r/linuxquestions

Hey :),

I need a custom stick with specific packages on it for a project. I imagine installing the distribution in a VM, customizing it to my needs, and then somehow creating a live ISO from it.

Is that possible?

someone told me they are

Not sure if this is the right subreddit for this. I am trying to connect to my laptop from my desktop via ssh. All of the desktop computers in the house are connected to the router via ethernet and have the private address range 192.168.1.*. My laptop is connected to our wifi network, which seems to assign ip addresses of 192.168.4.*. My desktop hosts a media server, which I am able to connect to from the laptop, but when I try to ping my laptop from the desktop, it simply times out. Is the reason for this the fact that the laptop's ip address can not be found by the desktop? Sorry if I just have a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

i really like linux for its architecture, terminal tools and freedom to configure. but whenever i switch to my old 2017 macbook (dual core, 8gb ram) the ui just feels way smoother and more fun to look at. fonts look better, typing feels like a smooth water flow, mouse movement is buttery, animations look like they are perfectly timed. this is all on the same 4k monitor btw.

on linux (tried several distros, both xorg and wayland, different desktop envs) it works fine, but the visual part feels less polished. i know thats subjective, but since we stare at the screen 100% of the time, it kinda matters a lot.

from what i read online it could be things like

• core animation vs linux compositors

• gpu rendering priority / frame timing

• font rendering defaults (subpixel, hinting etc)

• gtk vs qt differences

so my questions are:

1. is there a known technical reason why macos feels smoother out of the box?

2. are there any linux setups that get close to this?

3. is polish in the graphics stack just a lower priority for linux devs (and if yes, why?)

not trying to bash linux here, i actually want to use it as my main os. but so far i couldn’t get close to that same “smooth” feeling i get on macos, even though my linux hardware is much more powerful. any tips or explenations welcome.

Thanks to Windows turning all of their software into bloatware and having that installed onto a PC that already runs like a snail taking a nap, My mother's computer is basically unuseable for a solid 10 minutes after startup. It becomes more manageable after that but I think its finally time to switch to something more suitable for this old hardware. one problem. There are a bunch of very valuable files in there (baby pictures, tax documents, etc.) that we really dont want to lose. I have never installed a new OS before so this is all very new to me. all I want to know is if there is a way to keep these files intact during the swap, and if there are any ultra user friendly distros that even my 50 year old mother could manage.

I have an intel core i5 CPU and an APU, no GPU. it has 6 GB of ram thanks to the ram sticks being old and damaged. VERY low-end. but its mostly just gonna be used to write word documents and whatnot.

I am not sure if I am just being delusional with this, but when I use linux. It looks like the screen is actually smoother. Like when I watch a youtube video, it looks like it is moving at a higher framerate. Am I just being crazy with this?

Weird question, but recently I wanted to install Linux on an old laptop that wasn't really used for fun, then I remembered pictures of people with like 5 laptops all with linux installed. Other than like servers or just for the hell of it, what use does installing Linux on multiple systems have?

If someone got hold of a linux encrypted drive, how hard would it be to crack the password? Is the password stored like a normal hash so that there is no limit to the number of guesses per second? or is it something more secure?

I just started using Home Assistant. I picked up an Acemagic K1 mini PC with a Ryzen 7 5700U, 32GB DDR4, and a 512GB SSD. My plan is to run Home Assistant on it and leave room for future expansion. I’m considering replacing Windows with Linux, and I’ve noticed Debian and Ubuntu are the most commonly recommended options. Which one would you recommend? Can you share your experiences with each — pros, cons, and how well they work for Home Assistant and other potential future use cases?

So I was recently planning on side loading to linux but heard some recent windows made it worst for sideloading. So now I'm planning to completely switching to Linux.

I'm a beginner. So I'm going for Mint.

My pc spec: r5 5600 rx 6700 xt 16 gb ddr4 3200 1tb ssd.

I'm really fed up with Windows performance drops considering a permanent switch to Linux.And the customisation in linux looks cool.

I have some questions that need to be answered so I can switch without any worries. To sum it up it basically comes with gaming.

1. Can I play games like seige , cs2, pubg. I don't play valorant. 2.Can i sideload games.

2. Can I run latest AAA games without issues with sideload and also play denovu applied games. 4.Will I be able to use my windows save file for games.

Or should i stay where I am.

QUICK UPDATE just dual booted mint. It seems to work without problem. Actually I had 22h2 version installed which is ok for dual booting. Thank for responding at my mid night ranting. Love u guys.

With your favorites distros I suppose

So I recently had to build a new computer, long story short, my cat's a dick. Anyway, I took the opportunity to future proof my PC. ( Just for reference Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Radeon 6800 XT) Now, i've got all my parts but I haven't built it yet because now i'm stuck trying to decide if I want to buy windows for the yet again or switch to Linux. So I don't only use it for gaming, I also use it for digital art, music and the occasional video edit. But seeing as i've had to buy windows four times in the past couple years, I don't really want to buy it again, and i've heard recently that windows 11 is having issues with messing up ssds. So my question is, is it worth it to just go ahead and using Linux instead? 🤔 I've never used anything to do with Linux. So i'm a complete beginner with it so I know very little if anything. So are there any pros and cons that I need to be aware of, aside from not everything is linux compatible. I would appreciate any input. Thanks

Edit: all I mean by future proof is making it so I don't have to upgrade anything for a couple years.

Edit #2 i appreciate everybody's input and advice. I think I am going to reluctantly, stick with windows for now, but I think it might be fun to play with and figure out Linux, though. So I am going to probably build myself banger pc to play with Linux because it honestly sounds like fun.

