Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon HWE ISO post installation questions

Framework Laptop 16 Linux
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I recently took delivery of my FW16 Performance AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series and installed Linux Mint today (Windows 11 was preinstalled; I fully erased Windows during Mint setup)

I decided to go with the HWE ISO (22.3 Cinnamon 64bit 7.0 Kernel) for better compatability with my hardware (right decision?).

Installation went smooth but I stumpled upon some minor issues afterwards.

  • Whenever I’m booting the GNU GRUB Boot Menu shows up (I was able to “fix” this by following this solution). But why did this even show up? I installed Mint on my other notebook a few months ago and this never happened there (had Windows 10 on it, which I fully erased during the Mint setup as well) .
  • The GNU GRUB Boot Menu also offers me the option “Windows Boot Manager”. Does this mean Windows 11 hasn’t been fully erased during the Mint setup? How can I check if Windows has been fully erased?
  • When booting Mint, the Logo is quit big and pixelated (bad resolution), while on my other notebook it looks fine (smaller, good resolution). Is this normal?

Thanks in advance for the help!

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If you choose Windows Boot Manager in GRUB, does it boot into Windows? If so, you may have accidentally set it up as dual-boot.

It is probably not a bother in practice. Is the desktop resolution to your liking?

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In the GNU GRUB Boot Menu the Windows option is called “Windows Boot Manager (on /dev/nvme0n1p1)”

When choosing the Windows Boot Manager a blue screen comes up saying “Recovery This pc/device needs to be repaired. A required device is not connected or can’t be accessed. Error code: 0xc000000e. Please use recovery tools…”

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Yes, it doesn’t bother me too much, but I was just wondering if this could indicate that my installation might be flawed. The resolution is fine. I set it to 2560 x 1600 (16:10). On default everything looks too small that’s why I activated fractional scaling and set it to 150 % (same setting as in Windows 11). Should I deactivate this? And what’s the difference between the two fractional scaling mode settings “enlarge content” and “reduce content”?

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Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 20.33 GiB (4.3%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: WD PC SN8000S SDEPNRK-512G size: 476.94 GiB temp: 30.9 C 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 467.89 GiB used: 20.29 GiB (4.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 508 MiB used: 38.1 MiB (7.5%) fs: vfat 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1

I just ran inxi -Fxzp in the terminal. Maybe this helps regarding the Windows Boot Menu.

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The screen resolution it uses while booting and the screen resolution it uses for your desktop are going to be two separate things. The boot phase probably caters to the lowest common denominator - the least capable device it can boot with, maybe a 1024x768 screen. I expect you can adjust this, but I would not personally spend time on it.

In relation to your desktop itself, yes 2560 x 1600 is good. I recommend fractional scaling; you don’t need it to make the desktop chunkier, as most desktop environments will support 200% without fractional scaling. However it gives you other capabilities - as you’ve discovered, more scaling choices. Also it lets you set scaling per monitor, so you can share a desktop across your high-res laptop screen and a lower-res 1080p external monitor. I’ve found this mode lets me share a desktop across a 4k monitor, the high-res internal display, and a low-res monitor, with windows being scaled appropriately on each surface.

On Windows, it looks like it has gone, which I assume was your intent. I am not sure how to remove the redundant option in the boot menu, I don’t recall having ever to do this. I should think a quick search will aid you on that.

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You probably have a “Windows Boot Loader” entry because you have a copy of the Windows boot loader on your EFI system partition.

Look in /boot/efi or /efi (depending on how your system is laid out) for a directory called EFI/Microsoft. Delete it (as root). Re-run whatever command it is that updates your GRUB config file.

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Thanks for the replies. I will do a second fresh install of Mint but this time with the regular ISO and see if I encounter the same “issues”. Anyone else here using the HWE ISO?

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For readers: HWE is Hardware Enablement. It’s a version of Mint with a more recent kernel. (I had to look it up).

OP, I’m using the regular LTS version of Mint Cinnamon, though I am on the 13 Pro, not the 16. I’ve had a minor snag with waking up the touchpad after sleep, and I am getting a buglet on minor VPN intricacies. External monitors, analogue audio, external DAC, PD battery, USB drives, encrypted drives, webcam, WiFi all seem to be perfect so far.

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I installed the regular Mint ISO and encountered the same issues unfortunately. I noticed the following things during the installation process:

  • When asked which installation type is preferred (“dual boot” or “erase disk…”) it says that “This computer currently has Linux Mint 22.3 and Windows Boot Manager installed”. Although I chose to erase the disk during my first installation with the HWE ISO, Windows Boot Manager is still there
  • Once the installation finished and you’re being asked to restart the system, the Mint Logo is in a loop (frozen and no animation) and I’m not getting the message to unplug my USB and press enter (I forgot to mention that this happened during the HWE installation as well). The Loop only stops once I unplug the USB and then the GNU GRUB Boot Menu appears

Any ideas why I’m encountering these issues? Maybe I should give Ubuntu a try…