Linux

It doesn't do any crazy ricing, as I mostly focused on usability tweaks and automatic installation of my must-have extensions. (Tiling, clipboard manager, dash to dock, desktop icons)

Most notable tweaks include:

• clicking on a running app minimizes it
• clicking on a group of apps brings up their previews
• adds minimize, maximize buttons to windows
• installs flatpak, adds flathub
• install flatpak and snap plugins into gnome-software (doesn't work on Fedora)
• installs snap
• installs mtp-tools and gvfs-backends on Debian to be able to transfer files from a connected phone
• adds right click > New File
• Super + Shift + S brings up the area screenshot
• Super + E opens the file manager
• Ctrl + Alt + T opens the terminal

(Those already configured on Ubuntu don't get configured again, obviously.)

I also recorded a short showcase to prove that it works without errors https://youtu.be/xf739ivb9hg

Looking for a good app launcher for Linux. Currently looking for something for Arch and I see there's a lot of options liks rofi and wofi. What are your favourite app launchers and why?

I kinda want to hook one up to raspberry pi for some home control, but I'm not sure if the software to configure it works on Linux (or how it even presents itself HID-device wise)

I'm sure it'll eventually be reverse engineered and have some custom drivers on github soon, but a quick google came up empty for this new device.

Edit: Oh I just realized this hasn't been released yet, I saw the "buy now" button and assumed it was.

Hello Linux Helpdesk. ;)

I use Fedora (currently 40), and have done for a while.

I always LUKS+Ext4 encrypt my local drive and decided to do the same to my external hard drive.

Last week I reinstalled Fedora 40 from a Bootable USB, but when I tried to access my files om my external drive it now gives me the error

You do not have permission to view the content of "Files".

I've read online it's due to me no longer being the "Owner" of the drive I was in my previous install of Fedora and now I'm a different user and apparently no users a part from Owner have any permissions on an EXT4+LUKS drive.

Is there any way to give myself permission to see the content again or did I bonk my backup? As a note, I DO have the correct Luks password, it shows me the name of the encrypted disk after decrypting, which is "Files"

Thank you in advance.

Edit: Thank you everybody, thanks to you I've been able to rescue my files. Y'all deserve a great day!

We are excited to announce that Arch Linux is entering into a direct collaboration with Valve. Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers.

This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed-up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors. We are incredibly grateful for Valve to make this possible and for their explicit commitment to help and support Arch Linux.

These projects will follow our usual development and consensus-building workflows. [RFCs] will be created for any wide-ranging changes. Discussions on this mailing list as well as issue, milestone and epic planning in our GitLab will provide transparency and insight into the work. We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on this mailing list as work progresses.

1. Recommendations for Notepad++ replacement. Desired features:

- Tabbed with ability to have multiple files open via tabs at the top
- find and replace with regex ability, find and replace over multiple files in folder, find pop-out that shows all the lines with the desired text and allows clicking to jump to them. 
- Ability to jump to line via inputting number
- basic tools for conversion like URL decoding/encoding and base64 decoding/encoding (or addons for such, no I don’t like pasting potentially sensitive info in random converter websites), 
- column select mode (alt on notepad++), 
- encoding settings switch
- code language highlighting, 
- dark mode (dark background option)
- line operations like trim trailing space (or all excess space), ability to view and manipulate (find/replace) symbols like end of line, whitespace, carriage return, etc.
- Not driven entirely by three dozen memorized keyboard shortcuts 
- I am NOT coding in this, I am at most editing some markup files (xml, lua) or doing some find and replace for updated functions, doing text manipulation, using as an intermediary step in managing large sets of data.
- Ability to open fairly large files without freezing up (e.g. 400mb text file opens instantly in NPP but locks up windows default notepad)

2. I have an iPhone, I like to back it up and sync music via a cable to it using iTunes. Would it work fine to have a persistent Windows VM on Linux with iTunes installed? Any issues?

