I’d say 4GB of RAM is barely enough. It’ll probably do for the things you mentioned. But opening a browser and surfing the web, or using modern Electron apps/software will quickly get you to the limit.
Another idea would be buying something second-hand / refurbished. It’ll get you better specs for roughly the same money. But probably not a Surface or a tablet, so YMMV with that approach.
I got an old Windows 7 laptop that was going to be thrown out and decided to put Linux on it (see previous thread here). Most people suggested I go with the latest stable version of Debian, so that’s what I installed. I’ve mostly used Windows, but I do have some experience with Ubuntu....
It’s just, we get so many questions regarding Flatpak from newer users:
Why doesn’t App A tie into App B?
Why doesn’t the program tie into my desktop environment?
How can I install Addons?
Why can’t I access files somewhere
And it’s just not easy. The Apps/Programs are sandboxed and can’t tie into each other unless specifically made for this. Addons need to be put inside of that environment or the program needs to be fitted with some kind of Appstore that incorporates this. You can’t just download an addon from github and drag and drop it like the instruction says. New users blame that on Linux. And you need to understand the additional Flatpak permission system.
In my experience these problems have really increased in the last year or so.
Next thing is, you lose what the distro maintainers do for you. They double check that everything works together well and is tied into your desktop. Breaking changes are postponed until the next major releas of the distro. Since you mentioned Debian, they strip tracking behaviour, and most importanly they fix security issues quickly. Once I read about a severe vulnerability in libpng it’s often already fixed or takes them like one to three days.
Everytime I have a look at ‘flatpak list’ I have like 3 different versions of some runtime installed and it takes half a year until the last flatpak app is updated to the release without that vulnerability. And I get that. Programmers of a project mainly code, and maintenance and packaging the stuff isn’t necessarily top priority on their agenda. But you as a user are exposed for months and I usually expect exploits to appear in the wild after some weeks.
That may be less of a concern if you install OBS via flatpak or a game. But this would be bad if it’s a web-browser or a messenger.
That’s why I usually tell people not to use Flatpak. If you know about the consequences and how to handle the sandboxing and get an addon working, go ahead. Maybe subscribe to a mailing list regarding the security vulnerabilities, because that’s now your job.
For Debian users there are a few alternatives. You could just mix and match software from ‘stable’ and ‘testing’. That is not recommended, but everyone does it. Second thing: Just install Debian testing and you get a rolling distro. That’s what I do and it works great. Well, during the ‘freeze’ for the next version you will experience some delays until they figure out some library updates and dependencies. But that’s alright. [Edit: on second thought: Considering the next comment, maybe I shouldn’t recommend that. It works for me but it definitely has some caveats and you need to understand the consequences I didn’t mention here and be able to fix the occasional hiccup.]
Thanks. You’re right. I’ve edited my comment. I shouldn’t be advertising testing. And I probably misremember how often I fix a minor hiccup that I forget about 2 days later. And I keep an eye on important programs when they get ‘stuck’ or I get aware of vulnerabilities and switch to SID or stable with cherry-picked packages. But that requres you to read all the tech news and that’s not a safe way to do it regardless.
I agree. Flatpak is lightyears ahead of downloading executables or doing the imfamous ‘curl software/install.sh | sudo bash’ It is definitely the right tool if your alternative is to download something from a random website or the software isn’t packaged in your distro. (And also for proprietary software.)
I think the correct approach is to ask yourself if you really always need the latest releases and newest version of your software. And if it’s worth the consequences. Flatpak really makes it so easy and smooth that many people aren’t aware it comes with consequences until later. I know everyone always wants everything. Rock stable and tested, bulletproof security and the newest version of everything right away. I do, too. We seem to both like Debian. It’s provided me with most things I need for quite some years and it really earned my trust. We all know how the maintenance process works there and how that turns out. Problem is, if I now circumvent what defines Debian, I kinda lose parts of what makes it great. That should be done with some caution. But sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes I want unpackaged software. Sometimes I need the newest features of OBS or Kdenlive. Or FreeCAD did some major restructuring and the Debian version just always crashes once I add a chamfer to my 3D-workpiece and Debian keeps that ancient version in the repository. There’s no way around taking matters in your own hand. Also I sometimes keep several versions of browsers around to do some web-development and Flatpak is awesome for things like that.
