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Gabor Szarnyas edited this page Nov 20, 2019 · 20 revisions

Linux Mint

Mint is a promising Ubuntu-based desktop OS.

Mint Cinnamon as a VM

Installing Mint with Cinnamon in a virtual machine may lead to low performance due to the lack of hardware acceleration.

Turn off sound effect for volume control

Go to System Tools | System Settings | Sound and set Sound Effects to OFF.

Networking

Enable wireless

By default, Mint does not load the drivers necessary for some wireless cards (e.g. the one in Dell E6520 laptops). To connect to the Internet either

  • use a UTP cable or
  • use a smartphone with USB tethering

Go to the Driver Manager, and enable bcmwl-kernel-source.

WiFi stops working on Ubuntu after a regular update

This happened once, had 12.10 and just installed regular updates. See http://www.upubuntu.com/2012/10/how-to-fix-unity-and-wireless-problems.html. Connect to the internet with and UTP cable or USB tethering and run:

sudo apt-get install -y linux linux-headers-generic kernel-package
sudo apt-get install -y --reinstall bcmwl* firmware-b43-lpphy-installer b43-fwcutter

Package manager

Package manager is broken
Depends: python-gpgme but it is not installable
...
you have held broken packages.

Trying to install python-gpgme throws:

but it is not installable
...
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages

Solution suggested by http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=137267:

sudo apt-get clean && sudo rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists && sudo apt-get update

Mint desktop environments

Linux Mint offers many options for choosing your desktop environment.

Cinnamon

Pros:

  • Looks nice
  • "Snap function"
  • Collabshot works

Cons:

MATE

Pros:

  • Very quick and stable
  • Windows + E hotkey works well (but the Windows hotkey won't work for the "Start menu", see next section)

Cons:

  • Not that pretty
  • No "snap" function
  • Problems with repaint
  • The file manager (Caja) may act buggy sometimes (e.g. jumping between monitors)

Prevent Nemo (file explorer) from opening when mounting a new file system

Open Nemo, click Edit -> Preferences, then go to the Behavior tab. Near the bottom of the page, uncheck "Automatically open a folder for automounted media". Source: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=262187

Using the Windows (Super) hotkey in Linux Mint

MATE desktop environment

This solution works on Linux Mint MATE, it does not work on Mint Cinnamon. Set the shortcuts in Keyboard Shortcuts. Right click the "start menu", choose Preferences... and set the Keyboard shortcut to Alt_L by pressing the left Windows and the left Alt key.

Cinnamon desktop environment

This only applies for versions <= 17. Until version 17.1, Cinnamon had a long-going issue (https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/549) which causes some characters in combination with the Super key (e.g. Win+E) to be skipped. This way, you have to press Win+E+E to get to the Home folder. To work around this, go to Keyboard, Layouts, Options..., set the Alt/Win key behavior to Hyper is mapped to Win-keys. However, with this, the Super key will not bring up the "start menu" anymore.

Mint Cinnamon slow on battery

Mint Cinnamon may slow down when running on battery as the CPU frequency is turned down. Install this app and you'll be able to change between Powersave and Performance profiles:

sudo apt-get install -y indicator-cpufreq

Nextcloud tray icon does not show

The tray icon of the Nextcloud (née Owncloud) storage service might not show on Cinnamon. The workaround is to go to Startup applications and set a sufficiently large sleep value, e.g. 10 seconds.

Sound system dies

Apparently, for no reason, you only have a Dummy output audio device. Quick and dirty solution:

pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload

Source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/230888/is-there-another-way-to-restart-the-sound-system-if-pulseaudio-alsa-dont-work

Remove binding for Ctrl+Alt+Backspace

By default Ctrl + Alt + Backspace restarts Xorg. You might want to turn this keybinding off but you will not find it in the Keyboard settings. Instead, go to Startup Applications and turn off autostart for the Ctrl Alt Backspace application.

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