Any fellow Linux users on here?

[Outdated]

I'm starting to wonder if motherboards are made to a different spec for the US market, dictated by Corporate America of course.

 

[Judge]

Funny thing about Alsa-Tools-GUI. I would never bother with it as I never used 95% of the rest of it. Only the jack-retask tool. A lot of little gimmicks I simply don't want or need.

 

[MildredHubble]

Not sure if this is the same issue or not, when dual booting Windows and Linux on the same physical drive, every time Windows gets an update it removes the Linux boot sector, deliberately. This doesn't happen if both OS's are on their own individual harddrives.

I was using GRUB at the time, but there was certainly some weirdness. When I got a (spacious ) 120GB hard disk I triple booted Linux, osx and Windows for a while. There was a little bug in OSX (fair enough as it was never intended to run on my machine) where the GPU wouldn't initialize unless you jumped a couple of pins on the VGA socket. But, if you booted into windows, shut down the machine, then booted OSX you'd get a perfectly initialized GPU.

If you updated windows though, it would overwrite some of the settings in GRUB making it almost impossible to get access to your Linux install. One way I got around that was to install a second instance of GRUB in the XP f8(?) boot menu which looked to XP like another windows XP install, which then triggered your primary GRUB when you could then reset it as your default boot option.

When more sophisticated OSX boot loaders arrived, there were fewer issues as they would more directly boot whatever you had installed on there.

As for Linux becoming corrupt, I think it may possibly have had something to do with how the partitions were written in Linux. I remember reading something about it skipping some "loose ends" essentially it created the partition but for want of a better word, it didn't tie up the end of the process. This might explain why individual drives don't have the issue. So it was a bit like building a house but leaving the rear wall unbuilt and depending on whether the OSes accessed things from the front or back there could be some things written into space that wasn't properly indexed.

But this was a long time ago so I'm unsure about the specifics. I think Linux took a shortcut where it was dynamically allocating space as needed but making it look like it already had been allocated so things could end up running off a hill like Wylee Coyote

 

[Judge]

One thing I detest about some Linux distros is how they seem to arbitrarily make more partitions than are necessary. Like Pop!OS22.04. Hopefully something might change with their upcoming rust-based version.

No matter how I set up Pop!OS it always seems to have twice or more partitions compared to Mint.

 

[Outdated]

As for Linux becoming corrupt, I think it may possibly have had something to do with how the partitions were written in Linux. I remember reading something about it skipping some "loose ends" essentially it created the partition but for want of a better word, it didn't tie up the end of the process.

Can't remember the name of that partitioning system now but it's still the default in a lot of systems. The idea is that as you add more internal drives it "appears" that you only have one drive but it just got bigger. So a single partition spread across multiple drives.

I've never played with it, the idea scares me. What happens when one drive dies? Do you lose everything on all of them? I always set mine to Standard Partitioning System.

 

[Outdated]

One thing I detest about some Linux distros is how they seem to arbitrarily make more partitions than are necessary.

Fedora does that too. Linux itself and your home folder are two separate partitions. This is done for security reasons, being able to set read/write and group access permissions for an entire partition globally saves a lot of mucking around.

 

[MildredHubble]

I always liked having separate partitions for my files/documents and apps/OS. The good thing about that is that is if your OS decides its going to shuffle away, you can reinstall and after a little bit of tweaking, you have more or less what you had before where you expect it.

This is great until something destroys the partition information and you got too cosy so your nicely ordered files are gone, or at least gone until you can use something to access the raw data.

I still kinda do this but now I prefer to keep my files in my NAS storage with some backups ready to go. Then if in the unlikely event I have to reinstall the OS I just have to keep a copy of my Home folder and either use the Mac migration assistant or copy the folder and link it usingvthe terminal.

After switching to Mac over 20 years ago, I hardly ever had cause to reinstall the OS so over at least two decades I'd had the same file system through various Macs and I had files going back 20 years. It was quite impressive that basically I had never lost any data in two decades. The downside was that I still had EVERYTHING! Old PowerPC apps and downloads and incompatible apps all taking up space so when I did migrate to new storage a significant amount was used up by essentially useless stuff that I guess I'd digitally hoarded for years.

Now I keep my local storage lean and keep everything on a NAS. I organized my collection of older apps just in case I needed them some day and this was useful when I set up my PowerPC Mac mini again. The great thing was that I didn't need to go backwards and forwards with USB sticks I just logged in on the PowerPC Mac and accessed the software directly.

I have sooooo much space on my Macs to install apps and if I need a file or document I can access it pretty much as conveniently as local storage. I never have to worry about which machine has a particular document or if its the latest version.

Hopefully I will be able to use Linux on my Chromebook and get used to its quirks without having to worry about it all too much. If it breaks I will just reinstall and it won't get in the way of getting stuff done

 

[Outdated]

It was quite impressive that basically I had never lost any data in two decades. The downside was that I still had EVERYTHING!

It was the same for me, until I decided to fly down to Adelaide and live on the streets for a bit as a fast track way of getting social housing. When you're on the streets you can only own what you're prepared to carry around with you all day so I had to shrink everything down to just one encrypted drive in my back pack.

Hopefully I will be able to use Linux on my Chromebook and get used to its quirks without having to worry about it all too much. If it breaks I will just reinstall and it won't get in the way of getting stuff done

Just try booting from a thumb stick first and experiment with it like that before even thinking of installing. There's something funky about chromebooks, they're sort of more related to a tablet than a PC.

