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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Yeah this looks right. The program is launching other tools, in this case when it gets to CEF (chromium embedded framework) it is looking in the default path it’s picked up when the .desktop file is launching it. So it’s essentially looking directly under /home/werecat/ instead of where the /Greyjay programme is running from.

    So if you specify the path in the .desktop file it should fix the problem.

    An alternative route of that doesn’t fix it might be to edit any config files (if it has them) to ensure they explicitly point to the correct Grayjay directory.


  • The issue is the dock itself which may need drivers.

    Looking online it seems to have drivers for Windows. It doesn’t look like HP provide driver for Linux for this.

    The problem is to do with display over USB. If you plug a display device directly into a USB-c port in your notebook then it should work as USB-C supports display port directly (display port alternative mode) and this is in the Linux kernel.

    However if you plug in a USB hub, then you’re dependent on the hub device which is running as a USB device. If it has very good hardware then it might effectively be running more true USB-c ports but it could also (and kuch more likely) rely on drivers like DisplayLink to allow it to run a display over USB.

    DisplayLink is proprietary and not in the Linux kernel to my knowledge. You could look to enable DisplayLink drivers in your Arch set up. There is a guide on the Wiki but it is described as experimental. There are official Display Link drivers for Linux (from Synaptics) but only officially released for Ubuntu, so support is patchy.

    https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DisplayLink


  • Is it possible? Yes

    Could it at least in part explain some behaviour? Yes.

    But the missing question really is how much, and the answer is probably infitessimally small even if Real.

    For lead exposure there are far easier and more common ways to get exposed such as lead pipes (which the US has a lot of).

    But also you’d have to establish that the underlying problem is brain damage, and that is probably not true and instead reflects cultural bias.

    There are many other reasons to explain American culture and behaviour which does not default to brain damage (or at least provable brain damage).

    I would look at social and cultural issues first: an extremely weak political system, a poor quality general education system, high levels of religion, poor quality general health care, high levels of inequality including shocking levels of poverty.

    The problem with the US is the extremes - if you have money you have the best the world can offer; if you don’t then the state provision is shockingly poor. But alot of the crazies are also rich, and that comes down to the culture and society.

    Lead poisoning is the least likely explanation, and is almost wishful thinking to try and explain things as a disease rather than normal human nature.





  • Yeah I agree with you. A steam deck “app store” to more easily add in plugins or third party launchers would be ideal.

    It almost seems essential if SteamOS is going to run on other manufacturers platforms. Decky loader and other similar plugins are part of the way there, but a route for installing a curated selection of Linux based tools and apps seems ideal. It’s certainly easily in their power.

    I do wonder though if they don’t want Steam Deck to drift too far from the Windows and Linux apps, but I think it would be in their interest to open up the gyroscope interface in this way on steam deck and make it easier for less technically savy people (or just convenient to bypass the desktop mode). Although the Steam Deck app feels like the windows and Linux apps, it is basically the main interface for the whole OS for most people.


  • It kind of makes sense - Lenovo are testing the water with one device rather than going all in. It’ll be interesting what happens next year - do they give up or does it sell well and they push on further.

    My feeling is SteamOS is so much better in terms of a user interface and experience than the custom interfaces of each manufacturer on Windows that it’ll probably win out, even though native Windows should have an advantage in performance. Microsoft is dropping the ball on making windows work well in this category, and Asus and Lenovo really aren’t great at software. And let’s face it, they’re largely just launchers for Steam on Windows anyway.

    I suspect part of it is also going to come down to whether maintaining their own software and paying a license to Microsoft for Windows for each device is felt to be worth it versus SteamOS.


  • This opinion remains largely correct - the Internet as a network is very difficult to take down.

    However things have happened that have undermined the Internet in favour of commercial priorities.

    Net Neutrality was a major principle of the Internet but that is under attack, particularly in the US, where infrastructure providers want to maximise profit by linking their income to each Gb used rather than just paid as a utility. Their costs are largely fixed in infrastructure but they push the lie that they need to be paid for how busy that infrastructure is. A network router doesn’t care whether it’s transferring 1gb or 10gb, it only matters if you hit capacity and the network needs to be expanded. The Internet providers instead want profit profit profit so are pushing for a way to maximise it.

    The other major issue has been consolidation and that’s thanks to monopolies being allowed to form and dictate how the Internet works. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple - they’ve all used their services to try to manipulate customers into their walled gardens and prevent competition.

    So the Internet as many people think of it is very vulnerable - big centralised services can have outages that affect everyone because people don’t have much choice.

    But the reality is the underlying protocols and infrastructure remains robust. Google might have an outage, but the Web itself is still functional. Email protocols and file transfer protocols still work. The problem is people who are sitting in Googles walled garden of services are locked out of everything. And with Googles huge monopoly on search and advertising it means lots of other major services are out too.

    So the Internet itself is fine. It’s the services and monopolies built on it thay are the problem.


  • Yeah, I see the antivax movement as largely a failure of politics and a symptom of the corrosive effects of social media.

    People have lost faith in politicians after lies and corruption on mnah topics, and that is undermining all elements of democracy and trust in state intervention…

    At the same time, Social Media allows idiots to connect with one another and organise there stupidity into movements. Social Media is largely driven by a desire to keep people on their apps to make money so the whole thing is designed to only show people the content they want and makes them happy, not anything that challenges their world view. They are largely not forums for free speech, instead they are commercial tools to manipulate people in to wasting time by feeding them what they want (including playing to their biases) to maximise advertising revenues.

    Social media is the horrific consequence of unfetted capitalism - where all that matters is maximum profits, and the harm done to people and society as a whole is irrelevant.




