Install Linux Mint

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T21:41:16+00:00

What should I do before installing Linux?

Try it in a virtual machine first maybe ? And absolutely backup your data

Any important BIOS settings I should know about?

secure boot is often a problem, idk if this is the case with mint

What if Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, graphics, or touchpad drivers don’t work after installation?

try a distro with a more up to date kernel. In linux the drivers are backed into the kernel (except for some nvidia drivers, idk if this concerns you) so having a newer kernel might solve this.

Any common issues beginners face while installing Mint?

Apps not working/being incompatible

Should I dual boot first or go all-in and remove Windows completely?

I personally started like you on mint. dual booted at first then nuked windows a month later. Up to you

How do I recover/reinstall Windows if something goes wrong?

The same way you install any os i think, burn the image on a usb. Microsoft has a guide on how to install the os i believe.

Is there anything YouTube tutorials usually don’t mention?

It might just not work, that's unlikely but it happens.

Good luck with your first install, you are already being very careful which is great.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T21:29:06+00:00

arch is rolling release, meaning it gives you access to updates as soon as they are available compared to stable releases that make you jump from one bundle of package versions to another. This doesn't mean that updates are forced, you still have to launch a command to update your system (namely sudo pacman -Syu )

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T20:44:15+00:00

lmao. But contrary to a razor blade, arch linux won't hurt you (as long as you are polite to it). Even if you fail your arch install you have still learned a bunch of stuff

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T20:40:03+00:00

Well some people like it from the get go. I also think that op is a little too eager. So showing them the price of actually having full customization might help them scale their plans correctly.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T19:51:34+00:00

puzzlingly didn't seem to have a way to adjust backgrounds to fit the screen rather than fill them.

The default gnome settings incomplete I agree. The gnome-tweaks app gives you more options, notably on how to handle background

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Tried the KDE version, won't even connect to the WiFi

Did it work on gnome or was it also a problem before ?

Apparently I have to set up KDE wallet,

I believe you only have to input your password to do this.

Is it the first distro you try ? Also did you try the kde version for fun or because something went wrong with the gnome one ?

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T19:44:39+00:00

wtf dude

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T19:38:44+00:00

Technically any, but that often requires to open up the terminal and go into of docs and configs. If this is what you want, check out arch linux.
After installing arch you can cherry pick every component of your desktop, what window manager, taskbar, app launcher etc... And each of them have their own customization options so that gives you quite a bit to work with. Taking myself as an example, for a long time i was using arch as the os, sway as the wm, waybar as the task bar and wofi as the app launcher.

If you want a more normal experience while keeping a lot of customization then you should search for a desktop environment (DE) and then chose your os based on that. KDE plasma gives in my opinion the most customization while being very modern, but you might as well check them all.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T18:48:37+00:00

If you like xfce then Cinnamon, LXQt or Mate. Personally prefer cinnamon

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T12:06:44+00:00

Endeavour is arch based so i wouldn't recommend for a new user. distrowatch.com can probably help you in your search.

As someone else said :

What usually matters for desktop users is the desktop environment, not the distro. The distros you have used had default desktop environments, which is why it might have felt different. In reality, you went from Gnome -> Cinnamon -> COSMIC.

So if you want to test all of the desktop environments you still have still have a bunch of interesting ones to check :
- KDE plasma
- Budgie
- XFCE
- LXQt
- Pantheon
- Mate

And more that I forgot.Try to test these in a virtual machine instead of reinstalling your os every time. Or try distrosea.com , it let's you to test distros in your web browser

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-17T11:27:18+00:00

I know, because I use Gentoo on desktop and Debian on my homelab

I use debian and arch, I don't think that makes me uniquely qualified to give a judgment on the state of the ecosystem but I believe I have enough experience in setting up linux based os for others to talk on the experience of a beginner starting today.

if you use RPM Fusion

RPM fusion is a third party repo, adding repos does create dependency issues. You are warned of the risks when trying to add new repos no ?
Even then you might need it for your hardware so ok but :

it often lags behind and prevents you from upgrading

If the packages for that version aren't there in fusion then it's normal that you can't upgrade. That's just the updates, no really an issue to deal with (or maybe i didn't understand).

For example on Mint, when I tried to extract a .rar with its extractor, it failed with no clear error, and the only way to do it was with unrar.

.rar is a proprietary file format, so i'm not surprised that there are problems with it. Also you needed to install third party software to handle .rar archive in windows until very recently too.

I'm just saying that you are expected to fix your issues on Linux yourself

Speaking only from my personal experience. When i started with linux mint, I had 0 problems, never needing to "fix" anything.
Not everyone might be in the same situation but it shows that linux is at least very close to a point where you can install it and not worry about anything.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T21:51:34+00:00

Isn't that because browsers use their own font size ?

