This year I'm finally putting into action something that I've been wanting to do for some time: fortifying my home's network, improving privacy for my father and me, and laying the foundation for a smart home. (You guys took the time to help me out with that here, which, btw, thanks again!)

The network and privacy fortification is well underway and working. I set up Pi-hole with Unbound on one of my Raspberry Pis that also acts as a Tailscale exit node, got a new router that can connect my devices to ProtonVPN, have my Synology server working as storage, and... you know what, let's save this for another post. I'm still figuring some things out and want to let the dust settle first.

Anyway, back to gaming and PC'ing.

I'm no stranger to Linux; I've been using it on and off for over a decade on older PCs. But I've never committed to it on my main rig. As I said in another post, "It's the little things that make me not jump to Linux". While "these little things" didn't completely go away, I guess rolling up my sleeves to reconfigure my network, becoming more privacy-conscious, and reading about the ongoing issues with Windows 11 tipped the scales.

I debated between EndeavourOS and Fedora KDE. Fedora won.

EOS is a solid choice and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to try out an Arch-based distro. But Fedora is undeniably more popular, which means if there's a Linux app, it's almost guaranteed the devs will have a Fedora version with dedicated documentation and installation commands. In other words, the potential for more convenience won out.

And convenient it was, mostly thanks to this website: https://nattdf.streamlit.app/. It helped a ton. It installed codecs, SSH, enabled Flathub and RPM Fusion, etc. It even provides a script to install Nvidia drivers.

But drivers weren't my real worry. My real worry was something else entirely.

You see, I lied to you guys by omission. I actually tried to install Fedora a few months ago, but I had severe issues with my TV. My PC is connected to both a monitor and a TV. The monitor worked without problems, but the TV was a different story. The image quality was terrible. You know those photos taken with the very first camera phones? That's how the colors looked. I remember trying everything: switching to X11, installing different driver versions, messing around with Nvidia settings, display settings, color profiles, even the TV's internal settings. Nothing worked. So I gave up and went back to Windows.

But today, while trying to fix an issue with my TV, I noticed two things:

1. I found out that my TV's HDMI ports are not all equal. Port 4 is HDMI 2.1, while all the others are 2.0.
2. My PC was connected to Port 3.

This was the problem. It's what caused my Windows to randomly lose sound, and it's what made the image quality terrible on Fedora, and it's what caused issues I mentioned in my old post. I don't know how or why Windows could "deal with it" and output 4K 120Hz without apparent image quality loss, but somehow it did.

Regardless, after moving the cable to Port 4, installing Fedora, and getting the drivers running... it works just fine and dandy. Great image quality, 4K, and 120Hz. My PC still works flawlessly as a gaming machine.

The moral of the story? Don't be like me. Before blaming Wayland, Nvidia, drivers, or Linux... check the back of the TV.

This also brings a much-needed sense of standardization to my setup. Now that everything is under the same Linux umbrella, I can manage it all via SSH with total consistency. I’m already eyeing my Raspberry Pi’s Telegram bot as a way to remotely wake the PC for heavy tasks and shut it down afterward. The potential of this setup has me feeling pretty euphoric.

Now that the biggest hurdle is cleared, Steam is running perfectly and Proton is handling my game library like a champ. I'm finally daily-driving Linux on my main rig, and this time, I think it's for good.

I'm doing a long overdo computer update (new CPU, mobo, and RAM), and am going to be reinstalling windows for the first time in a while. My current system is still on Win10 due to incompatiblity with Win11, however I wouldn't have updated to Win11 until now anyway. I have Win11 on a Surface Pro and with recent updates adding features that match my existing muscle memory better (such as allowing expanded window buttons and putting Start on the left), I'm not as resistant to installing Win11 on my new hardware. I have access to the Education version of Win11 which after some research looks like it's basically Windows Enterprise and that itself seems like a big feature since it shouldn't come with a lot of the bloat apps already.

