Windows 11 killed my laptop, so I killed Windows… and switched to Mint

I have a laptop from 2019, it was pretty high end at the time. It worked wonderfully for 5 years until I upgraded to windows 11 a few months ago. It took multiple minutes to log in, and 10-20 mins for my startup apps to actually start. In the meantime my fans would spin up like crazy, (on battery mind you, with wall power my laptop sounded more like a 747). I came to the logical conclusion of resetting the PC to see if it would help.

I spent an hour or so resetting my computer and giving it a total clean install of Windows 11. It made no difference at all.

I know my laptop is old, but it is not awful, it only has 8GB of RAM and the processor is old and slow by todays standards but I believe an OS should still function at a basic level with that. So long story short I decided to go for Linux. More specifically, Linux Mint XFCE. It was my last shot before I said goodbye to my binary buddy.

I am pleased to share that my laptop now is it’s old self again. No fan throttling, no annoying Windows AI slop, no bloatware. I am fully embracing linux, making my own custom noscripts, navigating with the terminal and enjoying the new life that linux gave my PC. All this to say, if you have an old computer, don’t be too quick to get rid of it. Linux might just bring it back, like it did mine.

https://redd.it/1nz054n
@r_linux

I've wanted to tell this story forever and I finally got the editing chops to do it justice. It's all about the PS3, OtherOS, the US Military and of course Linux!
https://youtu.be/bHvwIpTpcDA?si=qgh2cPqzPlbcHzII

https://redd.it/1nz0ra1
@r_linux

I have created a tutorial on how to install Mint with BTRFS and Full Disk Encryption!
https://gist.github.com/Leniwcowaty/4b2c239ca74629cad60d4718f79ff600

https://redd.it/1nz1g67
@r_linux

Wallpaper for Ubuntu
https://redd.it/1nz3l2o
@r_linux

BetterSoundCloud | Improved SoundCloud Linux Client with One-Command Auto Installer

Hey everyone 👋

I just created a **simple Linux auto-installer noscript** for [BetterSoundCloud](https://github.com/AlirezaKJ/BetterSoundCloud) a PC client of SoundCloud with extra features and themes built using ElectronJS.

[You can find my Repo here](https://github.com/ULTRA-VAGUE/BetterSoundCloud-On-Linux/)

This installer will:

* Install required dependencies (`git`, `nodejs`, `npm`, `curl`)
* Clone or update to the main repository from my installer repo
* Create a `.desktop` entry for easy launching
* Keep everything in a single folder in your \~home: `~/BetterSoundCloud-Linux`

# Supported package managers:

* `apt` (Debian, Ubuntu, derivatives)
* `pacman` (Arch, Manjaro, derivatives)
* `dnf` (Fedora, CentOS, RHEL)
* `zypper` (openSUSE)

# Install with one command:

bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ULTRA-VAGUE/BetterSoundCloud-On-Linux/main/install_bettersoundcloud.sh)

https://redd.it/1nz5xtu
@r_linux

What distro should I choose? (I know...proably the 87th guy asking today!) sick of windows shenanigans, win 11 basically makes me nauseous! Ready to make the switch

I'm a web developer, so comfortable with command line, however...I don't want to use it for OS, would rather use a GUI

I don't want to tinker with stuff, I just want something fast, clean and low maintenance, don't need eye candy.

I don't play video games, this is for work.

I don't need bleeding edge features, I'm a "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" kind of guy

Need something easy to use, but not bloated for beginners...

What do you guys recommend?

https://redd.it/1nz6cm9
@r_linux

Looking for a pointer: Accessibility on Linux; discussion group

Basically all my friends are visually impaired and with the imending end of win10, the recent "hype" on Youtube about switching to Linux and whatnot, I have had my hands full answering questions, explaining things, and at times even recommending a variety of methods to "just try it out".

But, the biggest of them was:

- Do I get a screen magnifier?
- What about the screen reader situation - is Orca any good?
* Does Orca work on Wayland or is it X11 bound?
- Can I use global keyboard shortcuts to save myself some mousing around?

Well, I have a spare old MacBook here, and soon I will have a SteamOS maschine (so, Arch on SystemD/KDE/GameScope in Wayland via AMDGPU) so I will be experimenting a lot. However, I would love to provide good answers to my friends and on the other side find the people I'd have to talk to to figure out where to donate or set up bounties to get certain projects going and rolling. I hope that by going this route, I can possibly find some capable hands to implement - or perhaps fix - the accessibility situation on Linux.

So if you happen to know any Subreddit, forum, mailing list or alike - please drop them here, I'd love to check them out and see what I can do for both my friends and myself also. I mean, I am grasping at win10 as much as I can too lol. Hopefuly I can switch some day also. But I am heavily reliant on screen magnification and both keyboard _and_ mouse shortcuts to work them quickly. Nobody likes waiting, and imagine having to tap something like `meta`+`+` 20 times just to zoom in - its just too slow lol.

Thank you in advance and kind regards!

https://redd.it/1nz7fx4
@r_linux

Any maintainers for the vi code editor project?

Are there any maintainers actively maintaining the vi project?

Vi is such a simple modal text editor and I like that about it. Currently i'm trying to get the hand of the source code. Would like to contribute for bug fixes in the near time.


