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d3Xt3r

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d3Xt3r ,

Along the same lines: Inception. There’s tons of little details that you don’t pick up in your first watch.

d3Xt3r , (edited )

Ignore the GPU-passthru suggestions (at least for now), as they would be overkill for running MS Office.

The best way to get a decent-performing, dual-screen, productivity oriented Windows to display is via RDP and FreeRDP. You can use the following command to run your VM in fullscreen across both your monitors:

xfreerdp /monitors:1,2 /multimon /v:<host>

But run xfreerdp /monitor-list to check your monitor numbers first.

I use FreeRDP and Windows regularly for work (and my host OS is Linux), so I’ve explored multiple options and none of the usual Spice-clients were any good; FreeRDP was by far the best option I found. It also supports DPI scaling, shared folders, clipboard sharing etc - all work pretty much out of the box (you may need to pass the respective parameters to the command though - run xfreerdp --help to check the options)

One thing though, make sure you get FreeRDP version 3.xx. Some distros are still on 2.xx for whatever reason, but I’d highly recommend upgrading to 3.xx because there have been a ton of performance and QoL improvements since then, that’ll make a big difference for your usage.

As for the VM performance itself, make sure you give it sufficient CPUs (at least 4 cores, and passthru the CPU topology) and RAM (at least 8GB). It might also be worth debloating your Windows VM, using a script such as Win11Debloat (it works with Win10 as well btw).

suspend the VM if I switch away from that workspace back to Linux

You can use the virsh suspend command for that. But to have it automatically suspend when you switch workspaces, you’ll need to manually set up some automation, which depends on your DE/WM. KDE for instance has KWin rules which you can use to trigger a script or a command, other DE/WMs might have something similar. So you’ll need to explore your DE/WM’s window/workspace management and scripting options.

But get familiar with the virsh command, as that’s what you’ll be relying on to manage your VM via scripts. The documentation has more details on the shutdown/suspend/hibernate features that’s worth taking a look at.

d3Xt3r ,

can’t think of on3 scenario that windows is the best option for a server.

There are plenty of enterprise scenarios: eg an AD server for Windows clients, a DFS server, or servers to run certain Windows-only applications such as SCCM etc.

d3Xt3r ,

This is quite interesting, especially that tool to check changes made to /etc. Might have to give Void a try now. But does anyone know what the update cadence is like? Is it bleeding-edge like Arch, where you get new kernels and Mesa etc not long after upstream updates?

Edit: Nevermind, looks like Void fails my freerdp test. Guess that seals the deal.

Dell is so frustrating

Dell has got to be one of the most frustrating companies that put out a linux laptop. They put out a laptop certified for ubuntu but then never support newer releases. A big part of their hardware is always proprietary drivers like webcam, fingerprint reader etc… Then you update to a new LTS release because lets be serious...

d3Xt3r ,

Is it the XPS 13 (9370)? If so, apparently everything works fine in Arch, except the fingerprint sensor. So might be worth a shot giving it a try.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of your issues are partly related to Ububtu. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend using it even if a device has official support for it.

Rectangle for Linux?

To preface this, I’ve used Linux from the CLI for the better part of 15 years. I’m a software engineer and my personal projects are almost always something that runs in a Linux VM or a Docker container somewhere, but I’ve always used a Mac to work on personal and professional projects. I have a Windows desktop that I use...

d3Xt3r ,

I use Rectangle on macOS as well, and use Wayfire on Linux. Wayfire has a tiling plug-in that does exactly what Rectangle does.

Mint and Cinnamon are quite outdated btw, I wouldn’t really recommend them unless you’ve got an old PC and you’re just a basic user.

d3Xt3r ,

And the second half of that solution (audio fingerprinting) can be solved using this: github.com/worldveil/dejavu

d3Xt3r ,

Also, AMD APUs use your main RAM, and some systems even allow you to change the allocation - so you could allocate say 16GB for VRAM, if you’ve got 32GB RAM. There are also tools which allow you can run to change the allocation, in case your BIOS does have the option.

This means you can run even LLMs that require a large amount of VRAM, which is crazy if you think about it.

Where do I find an older build of Office 2019?

I need a specific build of Office 2019 to fix a conflict with another piece of software. That vendor is pointing the finger at Microsoft, and of course, MS is pointing the finger back at them. What I know for certain is that Version 2402 (Build 17328.20184) is the most recent working version. What I don’t know is where to find...

d3Xt3r ,

Seconded. ODT is the way to go, used to use it a lot back in my sysadmin days to generate specific builds.

d3Xt3r ,

This page is your friend, bookmark it cause you’ll be referring to it multiple times ;) : …microsoft.com/…/update-history-microsoft365-apps…

In saying that, all Office versions since 2016 have been called v16 - so that first bit won’t change (unless MS pull another stunt like Windows 11).

