A few Linux Tips
Reminder 📝
Most of these instructions are subjected to changes due to newer updates, programs, etc.
I’ve been trying to daily-drive Linux for over ten years, yet somehow I always end up nuking my Linux partition in frustration and crawling back to Windows for the thousandth time. Even though I know sticking with Linux full-time is probably just a dream given my current job, I’ve still decided to share a few tricks and tips for anyone else out there on the same rocky road.
Take notice that I am currently daily driving an ASUS TUF laptop with Kubuntu 24.02 installed.
Linux/Kubuntu won't detect my Nvidia GPU
Even after installing the nvidia detection tools package and forcing an nvidia install, your computer still won't detect your nvidia gpu and will throw a sad "NVIDIA graphic card not detected" message.
Most forum threads will keep suggesting in installing a different nvidia driver, but what you can also try is switching your Display Mode found under the "Advanced" tab on your ASUS BIOS, to dGPU, and try the detection tool again.
Taking a redditor's word:
It defines if your internal screen will be routed to your dGPU (Ultimate) directly or to iGPU (Standard) (via optimus or not).
Firefox won't use KDE's file picker
This doesn't happen with the flatpak or the snap package but rather with the official Mozilla's PPA. There are two solutions to this:
about:config
Install the following packages with apt install: xdg-desktop-portal and xdg-desktop-portal-kde.
After this, change the value "widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal" to true on the about:config's menu on Firefox and restart. This should work on both Wayland and x11.
Application Launcher
Depending on your current Application Launcher, you will need to find and modify the options it's starting Firefox.
Make Libreoffice read your font directory (snap)
The snap package for Libreoffice does not have any interest or capacity to read your custom .fonts folder located in your home directory. I suppose it can only read the /usr/share/fonts directory which is the folder that contains only the system fonts.
To get your own fonts to work on Libreoffice without having to add them to the system fonts folder, we can create a link to it for the snap "current" folder. Ideally, you would want to place all your custom fonts at .local/share/fonts. Open up a terminal and type the following command:
ln -s ~/.local/share/fonts ~/snap/libreoffice/current/.local/share
This will create a soft link of the font folder and give it to the contained version of the snap package. For good measure, type sudo fc-cache -fv to refresh the font cache.
Why are you using snap though? You should know that snap is the second coming of antichrist!"
