Glorious Linux Penguin Correspondence

[LostAndForgotten]

I use mint can vouch for Minecraft, Terraria, Satisfactory, Hades 1, Silksong

And why this is the first time I have seen this thread?

 

[TheHoneyPot]

I can't comment on the VPN part, but do you really need an antivirus on linux? It just increases the attack surface of the system and can't protect against entirely unknown malware anyway. Just keep your system up to date, use a scriptblocker when browsing and don't install software from untrustworthy sources.

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Honestly youre probably right on that. I havent had a virus since I got my own computer as a kid. The family one was always screwed tough lol.

That said I also have the unfortunate roll of being the person everyone calls when their pc has issues and my father got enough licences with AVG to cover all everyones computers.

Its likely that if I go linux, I will end up taking my siblings and their families along for the ride the next time I need to do a pc rescue. Hell, they didnt even realise when I replaced their internet explorer/azure for brave and replaced the brave icon for the azure one, they all thought I did something to make the internet better... With how mint looks and feels, I strongly suspect they wont even realise its not windows for a very long time...

Im not worried about anti cheat. I havent done online gaming for a long time. Everyone I used to game with had their lives develop differently so none lf us are synched, and even then, most of us work on computers and it looses its appeal to remain behind the computer much after a workday.

Hense SP games are significantly more interesting for the rare moments I do like to game.

 

[vyor]

Oh, mistakes were made. I decided to try CachyOS with one of the lightweight desktops that I'm not used to. That was the wrong choice, I couldn't find anything and it was missing options that I am very used to now. Like searching the menu, I very much like that feature. LXDE was a painful reminder of the past, I'll give one of the others a try and if that's as bad then I'll say screw it and live with a somewhat sluggish desktop. I know Cinnamon does fine, I'm just hoping I can ease some of my poor machine's suffering without inconveniencing myself in the process.

Edit: Cinnamon it is. I hate having my touchpad active if I don't absolutely need the damn thing and somehow the light desktops don't offer the option to turn it off when a mouse is connected in the touchpad settings.

Edit 2: Heads up, @TheHoneyPot installing Nord on Cachy is proving to be a bit trickier than I anticipated. I'll take another crack at it tomorrow, if I can figure out what the trick is quickly enough I'll tag you in a new post with the breakdown. Honestly that's probably the biggest downside to Linux is occasionally things don't go as planned, so you do have to jump through hoops to get it working. But those hoops tend to get easier as time goes on.

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Use Lubuntu.

 

[24caratcoal]

I swear, some days companies need to stop hiding the "pretend I'm stupid" instructions, because some days I'm a total flipping moron and I hate having to jump through hoops trying to find the step-by-step instructions when I'm already exhausted and only pushing forward because i can't sleep and I need to finish.

Snipping the tired, cranky rant that's absolutely irrelevant.

@TheHoneyPot
if you follow this link
https://nordvpn.com/download/linux/
It will take you here
https://snapcraft.io/nordvpn
which will lead you here
https://snapcraft.io/install/nordvpn/arch
when all is said and done and you select Arch are your base distro for CachyOS. The third one has all the instructions, for installing NordVPN on Cachy.

Just a heads up, I'm not sure whether or not you'll end up with the GUI like I did. I ended up futzing about for a good bit while trying to get things running and was very tired. I'm not sure if I accidentally made it work, or if it now comes with the base installation (it's been several years since I had to install the program and I got used to running it form the command-line). If it doesn't come with the installation, I have no idea what to tell you because I honestly can't remember everything I did while trying to get this to work, but I don't think it was me. It was much too convenient and there wasn't nearly enough cussing on my end for me to think that's the case.

Edit 2: previous edit snipped. Man I'm cranky.

 

[TheHoneyPot]

I'm currently sorting through my stuff to prepare my preferred drive for a dual boot setup.

I already made my CachyOS bootable usb drive.

Ill mess around a bit with the live version this weekend and if I like Cachy better than Mint, use it as my dualboot option for now untill I am certain I can completely phase out windows.

This video by Switch and Click was also very helpful in giving the basic rundown on distros for beginners:

Spoiler: Switch And Click, 3 distros

View: https://youtu.be/CXnczTky_Hg?si=ShShw906ZN3g6vmn

 

[24caratcoal]

Now that I've gotten enough sleep to think clearly.

