Yesterday, I replaced 2 GB RAM stick in my poor laptop with 2x 4 GB sticks. Now Linux Mint breathes easier.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-01-18, 13:07:

Yesterday, I replaced 2 GB RAM stick in my poor laptop with 2x 4 GB sticks. Now Linux Mint breathes easier.

Apparently, there are a few modern distros like Vendefoul Wolf Linux which use only 200MB RAM on startup.

I haven't tried it myself, but I did see a post on twitter which showcases that.

Well, now the minimum I have on any PC is 6 GB. I thought Puppy Linux was the leanest in that regard. Not that I'm particularly into old computers, just the ones I happen to have since years that got old over time and haven't found a particularly good reason to replace them.

Not sure whether to keep Mint or try something else on that laptop. There's always something weird in Linux.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-01-18, 15:26:

Not sure whether to keep Mint or try something else on that laptop. There's always something weird in Linux.

If you'll accept a recommendation from a moron who knows just about nothing about Linux, then Zorin seems great for a beginner. That's not just my view, I've seen it recommended a fair few times as a great Linux distro for anyone who only knows Windows, so I installed it, and it does seem good.

It's just that I have to be in the mood to get myself to go and change the OS. And my brain gets stuck on what to choose. Now I probably won't miss something as fancy on that laptop as much as on the desktop. But not remembering set screen brightness out of box is rather absurd on a 2025 distro.

The situation with Linux is more critical on my desktop. On that KUbuntu 21.10, log out about 3 times and then after next login desktop no longer renders. Flash Player exhibits rendering artifacts. I have a weird rectangle around scrolling circle that popups when middle clicking on a web page to activate auto-scroll. Some may be due to me not having a clue how to configure things to work right, but good portion is probably due to NVIDIA. Makes me wonder if there's even any hope for this desktop on the Linux side. I still remember how everyone was like "get NVIDIA if you want working graphics on Linux" back then.

Maybe 8 GB was an overkill, at least for basics. With web browsing the normal sites, it shows RAM usage of about 2,3 GB. I suppose shitload of RAM keeps it from swapping with default swappiness.

Does the whole systemd-less philosophy really have any merits for the end user? Asking since Vendefoul Wolf Linux is one of those distros, but looks interesting otherwise and I'm not sure how this would make certain adjustments less straightforward since systemd is the most popular.

I can't shake that Linux comes across as a culture shock, for the lack of better term, for someone being used to Windows ways, even when it comes to web browsing. I logged into work Gmail account (with enforced plain theme) recently on Pale Moon and it was very difficult to differentiate read mails from unread mails. With unread mails, fonts just weren't bold for some reason. Websites in general come across odd visually due to font differences.

At least on that laptop with Linux Mint, font rendering isn't painful. But it is on my desktop with KUbuntu 21.10. No idea if it's due to version differences or the different monitor.

ClearType is not something to just let go easily.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-01-31, 19:38:

I can't shake that Linux comes across as a culture shock, for the lack of better term, for someone being used to Windows ways, even when it comes to web browsing. I logged into work Gmail account (with enforced plain theme) recently on Pale Moon and it was very difficult to differentiate read mails from unread mails. With unread mails, fonts just weren't bold for some reason. Websites in general come across odd visually due to font differences.

Ages ago, I remember finding a way to install Windows and Office fonts (e.g. Calibri) on Linux through some means.

Haven't bothered with that in a decade or so, because the distros that I use nowadays have open source font alternatives which look similar enough for my tastes.

In Mint at least, I actually copied all fonts (.*ttf and *.otf) from Windows 10 in hope to make things look better. But that's just one part, rendering them is another matter.

On the desktop though, I just installed that package with MS fonts that's in Ubuntu repos. Although recently, I read fonts there are ancient and versions on modern Windows are different.

Ungoogled Chromium is the best browser I've found for modern Linux.

Probably just Google being Google. I occasionally have to change user agent string I'm sending them because their shit is so broken.

If I send them Windows NT 10.0 instead of Linux, then bold fonts are OK on Gmail.

I've been on a dual boot Linux Mint \ Win11 box for about 6 months now and honestly, other than games I'm using Mint by default at this point.

Granted it takes a little bit of commitment to make things work sometimes but I think of it as a learning opportunity.

