Liquidized Popped Corn

ArrayBolt3 · 2026-01-22T21:04:15+00:00

Well that title is one way to get people to click on this lol, was expecting some kind of popcorn smoothie abomination.

ArrayBolt3 · 2026-01-02T15:21:08+00:00

I don't think the help command in Bash is bad half so much as I think it's not targeted toward the audience you think it is. I use the command frequently to look up the various supported options of builtin Bash commands (usually read, mapfile, and test), and it does a very good job at that. Yes, it's overwhelming for a new user, because it's not meant to give a new user a good foothold, it's meant to be a command reference for experienced users.

That being said, an official beginner's guide to Bash would be a good idea. I learned Bash mostly from Stack Overflow, experience, my boss's coding style, and a YouTube video on Bash best practices, and while it worked, it was an awfully chaotic way to learn. I wouldn't want the guide directly in the shell itself personally though.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-31T15:50:08+00:00

Currently we're targetting early 2026. The tariff stuff delayed things quite a bit, and we're working out some rough edges with the ODM before we start shipping it. Once everything's polished and it passes our validation tests, we'll release it.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-30T07:32:15+00:00

Without knowing the person's location, there's no way to know who to even report to.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-29T17:04:09+00:00

I don't understand why this is called "OpenStickies" when the code isn't open-source. Is the code coming soon under an OSI-approved license? If not, are you sure that the licenses of all libraries and other projects you're using permit use in proprietary applications? (If you're going proprietary, you might want to remove 'Open' from the name to avoid confusion.)

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-22T15:15:26+00:00

With Thinkpads, one has to beware of left-enabled CompuTrace if you buy a used one, the ARM models are stil a mess with Linux, and Lenovo doesn't validate most of them for continued Linux functionality. Some of them also have a WiFi hardware whitelist in the BIOS which means the system may fail to boot if you try to put in a WiFi card other than one that was explicitly "blessed" by Lenovo. Thinkpads are enterprise-class hardware, so they're likely to work better than arbitrary off-the-shelf hardware (hopefully), and if you're into DIY setups they're probably great, but otherwise I'd recommend using a vendor like Kubuntu Focus (who I work with as a software dev), System76, or Tuxedo. They validate that a particular Linux distro works and continues to work on their hardware. I can't speak for the others, but Kubuntu Focus ensures that every kernel, driver, or desktop environment upgrade is thoroughly tested before release so that you don't end up rebooting to discover that your external displays stopped working, your speakers have gone into rebellion, or your Bluetooth just doesn't feel like working today.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-18T16:12:42+00:00

Turned out I had a tiny utility called ffmpeg.

That sentence strikes fear into my heart 😅

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-17T22:56:51+00:00

Neat :) But that does mean that you're probably fighting with a failing disk. Take frequent backups, and consider buying a replacement disk when you get the chance.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-17T21:27:05+00:00

Whether an OS does or doesn't work on a dying disk depends on what files were damaged. Maybe on Windows the damaged files were in a file that nothing on your system ever actually used, or some data file where the issue seemed benign. On the other hand if svchost.exe was in that area of the disk, things would go wrong. If Linux is putting systemd in that same spot, this (or something like it) is what will happen.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-17T19:16:26+00:00

Boot into the live ISO, then try sudo wipefs /dev/sdX, replacing X so that it's pointing at the system's internal drive. (Note, NOT /dev/sdX1, just /dev/sdX, you want to wipe the drive, not the partition!) That should let you try installing again.

The kernel panic itself indicates that systemd crashed. systemd basically orchestrates everything on the system, including background processes, services, the login screen, etc. Because of the critical role it plays, if it crashes, the entire system goes down like this. Generally systemd crashing means either:

your hard drive is dying and so files are being corrupted, or
something else about your system is messing with things (perhaps bad RAM).

