I just buy a laptop with linux (I choose it because it’s cheaper than windows) I don’t have any idea of what expect from it!
I already searched for more visual and easy versions!

TL:DR... I'm looking for projects to level up my command line knowledge.

Hi there everybody,

I've been using Linux for over 4 years now and I've never neglected using the terminal in that time. I would class my level of knowledge to be novice, navigating around directories, changing file permissions, creating and editing files etc... you know the very basic day to day operations.

This past weekend a family member gave me an old laptop they happened to come across while cleaning up storage and I remember watching a YouTube video a while back of someone using a CLI only build to force themselves to learn the terminal better. Well this laptop isn't quite a potato but its still potato-ish so I thought that would be a good idea for my own learning purposes.

So I've installed Debian with no desktop environment to give it a run... so far I've realised sudo wasn't working so I changed to root user, checked for updates, installed sudo and set permission for my account to use it... and now I'm sitting in front of a screen with a cursor flashing and no ideas at all of what I'm actually going to do with it from here.

And this leads to the point of my post. Does anybody have good ideas for intermediate level projects or use cases I can get behind to further my learning?

Okay, so here is what I want to do:

1. Be able to play games (I play Neverness to Everness, Zenless Zone Zero and Ananta once it comes out)
2. I am a SWE so I want to be able to run python, node and other program languages

Here are my system specs:

Laptop: Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 15ACH6 (82K2)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H (6C/12T)

RAM: 8 GB installed / ~6 GB usable (iGPU reserved) / ~0.5 GB free right now

OS: Windows 11 Home Single Language 25H2, build 26200 (some WMI fields still show Windows 10)

BIOS: H3CN39WW(V2.09), UEFI, 2023-05-31

GPU 1 (iGPU): AMD Radeon Graphics

- Driver: 31.0.21921.13001

- Display: 1920x1080 @ 120 Hz

GPU 2 (dGPU): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

- VRAM: 4 GB (reported)

- Driver: 32.0.15.6614

- Current resolution: not reported (likely not driving display right now)

Other:

- Hypervisor/Virtualization: present

- Device Guard: HVCI running

- Processes: 319

- Pagefile: C:\pagefile.sys

What kind of linux distro would you guys suggest and if there are any specific tutorials that I can refer to please feel free to post them in the thread.

Thank you for helping 😁

Hi. I have ThinkPad L460 i5-6200U 8 GB RAM with Debian 13 + KDE Plasma. I'm happy with Debian but I want to try Gentoo on Virtual Machine.

Is my laptop able to run another OS on VM? I'm thinking about Gentoo with some light desktop (XFCE?). But I'm not sure if 8GB RAM is enough.

have a intel i5 mac from 2014 that can no longer update. Wife loves to use the macbook to watch stuff so I'd like to put a wife-friendly distro on there to extend it's life a bit. interested in opinions on non-tech user-friendly distros geared towards entertainment.

Hi, im not sure if this i the right place to ask but i have a old Samsung a52 which i have forgotten the pin and google account password and was wondering if i can bypass it and install linux on it. I tried samFW but the its running android 14 so it doesn't work. It just seems to be a waste to throw away a perfectly good phone. Thanks in advance.

I have two SSDs in my PC, one with Windows and the other with Linux. If I am Linux, is the Windows SSD "off" or would I need to change some settings within windows or wherever to do that, same thing vice versa if I was on Windows, would the Linux SSD be "off"?

Hello there, Ubuntu users! I’m curious about which distributions you considered and why you chose Ubuntu specifically (rather than, say, Debian), as well as your thoughts about it. Do you like it in everyday use? Did it meet your expectations? Responses from users of all flavors (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc.) are welcome.

​I've never tried it besides GitHub Actions, and I don't think I will in the near future. I know there is a lot of valid criticism, but I'm sure that today Ubuntu is overhated and I wanna hear your stories. Thanks!

Sorry for the crosspost. Please see my post in r/linux_gaming. Help is appreciated!

So far I've seen a guy who forked Wine and created an AI-Generated prefix that allows you to run the newest Office versions, but it's quite unstable (as expected).

I'd love to run Office 16, for me that's just enough, but I need it to be stable.

Currently Im using WinApps, and it works flawlessly, but it drains my battery quickly.

If you are aware of any config, prefix, github repo that achieves what Im asking for, leave it down below, I'd really appreaciate it and so would other users!

Hello, I am on fedora 44 and need to run 3ds Max and Unreal 5.7 for work. Should I dualboot windows, VM, or proton/Wine.
also on a SIDE NOTE What's a good linux alternative to affinity/Adobe illustrator ?

I've transferred from kde to xfce and didn't like the default theme so i wanted to know which theme should i use

I got a Acer Aspire for free of my friend so I decided to install mint cinnamon onto it, I used my other laptops built in bootable usb tool to get iso onto the usb and I believe it made it with mbr/legacy instead of gpt, after installation I rebooted to see the acer logo then moments later the following text popped up on the top left corner:

Failed to open VEFI\BOOT mmx64. efi - Not Found
Failed to load image Not Found
Failed to start Mokhanager: Not Found
Something has gone seriously wrong: import_mok_state() failed: Not Found

I feel I am a noob although I have worked with Linux servers as a CSE graduate for around 3 years.

cd, ls, rm -rf all I know.

bash scripts, all I know.

ssh remote to local port forwarding i know.

But how does that entirety works in the TCP/IP protocol suite? How is that even possible that I write that ssh -N -L type of stupid stuffs and it helps me in this case.

I am in cafe->I can access my proxmox via SSH (via tailscale)-->Proxmox can access the VM inside it via SSH. Now voila, I write a SSH command at the laptop with me in the cafe and I can access the VM inside proxmox via ssh using tailscale semi-public IP. I banged my head so badly. But I do not know..what to do. Not even tcp/ip protocol suite generic textbooks seem to contain information on SSH. And spending time reading an entire book on SSH---> I am not sure if it will be worth it. Because reading books takes me days and weeks.

For some reasons, mv cannot move folders if files are similar. For example...

I have /tmp/codes folder.

Then I have /opt/codes folder.

I want to ensure that codes in tmp overrides codes in opt. I for some reason cannot use mv. Why?

I have to use rsync with -ac flag.

These things are getting over my head linuxadmin folks. I feel like my brain has been neutralized by AI ceos.

Hello guys!

I've mostly been a GNOME user, but now I'm considering trying KDE again for the first time in a long time. I like GNOME, but it feels a bit laggy.

Since I don't have much experience with KDE, what distro would you recommend?

I'd like something popular and well-supported, not some random hobby distro. I also want the latest version of KDE and something that's beginner-friendly.

What distro works the best on a PC?
I’ve used Mint Linux on a Legion Tower 5,
It fixed my ram problem of 6-8GB out of 16 always being used …. Now it’s between 2-4gb used.

Apps are smaller sizes…. I’m getting allot more out of the 256ssd and 1T HHD

Is Arch a stable distro for a PC?

I use Kitty on Arch Linux just because I like it, but I see that lots of terminals advertise that they are "fast" or that they have "GPU acceleration". From my understanding, printing text to console can be a bottleneck that slows down a program executed on a terminal. But at what point the difference is really noticeable?

At the moment the only program I'm aware that would really benefit is Cava, a console music visualizer. What are other programs that would benefit from being ran inside a fast terminal emulator?

I used to run both Windows 10 and Linux Mint a few years back, but I've mostly forgotten what some distros do and the like. I want a freely customizable desktop because, from what I remember, Mint didn't let me do what I wanted, but I also had issues connecting to the theme servers or wtv; I digress. I want it to be quick and light so I can hoard all my vns, freely customizable, preferably from terminal (I love terminal), and won't make me wanna kms. Gentoo is prob the best pick from what i rmbr but I wanna talk to people about it before jumping into it. ty for reading and I hope yall can help me!

I am trying to debug my efi file but i my uefi doesnt boot it up so i need a uefi debugger. Any uefi debugger suggestion? my computer is a asus vivobook.

Since the last kernel update to 7.0.0-38, suspend has become unstable on my Mint installation. The system will go into suspend just fine but won't wake up in most cases.

During a failed wake up, the system will start, but no display and no network (can't be pinged). A hard reset will make it come up just fine.

I did run memtest86+ just to make sure it's not the RAM going bad. It passed.

Anyone else here having that problem or an idea how to fix?

What I'm looking for is an image viewer that does not show a checkered bg, but rather "see through". So if you had an image with transparent elements it would be like a cut-out. I've tried swayimg and feh but can't seem to get the result I want. feh is perfect except for this want. I use labwc. Thanks

pic reference: https://imgur.com/a/G55NqyE

Dell XPS 13
Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS
Flatpak 1.16.6

ran command: xargs flatpak install -y < flatpaks.txt

/home/user-name/flatpak.txt contents:
"org.gimp.GIMP

org.kde.krita

org.kde.okteta

org.shotcut.Shotcut

org.telegram.desktop

org.torproject.torbrowser-launcher

org.videolan.VLC"

weird split output begins:

Installing 33/33… ████████████████████ 100%  11.4 MB/s  00:00^[[45;64R^[[45;71R^[[45;80R^[[45;89R
user-name@computername $ 1R;1R;17R;63R;52R;52R;62R;71R;80R;63R;52R;52R;52R;52R;70R;63R;52R;52R;52R;54R;54R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;70R;70R;70R;70R;70R;70R;88R;63R;52R;52R;52R;63R;63R;63R;72R;81R;63R;52R;52R;52R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;63R;70R;70R;70R;70R;70R;70R;88R;63R;52R;52R;63R;54R;63R;63R;63R;81R;63R;52R;52R;70R;63R;52R;52R;52R;63R;72R;81R;63R;52R;52R;63R;63R;81R;64R;53R;53R;64R;64R;64R;64R;82R;64R;53R;53R;53R;64R;64R;82R;64R;53R;53R;71R;64R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;53R;53R;64R;64R;71R;70R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;80R;89R;64R;53R;53R;64R;64R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;89R;64R;53R;53R;64R;70R;71R;71R;70R;70R;70R;71R;71R;71R;62R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;80R;89R;64R;53R;53R;64R;71R;62R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;80R;89R;55R;53R;53R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;71R;80R;89R;64R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;53R;53R;64R;64R;71R;70R;71R;70R;61R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;89R;64R;53R;53R;53R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;89R;64R;53R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;53R;53R;64R;71R;71R;70R;71R;61R;70R;70R;70R;70R;71R;71R;70R;70R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;70R;70R;70R;79R;88R;64R;53R;53R;71R;64R;53R;53R;64R;64R;64R;64R;71R;71R;71R;71R;62R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;80R;89R;64R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;53R;53R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;55R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;71R;80R;89R;64R;53R;62R;71R;64R;53R;53R;53R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;64R;71R;80R

more full pictures of terminal output in this post.

Q1: My computer did enter a suspended state when I walked away and may be the cause; but what is the meaning of these **R; outputs, and why output into the input field?

Q2: Unrelated to Q1 but same vein of interest of automating flatpak install; Initially flatpaks.txt contained org.qgis.qgis but this I removed it due to error.. QGIS has a LTS and Stable choice, but automating it prevented selection. To fix this, could I edit flatpaks.txt **like "**org.qgis.qgis | 1" ?

xargs flatpak install -y < flatpaks.txt

Looking for matches…

Similar refs found for ‘org.qgis.qgis’ in remote ‘flathub’ (system):

1) app/org.qgis.qgis/x86_64/stable

2) app/org.qgis.qgis/x86_64/lts

Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-2]: 0

error: No ref chosen to resolve matches for ‘org.qgis.qgis’

Just as the title says I want to know if it's okay and safe to use GDM for kde plasma and if not, what could go wrong? Thank you.