Amateur Linux Hour

[Dr. Geronimo]

This may be an issue regarding just Linux Mint:

Is there a reason why I can't simply paste a shortcut to desktop? I'm trying to setup a dance game for my wife and the instructions to make a desktop link are almost 'make your own shortcut lol'.

 

[2ndBest]

This may be an issue regarding just Linux Mint:

Is there a reason why I can't simply paste a shortcut to desktop? I'm trying to setup a dance game for my wife and the instructions to make a desktop link are almost 'make your own shortcut lol'.

From what I recall: it’s a side effect of Mutter being absolute trash.

 

[Creative Username]

This may be an issue regarding just Linux Mint:

Is there a reason why I can't simply paste a shortcut to desktop? I'm trying to setup a dance game for my wife and the instructions to make a desktop link are almost 'make your own shortcut lol'.

I use Plasma, not Cinnamon, but I can use the right-click menu to create desktop entries (using the "Link to Application" menu entry.) I'd like to imagine Cinnamon's default file manager has something similar, but if it doesn't, I'm afraid you'll have to break out the text editor. <cope>Besides, writing .desktop files manually isn't THAT hard.</cope>

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

I'd like to imagine Cinnamon's default file manager has something similar, but if it doesn't, I'm afraid you'll have to break out the text editor. <cope>Besides, writing .desktop files manually isn't THAT hard.</cope>

I couldn't find the option, so that's what I did.

I have to admit that's pretty retarded. I don't understand why a simple thing isn't just a core part of OS and not something the DE actually has to worry about.

 

[Creative Username]

I couldn't find the option, so that's what I did.

I have to admit that's pretty retarded. I don't understand why a simple thing isn't just a core part of OS and not something the DE actually has to worry about.

It's not something that the DE has to worry about as much as it could be. Imagine if KDE and Gnome had two different ways of doing desktop entries. It would suck. The OS also has dynamic links, which are significantly less flexible but more elegant for things like making shortcuts to folders, as literally everything supports accessing files through dynamic links.

It's stupid that Nemo (the Cinnamon file manager) doesn't have the ability to make desktop entries quickly, though.

Would be fairly hard to make the action of creating a desktop entry a core function of the OS. Where would that even go?

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Would be fairly hard to make the action of creating a desktop entry a core function of the OS. Where would that even go?

I'm just still trying to wrap my head at how creating a desktop shortcut can be a feature that has to be specially added. Like none of the autists never even considered it.

 

[DavidS877]

I'm just still trying to wrap my head at how creating a desktop shortcut can be a feature that has to be specially added. Like none of the autists never even considered it.

I never even see my desktop... I know it's here somewhere.
"xsetroot -solid black"

 

[rareblacklobster]

This may be an issue regarding just Linux Mint:

Is there a reason why I can't simply paste a shortcut to desktop? I'm trying to setup a dance game for my wife and the instructions to make a desktop link are almost 'make your own shortcut lol'.

If you're using Cinnamon, there's a "make link" option in the right click menu that's, for whatever reason, disabled by default. The option to turn it on is somewhere in the file manager's preferences.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

If you're using Cinnamon, there's a "make link" option in the right click menu that's, for whatever reason, disabled by default. The option to turn it on is somewhere in the file manager's preferences.

I found it. I don't know why that's a thing but so be it.

Can someone explain to me why you have to set the icon's picture in linux?

 

[DavidS877]

I found it. I don't know why that's a thing but so be it.

Can someone explain to me why you have to set the icon's picture in linux?

What do you mean?
Linux binaries have no concept of an icon, they were meant to run from the command line. Windows binaries had a well known, baked in location where the icon came from. So on Linux the icon had to be bundled somewhere with the binary, usually in some well known path. Depending on your os you can run something like "dpkg -L packagename" and see all the files(and maybe a desktop file) and if it included an icon in one of the usual places

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

What do you mean?
Linux binaries have no concept of an icon, they were meant to run from the command line. Windows binaries had a well known, baked in location where the icon came from. So on Linux the icon had to be bundled somewhere with the binary, usually in some well known path. Depending on your os you can run something like "dpkg -L packagename" and see all the files(and maybe a desktop file) and if it included an icon in one of the usual places

So Linux autism.

