Linux

cross-posted from: https://social.packetloss.gg/post/1436287

I want to get some experience with Linux before win 10 goes end of support. I won't be using this machine for work. Gaming primarily but also 3d printing and possibly some light piracy. Is there any reason not to install steam os?

Thanks in advance kind and wise nerds in my phone.

I am thinking of buying a relatively cheap laptop that is reasonably powerful. I am at loss when it comes to new CPU naming and its compatibility with Linux (from both Intel/AMD). I prefer Ryzen 5 or Core 5 above with atleast 16GB RAM.

Framework laptops are not available where I live.

I saw some Reddit posts claiming AMD being not optimized for Linux particularly for arch related distros (I use EndeavourOS). I am thinking of buying a Thinkbook from Lenovo, but confused b/w team blue & red.

Which of these CPUs are better for running Linux long-term with respect to optimizations, power management, thermals, track pad support etc. If anyone has a laptop recommendation, please feel free to comment down below.

Also, should I go for a high end Laptop like Asus Zenbook S14? A lot of reviews are picking it as the best compact laptop to buy this year. Its expensive. But if it keeps working for a long time, like 6+ years, then I don't mind investing.

Edit: I use Gnome as my DE with EndeavourOS, but can also try Debian 12 with Gnome.

cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/12999238

Hi,

when running an Android app in Waydroid, what data can it see? Can it read my local hard drive? Can it scan my network? Can I manage it to just live in it's container and get nothing but an internet connection?

Final edit: I got all the Linux stuff right but made a dumb mistake generating the image on the Windows side. Watching the VM boot right now. Thanks to all for your support!

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15860280

Contemplating Fedora Kinoite for work daily driver. Need to prove that I can virtualize an existing physical Windows 11 machine. Using Bazzite on a personal laptop as a host test bed.

Test host seems to be set up correctly. I layered the packages in the virtualization group, layered virtio-win (from downloaded rpm package), added my user to the libvert group, and enabled libvirtd. After a reboot or two, I can connect with the Virtual Machine Manager and define my VM.

On physical machine I used Disk2vhd to generate a vhdx. Moved that file to the test host and converted to qcow2. Copied disk image to /var/lib/libvert/images and added it as my drive image when I defined the VM.

VM starts but will not boot. Stupid question: Should I have installed virt-win-gt-x64.msi from the virtio-win ISO on the source Windows install before I created the vhdx?

Edit: Since I posted, I installed a Debian guest from scratch in this environment and it runs like a champ. 👍

cross-posted from: https://social.packetloss.gg/post/1432933

Yesterday I did an update (using yes | yay) for about 75 packages on my 6 year old EndeavourOS system. I do updates every 2 weeks in general. Rebooted, did some work and left the screen on, for an hour (I usually do this). Came back and saw my screen having weird doubling text glitch, [like this screenshot above]. This issue also visible on my firmware setting (BIOS) screen, which leads me to believe this might be a h/w issue, though not sure.

I want to know whether an arch update can break my display. One particular thing I noticed this morning was, when i adjusted my display brightness, the screen went back to normal for a minute or so.

Also recently I changed my battery about 2 months ago. This was my second battery replacement. After I did my first battery replacement (3 years ago), my laptop had similar display issues with Intel integrated graphics on Windows a month later. which forced me to switch. It was fine on Linux, up until now. So it got me thinking if there is any connection with battery replacements and display issues. I know it sounds weird. Earlier there were not display anomalies on the BIOS screen, but now there is.

Is there a way to fix this.

System info: HP Envy, EndeavourOS Linux 6.12.1-arch1-1, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U with Intel UHD Graphics 620

[Update 1]
I hooked up my laptop to an external monitor and everything looks fine on the monitor screen. So the issue is only with my Laptop’s screen I guess.

[Update 2]

cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/12999238

Hi,

when running an Android app in Waydroid, what data can it see? Can it read my local hard drive? Can it scan my network? Can I manage it to just live in it's container and get nothing but an internet connection?

cross-posted from: https://social.packetloss.gg/post/1431716

So in 2013 I had a Windows XP computer that hard drive had died. By 2013 XP was a rather old OS. It worked perfectly fine, other than I probably could have done well to do a reinstall.

Problem is, in 2013 I was making $115 per week. I couldn't afford to spend 2 months pay on a new PC. I had a spare hard drive I could replace it with, but the problem was, if I bought a new WinXP installation disc, it would cost $250 for an OS that was hard to find because of how long it hadn't been supported. It would be like trying to find a Win Vista CD today.....if they were still trying to charge full price.

So I thought "Ok, what if I try this Linux thing?"

So I did what everyone here is going to groan at me for saying. I tried the one everyone online was saying was the best one. Ubuntu.

