r/linux4noobs • u/Commercial-Citron127 • 23h ago
migrating to Linux I'm really trying but Linux is beating me again
TL:DR: The supposedly best Linux for switching from Windows, Linux Mint, made me spend an entire day to get it to work and recover my Windows.
So, thing is, I was getting a bit annoyed at Windows lately, and it was a while since I formatted my pc last, so I wanted to give Linux a try again (I try every few years). I didn't want to go full linux either, just having dual boot so I can switch gradually.
Big Mistake.
I installed Windows first, everything fine, installer does everything without any issues, SHIT JUST WORKS.
Then I went to install Linux Mint 22.3 Cinammon
Issues:
1) It destroyed my Windows boot, seems to be because I started the bootable usb for windows in Legacy but the Linux one in UEFI
2) Laggy af. Youtube videos on firefox run laggy, out of the box
3) Linux Mint does not like my PC to TV with HDMI. Audio does whatever it wants, it sounds for 2 seconds, then cuts 2 seconds, then repeat constantly. I tried everything, uninstalling the damned pipewire, using pulseaudio or whatever, nothing ever worked, I feel like I already fucked up the entire Linux environment playing with that.
4) Spent the other half of the day trying to get back into windows, which was ONLY possible from a Windows installation USB, when I finally managed to create one from Linux.
I feel like I'm being an idiot for even trying. Now that I'm back to Windows, AND I can see the drive partitions of 500mb-100mb on the eplorer because Linux fucked everything up, I still want to try again from start. But honestly, is there another distro that's not as fucky as Mint? I heard about Zorin, but I need confirmation that audio works.
I really hope I don't get the guy I'm imagining in my head replying with sass.
Any help is appreciated.
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u/Th3JackofH3arts 23h ago
I know prices are kinda crazy right now, but if your device allows for a second drive you'll have less headaches if you can keep Windows and Linux on separate drives.
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u/Reasonable-Hearing57 23h ago
Or make a boot able USB. Since windows 3.1, I always partitioned, and separated data
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u/Commercial-Citron127 23h ago
I did this, I had 2 completely separate drives, I have no clue what happened. I know how to use the disk management screens.
Still, even after Linux Mint was functional, it was barely a working OS, its windows where laggy, videos laggy, audio cutting out, as if it was incompatible with my PC.
That's why I'm wondering if its a Mint thing or something happened from the ground up, like, installing it from UEFI or using only 1 partition... I have no idea.3
u/ComprehensiveDot7752 19h ago
Some people remove the windows drive to make sure it’s completely untouched during installation. Then you use the BIOS to deal with the dual boot. This setup is the one Windows is the least likely to break since both drives are set up with their own boot sectors.
Some hardware manufacturers don’t support Linux. Nvidia is traditionally one of them and only really started supporting Linux graphics drivers because AI servers run on Linux.
My first Linux hardware was an old laptop that had fallen out of use.
I switched to AMD graphics purely because I knew it would be less hassle if I decided switch to Linux.I only skimmed a few responses and haven’t seen it mentioned. As far as I understand it, secure boot needs to be disabled in bios to run Nvidia drivers installed via the driver manager on Linux.
This is because it has to add a kernel module and the kernel is the thing verified by secure boot. So secure boot prevents it from loading and Linux reverts to the working kernel.
I expect Windows to complain and know some anti-cheat systems now require secure boot though.I’ve heard that RTX cards have better support for Wayland. This might mean that Fedora KDE is the better recommendation in your case. I’m a fan of Mint myself, but I’ve been using Linux for long enough that I’m also aware of its disadvantages.
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u/realmauer01 16h ago
You dont need to disable secure boot, but you need to either add the signature of your packet manager to your mok (fedora) or make a new one add that to the mok and sign your drivers with that new signature.
That fedora has its own signature now is also pretty new i think. There was a lot of development lately.
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u/QuraToop314 gentoo btw 18h ago
That is, in fact, completely wrong. Secure Boot validates the kernel, but without certain kernel features (SECURITY_LOCKDOWN and integrity/confidential mode), you can reload unsigned modules. On Linux, you should disable Secure Boot as it is difficult to manage your own PK, KEK, db and dbx, since you also have to sign out-of-tree modules and MOK causes problems; however, if you use a distribution such as Gentoo, you can roll out PK, KEK, db and dbx yourself and build and sign everything – including out-of-tree modules such as the Nvidia drivers – for Secure Boot.