On the whole, I'd say that it's easier to get straight answers out of the Ubuntu branch of the Linux community when you've got a problem. The arch branch tends to just tell you to RTFM, which (while sound advice on the whole) is not particularly helpful when you're trying to solve a single, specific issue when you don't have a lot of time to spare. Knowing what all of the common commands do is great and makes life in Linux a lot easier and more pleasant, but the Arch community on the whole (not all of them, just enough to be a pain) trends towards gatekeeping. And I do get it, it's very easy for people who are screwing around without understanding what they're doing to brick their computer, but that's probably why they're asking for help in the first place.

 

[TheHoneyPot]

I tried CachyOS today but I dont find it as low entry as Mint. After messing around with it, I decided to go for Mint and if I ever wanna be challenged some more I can always revisit CachyOS.

Deciding factor is also that I rarely use my computer as the appeal isnt there for me after working behind one all day, and my mind is usually fried once I finish as well. so I simply predict to run into less issues with mint overall as whilst in the weekend I could be bothered with the konsole/terminal, its just not something I can bring my mind to after work.

I considered setting up Virtual Memory too but it does have 64 gb ram and I dont expect to need it for the use cases where virtual memory shines. Not when using it more as a casual sometimes gaming pc.(sucks that my SR2 motherboard from my old pc died on me It in many ways had a lot more to work with considering the workloads I had it for.)

What I do encounter with Mint however is that for the install I need to turn off RST. So just in case im preparinng a seperate HDD. Im not sure it would like sharing an ssd with windows, even tough it would have a decent sized partition for itself. Still gotta research that.

If anyone has experience with dual boot setups with windows and mint on the same drive, but different partitions please feel free to share your insights.

Spoiler: This video is also quite informational

View: https://youtu.be/36oL-7C_qR4?si=-h5DUC5hXigZQxXv

 

[24caratcoal]

If anyone has experience with dual boot setups with windows and mint on the same drive, but different partitions please feel free to share your insights.

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I've honestly never tried dual booting form the same drive, I technically have the room on my desktop, but I prefer the redundancy of having two separate drives for my OSes. It's been helpful in the past when I've had one of them malfunction since I could just switch to the other, recover the data and reformat the first drive.

What I'm seeing from Cachy definitely makes me agree with you though, it takes a bit more setup and you definitely need either more experience or a willingness to fiddle around with things since it's not quite as user friendly as Mint (it's not bad, it's just a slightly steeper learning curve).

 

[24caratcoal]

So, after playing around with CachyOS for a little while, just doing my normal routine with it, I noticed that my laptop runs a lot cooler than it does with Mint even after extended use despite my using a significantly older laptop. I figured it was worth mentioning. Granted I don't do anything particulary intensive (fiddling around on the net, reading, writing), but after five or six hours of constantly running it was noticeably cooler to the touch now than it has been after similar sessions in the past.

 

[vyor]

So, after playing around with CachyOS for a little while, just doing my normal routine with it, I noticed that my laptop runs a lot cooler than it does with Mint even after extended use despite my using a significantly older laptop. I figured it was worth mentioning. Granted I don't do anything particulary intensive (fiddling around on the net, reading, writing), but after five or six hours of constantly running it was noticeably cooler to the touch now than it has been after similar sessions in the past.

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it may have more aggressive fan settings.

 

[24caratcoal]

it may have more aggressive fan settings.

Click to shrink...

Not that I particularly noticed, though that might be part of it. It also feels quite a bit lighter and more responsive, though that may largely be down to the fact that it's brand new and hasn't had time to bloat. Definitely a big fan of the native option to just directly move things between the hardrive and the mounted storage rather than having to manually copy and delete everything though.

 

[TheHoneyPot]

Well, its been a few days now. I really like Mint so far. Its such a smooth transition from windows.

Steam works, my games run smoothly. I havent used a vpn yet but honestly I havent needed one there yet. I dont really use the internet that much these days.

I did have some installation "problems" tough.

Spoiler: Linux does not install with RTS on in the motherboards settings.

I run recent enough stuff from intel and nvidia on a gigabyte motherboard. That meant RTS was enabled and my windows was installed with it enabled. This required me to have to do some regedits, luckily this went smooth as silk the first go.

