It really depends what you want out of your computer, how much you like to tinker, and how comfortable you are getting your hands dirty. I got back onto a daily driver Linux desktop a little under two years ago, but I’ve been running Linux on servers since um…mid 90s? I’ve had Linux desktops mostly on secondary computers, but didn’t go back fully until more recently.

I don’t run Arch, but I feel like that community is probably closest to the feeling Linux had back in the day–when we recompiled the kernel with the specific drivers we needed for everything to save memory, I knew every process running, every program I installed. I compiled most of my own programs from source. Or maybe Gentoo is the current version of that. If that’s your jam, go that route.

For a while in the early aughts I ran a ton of servers with RedHat and developed an aversion to rpm and its mess of dependencies. Debian felt so much more stable and I’ve been picking Debian for servers ever since. If you want boring and stable, you can’t go wrong with Debian. I have many times just set up Debian with automatic update and reboot, and those things just keep going for years. I can’t remember when a Debian update broke my system, which I definitively can’t say for every OS.

Then, I started wanting to game on Linux. The flip side of boring and stable is outdated. So when I planned my new Linux desktop build I went distro shopping a bit. I tried out a few live distros at first. I knew I wanted up-to-date drivers (for new hardware), but not a lot of tinkering, because I got a lot older and less patient at this point.

I ended up on Fedora this time. My choice was driven by the balance of being up to date enough for my (simple) gaming needs, yet mainstream enough (read: boring) that if anything broke, there would be forums available and I could get back to just enjoying my computer. I prefer KDE Plasma over Gnome, so that’s what I ended up with.

I’m happy with it and not planning to change. But I do get that sinking feeling of not really knowing what my computer is doing, because, just like on Windows, there are a hundred processes running in the background and I don’t know what half of them do. It’s just that at this point I’m not curious enough anymore to go digging into the man pages and the wikis and peruse the source code to find out. I just want it to work and let me get to my doom scrolling.

So for mainstream and boring, I recommend Debian or Fedora, maybe one of the Arch derivatives like CachyOS. If you want to customize and tinker, probably plain Arch or one of the smaller distros that are well documented and less opinionated. I didn’t mention Mint, because I think it’s a bit too simplified for someone with some Linux experience. I would install it for my parents, though.

your Blinkenlights fluid. Not to be confused with blinker fluid

For best performance, remember to always change your internet filter when you change your blinkenlights fluid

Unfortunately I don’t think the latest SDL works with the Linux console frame buffer anymore, but thanks for the links!

I use Merlinwrt on my Asus router. They have a bit longer support and I think it’s open source. May be worth looking into.

Back in the olden days we used to run games buikt with SDL on the console without a desktop. But they have to be built for it and Steam doesn’t fit that bill.

Vennligst stable stolene når dagen er over. 🇳🇴

Looks like you’re in Norway, so I suggest you reach out in norge.chat (matrix) and see if anybody can suggest something, perhaps a local provider or community of people with similar interests.

I’m on Fedora, so ironically in experiencing more frequent updates and rebooting than on Windows. I simply changed the reminder frequency. Due to the nature of Fedora being on the leading edge, I do sometimes experience a glitch here and there but nothing yet that has turned my system unstable.

Most of my hardware is compatible, except my Blue Yeti needs unplugged and reconnected after every reboot.

I still have a laptop on Windows 11 and I miss Linux when I use it. I’m have to try and get Linux running on that someday, but hardware support is a little more iffy.

I don’t miss any software. I had to give up Adobe Lightroom, but that felt more like leaving an abusive relationship. I went to Digikam and she’s been treating me with respect. I also use Rawtherapy, which is great but has a learning curve.

So I’m conclusion: if your hardware is supported and you’re not opposed to learning new software I don’t think you’ll miss it. I haven’t.

For very simple Kubernetes and Docker environments, I’ve used Dex IdP with good results. It’s low on features, but easy to set up.

This was the first thing that came to mind when they mentioned a program. I very rarely create programs that don’t need to be updated later, unless they’re single use throwaways.

I’ve inherited support for programs that we had lost the source code for, though, and that sucks.

So that’s a no from me.

I see. My concern was with security scanning tools often put on computers by enterprise IT departments but it sounds like that’s not the case here.

In your situation, assuming you’re not finding what you seek with journalctl, I think I would use a tool like vmstat or sar to collect periodic snapshots of CPU, memory, and io. You can tell it to collect data every X seconds and tee that to a file. After you reboot you can see what happened leading up to the crash. You should be able to import the data into a spreadsheet or something for analysis, but it’s not very intuitive and you’ll need to consult man pages for the options and how to interpret them.

There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread. I would lean towards a hardware or driver issue, maybe bad RAM. Unfortunately these things take a lot of trial and error to figure out.

It may not be the raw RAM usage.

My first suspect is the Windows VM especially if it’s running enterprise security software 4GB is probably not enough for modem Windows and it could be trying to use its page file, thrashing your disk in the process.

Are you able to collect some data from system monitor on paging and disk activity? That could help you narrow it down. You can use btop for a quick terminal option if your gui is non responsive (assuming your could switch to a console). Vmstat is another option that you can run in the background to collect stats over time, but it’s not user friendly.

It does sound like you may be suffering from depression, but it also sounds like you are receiving treatment. Assuming this isn’t something medical, maybe you need a change of scenery to change your outlook.

You could travel, as I would have. You could also engage in a hobby (perhaps with friends, new or old). If you’re feeling altruistic, maybe think of something that you wish someone had done for you, when you were in a worse situation. Maybe you know someone who’s down on their luck and you can help them. It doesn’t have to be with money, it can be in other ways. I’ve heard that one way to break out of the depression spiral is to focus your attention outward instead of inward. That would be a way to do it.

I hope you find your way out of the funk. As bleak as things look, there are still things to be happy about and be grateful for. Don’t let your past prevent you from appreciating the present.

If I were in that situation I would buy a shitty flat, pay it off, then spend as little time there as possible while traveling the world. Maybe have some passive income from the flat by renting it out. Not having kids to worry about would make all that a lot simpler.

But you should do what makes you happy. Try not to worry too much about the future and enjoy what you have now.

I can only think of two ways if the top of my head:

• Immich runs as root and sets ownership (sounds unsafe)
• Immich is the owner of all the files, but each user has a specific group (bobs-photos) of which Immich and the user are members. Then use the setgid bit to set group ownership and make it g+rwx.

Both sound pretty brittle to me, though, and I haven’t tested this specifically.

Thank you! TIL

Not all! So about this bridge…

I hope people realize you are being sarcastic.

I’m no stereo expert, but from what I understand the hum comes from interference or ground problems. I’ve been told that adding ferrite chokes (like the ones on old VGA cables) to your cables can help, but you probably have to try a couple of things to fix it.

Also: typically, only analog cables have issues with electronic interference. Digital either works or it doesn’t. In other words, gold plated triple shielded digital cables are a waste of money.

Both MySQL and MariaDb are named after the developer’s daughters.