+1

I’m NOT allergic to them but they scare the crap out of me. Bees are a little bit ok. Wasps and hornets though - F that.

Little bit of a thread hijack. But maaaaaybe a recommendation for OP as well.

I’ve never tried a tiling wm before. What does it do that’s so much better than say, a gnome extension? For example, I’m running a gnome extension called grid and I LOVE it. I can tell it to break my screen up into rows and columns with a simple 5X8 or 4X4 command. Then set as many hot keys as I want to move things around and scale the size. It auto tiles and does intelligent window things. Basically I spend all my time with my entire screen tiled with random stuff, but I can move it around easily, not have to write scripts, and still have all the gnome interface stuff as well. What am I missing? If not much, maybe OP, you’re just looking for something like the extension I’m using?

For me I find endeavoros to be the goat. I realized that when I install arch and then the “essentials” for me - I basically recreated what endeavor does. Except endeavor does it with like three clicks on the installer. So now I just install endeavor. Gnome, nvidia drivers, pacdiff and meld, text editor, yay, you get the idea…. No bloat, no bs, quick install with exactly what I would do manually with arch.

I also know this take is controversial-but I like flatpaks as well. Sometimes you gotta mess with flatseal, and sometimes the AUR package is clearly superior. But they usually get the job done well.

It’s nearly impossible to break arch if you use the AUR as little as possible AND read the arch homepage for manual steps BEFORE doing an upgrade.

In 2010 I built a new computer. I was interested in bitcoin from a “this is technically neat” category. I set it up and was able to mine dozens of coins per day.

I did. It was all set up and working. But it generated a lot of heat in my upstairs So. Cal. Apartment. So I stopped. Just deleted the coins because they were pretty worthless then.

I don’t get too upset though because I never would have held them to $50k each. I would have sold them for a buck each.

But I “could have” if it wasn’t so hot out. ;)

I’ve seen this one recommended in the past. I think it’s great for beginners yet still full of useful information.

https://linuxjourney.com/

I have secure boot and tpm disabled on my rig. I’ve been called a fool for this. But I don’t understand how it works, and this is an example.

If I was smart enough to code a new OS or a new boot loader (which I’m not) - how does it become different than a virus? Who approves my code is “safe” to run?

Clearly in this case Microsoft said “those versions of grub are not safe.” So what does that mean? I’m not allowed to run them now because Microsoft decided? That’s all it takes? The whole “what’s safe to run” thing baffles me.

Am I supposed to believe that a govt agency like the nsa could NEVER put malicious backdoors into Microsoft’s products, that Microsoft would NEVER allow that to happen, and that code would NEVER be flagged as safe?

I get it…. It helps with obvious viruses and whatnot. But in my experience, all secure boot has ever done for me is cause problems and lock me out of my computer.

I just tried installing this patch tonight on my windows drive - not because I use windows, just to… you know… keep it updated and secure I guess.

It literally won’t even install. It just fails out every time. Whatever. Microsoft releases so many bad patches lately. WTH are they even doing over there? Windows used to be king and they’ve been screwing it up since 8 came out.

I never “switched” in the sense that yesterday I was windows and today I am linux.

It just happened. I’ve always had some distro or other running on another drive or partition. This includes things like os2 warp that weren’t linux.

But about 4 or so years ago, my games were playable easily on steam, I was able to find Linux packages for work stuff (like teams), and things just generally behaved with no hassle (up until then things worked but they came with hassles).

Meanwhile, windows became a hassle. Microsoft borked my windows install because it forced their crappy store onto a game (literally trashed my installation by clicking “install” - PSO2), every time I turned the pc on I was faced with an update and restart, some of those updates failed (one of them still doesn’t work) - how does an OS update become so poor quality - it’s an OS update, and general enshitification such as ads, nags, and crappy OS design with the clicks…

I just found myself not wanting to use windows, and wanting to use Linux. It happened over time. The last time I logged into windows was three or four months ago just to update the install and keep it fresh. It was a painful 1/2 hour and I’m dreading going back.

EndeavorOS Gnome, light use of the AUR, heavy flatpak use.

1. there are things called gnome extensions that change things up.
2. it’s just that a lot of laptops are potatoes with wierd hardware and drivers aren’t always available. If you have a popular laptop you’ll have better luck. Can’t predict how it’ll go other than goggling your laptop and seeing if you can find a post saying what worked and didn’t. Can’t hurt to try either way…
3. yes. There are plenty with installed apps. Hard to believe you didn’t find any music or video players. Either way - doesn’t matter. Install VLC and it plays everything.
4. most Linux distributions will let you delete Linux itself if you’re so inclined. My vote is to just leave the default programs that install with the distro unless you’re in need of an absolute bare bones system/size (which it doesn’t sound like you are)
5. root is a user, nothing more. If you don’t know why you’re using root, then don’t. Based on your questions, I’d say you can do everything you need as a normal user with sudo privileges.
6. to be honest I’ve never actually done this. I believe you can even install multiples at once and switch between them. Most distros come with a choice of DE during install. Check them out in a vm and just install the one you want. If you’re hell bent on swapping on an existing install, best read a guide on how to do it for your distro.
7. this isn’t exactly right, but docker is kind of like virtual machines. Not quite full on VMs, but rather they are called containers. You can download a docker image, and fire up say, a pihole server. Or in my case, I run a preconfigured ubiquity WiFi controller. Don’t worry about these for now - it’s a later thing. Wayland is replacing X. Some distros use it, some don’t. X is very old - it’s stable and doesn’t get updates and just works. Until it doesn’t because it’s old and doesn’t get updates. Enter Wayland. New things of that complexity are hard to make so there’s bugs with it. Works for some people, not for others. Go watch some YouTube videos on the topic - it’s interesting.

