The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[thog]

Not completely Linux specific, but does anyone here have any experience with Libreboot or Coreboot? I have a Thinkpad X220 from after the Intel Management Engine was introduced and it appears as though I need to load some additional firmware on top of Libreboot for IME to let the machine boot. It also doesn't help that the developer of Libreboot is an especially deranged troon and is currently in a pissing match with the FSF.

Basically, I'm just wondering if I should just skip Libreboot and choose Coreboot instead, because I don't think my laptop is old enough to be more than almost free. I need one or the other, though, because I need to install a new WiFi card and the Lenovo BIOS blocks all but a handful of cards.

 

[vanta pilled]

So, pozzed in the weirdest way.
What DE do I use now? Kde? Xfce?

A windows manager is all you need fren.

 

[seri0us]

Not completely Linux specific, but does anyone here have any experience with Libreboot or Coreboot? I have a Thinkpad X220 from after the Intel Management Engine was introduced and it appears as though I need to load some additional firmware on top of Libreboot for IME to let the machine boot. It also doesn't help that the developer of Libreboot is an especially deranged troon and is currently in a pissing match with the FSF.

Basically, I'm just wondering if I should just skip Libreboot and choose Coreboot instead, because I don't think my laptop is old enough to be more than almost free. I need one or the other, though, because I need to install a new WiFi card and the Lenovo BIOS blocks all but a handful of cards.

Just get Coreboot, LB isn't even completely FOSS.

https://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html

https://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x220

 

[thog]

Just get Coreboot, LB isn't even completely FOSS.

https://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html

https://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x220

That's what I'm probably going to do. I'm not going to get perfection, but having open firmware at all is still a worthwhile improvement.

 

[Betonhaus]

I figured I'd ask here if anyone knows a good open source customer-owned inventory management system
For my new job there may eventually be talk about setting up a digital tracking system for tracking customer-owned items we are holding. Each item is unique, so item quantities will always be 1 or 0.
The system needs to make it easy to add new entries including where they are stored to, record when the items have been checked out or checked back in, and be able to keep track of how long it has been since an item has been checked out - so we can contact the customer and ask if they will retrieve the item or if it's been abandoned.
It doesn't need to track the cost of the item, but if it can track the condition of the item, type of item, and owner, that would be appreciated.

Maybe something closer to an library book management system that can track which exact slot the item is in?
it might be easier to make something custom in MySql, but making apps from scratch would be difficult as we would need portable barcode scanners to enter items and their location.

 

[blur]

Just started out in linux a few months ago. I'm about to do the RHEL admin exam.

Do you guys have any advice on evolving into a linux master (aside from more rhel certs)? There is a massive gap between competency and really understanding what tf is going on and I'm not sure how to start bridging it.

How do some of you get so fluent in technology? I already finished hardcore i heckin love science higher ed but all I learned there is that I'm probably retarded.

<me

 

[Dread First]

I figured I'd ask here if anyone knows a good open source customer-owned inventory management system
For my new job there may eventually be talk about setting up a digital tracking system for tracking customer-owned items we are holding.
The system needs to make it easy to add new entries including where they are stored to, record when the items have been checked out or checked back in, and be able to keep track of how long it has been since an item has been checked out - so we can contact the customer and ask if they will retrieve the item or if it's been abandoned.
It doesn't need to track the cost of the item, but if it can track the condition of the item, type of item, and owner, that would be appreciated.

Maybe something closer to an library book management system that can track which exact slot the item is in?
it might be easier to make something custom in MySql, but making apps from scratch would be difficult as we would need portable barcode scanners to enter items and their location.

Please refrain from doxing your job duties any further; Kiwi Farms is not a consulting firm for your job's IT needs. Having said that, the thought of open source inventory software is something that caters to my autism for libre shit in niche scenarios. I did the work googling stuff for ya, but please don't stop only at what I provide. Look this stuff up because there's tons of other shit out there with use cases I don't even know if they could be applicable to your job.

1. InvenTree (X11 licence); GitHub
2. PartKeepr (GPLv3); GitHub
3. Snipe-IT (AGPLv3); GitHub

Just started out in linux a few months ago. I'm about to do the RHEL admin exam.

Do you guys have any advice on evolving into a linux master (aside from more rhel certs)? There is a massive gap between competency and really understanding what tf is going on and I'm not sure how to start bridging it.

