The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

Developers no longer need to care, or at least that's the mindset.
Developers stopped paying attention in college when they learned about the Turing machine and how it had infinite storage. They missed the part about it just being a concept and computers really aren't infinite. Sadly human stupidity is.
 
Developers no longer need to care, or at least that's the mindset.
Perl, Larry Wall, paying developers is more expensive than paying for more hardware, etc.

Yeah well what about end users? I can't exactly spin up more AWS instances to power one of my old hoopty servers that has 512MB of RAM.
 
It really is a crying shame. Stuff like seeing Debian stable releases idling on 400mb of ram used is seen as absurdly clean and efficient. And it is, but I really feel like we could do better but people just aren't able too. Even if the enthusiasts and hobbyists tried to they would run into the problem that so many of the needed software isn't up to the task of being efficient. And even if you got them to get a real efficient system running it is ruined the moment you open your new shiny ultra-light web browser and fucking amazon or fagbook demands 1gb of ram to run a billion fucking CSS, Java, HTML and animations and shit.
 
It really is a crying shame. Stuff like seeing Debian stable releases idling on 400mb of ram used is seen as absurdly clean and efficient. And it is, but I really feel like we could do better but people just aren't able too. Even if the enthusiasts and hobbyists tried to they would run into the problem that so many of the needed software isn't up to the task of being efficient. And even if you got them to get a real efficient system running it is ruined the moment you open your new shiny ultra-light web browser and fucking amazon or fagbook demands 1gb of ram to run a billion fucking CSS, Java, HTML and animations and shit.
Doesn't really fix the core issue, but Ad Nauseam does have an option to prevent elements over a given size from loading, which helps. I think UBlock Origin may, as well, but I'm not sure. If you set the threshold too low, it will break pages, though.
 
It really is a crying shame. Stuff like seeing Debian stable releases idling on 400mb of ram used is seen as absurdly clean and efficient. And it is, but I really feel like we could do better but people just aren't able too. Even if the enthusiasts and hobbyists tried to they would run into the problem that so many of the needed software isn't up to the task of being efficient. And even if you got them to get a real efficient system running it is ruined the moment you open your new shiny ultra-light web browser and fucking amazon or fagbook demands 1gb of ram to run a billion fucking CSS, Java, HTML and animations and shit.
What's most infuriating to me about web page ramhogs is a lot of it is using your own resources against you for tracking and way too much of it is just terrible design. Luke Smith and Mental Outlaw each have videos covering how absurd "modern design" is and they're spot on in their own ways.
I like Luke using recipe pages as an example as you see the memory usage climb while sitting on the page looking at the recipe.
 
Any suggestions at all for USB portable distros? Maybe one of the man Puppy ones works better than FossaPup?
If I'm going to use it on public machines, Tails with the write protect tab on (not that that is perfect), and if I'm just going to use it on the go on my own laptop, something like the PeppermintOS boot CD, mainly out of old habit and it generally works with the older laptops that I'd actually carry around places.
 
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Is there any reason to set up linux mint in dual boot alongside windows 11 (new pc came with it, unavoidable) or should I just wipe it clean and start figuring out how to have windows in mint for programs that are windows only?

I'm referring to the "Install Linux Mint alongside Windows Boot Manager" command. This is my first trial of mint though I have lightly tried other linux variants. I really hate win 11 so this has pushed me to attempt Linux as my main OS.
 
Is there any reason to set up linux mint in dual boot alongside windows 11 (new pc came with it, unavoidable) or should I just wipe it clean and start figuring out how to have windows in mint for programs that are windows only?

I'm referring to the "Install Linux Mint alongside Windows Boot Manager" command. This is my first trial of mint though I have lightly tried other linux variants. I really hate win 11 so this has pushed me to attempt Linux as my main OS.
Leaving windows on your computer will tempt you to going back and getting spied on. If there's nothing important on it you should just get rid of it.
 
