I have been looking for doctors, saving numbers, emails and working hours in a onlyoffice spreadsheet but its not really readable at a glance. Looked around for an address books app but neither gnome calendar nor Thunderbird meet my needs.

The features I would like in an address-book( not all of them are strictly need) are:

-custom fields. -ability to customize address fields to include stuff like landmarks, floors and district(could also do with removing stuff like Postal box or countries). -custom labels for fields like phone numbers(WhatsApp,telegram) or instant messaging(discord)

Not a priority

-add notes, maybe even add multiple notes to contact. -calendar integration, with ability to add dates to contacts that can include notes.

Did try cardbook Thunderbird add-on but it is mostly unresponsive. On gitlab, the last comits was from 4 years ago and the last released version was from 2018, dispite that, Thunderbird addon store still keeps receiving new version, even in 2026 and issues are still being opened with developer responding,even a few hours ago.

All to say, I think it went close source

Anyhow, I am not opposed proprietary apps necessary(would still pick open source if its an option) just wanted to note the add-on being close source(I think) for people in case anyone wants to know.

Been using Linux off and on for years. Back when Windows 10 got EOL'd, I decided to go all in. I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't like Mint/Cinnamon, so I went with MX 23 + Plasma.

Now that MX 25 has been out for a bit, I figured I'd try my first in place upgrade: https://mxlinux.org/wiki/in-place-upgrade-from-mx-23-to-mx-25/

The instructions said the process would be "a little bumpy," but it really wasn't at all - I'm comfortable with a command line.

Only issue was that my icons were all blank after the upgrade. (I figured a theme got upgraded and the old icon paths were invalid.) All I had to do was go into settings and pick a new icon pack.

Since this was my first time, I don't really know if that was typical for in place upgrades. I'm sure I'll find out eventually, haha.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42263587

Of the desktop environments i've tried, i prefer Cinnamon overall. But i find that i'd rather use the KDE or Mate versions of some programs. I don't need Nemo when i'd rather use Thunar, or Gnome Characters when i prefer mate-character-map or kcharselect.

Is there any reason i can't start with nothing that's specific to any one DE, then install whatever i need to have Cinnamon applets with the Mate and KDE programs i want? I don't expect this to be easier than picking one DE and sticking with that, but is it so much harder that it's not worth the trouble to have my computer so customized? How common is it to use a custom blend like this?

This was sparked when, while cleaning up my system that still has similar programs from several DEs, i accidentally broke Cinnamon and had to reinstall it, complete with everything i'd removed in favor of some other DE's version of a program.

[hr]

What window managers are recommended for situations like this? I've always used whatever comes with my DE, without really being aware of the window manager. How does that affect what display manager i need?

flatpak run org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent
bwrap: Unable to open lock file /app/.ref: No such file or directory

I tried flatpak repair, with --user and --system, that did not fix it, and I did a system re-install, or rather reinstalled all the packages Nothing worked.

I am using nixos on unstable, recently I broke the nix part of my system, and was advised to do a re-install, I did a re-install which involved usb booting into nixos, and running a command to reinstall all the packages and rebuild in my nix directory, but afterwards, no flatpak is running. There is a possibility it broke beforehand and I didnt notice that, but i think it might have been after the re-install.

Flatpak version: 1.16.1

Distro: NixOS

Distro version: /nix/store/8hx8jwa24q6rkzhca9iqy5ckk9rbphi1-source

Architecture: x86_64

EDIT: Some flatpaks run but alot of them dont with the same error

EDIT (x2) SOLVED: I think the issue might have been the kde platform, as the apps that crashed were on kde platform 6.8 or 6.9, possibly some broken version, most likely the platform and bwrap didnt play well with nixos, these commands worked, I ran this for users (not system). Possible system might work, point is, I dont have the issue anymore.

flatpak uninstall org.inkscape.Inkscape org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent com.obsproject.Studio org.kde.kdenlive org.wireshark.Wireshark com.prusa3d.PrusaSlicer com.rafaelmardojai.Blanket io.github.seadve.Mousai net.codelogistics.clicker org.freefilesync.FreeFileSync

flatpak uninstall --runtime org.kde.Platform//6.8
flatpak uninstall --runtime org.kde.Platform//6.9
flatpak uninstall --runtime org.gnome.Platform//48

flatpak uninstall --unused -y

flatpak repair --system
flatpak repair --user

flatpak install flathub org.inkscape.Inkscape
flatpak install flathub org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent
flatpak install flathub com.obsproject.Studio

In the recent days I've been stumbling upon weird, new ~~so-called "AI"~~ Mathy-math-slop sites, like linuxv*x.com[^1]. Some other was called something like "tutorialsipedia", or whatever.

