Let me start by saying I think Linux Mint is one of the top 5 greatest distros of all time. It is an absolutely essential starting point for many people and their work is responsible for much of the user-friendliness you see in the world of Linux today. It is stable, has a nice aesthetic, “just works”, and doesn’t make you update constantly.
These things are great but they are the very things that make Linux Mint unsuited for online gaming. Is this a bad thing? No!! It’s just not a distro made for gaming purposes. It’s like showing up to a monster truck drag race in a Ferrari. I cannot count on my two hands how many times I have provided support to a user, to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint. It happens all the time. Go look at any game on ProtonDB that is currently working, and you’ll find 1-2 “not working” reports and they are always on either Debian on Mint.
I understand why we see it so often, because Linux Mint is awesome and users want to play their games on it. But if I suggested Hell Let Loose to a friend using Linux Mint right now, the first distro suggested for gaming in our FAQ, he wouldn’t be able to play because of his choice of distro. Making rolling distros look like a fortress in 2023 and suggesting Mint for gaming will only set new Linux users up for disappointment.
How about the fact that it has Wayland support and an unbeatable list of useful built-in features?
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what_do_you_like_about_kde_plasma/
Or the fact that is has KDE Connect which works natively / best with it?
https://kdeconnect.kde.org/
Or the fact hat it comes by default on so many devices?
https://kde.org/hardware/
I don’t care much about eyecandy as I care about Wayland support, as I want the best privacy + security and he best scaling + multi-monitor + multi-GPU support, per-screen refresh-rate and 10-bit colors support!
The under the hood improvements are much more important to me.
But also the fact that the best file manager on Linux (Dolphin) and the best document viewer on Linux + Windows (Okular) is made by KDE too and integrates very well with Plasma.
Also the fact that the best BitTorrent client (Qbittorrent), that I use for 7-8 years, integrates very well as it’s based on Qt too.
With color management and HDR support coming in Plasma 6, there are also under the hood improvements which I want to have as I waited for years for them.
At thought the same at the beginning, but it seems that’s not the case as I see everything a Linux Mint problem post on this subreddit.
And besides that, stuff like stuff like direct scanout (for fullscreen windows) and DRM leasing (for Vr) I think are important for games too.
And I think HDR support also as I heard some games support that too.
thank god for all the different options, because things you like, such as dolphin, are things i do not like at all… the beauty of linux, i suppose.
the fact kde comes bundled as default does not say anything about quality, because otherwise, obviously, windows would be the best OS… (it does, in part, explain its popularity - just like windows, though) apart from that, i believe most of those vendors also just let you pick the DE you want upon ordering
wayland is coming to mint, but at a “everything at a time” pace (preliminary support in 21.3 iirc)
concerning multi-monitor support, i’ve never had issues with my nvidia card and 3 27" connected screens, running 2048x1152 at 60hz (i know, people these day want more hz but i’m not going to change my screens for some hz i won’t really notice personally) (by the way, the 3 screens can be set separately both for resolution AND refreshrate)
never heard of okular, and the best torrent client for me is transmission, while in gaming i had no issues whatsoever in running cyberpunk in high quality back when it came out (heck, i didn’t even encounter any real bugs!)
then again, i’ve been gaming on linux from back when loki’s installers were still a thing
That’s ok!
But I guess you don’t need to share files in your local network, connect to servers, use KDE Connect, use MKV files with embedded posters, mount .ISO files, etc.
Maybe, but I don’t think Valve chose KDE Plasma for Steam Deck’s desktop mode just because of its resemblance to Windows as we can say that other DEs that come by default with a traditional layout like Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE also resembles Windows, yet they were not chosen.
Same with Tuxedo computers who decided to use KDE Plasma and also become a sponsor of KDE organization who could’ve chosen another DE.
I heard. In a few years.
I bet implementing color management and HDR suppor will take them another 10 years since they have started so late with Wayland support.
I never knew that X can allow different refresh rates per monitor.
This is Okular, with its main features:
https://okular.kde.org/
If Transmission is the best for you, that’s ok, I respect that.
It’s just the fact that when I look at the connected peer list, most people use Qbitttorrent and uTorrent.
kde connect works fine on cinnamon (and there are a few alternatives as well, but i haven’t bothered as i’m not using it often enough since most mobile transfers are now done by bluetooth.
i do share stuff in the local network, and i do connect to (a lot) of servers.
however, i use sftp mounts that i can access directly from nautilus, so it’s just like any other folder. (could also use samba shares for windows, but i don’t have windows machines i need to connect to)
connecting to servers is usually just done through the tilix terminal,
and if i want to get fancy i use snowflake (believe it’s been renamed though).
i also mount iso’s from time to time, but pretty much same thing: i mount it and access it directly from nautilus.
they likely did so based on “what is the easiest ui for users who are windows-based to understand” (and, i do assume that kde’s layout is a bit more mobile-device friendly than the other DE’s out there)
“so late” is a relative term - ubuntu has had it for about 2 years now, after trying to be an early adopter for wayland and rolling back that decision because it was not stable enough.
and even though wayland is now considered “stable enough”, last i heard it still has a lot of things it breaks (ofcourse, mostly somewhat older apps), and it requires (if i’m not mistaken) a very thorough rewrite of big parts of cinnamon to be functional and as stable as it needs to be (remember, they favor stability and reliability above pushing for more modern things).
so it is better to “wait and go slow” than to follow the “lets be modern” folks and risk breaking half of your userbase’s stuff.
that’s ok, i never even questioned that it couldn’t :)
but, i am running 2 screens at 60 and 1 at 75.
(their respective max at the set resolutions - atleast, in X, so it might limit the resolution/refresh combinations, but it is def. possible to set different ones)
It can as long as you disable the compositor. Hence why gamemoderun is very useful when using X11
No, thank you.
The last time I tried KDE, applications using KIO still couldn’t edit documents on network shares (SMB) in place. It would insist on making a local copy. That’s a deal breaker for the entire KDE ecosystem right there. And yes, I checked. Not a bug.
I do try KDE every few years, have done so for 20 years now, because god knows GNOME isn’t perfect (and Unity is no more), but I just don’t like it (or Qt). Bad enough I have to put up with it on the Deck.
KDE on Wayland lol