I love MPD and RMPC, it's probably the closest I have gotten to a "perfect" music player, it is super customisable and functional, but there are just a few things that I need to figure out how to change.

First, after each restart, the queue is cleared. How do I make sure that the queue by default is all the songs in my music directory?

Second, after each restart, shuffle (randomise) is reset to off, how do I change it so that shuffle is enabled by default?

Thirdly, is there a way to make MPD pause when headphones are disconnected?

Finally, how do I make MPD block screen lock when music is playing?

For your information, I am running EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma

My main requirement is that I am using Syncthing to sync my notes from my Android phone, which uses Quillpad. Quillpad is amazing and looks super nice, and functional too, but all the notes are in one big folder rather than being subdivided by notebook. So I require a markdown editor that can create "notebooks" but don't change the folder structure of the notes (I tested putting notes in subfolders, and quillpad thought the notes were deleted. Silly Quillpad!)

So the notebooks/similar organisation of notes needs to be specific to the app and should not change the folder structure. I would prefer if the app is open-source too, and something that fits with my desktop (KDE Plasma) would be cool too :D

~~This rules out Obsidian (which puts notes in a folder structure. Obsidian is great, but won't sync well with Quillpad)~~, Joplin won't work either. Ghostwriter is pretty much a markdown notepad (quite good, but can't see all my notes in one place)

I am using EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma

edit: To clarify, I want a markdown editor that is able to separate notes into different groups without using folders as Quillpad doesn't like folders. I also need to have a way to view all the notes at once in each group

Using a code editor VSCodium wouldn't really work as there isn't really a way to organise notes, aside from putting them in folders (which I don't want), and I am not yet ready to jump into the Vim rabbit hole of plugins and configuration

edit 2: Markdown editor to note organiser to satisfy the pedant

edit 3: Looks like Obsidian has tags, so I could use those to organise notes without folders. I will try that and see if it works!

edit 4: Obsidian does have tags, but it seems like you sort by tags by typing tag:#NAME, and you can't use spaces for tags. So not Obsidian then unfortunately. Are there any other options that have a larger focus on tags or similar?

This would be great if you wanted to talk to yourself without anyone understanding what you're saying, for example, or if you didn't want anybody to know what you were writing down. It might also be useful if you enjoy lots of foreign language media (see music, tv shows, movies) and want to experience the "original" rather than through dubs and subs.

Personally, I would go for either Russian, German, or Estonian, all three of which are because I frequently listen to lots of music that are in those languages

edit 2: Found a video by "SpaceRex" on the differences between BTRFS and EXT4, super helpful! He explained it quite well...

edit: It seems that there isn't much difference between btrfs and ext4 aside from additional features of btrfs, which although I might not need right now, there doesn't seem to be any harm in using btrfs over ext4, so I will be using btrfs.

Which would be better? Fedora shipped with btrfs, does it have any additional features that are good (quick search shows compression, subvolumes, and snapshots as main selling points for btrfs, but are there any downsides?

update: Using the tar command, I have created a tar archive that respects symlinks, so there aren't any duplicated files, hooray! Now I will go install EndeavourOS, wish me luck!

I was told that I might be able to get help in a dedicated community. I am using rsync to backup my home directory to an external SSD (I will rsync the other way later, this is because I will be reinstalling to a different distro). My laptop uses btrfs while the SSD uses exFAT. When sending files over, file sizes are WAY bigger, the home directory is around 385 GiB and there is over 700 GiB of free space, but it was unable to fit midway through transfer. I partially solved this by uninstalling problematic programs, like Steam and Kdenlive (which can be reinstalled later) and removing large files that I didn't need. Some of the bulk is also due to fit repos it seems (someone said those have loads of links or something?)

The external SSD has files already on it that isn't part of the home directory backup for distro hopping, and it will be used by Windows users (my family) so I can't reformat it. I might buy another external SSD for this purpose if using exFAT to backup is a real problem.

Now that I have successfully transferred my home directory with barely any space to spare, I have a few additional questions:

Once I reinstall and distrohop, will the symlinks come back when going from exFAT to BTRFS or are they gone forever and I'm stuck with massive files?

Will there be any additonal incompatibilities when copying the home directory from exFAT to BTRFS?

Is it safe to use an exFAT drive as a backup for the home directory, or is it better for me to wait until I can get an external SSD that I can reformat to be btrfs?

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/41202990

update: I was able to copy it! There are still some folders that are really big (as many have said, it is probably because symlinks aren't supported in exFAT. When I transfer these files over to btrfs, will the symlinks come back or are they permanently gone?) but, with the uninstallation of Steam and Kdenlive (each taking a ridiculous amount of storage), removing a couple games I don't really play, and removing old folders that lingered around from already uninstalled programs means I now have enough space to fit my home folder in the SSD (like 23 GiB left, so the lack of symlinks still hurts, but still, it fits!)

When running

rsync -Paz /home/sbird "/run/media/sbird/My Passport/sbird"

As told by someone, I run into a ran out of storage error midway. Why is this? My disk usage is about 385 GiB for my home folder, and there is around 780 GiB of space in the external SSD (which already has stuff like photos and documents). Does rsync make doubly copies of it or something? That would be kind of silly. Or is it some other issue?

Note that the SSD is from a reputable brand (Western Digital) so it is unlikely that it is reporting a fake amount of storage.

