In the continuation of the previous article “ Like the Prius, but only on Linux, ” I would like to tell you about my own experience of changing the work environment. Before translating office workstations, it is always best to experiment on yourself. And I decided to install Linux myself for a couple of months. As an operating system for the experiments, a fresh distribution Kubuntu 18.04 was chosen, and I will tell about the pitfalls that I encountered and the chronicles of the experiment under the cut.

This material will be useful to those who are curious to try Linux in everyday life, but too lazy to attack all the rakes at once.

The first day. Remote access

As usual, we first make a loophole so that a sudden desire to work from home does not remain unsatisfied. Of course, SSH was, is and will be there, but I also want to see pictures.

Many years have passed since I set up a vnc server on a Linux workstation. It became interesting - has anything changed since then? After some study, I was interested in the krfb product , which is deeply integrated into the KDE ecosystem. Indeed, the settings look almost like a Mac and no configs.

Interface settings krfb.

And everything was fine until it became clear that the passwords are not saved when rebooting. The problem turned out to be that krfb is really deeply integrated into KDE and stores the settings in the kde-wallet. Therefore it should be included.

Another nuance is that the purse with the settings storage should be without a password. Otherwise, after rebooting, you will need to enter the password for access to the wallet by hand.

“Still, not a Mac,” I thought, “but you can use it.” Of course, after the conveniences of modern RDP, it is unusual to use VNC - there is a lack of file transfer via the clipboard. But for ordinary needs it is already quite enough, which can not but rejoice.

Second day. And the monitor is also second.

Today I decided to connect a second monitor, and what was my surprise when I did not see the image. So it happens: regular drivers do not always start up with a half-turn with two or more monitors.

Hello, where is my monitor?

The reason is that still open source compatible drivers sometimes work ... well, they don’t work. The solution remains the same as many years ago - the installation of proprietary drivers. The benefit is that it is still as simple as before: you need to go to the "System Settings", "Driver Manager", after which the utility will scan the system and offer to install proprietary drivers, if necessary.

Another option would be to install the drivers directly from the package manager.

GUI package manager.

You may need to add a repository with proprietary drivers. This is done by the command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

And do not forget to update it:

sudo apt update

After installing the proprietary drivers, you can easily configure the behavior of monitors. At the same time, the video card will speed up the work in the browser. In chromium like ones, this can be checked by opening chrome: // gpu in the address bar .

Some help in browsing from the video card.

Well, a bit of stability in terms of installing proprietary drivers in our crazy time does not hurt. We continue the experiment.

Day seventeenth. Birthday. Part one: the mouse.

Colleagues gave me a multi-button mouse - Logitech Performance Mouse MX (and where they dug out this antique!). The mouse is entertaining, but some of the buttons did not work right away.

Hero of the occasion.

In principle, the main buttons worked correctly. Only the button under the thumb, which shows all applications, and the Zoom button, which works to zoom a la "Ctrl, just do not need to clamp," did not work. With a button under the thumb, everything is simple. Just go to the System Settings - Keyboard Shortcuts - Global Combinations - System Settings and there select "Show all windows from the current desktop". Next, click on the desired button, which is likely to appear as Button 10 - and voila:

We look at all the windows at once by the wave of your finger.

Scaling was a little more difficult. I had to put two utilities - xbindkeys and xautomation - then in the home directory create the .xbindkeysrc file with the following content:

"/usr/bin/xte 'keydown Control_L' &"
b:13
"/usr/bin/xte 'keyup Control_L' &"
Control + b:13

Now, if you run xbindkeys with the xbindkeys -n -v command , everything should work as it should. It remains only to add the utility to the autorun in any convenient way, for example, through the Autorun.

Utility startup autorun in GUI.

And then I sold the mouse. I'm left handed.

Day eighteenth. Birthday. Part Two: SSD

From the bounty of the leadership I was handed the SSD twice the volume, and the question arose how to move the system easier. Having connected my experience with servers and having read a little, I collected the following options:

• copying partitions using dd with their subsequent increase and possible editing of the loader;
• using third-party copying tools like Clonezilla ;
• copying files by hand, installing the bootloader with a special utility.

Of course, the easiest way is to clonezilla with the option of copying device to device.

Clonezilla options.

Live CD is simple and effective, but where it is more interesting to use only the native system. Therefore, I decided to act by manually copying files. I was also interested in installing the bootloader not through the trivial grub-install , but with the help of the boosted Boot Repair forums.

First you need to create a partition table on the new disk, mount the new disk and copy the necessary files. You can, of course, just copy the root with the command cp -a , but you can do a little more elegant:

sudo rsync -a / /mnt/disk2/ --exclude sys --exclude proc --exclude dev --exclude tmp --exclude media --exclude mnt --exclude run 
sudo mkdir sys proc dev tmp media mnt run

The first command will copy the necessary directories, the second will create the structure of the system directories.

Now it's up to the bootloader. The magic utility is not in the standard system, so you need to install it by adding the necessary repository:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair

You can start the utility with the command boot-repair .

All the same can be done by booting from the Live-CD. For example, if the data is transferred, and the loader does not work.

The utility interface is pretty obvious:

Interface Boot Repair.

In theory, you can use the "Recommended method", which directly makes everything automatic. But it is better to look in the “Advanced Settings”, where you can and need to specify the desired disk to install the bootloader.

Advanced settings.

Surprisingly, the utility has worked successfully, and you can now rejoice at the new SSD.

Thirty-eighth day. The seal.

Yes, I do not often have to type in my daily work: I needed the printer just now. The closest to me is the HP 1102, connected to Windows.

And the problem did not even arise with the drivers - the drivers were available out of the box, as well as utilities for working with HP printers called hplip . The problem turned out to be that someone's kind soul published it under the network name HP LaserJet Professional P1102 (don't do that, please!).

The printer installation utility refused to accept this:

Gaps in the title? Refuse!

Quotes in different versions did not lead to victory either. The solution turned out to be simple - replace the space with% 20, as in the URL, to get this:

smb://name/HP%20LaserJet%20Professional%20P1102

Now everything is fine. If suddenly it is not good, then instead of the Foomatic-driver, you can put a proprietary one, all of which is closed. But already present in the system.

Sixtieth day. Results

The experiment came out amusing, experienced a long-forgotten feeling of having to contact Google for such trifles as installing a printer.

But the other operating system had practically no effect on the workflow. All the same means of remote connection to servers and users are available - even TeamViewer is there. And the updates are put quietly and mildly, unlike Windows 10 . Although they say that you should not just upgrade to the major version (but this is still ahead).

I especially liked the Kde Connect utility, which is friends with an Android smartphone on the same local network. Even links to the browser of a large PC can be sent from the phone. Almost like an Apple ecosystem.

Against the backdrop of such goodness, the pitfalls I encountered look almost pebbles.

Tell us about your pitfalls when migrating to Linux at home and / or at work.