The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[AmpleApricots]

I miss just having 80x25 VGA textmode which just works and doesn't burn 100% of the CPU trying to scroll up or repaint.

These times will never come back as modern graphics cards don't (can't) really do these textmodes anymore like the old ones did. They just work completely differently. Graphics cards from that time were basically primitive buffer devices that either just threw on the screen what the CPU told them to pixel by pixel or had some very limited things they could do in an accelerated way with specific instructions. Modern graphics cards are best understood as a specialized computer inside your computer. You can do that direct pixel throwing too, but you go through a lot more layers getting there and it's very non-optimal.

Hercules graphics cards (not the brand, the monochrome graphics cards from the 80s) were popular way beyond their useful shelf life because they'd offer you a second (usually used for text) screen in a time where that wasn't that easy or cheap, let alone a default feature. The Linux kernel as of 5.16 still has a driver for these cards in it's graphics section. If and how that still works with Linux' framebuffer console is anyone's guess. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be using a text mode but actually run the card in graphics mode which would be agonizing. I actually have the fitting hardware complete with fitting cards but honestly, never made an attempt. You'd pretty much have to go back to DOS and DOS era hardware for a fast, low latency text mode is my guess. They literally don't make them that simple anymore.

Weird detour, anyways... Linux console is the redheaded stepchild of the kernel and Torvalds is not shy of proclaiming that he doesn't give a fuck about text-only, non-GUI environments (and also dropped inbuilt scrollback support a few kernel versions, so don't worry about your scenario anymore!) and he also especially doesn't give a fuck about the 80 column standard. (there's some rant flying around) Sometimes I feel the biggest saving grace of the linux' kernel is his autistic obsession with not breaking compatibility with userland for e.g. that one accounting program someone wrote for Linux in 1996. Otherwise I think we'd be in absolute, utter hell and companies like Red Hat would just break compatibility every other version for the hell of it and so that everything has to work through their svchost.exe.

By the way, if you want a nice framebuffer terminal emulator that supports 256 colors and even supports sixels (graphics in the terminal) look for yaft. It's a very simplistic but well-working implementation and easily hackable. Will still peg your CPU tho. I think if it wasn't for the web and multimedia I could probably comfortably live without all of the Linux GUIs and widget toolkits, they all suck.

 

[Knight of the Rope]

This is still very much a work in progress, but compared to Linux Mint? This is infinitely more gratifying both in terms of setup and stability.

>no neofetch
>no embarrassing tabs that you forgot to quit out of before taking the screenshot

C'mon man, show some respect for tradition.

Is there a podcast listener/downloader for Ubuntu that isn't a piece of shit? Clementine crashes constantly, Vocal is garbage, Cpod doesn't feature batch downloads. Just trying to data hoard by downloading all my podcast subs.

Clementine got forked to Strawberry recently I thought. Is Strawberry any better?

 

[Seasoned News Reporter]

>no neofetch
>no embarrassing tabs that you forgot to quit out of before taking the screenshot

C'mon man, show some respect for tradition.


Clementine got forked to Strawberry recently I thought. Is Strawberry any better?

So far strawberry has been great for me. Scrubbing in clementine was fucked up so if I tried to skip to any part of an audio file I wouldn't get any sound at all. I do kinda wish strawberry had a remote control function you could setup but then again the one clementine has never worked for shit so no big loss really.

 

[PFM]

Is there a podcast listener/downloader for Ubuntu that isn't a piece of shit? Clementine crashes constantly, Vocal is garbage, Cpod doesn't feature batch downloads. Just trying to data hoard by downloading all my podcast subs.

What's wrong with Gpodder?

 

[seri0us]

Is there a podcast listener/downloader for Ubuntu that isn't a piece of shit? Clementine crashes constantly, Vocal is garbage, Cpod doesn't feature batch downloads. Just trying to data hoard by downloading all my podcast subs.

youtube-dlp + mpv?

