So I have an old laptop from 2013 and WinBLOWS 10 chugs on this thing on good days. Today it’s struggling with yet another “update” that acts more like malware, it hogs 100% of your hdd and the actual install process can take upwards to an hour. So like MicroSHAFT wants me to buy a brand new PC, at a time when GPU prices are astronomical, all so I can run 11 on it. On what planet am I going to want to continue using your service when you’ve been this bad to me? Maybe if you buy me a new computer I might consider using 11 but I highly doubt Bill Gate$$ is going to send me a check in the mail anytime soon.

Gotta get off my ass and instal Mint soon.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    22·
    13 days ago

    my last PC, the one i play games on and mostly use for general purpose is transitioning to linux this week. this whole update cadence for Win10 from M$ just gets more and more absurd. i’m going bazzite, i’ve got my distro iso on a stick, i’ve been carefully backing everything up and organizing it on an external.

    everything else here except work equipment is on ubuntu now and i love using those systems. they are so reliable and stable, it’s like some star trek shit.

    i fully expect this last changeover to go so smoothly that i kick myself for waiting this long.

  • Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.netEnglish
    22·
    13 days ago

    Microshit is genuinely the worst tech company out there because not only are they the most incompetent, they’re also the most ubiquitous

  • peeonyou [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    13 days ago

    i had mint installed in a dual boot configuration for years but hardly ever actually booted to it because “muh vibeogames” but then someone pointed out that they mostly just work in linux now, and ill be damned if they weren’t right… pretty much everything i play works just fine in linux so I haven’t booted to windows in months and im just gonna wipe that drive entirely pretty soon here

  • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.netBannedEnglish
    16·
    13 days ago

    One of my friends rescued The Bintop (a laptop that was found in a bin around 2012ish and was exclusively used to stream pirated media until it chugged to a near halt around 2019) just by putting Mint on it. Not even Xfce, just regular Cinnamon and it works better than when it came out of the bin.

  • Lerios [hy/hym]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    13 days ago

    This is the exact reason i install mint and it’s surprisingly straight forward. the hardest part was backing all my shit up first. all of the actual linux stuff has been completely fine

      • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        6·
        13 days ago

        Edit: I should have read down the thread (it will work though, as long as expectations are reasonably managed).

        It will work fine ™

        It will work fine. The main problem with Nvidia cards is that they are not integrated as well. The AMD drivers are part of the Linux kernel (not just compatible, part of the project). OpenGL / Vulkan is implemented in the open source Mesa3D graphics library, the de-facto standard implementation. The Nvidia driver on the other hand is a “binary blob” distributed third-party, which gets loaded by a “glue” kernel driver. It uses Nvidia’s own proprietary OpenGL / Vulkan graphics libraries instead of Mesa3D. All of these are implementation details that any remotely popular distribution will sort out without user intervention (or minimal user intervention in some cases, like telling your distribution “install the Nvidia driver please”). The technical details only really make a difference if you are poking around at shit.

        If you choose a distribution which does not include the Nvidia driver by default (Fedora or Debian, for instance), you will still have graphics via the open source, reverse-engineered Nouveau driver (which is part of the kernel). The performance just won’t be suitable for modern games in most cases, depending specifically on which card you’re using and how far along reverse-engineering efforts got. But you will be able to take the steps to install the Nvidia driver from a comfortable graphical user interface. You won’t be stuck trying to figure out how to configure XFree86 from a text terminal like it’s 2004.

        If you are trying to run bleeding edge, experimental shit (like Wayland years ago when it was rather new and only shipping default on Hannah Montana Linux), it will work on AMD before it works on Nvidia, but ordinary distributions won’t be shipping stuff like this. On the other hand, if you rely on CUDA (for compute, used commonly in machine learning), Nvidia is still basically your only viable option.

      • IvarK [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        5·
        13 days ago

        Just don’t use mint then? Try something rolling release, far less trouble when doing modern things like games or professional software. EndeavourOS has a super slick installer and the gnome edition truly Just Works. I’m happy to help if anything comes up, I’m getting a bit tired of these takes about any remotely modern distro being spooky scary unstable or whatever. It’s fine, it’s just a computer.

        • vanDerVaartBlackenedRanch [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          9·
          13 days ago

          I feel like exposing someone brand new to the AUR borders on sabotage.

          Edit:

          The Arch User Repository is a powerful repo of user-sourced builds with next to no vetting. Using it without knowing exactly how you are managing dependency versions is a recipe for an immediately unmanageable amount of tech debt that would leave a new user flat footed and soft-bricked at an indeterminate point down the line.

          Please, you do new users a disservice by telling them to use distros with what’s effectively a “burn everything the fuck down next time the kernel updates” button integrated into system tools.

          • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            4·
            13 days ago

            There’s also the recent scandal of malware being found on the AUR. At this point, recommending average people the AUR is irresponsible. The AUR should be something that someone who’s very familiar with Arch occasionally dabbles with.

            • IvarK [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
              3·
              13 days ago

              Nothing about the AUR is more irresponsible than downloading random .exes off the internet (standard practice on windows). Fear mongering about it does everyone a disservice.

                • IvarK [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  1·
                  13 days ago

                  Whether or not I recommend it has no bearing on how most people use their computers. People don’t stick to windows because they find it more secure or stable, they do it because it’s convenient. In my experience, rolling release is far more convenient because modern software actually runs well on it. There’s a reason Valve switched from ubuntu to arch(-based) as their distro of choice.

          • IvarK [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            13 days ago

            Look, I don’t know what your experience has been like, but honestly the issue you described sounds like a worrying hypothetical at worst. I simply have never run into any such issues, the AUR really does “Just Work” in 2025. I actually don’t think I’ve ever had trouble with it.

            On the other hand, when I was a newbie, trying to navigate getting access to newer packages on ubuntu so my games would actually run properly was miserable. PPAs (and similar systems) are 100x more confusing and annoying than the AUR has ever been.

            Please know I’m writing this in good faith. There are things that are unfamiliar and that require some adapting when switching to linux, but the issues you described sounds really aren’t among them.

      • peeonyou [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        13 days ago

        nvidia cards work better imo… i had a radeon card before that was nothing but problems with mint but never had any issues with nvidia

  • tombruzzo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    13 days ago

    I have a laptop that’s about as old as yours. Windows and Intel stopped supporting the drivers for the wifi, so you couldn’t connect to the internet wirelessly on it. I installed Mint and it works out of the box.

    On the Nvidia drivers, that’s more for the latest drivers. A card that old should have support. I put Mint on my desktop with a 4090 and it frames pretty bad compared to W10. I might switch to Bazzite and see if that improves it. I put baz on another laptop with a quaddro card from like 2021 and it works perfectly.

    • toarmspunies [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      13 days ago

      Nvidia has known and identified problems with DX12->Vulkan translations in the proton stack. As of a few days ago they think they know what’s causing it but it was postured as a nontrivial fix. Still glad to see though and hopefully once that’s ironed out Nvidia on Linux with proprietary drivers will be pristine (outside of unrelated anticheat problems).

      The takeaway is to always launch and play games using Vulkan if possible.