#linux tech tips

[sludge-life-daily]

[chase-omega]

Here are 3 important tips to know to keep your Steam Deck experience from being absolutely ruined. Follow these 3 tips and the Steam Deck will be the best gaming device this generation. But if you don't then you'll feel like you wasted over 400 bucks.

1. Do not touch the volume settings in Desktop Mode. Linux is broken and it will destroy your resolution and audio. You will be forced to factory reset.

2. When playing in docked mode, do not plug your dock into one of those HDMI adapter things that let you plug multiple devices into one HDMI port on the TV. Give the Steam Deck it's own HDMI port directly on the TV. I was playing the Wii U earlier and then played my Steam Deck and the resolution settings were permanently ruined and unfixable even after a factory reset. Giving the dock it's own HDMI port fixed the issue. But it's funny to think that the Wii U broke my Steam Deck for a bit.

3. If a game in your Steam Library says it isn't supported by the Steam Deck, just give it a try anyway. For example, Sonic Adventure is displayed as "unsupported" but I managed to finish the game's entire Story Mode without any problems. Valve has yet to completely update the info on what is and isn't compatible. So far in my experience the only games the Steam Deck struggles with out of the box are ones that are in Early Access or ones that use Easy Anticheat (except for Halo for some reason, I can play the campaigns in Master Chief collection just fine).

I am speaking entirely from experience.

I do recommend getting this device but please be very careful with it.

[packetpixie]

pro tip for programmers - how to alias

hey, so you know that annoying thing that happens when you're coding, and you need to run/test the same program 100 times in a row, so you end up typing "python3 testScriptWithASuperLongName.py" into the terminal about 80,000 times?

well, there's a better way! it's called aliasing :D

in your bash shell (or zsh, or whatever shell you use, but bash is the default on VSCode and most people on tumblr use VSCode, so I'm using bash as the default to explain this concept) you can set an alias, essentially a shortcut command, that runs longer commands.

(yes you can just use the up arrow key to re-run the same command, but sometimes you're typing other things into the terminal too and you don't feel like hitting the up arrow key four times in a row, and also this is just a cool and useful tip to get comfortable with aliasing so shhhh)

so, in your terminal shell, just type this:

alias run="python3 testScriptWithASuperLongName.py"

now, you can run that entire super long command, just by typing the word "run" into your terminal. Here's a screenshot of an example on my computer to make it make more sense:

in this example, i just created a simple python file that contains one line of code: print("it works!")

then, as you can see, by setting the alias to run, i can now run that file, runningatestscript.py, simply with the command 'run'.

the best part is, this alias is temporary - it only lasts as long as your shell session is open. so once you close the terminal, the run alias is cleared and you can set it again next time to any file or task you're currently working on, to save yourself a lot of typing, typos, and time.

so if you want to, you can get in the habit of always setting a run alias in the VSCode terminal for whichever file you're working with as soon as you get everything open. that way, when you need to run the same file 50 million times, you have a super easy way of doing it! you can even set it to a single letter if you want to go for maximum speed, but i prefer to use whole short words, because they're easy for me to remember.

note: if you do want to set an alias to work for all sessions, you can simply add it to your ./bashrc file. this is a common way to automate repeatable tasks, and simply to set easier-to-remember commands for terminal commands that are really complicated/confusing/hard to remember.

for example, i saved the alias checkboot="[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo 'UEFI mode' || 'BIOS mode'" into my zshrc file (zsh equivalent of bashrc file). this way, no matter how many times i rebooted my machine, i would always be able to quickly check which boot mode was running by simply typing 'checkboot'.

yesterday i was updating my boot mode from BIOS to UEFI on my very old machine that is technically compatible with UEFI, but not configured for it by default. So it was extremely helpful and saved me the time and headache of having to remember and type that long-ass command a thousand times in between many different reboots and new shells.

if you have any tasks like that, or terminal commands that you know would be useful to you, but you can never remember them when you need them, i highly recommend getting comfortable with aliasing! it can be super useful to simply set custom aliases for all the commands you don't want to remember, so that you can automate things away and not have to worry about so much linux syntax all the time when you're tring to focus on programming.

i know this may seem like a simple tip to some, but i only learned about it recently and it's been extremely helpful to integrate into my workflow and customize my OS with! so i thought it might be worthwhile to some people if i share :) hope it helps!

