reallyzen

reallyzen , 3 days ago

Funny story the other way around: the year is 2002 and I live in Laos. Bootlegs Everything Galore, all movies games music cost $1 or about. I discover a game, and then begins a quest to buy The Real Version because it's a small studio and I really like it all, the storytelling, the modding tools, the community... A quest that would end up in Bangkok looking like the proverbial insane foreigner looking for the most stupid way to spend his money.

I found it eventually, in a shop that didn't look any different among all its brothers in Pantip Plaza. Took me a while lol.

reallyzen , 6 days ago

DDG has it's non-track version online since a bit now. Use the !ai bang to get to it

Also you have the choice of Claude insted of ChatGPT, and your queries aren't harvested for further ai training

In any case, it's a completely different tab, it's not mingled in general search results

reallyzen , 6 days ago

You can also ask it when is the cutoff date of their database - there is a gentleman's agreement between providers not to have ai involved in news / current politics in it's public chats.

I tried them on a topic I'm pretty proficient on, (a spaghetti recipe lol) and the answer was the most bland imaginable.

The way it is setup by DDG, the restrictions and blandness, shallowness of the replies give me peace of.mind when a 'natural language' query is the easiest one. And Claude wouldn't give me the DOB of that queen because it is Personal Info!

reallyzen , 6 days ago

I may loose some answers in searches since I only use DDG

I often do not read articles or information from websites if the gdpr popup isn't solvable in a click but the site ask to click on a thousand toggles

Where I am at the moment, the lack of FB marketplace sucks

A lot of cultural info goes through Instagram here, so I have to be a bit proactive if I want to know what's happening

I use signal or text when possible, but work is impossible without whatsapp

reallyzen , 8 days ago

I know everybody always grandly takes on the High Seas, sailing them with lots of "arrrr“ and stuff, but I've found that small, quick flowing rivers oftentimes do yield a good catch.

reallyzen , 9 days ago

That's how I was on Slackware at the time. Reputable, functional, stable - and totally tailorable to your exact needs.

Everybody talks about Arch as a "pedagogic" distro, but you'll learn a lot working with Slackware. I wonder if Lilo is still around.

reallyzen OP , 11 days ago

Asahi supports M1 and M2 chips because that's what they own.

https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support

M3, (and then M4) isn't there because the cheapest hardware, the Mini, doesn't exist with them... And also because work isn't finished on M1/M2.

https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/112277289414246878

The way apple sees its computer customer base now as they see their iPhone base (Must Own Latest Must Buy Shiniest), I do hope for the Asahi Linux project they don't keep on iterating endlessly with new hardware twice a year.

reallyzen , 11 days ago (edited 9 days ago)

You guys know that there's an actual rtfm app that condenses the output of man to human-readable stuff right? Right??

reallyzen , 9 days ago

My bad: it's tldr not rtfm

Me too I have stupid disputable
aliases...

https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr

reallyzen , 9 days ago

Of course. . ...I was wrong and it is tldr not rtfm.

https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr

But surely you heard about TheFuck?

https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck

There's actually an rtfm package in Arch's aur, but it just opens the archwiki for you which just adds that tiny bit of... of That Arch Way Of Doing Things I guess.

reallyzen , 9 days ago

BRB, got a dotfile to edit real quick

reallyzen , 12 days ago (edited 12 days ago)

Not going to push Ardour if your brains are wired for Live, but have you tried Bitwig?

(Tho Ardour has Clip Launchers now, wink wink)

reallyzen , 17 days ago

What impressed me at the time was that it worked ; you'd pull huge amount of stuff and then waited in front of a real-life Reversed Matrix full of mysterious hieroglyphs. But Slackware would compile Ardour, Jack, Jamin and whatever else. Yeah it took a while to fetch all the libraries, but then it just did it.

Last week localsend wouldn't compile on Arch, and took hours to fail it.

reallyzen , 18 days ago

Works on mine

Édit: (10)... Ah, I see the point, indeed.

reallyzen , 21 days ago

What you are losing is what you are gaining ; I for one embrace the minimalism of Gnome (even macos feels, looks bloated next to Gnome). There's only 2 extensions that I add, and they are the vainest ones: the Spinning Cube and the Wobbly Windows.

No, there's one more: the gnome implementation of kdeconnect, so useful to link your phone to your PC.

Of course KDE has great, great software out there, you shouldn't be loosing anything by switching, so that's where I use flatpaks, to not have to pull all of KDE libs on my system over the gtk ones: kdenlive comes to mind.

