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!

  • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    7·
    9 days ago

    Congrats! There’s probably a few things not perfect that you haven’t noticed yet-but ya, despite what the trolls say, Linux pretty much just works these days. Oftentimes better than windows.

    Sometimes you’ll run into a program that is windows only and that’s a pain. The first thing I do is try to find a linux alternative-sometimes you can sometimes you can’t (stuff designed to interface with your hardware can be a pain sometimes - controllers, rgb lights, fan speeds, motherboard stuff). Bottles works great for running windows programs. And if all else fails a windows vm.

  • juipeltje@lemmy.world
    6·
    9 days ago

    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.

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    91·
    9 days ago

    Next stop will be your privacy journey which would completely break your chains towards Discord which gave you trouble.

    • JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      10·
      9 days ago

      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.

        • toastal@lemmy.ml
          5·
          9 days ago

          But also be proven right several times a year when data leaks & corporations are shown again to be evil.

          • JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            1·
            9 days ago

            Oh for sure. Fuck these big companies. Unfortunately some offer services that just can’t be beat yet by open source/privacy companies.

            • toastal@lemmy.ml
              2·
              8 days ago

              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.

        • JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          2·
          9 days ago

          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.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
    25·
    9 days ago

    My brother recently texted me asking for advice about installing Mint on an old laptop. He is the one that got me into computers as a kid, and he has worked at Microsoft for maybe 25 years. It made me so happy lol.

  • Unreliable@lemmy.ml
    14·
    9 days ago

    Welcome! Be sure if to reach out to the community if you have any issues or questions. We love to help!

  • flatbield@beehaw.orgEnglish
    151·
    10 days ago

    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.

  • sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.todayEnglish
    10·
    9 days ago

    Glad to hear you’re on Linux, living a more sovereign life and having an easy time with it. Mint does indeed work very well for me too. I put Mint XFCE on a ~2015 laptop that Windows was bloating down to dysfunctional. Now it works reasonably well.

    You’ll hear other people say Linux works well until it doesn’t. Well so does Windows. It has many issues too that people tend to not mention. Don’t get discouraged by those people. Most of the time Linux is totally fine for normal users, it’s people trying to do abnormal things that then causes issues.

  • edric@lemm.ee
    57·
    10 days ago

    This is why Mint is what I always recommend to people who are switching over for the first time. Congrats and welcome.