Leaving windows on your computer will tempt you to going back and getting spied on. If there's nothing important on it you should just get rid of it.
I was feeling like having to choose os every boot would be annoying anyway. What's the simplest way to get the windows emulator or whatever it is running? Preferably with windows 10 at the latest. I have a different machine I could use the product key from.
 
I was feeling like having to choose os every boot would be annoying anyway. What's the simplest way to get the windows emulator or whatever it is running? Preferably with windows 10 at the latest. I have a different machine I could use the product key from.
Using windows stuff in linux will always be the second class citizen experience, especially when you're already inexperienced and with that ill-equipped to solve the problems and small annoyances that'll invariably crop up with windows stuff.

The advice to "just run it in wine" is given often but honestly, it's not good advice to a newcomer. The advice should always be to use alternative, linux-native counterparts instead and then eventually maybe figure out how to run games and must-have applications via wine and such, when a bit of basic familiarity with linux is there to not be completely blindsided and frustrated by problems that'll show up. (and they will, many people inexplicably eager to sell linux to windows users are strangely dishonest about that)

If there's windows stuff you absolutely have to run, keep a windows installation and then figure out later how you *maybe* can run it in Linux. The usual road for that is as I said wine, which is not an emulator, but more of a "translation layer" to interface windows programs with linux. You neither need a key nor any other windows files for that. Most stuff will run like that, including games, but not always without a hitch. The second step if that doesn't work would be a VM, but you can't run 3D-accelerated things like games in a VM easily. Just to give you some pointers.
 
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I was feeling like having to choose os every boot would be annoying anyway. What's the simplest way to get the windows emulator or whatever it is running? Preferably with windows 10 at the latest. I have a different machine I could use the product key from.
If you have Windows software you have to use just run Windows in a virtual machine. I have a Windows VM on standby but haven't touched it since I set it up.
 
Is there any reason to set up linux mint in dual boot alongside windows 11 (new pc came with it, unavoidable) or should I just wipe it clean and start figuring out how to have windows in mint for programs that are windows only?

I'm referring to the "Install Linux Mint alongside Windows Boot Manager" command. This is my first trial of mint though I have lightly tried other linux variants. I really hate win 11 so this has pushed me to attempt Linux as my main OS.
Like the others have said in this thread, if you need Windows applications, the best options you have are:
  • find alternatives, Privacy Tools has some cross-platform alternatives, the Arch Wiki is a good resource as well (and one to keep in mind for other issues/guidance as well),
  • run Windows in a VM, since you're on Mint, Gnome Boxes is fairly noob-friendly and powerful, but limited in options.
If it's video games, a lot of them work just fine on Linux, now. Most of the ones that don't are multiplayer, or released a week ago.

Also a general question: why do we (everyone, not just here) still recommend Mint to newbies? The project has a history of re-inventing the well as much as Ubuntu. I usually recommend Neon: it's a KDE-native project, so doesn't reinvent the wheel too much; it's Ubuntu underneath, so all the download-click-run debs still work; has OOTB support for both Snaps, which I tell them to stay away from, and Flatpaks, which I recommend for games and general applications like LibreOffce. For a plus, KDE has old style Mac keyboard shortcuts for those willing to learn, and tries to avoid dbus.
 
Where "newcomer" means "person who doesn't know how to compile Wine for x86 on an x64 machine".
If it was only wine. You need all the 32 dev libs too, for the 32 bit wine binary. That's just for 32 bit windows binaries though. If the package manager doesn't have it, I'd only really attempt that in something like gentoo because otherwise it'll be pure gore. I have no idea about windows applications whatsoever because I haven't used any in at least about a decade but even the older windows games now are 64 bit already in my experience.

Apparently wine will soon be ready though to run 32 bit applications with pure 64 bit wine. Or so it is said.

recommend Mint to newbies
Because people think I'm trolling when I tell them to install gentoo. That's what I did though many moons ago, saw the fisher price WinXP UI and the ever increasing black-boxing, wanted no part of that anymore. (It really already started with Win2000, but I tolerated and hung onto Win2000/Win9x) It was difficult but not *that* difficult and if you get to know Linux and Linux Userland from the ground up like this, you can use whatever later and nothing will throw you off.

