Aka geek stuff your “normal” friends wouldn’t understand. I figured we could make this an ongoing thread for stuff like this. How we waste our own time changing configurations for whatever reason we dream up mostly just to spend time on computer.
I’m backing up my Windows 11 VM and a bunch of app’s config data from my Kubuntu install. It’s agonizingly slow. In hindsight, I should’ve used my external SSD instead of a thumb drive the write speeds are just ridiculous.
I’ll likely be using Windows a little more for Parsec. I want to give it a little more hard drive space than the anemic 100GB I originally set it up with mostly so I can install WSL plus a bunch of (Windows native) FOSS apps I regularly but still have breathing room.
I’m only working with 512GB on the laptop. Since my partition scheme isn’t the most sane as I didn’t plan on needing to resize, My plan is:
Boot into my Windows 11 ISO with Ventoy and launch the recovery environment to restore the Windows MBR.
Reboot into Windows and use its partition editor to nuke my Kubuntu partitions.
Expand Windows partition.
Reboot and reinstall Kubuntu into the remaining space.
I realize I could like avoid the Kubuntu reinstall by using Gparted Live or something like that but since my /boot/efi is sitting in a 2GB partition between Window’s 100GB NTFS partition and Kubuntu’s EXT4 partition I’m afraid of major breakage and getting stuck having to reinstall both Windows and Kubuntu. Installing and updating Windows is to painful!
Any ideas how to partition in the future so things are easier if need be? Don’t forget Windows randomly sticks a recovery partition that often throws a wrench using the disk partitions logically.
Yesterday, after a golf tournament, I patched some servers.
Today, I listened to an old American Top 40 countdown while mowing lawn. Quite often that’s a podcast rather than music, like Linux Unplugged. Then I scripted some log analysis to see what was popular on a website.
Now, watching some volleyball on TV while surfing It’s Foss.
Leave some space between Win and your EFI partition
With gparted you should be abke to shrink Kubuntu partition, move the EFI partition , then expand Win.
I rarely use desktop during the day … use Android tablet, which I use like a laptop. My desktop exercise after tea at night is mostly my current project …, at moment current project is trying to understand lmm algorithms.
I do have phases of reconfiguring my setup, updates, and backups.
I don’t use Windows, but ran across the info that the activation key is stored on the motherboard (MB). I brought my last desktop off e-bay with no OS installed some time ago.
I install Mint as my daily OS and MX as a guest OS onto the desktop. So I wonder,
is the Win key on my desktop. I search and found a Linux command to show if there was one and lo and behold there was one.
So even tho I don’t use Win, I wasted my time moving some stuff around and installed Win 11 to see if it would activate And yes, it did.
Back in January i bought the pc i have now it came with windows 11 home pre installed and the windows key is on the motherboard and before i went with Linux i wanted to install windows 11 pro but could not since the win11 home all ready is in my motherboard it chooses that. but to my my lovely surprise i found Linux and all of you in this great forum
I am just about to install a sound system for an out door market in our village, last time for this season. I have tried desperately to teach others how it works where to connect what and why. But failed totally, they are just not interested or think its hard work. Once done I have a couple of german who are on holiday why cannot share the phone connection from their mobile to the android device. Plus its all in german language. But they communicate with me in french.
Good idea. I wound up using regular Ubuntu’s live environment to nuke Windows recovery partition and the existing Kubuntu partitions. Like any good nerd I have keychain thumb drive with Ventoy all multiple ISOs to boot from — I don’t need the recovery partition. All is worked out well, Windows has 75 GB left over after installing Ubuntu and Fedora under WSL.
How do you deal with using your tablet as a laptop? I struggle so much with typing ridiculously slow on the touch screen. It annoys me to no end. My regular iPad is really a consumption device. Libby (free ebooks via my local library), Facebook, Reddit, etc.
Even on my iPad Pro with the full keyboard, which I’d never actually pay for a client sent it to me as a gift, for apparently exceeding expectations, I have a hard time multitasking. I’m replying from it right now but as soon I try to multi-task I get annoyed with the small screen.
I guessing using real computers first spoils you so to speak. A lot of people today are tablet/phone online which boggles my mind.
I’ve just finished a long day of debugging and fixing software problems for work, and will now unwind with a relaxing evening of debugging and fixing software problems for my vanity projects at home
I debugged my son’s guitar amp’s tone stack. It’s a mess.. my fault because I build it It’s a 12ax7+6K6 tube SE amp. Now that I still am puzzled why it doesn’t work right I gave up for tonight. Instead decided to update my Pinebook Pro which has been powered on last time 11 Jun.
I do itsFOSS and browsing and email during the day.
Not a lot of typing and no multitasking. It is an 11 in tablet . Faster startup than a laptop.
I would not dream of using a phone … way too small .
Not that I use it very often - but - I always forget that bit of CLI - so I keep it in a shell script :
╭─x@mimas ~
╰─➤ cat ~/bin/get-win-shit-info.bash
#!/bin/bash
# query bios/uefi for MS Windows license info :
sudo strings /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM
Per the proviso : “Note: not all MB stores the key.” - if you bought a motherboard from one shop, a CPU from another, RAM, ATX case, GPU - but assembled yourself - you don’t get an OEM windows key… i.e. that CLI usually only works on laptops - and maybe some desktops (like my Dell Optiplex SFF) from big vendors with OEM agreements with Microsoft, like Dell, HP, Lenovo etc…
And I’m fairly sure (I could be wrong) if you bought a “no brand” generic x86_64 PC from a computer shop, where they assemble it from component parts, and bought Windows with it - it probably won’t have an OEM windows key in the firmware either…
I bought my own key and it can be found like this “Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter.Click Yes if a prompt appears asking to allow changes.Navigate to this path in the left panel:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatformLook for the entry named BackupProductKeyDefault on the right side.”
But to find the real key I use the "Magical Jellybean Keyfinder!!
He plays drums in few student bands. He’s still young. They all are doom/death metal kind of bands. Very Finnish kind of underground stuff I’m trying to build him a 1W combo which has a lot of tube distortion on low levels, home use for his guitar. I just hate wiring the tone stack!
It’s a 12ax7+6K6 tube SE amp. Now that I still am puzzled why it doesn’t work right I gave up for tonight. Instead decided to update my Pinebook Pro which has been powered on last time 11 Jun.
I’m trying to build him a 1W combo which has a lot of tube distortion on low levels, home use for his guitar. I just hate wiring the tone stack!