My time with Linux has been equal parts amazing and absolutely infuriating. Linux Mint is NOT usable out of the box. Here have been my issues:
Nvidia GPU - Trying to figure out how to get the drivers working was a nightmare with ten million different people giving different advice on how to get it to work. Eventually I was able to get them signed and it seems to work
Bluetooth - Another nightmare. Bluetooth is terrible on Linux. It took hours to get it even remotely working ok, but I still don’t think it’s perfect.
Compatibility - Some things just straight up don’t work for seemingly no reason. None of my controllers work with Steam, no matter how many countless hours I’ve spent troubleshooting.
And that is where I am disappointed. Troubleshooting Linux issues sucks. There are so many people giving their opinions and all of them are different and most don’t work.
When Linux is working right it is amazing, and I love it. But right now, it just isn’t as good as Windows and extremely infuriating more often than not. Guess I am going to switch back and give Bill Gates all of my info again. Really fucking disappointing
I use Pop!_OS and have had zero issues getting my Nvidia GPU to work on it, so that or a similar Linux distro that has good Nvidia driver support might be worth checking out.
Normally I don’t suggest distro-hopping for newbies but sometimes it’s a good idea to try a couple distro before settling in. Since there are tons of different hardware, some distros offer a better out of the box solution for some hardware.
Try openSUSE Leap for instance.
Also someone suggested trying KDE Plasma on Mint, so try that first. It might alone solve your problems.By the way, if your need for Windows can be covered on a virtual machine, go that way instead of dual boot. Windows really can mess with your bootloader.
While KDE plasma can be made to work on Mint (I’ve done it as a PoC) it is NOT something a beginner should be doing because a) it’s an unsupported config and b) you need to pull in non mint repositories to get the plasma files, and then you’ll be fiddling around to get it working again when an update breaks something.
If Mint has been troublesome then popOS ubuntu and Fedora would be better choices.
I don’t use Mint myself so I don’t know how things are there. Thanks for clarifying.
Wasn’t a fan of mint when I tried it. IMO, I found popOS to be an overall better experience when I first started using Linux and have since switched back to it after having a few issues on Fedora.
You might give that a shot especially if you are using nivida. PopOS hasn’t given me much grief (aside from Gnome but that’s more a personal distaste for it)
Even after being on Linux for a year and considering myself a fairly capable guy in tech, Linux is kind of a pain in the ass if you’re doing more complicated things like in my case music production.
But it sounds like you’ve had an even worse go doing normal things which sucks. I feel for you man. I hope your next go is better.
It took me a few tries and Windows being a privacy nightmare to switch. It can be done but it wasn’t (and still isnt) easy.
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had so much trouble with Linux. I understand the frustration that comes with Unix based OSes especially after being a heavy Windows user for years.
I did a bit of searching on your profile and saw you’re dual-booting with Windows on the same hard drive. I personally had issues with trying to set that up myself (Windows is a finicky, jealous b****). My own solution was installing my distro of choice onto a separate hard drive - if you can eventually do that I recommend it.
I know you’re getting a lot of flak for your post but it’s good to see honest opinions from people who genuinely want to try Linux but aren’t necessarily the same level of hyper-nerd as the typical demographic here.
Having information from a wider opinion pool will help in understanding how to get Linux to more of the population - but that’s a side tangent.
It’s encouraging to see that you are still open to trying in the future and taking a break from it can help you clear your head and come back with fresher eyes.
Unfortunately I don’t have much experience with NVIDIA drivers, and probably a similar amount of troubleshooting as Mint but I’ve found EndeavourOS to be friendlier to a middle-upper tech/gamer use case. Mint, for me, seemed cold and “office”-y and didn’t work well for me as I don’t only use my browser and word processor.
That said, distros are an almost ridiculously personal choice and part of that is trial and error. If you haven’t gotten the chance I recommend test driving a couple other distros in an Oracle VM (for user-friendliness) so you can decide what you like the feel of before committing to an install again, if and when you feel ready.
