The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[prollyanotherlurker]

What the hell? I actually use that Zoom bar on my HTPC! I just got a full KDE update yesterday, but haven't restarted Dolphin yet. Good to know what I'm in for. It looks like you can turn the Zoom control back on at least:

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/dolphin-kde-zoom-bar-at-the-bottom-of-windows-disappeared/150471

Not sure about the free disk space, although I never used that. I have my storage % at the top of my screen in my Conky bar.

if you want to use arch, but don't want to do all the set up. probably use use endeavor.

on file managers. I've been a fan of ranger, and similar file managers for a while.

also vifm can actually be nice, but it needed some configuration to make it into something i like, definitely don't bother messing with it if you've never used vim, and don't want to edit any config files. it definitely has a learning curve if you want to take advantage of what it can do.

yazi is one a lot of people have been talking about, and actually seems pretty full featured for a terminal file manager. It has a plugin system with a package manager, so you can install different things to add or remove features for you.

there is also lf, which is inspired by ranger too. but it's like an even more minimal version of it, its faster too. but the problem with lf, is because it's more minimal, you basically need to implement things yourself if something is missing you want. So that one, I especially don't recommend unless you really like diving into that kind of thing. vifm you don't have to mess with, it can just make some things a bit better imo if you mess with a few settings, lf though I image is more work than most people would want to put into just a file manager.

 

[Slav Power]

I only first ran into the OFM term the other day (somehow) and I was nicely surprised at the term 'orthodox' since in the days of early Windows File Manager and DOS Shell I'd say tree-based was seen as the conventional choice.

OFM's all originate from Norton Commander for MS-DOS from 1986. It's such a foolproof concept that it has managed to live on through the transition from CLI's to GUI's and is still as versatile as ever. Two file panels, one command line, robust keyboard shortcuts, and a metric fuckton of extra functionality baked in. Including tree views.

I decided to try out Krusader on my main laptop since its all KDE programs, I have to say its a damn nice file manager. I've never used an OFM before so I'm still not used to it but I am getting the hang of it slowly. I'll still keep a traditional file manager around (Dolphin) for its strengths.

What you have to understand is that OFM's were designed to be operated with keyboard only. Once you get all the main keyboard shortcuts into your muscle memory, only then you'll be able to harness it's power. Wanna select all text files and move them to another folder in the second panel? Numpad+, *.txt, enter, F6, Enter. Done. Best part, just about every OFM will have these standardized, so it doesn't matter if you're using Krusader, Total Commander, Midnight Commander, Far Manager or even the OG Norton Commander, you'll feel right at home.

As for the strengths of traditional file managers, I can't see any. To use Total Commander as an example of a graphical OFM:
-it has Lister, which lets you view various files. From text files, images, videos and sound files, to more esoteric ones with the help of plugins like .torrent file metadata, PDF files, or executable data.
-It has the QuickView panel activated via Ctrl+Q, which turns the target panel into a Lister window. What this essentially means is that you can browse your meme folder in thumbnail view on the source panel, and as you move your cursor, the target panel previews the full resolution file. Your file manager is now an image viewer.
-It has a plethora of built-in tools, such as the directory synchronization tool, file comparison tool, multi rename tool, FTP client, file splitter/combiner file hash creator/verifier, and of course, can be expanded via plugins to include cloud storage support, SFTP support, ADB support and much more.
-It has native archive handling where you operate on them as if they were folders. You can pack files up, unpack them, modify archives, and guess what, plugins. Do you want to handle STALKER data files as if they were archives? There's a plugin for that.
-It has an extensible file search and navigation functions. Do you want to look up all the text files in a given directory that contain a specific string? That's an option. And yes, there are plugins here as well, so you can, for example, look up all the Office files that have a specific author name, or all the media files that match a specific parameter or metadata, and so on and so forth. It also has a directory tree view with which you can just type the name of the folder you want to jump to on a specific drive and it'll instantly find it so you can skip entire directory trees in your navigation.
-You can use the same plugins for file search to set up custom columns, for example to display music file metadata, and then then set up an automatic view change whenever you enter a directory that's mostly music files. You can also set up custom searches, and then set color highlights for files and/or folders that match them. Do you want for dead shortcuts/symlinks to show up as gray? You can do that. Do you want for working shortcuts/symlinks to show up as blue? Sure thing. Suddenly you've improved your file management experience by a tenfold with one simple trick.

