Linux

I've got kind of a weird use case where I have a lot of laptops used for specifically for sensitive customer environments. These aren't used by everyone all the time, but only when the need arises. We need to have persistence when needed, but in some environments where exfiltration is a concern, we need to be able to work with a machine that 'forgets'.

Basically I need something like a live distro installed on the local system. but somehow allow luks encrypted persistence volumes on USB or something so our folks can maintain their own persistence when its allowed. I've used TAILS in the past for this, but some contracts specifically stipulate no USBs, and from what I understand, TAILS on HD is an adventure...

I've never heard of anything like this, and I don't have the funding to spin our own distro at the moment. Anyone have any suggestions?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23313015

https://gitlab.com/christosangel/tuiplette

tuiplette is a terminal match-three game, written in Bash.

The aim is to gain points by swapping two adjacent grid cells to create rows or columns of three or more matching cells, which will disappear and allow the above cells to fall and occupy the vacant space.

When there are no moves left, the grid will be refreshed, and the game will continue until all (configured) reshuffles are used. When there are no moves left, and no reshuffles left, the game will end.

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

As far as the appearence of the game, by configuring the game accordinly, the user can select the game theme according to their liking.

The user has select theme between letters, numbers, greek, shapes, faces and blocks.

The colors selected are the configured terminal theme colors.

SystemD Pilot is a desktop application for managing systemd services on GNU/linux machines. The app is very lightweight and supports common tasks such as starting and stopping systemd services.

It can also show detailed status for each service.

Features: List services

Filter by running state

Start, Stop, Restart, Enable and Disable services + show status for each service

Create override configuration for any unit file using the edit button

Option for reloading systemd manager configuration (systemctl daemon-reload)

Easy search. Just start typing and the app will find relevant services

Lightweight

Available for download as deb, rpm and AppImage

Integration into GNOME desktop (libadwaita)

Made with love for the FOSS community. Please give it a try and share your thoughts.

Let me start by explaining where I'm coming from. I'm pretty much a standard Windows user. I liked XP, I was ok with 7 and ok with 10. But overall I don't like a lot of things about Windows I think we can all agree on; business practices, spying, lack of customization, cost, etc.

In the past, I have tried to move to Linux more than once including a failed dual boot situation. There are things I really, really like about Linux that I can't believe aren't part of Windows. Despite that I really hate Linux. I'll explain that opinion so you can trash me with facts. Just understand that this is the way I see it.

First, being primarily a Windows user means I am uncomfortable with using all of the little squiggles around the outside of the keyboard to get things done. At one point I was using the most Windows-like version where I could click and download a package which was fine, but eventually I found one that had to be done manually, so this feels like inconsistency. In the dual boot situation I found myself using Windows constantly because I could not get online with Linux for some reason, which meant I had to boot in Windows to research the problem only in the end to have people tell me that the components of the computer I built were too new and I would have to wait for someone to write drivers. There are a lot of equivalent programs in Linux to Windows and I use some of them now, like Open Office, Audacity(which I love), Firefox( which I hate) and probably more I can't think of at the moment. I currently have a computer attached to my TV that I made really cheap from parts I had laying around and I'm running Mint on it. The only thing it is used for is watching YouTube videos on the big screen, usually exercise videos. It IS a problem. It loads up ridiculously slow.

So my experience has been bad overall every time I try and yes I realize I'm not doing it right. I'm not a typical Linux user.

But here's the thing, I WANT to be a Linux user mostly because I hate Microsoft so much. And now especially because according to Lemmy Windows 11 is a shit show of advertising and other crap and apparently my roughly 2 year old and still fairly powerful desktop does not meet their requirements due to that stupid chip it needs to have. I do not wish to buy a new computer and I do not wish to be a Windows slave again.

So the question is, is there hope for me giving this another try? I'm not a power user but I do use my computer for a lot of things. I will get specific here.

1. Surfing the net. It needs to NOT lag or fail to connect.

2. I play games with my friend online every Monday. Most of the games are on Steam. So far we have played: Borderlands Borderlands 2 Borderlands 3 Borderlands the pre sequel Tiny Tina's Wonderland Diablo 4 Grimm Dawn Aliens fire team elite

3. I edit videos. I use Sony Vegas pro 13. It was expensive and I'm used to it. It is important to me.

4. I do some word processing and spreadsheet stuff. Currently I use Open Office as I mentioned.

5. Audio conversion and manipulation with Audacity.

6. Drawing and photo manipulation. I use a variety of programs. The most important ones in order are CorelCad. It is basically AutoCad and was expensive to buy and I'm used to it. Fusion 360, also important for 3D printing. Prusa slicer for 3D printing and one called Photofiltre. It's a simple free program I believe does have a Linux version. These are important to me.

7. Programming microcontrollers for projects using the Arduino IDE.

8. I use a program called Vetric which programs the tool path for my CNC router.

9. A number of smaller more rarely used programs like one to convert a font into hexadecimal, one that normalizes mp3 files, one that captures what I do on the screen, etc.

If I had it my way, I would just continue using Windows 10. I more or less know how it works and it really doesn't give me any problems. However with this end of life thing approaching I will eventually need to migrate somehow for security's sake, right? I mean I don't even know if half of these programs will be compatible with Windows 11.

I should also mention that I'm a goal oriented person. I just want to use it, I don't want to tinker with it. That goes for pretty much any tool. I consider the OS a tool.

So given that encyclopedia of information, do you think I could/should give Linux another try? If so, which distro should I go with that will be the most compatible with my hardware and usage?

Regarding hardware, I'm not home now so just genetically I have an AMD Rhyzen 7 processor, a Radeon video card, sort of upper mid tier, 32 GB of RAM, decent motherboard and a boatload of storage.

