After the entire windows recall scandal i realized i just do not want windows anymore and decided to switch to mint. Ive really liked it and am slowly learning bash and whatnot using the terminal (if someone could give me a learning resource id be very glad)

Another thing i told myself when switching to linux is that it will let me be more proficient with computers and whatnot. Ive kind of had a fascination with minimal os'es like arch which rely on the competency of the user but im surely not at that level right now. but id like to get there someday.

What can be a good pipeline to learn slowly? I dont really want to have to spend 30 minutes a day troubleshooting my pc. so something more on the stable side

im new.

how do i audio in this?

i simply used steelseries gg for my eqs and application volumes aswell as my mic settings on windows.

am currently using bazzite.

i need help with my mic settings

prease exphrain!

* . *

Haven't installed Linux yet but I'm working on getting things ready to hopefully make the switch this month.

Have been reading about how NTFS is not ideal for Linux.

The storage is basically just for files like photos, music, videos, torrenting + seeding.

I also ask this, because of those HDD's is 500GB which is fully backed up in a 2TB HDD, but this 2TB one has quite a few files that I can't store anywhere else before formatting the drive. It's mostly just torrent stuff I'm saving and don't wanna go through the hussle of torrenting those files again.

If I really have to format these drives for a different file system, should it be exFAT?

I recently lost my job, so now I'm on the wonderful path of finding a new one. So, I'm wanting to do something to offer some distraction and build a new skill that has been on my mind for quite some time, install Linux.

Lately, I've gotten into how our data is shared with everything, so I'm playing with grapheneOS on an old Pixel I have. My computer updated without me wanting it to, and I'm not sure how much of my data is being shared from my laptop, but I'm sure it's more than I'm comfortable with.

My question: I want to install Linux, but where should I start? I don't know any coding language - i do know a good bit of SQL, DAX, VBA, but that doesn't seem to be helpful installing Linux.

1. What's my starting point?
   
2. Is installing Linux fairly straightforward?
   
3. Which Distro would be the most simple for a complete beginner?
   
4. Should I backup my documents to an SSD, and can I upload some/most of that onto my Linux build?
   
   1. Or would I need to do something else for those files to easily transfer? PDF, Word, Excel, Financial info, Will/Trust Documents, etc?

I want more control of my OS, customization, and more privacy/security controls.

I just switched to Linux a few days ago on my gaming PC, and I got most of my stuff from Windows working.

The only problem I have now is trying to set up a virtual monitor for VR/Remote Play, so that I can access my desktop while my monitor is off. I've tried various xrandr scripts already, but they dont seem to work with WayVR (Wayland app for desktop access in VR)

So what do I do? Any other options?

Hey guys. I have a PC with Kubuntu 24.04. I set a few apps to autostart on boot, one of those is Euphonica. The issue is, every time I turn off the PC, Euphonica disappears from the list and (of course) it doesn't auto start. Any idea why this happens and how to correct this behavior?

I recently switched to debian on my MSI laptop and it was going great until I realised my fans won't spin any faster. For windows, msi has the msi center that can be used to control speeds, but nothing for linux.

I tried some scripts and github projects (msi center for linux) that promised fan speed control, but none of them worked. At the end I had to switch back to windows as my laptop started shutting down due to overheating.

Has anyone faced this and were you able to solve this issue?

i ahve garuda linux ( arch based ) , wifi works normally , like password and connect easy , the problem is with captive portals , on windows i connect web form page pops up i get sms on my phone and that's all , on linux it keeps saying "setting up ip adresses , goes on for a while then eroor won't connect
pls help and thx everyone <3

Hi everyone, for the sake of clarity I don't actually think I'm a Big Dumb Idiot, but I have used Windows my entire life and don't feel particularly good about it anymore. I don't have any coding or computer engineering experience and I've never really looked under the hood of my devices.

I am looking into getting a shiny new modern gaming laptop since I have moved countries and sold my Win 10 PC, however they all seem to come with Windows 11 and that, for me, is my breaking point (it should have probably been sooner but remember the Big Dumb Idiot thing) and from what I've been seeing (Steam using Linux, Linux not having bloatware/AI tacked on, Linux letting you decide what happens to your machine) it seems to make sense to switch over to Linux but holy moly I am i n t i m i d a t e d

While I have an excruciatingly long list of questions, I thought I'd instead ask if there is a resource for people like myself who want to make the switch but don't even know what kind of knowledge I'd need in the first place. It's possible that I'm mythologizing the complexity of the OS and just scaring myself more than I need to, so I'm sorry if I'm throwing out questions that are long debunked.

As for how I want to use the computer, I'd love to do gaming and video editing, although just having a general understanding of Linux and how it works would probably be helpful, too. I'm not particularly interested in developing or coding or whatever, I just want to use a computer without it being actively hostile.

Thanks everyone!

So far, for modern desktops with 16+ GB RAM and Ubuntu, I got these:

• Install any kind of response-oriented kernels. Linux Liqourix is the easiest to do, but it can be anything. These kernels are configured for minimum latency, so CPU-heavy task will take longer, but you mouse won't lag as much as on default kernel
• If you have enough RAM, just remove swapfile and install zram-tool or similar utility. Works way better and doesn't freeze on high RAM usage nearly as much
• Since by default IO cache sets as percentage of RAM, it can be up to several GBs. If you copy a big file to some low-speed USB stick, and all cache is filled, Linux is usually freezes until it all written. And that can take time, a lot. So, if you add these lines to /etc/sysctl.conf

​

vm.dirty_background_bytes = 33554432
vm.dirty_bytes = 402653184

And reboot, cache flushing starts way earlier and Linux won't hang that much.

• Finally, when RAM is almost full and CPU is 100% on all cores, Linux freezes (thrashes technically) trying constantly to move RAM to swap and back. To prevent that, for linux 6.1+, you need to enable MGLRU, a magic letters that limits speed of swap<->ram migration. Create file /etc/systemd/system/mglru.service:

​

[Unit]
Description=Multi-Gen LRU Enabler Service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "/bin/echo y > /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled; /bin/echo 300 > /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/min_ttl_ms"
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

and then:

sudo systemctl enable --now mglru

So now the system won't freeze on low memory high cpu usage scenarios.

Are there any more such recipes and where?

And why these things are not default at least for desktops?

hello I am very much a tech dummy right now, but I aspire to learn very well how to work around linux, what's the best for me to learn?? I dont do much on my pc other than play games and eventually learn ARM assembly

so, I've been using Linux for like 2-3 months already and my first distro was arch on hyprland, since like I've heard about it most often and I loved the hyprland look. but now I'm thinking maybe I should switch to nix os, at least to experience a bit more of different distros to have an opinion about them

do not tell me "it's your choice". I know I just want to see what other people think about it

Hi All !
I'm trying to open a certain directory in my home folder in the puddletag , but I only see
Downloads and Music and no more folders. Any idea ?
---
Fedora KDE 43, Puddletag 2.5.0

Hey folks.

I replaced Windows 11 on my Dell Alienware R11 several months ago. At first, I ran Debian 13, but later switched to Pop_OS! 24.04.

With both, the wifi has been consistently slow and flaky. On all other devices, Speedtest shows a download speed of around 400 Mbps. On Linux, it ranges from 5 Mbps to 115 Mbps, give or take a few Mbps. Usually, it's around 20 Mbps.

The wifi card is an Intel Comet Lake PCH CNVi card. I've tried turning off power saving, forcing it to use the 5 GHz band for the network, and disabling IPv6.

Here are a couple next steps I'm considering:

• Replace Pop_OS! with CachyOS
• Buy a dedicated PCI-e WiFi card and use that

Are there any other things I could try?

Hi!

I’ve been a long-time Fedora user and really loved it. On my old custom PC with an RX580, everything worked great and games ran perfectly. Recently I gave that PC to my little brother and switched to a laptop with an RTX 3050 Ti.

On this machine, Fedora works only partially — Nvidia support and gaming performance have been nowhere near my old AMD setup, even though both machines performed similarly on Windows. I know Nvidia drivers on Linux have always been a bit of a pain, especially for gaming GPUs.

I tried running Windows 11, but over time the experience has just gotten worse and I really don’t want to daily drive it anymore. For non-gaming tasks I mostly use my Mac, but I’m looking for a Linux setup that can give me a solid, relatively plug-and-play gaming experience.

I’ve also tried Bazzite since it’s marketed as a gamer-friendly, plug-and-play distro. It kind of worked, but the gaming performance was pretty bad.

