I just switched to Linux Mint (latest beta release) I AM FREAKING IN LOVE!!! TAKE CARE WINDOWS 10 and 11 LMAO

[The red spirit]

I've never had any problem with my realtek audio.

That's not a dedicated sound card. Those are historically very poorly supported. I'm pretty sure that anyone who has Creative Sound Blaster card and attempts to use linux, likely has a very "fun" time. Hours of terminal hell and in the end just give up and use cheapo integrated Realtek. And even if Creative card somehow works, getting EAX to work is probably impossible. And if you have Aureal card, well that's likely even worse.

 

[Mindweaver]

That's not a dedicated sound card. Those are historically very poorly supported. I'm pretty sure that anyone who has Creative Sound Blaster card and attempts to use linux, likely has a very "fun" time. Hours of terminal hell and in the end just give up and use cheapo integrated Realtek. And even if Creative card somehow works, getting EAX to work is probably impossible. And if you have Aureal card, well that's likely even worse.

True, I've never really got into using DAC's. I have used Dedicated sound cards for a long time back in my battlefield days when they used EAX, but I stopped using my sound blaster audigy gamer a couple years ago. My Sennheiser HD 518's don't really need a DAC's either. I'm sure if these ever died i'll probably move up to something that will need one. I think this is derailing this thread. If you are having problems with your Topping D10 working with Mint then make a new thread. We have a good amount of knowledgeable users here that will try to help solve your issue. But at the end of the day if it's not compatible with Mint then you may need to get something that is compatible to use the OS like what @lynx29 is using.

 

[Bones]

Mint is way more compatible than Windows with external components

I quote myself:

....... it was only when Mint would not run my new GPU at the time (Radeon VII) I had to find another distro that would work with it and Peppermint was the ticket.
BTW PM10 is just as easy to use as Mint TBH.

This is why I ditched Mint for Peppermint 10.
Don't be suprised if you should encounter problems with drivers with any distro, it happens but you'd think at least Mint would update their drivers for newer AMD cards. I tried the Mint release that came AFTER my Radeon VII was released and it was still not supported - Always threw a warning about and did run in CPU rendering mode.

Peppermint isn't perfect either, Ubuntu, Mint or any other you can name but for most Mint is an excellent place to start, the only reason why I'm throwing Peppermint in is it's just as easy to use as Mint. If you have a newer AMD GPU chances are Peppermint is going to work - With Mint, based on what I ran into it may not work properly.

Try a few distros and see what works and does not is the only real suggestion I can make here.

 

[Space Lynx]

Also, you can check on this site to see the results from other users on game compatibility success.

https://www.protondb.com/

Do you know if there is a way to filter this site to show only gold and platinum games and I can scroll down that list?

 

[Deleted member 202104]

Do you know if there is a way to filter this site to show only gold and platinum games and I can scroll down that list?

Choose Explore from top menu list, then sort by ProtonDB Rating.

 

[markobrian]

So first impressions so far today... it's smooth!!! So smooth! It's very user friendly... I have already installed Steam with two clicks, updated all my drivers from the welcome window that pops up on first install, installed proprietary Nvidia driver, got gsync working.

Steam has an awesome feature that only loads automatically compatible Linux games in your library, so I don't have to sift through the store page for each game to see if it is compatible... got two games going so far and no issues at all.

Got firefox all set up as well, 0 issues... honestly... I really see no need for Windows anymore, I already prefer Libreoffice (even when I had windows) and Libreoffice is default on Linux, and it works fantastic.

For a basic user who just browses the web (mostly TPU) and plays older games and indie games... there is seriously no reason to even have Windows anymore. I tried Ubuntu earlier in the year and it felt a little laggy from time to time, but this latest Linux Mint release feels perfect. It's been a seamless transition for me.

It feels good to finally be free.

Have you installed WINE? I tried through the software manager and it says it's installed though I have no option to use WINE when right clicking an .exe, also tried doing it manually with not much success, I think it may be down to the fact it is a BETA release and so new, may use the previous release as I am not a Linux expert and it is frustrating trying to google for an answer

 

[techtard]

That's not a dedicated sound card. Those are historically very poorly supported. I'm pretty sure that anyone who has Creative Sound Blaster card and attempts to use linux, likely has a very "fun" time. Hours of terminal hell and in the end just give up and use cheapo integrated Realtek. And even if Creative card somehow works, getting EAX to work is probably impossible. And if you have Aureal card, well that's likely even worse.

I've been running an x-fi fatal1ty pci sound card and an asus xonar dg pci soundcard in 2 different linux systems for years. No messing about in the console, just plug and play.
I've even taken the sound blaster zx out of my main system and threw it in a media pc running kubuntu and it also just works. *edit* I've also been running an old pci razer barracuda ac-1 soundcard and it always just worked.

I built a midrange amd-fx based piledriver 'steambox' back in the day when steam first came to linux. Playing linux native games was a breeze, and now with proton things are even better. The only problem I've run into recently is that vulkan stopped working in proton past version 4.16 on my old 7970.