[^1]: Don't want to give them the traffic.

Have you noticed these? Is that some weird new Startup that wants to leverage CEO and "AI"? I'd use them, but my eyes glaze off the page. It's like a drop on a Lotus leaf and I can't really read that garbage. What's up with those?

I often need to allow some randomly selected port to be open (tcp & udp) in the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW), while some app is active. Then I'd like to close it. The port number is written in a file, say portfile

At the moment I'm doing this manually: read the number, then call sudo ufw allow xxxx/tcp in a terminal. Later on, delete the port rule with sudo ufw delete [rulenumber].

I'm trying to write a bash script to do this in a more automated way. It's easy to read the number from the flie as a variable, then call ufw with that number (provided the script is started as sudo).

What's not clear to me is how to delete the UFW rule once the application is closed. I could start the app within the bash script itself. Maybe it'd just be a matter of waiting for it to finish?

I'm very thankful for suggestions and ideas – and learning more about bash tricks :)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42299124

#1

my most recent example is a Macbook Air 13 that I chimera'd out of three different machines; awesome that 2012-2017 models have interchangeable parts. was lucky and one of the boards had 8 GB RAM, a rarity back then. alas, the only battery I got has barely 60% capacity and zillions of charge cycles and I ain't too keen on spending money on a replacement.

ok, so shit autonomy, be happy you got a workstation for like $15 in total and run it thusly. except, this one shuts off even if there's like 70% remaining and subsequently won't power on without a charger - kinda big deal for a laptop. I imagine not all its cells are up to spec so when it reaches a threshold it cuts out. under macOS, the SMC lets it sip power and when you attach a charger it just wakes as you left it. linux ain't that cool, when you connect power - all your unsaved work is gone.

what linux does have is intel-undervolt. just a smidge of -50mV was enough to remedy the issue. after a coupla days, moved it to -75mV, still perfectly stable; at -100mV it occasionally KPs.

so a thing that was unusable away from a charger is again a mobile device, netting me 4+ hours of light use and almost a week of standby!

#2

eons ago I had a Thinkpad W520; at least I think that was the model - a 15.6" with the chunky, 7-row keyboard sans numpad. lenovo stabbed me in the heart when they decided that all subsequent models must rock the annoying numeric pad, making you type off-center and... anyhoo, the one I got, had a partially damaged screen, about 100ish pixels wide and super irritating, flashing constantly. replacing it wasn't in the budget and relying on an external monitor was a no-go...

hello xrander! that thing allowed you to cut off a part of the screen and that's what I did - converted the 16:10 to something more like 4:3. not only that, a friend taped over the busted part with some carbon-like decal making it look super sick! I'm still trying to find a picture from way back when but no luck so far...

not only did I get a super usable machine, it was the coolest workstation by far - maxed out RAM, three SSD/HD in there... well, as cool as those things can be, anyways...

#3

a few years back, I got a 13" Yoga, forgot the model, for pocket change. dual-core i5 and soldered 8 GB RAM, gorgeous screen, awesome battery - but it constantly blue-screened. break out the mint USB with memtest, and yepp - errors. dogdamn, no way can I afford to fix this thing and if I try desoldering those things, Imma burn the house down. and break the thing even further...

enter GRUB and its BADRAM feature! you can exclude arbitrary region(s) of RAM and the OS that boots after it will be none the wiser - it just uses the rest. and verily, it worked without issues, used it for years and I believe it still works to this day with his current owner.

