This is precisely why I use NixOS. I have almost my entire configuration as “code” (data structures more like, but what’s the difference any way?), such that when I break something, I can just undo my commits and go back to a working version (and the OS itself retrains several snapshots, so I can always pick the previous one.
And with LLMs the bar to do things, with my nix configuration (nixcfg), has lowered to the ground. Throw in a few videos from Vimjoyer and you got a stew going.
Urge to distro hop again…rising…
I’ve hopped from HoloISO to Nobora and EndeavourOS to OpenSUSE. Landed on NixOS on all my machines now and it’s perfect. There’s a bit of a learning curve even compared to other distros but once it clicks, you wonder why you weren’t using it earlier.
To get started: Install NixOS, grab your
/etc/nix/configuration.nix, and/etc/nix/hardware-configuration.nix(from the top of my head) and throw them in a git repo.nix-shell -p <application>if you quickly need a shell with a specific (temporary) program, like git (just for bootstrapping; add git to theconfiguration.nixif you wish to keep it.Start with that, and slowly keep adding programs, configuration. If you eventually wish to add a second computer to the one configuration (so you can start reusing configuration), do that. Keep steps small.
Here you can dig through each step I take in my nixcfg - I started with just the
configuration.nix, and share that between machines, but it turns out you’re supposed to add thehardware-conguration.nixto the repo as well, so then I started to do that (with still a sharedconfiguration.nix. Well, partially:Read nixstory.md if you want to see a quick LLM-generated history of how my repo changed over time (based on my git history).
So it’s kinda like klipper/mainsail but for an operating system?
There’s the German saying, that the shoemaker always has the worst shoes.
In America we say “never buy a mechanic’s car.”
Is Spain we say that the blacksmith uses wooden spoons.
This is why you keep 2 computers. One that is dull and as stock as you can. And then you have that beater box to get stupid with. Drive the sum biotch right into that kernal panic at 100mph just for fun.
So therapeutic some days…
Mac and a half a dozen server homelab. Plex was a homelab test that’s now “prod” (family won’t let me shut it off) so it’s in the prod environment outside of my homelab
My Mac is supposed to be the safe box too. I keep having to talk myself down from installing Asahi.
You and me both.
Haha I have an older m1 I’m about to put asahi on. Going to use it for small models
A good excuse to get another cheap box to crash and burn!
Any excuse to hoard more hardware these days
Just use i3.
my linux honeymoon has far gone. nowadays I just use fedora gnome and actually work on something that makes money.
This really is the journey, isn’t it?
Tinkering is fun when your actual goal is to tinker.
But when your goal is to get work done then the machine is just a tool, and there is nothing more frustrating than a broken tool.
I’m still tinkering but insofar to keep myself from doing anything else with my computer, I got shit to do.
And by “be productive” you mean looking at cat pictures, right?
At least for me, Linux people are never content with their system.
There’s always something new to try…
That’s the fun of Linux : you can customize your experience instead of having to put up with Microsoft or Apple.
You choose a distribution that fits your preferences.
- We tried setting up hyprland with Arch
- Used an older guide, updated and translated it to the newest standard, learning about the unique scripting
- Get almost everything working
- Actually loved the feel of the ui and did get used to using terminal for almost everything
- Things started falling apart
- Steam started fucking up, everything was going horrible.
- joined the support discord, found problem doing good over more :)
- Update? Oo oki!
- Hyprland: hmm nice fully custom set up you have here, would be a shame if someone were to change all the ui script you literally just learned :)
- :(
- Back on KDE + Cachy OS as we didn’t want to fight with our computer anymore, it’s good, great even, but… missing the window management of Hyprland now.
- Don’t get us wrong, we’re very happy with KDE! It’s just… that window management 🥺
- if only we could get that in KDE
I like Niri a lot. Plus the maintainer isn’t an asshole.
Haven’t heard of Niri, what’s that one all about?
It’s a column-based tiling window manager, with scrolling!
That’s why sway and river exist. They’re actually stable.
Haven’t heard of them before tbh, from the replies Sway not be super stable. And river?
I have my (edit: RIVER) config for over a year and it’s very reliable. It never broke on me apart from the misconfigurations which were my fault.
It also integrates well with Waybar and is compatible with other Wayland tools for wlroots.
But keep in mind that my config is relatively minimal.
Sway still struggling with screensharing (specifically window sharing) tho or atleast it was last time I yried it in february :(
Sway 1.12, released last week, added support for capturing individual windows.
For river, I had to do some kind of fix. I’ll talk about it later. Reply if I forget.
Might be worth doing a bit of research on the associations surrounding Hyprland https://drewdevault.com/blog/Hyprland-toxicity/
Just don’t donate and disable the nag, it doesn’t really matter, he gains nothing from you if you do this.
I’m afraid this is coming from Drew Devault
I tried to get on the Window Manager hype train — I know it is productive and shit and much more efficient than traditional desktops — but dropped it because it just needs to be configured endlessly and yet I still end up using the mouse when I am just laid back on my chair eating a banana. Installed KDE Plasma and stuck with it ever since. Everything doesn’t need to be text files and command line. A bit of user friendly GUI in life doesn’t hurt.
No shame in that. I love sway/i3 because it force me to keep my screen tidy, but you are right that it takes time to get a decent config file.
Not everything has to be a poweruser wet dream and most Linux distro allows you to do 95% of the stuff you need through the GUI, so more power to you to customize your experience.
Gentoo Linux user here. Sometimes when I open my laptop’s lid, the hard drive disconnects
you get that feature for free?
It comes with the price of tons of compile time for everything
And also
Btw, downloading a CD (.iso) on the phone to boot it, because your Linux broke while you had no bootable thumbdrive around. Is something a lot of people here did sometime.
I had that exact situation but simply went to the library to fix it. Modern phones scare me.
PSA: get a cheap thumb drive and install ventoy. You’ll never regret it!
Plus you can technically still use it to store files if you make a directory in the ventoy dump partition.
I keep memtest86+, clonezilla, Ubuntu 24.04lts, gparted, and boot-repair on the drive.
maybe not ventoy specifically since it’s full of binary blobs that are virtually unvettable
I’ve got a binary blob right here 🥵
Eh, good enough. Your Linux install also has binary blobs.
Yeah, I need to find a better way. Been trying to setup pxe boot in docker
Always been partial to this one
I never even thought of that - you then plug in your phone as a thumb drive? Makes sense.
I mean I’m not sure I could actually boot off of my phone as a USB drive. That would be an interesting concept.
It does, though with an app that exposes the iso.
Edit: Right, i thought it was EtchDroid. I think it was DriveDroid (with a broken cert)? There’s also SimpleBoot now.
That looks like a program that is using your phone to write an ISO to a USB using your phone, not using your phone as a bootable source. But, still useful.
Edited, thanks.
Unlikely. The USB protocol requires one master and one or more slaves (or whatever less charged nomenclature you prefer). In all likelihood UEFI will blindly assume to be the master while Android and iOS require negotiation to figure out who’s boss and what interface to present.
Although given UEFI it might be possible to patch that functionality in.i had this feature when i installed ubports (ubuntu touch) on my phone in 2021.
much before that in 2013 my phone’s stock rom had a ‘driver install’ mode that presents an iso file in the system partition to the computer as a virtual cdrom, i could swap out that file with a linux iso and it would boot
The USB protocol and UEFI aren’t a problem, but Android/iOS might be. I’ve booted various PCs from a raspberry pi (USB-OTG), but the last time I tried to boot an iso from my android phone I couldn’t get it to work. It’s been a while so I can’t remember exactly what the issue was.
My guess the issue is that phones don’t just show up as simple drives, they rely on MTP support
That’s what I was referring to with “which interface to present.”
There’s a tool, whose name I forget, which is included in Kali NetHunter to do just that. It does whatever trickery is needed to present the phone/tablet as a bootable thumb drive. It requires root and, to my dismay when I needed it, I never owned a device that was rootable to fully use NetHunter. It could do a lot of other cool stuff via USB too; phone as a Bad USB, Rubber Ducky, automated Windows login bypasses, etc.
Been there, done that
Just a couple days ago I needed a microsd to usb adapter. Couldn’t find one, so I loaded the files to a memory with fat usb(I don’t know what it’s called) and usb c connections. Then connected the memory to my phone and on my phone I moved the files to the microsd card.
Not the same but similar vibes I think.
It’s sad that several phones are removing the memory slot.
Fat USB is called USB A. The one you use for printers is USB B. Then there are mini-A, mini-B, micro-A, micro-B and USB 3.0 micro-B which are all different shapes physically. And USB A 3.0 has slightly different contacts from USB A 1.0/2.0
Anyway, that was when USB nomenclature was still simple. Don’t google anything they did past version 3.0, for your own sanity. We’re now down to mostly the USB C and A shapes, but USB 3.2 gen 1x1 is the same thing as USB 3.1 gen 1 is the same thing as USB 3.0.
USB 4 simplified things a bit, but now you can get things like
Gen 4 asymmetric 3:1It seems we need a new standard to prevent all this confusion…
What have we done…
I am a computer person. My philosophy is probably a common one, if it works don’t touch it.
I am an Arch user. My philosophy is probably just as common: if it works, I must fuck with it
It’s a common philosophy practiced by everyone that says, “yeah, I probably shouldn’t mess with this, it is working fine right now, but … Maybe …”
Well, we profess to follow it at least.
The truthest truth, but also the hardest one to follow
Not when tvey run debian. shit just works, nonstop all the time
Let me introduce you to my good friend Sid.
SID is also crazy stable. The only issue I had was that once or twice xdm broke but it’s because it’s barely supported anymore. I’m just to stubborn to switch to gdm.
IDK if I’d say crazy stable, but it is more stable than its reputation. I rolled with it for years and the worst that would happen is an update would uninstall gdm or gnome. A few months ago Wayland just got rocked on my system and I could only get into x11 desktops. Tried to get it to work again and waited for updates but never worked. Gave up and switched to Trixie and have a much smoother experience now.
…at the price of everything moving at snail’s pace
How is that a bad thing? The vulnerabilities get fixed and the distro is stable.
I’m not a computer guy. I’m a bicycle guy.
I build them up myself, buy cheap ones on ebay to fix and modify, know basically all there is to know about stem standards, drivetrain compatibility, etc.I currently have 6 non-functional bikes in my garage.
The key is to call them all “pet projects” that are “still being worked on” and then not do anything with them for another month.
(Engineering/Tech guy here)
I’ve seen “my other car is 10 motorcycles that don’t run” stickers before and I felt personally attacked
I just bought my fourth oneplus 6 phone. Two are non functional. Maybe this will be the one where I finally get linux running on my phone lol
I also have four non functional bikes
Hey, I am also trying to get OnePlus 6 for that purpose.
Or N900 for shits and giggles.you can get em new in the box on ebay. the used ones can be sketch.
eBay is pretty useless where I am. At least with their filtering. If only they included shipping in price filter.
Otherwise, the average item is along the lines of $5 + $50 shipping.Yeah, they are either shipped accross the world or some scumbag that tries to make easy money (ebay don’t tax you on the money for the shipping)
yeah these ship from china so whatever that costs where you are.
Me but with cameras. I have 2, maybe 3 working ones. Lots and lots of bits of others.
Any functional bikes tho? [or should I guess lol]
Yes, 1.
N+1
