List of programs for a MCM and/or Kitchen PC

2048

I thought I'd have a go at installing Linux on a T410. I was going to buy another SSD but then though ‘zark it' and decided to just install it in place of Windows; the worst-case scenario is I just have to install Win10 again.

Well, my decision was made easier when I attempted to boot the laptop and it claimed no bootable devices found, so whatever happens, I'm installing an OS at this point. I don't know if the error has arisen somehow, somewhy since I last played around with that laptop, or if I left it without an OS…??

Anyway, onto installing Linux Mint! It went as smoothly as on the Lenovo AIO, and all the device drivers seemed to work. Firefox went on ok, along with the extensions.

For future reference, Firefox extensions (add-ons? Whatever the zark they're called)

• Sponsorblock 

• Ublock Origin

• Unhook

• Privacy badger (not sure yet)

One concern I had was about opening & closing the lid: to be a Kitchen MCM, the laptop needs to sleep when the lid is closed, and wake straight to the password screen when the lid is opened… and that works!

Still to test:

• USB speaker

• Bluetooth dongle

• …and then Bluetooth headphones

• Crucially: there's no X-mouse button remapper for Linux, so we need an alternative; there's something called Input Remapper to try.

Things a Multimedia Consumption Machine MCM needs to do & run:

• Firefox + UB + SB

• MP3 player… Audacious (and something called “Winamp Refugee”?)

• VLC 

• Surfshark

• Qbittorrent 

• Puddletag (to try; alternative to MP3tag)

• Audacity

• Okular (to try; alternative to SumatraPDF)

• X-mouse (to try: Input Remapper)

2245

Hmm, it seems the last time I wrote about a T410 and Win11, it was to say that it was seemingly working alright, but that was not the case. It kinda worked, but the laptop would frequently throw up a BSoD and need restarting. This was particularly inconvenient because the T410s have a quirk that, upon starting when connected to the dock, they claim there's a keyboard error (which needs Escape to be pressed to get past; it's a weird error that makes no sense).

So I reverted it to Win10 IoT.

You know, or not, being as how the laptop claimed no boot devices today, it’s lucky that I’m installing an OS. To discover the total lack of a bootable system on there would have been very annoying if the current Kitchen T410 had died and I needed to slot in the spare in a hurry…

Defining the M.C.M. and why it'll all be ok with Linux

0644

When I'm not killing\wasting time replaying ancient computer games, my main computer use-case is as a Media Consumption Machine (MCM; a completely made-up term). This means I use it mainly for online video-watching, offline video-watching with VLC, and offline music-listening with Winamp.

As far as I can tell, this is a perfect use-case for Linux: there's nothing taxing there for me to have to figure out, just basic functionality. Sure, I'll have to find something other than Winamp (I'll miss its amazingly-green interface after the 25 years we've had together…) but I've already tried Youtube + ublock + sponsor block and that works fine.

The majority thing I need to try is power-management: will those ol’ T410s behave the same way under Linux, i.e. will they wake-up when the lid is opened, and sleep when the lid is closed? That's the next thing to test…

Settling on a distro; EVERY O.S. needs tweaking to make it bearable

1634

Ok, calm down: the choice isn’t between scrabbling around trying to get Windows to ‘illegally’ work for the rest of my life, and a Linux alternative I haven’t got the patience to learn.

It turns out that it’s Ubuntu that isn’t for me, and Linux Mint (LM) is the way to go (again, for me). For future reference, I also had a go at Zorin OS, but it was too similar to Ubuntu. I think it’s that those OSes are a little over-stylised for me; I want something a bit more ‘mechanical’. It’s like the days when I tried to make Win7 look like Win9x instead of its supposedly more modern stylised look & feel.

Anyway, I’m typing this on Linux Mint (well, not really: I’m still just using Google docs in a browser!) and a lot of things seem to be going ok. I’m going to have to learn to live without a few things & programs, but that’s life. I was annoyed by the amount of initial configuring I had to do (though less annoyed than by the configuring I couldn’t do in Ubuntu & Zorin) but then I look at the list of shit I had to piss about with when installing Windows (e.g. making Win7 look like Win9x, the stacks of stuff I need to do every time when installing Win10, and now the loooong list of Win11 stuff that needs fiddling) and maybe Linux begins to look not-so-bad after all!

Fighting Linux: the war without end

1415

Actually out for a walk in the sunshine, which is exactly what I needed after the frustrations of yesterday.

