Linux

I'm moderately experienced with linux. Been using it as my daily driver since 2018. Mostly using Fedora but also have a Debian server. I'm pretty comfortable with systemd but don't love the bloat.

Anyway, I've decided that I'd like to try Arch. So I'm looking for tutorials to help me learn or get familiar with Arch instead of just diving in head first like a madlad.

So what Arch tutorials do you like and are there any that you'd recommend that I watch?

Edit: lmao you guys are brutal. yeah i know about the arch wiki, rtfm and all that. I know i'll be spending a lot of time with the wiki. I just wanted to get a rough intro first. Well, I guess I'm off to read the fkin wiki now.

would the performance be huge and be very awesome?? if i had a computer with the latest amd ryzen chip and with 4tb of ssd and 16gb of ram and installed lubuntu on it, what would happen?

has anyone ever tried this??

https://gitlab.com/christosangel/deshuffle

deshuffle is a terminal word puzzle game, written in Bash.

The simple aim is to put all the given letters in order to find the shuffled word against the clock. The time available after a number of words also reduces, so the game gets harder as it goes.

There is not only one solution to every puzzle. If the user find a word with the same letters, the solution will be accepted.

By default, the adjusted definitions of the words appear in the end of each round.

The game ends when the user fails to find the word in time, or fails to create an acceptable solution altogether.

If the score is among the 10 best scores achieved, it makes it in the Top Ten Highscores.

This game was inspired by https://wordnerd.co/23words/.

Edit 2: Through all of my shenanigans I ended up on a read-only snapshot for root. The error I got just seemed similar to previous out-of-space errors. I went to a later snapshot as default and everything is working great!

My OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is wonky since I last did a dist-upgrade with about 4000 packages. Midway through it errord out with an error that indicated that the filesystem was full althou df showed plenty of free space.

BTRFS seemed to be the culprit. Removing snapshots let me continue the upgrade until it errored out again. Rinse and repeat until it was done.

Edit: My root subvolume is read only. So there must be some error in that. The other subvolumes work correctly. So I guess it isn't about free space after all.

But now the BTRFS seems to be almost full and I cannot update anymore.

...
Checking for file conflicts: .....................[done]error: can't create transaction lock on /usr/lib/sysimage/rpm/.rpm.lock (Read-only file system)                 ( 1/40) Removing: ovpn-dco-kmp-default-0.2.202412[error]Removal of (76899)ovpn-dco-kmp-default-0.2.20241216~git0.a08b2fd_k6.13.7_1-2.2.x86_64(@System) failed:          Error: Subprocess failed. Error: RPM failed: Command exited with status 1.                                      Abort, retry, ignore? [a/r/i] (a):                      Problem occurred during or after installation or removal of packages:                                           Installation has been aborted as directed.              Please see the above error message for a hint.

I've tried a full balance but that didn't even seem to help. So I suspect that the space is caught up in snapshots, but I can't delete them.

# snapper list

# │ Type   │ Pre # │ Date                             │ User │ Used Space │ Cleanup │ Description           │ Userdata                                               ─────┼────────┼───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼──────┼────────────┼─────────┼───────────────────────┼─────────────                                             0  │ single │       │                                  │ root │            │         │ current               │  1  │ single │       │ Thu 18 Apr 2024 05:58:31 PM CEST │ root │  12.51 GiB │ number  │ first root filesystem │365* │ pre    │       │ Wed 26 Mar 2025 04:28:33 PM CET  │ root │  16.00 KiB │ number  │ zypp(zypper)          │ important=no                                           366  │ pre    │       │ Wed 26 Mar 2025 07:28:09 PM CET  │ root │  16.00 KiB │ number  │ zypp(zypper)          │ important=no                                           367  │ pre    │       │ Wed 26 Mar 2025 07:36:53 PM CET  │ root │  16.00 KiB │ number  │ zypp(zypper)          │ important=no

# snapper rm 1

Deleting snapshot failed.

# snapper rm 365

Cannot delete snapshot 365 since it is the currently mounted snapshot.

