Well I am a bit over 3 days and 7 hours of uptime on Mint v20.1-Cinnamon and, in short, it appears that the 5.8 kernel (Mint v20.x defaults to 5.4 LTS kernel) fixed the few issues I was having, which are…
1)HDMI audio output disappearing. basically when I was on the default 5.4 LTS kernel and boot the computer up, HDMI sound output works and I use it like usual. but I noticed after I stop using the computer for say some hours/overnight (and lock screen comes on as expected etc) that when I return to the computer to use it the HDMI sound output has disappeared even though the standard ‘Speakers’ (and Digital Output) is still there like usual (and I had to temporarily run ‘Display’ and close out of it at which point it would temporarily comeback only to do it again after sitting some odd hours))
2)Trash can bug (basically after some time passes I noticed that while my main boot SSD and 4TB seemed to still be working okay, my 2TB and 5TB hard drives when deleting a file like usual, with ‘delete’ key, it’s normally supposed to go to the Trash can and then one right clicks it and selects ‘empty trash’ and that’s that (but if i recall correctly it seems it takes a little while before the Trash can issue takes effect after a reboot as I think initially it works fine on 5.4 LTS kernel but eventually starts acting up). but on the 2TB and 5TB hard drives when I was running the 5.4 LTS kernel when pressing ‘delete’ it would not show up in the Trash can but I could view the deleted files under ‘.Trash-1000’ folder and once I emptied that folder the files were truly deleted. but on the 5.8 kernel so far this issue seemed to have disappeared. NOTE: prior to the kernel change one could use sort of a work-around by adjusting the Nemo file manager that when one pressed the ‘delete’ key, instead of sending it to the Trash can like it does by default, I could set it so one gets a prompt to confirm the file deletion at which point it skips the trash can and permanently deletes the file.)
3)GPU video playback on SMPlayer paired with MPV no longer lags for about 2-3 seconds when resuming from pause. (when pausing a video then say I go click on the browser or other random things briefly and then go back and click the video and then resume playback it’s instant and smooth with the 5.8 kernel where as on 5.4 LTS (the default kernel in Mint v20.x series), when I do that same thing with pausing and then resume you can see there is a bit of lag and it takes about 2-3 seconds before the video playback is not slowing down/speeding up etc(like to get back to perfect sync) and is back to normal. NOTE: when running in software mode only (i.e. no GPU acceleration) both kernels work perfect. NOTE: I am using the proprietary NVIDIA driver v460.32.03 on my 1050 Ti 4GB GPU.
it’s just a shame 5.8 ain’t the LTS kernel as my impression of that is definitely more positive given my observations above. but at least I can use 5.8 kernel til Aug 2021 when support of it expires and they will likely have something newer than 5.8 at that time. I just hope everything stays good when I am basically forced to shift to a newer kernel as that’s one thing nice about the LTS is it’s supported for the life of that particular major Mint release as it seems it’s suggested to use the 5.4 LTS in general unless one is having issues with it as that’s what Clem (the head guy at Mint) said.
bottom line… at least so far, pretty much everything else pretty much seems to work okay. well, I should note that I did try to get IMGBurn (a Windows CD/DVD burning program) to work on Mint v20.x but it seems to have issues seeing the DVD burners installed on my computer even though native apps like Xfburn see my DVD burners without issue (although my Foobar2000 program works fine on Mint v20.x which is probably primary reason I install Wine on Linux even though I do use it to replay a older game here and there with Lutris). but at this point I figured I don’t absolutely need IMGBurn (it’s my preferred burning program on Windows for ISO and general data discs) as ill just stick with Xfburn for burning ISO’s and it should work well enough for any general data disc I need to burn also (see my section below on glitches with Xfburn on Mint v20.x for workarounds as Mint v19.x it just seems to work straight up without using workaround stuff I mention below).
