Tech N' Tactile

From Windows Chains to Linux Liberation: A User's Journey

• Tech N' Tactile • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Ready to break free from Windows? In this eye-opening conversation, Cody and Michael dive deep into Linux Mint, revealing how this free, open-source operating system transformed their computing experiences and quite literally saved a college career during finals week.

We explore the remarkable accessibility features built right into Linux Mint, including the Orca screen reader, magnification tools, and on-screen keyboard that make computing more inclusive without additional cost. For anyone with visual impairments or other accessibility needs, Mint offers immediate solutions that rival or exceed those found in commercial operating systems.

The performance benefits of Linux Mint are nothing short of transformative. "It's like you get a whole new PC, but it's the same PC you've had for five years," Michael explains, describing how his sluggish laptop became lightning-fast after the switch. We examine how Mint's lightweight design and lack of bloatware breathe new life into aging hardware, making it perfect for computers that can't support Windows 11.

Customization emerges as another standout feature, with the Cinnamon desktop environment and Muffin window manager enabling endless personalization through "desklets" and "applets." From calendar widgets to system monitors, these tools allow users to create their ideal workflow. We also address potential challenges for gamers and creative professionals, offering honest perspectives on compatibility with gaming anti-cheat systems and alternatives to Adobe software.

Have you been curious about Linux but intimidated by its reputation? This episode demystifies the experience and encourages you to take the plunge. Visit our website at techtactile.com to access our resources page and share your own Linux experiences with us!

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Cody:

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Tech N Tactile podcast. My name is Cody, with Better Audio Now.

Michael:

Indeed, and I'm Michael, and today we're diving into the wonderful world of Linux, with a spotlight specifically on Linux Mint, the user-friendly, community-driven operating system that is not just free and open source, but also a strong contender in the world of accessibility.

Cody:

He read from a script Anyway, have, uh, I have a lot to say about this OS and, to be completely honest, it has been one of the most liberating things for me to possibly switch to like as a general pc user and as a gamer. Like it has been crazy, not only just for like getting away from windows and something new, but it's been pretty accessible and, I'm not going to lie, it's really opened my eyes to what you can do on a PC and it's insane.

Michael:

Linux Mint really drives it home with how just out-of-the-box, easy plug-and-play and how light it is. Home with how, like just out of the box, easy plug and play and how light it is. Um because linux, because um. Fun story for me when I switched over this past couple weeks, with it being finals week, with my laptop dying and windows and it's dumb. 10 gigabytes of storing fucking update temp files for some dumb reason is just beyond me. But you know, linux meant saved my life during finals week and I will never sing its praises enough for literally saving my college career.

Cody:

Oh yeah, oh I've. You'll never have to boot into a safe mode, at least. I mean. You know, listen, I'll say never. Say never because it's a PC, but I mean more than likely.

Michael:

You'll never have to with these type of operating systems, and they're highly flexible too, and that's what I really enjoy about the whole thing a good thing with mint as well, too is you'll like just how like easy it is with cinnamon and how the ui and it's like flow of its ui goes, especially with its software manager and its update tools that you can use, because everything is always just a click away.

Cody:

Oh yeah, it's just, and it comes with a screen reader right out of the gate. For somebody who is visually impaired, it has built-in magnification tools and screen reading software. Now, to be fair, windows has that as well, but this is a free OS that you don't have to pay for and you know, out of the box it just comes with all of these wonderful tools that you can deal with Like it has an on-screen keyboard. If you were to use this, if you had a handy laptop that had one of those touchscreens on it, you could technically use Mint, sort of like a tablet you really could, because I do know that, specifically with the engine and all of its stuff that it uses for that to be integrated in the OS.

Michael:

For those who don't know, specifically Orca great screen reading tool Specifically, it's better that it's ingrained in a user-friendly interface for Mint, because for non-Mint-based systems that do not come with Orca pre-installed, installing that is like a whole journey journeying back to 2008, 2009. And boy do we have a story for that for an episode later down the line when we talk about Orca specifically. But I'm just so happy that Mint gives you this out of the box and you don't have to do what we did for Archbase Systems to get it to test run.

Cody:

Oh yeah, just to clarify, with that we got Orca running on a Steam Deck. There might be some disabled gamers out there who are really interested in the Steam Deck, but they might be put off because you know what, if you can't use a screen reader and I'm happy to say you can and you can't it's a double edged sword. And to explain that Orca works with the Steam Deck in desktop mode, but in gaming mode, no, it doesn't exactly. There's not a solution there, unfortunately, but there is a workaround, like there are ways of getting it up and running. Unfortunately, you're going to need a sighted person to help you if you don't have any vision. But you know, once you get past that hurdle, it is doable and possible.

