General Computer Thread

Josh Kelton · Sep 8, 2021

Shaytan said:
I switched too this week and went with Arch and KDE. I haven't use KDE seriously in years and I am pleasantly surprised. I will try to keep it for a few weeks and see if I like it.

They seem close to moving fully to Wayland now. And can then probably get rid of a lot of the X11 code. Hopefully by the time they release Plasma 6.
https://pointieststick.com/2021/09/03/this-week-in-kde-gazillions-of-bugfixes/

Amaris · Sep 8, 2021

Shaytan said:
I am sure you know that you can destroy a Mint install the same way you can with Manjaro
Everything you can do with a distro, you can do with another

I am suprised at how old the Mint kernel is. I know it's a lts distro but they could have updated it to the last lts kernel (5.10) with Mint 20.2.

I switched too this week and went with Arch and KDE. I haven't use KDE seriously in years and I am pleasantly surprised. I will try to keep it for a few weeks and see if I like it.

Oh, absolutely, but for some reason Mint is easier for me to navigate. Not a single issue since I've got things running. If anything, Manjaro prepared me, I guess. I think it's more about comfort, too. Mint is a little older, a little more stable, and that's what I need. Good luck with Arch! Manjaro is Arch with a safety net from what I've read.

That said, I can upgrade the kernel if I want, it's easy enough in Mint, but right now I'm a "it's working without a single hiccup, DON'T TOUCH IT" Linux user.

Santaman · Sep 8, 2021

I've messed with PPA's a while ago, that was when my Ryzen 2200G wasn't really supported yet, the on chip graphics card couldn't be used at first and LTS kernel support was slow to adapt and buggy, so you needed the oibaf graphics driver PPA, that one added bleeding edge graphics card drivers, did work okay but one of those updates wrecked my Mint install so badly that nothing worked anymore, luckily that CPU is now doing fine with the current LTS kernels.

Amaris · Sep 8, 2021

Santaman said:
I've messed with PPA's a while ago, that was when my Ryzen 2200G wasn't really supported yet, the on chip graphics card couldn't be used at first and LTS kernel support was slow to adapt and buggy, so you needed the oibaf graphics driver PPA, that one added bleeding edge graphics card drivers, did work okay but one of those updates wrecked my Mint install so badly that nothing worked anymore, luckily that CPU is now doing fine with the current LTS kernels.

Yep. My current hardware works without issue. The games I play run without issue. The Kernel's an older one (though it updated to 5.4.0-84 yesterday), but it's rock solid stable. I need dependability more than anything else. The only PPA I've had to install is for my Canon TS3522 printer. Otherwise, everything has been easily installed from the software manager, or via .deb packages.

Edit: Oh, and I finally settled on how Cinnamon looks.

Gingerbread Demon · Sep 9, 2021

Amaris said:
Yep. My current hardware works without issue. The games I play run without issue. The Kernel's an older one (though it updated to 5.4.0-84 yesterday), but it's rock solid stable. I need dependability more than anything else. The only PPA I've had to install is for my Canon TS3522 printer. Otherwise, everything has been easily installed from the software manager, or via .deb packages.

Edit: Oh, and I finally settled on how Cinnamon looks.

I like that. Looks like something out of Firewatch.

Amaris · Sep 9, 2021

Gingerbread Demon said:
I like that. Looks like something out of Firewatch.

It is. Here, help yourself!

https://wallpapercave.com/firewatch-wallpapers

Gingerbread Demon · Sep 9, 2021

Amaris said:
It is. Here, help yourself!

https://wallpapercave.com/firewatch-wallpapers

Oh neat Firewatch was a unique experience

Amaris · Sep 9, 2021

Gingerbread Demon said:
Oh neat Firewatch was a unique experience

I loved it. Aside from the gorgeous visuals, the story was really good, too: suspense, romance (ish), comedy, tragedy, all nicely packaged. I've been waiting for Campo Santo's next game, In The Valley of Gods, because it's set in Egypt, but it's still TBA, and I wishlisted that baby back in 2017. Hopefully we'll hear from them soon.

Shaytan · Sep 9, 2021

Josh Kelton said:
They seem close to moving fully to Wayland now. And can then probably get rid of a lot of the X11 code. Hopefully by the time they release Plasma 6.
https://pointieststick.com/2021/09/03/this-week-in-kde-gazillions-of-bugfixes/

I tried it. It's faster but not ready so I guess it will take some time.