Also worth taking a look at this page: …microsoft.com/…/office-deployment-tool-configura…

d3Xt3r ,

This is informative, but unfortunately it doesn’t explain how the actual payload works - how does it compromise SSH exactly?

d3Xt3r , (edited )

From what I’ve heard so far, it’s NOT an authentication bypass, but a gated remote code execution.

There’s some discussion on that here: bsky.app/profile/…/3kowjkx2njy2b

But it would be nice to have a similar digram like OP’s to understand how exactly it does the RCE and implements the SSH backdoor. If we understand how, maybe we can take measures to prevent similar exploits in the future.

d3Xt3r ,

Starts with a T and ends with an a?

d3Xt3r , (edited )

Due to the userbase being all windows fans we’d need a full on GUI and i’ve been prodded towards Mint. Good idea or bad?

That is completely up to what their requirements are (which applications they use, workflow etc) and what your users are like. Some users are extremely resistant to change - and have connections to people in high places - so you’ll need to think about how to handle them. Like back in my helpdesk days, we had a bunch of VIP users and admin staff oppose the upgrade to Office 2007 (from XP/2003), mainly due to its new ribbion interface, and also incompatibility with some of their custom macros etc. We were midway thru the rollout and ended up completely halting the upgrades due to the fuss they kicked up. Office XP/2003 was already way out of support, but they didn’t care or listen.

So yea, you’ll need to ask your users, not us.

d3Xt3r ,

They noticed they accidentally removed a 35GB folder full of media files from a very big vacation, including nature photography and some strange GoPro format files. Valuable stuff.

Are you sure the files were actually deleted? I used to work in helpdesk back in the day and would regularly get calls from users in similar situations, and 9 out of 10 times the folder wasn’t actually deleted but accidentally moved to somewhere else - Windows Explorer is dumb like that, it’s very easy to accidentally drag-drop a large folder elsewhere without any confirmation - just a flick of the wrist and you wouldn’t even notice it. On the other hand, actually deleting a large folder not only presents a confirmation dialog, it also takes a long time to delete the files - and you’d notice it very quickly (unless you were AFK).

So I’d recommend running a thorough search first - both on the old drive and new drive.

But if the files were actually deleted, I also second the recommendation of Recuva - IMO it just works better on NTFS drives, compared to Phtotorec. After all, if the photos are really that valuable then you really should be using the best tools available at your disposal.

d3Xt3r ,

Also, are there any modern recovery tools out there, that promise better reliability?

If Recuva didn’t work, then you’d need to use a professional tool such as Runtime Software’s GetDataBack. They’ve been working on it for over two decades - all the way since 2001, and I’ve used it on a few occasions with good success where TestDisk didn’t work. The catch is that it’s not free, but you can download the trial version first and run it to see if it can recover (preview) your files. And if the results are promising then you can buy the license and recover the files (no need to rerun the scan).

d3Xt3r ,

Nice! The outdated kernel was one of the main reasons why I never recommended using Mint. Now, if they can do something about their other outdated packages like Mesa - and switch to Wayland - I’d be happy to recommend Mint.

d3Xt3r , (edited )

Running recent AMD hardware and gaming. I have a ThinkPad Z13 with a Zen 3+ APU, a performance-oriented homelab machine with a recent Zen 4 APU, and a Zen 2 gaming desktop with a recent AMD GPU.

For the laptop, my main concerns are battery life, desktop responsiveness and gaming performance. As you may or may not be aware, the AMD space has seen a flurry of development activity these past couple of years thanks to Valve and the Steam Deck. There have been several improvements in the power management aspect in recent kernels, specifically the AMD p-state EPP driver. For desktop responsiveness, the new EEVDF scheduler has been a groundbreaking improvement over the old CFS scheduler. Finally, for gaming, there have been tons of performance improvements and bug fixes in the Mesa and Vulkan drivers, and as a laptop gamer I always aim to squeeze every bit of FPS I can get out of it. For some games, a recent Mesa makes a huge difference.

I also appreciate the improvements to the in-kernel NTFS3 driver since kernel 6.2 (where some important mount options were added) and most recently (tail end of 6.7) a bunch of bug fixes were also merged. I use an NTFS-formatted external drive for archival and file sharing between different machines (I also use macOS and Windows, hence why I went with NTFS), so any improvements to the NTFS3 driver is something I look forward to.

