sbeak
@sbeak@sopuli.xyz
Hi, I’m sbird! I like programming and am interested in Physics. I also have a hobby of photography.
- Comment on Is it a good idea to use an Android phone as an external SSD for backing up my home folder? 6 hours ago:
Indeed that seems to be a good idea. When I do reinstall to “distro-hop”, I’ll try to do that then. How big should the “system”/non-home partition be?
- Comment on Is it a good idea to use an Android phone as an external SSD for backing up my home folder? 8 hours ago:
/home is not on a separate partition, no. Yeah an external disk will probably be better
- Comment on Is it a good idea to use an Android phone as an external SSD for backing up my home folder? 9 hours ago:
that’s probably a good idea
- Comment on Is it a good idea to use an Android phone as an external SSD for backing up my home folder? 10 hours ago:
hey that’s a new one
- Submitted 10 hours ago to [deleted] | 20 comments
- Comment on Does display scaling not work in live boots? 6 days ago:
Intel i7-1360p. Specifically, the Zenbook Flip (UP3404)
It’s strange, since I’m currently running Fedora and scaling works fine. Live booting Fedora also has scaling work. Like does EndeavourOS require a driver to be installed?
- Comment on Does display scaling not work in live boots? 6 days ago:
I do not, I am using a laptop with an Intel iGPU
- Submitted 1 week ago to [deleted] | 6 comments
- Comment on I am looking for a Linux OS 1 week ago:
If you can’t decide between distros, I would test them out with live boot (you could use VenToy for this) and mess around in them, see what works and what doesn’t. That’s how I did it, I hopped from Mint to Fedora Workstation then landed on Fedora KDE. I am currently thinking of switching to EndeavourOS later (nothing wrong with Fedora, I just want to try out something Arch-based for a change!)
Also, one thing, if you’re installing Fedora, make sure to enable third-party repos when setting up in the little guide! This will allow you to install Steam and, if applicable, Nvidia drivers. It’s pretty stupid that they make it sound all scary, it really would be better if they just asked whether you want Steam and Nvidia drivers, but it is what it is.
- Comment on I am looking for a Linux OS 1 week ago:
For me, my recommendation is:
- slightly older hardware, go with Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu, so will have slower updates than something based on Fedora so will not support the latest hardware)
- if you have newer hardware, I would go for something based on Fedora.
Fedora Workstation (GNOME) and KDE are both great well-rounded options.
If you want a gaming-centric distro, Bazzite is a nice option (if you have nvidia GPU, pick the option that has those drivers!). Bazzite is atomic, meaning it’s slightly harder to break the OS and it’s easy to roll back (there are a few limitations though, like most apps will be installed via flatpak rather than with dnf). If you have a living room PC, Bazzite also offers a console-like experience with Steam Big Picture Mode.
If you like tinkering and want to squeeze out performance, CachyOS is a great option, it’s essentially Arch Linux that is easier to install and has a bunch of performance tweaks.
TLDR: Mint for older hardware, Fedora/Bazzite for newer hardware, CachyOS if you know what you’re doing
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
While I was using GNOME (with Fedora Workstation), the three finger gesture worked for me out of the box and was quite nice indeed. I switched to KDE for better customisability, but if you prefer the padded libadwaita aesthetic of GNOME, it’s also a great choice! They’re both much better than Windows 11 in my opinion…
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
I have checked my function buttons again, yeah, the camera on/off one doesn’t work for me. The microphone mute does work, including the orange indicator light.
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
Four the overviews of all the Latest ndows, what I like to do is use the cornor hotspot feature, so I just fling the mouse to the bottom corner to open the overview of all the windows (it’s in the settings, you can customise what each of the corners do!)
Nice that you got the numberpad thing working! I might need to try that soon
I really had to go digging for that Howdy fork, once I get back to my laptop I will let you know the link for reference
Hopefully you will eventually join the penguin side!
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
Not to mention that Windows is spying on you and sending all your profitable personal data to Microsoft (which we can see using network logs)…but you probably don’t care about that…
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
-
with workarounds that Microsoft is now blocking
-
with workarounds that Microsoft is blocking
-
They are adding CoPilot everywhere (taskbar, Paint, even Notepad!), they keep on backtracking and then retracking on Recall (I.e. program that takes screenshots of your computer every few seconds which I’d very alarming for obvious reasons, it’s literally spyware) They are adding a dedicated CoPilot key on newer laptops
-
In the settings screen is a huge banner for Office, the computer asks for you to make a Microsoft account once you have switched to a local account in the Start Menu, OneDrive is pushed as a necessary security feature, when Windows is installed fake apps that download when you click on them appear on the Start Menu, etc etc
-
Linux runs all the programs I use. I am sure some professional workflows won’t work, but for most people, everything works and has a Linux native or Linux alternative option. Games run fine with Wine/Proton (using Steam/Lutris/Heroic if you play Epic Games games)
-
Benefits of Linux have already been described above (particularly much better customisability, you can even swap out your desktop environment, going from KDE to GNOME!)
-
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
Sire, on Windows I ran into similar issues (touchscreen borked for seemingly no reason, which also required a restart). Tje flop side is that Linux doeen’t require an internet connection and MS account to install, you’re not fed AI shovelware that nobody wants, your computer that you paid for does not show you advertisements (see Windows begging people to use MS Office, OneDrive, CoPilot, Xbox stuff), and Linux is also quite a bit faster to run which is nice! Not to mention, it really like the additional customisability and the additional themes I can use, esp when it comes to icon packs! (you would either have to use a separate program or do it manually on Windows)
- Comment on Why I gave up electronics club 1 week ago:
Another example, the use of “abc” and “xyz” in Mathematics. Or “ijk” as index variables when programming loops.