EDIT: Wait, is it because my laptop SSD is BTRFS and the external SSD is exFAT? Could that be the issue? That would be kind of weird, why would files become so much more bigger with the external SSD?

update 2: The Linux community has suggested that I use a tar file to backup, as this preserves symlinks. With that, the home directory now takes up just 290 ish GiB, as it should. Now I will be distro hopping, wish me luck!

update: I was able to copy it! There are still some folders that are really big (as many have said, it is probably because symlinks aren't supported in exFAT. When I transfer these files over to btrfs, will the symlinks come back or are they permanently gone?) but, with the uninstallation of Steam and Kdenlive (each taking a ridiculous amount of storage), removing a couple games I don't really play, and removing old folders that lingered around from already uninstalled programs means I now have enough space to fit my home folder in the SSD (like 23 GiB left, so the lack of symlinks still hurts, but still, it fits!)

When running

rsync -Paz /home/sbird "/run/media/sbird/My Passport/sbird"

As told by someone, I run into a ran out of storage error midway. Why is this? My disk usage is about 385 GiB for my home folder, and there is around 780 GiB of space in the external SSD (which already has stuff like photos and documents). Does rsync make doubly copies of it or something? That would be kind of silly. Or is it some other issue?

Note that the SSD is from a reputable brand (Western Digital) so it is unlikely that it is reporting a fake amount of storage.

EDIT: Wait, is it because my laptop SSD is BTRFS and the external SSD is exFAT? Could that be the issue? That would be kind of weird, why would files become so much more bigger with the external SSD?

Thanks everyone for your help to troubleshoot! It was super helpful! Now I need to go to bed, since I've been up so late it's already tomorrow!

I would like to distro hop to EndeavourOS, and it has been suggested that I use rclone to copy my home folder to an external SSD. Unfortunately, I don't have an external SSD at the moment, but I do have a phone that has plenty of free space. Is it a good idea to back up my computer files to an Android phone? My gut says it's not a very good idea, but I'm not sure why.

Hello everyone, does anyone know of a batch resizing tool on Linux that can resize loads of images all at once while keeping all the images the same aspect ratio as before? I would like to make all my images in a game have either a width of at least 128 px or height of 192 px (e.g. an image that is 700x875 would resize down to 154x192px, so that width is > 128 px and height = 192 px. I think for most of the images resizing based on height will work, but you never know!)

edit: I have used a for loop that cds into each directory, uses imagemagick to resize all of them to fill/overflow area 128x192 with ^ tag and using morgify to modify in place, then cd back to the parent directory! Thanks everyone

Here are some bad puns that are to do with data types. I'm sorry. Comment down some of your own concoctions!

2. What does a programmer say when they is accused of lying? I promise I'm not boolean you!

3. You try to pay with $100 of Monopoly money. in a supermarket. The cashier tells you that it's unfortunately not real.

4. What would you call fuel made of alphabet soup? CHARcoal!

5. How do Japanese programmers read arrays? By decrementing from -1!

not related to data types, but just came up with it as I was typing this:

f. What did the Python user say to the C++ user when they spilled coffee on their laptop? OOPs!

Hi all, in a live boot of EndeavourOS, the slider for display scaling didn't do anything. Is this a limitation of live boot (or at least EndeavourOS's live boot, since I recall it working with Fedora's live boot)? Like are the drivers required not installed in the live boot, or does EndeavourOS not support this for my particular hardware?

Hi all, does anyone know of a good alternative to games like Wordle, Connection, and Skrbbl? Self-hosting puzzle and party games would be fun I think. Preferably options that have intuitive UI (else no one will use them!)

I have found a couple options, awesome selfhosted mentions scribble(dot)rs which seems pretty cool. Awesome selfhosted also suggests "word-mastermind", and the demo instance is down, is it any good? (a quick search shows a bazillion Wordle clones that people have made as a programming challenge. If I had the time I might try making my own, but I have loads of schoolwork on my plate right now)

I am thinking of switching from Fedora 43 KDE to EndeavourOS during the holidays, mostly to try out new stuff, it being Arch-based and rolling release. It would also give me an excuse to finally overwrite my dual boot Windows partition that I now never use (initially set up for playing Minecraft Bedrock with my little brother, but with a PaperMC server w/ Geyser and Floodgate, Windows is no longer necessary). This would be my first "distro hop" (technically I switched from GNOME to KDE, but that's not really a distro hop since I didn't reinstall the whole OS), so I have a few questions.

1. I have a self-hosted Nextcloud, so how do I make sure that my files will sync properly after I hop? (i.e. avoiding reuploading the same files twice when I set it up in EndeavourOS, not losing any of my files) Similar question on Forgejo/Codeberg and git, does it automagically figure out where the remotes are, or is there something else I have to do?

2. How do I properly move program data/settings/etc? (e.g. default templates for LibreOffice, preferences in Godot, Minecraft worlds and mods installed with Prism Launcher) I understand that some programs have some of that built-in (see settings json in VSCodium, exporting bookmarks from Firefox/using Mozilla account to sync settings) but many programs don't have that functionality.

3. I am currently very happy with KDE Plasma. I do have to ask, is there another option aside from KDE that is equally or more customisable? Or would it be better to stick with KDE for better support, compatibility, etc.?

4. Are there any Arch/EndeavourOS-specific quirks that I need to know before making the move?

5. Finally, does anyone have any tips for distro-hopping? That is, how do I not screw up and lose all my data? I do know that I have to back up all my files before doing this (obviously) in multiple locations.

edit: I have tested a bit in a live boot version of EndeavourOS, and it seems that everything works. Trackpad, Bluetooth, WiFi, sound, etc. all work. One thing I found weird was scaling didn't work (is that just a live boot thing?). Another thing, EndeavourOS uses X11 rather than Wayland like on Fedora. Will that break any programs? (probably not, usually it's the inverse, but just checking)