- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
The Linux Mint team has just released Linux Mint 22, a new major version of the free Linux distribution. With Windows 10’s end of support coming up quickly next year, at least some users may consider making the switch to Linux.
While there are other options, paying Microsoft for extended support or upgrading to Windows 11, these options are not available for all users or desirable.
Linux Mint 22 is a long-term service release. Means, it is supported until 2029. Unlike Microsoft, which made drastic changes to the system requirements of Windows 11 to lock out millions of devices from upgrading to the new version, Linux Mint will continue to work on older hardware, even after 2029.
Here are the core changes in Linux Mint 22:
- Based on the new Ubuntu 24.04 package base.
- Kernel version is 6.8.
- Software Manager loads faster and has improved multi-threading.
- Unverified Flatpaks are disabled by default.
- Preinstalled Matrix Web App for using chat networks.
- Improved language support removes any language not selected by the user after installation to save disk space.
- Several under-the-hood changes that update libraries or software.
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I researched this a few years ago, but is their a way to get SolidWorks, SpaceClaim etc working on Linux? Or do I have to run a virtual machine with windows?
Some people have run solidworks on Linux with limited success. Granted I have never personally done it, from what I understand they used wine which emulates windows anyway. So it depends on how much time you are willing to sink to get things working.
Not to be critical of your input but wine is not an emulator (which is wine’s acronym), it’s actually a translation layer that converts windows calls into Linux on the fly, which can be a lot faster than emulating windows. Add to the original person’s question a quick Google led me to this project
I was not successful running Solidworks under Linux and it even detects when it is running in a virtual machine and refuses to install completely!
Finally I have found an alternative that suits my needs, that has free account for hobby purposes: on-shape.com it’s web-based, works flawlessly under Linux and Firefox. Workflow is very similar to Solidworks, and version-control is simple and nice.
Doesn’t onshape originate from a bunch of SW engineers so that’d make sense!
Personally, I was paying for SW with a maker license but this year I’ve committed to Freecad, use realthunder’s fork that has the topo naming fix + modern ui workbench for a more familiar layout.
I would call it totally useable, workflow for me ends up the same or similar to solidworks, I tried fusion because that’s really popular but it didn’t click with me while freecad did. I won’t pretend it’s flawless and doesn’t have quirks but I’m willing to accept that for foss, need to spend a bit of time with it to get used to what it expects you to do but it’s really powerful once you do.
Switching to Linux is almost always going to involve accepting that you may need to use alternative software compared to what you’re used to. If that’s unacceptable and you have mission critical work that can only be done on Windows compatible software, you may be better off staying put.
Can it run steam and autocad?
Also amd gpu support. I had to abandon mint 5 years ago because of poor driver support.
Not sure about AutoCAD, but I have Mint installed to the expansion card drive on my Frame.work and have been playing a fair amount of Inscryption, FTL, and Stronghold Crusader on it through Steam, so I would say yes?
I would try to run autoCAD by adding it to steam as a game and set it to use proton and look what happens 🤔
Latest kernel is probably what you need if things work on other distros. There’s a menu in the Mint update manager you can use to change to a slightly newer kernel and I would always advise that if it doesn’t cause any other issues. Newer kernel usually means more and newer drivers.
Mint is ultimately based on Debian, but with a lot of newer software, although it’s “stable” under the hood. That’s why Mint is popular on personal home computers. The idea behind it is that it should give you all the updates you need, but not too often or in a way that breaks things. If your computer works on one version of Mint, it would hopefully never break from an update, but packages don’t tend to be cutting-edge.
Steam is sort of an exception there. It works well on the vast majority of distros because Valve’s CEO is a bit unusual in that he prefers people to be using Linux and has done a lot to keep it working well. If you don’t use the flatpak for Steam (which I wouldn’t suggest), then it runs in its own kind of custom runtime container that makes sure it works as it’s supposed to in the vast majority of.
I’ve never used Autocad, so I couldn’t say too much about it. If a program doesn’t work properly it could be due to incompatible dependency packages with different behaviour. Autocad would also be a graphics heavy program (similar to Blender, but also like videogames) so drivers could come in there too. The updated libraries might help, or it could just be your graphics drivers again. You can also try the flatpak version instead if it doesn’t work, and vice versa.
If you can get your GPU to work on other distros, you shouldn’t have many problems on this new major version of Mint, so long as the kernel is new enough, which I think it would be.
