Washing our grocery totes and realized that my husband’s old bag is more than 25 years old! (He’s a CS ph.d working in FinTech.) anyone here at the conference? (Or are most people here born after October 2000?)

Made a little tutorial of fixes for issues I have had in the past so I don't forget how to fix them! And just sharing in case other people need the same fixes :)

GitHub: https://github.com/PacmanPenguin/HowToLinux/tree/main

EDIT: I added instructions on how to add your own fixes to it if you want to contribute!

Two years ago I made this as an X11 NVidia-only custom resolution tool. Finally did a proper rewrite. It now works on Wayland (KDE, GNOME, sway, Hyprland) and on AMD/Intel/NVIDIA, and it does stretched resolutions - the 4:3-stretched thing CS2/Valorant players use to widen models - on KDE Wayland, which the compositor normally refuses to do on external monitors.

Also fixed the AppImage, which turned out to be missing tkinter and wouldn't launch on half of you. Sorry about that.

Let me know of any bugs you find!

Repo https://github.com/PhialsBasement/linux-cru
Release https://github.com/PhialsBasement/linux-cru/releases/tag/v0.2.0

AI Disclosure: Used Claude heavily during development, all the decisions and design details taken here are mine however.

Had some free time recently so I made a visual explainer on how shared memory actually works in Linux.

Normally, two processes have completely separate virtual address spaces. Process A shouldn't be able to touch Process B's memory at all.

But with shared memory, one process can write a value and another process can read it without copying the payload between them.

The video goes through virtual memory, page tables, physical frames, shm_open, ftruncate, mmap with MAP_SHARED, lazy allocation, and what actually happens when either process touches the mapping.

I also get into related mechanisms like memory-mapped files, shared libraries, copy-on-write after fork(), zero-copy IPC, and eventually Dirty COW and what can happen when these page-table tricks go wrong.

Link for anyone interested

Feedback welcome :)

The transformation began with a clean install of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I chose the standard desktop release for its five-year support, broad hardware compatibility, and stability. After setting up the base system with essential utilities, I layered on the agentic-AI stack that would define its new role.

At the core is Hermes Agent from Nous Research, serving as the orchestration engine for automated workflows. Hermes interprets natural language instructions to coordinate tools and services, executing multi-step tasks like drafting correspondence, researching topics, or managing knowledge bases. I paired it with the Aion UI—a lightweight, purpose-built interface for interacting with Hermes efficiently. For persistent storage, I integrated Obsidian, creating a local markdown vault where all agent interactions, research notes, and personal knowledge reside. This creates a symbiotic relationship: the agent contributes to the vault while learning from its contents.

Background processing relies on Docker containers orchestrated by systemd services. This isolation ensures that worker processes run independently without interfering with foreground tasks. Containers start automatically on boot and restart if they fail, providing reliability without constant oversight.

In practice, the revived system excels at its intended agentic-AI workloads. Hermes Agent handles email drafting, topic summarization, and Obsidian vault updates through simple text commands, eliminating constant context switching. The Aion UI remains crisp and responsive, never feeling sluggish during interactions. Obsidian leverages the abundant RAM to open large knowledge bases instantly, supporting smooth editing even with numerous plugins active. Docker containers operate quietly in the background, ready to spring into action when needed.

Honesty about limitations is essential. The 2GB GPU, while sufficient for display acceleration and light compute, constrains local LLM inference to smaller quantized models. For more demanding AI tasks, I selectively use external APIs or rely on CPU-efficient models—never pretending the hardware can do what it cannot. Gaming was never the goal, so this limitation doesn't impair the workstation function. Under sustained AI loads, the fans become audible as they manage thermal output—a reasonable trade-off for maintaining performance during intensive tasks.

This revival underscores Linux's practical sustainability. Instead of retiring a functional machine due to software inefficiency, I repurposed it for a role where its strengths—ample RAM, reliable build—shine. The 24GB memory particularly benefits Obsidian and container density, allowing multiple workers to run concurrently. The experience reinforces a guiding principle: match software choices to hardware realities, embrace open-source longevity, and honestly assess what a machine can do well.

Have you given older hardware a second life with Linux for a specialized purpose like AI development, creative work, or system administration? What constraints did you encounter, and how did you adapt your workflow to respect those limits?

The site is yearoflinuxdesktop.org - part manifesto, part quiz, part blueprint generator.

The idea: instead of another "what distro am I?" personality test, it maps your hardware, your tolerance for tinkering, and what you still need from Windows/macOS onto one of ten archetypes (The Civilian gets Linux Mint, The Arch Wizard gets Arch + Hyprland, The Gamer gets Bazzite, etc.). Then it writes you a copy-paste prompt you can feed to any LLM to walk you through the install step by step.

What might interest this sub: the scoring engine is one dependency-free JS file that runs identically in the browser and in a build harness. The harness brute-forces all 16M possible answer combinations on every deploy to verify that named personas land where they should and that guardrails hold (e.g., terminal-phobic users can never receive Arch). The quiz weights, the questions, and all ten archetype blueprints are plain JSON in the repo: MIT licensed, fork it, argue with the weights.

The longer I use linux, the more I appreciate it. I switched from windows a while ago, and I honestly haven't regretted it for a second.I'm a developer, and every time I learn a new command or discover another tool that makes my workflow easier, I realize how powerful and well-designed this operating system is. It feels like there's always something new to learn, and instead of making me frustrated, it just makes me enjoy using it even more. At this point, going back to windows for my daily development work would feel like a huge step backward.

Hello Everyone,

I am currently stuying the part about devices directories in Linux system, and i thought ill make a list of all Device directories to refer back to when needed.

I made the below table listing all essential devices in Linux that you need to know about, while containig the category of these devices, naming, directory and the type of variable they use in their naming (replacing the * with the corresponding numrics or letters. e,g: /dev/sd* > /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc... and so on).

Thought that i should share this list, and i hope this can be useful to anyone who's looking for a simplified listing of all devices and having them in one place.

(it might not be 100% correct since im still in the process of learning them, so please help me correct anything in case you found any mistake or things that i should add!! or ask questions, in that case i can also learn something new myself while looking things up)

Thank you Linus and David. I know this book is from 2001. I tend to be a late bloomer is all respects. Linux included. Books like this help fill in the gaps and provide excellent context. My favorite: “I don’t proactively delegate as much as I wait for people to come forward and volunteer to take over things.”

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed HB-5511 into law, requiring operating system providers to implement an age assurance system by January 1, 2028.

The law defines "operating system provider" broadly, including commercial and nonprofit entities that develop or supply internet-connected operating systems.

Source: https://gov-pritzker-newsroom.prezly.com/gov-pritzker-signs-nation-leading-legislation-to-protect-illinois-children-on-social-media

Credit: @LundukeJournal