It just works.
I’m kind of shocked how easy it was to set up. I used ventoy to make a bootable iso of Linux Mint Cinnamon on my Mini PC (Ser5 Pro), and I had zero issues with anything. Ventoy even plays nice with secure boot.
Where’s the setup?
There really wasn’t any. I booted into Mint, synced my keyboard/trackpad combo and my earbuds then was off to the races. It detected all my hardware including my Elgato HD60 X without any steps. The only thing I had to work around was downloading the deb build of Discord Canary to enable audio output in Discord streams since it was only recently added to Discord’s dev/beta build (Canary).
Speaking of which Elgato’s capture software doesn’t support Linux (shocker), so I simply installed OBS, pointed the audio/video to the capture card, and it worked. Easy.
My Use Case
I have the aforementioned mini PC mainly to be jockied by a capture card for streaming Nintendo Switch to Discord. Aside from that I use it as a productivity machine in my living room for internet browsing (omg webtv!) and Kodi. The Ser5 uses an AMD Ryzen 7 5850u with integrated graphics, 16GB DDR4, and a 500gb M.2. All of the ports, HDMI audio out, etc were automatically detected by Mint.
Conclusion
Linux Mint feels premium compared to Windows 11. It’s snappier, more modular, and offers a Linux GUI that’s familiar/easy to use. Plus now I have the benefit of no preinstalled spyware or bloatware. Feels good to actually own my computer.
Thanks for reading!
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Same thing with Ubuntu.
Linux works great generally. My wife and I have been using for 20 years since we dumped windows.
The deal is that Linux is great for FOSS but limited for commercial apps. One generally needs to deside based on apps they run. Hardware is similar.
It just works
Sometimes, and until it does not work.
I have Linux on a Lenovo laptop, when I connect it to my hdmi matrix there is no resolution that works for it to correctly display. There is no way to keep the display from turning off despite setting it to never turn off.
Same can be said about Windows though… it is supposed to just work, but then why do I get a call from my parents every month cause something is broken on their computer?
Windows is a disaster. Linux Mint was easier to install than Windows 11 and it’s not even close.
Windows 11 no longer “just working” is what made me finally take Linux seriously as an option and I am so glad I did.
I genuinely think it is ready for prime time. As I said elsewhere the concept of immutable distros is a game changer for those of us who like to customize but hate the command line
Yes, this is Linux. If your hardware is supported, it’s outstanding. If not, you will need to figure it out yourself. Vetting purchases for compatibility is the most important part. As a bonus, it also makes you vote with your wallet for the manufacturers that don’t do a bunch of proprietary bullshit.
Laptops often have issues with Linux because they have a lot of proprietary garbage- web cams being the most infamous.
A friend just had her Windows 11 PC hijacked and used to drain money from her bank account. Not too much of a worry with Linux of any flavor.
It took 5x as long to wipe the disk and reload Windows as it would have to load Linux, plus another hour to change the settings to turn off as much of of Window’s advertising and spyware as possible. Microsoft will no doubt change the settings back when Windows update runs, or maybe they’ll just pile on more ads.
I’d much rather deal with some hardware incompatibilities than Microsoft’s bullshit.
My comment was not meant to steer anyone away from Linux, just pointing out something.
Immutable distros help tremendously with the “It just works (and doesn’t stop just worksing)” aspect. Fedora Kinote is what finally allowed me to transition from Windows. Literally zero issues for over eight months now and I am not a super techie person. I hate the command line and need GUIs.
Honestly I think an immutable KDE distro is going to be the windows killer for pretty much anyone looking to switch. It’s literally better than Windows in every way.
Try Aurora which is Kinoite with some nice extras added
That was the “just works Windows killer” for me.
You can rebase directly to it to just try it out, and simply rebase back to standard Kinoite if you don’t like it.
Ohh nice thanks!
welcoms man
Welcome to the club :D I did the same thing last summer and also switched to Mint and never looked back. So basically Im a fellow newbie. It was the best decision as everything just works minus the windows shenanigans.
Even gaming is almost perfect (apart from the occasional tinkering here and there) its more than great. All my games work great, some better than under win.
Im even in the middle of building my new gaming PC exclusively for Linux in mind.
As I have to use win 11 for work (work laptop) I can see switching was the right decision as every update makes it more annoying and bloated.
You’ll probably be installing programs and changing a lot of settings over the next few weeks. Make sure you use TimeShift (pre-installed on Mint) to make system snapshots. (It works like System Restore on Windows. You can even run it from your Linux Live flash drive if you mess up something so badly that you can’t boot from the hard drive).
LibreOffice comes pre-installed and you can use Thunderbird for email. And if you used Steam to play games on Windows, you’re in for a nice surprise. Steam has a native Linux client and it uses Proton / Wine to let you play your Windows games on Linux. It’s handled everything I’ve thrown at except for a couple of older games.
Next stop will be your privacy journey which would completely break your chains towards Discord which gave you trouble.
A better way to word this is “Next will be your privacy journey which will send you down an inifinte rabbit hole that you consumes you”.
Lol no but seriously, it’s a fun rabbit hole, but can get out of control if you’re not careful.
If you go to deep you’ll get paranoid lol. Atleast that is my experience.
But also be proven right several times a year when data leaks & corporations are shown again to be evil.
Oh for sure. Fuck these big companies. Unfortunately some offer services that just can’t be beat yet by open source/privacy companies.
This is sometimes true, but I would rather have a slightly worse UI and/or have to use 2 applications for more specific tasks than trading off data just to have everything under one bloated umbrella.
Been there lol. I think it’s a common thing for privacy newcomers. Not focusing on threat level and instead trying to optimize every bit. It got me too.
Once Revolt gets screen sharing.
Welcome to the team.
I hope you brought your boincing shoes because as soon you’ll get comfortable you’ll start hopping a lotreally the only annoying thing about linux nowadays is finding out the name of the software
Some Elgato hardware is supported by OBS, FYI. IIRC the HD60+ or S+ or something.
Right. I said that I use OBS for my Elgato HD60 X. Works great!
Welcome to stability. You are in control.
sudoresponsibly.Welcome! So happy to see new converts, and even more when they have an “it went well” story!
Im gonna switch now when support for win 10 ends too, I would switch now but I have work to finish.
While I love Elgato hardware from a design/price standpoint, it’s a shame it doesn’t all work on Linux. I had my Wave XLR for a year or so, but replaced it with a Scarlett Solo so I could use it on Linux.
From what i remember my experience was the same when i started my journey with PopOS. Ofcourse it probably did help that i was already an amd user when i was still using windows, i already hated nvidia years before switching lol. I went down the rabbithole and now i’m on Void linux. Also used arch and NixOS in the past. I love being able to setup these minimal distros to my liking, and after that it just works and gets out of the way.
