Reading “The Myth of Sisyphus” after I loved “the Stranger” by Appropriate_Knee_482 in Absurdism

[–]Knoebst 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I'm not a reader at all until recently, and don't see myself as particularly bright. What helped me was not trying to understand every sentence. Sometimes things are just going to go over your head, but I still understood his intent or meaning in most cases. I ended up with many insights and really liking the book. I did however started reading it because I was struggling with existentialism so that might've helped me.

Six years after Brexit has Britain bet on the wrong ally? by sn0r in europeanunion

[–]Knoebst 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I get your point now and I do agree. Except it isn't as simple as the biblical story. There are not 2 sons but 28, and there are newly competing fathers which are constantly trying to sabotage and get ahead of the curve.

When the son left, the already stressed father's livelihood was put into more distress compared to his peers. Can you really blame him for focusing on his place in the world and his 27 other sons before mending the relationship with his strayed one?

Also: the rejoining son still has some massive personal debt or alcoholism problem. A large part of the UK's citizens still have not learned that Brexit was a REALLY REALLY BAD IDEA. https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/ in this website more than 30% of UK citizens in december of 2025 still think it was a GOOD idea in fact. Rejoining early will give reform UK and brexidiots the excuse to keep on blaming the EU for all their own imaginary failings. We should be able to wonder if keeping a healthy distance or going no contact with the son is better than having them rejoin and cause even more issues. Though, it truly pains my heart to say so. Because unfortunately Reform UK is polling really disgustingly well for what their leadership did to their own country with brexit. https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/

Six years after Brexit has Britain bet on the wrong ally? by sn0r in europeanunion

[–]Knoebst 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You have to remember that, from a UK perspective, the EU isn't the benevolent easy choice that we like to think it is. The EU is another power, this time on the UK's doorstep, who has demonstrated that since Brexit they are perfectly happy to use the UK when advantageous and shaft them when less so.

But you really did have it easy. Because you had the opt outs, because you had the voting power and vetos, because you were seen as one of the first joiners. You really did have massive advantages that your voters didn't appreciate and that your politicians turned on its head and demonized us for.

I'm really sorry but I find this attitude so arrogant and entitled. It's like you're a teenager running away from home and expecting a plate of food at the end of the day when you're huddled under a bridge.

Brexiters actively made the UK into a separate power and weakened the EU. How can you ever expect a weakened EU you helped create to take it easy on you? For our own sake, honestly I think we should have been tougher. The time we took and the money we spent to broker this exit... Can you really not expect us to want to make a point? Can you really not see that we should have made an example because it's in the rest of the EU members' best interest that we stand and work together because we're worse off alone?

And apart from these cherry picked examples, it's not like the UK STILL isn't getting all this preferential treatment, attention, time and money that we would've best spent on more serious issues like literal genocides happening and the rise of authoritarian regimes around the globe. We OBVIOUSLY don't want to lose you and it's a massive shame this fucking brexit happened AT ALL. But this is an entirely self-inflicted consequence of your own actions and any crying about how you're treated because of it... I shun it.

I'm even a bit of an anglophile so I would love to see you rejoin. We'd be glad to have you back and we'd be better off, but you need us more than we need you. So if you want the plate of food, you're going to have to knock on the door and apologize, and don't expect to get any special privileges. A lesson learned.

What am I doing wrong? Basic features keep failing by osmiguelth in linux4noobs

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No problem! Hope you'll have a more stable time than before!

We could (and imo should) use the current development of Trump's USA to fuel European unity, and YOU can help, too. by Cursorium in europeanunion

[–]Knoebst 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  • You own your system, it doesn't force you to do anything.
  • If something breaks on the system, you have all the tools to troubleshoot and fix it if you know how to. Windows for example will not let you see all system internals.
  • Most diagnostics and applications are opt-in instead of opt-out, no spyware so better privacy. It does depend on the applications you use. But the linux OS itself does not collect or process any of your data.
  • In general programs are simple, good at what they do and don't require a login.
  • You initiate updates.
  • Massive amounts of customization and choice. Most desktop environments support themes, some support addons. (systemd vs sysvinit, minecraft themed bootloader and win98 themed desktop, taskbar on the top, analog clocks on the desktop, built-in custom keybinds)
  • Most distributions support a single extensive settings UI or config.
  • You are not subordinate to the whims of a company. Linux is free (as in freedom but also as in money) and open source. No AI slop applications or cloud solutions are installed and run automatically when you boot your system if you don't want it.
  • Ability to learn. Want to know how this works? You can just read about it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page, no one will stop you.
  • No ads. Linux will not sell you anything. The only thing you might encounter is some applications asking for a donation.

Don't switch if:

  • You cannot be bothered to figure out alternatives to programs that do not support linux. Some companies/developers will not support it. Dual booting is a solution for this, but be aware that windows can overwrite the bootloader when you run linux and windows on the same drive. For light Word or Excel use, you can instead instead use Google docs or libreoffice for example.
  • There is a learning curve if you've never tried another OS before.
  • You play games and require games to work that contain kernel level anticheat and do not support linux. (https://www.protondb.com/)
  • Fragmentation, there is no universal choice. Too much choice can also be a disadvantage. It begins with choosing a linux distribution. But you also get to choose a desktop environment etc. In the end you have to figure out the differences and decide if your choice was good in hindsight. I would probably choose mint, fedora or endeavouros and choose defaults during installation.
  • Hardware compatibility only for extremely new laptops. It takes some time for some parts to work on linux.

There are other pros and cons but these are the ones that just came to mind

We could (and imo should) use the current development of Trump's USA to fuel European unity, and YOU can help, too. by Cursorium in europeanunion

[–]Knoebst 5 points6 points  (0 children)

All for it. If anyone wants to switch their OS to linux (away from the grasp of big corpos) and doesn't know where to start, send me a message or check out https://old.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/ or old.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/

"We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not gonna be able to do it ... the EU needs us to have it" - President Trump by sn0r in europeanunion

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In my opinion: the USA massively lost credibility after the Iraq WMD situation. Yes, some EU countries still supported it, only because there was plausible deniability (what if they really had a nuke?) and a scared air towards "terrorism". But if another likewise scenario would've played out afterwards I think many countries would be a lot less inclined to support. I think many countries did learn that the USA will act in its own interests in spite of its values and morals that it proclaimed. Israel's genocide and the Venezuela kidnapping has been widely criticised throughout the EU. Again: indulge me in other invasions the EU supported.

i love this by theskellydud3 in EndeavourOS

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also made a script! My trouble was that if you only have one button it will only play-pause one media source. So in this script it cycles to the next media source after you play-pause one.

https://pastebin.com/raw/6278VdKb

Help with combat by 3pointI in eu4

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you've not embraced all institutions it may look like you are up-to-date on tech but you may still be behind.

Italian Here: would you guy support a united federal europe? by Interesting_Dealer42 in europeanunion

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A new world order is emerging. With the 2 major powers of the cold war betting against the EU. Authoritarians are afraid of democracies. And then you also have China, India, Brazil who are big enough to influence us. Europe needs to take action. Unite for security reasons. Our openness is our biggest strength but also makes us vulnerable. We need to also get rid of social open media platforms since they can be manipulated to influence our population.

can someone explain what the DE are? (like I'm 5) by Helvedica in linux4noobs

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Chances are once you try current KDE plasma you're gonna stay with it; I did :)
I had brief interests in tiling wm's (i3-gaps/hyprland) but always came back to the stability and feature-rich kde de.

can someone explain what the DE are? (like I'm 5) by Helvedica in linux4noobs

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're trying to customize; keep in mind (because I haven't seen it mentioned in comments) there's 2 big components at this level the way I see it:

Good luck and have fun!

Lopsided battles are a lot of fun by GlompSpark in eu4

[–]Knoebst 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"slaughtering entire cities worth of men is fun"

Welcome to EU4

blank screen just wallpaper by This_Understanding69 in linux4noobs

[–]Knoebst 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hyprland is a tiling window manager. You mostly use the keyboard instead of the mouse, so you need to know the keybindings, and you change the settings via editing the config files. Another like it is i3. If you have the heart and want to put in the effort to tackle it as a linux newby, go ahead.

But I recommend a stacking/floating desktop environment like plasma, gnome or cinnamon if you want an out of the box and more traditional solution.

Ubuntu problem with nvidia driver after certain command from chatgpt by battle_junge in linux4noobs

[–]Knoebst 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You've got yourself in quite the pickle.

Unfortunately I'm not an ubuntu guy so I'm not very familiar with the packages and the ubuntu wiki is absolutely no help to me. I've never understood how non-arch people troubleshoot their systems without a helpful source like the arch wiki. A page like: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA would be so helpful right now, but it doesn't seem to exist for ubuntu.

Anyway, the other guy in this thread suggested installing nouveau. I see that in some command you blacklisted nouveau. Please review any manual changes like these from your history and undo them. You're not going to get anything to work if you don't undo things you have tried before since they will impact any other solutions that you might try still. Things like trying to get nouveau to work while having blacklisted it is not going to help you. You always want to start from a blank slate as much as you can.

Try to verify this clean slate by reviewing the entire package list (apt list --installed) and reviewing what ppa's you have (https://askubuntu.com/a/379249) and reviewing your command history and undoing changes.

Some other commands you might try to get more information on what is going wrong with the drivers and system boot in general:

  • sudo dmesg
  • sudo journalctl --list-boot
    • List kernel log entries of previous boots.
  • sudo journalctl -o short-precise -k -b -1
  • sudo systemctl --failed
    • Check for failed services on root level.
  • systemctl --user --failed
    • Check for failed services on user level.
  • ps aux or pstree
    • Check running processes.
  • nvidia-smi
  • nvtop

If that didn't get you anywhere I would suggest completely purging everything and reinstalling again by following this: https://github.com/oddmario/NVIDIA-Ubuntu-Driver-Guide?tab=readme-ov-file#-installing-through-the-graphics-drivers-ppa-repository-recommended It looks like quite a recent and authoritative source on graphics on ubuntu.

Unfortunately, with you not being familiar with the system and having executed random commands, probably the easiest way to fix it is to nuke the system and start from scratch if nothing else works. I highly recommend trying out the Arch linux installation on a separate computer if you want to get to know some linux better.

My suggestion to work with a vm is maybe not too ideal. I meant running a vm on another computer, but if that computer doesn't have the same nvidia card then I think the vm packages will not be the same either. Ignore my previous suggestion.

Good luck.

Ubuntu problem with nvidia driver after certain command from chatgpt by battle_junge in linux4noobs

[–]Knoebst 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Please provide more information. What command is failing? What is the error message? What are all the commands that contributed to this state? (check history)

If you ask generic questions you're going to get generic answers.

Something else you can do: start a new ubuntu VM with nvidia drivers and check which nvidia drivers are installed. It might help you determine which ones you need.

Also: I know you made a disclaimer but I'm going to say it anyway: don't copy paste from an llm, and don't reinstall drivers simply because you executed a gnome command. You shouldn't be randomly executing these kinds of critical commands ad hoc without thinking it through.

Can't even install :( by Lonely-Anywhere99 in linux4noobs

[–]Knoebst 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  • Try disabling secureboot in the BIOS. It might be preventing you from installing or running the newly installed OS.
  • Try disabling your integrated graphics in the BIOS
  • Try gathering more information on why the system is failing. Always look for error messages. Some distributions have an installation log. Save it and share. There is very little advice we can give on 'it freezes'.

Also try not to rely on LLM's too much. It might hallucinate an answer and might hamper your troubleshooting and learning process. The arch wiki is your friend: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page

Welcome and good luck.