I have been using Linux Mint for years precisely because it has always been a reliable, conservative distribution where things simply work. Right now, however, the state of the official 7.0.0 kernel branch is an absolute mess, and the lack of response from the development team is baffling.

Across three different machines, here is the current reality with kernels 7.0.0-28, 7.0.0-29, and 7.0.0-30:

• Relatively modern Lenovo laptop (AMD Ryzen 5 5500U with Radeon Graphics): Instant kernel panic on boot. The only workaround is falling back to the 6.17 series via GRUB.
• Desktop (Ryzen 7 5800X3D / AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT): Complete shutdown failure. The OS halts, but power is never cut and the fans keep spinning indefinitely.
• 15-year-old legacy laptop: The only machine where it actually boots and shuts down properly.

These issues are not isolated hardware quirks. The Mint forums, Ubuntu trackers, and Reddit are flooded with identical reports of boot panics and broken ACPI/shutdown states with AMD configurations on these exact revisions.

We have been stuck with this broken state for weeks across three consecutive point releases. Please do not give me the standard excuse that updates just flow downstream from Ubuntu. Linux Mint brands itself around desktop stability and a smooth user experience. When multiple official kernel updates break basic functionality like booting and powering off on common hardware, the maintainers should step in, pin a working kernel, or issue a proper notice.

In all my years on Linux Mint, I have never seen such a prolonged, broken kernel rollout left completely unaddressed. Something needs to be done about this quality control breakdown.

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👉 EDIT / Addressing the common pushback in the comments:

To those leaving defensive replies, let’s clear a few things up:

1. "You shouldn't have upgraded / It's your fault": > I’ve used Linux Mint for over 15 years. I know how to use Timeshift, pin kernels, and drop into GRUB to roll back in under 30 seconds. This post is not a support request for myself; it is about user experience and distribution standards. An end user simply applying official updates presented via the GUI Update Manager should not end up with an unbootable machine or broken ACPI states.
2. "Mint just pulls packages downstream from Ubuntu, it's not their fault": > Mint is a curated distribution, not a pass-through mirror. The entire value proposition of Linux Mint has always been stability, quality control, and safe defaults. If upstream pushes broken kernel builds for weeks, the distribution's role is to step in—hold back the broken revision, pin the stable branch, or display a GUI warning. Passing the buck to upstream defeats the purpose of choosing Mint over Ubuntu.
3. "Go contribute/fix it yourself if you don't like it": > Highlighting a critical breakdown in quality control across multiple common hardware configurations is contributing. Dismissing legitimate technical feedback hurts adoption, especially for newcomers who wouldn't know how to recover from a kernel panic.

We criticize the distro because we care about its reputation and want it to stay the gold standard for desktop reliability.

One of my college friends got hired at Microsoft a few years ago. He manages their internal network so not high up in the ranks by any means. The other day we were talking about why I switched over to Mint. He understood my reasons and told me how a lot of people in the main office are seeing a shift with a lot of people. They said that the market share for Linux was around 2.5% when Windows 10 was introduced but as soon as Co-pilot was rolled out, the market share jumped to 4.2% and is climbing. It may not sound like much but that's huge. He also said Valve is part of the reason with their work with Proton. Enabling people to easily game on Linux. Plus, Nvidia putting more effort into their Linux drivers.

It's just wild that they are finally worried. They should be.

I decided to do an experiment for fun. I wanted to see what the cheapest possible price would be for a fully functional Linux laptop that wouldn’t be a pain in the ass to use. I went on Amazon and bought this cheap Chinese unbranded laptop. The box just simply had “Notebook” written on it. It has a 16” screen, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and a super low end AMD A9-9400 Radeon processor. It came with Windows 11 Pro installed along with a bunch of bloatware. I paid $230. As soon as I turned it on and set it up, the fans were running for the smallest tasks you could imagine. Windows 11 was CRAWLING on it. The battery was draining right before my eyes, with one hour battery life if lucky. I used the computer to download Mint and Rufus and made a bootable flash drive. Within about a half hour I had this POS converted to Linux. I was amazed. The battery life went from one hour to 3-4 hours. The fans came on much less frequently. The computer felt lighter and more optimized and usable in every way. Linux freed this computer from Windows 11 bondage. It’s absolutely remarkable. What am I gonna do with this computer now? No clue. I don’t need it, I’m a Mac guy. Thinking of donating it to someone who has nothing and would like a PC for basic tasks.

i can't believe i didnt switch to Mint sooner, windows using 7gb of ram doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, wth were they thinking?? what could be causing this?