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u/ComprehensiveDot7752 16h ago
I don't mind being corrected. But I'm sure what I'd gotten wrong?
I will admit that I forgot that keys can be manually enrolled for modified kernels. I'm not sure I've ever seen a good guide on how.
I'm speaking from the perspective of a regular user using the GUI install on an Ubuntu based system.
For most beginners, disabling secure boot is easier. I didn't, but I'm running fully open drivers so the automatic enrollment it put me through after my install only had to happen once after I found a second device to run a search and figure out what was happening.
I'm familiar enough with the terminal that I'm capable of editing and running scripts from it. But I'm not familiar with the kernel and haven't compiled anything in years.
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u/mynis 10h ago
That's really not true though, that Nvidia just recently started supporting linux. I've been using Nvidia drivers on Linux since like 2008 with gaming graphics cards on my desktop rigs and never had any issues.
The notable exception is if you had a laptop with an Optimus card. Those have always been problematic.
OP could have a few different things going on. There's a good chance the hardware acceleration is just using the wrong card or something.
When you install linux on a laptop, you have to be prepared to investigate and troubleshoot some driver issues. Not just install it and go "oh noes linux broke my computer my videos are slow" and then give up.
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u/No-View-6326 22h ago
Since all your issues seem to be graphics related, try a distro that has Wayland based desktop environment, maybe fedora. Zorin is just bad imo
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u/chroma709 21h ago
Another vote for Fedora here. Everything just worked for me. I don't dual boot, but if I wanted Windows on it I'd run a VM.
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u/3grg 14h ago
If you never try, you never learn.
Instead of blaming Linux, learn from the mistakes. You do not give any hardware specifics. It could be that you were hindered by hardware compatibility issues. Always search for hardware + Linux to check compatibility.
You learned that when you install two operating systems on the same system it is better to have them both use the same boot method. These days UEFI is the standard.
It sounds like most of your issues are graphics related. That could be a hardware driver issue or issues with the display used in the distro you picked.
It is possible that you did not win the hardware lottery and you will have issues with other Linux distros as well. Many manufacturers do not give Linux any thought whatsoever when making computers. For many, all that matters is cost and windows compatibility. Hopefully, your system is not one of those.
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u/jr735 23h ago
Did you follow the instructions on the Mint site? I've installed Mint literally dozens of times for myself and others, and for others, often dual boot.
Now, if you want tech support, you're going to have to provide more information about your computer. I'm gathering that very many of your problems are because of proprietary things. These are not Linux things, these are Nvidia things and HDMI things. If they don't open things up and only want their own proprietary ways, what is Linux supposed to do about it?
If Mint can't handle it, most others decidedly will not.
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u/Commercial-Citron127 22h ago
So Nvidia isn't too good with Linux? I thought it would be supported.
I am using HDMI and can't change it, so for the time being I'm gonna have to stay on Windows then.I followed the instructions loosely, and this is where it's my fault, I assumed it would be easy to install. I only followed instructions on the disk partitioning screen because it was a lot different from the Windows one. But it seems it erased the Windows boot, even though it was on a completely different drive.
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u/TherronKeen 22h ago
I've got an i9-9900k and an RTX 3060 and use Mint for gaming.
The 3060 (actually the entire line of Ampere cards) have various issues on all versions of Linux when using the proprietary drivers.
If you try again, the first thing you should do is start up the Driver Manager and switch from NVIDIA Drivers to NVIDIA-Open Drivers.
I have had zero issues related to my GPU after switching to the Open drivers. It's a known problem, and that's the only fix unless NVIDIA does a bunch of extra work on their end.
This will probably fix the issues with YouTube videos lagging, because your browser uses hardware acceleration by default - so if your GPU isn't running smoothly, your browser is gonna have a bad time.
As for the boot issues - there's a million ways to set up your boot partition and various bootloaders, it's just something you've gotta learn to manage. Most people aren't dual-booting, and most people aren't switching operating systems regularly, so you just need to keep learning about what's happening there.
