flashing Linux
I’m a bit confused here… aren’t we talking about a laptop? Why is flashing anything required? Doesn’t the BIOS let one boot on any peripheral, e.g. disk, USB stick, etc and thus allowing one to install Linux (or just boot on live USB stick to test) without flashing?
~/Prototypes on pretty much all machines I own, from desktop, laptop, server, tablets, ebook readers, RPis, XR headset, video projector, etc.
Too late, back to Debian proper.
I used Kodi with LibreElec for years in a similar setup. It was nice… but in practice I didn’t really use the “cool” functionalities (like indexing, image preview, Web remote control, etc) so instead I checked how Kodi works and noticed DLNA. I saw that my favorite video player, namely VLC, supports DLNA. I then looking for DLNA server on Linux, found few and stuck to the simplest I found, namely minidlna. It’s quite basic, at the least the way I use it, but for my usage it’s enough :
voila… very reliable setup (been using for more than a year on a daily basis.
Yep, already happily running on my PineTab2 thanks to DanctNix!
Just yesterday I pinned VLC on my KDE Plasma Task Manager. Why? Because this way I can directly open “Recent Files” from it. I discovered about this functionality just last week with Libre Office Draw. It’s so efficient, it absolutely changed how I use my computer daily!
but… why do I bother with this long example? Because IMHO that’s from KDE, not Debian. When a distro improve the UX, as I also wish, it can be mostly by selecting the best software in its packages to maintain (e.g. here KDE but yes could indeed be their own custom made package, even though it requires a lot more resource AND other distro could also use them back assuming it’s FLOSS) but arguably the UX is mostly of the distribution itself is limited to the installation process.
more cutting edge than Debian
In what aspect? How about Debian Unstable?
I’m personally on Stable but I do also have some AppImages (and recently discovered AM https://github.com/ivan-hc/AM thanks to someone here), my own ~/bin directory and quite a few tools. I feel that there are very few things from an end-user standpoint that needs to done only through the distribution package manager. I believe having a stable OS but “cutting edge” specific apps (say Cura, Blender, etc) is a good compromise. As you mention Firefox over a PPA (which is also have I have) is such a good compromise. So I’m curious (genuinely, not trying to “convert” you to Debian on desktop) what is better on that front on Ubuntu rather than Debian.
Edit: to clarify I both pay my bills (literally, and work too) and play (including recent VR Windows only games) on my Debian stable on desktop.
a shortage of meaningful innovation
Well… a distribution IS a selection of packages and a way to keep them working together. Arguably the “only” innovation in that context is HOW to do that and WHICH packages to rely on. For the first, the “latest” real change could be considered immutable distributions, as on the SteamDeck, and declarative setup, e.g. NixOS. For the second… well I don’t actually know if anybody is doing that, maybe things like PrimTux for kids at schools in France?
Anyway, I agree but I think it’s tricky to be innovative there so let me flip the question, what would YOU expect from an innovative distribution?
Funny, exactly what I mentioned in another thread https://lemmy.ml/post/21238446/14210360
That’s why I moved back to Debian few weeks ago. I’m checking this thread and article precisely to see what I’m missing and… arguably not much. If it’s “just” updates of some applications without any meaningful change, I don’t really see the appeal anymore.
I’d happily give technical advice but first I need to understand the actual need.
I don’t mean “what would be cool” but rather what’s the absolute minimum basic that would make a solution acceptable.
Why do I insist so much? Well because installing a distribution, e.g. Debian, takes less than 1h. Assuming you have a separate /home directory, there is no need to “copy” anything, only mounting correctly. If it is on another physical computer then the speed will depend on the your storage capacity and hardware (e.g. SSD vs HDD). Finally “configuring” each piece of software will take a certain amount of time, especially if you didn’t save the configuration (which should be the case).
Anyway, my point being that :
So, if you repeat the operation several times a week, investing time to find a solution can be useful. If you do this few times a year or less, it’s probably NOT actually efficient.
So, again, is this an intellectual endeavor, for the purpose of knowing what an "ideal’ scenario would be or is it a genuine need?
In case others are interested on the general compute aspect, e.g inference for self hosted AI, here is something related I found :
No doubt, the kernel itself is also quite complex… but my comment here is on the user experience perspective, namely, for me at least “it just works”. So I’m not trying to imply it will work for anybody flawlessly nor that it’s due to the simplicity of the stack, solely that it works, for me.
I’d argue… Alpine?
