linux4noobs

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linux4noobs


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Whether you're a seasoned pro or the noobiest of noobs, you've found the right place for Linux support and information. With a dedication to supporting free and open source software, this community aims to ensure Linux fits your needs and works for you. From troubleshooting to tutorials, practical tips, news and more, all aspects of Linux are warmly welcomed. Join a community of like-minded enthusiasts and professionals driving Linux's ongoing evolution.


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1
 
 

thoughts, comments, concerns on systemd? was having a convo w someone that's on mx linux & it piqued my interest.

2
 
 

Hello, I’m not a total Linux noob, but I’m not sure what my plan is for windows 10s shutter, and I’m not going to 11. I have a PC exclusively for games with an nvidia gpu.

My dream setup works something like a headless gaming pc: I keep my tower on my desk with some monitors and mkb, then run Ethernet all over, and I can stream the tower to: my deck, my phone, a steam link, thin client etc. Then I could get a steam link for my driving sim and send it over there, maybe add in a flight sim later with another steam link. Is this possible?

Hurdles:

  1. can I still run halo/microsoft games easily? Rocket league? I don’t want to reconfigure every game after every patch.
  2. What distro would be best?
  3. Can it switch to the right resolution for what I’m streaming to? I have 16:9, 21:9, steam deck and my phone to contend with. When I tried moonlight it always swapped to the plugged in monitor resolution instead.
  4. Can it output 4K120hz over the Ethernet?
  5. Good option for steam link devices?
  6. Can I stream outside the home with Tailscale
3
 
 

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/30407811

Website

It’s almost like the good ol’ days of install fests and the like! ‘End of 10’ is an organization that’s making it easy for Windows 10 users with computers that can’t upgrade to Windows 11, to install Linux instead of sending good hardware to the landfill.

4
 
 

I've noticed that my secondary monitor usually doesn't turn on initially. In order to get it to turn on, I can do a restart after the initial boot and then it will turn on. Any idea what might be causing this or how to fix it? The monitor is hooked up through the laptop's hdmi port.

Fedora 42

KDE Plasma

Wayland

Nvidia RTX 4070

5
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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

specs: Pop OS // AMD Ryzen 7 5700U // 16GB RAM

Just trying to gauge the opinion on how to proceed in this case

I just set up Pop Os to run i2p and I was thinking about getting pihole as well.

I've read a few posts commenting about setting up pihole as a VM, perhaps even with dietpi to make it less resource intensive

What do you guys recommend? VM or no VM? dietpi or something else?

The machine will only be used for i2p, browsing and watching videos. Perhaps jellyfin and arr suite in the future when I feel more adventurous? idk, one step at a time i guess

Pi hole is intended to be used by other devices as well

Any other recommendations/tutorial links are welcome, thanks in advance

6
 
 

Hi all, I'm planning to do a clean install of Linux Mint on my laptop and completely remove Windows. I have about 300GB of personal data on the system and only one SSD, so everything is currently stored on that single drive.

Here’s what I want to do:

  1. Back up all my data safely, without losing any metadata (timestamps, folder structure, etc.).
  2. Wipe Windows and do a clean install of Linux Mint.
  3. Restore my data with everything intact—timestamps, folder structure, and metadata.
  4. Be able to open or run file types that are only supported by Windows, like certain .exe, .msi, or specific file types.

I don’t have a second internal drive, so I’ll probably use an external hard drive or cloud storage.

What i want to know is:

1.What’s the best way to back up and restore my data safely while preserving all metadata?

2.What tools or methods should I use for backup and restore?

3.How can I access or use files that are only supported by Windows once I’ve switched to Linux? Are there workarounds or compatibility layers?

I’m fairly new to Linux, so beginner-friendly advice would be awesome.

Thanks in advance!

7
 
 

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/37507334

I'm trying to generate AppArmor policies to secure my "major/internet-facing" programs.
Most of those programs are Flatpaks.
Flatpaks already have their own sandboxing mechanism, which uses bwrap and XDG portals.
Does AppArmor have any weird interactions with Flatpak, e. g. blocking too much, or blocking too little, or being unable to block anything without rendering the whole program unusable?

8
12
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

What Kernel are you guys using?

I have seen some people claiming that custom kernels like zen cachyos offer better battery life and performance.

Is it true ?

9
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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

This post is mainly a response to people that have the same needs on reddit, I tried to invite them so please be patient & welcoming !

ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡

Just for information, I tried to lpadmin ppd file only, but had a problem with missing filter file, if someone's from debian/ubuntu based distro struggles like me (error shown by cups ui : /usr/lib/cups/filter/rastertotmtr not available: No such file or directory) just asks here and I'll give you people the right file I guess.

default install

print !