Trying Linux again went exactly as expected. Why is Linux such a ball ache…?

At least one of the error messages was refreshingly honest:

“Something went wrong

“We're sorry, but we're not sure what the error is.”

Windows would just give you a bullshit error & incomprehensible code, but Linux tells it like it is (and doesn’t give you a code you can go away and search online…)

So what went wrong this time? I think my first error was choice of distro (ah, how I've missed distro-hopping!) I figured I'd just go with Ubuntu as it sounded user-friendly. Zarking oopslol.

Initially it was a bit too much like my first try of Win11 where the taskbar (or dock or whatever) was full of meaningless icons with no text. Unlike Win11, it didn't require updating the OS to add text labels, just a bit of terminal work to add an add-on.

But even that shouldn't have been necessary! Why not just allow a user to right-click the taskbar and alter its appearance…?

I tried to install (what I thought was) a fairly basic list of programs, but even that was a chore. It led to my all-time favourite absolute classic but of Linux zarkwonkery: outdated instructions.

A great deal of the time when you go to install a program from the terminal, following someone's instructions on a forum, it'll throw up some kind of (what I understand as) a dependency issue: “you can't do that because first you need this”. 

Fine, back to Google to figure that out; try to install what is suggested; repeat at least once; eventually try to install something which no longer exists in a repository or wherever.

Well… some of the time. A lot of the time I just give up.

1750

Linux Mint, labels on panel(“panel” = taskbar) - right click panel, Applets, Group window list, click cogs for settings, select panel pane at top, Button label, window title from dropdown.

The End of Windows, and a new beginning.

1549

It's been a while, and -oops- I never finished writing about that Lenovo AIO. Longstoryshort: installed Win11 IoT on it and it's still waiting for a use-case; I'm sure it'll come in handy one of these years.

I haven't done anything particularly technical with computers for a few months (thankfully, I guess!) but a week ago, it finally happened: the end of Windows 10 (or more accurately: ‘normal’ Win10 (i.e. not LTSC\IoT) won't get any more security updates).

Two PCs are still on Win10 Pro (which seemed so modern & alien when I first used it back in 2017!) so they need something doing to them. I'll probably IoT the other household laptop, maybe with Win11, but I have other plans for my main computer…

I made the leap from Win7 to Win10 back then. Initially I tried to make Win10 look like Win7 but eventually resolved to just get used to Win10 because one day I would have to get used to it.

…and get used to it I did! I even became comfortable & familiar with it (it’s not a huge jump from Win7 really). I got so used to it that I was annoyed many, many times when then starting to use Win11 (which I also resolved to get used to; again, it wasn't a huge jump from 10 to 11 really).

Well, this week brings an even bigger leap, possibly the biggest leap ever, and something I first thought about (and dismissed…) doing 20 years ago: it's time to properly try Linux.

I've dabbled with it a few times (indeed, this log started with wasting a lot of time on Linux) but have never used it on a ‘main’ computer. As I'm sure I've said on here, two things put me off Linux: the terminal (which shouldn't really put me off; I began computing life by inputting commands into a command prompt on Amstrad\C64\MS-DOS) but I'm sure I can get to know it, and a lot of the time it's just a case of copying commands from a website.

…which kinda brings me onto the main reason I've always given up on Linux (and even sold all of my Raspberry Pis): the “community”. Zark, they can be tiresome. It's fine if you search for a solution to a problem, and someone has already documented it, but if you have to approach a community and ask for help… well, you'd have more fun just slamming your fingers in a drawer. Even if you go in saying you're a beginner, they will always assume knowledge, meaning you'll have to go down other rabbit holes trying to find out what they mean. The best is when they insist on you copypastaing some configuration settings; just this evening I found two dead threads where an evident beginner was asked to do this, they did it, and there are no replies afterwards…

But I mustn’t let this put me off. Even though I've got Windows 10 IoT on a few machines up until 2032, and Win11 IoT on a few more for (hopefully) a few more years after that, eventually the gravy train of Windows will run out (even if I wanted to buy more copies of Win11, it won't run on most of my computers because of arbitrary requirements…) and I'll have to make the switch to Linux. It's best if I do that while I'm still (relatively…) young.

The best time to learn Linux is 20 years ago; the second best time is now.

Today I bought a second 5TB external HDD as a backup store and am currently copying stuff onto it before I begin messing around with the HP desktop.

Maybe I'll have a fun evening of installing Ubuntu on that second Lenovo AIO! Nothing to lose there…