That’s great! Here’s a few tips to take it a bit further; the world is your oyster!

Open your .bashrc file (e.g. /home/yourusername/.bashrc) and add the following:

alias get="/path/to/your/bash/file"

Now open a terminal and type get, and it’ll launch the script. No clicking needed, it’ll run anytime from any terminal!

And if you do use the alias then you can use another refinement, you can drop the echo: instead of $a, you can use $1 and remove the echo & read as you no longer need them:

#! /usr/bin/bash yt-dlp -x $1

Now for example you can type in a terminal:

get http://url.to.video/

And yt-dlp will do it’s stuff. $1 passes the first parameter after starting the script as a variable to it.

You can use the keyboard shortcut Control+shift+v to paste a URL into the terminal, no mouse needed; just remember to add a space after typing get

Miracast (e.g. vis Miraclecast on linux) is a wireless standard for streaming video and audio from one device to another however this is not quite what youre talking about. Miracast basically runs the video on your phobe and uses a remost device as a displah. Chromecast actually mostly sends a link to a google device and then launches it on the device to play; there isnt a direct replacement to that. You could run Chrome or Chromium and cast to the browser but im not sure it’d work like a chromecaat device running the video locally.

I have a living room linux PC and I generally use Firefox on my phone and the PC to send links/tabs via firefox sync.

In addition KDE Connect (app on phone and also running on your linux PC) allows you to interact with your PC directly via your phone. You can send files back and forth, but also control media, share the clipboard, and send URLs from your phone to your PC to open in your default browser. This should work for Youtube and Netflix etc.

I personally usually send a tab to my firefox browser via firefox sync, but you could also share link instead via android share to the KDE connect app which will send it to your device and it should open in you’re default browser.

Also fyi KDE Connect doesnt need KDE to work - it works with any desktop environment.

Holy shit. Less than 1% of households. This is not normal for the vast vast majority of people.

Get out and get out fast. Get your personal documents together (birth certificate, passport) and leave.

Its going to be hard and scary at first, but the world outside your family home is far safer than the one inside it.

Yes you can do loads with your Raspberry Pi. Certainly you can install ARM based linux distros onto it, but with an older model you’re best using a Pi specific linux distro.

The official Raspberry Pi OS is linux and is compatible with all Raspberry Pi models - there is a universal 32bit version and a 64bit version for newer models 3+.

There is also Dietpi which tries to be more lightweight and optimised.

You can image either distro onto an SD card and run it on the Pi. If you connect the pi to your network you can run it headless and access it via SSH on your PC.

However, if you main aim is to learn and play with Linux, then it is worth considering alternatives. For example, you could install VirtualBox on your Windows PC, and create a virtual PC to run any X86 linux distro you’d like on it. That can include small systems with command line only or a full desktop environment of your choice. That would likely give you much higher performance and options than a 10 year old raspberry pi can offer.

The Pi is good if you want an always on server device to play with Linux on. The Virtual machine route is good if you want a more powerful system to play with occasionally when you feel like it.

Not really - if a woman came in with a gunshot wound, she’d be asked if she was pregnant. Why? Because she’d need a CT scan or an X-ray, which are ionizing radiation and have a risk for a foetus. She’d need a scan or x-ray to ensure there was no shrapnel in the would before closure even if superficial, and to assess for damage to vessels or bone etc if deep wound.

It’s a standard question that any women would recognise from trips to the emergency room. It’s pretty ineffective as a punchline if the cartoonist is trying to make the point you say they’re making.

Instead it just makes the woman in the cartoon appear dumb/ignorant which totally undermines the message it’s purportedly trying to put across. She is giving a fed up or even patronising look over something that would be essential question in any hospital.

Out of interest, which aspect don’t you believe? The article is clear the broken update effects a specific subset of enterprise users, on a specific mix of base versions and cumulative updates.

This seems like a classic windows update issue. In fairness to Microsoft it is difficult to prevent bugs when there is a huge install base, with a huge range of hardware, with a huge range of users on different mixes of updates and updating at their own. I personally think that’s totally believable.

What’s not clear is perhaps the implied overarching story that W11 is worse for this than other versions of Windows. I can’t answer that about windows updates themselves, but I certainly believe W11 is the worst version of Windows I’ve ever used (and I’ve used every version back to 3.11 as a kid). I have to use W11 at work: the UI is absolutely terrible and unfriendly but far worse it constantly and inexplicably slows down, programs become unresponsive repeatedly and I come across errors constantly.

I work in a big organisation and I don’t even bother to report most errors now - we hop between PCs because of the nature of my Job, and I’ve come up across so many I just can’t be bothered opening more tickets. I’d describe it as a mostly large volume of minor issues and inconveniences that cumulatively, on top of the bad design, that make it a shit experience. But I’ve also had numerous major errors since we moved from W10 to W11 on different PCs - they all have the same hardware and software yet the problems are different on each. I’ve given up reporting the problems and just avoid the PCs, and I think a lot of my colleagues are the same.

