BananaTrifleViolin

I like Mate-Terminal; it’s nicely customizable for my tastes and does the basics well. I also quite like LXTerminal for similar reasons.

But generally I use Konsole as I’m using KDE a lot now, and it’s the default terminal.

Yeah not sure I agree with all of this.

When it comes to KDE this feels out of date. The GTK issues are not what they once were; KDE Plasma has good GTK themes that match the KDE ones. Nowadays I find the main issues are with Flatpak software not matching DE themes because they’re in a sandbox. I’ve had that issue on both KDE and gnome 2 derived environments (I’ve never really gotten into Gnome 3). KDE also used to have a reputation for being slow and a resource hog; that’s inverted now - KDE has a good reputation including for scaling down to lower powered machines, while Gnome 3 seems to have a reputation as a resource hog?

I have a KDE desktop environment and it’s very attractive, and I haven’t had any glitches beyond issues with Flatpak (VLC being a recent one that I managed to fix). I would say the mainstream themes for DE work in the same way as a windows theme works. The problems are when you go to super niche attempts to pretty up the desktop - but you’d get similar issues if you tried that in windows.

I agree regarding the professional apps. If you are tied into specific proprietary Windows software then Linux is difficult. The exception is Office 365 which is now both Windows and Web App based, and the web apps are close to feature parity with the desktop clients. The open source alternatives to windows proprietary software can be very good, but there are often compromises (particularly collaboration as that is generally within specific softwares walled gardens). Like Libre Office; it’s very good and handles Office documents near seamlessly, but if your work uses Office then it you lose the integration with One Drive and Teams.

In terms of Linux not supporting old software, I would caveat that that is supporting old linux software. It is very good at supporting other systems software through the various open source emulators etc. Also Flatpak has changed things somewhat; software can come with it’s own set of libraries although it does mean bloat in terms of space taken (and security issues & bugs albeit it limited to the app’s sandbox). And while Wine can be painful for some desktop apps it is also very robust with a lot of software; it can either be a doddle or a nightmare. Meanwhile Proton has rapidly become very powerful when it comes to gaming.

I disagree that it takes a lot of time to make basic things work. Generally Linux supports modern hardware well and I’ve had no issues myself with fresh installs across multiple different pieces of hardware (my custom desktop, raspberry Pi, and a living room PC). Printing/Scanning remains probably the biggest issue but I’ve not had to deal with that in a long time. But problem solving bigger issues can be hard.

To answer your questions:

When it comes to other distros; I currently use Linux Mint with KDE Plasma desktop. The debian/ubuntu ecosystem is pretty easy to use and there are lots of guides out there for fixing/tinkering with Linux Mint (or Ubuntu which largely also works) because of their popularity. Lots of software is available as “.deb” packages which can be installed easily on Linux Mint and other Debian based systems including Ubuntu.

I’ve also been trying Nobara on a living room PC; that is Fedora based. I like that too, although it has a very different package manager set up.

Whatever distro you choose, Flatpak is an increasingly popular way of installing software outside the traditional package managers. A flatpak should just work on any distro. I would not personally recommend Snap which is a similar method from Cannonical (the people behind Ubuntu) but not as good in my opinion.

In terms of desktop environments, I like Linux Mint’s Cinnamon desktop, but have moved over to KDE having decided I prefer it after getting used to it with the Steam Deck. KDE has a windows feel to it (although it’s very customisable and can be made to look like any interface). I’ve also used some of the lightweight environments like LXDE, XFCE etc - they’re nice and also customisable but not as slick. You can get a nice look on a desktop with a good graphics card with KDE. The only desktop environment I personally don’t like is Gnome 3 (and the Unity shell from Ubuntu); that may just be personal preference but if you’re coming from Windows I wouldn’t start with that desktop environment - it’s too much of a paradigm shift in my opinion. However it is a popular desktop environment.

I’ve been dual booting between Linux and Windows for maybe 10 years or so (and tinkered with linux growing up before that). I think maybe similar to you, I’m technically apt when it comes to computers but not a programmer; I’m good at problem solving issues with my computer and am not afraid to “break” it.

