[DISCUSSION] Linux Mint

Hello John Sutherland,

Sorry for the late reply. Something happened the day afer I posted this and my attention was directed to other matters these past 2 weeks. I just want to say thank for your Linux Mint installation guide and for this very informative response. It helps me understand Linux better as I am noob at this. To answer your questions:

1)I am perfectly fine with having my C partition 80% full. I wont install more things on it and it performs really well so I see no problems.
2)That 120 GB partition is the partition I use for my files on Windows. At this point, out of the 74.5 GB of files it has, 74 GB is occupied by an installation of GTA 5. So I cant use it as the shared partition between Linux and Windows. Since I wont use it for anything besides GTA 5 and maybe some videos made in Premiere Pro in the future, I will probably shrink it to make more space for the shared partition and I will move the rest of my files there.

Since the shared partition will be made in Linux, and not Windows as you gave those instructions for, do I have to do anything special to make it accessible in Linux?

 

I made it a separate partition, so it was not part of root.

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

I've tried to upgrade kernel from 4.15.0-15 to the latest available in Linux Mint's Update Manager on my main machine. I noticed that the latest kernel update was only 19 MB in size, while the size of kernel updates has always been just over 60 MB. I updated to the new kernel anyway, without any errors, but when I tried to reboot I got X server error and my keyboard and mouse froze. I can't remember the exact wording of the error, sorry. I reverted to the earlier kernel version and found the fix for hardware issues with Kernel 4.15.0-20 and -21 (which also solved my problem with X server) on the Linux Mint's Forum:

Code:

sudo apt-get install elfutils libelf-dev

sudo apt-get install linux-base linux-modules-extra-4.15.0-20-generic

Then I installed the Kernel 4.15.0-20 from the Update Manager and rebooted, successfully. Everything works fine now...

 

[For Xubuntu XFCE, or Ubuntu] (Not sure if this works for Ubuntu or other based Ubuntu-DE's.. you can try it)

Open Terminal and type: " sudo mkdir -p /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ "

-> Typ your password to confirm!

-> After creating that Folder in X11, again open Terminal and add this line: " sudo mousepad /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf " and hit Enter..

-> Copy and paste there that Configuration:

Section "Device"

Identifier "Intel Graphics"

Driver "intel"

Option "TearFree" "true"

EndSection

[WARNING!]
Can lower the Performance and uses more RAM..

-> Save that and exit your text editor, and restart your X11 session.

********************************************************************************

[For Linux Mint - Cinammon and XFCE]

-> Open Terminal and type: " gksudo xed /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf "

-> Type or Copy and Paste the following line in the empty file that opens up:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "TearFree" "true"
Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
EndSection

-> Save the file by clicking on 'File' and then click on 'Save' and then Reboot your system.

[WARNING!] can maybe lower the Performance or uses more RAM! ..

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

I've kind of settled on Xubuntu over Mint Xfce, but I'm sure I will give this a whirl once out of beta.

 

Of course they released early. They always do. I just wanted to nudge them along

 

Run this bleachbit command for uid > 0. i.e. non root user.
bleachbit --list| grep -v -e system.tmp -e system.free_disk_space -e system.memory -e system.rotated_logs -e chromium.passwords -e epiphany.passwords -e firefox.passwords -e google_chrome.passwords -e opera.passwords -e thunderbird.passwords -e bash.history -e apt.autoclean -e apt.autoremove -e apt.clean -e apt.package_lists -e deepscan.backup -e deepscan.ds_store -e deepscan.thumbs_db -e deepscan.tmp -e firefox.url_history | xargs bleachbit --clean

Run this bleachbit command as root aks uid 0
bleachbit --list | grep -v -e system.free_disk_space -e system.memory | xargs bleachbit --clean && bleachbit --list | grep -v -e system.free_disk_space | xargs bleachbit --clean

no need to click on the icon and initiate bleachbit. wink!
hope this dirty little hack helps someone!

 

@John Sutherland
did you try to install libreboot or coreboot? t400 good laptop even by todays standard and you can completely remove intel ME there.
just curious.

 

@Yen
how about remove old kernels and or create a new boot partition, or even better use a usb stick and make appropriate adjustment in the fstab to boot it from the usb drive, you wont need it after you boot or performing a kernel upgrade and secondly modules are present in /lib/modules/`uname -r` anyway. and if you have encrypted boot and not just root plus encrypted root/lvm then make similar changes in crypttab....
thats because on another coreboot laptop i have the kernel inside the bios chip itself. and its only 5mb (4.1 MiB), yes i removed/crippled Intel ME and its a custom kernel though.
because you running out of space sounds a little amateurish to me... meh!

 

Why would I want re-flash my BIOS and replace it with libreboot or coreboot? How is that going to correct the inherent design flaw that makes my Intel Core 2 Duo processor vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre? Just curious. Maybe you could explain it to me.

BTW, you cannot encrypt the boot partition on a system using LVM/LUKS, if that's what you mean by using the term "encrypted boot".

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

I'm sure this comment will not go down very well with the Mint fanboi's but Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with the dash to panel extension ( with the new ungroup option to give a classic task bar ) makes Mint pretty pointless.

And before anyone says "Gnome shell memory hog" the leak has been fixed and it now runs silly fast even after many hours of heavy usage that it now makes Cinnamon feel slower and clunky.

Just putting it out there.

 

I find Xubuntu makes Mint pointless since I use Xfce, so I agree with you. Cinnamon always has and does feel clunky (and crashy) to me. I think it's just another pointless forking fork of a fork. And Mint Xfce is just Xubuntu with xapp annoyances and extra bloat to remove. It comes out much later, but still inherits all the bugs from Ubuntu...what's the point.