The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Dread First]

Am I the only person here who enjoys and prefers a manual install? pacstrap does most of the work for you anyway.

It's not that I hate doing a manual install for Arch... it's the fact that there's no comprehensive resource that explicitly outlines both how to do something and why you're doing it anymore, let alone how to get yourself out of a text console and why you need stuff like Mesa. I've bootstrapped FreeBSD to a graphical environment multiple times, but it ain't like the FreeBSD handbook leaves you high and dry.

Ironically, I would argue that pacstrap doing most of the work for me is, in itself, a bad thing because Arch is otherwise consistent and homogeneous enough with mainline Linux distros (re: anything with systemd) such that a true "full manual" install process would allow me to cultivate the skillset necessary to get Ubuntu, Debian, or even Fedora up and running from a minimal netinstall image.

 

[Akerman]

Seems like accountservices got Poettered in the newest update that was shat out yesterday. Whatever they did made it stricter so now you cant edit your user avatar on Plasma because of some permissions hell. Whenever I tried to do it via the GUI in SystemSettings or in the terminal I got this error:

org.freedesktop.Accounts.Error.Failed:
creating temporary icon file failed: Read-only file system

At first I thought my bullshitting around the system had messed up permissions of my folders, but nope. After some A/B testing I concluded it's a systemd issue. Something with the ProtectSystem being set to strict along with an issue with how Plasma passes along the avatar images using tmp, idk. I was only able to fix it by adding the /tmp directory explicitly with sudo systemctl edit accounts-daemon.service :

[Service]
ReadWritePaths=/tmp

 

[Anime Waifu NFT collector]

I installed Linux Mint two days ago, I'm oficially a hacker now.

Spoiler: me rn

 

[Dread First]

Seems like accountservices got Poettered in the newest update that was shat out yesterday. Whatever they did made it stricter so now you cant edit your user avatar on Plasma because of some permissions hell. Whenever I tried to do it via the GUI in SystemSettings or in the terminal I got this error:

org.freedesktop.Accounts.Error.Failed:
creating temporary icon file failed: Read-only file system

At first I thought my bullshitting around the system had messed up permissions of my folders, but nope. After some A/B testing I concluded it's a systemd issue. Something with the ProtectSystem being set to strict along with an issue with how Plasma passes along the avatar images using tmp, idk. I was only able to fix it by adding the /tmp directory explicitly with sudo systemctl edit accounts-daemon.service :

[Service]
ReadWritePaths=/tmp

Isn't this more of a self-inflicted Plasma problem rather than a systemd problem? I would assume it's a systemd issue if you recently updated it and then Plasma borked. From the way you phrased it, it sounds like the Plasma team, yet again, decided to introduce another fucking regression that never existed before... let alone in Plasma 5/4/3 etc

 

[Betonhaus]

Seems like accountservices got Poettered in the newest update that was shat out yesterday. Whatever they did made it stricter so now you cant edit your user avatar on Plasma because of some permissions hell. Whenever I tried to do it via the GUI in SystemSettings or in the terminal I got this error:

org.freedesktop.Accounts.Error.Failed:
creating temporary icon file failed: Read-only file system

At first I thought my bullshitting around the system had messed up permissions of my folders, but nope. After some A/B testing I concluded it's a systemd issue. Something with the ProtectSystem being set to strict along with an issue with how Plasma passes along the avatar images using tmp, idk. I was only able to fix it by adding the /tmp directory explicitly with sudo systemctl edit accounts-daemon.service :

[Service]
ReadWritePaths=/tmp

I might be wrong, but isn’t any app with the org.freedesktop.*.* nomenclature a flatpak?

