The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Spaced Outside Cargo]

Linux-adjacent but Valve is goated for this

Imagine if you wanted to buy a car and before signing the paperwork it said in big red letters "Breathalyzer not detected, you will need to get a breathalyzer to use this vehicle".
Obviously the existence of this didn't tank their sales, but at the very least it definitely stopped a few people from paying money for a game they can't run and likely was brought up at DICE at some point.
Plus other smaller studios might get spooked into finding other anticheat solutions that are SteamOS compatible.

 

[ghastlyretard]

Linux-adjacent but Valve is goated for this
View attachment 8036115
Imagine if you wanted to buy a car and before signing the paperwork it said in big red letters "Breathalyzer not detected, you will need to get a breathalyzer to use this vehicle".
Obviously the existence of this didn't tank their sales, but at the very least it definitely stopped a few people from paying money for a game they can't run and likely was brought up at DICE at some point.
Plus other smaller studios might get spooked into finding other anticheat solutions that are SteamOS compatible.

It's definitely gay, but it led me to figuring out how to sign my grub and linux boot environments so that I could dual boot without having to jump into the BIOS to change settings. I don't understand why client side anti-cheat is necessary if they're hosting the servers. They can't analyze player behavior and movement for that purpose? They already have to confirm hits/movement - and I can tell they do because half the time I fucking slide around when I go prone because my PC and their server won't agree on where I should be.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Dual-mode means two monitors in one: a single physical unit with a button to switch between modes, each identifying as a display of its own. Technically, this happens via two EDIDs, one for each mode.

I remember running KDE Plasma on it, and there the switching worked without issues (other than the occasional pink snow due to bad DSC support, which can be avioded by limiting the refresh rate). Hyprland, OTOH, doesn't seem to be able to cope with that kind of switching due to how its file-based configuration works. It doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between the different EDIDs.

I would recommend opening a bug report. If you can give a clear description of the problem. And even better, a possible solution.

There at least might be a chance they will work on it. I'm not sure how common that kind of monitor configuration is. So they might not even be aware that it's an issue.

One thing I would recommend. Is seeing if the auto option in the config file is able to handle it if you haven't. But I think it's likely they just haven't built a solution for that kind of setup.

 

[acid_ra1n]

>someone gives me some old amd a8 laptop
>hah a fairly generic laptop this would be perfect for linux
hours later and 5 meme distros tried and failed
im reminded of some twitter post
"people think people good with computers have working computers, but this isn't true. people good with computers find new and novel ways to make their computer not work"

 

[Curry Teafag]

I'm not sure how common that kind of monitor configuration is.

No idea, but it will be more common going forward.

One thing I would recommend. Is seeing if the auto option in the config file is able to handle it if you haven't. But I think it's likely they just haven't built a solution for that kind of setup.

Good idea, I will check that out.

>someone gives me some old amd a8 laptop
>hah a fairly generic laptop this would be perfect for linux
hours later and 5 meme distros tried and failed
im reminded of some twitter post
"people think people good with computers have working computers, but this isn't true. people good with computers find new and novel ways to make their computer not work"

I remember a statistic from a few years ago where it was shown that Linux users on average have higher-end hardware because they tend to be more enthusiastic about computers and work well-paid IT jobs.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

No idea, but it will be more common going forward.

Then I definitely recommend making a bug report. It will likely help a lot of people in the future if it's unsupported, and people are moving towards setting up their monitors like that.

 

[Ferryman]

I meant on sway any application can record the screen through a wlroots protocol, no dbus or pipewire required. This requires no user permission. If there is a vulnerability in any of the software you use then it can record your screen. This is the same scenario as for x11 keyloggers/screen recorders. What to you do to prevent applications from using this wlroots protocol?

Gotcha, my bad. Right now my main precautions are to run anything I don't trust in a VM, and my main browsers using cage. Everything else is source compiled and my stack overall is very emacs/tui-heavy, so I just kind of cope with it. As far as I know there is no prevention outside of just using something that does not go through wlroots. I have been considering swapping to a super trimmed down KDE/Kwin and setting that up for tiling, just haven't found the time yet. There's also GNIGGEROME but that's more pozz than I am willing to put up with.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Gotcha, my bad. Right now my main precautions are to run anything I don't trust in a VM, and my main browsers using cage. Everything else is source compiled and my stack overall is very emacs/tui-heavy, so I just kind of cope with it. As far as I know there is no prevention outside of just using something that does not go through wlroots. I have been considering swapping to a super trimmed down KDE/Kwin and setting that up for tiling, just haven't found the time yet. There's also GNIGGEROME but that's more pozz than I am willing to put up with.

From the things I have tried so far. The 2 best options without adding too much unnecessary overhead. Are containers (pick whichever implementation you like best) or firejail. Firejail in particular makes adding a good bit of extra security fairly easy.

If you are using something that isn't covered out of the box with a profile. Setting up a new one does take a bit of fiddling. But once you've done it once you get the general idea of how to make things work. And most things just work.

