I made a little script to get to grips with cron and to try to make my time management better :

If you want music to play, use ffmpeg/ffplay. If you want notifications, use notify-send. If you want neither, what are you doing reading this?

Save the following to chime.sh or whatever you want to call this

#! /bin/bash
# replace 1000 with your user id , run $ id -u to find out. this is to allow audio to play
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/run/user/1000"
# checks what minute it is past the hour to play specific chime
case $(date +"%M") in
        15|30|45) ffplay -autoexit -nodisp /path/to/your/chime.mp3
        notify-send "BONG";;
        00) ffplay -autoexit -nodisp /path/to/your/hourly/chime.mp3
        notify-send "HOUR";;
        *) notify-send $(date +"%M");;
esac

run

chmod +x chime.sh

Or whatever you called the file.

run

crontab -e 

to open/config cron

Add

*/15 * * * * /path/to/your/chime.sh

This triggers the cron job every 15 mins. you can adjust the timings on both the cron config and the shell script to adjust how often you want chimes to go off.

So I miss Winamp. But, lets be real, the real winamp of the 90s died the day AOL decided to buy it.

That being said, I still miss it. And then I heard about Audacious. Turns out you can make Audacious look EXACTLY like old winamp. You can even use winamp skins!

So, I install Audacious, and it looks NOTHING like winamp. I look into the settings and there's a whole button that says "Interface" there are two options. One of them says "Classic Winamp".

So I click that.....and......nothing. Nothing changes. It still looks exactly like it did.

I'm on ZorinOS, I think 17. I can check which version when I get home, but pretty sure it's 17.

Recently my PC died, and I had to switch to my Raspberry Pi for a few weeks, and here's the thing. The Raspberry Pi has TwisterOS installled, and that version DOES look exactly like Winamp. I love it. I just have no idea why my PC can't have that.

What am I doing wrong?

In two days I would need AutoCAD installed for my course. It is common knowledge that AutoCAD doesn't work on Linux, even with Wine. I've been looking around for threads but it seems like knowledge and experience with this is fragmented. Also, I would prefer not using the web version as the WiFi is spotty in my university.

For example, would AutoCAD even work on a VM? I heard that some apps won't even run on a VM.

Is Windows capable of deleting my Linux partition from within a VM? I apologize for my lack of experience regarding this matter.

What VM is better to use? I think I would prefer one that saves files, I think.

Should I even bother with a VM or should I just use an old laptop? Do note that my old laptop is a budget laptop and I don't know how demanding AutoCAD can be.

geteilt von: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/54623764

Hey, on Windows I was a cFos Speed user for ages. cfosspeed is a 3rd party QoS software, which helped a lot for having a low latency even when bandwith is used up. I could easily play latency-sensitive games while having downloads running.

Now with Bazzite, I recognized how much good work cfos did. I had Heroic Games Launcher download a game, and play Rocket League via Steam at the same time - and ping was bad.

Is there any best practice for QoS on Bazzite? cFos basically did two things:

• Prioritize acks over new packets
• Prioritize packets known for gaming (e.g. due to used ports)

I'm struggling to replicate some window behavior I'm used to (from Windows) on a new install. Does anyone have any insight?

My goal is to play a game full screen but still be able to pin windows above it.

If a game is set to Full Screen, "Keep Above Others" doesn't work.

If I run a game Full Screen (Windowed), it keeps the taskbar visible and gives me cropped resolution options.

The only way I've found that works is manually configuring each window property to turn off the title bar, set a fixed position, and a minimum resolution. And also setting the taskbar to Auto Hide.

I don't want to manually configure every game (which often requires restarting it multiple times). I don't want my taskbar to Auto Hide. And I want it to be hidden until I alt+tab or press the start key.

Is this possible?

I have a bit of a weird setup that I've accumulated over the years. In my most recent attempt at breaking into Linux, this was my main barrier. In particular, I use a Corsair keyboard, a Razer Naga X mouse, and a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick. As it turns out, the mouse, and seemingly the other two, aren't compatible with Linux.

I don't have the money for replacements at the moment, but when I do, what brands/products should I be looking for, for similar functionality? I can give up some features, but essential to me is the ability to set up keyboard macros, and an MMO mouse with the ability to toggle DPI via the side buttons.