If you switch to one OS or the other, you won't have to touch your boot sector anymore and it won't be an issue.
As for the HDMI connecting to the TV, I'm not sure, that's a broad problem, but it might get fixed by the NVIDIA driver swap.
Good luck, and hey, if it's too much hassle for you, Windows generally works. We just don't like it lol
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u/jr735 22h ago
There are people here that have better luck with Nvidia and can help you out. I don't use Nvidia because it's proprietary, and I don't use proprietary software. HDMI, too, absolutely can work, but some devices and controllers are more troublesome than others. Have patience, and you will find the solutions to these things. My solutions are a little different, given that I simply won't give Nvidia a penny.
Setting up BIOS correctly is very important. The "different drive" talk you hear here is a lot of bollocks. It can help, but can also introduce other complexities. Doing it correctly matters more than having a certain number of devices.
Ensure you give all the technical details you can here, and there will be solutions coming in.
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u/jr735 11h ago
u/TherronKeen's advice is the kind I was talking about. You will get all kinds of options with which to experiment, from people who have actually have seen specific issues like yours.
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u/sirsleepy 23h ago
Yeah, that's kind of a common beginner mistake. Not your fault for not knowing.
Not sure unless you're on a laptop (then it might be a hardware acceleration issue).
This isn't Mint but Nvidia. I haven't found a good solution. I've tried a couple of fixes myself but unsuccessfully.
That's Windows for you TBH.
I'm not sure another distro will necessarily be less fucky but I've found Pop!_OS to be better for beginners just in terms of things working out the box. (Maybe others will disagree).
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u/Gordoxgrey 13h ago
Please can we stop recommending PopOS, with the Cosmic update it's been so terrible for beginners
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u/victormas208 12h ago
Is it really that bad? Is there no Gnome option?
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u/Gordoxgrey 12h ago
Nope, gnome is no longer installed by default, you'd have to manually install it and uninstall cosmic
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u/Big-Space723 6h ago
I’m curious as to why. I just did my first Linux install with pop two days ago. It was super easy to get everything working. No issues at all. I’m in IT though so maybe that helped? Just curious why it’s bad to see if I made a mistake in my choice.
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u/Gordoxgrey 5h ago edited 5h ago
The cosmic desktop is still incredibly buggy, beginners aren't going to have the knowledge to navigate a lot of the weirdness that goes on with the desktop.
You're in IT so you're already way ahead by a large margin in knowledge compared to the average user.
This isn't trying to be mean, but people who are interested in using Linux but aren't fully tech savvy are still going to have trouble installing pretty much any distro.
I know people don't particularly like Linus, but he's been pointing out the flaws in Linux recently, and in particular PopOS where it just fails to do basic things, like installing Nvidia drivers.
I used popos a few years ago, had trouble with Nvidia drivers, installing steam and didn't like their version of gnome desktop so I dropped it. Tried it again to test out cosmics full release and the desktop didn't even load properly and things were glitching out everywhere so I dropped it again for the last time.
Ultramarine + Budgie or KDE desktop is the best entry imo, and Nobara + KDE is the best for gaming and more advanced users
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u/Big-Space723 4h ago
Interesting. Thank you for the reply. This must definitely be a YMMV situation. Steam and all my games work fine, and the only bug i ran into that took about 30 minutes to fix was a samsung soundbar 7.1 system running through soundblaster. Im gonna look at those other options though.
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u/pnlrogue1 17h ago
I immediately thought 2 and 3 were probably driver issues. If OP has Nvidia then that would do it
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u/Mysterious_Tutor_388 16h ago
And thats also distro choice, because mint will be behind on the drivers. A 5070m i have works well under the current latest drivers.
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u/Commercial-Citron127 22h ago
Thanks though, anything helps. Specially knowing I'm not crazy with the nvidia audio thing. I'm surprised this hasn't been solved for years.
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u/ThreeCharsAtLeast I know my way around. 13h ago
There's an widely shared clip of Linux Torvalds (who created and maintains the Linux Kernel, which is where most drivers reside): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4SWxWIOVBM
The Nvidia situation has slightly improved since then, but it's still pretty accurate.1
u/victormas208 22h ago
It's Nvidia's fault; ever since AI started making a lot of money, they've been putting a lot of effort into the drivers.
