Any fellow Linux users on here?

[Judge]

Memo to one's self:

Don't try to install Pop! OS 22.04 choosing a choice of a bootable UEFI flash drive if it shows up in your bios.

Learned the hard way that it actually installs a somewhat different version of the OS that doesn't even have a "grub" file. Worse still when you go to all the trouble of installing the OS, all the software conformed to how you like it, and then it won't reboot after having swapped it as a removable drive. Ran my Linux Mint for a bit, then decided to switch back to my Pop! OS 22.04 drive. But it wouldn't boot, no matter how many times I configured my bios to read it.

Ironic to realize the last time I successfully installed this OS I had no such issues, having chosen not to select the UEFI choice in my bios. Ugh.

The next time I try to install Pop! OS 22.04 not using EFI to launch the installation process through my flash drive, I think the first thing I'll do after rebooting is to shut it down, replace the drive and launch this OS (Linux Mint 21.1) and then again replace the drive with the one I used to install Pop! OS 22.04. If it boots up ok then I should be in the clear as I've done before.

Still it's weird to think that you get a somewhat different OS as the result of launching it using UEFI settings in your bios. But then both my Windows 10 and Linux Mint operating systems are set up without UEFI in the first place. Where whenever I switch those drives, I routinely must designate the boot drive in the bios each and every time, if that makes sense.

Well hell....LOL. I figured out how to make Gnome Extensions work in Pop! OS 22.04, but am not even sure how I did it.

So I spent the rest of the day adding this and that, going through some 70 online pages of them to download just to make the interface more interesting to look at, and add some functionality that System 76 didn't include. Nothing really important, mostly just esoteric stuff.

 

[Judge]

Finished up customizing and loading software for my drive that has Pop! OS 22.04 on it. Figuring out how to finally incorporate Gnome Shell Extensions was great. Seems easy now, though what kept hanging me up was a warning on the web page that offers a number of these little widgets:

"Your native host connector do not support following APIs: v6. Probably you should upgrade native host connector or install plugins for missing APIs. Refer documentation for instructions."

https://extensions.gnome.org/
I have no idea why this shows up. I simply switched on the extensions in Pop! OS and then added the "Gnome Shell Integration" extension for Firefox. I guess the trick was noticing the little switch on each web page of the extensions online. Once I switched it to "on", I got a prompt to install it. Clicked "yes" to it and voila! The extension would then show up in the list of my extensions in Pop! OS along with individual settings or just an on/off switch.

A huge bonus yesterday was discovering that the Pop! Shop (Repository) had an app called "Main Menu". This allowed me to finally change and improve all the icons, as well as rename everything to my liking. So at this point about the only thing Pop! OS 22.04 can't do that Linux Mint 21.1 can is to change the names and icons of Windows apps running in Wine 8.0.1.

So I've changed names, icons and made both the top bar and the "dock" (bottom menus) so they're no longer black, or opaque. It's a hobby of mine to take most any operating system and change it in any number of ways. Something that Linux welcomes, and Microsoft not as much.

 

[Judge]

Anyone into purging your OS of fonts you don't need? I get why OS developers incluse every language on the planet, but some of these fonts seem absolutely elusive when it comes to safely deleting them. I'm down to about 53 but I'd really like to get rid of these fonts which seem redundant, yet not system-related. Presently I can't even find them and I've checked most folders in Linux Mint where they should be, but arent.

Trying to delete them all in the terminal didn't work either. And the "Font Manager" doesn't even acknowledge they exist!

"TeX Gyre" fonts:

Adventor
Bonum
Chorus
Cursor
Heros
Heros Cn
Pagella
Schola
Termes

Or could it be that my word processor (Abiword) is hallucinating?

 

[Athyrium]

Anyone into purging your OS of fonts you don't need? I get why OS developers incluse every language on the planet, but some of these fonts seem absolutely elusive when it comes to safely deleting them. I'm down to about 53 but I'd really like to get rid of these fonts which seem redundant, yet not system-related. Presently I can't even find them and I've checked most folders in Linux Mint where they should be, but arent.

Trying to delete them all in the terminal didn't work either. And the "Font Manager" doesn't even acknowledge they exist!

