Blog

Linux Mint: 2 Years In

(Saturday 18th July, 2026)

I've been planning on writing a follow up to the first Linux blog post since last year. This post will be a quick summary of my experience using Linux Mint as my main OS on a PC. I also stopped dualbooting Windows 11 and exclusively use Linux for all tasks related to work or fun.

After over two years of using Linux, the novelty has worn off and it is just an operating system to me. It does everything that an operating system should do. That being said, I do feel positive about Linux, because its usability is great. Even when problems occur they are not something that cannot be fixed. It is very normie-friendly. Despite this, it is still different from Windows or Mac. Some things just work differently on Linux, such as downloading programs, but once you get used to it, it is not difficult to use at all.

In my first Linux blog post, I mentioned some programs that Linux Mint comes with. Here I will name some programs I found good or suitable for my work. Webapps are amazing. They are incredibly easy to create and work great. I have webapps for Discord and Element since sometimes updates don't work at all on Discord and the web client is just as good. For editing HTML files I use a text editor called Kate. It is much easier to work with than the default Text Editor program. For video editing, I found Kdenlive, which works similar to Avid so it was not hard for me to learn to use it. For me, it has worked fine for basic video editing. Since I moved to listening to FLACs and MP3s, audio player Audacious is my choice for playing music. It has support for Winamp skins, and overall can be made to work like Winamp. There are a few more programs I use, such as Krita for art and graphic design, and fre:ac for ripping CDs so I can listen to them on different platforms. It took a while to explore all of my options for programs but these are the best ones in my opinion.

I have had a few ventures into emulation and have some opinions about it. It is very possible to emulate consoles on Linux and many emulators have support for Linux. I initially used RetroArch to emulate many different consoles, but found out that the "cores" that RetroArch has are just not that great. I only managed to get PS1 games to work on it reliably. For other consoles, standalone emulators are the way to go, even if they are a hassle to install. PCSX2 works amazing for playing PS2 games, plus you can download it as an AppImage, which you won't need to install. I spent a long time playing games on it and it was smooth the whole way through, plus recording gameplay is easy and convenient. PPSSPP is great for PSP games, I started using it after being fed up with the PSPs short battery life. Dolphin was a challenge to install but after that's done, it works fantastic. I only tried GC games on it and the framerates were smooth and the games seemed stable. If you wanna play your game backups on PC, there are plenty of programs that can run these backups. Getting windows games to run on Linux is a whole different story unfortunately. I got the Sims 3 working on it alright, but games like Need for Speed I cant really install as Wine doesn't handle the install correctly. There doesn't seem to be a solution to this online, so I have to get the games on a different platform. Sometimes issues will pop up and you'll just have to get around it or wait for a fix.

Games on Steam usually work great, but sometimes there will be crashes and bugs. It does get a bit annoying when a bug happens on specifically the Linux version of the game and doesn't happen on the Windows version of the game. For some time, I couldn't view anything in my CS2 inventory cause the models were bugged and didn't appear in the previews. Considering that half of CS2s appeal is gambling and cosmetics, it was a pretty big bug. Garry's Mod is incredibly unstable on the Linux version, but is more stable if using the Windows version with Proton. It still crashes frequently but the crash frequency seems to depend on how much stuff you spawned in or how much memory the map uses. I guess its just an old game. Some games require console commands to work for some reason. Finding fixes and troubleshooting is annoying, but once the issues are fixed, games tend to run great even using Proton. Again, I use ProtonDB to check the compatibility of specific games and to see if they run on Linux or have any major issues. It is a very helpful tool, especially for troubleshooting.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I used multiple Desktop Environments during the two years that I have been using Linux. The first I tried was Cinnamon, Linux Mint's default DE. It is a good DE and its easy to use, you can also customize it a lot without installing a crazy amount of plugins. You can even edit the .css file itself and adjust the colours of things that you can't change just through the settings. I am very happy with Cinnamon and I am still using it. Next, I tried MATE. I liked the old design of the UI, all the gradients and shiny buttons looked nice, but I couldn't get it to work right. Maybe it was something to do with my settings, my PC, or compatibility, but I gave up on it after some time. Lastly, I tried KDE Plasma. Really nice UI, looks better than Windows in my opinion and maintains a very modern look. I was happy with it until an update made it work on Wayland only, which broke some programs that I used. Although I used Plasma on Manjaro, a different distro from Linux Mint, which could have been the culprit for my programs breaking. After going through a few Linux experiments, I just decided to main Linux Mint with Cinnamon, as it suits my needs the best and looks good to me.

