amphy

joined 2 years ago
[–] amphy@lemmy.ca 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Hi. I'm a Linux convert and hate Windows as well, but I feel the need to contest some of this

I hate rounded corners [...] I like having my whole desktop real estate to be used

Rounded corners only lose something like 30 pixels (assuming 100% resolution scale) out of the millions on screen. Serious question, no shade or sarcasm: do you need those corner pixels? Plus in Windows 11, the window corners are only rounded when the window is floating. The corners go square when the window is snapped and maximized so you get those corner pixels back anytime real estate matters most.

I want to just throw my cursor into a corner without looking and click with the confidence that it will open my start menu.

That's always been the case since... the Start menu was invented, I think? In Windows 11, just set your taskbar to Left instead of Center and you get that behavior back.

[The Start menu is] all small icons and you can't have them in groups.

The former is correct, the latter isn't. I exclusively keep my icons in groups, in the grid along with regular pins, on my last remaining Windows 11 computer. As someone who loves KDE, it drives me crazy that I can't keep my own in-grid groups like in Windows 11. Closest option I have is Plasma Drawer, which works but requires me to use the KDE Menu Editor to customize which is less convenient.

The taskbar freezing thing sucks for sure, my only recommendation would be to maybe try a 3rd party replacement like StartAllBack but it isn't free.

 

As you may have heard, Lemm.ee is shutting down at the end of the month. Just wanted to see what everyone recommends for other audio engineering communities to replace this one. Thanks!

[–] amphy@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 months ago

Thank you! Had no idea this existed

[–] amphy@lemmy.ca 10 points 10 months ago (6 children)

As long as you're running Windows 10 without an Internet connection, that's totally fine! Have a good time my dude. But if you are using an Internet connection, security updates are foundational, especially on Windows. I know XP is ancient but this was eye-opening for me: https://youtu.be/6uSVVCmOH5w?t=10m32s

[–] amphy@lemmy.ca 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Been a Windows user all my life. As Windows has been tanking over the years, I've finally started making the switch as of a few months ago. First was our home theater PC, which was shockingly easy - next was my desktop, which hasn't been as easy but it's been a joy to learn about and make it my own.

I'm happy to pay for a license for anything I use. That included Windows. But, sometimes, the free & open-source route is better - I'm no longer "locked in" to any one solution and it's a fantastic feeling.

[–] amphy@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

There's a few ways to turn it off, but they require registry editing or using the Group Policy editor if you have a Pro license

https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/26/how-to-turn-off-search-the-web-results-in-windows-11/

[–] amphy@lemmy.ca 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I love the idea but not the messaging. Older folks & non-nerd people - a vast majority of the demographic of people who would benefit from this campaign, if I had to guess - aren't going to want Linux or "fresh new software". They want a computer with a web browser, an Office suite, and an OS/layout that functions exactly the way they expect it to.

If you tout so much change, they're going to lose interest. I'd argue they'd lose interest seeing technical words like "software", since all they know on phones and computers are "apps".

However, If you instead show them side-by-side how they can do the exact same tasks with nearly identical steps and also emphasize the benefits like cost effectiveness and speed... they'll just say "okay great, can you do it for me?"

[–] amphy@lemmy.ca 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I had this issue on my desktop in Windows. Haven't tested to see if it's an issue on Linux (I just recently set up dual-booting with Kubuntu). I know your request is for Nobara but this may be helpful for troubleshooting.

The fix for me on Windows was always to power off my audio interface. Using powercfg /requests would show Firefox kept the audio device active once a YouTube video started playing. The software fix was arbitrary... sometimes closing the YouTube tab would work, sometimes I had to close the window, and sometimes none of those would work. What *always" worked was physically powering off my interface, waiting about 2 seconds, and turning it back on.

1
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by amphy@lemmy.ca to c/linux@lemmy.ml
 

Edit: This worked for me in Zorin! Thanks for the ideas & discussion in the replies! https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-create-folders-in-gnome-44-to-declutter-the-application-overview


Hi, I'm looking to switch to Linux full-time on my desktop. Aside from my NAS, I'm pretty unfamiliar with Linux in general.

On Windows, I have apps pinned to the Start menu grid, with apps in groups/folders for easy access. I don't pin anything to the taskbar or leave icons on the desktop. For the apps I care about most - and there's around 40 of them - they're available with just 3 clicks maximum. I can reorder them and put them in groups (or pull them out of groups) anytime.

Here's what that looked like (note the top row): https://i.imgur.com/Y9PmYoG.png

On Zorin OS (Ubuntu-based) via Gnome, I haven't had any such luck. ArcMenu is great but offers no app group support. This also a feature that doesn't seem to be in very strong demand in general. I can use the Gnome menu editor (Alacarte, rebranded as "Main Menu" in Zorin) to hide the default categories & make my own. This would be a perfectly suitable solution... but doing so requires multiple steps per app - no copying & pasting, no drag & drop, each one has to be created on a per-category basis. The amount of effort is considerable. I don't mind doing it once of course, but if I decide to reorganize, it'll require all of that effort all over again.

I'm fully happy with Gnome, I'm looking for a productivity-first DE and the only issue is this app menu situation which is a hard deal breaker. I guess I just have three questions:

  1. Are there alternative menus I can check out which might be able to solve this?

  2. I doubt this, but: Is there an easier menu-category editor I could use? Something that allows for at least moving/copying between categories, so I can grab an app from All Apps or something and put it where I want it. Choosing a unique name, finding an icon, copying the terminal command, etc. is a ton of work just to stay organized.

  3. Would using a different DE offer the flexibility I'm looking for in this situation? I'm willing to switch DEs or even distros to fix this - it's seriously the crux of my workflow.

If this is the wrong community to post this, please point me in the right direction and I'll post there. Thanks in advance, I've been trying to find a fix for this for several hours and I'm not sure where to look for an answer.