A few key things:

• Make sure your important personal data, files etc are kept secure and always backed up. This is probably obvious, but it does lower the threshold for tinkering and messing with the computer. I’ve reinstalled Windows and Linux multiple times; whether that’s getting round broken Windows updates, or Linux issues or just switching up which Linux distro I use. If you are confident you have your data backed up, then reinstalling an OS is not a big deal
• Use multiple drives; don’t just partition one drive. Ideally each OS gets it’s own SSD; this will make dual booting much easier and also allows complete separation of issues. I have 4 hard drives in my PC currently - A 1TB C Drive SSD for Windows, a 500 GB Linux SSD drive, and two 4TB data drives (one is SSD one is just a standard HD). SSD is faster but you can of course use a mechnical drive if you want.
• When it comes to dual booting, if you have a separate linux hard drive, then linux will only mess around with it’s own boot sectors. It will just point at the Windows boot sector on the windows hard drive and not touch it but add it as an option to it’s boot menu. Then all you have to do is go into your Bios and tell it to boot the Linux drive first, which will get you a boot menu to chose between Linux and Windows. Tinker with that boot menu (Grub2 usually) - I set mine to always boot the last OS selected, so I only have to think about the boot menu when I’m wanting to switch. Separate drives saves you having to mess around with Windows recovery disks if things go wrong with the boot sector. One drive with a shared or multiple boot sectors can be messy.
• Try a few Distros using their live images. Most Linux distros you flash onto a USB stick, boot onto that (OR use VirtualBox in Windows to try Linux in an emulated environment) and it takes you into the full desktop environment running from the stick. You can then install from that. But you can also use linux that way. You can even run linux entirely from those USB sticks (or an external drive) and get a feel for it, including installing more apps, upgrading etc all using the USB stick as storage.
• Also try a few different different desktop environments and get a feel for which one you like. Most distros default to a desktop environment (Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, etc). You only really need to test the desktop environments with one distro as they’ll feel mostly the same in each distro.

If you know you want to use Pop_OS, then follow their guide on how to install. It’s generally very similar for all linux OSs (there are other methods but this is the simplest and most common):

1. Download a disk image (ISO)
2. Flash the disk image onto a spare USB stick. Balena Etcher is a very commonly used tool for this.
3. Restart your computer and go into your bios (usually the Del key just after reboot, sometimes Escape or F2) and change the boot order to that USB is 1st, above your hard drives
4. Insert the USB stick and restart the computer
5. You should load into the Linux live environment set up by that distro. Pop_OS loads you directly into the installer; you can go to the desktop by clicking “Try Demo Mode” after setting up langauge and keyboard. You can just continue installing.
6. Select the hard drive you want to install onto. BE CAREFUL at this step; most installers are good at making clear which drives are which. The last thing you want to do is wipe a data drive or your main OS. Know your computer’s drives well, and if in doubt the safest thing is to unplug all the hard drives except the one you’re going to install Linux onto.
7. Follow the installer set up (to create the main user account, etc) and install.
8. After installing reboot the system and go back into the bios. This time put your linux drive at the top of the boot order (or below USB if you still want to boot other live images - remember to take out the stick! But generally more secure to boot to a hard drive and password protect your bios so people can only boot to USB when you decide). That’s it! Reboot, and select linux from the new boot menu.

Linux has come a very long when it comes to installing and setting up; installers are generally easy to use, work well and generally hardware is recognised and set up for you. The exception will be the Nvidia graphics card - you will need to set up the Nvidia drivers. Pop_OS’s install guide shows how to do it.

Hope that helps! Run out of characters!

Is Anbox no longer a thing? It runs Android apps in a container.

Or is it more the issue with the apps not running “natively”?

Yeah it’s a nonsense. Argentina and Turkey have atrocious economies, with inflation at crazy levels. Turkey’s is at 60% and Argentinas is at 143% currently, on a background of years of terrible economic decisions. Their local currencies are effectively trash so it makes absolute sense for Steam to move to dollars if they’re going to continue bothering trading in those countries.

It’s not immovable, it’s just locked so you don’t accidentally move it by clicking and dragging. Try right locking on the bar in a blank area lower down - the right click menu should have an option for moving it.

Yeah I was surprised they took it down. I think it’s a foolish knee jerk reaction and is patronising towards readers.

Ironically there is know nothing to put the current spike of interest in context as you can’t read the letter on the guardian website.

