I have been offering 1:1 chats on signal to anyone who wants help switching to Linux.
Asking questions in forums and social media is intimidating. I despise the snobbery that often represents this community. I just want to help people regain some control over their digital lives.
I would be interested. So far I can’t say that I have ever been helped on social media or dedicated forums when it comes to Linux. It went mostly like this:
Me: “I have problem X. How can I solve it or at least get closer to a solution?”
Answer: “Lol, you idiot, you don’t even know how to do that!”
Me: “No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. So what do I have to do? Edit a certain script? Get a certain program?”
Answer: “Grow a brain you noob!”
(Rinse and repeat)
Alternative answer, rarely: (Crickets)
I came to two conclusions because of this. First: The Linux community has the highest density of trolls of all communities. By far. Second: None of those people actually knew the answer to any of my questions, otherwise narcissism would have kicked in at least once and made someone slip a solution, just to brag with their knowledge and skills. Which means that the Linux community is also the least tech-savvy community as well. By far. So if someone actually knows something about Linux, they can’t be found in any Linux-dedicated place. At all.
Everything I learned about Linux to this day is based on trial-and-error. But I don’t have the time anymore to do that and it’s in general too time-consuming to reinstall distros over and over again because I went too far when trying something new. Currently I’m using Mint to browse the internet or do office tasks. But I would like to do more, like running certain Windows programs like DAWs with low latency. Or raising the polling rate of USB mice above 10 Hz (as in ten - that’s not a typo). Fortunately, copying or moving more than 1 GB to or from USB sticks without crashing the entire machine (no matter if NTFS or ExFAT) was solved last year, probably because of a kernel update. Well, it’s a work-in-progress-project, I know that Linux is more of a beta version of an OS and it’s free, I’m not complaining about such issues. I’m experimenting, having a look what can be done.
I’m okay with things actually not being possible. I would never complain about ReactOS not running modern Windows programs either. But I’m tired of Linux trolls claiming all kinds of stuff without ever providing any description, tutorial or evidence. And I’m tired of them insulting me because I don’t know something they obviously don’t know either. It’s ridiculous. So yeah, I’m still interested in talking to a single person who might actually know something and who is not part of “that Linux community”.
Or raising the polling rate of USB mice above 10 Hz (as in ten - that’s not a typo).
I don’t know the answer, but I’m interested, what do you use that for?
Fortunately, copying or moving more than 1 GB to or from USB sticks without crashing the entire machine (no matter if NTFS or ExFAT) was solved last year, probably because of a kernel update.
I believe it has a lot to do with the default amount of dirty memory. dirty memory is mostly the write cache, which is unnecessary to have a lot of, as that does not improve anything after a certain point, but at best it can mislead you to believe that a copy opetation started with 200 MB/s and that it finished when it actually did not yet.
you can fix these limits with sysctl files. they are loaded on boot on typical systemd systems. suggestions are in the manjaro post, relevant for any desktop linux system.
maybe it’s worth to set these up even if you are good for now. It’s good to hear a kernel change could have fixed it though. maybe they have finally revised the defaults, they wanted to do that for a few years now…
I have been offering 1:1 chats on signal to anyone who wants help switching to Linux.
Asking questions in forums and social media is intimidating. I despise the snobbery that often represents this community. I just want to help people regain some control over their digital lives.
I would be interested. So far I can’t say that I have ever been helped on social media or dedicated forums when it comes to Linux. It went mostly like this:
Me: “I have problem X. How can I solve it or at least get closer to a solution?”
Answer: “Lol, you idiot, you don’t even know how to do that!”
Me: “No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. So what do I have to do? Edit a certain script? Get a certain program?”
Answer: “Grow a brain you noob!”
(Rinse and repeat)
Alternative answer, rarely: (Crickets)
I came to two conclusions because of this. First: The Linux community has the highest density of trolls of all communities. By far. Second: None of those people actually knew the answer to any of my questions, otherwise narcissism would have kicked in at least once and made someone slip a solution, just to brag with their knowledge and skills. Which means that the Linux community is also the least tech-savvy community as well. By far. So if someone actually knows something about Linux, they can’t be found in any Linux-dedicated place. At all.
Everything I learned about Linux to this day is based on trial-and-error. But I don’t have the time anymore to do that and it’s in general too time-consuming to reinstall distros over and over again because I went too far when trying something new. Currently I’m using Mint to browse the internet or do office tasks. But I would like to do more, like running certain Windows programs like DAWs with low latency. Or raising the polling rate of USB mice above 10 Hz (as in ten - that’s not a typo). Fortunately, copying or moving more than 1 GB to or from USB sticks without crashing the entire machine (no matter if NTFS or ExFAT) was solved last year, probably because of a kernel update. Well, it’s a work-in-progress-project, I know that Linux is more of a beta version of an OS and it’s free, I’m not complaining about such issues. I’m experimenting, having a look what can be done.
I’m okay with things actually not being possible. I would never complain about ReactOS not running modern Windows programs either. But I’m tired of Linux trolls claiming all kinds of stuff without ever providing any description, tutorial or evidence. And I’m tired of them insulting me because I don’t know something they obviously don’t know either. It’s ridiculous. So yeah, I’m still interested in talking to a single person who might actually know something and who is not part of “that Linux community”.
I don’t know the answer, but I’m interested, what do you use that for?
I believe it has a lot to do with the default amount of dirty memory. dirty memory is mostly the write cache, which is unnecessary to have a lot of, as that does not improve anything after a certain point, but at best it can mislead you to believe that a copy opetation started with 200 MB/s and that it finished when it actually did not yet.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220828115647/https://archived.forum.manjaro.org/t/decrease-dirty-bytes-for-more-reliable-usb-transfer/62513
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.html
you can fix these limits with sysctl files. they are loaded on boot on typical systemd systems. suggestions are in the manjaro post, relevant for any desktop linux system.
maybe it’s worth to set these up even if you are good for now. It’s good to hear a kernel change could have fixed it though. maybe they have finally revised the defaults, they wanted to do that for a few years now…
Sent you a DM, Interested to hear more about these problems!
Man you are doing <insert deity>'s work there