approach?

https://redd.it/1jrf8c4
@r_linux

How to launch a gtk binary in tty?

Right now I have an GTK binary (github) that I programmed to be a display manager and I need to launch it in tty as a service. Right now i took the sddm service file and made it launch my binary instead and that did not work. Any Ideas?

https://redd.it/1jrit4p
@r_linux

Void Linux just became the most based rolling release distro for me after reading this
https://redd.it/1jrkn3q
@r_linux

I Fought KDE Bugs for Weeks. My Cat Solved It in Seconds

I've been using Linux since 2017. My first and daily distro has always been Debian with Xfce. While I’ve mostly kept my setup pretty conservative, I occasionally get the urge to try something new.

A few weeks ago, I decided to experiment with the latest version of KDE. I started with KDE Neon, and while I really liked the look and feel, it turned out to be quite buggy. The screen would break in various ways, there was a lot of tearing while watching YouTube videos, Discover had weird blue lines, and there were many other visual issues. So, I decided to go back to Debian.

This time, for a bit of a change, I went with Debian Testing and installed the KDE Plasma version of Trixie. I was aiming for that “latest and greatest” experience on Linux, something I’ve generally avoided, because every time I’ve tried a rolling-release distro, it ended in disaster after an update. Debian Testing felt like a good compromise: newer packages, but not completely bleeding-edge.

At first, things were great. I could watch YouTube, write programs, and run local LLMs with performance similar to what I had with Xfce. But then the problems started creeping in. Microstuttering appeared, and games became nearly unplayable. Counter-Strike 2 wouldn’t even run properly, and Garry’s Mod turned into a brown visual mess.

YouTube began stuttering constantly, regardless of resolution or framerate. Some videos even played with audio while the video stayed completely frozen. I also started seeing interlacing artifacts in Kdenlive and VLC. To make it worse, text across the desktop began to look blurry and garish, like I was reading it through an old RF cable connection. (If you ever used 8-bit micros in the '80s, you know exactly what I mean.)

I was considering trying out a GNOME-based distro like Zorin OS, or maybe finally giving Fedora another shot. (I hadn’t touched it since Fedora 34, and back then my machine really struggled with it.)

So, I started downloading Fedora. While it was downloading, I went to make myself a coffee. Meanwhile, my screen locked... and my cat, being the helpful creature he is, decided to sit down on the keyboard.

When I came back and unlocked the machine, I noticed something strange: all my programs were closed, and, miraculously, the text on my screen looked perfectly crisp. I had previously tried everything in the book to fix that issue, and nothing had worked.

Confused but intrigued, I resumed the Fedora download and also grabbed OpenMandriva, just in case (I have another machine running it beautifully).

Then I started testing things:
- Kdenlive ran smoothly.
- YouTube had zero stutters.
- Steam actually opened at the right size! (Did I mention how, before, Steam looked comically tiny, and trying to scale it up somehow made it even smaller?)

Suddenly, everything was working perfectly.

I was scratching my head, trying to figure out which update could've fixed it... until I opened the system settings and checked About This System. Right there, it said:

> Graphics Platform: X11

It all made sense. Wayland had been the root of all my problems, and somehow, my cat had unknowingly switched the session manager to X11... and fixed everything.

EDIT: AMD CPU + AMD GPU. So I cannot just blame Nvidia on it

https://redd.it/1jrmisd
@r_linux

Linux 6.15's New "hugetlb_alloc_threads" Option Can Help Speed-Up Boot Times
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.15-MM

https://redd.it/1jrmtok
@r_linux

feeling nostalgic

I am feeling rather nostalgic today and started reminiscing about the old school distro Mandriva One (from 2009). That was my first long term distro, longer than Mandrake and longer than RH, prior to migrating to Fedora 10, where I stayed until they upgraded the package manager from YUM to YUMI.

I was then on Simply Mepis for a while, but then I moved to Debian-based distros -- first Ubuntu, then a handful of other distros, such as Linux Mint, before finally settling on Parrot Security OS (circa version 4.7), and I am now writing this from Parrot Security OS version 6.3, which has become my favorite distro over the last 6 years.

