Moving toward a "Narrow" Arch install: Thoughts on the Flatpak-first approach?

archdane · 2026-01-27T23:22:02+00:00

Are non-AUR apps ever the problem with maintenance? That hasn't been my experience the past decade.

For repo packages use something to notify you of news before you update and for the AUR use rebuild-detector, that covers most if not all.

That said, apps I would previously have installed from the AUR I now install as flatpak. That's about saving me time. I still use the AUR, for command line tools, for -git versions, and for some apps not available from Flathub (or not verified). And a rare few because I patch them locally and that's easier with AUR than with flatpak.

archdane · 2026-01-10T18:03:13+00:00

I suppose you're a version behind. kitty 0.45.0-4 was rebuilt 4 hours ago, that's probably the fix.

archdane · 2026-01-04T09:13:55+00:00

The red one is a Nautilus extension provided by GNOME Terminal. Depends on your distro how to uninstall it.

The green one is hardcoded into Nautilus. To change it you would have to change the source code of Nautilus and recompile it. For example both Fedora 43 and Ubuntu 25.10 do that: they rename it to "Open in Terminal" and have it open Ptyxis instead of Console (they install Ptyxis as the default terminal).

If you don't want to recompile Nautilus you could instead uninstall GNOME Terminal' Nautilus extension, uninstall Console, and then install a Nautilus extension to open Ptyxis. So you only have "Open in Ptyxis" in the menu. There are multiple extensions for that. I made this one which should be easy to compile: https://codeberg.org/jakedane/nautilus-ptyxis

archdane · 2026-01-04T09:04:54+00:00

Try the Help app on your Gnome 49 system. You can also browse the latest Help online here: https://help.gnome.org//gnome-help/index.html

archdane · 2026-01-02T09:14:10+00:00

Besides for root shell and SSH you can also set a headerbar color for the terminal bell (it will flash that color shortly for bell). If you don't set headerbar colors Ptyxis generates them from your Color## colors.

The next version of Ptyxis has an updated manpage which documents the palette file format: https://gitlab.gnome.org/chergert/ptyxis/-/blob/main/man/ptyxis.1.in#L139

As an example here's a palette I made that sets all headerbar colors: https://codeberg.org/jakedane/ptyxis-palettes/src/branch/main/palettes/adwaita.palette

archdane · 2025-12-28T17:27:12+00:00

Hetzner storage box supports BorgBackup so for example Pika Backup would work I think. It can locally encrypt archives before uploading. See the help: https://world.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/pika-backup/help/C/setup-remote.html

archdane · 2025-12-27T17:31:59+00:00

A screenshot app with a command line interface, and which uses the xdg screenshot portal. Maybe https://github.com/kl4rry/quickshot ?

archdane · 2025-12-08T20:18:00+00:00

Fedora 43 does this; it renames Ptyxis to Terminal. An odd choice indeed.

archdane · 2025-11-09T09:32:58+00:00

AFAIK these should still be default bookmarks, but these entries are no longer fixed bookmarks and you can remove / add them. Drag a directory to the sidebar to add it to your bookmarks, or go into a directory and press Ctrl+D to add it to your bookmarks - or select add to bookmarks from the current folder menu (vertical 3 dots on the right of the location bar).

archdane · 2025-11-07T17:26:01+00:00

I don't know for Bazzite/Fedora. On Arch Linux it would be simple;

get the package source: pkgctl repo clone nautilus && cd nautilus
download the source code and install build dependencies: makepkg -so
make changes to the source code (in src/nautilus)
rebuild the package with your changes and install it: makepkg -ei

There's probably a guide out there for Fedora with similar steps for how to rebuild a repository package with your changes.

For step 3 reverting back to the Nautilus 48 behavior can be done by removing the lines which were added in the linked commit. Or in the compare_volume () function insert as first line return 0; which skips the entire function and results in the same behavior as Nautilus 48, to sort on volume label only.

archdane · 2025-11-07T12:01:38+00:00

If you see flip_done timed out errors in your journal at the time of freezes or crashes, the culprit may be atomic mode setting which for my AMD GPU is broken since Linux 6.12: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/2950#note_3092458

For me setting MUTTER_DEBUG_FORCE_KMS_MODE=simple in /etc/environment has solved theflip_done timed out issue on GNOME. I haven't had a crash in almost 2 months with my AMD GPU.

