You Don’t Need Windows 11: Meet Linux Mint & the Gabe Cube

A stable OS shouldn’t lock out good hardware, flood you with ads, or hijack your workday with forced updates. We take a hard look at the end of Windows 10 support, the TPM 2.0 wall that stranded millions of machines, and the creeping walled garden that has many users asking if there’s a better way. Then we show you one: Linux Mint Cinnamon. It’s free, familiar, and respectful of your time—easy to test from a USB, easy to install, and easy to live with.

We walk through what changes when you switch. Updates are transparent and on your schedule. You can keep documents flowing with LibreOffice, browse lean with Firefox, manage mail in Thunderbird, and edit PDFs without subscriptions. For gamers, Proton has turned Steam into a powerhouse on Linux for single-player libraries and emulation, with launchers like Heroic and Lutris filling in Epic and GOG. We’re upfront on limits too: anti-cheat multiplayer is still a hurdle, and some mod workflows need extra effort. On the driver side, AMD is the smoothest path, while NVIDIA works well with the right setup.

We also dive into the momentum building around SteamOS. The Steam Deck made Linux gaming normal; Valve’s newly announced compact PC—our affectionate “Gabe Cube”—pushes that vision to the living room with a small, powerful box targeting 4K60 and a clean gaming mode that makes your PC feel like a console. If Valve expands verification across devices and releases a public SteamOS ISO, expect Linux usage to jump as people discover they can keep their hardware and skip the lock-in.

If the end of Windows 10 has you worried, take this as permission to try something different. Test Mint from a USB, keep your files safe, and see how it feels to actually own your OS again. Enjoy the episode, share it with someone sitting on “unsupported” hardware, and if this helped, subscribe, leave a comment and tell us your switch story—we’re reading every one.

Chapters

• 0:00 Windows 10’s Death And Fallout
• 3:35 Hardware Locks, TPM 2.0, And Costs
• 6:30 UX Gripes In Windows 11
• 10:05 Ads, Accounts, And The Walled Garden
• 14:40 Forced Updates And BitLocker Headaches
• 18:40 Security Risks Of Staying On Outdated OS
• 21:10 Enter Linux Mint: Why And How
• 26:00 Gaming On Linux: Proton, Wins, Limits
• 31:00 Modding Caveats And Anti‑Cheat Reality
• 34:40 Business Workflow On Mint
• 39:20 Installing Mint And Testing From USB
• 44:20 Drivers, NVIDIA vs AMD On Linux
• 49:30 Productivity Alternatives And PDF Tools
• 54:30 Don’t Trash Old PCs: Performance Talk
• 58:50 SteamOS, Deck, And Desktop Mode
• 1:02:05 The “Gabe Cube” Reveal And Specs
• 1:07:20 Could Valve Disrupt Xbox And PlayStation
• 1:12:00 Verification, Openness, And Market Impact
• 1:16:20 Predictions, ISOs, And Linux Adoption
• 1:20:40 Final Takeaways And Ways To Reach Us

Transcript

Cody: 0:01

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Tech and Tactile Podcast. Here with uh hopefully free of all bugs and uh corrupted files. As always, I'm Cody and I'm joined with Michael, my little brother. We're back. Yes, absolutely, and my God, I I uh there's so much to talk about, but I uh wanted to start this out with a question that was asked to us about what we think about the death of uh Windows 10. And quite honestly, I mean, it's a damn shame.

Michael: 0:37

I think that there are a lot of computers out there that honestly are like they they have the really good capabilities of being great computers, but the the motherboards that they come with just don't meet the requirements of Windows 11, I guess, because they don't have secure boot or something like it's like that doesn't the specifics that is on the motherboard hardware requirements for what Windows 11 does get wrong, unfortunately, is it requires a TPM of 2.0 or newer for its board with its um CPUs and such, which excluded millions of PCs from the market as soon as they dropped that as a stability point of Windows 11.

Cody: 1:21

Like, I don't know if Microsoft knows this, but like you know, offices at businesses and stuff like that don't get the bleeding edge of motherboards and shit like that. You know, you get your basic ass potato computers that can, you know, run your damn uh word processors and log into Slack or whatever else like people use um for their stuff. Like, you don't need you you basically just need little potato computers, you don't need something super powerful to do that, and like I don't know. It's really shitty of them. Not only is it really shitty of them, but they've been really messing up the whole process of uh you know uh keeping, I guess whatever it is, like the their little security updates that you can opt into. They broke that a few times, as far as I remember. They uh called DDoSes. Oh yeah. Oh my god, the DDoSes were insane. I mean, the death of Windows 10 has been handled as gracefully as a brick falling through a fucking skylight. Like it is I mean, it it's so bad. There's so many like uh I'll I I have uh we recently like you know, I was working on a computer with that uh I'd gotten a beast of a workstation with like like 32 gigs of RAM and all kinds of like bells and whistles put into it. It was like a laptop that was modulized uh to hell, like just so much good shit put into it. It just did not meet that requirement to upgrade to Windows 11. And this person thought that their computer was going to basically be scrapped and that they were gonna have to, you know, throw it into like you know, a wood chipper or whatever, just you know, bite the bullet and get a new new damn PC. And I introduced them to uh Linux Mint, and I mean they have a good they've they don't regret a thing anymore, and their computer basically is like a brand new machine, which I'd love to get into. But is there anything that you'd like to talk about Windows 10? Like you know, the death of it specifically? Because I know you have a lot more information out there, like and you're also in an IT class, so yeah, I'm sure you hear a lot more shit than I do.

Michael: 3:35

So the official um death date of Windows 10 as we know it was October 14th of this year, 2025. Really, honestly, it as far as Windows 10 as a kind of an OS stability standpoint versus how new Windows 11 is, is you really lose um you lose that decade era of a couple things. You you know, stability, flexibility, and it's kind of user-based with its user trust, because you gotta you gotta remember, Windows 10 has been around for um, you know, it had a decade of refinement, pretty much. Making it like, well, yes, it it didn't start out like as the top notch, but over over this decade that 10 had to be what it became at the end of its life cycle. It was a very yeah, it was a decade. I I I don't know what the exact um date-to-date is of Windows 10 off the top of my head, but it's it was well into a decade, if not a little bit more. Um I it was the one of their most reliable OSs as time went on because again, you had that user feedback, and that was just this continuous circle of being able to look at what people were running on and seeing how they could adapt that. And really, um kind of to use your brick falling through a Skylight analogy, they literally took this Windows 10 brick and everything that they kind of stood for on their foundation of their old OS and just threw it away like it was trash and started completely with what Windows 11 is now. Um the it again, there's so many issues that you can talk about for really for days, because again, you've got the hardware lockout for TPM 2.0 and the CPU restrictions that come with that, which cuts off those older machines that you know most Americans had, because you know, not everybody is able to go out to your nearest Best Buy or whatever and buy a $17 to $2,000 laptop or desktop, what have you. Because you you gotta remember, because like everything is what the user has to get into, and really with what Windows 11 kind of brought in as an approach, was kind of really like a I I guess for lack of a better word, you could call it a cash grab, because like not everyone had this, so I think Microsoft kind of realized that and they were like, oh, let's see how much more money we can get people to buy for surface our new surface laptops that have TPM 2.0. Because you you lose a lot of stuff. Probably uh I would say my first really big frustration when it came to I guess what Windows 11 got wrong that I first noticed is you have a reduced right-click menu. Used to before, when you right-clicked on Windows 10, every option would pop up on that thing. But now it's all it's like it's uh really I dunno I'm blanking on the word, but it's really kind of restricted, and you have to hit the show more options button on the right-click menu to see everything else, which I find really dumb because like you know, the removal of being able to like, you know, your right-click menu and your ability to like easily drag and drop stuff was just really bad. And kind of what I'll lead into with you as well to kind of speak on as well, that was really big, um, that we both noticed, um, especially like how me and you are always going around tinkering with stuff and helping people out with their odds and ends, was the fact that you know Microsoft is now forced having a Microsoft account sign in with no more locals.

Cody: 7:07

Yeah, that was really, really freaking annoying. And also just to touch one thing on like the price of computers. I mean, you know, if you wanted to get a basic ass Windows 11 laptop for your business or for like you know doing little things, you can get one for like you know $400 or whatever, like you know, you can go down to your local Best Buy. You it's not gonna cost you uh too much of an arm and a leg, but you know, I mean, uh unless you're going for something with gaming focus, but I mean, if you're just looking for stuff, like obviously you're gonna find stuff cheaper. So, like, whenever you're talking about your your huge prices and everything, it's not like you're gonna have to buy it's not gonna cost an arm and a leg to get a machine running 11. But the point is that the machine that you have, why the hell should this machine that you have, especially if you only use it for basic purposes, right? Like, why should it have to die because it doesn't meet just that one little requirement for your OS? It's kind of like the the great thing about Windows 10 that I'll get into before we talk about some of the odds and ends, is that thing could run on a potato. Like they had 32-bit versions, and I get 32-bit machines are basically like you know, they're they're not really being phased anymore. Like it's all about 64-based machines now, obviously, because I mean, like, who's gonna rock a 32-bit system in 2025? If you do, then I would really like to know. And please let yourself known because you're you know, you're a legend. Okay, if you're if you're still running on a 32-bit system, I need to I need to know like what you you you're probably doing some crazy shit out there, and I would love to see it. But uh yeah, Windows 10 could run on a potato and then it could run on a beast. Like it was a very very flexible, and it's really sad to see that go because Windows 11, you do need a little bit of requirements, and I think that they're just uh I don't think that Windows 11 should require what it needs to to run at all. But right back to what you're talking about with the Microsoft account, the forcing and no more local files. I mean, there's a there's so much that I hate about this, and one of the big things is it's it feels like you don't even own an OS whenever you purchase uh a license for Windows 11. It feels like you basically have one advertisement thing, like a big advertisement OS. Like you sign into your Microsoft account, and then everything you freaking do, you go to your start menu or you you like you know you look up things and you're just seeing fucking ads everywhere. I mean, it's ridiculous.

