Linux

https://gitweb.gentoo.org/data/gentoo-news.git/tree/2013/2013-09-27-initramfs-required/2013-09-27-initramfs-required.en.txt?id=a79dd69b0cca439bc0c483c9193c79e0554819d0

how easy is it to install arch? (no anarchy/archinstall)

This is bothering me for years now, my backup script always takes everything with it, taking forever to finish.

I initially used the --exclude option, but this is rather restrictive, cluttered the script and still had the excluded directories.
Then i discovered -X/--exclude-from but same result here, weird globbing and still fails.
So i hacked a negative list via fd's --ignore-file and tar -T/--files-from together. But tar still includes files and directories not on the fucking files.tmp.

So i'm not sure if it is a bug in Arch's GNU tar or if it's maybe a parameter in the wrong position, tar can be removed there. This is my current code

# tar -cf - -X "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/backup/ignore "$INPUT" -P

fd . -Hi --ignore-file "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/backup/ignore "${INPUT}" > "$_tmpfile"
tar -cf - --verbatim-files-from --files-from="$_tmpfile" -P \
	|pv -tapes "$_fssize" \
	|compress >"${OUTPUT}.$_ext"

INPUT is $HOME in this case.

And if anyone has a solution that works on busybox tar as well...

New GNOME dialog on the right:

Apple's dialog:

They say GNOME isn't a copy of macOS but with time it has been getting really close. I don't think this is a bad thing however they should just admit it and then put some real effort into cloning macOS instead of the crap they're making right now.

Here's the thing: Apple's design you'll find that they carefully included an extra margin between the "Don't Save" and "Cancel" buttons. This avoid accidental clicks on the wrong button so that people don't lose their work when they just want to click "Cancel".

So much for the GNOME, vision and their expert usability team :P

Bazzite comes ready to rock with Steam and Lutris pre-installed, HDR support, BORE CPU scheduler for smooth and responsive gameplay, and numerous community-developed tools for your gaming needs.

I wanted to try Bazzite but for some reason the download from bazzite.gg is very slow (around 1-2MB/sec) and also fails at some point, every time.

Does anyone know this issue? Is there a torrent for Bazzite that I am not aware of?

back when I used xubuntu I used gmusicbrowser.

Now, debian 12.5 netinst came with quod libet installed and it can handle 60k files so far.

note that my music collection is stored in 4 different SSD.

If there is anything better than quod libet, what would it be?

Without other usb devices the keyboard works immediately. With them it takes 5 ish seconds for it to start responding. This is regardless of which device is discovered first (which I can manipulate), it seems to just wait for all of them. Is there a way to make it not do that?

Edit: This is specifically about linux boot. It otherwise works fine in bios / bootloader

is there a bookmark manager like jabref for linux url bookmarks?

I use Jabref for papers and books. I group and rate them and keep track of reading status. There are a lot of websites that also provide valuable information but firefox' bookmark manager can't be used to rate sites or make comments. I can manually add links which is cumbersome.

Is there a similar tool like jabref for internet links?

In the optimal case it would take firefox' bookmarks and work with them such that I can bookmark a site with Ctrl+D and do all the site related work within that manager.

edit: Bonus, if it automatically fetches the article to preserve it

I’m looking for a Fedora 38 workstation iso. I cannot seem to find one. Fedora 40 doesn’t seem to want to play nice with my surface pro 7. Any help would be appreciated.

I study math at uni and I was shocked realizing all my teachers use ubuntu on both their laptop and work desktop

For those wanting to build a Wayland-only Linux desktop experience without carrying any aging X11 baggage, GNOME 47 will be able to optionally offer Wayland-only support without carrying X11/X.Org support. This Mutter merge request landed today that allows compiling Mutter with X11 support disabled. That landed today along with this GNOME Shell merge request for being able to disable X11 support too.

Just like the title says I want to turn an old tablet of mine into an ereader.

The tablet in question is samsung galaxy tab 3 in which I installed postMarketOS.

I installed the console version, and once everything was set up I ssd into the machine and installed the following packages :

greetd, greetd-openrc, cage, fuse

Downloaded koreader app image into /bin/

Activated the greetd service

rc-update add greetd default

and configured /etc/greetd/config.toml with the following

[terminal]

vt = 1

[default_session]

command="agreety -c sh"
user="greeter"

[initial_session]

command="cage -s -d -- koreader"
user="me"

and rebooted the tablet, however I am still stuck with the login prompt no matter what I do.

Any tips on how fix this or a other way I could accomplish my goal?

Update

Got autologin working by ditching out greetd and using agetty, and a simple fortune command to run on startup.

After this I went for the kill and tried to install KOreader using flatpak, due to App Images not playing alright with Alpine. However I noticed something there is no arm build of KOreader for linux arm so my plans were cut short.

Will try to compile KOreader to linux arm if not successful will just put a nice UI and use the little guy as a portable hacking machine.

New update

KOreader was mess to compile so I looked for alternatives and found out foliate which fits my criteria (opds, epub and pdf support) and is in the alpine repos.

Played around with cage and got the thing somewhat working, however no virtual keyboard support for now, figuring that out now.

I was planning on installing windows to my new ssd for a dualboot, but I noticed that windows installer didn't allow me to select the disk. I learned that it just installs to the drive that is marked as M2_1 in the bios. I thought that had something to do with boot order initially, but I'm not sure about that now. If it is boot order, my second ssd doesn't even show up in the boot order menu So:

1. Does windows install to whatever is second in boot order or whatever is marked as M2_1 in the bios, and
2. How can I edit this to prevent windows from nuking my main linux partition and using the empty ssd, and after the install, how should I make sure both drives are available to boot into?

Motherboard is MSI MS - 7E10

Sup penguin people.

I’ve been running various flavours and variations of Ubuntu for a while. I find I have to nuke and reset my laptop every 6ish months because things eventually stop working or I get weird bugs.

Recently I’ve been having this on and off problem where the computer just shows a black screen after turning it on. The only way to fix this is to tap keys repeatedly until a console shows up and it seems to kick the computer into gear and log in. Other times I have to restart 2-3 times before it logs me in.

I’ve had a lot of small issues like that (like having to jiggle the volume knob in the sound mixer to get sound working) and I’m wondering if switching to an immutable distro (like bazzite) would solve this apparent config creep.

I have a Steamdeck and it’s been solid and stable ever since I got it. I know it’s running an immutable distro and after researching a little bit it sounds like they can be more stable.

I’m no power user but I play some steam games and run a local 7b LLM and like to have a virtual machine or two for Windows XP emulation for some retro gaming.

Anyone have any opinions? What are your thoughts on immutable distros (like Bazzite)? Pros? Cons? Success/doom stories?

Edit: I’m back baby. 4 months later and still kicking it with Bazzite. Go immutable if you’re a former windows person and needs a computer to just work the way you’d expect without any configuration. I’m running all my steam games and plugging into my usb c dock for mouse keyboard webcam and 2 1080p monitor. I could never get that working on other distros. The future is immutable 🙌

So it's no secret that some parts of the army in the USA and my country (UK) sometimes use legacy software like DOS for niche roles as they're robust including older versions of Windows.

But.. where does Linux fit in this? It's a kernel OS that's used in top of the line supercomputers, workstations, medical equipment and weather stations.

I imagine some aspects of this would be military secrets but how do they use it? I know that Linux was used for certain space projects with NASA but I'm talking about army applications.

TLDR : Does the penguin OS power shooty shooty machines and tanks