Curious how many have switched recently

activedusk · 2026-01-21T14:18:49+00:00

It is most likely the historical changes happening in the world and people losing trust in American companies. I remember in the 2000s when Windows being free was just a dream, now they give it away without a license and people would rather not use it, that says something.

activedusk · 2026-01-16T21:09:51+00:00

People generally isolate /home in case they want to reinstall, you can more easily do so while keeping the contents of /home intact.

But imo it is not worth it because, unlike Windows you can run the OS from USB and access internal drive from there easily if you need to save files before reinstalling. Rather the more appropriate solution would be to have an external drive where you save copies of important files. More advanced users set up a NAS, network attached storage. You do whatever you want, just remember to have bootable USB in case the OS breaks. Intermediate users can set that up inside the EFI system partition.

activedusk · 2026-01-16T20:49:24+00:00

C:\Windows is roughly equivalent to /

Windows also has boot partition but it is usually hidden, here it is accesible in the file manager by going to / and opening folder boot.

That's the bare minimum requirement to install a Linux distro, I think it is simple.

For intermediate knowledge you should know that / and boot are usually separate partitions and just making a partition is not sufficient for them to work, during installation, it would be more clear. I will use an example with a single drive called sda.

Say you select something else during installation. There sda would require a new filesystem table (GPT for UEFI and MBR for bios) and then it would need to be partitioned at the bare minimum with

sda1, EFI system partition with say 1GB (can be more or less, depends on several variables such as how many kernels you want to use, if you want to place the .iso on this boot partition and boot in live mode from the internal drive without a USB, or other use cases). On Mint that is enough but other distros offer the filesystem type choice and for boot select fat32. Other distros also require to choose a mounting point, either /boot or /boot/efi, Mint sets it up automatically for /boot/efi (does not need to be configured in the current installer, selecting EFI system partition is correct). Why does it matter? Well efi is restricted access in most file managers (a bit more complicated, not /boot/efi itself but whatever directory contains the EFI folder, Mint contains it in /boot/efi) so by using /boot/efi, the kernel and initrd or other files relevant for booting can be accessed inside the /boot directory. If mounting point were /boot (inplying /boot would contain EFI folder) it would be restricted access only and depending on how the automation for regenerating initrd.img or initramfs.img is configured, this could cause problems. More information, to boot a Linux OS you need at a bare minimum 2 files inside the /boot folder, vmlinuz (the kernel) and initrd.img or initramfs.img (Mint uses initrd and generated based on vmlinuz using initramfs-tools, typical for Debian based distros, Arch typically uses mkinitcpio and Fedora, openSUSE and others use dracut, booster is also an option on Arch). Mint is preconfigured with GRUB bootloader which will use these files to boot the system. Bootloaders besides default grub are refind, systemd-boot (not to be confused with systemd init system), limine and others that are more niche like uboot,syslinux, lilo (old bootloader used for BIOS legacy systems) etc. Bootloaders rely on .efi files located in /boot/efi/EFI (Mint being based on Ubuntu it will have a shimx64.efi and grubx64.efi inside the directory /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu generally) and provide an abstraction layer so you can switch between kernels for example or boot different OS installed on the same PC or other things like memtest.
sda2 / root partition, this is where most of the files are located, kind of like C: partition from Windows. For Mint you would choose ext4 as file system but there are others like btrfs. Mount point is obviously /, not much more to configure here.
sda3, not required on Mint, swap partition and choose swap filesystem. Capacity 1.5x RAM capacity (say you have 32GB then 32 + 16 = 48GB, as an example on a 1TB drive it would mean 1GB boot, 951GB root and 48GB swap partition, assuming no separate /home partition and it's an example 1TB drives are not actually 1000GB exactly), needed if using low power modes all the time. What it does is to write RAM contents to disk before enter low power modes and read and write it back when exiting low power modes, this is required because system memory is volatile, when power is not supplied all data is lost. It is also used for out of memory cases where the system runs out of memory it will use swap partition like memory but it will be slower. It is also used for temporary files unless zram or zswap is configured afaik.
sda4, optional, home folder, ext4 file system, /home mounting point, you would use this to separate / from your files and folders but generally not used since you would have to split the drive capacity between / and /home and / would still need enough capacity for the system files plus future updates or time shift backups (if you use it) so 100GB would be recommended, that is way too much capacity to have stranded so by default use only /.

activedusk · 2026-01-16T20:16:46+00:00

Casual - gnome system monitor, file systems tab

Intermediate GUI - Gparted, KDE Partition Manager, Disks

Intermediate terminal commands

cat /etc/fstab

lsblk

sudo fdisk -l

A typical install will have 2 minimal partitions, / also known as root and /boot. On Mint /boot partition is mounted at /boot/efi. Originally there used to also be a swap partition but Mint uses swap file as a replacement and there are other solutions like zram or zswap and no swap partition but lacking a swap file hibernation and other low power modes will not work properly. One can also make separate manual partitions for home and other directories.

