lattrommi

Do you want online or offline? Both? Need online for somethings but not all? The answers however, will only unlock more quests… Oops, I mean they will lead to more questions. Do you want to self host everything or do you need to use cloud storage? Would cloud storage be for sync and back up data for yourself, or will other people need access?

What I’m asking, to put it a different way, is what are you world building for? a novel you are writing? a campaign setting for a tabletop role playing game? Are you making a MMORPG, with its own in-game wikipedia with a group of friends or alone? Trick question, you can’t do the last one alone. it would have to be called a ORPG)

Offline, with just you making the world, Zim. The interface is fairly customizable, although might seen tricky at first if you are unfamiliar with GTK and Gnome or programming in general. However, I have no usable programming skills. I can’t even program the clock on my microwave. Okay, I can but I’m too lazy.

For me, a severely ADHD person, it makes it easy to organize… everything. A picture might show it better than I can describe:

I know, a screenshot of a wall of text. Not cool of me. I hope it works and the image shows or this wont make much sense from here on.

To break it down, I have the preferences dialogue open, it’s on the plugins menu, you can see many are self explanatory. if you know how, you can write your own plugins. i do not know how.

However, i do know how to write simple bash commands, which can be added as custom tools and set to hotkeys. I can timestamp in EST or UTC for logging purposes with a push of a button. Your imagination is the limit! Well, plus the limitations of bash and your computer/tablet/cellphone/etc and probably like a dozen other things.

That preferences menu is open on top of a page in my notebook. The silly magician stuff. It can be ignored (and might not make sense) it is sample text. To the left, you can see my notebook, sorted by subject in my own arbitrary way. The current page is selected, the ‘magic’ page in the ‘written’ chapter.

Also I’ve not had problems with Joplin (which I’ve read is not FOSS, it does not save as .txt files) which has an Android specific App (Zim does not) but I haven’t played with it enough to give a valid opinion.

Zim and Joplin both work on Windows and Linux, both can be cloud synced, like with google drive or dropbox, if you use those (I do not, I use Zim offline, except for backups). If security is a concern, Zim does not encrypt, it’s .txt files. Joplin I believe does. If you backup to cloud, Joplin would be safer from theft I think. I could be wrong. theft meaning your intellectual property, i.e. possibly being intercepted and viewed online by evil hackers, possibly even copied and published under their name. I do not worry about this. I would be honored if someone tried to publish my crap without permission.

My use case is personal organizer and mind map and many other things, including a ‘almost D&D’ campaign setting for a TTRPG, a novel I’ll never publish, pictures of things I know I’ll forget… oh yeah, that reminds me, in my linked image, on the right, there’s a table of contents (ToC), which gets automatically generated if you use the Header tag, for easier in-page navigation of long pages. Next to the ToC tab there’s ‘Attachments’, this page has none. You can attach files to pages, like pdf’s, images, graphs, etc and link to them from other pages in the notebook.

The only problems I’ve had, are likely my own fault for messing with the theme and config files a bunch. This got long. Hope it helps.

is that three or a visual representation of two? either way, i’m in.

idk, i’ll just grab from the pile…

I’ll bet a testicle this was done in GIMP

Sure you can! See?

I can’t speak for Arch personally. It required more time than I had at the time to install it, as I wanted to do it the recommended way from the Archwiki but I also did not have reliable internet at the time. That was awhile ago, late 2020 I think. I started using Linux in spring of 2020.

I have been using the same installation of Manjaro KDE since

me@mycomputer ~]$ stat / | grep Birth
 Birth: 2024-02-05 04:54:20.000000000 -0500

which is also when I assembled this computer. The zeros at the end of ‘Birth’ look really improbable. They are accurate as far as I understand but I wouldn’t know how to check otherwise either.

My previous system I also was using Manjaro KDE. It had a few problems, I think it was mostly because of an nvidia graphics card. That and user error. It still works to this day. I haven’t reinstalled Manjaro or installed any OS on it since september of 2021. I also haven’t used it much since building this new system. This has nothing to do with the operating system, I just like to share it, the computer was in two tornados one day and the CPU was partially delidded from one and it still works fine.

