Linux Thread

Lumeinshin · 2022-11-07T21:00:37+00:00

A general thread for linux users to talk about the software they like: I'll start with something very handy Cozy audiobook player Its basically the only aud...

histoire

lunarised

I haven't had the.... pleasure.... of working with snap, but I know I had nothing but issues with flatpak. I always look for an appimage.

I don't know what issue you had with pacman, but you might consider using yay, I've had a good experience with it.

Lumeinshin

lunarised histoire Ive heard snaps are much better than flatpak (why canonical is going for them over flatpak), but yeah appimage is definitely the way to go, just make sure to chmod +x it. Otherwise yeah .deb is the way for meeeee

mechap

I prefer to compile from source or use the standard package manager. Programs load and run faster, use less memory and take up less disk space. I believe that flatpack and snap are two competitive solutions to a problem that doesn't actually exist. The former was created as a way for canonical to compete with apple and microsoft in offering an online store where they could sell you software with any licence whatsoever. The sole purpose of the latter was to provide an open-source alternative. However, they are both attempts to monetize software and inject dubious licences into a community that habors a deep-seated distrust for both of those practices.

Lumeinshin

mechap I've started using KDE as a DE on my laptop, mostly for display scaling easily, but also because I wanted to see what the modern desktop experience on linux is like these days. I am pretty happy with KDE, it does the shortcuts I want for the most part, although I do miss alt+click to drag windows from anywhere.
On that note, I installed the flatpak addon/store and its oooookay I guess. I'm not sure if I was confused about them all but I thought i'd have more heavy permissions access to them, kinda like android apps. I'm not too sure and havent looked into it recently. So for the time being im just leaving it to it 🤷‍♂️

mechap

Here are some softwares I use on a daily basis :

neovim : this is a rewrite of vim with a few additional features, in particular, lua scripting for configuration files and treesitter + lsp integrations. I don't use that many plugins and with the aforementioned features it still performs well on my machine.
neomutt : again this is a rewrite of mutt, a terminal based mail client. I know thunderbird also exists, but when it comes to macros it is not as powerful as mutt
mpv/ffmpeg : the first one might be one the best video player available, the second is a video command line editing tool (I find it particularly useful to add subtitles to movies)
fzf : a great finder that integrates well with other programs. You can find fzf scripts for git, yt-dlp, networking, etc.
weechat : an irc client with great documentation. It supports proxies, tls, sasl authentification, filtering, etc. and has a whole ecosystem built around
ncmpcpp (mpd) : A frontend for the mpd music/playlist editor
lf + cptv : terminal file manager with support for scripting and in-place file previews
dwm : A suckless window manager
amfora : A great gemini client

Lumeinshin I am thinking about switching to gentoo specifically for its default package manager, portage. I really like the way packages are organized with use flags, I feel like it significantly increases the level of customizablity one can have when it comes to configuring a system.

1996FordMondeo

now that is a nice thread here.
I myself am a mintfag
Been using linux for over a year now while dualbooting
Using it as my go to OS on that pc for over a year
And now since late summer ive been using it as my only OS

Lumeinshin

1996FordMondeo Linux is a great time!
I hope you have many years to come of linux usage goodness.
Mint is a decent pick and pretty much just works

I did bork my install for the first time (after 4 years of using this desktop) and had to reinstall from scratch, was totally my fault. I hopped distro branches like a monkey and had all kinds of random packages. I didnt take care of it at all and actively put myself in that situation.
I managed to recover everything well enough and am currently on the MATE desktop environment.. and now using pipewire for audio!