# btrfs filesystem usage /

Overall:                                                    Device size:                 476.44GiB                  Device allocated:            389.06GiB                  Device unallocated:           87.37GiB                  Device missing:                  0.00B                  Device slack:                  3.50KiB                  Used:                        382.53GiB                  Free (estimated):             90.80GiB      (min: 47.12GiB)                                                     Free (statfs, df):            90.80GiB                  Data ratio:                       1.00                  Metadata ratio:                   2.00                  Global reserve:              512.00MiB      (used: 0.00B)                                                       Multiple profiles:                  no                                                                      Data,single: Size:381.00GiB, Used:377.57GiB (99.10%)       /dev/mapper/cr_root   381.00GiB                                                                              Metadata,DUP: Size:4.00GiB, Used:2.48GiB (61.97%)          /dev/mapper/cr_root     8.00GiB                                                                              System,DUP: Size:32.00MiB, Used:80.00KiB (0.24%)           /dev/mapper/cr_root    64.00MiB                                                                              Unallocated:                                               /dev/mapper/cr_root    87.37GiB

# btrfs qgroup show /

Qgroupid    Referenced    Exclusive   Path              --------    ----------    ---------   ----              0/5           16.00KiB     16.00KiB   <toplevel>        0/256         16.00KiB     16.00KiB   @                 0/257         14.25GiB     14.25GiB   @/var             0/258         16.00KiB     16.00KiB   @/usr/local       0/259         16.00KiB     16.00KiB   @/srv             0/260         54.32MiB     54.32MiB   @/root            0/261         24.09GiB     24.09GiB   @/opt             0/262        289.02GiB    288.95GiB   @/home            0/263         16.00KiB     16.00KiB   @/boot/grub2/x86_64-efi                                                   0/264         16.00KiB     16.00KiB   @/boot/grub2/i386-pc                                                      0/265         16.00KiB     16.00KiB   @/.snapshots      0/266         24.00GiB     12.51GiB   @/.snapshots/1/snapshot                                                   0/473         16.00GiB     16.00GiB   @/.snapshots/1/snapshot/swap                                              0/657         23.68GiB     16.00KiB   @/.snapshots/365/snapshot                                                 0/661         23.68GiB     16.00KiB   @/.snapshots/366/snapshot                                                 0/662         23.68GiB     16.00KiB   @/.snapshots/367/snapshot                                                 1/0           36.19GiB     36.12GiB   <0 member qgroups>

Any tips?

As seen in the image, neovim just yanks the exact next letter into the line below. How do I make it so words get properly formatted?

Just a recomendation, as the theme is quite beautiful.

Edit: Just the GIMP on the title.

I have some desktops (the tower kind) lying around and I'm wondering if there's a way that I can connect them all to one display and combine their computational power or at least make them all accessible in one place. I want to get into server hosting but only have one monitor. They're currently running LMDE.

Any ideas?

This is not a troll post. I'm genuinely confused as to why SELinux gets so much of hate. I have to say, I feel that it's a fairly robust system. The times when I had issues with it, I created a custom policy in the relevant directory and things were fixed. Maybe a couple of modules here and there at the most. It took me about 15 minutes max to figure out what permissions were being blocked and copy the commands from. Red Hat's guide.

So yeah, why do we hate SELinux?

i made the icons bigger now so that no one loses sight of them and they are just one click away!! any icon, and it's divided between two panels, reminiscent of gnome2, classic gnome2.

and it is in light mode, if i made a distro and added xfce, i would make so many changes!! like light mode only (for elderly and visually impaired and people who like reading a lot, that is me yea) and big icons so that everyone knows what's going on.

Let's say I want to build a GPS module for my car, which is only a GPS, doesn't hold anything else. Or a recipe tablet for my kitchen which only hold a recipe app.

Is this kind of purposes common? What would be the best way to do this kind of stuff? How do I choose the hardware? How do I "lockdown" certain aspects I don't need about software?

