I’m reporting on my first experiments with Garuda Linux (Arch-based), the latest release, “Temeraire” (260819), in the Mokka edition. I’m testing that in a virtual machine. I can anticipate that I love the aesthetic of this distro, especially in this Mokka edition, which is more sober than the “dragonized” version. The installation The installation is […]
In this post, I show how I installed CachyOS Linux (Arch-based) on a Geekcom IT13 Mini PC. These are the main specs of the Mini PC: Processors: 16 × 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-13620H Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (31.1 GiB usable) Graphics Processor: Intel® Graphics I’m installing CachyOS “cachyos-desktop-linux-260628.iso”; I downloaded the ISO and […]
I report my first experiences with LM Studio in (Arch) Linux. LM Studio is a desktop application that allows you to discover, download, and run Large Language Models (LLMs) entirely on your own computers, offline. This is the hardware and system I’m testing it (you see, no GPU with VRAM):
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Operating System: EndeavourOS KDE Plasma Version: 6.7.3 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.28.0 Qt Version: 6.11.1 Kernel Version: 7.1.3-arch1-3 (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland Processors: 16 × 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-13620H Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (31.1 GiB usable) Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® Graphics |
First, download the AppImage […]
In the past, I had several problems using archinstall for installing Arch Linux in a dual boot with another existing Linux installation. In fact, I gave up using archinstall and created my own script for installing Arch. In particular, I experienced these two problems: Archinstall failed installing Arch if the disk already contained a BTRFS […]
I use Fedora Silverblue with GNOME, and I have LibreOffice installed as a Flatpak. Recently, I hit a strange problem: when searching for an office document from the GNOME Dash — for example, an .odt or .ods file in my Dropbox folder — and selecting it, LibreOffice appeared to start, but then failed with an […]
Sometimes a command installed with Homebrew needs to be executed as root. A good example is nethogs, which needs elevated privileges to inspect network traffic. The problem is that this often fails:
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sudo nethogs |
even though this works:
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nethogs |
The reason is that sudo usually runs with a different, restricted PATH. Your normal shell can find […]
I’m continuing my evaluation of the Fedora Silverblue Linux distribution, which I started some time ago. Let’s upgrade the system! As mentioned in the official documentation: On Atomic Desktops, you can keep using your computer while applying OS updates as they are downloaded and installed in the background. Once an update has been installed, you […]
When setting up Sway as your Wayland compositor, you might want to organize your Waybar configuration in a non-standard location — for example, keeping a dedicated ~/.config/waybar/sway/ directory to separate your Sway-specific bar configuration from others. This seemingly simple task comes with a couple of subtle pitfalls worth knowing about. The ~ Expansion Problem The […]
I’m going to test the Fedora 43 Linux distribution in its “immutable” “atomic” shape, Silverblue. Fedora Silverblue is Fedora’s atomic, GNOME-based desktop built around an image-based, mostly read-only system rather than a traditional mutable Linux install. As an atomic desktop: the base OS is image-based, updates are applied as a new deployment, and you switch […]
If you use a Wayland compositor like Sway or Hyprland, mako is a great lightweight notification daemon. Many distros make it “start automatically” via a systemd user service, so you don’t need to add exec mako to your compositor config. I’m experimenting with a setup with KDE, Sway, and Hyprland installed on the same machine […]
If you use KDE and Sway (or Hyprland) on the same machine with the same user (something I’m experimenting with), when you launch Chrome and log in with your user in KDE, and then switch to Sway, you’ll see that your account is marked as “Paused”: you have to log in again. The same holds […]
I’ll show how I installed Linux (EndeavourOS, i.e., Arch) on a Dell Pro Max Tower T2. This is quite a powerful computer! Here are a few screenshots taken from Windows 11: Before installing Linux on this computer, I had to change the SSD SATA mode from RAID to AHCI, as documented in a previous blog […]
A small blog post on how to install EndeavourOS with LUKS disk encryption. The installation starts and proceeds as usual (see, e.g., my older post). I’m using KDE for this installation. When you get to disk partitioning, choose manual: If you start from a fresh disk, create a new partition table and choose GPT: If […]
Remembering every Sway shortcut is tough. I wrote a small script that parses your Sway config, displays all bindsym shortcuts in a clean, searchable list via Rofi, and executes the command associated with whichever one you select. It’s fast, keyboard-friendly, and great for discovery: “What did I bind to Mod + Shift + P again?” Now you […]
If you’ve installed Linux on your MacBook Air, you’ve probably discovered that while most hardware works out of the box, the built-in FaceTime HD camera is notably absent from your video applications. Don’t worry—you’re not alone, and there’s a solution that doesn’t involve external USB webcams or complicated workarounds. The issue stems from Apple’s use […]
I have already blogged about managing KDE dotfiles with chezmoi and chezmoi_modify_manager. But what about maintaining them? For example, one of the KDE configuration files changes, and you want to update the version managed by chezmoi. Here’s an example where the Kate configuration file changed on the system and chezmoi detects that:
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❯ chezmoi status MM .config/katerc |
You can […]
Let’s install Ubuntu 25.04 on Apple Silicon (M1) in a virtual machine using UTM. We must first download an Ubuntu ISO for ARM. Go to https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop and search for “ARM 64-bit architecture”; if not available for the specific version you want to install, then you’ll have to install the Ubuntu Server and then install the “ubuntu-desktop” […]
On some computers, such as the new Dell Pro Max Tower T2 and the older XPS 13, the SATA operation mode for the SSD is set to RAID by default. Linux will not recognize the SSD in RAID mode; you need to change it to AHCI. If you just change it to AHCI in BIOS, […]
If you’re a KDE user who wants to keep your desktop configuration under version control, you’ve probably discovered that KDE’s configuration files can be quite challenging to manage with traditional dotfile tools. KDE stores settings in complex INI files that frequently change, contain system-specific data, and include sections you may not want to track. This […]
Let’s see what Eclipse looks like in Wayland in 2025. I report some screenshots of a few Wayland Window Managers and Desktop Environments. Sway Eclipse looks good in Sway: Hyprland The same can be said for Hyprland, especially now that the infamous bug has been solved: GNOME No problems on GNOME either; I’d expect that […]