If you have a specific, very new, AMD GPU, there are actually public records of what the developers of the Linux kernel are doing to support newer hardware. Most people don’t find these easy to check, but this would be a common question. There is a long wikipedia page giving a few of the most well-known optimisations, bug-fixes and hardware support improvements in specific versions of the Linux kernel.
By the way, there are lots of people on the official Linux Mint forums who are happy to answer specific questions about bugs or what’s improving in Linux Mint, as posed by community members.
I’ve been using Mint exclusively for quite a few years now (outside of Android) and had minimal issues, outside of poorly refurbished laptops I got for cheap (like one with a physically broken keyboard that spammed one of the buttons, which I was able to fix easily with a simple script I copied from the web).
Sorry if that was too long an answer, but what I’m saying is there is a good chance it will just work out if you try to install this new major version (though there’s some chance it might not). Also I believe they’ve decided to prioritise shipping a kernel with good hardware support now, rather than a more “stable” one (older/LTS) so a lot of more recent hardware will work, unlike 5 years ago.
Don’t be afraid of following a few CLI guides if you have to either. Any distro is good enough if you know a few terminal commands, and any distro can be perfect if you’re an absolute bash wizard.
Hope that helped.
Mint ships with 6.8 now
My bad. Autocad is commercial software that mainly supports Windows, so you would have to see if you can set it up through Wine (popular for running Windows software on Linux).
Technically Mint is based on Ubuntu (this release is based on Ubuntu 24.04 which released earlier this year).
Mint decrapifies Ubuntu by removing things like Snap, I’m going to switch to Mint eventually - honestly maybe even later this year, maybe in December or something.
Ubuntu is based on Debian, although they made quite extensive changes over time. Ubuntu and Mint are very similar, but Ubuntu is owned by a corporation called Canonical that people have had a few concerns about the priorities of, whereas Mint is community ran.
Autocad AFAIK doesn’t run, I am trying to get something like nanocad to work, also any version of SAP2000, ETABS or Staad.
Steam & amd yes, autocad no
I tried Linux Mint on my old XPS laptop and the battery life is, unfortunately, a nonstarter for me. It lasts about 2 hours running Linux versus up to six on Windows (thanks to battery settings). It also doesn’t hibernate properly. I wish it had worked for me
I know for me, at least with gnome, toggling between performance, balanced, and battery saver modes dramatically changes my battery life on Ubuntu, so I have to toggle it manually to not drain my battery life if it’s mostly sitting there. I don’t know if Mint is the same, but just throwing out the “obvious” for anyone else running Linux on a laptop.
For some reason, Mint doesn’t provide access to the power profiles out of the box… no idea why. I just install a Cinnamon applet called “Power Profiles” and it gives me the same systray switcher as Fedora.
Fresh install of Mint was giving me about 2 hours battery life. By switching to Power Saver profile, I can get up to about 6-8 hours. I mostly only need to go to Balanced or Performance when gaming.
I’d try fedora or pop os. I never really liked mint personally
That’s most likely a driver issue. I don’t know if this is something that’s easily fixed. Linux is better on open hardware.
It may be worth doing more distro hoping. It sometimes takes a few to get it right for your needs/use case.
What’s the known good battery management distro? If there isn’t one, that seems like something that should be an area of focus.
I was recently surprised by Debian 12. Tried it on my Dell laptop and getting better battery life than Pop!_os. Try this installer which makes life so much easier :)
I heard even though Pop os is ubuntu based, they use different power management. I’m mainly a desktop user so I can’t quantitativly comment on battery life.
Zorin is another sexy option.
these days I recommend fedora kinoite to beginners from windows.
It’s a good distro and it is a lot harder to break on accident, but there are a lot more minor kinks than fedora workstation. It can also get confusing for newcomers on the somewhat regular occasion that you need a non-flatpak package.
Can you give some examples of these kinks? I haven’t had any issues giving it to beginners.
Just from my own experience, many flatpak apps such as Steam, VSCode, or Kdenlive have a lot of issues, and many other flatpaks are maintained by third parties with poor quality control. This isn’t Silverblue/Kinoite’s fault, but it is still an issue that affects it. For certain machines where drivers aren’t included by default, it requires a lot more troubleshooting to install them compared to Linux Mint’s driver manager, or even just copying a few commands from the internet on a distro like Fedora.
Ah, the driver thing is mitigated by me doing the installation for them.