I HATED it. The other thing besides my IMMEDIATE hatred for it, was the fact that it didn't work. I couldn't get the internet, or sound, or bluetooth, or a lot of things working.

And when I was going to the library, asking questions online, and then printing the answers a week later, everyone was saying "Oh, try these other disros...."

It is ASTOUNDING to me how linux users think. The answer to every problem someone else is facing is "Your way is stupid, that's why it doesn't work. Do it MY way, on MY distros"

Everybodys answer was that I was doing it wrong for using Ubuntu instead of (insert their flavor of the month here).

I must have downloaded 50 different distros and tried installing all of them one after another in a 3 month timespan. Hardly any of them worked. I think I got 2 of them to install besides Ubuntu.

Mint was one, I think the other was Cinnimon.

Some wouldn't install at all. Some would crash frequently. Almost all of them had a solid green tint to the screen. Like it was missing video drivers. Eventuallly I just gave up.

After a few years, I eventually got a new Windows 7 PC in 2014.

And it's been running fine ever since. But now we're at a point where if you buy a new product, there's a chance it won't work with Windows 7. The problem is, I REFUSE to go to Windows 10 or 11 with how much privacy invasive those platforms have become.

So I was trying to see if Zorin could install this one program. 8BitDo Ultimate Software V2. But I don't have much hard drive space to install Zorin. So I heard you can install it on a liveUSB. Since I just need to use the program once really, it didn't matter if it's going to be a temporary installlation.

Well, Zorin wanted me to install Windows Software App. So I thought I did. It asked me if I wanted to installl. I said yes. The spinny circle went around for a while, and then it told me I could either uninstall or open the app's homepage.

After a few more attempts at fiddling with it, nothing happened. I came to the conclusion (maybe incorrectly, as it's just my own assumptions), that maybe it's not working because it's not a permanent install.

So I used THIS GUIDE to try to make a persistant USB stick.

Everything went fine until the actual install at 5:59 of the video. At 6:00 he jump cuts to after the installation. The installation itself took roughly 5 hours.

And then it took roughly 30 minutes to boot. I googled it, and it should only take 15-20 minutes to install, and boot almost instantly.

Couple this, with an unrelated issue where I haven't been able to turn on my fan on my raspberry pi for 4 years, and I think linux just hates me.

Three different sets of hardware. Video guides where I do exactly as they show. Nothing helps. Linux has always just NOT worked for me. Like it puts down a seemingly easy problem to fix, but then won't actually do the thing you're telling it to do to fix it.

Like in the guide he's showing at 6:12. I've done every exactly the same thing he did, in the exact same way he did them, but he gets his second partition mounted as "target". I don't.

I tried sudo mount /dev/sdc/ but terminal spit out an error.

But I watched to the end of the video, and he says that part was only if you have errors booting the device. I did not have errors booting the device, so I skipped it, because it had been at that point close to 6 hours since I started the project, for something that was supposed to take an hour, and I just wanted to go to bed.

So the persistant drive boot sequence starts, and just starting the boot took 30 minutes.

And now, everything is just sluggishly slow. It's like I'm trying to run Windows XP on a computer that would struggle with Windows 3.1

The hardware shouldn't be an issue. Especially since supposedly Zorin 17 only needs 1.5ghz, duel core, and I have 4 core 3.75ghz. Every spec they listed as needed for Zorin I easily have double.

So I figure there must be some OTHER problem. And that's where I am now. I've spent a combined total of about 12 hours trying to find some way to run 1 program for about 5 minutes. All I need to do is run it once. Then I'll be done with it. I just need to find something that will actually run it.

Hi guys! I have KDE Neon 6.2.3 running on my Surface Pro 7+, and up until now it's been running rather smoothly, for years. But today I seem to be unable to fully boot anymore on normal mode. Linux will get stuck on the KDE spinning gear, with the gear frozen. And it becomes unresponsive, to open alternative consoles with control+alt+Fx, or even control+alt+del. The only thing that works is a force shutdown by holding the power button.

I tried with a previous kernel, with the same results (current is linux-image-6.10.10-surface-1, I have a generic 6.8.0-49, but it also freezes). I can boot in safe mode. It opens a different login screen, and after a failed attempt of opening lxde, it fails back to my usual KDE session, in safe graphics mode.

What can I test? How can I see what failed at boot?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/27152897

Hi folks,

I had first written about my attempts here: https://lemmy.zip/post/24041939

I got to learn a lot thanks to some very helpful lemmyist (thank you @[email protected] !), but I ran into a wall and tried to persist alone for a while.

While my initial goal is still the same, I'm right now focusing on seeing whether I can rebuild an initramfs myself, excluding any customizations.

