podman-compose definitely got better over the past year...

But you can also use docker-compose itself with podman instead!

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/podman-docker-compose

Basically, for system level containers, you can do:

sudo systemctl start podman.socket

(or enable --now instead of start if you want it to stick around after rebooting)

Then use docker-compose and it'll communicate with podman instead of docker.

For user session "rootless" containers, it's mainly the same thing, except you'll need to remove sudo and then add --user after start or enable in that systemctl command. And you'd need to set an environment variable (either prefixing it on the command or using export to set it in your session), like this:

DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/$UID/podman/podman

(Put that in front of the docker-compose command and it'll connect to podman as your user instead, provided the service is available. Or toss it into your .bashrc with "export " before it and new bash sessions would have it.)

https://brandonrozek.com/blog/rootless-docker-compose-podman/

The one big gotcha I've hit is that if you have SELinux on your system, you'll want to add :z to your volume(s) mount to have it automatically deal with SELinux stuff. (Lowercase z for volumes that can be mounted for multiplayer containers and uppercase Z for volumes that are tied to a specific container.)

But, I've found that using "quadlet" service files is much, much better than using podman-compose or docker-compose. There's a program called "podlet" that can even convert compose files to service files (quadlet)... It can convert command line flags and kubes and other formats too.

Quadlets are basically systems service files that integrate with podman, letting you easily set up a container as a system (or even user level) service, making managing a container just like managing any other service.

Here's the podlet command that'll convert things to quadlets: https://github.com/containers/podlet

Yep, ArcMenu (@ https://gitlab.com/arcmenu/ArcMenu which is the maintained one, last updated days ago instead of years ago) has a ton of different layouts which can mimic any version of Windows, and so much more.

When using GNOME, use the "Extensions Manager" app (from Flathub) to search for "ArcMenu" and install it, then you can configure it there in the Extensions Manager app as well. In the ArcMenu configuration, go to layouts and select the modern group to see something like the screenshot above. (The previews are generic wireframe sketches; the result will look much more high fidelity.)

whoBIRD

An app that recognizes birds singing near you, all on device, and has an option to show a photo of the bird too. It's exclusive to F-Droid (not on Google Play), and the only bird recognizing app I know of that does it all immediately on your device (without sending it to a server). https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.woheller69.whobird/

Organic Maps

Highly detailed OpenStreetMap maps local on your device. Wonderful for walking directions, as it has on-device routing and maps out walking pathways (which is something that even Google Maps does not do well) https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.organicmaps/

AntennaPod

The best podcast client also happens to be Free Software and on F-Droid. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/

HeliBoard

This is the best FOSS keyboard that's under active maintenance. It even supports swiping, but that requires a non-free binary library from Google. (Maintained fork of OpenBoard.) https://f-droid.org/en/packages/helium314.keyboard/

Breezy Weather

Good weather app that has so many details (including pollen too) and fetches from multiple sources. It looks great as well. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.breezyweather/

darktable, hands down. It has a learning curve, but it's a pro app and app pro apps have learning curves.

The linear pipeline is great, masking is superb, and the app keeps getting better every release.

The one downside is that darktable is not opinionated by default (so raw files look a little flat to begin with, without doing anything), but it's customizable that you can even change that with auto applied presets. On the other hand, it does let you do what you want to do with an image, versus fighting with defaults (which is what it's like to edit something in Lightroom, if you want to diverge from what it suggests by default).

There are a bunch of great tutorials on YouTube and you'll want to check out https://discuss.pixls.us/ too. Create an account on the Pixls forum, read some threads, try out some "play raws" (where people post their raw files under a CC license and then lots of people try their own take at editing it and post their edit).

Rico Resolves has a half hour getting started video for darktable 4.6 at https://youtu.be/ucjAmTMIEOI

Anything from Bruce Williams https://youtube.com/@audio2u and Boris Hajdukovic https://youtube.com/@s7habo are both great too, and more people are posting darktable videos all the time as well.

The documentation for darktable is actually very good as well. Do not skip it. You don't have to read it all, but try reading the intro parts and going back to it when you want some reference on how a part of darktable works. https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.6/en/

Some tips:

• You can right click on sliders to get a special UI and you can also enter numbers (often even outside the bounds of what the slider would normally permit).

• Modules will be applied in the best order regardless of which one you work on first.

• There are some somewhat redundant modules, as darktable did start out as a "display referred" workflow (just like most all of the other raw editors everywhere) and moved to a "scene referred" (aka "linear rgb") workflow, which provides better editing, improved color handling, vastly better tone mapping, and so on. If there are two similar modules, try to go with the version that has "RGB" in its title. Older modules still exist mainly for older edits. (You can also change darktable back to the old display referred workflow in the settinfs, but I strongly suggest to not do this. Scene referred is much better.)

I used to shoot film and do darkroom stuff years ago. I've used Aperture on OS X. I used Lightroom on OS X and then on Windows. A few years ago, I switched to darktable on Linux... and darktable has gotten so, so much better each release. When I switched years ago, it was more or less a Lightroom competitor (with some advantages and disadvantages). But darktable is really amazing software now, and can give you much better results than Lightroom, when you know how to use it.

GNOME 46 (currently in release candidate mode and fully releasing later this month on March 20) is adding support for remote graphical logins via rdp:

https://9to5linux.com/gnome-46-to-introduce-headless-remote-logins-via-gnome-display-manager

So you'll be able to do this pretty soon, after upgrading.

