Great that people are developing tools but personally I use OpenRGB as its broader focused than just one manufacturer. It also uses the same underlying OpenRazer drivers for Razer devices as well as supporting other other RGB devices.
RazerGenie seems a little too focused to me but maybe there are benefits of such a tool I’m missing?
Yeah I get what you’re saying. I would put some caution for Fedora Kinoite - if you want a system that just works and you don’t want to tinker, then it’s great. It just works, and it updates in a very sane and stable why. But if you want to learn Linux and tinker, then it can be very frustrating working with an Atomic distro at the start.
So if I was putting Linux on my parents laptop and didn’t want to be dealing with too much tech-support, I’d probably go for an atomic distro. But if the user wants to learn how to use linux, play with it, tinker then I think an atomic desktop is too restrictive to start out on.
While Mint with Cinnamon isn’t the most cutting edge feel to it, there is a huge wealth of resources out there for people to tinker and play with the system and it’s a great spring board in to other parts of the Linux world. I do love KDE Plasma though - it’s my favourite DE and I used to run it on Mint before I finally moved to a KDE based distro.
I’d recommend Linux Mint generally for noobs. It’s popular and has lots of tips and advice available online, easy to find. It’s easy to install, and as it’s an Ubuntu derivative you get a lot of the benefits of the big user base without the downsides of Canonical (such as Snap being forced on you). I used to use Mint, and it’s a good stable daily driver.
In terms of your specs, you should have no problem with running it as laptop, but as a 2-in-1 device you may find some specialised drivers don’t work out of the box. The most common is finger print readers, but also some of the switching between Desktop and Tablet mode can be tricky. Having said that, I own a Toshiba Satellite 2-in-1, and I installed Linux without issue. I don’t and never have really used it as an actual Tablet though; it ended up being a gimmick too far for me - they’re just too heavy and cumbersome as a tablet, and even the touch screen (which works fine in linux) is just a bit pointless for me. However I have KDE on my Toshiba now and it works well as a 2-in-1 for me at least.
The best thing to do is flash a USB stick with Linux, for example Mint, and try it out to see how it works with your hardware “out of the box”. Linux Mint has a few spins for desktop environments: Cinnamon, XFCE and Mate. None of them are really designed to be Touch based interfaces to be honest. Cinnamon is the main/high end DE and it is ok with Touch interface.
I would say KDE and Gnome are better DEs for touch screen and convertible devices; I personally prefer KDE but both support Touch well - they just have different design ethos. Both can be installed in Mint, although as they’re not “main” DEs for the distro you sometimes get some minor janky integration of the Mint tools in the KDE or Gnome desktop (e.g. sometimes the task tray icons for Cinnamon based tools just aren’t as well integrated into the system themes of KDE & Gnome). You also can end up with duplicate apps in your app menus (cinnamon tools sitting alongside native KDE/Gnome tools which can be a little irritating). But the system works fine and a lot of these things can be tidied up if it bothers you.
But Mint is very Noob friendly, and I think it’s a good way to get into the Linux world. Pretty much everything can be done via the GUI, and it has opted for a default Windows-like feel which can really help with getting used to it. Cinnamon is also still pretty flexible for creating some other interfaces to experiment. Gnome is far removed from that windows feel and is also pretty rigid in it’s design philosophy - it’s kinda “take it or leave it”; personally I don’t like it. You can push it do other things though with extensions, so there is still potential to experiment. KDE does a good job of a default Windows feel but with more design flair/slicker feel, but it also has a huge range of options for making pretty much any interface you like. One reason I left Mint is because I wanted a distro which is built around KDE rather than me installing it separately (I’m on OpenSuSE Tumbleweed now).
So overall, I’d recommend Mint, and use the Cinnamon version. Flash a USB and try it out (note it will be slower/feel sluggish compared to a native install, but should give a feel for how it handles your hardware). If you install it, I’d also recommend a dual-boot setup rather than ditching Windows completely if you’re completely new to Linux. Another option is install on a portable SSD attached via USB, and don’t touch your actual hard drive. That way you can get a reasonable feel of an actual Linux system without messing up your laptop. It’ll still be slower than a true native install but generally faster than a live-USB stick (you can of course also partition and install a full install on a USB stick itself rather than an SSD for the same effect).
EDIT: Just worth saying; if you decide to install Linux, be very careful where you install it. Double and triple check, as the last thing you want to do is accidentally wipe your windows install!
OpenSuSE Tumbleweed is my current favourite. It’s user friendly with good system tools in Yast, it’s got good repos including community repos with lots of software.
Its also a rolling release but has been stable and reliable for me. Leap is their point release version if rolling is not right for you.
I’ve been using Tumbleweed for over a year, and it’s my main OS since I stopped using windows. I’ve dual booted Linux for many years but always mained windows up until Tumbleweed.
Previously I used to use Mint; it’s decent but switching to Tumbleweed (and in particular KDE) convinced me to completely switch from Windows. Everything “just works”, and I do a fair bit of gaming without issue with nvidia drivers, steam, and lutris.
For example I’ve been playing Stardew, Cyberpunk 2077, Distant Worlds 2, and Factorio recently - all in Linux and all without issue.
