r/linuxquestions

I need to install a government program on my mom's laptop, it's running Mint 22.3, but it's like no matter what I do it just does not want to open.

I set the display thing to X11, and installed the Java softwares (including runtime)

But both the terminal method and the GUI method don't open the program

When I tried opening throught terminal, I got this:

"No 11X DISPLAY variable was set,

or no headless library support library was found,

but this program program perform an operation which requires it."

Rather new to linux, but I just found out that Microsoft owns github. This seems insane.

It looks like linux is at the start of an S curve of adoption. With the EU starting to abandon Microsoft for linux/open source, and general use adoption starting to really gain traction, Microsoft could find itself with their back to the wall much sooner than they think. They've clearly seen the writing on the wall with the announcement of K2, but even if they get rid of all the AI, spyware etc. I'm not going back, and I doubt many others would too.

Microsoft also isn't the type of company to actually adapt in response to consumer criticism in any meaningful way, and are the types who would self immolate/burn everything rather than see anyone else succeed. So if (more likely when) Linux (and probably Mac) start really taking over market share.....

What's to stop them from just shutting github down and deleting everything?

Are there any contingency plans the wider community is making just in case?

From their perspective, torching an 8 billion dollar investment might be worth it to deeply wound their rival

There's a lot I don't know or understand, so there's likely something I'm missing:)

Edit: Thanks all for the replies and education! In my short time on linux I've only ever seen links to or references to Github, so I assumed thats all thats the only bucket that existed...oh well. Also a news site once mentioned the commits for kernel 7 going on Github and assumed it was hosted there as well.

Azure running on linux is funny too. That and the fact there are already a lot of alternatives out there does make my hypothetical...unlikely.

That said, buying something that all your competitors rely on and killing it to force consumers to use your own product is something any corporation would salivate over; that's what this looked like on the surface:)

So, Im switching to Ubuntu from windows 11 (well more like a dual boot) but the thing im concerned about is security. Like the firewall, etc… Is there any guide to make Ubuntu more secure?
Or if anyone has any tips it would be greatly appreciated. :)

Hi! I'm fairly new to Linux and currently on Debian 13. My use case is mostly creative work — design and multimedia apps like Krita, Inkscape, Kdenlive, Blender and OBS — plus some gaming with Steam and a couple of other launchers.

My issue with Debian is that some apps aren't available as Flatpaks, so I've had to do manual installs, which means dealing with outdated dependencies, adding extra repos, etc. It works, but it feels like too much friction for someone who chose Debian precisely because they wanted something stable and easy to maintain.

I've been looking at Nobara GNOME specifically — I'm already familiar with the desktop and it's the one I've learned to customize. It also seems like a good middle ground for having more up-to-date packages without too much complexity. Is it a reasonable move for someone at my level, or am I overcomplicating things?

Thanks!

I can change the mouse crouser ?

There is no customizability as mint but stable I don't fight everyday for Bluetooth connection if the sound quality or the issue where I turn off and when I turn back on the device disconnect so it's more stable for me but I really hate that mouse courser I want the white one from mint tbh and I don't want to miss things up idk I took it as a break cuz I broke down the sound system in mint like 7 times and decided I am not a mechanic to solve more than use my pc

Is there any customization options available for pop like widgets and stuff ?

Thanks

During all my distro-hopping (Ubuntu, Arch, Debian, Gentoo, Void) and reading about different Linux packaging systems one question has been eluding me: why do all distros insist on handling core system packages and frivolous user apps the same way? Why must every library have the same version when it's used by GNU Make and when it's used by Kdenlive? Hence, why can an upgrade in SomePeskyApp bump up package versions used by the core system, like coreutils or libinput or other system-critical stuff?

I envision a system where there are two sets of packages, @base and @user with the following rules:

• @base packages can only depend on other @base packages and are updated like Debian stable (once in 2 years) or for urgent security updates

• @user packages can depend on @base packages but only if the @base version satisfies their dependency; if a dep they need is missing or its version is too old, they pull in a @user dependency;

• an upgrade of a @user package can never pull in an update in any @base package: they use @base only on a "take it or leave it" basis;

• @user packages can have a rolling release model or have point releases that are much more frequent than 2 years, for example 3 months.

What this system achieves is that the system is stable but the user-facing software is fresh. For example, if some install script uses coreutils packages, they are always stable (provided they call them like /usr/bin/rm which is the best practice already), but the user can have a patched version of those packages in, say /usr/local/bin or whatever prefix @user packages have.

At the same time, the duplication between packages is kept to a minimum (no more than 2 versions of same package within the system).

