Linux

I was just given an old nettop from I think around 2010 - An old Acer one nettop intel atom CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz 2GB ram, it has Windows XP on it and it seems fairly smooth/quick, but I haven’t done anything other than boot it up and check the spec. I was wondering what would be best to install on it and found that choices are very limited. Linux Lite nor Lubuntu seem to be an option anymore, and almost all of the options I tried under x86_x64 on Distrowatch no longer provide an x86 or 32 bit version. These are the main ones I have seen:

Hi guys, basically as the title says I want to make external SSD drive with “Windows to Go” for the stuff that I really need Windows for unfortunately (proprietary CAD software) but there is no software for making this on Linux that I can find

Hey guys, I wanted to ask you how you manage your gpg keys? Having them in plaintext all the time on my hard drive feels unsecure.

I don’t use apps like whatsapp or skype because they sell my data and don’t trust them.

This is my first real dive into hosting a server beyond a few Docker containers in my NAS. I’ve been learning a lot over the past 5 days, first thing I learned is that Proxmox isn’t for me:

I’m on Mint. I have two partitions, one at 100GB I set up for the main OS installation, and another 1.9TB installation I use for storage. But the first partition is getting some storage issues, which comes partly from Timeshift (which I already redirected) and partially from Steam, specifically Proton. I want to redirect Steam onto the larger partition, but the space Steam takes up in this way is taken up by several smaller files and folders that add up to a lot, so I feel unsure about how to change things properly.

I’m redoing my home server. I’m moving from arch to fedora server to force myself to learn that stuff.

Since PopOS isn’t really going anywhere since 2022. I’m looking for a new distro that out of the box works with Nvidia and is optimized for gaming. I looked at Bazzite and CachyOS. Does anyone have experience with these?

I’ve been searching around for the right linux raft I need to jump off of the sinking microsoft ship, and I am currently considering giving Ubuntu Studio a go. My primary activities are music production and gaming, so the massive number of creative tools that are available seem like it would really level up my music production game, and possibly inspire me to try out some other creative avenues as well. It’s kind of amazing to see the possibilities with all the free software out there these days.

Forewarning: I don’t intend to respond to debates that have turned toxic in comments. Knowing how this topic can be, please don’t aim create one.

I have a laptop with an 11 inch screen and 768p display. Naturally, my usage breakdown is:

Hi,

Trying (and failing) to setup Timeshift. Hoping to have it do snapshots of an ext4 LUKS-encrypted Arch system partition.

I’m wondering if there are possibly any tools out there to do this: Declare a color scheme and set them to all apps CLIs and TUIs, either immediately on upon restart of each app individually. I’m on NixOS and looked at Stylix, once properly set up it automatically sets color schemes to apps. To change the color scheme I’d have to rebuild my nix configuration which is slow.

I recently set up Bazzite on my friend’s system after switching from Linux Mint due to some Nvidia driver issues. Although the hardware problems are not there anymore, the distro is now facing problems installing certain programs for software development that they had no problem installing in the previous distro. I think there are issues related to the immutability of the distro, though I am not sure since I am new to Linux too. Additionally, my friend is worried about higher storage consumption and slower performance in certain applications.

Working on the assumption that Win10 being EOL is going to cause an influx of old hardware becoming available, I was thinking it might be a good time to start looking for a good deal on a laptop for travel. It doesn’t HAVE to be an old unsupported laptop, but saving something from e-waste is a bonus. Here’s the kind of thing I’m looking for.

Dug my old laptop out (HP G60, Turion X2 64) - and installed Mint XFCE on it - so far it’s useable, but of course still slow. I’m amazed it works as well as it does (3 GB ram and an SSD). The CPU usage is at 100% a lot of the time.

I’m assuming this isn’t normal behavior, but copying and pasting commands into shell windows (host, VMs, LXCs, doesn’t matter) doesn’t work. I’ve noticed issues with curl too, despite saying it’s installed and up-to-date, but one thing at a time…I’m also not convinced that edits made to conf files are persisting as a result. Is this a browser issue? As always, thanks for helping out a normie in need.

So just to be clear I went with a very lazy move to linux from windows. I was not looking to use my day to day in a unixy type way and wanted something that I can install and go without much muss or fuss. So I went with zorin and yeah I have dropped to the command line for some apt installs or such but bascially it was only as needed. Very minimal. Anyway today Im messing with folders and files and suddenly it hit me. Im on linux I can do a lot of this easier with the command line. I know its stupid but my day to day sorta has a mouse brain guie mode and I sorta forget how much easier it is to do some stuff using syntax. So going forward im going to be bringing up the command line to do the things that are quicker.

What distros do you install on your mom’s, sister’s, buddy’s, etc machines?

Look long story short, what i expected to be a short install ended up being a 5 hour manhunt for an issue that resulted in needing a closed source instead of open source nvidia driver. Shes all switched to linux, and if her trial goes well and i don’t end up tearing my hair out doing tech support. I may switch over as well, probably a different distro though.

A client has asked me to replace their video editor for a video podcast. It’s the standard quick-cut style, zooms, loud transitions, and big bubble-letter subtitles throughout.

I still use the web interface for each email provider like gmail, outlook, etc

I got an old HP laptop for a good price. (HP ProBook 650 G4.) It was cheap because it’s BIOS locked and requires secure boot. (I believe this is the same as “HP Sure Start”.)

