What’s up, guys, gals, and non-binary pals? I switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint back in December 2024, and I catalogued my experiences in these posts:

Just wanted to let you nerds know that everything has been running flawlessly. I can play any game I have, and none of my productivity is blocked. Doesn’t matter whether it’s all my ROMs I archived, my Steam games, GOG games, whatever. Linux plays them, and performance is fantastic. I don’t play any anti-cheat games as the only one I do play periodically is Overwatch, and it runs perfect.

I can without a doubt now say that I will never go back to Windows. Should have switched years ago!

Build specs (the full list is in my first post linked above):

  • CPU 9800x3d
  • GPU RX 7900 XTX

Here are some issues I still can’t solve on Linux Mint:

  • Can’t control my GPU fans
  • Can’t control my case fans
  • Can’t bind my case fans to ramp up with GPU load

I’ve tried CoreCTRL and so many other solutions I read online, and none of them work. Problem for another day! So all I’ve done for now is increase the count of intake fans I have and set it to a good speed to move plenty of air (but also set my exhaust fans higher to help counter and ensure proper positive pressure airflow. I have too many fans to get the ideal balance of neutral air flow). GPU runs with OEM fan speeds.

Edit: There’s a bug in pasting instance agnostic links, so I just added direct URLs to my instance posts.

    • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      27·
      11 days ago

      Yeah it’s so weird. I tried using that Mass Grave thing I heard about but it won’t work. Tried running it in Proton-GE, too, and nothing. I guess I’ll live with it, since it doesn’t interrupt my workflow too much. The watermark on my desktop doesn’t bother too much and eventually I lose sight of it anyway.

      • silly goose meekah@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        11 days ago

        Is that actually an overlay like unlicensed windows or is that just part of the wallpaper? I kinda want that as an actual overlay lol

        • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          29·
          11 days ago

          This is the extension I installed for LM, which lets you put a custom overlay/watermark on your desktop - https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions/view/82

          I created the activation notice watermark in Krita, and styled it after what it looks like on Windows 10.

          Edit: I really love this a lot and have kept it on my computer for months now. It’s just silly and makes me giggle when I get a dark wallpaper that makes the watermark really stand out.

      • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        Oh yeah, now that rings a bell! If I remember correctly, it was built by Linus Torvaltine.

      • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
        9·
        11 days ago

        Omg this is so troll-y, what in the every ungodly hell does that do if you run it?? What is this? How have I missed this for years? lol.

        • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          25·
          11 days ago

          When I click that button, that purple monkey swings into my view on a vine and says hi. He then asks me for my credit card, so I put in my info to get the Linux license. Then nothing happens. I click it again, and he asks once more for card, and then nothing happens. So far I’ve filled out the form about five times, so whatever issues may be happening, I hope they can fix it so I can get my PC activated. I’ve dropped about $500 so far so hopefully I’ll get my Linux activated.

  • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
    14·
    11 days ago

    Side note, but I really like when nerds call other people nerds as a term of endearment. It has the same energy as reclaiming a slur, albeit to a much smaller degree because “nerd” isn’t a slur

  • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    8·
    11 days ago

    I’ve been using Linux for 20 years. It’s cool that some games are working on it. Again. It wasn’t a problem for me in the Quake 3 days.

    • ms.lane@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      11 days ago

      I had a package bug with Mesa on Sid today, which got me reading the changelogs.

      libd3dadapter9 / GalliumNine was removed. It’s been long coming, since Gallium3D is deprecated, but it did get me a little nostalgic.

      GalliumNine is almost the progenitor of the current linux gaming movment, wined3d had been uh… terrible for quite some time and then out of almost nowhere - ‘native’ D3D9 on Linux. Right on the coattails of the Radeon driver starting to seriously not suck (well before amdgpu) - everything sort of came together for real linux gaming experience.

      Ave GalliumNine.

  • Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    8·
    11 days ago

    I’m fairly ignorant about Linux and what goes on under the hood, so the majority of the text doesn’t mean anything to me.

    As someone planning to install Linux Mint who also doesn’t want to accidentally dox myself with a screenshot, could I get an explanation from someone on what is censored out and why?

    • OboTheHobo@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      10·
      11 days ago

      Looks to me like they are just censoring any instance of their username, possibly because it contains their real name.

      Edit: also device name

      • fuckgod@feddit.onlineEnglish
        5·
        11 days ago

        Haven’t really touched Mint myself, other than moving my dad’s computer to it. I don’t think it shows the user or device name over by the clock. Unless that XP skin adds it, I don’t think that’s it.

        Given the “Overcast” bit, maybe it shows a zip code for the weather or something?

        Again, I’m not settled on a particular distro yet for sure, but most of my experience is with PopOS so far, and there’s nothing identifying there, so I’m not positive.

        I’ve installed Mint on 2 family member PCs, but I haven’t used it myself other than in passing.

        • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          11 days ago

          Correct, you got it. I hid some particular identifiers that could pinpoint me, such as weather. The rest of the stuff exposed in the screenshot is not enough to triangulate enough information about me.

      • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        4·
        11 days ago

        Correct, I’m just redacting anything personal from the images that could pinpoint me. And also of course removed EXIF data from the images before uploading to my Lemmy instance (Lemmy does remove it, but I like to be extra sure).

    • Squiddork@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      11 days ago

      It’s mostly the account name and computer name, something like

      user@computer $

      OP might have a good reason (e.g network setup different/real name visible) or is just security/privacy conscious, but you’d be unlikely to dox yourself from a screenshot like this if you’re not a power user.

      Mint is quite a friendly distro, definitely a great first choice and one I’d recommend. However if you find it not to your liking but still want to try Linux; fedora is another good no nonsense distro that would be suitable for you.

    • Little8Lost@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 days ago

      If you wanna test linux use ventoy and use some distros without installing to see your preferences

    • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      11 days ago

      TY! I’ll try these again. It was Dec/Jan when I was really trying to figure it out. I remember installing lm-sensors and then trying CoreCTRL but they just won’t detect or see my GPU fans.

      • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        11 days ago

        I doubt lm-sensors will interact with your GPU fans. It should work for case fan, though.

        You should be able to read your GPU temperature by reading from files and control fans by writing to files that are locates in /sys/class/hwmon/. There should be scripts/programs that exist to do this already, but it isn’t a very complex task, so could be scripted trivially. lm-sensors should help you identify the correct files, as well.

  • ninth_plane@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    11 days ago

    I’ve been gaming on Linux for years, but this post gave me the urge to install Windows XP for games.

    • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      11 days ago

      Glad to hear it! Not creeping on your posts, but the other day I was browsing Lemmy and saw you’re on Linux too. How’s Pop_OS! working for you? Linux Mint has been almost 100% flawless for me.

      • The Picard Maneuver@piefed.worldEnglish
        4·
        11 days ago

        It’s been great! Way easier than I expected it to be. I know both of our distros are supposed to be good entry points for Linux. I spent some time last night figuring out how to add GNOME extensions for customization, which was fun.

        I haven’t had time to attempt any gaming on it yet since installing last weekend, but I’m looking forward to trying tonight.

        • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          11 days ago

          Nice, glad you had some fun just messing around with your PC like we used to do in the good ol’ days!

          I’m excited for you to give some time for gaming! When I first installed LM, I spent the first few days just installing different games and trying them out and messing around - so refreshing. But I think I speak on behalf of Lemmy when I say we can use a little less time of you posting at least for a few hours, so you can get some decent gaming in. 😀

          • The Picard Maneuver@piefed.worldEnglish
            2·
            11 days ago

            Lol, fortunately I tend to post stuff early in the day, and my gaming time is in the evenings after getting the kids to sleep.

            A mild concern I have is that my GPU on the PC I’m using for Linux is an old 770… I probably won’t be playing anything close to current. But that’s not linux’s fault.

  • metalaco@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    11 days ago

    Hi. I am so fucking tired of windows bullshit. Do you think running a GTX 3090 is feasible with the current driver landscape?

    • brendansimms@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      11 days ago

      I’m running an rtx 4070 on mint-cinnamon. Works great. I know that’s a different GPU but just sharing that nvidia drivers + mint are working just fine for me.

    • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      I wouldn’t see any problems there. My server I’m currently building is running Linux Mint. I tossed in my RTX 3080 and it works flawlessly. No headache, no problems trying to configure it. Just booted it, LM detected it, and I clicked update and bam it works great. That card was originally in my Windows PC before I switched to LM and swapped the card for an AMD RX 7900 XTX.

    • Yeller_king@reddthat.comEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      If it helps, you can get pop os with Nvidia drivers pre-installed and configured. That helped me a lot.

  • ShyFae@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    3·
    11 days ago

    Very nice

    I have a very similar setup.

    Though I was naive enough to get a new fancy x870. It’s good when it works, but I was having a shorting problem for a few months before a bios update. And the kernel on the mint install wasn’t recent enough for the internet drivers, wired wouldn’t even work. I didn’t consider myself skilled enough to update the kernel from a usb, so I begrudgingly installed 24.10 Ubuntu

    That was a whole other adventure that ended with installing the cinnamon edition later.
    But now with the 22.2 beta I’m finally back on mint.😃
    Edit: grammar and spelling

  • cyborganism@piefed.caEnglish
    2·
    11 days ago

    Yeah, I always had a dual-boot system and mostly used Win 10 as my main OS for gaming and Linux for troubleshooting and messing around. With the announcement of Win 10 reaching end-of-life this October, I started to go on my Linux side a bit more to try gaming and I was blown away. So I made the switch last fall to 100% Kubuntu 24.04 on my PC.

    I can’t believe the progress that’s been made with Steam and Proton in recent years. I’ve always been a huge Linux fan and gamin has always been the only thing blocking me from using it full time. Now I have no reason to use Windows anymore! I’m so happy!