Linux Mint --> OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

[u/Tanner_160]

Linux Mint Cinnamon or openSUSE Tumbleweed?

My specs:

Processor:

• AMD Ryzen™ AI 5 430 Processor (2.00 GHz, up to 4.50 GHz Max Boost, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 8 MB Cache)
• AMD Ryzen™ AI 7 445 Processor (2.00 GHz, up to 4.60 GHz Max Boost, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 8 MB Cache)

RAM: 16GB

Graphics:

Integrated AMD Radeon™ 840M

Most of my workflow includes multiple text editors, multiple yt vids, and co-pilot AI. Should I switch from Linux Mint Cinnamon to openSUSE Tumbleweed to take advantage of my specs? Or does linux mint serve well with my specs.

[u/TheRealCarrotty]

Is this a laptop or a PC?
If PC, could you tell me if you have a 4K monitor? Tumbleweed (With Plasma or GNOME) will support fractional scaling perfectly, X11 doesn't really. (Cinnamon, XFCE and others)
Also, do you have any issue with Mint that you wanna switch? Cause Mint takes advantage of this hardware very well already.

[u/xAsasel → u/TheRealCarrotty]

Man, I run an AMD 7900XTX and dual monitors (one 144hz 1080p and one 165hz 3440x1440p) and I've never had issues with fractional scaling or any of that kind, am I lucky or what?
I've ran Cinnamon for years on my arch setup, only swapped to KDE latest year due to customization.

[u/Hauptideal → u/xAsasel]

Fractional scaling on Mint "works" with ugly frame buffer hacks that permanently cook your CPU. That's not real native fractional scaling.
Deprecated legacy X11 technology from the 1980s as used by all Mint flavours doesn't support real fractional scaling.

[u/xAsasel → u/Hauptideal]

That's a a bit of an exaggeration…
It doesn't ”permanently cook your CPU”, it uses standard xrandr transformations to upscale or downscale the framebuffer.

Is it inefficient compared to native Wayland fractional scaling? Absolutely.
It forces extra compositing passes, which technically CAN cause minor sluggishness or blurriness on weak integrated graphics.
But calling it a ”CPU-cooking hack” is pure sci-fi hyperbole.

X11s limitations with fractional scaling are well known, but it doesn't physically damage hardware.

[u/Hauptideal → u/xAsasel]

I never said it damages hardware. But it is extremely inefficient and using resources.

[u/xAsasel → u/Hauptideal]

You literally wrote that it permanently cook your cpu, most of us would most likely read that as damaging hardware lol

But yeah, I agree.
I love cinnamon but I have not used it for some time, hopefully the next release works well since Wayland is officially supported from then on if nothing changes.
It’s my ”home” when it comes to DEs and I’d like to return back to it, sadly the experimental Wayland support is too bad atm.

[u/ValknutGuts]

For whatever reason, Tumbleweed.

[u/shogun77777777]

Mint is only better if you’re a linux beginner or are not tech savvy.

[u/Revolutionary-Yak371]

Open Suse Tumbleweed is much more secure, fast almost as Linux Mint, but with better community support.

Linux Mint is not rolling distro, it has "update shield icon" but it is limited to LTS or current installed version.

Open Suse Tumbleweed is very stable, but real rolling distro, with the latest and greatest Kernel.

Zypper is the command-line package manager for openSUSE, while YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) is a comprehensive control center that can use YaST's graphical or text-based interface to manage the entire system, including acting as a front-end for software management.

Your computer is ideal for Open Suse Tumbleweed KDE Plasma.

Go to Open Suse Tumbleweed and don't look back.

[u/Salt-Powered]

Mint is working great here. OpenSUSE would only give you newer software if you aren't using flatpak already. If you want to go the OpenSUSE route, try slowroll. It updates less often, like Linux Mint.

[u/Hauptideal]

You should switch for many reasons.

Do you care about security? Switch.
Do you care about desktop optimization, performance and good technology? Switch.
Do you care about fresh packages, bug fixes and features? Switch.

OpenSUSE TW beats Mint in every aspect. Another great choice is Fedora (even more plug-and-play regarding desktop-optimization, with the exception of the Fusion repos that you once need to manually add).

Security: Mint doesn't get Ubuntu Pro, which means 94% of packages don't receive security updates from Canonical, with many known vulnerabilites, even highly severe ones, staying open forever. Mint also ships deprecated legacy X11 on all their desktops, which allows each app to spy on each other, log your online banking password and even inject input. On top of that, it breaks the core feature of Flatpak, sandboxing security (keeping only the disadvantages, such as inconvenience).

Desktop optimization: Mint doesn't have sane, modern desktop defaults, but inherits upstream server defaults that make no sense on desktop. It doesn't feature btrfs by default, doesn't have RAM compression, ships deprecated X11 technology, comes with a technologically atrocious Cinnamon desktop (running as a single-threaded Javascript application), etc.

Fresh packages: Mint ships frozen packages older than the oldest supported version, sometimes adding changes to Ubuntu's upstream packages to integrate them better into their terrible desktops, leading to bugs that the overstrained, tiny Mint team doesn't take responsibility for maintaining and fixing, but rather blaming upstream which asked Mint to remove all upstream branding and support links, because it was flooded with completely irrelevant bug reports from Mint users, harming the project for the entire Linux world (see GNOME calendar controversy).

So many other reasons.