minty fresh installation

i switched to linux mint as my "daily driver" a month or so ago now, so i thought i was overdue for a "check-in" of some kind, and give some sort of idea of what someone of my level of tech literacy would need to do to properly "convert" their workflow without a lot of hassle.

so, my first step on my journey to linux was to get a backup drive. i have an SSD with a total of 2 terabytes of storage. that's a not-insignificant amount, even if you factor in the fact that my old hard drive bit the dust last time i wanted to try linux. (that was on me, though, not the hard drive itself.) and i am pretty solidly on the side of "back up everything three times" anyway.

obviously, buying a whole external hard drive isn't exactly cheap. i think this one cost me around 42$ on ebay secondhand. i went with a WD seagate hard drive with 2tb storage so i could, in theory, back up the whole thing, but more likely i would just be saving the personal bits minus the OS information. stuff like video archives, or music, or my art collection (which survived the crash!). in the end i ended up just copying most of my user folder with syncbackfree.

after that, i moved on to a dual-boot setup. this was maybe the scariest part of the entire thing, because i needed to do a lot of scary new stuff, but it did work, and i had all my shit backed up, so it ended up OK.

i followed this video closely, aside from their sponsored product/s. i used ... either rufus or balenaetcher to put a linux mint ISO on a flash drive - cinnamon 22.1. i went with linux mint because its UI is similar enough to windows that i felt some modicum of confidence in switching over. it's important to consider switching to a distro that you can feel confident in learning without needing to start all over after using another OS for the duration of your life (i used windows 98 until 2010, then went 7->8->10 over time!).

i want to highlight some key moments of that video, or i guess, roughly outline the steps, since i don't trust link rot (or youtube):

• install balenaetcher
• use balenaetcher to put the linux mint ISO onto a flash drive
• use windows partition manager to resize the partition smaller, so there will be enough room on the right for the mint partition to breathe
• access your BIOS menu (usually del key or f12 on startup)
• boot from the USB you put the ISO on it
• start the installation via the shortcut on the desktop
• when installation prompts for "installation type", click "install linux mint alongside windows boot manager". DO NOT CLICK ERASE DISK. YOU DONT WANT TO ERASE ANYTHING. OKAY.
• allocate space for the new mint installation (may require you to use GParted to resize or move partitions so there's space for it, so you'll want another usb drive with gparted on it...)
• restart pc, boot into linux mint, and open the windows partition with the file explorer and just drag and drop the files you want onto your desktop

if windows fucks up your boot order later, you can follow steps like this one for unfucking it. you may also want to clear off the stuff you moved to windows from your windows partition and use GParted to resize again, making windows a little more compact and give linux more room again.

when i did this, i ended up using gparted quite a bit. i booted into it like with the linux mint USB, then i was able to safely move around my storage space sections so i had room for mint's home, root, and swap partitions (though i don't know if the swap partition was necessary now LOL).

after all that, all that's left to do is... customize! i use software manager, as well as the commandline "sudo apt install" command, in order to manage packages and install programs.

i've found that installing shit is pretty good, usually. most of the things i use worked out-of-box with proper compatibility layers (steam will automatically install Proton, for example, for emulating PC games, and i was able to install WINE for emulating Rebelle 5 for artwork). i want to look into installing clip studio again sometime soon.

in terms of program replacements, there are some that are included in linux mint by default that work as expected, but some replacements i had to make include:

• ms paint -> kolourpaint (similar ui/function, if a bit more finicky)
• IRFANview / image viewer -> Gwenviewer (it lets me rotate images and save them that way! whee!)
• WACUP/Winamp -> Rhythmbox

i am eternally thankful that my tablet brand, HUION, has native linux drivers that work pretty well without extra fiddling...

some programs/drivers i was able to properly emulate through proton or WINE, or had their own linux/ubuntu packages:

• Discord / Vesktop (with some audio/stream issues)
• Floorp (firefox fork)
• Sublime Text/Sublime Merge (that's how i code/publish my website!)
• Steam
• Retroarch
• Cockatrice (took some doing)
• Prism Launcher
• Krita (the OG linux drawing program)
• Inkscape
• Blender 3.6
• Aseprite
• Handbrake
• OBS
• VLC Media Player
• NVIDIA Drivers (proprietary, though i know there are open-source variants elsewhere)

the things i struggled most with solving were my printer drivers and discord stream issues, as well as some audio issues that turned out to be easily fixable.

for the printer drivers - HP provides native linux drivers. BUT. they aren't compatible OOB with linux mint 22.1. i ended up using an older version (23.4 or some such?), which allows me to do stuff via command line, like so:

hp-scan --device="airscan:e0:HP OfficeJet 4650 series [F53196]" --mode=color

and i can even queue this command to go multiple times with a pause between, so i can scan multiple times consecutively with buffer-time to move papers around:

sleep 10 && hp-scan --device="airscan:e0:HP OfficeJet 4650 series [F53196]" --mode=color &&  sleep 5 && hp-scan --device="airscan:e0:HP OfficeJet 4650 series [F53196]" --mode=color

(this tells the program to wait 10 seconds - so i can get to the printer - then it starts scanning in color, then waits another 5-ish seconds, then does it again... i can copypaste as needed!)

the audio issue i was getting was related to a 'popping' sound that was irritating me to hell. much love to reddit user delta_44_ for this fix, which i will now quote with some snippets removed for streamline:

If you try to run pw-top, look at the "err" column and see numbers rising, you have the "xrun" issue, which was a huge topic that I invested my time in trying to understand and fix.

