Finally, after some time I made the switch to #Linux !

🧵1/2

Here is my experience and the hiccups I found :
- It was hell to find how to boot on the USB drive. You needed to disable secure boot and it didn’t tell you that anywhere, as far as I can tell
- It was easy enough to set up, connect to wifi etc
- Strangely Firefox has a bigger top app bar, instead of all the icons and tabs being on a single row, there are 2 rows (one with the tab name, and another one with the actual tabs
- The fingerprint reader could be set up, but when trying to log in it always says fingerprint not recognized
- Keyboard shortcuts changed, for example screenshots can’t be done using Win Shift S, the clipboard history doesn’t work by default etc
- The key to mute my mic doesn’t work, and is not recognized as a key. The other keys like disabling the trackpad work fine.
- I like how typing the name of software from windows like paint and notepad gives the linux equivalent
@linux

  • Mangoholic@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 hours ago

    I was able to just set the keys how i need them, it is super easy to configure just from the menu.

  • FreddiesLantern@leminal.space
    7·
    9 hours ago

    Welcome!

    Mint is an awesome choice to start. It’s got a nice balance between slim and enough features to get you going.

    Keep in mind at all times: at some point you’re gonna need that one piece of external hardware to play nice with Linux or maybe that one piece of software ain’t doing it like you’re used to.=> there is a way or an alternative. Always keep calm, research the topic, and follow instructions carefully and thoughtfully when you find a tutorial.

    That aside enjoy it, a little slice of freedom away from big tech awaits.

    • Redex@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 hours ago

      There isn’t unfortunately always an alternative, e.g. you can’t control Logitech devices without dual booting (maybe you can do it in a VM as well, but I haven’t tried to).

      • FreddiesLantern@leminal.space
        1·
        2 hours ago

        It works great for me. I control a multifx through VM. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work on other hardware (perhaps the off chance it’s very peculiar about online connectivity or such but I haven’t encountered it)

        Ok maybe “always” is a bit strong but let’s say 9 out of 10.

    • 🦊 helloyanis :veripawed3:@furries.clubOP
      3·
      8 hours ago

      @FreddiesLantern Aside from the hiccups I mentionned, it works great! I was surprised my backlit keyboard even works, but I think that’s managed by my bios.

      I’ll keep on using it, but I’m trying to document my struggles because if Linux is aiming to be a good alternative to Windows computers getting to end of life, then some set up wouldn’t be done by most people and just assume it’s broken and maybe switch back to Windows where it “Just works”.

      Maybe this can help with the onboarding experience!

  • EtnaAtsume@lemmy.world
    2·
    10 hours ago

    I am thinking I might try Linux Mint on the laptop but I’m kind of terrified of blowing it up or wiping data. My laptop is getting old and I will likely be building a replacement desktop soon.

    But it is a gaming laptop and has strange interactions with heat and fan speed and glowy keyboard lights and I’m afraid I’ll disable some safety feature or accidentally break wifi compatibility irreversibily if I tinker too much.

    • 🦊 helloyanis :veripawed3:@furries.clubOP
      5·
      9 hours ago

      @EtnaAtsume Mint install or not, you should regularly back up your data in an external drive!

      Yes, installing mint on the Windows partition deletes Windows and all your files so make a backup or put them on another partition!

      But without deleting your data, you can always boot from an USB stick and try thingd around in this environnement!

    • musaoruc@lemmy.ml
      2·
      9 hours ago

      You don’t have to install anything on your laptop if you just want to try Linux and see if it would work for you. You can just prepare a Linux Mint USB (or any other distribution really) plug it to your laptop and boot from it. This will boot into the live desktop from the USB and will not touch your drives. There you can try Linux and get a feel for it before you commit.

  • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
    14·
    19 hours ago
    • Strangely Firefox has a bigger top app bar, instead of all the icons and tabs being on a single row, there are 2 rows (one with the tab name, and another one with the actual tabs

    That’s probably the Title Bar.

    Go to Firefox’s Menu > More Tools > Customize Toolbar > Uncheck “Title Bar” at the bottom left corner.

    e: oops, hard_zero1@discuss.tchncs.de beat me by hours

  • hard_zero1@discuss.tchncs.de
    29·
    23 hours ago

    You can remove the bar for Firefox: Right click on the toolbar -> “Customize Toolbar…” (or Burger menu -> “More Tools” -> “Customize Toolbar…”), then in the bottom left uncheck “Title Bar” (This works in KDE, at least)

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        3·
        4 hours ago

        How do you get more intuitive than literally just typing (anywhere really, because krunner), “shortcuts” and hitting enter lol

      • Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
        17·
        21 hours ago

        Many distros have screenshots bound to a shortcut by default. So it’s working by default, just not the default you know. Even Windows only introduced that shortcut a few years ago. The real shortcut (working without any program even in Windows) is the dedicated PrtScr button. If you hold alt, it’ll only capture the current window. It won’t be saved but put in the clipboard.

        On KDE Ctrl+shift+s worked by default for me, but I don’t didn’t know if that comes from my distro or from KDE.

        • 🦊 helloyanis :veripawed3:@furries.clubOP
          2·
          21 hours ago

          @Creat My laptop is weird, because it has a media key for screenshoting an area (which is basically a key that doed Windows Shift S which isn’t recognized by default on Mint), and a print screen key which works fine. And to screenshot an area, on Mint it’s ctrl+print screen

  • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
    4·
    19 hours ago
    • The fingerprint reader could be set up, but when trying to log in it always says fingerprint not recognized

    This post is a bit older and it’s possible that Mint does this automatically. The post goes through the process of setting up a fingerprint reader from scratch. If your system is detecting the device and it’s a supported device* then PAM is likely misconfigured.

    https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=408129

    It is possible that Mint now has a user friendly way of doing this… I don’t really know Cinnamon (because I use Arch, btw) but whatever it is, it’s configuring PAM underneath the GUI. You can configure PAM via the terminal, it even has a little TUI (spacebar to check and uncheck boxes).

    *https://fprint.freedesktop.org/supported-devices.html

    lsusb

    Then check the table against the numbers after ID in the output of lsusb. This is the VID/PID, a term you’ll probable run into again.

  • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
    5·
    21 hours ago

    The key to mute my mic doesn’t work, and is not recognized as a key. The other keys like disabling the trackpad work fine.

    some manufacturers use a driver to handle media keys (for telemetry, mostly)

    showkey -s

    Will print the scan codes in the terminal, press your media keys and see if they generate scan codes. showkey is part of the kbd package if it isn’t already installed.

  • katy ✨@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    3·
    21 hours ago

    out of curiousity what’s the script in the post image? i always see it and i’m curious how to generate it. :3

    i installed linux in march and havent regreted it <3

  • First_Thunder@lemmy.zip
    3·
    23 hours ago

    The bigger top Firefox bar is due to the fact that it is using server side decorations instead of client side decorations (aka, Cinnamon, thr graphical environment is setting the top bars instead of letting apps do their thing)