r/linuxquestions

The two most well-known NTFS drivers on Linux are ntfs-3g (FUSE driver, used for over a decade) and ntfs3 (kernel driver since 2021, replaced read-only ntfs kernel driver).

by on :

I usually always remember to -t ntfs-3g in my mount parameters. The Tuxera userspace driver is a lot more stable, imho.

Something about it bothered Linus and he merged ntfs3 into the kernel instead. I can't really remember what is was though.

This got me curious and I decided to research it a bit, but couldn't find a definitive answer. Does any of you know what bothered Torvalds about ntfs-3g?

Was it something licensing/bureaucracy-related or actually a technical reason?

I’m a young Linux user and I’ve been having a problem recently. Yesterday I was planning on designing the motherboard for a DIY game console, so I was downloading the proper software then I realize “My windows always look messy and unorganized“. This is a huge problem if you’re working on a project that requires more than one windows, so I decided to download swaywm. Whilst I was downloading Sway, my mother walked in on me with the terminal open and text flying by (normal sudo apt Install stuff) and told me to turn off the computer and not use it again because she didn’t like the terminal.

For context I’m using my grandmothers old IMac, which was bricked due to apple being greedy. All the stuff on the IMac was already off the computer and my mother was worried about me messing with said (inaccessible) data via the terminal I guess?

Does anyone know how to explain this situation to a tech illiterate person?

(I originally posted this on but it was removed)

Need help 🙂

Me and my father have had a dissagreement about Linux being safer than Windows, as my fathers experience with Linux has been apparently full of hackers stealing every scrunge of data possible because Linux has no saftey systems in place because its open source. Apparently, he had a friend that knew everything about Linux and could fix any Linux based problem. That friend could also get new Linux-based operating systems before they were released. He used Linux for both personal and business use. I personally think this story is a load of bull crap and that Linux is as safe if not safer than Microsoft because its not filled to the brim with spyware.

Edit: New paragraph with more info

According to him, hackers can just steal your data by only surfing the web or being online at all by coming through your internet. Me and him are both illinformed when it comes to Linux. Also, browser encryption doesent exsist on Linux browsers because https encription only works on Windows Google not Linux Google. I take proper internet security mesures but I do not know what mesures my father takes. All of the claims are his words, not mine.

He folks, I’m embarking on a journey to rip my dvds and Blu rays and was looking for advice for a Blu Ray drive that works under Linux. I’m rocking Fedora Workstation under gnome and was looking for advice on the hardware.

I may be really misunderstanding how the snapshots <> subvolume is defined here but here is the setup...

have happily many snapshots

decide that needed to restore and SOMETHING went wrong, everything froze

hard reset -> grub broken

so boot live USB -> '@' is missing, '@home' and 'timeshift-btrs' (all my snapshots) are of course still there

try to add a snapshot from timeshift-btrfs into the grub... but somehow it fails

AI says you cannot add snapshots, it must be directly '@' on the filesystem

fine, i don't have '@' anymore anyway, create new subvolume and rsync copy

boot successfully off the copy

Now the problem is I am booted into my 2 hour old snapshot (or a ghost copy of it put onto '@') and i can find my snapshot subvolumes but I can't figure out a way to use them as snapshots by either timeshift or btrfs-assistant.

Did i break something fundamentally?

I'm trying to run a command and it's reading back as word unexpected

Code: comments

Mobile device.

** How to un-RAID ( laptop configured with RAID 0 )

I’m using an Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-54) and I’m trying to plan a clean setup that lets me move toward Linux while still keeping Windows available.

Laptop specs:

• Intel i5-9300H

• GTX 1660 Ti

• 16 GB RAM

• Storage: 2× SATA SSDs (512 GB + 512 GB)

What I want:

• Keep Windows for compatibility (games, some software).

• Install Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, or another recommendation).

• I’m exploring how un- RAID 0 , but I’m not sure if it even makes sense on a laptop versus a standard dual-boot setup.

I’m comfortable reinstalling everything from scratch if needed. The goal is a stable setup that lets me gradually rely more on Linux without losing Windows access.

Looking for advice from people who’ve tried unRAID and done clean dual-SSD Windows/Linux laptop setups.

atatched images for more laptop spec/info

RAID: 
Disk Management: 

Its my understanding that programs can get access to kernel space by installing themselves as drivers (makes sense, actual drivers likely require the privilege to control hardware) - I'm assuming drivers on linux also have access to kernel space - so why cant an anti-cheat just install itself as a driver, in the same way it does on windows? Just curious about the inner workings

So I am getting a laptop soon and I want to have Linux on it since I don't need all the compatibility for certain programs that windows has unlike on my main desktop.

I know it is highly debated and debatable, and that there is no "right" answer, but what is the best distro for beginners? I wouldn't really do any gaming (except maybe Roblox, since that is probably all it could handle anyway lol) and would mostly be used for browsing and writing.

Obviously there's Mint and Ubuntu, but I would like something else, not like Arch but something.

I wanna customize it, (like modifying the iso ofc) like change splash screen image and the name (not to share just for personal use) just for the fun of it, and I know you can do it on really any distro but it seems like other distros might be better for doing stuff like that.

If it matters the laptop is running some 8th gen intel cpu, not sure much else about it, its physically a beefy boy (getting it as like a hand me down from a family member)

What is the best alternative for notepad++ for linux machines? My favourite feature of notepad++ is its ability to autosave all tabs (even if some of them not saved to disk yet) and can automatically restore all of them after unexpected crash of some sort. Is there any text editors have this exact feature?

Hi! I just recently got back a laptop from my parents that I used to use in highschool (Dell Inspiron 15 3000) and I wanted to use it for mainly streaming(videos, movies, etc.) and simple browsing. I'm mainly a Windows 11 user, I know it gets it's hate but I prefer the UI. But installing either Windows 11 and Windows 10(the OS the laptop originally came with) has the CPU (Intel Celeron N4020 1.10ghz) nearly capped at 100% and the laptop is chuggy. Knowing the CPU is pretty crappy I want to try and put Linux on it. My dad had put Linux MX on it before I tried throwing Windows 11 on it, but I did notice the computer didn't feel slow with Linux.

To sum it up though, I'm looking to see if there's a version of Linux that would:

• Run smoothly with the mentioned CPU

• Would be relatively user friendly to someone used to Windows 10/11(will accept a mild learning curve if needed)

• that would be best suited for video streaming and daily browsing.

Also for a browser I mainly use Opera GX but I know GX doesn't have a Linux version so if possible browser suggestions would be extremely delightful.

Thank you all!

For me, deleting a file didn’t free disk space because a process was still holding it open.

At first it felt broken — later it made perfect sense.

Have to be honest I can't actually give much useful information here since I have no idea where to even start with it. I'm on an arch derivative (Garuda) that's up to date and everything, but other than that I have no idea what information is relevant here.

