/silicon/ - technology

>>1755
as another arch (manjaro) user, I just want to tell you you have no idea how much of an improvement pacman is to apt-get. Its not even funny. It takes a bit more time to learn how it works and all its features, but it is more than worth it in the end.

Also, arch has also been one of the easiest distros I have ever installed. I tend to run into install issues all the time, but not with arch.

I've been using Linux as my main OS since 2012, although I only stopped dual-booting and went Linux-only about a year and a half ago. Before that, I only ever used Windows for video games, and Linux for literally everything else.
My first distro was Ubuntu, then Mint, then Arch, which I used for most of the time I've been using Linux (although when I built my first desktop PC I decided to install Mint on my laptop). Then when I stopped dual-booting I switched to Manjaro.

I've gotta say, I wouldn't really recommend Arch. Like, there was one time I ran an update and it just stopped booting altogether. I had to completely reinstall it from scratch, and I ended up losing everything I had on my Linux partition (for some reason I'd decided to reinstall Arch at the time, since I apparently hadn't learned my lesson). And while I certainly don't regret having the experience of having to configure everything from scratch myself, installing Manjaro made me realize how nice it is to be able to just install the OS and start doing stuff immediately.

Even then, I'm thinking I'm gonna go back to either Mint, or try popOS or something next time I build a new PC (which will probably be pretty soon, considering mine is about 5 years old at this point). It's true that Manjaro is a hell of a lot better than base Arch in a lot of ways, and it won't break your system entirely, but it still has a lot of little problems here and there. Like, the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I needed to print something, and no matter what I tried I couldn't connect to the printer on my Manjaro PC, but when I tried transferring the file to my Mint laptop and tried printing it from there it worked perfectly. It's true that the AUR is something I'll miss, but at this point I feel like it's worth leaving it behind.

>>1756
>>1757
My debian install is fucked, I'll need a working computer for a couple of days but after I'm gonna take your advice and try out arch. I'd like to try the proper way but I'll probably use anarchy installer since I don't want to accidentally lose my home partition.

>>1810
Well that was stressful as fuck. Fucked up in several important ways and spent hours staring at grub rescue> but at least now I can look at my anime pictures again.

Does anyone know of (good) solutions for multiple monitors on linux with differing DPIs? I'm seriously considering getting an intel nuc and using it for the 2nd monitor (with a virtual kvm, so I can just use 1kb and mouse)just to get 2 displays that aren't blurry. The problem I suspect is not fixable unless I get an amd graphics card and use wayland, but with current prices that's not an option.

>>1571
I love NixOS, I just wish I could understand flakes and some of the more advanced concepts. I guess I should take a proper look at the manual one day.

>>1813
You should use gummiboot (old name) / system d boot, it's a much less frustrating experience than fighting against GRUB to make it detect OS installations and in general to work.

>>1570
I don't intend to come off as mean or uncomfy but why is guix 2.5 times less popular than nix is? Was the choice of a lisp to configure the system ill-informed? What does guix offer that nix doesn't, and why is guix not popular?

>>1817
Not that poster, but AFAIK Nix has been around for quite a bit longer?
Which translates to more time for people to opt to use it, and breadth of software, a fast check nets that Nix has 60k packages while Guix has 16k. And also less time to iron out kinks, at the time I tried Guix it had a bug where using my native keymap would render it unable to boot.

>>1810
>>1813
Sorry to hear that, sounds like a pain. That said, that's such a implied-story-humor (?) pair of posts

>>1818
Do you suppose more people will start using Guix in the next 5 years, or will the userbase remain relatively stable?

I've been wanting to add a seperate user to my debian machine as a "blank slate". Minimal programs, no internet; just somewhere to write stories and play with code without distractions.

When I ran Mint before, I remember easily creating a user account that only had the default programs and hadn't had its internet connection set up. When I add new users on my current Debian setup, they'll still have the same programs and (wifi) settings. I know I could manually chmod programs and futz with settings to restrict access, but is there an easier way to set up a seperate, minimal user?

Sorry if its a newbie question, my g**gle-fu isn't coming up with results that address what I'm looking for.

>>1822
make a vm for it, it lets you trash and rebuild if you want. maybe that's too "heavyweight" for what you want though.

>>1822
I think you can do it by changing the groups the user is part of

>>1822
I use Debian and manage my connections with the program nmtui - I believe it came installed by default. In nmtui, when you edit a connection, you can set it to not be available to all users - see picrel. Maybe you'd want to do that.

However, I also like >>1823 idea about making a VM for your minimal setup. Once you've set it up (it's very easy if you use a GUI like virt-manager), you can just go fullscreen in your VM and pretend you're on a different system entirely.

Im glad to see this thread is still going almost 5 years later.
Thanks sushies!