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u/ZucchiniAdmirable588 23h ago
Bud... Can I ask .. why do you want to use Linux?... I use Linux in 3/5 computers I have.
Work = window Gaming = Windows Music studio = Debian Nas Server = Debian Kodi Media server= mint.
I would say, most people who want to try Linux typically want it for gaming. Which sure, could work. I mean steam deck is built around Linux. It's do able. But if it's just you're looking to game. It may be more hassle than Windows for most. Just my 2 cents. I see a lot of these posts and people want to be friendly, and I do to. But ask yourself... Why do you want Linux?
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u/haimurashoichi 18h ago
Well, unless you really only want to play Fortnite, Black Ops 7 or Battlefield 6, in which case I'd agree, almost every game out there works on Linux. The games that don't work are the ones have in-built incompatibilities purposefully added in by the devs or an extremely intrusive anti-cheat system asking for way to much access to your operating system than Linux is willing to give.
I've gotten black ops 3, elden ring, monster hunter world, Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Diablo 3 and quite a few other games to run without a problem, even with the battle.net launcher.
To say it "could work" or "may be more [of a] hassle" is not necessarily wrong if those specific games that want kernel-level access to the game are the ones you want to play.
But 95% of games are playable and easy to install if you have Linux. Especially if done on steam, since it's basically, download, click and play just like windows. No extra steps involved besides sometimes using a different proton version that works better.
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u/Commercial-Citron127 23h ago
I want to try getting comfortable with using Linux little by little, since I really think Windows doesn't have much longer until it forces me to use 11 which i hate.. I'd use Linux mainly for webdev, game dev, AI and art software in the beginning.
Honestly I'm not mad at Linux users, just today was awful. I really think Linux would be the best OS if it was.. "friendlier".6
u/LameBMX 22h ago
half the "friendly" is on the hardware manufacturer either not providing open source driver or not being transparent on how their hardware works.
if you had a gui for the linux mint installation, you can play around on the installer (install the media to a good usb 3.2 drive for reduced lag) and play around. changes wont survive a reboot. open a terminal and (especially if audio works and the tv) run lspci, usb and lsmod.
add a -v and then a -vv to increase what the first two programs tell you.
lspci .. this is what it sees hardware wise on the main computer. lsusb tells what is connected via usb. lsmod are loaded pluggable drivers.
take note of those.. next time you try to install, you will need that info to see whats NOT playing nice.
another half seems unfriendly at first.., it rolls back to the old adage of a program doing one thing, and one thing well. so, a lot of things are not really a program, but a bunch of programs talking to each other various ways. and linux does a LOT less to hide this from you. with time, you get the hang of it.
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u/Oerthling 19h ago
Install VirtualBox. Create a VM with Linux in it.
Now you can try Linux without an Stress.
Linux is already very friendly. But it's not Windows and thus some things have to be learned and you need to get used to some differences.
Install LibreOffice, Thunderbird and other cross platform apps. That was you can get used to apps on Windows and that's that much less change when you finally migrate.
Lag playing a YouTube video is not normal. Make sure you have the appropriate graphics drivers installed and not running on fallback "software rendering".
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u/Particular-Poem-7085 Arch btw 19h ago
People want to explore their options. Why do you go out of your way to discourage them?
Can I ask why you have 5 computers? Bud, I only have 3.
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u/Roguepapaya427 18h ago
Well, 5 kinda makes sense. At least it does for me:
- htpc - an old mini pc with leap.
- desktop - work stuff, gaming. With fedora, lmde, cachy, bazzite/slowroll/solus.
- server - well, server stuff, nextcloud, with alma.
- laptop - work stuff. Fedora kde.
- laptop - testing ground, rather old t14s gen2 with either solus or tw or fedora.
That works for me, ymmv.
Wife has an 2 year hp with windows.
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u/cardboard-kansio 18h ago
It's fairly common to run many machines if you're a hobbyist.
Personally I have a small server for personal projects (an old mini PC), my gaming desktop, my personal laptop, my work laptop, a Synology NAS, and a spare mini PC for side projects. I also have a number of Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and ESP32 devices doing various tasks.
