Linux

how would i go about getting the latest kde onto debian 12? is it worth it even?

EDIT: fine I wont try lmao

One of the biggest things holding me back from jumping definitively on Linux is possibly getting rid of the apps/games i'm comfortable with and know well. How do you exaclty use Wine/Proton? You install it, launch the app with it and pray it works? Are there ways to know what is not working and possibly try to fix them googling or reading the documentation?

I've got a BTD 600 usb bluetooth adapter and I'm trying to connect Sennheiser Momentum 4 headphones. Same manufacturer.

When I plug the BTD 600 usb adapter into a windows machine it works as expected:

• The LEDs start off white, indicating "calls" mode. (The device is transmitting a low-latency high-compression signal. The quality is terrible, but there's very little lag)

• As soon as I play music or youtube video or some form of audio, the LEDs on the usb adapter change to purple, indicating "aptX" mode. Audio is clear and there is little latency. The adapter remains in call mode indefinitely (or until I make a call of some sort, which I haven't tested)

I've even tested this out successfully with a steam deck. It works fine, so I know it can work on linux. However, on my Pop_OS! cinnamon desktop I have issues. Upon plugging the BTD 600 usb adapter into Pop cinnamon:

• The LEDs start off white, and remain white no matter what audio is playing. The device is stuck in "calls" mode; audio quality is terrible (though there is very little lag).

I did some research and found terms like "pulseaudio" and "pipewire" and realized those seem tied to the desktop environment. So, I logged out of Pop_OS! cinnamon and logged in to Pop_OS! Pop (its default desktop environment). Lo and behold, the BTD 600 could "see" audio was being played and switched from "call" mode to "aptX" mode.

My guess is that something about the cinnamon desktop environment isn't telling the audio controller that audio is playing, but something in the Pop desktop environment (and the windows and steam deck desktop environments) is.

Does anyone know what tells the audio controller audio is playing, or what would "trigger" a usb device into thinking audio is playing?

(For what it's worth, the adapter seems to handle the bluetooth connection to the headphones independently from the operating system. Bluetooth settings does not see the device. I also purchased an Avantree C81 bluetooth adapter which seems to function in a similar fashion, however its LED does not change color depending on codec used. I'm including it here as the fix for the BTD 600 should be the same fix for the Avantree C81.)

"Mini Text" is a tiny scratchpad utility for Linux that I've found to be quite useful. I thought it might appeal to some others in this community.

There's been some Friday night kernel drama on the Linux kernel mailing list... Linus Torvalds has expressed regrets for merging the Bcachefs file-system and an ensuing back-and-forth between the file-system maintainer.

I'm about to step into the wonderful world of ARM Linux. I work with ARM32 as an embedded developer profesionally (Cortex-M3 specifically) so I'm not a complete newbie. But I've never used ARM64, and I've never used it with a desktop OS. So I'm doing my research, as one does, to know roughly what I'll be dealing with.

I have a few questions regarding backward compatibility and architecture-naming. Maybe you specialists out there could shed some light.

From what I could find, I understand the following:

• arm64 and aarch64 are the same thing: the former is what Linus likes to say while the latter is what ARM calls their own stuff.
• arm64 / aarch64 really mean "compatible with ARMv8" as a least common denominator, meaning ARMv8.x-y (x being the extension, y being A for application or R for realtime) will run it, just without taking advantage of any extension or realtime instructions.
• ARMv9.x will run arm64 / aarch64 kernels and applications, as it's (supposedly) backward-compatible with ARMv8, just without taking advantage of the ARMv9 ISA.
• If I want to create arm64 software that takes advantage of this-or-that extension or realtime instructions, I have to compile it in explicitely. I'm not sure if gcc handles special instructions, I haven't checked yet, but I suppose it does since it knows about the Thumb mode for instance.

Do I understand correctly?

If I do create some software that relies on extended ARMv8 or ARMv9 features and I want to release my software as a package, how should I name the package's architecture? Is there even a standard for that? Will it get rejected by the package managers of the few ARM distros out there, or will it be recognized as a subset of the wider arm64 / aarch64 architecture?

How to change dark/light nature of libadwaita in non-gnome systems?

@linux@lemmy.ml @linux@a.gup.pe
I use a window manager on Wayland. I know customising gtk4 apps is hard for some reasons. Neither I want some great level of customisation for it. I do not need uniform theming etc.
JUST
A simple way to change dark light theme from terminal. I use darkman to switch between dark and light theme. I just need a way to switch between dark and light with libadwaita
Please help.

Should I struggle through constant crashes to get my 7900gre with 16gb of vram working, possibly through the headache of ONNX? Can anyone report their own success or offer advice? AMD on linux is generally lovely, SD with AMD on linux, not so much. It was much better with my RTX2080 on linux but gaming was horrible with NVIDIA drivers. I feel I could do more with the 16GB AMD card if stability wasn't so bad. I currently have both cards running to the horror of my PSU. A1111 does NOT want to see the NVIDIA card, only the AMD. Something about the version of pytorch? More work to be done there.