Embrace the zen. Drop the very idea of spending a week to fine-tune your Desktop to your liking - a gnome install is finished in about 5 minutes, including setting up the best wallpaper ever, the competition-winning KDE 6 Peaceful Tree default background.

Or just install the Fedora KDE spin, really.

reallyzen , 27 days ago

It's a blog post on how to get Netflix and Spotify to work on Asahi Linux, the project to run Linux on new "M" chipsets 64bits Arm apple computers. Their solution (and widevine hack) is now integrated in the Fedora Linux Asahi Remix project' default distro. You still have to do the user agent mod tho.

reallyzen , 27 days ago

It all works quite smoothly ; the install process is a breeze of a single .sh script to run directly from macos. The amount of software available for Arm64 is surprising, tho gamers will be disappointed there's no Vulkan / Steam available yet.

That "Default" install is really just Fedora, shipped with KDE for it's superior handling of fractional scaling. There's the dnf package manager, flatpaks, the works.

I'm 80~90% of the time on the Asahi side of things on my device. Showstoppers today are sleep battery drain (50% a day) and pure "ooomph" - performance of an M2Pro chip is more akin to a 12th gen i7 than the same chip under macos. Rendering in kdenlive or blender is noticeably slower on Asahi. But it's a huge reverse-engineering undertaking, and it will be getting better.

reallyzen , 28 days ago

$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.conf

Thaaat... took me a stupid amount of time to fix.

reallyzen , 28 days ago

Me too, including when ferociously trying to debug why grub wouldn't find a freaking bootable anything. The error message isn't "uh, no config bro" but "hey, nothing to boot here, see ya in The Shell". Argh.

reallyzen , 1 month ago

Disclaimer: Linux user through-and-through ; I have a modern "m" mac for some work specific applications.

Setting up a macbook today doesn't require an apple id or even an email address. My warranty is with the non-apple authorized retailer I bought the computer from, I don't use the software store (but I think it would work) nor do I use any apple services like itunes, or, without the apple id, I don't have icloud backups. And I don't/can't buy anything from the store, of course.

I am able to update the os, I have just one notification in the settings about setting up the account but no showstopper at all.

So what does apple get from me? I'd guess crude location (from my vpn), hardware/OS version and maybe installed software? That's not much, and since it's a work machine it's offline all the time, I can't see that device doing much behind my back.

If apple is indeed looking deep into that laptop, then I guess they'll see I also have Asahi on it. And maybe they are really really intrusive and notice I'm using that Asahi partition 80% of the time (;

Joking aside, if you need macos, it is possible to use macos. With some limitations: handle your own backups, get your software from the vendors and... And that's it.

reallyzen , 1 month ago

I posted the above for the sake of precision - OTOH, I had my workplace buy an ipad and that was impossible to setup without email + creating an apple id. I don't care much (used work email), but still. Same with:

• Windows 11
• my latest kobo ereader
• Stay away from Sonos loudspeakers too

Since I'm borderline psychotic about this, I always create a temporary access point on my phone that I delete right after setup is done, over a disposable email address from simplelogin.com.

reallyzen , 1 month ago

There's a difference here that I describe as "pro" meaning specialized, complex software targeted at big businesses vs individual tools of the trade: Vectorworks is gonna get paid for happily by companies needing support and relying on it for critical output, while your next door young architect will run an outdated, cracked version of AutoCAD because it's just too expensive - that kid could (and should) run Qcad.

Where I see pirated software surviving is also as a form of legacy support: if you run old hardware (i.e. 32bits), that's where "pro" software is gonna suck & leave you dry, while torrents are still out there.

In gaming or media, cracking looks like a sport, I feel people just want to have fun blowing restrictions to pieces. It's heartwarming!

Back to the 'tools of the trade" category, I am happy to pay a moderate price to support a talented dev (Isadora, D::Light) but get understandably annoyed at huge businesses practicing insufferable licensing schemes. I wish people start looking, and using then supporting more alternatives out there - but isn't photoshop still crack-able because it helps it dominate the market where The Gimp would do if it was the standard?

reallyzen , 1 month ago

[??Uh, you're getting downvoted for asking a straight question? WTF lemmies??]

reallyzen , 1 month ago

Lifa has a lot to offer beyond screens

Yarr, mateys, all sails to the Public Library! We'll drop anchor at the secondhand bookshop on our way back! And drop all that electronic ballast, it's only slowing us down...

