ipacialsection

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

This is nice but there are already tons of “how/why to start using Linux” websites. Not sure if we need another one.

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

Whenever you install or remove software, be sure to read through what’s being removed. You don’t want to accidentally uninstall something important. This is very unlikely to happen with official Debian packages, but you should be especially careful when installing packages outside of Debian’s repo, as they may not be fully compatible with your version of Debian.

In any case, I’d log in to a tty (ctrl-alt-any function key) and install whichever desktop environment you had before using apt.

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

Debian 12 ships with the non-free-firmware repo enabled by default, including firmware-iwlwifi, but a few Broadcom cards, and maybe others, still require software in non-free if I recall correctly

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

Are all of the remaining LXDE programs going to be using XWayland? Or have they been ported by now?

ipacialsection OP , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Details:

• OS is Debian bookworm, DE is Plasma 5.27.
• Plasma theme is Oxygen.
• Icon theme is a slightly modified version of Oxylite, only changes are that it follows my system color scheme, the “inherits” list is different, and the start-here and preferences-system icons have been changed.
• Wallpaper is Haenau.
• I’m using Oxygen for Qt widgets and decorations, with the Obsidian Coast color scheme, and standard Breeze Dark for GTK2.
• Layout is entirely my own. I’m showing my Games activity because the main one contains a folder view that might expose info I don’t want to expose here.

Hopefully this is original enough? I’m not sure. I’ve gotten away with posting desktops with mostly existing themes before, but on other occasions I’ve had posts removed for it. At least I mixed and matched some icons this time.

bonus screenshot with apps:

A KDE Plasma 5 desktop disguised as Plasma 4 with Neofetch in Konsole, KPatience, and Plasma Discover open

ipacialsection OP , 2 months ago

Me too, but I also think it just looks cool. Sci-fi vibes.

ipacialsection OP , 1 month ago

this is my “gaming” Plasma activity, so in theory everything I play regularly is there :)

i’m personally fine with the windows being slightly brighter, but i think an almost-black theme would look good too… might experiment with that, thanks for the suggestion!

ipacialsection OP , 1 month ago

I suspect Plasma 6 will remove it. Though I’m liking this desktop setup so much I might just keep it for the rest of Debian Bookworm’s lifespan.

ipacialsection , 2 months ago

Yes and no. X11 is the old window system for Linux (and most Unixes), but it was very much not designed with security in mind, and has become difficult to maintain to the point that the only new updates made to it are to help with Wayland backwards-compatibility. Wayland is its de facto successor, and most new Linux desktop development is based on Wayland rather than X11.

ipacialsection , 2 months ago

I don’t think “one unified distro”, or even an “official distro”, is possible without taking critical parts of Linux private and closed-source. As long as the freedom exists people will make their own “versions” of (GNU/)Linux.

ipacialsection , 2 months ago

You’re basically describing the Linux Standard Base, which was abandoned back in 2015 and the way it was handled was somewhat controversial.

But there is a lot of informal standardization between Linuxes, nonetheless.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

Isn’t Proxmox intended for servers whose only use is to run VMs? Why not go for a traditional desktop distro like Mint and run KVM, QEMU, or VirtualBox on it?

Anyway, I have heard something like this, but it probably depends on the anti-cheat. Some might run in kernel mode to deliberately detect VMs. Others won’t care if you use a VM.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

It sounded like OP wanted to install Proxmox on their main PC, which would imply using it as a daily driver desktop OS, which it isn’t.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

Ah okay, that makes more sense.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

I’ve never used AMD, but folks I know have had good experiences with both; support is about equal. You probably don’t need to go for a top-tier device, and if you’re running VMs and containers you should be just as concerned about RAM and disk space as CPU

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

Well, Linux is 32 years old; GNU goes back to 1984, and Unix all the way back to 1970! The history of this OS is much older than Linus Torvalds’s involvement; he “only” created and maintains the most popular kernel.

But yes, happy birthday to Linux. Many thousands have contributed to making this operating system what it is today and they all have my utmost thanks for it.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

You mean one that allows logging in and posting to Twitter aka X, without a significant fee? Not to my knowledge. Lately Elon and co. have been working to make third party clients completely impossible to develop, so it’s either use the official app, use the website, or quit Twitter.

If you just want to browse Twitter, I don’t know of any options for that either, but keep an eye on Nitter; currently it does not work, but they’re apparently working on a way to work around Twitter’s latest changes.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

I’d recommend using Fedora Workstation, it was a great experience back when I myself had an HP ENVY “fliptop”. Anything with GNOME as its desktop environment should be perfect.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

How was the screen rotation? I am mostly using mine flipped with a second monitor.

Automatic screen rotation wasn’t exactly smooth, but it did work, and I didn’t experience any major issues because of it. I’d imagine it’s better now.