I just don't think Microsoft gives a hoot about the end user anymore.

If it isn't cloud, business, or AI.... there is no priority and they take advantage.

To heck with them....

For those new to Linux, please don't hesitate. Zorin seems to be the most popular for Windows-jumpers, but any distro (Linux Distribution) is as fun and adventurous as any other of it's kind.

Once you start exploring Linux, you will be hooked.

And you will feel the power is in your hands.

Even the most mundane task requires some amount of familiarity.

There's nothing to be afraid of Linux.

Besides, it's totally free and is supported by enthusiast community, rather than money-mongering corporates.

tomcattech wrote on 2026-02-06, 04:46:

I've been on a dual boot Linux Mint \ Win11 box for about 6 months now and honestly, other than games I'm using Mint by default […]
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I've been on a dual boot Linux Mint \ Win11 box for about 6 months now and honestly, other than games I'm using Mint by default at this point.

Granted it takes a little bit of commitment to make things work sometimes but I think of it as a learning opportunity.

I just don't think Microsoft gives a hoot about the end user anymore.

If it isn't cloud, business, or AI.... there is no priority and they take advantage.

To heck with them....

I saw some take, I don't know if I buy it, but it got me thinking. The gist of it was, Microsoft fought hard in the browser wars, but eventually "forgot" how to make a browser and just skinned Chromium like everyone else. They might do the same thing with Windows. Guy went on that Windows already has Linux build into it in the form of WSL2. What if at some point Microsoft just gives up on developing their own OS, and just takes a Linux kernel or distro and enshittifies it with a Windows skin and all the AI they can shove in there. Then just rely on Wine to do backwards compatibility for them.

It sounds far fetched. But it sounds equally far fetched that they'll stop fucking up Windows 11, or that a hypothetical Windows 12 will be any better.

Malik wrote on 2026-02-06, 12:54:

Once you start exploring Linux, you will be hooked. […]
Show full quote

Once you start exploring Linux, you will be hooked.

And you will feel the power is in your hands.

Even the most mundane task requires some amount of familiarity.

There's nothing to be afraid of Linux.

Besides, it's totally free and is supported by enthusiast community, rather than money-mongering corporates.

i must be doing it wrong 😀 i just install Mint, accept all default, use firefox, use its software manager and simply accept not doing some things if i hit a wall of difficulties, setting my aspiration a bit low, but its one way of using linux

God Of Gaming wrote on 2025-10-10, 05:44:

Best thing about Linux? You can make it look like Windows 😀

That's Plasma? I'm on it too and figured I'd settle for an inspired-by look (pictured below), but that's really close. Not that I mind, just going for the basic idea helps quell any sort of uncanny valley feelings that may arise from too good a facsimile. Still, I may have to look into playing with that on another machine... I had my desktop in mind when I wrote that but I just realized I have Dell Inspiron 9400 I recently picked up that I could dual boot with modern Linux and Windows XP.

jtchip wrote on 2025-12-14, 01:43:

lti wrote on 2025-12-13, 23:19:

I thought i915 was an outdated driver. Even on my old Sandy Bridge laptop, when I loaded that driver for the TearFree option, Firefox blacklisted a bunch of hardware acceleration features. Later, I switched to the newer driver (relying on modesetting) and found a different way to fix screen tearing that I preferred (it felt like a more legitimate fix), and those features were available.

The i915 kernel driver (for iGPUs from when it was part of the north bridge through to modern CPUs and the Arc A-series dGPUs) is still maintained and handles modesetting, memory allocation, and command submission. As you mention modesetting, I think that refers to Xorg modesetting DDX (device-dependent X) and that was indeed the replacement for the Xorg intel DDX "driver". The former depends on a kernel modesetting driver, like i915 (or amdgpu, radeon, nouveau, etc.), while the latter initially did modesetting in userspace but eventually relied on the i915 kernel driver anyway so AIUI Intel decided to stop maintaining their separate DDX.

Two months later, I realize that I've been totally confused by Intel graphics drivers in Linux. i915 is the "newer driver" using kernel modesetting and the correct driver for my modern Intel systems (noting that the gamers don't consider 8th-gen and 9th-gen "modern"), and those i915 options are applicable.

I still don't know why removing the graphics driver options from xorg.conf suddenly removed the blacklist on hardware acceleration features in Firefox, though. Maybe I remembered wrong and was forcing the old DDX driver instead.

