I've been going through my old screenshots and thought I'd share some for nostalgia. This shot is from 2007, when I was working on several logo concepts for Arch Linux (it remains one of my favourites).

As I recall, the specs were as follows:

• WM: Openbox
• GTK: Murrina-Tangoesque
• Icons: Tango
• Panel: Tint2
• Systray: Stalonetray (I think)
• Stats: Conky

I just want to share my notes for installing a Brother HL-L5210DW(T) printer via USB under Fedora Atomic 40 (Kinoite), in case it helps anyone else. This may work for other similar models too. I've included some background info at bottom if you're interested.

The following method doesn't require any proprietary drivers, and utilizes IPP-over-USB and IPP Everywhere, both of which are preinstalled on Fedora 40 Atomic distributions (and likely their traditional variants as well).

1. Connect the printer via USB and ensure it is powered on
2. Open the CUPS admin web interface at http://localhost:631/
3. Select Administration and enter your credentials
4. Select Add Printer
5. Select Internet Printing Protocol (ipp), then Continue
6. Enter ipp://localhost:60000/ipp/print in the path field, then Continue
7. Enter a name for the printer (ex: HL-L5210DW), then Continue
8. Select Brother as the Make, then Continue
9. Select IPP Everywhere as the Model, then Add Printer
10. Set the default printer options as desired (set Duplex to DuplexNoTumble for standard 2-sided printing)
11. Select Set Default Options
12. From the Maintenance drop-menu, select Set as Server Default

More info

I haven't needed to configure a USB printer at home in well over 15 years, so I was more than a little rusty, and things were further complicated by my use of Fedora Atomic. I'll eventually connect this device via Ethernet so it can be used by everyone on the LAN, but until I sort out exactly where I want to put it I'm stuck with USB.

Brother's driver install tool expects dnf, apt, or yum, and so it's incompatible with ostree-based systems like Kinoite or Silverblue. You can of course download the driver manually and install the necessary packages:

rpm-ostree install --apply-live hll5210dwpdrv-4.0.3-1.i386.rpm glibc.i686 libstdc++.i686

However, I still ran into some problems (likely related to SELinux), and I wasn't keen on overlaying additional packages, particularly proprietary software written for i386 arch.

I then opted to try the generic brlaser driver, but it failed to work correctly when long-edge (NoTumble) duplex printing was enabled. The backside of pages were corrupted and illegible.

After spending far too much of my Saturday reading support forums, I eventually discovered that IPP-over-USB was a thing, and the rest went smoothly. Hopefully this post helps anyone else with an HL-L5210DWT or other L5000 series Brother printer.

Bonus Tip: Disable deep sleep

If you have a Brother printer that goes into deep sleep and doesn't wake up for print jobs, you can disable the Deep Sleep feature via the printer's built-in menu:

1. Press the OK button to bring up the printer's menu
2. Navigate to General Setup > Ecology > Sleep Time
3. Press OK to enter into the Sleep Time settings
4. Press the Minus and Cancel buttons simultaneously to display the hidden Deep Sleep menu
5. Press OK to enter into the Deep Sleep settings
6. Navigate up/down to change the setting to Off
7. Press OK
8. Turn off the printer, unplug it and plug it back in, then verify the setting is retained

I recently scored a free 1974 Deelite Apollo 10 speed. As far as I can tell, it has all original parts, but most of the stickers have faded out and there are a few places where the paint has failed completely on the tubes.

As a project bike, would you consider stripping and painting the frame, or simply replace what needs done (tires, bar tape) and ride it as is?

Longtime Fedora Silverblue user here, who recently jumped over to Kinoite (Atomic KDE). I typically enable autologin on my display managers because I use whole disk encryption and already need to enter my passphrase to decrypt and start the OS.

I discovered pretty quickly that SDDM's autologin feature isn't working under Fedora 40. LightDM also failed to start under Wayland on F40, regardless of which greeter I tried.

Long story short, I opted to use GDM since I knew its automatic login feature worked fine under Wayland. It's worth noting that KDE has it's own lockscreen mechanism, so you won't even see GDM unless you manually logout of your session. To try this yourself:

1. Install GDM: rpm-ostree install --apply-live gdm

2. Disable SDDM: sudo systemctl disable sddm

3. Enable GDM: sudo systemctl enable gdm

4. Reboot and select the Plasma session before logging in; this is required only once in order to establish to the default, otherwise GDM will load a broken GNOME session when autologin is enabled

5. Edit /etc/gdm/custom.conf and add the following under [daemon] (replacing username with your own):

    AutomaticLoginEnable = true
    AutomaticLogin = username
   

Voila! You will no longer need to enter your user credentials before loading the desktop.

I just want to say thank you for Voyager. This has become my go-to Lemmy app on Android for several months now and I'm loving the new features and fixes we're seeing with each release. Your dedication and hard work has not gone unnoticed!

Does anyone know if there are plans underway to allow user-level flatpak installations using GNOME Software?

I recently created a second user account on my main Silverblue workstation for a visiting family member. I assumed the user would be able to install any local apps they needed through the Software store, however Software attempts to install all apps as system-wide, which of course required me to input my own credentials for authentication. This seems counterintuitive to the overall goals of the flatpak platform.

I know we can simply install userspace apps on the command line with --user, however the family member isn't as proficient with Linux.

Fellow Fedora Immutable users, have any of you automated your system updates to occur at shutdown? If so, do you find it makes a practical difference?

I'm thinking of doing the same with Tony Walker's silverblue-update service.

I shutdown most of my machines daily, and that often means getting an updated image shortly after startup the next day and being forced to reboot or nearly always remain one day behind in updates. By checking for updates again at shutdown, this should help ensure I've always got the latest daily image at boot. Thoughts?

