No Stupid Questions superkret • 1y ago • 97%

Why is my printer ticking? [solved]

Ever since I hooked my printer up to the Ethernet (over a patch panel), it makes a ticking sound exactly every three seconds. Before, it was connected via Ethernet cable to a Raspberry Pi that served as WiFi adapter, and that setup didn't tick. Update: The ticking stopped after deactivating DHCP. It's a Kyocera Ecosys M5526cdn.

Outer Wilds superkret • 1y ago • 91%

I didn't really understand the hype...

So, based on all the recommendations I read on Lemmy, I decided to dump 22€ into a game I knew absolutely nothing about (except that you explore an open world solar system, which is the type of game I love). After about 5 hours of game time, I was disappointed. Sure, it's a nice fantasy world and all, but I wasn't invested and getting frustrated cause I just kept dying in random places I tried to check out. Holy shit, that changed. I now want to know EVERYTHING about this world. No idea how the devs did this, but it feels like you're playing through the story exactly as it was meant to be played, no matter where you go first.

DeGoogle Yourself superkret • 1y ago • 100%

Recommendations for translation? [Solved]

Before degoogling I was able to have a (slow) conversation with people I don't share a language with. I could speak into my phone and it could give out speech in their language. Is there any chance to set this up without using Google apps or MicroG? I do have RHVoice installed but don't know how to proceed from here. Thanks for any and all advice! Edit: Thank you for the suggestions! A combination of Deepl and the OpenAI Whisper Keyboard works for me.

DeGoogle Yourself superkret • 1y ago • 95%

Experiences with degoogling a "normal" Android phone

This list is for people (like me) who want to degoogle but can't or don't want to buy a new phone that is supported by a custom ROM, can't or don't want to root the phone they have, and can't or don't want to use Android Debug Bridge. So this is about degoogling with built-in settings only. I've struggled with this for the past few days and found solutions for all my issues on a Gigaset GX290, for which no custom ROM or root method seems to be available. I wouldn't call it a guide, but maybe it helps someone. So here's what I did: - Install F-Droid directly from https://f-droid.org - Install Aurora Store from within F-Droid (it still works fine despite warning you that the built-in anonymous account is rate-limited) - Install alternatives for your Google apps from F-Droid. This is where you will have to do some research - Simple Mobile Tools are a great suite of apps for your launcher, dialler, sms app, camera, contacts, calendar, notes, sound recorder, file manager, notes, clock, ... - Anysoft Keyboard offers swipe typing and multiple languages, which I can't live without. Sadly, it hasn't been updated in 2 years. OpenBoard is an alternative with a lot of options, Simple Keyboard is literally just keys with no autocorrect - Organic maps is a great map app that loads a lot faster than OSMand - Replace all apps that rely on Google Play Services, which is most non-free apps that get push messages - A lot of apps I used are basically just web sites. I replaced those by opening the corresponding web page in Fennec (ungoogled and free Firefox fork), clicking on the three-dots-menu and then on "add to home screen" - Removed my Google account from the phone and deleted it (be sure to download all data you want to keep first) - Go to settings -> apps and deactivate all Google apps that can be deactivated (which on a modern android is all non-system Google apps including Google Play Services). Deactivating means they aren't launched at any time and just sit on your phone's storage unused (I've tested this) - Click on "show system apps". There may be some more Google apps here. - For apps I couldn't disable because the button is greyed out, I removed all their permissions - Installed NetGuard. Used it to block internet access for all Google apps (including system apps) I couldn't deactivate. Or go one step further and block all apps except for the ones you use, but I haven't personally tested this (Edit: Just tested it, all my apps, phone, SMS, WiFi still work) - Now, the issues that showed up for me were mostly related to Google Play Services. Because they handle text-to-speech, location service and push messages for the whole system. But they are also the most intrusive Google app, with complete control over the entire phone - My banking apps complained that they need them, I thought that navigation won't work without them and that I wouldn't receive push messages from my messaging apps - It turned out, Whatsapp, Signal, Threema and Telegram all work fine without Google Play Services. **The trick is that you first need to disable Play Services, then reinstall the messaging apps (be sure to backup the message history first). If the apps can't find Play Services during the installation, they will warn you, then set themselves up to always run in the background so they can still receive push messages** - Same thing with Organic Maps, it can find your location just fine with Android's built in location service. Spoken directions don't work. There is a way to install speech with OSMand, but it's really not good and OSMand is too slow for me. I can navigate without it - Finally when I opened my banking apps (from DKB) they only showed a message that tells me to activate Play Services, but if I then just clicked the back button, they worked fine without them. Your mileage may vary, but these steps have worked for me on every phone I've bought so far.