How do some of you get so fluent in technology? I already finished hardcore i heckin love science higher ed but all I learned there is that I'm probably retarded.

Pro-tip: do not be that person who pays out the ass for enterprise Linux certifications. If you're sincerely trying to learn how Linux works as a chaotic amalgam of GNU tooling, the Linux kernel proper, and assorted bits and bobs, sit your ass down and get yourself a copy of the Linux From Scratch handbook. LFS is ostensibly not the same thing as a "vanilla" binary distro like Arch Linux or a "source" distro like Gentoo; you start off from a host system and you build yourself an entire base Linux system (text-only, no package management, etc) by fetching sources, extracting them, compiling them, yadda yadda yadda.

If you don't have the willpower to stomach the sheer autism and headache that comes with making an LFS system from start to finish, save your money and just pivot over to a different field of IT study that won't be more cost-effective to have pajeets in India and Bangladesh do for half the price of your Western labour.

 

[DavidS877]

Do you guys have any advice on evolving into a linux master (aside from more rhel certs)? There is a massive gap between competency and really understanding what tf is going on and I'm not sure how to start bridging it.

How do some of you get so fluent in technology? I already finished hardcore i heckin love science higher ed but all I learned there is that I'm probably retarded.

Certification proves you can take tests. RedHat is better than most but it's still not rocket surgery. Or it was when I took mine for RedHat 9, not RHEL 9.

The way you learn is to break all the things and then putting them back together. These days with Virtual Machines and snapshots it's easier than ever to test without actually risking your system. Also, don't get hyperfocused on distributions. If I interview you and your answer to "Here's a Debian system and it's doing this funny thing." is "Sorry, I only know RedHat." then the interview has ended. They're all the same and they're all different but play with a broad spectrum.

You get fluent in technology by doing it. As I said, 'break all the things'. Also come up with projects you want to do. And if you're me, you do them as low a level as possible. Don't go buy a pre-built thing or use a guide to do something, figure it out yourself, do it your own way.

Also, having 30+ years of experience helps.

 

[blur]

Pro-tip: do not be that person who pays out the ass for enterprise Linux certifications if you're sincerely trying to learn how Linux, as a chaotic amalgam of GNU tooling, Linux kernel, and assorted bits and bobs, sit your ass down and get yourself a copy of the Linux From Scratch handbook. LFS is ostensibly not the same thing as a "vanilla" binary distro like Arch Linux or a "source" distro like Gentoo; you start off from a host system and you build yourself an entire base Linux system (text-only, no package management, etc) by fetching sources, extracting them, compiling them, yadda yadda yadda.

that sounds like a compelling way to get into the guts I'm going to grab the book now. Thanks!
Fortunately my company is paying for certs and they cannot outsource anything. They want me to get to rhel architect.

 

[Dread First]

that sounds like a compelling way to get into the guts I'm going to grab the book now. Thanks!
Fortunately my company is paying for certs and they cannot outsource anything. They want me to get to rhel architect.

The sections in LFS relating to GRUB (or bootloaders more generally) are insanely valuable. Nobody likes borked Linux systems, and most Linux autists without professional interest or backing quiver in their boots if they have to get behind a bootloader command prompt which isn't the same as a Bash prompt.

 

[blur]

Certification proves you can take tests. RedHat is better than most but it's still not rocket surgery. Or it was when I took mine for RedHat 9, not RHEL 9.

The way you learn is to break all the things and then putting them back together. These days with Virtual Machines and snapshots it's easier than ever to test without actually risking your system. Also, don't get hyperfocused on distributions. If I interview you and your answer to "Here's a Debian system and it's doing this funny thing." is "Sorry, I only know RedHat." then the interview has ended. They're all the same and they're all different but play with a broad spectrum.

You get fluent in technology by doing it. As I said, 'break all the things'. Also come up with projects you want to do. And if you're me, you do them as low a level as possible. Don't go buy a pre-built thing or use a guide to do something, figure it out yourself, do it your own way.

Also, having 30+ years of experience helps.

Break and fix is how I've learned well in the past. So given whatever distribution how would you recommend breaking things down? Right now I use a bash script that inserts word salad into a range of config files then try to figure out what all is broken on reboot... but that's the limit of my crazy experiments. I'll broaden my distribution horizon once I'm free from the red hat cert grindset.

Thank you for the advice!

The sections in LFS relating to GRUB (or bootloaders more generally) are insanely valuable. Nobody likes borked Linux systems, and most Linux autists without professional interest or backing quiver in their boots if they have to get behind a bootloader command prompt which isn't the same as a Bash prompt.