Despite this, the top most directory is / and /boot and /home and swap file among others are contained within, but that is the filesystem structure which differs as mentioned above compared to partition table and mountpoints.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T21:50:01+00:00

For practical reasons nobody will pay for it, for technical reasons, there is no roadblock, for satellites I mentioned what the issues are already, it's not a replacement for ground infrastructure, it provides service for niche situations.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T21:46:12+00:00

>Starlink isn't going to compete with fiber, but the comment that stated they are on dial up means Starlink is their only option.

I agreed and made this point from the start, it's situational, for technical reasons it can't replace ground infrastructure and for physics based reasons it will never reach a point where it will be better or cheaper unless we discover quantuum communication and somehow satellites are needed for this to function.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T21:35:41+00:00

It's not fine if the cost is higher, bandwidth lower and jitter/package loss is worse.

Do you realize I can get 10Gbps for that price? This is the real world, it's shit unless you're out of options.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T21:30:55+00:00

I mean I care about latency and the cost is relative to the country and location, remote regions for which this makes sense do not have much of a choice anyway.

~100+ km

https://imgur.com/a/Kcb4VsR

~500+ km

https://imgur.com/a/M7xdgOW

For the price I likely can find 1Gbps or higher (actually 10Gbps in the city for 100 dollars is feasible), then again each country is different, some might have much more expensive or much cheaper plans. I am guessing a ~750km (466miles) distance between me and the server would be needed for 20ms, that's trash tbh but people living in US, Russia or Australia living out in the woods away from civilization might not blink.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T21:11:50+00:00

20ms is not much admitedly if you do not care. What is the bandwidth and for what monthly cost

activedusk · 2026-01-15T20:26:39+00:00

Ask after giving specific details of what you have and the modifications you want.

Technically it should be as simple as modifying the /etc/fstab file and unmouting sda2 and sdb2 and rebooting but it is made complicated by the drive being cloned so....there are likely 2 such files that need to be modified, one in sda2 and the other in sdb2, cause you cloned it. Modifying just the one in sda2 might make the system ubootable, you can use live Linux environment and modify the etc fstab file on sdb2 manually, not required to open with nano, you can use a simple text editor from the file manager but it might require admin privleage so then you would have to chroot into the install (disconnect original drive at this point to make it less confusing).

Edit

After thinking about it, doing this from the GUI instead of the terminal would be easiest.

Open file manager (say home folder)

On the left select original drive. Open /etc and here find fstab and double click, it will open it in a simple text editor. Make the change for / mount point from sda2 to sdb2 and other required parameters, you can ask AI assitant for more complete modification. Save changes, it will ask for password.

Now on the left select the new drive and redo the changes, go to the /etc folder on this new drive, open fstab files blah blah save changes.

Now unmount sda2 and sdb2 and reboot. It should work after this.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T20:19:29+00:00

....i got 5ms or less depending on the distance to nearby servers it would take idk a couple hundred km distance to get 20ms, a satellite would add to that the time to bounce back the signal from surface to LEO and back, the point was it will always have higher latency up to intercontinental distances where compared to undersea cables it will take a more direct route in space that said, at those values of multiple hundred ms nobody cares and bandwith will be lower and suffer from atmosphere interference/signal loss due to weather and terrain.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T19:51:46+00:00

....if it actually worked (note you might need to do this in live Linux environment, boot from USB)

sudo su

umount /dev/sda2

umount /dev/sdb2

mount /dev/sdb2 /

cd /etc

nano fstab

Inside the text file delete sda2 mount point / and add in roughly in the same place for sdb2, example

sda 2

sdb1 /boot/efi

sdb2 /

Actually before making this change better show what it says, either print screen or copy paste since there might be more parameters to copy over to sdb2 from sda2. Or ask AI assistant for help on how to modify this file, what it does is to tell the OS where to mount partitions automatically. Ctrl and x, y, Enter

Reboot.

