The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Curry Teafag]

do you know what a metapackage is?

Whatever it is on FreeBSD. This is the Linux thread, btw.

On Debian, the main metapackage is called kde-full and works without issues.

 

[777-]

Using linux desktop already makes you a second tier citizen so don't expect some 80s server to be a good default experience

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Using linux desktop already makes you a second tier citizen so don't expect some 80s server to be a good default experience

In either case I was already going to have to adjust settings. I like having things set up how I want. Even if it already had alt-tab, virtual desktops, and those keybinds.

Crazy to me that saying I did set up for something on my system is actually a problem for anyone in the LINUX thread.

 

[hog cranking frog]

what would it even be missing? I have a feeling linux distros just do some manual configuration on KDE with what they ship to add defaults that otherwise might not be there. I want to say gentoo was the other thing I used KDE on. Mostly in the GUI liveISO. And I want to say it also didn't set up alt-tab within that. But I think it did have virtual desktops.

This is interesting in a way since KDE is meant to mimic windows out of the box. Seems counter to the entire KDE project to leave off keybinds.

Distros obviously ship some preferences (e.g. wallpaper or theme) a package could unset some. Little bit of a mystery you have here, that said never had any of these problems on any of the major distros.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

these problems

is it a problem though?

I had to go in the settings app in the keybind section I was already adjusting, because I don't like the windows style function key heavy keybinds. I just added it alt-tab, and alt-shift-tab in the walk windows section. and while I was at it, I added super-j, and super-k because I personally prefer using that anyway. I also wanted to have super-r show the resource monitor, super-return open a terminal, and super-d open the application launcher. I needed to add super+q to close windows because I don't like having to press the x to close things, and I don't want to use whatever they had, if they did have a key combo for it. super+shift+c to logout, then ctrl+alt+delete to reboot.

I'll also probably disable super alone opening the menu. I really hate that, and every desktop I've tried does it. When you're using super+another key constantly to do things it's annoying having it pop that open when you don't press another key.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

it wasn't set up out of the box. alt-tab did nothing. And this isn't the first install I've used of KDE where that was the case. I had to manually go in and add that in myself.

and like I said. it didn't have virtual desktops set up either. So I had to enable those, then set up keys to actually use them.

I also quick tiling wasn't set up with any keybinds.

This sounds similar to the symptoms that people who had their KDE installs broken by Wayland experienced. My understanding is that Wayland has infected FreeBSD now, so you might have run into issues with that. Did you try changing to the standard display server?

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

This sounds similar to the symptoms that people who had their KDE installs broken by Wayland experienced. My understanding is that Wayland has infected FreeBSD now, so you might have run into issues with that. Did you try changing to the standard display server?

I wasn't using wayland. and nothing was broken... well there is something that actually is broken. I didn't even mention it though. The only thing I noticed that just doesn't work is for some reason touchpad settings. This is probably somehow freebsd specific which is why I didn't bring it up, and I plan on troubleshooting it a bit later. and if I can't solve what's happening I'll just do my touchpad config through xorg.conf files.

 

[Kokonut Kangs Klan]

Crazy to me that saying I did set up for something on my system is actually a problem for anyone in the LINUX thread.

Completely unsurprising, he's the most obnoxious faggot in this thread since the other eurofag sperg got banned. Betonhaus comes close but he doesn't pretend to know everything. The fruits of a multicultural Internet!

I have a feeling linux distros just do some manual configuration on KDE with what they ship to add defaults that otherwise might not be there.

I've always had problems with weird DE defaults or lack thereof, but you fix it up and it works. Agreed I'd much rather just edit a single text file though.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Agreed I'd much rather just edit a single text file though.

I wasn't even trying to make a judgement on whether one is better or not.

I do personally prefer changing setting like that if the config file is well documented, or if it just makes sense on it's own. Especially since I can use my own editor, and jump around in a way I'm comfortable with. But my point was just that in the end it's a tradeoff, and me setting up this desktop doesn't feel much different from the set up I've done in the past for window managers.

 

[hog cranking frog]

I do personally prefer changing setting like that if the config file is well documented, or if it just makes sense on it's own. Especially since I can use my own editor, and jump around in a way I'm comfortable with.

Agree. KDE fails at this, stuff is kinda all over the place.

But my point was just that in the end it's a tradeoff, and me setting up this desktop doesn't feel much different from the set up I've done in the past for window managers.