Maybe I need to provide people with a more nuanced answer the next time someone asks about Flatpak stuff. The main point is probably that you take matters in your own hands at that point and need to be aware of that. It requires you to make case-by-case decisions and have a look at if the specific Flatpak is maintained well. There is no simple answer anymore. With a distro you mainly get what you asked for and you should know if you chose your distro, and with it the way it handles things, for a reason.
Lots of people gave great advice. Let me sum a bit of that up.
Flatpak
No error means success. You might want to install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak to make it available in gnome-software. I’d advise against using flatpaks if you also have the software available in the debian repositories. Always use the package manager instead, when possible. Those packages are maintained by the debian community and tied into the rest of the system. Flatpaks are not.
sudo
What would you like? That is kinda intended behaviour and an integral part of security. But you can have it remember the password for some time. Or ask for a different password.
FDE
I think a clean install is the quickest way to fix this. You can also get the other things right while at it.
DE
You can choose the desktop environment while installing Linux. You chose the default Gnome Desktop. It’s designed more like Apple or Android tablets. I quite like it. You don’t have that menu blocking space on the monitor. Instead you just bump your mouse to that top left corner or press the windows key and you have a fullscreen menu with your favorites. You can also directly start typing the first letters of the application you want and hit enter and start is, without lifting your fingers from the keyboard and it’s way quicker and more streamlined than clicking on things in a windows start menu. You can have an addidional dock somewhere at the left or the bottom with an additional gnome extension like this or what other people suggested. But if you’d like it like windows, why don’t you try the KDE destop? I think you’d be more comfortable with that if you’re looking for something alike the windows experience.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu regularly does some stupid things. I’ve been using Debian for quite some time. I suppose the differences for you are minor anyways and you could have it look the same if you found out which gnome quick-launch bar to install or if you used the KDE desktop instead.
You mean like pirated stuff? Peertube isn’t made for this.
However. You could use sepiasearch.org and search for conspicuous terms like “S01E01” or “1080p.web.h264” and see where other people upload copyrighted stuff. There are a few TV shows on flim.txmn.tk video.ploud.jp tube.p2p.legal and a few that aren’t around anymore.
But please check their rules. You don’t want the admins to get in trouble because of you, unless they signed up for that.
And i think some of the instances I mentioned or you’re going to find that way are meant for old videos where the copyright expired or that have been licensed Creative Commons or similarly.
I don’t think that is how these programs work. Community made lists an Wikis, yes. But this requires some corporate contracts, money being paid and some laptop samples being send to a laboratory where they will be kept for years and continuously tested for years. I suppose it’s going to be quite pricey and no-one will do that to a random windows laptop. Unless someone says I’m going to buy 7000 of those if they have that ‘certified’ sticker on them.
But I get how a company like Sytem76 would say, we won’t pay for that, we have Linux in our name and are just selling to consumers.
This certification program is for big companies that have requirements and contracts. They need to buy certified stuff. It’s not meant for consumers or small companies at all. That’s also why the featured laptops are a shiny Dell XPS 13 and a Thinkpad P16. Something you’d find at work.
Well more than half of that list is Dell products. Followed by some Lenovo and HP. That’s it. (except for servers.)
Thank you so much, comrades! I am feeling pretty comfortable with linux mint, and now would like some suggestions for some absolutely necessary FOSS or free license software for the OS. So far I have the standard, Firefox, ThunderBird, LibreOffice, yada yada. Thank you again to everyone on the linux comm! sankara-salute
Hello linix@lemmy, I got fixed on the idea of replacing my iPad with a 2in1 like the thibkpad X13 for uni since I use the keyboard with my iPad a lot. The only time I need to take handwritten notes is in chemistry, mathematics and to annotate PDFs. Does anyone here have experience with convertibles running Linux? What would be...
Both are entirely different product lines. Unless something changed in recent years. I like mine. And I’ve seen the ones without the ThinkPad branding in a store. They’re cheap. But that’s about it.
are nice. Palm rejection for the touchscreen works fine on my Debian Linux, ThinkPad Yoga. I’m not sure if I configured it or it does that out-of-the-box. Keyboard and mouse seem to be deactivated by hardware once i fold it over.
If you’re a nerd you could also learn LaTeX to take notes. I know a few people who got crazy fast typing maths that way. I didn’t, took notes during a lecture with a pen and did quite some of my assignments with LaTeX.
