I Tried Switching to Linux… Again

Ah Linux, we meet again. Oh hi there, I'm Sam Tucker and today I'm subjecting myself to Linux one more time. It didn't work out too well last time, the power of pseudo compels you, but we got a lot of feedback from people mostly saying to try Linux Mint as that should be the true Freshmaker. The Freshmaker. Let's turn her on, that's what he said. Give me... Ubuntu, what? Okay, so this says Ubuntu, but it shouldn't be Ubuntu. I hope I installed this right. I'm pretty sure I installed Linux Mint on this. Did I not install it? Ah, Linux Mint. Okay, freaking Ubuntu didn't want to let go. It didn't want to let go. It still thinks it's installed, but no, Linux Mint has taken over and it was quite easy to install Linux Mint. Much simpler and more straightforward than Ubuntu, I must admit. Ah, and we're in Linux. Welcome to Linux Mint, your new operating system. So we have a little guide here to get us going on the right track, and this is what you need a little bit in noob territory, is a bit of hand-holding. None of this elitism, open the terminal. If I have to open the terminal once during this welcome video, I'm welcoming myself right out of the room. So first, let's just see if I can make the screen bigger. Enable fractional scaling controls. Experimental. I like how Linux says that changing your display size is experimental. I mean, Linux, you're almost as old as I am, and I've figured it out. All right, so now we've got more controls. Let's try 150. Oh, okay, it is experimental. Oh, it's tearing me apart. You're tearing me apart, Linux. Before I get to the rest of this welcome dialogue, I want to see if I can screen record. I've been told that screen recorder is a good screen recorder. Record the entire screen. Put it in the MKV container. Don't put it in MKV HD's container. It's too fast. Okay, my screen recorder doesn't let me get out of the screen recorder. It's not responding. I can tell that. All right, so we are about five minutes in, and I've already crashed the system somewhat. Well, that seems like a good time to check out this video's sponsor, Charge, and their all-new Ice Mag 2. With a sleek, transparent back and RGB lighting, this pocket-friendly power bank packs 10,000 milliamps of juice so that it can charge your iPhone up to 1.7 times, whereas the old Apple one couldn't even charge it back to full. And whether you're charging or sharging, sometimes you gotta do it fast, and the Ice Mag 2 delivers. With full 15-watt T2 wireless MagSafe charging, it's twice as fast as the lesser 7.5-watt MagSafe, because that's how math works. And while you're charging magnetically, why not use the kickstand to watch a movie at the same time? Or use iPhone standby mode to watch the time at the same time? But if you're really busting to go, then break out the included 30-watt USB-C cable to fast charge your iPhone up to 50% in just 20 minutes. Or plug the cable into another phone to charge two devices at once. And don't worry, things won't get too hot thanks to the dual cooling system of the metal aluminium backplate and the active fan on the bottom. And there's nothing like a fresh breeze on the bottom, am I right? Get a deal on the new Ice Mag 2 today by clicking the link in the description and charge your phones the cool way. Desktop colors. Yes, I would like a desktop of color, please. It is 2025. All right, we have different styles here. We can be Mint X. Oh, if you want a bit of a Windows XP feel. Oh, we can download themes from the internet. Wow, is there anything people can't do? We could install Windows 10 Lite theme. How do we activate it now? It doesn't show up in any of the options. Linux! Well, another good thing I found out from a lot of your comments was that ChatGBT is actually a very good technician to help us with our technical issues. Yes, so I have installed a theme, but I can't find how to use that theme now. If it's still not visible, you might need to install it manually by placing the theme files in the dash file dot themes directory. Oh, does that involve opening the terminal? Yes, you'll need to open the terminal for this. And now we hang up on that technical service. System snapshots. Now, I have heard that this is sort of like a time machine-y type thing. Basically, it takes a snapshot of your system, and then you can revert back to when it worked. So this should be really on by default with Linux. Oh my lordy me. It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell. Any updates? Let us see. A new version of Update Manager. So how about that? In Linux, the updater needs to update. Well, what do