I think this a general problem post ~2010? I recall being very excited about the wide range of DEs and WMs. WindowMaker, Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, fluxbox/openbox, some weird 3d shit. There was even some BeOS clones. Everything is flat and gay. A menu bar and a task manager. Tiling or floating. No choice.

 

[moocow]

Enlightenment

Ah man I wish rasterman hadn't gone off the fucking deep end and decided to make E17 a "full desktop experience" instead of just "E16 improved". I fucking loved E back in the day. Gorgeous, fast, flexible, couldn't pry it from my cold dead hands. E17 makes me weep.

 

[AbendCode12]

Agree. KDE fails at this, stuff is kinda all over the place.

I think this a general problem post ~2010? I recall being very excited about the wide range of DEs and WMs. WindowMaker, Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, fluxbox/openbox, some weird 3d shit. There was even some BeOS clones. Everything is flat and gay. A menu bar and a task manager. Tiling or floating. No choice.

When GPU's (tiny by modern comparisons) became very common for desktop computers and laptops there was a race to move all the GUI components to move from CPU rendering. One of the most popular on Linux was Compiz which worked with Gnome. Instead we got javascript and then typescript everywhere. It must be difficult to maintain with compared to C++ since the new platforms have such fixed requirements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QokOwvPxrE

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

I think this a general problem post ~2010? I recall being very excited about the wide range of DEs and WMs. WindowMaker, Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, fluxbox/openbox, some weird 3d shit. There was even some BeOS clones. Everything is flat and gay. A menu bar and a task manager. Tiling or floating. No choice

I used to be into all of it. At some point I ended up just caring about functionality, which is how I ended up mostly just sticking to DWM. It's definitely not the prettiest thing out there and it doesn't give you a ton out if the box. But it gives me what I need. Everything else you see just feels like an attempt to copy windows, or Mac, or its dwm with extra stuff thrown on top, that or an i3 like tiler.

Obviously with the floating standalone window managers those are kind of off in their own area. I never had much interest in them so I can't comment on them really.

 

[moocow]

It must be difficult to maintain with compared to C++ since the new platforms have such fixed requirements.

It's a real shame, especially with KDE, since it's built on Qt, and Qt is a fucking phenomenal library and toolkit. Everything you can do in that rather silly "QML" thing (the Javascript/XML garbage) can also be done in native C++, and it handles GPU-acceleration for UI widgets just fine whether they're built in C++ or JS. If you can't make something work in Qt, it's legitimately worth first asking "why not" followed by "why do I actually want this/is there a better way to do this?" because there's usually a very good reason something isn't working as expected. The only thing that really sucks about Qt is the dual-license commercialized bullshit they shoehorn into it. Technologically, it's some of the best software ever written by humans.

 

[AbendCode12]

It's a real shame, especially with KDE, since it's built on Qt, and Qt is a fucking phenomenal library and toolkit. Everything you can do in that rather silly "QML" thing (the Javascript/XML garbage) can also be done in native C++, and it handles GPU-acceleration for UI widgets just fine whether they're built in C++ or JS. If you can't make something work in Qt, it's legitimately worth first asking "why not" followed by "why do I actually want this/is there a better way to do this?" because there's usually a very good reason something isn't working as expected. The only thing that really sucks about Qt is the dual-license commercialized bullshit they shoehorn into it. Technologically, it's some of the best software ever written by humans.

Really, every application for linux is a demo application of the underlying framework. Its funny that KompoZer wasn't nearly as popular as Compiz which I always attributed to the fact that kde3 was so good it just kept people focused.

 

[Betonhaus]

Hypothetically if I do get around to finishing my app which basically turns a pc into a tv (app launcher is like a cable channel guide and app switcher is like the input changer dialog) would it actually be popular as a super minimal window manager that is easy to navigate using a number pad?

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

Hypothetically if I do get around to finishing my app which basically turns a pc into a tv (app launcher is like a cable channel guide and app switcher is like the input changer dialog) would it actually be popular as a super minimal window manager that is easy to navigate using a number pad?

Probably not. I might give it a go to compare to i3 for this kind of purpose (currently I would just hold the Windows key and hit 'j' on one of those shitty little palm sized BT keyboards to cycle through windows).

But that shouldn't stop you from doing it for the love (and those who it might appeal to). Provided you make sure you don't dox yourself when you do publicly post it, if you link to it here.

 

[Betonhaus]

Probably not. I might give it a go to compare to i3 for this kind of purpose (currently I would just hold the Windows key and hit 'j' on one of those shitty little palm sized BT keyboards to cycle through windows).

