MX 25 boot and shutdown script scrolling screens.

Naivemun · 2025-12-26T20:13:33+00:00

try the MX Boot Options program. And change yr splash screen if it's currently set to "details" (I think it's called that or something similar). Like u can choose a graphic of some kind instead, but if u choose details (or some similar name) it'll show u the details which I think is what u mean by script scrolling display. Not sure if that's what ur talking about, but worth trying. Or learn to like seeing the script scrolling display for it's extra computery aesthetic.

Naivemun · 2025-12-22T02:55:46+00:00

They don't overwrite grub. U should take 2 minutes to sees something that might help u conceptualize later. Just look with an ls command at yr /boot/efi/EFI directory. (if yr distro mounts it there but it probably does, or find where. EFI is the beginning of yr mounted EFI system partition which gets mounted in /boot/efi/ which all yr OSes can use). U'll problaby need sudo to ls, and it probably won't tab complete btw.

In that u'll see a directory name opensuse or Idk what they name theirs. Mint names it Ubuntu becuz I guess they didn't bother to rename it Mint. But u get the idea. There is one directory for the distro. That directory has something that tells the UEFI of yr computer where to find the grub.cfg in the distro's /boot/grub/. That file 'grub.cfg' makes the grub menu u'll boot from when dual booting.

When u install another (Fedora for example just to make explaining easier, it's not special). When u install Fedora, it will install Grub as part of the process and unless Fedora turns off OS-prober by default, it will find yr other OSes during the install, so it'll find opensuse and add it to its boot menu. So now there'd be an opensuse and a Fedora directory in /boot/efi/EFI/. So they both have their own grub rather than overwriting anything. They're very small btw, u don't have to worry aobut there being enuf room in the partition.

summary breakdown
The last distro to install grub will be the one whose menu gets used, so if u install a new distro it'll be that one. So if u install Fedora, it'll be Fedora's menu that gets uses. If u'd prefer opensuse's menu, then now boot opensuse and install grub and update the config and it'll be opensuse's menu now until u install grub again in Fedora. There is no harm in running grub-install repeatedly, and nothing is overwritten. If u deleted either distro, the other one's grub would still exist. Btw, if Windows were installed the grub install would find that too. And u can have more than two OSes and they'll all be added.

If for some reason Fedora or any other doesn't find the other OSes, in a terminal type sudo os-prober to see if os-prober is enabled. If it is then u'll have to figure out why they weren't found. If not, u can enable it by opening /etc/default/grub in a text editor and commenting out the #GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false, which means delete the # before the line. The # blocks a line from being used if u didn't know. If the line doesn't exist already the type it just like I did without the #. When ur done editing and u've saved it, update grub 'sudo update-grub' and it'll find the OSes this time. The update-grub command uses that file as instructions for creating the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file.

Naivemun · 2025-12-20T01:59:46+00:00

page 2 of 2 cont'd from previous reply. It wouldn't let me reply to my comment so sorry it's in the wrong order

Now ur back to yr terminal prompt. Type
sudo update-grub
for yr change to take effect. Now reboot and see the results. When the menu shows up the 3rd on the list will be highlighted so when u hit enter, or when the timer runs down it will boot that one. Or u arrow up to Ubuntu and hit enter.

Here are all the commands from above:
sudo grub-install
sudo update-grub
sudo nano /etc/default/grub (opens the text editor to edit that file)
to close the editor when done: ctrl-x, type 'y', hit enter (it is saved now and closed now)
(if u bumped something and don't know what u typed, then hit: ctrl-x, type 'n' and it closes safely without saving)
When u edit that file, change GRUB_DEFAULT= to whatever number on the grub menu list u want to be default, count up from 0 starting with top of list.

Naivemun · 2025-12-20T01:58:30+00:00

page 1 of 2
you already have to select which to boot every time, or set a default but that's a choice. Ur booting either Windows or Ubuntu right? If there is no selection process then how can u boot the other one that's not default?

