Mint on an All-in-One or NUC

[MurphCID]

Anyone have any experience with an All In One computer like the various HP offerings? Or working on an Intel NUC/System 76 Meerkat? I know the Meerkat has POP O/S so it works with Linux, but... Does it work with Mint? I have come to loathe Gnome, which is a second rate Mac OS knock off, without the sheer polish and attractiveness of the MAC OS so any Gnome based OS is not for me. What I am thinking about is saving my $$$ and getting a NUC type system for the spouse-unit's TV downstairs so she can do some basic stuff in her sewing area. The AIO would be for the youngest daughter to take off to college, so she would quit using my Linux laptops . Also it would allow her to have it in the dorm, and use the laptop at the library. There is a decent Ryzen 5 HP AIO with roughly a 23/24 inch screen.

Suggestions, or thoughts?

[ugly]

I use a couple of Zotac ZBOX AIOs. The C series is passively cooled, so no noise from fans. My only complaint is that it uses Intel processors. I think they do finally have a AMD version available.

Both that I have worked well in with Linux Mint. I have a ZBOX CI320 that uses a Celeron processor. It's weak in terms of performance, and needed a kernel parameter set to avoid a hard lockup, but has worked well with the fix.

The ZBOX CI527 works well. Good performance. The video performance could be a bit better. I notice some jitter in video playback. Not sure if that is just an Intel issue. But, everything worked out of the box.

[Portreve]

Anyone have any experience with an All In One computer like the various HP offerings? Or working on an Intel NUC/System 76 Meerkat? I know the Meerkat has POP O/S so it works with Linux, but... Does it work with Mint? I have come to loathe Gnome, which is a second rate Mac OS knock off, without the sheer polish and attractiveness of the MAC OS so any Gnome based OS is not for me. What I am thinking about is saving my $$$ and getting a NUC type system for the spouse-unit's TV downstairs so she can do some basic stuff in her sewing area. The AIO would be for the youngest daughter to take off to college, so she would quit using my Linux laptops . Also it would allow her to have it in the dorm, and use the laptop at the library. There is a decent Ryzen 5 HP AIO with roughly a 23/24 inch screen.

Suggestions, or thoughts?

The only thing I can suggest is stick a live image flash drive in and boot and see what happens. There's really no way to know (for certain) if any particular hardware is supported until you try.

[MurphCID]

Anyone have any experience with an All In One computer like the various HP offerings? Or working on an Intel NUC/System 76 Meerkat? I know the Meerkat has POP O/S so it works with Linux, but... Does it work with Mint? I have come to loathe Gnome, which is a second rate Mac OS knock off, without the sheer polish and attractiveness of the MAC OS so any Gnome based OS is not for me. What I am thinking about is saving my $$$ and getting a NUC type system for the spouse-unit's TV downstairs so she can do some basic stuff in her sewing area. The AIO would be for the youngest daughter to take off to college, so she would quit using my Linux laptops . Also it would allow her to have it in the dorm, and use the laptop at the library. There is a decent Ryzen 5 HP AIO with roughly a 23/24 inch screen.

Suggestions, or thoughts?

The only thing I can suggest is stick a live image flash drive in and boot and see what happens. There's really no way to know (for certain) if any particular hardware is supported until you try.

Point.

[WriteF]

Or working on an Intel NUC/System 76 Meerkat? I know the Meerkat has POP O/S so it works with Linux, but... Does it work with Mint? I have come to loathe Gnome, which is a second rate Mac OS knock off, without the sheer polish and attractiveness of the MAC OS so any Gnome based OS is not for me.

Funny, I dislike Gnome because it gave me horrible flashbacks to MacOS..

There is a decent Ryzen 5 HP AIO with roughly a 23/24 inch screen.

I am looking for it too, but I have yet to find a decent AIO. They all have either horrible specs or prices.. I had Linux installed on a Asrock Deskmini 110. Unfortunately the AMD one, Deskmini A300 didn't exist yet. Otherwise I was quite happy with it. They are very easy to build.

[RollyShed]

The only thing I can suggest is stick a live image flash drive in and boot and see what happens. There's really no way to know (for certain) if any particular hardware is supported until you try.

As an iso USB stick is the way to do an installation it would seen obvious that what Portreve says is the way to go. At least try it with any questionable machines.

[Portreve]

I guess my only concern is that when (especially run of the mill PC makers) a company makes some kind of nonstandard unit, they often do not go with a lot of the normal components. This can often leaf to support issues. That's one reason you won't see me buying anything other than a standard, straightforward laptop or tower.

My next desktop will be one I've built myself.

[wallaroo]

I've been running Mint on a NUC for several years now, it's currently running Mint 19.3, just haven't got around to upgrading to 20 yet. Everything works fine, the only issue is it often hangs on shutdown, which I haven't investigated because I just physically turn it off when it hangs. The unit is an older model but if Intel hasn't radically changed the architecture of the current NUCs you should be OK running Mint on them.

[MurphCID]

Thanks. I am torn between a NUC and an AIO since it comes with a monitor. If I could I would go 100% linux. But iTunes, Photoshop and Turbo-Tax keep me leashed.

[MurphCID]

Ok, the NUC arrived. It is an i3 model with 16 gb ram, and 512 gb SSD. It is running Win 10 Pro, and I will use it for the Spouse-Unit's TV computer. I will save up and get something more...robust for me to use to install Mint and play.

[MurphCID]

SHE LOVES IT! It has Windows 10 pro, and it plays her DVDs, and lets her surf the quilting sites on YouTube, so she is really, really pleased. If I can find an i5/i7 version later I might do one for me in Mint.

[MurphCID]

I think I might order another one for Mint on the upstairs TV. I am sure that the specs would run Mint well. Even though it is an i3 model, 16 gb of ram, and 512 ssd seems to be great for a media machine.

[ivar]

I saved a stable of 2014-15 era Intel i5 NUC's (8GB ram+ 120 SSD) from going to waste @ work. I got 3 of them running Mint, my brother got a couple, and a buddy got one for running Home Assistant. They run rock solid , not a single glitch since I did the first one back in nov.2020.
The last one I did will replace an older gaming pc used for media now

[Petermint]

Interesting result with i3 NUC. I used a few small form factor computers on various projects and found them all limited in various ways. Now with SSDs increasing in size and the latest generation of CPUs producing less heat, I might look again.

The other option for a student is a notebook with a small screen and a plug in monitor for use at the desk. With USB4/Thunderbird 4 now on notebooks, you can plug just in a hub when you return to your desk and the hub can have the screen, keyboard, mouse, backup disk, and espresso machine.

USB 4 hubs are still at premium ripoff/Apple prices. Perhaps next year.

What model i3?

[ivar]

.. or for the ultimate space efficiency, get a monitor with built-in USB hub, networking etc. Maybe harder to find one with integrared espresso though, lol!

[MurphCID]

Ok, rather than start a new thread. For the Mint Gurus out there, do these specs look good for a Mint Machine to hook into the TV so I can use it as needed? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0963 ... YHZSK&th=1 I like AMD systems, and it seems pretty moderate and pricewise similar to an Intel Nuc, or cheaper than the System 76 Meerkat.

[ivar]

If my 7 year old i5's can do it , this unit should be vastly more powerful in every way

1 potential issue might be the linux support for very new hardware....

[MurphCID]

If my 7 year old i5's can do it , this unit should be vastly more powerful in every way

1 potential issue might be the linux support for very new hardware....

Good point, I am still three months (six paychecks) away from having enough available funding to purchase it, so by then Mint 21 should be out, or the 5.15/5.17 OEM kernels.