The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[acid_ra1n]

This is gonna sound autistic as hell, but I deadass just use Sumatra PDF reader in Wine. TECHNICALLY... Calibre exists on Linux, but I'm not entirely fond of Calibre's interface let alone how it renders e-book text. Sumatra is no muss, no fuss. Assuming you download the EXE, this is how I personally installed my shit:

WINEPREFIX=$HOME/Desktop/Sumatra wine $HOME/Downloads/sumatra-pdf-installer-goes-here.exe

If you go through the motions of the installer, you should have the option for a desktop shortcut. Then you're as good as gold.

Having to use wine to read an ebook is pretty grim lmao

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

So I switched back to Debian because I was getting incredibly pissed off at my Windows install and was bracing myself for a very similar situation to about 10 years ago where it was functionally great for web browsing, a few specific linux games and general office work but still had enough drawbacks to feel like a compromise.

I had NO fucking idea it had ramped up this much. The entire flatpak system is basically all I ever wanted from the get go, my apple devices not only connect perfectly but with zero issues with hidden folders, my entire fucking Steam library is working perfectly and the Heroic launcher works great allowing me to install all my GOG and Epic Games with zero fuss.

Like this isn't even a "Ok it's like windows but has a few drawbacks" anymore, it's straight up the fucking OS I want with zero drawbacks so far.

Like everything just fucking works. I don't even have to install my fucking AMD drivers because they already loaded with the install. I'm finally back to having a stable system that updates exactly what I want WHEN I want without having a broken fucking kernel update thrown at me without my consent.

So now I'm wondering why the fuck I didn't switch back 5 years ago, or has the REAL progress only really been made over the past few years?

 

[Dante Alighieri]

So now I'm wondering why the fuck I didn't switch back 5 years ago, or has the REAL progress only really been made over the past few years?

It really accelerated with the Steam Deck being released and all the work Valve has done with Proton.

 

[Dread First]

Having to use wine to read an ebook is pretty grim lmao

It's not that grim. Annoying, but not really grim. Calibre is an excellent aggregator for large collections of ebooks and with tons of flexibility in implementation and settings, but it fucking sucks at handling anything that ain't a PDF, MOBI, or EPUB file. Sumatra was what I used on Windows specifically to get my fix of CBZ manga files. It's how I basically kept up with scanlations of Goodnight Punpun and Berserk once upon a time.

Linux, for whatever reason, fucking sucks at producing a multipurpose document reading application. Okular is really pretty, but it runs like absolute dogshit if you're reading large EPUB/MOBI/PDF/CBZ files. Evince used to be great stuff until the GNOME team decided to continuously reinvent the wheel until Evince, now GNOME Papers, is flat-out unusable. Calibre does a really good job at embedding hyperlinks with the footnotes in various e-books (exceptionally useful for the Project Gutenberg e-books of Richard Burton's 1001 Nights), but again: good luck trying to read the latest Berserk chapter that the scanlation team pushes out.

Sumatra runs well enough, I know the interface, I know exactly how to edit the settings file to get all the options I really like, etc etc. Plus, it's like a platinum application on WineHQ. The only thing that looks ugly is the Dark Mode, but even then, the Dark Mode was really just inverted contrast on Windows too, so who the fuck cares?

So I switched back to Debian because I was getting incredibly pissed off at my Windows install and was bracing myself for a very similar situation to about 10 years ago where it was functionally great for web browsing, a few specific linux games and general office work but still had enough drawbacks to feel like a compromise.

I had NO fucking idea it had ramped up this much. The entire flatpak system is basically all I ever wanted from the get go, my apple devices not only connect perfectly but with zero issues with hidden folders, my entire fucking Steam library is working perfectly and the Heroic launcher works great allowing me to install all my GOG and Epic Games with zero fuss.

Like this isn't even a "Ok it's like windows but has a few drawbacks" anymore, it's straight up the fucking OS I want with zero drawbacks so far.

Like everything just fucking works. I don't even have to install my fucking AMD drivers because they already loaded with the install. I'm finally back to having a stable system that updates exactly what I want WHEN I want without having a broken fucking kernel update thrown at me without my consent.

So now I'm wondering why the fuck I didn't switch back 5 years ago, or has the REAL progress only really been made over the past few years?

Some tips and context:

a) Flatpaks are great stuff when you're first getting acclimated, but they're not without limitations. Flatpaks are highly containerised. If you're doing anything with Flatpaks, make sure you install Flatseal too. Flatseal is a permissions manager for those edge cases where the Flatpak container doesn't have enough permissions to do X/Y/Z task.

b) Debian honestly is both a blessing and a curse unto itself. Mainline Debian works well enough if you're expecting to stick around on one system, and want very few sweeping changes. The problems that people incur when running Debian are far more subtle. As a matter of design philosophy, Debian releases are "frozen" and extensively tested and patched to mitigate bugs. This often means the software selection in Debian tends to run on the older side of the spectrum. Backported packages, Flatpaks, and AppImages all exist, but they're "layered on top," so-to-speak.

c) If you tried vanilla Debian 10 years ago, you would absolutely have major pain points. Not because Linux itself was bad in 2015 (actually the opposite was true; Linux between 2014-2016 really started to take shape as a usable desktop system), but because the Debian project had tons of obscure hangups that intentionally made hardware nonfunctional. I think it was like 2019-2020ish when the Debian Project decided "we will ship the Linux kernel with all the firmware from upstream, and stop stripping away nonfree binary blobs from it." So, within the last 5-7 years, Debian itself substantially improved. That also coincided with Valve pumping tons of money, staff, and R&D into the Wine project.

 

[Betonhaus]

So now I'm wondering why the fuck I didn't switch back 5 years ago, or has the REAL progress only really been made over the past few years?

Because five years ago Windows was actually still pretty decent

 

[hog cranking frog]

I don't know why but I always find it neat when someone is a Linux desktop user like myself but runs one very specific piece of software in wine. Like new Linux converts that stick with Notepad++

 

[DavidS877]

This often means the software selection in Debian tends to run on the older side of the spectrum. Backported packages, Flatpaks, and AppImages all exist, but they're "layered on top," so-to-speak.

I find this whole thing very funny. It's like complaining the Microsoft Store doesn't have the program you want and you have to download it.
Admittedly Flatpak is cancer too and should be treated with the same disdain as Snap.
If I want isolation, I use an actual container that I control, if not then I use AppImages.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

In fairness, the only flatpak apps I've installed are Plex, Plexamp (genuinely the best local music player once you've got a Plex server running) and Steam as I figure if I install too many then it'll probably lead to all sorts of complicated issues down the line.

Debian honestly is both a blessing and a curse unto itself. Mainline Debian works well enough if you're expecting to stick around on one system, and want very few sweeping changes.

I mean for the most part, everything fucking works exactly how I want it to. I don't really see a new version of LibreOffice for example somehow revolutionising how writing works, and all the key emulators like Dolphin and PCSX2 are pretty much 'done' as far as I'm concerned. Yeah there'll still be dozens of updates a week, but only really relating to the Korean version of Fifa 2003 or some other niche game that's useless from my point of view.

So I can literally just ignore the terminal and not touch "su apt-get update" until there's some crippling security issue.

I don't know why but I always find it neat when someone is a Linux desktop user like myself but runs one very specific piece of software in wine. Like new Linux converts that stick with Notepad++

Ages back I used to only emulate Foobar2000 because there wasn't a single fucking good Linux music app that wasn't dogshit, but then deadbeef came along and that was that. Now I don't even need to fuck around with any of that because all my music is on my NAS so I just use plexamp to create playlists and whatnot.

I'm assuming there's SOME sort of notepad application that saves text files as tabs between sessions (or there's probably even an option in my default one) but that's literally the only thing I miss from Notepad++

 

[indomitable snowman]

Details are still pretty sparse so take this with a grain of salt but from what I've been reading it started on the 10th/11th and there is an additional persistence element that appears to rely on systemd. Compromise was via adding a malicious NPM or bun package (different vectors). You can use pacman -Qm to see your foreign packages.

I scanned and had an old wine package that was flagged. I cannot remember when i updated and not sure if I was actually exposed or not. Removed it, backed up my system and installed Artix. Still exposed if I run random aur packages, but now a fresh install, SystemD less and running Xlibre. Switched to Cinnamon DE to try it out.

I'm assuming there's SOME sort of notepad application that saves text files as tabs between sessions (or there's probably even an option in my default one) but that's literally the only thing I miss from Notepad++

the kate notepad that comes with KDE has tabs and I think saved them between sessions. Not as nice as notepad++, but close.

 

[Dread First]

In fairness, the only flatpak apps I've installed are Plex, Plexamp (genuinely the best local music player once you've got a Plex server running)

>using Plex instead of Jellyfin on Linux
>using Plexamp instead of Navidrome on Linux


Funnily enough, when I repurposed my old gaming PC into my home server with Ubuntu 24.04, I was actually willing to give Plex a shot... until I saw that they paywalled hardware transcoding. Pretty apps and ecosystem maturity be damned, I'm sticking with Jellyfin on principle. Same reason why I went with Navidrome over Plexamp; Subsonic-compatible music applications are a dime a dozen. Amperfy is a godsend if you're using Navidrome, especially if you have WireGuard set up on your home server.

I don't know why but I always find it neat when someone is a Linux desktop user like myself but runs one very specific piece of software in wine. Like new Linux converts that stick with Notepad++

I'm assuming there's SOME sort of notepad application that saves text files as tabs between sessions (or there's probably even an option in my default one) but that's literally the only thing I miss from Notepad++

the kate notepad that comes with KDE has tabs and I think saved them between sessions. Not as nice as notepad++, but close.

Fedora Cinnamon ships with xed by default. Wholly independent text editor developed and maintained by the Linux Mint team. Tabbed notes are present... but it must be said: xed doesn't spark joy the way that Notepad++ does. Certainly far more joy than Kate on KDE, or whatever horrific monstrosity the GNOME team turned gedit into. But still, I'd wager that the extra disk space for a dedicated WINEPREFIX for Notepad++ is worth it.