With that in mind I have few questions:

1. Does anyone have a PowerShell script they've put together to run on a fresh Windows 11 install that configures a lot of the settings to make it behave more like Win10 (and it's predecessors), toggles privacy settings on, etc. I am not looking for something that tries to strip anything out, I just want something that will save me time chasing down all the settings I've slowly found and adjusted on my Surface. I have the default folders like Pictures and Documents pointed to a drive on a seperate drive from my Windows drive specifically to make migrating to a new installation easier. I'd love something that prompts me to update where those shortcuts should point as well.
2. Does anyone have any protips for getting the bulk of programs I need installed? I looked at Winget and Chocolatey a couple years ago, but they didn't quite look as fuss free as I was looking for. I generally avoid installing things from the Microsoft app store (which I understand would make this easier if I was willing to lean more into the Microsoft ecosystem). I'd love something (script based or otherwise) that's going to grab and install the program (rather than app) for a list of things like Firefox, Spotify, Steam, Miniconda, etc. I plan to make a list of programs I have installed that I know I will want to reinstall before doing the fresh install, but I'm making a plan to make installing everything as easy as possible. If there's a reliable script based way to install like 80% of my main programs I'd be thrilled to only have to track down and install more specialized stuff.
3. Any general advice for transfering my browser data? I use Firefox, am signed in to an account, and think I have everything set to sync. However I'd love to bring over all my browser tabs and windows I'm still working in. I did look up how to transfer the browser data and found a Mozilla article for it, just wasn't sure if anyone had a method they discovered and like better.

Thanks in advance for tips and advice.

Haven't been following the macOS updates closely but a big feature I'm looking forward to in macOS 26 is Apple's container solution as an alternative to Docker.

The "container" command line tool: https://github.com/apple/container

The underlying Containerization package: https://github.com/apple/containerization

The main improvement over Docker on Mac is that it uses separate lightweight VMs per container, instead of one shared Linux VM hosting all containers. This means the RAM allocation can be dynamic instead of the user having to decide how many total GB to allocate for the Docker VM. So if I'm running a lot of containers I expect it to work without manually changing settings, and if I'm running only a single container then I expect it won't waste resources with allocated-but-unused RAM.

Currently these repos are on version 0.4.1 and 0.8.1 respectively, which tells me they're not ready yet. Hoping they're ready around the time macOS 26 releases to GA.

This isn’t really meant to be a hate post or “linux sucks” kind of thing, in fact I like Linux (EndeavourOS being my distro of choice). This post is more about the little things that nobody really talks about when comparing OS’s, but then you face them and they can be a dealbreaker or a pain in the neck.

This weekend I decided to try running CachyOS in my gaming desktop. For quick context, my desktop is dedicated to gaming, everything else I do on my laptop. The desktop is plugged to a 1080p 60hz monitor and a 4k 120hz TV (hz relevant for later), uses sunshine for streaming, and also Virtual Desktop for my meta quest.

So, I grab the USB and plug it into the PC. Turn it on and here comes the first issue: the background image appears and nothing else.

Well, my first suspicion due to a similar issue I had with ubuntu a decade ago, must be the Nvidia GPU causing issues. Without investigating further, I restarted the PC and used the legacy mode. The resolution was extremely low in my monitor, but it was manageable. Installed the thing and restarted.

Once the PC is back on, the login screen appears. I input the pass, enter and…. Exact same issue. Background image, no UI whatsoever.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time here, investigating the error. Checking the drivers, etc.

But long story short: the actual problem was that my monitor was the second screen, the TV was the primary. The desktop was outputting to both screens. The UI was on the TV.

I curse myself for not remembering that this may have been it, but in my defense:
1- the terminal commands that appear when turning on the OS appeared in my monitor
2- the legacy mode worked on my monitor
3- on windows, the OS is smart enough to figure out which screen is turned on, so I was used to it automatically outputting to the correct screen

Well, once I fixed that, here came the second (small) issue:
Scaling is broken.

Windows used to have this problem but nowadays, when you change screen Windows does a good job scaling things, despite some issues with some apps. At the very least, you won’t get blurry windows.