Been using Linux for over 10 years pretty casually as a daily and been using it as my main gaming rig for the last year or so. Looking for a way so that I can skip alot of the basic installs I make when I reflash my current OS. Ie package my current kernal updates, snap/flatpack installs, driver changes, basic apt updates? Don't need to keep any files at all. Not really looking for a backup as I can't transfer that to my other computers. Currently using kubuntu 25.04

I see a lot of people recommending distributions like Mint to newcomers because of their ease of use, but they neglect how important the desktop environment (DE) might be for a newbie to enjoy the Linux experience. Cinnamon is cool, but it's not the most appealing desktop environment (DE) out there. For a Windows vibe, KDE is far better, for instance.

I am on Fedora Workstation. Recently I have been facing trouble sharing my screen. Nothing, literally nothing works. Screen cast, Discord, Google Meet, Zoom, Kooha Literally anything that can share screen is not working. Is there any fix to

I'm currently running fedora 42 and I just started computes science in school. We're developing in c# using .net framework. The projects we do are not gonna be extremely complicated as we're starting cs from scratch but my teacher told me that it's better to use framework and not core. How can I? I tried following the setup on the winapps wiki to run visual studio but I kinda got lost.

Hello! Im currently travelling and somehow managed to brick my SSD :(

I recently bought a framework 13 amd ryzen, and a 2TB crucial T500 to go along with it. For the past 3 months it’s been working wonderfully.

2 days ago I tried to shut it down after waking it from a longer suspend, systemctl poweroff wasnt working, so I held the power button (silly me).

When restarting it, I was met with a black screen. After a while, it booted to my usb expansion pack which contains an arch linux installation for when I brick my system.

Checking the kernel logs gave me this message: Nvme0 device not ready aborting reset, CSTS=0x1

Which, according to Claude, suggests the ssd is failing to initialize internally due to some error.

I also cant see the block device from my rescue install, fdisk -l or lsblk dont show it.

I also tried doing ’nvme list’ from the rescue usb but nothing luck there either.

However lspci grep nvme returns: non-volatile memory controller: micron/crucial technology t500.

Suggesting that its seen on a hardware level (I think?)

I tried creating a crucial bootable iso with the newest firmware version hoping I could reinstall it and fix it that way, but

1. The iso drops me into grub cmdline

2. Following these steps:

But after running ’boot’ I see ”Trying to terminate EFI services again…” after which it hangs again.

Im close to giving up and just buying a new SSD, which kinda sucks because I shelled out for a top of the line SSD thinking it was gonna give me good performance for a long while, but im out of ideas at this point. Also, why would a force shutdown brick my SSD to the point where it’s essentially unfixable even if Im ok with just reformatting everything?

Can anyone help me fix/troubleshoot this issue?

Btw all of this was on arch.

I am new and want to setup a newer to Linux and want to try a new setup with just a window manager.

But idk if I have to have a desktop environment with it. Looking at Xmonad, Sawfish and Moksha.

It used to be a kinda lively Linux-related subreddit but it's gone silent now for a month.

Have all the mods disappeared?

Was there some kind of keyboard battle (that I missed)?

To those who only use Linux, what do you miss most? And please don't give answers like ‘nothing, everything is 10,000 times better on Linux’. I'm considering switching completely, even though I'm not very familiar with it yet, and I want to know honestly what you might seriously miss. It may not be the best approach, but the switch somehow appeals to me.

So long story short my mother has a laptop dating back to 2009 (when she was pregnant with me) and I have been thinking lately why not to use it again. The specs are 1 gb ram, an intel atom n270, 250 gb hdd. What would be the best Linux distro for this old machine

Hi. I'm on KDE, on Endavour OS.

Sometimes my network quality is poor, so using a VPN helps. I exported a profile from my Android (which just works btw, I legit tested it seconds before)

On importing it to my Linux system and importing it via nmcli, then activating it. It legit just does not move "0KB/s transferred". It's not DNS even, I can't even ping

I am unsure why this is. If the same damn profile works in my phone, I export it, shouldn't it just work here?

If there's any more info you want to see to debug, just ask and I'll check it. I'm just unsure. Yes, I'm stupid, and yes I did ask the AI. The most significant things i could tell it wanted me to do is:

nmcli connection modify wg0 ipv4.never-default no ipv6.never-default no

and

nmcli connection modify wg0 wireguard.mtu 1280

I am assuming one touches some default configs, other is to reduce MTU. None of which helped.

Self-Resolved: The config was using a domain in the "endpoint" config. The problem is, my friend only had Wireguard being hosted over IPv4, NOT IPv6. My laptop was resolving the IPv6 only (for the domain), and well, there is nothing hosted there. Really just our fault honestly, nothing on WG or Linux side.

yo guys, which one linux should i install? i have variants: atrix, arch. which one should i install? i like customisation, playing, so which one should i install? i tried atrix already but idk if arch is better. i can try to install another distributive, but chat gpt said to me that only good linux distri’s is arch and atrix(atleast for gaming and customisation). ty

On October 14, 2025 Microsoft will officially end support for Windows 10, we all know that a lot of machines in either offices, home and schools are running this very windows OS version and cant upgrade or fully support windows 11,

So you has an Linux power user, whats your opinion against this, what Linux beginner friendly Distro would you recommend to welcome these new users to the Linux Kingdom?. Thanks

I used Lightroom for over a decade, not because I liked it, but because it was what I knew. now on Linux, I'm much happier with Darktable and RawTherapee, which I find superior in editing capabilities. however, neither offers a decent solution for browsing photo collections because they take too long to load media. even Gthumb is rather slow when switching folders or enlarging images. Lightroom handled this effortlessly, displaying albums in seconds.

I'm seeking advice from photographers experienced in managing image collections on Linux. is it just me having this problem?

Mostly for security and privacy related reasons, in order to avoid malware, hacking, tracking, spying and bulk data collection from the large "Smart TV" manufacturers.

I suppose it’ll all come once I finally actually get everything set up and use it for a while. Are there any special ones I should know right off the top? I’m going to be totally new at this and it would be fun to hit the ground running. Looking forward to expanding my mind.

