So, I was originally just going with Mint 22.1, but I’m getting a 9070xt and see mint is only on kernel 6.8 which doesn’t particularly support it?
Is using it still okay? Should I go with Bazzite instead? Or something else. I’m fine with a little amount of work to get shit working nice and all, I am fine with figuring out how to use the terminal if needed and all, just want something stable to play games and other shit on. Mint sounded good, but not if it won’t support my GPU.
If you want to use newer hardware, and would rather not tinker with the system to get it working (and then have to maintain that tinkering yourself if something breaks later), Bazzite is probably the better option. It’s based on Fedora Atomic which is almost identical to rolling-release like Arch. I switched from Windows to Bazzite more than a year ago and have personally had no major issues, never had to mess with drivers or kernel updates due to the image-based system, and pretty much everything I might need for some workaround or another is included in the image. The community is very active on both the Discord and the web forum, and the documentation on the website is good as well, so there’s no shortage of help and available resources if you run into an issue or don’t know how to do something.
The main thing you need to be aware of going in is to be sure of which Desktop Environment you want (KDE or Gnome), because their user-space configs (which are not part of the image) interfere with each other so you can’t really switch between them without breaking a lot of things. Coming from Windows, I picked KDE and have been very happy with it.
Is there a particular difference between KDE and Gnome? I’ve mostly seen “KDE looks like windows and Gnome looks like mac” but are there major differences outside of looks I would need to worry about?
Wayland support differs between their display managers (GDM and SDDM). Outside of that and a few other low levels things that you probably wouldn’t care about, it is mostly just flavoring.
And understand that its not a choice just between those two DEs. There are many others that you can use (ex. mate, cinnamon, etc), and even just window managers (ex. i3wm, hyprland, openbox, etc) you can mix and match with many other file managers,etc.
Thanks for bringing up the display managers and Wayland support, I don’t know enough to weigh in on those.
And understand that its not a choice just between those two DEs.
If OP sticks with Mint, that would be the case, but Bazzite only has two DEs right now (KDE and Gnome, with Budgie “coming soon”). OP doesn’t sound like they want to tinker much, they just want something that works with a modern GPU and will keep working. Bazzite certainly fits that use-case, at least in my experience.
That’s a fair point. Others could be installed via pacman or apt, but if the user is wanting out of the box, then that’s true. I think 6.8 does support 9070xt, but the safest and probably simplest opinion is Bazzite like you said.
I’m not super worried about out of the box, I’m fine with fucking around for set up a bit, just not looking for anything crazy like arch lol. From what I’ve seen it looks like either Fedora 42 or bazzite with KDE. Is there a decent site that shows off the different options for DE’s and windows managers where I could look through the differences? New to all of this.
Maybe something like Comparison, but you have to understand everything can be changed. So, Just because you have KDE, doesn’t mean you have to stick with Dolphin for files management, etc. Window managers are even more free form. You don’t get a file manager, or image viewer, or text editor. You get a window manager. You can use whatever you want to install though. You also have floating vs tiled windows.
You might just look through screenshots in Google Images and see what looks good to you and then install that.
I’d personally recommend openSuse Tumbleweed if you are looking for the most up to date software with an easy setup. Been using it for a solid year now for gaming and general use with zero issues.
If you are looking for stability, and a strong gaming focus I would recommend Bazzite. Its stable, comes with everything basically game ready, and is pretty simple. It does come with the cost of less customization but it’s atomic nature makes it really hard to break. It’s solid for general use as well.
Is there a particular reason you need an nvidia gpu? Like plans to do local LLMs or other projects that really require a nvidia gpu?
Because I am just so pleased with AMD for gpus in Linux. So simple.
Not knocking your choice, just trying to understand it. Everyone has valid reasons for why they choose their setups.
Edit: nevermind I am so confused by the new naming schemes I thought this was an nvidia, others have informed me its an AMD. Nevermind me I am a dingus.
9070xt is an AMD… it’s just new… and I’ve seen a lot of posts saying you want kernel 6.13 or higher for it, and mint 22 is using 6.8. (And that you want mesa 25 but I don’t think getting that’s an issue?)
(I realize AMD changing their naming yet again makes that confusing.)
So install the latest kernel into Mint ?
Lol at the downvotes, it’s like 3 clicks. Not rocket science.
https://www.fosslinux.com/138008/how-to-install-and-try-different-linux-kernels-in-linux-mint.htm
Mint deliberately uses an LTS kernel because it’s primary value proposition is stability & simplicity but changing kernels is pretty safe.
