Tag: linux

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From a report at the Daily Upside:

The entertainment tech company filed a patent application for a “reinforcement learning model for optimizing long term revenue.” Roku’s system essentially aims to get as much revenue as it can without ruining the user experience.

Roku: Let’s see how far we can take this. How does this system work?

This system monitors the “user state” — the content users are currently watching, as well as profile information such as demographics, tenure, and activeness on the platform — to “personalize user actions based on different tolerance of the advertisement.” Along with tracking this information, Roku’s tech also determines the “revenue value” associated with the user.

Roku’s patent is dishonest on one point. Its so called “users” are its products. Its actual users are its advertising partners. While I know that my approach will not work for everyone, I recommend disconnecting your “smart” TV from the internet and powering it with a privacy-friendly Linux PC. I personally have had good luck with an N100 Beelink mini PC from Amazon, but even an old laptop or something of the like will work. If you have a 4K-or-up display, I recommend going with KDE Plasma as the desktop environment for this use-case (GNOME is also a fair choice but I had more luck getting an aesthetic KDE set-up).

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According to StatCounter (via OS Technix), Linux’s desktop marketshare reached a record high of 4.45% in July 2024. I enjoy following these trends as someone who has exclusively run Linux since August 2020 and has offered some thoughts on encouraging Windows and MacOS users to switch to Linux. Let us see the full StatCounter statistics:

  • Windows (72.8%)
  • OS X (14.92%)
  • Unknown (7.14%)
  • Linux (4.45%)
  • Chrome OS (1.41%)
  • FreeBSD (0.01%)

On one hand, it us neat to see Linux staying within three percentage points of the popular Unknown OS. But there is a downside; I will have to switch to FreeBSD if Linux surpasses Unknown OS because Linux will then not be cool anymore.

(Note: My jokes aside, the OS Technix article reasonably speculates that many of the “Unknown” users may be running Linux.)

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I read on the AlternativeTo blog that Steam is planning to extend SteamOS support to the Asus ROG Ally and other Windows-based handheld gaming devices. I am not too on top of the market for current modern computer game handhelds because I do not personally have a use-case for one, although I am always happy to see how much Valve’s efforts to develop its own gaming ecosystem have benefitted Linux as a whole. Thus, I am not up to date on what Linux support is (if there is any real Linux support at all, that is) for the non-Steam Deck devices. The news update made me wonder whether Steam Deck support for these devices means that more general Linux options may soon follow.

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I have a Librebooted Lenovo Thinkpad T400. After swapping its spinning hard drive for a solid state drive (big improvement), I needed to install a new operating system. I went with the LXDE version of GNU Trisquel (in the spirit of it being a Librebooted Thinkpad T400 and all). However, when I tried to boot from my live USB, I ran into the following error:

graphics initialization failled
Error setting up gfxboot
boot:

I vaguely recalled having run into this problem before (maybe even on the T400), but I did not remember the solution. I performed a quick search and found a proposed solution posted by user utapyngo on February 8, 2014, on the Ask Ubuntu forum: “Just type help and press Enter. It will continue to boot normally.”

The solution looked vaguely familiar. I tried it and it worked without a hitch. I was able to boot from the live USB and install Trisquel from the live session. Talk about an evergreen 10-year old fix.

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A friend told me about the likely ill-founded rumor that Microsoft is preparing to make a serious offer to buy Valve. As I suspected, it does not look like it is happening. One might think in light of the fact that I use Linux instead of Windows, have general criticisms of and personal grievances with Microsoft, and qualified praise for Valve’s Steam, that I would be relieved. Not so! Microsoft buying Valve would make some things much more convenient. For example, I use OBS to record gameplay. If Microsoft owns Valve, I could count on them to do it for me. I also trust that Microsoft would take steps to take the guesswork out of which Steam games are DRM-free. Where do I sign up? (I hope readers see that this is a joke.)

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Steam On Linux Falls Short Of 2% For January, AMD CPU Adoption On Linux Hits 70.5% by Michael Larabel (phoronix.com)
The Steam on Linux marketshare per Valve's official survey put it at 1.97% for December after hitting 1.91% in November -- continuing a slow upward trajectory seen in recent months thanks to the ongoing success of the Linux-powered SteamOS / Steam Deck ... In turn the CPU results for AMD continue to climb for Steam on Linux use in part due to the Steam Deck. AMD CPUs power 70.5% of Linux gaming systems on Steam.

