cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/19559845

after trip-digit linux installs in the past year or so, here's my list for a seamless transition for people escaping windows/macOS who need to get work done:

1) don't tailor linux to your hardware, do it the other way around. get hardware that works OOB. no nvidia. no latest hardware. no weird realtek chipsets in budget deal-of-the week e-waste, no gaming (i.e. nvidia) laptops.

that don't mean breaking the bank, a thinkpad with 8th gen or newer CPU can be had for $100ish; add $50 or so to expand RAM and storage and that covers like 90% of use cases. a competent all AMD desktop a gen or two behind current tech that can game almost anything can be easily assembled for less than $400.

fedora and adjacent forums are littered with cries for help about stuff breaking or not working at all; 90% of those are nvidia related. can you make it work - absolutely. is that something you're willing to dick around on a deadline - hell nah.

2) no theming. no icons, no fonts, no plymouth screens, nada. as few extensions/plugins as you can, run it as close to stock as possible. shit's gonna break, this is a work device, you can't afford downtime because the single dev maintaining the thingy hasn't updated it for the newest Gnome of Plasma. Gnome don't feel like macOS? you'll get used to it; muscle memory is a removed but it's a tameable one.

an additional moment, especially if you're on a laptop, is to make the thing as fungible as possible. that's an easily breakable/losable thief-magnet, you want a setup that can be reproduced with as little fuss as possible so you can be operational again.

3) don't dual/triple/whatever boot. that's an advanced scenario, it's gonna break eventually and if that's a device you depend on for work or education, you don't want any of that. run it as a single OS occupying the whole disk; encryption on a mobile device is mandatory. if you absolutely need multiple OS, a 2nd device is stupid cheap and it compartmentalises your shit, i.e. one for work, one for private/gaming, etc.

4) no weird distros. no arches, no gentoos, no immutable thisisthefuture shit. when it becomes mainstream, we'll switch. until such time, middle of the road - fedora for newest hardware, mint for ancient stuff, ubuntu for everything else. a lot of people made sure they're operational OOB, it's less likely stuff will break and if it does, there's an army of folks who asked and answered whatever's bothering you.

5) no weird DEs. wayland only, gnome for laptops and tablets, plasma for desktops, there is no third option. you're transitioning from an infinitely polished UI and the best tech that money can buy, you want the closest possible experience and the widest used environment, worked on by the largest dev community aware of the widest possible usability issues, working towards fixing/implementing them. you're already relearning shit, invest that time wisely.

6) separate your system stuff from your applications as much as possible. purge all user-facing apps, like firefox and media players and such from the system's package manager (apt or dnf) and reinstall them from flatpak. that was a headache a few years ago, nowadays almost everything works OOB on wayland. the apps include everything they need to work, the setup is easy to maintain and recreate, upgrades are better (no reboots necessary) and all your settings and data are in one place.

this covered 90% use cases of 90% of the users I've dealt with. naturally, edge cases are gonna have a bad time - you want to ollama this and that and rock bleeding edge hardware and have a normal desktop experience? it's gonna hurt. you need mac-like power management and days away from power? doable but that needs work.

remember, this is a work device. for the same reason you don't decide to "upgrade" the suspension on the car that's supposed to get you to work the morning of, you don't mess with what's likely the only device you need for work/education.

greybeards dunking on you because you're not a "real" linuxer? enamoured with the spicy screenshots from linuxporn? get a $20 thinkpad and go wild - arch it, sway it, have the scrolling text on boot, rice it till it bursts. but leave your workhorse be.

For example Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Enterprise Linux.

I'm considering switching to RHEL, to get a "professional" Linux, since it's free if you register an account, but is it worth it?
Is the experience very different from Fedora?

If the distribution does not have it by default, please include the instructions to use it on the system.

Note: I can't compile the libre kernel from the source.

So I was thinking of silly things I've done that pseudo-broke my system, or made me think I had a broken system. Like the time I put the cmd :

exit

in my ~/.bash_aliases file and I had to open a text editor to fix it because that broke all the terminals on my machine.

I'm curious what other silly things users have done to confuse themselves.

I find this hilarious. Is this an easter egg? When shaking my mouse cursor, I can get it to take up the whole screens height.