1996FordMondeo

Lumeinshin
Honestly I started using linux not because I am a poweruser, nor because I run old hardware.
I was just fedup with MS bullshit.
And while never say never, I do not have plans to return to windows permanently.
Still have a laptop with win, and have a VM but 99% of my pc usage is linux rn.

kurisu

I'm still using windows as my main OS for many things, but I've been setting up linux machines (mostly servers) for a while now. I was thinking of dual booting something something like debian or manjaro, but one of my favorite youtube channels, No Boilerplate, uploaded a video on NixOS, and I'm not gonna lie, he convinced me. I can't believe I didn't look into it sooner, this looks like a dream to me. I might install it next week, depending on how things go in my life

1996FordMondeo

kurisu dual booting

Honestly from personal experience I consider dualbooting a glorified VM
Most of the time you will just stick to one OS because switching will eventually get annoying,
Also apparently(based on shit ive heard on /v/)
windows has a tendency to fuck with bootloader, preventing you from running linux
But yeah dualbooting is good way to get into linux
thats what I did.
Hell I bet id be dualbooting rn myself if I couldve gotten it running.
Basically my pc had some intel rtp or whatever tech that doesnt work with linux and when disabling it, it broke windows for me and i couldnt get it running. According to the internet it is possible, i just couldnt

friffri

1996FordMondeo
I dual boot Windows 11 and Kubuntu idk-what-version and I use both OSes regularly, though I only use Windows for videogames.

But yeah, what you said is right. It's not frequent (like 1 time a year) but Windows updates might fuck with the bootloader. It's easy to fix, but you gotta know how to do it. There's also an issue with the clock: IIRC Windows store the time considering the timezone, Linux doesn't so whenever you switch between the 2 OSes you might get the wrong time displayed on the other. Again it's an easy fix online, 1 line of shell command on Linux.

Still, I prefer this to virtual machines.

1996FordMondeo

friffri There's also an issue with the clock

God I forgot the clock thing.
Yeah I remember every time I launched win10 after using manjaro id have to reset clock.

foox

I managed to bring my old cracked laptop back to life as a linux server to run a modded mc server, otherwise I really don think I could switch to linux with all the convenience and guaranteed support that windows offer.

magicrabbit

mechap Portage is really nice for getting only what you want in your system, the only real obstacle I've encountered in my experience with it was dependency hell from the more mainstream projects. Linux compared to other Unices tends to be more prone to that problem because of its reliance in large programs that don't respect the UNIX philosophy. Given your collection of software though you won't find much of that. Gentoo is great if you're aiming for the really minimal, CLI-centered WM workflow. Despite the memes it's really easy to install and use as well, the documentation is arguably better than Arch's too.

Lumeinshin

mechap
I did use gentoo for a bit (it was the cloveros installer)
I really liked it but I think there was a couple of things I hadn't got quite right that I knew I could do on devuan. It was like 5 years ago fucking hell... that long 💀 so it probably wasn't actually anything I couldn't figure out

I do love your desktop and need to get my x230 on that level. Although it's the main open box machine now that I've got kde on my newer laptop and MATE on desktop (mate works well too btw, although i think some games don't like the window manager)

magicrabbit

Actually considering installing Gentoo as well on my main laptop, compiling things are a nice way to get some real efficiency from your packages (especially from upstream x86_64 specifications, which you won't get on a binary distro as x86_64 v3 is only supported by new hardware, to my knowledge binary distros utilize x86_64 v2 instead, with some providing separate v3-compiled packages), but then to actually make use of that optimization I'll have to settle for a fast to compile system with likely just a WM, else I'll waste days alone compiling my desktop...

As a bonus, here's some software I endorse:

KeePassXC, couldn't live without it, the password manager to end all password managers
JPEXS Free Flash Decompiler, a weirdly retro way to gut the old Flash files and that still gets updates, it's a very good tool. I don't use it very often but it has never failed me when I needed to extract a file or more from a .swf
Czkawka, a do-it-all when it comes to cleaning your filesystem, particularly good at duplicate files if you're a data hoarder.
Flash Player Standalone, it still works! You may have trouble finding it for your distribution, but it exists for Arch in the AUR, and as a Flatpak.
Quod Libet, I was thinking of learning a programming language just to make my own music player before being recommended this one, it does almost everything I've ever wanted from a music player, if only it had embedded vsualizations... do I really need to use Clementine again for that?
Transmission, as opposed to the commonly cluttered UI in Torrent Clients, likely popularized by uTorrent, in Transmission you see your added torrents, some brief controls, your ratio, and the classic menu. That's it. I don't care if qBitTorrent has sequential downloads, I don't need it.
Handbrake, for a really easy to use GUI video transcoder.
Kdenlive, has served its purpose as my primary video editor, though I don't do much with it.
Krita, same as the above, but as my primary drawing tool.
GIMP, it's good, you just have to learn it.
Nicotine+, Soulseek GUI.
Anki, for learning flashcards.
Tenacity, for audio editing and visualizing.
Katawa Shoujo, has a Linux version!
Syncthing, another program I couldn't live without, my entire backup system is dependent on it.
virtmanager, the best if you only need to virtualize Linux and Windows machines.
distrobox, easy way to set up working distributions inside your terminal, frankly just works, unlike an unreliable someone called "Flatpak"