On KDE… Yeah. Blurry all around. I don’t have a habit of swapping screens mid session, so I could live with it.

Then came the third issue:
KDE is limited by the lower highest possible framerate in both screens. Meaning, on my TV, I was stuck with the 60hz because of my monitor

From what I found out, this is not exclusive to KDE and seems to be a problem with Nvidia. Regardless, for me it was a dealbreaker. In my case, Windows can use the respective framerate of each screen, while Linux can’t.

As I said, this is where I threw the towel and went back to windows. Which is really a pity because I really don’t like where Windows 11 is going, but it’s something I can live with as long it doesn’t get in the way between me and gaming.

Meanwhile Linux, because of these little things, introduced more issues than rewards for my use case, thus why I can’t jump to it on my desktop.

I have been planning to make the switch to Linux as a daily driver for a while and have researched many different distros. I have seen a lot of discussion online about Bazzite and other similar distros based on Fedora Atomic. It sounds like it would be more stable, and less likely for you to accidentally break something, but installing software other than Flatpaks requires running it in some kind of container such as Distrobox. Some people say it's annoying, others say it's good since you mess up the container rather than your system.

I have used SteamOS on Steam Deck, and notice that things have "just worked" more than what I have personally seen with "normal" distros on laptops or desktops. For example, I've never really had any issues installing things and running software on SteamOS, but someone I know using Mint has seen seemingly minor things cause massive glitches on their system, or they've run into strange difficulty just installing certain programs like Steam. Would one of these types of distros, especially Bazzite which specifically is trying to be like SteamOS, be closer to that Steam Deck experience?

Has anyone here tried one of these distros and had any thoughts? Anything you loved, or was anything a deal breaker?

By "modern-ish" I mean support for wifi, USB, etc. Maybe modern is the wrong word, but "not prehistoric" fits better? I primarily want to use these machines for some old school mudding. Bonus points for a browser that works with encryption to make web browsing somewhat usable.

Computer #1: "Ole trusty"

This one came with the OG Windows NT. I've toyed with FreeBSD installs from version 4 to 7 or so. Right now I believe it has Windows 95 or 98.

• Compaq / Pentium
• 3.25" disk drive
• Broken CD-ROM and I haven't found a plug-and-play replacement yet, even though I've tried 3 or 4. I can get it to work by forcing the tray open and closed, but I'm certain the tray is going to snap soon.
• I've replaced the hard drive with a compact flash
• Right now it has a PCI LAN adapter, but I have the option to replace this with a wifi adapter (Linksys I believe)

Computer #2: "MTV was still cool"

This one's running Windows 3.1 at the moment. It's going to be much tougher to get a network connection going. Is it possible to do some sort of modem-to-wifi bridge?

• Compaq / 386
• 5 1/2" and 3.25" disk drives, no CD ROM
• Compact flash HD
• It has a modem, I'm not sure how fast. I'm also not sure how many expansion slots are left.

Hey y’all. Recently picked up a Cyberpower prebuilt. Looking to install a Linux distro on it for gaming. Currently have Ubuntu on my laptop, so I’m not a total noob, but my experience is still low. Not a big fan of having to use the terminal. Any distros y’all would recommend? Am leaning toward Pop_OS or SteamOS.

I currently have a Lenovo N42 Chromebook far past it's EoL, for which Google is no longer supporting it. I have put Chrome OS Flex on it by reflashing the bios, and it's pretty solid, but I have no internal audio. Bluetooth audio and HDMI works fine, but no headphones, and no speakers.

I found this solution for trying to hack in an Alsa configuration from an Ubuntu Live Disk (https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/swzxsy/comment/irk5kqk/) and I was able to follow the instructions and enable development mode, but when I try to run the alsaconfig script, I get this.

crosh> shell
chronos@localhost / $ sudo alsarestore
No state is present for card chtrt5650
/usr/sbin/alsactl: sysfs_init:48: sysfs path '/sys' is invalid

Found hardware: "chtrt5650" "" "" "" ""
Hardware is initialized using a generic method
No state is present for card chtrt5650

It may have something to do with those instructions being for a different build computer, but I am outside my sphere of knowledge, and anything else I could troubleshoot would be appreciated. Internal audio isn't mission critical for me, but it would be appreciated.

