Linux

I switched fully to Linux from Windows (on my desktop) about 4 months ago. I'm a very old Linux user, I did my first install in '98 using Slackware, built an in-house web server for a company that hired me. But I've always been a "host my Linux servers on Digital Ocean" type of Linux user versus "desktop Linux user" and if I'm being honest, I switched to all FOSS everything years ago, so the only real reason I stayed on Windows was:

Gaming.

It was about five months ago my wife bought me a Steam Deck for my birthday. I was kinda mad about it, I thought it was too grandiose of a gift, but you know yeah, it was fucking rad. And I love it. It didn't take but a couple of weeks of use before I realized that Steam's coup was nearly complete. I knew it meant that Linux was now ready for prime time among gamers like me (who don't give a damn about multiplayer, nor kernel-level anti-cheat). I knew I could get Windows out of my life.

I didn't know what pitfalls awaited. My Windows machine was aging (Ryzen 3 3300X, RTX 3060) but still serviceable. I had another machine sitting in the living room that I used when really desperate (the wife was playing BG3 on the 3060), but it was getting waaaay too old to be practical (FX 6300, GTX 1050Ti). So I decided to modestly upgrade the living room machine, install Linux on it and use it instead of Windows and see how it went. If all went well, I'd wipe Windows.

I upgraded the living room machine (Ryzen 5 3600, RTX 5070, which required new mobo and RAM so I upgraded to 32G DDR4 3600 from my previous 16G and installed a 1TB NVMe in lieu of the HDD) - my timing could not have been more fortuitous, even though this was older, cheaper stuff, it was all nearly half the cost that it is now). On this machine, I installed Linux.

It didn't just go great. It went flawlessly. Everything works, with minimal intervention. I chose Mint because I didn't want an atomic distro, but I wanted something as friendly as possible for my wife's sake. All games are playing, from all sources. Steam, Epic, Gog, standalone. I play Elite Dangerous with a VKB/STECS setup and I was certain it was going to be a nightmare to setup. It wasn't. I ultimately had a single Windows program I couldn't live without (Notepad++) but it runs under Wine with zero issues.

There was only one thing left that I hadn't tackled that I was certain was going to be the real nightmare. Honestly, it didn't actually matter that much, which is why I left it for last. But I have an OG Vive, and I had heard it could be challenging. It wasn't. Installed Steam VR, launched it and it worked out of the gate as beautifully as it did on Windows, except better, because with a 5070 behind it, I could run everything on "VR Ultra" settings and it didn't even break a sweat. Holy shit, this is awesome!

I will be wiping the Windows machine tomorrow. Fuck Microsoft. Fuck ads. Fuck subscriptions. Fuck closed source gated off bullshit in general.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I am still a relatively new Linux user, had tried Garuda and Bazzite on my Acer Gaming laptop 2021 (Intel integrated + Nvidia 3070 dgpu- muxless) back in July but neither worked, i kept getting weird freezes and nothing would open. Had no clue what the issue was and had zero Linux knowledge. So after a frustrating few days and many, many, many reboots I gave up. Reinstalled shitty Windows 10 again and that was that. Felt defeated lol.

Fast forward to November, the itch to go back to Linux was growing something fierce. Decided to follow some good advice from a friend, installed Pop OS and fuck, it worked like a charm. Fell in love and haven't looked back at Windows since.

Kept learning new things and picking up more knowledge about the terminal and was beginning to use quite a few commands without any fear. The terminal is class, feel like hackerman meme lol. I soon realised though that I was actually only using my Nvida gpu for everything, rendering and games etc. So decided to try hybrid. However i soon realised Steam wouldn't open, anything that i asked to run the discrete card would not actually run the Nvidia card. Tried removing the open drivers and replacing with the closed. Some things worked temporarily but I simply couldnt figure it out and decided to settle for manually switching between integrated and nvidia for different tasks. Handy feature on Pop OS 22.04.

Anyway, got the stupid distro hopping itch and started jumping about lol. Tried Cachy. Same issue with Nvidia card so bounced. Tried Nobara. Same again but stayed longer and tried few kernel PCI tricks using grubby (advice from somebody much more knowledgeable). That worked for a day or so but always kept going back to crashing the nvidia card (and was only able to use my Intel integrated card). So went back to Pop OS (my Linux safe space lol). Was almost ready to settle for my lot in life (in regards to this stupid Acer Nvidia laptop lol).

Throughout all this, I had been reading the Arch wiki off and on, and at first it may as well be gobbledegook. But after couple months of using Linux you just start picking things up a lot more, words that had no meaning before, soon made sense and you begin to have the basics down. I had been reading about this GSP firmware thing really late one night and then forgot next day and only remembered few days later. Apparently this GSP firmware that comes with the Nvidua driver can screw some of the older Nvidia cards and so disabling it, while using the closed driver can help some older machines. So earlier tonight, tried it on Pop just messing about and it worked. So I thought, fuck it, Nobara was brilliant, lets try that again and try and find out how this is done on Nobara.

