July 2025 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Revisit Debian? Stick with Tuxedo? Or look at Clear?
by Evan Leibovitch 21 Jul '25

21 Jul '25

Hi all. As some might have read in a previous thread, my daily driver PC has gone flaky and it's in the shop. When it comes back I will need to reinstall an OS as I wiped the drive before sending it in (and I had decent backups). I may also find myself with a new system to be used for AI and video content development. Now that I'm reinstalling, I'm wondering if this is a time to re-evaluate what distro to use. I'm not a frequent distro-hopper but I'm not scared of it. In the last five years I've gone from Kubuntu to KDE Neon to TuxedoOS. So yes, the replacement needs to be KDE and I'm far more familiar with Debian/Ubuntu package management than Fedora/CentOS's. And I would prefer to have one that I can stick with for many years. I continue to hear people say great things about Debian+KDE, but my experiences with it were not good the last time I tried it a few years back. Too much hardware was unsupported, too many tweaks and workarounds just to get it to work. Is it worth a revisit? Which version? Should I stick with Ubuntu-based TuxedoOS? Or consider something wholly new like Clear Linix? The hardware to be used: - One system: High-end (strix halo) Ryzen CPU/NPU/GPU, Linux only - Another system: mid-range AMD CPU and RTX 3060 GPU, dual-boot - Realtek 8125B 2.5Gb Ethernet in both Notable software to be run: - OBS - Kdenlive - Handbrake - Firefox - Davinci Resolve (maybe) - Blender (maybe) - LMStudio - Ollama - CUDA on the Nvidia system, ROCm on the AMD one I don't want: - snapd (flatpacks are OK, I guess, for non-system stuff) - X11 (want Wayland as the default) - non-optimal drivers for any hardware (closed-source drivers are sad but OK) - old releases. I'm OK with a reasonable update frequency so long as it's not too bleeding edge. Advice appreciated. I'm especially curious to hear from anyone who has tried Clear Linux; it's supposed to be tuned for Intel, but both my CPUs are AMDs. Thanks! -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

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Bash "Argument List Too Long" - What is this error and how to fix it!
by Ron 20 Jul '25

20 Jul '25

Here's a nifty 5½ minute video about Bash that some here might find enjoyable & entertaining & informative: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJRTr_Lrl6M Dave from YSAP always has great videos delving into bash pretty deeply. He has one from 9 days ago covering new features in bash v5.3 too: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cTsFt-j7rk

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Any iSH users? Plus partial review
by Giles Orr 17 Jul '25

17 Jul '25

iSH is a shell application for Apple products. I've installed it on an Apple iPad, and have been surprised at how good it is. It also has some problems. https://ish.app/ - "A project to get a Linux shell running on iOS, using usermode x86 emulation and syscall translation." GitHub (which has more useful information): https://github.com/ish-app/ish It seems to use the Alpine x86 repositories as its base for the whole setup: once the shell is installed, you can use `apk` to install other packages. I think the author is using a standard Alpine repo (I haven't investigated) as the repo includes KDE packages and other GUI stuff that I'm about 99.9% sure would fail in this emulator. But I installed NeoVim (admittedly an old version) and it works great. The emulation is far from perfect: I installed tmux and it has multiple issues, to the point that it's (practically speaking) unusable. As I remember it, keypresses lagged one behind: If you typed "ABC" on screen, you would see "AB" on screen, and "C" wouldn't appear until you typed another character after it. And there was no visible cursor. You could create and change virtual terminals, but the keyboard lag and lack of a cursor is a huge problem. I'm also somewhat concerned that because the Alpine repo is for x86, it may not be supported (or if it is, perhaps not for long) as the world moves to 64-bit code bases. I guess that could be answered with some research about the Alpine distro? Nevertheless, having a working shell, CL git client, and NeoVim on the iPad (I have an external keyboard) has made me very happy. With a fairly significant caveat that I don't yet have a way of sharing files between the emulator environment and the iPad filesystem. If anyone has any thoughts on that, I'd appreciate it. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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Evan's new toy: GMKtec EVO-X2 AI Mini PC
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 16 Jul '25