  • take not that i had specific needs with orientation & custom height/width on my .pdf files, also they were already imposed.
  • if default try a print lp BAT.pdf -o media=Custom.69x65mm -o orientation-requested=5 -o TmtSpeed=4
  • if NOT default try a print : lp -d TM-20-3 BAT.pdf -o media=Custom.69x65mm -o orientation-requested=5 -o TmtSpeed=4

modded installation with speed option ?

*%Head speed settings.
*TmtSpeedValue 1: "13"
*TmtSpeedValue 2: "9"
*TmtSpeedValue 3: "5"
*TmtSpeedValue 4: "1"

*OpenUI *TmtSpeed/Printing Speed: PickOne
*OrderDependency: 10 AnySetup *TmtSpeed
*DefaultTmtSpeed: Auto
*TmtSpeed Auto/Use the printer settings : ""
*TmtSpeed 1/1st (Fast): ""
*TmtSpeed 2/2nd: ""
*TmtSpeed 3/3rd: ""
*TmtSpeed 4/4th (Slow): ""
*CloseUI: *TmtSpeed
  • failed attempd ? lpadmin -p TM-20-3-speed-mod -v usb://EPSON/TM-T20III?serial=583741561792370000 -P speed-mod-tm-ba-thermal-rastertotmtr-203.ppd -E
  • lpoptions shows it all but -o TmtSpeed=4 won't be read by my printer ╰( ´◔ ω ◔ `)╯
lpoptions -p TM-20-3-speed-mod -l
PageSize/Media Size: *RP80x200 RP80x2000 RP58x200 RP58x2000 Custom.WIDTHxHEIGHT
Resolution/Resolution: *203x203dpi
TmtSpeed/Printing Speed: *Auto 1 2 3 4
TmxPaperReduction/Paper Reduction: Off Top *Bottom Both
TmxBuzzerAndDrawer/Buzzer/ Cash Drawer: *NotUsed InternalBuzzer ExternalBuzzer OpenDrawer1 OpenDrawer2
TmxPaperCut/Paper Cut: *NoCut CutPerJob CutPerPage

EDIT : adding disclaimer, changing for more clear title

10
 
 

My image viewer (Xviewer) is sufficient for converting still images to still Webp by just "Save as...", but Xviewer and Pinta only produce still single-frame webps from animated GIFs.

11
 
 

It may be too much to ask but here it goes:

I have temporarily installed LMDE6 on an HDD where I had a bit of free space, worked with it, experienced Steam with Proton and now I am convinced: I want to move to Linux from Windows for good.

Have another disk, an SSD in which most of the space is taken up by the Windows C: partition. Would like to move Linux there after shrinking the Windows partition a bit more than what it currently occupies now.

I have tried to do this with Paragon on Windows, but after restarting no change can be seen, despite no error being presented. Tried from Linux with GParted but all attempts end up with an error when running ntfsresize.

So

  1. What do I use to do this and how do I do it safely? 2.How do I move the content of my current Linux partition (less than 50 GBs) to that disk keeping the bootloader and everything else working? And what filesystem is best to use?

Thank you in advance for your help!

12
13
 
 

So, I'm hoping to reduce the substantial screen tearing that I'm encountering while watching videos.

One of the suggestions that I have found is to enable wayland, which did help quite a bit (this is the guide I found). However, I've decided I don't really want to use gnome. Gnome seems great, but I've already become accustomed to using cosmic.

Apparently pop os is in a transitionary phase and will eventually update to wayland as the default, but I'm just wondering if there's other desktop environments I should be considering? I see that Fedora now comes with a KDE cosmic variant, but I don't know if this would be any better or not.

Edit:

I ended up installing kde plasma standard desktop environment (which was listed here). Upon booting into the login screen there's a big on-screen keyboard. Hit enter to bypass it. In the dropdown menu on the top left of the screen, there is an option for 'pop on wayland'

So far, everything seems to be working good. I had to change the steam client to the 'proton hotfix' to get one of my games to play.

14
 
 

I'm getting ready to switch but there are a few things that I could not figure out how to do optimally. Here's one of those, maybe you can help me with that:

For the past 30 years on Windows when I found a new application I wanted to use I put it in D:\Tools. Almost all applications don't actually need to be installed even if they are only distributed in an installer. That meant that to move my tool collection to a new computer I pull out the D-Drive, mount it in the new computer as D and I'm instantly ready to go.

On Linux there are 2 scenarios flatpak or traditional Package Manager distributions.

For flatpaks putting them on a specific drive seems easy enough.

But how do I handle applications that are not (yet?) available as a flatpak? I tried Nix but decided I'm not ready for that. I could put everything in a bash script but that seems clumsy and would be work to maintain. Is there any other clever way to avoid manually installing my defaults when I updgrade / reinstall my OS?