This is KDE Plasma 6.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22759126

New version 24.3 of the Mesa opensource 3D graphics library and drivers has been released. New features:

• Expose Vulkan 1.3 on v3dv, both rpi4 and rpi5
• VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer on nvk
• VK_EXT_post_depth_coverage on nvk
• VK_KHR_video_maintenance1 on radv
• VK_EXT_legacy_vertex_attributes on nvk
• GL_KHR_shader_subgroup on radeonsi
• VK_KHR_maintenance7 on nvk
• VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering_local_read on nvk
• GL_ARB_timer_query on Panfrost
• GL_EXT_disjoint_timer_query on Panfrost
• VK_KHR_pipeline_binary on RADV
• VK_KHR_compute_shader_derivatives on anv
• VK_NV_compute_shader_derivatives on nvk
• VK_KHR_compute_shader_derivatives on nvk
• VK_KHR_compute_shader_derivatives on radv
• VK_KHR_shader_relaxed_extended_instruction on anv, hasvk, hk, nvk, radv, tu, v3dv, lvp
• GL_OVR_multiview and GL_OVR_multiview2 on zink
• VK_KHR_shader_float_controls2 on radv
• VK_KHR_shader_float_controls2 on nvk
• VK_EXT_device_generated_commands on nvk, radv
• VK_EXT_host_image_copy on nvk/Turing+
• VK_EXT_depth_clamp_control on anv, hasvk, nvk, radv
• VK_KHR_shader_quad_control on nvk
• GL_EXT_draw_buffers2 on etnaviv/HALTI5+
• GL_ARB_draw_buffers_blend on etnaviv/HALTI5+
• VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate on NVK
• GL_ARB_draw_indirect on etnaviv/HALTI5+
• VK_EXT_depth_clamp_zero_one on NVK
• GL_ARB_framebuffer_no_attachments on etnaviv

Bcachefs lead developer Kent Overstreet published a Patreon post this evening entitled "Trouble in the kernel" where he explained:

"TLDR: the future of bcachefs in the kernel is uncertain, and lots of things aren't looking good.

Linus has said he isn't accepting my 6.13 pull request, per "an open issue with the CoC board", and at this point I have no idea what's going on with the CoC board. I, for my part, have felt for quite some time that there are issues about our culture and the way we do work that need to be raised, and that hasn't been going anywhere - hence this post."

It appears that the source of this violation can be found in this Linux kernel mailing list thread.

My wife is looking for a portable device primarily for modeling in Blender and optionally for drawing in Krita. So we looking for something with a GNU/Linux support from manufacturer.

We considered https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/TUXEDO-InfinityFlex-14-Gen1, it looks nice, but maybe you have other suggestions? Do you have experience with convertibles, how convenient is to draw on them?

We also considered https://earth.starlabs.systems/pages/starlite for drawing and a separate device for Blender, but having two devices might not be convenient...

I'm a complete moron, I should've had that backed up and used trash...
I had to learn the hard way lol

I'm trying to watch some DVDs on my laptop (tuxedo os w/ external optical drive) but VLC won't play the video, only the audio. It played the menu once but I couldn't replicate it. Pretty sure i've downloaded all of the necessary codecs. Y'all have any idea how to fix it?

Edit: just switched to the flatpak (system had the Ubuntu package by default) and it works but the options to use VLC directly from the devices menu in the system tray are now gone.

Or any other log files/output? I'm open to any solution, but what I would like...

...is something where I can just click on a word or select some text and say "filter that out"

Something that colors different log levels differently, preferably automatically.

Something that can parse the "columns" and give me a nice quick list of values, like different unit names to filter out/solely include.

Something that lets me choose a time and go there. Something that lets me select only a specific timeframe of logs.

I know this can probably be done by going in/out of journalctl, recalling the last command and adding specific filter options... but it just feels slow. It's so many keypresses when I could just right click on the word and -> "Filter out/Search for" or something.

Ding Ding Ding

In the blue corner, weighing at 400MB ram or less in usage. XFCE with a easy to use UI and light footprint. It has a good file manager and pretty much is the go to standard if you want a cinnamon windows like desktop but less weight for old machines and netbooks.

In the green corner, the ancestor of Gnome 3, born out of hatred for its future counterpart, we have MATE. MATE is also a lean desktop and is easily customizable using different panels if you were a mac, windows or unity desktop user. Without bias I exclusively use this on Ubuntu MATE for a laptop between me and my brother.

Which contender in the desktop ring do you prefer? Why? What's the positives and negatives for you?

