All things Linux

Dakota Tebaldi

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Next thing is, if there is not such a repository around, and if you don't mind to use it: use Snap or Flatpak if your distribution supports it. Look around if there's a package for that program around there.
Yeah I have no problem with Snaps and Flatpaks. The only thing about Flatpak is that sometimes its virtualization scheme can get in the way. I played with an old computer emulator that came as a flatpak and it worked perfectly fine if all you wanted to do was play games on it, but I wanted to play online with it a little, and it wouldn't connect with the virtual modem I had set up for it. Only the compiled-from-source version of the emulator could connect to the modem. I couldn't tell you why with any exactness, but it almost certainly has something to do with the way flatpaks are sandboxed.

Admittedly that's like a super specific and rare edge-case, though.

There's also a lot of people who tell you never to use flatpaks because they come from the devil, which is Canonical apparently. The guy in charge of making Mint hates flatpaks so much apparently that they are actively blocked from being installed in Mint by default. But that ship has already sailed for me; I'm on Kubuntu, so like 90% of my OS is curated by Canonical anyways, so I don't care. But it can make things difficult because I'm a noob who knows next to nothing and have to rely on the advice of Linux users who know a lot more, but experienced Linux users give conflicting advice about things like, "should you use flatpaks".
 

Jolene Benoir

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I thought it was snaps that the developers of Mint didn't like. IIRC, they used to have flatpak built into their package manager. I think they once had snaps too, but removed? I don't particularly have anything against snaps but again, IIRC, I have had some issues with installation location. e.g. a program expects it to be installed in one location, but it is not so it throws off aspects of the program.
 
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Argent Stonecutter

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I'm underwhelmed by snaps, way too heavyweight. We use nix at work for building docker containers, they're nice because you can test them without going full container, but it seems too intruisive for a general packaging framework too. They all seem to be way overdone for just packaging apps. Apple's packages on OS X are much more lightweight and I don't know why modern Linux distros don't have something like that.
 

Bartholomew Gallacher

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I'm underwhelmed by snaps, way too heavyweight. We use nix at work for building docker containers, they're nice because you can test them without going full container, but it seems too intruisive for a general packaging framework too. They all seem to be way overdone for just packaging apps. Apple's packages on OS X are much more lightweight and I don't know why modern Linux distros don't have something like that.
How then about... GoBoLinux? This is clearly one of the niche distributions, which are not much relevant at all, but they came up with an interesting way to manage programs. It puts each program and version in an own directory tree. Want to delete the program? Delete the directory, that's it.

Ironically Apple's way about programs dates back into the 90s, to NeXT step. But it still seems to serve Apple well... enough. I mean, there are programs around under MacOS where removing them becomes a PITA, for example Skype for Business. Here are the official instructions on how to remove it entirely:


sudo rm -rf /Applications/Skype\ for\ Business.app
sudo rm -rf /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/MeetingJoinPlugin.plugin
defaults delete com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness || STIMMT
rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness
rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Skype\ for\ Business_*
rm -rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness.savedState
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness.plist
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/CrashReporter/Skype\ for\ Business_*
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/com.microsoft.skypeforbusiness*
rm -rf ~/Library/Cookies/com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness*
sudo rm -rf /private/var/db/receipts/com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness*
rmdir ~/Library/Application\ Scripts/com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness
find -f /private/var/db/BootCaches/* -name "app.com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness*" -exec sudo rm -rf {} +

Windows way of providing uninstall programs is superior to MacOS, because it provides an easy way to uninstall a program without having resort to such stunts to everybody like above.

Flatpak, Snaps and AppImage do solve one major Linux problem: how to ship one application to many distributions easily, without having the need to compile and support it X times? Answer: compile it against a standardised runtime, and ship the application with it. Same stuff SteamOS does since ages.

Of course this leads to memory usage, because if you got one GTK version and Firefox in Snap uses a slightly different, two versions will run in your system. And if different snaps are using different runtimes and are run in parallel this sums up to more memory usage as well. That's the price to pay for that Linux has no official standard distribution. It also adds other fun stuff, like broken themes across the desktop or finding the folder for your application settings suddenly becomes a maze like experience sometimes.