15
12
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

Hello, I am looking for help with some small issues I've been having with gnome (bazzite), mostly annoyances. Their discord is okay ish as a resource but takes a long time to get replies to specific issues, especially when they are more generally Linux questions and not specific to bazzite. So here goes:

I have 3 drives installed, one of them an old HDD for media storage. During the bazzite setup I selected all of them to be included since was about to reinstall the OS (and had them retroactively mounted in the old install and figured they might be treated more natively this way in the new installation).

Well the plan worked too well, and I now have no discernible drives I can locate individually outside the drive manager app, which doesn't really bother me beyond not knowing if the system will use it inefficiently (I.e store things aside from data and media on the slow HDD). Is there a way to configure how it will use the drives?

Second, I was given a pre-made admin account during setup. I really want to not have to log in with a password on each boot, is it possible to skip (only) that somehow and auto log in? I still like the password for admin level privileges.

And last, part of the reason for my reinstallation was constant issues with the stupid keyring app (seahorse?). Most of the time it would prompt me on boot, when my VPN app would try to retrieve its credentials, to set up a new keyring for it despite there being literally dozens of keyrings from its previous boots with the needed info, all freely accessible.

I have so far begrudgingly refrained from installing the VPN again because I want to find a solution for this first; and discovered that i can also set up a VPN connection directly in the OS. However from what I can tell this would prevent me from switching locations / slow servers easily, is there an alternative I am missing such as a different keyring app I could install or a function in Linux to change servers effectively (with load info and preferably without having to set up vpns manually for all the hundreds of possible servers I can choose from my VPN provider)?

Thank you for reading the wall of text this has become 👀

TLDR:

  • different types of hard drive are being used. How does the system, which manages them apparently as one, utilize them?

  • pre made admin account requires password which makes login tedious. How to skip the password only for login?

  • keyring issues. Is there any alternative to it?

16
 
 

Hello all, Recently Firefox 137 was announces with the addition of HEVC playback with hardware acceleration support for Linux. I am using Firefox 137 installed via DNF on Fedora 41, but if I try to play HEVC video for example from my Jellyfin, it will have to transcode, if I go try this test sample it straight up not play, so what's up with that ? Playing content with mpv will work just fine. Firefox also reports HEVC decoding as supported. Same result with both my desktop with AMD iGPU and dGPU, as well as my laptop with just Intel iGPU.

vainfo
Trying display: wayland
libva info: VA-API version 1.22.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri-nonfree/radeonsi_drv_video.so
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri-freeworld/radeonsi_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_22
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.22 (libva 2.22.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Mesa Gallium driver 25.0.2 for AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (radeonsi, navi10, LLVM 19.1.7, DRM 3.61, 6.13.10-200.fc41.x86_64)
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain10             :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain10             :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP9Profile0            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP9Profile2            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   :	VAEntrypointVideoProc
17
 
 

I have Not Made (conciously )Made any Changes. Also the device ist using huge amounts of battery when simply closed.

There IS a Chance, that the Cat changed settings when sitting om the Keyboard -.-

18
 
 

Hello everyone.

I started my PC for the day and cannot access my LAN and have no internet using the internal NIC on my Asus B550-F motherboard and a separate PCI NIC as well. Booted into a Fedora LiveCD and do have internet on Firefox. The PC was working perfectly last night when I shut it down.

My GL-MT6000 router sees the PC as a wired client and issued its static IP, but I cannot ping the PC from any other computer on the same network.

I'm pretty new to Linux, so I'm not sure what info to supply, but I'm hoping someone can offer a useful suggestion.

Thanks very much!

19
10
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

System: Linux Mint 22.1 Xfce, with the following golang files installed.

Screenshotgolang files installed on my Linux Mint 22.1 Xfce system

I'd like to install meme

But when I try the installation instruction from the GitHub page, I get

$ go get -u -v github.com/nomad-software/meme
go: go.mod file not found in current directory or any parent directory.
	'go get' is no longer supported outside a module.
	To build and install a command, use 'go install' with a version,
	like 'go install example.com/cmd@latest'
	For more information, see https://golang.org/doc/go-get-install-deprecation
	or run 'go help get' or 'go help install'.

When I replace get with install, I get:

$ go install -u -v github.com/nomad-software/meme
flag provided but not defined: -u
usage: go install [build flags] [packages]
Run 'go help install' for details.

go help install returns an overwhelming amount of info I don't understand.

There is no package in the repo, and no .deb or .appimage on the GitHub Releases page. (I don't do Flatpaks on this machine.) Any tips on how I can get this program to install?

Thanks

EDIT

I've got a little further now.

