Linux

Hello all, In a previous installation I was able to successfully use PlayOnLinux to run a few Windows apps. My most recent system, though, is not liking it. Currently on Kubuntu 24.04

WINE is present and up to date. However, when I tried to install PON from either Discover, or using APT, the app crashes immediately. I never even get to the GUI. I read on the page for the app in Discover, numerous others complain about this exact problem.

Anyone know about this and how to resolve it?

I included the link to the app's website because there are numerous versions and it states you need to use the correct one. I don't know what those different variables mean, so could someone please advise? (deb files, Cosmic, Trusty, Bionic, Xenial.... etc. I don't understand these).

https://www.playonlinux.com/en/download.html

Thank you to anyone who can assist.

I have a AMD CPU + AMD dGPU laptop and recently bought a LG FreeSync monitor. I hooked up the monitor to my laptop and got it working mostly fine but I dont get any option to set VRR on my LG monitor.

I am on Gnome and have enabled VRR through gsettings. My laptop display shows the option to toggle VRR (and is currently being used with VRR on) but my LG display does not. The Archwiki says that the option to toggle VRR should show up on every supported display. I have verified from the user manual that FreeSync is supported over both HDMI and DP and from the monitors menu, I have verified that FreeSync is enabled. Is this a bug or I am missing something.

Hardware and Software

• Ryzen 5 5600H with Vega integrated graphics
• Radeon RX 5500M
• Internal Display of 1080p, 144Hz (I have no idea which panel it is)
• LG 24GS60F-B monitor connected over HDMI 2.0
• uBlue main 40 (Fedora Silverblue 40)
• GNOME 46.4
• Kernel version 6.10.3
• Mesa 24.1.5

Thanks in advance for the help.

Finished this gem for the first time a while ago. Honestly if there was ever a timeless game this one is it.

I have my own ssh server (on raspberry pi 5, Ubuntu Server 23) but when I try to connect from my PC using key authentication (having password disabled), I get a blank screen. A blinking cursor.

However, once I enter the command eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" and try ssh again, I successfully login after entering my passphrase. I don't want to issue this command every time. Is that possible?

This does not occur when I have password enabled on the ssh server. Also, ideally, I want to enter my passphrase EVERYTIME I connect to my server, so ideally I don't want it to be stored in cache or something. I want the passphrase to be a lil' password so that other people can't accidentally connect to my server when they use my PC.

I occasionally see love for niche small distros, instead of the major ones...

And it just seems to me like there's more hurdles than help when it comes to adopting an OS whose users number in the hundreds or dozens. I can understand trying one for fun in a VM, but I prefer sticking to the bigger distros for my daily drivers since the they'll support more software and not be reliant on upstream sources, and any bugs or other issues are more likely to be documented abd have workarounds/fixes.

So: What distro do you daily drive and why? What drove you to choose it?

i have the xbox adaptive controller and it doesnt connect to linux on reboot. i have to unplug and plug it back in but i cant do it because of my disability. on windows it connects fine. how can i fix this?

Edit: I think I've figured it out, it seems like Linux Mint defaulted to the wrong Kernel driver and I was able to switch it to the correct one.

I've already tried searching for this online but there is a reason I'm posting about it here. The last time I tried to install Vulkan drivers in Linux Mint, there was an update to the oibaf PPA that completely broke my Linux Mint installation and I had to manually reinstall it. I've read that, at least in the past, the oibaf PPA causes problems in Ubuntu but I can't find another solution to installing Vulkan drivers in Linux Mint. Is that the only way to install the Vulkan Drivers in Linux Mint, or is there another way?

Also, yes, Vulkan works in Windows and it did work in my previous installation of Linux.

We're back with some new milestones thanks to the continued growth of Flathub as an app store and the incredible work of both our largely volunteer team and our growing app developer community:

• 70% of the most popular apps are verified
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Lix is a Nix implementation focused on reliability, predictability, friendliness, developed by a community of people from around the world. We have long term plans to incrementally evolve Nix to work in more places, to make it more reliable and secure, and to update the language and semantics to correct past mistakes and reduce errors, all the while providing an amazing tooling experience.

You can use cheat sh web service to show cheatsheets for all kind of commands. Just replace the command name: curl -s cheat.sh/date. I also wrote a a simple script with filename being just a question mark to get a working command as ?, that shows all commands in fzf menu if no argument is given or shows the cheatsheet in the less pager if command name is given.

