Welllll you know me...

Fedora was fun.  But I am back to Pop.  Could not help it.  It just feels better for some reason.

Different theme for me...  a little bright though.

So any linux users out there who have successfully installed and run Lollypop?  Any tips, because I just wanted to try it but... when I kick it off to scan my music folder it hangs my system.

I don't have to use Lollypop, I can use one of a myriad of music apps but... I had heard good things about it so I wanted to take it out for a spin.

I could try building it from scratch.

Link to Fedora 29 / NVidia driver install guide

https://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2015/fedora-nvidia-guide/

Fedora NVIDIA Guide

Fedora 29 So Far

Been pretty darn good.

I had noted previously that it is work to get the NVIDIA drivers working, which I did get done, but because of the order of installing drivers PRIOR to installing Steam I ran into issues.

I installed the Flatpak version of Steam instead and got around the issue of starting.  But then found that the Flatpak version of steam does not quite run as well as the installed version.  But it works and I can game so... I am happy enough at the moment!

One thing I will say is that Fedora holds onto a surprising amount of RAM, more than I expected.  It is not "lean and mean."  On the other hand GNOME on Fedora is even smoother than it is on Pop!_OS.  So perhaps the high memory usage is for good reason.  I don't know.

Not complaining, I have plenty of RAM.  More than I should ever need.

Although, that being said, I plan on doubling that with my next build.  :)

Rainy night, Rainy Day

Rain is so great in Arizona.

Rained all night, drizzly today, everything around us is covered in a blanket of fog.  Warming up too, as this storm is sucking in some hotter air mass.

Anyway, hope everyone out there is having a wonderful day!

Ducky One 2 Mini

Still on Fedora, GNOME 3... and everything is just Ducky...

Want to give it a fair shake.  Just in case I did push Pop!_OS back onto my stick.  But so far so good.

I've run into oddities.  I had that one freeze, none since.  There have been a few updates since that freeze so, not sure if it is is pure chance or something actually fixed it, or at least affected it.

The version of Steam (you saw my steam woes) I am running through Flatpak is not the same as the one run under Ubuntu.  At least, I can say with certainty that games I could play I cannot, and games I had trouble playing I have been playing.   So not sure what is up with that.

Have GNOME looking like I want it, so that is cool.

I think I mentioned before that I once again destroyed my good, expensive keyboard.  So my new Ducky One 2 (or something like that) came today!  It is not as heavy as my choice keyboard but it actually feels solid.  More so than my other mechanicals.  I chose the silent reds.  They remind me a lot of browns, but quieter.

It has a USB C connector instead of the usual mini-USB...

Anyway, so far I like it a lot.

GNOME 3 on Fedora

One thing I found interesting on Fedora is that the window buttons (minimize/maximize) are missing, like on Pop!_OS.  On Manjaro and Ubuntu they are present.

Nothing important, I just noticed it today when I was trying to minimize Thunderbird... GNOME Tweaks allows me to enable a minimize button so I did.  I just find that convenient.

HAD A FREEZE!  BOOOOOOOO!  It was completely random and all that was running was a Chrome window, not even a video.  Although there might have been an Ad video running, so there is that.

Since then I have applied TWO Fedora kernel updates so... we shall see if it happens again.  But it is so random... it might not happen now for days.

This seems to be an issue with every version of linux I have tried.  Some are worse than others.  I've run memory tests and my memory is fine.  Disks are all healthy.  Power supply is steady (it is a platinum-badged power supply so it should be decent).

Still not sure then if it really is a kernel thing (scheduler issue of some sort) or something with my NVIDIA 1080 card... drivers... no idea.  Annoying though.

Heck, maybe it has nothing to do with graphics or kernel at all, maybe it is my network driver.  Streamed videos also hit up the network... so...

Flip Flopped to Fedora...

So, because I like a challenge, I decided to install Fedora 29.

Fedora is an excellent linux distribution but, they tend to eschew non-free software and drivers.  This means it can be a pain to install something like the NVIDIA drivers (like I had to do) and to get rid of Nouveau.  It isn't impossible, and in reality it is actually quite easy... just takes a little while to do and includes booting into a non-UI mode, etc.

[edit:  I should note that you must install the 32 bit NVIDIA drivers.]