#4

got a kernel-panicking Macbook Pro 15 Mid2010 for next to nothing. those things died en masse, the issue was a capacitor that drove the Nvidia chip. any strain or excess power consumption and the thing gave out and the OS crashed. the fix was/is simple - disable the Nvidia chip via EFI variable and use just the Intel HD graphics. you lose display out but gain a cooler machine, longer battery life, and you get zero issues with linux.

having fixed it, I installed linux and wanted to upgrade the RAM to 8 GB. alas, no sticks I found would work in the thing. turns out, the fucker only takes 1066 MHz RAM. I totally lived with the conviction that if you stick faster RAM into slower hardware, it'll run it slower, but apparently that ain't so. so tried bartering with junkers, I'll give you my 1333 RAM, you gimme yours - no takers. buying stuff for something that cost me less than $10 was out of the question...

turns out, you can use linux to reprogram the SPD data on the RAM module! you change its identifier to 1066 and the macbook recognized it as such. furthermore, you don't need to patch both sticks, if one is 1066 it can run the other at 1066 as well - so you can run 'em slower! no idea if this is an apple thing or its widely present, but I got a functioning workstation for free!

#5

finally, the Dell Latitude 5285. that's a 2-in-1 tablet with detachable keyboard that I got without the battery. it had okayish specs, the i5-7300u is nothing to get excited about but it had 16 GB LPDDR3 soldered on. the touch display is beyond gorgeous - 400-nit 1920x1280 IPS and the intel graphics shipped the full 4K @ 60 Hz to my monitor via DP-Alt. the only problem - the fucker won't boost past 400 MHz without the battery! buying the thing is out of the question (y'all notice a pattern here, right?) so what are we to do...

thankfully, we got msr-tools. the thing can patch CPU's registers and en/disable some things, and one of them is BD_PROCHOT. that signal makes the CPU throttle on account the heat, it's also triggered if anything is amiss - touchpads disconnected, battery not present, etc. what's needed is read out rdmsr 0x1fc if memory serves correctly, and then you add one bit to the read out state and write it back with wrmsr 0x1fc 0x1xxxxx et voila - speedsteps up to 2.7 GHz, a quick systemd script to make it permanent. it won't turbo, to 3.3 GHz or sumsuch, but this was more than enough for everyday use.

thanks for reading! y'all got any stories how linux can save your ass without spending money? share it with the class!

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/34586015

Curious on suggestions for airtags, or similar, for tracking important things on flights or other cases where losing the specific item would be too much of a financial / sentimental loss. Anyone doing this from Linux, or from graphene? How is it?

Hey folks

I find myself structuring out much larger documents these days, and I'd really like to make use of some mindmapping software to do it. I used to use kdissert (now semantik) all the time - I'd map out the idea, then add in details to each node, and export to tex for final adjustments. Really nice workflow imo.

Unfortunately, semantik is getting a bit long in the tooth, and while it builds fine on my arch boxes, its a bit of a mess for Debian. Rather than annoy myself with hunting for or making my own builds of the various packages I'd need just for this, I'm hoping that maybe there are some more regularly maintained options out there.

Any ideas? TIA

I just completed my LPIC-1 journey and reached the certification!

While studying and doing tests, I took notes in markdown and summarized every concept, so I think they could be a useful "study companion" for anyone who wants to study, learn about Linux, or just read out of curiosity.

These notes are divided by topic as the original LPI path requires, and are integrated from various resources and quizzes I completed during the journey.

I'm leaving them here if anyone wants to read them or contribute in any way. I really appreciate it!

Codeberg Link

Hi. I recently published my app on Flathub and have been steadily updating it to make it better.

With it you can download Music from Youtube and tag it to create a beautiful collection of local Music. Check it out: https://flathub.org/apps/net.fhannenheim.musicfetch

Hi guys.

My mom has pretty old and shitty home HP notebook and I was thinking that since she mainly uses it for browsing Facebook and watching Youtube that I would upgrade it for her to Linux instead of Win 11. The only thing is that I want some lightweight desktop like XFCE or maybe Mate and to make it as painless as possible for her I would like to install Windows 10 looking theme on that machine.

Do you guys know of any good themes that are updated at least on semi-regular?

Thanks. ;)

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/34432697

Show notes link, since Lemmy struggles with properly displaying posts from Castopod.

Looking for a link archiving tool to save links that i have no intention of viewing anytime soon. it needs to be able to sort bookmarks by folders and sub-folders, tags are just not my thing. It doesn't have to be anything crazy but it needs to be offline first and have the ability to export bookmarks in a readable format

Part of it is that i have limited storage in terms of what i can archive, so the next best thing is save the links to YT and websites. If they are gone in the future, it is what it is. I also want my browser bookmark manager to be clutter free without the pressure of removing bookmarks all the time.