Michael:

It's definitely a learning curve, a major learning curve, because if you're not on a natively like in boon to or like lighter os, like mint, when it comes to how it's handles its packages and how you can kind of string things together with art specifically, you have to build everything before specifically getting orca, unlike a lot of different other places, because you have to have all of its dependencies and all of its engines before you can even think about having orca install properly to your system when you're just trying to install it out the gate, because you have to do everything beforehand to get orca to even register to begin with

Cody:

oh yeah, getting that uh, getting the uh the speech synthesizer first and then installing the uh the screen reader.

Cody:

It was, it was an experience.

Michael:

Oh, yeah, uh. I don't even want to have to tell you how many pages of how many different civil war era text documentation I had to go through just to understand what was happening yeah, that that that's something that I would really like to talk about in the future, absolutely.

Cody:

But aside from all of that, back to mint. Uh, you know, you don't got to worry about it, it's all pre-built into the os and works like a charm out of the gate. The only complaint that I have is getting synthesizers installed is a little more complicated and I I have not figured out how to do that quite yet. It for those of you who have used it, it sort of reminds me of nvda on windows. You know it still has the same screen reader in it. It's very robotic, it's very like ancient sounding right, and I I know that you can install other synthesizers on the uh, on the, on the screen reader. I just I haven't quite figured it out yet.

Michael:

I believe the ones that it comes with out of the box and the ones that we installed specifically when we did it on Arch as well, was eSpeak and eSpeakNG, I believe.

Cody:

I think it was just Speech Dispatcher.

Michael:

honestly, Speech Dispatcher and eSpeak. It was one of the two, I forget.

Cody:

Yeah, it's a little more complicated, but you know that's arch. I'm not dealing with arch, we're dealing with. We're dealing with Right, A more open Linux.

Michael:

That kind of goes into. Another point that I was going to go to is just kind of seeing how Mint is very different in its approach, just as its existence as an OS, because of how different a community-driven OS is versus something that's corporate. Right, I mean, but as far, as OS-wide and major overhaul-wide for Mint. It's usually about every two years for a whole new fresh face on top of the kernel, if that makes sense. But the kernel does get updated quite frequently, sometimes daily, weekly, usually.

Cody:

All that aside, though, how is it for an average user? How would you say let's see how's the pros and cons for switching to Linux Mint, if you were a Windows person for your entire life? And for like your entire life.

Michael:

So that's a great example for me as a full-time college student for going through my IIT degree for integrated information technology over at the University of South Carolina here in Columbia. I'm all about portability and all about speed and just trying to get stuff done as most efficiently and as most quickly as I can. With Windows you always have that godforsaken bloatware that is just so slow and it takes its time and you have to kill all the processes just to get things to boot. If you don't have enough RAM to support your stuff or your tabs, you're just going to be slow and you're sluggish. But what I love since switching to Mint over these past couple weeks after finals is just how responsive your whole system becomes.

Michael:

It's like you get a whole new pc, but it's the same pc you've had for five years and it's just it. It's like you get a whole new universe of things that you can do with something you've had for so long and you're looking at it and you're like, oh my god, I never knew I could do any of this and then like a really good um thing that I always use um for for me specifically is is the web apps feature to make any website you want into a like native, like bootable application and it just opens up right immediately. Just, there's no delay, no hesitation, no processing, nothing. Everything is snappy, everything is immediate and everything is always, always, always at your fingertips at any given moment and you can customize it and you can use any tool that you need whenever you need it and however you need it now could you explain that in a more layman's terms?

Cody:

for someone like me who is it technologically, is uh inclined so basically, it gives you the ability to kind of one click on desktop opens whatever you want exactly yes, thank you.

Michael:

Um, one click to do anything. It's always at your fingertips. And also one of the better things that I like to use on my free time especially when I'm working on a 14 inch display going around for my classes is the window tiling. Snapping is a godsend.

Cody:

Oh yeah, absolutely. One feature that I've been really using is so, like you know, you switch over and you're like, well, how would I do work like spreadsheets or documentations or anything like that? And there's an easy solution. You know, you could always use Google Docs, but I don't like Google Docs. So Linux has a free, open source Office tool called LibreOffice and it is a wonderful, wonderful piece of software and it literally does everything that you could really expect from using Microsoft Office. But it's free and you don't have to pay for it.