[gayrobot9000]

hey! if you want to easily send files over your local network, use localsend. it's really easy to use, it has a nice gui, it's cross platform, and it's open source! there's no setup other than installing it!

[adhdtoolbox]

Make your computer start the task for you

If timers don't work and getting started on something is hard, maybe having your computer launch the program you need will help.

(This tip works for Windows only)

Search for Task Scheduler from your Start Menu

Click on Create Task

3. It'll start you in the General tab. Give your task a Name.

4. You'll need a trigger. Go to the Triggers tab and click New

5. Schedule it!

6. Go the Actions tab and click New

7. In the window that pops up, leave the action on "Start a program" and click the Browse button and go to the program you want to open automatically for you.

Post-it note blindness? Have it launch your sticky notes program only when the task would become available.

[clatterbane]

Haiku OS is what Linux used to be.

This guy definitely has some points. One of the reasons I have been enjoying playing around with Haiku. (And I'm on easy mode right now as far as things like hardware support go, running it in a VM. Because I couldn't successfully get it up and running on hardware. Which was actually what got me messing with VMs in the first place.) Sort of double nostalgia value, like it seems to be for him.

But yeah, I was using both its predecessor BeOS on the side with desktop Linux as my base system in the early 2000s. Definitely not complaining, but getting my own Linux setup going again last year--on this random budget laptop, no less!--for the first time in 10+ years really brought home just how much the landscape has changed there in the meantime. (My personal tech history is sort of weird.) Things just work, and it's so much easier to find the info/support you need whenever you do encounter a problem. More loud jerks to navigate around too, of course, but that unfortunately seems to go along with the rest.

Haiku is still in beta after a surprisingly long time, and there is no doubt more than a little to be said about that. Some of which I have heard. But yeah, the idea of helping get more software ported over there also helped nudge my own interest in getting more up to speed on some programming shit, just because I can. Being the tinkerer that I am, at heart. (Bit of a shame that the available spoons and attention span don't always support that tendency the way that I would like, but oh well.)

If you are also interested in a bit of rather retro fun and/or tinkering opportunities, you might also want to check it out. Inside a VM, or otherwise.

[upper-eepy-sleepy-girl]

AYO TECH COMMUNITY

I plan on switching OS's for my laptop. The specs aren't good (8GB ram and 32BG storage and 2 hrtz CPU) and I am wanting something in the linux community line, although some outside options would be open. I just want an easily installable light-weight OS. I already got some options written down (mint, arch, Solus, BusenLabs) but I want to hear some more personal experience online first.

[d0nutzgg]

How to make a Live Boot USB with Manjaro Linux and BalenaEtcher

Hey folks, I am feeling a wee better and wanted to write a quick tutorial post for y'all. I am sick of Ubuntu so tonight I am switching to Manjaro.

Manjaro is a user-friendly and open-source Linux distribution that has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. It is based on Arch Linux, which is known for its cutting-edge software and rolling release model. Manjaro offers a stable and reliable platform that is perfect for Linux programmers. In this article, we'll explore why Manjaro is a good distro for Linux programmers.

A live USB is a type of bootable USB drive that allows you to run an operating system directly from the USB drive without installing it on your computer. This is useful if you want to test out a new operating system or if you need to use a different operating system on multiple computers. In this article, we'll show you how to create a live USB with BalenaEtcher and Manjaro.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have the following things:

A computer with a USB port

A USB drive with at least 8 GB of storage

The latest version of BalenaEtcher (https://balena.io/etcher/)

The latest version of Manjaro (https://manjaro.org/download/)

Step 1: Download BalenaEtcher and Manjaro

The first step is to download the latest version of BalenaEtcher and Manjaro.