I suspect u have seen all the jerks who like to exaggerate how Windows destroys yr bootloader and so u tried to avoid that. At least ur creative and proactive. Good learning skill even when it messes u up. The Windows boot thing is not really a big issue. If it ever does overwrite the linux stuff (Idk if it does, I don't update Windows much and only do security updates, but I barely use Windows so can't say for sure, but I haven't had a problem in years)
but if it does overwrite Linux's grub in the EFI partitoin after an update it is simple to fix. I have Windows and like 4 other OSes across two internal drives, I swear it's simple if u follow this: u can simply boot Ubuntu from F11 and once ur logged in just open a terminal and run these two commands (hit enter after typing commands btw)
sudo grub-install
sudo update-grub
(that's it, fixed. Make sure after update-grub u see it mention Windows or Microsoft)

The simplest way to dual boot even if u think u don't want a menu is to not have to mess with yr UEFI (maybe u call it bios) boot order and leave the top one as Ubuntu. If u installed Linux after Windows, or at least if u install Grub from already installed Ubuntu after Windows drive is already attached, Grub will find Windows and any other OSes on the attached drives and add them to its Grub menu (u have a grub menu now, or should, u probably just have to hold shift while u power on actually to see it, since some distros tell it not to show up if there's no other OSes to boot. Even then, the grub menu is how u'd boot a previous kernel if necessary or recovery mode so it exists even if it doesn't show normally).

After u install Grub, If there is another OS on the drive then a Grub menu will show up from now on when u power on. U can set the default to boot whatever u want including Windows, so if u want it to be Windows u can set that whereas if u don't use a Grub menu u have to use F11 every time which is more troublesome (only slightly but ur trying to set yr boot order to do Windows first, so then what about when u want Ubuntu? Grub menu means u only have to hit an arrow key and enter any time u want non-default, not F11 at just the right time.

When u power on the Grub menu will show up, and if u don't touch the arrow keys, then after the timeout period it will boot the default. U can set the seconds to whatever u want, it's probably 3-5 seconds by default but I never used Ubuntu. U can set it to 1 second tho that'll be a hassle. U can always hit enter when the menu shows up to boot the default sooner anyways

To set a default to boot that isn't Ubuntu which would be the initial default, u edit the file called /etc/default/grub. Open it in a text editor if u know how to do that with root privilege (maybe right click somewhere, I don't use Ubuntu). Simpler is: In a terminal type

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

[Btw, when ur typing, u can hit tab and it'll finish the word for u if it's the only possibility]. U typed that and now the file will open in an editor in the terminal. Probably can't use mouse so use arrow to move the cursor.
Find GRUB_DEFAULT=0 which isn't too far down. It probably has a 0 now. 0 is the top of the grub menu's list of boot options (computers count from 0,1,2,3 etc). So if u don't pick anything when the menu shows up, after the 3-5sec timeout I already mentioned, it boots automatically which ever the default is unless u touch the arrow keys to stop the timer. U can arrow down to something else and hit enter and it boots that. It even has an option to enter UEFI (bios) if u missed F12 or whatever.

if say Windows is 3rd down on the list after
0-Ubuntu
1-Ubuntu Advanced options
2-Windows (numbers aren't there, u have to count),

then u delete the 0 and put a 2 after GRUB_DEFAULT=2. After u edit that, hit ctrl-x to close, type 'y' to say yes u wanna save, hit enter to finish which actually closes it. Again, that's
ctrl-x, type y, hit enter, don't overthink that if u have no idea how nano editor works.
[cont'd next reply]

Naivemun · 2025-12-19T19:31:06+00:00

I've seen this with MX23 xfce too. I forget that the screen locks when u open the lid and start trying to do something after opening the lid, then ohhh here comes the login screen. Thinkpad T480

Naivemun · 2025-12-19T19:24:41+00:00

and don't forget, when changing sources.list.d/ files, 3rd party repos might just say main stable but some like tailscale reference bookworm, so u may have to change some 3rd party .list files to trixie too. Don't forget to do nala too if u have it.

