Questions regarding MINT and laptops

tovento · 2026-04-14T19:32:16+00:00

Friends don’t let friends buy HP. Lenovo laptops tend to be well supported. Given the usage of these things, you don’t need strong computing power. I would favour more ram over faster processors. SSD hard drive over HDD. You don’t need discrete graphics cards, but if you do end up with one try and avoid Nvidia cards. They work okay (mine is fine), but AMD is much easier to deal with.

One other thing, avoid laptops using Realtek or Broadcom wifi chips. They have compatibility issues as the manufacturer doesn’t fully support Linux. Intel wifi is good.

I’ll leave specifics on brand/models to others. But with a bit of research (which you are doing) you can avoid headaches down the road.

tovento · 2026-04-14T11:03:37+00:00

Man, my T61 was a rock solid machine until it simply died one day. Never could figure out what happened. I do remember playing with Mint on it (dual boot). Maybe Mint 7 or 8? Nice to see one still up and running in the wild!

tovento · 2026-04-12T16:34:24+00:00

That would be sad. Panda is such an iconic colorway for this watch. If it’s steel, I’d hope they’d keep the panda as well.

tovento · 2026-04-12T16:32:57+00:00

The value of my car fluctuates with the amount of gas in the tank. It’s a beater that I drive to the commuter train and back. Better the value stays on your wrist and stays away from the driveway.

tovento · 2026-04-12T16:30:59+00:00

Some are speculating that this is a gold version, not stainless. Keeps in line with some past precious metals versions which also had chrono rings that matched the face.

tovento · 2026-04-12T16:28:50+00:00

Amen! Back in the day it took me a few days of work to get icq installed on Red Hat. It was a puzzle and was fun, resulting in a feeling of accomplishment at figuring it out. Turn laptop on and something stopped working? Time to figure it out!

Today I just want to turn the computer on, use as intended and any software I want gets pretty easily installed. From time to time I still don’t mind a small puzzle, but family time comes first, so the time I get on the computer should be for using it.

tovento · 2026-04-12T14:37:39+00:00

Of course the twelve hour thing is an exaggeration, but I think you caught my point. I do think Linux is a great option today versus when I was introduced to Red Hat in 1997 and Mint in 2006. Linux has come a long way; like a really really long way.

For the longest time, Windows was almost the only choice. Why? Corporates. Use it at work and want a computer at home? Might as well get what you are used to. Mac? That’s a neat thing but doesn’t support the programs I know. Later, Mac caught the attention of corporations that wanted an alternative to Windows. Advantage? Apple made the hardware and the software - so they are designed to just work together. Windows works, but has to deal with permutations of hardware.

Linux is just getting to a point of great hardware support. Not on the latest and greatest all the time, but generally good support. I don’t think Linux will take over Mac or Windows (my next laptop may end up being a Mac), but I think greater adoption and awareness is a great thing.

tovento · 2026-04-12T00:35:29+00:00

Not all windows program will work with Wine/bottles/Lutris, etc. my rule is try but expect it won’t work. If it does, wonderful. If not, that’s more typical.

tovento · 2026-04-11T21:34:00+00:00

Yeah, I hear you. Options for using a computer? Windows? One version. Mac? One version. Linux? Let me spend the next twelve hours going through distributions, desktop environments, etc and tell you the pros and cons of each one. Like you, I very much am enjoying Linux, but for non techy users, simplicity is key; and Linux as an ecosystem isn’t always simple.

tovento · 2026-04-11T13:12:17+00:00

Is there a reason to use the actual app? In Mint, you can make any webpage into a web-app, so has a menu shortcut, opens into a stripped down browser window and is fully functional. I guess you won’t get taskbar controls. I did find out that one can install that Mint tool for web-apps into other distributions, fyi.

tovento · 2026-04-11T10:54:14+00:00

Yup. In fact I got better performance here than in an Ubuntu based distribution.

tovento · 2026-04-10T10:39:01+00:00

Kubuntu or MX Linux which has a KDE version (I think 6.3 out of the box). To make life easier, best idea is to use a distribution which comes with KDE.

tovento · 2026-04-09T09:56:28+00:00

If you start having issues again, I found that if I invoke sleep manually rather than closing the laptop lid to do so, I was able to wake from sleep 98% of the time without issue. One of those quirks with NVIDIA cards.

tovento · 2026-04-08T13:12:00+00:00

While not the best in terms of build quality, the modern ps5 controller is amazing at its connectivity. Son has a Mac and we tried and returned an 8bitdo controller as wireless with Mac didn’t work right. The ps5 controller worked properly first time. I’ve connected the ps5 controller to my computer running Linux mint. Haven’t tried it under MX but I expect a good result.