Michael: 9:30

How many times can you see a pop-up for Microsoft Office 365 suite in one OS?

Cody: 9:36

Take a drinking game. Every time you open up your thing, you know, and you see an ad for you know a Microsoft product or something or whatever the hell they're like you'll be fucking plastered.

Michael: 9:44

It's it's honestly it's like they took Windows 11 and they they forgot about the um they they forgot about the kind of standard of an OS and they turned it on to their personal billboard system.

Cody: 9:55

Not only that, they're also overly relying on AI. Yeah, yeah. AI is very controversial. Some people, you know, you got the camp that hates AI, and you got the people who love AI. I'm I'm firmly in the middle. I think AI can do some really wonderful things, but at the same time, I hate that we overly rely on AI.

Michael: 10:16

AI can be AI is an assistant for a reason.

Cody: 10:21

Yeah, like it's a good thing. AI, don't get me wrong, I'm gonna be on the firm believer that AI is a good thing. You know, people make little things about it, like it's bad for the environment, uh this and that, and like, you know, I'm not here to debate um what it takes to get AI to run and everything like that. But what I will say is when done right, AI is a great thing and it's a great tool that can help you, but it's also like you know, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Yeah, like I think it's overly used.

Michael: 10:53

Yeah, and really, really, when it comes to that, when you when you really think about how like Microsoft is taking their focus away from everything, kind of like on what they stood for with Windows 11, specifically, at least to me, um, and I know you would probably um you would have some stuff to add to this as well. It feels like a big philosophy shift because it feels like you know, well.

Cody: 11:22

It feels like the Microsoft that I grew up with when it comes to not only the PC space, but the gaming space as well, has just left this planet.

Michael: 11:35

It's like they've transformed into a walled garden that like really pushes their their branding and their services more than caring about their users and empowering how they can expand their community base to see how they can better adapt it, which is kind of where they've kind of gone wrong.

Cody: 11:51

Uh a walled garden is definitely yeah, what I would call it, especially with the forcing of the Microsoft accounts, no more local user data, advertising everything to the moon with you, uh pushing co-pilot. Native Microsoft store. Yeah, like don't get me wrong. Um, like you know, the like whenever you're using something like Linux, which we're gonna get into definitely in this episode, Linux has native stores built into their OSs. If you're on uh you know Mint, you've got you know uh Flat Pack or the Flat Hub or whatever I think it is, I think that's what they use. And then uh then uh Arch uses just flat packs. Like, you know, but the the cool thing about Linux is though they have their native stores that you can go to and install shit, you don't have to. You can go pull a fucking app image straight from the internet and slap that fucker onto your system, you don't have to use it. And the the same that's the same thing with Microsoft. You you they have their shit, you don't have to use it, but boy, do they not like it when you do that. I mean, if you download something that they don't trust, I mean you gotta go like they're like, Are you sure you want to open this? You gotta click more options, you gotta click allow anyway, and then you know.

Michael: 13:11

It's it's just really like you know really one thing I I want to highlight as well, kind of compared between 10 and 11, that I've I I can I know that you can um agree with me on this as well, that stood out immediately for both of us when we were t testing out the two, um, is how with Windows 10 and the earlier versions, well you had kind of a a lot more firm control ground with your OS and how you wanted to go about its um control panel. Yes, you'll we'll get into that as well. I'll let you talk about that. Um, but really the big thing between 10 and 11 when it comes to how the user can decide what it wants that it really kind of got rid of was its update control. Because, oh boy, the fact that Windows 11 does not give you any choice sometimes now about updates and what it updates and where it goes is ooh, that is it's not good because we we'll talk about this as well because there's been a lot of uh updates in the recent with Windows 11 that have caused some some major oopsies on Microsoft's part um to kind of propose that up.

Cody: 14:22

Like, how many times have you been on your work computer at your business or like you know, wherever you're at? And then you're like, hang on, guys, I need to uh restart my computer uh for something, something's not going right, and then you restart your computer, and then you gotta wait for a million fucking updates, and then your boss comes to you, and they're like, Hey, uh, what's going on? You're like, oh, sorry, sir. Uh, you see this? Uh I'm on update one of fucking 15. You know, it's taking its sweet answer.

Michael: 14:46

One of 200, yeah.

Cody: 14:48

Yeah, like it's happened to me several times, and yeah, it's it's not a good time, like yeah, especially oh my god.

Michael: 15:00

You remember what happened with uh the whole bitlocker charade? That was bad.

Cody: 15:05

Holy shit, that bitlocker charade was so fucked. Yep. I mean, like, this is what I tell b like I would love to tell businesses, and you you may say nay to this, but I'm going to even defend Apple on some regards. Don't like it's great to use different computers for things. Like Mac has its strengths and weaknesses, so does Linux, so does Windows. Yep. I don't think businesses should just solely rely on one sole company. Yeah, I like I I've seen a few businesses that use Macs uh for their stuff, and when it comes to like editing software and shit like that, uh Macs are really fucking good. I mean, like, I don't know if you've used uh I oh like I think it's Final Cut or they they have like some programs on there, but like they have some great video editing software, I've heard. I I haven't had a personal Mac since 2009 for myself, but uh they're their own walled garden and they have their own fucking issues that they're dealing with. I mean, they they're just as walled as Microsoft, but I will take anything over just an over-reliance on Windows because whenever you get like a big dick like Microsoft and you think you can swing it around, it means that you can get away with a lot more egregious shit. And I mean, I don't know. I'm I'm I wish businesses would just give other uh OSs a chance for their uh users instead of getting locked out of all your shit with BitLocker.

Michael: 16:37

Yeah, ca because think about it this way like how would you feel if you were just the everyday average Joe and you were prompted as a forest cumulative update, especially if you had like you know an Intel-based system where if you had that updated, that you would boot your um system into BitLocker recovery mode and it would keep asking you for the recovery key, though no hardware changes were made, and then it blocked normal startup because it thought that you were in lockdown mode the entire time because of the update, and you didn't do anything, you just turned your computer on for the day and it update it Windows had updated overnight and you didn't realize it, then now you're just sitting there like, Well, what do I do now?

Cody: 17:17

Dude, if you get locked out of like with BitLocker and you can't like fucking oh my god, but like BitLocker could seriously fuck your shit. Unless you're in a business, you don't really use BitLocker, thankfully. Like the average user isn't gonna fuck with BitLocker, but for businesses, I could the headaches that I heard, the stories that I heard were insane. Yeah, I mean, just absolutely terrible. But yeah, uh Windows 10, it's gone. Yeah, and um, though you can still opt into security updates with it, that has its own problems as it is already.

Michael: 17:59

Yeah, like one thing I'll touch on uh now to kind of do a little bit of a resegment. Um, I don't know if you remember back past, I believe it was August October time frame when they had that one bug that was in, I believe it was 24 H2 or 25 H2, I can't remember the number. But where that even though users would like if they opened Task Manager, how it would like close but not close in the background, so you would have Task Manager pulling your resource views that would be pulling more resources without you realizing it, and then you'd be wondering why you why why your CPU or your memory would be throttled at 90% and you weren't even doing anything.

Cody: 18:38

I think that was uh I think that was a beta update that uh thankfully I don't know if that was in the main build, um, but it was still a problem that they had.

Michael: 18:46

Yeah. Um Windows and its glorious resources and its over-reliance and kind of over kind of advertisement, if you will, on its uh bloatware and how much we hate that. Yeah.

Cody: 19:07

Like this is something that I have uh I'm gonna preach about Linux to the cows come home, but when you get a fucking computer from like Best Buy or somewhere, you know, from where wherever you purchase your local hardware, what's the first thing your ass probably takes off of that computer? All the startup apps? That yeah, like all the startup apps that come with it, like McAfee is probably one of them. Like every time you get a damn Windows machine, the blueware that it comes with is insane.

Michael: 19:43

Yes. I just there's so much on there, and I oh like why would you want like why would you want the Microsoft store? You you just bought this laptop for work purposes. Why in the world would you immediately open TikTok, Candy Crush, Spotify, dumb things like that? Like, what what purpose does that have being pre-installed unless the user specifically requests it just to be like, oh, I wonder why my storage is full. Let me go see what's already installed, and then you see these 50 things that you don't use ever and you have no idea why they're there.

Cody: 20:17

Exactly. Like, it's just it's unnecessary. There's just so much that it can be. So honestly, I don't know how much more I have to say about like that besides I could I could go on a tangent and bitch about Windows for uh time and time again. And the only reason why I bitch about it is because I love Windows. It's a contrary to the belief of me switching to Linux and becoming like you know a penguin bro or anything like that. Penguin line. I grew up with Windows. I used Windows since I was old enough to understand how to use a computer. I was on Windows, it's a part of me, and honestly, I hate what Windows has become. Yeah, and that is why I can bitch about all of this. I don't bitch about it because I just hating blindly to hate it.

