Linux Mint – Paul's Tech Talk

Windows 10 was End of Life – So I decided to go to Linux Mint using ChatGPT!

PaulNovember 9, 2025

A fun illustration of a person stepping off a sinking ship with the Windows 10 logo on its sail, onto a bright, stable island with the Linux Mint logo. Bright colors, cartoonish but clean, eye-catching.

Windows 10 = End of Life updates

We knew this was coming a mile a way. It’s been advertised by Microsoft for years now and I just didn’t like Windows 11 and how they were wanting everyone to have an account to be able to use Windows 11. I shouldn’t need to link my account and that is one reason I “Jumped Ship” to Linux Mint. Don’t get me wrong, I use Windows 11 at work and I have no problem with it in my organization but Microsoft has very little information from my work life to my personal life and I am going to keep it that way. Since Microsoft is wanting to prevent users from making local accounts, I0 decided it was time to go check out some other operating systems like Linux Mint.

Using ChatGPT to help Installation!

I knew with my own built system, I built this desktop from mother board to GPU and Intel cpu. I knew I would have some issues with the installation of Mint to this system because it isn’t a prebuilt or one that is built by any companies. Let me be clear my system was built by me 3 years ago and it has been solid ever since the real issue is that the Mint is a lot of time developed for prebuilt systems, Asus, Dell, HP, and even Microsoft computers. It’s not something that will be a lot of issue for most because if you have a laptop or desktop that is pre-built then it most likely will install without a problem but my system has some special needs. I need it to do Video editing, Gaming, and even word processing from time to time. That’s where ChatGPT was really helpful. I didn’t have to go searching Google or Bing for how to solve issues like my video drivers and my KeyChron Keyboard which is AWESOME with this setup. Don’t get me started on Getting Resolve Video editing to be able to work with Linux but Chat GPT walked me through how to setup all the things I needed for me to be able to do what I needed. It even suggested ways to install the software from

Apt-get update to Apt-get Install
Or from the
Software Manager

First Impression of Linux Mint

It’s really not bad and I have a Good Geoforce RTX 3050 that is working just fine with the video drivers that I installed using ChatGPT. Gaming on it might be a bit different but most of my games including Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 are working just fine using Steam and Proton. They’ve really did do a good job with that and making it more available to the Linux Community is strangely getting better and better every day. I’ve used ChatGPT to help install Microsoft Flight Simulator even though there is people who have talked about how to get it to run on ProtonDB but it would of been harder to do without using ChatGPT to help install and get the game running smoother than it would have in previous years. The graphics for the game are top notch even now using the Graphics drivers and it even has seen some better FPS on MINT than Windows 10. So I can’t say I am looking at this without saying it is getting better.

Final Thoughts on Mint

If you’re staring down the “End of Life” message on Windows 10 and wondering what to do next, Linux Mint is absolutely worth trying. The learning curve is real, especially on custom-built hardware like mine, but ChatGPT made every step from Nvidia drivers to DaVinci Resolve, way easier than digging through old forum posts. What surprised me most is that not only does everything I need actually work, but in many cases it works better. My games run smoother, Resolve is stable, and my Keychron keyboard feels like it was built for Mint. If you’re on the fence about switching, let me just say this: I wish I had done it sooner.

In my opinion I’d say give a few Linux Operating systems a try and decide which one is best for your situation and know that at the end of the day. Your data is kept away from Microsoft now that you are using a free operating system.

The Ultimate Gaming Shell for Linux Mint and Ubuntu!

PaulOctober 29, 2021

My Gaming Shell script!

I created this a few years ago because of my son who at the time wanted a system but we couldn’t’ afford Windows 10. So I installed Linux Mint. I’ve found that this script should allow you to play almost any game that doesn’t require anti-cheat or the new DRM games. Anything would run without much of a problem at least with stuff like Call of Duty and other games like that, I didn’t have much problem running them with this little shell script. I am sure you’ve seen my Notepad++ shell script to install on your Linux system. This is something similar and I thought it was high time to share with my readers. If you haven’t already, you should go over and find out about shell scripting and learn some cool shell scripts yourself. This however isn’t going to be very educational for some because it isn’t very complicated.

echo "Installing Wine" echo y|sudo apt-get install wine-stable echo y|sudo apt-get install winehq-stable

echo "Installing Playonlinux" echo y|sudo apt-get install playonlinux

echo "Installing steam" echo y|sudo apt-get install steam

echo "Installing Minecraft" echo y|sudo apt-get install minecraft-launcher

echo "Installing Lutris" sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lutris-team/lutris sudo apt update echo y|sudo apt install lutris

read -p "Do you want to uninstall Firefox? (y/n)? " answer case ${answer:0:1} in y|Y ) echo y|sudo apt-get uninstall firefox ;; * ) echo No ;; esac read -p "Do you want to install Chrome? (y/n)? " answer case ${answer:0:1} in y|Y ) wget -q -O - https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add - echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list sudo apt update echo y|sudo apt install -y google-chrome-stable ;; * ) echo No ;; esac done

You can download it here along with the Notepad++ Script!