 

[Dick Justice]

speaking of music players, has anyone had the brilliant idea of inventing a music player that just READS THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE and organizes around that instead of imposing a bunch of sorting by metadata faggotry on your library? It's like no one's ever heard of foobar2k.

 

[AnOminous]

speaking of music players, has anyone had the brilliant idea of inventing a music player that just READS THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE and organizes around that instead of imposing a bunch of sorting by metadata faggotry on your library? It's like no one's ever heard of foobar2k.

You can set up cmus to ignore metadata, the result of which is effectively stripping it when importing, which will mean it will be limited to using directory structure.

 

[Dread First]

Well, much to my own surprise, Citra works perfectly well on FreeBSD! Only real problem I had was that my Xbox One controller wasn't working at all and neither did my Logitech gamepad. Then enters a spare PS4 controller that I had lying around from years past. Plug it in, load up the ps4dshock module, and bada bing, bada boom! It works! From what I've tested thus far, all of my games run at the full 30fps, much like on Linux Mint. All the more reason to curse the autistic bastards at Citra for refusing to adopt Vulkan support on Windows. Oh, and all the more reason to curse the retards over at AMD who thoroughly atrophied OpenGL support on Windows.

Spoiler: meme screenshot

@Knight of the Rope: ask and you shall receive.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

Clementine got forked to Strawberry recently I thought. Is Strawberry any better?

No idea. Will check. Clementine kept showing up on lists of the best Ubuntu podcaster software.

What's wrong with Gpodder?

Gpodder made it seem like it was just a handy online method to synch all your podcasts. I'm just looking for a program to batch download all episodes for a podcast.

youtube-dlp + mpv?

Thought it was YouTube only. Next on my list of prograns to run for my YouTube archiving.

Do we have a data hoarder thread btw?

 

[PFM]

No idea. Will check. Clementine kept showing up on lists of the best Ubuntu podcaster software.



Gpodder made it seem like it was just a handy online method to synch all your podcasts. I'm just looking for a program to batch download all episodes for a podcast.



Thought it was YouTube only. Next on my list of prograns to run for my YouTube archiving.

Do we have a data hoarder thread btw?

AFAIK Gpodder will download your podcasts into a directory to be played with whatever media player you want to use.

 

[seri0us]

Thought it was YouTube only.

It's not.

 

[Dread First]

For anyone autistic enough to run FreeBSD unironically like I am, here's some useful tips if you're trying to get a PS4 controller off the ground and running:

1. Append the following to /boot/loader.conf

ps4dshock_load="YES"

2. Using your favourite text editor, create /usr/local/etc/devd/ds4.conf and then fill it with this:

Spoiler

# DualShock 4
notify 100 {
        match "system"          "USB";
        match "subsystem"       "INTERFACE";
        match "type"            "ATTACH";
        match "vendor" "0x054c";
        match "product" "0x05c4";
        action "chmod 0666 /dev/$cdev";
};

# DualShock 4 Wireless Adapter
notify 100 {
        match "system"          "USB";
        match "subsystem"       "INTERFACE";
        match "type"            "ATTACH";
        match "vendor" "0x054c";
        match "product" "0x0ba0";
        action "chmod 0666 /dev/$cdev";
};

# DualShock 4 Slim
notify 100 {
        match "system"          "USB";
        match "subsystem"       "INTERFACE";
        match "type"            "ATTACH";
        match "vendor" "0x054c";
        match "product" "0x09cc";
        action "chmod 0666 /dev/$cdev";
};

3. Plug in your PS4 controller, then reboot your system. If configured correctly, the ps4dshock module should load on boot. You should be able to configure your controller in your emulator of choice without much issue now.

 

[Pushing Up Tiddies]

These times will never come back as modern graphics cards don't (can't) really do these textmodes anymore like the old ones did.

I have a recent GeForce and it seems to do textmode just fine during boot time, grub, etc.

I set GRUB_TERMINAL=console because I don't like the unnecessary 640x480 splash, just show me a menu and let me use the arrow keys.