One point of user-hostility you face when configuring Linux is all the config files in /etc. Be it crontab, fstab, or iptables, every project has its own ad-hoc config file format and as a rookie user you're left guessing what the rules for editing each one are. Must you separate entries with tabs or can it be spaces? Does the number of tabs matter? Does this file use # to comment or ;? Can you put a space after = or would that become part of the string? Some projects use their own half-baked implementation of .INI that breaks down the moment you try to escape a string. What's worse is that since it's background processes whose files you are editing, the response to a syntax error is nothing happening. The way to test whether you guessed the rules right is to wait and see 🤷

What I'm trying to say is that IMHO, the Linux Kernel and surrounding utilities should agree on a widespread, standardized config format and all migrate to it (prefarably sharing the same C library). The obvious option would be JSON, although it feels a little clunky and doesn't officially support comments. My preference would be TOML, since it's like INI which many projects kinda use already, but it's standardized and has native support for things like arrays (especially useful for fstab/crontab).

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/58911678

The law firm that I work for is has finally decided that we should embrace Linux.

When of the key programs that we use a PDF Editor that has e-sign capabilities. Most people use Adobe and I use Foxit.

The problem with Foxit is that it doesn't run natively on Linux. I have to use WINE which is already going to be a problem cause we need a program that works out of the box. Having a program work out of the box cuts down on IT support and makes it easier for everyone to use.

The features needed:

1. Bookmark
2. Move/delete/insert pages
3. Redact
4. Bates numbering
5. E-sign
6. Change orientation of the page
7. Resize pages
8. Add notes
9. Highlight
10. Charges in Canadian dollars
11. Offline program
12. User friendly

Bonus points: It's a non-American company

The ones that I have looked at:

1. PDF Filler (not a fan of it being almost 100% cloud based)
2. Master PDF Editor
3. PDF Studio

Edit: Distro would most likely be Mint or Zorin.

TL;DR -

Question 1: how bad would it be to mount a NTFS drive and continue using it in NTFS format with Linux?

Question 2: should I partition my drive to have separate / partition and /home partition if I'm planning to distro hop?

Question 3: can I make Steam use game files on my secondary NTFS HDD?

I'm getting fed up with Windows day by day with how slow and chuggy it is.

My initial plan to buy a new 1TB SSD for Linux is out of the window thanks to astronomical prices and I'm upset by it. So is how HDD prices are also impacted.

I have a 2TB HDD formated in NTFS because back then when I built my PC I didn't think to try linux so I let it stay in NTFS. This drive is where all my personal files and data is. This is a separate drive from the 500GB NVME drive I use for Windows, which will be wiped for Linux.

Currently I also have an external portable SSD as a backup / working storage for my work supplied Windows laptop. I am unsure of the parity of my personal data and files is on the portable SSD with my 2TB HDD. So for the forseeable future the HDD will remain in NTFS and could not be reformated into a Linux friendlier format at the moment.

So my Question 1 is, how bad would it be to mount that NTFS HDD drive and continue using and working on it, with Linux?

Question 2: I haven't actually decided really what distro to stick with. I'm in a choice paralysis between trying base Fedora, Nobara, atomic Fedora but not Bazzite, and CachyOS. Regardless what I choose I feel like I might distro hop sooner than later. So should I set a different partition for /home?

From what I understand, the advantage would be I wouldn't have to touch my personal data when I distro hop. As I understand it I can just wipe the / partition for the OS I want try next. The disadvantage is that say moving from Fedora to Arch there could be some binaries or config files that might clash and as a noob I'd be in for a rollercoaster of fixing stuff. Am I wrong in my reading and understanding?

But if I'm already putting my personal data on a separate drive from the OS drive, I really shouldn't be bothering with partitioning the OS drive. The other advantage that I read for having / and /home partitions is that if the system have multiple users, there's a lot lesser risk of a user might fill the whole drive and preventing the OS to update later. So for a single user system like mine, and having a big storage size that is unlikely to happen anyways and I would only have to bother reinstalling programs every time I distro hop.

Edit: further understanding and questions related to Question 2:

2: always, even if not distro hopping. You can use a volume aware filesystem like Btrfs and have @ mounted on / and @home mounted on /home, so you don’t have to pre allocate space for one or another. Many distros will detect this setup and smartly use snapshots to revert upgrades without touching your home dir.