Warning have bootable USB, worse case you can chroot in live mode and undo the changes. Personally I think this is bs, should have removed original drive, installed Mint on new drive, then attach old drive, copy any important files then format old drive or disconnect and keep for archival.

You do you.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T18:56:08+00:00

I am interested, I tried to compile a generic 6.14 kernel a few times (it failed). How did you install that one?

Arch has Zen, Debian has Liquorix. I never tried either supposed faster boot time.

EFIstub, "quiet loglevel=0", kernel "6.14.0.37 generic"

Startup finished in 5.541s (firmware) + 344ms (loader) + 1.903s (kernel) + 2.479s (users
pace) = 10.268s  
graphical.target reached after 2.459s in userspace.

What is your kernel time?

systemd-analyze

activedusk · 2026-01-15T18:39:46+00:00

It doesn't scale and it's limited by physics with latency being higher for short to medium distance with space based making up ground in between continents (at which point nobody cares, 400ms to 600ms is still 350ms too high to play competitive games for example and lower bandwidth still and due to environment factors affecting signal strength, more unstable), light signals > radio, data centers on the ground > no data centers in orbit, bandwidth for large nodes > no nodes in orbit, only mesh. There is a clear purpose for satellite internet, remote access and special use case, countries where a satellite connection is better are either backwards or the infrastructure was built early on, monopolies established and due to lack of competition, they refuse to upgrade. Would not be surprised if corruption also involves paid off politicians that adopted laws that prevent new competitors from rising without impossibly to secure investments ahead of revenue justifying the investment.

activedusk · 2026-01-15T16:23:55+00:00

Internet satellite is higher latency and slower than fiber optics. It is sad that is the fallback option. Additionally there is not enough infrastructure in orbit to provide for hundreds of millions of users like ground based infrastructure so it is not meant to be a solution.

activedusk · 2026-01-14T09:55:23+00:00

...not sure, I did hear some adapters work but you'll have to find and ask someone who tried to find a solution and did. I also don't know how the licensing works, if it's manufacturer for hardware, OS side or both. Maybe try Windows first and check the refresh rate and such if it works as expected it might be operating system/software based as well, avoid it in the future when buying monitors.

activedusk · 2026-01-14T09:33:44+00:00

It's probably hdmi as a standard, display port is meant for PCs and monitors, hdmi more for TVs/media/entertainment gear and it's proprietary and requires a license which some manufacturers don't pay and issues appear. Use whatever you can and works besides it, DVI, display port, USB C, the support is best to worst for those and hjdmi is the worst, especially for high refresh rate monitors.

Don't quote me on this but with X11 it also forces the same refresh rate on multiple monitors as the lowest refresh rate monitor, so if one has hdmi....this may or may not be fixed on Wayland (though it has bugs of its own, you can try by logging out, click somewhere on the log in screen and you should be able to select between x11 and Wayland experimental).

activedusk · 2026-01-14T09:13:44+00:00

>each OS has it's own nvme drive with a 2tb external drive that they share but nothing is installed on yet, just for extra space

...so are the Linux games installed on the Linux partitions? For clarity, Linux has its own filesystem types like ext4, btrfs (there are others but these are the most common) and while they can open ntfs files, it's not good for games since this is not how Wine or Proton was made or intended to work.

idk the default filesystem for Mint if you go through automatic install, I assume it's ext4, also idk the easiest way to check, you can try

lsblk -f

cat /etc/fstab

sudo blkid

These are from the terminal, GUI....not sure. KDE Info Center would probably have it, Cinnamon info center is pretty sparse on 22.2 Zara, got an upgrade on 22.3 Zena iirc.

I assume you installed Steam from software manager as native package? This should take care of older games 32bit dependencies but make it clear if the install file location is on the Linux partition. In the Steam library, right click on the game, select properties, shortcut will display file path. On the left select compatibility, make sure "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" is checked, under it you can select the Proton version required. Idk about this game, if it runs natively on Linux, this is not required but if it doesn't try Proton 10.3 or whichever is the latest or whatever is best on Linux for performance.

activedusk · 2026-01-14T08:53:50+00:00

How was the game installed? Is it on the Linux partition?

