The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Samuel Fuller]

GNU was a free operating system project started by RMS that never completed because Linus Torvalds published his kernel before GNU could secure a free kernel in the way they wanted, and so Stallman wanted to claim Linux as the completion of GNU so that people would appreciate his work. There is about as much reason to refer to GNU/MacOS as GNU/Linux since they both utilized the GNU core utilities (and other GNU software).

Everyone knows about the decades-long failure of GNU/HURD as a project due to Stallman's retardation and lack of work ethic.

No, there really isn't ANY valid basis for tying GNU to MacOS aside from thirsting for Stallman's taint, and as time passes, more and more of the GNU cancer has been removed from MacOS and replaced with better solutions.

Stallman was basically trying to bootleg UNIX due to his Marxist beliefs, and was basically ripping off the evolutionary origins of Mac, not the other way around.

Almost everything in the UNIX side of MacOS was from FreeBSD's toolchain.

Linux is just a clone of Minix that Stallman tries to take credit for beyond his actual contributions and his worshippers fantasize that GNU means more than it really does, much like you are doing.

 

[volatile puar]

What's the best out there these days worth trying for regular general usage and game playing too?

It doesn't matter much, just go with MX Linux and install Steam and Proton.

No, there really isn't ANY valid basis for tying GNU to MacOS

Do you really think anyone would actually call it GNU/MacOS?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

It's probably just your swap file, Chromium and many other applications are designed to write to the swap file of your SSD as a form of RAM.

I think I've seen Firefox do that writing without the swap space being filled though. And it's far more writing than reading, by like 50 times. And only happens when online.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

It doesn't matter much, just go with MX Linux and install Steam and Proton.

Do you really think anyone would actually call it GNU/MacOS?

I never discount the retardation of Stallmanites, they continue to find new ways to make themselves look even more idiotic.

 

[Combustion Engine]

Unless you need hibernate function (as opposed to just normal sleep mode), you probably shouldn’t have a swap file/partition in the first place. If your computer has 16GB or more RAM you’ll probably be just fine using only RAM and ZRAM (compressing contents of RAM).

A few years ago it seemed as if swap really was on its way out for most cases, until microsoft decided to fuck with sleep states through CPU manufacturers and laptop OEMs (as if they weren't broken enough already), and now it's still very appealing to write to disk to minimize power consumption, increased storage and drive speeds mitigate that a bit. Added bonus of having everything encrypted at rest at a small time cost unlike sleep, and you can make it so the swap allocation is only dedicated to hibernation.

 

[Retarded Weeb]

I'm thinking about giving Linux another go given Microsoft's best attempts to force Windows 11 down peoples throats (last Linux usage was about a decade ago).

What's the best out there these days worth trying for regular general usage and game playing too?

People usually recommend Mint. It's a split off from Ubuntu that's designed to be even more beginner-friendly and have a desktop environment that looks and feels similar to Windows. It's probably the best option.

I'll mention what I personally did when I switched to Linux on a whim years ago, which is I test-rode several Ubuntu flavors and Mint on a USB drive until I settled on the one I liked the feel of the best, which is why I'm using Lubuntu since I liked LXQt and it's worked for me for the most part. But it's not necessarily the best for everyone can try things out yourself.

On the other side of things, Arch can be useful since you can more easily install the latest version of any program on it, including some stuff useful for gaming, but that's going right into the deep-end of things from the start. As a slight alternative, you can go with EndeavorOS, which afaik is basically just Arch but with an easier to use installer and some useful programs installed by default.

You should probably narrow things down to those basically being your main options. Most other distros are either a "if you need to use this you already know you do" type thing or is just a meme.

 

[Slav Power]

One solution I've heard a bunch are cheap NUC boxes. For the price of a Pi 5 starter kit, you can get a N100 mini PC that has more power, memory, compatability, and has features like bluetooth out of the box. The cost is higher power draw, so if it's not something that's always on, you can get a NUC, put linux on it, and be good to go.

IIRC the N100 is close in performance to an i5-4460, which is still a very capable CPU for desktop use, but the N100 has a TDP of like 7W. It's insanely power efficient. So yeah, those are a great option as well.

Unless you need hibernate function (as opposed to just normal sleep mode), you probably shouldn’t have a swap file/partition in the first place. If your computer has 16GB or more RAM you’ll probably be just fine using only RAM and ZRAM (compressing contents of RAM).

Windows gets away with swap/hibernate files just fine, and I don't know why the status quo with Linux distros was to cut out an entire partition for it. A file as also a better option as you can dynamically resize it without being restricted by your partition layout.

until microsoft decided to fuck with sleep states through CPU manufacturers and laptop OEMs (as if they weren't broken enough already),

Yeah, when I tried to enable S3 on my Win11 ThinkPad, I couldn't. Why? Not supported by the hardware/firmware. So even if I switched to Linux I'd be stuck with the S0 garbage. Though tbf autohibernation seems like a decent choice for laptops when you're leaving it untouched for more than five minutes. Even on the bloated mess that is Win11 it gets up from hibernation rather quickly thanks to modern CPU's and NVMe drives, and you're not dealing with any background power draw in that state whatsoever.

 

[Betonhaus]

update: Even sans YT, the excess unexplained writing continues. Same 20 MB blocks every half hour or so.