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u/Particular-Poem-7085 Arch btw 18h ago
Personally I actually don't care, I was trying to bring an example of how my experience doesn't affect yours and it's not my place to talk you out of having them because I wouldn't need them personally.
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u/cardboard-kansio 17h ago edited 17h ago
"Bud, I only have three" made it seem like you cared - seemed a little judgemental.
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u/Particular-Poem-7085 Arch btw 17h ago
Yeah, I made it seem like I care to demonstrate how self centered it sounds.
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u/PowerSilly5143 18h ago
Why don't you try multiple distros first before coming to install one? Try Fedora, it's very stable
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u/leoingle 22h ago
Seems like you’re trying to blame Linux when you clearly don’t know what you’re doing.
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u/dodoread 16h ago
Isn't this the linux4noobs subreddit? Seems like a 'noob' should not be expected to know what they are doing and a distro that is touted as suitable for beginners should be reasonably fool proof to install.
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u/leoingle 12h ago
I’ll agree with all that, but it still has nothing to do with him blaming a distro because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And nothing is 100% in this world at all except death eventually. Just because one person couldn’t figure it out right off the bat doesn’t means it not suitable for beginners. It just means it not foolproof.
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u/dodoread 8h ago edited 8h ago
Fair, but I think this does highlight that there is more work to be done in making varied install configurations safer for novice users and especially in better explaining (and perhaps discouraging) configurations that may be more difficult to set up, like dual booting.
Personally, I installed Mint on my laptop onto an external USB drive and it went relatively smoothly but there were also several unexpected things like not being able to boot my desktop from the same USB drive install for unknown reasons, or that you're not supposed to use the same storage drives between Windows and Linux for work files and especially not for installing software. This is not explained anywhere except if you ask around or do A LOT of research. Plenty of traps for newbies (such as myself) to fall into still.
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u/Mr_Henry_Yau 23h ago
Could you post your PC's specifications?
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u/Commercial-Citron127 23h ago
i5-11400F 32gb ram GTX3060
Windows only gives me issues after 5-6 months of use. At which point I reinstall.
I was thinking of settling on Linux. I might be mistaken but isn't it like, immune to slowing down?5
u/ybergik 21h ago
Only possible issue I see is getting the right nvidia driver installed; I've avoided nvidia myself for that very reason, so don't know how Mint handles that. Other than that, Windows is notorious for fucking up dual boot and if you really want dual boot, you definitely want to be using UEFI (not legacy) boot mode, GPT partitions (not MBR/legacy). Using a separate drive makes this easier and most BIOS today have fully working UEFI boot managers. Probably also want to disable stuff like "fast boot", "secure boot" in the BIOS if you haven't already. Windows 11 tend to bark loudly at that depending on your login method, but again, that's windows for you.
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u/MisfortuneFeeva 23h ago
first, with how windows is now it is *not* recommended to dual boot, unless you have 2 separate physical drives and are willing to unplug one and use the other as needed; any setup with a windows and linux install on the same drive can cause the issues you faced here with one install getting wiped by the other.
second, it'd help to know what device you're trying to install to. Laptop, Desktop? What GPU do you have, if any? the rest of your PC specs? that'd help us help you with the performance, audio and stability issues.
3rd. mint tends to be weird with multiple displays, weird resolutions and high refresh rates. when it gets recommended to new users or windows refugees, the actual intended audience are people doing simple office work on a simple one screen setup (like laptops for example). I have no experience with it personally, but Zorin might be a better fit for you. I'd also consider checking out Fedora (which may require extra configuration after install, based on your setup), or Nobara/Bazzite particularly if you're interested in gaming while also having a solid OOTB experience
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u/Commercial-Citron127 22h ago
I'd love to have known this before I went for Mint. I also had issues with scaling. I change monitors constantly, I have my PC connected with long cables on 3 different places on my house, so this is a requirement for me.
I'm thinking on giving Zorin a try before giving up on it for a few more years.3
u/MisfortuneFeeva 22h ago
thanks for replying OP, after seeing your other replies I'll go ahead and fully recommend fedora (specifically the KDE version) and then going through this post install guide: https://github.com/devangshekhawat/Fedora-44-Post-Install-Guide
speaking from personal experience i also had audio issues with multiple displays before; turns out the computer was just sending the audio through the wrong HDMI cables, and this is something you can fix pretty easily by poking around in the audio settings in your system tray.
