General Q&A about Linux and Unix-like operating systems
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When I boot my computer, I want the sound to start out muted, even if it wasn't before. For bonus points: It should also reduce volume to 0% This should also happen when coming out of hibernat...
How do you monitor GPU usage on Linux? I am most interested in a "% GPU usage" and maybe "GPU temp" statistic, not so much very detailed stuff.
Linux Mint comes with "System Monitor", a GNOME utility that - among other things - shows my CPU and RAM usage and network transfer rate. It seems intended as the system's alternative to the Task M...
I've noticed that the default kernel selection for Ubuntu 22.04, for example, is Linux 5.15.0. Ubuntu 22.04 is a LTS release, which is supposed to have standard support until April 2027, and Linux ...
I understand that "mounting" in Linux refers to associating some "device" (usually some storage drive or a partition thereof, but it could be a region of RAM, some memory-mapped hardware, etc.) wit...
I've heard people say that Linux is a misnomer. Supposedly, the operating system is not Linux, Linux is just a part of it called a kernel, and the operating system should be called something else. ...
Suppose you have two Linux distributions installed in a dual boot situation. One issue that can happen is when you need to frequently switch. Rebooting is disruptive if you have a bunch of things ...
I often need to fill out PDF forms, like government paperwork and stuff for banks. How can I do this on Linux? Best I could find was Foxit, but it has strange limitations in the Linux version, lik...
My understanding is that one of the key advantages of Linux is modularity: the actual Linux kernel is quite small, and then what we call Linux is that plus the "rest of the system" - hence "operati...
I want to install additional Linux distributions on my computer, so I can try some new ones and see if they're better than my current ("old") one. I've been using my current distro for a while. I'...
I installed Grub in the normal way and now I have entries in the Grub menu for linux, linux-lts, and the fallback versions of them. I want to add more entries to this. For example, I want to add l...
Ever since systemd was adopted by mainstream distros, there's been many reactive projects aiming to provide a distro without systemd. I've often had the impression that a lot of these were motivat...
If I had a fast drive (SSD) and a slow one (HDD), what parts of my Linux system should go on the fast one?
There is a popular partitioning scheme, described in the Arch wiki as LVM on LUKS. The meat of this is: /boot is its own unencrypted partition The rest of the drive is a giant LUKS partition I...
I wanted to download C++ documentation and found cppreference-doc-en-qch in Debian's archive: Description: C and C++ standard library reference (English, Qt Help variant) A version of online C ...
I have / mounted on a relatively small partition and /home on a larger one taking up most of the rest of the drive (as seems to be common practice). I'd like to move certain other parts of the file...
How can I print the version of a program in the terminal, so that I know which one I have installed?
I have installed the Flatpak version of Lutris from Pop_Shop in PopOS. From within Lutris, I have installed the EA App, which I have then used to download several games from my library. Unfortunate...
Early in boot, after triggering uevents but before the encrypt hook (decrypting drives) my system takes a very long time, over a minute. Actually, I bet it takes 90 seconds which is the typical def...
I have multiple systems, each of which has two different hard drives: one fast SSD and my good old spinning rust. Originally, I had set up the drives to have my root directory / on the SSD and my ...
I have long been in the process of converting my manual steps to create a new backup disks into an automated script. The only part I have left is the initial "creation" of the disk, meaning whateve...
HTTPie complains about TLS certificates ever for sites I know are fine: $ https wikipedia.org https: error: SSLError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='wikipedia.org', port=443): Max retries exceeded w...
I want /home to be on a different partition than the rest of my files. How can I do this?
If I have an application such as the EA App running from Lutris, after starting the computer from hibernation, it sometimes doesn't render correctly; the window renders some areas fine, while other...
GPG stores keys inside an internal database of some sort. How to export your public key in the familiar -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- format so that it can be imported to other software? E.g...
When I view my document camera's feed in guvcview it is in landscape mode. I want it to capture things in portrait mode, since I usually take photos of documents. Currently, I have to rotate all t...