 

[Space Lynx]

Have you installed WINE? I tried through the software manager and it says it's installed though I have no option to use WINE when right clicking an .exe, also tried doing it manually with not much success, I think it may be down to the fact it is a BETA release and so new, may use the previous release as I am not a Linux expert and it is frustrating trying to google for an answer

no, I have no need for Wine, I have plenty of game backlog that is native to linux or proton works with them, so I really just don't need WINE yet... I'll try it out in a year or two maybe

 

[lexluthermiester]

So first impressions so far today... it's smooth!!! So smooth! It's very user friendly... I have already installed Steam with two clicks, updated all my drivers from the welcome window that pops up on first install, installed proprietary Nvidia driver, got gsync working.

Steam has an awesome feature that only loads automatically compatible Linux games in your library, so I don't have to sift through the store page for each game to see if it is compatible... got two games going so far and no issues at all.

Got firefox all set up as well, 0 issues... honestly... I really see no need for Windows anymore, I already prefer Libreoffice (even when I had windows) and Libreoffice is default on Linux, and it works fantastic.

For a basic user who just browses the web (mostly TPU) and plays older games and indie games... there is seriously no reason to even have Windows anymore. I tried Ubuntu earlier in the year and it felt a little laggy from time to time, but this latest Linux Mint release feels perfect. It's been a seamless transition for me.

It feels good to finally be free.

Mint is my very favorite flavor of Linux! Which GUI did you choose? Mate, Cinnamon or XFCE? My fav is XFCE.

 

[Space Lynx]

Mint is my very favorite flavor of Linux! Which GUI did you choose? Mate, Cinnamon or XFCE? My fav is XFCE.

ya xfce. i wanted light as possible

 

[lexluthermiester]

ya xfce. i wanted light as possible

Good choice!

 

[Mussels]

Well that's great, but doesn't change the fact that Xonar DG doesn't work and many other sound cards don't work.

Correct - i'm with you that windows has better driver support

I just also see that linux has made huge strides forward recently, its a lot better than 5 years ago

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

Its still pretty bad thought if you got a older GPU your out of luck

Correct - i'm with you that windows has better driver support

I just also see that linux has made huge strides forward recently, its a lot better than 5 years ago

 

[claes]

Its still pretty bad thought if you got a older GPU your out of luck

What GPUs?

It seems odd to me that some of you are having trouble with drivers... I’ve kept a Linux install on all my PCs since 2003 or so and haven’t had any issues with sound cards or GPUs. Printers, scanners, and non-Realtek WiFi have been the only real problem devices for me.

Edit: oh and touchscreens, but that’s not really surprising.

 

[Mussels]

I recall having a nightmare on a thin client system i was trying to turn into a NAS, because no matter what it just WOULD NOT install the intel graphics drivers

Skip on about 3 months of using it on windows and i realised it was S3 graphics and not intel (and linux back then just couldnt auto detect it for me)

 

[Space Lynx]

Correct - i'm with you that windows has better driver support

I just also see that linux has made huge strides forward recently, its a lot better than 5 years ago

ya if I was getting same issues I was getting even a year or two ago I would have went straight back to windows... i'm really surprised how... everything just works and no issue. it's kind of weird. lol this latest beta nailed it. well done whoever the Linux Mint team is. (don't get me wrong there are a few things you need to do, like change to the driver to nvidia, but it makes everything so easy... just follow the welcome screen step by step. thats all I did and its working great)

also how the heck do they make money??? just donations? or does firefox pay them a lot to use firefox exclusively etc?

 

[Nash]

also how the heck do they make money??? just donations? or does firefox pay them a lot to use firefox exclusively etc?

I don't know but I think a Firefox deal is probably as good a guess as any. Donations seems a bit too scrimpy.

 

[Ja.KooLit]

Mint is great. I have used Mint cinnamon for a very long time but I have to move to Arch when I upgraded my Laptop as I needed a newer kernel.

Mint is using an old kernel and even the newest beta uses 5.4 kernel. I needed 5.11 atleast since it has a patch that benefits my laptop.

Oh as for games, Linux is good for it although newer AAA title still not best. Its like few fps less compared to windows. I still dual boot though because games with anti-cheats will get you banned if you are using linux.

Oh if you have full amd cpu and gpu, check out corectrl and if you want an in game overlay for fps, clocks and temps check out mangohud.

enjoy

 

[Deleted member 202104]

also how the heck do they make money??? just donations? or does firefox pay them a lot to use firefox exclusively etc?

From https://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

Why donate money? Linux Mint is free of cost and doesn't generate any direct sort of income. It is funded by advertising, sponsoring and donations and although it is financially supported by its own community of users, its ambition is to compete with projects which are backed by large companies such as Microsoft, Apple, RedHat, Novell and Canonical.

How is the money used? The money is used to finance the needs of the distribution, to pay for hosting, to advertise on other websites, to purchase equipment and to fund the work of the people behind it.