3. I do some gaming. I own several games exclusively on the EA App (they’ve rebranded it from origin), the Command and Conquer series and Dragon Age at this point I think are the ones I don’t have elsewhere and care about. Anyone have any thoughts to share on that and how well it works? I know several of the C&C games are rated as “garbage” on WineHQ so that worries me. I have no worries about my Steam games given the work they’ve done and the fact they have a Linux client though I do worry about my GoG games a little. I suppose I could run these in a Windows virtual machine but I worry how well that will work, I’m not sure older games will necessarily take well to being run in a VM of a modern OS like Win10. I also off and on play WoW though I gather from WineHQ that it works well. I don’t do any competitive online stuff other than that though.

4. How do Xbox One controllers work wired with Linux? Is there something I can install where it just works with supported games as it does on Windows or is it likely I’ll need to mess with things each time?

5. Recommendations for GUI mpv frontend?

6. Suggestions for an FFmpeg GUI wrapper? >> NOT handbrake <<. I already use that, it’s not useful when I don’t want to operate on video but only audio or only extract subtitles, etc. Preferably something easy to use but hard to master in that it works without too much tinkering as expected but it has a lot of depth and options? I’m looking for something that I can drag say an mkv file to with video and audio and subtitle tracks and I can choose to convert ONLY the audio which is say DTS-HD MA to FLAC or Opus and set the quality level, channels, etc. (I previously used a Windows software called xmediarecode)

7. I use software called AdvancedRenamer. I’m looking for software on Linux that >> via GUI << allows mass renaming using things like replace with or adding text at the beginning or end of file names by pattern, regex, removing things by pattern or by count from the start end of a filename, incrementing/decreasing numbers in names by a set amount, that kind of thing. I like a preview window of the results before I click commit.

8. Keyboard shortcuts. Control+C and V I believe work the same but is there a way to get common windows key shortcuts working in a similar-ish fashion on Linux? For example winkey+L locks the session without logging out but requires a password and I tend to do this all the time, multiple times a day, is there a way to get Linux to respond to those key-presses and do the same thing? Other key combos I like would be win+d for hiding windows and showing the desktop. Others I can probably deal with learning new combos but those two are pure muscle memory.

9. I don’t understand Linux distro segmentation especially when it comes to software availability. On Windows it’s simple, there’s either a download for Windows or there isn’t and short of it being for something ancient like Win98 it’ll tend to just work with Win10 with compatibility enabled. But with Linux often there are multiple files for different flavors, one for Ubuntu, one for Debian, one for Mint, one for Arch, one for CentOS, etc. Sometimes there’s just one option for Linux but it specifies it’s for something like Arch. If I run into a software I need and it specifically indicates it’s for another flavor of Linux than the one I run, how likely is it that I can get it to work on another distro without any real trouble? (Real trouble meaning I need to do web searches and edit config files or add flags that vary by software to the executable launch)

10. Last but not least. I’m looking for suggestions for a Linux distro to use that fits my needs.

I tried Ubuntu a couple of years ago and I hated it. Among other things the settings app was too simple and didn’t have 1/10th of the kind of options I am familiar with on Windows, it looked like the settings for a phone or smart system like a streaming device. I know GUI settings are not a strong suite of Linux but I have to admit I hate, hate, hate the idea of too much stuff via command line/shell or editing config files. That said if that’s how it’s going to be I think I might be able to deal with it.

I’d describe myself as a power user. I use arcane and strange programs from time to time to meet odd needs and every 4-6 months I find myself searching up some odd problem or need I have and pouring over old forum posts. I game (mostly older stuff). I use mods with games. I manage a media server among other services in my home so have to work with video files, audio tracks, subtitles, etc. I do not like the command line but I’m not afraid of it. Just because I can problem-solve and troubleshoot does not mean I want to spend my free-time doing so or babysitting an unstable distro.

So I’m caught between not wanting a beginner, simple-use-case (think someone who browses the web, edits some basic text or docx files and almost nothing else) distro AND not wanting one that’s bleeding edge experimental or super strange in execution so it’s breaking all the time or needs troubleshooting so I need to go into the terminal for every single thing I do or so I have to go and make forum posts asking for help every 4 months.

I do want something actively developed with regular and prompt security updates in response to vulnerabilities. So it needs to have a certain size and userbase, not be a bespoke hobby project.