My organisation (I work in a large Hospital), is already stretched due to high work volume and low staffing and we now have a constantly little drag from Windows 11 on everything we do. It’s like Microsoft sprinkle a little bit of shit onto every computer, every day, all day. The cumulative effect in just my organisation must be massive - I shudder to think how bad it is across the whole economy.

I’m confused - isn’t the Steam Frame ARM based, and using FEX? The article talks about future devices but doesn’t mention the big new device that will be using FEX in 2026?

The publicity will have little impact; only the AI bubble popping will make them change course. But the damage is already done - they’ve pivoted their company to AI, forced it into all there products and force their employees to use it. Once the bubble pops that’s going to take time to undo and fix.

AI of course will still be a thing, but at the moment they’re wasting billions on it as everyone wants to be to AI as Google is to search.

So bizarrely the best experience is to self host and pirate. That’s what you get when the entire entertainment industry is hostile to consumers.

When Netflix first became big, it was popular because it was a one-stop shop for almost all your content. It was like a big library of content in one place, you pay a reasonable monthly fee and it’s all there. Piracy dipped as a result.

Now all the content is fragmented into numerous walled gardens you have to pay separate fees to access. People can only consume the same amount but now they have to pay 4 or 5 fees as the content is spread out.

Unsurprisingly piracy is booming again.

Yes it’ll fix the issue. That tells the system that your hardware clock should be in UTC. The time in your hardware clock will then be corrected from the internet as long as your time zone is correct.

It sounds like your system clock may be the issue.You have a system clock inside your device. Linux usually uses the internet to set your clock but still refers to your system clock. If the internet provided time is too far off your system clock it may ignore it and display your system time.

KDE respects the NTP clock settings used by your linux system, while ironically Gnome does not and does its own thing directly with the time date control. This is probably why you’re now noticing a problem.

So either your system clock is supposed to be UTC and actually set to local time, or your system clock is correct but your timezone in linux is way off.

If you use timedatectl status in a terminal it’ll show your current local time, UTC and RTC time, as well as your timezone and whether the RTC is set to your local timezone or UTC. RTC is your hardware clock on your device.

If “RTC is local tz” says no, then the value for RTC and UTC should be the same, as your hardware clock is set to be the UTC time. And if the UTC time is wrong then your system is uaing your hardware clock to incorrectly work out the UTC. UTC is the 0 timezone worldwide and has an absolute value - its the same for everyone and you can esily.find it with a search engine. If the displayed UTC is wrong on your system, then you’re out of sync with everyone.

So how to fix it if its wrong:

One way would be to tell your systen what the hardware clock should be and then set it correct. Use “timedatectl set-local-rtc 1” to make it set to be in your local time zone. Or if you want it to be UTC you can use timedatectl set-local-rtc 0. You can use either but UTC is better.

That should fix the issue as the network time will now come in correctly.

But if you wanted you can also manually set the local time and date with timedatectl set-time hh:mm:ss. Once that is set then your RTC should also be changed and be back in sync depending on whether you set it up to be also local or UTC. When you set the local tine it will work out the UTC value based on your timezone. Note if the timezone is wrong it’ll still be wrong!

If you can’t set the time because NTP (network time) is running, you could.leave it and the clock should now sort itself out. But if you want to force mannually set the time you can turn off NTP if you want: “timedatctl set-ntp false” You could leave it off and set the time manually using “timedatectl set-time hh:mm:ss”

If still getting NTP error messagss you could also disable the NTP system job temporarily: systemctl disable --now chronyd. Turn it back on afterwards with systemctl enable --now chronyd

Finally do make sure the timezone is correct. I know you say it is but timedatectl shows you what the system thinks it is, and if ita wrong then rtc/utc will still be wrong as the timezone is used to convert from local time to UTC. You can use timedatectl to change the timezone: timedatectl set-timezone name.

There are loads of valid timezones but only valid ones will work. Get your local timezones official name online or use timedatectl list-timezones to see all the options. You can filter uaing egrep etc.

Hopefully that’ll fix the issue for you. You can also boot into your bios and manually set the hardware clock if needs be but linux still needs to know whether its supposed to be utc ir local time.

I’d recommend either OpenSuSE or Fedora, both with KDE. They’re big, well supported distros, which should install without issue and provide a slick modern experience. I use OpenSuSE, as I find the YaST system tools convenient and user friendly.

I’d avoid Ubuntu, multiple issues. Mint is a good distro but I think any big mainstream distro “just works” now, so I’d go for something that uses a slicker desktop. I prefer KDE, which is available on Mint but just isn’t as tightly integrated as their own Cinnamon desktop.

Scarcity manufactured by the AI “boom”. When the AI bubble pops, expect a huge slump in hardware prices as companies try to offload huge stockpiles of worthless RAM, CPUs and GPUs.

