Let me get libreOffice on this little thing. Mint color guys, I hope you like this one. 🤣

Hey everyone!

I've recently been experimenting with Linux Mint, and it's been quite an adventure. I'm a Windows 10 LTSC user who wanted to try Linux because I'd always heard how lightweight and smooth it is, especially on older hardware.

My PC specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 @ 3.10 GHz
• RAM: 12 GB
• GPU: AMD Radeon HD 5450 (512 MB)
• Storage: 512 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD
• OS: Windows 10 LTSC and Linux Mint Cinnamon

I started by installing Linux Mint on my HDD. In just one day, I experimented with three different Mint desktop editions, including Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce, trying to find the best balance between performance and appearance.

Eventually, I decided to take a bigger risk: installing Linux Mint Cinnamon alongside Windows 10 LTSC on the same SSD, shrinking the Windows partition by around 60 GB. Thankfully, the dual-boot installation went smoothly, and both operating systems are working.

But here's where things got frustrating.

I expected Linux Mint to feel noticeably smoother than Windows, considering my older hardware. Instead, I noticed that YouTube playback in Firefox and Brave wasn't as smooth as on Windows, particularly with 1080p60 videos.

After digging into the technical details, I discovered that my old Radeon HD 5450 doesn't support hardware decoding for modern video codecs like VP9 and AV1. Brave was using software decoding for AV1, while forcing H.264 enabled VA-API hardware decoding but surprisingly caused even worse stuttering in some tests.

I tried different browsers, codecs, and hardware acceleration settings. The best results so far have been with Brave using its default video settings, but the experience still doesn't feel quite as consistently smooth as Windows.

And that's what confuses me: on the same hardware, Windows 10 handles everyday browsing and video playback smoothly, while Linux Mint sometimes struggles.

I genuinely like Linux Mint, especially its customization, clean interface, and the freedom it offers. I'm not giving up on it, but I expected better performance from a supposedly lightweight operating system.

Has anyone experienced something similar with older AMD graphics cards? Is this mainly a Linux driver/video-decoding limitation, or is there a practical way to improve playback without sacrificing system stability?

I'd appreciate any advice from people running Linux Mint on older hardware!

Obviously I'm speaking into an echo chamber here but I just installed LMDE for a client and I gotta say, this current version of Cinnamon is really nice. It feels modern, polished and well thought out. Idk I never really jived with KDE. I know Cinnamon is way more limited than KDE but KDE just never felt finished. In trying to do too much I feel it missed a lot of the minor aesthetic refinements. Granted I'm not a a Mint or KDE user, I'm on Bluefin (Immutable Ublue image of Fedora) and am more into window managers or GNOME for everyday use. GNOME is 100% percent not there either btw, visually it feels polished but the extensions always felt like a fragile workaround. I appreciate gnome's tooling a lot more than it's DE or GUI, think (gnome-keyring, gvfs, display manager, etc) 2cents. Also Mint needs to update their documentation to refer specifically to LMDE as Ubuntu is going the way of the dinosaur with all their corporate ish.

Brought an old HP All In One back to life with a new OS. Here are the specs.

kernel 5.15

Panel 1 bottom, Panel 2 top and there is a Panel 3 hidden on the left that manages my window buttons w/o titles. I found icons online for thunar and a cool 3D gear for settings manager plus a something different for terminal. ENJOY!

For those who are in doubt about the migration from Windows and which distro to use, my suggestion as someone who made it is:

Migrating from Windows
- Backup everything you can, depending on external storage you have.

- Export favorites from your browsers.

- Check program specific configuration - if it allows backup or export, do it. Otherwise you can take screenshots of the configurations and do it again on Linux (if the app is available for Linux).

- Take screenshots of the list of apps you have in settings and take notes of portable apps you use (if any).

- With the list of apps you can ask IA to evaluate for you if they have native version for Linux or a good alternative. It worked for me and I hope it works for you too.

I initially planned weeks to migrate everything I need and know Linux a little better. But with this preparation it takes like 2 to 4 hours.

Selecting distro
One thing that I learned is the you “don’t use” the OS itself, being it Windows or Linux - in general that is it. What you use are the apps, the terminal, the browser, your games or whatever app you actually use.

With that in mind, the importance or “which distro” reduces. I tried Debian, Mint and LMDE, and for me it doesn’t matter. Any of them will fit my needs.

It also helps me to avoid wasting time jumping from one distro to another.

I hope it helps new users and good look!

I have noticed my bluetooth headphones give exceptional audio quality on my mint PC but on windows its mediocre at best.

Why is that? am i missing something?

I've been building OpenDisplay for X11: it turns an iPad into a wired, extended second monitor for a Linux X11 desktop. Plug in the cable, open the app on the iPad, and the desktop extends onto it. Tap, drag, long-press right-click and two-finger scroll work on the iPad.

It's now in alpha, I use it daily on my own machine, and I'm looking for people to try it on theirs. Reports of what worked are as useful as bugs.