Michael: 21:13

It's become a branded marketing front at this point.

Cody: 21:17

Well, I mean it's Microsoft, it's always been like Microsoft is Microsoft, but like like I said, Windows has not been perfect uh over the course of you know me because the the first time I used Windows, I used Windows 95. Yep. And then you know, like I went from nine, I I used all the iterations that you could think of. And you know, ninety-five, good, ninety-eight shit. 2000, pretty shit. XP, godlike. Vista, hate it. 7, loved it. 8, all of 8. I don't care. It doesn't matter, hate it at all. And then 10, really awesome. Yep. So like Windows has its moments of being ridiculously good, and then it has its moments of being ridiculously bad.

Michael: 22:01

I believe my first my first run in with Windows way, way back in the day, especially on that old laptop that I had ZES on it. Um Vista.

Cody: 22:11

Yeah, Vista.

Michael: 22:12

It was Vista, yeah. Yeah.

Cody: 22:15

Um it was more than less uh Vista. And but yeah, so like I've used uh Windows for so long to know when it has been good, when it has been bad, and this is different. This isn't just that oh shit, Microsoft made another uh, you know, shit Windows like they did, you know, before Windows 10. Oh my god. No, this is a little more egregious. It feels like not only has Windows kind of it's like it's losing its soul.

Michael: 22:46

Yeah, it's losing its population base.

Cody: 22:50

It it's also it feels a dishonest.

Michael: 22:53

Yeah. Because it feels very secretive because they're hiding a lot of shit.

Cody: 22:57

Yeah, like the death of Windows 10 uh is n it's it's an eye-opener because now so many computers without people knowing what they're you know, uh people are just they all they know is that they can't use Windows like they could. I mean, they could, but there's two things that's gonna happen. The people aren't gonna care, and they're just gonna continue to use an outdated OS, and their can their computers eventually get compromised with all kinds of shit on the internet because uh you don't have to go to shady websites to get your computer compromised. If your computer is not up to date with its security software, all it would take is someone gaining access to your network and then the machines on your network, and they can run any kind of code they want.

Michael: 23:47

Yep, there are so many different versions of OS backdoors that have lost support, it's ridiculous.

Cody: 23:53

Yeah, so like just because you might be thinking to yourself, I don't go to shady websites, it doesn't matter. Uh, I would I'll reference there's a video that I watched of somebody connecting Windows XP to the internet, and they only connected it for a few minutes, and there was already someone from Russia basically trying to use their computer for like a botnet, I think. Yeah, as a botnet. Yeah, uh, I'll have to pull that. It was a very it was an awesome video, but um yeah, uh like there there will be people who will do that, yeah. Like the and then there will be people who will uh inevitably scrap their computer for parts and upgrade, which is fine. You know, if they feel like it's time for them to upgrade their computer and everything like that, but some people will do it reluctantly because they don't want to upgrade, but they feel like they don't have a choice to, and that's the wrong thing. That's the part that really, really just makes me sad because oh, there's a lot of really good computers out there, and they're all either gonna be scrapped, trashed, or like not used because people think, oh well, Windows is d dead, or when I can't go to Windows 11, I can't use this machine anymore. And that's when I want to get into this next segment, because uh I have been I have switched to Linux Mint and I have been using it for six months now. Yep. Uh as my main OS. You know, I th we made a video whenever we first launched into it because you know, oh my god, we had to talk about Linux and how awesome it is, and you know, all that kind of cool stuff. And that that did pretty well for us. Uh but now we've had literally six months of using it, and um like this computer uh that couldn't run Windows 11 uh has seen so much action uh and I've gotten so much done with it that it's just ridiculous.

Michael: 25:50

Like over the last six months, me and you probably have dived down the terminal rabbit hole for um you know every little tiny issue that we ever ran into, probably well over a couple hundred times. Because we're always in the terminal.

Cody: 26:04

I I might pull up my terminal backlog. Like I think I think there's like a there's a thing that you can look at where you can look at all your past uh commands and just see all the shit that we did just for shits and giggles.

Michael: 26:15

Yeah, I'm not sure how far back that would go though.

Cody: 26:17

Uh we'll find that out. But Linux Mint is something that I'm going to suggest to anyone. I've said it before uh all those months ago, but I'll say it again. For those of you who are trying to get into a new operating system, and you don't want to get rid of your computers, you don't want to upgrade your stuff, you just use your computer for basic everyday needs. Maybe not necessarily like you know, like the top of the line stuff, or maybe you do do top of the line stuff, but you just don't have the motherboard requirements for some reason. Yep. Um Linux Mint. You can go to their uh website. The version that I will recommend is called Cinnamon. It has the most software installed on it, but the software basically will give you everything that you need to have a uh stable and uh easy experience if from switching from Windows.

Michael: 27:14

Yes, Libra Office is godlike.

Cody: 27:18

Yes, uh so we have two aspects of uh people who've stuck with Linux for six months. I have used it in a casual gaming kind of sense, uh casual OS and gaming kind of sense, and Michael has used it for purely business.

Michael: 27:34

Yeah, uh mostly mostly business and system tweaking.

Cody: 27:38

Right. So we do have two sides of a coin that we can talk about whenever it comes to how mint has been for both of us and how easy it was to switch from mint to from being a basic user of Windows for like all of my life. Yeah, actually, Michael still uses Windows 11 on his main rig, and he uses Mint. So, like, you know, you can compare how using Windows to Mint is and how much uh how easy it was to get in there because I have not used Windows uh 11. I went from 10 to uh Mint because I I didn't meet the requirements for 11, right? So I didn't get to mess with it.

Michael: 28:20

I went to I went to Linux Mint initially because of a whole different reason that is covered in the old video because of uh you know, the lovely thing of Windows where it stores so many temporary files it kills itself.

Cody: 28:34

Right. As a refresher, Michael lost so much of his work one day. And uh yeah, Windows essentially killed itself with all of its temporary log files that it had.

Michael: 28:47

I had to go into PowerShell and um kind of scrub it to re be able to reboot to then put everything in the cloud to switch. It took me a couple hours, probably about three or four, but once I was able to go through terminal and PowerShell to um clean out the system for the specific files that were corrupted. After I got that done out of my um temp folder, I was good to go. And then I'm like, you know what? No more, I ain't doing this, and I've switched over fully to mint that night.

Cody: 29:12

Yeah, I know. I was the funniest thing. I was there for the install. Yes, you were glorious. Oh my god. But yeah, um I uh so I guess I'll go in a f in a sense because mine will be a lot less detailed than yours. As somebody who has been casually, as casually as possible, using this OS for six months. I went in with the sole purpose of I don't really want to use terminal that much. I just want to treat this basically like I was on Windows. And for the most part, you absolutely can. You don't have to. But the cool thing about going into Linux is you learn I mean you will learn and you'll learn with your computer and uh it it doesn't treat you like a moron no it it definitely it it doesn't hold your hand either no it doesn't but it definitely like after a while you'll start using the terminal you won't be typing lines hundreds of code lines into your fucking terminal like some kind of programmer like you know from the movie VS code is for yeah but like like say for an example I wanted to uh install a random program that I couldn't find on the app store on Linux I would google this program and then it would tell me the command to type into terminal to install it on my system I would just copy and paste it in terminal github directories are amazing with mint. Yep yep I would just copy and paste the install script into terminal and then you know type in my password and then that it that's basically the extent of terminal that I would use just uh look for something on GitHub copy and paste it in there or I would a random every now and then pseudo apt update just to update everything on my uh machine.

Michael: 31:10

Don't forget you did do some file configging as well in terminal for text-based editing.

Cody: 31:16

Yes I did. Um but the key thing is it's all optional you don't have to for the casualist of casual users you don't need to open terminal it for the most part ninety percent of the time if you are just using it in a sense of word processing uh internet browsing or just you know your casual everyday uh PC use you won't have to touch terminal at all and if you do but uh eventually you may end up wanting to because they give you more options than Windows could but the option like is to not use terminal like it if you want the option it's there and for this specific OS you don't have to uh so for people who think that Linux is this scary thing I've probably said this before in my other video it's not it's not for the past six for the past six months I have barely had to use terminal for anything that I really needed I've only used terminal because I've been curious and I've been learning new things and it's been really fun to do together it has been it has been a lot of fun so for anyone who is casually thinking well I don't know what to do uh with my old computer with Windows 10 Cinnamon is perfect for you for the casual experience um as for being a gamer I have been using Steam I have uh downloaded other launchers like the heroic game launcher or Lutris which is an all-in-one game launcher that lets you use epic games steam geo g etc etc and you can just pull all your library into one cohesive little uh launcher and play your games that way and it works it just absolutely works thanks to Steam uh which we're gonna get into later on in this episode I've got so much to say about Steam Steam with its Proton uh yes tool oh proton layers proton is a compatibility layer that takes Windows language and basically makes it readable on Linux so you can play your entire Steam library with no problem on uh Linux. Now being a gamer you do if you're playing this you know looking to play games on Mint the only caveat with playing video games and I've probably said this before you know but now I've had some serious experience with it is any video game that has a serious anti-cheat installed is unfortunately not playable on Linux yet. I mean there are there are people if you know what you're doing there's probably workarounds and stuff like that that you could probably do. You could probably run a virtual machine or something like that but for the casual everyday user if you're playing a lot of multiplayer games with the boys like you know if you're playing your Call of Duties or your battlefields or you know your Rainbow Six Sieges or GTA 5 now unfortunately yeah you're not going to be able to play that through Linux. So if that is a problem for you then honestly I don't blame you. Um there's not much that can be done I've heard that there are programs out there that are coming out like Windboat that lets you do things I I've not messed with it but uh there are programs on that we'll have to see how that turns out and then um we we may or may not report on that depending on what we find. Yeah it's something else to look into but like I said uh like I've been saying that's about the worst downside of being a gamer on Linux. Yeah multiplayer anti-cheat games are a no go and until companies seem to want to give more of a shit um it's probably the biggest hurdle about joining the Linux club when it comes to gaming.