Basically it's what the title says, for some reason my system has a persistent "Generic X-Box pad" at /dev/input/event7, and I have no idea why. I've noticed it for a while now but always just ignored it, but now I think it's causing an actual problem because when I launch a game via steamlink only one of my controllers can be picked up at any given time. (and I think the game can't read the other one because it's listening on the phantom controller)

It's not in lsusb, I've checked my bluetooth connections and deleted ALL game controllers there (including disconnected ones!) and all I can reliably tell is that in KDE system settings if I go to the 'Game Controller' tab I see one entry for "Generic X-Box pad (/dev/input/event7)" where it has zero axis or button inputs going (everything is either " - " or "0"), it's "Device type" is "Game Controller", it's "Controller type" is "unknown", and it's "Connection Type" is "Unknown".

Yeah, like I said, I got absolutely nothing to work from here. If I could even just get an application name or something that's associated with it that'd help massively, but I can't find anything out about thisa thing other than that it exists even though by all known laws of computation it shouldn't.

So, I'm on Linux about a year an a half, and I heard many times that systemd is trash and we should avoid Linux distros with systems, why? Is not like is proprietary software, right?

I have a logitech g510 which has an extra set of keys, G1-G18. G1-G12 behave like F1-F12, and G13-G18 just type 1-6 when pressed. When using xev in the terminal, If I press G13 it gives the exact same keycode as if I pressed 1, which looks like this:

KeyPress event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x6000001,

root 0x1dc, subw 0x0, time 1775021, (963,998), root:(1093,1192),

state 0x10, keycode 10 (keysym 0x31, 1), same_screen YES,

XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (31) "1"

XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (31) "1"

XFilterEvent returns: False

I want to assign G1-G18 different keycodes so I can use them as hotkeys.

I installed G510s which lets me change the keyboard colors. Its supposed to let me assign macros but it doesn't work, it saves macros but when you hit the key to use it nothing happens, I'm sure its because its expecting the G buttons to have different keycodes.

We all start somewhere.

Mine was breaking permissions and not understanding why sudo didn’t fix it.

What was your first Linux mistake, and what did it teach you?

I have a few large external hard drives I use for photo and video backup. There's decades of stuff. The drives are NTFS. I've got a new 6tb backup drive. With Linux moving to the #1 OS slot, I'm debating formatting this drive with exFAT. Any thoughts pro or con?

It's a funny thing to ask, but I'd like to know why is it that running multiple applications and switching between them on Linux is A LOT smoother and more fluid than doing it on Windows? I'm currently running a lot of heavy apps and a very demanding game on background, and whenever I press the Super Key I can switch to any of those heavy applications instantly! I could NEVER do It on Windows without the system freezing for some time.

I used to think my hardware was slow, but since I switched to Linux I feel my computer faster than never before! Why is it?

Why is multitasking way smoother on Linux than it is on Windows?

My system is an i7 7700k and a GTX 1070, with 16gb of 3200mhz DDR4 CL16. On windows it was a pain to do multitask with my i7, but on Linux this guy is shining like it did back in 2017

Fairly new to Linux, but overall pretty tech-savy. I was aware before using Linux that there are compatibility issues with Linux and some kernel based anti-cheat in games.

Thankfully, none of the games that I currently play have anti cheat issues on Linux, but it's something that's still on my mind as I get used to running linux-only on my main gaming rig.

So what's the outlook on this issue, and where does the responsibility lie? Is it something that Linux developers may be able to work around/fix in the future? Or is it entirely on the developers? More confusing is that some games seem to use the same anti-cheat software (e.g. easy anti-cheat) but sone are supported but others are not. It being a kernel based issue makes me think that there is very little that Linux developers can do, but 5-10 years ago you'd have said the same thing about running games in general, at least to the extent we have it now.

So what does the future look like? Are there projects in the works on the Linux side? Are there anti-cheat developers working on better support? Is it entirely down to game developers and their implementation? Are we stuck hoping that the steam machine 2 can generate enough pressure on game/anti-cheat developers to offer better support?​

I don't believe I installed anything new to cause this but when I restart my computer I now get a message each time asking for super user permission. Here are pictures of 2 error messages

It seems suspicious because the file keeps changing names, and the location is `/bin/sh /tmp with a space after the sh. I can't locate this folder or file and am not sure how to begin figuring this out or fixing it.

Hello everyone,

I am currently running CachyOS on my ASUS Vivobook X1504VA (purchased a year ago). Since day one, I haven't been able to get the internal network drivers working.

Because of this, I have been using a USB WiFi dongle for the past year just to get online. While the dongle works, I’m really hoping to finally get the internal card recognized so I can free up a USB port and get better speeds.

System Details:

Model: **Vivobook_ASUSLaptop X1504VA**

OS: **CachyOS** (Latest)

`lspci` Output:

I’m hoping that since a year has passed, there might be a new kernel module, firmware, or a specific dkms package in the AUR that supports this hardware now.

Ideally, even their config files shouldn't be simply in ~/.config or ~/.steam but in the folder of the separate environment.

Here we go again with network drivers. What a way to start this year.

Today I decided to try installing Debian 13 w/ Xfce4 on an old STi IS1412 laptop, for "fun". It's currently dualbooting Windows 10 alongside with Debian, and I also had Mint on it a few months ago.
Xfce's network manager (alongside rfkill) say that the Wi-Fi adaptor (Atheros AR242x) is disabled/blocked by hardware. I've tried many different combinations of Fn+Fkey, including rebooting, running sudo rfkill unblock all, making iwlist scan the network; nothing worked. From what I know, the AR242x has had kernel drivers since 2008, so I don't get why this isn't working. It's totally fine on Windows.

5th time.

That moment when something suddenly stops working on Linux.

What was the last issue that made you say this?

htop gives a cleaner, interactive view of processes compared to top.

Do you use it regularly, or do you prefer something else?

I have sort of given up web search. So much slop! Any sites I can trust? I'm on Linux Mint.

Been through some distro hopping, currently settled with Mint because it's the only distro that can natively read the OneDrive folder I have on an NTFS partition. All other distros I tried stumble on the "invalid reparse point" error.

On one distro I spent some time fiddling with the NTFS-3G without success.

Currently trying out Zorin OS and the same error.

I don't want to sync or anything (I use RClone for that), I just want to be able to read the OneDrive folder just like I can in Mint.

What does Mint have/do different from all other distros?

I learned that earlier Linux versions(<=2.x) simply doesn't allow to overwrite the already running executable. But in modern Linux we can overwrite it. There is a concept called demand paging. So, if we have very large executable file then it opens a door that the whole code doesn't loaded in virtual memory(i.e some part of it got loaded and rest might be loaded if process demands).

But again, if there is any change in file it got different inode(but same name) and unlinked the old one. Already running process still access the old one; how? If this possible then I guess there must be some where the old one's code resides to support the demand paging. Am I right?

Hey guys, hope you're all doing well.

I have a few questions, but let me share my experience first so you have the full picture.

I own an HP laptop with an SSD and an i3-6100U processor. I wanted to switch from Windows to Linux and was excited about the freedom it offers. I started with Linux Mint, but honestly, I didn't like it—I tried it for two days and then moved to Arch. 😂

I know it's not the usual recommendation for a new user, but my friends helped me install it. In reality, I didn't love it. It was okay, but it required a lot of attention and constant problem-solving. I thought, "No big deal, I'll spend a few days setting it up and then use it hassle-free." But it wasn't as smooth as I expected, so I left it.