I have a WD Red hard drive in an external dock. I use btrfs.

Something spins it up every 10 minutes. fatrace doesn't show anything at the time it spins up.

iotop shows btrfs-transaction, and some kworker/u48:4-btrfs-endio-write most of the time. Around the time the disk spins up, systemd-journald appears. But I don't see why journald would need the external drive.

What other ways could I diagnose this?

I have two files where one is executable with chmod 667 and second one is chmod 666 and besides that they're identical. When I use hexdump on both of those files the result is identical.

Now I realise it would be kinda dumb if it was so easy to change permissions of file, but where system stores that information?

Basically my question is in title. I'm looking for RSS reader that would allow me to define keywords with scoring, and potentially, automatically hide/delete entries that get low enough score, and maybe order unread entries based on their score.

Anything like this exists?

I have heard about x11 being less safe than wayland when I was a beginner (about two years ago) and from that point on, I kept on trying to make wayland work instead of using X11 because I was told it was less secure. Now wayland works much better. But I was randomly wondering,I tried a bunch of stuff to make wayland work when I was a beginner. Did I waste my time? IS X11 really less secure? Should I try it?

I have already used linux for a few months with dual boot(mint and ubuntu) and now that I have a whole separate spare machine, I was wondering if I should just stick with mint or try and move on to arc.

So if I were to learn Arc, do I use Manjiro to get fimiliar with Arc? Or should I just stick to mint, spend more time learning how linux works and then switch Arc?

Hey so I m pretty new to Linux Ubuntu. I decided one day that I didn´t wanted to upgrade to WIndows 11 and so I got Linux Ubuntu on my pc but now I m bit stuck everything works fine but I feel like there could be more I can do with it so now I m here asking this question to gather some ideas and to get to know what is it capable even to do ?

It just seems kind of weird. It's not particularly pretty, fast, customizable, or stable when compared to other distros which have those qualities.

When someone asks "what distro should I use?" 99% of people either point to Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora or a gaming distro. If you want something highly customizable, you'd probably pick Arch or Gentoo. If you want speed, you'll pick any distro that offers a lightweight DE. Stability? Debian.

I understand that Distrowatch's ranking != actual popularity, but the question still stands: what makes it so interesting? How come people don't mention it as much in Reddit?

Just yerday I switched from windows 10 to linux after hearing so mch about it. I have never used it before. I tried a couple of linux distros which I had only a little problem getting to work and they all gave me the same glitch where my screen moves around quickly all over the place and static appears, sometimes even going black for a few seconds. I think it has something to do wirh my hardware but im honestly not so sure what the problem is. I have an evoo gaming laptop. I hope someone can help me out. My specs are: CPU: 9th Gen Intel i7-9750H GPU: Nvidia GTX 1660Ti 16 GB of RAM 512 GB of storage

Hi,

I have a pretty new computer which I've dual booted Fedora and Windows. I have a set of HD3 AudioEngine speakers that work fine on windows, but tend to have connection problems when using Fedora. The UI says 'connected' but the device does not appear in the audio output list, and the light on the speaker itself doesn't stop flashing (which indicates it's still in pairing mode).

I'm used to working with linux servers professionally but have very little experience with desktop usage like this. If someone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it!

Here's what I've tried so far:

* Check the bluetooth systemctl status

* I see `profiles/audio/avdtp.c:avdtp_connect_cb() connect to 00:22:D9:00:1C:0E: Permission denied (13)` in the logs whenever I try to connect to this device, but I'm not sure how to address it. I haven't found anything online about this error.

* Restarted the bluetooth system

* Confirmed with rfkill list that there's no soft or hard locks on my bluetooth service

How would I even go about debugging this? I've been running into lots of small problems that I've been able to fix myself, but this one is stumping me.

PC specs :
-Intel i5-6300u
-8GB RAM
-256GB SSD

I only have 1 physical disk, and 2 partition, 1 for the OS (windows), and 1 for storing large important files (family pics from yrs ago)
I want to install Linux on the C:\ partition, not the D:\ that contains my files, is there a way to do it safely? I don't want to mess up and erase EVERYTHING :(

Extra: Can I install using my SSD? I don't have a USB stick to mount the iso to.

I just installed Fedora 42 and have noticed that the disk won't auto decrypt if the laptop lid is closed. I used the following command at setup.

sudo clevis luks bind -d /dev/nvme... tpm2 '{"pcr_ids":"1,4,5,7,9"}'

I want to install servers with keyboard and displays connected and then unplug them. Will it work by rebind after disconecting via ssh or does dissconected and never connected have different signature?

Hi I bought a controller 'oniverse revolt v2' to use with Steam on Mint 21.3 but can't find any way to make it work on Steam. It stays undetected. Any advice?

I want buy cheap laptop with ARM CPU and find TCL Book 14 Go for 218$

but i doesn't find any info about how install linux (like ubutu ) on this

I’ve been using Linux for a little while now and I want to try some new ones but I do t really know much about them. I’m looking for something optimized I mostly game on my pc but I also do just really like pcs and stuff so something that I can tinker with and change would also be nice

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to install Arch Linux on my MacBook Pro with the T2 chip.
I followed the

Here’s the situation:

• On the Arch live USB, Wi-Fi works fine. I can use iwctl to scan and connect without issues.

• On my native Arch install (with linux-t2), I can see networks, but whenever I try to connect (via nmcli or nmtui) I always get: Error: Secrets were required, but not provided

• With iwctl, sometimes the scan itself fails with “Operation failed” even though the device is powered on.

What I have tried:

• Installed apple-bcm-firmware (firmwares are present under /lib/firmware/brcm/4377*).

• Added the kernel parameter: brcmfmac.feature_disable=0x82000

• and rebuilt grub (grub-mkconfig). Confirmed it’s in /proc/cmdline.