I think (and this doesn't only apply to linux) that it's important to never stop learning. I learn new shit about this stuff every week and I've used it for almost two decades (??) at this point. If people don't want to learn anything and don't really care about how anything works and just want to click symbols and receive product, I'm not sure I'd recommend Linux at all and I'm not sure why other experienced Linux users try to draw such people in and accomodate them at every step of the way. I feel in general people just don't have any patience for anything anymore nowadays. They want everything now now now. There's no point in doing this to yourself if you're one of those people, IMHO. Just stick with MacOS or Windows or Android or whatever, where people get paid to provide you a solution. You can do powerful stuff with these OSes too, I personally don't agree with them but don't let that stop you by any means. I'm sorry if that sounds elitist or something but that's just my opinion.
 
Also a general question: why do we (everyone, not just here) still recommend Mint to newbies? The project has a history of re-inventing the well as much as Ubuntu. I usually recommend Neon: it's a KDE-native project, so doesn't reinvent the wheel too much; it's Ubuntu underneath, so all the download-click-run debs still work; has OOTB support for both Snaps, which I tell them to stay away from, and Flatpaks, which I recommend for games and general applications like LibreOffce. For a plus, KDE has old style Mac keyboard shortcuts for those willing to learn, and tries to avoid dbus.

Neon isn't really developed as a "distro", it's intended as a showcase of KDE. I've seen people report that trying to use it as a daily driver is a disaster as updates tend to create problems.
 
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Neon isn't really developed as a "distro", it's intended as a showcase of KDE. I've seen people report that trying to use it as a daily driver is a disaster as updates tend to create problems.
The folks at KDE market it as a distro, it's not like Gnome's live image. Slimbook even sells laptops with it pre-installed, like System 76 does for Ubuntu. And anecdotes go both ways: my boomer relatives have had no problems, and neither has anyone I've recommended it to. If you're thinking of early days, it has changed a lot since then.
 
Is there any reason to set up linux mint in dual boot alongside windows 11 (new pc came with it, unavoidable) or should I just wipe it clean and start figuring out how to have windows in mint for programs that are windows only?

I'm referring to the "Install Linux Mint alongside Windows Boot Manager" command. This is my first trial of mint though I have lightly tried other linux variants. I really hate win 11 so this has pushed me to attempt Linux as my main OS.
ill throw in my two cents on this, Dont do it, unless its life or death. If you have cash to spend you and time, and you need graphics performance, you can look into PCI passthrough (this is where you pass through your GPU to a virtual machine giving you near "native" performance) theres also CPU pinning but i can feel your eyes glazing over so i wont go into too much detail,

i understand youre a newbie but there are great tutorials you can blindly follow and come out ok, and you'll hopefully pick up a thing or two in the process.

In short, dont dualboot, if you have to, get a windows 10 LTSC and run it as a VM with PCI passthrough if you need graphics performance
 
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ill throw in my two cents on this, Dont do it, unless its life or death. If you have cash to spend you and time, and you need graphics performance, you can look into PCI passthrough (this is where you pass through your GPU to a virtual machine giving you near "native" performance) theres also CPU pinning but i can feel your eyes glazing over so i wont go into too much detail,

i understand youre a newbie but there are great tutorials you can blindly follow and come out ok, and you'll hopefully pick up a thing or two in the process.

In short, dont dualboot, if you have to, get a windows 10 LTSC and run it as a VM with PCI passthrough if you need graphics performance
I've heard of LTSC but have been stuck with win 10 home/pro for a while. I'd definitely want to try it out in a vm but can you encounter more issues with newer drivers since it's not updated as regularly?
 
I’m a newbie to Linux and have finally decided to just say fuck it to Windows and make the jump. The question I have is what’s the best Linux distribution software for 2023? I have a PC with 16GB RAM available. Since I’m new to this I’d prefer something more beginner-friendly, though I’m of course willing to learn is the distro is good enough.
 
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