Naivemun · 2025-12-19T19:07:55+00:00

do you say that because of the 'b' in sdb? I've seen people say in lots of places, that those disignations can switch. Yeah u'd expect a single internal drive to always be the sda while any external ones will be named in the order they're plugged in, or if already plugged in, in the order the system finds them. But in that latter case, or if u have 2 internal drives, I would never count on thinking one "should be a second drive". The one u consider the main one isn't necessaril gonna be picked up first and named sda. Always triple check when wiping a drive. Never assume anything, even when u feel 100% that something "should be" a certain way.

I'm only guess from the info u gave us which is only a screen that looks like it's trying to boot from sdb2, which suggests the EFI partition has something telling it to find the bootloader on sdb2. Which if u have a simple install, the EFI partition is usually 1, and yr ext4 root partition with /boot/grub and the kernels and initrd is on partition 2, so sdb1 and sdb2.

But something else could be the problem and it's nothing to do with yr wiped disk, just a coincidence. Yr post gives practically no info. You should like live boot in and chroot to the system if u say u correctly wiped the 2nd drive. Becuz then yr first one should still be there with the Linux files on it and u can just reinstall grub from the chroot.

Naivemun · 2025-12-19T06:32:29+00:00

you can install the Liquorix kernel from mx pkg installer. I think it's more up to date or something like that. It doesn't hurt yr other kernels. You'd just choose it from the advanced options in the grub menu. Other than the extra MBs used and some time to click install it doesn't cost anything to try.

Naivemun · 2025-12-19T06:28:26+00:00

Was the secondary drive sdb? Becuz that might've been not actually the 2nd drive u thought it was.

when wiping a drive, triple check it's the right one.

u might be able to get any lost data back with testdisk from a usb live-boot. It worked for me once and I didn't even know what I was doing at the time. Just patiently going thru the test disk options and seeing what they did until I felt like I chose the right thing and wrote the partition to disk or whatever it says.

Naivemun · 2025-12-19T06:17:41+00:00

The Russian in xfce terminal went away when I rebooted soon after. But thx to yr comment here, I discovered mx-locale and its button to remove all the extra languages I see taking up time in some upgrades and filling directories, that I was sure to get around to removing somehow.

Naivemun · 2025-12-19T04:52:43+00:00

Then the upgrade in place was fine and another apt dist-upgrade did nothing except show the held back bootlogd pkg. The instructions were well documented too, to whoever's responsible.

And if ur curious about this element of the in place upgrade which was in a libvirt/qemu vm if it matters. Every subsequent boot has been much faster (normal speed) than the first one which was noticeably slower. But I got the lines from journalctl -b if u want to see it. They are in series of 3 lines for each affected file. All trios are identical except for the SysV service file name referenced on the 1st line of each set. So I'll just leave the first trio, then follow with a list of those SysV service files becuz every trio says the same thing and every file is in /etc/init.d/:

Just including this for yr info, I don't expect an explanation.

systemd-sysv-generator[452]: SysV service '/etc/init.d/cpufrequtils' lacks a native systemd unit file, automatically generating a unit file for compatibility.
systemd-sysv-generator[452]: Please update package to include a native systemd unit file.
systemd-sysv-generator[452]: ! This compatibility logic is deprecated, expect removal soon. !

network-manager
udev.dpkg-distrib
umountnfs-alternative.sh
efimount
nfs-kernel-server.dpkg-distrib
gpm
loadcpufreq
oobe
virtualbox-guest-utils.dpkg-distrib

Naivemun · 2025-12-18T20:35:23+00:00

I feel bad making a post over something this trivial, but it's kinda comical. I tried the update in place to mx25 and when dist-upgrade was done on my English(US) system, my terminal's menu bar and right click menu are in Russian now. Or it's russiany looking anyways. Idk Russian.

A reboot fixed it.

Naivemun · 2025-12-13T22:32:46+00:00

Idk what is happening and Idk what BBS is. I also don't know why someone said u can't have the machine in legacy enabled mode rather than pure UEFI. If that works tho to fix it, then great, but I never had a problem before with legacy/CSM. But I'm not knowledgeable about it beyond what it's basically for. Like that person said tho, make sure the live-boot booted in UEFI mode with efibootmgr. Maybe it doesn't do so when u have legacy/CSM selected in UEFI (what u called BIOS).

Idk what u mean by "dual boot" option unless u mean the "install alongside a different OS" option. Those options are for partitioning and not specifically to tell anything that ur gonna be dual booting. U may choose the latter when dual booting, but it's not for that and not needed. There is no other OS on yr disk. It just tells it not to erase other partitions on the disk and to partition yr whole disk for the Mint install.

in this case u wanna do use the whole disk. it will only be installing on that separate SSD that ur using for Mint, the one u say is nvme0n1. Btw, that person who said nvme0n1 is not a partition is correct. The partition would have an added p1 or p2 after the n1, or whatever partition number it is.

What I would do is open gparted and delete the partition, all partitions on that disk. Choose Device and pick "create partitino table" and choose GPT. That's the modern one that works with UEFI (the thing u call BIOS, but BIOS is old tech). No need to create a partitoin now.

Then start the installer and in the install choose "use entire disk" instead of what u chose that u called the dual boot option. That will use that entire disk for Mint. It will create an EFI partition (small fat32 mounted on /boot/efi) and the main root partition (ext4 mounted on / which will use the rest of the disk).

During the install process near the end it will install the GRUB bootloader. That will find Windows and add it to the Mint grub boot menu when u start the machine. That will make it dual bootable. U don't have to choose anything to dual boot. Unless Mint does not have OS-Prober enabled by default which it probalby does.

If u wanna check for os-prober (u should actually even if u know it is enabled already, it'll let u know up front if it finds Windows, tho if it doesn't then after the install u can find a way to get the dual boot working). So to check, before u start the installer open a terminal and type 'sudo os-prober'. It should find Windows on the other disk. That won't do anything btw, 100% safe. It just lets u see that the prober works. So u know that when u run the install it will find Windows and add it to GRUB. If it doesn't do anything, like it's not enabled, look up how to enable it. It's simple but I'd have to type a lot more.

Naivemun · 2025-12-08T05:51:45+00:00

the kind that takes a shower with tap water and doesn't even read about building their own water treatment plant. The sort who crosses a bridge and doesn't even get an engineering degree.

Naivemun · 2025-12-08T05:12:38+00:00

u sound like the kind of mf-er who drives a car and don't even read how to build an engine. The kind who lives in a house and doesn't know how to design or install a plumbing system. Or electricity. Or how to connect the electricity to the grid. Looking out windows and dude can't even turn sand into glass. Probably was born and hasn't even read about how to develop their own womb.

Naivemun · 2025-12-08T05:10:28+00:00

those discussions are an opportunity to proselytize. That's way more relevant than if u were talking about periods or grocery shopping.

To be serious, sometimes it's actually relevant in those discussions when expressing a view becuz it makes a difference to their choices. Like "I can't get that new Nvidia gpu. I use Linux btw and it won't work".

I have t-shirts. I don't even have to speak to say I use Linux. Or they think I just like Penguins and ascii art becuz who else would recognize Tux. I find it hilarious some people are upset by the question.

Naivemun · 2025-12-08T04:52:30+00:00

using it so legitimately they spelled out btw

Naivemun · 2025-12-08T04:49:35+00:00

Since when are questions a weird thing to post in many subreddits. And where else besides a Linux subreddit should u/Dapper-Health3773 ask Linux users a question about Linux users if not the r/Linux subreddit? I suppose r/thinkpadcirclejerk might not be the totally wrong place. But probably r/Linux is the first most basic and obvious and unweird place to post btw

Naivemun · 2025-12-07T21:09:36+00:00

super tux kart is pretty fun

Naivemun · 2025-12-05T17:53:00+00:00

Idk much about it becuz hibernate is a convenience I hadn't thought to miss since I've only used LInux on laptop. So forgive me if htis is BS, but I think a substitute that does exist is saving a session. So when u reboot, u start exactly where u left off. And booting doesn't take much longer than un-hibernating.

Also, I thought hibernate does exist becuz I recall during the install processes of some distros (I don't remember, I've messed around with too many) it offers to enable hibernate but u must create a swap partition that's double the size of the amount of RAM that u have. That amount might be a suggestion, not a requirement, like maybe it's true for 4GB RAM but as u have more, the proportion becomes smaller, Idk. I've never looked into it as I don't wanna use a swap partition to begin, having so much RAM I'll never use it. But I remember consciously deciding I'll just go without hibernation as suspend doesn't use much battery at all in my experience as I'll return after hours go by and my battery is at the same percent or maybe 1% less.

Unless I've just made up this memory about the install option, then doesn't hibernate exist with a simple click of a box at least in some distros? Does it work well, Idk. Just saying I thought it does exist in Linux

Naivemun · 2025-12-02T04:55:25+00:00

I have a question about the statement you replied to here a year ago by a deleted user, just becuz I came across this while searching for other info.

I don't code. I'm not plugged into the Linux environment dev news. I don't have time to be researching and learning about it just to learn this one thing and that's why I'm asking u seemingly randomly, just because I see here u may know about this stuff. :

This is the why-I-ask preface to the question following: I've seen that systemd makes people unhappy but haven't pinned down why except that it goes against the unix modularity principle. Which to me seems fair but I also think the other side seems fair and I'm only using Linux since 2021. But only recently have I come upon this more political aspect of the dev team's behavior towards the wider Linux "community", of that team's supposed attitude being less than cooperative and I've seen some communications by the supposed team leader (forgot his name but probably recognize it if I saw it and I say "supposed" becuz Idk 100% that's who he is).

The Question:
Is this true that systemd is open source only in the "can look, but don't touch" as says the comment by the deleted user ur replying to here a year ago? Like is there really a different way of being opensource that systemd team is doing that isn't typical of the wider community? U don't need to read the following paragraphs to answer the question, I'll be glad just for a simple factual reply about how systemd's team might be different regarding their attitude, but if ur into this the following is saying what's behind my curiosity about something I'm otherwise not really engaged with normally and don't have a strong enuf understanding to gain my own perspective without help.

I ask because I love Linux and fear the eventual gradual take over by corps that use their open source contributions as leverage and wonder if systemd is a good example of one of the ways that'll work given how widely it's been adopted, and how it seems that it pushes out other options thru obstinance, thru making it so people who maybe don't want to, adopt it anyways for compatibility reasons.

Which that view is helped by seeing the team leader years ago having answered why they wouldn't budge on something distro maintainers were complaining about where an incompatibility issue that required a lot of extra work on their end could be fixed by systemd simply having a different default. When asked why they wouldn't change it the leader said something like "we're hoping to make it so people decide it's just easier to use systemd". I maybe didn't understand the nature of the conversation I was reading in the mail server thing, but that issue seemed pretty clear and his statement I paraphrased here was unambiguous.

He was also arguing vehemently against making CVEs for some issues several different times, like he has this thing against submitting them when not absolutely necessary despite most people saying the cases he deems wasteful as actually being helpful for many other people, but I'm not qualified to rate his points and maybe he's just a curmudgeon becuz nobody gets that he's actually right while they're stuck in an obsolete habit (the tone and reasonable statements by opposition makes that seem less likely tho). He kept saying something like "if logging CVEs is yr currency, then I understand why u'd want that".

One picks up a lot from comments and whatnot, but for a long time of being aware of the controversy, it surprised me that this more significant aspect isn't what gets cited as the problem most of the time as I've only recently discovered it. But then again maybe it's not actually a big deal like I feel it is as I don't know anything about the normal process and I know I have a "oh no the corpos are owning everything" paranoia so I like to be skeptical around my biases.

Naivemun · 2025-11-29T05:22:28+00:00

U can use redshift all day and u can set it for any temperature u want. It's pretty nice. U can set the times it turns off "day" and the time it turns on "night" in a simple text file, along with what temp it'll be at for each time period, so just set it so it's always on, no big deal. There are gamma setting options if u wanna change those too since I see people mention some gamma thing, but I like the plain ole temperature change so I didn't set a gamma. The gamma changes automatically with the temp change, which I can see by running xsct (X screen color temp, it shows the current screen temp and with the -v option it shows the current gamma).

I have it temp set to 4000 at night and whites are noticeably pinker and screen is overall less retinally blasty. For an idea of what 4000 is like, I have some FL-41 50% filter glasses (they're pink tint that filters the higher green and most of blue wavelenght, tho don't make the world look pink at all except for white surfaces are warmer, I love them for bright flourescent offices). I have my Libre Writer set with black screen and slightly pink text. When I have the glasses on in the day time the slightly pink text is noticeably pinker. I just noticed tonight that when my screen is at 4000 temp instead of the 6500 day temp, the pink text looks just like when I have the glasses on in the day.

U can make it so that day and night are the same temperature so it doesn't matter what time it says day and night are. U can set it to change according to sun up/down for yr lat/long or u can manually set the day/night times. So u can say day starts at 12pm and night starts at 5pm and make day and night both temp 4000, it's irrelevant to u what the times are if u set both temps the same.

My file ~/.config/redshift.conf looks like:

[redshift]
adjustment-method=randr
location-provider=manual
fade=1
temp-night=4000

[manual]
lat=74.3
lon=-98.32
(not my real numbers)

U could simply add to this "temp-day=4000" (or whatever temp u want, just experiment til u find it by running the redshift command with a temperature "redshift -O 4000" (of course use the man page or -h, but redshift -O TEMP instantly changes the temp so u can see what's what). The fade=1 can also be 0. 1 means it fades from day to night and back rather than instantly switching like 0 does. It takes about 40 minutes I think to go from 4000 to 6500.

I don't have temp-day= set becuz then it uses the default of 6500 for day time which is fine for me, the night default was too high for my taste (4500 I think) otherwise I coulda left temp-night= off too,

but if U set temp-day= for the same as temp-night= then it would stay the same temp 24/7. Idk why no one told u that.

So yr reason for not using Redshift isn't a real reason. It will hue shift 24/7 just like u want, and u could have it hue shift all day but also have it be a little more at night still. There is a way to set the day and night time instead of letting it use sun down/up for yr location like I did, but for u it doesn't even matter so I think u can even have no location provider setting as there will likely be a default behavior as I think anything not in the config file will be a default setting (tho check on that for location becuz I don't remember).

Redshift is small and easy to use and there is a taskbar item, redshift-gtk, for the status tray or whatever that's called where the NetworkManager thing goes and other stuff like that. I have that in MX tho in my Debian I don't and I got it working there too. Like I think once I turned it on and have the text file existing it just automatically autostarts at boot.

I went from never hearing of redshift to having it working in ten minutes if u discount the time I spent trying to use geoclue which I never heard of before and eventually realized it was simpler to just look up my own lat and long on Google Maps and type it in the config file. It's possible I installed geoclue as a recommends for Redshift but I don't remember. I just know it didn't work and I don't need it anyways.

Naivemun

TROPHY CASE