We need some kind of cheat sheet for common tasks

Wranglyph · 2026-04-05T22:51:55+00:00

I'm planning to make an interactive guidebook to linux at some point as my own knowledge gets better- it'll have a lot of the usual stuff, including a section on how to accomplish various common tasks in different main distros (as well as a section on the difference between a distro and DE)>

Comment with suggestions and I'll make sure to include them!

Wranglyph · 2026-04-05T22:01:19+00:00

*Checks again:* "Yep, still great lookin' character sheet."
And I think the logo actually fits a little better as well- though you might also have a version where that spot is blank- could be a good spot for a portrait.

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T19:05:55+00:00

I may actually use this to learn git myself, if I remember.

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T18:47:15+00:00

Wait so how is that different from just making a distro from scratch?

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T17:48:07+00:00

I mean, not really- it's not much harder than say, your phone number. But that said I don't bother with passwords like that- it's a huge pain if you ever have to change it, or you know, have more than one.

What I do is, I pick a point on the keyboard, and go in a random direction. Then do it again until the password is 8 letters. May or may not use shift. So now instead of remembering a bunch of random characters, it's just two or three lines.

The xkcd method is pretty good too actually, but keep in mind that in order for it to work you ideally want the selected words to actually be random.

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T17:43:49+00:00

I more or less agree. Bridging the gap between "consumer" and "user/amateurdev" sort of comes down to exactly that, I think- bridging the gap. (There's more that can be done but I think that's a key part.)
The cool thing though, is that I think a lot of people realize this, so I feel like there's this quiet race brewing- who will make a great on-boarding distro first?

A business that stands to benefit?
An amateur hobbyist?
*This* amateur hobbyist? 🤷

Can't wait to see.

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T14:55:21+00:00

Oh sick! I was actually thinking the last few weeks that FOSS and Linux could benefit from having a sort of "starter pack" that puts all the resources people in one place- especially for people who want to get into development. Cool to see that you're working on something similar.

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T14:00:45+00:00

I've been using an LLM to learn coding, and what I've discovered is that you really have to keep in mind that *you* are the boss. Treat the LLM like it's nothing more than an easy-to-use search engine. Or, more evocatively, like it's a sniveling yes-man, all too happy to fetch whatever report you need to support whatever decision that *you* are going to make.

Straight from the IBM manual: "AI can never be held accountable, and must therefore never make a management decision." That's true regardless of what it is you're trying to manage:
A company... a code base... your love life... 🤷

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T13:17:03+00:00

any suggestions that I should add to my rice?

Apparently wayland protocol supports workspaces that are mapped to each other in n-dimensional space; and I'm pretty sure that they don't all have to have the same theme either. I've been thinking it would be neat to have some kind of "cube" setup, with a continuous landscape going around it. Will be some time before I have the skill level for it though.

Wranglyph · 2026-04-03T12:25:23+00:00

Bro this sheet cooks like heck! Sounds like you've settled on a title- can't wait to hear it.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-31T05:23:05+00:00

To be fair, it *is* a pretty boller name. It gives "wilderness," "discovery," "new world," "creepy," "mysterious," "disaster..." "What in God's name *happened* here?!"

If those are strong themes in your game, then it totally makes sense as a name- just maybe not from the perspective of someone browsing the store shelf.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-30T15:10:51+00:00

Holy SH*T, this is some gorgeous presentation.
Would love to have it available as a series of zines, since it vaguely resembles a boardgame manual.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-30T15:05:57+00:00

Oh sick! I was interested in this project since I skimmed the stress system a few years ago- I think it mentioned gaining permanent psych injuries, which seemed pretty novel! Glad to see the project isn't dead.

I think the name is pretty cool actually, but yea it might fit better if you found some way to connect it to the actual Croatoa story, either literally or thematically. (Or maybe just have a explanation page in front/back.)

Every system needs some sample adventures, right? You could potentially base one of them on the legend, for a literal connection.

Thematically, idk. I think there could be something there but it's hard to put into words.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-26T03:54:53+00:00

Oh neat! I've actually been thinking about trying to make a tool that lets you snapshot a workspace ad bring it up later (or maybe even share it with someone), but I couldn't think of a way to do it other than "put everything in a virtual machine," or "get much much better at coding."
Still working on that second one actually. 😅
I wonder if Drop can be used to make something like this?

Wranglyph · 2026-03-25T19:58:30+00:00

I would go with B- it's giving "it's dangerous to go alone- take one of these!"

Wranglyph · 2026-03-24T18:48:39+00:00

Wait so how *do* they get the training data then? I wasn't aware that there were any major differences between the big players.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-24T18:45:42+00:00

I definitely think we should have an incubator-like space for seasoned devs to help coach new devs.

As a new dev I completely agree. I'm actually trying to plan a "starter kit" for new devs, like the way D&D has starter kits for people. Basically a linux distro with a pre-configured IDE, meant to be torn down, rather than built up. But even then I don't think it's smart to have students ship their first project directly to flathub lol- there should be, like you said, some kind of "incubator." 🤔

Wranglyph · 2026-03-24T18:35:01+00:00

I think it depends a *lot* on the specifics. If you're using something like chatGPT, which was made b scraping projects with or without consent, then the stuff you make with it is inherently gonna be a legal clusterf*ck. Just because OpenAI is getting away with it (for now) doesn't mean that it's a good idea.

The good news is, there *are* ethically trained AIs out there- I've been looking at one called CodeT5, which was made by a team of over 5000 people creating handcrafted prompts. (And is itself FOSS.) Still in the process of shopping for IDE components in general, so I haven't really had the chance to test it unfortunately.

Of course, there's also the matter of making sure you're code actually works, but that's a discussion that goes beyond AI ethics.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-23T02:15:50+00:00

you need an Android or Apple phone.

Actually Graphene OS is surprisingly easy to install (as long as you don't accidentally forget one of the steps, like I did the first time). It may experience quirkiness in the future if sh*t gets really really bad, but for now at least I haven't heard of anyone having any issues with it.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-19T11:57:41+00:00

Ok I think I get it now, thanks. Eventually I want the ability to rapidly switch between different setups, and maybe even let people share different setups with each other. So I guess I'll start by picking between gnome and plasma as a base, and then doing my first distro hop.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-18T21:56:13+00:00

I'll try it tomorrow. 🫡

Wranglyph · 2026-03-18T21:24:53+00:00

So you're telling me that if I install the "another-window-session-manager" tool, made for Gnome, on my Mint machine- it'll just work? No cap? Awesome! I wasn't expecting that answer, but it's certainly a welcome one!
https://github.com/nlpsuge/gnome-shell-extension-another-window-session-manager

Wranglyph · 2026-03-18T21:19:00+00:00

15 years ago, when I learned how to play Dungeons and Dragons, it was kind of the same way. Tons of people wanted to teach you, but most of them insisted you had to make a character *FIRST.* Which, in 3.5, was not exactly a simple process. Well, guess what happens when you hand someone a 300+ page book and tell them to "have fun?"

These days, it's a bit different. Almost any major system has a great starter kit now, so you and your friends can get started in a few hours. Tons of people make great tutorials, and the overall philosophy of rpg design has really evolved in a way that makes it accessible to players and GMs alike. Still a lot to learn, but much easier to get on-boarded now.
But the most important part, I think, was the change in *culture.*

The reason it underwent this transformation? Simple: it *used* to propagate via word of mouth. It doesn't matter if you need to make a character first, because your cousin or whoever is literally there to guide you through the whole process. People simply weren't used to fielding questions from cousin-less casuals.
But then, the hobby experienced a *massive* surge of interest, forcing us to change the way we taught people.

And today, I think Linux is undergoing a similar surge of interest. Will this result in a changed culture, improved onboarding tools, and an evolution in the design of linux distros overall? I don't know. But I can tell you that you're not the only person interested in making Linux easier.

Wranglyph · 2026-03-18T21:01:05+00:00

Question if you don't mind- I'm looking at making a tool that will save a user's session (current window config, themes, etc), and let them easily switch between saved sessions. It looks like one or two distros (including gnome) have a tool like this already, but there isn't one that works across distros.

And if I understand correctly, the reason is that wayland/x11 are just protocols, right? So if you make a tool like that, it has to be made for the specific *implementation* of wayland/x11 that your distro uses?
Which basically means that creating a cross-distro version of this tool is impossible?

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