016. Many people are showing the bench marks for this game and yes, depending on distro, graphics driver and your actual GPU your mileage will vary. This is not to put Proton down, but I am tired of people making it sound like it is so flawless.
UnholyVision, I like your post and for the most part you are spot on. I am just offering some ideas of things to try with Wayland and, for someone coming from Windows how drivers are managed in LTS Linux Distro'a may seem weird. In my house I have a mixture of Linux and Windows devices and have been a hardcore Linux user for well over a decade now.
"Everything is still very dependent on X11 and I would not suggest anyone new to Linux go through the hassle of getting a proper Wayland setup over X11."
True, but many of the issues which he is complaining about are known X display server issues. Anyone worth their salt using Linux knows the X display server is a damn mess with all the cobbled together code, security issues and what, like four people in the world who actually knows how the X display server works from the ground up. Wayland comes actually setup in most large Linux distro's. It is something you simply toggle between at the login screen. May not be an option for Mint and I did outline that Wayland is not flawless either. Depending on the distro very easy to test though
"What? Linux has the quote on quote latest drivers."
Not true, well depending on how you phrase. So first off, Linux Mint is not a rolling release, so stop riding the merits of Arch Linux. You are right, Linux disto's do get the latest drivers but, on disto's that are six month releases or LTS they always have issues with offering it's users the latest available drivers from the hardware vendor in the stock repository. I can install the latest Ubuntu release (or one of its variants) and see in the default repositories I do not have the latest proprietary video drivers available to me. In order to get those in the most reliable way would be to use the PPA on the ubuntu based distro's OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED BY CANONICAL. It is not suggested by any Linux user worth a damn to pull down the ones from Nvidia, so how would you purpose installing the latest proprietary drivers on a non rolling release? For his GPU it might not be a problem but I am addressing the known issue of people who do use the bleeding edge of hardware but want a stable release. I was more referencing the fact that if you game on Windows then you are probably used to your Nvidia drivers letting you know when to update or even them after a while being included in the Windows updates on Windows 10, it is not that flawless on Ubuntu or it's variants without the PPA.
Let's be honest, Proton is F***ing awesome piece of tech and I will tell you I have had several issues with certain titles in my steam library. I am more or less making sure the Windows users don't think it is a flawless as so many people I have seen put out on youtube. A specific title for example where your performance and compatibility will vary is Doom 2016. Many people are showing the bench marks for this game and yes, depending on distro, graphics driver and your actual GPU your mileage will vary. This is not to put Proton down, but I am tired of people making it sound like it is so flawless.
UnholyVision, I like your post and for the most part you are spot on. I am just offering some ideas of things to try with Wayland and, for someone coming from Windows how drivers are managed in LTS Linux Distro'a may seem weird. In my house I have a mixture of Linux and Windows devices and have been a hardcore Linux user for well over a decade now.
UnholyVision
Active Member
Maybe, because how you wrote things it's very unclear.
You're missing the point. You went on about using the Nvidia drivers and just instantly jumped over to suggesting Wayland. Proprietary drivers and Wayland don't mix & with installing Wayland you're limiting your WM/DE options out the gate. You're not using Cinnamon on Wayland. You're now limited to Sway, Enlightenment, Gnome, & Plasma. Basically four options out of the many other options you could have been or enjoyed using. Wayland isn't exactly a option.
Yes it is true based on what you said. That I quote here.
You make it sound as if Linux as a whole is still working on getting the latest drivers as a whole. This is very untrue and as I said dependent on your distro & kernel version. As you blindly make a broad statement saying "Linux is still working on" and not specifying a distro.
First off, no one said it was a rolling release.... Please don't put words in my mouth.
The problem with Doom 2016 as you put it isn't performance related. It's the fact the game isn't pushed to use the Vulkan version of the title. By default it doesn't call to use the Vulkan version of the game and this may or may not cause an issue. It can cause the game to even launch in a black screen for some. The only fix for this is one of two options. Either rename the executable files so there flipped to use Vulkan or do the easier fix by using a launch option on Steam, "+r_renderapi 1".
Distro's do no make your performance better or worse. There are plenty of tests on this proving even using Arch Linux (as an example) is going to make your overall gaming performance better. I can even contest to this as it's one of my daily drivers. There are times where native games don't run properly with the normal "Steam" client and I have to jump to the "Steam-native-runtime". (Proton on the other hand doesn't matter unless I use games with always-on internet DRM's where I'm forced to use regular Steam or it can't connect).
Graphics drivers and GPU's don't matter much in the world of Proton either. That's nonsense. It very, very, very seldom prevents you from running a game in Proton. Though sure your performance will vary on the GPU used on any game. The same can be said on Windows. A flag ship GPU better out perform a lower-end tier GPU or what's the point in purchasing it?
DMGrier
VIP Member
Are you upset? That wasn't my intention.
I never said you claimed mint was a rolling release. When you initially responded to what I said about Linux drivers you said....
I basically called out the fact that we are talking about Mint and not Arch. Yes, Arch Linux has availability and a easier methods for installing the latest packages (with drawbacks) but, we are discussing Linux Mint. Which is based on a LTS Ubuntu last time I checked, meaning your best bet to latest drivers is the damn PPA as a "sudo apt update" without a PAA will not get you the latest drivers.
