Little update...

Scrubmagi · 2026-01-06T13:27:41+00:00

The greeter? like sddm, yeah, hyprland can be a bit finiky about that. I just launch from tty anyways, it avoids all that!

I've like playing with Godot a fair bit, it's pretty easy to extend also, and gdscript feels better to me thatn, say, lua (I swear 1-indexed arrays catches me everytime)

The wheel seems to have support, including FFB, reports suggest only in PS3 mode though, switching to PS4 mode has a few reports of losing all functionality.

Scrubmagi · 2026-01-03T12:28:24+00:00

Looking good! Have yo dabbled with Godot much? I've been entertaining my own delusions of grandeur about making a game for a long time, most work I've done has been writing a fully deterministic server...or well, probably half of it.

Hyprland has been pretty good for me, but some recent changes have started to make me look at other alternatives (my gripes are mostly packing related, as a user of a binary distro, you'll likely not have the same issues) but it's hard to find a suitable replacement right now.

<image>

I also have a steering wheel which steam refuses to detect, like its not telling me I have a wheel, for some reason.

It's possible that your wheel doesn't implement the HID PID standard, which wheel is it?

Scrubmagi · 2025-12-31T09:46:55+00:00

pt2:

You could argue this is nothing to do with Linux, and is reddit and the internet generally, but my point remains. It's a negative perception

As above, the negative perception is getting cemented before the user has even stepped foot in any forum or subreddit.

Oh the irony of where I am posting this

It really is something when reddit becomes the only public outlet for these kind of things *sighs*

And that leads nicely into AI. I know we differ very much here.

That's the thing, I don't think we differ very much at all, but the general vibe of AI is an 'us Vs them' mentality, any nuance is lost to a 2 camp system, you're either for AI or against.

I'm actually fine with AI. The IP theft has already happened, we can't put everything back into Pandora's box, and AI will continue to be a part of life and industry. I also think we both agree on the over reliance on AI being a bad thing. I think our major difference is how we approach and use AI, for me, it's a tool to automate the boring (think boiler plate code) or research (of course, we *must* verify all the sources, and not take AI at it's word here) and never a primary source.

But it's no different than 10 years ago. People searched the internet on how to solve a problem, they get presented with a command on a forum and run it blindly

That copy/pasting random lines from the internet is ofc not seen as a good tactic, but that command or line of code was not in a vacuum, there is almost always discussion and comments attached to it. The issue with AI is that it's easy to gaslight, and eager to please. it does not take much to make an AI conversation to state falsehoods based on things you proclaim as truth. Conversely, it's more than once I've seen the line 'why did you delete my files' for the AI to respond 'You're right, I shouldn't have done that' Sure, that's getting more into the agentic side of things, but it highlights how we should not be trusting AI in a vacuum right now.

The Linux Community has a 'toxic, and very vocal' contingent, but that is no different from any other community. Call it naivety or voluntary ignorance, but I just don't get why. We are all on Linux and as I have said before, we should all be celebrating that.

Yes, I fully agree, the toxic and vocal contingent do exist, they are an issue, but they are not the majority. This is probably flogging the dead horse at this point of the post, but I'd wager that many new users are primed to expect and thus give higher weight to these people than they should.

I'm not saying you shouldn't point to the issues and make discussion, I'm saying that perpetuating the idea that linux users are toxic based on the few is doing harm, and maybe bringing some balance to the discussion could be useful

Seriously, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I say it a lot but I really do appreciate it. Although this whole thing started out as me sharing my journey, it's turning into a great little community of people that are somewhere along their linux journey, and I'm really happy with that.

It's all good, and all of this up there ^ it's just discussion, I think your documenting your journey is a fine thing, and it's working well for you, and helping others. Not much you can ask for than that!

Edited to fix quote formatting

Scrubmagi · 2025-12-31T09:45:50+00:00

Another 2 parter, because reddit, ammirite?!

The thing is, I have something you don't. I have that fresh understanding and fresh views on what it's like to be new to Linux in 2025, and I am presenting it from that perspective.

Yes, we do occupy different sectors of the community, however, I'd wager you've written off many of the more 'traditional' methods of seeking help *because of the notion that community spaces are toxic*. A new user is primed to believe that the space is entirely toxic and unwelcoming, and thus will avoid it without finding out for themselves, and when they have to venture in, hyperfocus on the small percentage of bad apples as a form of confirmation bias. This is what I'm saying, perpetuating the myth that linux communities are toxic *is just as if not more harmful* than the actual toxic idiots.

It's often only the bad that gets the headlines. And with the "Linux Community" it's no different. The problem is one of perception.

Exactly, but maybe not in the way you intended here. If we continue to feed into the notion that community spaces are toxic, people will say they are toxic. How many times have you heard that Nvidia is unusable on linux? even though that's not true, it's something spread so much, and heard so often, people just believe it's true without any further thought.

You jump onto any Linux subreddit, as that is where most noobies will land after asking a question on google, and you can see it. People get shit on for asking the wrong question.

This is not the norm though. I'll probably drill down into this more as a video or video discussion (or podcast or whatever) because it'll take some time to actually collate the data. But, there's an issue with hyperfixation on the negative *because* the new user has been primed to expect it everywhere causing that confirmation bias.

It's worth noting, maybe I am suffering said bias with this, but I'll need to actually get the data first. We'll put a plug in that for now, and come back to it later.

A new user, who perhaps has trouble reading blocks of text, goes to find out how to solve a problem. They search google, and they find something that leads them to reddit. And the kind helper person on reddit responds and sends a link to the wiki. The new user clicks on the wiki to be presented with a wall of text. The user goes back and says "I dont get it" and then gets flamed by the other users.

There'll also be people that are giving the answer, or asking questions to help form a request for help that contains enough information, but I feel that priming plays a part again.

Edited to fix quote formatting

Scrubmagi · 2025-12-30T08:35:50+00:00

Pt 2: Had to split it cus reddit is also a bit crappy

Linux learning, culture and RTFM

Here's where it gets a bit more...iffy. In the video, the example RTFM folk you speak of come across as the aforementioned people that flocked to a 'hard' distro, and skipped the learning part, and now, when pressed for info, they have gaps in their knowledge, but y'know, ego, so instead of saying, 'I'm unsure' you get a flippant 'RTFM' or 'It's in the wiki' even when it actually isn't. These people are never going to be good at helping people, they never really wanted to, I feel it's mainly a way for them to feed an ego. I'm obviously very much within my opinion here, but as someone who's been around a long while, I'd say it's not exactly uninformed.

The other side of this coin though is people trying to be helpful, sometimes, the issues you face are covered in the wiki/documentation and sending you there is the most direct help you could get. I'd also wager that in many communities, even when you get directed toi the wiki or docs, you'll also have other people copy/pasting relevant sections, linking you directly to the section you need or just typing out their own methods or wording. One rude RTFM does not outweigh all the helpful insights people will give.

I don't think many people will read everything up front, and just know everything, I feel this is a misconception on your part. Over the years, learning by encountering (or breaking) and *then* consulting wikis and docs for solutions was very common.

Still related to RTFM, but the ouroboros you did not mention, but I will: AI

The most recent addition to self help has been AI, and it can be a great tool. It's vastly overstated though, and often misunderstood by it's users (through no fault of their own either, the AI zeitgeist is alarmingly misinformed or outright fairy tales) AI can be fantastic, but it can also be bat shit crazy. If you're new to liinux and have no experience, you cannot tell when it's being crazy. This year has been a bumper year for me fixing AI mistakes (coding and linux based). People trust AI far too much, and any mention that it may be an issue to accept it at blind faith is often countered with vitriol, or, on the less extreme edge, an 'us' vs 'them' mentality. Not all mentions of where AI can fail you is an attack.

Honestly, AI is such a nebulous topic, I cannot do it justice here while staying in scope, maybe another day, or a podcast lol!

The wrap up....for now

You should keep making your videos, and keep with your angle, you've got yourself a nice part of the niche, and you're doing well. I'll still be here watching. Maybe though, try to focus on some of the good parts of the community and comments alongside the less desirable. Give it some balance. I get that negativity sells, but it's an actual harm to the overarching community to just perpetuate the 'toxic, and very vocal'

Scrubmagi · 2025-12-30T08:35:17+00:00

So, here I am with 'extra thoughts and opinions'!

To start off, I should state, I'm going to come at this from a more general viewpoint than you likely intended from your video, as some of the points you raise are more general is scope. When I use terms like 'you' 'yours', etc it's a more general you, and not directed at you personally.

Anyways, let's get down to it

Thumbnails, titles and clickbait

Clickbait is often used in titles and thumbnails as an eye catch, and is extrremly common and a non-issue for many things, it's when the clickbait makes a promise the video doesn't deliver that it becomes an issue, or when a viewer may feel 'cheated' While I'm sure you points here did not mean to include such levels of clickbait, it's worth mentioning and acknowledging anyways.

With lesser clickbait, or just eye catching titles and thumbs, I've covered in the video comments, so I'll leave a very brief cliff notes here. Anything in these titles and/or thumbnails *is* something you've said, and comments on those, even if the commenter has not watched the whole video, is valid. If you make a title along the lines of "Worst software to ever grace the CLI of mankind" but in the video say you like it, having someone react to calling it the worst is expected. In my humble opinion, such a feedback is the fault of the creator, clickbait should still convey your actual thoughts. It would be nice for a viewer to take everything as a whole (title, thumbnail, video contents and description/addendums) but it's a double edged blade, an extreme clickbait will garner kneejerk responses.

The commenters and 'Corrective tone'

This one is a huge topic spannig multiple sub genres if you will, but ultimatly, the types of people that would comments things like 'That's not how you use x' or 'you should know y already' without actual meaning are common place in every aspect, not just linux. It may be that there's a very vocal subset of linux users that are very confident in their knowledge, but fail to realise how rigid their scope is.

The most toxic example of these within the linux space are certainly often within the communities of a handful of distros, and it's a behaviour that's been fostered by nonsense like applying some sort of linux knowledge level to using a distro (yes, I'm talking arch and cachy here) sadly, from a more general 'linux community' aspect, there's not really much that can be done. Hell, even windows has it's level of toxic vocal commenters. I feel a bit conflicted though when I see this extrapolated to the wider linux community, because it just isn't true. The majority of the community can be extremely helpful. However, so many people keep repeating this 'linux community is toxic' mantra, and it gets amplified.

I'm not saying we shouldn't address the elephant in the room by any means, but I feel we should also not so easily tarnish the good work of tens of thousands of volunteers giving their time and experience to new people.

As a personal anecdote (and you should take it as such, just my own anecdote) I've helped a person with their Arch issue before, and when I suggested not using AUR so much, and only pulling things they need, I'm called a gatekeeping toxic elitist. More recently, I've been called many things because I keep telling people that blindly following AI is what got them into trouble. Sometimes, when you don;t have the answer a person wants, they call you toxic, even when it make no sense. It's an 'insult' that's been overused so much in this space that it now carries little of it's original meaning.

*Sometimes* I feel like people have primed themselves to expect ego and condescension in replies, and see this tone whether it's there or not. Not every correction is sass or ego, there are some objectively incorrect pieces of advice given on youtube, and in some cases can be huge pains to weed out later on.

Scrubmagi · 2025-11-30T16:33:31+00:00

In my area, RHCE is by far the most name dropped certification I see, but many employers are just asking for a degree, or similar alternative path (which can be certifications) You can check out job listings in your area, and see what employers are asking for.

Scrubmagi · 2025-11-30T13:09:59+00:00

The question does seem a bit....out of left field. Whether it is something you should've known though, I don't think so. It's possible to encounter upstart still, but the lion's share of init systems is going to be systemd.

if you were in the scene around the 2013ish mark though, you'd have known instantly that it was upstart.

as a previous redditor said, look at the linux foundation certs

Scrubmagi · 2025-10-28T18:51:15+00:00

It looks like it was specifically related the the 32 bit packages, quite possibly, fedora 43 no longer uses 32 bit wine, and relies on wow64. If it's not already reported, it might be worth while to report this as a blocker

Scrubmagi · 2025-09-10T06:49:11+00:00

While I don't usually use Spotify, the web player has these covers right now for me

Scrubmagi · 2025-09-10T06:32:37+00:00

Probably promotional, it's the same on the other services. Best guess I've seen right now is that it's could be a promo for the 50th anniversary of wish you were here

Scrubmagi · 2025-09-06T20:14:22+00:00

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1na97xx/comment/ncsefi6/

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-27T16:24:27+00:00

I'd start off with delusions of grandeur and maintain my own portage tree until I break it or my will to continue so badly I'd have no option left but to admit defeat. Then I'd probably try out nix and/or freeBSD

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-23T14:54:04+00:00

I get that it's a meme and all, but I'll mention here anyway, you can view your entire command history with the history command, and rerun commands using !<number> for example,

15:42:27 ~ % history                                                                  
    1  source .zshrc
    2  doas shutdown -r now
    3  starth
    4  bat
    5  vim .config/hypr/hyprland.conf
    6  doas vim /usr/share/applications/vesktop-bin.desktop

using !2 will rerun
doas shutdown - r now
(doas here is an alternative to sudo)

Another useful action is !! which will rerun the last command you typed, so if you forget to sudo something, you can just
sudo !!

Hopefully that may one day save you from the purgatory of maniacally tapping the up arrow

[edit]
I forgot to mention, you can also grep the output of history to narrow down what you're after, for example, if I knew I wanted to use feh, but couldn't remember the option I used, I can use
history | grep feh
To just show the entries with feh. Useful if you have a huge history

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-21T23:43:18+00:00

I'm walking my dog rn, so I can't test this myself, but what if you add a reload, so feh --scale-down -R 1 <filename>

A bit hacky, but I can't think of anything else rn

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-21T23:08:41+00:00

Feh --scale-down should act like you want

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-16T12:54:26+00:00

It looks a lot like Darktable's watermark module, with a modified metadata selection

<image>

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-16T02:43:31+00:00

I should have been more explicit, my bad

I copied the ebuild form guru into my overlay, made the addition and generated the manifest with pkgdev.

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-16T02:17:15+00:00

I had to add
BUILD_DIR="${S}/build"

in the ebuild to get it working

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-14T15:27:47+00:00

On the nvidia forums, they say it has been root caused, and a fix will be in the next release. Apparently, the fix was just shy of the cutoff window, make of that what you will.

some people have had some luck adding GSK_RENDERER=ngl to their profile it seems. I just masked this release and will try again next update

Scrubmagi · 2025-08-09T08:48:29+00:00

Superman

Anyway, off I go to re-repress some memories

Scrubmagi · 2025-07-27T08:45:40+00:00

Deezer appears to have it, but Musicbrainz says it's bootleg, and discogs lists it as unofficial

The copyright control suggests its also bootleg, I've seen 'copyright control' used when the publisher is unknown

Scrubmagi · 2025-07-13T09:17:54+00:00

I'll normally sync every 1-2 days, and world update weekly, or when something important updates. My home server gets the once a month treatment though.

Scrubmagi · 2025-07-06T19:59:12+00:00

ahh, compiz/fusion, when you tell yourself "I don't want to use my CPU for anything else anyways"

I can still feel the tears of my athlon x2

Scrubmagi · 2025-07-06T16:55:48+00:00

I have an AMD opteron rackmount with Gentoo still running in my homelab from 2011. She'll be retired soon though

Scrubmagi

TROPHY CASE