What software have you found particularly frustrating or difficult to configure on Linux?
I remember being stubborn and trying to setup eduroam at my uni library using only wpa_supplicant for a whole day. Hugely frustrating. Gave up and installed NetworkManager and it just fucking worked… my tech minimalism phase was extremely counterproductive lol
Pretty much everything is frustrating to configure at first. Then I learn it and it’s not so bad. Then I don’t use it for a few years, and completely forget how! Back to step 1.
Newb here who can’t seem to fully grasp how permissions work and sometimes carelessly runs services as root. Help…
Configuring captive portal wifi without network manager or any aids beyond what’s provided by wpa-supplicant. Eventually I gave up, since it wasn’t really that important.
Adjusting freetype so that it works more-or-less the way I want it to, because the maintainers hate anyone who disagrees with their current hinting algorithm and make the setting as opaque as possible. I would prefer it if they allowed me to have hinting on some fonts and exclude only the ones that were designed to be pixel-aligned, but unless something’s changed recently, that option isn’t even offered.
I use sway, and for the life of me can not get steam link to display my games. I have tried so many things. If I use flatpak steam it works, but it breaks remote play together, which works fine not flatpak! I can get them both to work with KDE Wayland as well. It’s frustrating but also not a huge deal.
X11. Luckily those days are over thanks to Wayland but, Jesus, are X.org config files a fucking, fiddly PITA to configure!
I was trying to get wine to run something the other day and couldn’t figure it out.
I still cannot connect to captive portals for public WiFis, eg on train or hotel and I have no idea where the config comes from.
DNS? Resolve.conf? Systemd network manager? WTF?
(Probably for the best though, so I use my phone 5G and not these suss open networks )
I use this project (https://github.com/FiloSottile/captive-browser) which works most of the time.
Most captive portals work by answering the DNS requests with the captive portal ip. This works only if the correct dns servers are configured and a lot of security features like dnssec, DOH, … are disabled.
More info from the project author: https://words.filippo.io/captive-browser/
If you connect to the network and open firefox, it will display a toast to open the corresponding captive portals page. You can then login through that. Given that your VPN isn’t blocking unencrypted connections etc.
Extrapolation of partial knowledge warning
I assume the network advertises a captive portals url and identifies you based on your MAC address.
The config is server-side (router).
I get “limited connection” I think when I try connect or “no internet”.
I don’t make it to load the portal page…
so maybe I’m not recieving at IP from the network?
I do construction work and travel every week. I’ve had this problem pop up in the last month when I connect to the hotel wifi. I just open Firefox and type in the default gateway IP and then it takes me to the login page. For whatever reason it stopped opening the page for me.
I’ve had to grapple with pipewire. My old pulseaudio config didn’t seem to work and I wanted to migrate to the pw config file format anyway, but I found the pw docs to be highly opaque. You get a thousand solutions for commands online, or tools you can do it visually in, but to apply that config you need to start the tool…
I’m a noob, granted, but there seemed to be a lot of assumed common knowledge that I just don’t have. And if I don’t even know what I’m missing, it’s hard to google for it.
Fortunately I haven’t had to open it in a very long time.
Similar here. I used to have 2 screens that if they turned off for powersaving only 1 of them would wake up. So I had a script on the desktop to do a reset and move them correctly.
#!/bin/bash xrandr --output HDMI2 --off xrandr --output HDMI2 --auto --same-as HDMI1 xrandr --output HDMI1 --right-of HDMI2 exitWhy did we have to learn what modelines were to get a picture on screen?
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Setting up Nvidia runtime for rootless Docker containers in Linux.
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Resolving port :53 conflict between AdGuardHome (rootless) docker container and Systemd-Resolved.
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Jellyseer in docker. It won’t accept my jellyfin login. It just spins and spins. But I plan to use it locally. And everyone says you have to sign in initially not local? I don’t know. I’m annoyed with it and gave up for now.
I think this means it can’t actually see your jellyfin instance, you need to use your computer’s local network ip instead of localhost if the two containers aren’t in the same pod via a docket compose file. I’ve had this issue before.
