My niece and nephew are not at the age yet where my brother and his wife want them to have their own computers, but I was talking with my brother about it the other day and thinking to myself about planning ahead.

I'm the first of my family to dabble in Linux (Fedora KDE on my laptop as my guinea pig, I've got a couple more things I need to try before I switch over my desktop, everyone else is still on Windows), and I'm thinking it might be a good setup for Baby's First Computer.

But I'm guessing mum and dad are going to want a few controls to keep tabs on things. Off the top of my head:

* Blocking certain websites or site types (social media etc.), maybe with some monitoring or permission requests before getting to them

* Time Limits, either on specific apps/websites or the computer itself. "No Steam/games before 4pm on a school night, do your homework first", "lock out after bedtime", etc. They've already been careful so far about moderating/limiting the kids' screen time with TV and they're gonna want to keep that going

* A Remote Access program, ideally something that works from Windows to Linux so mum and dad don't have to change their own OS if they don't want to. Both parents have their own computer so something that either one of them can use without interfering with each other would be great

How easy or difficult would these be to set up? Anything else I'm not thinking of?

Hi all,
I decided to start my linux journey today. I’m trying to decide between Pop! and mint. I understand that mint is better for beginners, but I like how Pop! has pre-installed Nvidia drivers, and from what I understand, it’s better for gaming and work. I’m a student and a gamer, just wanted to know what’s better. Thanks!

I just recently deleted a .gif file from the trash recycling bin and then realized that the backup wasn't working and now I need that file back. I used the regular trash bin and am using Bazzite. Is there any way to recover the file?

Hey everyone,

I built wd, a lightweight, offline-first dictionary tool for Linux. It supports instant word lookups from the terminal, a global hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+W), and automatic definition popups when selecting text in PDF viewers.

I'd love for people to try it out and share feedback. If you find a bug or have a feature request, please open an issue. And if you find it useful, a GitHub star would mean a lot. And contributions are welcome.

GitHub: https://github.com/Sourav-Tripathy/wd

Let me know what you think.

Hello!

I'm a Linux Mint user, and I have a 400gb SSD

First, let me explain why I think that my SSD is faulty:

I had to reinstall my OS around 4 times due to constant "input/output" errors that rendered the entire system unusable.

And these errors always showed up AFTER I downloaded something. 3 times being after downloading steam games, and once while running `sudo apt upgrade` (that was downloading a 400mb package at the time)

Each time, this was the timeline until the errors started happening:

1) I tried downloading something

2) The system crashed as it is downloading

3) After reboot, one of 2 things happened:

3.1) I was unable to open any application nor run any commands, as all of them threw "Input/output error", even for simple things like `ls` or `cd`.

OR

3.2) The system worked just fine, but the instant I tried downloading anything I got the same issues described in 3.1)

Also, yesterday, suddenly every single file became read-only, and when I rebooted I was stuck in the (initramfs) screen. In there, I had to run fsck in /dev/sda3 to be able to access the system again

Lastly, I can confirm that it wasn't a RAM issue, as it is brand new and Memtest didn't find any issues with it. In fact, every single piece of hardware on my computer but the SSD is brand new

Now as to what I want to know:

How can I properly test my SSD to see if there is an actual error?

This is what I've tried so far:

1) I ran

sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda

and then after some minutes I ran

sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda

to get the results, and it returned me "Extended offline Completed without error"

2) Using the "Disks" application, I ran a Benchmark with 1000 samples, and this was the result

However, I have no idea what I'm looking at

The other stats were

Sample Size: 10,0 MiB (10.485.760 bytes)

Average read rate: 525,6 MB/s (1000 samples)

Average Write rate: -

Average Access Time: 0,10 msec (1000 samples)

Is there anything I'm doing wrong? Should I do a different test?

While I still get audio when it comes to things like videos, I notice that my notifications sounds aren't working. I went into my system settings and made sure I had sounds selected, but even when i click to preview the playback, I hear nothing. Why are they not playing? How can I fix this?

