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  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

The EADD Linux Technical Gibberings Thread

Lazyness basically.

Despite being sometimes disatisfied with the way my newish PC is running, it's not quite bad enough for me to have to back up all my data, saved logins, boomkarks, etc, and wipe the slate clean and start anew with linux. It will take hours to do all of that and then get the new O/S and logins and data imported.

Although once there are any serious problems with this O/S I will be doing all of the above.

I presume there will be screen recording functions available on Linux, so that's not really a valid reason to stick with Win 11, although it's about the only good in-built feature that the OS has.

I accidentally ended up discovering and using Linux on my previous computer. I was not in the best shape financially at that time, and when it broke beyond my ability to fix it, the guy in the nearest PC repair shop recommended Ubuntu to me. I had no issues with it (despite it not being anywhere as easy to tinker with as Windows is. Possibly mainly to lack of familiarity.).

But the HDMI socket eventually disintegrated on my Ubuntu machine, meaning I could no longer stream videos through my TV, and forcing to buy an as new, new machine. This one, which has the dreaded windows 11 on it.
 
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Bleaney said:
Lazyness basically.

Despite being sometimes disatisfied with the way my newish PC is running, it's not quite bad enough for me to have to back up all my data, saved logins, boomkarks, etc, and wipe the slate clean and start anew with linux. It will take hours to do all of that and then get the new O/S and logins and data imported.

Although once there are any serious problems with this O/S I will be doing all of the above.

I presume there will be screen recording functions available on Linux, so that's not really a valid reason to stick with Win 11, although it's about the only good in-built feature that the OS has.

I accidentally ended up discovering and using Linux on my previous computer. I was not in the best shape financially at that time, and when it broke beyond my ability to fix it, the guy in the nearest PC repair shop recommended Ubuntu to me. I had no issues with it (despite it not being anywhere as easy to tinker with as Windows is. Possibly mainly to lack of familiarity.).

But the HDMI socket eventually disintegrated on my Ubuntu machine, meaning I could no longer stream videos through my TV, and forcing to buy an as new, new machine. This one, which has the dreaded windows 11 on it.
Click to expand...
Ah gotcha. I mean if it ain't broke don't fix it right? For my part I started playing with Linux when I was in my first year of uni. Had loads of free time already and then COVID happened so I needed something to tinker with.

But I totally get the reluctance to make extra work for yourself and a whole load of potential troubleshooting when the current arrangement works fine.

One thing I do really miss from windows is wallpaper engine (steam app for live desktop wallpaper). The app itself works fine in steam but the way Linux draws the desktop is completely different so it needs more than a translation layer to get it working.
 
Shinji Ikari said:
One thing I do really miss from windows is wallpaper engine (steam app for live desktop wallpaper). The app itself works fine in steam but the way Linux draws the desktop is completely different so it needs more than a translation layer to get it working.
Click to expand...
mmm.....

i have the ones that come with my os, which isn't optimized for client usage.
never thought about changing the background (wallpaper) even though i invested some time adapting the overall desktop appearance to my needs. now i feel like i need to set up a wallpaper :LOL:
 
lecroute said:
mmm.....

i have the ones that come with my os, which isn't optimized for client usage.
never thought about changing the background (wallpaper) even though i invested some time adapting the overall desktop appearance to my needs. now i feel like i need to set up a wallpaper :LOL:
Click to expand...
Tbf I used to like changing up my desktop on the regular but I've been using more or less the same wallpaper and layout for years now. Panel on top dock on bottom blue girl for the wallpaper bish bash bosh done.

I want to see your desktop now.
 
Shinji Ikari said:
Tbf I used to like changing up my desktop on the regular but I've been using more or less the same wallpaper and layout for years now. Panel on top dock on bottom blue girl for the wallpaper bish bash bosh done.
I want to see your desktop now.
Click to expand...

ksnip-20241008-135630.png

it changes from green to red to blue to green ... depending on what time of day it is.
that's about the only feature it has.
 
a good free distro to install on a mini laptop from 2009?
it has win 7 right now and though it works perfectly, i would prefer to have linux on it
 
Xubuntu should run fine assuming it has at least 1gb of ram. Probably the most hassle free option, the LTS release is supported for 3 years and most applications update themselves automatically.

Edit: Lubuntu is even less resource intensive, but it's a bit uglier and desktop is a bit more minimal. Same level of functionality though.
 
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lecroute said:
a good free distro to install on a mini laptop from 2009?
it has win 7 right now and though it works perfectly, i would prefer to have linux on it
Click to expand...

Just installed Debian 12.7 with KDE Plasma on mine, though that's a 2014 laptop (just installed it on my desktop too), and, I just swapped an ssd in (which is worth considering if you can). Heard Debian XFCE or whatever is very light

I realised last year that ubuntu & mint etc are just Debian with fluff and bloat and not in any way favorable compared to Debian KDE Plasma, which is slick, sharp, private and bloatfree.