It'll be in Fedora 40, scheduled for release around April 16.

https://fedorapeople.org/groups/schedule/f-40/f-40-all-tasks.html

If you're in Europe, it may be due to the DMA.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2024/03/06/digital-markets-act-how-the-way-you-use-google-maps-and-messenger-is-changing_6591969_13.html

You may also have noticed something new on Google, when looking for the address of a place: It's now impossible to click on the map that appears in your search results.

Google is one of the "gatekeepers" according to the DMA (Digital Markets Act). The law recently went into effect. It is supposed to lessen the amount of preferential treatment the big tech companies give themselves.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act

That's not how Flatpak works.

Flatpak has runtimes, which is where most shared libraries are. There's a common base one called Freedesktop, a GNOME runtime, a KDE runtime , an Elementary runtime, and more. (The GNOME and KDE ones are built on top and inherit from the Freedesktop base runtime.)

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/available-runtimes.html

Additionally, at least for Flathub, they have shared modules for commonly used libraries that aren't in runtimes. (Many are related to games or legacy support like GTK2.)

https://github.com/flathub/shared-modules

Lastly, some distributions are building their own runtimes and apps on top, so the packages they build are available as flatpaks as well. This is the case for Fedora, Elementary, Endless, and others.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flatpak

It certainly is a differentiator: uBlock Origin already works best on Firefox. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox

And when Manifest v3 is fully enforced in Chromium (current date is slated to be July 2024), then the more restricted uBlock Origin Lite would need to be used instead.

(I'm not sure if Arc will fully adopt v3, but they might not have a choice at some point in time.)

The Lite version still works well considering all the restrictions, but has a lot of limitations: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-1507539114

• Filter lists update only when the extension updates (no fetching up to date lists from servers)

• Many filters are dropped at conversion time due to MV3's limited filter syntax
• No crafting your own filters (thus no element picker)
• No strict-blocked pages
• No per-site switches
• No dynamic filtering
• No importing external lists

TL;DR: The way uBlock Origin works on Firefox right now is already better, but if Arc has to go along with Manifest v3 in Chromium in a few months, then it'll be even more of a differentiator.

It also looks like they're even thinking about rolling out their own tracker blocker (instead of using uBlock Origin) as a result of the Manifest v3 changes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArcBrowser/wiki/index/#wiki_how_will_arc_handle_the_transition_from_manifest_v2_to_manifest_v3.3F

https://twitter.com/joshm/status/1728926780600508716

We're rolling our own native @arcinternet Ad & Tracker Blocker in 2024 (since Chrome is restricting them)...

Any creative ideas for how we can go above and beyond, and reimagine the category?

Remove GDPR/Cookie Consents? What else?

Literally almost all of my and my partner's friends and coworkers who are in Europe (including Germany, UK, Finland, Czechia, Greece, and more) have been sick with COVID in the past couple months to (especially) right now — it's very real in Europe still.

People are all talking about COVID right now, in messages, emails, video calls, Mastodon, and more. (It's usually to inform others that they're sick and can't work or meet up. But also complaining that doing basic stuff is difficult.)

Europe is a large place, of course, but at least in a lot of it, COVID is sadly still going strong.

I saw a video the other day that compared F:NV via DirectX 9 and DXVK on Windows and how DXVK (and Vulkan underneath of course) does magic to make it so much better with frame pacing.

https://youtu.be/tGF0tKPVbqY

It's funny how we get that by default on Linux, and Windows folks are trying out parts of Proton to improve their gaming experience in Windows in various games. 🤣

What's even funnier is that at least in the case of New Vegas, it's actually even better on Linux, as it compiles and caches the Vulkan shaders, so we shouldn't have any hiccups (once it's cached), at least if you're running it in Steam.

My first attempt to try to fix something like this would be to:

1. Download Fedora Workstation live media. (Within Windows or some other computer that boots.)
2. Flash it to a USB stick.
3. Reboot to the live desktop from the USB stick. (It might require pressing F12 or some other key combo during boot.)
4. "Try out" Fedora. (That is: do not install.)
5. Open GNOME Disks. (I think it's included. Otherwise, you can sudo dnf install gnome-disks to install it temporarily on the live session.)
6. Try to mount the main filesystem that contains /etc/fstab (it should ask you for the LUKS password.
7. Comment out the Windows mount point. Or if you want to keep it (if the partition still exists and is just "dirty" and still needs a check from Windows) add ",nofail" after "auto" to the options in the line for the mount, so your system should still boot without that mount point.
8. Save the /etc/fstab file.
9. Shut down the computer.
10. Unplug USB stick.
11. Boot computer. Linux should successfully boot... hopefully. 😉

I'm also wondering: How did you add the Windows partition to Fedora? Was it from within Fedora's installer (aka: "Anaconda")? Or did you add it in a different way?

(BTW: I use Silverblue and have a long history with Fedora. 😁)

This actually is an option!

I've used it to play games from the Deck at native 1080p on my TV.

I'm not at my Steam Deck right now, but I remember it's in the settings. I think if you go to the game's settings, look for something like "native" display. You have to go into the settings for each game you want at a larger resolution on an external monitor in game mode and select "native".

I don't remember if it needs to first be enabled on the system settings in the display area. (I think it does the right thing for system settings by default in most cases.)

IIRC, desktop mode also automatically supports the native resolution, but game mode is nice and console-like. Desktop mode might be a bit clunkier than what you'd want for couch gaming. Setting the option in game mode for the game is likely your best option.