Switched to Nobara, followed some stuff from the wiki and forums, did the commands, then rebuilt the akmods and regenerated the Drakut program. And hybrid graphics works fucking perfectly now!!! Fuck me, it feels amazing to have finally sorted a solution to an issue I was ready to give up on after trying to sort it for a couple weeks! And I also have to say, if I had simply gotten that answer the first night I went searching, I would be absolutely none the wiser about all the things I learnt through trial and error, through learning on the wiki and on forums etc.

Sorry for the long rant lol, just wanted to share a minor but personal triumph. After all that, I can really see how awesome Linux is. I honestly feel that I've learnt more about computers within the last few months on Linux, than I did in the last 15 years using Windows!

If anybody out there is thinking of trying Linux, you should absolutely give it a go! Jump in and have some fun! Make sure you back up any important data. But don't be afraid to make mistakes. Honestly that can be fun, figuring that out! There really are some great distros out there!

Linux4life motherfuckers!

Peace!

I’ve recently installed Mint on a clean partition, and set up dual booting to always prefer that partition over the Win10 one (on a separate sdd). At the moment I’m trying Mint for the very first time, seeing how I like it. And truth be told, it’s quite good! However I’ve had 2 system crashes in the last 2 days, and some games crash without an error log (old world went straight to desktop while mid-turn, and ghost of Tsushima crashed after I paused the game when pressing start).

I’d love to be more knowledgeable and figure this out by myself, but I can’t find a starting point to determine what went wrong in any of these instances.

Are there execution logs or actual error logs that I can check somewhere?

Most servers around the world run Linux. The same goes for almost all supercomputers. That's astonishing in a capitalist world where absolutely everything is commodified. Why can't these big tech companies manage to sell their own software to server operators or supercomputers? Why is an open, free project that is free for users so superior here?

I recently decided that I want my resume to look better than the result of libreoffice. I installed texlive from the default trixie repository, and it works for the very simplest cases. However, trying to render a template which depends on CurVe resulted in an error about missing sty files.

By installing texlive from source, and installing CurVe to the working directory, I was able to fix that problem. However, there is still an error, and it appears to be an error in apa.bbx, a downstream dependency that comes with texlive. The error is

Package keyval Error: usenarrator undefined.

I'm not sure what I can do about this. I'm not very experienced with latex, mostly just using the default style as a convenient way to format math. Would swapping it for html be a recommended solution? Is there a good way from the command line to export html to pdf?

Hey everyone! I'm finally fed up with Win11 and the bullshit that comes with it for the PC it's on.

It's being used as a Jellyfin+arr stack, qbit, Immich, and gaming PC for the living room.

I'm currently in the process of backing up all my important info and am doing research on which distro to use.

I don't mind tinkering, but for this PC, stability is key. I don't want to have to go in and update it every week... I want this one to work with minimal maintenance on my part.

I'd likely update it a few times a year, knowing me.

A few hardware specs:

MSI mobo (I've learned that UEFI can be a pain), 10600k, 2070 gpu, and will have a pool of 3x8tb drives that I would like to have in raid5 (or something similar) for storage (movies, TV shows, and Immich libraries), the OS will have its own drive, and I have a separate SSD that I have been using to store programs, games, yml's for docker, and other such things that get accessed more frequently, but aren't crucial if lost.

I've kinda narrowed it down to either Bazzite or CachyOS.

I've heard that Bazzite can be a little more locked down, which I'm not a fan of, but CachyOS has features I will likely never touch (schedulers, kernels, etc...).

I don't want an upkeep heavy OS. I'm moving away from windows for that reason. Win11 has been a nightmare for me with constant reboots and things not loading up until after I log in. Not to mention driver conflicts and all the other BS that's come with it.

So... What say the hive mind? Is Bazzite going to be too tinker-proof, or is CachyOS just way too much work? Or do I have it all wrong with my perception of both?

Thanks!

Ps: this will be my first full commit to Linux. I've dabbled in the past and am no stranger to CLI... So this will likely be a stepping stone into getting my primary PC onto Linux. Go easy on me lol

New year, new OS for this M1 MacBook Air! I've been using Asahi Linux (via the flagship Fedora Asahi Remix) for a few weeks now. It's been my everyday laptop and I'm really impressed with how it's ...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41331598

I am trying to use a Thermaltake Blacx Duet (ST0015) HDD Docking Station with my Linux computers (Linux Mint and Ubuntu, all latest).