Nah. It’s on the same docker compose file through portainer. And I’ve been using the local ip. I never use local host for some reason lol
You probably need to use localhost lol or the name of container set in the docker compose file. Both might work, I forget
I’ll try name of container. I have tried localhost in my troubleshooting. It loads the login screen fine. But just spins for 3 minutes then errors out at some point just like the IP lol I’ll be working on it when I get home later after this flight and I’ll let you know if I solve my struggles lol
Wishing you luck, it’s so worth it once it works
Probably vim. It works fine out of the box but it took me way too long to figure out things like why my terminal colors were never quite right out of the box (had to set it to 256 color mode or what have you). And once I wanted to use some a few plugins the configuration started getting a bit convoluted/confusing. Hoping I have time some day/remember to figure out how to disable that annoying visual paste mode or whatever it is called that sometimes makes using it over SSH a nightmare.
Installing Fedora. I had almost nothing to configure, it worked out of the box. How frustrating! I had the whole day planned and now what? Enjoy my free time like a pleb !?!
(/s just in case anyone was wondering)
Have you any experience with HDR in Fedora? I’m getting ready to build a HTPC and I’m torn between fucking with Arch for everything, but getting bleeding edge support, or trying Fedora for the first time for easier system management. Since it’s an entertainment system, I’m not sure if I want to mess with all the Arch config requirements. But I do want solid HDR support.
Try Nobara. It’s based on Fedora but it’s got a whole bunch of gaming-related patches including all of the required additions for out-of-the-box HDR support.
Oh thanks! I’ll check it out.
As this is for a HTPC, I would rather go for uBlue Bazzite instead of Nobara. Same Fedora base, super gaming oriented too, but atomic/immutable so 0 maintenance.
Plus, uBlue projects are not distros but an alternative build pipeline system for Fedora Atomic projects. That means that the projects scope is tiny and much easier to maintain, and that the real distro maintainers are still the Fedora team. From a user perspective, it’s much better in the long term than a single-person effort like Nobara.
From the little research I’ve done, I don’t think that I want an immutable OS. Sure, I only want to use it as a HTPC today, but what about tomorrow when I find some obscure thing I need to do that requires me to change some things?
Sure you’re absolutely free to do as you please ;)
From personal experience tho, anything connected to the TV should Just WorkTM. Nothing more frustrating than just wanting to watch an episode or play a quick game before going to bed and having to spend this time doing updates and maintenance instead.
That’s a good point, and something I’ll think about before deciding.
Running Fedora with dual HDR monitors just fine, but it’s entirely possible that something is off that I’m not catching. They’re also running off my Nvidia GPU.
I’ll just add that they look the same as when I used to run Win10 on the same box.
That’s great to hear. I’d miss the AUR, but I think I’ll just try Fedora out for this build. I want to play with the computer, not tinker with the OS.
Oh, just FYI I don’t game, so if there are some HDR features for gaming you’re hoping for, I can’t speak to that.
Yes, I’m going to use it as a couch console, web browser player for MLB games, and a streaming machine. I did a bunch of reading after posting my last comment and decided that I’ll just stick with Arch. Fedora sounds alluring for the simplicity, but I think I’ll miss the AUR and the rolling release cycle too much. I finally pulled the trigger this afternoon and bought the components after looking at them in my cart on Newegg for a week straight. It should be a pretty rad system
Do whatever works best for you.
I will say that after years and years of regularly switching workstation and laptop distros for a variety of reasons, after finally giving Fedora a shake, I’m done. I’ve installed it on both my primary laptop and desktops and can’t imagine switching again.
But I am still sticking with Debian as my primary server base.
Debian is about as perfect as you can get for a headless server.
You have me curious again after hearing you’ve tried everything. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl. It’s not like I can’t switch to Arch later. It’ll be just as much of a pain in the ass later as it will sooner, and I just might find a new favorite OS. LOL. Plus, I do dig Gnome, and I think it’s probably a better DE for a HTPC than KDE.
Isn’t it always postfix? Not because of the software, but because of other clients and other servers.