I haven't figured out the performance problems on my 8th-gen desktop. 3D performance seems to match Windows, but in basic 2D desktop usage, the "blitter/3D" usage is abnormally high, and videos drop frames when they shouldn't. From what I've read, it's a common problem, but everyone seems to want to accept the answer that integrated graphics are incapable of basic desktop use, no matter how many people say that it performs much better in Windows.

Something very similar happened to me recently. I also have an 8th Gen Intel desktop (i3-8100), without Turbo Boost, acquired at the time because it was cheap. I am running cinnamon on Fedora, and after I upgraded Fedora to 43 in November, I noticed sluggish behavior and stuttering, which sent me on a journey of trying out various things, such as configuring the "intel" driver and customizing its options "TearFree", "TripleBuffer" and "SwapbuffersWait". None of which helped; as a result, I suffered horrible lag for a few weeks. Which is when I noticed that the Fedora upgrade has also installed some kind of power-optimizing service that basically pinned the CPU to 800 MHz instead of 3.6 GHz. I don't remember exactly what it was: Either upowerd or tuned. After getting rid of that and reverting to the default X11 driver, everything went back to being reasonably smooth – driving an 8K display with this kind of setup is a bit of a stretch, but it works well for the most part.

Malik wrote on 2026-02-06, 12:54:

For those new to Linux, please don't hesitate. Zorin seems to be the most popular for Windows-jumpers, but any distro (Linux Dis […]
Show full quote

For those new to Linux, please don't hesitate. Zorin seems to be the most popular for Windows-jumpers, but any distro (Linux Distribution) is as fun and adventurous as any other of it's kind.

Once you start exploring Linux, you will be hooked.

And you will feel the power is in your hands.

Even the most mundane task requires some amount of familiarity.

There's nothing to be afraid of Linux.

Besides, it's totally free and is supported by enthusiast community, rather than money-mongering corporates.

what if i value my time?

Living wrote on 2026-02-26, 10:07:

Malik wrote on 2026-02-06, 12:54:

For those new to Linux, please don't hesitate. Zorin seems to be the most popular for Windows-jumpers, but any distro (Linux Dis […]
Show full quote

For those new to Linux, please don't hesitate. Zorin seems to be the most popular for Windows-jumpers, but any distro (Linux Distribution) is as fun and adventurous as any other of it's kind.

Once you start exploring Linux, you will be hooked.

And you will feel the power is in your hands.

Even the most mundane task requires some amount of familiarity.

There's nothing to be afraid of Linux.

Besides, it's totally free and is supported by enthusiast community, rather than money-mongering corporates.

what if i value my time?

Snark aside, it's honestly becoming more and more of a wash in terms of time and effort spent, when comparing the setting up and personally customizing of Windows 11 versus the more user-friendly distros that are mentioned in this thread.

I would dare to say that some things, such as playing retro games (made for much older Windows versions) and setting up printers and such have become even easier on Linux than on recent versions of Windows. You'd be surprised how many devices simply work out of the box on modern Linux distros, whereas you'd have to hunt down and install the right drivers for those same devices on Windows.

Living wrote on 2026-02-26, 10:07:

Malik wrote on 2026-02-06, 12:54:

For those new to Linux, please don't hesitate. Zorin seems to be the most popular for Windows-jumpers, but any distro (Linux Dis […]
Show full quote

For those new to Linux, please don't hesitate. Zorin seems to be the most popular for Windows-jumpers, but any distro (Linux Distribution) is as fun and adventurous as any other of it's kind.

Once you start exploring Linux, you will be hooked.

And you will feel the power is in your hands.

Even the most mundane task requires some amount of familiarity.

There's nothing to be afraid of Linux.

Besides, it's totally free and is supported by enthusiast community, rather than money-mongering corporates.

what if i value my time?

Don't go there. Linux fanatics don't like people criticizing their God. 😜

Anyway, I am using Linux for more than 25 years and absolutely like it. Using it daily for work and privately. But that is all server based. For desktop usage I still don't use it as my daily driver. Too many quirks for my use cases. I will not even mention them here as there will always be someone who will say you can solve them one way or the other. But some are just not solvable (because of long standing bugs or work related).

And like you I also value my time.