I have a SATA disk plugged in one of the bays and when I connect it to a USB port with its cable (everything is brand new) nothing happens.

lsusb returns:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 174c:2074 ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1074 High-Speed hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:082d Logitech, Inc. HD Pro Webcam C920 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:0ac4 Logitech, Inc. G535 Wireless Gaming Headset Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c53a Logitech, Inc. PowerPlay Wireless Charging System Bus 001 Device 006: ID 046d:c547 Logitech, Inc. USB Receiver Bus 001 Device 007: ID 26ce:01a2 ASRock LED Controller Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 174c:3074 ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1074 SuperSpeed hub

The only message in dmesgrelated to usb is:

[ 474.891877] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage

which I understand means that the usb-storage module is loaded.

Same behavior in Ubuntu.

Does this mean that the hardware is just incompatible or is there anything more I can try?

New year, new OS for this M1 MacBook Air!

I've been using Asahi Linux (via the flagship Fedora Asahi Remix) for a few weeks now. It's been my everyday laptop and I'm really impressed with how it's held up. Battery life is amazing, and the ARM Linux experience is fine for everyday use.

This video walks through how I installed Fedora Asahi Remix in December 2025, the process might change in the future and if it does, I might revisit it here or in a blog- watch for pinned comments I guess!

Important links:

• Asahi Linux project: https://asahilinux.org/
• Asahi Linux docs: https://asahilinux.org/docs/
• Asahi Linux "supported devices" page: https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support

Links to help support unsponsored videos like these... Patreon and Ko-Fi members get access to my Discord/Matrix server where I hang out:

• Patreon: https://patreon.com/VeronicaExplains
• Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/VeronicaExplains
• Buy a shirt: https://vkc.sh/merch
• Download my music: https://thestopbits.bandcamp.com/

Chapters:
0:00 What is Asahi Linux in the first place?
2:15 Installation caveats
3:27 Actually installing Asahi Linux on real hardware
7:34 About the experience
11:06 Asahi is awesome

#linux #apple #fedora

To improve Android-application function on the go, AOSP-derivatives (LineageOS, GrapheneOS, /e/OS, CalyxOS, etc.) are also tolerated, at least on the phone. This because so many people say mobile Linux (PostmarketOS, Sailfish OS, etc.) is not so nice yet in daily phone use.

This question didn't come from me originally, but I'll add my context anyway:
I come from Ubuntu (eww, Canonical) and Android (eww, Google, nope!).

I currently have Linux Mint with Cinnamon desktop on the laptop, and because of the bugs, I've been considering moving to something else with KDE (serious desktop UI), maybe OpenSUSE because its roots are so European.

I tried Fedora with Gnome on a tablet I had 2025, which seemed fine on a touchscreen, unlike Fedora with KDE.

My phone runs /e/OS with the default Nextcloud hosted by Murena (the company behind /e/OS), which is fine, and I appreciate that /e/OS can be bought pre-installed, and that it supports bootloader re-locking (against pickpockets) on many devices (Fairphone and Shiftphone of the European ones).

Special thanks to Firefox for a unified experience through a Mozilla-account. More of this kind of unification would be welcome.

TL;DR: Mozilla has a new CEO and a new mission: transform Firefox into an AI browser. That has run into some snags, as Firefox users don’t seem that interested in AI. Mozilla is forging ahead, utilizing deceptive patterns (previously known as dark patterns) to nag and annoy people into enabling AI features. You can see this in the introduction of Link Previews, an extremely invasive anti-feature that exists solely to push AI into your experience.

i really wanna have all of them. long neck tux is very funny

listenonrepeat.com was up for years until last month, when it mysteriously went offline. I haven't found any sites like it. I could just paste in a youtube link and have it play right away, and choose the start and end times for looping, and it had a count for how many times you played the song, as well viewing history (with start & end times saved) so you could easily listen to previous songs.

Looking for the best bluetooth adapter with Linux (Mint) compatibility..I got one now but it seems to have cutting out issues and doesn't work well with some stuff (like a PS4 controller).

Or maybe it's just Linux bluetooth being terrible as usual? Has anyone had luck with different dongles? (No scamazon links please)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/49130941

How to disable Linux laptop keyboard when custom keyboard is plugged in

How are you guys doing this? Are you using Sway or Hyprland for this? Anyone else using udev already?

Im happy to see that even PC Gamer is seeing why Linux is a good choice.

;tldr Beginning to use a new OS, even using a distro as friendly as Mint, is harder than the overall community says it is. The second there is a problem expect hours of consuming, likely outdated, information. That said I’m happy I switched.

I’m not a programmer. If you are someone who is unfamiliar with GNU/Linux you probably aren’t either. Good news: a week after you start using Linux you’ll feel like one! Here are some critical things I eventually learned while installing Ubuntu/Mint:

You should expect to use the terminal . Period. Something about your particular hardware or software setup may require special tweaks or install that requires typing. Anyone who even hints this isn’t the case is at best deluded. I know this is a deal-breaker for many people but I’d rather not waste your time.