Also if anyone knows of how vim is an upgrade over vi in terms of the changes introduced. I have used vim and Ik about the customizing but other than that what changes are done to it?

https://redd.it/1nzanfm
@r_linux

about r/linux moderators

Almost a week ago, I posted about being able to compile the kernel for the first time. Now, the post has the status "post awaiting moderation." Why did I get this? I didn't get a reason. I wrote to the moderators, but they're ignoring me. Has everyone been ignored like this by moderators, or do they hate me?

https://redd.it/1nzcj2a
@r_linux

Managing Zip files with SQL queries
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20251006#tips

https://redd.it/1nzfiaj
@r_linux

I love Linux migration stories. People really started to see FREEDOM!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlTgkkd-I9A

https://redd.it/1nzkdv4
@r_linux

GIMP 3.0.6 Released
https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/10/06/gimp-3-0-6-released/

https://redd.it/1nzmcd4
@r_linux

I made an all-in-one USB drive as a farewell gift for a colleague
https://redd.it/1nzpb5k
@r_linux

Installing Linux on Hundreds of "Obsolete" Computers
https://youtu.be/NHLTOdsqDRg

https://redd.it/1nzryfg
@r_linux

Linux Means Less Pain

Yes, I occasionally have issues with Linux that I need to resolve and, yes, I occasionally need to visit the command line to do this, but, after being off Windows 11 for over a year I had to come back to it for some things today.

It was so painful, so frustratingly slow, so many hangs while I waited for things to happen AND IT DID THIS ALL DAY LONG.

Between the Antimalware Service, Windows Defender, .NET Optimization Service, and all the other CPU and I/O-sapping process that Windows is constantly running on and off, I'm surprised anyone is able to get any work done without being frustrated as the OS itself is using the majority of the system resources just to keep itself up float.

It's truly astonishing.

Microsoft should be paying us to use this operating system due to all the time and efficiency lost as a result of Windows just trying to manage itself.

https://redd.it/1nztk3j
@r_linux

lighthearted linux bloat competition

for this you need perf installed (eg linux-perf package in debian).

after booting/rebooting, open terminal in the simplest manner you can. then write "free -h" (or more likely look up in terminal history for convenience). the "used" column in the "mem" row is your result for this. you can rerun this as many times as you want and pick the best result, if you want!

after doing that, run "sudo perf stat -a sleep 10" in the same terminal. or equivalent if your system has different syntax. this measures all activity that occurs during the 10 second sleep that it executes, over the entire system.

from the output, "context-switches", "page-faults" and "branch-misses" are your result!

there is no strong reason why i picked these exact stats: context-switches are supposedly slow things, page faults i don't know much about at this level (other than that something was not found and work needs to be done), and branch-misses roughly measures the hot codepath size (in my opinion).

feel free to post your results (with a short denoscription of your system) and discuss why the numbers are so big.

in the past when people have measured (desktop environment) bloat, they have generally compared ram consumption. this can be relevant for (old) low end machines. occasionally people have compared boot times, which do not seem too interesting for me (but can certainly matter for old machines). but i haven't seen people actually measuring how much work the cpu has to do when the system is "idling".

my results with stock debian 13, x11 xfce preset from installer with slight usability tweaks are:

system|used mem|context-switches|page-faults|branch-misses
:--|:--|:--|:--|:--
debian 13, x11 xfce|892 Mi|572|82|771k

https://redd.it/1nzwmrk
@r_linux

FrOSCon: AI slop attacks on the curl project - Daniel Stenberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n2eDcRjSsk

https://redd.it/1nzzael
@r_linux

AntiX software.

Will AntiX be updated soon??? I am trying to find a Debian distro that is easy on my computer hardware. Right now it is the easiest on my computer as free comes in at about 500K... Any suggestions would be appreciated...



https://redd.it/1o04zbr
@r_linux

Windows 10 refugee here, I want to change to Linux but I don't know where to start

Last time I used Linux was around 2014, more than ten years ago. I spent some weeks trying several distros and eventually Elementary OS became my main until Windows 10 released and I changed again for gaming and digital art.

Now that Windows 10 is not being supported anymore it's time to change again, but I don't know where to start.

Ubuntu seems like the best option due to great hardware compatibility (my laptop is AMD and the drivers for a wacom tablet may be harder to.come by in Linux) but the concept of snaps are rubbing me in the wrong way. I prefer Flatpaks, community owned over owned by a company that's pushing snaps more and more everyday and obligatory updates I didn't ask for.

Debian 13 sounds okay, but I've never used Debian before, I don't know how it goes with hardware compatibility, digital art and maybe gaming (for gaming is not that obligatory, I own a Steam Deck anyways).

I'm lost, it's been more than ten years, any advice?

https://redd.it/1o08qdu
@r_linux

LibreOffice project and community recap: September 2025
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/10/07/libreoffice-project-and-community-recap-september-2025/

https://redd.it/1o094qg
@r_linux

Google Confirms Non-ADB APK Installs Will Require Developer Registration
https://hackaday.com/2025/10/06/google-confirms-non-adb-apk-installs-will-require-developer-registration/

https://redd.it/1o0ab8t
@r_linux