Usage:

?
? -l
? date
? grep

Script ?:

#!/bin/env bash

cheat='curl -s cheat.sh'
menu='fzf --reverse'
pager='less -R -c'
cachefile_max_age_hours=6

# Path to temporary cache file. If your Linux system does not support /dev/shm
# or if you are on MacOS, then change the path to your liking:
cachefile='/dev/shm/cheatlist'      # GNU+LINUX
# cachefile="${TMPDIR}/cheatlist"   # MacOS/Darwin

# Download list file and cache it.
listing () {
    if [ -f "${cachefile}" ]
    then
        local filedate=$(stat -c %Y -- "${cachefile}")
        local now=$(date +%s)
        local age_hours=$(( (now - filedate) / 60 / 60 ))
        if [[ "${age_hours}" > "${cachefile_max_age_hours}" ]]
        then
            ${cheat}/:list > "${cachefile}"
        fi
    else
        ${cheat}/:list > "${cachefile}"
    fi
    cat -- "${cachefile}"
}

case "${1}" in
    '')
        if selection=$(listing | ${menu})
        then
            ${cheat}/"${selection}" | ${pager}
        fi
        ;;
    '-h')
        ${cheat}/:help | ${pager}
        ;;
    '-l')
        listing
        ;;
    *)
        ${cheat}/${@} | ${pager}
        ;;
esac

I rarely ever use the date command, but when I need it I almost always struggle to get the right incantation. So, wrote a blog post for easy reference.

Do you use a cheatsheet as well?

shared from: https://feddit.org/post/1848262

I like the Slackware approach of installing the kitchen sink by default. Disk space is cheap.
But I find that the cluttering of the menus in KDE is a bit annoying. I use search to start my applications, and a lot of the time I have to type almost the full program name to get to the app I actually use.
What's the easiest way to hide a large number of programs from the menus, which is also easily reversible?

My first idea was renaming the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications to .hidden
But they seem to be recreated automatically.

Another idea was to copy .desktop files from /usr/share/applications to ~/.local/share/applications and then do:
printf "\nHidden=True" | tee -a ~/.local/share/applications/*.desktop

But I tried to add this manually with one test file and it didn't seem to have any effect.
Is there a config file somewhere that specifies in which paths .desktop files are parsed?

Or is there a better way?

Thanks a lot, and happy slacking!

[Solved] Slackware comes with kmenuedit which can be accessed by right-clicking the app menu.

Hi all,

Perhaps a stupid question. Some time ago, I received a rpi zeroW as a gift, but as I did not have any use for ii I passed it to somebody else in our electronics-group. Now, that person has had a +30 year carreer as self-taught programmer -starting out with BASIC on DOS machines- so he showed of some of his old BASIC applications in dosbox on the pi.

So far so good, but he had an interesting question: Years ago, I wrote a library in BASIC for screen / window applications in DOS. (you know, pop-up text-windows and so on). How do I do that on linux (in C)?

As I myself only do 'backend' coding (so no UI), I have to admit I did not have any answer to that.

So, question, For somebody who has mostly coded in BASIC (first DOS and later Visual Basic) and now switched to C and python, what is the best / most easy tool to write a basic UI application with window-function on linux/unix. I know there exist things like QT and ncurses, but I never used these, so I have no idea.

Any advice?

Kr.

Okay I know this sounds like click bait but trust me switching over to linux requires you to first master the open source software that you will be replacing your windows/mac counterparts with. Doing it in an unfamiliar OS with no fallback to rely on is tough, frustrating and will turn you off of trying linux. DISCLAIMER: I know that some people cannot switch to linux because open source / Linux software is not good enough yet. But I urge you to keep track of them and when so you can know when they are good enough.

The Solution

So I suggest you keep using windows, switch all your apps to open or closed source software that is available on linux. Learn them, use them and if you are in a pinch and need to use your windows only software it will still be there. Once you are at a point where you never use the windows only software you can then think of switching over to linux.

The Alternatives

So to help you out I'll list my favorites for each use case.

MS Office -> Only Office

1. Not for folks who use obscure macros and are deep into MS Office
2. Has Collaboration and integration with almost all popular cloud services..
3. Has a MS Office like UI and the best compatibility with MS Office.

Adobe Premiere -> Da Vinci Resolve

1. It is closed source but available on linux
2. Great UI, competitive features and a free version

Outlook -> Thunderbird

1. Recently went through massive updates and now has a modern design.
2. Templates, multi account management, content based filters, html signatures, it is all there.

Epic Games, GOG, PRIME -> Heroic

1. Easy to use, 1 click install, no hassel
2. Beautiful UI
3. Automatically imports all the games you have bought

PDF Editor -> LibreOffice Draw

1. Suprisingly good for text manipulation, moving around images and alot more.
2. There might be slight incompatibilities (I haven't noticed anything huge)
3. But hey, it's free

How do I pick a distro there are so many! NO

So finally after switching all the apps you think you are ready? Do not fall into the rabbit hole of changing your entire OS every two days, you will be in a toxic relationship with it.

I hate updates and my hardware is not that new

1. Mint - UI looks a bit dated but it is rock solid
2. Ubuntu - Yes, I know snaps are bad, but you can just ignore them

I have new hardware but I want sane updates

1. Fedora
2. Open Suse Tumbleweed

I live on the bleeding edge baby, both hardware and software

1. Arch ... btw

Anyways what is more important is the DE than the distro for a beginner, trust me. Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, etc. you can try them all in a VM and see which one you like.

SO TLDR: Don't switch to linux! Switch to linux apps.