Interesting thing I saw yesterday when I "test run" to install Fedora KDE Plasma on a USB stick. I didn't go through with it, but I noticed that the installer suggest to partition my drive as such:

sdc1 - format as efi - /boot/efi  
sdc2 - format as efi - /boot  
sdc3 - format as btrfs subvolume - /  
sdc4 - format as btrfs subvolume - /home  

Is that a good default? on the page that ask whether to install fedora side by side another OS, full wipe, or manual partition, I noticed that whatever drive I want to use it already have to be non Windows friendly. In my case, my nvme is in NTFS naturally, my HDD is in NTFS as well, and my test USB stick is in exfat.

Question 3: I have a few games that I already downloaded and install on the Windows system. I plan to move the games that's installed on the OS drive to the secondary HDD drive, then use that files for when I install linux on the OS drive. Should I not bother with it instead and just bite the bullet and wipe the game files and download it again? or can I make it work somehow?

I have checked that my hardware peripherals such as my mic, game controller, gaming wheel and my audio card works before when I ran a live ISO, so that's fine on that end, I hope. I don't think I'll encounter problems with my NVidia card; and if I do I think there's enough help out there for me to figure it out. So really it's these 3 big questions that I've thought of the more I research before moving to Linux wholesale. If I need any Windows stuff I always have my work supplied laptop. I only need Windows for work only, and I don't use any Adobe stuff.

I'll admit that I have asked a few AI my questions, but since my personal data is valuable I don't trust what their answers are. So that's why I'm making this post. I'm going to play my ESL card and say that I tried my best to convey what I have in my head as best I can. I'll be happy to clarify further if my wording doesn't make sense.

TIA.

The situation:

• 6.17.7 (last kernel to not break my speakers, but not in history repos)
• 6.18.3 (installed kernel)
• 6.19-rc4 (fix is apparently present)

I would like to either have kernel-default 6.17.7 or 6.19-rc4 and then lock the package.

Unfortunately, my system dumped 6.17.7.

Solution: just download the package directly from openSUSE’s kernel HEAD repository website.

Noobie linux user here trying to get this app to work with bottles/lutris/whatever but the same error pops up that I can't figure out. Any help please?

• Distro: Linux Mint 22.2 Cinnamon
• Apps tried: Bottles (flatpak) and Lutris
• Target app: Ginger (https://github.com/DominaeDev/ginger)

I've tried running it from different drives, in and out of the Bottles created folders, but the same error pops up no matter what gets changed:

Unhandled Exception: System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type of field 'Ginger.SpellChecker:s_Hunspell' (0) due to: Could not load file or assembly 'NHunspell, Version=1.2.5554.16953, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=1ac793ea843b4366' or one of its dependencies

I've also tried running the msi from the github and get the same error, with these extra lines:

02ac:err:msi:execute_script Execution of script 0 halted; action L"_3754A388_689E_46DF_B53A_3A872C23A5F5" returned 1627

02ac:err:msi:ITERATE_Actions Execution halted, action L"InstallExecute" returned 1627

02ac:err:msi:ITERATE_Actions Execution halted, action L"ExecuteAction" returned 1627

The zip file comes with the NHunspell.dll in a folder in the same directory, but i've got no idea how to point the programs at it. And I've gotten other programs running, but not this one. Hoping the solution is obvious and I just am too new to figure it out. Thanks in advance.

*Turns out putting the files in the same folder did the trick. After getting Wine Mono installed, it all works (well enough, at least).

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?

I'm not a programmer so I'm probably not using the right words but when I'm in Firefox and press F12 to get to the console (?) where can I find the address of the video that's currently displayed on the page (to download with wget or yt-dlp)? I tried element picker but nothing that looks like an address appeared.

TIA!

I just started checking out auditd and made a rule to log file accesses.

auditctl -a always,exit -F dir=/path/to/my/directory -F perm=rwa

From the output, I got some things that might be useful:

• The full path of the executable
• pid
• Parent's pid: ppid
• Process' current working directory cwd

Now if the process was still running when I check the logs, I could open htop and find out what exactly called the process, from the pid.
For example, say I run a git pull on a repository and find out that /usr/bin/ssh is accessing some file, I will get something like:

st
└ bash
    └ git
        └ ssh

I will get the full executable path of each executable (and know if the executable was not in the system directories, but in some unsafe location writeable by another user). This will give me enough context to go by.

