cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21778899

Got an old laptop from a friend I'd like to rejuvenate, the plan is to set up a light distro so it wouldn't be as slow as it is right now with windows 10.

Now, I'm aware windows updates can fuck up a dual boot system, so i have a few questions about how to minimize the threat of that happening.

What i think of doing is running a few scans to check the disk, then setting up Linux Mint, because it is beginner friendly, and (relatively) light weight.

What I'd need help with is trusted guides and also tips for setting up dual booting, I'm sure I'll need to do disk partitioning and I've done that before but I'd still want to make sure I'm doing it correctly.

Any help would be welcome.

I just saw a post complaining about the Mozilla layoffs.

I wanted to point out that the vast majority of their income (over 85% in 2022) is from having Google as the default search engine - Ironically, the anti monopoly lawsuit against Google will end this.

Expect things to get worse.

Please don't assume it was just a cruel choice.

S1 S2

I'm looking to upgrade drives on two of my machines. My server running ubuntu has a 3.5" and will be getting a larger capacity HDD, while my personal computer running endeavor OS will be going from a 2.5" ssd to an nvme drive. (Not sure if it helps giving the drive types, but can't hurt).

I'm fine with a clean install and reinstalling everything, but to save some time I'd of course like to minimize the effort that goes into it (importing settings etc). Any tips/tricks for either? Thanks in advance

Hi.

Does anyone know why is there a red cross on the icon here?

This device is a Corsair USB flash drive. I initially thought it may be because the data was corrupted as there were a couple of years where it remained unconnected and I know SSD does not like that. But I formatted the drive (ExFAT) and it still shows up with a red cross in Nemo file manager.

Any idea what this actually means?

Thanks for any insight.

What are your latest DE experiences with Touch- and/or 2in1-devices? I heard some prefer Gnome for their gesture support and modern layout. Others prefer the highly customizable KDE Plasma. Sometimes with custom installed virtual keyboard. However most discussions where kinda dated. Referring to Plasma 5 or older etc.

So I am asking the Fediversians for their experiences and setups! 🐧

Perhaps dumb questions inbound ;)

I use Arch because I'm strapped for time and my system is always moving.

• 2 minutes to install something? AUR probably has it.

• Ten minutes of free time to look for a software that fits a new need? Try random AUR things (auditing PKGBUILDs is just twenty seconds or so).

• If I need a tiny patch, I'll just add a sed or patch file to the PKGBUILD. (Super easy, you barely learn any syntax cuz it's intuitive shell.)

• make && make install/meson blahblah usually just works.

• Wiki does the thinking for me if I need something special (e.g. hw video acceleration)

Buuuut update surprises can be a pain (e.g. Pipewire explodes Saturday evening) and declarative rollbackable immutability sounds really freakin' AWESOME, so I'm considering NixOS for my new laptop (old one's webcam broke). So I ask:

• How much can I grok in a week?
  • I need to know Nixlang, right? I have a ton of dotfiles and random homemade cpp commands in ~/.local/bin that I use daily
• How quick is it to make a derivation?
  • I make install a lot, do I need to declare that due to non-FHS? Can I boilerplate the whole thing with someone else's make install and ctrl+c ctrl+v? How does genAI fare? (Lemmy hates word guess bots, I know)
• How quick is it to install something new and random?
  • Do I just use nix-shell if I need something asap? Do I need to make a derivation for all my programs? e.g. do I need to declare a Hyprland plugin I'm test-running?
• How long do you research a new package for?
  • On Gentoo I always looked up USE flags (NOO my time); on Arch I just audit the PKGBUILD and test-run it (20 seconds); on Ubuntu I had to find the relevant PPA (2 minutes). What's it like for Nix?
• Can you set up dev environments quickly or do you need to write a ton of configs?
  • I hear python can be annoying. Do C++/Android Studio have header file/etc. issues?
• What maintenance ouchies do you run into? How long to rectify?
• Do I need to finagle on my own to have /boot encrypted?
  • I boot via: unencrypted EFI grub asks for LUKS password -> decrypt /boot, which then has a keyfile -> decrypt and mount btrfs root partition. But lots of guides don't do it this way