I use an NVIDIA graphics card (1070 because I'm not rich and haven't needed anything more yet) so I’ll need something that allows installation of the necessary (proprietary) drivers for that and doesn’t cause a big fuss with that if there’s a problem.

I am going to be using firejail and want to be able to use opensnitch firewall. I also need to remote desktop connection to a Windows server (GUI) and have a stable connection to that. I am also likely to have a Windows10 virtual persistent installation via virtualbox (unless someone knows a better option) which I will use for a few things but have no interest in using most of the time for common tasks or heavy programs which need to run native on Linux if I’m switching.

Strong preference all options offered be free as in beer (small 1-time fees are fine, subscriptions are not).

However they may be based on non-free licenses and have proprietary/closed source code if it’s the best option. (Do try and keep suggestions somewhat mainstream, don’t just search for me and suggest the first thing you find on github with all of 2 stars made by a user named notmalware 3 months ago or something else sketchy. I'm looking for personal or heard experience and suggestions. If I don't get any I'll search myself.)

I know there are lots of people that do not like Ubuntu due to the controversies of Snaps, Canonicals head scratching decisions and their ditching of Unity.

However my experience using Ubuntu when I first used it wasn't that bad, sure the snaps could take a bit or two to boot up but that's a first time thing.

I've even put it on my younger brothers laptop for his school and college use as he just didn't like the updates from Windows taking away his work and so far he's been having a good time with using this distro.

I guess what I'm tryna say is that Ubuntu is kind of the "Windows" of the Linux world, yes it's decisions aren't always the best, but at least it has MUCH lenient requirements and no dumb features from Windows 11 especially forced auto updates.

What are your thoughts and experiences using Ubuntu? I get there is Mint and Fedora, but how common Ubuntu is used, it seemed like a good idea for my bros study work as a "non interfering" idea.

Your thoughts?

Half of these exist because I was bored once.

The Windows 10 and MacOS ones are GPU passthrough enabled and what I occasionally use if I have to use a Windows or Mac application. Windows 7 is also GPU enabled, but is more a nostalgia thing than anything.

I think my PopOS VM was originally installed for fun, but I used it along with my Arch Linux, Debian 12 and Testing (I run Testing on host, but I wanted a fresh environment and was too lazy to spin up a Docker or chroot), Ubuntu 23.10 and Fedora to test various software builds and bugs, as I don't like touching normal Ubuntu unless I must.

The Windows Server 2022 one is one I recently spun up to mess with Windows Docker Containers (I have to port an app to Windows, and was looking at that for CI). That all become moot when I found out Github's CI doesn't support Windows Docker containers despite supporting Windows runners (The organization I'm doing it for uses Github, so I have to use it).

I'm not coming up with a lot of useful (clear) results when searching for a solution to this issue.

Is it OK to simply dd the 128GB disk to the 32GB disk using count to stop after the 16GB partition was cloned?

A bit more context: I had to clone a 16GB eMMC and only had a 128GB SD around. Now I purchased a 32GB eMMC and want to clone it again. The partition holds a root filesystem for an ARMv8 device. I don't have the 16GB eMMC anymore, that would have been the easy way out.

Earlier this week my company bought a LIDAR from Ouster. The LIDAR is a network device: it has an ethernet interface, it gets its IP from a DHCP server and then it talks to whichever machine runs the Ouster application.

The engineers and the marketing guy in charge of evaluating it installed the software on a Windows 11 laptop and tried to make it work for 2 days, to no avail. The software simply wouldn’t connect.

So they came to me, the unofficial company “hacker”, to figure it out. And I did: the culprit, as always, was the Windows firewall. Because of course…

But here’s the twist: because it’s Windows, you need some sort of additional antivirus on top of it. Our company uses WithSecure, which is phenomenally annoying and intrusive, and constantly gets in your way when you try to do any work in Windows that isn't Word or Excel. And of course, WithSecure wouldn’t let me punch a hole in the Windows firewall, because of course…

Anyhow, after trying to work around Windows and the hateful compulsory antivirus, I called IT and told them I needed WithSecure disabled, at least temporarily. They told me to fuck off because they’re not letting an unsecured Windows machine on the intranet.