As for flatpaks having issues, that makes sense, i try to stick to verified flatpaks and do tell them to avoid unverified ones. I just really haven’t had these problems, have you had them recently or historically?
their os-tree package manager sucks it somtimes will refuse to uninstall stuff
You’re not supposed to use that, and in fact, when i give it to beginners, i don’t mention the package manager, I just use discover with flatpaks.
oh,but flatpacks are missing native hosting on some browsers but its mostly not a big problem and not all apps are on flatpack
Nearly everything the average person needs is in flatpak.
I don’t know what you mean by “native hosting”
Nearly everything the average person needs is in flatpak.
True tho
After my old notebook died, I bought a $200 old, but refurbished, ThinkPad from NewEgg, put Mint on it, and I’m quite satisfied.
I love mint, and Fedora Cinnamon is my daily driver. My only problem with cinnamon is that wayland support is still being developed, so it lacks 1:1 touchpad gestures.
Also can’t run 4k at 60hz on my system at least. That’s a total nonstarter for me.
Switched to Linux Mint about three years ago after being unable to take my perfectly good laptop from W10 to W11. Dual boot firstly, quickly becoming entirely Mint. It just worked. It was the first Linux distro I’d tried in about 20 years that I didn’t mess up in a week or so.
Recently bought a new laptop and decided to distro hop. Tried various flavours of Fedora, and a few others, but ultimately came back to Mint. None of the others worked quite as well as Mint does for me (though I really liked KDE Plasma, and Gnome surprised me once I finally discovered extensions!)
You can put Plasma on Mint, I’m running that right now myself
When I rebuilt my PC I was planning something similar, got two nvme drives to dual boot, but started with Linux Mint… And never wound up installing Windows on the other, never felt the need, so I finally last night formatted it for more room for all my games
I did try running Plasma on Mint, but it was never quite as good as on Fedora or as smooth on Mint as Cinnamon.
Honestly, I think I just like the simple uniformity of Cinnamon. It’s dull and predicable, but really, really solid.
I really liked Cinnamon but switched mainly because I kept having occasional video problems that didn’t seem to affect KDE… But, that might have been the lack of a proper video driver, I’ve not tried switching back since fixing that
At this point, I’ve found enough with KDE that I like having in my workflow that I’ve been reluctant to try switching back
Just did a timeshift then upgraded and it went perfectly. Had to disable a ppa but the upgrader even did that for me.
I only recently came over from Windows and am very impressed - most Windows upgrades go less smoothly than this.
Oh, there’s an upgrader? I’ve been looking for upgrade instructions since it was first announced released but all I’ve found is them saying they’ll put out instructions next week
Maybe dist update and dist upgrade will work, but I’m going to let them iron out the kinks, and upgrade when they offer an official path, after a Timeshift snapshot.
Right now I don’t feel like experimenting. For that I have VMs
mintupgrade utility name
Thank you Mint team, you rock!
What do people use to replace Microsoft Office these days? Have they got wine working well enough to run them yet or are you still stuck with open source alternatives?
“Stuck with”? I find open source alternatives far less infuriating to work with than anything Microsoft produces.
I’ve used OnlyOffice (FOSS, really modern) and Softmaker Office, which is a proprietary German alternative with native Linux support. It also has the best docx compatibility of the Microsoft alternatives.
Depends on your requirements. I am mostly able to get along with LibreOffice and I tried Collabora, though both suck in their own way. Winedb says that Office 95 and 2013 have “Gold” rating. Maybe I will try later next week to install the 2013 version.
I know it’s bad to say but MS office is a real barrier. That and done other compatibility issues with Windows apps made me abandon Ubuntu for Windows after several months where I otherwise loved it.
I am currently using windows, but Microsoft office could easily be replaced with WPS office on linux, there will be some niche features (Power query, Microsoft Access,… Etc) that will not work for linux but the rest is covered on linux.
For me it’s that a game I regularly play really needs their rootkit to run before they allow me to start it… If that ever changes or I stop playing it I’ll take a long hard look at Linux.
Libreoffice, onlyoffice and ms office online mean that unless its a big part of your job, you dont need ms office
I’ve found that Libreoffice Calc in particular tends to deal with Excel files very well. It can do everything I’ve ever needed to do in Excel. The browser version of MS Office is good for full compatibility if you have access to it, but can be a bit annoying to use.