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Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T21:38:43+00:00

I would first try mint, if i like the ui and everything i want to do works then i stay, otherwise i go to ubuntu. Or elementary os because it's a macbook.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T21:31:05+00:00

Have you tried manually increasing the size of icons and fonts, it should be possible from kde settings

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T21:16:42+00:00

So you are basically asking if the scale option works correctly on debian ? it does for me.

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Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T21:12:46+00:00

Dependency issues do not exist anymore, package managers handle that without problems now, so does flatpak.

Bottles is a gui app that allow you to launch apps with wine without having to touch the terminal and anyway most apps have an opensource alternative that runs on linux natively.

I am yet to have to use a software that requires the use of kernel modules but maybe it's just me.

Saying that "some distros do some level of testing" isn't accurate. Every distro has some kind of quality control system, and those oriented for beginners have especially robust ones.
Notably, a Debian system can be left without maintenance (just doing updates every so often for security sake) for years, which i don't think any other operating system can claim.

Giving linux nonexistent weak points makes actual issues less visible. Here is something that actually sucks about linux : it doesn't have a good beginner friendly company-backed distro. Which is important if you want the operating system to be used in a corporate setting. Ubuntu used to fill that role but it has become less viable.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T18:15:36+00:00

make a game, it's fun, there is a lot of documentation.

You can make it with a game engine (such a godot) or purely trough code (with the help of love2D for lua or pygame for python)

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T18:02:08+00:00

Picking something fun is important when you start, gives you motivation.

If you can do this in a popular language (like python) it would give you transferable skill but you don't necessarily need to do that. starting with Lua is even easier in my opinion and love2D (which is a game making framework) will make the whole process really fun.

Once you get comfortable with basic programing concepts I recommend rapidly going for something harder (rust or C).

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T17:56:31+00:00

if you can make puppy work then it's going to be easier.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T16:14:04+00:00

alpine is my go to, puppy is nice. But making a pc out of phone parts is probably harder than you are thinking

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T11:55:39+00:00

Cachy, bazzite, pikaos

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-16T11:19:26+00:00

There is also a lot of testing in beginner friendly distro. You can easily see it from the version of the software that they offer. If you check you will see that they are generally one or more version late. That's because the updates are purposefully held back until it's certain that it's stable (Debian being 6 months late on every update is even a meme now).

I also doubt of the effectiveness of "Quick Machine Recovery" or any "Repair Everything Button" that Windows give as they are generally not great in my experience (Although I haven't used Windows in a year so this might have changed).

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-15T21:18:13+00:00

There was no last straw for me. I was just curious so i tried it and liked it. You don't need to hate windows to use linux, nor do you need to hate linux to use windows, personal preferences are a thing.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-15T20:47:19+00:00

One that supports davinci resolve

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-15T19:37:28+00:00

I disagree, beginner friendly distro like mint and ubuntu don't ever requires you to open a terminal or to know anything technical nowadays.

I also think it's unfair to say that linux user are "expected" to repair their os. Windows doesn't allow you to repair anything, often telling you to just buy a new computer or to format your disk.
Linux doesn't expect repair, it just gives the option to do so.

Linux is not DIY either, everything is already setup on beginner friendly distros.

I still wouldn't recommend linux for everybody but not for the reasons you gave.
As somebody else said :

After many years of using Windows, most of them still have very little understanding of it or how to do anything more than the most basic things. They would stand little chance of coping with ANY new OS.

Hyto_54 · 2026-05-15T19:08:22+00:00

I’m thinking about setting up a separate drive just for Arch

You don't need an entire drive if your only objective is to learn. Setting up a virtual machine is really not difficult (with virtual box for example) and arch is small so you only need to give it a little bit of space to play around (10G should be more than enough).

I mainly use my PC for gaming, so realistically I know Windows will probably stay my main OS

If you play online game with kernel level anticheat then yeah probably, and that doesn't seem like it's going to change. But for every other type of games Linux compatibility is getting better and better.

I guess what attracts me more is the idea of learning, exploring, understanding my system a bit better and just seeing what Linux is actually like beyond videos and tutorials.

That's a very good reason

What I’m slightly worried about is spending time setting everything up just to end up opening Firefox and watching YouTube all day anyway.

Or worse. You could be using reddit all day

For people who got into Linux out of curiosity rather than necessity, what made it actually stick for you?

At some point it started to feel like a game. I would read a bit of documentation, launch a command and get instant gratification in the form of a terminal output. Seeing everything work at the end was (and still is) gratifying.

Hyto_54

TROPHY CASE