The Linux geek thread - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

It even runs on a reasonable range of devices.

Blue Swirl

qfpt

Blue Swirl wrote:

SpaceGazelle wrote:

We could do with a decent Linux os for phones that isn't owned by big tech.

Found this while futzing around - https://postmarketos.org/ Linux-based, rather than an Android derivative.

Blue Swirl

Some random bits and pieces from OMGUbuntu that might be of interest to folks.

OneDrive support coming to Nautilus file manager.

The Warp terminal could be very useful to folks who spend their lives in the command line (and/or work cooperatively).

While you've been able to use Apple earphones/buds with Linux systems for a while, you haven't been able to check the remaining battery - because Apple uses a slightly different method than everyone else for doing so. (Curse you, Cupertino!) Thanks to some intrepid reverse engineering, now you can.

Ed_Flanders

I don't use any of those, but cheers anyway.
What I'm pondering now is a move to Wayland, just to see what I'm missing. The KDE implementation possibly? Getting slightly bored of Xfce after so many years. It's solid, though, you have to give it that.

Blue Swirl

Got GhostBSD running on my old laptop, so here's your "posting from that machine now (but you've got no way to tell, so you'll just have to trust me)" post.

hunk

Fantastic! :-)

Blue Swirl

Battery seems to be running hot, and I can't get the BIOS to boot from the drive with BSD on it by default, but eh. It's a project. A big fat "Raspberry Pi" to play with.

Ed_Flanders

I don't think I've even tried any of the BSDs. I've read they're incredibly secure by default, but you need to work hard to do some things we take for granted in Linux world.

Blue Swirl

My experience goes as far as getting NomadBSD on a USB stick one evening and going "Huh, it works."

It'll be interesting to see how different it is. First step might be to get Bluetooth working; it seems that it does work but you have batter it into submission first. Or just buy a dongle and give up a USB port.

Blue Swirl

In other news, you know what's excellent? GNOME 3 is excellent.

Ed_Flanders

Never given Gnome a chance; I'm an Xfce man. Now I'm testing KDE 5.27 on the new computer and it's been fantastic so far. Version 6 seems to be giving people more trouble at the moment, though.

Blue Swirl

It's the default on Ubuntu; I can see why certain folks got narked with it and made MATE, but I like it. Functional and uncluttered, but if you like the desktop metaphor, you might find it a bit Tonka toy. I think it really works on the smaller screen of my Surface Go 2.

The laptop I used at my last job ran KDE neon, I really liked that too. Back at university I had Xubuntu on a bondi blue iMac; Xfce saved my bacon while I waited for my laptop to be repaired.

I guess I'm just easily impressed.

Blue Swirl

OK, so, further tinkering with my GhostBSD install has garnered results. I’ve managed to get it to boot into BSD by default; I didn’t do anything different (just changed the boot device order in the BIOS), but this time it worked. Maybe last time I derped and exited without saving. Or the BIOS is wonky. Either way, s’all good now.

Today I mainly got the look-and-feel down, making sure that the taskbar etc. were the right size and colour.

The battery seems to have cooled down, so maybe it was struggling under the load of installation/updating/constant tinkering to get things just so. It still drains really quickly, though - a test run at a local cafe saw the battery go from 100 to 80% in about an hour, and I wasn’t doing much with it. Ah well, it’s just for playing with anyway.

I couldn’t get it to connect to my iPhone’s Wi-Fi hotspot, though, even when I used the “maximise compatibility” option on my phone. Works fine with my home Wi-Fi, though, so shrug.gif. Looking around online it looks like lots of GhostBSD users buy a USB dongle to get around BSD’s notoriously bad wireless support.

Anyone got any experience with those? I’ve seen a few that purportedly have BlueTooth and Wi-Fi stuff in a tiny wee USB dongle; I’d still have two USB ports free, so losing one wouldn’t be terrible.

I also found an M.2 “SSD” that’s a Wi-Fi card. Given that I’m not using the M.2. drive anymore, that could be an option, too. But I’d still have to figure out a solution for BlueTooth, so it might be overkill. (Why have a wifi SSD card and then have to lose a USB port for BlueTooth when the USB port could do both?)

Ed_Flanders

Anything with an Intel chipset should work out of the box, but I think USB ones are quite rare. The (rather old) wifi-only USB sticks I have are Realtek and they work fine.

Blue Swirl

Ed_Flanders wrote:

Anything with an Intel chipset should work out of the box, but I think USB ones are quite rare.

Are we talking about wifi or bluetooth here? Or the computer itself?

Ed_Flanders

Sorry, I meant USB dongles with wifi and bluetooth.

Blue Swirl

USB wifi/bluetooth dongles with Intel processors? Or am I being thick?

Ed_Flanders

Um, apparently Intel only make internal adapters with m.2 connectors for desktops/laptops, like this one https://www.newegg.com/intel-wi-fi-6-ax200/p/N82E16833106102. They don't make USB ones. My mistake.

Blue Swirl

Ah, OK, I'm all caught up. Nice to have options. I'll check that out.

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