Good luck and godspeed until then.
Thanks for the reply. My next build will not have windows on it at all, If I can help it. Honestly mint is great and was working amazing until I had to reinstall it.
in the beginning I dual booted too and windows did cause some strange issues, but they disappeared when I disabled fast boot from somewhere in windows settings.
also I distrohop every now and then, and a I had trouble installing nvidia drivers a few times. on distros that earlier had no trouble at all with it. bluetooth works great on my pc, which was a pleasant surprise. I don’t own a controller, but I heard that PS4 controllers work best.
all of your existing hardware may not be supported, but in the future you may want to search and check if the peripheral or component you are buying will play nice with linux if you want to move in that direction.
People are downvoting your comments about your actual experience and that’s not helpful.
Folks, please don’t downvote an unpopular (to you) opinion. Instead, try to prove for more info and provide your expertise to help someone try to have a better experience. The point is to help someone learn how to enjoy Linux, not hate them for not liking it. Don’t be counterproductive and solidify a bad reputation of Linux users.
It’s probably because I come off as a whiny bitch, which I do. Lol just frustrated.
About NVIDIA: yeah, Nvidia on Linux is a big, big mess. Things are improving but it’s still a pain in the ass sometimes. Maybe some of your issues could be solved by changing to another Desktop Enviroment.
About Bluetooth: I don’t know how recent your hardware is, but maybe changing to a newer kernel (preferably a more up to date Distro, like Fedora) would solve it.
About Compatibility: I don’t know what controllers you are using. I personally had issues with Xbox Wireless Controller drivers, and after some searching I easily fixed it with xpadneo, maybe that could help.
Mint is usually a great distro for beginners, BUT it sometimes sacrifices shiny new updates for stability (which is a good feature of Mint), that’s why I recommend you to try Fedora. Good luck with your Linux adventure 😃
Thanks for the response I appreciate it
You’re actually right about this. I guess I’ve just gotten used to discarding most of the “advice” people give and also recognizing when somebody actually knows what they’re talking about.
I’m sorry you’ve had this experience. Hopefully you’ll be willing to give Linux another try again in the future and some of your issues have been addressed.
I appreciate it
I can see everyone down voting you to oblivion… And that’s sort of fair. But that’s beside the point.
I was having trouble with NVIDIA while using mint early on and decided to switch to Fedora. Maybe try that once. Fedora has better defaults for nvidia.
Use the KDE Plasma spin btw. See if it works.
I guess there’s difference with the gpu model too, because for me it has been the opposite: mint works without issues and fedora has been a nightmare, especially the kde spin one. last time it killed itself afrer the first updates. nobara was almost perfect but I could never figure out why it can’t turn the monitor back on after it has turned off.
Thanks, I might try that if a new install doesn’t work
Looks like you used hardware that was designed for windows and are blaming it now on Linux.
I am not understanding the issue you have that requires signing of drivers.
Yes some Bluetooth devices lack the support from the manufacturer’s for Linux, the Controllers i have used work great, at least for my needs.
Controllers have better support Linux for ages. Not understanding the issue here either.
Troubleshooting on Windows sucks at least to the same degree. The same non specific error message gets you 50 possible solutions.
No need to announce your departure.
I’m venting because I don’t understand how the experience is so vastly different for people. And what do you mean hardware designed for windows? Literally the only thing is the NVIDIA gpu
Basically everything you stated, Bluetooth, Controller and GPU is hardware.
Your experience is probably different since you still think and act like you use windows. This is normal. When you are used to something and then switch to something that works differently you will run into problems.
I did a first install of mint months ago and daily drove it. I have gotten pretty used to Linux.
months ago
How long have you been using Windows for?