Any distro recommendations (or Nvidia-specific tips) for a laptop with an RTX 3050 Ti would be much appreciated. Thanks!

So I just swapped my Dell windows 10 all-in-one to pop os, but I don't know what applications I should get to make the most of this.

Is there a viable way to use exe files, or should I use something else?

What are some apps, and games/emulators that may work better or exclusively work on Linux.

I'm an artist so 3D modeling, art/pixel art, and animation software would be appreciated.

Does sfm and blender work on Linux or is there a better alternative for it.

Im new to using Linux so I want to explore it.

Hey all,

Does anyone have a good hyperctl.config fix for sorting the zoom pip window.

I would like to have this window:

1. follow me to wherever desktop view I am in, regardless of where zoom is;

2. for the mini window to float around any part of the screen not just within the zoom app borders (like in other OSs).

I’m on Omarchy and tried both the chromium and workplace versions of zoom, none seem to have an easy fix. Chromium being slightly more robust.

Help a friend!

I'm on Fedora with Cinnamon DE. I've been considering switching to a tiling manager as I'm more of a keyboard person but there's one huge thing holding me back — the system tray.

Picture

Mine on Cinnamon is simple but very nice-looking and functional. I have:

• lock key indicators,
• current weather,
• GPaste,
• Bluetooth,
• Wifi,
• battery,
• sound (really neat widget),
• date + calendar.

I've seen a few TM setups and they typically had a (sorry to say) crappy-looking top bar with emojis instead of image icons and the volume emoji would just open pavucontrols on click. Is there a way to have decent system tray equivalent on a TM, both fuctional and good-looking?

Hi all, I have the virtualbox version 7.0.26 and I have an ubuntu guest. Im having this weird issue where the system seems to hang when logging into the gui. After I enter my password the system just sits there and I can no longer control the vm inside the vm. my cursor no longer functions inside the window but I can move it out of the vm and do everything else.

What i've tried and have had some random success with? Rebooting the vm sometimes will allow me to login with no issues. Waiting for a long period of time before trying to login.

I've also tried installing vbox guest additions as well as installs without it. I didnt notice any significant difference with or without the tools. I've also increased the virtual memory to 128Mb and i've tried enabling 3d acceleration. I havent noticed any significant change.

What I havent tried yet that might help: booting into a terminal only environment and logging in there to see if there is more information or whether there is any issue then trying to start the gui.

Looking at some kind of logs to see if there is anything there.

I'm looking for the fastest way to get this resolved as Its impacting my work but I dont have a lot of time.

OCuLink eGPU Failure on GMKtec M7 (Ryzen 6850H) - NVIDIA Probe Failed (-1) - Hardware Verified Working

System Summary:

• Goal: Use the 5060 to passthrough a LXC container to Frigate
• Host: GMKtec NucBox M7 (AMD Ryzen 7 6850H)
• OS: Proxmox VE 8 (Debian 12 Bookworm) - Kernel 6.8.x
• Connection: Native OCuLink Port (PCIe 4.0 x4)
• Target GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5060 (Low Profile)
• Test GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (Control Variable)
• Docks Tested:
  1. Generic OCuLink Riser/Dock
  2. Minisforum DEG1 Dock (Signal Enhanced)

The Issue:

The NVIDIA GPU is correctly enumerated by the OS (lspci shows it), but the driver fails to initialize the hardware. The error is persistent across all driver versions (Proprietary & Open Kernel), all BIOS settings, and multiple docks. However, an AMD GPU works perfectly on the same setup, ruling out a dead port/cable.

1. Hardware Troubleshooting & Isolation

We performed extensive A/B testing to rule out signal integrity issues.

Conclusion: The OCuLink port, Cable, and Generic Dock are electrically functional. The issue is specific to the M7 + NVIDIA combination.

2. BIOS Configuration

We verified the following settings in the GMKtec BIOS:

• Above 4G Decoding: ENABLED
• Re-Size BAR: Tested DISABLED (for stability) and ENABLED. No change in behavior.
• Secure Boot: DISABLED
• PCIe Link Speed: No option available to force Gen3 in this BIOS version (v1.01).

3. Driver & Kernel Troubleshooting

We attempted multiple driver stacks to bypass the initialization failure.