Amaris said:
Oh, absolutely, but for some reason Mint is easier for me to navigate. Not a single issue since I've got things running. If anything, Manjaro prepared me, I guess. I think it's more about comfort, too. Mint is a little older, a little more stable, and that's what I need. Good luck with Arch! Manjaro is Arch with a safety net from what I've read.

That said, I can upgrade the kernel if I want, it's easy enough in Mint, but right now I'm a "it's working without a single hiccup, DON'T TOUCH IT" Linux user.

So this is your best distro

Arch is fine if you know what you need and if you read the wiki.

I am already annoyed at KDE I might just nuke the install. I should never leave Gnome :lol:

Amaris · Sep 9, 2021

Shaytan said:
I tried it. It's faster but not ready so I guess it will take some time.

So this is your best distro
Arch is fine if you know what you need and if you read the wiki.

I am already annoyed at KDE I might just nuke the install. I should never leave Gnome

KDE is wonderful, but yeah, there are SO many options, and some things don't like to play well together. I settled on Cinnamon, because it's Gnome, but shinied up a bit and does a little more.

XCV330 · Sep 9, 2021

I got my new Colour Maximite 2 Gen 2 last week. .
boots straight to basic, with ARM 800mhz cpu. It's having a computer from an alternate universe from the 90s. Having a blast with it. I haven't started coding for it yet but will get around to it. It's own BASIC, mmbasic is a variant on the old GWBASIC.

pretty good video on what this fun oddity is.

Amaris said:
KDE is wonderful, but yeah, there are SO many options, and some things don't like to play well together. I settled on Cinnamon, because it's Gnome, but shinied up a bit and does a little more.

I like Cinnamon but I just seem to prefer MATE.

Amaris · Sep 9, 2021

XCV330 said:
I got my new Colour Maximite 2 Gen 2 last week. .
boots straight to basic, with ARM 800mhz cpu. It's having a computer from an alternate universe from the 90s. Having a blast with it. I haven't started coding for it yet but will get around to it. It's own BASIC, mmbasic is a variant on the old GWBASIC.

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pretty good video on what this fun oddity is.

I like Cinnamon but I just seem to prefer MATE.

MATE was nice. I tried it when I was trying to find an alternative DE that felt comfortable. It felt a bit too limited for me, as I have a workflow, and the ADHD screamed in my ear that this was not "optimal" so I switched. lol

Still, MATE is a nice, lightweight DE where things just integrate without any major issue.

Santaman · Sep 9, 2021

I stick with Cinnamon or XFCE, I guess just because I am used to them.

Amaris · Sep 9, 2021

Santaman said:
I stick with Cinnamon or XFCE, I guess just because I am used to them.

XFCE was so clean and lightweight! I almost stayed with it, but its customization options were too few. At the time I was still courting KDE. I would like to try Budgie one of these days, though. I mean, it's all academic, really. My system has more than enough power to handle the most densely laid out DE, but these ultralights can be super snappy and responsive, and that's pretty nice, too. Some people love the Spartan look. Others are more like "just look like a window and get out of the way already." :lol:

Non Sync · Sep 10, 2021

Marc · Sep 11, 2021

Non Sync said:

Speaking of hot keys was working an Acer laptop where the normal function keys didn't work - for example you had to hit FN+F4 to close a window for example.

Turns out the geniuses has a bios setting which defaulted to the alternative modes for the keys (F4 adjusting the screen brightness).

Santaman · Sep 11, 2021

Laptops are strange like that, my old Dell D-830 had its own set of Linux key and touchpad stuff etc you had to choose it when you installed it Linux on it, that was quite a few years ago, newer Linux versions do it automatically.

Amaris · Sep 14, 2021

Quick heads up for anyone using Express as their VPN:

ExpressVPN has just been purchased by Kape Technologies, the same company that had purchased PIA a couple of years ago. Now, apparently they recently changed their name to Kape, which is rarely a good thing in the tech industry. Their former name? Crossrider. Some of you might know who that is, but for those who don't, Crossrider used to make adware/malware software.

Kape buying Express VPN: https://www.reuters.com/technology/kape-technologies-buys-expressvpn-936-mln-2021-09-13/
Kape/Crossrider buying PIA: https://archive.md/xyA9Z

If you have Express, I highly recommend moving away from them. I would suggest Mullvad, Surfshark, or NordVPN.

publiusr · Sep 18, 2021

Santaman · Sep 18, 2021

Aw that's so sad, he was of course known for his work in the computer industry but he did much more than that.

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