There is so much more something like Total Commander can do that I haven't mentioned here, but you get the idea. A good OFM becomes your Swiss Army Knife you can't live without. In case of Total Commander, it quite literally is a Swiss Army Knife. Christian Ghisler, a Swiss, has been solo developing it for over three decades now, and it is as functional, reliable and smooth as a Victorinox SAK.

So I strongly encourage you to dig through every single little feature and configuration option in Krusader, because I'm sure you'll find something that'll completely change your daily workflow for the better. I've been using Total Commander for over a decade now and I still learn something new about it that ends up becoming indispensable.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

OFM's all originate from Norton Commander for MS-DOS from 1986. It's such a foolproof concept that it has managed to live on through the transition from CLI's to GUI's and is still as versatile as ever. Two file panels, one command line, robust keyboard shortcuts, and a metric fuckton of extra functionality baked in. Including tree views.

OFMs are a literally perfect paradigm.

Most terminals, in the age of more human-centric design, would display 40 columns of text.

Back then, you chose your own filenames. And have filenames ever really needed to be more than 40-1 (for the divider)/2 wide (enough for a 2 digit date, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, plus 13 more significant bits? Never. If you were a spendthrift with an 80 column terminal? The world was your oyster.

Of course, nowadays, with infinite disk space, we have overly complex file names to work with. But if 'AI' gives us anything, it should be a world where we can do things like point something completely self contained at the hundreds of photos that we took from the last week of our family vacation, and have the AI just automatically change '20250429T070145_0t0wetike0.jpg' to '20250429_021_jennyYawnsCutely.jpg'. And you can easily organize photos with names like that on a fancy 80 column terminal, no sweat.

When I set my grandmother up to organize her camera phone photos, I set her up with MultiCommander, because pushing things from one folder to another makes more sense when they're side by side, just like you would do if you were organizing your prints. Anything else is unnatural.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Of course, nowadays, with infinite disk space, we have overly complex file names to work with.

I'm so paranoid I encrypt my file names.

 

[Slav Power]

I'm so paranoid I encrypt my file names.

Do you also run a computer with a CPU that doesn't have Intel IME/AMD PSP? If you don't, you're not paranoid enough.

 

[jeff7989]

>niggerfaggots still using faggy clones of microshit assplorer
Take the OFM pill and become enlightened, plebians.

https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io

https://krusader.org

https://midnight-commander.org

I do have Krusader installed but it's too autistic for me to use it for simple file operations. I'm sure it would be nifty at work since it involves lots of file operations and W11 Explorer sucks ass.

What the hell? I actually use that Zoom bar on my HTPC! I just got a full KDE update yesterday, but haven't restarted Dolphin yet. Good to know what I'm in for. It looks like you can turn the Zoom control back on at least:

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/dolphin-kde-zoom-bar-at-the-bottom-of-windows-disappeared/150471

Not sure about the free disk space, although I never used that. I have my storage % at the top of my screen in my Conky bar.

It can be disabled from settings, doesn't change the fact that it's big corpo way of doing updates.

Do any of you guys use Manjaro? Back in like 2018 it was all the rage on the G board of 4chan. I'm considering trying it. Is it worth it in 2025? I am using Pop OS currently. I want something that is good for professional use cases but I also want to try the arch package manager. I'm not too into ricing or anything that's why I think Manjaro over Arch.

I used Manjaro and Antergos years ago, my conclusion was to just install Arch myself, that way I will at least be forced to learn how to fix breakage since installation takes more time on Arch May as well script it yourself at this point Worked out alright in the end, one of my installations from 2015 is still running great.

 

[Slav Power]

I'm sure it would be nifty at work since it involves lots of file operations and W11 Explorer sucks ass.

For Windows you want Total Commander. Sure it's paid, but it's a one-time perpetual license so it's likely that your workplace would get you one, or if they believe TC's licensing allows you to use your own license as long as you're the one using it, you'd be able to bring your own. Works from Windows 95 up to Windows 11, and modern licenses work on the latest version for Windows 3.1.

It's much like learning how to use vim, once you have the muscle memory learned it becomes natural, and the neat part is that you can then use Krusader on your Linux desktop and feel right at home, then SSH into your server, launch mc and feel right at home. The basics are easy to learn, arrow keys for navigation, Ctrl+PgUp/PgDn for going up/down in the directory tree, Tab to switch between panels, Insert to select a single file, F2 to rename, F5 to copy, F6 to move, F8 to delete, F7 for new directory, F4 for edit. Though in TC F2 is set as refresh by default but it's easy to rebind, or bind a function, even a custom one, to a new keybinding.

