Here are the desktops to all three of my Linux computers. I’ve switched from Shantae back to Nadia. First up is my Mint Mate desktop, my main computer. I just recently learned how to set the terminal transparency. Neat effect!
Zorin OS on my laptop. I’m still getting used to Zorin. It’s not bad. Pretty friendly.
Raspberry OS running on my Raspberry Pi 5. I’m only using a 32gb SD card for the hard drive and I maxed it out by just adding some Rifftrax movies to the Home/Videos folder. I intend to buy at least a 128gb SD card to upgrade.
This is the old Fujitsu laptop I received from my sister-in-law last Christmas. I installed Mint Mate on it, but what I should have done is install Mint XFCE instead because it’s tailored towards operating on older hardware more efficiently. All along, I knew I should have installed Mint XFCE on this laptop instead because it would have probably provided faster speed. So I thought, hey, why not try out ZorinOS for an all-new Linux experience?
Like Mint, Zorin OS is another Linux distro that caters to Windows refugees. It’s also said to be pretty slim and ideal for older hardware. I figure that this would be an educational experience since for me. So in the picture above, I’m booting up with the install ISO and I like that pulsating Z. It looks neat.
Everything has been backed up, which wasn’t a problem since this is just a secondary computer for me.
Proceeding with the install.
Here is a screenshot of my desktop. Shantae and her fabulous tits. I moved the panel to the top of the screen because I rather prefer to have it up there. My first Linux experience was on Fedora, which had the applications menu at the top. I like having the constant, subconscious “this isn’t Windows” feeling in my mind that this provides. The taskbar is locked, which means it’s locked… except when it isn’t. I don’t get it. I’ll have to figure it out or get used to it.
This wallpaper image is from the newly-released Shantae Advanced. I bought it on Steam and was disappointed with the incredible slowdown which makes it unplayable. The game is essentially a Gameboy Advanced game, yet the slowdown is intolerable. Shantae: Half Genie Hero is far more graphically intensive, yet slowdown in that game on my system is sporadic and manageable. Half-assed and unforgivable.
So Zorin is supposed to be optimized with strong support for Steam. I do not know what that really entails, so I looked it up. This is what Brave’s AI summary responded to my question.
Zorin OS does not inherently offer more support for Steam than other Linux distributions; rather, its support stems from being based on Ubuntu, which is a widely supported distribution for Steam. The primary advantage lies in the ease of installation and configuration, as Zorin OS includes pre-installed tools and dependencies that streamline the process. For instance, Zorin OS automatically handles Vulkan API dependencies when installing Steam, which simplifies setup for users. Additionally, the system comes with a pre-installed version of Wine, which is beneficial for running Windows games through Steam’s Proton compatibility layer. The Zorin OS software store also includes Lutris, a tool that facilitates the installation and management of games from platforms like the Epic Games Store, Origin, and others, further enhancing gaming accessibility. However, the core Steam functionality is not exclusive to Zorin OS; it is available on any Ubuntu-based distribution, and the main difference is the user-friendly interface and pre-configured defaults that make the experience smoother for beginners.
OK, interesting. Wine comes pre-installed? That’s nice. I still had to install protontricks to get Earthion to play, though. That said, I think the games might load faster than they did on Mint Mate.
Here I’m installing K-Snip, which seems to function differently on Zorin than on Mint and I don’t know why. Zorin’s software library is a bit more simplified and I don’t know why. So far, I like Mint better. Both are Windows-y, but maybe Zorin is more Windows-ier.
Zorin comes with Brave as its default web browser. I know that Firefox is run by woke shitlibs who want me dead for disagreeing with them, but I just like Firefox’s customizability and its ability to add a search box rather than having to use the address bar for that. Is it that hard to just provide that?
So far, it appears that this laptop boots up faster with Zorin than Mint Mate, and Steam games seem to load more quickly too. I imagine Mint XFCE would be at least as fast, but for now I’ll continue to get used to Zorin.
EDIT October 29th: I’m on day 4 of my Zorin install and I can say that it boots much faster. It takes a shorter time to turn this old laptop on. The Zorin website says, “We’ve streamlined Zorin OS to work on computers as old as 15 years.”