  • The hard drive may be 256gb but a big chunk of that is taken up by Windows and also there will be a hidden recovery partition. So 170gb sounds about right. You can’t reduce how much space windows takes, and the recovery partition is worth keeping in case you get in to trouble.

    There may be programs HP have installed that you can remove in add/remove software to make a bit more space. HP is notorious for bliatware - installing things to try and sell you stuff. Probably a good few gb may be that crap.

    If you download a big game, then it’s not a big deal if you’re using that game. 80gb is still plenty. And you can delete the game when you’re done and use that 90gb for something else.

    256gb isn’t much but it’s enough unless you want multiple big games installed or have a big library of data such as movies or pictures.

    Also it may be possible to upgrade the hard drive - depends on the model and how accessible the hard drive is. If you can access the hard drive to replace it then you could get a 1tb drive for example. There are guides online but basically you’d need to copy the existing drive to the new drive (would need a USB adaptor to mount the new drive first) and then swap the drives round. It very much depends on the laptop though.

    Another option is an external hard drive connected via USB - it’s not good for gaming or running big programmes but it is fine for storing movies and pictures.

    If the priority is to have multiple different big games installed at the same time, then upgrade the hard drive. Most HP models it’s generally doable without much fuss. More difficult with the ultra slim devices though. Search for your model online and see what people have done.


  • What have your issues been generally?

    When it comes to ports, you need to make sure your firewall is open for your new port number. Can you access the server in a browser on the laptop itself? If so the issue is somewhere else on your network. If not, then the port isn’t open in your firewall on Linux Mint.

    For me, the biggest issue with setting up Jellyfin has invariably been setting up ffmpeg. I find the online official guide for a straight Linux install does not direct Jellyfin to find ffmpeg correctly - when you’re setting up the path to ffmpeg you need to be careful even if you’re installing the Jellyfin version of ffmpeg. Even if you install everything in /opt, the official steps don’t work for me and I’ve had to adjust how I write the path in the config file to make it work - even if ffmpeg is in the locations the guide suggests. Even knowing that I’ve torn my hair out more than once trying to get it to work between reinstalls - everytime for me it came down to the path for ffmpeg.

    The other common issue is permissions for Jellyfin to access your media folders. The guide isn’t great on fixing those issues either - if you have those issues you’re far better googling for solutions.

    You may find the docker set up is better and more consistent. It does work well as a Linux service but it’s wiki guide is just off enough that it’s a pain in the arse to install.


  • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlRecommend me a distro?
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    7 days ago

    I’m using OpenSuSE Tumbleweed and can recommend that. It’s user friendly, especially with the powerful Yast tools for configuring a lot of things. I’m using KDE but it does have a good Gnome spin.

    All of the tools you’re using will work without issue, and I have an Nvidia 3070 which I’ve set up without issue with the official Nvidia drivers. I game a fair bit with steam and everything works well.

    If you’re not a fan of rolling release then OpenSuSE Leap is the same but point release.

    OpenSuSE has good official repos and large variety of community repos, plus Flatpak if you need it. The only difficulties I’ve had are with Python which is installed in a weird way to allow multiple versions to be installed for devs - it can be fiddly installing python software dependencies into the right places, especially if they want you using pip.

    Also you said you use VirtualBox - I used to use it but have switched to KVM and strongly recommend it. Guest systems - particularly Linux guests - work better in KVM. Worth exploring in your next system - in OpenSuSE it’s been a doddle to set up but should be in most systems.

    I see people recommending immutable desktops - I’d be cautious about switching your desktop to that if you don’t have experience of that kind of system. They have strengths but definite drawbacks too. I’d try another distro not too disimilar to Ubuntu before exploring the world of immutable distros.

    Maybe try an immutable system in a Virutal machine. I’ve played a bit with them and they’ve not been for me - too locked down and if you like to tinker or try niche things you’ll find yourself fighting the OS. Also Flatpak is convenient but it’s not the ideal or most secure way to be running all your software, and lots of software isn’t available as Flatpak.

    And for Nix, it is very good but can be used on many distros. You can get another traditional distro and try it out - if you like it by all means switch to NixOS but you don’t have to use NixOS to use Nix. Again it seems too big of a leap to go all in to that on your main desktop. I’d make a smaller change unless you’re open to reinstalling your main desktop a few times trialling bigger shifts.


  • I would say it is unlikely - storage is so cheap that some form of local storage is likely to stay.

    A terminal device still needs some form of storage to run the software to access the cloud. That might end up being some small storage on a chip but the difference is not between none and something, but some and more.

    I also think there are enough people who want storage they own and control that it’ll persist as a concept. Also having devices that work when networks are down is a benefit in itself - attempts to make devices dumb terminals get exposed as a productivity nightmare when networks do go out.

    I think big business will certainly try hard to lock people in to their ecosystems. Remote storage, remote computing/graphics processing are all ways they will try. But conversely there are vibrant communities pushing independent & private alternatives that I don’t see dying - whether thats Linux on PCs, or Graphene OS to take control of your android device etc.




  • As stable as that dime is, it’s utterly useless for all practical purposes.

    What Google is talking about it making a stable qbit - the basic unit of a quantum computer. It’s extremely difficult to make a qbit stable - and as it underpins how a quantum computer would work instability introduces noise and errors into the calculations a quantum computer would make.

    Stabilising a qbit in the way Google’s researchers have done shows that in principle if you scale up a quantum computer it will get more stable and accurate. It’s been a major aim in the development of quantum computing for some time.

    Current quantum computers are small and error prone. The researchers have added another stepping stone on the way to useful quantum computers in the real world.