I will add that I am a casual user, I don’t do some things that might invite trouble like torrenting. I also live alone and have very few friends and no known enemies, so overall I have a very boring threat model, that mentions cats more than most threat models do.

I also do not use the AUR and am on the stable repository. I also don’t use Timeshift, I use Vorta, which uses Borg, for my backup system, which only backs up my personal files which are in my home directory on a separate partition, if something happens to the system, I will reinstall. It hasn’t happened in over a year though.

For my very basic computer needs (mostly Firefox, GIMP, Blender, Zim and Kdenlive), it works fine. Cue Manjaro haters.

I only pirate adult cinema, because in the end it’s not piracy if it’s not racy.

I’m just here because I got scurvy a couple times. Stay in school, ye’ landlubbers n’ doan’t farget to eat yarself a fruit or vegetable, least once n’ a fortnight. ccccccc.

I thought I could write something worse and came up with this. it was not really a good idea. (i modified it so no one makes my mistake by blindly copy and pasting it. hopefully.)

if [[ -f ~./kitten.sh ]] #     if the file kitten exists
    then killall -KILL kitten.sh || touch ./kitten #    kill all kittens. if that fails, touch kitten.
fi;
echo "Killed kitten... )"; #    announce the terrible deed.
# bash kitten.sh; #    runs this kitten script again. do not remove # symbol at start of this line, unless you want to have a bad time.
# it will make this run repeatedly. you monster.

That was me recalling a time when I was using MX Linux XFCE edition. i installed something that I didn’t realize was pulling most of KDE in. i was still very new to linux and still relied on a couple windows programs, so i was dual booting as well. i was using zim because it has windows support, so i could keep notes in zim in both windows and linux, sync it to my dropbox and not lose notes switching between them.

I think my default text editor changed, either by me and forgotten or from something after KDE was pulled in. i think it went from mousepad to kwrite, and kwrite uses kate, which made zims behaviour change because it was using whatever was the default editor as its backend. i think. it’s still a bit beyond me honestly. one change had to do with how tabs are processed. some tabs were done as 4 spaces instead of a tab, which messed up some formatting i did in zim. so i thought i had to figure out which text editor to set zim to use to get my tab key to work like expected again.

me saying “a dozen” is an extreme exaggeration. i do that sometimes, use hyperbole too much. the application launcher grouped libreoffice stuff with kwrite, mousepad and kate. i think it had emacs and vim in there too. i kept trying to figure out which one was was causing formatting errors. there were issues with newlines due to going from windows to linux as well i think.

it led to me getting trapped in a recursion, doing test notes in linux with different editor backends set in zim, going to windows to see the effect, going back to linux and trying another editor, repeating this while sometimes forgetting to sync to dropbox, forgetting that kate and kwrite are connected, or forgetting what i was doing and just sort of going insane. i don’t have any friends that use linux. at the time, i had severely limited internet because of data caps with my isp. it was also the first year of the pandemic. so other factors were involved.

i eventually tried uninstalling everything KDE but that did not go well and i ended up without a DE at all somehow, it just booted into busybox and i started over. i’m pretty good at making the wrong choices and reacting by making worse choices. creating my own hell. i feel like i’ve witnessed other new users doing similar things too, so that adds to my reluctance to encourage beginner users to try things that might be too much.

Maybe things have changed and it isn’t that bad anymore. Doing a search for something along the lines of “installing multiple desktop environments” and you will see there are plenty of people suggesting to not do this. Probably just as many saying it’s usually fine. Note that the OP asked for a beginner friendly distro. That implies they might not be experienced enough to understand how some things work.

Saying “literally no problem about trying it out” is incorrect in my opinion and this applies to all contexts I can imagine, whether related to Linux or not. There is always a potential problem when trying something out. Nothing is idiot-proof or immune to wear and tear or perfectly free from bugs, software or literal. I personally am blessed with the uncanny ability to make the wrong choice in the majority of situations where I have a choice. That may even include the choice to make this reply.