• Disabled wpa_supplicant and tested both with NetworkManager + iwd backend and with iwd only. Same issue.

So in summary:

• Live USB: Wi-Fi OK.

• Installed Arch (linux-t2): networks visible, but cannot connect → always “Secrets required” error.

I suspect this is either a mismatch between linux-t2 and the firmware packages, or something wrong with how iwd/NetworkManager interacts on linux-t2.

👉 Any advice on how to make Wi-Fi work under linux-t2? Should I rebuild the kernel, or copy firmware files directly from macOS?

Thanks a lot in advance 🙏

I have a pair of Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones. Most of the time, these connect to my Xubuntu 25.04 machine with both A2DP and HSP/HFP profile options. However, on occasion, only the HSP/HFP profile is listed, which is the one the headphones end up using. A2DP comes back once I disconnect and reconnect my headphones, but I'd still like to resolve this issue for good.

I welcome any suggestions the community has. Thanks!

Decided to resurrect my old Sparcbook - netbooting installation. Have tftpboot set up, rarpd installed and working, iptables allowing udp on 69 both in and out, bootfile named appropriately... tcpdump shows me the comms are working, client asks for the file but server just doesn't send it. Been decades since I've done this and it's driving me bonkers lol :) suggestions welcome :)

└─$ cat /etc/default/tftpd-hpa

TFTP_DIRECTORY="/tftpboot"

TFTP_ADDRESS="0.0.0.0:69"

TFTP_USERNAME="tftp"

TFTP_OPTIONS="--permissive"

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 69 -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp --dport 69 -j ACCEPT

ls -l /tftpboot/C0A82863.SUN4M

-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody bluebird 63488 Sep 9 19:59 /tftpboot/C0A82863.SUN4M

$ sudo tcpdump -i eth0|grep tadpole

listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), snapshot length 262144 bytes

19:43:12.386483 IP tadpole.42381 > 255.255.255.255.tftp: TFTP, length 23, RRQ "C0A82863.SUN4M" octet

19:43:12.391670 IP 0xdeadbeef.47018 > tadpole.42381: UDP, length 36

19:43:17.546577 ARP, Request who-has tadpole tell 0xdeadbeef, length 28

19:43:18.570582 ARP, Request who-has tadpole tell 0xdeadbeef, length 28

19:43:19.594578 ARP, Request who-has tadpole tell 0xdeadbeef, length 28

19:43:26.426880 IP tadpole.42381 > 255.255.255.255.tftp: TFTP, length 23, RRQ "C0A82863.SUN4M" octet

19:43:26.432048 ARP, Request who-has tadpole tell 0xdeadbeef, length 28

19:43:26.434565 ARP, Reply tadpole is-at , length 50

19:43:26.434579 IP 0xdeadbeef.38193 > tadpole.42381: UDP, length 36

19:43:40.467212 IP tadpole.42381 > 255.255.255.255.tftp: TFTP, length 23, RRQ "C0A82863.SUN4M" octet

19:43:40.472375 IP 0xdeadbeef.35339 > tadpole.42381: UDP, length 36

Just installed Linux for the first time in my life. What should I do?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been struggling to get Linux running smoothly on my laptop. No matter which distro I try, it always feels very slow and laggy. For example: • Apps take a long time to open (even the terminal). • Login and shutdown take a long time. • Desktop environments feel sluggish, even the defaults.

Distros I’ve tried: Debian, Fedora, Kali Linux, Parrot OS (all with different DEs).

Laptop specs (from Neofetch): • Model: ASUS TUF Gaming FX505DY • Kernel: 6.12.32 amd64 • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega • GPU 1: AMD ATI Radeon RX 460/560D / Pro • GPU 2: AMD ATI Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile • RAM: 8GB

Other info: • To even get Linux installed, I always need to add this parameter in GRUB: nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=5500

Hey folks, I’m struggling with this and could use some advice.

I have an NVIDIA GPU GT 740 (same model across two different PCs), and I’ve been trying to get HDMI output working using the open-source nouveau drivers. Unfortunately, HDMI doesn’t work properly on either machine — it either stays blank or shows a garbled screen.

What I’ve tried:

1. Tested on two separate PCs with the same GPU specs → Same issue on both.

2. VGA output technically works, but flickers uncontrollably and is practically unusable. This seems to be a hardware-related issue with the GPU itself, because even in Windows, VGA behaves erratically.

3. I thought it could be a distro problem, so I switched from Arch to Fedora, but the HDMI problem persisted.

4. The fact that X11 with NVIDIA’s proprietary driver works fine on HDMI shows it’s not a hardware compatibility issue in general — it’s a problem specifically with nouveau drivers and HDMI under Wayland or newer kernels.

5. I also experimented with kernel parameters, and it sort of booted into HDMI mode — I got a screen with a visible wallpaper and window overview effects, but no functional UI elements like a bar or launcher.

6. The nvidia drivers that support my gpu are the 470xx legacy ones which don't support wayland at all, that's why I want to use nouveau, also i wanna use hyprland

What I believe now:

The issue isn’t distro-related but a limitation or bug in the nouveau driver.

VGA’s flickering problem is probably due to my GPU’s analog output circuitry and doesn’t represent the main issue — HDMI remains the goal.

I want to use Wayland and I’m okay with lower performance using nouveau. I’m mainly looking for help to get HDMI working with my GPU so I can run Wayland smoothly, even if performance isn’t great.

Appreciate any insights or suggestions!

On my Linux system, I use full-disk encryption with the TPM. The disk is protected by a 50-character LUKS key stored in the TPM, which only releases it if I enter a PIN. How secure is it if that PIN is just a 6-digit number?

If a 6-digit PIN isn’t secure enough for protecting my LUKS key via the TPM, what should I change it to? What would be considered a reasonable PIN or passphrase length/format?