My whole life up until last September when I first installed mint
Do you see the paradox here? You expect to be as proficient as you might be with something you’ve used your entire life with something you’ve only used on and off for a couple of months…
Not the guy your responding to and I 100% get your frustration, but I want to provide a little anecdote.
Back in November, I built a new desktop to replace my 7 year old one and put OpenSUSE on it. No matter what I tried, I could not get either Bluetooth or WiFi working. I tried updating drivers, restarting controllers, reinstalling the OS, replacing the OS with Mint. Nothing worked.
I did a lot of searching over the next few days, and it turned out that my motherboard was so new that it’s built in WiFi chip did not have Linux drivers yet. Like at all.
Most products aren’t created with Linux in mind, so compatibility isn’t a concern. It’s up to the community to create patches & drivers to make things work, and it can take a bit to get things working.
I’m genuinely sorry you had the experience you did, but I hope that if you do return to Windows that you’ll give Linux another try in the future. Search your products to see if others have had issues, along with potential solutions, before you dive in.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, and not chastising me like half the other people in this thread. Yes it’s been very frustrating because I want to switch full time. I don’t understand how I am having these issues on a reinstall of Linux, when my first install had none of these issues.
If you have newer hardware mint isnt what you wanna use. It is more stability focused. There are other distros that arr more geared towards faster updates and supporting new stuff faster.
I’m venting because I don’t understand how the experience is so vastly different for people.
It’s always going to be a driver issue. It takes time and money to develop drivers for *nix, so most manufacturers don’t bother. It’s the most significant issue *nix has to deal with and if it wasn’t an issue, no one would deal with Windows.
And Bluetooth devices count as hardware. You bitched about that too.
Thanks for the response
Nvidia isn’t supported well on Linux*. A touch of Google fu would have told you that.
So all of this can be traced back to using a NVIDIA gpu and having to use secure boot?
Why do you need SecureBoot?
Dual boot with Windows. Dumb windows requires it
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Windows does not require secure boot.
Windows 11 absolutely does require secure boot
Sorry to hear that Linux Mint is not working well for you. Unfortunately, things can sometimes still be rough when it comes to hardware support. I have personally also had issues with Nvidia GPUs and Bluetooth. Often this is because the manufacturers only provide drivers for Windows and Linux drivers need to be created by the community.
Regarding Nvidia and secure boot. I’ve had the same issue (on both Mint and other distros). After some frustrations (including a BIOS update) I finally gave up and disabled secure boot. Since then, I haven’t had any issues with my dual boot with Win 10 (but I probably won’t buy another Nvidia GPU). What makes you say that Windows requires Secure Boot?
No I didn’t. When I installed Linux mint the first time I was able to fix everything. I needed to reinstall it and that is where this controller issue started
This seems quite weird. Are you perhaps missing a package (e.g. steam-devices)?
I have steam-devices and same issues. No luck at all. Thanks for the response.
You might be better off with bare-metal linux and shoving windows inside a VM where it belongs.
I tried installing a VM but man it was really laggy. I used the open source one on linix, not virtualbox. I probably fucked something up, though.
And you’re missing the point: do your own research
Nvidia isn’t responsible for the other issues you have… Did you do any research about your hardware and Linux compatibility?
Bluetooth will be whatever wireless chipset you’re using likely.
No I didn’t. When I installed Linux mint the first time I was able to fix everything. I needed to reinstall it and that is where this controller issue started
Linux Mint is NOT usable out of the box.
I set Mint up for my 65 year old mother about 4 years ago, and she hasn’t had a single issue since. I think it’s less about Mint being usable out of the box and more about Mint not doing what you want out of the box…
My 73 year old grandmother also uses it and says its “minty fast” lol not sure what that means. She latched onto the name when she heard it.
Use Pop Os, perfect for nvidia GPU support out of the box.
I can’t because I have a dual boot with windows and secure boot has to stay on
Properly dual booting is much more difficult than starting a vm. Starting a vm is as simple as installing boxes and choosing the iso.