I saw another post recommend using Fedora if you want cutting edge features. Is Fedora really a "cutting edge" distro? I am not very familiar with Fedora, I know it's a community counterpart to R...
Suppose I have a command that prints to the standard output, like: $ echo hi hi How can I send this to the clipboard instead, as if I selected the output and did Ctrl+C?
I added IdleAction=hibernate IdleActionSec=30min To my bat /etc/systemd/logind.conf. Then I waited 31 min, but nothing happened. It didn't hibernate. Presumably, the config changes are not loa...
My DE has a bunch of programs in the start/applications menu. How can I add my own in there? For example, say I found a terminal command foo --bar --baz that does something I want. But I don't want...
How do I install and run Windows applications downloaded from a website? Windows applications do not run natively on Linux, but can be run using Wine. When downloading these applications from a we...
Occasionally I ask how to do some configuration, and people tell me to do stuff like edit some config file in an XYZ directory. But if I configure everything this way, it will turn into a mess, and...
How do I find the exact code of a key on my keyboard?
On a modern Linux system, what happens if you attempt to hibernate when your swap is smaller than your RAM? For example, say RAM is 16 GB and swap is 8 GB.
Arch switched to Python 3.12 which broke offlineimap. I want to use Python 3.12 as the default on my system, but just offlineimap should run with an alternative Python 3.11 environment. Is it possi...
How to list tags of a container in container registry using CLI tools? Kinda like you would browse them visually in dockerhub.
When I create a new Maildir account in Kmail, pointing to /foo/bar, I expect it to create directories like: /foo/bar/cur /foo/bar/new /foo/bar/tmp /foo/bar/some-folder/cur /foo/bar/some-folder...
When I run Kmail on i3, and then close it, it appears to continue running some stuff in the background. For example, I periodically get notifications about new mail from dunst, even though I have c...
I have created a set of profiles in OpenRGB that set the RGB lights on the fans and LED strips inside my desktop case. This works as expected, however, the activation of a profile does not persist ...
In PopOS's standard System Monitor application, how do I see the GPU usage? I can see the CPU, RAM, disk and network usage, and graphs for them, but GPU usage is listed nowhere. It's available in M...
How do I read computer temperatures from my desktop in PopOS? Is there a terminal command, DE extension or GUI application that I can use for the purpose? The UEFI reports CPU, CPU case and motherb...
How can I auto-enable FN-toggling for the first N FN keys? F7-F12 on my keyboard are used for audio control, while, many games that I play, use the lower FN keys. Therefore, I'd like to relieve mys...
I've been distro hopping for years now. I love Fedora and Tumbleweed, but everything I've tried beyond Ubuntu is slow and jumpy, and even Ubuntu lags behind Windows 7, 10, and 11. Are the NVIDIA dr...
How do I control my computer's fan speeds, including the case fans, and the CPU pump and fan speed? Moving from Windows on an Acer laptop, I am used to Acer's PredatorSense application which lets ...
How to calculate the SHA1 digest of a file in a shell?
Every time I open EA Games from within Lutris, the desktop's UI/screen scaling is reset from 150% to 100%. This is in PopOS running with a 4K resolution on a 4K screen. The resolution is not change...
Can I restrict myself from certain actions when I SSH in from outside a certain IP range? For instance no sudo? Maybe with ~/.ssh/authorized_keys having a from="!1.2.3.4/26" option with some kind ...
The systemd manual gives a list of path where systemd looks for unit files. However, I want to isolate my units in a path of my own choosing. Is it possible to configure systemd to add some path t...
It is often taught that in Unix/Linux text files should end with newline characters. The reason given (orally) to me by various sources was that "some commands (such as wc) assume or require a newl...
Trying to understand what exactly <!nocheck> does next to a package in build-depends (for example, Perl). Debian Wiki says: Terms can be negated by using an exclamation mark as a prefix ...
