Linux

NixOS is a Linux distribution based on the Nix package manager. Nix has been trending lately so there’s a good chance you’ve heard of it. But if you went to do some research about Nix you might have gotten a bit lost in concepts like dependency trees and the Nix programming language. The good news is that you don’t need to understand how Nix works in depth or know any programming to enjoy the benefits that it brings. Nix has a repo of about 80,000 packages, which puts it up there with the Arch Linux AUR as a contender for the largest in the Linux ecosystem. You can actually use Nix on top of any distro and even MacOS, but today we’ll be focusing on NixOS specifically. First, I’ll tell you a bit about what makes Nix special, and then I’ll demonstrate a basic server installation to show how it works in practice. ...

This is my first look at the upcoming Linux desktop developed by System76. For many, desktop Linux has felt stagnant over the past year. Major distribution updates have been largely uneventful, and many distros seem to release gimmick features that aren’t particularly useful. However, there’s a fresh wind of excitement in the air with the upcoming alpha release of the Cosmic desktop environment. Here’s a dive into why Cosmic might be the breath of fresh air that desktop Linux needs. ...

It’s been a while since we over-viewed some of my top Linux distributions. Creating top lists for anything is difficult to do, as leaving out bias and opinion is near impossible. An actual top or best Linux distro list would probably have Debian at the top and include OpenSUSE, RHEL, and distributions like that. This list is my favorite Linux distributions I’ve used on physical hardware in the last year and find myself returning to. ...

Near the end of 2020, Red Hat decided to kill CentOS as we know it—kind of. We’ll get that a bit later. But for now, let’s examine Red Hat Enterprise Linux and all of the clones and forks that we have available. So, let’s get to it. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or RHEL for short, is a Linux distribution developed by, believe it or not, Red Hat. RHEL is an RPM-based distribution that uses the DNF package manager and follows a more LTS-like release cycle with an older package base. RHEL’s package base actually comes from earlier versions of Fedora, making Fedora a testing ground for different changes that may come to Red Hat. For example, the latest version of RHEL 9.0 is based on Fedora 34 from March 2021. Do note, though, that while Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat and uses some Red Hat infrastructure, Fedora is still its own project that may make decisions against Red Hat. Another thing that makes Red Hat special is that a lot of modern technology in the Linux world is either significantly funded by Red Hat or run or heavily contributed to by Red Hat developers, A bunch of examples of this include GNOME Shell, SELinux, SystemD, PackageKit, Wayland, D-Bus, and many other projects. However, another thing that made Red Hat different is that it’s a paid Linux distro, but paying for it gives you support and docs from the Red Hat company. ...

Pop!_OS is one of, if not the best, distributions based on Ubuntu to date. It has sparked the interest of the dedicated Linux community and new users alike. Dual-booting has helped with this! One major hesitation of the new Linux user is wiping Windows from their life completely. Luckily, this is not a necessity. In this guide, we will go over step-by-step instructions on how to install Pop!_OS alongside Windows and update the bootloader. ...

This is a simple installation script written in bash by the developer MatMoul 2. It allows you to install Arch by selecting various options and packages instead of running commands. https://youtu.be/u2l54FMgWq4 Installing Arch Linux is an effort especially if you’re new to the whole process. If you don’t feel like jumping back and forth between the Arch wiki and spending hours just to not have a system that boots this guide is for you. I would still recommend running through the official ArchWiki and learning the proper installation process. Doing this will help you understand what archfi is doing in the background. ...

So, you run Windows, which does everything you need. But you’re done with relying on something so limited and corporate. But you aren’t ready to switch to Linux fully yet. There may be some application or game that you want to keep running. But now it is time to move your primary workflow to Linux. So, let’s dual-boot the worst with the best (in my opinion). Please backup all important data before continuing! We highly recommend doing this on two different drives instead of just one; however, this guide still covers it on one drive. If you are using one drive, note that Windows may not play well on Linux and has been known to wipe Linux partitions during updates. Also, before you do anything, we highly recommend backing up your data. Below is a video guide that will go through everything step-by-step with additional detail. ...

The entire Linux community was hyped about the JingPad. It was the first Linux tablet with amazing build quality, and its own flagship iPad OS-inspired distro helped, too. We could have had one of the best pieces of Linux hardware, complete with features such as Android app support. However, this never came to be, and the company behind it seems to be completely dead. Jingling was founded in June of 2020 and quickly assembled a staff of around 80 people. Most of these people focused on their operating system, JingOS. This operating system aimed to be a consumer-friendly mobile operating system with a Linux base and Android application support. The hardware and software teams were separated, with the JingOS team being in Beijing and the rest of the hardware development team in Shenzhen (where the rest of its supply chain was located). ...

A few weeks ago, I made a YouTube video on risiOS, and a lot of people were surprised that it was Fedora-based because most distros are based on either Debian, Ubuntu, or Arch. Well, there are quite a few other distributions based on Fedora, so let’s go through some of them, specifically the ones mentioned on Fedora’s list of Fedora remixes wiki page. https://youtu.be/stIndl1YuIg Nobara Nobara is a distribution that is designed specifically for gaming. It is made by a Red Hat Engineer who is also the Proton-GE contributor’s maintainer and a Lutris developer. Booting into it, I noticed that its flagship version has a customized version of GNOME, although there is also a vanilla one. Some of the extensions the non-Vanilla version installs include ArcMenu, Blur my Shell, and Dash to Panel. This gives it an overall setup similar to Windows 7. It also comes preinstalled with many gaming-related tools, including Steam, Lutris, Wine, ProtonUp, and GOverley. ...

One of the biggest difficulties of switching over to Linux is getting used to a completely different ecosystem for applications and trying to switch away from many proprietary applications that are Windows only. Ideally, we should try to convince new users to learn how to use open-source software instead of proprietary software, but there are some cases where that is not an option. https://youtu.be/gpsmHI7oPas Main Solutions The Wine compatibility layer is the solution to getting these Windows applications onto our Linux system, which essentially converts all the Windows libraries and system calls over to open-source alternatives. Steam’s Proton is built on this, allowing many Windows games to have full Steam Deck compatibility. The main problem with Wine is that it can be a huge pain to set up and configure. Several applications aim to solve this problem, but most aren’t great. ...