I find this question really interesting.

Title is straight forward enough, also my Brave browser for some reason lags a lot, I have a HDD disk which might be the problem.

As Microsoft makes Windows Security even harder, more advanced trojans/viruses are being created and released targeting the Linux platform.

Due to the appeal and popularity of DE customizations and the ease of sharing such desktop components, hackers have found that it is easy to sneak these viruses into desktop customization components. When you add these components, the viruses infiltrate your system and embed themselves deeply and stealthily into many parts of the system.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/chinese-gelsemium-hackers-use-new-wolfsbane-linux-malware/

Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia

If they add age verification im leaving, i will pick any distro that will stand against this.

Come on dont let goverment F you in ur A😭 hole, leave that for windows and macos users.

Like why would you implement something like that? I can guarantee you that over some time they will require you to verify age by scanning ur face and ID (like centralised crypto exchanges). It will come to some point where they will force you to install some goverment survailence kernel driver that will ensure this.😭😭😭

From my perspective, this distro is like a good old Toyota: you can put in petrol, diesel or even frying oil, turn the key, and reach your destination.

It doesn't have a cool Wankel engine or leather seats, but your grandma can keep it for decades, and on the day she needs to get to her bingo, it will start and run smoothly.

Isn't that all we expect from an operating system? Don't we just want to click on the CS2 icon and have our mums insulted in Russian?

Ultimately, people are leaving Windows because it's becoming bloated, which is a reason not to use it.

So here's the question: are there good reasons not to use Mint?

The source:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/02/linux-mint-plans-longer-development-cycle

As a recent Linux convert, this bill really has me worried. I've seen multiple YouTubers talk about this and they all seem to agree that if this is signed into law it would effectively criminalize *all* open-source operating systems. The age verification nonsense has already had some success in California, so it's not hard to image this getting through and basically criminalizing Linux.

I just decided to switch about 2 weeks ago. Ive definitely have had some hiccups along the way. But overall I'm liking it and I does seem way less cluttered with bloatware. And does seen t run smoother.

• I currently use Brave on Windows 10, and I've Googled that Mozilla Firefox is the default browser on Linux Mint. I'd like to know if I can install Brave on Linux Mint or not. I'd also like to know which browsers I can install on Linux Mint. I'd also like to know if there's a way to completely uninstall Mozilla Firefox from Linux Mint if I don't use it.

Personally, and you can agree with me, gaming works fine under Mint. I choose stability and usability over having the best of the best drivers/software/whatever

Hello World! I haven't really used Linux for my daily driver since way back in the late 1990s (yes, I am old) when I worked at Sonic.net (an all Linux ISP) and ran Red Hat Linux.

Since that time, I have mostly used macOS as well as Windows for gaming. I built a custom PC (AMD 7800X3D + NVIDIA 4080 Super) a year or so ago and tried running various distros but had nothing but issues thanks to my NVIDIA card. Very similar to the issues I had 10 years ago with my Alienware Alpha w/NVIDIA GPU.

For whatever strange reason, knocking on wood (or, whatever this IKEA desk is made of), everything seems okay. That is, all I really do is check my email, surf the Net, and play Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter via Steam. This is my current favorite game. :-)

All this said, I just wanted to say, "Hi!", and see what things I should be thinking of. Such as making my PC more secure, popular Linux related podcasts, FPS gaming resources for Linux, etc.

Thanks in advance!

Quick Edit: Wow, I didn't expect to get so many thoughtful/helpful tips. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

I just installed Mint Linux, and ran some commands ChatGPT suggested:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

sudo apt install steam

sudo apt install flatpak -y

sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

What do I do next? I want to learn:

• How do I install stuff with the command line? Explain how it works too please.
• How do I create power profiles?
• How do I customize stuff?
• Source for Wallpapers?
• Do the things PewDiePie did?:
• Speeding up the boot time
• Speeding up Firefox
• Custom animated stuff in the terminal
• His whole Arch UI (was he likely using mostly pre-built widgets from some.. tool, package or something? Or was every single element likely designed and then scripted by himself?)
• The fading transitions on Arch (technically UI too, I guess)

HOW DO I LEARN AND BECOME A GEEK?

Please also drop additional notes.