Next is my homelab setup, it’s recent bleeding edge AMD hardware which runs a ton of VMs (Openshift container platform, Docker, Postgres and a bunch of web apps). When I’m working on it, I also use it for dev stuff and some work stuff - whilst all the VMs and containers are running in the background. So once again, I’m looking for stuff like EEVDF for desktop responsiveness, but also improvements to KVM or virtualisation performance in general. I’m also really excited for the upcoming kernel 6.9, because of the KSMBD and bcachefs improvements - particularly the latter, since I intended to evaluate a tiered storage setup using bcachefs, and if it’s any good, I’ll make the switch from btrfs.

Finally, for my gaming PC - obviously I’m always after the latest Mesa and Vulkan improvements, as well as overall desktop responsiveness and performance. In addition, I also care about things like VRR and HDR support, and all the Wayland-related improvements across the spectrum. All of which have seen vast improvements in recent times.

I mainly run Arch (with Cachy repos), which allows me to use optimised x86-64-v3/v4 packages for the best performance, as well as special AMD-GPU optimised Mesa/vulkan/vdpau/vaapi drivers which is available only for Arch (as far as I’m aware; but maybe there’s a PPA for *buntu as well?). In any case, with Arch I’m able to easily fine-tune and get the most out of my systems.

So there you go, this is why I chase after recent packages and why Mint isn’t suitable for me. I know if you wanted to, Mint users could subscribe to PPAs like Oibaf or something, or manually install recent kernels, but then you’d break the system and that defeats the whole point of Mint’s focus on stability. On the other hand, I don’t mind recommending it for someone who’s main use case is primarily home-office/web browsing etc and they have an older system. But for power users, gamers, or those who have recent hardware, I definitely cannot recommend Mint in good faith.

d3Xt3r ,

If I ever have to use a command line for anything but THE most esoteric, potentially system-damaging scenarios

But you don’t have to though, at least if you’re running a sensible distro and have Linux-friendly hardware. My elderly parents for instance have been running Linux for over a decade now (Xubuntu first, now Zorin) - on bog standard Dell machines - and never once had to touch the command-line. I think I intervened a couple of times a maybe 4 or 5+ years ago, but haven’t had to any major tech support or CLI intervention in the few years.

Linux has come a long way. If you’ve got compatible hardware and don’t have any specific proprietary sofeare requirements (like Adobe etc), then I’d recommend giving it a try. If you’re open-minded that is.

d3Xt3r ,

GhostBSD. It’s basically FreeBSD, but easier to use. Works really well on old PCs with low RAM, and it has packages for both NextCloud and SyncThing. And before you ask, yes it uses ZFS by default but it actually works fairly well on 4GB. In fact, you can even run it just fine using 2 gigs of RAM!

d3Xt3r ,

Um, why are you downgrading from 5.6.1-2 ? You were already on the fixed version. The official advice from Arch is to upgrade to 5.6.1-2

See: security.archlinux.org/ASA-202403-1

d3Xt3r , (edited )

all devices

Lies, there’s no Linux app yet. As usual, Proton Inc continues to treat Linux users as third-class citizens, all whilst claiming they care about privacy and security.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTYljUhrf6W6MF_OJALuwU5MrO7NT8q1UnCwaUpGZWs5FfG4PgVZRhk7Oxf&s=10

Edit: They don’t even have a macOS app yet lol. “all devices”, yeah right.

d3Xt3r , (edited )

Passwords are used in more places than just browsers though. If there wasn’t any need for a dedicated app, why did they bother making one for Windows?

But personally, I dislike Bitwarden as well. I prefer KeepassXC instead, as it works fully offline and I don’t need to depend on a cloud-based provider (or spin up a server). The best part about KeepassXC is that it supports auto-typing credentials, so you don’t need to copy-paste - and it works across a multitude of apps, such as remote desktop / terminal sessions.

d3Xt3r ,

Your 6.5 kernel is still old. I’d suggest trying a more recent kernel - there have been several AMD-related bugfixes and improvements since then, leading up to the lastest stable 6.8.2. I’d also recommend upgrading to the latest Mesa, which is 24.0.4. Now whilst there are PPAs you can add to easily upgrade your Mesa, I wouldn’t recommend that option as it would introduce more instability and can cause issues with future upgrades. Instead, I’d recommend temporarily trying out a distro with a recent kernel+Mesa, such as Nobara, Bluefin, EndeavourOS etc. If you’re still experiencing issues with them, then it’s likely a hardware issue.

gotta get a new printer

Greentings As youve seen from the the title, i want to get a new printer as a present for my parents. Sadly they are still windows peasants and my mom somehow thinks that the HP printer on her desk has been a good financial investment, even though it has costed us more than 300 bucks in ink over the past 2 years....

d3Xt3r ,

Everyone here is suggesting laser and it’s great for sure, but personally I’m still using inkjet and it works fine for my needs. The main reason being it’s a cheap way to get color, plus it doesn’t occupy much space, in spite of offering scanning as well as an ADF. If you want to get an equivalent laser printer, you’re looking at expensive and bulky options. I haven’t so far come across any reasonably priced, compact AIO laser MFP (if there is one - let me know!).

I’ve been happy with my Brother MFC-J491DW to take the odd printout over the last ~4 years. Never had any issues, and the ink has never once dried out, in spite of printing only like 2-3 times an year. So I’m happy to recommed that, or maybe a newer model in that series.

d3Xt3r ,

I recently bought the OG Dragon’s Dogma for $6. There are a ton of QoL and fun mods that improve gameplay, no DRM crap, and the game performs really well overall. Zero reasons IMO to buy DD2 right now and put up with an inferior experience and Denuvo.

d3Xt3r ,

Cool, but what does this have to do with Linux?

d3Xt3r ,

It was big among the netsec/sysadmin crowd too, it was the first place you’d hear of 0-days in the wild, or whether a popular site/service was down.

d3Xt3r , (edited )

Actually, the new new meta is TuneD, apparently you get better better battery life compared to PPD.

Fedora is considering switching to it, and some distros like Bazzite have already made the switch.

d3Xt3r ,

pikaur? I love all the colors, especially the bit where it highlights the differences in major/minor version numbers, so it immediately catches your eye (so you can track major package upgrades). I also like that it should which packages are being pulled in as new dependencies.

d3Xt3r ,

So is it a best practice with Linux and FOSS to run a system backup before installing any software or update? I mean I guess that’s technically true for any OS, but especially for open source?

Being opensource doesn’t make backups an extra special requirement. Backups should be considered a compulsory, non-optional thing these days, regardless of your choice of OS. I mean, your device could crash or fail, get stolen, get damaged, get hit by crypto - anything is possible. Being opensource or not makes little difference to the question “is it best practice to backup”.

As a linux user, do you know about/use openwrt?

I have many nerdy friends who have been Linux users for ages. But most of them don’t know such a thing as Openwrt exists or have never bothered to give it a try. It’s a very fun piece of software to play with and can be extremely useful for routing traffic. Wondering why it isn’t more popular/widely used.

d3Xt3r ,

I know about it, but I prefer Asuswrt Merlin firmware for my routers, because I mainly use ASUS routers (powerful, modern (WiFi 6E etc) , easy to find second-hand models for cheap) and Merlin firmware is very well integrated with the routers and uses the same UI as the stock firmware, but provides additional features like a package manger etc.

In fact I believe ASUS themselves have started to use some of Merlin’s patches in their firmware, which goes to show how professional Merlin is.

d3Xt3r ,

Interesting, I had no idea about this. Thanks for sharing! And it looks like there’s even an R4 with WiFi-7!

d3Xt3r ,

Got any links for the metal case?

d3Xt3r ,

I use Wayfire (which not many people use for unknown reasons), and one of the things I like to do with it is have a fiery drop-down Kitty terminal. :)

https://lemmy.nz/pictrs/image/bde87b3d-479b-478a-bb4c-107bb55b9c57.webm

I haven’t seen anyone else do a drop-down Kitty in Wayfire before, so I’d like to boldly claim I’m the first one to do so. :) Yes I know it’s pointless, but it’s also cool, and it’s fast thanks to being fully GPU-accelerated, so why not?

And no, I don’t use the fire effect for other windows - that’d get real old, real fast. Thanks to Wayfire, I can define window rules so the effect only applies to my drop-down kitty. Also, my regular kitty windows open normally, without any fancy effects - and it’s possible to differentiate this thanks to kitty allowing you to specify an custom appid.

I also use doas instead of sudo. I just got tired always fighting with sudoers, doas is so much more easier to setup and work with.

Finally, I use grc to colorize all my log output. Makes my journactl looks nice. :)

https://lemmy.nz/pictrs/image/52ab097d-1c8f-450b-81a8-0b0f8617e1d3.png

d3Xt3r ,

Yes Wayfire is a floating WM, but it does have a tiling module which supports simple tiling (up/down/left/right/top/bottom), and you can even define window rules for automatic tile and workspace assignment.

Of course, this is probably not enough for hardcore tilers, but personally don’t think I’d ever need more than 4 tiles per screen - and if one or more of those tiles is a terminal, I can easily multiplex it using Kitty’s built-in splitter, or Zellij.

d3Xt3r ,

Ptyxis, it’s a modern, container-friendly, Wayland-friendly GTK-based terminal.

d3Xt3r ,

Don’t use Flatpak etc for VPNs, it’s limited, insecure and pointless.