p.s. I even noticed that transferring a large file to my external USB 3 docking station, which I tested with a 1TB hard drive, that it does not transfer a bit and pause briefly, resume, pause etc which ends up taking more total time to finish the transfer like Mint v19.x does on my system where as Mint v20.1 seems to have a nice steady transfer the whole time and finishes a bit quicker (you can observe it by looking at the flashing light on the docking station). I want to say based on what’s shown on screen that with the pausing etc thing the average rate might have been something around 80MB/s but when I was using Mint v20.x (at least with 5.8 kernel but I imagine 5.4 LTS works to but I did not test 5.4) it seems to be around 110MB/s. but it’s not surprising as it seems to be a continuous transfer the whole way instead of where you can see the USB 3 docking station light flashes rapidly for a bit, then stops briefly, resumes with that general pattern until the file transfer is finished.
another small/minor thing from v19.x-Cinnamon to v20.x-Cinnamon is that when you got several Nemo file manager windows open, like how you can highlight your mouse on it and you see the little popups there and you can click each one to open that specific window. well, I noticed there was more graphic glitches on Mint v19.x series that, at least so far, have not been there in Mint v20.1. like how it shows a small picture of the gist of what’s in that window, well sometimes say I had 8 windows open or something, sometimes a couple or so will be sort of not showing what’s in that window even though I can still click on it and the desired effect still happens by opening that specific window. it’s more of a cosmetic issue though but things are just smoother (and migh even be a little snappier) in Mint v20.x vs v19.x.
but speaking of Xfburn (which I think is a good simple ISO and general data burning program on Linux(it even works with AUDIO but if I recall correctly, by default, it does not work on auto conversion of files to WAV so it’s best to convert whatever you want to burn to WAV file first. like say FLAC to WAV))… it’s more glitchy on Mint v20.x vs Mint v19.x series. like when trying to burn something like say a ISO (I think even with general data it reacts similarly) to a blank CD/DVD it seems to throw a error ‘The write mode is not supported currently’ etc. but there are workarounds below…
but to talk about the screenshots below…
-“The write mode is not supported currently” = click ‘close’ and then on the image below you you can see the circular icon with the arrow to the right of the CD-RW text, if you click that FIRST, then click on the ‘Burn compilation’ or proceed to burn your files etc and it will work.
-I noticed when I tried to burn a ISO when a CD-RW had some data on it, that it would have a popup, which says, ‘A full, but erasable disc is in the drive’ with it asking the No or Yes to it. if you select ‘Yes’ it keeps having popups and nothing happens, which we don’t want, so basically select ‘No’ and then basically close out of that stuff and at the top of Xfburn where it shows ‘Action’ click the ‘Erase CD-RW’ (or the like) then that ‘circular icon with the arrow’ next to CD-RW at which point this seems to activate things so that burning/erasing will work.
so with all of that said it seems the general key here is erasing disc if it’s full before attempting to burn any data to it if your using CD-RW or DVD+RW and selecting that ‘circular icon with the arrow to the right of the CD-RW’ text as it seems to sort of activate things so that it will work properly. even if not burning CD-RW or DVD+RW and sticking to standard CD-R or DVD-/+R I assume the key here is once the blank disc is inserted, after a few seconds so that the drive see’s the disc, then click that circular icon next to that CD-RW text in the screenshot I took which seems to activate it properly at which point the burn should proceed when you click ‘Burn Image’ (for ISO) or ‘Proceed to Burn’ for general data file burning.
one last little thing you will notice in my screen shot below that on the ‘Burn composition’ screen that the ‘Speed:’ and ‘Write mode:’ are blank (like nothing is shown) but once you click that circular icon with the arrow to the right of the CD-RW after it initializes the drive there is stuff shown in there at that point (it seems to do this with or without a disc in the drive).
here are some general screenshots I took (for those who want to know… on Mint one just holds the SHIFT key and then press the Print Screen key and then with the mouse select the portion of the screen you want and it will save to a png file etc)…
