Yo dawg, I heard you like tests, so I got some tests for your tests so you can test while you test!

Do you have backup copies of your important files? If so, nuke that shizzle and try again starting from scratch.

Editing to clarify: Nuke that shizzle = nuke the installation device, not the backup. 😉

In general, I downvote content with shitty or incomplete titles.

Except Ubuntu b/c they’re pushing snaps.

OP answered this in another comment: They are getting prompted to sign up for Ubuntu Pro whenever they upgrade.

Floof mode engaged.

Since you chose Linux Mint—good choice btw—something to keep in mind is that Mint is based on Ubuntu. While you’re learning and searching the interwebs for how to do x, y, and z, if you don’t find an article or guide specifically about Mint, try searching the same phrase replacing “mint” with “ubuntu.” There’s far more content out there about Ubuntu than Mint, but since Mint is based on Ubuntu, 9 times out of 10 the same solution on an Ubuntu forum works in Mint.

Good luck!

Yes and no. Technically yes because the issue seems only to affect pixelfed.social; however, that happens to be the largest instance iirc. And hash tags are not federated, so one of the main features for discovery that is accessed from the landing page is unusable or broken (has been for months).

Meanwhile, people are out there talking and reading about this cool federated alternative to instagram called pixelfed, perhaps spending a few minutes browsing the site for the largest instance which also happens to have the word pixelfed in the URL, but as soon as they try interacting with it, they bounce off because they clicked on a link hoping to get more nature photos, but got an error instead. 🤷‍♂️

Ventoy for life

Hmm… that may be the case on some instances (e.g. pixelfed.social), but I know an account is not required on others because I’ve tested it on several instances without registering. The only one it breaks on is pixelfed.social, which unfortunately is also the largest instance.

But still good to know, thanks for pointing that out. It’s too bad the unauthenticated discovery is still broken, though.

It’s a cool concept with a lot of potential, but currently very buggy and incomplete. For example, basic functionality like hash tags need to be fixed and federated for it to be usable IMHO. It has piqued my interest, though, so I might sign up someday if the usability issues are ever addressed.

ability to follow hashtags

Are hash tags working for you? Whenever I click on a hash tag, it takes me to a missing page.

Except that the explore/discover pages aren’t federated, but otherwise, yeah.

Much respect for the creator of Pixelfed for their contributions to the fediverse and all for more fedi alternatives, but please fix basic functionality on Pixelfed first!

nasal congestion intensifies

Have you tried hitting the Super key and searching the menus for the word “login”? According to this article, there should be a separate configuration screen for the login window. Otherwise, try searching DDG for “linux mint cinnamon primary login screen”—hopefully someone else has had the same problem before you.

The only other thing I can think of is user settings tend to be saved as dot-text files in the user’s home directory (e.g. in /home/USER/.config/), but I wonder if there’s a similar config for system wide settings, like in /etc/ or /opt/ or something like that. Hopefully someone else who knows more than I do can chime in.

Good luck!

Have you found the display settings in Cinnamon? There should be a way to toggle primary screens similar to what you’re used to on Windows (perhaps w/ some quirks).

I also used Linux Mint with Cinnamon for several years, but it’s more than a year since I’ve switched to Fedora, so my memory’s a little fuzzy.

Yup, I agree - thanks for chiming in.

Thanks for sharing your story, this helps.

You’re right - I’ve decided to allow cookies to persist after they close the browser. Thanks for your advice.