It also has the added benefit of even giving some isolation on xorg. Through zephyr (I can't never remember how it's spelled), and some other xorg extensions. That it will work with.

It works with apparmor as well. So do at least some of the container implementations.

It will obviously work with Wayland too. And I haven't tried it. But I think it should also work fine spawning applications in cage like you are. While also running them with firejail. It might need a little extra set up work though.

 

[dec05eba]

Gotcha, my bad. Right now my main precautions are to run anything I don't trust in a VM, and my main browsers using cage. Everything else is source compiled and my stack overall is very emacs/tui-heavy, so I just kind of cope with it. As far as I know there is no prevention outside of just using something that does not go through wlroots. I have been considering swapping to a super trimmed down KDE/Kwin and setting that up for tiling, just haven't found the time yet. There's also GNIGGEROME but that's more pozz than I am willing to put up with.

I see, that's pretty autistic. Btw, kde/gnome/etc has the same issue as wlroots. All wayland compositors have internal compositor specific protocols that are not secured. For example on kde spectacle uses this. It records the screen without any permission and it does this by using an internal kde protocol. Nobody else is supposed to use this, but it's not secured in any way so any application can use it. There is also the issue of clipboard access. Any focused application can access the clipboard without permission. This is an issue if you use a password manager for example and make it copy text to the clipboard, since there is no standard wayland protocol (to my knowledge) that allows typing the password instead of copying it to the clipboard. This is also an issue if you decide to share clipboard with VMs. Android handles this in a better way by having a standard context menu where you paste in text, instead of letting the application just request clipboard whenever it wants. Sadly wayland devs didn't do it properly.

 

[Betonhaus]

>someone gives me some old amd a8 laptop
>hah a fairly generic laptop this would be perfect for linux
hours later and 5 meme distros tried and failed
im reminded of some twitter post
"people think people good with computers have working computers, but this isn't true. people good with computers find new and novel ways to make their computer not work"

Fuck meme distros. If Linux Mint doesn't work well then you will only have luck with maybe arch or Gentoo and you'll have to deal with a learning curve, and if that's too much just go back to Windows as there will be no easy solution.

 

[Ferryman]

I see, that's pretty autistic.

Thanks!

tw, kde/gnome/etc has the same issue as wlroots. All wayland compositors have internal compositor specific protocols that are not secured. For example on kde spectacle uses this. It records the screen without any permission and it does this by using an internal kde protocol.

I don't think that's right. Kwin doesn't expose wlr-screencopy. AFAIK KDE uses a restricted screenshot api that is not arbitrarily available the same way wlroots is, instead it checks that the app trying to screenshot is whitelisted through the

X-KDE-DBUS-Restricted-Interfaces=...

dbus, so everything that isn't whitelisted fails. Spectacle is whitelisted and it can screenshot without a consent popup, but the solution to that is just removing Spectacle. For my screenshotter of choice, Flameshot, that means it always hits the xdg-desktop-portal and always generates a dialog window because it is not on the whitelist for that restricted API. No whitelist = no issue, everything hits the portal prompt.

There is also the issue of clipboard access. Any focused application can access the clipboard without permission. This is an issue if you use a password manager for example and make it copy text to the clipboard, since there is no standard wayland protocol (to my knowledge) that allows typing the password instead of copying it to the clipboard. This is also an issue if you decide to share clipboard with VMs.

Ideally you'd have a clear-on-paste toggle for the clipboard, but yeah, as far as I can tell there is no native Wayland implementation of that. The closest thing to a solution I can think of is to either make a script for wl-copy that runs --paste-once and wl-paste that runs --no-newline to clear the clipboard after pasting. Not sure if that can be bound to the copy/paste hotkeys or not, or if it needs to be its own little daemon that constantly arms those two functions. KeepassXC has a clear after "n" seconds function but that still isn't quite right. Guess the best option is to just be careful what you focus with something copied to your clipboard.

Either way, X11/Libre has all of these issues and more, so one way or another, I'm probably gonna stick with Wayland for the time being. Ngl I might try the KDE + Khronkite angle after this convo, seems like a fun little side project.

 

[Jesus Swept]

So it turns out there's an extra menu in the XFCE monitor settings where you can set your preferred monitor for UI panels, desktop icons and notifications. But even with everything set to the right monitor, every new program that opens always starts on the left monitor, even if it's turned off. I found forum posts as far back as 2012 complaining about the same thing, why is it so hard to make a primary monitor toggle that actually does something?

 

[daffodils]

Fuck meme distros. If Linux Mint doesn't work well then you will only have luck with maybe arch or Gentoo and you'll have to deal with a learning curve, and if that's too much just go back to Windows as there will be no easy solution.

Virtually the only differences between Linux distros as far as hardware support is concerned are: (1) kernel version; and (2) handling of non-free drivers.

Mint isn't a panacea. Neither are Arch or Gentoo. You actually have to figure out what the problem is.

This constant distro jumping current-year Linux users recommend to each other as an easy fix is a huge waste of time.