I still mainly use Windows, although I've dual-booted Linux a few times and I have Linux Mint on an old laptop right now. One thing I've never understood about Linux is all the different distributions - their different reputations and why they have them. What is the mechanical difference between using one distribution of Linux and another? Or are the differences usually not mechanical?

For example, Ubuntu and Debian seem to be large families, meaning that a lot of other distributions are based on them (using packages built for them in their package managers at least) as well as being popular distros on their own. But what's different between the two of them, and between each and the other distros based on them? (and what's similar? I gather they all use the Linux kernel at least!)

I also know that people are quite opinionated on their choice of distro, I wondered what reasons people had for their choice. What things are easier or harder for you in your distro of choice? Is it mainly day-to-day tasks that are important or more how the OS works underneath? How much difference does your preferred distro make?

For myself, I've only used Kubuntu (though not much) and Linux Mint, which was mainly for UI reasons, and particularly for the latter, ease of use for someone used to Windows (at least that was what I found years ago when I first looked into it).

Though I doubt I'll ever fully move away from Windows I would like / need to have access to a Linux OS, so maybe this will help me to know what is important to look for. But I also hope it'll be a useful and interesting discussion topic. Also, there are some previous discussions on the latter question so I'd be more interested in learning about the main topic.

also, please do add more tags

I currently use MX-Linux, which is a great distribution but does require me to reinstall it from time to time. It also comes with all the good/bad Debian legacy, and sometimes things can get really fucked up (okay, I admit it: MX IS NOT PERFECT. But nothing is, okay? Settle down.)

My new Linux Distribution doesn't need to have all the new bells and whistles, but it needs to be able to stay reasonably current with new packages and innovations. I don't mind some manual work, but I also don't wanna spend my days maintaining the system.

This distro is supposed to be a tool to work with, not a hobby to be pimped, riced or whatever. I will occasionally play and edit videos on it (don't worry, it's all AMD, thank you advice for the Tildes ;)

I use the i3wm window manager (not the gaps fork), so native support is a must and current versions are preferable (MX's version is from 2016. 2016!). If there's not a current version of Emacs, I'll compile my own. The same is true for Neovim, dmenu, rofi and the suckless terminal.

Configurations on text files do not scare me, but I don't wanna spend all my time scripting stuff. I don't mind compiling stuff either so Gentoo and other source-based distributions are valid options (as long as they allow me to work on stuff instead of working on the distribution...). That said, I have no preference whatsoever between binary and source-based.

Unstable distributions like Arch and even Manjaro are a no-no. I need my computer to work 99.99% of the time, like a fucking refrigerator. That said, I would like some newer packages and tools such as Gimp, Inkscape and a video editor like Kdenlive. Maybe flatpak is an option? I was never able to get it to work properly.

I'm also open to crazy things like Nix, but only if it'll make my life easier: I have no philosophies on the mater.

Any suggestions?

I saw back in January that a lot of you were on Linux, I guess I should've expected that considering it's ~comp but I'm curious how the trend is going. But to spice things up a little bit more, tell us about you favourite programs, any hidden gems?

I personally run a fairly standard Fedora 30 install running gnome and some flatpaks. I'd say my favourite programs are

Gnome Builder :

Well, I've been trying to fight the electron uprising while still using a modern and open source IDE and well, I think it works great and looks pretty good too.

Dino.im (Using the Flatpak PR) :

It's light, supports XMPP and looks relatively modern, what more could you ask?

Firefox gnome theme :

It's not really a program and just really a skin for Firefox but I really like it. It integrates pretty neatly with the rest of the desktop. Can't wait for the Gnome 3.32 changes to come in though since it kinda clashes with the new theme.