Michael:

And it's so much more expandable too.

Cody:

There is a lot that LibreOffice has to offer and I won't sit here and say it is the end-all be-all, because whenever you switch to Linux you gain things but you also give up things that you found very useful on Windows.

Michael:

So maybe there might be a lot of features in Microsoft Office that you might not get Specifically in my case for what I use with a lot of stuff with my degree that I did lose access to that. I kind of had to find a good migration pathway to find something new to use. The same stuff was the Adobe Suite and Photoshop, because Adobe does not play well at all with Linux Mint.

Cody:

And that's not to say that you couldn't somehow get it to work. There are workarounds to run Windows programs on here, but that's not something that I would really expand upon on a podcast kind of level. But know that if you really are stubborn and you miss your old Windows software, it is possible to do. But consult your local Google is all I can say. It's a doozy Sometimes.

Michael:

My best recommendation for people that are trying to find the best way to either learn how to navigate it or learn how to get used to it and don't want to migrate and go cold turkey immediately is anything that you use natively on windows that you know has some form of a web environment version. Use it as a web app and you can get used to it on linux and then you can use that. You can teach yourself libre office or whatever it may be, kind of step by step and having both of them open to see what the differences are. That way you get used to what each intricacy is that is changing as you're switching os's, if that makes sense it.

Cody:

Yeah, all this has been pretty eye-opening for me, and the cool thing about it is I am not the end-all, be-all person of linux I have been. My first introduction to linux was a steam deck, so I literally got it. I got the dock, I put it up there and I messed around in SteamOS and I was thinking to myself just like, holy crap, this is amazing. It was so good that I used it as a general PC for like two years and.

Cody:

I just got a newer, updated model for it. I love it. I love the Steam Deck and, oh man, if they release a desktop variant of that with SteamOS, I'm all for it. But now I'm over here on Mint Cinnamon and I don't know everything and I'm still learning and there's so much to learn, and that's what it's exciting for me as a pc user, as somebody who's really into computers, this is just like a whole new world out there to explore of things that I can do. Um, and honestly, I would encourage anybody out there who is sick of how windows 11 is, if you, you don't mind, like ramming your head into a wall to learn something, but not necessarily even. It's not even a brick wall, just like you know.

Michael:

I would call it, it may be a wall, but there are many, many, many different forums that have different guides for everything the community has made. So don't be afraid to reach out, for the community is made. So don't be afraid to reach out to the community, because they will always be there to provide support.

Cody:

Because don't ever be afraid of the terminal either, because there's always going to be someone to help you somewhere I call it a wall because I do things that make it hard on me on purpose right right I intentionally find things that are really hard to do and try to overcome it. But that's just the kind of person I am. I love getting into things that are a little ridiculous. But I would say don't be afraid of Linux.

Michael:

Not at all.

Cody:

I've been using Windows my entire life and I don't think I'll look back to windows for quite some time. It's not for quite some time, honestly, at least until they, uh, they uh fix the maybe, maybe whenever they get out of windows 11. I'm just not a big windows 11 fan. I love 10.

Cody:

Windows 10 is cool and they're killing it, but, uh, I'm not a 11 guy, so I think I'll stick to what I've got right now until, uh, until this, uh, I don't want, I don't know what I would call what microsoft is going through, but until they get over their little windows 11 hurdle for me, I'll stick with cinnamon because, who doesn't love good cinnamon?

Michael:

yeah, all the different ways, like all the different spices that you can use with cinnamon to kind of like um, spruce up your desktop with applets or desklets to do different like android phone type widgets, if anyone knows what I'm talking about um to make your desktop look nicer and kind of improve your workflow and kind of minimize your long list and make them look a lot nicer, especially with Cinnamon as well. The main window manager is called Muffin, and Muffin is really good because not only can you differentiate its views, you can take every aspect of the UI of Mint and change it to your complete liking size, and all because every piece of Mint's UI is always going to be modular as well, because you can change anything at any moment to fit whatever your specific need is at that time.

Cody:

Can you explain some uses of how you use it exactly? Well, actually go ahead Like you're widgeting things on the desktop or how you can customize some of the features of Mint.

Michael:

So, at least in my case, for what I use on my laptop is I have a couple of dashboards that I have from a handy little thing that shows me what my files are and what my last recents are, and then I have a tab for my storage space and I also have a tracker telling me kind of like a calendar, what's due when what is due, and then just kind of keeping track of like timers and deadlines for clocking in and out for my job and stuff like that and just keeping track of like literally anything that I can think of, because you can.