>>1758 here. When I said Manjaro won't break your system entirely, I was apparently wrong. Time to finally install Mint on this PC I guess.

I have a raspberry pi which I want to turn into a wireless router. I don't have a monitor to connect to it, so I have to use it headless. I need the Pi to connect to the LAN and listen on ssh.
I've been trying with raspbian, but it doesn't seem to connect to the network for some reason (even using an ethernet wire), and my router is ABSOLUTE SHEIT and it shows really scarce information, specifically, it doesn't even show ip addresses of connected devices. Just the MAC addresses. I tried doing a broadcast ping on the lan and I only got 1 response from 3 connected devices (4, if the pi ever joined).
I tried Openwrt but that didn't work either.
I'll keep trying, but I might just have to do it all from scratch, ie, use buildroot to make a system with just the config I need.

>>1878
You could try to use a TTL serial adapter to control the pi from your pc without having to use ssh.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/uart.md
https://medium.com/@sarala.saraswati/connecting-to-your-raspberry-pi-console-via-the-serial-cable-44d7df95f03e

>>1878
Well, I finally managed to do it. All I had to do was actually do a bruteforce search, I tried to ssh into every address in the LAN (using a simple script, obvs), and just like that, I found it. Now for the next step, which is to find the proper driver for the wireless adapter, which should already be somewhere in /lib/modules, load it and make an interface for it (and get it to happen automatically on boot). Then setup hostapd and ip routing, however that last part is done.

Had this been needed a few years ago, I'd be thrilled. Today I have other learning priorities. However, I did likethe idea of building an embedded system, and I just might in the future, but right now I need to get this working.
Which also comes to show how extrinsic motivators could be much stronger than intrinsic ones at times. I wanted to do this in the past but I had no pressing reason to actually go through the process.

>>1879
I try and make do with what I have, plus, it should be doable.

I've been using Linux for around 4 1/2 years now and I'd like to move up to something a bit more advanced and customizable. I've been getting by with Devuan + XFCE but it has become tiring. From random, esoteric bugs to missing functionality to a lack of a strong, central community, its just not cutting it anymore.

I've been looking at:
>Artix
and
>Void
(And I might try out Gentoo as well as Slackware just for fun)
As security is one of my main focuses, Systemd is a no-go for me.

What resources do you recommend to learn the entire Linux ecosystem from the ground-up? Are there any quirks/tips I should know about related to the distros I've listed?

>>1882
Have you heard of Linux From Scratch? It guides you through the process of building your own distro. It's not really suitable or intended to be used as a daily distro but as a learning experience instead.

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/

>>1882
Slackware is the ultimate comfy linux experience, everything is quite simple to achieve and you really can just slack off once you understand the main things (which isn't much, and what there is is never overcomplicated). The lightweightness and simplicity of customizing FluxBox goes really well with it, can recommend. And also if you like Slackware more than any other distros, chances are that you would feel right at home in OpenBSD too (which would also zoom right in on your security focus).

I've tried a handful of systems, only ever felt comfortable in Slackware, then years later tried OpenBSD, realized that was the problem all along, I'm not really the linux type at all, I'm a BSD person. The core should not be a hodge-podge of random bits, but something put together well, to the same standard of quality.
>>1883
Funny tidbit, Slackware actually did grow out of a LinuxFromScratch setup originally, that the guy maintained for a couple of people that used his scripts rather than make their own.

Currently running Slackware 15.0 RC1 on my daily driver. It's pretty comfy. I can't update it yet since there are no 15.0 mirror directories last I checked. It also isn't detecting my wireless KB/mouse, but that could be my fault. Otherwise, this can do 96% of what I need a computer to do. If you need the other 4%, MX Linux is a good option. Dual-booting with Slackware and MX Linux seems ideal. How are your impressions w/ Slackware? Any plans of trying out Slackware 15 when it fully releases?

>>1882
I am on artix right now and I can comfortably recomend it.

Posting from mint for a little trial run.
Once I get my new computer I will boot it with my favorite, hook up a VPN, and wipe my slate clean.
Thank you for guiding me!

>>1927
Mint is as comfy as it gets imo. Glad you like it sushi!

been using linux for about 9-10 years, despite this im still an ubuntoid.
luv me 'buntu.
void was okay, but i had no real use for it.
thinking of trying bedrock though.

>>1929
Ubuntu is a great distro for many use cases as it 'just werks'.

Personally, I've been using Fedora at work for over a year now and quite like it. Soonish I'm going to switch to MacOS, I'm wondering how long it will take me to get used to it.

>>1935
I branched out a bit with void and bunsenlabs, but ubuntu is just so reliable.
I hear fedora is basically the same in that regard.
I do recommend bunsenlabs for anyone running a really old/underpowered system, it's basically the new crunchbang (rip)

>>1942
> I hear fedora is basically the same in that regard.
Reinstalling it as we speak. Gonna stick with it from now on, every other distro has its cons but Fedora always "just works" in my experience.