This post has gone on for too long now, so I guess the conclusion is that Linux Mint is very usable. After a couple years of use, using Linux has just become an everyday thing for me. I don't really stay connected to the community, but I am excited for the future of Linux. Hopefully more support can come to Linux and more programs will be available to use without the need of Wine. But through all of the ups and downs, my experience with Linux is still mostly positive. I found that I don't really require Windows anymore and can just use Linux for most things. Ofc, this will change with every individual, but for me Linux is suitable.

Summertime...

(Thursday 7th August, 2025)

Hello. It ain't been great lately, I have to be honest. The absolute dread of waking up to another shitty thing happening in the world has completely drained me of energy. This combined with a vicious art block and living with people who do not see me as a human being has made me want to just sleep 24/7. Last summer was great, but this current one not so much. I don't know what changed but I can't wait to get back to attending uni. I think I am slowly realizing that I HAVE to work on something constantly, otherwise I get a depressive episode. I can't even take breaks from working without falling deep into the depression hole all over again. But then it's hard to get out of it, it's a vicious cycle that I've wasted years of my life on.

Anyways, life IRL has been INSANITY too. Dumbass laws being passed, fascism on the rise, more internet censorship out of the blue. This shit ain't getting anyone's hopes up. I have no idea how life will be in a year. I just hope I will be able to use Neocities at that point. I am kind of afraid of losing my (anonymous) access to the internet because of this new wave of age verification bullshit. I grew up on the internet, so leaving it would be very very hard and kind of heartbreaking. Turning on an internet browser now reminds me of how little control I have and how access to the internet can just be revoked at any time because I don't want to upload my ID so that it can be sold to some data broker.

Apart from all that, I've also been ill. During summertime, how funny. Ha ha. -_- Things haven't been great, but I am glad that I at least did some prep to make the current day feel more tolerable. But things still suck! I hope they will start sucking a little less soon.

Also, an update on my previous blog post. My PC is fine. It runs the same way as before. I did not fuck up (too much).

Life Update #4

(Saturday 24th May, 2025)

Hello! Long time no see once again. I have recently finished a big project so I'm feeling a little bit burned out. Soon enough I should get back into working on the site and finishing version 2 up. I also have some ideas for new things, like an update to my Linux experience as I am approaching 1 year of using it. Recently, I've just been gaming. I cleaned my PC a few days ago and oh boy I feel like that was not worth it. I'm pretty sure that the dust in my PC didn't affect the performance at all, and now I'm anxious that I put it together wrong ;_; (it is a prebuilt, cringe ik, first time taking it apart) It works, but we'll see for how long. There was a good amount of dust in there, don't get me wrong, but it still doesn't feel like it was worth the stress.

TLDR: I am still alive.

Life Update #3

(Wednesday 5th March, 2025)

Long time no see, again! It's been over two months since I updated this site, I've been really busy with work stuff yet again. I have some good news! I have started working on a second, better version of Shibelives! It's currently only about 25% done, but I hope that eventually I'll be able to show it off! :3 It will be quite different but I also want to show off all the CSS I have learned. xD Unfortunately, I may be busy for a while, so updates for the current site will still be slow.

TLDR: I am still alive!

Life Update #2

(Thursday 19th December, 2024)

Long time no see. I haven't updated my site for over a month now. Although I've been really busy with work stuff, I still managed to learn some CSS. I want to rethink this website, because now that I've been writing about films as "work", I'm not sure I want to do it during my freetime. I had a piece of writing halfway done for this website but I stopped and thought that it was too negative. Like yeah, cool, I analysed a film, but also there wasn't much else to say about the film except negative things. I don't want to write negatively about things. I also want to create dedicated webpages to my favourite games rather than writing about them in a continuous stream of text. There is art I want to post, but I'm super sensitive about it.

