Linux Time Baby!!!

Hello friends!!

As the title suggests, I recently swapped from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. It's been something that I've been meaning to do for a about a week now.

(I mean it, I kept bugging my girlfriend about it...)

I did play with Linux Mint in a Virtual Machine at first but it really didn't win me over. The VM was quite laggy and really jank, so I kinda just... didn't think about installing Mint for a few days. But the feeling was still THERE!!!

So yesterday, after having an honestly terrible week, I bit the bullet and decided to replace Windows 10 with Linux Mint.

I first set up a boot drive from an old USB I found that no-one ever used. Was super easy to do, I just followed the documentation on Linux Mint's website.

Once done, I made sure to save everything I wanted to keep from my SSD to my HDD. It was just my install of FFXIV (didn't want to wait 8+ hours for that to install), my art files, and my documents folder.

I then booted into Linux Mint, ran the install dialogue, and then... well, I started using Linux Mint.

It wasn't a super-duper-easy switch over, I did run into a few issues. The biggest one was my download speeds! If you didn't know, I live VERY rurally in Australia. At the best I get maybe 3/MBs and that's if I download in the dead of night. However, for some reason, my download speeds were at a whopping... 300kb/s... I couldn't install anything via the Software Manager without it failing. I couldn't run FFXIV because of it, either.

Anyway, turns out Linux Mint (could just be Ubuntu in general? Not sure...) has a setting called "Power Management" turned on for wi fi. Turning it off and restarting my computer made my speeds go back to normal, which was very nice! (Also, this might be coincidence, but my internet hasn't gone out since?)

So with that fixed, I haven't really had any major issues since. FFXIV runs beautifully with the XIV Launcher (the third party one). Suprisingly, Wizard101 runs really well too!

I'm currently trying to get Project Diva Mega Mix to work. Steam uninstalled it randomly for some reason, so time to wait for that to re-download...

I also had to switch from Clip Studio Paint to Krita but honestly I've been thinking of switching over anyway? I could get CSP to work via Wine but like. I don't really care that much. Krita has a better animation system, and it also doesn't beg for me to pay for updates...

I think the biggest issue I've had (besides the weird wifi thing) is that I can no longer stream audio with Discord. I'm gonna have to figure out a new way of streaming to my friends, but that's alright.

Also; so there's like this strip of RGB lights on the top of my computer. For the longest time, they've been stuck on pure bright white. It never annoyed me that much, but it was a bit sad tha I could never change them. I needed to install OpenRGB to stop my RAM from having a light show in the corner of my vision, so I boot it up. I play around with the list of devices and suddenly my PC turns BRIGHT RED. Turns out I could edit that strip the whole time! I've set it to a off, warm white. It's super cozy now!

But yeah! Linux Mint so far has been really lovely. I like how matter-of-a-fact it is. I like how I can uninstall something and it actually like, uninstalls. It's also just, really simple, but in a nice way? I like how easy it is to customise everything!

If you're reading this and you're interested, I'd say that you should go for it! Linux Mint allows you to run a live version of it off of a boot medium (ie usb) so you can play around with it before you 100% decide to go for it. It's deffo more complicated than Windows, but if you feel really confident using a terminal (or hell, if you know how to do some basic webdev stuff and like learning) then you'll probably pick it up super fast.

Just go into it knowing you might need to abandon some Windows-only tools, or deal with trying to set up Wine with it.

I might update this later if I run into any new issues, or if I have something interesting to add!

(As I'm writing this, I'm a little concerned that pushing to github might've broken with transferring my site to a new OS. We'll see!)

Some Other Stuff??

Omg they're still talking.

toki a!

In other news, I've begun learning Toki Pona! It's such a cute and fun language. My biggest motivation for learning it is so I can speak more privately at home. My walls are very thin and I know my parents love to listen to me...

My experience with the Toki Pona community has been... mm, alright? I joined the Discord, said something SLIGHTLY WRONG and got instantly barraged by almost the entire Discord. Like, I'm glad they helped me, but also I'm now way too afraid to speak there ever again.

(btw, the issue was with a grammar particle that, on day TWO OF LEARNING THE LANGUAGE, i didnt even KNOW of yet.)

(it was me saying; mi sin li toki pona. instead of; mi sin la toki pona. and now that ive learned more, why do you expect a 100% new person to know how to use LA??????)

Anyway sorry for the rant. I've been teaching my girlfriend a little bit of it on the side! It's been really fun!

Currently I'm learning how to properly use some more grammar particles, like pi. And also more vocab; I think on my Anki deck I'm almost done with all 120~ words?

Okay thanks for reading my rambles!! Love you all, and stay safe!

- nonkiru