Humor me -- what distros have you used that you look back on with fondness and miss using? Let's show some love for the older distros!

https://redd.it/1jrp2sr
@r_linux

Would it be feasible to create a new world wide web?

This is something that has been on my mind for a while now, apologies in advance if this is the wrong place for it.

Basically, even before AI the web had become flooded with extremely lazy and often misleading content. This exists solely for generating ad revenue, providing nothing of value and just making it harder and harder to find what you're actually looking for. Without ad engines like Google Ads, none of these sites, posts, videos, or whatever would have a reason to exist.

So my idea is to do something along the lines of creating a new internet protocol based on HTTPS, but with certain functionality explicitly disabled like cross-site content loading and third-party cookies. Along with that would be browsers and search engines that support only this new protocol. Ads would have to be a static part of content, and this would raise the barrier of entry to securing ad revenue, especially for low-quality content.

Obviously it is possible to add these restrictions to current browsers, but that does nothing to filter out all of the crap that's out there. So that's why it would need to be a completely new space. I suppose any existing content-hosting platform could add support for the new protocol, and carry with it all its existing junk. But there would be little incentive to do so.

I don't know, I'm just sick of it. AI seems to be accelerating the problem exponentially.

https://redd.it/1jrs1he
@r_linux

NTFS support?

I've been seriously considering abandoning Windows and using Linux full-time. But I have a couple external HDs with a lot of important data on them that are formatted with NTFS and I was just wondering how good NTFS support in Linux is.

https://redd.it/1jrsbp5
@r_linux

Moving to Linux

So I am in this process of switching to Linux from Windows, I and wanted to share some of my thoughts in here about the process and how it is going.

So day after day Windows 11 was bothering me more and more with stupid things Microsoft is throwing at me and everyone else and how much non-sense it was. From me right clicking anywhere and seeing a "Loading" message on a portion of the context menu until it loaded stupid things I don't care about, up to my Settings menu also loading stuff from the internet with stuff I didn't care as well (and probably nobody does). More and more, every day losing the sensation that I have my PC at my house, and that it is more of something on the cloud.

Games aren't a priority to me anymore, so it made me more comfortable that I wouldn't run on any conflict of a game I couldn't play on Linux.

After "rehearsing" with quite a few Linux distros on VMs I settled for Fedora on KDE and that's what I installed on my PC. Still in dual boot, but I have the feeling it will become the only one.

While not perfect, and I... learned some thing in the process, using it right now feels very good and that it was the right decision. Also, everything I read about Linux today is basically positive, improvement after improvement, feeling of freedom and choice, while Windows feels half step forward and two steps back every day.

Having that said, I guess I can say I use every minimally popular OS in the market as I have 6 PCs in total.

Main desktop running Fedora and Windows 11 on dual boot

MacBook Air M2 running MacOS

Steam Deck with SteamOS / Arch

Raspberry Pi 4 (it's a computer, c'mon) running Ubuntu Server

MeLe Quieter 4C mini PC running Home Assistant (more Linux)

Dell Notebook from work (not mine technically) running Windows 11, which gave me some headaches with the last updates...

So this is it, just wanted to share my thoughts, positivity and hapiness by the change process. Thanks to the Linux community for working so hard on it!

https://redd.it/1jru5nu
@r_linux

My first impressions on Linux. What I like and don't like.

I recently installed linux mint and moved off of Windows 10. It's been pretty decent, and there are a few things I like and don't like. Sorry that it's a long read.

What I like

For some reason, I really like the settings panel and how easy everything is to find. It's not overly complicated, but yet is extremely powerful. Windows 10 has too many settings that most people would never need. It also buries a lot of settings or places them in positions that they shouldn't be in.

Also, I like the software manager.