I think it is different. In the 90s everything was limited. You needed to make do with what was limited things were available to you and get innovative and creative. Nowadays everything is unlimited. You have plenty of games on your harddisk and get new ones on a whim. You don’t need to figure out how to tackle your own problems because everything just works. We have the internet and YouTube entertainment never ends. (Back then it was just the TV.) And things weren’t made to be addictive.
I wasn’t allowed to get a GameBoy so I just had a computer. We got really creative with that because it was old and slow. When I was a bit older I figured out how to use a hex editor to manipulate the games. First I searched for where the highscore was saved and changed it to brag. Then we figured out how to change the thrust of the aircraft in the flight simulator. At some point I wanted to make my own game. I started with level-editors for the games we had access to and at some point I wanted to learn programming. And since I didn’t get a new computer when my friends got a 500MHz machine that could do CounterStrike(?) and more modern racing games, I asked my dad for his old books about programming.
So there is a natural progression for old computers to hacking and using your computer as a tool. We also incorporated it into other games, wrote letters and printed shipping labels. But I can’t deny that lots of my friends weren’t interested in that aspect and mainly used it for games and never went deeper than that. But… At least they had to figure out how to assemble their PC and get networking working because it really was a hassle. I think it’s become way easier to just ‘consume’ nowadays. That was also possible in the 90s if you had a Nintendo or PlayStation and unrestricted access to a television. But I think less so with a computer.
Kids still like to be creative. I still regularly see them play Minecraft or design levels with Mario Maker.
I think I read his blog back then. Telling about the progress his (then) very young son made. How he didn’t install a graphical user interface at first but the kid loved ‘sl’ (the steam locomotive if you mistype ‘ls’), and cowsay and so on. And they had a command-line chat to communicate (or just smash buttons).
Awesome question. And good advice here. To add something: Don’t just give them games. Hook up an old printer, install LibreOffice plus the openclipart images. Kids can make everything into a game. We used to play with my dad’s old pc and imagined being private investigators and had our own little office. We printed out lots of silly stuff and took notes on the computer. There are a few ‘learn typing on a keyboard’ games, but back then I didn’t have fun with them.
Maybe they like drawing, install TuxPaint, Krita. Or video editing or recording stuff, give them a webcam/phone and Kdenlive. Have them do a spoof on a movie or do their own Lego stop-motion film. Or they like to make music, install Audacity’s sucessor, LMMS, a drum sequencer …
And of course the whole kids-education metapackage if your distribution has one. So they can program little turtles and start coding with Python. You can do this at age 8, depending on the kids personality.
It works best if it’s tied somehow into their lives. For example (occasionally) printing homework assignments, a stop-motion suite if they play a lot with Lego anyways…
Other than that, my boy scout education tells me to “look at the boy”. Have them explore and see that they like. Assist and teach them how to operate the software they want to use. Help them once they get stuck or can’t figure something out on their own. You will have to guide them and show how they can achieve the results they want, so they stay motivated.
Give them background knowledge and tell them the 'why’s. Why something is the way it is. I’d say that is the point where we get to Linux. At age 10 or so, you don’t necessarily care about an operating system. But you’re curious and happy to learn why there are different ones and why they behave differently and the story behind that. And the thing that hooks you is the possibilities and usefulness for your life. So that’s why I recommend installing lots of useful (to kids) software.
And maybe give them a chat / instant-messenger program. So they can contact you and ask questions.
As it is with teaching generally, it heavily depends on how you do it. Kids are very curious by default. In my experience: “Look at the boy” has served me well. Kids come in a wide variety. Don’t teach them top-down but find a mix of letting them explore and roam, but also make sure to teach them the basics first. And guide them how to apply things to their life and find use-cases and the fun in it. If you pay attention to them, you can adjust your own behaviour.
Wanting robux and things like that are probably unavoidable due to peer pressure and exposure to videos and game-mechanics telling them they want this. It’s probably been like this forever, you always needed the same merchandise your friends had.
I’m curious: Do you know what he (at his age) thinks about your perspective on things?
Does he have other hobbies and still wants some immaterial in-game items / currency? Does a kid at that age grasp the value / alternatives? I suppose this all depends on how much time someone spends in a virtual world. Sure you need/want some goods there if this is a major part of your life.
Mmh. Sure, I don’t have kids so I probably lack some experience in how it is today.