Something like this is doable manually or via script automation, for example, on Debian. However, I wonder why nobody did a full-fledged distro based on this principle. Immutable distros are the closest thing that comes to mind but they are container-based which is a whole different can of worms. FreeBSD is based around some kind of similar principle, I've heard. But why no regular Linux distro?

I have a Compaq portable 1 that i've had for around 7 years. So far all it's been doing is sitting collecting dust. The computer itself has a 28MB Kodak Memory expansion card, an intel 8088 CPU with a 4.7MHZ clock, 640 KB of ram, and two floppy drives. Is it possible to get a small Linux distro to run on the computer if so how would I do it?

A few weeks ago my file picker dialog boxes stopped working. When I click 'browse' or 'open' on any application, be it my browser, steam, discord, ide, the file picker dialog does not appear.

I am not using a DE, I manually install my WM and File Manager. This is the same setup I've been using on multiple computers for about 8 years now, Arch with i3 launched via startx. I've got pcmanfm installed, although I typically just use the terminal for managing files. I don't recall uninstalling anything that might have caused this, I've looked through my .histfile at all my pacman commands. I've also tried installing a few other File Managers to see if they would somehow re-add the file picker.

My google-fu is weak, I can't even find people with similar problems.

Hi everyone,

I’m seeking advice on a persistent system freeze/hang issue on Fedora 44 that is affecting both the 6.19.10 and 7.0.9 kernel series. I’ve ruled out NVIDIA driver issues (they aren't even probed at the time of the crash), and the logs point to a failure in the AMD display engine.

Hardware context:

• Laptop with AMD Integrated Graphics + NVIDIA RTX 4060.
• OS: Fedora 44 (Stable).
• Kernels tested: 6.19.10-300.fc44.x86_64 and 7.0.9-202.fc44.x86_64.

The Issue: The system freezes randomly. Upon rebooting, journalctl -b -1 -p err reveals recurring amdgpu errors:

• amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: [drm] *ERROR* dc_dmub_srv_log_diagnostic_data: DMCUB error - collecting diagnostic data
• amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: [drm] *ERROR* [CRTC:363:crtc-0] flip_done timed out

These freezes are often preceded by Vulkan swapchain errors from apps like Ptyxis and Brave Browser (vkAcquireNextImageKHR(): A swapchain no longer matches the surface properties exactly), which seems to trigger the display driver to hang.

What I have tried:

• Confirmed this is not an NVIDIA driver/Secure Boot issue (the proprietary modules were blacklisted for testing, yet the crashes persist).
• Verified the issue occurs on both the latest stable kernel and the newer 7.0 kernel.
• Suspect it is a power-management state conflict between the kernel's AMD display controller and the laptop's firmware.

Questions:

1. Is there a known regression or specific kernel parameter to stabilize the amdgpu DMUB on newer kernels for this hardware architecture?
2. Has anyone else seen these flip_done timeouts triggered by Vulkan-based apps?

Any insight would be appreciated before I open a formal bug on Bugzilla.

I recently completely nuked my windows off my secondary nvme and went through the process of finding out what happens when you do that and fixing my boot loader. Once I did that I tried using my now secondary ssd (that has been formatted to ext4) to be the thing that host all my important files ie. games and what not. I went through disk manager and took ownership of that drive and set to recursive. But it is still not fixing the problem and my games continue to not or barely run at best.
I am on mint as well if that helps anything.

Long story short. My AIO computer busted and I cant use an external monitor anymore.

Salvaged the ssd, but I cant seem to get it to run from the external ssd. Last time I needed to do this I had to disable secure boot and almost locked myself out of my windows machine permanently. So im hesitant to do that again.

Do I need to disable bitlocker? Ive changed the boot order kn the bios and tried to run the ssd from a USB C port nothing seems to allow me to start into Linux? Zorin is kn the external drive.

I should have mentioned ive tried changing the boot order to USB first. This didnt work.

This is sort of important that I get figured out soon any help is great. Im not a software or firmware guy. Im not really a hardware guy either but I kind of got stuck now. Thanks

Edit: I go to the partition in windows and the drive only shows 1 partition on the disk. One 931.5 GB. No boot as far as I can see. Is this the issue?? How do I fix this?

I was installing Linux Mint on my laptop and testing the live environment when I ran into a UI scaling issue, the interface was either too small at 100% or too large at 200%, and fractional scaling didn’t seem to work properly either.

This isn’t my first time installing Mint, but I haven’t encountered this issue before.

Hello guys, rookie arch user here (btw), started with arch since 2024, that's my first linux journey ever on life, and i do some gaming, most likely vanilla games or games that have mods but i download on steam workshop instead.