I then tried EndeavourOS (based on Arch), and it was good—the best so far. But I eventually went back to Windows because:

1. My laptop is weak and has no dedicated GPU. When gaming on Windows, depending on the game, I usually get around 30 FPS, which is fine and I have no problem with that. However, on Linux, the performance drops by about 5%.

This means I lose roughly 5 frames (sometimes more, sometimes less).

Since I only get 30 FPS to begin with, every single frame is crucial for me to keep the game smooth. I also believe this is because the Windows drivers are simply better optimized for my hardware than the Linux ones.

2. Some essential applications I need don't run on Linux. 3. The biggest issue for me was battery life. On pure Arch, it lasted about 2، hours (with just browsing or light use, no gaming). EndeavourOS was better, around 3 hours, which was also better than Mint. For reference, on Windows with the same usage patterns, the battery lasts a lot longer. I've heard you need to install power management tools/TLP to improve it.

So, I've decided to dual-boot Windows and Linux on the same SSD. I've seen tutorials and my friends do it without issues. To cut a long story short:

1. Which distro is best for a laptop? I want something lightweight, good, and practical. Not a fan of Ubuntu (not for any technical reason, just personal preference).

2. Is it safe to have two OSs on one SSD? I'm worried it might cause problems, weaken performance, or damage the laptop.

3. Will dual-booting hurt my battery? Since each OS uses power differently and for different durations, could this cause the battery to wear out faster or get damaged?

These are my main concerns. I don't have deep hardware expertise, just general knowledge, so I wanted to ask to put my mind at ease.

My planned use is:

· Linux: Browsing, learning programming, work, and general tinkering. · Windows: Exclusively for gaming and Windows-only applications.

That's it. Sorry for the long post—I just wanted to explain what's on my mind. Thanks in advance, everyone.

P.S. Sorry if my English isn't perfect; I'm using AI to help translate and write this.

Hi, this doesn't seem to be a major issue for the data or the drive but basically I burned a SD card image onto a larger SD card and then used GParted to extend the partition to the end leaving 4 MB at the front. However, now when I unmount the SD card and try to remount it without pointing it to a directory, fstab says it can't find it. If I set a directory it works just fine. Just curious why this is, it automounts perfectly on insertion.

I want to download a Linux distribution (not a primary one) to experiment with and learn from. I would appreciate your recommendations for good distributions for this purpose.

💻 System Specifications Operating System: Windows 10 Processor (CPU): Intel® Pentium® B950 @ 2.10 GHz Architecture: 64-bit RAM: 6.00 GB DDR3 Graphics: Integrated graphics (no dedicated GPU / no dedicated VRAM) Storage: ~585 GB total hard disk space Storage Used: ~139 GB Storage Free: ~446 GB (approx.) Disk Type: HDD Device Type: Laptop

⭐ Which Linux Distro should I download based on the specification provided

⭐ I am a complete beginner with no prior knowledge of Linux and Linux Distros kindly provide guidance about how to download? From where to download

⭐ Do I need to backup my data from laptop for distro download??

Some say it's the year of the Linux desktop, but for laptop users who want UNIX and good battery life there's no other option but Macintosh.

So what's holding back battery life on Linux? Will a transition to ARM solve this? Is it an unsurmountable problem due to the huge hardware configuration space? Is this being worked on and improving over time, or is this a lower priority than other things? In fact, who even takes responsibility for this, kernel devs or the distros?

Edit: some commenters do not realise how much worse battery life is on Linux as they don't use mac. Reasonable battery life for Linux is vs mac . Let's not compare to the flaming pile of trash that is Windows.

What made you decide to switch to Linux, whether it be a single moment or event, or it be a series of events, or rollout that rubbed you the wrong way? I wanna know. Go on about it as long as you can.

Edit: thank you for all your responses.

Preferably one with an advanced text search option that provides me a list of all matches instead of having through them one at a time.

Hey guys, currently I am seeking for a fingerprint sensor for my desktop setUp. I have found many but I don't know which one of these works well with Linux. Does it even work with any Linux Distro?
Thx in advance!

Like the title says. Currently running zorin os but this issue has been a problem on every distro i've tried. my capture card is an EVGA XR1 Lite and on windows it's pretty easy to just listen to it by going into the control panel and clicking listen to this device. On Linux however, i've had nothing but trouble and can't find/get a straight answer for the life of me. I have tried qwpgraph or whatever it's called but the audio comes in crackly, ive tried pavucontrol (thankyou chatgpt) and that was useless. should I just give up? I dual boot windows so it isn't a major issue but it's still annoying. sorry for the mispelling

Turns out trying to make your media center on Linux demands a lot of software and troubleshooting. You can automate many things, but there are a lot of options, and I don't know which is best.

Right now, I have Plex, Sonarr, Bazarr, and Jackett. I'm not happy with Jackett because it is too manual and seems to have few options. Most trackers are private, and getting invited seems harder than becoming a Mason.

Every time I ask ChatGPT for suggestions, it says something different.

I've got an AMD RX 7600 graphics card, and it drives 2 monitors at 1440p160, and my 4K TV in a tri monitor setup. AM5 motherboard, Ryzen 5 7800X3D, 128GB RAM, I'll give more info if needed

I've tried updating drivers in Linux, but that didn't help. Please help

Hello,

Very recently I have transitioned onto Linux mint and been loving the OS so far, but I had an extra ssd in my laptop which when I bought I was on windows and got the impression that NTFS was the fastest and the best storage system type but now on Linux opening and using that ssd has been forcing me from also a program to format it to ext4 type.

But why is it so important to use that type on the ssd? Why do they differ so much depending on the OS? On Linux the NTFS ssd is slower as well and in this case Unreal Engine 5 didn't want to touch a project folder that was on the NTFS ssd. After backing up the project folders and other folders and formatting it to ext4, now UE5 I think functions properly with having to touch the project folders there.

I currently use Windows 10 on my desktop computer. I made a bootable persistent Ubuntu USB using Rufus.

When I boot up from the Ubuntu USB on my desktop it then asks me if I want to install it or just test it out. I thought I had installed it on the USB? I am worried that if I install it, it will write itself over the desktop hard drive and I'll lose windows.....is there a way to prevent against this....?

I have always been very annoyed by slightest judder/lag in graphics. When I see windows open I want them to smoothly open up and not load mostly, then stall and finally do the last bit.

I have seen this improvement on Raspberry Pi 5, Intel 7th gen i3 laptop, Intel Haswell i3 and a Ryzen 5 (less since it is a lot faster than the others).

I am curious, what in kernel 6.18 did this wonderful thing to my computers?

I am running Fedora 43 and I noticing that if I open a file, it gets first copied pretty much in full to my local machine before starting to play.

My videos are located on a openmediavault providing the share as an NFS and CIFS volume. I try to open it via the NFS volume, but it does seem to make no difference if I switch to CIFS.