Also, the second question: if aforementioned package formats become much more dominant, would they stall or stagnate the traditional packages development in terms of package availability (like, package A would be available only as a flatpak or another universal package but never as a deb or rpm, because theoretically it wouldn't make much sense to distribute software in the latter formats)?

I reckon my questions are stupid.

Not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask but all the scripts I see are in bash , I only know python for scripting and was wondering if there was an inherent advantage to using bash or zsh.

As a dev who just explored neovim and tried using it on windows , i run into many problems with packages that require installing additional stuff if your OS is windows and that works smoothly on a Linux environment, i was thinking about dual booting Arch linux with windows but was worried if that will create problems like accidentally loosing all my data on windows (I am planning on running linux by shrinking one of my drivers's space and creating a new drive and not actually running it on a seperate hard drive) So i just want to get your perspective on this situation, has anyone had any problems with dual booting ? And what should i pay attention to before taking this step ?

Hello everyone,

I sell mini PCs. This afternoon, while talking with a friend, he asked me if there was a way to use a mini PC under the TV. And I said yes, no problem.

He would like to get rid of the Amazon Fire Stick and set up a mini PC, where he can have a graphical interface for the TV (like Kodi), watch Prime Video, Disney Plus and Netflix, browse the web, and why not, add some retro gaming too…

Is there a distro that does all this?

Thanks

I'm using for the sudo insult thing, and edited common-auth, common-password and common-account, but attempts to ssh into my desktop isn't insulting people.

Anything I can install or modify to make that work?

If you own a liquid cooling system with an LCD display and run LINUX as your backend, you might be interested in my new FOSS project: CoolerDash 🎉 Contributions, feedback, and testing are very welcome.

Thanks to all fellow Linux & open-source enthusiasts! 🙏 KISS

Hi, I’d appreciate advice on a reliable alternative to Remmina. My main requirement is solid RDP support. Recently, I’ve been experiencing significant stability issues with Remmina. It crashes intermittently, clipboard sharing is inconsistent, and if I attempt to initiate an RDP session too quickly, the application often becomes unresponsive.

Title.

Hi,
I'm sick and tired of all the bloat on Windows. I hate having apps installed without knowing what they do. And I hate that my RAM randomly maxes out with ten billion threads in Task manager and me not knowing what they do or if I'll brick my PC if I end/uninstall them.
So I wanna move to Linux, especially now that Steam Deck is Linux and so my Steam games can also run on Linux (I think?)
My only concern, then, is with MS office. I'm a student. I need PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and Word. Word especially, since I need to write a bachelor thesis in a semester or two. So I was wondering if anyone knows of good alternatives for these? Or if I have to just suck it up and use the web versions?

thanks in advance for all the help ^-^

whats the best way (easiest/least complex) to install arkenfox?

I tried searching through the software manager its not there

Not "whats the best" because no such thing as the best

I want to hear what your favourite Distro id that aligns with your hobbies or job or whatever you do

Guys help i am installed After Effects 2024 on my Endeavour Os but there are no cinema 4d

Got a family member who doesn't know much about Linux and his ChromeOS Flex has stopped auto updating maybe for good because of the age of the hardware (still trying to figure that out in another sub).

Anyways trying to put him on a windows like Linux immutable distro that is stable, secure, and stays that way.

It seems most immutables are based on Gnome and/or unstable distros. Are there any based on a stable distro and use KDE or XFCE?

I came across Aurora Linux but it doesn't auto update like Chrome OS does and from my limited reading needs to be updated through the CLI?! That is well and OK for me but not for this person.

Thanks in advance!

I know most of the big Linux distros but am new to the immutable scene.

I’ve been using Linux for two years now and it recently occurred to me that Mac is far more similar to Linux than Linux is to windows, being a Unix-like and all that. And Mac has ports of the two main programs(or suites of programs) that I see people say is stopping them from installing Linux, adobe CC and ms office(or 365 or whatever their calling it now.) so wouldn’t there be less resistance to either crack Mac apps or creating a Mac compatibility layer than a Windows one?

⸻

I finally switched from Windows 11 to Linux Mint today because I was tired of the high CPU usage and all the little frustrations. Honestly, I’m loving Mint so far — it feels fast, stable, and lightweight. Now I just want to take things a step further and make my desktop look more handsome and unique. Any tips on themes, icons, wallpapers, or cool customization tools that work well on Mint? I’d really appreciate some advice from experienced Linux users.

So to start this off i am dualbooting arch and every time i switch from windows to arch my headphones bluetooth quality gets more crisp and clear (i use the senheiser momentum 4) does anyone have a explanation why this is happening

sorry for the typos/bad englisch

Can you download themes and icons from gnome-look for LXDE?

I’m wondering if I can go to and download themes and icons for LXDE?

It not where is the best place to get themed and icons for LXDE?

I’m thinking of buying a 4k monitor, and i’m wondering how well it’s supported nowadays on linux. I remember in the past linux used to have issues with high resolutions sometimes, are those problems fixed? I would be using a 4k monitor + a 1080p one as a secondary monitor, positioned vertically.

Anyone has experience with a setup similar to mine?

I know there is a thermalright app floating about github but keen on getting the above running under Linux. So far no luck, especially the wifi based lian-li fans/screen. Tried a few things, even using a windows VM... which works but doesn't talk to the underlying hardware to pull sensor information :/

I have been distrohopping a lot, this far i have been trying Linux Mint. Really nice OS in general, my biggest issue with it is that when running Dota 2 the taskbar is still visible over the game in windowed mode which is very annoying.

I decided to try Pop!_OS as well, and with that i had some weird performance issues with Cyberpunk, i got less performance out of it compared to on Windows, not really sure why.

I then read up a little about DE's in general and i have seen a lot of people saying things that KDE/Plasma is way better than using something like Cosmic, Cinnamon and even GNOME because it actually gives better performance in games.

I am now back on Windows for now since i had to use windows for studying but i'm looking into going over to Linux again, probably trying CachyOS this time.

