I was testing out Debian in a VM and trying to set up Timeshift to see if I can make snapshots and Timeshift didn't work because of how Debian sets up volumes with BTRFS.

Apparently Timeshift uses Ubuntu's way of setting up volumes and nothing else. Check this video to find out how to install Debian on BTRFS so it works with Timeshift.

Hello,

So I've been a long time Linux user (since 2000) and for the past 20 years, I've been using exclusively Ubuntu and its flavours. Lately I've been seeing posts and articles about how Ubuntu's Snaps are ruining the user experience and causing a lot of discontent. Since I was on the verge of scrapping Windows on my machine and going full Linux.

I started to explore the different distros out there. I installed Linux Mint, (K/L)Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Debian, Endeavour OS (Arch), Bazzite, Fedora, OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Elementary OS, Fedora Kinoite, Nobara, etc. I wanted to see which one could be my next long run install it and forget it distro. In the end, I was already comfortable with Kubuntu and the few tests I tried in a VM seemed like it was still pretty solid and I really didn't have any reason to change. So I installed Kubuntu as my main and only OS... And I'm starting to regret it dearly.

Snaps really is awful. And the only reason is because Canonical is forcing it on its users. Modifying APT to install Snap packages instead of Debian packages?! And having certain software exclusively available as Snaps? Firefox, Thunderbird, CUPS, FFMpeg, and some of their own utilities like Firmware Updater, and even some KDE core stuff apparently?

So as I was finishing configuring my freshly installed Kubuntu, I was having problems with SDDM. My computer would completely freeze whenever I logged out. Like nothing worked except the power button on my PC. I installed the NVidia drivers and that appeared to have fixed it. I also installed ZSH and set it as my default shell. However, upon reboot, I realized all my Snap based apps were gone from my application menu. I couldn't even set them as default apps in the control center. Firefox being one of them and that's why I noticed.

After checking in the Discover app, I saw it was still installed. I noticed a bunch other ones were missing, but they all appeared as installed. I tried uninstalling Firefox and reinstalling, but that didn't work. I don't know whether it's Snap or KDE that's broken. So I started removing all the Snap variants and installing their Flatpak counterpart instead. But I soon realized this couldn't be done with all software. Like CUPS. The printing system. It's only available as a Snap??? You can't even install it as a Debian package? Some apps are only available as Snaps and they won't show up in my KDE applications menu or anywhere else.

This is incredibly frustrating and disappointing. I feel like I'm being pushed in a corner by Canonical. I'm afraid I really have to switch distributions after all these years. I think I'll be installing Debian 12 stable. Besides, with Flatpak I can get fairly updated applications instead of the .deb packages. So the "old packages" reputation becomes almost irrelevant.

UPDATE:

So installing zsh and setting it as my default shell is what broke Snap. Apparently, zsh doesn't run any of the /etc/profile and /etc/profile.d/ scripts which run scripts that set up environment variables for snap and flatpak and stuff. Adding the following line to /etc/zsh/zprofile fixed my problem:

emulate sh -c 'source /etc/profile'

Anyway, it's still bullshit.

UPDATE 2:

Thanks @Ephera@lemmy.ml for the advice. I've since reverted my default shell to bash in my /etc/passwd file and configured my console app to start ZSH instead to avoid any further problems. #LessonsLearned

This is a really great article about how to use BTRFS snapshots with examples.

I have this collection of mp3s from the 90s-2000s from before the streaming services era. Back when people used Winamp or XMMS to listen to their music. I backed up my music files in two places and they're both organized differently.

I need a tool to go through the whole thousands of files, find out what each track is (artist, album, track title, track number all that meta data), rename the file accordingly and apply all the metadata, then move the file in a certain directory structure.

Are there any music organizers out there that can do this? Or do I have to implement my own script?

Like the title says. There are communities whose purpose is to just repost Reddit posts using bots and they're flooding my front page. I'd like to block it using Jerboa. Is it possible? Or can it be done via the web interface?

I'm soon going to transition to full Kubuntu and remove Windows from my PC. I've been looking for alternatives to a lot of the stuff I use and this one was a bit problematic. Or so I thought.

I'm also going to migrate from Google to Proton at the same time and it looks like some of these tools support Proton Drive as well!

I've been receiving 3-4 phonecalls per week from call centers where the caller is always Indian and they're all calling about a special promotion from one of the big three telecom companies.

I actually registered my phone on the no call list from the federal government. I'm not even a customer of the big three. (Videotron in Quebec ftw) So I shouldn't be receiving these calls. I've also asked multiple times not to be called again. But they still call.

Has anyone else had this issue? How did you deal with it?

Companies are increasingly migrating to Cyberark products. However I'm concerned about this company being an Israeli company and being closely tied to the Israeli government and army. I think using their products raises ethical concerns.

But there's a more important issue. That of using services where sensitive data is stored in data centers in Israël and the potential use of this information by the government or the army.

Am I being paranoid? Or are my concerns valid?

Hey gang,

So Ubuntu has Ubuntu Core as an immutable distro option. You can customize it to create you own image. I was thinking of just using that and adding Kubuntu-desktop and any proprietary codecs and drivers such as Nvidia. Everything else would be installed as flatpak or Snap.

Has anyone tried something similar?

Recently I had a hiccup with my main SSD drive. I have a dual boot Win/Kubuntu setup. Linux was crashing hard and Windows was giving me blue screens. After I resolved the issue (cooling/loose connection, idk) my Linux was doing fine, but Windows was giving me blue screens. I think it was doing an update when it crashed.

After a couple of hours messing with my recovery USB and booting in safe mode, I was able to fix the bad update and reboot normally.

I tried to open Firefox and it couldn't find the executable. Looking into the Program Files Mozilla folder, I found the .exe files had been renamed to .exe.sig??????

Then looking for the Edge browser, I suddenly found out that Microsoft Copilot AI had been installed!?!?!?!?!?!?

What the actual fuck???

I never wanted that trash on my PC! That's one of the reasons out of the many that I didn't want to use Windows 11.

And it's a weird fucking coincidence that Firefox was fucked. I couldn't even rename the files to .exe because they wouldn't execute. Looks like they were encrypted or some shit? What the fuck is Microsoft pulling?

It's a happy coincidence because you know what? I've been thinking about going full Linux install since all my games and Windows applications work with Steam, Proton and Bottles now.

I really don't see any fucking reason to keep using Windows. Fuck this shit and fuck Microsoft.

Edit: Oh and that's on top of all the other bullshit like forcing users to create a MS account to install Windows 10 now and having to jump through hoops to have an offline installation. And also defaulting to having all your user folder documents into their fucking One Drive cloud.

I'm done.