I’ve been seeing all these posts about Linux lately, and looking at them, I can honestly see the appeal. I’d love having so much autonomy over the OS I use, and customize it however I like, even having so many options to choose from when it comes to distros. The only thing holding me back, however, is incompatibility issues....
Web apps (for MS Office/Teams), Wine (mostly for games and random apps), and for everything else, an optimized Tiny11 Core VM + WinApps for seamless windows/integration with Linux. My Tiny11 only uses 0-1% CPU and 600MB RAM on idle so I’ve got no issues running it in the background, besides it takes only a couple of seconds to launch, if I wanted to start it on demand.
I’ve also got a portable SSD with a copy of Windows installed on it, just in case I need it for some firmware updates or something (although I’m on a Thinkpad so pretty much everything can be updated via LVFS, but I keep it around just in case + it’s portable so there’s no harm in having it around).
Ooh, Win 3.11? Which version of Linux did you switch to at the time?
I don’t recall the kernel version, but my first was Red Hat 5.2 in the late 90s. I didn’t switch to Linux permanently though, had it on dual-boot. But eventually it was SuSE that won me over, with their YaST tool and polished KDE implementation - seemed lightyears ahead of Win 9x and ME at the time.
I currently use Windows 10 and I’d like to try out Linux. My plan is to set up a dual boot with OpenSUSE tumbleweed and KDE Plasma. I’ve read so many different opinions about choosing a distro, compatibility with gaming and Nvidia drivers, and personal issues with the ethos of different companies like Canonical. I value...
Nix (Nixpkgs) actually exceeds the AUR in the number of packages, according to this page.
And the nice thing about it is that you don’t even have to be on NixOS to use it - in fact, NixOS came much later. Nix started out as a distro-independent package manager, and can still be used that way, because Nix packages do not interfere with your system’s packages.
None of the comments here explain how WINE works, so allow me to elaborate a bit.
WINE is like a translator or a compatibility layer. When a Windows program tries to perform a function that would normally require Windows, WINE steps in and translates that request into something the Linux system can understand and process.
As you may know, Windows programs work by making API calls (eg using Win32 APIs) to operate and perform basic tasks. WINE takes these API calls and translates them to their Linux equivalents (POSIX calls, to be specific, which means Wine can run on several Unix-like systems). This way, when a program asks to say, open a file, or display something on the screen, WINE converts these requests into a form that Linux can execute.
WINE’s approach is about providing compatibility for user-level applications rather than replicating the internal workings of the Windows kernel. It includes various libraries and components that mimic the behavior of those in Windows. This helps in executing the Windows applications as if they are running in their native environment.
The core of it is NTDLL. NTDLL.dll is a core Windows library that provides low-level system functions to interact with the Windows NT kernel. In WINE, ntdll.dll is adapted to work with the Linux kernel instead.
Then you have the Win32 API libraries, providing the basic APIs that Windows applications use for functions like window management, text rendering, and system calls. Examples include user32.dll (for user-interface functions), gdi32.dll (for graphics device interface functions), and kernel32.dll (for basic system functions).
Shell32.dll for handling Windows Shell API functions related to file operations and the user interface.
DirectX Support, for running games and multimedia applications. WINE implements parts of DirectX, like Direct3D for 3D graphics, DirectDraw for 2D graphics, and DirectSound for sound processing. Note that WINE’s implementation converse Direct3D calls to OpenGL, whereas there are community projects like DXVK and VKD3D which translates these calls to Vulkan.
Finally there’s a Registry Implementation, so that applications that need to read or write to the registry can function correctly.
Of course, there’s a LOT more to it, the above is just an example of some key components. Basically Wine has reimplemented (coded from scratch) various libraries and executables that, on the outside, look like standard Windows dlls/exes, but internally they use POSIX APIs to talk to the Linux kernel and other POSIX components. This, along with the Syscall translations, bridges the gap between Windows programs and Linux.
Now naturally, this is neither a perfect, nor a complete implementation of Windows APIs; plus there are some things which Wine will never implement (such as ntoskrnl.exe), so not every program will work as expected - so check out the Wine AppDB for compatibility reports with various Windows apps.
it’s quite difficult for me to get things working for now. […]
Where do i learn more about linux system so i can get more familiar with it?
