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I've had a lot of fun playing around with the ZRam module and pushing my 4Gb on my laptop to work quite well without a Swap partition.

Not to mention other scripts...

If anyone wants to discuss Bash scripting or the like and problems/solutions let me know.
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Pangaea666: Cheers, wasn't aware of the swapfile. Followed your instructions and removed it. Part of the reason I didn't use /swap is to prolong the life of the SSD, and I've never seen it used anyway. Only have 8GB RAM in fairness, but I removed it anyway. I'm thinking about buying more memory, but need DDR3 and low-profile so options aren't all that many.

On that topic btw, although it's not really Linux-specific: is it okay to run different RAM modules, as long as they are in its right "pair" on the motherboard? For instance right now I have Crucial Ballistix 2x4GB. Can I buy e.g. Corsair 2x8GB and it will work well?
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adamhm: The new modules would need to have identical specs to the current ones for them all to work properly together - mixing different sizes/speeds/timings/voltages etc. will cause problems.
Ouch, sounds like it wouldn't be such a grand idea then. Hoped it would still work reasonably well, as long as they were in separate pairs. Exact versions of the ones I have aren't available, at least where I live.
There's a Humble Bundle going right now that might be of interest to anyone wanting to learn more about Linux/improve their Linux knowledge/skills: Humble Book Bundle: Linux by Wiley. It looks like it covers quite a wide variety of Linux topics and will be running over the next ~12 days :)
Post edited March 12, 2019 by adamhm
Thank you, Adamhm! I was severely overthinking the Mint install and now have a dual boot system.

The only issue is I didn't get grub to install correctly, so it doesn't give me a dual boot option automatically. When I want to boot into win 10, I have to hit F12 during boot. No biggie, I can deal with it to finally have an actual Linux install.

Your guide really helped me see what I was doing wrong. Thanks.
I appreciate this may be difficult to answer, but I just get a bit confused by all the lingo when reading changelogs and such for the 5.0 Linux kernel, and would love to hear something from more experienced heads about whether it's worth to put it into use. Does it bring significant improvements and is it stable? Currently I'm using 4.18.0-20.
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Pangaea666: I appreciate this may be difficult to answer, but I just get a bit confused by all the lingo when reading changelogs and such for the 5.0 Linux kernel, and would love to hear something from more experienced heads about whether it's worth to put it into use. Does it bring significant improvements and is it stable? Currently I'm using 4.18.0-20.
I always update to the latest available kernel - it's easy enough to roll back if there are any problems. Phoronix has an overview of the new features in 5.0: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-2019-features&num=1
Note that Linus tagged 5.1 two weeks ago.
Post edited May 20, 2019 by clarry
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adamhm: I always update to the latest available kernel - it's easy enough to roll back if there are any problems. Phoronix has an overview of the new features in 5.0: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-2019-features&num=1
Thanks. I found that page when looking for info previously, but have mostly no idea what all that stuff is :o No matter, though. I've had a few instant crashes to desktop while playing Witcher 3, but apart from that everything seems proper and stable (and those crashes may not be related to the kernel, I also upgraded to the Nvidia 430 drivers for instance).

I'm on Linux Mint and 5.1 hasn't appeared yet, but I'm fine with not having bleeding edge updates. It will come when it's ready.

edit: Whenever I see DRM in these Linux pages, my gut turns a bit. Still not used to it meaning something else in the Linux context =)
Post edited May 20, 2019 by Pangaea666
Are there any good guides on boot loaders and start up tools. Usually when people ask the question they mention something about grub and not much else.
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adamhm: A few years ago I wrote a Linux Mint beginner's guide as part of a giveaway in support of Linux, with the aim of showing that Linux isn't difficult to use
Which is ironically contradicted by this thread. :p
If by bootloaders you mean grub or u-boot (which are what most of the linux world use), then no, there is no good guide. Nothing good can be written about the devil.
Post edited May 20, 2019 by clarry
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Spectre: Are there any good guides on boot loaders and start up tools. Usually when people ask the question they mention something about grub and not much else.
GRUB is the default for most distros. I'm not aware of any guides for it, but then I've never needed to look for any before.