Also, what year was the HP ENVY?

Somewhere around 2018 I think, it was a while ago. But you can test in the live environment to see if the hardware support is still as good as it was.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago

Between the three I’d go for Linux Mint. It was my first distro too, and it makes the setup process very easy, especially for users coming from Windows. Manjaro and Ubuntu are fine, plenty of people I know love them, but they’ve both made some decisions in recent years that I don’t like. The former being negligent with security updates, and the latter forcing their own, worse, package manager on users. You shouldn’t have any issues with Mint.

Most of the apps you mentioned are available for Linux, including Teams and VirtualBox, though you’ll probably have to download those from their respective websites. Office 365 still works from a web browser, and you can open its documents locally with LibreOffice (though more complicated documents might have some formatting messed up). I haven’t heard of uPlay, but there is an unofficial Linux client for Epic Games (called Heroic Launcher), and ~90% of Windows games either support Linux or work through a compatibility layer such as Proton.

ipacialsection , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

I understand it’s highly customizable.

That is true, it’s one of the main benefits to using Linux!

I understand it’s a lot of manual work, though, at least… it sounds like it? From what I’ve seen people say, it seems like you need to remember a lot of codes and functions to do basic things unless you install interfaces for things?

That depends. Most Linux distros come with all the necessary interfaces for those basic things by default, but a few will require you to set them up with the command-line interface (CLI). It’s just a good idea to learn CLI commands because they’re more reliable, more consistent across distros, and often required for advanced things or for troubleshooting.

IMHO, the main challenges of Linux are:

• Having to make configuration choices that Windows and OS X make for you (distros can go a long way in this regard, but you still have to choose a distro)
• Having to install Linux, configure it, and solve problems yourself. (Basically, you use it at your own risk. If you run into issues, I recommend asking a friend, or failing that, asking on one of the many available Linux support forums (like this one) and chatrooms.)

On the other hand, Linux is easier to use in some ways:

• Distros typically provide software repositories (basically app stores) which are better curated than those of Windows or OS X. They can negate the need to search online for downloads, and make it easy to update the system at your convenience.
• Viruses and malware for Linux are extremely rare.
• There are fewer restrictions on what you can do with your computer, which makes customization much easier. There are no ads, nags, “premium editions”, or other commercial BS in Linux.

I also am under the impression that Linux isn’t the greatest for most games? Or at least, that’s what I heard a lot years ago, I don’t know if it’s still true (or if it was even true back then). If that’s still a thing, is it because Windows is just what everyone defaults to when designing software? How viable is gaming on Linux?

IMO, quite viable, thanks in large part to Valve’s efforts with SteamOS and the Steam Deck. A lot of games have official support for Linux now, and those that don’t run pretty much seamlessly through one or both of the Windows compatibility layers, Wine and Proton. Linux used to be pretty bad for gaming, but I think it’s close to on par with Windows now. It’s arguably even better for emulators.

And how does one even… go about setting up Linux? How do you choose what er… version? Type? Ah, distro? Again this… terminology is foreign to me, I’m not fully sure what I’m saying. Would I have to whipe a laptop of Windows to install Linux on it? How would I do that?

A “distro” is basically a version of Linux. More precisely, the operating system we call “Linux” or sometimes “GNU/Linux” is really just a bunch of disparate pieces of software that together could make an operating system, and a “Linux distro” is an operating system pieced together from those parts.

As for the choice of distro, I wouldn’t overthink it. There’s a small chance your hardware won’t be supported by a given distro, or the install process will be more “hands-on” and difficult, but that applies to only a minority of distros. I personally am fond of Debian, though it’s a more “power user” oriented distro and can be hard to install; you might find one of its derivatives, like Q4OS or Linux Mint easier to set up.

There is a way to “dual-boot” Linux alongside Windows, but it can be unreliable, and you will need to partition your hard drive to give them both dedicated space. There are tutorials for this that you can look up easily, but unless you really need Windows, “wiping your hard drive” will be the smoother option. Back up anything important first, and then (on most distros) the installer will make it easy; you’ll likely just have to select your hard disk and an option to erase it. If you just want to try Linux without making it your main OS, I recommend installing it a virtual machine, such as Oracle VirtualBox or VMWare Player.

I have ADHD and Autism and combined, the whole idea of jumping into this is so goddamn overwhelming to consider figuring it out all by myself.

Speaking as a fellow autistic, I think the ability to hyperfixate helped me a lot with Linux, haha. But it is a lot, so I don’t blame you for being overwhelmed. As I said, once the setup is finished it’s quite easy to use, and the more advanced stuff, you can learn as you go along. So don’t worry too much.

I hope this wasn’t too long/hard to understand for you. Feel free to message me if you need help getting set up with Linux, or need clarification on what I’ve said. I love helping people with stuff like this.