What most people annoys about Snap is how Canonical introduced it, autoupdates enabled by default and that there's only one centralized store for Snaps, which is also run to Canonical. Snap has also the reputation of being slow for some applications. So when delivering stuff on the Snap platform there's always much Canonical involved, whether you like it or not.
 
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Argent Stonecutter

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How then about... GoBoLinux? This is clearly one of the niche distributions, which are not much relevant at all, but they came up with an interesting way to manage programs. It puts each program and version in an own directory tree. Want to delete the program? Delete the directory, that's it.
You mean like Apple/NeXT packages? That sounds rational and logical.

Edit:

Looks familiar:
Code:
~] cd /
/] ls
Programs (Applications)
Users (Users)
System (System and Library)
Data
Mount (Volumes)
REALLY familiar:
Code:
/] cd /Programs
/Programs] ls

AfterStep [...]
AfterStep? Hmmm...

Ironically Apple's way about programs dates back into the 90s, to NeXT step.
What's ironic about that? Mac OS *is* NextStep, except with FreeBSD instead of licensed UNIX and their own Display Postscript clone.

But it still seems to serve Apple well... enough. I mean, there are programs around under MacOS where removing them becomes a PITA, for example Skype for Business.
Um, that's a Microsoft product. Adobe products on Mac seem to have the same problem. They're all bad Windows ports. They scatter shit all over the place. If they use packages at all they scatter packages and frameworks all over the place, plus other random files. There's also bad UNIX/Linux ports with the same problem but at least there you can wipe /usr/local or /var/opts or wherever your BrewFink installed your apps without breaking any of the Mac stuff.

Windows way of providing uninstall programs is superior to MacOS, because it provides an easy way to uninstall a program without having resort to such stunts to everybody like above.
I did Windows desktop support for years and those fucking uninstallers break all the fucking time. I've had to reinstall Windows because it's easier than D&C-ing some Windows app where the installer complains it's already uninstalling the application whenever you try to uninstall it but it also locks the files you need to delete to uninstall it when it does the "reboot to uninstall oops that doesn't work" thing and ends up running EVERY reboot and stapling its feet to the floor ALL OVER AGAIN.

And it's not UNIX underneath where you can boot to single user mode and that shit never starts up. No, it's Microsoft's toxic swamp of duplicate and incompatible DLLs that need to be handstarted in exactly the right order.

And then you have to reinstall, by hand, everything that was on the machine because if Windows actually has a proper package manager somewhere in that swamp no application ever uses it. On the Mac if you reinstall or upgrade you just run Migration Assistant off the old disk or your Time Machine backup and everything comes back including your configurations.

I have PTSD over Windows uninstallers. Thanks for reminding me.

Flatpak, Snaps and AppImage do solve one major Linux problem: how to ship one application to many distributions easily, without having the need to compile and support it X times? Answer: compile it against a standardised runtime, and ship the application with it.
That's what Apple packages do when they have a Frameworks subdirectory. GNUstep was working on that for Linux but they seem to be super-sidelined by now.
 
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Noodles

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My one big issue with Linux has always been how hard it is to remove something. Maybe not even hard to remove, but to know what's even there TO remove. My solution in general, traditionally, has been to just reinstall fresh. Works freat for small project deviices like Raspberry Pis, less so for Servers in use. Basically, I won't experiment with something on a "Primary" machine, since if things don't work out I won't be able to easily remove it.
 

Argent Stonecutter

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Use nix or docker to experiment.

The opposite end of the Apple package model is the BSD ports model, where you install everything from sources under /usr/ports and you get make install and make uninstall and portupgrade to keep the whole tree in a controlled state where you can update everything at once. It's also got advantages.
 

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I have tried repeatedly and I just can't get how to use Docker or what it does better than a straight install or a VM based install.
 

Argent Stonecutter

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It's kind of halfway between a VM based install and a straight install. The main thing it gets you is you have a Dockerfile that fully describes your image and can rebuild it from scratch reliably, and you don't have to maintain a host with randompackage v3.1.4 and a host with randompackage 4.0.1. I once had to support three different Java server packages that each required a different JVM all on the same server, and it was pain.

nix is like halfway between Docker and a straight install. And can be upgraded to a Docker container.
 

