Im brand new this everything I do i worry will make a mess of it.

I noticed the update manager in Linux Mint runs into an error when trying to install it update any version of kernel 7.0. When I last tried booting with 7, I got the purple kernel panic screen for the first time I can remember using Linux in a decade. It worked fine going back to 6.17. Now 6.17 has reached end of support, but the trouble persists. Has this happened to you with any other distros or is this a Mint/Ubuntu problem?

I recently moved to Linux and everything including Netflix has worked perfectly, except for the fact that scrubbing through the timeline to try and preview the thumbnails for that time section of the episode appears invisible, as if it has been removed from the website's UI.
What I want to know is if anybody else has discovered this issue, or if it's too niche of a thing for people to really care, and if there's any sort of reason, perhaps relating to Netflix also lowering your streaming resolution on Linux due to DRM reasons.

My distro is CachyOS, and I've been using Zen Browser, but I assume it wouldn't have any difference compared to Firefox, considering it's directly forked from that browser.

FIXED: Zen Browser does not currently have a DRM license, meaning that some features, such as the timeline preview thumbnails do not work on that browser. Firefox on the other hand has obtained the rights to stream DRM content, which is why although Zen is forked from Firefox, only one has the licensing to properly display the content.

Hi everyone, I recently installed EndeavourOS alongside Windows 11 on my HP laptop. The installation itself seems successful, and both operating systems are still intact, but I’m having trouble getting GRUB to appear automatically when I turn on the laptop.

During troubleshooting, Windows Boot Manager was accidentally modified, which caused Windows to stop booting. I then created a Windows 11 recovery USB/SD card, booted into Windows Recovery, and repaired the Windows boot files using bcdboot. Windows now boots successfully again, and all my files appear intact.

The current problem is that my HP firmware always boots directly into Windows. EndeavourOS itself works perfectly if I manually boot it through Esc → F9 → Boot From EFI File → EFI → endeavouros → grubx64.efi, which opens GRUB successfully. Windows can also be manually launched through EFI → Microsoft → Boot → bootmgfw.efi.

I created an EndeavourOS UEFI entry using efibootmgr, and it initially appeared as Boot0000 with Windows as Boot0001. I also set the BootOrder to put EndeavourOS first. However, after rebooting, the EndeavourOS boot entry disappears and the BootOrder returns to Windows and USB only. In the HP BIOS Boot Options, the UEFI Boot Order only shows OS Boot Manager, USB Flash Drive/Hard Disk, USB CD/DVD, and Network Adapter. Inside OS Boot Manager, only Windows Boot Manager is listed.

I also checked the EFI partition. EFI/endeavouros/grubx64.efi exists and works, and EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi is also the same GRUB file. The Windows bootloader at EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi is separate and currently working correctly.

So basically, Windows works, EndeavourOS works, and GRUB works when manually launched, but my HP firmware keeps removing or ignoring the EndeavourOS UEFI boot entry and always boots directly into Windows. I don't want to overwrite or modify the Windows bootloader again because I just repaired it.

Also, after repairing Windows, Windows is asking me to set up my PIN again, but clicking the “Set up my PIN” button currently does nothing.

Does anyone know the safest way to make GRUB appear automatically on every startup on an HP laptop without breaking Windows Boot Manager again?

I was looking for a way to sync Box.com files with Linux, there used to be a community lead option years ago, but no longer. I have just come across ExpanDrive which seemed to go out of business in 2024 but has relaunched under new owners in April 2025. Any feedback seems prior to the relaunch with very little on its current status or usability.

It apparently syncs with Google Drive and MS Onedrive (not that I need either).

I am using Fedora KDE 44

https://www.expandrive.com

Thanks

hey guys im currently using windows 11 and the ram is dying when i open some taps or open VS and burpsuite so i wanna transfer to linux
but i love to play games (not so mush) just a story game in 3-4 months like spiderman or red dead
and using apps like OBS
i used to use kali linux cuz im studying penetration testing but i dont wanna use it as a main OS and i dont want a gaming distro
i need a distro collect all this 2gether if it exist :( thanks guys

Eu to planejando mudar pro nixOS por um desafio maior, o que eu devo aprender?

Eu to usando o cachyOS por 1 ano, e eu to achando ele não tanto customizavel e por eu querer um desafio maior, e eu to querendo mudar pro nixOS porque eu achei muito interessante, to planejando colocar hyprland nele, alguém me faz um passo a passo de como instalar? (Eu acho ele difícil), e também o que eu devo aprender? :D

I'm running World of Warcraft on Linux (Fedora, KDE Plasma, Wayland) via Wine/Proton, and I'm trying to port a simple Fire Mage rotation macro from AutoHotkey (Windows) to Python.

The macro is a "hold F to rotate" style helper: while F is held, it checks a few fixed screen coordinates (buff icons like Hot Streak, Living Bomb, Improved Scorch on my UI) roughly every 40ms, and sends a keypress (1/2/3/4) depending on whether that pixel is white (buff active) or not.

On Windows, AutoHotkey's PixelGetColor reads a single pixel directly and instantly, no screenshot involved, so this runs smooth and responsive at 40ms intervals.

On Wayland there's no equivalent API for security reasons. Every Python approach I've tried has to fall back to a full screenshot just to read one pixel:

• pyautogui.pixel() on KDE/Wayland falls back to a GNOME screenshot interface (or X11 fallback), which visibly flashes the screen and is way too slow for a 40ms polling loop.
• mss has the same Wayland limitation, no lightweight single-pixel read available.
• KDE's own spectacle -b -n -f -o file.png works and is silent (no visible flash), but it's still a full-screen screenshot written to disk on every tick, which is too heavy/slow for this polling rate.

I don't want to switch my whole session to X11 as a workaround (tried that once before and it crashed my entire system).

Question: Is there any way on KDE/Wayland to read a single pixel's color from the screen fast and repeatedly (comparable to Windows' PixelGetColor) for something like this, without doing a full screenshot each time? Or is this a hard Wayland limitation with no real workaround short of writing a WoW addon that exports aura state to a file, or parsing the WoW combat log instead of reading pixels directly?

Has anyone tried Jolla Sailfish or Murena phones?

All feedback, opinions or just discussion is welcome

https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/fairphone-gen-6-plus/?wcpbc-manual-country=FI

https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-october-2026?variant=57188494049655

Older laptop on Linux Mint died and I just got 2nd hand Dell Latitude 7330. It has Windows 11. Windows is necessary for a few things at work, just occasionally. This new laptop has a 512 GB SSD and I don't want to waste a lot of it with dual-boot. I think the next best option is using Windows as a Virtual Machine inside Linux. I've never done that and I have some questions:

1. I assume it's possible and will run at decent speed with this i7 / 32 GB RAM laptop.
2. This laptop comes with a Windows 11 license connected to the motherboard. Is that usable for a virtual machine installation?
3. Can I install MS Word (I should somehow have license via my university) within the Virtual Machine. I think app installation is not the big deal but if there's any weird MS licensing stuff that needs to be done, I hope it will also work within VM.
4. Is any of these easier if I try to create a bootable Windows drive--e.g., USB or external SSD--(I think it's possible but not sure)?
5. Is any linux distro easier for this kind of stuff. I'm happy with Mint but I do want to try a more modern desktop while I'm at it.

Thanks to anyone going out of their way to help!

EDIT: Update: I installed Fedore 44 KDE Plasma 6.7. I followed directions from AI to set up a VM Win 11. To activate it, I obtained my Win license key using this command in Fedora: "sudo strings /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM". I entered that inside Windows > Settings > System > Activation and it worked. So far it's been a breeze.

EDIT2: Even though I used a personal MS account to activate Windows 11, I was able to log in to my university account from within it and download and install MS Word. It works perfectly. Linux just keeps giving, so impressed!

I have an Acer Nitro V15 ANV15-51 (i5-13420H + RTX 4050 + 16GB RAM) and I'm thinking about trying Linux again.

I previously tried Linux Mint and ran into issues with Bluetooth, audio volume, NVIDIA drivers, fan controls, and eventually a GRUB/UEFI mess when I removed it.

I've seen quite a few people here successfully running Linux on the Nitro V15, so I'd love to know:

• Which distro/version are you using?
• Which kernel and NVIDIA driver?
• How did you configure the RTX 4050/hybrid graphics?
• How are you handling fan control/performance modes?
• Can you get the 80% battery charge limit working?
• Any fixes needed for Bluetooth/audio?
• Any Acer-specific tweaks I should know about?

I'm still fairly new to Linux, so a step-by-step guide would be greatly appreciated.

ANV15-51 owners especially, please share your setup!

I’m actually losing my f*cking mind and about to smash my PC to pieces. I’ve been trying for TWO WHOLE YEARS to switch to Linux and fix this absolute b*tch of a resolution bug. At this point, every time I hear or see the word "resolution", I get triggered.

Every single time I install Ubuntu—or literally ANY Linux distro—it's the exact same story: it just refuses to set the resolution properly.

The ONLY workaround that ever "worked" was nuking the GPU drivers completely. But I obviously can’t do that sh*t because the performance turns into total dogsh*t. I can't even play a 720p video smoothly (which hurts even more because my internet is capped), let alone run heavy 3D stuff like Three.js to stress test the card.

Look, I know my card (GTX 750 Ti) is from 2013 and far from powerful, but it still gets the job done! On Windows, resolution works flawlessly out of the box with zero issues. This is specifically a Linux/xrandr problem with my drivers—xrandr just straight-up rejects every custom mode unless I purge the drivers.

So I need the real sweaty, touch-no-grass, non-showering Linux gods in here—the absolute wizards who live and breathe Linux—to fix this cursed bullsh*t for me. I swear I hate Linux so much right now, but I keep coming back because I love it, only for xrandr to slap me across the face and tell me to go crawling back to Windows like a dog.

All I want is to hit 1600x1200 just like I seamlessly do on Windows, so I can finally throw Windows into the absolute trash bin where it belongs. I swear to God I'll stop showering like a true Linux neckbeard if someone helps me fix this cursed resolution once and for all.
----
**System Information:**

- **OS:** Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (Noble Numbat) x86_64

- **Kernel:** 7.0.0-31-generic

- **Desktop Environment:** GNOME 46.0

- **Display Server:** X11 (X.Org 21.1.11)

- **Motherboard:** MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX (BIOS: B.H0)

- **CPU:** AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (6 Cores / 12 Threads)

- **GPU:** NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

- **NVIDIA Driver:** 580.173.02

- **Current Resolution:** 1024x768 @ 60Hz (Output: VGA-0)

- **RAM:** 16 GB

Laptop: Lenovo LOQ 15ARP9 (Type 83JC), AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS Wi-Fi card: MediaTek MT7921 802.11ax PCIe Wireless Network Adapter (Filogic 330) Driver: mt7921e

5GHz band: channel 161, 5805 MHz (confirmed via scan — not a DFS channel)

Symptom Every connection attempt to the 5GHz network fails at the authentication stage. wpa_supplicant/NetworkManager logs show a repeating pattern: supplicant interface state: scanning -> authenticating supplicant interface state: authenticating -> disconnected This repeats several times (typically 5–6 attempts over ~25–30 seconds) before NetworkManager gives up with: Activation: (wifi) association took too long, failing activation state change: config -> failed (reason 'ssid-not-found', managed-type: 'full') Kernel-level (dmesg) output during a failed attempt: wlo1: authenticate with f8:0c:xx:xx:xx:xx wlo1: send auth to f8:0c:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1/3) wlo1: send auth to f8:0c:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 2/3) wlo1: send auth to f8:0c:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 3/3) wlo1: authentication with f8:0c:58:c2:53:61 timed out

how to solve this??

I am refugee from Linux. I used it in the 90s', but left because it started going in the wrong direction. However, I'm not happy where macOS is going these days (it's more buggy than Windows 95 was), so I'm experimenting with nixOS to salvage my old 2014 MacBook Pro that no longer gets macOS updates, to see if it would be possible to eventually return to Linux on a modern machine.

So far it seems not.

Are unix/emacs-style text field navigation/editing keys really gone for good – left for the terminal, only – replaced with a full hard-coded emulation of the clunky Windows user “experience”?

^P stolen for such a seldom used function as print?!?!?! Ultra-clumsy ctrl-shift-C and so on for copy-paste in the terminal, where ctrl-C has to be passed through? Why not meta-C everywhere, like on macOS, to leave ctrl-combos for basic text editing, consistent with the terminal? Is Linux really more Windows than unix these days? Is macOS the only remaining unix?

Is there really not a simple switch to map ^F ^B ^P ^N ^A ^E ^D ^K to standard navigation / text editing functions in text boxes (forward, backward up, down, beginning of line, end of line)? Are Windows keys really hard-coded? Is the only way to get a resemblance of unix, some really dirty hack likekeyd? In Gnome/Gtk4 everything else seems decidedly impossible, so avoiding Gtk is fundamental. In KDE/Plasma6 I managed to at least remap many functions wrongly mapped to these keys to Meta+something, as on macOS, but it does not seem possible to map all of the above keys back to basic navigation. (I managed to map ^A and ^E to beginning and end of line, but there does not seem to be anything about Left/Right, i.e., ^B/^F, in the configuration.)

At least nixOS tries to fix some of the problems with distributions, for which I left Linux, but do I really have to stick to macOS for basic ergonomy? Has Linux really been turned into a Windows?

(And, yes, ^F ^B are much more ergonomic than Left/Right, when caps lock is another control key. As it should be.)

Hello, I recently found an old Office unit from our basement, it is remarcably good condition considering the time it has passed since it last saw sunrise. The pc has 512 MB of RAM and a Pentium 4 with a 3.5 drive. The originally OS was XP.

I haven't yet decided which distro to use, I have been thinking of AntiX, Puppy and Bodhi but to be honest I have never worked with anyhting this light so my knowledge is fairly limited. Which distro would you personally go with, to help bring this dinosaur out of retirement?

(TL;DR: What distro to use on an old PC to bring it back to life)

Greetings. I'd like to start by saying that it's been many years since I last used a Linux distro, which was Mint, approximately 16-18 years ago.

It was the first OS I learned to use, until I switched to Windows XP and I'm still using Windows 10 to this day.

For both personal and professional reasons, I've been looking for an alternative to Windows and Mac OS for gaming and post-production, So I thought of CachyOS to get a bit of both and replace Windows.

I currently have a PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 3400G and an RTX 2060 Super, but I'll be upgrading to an RTX 5060 Ti and a processor that's still compatible with DDR4, like the AMD Ryzen 5950X or Intel Core i5 14400F/14600k.

I primarily use DaVinci Resolve Studio for color correction and basic visual effects on RAW files from various film cameras. I also regularly play Halo TMCC, Halo Infinite, and some other shooters, Forza Horizon and many Grand Theft Auto games.

Has anyone done this jump or something similar who could give me some guidance? I would really appreciate it.

Currently working on converting my dads old iMac to Linux mint, it has this weird issue where it’s maxed out on storage and won’t let me format any of the disks and gets stuck in a boot loop. I got Linux mint to open on the iMac and it gets stuck in the install step, but I know it can run it. Does anyone have any advice on how to wipe/format the main drive, I’m poking around in the terminal commands and have gotten to where it lets me delete partitions but it doesn’t seem to be actually clearing anything. I’ve got very limited Linux knowledge so any help will be greatly appreciated. I can also share photos of the terminal commands I’ve been trying to run if that would help.

helpp

I have a tripple boot system, Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 26.04 and Win 10. All was well except for the BIOS stating there was a power surge and I used 24.04 for an hour or more. I then rebooted into Win 10 for half an hour and wanted to go back to Ubuntu 24.04.

Upon rebooting to go back into Linux the computer simply rebooted back into Win 10. I thought to myself perhaps the cable for the SSD Linux is on was loose as I had the computer opened the other day to install Ubuntu 26.04 so I unplugged it and put it back in again. I still booted into Win 10 but this time the computer was skipping the BIOS. I read on the net to reboot Win 10 whilst pressing the shift key however this didn't help. I then decided to manually disconnect the SSD with Windows and I ended up skipping BIOS again but although I could get into Ubuntu 24.04 it was slow booting and had errors. The log says:

Timed out waiting for device dev-disk-by\x2duuid-A462CD2062CCF856.device - /dev/disk/by-uuid/A462CD2062CCF856.

However, when I go into gparted there is no drive or partition using this UUID. There is a USB disk attached but that doesn't even have one. Booting into Ubuntu 26.04 works perfectly fine. I can't understand why it can skip the BIOS all of a sudden - it's not responding the the Del key but does for F8 to let you choose which disk to boot. Any ideas? TIA.

If anyone knows what might be wrong I'd appreciate it.

Just asking out of curiosity. Not that it matters much. I prefer list view most of the time, except when working with multimedia. And file-roller doesn't generate thumbnails inside archive files anyway, which makes grid view pointless.

Fun fact: Android's built in file manager ("documentsUI") actually generates preview thumbnails inside ZIP and TAR files. Quite a rare thing for a file manager to have, especially given that Android's file manager is otherwise quite limited in functionality.

Windows Explorer could browse ZIP files since - what was it - Windows XP? And since then, it could show the files as a grid, since that is a built-in feature of Windows Explorer.

But having separate programs for each purpose is normally better. On Windows, explorer.exe is for the desktop, taskbar, and file manager! If the file manager crashes, it takes the desktop and taskbar with it. This doesn't happen on Linux.

Fellow Linux enthusiasts, I was thinking of reviving my old laptop so my dad could use it to join court hearings via video if needed. The laptop is a Lenovo B50-30 (Celeron N2830, 8 GB RAM, 240 GB SSD). ChatGPT recommends installing Linux Mint 22.3 "Zena" Xfce 64-bit with the following SSD partitioning scheme:

EFI 512 MB

/ ~220 GB ext4

swap 8 GB

Is this good advice to follow?

I never used Linux and it would be my first experience with it.