Good luck!

Single person’s data point:

I’ve had numerous gpus-I’ve been all over the map for years. Sometimes amd sucks, sometimes nvidia sucks. Right now, I’m rocking a 4090 and it’s working better in endeavoros than I’ve ever seen nvidia work in linux. (I’ve always had problems with nvidia cards screen tearing, stuttering, and general installation issues).

But honestly, those complaints have been resolved at least with my distro. I think both brands are in a good spot right now. I think you’re safe to buy whatever floats your boat.

IMO

Congrats! Mint is a good place to start.

Ah I see, #5 is just the header you’re using. You aren’t using 5 total. That makes more sense.

I don’t even have L-connect installed, but I did once upon a time. Maybe I changed a setting there and forgot about it, but I don’t think so. Either way it’s probably worth checking that your bios is set to “PWM” for that header, and that L-connect is set to “enable MB PWM Sync” under the fan/pump profile page. (Just from googling). Look for settings to turn off any L-connect interaction - forcing it to pay attention to the fan header?

I’m wondering if your controller is somehow set to ignore the header pins and run from just the usb port/L-connect. And maybe on a power cycle, your mobo thinks there’s no fan?

I dunno - I’m shooting in the dark now though. All I know is that my controller always shows up as a single fan, and all the attached fans run at the same speed - whatever the header calls for. No software installed, all wired connections are made, exhibits this same behavior regardless of OS, power cycles, reboots, etc.

Sorry I’m not more help - it’s frustrating when things that should “just work” don’t.

Oh! Did you plug in BOTH SATA connectors? I think one is for rgb and the other is for fan speed. Maybe that’s screwing things up?

“Fan 5 isn’t recognized”. This confuses me. Wouldn’t your motherboard only recognize the controller? For example I’m using two controllers. My motherboard sees a single cpu fan (the controller with 3 daisy chained fans on one port), and it sees a second chassis fan (the second controller with a 3 pack on one port, another three pack on the second port, and a single fan on the third port).

10 fans, 2 controllers, mobo only sees 2 “fans”. Here’s a video showing exactly how I wired mine up, and the type of fans and controllers (maybe we don’t have the same parts).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0wPi_zNzKF4

Hmmm…. I’ve got those exact fans and the controller that comes with them - 10 fans to be specific, and they really haven’t given me any trouble at all. There are three sets of 3 daisy chained, and one single fan. They connect to a relatively new asus board. I’m running arch and openrgb from the aur.

The fans doing fan things (spinning), that just works. They ramp up and down based on the case fan connector from the mobo. One three pack is on the radiator to an aio cooler and that triplet ramps up and down based on the fan speed header for the cpu.

The LIGHTS are a different story. If I cycle power completely, they do the default rainbow puke when started back up. OpenRGB required a little configuration and playing around to get the number of lights correct, and synching properly-but it worked. (I can get you my settings in openRGB if that helps avoid the trial and error). Because my mobo still supplies power when I power down, the lights hold their last pattern when I reboot.

So in my experience-those fans spin without any software and light up at least rainbow puke without any software. You only need software to get different colors or to just override the fan header and set a manual speed.

I’m wondering what your computer/mobo is doing to stop that. Weird.

I trust Apple more than Google. May be misplaced faith, but that’s the primary reason.

Agreed there were native linux games written for linux, but remind me because I forgot - I believe Doom had been ported or something. Because I remember running it both at home in linux and I remember people running it in the computer labs off the Unix mainframe.

I went to college in 93, and they ran a Unix mainframe with thin clients connected to it in the computer labs.

I didn’t really know much about any computers then, but I learned quick and had nerdy friends teach me a lot. Home computers ran DOS, but this fancy thing called Linux had entered the scene and nerds played with it.

I remember it being a bear. My comp sci roommate did most of the work, but he’d dole out mini projects to me to help him out. You had to edit text files with your exact hardware parameters or else it wouldn’t work. Like resolutions, refresh rates, IRQs, mouse shit, printer shit - it was maddening. And then you’d compile that all for hours. And it always failed. Many hardware things just weren’t ever going to work.

Eventually we got most things working and it was cool as beans. But it took weeks - seriously. We were able to act as a thin client to the mainframe and run programs right from our apartment instead of hauling ourselves to the computer lab. Interestingly, on Linux, that was the first time I had ever gotten a modem and a mouse working together. It was either/or before that.

It was both simultaneously horrific and fantastic at the same time. By the time windows 95 rolled out, the Unix mainframe seemed old and archaic. All the cool kids were playing Warcraft 2 and duke nukem 3D.

Frostpunk - seems fun. Played a few hours.

Armored core 6 - um I died like 4 times in the tutorial. I was shamed and put it down.

But ya - it’s been Elden ring pretty much 90% of the time.

I’ve actually had someone thumb their nose at linux because of that name. “You mean the hat OS? The one those weird guys use? No thanks.” I’m paraphrasing but ya, that association is there for some people.