 

[Akerman]

Isn't this more of a self-inflicted Plasma problem rather than a systemd problem? I would assume it's a systemd issue if you recently updated it and then Plasma borked. From the way you phrased it, it sounds like the Plasma team, yet again, decided to introduce another fucking regression that never existed before... let alone in Plasma 5/4/3 etc

AFAIK Plasma hasn't changed how they do this. It first stages an icon file and calls the AccountsService DBus method which has worked fine until accountsservices updated yesterday. Plasma is only passing a caller-visible icon path to SetIconFile. The failure is in AccountsService’s own open_temporary_icon_file() path after it receives that file because its writable allowlist does not include /tmp.

With ProtectSystem=strict, systemd makes the filesystem hierarchy read-only except explicit writable paths; ReadWritePaths= is the intended allow-list mechanism. The unit therefore needs ReadWritePaths=/tmp, or the new icon import path fails with creating temporary icon file failed: Read-only file system.

 

[Sneed Chuckson]

Why do people like tiling window managers? I don't really get it. I usually don't want to see applications that I'm not using, so why have them take up screen real estate? There are relatively few scenarios where I'd want a screen split between several applications.

 

[Ferryman]

Why do people like tiling window managers? I don't really get it. I usually don't want to see applications that I'm not using, so why have them take up screen real estate? There are relatively few scenarios where I'd want a screen split between several applications.

Needing to quickly swap between multiple (terminal) windows + I don't like using my mouse

 

[DavidS877]

Needing to quickly swap between multiple (terminal) windows + I don't like using my mouse

Alt tab too good for you?

 

[Lard Shart]

Why do people like tiling window managers?

So they can use their right hand for dilating instead of using a mouse.

 

[Nevaeh's Song]

Why do people like tiling window managers? I don't really get it. I usually don't want to see applications that I'm not using, so why have them take up screen real estate? There are relatively few scenarios where I'd want a screen split between several applications.

The quickness, I can quickly swap between two apps by holding super and using my mouse, and easily swap to a different workspace to see all applications open on that.
People also like it for how fast you can get work done compared to a DE (althought idk if it's THAT much faster), as you don't need to use your mouse if you set everything up correctly.

Personally (and I may be completely wrong about this), I think tiling window managers allow for more personalization than mose DE's. Different WM have different ways of tiling, e.g. Hyprland is dynamic, and Niri is scrolling. There's also a lot of different shells you can use, I use noctalia (quickshell), but you can make your own with things like waybar.

 

[Combustion Engine]

Why do people like tiling window managers? I don't really get it. I usually don't want to see applications that I'm not using, so why have them take up screen real estate? There are relatively few scenarios where I'd want a screen split between several applications.

"I usually don't want to see applications that I'm not using", that's the point of workspaces. You set them up the way you want them, even automatically, and never touch them again for years, usually with each one dedicated to one specific task, which may or may not involve multiple windows. It becomes fast, predictable, and you can cut one very inefficient input method for window management, your mouse.

 

[SchizoDaemon]

Why do people like tiling window managers? I don't really get it. I usually don't want to see applications that I'm not using, so why have them take up screen real estate? There are relatively few scenarios where I'd want a screen split between several applications.

If you are a dev, you normally want to see like a terminal, code and a bunch of other things on screen at the same time. TMUX / Most IDEs / VIM can all do this out of the box, so I don't bother with them.

 

[Aidan]

People also like it for how fast you can get work done compared to a DE (althought idk if it's THAT much faster), as you don't need to use your mouse if you set everything up correctly.

Common tiling cope.
This isn't directed at you personally but window switching is an inconsequential cost when working. You don't need your mouse for "normal"/traditional desktop environments, people just don't use the existing methods to jump between windows and desktops/spaces. Even on Windows you can set things up to hop around your windows with only the keyboard and avoid the mouse. The primary difference is whether you're forced to do this or not.

Most people I've known that used tiling window managers, online or in person, did so because it's different and they like exploring something different. The real answer is "I just like it." It's one of the many useless sub-domains of "X is better" conversations that go on forever in tech communities. I don't know why people have to pretend it's for some notable efficiency gain. No one has to justify their desktop environment choices.

Needing to quickly swap between multiple (terminal) windows + I don't like using my mouse

tmux