Finally managed a minimal install Debian, always feared setting up X11, because of how badly I messed it up few times. Running i3 with terminator, fish and not much else. Set up for SC61A, lots of fun.

>>951
it's nice to see how consistent mint has been over the years. over 4 years later and your setup almost looks exactly the same as mine does. Neat. Anyways, thumbnail support is (finally) being merged, hopefully it'll get in soon.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/merge_requests/5163

What are sushis running on their servers?

I'm currently using CentOS, thinking about switching away to free- or OpenBSD though.

>>2130
I use FreeBSD on my file server. I don't do much with it. ZFS and Samba, it's my file server.

I have an older home server that runs CRUX. That's been my server for minecraft and various other games in the past. Thinking about replacing this with FreeBSD too.

>>1882
>>1919
Seconding this (albeit a tad late :D)

>>2130
I have TrueNAS Core running on my homeserver and FreeBSD on my VPS

>>1882
If I can poke this, I've been using slackware for 10+ years. I've also used mint, arch, manjaro, haiku, and pop.

I highly recommend slackware because its as close to "feature complete" as I would call any OS. Once you get it set up (which let's not act like you won't learn a ton just doing that) its pretty much done and done. "It just werks" unironically.

i like linux but it makes me so mad that the software i want is not on linux.

I've come to realize the only true purpose for using linux is for programming and web hosting stuff. You will take this pill too.

>>2208
I don't wanna >:(
u can't make me

>>2208
>I've come to realize the only true purpose for using linux is for programming and web hosting stuff. You will take this pill too.

As opposed to what, in say, Windows or FreeBSD? I mean to say, what do people use on those platforms that you don't on linux? I don't want to argue, though. I recognize linux having so little market share that doing simple things like "gaming" would be frustrating for most. I guess I ask why it is "only" for those. Maybe I'm being pedantic.

Do you sushi rolls host anything interesting? I've been hosting a personal wiki and it's been pretty fun. I also host some game servers, a pubnix, a FTP server, and a few static websites.

>>2220
Gaming on Linux isn't too bad these days. Most things Just Work, and older games to have fewer issue on Linux than Windows. The main remaining stumbling block to it being good enough is anticheat

>>2130
Proxmox for the hypervisor, Rocky Linux for server, and OPNsense for firewall/routing/general networking. Not a huge fan of RHEL distros, but I use them at work and value having just one environment. I've been meaning to use BSD for a while. When it comes time to have a dedicated NAS instead of everything on the hypervisor I'll likely use some flavor of BSD.

>>2220
its absolutely just the case that people who make posts like the one you are replying to use computers exclusively for gaming so actually having the capability to do real work with less friction like linux allows is not really considered a useful tradeoff.

Maybe I'm a bit crazy but I can't quite decide what kind of a system I want to have. I have a few ideas. I have enough disk but an underpowered old little netbook. Compiling a kernel takes a day, a toolchain, maybe a couple more days, X11 half another day, and I can't be thinking about including rust or LLVM, that's fine, I would like simple stuff anyway. I would be using plan9 but it's a bit too ideal if you get my meaning.
My current idea is to use linux as a hypervisor, and a different system on each vm, so that I could even run ubuntu one day from my main build, not that I would actually do that.
The remaining question is what is the host system going to be? I am inclined for keeping the bare minimum, a few services and such, and instead of loading a user environment it can open one of a number of guest systems.
I am not too concerned with the performance penalty, as I wouldn't likely be jumping between whole systems, and once I get the whole thing running I am rather frugal.
Finally, am I able to pull this off? It involves many things I've never done before, time will tell.

>>2208
sounds like you were to stupid to use linux

>>2264
*too :^)

>>577
depends on the speed of the device. some of my old usb flash drives from like 2012-2018 take forever (25+ minutes). but sd cards ive been using lately take maybe five minutes. actual CDs will take 40+ minutes.

>>2208
I agree - it is steadily getting better but I always felt like you have to settle for inferior software and support when doing creative work.

I don't feel comortable with Linux. I'm more used to BSD but Linux is great for all kinds of little projects and is much more usable for the average person. Gaming is the only drawback that kills its mass appeal. I also feel the Linux community has become another snobby elite in group and totally forgot the original mission of GNU and Linux and now its little more than a cult. Sad.

I'm using Linux Mint and it's pretty good. The only complaint I have is that I can't run Lightroom on it. But the android app works well enough for me, so it's not that bad overall.

>>2271
Hmm… I will have to take that back. The software that I currently use - Bitwig, Unity, Blender and Rider - are all great and seem to be actively supported on Linux.