You are absolutely right; I hadn't thought of it this way but a post-piracy world should be a frugal one, could be a quiet one. A planet-friendly one.

reallyzen , 1 month ago

OP's premises may be not wrong on the first point, is in need of some realignment on the second, and I have no idea about the third.

The idea of a post-piracy world can still be envisioned and discussed; will it be full of FOSS and CC-BY-SA? Will it leaves us with only secondhand pulp comics while our roku devices blast 23h out of 24 of ads? Who knows?

reallyzen , 1 month ago

You wonderfully deviated this conversation towards the real threats we are facing in the near future, and right now. That was very well said, thank you.

reallyzen , 1 month ago

Great piece, impressive work; Fedora now ships widevine by default - and it's not working anymore. I have a recent Asahi install, netflix won't play (used to work at the time of this blog post).

reallyzen , 1 month ago

Dropping The List here because answering in detail would take ...a very, very long time.

reallyzen , 1 month ago

Uh, you're outputing 52 DMX universes straight from USB? I have questions!

• What software are you using, and is qlcplus really able to do that?
• Have you ever heard the words ArtNet? SACN?

reallyzen , 1 month ago

Oh, here I thought you was running a fancy dancefloor or something! TIL the creator of that chip was a prick.

reallyzen , 1 month ago

DRM-free ebooks. I make a point of buying them, of thanking the publisher... And not sharing it on the usual piracy channels.

reallyzen , 2 months ago

And up with The Cube (and the Wobbly Windows. I can't live without the wobbly windows)

reallyzen , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

I use Asahi too, and at the moment the killing factor is battery depletion while sleeping (50% a day!). Performance wise, working with kdenlive is about on par with an i7 12th gen Intel chip (direct comparison between Thinkpad X1 i7 16g ram 2023 and mbp m2pro 16g ram) - nothing close to the power macos can leverage from the m chip but still perfectly usable. But frustrating in a way.

If you install Asahi, it will be dualboot by default - why not trying it out? The install process is a delight, very well explained.

As for hardware, the Air is pretty unique. There are other fanless stuff out there, but it's gonna be cheap netbooks without the power to handle video work.

I'd say give Asahi a try ; I love booting mine in front of people and looking at their confused faces when I spin the cube to move a wobbly window around (Though the big Fedora logo at startup is a bit of a giveaway)!

Edit: also, you already own the hardware. Stop wasting money/resources, jut make it do what you want.

reallyzen , 2 months ago

With the advent of the m3, m2's and m1's still in inventory can be a steal, particularly 'Air macs which can be sub-1k easy. My mbp m2pro 16g was 1500. I'm not impressed by real-life macos performance tho, a lot of it is impressive in parts (blender rendering for instance) but everyday life is just the same... Yes, the same hanging Color Wheel Of Doom.

I hope your 5k investment isn't having sound playback hiccups because dropbox is trying to log in and refresh in the background. I am actually furious with the 10% of the time I have to use macos on this machine.

reallyzen , 2 months ago

ebook.com has a tickbox in its search tool to look only for drm-free books. I miss-clicked once, buying a locked book & was refunded with zero hassle.

Tachyon Publications straight out does not sell drm-locked books.

reallyzen , 2 months ago

I have a 2013 "air" that was updated to 10.15 (so 64bits) ; I bought it dirt cheap secondhand for one specific app, and out of the box it did update itself when I connected it not so long ago. I changed the battery, too - most resellers include the impossible screwdrivers needed to open the strange tri-lobe screws.

If OP has a use for it, it's not bad hardware with backlit keyboard, a decent screen, lightweight. With a new battery it's a decent all-day workhorse. My main machines are 5th gen Intel, and I remember nothing wrong with 4th gen.

Any distro will run on it, or should. I'd bet you'll get the spinning cube & wobbly windows easy peasy. If it's free, just try it out.

Have fun!

reallyzen , 3 months ago

The Tumbleweed installer is beautiful, and straightforward. I am not sure how a newcomer would understand, or not, the partition setup if they need to keep windows and dual-boot ; if it's about to wipe the entire machine, it is one of the best, sleekest installers out there. Then package management can be a nightmare if you need to stray out of he beaten path unfortunately. Another argument for TW is the perfect integration of BTRFS, Snapper and Rollback (it is an opensuse project after all) ; I swear I'd still be on TW if it wasn't for some exotic software availabiity.

