Its also my first time installing any Linux distro besides raspberry pi stuff. I like it so far! Its true what they say, it just works.

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.

Thanks to the Mint team for making a dependable, friendly desktop.

After many years of constant distro hopping, I landed here two years ago and never looked back. Mint just works for me. I install it, and the desktop feels familiar instead of like a project I need to configure.

Cinnamon is comfortable (not without its problems), updates are simple, and tools like the Update Manager, Timeshift snapshots, Driver Manager, and Software Manager really make it feel like home. It reminds me that it’s okay to take things slow.

Anyone else have that moment when Mint finally “clicked” for them?

Found this old Linux Mint 14 installation disc while digging through my stuff. A little piece of Linux nostalgia! Anyone else still have their old install discs lying around?

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 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!

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!

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!

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!

I'd love this feature from zorin I know has it and Ubuntu has just added it, would be a cool feature to have especially for newcomers - LMDE 7

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?

I have been trying to install sober (rooblox on linux) for really long now but it always crashes because of my old graphics. I have tried to force it to use openGL ive tried lubuntu 26.04 and Linux mint Xfce. But it just crashes all the time. Anybody have a solution to this?

Macbook pro early 2013 8gb ram intel hd 4000 graphics intel core i5 3230M

Nothing too crazy to brag about. But got a deal on this "for parts" Lenovo chromebook 500e gen 3 with a N5100 CPU 4GB RAM 36 GB eMMC storage (under $40). Disabled the WP, and got coreboot installed and threw on Mint. Works great. Took some tinkering to get the speakers to work, and it won't auto rotate (yet) but it is a great little on the go machine. Love the form, keyboard is decent enough, display is nice. Even got some low spec Steam games going on this (battleMETAL, FTL, Into the Breach).

Anyone else rocking a minted chromebook?

Hi everyone, I really hope someone will be able to help.

I have recently had a friend install Mint on my laptop. I’d not used it for a few weeks and I forgot my password to log in.

What do I do? 🥲

Hello all, teacher here. A few years ago linux mint xfce revived my beloved macbook air from 2011/2012. Since then my 8th graders and I have repurposed dozens of 2012/2013 desktops for ourselves and local schools.

A school we helped put reached out and said they had even older macbooks and desktops in storage. My question is how old have you guys resurrected computers to comfortably use gmail/google docs etc?

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

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.

Il mio Mint personale con impostazioni diverse. Ha dato al mio PC una nuova vita

I wanted to boot up Linux mint and this happened.

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.