they think of next? Let's change the background here. Oh, a nice minty background. They've even got a little vista background. Now that, that's nice. I do like vista. Here we can auto hide the panel. Oh, change the size of it. Oh, okay. Add a new panel. Whoa. We can put panels all over the screen. What do I do with these other panels? Panel edit mode. Yes. Can I move the terminal? No. I just want to get the terminal over there. Here. Linux. Oh, no. Okay. If you activate all the panels, you can't Linux anymore. All right. That scared me a little. Let's get out of that. All right. We're starting to get a bit of a hold on things. So now let's start with one of the basics. The web browser we get appears to be Firefox. Good standard web browser. Does it have sound? Oh, I can confirm it does have sound. And that is a plus from Linux. You don't always get that. It's a nice bonus to be able to use two of your sensors with the operating system. So I'm impressed. What else do we have? Terminal. You know what? Delete terminal. Do it now. Don't sass me. Pseudo delete terminal. All right. I assume it's going to work on that. Could take a lot of time. I think it's integrated well into the system, but I'll just give it a head start. Get out of here. Just get out. Go on. Let's have a look at the finder here. The file explorer. All right. Beautiful. Opening terminal. I thought I got rid of your terminal. Of course, if I'm going to use this as my main machine, I'm going to need to write my scripts. And looks like it has LibreOffice Writer pre-installed and it works. And you can do it in little hieroglyphics. But you know what? Why would I go with the basic writer program when look at this. I could be LibreOffice impressed. Now that sounds more down my alley. Okay. And my alley is full of PowerPoint. Oh, it's got its own version of paint called drawing. This is me happy. Happy to be using Linux Mint. Look, here's the mint. There it is. It's a yellow mint. Oh, I've accidentally just created the nuclear symbol there. Well, that does also happen to Linux every now and then. Can I change this logo here? It's a bit ugly. Ah, we can. Look at this. Let's make it the angry face. Ah, god damn Linux. Even though it's actually working quite well right now, I don't want to admit it. All right. Well, I have to admit this Linux Mint is working a lot better than Ubuntu did. And so now what I want to try is something that I didn't even attempt with Ubuntu. And that is gaming. That's what Linux is all about. The term... The gaming. Oh, before we download Steam, it has its own little game here. Wesnoff. Oh, they didn't put much money in the in the naming department. Oh, it's saying, Sam, are you really sure you want to install Wesnoff? Yes, I want Wesnoff. In fact, I want to battle for Wesnoff. It's that good. I shall play as the merman. Desert of Death. Don't go there. Now this is true Wesnoff style. Well, let's kill this guy. No, I don't want to quit. I want to kill you. Everyone has to go kill this guy. Kill him. Ah, they're all cowards. Now let's start Steam. Hopefully, it's as good as Wesnoff. Oh, camera's nearly out of battery. We better hurry up. Let's try Portal 2. Let's see if this can do the bizarre. We've processed the Vulcan shaders. Good to know. And by the way, don't throw shade on the Vulcans. They have it hard enough. Just look at their face. So let's see if this works. This is a game that came out a while ago. It's meant to run on Windows and we're trying it on Linux on a mini PC without a graphics card. So it's got its got its work cut out for it. Let's see what happens. Can it do it? Can it achieve? What other? No, no, it can't. All right. What happens if I stop the recording? Oh, look. All right. So we've disabled the screen recorder. It actually does play. It does play. What? Gaming on Linux is real? Look at this. It's smooth. It's playable. It's enjoyable. There's a toilet. And there it is. Linux Mint. Now, I surprise myself when I say this, but this was not an eye-gouging out experience for me. There were a couple of little hitches, but far less than the adventures we had with Ubuntu. And so, fine. Linux people, you might be onto something here. Let me know what you think about Linux in the description below. And until next time, stay funky, everyone. Sam Time, signing off. Subscribe today. We actually had a pretty good time with Linux Mint. It sounds like you've had a good experience with Linux Mint. It's a perfect choice for both work and play. Hey, are you okay now? You having a bit of troubles, but you're okay now? I'm all good. Just here to help. Do you run on Linux?