Hey everyone! I recently switched from Windows 11 to Mint XFCE about 2-3 weeks ago, and I'm running into some stability issues. My browsers occasionally crash, or the screen suddenly goes black, requiring me to either wait it out or reboot. I often have multiple tabs open in Brave, and I know my laptop isn't super powerful, but I didn't have these problems with Windows 11 even though it was slower overall. Is instability a common issue with Mint XFCE, or is there an easy fix? If stability is a concern, I'm open to exploring other distributions. Just to note, I mainly use my laptop for AI work in the browser and some photo editing, rather than gaming. Here are my specs: AMD Ryzen 3500U quad-core, 6 GB RAM, SSD, and Radeon Vega mobile graphics. Thanks in advance for any advice!
5 Answers
I've been using Mint Cinnamon on my laptop without issues, so it seems strange that you're experiencing these problems. My setup is a bit more powerful, which might make a difference. You could also look at the logs using `journalctl` to see if there’s anything off when the system crashes. After a reboot, you can check the previous boot logs with `journalctl -b -1` to find clues.
I run Mint Cinnamon too, and it’s been pretty solid for me. Since you're new to Linux, make sure all your applications and the kernel are up-to-date. Sometimes old software can cause stability issues. Just a thought!
Do you have a swap partition or a swap file set up? If you're not utilizing swap properly, that could definitely lead to performance issues, especially when multitasking. You mentioned you checked with `swapon -s` and saw a 10 GB swap file, so that's good! Make sure it's working correctly.
It sounds like you should keep an eye on your RAM usage. Try running `watch free -m` in a terminal to monitor how much memory and swap your system is using. Instability can sometimes be linked to memory issues, though there might be other factors involved as well.
Though you don't have the weakest setup, I can understand the frustrations. On lower-end hardware, browsers can be intensive, especially with lots of tabs. Your issues seem odd for your hardware, though; maybe it is a Mint XFCE problem specifically? It could be worth trying a different distro if the instability doesn't improve!
Yep, I confirmed that my swap file is active. Just trying to figure out if there’s anything else causing these problems.