"TeX Gyre" fonts:

Adventor
Bonum
Chorus
Cursor
Heros
Heros Cn
Pagella
Schola
Termes

Or could it be that my word processor (Abiword) is hallucinating?

"Noto Sans" fonts in various 'buntus are so frustrating. It really makes it difficult to actually search for a font. I've tried removing them and the only way I was able to get rid of them was to supposedly uninstall the xubuntu-desktop package. I learned the hard way last year that this package is not just xfce elements, but lots of core functions too.

I just want the stability of the ubuntu core, but this hiding critical system features in with useless fluff (the basic games addon is in the same package) really sometimes convinces me to almost go to something else.

 

[Judge]

"Noto Sans" fonts in various 'buntus are so frustrating. It really makes it difficult to actually search for a font. I've tried removing them and the only way I was able to get rid of them was to supposedly uninstall the xubuntu-desktop package. I learned the hard way last year that this package is not just xfce elements, but lots of core functions too.

I just want the stability of the ubuntu core, but this hiding critical system features in with useless fluff (the basic games addon is in the same package) really sometimes convinces me to almost go to something else.

I deleted all (237?) the Noto fonts in Pop! OS by being a bad boy and going directly to the folder and deleting it using root authority. Haven't had any issues so far. Ultimately it just depends on the font and the distro. Though in earlier attempts yeah, I deleted the wrong font and had to backtrack to reinstall it.

I should probably preface this by pointing out that I always research each font I intend to purge, to see if there are any residual concerns. Typing into search engines, "Is there a problem in deleting ______ font in ______ OS ?

Still it's strange that one word processor can show all the fonts while another does not.

 

[Athyrium]

I deleted all (237?) the Noto fonts in Pop! OS by being a bad boy and going directly to the folder and deleting it using root authority. Haven't had any issues so far. Ultimately it just depends on the font and the distro. Though in earlier attempts yeah, I deleted the wrong font and had to backtrack to reinstall it.

I should probably preface this by pointing out that I always research each font I intend to purge, to see if there are any residual concerns. Typing into search engines, "Is there a problem in deleting ______ font in ______ OS ?

Still it's strange that one word processor can show all the fonts while another does not.

I tried that too and found out the hard way Ubutu uses noto fonts instead of Unicode for like everything. It was quite the shock to open my research project to those boxes instead of text.

I don't know if it's the same issue, but I've noticed on my wife's laptop that the snap packages tend to hide things out of the way and such (I can't stand snap). Could that be an issue?

 

[Judge]

I tried that too and found out the hard way Ubutu uses noto fonts instead of Unicode for like everything. It was quite the shock to open my research project to those boxes instead of text.

I don't know if it's the same issue, but I've noticed on my wife's laptop that the snap packages tend to hide things out of the way and such (I can't stand snap). Could that be an issue?

I've learned to avoid snaps like the plague. Plain and simple.

When you say Ubuntu, I take it you mean it literally. I've never used the official Ubuntu, but have tried a few distros based on Ubuntu (Mint 21.1, Pop!OS22.04 and Zorin OS16.1). On Pop!OS I wiped out all the noto fonts and have yet to find any problems. They seem to use Noto for all their foreign language fonts (some insane number around 237) and I deleted them all. Mint 21.1 uses other types of fonts for foreign languages, all of which I made go away using the terminal. Though I suspect this may be exclusive to Linux Mint:

sudo apt-get remove "fonts-kacst*" "fonts-khmeros*" fonts-lklug-sinhala fonts-guru-extra "fonts-nanum*" fonts-noto-cjk "fonts-takao*" fonts-tibetan-machine fonts-lao fonts-sil-padauk fonts-sil-abyssinica "fonts-tlwg-*" "fonts-lohit-*" fonts-beng-extra fonts-gargi fonts-gubbi fonts-gujr-extra fonts-kalapi "fonts-samyak*" fonts-navilu fonts-nakula fonts-orya-extra fonts-pagul fonts-sarai "fonts-telu*" "fonts-wqy*" "fonts-smc*" fonts-deva-extra fonts-sahadeva

Whew...this got rid of a whole lot of unwanted fonts!. Luckily Mint 21.1 only uses two Noto fonts!