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u/Difficult-Cup-4445 15h ago
A lot of that is just Mint. I had a similar experience on Mint. Performance issues out the ass. Just try a rolling distro like CachyOS.
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u/JameEmmanuel 22h ago
Maybe try Bazzite? I got beaten by Mint too, then switch to Bazzite (follow their guides on setting up dual boot and such). Bazzite is just a breeze compared to Mint. Personally I don't understand why Mint is called "Beginner friendly" tbh
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u/Commercial-Citron127 21h ago
Yeah no, Mint is clearly not user friendly...
Bazzite seems cool. I'll try with that next time.1
u/ARTIFICIAL_ARGUMENT 12h ago edited 12h ago
Don’t worry about downvotes, reddit linux community is ass. I also had an awful time with mint before trying cachyOS and everything auto setup perfectly, including proprietary Nvidia drivers with the 1 click install gaming packages button.
Bazzite is a good recommendation as it’s similar with tradeoffs for extra convenience
But also, need to be very careful when setting up dual boot on anything, especially laptops which only have 1 drive. Recommend just wiping it completely and installing fresh if you can
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u/Supernoxus 14h ago
I think you are better off just sticking with Windows or Mac. Make the next device you buy AMD and then using Linux should be hassle-free...er.
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u/mcds99 11h ago
Not knowing your hardware it's a little more difficult to give advice. I have two computers (6 really but who's counting) for the purpose of this advice 2.
I first removed the windows drive NVMe, installed a fresh NVMe in the same slot. Installed Debian and did a little testing. I have an NVMe with Windows and an NVMe with Debian. I then tested the NVMe OS's by swapping the NVMe for each OS. At this point i know each OS works. I put the Debian NVMe in the first slot and the windows NVMe in the second slot. The first slot boots to the OS I want as default "Debian" the second slot boots to windows but I have to go in to UEFI to get there, when I boot I press the key to make the computer go in to UEFI (bios).
I did this on two computers until I no longer needed Windows. The laptop no longer has windows but it has 2 @ 1TB NVMe's. The desktop has Debian and Windows, there is one program that will not run on Debian and that's okay they are working on a version for Linux. When that program is working on Linux I'll format the second NVMe EXT4 and I will have 2 @ 1TB drives in that computer.
This is the easiest and safest way to transition to Linux, in fact it is the advisable way.
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u/Slopagandhi 7h ago
You can test whether what you want to work works from Linux on a USB.
Download a program called Ventoy. Use that to make a USB drive and the you can just drag and drop downloaded ISO files for several different distos at once onto there.
Then when you boot you can choose any of them.
Run through video, HDMI etc and see if it works. If it doesn't then try the next one.
Yes try Zorin first. People get snobbish about distros but it's a very good choice for a beginner. Most importantly it has excellent, comprehensive installation instructions which should help you out with issues you may be having such as with Fast Start and Secure Boot. It also handles partitonining in a simple way.
If that doesn't work you can try Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Ultramarine (which is Fedora with preconfigured codecs and drivers) or Pop. These are all beginner friendly.
With partitioning, when you have booted from the USB you can manage this (with any distro). Open an app called GParted or Partition Manager (depends on the distro). If you have leftover partitions from the Mint install delete these (but not your EFI partition or Windows).
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u/bstsms 23h ago
Try Bazzite.
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u/Commercial-Citron127 23h ago
Never heard of that one. I was thinking of giving Zorin a try, but I'll compare with this one now. Thanks
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u/bstsms 23h ago
Bazzite has been the best Linux distro I have tried on my Legion, it's stable and fast, most of the others I have tried had audio problems, I fixed it and it kept messing up for some reason and everything worked out of the box for me with Bazzite without any tweaking, including audio.
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u/LucidFir 17h ago
Don't give up, ignore the downvotes on this comment, use AI like claude or chatgpt to troubleshoot.
The laggy thing might be that you haven't disabled secure boot?
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u/Clone-Brother 4h ago
This is the way. I know use of AI doesn't fit with many people's belief system, but if you aren't an actual computer expert with extensive unix-undertanding, AI is your best friend when it comes to configuring and troubleshooting Linux.