Thanks for bearing with me ദ്ദി(｡•̀ヮ<)~✩‧₊

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22205865

Ahead of tomorrow's availability of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor as the first Zen 5 CPU released with 3D V-Cache, today the review embargo lifts. Here is a look at how this 8-core / 16-thread Zen 5 CPU with 64MB of 3D V-Cache is performing under Ubuntu Linux compared to a variety of other Intel Core and AMD Ryzen desktop processors.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D as previously shared is AMD's first processor leveraging 2nd Gen 3D V-Cache. The 64MB of cache is now underneath the processor cores so that the CCD is positioned closer to the heatsink/cooler to help with more efficient cooling compared to earlier X3D models.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D boosts up to 5.2GHz and feature a 4.7GHz base clock while total it provides 104MB of cache. Like with the prior 8-core Ryzen 7 7800X3D, all eight cores have access to the 64MB 3D V-Cache. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D features a 120 Watt default TDP. AMD's suggested pricing on the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is $479 USD.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D will work with existing AMD AM5 motherboards with a simple BIOS update. For my testing I was able to use the ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-E GAMING WIFI motherboard previously used for all Ryzen 9000 series testing after a simple BIOS update. AMD also sent out an ASRock X870E Taichi motherboard as part of the review kit. For these 9800X3D benchmarks I ended up testing both initially on the ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-E GAMING WIFI motherboard to match the previously tested Ryzen 9000 series processors and then repeated the run with the ASRock X870E Taichi motherboard as well for reference.

I'm using the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 22 (Wilma) and I've installed all of the dependencies listed on the build documention but when I try running meson setup builddir in the android_translation_layer folder, it gives me this error:

ERROR: C shared or static library 'art' not found

Assuming that the "art" that it needs is "art_standalone", I've already installed that and it seemed to install just fine but for some reason meson still can't find it. Assuming that it can work in Linux Mint, what should I try next?

I'm just not sure what I am doing wrong here. It boots on every single other computer in the house (3 different ones) but when I try to do a single boot on my system 76 laptop it just won't do it. What am I doing wrong?? It has custom firmware on it

Petition Summary: The petitioner calls for the European Union to actively develop and implement a Linux-based operating system, termed ‘EU-Linux’, across public administrations in all EU Member States. This initiative aims to reduce dependency on Microsoft products, ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and promoting transparency, sustainability, and digital sovereignty within the EU. The petitioner emphasizes the importance of using open-source alternatives to Microsoft 365, such as LibreOffice and Nextcloud, and suggests the adoption of the E/OS mobile operating system for government devices. The petitioner also highlights the potential for job creation in the IT sector through this initiative.

The developers of the Manjaro Linux distribution, built on the basis of Arch Linux and aimed at beginners, announced the beginning of testing a new service MDD (Manjaro Data Donor), designed to collect statistics about the system and send it to the external server of the project. The author of the MDD intended to enable telemetry by default (opt-out), but the decision has not yet been approved and, judging by the objections of some developers and users, it is likely that telemetry will be offered as an option requiring prior consent of the user (a request to enable telemetry is proposed to be added to the greeting interface after the first download).

The report includes data such as host name, kernel version, desktop component versions, detailed information about hardware and drivers involved, screen size and resolution information, network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers, disk partition data, information about the number of running processes and installed packages, versions of basic packages such as systemd, gcc, bash and PipeWire.

The sent data is stored on the project server in the ClickHouse database and visualized using the Grafana platform. The IP addresses of users are not stored, and the hash from the /etc/machine-id file is used as the system identifier.

Аccording to the code https://github.com/manjaro/mdd/blob/master/mdd.py#L40 sends everything.

I've got an older machine that I'd like to give a second life. I've always been an Ubuntu fan in the past, but checking their site for a lightweight distri it looks like they've gone all 64 bit. Is that right? Can I still get a recent version for a 32-bit processor?

The LXQt team announces the release of LXQt 2.1.0, the Lightweight Qt Desktop Environment.

Through its new component lxqt-wayland-session, LXQt 2.1.0 supports 7 Wayland sessions (with Labwc, KWin, Wayfire, Hyprland, Sway, River and Niri), has two Wayland back-ends in lxqt-panel (one for kwin_wayland and the other general), and will add more later. All LXQt components that are not limited to X11 — i.e., most components — work fine on Wayland. The sessions are available in the new section Wayland Settings inside LXQt Session Settings. At least one supported Wayland compositor should be installed in addition to lxqt-wayland-session for it to be used.

There is still hard work to do, but all of the current LXQt Wayland sessions are quite usable; their differences are about what the supported Wayland compositors provide:

• Labwc provides the most stable session, is very lightweight, neat and configurable, and has an extremely helpful and responsive team.
• Perhaps the most complete Wayland session is provided by KWin when extra KDE packages are installed. For now, it is the only Wayland compositor that supports LXQt Panel’s desktop switcher and LXQt Power Manager’s settings for turning off the monitor (see the Wayland Wiki for the latter).
• In additon to Kwin, fancy effects are also provided by Wayfire and Hyprland, the latter being one of the 4 tiling WMs to choose from.

Anyway, the best result is achieved by installing the latest stable version of the chosen Wayland compositor. Wayland users need to get familiar with Wayland counterparts of some X11 tools and the configuration of the compositor. They may use X11 apps through XWayland, but using apps that work directly on Wayland is the best choice. Also, see the Wayland Wiki.