Cody:

There's, there's a web app or a weblet or a desklet for anything that you can, uh, turn on and off on your desktop. Uh, are they fully customizable in a sense? Can you size them up and down, make them as big, as small as you want, maybe move them around the desktop?

Michael:

yes, so think of, think of the desklets and your desktop as like a like a pegboard, like a resizable pegboard type situation. Once the desk is placed on um or is active, you can then right click on your desktop and add a desklet from your added list and then you can go around and customize it, move it around however you wish. You can resize it. Some have you integrate like apis for finding weather stuff or anything like that. Just depending on whatever you're specifically looking for, there's usually a way to configure it to your liking, whether that be visibly or on the data information side of things, to make sure it's pulling accurately.

Cody:

I only have one little desklet on mine and it just shows me what my disk space is. Because as a gamer, you know, I install a whole bunch of nonsense on my computer that I play and, uh, you know, some of it takes up quite a lot of space. So I just have that handy thing. It's on the right of my desktop. It just tells me, hey, you've got you know this amount of gigs left.

Cody:

And then it has that cool little circle with the percentage on it. It's about all I uh need and, honestly, it's been helping me out a lot when it comes to uh telling me when I need to go back on what I've got installed on my pc probably my two.

Michael:

Most prevalent for me would either be weather to make sure that I have what I need for my wheelchair, to make sure I'm not getting either soaked or kind of rained out, or I have one that'll tell me kind of like what my system information is looking like for my clock speeds or temperatures, to make sure that I'm not doing too much on my system, to ensure that I'm keeping it within a usable kind of state and temperature range.

Cody:

Right, all this technical jargon, you know, might scare people away. That's usually what happens with people with Linux and, to be honest, I say it's no different than kind of what you would hear on Windows. You will hear just as much technical mumbo-jumbo from any tech nerd with when it comes to windows, right, uh, the difference is that, uh, windows is a big corporation. You know microsoft, they, they, they, they sell you, uh, a whole bunch of eggs that you don't need on the operating system. If you want something that just works right out the gate, you don't have to worry about it having a whole bunch of bloatware on it and everything like that then, uh, all it takes is downloading from their website.

Cody:

Yep, finding a eight or higher gigabyte flash drive.

Michael:

I believe the iso image for mint when you flash it to a drive is about three gigs which, which is insane compared to Windows.

Cody:

Compared to Windows yes, you will use a little tool to flash your flash drive and make it a bootable image. There's plenty of guides out there. You'll basically plug that sucker into your PC, hit a button, go to your boot screen and hit load mint. And there you go. Depending on how your bios are and it says you're off to the races, you can install it directly to your hard drive and, you know, get linuxing. It's indeed, honestly, something that I cannot recommend people to do enough, and I didn't do it justice. I basically just explained how.

Michael:

The aspect of saving space, because it's wild to think about how much space you lose just by using Windows on a drive. That alone should be motivation enough.

Cody:

Right, it's a lot smaller. Yeah, there's a lot of benefits to doing it. Now, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. You know, if you're a gamer like me, you might run into some issues. You might be like you know, there might be some older games that you might have trouble running, like you know. Um, I I like to run older pc games, and windows has pretty good backwards compatibility, uh, programs that you can use to run older software. And though it works on linux, uh, you will have to jump through some hoops. So, and then there's the multiplayer aspect. If you're a gamer and not just speaking technically as just a pc person, right, if you wanted to play games like call of duty or, like you know, anything that has an anti-cheat on it, then more than likely Linux is not for you.

Cody:

Because, Linux would A lot of Linux users get banned Immediately for Going on anti-cheat or just I guess anti-cheat doesn't like Linux.

Michael:

So They've never had a good history at all. The history of the war between the two of them has never been good.

Cody:

No, not at all. But if of the war between the two of them has never been good no, not at all. But if you're not a multiplayer kind of person and you play little games like I do, like little, like you know single player games experiences like that, then linux is uh, linux will be a very comfortable switch.

Michael:

It's, everything works it's possible thanks to a little thing called compatibility, laters lat um, also known more commonly either as proton or wine, depending on what you're trying to do, um, which we will get into at later episodes as well.

Cody:

Oh yeah, absolutely. All I can tell you is that Steam does everything for you, correct?