Maybe this is a hot take. However, a lot of the Chromebooks that were deployed by schools during covid are build like tanks while being super lightweight and having great battery life. Meanwhile the old thinkpads are 10 years old and are probably starting to wear down. Many Chromebooks support coreboot these days so theoretically they have the potential to be more private and secure. Some of them are also arm which means that they are more efficient from an architecture perspective.

Edit:

I like how incredibly controversial this is. I have successfully split the votes

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ndlug.org/post/970397

The first Ubuntu 24.04 point release won’t be released this week, as initially planned.

Ubuntu developers had been aiming to release Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS on Thursday, August 19th, but has been delayed due to ‘high-impact upgrade bugs’.

As a result, Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS is now due for release on Thursday, August 29th, two weeks later than initially planned.

• Official Announcement: Ubuntu 24.04.1 point-release delayed until August 29

• Tracking Document: Noble Numbat (24.04.1 LTS) Point-Release Status Tracking

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/39456265

For those of you like me who are fed up with Microsoft’s BS but invested too heavily in hardware that Linux distros have yet to support well, I finally figured out a way to get HDR games to run well on my Nvidia GPU. This will be a brief description of more or less what I did to get this working. I’m very much a Linux noob so I don’t fully understand the way everything here works but I’m happy to try to answer questions if you have any.

OS: Bazzite –Desktop Nvidia KDE edition (BDNK) Bazzite was developed as a capable alternative to SteamOS on handhelds like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, so the website is full of references to HDR, however from my attempts to get this working my understanding is that it’s easier to get that working in Gaming mode which is unsupported on Nvidia GPUs. Nevertheless, this version of Bazzite, while only for desktops, comes with KDE Plasma v6 installed by default meaning it technically supports HDR and you will likely see a difference if you install this version and flip the HDR switch from the display settings. I had tried installing Ubuntu on my desktop before and since it didn’t support HDR all the colors on my monitor were almost obnoxiously saturated; I see the same effect in BDNK when I disable HDR.

Drivers: I didn’t fiddle with my drivers. BDNK comes with up-to-date Nvidia drivers bundled and installs them when you install the OS.

Software: SteamTinkerLaunch (installed using ProtonUp-Qt) SteamTinkerLaunch (STL) is a user interface for making it easy to configure your launch options for any given game in your Steam library. If you don’t know what a compatibility tool is, it’s functionally a layer of software between the game you want to play and the OS you’re using which can tell the game to do certain things that your OS is not configured to do. STL can be added to the list of compatibility tools you have to use in your installation of Steam, though it is not technically a compatibility tool itself. STL is used to configure other compatibility tools that Steam already has at its disposal, like Proton which is the primary compatibility tool SteamOS uses to make Windows games run on Linux.

Follow the instructions in the SteamTinkerLaunch GitHub ReadMe to install the tool and add it as a compatibility tool in your installation of Steam. Once you’ve done that, I recommend rebooting. I have yet to get STL working as the * default * compatibility tool, so for the time being I have been manually editing the properties of each game I have installed (Steam Game Library > right click on a game > click properties > go to the compatibility tab) to set the compatibility tool to STL. From here, whenever you launch the game in Steam, it should bring up STL’s menu before launching the game.

Within STL, the key settings to mark are as follows: Gamescope: Use gamescope and mark HDR as enabled for gamescope. I also recommend setting gamescope to fullscreen with your desired resolution, and then also locking your cursor to the gamescope window so that you don’t end up with weird double mouse cursors that aren’t aligned on the screen. Proton: since you told Steam to use STL instead of Proton as the compatibility tool, you need to tell STL to tell Steam to launch the game with Proton.

And that’s pretty much it. Or at least, that’s all that I did. From there, you should be able to configure HDR settings within each game’s menus.

TL;DR – install Bazzite Desktop Nvidia KDE, then install and configure SteamTinkerLaunch for your games.

What games will this work with? No idea. So far I have tested it with Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM Eternal, and Elden Ring and HDR is looking to me as good as it does in my Windows installation.

Will the Gnome version of Bazzite work for HDR on an Nvidia GPU, or for that matter any other OS as long as I’m using gamescope to run the game with HDR enabled? Good question! I don’t know, please give it a try if you’re curious and respond back with your results.

I have another question that you didn’t list here, what’s your answer? Probably “I don’t know” since what I wrote here is more or less what I know, but by all means ask away and I’ll try to answer it!

This is swiped from reddit but I thought it was really helpful so please don't judge me too harshly lol.

So it turns out that some Linux distros don't enable this by default for whatever reason but if you have an Intel wifi card that uses the iwlwifi driver (you can check this with lspci -k and look for a section that says Network controller: Intel Corporation and Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi under it), you can add a simple line to a config file that might make a huge difference to your wifi speeds.

Just edit /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf (if it doesn't exist just create it) and add the line: options iwlwifi 11n_disable=8 then reboot. I ran Speedtest before and after trying this on my laptop and it seems to have increased it by about 20% or so.

Your mileage may vary of course, but hopefully this helps someone!

Free and Open Source Speed Test. No Flash, No Java, No Websocket, No Bullshit.