Lol at the downvotes, it's like 3 clicks. Not rocket science.

fosslinux.com/138008/how-to-in…

Mint deliberately uses an LTS kernel because it's primary value proposition is stability & simplicity but changing kernels is pretty safe.

How to install and try different Linux kernels in Linux Mint

This comprehensive guide walks you through the process of installing and trying out various Linux kernels in Linux Mint.

^{Divya Kiran Kumar (FOSS Linux)}

I've put later kernels on Mint a half dozen times withno dramas, but whether you should depends on what your use case, preferences and skill are.

I personally wouldn't do the arse-ache that is an immutable system, but plenty here love their Bazzite it seems. Different strokes for different folks. Nothing wrong with that.

If you love Mint except for the kernel version then it's an easy fix. If you don't have deep feelings then either try & be ready to ditch, or pick an alternative.

Just for the record there is no "doing all that" about it. It's a simple couple of clicks. It couldnt be easier. I'm not sure where you got the idea it was difficult.

I get the impression you've been enticed/subjected to some confusing technical jargon without noticing. Please allow me to shed some light.

Idk, there so much “mint and Debian are stable” but like… what’s the even mean?

Stable can mean a bunch of different stuff that may or may not be closely related. In the case of Debian, it's the name of its default release; the one in which packages are frozen for two years except for security patches. (Note that this naming scheme is not unique to Debian.) As such, a Debian installation will be unchanging for these two years, earning its stable designation (which, to be clear, just meaning unchanging in this context). Finally, this unchanging environment should provide a ton of stability (i.e. stuff just works), which is also referred to as stable. These three distinct meanings of stable are probably the ones you'll come across the most.

Is fedora 42 or bazzite going to be crashing regularly? Cuz… I doubt it?

The bold part is a clear demonstration that you understood stable to mean strictly robust; i.e. the third meaning discussed above. And to be clear, Fedora does a decent job at providing a reliable experience. (Bazzite even more so.) But not all three meanings of stable apply to it:
- For Fedora (and thus Bazzite by extension), the only stable repository is the one used to create its ISOs (i.e. the images used for installation). Beyond this, some packages are frozen within a release/version; e.g. you'll never get a major release update for GNOME unless you do a major release update for Fedora. But..., that's basically it; (almost) all other packages receive regular updates. As such, Fedora is often referred to as a semi-rolling release distro instead (as opposed to Debian being referred to as a stable release distro). So, to be clear, Fedora and Bazzite are NOT stable in this context.
- As (most of) its packages receive regular updates, it isn't unchanging either. And thus, NOT stable in this context as well.
- However, in terms of offering a robust/reliable experience, Fedora is pretty good. Bazzite is even better due to its atomicity^[That is, updates either happen successfully or not at all. So a random power outage (or otherwise) is not able to break the system's integrity.] and the superior distro-management allowed by the bootc model.

So, to answer your question, Fedora and Bazzite will not crash regularly. And, while Fedora might fall a little short of providing as robust of an experience as you might find on Debian and Linux Mint (assuming you won't FrankenDebian your installs), Bazzite may actually rival (and perhaps even eclipse/surpass) Debian and Linux Mint in this respect.

Seems easier to just go with fedora 42 or bazzite or whatever

For your purposes, I agree that going for the Bazzite-route seems to be the easiest.

but now idk what bazzite being immutable even means for what I can’t change and why that’s a big deal so idk.

This is a nuanced discussion that probably deserves more attention, but I'll keep it short for the sake of brevity. In Bazzite's case, strictly-speaking, immutability refers to how most of /usr's content isn't supposed to be changed deliberately by you. This is enforced by the system (in part) by making those files read-only.

In practice, though, there's very little you actually can't do with the system:
- AFAIK, you're forced to use GRUB; which AFAIK is the most used bootloader anyways. Here's a thread discussing support for systemd-boot.
- No support for UKI at the moment. But progress on this has been accelerated (relatively) recently; .
- The situation around dkms/akmods still ain't great and leaves a lot to be desired; you're basically limited to the ones found here. Thankfully, this is something else that's actively being worked on.
- While installing from Fedora's repository through bootc/rpm-ostree is possible, it's actually discouraged in Bazzite's case. Thankfully, there's a plethora of different means to the same end. Furthermore, sysext have come a long way and might become our go-to eventually.

systemd-boot support

From what I can tell, this is basically present (since the loader syntax is identical), except systemd-boot needs the loaders and kernels to be on the ESP (/boot/efi), not where OSTree places them ...

^{refi64 (GitHub)}

Thanks for reporting back!

Pretty good so far

Glad to hear that it has been a pleasant experience overall!

few things took a while to figure out ...

The "force me to enter a password any time I open my browser"-thing seems like unintended behavior. Pretty strange. Glad to hear that it has been resolved, though.

sadly still one thing I probably won’t ever be able to fix is getting a program (combat mode for GW2) to actually work as it’s… like 13 years old and just lets me press a button to make my mouse left/right click into keys while the game is up. They have integrated the other functionality of it at least so it’s not THAT bad. Might be able to get my mouse to manually do that if I check out the drivers for it I think someone made.

Perhaps you've already undertaken what I'm about to say, so please feel free to ignore this if that's the case: Have you reached out to their Discord server in hopes of resolving the issue? While their documentation is pretty great, it's possible that it ain't sufficient. Whenever that happens, the Discord community can (and probably will (at least in my experience)) step up and provide excellent guidance when prompted.

Home

Bazzite is a custom image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices.

^{docs.bazzite.gg}

Idk about the browser thing it was because the kde wallet or something? It stores passwords and the browser has a login so it would force me to do that every time. Same with email and such, very annoying. I think I have it all working fine now.

As far as what I could not get working, I was able to just set up mouse profiles to do mostly the same. Good enough of a workaround. It’s an old program separate from the game that seems to look at the active window to contain “Guild Wars 2” and if it is, hitting a button will change mouse clicks to whatever buttons. (And hitting certain buttons or not being in GW2 will disable that) so like… idk how Linux works but I feel that ain’t gonna happen without changing it, and the dev has fucked off 13 years ago (and I might be the literal only person still using it.)

Idk about the browser thing it was because the kde wallet or something? It stores passwords and the browser has a login so it would force me to do that every time. Same with email and such, very annoying. I think I have it all working fine now.

Ah okay, thanks for the clarification! I have heard of that interaction elsewhere. Unsure if it's KDE Plasma misbehaving or otherwise. Regardless, I'm glad to hear that you were able to resolve the issue. I did find this discussion (which you may have found yourself as well). In their case, they (somehow) didn't properly create an account, which opens multiple can of worms you'd much rather not deal with. Thankfully, the fact that you were able to deal with the problem suggests that you should be fine 😉.

Bazzite - KDE Wallet constantly popping up

I tried to disable it, but the password I enter in doesn’t work (I know it is my admin password). A SSH pop up happens as well, enter password, goes away, then reappears. KDE Wallet pops up, click next, no key.

^{Universal Blue}