Hello, Basically I want to pick a distro and like most beginners I’m coming from windows. I don’t want to go on a full learning process from the start but I can probably handle some level of terminal usage. I, like most people play games(*or thinking about playing games and it’s one of main things I’m looking into but because this isn’t the only thing I’m thinking of doing and do*)

what are your experiences using game controllers with linux, I’m especially interested in the xbox series s controller because it’s the one I have, but I’m also interested in other controllers. From my experience the latency is disappointing, but I have no way of proving it.

I’m currently writing an article on the subject, and want to properly represent people’s views.

I’ve been meaning to make the leap for some time, but I had a hiccup with Mint a little while ago, and my key reason for choosing Mint above all others has disappeared. My Windows machine is doing the usual “you’ve had this installed for a while so it’s just going to keep getting slower unless you do a fresh re-install” thing that Windows seems to do, and I’ve got more time on my hands than last time I tried, so I figure why not put that time to use.

What could be the best way to introduce the world of computers to a kid, let’s say of 6 years old, so that he learns to handle it like a toy and stops dreading it like some esoteric, arcane and recondite machine from some eldritch, enigmatic, cryptic and phantasmal world ?

tl;dr: dockman changing permissions of /docker an I don’t like it. Is it normal? Am I a control freak?

Is it possible to reinstall Linux (or distro hop) without losing my Dropbox install? Could I move the Dropbox install to my home folder so it survives the OS install?

Currently looking for a good DAW to run on Linux. I used Ableton Live 11 Standard back on Windows, got it running decently on Fedora with Wine, but kind of want to explore some other options.

ArchLinux doesn’t boot past the bootloader

I need to aggregate a lot of details on what I’ve tried so far, but I figured I’d make this post now since I have time over lunch.

Hi, I have an old HP Notebook - 14-an018au, which has 4gb ddr3 ram and runs windows 10 on a 10 ish year old 1tb harddrive. This is a secondary computer, but it has a lot of old files from when I was like 13 years old that I want to backup, but I also have like 300gb of space taken up on the harddrive. So things like my chrome history, app settings, and unique files I would want to keep, but the large apps themselves I don’t want to keep. Also this computer is impossible to work on with its current operating system, so something which is a quick solution please.

Hi guys, basically as the title says. Did any of you guys tried any of the solutions around for this? What is the best fix for this in your opinion?

I’ve been using Bazzite for a couple of months now. I’ve been experiencing a few problems when connecting my PC to my Wifi router.

Hello, not much of a Linux user (situations like this are why)…but long story short, I’m trying to rehab a ROG PC from 2018.

Basically, I have a 2014 computer with 4 GB of RAM, and I’m wondering whether to use Arch, EndeavourOS, or openSUSE. I really want to try Rice and use Hyprland, but that will be my second distro. The computer is a secondary one, so it’s no big deal if it breaks.

Hi guys, I know I can easily make a launcher file in ~/.local/share/applications for it but I don’t know what arguments to put in Exec= line to launch a specific profile. I know it is possible but I don’t know how to find it

Greetings. I’m not sure if should ask this here or on a MacOS specific community, mods feel free to remove this post if necessary.

Are there any risks or disadvantages to building software from source, compared to installing a package? Can it mess with my system in any way?

Follow up from https://lemmy.world/post/37310527

Relative novice, sorry if I get some details/terms wrong. Been running a KDE Plasma install for about 9 months and it’s awesome. Since I did a last update from the desktop, the nighttime color temp settings don’t change. It’s always warm unless I manually suspend it. I tried undoing and redoing the setting. The clock is correct and settings all seem correct, but it won’t cycle. Any help you have is appreciated in advance.

If you were to go out today and buy an open source smart watch to pair with a GrapheneOS phone which would you choose?

Hey there!

So, I changed my daily driver to linux several months ago and my gf a few weeks ago. I noticed 2 strange but good things after the change. For my system I have a onboard sound card (stereo) and am using 3 of the 5 speakers for my decade or so old Creative labs 5.1 speakers. Under win 10 most of my sound came from the left and centre speakers with base cannon doing its thing, under linux using the generic drivers included during install all 3 desktop speakers put out the appropriate sound. YAY!

I recently moved my work machine from Windows to Linux and chose Debian Trixie + KDE Plasma for the stability. The advice is that if stability is your priority, you should try to avoid breaking Debian. I understand that adding third-party sources can cause dependencies conflicts, and must be avoided at all costs. I also understand that Flatpaks, AppImages, Snaps, and Docker/Podman images are safe because they don’t interfere with the system dependencies. So far, so good. What I don’t understand is what happens with other ways of installing software (eg .deb, tarballs).

Hello, I am writing this because this topic was at first a question I had and I couldn’t find an answer to it, information about it online is scarce and outdated so here I am to share what I have figured out; so

I was trying to think for a couple days on what can be done to make Linux phones a reality. Then I realized the EU is already pushing for more Open Source/ Linux to be made so why not make the most of it?

debian 13.1, yt-dlp 2025.10.14

I have always been tempted by Linux, and the past few times I have tried it, I spent days setting it up, only to be forced back to Windows.

Just wanna preface, I’m not trying to like attack Gentoo or anyone that uses it, I just wanna understand lol

Ideally, I would prefer to dual boot ( two different drives if necessary) Windows 11 and Linux Mint. From what I understand, the crap Microsoft is pulling now will prevent this. Is it because of bitlocker?

My kernel version is ‘6.8.0-87-generic’ and hers is ‘6.14.00-33-generic’. My brother, who uses CachyOS, has kernel version ‘6.17.1-2-cachyos’. So it makes a little sense that the kernel is different. Even though I always thought that there was just one kernel that all Linux versions use.