Hello, I’m having problems with the included MNT OS because it’s just too confusing for me as a Linux noob and I wanted to ask if it’s possible to switch the OS to Linux Mint and if so, how to do that.
Thank you for your help.
Hi, I’m sorry to hear about this trouble. What is your MNT Reform model, especially the processor? Is it with A311D?
There isn’t any official support for Linux Mint, especially if you don’t have Linux experience, I would recommend against moving away from Debian.
Maybe a different desktop enviroment such as GNOME or KDE could work for you? Then we can give you instructions on how to install those.
I have the a311d processor and would appreciate instructions for a new desktop environment, preferably one for a linux noob like me :D.
OK. Maybe first you could look at some videos of GNOME and KDE and decide which one you like more.
To install GNOME, you can do:
sudo apt install gnome
And to install KDE:
sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop
Afterwards, after rebooting you should be able to select GNOME or KDE on the login screen by pressing F3 before logging in.
(@josch please correct me if i’m wrong, there are also the task-gnome-desktop and task-kde-desktop patckages, but I don’t know if they are preferrable).
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Thanks, I think I’ll go with KDE Plasma first because it looks a lot like Windows and I have the most experience with it.
The task-* packages are mainly there for use with debian-installer but they can of course also be installed without a problem on a normal system if one wants to replicate the things that would get installed by debian-installer. In this case, task-kde-desktop will install quite a few more packages compared to just installing kde-plasma-desktop (1,843 MB versus 1,237 MB on my system). But the former is a superset of the latter. So it depends on how much you want to customize your installation versus automatically installing everything.
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I would also suggest to consider using Debian Stable instead of Debian Unstable (which is iirc what you get on the SD Card shipped with the Reform). Debian Stable has older programs, but way fewer bugs and updates have a much lower chance to break your system. It might therefore be less frustrating for new Linux users.
The build script for system images can make an image for you, or you can just download a pre-built image from https://reform.debian.net/.
Of course what has been said about the desktop environments applies just as well to Debian Stable.
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Maybe. I am maintaining reform.d.n but I do not own a Pocket Reform. There needs to be somebody who feels like they want to maintain Debian stable for the Pocket Reform or otherwise especially new Linux users will just run into different problems.
Most importantly, wifi on Debian bookworm probably does not work out-of-the-box because of missing firmware files…