You said it was difficult “to get things working” - identify what exactly is it that you’re finding difficult, then type that into Google/DuckDuckGo and check the results. If there’s anything in that results you don’t understand, Google/DDG it further. Keep doing that until you understand everything that you want to about that topic. Then proceed to the next topic.
There are also IRC, Discord and Matrix chat rooms for most Linux distros out there, so if you’re unable to find an answer, feel free to hop into one of those channels and ask a question.
ChatGPT is also a decent resource for general understanding - but don’t type any commands it suggests (unless you know what you’re doing!).
All come with a browser, a PDF reader, and some word doc/spreadsheet program.
Strictly speaking, “All” is a bit of a stretch - Arch doesn’t come with any of those by default, neither does Gentoo, or for that matter, nor do any of the minimal/netinstall/server variants of other distros.
My GTX-1080 is getting a little long in the tooth, I’m thinking of going all AMD on my Linux Mint gaming rig here, but…is there anything I need to do or install or uninstall to switch to an AMD card from an Nvidia one?...
Also, unless you’re very dependant on some specific X11 apps, you don’t need Xorg any more so I reckon you should switch to Wayland for a better experience (smoother, no screen tearing, high refresh rates, better multi-screen / multi-DPI handling etc).
If an application only ships with Wayland, then… well, I guess you’re using Wayland now.
If you wanted to though you could run Wayland apps under X11 - you could use something like cage to run the app within it’s own Wayland window. Kinda similar to running X11 apps using XWayland, but not as seamless or pretty, so I wouldn’t recommend it of course.
I have used Linux on and off for 15 years. I consider myself a casual user and stuck to the mainstream DEs (mostly KDE, XFCE and some Cinnamon). Gnome has been a hurdle for me before and after the big version 40 changes, I couldn’t get my head around how they handled the workspaces and workflow. At some point I I tried out an...
Back when I was still on Gnome, I gave this a try and it was great - until Gnome got updated and it stopped working. And then they’d fix it, and Gnome got updated and it stopped working again. So I stopped using it because I couldn’t deal with the constant breakages. I see that they still haven’t updated it for Gnome 45, despite a bug report being opened for it over two months now. It’s exactly because of breakages like this, and extension neglect from the authors, that I’ve stopped using Gnome and switched to KDE.
KDE worked great for me out-of-the-box, so I didn’t install any third-party extensions. The only changes I’ve made is for aesthetics - moved the panel to the top, enabled a global menu and a side dock, for a more Gnome/macOS-style layout.
toolbox is preinstalled on fedora silverblue/kinoite whereas distrobox isn’t. What’s the advantage of one vs the other? Why is toolbox preinstalled and not distrobox?...
Because Toolbox is a Red Hat/Fedora project and Distrobox isn’t. Also, Distrobox is a much more recent project (2021) compared to Toolbox, which was developed back in 2018. When Silverblue came out, there was a need to make it easier to install apps, and thus Toolbox was born.
Since Toolbox is a Red Hat/Fedora project, it means that it’s officially supported, whereas Distrobox isn’t. Not that it means much from a community support/home use case of course, but that might matter if you’re an enterprise and you want support from Red Hat or official Fedora communities.
But both use podman behind the scenes so internally they aren’t that different, but you can think of Distrobox as a more distro-agnostic and user-friendly version of Toolbox. If you’re a home user then stick to Distrobox.
Long story short, I learned there is an XMMS release of a plugin I use in Winamp for music playback (mp3PRO). Sadly, I recoded most of my music to mp3PRO back in the day, and now I’m stuck using Winamp, even on Linux. I like the player, wouldn’t change it, but I wanted to switch to something native, like Audacious or Qmms....
Well it’s Black Friday and HDDs are going for cheap. 6TB is nothing these days, when you could get a 16TB external drive for only $200, or a internal SATA one for $185. Or you could replace/supplement your entire NAS with a single 6TB drive for only $50.
Disk space is cheap now, so upgrade your storage, convert your music to FLAC, problem solved.