Yeah bootloaders are what most peaked my HELP I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON sensors. I've screwed with it a little but def need to get my hands dirtier. thanks!

 

[Doctor Neo Cortex]

The sections in LFS relating to GRUB (or bootloaders more generally) are insanely valuable. Nobody likes borked Linux systems, and most Linux autists without professional interest or backing quiver in their boots if they have to get behind a bootloader command prompt which isn't the same as a Bash prompt.

The GRUB bootloader command prompt is something I always struggle with, I do eventually find a solution to the issues I caused, but it doesn't hurt to have a better understanding. Thanks for the recommendation, I will have to sit down and read LFS sometime.

Break and fix

Honestly, this is the way I think most people learn things when it comes to IT.

 

[Betonhaus]

Please refrain from doxing your job duties any further; Kiwi Farms is not a consulting firm for your job's IT needs. Having said that, the thought of open source inventory software is something that caters to my autism for libre shit in niche scenarios. I did the work googling stuff for ya, but please don't stop only at what I provide. Look this stuff up because there's tons of other shit out there with use cases I don't even know if they could be applicable to your job.

1. InvenTree (X11 licence); GitHub
2. PartKeepr (GPLv3); GitHub
3. Snipe-IT (AGPLv3); GitHub

Thanks, those look interesting, but I'd have to turn off a lot of unnecessary features as the use case needs a very simple and fast to use system, that is accessible from mobile phones and have barcode scanning.
It might be easier to find a more generic database system, with a from scratch SQL database and easy to set up access and change forms. It's been a long time since I built a database from scratch and I was part of a group who set up bootstrap and everything, It may end up being that we won't be able to use a local system anyways, so I'll have to set up a web database in Amazon or something.

It might be easier just to throw mariadb and bootstrap on a Debian server and cobble together something from scratch. maybe I'll set up that shitty eebox to try this out then show it to my boss if i get it to work.

 

[TheBigZee]

Just started out in linux a few months ago. I'm about to do the RHEL admin exam.

Do you guys have any advice on evolving into a linux master (aside from more rhel certs)? There is a massive gap between competency and really understanding what tf is going on and I'm not sure how to start bridging it.

How do some of you get so fluent in technology? I already finished hardcore i heckin love science higher ed but all I learned there is that I'm probably retarded.

View attachment 5431376 <me

Learning a bit of C, then reading through o'reillys Linux system programming and Understanding the Linux Kernel go a long, long way.

 

[Mister Uno]

With the things going on over at Gnome, has anyone seen what System 76 is doing with their fork of it called Cosmic? Wonder if it has any meaningful improvements compared to GNOME.

 

[Dread First]

With the things going on over at Gnome, has anyone seen what System 76 is doing with their fork of it called Cosmic? Wonder if it has any meaningful improvements compared to GNOME.

10 years of GNOME 3's dysfunctions and the GNOME Foundation insisting that their way is the right way have completely numbed me to any remotely usable GTK3 system for the near future. Now that Wayland is “mature” relative to its abysmal launch in 2011, KDE's basically the way to go. Plasma 5 even made it ridiculously easy to achieve uniform aesthetics with GTK applications, compared to how much of a ball ache it was with KDE4.

To paraphrase a totally real quote by Hayao Miyazaki:

 

[Betonhaus]

I'm just waiting for the day that a major distro like Ubuntu or Red Hat changes their default DE checkbox to KDE, or at least ANYTHING other then Gnome

 

[DavidS877]

I'm just waiting for the day that a major distro like Ubuntu or Red Hat changes their default DE checkbox to KDE, or at least ANYTHING other then Gnome

Where have you been noob? Ubuntu used their own DE for years. Unity, from 2010 to 2017 apparently.

It was crap.

 

[seri0us]

I'm just waiting for the day that a major distro like Ubuntu or Red Hat changes their default DE checkbox to KDE, or at least ANYTHING other then Gnome

Linux Mint's default DE is Cinnamon

 

[Car Won't Crank]

I'm just waiting for the day that a major distro like Ubuntu or Red Hat changes their default DE checkbox to KDE, or at least ANYTHING other then Gnome

There's an official Ubuntu flavor that uses KDE called Kubuntu. Is this what you mean? There are also a handful of other official Ubuntu distros with different DEs.

https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavours