ipacialsection

ipacialsection , 3 days ago

I'm against a megathread. That would be too busy and I think there will be more than enough to discuss about each episode.

For entirely selfish reasons, I'd like individual discussion threads for each episode that come out one or two a day, since that's the pace I expect to be watching it (optimistically).

Though, I think the best option for everyone might be five-episode blocks. That would allow both bingewatchers and slower viewers to enjoy the conversation without spamming the feed, and will match up well enough with the "parts" it would have been split into if it aired on Nickelodeon that both broad and individual episode discussions will make sense.

ipacialsection , 4 days ago

The major tradeoff with zRAM is that programs are much more likely to crash due to running out of memory, but will run faster when memory is running low and freezes are less likely. You can think of it as offloading the pressure that traditional swap puts onto your disk, onto the (much faster) CPU. There will be an impact on CPU usage, but not enough to cause noticeable slowdown; in my experience running Linux, the CPU is almost never the reason something is slow, and is only going to be under significant pressure if you're running a 3D game in software rendering, compiling a large program, or another complex CPU-bound task.

I wouldn't recommend making the switch unless you often encounter system freezes or slowness while running tasks that use a lot of RAM (like web browsing on certain sites, or gaming), but it will improve things in that case.

ipacialsection , 4 days ago

Yeah, 50% (ram / 2) seems about right.

ipacialsection , 4 days ago (edited 4 days ago)

You can install an antivirus, but you really don't need to. Malware for Linux is rare, and malware that targets desktop Linux users is extremely rare (to the point that it's a newsworthy story every time it does appear). Most distros have ClamAV and the frontend ClamTk in their repos, but it's primarily used to scan servers for Windows malware before it reaches its intended target. Some Windows malware can still be harmful if run with Wine/Proton, but unless you're downloading and running a lot of Windows software from unofficial sources (which you shouldn't have any reason to) that won't be a risk.

ipacialsection , 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

It's not systemd's fault, though systemd most often implements offline updates. The arguments for and against offline updates have nothing to do with systemd.

A lot of Linux distros, and graphical package managers like Discover and GNOME Software, are moving in that direction, under the argument that updating while online can cause disruptions to running software, in the worst case including the package manager itself (which can brick the system if it occurs in the middle of a critical update), and updates can't be applied until the affected program (or the system, in case of critical components like the kernel) restarts anyway. Fedora Magazine explains the reasoning here: https://fedoramagazine.org/offline-updates-and-fedora-35/

In my personal experience though, I have never had an issue enabling automatic online updates on Debian Stable, and have had computers stay online for several months without any noticeable issues beyond Firefox restarting, so the risk is there but it's pretty minor.

ipacialsection , 6 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

I personally don't use Arch, but I think the reason so many people find it stable in practice is because they know their system well. When something breaks or needs to be changed, they know which configuration file to edit, which package to {un,re,}install, what to look for in the AUR, etc., and they can usually avoid those things in the first place, because they went through a fairly hands-on install process, not to mention having the best Linux wiki in existence at their disposal.

On top of that, I think a lot of derivatives of Debian, including Ubuntu and all its derivatives, severely undermine their stability by providing custom configurations for or changes to software that are rarely documented and completely transparent to the user... until they break and leave no indication of how to fix them. Which is one reason why I ended up using base Debian.

ipacialsection , 7 days ago

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a mix between Starfleet and Vau N'Akat dress.

ipacialsection , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

how do I install programs from outside the "discover store"? I can get the Plex app through the built in app store, but the Plex media server app isn't on there so I have to download it from the website, which gives me a .rpm file.

Installing from Discover (or to be more precise, your distribution's software repositories, for which Discover is a frontend) is usually best practice. Programs you find online are less likely to work on your distro (especially something as technologically unusual as Bazzite). That said, from what I could find online the command to install an RPM file on that distro is sudo rpm-ostree install <path/to/package.rpm>. I have never used boxbuddy or any kind of distro container, but I imagine it would as simple as opening the terminal for one of your distros and entering the appropriate command for that distro to install your package.

Also, outside of the built in discover store, what's the best way to install programs?

Generally, Flatpak packages are safe to install, and any Flatpak repos you enable will show up in Discover. Flathub contains the majority of Flatpak packages in existence, though it might be enabled by default on Bazzite.

What are some cool programs in general to check out? My main use case is gaming, I don't program or do any work on my PC but I'd like to explore just for the sake of exploring!

Just look around in Discover and you'll find lots of gems. As a retro gamer, I've found RetroArch indispensable, as a frontend for all my emulators and then some. Lutris is nice if you want all of your games to be centralized under one launcher. There are lots of fun time-wasting open-source games too.

Also, what's a good way to familiarize myself with using the terminal? I've used the terminal on Windows quite a bit in the past, but only for basic things like unlocking a bootloader on Android and sending a ROM to it, back when I cared enough to root my phones. How would I, for example, pull a program off of github and compile it myself if needed? There's a program on github called gHub GUI by ysph that I'd like to check out, would be nice to be able to configure my mouse since piper doesn't seem to recognize my mouse.

You can just ease into it, or read any number of Linux courses online. Following tutorials on Linux will be as easy as following tutorials on Windows. You can learn about programs with either man <command>, info <command>, or <command> --help.

Most projects include README files instructing you on how to compile and/or install them; the exact process depends on the program. But generally, if you see files named "configure" and "Makefile", the process is to install dependencies, then cd into the source code folder and run ./configure; make; sudo make install.

What are some general best practices that differ from Windows? I don't really know how to narrow this question down, apologies for it being so vague.

Discover should be the first place you go to install programs. Don't install programs from random websites unless you absolutely have to. They probably won't work.