But using this same example, what happens if I check the logs after the git operation has ended?
The git process ppid will have been lost(?) and I would have no way to know which process called ssh.

How do I solve this condition?
Ideally, I want to have the audit log contain the whole calling tree with the full executable path of each parent.

I installed 22.2 on my laptop, installed waydroid, it failed to launch, so i logged out, selected ubuntu on wayland, and waydroid works in that DE.

I installed 22.2 on my friend's laptop(way older), and 3 cinammon DEs were included but not the ubuntu DEs, so i can't open waydroid on the second laptop.

I don't remember installing cinnamon any differently in the first or second laptop, did i somehow install ubuntu DEs on cinammon on the first laptop?

I tried cinammon on wayland, but it launches into n unresponsive black screen.

Flatpak & GNU Stow problems (solved)

Could someone tell me how to let #Flatpak follow symlinks? I have #dotfiles managed by #stow and Flatpak apps can't see the #Kvantum config.

So, I've got symlinks in xdg-config and I'd like for Flatpak to follow them to the folder where the configurations actually reside in (~/.config/home-dir). Search results have been unhelpful.

For example, if I do ls in ~/.config/Kvantum it shows this:
kvantum.kvconfig -> ../../.config/home-dir/.config/Kvantum/kvantum.kvconfig

And even if I give Flatpak apps access to xdg-config/home-dir:ro and xdg-config/Kvantum:ro they won't use the config.

SOLUTION: I switched to Tuckr for dotfiles management, which let me symlink the whole Kvantum directory instead of the individual files. This somehow allowed Flatpak to access the themes.

@linux4noobs @linuxquestions

I have found several programs that let me see what hardware I have, but none that manage drivers, allow me to do “custom” stuff to it like … run fans faster, or similar things.

I have run thermald , but even then, running fallout 3 or balatro makes my computer hit 95C (on the gfx card, with CPU not much cooler ~88). I did re-thermal paste and termal pillow my laptop, and it’s the same heating problems still.

I don’t know how to get “hardware profiles” for NVIDIA X server settings.

        _,met$$$$$gg.            
     ,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P.       --------
   ,g$$P""       """Y$$.".     OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64
  ,$$P'              `$$$.     Host: GL62M 7REX (REV:1.0)
',$$P       ,ggs.     `$$b:    Kernel: Linux 6.12.57+deb13-amd64
`d$$'     ,$P"'   .    $$$     Uptime: 19 mins
 $$P      d$'     ,    $$P     Packages: 4039 (dpkg), 42 (flatpak)
 $$:      $$.   -    ,d$$'     Shell: bash 5.2.37
 $$;      Y$b._   _,d$P'       Display (AUO44ED): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 16" [Built-in]
 Y$$.    `.`"Y$$$$P"'          DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.6
 `$$b      "-.__               WM: KWin (X11)
 
                               CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ (8) @ 3.80 GHz
                               GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile [Discrete]
                               GPU 2: Intel HD Graphics 630 @ 1.10 GHz [Integrated]
                               Memory: 5.00 GiB / 7.68 GiB (65%)
                               Swap: 145.95 MiB / 7.92 GiB (2%)
                               Disk (/): 100.87 GiB / 224.94 GiB (45%) - ext4
                               Disk (/media/username/Data): 451.32 GiB / 913.43 GiB (49%) - fuseblk
                               Local IP (wlp2s0): 192.168.1.244/24
                               Battery (BIF0_9): 100% [AC Connected]
                               Locale: en_GB.UTF-8

https://www.productindetail.com/pn/msi-gl62m-7rex-1869uk

EDIT : kinda like the stuff Pika OS has, which I tried to compile and run here, but the dependencies did not want to be obtained.

I've customsied this version of debian too much to just switch to that, and besides , that OS specifically warns you that it's experimental and should not be used for serious applications and I want a stable system.

I have found several programs that let me see what hardware I have, but none that manage drivers, allow me to do "custom" stuff to it like ... run fans faster, or similar things.

I have run thermald , but even then, running fallout 3 or balatro makes my computer hit 95C (on the gfx card, with CPU not much cooler ~88). I did re-thermal paste and termal pillow my laptop, and it's the same heating problems still.

I don't know how to get "hardware profiles" for NVIDIA X server settings.