Bottom line: I suspect each and every distro has its own way of determining which fonts are critical and which are not. Where it's best to research whether a specific one or not can be safely removed.

But I can't fault anyone for trying. Nothing like opening up a word processor and having to scroll down for five minutes just to find a particular typeface. Give me a break! But it won't happen, as the developers are obliged to pay homage to even the most obscure languages. I get it, but I don't have to like it.

 

[Athyrium]

I've learned to avoid snaps like the plague. Plain and simple.

When you say Ubuntu, I take it you mean it literally. I've never used the official Ubuntu, but have tried a few distros based on Ubuntu (Mint 21.1, Pop!OS22.04 and Zorin OS16.1). On Pop!OS I wiped out all the noto fonts and have yet to find any problems. They seem to use Noto for all their foreign language fonts (some insane number around 237) and I deleted them all. Mint 21.1 uses other types of fonts for foreign languages, all of which I made go away using the terminal. Though I suspect this may be exclusive to Linux Mint:

sudo apt-get remove "fonts-kacst*" "fonts-khmeros*" fonts-lklug-sinhala fonts-guru-extra "fonts-nanum*" fonts-noto-cjk "fonts-takao*" fonts-tibetan-machine fonts-lao fonts-sil-padauk fonts-sil-abyssinica "fonts-tlwg-*" "fonts-lohit-*" fonts-beng-extra fonts-gargi fonts-gubbi fonts-gujr-extra fonts-kalapi "fonts-samyak*" fonts-navilu fonts-nakula fonts-orya-extra fonts-pagul fonts-sarai "fonts-telu*" "fonts-wqy*" "fonts-smc*" fonts-deva-extra fonts-sahadeva

Whew...this got rid of a whole lot of unwanted fonts!. Luckily Mint 21.1 only uses two Noto fonts!

Bottom line: I suspect each and every distro has its own way of determining which fonts are critical and which are not. Where it's best to research whether a specific one or not can be safely removed.

But I can't fault anyone for trying. Nothing like opening up a word processor and having to scroll down for five minutes just to find a particular typeface. Give me a break! But it won't happen, as the developers are obliged to pay homage to even the most obscure languages. I get it, but I don't have to like it.

I try to avoid snap, I do not like how certain packages in apt are stealth snap (firefox...). I'm running xubuntu, and while I'd love to distrohop, I haven't formatted my HDD for it, neither do I really have the time these days. (Also my distro-knowledge at this point is firmly a decade out of date lol).
I just wish there was a way to hide the noto fonts in libreoffice or GIMP, would be such a lifesaver. The endless scrolling for fonts is just so tiresome.

 

[tkcartoonist]

I have learned to type out whatever font I need. Example: in the "font" field in, say, GIMP, I type out the first T in "Times" and it'll show the different fonts that also start with that letter. Works much faster than scrolling through them all.

 

[Judge]

I just wish there was a way to hide the noto fonts in libreoffice or GIMP, would be such a lifesaver. The endless scrolling for fonts is just so tiresome.

There is- technically speaking.

Have you ever heard of the Linux "font Manager" ? It doesn't work in every case with every application, but more often than not when you uncheck the box for a specific font, it essentially "hides it" from an application's font menu. Equally when you check the box it will show up again in an application's font menu. Not as effective as removing the font entirely, but in cases of unknown consequences this may be as good as it gets. With Linux Mint it works for me on applications like Libre Office Writer as well as word processor Abiword. You might give it a try.

https://installati.one/install-font-manager-ubuntu-20-04/
Use the terminal to download it: sudo apt-get install font-manager

See below, and note that I unchecked three Noto fonts that no longer show up:

Here is how I conduct my distro-hopping. -Removable SSDs. I simply withdraw and replace each drive with a different operating system and slide it back into the same computer. How I can run two different Linus distros plus Windows 10. LOL....I need to buy a fourth SSD so I can keep experimenting.

https://www.amazon.com/ICY-DOCK-SAT...&sprefix=icy+dock+3.5,electronics,180&sr=1-15

 

[Slime_Punk]

Here is how I conduct my distro-hopping. -Removable SSDs. I simply withdraw and replace each drive with a different operating system and slide it back into the same computer. How I can run two different Linus distros plus Windows 10. LOL....I need to buy a fourth SSD so I can keep experimenting.

lol! This is seriously a genius idea. I have a few enclosures lying around and for some reason I haven't just started filling them up with random distros... yet!

