MintLinux

Mint Linux

Mint Linux is currently the only distribution that still supports my old NVidia GT218 card with proprietary driver version 340. However you may only use Mint up to 20 (including) as pointed on:

• https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=413778

I tested this version:

• https://mirrors.nic.cz/linuxmint-cd/stable/20.3/linuxmint-20.3-xfce-64bit.iso

And yes - after install just invoked "Driver Manager" as described on:

• https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/drivers.html

And verified with inxi -G --display:

Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] driver: nvidia v: 340.108 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: nvidia unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa 
           resolution: 1440x900~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce 210/PCIe/SSE2 v: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 340.108 

So my first impression: Thumbs up, for Mint!

Also because it is basically fork of Ubuntu one can utilize most experience with Ubuntu and Debian - good old apt is there. And nobody coerces you to use snap...

Installing on ZOTAC box UEFI

It was surprisingly bumpy read.

First I was hit by https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=412942 - mysterious UEFI error:

Failed to open \EFI\BOOT\mmx64.efi - Not Found

It seems to happen on some UEFI setups where recent Win10+ is already installed. I resolved problem by renaming grubx64.efi to mmx64.efi:

• tested image: linuxmint-21.3-xfce-64bit.iso
• on host Linux (openSUSE) I did:

  # sdc2 is ESP partition on dual-boot linuxmint image
  mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/test/
  cd /mnt/test/EFI/boot
  mv grubx64.efi mmx64.efi
  cd /
  umount /mnt/test

• important: when UEFI boot menu appears, be sure to select one labeled as "USB: Partition 1" instead of "USB" - because it represents read-only ISO boot that I'm unable to modify (without recreating ISO image again)

Second - several times the setup run grub-mount that simply ate 100% CPU forever - it happened on mounting my Arch Linux ext4 partition - so I opened terminal and killed it with kill -9 PID_OF_GRUB_MOUNT It was necessary to to on:

• right after selection of installation of codecs
• at the end of installation