Posts by Pelican Express

Linux user, but still affected.

I use Linux for home and for work. Whatever happening in the Windows world has little effect on me.

Nevertheless, I am indirectly influenced by the Win11 hardware requirements. When I buy used parts for my toy projects, for example a Proxmox server. I still prefer to opt for specs which is Win11 compliant.

There are plenty of Dell optiplex with Intel 6th gen for $100. Instead, I bought a used motherboard with intel 11th gen for $150 + reusing old parts at home.

I have also sold 2 old motherboards in home computers (11 and 15 years old). Then replaced by 2nd hand mobo + Ryzen 5xxxG. Main reason is ecology. The old ones either too energy intensive or doesn't handle well sleep state.

Nevertheless if I have old computers. But green enough and which can handle sleep state ok. Maybe starting from Intel 3th gen? And there are many hundreds of those which are no longer Win11 compliant. Those computers are perfectly fine to run Linux. And in fact maybe even better than a more modern Win11 or wven 12.

Gnome is no longer a concern for me. Has switched to KDE which I find way better than Gnome in every aspect: Apps, desktop config, custom theming.

Count on me

No danger, I bought 64G DDR4 last year. That was probably enough for the RAM industry to hang on for another year.

Any official Plasma 5.26 backport for Kubuntu 22.04 ?

Currently using Kubuntu 22.04 + Plasma 5.25 https://kubuntu.org/news/plasma-5-25-for-jammy-22-04-available-via-ppa/

Do you know if there is any official plan to backport Plasma 5.26 as well?

Some slight hiccups (Gnome version)

I updated my work machine from 20.04.4, Secure boot, Gnome 3.36.8 with X11 to 22.04.1 Gnome 42.2 with Wayland

Using the command line method which essentially are:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

reboot

sudo do-release-upgrade

The upgrade was successful. The most visible change was the switch from Gnome 3.36.8 on X11 to Gnome 42.2 / Wayland. The computer works almost like before. The distro upgrade had disabled some 3rd party repos. Which I fixed by manually uninstalling the app and reinstalling again connecting to the new repo jammy instead of focal. Example: terraform, helm.

The hiccups I got were minors which I guess were caused by the switch from X11 to Wayland:

1- Bitwarden (snap app) no longer show up. Fixed by uninstall + reinstall

2- Firefox, same as above. Except that I installed a non-snap version. Not that I am against snap (I don't mind the slight slow startup), but in the moment of panic, I found a tutorial installing Fixefox https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04. As Firefox works OK so I just leave it as is.

3- The app icons in the top status bar (Slack, Teams, OpenLens, etc.) are all lost. Gnome extension seems to still work because the custom theme is still working.

4- Flameshot is permanently non-functional

5- pass requires `apt install wl-clipboard`

6- ZSH autosuggestions plugin works but the FG color of the suggested syntax is white instead of dimmed gray. This becomes confusing as this gives the impressiont hat you have already type the suggested text.

Overall the computer is functional, I can works as before startup apps, Git, Tmux, GPG, dev tools seems to work as before.

In spite of the hiccups, I'd say the upgrade was successful. The above minor issues are fixable or would have workable alternatives.

Right now I would say that I don't like the Libwaita theme of native Gnome4 apps such as the "text Editor 42.2". It's titlebar is all black not respecting the colored titlebar of the custom theme. Its confusing like hell because when several windows overlap it's hard to tell them apart.

I think I am going to switch from Gnome to KDE. Currently playing around with KDE on a separate machine. Find KDE more logical, at least suits me better in terms of config. Not sure if this is worth the efforts though.

That's enough I switch to KDE

What bothers me the most in modern UI is they are all gray. Personally this becomes very confusing when there are many overlapping windows. It becomes hard to distinguish the window in focus as it is drown among many other windows having the exact same background.

Somehow I prefer the old fashion style, the windows with a colored title bar. The windows which are not in focus have a dim titlebar. But this doesn't exist anymore by default. With Gnome I need to install extension and hunt for custom themes. I went so far as learning how to edit the gtk.css as most of themes authors also abandon the idea of colored titlebar. Not sure if this is good design or just copycat game.

That GTK4 on theme change is the last drop. Now I am going to switch to KDE. Which allows the user to customize the UI. Surprisingly also down to the titlebar color.

The real Arch guru is the one who knows how to connect a network printer!

> able to install an Arch system and get it up and running inside an hour.

It was pretty time consuming when I learnt to install Arch the 1st time. Now I can install OK. However there is one thing I find super hard. I struggled for 2 days and still could not have a laser printer working. Its a quite recent network Brother laser which works practically plug-an-play with Ubuntu and Windows. Unfortunately the model doesn't have packages in AUR. I built packages from the *.deb downloaded from Brother. Installed OK, Add printer via CUPS WebUI or via the KDE Printer settings. Tried every possible ways to configure the printer. But could not print anything. Print job say job done but nothing happened at the printer.

Not sure what's was wrong, I did everything by the book (setup cups, avahi, PKGBUILD of LPR driver, PKGBUILD cupswrapper).

Network Navigator will be the new name

Knowing MS tradition to use plain dictionary words in a long sentence to name products. Such as "SQL Server Integration Services". The new IE name will be in the same veine and I anticipate it to be "Network Navigator".

Could that be just the desktop color?

Germany has full of people with Linux skills. I can't believe the technical problem could not be solved. One little thing I have noticed with users who say no to everything. They are hypnotized by the only thing they learnt the first time. In this case, the XP Luna blue theme.

I would be interested by the following experience. Install XP back but change the visual theme to something else other than the original XP. I wonder if the feedbacks would be the same than when they were trying the Linux desktop.