Basically, if you were autistic enough to learn how to operate vim, you're autistic enough to learn how to operate an OFM.

 

[Ferryman]

Do you also run a computer with a CPU that doesn't have Intel IME/AMD PSP? If you don't, you're not paranoid enough.

Based TRVTH spreader. Seriously have no idea how more people aren't worried about these kinds of things. Thankfully, Libreboot et al. are doing good work with more modern(ish) hardware nowadays (officially up to T480 thinkpads, but unofficially anything that runs ME v.11....). Though far from perfect, there is something very romantic to me about bricking Boot Guard with a CVE. Feels like sticking it to Moloch and Baal (Intel and AMD, respectively).

 

[seri0us]

Libreboot et al. are doing good work with more modern(ish) hardware nowadays (officially up to T480 thinkpads

That is because Libreboot now includes proprietary blobs. Francis Rowe's other project Canoeboot does not include blobs and neither does gnuboot

 

[Susanna]

When I set my grandmother up to organize her camera phone photos, I set her up with MultiCommander, because pushing things from one folder to another makes more sense when they're side by side, just like you would do if you were organizing your prints. Anything else is unnatural.

This is why Split is such a valuable Dolphin feature to me. I can just hop into the folder containing the files I want to sort, split, and navigate my split over to the folder containing the folders I'll be sorting into (for instance my NAS music directory, where I sort into bands). Then it's just drag and drop.

 

[Ferryman]

That is because Libreboot now includes proprietary blobs. Francis Rowe's other project Canoeboot does not include blobs and neither does gnuboot

Hence the "far from perfect". The tradeoff is always power vs philosophy. As appealing as running truly libre tech is, going Canoe/gnuboot + Trisquel or Parabola is a touch too great of an inconvenience, even for me. And, besides, the way in which some of the older models in Libreboot's current lineup are flashed inspires enough confidence to call them "clean".

TLDR; you use a buffer overflow exploit to execute arbitrary code in the ME that shuts down Intel Secure Boot, allowing you to run me_cleaner + HAP so that the ME terminates after boot. Running checks for vPro, AMT or IME all fail. I personally have librebooted and run two machines, an X230 and W541 (from 2012 and 2014 respectively). I have done every possible audit on these things, including attempting to access AMT throug the webui & monitoring network traffic with all ports closed to see if anything creeps through. It does not. Unless Intel has a hidden baseband in their ancient processors pinging cell towers nearby, this is good enough confirmation for me to think that the IME is sufficiently felted.

If you want to be technical about it, vPro (Intel's remote managemenet tool) has existed since 2006, and AMT (Active Management Technology) since 2005, so unless you're running 20+ year old hardware, I fear "good enough" will have to be good enough.

BlackHat conference explaining the CVE , Video of said conference; implementation of CVE in Libreboot MEv11

 

[Slav Power]

At this point, learning how to live without a computer in case when SHTF will be more beneficial than trying to have a machine that definitely doesn't spy on you in any way.

 

[jeff7989]

TLDR; you use a buffer overflow exploit to execute arbitrary code in the ME that shuts down Intel Secure Boot, allowing you to run me_cleaner + HAP so that the ME terminates after boot. Running checks for vPro, AMT or IME all fail. I personally have librebooted and run two machines, an X230 and W541 (from 2012 and 2014 respectively). I have done every possible audit on these things, including attempting to access AMT throug the webui & monitoring network traffic with all ports closed to see if anything creeps through. It does not. Unless Intel has a hidden baseband in their ancient processors pinging cell towers nearby, this is good enough confirmation for me to think that the IME is sufficiently felted.

How can you be sure that your Embedded Controller isn't reading your memory? You bricked ME region of BIOS image, how can you be sure that someone with insider knowledge (state) can't sideload new image through secret MSR? I don't remember off the top of my head but there's millions of possible MSR combinations on modern x86, and CPU vendors can have equivalent of port knocking implemented so you wouldn't discover it with timing attack (checking if there's a mysterious delay before rejecting invalid MSR)..

 

[HahaYes]

Lmao the kali maintainers lost access to the original repo signing key
Blog post

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

I thought some of you would really enjoy what this guy says about Wayland and xorg.