Explaining the script

So let’s first explain the top of the script and work our way down. As you can see these are just installing the Wine and other utilities around on the internet to be able to play the games or maybe install the stuff you are wanting to install. It doesn’t have to be games but I am sure it can be almost anything. My son was always playing Minecraft on his Linux machine. That game is so easy to install on Linux and runs without much o a problem, so that is why I included it here. The Next one is obviously Lutris which can be installed on any Ubuntu and Linux Mint system without much problems and allows you to play all sorts of games that might be online games. I’ve not tried it lately but I am sure these will work just as well as the next.

Finally the last part, I really like Chrome and I hate it that Firefox get’s installed most of the time. So I put in a script to remove Firefox and install Chrome. As you can see this one asks you the questions so if you like Firefox, then you need not worry and if you like Chrome you can install that and keep Firefox or remove it. To each there own.

As you can see this isn’t going to be a big post but I did want to share with you my ultimate gaming script for Linux and even Windows 11 can’t hold me back if I ever do decide to do that. After all, I did get Microsoft Flight Simulator to run on Linux Mint! Are you going to use Linux more to play games on or are you going to stay with Windows? Why not let me know and thank me for an awesome script that you can use anytime with your Linux system.

A few facts about scripting language and Why you need to know about Scripting

PaulSeptember 15, 2021

Is scripting being used in automation?

Scripting can be a powerful tool for anything in the industry from building cars to even creating orders to ship. Each one has a specific reason to be there, in all there are many reason why it makes it easier for the user to have scripting. I know in my life, scripting can be used in many different reason. For one you could have a PowerShell script to automate a process to wake the daemon or make a service synchronize a service. In all even in the Microsoft world there are services that need to be restarted or maybe just synched due to the daemon not keeping up. Having seen this and having to do it from time to time or even create a script to run every hour to keep the what ever might need to be synchronized up to date. Is that something hard to do or easy, the real questions you should be asking yourself is can you really do it and not make any mistakes? After all, we are human and bound to make a mistake or two. So we have to at least consider how any script will affect us in the long run. Scripting can definitely make certain tasks so much easier when something arises that needs to be done to a server or even process.

What are the options for a script?

Before we begin the options we have to at least consider why scripts are so vastly different from applications. The short answer is that they can’t do nearly the things applications can because they aren’t integrated into the kernel or there might be processes that the script can’t do without SU permissions and programs can have SU permissions and run in the background without any need for verification from the user. Now let’s at least talk about the options for what a script be used for or how we should at least consider it to be used. First and foremost is to restart a process, and this one is the most common I have seen in the past. I used to have to restart the Xorg services or drivers due to how the applications caused it to crash for one reason or another in Linux. This was definitely when the drivers for Nvidia and AMD were still relatively new to the Linux environment. It would on occasion need to be restarted and people started to have script to use to do that so they didn’t have to write the same codes down each time to restart the service. This was truly cutting edge for Linux to be able to use a script to restart the graphics drivers and allow the user to continue to use their computer. Another good option for tasks that can be scripted is downloading files that you might use for Windows and have them update with newest version as they are coming. You could even create a script to download all the Windows Updates on Linux just like you can on Windows to be able to install them offline if the need arises.

Scripts are just Amazing!

As you can see, I really do love to use scripts and have in the past come up with scripts that can be used for the people who use Linux or might need a script for a certain situation. Each person can come up with some truly amazing scripts to share with others to help make working in the Linux environment even more better for everyone. Do you agree or disagree? Do you have a favorite script you want to share with others? why not leave a comment and let people know your script and tell them what OS it can be used on. I am going to link a few good useful bash scripts to let you explore even more.

How to install Notepad++ on Linux Mint

PaulSeptember 13, 2021

Using Wine

I like the Windows version of Notepad++ so I thought I would at least share with you my current shell script, I usually call it install_notepad++.sh but you can call it anything you would like to use for the shell script. If you want to understand shell scripting on my site, please visit my other pages. You’ll need to make sure to allow execution of the shell script before you can use it.

install_notepad++.sh

echo y|sudo apt-get install wine-stable echo y|sudo apt-get install winehq-stable xdg-open https://notepad-plus-plus.org Echo "What's the current Version of notepad-plus-plus? (example Current version 7.9.2)" |Read Version_number wget https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/download/v$Version_number/npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe wine npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe echo y|rm npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe

You can easily remove

Echo "What's the current Version of notepad-plus-plus? (example Current version 7.9.2)" |Read Version_number

if you want to use the shell without that could, You can add:

"$1" = $Version_number in the first line of the shell script. echo y|sudo apt-get install wine-stable echo y|sudo apt-get install winehq-stable xdg-open https://notepad-plus-plus.org Echo "What's the current Version of notepad-plus-plus? (example Current version 7.9.2)" |Read Version_number wget https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/download/v$Version_number/npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe wine npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe echo y|rm npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe

then to use the shell script you can type:
install_notepad++.sh (insert the version numbers you are wanting to use)

Once you launch this, notepad++ will be installed. It will be under the Wine menu but can be launched like any other Linux GUI program.

Notepadqq

The next one is notpadqq which is a really good version of notepad++ but I like the look for Notepad++ better and can be used just like everything else. To install notepadqq
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:notepadqq-team/notepadqq sudo apt-get update |sudo apt-get install notepadqq

Then it will be installed in the Linux. You can also create a shell also or just copy and paste this one into the terminal. Each one of these are really useful with programming and writing scripts of many different programs.

What is your favorite program in Linux to edit or code with and why? why not leave a comment and tell people what you’re favorite editor is.