Linux Questions

As a Linux newbie, all I know about Arch Linux is that it is a DIY distro where you assemble the entirely of the OS by scratch. Somehow it feels like it is too easy than it needs to be, even if it is primarily meant for experienced users. I imagine it to be less like building your PC from parts bought from the market and more like building each and every component of the PC by scratch along with building the PC, which I assume to be much harder for the average consumer. It seems absurd how it is possible for a single person to incorporate the innumerable components required for functionality in a personal system that does not crash 100% of the time due to countless incompatibility errors that come with doing something like this.

I would like someone to elaborate on how it feels to 'build' a system software by yourself with Arch and how it is reasonable to actually do so in a simple language. I do have some experience in programming, mainly in webdev, so it's not like I need a baby-like explanation in how this works but it would be nice to get to know about this from someone who could understand where this confusion/curiosity is coming from.

Hey guys I kind of have a little probleme here:

So during the upgrading of Mint 21.3 to Mint 22 there appeared some errors, and while trying to fix them a lot of library-packages were deleted and most of the programs gone.

Now after that I tried to reset my system back to tze last timeshift-backup but timeshift only ever deleted more packages and never installed the old files from the backup (i guess).

So now this is where I am at, a kernel panic and nothing boots. I guess i need a new (fresh) install and could try to use the backup of timeshift on that one?

Or is there any other elegant way to get out of this?

Thanks already for reading and tips <3

I've been using Linux for at least 2 years. I have Linux Mint on my main computer and Debian on my old computer. Trying to apt update says that the connection failed to security.ubuntu.com, deb.debian.org, ftp.uk.debian.org, etc.

Updating directly from sources such as for the Brave Browser still works. Sites not necessary for updating still work. Accessing them through browser doesn't work (It would give a "Connection was reset" error (for Debian) or an error that mentioned DNS (for main computer)). Pinging them seemed to work. Accessing these sites on my phone still works (though it didn't until I accessed them through mobile data and switched back to wifi). Connecting my Linux Mint computer through mobile data to apt update and switching it back to wifi resolved the issue for my Linux Mint computer, but I wasn't able to get my Debian system to connect through my phone.

Any ideas for causes/resolutions?

After selecting the boot option (no matter if it's the live iso or the installed distro, and no matter the kernel version) I get stuck on that screen, at that point the only thing I can do is reboot by pressing the power button.

This only seems to happen on this computer.

Here are some system information :

• motherboard : ASUS PRIME A320M-K
• BIOS version : 5603 (latest available version)
• CPU : AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• GPU : Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660

The only way I was able to install the system was by using the acpi=off boot option but I understand it can negatively impact the system. Does anyone know why this happens and how to fix it ?

Since about Plasma 6 onward I've been getting system restarts when attempting to play back video files and/or seek through them.

The system will crash and reboot when:

• Attempting to play any video with an mp4 container (mpv and vlc tested)
• Attempting to seek with the mouse while playing most videos (mp4 and matroska)
• Scrolling too fast in a file manager
• Clicking and dragging to resize various windows (terminal, browsers, etc)

The system performs fine when:

• Playing videos in a webm container
• Playing videos in software like avidemux, kdenlive, gwenview, etc.
• Streaming video in a web browser

The issue has persisted through these toubleshooting measures:

• Update to latest BIOS firmware
• Switching between Wayland and X11
• Substitution of the PSU to a brand new unit

My assumption so far is that it's not hardware related. Currently I suspect it's Plasma. Below is the journal output of records around one such crash time of 5.19-5.20pm:

Suggestions for next steps would be welcome. Is it worth considering a rollback to the previous/older Plasma versions? Assuming Plasma doesn't like my DAC or keyboard or whatever, is it worth substituting or removing USB devices?

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/21668140

I have a VPN daemon that needs to run before the client will work. Normally, this would have been set up automatically by its install script, but the system is immutable.

I've created the systemd service via sysyemctl edit --force --full daemon.service with the following parameters:

[Unit] 
Description=Blah
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=root
Group=root
ExecStart=/usr/bin/env /path/to/daemon

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

I've verified that the daemon is actually executable, and it runs fine when I manually call it via sudo daemon. When I try to run it with sudo systemctl enable --now daemon.service, it exits with error code 126.