Could you mount that directory to a ramdisk, if it's just used for cache that can be wiped at restart?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Could you mount that directory to a ramdisk, if it's just used for cache that can be wiped at restart?

I don't even know what the mystery data is, much less where it's saving to.

 

[volatile puar]

I don't even know what the mystery data is, much less where it's saving to.

check if clearing your browser data clears it or go to the directories in about:profiles and see if it's updating one of those files (probably cache or other site data)

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Some don't want to learn. Fuck them.

No. It's not fuck them, if they don't want to learn.

If they don't want to learn they are wasting THEIR time. And they might as well just turn back sooner than later. Because at some point for some reason. They will have to learn something new.

Even if they don't run into some weird edge case problem. They will have to learn, because Linux is fundamentally different than how windows works.

What's the best out there these days worth trying for regular general usage and game playing too?

Depends what you want. Linux mint is one of the easiest recommendations.

 

[Anti Snigger]

Just a brief aside, I dual boot both of my normal computers for werk reasons, and of all things, Apple Inc. is saving my ass with allowing me to use .local on Windows via bonjour, so rare apple W.

 

[Aidan]

I'm thinking about giving Linux another go given Microsoft's best attempts to force Windows 11 down peoples throats (last Linux usage was about a decade ago).

What's the best out there these days worth trying for regular general usage and game playing too?

Try out some distros using virtual machines to find one you like. It might be that you can stick with the virtual machine for a week or month once you find a distro you like before doing a full install to your computer.
I recommend Mint for people going from Windows to Linux. EndeavourOS is the best Arch distro to hop into without needing to learn much but you do software management through the terminal so it may be off-putting initially.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

check if clearing your browser data clears it or go to the directories in about:profiles and see if it's updating one of those files (probably cache or other site data)

I already disabled caching, forced medias to not be cached via private browsing (browser.privatebrowsing.forceMediaMemoryCache true), installed profile-sync-daemon, and even after all that, there's still that periodic mystery writing when I'm online. Dunno if it's really the drive or maybe RAM, but it seems it's drive. Free space doesn't change.

At least with all the steps I've taken -- like not having a tab of GMail open in not private browsing nor any YT tab open -- the mysterious writing has been greatly reduced.

 

[Miller]

In completely unrelated news, according to Phoronix, Steam usage on Linux reached a recent high of 2.69% in May. Arch Linux now makes up 10% of those Linux users. THE YEAR OF LORNIX IS HERE!!!!1 (it is not) I fully expect a Jeetahar video on this shortly. "Michaelsoft is TREMBLING, guys n gals". - In all seriousness, I am actually shocked at how CachyOS have made such strides among Linux users on Steam. Anyone here actually use it?

I use it sometimes. I ended up going back to my Arch SSD today because CachyOS seems to have decided that my Steam gaymes would have no audio when my system is set to 5.1 surround,
I have the arch-gaming-meta package on my Arch system anyway so CachyOS is kinda useless to me.
As for the Steam survey, I wouldn't trust the results since it's opt-in.

 

[GNU Abyss]

I already disabled caching, forced medias to not be cached via private browsing (browser.privatebrowsing.forceMediaMemoryCache true), installed profile-sync-daemon, and even after all that, there's still that periodic mystery writing when I'm online. Dunno if it's really the drive or maybe RAM, but it seems it's drive. Free space doesn't change.

At least with all the steps I've taken -- like not having a tab of GMail open in not private browsing nor any YT tab open -- the mysterious writing has been greatly reduced.

You can keep track of what firefox does with your storage using fatrace. (sudo maybe) fatrace -ct -f "CW+" | grep ".mozilla" and it'll show you all the Change/New/Write operations pertaining to Firefox's antics. > mozillabullshit.log to keep the results for later.

From running this on my system, Youtube is saving site data to its sqlite db very often. More disturbingly, Glean (Firefox's telemetry engine) is still saving shit into its internal DB as well. Arkenfox profile or Tor Browser, it's still going. That aside, if you've done the profile-sync-daemon install correctly, all those file ops in the profile directory should be happening in /tmp on your RAM.

 

[Betonhaus]

As for the Steam survey, I wouldn't trust the results since it's opt-in

So there could be an oversampling of "Arch BTW"?

 

[DavidS877]

I don't know why the status quo with Linux distros was to cut out an entire partition for it.

Speed and stability. A file doesn't have to be contiguous so it has to do a lookup to see where the block is before it can write. In extreme memory pressure(in the good old days) there may not even be enough memory to look up the inode data to figure out where it can write. On a partition all you need is a block number and you can write there. Obviously things are better now than 1.2.13

 

[ToroidalBoat]

More disturbingly, Glean (Firefox's telemetry engine) is still saving shit into its internal DB as well.

Does that crap only save when one is connected to the internet?

 

[teriyakiburns]

Linux is just a clone of Minix

The source for "linux is a minix clone" is the retarded "samizdat" hit-piece, which produced during the whole SCO fiasco in an attempt to bolster the claim that Linux was actually stolen from SCO Unix... somehow. Tanenbaum, who wrote minix, is on record saying this entire claim is bullshit. Anyone who believes otherwise should have their intelligence and judgement questioned, because just looking at the design of the two kernels (minix is a microkernel, linux definitely is not) would show it to be a complete and utter lie.