r/linux

I used to use Linux a couple of years ago on my Dell G15 and it was absolutely wonderful (Arch with KDE), so you may be wondering "If you were happy about it, why are you even asking this question".

Well, first of all I was not at college back then, and now I use a different laptop (Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 14IMH9). I'm not concerned about connectivity between devices or what programs I can run on Linux, but I'm concerned about the PowerPoint and Word documents that I send to my professors every week. I'm studying to become a teacher, thus you may understand why these documents are so important for me. Sometimes, I'm literally graded based on these documents.

I'm afraid that a Word or a PowerPoint document that I send to one of my professors may not be compatible with Windows. For example, an essay that I've written on my Linux laptop may not work on my professor's Windows laptop for some random compatibility issue. I don't think that there will be any problems on my side, but rather on my professors' side because I don't think that none of my professors, except maybe one of them, have any idea about Linux let alone having used any distro at any point in their lives.

Also, sometimes I have to do presentations and/or give lectures, so I'm scared that the projector that I have to use may not work with my PC for some random reason.

So, I would really appreciate it if you guys could help me with this situation.

Literally the title: what are the main issues or the main parts you wish would be easier or done differently when using a Linux distro? From the moment you installed it, to the moment you're using it for a long time, to features you wish it would have or do better than it does already. What apps or looks or capabilities you wish it would be able to have or do from the get go?

This is a question for people at their start of the journey with Linux, to experienced, people who edit or build their own distro and people who mainly use one flavor in it's original ISO.

There's probably a better term for this already. by "level" i mean how many layers of dependancy is there for the operating system. For example, Mint is a 3rd level because it's built on Ubuntu which is built on Debian.

are there any distros built on top of the big user friendly ones like mint or zorin OS ?

I have no idea why they would exist

Hi!

I'm looking for old Realtek wifi cards and USB adapters for my hobby, which is fixing/improving their Linux drivers:

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?h=v7.1-rc2&qt=author&q=rtl8821cerfe2

If you're in the EU (+ Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein?) and you have a device you want to donate, please message me here or email me. (You can find my email address in any of the commits listed at the link above.)

Some of these devices can still be bought today, so money can help too.

• RTL8188SU / RTL8191SU / RTL8192SU

  These USB adapters used to be supported by the r8712u module, but it was removed in kernel 6.13 because it used outdated APIs and no one did anything about that for years. r8712u probably can't support WPA3, so the goal is to add support for this chip to rtlwifi, which already supports the PCIe version.

• RTL8191SE / RTL8192SE

• RTL8723AE

• RTL8192CE

• RTL8192DE

• RTL8723BE

• RTL8192EE / RTL8192EEBT

• RTL8723AU

  This was a special module used in some Lenovo Yoga laptops. I'm hoping it can be hooked up to a USB cable, since it uses USB to communicate with the system.

• RTL8188CUS

  Lots of USB adapters used this chip but they're out of stock now.

• RTL8192DU with two USB interfaces ("bNumInterfaces 2" in lsusb)

  This is an unusual USB adapter that can work in both the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz band at the same time. Products that likely have this variant of the chip: SAPIDO AU-5125, SAPIDO AU-5015, Planex GW-USFang300, Planex GW-USDual300, Planex GW-USUltra300.

Newer devices are also welcome:

• RTL8821CU (wifi + bluetooth) / RTL8822BU (wifi + bluetooth) / RTL8812CU (wifi only)

  These would be just to have a complete collection, as I already have other versions of these chips.

• RTL8723DE

• RTL8821CE

• RTL8822BE

• RTL8814AE

  As far as I can tell this is only found in desktop cards, which I can't use unless it's actually a mini PCIe card in an adapter.

• RTL8852AE

• RTL8852BE

• RTL8852CE

• RTL8922AE

• RTL8922DE

https://preview.redd.it/50st6uw28a2h1.png?width=873&format=png&auto=webp&s=f517273e1c5023d8cc91d45985e2b0a1699f47cf

India is at 16% , What you think , but by Laptop to OS share is this really growing ?

Microsoft released Azure Linux 4, a Fedora based general purpose server distro available as an Azure VM and under WSL. Interesting to see Microsoft shipping its own Linux distro after years of mostly hosting others.

AppGrid Launcher is a grid-style launcher for Plasma 6 (Kickoff/Kicker alternative).

1.8.0-rc.3 is up and might be the last RC before final, so I'd like more eyes on it before the stable release.

Highlights: drag-and-drop - reorder favorites by dragging, and drag any app out onto the panel or desktop, to select multi just press ctrl+click. AppGrid now also uses KDE's activity-aware favorites backend (KActivities), with automatic migration of your existing favorites when upgrading from pre-1.8.0. And like always performance and bug fixes.

Install: https://appgrid.xarbit.dev or directly from https://github.com/xarbit/plasma6-applet-appgrid/releases/tag/v1.8.0-rc.3 - distro packages for Arch/Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu. The AUR package (plasma6-applets-appgrid) tracks stable releases, so for the RC use the pre-built package or build from source.

There's also a new universal package for immutable distros (KDE Linux, Kinoite, Bazzite, etc.). It's Beta - so far tested only on Kinoite and my distro (CachyOS), so more testing there is very welcome, i actually expect it not to be that universal yet :-).