- Comment on Why I gave up electronics club 1 week ago:
Since they are quite good opposites, the smart people who figured how all this worked decided on that and we stuck with it based on convention. Like how “Alice” and “Bob” were used in Computer Science since they are generic names beginning with the first two letters of the alphabet (it could have easily been any A and B name, but this is the convention!)
Similar can be said for magnets, the “North” and “South” poles are good opposites. If other people started the trend, we could have easily gotten something else, but this is the convention.
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
All the function buttons work, aside from the MyASUS one (since there is no Linux version of it, but that should be obvious. You are probably able to remap it to do other stuff though). I am able to change the brightness of the screen but not sure if it’s DC or PWM dimming. There is probably a thing you can install to figure that out.
For Howdy, I found that the latest version of Fedora (43) kind of borked it since Python 3.14 isn’t supported (some dependency issue) so I had to install a fork which bundles the dependency, and now it works!
I am using KDE (not GNOME) which does support quarter windows which is pretty neat. I also found that KDE is much more customisable than GNOME (though some might prefer GNOME’s libadwaita aesthetic)
I personally use LibreOffice, which is awesome and works most of the time, but occasionally there’s a weird formatting bug when viewing from MS Office. OnlyOffice is also quite good and apparently has better MS office compatibility, which I can attest to, but unless you’re doing anything super critical, LibreOffice should be fine.
I thoroughly encourage you to dip your toes into the world of penguinland! Fedora is a great starting point, and lets you pick between so many DEs too…(KDE Plasma and GNOME being the main two, but Fedora also offers some different ones too, like Budgie and COSMIC)
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
Nope, all I had to do was restart! Really nice actually, surprised it took two to fix the issue.
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
The keyboard lighting up does work for me, IR camera works (with Howdy I can use facial recognition!), sleep/suspend works, tablet mode works. I’m surprised everything did work considering it’s a weird flippy 2-in-1 thing. The numberpad on the trackpad doesn’t work but I never used that anyways. I fixed the issue by restarting (twice, not once for some reason, that didn’t work).
I have had Fedora installed since last year and it’s been great! The amount of Windows-exclusive stuff is shrinking, the only thing now is, ironically, reinstalling Windows lol (though you can use cli magic to write bootable media I think. Installation Assistant won’t work though). The few games I do play all work fine with Wine/Proton. I might remove my Windows dual boot soon…
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
I have tried restarting. Sometimes it fixes the issue, but later in the day it always reappears
- Comment on How on earth do I fix my trackpad? 1 week ago:
It is an Asus Zenbook Flip UP3404 (thank god it has a touchscreen)
- Submitted 1 week ago to [deleted] | 25 comments
- Comment on A matter of patience 2 weeks ago:
If you don’t understand the seesaw
spoiler
The explanation for the observed light neutrino masses that involves massive right-handed neutrinos is called the “seesaw mechanism”, since it kind of works like a seesaw (when mass of right-handed neutrinos goes up, the left-handed neutrino masses go down. Since observed neutrino masses are very very light, like ridiculously so, it was first though that they were massless until it was discovered that they oscillate between 3 flavours, which is only possible if they have mass, these right-handed neutrinos must be quite massive indeed) For the record, I’m not a particle physicist of any kind and I got that information from a couple lectures that I watched that were about neutrino-related things. The supersymmetry camp also thinks that right-handed sneutrinos (the theoretical supersymmetric partners of the neutrinos) could also be a candidate for dark matter. Note the prefixed s, that’s how most of the supersymmetric partners of the observable fermions (squarks, selectrons, sneutrinos), while most of the supersymmetric partners of the observable bosons end with ino (photino, gravitino, and I’m pretty sure they call the partner of the W boson the Wino).
- Comment on A matter of patience 2 weeks ago:
There is evidence of matter that does not interact with electromagnetic waves (so light, UV, etc.), so we cannot see it, but we do see the gravitational lensing caused by it, meaning it does interact with gravity (the bending of light around something that has a lot of mass)
There’s bazillions of different theories of what dark matter could be (since all we know is that it doesn’t interact with electromagnetism but it does with gravity), theories include primordial black holes (mini black holes made in the early superhot and dense universe), new forms of neutrino (like massive right-handed neutrinos), supersymmetric particles, and loads of other hypothetical/new particles (axions, WIMPs, etc.)
- Comment on A matter of patience 2 weeks ago:
something something seesaw something
- Comment on How/why does Microsoft teams exist? 2 weeks ago:
My old school had to switch to Microsoft Teams (from Google Classroom) and the head of ICT told everyone that he thought that Teams website was ridiculously slow, the app moreso, as part of a transition from Google’s suite (Docs, Slides, Drive, Classroom) to Microsoft’s (Word, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Teams)
Pretty much everybody complained about the switch to Teams since it was really slow, sometimes taking several minutes to load the app on older computers (e.g. school computers). I assume they switched to all-Microsoft to reduce costs (I remember being told that, since they were paying for both Office 365 and Google Cloud before), and they mentioned other reasons too (e.g. students overseas in mainland China can’t access Google) but I forgot most of them.
- Comment on If the United States of America was renamed, what should it be? 2 weeks ago:
Because I already have enough U.S. politics from the internet…
The small vibrating egg does sound way more interesting though, let’s talk about that instead. What makes it vibrate? How is it so small? What will happen to the egg after the vibrations? How many varieties are there??
- Comment on If the United States of America was renamed, what should it be? 2 weeks ago:
Fair enough actually.