• Having a much better time back on Cinnamon default instead of Wayland. Oops!

** It heard me. Crashed again on an x/y plot but due to being away from Wayland I was able to see the terminal dump: amdgpu thermal overload! shutdown initiated! That'll do it! Finally something easy to fix. Wonder why thermal throttling isn't kicking in to control runaway? Will stress it once more and clock the temps this time.

Temps were exceeding 115C, phew! No idea why the default amdgpu driver has no fan control but they're ripping like they should now. Monitoring temps has restored system stability. Using multiple amd/nvidia dedicated venv folders and careful driver choice/installation were the keys to multigpu success.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Verizon open-source officer Dirk Hohndel, 'plodding engineer' Linus Torvalds discussed where Linux is today and where it may go tomorrow.

...

As for the release numbers, Torvalds reminded everyone yet again, they mean nothing. Hohndel said, "You typically change the major number around 19 or 20, because you get bored." No, replied Torvalds, it's because, "when I can't count on my fingers and toes anymore it's time for another 'major' release."

...

So, what should you do about the constant weekly flow of Linux security bug fixes? Greg Kroah-Hartman, the maintainer of the Linux stable kernel, thinks you should constantly update to the newest, most secure stable Linux kernel. Torvalds agrees but can see the case for sticking with older kernels and relying on less frequent security patch backports.

...

Switching to a more modern topic, the introduction of the Rust language into Linux, Torvalds is disappointed that its adoption isn't going faster. "I was expecting updates to be faster, but part of the problem is that old-time kernel developers are used to C and don't know Rust. They're not exactly excited about having to learn a new language that is, in some respects, very different. So there's been some pushback on Rust."

...

The pair then moved on to the hottest of modern tech topics: AI. While Torvalds is skeptical about the current AI hype, he is hopeful that AI tools could eventually aid in code review and bug detection.

In the meantime, though, Torvalds is happy about AI's side effects. For example, he said, "When AI came in, it was wonderful, because Nvidia got much more involved in the kernel. Nvidia went from being on my list of companies who are not good to my list of companies who are doing really good work."

My GF recently said I can install Linux on her laptop. Then I saw Windows broke dual boot systems.

Is it safe to do a dual boot if she already has the update that broke dual booting?

Should I just figure out how to install Windows in a VM for her?

Appreciate any insight y'all can offer

Hey, so I know you can tap on a dock icon to launch the app, but when the dock is more than full and requires scrolling to shift the icons, this still cannot be done with the touch screen, based on docks I have tested. I tried the built in docks in Gnome on Pop, Ubuntu, and also Plank. None respond to an attempted drag via the touch screen.

Are there any less widely known ones that do? Are there any plans to bring this functionality to the dock in Gnome?

Hey everyone, I'm relatively new to linux and was looking for some advice/direction. I have been using Mint Debian Edition for around 6mo or so, and want to learn to use the command line efficiently and proficiently.

I have set up EndeavourOS on a backup laptop I have and have been playing with it, reading the Arch Wiki and such, but I feel like I'm not necessarily learning why I'm doing things, just doing what has worked for others.

So here I am. I guess I'm looking for recommendations for books or articles (physical or online) that can help me to learn and understand the workings on linux, and especially the command line.

Thank you all so much.

Via Andy Miller (2007), an amusing metaphor for Linux memory overcommit. Originally posted by Andries Brouwer to the linux-kernel mailing list, 2004-09-24, in the thread titled “oom_pardon, aka don’t kill my xlock”:

An aircraft company discovered that it was cheaper to fly its planes with less fuel on board. The planes would be lighter and use less fuel and money was saved. On rare occasions however the amount of fuel was insufficient, and the plane would crash. This problem was solved by the engineers of the company by the development of a special OOF (out-of-fuel) mechanism. In emergency cases a passenger was selected and thrown out of the plane. (When necessary, the procedure was repeated.) A large body of theory was developed and many publications were devoted to the problem of properly selecting the victim to be ejected. Should the victim be chosen at random? Or should one choose the heaviest person? Or the oldest? Should passengers pay in order not to be ejected, so that the victim would be the poorest on board? And if for example the heaviest person was chosen, should there be a special exception in case that was the pilot? Should first class passengers be exempted? Now that the OOF mechanism existed, it would be activated every now and then, and eject passengers even when there was no fuel shortage. The engineers are still studying precisely how this malfunction is caused.

Twenty years later, as far as I know, the OOM killer is still going strong. In fact, if you don’t like the airline’s policy on what counts as an “emergency” (for example, that it might exhaust your swap partition too before killing any bad actor at all), you can hire your own hit man, in the form of the userspace daemon earlyoom.

Explanation of the OOM-Killer: Understanding Out of Memory Killer (OOM Killer) in Linux

I want try to install arch(artix) linux for my future t480, but I don't know if it needs linux-firmware package? for good work?

TLDR: I recently found out there is "deprecated" XFA format that acrobat still uses in their programs, and government forms have those for dynamic contents in the form that we cannot fill using other softwares. Looking for solutions.

This has been a problem since a long time. Back in 2020 I had dual boot because I needed acrobat to fill PDF forms, but after finding xournal++ program I nuked windows partition. Windows update messing up grub was one of the reason I decided to nuke windows and looking at the posts recently it's still a huge issue.

So the problem I recently encountered is that even the government issued PDF forms need acrobat reader (which is free software for PDF, but only available in windows and mac). Which I didn't think would be an issue and just filled the form in Firefox.

Turns out that was problematic as the PDF forms has fields that are automatically filled, calculated from other fields, only made available when certain checkboxes are checked, etc. and Firefox doesn't support that. Even trying to install the acrobat reader snap (which uses wine) in a VM and opening the PDF on it didn't work. The UI makes me think it's a really old version of the reader.

So without searching for other devices (and filling a PDF with my sensitive information) what solution is there? Installing windows is a hassle even in a VM, and it will use up precious SSD memory. But that's the only solution I can think of.

I also found masterpdf or something like that which the Arch wiki says has support for that, but it didn't work. It says XFA forms are converted to acro forms, and the dynamic part doesn't work. There are websites that promise to work for such forms, but I'm not going to be putting sensitive info on web apps.

Hi all,

Simple question. Does anybody know a (not to expensive) sportswatch that is supported by Linux / FOSS software?

(Yes, I know 'FOSS software' is two times the word software) 😀

I finally have the budget to build my first NAS and upgrade my desktop PC. I have used Linux for quite some time, but am far from an expert.

One of the steps is to move my M.2 NVME system drive (1TB) from my desktop to my NAS. I want to replace it with a bigger NVME drive (2TB). My current motherboard only has a single M.2 slot, that's why I bought a M.2 enclosure.

My goal is to put my new drive into the enclosure, clone my whole system disk onto it and then replace the old drive. At first I found several posts about using clonezilla to clone the whole drive, but some posts mentioned it not working well with btrfs (/ and /home subvolume), which is the bulk of my drive.

I have some ideas how I might to pull it off. My preliminary idea is:

1. clone my boot partition with clonezilla
2. use btrfs-clone or moving my butter to transfer the btrfs partition
3. resize the partitions with gparted (and add swap?)

The two aspects I'm uncertain about are:

1. UUIDs
2. fstab

I plan to replace the old drive, so the system will not have two drives with the same UUID. If the method results in a new UUID I need to edit fstab.

As you can see I'm not sure how to proceed. Maybe I can just use clonezilla or dd to clone my whole drive? If someone has experience with such a switch or is just a lot for familiar with the procedures, I would love some tips and insight.

Thanks for reading.

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EDIT: Thinking about how to do it, might have actually taken longer than the procedure itself. For anyone in a similar situation, I was able to replace the drive with these steps:

1. clone the whole drive (new drive has a bigger capacity) with clonezilla
2. physically switch the drives
3. boot into a live medium and resized the btrfs partition on the new drive with gparted
4. boot into the main system and adjust the filesystem size with sudo btrfs filesystem resize max /

With two NVME drives (even though one was in a USB M.2 enclosure) everything took about 30 minutes. About 300 gigs of data were transferred. I haven't found any problems with the btrfs partition thus far. Using dd like others recommended might work as well, but I didn't try that option.

Hello! I'm a small time vtuber who moved to MX Linux a while back. I use a 3d model, and while I was able to get my model working, with the help of my husband (even better than windows actually,) we cannot get my hand tracking to work.

I've used the ultra leap on Windows with no issues. On the same PC, I tried to get it working on Linux. I use MX Linux (xfce), and the system is up to date. I know that the "Gemini" software only officially supports Ubuntu 22.04, but Ubuntu is Debian based and so is MX. So, I gave it a try. The program installed fine, and it seems to work normally. The device seems to be connected, and I can view its output through the web cam viewer.

However, the ultra leap Gemini program can't find the device. I'm far from a Linux expert, but I tried all the program's terminal commands that I could. I think what I need is to point the program to the device ID or something, maybe. Does anybody have any experience with something like this?

We also tried the older version of the program and that didn't work either. But I remember less about that. It was all terminal based I think.

I use OpenSeeFace and VSeeFace as my tracking software.

Any tips or trick I could try? If all else fails, I could migrate to Ubuntu, but I really enjoy my MX setup.

P.S. If this isnt the place to ask these sorts of questions, could someone direct me to where I might be able to get help?

I wanna thank everyone who helped and offered advice! My husband came up with a solution to use Xubuntu, as its very similar visually to my current OS, and most, if not all console commands I use will work properly. We attempted getting it to work in MX Linux, using the rather limited documentation available, but in the end, I am no Linux expert and changing to a new OS is not a big deal. Anyway, again, thank you everyone.