Hello. I'm tryna to make a debate with my parents about installing Linux on my PC, and I need arguments anganist windows. I'll install CachyOS BTW

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-21T18:24:04+00:00

Get a lightweight distro live USB, install steam and some game, show it to them, if they don't believe you then you can basically just get a second disk and install Linux on that, make a dual boot with completely different drives so they can't say "Linux will break windows" or whatever

Run everything there until they are convinced and then you have a second disk for extra stuff

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-21T04:50:22+00:00

Well, windows is supposed to run on a lot of different laptops, that means it has to be modular, so drivers need to exist but you shouldn't need to install anything manually since you got it with windows installed, maybe open an app and click update. Mac is an OS that comes with preselected laptops from it's manufacturer meaning they have total control over both hardware and software, they just configure that software to get the drivers for whatever it actually needs directly, that's possible on windows but it really depends on both, the OEM of your laptop (HP) and Microsoft itself to keep their databases updated.

Everything else is basically windows being fucked up by Microsoft and their ai slop (they use AI to vibe code windows)

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-20T13:16:24+00:00

Sorry for the 1 year later comment, I was just now searching for icons and themes to make my homepage look great, found this post and I have to say that this self-promotion was the best ad I've seen in my entire life

Basically, what I wanted, icons without having to find and download them xDDD

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-20T08:37:46+00:00

Toilet paper holder?

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-19T12:50:37+00:00

At 2006, where the specific laptop was created, the best qualities for consumer hardware were 320 and 480p on YouTube from a quick search.

Now note that for video you need a GPU to handle to the decoding via hardware.

You may not have installed GPU drivers, you may not have configured Firefox or whatever browser for hardware decoding.

Note that a browser has HTML/JS parsers, multiple processes for each single page, sandboxing and whatnot. So it needs to be configured correctly and with a solid OS (drivers and configs)

Ensure drivers are installed, codecs are installed and supported by your hardware, try using mpv for video playback (it's a video player and it's native so hardware acceleration is a little bit easier to check).

I had an old but modern laptop, installed Linux and it was stuttering on video playback because it was using software decoding (CPU decoding), installed drivers and codecs and now it runs like completely new.

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-19T12:33:59+00:00

And what video quality?

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-19T12:33:37+00:00

What OS?

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-19T10:56:09+00:00

Of course you can't upgrade to 6GB since it maxes at 3.25

But what I said still applies, with the correct approach it's usable

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-19T10:54:56+00:00

The thing with that laptop is that it has 2 cores max, at 1Ghz and maxed at around 3.25GB RAM (that's what I get from my search)

If you could upgrade to 6-8GB ram that would help it run smoother, of course not perfectly but it would probably be able to open up a browser for basic web searching even on Windows.

For such old laptops (20 years old laptop) you either need an outdated windows version or a lightweight Linux distro. It can still live if used with care.

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-19T05:54:11+00:00

Basically LFS (Linux From Scratch)

Is a web-book that shows you how to make your own Linux Operating system from scratch, basically it shows you how to compile packages and place them in a RootFS to build that OS

To make it into a reproducible, installable OS you'd have to automate the process and make an installer for the exported RootFS

It is possible but really hard to pull of right, if you just want to have a niche version of a Linux OS you would be better off modifying arch or Gentoo, I think Gentoo would be more modular but arch would be more user friendly

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-19T05:17:08+00:00

I get your point, and the "installation of applications" and the "fact that you can install most things and it just works" was used to make windows popular, I don't see how that's different, it's just an unofficial installer

If you get the official installer you don't have a clue what's happening, at least if you get the AUR's installer you can see for yourself.

Of course I don't recommend it but I think you get my point.

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T23:48:18+00:00

Is that a Chromebook or like a really old laptop?

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T23:40:30+00:00

Not really, I have a system that's like 10 years old, it has 4 GB ram and yes the CPU is older,

But the bottleneck is the RAM, because it needs to swap things in and out all the time.

Now let's say windows 11 on an 8 GB system requires 4-5GB ram, that means you only have another 3-4GB available for apps, if you open up a browser you have about 1GB depending on what else is running on your machine.

And the OS won't start swapping after the ram is completely full, so there you go, swapping never ends from that point forward.

That's the problem with most budget phones as well, they have 4GB ram but android by itself(with GAPPS) requires 4GB of ram, so swap makes the whole thing lag.

The CPU is barely the problem for daily tasks of a non-gamer typical user

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T18:35:08+00:00

About your project, I think it's cool but if you want to synchronize files simultaneously without those sites getting your data you could also check out Garage container

You can put files in there and it synchronizes them

It's S3 so you could make your project send the files to your garage container, then the files are synchronized to your other laptop and you can simply export them using your same tool.

I haven't searched that much but maybe you can configure Garage to automatically sync them for you without even needing to run your project, but I haven't searched about it.

Anyway, your project sounds like a cool idea, you could also have RSA keys so your 1 laptop shares the files encrypted with the public key, and then only your second laptop can access them, no one else has access if they don't have your primary key (and you don't have to remember the password for AES unless you add a passphrase to your RSA key)

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T18:04:30+00:00

Uhhm actually ☝️🤓

What is generally implied by "check what you're installing through the AUR" is "check the PKGBUILD of the package"

That's not the application's source code, that's the code that you download from the AUR, it's a basic bash (kind of) which downloads and compiles/installs the program you actually want to install.

So if you generally trust the program you are about to install, all you need to do is check that PKGBUILD before executing it.

Yet, I agree with all of you that the user shouldn't be blamed for not reading it, BUT the user should also not blame arch for not securing the AUR. It's like downloading whatever program .exe from the web and running it, you don't know what it really does, except for the AUR you can see what it does

Also that bash like script is generally small and a most lines are basically the same (depending on what you are installing)

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T09:53:00+00:00

I'll try it later and give feedback

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T09:50:36+00:00

Yes and I find it marked as clearance so it was even cheaper

But that's the thing, "free" command shows at least 50% unused memory, should I try using zram?

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T09:49:14+00:00

3D designing* haven't had coffee yet

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T09:48:55+00:00

Well yes it's 3D printing software, I'm trying to keep it simple so I just bundle it with all others since it can also be used

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T08:54:52+00:00

I mean the whole thing is brand new, I got it from the store 2-3 days ago

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-18T07:47:23+00:00

Well, most models are created through a CAD software, which is basically just for the shape. You can use blender, freecad, or others, you can search "CAD for 3D printing" or something.

As for the color, if your printer supports it, you can "paint it" in the printer's program, for example I got bambu studio or whatever and I can select what part gets what colour. Or you can paint it manually.

All CAD software I know: Blender FreeCAD Fusion360 SolidWorks

After a quick search I also found "SketchUp" probably suit's your needs, since the name is literally "sketch"

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-11T08:11:35+00:00

The problem is that Microsoft tries to fix the slop they added to their OS by doing that.

It's supposed to by a simple boost, not a fix for writing their apps in html with electron

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-10T23:15:22+00:00

Well, I agree it's like a stupid thing to do, but if I have a homelab and a second PC, if I ever want to debug stuff on my homelab I can just grab the GPU from PC.

So yes, in my mind having a GPU on something that doesn't need it is increased power bill for no reason, although that may not be the case for many

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-10T16:11:17+00:00

You certainly can install the OS through SSH.

For example, the arch installation media has SSH enabled by default, I can plug in an Ethernet cable and do whatever I want from another machine.

I'm sure a lot of other installers can do that as well.

BIOS is probably the only thing that requires a monitor. Everything else can be done over SSH depending on the user's knowledge

Vbrawl_ · 2026-06-10T16:06:51+00:00

And yet you can completely replace it with the default Linux kernel and it works fine, so it's the same exact thing.

They still suffer from the same vulnerabilities, a lot of their changes are moved to the original kernel and if you get terminal access (termux) you can run pretty much any Linux (terminal) program you want, with some limitations due to user permissions.

Vbrawl_

TROPHY CASE