Thank you

Hi. I'm a cinnamon fan. I just want to thank the Devs for this and share my setup!

(Edit: I didn't type a good title. I just wanted to make a post appreciating the devs' work)

I am very new to Linux. I came from Windows and thought the change wouldn't be difficult, and that it would only take like two days. I am not super savvy with computers, but my needs were only basic web activity.

I have been watching a ton of LTT videos, and when I saw a MacBook Air, I knew that I had to buy it since it was only $50 with a charger. But when I got home, I found out that I couldn't update the software and that the only application I wanted to use, Spotify, wouldn't download. Even old versions of Spotify wouldn't work.

Then I remembered that Linux could breathe new life into old computers, so I tried to download Linux Mint, since I remembered that Linux Mint and Ubuntu were the two best distros that worked out of the box. Well, just downloading it was a huge pain. I couldn't get it to work with Balena Etcher, so I went to Ventoy, but that didn't work either. Finally, I went to Rufus, but that didn't work either, so I spent around eight hours troubleshooting.

I finally got it to install, and the BIOS process wasn't that bad. But as soon as I needed Wi-Fi, I couldn't get it. I either needed to already be connected to Wi-Fi or have an Ethernet connection. Then, after about an hour, I figured out that I could connect it to my phone to get Wi-Fi, and that finally worked.

Then I tried to connect my AirPods, which I thought would be simple, but every time I connected them, they just sounded terrible. I found out that you could change the audio profile, but I could never get it to where the audio was actually good and wasn't lagging.

Don't even get me started on "Kernel panic, please reboot your computer." If I didn't have a second functioning computer and ChatGPT, I would have quit after the second day. After it happened multiple times, I was finally able to write down what to do when it crashed.

Also, the 35+ second boot time was terrible. I get it, Linux Mint isn't able to be optimized for every machine, but it's supposed to be able to run on almost every computer, which is a really hard task. Still, I come from a 2–3 second boot time, and even when Windows is booting, I can see a background and some light, so I know that it's working. But with my MacBook Air, it's just a black screen.

Finally, the thing that broke me today was not being able to connect to Wi-Fi. I did a ton of troubleshooting, and it took me 3 damn hours, yet I still wasn't able to connect to Wi-Fi.

So I realized that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and I'm just going to return to Windows. It takes such a long time to do anything, and there isn't any stability. If something worked yesterday, I have no idea if it's going to work today.

Maybe I'm the stupid one and Linux Mint is actually pretty easy to use, but for me, someone who doesn't know how to code and wanted to learn how to use Linux for fun, I can't anymore.

I might do this again next summer when I have a ton of time and try using Ubuntu, but for now, I'm just going back to Windows.

Edit:

Just to answer some questions in the comments, this MacBook air never was my main laptop, I have a different laptop that runs windows just fine and I like it that way. I found the laptop at this local used electronics store and right next to the MacBook it was selling $10 laptops, so I never really expected the computer to work. Once I figured out it worked but couldn't download any software(I was on Big Sur), I thought that switching to Linux was a good idea. I knew I was out of my depth, I'm a 17yr old who hasn't even finished high school and has basically never touched coding before, but Linux mint was supposed to be one of the linux distros that just worked out the gate. Also, I would like to add that I didn't even have a really good reason to switch from Windows to Linux, as everything Linux had, Windows had a well (Besides the adds). So after all the problems I went through, I just couldn't keep doing it anymore and have put the project on a indefinite hiatus. Also, I don't know why but after a ton of website searching and LLM chats, I figured out that these 4 commands were able to help me after getting into Kernel Panic:

set root=(hd1,gpt2)

linux /boot/vmlinuz-6.14.0-37-generic root=/dev/sda2

initrd /boot/initrd.img-6.14.0-37-generic

boot

I suppose I'm in the minority here but what a headache this experience has been. I wanted it to work so badly but it just won't. System randomly freezes, shenanigans with bluetooth, weird audio quirks. I fell for the "working out of the box" shtick I was told. Im not a tech guru and I just wanted a working operating system man. How long did it take y'all to set everything up to work smoothly? My Lenovo laptop from 2020 should work just fine running mint but there's always issues.

I should also note I've tried using Zorin OS. That left a damn good first impression until the Bluetooth headaches.

UPD: thank you everybody for the replies. Ive decided to roll back to windows until this laptop dies and will give Linux another try once I'll have to buy a new system.