But my initial question still stands, does the DE actually make a difference when it comes to performance in games, if so, why?

When I boot into option 3 (Debian) with the grunt board, the only thing that appears is a movable cursor. Anyone know how to fix it?

Hello,

Ich habe mir aus alter hardware einen homeserver zusammengestellt und betreibe diesen mit ubuntu.
nun habe ich 2 x 2TB HDD´s im RAID um über samba meine Daten ( Bilder, Akten etc.) zu sichern.

nun meine Frage:

wenn ich keine Lust mehr auf Ubuntu habe und doch win 11 nutzen will, kann ich den RAID und die Daten darauf (ebenso wie eine dritte 512 GB M.2 mit den selben Daten) in WIndows übernehmen?
Also wenn ich einfach Win 11 installiere und die Ubuntu installation lösche.

So I'm trying to get some mods for a game I'm playing, and the file format they use are ".gma". However, for whatever reason, the specific mod I downloaded the file for just doesn't work. I downloaded a similar file from the same source and it works fine but I'm unsure why this one wouldn't.

The only difference that I am able to see from a surface level is that the working gma file has an icon that looks like a transparent background checkboard pattern, while the one that doesn't work has an icon that looks like "< / >" in red. Maybe this means it has a scripting error or something? If anyone knows 1. Why the file might be different or 2. How I might be able to fix it. It would be greatly appreciated

If it helps I am also going to leave a link to the mod I got the file from.

Thank you

Been trying to get into Linux for a while now, finally got to the point where I'm completely fed up with Windows. I've got all of my programs figured out, I've backed up all my files, and I've tested out multiple distros in virtual machines (settled on Mint for my needs), etc. etc. the only thing left is to actually get my computer's operating system FULLY changed over to Linux - but I've been struggling on how to figure certain things out.

• how would I go about putting Mint on my hard drive without using a flash drive or partioning (or if that is something I could even do)? I can't go out and get a USB or a disk drive (I'm poor) and my current Windows install won't let me shrink the primary partition by more than a couple of gigs, despite the fact that the majority of the drive is free (63% to be exact)

  • Feel like I should mention that I went through the whole song n dance of stopping Windows from saving space for hibernation, for restore points, and from using the majority of virtual memory, and it still refused to let me shrink the drive by more than 6 gigs

Thx for helping out if you do!

Hello , I wanna remove windows and Install Ubuntu LTS as only OS .

(I have an USB)

The problem is Whenever I search for a YouTube video that explain HOW to do it step-by-step its always by the Windows 11 and not 10 (IDK if there is big differences or not).

Im still searching for something that can give me a step-by-step to do it .

So if someone got an idea or somewhere to find every thing I have to know to do it , please tell me.

I am trying to run endeavour os through my usb drive I did Ubuntu last time and it worked so I downloaded the iso, flashed it through balena etcher 1.8.11 And when I try to boot into it, it opens dell's support assist or something and tries to read memory for safety and always gets stuck at the last momment.

So then I tried using a different flashing tool this time rufus followed a tutorial an how to flash linux distros using this but the same problem occurs. Idk what is happening

I am trying to use a different usb drive to see if the drive is the problem, but I used it to boot into Ubuntu and bazzite before and it worked

Edit : it was the secure boot

What distro is used by engineers and engineering students ???? I am trying to find which is best for my ECE course.

I'm trying to set up LAMP on Fedora 42 and PhpMyAdmin is the only tool that does not work.

I keep getting this error when loading

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access this resource.

This is the log I get from /var/log/httpd/example.com_error.log:

[Mon Sep 08 00:02:13.651019 2025] [autoindex:error] [pid 1967:tid 2085] [client
] AH01276: Cannot serve directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/: No matching DirectoryIndex (info.php)
found, and server-generated directory index forbidden by Options directive

I have already tried several fixes I found online such as adding "index.php" to Apache DirectoryIndex and changing permissions with the command chmod 777 /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/, I have even tried to reinstall Apache, PhpMyAdmin, MariaDB and PHP, but the issue persists and nothing seems to work.

Please, any ideas?

|| || |Processor|Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7500T CPU @ 2.70GHz| |Video Card|Intel(R) HD Graphics 630| |Operating System|Windows 10| |RAM|16 GB| EDIT:IT IS STUCK SAYING THE FOLLOWING FOR AROUND TWO HOURS:

BOOKWORMPUP64 10.0.10 - LINUX 6.1.124 [X86_64]

WAITING 5 SECONDS FOR SLOW STORAGE DEVICES [0/5].

WAITING 5 SECONDS FOR SLOW STORAGE DEVICES [1/5].

WAITING 5 SECONDS FOR SLOW STORAGE DEVICES [2/5].

WAITING 5 SECONDS FOR SLOW STORAGE DEVICES [3/5].

WAITING 5 SECONDS FOR SLOW STORAGE DEVICES [4/5].

COPYING 'puppy_dpupbw64_10.0.10.sfs' TO RAM...

WHAT DO I DO

.

Just found out google is banning side loading apps. Virtually no difference between android and iphone at this point.

Is there any possible competitor that is linux/similar in the mobile market? Something to make this less bleak?

Hopefully this sub is less gatekept than the main sub. So I’m looking at switching from Mac, over all the newer forced things the OS is doing. Also not doing windows built in AI is a no go for me. I just want my OS and if I need AI I’ll get it myself. Don’t want internet searches in my finder searches etc.

So my main concern is development related. I’m doing a lot of web development vue framework, node, docker, MySQL, and Python for data analytics with pandas numpy plotly etc. I’d like to stay in vs code and have compatibility with the above. I’ve only used Ubuntu a little bit in recent years. Used a few other distros in the past. Mainly looking for something that’s pretty much plug and play. I don’t want to spend hours trying to get my computer speakers to work, just to have my mic stop lol.