 

[Judge]

lol! This is seriously a genius idea. I have a few enclosures lying around and for some reason I haven't just started filling them up with random distros... yet!

I've used removable hard drives in my computers for the last 20 years. Though a similar process involving my legacy computer and its IDE drives takes a bit longer to withdraw and install due to having to physically unlock it with a key. I keep one drive for Windows XP apps, and the other Windows XP exclusively for games. It's a "time machine", as when I boot this one up it seems like I'm back in 2003 or earlier. Of course both drives are completely offline for security purposes.

With my present system, since I use the same drive tray I need only replace the SSD itself each time, which takes only about ten seconds. Then I reboot my computer and voila! On to the next distro.

Of course it all has one caveat. LOL...I always seem to conclude that Linux Mint 21.1 remains superior to all the other distros I have tried. But my sense of curiosity always gets the best of me, so I'll keep experimenting. Next on the list are KDE Plasma and Linux Mint 21.1, but using a GTK3 boot that will give a more Mac-like layout similar to Pop!OS 22.04. I like Pop! OS22.04, but it's not as customizable as Linux Mint.

Though I'm hoping that KDE Plasma might be the ultimate distro in terms of overall customization.

 

[Slime_Punk]

Mint definitely seems to be the least-buggy for my needs, so that's been my choice as well!

I had a lot of audio issues happening with my latest installation which kind of ruined things for me, something about audio workstations not connecting to whatever audio server they needed (yes, my lack of understanding of the issue was also a huge problem and I admit that!), so now I'm just running it in Virtualbox like a pleb once again.

Although lately, the only real use for it that I have is trying to up my abysmal x86 assembly skills in NASM... but there will always be more reasons to tinker and install more distros in the future for various reasons!

 

[Judge]

Mint definitely seems to be the least-buggy for my needs, so that's been my choice as well!

I had a lot of audio issues happening with my latest installation which kind of ruined things for me, something about audio workstations not connecting to whatever audio server they needed (yes, my lack of understanding of the issue was also a huge problem and I admit that!), so now I'm just running it in Virtualbox like a pleb once again.

Although lately, the only real use for it that I have is trying to up my abysmal x86 assembly skills in NASM... but there will always be more reasons to tinker and install more distros in the future for various reasons!

Audio issues? Maybe I can help you.

When I first installed Linux Mint 20 and 21.0 I had zero audio at all. Nada. The same when I installed Pop!OS22.04 and Manjaro as well. I had to do some serious investigating to discover that I needed to do the following to not only get sound at all, but to get flawless sound at that. All because apparently Linux seemed to have issues with onboard Intel HDA (High-Definition-Audio) based on Realtek ALC887-VD codecs.

Just to get any sound at all, I needed to "retask" some parameters of my audio jack. In essence, this means you need to download the "Alsa Tools GUI". Software that allows you to make two simple changes in how Linux reads the sound coming from an external jack. In my case, it involved my rear audio jack connecting two external speakers. To start, you need to download the software either from your repository (software store) if it is there, or use the terminal to download it directly in two steps:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install -y alsa-tools-gui

A. Provide sound to external speakers:

1. Download “Alsa-Tools-GUI”. Select the icon named “HDA Jack Retask” and select “Realtek ALC887-VD”. Then check the override box marked “Green Line Out, Rear Side” - ”Internal Speaker (Back)”.

2. Check the  box under “Options” marked “Parser Hints”. Then select from “Hints” menu that comes up, and change  the first line called “Jack_Detect” value to “no”.

3. Then click the box marked “Install Boot Override” and click the “ok” prompt. Then reboot the system. You should now get audio through your external speakers if you did not before.