Do you also run a computer with a CPU that doesn't have Intel IME/AMD PSP? If you don't, you're not paranoid enough.

I do have one of my laptops librebooted.

 

[Ferryman]

How can you be sure that your Embedded Controller isn't reading your memory? You bricked ME region of BIOS image, how can you be sure that someone with insider knowledge (state) can't sideload new image through secret MSR? I don't remember off the top of my head but there's millions of possible MSR combinations on modern x86, and CPU vendors can have equivalent of port knocking implemented so you wouldn't discover it with timing attack (checking if there's a mysterious delay before rejecting invalid MSR)..

Fair point. I've got a couple to counter:

#1: To my understanding, an MSR-based attack would execute some sort of code at runtime either automatically if it detects that a certain 'flag' has been met, or if an attacker initiates it from the outside. Theoretically you can't know if something like this happens in the black box firmware that has yet to be cracked, but I somehow doubt it would do so completely silently. For instance, my network traffic is filtered through a Pi that routinely sniffs traffic, then an OpenWRT One with completely auditable FOSS firmware. Even with some super duper sneaky port knocker embedded in the EC, I am *99% sure the resultant traffic would have been caught by now.

#2: Internal flashing is impossible on both of the machines I mentioned, so for someone to flash a new image, they'd need physical access to my advice, which can be countered through Secure libreBoot.

#3: Libreboot can be packaged to include flash write protection & grub hardening, which should* cuck out any firmware tampering as an attack vector.

#4: Although security by obscurity is no security at all, the X230 is a machine from 2012. This is a full year before even the Snowden leaks happened, and way before people started fucking with the IME. Might be cope on my end, but this gives me at least a crumb of doubt that they would have gone full bore with redundancies in case the IME got bricked on any given machine. For the W541, sure, there may have been something implemented after the fact as it is a wholly different generation of processors (Ivy Bridge vs Haswell). But, they're both quite old. People really started fucking with Intel firmware around 2016/17, which is when I'd assume a malicious actor (Intel / Feds) would add undocumented MSRs in response to tampering efforts (especially after the Black Hat conference I cited).

***there's no real way to know for sure whether or not something like that exists, and if so, what its capabilities could be. Most of the firmware on pretty much any computer is blackboxed. Nothing is 100% safe until we have the ability to fabricate our own processors and ECs and everything else, so until then, the best we can do is 'good enough'.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Came back to the thread because of the PewDiePie video (or specifically, this reaction to it).

Nothing special if you don't want to watch/listen to it.

Since the whole discussion about linux being easier than windows and the like came up again, as did the whole "valve did nothing" argument. Thought I'd quickly go into both as a layman who only occationally checks the thread.

Win XP was peak, followed by 7, then 10 LTSC. There are rough edges, but 30 years of muscle memory and knowledge of how to get around problems means each new issue is just one more rung on the ladder, whereas with linux you're starting at the bottom. The gaps between those rungs is getting bigger on Windows, and the ladder so shaky that after Win 10, I might have to use something else.

Broadly speaking, I want an OS to get out of the way so I can do what I need to do. This happens in game dev where I use "inferiour" tools like Crocotile, Godot, and GIMP instead of Blender, Unreal, and Photoshop. Because while more capable, business or usability problems for common tasks is too much.

This is what things like Steam OS offers people. "It just works". I've never heard of steam deck owners needing to open the terminal to copy a file or install a game. I've not seen people get screamed at online because their Steamdeck has Debian instead of Fadora or because they downloaded a flatpak instead of snap. From the outside, the layman is told distro doesn't matter but it's also vitally important.


The old Linus Tech Tips video where they used Linux for a month is a great example of the random user experience. Mine included. "It's the year of the linux desktop!" only to immediately run into some edge case, then get blamed for it because they did something wrong when it didn't seem like they did anything particularly retarded. It's like the game dev problem.
"How do I do X?"
"Do Y."
"But Y doesn't do X."
"You should never do X."
*thread closed by mod*

A great example. The YouTuber I linked. In one of his reaction videos he complains when someone complains that, while Steam is great on Linux, trying to get other stores like GoG and Battlenet to work is a pain. The YouTuber basically dismisses it, saying that he has Steam, so why would he want those other stores.