Feel free to ask questions and I will now don my flameproof jacket for the absolute shit storm of criticism in guessing that's heading my way. Thank you in advance.

Part of what's making learning Linux so difficult for me, is the idea of how fragmented it is. You can install programs with sudo apt get (program). You can get programs with snaps. You can get programs with flatpaks. You can install with tar.gz files. You can install with .deb files. You can get programs with .sh files. There's probably more I don't know about.

I don't even know where all these programs are being installed. I haven't learned how to uninstall them yet. And I'm sure that each way has a different way to uninstall too.

So that brings me to my main question. Why not consolidate all this? Sure, files CAN be installed anywhere if you want, but why not make a folder like /home/programs/ where it's assumed that programs would be installed?

On windows the programs can be installed anywhere, but the default is C:/windows/Program Files x86/ or something like that. Now, you can change it all you want when you install the programs. I could install it to C:/Fuckfuckfuck/ if I wanted to. I don't want to, so I leave it alone because C:/Windows/Program Files x86/ is where it's assumed all the files are.

Furthermore, I see no benefit to installing 15 different programs in 7 different folders. I begrudgingly understand why there's so many different installation methods, but I do NOT understand why as a collective community we can't have something like a standardized setting in each distro that you can set 1 place for all your installation files.

Because of the fragmentation of distros, I can understand why we can't have a standardized location across all distros like Windows has. However I DON'T see why we can't have a setting that gets set upon each first boot after installation that tells each future installation which folder to install to.

I would personally pick /Home/Programs/, but maybe you want /root/Jamies Files/ because you're Jamie, and those are your files.

In either case, as we boot up during the install, it would ask us where we want our program files installed. And from then on, no matter what method of install you chose, it would default to whatever your chosen folder was.

Now, you could still install other places too, but you would need to direct that on a per install basis.

So what's the benefit of having programs each installed in seperate locations that are wildly different?

So on android in 2010 I used to be into the idea of rooting my phone, and installing custom roms.

Distros are essentially custom roms for your pc. Same concept.

There was a program called TWRP that I could use. Back then it would make a full backup of EVERYTHING on your internal drive. It was mostly used after you already had a custom rom.

But it backedup EVERYTHING. If you wrote a txt message as a draft, and didn't sent it, then backed up with TWRP, whenever you restored on a new phone, that txt draft was there too. It was literally like your phone took an all encompassing picture of everything on your phones internal drive, every single file and setting, and made a backup. Saving it to your sd card.

So I'm thinking, linux should theoretically be able to do this. Maybe it does.

What if my current install is on a 250gb drive, and I buy a completely different 4TB drive? What if I want to do this total backup, save the backup to a usb hard drive, then put in a NEW hard drive, and have it restore the backup so now my entire old hard drive is now on my new hard drive? And every setting, every file, every last detail is an exact replica.

Could I do that?

So I bought a ssd off of ebay. $5.40 shipped. Kingston 120gb.

I've yet to connect it to my pc. I'll be first disconnecting my hard drive, and then connecting this hard drive. Unclear it's contents. I'll be booting off a ZorinOS livecd.

Is there any tool I can install on the livecd to check the overall health of my ssd? I know literally nothing about it's past, and I realize theres a significant chance I just bought junk.

I'm new to linux. Like brand new. So don't just say 'Yeah, install SSDChecker V.5.035 from the repo". Assume I'm an idiot, and have zero clue how to do the thing you're asking. Not that I won't do it, but maybe link to a newbie guide on how to do the thing.

Hi there!

Seeing the enshittification of Windows unfold, I'm curious about trying out Linux.

I don't want to move over my main machine just yet, but I've got a 9 yo HP Pavilion 15-e001ed spare laptop I want to experiment with. Eventually I want a gaming laptop that can run steam games.

When I googled I found a plethora of pieces of advice, but seeing the proselytizing for Linux here, maybe I could get a bit more personal advice as a potential conscript.

So what advice would you give me to start my journey into Linux?

UPDATE: Ok my cherry is popped, writing this from a fresh Mint install. It's suprisingly smooth sailing. Only thing is somehow software gets installed on my root partition instead of the home partition I made because people told me so.

But overall not nearly as dounting as I thought it would be. Thanks for the help everybody!

Please remove or tell me to delete if this isn't allowed!

I've been dual booting Ubuntu and Windows for a good few years now. I keep the windows around for gaming, because, ahem, I don't like giving EA, among others, money. I know it's not a problem to play most of the games I've paid for on Linux, but does anyone have experience with playing games on Linux that you've, somehow, obtained for free? And keeping them updated, too?

I'm still going to dual boot because keeping my games separate from my work is a decent adhd strategy for me, so I'm open to gaming friendly OS suggestions as well!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/23494331

Today KDE community are releasing KDE ⚙️ Gear 24.12 with new versions of classics such as Dolphin, our feature-rich file manager and explorer; Kate, the developer-friendly text editor; Itinerary, a travel assistant that will get you safely to your destination. …and much, much more!

These apps exist thanks to KDE's volunteers and donors. You too can contribute and express support for your favorite apps by adopting them!

Let's take a look at just a few of the applications — some updated and some brand new — which will be landing on your desktop in just a few days.

Hi there, I am currently looking for a replacement for my GTX1060.

I was originally thinking about going with an AMD RX7600 since it's cheap and meets the recommended specs for Unreal Engine 5 (8GB VRAM, Raytracing).

Asking in other forums the intel Arc B580 was recommended. It looks promising, but since Arc GPUs are quite new, I am worried about compatibility and stability.

Are any of you using an Arc GPU at the moment and what are your experiences in Linux, primarily with productivity?

How stable are the drivers in your experience?

Could you recommend going with intel or sticking to AMD for the best experience?