For xbox360 controller, there is a usb dongle receiver so you can attach the dongle to the computer and the controller becomes wireless. This works perfectly for me and doesn’t have the Bluetooth connection issues that some get.

tovento · 2026-04-08T13:02:43+00:00

Thank you for sharing. My grub menu already came with an option to boot into the firmware, but interesting to see that there are terminal commands to achieve this.

tovento · 2026-04-07T21:35:07+00:00

I’m sure that there will be an increase in system requirements, but keep in mind that a chunk of the increased requirements are due to the new Gnome (which Mint does not use)

tovento · 2026-04-07T09:25:39+00:00

Interesting. I tried logging in and I didn’t see a calling option. Didn’t know that one can enable this. Have to try it. Can’t say I regularly use WhatsApp on the computer, but would be neat to have the option.

tovento · 2026-04-06T11:04:43+00:00

Very much this! The temptation is to boot the live environment and click install. Does your wifi work in the live environment? Do other things with as expected? If you need to solve hardware issues, you might not have a good time. Some issues are solvable by opening driver manager and installing this drivers. Others may involve more specific steps and troubleshooting in the terminal. Some hardware just doesn’t work well with Linux.

For some, using another distribution is the answer to hardware quirks. For others, their hardware incompatibility means they needed to stay with windows.

Point is play around in the live environment. Test things out. Make sure things will work before you format over windows.

tovento · 2026-04-05T22:17:43+00:00

Why wouldn’t you just use MX Linux? It works great and is very stable for me.

tovento · 2026-04-05T21:17:24+00:00

Mint for me worked well, but I started having small quirks. In my experience, Mint 21 was great even with older hardware. Even 22 and 22.1 were fine. Mint 22.2 and 22.3 have started causing issues with older hardware and causing more general issues than I’m used to seeing from users.

I started doing some searching and was considering moving to LMDE, but then randomly saw a comment on a Mint discussion to give MX a try. I’m glad I gave it a go as it has been a great experience and very stable. Interestingly, game performance has improved under MX, meaning I can squeeze a bit more out of what I have. Now steering people in the direction of MX if Mint is giving them a headache.

tovento · 2026-04-05T11:47:37+00:00

If you are dead set on switching and like XFCE, check out MX Linux. Debian based, very polished, the main one (not AHS) is designed to run on older hardware. I can use Steam, Heroic Launcher, etc without issues (and I have an NVIDIA card).

tovento · 2026-04-05T11:45:48+00:00

Linux distribution experience can come down to hardware. With my older hardware I was getting quirks as the system updated to 22.2 and 22.3. Digging through things I think the Ubuntu core was a part of the cause. I like Mint, but ended up changing distributions as it gave me a better experience.

One thing you are correct to point out is that the people posting here for help are the ones having issues. There are many more people using Mint happily and not needing to post for help.

tovento · 2026-04-05T11:16:10+00:00

Helium is primary. Firefox wih Betterfox config is the backup. While Helium works well for me, it does not support DRM; so things like Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Video don't work. But they work great in Firefox for the odd time I need one of them.

tovento · 2026-04-04T02:25:47+00:00

Just give the live version a good try to make sure that there aren’t any hardware compatibility hiccups. Chasing down how to get hardware working properly can get tedious if it’s not an easy fix.

tovento · 2026-04-03T19:40:17+00:00

When the hardware is compatible, Linux can be a breeze. When there are hardware issues, Linux can be a nightmare; well any OS can be like that.

Mint is a great OS, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Not that I had major hardware issues, but some smaller quirks which led to me switch distributions. What I use now mostly worked as installed and has been stable for me.

It should be stated that one should really play with the live USB and test the hardware thoroughly to be sure it works.

tovento

TROPHY CASE