These kind of devices could be convenient because, by only holding what's needed, they would use less resources, they would be completely distraction free and they would be suitable to be used by non tech savy user which would need to use only one or two programs without messing with the system in any way.

I know KDE ha some kind of multi app kiosk settings, GNOME also can achieve something similar tho it's more confusing.. There are some kiosk distros which only give you a browser. But I don't see anything that can be set up, customized, and locked like that.

But would that be the best way of achieving something like that? I mean to use a GPS I don't need a terminal, nor video codecs, nor a browser.. Maybe I can add the possibility to send Osmand google maps links.. Or I can decide to make it hold Spotify too to make it a radio as well.. But a full distro would be wasted!

But how do I prevent every other use except the intended ones? Is there an easy way to achieve a "one purpose device" using Linux? Should I simply use whichever distro I like and uninstall everything which is not needed (I see use case for arch)?

I feel like we have the total freedom of Linux distros on one side, and companies using managed devices on the other by setting complicated policies, but I don't know any options in between!

Maybe the focus here is the desktop environment more than distros! Are there desktop environment purposed to give the user a set of limited apps, or a single app (which isn't only a browser)?

In short, sell me on ufw.

I learned recently that yfw is basically replacing iptables "everywhere", and as I'm getting old and crusty, this means that I have to learn something new when I'd much rather practice yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

To me, iptables is fine, and I like its flexibility. I've been using it ever since it de facto replaced ipchains, so ease of use isn'treally a factor in this equation.

So my more pointed question is: Can I just stick to iptables, or am I missing out on something that can only be done with ufw?

Hello all,

If this is not the right community for this question, I would be happy to be redirected elsewhere, so just let me know.

I recently configured my terminal emulator to an aesthetic that I like (custom font, coloring, shell prompt, etc) and it has made me wonder about customization in gnome.

One of the biggest things that I wish I could change in gnome is the grey-ness of the application view.

In this screenshot, you can see the familiar application view. In between the organizing folders, the desktops, and the dock, there is just so much nothing.

I am wondering if it is possible to customize this relatively easily. I would much prefer an image of my own choosing in place of this, or at least a different color from time to time.

Is anyone aware if this is configurable? I can't seem to find an extension for this, or any real information on how you would do such a thing.

Thanks

I would understand if Canonical want a new cow to milk, but why are developers even agreeing to this? Are they out of their minds?? Do they actually want companies to steal their code? Or is this some reverse-uno move I don't see yet? I cannot fathom any FOSS project not using the AGPL anymore. It's like they're painting their faces with "here, take my stuff and don't contribute anything back, that's totally fine"

I'm talking about this patch:

https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/autostart/

Now, the notes seem simple: after apply the patch, dwm will look for the autostart script in ~/.dwm/autostart.sh.

But if you read it carefully, the file is:

~/.dwm/autostart.sh &

Wth does a "&" have to do with file name? I tried to just use the normal file: autostart.sh with exec dunst. It doesnt work..

I tried to create in the Thunar this weird file name, "autostop.sh &". The system does not recognize it as sh script anymore. .

Any help is welcome.

Hey folks, thanks for all of your recommendations for distros a while back. I ended up settling on Fedora KDE, and have been futzing around with it on my old laptop just for funsies.

I've re-encountered an old problem though. The laptop's Caps Lock and F1 keys are busted, sending in dozens of keypresses per second even when unpressed. I solved this on windows with a bit of a headache (using a program to disable those keys), but I have no idea how to solve it in this environment. I've tried futzing with keyd with little success, and my search powers are really failing me here.

Any advice?

With Ubuntu changing to the Rust implementation of coreutils, what does that mean for performance?

At first I was sceptical, but after a few thought, I came to the solution that, if uutils can do the same stuff, is/stays actively maintained and more secure/safe (like memory bugs), this is a good change.

What are your thoughts abouth this?

Those who don't have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?

Context:

I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.

I've had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to really touch anything for a couple of years. I don't need the latest software at all times.

I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.

Do you have any other recommendations?