Linux battery life on laptops

I'm thinking about switching to Mint on my laptop, but found out in most cases the battery life was worse on Linux than on Windows, though the posts I tound were from 2-3 years ago.

Has battery life on Linux improved?

https://redd.it/1k3kncj
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Ubuntu 6.06 (2006)
https://redd.it/1k3rsih
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No Arch hasnt gotten that much better, its Ubuntu that has gotten progressively worse.

See snap breaking server functionality, desktop functionality and more, I stopped using Ubuntu in a server capacity when snaps started breaking packages and was the preffered or default way of installing key packages that I need on my servers. Whereas in Arch things are working pretty damn well, that I am using it in a server capacity and it hasnt dissapointed me yet, it has dissapointed me in late 2010s when I was using custom AURs or patches to support some things, but it feels like Arch has come very very far nowadays whereas Ubuntu seems to have gotten worse slowly.

https://redd.it/1k3sh49
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tiling window manager for the masses!
https://redd.it/1k3vegn
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Green as a pool table but renting a VPS?

I'm learning Linux through pwn.college and found a VPS for under $12/yr.

Specs:

1 vCPU Core

1 GB RAM

17 GB SSD (RAID-10)

KVM Virtualization


Installing Ubuntu 20.04.

Is this recommend to get my hands dirty?

Learning how to secure the server, using Fire tablet to access remotely, etc.

$1 a month to have real world experience I feel is worth the meager expense.

Need to know if I'm biting off more than I can chew, what I need to look out for, what's needed for a complete newbie to begin this journey.

Any and all tips are appreciated 👍

Thanks

https://redd.it/1k3wl4l
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Ubuntu 24.04 LTSMy experience so far (the good, bad and the ugly) after switching from Windows a second time, likely for good now...for real.

Hello,

Long time Windows user here and casual desktop PC user in general for, ugh, two decades now. Started using a PC with Windows XP in the 2000s and stuck with it up until 7 then stuck with that till 10 and now moving to Linux, specificslly Ubuntu LTS. I have changed 3 computers in the process, first was pre built, second entirely custom built by myself, the latest (not the greatest) half prebuilt and half added parts by me.

My first experience with Linux was Ubuntu and Mint about a decade ago but I could not use either long term due to lack of support for games. Recently with all the troubles brewing with Windows 10 and the controversies related to the OS becoming more and more like legalized spyware and combined with the fact I no longer prioritize gaming as much I decided to try Linux once more and was pleasantly surprised.

The good parts:

- GUI responsiveness has never felt better, with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS not only is it up to Windows level but sometimes it feels faster to use the GUI;

- gaming support for the few legacy games that I still play is good enough and I cannot stress enough how big of a change that is when in the past I could not run those programs at all;

- driver support, using an nvidia GPU is much better on Ubuntu compared to other distros given it offers a simple GUI option to switch to the latest driver tested and supported, with other distros it still takes too much work to figure out how to install proprietary drivers;

- the design of the GUI after going through the settings is absolutely amazing, I like so much the way I made it look I doubt myself why I feel this way since I never really cared much about the GUI as long as it was minimal and easy to use. Frankly I feel like I m being medicated with happy pills, can t get over how nice it is;

- this might be more of a gnome thing than Ubuntu but I absolutely support the design decisions to have a Settings App where all/most settings are concentrated, copying in a good way how Settings is arranged on mobile devices like smartphones. The same for how apps and utilities are displayed when pressing the Super key (Windows key) or the Ubuntu button on the dash.

- Steam worked the best out of the distros I tried like Mint Cinamon, Mate, openSuse Leap nad MicroOS and Fedora Silverblue. Out of all of those the combination of RAM usage, GUI responsiveness, ease of use especially with installing video card driver and overall design of the GUI was best on Ubuntu. For me Cinamon and KDE runs much slower that gnome 46.

The bad

- the thing that gave me the most satisfaction was once again the way I could set up the desktop environment theme from the available settings without needing to use the terminal once. I cannot stress enough how the insistance of Linux old timers to depend on the terminal instead of the GUI is off putting for casual users such as myself. It is not about not wanting to ever use it to fox some esotheric trouble now and then but it should never be required for general things that are expected to be done through the GUI. For example there was no option in the settings to hide the top gnome panel. I had to install both gnome Tweaks and Extensions from the App Center which in itself was a hassle because neither of these 2 appeared when I searched, instead could be, found out later, selected from the suggestion of the search bar of the App Center and only after installing them did they appear as a result when searching for them. Additionally I still needed to add the Just Perfection extension all so I could untick one single box to hide the gnome top bar, panel whatever it is called in the desktop. From online searches this used to be an option for Gnome Tweaks but was later removed for whatever consideration but regardless it should have been an option in the default Settings. Same with adjusting font size and type and what I am still missing a Show Desktop button or incon for the

Dock.