To me, debian does bring bloat: LibreOffice comes to mind. A default install will feature calendars, mails, weather whatever.

reallyzen , 3 months ago

All that was said here, plus sometimes they don't work. I've reported a bug where the kdenlive flatpak version doesn't render titles or fades - and that's on Debian Testing, Arch, and Asahi Fedora. Native version works perfectly, but forces me to download an untidy amount of KDE stuff on my gnome installs ; flatpak would've been a cool solution to that.

I am yet to report another where Ardour nukes pipewire, at least on Asahi, but on Arch it was misbehaving also. Native, distro-provided version works perfectly.

I don't trust flatpak because no one single publisher can test every possible config, and I'm afraid distros become "lazy" and stop packaging native versions of stuff since it's a lot of work.

reallyzen , 3 months ago

Have tou heard of the sl command?

reallyzen , 3 months ago

Newpapers are available in public libraries

reallyzen , 3 months ago

It's fixed by now I think ; I never update between projects, so sometimes would go a few months between updates and it hasn't happen anymore. When it did, the fix was simple enough while still annoying of course.

AFAIK now the keyring gets updated first if needed. In the middle of something here, can't try unfortunately - but at the time of the issue, while the first-level answer was "Update All The Things (all the time)", the problem was on the table, and acknowledged as in need of a fix.

reallyzen , 3 months ago

Better management of the btrfs default settings and cleanup scripts. My install bricked itself because the root partition was 30G and it chocked itself to death (home and all data was elsewhere).

reallyzen , 3 months ago

Generated my grub configuration as grub.conf

This one took a stupid amount of time to debug - but on the other hand, when grub failed it did with "can't find any bootable thingy" and not "missing configuration file" as, in my later opinion, it should.

Life Linux is a harsh mistresses, sometimes.

reallyzen , 4 months ago

That Fedora Spin just works. This afternoon I fired up mine to a colleague, he was blown away: I've got the Spinning Cube! And the Wobbly Windows! Dzoinggg!

But seriously (tho I love my Cube), kdenlive, Ardour, the works, and all on modern pipewire - just works. It's what I need, it is indeed fantastic work, both from the Asahi team and the Fedora people.

(Yes, I had to do all those things to get Netflix, yikes)

reallyzen , 4 months ago

I want to know more about this picture.

• Is it on display in an Haunted House exhibition to frighten children?
• Does the owner of these racks sleeps next to it, and is that under his mum's house?
• Can it run doom?

reallyzen , 4 months ago

Which you should absolutely do even if you snapshot the eff out of your system. What about hardware failure, eh? Can’t snap that nvidia shit can you?

reallyzen , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

Late to the party, but we're talking long-term feedback, right? My point of comparison is a 2017 8th gen i5 dell 7385 with 8gb of ram, running Arch/Gnome.

I'm just out of a huge project involving Ardour, Audacity, kdenlive, Jack, Wireplumber and many gigs of media files on my 2023, brand new, M2 Pro, 16gb Ram 14inch mbp.

I installed Asahi Fedora Remix straight out of the box after updating the mac side (mandatory!). Install is indeed super-smooth. I choose to conform to defaults, and installed the KDE desktop variant ; as expected, I didn't enjoy it and installed Gnome almost immediately. I'm a long time Gnome user fanatic tbh.

It Just Works, plain and simple.

• I was expecting to be blown away by the performance, but it just feels "normal', launching Firefox or whatnot isn't that different from Linux on an old i5. It is snappy, but it's not like Linux doesn't work very well on average hardware.

• Rendering video was admittedly faster, but I only worked on 1080p 45s to 4min stuff, so not a scientific measure here.

• Battery life is good while running the Ardour multitrack DAW for instance. I noticed on macos, gaming on steam, that I can drain it pretty fast if I just play obliviously in the middle of the day. So not a bad battery, really usable work hours out of it - within workloads limits.

• Sleep battery consumption is bad, about 50℅ a day. Better turn it off between things, and reboot.

• ...Which is what I do to my other laptop, it being plagued by S3 sleep issues. But booting the i5 is fast, so it's OK. Boot times of the mbp isn't that fast tho, again I was expecting more from the hardware.

• Some software isn't available on the Fedora repos or flatpak/flathub for the 64bits Arm architecture, but there's much much that is available, including for me the latest wireplumber / jack stack which I do need IRL for work.

• You will have to learn Fedora's dnf package manager tool, but it's "the same" as anything .deb, or about.

So there are minor annoyances pertaining to my use case, but it is more than bearable. I'd never have bought such device without the Asahi project, it is a great daily driver to live (and puzzle coworkers) with.

Now, 3 fingers swipe up, and Spin The Cube, Dude!