Bloatware

Another thing is the lack of bloatware. Often times Microsoft operating systems come with a lot of programs you never wanted and never needed but you can't uninstall them. Cortana is a great example of something I never wanted or needed and only got in the way. The same as being unable to uninstall edge.

Privacy

A lot of people call me a conspiracy theorist when I say Microsoft logs everything you do. They think I am crazy but Microsoft itself admits that they do. Somewhere in the Windows settings they tell you that basically everything you do can be used to tailor advertisements or help improve machine learning. You have the option to turn this off but it's also a hidden setting. Also I don't trust Microsoft that it's actually off when I turn it off.

With this linux variant I know everything I do is a lot more private and I love that.

character

I don't know how to describe it but the entire design of this version of linux is very human. I love that fact.

What I don't like

UI scaling

Not specifically related to linux, but there is a problem of every software developer thinking they need to shrink UI at higher resolutions. When in reality most people, even with good vision, will struggle to read text. I don't know if this is an issue of many developers thinking they know better than everyone else or not, but in practice most people don't agree.

Many times in my life I have heard from others, "I bought a bigger TV to read the words easier, but it's worse." Meanwhile I'll mention the issue online and someone gets extremely defensive. They call me wrong or saying I have bad eyesight. I really feel like the ratio of screen versus UI should be the same across all versions, but it's not. It always shrinks.

With linux mint the UI scales weirdly and often times smaller buttons don't exactly get larger, like the X in, but the top right of the screen. Also, my cursor keeps changing sizes, and it's hard to click on specific lines of text.

File system (Linux as a whole?)

Basically I want to keep the operating system separate from my programs but that's not an option. The reason for this is the smaller drive (250GB SSD) might fill up pretty fast. Also the closer it get's to full storage the slower it will run.

Maybe this isn't an issue that much in linux as I am making it to be but just taking away my ability to choose annoys me to no end. At the very least steam allows me to download games onto my NVME instead. I can also place files on there manually.

Also a small feature missing is annoying me. I can't drag and drop items. For example I can't just drag something from the downloads into pictures or videos through the side bar. I have to manually open two windows and rag between them.

Just little things that are missing as well. otherwise it's been pretty decent so far.












https://redd.it/1jrsfhj
@r_linux

“Linux is only secure because of its low user base”

So first and foremost, I am no security engineer or experienced programmer. Just a regular human who only knows how to navigate through directories on Linux. While I get it’s a simpleton’s question, it’s a question I’ve always had.

Now that is out of the way, I’ve always thought about this and while I do recognize it has some merit, I feel as if it’s not the whole truth. Which is why I’m here and asking any experts or someone who is well versed and knowledgeable in this field as I am incompetent.

When I think about it, Linux seems to have good package management, doesn’t give you root access (neither does windows or Mac) and at least to me, seems to have more eyes on its code compared to Microsoft 230k employees (some are not even programmers) or apple 165k. All of these make me believe it has a robust and rigid security system that helps mediate the damage that malware can cause.

With these in mind it makes me think, is Linux really secure because of its user base? Or if you were to put all 3 OS on the same playing field that Linux would still come out on top? Is there other things in Linux that I may have missed that contributes to its security? Thanks.

https://redd.it/1jrtgkf
@r_linux

Finally solved a 10 year battle with multiple monitors today.

Like many, I've struggled to get multiple monitors working cleanly in Linux. I'm an Arch guy (love it) but it's been monitor grief since I can remember over the last twenty years.

Today I won.

I'm running four monitors cleanly that survive reboots and sleep.

I'm running an old Thinkpad (T430). Trusty warhorse that still runs better and faster than my top of the line brand new Windows work Thinkpad.

My battle was always that I could get two monitors working via direct connect from HDMI or Displayports. When I tried to run a third I'd often get wierd errors from xrandr/arandr. It would just fail to initialize the third monitor.

Once it a while it would work but never consisistently.

I've tried USB Displaylink connections, that then convert to HDMI but again, it was one off success for one monitor but wouldn't survive a reboot or would be so fragile it'd be dead and wouldn't come back after a few days or a reboot.