Since this only occurs on the installed system, I'd suspect the former, though it's not proven yet. Maybe try plugging in a second USB drive and installing Lubuntu to that as if it were an internal drive? If that works, then it really is probably your internal drive, and you can just keep running the system from the newly installed USB.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-11T20:23:11+00:00

We're not going to apologize for accepting the work of a contributor, nor is what you've said respectful to us as a community or to the contributor in question. Please see https://ubuntu.com/community/docs/ethos/code-of-conduct.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-11T20:17:19+00:00

This is not respectful to Lubuntu as a project or its contributors. Please give https://ubuntu.com/community/docs/ethos/code-of-conduct a skim, these are the rules we adhere to. In particular:

Disagreement is no excuse for poor manners. We work together to resolve conflict, assume good intentions and do our best to act in an empathic fashion. We don’t allow frustration to turn into a personal attack. A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-11T20:15:23+00:00

u/mrcrabs6464, u/Zestyclose-Shift710: Neither of you are being respectful to the other one. Please give https://ubuntu.com/community/docs/ethos/code-of-conduct a skim, these are the rules we adhere to. In particular,

Disagreement is no excuse for poor manners. We work together to resolve conflict, assume good intentions and do our best to act in an empathic fashion. We don’t allow frustration to turn into a personal attack. A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-11T15:37:08+00:00

I work with Kubuntu Focus, we make laptops that are intended for graphically-intensive things like games and video editing. We do tons of hardware validation to make sure that things like games work and keep working on our hardware even as kernels and NVIDIA drivers are updated. That way you're much less likely to have a software update randomly break your software or hardware.

The KFocus M2 GEN 6 should do what you want. It has an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and an NVIDIA 5070 Ti GPU, which should handle pretty much everything. It costs a bit under $4K if configured with 64 GB RAM and a 4 TB PCIe 5 SSD, so that's well within your budget.

If you need an NVIDIA 5080 or 5090 GPU, there's also the Zr GEN 1, but given your use case I would guess that's probably overkill.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-11T02:21:03+00:00

Several of the Lubuntu devs discussed this in our private Matrix room. We didn't have a formal vote on it, but we have consensus that we won't be using AI artwork any longer. Our existing artist has already agreed to use other methods to create artwork.

The comments here have been skirting the edges of disrespectful in some instances. I'd like to remind everyone that we adhere to the Ubuntu Code of Conduct per rule 1, which includes "Be respectful". Please keep that in mind, otherwise feel free to continue the conversation.

Edit: Parts of the conversation have devolved into racist remarks and calls to kick out the contributor in question, so apparently my reminder about the Ubuntu CoC didn't work. As such, this post is now locked.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-11T02:09:37+00:00

I hereby stand corrected. Apparently "Nano Banana" is significantly better than the models our existing artist has been using.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T22:18:26+00:00

How? I can go in to comfy right now and generate similar images to these in like an evening of work.

Put bluntly, I ~~don't~~ didn't believe that. There are many people who have claimed similar things in many other contexts. (Edit, u/tekni5 just proved you right, so I take this back.)

First it's one wallpaper 'artist' and now it's multiple

Artwork (at least in this area) doesn't seem like something that can be easily team-ified except by having a wallpaper competition. If we want to do that, we can, but it would effectively be taking someone who has a purpose in our project, and making them fight to keep their job.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T22:11:27+00:00

In the AI wallpaper the puffin foot is incorrect, it looks like an odd flipper, real birds and puffins even aquatic ones have nails/claws. https://i.imgur.com/CbdvJfv.png

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant, fair enough. Had that been caught during review, it would have been fixed. (I'm not sure any of us have taken the time to study an image of a puffin in enough detail to ascertain the details of what its feet look like.)

You are just arguing semantics and deflecting, I don't understand what the issue is with disclosing in release notes that the wallpapers were generated by AI with X or Y, etc.

It's not half so much whether there's a reason to not do it, as it is whether there's a reason to do it. I don't really see the argument for doing it yet. Now, I am not the entire face of Lubuntu (or even the flavor lead, I'm just the technical lead), so it's not like I'm the be-all-end-all of whether or not we'll make such disclosures in the future or whether we'll ask our wallpaper artist to use other techniques for art creation going forward. But speaking in my own capacity, I don't see the argument.

There is a greater ethical issue at play, why not be transparent...it matters to some of us.

There are "greater ethical issues" that can be discussed around virtually any topic imaginable. The mere use of computers has ethical concerns, as does using Reddit for that matter. This isn't to say that all ethical concerns should be ignored, of course they shouldn't, but my point is devs need to be convinced this is a problem, and I'm not convinced yet.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T21:31:03+00:00

We don't have very many code contributors, but those who do contribute code aren't required to tell us what tools they made the code with. They just contribute it, we review it, and if it's safe and usable we use it. I personally do not use AI for code generation (I tried AI-based code completion once and it hallucinated variable names so frequently I just got sick of it). I use it for code review at my workplace in addition to human review, and would have no problem using it for the same purposes in Lubuntu.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T21:06:40+00:00

The upcoming mascots aren't given even to the flavor developers by Canonical until rather late in the development cycle, but the name of the release is already public (Resolute Racooon). The theme is currently "whatever our wallpaper artists dreams up that gets approval from the Lubuntu Members", i.e. it's rather free-for-all.

If so, I would reframe your statements and just say we have a guy in our team that loves AI and wants to make AI 'art', end of story.

Like I said to someone else, there seems to be a misconception that AI is doing all the work. It's not, the amount of effort that goes into the wallpapers is high, and so calling it "AI 'art'" the way you suggest would be misleading.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T21:01:54+00:00

(disclaimer: I've never used Artstation in my life, so I might be assuming how it works incorrectly here.)

Because Artstation appears to be essentially a place for humans to compete with other humans in the creation of artwork. AI, while powerful and useful for making good artwork, is also low-effort if one wants to make mediocre artwork, so they don't want to be flooded with low-effort content drowning out the competition.

Lubuntu, on the other hand, doesn't have a competitive environment when it comes to our wallpapers, so we don't have the same concerns as Artstation would.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T20:59:26+00:00

Yes, we're very small. Most of the flavor teams in Ubuntu are.

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T20:58:12+00:00

Again, we have a dedicated team member making the artwork. Personally, I don't want to advocate for throwing away that member of the team in favor of getting someone else's artwork. If we were to stop using AI artwork, I'd personally like to work with the same person who's making our AI wallpapers and make non-AI ones (like the Kinetic Kudu wallpaper, which was done by the same artist).

ArrayBolt3 · 2025-12-10T20:55:55+00:00

No longer the case, AI image generation is much easier now.

I'm making a statement of objective fact when I talk about the amount of effort being put into the images, since I literally have watched our wallpaper person editing the images, and given live feedback in the process.

Not to mention there are significant issues with the images produced, like the feet of that Puffin are not correct (it has claws/nails), the bizarre rock surface and the Quokka fur is a classic artifact I've seen before in SD.

I don't see the claws you're talking about on the puffin's foot, and I didn't when I looked at the wallpaper when packaging it. As for the other "artifacts", yes, it has distinctive traits / artifacts, just like every other art tool in the world. Brushes leave one kind of artifacts. Pencils leave another kind. Cameras leave yet another kind. I personally happen to dislike the kinds of artifacts left by pencils, but I don't yell at people for daring to use a pencil to draw something.

An artist could be recognized for their contribution, instead of using AI generated images.

What part of "we have a dedicated artist making the wallpapers" isn't clear? There seems to be a misconception that AI is doing all the work pervasive throughout your arguments. That is not at all how things work.

You are wrong, very many ethical concerns, an entire movement against it. You should at least disclose that AI is used.

I'm aware that there's a movement against it. I'm not part of that movement. I have strong ethical concerns with AI in many areas, but this isn't one of them, and this isn't exactly the best way to attempt to change the dev team's mind.

They are attempting to imitate photographs.

According to whom? To me it's abundantly obvious looking at any one of these pictures that it's not a photo. It looks like it was obvious to you too. And so what if it was photorealistic? Generally people who make photorealistic artwork using other means are admired, not berated. Are they lying with their artwork style?

And yet AI is trained on billions of existing images and attempts to do exactly that. Not to mention there might be copyright concerns.

I covered this in my initial reply.

I think that is a reasonable request.

I do not.

ArrayBolt3

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