I also checked if this behaviour is different in different players, but both VLC (which I prefer) and mpv work the same way here. That being said: I use both as a Flatpak version since I did not get nonfree ffmpeg to work with non flatpak versions of either ...

Just to give some perspective as to why this bothers me:

A file with ~50 MB opens rather quickly, but since my videos are often bigger than 1GB, this quickly adds up...

Once the vid starts playing, everything is fine and working, there is no delay when skipping or changing speed... I also see no network activity after that (looking at it through btop, the net graph is bored) I also don't think it is completely in memory only, because my VLC is only at 1.8GB while the example file is at around 4.2GB)

And lastly: I did not have this issue running Windows and VLC which is infuriating since it is one of the few issues left after I switched ~9 months ago ^^

Edit:

I forgot my quesiton ... Is there a way to change this?

I have a laptop with an intel igpu and a dedicated nvidia gpu in a hybrid setup if it works as intended, where the igpu is powering the main laptop screen and an external monitor is powered by the dgpu with video encoding in a browser done by the igpu. I've had major issues with this in the past on Linux dating back to 2023, mainly on x cause wayland didn't support nvidia at all with an external monitor. I think I tried everything I spent weeks diagnosing the issue just to throw in the towel but I'm determined to get this fixed. My question is has this issue been fixed considering its 2026? Im aware x is not seeing much if any development so has wayland progressed enough that my setup is viable? Both my displays are 144hz as advertised but technically my monitor is 144.01hz so unsure if this will pose an issue due to differences in refresh rate. I'm not looking to game, just have a working hybrid gpu setup with an external monitor as on windows.

I would like to examine the source code of programs like wc or ls, but I’m not sure where to find it. I’m trying to gain a better understanding of how they work behind the scenes. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I remember when I was really young, my dad bought a Dell PC that came with Ubuntu. He always called it “Windows,” so I thought everyone used it. I didn’t even know what a computer was yet.

He used to set everything up for me, and I would watch cartoon on it. also remember Firefox and the old Ubuntu interface — it feels familiar to me even now, like I’ve always known it, even when I tried modern Ubuntu later.

Hi all — I’m trying to understand the current state of Linux on Snapdragon X Elite, specifically on the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x.

I’ve seen a lot of mixed info, so I’m looking for real-world experience from people who’ve actually tried installing Linux on these ARM laptops.

My main questions:

• Is it currently viable to run Linux on this machine?

• Is dual-boot (Windows + Linux) doable, or is it still painful / risky?

• If full Linux is possible, which distro works best right now?

• What works vs what’s still broken (Wi-Fi, suspend, GPU acceleration, speakers, battery life)?

My background:

• Comfortable Linux user (used Mint and Pop!_OS on x86)

• I like this laptop’s form factor and would love to use Linux as a daily driver if it’s realistic

If it’s not ready yet, that’s fine — I’d also appreciate thoughts on when Linux on Snapdragon X Elite is expected to be reasonably stable.

Any first-hand experiences or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks.

Issues with BIOS / Linux

If I add to /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10 modprobe.blacklist=ucsi_acpi,typec_ucsi"

It seems plugging my phone into USB does not cause issues now. Two Pixel phones, one the 5 and the other 7 Pro, were locking up in Chromium/ Youtube shorts, mostly. It had locked up on in BIOS too. It can lock up away from just Youtube and Chromium. The USB C SSD does not lock the system up. Should I return this laptop for warranty through Best Buy? Everything works 100% (the Pixel phone charges or is a disk) with Microsoft Windows 11 Home.

Also, it has locked up twice while using the BIOS, changing settings.

Hi. Or do you just let the OS take care of it?

I have been a long term user of MacOS for years. Main reason why I came to MacOS years ago was I grew tired of Windows 11 and Microsoft in general. However lately I've found myself annoyed with Apple's restrictions. I can't run some games I want to play on it due to the fact that I have an M4 which isn't compatible with Dual booting with either Windows or Linux natively on bare metal. I can't install some apps and stuff in VM's due to the fact that it needs the ARM versions of everything which not every app, etc is supported, and my hard drive is so small I can't do anything too big with it, and I don't want to buy an external drive just for VM.

So I am thinking about transferring from MacOS to Linux, by possibly buying a mini PC and moving to it.

I've tried Ubuntu and Linux Mint in the past. Not a fan of Linux Mint, however Ubuntu is a possibility due to the ease of use but I am open to discussing other versions of Linux. I've played around with Ubuntu a bit in VM and I do like the layout of it, but some of the limitations of using it in the VM is notable.

One thing I would need to do, if I am to switch systems at some point in the future is have a way to transfer all my passwords, files, etc to the new system. How would I do that? What advice would people here have for me?

I've been wanting to switch to linux on my main laptop but I do need to draw, I currently use photoshop but I know that's not possible on Linux so I'm probably gonna switch. Are there any apps for linux that are actually good and somewhat professional?

I'm relatively new to Linux, having only switched a few months ago. I see a lot of posts and YouTube videos of people reviving old laptops and Imacs with Linux. I have 2 old laptops at home that I'm now considering digging out and bringing to life.

But what do you do with them afterwards? The only things I can think of are a dedicated low-distraction writing tool, or a media box of some sort?

I’m on an original Intel-based Framework 13 running Ubuntu. I’m fairly comfortable with Linux, mostly from a developer/admin angle rather than the consumer desktop side.

I’ve hit a weird problem with streaming DRM-protected movies in browsers. The issue is specific to YouTube Movies. Here’s the situation:

• Prime Video and Netflix both work fine on Linux for me. Their DRM flows don’t seem to cause trouble.

• But any purchased movie from YouTube (the ones tied to my Google account) gets capped at 480p.

• This happens in every browser I’ve tried.

  • My main browser is Brave with Widevine enabled.

  • Chrome, Chromium variants, and Firefox all behave the same way.

• I don’t get higher quality options at all when DRM is involved on YouTube. Normal YouTube videos are fine.

A few things that confuse me:

• I’m not sure if this is a missing system component, codec, or configuration that YouTube specifically depends on.

• It feels odd because Android has no problem playing the same purchased YouTube movies at full resolution, and Android is also Linux-based.

• So I’m trying to understand whether this is:

  • a Linux-wide limitation,

  • a browser-level DRM restriction,

  • something that needs to be installed or configured,

  • or just how YouTube handles DRM on desktop Linux.

Before I start digging in deeper or reinstalling anything, I wanted to ask if anyone understands why YouTube DRM behaves like this on Linux, and whether there’s a real fix or workaround, or if we’re just stuck with 480p for purchased movies.

Edit 1: would somehow virtualization into Windows help? What about SOMEHOW virtualizing just the browser in a Windows to run the vids?

Edit 2: So this is seemingly more about the desktop Linux side having a pathway to TEE to facilitate the DRM functions of Widevine L1 rather than something solvable by a User-Agent switch

Edit 3: Please limit this to technical responses only to the scope of the issue at hand. I am not looking for opinions on YouTube being bad or promotion of piracy or windows bad etc etc

I'm sitting here, yet again, wasting hours of my day because of the mkfs.ntfs defaults.