PSA: It seems the latest version of the Reolink Android app (v4.43.0.5.20240111) is capturing the phone's clipboard when first opened, and again whenever the clipboard contents change and the app is brought into the foreground.

GrapheneOS reports, "Reolink pasted from your clipboard". I don't recall seeing this message on older versions of the software.

While network-accessible camera software has always posed a privacy risk, this is particularly concerning behaviour.

Probably a longshot, but hoping anyone here might have working instructions on getting OpenRazer running under Fedora Silverblue. I recently picked up some Huntsman V2s and while OpenRGB works for basic control, I'd like to see what other options are available.

Apparently there is a known incompatibility between Silverblue and how OpenRazer implements kernel modules (link). I've seen elsewhere that some users have tweaked the build files to work around this, but I couldn't find any detailed info. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT:

I got it working, but it wasn't worth the trouble compared to simply running OpenRGB in a flatpak. For Razer keyboard users, you'll gain one or two RGB presets over OpenRGB, such as Reactive, and the ability to adjust the polling rate (the merits of which are highly debatable). You'll lose secure boot and kernel verification unless you also add the ublue repo and signing key rpm (ublue-os-akmods-addons).

If anyone wants to do it anyway, I had success by downloading and installing the following ublue-os akmod rpms from here:

• akmod-openrazer-100.0.0.git.530.886f986d-1.fc39.x86_64.rpm
• kmod-openrazer-100.0.0.git.530.886f986d-1.fc39.x86_64.rpm
• openrazer-kmod-common-100.0.0.git.530.886f986d-1.fc39.x86_64.rpm

(Note: you might need to layer the kernel-devel package first; I had it layered already so I can't confirm.)

Add the openrazer repo, then install the daemon and frontend app:

curl -o - https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/hardware:/razer/Fedora_$(rpm -E %fedora)/hardware:razer.repo | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/razer.repo
rpm-ostree install openrazer-meta razergenie

Add the plugdev group to /etc/group, then add your user to it:

sudo bash -c 'grep "plugdev" /lib/group >> /etc/group'
sudo gpasswd -a $USER plugdev

Finally, launch RazerGenie...

Despite being a heavy cell phone user for more than 25 years, it only recently occurred to me that vertical navigation on most phones is inverted when compared to traditional computers. You swipe down to navigate upward, and up to navigate downward. I recently spent time using a MacBook, which apparently defaults to this "natural" scrolling (mobile-style), and I was completely thrown off by it.

I've been using natural scrolling on a couple of my own desktops ever since, mostly as a mental exercise, and I wondered...how many of you folks prefer this method?

Hot on the heels of last week's announcement that Intel would end their NUC line, Intel and ASUS have struck a non-exclusive deal that will see ASUS assume manufacturing, sales, and support of 10th to 13th Gen NUCs. ASUS will also be able to develop future NUC designs; all under a new business unit called ASUS NUC BU.

I'm hoping to start a dialogue about the current use of descriptive community names, usernames, lack of semantic URLs, and other usability issues on the Lemmy platform. I say dialogue because I am new to Lemmy and I can appreciate that some things may be done differently here for specific reasons.

This is not my sandbox but I'd like to see a castle here someday nonetheless, and I'm willing to help make that happen if there's an appetite to see these core issues addressed:

1. Community display names

Community display names should not be used in any meaningful way on the platform. They should not be displayed in the feeds, nor in community search results. Personally, I don't think they should be used anywhere except as a byline on the community's feed.

These descriptive names are not unique and it is trivial for anyone to create a community and change its display name to match that of another on the same instance. This clone will appear right alongside the legitimate community in search results, page feeds, and even moderator lists (such as those viewed on profile pages).

Many community display names are so long that they are truncated when viewed in mobile apps, adding to the ambiguity.

It is also impossible to know the actual community name until a link is hovered over (impossible on mobile) or actually visited (potentially dangerous).

2. User display names

Similar to community names, these descriptive names should not be used in any meaningful way on the platform. There is nothing to stop me from changing my display name to that of a site admin, moderator, or user, and then creating posts under the guise of that person. Again, there is no way of knowing the actual username without hovering over the link (impossible on mobile), or visiting the user's profile directly.

Another side effect of showing display names in the feed is that some users have emojis in their names, or emojis as their name, which is distracting at best and annoying at worst.

In my opinion, display names should be restricted to a user's profile page, similar to how GitHub implements usernames and full names. Post feeds, search results, and any other meaningful place should display the unique username only.

3. Semantic (clean) URLs

A GitHub issue discussing cleaner URLs has been open since July 2020, which leads me to believe this isn't a priority. I won't list the many reasons why user-friendly, SEO-friendly post slugs are important today, as Wikipedia already has it covered (and with a clean URL). The merits of clean URLs have been written about extensively for more than a decade. The bottom line is that this:

https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support/72hsHD/qol_usability_concerns

...or even this:

https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support/1043897

...reveals a lot more about a link before I click it than this:

https://lemmy.ml/post/1043897

It helps to understand the link destination before you click it, and this is an issue that will only get messier if left unaddressed for too long.

4. Sanitized post titles

Last week, I noticed that users are able to include markdown in their post titles, allowing for `code` syntax highlighting in the title itself. This is a bad practice, prone to abuse in the long run as some users will increasingly try to draw attention to their posts.

5. Link posts don't link to the link

I fully appreciate that Lemmy isn't trying to be a Reddit clone but as a link aggregator platform, I'm surprised that link posts do not actually link to the submitted hyperlink. This contradicts not only Reddit, but other link aggregator services, including Hacker News and Lobsters. Currently, the user has to know to click the thumbnail instead of the post title, or enter into the post and then click the title a second time to visit the submitted link. This is not intuitive.