Maybe for your use case, on the hardware you have, you haven’t had any issues, with the software you use. That doesn’t mean the issues don’t exist. I’ll mention again, do a search online. There are problems that can happen. They have happened recently. They have happened a lot. Not everyone has them.

I hate to come back to this example, since OP never stated they had it, but since you have ADHD, you may be familiar with analysis paralysis and executive dysfunction after being overwhelmed by too many things. Maybe forgetting which text editor worked best and seeing a dozen in the application launcher and start searching for the right one but by the time it is found the short term memory loss kicked in again and the original reason why it was needed has been forgotten. There could be frustration when starting to hyperfocus but an app is not working the way it did and so instead the night is spent grinding through preference menus already configured previously and eventually seeing that an update for one of the DE’s rewrote a config file or is using a differsion of python or it could be more than one of these things happening and one program also has a bug that spams the journal so troubleshooting becomes much more difficult… I’m digressing and projecting too much.

Have you ever uninstalled a DE after having more than one installed? Sure, it is possible. It’s easier and less time consuming to reinstall the whole OS in my experience. I’m not a professional, far from it. I know it didn’t go well. I can’t remember the specifics, I think I added a KDE package while using xfce and accidentally hit continue instead of cancel. It brought in all of KDE, which I didn’t want so I tried to remove it and everything broke because it removed shared xfce dependencies. It might be better now. I’d prefer not to try until I’m confident I know what I’m doing and what to do when things fail afterwards.

My point originally was, and still is, that it is often not recommended to do, especially for a beginner. I mean no malice towards you and hope this doesn’t seem aggressive or angry.

some nuisances are not so ignorable. having duplicate apps all over the place, each with their own settings, so if you forget which one you are using, you might find yourself spending more time in settings than desired. then there’s browsers. switching DE’s can cause browsers to log you out of everything, so switching often and you end up having to sign in to everything repeatedly, which for some can interrupt workflow and be frustrating. then there’s the fact that some use gtk and some use qt so title bar buttons and program menu’s can become confusing and ununified. can these things be ignored? sure, some people can. some cannot, such as people with ADHD for example, who can easily be sidetracked when the “file > open” menu is in a hamburger menu in one app and a bar on another.

I did say that I read about, but did not try, installing two and setting different users for them. i believe the idea is that they are both installed but don’t generate config files until you log in with a user. so keeping two users, one for each DE, works but only if you never log in with the wrong user. from what i understand, i could be wrong. i believe SDDM and LightDM can both facilitate switching DE’s from the login screen.

I have a few possible options but they all rely on other things you might not have or want.

There’s a fillable spreadsheet in g∞gle sheets but that requires having an account with the company and to fill it out, you make a copy from the file menu and go from there. It’s best to make the copy for your account and leave it blank, making extra copies of that one, in case my link stops working someday (it’s been good for at least 3 years so far). Here’s the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DrSwhSxJdEfO7gAih4UHcd3myJfNh2eW6Kxv0UblAO4/edit?gid=1270711241#gid=1270711241

If you use Discord, there’s avrae, a bot that integrates with discord for online d&d sessions. https://avrae.io/

it can be used offline as well but regular pencil and paper would be more convenient in my opinion. it can read character sheets from online sources, including ones made from the spreadsheet link i shared previously, as well as others, the suggestions they give are https://dicecloud.com/ and https://www.dndbeyond.com/ although the latter i found frustrating to use for reasons i cannot recall.

Another website worth checking out is https://www.flapkan.com/ for pdf form fillable character sheets. i have not used this, it was in a folder of bookmarks i have and i forgot about it. it looks promising.

as for linux native programs unfortunately i cannot help, i do not know of anything specific. i’ve used a few different programs but none were strictly linux based and most used proprietary code so they wouldn’t be FLOSS. like for example, I used yEd https://www.yworks.com/products/yed which works on Linux but uses java stuff. I liked it because I could set links to pdf files within the character sheets i’d made, which would open to specific pages of the rules related to what was linked, like rules for spells, how abilities worked and weapon stats and all that.