Who decided that a full zeroing pass should be the default? I cannot see any sane reason for this decision. Who reviewed this lunacy, and what on earth were they smoking at the merge party?

Every other filesystem tool, be it ext4, xfs, even vfat, does a quick format by default. It is the sane approach. Why does mkfs.ntfs write zeroes to the entire device unless you remember the "-f" flag.

The result is predictable: people run what should be a thirty-second command and unexpectedly lose half their day or more. You can't even interrupt it cleanly without risking leaving the disk in an unrecoverable state.

This isn't complicated. Defaults should match user expectations and standard behavior across tools. This default for mkfs.ntfs is just stupid.

I know that distribution questions are asked often, but despite doing my own research, I still don't really know which one would be the best for my use case.

My desktop PC is primarily for gaming, but sometimes I'm using it to get some things done. From now on when I say that distribution is "stable", I mean it's not going to break on it's own or after an update without me purposefully breaking it.

My requirements and preferences:

• I'm not the most familiar with Linux, but I'm power user and I'm not scared of technology. But I also want to get things done, and I don't want to waste time fixing something that shouldn't have broke in the first place. So I want stable distribution. Sometimes articles online describe distribution as "for advanced users", and it's hard to tell if they mean "it's customizable" or "you ain't gonna boot it after first update".

• Since it's for gaming, I need new drivers. This probably means that LTS distributions are out of the picture.

• I don't like GNOME since UI is too simple and it hides too much (like icons of software running in the background).

• I don't know what to think about atomic systems. If you can do everything you can on Windows/normal Linux distribution without issues, it should be fine.

• I have AMD GPU, so issues with Nvidia support are not a problem.

Now about the distributions themselves (those that seem to be decent candidates):

• SteamOS - I was thinking about getting SteamOS once it's widely available, but I value freedom, and it requires Steam account to use. I have Steam account, but I don't want an OS tied to it.

• Bazzite - people say it works just fine. I don't feel the most comfortable with the "gamer" aesthetics attached to it (like the gamer PC background in login menu that doesn't seem to be editable), and I'm very nitpicking right now, but I really dislike Bazaar's icon, it looks like some bloatware appstore at first glance.

• Aurora - looks like Bazzite without the gamer aesthetics attached.

• CachyOS - I don't know how stable it is. I've tried to install it on VM and it never went through (1 crash during installation, 2 black screens after installation). Arch based so might not be stable.

• Nobara - reviews seem to be positive, but it's more niche than Cachy and Bazzite. There are claims updates can create issues, so not perfectly stable.

• Fedora Workstation, Fedora Kinoite - I've heard that Fedora likes to break after an update (not completely, but it requires tinkering). I don't know if Kinoite is better (since it's atomic).

• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed - quite niche, but I haven't seen a single negative review, apparently very stable despite having access to new software.

Edit

While I don't switch from Windows yet, the distributions that seem the best to me right now are:

• Fedora/Fedora Atomic - highly popular so easier to debug, and since it's immutable it should be harder to break and fix if it does break

• Pop!_OS - despite being LTS it does get driver updates more often than Ubuntu LTS

• Aurora - less popular but still immutable

• Bazzite - Aurora but specifically targets gamers

• NixOS - currently it's the most stable Linux distribution, but not everyone has time to code their own system. Once it has robust GUI, this might be literally one of the best Linux distributions.

Bonjour à tous,

Je développe une infrastructure d'automatisation pour exécuter des applications Android (APK) avec Appium. J'ai d'abord essayé Redroid (Docker), mais j'ai rencontré des problèmes de stabilité (plantages constants) et des difficultés à gérer plusieurs conteneurs avec des sessions Appium simultanées.

Je cherche maintenant à exécuter Waydroid dans des conteneurs LXC sur un hôte Debian (16 Go de RAM).

Mes questions spécifiques :

1. Isolation LXC : Est-il possible d'exécuter plusieurs sessions Waydroid simultanées (une par conteneur LXC) de manière correctement isolée ? J'ai besoin que chaque instance ait un identifiant Android/identifiant d'appareil unique pour éviter toute détection.

2. Ressources : Comparé à Redroid, Waydroid dans LXC est-il plus gourmand en RAM/CPU pour une configuration sans interface graphique ? 3. Connexion Appium : Quelqu'un a-t-il réussi à connecter Appium à plusieurs instances Waydroid exécutées en parallèle ?

3. LXC nu : Existe-t-il une alternative plus légère pour exécuter un APK dans un conteneur LXC Linux standard (avec une couche de compatibilité) sans le processus de démarrage complet d'Android, ou le système d'exploitation Android complet est-il indispensable ?

Tout retour d'expérience de personnes exploitant une ferme de serveurs Android sous Linux serait très apprécié.

Merci !

What software are you typically using daily/weekly for anything and everything (web browsing, playing video games, watching movies, listening to music, and so on)?

I have an issue with Firewalld on Almalinux 9.
It seems the ip's I have set to reject or drop are still able to access the http server.

This is my firewall-cmd --list-all

public (active)
  target: default
  icmp-block-inversion: no
  interfaces: ens3
  sources: 87.253.155.96/27
  services: cockpit dhcpv6-client ssh
  ports: 20/tcp 21/tcp 25/tcp 53/tcp 80/tcp 110/tcp 143/tcp 443/tcp 587/tcp 993/tcp 995/tcp 2703/tcp 35000-35999/tcp 9080/tcp 10000/tcp 2222-2232/tcp 12998/tcp 3000/tcp 3000/udp
  protocols:
  forward: yes
  masquerade: no
  forward-ports:
  source-ports:
  icmp-blocks:
  rich rules:
        rule priority="-32766" family="ipv4" source address="155.94.163.245" drop
        rule family="ipv4" source address="155.94.163.245" reject
        rule family="ipv4" destination address="213.163.75.188" drop
        rule family="ipv4" source address="213.163.75.188" reject
        rule family="ipv4" source address="77.63.50.212" reject
        rule family="ipv4" source address="83.82.73.111" reject

I added them with the command:

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-rich-rule='rule family="ipv4" source address="yourip" reject'

or

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-rich-rule='rule family="ipv4" source address="yourip" drop'

After that i did ofcourse a reload: firewall-cmd --reload

So the ip's are listed as drop/reject, but when I test it (for my safe test) I still can access the website's on that server from those ip's... what am i missing?

Thanks!

I have Windows installed on an SSD with 2 partitions. Is it okay to install antiX on the second partition of the same SSD, or is it safer/better to install it on a separate HDD/SSD instead? Also is it compulsory to make a swap partition?

the WiFi is INDEED connected and yet i cannot connect to the site. this happens everytime upon boot. although the wifi is connected it doesnt work.

everytime when i boot up my laptop (Fedora 43) i have to perform

sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

for it to actually work.

i don't really know why this is happening. i have been dealing with this issue for almost a week now and it has now become a habit to restart the networkmanager whenever i log in.

two things i found interesting was that.

1. once i tried performing ping when i DID NOT restart the NetworkManager. so theoretically (i still am not sure), it should have not worked. mind you, i still cannot use the browser. but then, i was met with this.