So, my question is, is it hard to add mods to games on GOG or steam? i mean, i'm willing to buy a game on GOG because there's already a mod part there (i do own a game that needs a patch to work correctly on steam, but never played it on linux, only when i was a user of shit windows), but i would like to be free and able to download any kind of mod in any game on whatever platform i want.

So, if there's any advice you guys can give me, i would appreciate a lot, for this still-learning linux user =) (i'm currently reading linux - the bible haha)

For context, I'm working from home using a company provided computer. I've got a Raspberry Pi running Fedora 44 with a USB DVD drive. I'm working through trying to rip my DVDs to another drive. A KVM switch is out of the option list. I can either use RDP to run HandBrake on my Pi, or I can use the HandBrake terminal interface.

While attempting to use RDP, both HandBrake and VLC give errors about not being able to read the disk. It can't be opened. When I log in to the Pi locally, there are no issues reading the disk. It's clearly an RDP/VNC related issue.

After being unable to find an answer for that, I'm attempting to use the terminal over SSH. After popping in the DVD, HandBrakeCLI couldn't open the disk in /dev/sr0 despite 'ls /dev' showing its existence. On a hunch, I logged into a local graphical session on the Pi, and now I have no issues with HandBrakeCLI reading the /dev/sr0 over SSH. The drive is not mounted on the filesystem

What is going on behind the scenes when inserting a drive in a GUI session that doesn't happen in a terminal session to make /dev/sr0 available to be read by something like HandBrakeCLI? Again, the device is not being mounted into the files system, or at least it doesn't display when running mount.

Edit: as I think about it, it's probably the same issue for both the RDP issue and the terminal without GUI login issue.

I'm trying to create a Linux Lite VM on Gnome Boxes and get the error No KVM. I'm using the create from an ISO file option using an ISO I downloaded. AI is no help. Does anyone have a solution? I have two Linux Mint VMs that DO run just fine, so KVM obviously is present/working.

Hello everyone,

I currently have an ASUS TUF A15 FA506NFR, Specs are listed Below:

Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS (8 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.5 GHz)

Graphics (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 (4GB GDDR6 VRAM)

Display: 15.6-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS-level, anti-glare display with a 144Hz refresh rate and Adaptive-Sync support

RAM: 8GB

I want to try an Arch Based Distro like Artix Or Cachy OS (main picks).

I do not like KDE as I dislike it.

I feel like cachy OS with niri and noctalia shell is really Nice.

I play Minecraft and Roblox and VC alot.

Thanks for notice :D.

A while back I tried Linux Mint XFCE and chicago95. My goal was to make Linux look like Windows 95 and to reskin it to look like an older version of Windows. However, this was far before I was technically skilled like I am today, I work as a data scientist and have done tons of programming and game development. I feel like today I could probably handle something a bit more complex. But don't really know where to start because it's been years

What's a good way to get a Linux distro to look like Windows XP or '98? I don't care what the distro is honestly, I was thinking XFCE Ubuntu or mint. Something easy, lightweight, doesn't need to be crazy. Because I'm really just using it for a second PC that's just for general use.

okay so when I first switched from Mint(first distro) to Manjaro, I chose Manjaro because it was based on Arch Linux while giving everything by defaults, i switched because of one friend pressure me to use arch, and in college and it was my only machine, so I didn’t want to risk spending too much time configuring everything manually on Arch, so I just switched to the manjaro

Now a lot of time has passed, and my setup have no manjaro vibe, I am using Hyprland + way bar and managing most things myself, so switch to Arch would actually make sense at this point? other than getting the latest packages sooner, i’m not sure how different the overall experience would be.

I'm recent graduate I was so done with Windows Crashes so i switched to Linux Ubuntu (24.04.4 LTS)... everything was okay at starting but my laptop is Acer Nitro 5 12th Gen i7 RTX3070..so now the problem is NVIDIA Provides Nitro Sensor in Windows to Manage everything in GPU for fan control also...but in Linux there's not much available options to Manage the GPU now the laptop fans are running all the time and creating lot of noise and I'm really getting annoyed of it😭 I really want to fix it but there's no proper software for Linux to control the hardware system of NVIDIA ....but somehow i find out about LACT but there's no confirmation it will work for Hardware or not... I'm just getting annoyed of fan noise because it running continuously and I can't stop it...I need help from those who are using Linux in Gaming laptop.

I'm doing art on linux mint cinnamon and I've been pressing the shift button a lot. I'm wanting to make the shift button act like the caps button, ala a toggle. Any suggestions?