Michael:

Steam. Steam has been a godsend Um Lord Gaben himself bless him.

Cody:

Yes, bless Lord Gaben himself. Bless him. Yes, bless Lord Gaben.

Michael:

Yep, exactly. I mean as a kind of point, just to say this when you look at Windows and just how it controls I believe it's last time we looked at it what 70% of the PC market just in general for as far as operating systems go?

Cody:

Yes.

Michael:

Like.

Cody:

Somewhere around there.

Michael:

Yeah, when you look at it, you have Windows 10 and 11, and you have all these landmarks that people are flocking to that you have to buy keys for. And Mint won completely free, completely open source, no extra strings attached One completely free, completely open source, no extra strings attached. And not only that, you get to pick which version you want, and depending on which version you want, you either get new features, lose some features, but you also get more lightweight compatibility for older systems, something you don't see with Windows, which is wonderful.

Cody:

Oh yeah, I have an old laptop laptop and it's still a good laptop. It's a 2015 laptop. It's got like a 10, 60, 12 gigs of ram and i7. It's not cutting edge, but it's losing support because it can't support windows 11. It only supports, like the motherboard will not, uh, support it for some reason. And so you know, if you load, if you have an older laptop and you know it's still good for something and you can't use their newer operating systems from microsoft, that's a good way to say. You know, introduce it to linux because, like you know, that doesn't mean your computer has to be dead.

Michael:

Um, if you have an outdated operating system on it, you know it's like giving the face over, like the face makeover of a lifetime yeah, absolutely.

Cody:

I would encourage anybody to just take the leap. There's a lot to beat up on uh stay off of, like you know, uh websites like reddit or, like you know, other places like they. There's a lot of elitists out there who would just be like you know, kind of just what's a nice way to put it. They're not very helpful. They're the reason why people are scared to go to Linux. But then there's a lot of resources that you could look at that will literally get you going on the right path you want to go down, and there is something for everybody on this operating system. Yeah, a lot more people just need to. You know it's a little scary because you know it's all you know with Windows, it's all that you've ever used, but once you take a plunge it gets a lot more comfortable.

Michael:

Yeah, it can be very scary to go out of your comfort zone for the first time, but once you're released to your freedom and you get over that initial fear, the amount of control you have is so good because, let me tell you, linux Mint has that perfect balance between the powerful yet simplistic nature of itself that just is that perfect complement, just to have that open source accessibility for people. That just makes it one of the most inclusive OS options I think I've ever witnessed and tried personally myself. Just having, like having your freedom be this, um, metaphorical, like oyster of the open source world has just been wonderful and I don't think I'm ever going back to Windows. Um, after experiencing Linux and Linux Mint. Um, if anything, I'm probably going to dive into each different distro from time to time and see what's different and what's added and just kind of gain my knowledge of this wonderful community, because it is just so good.

Cody:

Yeah, it has honestly been a huge eye-opener for me, and I can't wait to learn more about it Now, if youener for me, and I can't wait to learn more about it Now. If you'll excuse me, I need to go pseudo-apt install an app that's going to help me find a way to take better naps. Indeed.

Michael:

I think the world could use that secret pseudo-apt install indeed.

Cody:

Well, this has been a pretty cool little episode, but I want to leave it up to anyone else who possibly can have some insight. As I've said before, I don't really know shit.

Cody:

I am pretty clueless whenever it comes to a lot of things going into the tech world and the world of accessibility. This is kind of a learning experience for me, so I want to pass this on to anyone else who may listen to this. If anybody else has any kind of stories or maybe experiences or advice, just in general, feel free to shoot it our way. I would love to hear about anyone else who's possibly dealt with Linux, and if you've never heard of Linux and want to know more about it and we maybe turned you on to the idea, maybe find a way to let us know. I'd love to know anyone else's stories about jumping into getting out of your Windows comfort zone, exactly, yeah. So for any of that, I pass this conversation on to any of you guys.

Michael:

And, as always, feel free to leave us a comment down below wherever you're able, on any of your platforms. Also, please feel free at any time to check out our website at techintactilecom and look at our resources page, and also feel free to contact us through our contact form on our website to reach out, leave us a message or any suggestions you may have. That way, we can also provide support not only to you but to future community members through our blog as well, to have for them to see in the future.

Cody:

Right, Well, at that, I have nothing more to say. It's time to go find that app. So, with that being said, everyone, have a good rest of your day and remember stay accessible Indeed. Stay accessible everyone. Thank you.