smeg

Background: I've been running Linux Mint XFCE for a couple of years now, Windows 10 has been sitting unused on a separate drive but it turns out the one thing I need it for works passably in a VM so it's time to bin it. I've used Fedora Atomic (UBlue) on some laptops and I like it so that seems like a good candidate to replace the Windows install, and Mint can hang around for when I need a "normal" Linux install.

Worry: I tried dual-booting them together on a laptop before and I couldn't get grub to recognise both installs, it only detected the most recently installed one and after an evening of running commands way beyond my knowledge I gave up. I'm hoping that's just because I installed them on the same disk though.

Question: does anyone successfully dual-boot a Fedora Atomic install and a "normal" install? If so then what did you do to set it up and did you encounter any issues? And if you're feeling extra helpful, do you have any pro tips for setting up shared storage between the two distros or backups for either?

cross-posted from the Linux phones community as nobody there knew

Has anyone actually successfully installed PostmarketOS on an old device recently? I've had a long struggle through trying to prepare a Nexus 7 (2012) and the result seems to be a dead device before I even got to actually installing PostmarketOS.

The rough steps I followed are listed here:

• Create backups
• Get SBK
• Build and prepare U-Boot
  • Actually flashing U-Boot seems to be where things went wrong
    • Running ./run_bootloader.sh -s T30 -t ./bct/grouper.bct -b ../re-crypt/repart-block.bin or ./run_bootloader.sh -s T30 -t ./bct/grouper.bct -b ../generated-wheelie-blobs/AndroidRoot/blob.bin from fusee-tools hung on waiting for bootloader to initialize
    • Running ./run_bootloader.sh -s T30 -t ./bct/grouper.bct -b ../u-boot/u-boot-dtb-tegra.bin failed like this
    • skipping that step and running ./utils/nvflash_v1.13.87205 --resume --rawdevicewrite 0 1024 ../re-crypt/repart-block.bin hung on [resume mode]
    • Consulting a different version of the docs and running ./wheelie --blob ./generated-wheelie-blobs/AndroidRoot/blob.bin seemed to work so I ran ./nvflash --resume --rawdevicewrite 0 1024 ./re-crypt/repart-block.bin which also seemed to work
    • I then powered off as instructed and the device has been completely unresponsive since

I've tried connecting to a charger, disconnecting and reconnecting the battery, and every combination of holding down buttons but it appears to be completely dead. Any suggestions as to what I did wrong or anything I might be able to do now? Obviously it's not the end of the world to have lost a 13 year old tablet that was just gathering dust, but at the moment I'm not feeling positive about ever trying this again on another device!

Has anyone actually successfully installed PostmarketOS on an old device recently? I've had a long struggle through trying to prepare a Nexus 7 (2012) and the result seems to be a dead device before I even got to actually installing PostmarketOS.

The rough steps I followed are listed here:

• Create backups
• Get SBK
• Build and prepare U-Boot
  • Actually flashing U-Boot seems to be where things went wrong
    • Running ./run_bootloader.sh -s T30 -t ./bct/grouper.bct -b ../re-crypt/repart-block.bin or ./run_bootloader.sh -s T30 -t ./bct/grouper.bct -b ../generated-wheelie-blobs/AndroidRoot/blob.bin from fusee-tools hung on waiting for bootloader to initialize
    • Running ./run_bootloader.sh -s T30 -t ./bct/grouper.bct -b ../u-boot/u-boot-dtb-tegra.bin failed like this
    • skipping that step and running ./utils/nvflash_v1.13.87205 --resume --rawdevicewrite 0 1024 ../re-crypt/repart-block.bin hung on [resume mode]
    • Consulting a different version of the docs and running ./wheelie --blob ./generated-wheelie-blobs/AndroidRoot/blob.bin seemed to work so I ran ./nvflash --resume --rawdevicewrite 0 1024 ./re-crypt/repart-block.bin which also seemed to work
    • I then powered off as instructed and the device has been completely unresponsive since

I've tried connecting to a charger, disconnecting and reconnecting the battery, and every combination of holding down buttons but it appears to be completely dead. Any suggestions as to what I did wrong or anything I might be able to do now? Obviously it's not the end of the world to have lost a 13 year old tablet that was just gathering dust, but at the moment I'm not feeling positive about ever trying this again on another device!

I'm a regular user of Linux systems but apart from a couple of test Ubuntu installs many years ago they've always been containers or VMs with no DE which I can throw away when I break them. The Steam Deck showcasing how far Wine/Proton has come combined with Windows being Windows has given me the push; I've made a Mint live USB and it's running beautifully on my desktop. I come to you, the masters, with questions before I hit install:

1. What do you recommend I do about disk partitions? I'm keeping a Windows install for the few things that demand it, does Windows still occasionally destroy Linux partitions? Do I need separate partitions for data and OS? Is it straightforward to add additional distros as new partitions or is that asking for trouble?
2. Is disk encryption straightforward? And is that likely to upset the Windows partition?
3. Is cloud storage sync straightforward? It's my off-site backup solution on Android and Windows (using Cryptomator with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) but I don't think that many providers have Linux clients. Is something like rclone recommended?
4. Should I just use apt to install software? I know there's some kind of graphical package manager (synaptic?), does that use apt under the covers or is it separate? Is it recommended to install something like Flathub too?
5. Any other pearls of wisdom? How do I keep everything tidy? Any warnings about what not to do? Should I use a particular terminal emulator or Firefox fork?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/12861354

Despite today’s date, this is not an April Fool’s prank. At a press conference in Tokyo last weekend, professor Hiroshi Yoshida from the Tohoku University Research Center for Aged Economy and Society, sounded the alarm bell for a looming crisis. By the year 2531, everyone in Japan will have the surname Sato.

Not, as I read, "Swan and Paedo"