Download BalenaEtcher from the official website (https://balena.io/etcher/).

Download the latest version of Manjaro from the official website (https://manjaro.org/download/).

Step 2: Insert the USB Drive

Insert the USB drive into your computer. Make sure the USB drive has at least 8 GB of storage.

Step 3: Open BalenaEtcher

Open BalenaEtcher on your computer.

Step 4: Select the Manjaro ISO File

Click the "Select Image" button and select the Manjaro ISO file that you just downloaded.

Step 5: Select the USB Drive

Click the "Select Target" button and select the USB drive that you want to use for the live boot. Make sure you select the correct USB drive, as the data on the drive will be erased during the process.

Step 6: Start the Flashing Process

Click the "Flash!" button to start the flashing process. BalenaEtcher will format the USB drive, extract the Manjaro ISO image, and write it to the USB drive.

Step 7: Wait for the Flashing Process to Complete

Wait for the flashing process to complete. This may take a few minutes.

Step 8: Safely Remove the USB Drive

Once the flashing process is complete, safely remove the USB drive from your computer.

Step 9: Boot from the Live USB

Restart your computer and enter the boot menu. The key to enter the boot menu may vary depending on your computer, but it is usually F12, ESC, or a similar key. Select the USB drive from the boot menu and press enter to boot into Manjaro live environment.

Conclusion

That's it! You now have a live USB with Manjaro and you can try it out without installing it on your computer. You can also use this live USB to install Manjaro on your computer if you want to keep it permanently. BalenaEtcher is a user-friendly tool that makes it easy to create a live USB with Manjaro, and with this guide, you should be able to do it in no time. So go ahead and give it a try!

[techill]

ls command in linux

-> 'ls' - lists all files and directories in the current working directory

-> 'ls -l' - displays a long format list that includes file permissions, owner, size, and modification time.

-> 'ls /path/' - lists all files and directories in the specified directory.

-> 'ls -a' - displays all files and directories, including hidden files that start with a dot.

-> 'ls -lh' - displays a long format list with file sizes in human-readable format (e.g. 10M, 2K).

-> 'ls -R' - displays all files and directories recursively, including subdirectories.

-> 'ls -t' - sorts files and directories by modification time, with the most recently modified files and directories first.

this is the difference in ls and ls -t.

[astertimberwolf]

Pssst. Guys, there's this wonderful thing called "Ghost Spectre 11". With a little know how (Googled) you can also turn off the new 'Copilot' AI update using registry magic tricks. GS11 is Windows but it's also not Windows. It runs all games and things as it should, minus the bloatware, ads and junk present in stock Windows slowing down your PC. Best part? You're back to being Admin and owner of your own PC.

Look into it. It's worth it.

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

[prakashkumars-world]

Xiaomi 15 display panels will be manufactured only by TCL

Xiaomi 15 डिस्प्ले पैनल केवल TCL द्वारा निर्मित किए जाएंगे

[turquoise-cyan]

[techdog]

Error installing Docker Desktop on Linux Mint

Task:

On 2/9/2023, try to install Linux version of Docker Desktop 4.16.2 on Linux Mint Una 20.3, following these steps.

Obstacle:

Repository update command fails:

~$ sudo apt-get update …                                                         Err:13 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu una Release                                              404  Not Found [IP: 2600:9000:234b:f400:3:db06:4200:93a1 443] Get:14 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [114 kB] Reading package lists... Done                                                                                            E: The repository 'https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu una Release' does not have a Release file. N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default. N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

Package install command fails:

~$ sudo apt-get install ./Downloads/docker-desktop-4.16.2-amd64.deb Note, selecting 'docker-desktop' instead of './Downloads/docker-desktop-4.16.2-amd64.deb' Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: docker-desktop : Depends: docker-ce-cli but it is not installable E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Diagnosis:

The installation steps create a repository sources file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list that looks like this:

deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu una stable

"una" is the Linux Mint release name, but the Docker repository uses Ubuntu release names. The corresponding Ubuntu name should be "focal."