 

[Betonhaus]

So it turns out there's an extra menu in the XFCE monitor settings where you can set your preferred monitor for UI panels, desktop icons and notifications. But even with everything set to the right monitor, every new program that opens always starts on the left monitor, even if it's turned off. I found forum posts as far back as 2012 complaining about the same thing, why is it so hard to make a primary monitor toggle that actually does something?

Is this Wayland? Wayland doesn't really let you set a preferred monitor, it always defaults to the leftmost

 

[Slav Power]

Virtually the only differences between Linux distros as far as hardware support is concerned are: (1) kernel version; and (2) handling of non-free drivers.

Mint isn't a panacea. Neither are Arch or Gentoo. You actually have to figure out what the problem is.

This constant distro jumping current-year Linux users recommend to each other as an easy fix is a huge waste of time.

Here's the difference that people give a shit about though.
Mint comes pre-configured and pre-packaged with everything you'd expect from a desktop OS.
Arch is a DIY solution where you have to go through multiple console commands (or archinstall's TUI) to set up a desktop OS that you'll have to gradually expand as you go.
Omarchy pre-configures Arch so that you get a ready-to-go TWM environment with various dependencies.

People don't want to rice the everloving fuck out of their OS or constantly work on it's internals, and it's a sentiment that's also prevalent in the Linux userbase. This idea of "you have to constantly fuck with the command like" that Arch is based on is one of the main forces that drive people away from trying Linux. People just want to use their computers and not have to tinker with it just to get it going. That's why Windows held such a stronghold on the desktop OS market until the recent years where it now becomes a hassle to have it not get in your way, and when people turn to Linux, they turn to Mint or Bazzite, as those come pre-configured in such a way where you just install it and use it and not worry about anything else.

The "easy fix" people are looking for is a distro that comes pre-packaged with everything needed for you to not worry about the OS you're using. That's what people ultimately want. There's a reason people who use Linux professionally go for such pre-configured distros instead of ricing Arch or Gentoo like some no-life neckbeard.

Linus Torvalds uses Fedora, which most of the Linux community wants to burn on a stake. Why? Because it works, he doesn't want to fuck around with his computer just to get his work done and in his personal experience Fedora is what gives him that.

I mean...

This speech still holds true. All of his gripes with desktop Linux come from his personal experience with it and plenty of people share his sentiment for a good reason. Desktop Linux is a mess and people just want a desktop Linux distro that doesn't suck ass. For most Arch will suck ass as they don't want a DIY project for their daily driver, even if technically you could rice it to the point where it "just works". It's not a hard concept to grasp if you're able to be considerate of other people's needs and expectations.

 

[Angie Wormwood]

People just want to use their computers and not have to tinker with it just to get it going. That's why Windows held such a stronghold on the desktop OS market until the recent years where it now becomes a hassle to have it not get in your way, and when people turn to Linux, they turn to Mint or Bazzite, as those come pre-configured in such a way where you just install it and use it and not worry about anything else.

That was something that Canonical absolutely crapped the bed on. They were early enough to the market that they could've become the default Linux desktop OS, but they *insist* on getting in your way and forcing you to do things a certain way.

It's why I moved from that to Debian since Debian is good about getting out of your way, has the WM I want to use (and is point-click simple to get running, which is a godsend for anyone who's had to get under the hood with the Vietnam of Berkeley UNIX aka X11), and has plenty of package support to get what I need without having to go through dephell by compiling by hand.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Now that Windows 11 is looking worse and worse, I'm seriously considering Linux once again. My biggest concern is being able to play all my silly vidya games. Are there any versions of Linux that have press-and-play or press-and-play-with-a-little-tweaking capabilities? Or is dual-booting still the norm? Please consider me a complete retard when it comes to Linux, because I am.

I even tried using one of those "what distro is right for you?" quiz things and it gave me 50 different choices. Pretty much all of them were like "yeah this requires a ton of advanced user experience." Linux does a good job of making itself seem daunting.

 

[残念。]

It's not a hard concept to grasp if you're able to be considerate of other people's needs and expectations.

"There is no usecase for this"

 

[Betonhaus]

Now that Windows 11 is looking worse and worse, I'm seriously considering Linux once again. My biggest concern is being able to play all my silly vidya games. Are there any versions of Linux that have press-and-play or press-and-play-with-a-little-tweaking capabilities? Or is dual-booting still the norm? Please consider me a complete retard when it comes to Linux, because I am.

I even tried using one of those "what distro is right for you?" quiz things and it gave me 50 different choices. Pretty much all of them were like "yeah this requires a ton of advanced user experience." Linux does a good job of making itself seem daunting.

Are all your games on Steam? If so then Linux Mint easily wins, as it's just a matter of using the driver manager to install Nvidia drivers and installing Steam and it just works. If you're games aren't on steam it's probably a little more complicated, but Mint likely still wins as the super uper game optimized distros often have less support and will have issues that crop up.

If you're new to Linux then it might be easier to start with Mint than something that has a steeper learning curve, or hides the complexity too much and makes it difficult to use.

 

[Slav Power]

"There is no usecase for this"

>t.