I’m not sure if trying to compete with the attention-grabbing games is what whe should aim for. Sure kids love Roblox and Minecraft, and watching lets-play videos for days on end…
But there is no educational aspect in just giving them all the games. And they won’t become invested in the underlying concepts and the world of free software and computers if all you do is replicate a gaming pc and provide them with a flawless Steam/Proton experience. The computer as a tool and the operating system is irrelevant for just gaming. And it isn’t (in my eyes) what makes computers and Linux appealing.
I wouldn’t even attempt to compete with that. Sure, give them SuperTuxKart, PPracer and maybe a Minetest world (with mods and animals and NPCs so the world isn’t just the empty and boring default one).
I don’t really know how to pry a modern child out of games and videos. Maybe restrict their time with that. Show them alternatives and how to use the computer as a tool. Start a project together with them. Maybe design a calender as a gift for someone, or get them started with the stop-motion movie, or music studio. You could also (dis)assemble the PC together with them and install Linux so they learn about the components. Unfortunately this all really requires time, attention and dedication from the adult and I see no way around that. And the child also needs to become interested in that aspect. But you need to start somewhere. I would really try to advertise this as something more than an alternative gaming platform and make some sort of distinction between the two.
[I know how it was back them with old computers and without the internet. We had a super old, decommissioned PC from my dad. The choice of games was somewhat limited and we had to become innovative. I learned programming relatively early, because Commander Keen or the old flight simulator wasn’t as enticing as the modern games are and you got bored after a few days. With some games we got stuck or some were pirated and in English, which i didn’t speak back then. So I definitely did a good amount of gaming, even back then. But we weren’t allowed to do it indefinitely and we also sat in front of the PC with friends and took turns. I suppose this is different now that everyone has their own Nintendo Switch. The world has changed since and trying to go back isn’t the right thing to do. But I believe the underlying concepts, trying to do more than just gaming and passive entertainment, restricting their access to it and provide them with alternatives, if you got the time to spare, is a good thing.]
(Apart from that, I’ve been with the boy scouts for quite some time. We always did some projects in the rainy autumn and winter. Even the roblox-kids from today like to do other things like hands-on projects, handicraft work to carpentry. But you have to find a way to reach them. Once they managed to get some nice results, it becomes easier and they become invested themselves.)
My laptop seems very finicky with linux and enjoys periodically freezing. Some distributions are more stable than others and I’d like to keep testing other distributions without reinstalling/ downloading/transferring all my apps and steam games constantly....
Maybe just start with the different versions available in your distro’s package manager. I’ve never downloaded a custom kernel from somewhere else. (Well, I have but that was embedded stuff and not a desktop computer.)
pages like this also suggest things like updating the BIOS and the graphics card firmware with some AMD tool. And I’ve read several times you should try the kernel parameter amdgpu.runpm=0
Make sure to do all of that first. And observe if the freezes happen in certain circumstances. Maybe you can deduct something from that. Maybe it happens while gaming (GPU). Or when under load. Or if you move it around (loose connection), or when hot or after a certain time even if idle. Disable power management and see if that helps. Should be less effort than installing 5 operating systems. (If the crash isn’t super rare) And try using the magic SysReq keys to force linux to sync and reboot to see if the kernel is still alive somehow.
On my debian machine something like journalctl -b 1 -k shows stuff. There’s also lots of debug files in /var/log/ like boot.logdebug, kern.log, messages, syslog.
But it somehow needs to be able to store the log on your disk. If the system craps out completely, it won’t get written to disk. The magic SysRequest keys might help if it only freezes. I learned “Raising elephants is so utterly boring.” You might wanna goggle that and learn how to do it.
Other than that, I mostly look at all logs (no ‘-b1’ and search for the place where it rebooted. Sometimes you find other related stuff while scrolling. But my own (old) thinkpad doesn’t ever crash.
I think there are other crash-dump tools available. It believe there’s something called ‘kdump-tools’ available on Debian. YMMV.
EDIT: I am thrilled with so many awesome responses! I’m taking notes and looking into all the recommendations. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to help me out (and many others, i’m sure), i’m glad i asked!...
I’m not so sure if taking screenshots of exact settings is the correct mindset. Sometimes you have a different selection of software available and you might for example want to change your email-client or learn a new video editor because some other software works better on linux or is tied into the system better. You also need to adapt a few workflows to be maximally effective. Because some things just work differently on Linux.
I think your approach is quite good. All I want to say is: I’ve seen people get very disappointed with Linux. Especially if they try to recreate their Windows-experience closely. Be prepared to let go of your now perfectly configured software and start fresh with more things than you currently anticipate.