I hope to install Linux on my old Windows 10 Dell Workstation soon, and would like to know what version is recommended and why.

I have some experience with Mint and Ubuntu, so I think I understand the basics, and a couple of weeks ago I installed Mint on a laptop for a friend, so I'm not completely green.

My focus will be on media playback and live streaming to youtube, but I will also experiment with video editing software and other creative apps, and maybe a web local server.

I will probably be using an old RTX 1050 TI 4gb as the graphics card and I have 128gb ram.

Im using 2 displays 1 (my main monitor) is 175hz 1440p 21:9 and the other 1080p 16:9. Theres an issue that seems to only happen when i move my mouse, where the screen goes black for a second and then goes back. Sometimes it even shows a weird screen where theres a blue background and kind of lighter blue dots. If that happens its the same as the black screen just that it shows that instead. It never happens when i have a game running or anything like that. So if i have cyberpunk in the background the issue doesn’t happen. Im on fedora 42 and im using amd graphics (9070xt) Ill try to attach any images im able to get of the weird visual with the dots.

Sorry for the dumb question but I am not tech savvy and I'm planning to move to linux because my laptop can't be upgraded to win 11 and I don't want to buy another one at the moment. Also tired of windows shit and ai use.

So my question is what should I backup before going for the install? only the C drive or is it safer to also backup the D drive? Or is the install process safe and won't touch any other drive other than C?

I am planning to install mint for obvious reasons.

What's a great email client that's not Thunderbird? One that is still actively supported and supports multiple email accounts. TIA

I often hear specially from folks coming from the game-dev world that Linux debugging lacks years behind windows. I am a developer my self and I can't say I am a debugger heavy user by any means tbh, but when I do need a debugger I use gdb with and it gets the job done for me. And I know gdb is pretty much infinitely scriptable through python.

I did a little bit of research about people biggest gripes with Linux debugging and found the following is the most cited.

1. GDB is powerful but the GUI wrappers around it lack very much(which from my limited experience I have to agree hence why I opt for the command line version anyway)

2. Graphics/GPU debugging on Linux is very painful and a mess to set-up(This seems a vendor problem more than it's on Linux tbh)

And to be fair most of the info I found about this was literally from 2013, 2016 and the latest I found was 2020. That's I guess why I am asking now have things gotten better maybe??

I would be really interested if you are doing game-dev on Linux how has your debugging experience been so far?

Long story short, I am going to be gifted anywhere between 30 to 50 desktop PCs with the following specs:

• Intel Core i7 7th gen (I don't know which specific one, I will find out soon)

• 8 GB of RAM (unknown speed; unknown number of slots)

• No GPU; using the integrated Intel one

• 256 SSD drive

• Currently running Windows 10; does not qualify for Windows 11

• No monitor, no keyboard or mouse

They were all about to be thrown away (actually, he already threw away 150 of them!) but I asked him to leave some for me.

I know I am going to install Linux on all of them but I am trying to figure out a good use case. What are some ideas you can think of? The local schools don't want it (even though they all use Chromebooks); I already have enough PCs at home and at the office. Some ideas on what to do with them?

EDIT: Nevermind, guys. I changed the /etc/mpd.conf file to direct the tag_cache to ~/ and created a tag_cache file there and now it's working. Not sure why it had issues at the previous location at /var/lib/mpd/tag_cache but I guess it doesn't matter.

I have a headless Debian server running on a very SFF machine that simply runs mpd and plays a single track locally from attached speakers. Until recently this machine ran Debian 10, and honestly I should have left it alone. It worked fine and didn't really need a network connection so the fact that it was EOL didn't really matter. However, the fact that I got a string of error messages whenever I did actually attempt to run apt updates bothered me. Therefore, I made the mistake of attempting to upgrade the distro itself.

I changed the apt sources to read bullseye instead of buster and ran the updates. It all went smoothly. I told it to restart services without asking, etc. It asked a couple of times about keeping config files, including that of mpd. I told it to keep my existing config.

When the upgrade finished, the track that mpd played should have started playing as soon as the mpd service restarted, but it did not. I checked and the mpd service was not running. I attempted to run it only to be faced with these errors:

# systemctl start mpd
Job for mpd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status mpd.service" and "journalctl -xeu mpd.service" for details.

Upon checking those logs:

# systemctl status mpd
× mpd.service - Music Player Daemon
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mpd.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2025-09-07 00:17:09 PDT; 1min 10s ago
TriggeredBy: × mpd.socket
      Docs: man:mpd(1)
            man:mpd.conf(5)
            file:///usr/share/doc/mpd/html/user.html
   Process: 2074 ExecStart=/usr/bin/mpd --systemd $MPDCONF (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Main PID: 2074 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
       CPU: 1.115s

Sep 07 00:17:08 drone systemd[1]: Starting mpd.service - Music Player Daemon...
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Ignoring the 'pid_file' setting in systemd mode
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Sep 07 00:17 : decoder: Decoder plugin 'wildmidi' is unavailable: configuration file does not exist
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Sep 07 00:17 : exception: Tag list mismatch, discarding database file
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Sep 07 00:17 : exception: Failed to open database plugin; Can't open db file "/var/lib/mpd/tag_cache"
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: Failed to start mpd.service - Music Player Daemon.
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Consumed 1.115s CPU time.
# systemctl start mpd
Job for mpd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status mpd.service" and "journalctl -xeu mpd.service" for details.
root@drone:/var/lib/mpd# systemctl status mpd
× mpd.service - Music Player Daemon
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mpd.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2025-09-07 00:17:09 PDT; 1min 10s ago
TriggeredBy: × mpd.socket
      Docs: man:mpd(1)
            man:mpd.conf(5)
            file:///usr/share/doc/mpd/html/user.html
   Process: 2074 ExecStart=/usr/bin/mpd --systemd $MPDCONF (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Main PID: 2074 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
       CPU: 1.115s

