this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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if you wanna put Linux on a brand new Christmas gift laptop, I think 6.14 could definitely be too old
in some cases even 6.17 might be too old
If the Mint installer uses 6.8, can you even install it on brand new hardware? missing a laptop's wifi drivers would be a huge pain cause then you can't update it without a usb->ethernet adapter
that would be enough frustration for most users to turn back to Windows
I'm running 6.8 kernel on current Mint for a new PC I built last year. I remember that being a big deal that they were using more recent kernels to improve hardware support. So far it's supported everything I've thrown at it without any effort on my part.
That's awesome! Mint definitely sounds great if it supports your hardware without issue. I think it's less of a concern with custom builds, and more of an issue with OEM prebuilts and laptops especially