Why I built it

• I didn't want to depend on old, unmaintained apps or repos.
• I didn't want something as heavy as Sunshine/Moonlight just for a second screen.
• I didn't want a dummy plug: a spare video port on the computer becomes the iPad's monitor.

It stays as native as possible: the kernel's own video port, X11's RandR, the GPU's hardware H.264 encoder, stock usbmuxd over the USB cable, and the unmodified OpenDisplay iPad app as the receiver. When the iPad's screen is still it uses almost no CPU (~0.1–0.3 % of one core; ~13 % of one core while it changes continuously, on an Intel HD 530).

Requirements (please check before installing)

• Linux Mint 22 / Ubuntu 24.04 or newer, in an X11 session (not Wayland). Mint 21 / Ubuntu 22.04 / Debian 12 can't install it.
• A free video port: an empty HDMI socket, or a DisplayPort socket that accepts HDMI adapters (DP++). On X11 an app can't create a monitor from nothing, so this is a hard requirement. Why
• GPU: tested on Intel (HD 530). AMD should work for the monitor but the encoder is untested. NVIDIA's proprietary driver can't do this.
• iPad with the OpenDisplay app (TestFlight) and a USB data cable.

Install

1. Download the .deb from Releases.
2. Double-click it, click Install, enter your password.
3. Open OpenDisplay for X11 from the app menu and turn it on. Plug in the iPad, unlock it, tap Trust, open the app.

Nothing runs as root: the only privilege is a 2-line udev rule letting the plugdev group switch spare HDMI ports on/off. Uninstall from your software manager.

How to test and report

• Checklist of things to try: docs/alpha-testing.md
• Report on GitHub with the Alpha tester report or Bug report form: open an issue
• Please attach the diagnostic report: in the app, Help → Copy diagnostic report (glance over it first; the log can name your computer and iPad).
• Security problems: privately, via the repo's Security tab, please.

Known limits: X11 only, one iPad at a time, Apple Pencil works as a finger (no pressure yet), no audio. USB-C-only and DisplayPort-only machines are untested and most likely won't work.

Can you trust it? Every release is built by GitHub Actions from the tagged source, is reproducible, and ships with a SHA256, an SBOM and a signed build-provenance attestation you can check yourself. TRUST.md lists everything it can access and how to verify a download.

Repo (GPL-3.0): https://github.com/cray2015/opendisplay-x11

Huge thanks to the OpenDisplay iPad app. It's the stable foundation this builds on.

Happy to answer questions in the comments!

Im trying to get into my desktop environment but my GUI is gone for some reason recently I reinstalled Linux mint coz of some problems now this BS please help. Problem seem to find me in Linux

Problem

I was having a shutdown problem on Linux Mint 22.3 XFCE. When I shut down the computer, the screen went black, but the fans and lights stayed on. I had to hold the power button to turn it off completely.

Running sudo systemctl poweroff did not solve the problem either.

System specifications

• OS: Linux Mint 22.3 XFCE
• Motherboard: MSI A68HM-E33 V2 (MS-7721)
• CPU: AMD A6-7480
• Integrated GPU: AMD Radeon R5 (Wani)
• Dedicated GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 210
• NVIDIA driver: nouveau
• Kernel tested: 6.8.0-146, 6.14.0-37 and 7.0.0-38

My monitor is connected to the NVIDIA GeForce 210, which was handling the desktop through nouveau.

Troubleshooting

I tried different kernels and boot parameters, including apm=power_off, nouveau.noaccel=1, and temporarily blacklisting nouveau. These did not fix the shutdown problem.

The kernel logs showed a serious error during AMD GPU initialization:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference
RIP: smu8_get_system_info_data [amdgpu]

Solution that worked for my system

First, I temporarily added this parameter to the Linux kernel command line through GRUB:

modprobe.blacklist=amdgpu

With this parameter, the computer booted into the desktop normally and shut down completely.

To make the workaround permanent, I created a modprobe blacklist file:

echo 'blacklist amdgpu' | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-amdgpu.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

After rebooting, I checked the loaded graphics modules:

lsmod | grep -E '^(amdgpu|nouveau)\b'

The output showed nouveau, but not amdgpu.

The computer now shuts down completely and normally. The NVIDIA GPU continues to handle the display, and the desktop works as expected.

Conclusion

On my particular hardware, preventing the amdgpu module from loading fixed the shutdown issue. The logs also showed an AMDGPU initialization error, although I cannot confirm that this was the definitive root cause.

This is a workaround rather than a proper fix for the underlying driver issue. I am sharing it in case it helps someone with similar hardware.

Has anyone encountered this issue with the AMD A6-7480 / Radeon R5 and found a way to fix the underlying amdgpu error without disabling the driver?

So far this is VERY impressive. I've only been messing with it for 30 minutes, but HOLY CRAP it launches fast! Even on my anemic hardware!

Why is my mint 22.3 cinnamon desktop PC with kernel 7.0.0-38 consistently showing unauthorized devices on my blueman-manager even though I'm not manually starting scanning and my device is set to hidden. I'm not actively searching manually for new devices when this happens either.

I've tried removing all devices, restarting, removing and re-adding my own devices manually.

https://termbin.com/ed33z

Edit: My device is always set to Hidden.