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My one big issue with Linux has always been how hard it is to remove something. Maybe not even hard to remove, but to know what's even there TO remove. My solution in general, traditionally, has been to just reinstall fresh. Works freat for small project deviices like Raspberry Pis, less so for Servers in use. Basically, I won't experiment with something on a "Primary" machine, since if things don't work out I won't be able to easily remove it.
I've had more issues with removing Windows stuff because I'm sure there is stuff left in the registry but I Do Not Want To Go There.
( I need a clean install sometime)
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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It occurs to me that I've made a lot of gripes about Linux but I've spent hardly any time talking about what I like. Although, in fairness, that seems to be how most people communicate when it comes to computers. But anyway, I figured I could be positive for a change, so here's some things that I like.

I like the KDE desktop, which is called Plasma. Like - I love just about everything about it. It makes Linux very easy to use and familiar-feeling, coming from Windows and that's a lot of the reason why I've hung in with trying out Linux as long as I have. The desktop is very customizable but honestly, I haven't really felt a need to add anything to it or change it. I've looked at the options, but I'm happy with the way it comes by default.

There's an app I like called KDE Connect; it syncs my Android phone with my computer. Windows has something like this too - it let me read and reply to texts, alerted me when someone was calling, and repeated phone notifications for apps I chose. KDE Connect does that, AND it also lets me transfer files and share the clipboard between my phone and my desktop, lets me use the phone as a media remote for the computer, or a remote touchpad, and a few other things. Having that interconnectedness was something I was afraid I'd have to leave behind if I started using Linux, but that turns out not to be so after all.

Another thing I was really worried about losing was OneDrive integration. Well, I still have that too. I found a utility that lets me mount my OneDrive directory to a folder I choose. Specific files and folders are kind of "virtualized" there until I specifically interact with them; but they're available to my whole machine, and stuff I put in the folder is successfully uploaded to OD. My programs like Blender can directly browse the OneDrive directory, load files from it, and save files to it. Saving and loading to it is not as snappy as Windows-OneDrive integration, but it does the job and I'll definitely take it. It's all in the file browser too - no terminal shenanigans involved, not even when installing the utility itself. I approve.

I'm still having to use Outlook webapps rather than Plasma's own app for email and calendar, which is called KOrganizer. KOrganizer is just...a bit much, for me. It's a lot of stuff I don't need and wouldn't use. There's some good news along that front though; KDE has just released an app called Kalendar, which is a LOT more like what I want, and it looks quite nice besides. Kalendar is more like Windows' native calendar app, whereas KOrganizer while not nearly as expansive as the actual Microsoft Outlook desktop application, is more in that direction in the sense that I just wouldn't ever use like 80% of the app. The hitch with Kalendar though is that it is currently released for every kind of Linux EXCEPT Debian-based, i.e., Kubuntu, which is what I have. So I will have to wait just a tiny bit longer to get it. In the meantime, it's webapps for me.

I've played a number of Steam games using their Proton plugin and I haven't had any problems. One game I played worked better on Proton than the native Linux version.

Installing Firestorm on Linux is a little bit tricky and does require some minor console shenanigans, but once it was done, it has worked ever since with no real problems. Media works well, although sometimes video streams can sometimes take a minute to actually start. There's also a weird effect where some video streams appear as a discrete "Chrome" instance in my desktop sound settings, and I have to control the volume there (the Firestorm media volume slider has no effect). For other video streams, the FS volume slider does work. It's weird but workable.
 

Argent Stonecutter

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The hitch with Kalendar though is that it is currently released for every kind of Linux EXCEPT Debian-based, i.e., Kubuntu, which is what I have.
So it's released for Red Hat and clones like Suse and Oracle Linux? Or is it available for Gentoo and stuff as well?

I can't really picture anyone shunning Debian based Linux because that's like most of Linux. Is this the anti-universe? Am I wearing a goatee?
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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So it's released for Red Hat and clones like Suse and Oracle Linux? Or is it available for Gentoo and stuff as well?