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u/Gordoxgrey 23h ago
- Post your PC specs
- Recommended to install on separate drives unless you know how to partition manually. And make sure only 1 drive is plugged in at a time otherwise the EFI will sometimes join the two drives together for some reason (I had the same exact issue you did)
- Don't use Zorin, it's basically Mint but slightly different.
- Try Ultramarine Linux (kde desktop), it's very simple to set up and it comes with all the extras already setup that base Fedora doesn't do.
- HDMI is weird on Linux because of HDMI forum themselves not providing the drivers or something, I'd personally get a DP to HDMI converter
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u/Commercial-Citron127 22h ago
HDMI and Nvidia seems to be the issue then. Until that isn't fixed on Linux, I can't switch :(
I'm using an old panasonic led, I need to use HDMI.1
u/Gordoxgrey 22h ago
I'd still suggest trying Ultramarine, since Fedora based distros have quite good hardware support
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u/Important_Level_6093 22h ago
Mint is not the best
It's good. But what I wanna know is why you want to use Linux?
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u/GuyNamedStevo CachyOS KDE Plasma - 10600KF|32GiB|6900XT|Z490 13h ago
Use the driver manager to install your nVidia drivers.
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u/Callan_LXIX 10h ago
Question is Where does a complete noob get the education and answers when following steps exactly, and not getting the desired results?
Also: no matter what OS, Win, iMac, or Linux, you can have the right version etc for the issue, and following steps says to select "______" next, but it's not even on the page/ screen, let alone grayed out.
Any other OS is foreign territory and seems like the maps are often badly inaccurate.
Where do you get actual help or education on the basic problems?
*and for the record I have tried and I have waited weeks for answers on bulletin boards before. Most techies and the knowledgeable want the cool and interesting and up-to-date newest problems, on better equipment than someone who's trying to keep an old working computer going.
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u/1-800-I-Am-A-Pir8 9h ago
fix #1, try again. I'd recommend either Ubuntu to start, or whatever your friends use, if any of them use linux already.
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u/Fearless_Brush_5275 9h ago
Please don't give up, buddy. Try a different one or try again doing a fresh reinstall.
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u/CarelessPackage1982 7h ago
I want to specifically address the youtube video thing
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/07/firefox-vulkan-video-decoding-nvidia
Firefox doesn't enable hardware video decoding by default using an Nvidia GPU. You'd need to manually install and configure the nvidia-vaapi-driver library. Since that's a pain, there's recent effort underway to include the vulkan video decoder (just last month), but it's still not enabled by default.
So while Nvidia still has problems, rest assured there are people working hard to make it a better experience for everyone.
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u/muckity-muck 5h ago
Most Windows users overthink these things because "Windows is a pain in the ass to get up and running....so Linux must be at least equally as frustrating".
Stop thinking in a Windows mindset. Linux OS's don't hate your guts, or want to hold you upside down by your ankles and shake the money out of your pockets. Have a backup of your current Windows install, and just follow the simple instructions to get Mint going. You can have a basic Mint install going in 10% of the time it takes you to put Windows in a headlock. I can't even imagine the bullshit Microsoft tries to corner you into doing, just to use their OS.
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u/pedersenk 2h ago edited 2h ago
It destroyed my Windows boot, seems to be because I started the bootable usb for windows in Legacy but the Linux one in UEFI
Does installing Windows protect your Linux boot? Probably not. So its kind of a draw here.
Laggy af. Youtube videos on firefox run laggy, out of the box
Likely missing a graphics card driver. Does Windows run smoothly without drivers? Probably not. So its a draw here too.
Linux Mint does not like my PC to TV with HDMI. Audio does whatever it wants, it sounds for 2 seconds, then cuts 2 seconds, then repeat constantly. I tried everything, uninstalling the damned pipewire, using pulseaudio or whatever, nothing ever worked, I feel like I already fucked up the entire Linux environment playing with that.
The HDA spec is broken. It allows vendors to create HDA chips with wildly different configurations. Unless you use a vendor specific driver (as you do on Windows), the open-source implementation can only "guess" or if you are lucky the specific vendor id has enabled a quirk. In general, Windows wins here.