Resolution:

I changed the release name in the docker.list file from una to focal:

deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal stable

After editing docker.list, I ran the apt update & install commands & completed the install of Docker Desktop.

[ramshacklefey]

No but serious. Dungeons & Dragons is one of the least flexible systems out there. So whenever I hear someone asking, "Why can't I do X in DnD?" or "How would I do (thing that the system is totally ill-suited for)?" my first response is just "GURPS."

For those of you who aren't familiar, GURPS stands for "Generic Universal Role Playing System." I always say it's like the Linux of ttrpgs, in the sense that it's less a system and more a framework that you can use to do whatever you want with.

And I really do mean whatever you want. You want high fantasy? Done. You want gritty realism in a dystopian world? Got it. You want superheroes? Good to go. Super tech space opera? Oh boy we got you there. You want magic systems that aren't based on spell lists? Go for it. Horror games where character death is a constant and very real threat? Sure thing.

You can set up your game to be anything from a complex data driven grinder to a cinematic rules basically optional flight of fancy.

You can play characters who are anywhere from realistically squishy humans to god-like super beings.

Characters personal flaws and strengths can have a direct impact on mechanics. Character species can have a direct and serious impact on mechanics.

The existence of so many options can make GURPS seem overwhelming at first glance, but if you are willing to put in a bit of effort, it's actually a very simple system to play. Most of the hard work is front-loaded into setting and character creation. Once play starts it runs as smooth as can be.

It's totally possible to play it with just the two core books, BUT there are dozens of books that are nothing but tips and advice for how to build a particular type of world or a particular flavor of campaign.

And the books, while not nearly as pretty as DnD books, are laid out in a way that makes it incredibly easy to find exactly the information you want.

Some more mechanical things that I particularly like about it (under the cut):

Characters are created on a point-buy system, but you don't just buy your basic stats, you also buy your skills, advantages, and secondary stats. And you can gain points back by dropping stats below average or taking disadvantages.

The advantage/disadvantage system. This is sorta the core of the character building, and it is *so* much fun. See, rather than pick out a class or species, you have a list (selected by your GM from a much larger list) of things you can buy that will have mechanical impacts on you in the game. Basically, an advantage is anything that opens up more possibilities for you in-game, and a disadvantage is anything that closes off possibilities. They can be superpowers, species traits, cinematic plot armor, personality traits, or things like chronic illness, bad temper, physical or mental disabilities, or being doomed by the narrative.

Simple dice system. To play a GURPS campaign you need three d6. That's it. All checks and saves are done by rolling 3d6 (low rolls are better than high). This has an additional advantage over the d20 system in that there is a probability curve. You're more likely to roll numbers in the mid-range, which makes both critical successes and critical failures rarer, and therefore more satisfying.

Your target roll is adjusted, rather than adding/subtracting from the roll itself. Say you're trying to, idk, hack a computer. Your skill level doesn't affect your dice roll, it affects the number you need to roll in order to succeed. This makes things a lot simpler on the player's end, imo, because there's less they need to keep track of. (You're trying to roll under the skill check, so whatever the base difficulty is, the GM just adds or subtracts your skill level from that).

The basic stats are on a much tighter scale, and they make a lot more sense. Human average is a 10 in everything. When you make your character you can buy higher stats or take lower ones and get more points to spend on other things. All stats cap out at 18, because that's the highest number you can roll. At a 10 strength you are a normal person. At 18 you're basically Superman. You'd have to roll a critical failure not to succeed in a strength check, and remember: critical failures are far less common than in a d20 system.

I could keep going ad infitum here, but instead I'll just close with:

Come with me boy, play my games! We'll have cowboy times in space!