It’s highly likely that the Flatpak version is not routing your DNS queries, thus leaking your location. I wouldn’t be surprised if other traffic is being leaked as well.

Since you’re on normal Fedora, just use the normal app (.rpm): protonvpn.com/support/official-linux-vpn-fedora/. Don’t use the CLI version though, as it’s still on the old version (v3).

d3Xt3r ,

See: lemmy.nz/comment/7175961

d3Xt3r , (edited )

I think they’re referring to SR-IOV support (Single Root Input/Output Virtualization). It’s a technology that allows a single hardware device, like a GPU, to be shared across multiple virtual machines (VMs) with minimal overhead. In short, it lets you split your GPU into smaller GPUs that you can then distribute to VMs. This, historically, has been the domain of enterprise and industrial applications, but that’s changing. With Linux gaming on the rise, and more tech enthusiasts then ever, more and more people are trying virtualization and more and more consumers feel the need for SR-IOV. Right now, only a handful of expensive, enterprise-tier AMD GPUs have SR-IOV support. I believe it’s the same situation with nVidia, but you can unlock the feature on their consumer GPUs with some third-party tool (AFAIK).

Are there any CPUs that work well with Linux that aren't made by Intel or another company on the BDS list/that supports Israel?

I have a Ryzen 3 1300X at the moment and it’s always had this soft lock freezing bug on Linux. I used to dual-boot Windows on this machine and Windows never had the same problem, so I think it is an issue with the Linux kernel (I’ve also replaced nearly every bit of hardware that I originally built the PC with, except for...

d3Xt3r ,

I have a Zen 2, Zen 3+ and a Zen 4 system and they all work well very with various Linux distros (Arch, Fedora) and recent kernels.

It’s very likely that your bug is specific to early Ryzen CPUs/chipsets. A couple of folks on those reports mentioned their issues went away after a motherboard/BIOS upgrade. So I think you’ll be fine if you went for a more recent AMD CPU+mobo.

d3Xt3r ,

The official Discord client sucks - uses an outdated Electron, is bloated, has trackers, doesn’t work well under Wayland… lots of issues. I’d recommend using something like Webcord (wrapper for the official Discord site + privacy fixes), or Vesktop (lightweight Discord client with current Electron and better privacy). If you’re concerned about ToS then you could also use the official website as a PWA - still a better option than the official client.

Do you need to download an anti-virus for Android?

So my workplace is mostly iPhone users and someone asked me what kind of antivirus software I used on my Android, and I said “none” and he flipped out about how unsafe it was. Other people chimed in saying how all androids need antivirus apps and I’ve never heard of such a thing. I do have ad-blockers and a VPN but never...

d3Xt3r ,

You don’t.

Long answer: androidcentral.com/…/you-dont-need-to-install-an-…

d3Xt3r ,

Why though? Mobiles can word-wrap just fine, you don’t need to manually do it.

d3Xt3r , (edited )

But, how about backing up just the boot sectors / EFI partition with a dd command and then just restoring it again? Not a slick solution, I agree

Unfortunately that does nothing on a UEFI system. There’s no boot record any more (just a partition table) and even if there were (ie it’s an MBR drive instead of GPT) it would be ignored under UEFI.

But in the case of rEFInd and GRUB, both would actually happily live side by side, what’s changing is just the default bootloader selection in the UEFI. So all you need to go into your UEFI settings and point it back to your choice of bootloader. No need to worry about reinstalling the bootloader, messing with config files, etc.

d3Xt3r ,

Is there some trick that can request grub not to install?

That really depends on your distro’s installer, so there’s no simple answer to your question. If you’re using Arch for instance, you have complete control over that process. For other distros, you’ll need to do your homework.

In saying that, one option could be to do a manual partition restore - like install your distro inside a VM (but don’t reboot after the install, just shutdown the VM), and then clone the partition from the VHD to your real drive. After that you can just create an entry in rEFInd. But that’s more effort than simply just changing the default bootloader.

d3Xt3r ,

https://lemmy.nz/pictrs/image/e27cf606-5b78-4711-931e-b669b401fa4c.png

d3Xt3r ,

ULWGL-protonfixes renamed to umu-protonfixes

So it looks “uwu” is now the official name for this. Not sure if I like it or not, but at least it’s much better than “ULWGL”.

https://lemmy.nz/pictrs/image/97ebccdd-76ee-4643-9529-83fa26324c7e.jpeg

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