news
Valnet Leftovers: Recent Articles About GNU/Linux
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Desktop/Laptop
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XDA ☛ Windows left this old laptop to rot, but Linux brought it back to life
We've talked a good bit about Windows 11 and the PCs that were left behind with the upgrade. The system requirements for Windows 11 are quite a bit higher than those for Windows 10, especially when it comes to the CPU, since a lot of models were dropped for seemingly no reason at the time. As such, it's not uncommon to hear about older PCs that can still run Windows 11 fine by just bypassing the requirements.
But what if you have something really weak? That's what I wanted to find out, and as it happens, I remembered a friend of mine used to have a tiny Windows 8 laptop that seemed like the perfect fit for my test. I wanted to see if Windows 11 would run on it and how usable it would be, but in the end, I had to resort to Linux. Here's how it all went down.
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Graphics Stack
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XDA ☛ 5 ways Wayland isn’t living up to its promises yet
Wayland’s original promise was a cleaner, safer foundation for Linux desktops, one that could finally stop inheriting decades of X11 baggage. The pitch was modern graphics without the historical quirks, smoother rendering with fewer hacks, and better isolation so one app could not casually snoop on another. It also implied a future where screen sharing, scaling, and input handling would be solved in a way that felt native, not bolted on. In other words, Wayland was supposed to be the grown-up table where the desktop could finally eat without spilling.
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Desktop Environments (DE)/Window Managers (WM)
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XDA ☛ COSMIC desktop convinced me to leave GNOME, and I'm not looking back
Linux distributions ship with a desktop environment that manages everything visually happening on your screen. GNOME is the default option on Ubuntu and a few more Linux distros, and holds a special place in my Linux journey. However, better desktop environments are popping up now, and COSMIC is one of the fresh ones that caught my eye. It has everything that a customization-rich desktop environment should have and works like butter in whatever situation I can imagine.
As a result, I've completely ditched GNOME because I don't need to install extensions to create a better, functional version of the desktop. I never have to compromise on my needs and hunt for alternatives or solutions to improve them to some extent. Let's discuss why COSMIC is life-changing for a longtime GNOME user.
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Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
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Programming/Development
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Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh
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HowTo Geek ☛ This Bash script automated my messy downloads folder
It's the perineal problem on desktop computers: a Downloads folder that's out of control, full of sundry items with varying levels of importance. Mine is no exception, but I managed to write a simple Bash script that can handle it for me.
In case you didn't know, Bash scripts are little programs you can run on Linux computers that have a Bash shell installed (which is nearly all of them). If you have commands you frequently run, that's the foundation of a Bash script right there.
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