The ugly

- remaining with the lack of GUI settings that are expected by default I could never find out how to make opened apps to 1 Highlight which one was in focus from the dock icons and 2. How to show preview of the multiple windows or instances of a specific opened app icon in the Dock by hovering or clicking on the icon, the closest I found was to right click on it and left click on the top most option to show opened windows, a subpar and unacceptable compromise, for me at least. The lack of a show desktop icon also took me through a multiple hours wasted saga to make a bash noscript I never figured out how to do using the terminal and nano commands and eventually gave up and accepted to have to use Superkey+D to toggle between minimize all opened apps and windows and restore them.

- while I lauded and praised the Settings window that brings everything into a single place, it still feels like some things are disjointed and not properly thought out. Like I mentioned Gnome Tweaks and Extensions options should have been integrated into the Settings app or window under Appearance or Display. Lokewise the Update apps of which there are 2 plus the additional driver which is part of one of those and having a separate icon feels disjointed and not well implemented into tge Settings where it should be placed under a single separate categry or maybe two, one with graphics driver selection and anothef with Updates. Additionally the "About" information regarding the hardware and software should be a dedicated category placed either first of last in the list on the left. Also still can t get over the fact that nobody cared enough to make a show desktop button icon for the Dock or show preview of opened apps when hovering the cursot on opened apps in the Dock or have a special obvious highlight of the app in focus.

Overall I still think it is a huge improvement over the past and I more than likely will stay with Linux from now on. The GUI is much improved, responsiveness is amazing, gaming support even if it requires a bit of tinkering with Proton on Steam and there are a few bugs here and therd is good enough if it means no longer needing Windows 10 or 11 and while some GUI things still are missing some obvious polish and logical thinking, it is almost there to convince casual desktop PC users to say goodbye to Microsoft, for good this time.

PS still obssesed with how my theme is set up. If you guys wanna see, please give some instructions on how to share screenshots, I am not familiar how they are shared on reddit.

https://redd.it/1k3yytb
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Has anybody ever heard of this games console from around 2008?

The console was called the OpenPandora Pandora handheld console or something like that, I'm not sure that's what I could find

It was a Linux based gaming console released around 2008 by a small group of developers and a couple people reviewed it and around 2012, I can't seem to find anywhere to buy one they seem to be very rare and sought after if anyone has one and is willing to sell it to me or it can help me find one, that would be greatly appreciated.

https://redd.it/1k41b80
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Comando ls (list)
https://redd.it/1k43z97
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Distro recommendation

Hello everyone, how are you doing?
I'm looking for some guidance to see if what I have in mind is feasible. My main idea is to build two computers.
The first one is to repurpose an old computer with 2 or 4 GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD. I plan to install Debian Stable on it and initial use is as a NAS to store my family's files, photos, and videos, moving away from cloud storage limits. Later, I want to turn it into a Home Center to manage cameras, lights, and other home automations in my apartment – essentially a Home Assistant setup.
The second PC would be my main machine, something suitable for a Battlestation. It's a PC that I'll be upgrading hardware on gradually. I'd primarily use it for gaming, but also for developing my Second Brain, coding, and doing some Home Lab with virtual machines. Additionally, I'll use this PC to control my Home Server.
For this machine, I admit I'm unsure about the distro. This ideal choice would be permanent. I need one that's stable for gaming and private. I'm looking to move away from Ubuntu, perhaps towards Mint Cinnamon, Arch if I could have the time to focus on the distro, Garuda but I've read that is not very stable.
Can I have a recommendation for this second PC?

https://redd.it/1k43ija
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General availability of USM on linux systems, and distribution of OpenMP software

Hi all, I understand this question is a bit on the edge of what is allowed on this reddit.
Still, I really hope getting good answers here can be beneficial for this community as a whole and improve the future availability and distribution of software based on OpenMP for linux.

# The short version

Basically, I am asking for few seconds of your time to share the output of these commands:

grep HMMMIRROR /boot/config-$(uname -r)
grep DEVICEPRIVATE /boot/config-$(uname -r)
uname -a
cat /etc/-release

They will provide information about two kernel flags, its version and the distribution being used.
Please, make sure to remove any uniquely identifiable element from the output before sharing.
If you don't understand those commands DON'T run them and don't trust random people on reddit :).

# The longer explanation

Why? These flags are what is needed to enable a feature called "Unified Shared Memory".
It is used by modern graphic cards and CPUs to share the same address space and to automatically sync data in between.
This feature is used by language extensions like OpenMP to write scalable and offloadable applications in a simplified style.

However, I discovered today that some distributions don't have it enabled by default in the kernel images they distribute:

https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/136491
[https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/127334#issuecomment-2817171884](https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/127334#issuecomment-2817171884)

There is not much software out there leveraging OpenMP for offloading. Which is strange as it promises (and delivers on) to write code once in a single language, without having to deal with domain specific ones for shaders or vendor-specific technologies like CUDA.
I recently have been working on a [demo project](https://github.com/KaruroChori/enance-amamento) to validate the idea and to understand why OpenMP is not more common beyond the realm of high performance computing; now I sort of get the picture:

Toolchains available on many distributions are not coming with full OpenMP support out of the box: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/136245
Dependencies from very narrowly versioned shared libraries which are not distributed on their own [https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/136255](https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/136255)
And now the fact that many kernel images around might not support USM which I much more complex to address compared to the other two points.