They just work completely differently. Graphics cards from that time were basically primitive buffer devices that either just threw on the screen what the CPU told them to pixel by pixel or had some very limited things they could do in an accelerated way with specific instructions. Modern graphics cards are best understood as a specialized computer inside your computer. You can do that direct pixel throwing too, but you go through a lot more layers getting there and it's very non-optimal.

Modern cards still have a framebuffer.

And, for better or worse, have to implement probably all of the VGA standard from 1987. Like modern CPUs which "must relive the entire history of x86 on every reboot" like the A20 nonsense.

My complaint is about Linux deliberately switching out of text mode into a really poorly performing and completely unnecessary "text console framebuffer" wtf.

dropped inbuilt scrollback support a few kernel versions, so don't worry about your scenario anymore

Say it ain't so. :_(

FreeBSD got this right. You could even switch VTs without losing your scrollback. The non-blinking cursor was pretty weird though. I guess they're trying to look less like DOS and more like a VT100 or something. (and yes there's a kernel build-time option to get a blinking cursor lmao)

 

[IamnottheNSA]

>no neofetch
>no embarrassing tabs that you forgot to quit out of before taking the screenshot

C'mon man, show some respect for tradition.

Is this the desktop thread?

I have a recent GeForce and it seems to do textmode just fine during boot time, grub, etc.

I have GeForce GTX 1060, can confirm (although Geforce 10 isn't very recent, I'm not sure if they dropped it with Geforce 30). It even has 640x480 VGA graphics mode - it's pretty glitchy, but it works. It's EGA and CGA when it shits the bed.

 

[PFM]

No idea. Will check. Clementine kept showing up on lists of the best Ubuntu podcaster software.



Gpodder made it seem like it was just a handy online method to synch all your podcasts. I'm just looking for a program to batch download all episodes for a podcast.



Thought it was YouTube only. Next on my list of prograns to run for my YouTube archiving.

Do we have a data hoarder thread btw?

Another for you https://github.com/lightpohl/podcast-dl

 

[eternal dog mongler]

I am very new to Linux in general and have only recently started trying out Arch Manjaro, do any of you actually recommend this branch? It seems decent in a basic sense but many things are wonky like file management.

Manjaro is pretty ass due to their policy of sequestering package updates for a week, ostensibly for the purposes of testing but no testing really happens. This has a high chance of breaking shit because anything you grab from AUR expects you to have a fully up-to-date Arch install. But oops you're a week behind and these things on the AUR are compiled against libraries that are floating in the ether until they escape jail and finally make it into Manjaro's repository.

EndeavourOS is better at being an "Arch for normal people" distro.

 

[TheBest]

I switched to Pop_OS and didn’t like it much, but then I tried Linux Mint since it was closest to Ubuntu without the gay shit but wayland support seems nonexistent there. After that I went to Ubuntu for a bit and wayland worked perfectly but no support for HDR and I can’t change Nvidia settings to set digital vibrancy. I hate this.

 

[Toolbox]

Manjaro is pretty ass due to their policy of sequestering package updates for a week, ostensibly for the purposes of testing but no testing really happens. This has a high chance of breaking shit because anything you grab from AUR expects you to have a fully up-to-date Arch install. But oops you're a week behind and these things on the AUR are compiled against libraries that are floating in the ether until they escape jail and finally make it into Manjaro's repository.

EndeavourOS is better at being an "Arch for normal people" distro.

what's the easiest way to go about transferring data between linux variants?

 

[Knight of the Rope]

what's the easiest way to go about transferring data between linux variants?

Having a separate /home or /data partition. Then you can just install a completely different Linux system, and as long as you don't fuck it up and format the partition during the install, then everything will still be there afterward.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Having a separate /home or /data partition. Then you can just install a completely different Linux system, and as long as you don't fuck it up and format the partition during the install, then everything will still be there afterward.

Yeah this is the best way to go about it.

Basically what you do is have / and /home on separate partitions and then transfer your entire /home/username directory into /home/backup. Just copy it over once you reinstall but watch out for anything you're overwriting.