My setup is the following:

• OS: Alpine Linux
• Bootloader: Grub
• OpenRC (no systemd)
• Root in a LUKS encrypted partition
• EFI firmware

When booting using the default initramfs:

mytestalpine:~# lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,FSVER,LABEL,UUID,FSAVAIL,FSUSE%,MOUNTPOINTS
NAME     FSTYPE      FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                  
├─sda1   vfat                    515E-70E4                             238.9M    20% /boot
├─sda2   swap                    667a53d2-dc82-4d2a-a121-63a75da51c24                [SWAP]
└─sda3   crypto_LUKS             73cada8c-5885-4334-b72b-b09b7f919d66                
  └─root ext4                    8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18      5G     3% /
sr0                                                                                  
mytestalpine:~# blkid
/dev/sda3: UUID="73cada8c-5885-4334-b72b-b09b7f919d66" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" PARTUUID="a900120b-4b78-4164-add8-f6a88eadb219"
/dev/sda1: UUID="515E-70E4" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="83a340a7-ec05-4452-a775-178b5d3ea96e"
/dev/sda2: UUID="667a53d2-dc82-4d2a-a121-63a75da51c24" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="cdddf0ec-5b8d-448f-a1c6-c9a97af06709"
/dev/mapper/root: UUID="8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4"

Where I'm at:

• I've created a custom dracut configuration file /etc/dracut.conf.d/base-initramfs.conf containing:

add_dracutmodules+=" crypt dm rootfs-block "
kernel_cmdline+=" rd.luks.uuid=luks-73cada8c-5885-4334-b72b-b09b7f919d66 "

• I ran dracut --regenerate-all --force which yielded the following initramfs: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10734241 Nov 27 22:56 /boot/initramfs-6.6.58-0-lts.img
• I did not touch /etc/default/grub which contains:

GRUB_TIMEOUT=2
GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=y
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY=true
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="modules=sd-mod,usb-storage,ext4 cryptroot=UUID=73cada8c-5885-4334-b72b-b09b7f919d66 cryptdm=root rootfstype=ext4"

• I entered my custom boot entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom:

mytestalpine:~# cat /etc/grub.d/40_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry 'Dracut entry' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-lts-advanced-8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18' {
	load_video
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_gpt
	insmod fat
	set root='hd0,gpt1'

	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt1 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt1 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt1  515E-70E4
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 515E-70E4
	fi

	#search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 515E-70E4
	echo	'Loading Linux lts ...'
	linux	/vmlinuz-lts root=UUID=8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18 ro  modules=sd-mod,usb-storage,ext4 cryptroot=UUID=73cada8c-5885-4334-b72b-b09b7f919d66 cryptdm=root rootfstype=ext4 rd.shell rd.debug log_buf_len=1M 
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/initramfs-6.6.58-0-lts.img
}

This was closely matched to the original boot entry.

• I then ran grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg (at this point, not sure whether normal or not, I see mention of the original initramfs, but not mine:

Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-lts
Found initrd image: /boot/initramfs-lts
Warning: os-prober will not be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Systems on them will not be added to the GRUB boot configuration.
Check GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER documentation entry.
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done

• When attempting to boot into my entry in grub, I get a blank screen which hangs indefinitely where the only text visible is:

Loading Linux lts ...
Loading initial ramdisk ...
_
EFI stub: Loaded initrd from LINUX_EFI_INITRD_MEDIA_GUID device path

I've tried looking up the message but nothing seems to be giving hints at how I can fix it.

Is there something visibly wrong with what I'm doing? I've removed the quiet parameter and added debug flags to the kernel parameters but I'm doing able to get more information from the failed boot... Thanks!

Below is my entire grub conf:

/boot/grub/grub.cfg

mytestalpine:~# cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
  load_env
fi
if [ "${next_entry}" ] ; then
   set default="${next_entry}"
   set next_entry=
   save_env next_entry
   set boot_once=true
else
   set default="0"
fi

if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then
  menuentry_id_option="--id"
else
  menuentry_id_option=""
fi

export menuentry_id_option

if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
  set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
  save_env saved_entry
  set prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
  set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
  if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
    saved_entry="${chosen}"
    save_env saved_entry
  fi
}

function load_video {
  if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then
    insmod all_video
  else
    insmod efi_gop
    insmod efi_uga
    insmod ieee1275_fb
    insmod vbe
    insmod vga
    insmod video_bochs
    insmod video_cirrus
  fi
}

if loadfont unicode ; then
  set gfxmode=auto
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm
fi
terminal_output gfxterm
if [ x$feature_timeout_style = xy ] ; then
  set timeout_style=menu
  set timeout=2
# Fallback normal timeout code in case the timeout_style feature is
# unavailable.
else
  set timeout=2
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Alpine Linux v3.20, with Linux lts' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-lts-advanced-8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18' {
	load_video
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_gpt
	insmod fat
	set root='hd0,gpt1'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt1 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt1 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt1  515E-70E4
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 515E-70E4
	fi
	echo	'Loading Linux lts ...'
	linux	/vmlinuz-lts root=UUID=8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18 ro  modules=sd-mod,usb-storage,ext4 cryptroot=UUID=73cada8c-5885-4334-b72b-b09b7f919d66 cryptdm=root rootfstype=ext4
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/initramfs-lts
}

### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/25_bli ###
if [ "$grub_platform" = "efi" ]; then
  insmod bli
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/25_bli ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ###
if [ "$grub_platform" = "efi" ]; then
	menuentry 'UEFI Firmware Settings' $menuentry_id_option 'uefi-firmware' {
		fwsetup
	}
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry 'Dracut entry' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-lts-advanced-8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18' {
	load_video
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_gpt
	insmod fat
	set root='hd0,gpt1'

	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt1 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt1 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt1  515E-70E4
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 515E-70E4
	fi

	#search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 515E-70E4
	echo	'Loading Linux lts ...'
	linux	/vmlinuz-lts root=UUID=8613c4fe-dbc2-4a4e-9d41-3e7eaa8acf18 ro  modules=sd-mod,usb-storage,ext4 cryptroot=UUID=73cada8c-5885-4334-b72b-b09b7f919d66 cryptdm=root rootfstype=ext4 rd.shell rd.debug log_buf_len=1M 
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/initramfs-6.6.58-0-lts.img
}
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
if [ -f  ${config_directory}/custom.cfg ]; then
  source ${config_directory}/custom.cfg
elif [ -z "${config_directory}" -a -f  $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then
  source $prefix/custom.cfg
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###

Edit: corrected tagged user & formatting

As the browser is by far my most used app, I find that bookmarking the current tab and describing the task with no more than a few words or even as little as a few chars, to be a good way to keep track of what things I need to do soon. For things I would get to later or whenever I feel like it, I'll put them in Firefox's "Boookmarks Menu" or "Other Bookmarks" folders, and have lots of folders consisting of Reddit posts and searches about different topics.

Hello world! I am seriously new to the world of linux (fleeing from windows after all the shit they are doing now), so please forgive my ignorance.

I have an old ThinkPad with Mint on it - installing it was about as far as I could get without training wheels. I'd like to use it as a media station with TV as a main screen. Where should I go to do so?

I need to operate it with an airmouse or wireless keyboard if i really have to, and my wife should be able to as well.

Some further requirements:

• it should support a few subs we have, like Amazon, Netflix, Disney+ and maybe more in the future (I'd rather have less, but the family WANTS IT ALL!!!);

• ideally it should switch on with that airmouse and load directly into that media shell without OS being visible.

• the next step would be to have it access media on my old NAS and show it as a separate source. I think this should be easy enough, if the above works.

Ok, now shout at me with all your wisdom and tell me this is the wrong community to ask and I should google it all! ;)

Hey everyone, I've just recently started dual booting Bazzite, which I've been using as my main OS for about 6-7 months now, and CachyOS, which I just installed a week ago. I'm really liking CachyOS, but I currently run Plex media server in a Debian distrobox container on my main Bazzite installation and I'd like to be able to have access to the same watch history etc on both Bazzite and Cachy.

Can I just install distrobox in CachyOS and point it to the proper data directory that already exists in Bazzite? If so, where are the distrobox files located? I've already done some searching and couldn't figure out the answer by myself so that's why I'm asking here.

If that's not an option, is there a way for me to migrate my Plex data to a docker and access Plex media server that way through both distros? I really don't want to reset all my watch history again, as I share this with both my brother and mom and I've already reset the watch history twice by once reinstalling Windows and then again when I switched to Linux.

I also don't know how to use docker, so any information about getting a Plex media server set up properly in docker would be appreciated. I've been using Linux for a decent amount of time now and have learned a lot, but I definitely still consider myself to be a noob to Linux. But I'm 110% open to learning, I just need to be pointed in the right direction or given some good advice on how best to proceed to meet my needs.

I know that ideally, I would be using a separate PC to run Plex media server, but I don't have the money to buy a secondary PC to serve exclusive server duty, so I run it off my main PC.

Thank you in advance to anyone that can help, all replies are much appreciated!

Yes, I know that the ranking is not a good metric of real world use.

Just posting this because MX Linux has been in the number one spot for a long time (2 years perhaps?) and it's surprising to see some other distro on the top of their site.

https://distrowatch.com/

Ever since stickermule kinda bought them out, it's been shit. So hard to find the sticker packs. Where are they? If I can't find them, where else can I get the sticker packs?