I believe there is value in it. By not knowing about some negative role model like these youtube personalities, when my nephews are talking about them I can be more believably disinterested if I don’t know who they are. When they attempt to explain the person my continued disinterest helps them realize the person they follow isn’t that great, since they rarely do great things and my nephews might realize that as they search for reasons why they watch them. If I use my time to learn about more positive role models and activities instead, it’s easier to shift their opinions to something better. I can’t just say “X person sucks, don’t watch them” since that usually only further entrenches them in watching the drivel.

an example is when I pulled out my raspberry pi, plugged it into their tv and started playing retrogames, ignoring them while they were talking about some LTT video because i thought it was boring. it wasn’t long before they dropped their conversation and were focused on what i was doing, as I played various games on it. now they seem more interested in learning how to do that, instead of mindlessly watching some idiot.

i know that is a weak argument. i know i can also come up with examples of times my ignorance has been detrimental. like regarding idiotic political figures whom i should have learned more about, to help inform people of why they are bad, instead of sticking my head in the sand until things got a lot worse.

so i see and understand your point that it’s better to not be ignorant about internet celebrities and awful people. i still feel it is better to spend time focusing on better things, hoping that my chosen interests can outweigh my choice to ignore idiots. in the long run it all comes down to opinions i suppose.

Yeah this is important to know as installing two DE’s can and will cause a lot of problems.

I’ve read, but have not tried, that installing each DE under it’s own user can prevent the majority of these problems. This also prevents using apps from different DE’s simultaneously, you have to switch users to do so. Session saving makes it faster than restarting constantly but it can still interrupt workflow. Again, I have not tried this myself but have considered trying it.

I’m proud of the fact I don’t know who that is and even more proud that I don’t care if anyone thinks that is not impressive. I hate that I learned who poodiepie is and have yet to meet any fans that weren’t mentally challenged. It is a waste of space in my brain and I would happily live under a rock if it meant I didn’t have to know about the existance of vapid, self-centered, so-called “youtube celebrities”. They add nothing to this world of any value and wouldn’t be missed.

I fed the cable through a hole in the wall, not that it matters since the door doesn’t shut all the way. The building is old and the frame doesn’t match the door shape anymore.

It was easy to feed the line because, well, the monitor is in the hole too. It’s a big hole. Honestly, it’s kind of embarrassing. A mouse infestation took out the supports and drywall around an exhaust vent/air conditioner wall-unit thing and it fell out of the wall. Plus the landlord is a slum lord.

I can’t really do a current picture for complicated phone reasons/problems. Just imagine a monitor in this hole, instead of the portal to Narnia which I lovingly crafted in GIMP: https://i.imgur.com/BLHhUF0.gif

The monitor is in that, mostly held in with spray foam and duct tape. My rent is $325 a month, no contract, no late fees up to 3 months. My landlord is a slumlord. IDK, I feel that might help explain things around here.

My eeepc sadly died last year, it was a single core laptop i had running hannah montana linux in my bathroom as a music player.

My Precision M6400, a dual core made in 2008, is still going strong and sure, it’s slow, but it still works and has replaced the eeepc in the bathroom so now I can listen to music OR watch videos (not streaming) during my extra long showers. i don’t keep it in the bathroom, it’s on a dock in another room connected to a monitor with a really long dvi-i cable.

There is a bug that is open right now which sounds like it might be one you were experiencing or possibly explains part of the issues.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=501073

Like the web browsing might have been from middle clicking, which causes a lengthy hang and resuming from suspend and powerdevil are a prime suspect for it.

The login wait might be an issue I vaguely recall about the splash screen and that disabling it removed the startup hang.

I’ve been exclusively using Manjaro KDE since September of 2021 and the linked issue I started getting a couple months ago and it’s gotten bad enough to make me want to start hopping again.

if esc or alt+f4 don’t do what you want, try going to window management in settings and making a window rule. you can click the detect window properties button then click the offending window and set the window type to match. then you can try using rules like forcing the titlebar on just that window or ignoring global shortcuts or one called ‘closable’. i’ve never used any of these but it’s a thought.