STEP 1

You need to navigate to a certain folder, if the command succeed, you're good and you can proceed to STEP 2, otherwise, refer to STEP 1.1

Here's the command:

cd /etc/pipewire

STEP 1.1

You don't have the folder, so here's the commands to fix that:

cd /etc/
sudo mkdir pipewire

STEP 2

You're going to create the folder "pipewire.conf.d"

sudo mkdir pipewire.conf.d

Now you need to navigate into it:

cd pipewire.conf.d

STEP 3

You need to create a file called "pipewire.conf".

Here you can write the thing that will only change one parameter: the minimum quantum value!

Be ready to copy-paste the long thing, but it'll be easy, don't worry.

Let's create the file with the entire stuff in it!

echo "context.properties = {default.clock.min-quantum = 1024}" | sudo tee pipewire.conf

you may also want to change the sample rate manually in /etc/pipewire/, in one of the config files, from 44100 to 48000 sample rate.

the other issue of discord streaming... i'll be honest, i don't know what causes it, still. sometimes i will stream something and the audio is fine, sometimes it'll lack any sound at all. i suggested vesktop before, but i find that the vanilla discord app works better for audio consistency.

... anyways, let's stop talking about the COMMAND LINE SHIT for like, five seconds, oh my god. that's always so frustratingly boring. it bores me to tears. so let's talk about the ways my processes have changed.

to be honest, i fucking adore linux. it works like windows does in ways i expect it to - the file structure is different, which took some getting used to, but the navigating of it all is familiar. cinnamon is similar enough to windows that i've already started to settle properly into it. you can even center shit on the bottom bar a-la MacOS, or, if you're like me, a-la windows 10 jerry-rig that barely worked and didn't auto-center.

let me show you a comparison. here's how my windows install looks currently:

(art credit: cherryraccoons)

and here's how my linux mint install looks:

(art credit: sparkleworm)

and for comparison, this is a screenshot i took during initial setup of my linux mint install:

it's pretty similar in many ways, but i also adore the level of customization i was able to get on linux. i love the willow grove theme to bits. it's perfect.

everything feels so responsive. there are options i forgot used to be part of windows that slowly got phased out, but which survive - nay, THRIVE - In linux!

and like, by god. did you know in windows 11 you can't open shit in notepad (app) via the Open With dialog? it's that kind of niche, inane, useless stuff that makes me happy i've switched.

don't get me wrong, though, there's a reason i suggested a dualboot... stuff like VR is very touch-and-go in linux, for example, so if i want to play VRChat at all, i will need to open my windows 10 build to play it. and some things, so i hear, don't emulate properly with WINE or Proton. having a dualboot is really invaluable for stuff like that, where you can't really reasonably port over a given program.

but like, it's way less of an issue than i expected. my tablet works great, my nvidia gpu works great, and like, the build time for my website when i locally host it is way shorter. windows would take like 20 seconds to do anything, even with my SSD, and on linux it's closer to like, 10. same with actually logging in to the PC and getting my usual programs open.

i dunno what else might be worth noting here. i just figured it'd be nice to document what i did or did not have issues with, and how i fixed them. if reddit every truly locks down and dies, then i might be a little fucked (but then, so will the rest of the internet!), but even then, i've gotten significant help from the linux mint forums that have pointed me in the right direction, if not outright solved my issues.

it just feels great to feel like my computer is "mine" again, and not some dumbed-down OS that you have to really bully into doing what you want, or more accurately, doing what it USED TO DO JUST FINE before they added in bullshit like Copilot or whatever. for someone like me, who has already been actively keeping their windows OS from turning into adware, i think switching to linux is the move. i wouldn't suggest it to someone who is a more casual computer user unless someone else is there to help you set up and fix issues.

and, i dunno, i guess i'm hoping the takeaway here is that it's both "switching to linux is scary" and "linux can emulate a lot of stuff if it isn't already supported, and isn't actually too hard to navigate". if you do switch - and that's IF, because i don't want to tell you what to do - i want to recommend linux mint (cinnamon) for its similarity to windows. from there... well, maybe you'll wanna switch to something more complex (linux is kind of a tinkerer's OS for a reason), but if you're like me, who just wants my computer to work like it always has, it's well worth it.

	listening to: neil bones - floored (ft. 3noneTwo)
	playing: magic the gathering (dreamcast)
	feeling: maintained
	outside it is: sunny