$ go install github.com/nomad-software/meme@latest
go: downloading github.com/nomad-software/meme v1.0.2
go: downloading github.com/fatih/color v1.15.0
go: downloading github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir v1.1.0
go: downloading github.com/nfnt/resize v0.0.0-20180221191011-83c6a9932646
go: downloading github.com/mattn/go-colorable v0.1.13
go: downloading github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.19
go: downloading github.com/fogleman/gg v1.3.0
go: downloading golang.org/x/sys v0.12.0
go: downloading github.com/golang/freetype v0.0.0-20170609003504-e2365dfdc4a0
go: downloading golang.org/x/image v0.12.0

But:

$ meme -h
Command 'meme' not found, did you mean:
  command 'mme' from deb plc-utils-extra (0.0.6+git20230504.1ba7d5a0-1)
  command 'mame' from deb mame (0.261+dfsg.1-1)
  command 'memo' from deb memo (1.7.1-5)
Try: sudo apt install <deb name>

EDIT 2:

To get it working:

  • Go to my home directory
  • Show hidden files
  • Open .bashrc in a text editor
  • Add the following at the end of the file
# meme path
export PATH="$HOME/go/bin:$PATH"
  • Save the .bashrc file

Now I can open a terminal and use the program. :)

Thanks to [email protected]

20
 
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27601594

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27385536

I have a rather large Python script that I use as basically a replacement for autohotkey. It uses pynput for keyboard and mouse control - and at least on Windows, it works exactly how I expect.

I recently started dual-booting with Linux and have been trying to get the script to work here as well. It does work but with mixed results - in particular, I found that pynput has bizarrely wrong output for special characters, in a way that's both consistent and inconsistent.

The simplest possible case I found that reproduces the error is this script:

import time
from pynput import keyboard

# Sleep statement is just to give time to move the mouse cursor to a text input field
time.sleep(2)

my_kb = keyboard.Controller()

text = '🍆' # Eggplant emoji
my_kb.type(text)

time.sleep(1)

text = '𝕥𝕖𝕤𝕥' # blackboard bold test
my_kb.type(text)

time.sleep(1)

text = '𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭' # bold test
my_kb.type(text)

When I run that script right now, it produces the output "🍆𝕥𝕥𝕤𝕥𝐭𝐭𝐬𝐭". And if I run it again, it'll produce the same output. And if I change the eggplant emoji to something else, like the regular character 'A', it will still produce the same output (specifically "A𝕥𝕥𝕤𝕥𝐭𝐭𝐬𝐭"). But... If I log out and log back in, then the output changes to something else that's still wrong, but differently. For example, when I changed the eggplant to a regular 'A', then relogged, the output became "A𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕥𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐭". And then that wrong output will keep being the same wrong output until I log out and back in again. If the test strings don't change, then the incorrect outputs don't change on relog - but if they do, then they do.

In the larger script, errors seemed to chain together somehow - like if I produced an eggplant emoji, then tried to write blackboard bold test, I would get "🍆𝕖𝕤🍆". This is despite verifying just before running the pynput.keyboard.Controller.type function that what it was about to type was correct. The issue also happens if I type it character-by-character with press and release functions.

I am very new to Linux. I'm on Linux Mint. I'm running this in a python3 venv that just has pynput and two other external libraries installed. ChatGPT thinks the issue might be related to X11. The issue does not occur at all on Windows, using the exact same code. On Linux there seems to be no issues with typing regular text, just special characters.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

Distro: Linux Mint Cinnamon

I use a different Browser and hence uninstalled firefox. But it still receives updates through the system, same with thunderbird. My upgrade manager flags them as security updates sometimes, so I install them. But are they actually necessary? Can I make my system filter them out when updating, or is that a bad idea?

Solution: run dpkg -l "*firef*" to find there were still firefox packages installed. Removed them. Hopefully did the trick.

22
2
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

I'm using CachyOS (Arch) with BTRFS. And tried to restore snap of root subvolume and it didn't work ( see previous post ).

If I remember correctly, i successfully restored root subvolume before. Take it with a grain of salt.

Some people on my previos posts said that I shouldn't have tried restore root subvol while system is actively running through the subvol.

Now my question is,

How to restore a snap of root subvolume ?

Edit: I know how to restore a snapshot. Just need help with root subvol snapshot.

I use BTRFS Assistant with snapper. And rEFInd doens't have boot to snapshot option. (I installed and it didn't work )

23
 
 

Sometimes when I restart my computer ill click cachyos in refind and itll just keep restarting until eventually it boots when I click it, sometiems when I start my computer its in the cachyos bootflags editing screen? How do I reset my bootflags to whatever was default if I accidentally changed them. Once it eventually launches it runs fine, but I have to goto the lockscreen to shutdown.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs
 
 

Hello.. new Linux convert here, mostly been using the web interface (alexandrite) and Connect on my phone. But I'm wondering what's good on Linux. I'm on Arch btw, lol. :P thanks!

EDIT: ok, sounds like browser it is. Thanks all!

25
 
 

I know spice and virtio exists but the support for GPUs is a hit or miss and good luck trying to make it work on iGPU, without 3d support it's pretty slow even on basic desktop usage.

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