The basic Zorin install allows you to switch your appearance between four options, like a Win10 appearance, a Win11 appearance, a GMOME3 appearance, and more of a Win7-style appearance. If you pay for Zorin Pro, there is an option for appearances resembling Chrome OS, Mint, MacOS, and others. I’ve switched it once, but what sucks is that I had to re-configure the keyboard input. Since I depend on Japanese text input, I needed to install Fcitx5 and Mozc to do so. This was a bit annoying, but I got it working again.
After a hiatus of a month or so, I’m getting back into CrossCode and I found this nice fan art on Pinterest. I zoomed in and cropped the image to make this desktop wallpaper.
I’ve been in a bit of a Tron mood lately, especially after I bought my Tron/Tron Legacy bluray pack. I made sure to buy it used so as not to give Disney anymore money. I updated my wallpaper to this image a few days ago. I’ve heard that there are plans to make a third Disney movie, but the company has really gone downhill since Tron Legacy was released in 2010. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 14 years already!
Here is my newest desktop wallpaper, and it’s Nadia with a beautiful sunset. I was running Mint Mate 20 Ulyssa, and my 1TB SSD hard disk was maxing out. In august I bought a 2TB HD, and in September I installed Mint Mate 22 Wilma. It wasn’t a smooth experience like version 20 was. The first problem I had was when I plugged the old 1TB drive in and tried copying my files directly from there. Upon reboot, it wouldn’t even boot up and was scrolling text. I re-installed Wilma. Then updating the Nvidia driver caused the computer to freeze up. I had to get help on the Linux Mint Forums and learned how to modify the boot kernel. After that, it was fine. However what remains is apparently the USB device manager might not function properly.
I’ve done three fresh installs of Retropie on Linux Mint Mate 22 and each time the controller input is screwed up. I am using a Logitech F310 USB gamepad, which is pretty standard. Retropie on Mint 22 is flawed. Controller problems.
When accessing the in-game menu by pressing the hot key (to take a screenshot, save state, etc), the joypad locks up. I have to press select for it to work again. When returning to the game, the joypad is again locked up and I cannot play the game. I must press select again to regain control.
When accessing Retropie-Setup from within the RetroPie GUI, joypad input ceases to work. Not even the arrow keys can be used. The workaround for this is to run the setup.sh via terminal and the controller works. Just not when accessed through RetroPie itself.
For this third time, I did not copy over any config files and I did the controller setup for my joypad from scratch. I thought perhaps that there might have been a problem by just copying the entirety of the ./opt/retropie folder and all of its subfolders, but this is not the case. I did a full uninstall, then a reinstall. The problem remains.
I am wondering if it is a problem with Mint 22 itself. I had zero problems installing and using RetroPie on Mint 19 and 20. However, with Mint 22 I’ve noticed that at least with Space Invaders Extreme on Steam, the game does not recognize my controller at all, regardless of which version of the Linux Proton compatibility tool I am using.
I’ve been advocating people switching to Linux for years now, but this latest version is making me hesitant. My experiences with installing Mint 19 Tricia and Mint 20 Ulyssa were smooth, but Mint 22 Wilma has given me some headaches. Posting my problems online, I was told by others who are disappointed with 22 Wilma’s USB capabilities. One guy said he has some external hard drives that 22 won’t recognize. Another said that his Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse combo is wonky, and replacing this with a generic wireless set did not solve the problem. I do hope that these issues will be addressed soon. I would not have known what to do with my Nvidia driver without the help of the Mint forum. I was told that my GPU is old, but it’s from 2017 so it can’t be that old.
For now, Steam is fine, more or less. Retropie is fine until I have to bring up the menu. Having to press the select button though, it makes me hesitant to plug in my Saturn controllers, since they do not have a select button.
EDIT 10/27: I ran an update over the weekend and the first issue with RetroPie freezing after calling up the menu is now fixed.
Just in time for the summer, Nadia relaxing on a beach now replaces the USS Enterprise wallpaper I’d had on my Raspberry Pi for a while now. I had to sudo apt install Kazam because Raspberry OS does not come with a default screen grabber that simply uses the print screen button on the keyboard.
