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When it comes to KDE this feels out of date.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”?

I don’t understand? You can download Dosbox and Dosbox-X in desktop mode and add them to Steam like other apps. Why do you need a website?

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.

If you implement it from fresh then it is a new program. What matters is what your contract says about what you produce - some contracts pay claim to anything you make even outside of working hours.

Also if you rewrite it, while technically it is a fresh project if there are substantial similarities in how you implement it there could be an argument made that you have reused code that belongs to the company. Even if that is technical false it could be something you’d have to defend sometime in the future. As others have said, implementing the program in a different language and using a different methodology wherever possible should help protect against that.

I think the advice others have given that you should review your contract with a lawyer is sound even if this will be FOSS. It’s mainly about ensuring you don’t inadvertently open yourself to potential legal repercussions down the line, even if your employers at the moment seem benign. If you do work for a company that lays claim to everything you produce even in your off hours then I would strongly recommend you consider leaving or an exit plan, particularly if you are the sort of person who would be working on your own projects for fun or even your own business ventures.

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.

I find the logic behind this uncomfortable. This may help people try rationalise issues in the US or other colonialised regions but it’s actually a fairly absolutionist view of the issue - the chain dismisses any argument or discussion about what it means to be indigenous vs a settler as invalid.

At first glance that may not seem to be a big issue but lets invert this for a moment: I’m a white person living in Europe; does this stuff apply to me too? This absolutionist view is problematic - it’d also excuse the anti-immigration rhetoric of white nationalists in my continent. I’m an “indigenous” person in my country but I would not argue in favour of this chain or logic.

I can understand the motive - a deep sense of injustice and dismissal of one group by another “majority” group. But this is not the solution - this just stifles discussion and frames any discussion as if there is no valid opinion that does not conform to one narrative.

Indigenous vs colonial/settler/immigrant issues are not simple, they cannot be reduced or distilled in such an absolutionist way. You do not solve injustice or right the wrongs of the past by replacing it with a new type of injustice.

Not sure exactly what you meant about the fonts but I do routinely install the Microsoft Fonts from my Linux repo whatever system I’m on. It used to be very important when browsing the net as Arial and Times New Roman were ubiquitous. That is less true now, and many sites use their own fonts.

But in office Times New Roman and Arial are still there. Microsoft has moved to newer fonts now like Calibri and Cambrea but this is proprietary. You could try and get your hands on copies of these (relatively easy if you already have windows).

When creating documents you can embed the fonts you used in Libre Office in it to ensure if you send it to someone else it renders as you intended. When you open someone else’s documents you can see what fonts were used and try and install those or ask libre office to substitute fonts you do have for the missing ones. A metric font is a font with the exact same size of characters in terms of character width and height (even if it looks different) - this preserves the layout so if you’re missing a font and have a metric equivalent you can subsitute that font and the document layout should then be preserved.

For Calibri there is a freely licensed Google metric alternative called Carlito. I believe that usually comes with Libre Office but double check. Also Cambria is another common Microsoft font with a free metric equivalent called Caladea that should come with Libre office.

The Liberation fonts commonly found on Linux and Libre office are metric equivalents of the Times New Roman, Arial and Courier fonts if you want to avoid Microsoft proprietary fonts all together.

Finally if you are sending documents to be read and not edited or just to print at another location, then save/export them as PDFs. PDFs will look the same on any device and OS and will print the same from anywhere.

Lastly I would suggest you use a sync service to keep your documents and keep your school docs in folders that sync. Something like DropBox. Microsoft Office uses OneDrive and it is fully integrated which was a game changer when it comes to accessing documents from anywhere but you can do the same with DropBox and Libre Office on other devices to ensure you can get your documents wherever you are and edit them in whatever is available (e.g. a school PC if you don’t have your laptop to hand or your mobile device). Lots you can do with synced documents but you don’t need Microsoft to do it.

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?

Its usefulness as a laptop replacement may be limited. Remember it’s a locked down read-only version of Linux. The steam deck uses an a/b model to update. Basically there are two separate versions of the OS on the machine - when it updates it replaces one copy and makes that the default, and uses the other as the backup. Next system update it replaces the other copy and switches to that. It switches back and forth that way, putting a stock image on with each update. So you’d probably want to go down the route of running your own OS on it.

Without that it does limit a little in how useful it is as a laptop like device. It depends what you want to do on it of course, and your Flatpak apps and personal files will stay but any other customisation you do to the device will get wiped each time it does a major update. That would include any installed software outside the Flatpak route if you unlock Pacman.

It seems like a capable machine though. I have mine hooked up to my TV at 4K when at home. I use it to stream 4K game content from my desktop to my living room, but I’ve also played with the desktop mode in 4k and it’s been good. It renders 4k video well, and we know it’s capable of playing video games at 720p directly which is still generally intensive.

I can’t see why it wouldn’t be able to do basic graphics work, but no idea about more intensive work like 3D modelling and video encoding.

Personally I’d get a dedicated device for work but if you can’t afford that or you dont want to carry more than one device around then I guess it’s worth a try?

Just remember if you do use it for work that also entails setting it up to back up your personal data. Your game data is largely backed up by Steam but if you put your work stuff on there then you’ll need to be protecting yourself in case of damage or theft.