MS Word and Libreoffice Write never seemed to understand each other’s file formats well for me, especially if you insert equations in text. You can end up with weird formatting that’s laborious to correct. It might be best to avoid Libreoffice Write, especially for technical stuff, unless it’s improved a lot since then. The online MS Office could help you a lot there.
Latex is arguably the best for that sort of thing, but can be hard to use, since you have to learn it. Still, anyone should be able to open a pdf and get consistent results.
WPS Office is another option but I’ve never used it. It has official support for a surprising number of operating systems and seems to work well on different file formats. I’ve seen someone else use it with no complaints, and it does have official Linux support, even though it’s a commercial proprietary software, which can be inconvenient.
I save in odt and my teachers havent had any issues with the libreoffice files ive sent them
I sent an odt file to a teacher, and the response was, “don’t use open office, use Microsoft office for school” (I use libre office). I asked if he needed me to resend it, and he said that Ms office opens odt fine (¿_?). I started saving as docx in libre office, and he was never the wiser.
Seems like your file worked properly and they were just a bit initially confused by it, but obviously you should export as whatever file format you’re asked to if it’s been requested of you.
Did the document have lots of equations, pictures or tables in it? Do the documents you make tend to?
There were no communicated filetype requirements for the first assignment. Since I know MS office works with open doc formats, I wasn’t worried. He didn’t tell me to send MS office formats. Instead, he told me to use MS office. I wasn’t going to pay (even discounted) for a product that has (for me) been 100% replaced with libreoffice. So, I tried just sending him the files in MS office formats, which worked to appease his requirement. He later did send an email to the class, asking that we only use MS office and avoid foss office programs. I realized it was him misunderstanding how these software work, so I didn’t really sweat it. I’m assuming there was some incompatibility with their cheat-check saas that caused this requirement.
There were some embedded objects in nearly all of the docs, but no equations.
There are the FOSS ones, but when I’ve swapped people over from Windows or Mac and they want something familiar, I give them WPS Office. It’s pretty much a drop in replacement for Word/Office.
I want to say I’d put them on LibreOffice, but it’s too fucking weird and buggy for someone coming off of Office.
I ran OpenOffice (Libreoffice) around 2008 for two years (can’t remember exactly, but when I experienced Vista for the first time, I said nope and wiped my drive. It was fine back then, but those little incompatibilities drove me crazy
I tried Linux Mint for like a day or two when I left Windows, but then I tried Kubuntu and after that I didn’t have a need to try anything else
It’s all about finding the distro that works for you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Thank you. That was what really pissed me off when I finally switched to Linux. Suddenly it went from OS wars to sub-OS wars.
Like the first day I installed Mint I asked a question and some guy told me that Mint sucked and I should use some other distro. You’ve all been trying to get people to switch to Linux for years and now you give them shit when they are using a distro you don’t like? The fuck?
Those people are stupid. The entire point of having so many limits distros is so that every use case is covered. I’ve used Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Arch, Void, even dabbled in Gentoo, and I can tell you that there’s a valid reason to use pretty much all of them, and also valid reasons not to use any particular one of them. “You do you” should be the dogma of the Linux community, not “You do me.”
The Linux community really lives up to the meme sometimes.
Still waiting for someone to say “I use Arch btw”
I DON’T use Arch, btw. But I might accept the challenge of trying to install it one day, seems like a fun way to learn how Linux actually works.
Arch is a bitch and a half to install on anything because it doesn’t come with anything. You want network drivers? Fucking install them yourself, asshole, Arch don’t do fuck all without being commanded to.
As a result, the only thing Arch actually does come prepackaged with is the sense of smug superiority you get upon completing a build with it.
that’s generally how it works with Mint. you install it, use it for a week or two and then move onto a distro that better suites your needs. Mint is a fantastic introduction and sure many will stick with it for awhile I think most move on from it fairly quickly.
“most move on”?
Source? because I believe it’s quite the opposite.
I have not moved on. I think most Linux distros would suit most people’s needs and I think a lot of Linux users greatly overestimate what the average person does with a computer, which mostly involves staying within a web browser. That’s why Chromebooks are still a thing. A cheap web browser is all a lot of people need. So if you get them to switch to Mint (or any distro), they don’t really have much of a reason to switch.