I also realised this year that installing Debian 13 testing is an absolutely terrible idea and things will break way more than you think. Eventually I somehow completely broke the bootloader and the encryption at logon from fucking with something, it got wrecked.

I am absolutely addicted to perplexity AI right now, and it's truly scary how reliant we will become on it. It also knows everything about my system, the feds will be having a party. Anything I need help with I just ask AI what to do, paste any errors back to it and ask it to collate a guide to save in a document.

Debian is absolutely lush. Love it.
 
Tranced said:
Just installed Debian 12.7 with KDE Plasma on mine, though that's a 2014 laptop (just installed it on my desktop too), and, I just swapped an ssd in (which is worth considering if you can). Heard Debian XFCE or whatever is very light

I realised last year that ubuntu & mint etc are just Debian with fluff and bloat and not in any way favorable compared to Debian KDE Plasma, which is slick, sharp, private and bloatfree.

I also realised this year that installing Debian 13 testing is an absolutely terrible idea and things will break way more than you think. Eventually I somehow completely broke the bootloader and the encryption at logon from fucking with something, it got wrecked.

I am absolutely addicted to perplexity AI right now, and it's truly scary how reliant we will become on it. It also knows everything about my system, the feds will be having a party. Anything I need help with I just ask AI what to do, paste any errors back to it and ask it to collate a guide to save in a document.

Debian is absolutely lush. Love it.
Click to expand...
I used Debian 10 for a year and really liked it. Ended up swapping it out for fedora in the end on that laptop because I wanted to play with the new version of gnome.

I mostly agree with you on Ubuntu but it is slightly easier to install/keep updated for newbies. I dunno if Debian has added the option to include non-free software and drivers on install but last time I installed it didn't and I had to add the repos manually. With Ubuntu these come with a standard installation and most major applications are installed as snaps by default which keep themselves updated without any user intervention.

I've been using Manjaro with KDE/Plasma for the last 4 or so years on my desktop computer. It's only a couple of weeks behind arch in terms of updates and has been practically bug free since I installed it. Occasionally I'll have to do something manual for a particular update like removing a conflicting package first but they always give you a heads up about this with directions on the forums.

Plasma5 Is by far my favourite DE for mouse and keyboard use but I've become quite fond of gnome for laptop use especially since they extended the trackpad gestures in gnome 40. I don't know how well that would run on a laptop from 2009 though as it's probably the most resource intensive DE around atm. It's also the furthest removed from a traditional windows style desktop.
 
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Shinji Ikari said:
I don't know how well that would run on a laptop from 2009 though as it's probably the most resource intensive DE around atm. It's also the furthest removed from a traditional windows style desktop.
Click to expand...
my main concern is the age of that notebook/small laptop.
i don't have any windows 7 i could install back on if the linux doesn't work, that's why i'm not just doing it.

as for the desktop and install/maintenance it's not much of problem.
 
lecroute said:
my main concern is the age of that notebook/small laptop.
i don't have any windows 7 i could install back on if the linux doesn't work, that's why i'm not just doing it.

as for the desktop and install/maintenance it's not much of problem.
Click to expand...
You can boot most distros from a USB stick and have a play around to see how they perform before committing to installing them.
 
Had to leave Linux behind. It's horrible now. I am now a card carrying member of Theo de Raadt's cult and run OpenBSD everywhere I can. If I need Windows or Linux-only stuff I suffer and install FreeBSD then spend weeks making it behave somewhat sanely.

I was only away for a few years and all my friends in Gentoo-land vanished. The kids there now called me old and told me to move on. I guess everyone did.
 
lecroute said:
Anyone tried Waydroid (it's for running android apps on linux)?
Is it any good?
Click to expand...
No, but only because I don't have any apps I need on my desktop - just use brave or chrome.

I guess a banking app would be useful - maybe I'll give it a try
 
lecroute said:
Anyone tried Waydroid (it's for running android apps on linux)?
Is it any good?
Click to expand...
What do you want to run? Do you have nivida GPU?

lecroute said:
I want the games.
Click to expand...
Nothing really worth using then I'm afraid.

Try Anbox and see. If the game isn't too intensive it might work. Anbox supports some Nvidia GPUs as well (but not very old ones). Waydroid is a crap shoot. It's a worse version of Anbox that dropped support for both X11 and most non-Intel GPUs. It has partial AMD support but it's really hit and miss. Even when it works it crashes half of the time. It requires running a wayland session somehow (most people use Weston unless they've bought into the wayland hype).

There is a "cloud" version of Anbox where development has continued but I have no idea if it's any better than what you can host locally. Some patches for Anbox still float around to fix misc. problems. It only "died" in 2023 so you shouldn't have any issue running it and it's probably still in your distro's repos.

The best solution is running the Android OS in qemu/full blown virtual machine. But you will have to source .apks from somewhere that isn't the Google Play Store of course.
 
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