To me, it's worth a monthly donation.

 

[Space Lynx]

ut I have to move to Arch when I upgraded my Laptop as I needed a newer kernel.

Mint is using an old kernel and even the newest beta uses 5.4 kernel. I needed 5.11 atleast since it has a patch that benefits my laptop.

What does this mean older kernel? Does it mean I'd be more secure and games do even better if I moved to latest kernel with Arch distro?

edit: nm a quick look at Arch, I can tell its a lot more complicated than Mint right away... so will have to stick with Mint anyway just for the user friendly part of it.

 

[Deleted member 202104]

Mint is great. I have used Mint cinnamon for a very long time but I have to move to Arch when I upgraded my Laptop as I needed a newer kernel.

Mint is using an old kernel and even the newest beta uses 5.4 kernel. I needed 5.11 atleast since it has a patch that benefits my laptop.

5.11 is available as a click and install on Mint 20.1 (this might be Edge)

What does this mean older kernel? Does it mean I'd be more secure and games do even better if I moved to latest kernel with Arch distro?

edit: nm a quick look at Arch, I can tell its a lot more complicated than Mint right away... so will have to stick with Mint anyway just for the user friendly part of it.

There's a couple of places to see what version Kernel you're running. Quickest way is to open a terminal (GASP!) and type:

uname -a

You'll see what you're running like:

 

[The red spirit]

Correct - i'm with you that windows has better driver support

I just also see that linux has made huge strides forward recently, its a lot better than 5 years ago

And another pain point is offline driver installation. If you don't do that stuff through driver manager, it's going to be major pain in ass. And it's not only drivers, basically any software that you download like that and attempt to install not through some software manager or with sudo apt-get, is going to be hell. Seriously, I tired using some other driver for that stupid TP-Link TL-WN721N and that was my only network connected device as I don't have cable in my room. And all I remember is that some dude explained how to do it online and that was pretty much rewriting kernel itself and praying that it works. Needless to say, I failed at that spectacularly. I got out nothing and ended up unearthing RJ45. Obviously wifi adapter never worked, because after certain kernel update, driver breaks and nobody give a shit about fixing it. I also tried installing FreeOffice, because I liked it better than LibreOffice. Too bad they only let you downlead files online and then you have to do some console wizardry to make it install itself. It was 2020, why on Earth I can't just double click it to install it? Needless to day, I failed spectacularly again and I wasn't able to install it. And the last stupid thing are package managers. I was just deleting some stuff that I thought was bloat, basically bunch of printer plug ins and what not. I deleted the wrong one and my desktop was gone and linux didn't boot up properly. I'm pretty sure that it's either unfixable or would require some good CLI knowledge to fix. I swear, shit like this is why I am put off for good from linux.

 

[Space Lynx]

5.11 is available as a click and install on Mint 20.1 (this might be Edge)

View attachment 205577



There's a couple of places to see what version Kernel you're running. Quickest way is to open a terminal (GASP!) and type:

uname -a

You'll see what you're running like:

View attachment 205578

I'll give it a shot, I wouldn't be surprised if latest beta which I am on is default 5.11, hence beta. but I will double check and report back tomorrow. for now gnite!

 

[Ja.KooLit]

What does this mean older kernel? Does it mean I'd be more secure and games do even better if I moved to latest kernel with Arch distro?

edit: nm a quick look at Arch, I can tell its a lot more complicated than Mint right away... so will have to stick with Mint anyway just for the user friendly part of it.

newer hardware requires newer kernel since optimization and drivers and baked into kernels.

Yeah arch is not really recommended those who dont like non gui. Try Manjaro if you want to try Arch base. Consider it like a "polished" arch.

But dont get turned off by arch way of installation. They have now a built in non-gui installation and its easy.

I made a video on a vm. Just type archinstall and it wil guide you on the whole installation process.

to all mod: delete if not allowed.

you can choose whatever DE you want. I chose KDE since its my favorite.

Of course you need to search about arch package manager, but once you got it, its actually one of the easiest to manage. All you need is pacman and aur helper (yay, paru,etc) or if you want gui package manager, you have pamac

 

[tabascosauz]

@lynx29 i suppose then I should credit you with planting Linux seeds in my brain again?



I took 20.2 Mate for a quick spin, but still just couldn't get away from KDE in the end. Though, if Ubuntu ends up adopting Gnome 40, it could bring me back to the good ol Ubuntu.

I don't know what they changed from 20.04 to 21.04 but when I'm on battery I run both much cooler (no need for undervolt at barely 60C fanless in daily tasks), much quieter (100% fanless), and much longer (weirdly better battery life) than on either Windows or Kub 20.04. Super.

Quickest way is to open a terminal (GASP!)

As a linux noob that's basically me every other week. "Ugh really? terminal again? what did I ever do to deserve this unfinished OS" I will say, though, starting to get comfrotable living inside Konsole - much easier on the eyes than Powershell even with teal background