Michael: 35:19

The other thing that I'll the the other thing I will uh interject with that um because I I know that you've you've had me call then a few times to help you with a few different cases. The other point of kind of gaming on mint specifically again because of the difference in kind of OS structure nature with how it you know operates is all of the games that handle like either modding differently or things like EXE injections.

Cody: 35:44

Yes if you are a modder in your PC games then uh mint is going to be a problem. You can do it. If you're just doing like you know the basic ass mods where you go into your game folder and you just copy and replace files like you normally would do if you then you know you're fine. But if you gotta do like you know uh mod launchers and shit like that unless there's a native Linux port which some of them do have native Linux ports. You have to do some hunting and some configurations for there there are a select few that do have those but as far as the the general populace it is few and far between yeah that's also the biggest other contentious uh uh thing about using mint modding your games is hit or miss it's iffy yep uh but that's only for the gamers you know for your casual everyday users you know you're not gonna worry about like what what I'm saying is just completely like bogus like you that doesn't mean anything to you which is why I'd like you to talk about the business aspect of using mint uh you know switching from one final note I will add on to the end of that with modding and um kind of all that it really can come down to um things like how devs develop their and build their um their system or their app or their mod and how you know they make their native file structure. A really big example of how like their different um incompatibilities with different OS that I would like to bring up because I know that we can speak on this um briefly um is Arch Linux and the debacle between Duckstation that happened because of how the developer was not willing to migrate its file structure to be accommodating to um Arch and all the Arch bros out there so he decided it would be better to walk away than to fight the demon yeah uh for the casual people who don't understand any of this just know that every community has its toxicity like toxic side you know every gaming community has its toxic uh side whenever it comes to different games uh Linux is no different uh some people view themselves as better because of the OS that they use and that's you know that's just how the world works in some cases but uh and I'm probably you know even uh me and you are probably gonna get some serious shit from Archbros. But I will die on this absolute hill for people who are coming from Windows and do not want to go to Windows 11 because either they don't like what Windows 11 is doing I will say it till the cows come home till the moon falls from the sky Major's mask style cinnamon is the best OS to start with if you're getting into it. If you are like wanting the closest thing to how Windows like oh the closest thing to a Windows experience then cinnamon is your best bet. I will defend that adamantly and these past six months have been the less stressful I've ever had like I've never dealt with severe crashes I've never dealt with blue screens I've never dealt with like fatal error this or that and if I did have something crash on me to the point where it was hanging I would control alt T to bring up terminal and then I would type in X kill. Oh that that glorious command Yep I would type in X kill hit enter and then click on the son of a bitch that wasn't responding on my computer and nuke it from my fucking files Yeah that's a simple power to smite your own OS is glorious. Yep you can literally type in a command and anything you click dies. Yep there there was that one time as well where we had a uh a flat pack on an Arch device that was fun to learn how to fix that that would be a funny little thing to bring up in an uh future Linux episode because there's different file structures and everything for now just the average experience for people I'll reiterate it. Don't be afraid to switch to Linux mint cinnamon. Don't be afraid to uh at all and if you're a gamer especially oh boy uh do I have some serious cool shit because like we we've Steam has been a forefront on to getting people into Linux gaming. It started with a Steam machine like twenty sixteen and it failed to give them credit. It flopped like a fish and then a few years later and like you know after the COVID times they launched the Steam Deck and they they struck gold because um now the handheld era became upon us yeah the handheld era started booming and now they re launched their Steam machine and we just saw the announcement today and holy fucking hell it the Steam machine running SteamOS a lot more people will probably be using Lyx and they probably won't even know it just because you know they want that console like PC experience and Valve is selling it to everyone now. Uh we don't call it the Steam Machine though we're gonna call it the Gabe Cube. That's we're we're gonna call it that because anyone who uses Steam just knows of Lord Gabin. And uh yeah we're not gonna yeah it's called the Gabe Cube. I don't care what anyone says yes the good old Gabe Cube. Uh but yeah I'm gonna uh is there anything uh before we talk about the Steam machine because I wanted to jump into that I wanted you to basically you know comment on how Mint has been for you because as in a sense of using it as a work machine.

Michael: 41:49

Yes. So I primarily use Linux Mint Cinnamon on my everyday laptop that I I bring everywhere with me for my classes, my work, everything that I do that's not on my primary work from home workstation. Just uh a couple of points I'll touch on because again we covered a lot of this in previous episodes. Um with uh the big thing and I know um you've seen this firsthand as well when it comes to the the first literal installation difference of Mint in Linux versus something like Windows is the cost savings. Because you ain't gotta pay a hundred dollars for that key no sir you just gotta go download it. Because guess what it's free open source no licensing fees for life because that is what they stand on and it is wonderful.

Cody: 42:40

You pay for your Windows keys you peasant I have a support the official release guys I I'm serious don't don't do that nah spend a hundred dollars on Microsoft's Windows keys or actually don't do that.

Michael: 42:58

When they came up with the difference of Windows for like you know home office and business keys just for the price difference it just baffles me. But yeah that's the the first point that I wanted to speak on was the fact that you can install and switch to Linux at any point for completely free.

Cody: 43:15

Yeah actually isn't there a way to test out and try Linux for yourself on your Windows machine without using a VM yes like there's a way for you to actually like you know before you make the big plunge and nuke your system.

Michael: 43:31

So what we did we did that with your rig when we were first seeing how kind of to test the waters with yours when we brought it home. So all you do again outside of you know running a virtual machine or having dual boot if you have the space for dual booting um would just be to get you a handy dandy little flash drive that is at least 8 gigabytes if not 16 or whatever you have lying around that is at least 8 gigs. You stick that thing in your computer you go to Linux Mint you download the latest file for Mint Cinnamon for whatever version it is at the time you boot that thing you you use either um like a a uh a USB etcher something like Belinda etcher to flash the file to the USB drive itself once you stick it in that becomes a bootable drive at that point which will then be able to boot um the Linux Mint ISO image to your computer from the flash drive um once you go into BIOS and switch over your boot device to the USB drive to USB drive to be first instead of your onboard um memory that has your OS and then once it boots into the Linux OS from there you'll be able you'll have I believe it's two or three options I'm again not going to go into into detail because we've done this before but you'll have basically two options that you'll see either go ahead and wipe your system completely install it and exit the flash drive or the second one being do a test drive mess around and mint as much as you want for as long as you want you have full complete rain within the within the uh aspects of course of however much storage is on that USB drive because it'll take into account that as well if you're actually going to put stuff on it while you're testing it. And then as soon as you're done you could exit the tests it'll wipe everything that you did in that virtual play session metaphorically out and then from there it'll g bring you back to that main menu saying hey you've tested it now would you like to install it and wipe all your stuff if you're ready to go yeah um I mean it's pretty straightforward honestly and the scariest part is the switch.

Cody: 45:37

Yes but once you get that done it you it'll be like riding a bike you'll everything that you've done on a Windows machine is readily right there for you and I mean uh you don't have to pay for anything like do you like Microsoft 365 well well there's a free besides you know using Google Docs if you're that kind of person you can also use their free you can use LibreOffice which is amazing.

Michael: 46:07

That's that's another thing that I that was one of my points ironically with um the use of mint like you know once you install the OS well yes it it will take some time to go over from the USB drive to the system itself because you got to remember while it's flashing from the USB drive it's working with whatever power that USB drive has in it to push to the system. So depending on how good of a flash drive you've had it can take five minutes or it can take maybe an hour depending on you know what what the USB drive is working with. But once you once you have you know mint installed you've made your local account you've set your password yes you heard me correctly you've set your local account once you do that you have complete control over kind of everything from stability support and security so um again not going to go into too much detail here as we've done most of this before it's built primarily off of the Ubuntu LTS um kind of framework for Linux which you know has very much long-term support and very much predecessor um update cycles for its lifespan and it's um all the devs that work behind the scene for you know kernel updates and stuff like that um and it's a lot more less uh I will say in terms of updates um with how it goes about it because it's not disruptive like Windows is you have a little shield icon in your tray that is your update manager and it'll be it'll show you a little red icon that'll be like hey you have updates and you can choose to click it look at what those updates are and choose to update them now update them later or only choose which updates from that list it shows you to update or not update or get rid of completely you have complete and total update control.

