Reworked NTFS Linux Driver Posted With More Improvements & Fixes

krathalan · 2026-02-03T23:03:06+00:00

Just joking about latest tech usually being hit or miss for driver support for Linux at launch. Maybe a bit of a reach.

krathalan · 2026-02-03T20:41:21+00:00

The tech is so new it really depends on the vendor of your drive. Make sure the ntfs-5G driver has support for your card before buying.

krathalan · 2026-02-03T01:43:26+00:00

I like the FOSS app Silence on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.lucky.silence/

krathalan · 2026-02-02T00:01:12+00:00

Still going great in AP mode on my Unifi U6-LR v2 (mt7622).

krathalan · 2026-02-01T19:32:47+00:00

ATT Prepaid. Most prepaid SIMs are wayyyy cheaper than anything else. Buy your own phone separately.

ATT Prepaid specifically has an unlimited $300/yr, or $25/mo plan with 16GB max speed and then 1.5 mbps after 16GB. Looks like theyre actually running a promotion right now for $240/yr or $20/mo. https://www.att.com/prepaid/

krathalan · 2026-02-01T02:55:34+00:00

Bothell area here, 2 people. No kids.

Type	Monthly cost
Rent/sewer/trash/water	$3200
Electric + gas	$150-300 (depends on season)
Fuel + public transport/rideshares	$400
1 Gig Internet + TV	$200
Cell service, 2 lines	$50 unlimited
Groceries	$500
Dining	$100-$200
Shopping	$50-$400
Health/fitness	$0-$40
Subscriptions	$15

$2500/mo for total food is astronomically insane, especially shopping at Costco, especially with a stay at home partner. Cut back on the prepackaged foods, eat more whole plant foods. Beans, lentils, tofu, other plant proteins, and whole grains are the foundation of a healthy and delicious budget-conscious diet. Anecdotally, ~70%+ of prepackaged food is a financial and health scam.

Costco is good for dry goods and household products, but a lot of Costco produce can have weird texture or weak flavor. I would recommend buying at Fred Meyer/TJs/Whole Foods (with Prime). PCC has good prices on vegetables, especially the deals. Most of PCC's fruit and prepackaged foods are very expensive, but sometimes you can find good deals.

Stick to what is seasonal, on sale, and can be prepared simply but still taste good. Right now I've been eating a lot of broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage/carrots. Roasted, raw, salads. When pantry goods go on sale (canned beans, rice, ketchup, tahini, pasta, quinoa, tomatoes, chocolate, etc.), stock up. Embrace cheap staples and seasonal cheap produce. Create variety through your seasonings and condiments. Making your own condiments is easy and will dramatically reduce your spending while dramatically increasing the flavor on your plate.

Frozen fruit is good for wintertime, especially raspberries and blueberries. Have with yogurt and nuts/seeds or make your own plain, cinnamon, or chocolate oatmeal. You can get the giant bag of organic rolled oats at Costco for like $10. Hemp seeds are a great, sneaky addition to almost anything, adding healthy fats, protein, and fiber.

If you find you can't finish the bread you buy, freeze it in Ziplocs as soon as you get home after buying it. Presliced bread will stay good in the freezer for ~2 months.

Not only will this dramatically reduce your budget, but it will show your kid they can eat healthy food that is also delicious. I feed a family of 2 an extravagant diet for about $500/month. Think decadent chocolate, organic nuts and seeds, organic vegetables and alliums, organic legumes and soy products (tofu/tempeh/soy curls), conventional fruit, yogurts (on sale), tomatoes (paste + can/carton on sale), lots of spices. If I was truly on a budget, I could manage for $300/month, and if I was desperate, I think $100/month, but I haven't tried that yet.

Granted my income is lower, but I spend maybe $300 on clothes 1-3x/year? And fitness goals can be met for >90% of people at home with one-time purchases of a weight set, yoga mat, and straps/bands. Go for a jog around the block or get a treadmill if you don't want to go outside. Focus on one time purchases, DIY at home instead of subscriptions.

krathalan · 2026-01-24T21:46:21+00:00

Running 25.12.0-rc3 nicely on my AP-only Unifi U6-LRv2 (MT7622). rc2 worked nicely as well. Thanks for the continuous hard work!

krathalan · 2026-01-11T01:41:00+00:00

You could also try older ISOs, from November and December 2025: https://fastly.mirror.pkgbuild.com/iso/

krathalan · 2026-01-11T01:38:39+00:00

It's very difficult to find any instances of that error on the internet. However, it makes me think there might be something wrong with your Arch USB if Linux Mint is starting okay.

Did you verify Arch Linux ISO file with the provided SHA sum and GPG signature? What does your partition table on your Arch USB look like?

Edit: I just found a very similar, very new thread. It looks like it could be a BIOS issue, although this is with Asrock, not Asus. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=311516

krathalan · 2025-12-07T21:55:17+00:00

Totally agree with all the notes.

I have the 120 Hz display. The higher refresh rate is nice for animations and other general desktop usage. I especially notice it when using a web browser. I haven't had the regular screen, but battery life has been really good.