A lot of the programs you are used to from Windows will not be available for Linux. They might be compatible with Wine or Proton, but try to find alternatives to them before you try that. There is a KDE app and a GNOME app for most of the basic uses, and https://alternativeto.net/ is a decent resource for finding Linux-friendly alternatives to just about anything.

You probably don't need an antivirus - there are viruses for Linux, but they are extremely rare, and the anti-malware programs that are available for Linux will only detect and remove Windows viruses.

Don't have any comments on your other issues, because I don't have experience with the software you're using (I rarely if ever buy "gaming" hardware).

ipacialsection , 13 days ago

Debian! It's stable, elegant, and doesn't impede customization. I distro-hopped a lot over the years - some that I ended up disliking included KaOS (severely limited software repository), Clear Linux (only way to get ffmpeg was to compile it from source) and Fedora (very slow); most I liked, and just decided to move on at some point. But I kept coming back to Debian, and eventually got to a point where instead of trying a different distro when Debian broke, I would just reinstall Debian.

I'd be interested to try VanillaOS or another "immutable" distro at some point in the future. See if they've matured enough for my day-to-day use.

ipacialsection , 17 days ago

Now I'm (tentatively) excited to see how they'll outdo a season with a novel gimmick in each and every episode, including a musical and a crossover with a parody show, in terms of gimmicky weirdness.

ipacialsection , 26 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

Glad we have a release date now. Although, I hope they go for weekly releases, because I don't want to feel obligated to binge watch it.

ipacialsection , 27 days ago

Remember Me was one of the episodes that got me into Star Trek. My parents loved TNG and Voyager, but it was one of the first episodes I actually sat down and watched with them, and the whole premise of everyone disappearing, and how Beverly figured out what was going on, hit my brain in just the right way.

ipacialsection , 27 days ago

TOS: The Cloud Minders. One of the show's extremely heavy-handed message episodes, this time about classism and labor rights. It's quite dramatically compelling in addition to expressing its ideas eloquently.

TAS: Beyond the Farthest Star. One of the more "normal" episodes of that series, but it really works for me.

TNG: Contagion. One of the most tense and action-packed TNG episodes, featuring computer malfunctions both amusing and terrifying, but also a great showcase for all the characters, and their ability to combine their talents to solve what seems like an impossible problem, to the point that it's one of the episodes that got me into Trek in general (alongside Remember Me).

DS9: Visionary. Pretty good episode of time travel weirdness, and one of my go to examples of what I think is best way to go about explaining time travel: don't explain it, just do whatever wacky shit you want and laugh off the paradoxes with a recurring joke. "I hate temporal mechanics!"

VOY: Latent Image. In addition to being yet another fascinating exploration of the rights and sentience of artificial life, with a hint of an ethical dilemma in there, I really relate to how the Doctor's trauma responses are described.

DIS: There Is A Tide. I love all of the scenes between Admiral Vance and Osyraa.

PIC: The Impossible Box. I remember that being one of the more tense and well-made episodes of the show, especially Soji's existential crisis and Picard's Borg flashbacks, although I find it hard to think in individual episodes with this one.

LD: Veritas. The show hadn't really clicked with me before this episode. I loved the whole theme about the lack of attention the command crew gives to the ensigns, and how this just adds to their problems.

I've only really seen the consensus classics of ENT, and while I have seen SNW and PRO, my favorites are all consensus favorites that get a decent amount of buzz already.

ipacialsection , 27 days ago

Like I said I've only seen the consensus classics there, and it's been a while. I'm planning to see the rest of it as the Greatest Generation podcast covers it. But it is also probably my least favorite Star Trek show.

ipacialsection , 30 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

This is an interesting comment, actually, because instead of hating on the new shows and comparing them to the old ones, Matt's hating on the old shows for being politically correct and saying DS9 and Voyager, the shows that were currently airing as of 1999, are the good ones. Even though DS9 was more diverse and less subtle about its themes, compared to TNG.

Imagine if Dave Cullen, Doomcock, Midnight's Edge, Nerdrotic, etc. dedicated their careers to saying that the new Star Trek shows were AWESOME because they were less woke than TNG and DS9. That's what this is.

ipacialsection , 30 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

My guess is that they meant either TOS, or the starship Enterprise as compared to the space station DS9.

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

I have to borrow a school laptop just to do proctored exams, because their "lockdown browser" doesn't support Linux, and even if it did, it seems to do some things in kernel mode, so I don't want it on my system.

Surprisingly, most classes at my university are entirely FOSS based, aside from that one piece of software, an obscure scientific program that only one assignment used, and MATLAB (which is easily replaced by GNU Octave.)

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

No distro I'm aware of still provides official box sets and CDs. Debian still provides materials for third parties to make them, though. Most of the vendors of pre-burned Linux media have also shut down, but one that seems to still exist (and offers Debian box sets) is https://www.shoplinuxonline.com/ .

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

Debian Stable, in my experience, can stay online for months, even over a year, with very little attention, and still work as well as you left it. You can also install RHEL or a rebuild, like AlmaLinux, RockyLinux, or Oracle Linux, as a workstation distro.

As for the device, my use case is fairly different so I'm not sure what to suggest. Maybe an Intel NUC, or a Framework laptop.

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

https://framatube.org/w/9dRFC6Ya11NCVeYKn8ZhiD

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

I can't object to more Jett Reno!

ipacialsection , 1 month ago

Wasn't screenfetch the thing neofetch was supposed to replace? Apparently it has more recent development activity (5 months ago), anyway...

ipacialsection , 9 months ago

This is weirdly common, from what I've heard. You'd think it would be obvious that a disorder (or neurotype, or whatever you call autism) requires accommodation, which requires self-advocacy, which requires being allowed to know what's going on with you.