Bug reports / feedback: https://github.com/xarbit/plasma6-applet-appgrid/issues

update:

there was a bug with the panel variant, so please use the rc4

https://github.com/xarbit/plasma6-applet-appgrid/releases/tag/v1.8.0-rc.4

Default theme, zzz-icewm, redmond and ubuntu regular size 11 fonts. 112% scaling. 15' screen laptop.

I installed the Linux kernel v7.0.4 after I installed AntiX26 to get my wifi up and running. Lenovo Ideapad slim 3; modern laptop, but a little weak. I'm very happy with my setup;

I had to boot the live image with kernel v6.x.x just to get my keyboard working. But after the main install of the Antix26 system, I then installed kernel v7.0.4.

This is how I did it; follow these steps to get wifi + kernel 7.0.4:

(before you start, make sure that your wifi card is not soft-blocked(Airplane mode): type in your terminal: rfkill list, if its blocked try to unblock by: sudo rfkill unblock all, or the shortcut for airplane mode on your keyboard. Is your wifi working now? if not, continue. )

1. Find a way to connect to the internet. I had to use internet through USB-cable from my Phone.
2. Install the firmware-mediatek driver, by typing this in the terminal: sudo apt install firmware-mediatek, then reboot. But just to be sure you can also install: firmware-misc-nonfree and/or firmware-linux-nonfree. Check what kind of wifi card you have. Google Ai is very helpful finding out stuff for you, and what kind of drivers you need to install. (at this step you can try a reboot your laptop and see if you can get wifi working, if not continue to next step.)
3. Then install the linux-image-7.0.4+deb13 from the debian backports, it should also install the dependencies for you, so please check that before you continue. After the new kernel is installed, write in the terminal: sudo update-grub, now you can reboot into your fresh kernel and wifi should be working.

linux-image-7.0.4+deb13 <your cpu type>, please double check that it also installing dependencies. It should do it for you. Remember sudo update-grub after the install.

(firmware-mediatek did not work for me while using kernel 6.x.x, but after the 7.0.4 update wifi started working.)

Quality of life, 100% screen brightness after every reboot and fix screen tearing:

.desktop-session, startup file. This is what it looks like at the bottom. Continue reading for where to find it:

I also added these two lines at the bottom of my startup config file. You will find it in Control Centre -> Session -> Users Desktop-session ( text file from .desktop-session, startup.) Remember to save after changes:

backlight-brightness -s 100 &

xrandr --output eDP --set TearFree on &

One is to get 100% backlight on my laptop after every reboot so I dont have to adjust it every time, and the other one is for removing screen tearing. But before you add xrandr to your startup file: run xrandr in the terminal to check if you have eDP or some other screen type. Terminal command: xrandr <press enter>. Just place your screen type instead of eDP in the startup command as I have written above. Remember to save your file and reboot. This is my screen type from the terminal:

https://preview.redd.it/6gkmcpy41y0h1.jpg?width=761&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c24a067191a6409350d7092d188d4162914159c

To check if TearFree is running after a reboot, just write in your terminal: xrandr --verbose | grep TearFree .. it should say TearFree: on, and you should notice it when you scroll up and down on websites that screen tearing is gone.

Quality of life 2, show battery info:

Now you have to open another text file!

If you want to see your battery %, just open Control Centre -> Configure Conky -> And find the line that says something like this (should be at the bottom):

#Battery: ${battery_percent BAT0}% ${alignr}${color8}${battery_bar 8,70 BAT0}

... and just remove the # and save file. You will now see your battery % on your desktop. Now you're done!

Continue reading for setting up theme, scaling, touchpad and fonts ...

Now I recommend that you scale up your fonts DPI in your control centre. I have mine set at 1.17:

This is my dpi settings 15' laptop

My other settings for Look and Feel:

Redmond and change font to Ubuntu regular size 11

Full hinting; but you could also try slight or medium. Try whats best for you.

Select default theme

And for my touchpad mouse sensitivity. Go to Control Centre -> Hardware -> Mouse -> Select touchpad(rolldown menu) -> then a window like this will pop up. Remember to check mark before Applying:

Touchpad mouse sensitivity

ROXTerm font. Go to Preferences -&gt; Configuration Manager -&gt; Select Default, press edit -&gt; Font: Noto Mono Regular, Size: 11

Extra tip 1: Firefox default scaling is set to 110% in the settings, but personal preference.

Extra tip 2: Shortcut for taking a screenshot is FN+S on my keyboard. Could be different on your laptop.

This was very fun; will be my main distro on my laptop. Everything just works. No fuzz. Sharp fonts, sharp theme, bluetooth-audio on my headset, wifi and low ram usage! :)

You may know about Anubis by Techaro, the PoW challenge thing that protects websites from bots. It's used on several major sites, including FFmpeg, Arch, and the Linux Foundation. This experiment is specifically about Anubis.

Note that Anubis does not use up all CPU cores for its challenge to not overheat devices and for a better UX. Some PoW challenge systems do all cores, making them more effective. However, it appears as if Anubis gets the job done just fine.