This is not open source? There is no license just a statement saying free to use for personal and commercial projects, but don’t redistribute or resell.
This freeware at best but if you contribute to this project it’s not clear who owns the work.
I don’t have specific experience with the tools you list, however on googling it looks like Ableton Live does work under wine. Wine is what underpins playing windows games on Linux too; it’s very powerful and effective.
You can install Mint into a VM environment on your current PC (such as Virtual Box) and see how you get on with software you really can’t live without. It won’t run as fast as real life in a VM but you should get an idea whether any tools you can’t live without can work.
As for OneDrive there are unofficial clients to get it working with Linux if you want to sync to your local filesystem. However Microsoft doesn’t officially support it beyond Web browsers, so if you want something slick and supported you probably would be better migrating to other solutions. You’d certainly be able to migrate with the unofficial clients but I’m not sure I’d want to rely on them long term as things xna break if Microsoft unilaterally changes something.
There are PPAs with different builds of ffmpeg for Ubuntu. It also depends what codecs are needed as to whether this is even relevant?
Bearing in mind some (many) encoding codec libraries are not installed by default as most people don’t need them but can readily be added from the official repos via apt or synaotic. Each codec is usually provided as a library of its own; ffmpeg is more than just one set of binaries. There is a big difference between an incomplete build and incomplete default install of all available libraries/codecs. Most people don’t need or want every possible encoding codec installed by default.
However some codecs are more strictly licensed and may need to be installed or acquired via different routes - that is the nature or proprietary software (as on Windows).
Which codes are you saying are not available in Ubuntu official repos?
Quick FYI - Exa is no longer fully maintained; there is a fork called Eza which is maintained. They couldn’t take over the original Exa repo as the original creator is unreachable. Eza is in many distros; I’ve installed it on OpenSuSe Tumbleweed with ease from the factory-oss.
For the Flatpak apt upgrade how about “flapt”.
Flatpak is supposed to be a sandbox, so if there is a vulnerable dependency then in theory any attack would be limited to the sandbox.
However, it depends on the software - some Flatpak need quite low level access to use, and in that case an attack or mlaware could get into the main system. And unfortunately Flatpak itself has vulnerabilities which cna negate the whole idea of a sandbox.
Flatpaks should be using up to date secure dependencies, but the reality is many do not. I would not rely on Flatpak for security. Even fully up to date Flatpaks can be insecure, and Flatpak itself have vulnerabilities that have needed fixing. And for many Flatpaks it’s not even clear who is maintaining them.
Flatpaks are useful for deploying software that’s just not available in your distros repos. But when deploying any software outside your repos - including App Image, build from source or 3rd party repos - you are opening your system up to security vulnerabilities. That’s the nature of installing 3rd party software. Flatpak offers some reassurance compared to some methods but it’s far from perfect.
If security is your prime concern, then Virtual Machines may be more secure route to sandboxing software (if done properly). Building from source would be the other option, as it means you take ont he responsibility for security by using the latest code including for dependencies. But there is no perfect option, it’s always about balancing risk vs convenience.
It’s also worth noting that software repos are also not perfect. But good distros invest a lot of time and effort in keeping them as up to date and secure as possible, usually via the hard work of volunteers.
It is but it’s also one of the few options available to devs. They can sign up with a big publisher and then be beholden to them financially and creatively. Or they can try the kickstarter route, or they can take out huge loans or investment and be beholden to them. If they’re lucky they can get grants from governments but that is sporadic and uncommon. Or they can scale back projects to reduce financial risk.
Some devs can self fund once very successful, but even a successful dev like the makers of Subnautica won’t have lots of money on hand. Plus even if they have cash, it is also about risk and sharing that so they don’t go completely bankrupt on one project and all their employees lose their jobs.
Early Access has its down sides for definite but it does allow game devs to get revenue in while developing, and also (if done well) focus on delivering a game the players actually like. The biggest benefit is definitely that it allows devs as much independence as feasible.
Of course for the players, it can be hit or miss but that is the risk with any game. And no one forces anyone to buy an EA game - if you don’t like it, don’t buy and wait til 1.0. That’s no different than waiting for any game to release so not sure what the problem is from that point of view?
For players in terms of a pure “investment” then of course it’s a bad deal - the only return you get is the hopeful 1.0 game, and you get no share of any profits. You’re actually just another customer, who has been tapped very early. But again, it’s a choice and gamers can just not buy early access.
I’ve bought quite a few games via kickstarter and EA routes, but only games that I’m passionate about and are relatively niche (like small indie projects, or genres that don’t get much mainstream action now like Adventure games). As much as I enjoyed Subnautica, I personally wouldn’t buy its sequel on EA except maybe if it was very close to release.
I’ve had lots of problems with Nvidia over the years; you’re lucky not to. Latest has been with Wayland which are ongoing. That being said Nvidia drivers are much better generally than they used to be, and I’ve not had the myriad of small issues I used to get.
This is less to do with them being closed source drivers so much as their drivers being poorly maintained in the past. They seem much better maintained but even now the software support lags behind windows - you have to use 3rd party open source software to make use of the streaming features for example.