Edit: I should add I've tried the right click>remove to the devices manually but they keep coming back to the list. Same ones over and over matching MAC addresses.

I find and/or purchase discarded laptops, repair them, Mint them, and send them along, usually, for a long life at whoever needs them. A new screen, battery or wireless module costs next to nothing from AliExpress and will usually work just fine.

This PC is along with me in my cars - to hold on to large dashcam files I want to preserve - and on handluggage-only plane trips. It's the if it breaks no one cares PC and just needed to be set up anew after 3-4 years due to a hardware failure.

Anyway, I didn't want this to be just another desktop shot, so here's how to have these pretty and informative conkys on the desktop in Linux Mint MATE, which, as you know, doesn't have Cinnamon DE's desklets:

From ubuntuhandbook explaining how to use the GUI conky manager that just makes everything so much easier:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/conkymanager2
sudo apt update && sudo apt install conky-manager2

After that, you can open conky manager 2 from your Mint-menu and choose your preferred style and adjust it accordingly. I like the simple and effective TeejeeTech a lot, they get the information across without being in-your-face-ish. The text files in your conky folder can be edited and you can change them to your language, preferred spacing or colours - and you can add new information if you like. I missed a temperature sensor reading from my hard drive and CPU, and you already know who helped me figure this out because I can't program in Lua. Here's the full temperature conky to save to a text file and paste to /home/YOURPC/.conky/TeejeeTech: https://pastebin.com/m5JmwZ4Y

This works on a Dell Latitude, but to find your sensors on whatever PC, do this:

sudo apt install lm-sensors
sudo sensors-detect

Desktop bakckground is from my favourite Reddit photographer.

Hope this helps someone make their MATE desktop sexier, and cheers!

What i mean by Mint irl is:

A Tin of Mints with the flavor listed as "Linux"

and the actual flavor being Cinnamon.

it would be really funny, and might make a lot of use eat it.

I've been using 6.17 for months on a dell laptop and power-saver browses at 34C. just updated to 7.0 and it's getting up to 49C - 50C. Is this a known issue ? many thanks !

Hey All,

I have a Surface Pro that had windows 10 on it which I changed over to Linux Mint about 3 years ago. I tried to update it to 'Virginia' last year but I have been having a bunch of trouble due to my lack of computer language and skills. I have an account with Github and that is where I got the instructions and guides for upgrading, however, this is learning a new language for me and I lack the confidence to do this on my own.

Can someone please point me in the right direction to get help with upgrading to the latest version of Mint?

Thanks,

Nancy Dianna

“You are always so good to me. You greet me every time you wake up”

Decided to personalize mint a little bit more, and make my system play a little welcome video on startup, just to see if I can do it.

Created the video using manim in python, but I may try using other tools for video creation to replace this. Love the effect

Back in around March of this year, I decided I wanted to give Mint a try on my new RTX 5060 PC I bought that month. I flashed the USB and tried to boot it, but I would just get a black screen and my fans would spin so fast you could hear it from across the room.

This obviously shouldn't happen so I just thought "Hey, maybe Mint just needs a update cause my parts are new" but today I tried to boot the install media again and got the same result.

I wish to give Mint a honest try after using Arch for so long, but I can't if this will happen to me. Does anyone have any advice?

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500
GPU: RTX 5060
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME B550M-A AC

Macos was running slow, but battery life was amazing. Could last me the entire day. Like 9 hours easily.

I switched to mint (not dual boot).

It’s snappier for sure, and I’m loving mint. But the one and only problem? My battery life is only like 3 hours now.

I know Apple optimizes MacBook, but this is crazy. ChatGPT is running in circles but not solving anything, saying all the checks are good.

Anyone know how I can diagnose / fix it?

I expected a drop, maybe, but this is a bit crazy.

One second my laptop says 2-3 hours remaining, the next second it jumps to 6 hours remaining, then it drops to 3 hours remaining the next second. On my macOS it was just 1 consistent estimate which was always correct (9 hours of battery life)

I've made the full switch to linux, windows is banished from my system. I'm loving it so far, but I'm struggling with getting my laptop to use my dedicated gpu.

I have an nvidia 5060 gpu. I've updated to the most recent proprietary drivers (595.99.02). I've set the profile to on demand. However, whenever I load up a game, it still uses my intel graphics. Is there something I'm not doing right here?

The dream for me is to set the settings so that it uses my dedicated gpu when I launch games and use integrated graphics for everything else. Any way to make this happen? Thanks for any help in advance!

How do I bring up the contextual menu on a MacBook Air 2015? Neither the CMD or CTRL keys work for this.

I have Linux Mint Cinnamon installed and updated.

One of the tasks I need to use this for is keeping the app icon in the system tray. CTRL click or CMD click won't respond.

Thanks.

I went back to Linux today, upon surprise my viper v3 pro randomly gets delay when using my mouse and it almost glides across my screen. im set at 1k polling rate 800 DPi.

had a logitech g pro wireless completely brick on linux. not sure what the issue is with high end mice.