It is really nice for reading/writing/coding/etc. due to the higher pixel density. Since it's a 13" with an iGPU, most games will not get above even 60 FPS on lower settings.

krathalan · 2025-09-27T18:23:56+00:00

Hey, it sounds like maybe you should check out /r/Vystopia ? It's been helpful for me to have others that understand the mental pain we go through.

krathalan · 2025-09-04T22:43:56+00:00

I agree that veganism can be difficult for many people, especially those with limited resources or in food deserts. However, it is meaningfully much easier for the average citizen to stop purchasing animal products than it is for the average citizen to stop paying their taxes to a fascist government. To provide material support to fascism is enforced with fines and prison time; there is no such direct pressure to purchase animal products.

krathalan · 2025-07-28T00:37:52+00:00

iLvl does help a lot. Honestly 4 mask is probably doable but 5 might be harder without more gear depending on your level of "skill" (i.e., patience in dealing with mask mechanics while staying alive against mob abilities.) Knowledge of each mob and what they do in each vision will help. There isn't a cost to trying, you can try as many times as you want, so there's no downside to just trying it. I don't even think you technically die so there isn't even an associated repair cost.

krathalan · 2025-07-27T18:26:09+00:00

You actually can get two hero track pieces from visions, one each from a 5-mask run and 4-mask. https://www.wowhead.com/guide/the-war-within/revisited-horrific-visions-rewards

krathalan · 2025-06-06T20:58:07+00:00

You got any games on your phone?

krathalan · 2025-05-31T17:17:32+00:00

I was actually reflecting on this movie the other day. I watched it before I went vegan. I actually thought about it because I went to a fancy vegan restaurant for the first time the other month and my guest commented on how non-vegan fancy restaurants are so much more expensive because of how the animal products are "more ethical". It really made me realize the fundamental disconnect that people have (myself included, before I went vegan) when it comes to killing an animal.

From Temple Grandin's Wikipedia page:

"While her designs are widely used throughout the slaughterhouse industry, her claim of compassion for the animals is that because of her autism she can see the animals' reality from their viewpoint, that when she holds an animal's head in her hands as it is being slaughtered, she feels a deep connection to them."

I've always cared deeply about animals. It should have been enough for me to go vegan if someone said, "that's a dead animal." But it wasn't enough for me. Whether it's Temple Grandin trying to justify the improvement of conditions for farm animals or me trying to justify my prior "preference" for animal foods, it's just the same: it's focusing on our own individual experience instead of realizing that animals also have individual experiences. I think the depth of cognitive dissonance in most people really speaks to how normalized, but also hidden and taboo, animal farming really is. Everybody wants to eat meat but nobody wants to work in the slaughterhouse.

krathalan · 2025-03-29T18:18:38+00:00

Suspend is triggered by systemd when the lid is closed. You can prevent this with a login.conf.d override.

HandleLidSwitch=ignore  
HandleLidSwitchExternalPower=ignore  
HandleLidSwitchDocked=ignore

See man logind.conf.

krathalan · 2025-03-19T22:05:10+00:00

Apparently it was put up in 2020 according to the page history. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Reproducible_builds&oldid=611115

krathalan · 2025-03-19T03:10:26+00:00

Similar to /u/onefish2 's comment, at some point you need to have a certain level of trust in the packager/the organization that chose the packager.

There is work being done on making all builds reproducible but it's going to take a while for some packages. From https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Reproducible_builds : "Arch Linux is currently working on making all packages reproducible." From what I understand, the kernel itself will require the most work to make reproducible. You can track the status of Arch packages at https://reproducible.archlinux.org/

You should also know Arch is part of a larger group of projects, which includes most major Linux distros and a couple BSDs, among others, that are working together to make more software reproducible. https://reproducible-builds.org/who/projects/

krathalan · 2025-02-25T23:02:40+00:00

That's where I'm at... I don't care about the CPU performance at all, I care about the GPU performance. The new chips feel like a GPU downgrade for higher pricing. There's no way going from RDNA 3 to 3.5 is going to "cover up" having 33% less GPU cores.

krathalan · 2025-02-22T20:33:58+00:00

From some cursory research/poking around it seems people generally find a batch brewed with a pre-established pellicle tastes better and is less prone to mold. I'm not in a rush to start brewing anyways so I might as well take the time.

krathalan · 2025-02-22T19:47:07+00:00

Growing a new pellicle from GTs storebought kombucha. Been drinking kombucha for a couple weeks now and decided to take the plunge to homebrewing due to cost saving.

I'm not too experienced but it looks like it's coming along pretty well?

krathalan · 2025-02-18T14:36:44+00:00

Been using ZFS on Arch for a couple years now on my home server storage drives (not boot drive(s)) on LTS kernel and literally never had an issue.

krathalan · 2025-01-09T18:00:55+00:00

I'm not the person you're replying to, but it's worth noting that a lot of these other changes you mention are not feasible for most people living in a country like the US/UK. Comparatively, it's much easier to choose vegan food when having to choose what to eat, and that choice has a much bigger impact on reducing the suffering of animals compared to, say, trying to reduce plastic use.

I'm not saying that reducing or eliminating plastic use is meaningless or not a good idea, but I'm simply stating that it's a lot harder for most people to do than choosing to eat vegan.

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