[bababoi@fed43]~% ping -c 3 8.8.8.8

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=119 time=17.3 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=119 time=22.2 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=119 time=17.9 ms

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 17.325/19.134/22.178/2.164 ms

as you can see, one might think the problem is with the DNS. but i am too stupid to know what to do now.

2. i spun up a win11 vm through fedora boxes. i noticed that when on my actual machine i did restart the networkmanager and the internet does work there, inside the vm it told me no internet. before these issues, boxes identified my WiFi as ethernet. as it should. but ever since this problem, that has not been the case.

this is not an alarming problem. running one command upon login isn't too hard. but this is not normal and i cannot seem to identify what the problem is. i would like someone to help me here. thank you so much.

I am on cachyos rn but I think debian worked differently, not sure.

But the problem is when I open a manual the search only looks through the view not the entire manual.

I have checked 'No wrap' isn't on/checked, the search does wrap but only on the view not the hole document.

Is this an arch/cachyos thing?

How can I search the entire manual?

I have just watched a youtube video about Linux safety that comes with a standard out-of-the-box installation.

"This video delivers a brutal but honest verdict: for the average user, Linux security is a dangerous illusion. We expose how the very tools meant to protect — from iptables to LSM — are often too complex, too fragile, and architecturally outdated. It's not just about misconfigurations: it's about flawed design choices baked into the system. Security in Linux isn't automatic — it demands deep expertise. And that makes it inaccessible and unsafe for most."

Some arguments in the video and the last sentence I highlighted resonated with me. Unfortunatley the video does not offer solutions / advice for the average user - like me - to make Linux more secure.

Therefore I am asking this group what your advice would be for an average Linux user without deep expertise? What steps could I take to make my Linx system more secure that can be performed by someone like me who has no deep technical expertise.

^Options:

1. Troubleshooting & debugging

2. Automation & scripting

3. Security hardening

4. Cloud / container knowledge

If you think the most valuable Linux skill isn’t listed here, feel free to share it in the comments.

So I just switched over to PopOS after using Windows. And I like it but I have some gripes that maybe you guys can help me out with.

I am using the 24.04LTS Version that comes with the new Cosmic DE. I have a full AMD setup. Ryzen 7600 32GB RAM 1TB NVME RX 7800XT ASRock B650M Pro RS MB

1. FIXED the computer not fully shutting off by disabling PCIE Device Power On setting. That's the Wake on Lan. Not my PC fully turns off

2. Is there anyway when I lock my PC and enter my password I don't have to hit enter every time?

3. I might be dumb AF but how do I make a desktop icon? And also I have the trash on my desktop but how do I move it to anywhere I want like on windows?

4. Is there a way to get the windows peek on PopOS? I like being able to hover over an icon and it shows a preview of that window.

I have an old Raspberry Pi 3 lying around that I want to use as a streaming device. Basically just running firefox on it with output on my TV. Simple in theory.

Practically I have 2 big problems. I don't have a separate keyboard (and I'm not gonna buy one for a side project) which limits me to likes of SSH, RDP, and mouse-only. And since it only has some 900 MB of RAM it's not enough to run a conventional distro and firefox without it freezing. The simple solution of regular Raspberry Pi OS and opening firefox through its GUI failed because of that.

I've installed the Raspberry Lite OS and going through SSH, but I can't get X11 to work. I'm getting one error after another because of permission denied on tty0 and some canberra-gtk-module that fails to load. Using SSH and/or RDP from my Debian 13 laptop. And I'm unsure if that would work as intended even if it didn't throw errors. I'm open to better suggestions.

TLDR: All I need is a way to open firefox on the raspberry so that it outputs on my TV, without a separate keyboard. Ideally (optionally) being able to use my laptop's mouse remotely on the raspberry.

Is there any way to achieve that with the given constraints? TIA!

Edit: yes, I'm aware that the old thing is probably much too weak to run 1080p videos at 30 FPS. But I wanna give it a try anyway. The worst that can happen is nothing.

Hi everyone, I just moved to Linux, and I want to encrypt all my data until I log into my account, like bitlocker does.

It keeps my information secure to be stolen and I'm more calm about it, so, what's your advice???

I'm downloading a location now with -m -k and it is larger than I expected. I'd like to stop downloading more and get links converted of what's already there. How to do that?

As part of my attempts to investigate wget functionality I've tried to run, ctrl-c and run again in a several seconds with --continue - only for robots.txt it's written "The file is already fully retrieved; nothing to do.", other files gets downloaded again and again. Why? The site is rather static, I did ll index.html before and after re-try and the size is same, so why download it again and again?

in both /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/us and in /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose

you can see character codes being defined with words like exclam for !, or 5 for 5, or symbols like EuroSign for € or slash for /.

where are these words defined and how would i look up the short hand word for a unicode like U+2241 for the ≁ character, for instance?

i know i can just use the unicode by calling it as U2241, but knowing the word for it would be so much more readable.

There’s no right or wrong answer here.

When you start working on a Linux system, what do you usually do first?

• Open a GUI tool

• Open the terminal

And why?

Curious to hear how different people approach this.

For me, it depends on the task—but I usually open the terminal first to get a quick sense of the system.

SOLVED

I'm a doofus and didn't capitalize a B.

OG PROBLEM:

I made the following commands part of a script on Fedora 42 (Gnome 48) to back up my Gnome extensions and autostart settings:

sudo rsync -atc --delete /home/user/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/ /home/user/Documents/Various\ backups/extensions
sudo chmod -R 777 /home/user/Documents/Various\ backups/extensions

sudo rsync -atc --delete /home/user/.config/autostart/ /home/user/Documents/Various\ backups/autostart
sudo chmod -R 777 /home/user/Documents/Various\ backups/autostart

When I run the rsync commands I get errors:

rsync: [Receiver] mkdir "/home/user/Documents/Various backups/extensions" failed: No such file or directory (2)
rsync error: error in file IO (code 11) at main.c(791) [Receiver=3.4.1]
chmod: cannot access '/home/user/Documents/Various backups/extensions': No such file or directory
rsync: [Receiver] mkdir "/home/user/Documents/Various backups/autostart" failed: No such file or directory (2)
rsync error: error in file IO (code 11) at main.c(791) [Receiver=3.4.1]
chmod: cannot access '/home/user/Documents/Various backups/autostart': No such file or directory

Initially I thought this was due to the script being saved in another user's /home/ dir, but I copy-pasted the command to terminal and ran it directly, producing the same errors:

(bash) user@DrKnow4:~$ sudo rsync -ac --delete /home/user/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/ /home/user/Documents/Various\ backups/extensions 
[sudo] password for user: 
rsync: [Receiver] mkdir "/home/user/Documents/Various backups/extensions" failed: No such file or directory (2)
rsync error: error in file IO (code 11) at main.c(791) [Receiver=3.4.1]

Then I thought it was incorrect path spelling, and ran ll -th /home/user/Documents/Various\ Backups/extensions/ and ll -th /home/user/Documents/Various\ Backups/autostart/. No luck; those commands return the contents. I can tab-complete ~/auto to ~/autostart/ and ~/ext to ~/extensions with the ll -t command, but not rsync.