From Phoronix:

“The Steam on Linux marketshare per Valve’s official survey put it at 1.97% for December after hitting 1.91% in November — continuing a slow upward trajectory seen in recent months thanks to the ongoing success of the Linux-powered SteamOS / Steam Deck … In turn the CPU results for AMD continue to climb for Steam on Linux use in part due to the Steam Deck. AMD CPUs power 70.5% of Linux gaming systems on Steam.”

I did my part to contribute to the positive Linux and Linux-AMD trends. My workstation has an AMD CPU. However, my mini TV-designated PC and laptop, both of which have Steam (although I never really run Steam on them), run Linux with Intel CPUs.

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I use Xfce as the desktop environment on my workstation. I have read some complaints that Xfce is dated compared to GNOME, KDE Plasma, and other newer and shinier desktop environments, but I disagree. Xfce looks slick with a good theme (the Linux distribution I use, EndeavourOS, comes with a nice Xfce spin out of the box). But even if you think Xfce old and best used with an AmigaOS or Windows 95 theme, there is something to be said for heritage. I learned recently that Xfce traces its origins to the Roman Empire from a report in Atlas Obscura titled For Sale: A Mouse-Infested Roman Helmet That’s Stumping Historians. The subject of the report is a decorative Roman helmet that has two mice on the back. Historians are stumped, but I immediately recognized that the mice look very much like the Xfce logo. Switch to Xfce and use the desktop environment endorsed by Emperor Antoninus Pius. While the helmet sold for $1.2 million, Xfce is 100% free as in free coffee and open source.

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I opened Steam because I am purchasing at least one visual novel while it is on sale. Steam prompted me to ask whether I wanted to participate in the Steam hardware survey. I said yes. I did my part to represent EndeavourOS. But what about my specs?

  • OS: EndeavourOS
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core processor (3.60 GH)
  • RAM: 32 GB
  • Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER
  • VRAM: 4 GB

I built my computer in 2020 and decided to go for a budget video card, but I have not had any issues since I have not done anything to tax it. My computer originally had 16 GB of RAM but I upgraded to 32 in 2021.

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An article in Ars Technica reported that Systemd Linux distributions (which describes most distributions these days) will receive a much-desired updated from Windows: The Blue Screen of Death. From the article:

Today, version 255 of the Linux systemd project honors that original intent by adding a systemd-bsod component that generates a full-screen display of some error messages when a Linux system crashes.

All Blue Screen of Death jokes aside, this seems like a good change to me. While my Linux proficiency has come a long way since I first switched over from Windows in August 2020, I have fortunately not had too many reasons to master finding and parsing error logs. My few crashes have usually had to do with Nvidia graphics drivers after an update (and those cases have been rare). Having a friendly Blue Screen of Death to describe an error in the event my computer crashes would be welcome.

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Hemispheric Views - App Defaults by Robb Knight (defaults.rknight.me)
Hemispheric Views - App Defaults

I was inspired to create an article listing my default apps by a project to collect default app posts on Hemispheric Views. I wrote my default apps article and then made a pull request to have the article included in the Hemispheric Views project. The curator merged my pull request within two hours. I am glad to be included and recommend reading some more of the 266 (as of this posting) articles included to find some interesting new “default app” ideas for your own use (my list is focused on Linux and Android since I run Linux on all of my computers and LineageOS on my phones and tablets). If you have a blog or website, I encourage you to consider writing and submitting your own App Defaults post.

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I use a low-end Beelink mini-PC as a TV box (this will be a New Leaf Journal article eventually). I run Fedora on the mini PC and switch between GNOME and Kodi sessions depending on what I am doing. Yesterday, I upgraded from Fedora 39 to Fedora 40. The upgrade went smoothly. Everything appeared to be good until I tried to start a Kodi session only to have Kodi crash after its logo appeared. What happened? I think it was a segfault (I love segfaults). How did I fix it? I could have read through the logs and tried to diagnose the issue, but I instead chose the path of less resistance. I uninstalled the Fedora Kodi package and installed the official Kodi Flatpak from Flathub (note not the Kodi Flatpak from Fedora’s Flatpak repo). I then reinstalled my small number of plugins (including MrKarabat’s unofficial Crunchyroll plugin) and was off to the races.