Is there a reason you gave /var it’s own partition? Or is the problem that your entire file root system is full?
As others have said if you have a /var partition, resizing should fix the problem but the other solution would be to migrate the contents back to your main file system partition. Presumably at present there is a symbolic link folder pointing to your /var partition? Copy the /var partition contents into a new folder then boot in to recovery mode and delete the symbolic link and rename the new folder to /var. However presumably you have a good reason for splitting /var out.
If you don’t have a separate partition then the issue may be your root system itself is full and that partition needs resizing if possible or cleaning our to make space.
Finally, Flatpak does also use the /var directories in the home users folders (it uses this for single user installs of software vs system wide installs). It’s possible it’s axtually the home folder/partition that is full and that needs resizing or cleaning out to make space .
Ubuntu does work and is a decent distro in many ways. The problems are around how canonical leverages things for its own financial benefit for the detriment of users and the Linux community.
A good example is Snap. It is forced on users - even Firefox is a snap on Ubuntu. This is not an efficient way fo end users to run their system or their most used software.
Instead of making the builds available as standard software, users have to use the Snap or go hunting elsewhere for builds. That’s anti-user and is identical to how Microsoft behaves with windows. It doesn’t do things to benefit users, it does things to benefit Microsoft.
It’s arguable whether what snap does is actually worth the overhead - I can see that it is more secure in many ways. But then so it Flatpak, and that is more universally used for desktop software across Linux distros. Snap has some inherent benefits for server side use but then why force it on end users where it is not as good as Flatpak in many ways? Or Appimage?
So Ubuntu is fine in many ways, but why bother when you can go for alternatives and give the best of both worlds? Mint is an Ubuntu based distro without snap and other canonical elements. I used mint for ages, it’s great and there is a reason it’s so popular.
I’ve moved on to OpenSuSE now but the Ubuntu ecosystem is fine, it works well for many, and it’s very well documented and supported which often works downstream in Mint and others. It’s just Ubuntu itself thats a bit crappy due to the decisions made to suite canonical rather than what users want or would suit them best. In the end it all comes down to personal choice and what people are willing to accept from their distro.
Intel claims to have caught up with the upcoming Lunar Lake series but still to be seen.
That may be too late for whatever new device Valve is working on as given the lead time for such devices they may already have committed to an architecture for devices next year.
Also running X86 games on Arm devices is not likely to be efficient. I doubt the energy efficiency of Arm chips would outweigh the overhead of X86 to Arm translation?
But it’s all speculation - even without hardware, getting Proton to work with Arm is good for steam regardless of any specific devices. For example it would allow steam to push the compatability tools onto Mac devices and even potentially mobile devices. Makes sense for Valve to do this without it meaning anything more that it being a god idea in itself.
Just on the KDE front, I’m assuming you’ve optimised your KDE set up for your PC?
If not, first open your Settings app and in the search box type “Effects” - disable all the fancy desktop effects.
Next, if you’re on X11, go into the “Display and Monitor” section and disable compositing (you can also temporairly disable this with Alt+Shift+F12 to see what impact it has). This option is not available in Wayland; but you may be better using X11 if you don’t have a dedicated GPU? I’m not sure I’d be messing with Wayland on an old laptop; I’ve had serious issues on a high end PC - definitely improved with 6.1, but I’m using X11 still.
But KDE 6 isn’t as svelt as KDE 5 was, so even optimised it may just not be up to the job.
XFCE is a good shout, and should run nicely on a 2013 laptop.
OpenSuSE - YaST is as good as is made out to be. I like how many fundamental parts of linux are managed via one tool. Other distros I’d used before were heterogenous mix of tools that felt cobbled together and inconsistent, while YaST feels well designed, integrated and consistent.
No I thinks is basically right although could be better worded maybe
/sys is virtual file structure for kernel system info
/proc is virtual file structure of kernel process info
My understanding is /proc came first but was abused/free for all and started being used for all sorts of non standard/process kernel access. So /sys was created with stricter rules to make it more standardised.
Yea it is user friendly. If you’re using your computer once a week presumably its for things like web browsing or working with documents - these are very easy and straight forward to do in linux.
The other big benefit is the cost - linux is free and you’ll save £120 on a basic version of Windows which can be used to get get a better PC or just saved.
Add to that no advertising, much more private and entirely yours to do what you like with. And if you don’t like it you can easily install Windows instead, so its zero risk to try Linux.
Politicians would be better focusing on things that matter like how the Democrats lost the election to Trump and how they’re going to win the midterms.
A crappy paper finding rude words and phrases on steam is not really worthy of anyone’s attention but Valve’s
“Millions” of examples sounds dramatic until you look at how many billions of exchanges have been made in valves forums and comment pages. It needs addressing but it’s not of international or even national importance.
Instead of virtue signalling, Warren should be asking how the Dems managed to allow Biden a free ride through the primaries, held on til the bitter end blocking alternatives and then endorsing Harris blocking any debate.
I’d rather Warren focus on fixing the Democratic Party. A bit of democracy in the Democrat party would be a start.