Lumeinshin

Pewdiepie has released a video talking about his experience installing linux and what he likes about it.

I'm thinking that maybe I should try and rice my machines again. My desktop especially is just basically default and has been for a couple years now.

magicrabbit did you do it? how did it go if so?

magicrabbit

Lumeinshin did you do it?

I did do it!
It didn't last long, but I did it!

Lumeinshin how did it go if so?

It's Gentoo we're talking about here so I don't know exactly what you mean, but I'll try to summarize it.
I've done Gentoo installs in the past so that part wasn't a problem, I got to a XFCE desktop from what I remember. What was a problem is that I installed it expecting to be able to use binary packages for the piece of shit ones that take a whole day to compile on weaker hardware, except that wasn't the case as binary packages are, frustratingly, compiled against systemd, gnome and kde; which are the very things you'll be wanting to avoid on weaker hardware. The Red Hat mind virus really is a plague on UNIX.

With my laptop that takes about a day to compile something as essential as a browser, I was left demotivated and wondering what to do. I don't remember much after that, I think I used it for a few more days before installing Arch again and sticking with it for another year.
I would attempt it again with a different motivation in mind, but my current priority is something that requires minimal maintenance and oversight, plus my laptop monitor broke and I'm now using a television as my primary monitor because I can't afford repairs, even changing DEs is challenging in these conditions, I've confirmed that I'm no longer able to use lxqt and XFCE, so I'm a little restricted here.
Alpine sounds more interesting to get working as a daily driver. I've also been looking at FreeBSD but that's too much oversight to consider right now.

Lumeinshin My desktop especially is just basically default and has been for a couple years now.

Same. Mine is only "riced" at the moment because I hate the way Plasma's default theme looks.

Pedestrian

Lumeinshin
honestly default KDE looks and works good enough for me just add a couple .desktop files here and there and done what i actually tend to rice heavily is firefox so that it fits with the rest of the system and works well with extensions like sideberry

i wonder what people think of nixos here i think its the future but honestly i was completely filtered by it also its just not convenient enough for me for now.

Lumeinshin

magicrabbit It's Gentoo we're talking about here so I don't know exactly what you mean

I meant it generally. There are some distro's where i've had nothing but issues with (my fault most of the time) or some hardware doesn't play nice. I know Gentoo plays well with most things provided you set it up right but you never know.

I never did Gentoo from scratch, i did try the cloverOS image years back and had it set to do binary images and i think it was mostly okay. I wasn't experienced enough and ran into issues related to sound/battery usual linux laptop things etc if i remember right.

magicrabbit I can't afford repairs, even changing DEs is challenging in these conditions, I've confirmed that I'm no longer able to use lxqt and XFCE,

I don't want to make you bork your machine, but if you try xfce as an example and you can't get to the screen can you not ctrl+alt+f6 to get to tty and then change configs that way so you can get the screen? tty should just appear on any display plugged in
Probably a bit more hassle than its worth but it might help. Good to generally know though if you don't. My XFCE sometimes borks and freezes so doing that then c-a-f7 brings it back.

For reference i'm using Devuan on my machines.
I did wanna try OpenBSD or GhostBSD but never got around to it.

Pedestrian Not entirely sure about nixos. I'm sure its fine and i heard good things I just haven't felt the need to switch. Maybe that'll change someday

Pedestrian not touching the argument you two are having (i don't know what you're both saying lol) but did you want to reply to magic?

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