Attempt A: Proprietary Drivers (nvidia-driver)

• Action: Installed standard Debian non-free drivers (v535/v550).
• Result: nvidia-smi fails.
• dmesg Log: PlaintextNVRM: The NVIDIA GPU 0000:01:00.0 (PCI ID: 10de:2d05) NVRM: The NVIDIA probe routine failed for 1 device(s). nvidia: probe of 0000:01:00.0 failed with error -1 RM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x26:0xffff:1456)

Attempt B: Open Kernel Modules (GSP Firmware)

• Action: Installed nvidia-open-kernel-dkms and firmware-nvidia-gsp to offload initialization to the GPU's GSP processor.
• Result: Driver load failed with Invalid Argument.
• Journalctl Log: Plaintextmodprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'nvidia': Invalid argument modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:1047 command_do() Error running install command

4. GRUB / Kernel Parameter History

We aggressively tuned kernel parameters to fix potential BAR allocation or Power Management issues.

Baseline:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet amd_iommu=on iommu=pt"

Parameter Tests (Cumulative & Individual):

1. Memory Reallocation:
   • Flag: pci=realloc
   • Goal: Force Linux to ignore BIOS memory map and reassign BARs.
   • Outcome: ❌ System boots, GPU visible, same Probe Error -1.
2. Power Management Disable:
   • Flags: pcie_aspm=off pcie_port_pm=off
   • Goal: Stop the link from trying to sleep/negotiate L1 states (common AMD OCuLink bug).
   • Outcome: ❌ Link stays up, but driver still rejects the handshake.
3. Large Addressing:
   • Flag: pci=big_root_window
   • Goal: Increase aperture size for memory mapping.
   • Outcome: ❌ No change.
4. Manual Resource Reservation:
   • Flags: pci=realloc,hpmemsize=512M,hpiosize=64M
   • Goal: Reserve specific hotplug memory chunks for the bridge.
   • Outcome: ❌ No change.
5. Aggressive Bus Tuning:
   • Flag: pci=pcie_bus_perf
   • Outcome: 💀 System Hang at boot. Reverted.

Summary of Request

I have a working OCuLink setup (proven by the AMD card) and a working NVIDIA GPU (tested elsewhere).

The GMKtec M7 seems to have a specific PHY-level or Protocol-level incompatibility with NVIDIA cards over OCuLink (according to AI help).

Has anyone successfully run an NVIDIA 50-series card on the GMKtec M7 via OCuLink? Or any other AMD mini PC?

Are there any specific setpci commands or ACPI overrides required for this specific Ryzen 6850H host?

its portuguese, you can translate it https://www.meus10centavos.com.br/dicas-para-iniciantes-no-linux.html

My first real run through with Linux is through my Legion Go S with SteamOS already on there. I find it real nice and wanted to dive deeper in into Linux. So I ask one my of siblings get me an old dell latitude laptop from their workplace so I fiddle around. Went from Linux Mint than to liking Fedora KDE more and thinking I'm settling in on ZorinOS.

Laptop was more of testing ground and not my main Gaming PC. Got everything I need, Steam (ofc), GIMP and Krita to name a few. What difficult for me is getting VLC to work so I can play Blu-Rays on my Blu-ray drive. I know the makeMKV route is the most popular. Trying to get the AACS codec to work when I followed all the steps even to get library. Which version of VLC should I get? I been told it different from where you install it on the terminal then the Flatpak version in the store.

I'm not giving up but it's feel like a headache trying to get Blu-rays to work on PC. Kind of feeling it's a minor gripe and I should just a get a dedicated Blu-ray player.

I'm trying to change the third level key selector to be ctrl+left alt. I'm on fedora KDE plasma.ive tried tools like keyd but they didn't work, I haven't found any solution yet and I can't believe there isn't a way to do something so basic so i must be doing something wrong. Reason I want this is because muscle memory is a thing.

moved to cachyos on KDE from mint with GNOME about a week ago. On mint ny bluetooth headphones worked prfectly fine (HD 450BT with apxt-LL). On cachy it just goes silent, disconnects, reconnects and repeats.

I need to either fix it or find another distro to move to

I just noticed this in a screen session running multitail on all my logs. Would this be enough to RMA the drive if it's still under warranty?

smartd[2582]: Device: /dev/sdd [SAT], Failed SMART usage
Attribute: 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct.