If you are using Gnome distros: you can feel exactly what it feels like getting back to working in a restricted, overhyped, overbranded environment like Windows.
If you are using Ubuntu: you can get advertising during your system’s software upgrades. No, really.
If you are using Arch: you can post aroudn the internet saying you use Arch btw.
Depending on the distro, you can use some alternative software stacks, but that’s mostly the backend (eg.: systemd versus openRC, Apache vs Nginx, X vs Wayland); most “desktop app” level is mostly the same for each desktop environment, is kinda the point.
Technically speaking: nothing really, provided you have time and skills.
Except maybe not having access to NDA-ed binary blobs or something…
File-by-file integrity check against signed checksums upstream to trivially confirm validity of deployment.
But that’s probably not interesting.
Serious answer? XFCE doesn’t support multiple monitors with different refresh rates. So that.
Some of the other answers (like Meta (aka Windows Key) not working for shortcuts) can be hacked around, but unless you switch to a DE that supports Wayland, you will never have stable multi refresh rate differences on multiple monitors.
XFCE doesn’t support multiple monitors with different refresh rates.
I have an LG TV and an old Asus monitor, i’d wager their refresh rates differ but i can’t confirm atm.
I’m not a fan of the xfce UX at all, and multi-monitor support still has a lot of issues (under Debian 12), but I am pretty sure having different refresh rates is possible
Maybe I’m missing something but I am running xfce4 and have per-monitor refresh rate setting.
Serious answer? XFCE doesn’t support multiple monitors with different refresh rates. So that.
That’s more of a limiation because of X11. KDE and Gnome do not support different refreshrates on multiple monitors as far as I know. Its the main reason why I never used multiple monitors. But on Wayland, this issue is solved. So if XFCE is ported to Wayland, they should also get this support for free I guess.
xrandr does.
Btw, how do you do that in wayland?
Acces to the AUR I guess? But not much really. If you like what you have just stick with it
Technically he or she has access to the AUR, but through website.^^ On a more serious note, one could install https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox and manager multiple package managers. Because each package manager is in a container, they do not interfere. I never used it, but imagine it like Flatpak, but actually using the package manager from the distribution (including access to AUR). And specific applications and programs can be “exported” to install them like a normal application, so you can access it with a single appname.
Also I use Arch btw
One could compile pacman and all the build tools if they really wanted to.
Nothing, it’s all Linux
Use Pacman as your package manager, or something. Linux is Linux. If you use a mainstream distro it should be 90% similar to all other distros. You don’t really have to worry about FOMO when it comes to Linux.
Running alternatives to Systemd.
Slackware!
Gentoo!
Nothing, at all.
Some things you can’t do easily in Mint, like create snapshots automatically and boot into them when something breaks.
But it’s all Linux and freely available software under the hood, and the lines between configuration, customization and forking your distro are blurry.ship of theseus
You can’t have your entire system configuration in a repository of plain text files, which has lots of advantages, but it’s not worth caring about unless you feel excited to get into it.
Found the other NixOS user. ;)
You can’t easilyy switch between different inages like on an atomic fedora system.
Do you have to switch now? No.
Hopefully we get an official XFCE Atomic desktop someday.
You can create a ublue version in a few hours if you’re down to it. Creating an inage isn’t that difficult 👍🏼
Y-you’re not supposed to ask that!
Not sure what you mean by this?
Natively install RPM packages? Really, there’s not much. Find a setup that you like.
In my experience, not much, but I’m a marginally functional newbie. Mint manages things for you fairly nicely and has been the best, it just works with out messing with much/anything. (At least for my hardware)
I managed to get gnome working smoothly on mint and have been happy with it. I started and returned here since I last ditched windows as a native OS.
The only thing that has made me consider distro hopping from mint is AUR on arch and gnome, though I’ve been successful so far.
Part of trying the distros that are more advanced and give you more explicit control and configuration is the sense of accomplishment and it makes you figure out how and why things work the way they do. It holistically builds your velocity in your understanding of Linux. (Or gnu whatever that nuance is).
If your machine has enough resources it is super easy to host VMs of anything you want to try. You can try them all, and it won’t cost you anything but time!
If you feel like you need/want software from AUR you should check out Distrobox. It can run any distro on top of your installation using Docker under the hood, but it tightly integrates into your system so with little effort you can run AUR programs from your launcher as if they were natively installed on your Mint.
Thanks, I’ll dig into that one sometime!
If you are speaking about stock Linux mint Xfce, with the default kernal, mesa version etc., your support for very new hardware - Arrow lake, battlemage and RDNA 4 will be imperfect. In general, very new hardware (launched within the last 6 months) will not be supported properly because the lts kernel being used was written before these products were launched
Arrow Lake
Why would anyone curse themselves with that though?
The ultra 7 is actually a good all rounder. Decent performance (well balanced between gaming and production workloads), good efficiency and good pricing with respect to the AMD options. AMD is of course better for pure productivity (9950x), pure gaming (7800x3d and the upcoming 9800x3d) and is better at the low end (7600, 7600x)