Cody: 47:48

And if you want to be that person that just says update for me automatically I mean like like Windows does you absolutely can this OS is fully customizable to do the things that you want it to do. There might be some limitations here and there and there might be some things that people might not use but like in a sense of the casual user which is you know me I am no fucking computer absolute whiz I can get around an OS or two um but like for the casual user this is just really handy to use and I've been these past six months have been just amazing as being a casual just being a casual gamer you know switching to PC and everything like that. I've had no problems with Steam I've played everything that I've ever wanted um and used all the emulators I mean I'm you know and they work just as good if not better on Linux just because of uh just how the file structure is and everything like that system compatibility as a whole yeah it has been uh honestly just so much fun learning a new operating system and that's the cool thing about it you know i i I might be a broken record everything that I've said really hasn't changed from before uh the only real big issue that I run into is I have an NVIDIA graphics card yep uh and NVIDIA is not the biggest like Linux and NVIDIA can get along but not very well I deal with a lot of uh and I don't know if it's just because I'm using an older card or whatnot but I deal with some frequent audio stuttering or issues um and they're very isolated and that's about the only real problem that I've ever had uh is just slight inconsistencies with my uh with my sound effects.

Michael: 49:52

Yeah I will say as well because I'm I remember again you you had kind of conferenced me in on one little issue that we had tested and kind of found the source of the issue as well that came from your initial um your uh graphics card um driver that it was using while you were using the proprietary it will mess up different app services as well because I know for our fun fact the primary system one that we use mostly for a lot of our work between the two of us for this channel Discord um with the things like that streaming um API and stuff that it uses for kind of collaboration efforts when you're streaming on mint with like the proprietary NVIDIA driver at least with the version of it that you know supports Cody's card this at least in our case again um it has this weird ghosting effect um that happens when you're on the native driver where basically if you're not sh isolating what you're showing to just that screen but if you're showing your whole desktop as a whole it gets all pixely and like if you have a bunch of windows open or any like tabs whatever it is it ghosts and you can see like the either the windows behind each other through each other and it also does this weird thing where you can see the desktop icons through the windows occasionally while you're watching the streams and stuff like that which once we switch over to like the lesser um compati well not lesser compatible but like lesser um performance focused um open source driver that it fixed a lot of those issues with compatibility with discord which was really nice while also sadly sacrificing some system performance because of the inconsistent um kind of you know collaboration between the system and the driver itself yeah so NVIDIA graphics cards with Linux uh is it the best thing if you were uh I would recommend having an AMD based yes graphics card because AMD uh is built a little horizon is always a good pair they're actually built straight into Linux like a lot of the like it's just built into the kernel as far as I know um but not everyone will have it some people will have Nvidia cards and that's fine uh it just because you have an NVIDIA card doesn't mean Linux is gonna be a pain in the ass for you it just means that you might you'll have to do a little bit of manual stuff like manually installing your own graphics driver or anything like that.

Cody: 52:17

You will have to do that but um it's not that hard. On Mint you literally open your driver manager and look. Yeah it gives you a few options to choose from yeah and you can just straight go from there and it's automatic. So it's not too much of a hassle but it is there. But yeah what all how do you uh how do you go about using mint for yourself?

Michael: 52:45

So um that kind of segments into the next point that I was gonna kind of speak on which was kind of the business software ecosystem that Mint kind of has natively with um its store and what it like kind of not really pushes but it like is very open about what it has and what it offers. The LibreOffice suite which is basically um the mint version of the Microsoft Office suite but a hundred times better because it's all again open source free constantly updated there's no wool over your eyes it's all there you can see exactly what's happening in real time change logs all of that um you can either do uh it's a there's a fun little app I don't use it too much but there's something called Thunderbird I believe as well that can like take all your like email inboxes and make it all into one streamlined thing to where like if you have like a whole bunch of different inboxes for like you know Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail and like you know all of those and it can kind of containerize everything into one place which is nice then you have our um me and Cody's um preferred um search engine that we use with Mint which is Firefox which is a lot better than Chrome and also has some drawbacks in some ways when it comes to a few things but other than that uh we do prefer at least be Firefox over um Google Chrome any day of the week because we all know how much RAM Google Chrome eats and no one likes that because that's bad. Anything like that, you know it's it has a lot of productivity stuff that has a native um there's a lot of native like photo editing tools there's even a native um kind of like Adobe Photoshop and then there's a native Linux Mint version of like um Sony Vegas for video editing we've actually used that to edit it a majority of the videos on this channel. Fun fact that's how we did our Switch 2 unboxing video was all done through the Mint editor there which was really fun to learn with that video. Go check it out if you haven't um the other thing um I will say as far as the software ecosystem that a lot of new users might want to kind of consider it for with its use and kind of like the the the uh the the path the bridge over um you might be familiar with how Microsoft works and a lot of its like how Office PowerPoint and stuff like that work and how Microsoft is very kind of picky about what works what it works with and stuff like that. If you have um kind of for say at least the one that I was brought to my attention that um I had to figure out how to find the alternative for um would be Adobe Photoshop. Any of the Adobe products will not work like natively at all. Well yes um if you have Microsoft stuff or Adobe stuff that is Microsoft centered with its OS use you can use the web version of the different apps if you really want to while yes that'll eat your resources a little bit more because of the tabs and stuff. Again you can switch to the Linux versions for Libre which give you a lot more open control. One thing that I found that I liked a lot compared to um again I'm not sure the Adobe name but I like the Adobe reader with PDFs is the PDF editor within Mint completely free and you're able to edit a PDF on the fly and you can change it right then and there without having to make another copy you can just edit from the source file in any way you want you're not forced to make a copy or start a new one in a different file type like Microsoft does for a lot of stuff it's very um kind of very open-ended with what it does. It shows you exactly what it's doing it gives you a full change log and basically any productivity tool that you would have used within the Microsoft ecosystem there is a Linux alternative within the um leadray space 99% of the time unless you're using something hyper specific that's like a third party thing but it's it's very approachable and it's a lot of one-to-one you just have to switch over to the um the software itself and then get used to the layouts because the layouts will not be at least not initially look the same as the Microsoft layouts. Well yes again you can use the web versions of these Windows based Microsoft things you can also you know if if you're technical enough you can use something like Wine through Linux to still use the Windows kind of things but I wouldn't recommend you do that as you do have the native alternatives there within the ecosystem.

Cody: 57:19

That also and uh well besides wine we have a program that's not fully in 1.0 called Winboat that's coming out that lets you uh probably do a lot more things with dot native uh Windows applications that we'll probably be able to get into uh later once uh we learn more about that I've never used the program and uh yeah uh so there might actually if you still want to use all of your native Windows programs you might be able to you already have wine which is a compatibility uh layer for uh Linux that basically converts Windows code into or Windows language into uh Linux language and let's uh you you know run stuff like that so like the we've always had a tool like that but windboat is seeming it looks like it's gonna be like that but on crack right and uh yeah as Linux gets more and more mainstream we might see more and more Windows tools convert over to Linux right which is something that I want to talk about because it looks like Linux is becoming more and more mainstream thanks to Steam. I mean was pushing it they tried to push it uh ten years ago with the Steam machine and failed they broke everything like they broke the bank with uh the Steam Deck with SteamOS and now they have their native console that is also a PC coming out next year that is also going to be rocking SteamOS and I cannot wait to see how much the user base for Linux will grow when that launches because uh thanks to the Steam Deck three percent of people play video games on Linux. Yes might not seem that much worldwide of like what eight billion people Yeah that doesn't seem like a lot because Windows still takes up like the majority it's like you know what seventy percent or whatever um but it's it's growing and with this console launching we might see that three percent launch into something even higher. Uh getting the double digits yeah absolutely I'd love to see it. But yeah I mean I think that's the last thing I really want to touch on after we wrap up everything with uh Linux Mint the key takeaway from it is and I'll just say the only thing I do use Linux Mint for is I literally just play video games on it. So I launch Steam and I launch Discord and I go into my file manager to put ROMs for my emulators in there or you know uh That's basically all I use it for. And it is super fucking simple. Never had an issue with uh anything video game-wise that I play with my single player ass RPGs or my emulated stuff. I those are the programs I use, and they are wonderful. They I don't have any issues whatsoever. And I I sound like a broken record when I say it, but it just it just as as the great God Howard would say, it just works. Yeah, it just works. Yeah. So don't be afraid.

Michael: 1:00:38

Yeah, please do not be afraid. It's it's so much fun.

Cody: 1:00:42

I would love, love for people who hear like, you know, listen to us rant about this shit. Well if you try out cinnamon, like tell us your story. Like if you like, I would love to know, hey, was it easy? What part of it was hard? Because the part that got me was the terminal. And the only reason why the terminal got me is because I was willing to learn it. You don't have to, like I've said, you don't really have to learn it. But if you do, I'd love to learn like I'd love to know how it was for you guys. Um, I would love to learn stories about people who are like, you know what, I'm sick of how my computer works. I want to do it this way. Right. Uh so anyone, like, tell us stories about how you switched over to and how it's been going for you in terms of being a gamer, in terms of being a casual PC user. Um now, when it comes to me being visually impaired, you know, getting a screen reader installed and everything like that, uh, it come there is one that natively comes, and we've had our issues with getting that installed, and that is probably the biggest issue for me being a blind person going into uh mint. There is a bit of a there is a bit of uh oopsy daisy going into it. And I'm still learning how to install stuff with screen uh open source screen readers and stuff.