As for why are people intimidated by Linux but also rice the fuck out of it, it's because the ricing part is fun. When you're exhausted and just want to boot a game to relax, you don't want to spend an hour digging through forum posts for a solution that may or may not work.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Imagine using apple anything. Sad, disgusting, shameful.

I realized I should mention what's actually in the video.

Apple and valve are in some litigation. Apple seems to have committed perjury, and was called out by the judge for it.

Also apple is still a shit company, that over charges for their hardware. Locks down what it can be used for (particularly insulting with the price you pay). Is gay. Just use android and Linux if you're going to use anything. And I don't think android is particularly great, but it's still better than ios.

I've not seen people get screamed at online because their Steamdeck has Debian instead of Fadora or because they downloaded a flatpak instead of snap.

I would say both parties in that situation are faggots. 1 caring what some person online things about your distro choice. 2 being a random person online caring what some other person chose to use.

 

[Retarded Weeb]

When you're exhausted and just want to boot a game to relax, you don't want to spend an hour digging through forum posts for a solution that may or may not work.

Gaming works pretty well at this point. Like 90% of games will work immediately with Proton-GE without any fiddling. And a lot of ones that don't immediately work well are things that also don't run well on modern Windows and have some fan patch you can install to fix it.

This is what things like Steam OS offers people. "It just works". I've never heard of steam deck owners needing to open the terminal to copy a file or install a game.

I think that's more to do with Steam Deck than Steam OS itself. The OS isn't really doing that much special. I'm pretty sure people just have an easier time using it because the form factor of the machine means they're only really using it to play games, and as stated above Valve has gotten that working really well at this point. The rise in Linux gaming due to Steam Deck has also gotten more devs to make sure their game just werks in Proton, and some people to make simpler guides to getting other shit running, or making their modding programs run better in Linux.

while Steam is great on Linux, trying to get other stores like GoG and Battlenet to work is a pain.

I have no idea about Battlenet, but you can just use GOG via their website. I guess this is about using GOG Galaxy. I've never bothered myself because the launcher doesn't really add much, but I've heard people say it's a pain to get running but can if you tinker around with a custom Wine prefix for it. While I understand your overall point, there will be things you can't easily do on Linux just as there will be things you can't easily do on Windows, you just have to weigh the pros and cons when factoring in what you use your computer for. And personally, I feel like not being able to get GOG Galaxy running easily is a very minor con when I still buy and download GOG games via my internet browser.

The old Linus Tech Tips video where they used Linux for a month is a great example of the random user experience.

Yeah, I'm never going to accept the viewpoint that Linus wasn't being retarded in that situation. Sure, the Pop OS devs screwed up in putting out a release with misconfigured packages that caused the issue, but not only could Linus have avoided the issue if he did a full update of everything before trying to install new programs like Steam, but he had no intellectual curiosity at all in reading the big "don't do this you fucking retard" warning that came up on screen. If he paid any attention he would have seen he was about to nuke his desktop environment, but he pressed on anyway and went surprised pikachu face about it. If you yourself act the same way and can't be bothered to even read the basic messages the OS is giving you then you're always going to run into problems regardless of what OS you're using, especially if you're new to it and need to learn at least some basics to it as you go.

 

[GNU Abyss]

At this point, learning how to live without a computer in case when SHTF will be more beneficial than trying to have a machine that definitely doesn't spy on you in any way.

Collapse OS is what you need then.

The old Linus Tech Tips video where they used Linux for a month is a great example of the random user experience. Mine included. "It's the year of the linux desktop!" only to immediately run into some edge case, then get blamed for it because they did something wrong when it didn't seem like they did anything particularly retarded. It's like the game dev problem.
"How do I do X?"
"Do Y."
"But Y doesn't do X."
"You should never do X."
*thread closed by mod*

The problem is monkey see, monkey do. Linux "advocates" mimic the bullshit commercialized open source products peddle in their promos and advertisements. All-in-one solution, best thing ever, slick & elegant - that kind of word vomit. If you say that Linux is a different OS, that you need to essentially go back to the time when you first started using Windows as a kid for a while, and there are tradeoffs to be made when using it, you'd get AKSHULLY'd on every single point by people with too much time on their hands.

I also suspect that there's a talmudic word game going on. "Couldn't find a use case" and "you should never do this" are easier to say than "we don't have the manpower or the ability to mimic this functionality, sorry". It also sounds less damaging, although for the user the outcome of either is the same anyway.