There is nothing untrue about what I said. Many of the distro makers are continually working on this. Canonicals answer to this was the PPA's and within the last year I was reading an article on Fedora Magazine about them working on a mechanism to make driver updating easier for their users, I don't think they have delivered yet though. My point is that they are still trying to make a mechanism where it is as easy to install the latest drivers as any other package.
On the note of Wayland I was addressing the screen tear. It is a problem with Xorg, the only fix is down the road in the future is Wayland. I have read some post of people tweaking Xorg to get rid of this but in the end the real answer is to get rid of the crappy Xorg display server and put something built from the ground up with some actual damn design behind it. TO the OP - Depending on your application choices Wayland works fine in my testing but may not for your applications and I am not even sure if Wayland is available in Linux Mint, making this argument pointless between myself and Unholyvision.
In the end, I think you read to far into my post and I think you are under an impression I am attacking the Linux Distro's. I am glad to see you discovered Linux a few years ago and have a youtube channel.... I have been using Linux for over a decade and I get paid very well as a Linux Sysadmin so, please understand I love (and rely on) the Linux operating system very much. I am just not much for sugar coating it and many of the people I met using Linux a decade plus ago was not either. I am the type to tell you where Linux is great but in the same breath will tell you where it sucks. I will take your word on the game stuff, I have read information that says your wrong however, I only game a little bit as the 100+ hours a week I spend on a computer is for creativity, music production (<- my pleasure) or work. I will call it as I see it and basically what our discussion has been about... Currently ease of installing the latest drivers on the big four distros or the variants is not very straight forward and Xorg is in desperate need of being replaced.
That is all I am saying...
I never said you claimed mint was a rolling release. When you initially responded to what I said about Linux drivers you said....
I basically called out the fact that we are talking about Mint and not Arch. Yes, Arch Linux has availability and a easier methods for installing the latest packages (with drawbacks) but, we are discussing Linux Mint. Which is based on a LTS Ubuntu last time I checked, meaning your best bet to latest drivers is the damn PPA as a "sudo apt update" without a PAA will not get you the latest drivers.
There is nothing untrue about what I said. Many of the distro makers are continually working on this. Canonicals answer to this was the PPA's and within the last year I was reading an article on Fedora Magazine about them working on a mechanism to make driver updating easier for their users, I don't think they have delivered yet though. My point is that they are still trying to make a mechanism where it is as easy to install the latest drivers as any other package.
On the note of Wayland I was addressing the screen tear. It is a problem with Xorg, the only fix is down the road in the future is Wayland. I have read some post of people tweaking Xorg to get rid of this but in the end the real answer is to get rid of the crappy Xorg display server and put something built from the ground up with some actual damn design behind it. TO the OP - Depending on your application choices Wayland works fine in my testing but may not for your applications and I am not even sure if Wayland is available in Linux Mint, making this argument pointless between myself and Unholyvision.
In the end, I think you read to far into my post and I think you are under an impression I am attacking the Linux Distro's. I am glad to see you discovered Linux a few years ago and have a youtube channel.... I have been using Linux for over a decade and I get paid very well as a Linux Sysadmin so, please understand I love (and rely on) the Linux operating system very much. I am just not much for sugar coating it and many of the people I met using Linux a decade plus ago was not either. I am the type to tell you where Linux is great but in the same breath will tell you where it sucks. I will take your word on the game stuff, I have read information that says your wrong however, I only game a little bit as the 100+ hours a week I spend on a computer is for creativity, music production (<- my pleasure) or work. I will call it as I see it and basically what our discussion has been about... Currently ease of installing the latest drivers on the big four distros or the variants is not very straight forward and Xorg is in desperate need of being replaced.
That is all I am saying...
UnholyVision
Active Member
To sort of summarize this here. At this point I'm just going to say you're trying to troll with this. Projecting feeling into a conversation and trying to erect an emotional response through some passive aggressive means. Because no one got overbearing here, inflammatory, or the likes. You've projected on me now and previously put words in my mouth while taking everything out of context. Your first post was flawed. If I'm honest, it wasn't structured well. It was hard to follow, as you went from one thing right to the next in a single sentence or paragraph. Then make broad statements without any clear definitive direction to what you're talking about. I state such things in my previous post too. Now your reply seems to have just cherry picked things out of context, to further push some kind of narrative? I mean you even started making quotes and replies to the prior cherry picked post as in to dilute the conversations fluidity? I do implore you to re-read what is said, your post included and look at how it could be read in a different lighting to see the full context of the topic. (You can say i'm reading into it to much, but you're the first one to cry feelings). (Yes I made small quotes from a previous post. Though I was just stating it was a broad statement & didn't make since. I also pulled these three talking points, as I didn't feel the current post needed a proper response. It just forwards some kind of circle back).
Also, if you understand the full context of the post that Arch command would make sense in the current time of what was perceived.
I pull this to say one major thing to this. That is great and all, but I could careless what your status is. I do not ad-hear to authority per se. I contribute to many and an active publisher of free & opensource projects as well, but I do not push that out there as some sort of objective. I've stayed fairly neutral here and you've put feelings into it.
Speaking of such things in this time and age should also be a taboo. I say that as a cautionary statement & no way a act of agression. With the new CoC being pushed throughout the software world in Linux one should try and be as hush hush on that as possible. You never know whom you might be talking to & the repercussions that it could bring. I've had fellow coders fall to a similar fate in some of the projects I've worked in. All because one person made it their mission the ruin someone over a disagreement.
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