So, what's your Linux week been like?

This week I installed MX Linux 21 on an external hard drive. This was a bit of a risk, because I didn’t want it to interfere with the grub on the internal M.2 drive, where I currently run Ubuntu 20.04 (and it’s starting to annoy me with an embarrassing bug that came from out of nowhere, but is still livable for now).

Like I wanted the grubs of both OS’s to leave each other alone, not overwriting each other, or adding menu entries for the other one, like it was the dominant one in charge of the other. The MX Linux installer had the sufficient flexibility and sufficient nerdiness to accommodate this with no problems. I was so very pleased that this worked so well. After a short amount of tweaking, it was all settled into. The default desktop background in MX 21 is also really nice. I didn’t change it, for like the first time in my life.

The MX devs are so awesome. MX Linux is so very satisfyingly nerdy. Not to mention, blazing fast, in comparison to Ubuntu.

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Am I right in thinking MX Linux started life as Mepis and later Simply Mepis? I think I read that somewhere. Mepis was KDE 3 back then I daily drive this for years.

Right now I am running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed as my main driver, with the plasma desktop. Everything runs smoothly and I’ve not run into any sorts of problems at all.

I also tried Fedora Kinoite on another NUC I have, and it had no issues either, so I like that.

Usually I am attracted to the more esoteric distros, like Void or NixOS, but sometimes I want everything to Just Work, and OpenSUSE and Fedora usually have no trouble in that regard. I’m just more used to OpenSUSE because SUSE Linux was my first distro. I love YAST personally.

I get my Raspberry Pi Zero 2W today, I pre-ordered it, but it took a while to get here. Anyways, I already downloaded the new Raspberry Pi OS for it, and will install a NFS server on there. I think it’s really suited to a home file server role because how tiny it is. That or use it for RetroPie in a Retroflag Gameboy-style case, since apparently it can do up Dreamcast pretty well in that regard.

I am also running a server on Digital ocean, a FreeBSD server that runs Gemini and a website. I really wish Digital Ocean had a rolling release distro for a server, then I would switch from FreeBSD to it. Well, a “stable” rolling release distro, like Manjaro or something… maybe I should look again at their options.

As far as games go, I wanna get Civ 6. I recently bought BallisticNG, which is like Wipeout for the original Playstation. If you’ve ever played F-Zero, it’s like that, except with weapons. Pretty fun!

I think so. The Mepis community and Antix got together for MX. Though Antix still exists as its own distribution whereas Mepis no longer exists and its community came to be MX Linux.

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I’ve heard of workarounds that allow you to install whichever distro you want. I like Digital Ocean but Linode has quite a few more options including Arch.

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After watching this video:

I had one of those “shut up and take my money” moments (to buy this product), and in short order, one of the last units from Mouser was ordered. The price was a little higher than I would have liked, but I felt it was still worth it anyway, due to the rarity of stock.

It comes with OpenWRT installed in the 32GB eMMC on the included CM4 board. I like how it’s a comprehensive kit. That’s worth something to me.

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I’ve been working on a project to aggregate data for a rollout. User feedback, User Stories, Bug reports the whole thing. Just a ti bit of what I am doing:

A company, unwilling to renegotiate with their Hardware Vendor, since their Laptops, Desktops, Lab PC’s can hold up with minimal effort for atleast 2 more yrs. What’s the option? Since they own the current hardware, Linux is on the table. The problem has been identifying a Linux experience that is a level ground for all users. No ! Linux Mint is not on the table, and the “Linux Mint is good for windows converts” Does not hold up in my book.

We’ve started testing with small groups to some mixed results, but not disruptive enough to throw the concept all out the window. The sticking points are more Linux-user-centric than terrible design. Some things just don’t work out of the box, some things are seamless.

This will go on for a while, but i think in the end, it’ll be fine.

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Now I am using Ubuntu Touch full time on my old Galaxy S3 Neo and my Android phone finally gave up working correctly after two years in use although it still has one year of official support. Obsolescence is shouting.
Thank you Linux and UBports for making my hardware still usable and not going to waste! :heart:

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I’m working on hardware for digital signage. I tried for 2 days to get Screenly OSE (open source edition) to work on a raspberry pi 4 B. No joy. Screenly’s issues on this version of the pi are ongoing. I tried both ways to get this to work:

  • install from script on top of the PI OS – nope
  • burn a verified image from Screenly to the sd card – nope

Finally gave up and went to yodeck – BOOM! not a hitch.

I wish I could have stayed in the open source arena.

Today is round 2 of this rollout and more people have joined. Now almost 300 people. Things are looking up and Linux is definitely looking strong.

My Linux weeks have become a bit boring since I switched to Fedora. Pretty much everything just works now.

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:partying_face: :partying_face:

Don’t tell everyone. . .

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Well, as some of you might know I’m in the process of troubleshooting a weird problem with one of my laptops. This is the first Dell that’s ever given me trouble with Linux. At the moment I’m in Pop 21.04, but if this proves fruitful (meaning no weird boot errors over time) I’ll probably hit a few other favorites.

Linus Tech Tips wants to talk to you…

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I really want them to release all the videos for that. I need more schadenfreude in my life.

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While I did actually studiy theological German in graduate school, I majored in Biblical Languages – Greek and Hebrew. So, I’m more of an epicaricacy type of guy.

Just updated to the Pop!_OS 21.10 beta, because I like to try and break things. No big issues so far, just a few polish points still needed. The applications menu doesn’t toggle properly, but it sure looks pretty.

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What are your test cases for breaking things?

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Nothing regimented, I’m just a compulsive fiddler.

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My Linux week involved deleting Windows.

Didn’t start out as my plan, but i decided to do a little partition “tidy-up and re-arranging”, to give me some more space where I actually needed it and where I could better use it.

An unattended side-effect of this tidy-up was that I made my Windows partition unbootable. As I set about fixing this, I realised there was almost nothing left I actually needed it for… so I stopped fixing and blew it away. Last week, I was technically a dual-booter, this week I’m definitely a one OS man! :sunglasses:

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