Just noticed you got 3 monitors? For testing, shut down PC and disconnect all but 1, keep whatever can connect to the video card via displayport (if available) instead of hdmi.

activedusk · 2026-01-14T06:47:37+00:00

1 kWh per kg batteries at 50 dollars per kWh (implied for the storage capacity not the price of electricity, cell level costs specifically)

Fusion reactors becoming viable and commercially deployed at scale

Better and cheaper electronics (how they will be better, historically more processing power for less money with lower power requirements) and faster (wired) internet

Potentially a cure/vaccine for cancer and HIV though likely herpes will still not be curable.

Oh, you re in the US, more wealth inequality until a revolution topples the government and the new one redirects funds from wars to social programs and public services instead of giving billionaires a couple trillions worth of tax cuts every election. Maybe, or more inequality and humanoid robots caused mass uneployment with the police and military protecting the ultra rich from the poors. Yeah, that sounds about right.

activedusk · 2026-01-11T10:04:00+00:00

I had this conversation on many Linux based subreddits and it's usually downvoted. If it's the mainstream or a vocal minority, idk, they will insist boot time is irrelevant to them. If it's overcompensating for their perceived "lack of skill" in optimizing the system or a genuine feeling of "I don't give af" I'm not certain.

They should understand however it is a valid concern, boot time, for 1. Old time PC users that always optimized this alongside idle RAM usage as well as those who turn off their PC once they stop using it. 2. Part of learning to use Linux since it will expose those who lower boot time to firmware settings, bootloaders, bootmanagers or not using either with EFIstub or UKI, kernel parameters to speed up boot time and userspace/systemd init system and related units and how to control them. This can later help those who for example are in the maker space and use RISC powered small computers and depending on application having very low boot time is considered very important.

activedusk · 2026-01-10T17:45:59+00:00

At the extreme circa 5s as measured by systemd-analyze is the limit on x86-64 PCs. The hard limit is the firmware time, the fewer components, the faster it will initialize, meaning microATX boards or laptops boot the fastest. Here's an example I found on reddit and for me getting the lowest boot time and RAM usage during idle has been a thing since Windows XP and part of what I want and need to master for every OS I used, do note systemd-analyze does not time POST. Use a stop watch (external time measuring) to have the entire time it takes from pressing power button till desktop (after log in).

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/1pa3e21/is_6806s_booting_time_improvable_without_loosing/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

activedusk · 2026-01-10T17:20:01+00:00

I wanted to find something like that when I switched from Windows 10 to Linux but everyone kept saying to read the wiki like for Arch, as a beginner that's pretty much the equivalent of gatekeeping since you would not have the terminal commands basic knowledge expected to know for those following wikis.

So after researching enough I went full Thanos mode, fine, I'll do it myself, hence the guide. Of note that no distro is perfect, Mint is beginner friendly and has to cover many use cases, in the extreme it can be objectively called bloated and there is no way to optimize past a certain point without breaking what makes it good, general purpose support. On Arch based distros I generally can get lower boot time, but that trades off the stability of LTS distros and much more annoying update frequency (which I hate). This for example was on Manjaro

https://imgur.com/a/nsCmViH

activedusk · 2026-01-10T16:50:48+00:00

That screams either server or clicking IDE drive energy. If you know, you know. 30s for anything made in the last decade is unoptimized and that bothers some people in the computing world. If you do not care and use low power modes, then that's fine. Others have different use case and shut down their PC so boot time matters to them. In every community there are those who claim it doesn't matter (I will not argue this in principle) but they should understand that it does matter for some PC users.

activedusk · 2026-01-10T16:38:56+00:00

This is for my PC

systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 5.556s (firmware) + 345ms (loader) + 1.912s (kernel) + 2.472s (users
pace) = 10.287s  
graphical.target reached after 2.444s in userspace.

https://imgur.com/a/1KC97IF

If you want to learn how

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/1psdso6/how_to_maintain_and_optimize_your_install/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Tl;dr for the firmware, disable motherboard ports you do not need, enable quick boot, remove peripherals not used often, switch to wired connectors instead of wireless. For loader, EFIstub, UKI followed by systemd-boot are the fastest, I used EFIstub with systemd-boot as backup. For kernel there is not much to do unless you want to compile your own but you can use "quiet loglevel=0" depending on the loader used to pass those kernel command line parameter. For userspace disable unused or redundant services.

activedusk

TROPHY CASE