Why? Well, because it’s small. So Alpine isn’t the programming distribution itself but rather the distribution for the container your run whatever you build inside of just because it’s very VERY small (like… 5MB?!).
Obviously that makes sense only in some cases. For example for a frontend Web developer or a game developer (or a WebXR dev like me) it might not help much but otherwise,… maybe?
Anyway if you are into this kind of things check also Gitpod, it’s about wrapping your dev environment inside a container then having it anytime, anywhere, including for other developers and facilitate their onboarding.
HP Laser 107w, driverless, over LAN.
I just Ctrl+P from any software and it prints.
It also prints programmatically (for e.g. folk.computer ) thanks to IPP.
I didn’t have to “think about printing” since I have that setup so I don’t know where you get that sentiment.
DIY is difficult
Well, arguably it’s difficult at first then become much easier BUT I understand one might not want to dedicate time to it. There are solutions though to buy hardware that is open hardware and with open-source firmware. I personally do NOT recommend reverse engineering except for the pursuit of knowledge. I do NOT recommend RE for “liberating” products because even though it is amazing, it is adversarial. The companies are making money still while NOT supporting Linux or even preventing it from being supported by the community without them spending a cent. That’s fine, that’s their strategy. I don’t approve of it but from a business standpoint I can understand it.
What I do recommend though is spending few minutes looking for proper alternatives. I clarified that a bit in another thread about inputs, cf https://lemmy.world/comment/12550034 so please consider having a look.
TL;DR: DIY/RE can be too much work but there are open hardware with open-source firmware projects sold on e.g https://crowdsupply.com which are “just” plug&play.
Tool lazy to read it all with existing comments but still want to help so :
Recommendations for Notepad++ replacement
vim/gvim (and derivatives, e.g. neovim) or emacs or derivatives, if you are serious about text editing, being text or otherwise, they are the foundations. They probably include most of what you need out of the box and if not they do and a lot more through their extensions
I have an iPhone, I like to back it up and sync
You are swimming upstream there. Apple is doing everything it legally and technically can to lock up its own ecosystem. You might managed few things with e.g libimobiledevice/ifuse or ish or even KDE Connect
I do some gaming.
Me too, playing both 2D and XR on a nearly daily basis. It works. Sadly, just like the previous answer some are trying to sabotage anything they can via DRM or “anticheat” and this might screw up your experience entirely. A good heuristic is if works on the SteamDeck (cf ProtonDB) it probably works on Linux.
How do Xbox One controllers work wired with Linux?
They work. I don’t have an Xbox controller but SteelSeries ones and I play near daily on them, either with their dongle or via BT, with Steam or anything else.
Recommendations for GUI mpv frontend?
VLC
I use software called AdvancedRenamer.
As suggested in the first answer, learn Bash or any other CLI environment, it’s made for this kind of tasks and is the de facto standard for literally.
Keyboard shortcuts.
They work. If you need more it takes second with your desktop environment, e.g KDE Plasma for me, to add new ones.
I don’t understand Linux distro segmentation especially when it comes to software availability
That’s the “cost” of freedom. You do whatever you want with your computer. It sounds trivial but it’s not. We have been trained for years if not decades to see someone else get to decide for us. It’s false. It’s amazing. It is also daunting. Now YOU get to decide. You can use you distribution package manager or a binary or… anything in between (AppImage, AM, dbin, cloning a repository and building from source, etc). It’s crazy… but it works so it’s up to you.
Last but not least. I’m looking for suggestions for a Linux distro to use that fits my needs.
Who cares, picks any one BUT keep your data safe! Try it for an hour, a day, a week and try another one if you feel like it. Switch whenever YOU want for whatever reason YOU care. Cf previous answer.
They already sell the Pinetab RISC-V so quite feasible. I’m not sure I’d buy one as I already have a Banana-Pi (SpacemiT K1 8 so not exactly “next-gen”) so my next purchase on that would probably be something that would be relatively powerful enough to “forget” it’s not ARM/AMD64 for daily usage (which we might not be very far from, not really sure).
Very cool, sincere thank you for the clarification and even on-boarding process. Installed this way, feels quite efficient. Will dig a big deeper while using them more.
I have a Razer Blade Stealth 13 QHD+ touchscreen (RZ09-02393E32) since 2017. Until recently it was mostly Windows and Ubuntu side by side. I realized few months ago I never ever boot on Windows so I removed it. I also got tired on Ubuntu pushing for its own package management system which I don’t find useful. Consequently back to “just” Debian stable and works great for me. Didn’t have to tinker with anything, just works.