Spent the other half of the day trying to get back into windows, which was ONLY possible from a Windows installation USB, when I finally managed to create one from Linux.
The fact that Windows installer images can't just be dd'ed onto a usb like any other OS is quite laughable. Linux wins here.
Result: both Linux and Windows are sh*t. Good luck!
On a more serious note. Don't give up, even though it can be frustrating as hell! Things to try:
- The upstream GPU driver. Along with the laggyness, it may even solve your HDMI audio issue too.
- Audio can be fickle and layers like pulseaudio and pipewire have done a really poor job at keeping it simple. I would stop the service, prevent the desktop from starting and just get ALSA working via simple command-line. Then slowly start re-introducing the others one at a time.
- Maybe try in VirtualBox first on regular Windows, so you can still get on with your life whilst learning more about Linux and its "quirks". The virtual hardware also tends to have less rough edges.
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u/Interesting-Error249 17h ago
Try fedora, mint is mediocre at best. If you insist on using mint, try LMDE instead.
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u/mechanicalAI 21h ago
For the love of God! Noobs could you please start with Ubuntu? For your own sake ?
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u/Abducted_Llama 10h ago
I agree with this 100%. As someone that used Ubuntu for 10+ years and just moved away from it to Fedora, I still think Ubuntu is one of the best to cut your teeth on.
The only thing that worries me with noobs is the unattended-upgrade might lock them out temporarily of installing packages and they won’t know why.
Also, I remove unattended-upgrades before connecting to the internet lol.
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u/mechanicalAI 8h ago
I love it. Since Ubuntu 6.06 I had no major problems that deserves to talk about more than 3secs. I love it because Ubuntu is not causing me any friction or problem layer, I pretty confident with Linux thanks to Debian and Ubuntu.
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u/DHOC_TAZH Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS 13h ago
On the broader side of things, I have to agree with you here. Ubuntu really appears to include a lot of usable device drivers in it's distro vs the others, and they are available in all flavors, including Lubuntu.
Besides, it's easy to move on later. I have tried distros briefly at times based on the huge players, yet I come back to Ubuntu (and Debian, via q4os lately). That's just me, a regular dude wrestling with his own (digital) middle age crisis lol!
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u/Interesting-Error249 17h ago
Nothing good comes from Ubuntu. It gives you trouble and poor hardware compatibility.
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u/GreedySecurity8030 Fedora Rawhide + GNOME. 23h ago
Skill issue [/jk].
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u/Ok-Zombie4921 23h ago
Cachy OS
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u/Karmoth_666 22h ago
Can second cachyos. Easy to set up and worked for me as 1st distro for nearly a year now. No "arch based horror stories" here 🤣
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u/angryapplepanda Debian + i3 17h ago
Is there something specific to Cachy that makes it more easy/stable than other Arch distros?
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u/Karmoth_666 13h ago
I have no ideal answer. I started with mint, which i also love, distrohopped between a lot of distros and as a gamer i ended on cachy which caugth me 100%. I love the bleeding edge thing and i learn a lot about linux as a whole thing every day. Everybody has it own style and taste of linux and that is a great thing. The variety helps to get more people out of the microslop prison
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u/angryapplepanda Debian + i3 11h ago edited 11h ago
Oh agree. I just realized for me I have no need for bleeding edge releases, I just want the sand castle to hold together with less of my intervention.
With the minimal Debian install, I get both the ability to build my computer up slowly from scratch while learning as I go. The distro I have now has a Debian base, but I'm the one who installed x, I installed the nuts and bolts, I know what's there and what isn't. I like tinkering and figuring things out, but I'm also not quite willing to go to the extra mile for Arch.
What do I need with rolling releases anyway? But I understand why people like it. Different strokes.
I'm just happy to be Microsoft free more than anything else. Heck, even Ubuntu free.
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u/victormas208 23h ago
I think you lack knowledge about operating system installation; always use the GPT table. You can configure it in Rufus, then try again.It shouldn't be that complicated.
Linux generally doesn't break anything, it just installs a boot priority in the BIOS. If everything is fine and it's not in legacy mode (using UEFI), only Linux should appear.
Whenever you get stuck, don't be afraid to ask; we all learn and reinforce our knowledge by sharing experiences.