Thanks ill maybe give that a shot
You can absolutely dual boot PopOS! and Windows. The only real issue you’ll run into is Windows update is destructive–so you’ll have to manually keep fixing systemd boot to ensure your PopOS! instance can continue to boot after Windows update.
use boxes to have a virtual fully functional windows within linux :)
I would have no idea how to set that up. I already tried creating a VM within linux for windows, and it went very poorly
Bro. You need to grab for sanity right now. Switch back to windows until you’re ready to take another dive. It’s worth it imo, but a lot of these comments are just plane unhelpful. Linux is great, if it’s not working for your hardware try a different tact.
Nvidia support just turned a corner at the end of last year. It’s getting much much better.
Thanks. Just getting heated because I really want it to work for me
Yea and the purists are getting heated back. You’re obviously at a learning gap, and that’s the firmware gap. It’s annoying. But with older hardware it “just works”.
I’m guessing since mint is Debian based it’s not getting the latest and greatest firmware blobs, or it’s on an older kernel.
What’s your hardware? What version of Linux mint?
You might want to try some gaming specific distros as they are a little more cutting edge. I’d suggest giving Bazzite or Nobara a try. Bazzite is immutable, so if it’s not working on first boot just give up and switch. But it is my personals favorite.
Both are based on Fedora which is a little more cutting edge.
You also might want to try Manjaro which is like Arch Linux with training wheels. It may just work on boot.
Edit: Bazzite and Nobara will have Nvidia specific ISOs, so getting drivers working is no big deal. The core and legacy systems (Ubuntu, mint, Fedora, opensuse) all take a little more effort to get Nvidia working. Their spinoffs often times include the driver for you.
Thanks so much. I may give some of those a try
Why does secure boot need to stay on?
Even so, you should be able to sign the drivers and use the boot shim if you really want to go through that process.
I think you are addressing the issues wrong.
Unsupported hardware is a reality in Linux, even if I didn’t find any in the last 10+ years, my needs are much more limited.
Controllers do work just fine, as well as Bluetooth, in my experience. Maybe share some issues and let’s see why.
Troubleshooting in Linux means understand why stuff don’t work as you expect, not copypasta 50 different solutions. There are 50 solutions because there are 100 ways to do stuff and different distros and versions out there. The “unified” experience is from the windows world, not the Linux world.
Nvidia is a known issue on Linux, prrprietary drivers kind of sucks and there are no good open ones, at least for newish nvidia cards. But again, my experience with nvidia has always been very good, with proprietary drivers.
Steam, I used it trough wine to run windows games on Linux, with good success (1 game, so YMMV), and I found it amazing that it was even possible to do. But never used controllers
Honestly I am just going to try a reinstall and see if that works.
Keep on your “windows mindset”, won’t be very good on Linux i guess.
Maybe a fresh install could help if you made too much of a mess, who knows.
Still won’t fix your problems unless you find a way to address the issues. Maybe post them here so that we could help.
Maybe Linux isn’t the solution you are looking for in this case? I use Linux whenever I can, especially at home because I have far fewer problems than with windows. But it’s not a panacea, and if it’s easier to use windows then use windows.
That’s the thing, I’ve loved Linux when it’s worked right. I want to use it full time. My first install, after fixing everything, was going great. I had to reinstall because I messed something up, and now I can’t fix any of this.
Bluetooth - Another nightmare. Bluetooth is terrible on Linux.
Shitty dongles is shittier in Linux, that’s true. Never ever had a problem with Bluetooth on laptops.
None of my controllers work with Steam, no matter how many countless hours I’ve spent troubleshooting.
They work with games outside of Steam? If true is a Steam problem, not a Linux one. “But it works with Steam on Windows”, well Valve can fuck up and introduce a bug on the Linux version.
I’m having this issue, I don’t want to switch OFF of mint since it’s so familiar now, but I would like better nvidia support. Tried arch a few times but really struggled