I can't really picture anyone shunning Debian based Linux because that's like most of Linux. Is this the anti-universe? Am I wearing a goatee?
The blog page says:


It is now in the hands of distribution packagers to add Kalendar to their repositories. The most up-to-date and unstable version of Kalendar will continue to come from our git repository, and some users have gone ahead and started packaging builds of Kalendar coming straight from our master branch.
Git builds:


Stable versions are now also available on a number of distributions, such as Alpine, Fedora, Neon User, Manjaro, and NixOS!
Kalendar will obviously still get new features, additions, and changes in line with your feedback, our ideas, and the direction in which the KDE community as a whole moves towards. With 1.0, we think we have a good application that is complete enough and stable enough for most people to use at home.
 

Argent Stonecutter

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Oh, you mean Debian hasn't added it to their repo.

You have to build from source.

Hmmm.

Ah, I see, it's a bit of a dependency hell.

I don't recommend making this My First Github Experience.

LOL, they have a FreeBSD port.

I would try installing NIX and using the NIXOS package.
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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I would try installing NIX and using the NIXOS package.
I would....just wait. :D

I've read something about the repository for 22.04 (the next version of Kubuntu) having already been frozen; but I'm sure a Flatpak or something will come out before then. Hopefully.
 

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I'm revisiting Linux -rn I'm using Ubuntu 22.04/MATE with Nvidia.
Screen tearing is still a thing, sadly.

But somehow -and fuck if I know how- I've managed to trick it out so that I have an OSX style instead of a menu. To get to the menu I have to use the winkey. There, the usual MATE menus can be found or I can just type whatever into search.

I heard on discord that you can do single-GPU passthrough with Qemu. I'm hoping that means I can set up a Windows 10 virtual machine that can use my real video card ...that would let me use Filterforge and Affinity Photo Editor...then switch back to Linux. Using the real (instead of emulated) video card would be a huge game-changer and it's why I'm fucking with Linux again.

I'm making my peace with libvirt (the frontend to kvm; linux's version of hyper-v) by simply saying "fuck it" and setting myself to root in /etc/libvirtd/qemu.conf. That's insecure as fuck, but at this point: 🤷‍♀️

I also have VirtualBox installed; this would be a good time for me to see if those apps can run on that (via a windows 10 vm) without "passthrough" or not. I assume filterforge can, but Affinity actually seems to do some low-level shit so who knows.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Hey look at this two-year-old thread!

Once I upgraded my computer so that it could install Windows 11, I kind of settled into mainly using that. But I've still been booting into and maintaining and using Kubuntu every once in a while, so none of this stuff has been forgotten.

But...I dunno guys. The recent move by MS to put ads in the Start menu and its full-throated all-in devotion putting AI in everything everywhere is really pushing me away from Windows. It doesn't help either that over the last several years I've kind of been getting just more and more disgusted with the whole normalized lack-of-privacy state of the internet and especially with how usability and QC in tech is being pushed further and further into the backseat in favor of ads and monetization.

But anyways. I think it's a good time for me to maybe switch back over to using Linux as my daily. I'm not ditching Windows altogether, I'm going to keep it around, but I think only for stuff that I like absolutely need it for.

Luckily in the last two years a bunch of my biggest technical gripes with Linux have been fixed. Debian 12 came out recently and by all accounts it's amazing, and I thinking of getting off of Kubuntu and onto just Debian with Plasma, since apparently that's pretty easy to do now; although at the end of last month Kubuntu just did a new LTS release so I'm not really in a hurry. Either way means it'll be a while until I'll get to see Plasma 6 which just came out; but that's fine by me because the most recent Plasma 5.x really fixed all the annoying problems I had, especially with multi-monitors. I also got a new drawing tablet last year which is fully PnP in Linux (seriously, my previous tablet was literally like the single one and only Huion model that just did not work with Linux for some reason), so that'll make Blendering in Linux that much easier for me than it was a couple of years ago.
 

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Yeah, I keep thinking of switching back too, at least fory Laptop. I also have my previous Desktop which I use to run some file shares and Docker images.

Both are still on Windows 10, and "can't" be upgraded. I don't current do anything anymore ony Laptop that I can't also do with Linux either.

Maybe I will have to give that new Debian a try.
 

Argent Stonecutter

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I just installed Ubuntu 24.04 on my old Thinkpad t61p (2007) and it's actually pretty great even on that clunker. Plus numbats are cool.