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adamhm: A few years ago I wrote a Linux Mint beginner's guide as part of a giveaway in support of Linux, with the aim of showing that Linux isn't difficult to use
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Spectre: Which is ironically contradicted by this thread. :p
It's not difficult... but it *is* different, which can make it feel difficult when you're just starting out and things aren't done exactly the same way as you're used to on Windows.
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adamhm: It's not difficult...
I don't suppose we have what it takes to objectively measure difficulty, but in many cases it is much more complicated.

Speaking of bootloaders, installing and using the one on OpenBSD is documented in a few pages of text:

http://man.openbsd.org/installboot

http://man.openbsd.org/man8/amd64/boot.8

A further few pages of low level / architecture specific documentation (that you rarely need to dive into) is available:

http://man.openbsd.org/boot_amd64.8

http://man.openbsd.org/biosboot.8

By contrast, GRUB is significantly more complicated and thus comes with a (comparatively) massive manual:

https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/grub.html

Due to its complexity and advanced scripting capabilities, it is more difficult to configure, and easier to get it wrong. Also, distro-specific scripts (which are common and make a difference when you want to manually edit entries in your boot menu) are not documented here so you have to figure out where these are documented (if they are documented). Also, more likely that a distro will break your bootloader. (Been there, thanks a lot Debian)
Post edited May 20, 2019 by clarry
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clarry: I don't suppose we have what it takes to objectively measure difficulty, but in many cases it is much more complicated.
I wrote my guide based on the experience I had when I first started using Mint. Prior to that I had not used Linux before - having only used DOS/Windows for the prior 20ish years - and had to learn how to configure & use it by myself. Overall I found it to be comparable to when I switched from WinXP to Win7.
Post edited May 20, 2019 by adamhm
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clarry: I don't suppose we have what it takes to objectively measure difficulty, but in many cases it is much more complicated.
Let me give some examples from my own personal life.

I installed Linux Mint to my uncle's laptop. He is 60 years old. He never had any problems.

My nephew who is currently 4 year old can open my laptop and navigate to youtube and find his favorite videos without any help. He doesn't even know how to read yet.

I installed Linux Mint to a friend who is currently in his 70s. He always had trouble with Windows. I told him he could call me whenever he had any problems. He never called. I ask him how it is going everytime we meet. He says everything works fine.

I probably helped over 1000 people now with installing Linux Mint. Of Course some people had problems. Especially in Engineering programs which sadly don't work on Linux, even on WINE (like ADAMS and Solidworks). That's why I dual boot to Win7 when I need to use them. But I gave those 3 examples above to show that Linux is not hard anymore. The only problem is with the software developers who don't write for Linux but this is getting better rapidly.
I ran into a problem :-(

I'm on Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon. Some time ago the system got updated to kernel 5.0. I've been playing Witcher 3 (using adamhm's script) and the game has crashed a bit more recently, and I think it got worse after the kernel update (but it could be many other things too, I'm sure). After yet another crash today, I tried to return to the 4.18.0-20 kernel. Restarted the computer and hit Shift, as the advised by Mint's update manager help. Then removed the 5.0 kernel and restarted.

The desktop is utterly tiny, and I'm told the system runs in "software rendering mode". I tried switching around with drivers in the Driver Manager, but to no avail. Just now I re-installed the 5.0 kernel again, hoping that would set things right, but the same issue persists. Software rendering mode, with a tiny desktop resolution. Cinnamon then crashes and messes up the Mint/start-menu.

Couldn't find much useful advice by searching, so here I am asking for advice.


edit: Looks like it got sorted. Or so I hope. Ran
sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

Back on the 4.18 kernel too, and the desktop looks normal again. Whether it helps against Witcher 3 crashing is another matter. Too late to test it out now, maybe I'll have time tomorrow.
Post edited May 26, 2019 by Pangaea666