Let’s continue our marvelous trip into GUI Wonderland, where we’ll learn 80s computing alongside our trusty Apple Lisa, the first personal computer with a GUI!

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Let’s have a look at the very first commercial computer with a graphical user interface, called Xerox Star, which was the successor of the Xerox Alto! What did its marvelous GUI look like? Was it ground-breaking and easy to use as we’d expect? Or, perhaps, was it too ahead of its time? Well then, let’s find out!

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Can you imagine a time before the Graphical User Interface, when you could only operate a computer with abstract-looking text instead of using simple menus, and it was unheard of to use the oh-so-common mouse? A time when computers were harder to learn, and even harder to master? Well then, join us on our splendid trip where we’ll discover one of the very first GUIs in a personal computer, found on the Xerox Alto!

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A trip down memory lane... QNX, a realtime microkernel surrounded by a collection of optional processes that provide POSIX- and UNIX-compatible system services.

I've seen a couple conversations about older or more esoteric operating systems, so I thought I'd make a post about 86Box and why I like the project.

86Box (a fork of PCem) is a low-level emulator for a wide variety of hardware from old PCs. Unlike most modern emulators which prioritize speed, it prioritizes accuracy of hardware emulation. This means it has all the quirks and features (and bios screens) you'd expect in old hardware.

It can emulate a variety of systems from the first IBM PC up to the Pentium era. It has a surprisingly large variety of motherboards, storage controllers, disk drive models, network cards, graphics cards, etc.

To test it out, I set up something close to my first PC:

• 486 DX2 66
• ASUS PVI-486SP3C Motherboard
• S3 Trio64V+
• 234MB 4500RPM HDD
• Novell NE2000 ISA network card

I set it up with Dos 6.22, Windows 3.1, network drivers, mTCP, winpacket, trumpet winsock, and I'm on the internet in both dos and windows.

While something very similar could be accomplished with dosbox, virtualbox or qemu, I enjoyed the experience of using the 'actual' hardware. I also imagine it will support old quirky software more reliably than the alternatives.

I think a Windows 9x system with a 3dfx Voodoo card will be my next build.

So, Anyone else used 86Box or a similar emulator? What for? How did it go?

highlights:

• windows copilot is now rolling out & replaces microsoft teams in the taskbar
• settings has a new homepage
• libarchive is in file explorer
• the fluent volume mixer (introduced in canary a while back) is now in dev

For a long time I've been using Windows only on my private computer even though I might've wanted to use Windows.

One big part of that is that I have it set up next to my work computer when I'm working from home so I can do private stuff on it while working. Talking to people on Signal, Matrix, browsing Beehaw and so on. My work computer is pretty locked down and snooped on. I'm allowed do to stuff like that on it but it feels iffy.

Until recently I've used Mouse Without Worders to share the same mouse and keyboard between the two and it's worked like a charm.

I just never got around to checking for a solution that would work cross OS until today.

I've tried Logitech's solution once but couldn't get it to work due to firewalls and other stuff going on on my work computer but.. Barrier!

That just worked! I set up my private computer as the server and my work computer as the client and now I'm switching betwern the two machines without a glitch! :)

It did complain a bout a missing SSL cert at first but this solved that issue:

>Copy the path to SSL directory which you can find in your error. "ERROR: ssl certificate doesn't exist: /home/rsvay/snap/barrier-kvm/2/.local/share/barrier/SSL/Barrier.pem " In this case : "/home/rsvay/snap/barrier-kvm/2/.local/share/barrier/SSL/" Then run the following commands:

cd "path to your SSL" mkdir -p Fingerprints openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -subj /CN=barrier -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout Barrier.pem -out Barrier.pem openssl x509 -fingerprint -sha256 -noout -in Barrier.pem > Fingerprints/Local.txt sed -e "s/.*=/v2:sha256:/" -i Fingerprints/Local.txt

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67343804/error-ssl-certificate-doesnt-exist-home-rsvay-snap-barrier-kvm-2-local-shar

An interesting comparison and discussion https://yewtu.be/watch?v=f2e4FNMzyto

It has been almost two years since the last ReactOS newsletter. Despite no new releases, the project is still active. Much work has been done on different parts of the operating system, from improvements on the 64-bit port to protections against registry corruption.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/812992

> Rosenzweig, known for her Panfrost and Apple M1/M2 GPU driver work is now contracted by Valve to work on graphics driver development! Sounds like great news for Valve's push for Linux gaming.

I'm currently on Win11 but I'm getting that familiar Linux itch and want to dual boot a while again. I tend to gravitate towards Ubuntu simply because it's so big and well supported by most things.

I've run Arch in the past but I've gotten too old and lazy for that if I'd be completely honest. I have played with manjaro and endeavour though.. and opensuse tumbleweed, rolling is kind of nice.

Not sure what I'd try out first this time so I figured I'd get some inspiration from you guys!