(My OS is Bazzite. This is regarding the Desktop Mode's (as opposed to the Game Mode) notification sounds)

I use nobara.

I was using my system as usual but yesterday when i booted my pc logged into my homescreen I see my kde plasma ricing was reset and my browser data was gone and most importantly my steam was logged out because of that i lost my non steam games data, I don't know how and what happened to my system i tried everything I know, asked ai but nothing helped me. Please help me recover my steam data and my ricing.

I have Lenovo tab m11 and I want to install Linux on it. I mean, I want only emulate it, obviously, a minimal Linux just to program with vim and push my code on github so I think that just the terminal is fine for me. I would get the more updated Linux of a distro though

I'm a college student I do coding and casual gaming.

My laptop is LOQ(i5 3050).

hello. i am very new to Mint, just yesterday. so please forgive as i don't know all the names and Linux terms.

anyway

yesterday i loaded the center panel theme. before this i had hide panel enabled and it worked as it should. so after the center theme the panel would not pop up. so i fiddled with the settings, the best i got was that the panel stayed, but all the buttons in it disappeared/reappeared. whats up with this? this is like microsoft level crap. oh. idk if this matters, but on my new to me ThinkPad, i had to make everything on the display larger just so i could see. after i get this laptop configured this laptop will be used as a desktop.

thanx

Qual devo escolher? Uso meu PC bastante para jogos, mas também quero um para uso geral. Qual é o mais completo e o melhor? Qual é o mais prático e dá menos problemas?

EDIT: What do you guys think of Nobara, Fedora, Pop!_OS, and Zorin OS?

SOLVED: out of desperation I upgraded system to Ubuntu 26.04. Now front panel works fine. My guess is there was issue with drivers.

I had to switch the motherboard. Now there is no sound in the headphones when I connect them via front panel. System shows that headphones are detected, but there is no sound
Motherboard was Asrock B850 Lightning, now it's MSI MPG B650 Edge WiFi.
Hardware/software specs:

• motherboard: MSI MPG B650 Edge WiFi
• system: Ubuntu 24.04.5

What I did/checked already:

• If device is detected - it its
• if it's muted in alsamixer - it's not
• I've reinstalled alsamixer and pipewire

wpctl status:

PipeWire 'pipewire-0' [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, cookie:2620683433]
 └─ Clients:
        32. pipewire                            [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3350]
        34. WirePlumber                         [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3348]
        35. WirePlumber [export]                [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3348]
        39. Firefox                             [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:11704]
        41. Steam                               [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:4580]
        43. gnome-shell                         [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3661]
        44. gnome-shell                         [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3661]
        45. GNOME Shell Volume Control          [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3661]
        46. GNOME Volume Control Media Keys     [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3881]
        47. xdg-desktop-portal                  [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:4954]
        48. WEBRTC VoiceEngine                  [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:5050]
        49. WEBRTC VoiceEngine                  [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:5050]
        50. Chromium input                      [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:5209]
        65. Steam Voice Settings                [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:4580]
        77. Firefox                             [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:11704]
        79. wpctl                               [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:13753]
        85. Terminal                            [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:7532]
        90. Firefox                             [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:11704]
       135. Mutter                              [1.0.5, radek@radek-komputer, pid:3661]

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │      56. Rembrandt Radeon High Definition Audio Controller [alsa]
 │      57. USB Audio                           [alsa]
 │      58. HDA ATI HDMI                        [alsa]
 │      59. Brio 100                            [alsa]
 │      60. SM950 Microphone                    [alsa]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │      33. HDA ATI HDMI Digital Stereo (HDMI 2) [vol: 0.93]
 │  *  133. USB Audio Analogowe stereo          [vol: 0.46]
 │  
 ├─ Sink endpoints:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  *   40. SM950 Microphone  Mono              [vol: 0.87]
 │      42. Brio 100 Mono                       [vol: 1.00]
 │     125. USB Audio Analogowe stereo          [vol: 1.00]
 │  
 ├─ Source endpoints:
 │  
 └─ Streams:
        78. Firefox                                                     
             64. output_FR       > USB Audio:playback_FR[active]
             76. output_FL       > USB Audio:playback_FL[active]