Round 1, GO!

Hi!

I'm currently trying to use my Wacom tablet with 2 monitors on, however the tablet sees both monitor on the pad and the pen can travel to both monitors. I want to limit the tablet to only one monitor, both pad and pen.

I'm on river, so probably any wlroots solution would work.

This is my libinput output:

Device:           Wacom Intuos S 2 Pen
Kernel:           /dev/input/event4
Group:            3
Seat:             seat0, default
Size:             152x95mm
Capabilities:     tablet 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   none
Rotation:         n/a

Device:           Wacom Intuos S 2 Pad
Kernel:           /dev/input/event6
Group:            3
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     tablet-pad
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         n/a
Pad:
	Rings:   0
	Strips:  0
	Buttons: 4
	Mode groups: 1 (1 modes)

By the way, I like how libinput let my tablet pen to use the cursor differently from the mouse and they don't interfere with each other.

Edit: I tried this but it didn't work. riverctl input "Wacom Intuos S 2 Pad" map-to-output DP-1

It seems river handles inputs like this but not sure what's wrong with this, maybe the name?

Edit 2: Found the solution. Apparently riverctl also can list inputs with this: riverctl list-inputs

I took the name from that list and added to the command above, which is:

riverctl input "tablet-1386-827-Wacom_Intuos_S_2_Pen" map-to-output DP-1

Thanks to the guys at libera-chat channel.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.studio/post/3409116

Ideas and Tips for Dual Boot and Audio Things on Linux (2011 Laptop)

Research post

--> Before you contribute anything to this post, please be aware that I research a Music Production related topic on Lemmy/Mastodon.

Check out more info here

Hi there,

not even sure if this community is still active, but I will give it a go ;) I'm looking for distro ideas and tips for setting up Audio.

So, here's the situation: I've been thinking about switching DAW for a while now and just tried LMMS so far, which I didn't like at all. I'm curious to check out Reaper and/or Ardour next while also considering Bitwig as another option.

Currently I use an old MacBook Pro (~2011) for Music Production - running MacOS and Ableton Live 10. The plan is to Dual Boot this machine for now, but I'm unsure which Distro to go for. SSD is new, I can dedicate around ~250 Gigs to this install, which is a lot since I mainly use external storage usually. 4 GB of RAM, I think some swap space would be ideal.

On my main machine I've so far tried Ubuntu Studio for about 3 Weeks, so this is absolutely not an option. Then I've tried Mint for literally just 3 Days because I really hated the look of it (maybe no surprise as a long-time Mac user). I'm on arch-based/Arch with Plasma 5/6 + pipewire now since around 2 years. Haven't been touching on anything Music Production related on here, just the average everyday use to play Videos and Music (which just worked out of the box) so I'm not really familiar with anything Audio-related on Linux.

I want the Music Laptop to just be pretty minimal, a bit of Note-taking and Office stuff besides the DAW's. The Laptop is usually offline, so I think going for Arch/ a rolling release is not very ideal. I thought about just Gnome or Plasma 6 on Debian, as I wanted to try out Debian for future projects anyways. Not sure how this will play out on that old Laptop, so just thought I'd ask if there's any experience with older machines before I get into it. Also open for other recommendations in case I missed some other good distro option, I feel like I'm also in an experimental phase currently and wouldn't mind distro-hopping for a bit.

Then, I feel a bit overwhelmed by the whole audio thing, so I would be very thankful for useful tips, videos, websites or similar that might help me to figure things out.

I own a Focusrite Audio-Interface, and it will be a problem if I can't get this running, but I will definitely try it out before I buy a new one. Another issue with this Laptop is that the Audio jack broke years ago inside the machine, so it's not even possible to get any sound out of this thing if not via the Interface lol. Well, actually there is: Bluetooth Speakers, which I also do own but... meh. Usually on Headphones for Music Prodcution, so I kinda need the Interface. Not a huge VST user, so this is less of an issue for me. I mainly use my Interface to record Instruments/Mics or just my field recorder and Samples.

Hope I can get some feedback on my throughts and recommendations, thanks a lot in advance!

I'm trying to do this

sudo apt install intel-level-zero-gpu level-zero level-zero-dev\

to get a help me run a chatbot with gpu but the packages aren't available. where do I get them?

I guess for the thrill, same reason that I’m attempting LFS?

using gimp with Noto font and AMD Ryzen layout