But Linux is awesome. I think the most important thing is to do a backup first. In case something goes wrong and you accidentally wipe your harddrive or you need to go back.
Fair enough. Yeah I see you’re getting lots of good advice here. I think you’re pretty well set. Wish you the best, and hope the switch works out smoothly and you’ll have some fun.
(And you’re right. Tweaking LibreOffice and things like that is more work than a fun activity. I too would take every shortcut available and focus on more interesting things. And your experience won’t be annoying at all if you already use the same free/libre office suite and other stuff. And already had a look at everything…)
I don’t play or promote videogames, I honestly just want to focus on developing open source software!! And I know that Tux and other mascots have their own open source games, but do you think the developers of mainline Linux play videogames??
Probably a bit less than other people if you take an average between the groups of people because they spend their time tinkering with other stuff and software development takes time. If you do it as a hobby that eats into the time you could use for other hobbies. But I’m not sure if this holds true once you do that as your day job.
And you will be able to upgrade a desktop computer. You could at some point swap the GPU or buy another stick of RAM for $60, whereas most things are soldered in laptops nowadays. Oftentimes they even solder the RAM to move it closer to the CPU and make the laptop a bit cheaper since it now requires less mechanical brackets/parts.
Also a laptop will almost never get the same performance because it’s more difficult to get all the heat out and it’ll switch to a lower clockrate once all the heat builds up in that small form-factor.
But it can be worth it if you need one device that can do both gaming and be carried around. Desktop replacements are quite popular. But they come with exactly those downsides. And it may be or might not be cheaper than buying one ultrabook plus a pc that’s tailored to gaming. It’s always a compromise, though.
I'm trying to run VirtualBox in Linux Mint but I keep getting an error message about Kernel drivers.
https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/b73d1a34-9ad8-4640-8bd4-996ba6e25d17.png...
Surface Go 2 with 4GB Ram and 4425Y worth it?
Hi! There’s no Surface on Linux Lemmy community (yet), but I didn’t feel like asking on reddit, so I thought that this community is my best bet....
Newbie with questions about Debian
I got an old Windows 7 laptop that was going to be thrown out and decided to put Linux on it (see previous thread here). Most people suggested I go with the latest stable version of Debian, so that’s what I installed. I’ve mostly used Windows, but I do have some experience with Ubuntu....
Looking for piracy-friendy peertube instances
Where I can upload things for friends and they won’t be taken down
Why aren't linux hardware shops on Ubuntu's certified hardware list? (ubuntu.com)
Where are Purism, System76, Tuxedo Computers, Starlabs, SlimbookES, and others? Instead there’s Dell, HP, ASUS, and Fujitsu…
I made it to Linux! What is your must-have FOSS or Free Software for linux?
Thank you so much, comrades! I am feeling pretty comfortable with linux mint, and now would like some suggestions for some absolutely necessary FOSS or free license software for the OS. So far I have the standard, Firefox, ThunderBird, LibreOffice, yada yada. Thank you again to everyone on the linux comm! sankara-salute
Do you donate to FOSS projects?
Hello....
Linux on a 2in1 for Uni (lemmy.world)
Hello linix@lemmy, I got fixed on the idea of replacing my iPad with a 2in1 like the thibkpad X13 for uni since I use the keyboard with my iPad a lot. The only time I need to take handwritten notes is in chemistry, mathematics and to annotate PDFs. Does anyone here have experience with convertibles running Linux? What would be...
Any experience with teaching kids Linux?
Any one here has any experience with teaching 8 to 12 years old kids Linux?
Can flatpaks be installed and accessed from another partition on the same drive?
My laptop seems very finicky with linux and enjoys periodically freezing. Some distributions are more stable than others and I’d like to keep testing other distributions without reinstalling/ downloading/transferring all my apps and steam games constantly....
Noob question: what to arrange before switching to linux
EDIT: I am thrilled with so many awesome responses! I’m taking notes and looking into all the recommendations. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to help me out (and many others, i’m sure), i’m glad i asked!...
do the Linux/other distros developers play videogames??
I don’t play or promote videogames, I honestly just want to focus on developing open source software!! And I know that Tux and other mascots have their own open source games, but do you think the developers of mainline Linux play videogames??
State of the Nvidia open source driver in late 2023?
Hi all,...