Maddening.

So I finally fired up an AI to work with me. (lmarena.ai, let me choose multiple models free). After telling it my setup and giving it some of the errors I got in Xrandr, and my Xrandr config it solved it all.

My issues: 1) I didn't have enough system RAM to address all the combined desktop resolution. I had 8gb of RAM. To run the third and fourth desktops I needed more. 2) On reboot, the OS was picking up the USB Displaylinks and randomly naming them VGA-1-2 or VGA-2-3. So it would set a resolution that my first monitor couldn't support sometimes, and set it correct other times.

I upgraded my ram to 16gb and surprise! I could initialize all four monitors. Since on reboot they were failing to launch the second and third it wrote me a noscript that automatically named them correctly in the .screenlayout file that xrandr uses on launch of Openbox (my window manager). If for some reason it didn't name them correctly, it gave me a "happy with desktop?" prompt where if I answer "no" it flips the names the re-initializes. Then it all works. I bet with some more work it could query the hardware somehow but for now I'm happy as I rarely reboot so a quick y/n question once every few months is great as is.

So anyway, I've had this laptop since 2010 ish and today, for the first time, I'm writing this up on four glorious monitors.

Also, the Displaylink model I'm using is "Diamond BVU165" if you're looking for a known good usb adapter.

Hope this helps some others that have struggled like me.

https://redd.it/1jry55q
@r_linux

Will wayland ever get fixed in nvidia?

A couple years ago I started to daily drive fedora, with my 3060ti, but wayland was horrible, flickers, screen crashing, nothing was smooth etc… Long story short switched to the “deprecated” xorg and it works flawlessly (how can something deprecated work better lol)


Recently I acquired a new 5090 for AI workflows and I dont want to leave linux, I was on popOs but couldnt get it to boot. I ended up in nobara but first thing I notice is how bad it performs the typical wayland nvidia experience, flickerig, crashes, unresponsivity etc…

Since xorg is not included at this point in any distro that has the latest nvidia drivers I had to install it manually and… Back to having a smooth linux experience as usual with xorg

So my question is, what did Xorg do right so it works flawlessly after years being deprecated, and wayland being a modern development cant get anything right?
Why did linux community took this approach? Maybe it should be changed completely?

https://redd.it/1jrz0m7
@r_linux

Should there be an LLM Linux?

I just thought of a crazy idea and I think its kinda makes a bit sense.

Hear me out:

1) Majority of the people out there just use a browser or some sort of Electron based app like VS Code which is also available as a Webapp.

2) Almost everything can be done using the Terminal.

3) A LLM like Deepseek R1 is an amazing companion for the Terminal if integrated well.

So I am imagining a Distro with basically no DE. Which just opens a Webview on boot showing an interface like ChatGPT with direct access to the Terminal and the internet. This Chatbot can act as a User Interface for accessing the computer. Just like chatting with a friend instead of using a device.

Tell the AI Assistant toinstall NodeJS and open a certain Project folder and run it using the NodeJS, and it will open the project in your default Code Editor (let's say it's VS Code) and run the code using NodeJS.

It will be able to do almost anything but it will be very lightweight (because it can literally be just like Alpine Linux with a Local Deepseek R1in a Webview) and very user-friendly (because it's literally just like talking to your computer..... can't get easier than that).

All we need is an ecosystem of web based apps which can run locally.

Now I know it's not an OS which suits everyone's needs, like I mean you won't be able to run apps like Blender or Android Studio, but you will be able to browse the web, use the plethora of all the Webapps out there, Code using a local AI Assistant, and basically do everything which can be done using the Terminal through the AI Assistant by your command in simple English language. No need for memorising weird Terminal commands and dealing with the ugly Terminal Emulators.

Maybe we can have some sort of Workspace + Tiling WM kind of functionality for multitasking.

Like press Supper to open a new instance of your assistant in the same Workspace in a Tiling Mode, to which you can ask to open a specific app with a certain setup. And a 4 finger swipe to navigate between Workspaces just like Gnome.