Locations and commands are case-sensitive . -h means help -H Human-readable (or is it the other way around? More typing yay!). It's in /etc/ X 11, not /etc/x11 (something almost impossible to see the difference of on a blurry 1080i resolution not being properly displayed).

While the basic user storage locations mimic what you are used to, the underlying system organization is completely impossible to navigate. Pertinent files can be scattered over several locations for whatever reason so don’t even bother trying to figure out a pattern and just follow guides. That said,

Guides helping you to navigate this jumbled mess are possibly outdated so check their dates or you may end up following directions and quite possibly break your installation when you add/remove/alter a file that used to be important but has been deprecated or relocated and now redundant. Speaking of which,

It is possible/probable your distro is effectively a skin of another older distro , so you should search the underlying distro directions too in case there aren’t any for the ‘skin’ you’re using.

All said and done, I am very happy to say I now have my Mint OS on a portable USB keychain that I can use on any PC (assuming TPM permission). The actual OS is pleasantly unobtrusive, nimble, and supports 90% of what I want to do with it. Critical failings seem to be completely relegated to proprietary software (for me, 1080i support was abandoned by all the graphics card developers years ago and I’m unable to either find older working drivers like I can in Win10, or find/figure out the tweaking needed to force the issue). Check all your mission critical programs to see if they are Linux compatible , or ‘simply’ learn to use the open-source competitor if they aren’t.

I noticed a new Linux distribution which seemed interesting to me for a couple of reasons:

• os-tools aka package management etc written in Rust
• originated in Ireland
• claims atomicity
• /etc handling inspired by Clear Linux
• ok privacy policy
• community chat in Zulip instead of Discord

Still a bit fresh, I haven't dared to try it on my main machine yet.

UPDATE: It's a physical/hardware issue. I did some more plugging and unplugging and tried the live disk. It's my wireless keyboard and mouse. I'm still not sure what the cause is since they were running fine.

At some point in October or early November, my Cinnamon desktop started acting up.

Whenever I press the "Ctrl" key on the laptop keyboard or the Bluetooth one, it starts zooming in, if the program has that capacity. For example, it does it in LibreOffice and Firefox but not Terminal or Nicotine+.

I checked the keyboard shortcuts and bindings but I didn't see any issues there.

At the same time, the mouse/trackpad is misbehaving. This is much more frustrating because it's inconsistent and challenging to recreate.

The easiest example to use is Nicotine+. When I click on a tab, it scrolls through the previous tabs until it gets to the main one.

It won't happen in other programs with tabbed screens, but I'll get a similar behavior in some drop-down boxes or using autofill - the list won't remain open. I'll click to open and it opens for a split second.

I don't have a ton of additional programs and I don't get into the nuts and bolts - I only run the recommended updates. I don't know of anything that changed.

I have a Debian USB ready to go in case I can't get anywhere with this. I'm also posting this in a couple of Mint forums.

Over the weekend I was given a crap 2in1 notebook. It is 10 years old and even by standards back then had low end hardware (MSRP was 300 Euro according to some googling).

The Atom CPU is 64bits, the UEFI 32bits – a combinaon I completely forgot existed and many distributions no longer support.

Not only does postmarketOS support 32bit UEFI, thanks to its smartphone focus it comes with zram preconfigured. Installation was easy using the graphical installer for generic x86-64.

So now I run a fully featured desktop, KDE Plasma, on it. None of that "lightweight" stuff that sacrifices features and usability for a few megabytes of RAM.

I only tweaked it a little bit. Firefox ran like shit. Chromium was better in that regard but for whatver reason YouTube specifically kept logging me out. Also RAM ran out once and Chromium was force closed by the OS.

I ended up installing KDE’s Falkon browser which offers the benefits of Chromium’s rendering speed without the logging out of YouTube part. It's also a bit less resource intensive, yet comes wih an ad blocker and support for user scripts which relieves the lack of proper extensions.

pmOS doesn't come with swap by default. I added a swap file which is quickly done. It's barely used since switching to Falkon, currently only 100MB.

YouTube video playback at 1080p is smooth. Zero problems with suspend so far.

I'm not sure if it's the result of defective hardware or just driver incompatibilities but Bluetooth is not recognized (bummer) and the camera isn't either (don't care for it).

Long story short:

I rescued a crap PC from the scrap pile. It's now genuinely usable, albeit with the aformentioned caveats.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40849372

I'm looking at starting a small local Linux Users Group (LUG).

What are good easy ways to get started?

Seems like meetup.com is kinda anti-foss.

Are there better alternatives?