unix like operating system lovers

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This is a community that is only for nerds jk. everyone who doesn't scare when seeing UNIX terminal welcome! rules:

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retro operating systems, e.g. discussion about them, is strictly forbidden, please make a retro community instead.
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I have no idea what I'm doing, help! (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by tempestuousknave@sh.itjust.works to c/unix@sh.itjust.works

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Every other forum has rules about these posts because there's such a glut of them, and yes, I could go read a stickied thread elsewhere, but here I am not doing that.

How would someone with no computer skills get acquainted with the OS? What version would you recommend to the hopeless novice? Can I keep windows on my PC and run the new OS or a practice version of it in a partitioned space while I learn? Can someone with minimal skills/time/patience be happy with a unix-like OS?

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[–] Shit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I feel like your just not using the proprietary drivers on amd it matters less but I hear the free Nvidia ones are not the best. See if your friend can help you install them or if you go it alone take a backup so you can restore it if you need without getting your hands dirty with the commandline.

https://help.zorin.com/docs/hardware/activate-nvidia-drivers/ https://help.zorin.com/docs/hardware/activate-amd-radeon-drivers/

It looks like the zorin process for doing it is pretty straightforward. I get better performance on my amd system using the propitiatory drivers than on Windows. Desktop Linux has moved forward pretty quickly.

[–] tempestuousknave@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately the friend is virtual, and I feel like we're not nearly close enough for me to ask them (an IT professional) to remote into my pc. Not that I'm concerned, but I don't like asking people to work on their off hours.

Take a backup? That involves a state of mind where needing a backup is a possibility.

3hrs later--Google search: how to back up Zorin, putting toothpaste in tubes. I mean they've done it once, how hard could it possibly be to do twice.

I did, to my minimal credit, do the modern nvidia drivers install, but the performance was pretty bad so I manually installed another driver, which looks to be the correct and latest, but now I can't install alternative nvidia drivers - attempting to do so gets an error message about being unable to delete a file that is already in the repository or some such. I'll c and v if I can't stumble through it in the hopes I don't have to reinstall, but honestly I don't have a lot of stuff to replace so few tears will be shed. Just got to figure out how to reinstall should it got that route.

Going to see if I have secure boot on, maybe that's the issue.

Thanks for the advice!

[–] Shit@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

😊 for the most part you can just use the tar command to back stuff up in the most half-assed way.

For example: sudo tar cvzf /tmp/backup.tgz /home/

Or change /home/ to whatever directory has stuff you care about.

Then plug in a USB drive and copy /tmp/backup.tgz with the gui and it should contain your user data if you need it. It's pretty much like making a zip file for a backup...

Then this to delete the backup file: sudo rm /tmp/backup.tgz

tar xvf ./backup.tgz to extract it or just use the gui.

My friends have asked me to do basic Linux stuff for them in my off hours and I generally oblige, if it seems quick and I know they are not going to call me having a meltdown in a few weeks if something unrelated breaks. Especially since it sounds like you already put in quite a bit of legwork trying on your own.

I wish I could help more but I've gone out of my way to not use Nvidia or Intel products for over a decade. So I have no idea. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I think that the Nvidia webpage has like a .run file you can use to install them but that might just make things worse...

Try asking here you will probably get the best answer: https://forum.zorin.com/c/hardware-support/7