Yeah I mean, no experience with it and it says it’ll all probably work but I was not sure about it. I had seen mint 22 was made to not be stuck on 5.15 so it might be possible but it seems like they focus on LTS which would go to 6.12 now and not 6.13+. Is it worth doing all that to still use mint or would I be better off just going with like fedora 42 or bazzite or something else.
<shrug> I’ve put later kernels on Mint a half dozen times withno dramas, but whether you should depends on what your use case, preferences and skill are.
I personally wouldn’t do the arse-ache that is an immutable system, but plenty here love their Bazzite it seems. Different strokes for different folks. Nothing wrong with that.
If you love Mint except for the kernel version then it’s an easy fix. If you don’t have deep feelings then either try & be ready to ditch, or pick an alternative.
Just for the record there is no “doing all that” about it. It’s a simple couple of clicks. It couldnt be easier. I’m not sure where you got the idea it was difficult.
I guess the “doing all that” mostly means taking something supposedly very stable like mint and then changing it seems to kinda defeat the purpose of mint lol. Idk, there so much “mint and Debian are stable” but like… what’s the even mean? Is fedora 42 or bazzite going to be crashing regularly? Cuz… I doubt it? lol like idk, there’s just a lot of options. Seems easier to just go with fedora 42 or bazzite or whatever, but now idk what bazzite being immutable even means for what I can’t change and why that’s a big deal so idk.
I get the impression you’ve been enticed/subjected to some confusing technical jargon without noticing. Please allow me to shed some light.
Idk, there so much “mint and Debian are stable” but like… what’s the even mean?
Stable can mean a bunch of different stuff that may or may not be closely related. In the case of Debian, it’s the name of its default release; the one in which packages are frozen for two years except for security patches. (Note that this naming scheme is not unique to Debian.) As such, a Debian installation will be unchanging for these two years, earning its stable designation (which, to be clear, just meaning unchanging in this context). Finally, this unchanging environment should provide a ton of stability (i.e. stuff just works), which is also referred to as stable. These three distinct meanings of stable are probably the ones you’ll come across the most.
Is fedora 42 or bazzite going to be crashing regularly? Cuz… I doubt it?
The bold part is a clear demonstration that you understood stable to mean strictly robust; i.e. the third meaning discussed above. And to be clear, Fedora does a decent job at providing a reliable experience. (Bazzite even more so.) But not all three meanings of stable apply to it:
- For Fedora (and thus Bazzite by extension), the only stable repository is the one used to create its ISOs (i.e. the images used for installation). Beyond this, some packages are frozen within a release/version; e.g. you’ll never get a major release update for GNOME unless you do a major release update for Fedora. But…, that’s basically it; (almost) all other packages receive regular updates. As such, Fedora is often referred to as a semi-rolling release distro instead (as opposed to Debian being referred to as a stable release distro). So, to be clear, Fedora and Bazzite are NOT stable in this context.
- As (most of) its packages receive regular updates, it isn’t unchanging either. And thus, NOT stable in this context as well.
- However, in terms of offering a robust/reliable experience, Fedora is pretty good. Bazzite is even better due to its atomicity[1] and the superior distro-management allowed by the
bootcmodel.
So, to answer your question, Fedora and Bazzite will not crash regularly. And, while Fedora might fall a little short of providing as robust of an experience as you might find on Debian and Linux Mint (assuming you won’t FrankenDebian your installs), Bazzite may actually rival (and perhaps even eclipse/surpass) Debian and Linux Mint in this respect.
Seems easier to just go with fedora 42 or bazzite or whatever
For your purposes, I agree that going for the Bazzite-route seems to be the easiest.
but now idk what bazzite being immutable even means for what I can’t change and why that’s a big deal so idk.
This is a nuanced discussion that probably deserves more attention, but I’ll keep it short for the sake of brevity. In Bazzite’s case, strictly-speaking, immutability refers to how most of
/usr’s content isn’t supposed to be changed deliberately by you. This is enforced by the system (in part) by making those files read-only.In practice, though, there’s very little you actually can’t do with the system:
- AFAIK, you’re forced to use GRUB; which AFAIK is the most used bootloader anyways. Here’s a thread discussing support for systemd-boot.
- No support for UKI at the moment. But progress on this has been accelerated (relatively) recently; a presentation from just two weeks ago about the subject matter.
- The situation around dkms/akmods still ain’t great and leaves a lot to be desired; you’re basically limited to the ones found here. Thankfully, this is something else that’s actively being worked on.
- While installing from Fedora’s repository through
bootc/rpm-ostreeis possible, it’s actually discouraged in Bazzite’s case. Thankfully, there’s a plethora of different means to the same end. Furthermore, sysext have come a long way and might become our go-to eventually.
That is, updates either happen successfully or not at all. So a random power outage (or otherwise) is not able to break the system’s integrity. ↩︎