16 Jul '25

Evan mentioned that he now has a GMKtec EVO-X2 AI Mini PC. He is intending to use it for running AI models locally. Here's an interesting review of the unit: <https://www.servethehome.com/gmktec-evo-x2-review-an-amd-ryzen-ai-max-395-p…> Although it is expensive (US$2000), it is perhaps the cheapest platform that can reasonably run AI models that are not small. It's not amazing at this, but amazing requires a lot more money. The top configuration has 128G of lpddr5 RAM, and 96G of that can be dedicated to the GPU. This is much better than ordinary consumer GPUs. For example, the Nvidia RTX 5090 has 32G of RAM and starts at US$2500 (if your model fits in 32G, the 5090 should run considerably faster than the EVO-X2). The end of the review mentions alternatives.

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(off topic) Burning plastic smell from LED light bulb?
by William Park 14 Jul '25

14 Jul '25

Hi all, Do you smell "burnt plastic" from your LED light bulb? If not, then what brand/store are you using? Background: ----------- For longest time, I've been smelling "burnt plastics" in the house. At first, I thought some neighbour's wood stove... exhaust goes up, drifts over to my house, cools, and comes down. But, it's more "plastic" burning, not "wood" burning. It's bad enough to irritate my throat and interfere with my sleep. I've been opening all my windows at night, daily. I checked everything... water heater, furnace fan, refrigerator, my computer. I finally found the culprit. LED bulbs. The plastic base gets hot and emits that smell. Over time, it accumulates inside the house. All my LED bulbs were bought from Canadian Tire. So, I bought 2 bulbs from Home Depot (Ecosmart) and Rona (Valu+). And, they don't smell, at least after 1 day of use. Maybe it's too early to tell. I don't care about "longevity" or "efficiency", at this point. I'm on the verge of going back to incandescent bulbs.

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Anyone ever use System76 laptops?
by sciguy 14 Jul '25

14 Jul '25

Hi I understand that System76 laptops ship with Pop! OS, so I was interested in getting my hands on one. Has anyone on this list had any experience with these laptops they might like to share? I was thinking in particular of getting a Pangolin 16" laptop, and would it support my portable Lenovo ThinkVision M14 monitor? I already have the monitor, and in theory (according to the docs that came with it) it uses USB-C. If a monitor says it uses USB-C, does it need external power? Would a laptop with a Thunderbolt port be better? Paul King

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HDMI question?
by Karen Lewellen 10 Jul '25

10 Jul '25

I cannot imagine others have not addressed this..even if a while back. The new cable service winner is actually..Rogers. Because I get a 30% discount, with blending Internet with cable quite a deal. The Internet service, so far, is frankly stunning, and I am at the low end of the scale. However, there is a cable problem..their set top box uses HDMI..and nothing else. There are a couple of solutions, the tech is seeking an adapter, with my concern being that search must go through hands. One solution is tied to a digital splitter I use. red/white/yellow. Is there an HDMI adapter of this kind? The other involves the, miss spelling coming composite cable connection on my television..the same kind Rogers uses for their cable modems. so, an HDMI adapter to this port works as well, I can run audio from my set into the above referenced splitter, or if there is a USB to RCA adapter, manage the same. Thoughts that does not involve my changing TV equipment? I have other media production tools tied to this setup. With appreciation, Karen

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Testing Talk@ list... ignore this message
by Ron 09 Jul '25

09 Jul '25

Just a quick test to ensure everything's running as it should.

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Today's (July) GTALUG meeting will be *Virtual only*
by Evan Leibovitch 08 Jul '25

08 Jul '25

Hello all, Due to multiple technical and logistics issues, there will be no *in person* GTALUG meeting today, July 8. Some of us will still be in attendance at the virtual meeting link at https://hub.gtalug.org/call/7m45sf9i But there will be nobody at TMU for this time only. -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

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speaking of doctors, how about electronic repair ones?
by Karen Lewellen 03 Jul '25

03 Jul '25

as in things like DVD or cd players, coffeemakers those sorts of electronics? In the case of the DVD player it is a better quality Panasonic model, so I may ask them about out of warranty work. Other ideas? Thanks, Karen

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