(I promise you this statement is related. It’s a little bit of history on BTRFS/ReiserFS though. BTRFS actually has support for in-place conversion from EXT and… ReiserFS, as it was kind of a competitor and the same engineers worked in ReiserFS)
I think pretty much anyone buying one those laptops who wants Linux already knows how to install it and let’s be honest if it ships with any given distro I think most would install their preference over it anyway
Provided that the approriate drivers and binary firmware blobs for the new card are already on your system (and with a user-friendly distro like Mint, they should be), I’d expect you to be able just to plug in and go. The only extra hoops I had to jump through while sidegrading from a 1050 to an AMD card of the same era were due to my having a hand-configured kernel and X setup with no AMD drivers.
I would also add Brodie to the list, and I follow 7 of them. I have kinda tried to steer clear of DT because I’m not a fan of some of his off-topic videos. There are 2 I don’t follow: Veronica Explains (I was going to check her channel out, but forgot) and Gardiner Bryant (this is literally the first time I’m seeing or hearing about this guy, so I will go check him out)
As far as I know, only the kernel module was open sourced and in doing that Nvidia moved a lot of stuff from the driver, to the firmware/software part of their stack instead. So you would still need those, which are not open.
I use Brave pretty much just for that purpose, while I use Firefox to browse everything else.
There isFirefox PWA, but it feels like such a shitty hack (don’t get me wrong, it’s not badly made, but they’re forced by the circumstances to make a setup process that is one big headache) that I’d rather have a browser that has official and solid support and it also doubles as my browser to test web content on Blink, so it’s a win-win for me
Yea, I tried with Firefox PWA, but as you have told, it was not usable for me. Most PITA was, that I had to install my plugins on any PWA again and again… I would love using a browser which is not chromium based but has nice PWA features.
Problem is that Webapps require a very unhardened browser. Complete caching, cookies saved, serviceworkers in the background, so if Firefox got the feature hardening would break it
I have a framework and love it but it’s probably not the best option for this. It’s kinda overkill and they can get a bit hot and loud. More of a desk laptop than a lap laptop IMHO. Also depends on how long you need the battery to last but this is reportedly better in the newer models.
I believe a USB WiFi dongle will be a better idea than modifying live images of various distros, and others are already pointing you in the correct way for that, but I feel the need to correct one thing:
Okay, so maybe I can add some driver files to the LiveUSB or something? . . . nope. Not a good idea, because the other part of the whole fix is installing firmware, which has to be in place before the drivers will work – but this chip is also still being used by the onboard Mac OS.
The WiFi module doesn’t have any persistent memory for firmware, which is why the system needs to bring its own firmware - it is uploaded to the chip on every boot as part of driver initialization. So there is no risk of interfering with macOS here.
The installation in the guide refers to putting the firmware in a place where the driver will be able to find it. In other words, you would be installing the firmware on the Linux system, not onto the WiFi module.
I believe a USB WiFi dongle will be a better idea than modifying live images of various distros
Yeah, you and me both. But I’d be willing to do it for one or two, just to be able to prove that THIS laptop can and will run Linux with its current hardware, should he choose install it.
Also, the only thing lost by modifying LiveUSB trials is my time. If I corrupt the image, or it doesn’t work, or I make it crap out somehow – all of which is likely, lol – I still have done no harm at all. It’s just a USB stick. And I will also have learned a few things along the way, like how Linux distros install and use drivers.
you would be installing the firmware on the Linux system, not onto the WiFi module.
Then technically (not that I personally have the chops to do it) this “firmware” could also be something plugged into the distro on the LiveUSB stick along with the wl driver. That distro is getting its current drivers from somewhere on that USB already, so I’m not reinventing the wheel, just adding to what is already there.
I guess I just have to read up more. Thanks for letting me know the difference.
You mentioned it being easier then wlroots, but wayfire and phoc reportedly act as high level abstractions on top of wlroots that could be used to make it easier to create window managers (wayfire author explicitly mentioned it), Maybe it will be good to create a comparison with these projects? or even divert your future efforts to one of them?
I’m not sure if I explicitly mentioned that it’s easier than wlroots, but I believe its design can considerably ease the learning curve for newcomers. While I’ve read about those projects, I haven’t had the chance to try them myself. Although I’d be interested in contributing to their development, I don’t intend to abandon Louvre. I find it beneficial that there are different alternatives, as each can bring unique and clever ideas to enhance various aspects, ultimately improving the overall design across the board.
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