Also, i don't want to use any note talking apps, there are too many links and it just defeat the point of the app.

Do they have to be installed in the default .wine folder and c:? I'd prefer to install big games using wine on another drive if possible as space is linited on my home drive.

Edit: Solved. All good to install anywhere, thanks!

cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/41664206

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42136317

Hi, I have good news for those who use a tilling system. I have been working these month on a new system for Fluid tile with the aim of making it easier to maintain and more reliable when moving your windows

During the rewrite, I had to discard some user options that increased the possibility of a error. These options did not add any real value, and I preferred to prioritize reliability of the script

Features

Shortcuts

• Fluid tile | Toggle window to blocklist: Disables the window that is active or has focus so that it does not interact with Fluid tile. If the application name was already included in the block list in the user configuration, the list will take precedence over this shortcut.

  • Sequence: Meta+F

• Fluid tile | Change tile layout: Change the layout of the tiles and rearrange the windows

  • Sequence: Meta+Alt+F

You can change them in the system settings https://codeberg.org/Serroda/fluid-tile/wiki/Shortcuts

Breaking changes

• WindowExtendTileChangedDelay now by default is 300, change in your user settings with this value
  • More info: https://codeberg.org/Serroda/fluid-tile/wiki/Animations

Now, windows will always expand when possible, the UI cannot be disabled, and whenever you move a window to a tile that already has windows, they will always be swapped

These variables will stop working:

• WindowsOrderMove
• WindowsExtendOpen
• WindowsExtendClose
• WindowsExtendMove
• WindowsExtendMinimize
• WindowsExtendResize
• UIEnable

I recommend you take a look at the wiki where it will clarify your doubts https://codeberg.org/Serroda/fluid-tile/wiki

One more thing, this time the news isn't so good

Since my laptop keyboard broke (for whatever reason, neovim doesn't work well without a keyboard /s), I don't have the money to repair it right now, and I have to study for my firefighter exams, there will be fewer updates to the script in the coming months

I encourage you to try it out and let me know what you think. If you find any errors, you can report them in the repository

https://codeberg.org/Serroda/fluid-tile/issues

Have a nice day!

This might be the final release in the GIMP 3.0 series

Gimp 3.2 will include new link and vector layers, new brushes, and significant user interface improvements. Gimp 3.2 is designed to punch Adobe in the face

This was talked about before, but the settings location that was mentioned to enable thumbnails on remote files and stuff has changed. I have a mount of my android system over mtp, and I cannot see any of the thumbnails, making it impossible for me to sort my stuff, some into hard drives and etc.

How do i enable seeing mtp thumbnails in kde, is there issues with just mtp thumbnails in dolphin or what alternative file manager or image veiwer I can use so i can see the thumbnails and relocate the images.

I have used Arch for >13 years (btw) and use the terminal every single session. I also work with Linux servers daily, so I tried the other families with DEs (Debian/Ubuntu, RHEL/CentOS/AlmaLinux/Fedora).

I'm comfortable (and prefer) doing everything with CLI tools. For me, it's a bit difficult to convert my Windows friends, as they all see me as some kind of hackerman.

What's the landscape like nowadays, in terms of terminal requirements?

Bonus question: Which distribution is the most user-friendly while still updated packages? Does anything provide a similar experience to Arch's amazing AUR?

Hello! I have been using Fedora Silverblue for over a year now with few to no major issues. Today, however, I started experiencing an odd issue. Whenever I connect a set of Bluetooth headphones and switch the audio output channel, GNOME will completely crash. I get logged out, and the crashes repeat every few seconds until I disconnect the headphones or manage to shutdown the device. After logging in, all apps get killed, and even GNOME extensions get disabled (likely as a panic measure). The headphones were working perfectly prior to today.

I manually updated the system and tried cleanly pairing the headphones, but the issue persists. After cleanly pairing, the device immediately crashes without switching audio output channels. I'm not exactly sure how to diagnose the issue since I've never experienced anything like it in my years of Linux. I don't want to rollback, because I don't know if it's an issue with an update or an issue I need to fix on my own. What should I do?

I'm wondering what XMPP clients people use and what they like about each particular one.

Not that I am looking for one, really just wondering what people like to use. :D

EDIT: Also, more and more people around me are starting to use XMPP, so it is good to learn what to recommend for various use-cases.