I've been poking around online and locally to try and figure this out but it's so far eluded me. For example; online search results suggest it's permission-based, but ll -th doesn't suggest restricted permissions, and neither does getfacl:

# file: home/user/Documents/Various Backups/extensions/
# owner: user
# group: user
user::rwx
group::r-x
other::r-x

(~/autostart/ looks the same)

Why would ls be able to see the directory, and not rsync and chmod?

I have a secondary PC that i use for hosting. It is using linux mint xcfe. I was doing a double nat because i had to, however i solved it by buying a tplink network switch (nothing was wrong i just didnt like doing double nat). At first everything just worked but suddenly after i set up my SSH and WOL to work outside of lan randomly everything stopped working. Ive tried so many things and reseted the settings of my linux device and router however nothing changed. I can use my main pc with network switch without problems but when i try to use my secondary one i can not connect to internet. Sometimes i can ping the router sometimes there is 75% packet loss sometimes i cant at all. Ive tried fixing it with gemini which ive set it up in my terminal so it does the settings by itself but it could not fix it. Main pc is win 11 and msi b650m-p mb, secondary one is linux mint xcfe with esonic h81DA (100mb/s ethernet). I am about to go crazy pls help i am trying to fix it for 2 days straight.

Hello all, hope you're well. Straight to the point, trying to install linux, tried to install CachyOS, then Omarchy, then Mint Cinnamon which actually installed without failing, but PC isn't seeing the SSD that it is installed on within the BIOS, won't let me go to the boot menu (F11) in this case.

My motherboard is a MSI Z77, CPU Intel i7-3770 @ 3.40GHz, 16GB RAM, 1070 Nvidia GPU, Kingston 500GB SSD, BIOS version E7798IDO (Version1.389).

I tried switching back and forth from Legacy and the UEFI option regarding boot options in the BIOS, there isn't immediately a CSM option to disable, haven't found a Secure boot to disable, I suspect it is integrated into the option which checks for Win 8 Logo detection, which is how I was able to even get into the Linux ISO loaded USBs/Live Linux USB environment.

I am stumped after trying these changes that AI supplied me with (foolish? perhaps), but I have given in and have now come to pester people for help and mercy.

Im seriously considering switching to Linux OS on my desktop PC. I currently use Windows 11 and I honestly hate it, especially the bloat. I also have heard a lot things about Windows selling personal data to third parties companies, like AI databases. Is there really any downsides to having Linux?

Edit: Now I'm actually planning to install Linux, do I use mint? I mainly wanna play games more efficiently.

Lenovo S145 Ideapad

4GB Ram (possibly upgradeable to 8GB but will be running at 4GB for foreseeable future - budget is too tight right now - previous owner may have damaged the single dimm slot, so im using the onboard 4gb)

120GB SSD 2.5” SATA + 240GB M.2

Intel Pentium Silver N5000 (4 Cores 4 Threads)

When i received it, it was barely able to run windows 10 (which i kinda loath anyway), so I installed Lubuntu. Lubuntu is very Spartan, and there are functions i miss using. Considering the specs of the S145, iv been thinking that i could probably run something a bit better on it?

Iv been considering the following flavours for

Xubuntu Minimal– never used it before, but i am told it is the next level up, and probably more familiar to me, as i have used Mint in the past

Xubuntu Desktop– Told this is very close to Mint in terms of Out-Of-The-Box functionality – i am heavily leaning this way

Mint XFCE – Obviously the preferred option but concerned i will struggle with the spec – When i have used mint previously it was on far better spec-ed machines so

Happy to receive recommendations

Sincere thanks –

The truth is, I want to use Linux on a laptop I'm buying next week. Windows 11 is terrible and has a lot of bugs. I need this laptop to last me at least six or seven years for university, and I want to start with Linux as a beginner. I've had almost no experience with Linux other than once when a friend showed me a personal Linux project. Could you give me some advice on how to start using it or what Linux distributions are good for a beginner?

Theres LibreOffice, StarOffice, and OpenOffice. I havent ran without a Windows machine for ages, and I'm finally at the point where I'm making Linux my primary OS. The only thing I havent installed is an office tool. I've used all of the aforementioned apps in the past. But having not used them regulary, I dont know what is considered the current common tool.

I have a setup where I have root on a ssd and /home on an encrypted (ecryptfs) hdd.

After numerous years I'm thinking of upgrading my storage and replacing the old drive entirely (will probably use as an external backup).

I've considered clonezilla but don't like the idea of being w/o use of my PC for that long. It's a pretty big HDD (6TB) so idk how long it will take. That said if that's the less headachy route, sure. That said, the new drive will be substantially bigger and from what I've read I'll have to expand the partition which might be an issue with ecryptfs? Someone please let me know if I'm wrong.

So what suggestions does the forum have for this process?

I'm considering just rsync'ing the drive but not sure that it would be encrypted. Could I run ecryptfs on the new drive, rsync my /home to the new drive, and set /home to the new drive on a fresh install and expect it to play nice? or would having two .ecryptfs folders clash? I imagine this route won't cause issues with permissions and owners since it would be set up under my current profile?

Finding ways to simplify: I'm pretty sure I know where my 'own' data (videos, photos, documents, etc) are so it's no fuss to move those over. I'm mostly concerned with the data/settings of installed programs, like browser profiles. I remember doing something with a .bin file during a previous move but that was nearly 10 years ago.

Considering just installing the new drive, encrypting the new drive, setting as home with a fresh install, and moving /home over piece by piece.

Hi Linux community.

As most people, I have primarily used Windows in my lifetime, but lately I'm more seriously considering switching to a Linux based system. Before I do that though, I wanted to get some info/feedback from you people to start this journey as informed as I can be.

The main workloads for this system would be internet access (to manage my life, finances, etc), some occasional gaming and some programming from time to time.

Some background on me: I've used Ubuntu Desktop for a few years (before 2010) and have some very limited experience with Mint. More recently I've been playing around with an Ubuntu server VM, running a couple of docker containers with tools for my workplace. I'm a programmer, so I'm not afraid of the terminal, but I like a nice UI just as much as the next guy.

My desktop pc is currently running Windows 10 and has a lot of software and date collected over the past 13 years. I want to make sure I don't loose any of my music, foto's and important documents while switching to a Linux distro (6TB of hard drive space).

The hardware: Intel I5 6600K MSI motherboard (I'm not sure witch at this moment) 16GB of Corsair DDR4 RAM Nvidia GTX1060 GPU 850W PSU DVD-RW drive (which I still use regularly) 256GB Crucial SSD 126GB Crucial SSD 2TB WD Blue HDD 4TB WD Blue HDD

Most of my games are on steam, although I also have considerable collection on GOG, and some games on Epic and Amazon.

I've heard great things about Nobara, but I'm open to suggestions, tips and advice.

rsync is almost 30 years old and over that time must have been run literally trillions or times.

Do you trust it?