        _,met$$$$$gg.          owl@nest
     ,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P.       --------
   ,g$$P""       """Y$$.".     OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64
  ,$$P'              `$$$.     Host: GL62M 7REX (REV:1.0)
',$$P       ,ggs.     `$$b:    Kernel: Linux 6.12.57+deb13-amd64
`d$$'     ,$P"'   .    $$$     Uptime: 19 mins
 $$P      d$'     ,    $$P     Packages: 4039 (dpkg), 42 (flatpak)
 $$:      $$.   -    ,d$$'     Shell: bash 5.2.37
 $$;      Y$b._   _,d$P'       Display (AUO44ED): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 16" [Built-in]
 Y$$.    `.`"Y$$$$P"'          DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.6
 `$$b      "-.__               WM: KWin (X11)
  `Y$$b                        WM Theme: Breeze
   `Y$$.                       Theme: Breeze (Dark) [Qt], Adwaita-dark [GTK2/3/4]
     `$$b.                     Icons: breeze-dark [Qt], breeze-dark [GTK2/3/4]
       `Y$$b.                  Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
         `"Y$b._               Cursor: breeze (24px)
             `""""             Terminal: yakuake 25.4.2
                               Terminal Font: FontAwesome (18pt)
                               CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ (8) @ 3.80 GHz
                               GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile [Discrete]
                               GPU 2: Intel HD Graphics 630 @ 1.10 GHz [Integrated]
                               Memory: 5.00 GiB / 7.68 GiB (65%)
                               Swap: 145.95 MiB / 7.92 GiB (2%)
                               Disk (/): 100.87 GiB / 224.94 GiB (45%) - ext4
                               Disk (/media/owl/Data): 451.32 GiB / 913.43 GiB (49%) - fuseblk
                               Local IP (wlp2s0): 192.168.1.244/24
                               Battery (BIF0_9): 100% [AC Connected]
                               Locale: en_GB.UTF-8

https://www.productindetail.com/pn/msi-gl62m-7rex-1869uk

I'm on Nobara Linux (with KDE6) using a dark theme. I'm using Unity Mod Manager on some games, which, with my current configuration has unreadable text on buttons etc because the text color is the same as the button-background.

When I switch the color in the settings to a light-mode theme like Breeze, everything in Unity Mod Manager becomes perfectly readable.

How do I force a single application to use light mode and/or a specific color-scheme?

So I have a MSI laptop that has an issue of draining its battery while turned off. Decided to look in to this problem today.

Started the machine and could not connect to the internet. The time and date on the machine is way off.

Can not connect though ProtonVPN, tested diferent WiFis that my phone can connect to.

Any ideas what to do? Tried some simple guides and i am quite inexperienced.

I'm on Linux Mint 22.2, trying to update Project Zomboid to a beta version, and when Steam gets to the 'validating' part of the update it hangs. The content_log.txt file shows the following:

[2025-09-30 17:04:24] GetCellList - failed to get AppData for WinUI

[2025-09-30 17:04:24] Load failed: /home/USERNAME/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf.

[2025-09-30 17:04:24] Load failed: /home/USERNAME/.steam/debian-installation/config/libraryfolders.vdf.

The 'GetCellList' error repeats a bunch so I'm assuming that's where it's hung up, but I wasn't sure if the 'load failed' messages were relevant so I included them too.

I've tried restarting Steam, my computer, and internet comments suggested deleting the files that are causing the problem, but when I temporarily moved them to the trash that didn't fix the issue (they've been restored now). Any ideas for next steps would be greatly appreciated! Please let me know if I need to be adding any more info from different log files.

The Cinnamon power management settings on Mint have options to suspend OR lock my ThinkPad when the lid is closed but I can't seem to find a way to make it do both.

Update: fixed

Hello, Ubuntu Studio/KDE here.

Is there any way to change the shortcuts priority? For example, there is a way to switch to keyboard layout 1 by pressing left Ctrl, and to layout 2 by pressing right Ctrl, but in that case any other shortcut that has Ctrl stops working. If I set the layout switching to Ctrl+Shift, any shortcut using Ctrl+Shift+anything else won't work.

On windows, there is a third-party program that allows selecting layouts via right and left Ctrl, and it doesn't interfere with any shortcuts that use Ctrl, i.e. the layout change will trigger only with a single Ctrl press, no holding, no chords. Is there a (relatively easy) way to achieve this in Linux?