Red Hat announced yesterday that the sources for RHEL will no longer be accessible from git.centos.org. This effectively locks their source changes behind a subscription to RHEL, that costs money.

Not sure if this one is already common knowledge, but I thought I'd share an interesting tool I recently discovered. Vagrant is a CLI wrapper for various virtualization providers (VirtualBox, libvirt, etc), that allows you to spin up and tear down VMs based on predefined "boxes" (sort of analogous to Docker images). Saves a ton of time running OS installers from isos. Seems really good for use cases where VM longevity isn't really a factor. I'll be using it to experiment/break things while studying for certs.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/593606

> A new video from Nick at The Linux Experiment. I'm also sharing the PeerTube version for the sake of trying to expand my use of PeerTube and try to expand my video platform use beyond just YouTube.

• Debian 12
• AirPods Pro (2nd generation)

I have audio in KDE, but not in Gnome, so I'm convinced there's something about the DE.

In Gnome's output configuration I see these options:

• High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)
• High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink, codec SBC-XQ)
• High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink, codec SBC)
• Handsfree head unit

I can't select the first option (defaults to whatever I had selected before). BUT, if I have a video playing and switch between the options I get audio for ~0.1 seconds.

The Handsfree head unit options has sound, but very poor quality.

In KDE I just have the "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)" option.

If I had to take a guess, then "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)" should work in Gnome, but it's not selecting for some reason.

ArcaOS, KolibriOS, AROS, FreeDOS, Plan 9, TempleOS, or even just an older version of Windows or Linux.

What's your use case? How's your experience?

Any suggestions on the best all-rounder OS? Is Raspberry Pi OS still the better option?

Its been so long since I ran this. Pi4, 8gb for reference.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/509450

> Due to some damaged hardware, it's about time for me to get a new phone. For my next device, I'm looking to use use LineageOS > > Does anyone have suggestions for a used device with good LineageOS support? I'm looking for something decent but not too expensive with good compatibility. Any other tips for a new user?

I use Windows for my desktop PC but I'm also a fan of Linux for work and programming.

I'm not really liking the direction windows is taking so it would be nice to explore some other alternatives. I mostly use my desktop for gaming, so I'm interested in how people are gaming on Linux

Hi Guys I create a new community related to Windows 10. feel free to join https://lemmy.world/c/windows10

Ive tried linux before mainly manjaro and endevouros and recently mint i havent really stuck to them however and gone back to windows but im willing to give linux another shot

I have the dev betas on my devices because I live life on the edge.

I'm really surprised at how focused they've been on UX improvements. So many minor things that had been bothering me for ages have been tweaked or fixed.

Have you tried the betas? Thoughts?

I've been thinking about trying NixOS for a while. I think the concepts are elegant, and I have been finding Nix flakes to be very nice for software development. I'm about to get a new machine so I'm ready to take the plunge. Any advice before I dive in?

I'd like to set up Gnome with some extensions. One of the things I especially want to learn is how to set up graphics drivers, Vulkan, and Lutris.

For anyone who hasn't heard of it, Nix is a "declarative" package manager. Each package is stored with a hash that encodes its exact source, build script, dependencies, etc. You can have packages installed with mutually-incompatible library dependencies, and Nix makes it just work. For purposes of setting up per-project dependencies Nix does what Docker does, but faster, with more cache hits, and without emulation / containerization. If you want to deploy Docker images, Nix can build images that are more efficient than what you get from dockerfiles.

You can use Nix as an additional package layer in Linux, MacOS, or Windows with WSL. Think of it as an alternative to Homebrew.

NixOS is a Linux distro that uses Nix as its primary package manager, and uses Nix principles to manage configuration. Instead of running commands to install things, and then later forgetting what you installed or why, packages are listed in config files. The system installs and links packages as necessary. Anything you remove from your config is unlinked. When you want to reclaim space you can garbage-collect unused packages.

With the advances in gaming on Linux in recent years, it is so tempting to switch full time. I would absolutely love to, but I am a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber and it is where I play a lot of my games on PC. I know you can use the cloud version, but I cannot stomach streaming games in their current state, so it is a no go. A large portion of my Steam library is compatible, but anytime I have done an install I end up giving in and going back to Windows for games.

Hi folks!

I was using PopOS regularly a few years ago, and it was working great. Good performance, and I was actually noticing a lot of my gaming was running smoother too. I ended up going back to Windows because I could not play VALORANT, Destiny, or HUNT: Showdown on the platform. While I don't play VALORANT anymore, I don't think that the other games have support on Linux either.

The other reason was Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and DaVinci Resolve. I need to do some video editing, and general live streaming too, and I never really dabbled with that on Linux.

I guess my question is for those who game / content create - has Linux been viable for you? Or do you often find yourself dual booting anyway to get the latest updates, driver support, anti-cheat support, plugins etc.

It's very simple, and just works out of the gate well. It's ubuntu without the spyware. I'm sure there are many other distros similar, what linux distro do you like?

I am very proud of my brother in this endeavor.