Michael: 1:02:14

We've still got our um we've still got all the information and stuff that's on the way with the pipeline for all of our screen reader research, which should be it at some point in the future we'll have our screen reader rent that you'll be able to listen to.

Cody: 1:02:26

I would love to put out a video about installing and getting your screen reader configured for you know use in in different Linux environments. I would love to get that up and running, and it's not there yet. I could have had it, but quite frankly, I've been just I've been lazy, I've been slacking on it, and I really need to get on that kind of thing. But uh you know, that might be the next thing in the pipeline. Who knows? Someone quote me on that.

Michael: 1:02:57

Yep, for sure. One last thing that I will touch on for me and the kind of business IT um information technology student kind of zone that I'm in with um how I use Mint. I'll speak a little bit on the kind of technical perspective of the terminal, just real quick, again, just as a general overview, not going into too much crazy depth. So again, Linux Mint really shines when you you take a look at the terminal and how it really has that control layer of the OS compared to something like Windows. One, you have you know, just your overall usual package management that we were speaking on briefly before, um, just with you know how APTs work or you know the advanced package tool for installing or updating your software. Everything can be done in mint terminal mostly with maybe one or two little words or um segment scripts in one line, and all you gotta do is type in those three things and hit enter, and then you don't have to worry about it because usually those three things are a sudo apt update or sudo apt update and or uh sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade and then sudo apt install, which will keep your system completely up to date and current, and you won't have to do anything else outside of that if you don't want to. It's really again, it's it's simple, clean, effective, all one-line, really cool tool that you can use for package management because if you don't want to have to dive into it, you don't have to, which is nice.

Cody: 1:04:24

Um you still have the showed icon, you can still upgrade, yeah.

Michael: 1:04:28

Yeah, you can do it either way.

Cody: 1:04:31

Yeah, it's it's a very like I said, like it's broken record, it's basically broken record the podcast. Uh this has been entirely the easiest thing to switch to. Yes, if not better. And I'll just say it before I move on. Don't throw out your old PCs with Windows 10 on them. Don't do that. Just don't. If you if you uh just give it a chance. Put it on a flash drive. Put use Belinda Etcher. You know, there's there's YouTube videos out there. Maybe we can put out a YouTube tutorial uh for ease of access, but don't throw for the love of God, don't throw out your old hardware. If you don't want to upgrade, you don't have to. And let that be the final thing I say about mint. Yes. You can breathe new life into the oldest of machines that you have. I mean, this thing could run on a potato. Yep. I think I think uh what's the minimum four gigs of RAM that it requires or something?

Michael: 1:05:40

For the for the install? Yeah, the install is three, I believe.

Cody: 1:05:45

Okay. Like this thing can run on a potato.

Michael: 1:05:50

Yep.

Cody: 1:05:52

And so that means any of your older machines could probably run some form of mint.

Michael: 1:05:58

Yeah. Um one thing to kind of put that in perspective that I'll speak on is mint can run on a potato, basically. All the old systems is there's always there's there's watered down versions of mint that are even more watered down than you know, something like mint or cinnamon to like, you know, either bare bones or the like the the literal bare necessities that will make it the most light OS distribution you've ever seen. Um, really um one thing I'll speak on when you were talking about how the RAM utilization and stuff is you know, Linux can take something like you know, eight gigs of RAM and run circles around it all day long, given what you're trying to run on it. But if you look at something like Windows 11 today, it will take that 8 gigs of RAM and it will put it in a chokehold for the rest of its life until it burns to a crisp. Because if you don't have a system really with um at least 16 gigs of RAM running Windows 11, you're you're not gonna survive because Windows 11 is so so resource heavy, it's not even funny.

Cody: 1:07:00

Yeah, for sure. Um but yeah, just keep this in mind, guys. Don't throw out your old rigs, your machines, just yeah. Like take the plunge, take the chance, um you know, find flash drives, do what you gotta do. Um but everything is coming to speed that for Yeah. I cannot recommend it enough, and I will sing it to the cows come home. Mint is one of my favorite OSs that I have used. Yes. It's up there, and I don't know what could top it. So with that being said, in terms of uh the casual sense, that's all over with now. The something that has been really fucking oh my god, I have just I can't stop thinking about it. The new Steam machine that they launched, or the Gabe Cube. The Gabe Cube. Holy shit. This thing is a beast of a PC, and we don't even know the fucking price on the damn thing. No, we don't. The cool thing about it is it too runs Linux.

Michael: 1:08:20

Yes. It too runs SteamOS.

Cody: 1:08:24

It well, it does yeah, it doesn't run Cinnamon, it runs and it doesn't run uh Ubuntu, like so it but it runs Arch Linux, and it runs the uh yeah, Arch Linux is the base, SteamOS is what it runs, and for the desktop, it's a base of Arch Linux with a desktop environment of KDE Plasma. Which it still feels like a Windows experience, it's just a little different. Uh, I like the fact that you know if you you put your mouse in the top left-hand corner of the screen, and then it'll just like put all the windows that you have open like neatly in front of you, and then you can just like you know, drag your mouse to them and then click. Like it's it's a very uh it's a different experience, and it is honestly I've been using it for years with the Steve Deck, and it's it's awesome. That's all I gotta say. Imagine playing, imagine a desktop that you can, you know, mess around with, and then it literally has a gaming mode that turns your whole desktop environment into a console. Yep. Like there's just no other way to say it.

Michael: 1:09:34

That's that's probably one of the first impressions that I really liked about my time when I when I had my hands on with your Steam Deck when you first got it all those moons ago, was the fact that you can choose which mode it's in because you have those two distinct modes, of course, for you know, desktop mode, which is more like you know, work focused and more like you know configuration focused for everything behind the scenes that you you're not gonna look at. And then if you switch to um gaming mode, you just see Steam big picture mode with your library and everything that would be running the system and all of its technical you know know-how would be in the background, you wouldn't even notice it or see it for that matter. You would all see your library and your games, and all you would do is select what you want, launch it, and choose your controller profile if you have one set or different one set, and that would be it, and you would just be off to the races. And you can you can do all the background work and then not have to look at any of the background stuff once you've set it, which is really nice.

Cody: 1:10:29

Yep. So imagine whenever you go to Steam, if you guys use Steam Big Picture Mode on your desktops, uh that is what gaming mode looks like on Steam OS. So you will fit you will feel right at home if you do use it. And if you don't, well then uh I, you know, you don't have to. You could just straight up use the GabeCube as a full-on PC. Although I will say I like the gaming mode. Sometimes I just want that walled garden experience. It's where I'm cyclic. I don't feel like doing all the crazy computer shit today. I just want to load into my shit, play a video game. I don't want to have to do anything. And yeah, this thing is looking fantastic. I mean, it looks like a it looks like a Series X that got like chopped like down, like a bit of it shaved off of it or whatever. Yeah, so that's what it kind of reminds me of.

Michael: 1:11:22

It's it's a big boy six by six cube, pretty much. And you know, with this new um machine and it's like you know, little Amazon Alexa on crack looking self, you know, Valve is finally gonna be back in the living room. The new Steam machine, it's been announced for early 26 shipping. We don't know the price, we don't know when. That's all we know as far as the time frame. It isn't just you know a console. You gotta remember, this is a compact PC designed to bring your entire steam library to your TV, to your um, you know, your portable monitors, anywhere you want, because this thing is a cube, it's only six pounds, and you can bring it wherever you want, and you still have this tiny little thing that has all this power. And you know, when we break it down with the hardware and specs in a minute, you'll you'll kind of see what makes this hardware fundamentally different and why, and like, you know, how this is a really big step forward for a lot of the gaming community, because this could completely reshape how we know the you know the metaphorical landscape of how um hardware is going to be designed moving forward, if this really takes off as well as it's being you know received right now, at least online and the forums and stuff.

Cody: 1:12:35

It's funny because if this does take off, for anyone who I literally just spent like the past hour or so, you know, telling everyone, hey guys, switched to Miss Cinnamon, I swear to god it's good. Their first fucking experience with Linux is literally going to be Arch, which is cool and scary at the same fucking time if you're in the Linux community because of the Arch bros. You know, we know you're out there. Yes, we hear you, and we know how good Arch is, but we don't fucking care. Yep. But that aside, I mean, I love I do love SteamOS a lot. I mean, it is it is fucking awesome. And a lot of people are going to pick this up and not really know what the hell a Linux even is. They're literally gonna be like, what yeah, they're gonna be like, what the hell's a Linux? And they're gonna It's a penguin. It's yeah, it's a penguin. Isn't it? He he does things that Windows would never do.

Michael: 1:13:37

He does things in a very daring manner that no other penguin would dare to do.

Cody: 1:13:43

Yeah, by giving you free uh open source software that you don't have to pay for. But that being said, that that's that's the funny thing to me that I'm looking forward to. Like a lot of my friends who don't even know what the hell a Linux is is going to pick up this fucking console.

Michael: 1:14:03

There's a lot of people that don't even know what an operating system is.

Cody: 1:14:06

Yeah, and they'll be just straight up using Linux.

Michael: 1:14:09

Yep. That's that's good. Never used Android before?