Say you run it, and it completes. And you then run it again, and it does nothing, as it thinks it's got nothing to do, do you call it good and move on?

I've an Ansible playbook I'm working on that does, among other things, rsync some customer data in a template deployed, managed cluster environment. When it completes successfully, job goes green. if it fails, thanks to the magic of "set -euo pipefail" the script immediately dies, goes red, sirens go off etc...

On the basis that the command executed is correct, zero percent chance of, say, copying the wrong directory etc., does it seem reasonable to then be told to manually process checksums of all the files rsync copied with their source?

Data integrity is obviously important, but manually doing what a deeply popular and successful command has been doing longer than some staff members have even been alive... Eh, I don't think it achieves anything meaningful, just makes managers a little bit happier whilst the project gets delayed and the anticipated cost savings get delayed again and again.

Why would a standardised, syntactically valid rsync, running in a fault intolerant execution environment ever seriously be wrong?

May or may not be a Linux Problem.
I have FTTP, this terminates at a modem on the outside of my house.
This then appears to work by DHCP, so it appears that the first thing it talks to and gives a DHCP address to gets configured as the primary router for my network.

I have some really stupid wiring in my house, and so I would like to have the setup be like this:

Outside Modem -> 8 port switch.
From the 8 port switch I want 2 Linux Mint PCs and then my actual main router.

The problem is that when I have one of the Linux PCs plugged into that switch they appear to get the DHCP from the Outside Modem which then kills the internet connection for the main router. Unplugging the Linux PCs and rebooting the main router fixes the issue.

Does anyone know if there is some network settings I can put on the Linux PCs so that they talk to the Main Router first or ignore the DHCP from the Outside Modem?

I've tried doing a manual IP address but that doesn't appear to work and the PCs aren't appearing in the Main Routers list of connected devices.

I tried 3 different distros (Mint, Arch, and now Fedora) hoping one of them would solve my issue, but none of them worked. Everytime my laptop goes to sleep or hibernate, the screen won't turn on again. I have to restart the laptop for things to go back to normal. Am I doing something wrong with my installations?

Edit: NVIDIA by the way, since I just learned that it's what's causing the issue.

I have a kind of unique use case and having some issues with screen resolution not saving.

I have a 4x1 multiview, have 4 inputs on 1 43" 4k screen.

1. 1920x1080

2. 1920x1080

3. 2560x1080

4. 1280x1080

I've tried some linux distros, but most don't consistently save my settings.

Here's picture of the layout:

The blank space is for console input.

I've tried Ubuntu and a couple other distros, I save the configuration via nvidia x server settings.

On Ubuntu, it switches resolution of bottom screen to 4k and breaks everything.

Have other odd bugs, like can't position windows where I want.

Have to manually fix it every time.

On Solus, it's similar. Screen position doesn't save correctly, have to fix it at every boot.

Solus worked for a bit, but after every update, it breaks.

Any distros that work better with my set up and won't constantly break?

I was testing some Nvidia GPUs in my machine that normally sports an AMD GPU. After uninstalling a bunch of Nvidia related packages (everything mentioning "nvidia" or "cuda"), I was left missing some libs.

In particular I had to dnf reinstall libglvnd-egl, xorg-x11-server-Xorg libglvnd-glx mesa-libGL.

Thanks to this post for providing a nice command for identifying broken packages:

I have an old Windows machine that I want to repurpose with Ubuntu (if it matters, I put Cinnamon on the USB boot stick). I need to take it off Intel's RAID system RST but when I turned that off in the BIOS, the system would not then boot off the USB. I want to trash Windows, but the instructions seem geared at side-by-side. What to do?

Longer version I changed the BIOS to boot off a USB stick. It booted. Made some choices and then it told me it needed to format. OK. I chose a /boot with a Gb and the other 29 Gb with /. Hit OK. It told me to follow about RST.

Based on the bullet point You can resolve this problem by either one of the following changes: (1) Turn off RST completely in the firmware. (2) Change the storage controller protocol from RST to Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI). since I don't want Windows, I went into the BIOS and switched off RST (and did not switch on AHCI).

Rebooting goes into some kind of panic mode, with a loud beep and a message that it is getting nothing and I have to repair (there is a QR code on the screen). OK, maybe I have to reboot by hitting F12. BIOS finds no boot files, including none on the plugged-in USB stick. After multiple tries of various things, I turned the BIOS back to RST and it boots back into Windows.

Any ideas of what to do would be very welcome. Thanks.

Thank you to folks for the help I followed to have Windows read AHCI (even though I am getting entirely rid of Windows). They were a little daunting for a non-Windows person but I figured it out. Then I turned off the computer (a soft reboot did not work). Then I rebooted with the USB stick (I had to re-write the USB stick. It sounds like it makes no sense but I saw that answer somewhere, did it, and it worked so ...). Then it booted and I followed the installer. FWIW, this time it is autopartitioning.

I’d like to set up an Ubuntu desktop for my kids. Oldest is 6.

Having a hard time selling the idea to my other half. They don’t believe additional screen time is appropriate at this age, even if their school already uses Chromebooks.

To me, early computer literacy in this day and age is critically important.

I have a computer connected to my TV via HDMI, and I'd like to know the best way to watch YouTube videos on it. Thanks.

Hey all,

I'm currently a windows user but I've been thinking of switching to linux. All of the pros like performance and especially the customizability sound great, exactly what I want.

The problem arises from the fact that I play a few games with kernel-level anticheat like valorant. It's not everyday that I do though, so in the ideal world I've imagined I would normally be running linux for everything, and when my friends tell me to hop on the game I just switch to windows for that time. Is that realistic and what kind of problems arise from that?

I've heard one of the biggest issues comes from windows overriding linux if they're on the same drive, but I have 2 ssds on my pc currently (1tb and 2tb), so I would imagine that not being a problem.

I've heard linux is hard to get into for the non-tech-savvy, but I feel I'm a quick learner and have a little entry-level programming experience. I think I would have the motivation and curiosity to get everything out of linux if I do decide to switch.

So what do y'all think? Should I get dual boot working or should I just stay on windows? What are the cons of dual booting?

Hi,
I recently switched my home internet from ADSL to TD-LTE.
On my laptop running Ubuntu, when I connect to the Wi-Fi, it stays connected for about 1–2 minutes, then disconnects and automatically reconnects again.
This keeps repeating, while other devices on the same network work fine.

Any idea what could be causing this?

• Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky)

• Kernel: 6.14.0-36-generic

• Desktop: GNOME (default)

• Laptop: HP

• Wi-Fi adapter: Realtek RTL8822BE (dual-band 802.11ac)

• Wi-Fi driver: rtw_8822be

I need it for Termux on an older Android phone.

with kernel 3.18

I've seen some influencers talk about some new revolutionary Linux distro: CachyOS I do some research and find out that it's an Arch based distro, and then I think to myself: Well this should be something like Manjaro I suppose...

But then I see subreddit posts in which people ask "why is it so overrated?" "it doesn't work on my machine..." and similar.

I wanted to ask really what kind of a distro it is, if it's worth it, and what's this all big talk about?