I want to offer a word of warning for people though, if you are going to install STEAM on your Fedora box, PLEASE DO SO BEFORE you install your NVIDIA drivers.  Theoretically it will save you much pain.

For whatever reason, if you try to install Steam after installing the proprietary drivers it will not run.  I spent hours trying to figure out a work around to no avail.  The "touted" solution is to uninstall NVIDIA and reinstall Nouveau, and then reinstall Steam.  Again followed by installing the NVIDIA driver.

A royal pain.

There IS however a much simpler way of getting around all that.  Fedora comes with FLATPAK installed.  Flatpak is a way of installing applications in a stand-alone fashion, so one installation package can run on any version of linux (for the most part).  All you really need to do is enable the flatpak repository (https://flatpak.org/setup/Fedora/) and then it will show up in your software store.  Once it is there, simply install it.

Now, it will LIKELY fail the first time you start Steam.  If it does, open a terminal and "sudo flatpak update".  Then start Steam again.  It *should* work.

MUCH easier than the alternative.  I was also able to update to the latest BETA version of steam and also to run Proton.  Good stuff!

----

So one of reasons I decided to try Fedora again was because I had remembered that of all the distros, when I had to manually install the NVIDIA driver as you do with Fedora, I did not see the screen freezes with You Tube videos and other types of video.  I do not know why that is, nor do I know if it is a "truth" or I have just not encountered a freeze on Fedora yet as it IS a random occurrence anyway.

Well, one thing I forgot to do and I am irked with myself for it, is I forgot to copy off my Borderlands saves before I installed and I wiped it out.  I am hoping I was saving to Steam cloud.  Guess I will find out tomorrow.   Now I am going to bed.

General updates and ramblings...

Still on Pop!_OS.  I recently tried (in live mode) Manjaro Openbox, Mabox, Manjaro Deepin... and I just cannot get into them.  MX Linux is still out there as one of my favorites though.  But I don't know... Pop has just been THERE and out of my way.  It isn't super special in any way.  It just has enough tweaks and conveniences that set it apart from Ubuntu.

I really like XFCE and distros that use it.  I am not a huge fan of KDE even though I did use it for a year a number of years ago.  Openbox seems usable... but I remember when GNOME 3 came out I really did not like it.  I have bounced around Mac OS, Linux and Windows for awhile now but when Windows 7 came out I moved to that and stayed on it for years, through to Windows 10 (I even own a copy of Windows 10 Pro now).  But I have always preferred unix-like, posix-standard-meeting systems over Windows or OS/2, etc.

I am rambling.  But where I was going with that previous paragraph was that perhaps getting used to Windows 8 and then Windows 10 interface along with the more recent versions of Mac OS X, GNOME is no longer a "shock" to my system.  I don't know.  But I even like it now.

I think that Fedora puts out a decent GNOME 3 workstation but it is more difficult (ie. I am lazy) to configure graphics drivers and to get Steam working the way I like it.  Manjaro GNOME is also very good.

I could hunt around for the "best G3 linux" and see what else is out there, but so far Pop!_OS has been very good.

I really want to like Deepin.  I have tried Deepin OS, I have tried Manjaro Deepin, but I just can't bring myself to stick with it.  It has some gorgeous design elements but...  it just feels a little rough to me.  Maybe I will play with a few more distros over the rest of my vacation.

Vacation is almost over and then it is back to work.  Of course I developed an ear infection (again) over the holidays.  :)  Alas.  Didn't really slow us down though.  We got to hang out with family and do some other fun things.  Sandi and I went on a short trip with some other Mini Cooper enthusiasts.

We joined a local Mini club and they did a run up to Prescott via Wickenberg and Peeples Valley.  The city center is all lit up.  There was also a gingerbread house competition at the local casino.  While we were there Sandi and I ate at a somewhat famous restaurant (we've eaten there before) and enjoyed the evening before heading back down to Phoenix.

That's all I have for now!  Shall write more soon.

Happy New Years!

Every year our church has a new years eve party...  Everyone brings games and we all shuffle from table to table playing interesting games.  This year they had karaoke and a ping pong table as well.  :)  I played a card game, some battleship and lots of ping pong with my wife.  Kinda sore now.

Kids had a lot of fun too.

We ended with singing some hymns, followed by 10 minutes of going around in prayer and ended with one more hymn.   It was a lot of fun!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!