What am I missing?

Edit: Typo, and added the relevant user and group to the Service section. Still throwing a 126.

Solution: the system wanted /usr/bin/env in ExecStart to launch the binary. The .service file above has been edited to show the working solution.

Title. Tried to search, found instructions on how to do it in debian-adjacent distros, but I'm in openSUSE, which doesn't use dpkg.

I also checked the manpage for zypper and found nothing that seemed the part, though I don't exclude the possibility that I just failed to read it properly.

I dual boot Windows 10 and Linux. Whnever Windows freezes or boot gets interrupted etc. I lose access to Linux because UEFI offers only Windows as boot options. On checking EFI partition still has rEFInd and PCLinuxOS entries needed.

I wonder why it cannot see them?

Went away from my computer for a bathroom break. When I came back I noticed it took a very long time to wake up. But that was the least of my worries, as Plasma seems to now be really bugged out:

Two things: Window decorations (like the ones at the top with the buttons to close and such) do not render properly. That's the simple part

The other, weirder one, is harder to explain in text so I made a video -- The short version is that whenever I mouse over any icon in a panel, be it a tray icon or something on the taskbar thingie -- it seems to jump to the top-right corner of that panel. Though only visually (as in, to interact with it, I still have to click the blank space the icon once occupied)

I have also noticed that icons within qt6 windows do not show in the proper place

These persisted after reboots.

Other info:

• Linux/KDE Plasma: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed 20240531
• KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.5
• KDE Frameworks Version: 6.2.0
• Qt Version: 6.7.1
• Kernel: 6.9.3-1-default (64-bit)
• Graphics platform: X11

Extra details about system (idk maybe it helps?):

1. I have an AMD Processor and GPU
2. All the things I have installed are either from the official SUSE Repos or from Flatpak. There's also some appimages and local executables in my user folder. There is 1(one) application I compiled from source and installed system-wide, and that was Orbiton, a text editor for terminal.
3. When I update the system I get a notification about how updating glibc-32bit would break Steam. So I marked it as untouchable on YaST. Maybe this broke something else? Idk.

Things I have already tried:

1. Updating the system
2. Rebooting
3. Changing theming configurations back to system defaults (hey, you never know)
4. Moving widgets around in panels
5. Disabling fancy effects
6. Disabling and re-enabling my second monitor/changing which monitor is the primary
7. Asking nicely

Things I have not tried:

1. Switching to Wayland (I would do so permanently but it breaks Inkscape for me and that's part of my workflow -- Plus I'm new to SUSE, and the last time I switched from X to Wayland was on EndeavourOS, dunno if the process is any different)
2. Crying

I have also posted this to the kde bug tracker. Posting it here to in hopes of getting an answer sooner :P

EDIT: I gave it some time to see if it would stick and it did. So. "Going into the Plasma Renderer settings and switching it to OpenGL" was the solution to my issue, even if I have no idea what caused it, I at least seem to have fixed it

Hello there. Was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a Linux distro for grandparents? They are over 70 years old, with an old HP desktop and laptop running Windows 10. All they need is a Web browser, so no need for special software or wine to run Windows programs. Would preferably like something that is low maintenance so I don't have to be constant tech support for them (apart from the initial install and setup). Thanks for any suggestions.

I tried the following

sudo cryptsetup luksChangekey /dev/nvme0n1p3 < new passphrase > 

It then asks for the Sudo password, then asks for the old passphrase, but then it prints this error message

Failed to open key file.

what went wrong ?

Edit: turns out using GNOME Disks is way more straightforward.. 😅, thank you all

I am looking for a way to play HDR content on Linux. From what I understand KDE 6 has experimental support for HDR, but isn't available on Pop OS 22.04. Apparently Cosmic desktop will support HDR when it's released, but I don't know if the experimental version will.

Can anybody help me here? Will I need to change distro?

My use case is splitting audio into separate channels in OBS for Twitch Streams so I can play music live without getting my VoDs struck. If my approach is entirely wrong for the use case, I'm happy to scrap the whole thing and sign it off as learning experience.