But that shouldn't stop you from doing it for the love (and those who it might appeal to). Provided you make sure you don't dox yourself when you do publicly post it, if you link to it here.

Not going to lie it'll take a while for me to finish it, and it's literally just going to be a python project that has basically these two windows:

Application launcher (fullscreen window):
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ TVWCS                                                7:42 PM   │
├──────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                  │                                             │
│ WEATHER          │ 10  Jellyfin       Movies & TV              │
│ 43F with rain    │ 11  Plex           Movies & TV              │
│                  │ 12  Kodi           Media Center             │
│                  │                                             │
│ SYSTEM           │ 20  YouTube         Streaming               │
│ ● Connected      │ 21  Netflix         Streaming               │
│                  │                                             │
│                  │ 30  Steam           Games                   │
│ Media            │ 31  RetroArch       Games                   │
│ Nothing Playing  │                                             │
│                  │ 40  Firefox         Internet                │
│                  │                                             │
└──────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

App switcher (popup in corner of screen)
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ TVWCS                        │
│ QUICK MENU                   │
├──────────────────────────────┤
│ CHANNEL: —                   │
│                              │
│ > Previous App               │
│   Running Apps               │
│   Channel Guide              │
└──────────────────────────────┘

But looking at it, once i get the python proof of concept that runs on i3 running maybe I can persuade someone to make something in C that combines this concept with a fork of something like DWM to make an extremely lightweight solution that is intuitive without having to memorize a bunch of keyboard shortcuts. or maybe by then i'll learn to code enough to figure it out on my own.

Edit: I could probably simplify it a little more. Having preassigned numbers for every app in existence would be a pain so the channel guide would probably just grab the normal application list with collapsible categories and apps can be assigned a channel number manually, and even launch options can have their own channel number. Then people can enter the number code for the channel or start typing the app name to pull up a search menu like D menu or something. But then I increasingly get to the point that something similar likely already exists, but I guess not as a 10-foot interface design.

 

[Tap Water Enjoyer]

As an update to my zswap post: it turned Unreal Engine 5 slop from a stuttery mess into a 99% smooth experience on a shitty hdd, which somehow runs even better than on a SATA SSD without zswap. I love how I can just tweak some Linux setting to drastically improve performance, like back in the day when you could just go into a game config and tweak anything to turn the game from an unplayable mess into working well on any specs. For example I remember when early Payday 2 would run 10x better by simply lowering shadow resolution in a config, which seemed like magic. Now majority of games (which are UE5) don't let you edit almost anything anymore. So it's nice to be able to do this stuff again.

My settings:
max pool = 30 (5gb)
threshold = 90
compressor = zstd
shrinker = on
swappiness = 150
swap file = 20gb
Logic behind it is: swap file needs to back up any uncompressed data (which can reach up to 4x ratio) before zswap can use up all of its possible pool. Swappiness above 100 prioritizes swapping non-asset files (anonymous pages) first before kicking the assets out of ram. This should prevent unnecessary re-loading of said assets from a slower disk which results in bad performance. At max load, threshold is a safety feature to prevent weird behavior and shrinker moves cold zswap into a disk swap to make room for the game data. The huge pool is to avoid triggering the disk swaps as much as possible. It's also worth nothing that the max pool is just a limit and the pool is dynamically adjusted as needed. So currently it's only at 24kb despite the 5gb limit.

I think so far the highest size of the shared swap was 4,5/20gb and the average compression ratio was x3. I have yet to try the games I had the worst problems with since they all take up hundreds of GBs, so that's still on my to do list. The settings are a bit overkill, but really there's no negatives to it apart from the space taken by the swap file. Hopefully someone finds this info useful or interesting.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

It's kinda funny how despite everything, my favourite thing about switching to linux is the lack of auto-updates. I check the Discover Software Centre every now and again and it'll say there's a bazillion system upgrades waiting for me, yet if I click and go through them it's just 99.99% junk that I have no intention of updating right now. God forbid that LibreOffice is a version out of date or that the fonts file is ready to upgrade. I'll just bulk update every 3 months when my web browser is starting to get a few vulnerabilities.

I don't think I've updated a single thing so far that has made me go "huh, that was a worthy upgrade", it's just bits and pieces in the background that don't fucking matter.

It's night and day compared to the Windows thing of downloading updates no matter what I say and then to top it off, being unable to simply update the PC and shut down as it'd glitch and boot up again.