I'm not very good at art. Never have been, never will be. But I do enjoy it a lot. I just find it kinda hard to show off. I also kinda want to change the layout of my website now that I learned some more CSS. The current layout is fine, but I feel like its limiting lol. I have more time during this holiday season so there may be a few changes that I will implement. Ultimately, I think I might change the website content to something better.

TLDR: I am alive lol.

Life Update #1

(Thursday 7th November, 2024)

Linux Mint: 3 Months In

(Sunday 6th October, 2024)

Today I was reminded that I have been using Linux almost daily for 3 months. I installed it around the start of July, and I am still using it. I went for Linux Mint as my distro because it was the most beginner friendly. I have some thoughts about Linux and I thought it would be great to write about here. Before we get started, I will say that I am dual-booting Windows 11 and Linux Mint on two separate drives on one PC. I also used Windows 10 before getting my PC.

The most interesting discovery I made while using Linux is that damn, its pretty convenient. I feel like there are less interruptions while using Linux rather than Windows. Idk how, but Windows will always find a way to make something very inconvenient. Maybe slow computers made me think of Windows as less, but I doubt that is the case. For example, Windows 11 changed the layout of the table you get when right clicking. It feels near impossible to find the damn option you wanted in good time. Linux Mint still has the options in their normal places. When I’m using Windows there’s always some notification asking for my attention. In Linux I have not experienced that yet.

This may just be a placebo, but when I turn on Windows 11, my PC’s fans spin a lot faster and louder than when I’m booted into Linux. Ever since 8, Windows has just gotten more and more bloated, so that could be why. Linux Mint also has an option to lock the system after a set amount of time, which I think is very convenient. Windows 11 doesn’t have that, at least not on my machine. I also like the fact that you can add widgets to your desktop. Windows stopped doing that since Vista probably.

I guess you could say Linux doesn’t really get in the way of whatever you’re doing the way Windows does. Linux Mint also doesn’t force you to update immediately, rather there is an update manager and you can choose to update whenever is the best time for you. The software that came with Linux Mint feels pretty basic, it came with the most basic media players, no VLC for some reason (c’mon), as well as very simple software like Document Viewer (to replace Adobe Acrobat), and Text Editor (equivalent of Notepad from Windows). I like the very simple software replacements, cause compared to whatever the fuck Windows 11 comes with, those programs are great (Win11 notepad was made by Satan himself, why are there tabs???). Linux Mint also comes with the LibreOffice suite, which gets the job done I suppose.

I’ve also been doing some gaming on Linux Mint, and a lot of the games I have work just fine. I play through Steam mostly. Sometimes they crash and then I have to change into a different version of Proton, but I got all of them to work eventually. To play Fallout 3 without crashes, I go into Nvidia settings and limit my monitor to 60fps. Then the game adapts and gets locked at 60 fps. I’ve noticed that a lot of games don’t have an unlocked frame rate and will instead match my monitor’s refresh rate, which is interesting… But anyway, most games work. Worst case scenario for me so far was having to replace some .dll files while playing Cry of Fear. I also check ProtonDB often for game compatibility, and so far I’ve had a small amount of issues.

In terms of browsing the internet, Linux Mint came with Firefox browser, which isn’t the best choice but it’s better than Chrome or Edge. Linux Mint also came with the Thunderbird email client, which I didn’t use, and Hexchat, which is an IRC, and I’ve never used anything like it before xDD Pretty cool tho.

Overall, my experience with Linux has been positive. It’s just a bit of a shame that not all programs work with Linux, I really wish there was more development time given to create Linux versions of software like FL Studio, Vegas Pro, etc. You always have to give up a few programs when switching to Linux, or find replacements for it. Some replacements are great tho, since I use Krita to replace Photoshop. It includes the basic features of Photoshop which is enough for me (also Krita loads faster than Photoshop). Honestly, I think dual-booting Linux and Windows has been an interesting experience, and I like using Linux and I’m probably gonna continue using it for a while longer.

P.S.: I feel like I’m getting some sort of writers/art block. Fuuuuuuck.