My solution is to use virtual sinks that I record through Audio Sources in OBS. I've got two loopback-devices (config at the end) with media.class = Audio/Sink, assign my playback streams to the relevant output capture.
The loopback of each is then passed on to the common default (physical) output device, namely my headphones.
So far, this has been working great for me, aside from minor inconveniences:

The first is that I want certain apps or playback streams to automatically be assigned to the capture sinks upon starting the app.
I had a working pulseaudio¹ setup on Ubuntu where I used pavucontrol to set the output once per app and it remembered that setting. Every time I opened that app, it would direct its playback streams to that sink.
I migrated to Nobara and opted to try configuring pipewire (directly)² instead. The devices are created correctly but every time I (re-)start a relevant app I have to go set its capture device again.

The second is that occasionaly upon logging in, one loopback stream will initially be passed to the other sink instead of the default output, which resolves upon restarting pipewire³. Is something wrong with my config?
Both have the same target.object and restarting it fixes it, so I'm guessing it may be some race condition thing where the alsa_output isn't initialised at startup yet, but I don't know how to diagnose or fix that

1: I have since learned that apparently it's actually still pipewire parsing that config, but the point is I configured it through ~/.config/pulse/default.pa

2: ~/config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/default-devices.conf

3: Trying to set it in pavucontrol doesn't work and keeps resetting that playback's output to the given sink if I try to select the correct capture device. Repatching them in Helvum does the job, but then pavucontrol just shows blank for the device (doesn't interfere with controlling the volume, but maybe it's relevant for diagnosing)

My current ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/default-devices.conf:

context.modules = [
    {   name = libpipewire-module-loopback
        args = {
            audio.position = [ FL FR ]
            capture.props = {
                media.class = Audio/Sink
                node.name = vod_sink
                node.description = "Sink for VoD Audio"
            }
            playback.props = {
                node.name = "vod_sink.output"
                node.description = "VoD Audio"
                node.passive = true
                target.object = "alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo"
            }
        }
    }
    {   name = libpipewire-module-loopback
        args = {
            audio.position = [ FL FR ]
            capture.props = {
                media.class = Audio/Sink
                node.name = live_sink
                node.description = "Sink for Live-Only Audio"
            }
            playback.props = {
                node.name = "live_sink.output"
                node.description = "Live-Only Audio"
                node.passive = true
                target.object = "alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo"
            }
        }
    }    
]

I'm looking for a lowish priced laptop that I can put at least 2 extra monitors on. I want a second landscape 4k and a portrait 1080. Don't need anything special. One monitor has DP and HDMI, but the other just HDMI. Do I just get a DP hub and use a converter dongle for the second?

What would be a recommended laptop for this scenario? I only want AMD CPU and GPU as I can't be arsed to fight with noVideo and Intel doesn't deserve my business.

Yesterday I bought a new laptop that should be arriving to my home sometime next week. In the mean time, I've been digging around and researching some details in order to get Linux running on it as comfortably as possible. My main concern with the laptop is the fact that it has an RTX2050 Mobile on it (I couldn't find any dedicated AMD laptops within my budget), and my concerns include the fact that I prefer using Wayland on my systems and possible impacts on battery life as I know hybrid graphics in Linux are quite a nightmare.

I'd like to use this system for some casual gaming, however other than that my use cases for the laptop mostly consist of coding and web browsing, so I thought of the following idea: Leaving the dedicated graphics card as a pass-through device for a Windows VM where I could play all my games (though I'm not really sure on how VMs impact anti-cheat for multiplayer games and such), and leaving the Radeon 660M graphics on the Ryzen processor for the Linux system itself, which should be plenty capable of handling any DE and accomplishing my daily tasks, while also preserving battery life as the laptop is not running on the 2050 100% of the time

Does this make sense? Does anyone have a similar setup on their laptop and has it worked for them? Are there any possible consequences I should be wary of when attempting this?

If the laptop model is relevant in any way to answering this question, it's an HP Victus 15 with a Ryzen 5 7535HS, an RTX2050 Mobile (4GB) and 16GB of RAM.

Is there a way to move distro without loosing data in /home? I am currently running Pop OS and want to move to Nix OS while keeping the data. Normally I could use an external hard drive or my server, but most of my equipment is in storage at the moment. Current partition setup is using LUKS and LVM with ext4. I am guessing there is a way to manipulate the LVM to make it work by adding another partition and installing into it.