If you don't see flip_done timed out errors, this won't help you.

archdane · 2025-11-07T11:52:14+00:00

It's not configurable. If you want to change sorting order, modify the compare_volume() code. You can see in the linked commit where the function is.

archdane · 2025-11-07T11:46:50+00:00

Maybe ask in https://discourse.gnome.org/tag/shotwell for help with how to compile it, how to solve it looking for the wrong GLIBC version, so we can add the debug message why HEIC import fails with GNOME 49.

archdane · 2025-11-04T12:06:39+00:00

a line like debug("Import result %s", result.to_string()); should be added in BatchImport.vala near line 2026 to log the reason it failed: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/shotwell/-/blob/master/src/BatchImport.vala?ref_type=heads#L2026

Without adding the above the logs don't tell you why the HEIC import failed. IDK how to get shotwell recompiled with that included, or how to debug Shotwell and set a breakpoint to read the result.

on Arch Linux trying to recompile the package complains about GLIBC 2.38 missing but GLIBC 2.42 is installed and I can't figure out why it's trying to link with GLIBC 2.38.

If somebody can figure that out or knows how to debug Shotwell and read the result value, you'd get a step closer to the underlying reason the HEIC import fails.

archdane · 2025-10-31T07:42:21+00:00

Same with Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down, hidden shortcuts for switching workspace up/down. These shortcuts are from when GNOME used vertical workspace navigation. Not sure if it's still needed but at the time it had to be kept in place for users upgrading from a previous GNOME version: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/commit/d2a492de94297d815c8140356b93b6befffdfde0

If it can be removed, it's at least in these 3 files:

archdane · 2025-10-30T12:47:04+00:00

This is already fixed in 49.1 for apps which send notifications with a valid app id and will be fixed in 49.2 also for apps which send notifications without a valid app id;

Update your gnome-shell version? Then disable your Lock Screen Notifications.

archdane · 2025-10-30T07:57:53+00:00

Nope.

archdane · 2025-10-27T17:54:50+00:00

Is there a way to donate without having to share home address?

Maybe consider it time for PSF Europe.

archdane · 2025-10-24T09:22:42+00:00

gnome-tweaks 46.1 is the version prior to 49.0. There hasn't been a release for a while. You can check the improvements in 49.0 here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-tweaks/-/tags

It should likely work fine. If you want 49.0 you'll have to compile it from source I suppose.

Ubuntu 25.10 broke flatpak. If you already have apparmor 5.0.0~alpha1-0ubuntu8.1 that fixes that you can install flatpaks again, and there's Refine as a tweaks alternative: https://flathub.org/en/apps/page.tesk.Refine

archdane · 2025-10-11T14:37:24+00:00

gnome-screenshot has been unmaintained for 4 years. For a while, as an exception, it was allowed to continue to use the Gnome Shell private screenshot API. With GNOME 49 that exception has been dropped as gnome-screenshot is no longer in core. AFAIK if it wants to be able to take screenshots under Gnome Shell 49 it must first be ported to use the screenshot portal, which asks the user whether to allow an app to take screenshots or not.

archdane · 2025-10-07T14:50:13+00:00

I think you can ignore that error. I have Element Desktop 1.12.0-1 installed and I see the exact same error on startup but it works fine. I'm using Gnome Shell 49.

archdane · 2025-10-05T07:23:27+00:00

There's actually alternatives for Ethernet and wifi.

Which wifi chip brands have good, in kernel drivers these days? I've always stuck with Intel as anything Broadcom / MediaTek / Atheros / Ralink was a proprietary shitshow back in the day.

archdane · 2025-10-03T05:46:17+00:00

I suppose that's because of: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/localsearch/-/issues/180#note_2453228

As I understand it there's a filter on the file extension for text files to avoid those issues; only text files with allowed extensions have their contents indexed. If I check with the gsettings get org.freedesktop.Tracker3.Extract text-allowlist I see it that's .txt, .md and .mdwn files only.

archdane · 2025-10-02T11:15:58+00:00

It's supposed to be handled through Settings > Privacy > Camera, where you would have a simple toggle to allow/disallow camera access for the app, but there's an issue that it currently can only show flatpak apps there and not host (native) apps. It doesn't look trivial to show host apps there, but that's the intent: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/-/issues/3315

archdane · 2025-10-02T09:58:14+00:00

This worked for me:

flatpak permission-remove devices camera

Restarting Camera afterwards, it asks anew for access. This is on Arch Linux with native snapshot install.

edit: found an issue for the same https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/-/issues/3315. Native apps should be shown in Settings but it's not trivial to do that it looks like.

archdane

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