I’m not a big gamer, I’m not a coder, I’m just someone who wants a working web browser, an office suite and a way to play audio and video. Anything else is a bonus but not something I really need in a notebook. So Mint is fine for me.
sorry I’m new to Linux but most of the people I’ve spoken to on various linux discords the consensus seemed to be that Mint was fantastic to start out on but most moved on to something else after awhile.
most of the people I’ve spoken to on various linux discords
Might have a teensy sample selection problem there haha
I’ve installed Mint on pretty much any old machine I can get my hands on. Right now I’m using it with KDE as my daily driver and couldn’t be happier.
I’d say for most people coming from windows, there’s little in the way of expected functionality that would be included in other distros.
- signed, a Mint simp
I’ve tried dozens over the years and I keep finding myself going back to kubuntu. It just works
Linux Mint was my gateway drug to linux. It’s simple and powerful! Now I’m a happy KDE user, but you never forget the first love
I ran a dual-boot for a month and a half when news about Windows Recall broke, but unfortunately, my Nvidia setup experienced a lot of bugs and proved to just be too incompatible.
So, when I upgrade to a new computer later this year, I’m going to make this machine a Linux-only machine with a different distro, and then have my other PC for all my gaming needs.
You probably needed to download some drivers for your gpu
I tried several.
None of them functioned well, and over that period of time it became clear it was a system issue. But, I know there are other distros that are more Nvidia-friendly, and when the time comes, I’ll use one of those.
Thankfully there’s O&O ShutUp to turn off Windows tracking for now.
Plasma is quite nice now.
It really is. I don’t get the love for the tabletish gnome interface everyone is using.
I get why some people like it, for sure. I’m just surprised so many “power users” seem to.
Power users probably just use hotkeys and type, Gnome is attractive and stays out of your way. That said - I like Plasma, too. That’s the fun of Linux, it’s so customisable to each person’s needs.
Gnome is just perfect for laptops and convertibles. I can quickly navigate it using the touchpad and super key. It also has better touch screen support, and with one extension (hide top bar), literally all of the screen real estate is available for your work. Hit the super key or 3-finger-swipe up and the UI appears. 3-finger-swipe sideways to switch to another virtual desktop. All my programs are full-screen and on their own desktop. The animations are so smooth, it’s a joy to use.
And the Gnome apps are just simple and reduced to what you actually need.On a desktop PC I prefer Plasma for its customizability and smaller UI elements. It’s better for navigating with a mouse (although you can also turn it into a Gnome-clone or a tiling WM just with built-in options). And the KDE apps feel more “professional”, with lots of additional functionality, options and settings.
What distro are you running with plasma? I’ve had issues with instability on KDE neon, so I’m planning to switch to a different distro. Plasma is still nice, so I’m looking for inspiration for what to mix and match.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
Kubuntu is what I use
KDE has continually felt less solid to me when I’ve used it, and the reviews I’ve seen of it seem to note that is still the case.
Less solid how? I use it everyday and don’t really notice any problems
Yeah, it’s fantastic. I don’t know how I spent so much time in gnome before finding KDE, I can’t imagine going back. I guess there could be something better out there, I’d love to know about it if there is.
It has a unique workflow which clicks for people like me, even if they’re on a desktop. It encourages workspaces by making creating and switching between them instant and seamless, and i like seeing all of my windows at once by just pressing the super key.
With Overview you can get something very similar in Plasma, though you’d need to change the default shortcut to open it by just pressing the super key.
However it’s not as quick, and it’s not considered the main method of navigating your windows. AFAIK you can’t switch workspaces by scrolling there or have your apps list visible.
Oh I love your wallpaper, do you have a link to somewhere I can download it?
Sure, I use an extension to get daily wallpapers, but here’s the image for that day:
I’m really inexperienced with Linux but I’ve become interested since getting a steamdeck which uses KDE for its desktop, which I’ve enjoyed—so how do KDE and mint compare?
KDE: traditional desktop environment with focus on lots of customization, options, and features. Often aimed more towards enthusiasts or everyday users who want the latest features.
GNOME: non-traditional desktop focusing on simplicity. Designed to be used a very specific way to maximize productivity. Often aimed more towards corporate or professional users.
Mint uses their own desktop environment (cinnamon) which is somewhere between the two.
All of these are nice in their own way, you just need to find which one you like best!
I use Plasma on Mint. Love my setup
Removed by mod
Can you recommend a bot that will contact that number incessantly?
I use mint btw 🌿
I just did the upgrade this morning. Shocker: super easy, went seamlessly, and didn’t make my computer unusable for a chunk of time like big windows updates do.