The documentation mint provided to resolve it was also very clear.

Spoiler: So my immediate advice for dualboot setups with fresh installs:

Set your motherboard to AHCI first, then do a fresh windows install, Update it, install the drivers, then debloat it, put a nice and private browser up with a DNS service or pihole and a firewall like tinywall just to further kill the ET phone home shit untill you decide it.

Then install your prefered linux distro on your prefered drive. It seems to like SSDs a lot so thats my recommendation to put it on if youre in doubt between an SSD and HDD.

I went for Mint Cinamon, set it as my main boot option as well. Its very welcoming with the startup screen basically allowing you to easily set everything up with a few clicks for everything.

I havent had to use the infamous command lines in linux yet at any point thus far, but I intent to set up some android app capabilities sometime soon, so il probably paste a couple of lines for that. (dont look at me. yall did it as some point too ;p)

Provided that I dont fry my motherboard like I did before when doing work on my SR2 (yes you notice correctly, im still sore about that several years later, I still have it standing next to my current pc. unable to bring myself to remove that master piece, it fried because the online services at the time werent really that affordable yet) I expect linux will allow me to run my current setup for a great many years, where as windows was already planning its obsolesence.

I dont think il even need to use windows again but I keep it on there as a dual boot option as a precaution for the occasional rare situation. Linux has everything I need even for most semi advanced computer uses.

 

[24caratcoal]

I havent had to use the infamous command lines in linux yet at any point thus far

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That kind of power and control is mildly addictive, you'll have fun.

yall did it as some point too ;p

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Still do, especially for longer lines since it's faster when available and helps to prevent typos. I haven't payed attention to how many I've made here, but you've probably seen some in my posts.

 

[TheHoneyPot]

haven't payed attention to how many I've made here, but you've probably seen some in my posts.

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Im dyslexic, I barely notice my own. Thats why I always got edits. If I actually notice my own typo, I figure its bad enough that it needs correcting xD

 

[24caratcoal]

Im dyslexic, I barely notice my own. Thats why I always got edits. If I actually notice my own typo, I figure its bad enough that it needs correcting xD

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Same. Copy-paste is your friend.

Also, not sure if you're aware, but if you highlight something on your screen, you can use the mousewheel to automatically copy and paste it with a single click. It only works on one thing at a time, only on the last thing you selected and won't copy from the taskbar of a browser (at least not by default), but it will paste into the taskbar.

 

[MissileTeatime]

I havent had to use the infamous command lines in linux yet at any point thus far

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If you liked Shortcuts in Windows, you'll love the ln command. I know some file browsers expose the functionality via the GUI, but I don't use Mint so I don't know if theirs does. I learned about it via the command line, so that's how I always use it. Try man ln if you want to read more about it.

 

[TheHoneyPot]

heh, I just said that I havent used it yet. Then decided that Proton was the simplest option for a VPN that I know works with linux and there we went.

Its only copy pasting, in the terminal but I felt like a total wizard. I got a huge sense of accomplishment out of it even tough it really is just installing something. It brings me back to the old days when computers were fun and new.

Maybe its just the honeymoon phase but damn it all if it doesnt feel good.

Same. Copy-paste is your friend.

Also, not sure if you're aware, but if you highlight something on your screen, you can use the mousewheel to automatically copy and paste it with a single click. It only works on one thing at a time, only on the last thing you selected and won't copy from the taskbar of a browser (at least not by default), but it will paste into the taskbar.

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I dont suppose Linux has a multi copy paste option? Like windows key + V on windows where you get a copy paste history.

It sounds like it would be might useful on linux

 

[MissileTeatime]

I dont suppose Linux has a multi copy paste option? Like windows key + V on windows where you get a copy paste history.

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Hm. I have clipboard history, but I don't think it's bound to a keyboard shortcut. I open it from the system tray. But I use KDE: I bet there's something similar available for Mint, but I can't help you find it.

 

[Nekraa]

On Linux Mint I can get clipboard history with ctrl+; (ctrl and semicolon. Technically I have to press shift+ctrl+, but details :V). Not sure if it's a default setting or if I've changed it some time in the past.

But search for Fcitx Configuration, in the start menu. In there, go to Addon and then look at the Clipboard addon and it should have some settings?