Sep 07 00:17:08 drone systemd[1]: Starting mpd.service - Music Player Daemon...
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Ignoring the 'pid_file' setting in systemd mode
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Sep 07 00:17 : decoder: Decoder plugin 'wildmidi' is unavailable: configuration file does not exi>
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Sep 07 00:17 : exception: Tag list mismatch, discarding database file
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone mpd[2074]: Sep 07 00:17 : exception: Failed to open database plugin; Can't open db file "/var/lib/mpd/tag_ca>
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: Failed to start mpd.service - Music Player Daemon.
Sep 07 00:17:09 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Consumed 1.115s CPU time.
# journalctl -xeu mpd
Sep 07 00:19:42 drone systemd[1]: Starting mpd.service - Music Player Daemon...
░░ Subject: A start job for unit mpd.service has begun execution
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░  
░░ A start job for unit mpd.service has begun execution.
░░  
░░ The job identifier is 2568.
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone mpd[2080]: Ignoring the 'pid_file' setting in systemd mode
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone mpd[2080]: Sep 07 00:19 : decoder: Decoder plugin 'wildmidi' is unavailable: configuration file does not exi>
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone mpd[2080]: Sep 07 00:19 : exception: Tag list mismatch, discarding database file
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone mpd[2080]: Sep 07 00:19 : exception: Failed to open database plugin; Can't open db file "/var/lib/mpd/tag_ca>
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
░░ Subject: Unit process exited
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░  
░░ An ExecStart= process belonging to unit mpd.service has exited.
░░  
░░ The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 1.
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░  
░░ The unit mpd.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone systemd[1]: Failed to start mpd.service - Music Player Daemon.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit mpd.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░  
░░ A start job for unit mpd.service has finished with a failure.
░░  
░░ The job identifier is 2568 and the job result is failed.
Sep 07 00:19:43 drone systemd[1]: mpd.service: Consumed 1.102s CPU time.
░░ Subject: Resources consumed by unit runtime
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░  
░░ The unit mpd.service completed and consumed the indicated resources.

Considering I had nothing left to lose, I then proceeded to change the apt sources to read bookworm instead of bullseye and ran the updates again. Again, the upgrade went smoothly and the server is back up, but still the mpd issues persist. I had held a faint hope that upgrading further would fix the issue. I wasn't optimistic about the chances and they proved in vain anyway. The errors are the same, but the server otherwise runs.

I have previously upgraded a different server, also running mpd, from Bullseye to Bookworm and then to Trixie (Debian 13) and it's still working just fine through all the upgrades. I don't understand why this one failed.

The /etc/mpd.conf file is the same as it was before the upgrades. Does anyone have any suggestions?

EDIT: Upon examining the results of journalctl -xeu mpd.service on my other server, it appears that the lines about ignoring the pid file and wildmidi being unavailable are not part of the problem. The issue seems to involve the tag cache somehow. I don't know why the mpd user would suddenly not have permission to write to that file when it's in the same location it has always been. I will try moving it to ~/ and see what happens.

hello, ive been kinda stumped on what exactly i need to do to buy albums off itunes. I assume that functionality still exsists, and sites say that x album was released on itunes for purchase, and yet i cannot figure out how. a lot of old links go to apple music, and there doesnt seem to be a purchase page

do i need to have the full application in wine to buy songs? ive only ever bought off bandcamp, and i dont really get it. is it actually buying songs to own, or did it get integrated into downloading songs as part of a subscription?

First of all, my computer is a gaming laptop. I tried to install Garuda Dragonized Gaming but it doesn’t install. What I want is for it to be lightweight, easy to install Nvidia drivers, customizable, and suitable for gaming.

What is most customizble distro for you

Hey y'all. Been having a really good time distro hopping on a Lenovo laptop and been having major trouble trying to use Windows 11 on my main PC, even moving down to Windows 10 has been a massive headache. I'm at an impass where I feel very comfortable using Linux for basic tasks and can follow guides on getting specific programs to work, my main concern that's holding me from moving my main PC is gaming. Everyone says gaming on Linux is the best it's ever been but I know many games, especially online ones, don't work on Linux at all. What I wanted to ask is if it would be safe to move from Windows to Linux in spite of the risk of many of my Steam games (and random games from Itch.io) no longer working. I'm using an Intel CPU with an AMD powered GPU for graphics but I am not at my PC atm so I cannot check the specific parts TL DR: I am comfortable with Linux from my experience using it on a laptop. If I move Linux to my main PC, will I still be able to run my single player games or should I just stick with Windows to guarantee all my games work

Hello all, i have a very old computer (Acer Travelmate TM8372) with 4gb of DDR3 (soon to have 8) and a 500gb HDD (which i will replace with an SSD sooner), and a first gen core i5-480M.

Windows is running "fine" especially with 7 but it's struggling a bit even on the most "lighter" tasks, barely enough for youtube.

In the very remote past i used to try lubuntu, xubuntu, mint and ubuntu itself when they came out around fron 2004-2006 but i am confused on which one could be versatile as a distro either for surfing the net/watching videos and do some light programming/scripting like python.

I am away from the linux scene for so long since i started on aix back in '14 to forget it later after... Any ideas? Better with a improved desktop environment to run it light and cool.

Thanks! Ps: dont judge me too much 🥺

After the latest Windows update, I can't load into Ubuntu anymore when dual booting as it goes into the Gnu GRUB terminal.

I tried to check on Secure Boot and Fast Startup but both stayed the same as they were prior to the update so, what gives? Have I just lost my Ubuntu work and will have to reinstall because of another messy Windows update?

I recently got a laptop I need (for stuff I wont specify) to install on a single ssd 2 instences of fedora and archlinux. I need them to be completely separated and isolated from each other (all of them with their own boot and efi partitions and their own grub). How can I do that and how should I do that?