Regardless, I tried doing some gaming and it just doesn't feel good. Most of the games stutter hard despite making sure my drivers were good and I even bumped up the kernel. I think I'm going to try Nobara and if that doesn't help then IDK lol.

 

[Unremarkable Anus Lover]

So Linux autism.

Regardless, I tried doing some gaming and it just doesn't feel good. Most of the games stutter hard despite making sure my drivers were good and I even bumped up the kernel. I think I'm going to try Nobara and if that doesn't help then IDK lol.

If your games stutter, you fucked up somewhere and no, that isn't Linux shill cope. I'm sure someone can help you figure out what went wrong. If you're using Nvidia make sure to download the proper Nobara iso and follow the instructions, good luck.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

Got Linux Mint up and running on my gaming PC. This was all far easier than I expected. Currently playing Backpack Hero with no issues or stutters. I expected adjusting settings to be a fucking pain, but it's honestly less hassle than Windows.

 

[Creative Username]

I'd like to add that installing Nvidia drivers for Linux from the Nvidia site is not recommended and will lead to pain. Always use your distro's packaged version of the drivers.

Got Linux Mint up and running on my gaming PC. This was all far easier than I expected. Currently playing Backpack Hero with no issues or stutters. I expected adjusting settings to be a fucking pain, but it's honestly less hassle than Windows.

Some settings are harder to adjust, but they usually boil down to editing some .ini-like config file with a sudo [favorite editor here] /etc/[file] command. The user-friendly distributions also automate most of this with nice GUI tools. It's definitely better than the Windows Registry. Fuck that shitheap.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Got Linux Mint up and running on my gaming PC. This was all far easier than I expected. Currently playing Backpack Hero with no issues or stutters. I expected adjusting settings to be a fucking pain, but it's honestly less hassle than Windows.

Mind posting your specs?

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

Mind posting your specs?

I'm at work, but I'll check when I get home. I have a GTX 980. I built it... pfff... in December 2016? I remember when building it I wanted to "future proof" it a bit, but scoffed at the price of the 1080.

It's been fine for my purposes, but I don't torture my GPU.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

Apologies for the double post. I really hope I don't post something sensitive as I'm currently drunk as shit. I found the old word doc where I recorded my purchases as well.

Case
Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 (CC-9011030-WW) Black Steel / Plastic ATX Cube High Airflow Cube Case

Motherboard
MSI Z97-G45 Gaming LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor
Intel Core i7-4790K Haswell Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor BX80646I74790K

PSU
CORSAIR RM Series RM1000 1000W ATX12V v2.31 and EPS 2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Corsair RM1000 Power Supply

Cooler
CORSAIR Hydro Series H90 High Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler. 140mm

Network Card
TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless N900 PCI Express Adapter, 2.4GHz 450Mbps/5GHz 450Mbps, IEEE 802.1a/b/g/n, WEP/WPA/WPA2

RAM
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-16GXM

GPU (video card) -
EVGA 04G-2983-KR GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 ACX 2.0 PCI Express 3.0

Solid State Drive -
Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP480G4R5 2.5" 480GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - 219.99

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Went ahead and installed Nobara (Base KDE). Definitely an improvement but still dealing with reduced performance (Probably 15% instead of the 30 or more) and a good number of glitches coming from Wayland. Sometimes on startup it just pretends my second monitor is only 480p.

 

[Gatdam Animal Person]

Speaking of VMware, I've installed a Windows 11 VM for remote work purposes. However, when pressing the meta key, it registers on both Linux and Windows, which kinda sucks.
I'm using KDE Plasma with Wayland, is there a way to disable the meta key on Linux's side when using VMware?

That's a KDE bug I believe. The same thing happens when using Virtmanager/qemu in Kubuntu X11 and Wayland.

UPDATE: I found out on the Arch Wiki on how to disable shortcut conflicts with specific applications: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE
Basically, you add a special rule to force-disable global shortcuts on specified applications.
No need for cheap hacks, just disabling global shortcuts for VMware is good!

 

[Dale Everdale]

What distro should I get to revive a 2015 macbook? I'd like to put something gnome-based on it so i can make it more macos-like for the person in question.

I'm using fedora myself on an 2011 imac which is pretty much just a media server now, but I'm getting occasional graphical issues. I don't know if it's a hardware degradation issue or if fedora is just too bleeding edge for an older machine like that.