Well you don’t have to buy them brand new. If you guys have a used goods market there, you could look around for some good deals on used drives there. Or even used PCs, sometime people sell entire PCs for the same cost as a hard drive, so look out for those and take the drives out, sell the rest of parts.
And if things are really desperate money wise, it doesn’t even have to be a hard drive, you could even store your music on CDs/DVDs - not the most convenient option I know, but it’s an option - you could move the music that you don’t listen to often (or music that you’re tired of playing constantly), and keep your more frequently played music on the HDDs.
what if I, for example, had a job in Google and I liked Linux so much I install Ubuntu on my Chromebook, would that be illegal/send me to prison?? Or, if I had the job, would I be kicked?? I like Chromebooks because they are so smol and nice. But I don’t know if it’s legal to install a Linux distro on it. Thank you!!
I have a Samsung Galaxy J3 (2018) smartphone which currently has the stock Samsung Android OS installed on it. I wanted to install an Android “distro” that doesn’t spy on me, like Graphene OS, but I couldn’t find a ROM for it. Since I would probably need to compile AOSP from source code anyways, I though, why not install...
If I’m not mistaken, I believe the 2018 J3 has a locked bootloader. The fact that I can’t find even a SINGLE custom ROM on XDA for this model means it’s highly likely that the bootloader is locked, and/or the device isn’t dev friendly (no kernel sources available etc).
so I guess doing the same on my smartphone wouldn’t be too hard.
Mate, you’ve no idea… Smartphones are a completely different ball game to desktops. You could try and compile your distro, but without the kernel sources and drivers for your specific model, nothings gonna work. You won’t even be able to boot the damn thing. And even if you did have those, it’s going to take a LOT of effort just to get basic OS functionality working. Forget getting actual phone stuff working, like making calls etc - that’s next to impossible. Even large projects like PostmarketOS struggle to get basic functionality going even on dev-friendly phones.
But you can stop dreaming about all the above if you can’t even unlock the bootloader.
Basically, what all this means is that there’s no point wasting your time on the J3. Stop right now and don’t waste any further time on this.
If you’d really like to run GrapheneOS / Linux on your phone, your best option is to sell your J3, and get a used Google Pixel from Swappa/eBay or something.
Mine was Mandrake 6. RedHat 5.2 was my first, and I was surprised how much easier Mandrake was in comparison. But the one that really wowed me was SuSE (before they became OpenSUSE), I was blown away how polished and user-friendly it was. Windows 9x/ME felt like a joke in comparison at time. And some people still claim Linux isn’t user friendly… and I’m like, bruh it’s been user friendly for about three decades now…
As others have said, there’s Vanilla and Endless, but both use GNOME.
Is there a reason why it has to be Debian? With an immutable distro, you won’t be using traditional package managers anyway (like apt), all have the same stability factor, and with the same systemd + KDE, it’s more or less the same experience regardless of which distro you go for.
One of the key usage patterns of an immutable distro is using a container to install your extra packages. So you could go for a Fedora-based immutable KDE distro like Kinoite, and set up a Debian container where you can use apt and other Debian tools.
I installed endeavourOS 2 days ago and then, the next day, there was a newnrelease of endeavourOS. It’s supposed to have better encryption. Is it possible to upgrade encryption on Linux? An unrelated question: is it possible to change the password of an encrypted partition? I’m a beginner, so please explain your magical...
That patch looks promising. But I wouldn’t recommend PBKDF2, I mean if you’re going to go thru the trouble of converting to LUKS2 for stronger encryption, might as well go for Argon2.
If you’re a beginner then don’t worry about the encryption. Unless you’re hiding from some three-letter agency or being targeted by hackers or something, LUKS1 encryption is more than good enough (for an average home user).
But just so you’re aware, whilst it’s trivial to convert to LUKS2 using cryptsetup convert, you’ll need to first switch your bootloader to systemd-boot from GRUB, and that may not be a trivial process as there’re multiple variables involved - is your ESP big enough, have you mounted your ESP to /boot, whether you’re using secure boot or not, whether you’re dual-booting or not etc. Plus you’ll also need to manually create a bootloader config file that’s specific to your system, and maybe even add a line to load a CPU microcode file if you’re on Intel… there’s a lot of things to consider here.
Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend EndeavorOS to you as a newbie, because it’s basically Arch, but by making the installation easy, you’re skipping all the knowledge you’d get of your system and how it works. And when it comes to situations like you’re in, you reach a roadblock because you took the easy path.
If you’re really interested in Arch then I’d recommend wiping your system and install Arch manually, the Arch way.
Plasma Panels have now gained a new visibility mode: “Dodge Windows” aka “intelligent auto-hide!” In essence, the Panel auto-hides when touched by a window, but is otherwise visible
Finally! With this, we can now have a panel behave like a proper dock.
Based KDE 🗿 (lemmy.ml)
How do y'all deal with programs not supported on Linux?
I’ve been seeing all these posts about Linux lately, and looking at them, I can honestly see the appeal. I’d love having so much autonomy over the OS I use, and customize it however I like, even having so many options to choose from when it comes to distros. The only thing holding me back, however, is incompatibility issues....
New to Linux, have a few questions
I currently use Windows 10 and I’d like to try out Linux. My plan is to set up a dual boot with OpenSUSE tumbleweed and KDE Plasma. I’ve read so many different opinions about choosing a distro, compatibility with gaming and Nvidia drivers, and personal issues with the ethos of different companies like Canonical. I value...
Is PopOs a good option if i don't want to tinker much with the OS and do some basic tasks as web browsing etc?
Basically the title
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Do I actually need to do anything to go from GeForce to Radeon?
My GTX-1080 is getting a little long in the tooth, I’m thinking of going all AMD on my Linux Mint gaming rig here, but…is there anything I need to do or install or uninstall to switch to an AMD card from an Nvidia one?...
deleted_by_author
What Tweak, Program, ... changes a Desktop Environment from unusable to great for you?
I have used Linux on and off for 15 years. I consider myself a casual user and stuck to the mainstream DEs (mostly KDE, XFCE and some Cinnamon). Gnome has been a hurdle for me before and after the big version 40 changes, I couldn’t get my head around how they handled the workspaces and workflow. At some point I I tried out an...
toolbox vs distrobox. Which one to use?
toolbox is preinstalled on fedora silverblue/kinoite whereas distrobox isn’t. What’s the advantage of one vs the other? Why is toolbox preinstalled and not distrobox?...
Is there any way I can make an old XMMS plugin work in any modern player?
Long story short, I learned there is an XMMS release of a plugin I use in Winamp for music playback (mp3PRO). Sadly, I recoded most of my music to mp3PRO back in the day, and now I’m stuck using Winamp, even on Linux. I like the player, wouldn’t change it, but I wanted to switch to something native, like Audacious or Qmms....
would it be illegal to download Ubuntu on a Chromebook?
what if I, for example, had a job in Google and I liked Linux so much I install Ubuntu on my Chromebook, would that be illegal/send me to prison?? Or, if I had the job, would I be kicked?? I like Chromebooks because they are so smol and nice. But I don’t know if it’s legal to install a Linux distro on it. Thank you!!
Should I install Linux on my smartphone?
I have a Samsung Galaxy J3 (2018) smartphone which currently has the stock Samsung Android OS installed on it. I wanted to install an Android “distro” that doesn’t spy on me, like Graphene OS, but I couldn’t find a ROM for it. Since I would probably need to compile AOSP from source code anyways, I though, why not install...
Mandrake Linux 10.0, from 2004. They still work too. Had to buy them on disc, slow dialup internet in those days. (mastodon.africa)
Debian based immutable OSes
prefer KDE. Currently testing Nitrux. Any other options
EndeavourOS encrypted partition
I installed endeavourOS 2 days ago and then, the next day, there was a newnrelease of endeavourOS. It’s supposed to have better encryption. Is it possible to upgrade encryption on Linux? An unrelated question: is it possible to change the password of an encrypted partition? I’m a beginner, so please explain your magical...
This week in KDE: Panel Intellihide and Wayland Presentation Time (pointieststick.com)
Customising keyboard layouts Fedora KDE Wayland
Hey there fellas!...