Fine. I pulled another, older Windows laptop without any antivirus, connected it to an air-gapped router, configured DHCP in the router, connected the LIDAR to the router, launched the Ouster app and… it didn't work.

After 3 hours trying to figure out what was wrong, I finally found the problem: the stupid app is an Electron app built with an older version of Electron that had a bug in node.js that prevented it from working if it couldn’t resolve some internet address.

Sigh… Electron… Because of course…

This was getting too painful and annoying with Windows. So I blew away the Windows partition, installed Linux Mint on the laptop, configured the ethernet interface as a private interface, installed the DHCP server so I could do away with the router, connected the laptop to the guest wifi so the stupid Electron app could resolve whatever it needed to resolve to work, installed the Linux version of the Ouster app, and hey-presto, it worked rightaway.

So I made an account for the guys in Mint and handed them the laptop. They played with the LIDAR for a few hours without any problem, pulled records and files out of the machine on USB sticks without any problem, viewed some Excel files in Libreoffice without any problem.

Eventually the marketing guy asked me:

“So what was the problem then?”
“Windows of course” I said. “What else?”
“Wow. That Linux stuff is really good. We tried so hard to make this work but we never could. But it worked rightaway in Linux. That’s slick!”
“Well yeah, I keep telling you guys Windows is crap. There are reasons and this is one of them.”
“Yeah I can see why you don’t like it. And that Linux desktop is really nice actually. I might give it a spin at home.”

So hey, I managed to impress a marketing guy with Linux 🙂

It shows how polished Linux has become, if ordinary computer users can be convinced this easily now. It wasn’t like that for a long long time and it feels kind of rewarding to know you bet on the right horse all along and you're vindicated at last.

The core Plasma team remains deep in bug-fixing mode until Plasma 6.2.1, with lots of bugs fixed this week! This is the second-to-last week of development before the repos are frozen, and we’re cranking away like mad to get 6.2 in great shape. And it is indeed in very good shape so far. The worst issues we’re still seeing are related to notifications freezing and being mis-rendered, caused by recent changes made to fix another significantly less severe issue. So in the worst-case scenario, we can simply revert the changes before the final 6.2 release if we don’t manage to fix the regressions in time.

Interestingly, the developer is already bringing up the possibility of using Wayland by default.

Btw, after this I feel like the driver is much more usable, would it be acceptable to enable it by default? Is there any other major feature missing (given that virtual display settings is being worked on)?

My sister had a weird problem with Win 10 and needed me to format her notebook, a perfect opportunity to convert another soul. So I suggested installing Linux so she could try it out, she was hesitant but when I showed her some prints of Zorin OS and told her about KDE Connect she was much more inclined.

After the installation I showed her the Gnome tour so she could learn the basics, connected her things, taught her how to install what she needed and let her do her own thing. One thing that is quite not normal for the average Windows user is that she learned to use the LibreOffice suite and other open source programs at school (cool as fuck), so she was quite comfortable with the new environment.

She's quite pleased and I don't think she'll miss Windows, but that only time will tell.

My laptop has been having problems not charging and the top row of the keyboard stopped working. In my pursuit of a replacement I realized how ridiculously cheap Intel iMacs have become.

And then I realized that you can gut them and convert them into an insanely good computer monitor after the internals die.

I was looking for a dead one but somehow managed to get my hands on a working 5k 2017 iMac for $150. God the display is glorious.

For the time being Im just going to use the existing internals since they're still functioning.

I installed Fedora on an external drive and everything seems to be functional. I managed to get fractional scaling functioning. However the output only goes up to 4k. And while thats still really nice, the extra resolution does make an obvious difference when sitting ~1 foot away.

Has anyone been able to get 5k working?

Hey there folks,

I'm trying to figure out how to configure my UFW, and I'm just not sure where to start. What can I do to see the intetnet traffic from individual apps so I can know what I might want to block? This is just my personal computer and I'm a total newbie to configuring firewalls so I'm just not sure how to go about it. Most online guides seem to assume one already knows what they want to block but I don't even know how/where to monitor local traffic to figure out what I can/should consider blocking.