I’m actually really unimpressed with the guardians action - they don’t respect their readers and clearly no longer believe in freedom of speech. They could have modified the article to put the letter in context themselves rather than link to a 20 year old article criticising it. It also makes it hard for those who want to push back against the letter and answer those who are pushing it.

Yeah I was wondering this too - is 8 the floor, 8 cores or below the value is always the same, but above 8 cores you then get your log progression? I don’t know enough about this though.

This feels misleading? They’re claiming Linux has been hard coded to 8 cores but from what they describe in the article it is specifically the scaling of the scheduler?

If I understood correctly the more cores you have, the more you could scale up the time each individual task gets on a CPU core without experiencing latency for the end user?

I can see that would have a benefit in terms of user perception Vs efficient use of processing time but it doesn’t mean all the cores aren’t being used? It just means the kernel is still switching between tasks at say 5ms when it could be doing it at 20ms if you have lots of cores and the user wouldn’t notice. I can imagine that would be more efficient but it’s definitely not the same as being capped to 8 cores; all the cores and CPUs are being scheduled just not in a way that might be the most optimal for some users.

Is that right? I feel like the title massively overplays the issue if so. It should be fixed but it doesn’t affect how many cores are used or even how fasr they work, merely how big the chunks of time each task get to run and how you can “hide” that from desktop users so the experience feels slick?

I use Noto Sans, or the Liberation Sans / Liberation Serif fonts. Tend to have a mix but Noto Sans for most desktop/GUI fonts.

I also quite like Libre Caslon and EB Garamond as serif fonts for reading, so tend to use those with e-reader software or on my ereader device.

I do install the old Microsoft Fonts just in case/out of habit but they seem to be disappearing from the internet fast now.

In Australian slang a mob can just mean any grouping of people, not necessarily a criminal group or a group of rioters. It’s not uncommon for people to refer to their own ethnic or political grouping as a mob; at least from what I’ve seen when reading Australian websites.

And by local government I think they are referring to the states and territories governments.

Yeah as someone outside Australia I’ve been surprised at how biased and simplified the reporting has been. A complex constitutional issue is being painted as a simple “good people, bad people”.

When I read about the changes myself (after having to go hunting for some actual detail - the reporting is pretty poor on this) it honestly seems more like virtue signalling rather than useful or meaningful reform.

This is a link aggregator website and he’s posting links, I don’t understand the issue? The links are to legitimate news sites.

Everyone has a selection bias in what they post, but maybe you need to think about your own biases of you find it so offensive?

As for this specific link, it’s a legitimate news source and this is an actual news story which has not happened in isolation. There are multiple news stories about the social media claim and that Biden seems to have confirmed them just now seems to be walking back from that claim.

What was your dream about windows?

So the other 55% of the time it’s a Lemmy user? I.e. the majority of the time!? There is so much irony in your post.

That doesn’t make sense? How would you have the “add from search bar” feature in the settings screen?

It’s a context specific method of adding a search engine - you add it when you’re at the site. Meanwhile the setting screen is global for the browser.

I am confused by this post, there are 4 ways to add search engines to Firefox:

1. From the settings page via “add search engine” button, to pick on from the Firefox add-ons site. This is the “main” route for most users as it ensures you’re adding links from a trusted source (so you won’t add a fake version of a popular search engine by accident that scrapes your data).

2. Via the address bar. Any website that supports OpenSearch can be added by right clicking the address bar and selecting “add search engine name”.

3. Via the Mycroft project website, where almost any search engine in the directory can be added to Firefox.

4. Via bookmarks and keywords. This is slightly more involved but almost any engine can be added this way.

Android Firefox offers slightly different routes but again any search engine can be added. It is a bit more involved though.

Firefox includes certain search engines by default as it gets revenue from the search engine providers for doing so, and Mozilla is transparent about this. Although Mozilla is independent, the Google search engine deal remains one of its biggest sources of income. That’s how it survives.

The default add-ons site meanwhile is a compromise between security and convenience for the majority of users, but people are not locked in to it and other search providers are not locked out of it.

The Mullvad browser is modified Firefox btw, as is the Tor Browser it is itself based off. I don’t know how much either contribute to the Mozilla foundation. Tor is an open source project but Mullvad is a commercial enterprise.