I know this is probably a convoluted idea. I am trying to avoid spending money an another external drive.

I am finding it difficult to fill in forms made with MS Word in LibreOffice. The formatting seems to end up all wrong among other things, and LibreOffice feels slow and clunky to use.

I've tried OnlyOffice, but it tends to crash and be slow as well.

At this moment in time I am trying to get MS Office 2010. Is there a better solution?

Hey all! I've been having an issue I can't figure out. Suddenly, I realized I'm in the heart of Linux users! I can ask here! I'm a total noob, so please be gentle.

I installed Xubuntu and got everything but the touchscreen working properly. The touchscreen works but the cursor is consistently off a bit, with the least error in the center of the screen and increasing as it moves to the sides. I've tried running xinput_calibrator but it doesn't help. I attempted to run libinput.calibrate-touchscreen but keep getting a "is a Wayland compositor running?" error message.

Any suggestions?

cross-posted from: https://lemy.lol/post/24413858

Help Needed: Configuring ASUS Fingerprint Sensor on Fedora

I recently got my hands on an ASUS device equipped with an fingerprint sensor . As a Fedora user, I've been trying to set up the fingerprint sensor on my system, but it's proven to be quite a challenge.

So, I'm reaching out to the community here for some guidance. Has anyone successfully configured an ASUS fingerprint sensor on Fedora before? If so, could you please share your experience and any tips or resources that might be helpful?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20291268

I recently acquired a Raspberry Pi 5, but I've been having a lot of difficulty in getting LUKS encryption to work. Has anyone had any luck?

Also, I am using an NVMe drive, so Raspbian is really the only OS that works well. NetBSD can see the disk, too, but I found it annoying to use; and FreeBSD ended up breaking itself. I have not yet tried Armbian.

How do I fix my home dir with nix? It seems I have messed something up and now I can't install home manager. Anytime I try to install a package with nix-env it gives this error too:

error: this derivation has bad 'meta.outputsToInstall'

Would someone #help me configure my #WireGuard server to access my home local network?

I've literally been stuck for 6 hours.

https://forum.yunohost.org/t/cant-access-yunohost-local-network-through-wireguard-server/29127/1

@linuxquestions

I have just set up a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with Raspbian "Bookworm", and I have decided that the classic desktop environment, FVWM-Crystal, is the one that feels right. However, I don't seem to be able to change the font.

Ordinarily, you would use the font selector dialog, but for some unknown reason it refuses to launch and I am unable to find it under /usr/bin, so I can't find out what's wrong.

Does anyone know either how to fix the dialog, how to find the binary, or how to change the font without using the dialog?

I understand that this is a very old DE, so if you can tell me about a newer alternative that looks the same and is equally lightweight, I'm all ears. Otherwise, please leave me to my madness.

Ok, so I had 1 ssd with Kubuntu and windows on it. I got a second ssd and I want to put opensuse on it, dual booting (well, triple). The problem is, when I went to install it, it showed the id of my two ssds as opposite of what the partition manager in Kubuntu says. I.e., Kubuntu calls the first one nvme0n1 and my new ssd nvme1n1, while the opensuse installer is calling the old ssd nvme1n1 and the new one nvme0n1. I know because it shows the existing partition sizes on them that way, and recognizes that windows and kubuntu are on the old ssd.

So is this normal? Is this ok? Is it ok to just install it with the ssd names this way? Would that confuse kubuntu at all, or are the two OSes ok with calling them different things? I just don't want the installer to overwrite anything on my existing partitions.

If I have my browser maximized in my center monitor, whenever I go to search on Lemmy or go to my inbox and it is empty, the screen goes completely blank/black. It looks as if it lost power. If the browser is not maximized, it wont happen. This happens whether I use Chrome or Firefox. Any ideas on how to start troubleshooting?

• OS: KDE Neon 6.0
• KDE PLasma: 6.0.2 (happened with KDE 5.x too)
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
• Monitor messing up in connnected to the HDMI port.
• Other two monitors are connected (a) to the DisplayPort and (b) DVI-D