• 0 Posts
  • 59 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 16th, 2023

help-circle
  • It will depend on the drivers that Audeze Maxwell supply? I can’t see any USB drivers for Linux beyond the dongle but they may exist.

    However if they have a 3.5mm port then I’d use that. I have a Sony headset and while I don’t have any issues with Bluetooth, I do like to use 3.5mm analogue conenctions to save battery (even with noise cancelling on the battery lasts way longer off Bluetooth). I bought a long 3.5mm cable online and plug it into the front of my PC. No USB or Bluetooth faff, it just works, and at high quality.

    However note that if you want the mic to work too it will depend on whether the headset’s 3.5mm jack is set up for both audio and mic (if it’s good quality it should be), plus you will need a 4pin 3.5mm plug and cable to pick up the mic from the headset and cable instead of the common 3pin audio only plug. At the other end if your pc has separate 3.5mm audio and mic jacks you will need an adaptor that splits the audio/mic into two cables to plug in to both jacks. If it’s a desktop there will be separate jacks around the back although sometimes the front jack may be a combined mic/audio jack, or you may also have one joint jack if it’s a laptop. If you do need to split the audio and mic then you can find these adaptors and also 4pin 3.5mm cables on ebay or amazon.

    Edit: Just in case you’re not aware - an audio only 3.5mm cable has 2 coloured bands on the plug (splitting it into 3 metal rings or pins). An audio + mic 3.5mm cable has 3 coloured bands on the plug (splitting it into 4 metal rings or pins).

    Edit 2: sorry look for 4 pole 3.5mm rather than 4 pin; you’ll see the better quality stuff when searching as pole is the correct term!



  • Brave is being forced to use Googles version of Manifest 3 meaning ad blockers and anti trackers are crippled in favour of advertisers and Googles ad business. Brave will be including 4 manifest 2 extensions in its backend but that’s it. They’re stuck because Google decided to screw over the entire Chrome based ecosystem.

    Mozilla is implementing Manifest 3 differently so the original techniques for adblocking and privacy still work.

    So the only choice is Librewolf. Sacrificing privacy and security for smoother animations and Web translation of pages is not worth it.


  • It’d be interesting project but it seems overkill and over complicatiion when the simplest solution is dual booting and giving each OS complete access to the hardware. Hypervisors for all your systems would be a lot of configuration, and some constant overhead you can’t escape for potentially minimal convenience gain?

    Are you hoping to run these OS at the same time and switch between them? If so I’m not sure the pain of the set up is worth it for a little less time switching between OS to switch task? If you’re hoping to run one task in one machine (like video editing) while gaming in another, it makes more sense but you’re still running a single i7 chip so it’ll still be a bottleneck even with all the GPUs and that RAM. Sure you can share out the cores but you won’t achieve the same performance of 1 chip and chip set dedicated to 1 machine that a server stack gives (and which Hypervisors can make good use of).

    Also I’d question how good the performance you’d get on a desktop motherboard with multiple GPUs assigned to different tasks. It’s doubtful you’d hit data transfer bottlenecks but it’s still asking a lot of hardware not designed for that purpose I think?

    If you intend to run the systems 1 at a time then you might as well dual boot and not be sharing system resources with an otherwise unneeded host for hypervisor software.

    I think if you wanted to do this and run the machines in parallel then a server stack or enterprise level hardware probably would be better. I think it’s a case of “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should”? Unless it’s just a “for fun” project and you don’t mind the downsides? Then I can see the lure.

    But if I were in your position and wanted the “best” solution I’d probably go for a dual boot with Linux and Windows. In Linux I’d run games natively in the host OS, and use Qemu to have a virtual machine for development (passing through one of the GPUs for AI work). The good thing in this set up is you can back-up your whole development machine hard drive and restore it easily if you make big changes to the host Linux. Windows I’d use for kernel anti cheat games and just boot into it when I wanted.

    Personally I dual boot Linux and windows. I barely use windows now but in Linux I do use Qemu and have multiple virtual machines. I have a few test environments for Linux because I like to tinker, plus a docker server stack that I use to test before deploying to a separate homelab device. I do have a Win11 VM, barely used - it doesn’t have a discrete GPU and it’s sluggish. If you’re gaming I’d dual boot and give it access to the best GPU as and when you need it.

    And if you want the best performance, triple boot. Storage is cheap and you could easily have separate drives for separate OS. I have an Nvme for Linux and another Nvme for Windows for example. You could easily have 2 separate discrete Linux installs and a Windows installs. In some ways it may be best as you’d separate Linux gaming from Linux working and reduce distractions.


  • All of these can be run on any Linux distro. Dropbox is probably a better choice than Google Drive as Google drive doesn’t have an official Linux app (but you can get it working beyond just using it in a Web browser if its a must).

    I’d go.with Linux Mint as it’s well supported but any point release distro will serve your needs well. For example Fedora KDD or OpenSuSE Leap, Debian etc. I wouldn’t recommend Ubuntu.


  • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlSwapping from Win10 on laptop
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    I personally generally recommend Mint as a good starting distro. It is widely used, which means lots of support readily found online. It also has some of the benefits of Ubuntu without having the Snap forced on users. It also generally works well on a wide range of systems including lower powered systems due to its selection of desktops.

    Your laptop is decent and I’d personally be running a slick desktop on that, specifically KDE. But alot of that comes down to personal preferences, and Mint isn’t the best KDE desktop as it’s not a main desktop for it (although it is available).

    However once you get to grips with the basics of Linux I think other distros offer better more focused benefits for different user groups. There are lots of choices such as Gaming focused distros, rolling release vs point release distros, slow long term projects like Debian vs bleeding edge focused projects, immutable systems etc.

    I personally use OpenSuSE Tumbleweed because it’s cutting edge, but well tested prior to updates, with a good set of system tools in YaST, and decently ready for gaming and desktop use. I also like that it is European. But that may not be a good fit for your specific use case. Leap, the OpenSuSE point release distro would be better - a nice KDE desktop with a reliable release schedule and a focus on stability over cutting edge.



  • If your linux OS supports secure boot then it does help improve security.

    The differing opinions on it are often because it can cause issues in some set ups and in a default set up its only a marginal security gain.

    It will add a layer of security at boot by preventing 3rd party unauthenticated processes / software from running and creates a secure boot chain from your BIOS up to the OS. But the default set up also means other authenticated OSes like Windows can be run, so its not as secure as it could be.

    To really secure it you could create your own keys and then only your OS could boot. But as a linux newbie thats likely way more than you need and there are risks if you fuck up, to the point of accidentally locking you out of your own machine

    So your choice is really just the default set up being on or off. On is a bit more secure but if you experience any issues then turn it off and don’t worry about it.


  • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlSecure Boot on or off with Mint?
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Its not doing nothing. Linux uses a Microsoft provided key for initial BIOS authentication and then has its own tree of keys that it uses for security. So it does have the benefits of locking out malicious code/processes even in a default set up.

    Using your own secure boot and TPM keys is certainly more secure, but it doesnt follow that secure boot with the default set up is doing nothing to help secure your system at boot.


  • Linux supports secure boot so if a distro supports it it’s worth using it.

    Linux can use a key signed by Microsoft in a preboot loader and then itself perform its own key authentications for all other processes and software (a shim), forming a secure chain from the BIOS up during boot. You dont have to play with creating your own keys.

    So if your OS supports secure boot it is worth using it for added security at boot. Its far from perfect in this set up (as there are plenty of windows OS that also have permission to boot) but it is better than a free for all without it even if the risk is low for most desktop users.

    You can go further and generate your own keys and use secure boot and TPM together to lock down the system further but you dont have to to get some benefits from secure boot.


  • If youre new to linux, then I’d say Linux Mint is the place to start. Use it with XFCE if light weight is what you want.

    Not having cutting edge packages is a red herring - you really dont want bleeding edge as thats where the errors and breakages happen. Mint is reliable and secure which is what you need when starting out. You dont want to be a beta tester. Dont confuse latest packages for most secure on linux - plenty of packages have stable older versions which get security patches.

    Mint is also very popular, with a huge range of easy to find resources to help set it up the way you want it.

    Wayland is also a red herring - its the future but its just not really ready yet. Yes its more secure due to how its built but the scenario you’re using linux in the particular security benefits you’re hearing about are not really going to impact you day to day. And the trade off is that Wayland is still buggy, with many apps still not working seamlessly. Most apps are designed for X11 and x-wayland is an imperfect bridge between the two. I’m not saying Wayland is bad - it’s actually good and is the future. But you dont want to be problem solving Wayland issues as a linux newbie. Dont see Wayland as essentialnfor an good stable and secure linux install.

    Personally I wouldn’t recommend Fedora - it has a short update cycle and tends to favour newer bleeding edge tech and paclages. Thats not a bad thing but if what you want is a stable, reliable low footprint system and to learn the basics, in wouldn’t stray into Fedora just yet. It has a 13 month cycle of complete distro upgrades and distro upgrades are the times when there are big package changes and the biggest chances of something breaking. The previous version loses support after a month so you do need to upgrade to stay secure. Most people won’t have issues between upgrades but with any distro when you do a big upgrade things can easily break of you’ve customised things and set up things differently to the base. It can be annoying having to fix thongs and get them back how you want them, and worse can lead to reinstalls. Thats nor a uniquely Fedora problem, but the risk is higher woth faster updating and bleeding edge distros. And in fairness there are lots of fedora spins that might mitigate that - but then you risk being on more niche setups so support can be harder to find when you need it.

    For comparison the latest version of Mint supported through til 2029, and major releases also get security patches and support for years even after newer versions are released. There is much less pressure to upgrade.


  • Its interesting - the article has taken one view of this as the the target being Palestinian children.

    However reading this, the target actually seems to he the “prank” victims. Young people are goading older israelis into showing how angry, biased and racist they are when asked to help Palestinian children, and then sharing that and laughing at them?

    It feels like Israeli children are mocking Israeli adults. Its a bit crass but the targets aren’t really Palestinian children. If anything its showing just how racist Israeli adults are.

    Of course there is also the disturbing element of Israeli children seeing this all as just a joke, and not seeming to care about what this means about their parents and the country they live in. To see people get so viscerally angry when asked to help starving children is shocking yet I don’t think the Israeli youth seem atnall disrtubed by how hateful the people they’re talking to really are.



  • For your second question, a window manager is the specific system that controls the placement of windows on an X11 desktop.

    On a X11 based system, X11 is the windowing system (interacting with the video card) and a window manager is a system sitting on top of that laying out the windows and interacting with the user and other programmes. It is a separate programme on top of the X11 system, and communicates with X11, and X11 is the programme that communicates with the graphics card.

    On Wayland, instead of 2 separate systems there can be 1 combined windowing systen that is both the window manager but also directly communicates with the hardware in a standardised way using the Wayland protocols. This is called a Wayland compositor.

    Meanwhile a desktop environment is the whole desktop - that includes a window manager or compositor but also lots of other tools and software that together make a full desktop experience.

    An example is KDE - KDE is a full desktop environment. It uses its own x11 window manger called kwin (and also able to be a wayland compositor), but it also uses a whole range of other tools alongside that to give you panels, widgets, desktop icons, a clock, menus, settings etc collectively forming Plasma desktop. And then on top of Plasma there is a whole range of bespoke programmes that form the full deskop experience - like Dolphin (file manager), Kate (text editor) and so on. All that software is designed to work seamlessly with the KDE family of tools and systems. The window manager, the desktop tools and the other programmes together form the whole desktop environment. But other desktop environments software will also work - for example Gnome based software can also run with KDE without issue and vice versa.

    Gnome has its own window manager/compositor, and it’s own widgets and tools to make a desktop, and it’s own bespoke software to make a whole desktop environment.

    And there are many others.

    So in summary:

    • Window Manager - the specific system that controls the placment and look of the individual windows talking to X11 which then talks to the hardware

    • Wayland Compositor - the system that controls the placement and look of windows, using wayland protocols to speak to the hardware

    • Desktop Environment - the whole desktop including the Window manager but also lots of other programmes and tools that form the basic desktop (such as a panel, menus, desktop icons) and the whole environment (other software like a file manager, text editor, calculator etc). KDE and Gnome are examples of popular desktop environments




  • Sorry I originally posted around permissions as I misunderstood; deleted that. The solution is below:

    If it’s a user installed flatpak you should find the config files in:

    ~/.local/share/flatpak/overrides

    Edit the document for the flatseal app. Thats where flatseal or the flatpak override tool makes it’s config changes for user installed flatpaks (including env overrides). You can also delete the flatseal file (which will be the name of the flatpak - com.github.tchx84.Flatseal) "to set back to default.

    There will only be a few files - files are only created when there are overrides set. Anything running default permissions/config won’t have an override file.

    EDIT: For completeness, for System wide flatpaks all the files are in:

    /var/lib/flatpak

    Just to explain why they’re stored there: you’re trying to change the config of the sandbox itself not the app. Flatpak manages the sandbox and it is flatpak that needs to know what permission an app should have. Any files in “~/.var/app/…” pertain to the app itself inside it’s sandbox.



  • So from what I’ve seen on Lemmy over the last year is that the quantity of posts and variety of topics feels like it’s going up. I certainly enjoy engaging on here.

    Will it stagnate? I’m not sure. It might be that the monthly user levels stabilise but thats not the same as stagnate. If people are engaged and enjoying their time then it has value.

    My feeling is that Lemmy will slowly grow over time. I don’t see it becoming a huge platform like Reddit anytime soon. Its feasible but it feels like for now it will remain niche.

    But I also dont want to it suddenly become huge. I was on reddit for a long time and I saw it evolve from being something small and interesting to a behemoth and enshittification to make money. Small is sometimes better, and small or stable in no way means stagnation.


  • Why does it matter? All that matters is that plenty of people do use Linux - literally millions of people. There is a healthy vibrant ecosystem of distros, and devs working on Linux.

    I don’t care if people aren’t interested in Linux. I’m much more interested in ensuring those people who choose Linux are happy because that is good for all.of us.

    And the best thing anyone can do is donate to the projects they care about. That helps projects fund development and support. It’s much more useful than trying to convince people to try Linux when they have no real interest in it.