I think it would make a great, simple and snappy OS, if a proper ecosystem of natively running Webapps is made for it. Like we can use the VS Code UI for Text Editor, likewise we need a File Manager, a System Monitor, a Media Player, an App Store, etc.

Maybe we can use Go + HTMX + AstroJS, packaged as a single executable, as our tech stack for our apps, which uses the native Webview to display the UI, just like Gnome uses GTK and KDE uses Qt for their apps.

I don't know, I just think it will make a great, lightweight and very user-friendly OS which is very to port to any architecture and can easily adapt to any form factor. Just randomly brainstorming though.

What's your thoughts on this? How do you imagine an AI First OS?

https://redd.it/1jryh0y
@r_linux

This Week in Plasma: polish and stability
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/04/05/this-week-in-plasma-polish-and-stability/

https://redd.it/1js5d89
@r_linux

Panasonic Let’s Note Laptops. Do any of you use them?

I just discovered these things and they seem like the sort of thing your stereotypical Thinkpad T420, Arch user would like. They have user swappable batteries, thick keyboards, and look old. To top it all off, they have modern hardware without being Frankenpads. Therefore, I’d like to know how many of you guys use them. If you know about them and decided not to, why? Also, how is the Linux support on these? Thanks.

https://redd.it/1js4mn2
@r_linux

Use crosvm instead of qemu for running Linux virtual machines on Linux.

But there seems to be no crosvm in any distribution repository.

Crosvm uses virtio infrastructure entirely, and I think crosvm works well with Linux virtual machines.

But crosvm also seems to have a lot of missing features, which may take a long time to complete.

What do you think?

https://redd.it/1js8a6w
@r_linux

SuperTuxKart fun I guess?
https://redd.it/1js9jp5
@r_linux

Do you have Linux related tattoos or want to do it?

Dunno if this is too nerd thing to do but, I've seen people tattoo "sudo rm -rf /" into it and burst into laughing. Or people doing Tux tattoo, that is so cool. There is also Archlinux tattoos too, HAHA.

Do you have one or want to do it?

https://redd.it/1jse20q
@r_linux

Looking for a command line solution to saving files with special characters off a corrupt drive

Hi

I’ve got a large external hard drive I use for network storage and streaming media off of. The drive recently failed, but fortunately still mounts as read only, and seems that just about everything is accessible

I have some files with at least one “:” character in them, and while I was primarily using rsync -avh to salvage content, it seems that rsync refuses to touch anything with a colon in the file name

So I’m looking for two solutions, as right now I’m having to resort to cp -r, which shows no progress and takes a super long time, and I also want to be sure that I don’t leave anything behind before reformatting the drive

There’s an awesome tool I use for renaming files called mmv, where you can use patterns to rename things in bulk like this (to remove the colons in example)

mmv source/“: ” destination/“#1 #2”

If there’s anything at all like this for copying files, that’d be pretty great, as mmv is not an option since the moment it fails to remove the first matched file off the read only now drive, it bombs out and won’t continue, so hoping anyone might know of a nifty sort of “copy as” tool?

Also, I could probably just ask AI about this last bit, but might as well tack it on here too

I want to be sure I don’t leave anything behind, so looking for a command to run that will return a list of all files in a folder (with recursion of course), which have a : in the file name

For reference, these files are mostly TV shows. So the issue I’ve been having first happens at the folder level, and then again for each and every episode, for which in most cases there are many

In example,

/mnt/drive/TV/Superman: The Animated Series (1996)/Season 1/Superman: The Animated Series S01E01 - Episode Name.mkv”

Because of that, I’m mostly confident in what rsync failed to catch, but also a little concerned that some random episodes within a series that has no : in the folder name, might still have a : in an episode name here or there, and I’m walking myself into a scenario of having a bunch of random gaps that will be super difficult to fill back in later

https://redd.it/1jsehln
@r_linux

BSOD is real
https://redd.it/1jsflfp
@r_linux