Arch Linux superkret • 1y ago • 95%

Update often or not?

Do you update your Arch often (daily) or not? Which would be better? I figure, if I update every day, I'll likely not expect any issues, so I'd be less careful. And if something goes wrong (cause I didn't read the news or the PKGBUILDs), I probably won't have time to fix it right now. Whereas if I update monthly, it's something I'm taking my time to do, read the news beforehand, pay more attention and will have scheduled some time for it. What's your take?

DeGoogle Yourself superkret • 1y ago • 100%

I've degoogled my unrooted phone as much as possible. How useful is this?

So my problem is that I don't have money for a new phone and I also need my banking app. Rooting is not possible. Steps I've taken: -removed and deleted my Google account -disabled all default Android apps and all Google apps except for Play Services (needed for location service and the banking app) -denied all permissions for Play Services except location and movement sensors (can't be denied), phone and sms (needed for the banking app) I figure Google can still track my phone and use its location for traffic analysis, etc. but has no way of targeting me with ads (their main business) or connect my phone to my identity (no access to my contacts, call logs, keyboard, calendar, mail, etc.). I hope it turns me into a nameless device ID. Does this help at all? Is there anything else I can do?

Linux superkret • 1y ago • 100%

How do immutable distros work?

I'm really interested in trying out an immutable distro like Fedora Silverblue. And I get the concept that the base system is read only and you install software through flatpaks. But how does this work in practice? If I change a config file in /etc, will the changes survive a reboot? How can I see or decide which parts of the system are immutable and which are not? Can I install packages that aren't available as flatpaks, like more obscure stuff or command line tools? What about ppd files for printing, firmware, drivers, fonts, icon packs, etc.? Where and how do those get installed? Also, is it possible to replace or remove packages that are within the immutable part of the system?

Arch Linux superkret • 1y ago • 100%

Hardware graphics acceleration works out of the box and I don't understand why.

*tl/dr: Because of what I read in the wiki, I tried to manually set up graphics drivers to get hardware acceleration, failed, and realized after a reinstall that it works out of the box.* This doesn't sound like a problem and it isn't. But I just spent the better part of a day trying to get jitter-free video to work in Firefox and failed. Because of these entries in the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#Driver_installation >The Linux kernel includes open-source video drivers and support for hardware accelerated framebuffers. However, **userland support is required for OpenGL and 2D acceleration in X11**. >**In order for video acceleration to work**, and often to expose all the modes that the GPU can set, a **proper video driver is required** >For Intel graphics on 4th generation and above, see Intel graphics#Installation for available drivers. So I headed over to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Intel_graphics#Installation and started installing driver packages, VAAPI tools, etc... I'm sure I must have done something wrong here, cause I still couldn't get jitter-free video in Firefox. And then I started doing stuff I found with google searches. And reinstalled twice and went through the entire process again... In the end, I could verify that hardware acceleration actually worked on my system and was used by Firefox. But video playback was still incredibly choppy. I checked that my internet speed isn't the problem, it was definitely something related to video decoding, since every time it jittered, CPU usage spiked. I was about ready to give up and try it on Ubuntu, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I tried one last time, reinstalled Arch and just started the video streaming site without doing anything at all to set up graphics (except enabling Wayland for Firefox). And the video runs fine! Hardware-acceleration in Firefox works, too. And I'm stumped as to why, cause my understanding from the wiki articles was that you need to set it up first. Any ideas what I did or read wrong in the beginning? Is it because I'm not using Xorg for Firefox? Or because this is only necessary with a dedicated GPU?

Arch Linux superkret • 1y ago • 97%

Arch installation did exactly what I told it to do, which was pretty stupid. [Edit: Solved]

So this is completely on me: >I installed Arch >I installed the plasma desktop without any additional programs >I installed sddm and told it to launch plasma desktop >I rebooted And it did what I told it to do perfectly: >I'm now within plasma desktop. >I have no terminal emulator installed, so no way of accessing a command line from within the GUI. >Whenever I reboot, I get put back into plasma desktop. >I tried to switch to a different tty with Ctrl+Alt+F-keys but that key combo seems to be used for additional desktop sessions instead (shows me the sddm login again). >I tried creating a shell script that launches pacman and installs a terminal, but I can't, since I don't have a text editor installed. Help! [Edit: Solved. I was able to go to a different tty after disabling function keys]