I think it is mostly a egg/chicken problem to be honest.
This can be easily improved on the distribution side, it is just a matter of awareness.
So, aside from collecting data to understand how to fix this issue, I hope this post can spark some useful conversations to improve the current situation :).

Thanks for your time!

https://redd.it/1k438z6
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stal/IX - statically linked, source based, bootstrapped rolling Linux, based on IX package manager
https://stal-ix.github.io/

https://redd.it/1k48nnx
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Android 16 lets the Linux Terminal use your phone's entire storage -- "With the latest Android 16 beta, you can now allocate as much storage as you want to the Linux Terminal"
https://www.androidauthority.com/android-16-terminal-disk-resize-3546144/

https://redd.it/1k49hu8
@r_linux

Ubuntu server or other distru?

Hi, i have an old laptop that i'am using to host a Minecraft server, right now it's running on Windows 10 because i had to set it up quickly, but i noticed that i had to restart it every 2-3 days cuz it would fill the ram and start slowing down, it has an i5 2450m and 8gb of DDR3 at 1333mhz, i'am willing to use Ubuntu server if it will fix the slow down issue but i heard that there are better options out here, wich distru should i use in your opinion?

https://redd.it/1k4a5so
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Compiling older kernels?

I want to build the 2.4 kernel for a tiny floppy sized os im making but i can't really seem to find any good resources on how to build the older kernels nowadays. Just downloading the kernel on my modern distro and trying to build it causes a bunch of errors

https://redd.it/1k4cqab
@r_linux

Install package not available in repo into several machines

Hi, I have several virtual machines running Almalinux 9.4. These machines were scanned by vulnerability solution. All machines had a vulnerability associated to OpenSSH. My vulnerable version was OpenSSH 8.7 and the solution to fix it was upgrade to OpenSSH 9.8+. I have noticed that when I performed a dnf or yum update to the package, this did not get the latest version instead the current in that moment. I investigated and could fix the vulnerability installing the new package from the source. That mean, clone the repo, compile the package, backup configs, setup service, etc. This consume a lot of time in only one machine. Despite that, I have repeated the process in 70 machines. We manage all configurations with chef, before this upgrade the packages from the source, installing a new version of package was seamlessly. Now, considering that I have to install packages not available in linux repo and directly from the source I have some concerns:

* Is it possible to compile from the source the package and generate an artifact that can be used to be distributed and directly installed in other machines?
* If you are using Chef... Would it be a good idea create recipe for compile packages and install it?
* Do you know another approach?

https://redd.it/1k4cvbt
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I had no idea Linux had so many commands until I got this desk pad.
https://redd.it/1k4g638
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"Welp" -- Wrangle, Enumerate, Label, Place.
https://redd.it/1k4j2hj
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Immutable distro with good accessibility options

Hello! Does anyone have recommendations for a immutable distro for old folks?

My grandpa's PC can't handle new versions of windows, I installed mint, but he had problems navigating the cinnamon UI, I was thinking he would have a better time with something like gnome.

In my research I found that fedora workstation has a immutable version, but if anyone has experience with this I would appreciate the input! Thanks :)

https://redd.it/1k4k68k
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Books like "The command line by William Shotts"

I have read this book twice and I just can't get over it haha. It's the Book that made me fall into love with linux. I have been using linux for nearly a decade now but really only became comfortable with stuff after reading this book.

However, as all good things must come to an end, there's only so many times I can read it. I am now looking for similar books where the author is pro foss and I like how he gives productivity tips along the way (for example, focus follows mouse setting is such a nice setting). "The command line" is filled with tips like these and author always writes in a simple tone. Ideally I am now looking for some intermediate to advanced level books with the goal to transition into system admin position down the years and possibly take linux+ comptia exams. (I have already cleared comptia A+)

Some popular noscripts I have come across (and would love to hear people's opinions on them)

1. The linux bible
2. Learning the bash (oreilly) by cameron newham
3. Comptia linux+ study guide by Richard blum and christine.
4. UNIX AND LINUX SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION HANDBOOK FIFTH EDITION by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent, R. Hein, Ben Whaley, Dan Mackin

I am thinking to pick one book from this list but I am not quite sure which one Would be similar in tone to the "the command line". If you have other books you can suggest please feel free to share!

PS: I use man, and --help all the command but I like to read books for pleasure too and hence this post to find a linux related book.

https://redd.it/1k4kpup
@r_linux

Recommended Linux Distros

So, I'm a distrohopper for not too long (6 months I think?) and I want more suggestions for Linux Distros that I can try! I know I can search online for some but I really need personal suggestions from you. I'm currently at EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma. So I prefer the plasma DE on the distro, if not then it's fine anyway. So, what do you suggest?

https://redd.it/1k4ngwd
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