B. Fix  random popping sounds:

Root Authority: Right-click your file manager (Nemo in Linux Mint) to choose “open as root”, then access the files accordingly:

1. Using root authority access: sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save

Change the value from 1 to 0.

2.    Using root authority access: sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller

Change the value from Y to N.

3. Using root authority, access: etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

Add the following  as the last line: options snd-hda-intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N

4. Then access the Terminal, and input the following: sudo apt update and reboot the system.

C. Install this software: Pulse-Audio Volume Control

1. Download the following application from the repository: Pulse Audio Volume Control. Access “Configuration” and change the built-in audio profile from    “Analog Stereo Duplex” to “Analog Stereo Output”. Then reboot the system, one last time. All these changes should not only restore speaker sound, but fix the output so the audio output no longer has any discernable audio glitches as heard through external speakers or headphones.

The good news is that with Linux Mint version 21.1, they seemed to have solved the jack retask issue so that when you install the OS and reboot, this time you get sound right off. So if you create an .iso flash drive for Mint 21.1 you can skip that step. However you'll still need to do the other steps to get flawless audio. Assuming of course that you may have the same Realtek codec issues as I have. But then my motherboard and bios is 11 years old, so this kind of thing is par for the course.

 

[Judge]

Another thing I like about Linux Mint 21.1 is the "Cinnamenu" applet you can download that replaces their basic menu system. It's more compacted and configurable and still can display everything running within the OS. Far better than Windows 11. Of course the entire desktop of Mint is extremely customizable as well.

 

[Slime_Punk]

C. Install this software: Pulse-Audio Volume Control

If I recall correctly, this was exactly the issue and I ran out of energy trying to google all of the things I needed! Thanks so much for the detailed steps! I'm going to literally try everything you outlined on my next try with Mint and I'm pretty sure you're going to have fixed my issue by the end of it!

I think it was that the software I wanted to use (Sonic Pi, Pure Data, and a few others) wouldn't connect to Pulse Audio and I was definitely not searching the internet / using chat GPT correctly!

 

[Judge]

If I recall correctly, this was exactly the issue and I ran out of energy trying to google all of the things I needed! Thanks so much for the detailed steps! I'm going to literally try everything you outlined on my next try with Mint and I'm pretty sure you're going to have fixed my issue by the end of it!

I think it was that the software I wanted to use (Sonic Pi, Pure Data, and a few others) wouldn't connect to Pulse Audio and I was definitely not searching the internet / using chat GPT correctly!

I've done this over and over many times now, whenever I chose to reinstall Mint, Pop!OS or Zorin OS16. (All Ubuntu-related Linux distros).

I like listening to (Audacious) and editing (Audacity) all my MP3 files, so having really good audio is a must.

So yeah, first installing Linux was an initial letdown without any sound at all. Then noticing unwanted sounds like crackling and pops...couldn't settle for that either. But if you're a curious person, you'll be constantly using search engines that have most answers to such questions.

At least if you install the latest version of Linux Mint (21.1) you should be able to skip having to install Alsa-Tools-GUI.

 

[Judge]

Finally figured out how to hack the Pop!OS22.04 applications menu. Gave it a similar transparency as the dock menu (below) and the top bar menu (above). Also figured out how to rename all the apps to my liking, including those elusive ones running in Wine 8.0.1.

If you're familiar with Cascading Style Sheets, all you need to do is to change various color and opacity parameters within the three files (stylesheet.css, dark.css and light.css) all found in the following folder:

usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]

 

[Judge]

An interesting presentation on ranking of the major Linux distros by Chris Titus. I always pay attention to his uptake, especially when his opinions parallel "French Nick" of "The Linux Experiment". Both spend a great deal of time critiquing so many Linux distros out there, making the selection process a little less confusing for those of us migrating from Windows to Linux.

 

[Outdated]

With my present system, since I use the same drive tray I need only replace the SSD itself each time, which takes only about ten seconds. Then I reboot my computer and voila! On to the next distro.

Now I finally understand how it's working for you. I tried a simailar experiment years ago but I was just using external usb drives. It worked OK most of the time, unless the number of drives plugged in at the time changed, then the boot order got changed and everything got funky.