The real “problem” is how you make it work without a monopoly system like Google’s or Apple’s or Steam or Microsoft. They have to varying extents made monopolies where app makers want to list in their store, and accept they take 30% of the revenue because they are the sole gatekeeper to a large number of users. That model doesn’t work in Linux because you can’t create a monopoly to force someone to use your store.

Microsoft keeps trying in Windows via sheer scale but UWA’s are not a monopoly so people currently largely bypass it. Microsoft even now lets App makers keep every penny of money generated “in-app” (except for games) as it’s desperate to try and grow. Canonical has tried it with Linux and has also failed because ultimately it isn’t a monopoly and it’s method of Debs as the article said didn’t really work. Steam works cross platform because of sheer size and it’s managed to make a convenient cross platform library which gradually locks users in to an extent, and also forces publishers to list it’s game there. It’s very difficult to get to that kind of scale to be compelling.

For an “App store” to work in Linux under the currently “accepted” business model, you’d need to find some way of making it a monopoly or compelling somehow so that users will buy in and the 30% price tag to App makers becomes impossible to ignore due to the scale. I can’t see that happening. Google did it with Android by forking Linux and making it an entirely walled garden it controlled; the free route into that garden is there but is very marginal and you have to bypass security measures to get to it.

The only way I can see it working in a limited fashion in Linux is if someone makes an “at cost” model where the share of revenue taken by the app store is purely to maintain the store (including the payment system, any “drm” that might be needed etc). That sounds like the Flathub route. But I can’t see it growing rapidly or being compelling for App makers to take a risk on - it’ll probably take a long time to gradually grow and prove itself as a reliable way of monetising apps.

Whether or not we need monetised Apps in linux is a whole other question. For me personally, aside from Games, all the software I use on Windows and Linux is free OR a subscription service (such as Office paid for by work, or my Email, Password manager and Backup software which I pay for). On my phone, the only software I’ve ever bought has been low level - like a music player or a theme app; and that has been an engineered demand because Google has a monopoly, which largely keeps out the opensource community allowing app makers to step in. I bypass that now with F-droid. I accept I’m part of the exception in Android, but most users have that expectation in Linux and Windows.

I don’t see a substantial “app store” type eco-system growing in those environments. If someone is willing to give it away for free as FOSS, then it leaves little room for App makers for low level software. The only route to make money is then the “premium” or value added models, and a lot of that is going subscription model - software as a service. App stores are largely the result of closed eco-systems; in an open eco-system like Linux and even Windows it just doesn’t make much sense.

This doesn’t make sense. It’s more likely we’ll pack more into a high end device then say goodbye to them in tasks like gaming.

Computing power has been constantly improving for decades and miniaturisation is part of that. I have desktop PCs at work in small form factors that are more powerful than the gaming PC I used to have 10 years ago. It’s impressive how far things have come.

However at the top end bleeding edge in CPUs,.GPUs and APUs high powered kit needs more space for very good reasons. One is cooling - if you want to push any chip to its limits then you’ll get heat, so you need space to cool it. The vast majority of the space in my desktop is for fans and airflow. Even the vast majority of the bulk of my graphics card is actually space for cooling.

The second is scale - in a small form factor device you cram as much as you can get in, and these days you can get a lot in a small space. But in my desktop gaming tower I’m not constrained such limits. So I have space for a high quality power supply unit, a spacious motherboard with a wealth of options for expansions, a large graphics card so I can have a cutting edge chip and keep it cool, space for multiple storage devices, and also lots and lots of fans, a cooling system for the CPU.

Yes, in 5 years a smaller device will be more capable for today’s games. But the cutting edge will also have moved on and you’ll still need a cutting edge large form factor device for the really bleeding edge stuff. Just as now - a gaming laptop or a games console is powerful but they have hard upper limits. A large form factor device is where you go for high end experiences such as the highest end graphics and now increasingly high fidelity VR.

The exceptions to that are certain computing tasks don’t need anything like high end any more (like office software, web browsing, 4k movies), other tasks largely don’t (like video editing) so big desktops are becoming more niche in the sense that high end gaming is their main use for many homes users. That’s been a long running trend, and not related to APUs.

The other exception is cloud streaming of gaming and offloading processing into the cloud. In my opinion that is what will really bring an end to needing large form factor devices. We’re not quite there but I suspec that will that really pushes form factors down, rather than APUs etc.