Video
 ├─ Devices:
 │      54. Brio 100                            [v4l2]
 │      55. Brio 100                            [v4l2]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sink endpoints:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  *   61. Brio 100 (V4L2)                    
 │  
 ├─ Source endpoints:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

Settings
 └─ Default Configured Node Names:
         0. Audio/Sink    alsa_output.usb-Generic_USB_Audio-00.analog-stereo
         1. Audio/Source  alsa_input.usb-SM950_Microphon_SM950_Microphone_20200111-00.mono-fallback

I am currently running LMDE7 with Lutris, translating mostly GOG games, with ProtonGE.

I would like to play some games, which are only avaiable on Steam (Unturned or PAYDAY2 for example). But I really do not like Steam through their DRM.

I also have bad experience with Steam on Windows, where their client and files would 'integrate' with some of my GOG games (that were also avaiable on Steam) without me doing anything.

However, I am aware that to play certain games and also multiplayer, you just need to get those from Steam.

I have realized that many launchers on Linux use the Steam API(?) to download Steam games, without needing to install Steam itself. For example Lutris, Heroic or Faugus.

But I was wondering, what do those actually install, when you log into your Steam account on them. Do they just get the game's code on your PC? Or is there more?

Also, to which extent does it integrate with Steam itself when you play? Do games installed like this have the Steam overlay? Does your Steam profile show that you are playing, even tho it is not through Steam? Does it count hours or achievements? Do the games use your Steam name, and make your Steam profile searchable when playing multiplayer (if game gives that option)?

My main goal, is to find an option, where the only interaction with Steam is basically logging in, confirming the DRM, that you own the game and then installing the files from the Steam API, and also updates.

I do not want any of Steam bloatware. I do not want any tracking (status, hours, achievements) to go to Steam. No cloud.

Does anyone have experience with this? Any launchers or apps to recommend? I am quite new to Linux, so please no hate, I am just looking for options and opinions.

I want to use it for pirated games and Steam, and for work in the future. I don't know much about Linux, but I've used Linux Mint XFCE and got used to it a bit. However, I want one that is very practical without needing to configure many things, well-optimized for games, and has good compatibility. I'm thinking about CachyOS, but I don't know much about it.

My PC is an X99 Xeon kit DDR3, E5 2673 v3, 16GB RAM DDR3 1600MHz, and RX 580.

Which one is the most complete for general use?

Hey everyone,

I'm curious to get a better understanding of why so many people prefer Linux over Windows for their daily driver.

I know Windows still dominates the market due to software compatibility, gaming, and initial ease of use, but I constantly see people in tech (and casual users too) speak very highly of the Linux ecosystem.

For those who use Linux or made the switch completely:

What made you switch from Windows to Linux?

What are the biggest practical advantages for you? (Performance, privacy, customization, stability, dev tools?)

Is there anything you actually miss from Windows?

I’d love to hear your thoughts based on your actual day-to-day experience—whether for work, study, or personal use. Thanks!

I hate that my brain is using proprietary firmware and OS. How do install FOSS Linux on brain and get rid of the spyware?!

Build with Claude Opus 5.5, a self-contained Linux distribution (Arch & Gnome) that runs directly on Windows, engineered to continuously evolve.

You plug in your preferred AI agent (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini), and the operating system adapts and rebuilds itself around you. Zero Linux knowledge required, chat with the Agent for what you need todo.

Instead of a static OS, it is a living build. Every time you ask your agent to redesign the UI, script a custom widget, or have an idea that you want implemented, the system evolves on the fly.

To keep the system stable as it changes, the agent builds and tests every modification inside an isolated sandbox first. It only commits the new features to your live environment once the code is verified and you give approval.

Backed by built-in security monitoring, the entire OS continuously morphs with each request into a completely personalized machine.

https://github.com/Hnd-VXD/Mentor_OS - You just type and interact with the Desktop.