Cody: 1:14:12

Congratulations, you use Linux. Yeah, exactly. Do you use Chrome OS? If you do, please take the nearest computer that runs that and throw it into your nearest dumpster, please.

Michael: 1:14:25

Oh, I remember your rant about that when you called me once you got back from his house. That was fun.

Cody: 1:14:30

Yeah, uh fuck Chrome OS. But yeah, I mean, holy crap, how long have I been ran running in circles like a goldfish talking about how good Linux is?

Michael: 1:14:42

It doesn't matter. Let's get into the new um this new ecosystem and features, sir. Anyway, so the Steam Machine. First thing you see on the site when you look at it, it is claiming to have six times the horsepower of the Steam Deck supporting 4K gameplay at 60 FPS. Revolutionary.

Cody: 1:15:02

We'll see that. We'll see about that.

Michael: 1:15:04

We'll see. So again, we have kind of this tiny little six by six cube. Um, if y'all don't have the images in front of you, just imagine an Amazon Alexa but massive, or a Xbox Series X kind of cut in half a little bit. Um kind of just to briefly go over the hardware and specs just to kind of put it on the playing field so everyone knows what we're working with. Again, um just gonna say this to have it out there. The CPU, it's a semi-custom AMD Zen 4 with six uh six cores, 12 threads up to 4.8 gigahertz at 30 watt or 30 watt TDP for the CPU itself. GPU, it's a AMD RDNA3 28CU up to 2.45 gigahertz with a sustained clock that does not um waver under a up to 100 110 watt TDP with 16 gigs of DDR5 onboard system RAM with 8 gigs of GDDR6 VRAM, as well as having two main storage models of one being 512 SSD MVME and a two-terabyte SSD MVME capable with also the additional expansion of the micro SD card slot that will be on the front of the system itself next to the power button.

Cody: 1:16:23

And the cool thing that I did know about the micro SD slot, uh for those of you who have a Steam Deck, um, if you have games saved to your micro SD card, you can literally transfer them from your deck to your PC and they'll work right off the box. They did tell they did yeah, same OS, same everything. It is that is an awesome feature. I love that. So you can take your games from the Steam Deck and just straight put them on your PC. Uh like that's a that's an amazing feature. Also, uh for any other programs that you have on there, uh but yeah, this thing, I gotta tell you, I don't know how well it's gonna do. It was just announced. We don't even have a price point for this thing yet. But if this thing takes off, I think Xbox and Sony are in trouble. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. My controversial take for this episode, besides uh besides Cinnamon being better than Arch, I'll fight you, Arch Bros.

unknown: 1:17:26

Yes.

Cody: 1:17:27

Although uh ironically, I will be an Archbro with this damn machine because I'm getting one. But if this is a modified Arch, okay?

Michael: 1:17:34

It doesn't count. It's it's the Gabe OS. We're we're fine as long as we stay with Gabe. Gabe will protect us.

Cody: 1:17:40

Of course, Lord Gabin will never steer us wrong. But like in all honesty, uh if this thing does take off, I think Xbox and Sony are in trouble. Uh Nintendo is fine. They they they they've been doing their own thing and they're getting a little bit more than a little bit of a few.

Michael: 1:17:58

They can continue to graze their pasture that they love to take their time in.

Cody: 1:18:02

Yep, they'll be fine. Nintendo is not in any kind of trouble. But think about this. Every Xbox game is on PC, practically. Yep. Every Sony game is coming to PC or will be on PC.

Michael: 1:18:16

Theoretically, via this leak that we've seen going around the internet. Not confirmed yet, but it has highly been seen around the internet over the last couple weeks.

Cody: 1:18:25

And I know what people might be saying, all right, Mr. Smart Guy, but can you play Bloodborne on your PC? And to Matt, I will respond with not legally, but yes.

Michael: 1:18:36

Our favorite catchphrase.

Cody: 1:18:39

Yes, exactly. But I mean honestly, i like like I said, if this thing kicks off and does well, I don't I don't see any viable reason to buy an Xbox or a PlayStation because you're buying a walled garden.

Michael: 1:18:59

Like it's all in what it is. It would become a waiting game at that point because you the only thing that you would have at that point if you know they're going the way that they are with a lot of this, is just how long you're gonna have to wait for it to be unlocked from exclusivity.

Cody: 1:19:14

Right. And if this is so I have been using uh Steam OS for the longest time. I was there in its infancy whenever it was uh kinda decent to being really good. Um using the Steam Deck and its current features, like a lot of the games you can just download and go. The game everything will configure to your specs on your PC, just like Windows, and everything will basically run practically like a console. Uh if you can take that experience and m simplify it for the average user and just use it as an as a console, and then every once in a while you can use it as a PC for custom like it's the ultimate portable workstation. Essentially, yeah. There there is no again, there's just no reason to get any of these consoles. And people might be saying, Well, wouldn't that make Steam more of a monopoly? You know, that's a different conversation, but I could see that Steam could become a monopoly, and we, you know, we could be called out because, you know, I talk about Microsoft being a monopoly and how you know Linux the Underdog is cool to come out and everything like that. Steam is like that, but the difference is uh Steam has never really made hardware before like this. This is like their first exp this is their first time doing something like this. Now would the uh like could that mean Doom and Gloom or is that gonna do something for the other consoles? Probably not. Steam is the underdog. They might have the majority of the PC market practically, which is true. You know, you do you really play most of your games on the Epic Game store even though they offer you free games? No, you probably go and fucking play your shit on Steam. GOG has the cool and no DRM. And you know, you probably have your old games on G OG. But do you like to play most of your games on there? No, you're probably on Steam. Yep. So I mean, yeah, it's you know Monopoly, yes. But I don't think Steam is necessarily like the the e bane of all evil. Yeah. They definitely don't seem like uh they don't have their shittiness about them like Microsoft does. Right. Now, they could, you know. There's always room for uh some something to happen in the future. I won't dispute this.

Michael: 1:21:53

They're very upfront with what they do, especially with how they they handled uh this announcement today and how they presented this announcement. I I will tell you for a fact, I don't think I've seen one such a seamless announcement. Two, I don't see I don't think I've ever seen an announcement quite this ergonomically amazing and straight to the point, no fluff, and then also having the documentation out the gate, ready to go with no issue whatsoever. Just be like, here, have it. Like there was there was no issue, there was no kickback, there was no like you know, anything that I could find wrong with how they delivered this announcement. Everything they did was just there, open, ready to go, and they're like, All right, let us know if you have any questions, wait until 2026, and they even give you the graphs and like kind of the charts of like how this thing's built, the text specs, and like all the draw-ups and everything. Just here you go. Like, I don't think I've ever seen a company quite have such a seamless opening to an announcement quite like Steam has handled this system.

Cody: 1:22:57

Right. And honestly, with the way that both of these uh big tech micro uh console manufacturers are going, it's kind of cool to see someone else throw their hat into the ring, like you know, they could be the next Sega, like you know, you know what I mean? Like uh before the Dreamcast or the Saturn or whatnot. They they can be like the Dreamcast They could be like you know the big boy competitors that give like you know the other consoles a huge run for their money.

Michael: 1:23:29

Oh yeah.

Cody: 1:23:29

And I really hope I hope so, because in my eyes, the more competition, the better. Because both Sony and Microsoft Sony and Microsoft kind of both have their shit sides, and with a new kid on the block coming in with consoles, um maybe it might force them to make a little more better decisions for the end user. So we all win as gamers in the end. Yeah, this is awesome. Not only does it open the door for Linux for people, but for people who don't give two shits about that.

Michael: 1:24:05

It probably wonderful about this system physically on on the OS side of stuff is this means that every OS developer of every like version of Linux and stuff is now gonna have these text specs to work off of to improve their system compatibility even further with these different chipsets that this thing has, which is great.

Cody: 1:24:28

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this machine. I am highly optimistic about it, but I'm also you know very enthusiastic about it as well. Um, I cannot wait, and my dumbass is probably gonna go out there and spend like the highest amount. I'm probably gonna get every fucking thing for this thing. Yep, minus the VR headset. I know you might want the VR headset, but I don't really care for VR.

Michael: 1:24:53

I'm not gonna use it for believe it or not. I if if I do pick up the uh I believe it's called the the Steam Frame the the VR chat that they announced with it. If I do pick it up with this system at some point in the future, one, it's not gonna be at the same time. Two, um, if I do pick it up, it's not gonna be for VR gaming purposes. Um, I would use it as a virtual like um laptop, so to speak. So I would do all my workflow in VR, or at least learn how to integrate that into the SteamOS um environment for VR workflow, which I find would be very one interesting to figure out and two just cool to show off.

Cody: 1:25:31

Are you talking about trying to use it like that overly expensive ass Apple computer thing that you can get for your uh thing? Yeah, like what is it called? The Apple Vision or whatever.

Michael: 1:25:41

Yeah, yeah. Just trying to see how close I can replicate some of that stuff.

Cody: 1:25:46

Yeah, I mean, you know what? Fuck it. You know, if you can look over and see all your files on one side of your head, and then I guess that could be a cool concept, you know. Like I said, enthusiastic. That's the way that I'm looking at this. Something different than Windows is coming for the average casual experience and the gamer. And honestly, I cannot wait for 2026. Yes, we've only got a blink, you know, we've it's November. We've only got you know the end of the till the end of the here and then December, and then whenever the hell I I hope they just January they just drop the shit.