A master is the original of something. For example, in the music industry when they printed records, they would print a master record from which duplicates would be made for manufacture. They still use the phrase mastering to describe finalising music in production.

Master copy has become widely used to mean the original version of something from which other copies are made.

Apparently the whole concept dates back to the renaissance where artists would learn by copying the works and techniques of a Master artist. Master in that context is referring to someone who is the best at what they do (the most famous renaissance artists are still referred to as the masters), which presumably derives from the honorific Master used to refer to a male teacher in English.

While perhaps understandable, moving away from Master to Main is based on ignorance of the fact the word has a totally different meaning and origin to master/slave. Ironically master/slave is also used in engineering and computer hardware to describe the relationship between a controlling piece of hardware and it’s subordinates, but that is nothing to do with the source of truth use of master which comes from the concept of a master being the best at something (or now the best version of something).

The headline doesn’t quite reflect the situation, but it is difficult to capture in a headline.

Essentially add “for now”. Many of the issues are fixable but not necessarily by one laptop maker. As the article said by the time the issues were likely resolved the laptop would be obsolete as the version 2 of the chip would release.

Having said that, it’s not clear how fast the issues will resolve as without any devices there won’t be impetus to put fixes in to different parts of the ecosystem to get the full potential of the chipset.

The GPU sounds like the most serious problem and without manufacturer engagement may be the longest to get fixed.

Yes it’s fairly simple to do, essentially the user needs to download an image of a Linux install disc, flash it onto a USB stick (or a Dvd I guess), and then reboot their PC. They may need to press a key at boot to open the boot menu and select the USB (or the bios to change the boot order).

After that, most distros offer a very easy to follow installer which will install the new OS.

Most Linux installs can be done alongside windows (on the same hard drive or it’s own drive) but windows tends to break the boot loader with updates. It’s gernallt better to only dual boot if you’re good at fixing things - otherwise a full Linux install is better.

The most inportant thing is back up all your important data, and only do this if you genuinely want to leave windows. I’d make sure your windows license is digital before doing this too as that allows using windows again if you want to go back.

I’d say anyone can use Linux, it’s user friendly and robust. In terms of installing Linux, I’d only do it if you are sure you know what you’re doing - installing any OS - including windows - can involved trouble shooting problems.

I know it’s supposed to be a little tongue in cheek but in reality: if you have a steam deck and like it, just dock it to your TV and you have a low powered steam machine.

I have a deck but got a MiniPC and have that plugged into my TV. Essentially a steam machine.

Why? I wanted to game at 4k (the deck can do it but struggles), I wanted more convenience (I had to unlock my steam deck on its front face before I could use it which was annoying if I wanted to game from the sofa), i wanted to play more powerful games at higher settings generally (not just 4k, but simulations games that need more cpu and ram to play well so I wanted a more powerful machine). I also make more extensive use of the desktop mode and use it for browsing and streaming - it’s become an all-in-one device in a way Microsoft or Sony failed to achieve.

I don’t think the Steam Machine will be as big as the deck, but it’ll have a decent market. If you want a mobile gaming platform get the deck, but the subset who only really wanted to living room game will be better off with a steam machine. The real competition for the steam machine is other living room PCs.

I do think Valve could to with adding an app store in their client for installing progressive Web apps. Because being able to stream video content easily from within steam itself opens all their devices into being multimedia machines.

I’ve tried Arch - it allows you to make a system that is exactly what you want. So no bloat installing stuff you never need or use. It also gives you absolute control.

On other distros like Fedora, you get a pre configured system set up for a wide range of users. You can reduce down the packages somewhat but you will often have core stuff installed that is more than you’ll need as it caters to everyone.

Arch allows you to build it yourself, and only install exactly the things you actually want, and configure then exactly how you want.

Also you learn an awful lot about Linux building your system in this way.

I liked building an arch system in a virtual machine, but I don’t think I could commit to maintaining an arch install on my host. I’m happy to trade bloat for a “standard” experience that means I can get generic support. The more unique your system the more unique your problems can be I think. But I can see the appeal of arch - “I made this” is a powerful feeling.

I think the new device is good news. I can see what you’re saying - the benefit is if Steam Machines expand the PC games market with former console only players. But otherwise the threshold for PC development is already much lower than consoles; there are no dev kit fees, a wide choice of engines to target, relatively greater independence etc.

The steam machine may help somewhat in having a specific hardware profile to target, but the games are still on steam’s store so still have to be able to run widely on Windows or Linux. That’s always been the complexity of PC development - the steam machine doesn’t change that much. Although admittedly the Steam Verified benchmarks are useful for users to simplify understanding what their kit can actually run which will benefit indie devs.

He was a blackmailer and the key to blackmail is meticulous records and evidence to use against people. Question is where is it? Do the government have it? Has it been destroyed?

Seems to be a fair amount of evidence the US government does have and is being drip fed out.