[Edit] just been doomscrolling youtube, god there's some crap being published there.

 

[MildredHubble]

Cinnamon Ubuntu image is downloading now for my Chromebook. I need to look over what I need to do to unlock my Chromebook to boot it and hopefully it will be smooth sailing!

 

[Judge]

Cinnamon Ubuntu image is downloading now for my Chromebook. I need to look over what I need to do to unlock my Chromebook to boot it and hopefully it will be smooth sailing!

One thing I really like about the Cinnamon Desktop is its stability.

 

[MildredHubble]

One thing I really like about the Cinnamon Desktop is its stability.

That's reassuring @Judge Hopefully the soundcard etc will work out of the box and I will keep the installation media ready for any issues so I can just knock it all down and start from scratch if it comes to the worst.

I had kinda hoped that the Linux features of ChromeOS would be a good thing, so I could run Linux apps but not have the whole thing fall apart when Linux has a hiccup. Unfortunately the reality doesn't quite match up. ChromeOS just gets in the way and is horrible from a user perspective. I'm glad I'm fortunate not to have to depend on it like some people whose main system is a Chromebook. Its just so restrictive and muddled.

 

[Judge]

That's reassuring @Judge Hopefully the soundcard etc will work out of the box and I will keep the installation media ready for any issues so I can just knock it all down and start from scratch if it comes to the worst.

Hmmmm. IMO proprietary hardware concerns in Linux tend to lean towards the negative side in general. Not so confident in that respect. But give it a shot...see what happens.

A list of sound cards that the Linux kernel may support:

https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/x96.html

I'm just grateful I have nominal Linux usage of an HP color printer! Wireless, but no USB. Makes me wonder how hard I'd be throwing the dice not only to buy a new one, but from another manufacturer.

 

[MildredHubble]

Well it wasn't too painful in the end though for some reason my Chromebooks firmware was write protected and can't be solved by removing a write protect screw. So I was stuck with the Legacy Firmware Option which I think should do for now.

Things to fix are, no touch screen input, no sound, no Bluetooth. So I will get to fixing those hopefully as I get to them. I can use an SD card to supplement the storage which is still partially taken up by ChromeOS, I'm not sure I could erase it without issues, so for now I dont mind and I will see how things go.

The Chromebook feels a lot better running as a more traditional laptop and it really goes to show just how horrid ChromeOS is for getting proper computer stuff done. Already I like that I dont have to jump through hoops to simply run a Linux app in a sensible way!

 

[Judge]

Things to fix are, no touch screen input, no sound, no Bluetooth.

I managed to find my Bluetooth somewhat buried in the BIOS, along with WiFi. Both were contributing to annoying log errors. Since I use neither at the moment, I simply disabled them both within the BIOS, ending the log errors.

I'm guessing in most cases that manufacturers would enable Bluetooth by default. Though if you haven't already checked, just in case it's been disabled for some reason.

 

[Outdated]

I'm guessing in most cases that manufacturers would enable Bluetooth by default. Though if you haven't already checked, just in case it's been disabled for some reason.

It's enabled in the bios even if like me your motherboard doesn't actually have Bluetooth.

 

[tkcartoonist]

So I've been working on a computer for the past two weeks or so, and I want to eventually install a Linux distro on it. I wonder if anyone has any recommendations. I was thinking of primarily using it as a multimedia creation machine (Blender, Ardour, video editing possibly, maybe video capture down the road, etc), but maybe have something that's capable of playing games as well. I know of some that have those capabilities in mind, but some suggestions would be great.

 

[Outdated]

So I've been working on a computer for the past two weeks or so, and I want to eventually install a Linux distro on it. I wonder if anyone has any recommendations.

My recommendation is Ubuntu with the Cinnamon desktop. Make sure to tick the little box that says "Allow 3rd party proprietary software" during install, this includes all the audio and video codecs you'll want.

KdEnlive is a decent video editor, lots of features but easy to use.

Download | Ubuntu Cinnamon

 

[tkcartoonist]

My recommendation is Ubuntu with the Cinnamon desktop. Make sure to tick the little box that says "Allow 3rd party proprietary software" during install, this includes all the audio and video codecs you'll want.

KdEnlive is a decent video editor, lots of features but easy to use.

Download | Ubuntu Cinnamon

I'll give that a think: I have used Ubuntu Studio before.

I have heard that SteamOS is tailor made for games, but I don't know how well it'll do anything else, plus I also know it's based on Arch. Anyone ever have experience with it?

 

[MildredHubble]

Cinnamon Ubuntu seems like a nice option, its pretty speedy on my Chromebook. It only has a dual core Celeron and it doesn't seem to have any issues that aren't caused specifically by the quirks of my Chromebook, eg. No sound through speakers and no touchscreen. I've also tried Pop-OS and that seems to run well too, but I think its a little more setup for gaming and multi media. So I'm weighing up which one I like more.

The thing that is always going to be a bit irritating is the need to pop into the Terminal to do a lot of things that you can usually do with a couple of clicks in MacOS or Windows so I'd suggest you fully research this part before installing any Linux distro on you machine @tkcartoonist . The great thing is that you can try running pretty much any distro "live" from a USB drive before you go to the extent of installing it to see how well it works on your machine.

 

[tkcartoonist]

I've been using Linux since 2022, so I'm used to the terminal at this point.