Michael: 1:26:24

I they said I'm really hoping that with how with how open they were with this announcement, I really hope that they'll drop pre-orders in time for Christmas. That would be the ideal situation right now.

Cody: 1:26:36

Right. I this episode has gone on for so damn long, and I wish that there was more that I could talk about whenever it comes to Linux and everything like that. The truth is, I I don't know, like maybe putting out an actual video guide of how we do things might be a cool little pot project for the pipeline.

Michael: 1:26:54

Yep. Uh but we've been a lot of the pipeline. We've always working on something.

Cody: 1:26:59

Yeah, absolutely. But I hope that the key takeaway from listening to us rant about this random, like stupid ass computer shit for however long we've done this is don't be afraid to you know take a chance and leave your walled garden and try something new. And you might just be surprised on how good your old computer still is.

Michael: 1:27:22

Yeah.

Cody: 1:27:23

And uh, you know, not being that advertisement guy uh for the steam, you know, for the steam machine or the game cube. Yep. But I mean, you know, I'm enthusiastic and optimistic about it. I'm not a salesman, you know. You spend your money however the hell you want. Uh, I'm in the as an IT person, I'm in the ri uh the mindset of what can I do that can basically give you to spend the least amount of money as possible. And that's what I like about Linux. Yeah, I don't have to spend money on it. It's free.

Michael: 1:27:54

Yeah.

Cody: 1:27:55

What is that Robbie Rotten meme? Nothing.

unknown: 1:27:58

It's for free.

Michael: 1:27:59

Yeah. Um, I I really just like it how uh again the the presentation of this is really kind of what blew me away because they just they were so chill and nothing was found to be wrong, and this was just so well received. Again, probably one of the cleanest announcement launches I've ever seen from a company um in quite some time.

Cody: 1:28:18

Yeah, seriously, like it just came out of nowhere. I didn't even they didn't they just came like randomly in my fucking YouTube feed of just or I I log into Steam one day.

Michael: 1:28:29

Yeah, and then I got off my lunch break and then I was like, ooh, this is cool, and then I dropped my cup of coffee because I'm like, wait, this is official, this isn't fake anymore, and then I send it to you.

Cody: 1:28:39

Yeah, like I I logged into Steam and I saw it and I like almost shot myself. I was like, Are you holy fuck?

Michael: 1:28:46

Yep. Just the like just the fact that we're getting so much, at least with with what this is being presented as. I it's it's very um again, small form factor, because it it's a cube, and then two, um, you know, it's customizable, not just in kind of like you know what you can do with it, but like you can there's the SD card expansions, the the um you can swap out. It's the equivalent of a 4060, as far as I think about a 4060, 4070, from what I've seen from comparison charts, yeah.

Cody: 1:29:20

Yeah, like uh I I what I saw was like a 4060. Yeah, which the only thing I'm concerned about is the VRAM being only eight gigs, right? For what it is, it could work.

Michael: 1:29:32

Um that brings up uh another point that I wanted to touch on as well that they kind of announced with this announcement because well, it was because of the announcement. Um, Steam is gonna be expanding their verification process to have everything that is verified be verified for the entire Steam family of systems now.

Cody: 1:29:51

That's amazing, that's awesome. I like that a lot. Um, yeah, I uh uh I don't know this has been. Been going on for so long and I've already I've already repeated myself so much about being a broken record. But I hope that this episode, again, just like the last time I brought went on a huge tangent and ranted about Linux and everything, lumping in the Steam machine and everything like that. I hope that Linux grows in terms of the casual user experience. This isn't for you. Like you you already are probably using Linux, and all this is no shit, Sherlock, to you. But when I what whenever we speak, we're speaking for the average, you know, casual user experience. Um and we just hope that uh honestly uh the walls around Microsoft's walled garden crumble and people just try new things. Hell, I don't even care if it's a Mac. Like just leave Windows and try something new. Get out of here. Tell them that the experience that you have isn't good enough and you want them to improve, and then they will. And then maybe exactly call them out for their shit. Don't let them don't let them just jerk you around and throw advertisements in your face and shove a AI down your throat. Switch to a different OS that gives you the time that you like, you know, it it gives you everything that you need and actually respect your time using it.

Michael: 1:31:39

Yeah.

Cody: 1:31:40

That's what this is all about.

Michael: 1:31:42

I I find that um especially with the expansion of like the Steam family and the Steam OS, you know, beyond handhelds and like being able to go wherever you go, living rooms and stuff like that. Um, one, I I find Valve strategy very it'd be something that that I that I would like to kind of like, you know, discover more of because Valve strategy to me right now just seems very revolutionary with how it's battling it, you know, its cultural and market impact right now. Because I I feel like Valve has probably handled their independent situation with everything that is happening in the world around it within its you know cohort sector very well.

Cody: 1:32:22

I have a I have a theory. How much do you want to bet when the Steam machine launches they will put out their ISO for everyone to download? They did talk about that.

Michael: 1:32:35

They they did talk about that, didn't they? I guarantee Yeah, um not not well not at the announcement, no, but the the um the the the downloadable ISO that you're speaking of, they did announce that a little bit while back. Um it would be the perfect time to do it. I guarantee you that's what they're doing. Yeah.

Cody: 1:32:52

Because what if you don't want to buy the Steam, like you don't want to buy the Steam Machine, but you would like to have the Steam Machine experience on your rig. Right. Well, Linux is free and open source, and Valve has always been a fan of like you know, open source and everything like that. If I guarantee you, if they will if they'll release the ISO of the Steam OS for all to download, that isn't just a recovery image for like their handhelds and stuff, uh right alongside the release of the Steam Machine, then I think that we'll see a huge percentage increase in people using Linux uh in a sense of being gamers.

Michael: 1:33:42

Like for sure, like it's gonna be affordability is gonna have a big impact on that, but I I have a feeling that Lord Gabin is gonna handle that very well considering his history.

Cody: 1:33:52

Yeah, we'll see. We will definitely see. But uh I think I've ranted and raved about open source and you know, Linux and everything like that for far too fucking long. The key takeaway from all of this, people, is don't be afraid to try something new. Please try something like try out Cinnamon or wait until the uh Steam Machine drops and then launch into Steam OS if you're a gamer. If you're a casual person who just uses PCs, I think Cinnamon will be very good for everybody who just needs across the board. Yeah, for those of you who don't want to get rid of your Windows 10 machines, don't be afraid. Try it. I promise, back up your files, do what you gotta do. You know, you don't want to lose your important photos or documents. Obviously, you just put them on flash drives, put sync them to your Google, like you know, you can put them in Google Drive or whatever cloud storage you storage you want, but make the make the change. Do not throw out your old Windows 10 PCs. And for you gamer folks out there who probably listen to us, uh uh you know, if you're uh ever interested in anything, uh if you get the new Steam machine, then honestly, uh have fun learning a completely new OS. Uh it's nice to leave that Windows-walled garden and try something new. And honestly, I I cannot wait to hear stories of people making the plunge and trying something new and you know, expanding their horizons and just having fun with their computer. Having a computer doesn't have to be a frustrating affair, and Linux might seem that way, but if you take the time to learn it, I mean, just like anything, you'll you'll get really good at it pretty quickly. And I can't wait to hear people's experiences. For sure. Uh yeah. Uh I mean, our things are always open on our uh like on our socials to like talk about this kind of stuff. For anyone who takes our advice and tries something, if you have questions, maybe shoot them our way. Uh maybe we can find a way to like, you know, uh answer people uh directly about uh things like that. There is always a huge uh resource out there for getting into Linux that can teach you everything you need to know. Everything's all open and free to look at. Um and I don't know, like I I would like to find new ways to interject or you know, to interact with people who are have more questions. So I mean ask away. Yeah. Tell tell your stories. Uh like just shoot the shit with us on our socials, whatever the hell you want to drop.

Michael: 1:36:45

Yeah, and as always, um, always remember on our website, tech and tactile.com, we have our complete contact form that you can always shoot our way that'll go directly to us for both of our inboxes if you wish to do it like a private DM style. All of our socials are always open. If you want to go down in the description below, we have our link tree, it's always linked. We have every link to all of our stuff, all of our channels, Twitch, Instagram, all that stuff. It's there, TikTok. We have everything everywhere, as well as don't forget, as far as resources go, if you wish to we reach out with any questions or if if you would like to see kind of the stuff that we've accumulated over the time that we've kind of been doing this over the last couple of uh almost a coming up on a year now, not too long from now, but we have a whole resources page that has all of our resources anywhere between the tech field, the gaming field, and just kind of the general know-how. We have documentation, different links to different things, and all the things that would be approachable by all that would be within our realm of our community. So again, please never be afraid to reach out. We're always here. Just shoot us a message either on our website or over on one of our socials. We'll always take the time to respond. And as always, if you would like, leave a comment down below on any of our episodes. Absolutely.

Cody: 1:37:56

With all that being said, it's uh getting late, tired. Uh uh, whenever I go in I go in circles whenever I have like whenever my braids start shutting down like this. So I think I'm gonna take this opportunity and unwind with a nice game of vampire survivors and uh call it. So, you know, uh I enjoyed this. This was great. Indeed. And this was great. I absolutely so with that all being said, everyone, stay accessible and get excited to try new things. Indeed, stay accessible, everyone.