I really need to move my PC over to Mint, but change makes me deeply uncomfortable :(
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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Take it slow. Install a VM with Mint. Play around with it. Get familiar. Move your regular usage over to it gradually. Make the jump when you are ready. It's perfectly OK to have reservations about a big change like that. But you don't have to do it all in one go.
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Is it "change" itself that makes you uncomfortable or the fact that change means putting in effort in areas you've developed habits to minimize effort?
lil bruh just move to mint already u gon be fine 💔
but osrs mint is widely regarded as best for transitioning to different OS. All the shit you did on win has alts on mint/ubuntu
I'm currently using Win10 IOT LTSC on my main gaming rig, and Mint on my laptop to get used to the environment (started 2 years ago). It's a great way to both get used to the new ecosystem, and have a fallback cushion if some software or scenario doesn't work properly.
What changes exactly?
Ease of gaming if you don't have your entire library of games on Steam tbh. If you do, then it's a no-brainer. If not, then ehh.
Also sometimes Nvidia cards do not play nice in Linux.
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I'm seeing a lot of advocacy for Mint on Lemmy but not as much for Fedora it seems?
I've only ever run one Linux distro and that was Fedora KDE Plasma, havent tried Mint yet. Are they not mostly the same or am I missing something?
Apt is a massive and reliable package manager. Im not very surprised. However I am surprised no one is specifying LMDE
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I screwed up so bad. I bought a laptop to trial different Linux distros and also because my old one is 12yo now and has its own problems. However, the manufacturer ONLY provides Windows support drivers, so the keyboard won't work without a kernel level patch and I am not a kernel-patch level guy yet
What laptop model?
Asus Q533M. I found a user patch on stack but it was for older models. Tried to update it myself and run a rebuild, but I might have missed a step since it errored out
If you're using an Arch Based distribution and have access to a USB keyboard so you can use standard HID drivers during setup you should be able to follow along on this wiki to use the software included in the ASUS Linux stack. It appears they have some nonsense going on. Tbh I didn't know about this until looking just now and I'm gonna be going through here and getting the tools I need since I've got an ROG mobo I think would benefit
Sweet, thanks! I haven't settled on a distro yet, but from what I've seen this is something Asus does to kneecap as much of the community as they can
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I put Mint Cinnamon on an older laptop just this past weekend and had a lot of fun with it. Are there any migration tips for my main Windows machine? I was thinking of going with Bazzite since it's my gaming box. What about saved game data and whatnot? I was reading about Putty and SSH ing over to the laptop, but I'm not sure what a good strategy is for my desktop.
Step one: back up your data.
Step two: back up your data again.
This person backs up.
Step three: test your backups
Step four: back up your data again
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i'd recommend getting a new SSD and installing Linux on that, then you can read your windows drive from Linux and copy over the files you need
Game files can be copied over the same way (obvs to different directories)
If you only have one M.2 slot then M.2 to USB adapters are stupid cheap and infinitely useful as a fast AF flash drive.
If your drive is sata then those are also cheap and the same applies, just not quite as fast.
I actually just moved my gaming PC from Win11 to Mint Cinnamon 2 weeks ago. There was some driver fuckery (I have an Nvidia card) that made things a bit wonky but everything worked out after some adjustments.
Do you mostly game through steam? Do you install your games on a separate drive?
Steam makes the transition the easiest. All of my games "just worked" with Steam. There were a few modifications required to ensure stability with the games settings but it was mostly smooth sailing for me.
I just used thumb drives to pull all my games save files to and an external drive to back up all my installed games so I wouldn't have to re download them. Save game files are usually pretty small so all of the ones I had backed up on a single thumb drive and Steam and Linux creates a faux Windows folder system for each game and you just reinsert the save games in those folder structures at the correct spot.
Thanks all for the helpful replies! I do have a second ssd, I can probably dump everything there before I format my m2 ssd. I do primarily game thru steam, I've got icue software that isn't compatible but I believe I can use openrgb. Nvidia card also, is it just driver related?
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Ubuntu in the corner, crying.
Linux users: "Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!"
That's the Distro I use! /cry
Ubuntu actually cooked ngl 🥀🙏
It still does, but I do understand people's displeasure with snaps.
Ubuntu is a linux distro. I dont get the joke you're trying to make.
Ubuntu has been making quite a few missteps lately that have cost it a lot of popularity.