[18:14] <Mooncairn> Ok, tried to install popos, but it couldn't deal with my LVM setup and the install log had nothing helpful.
[18:14] <cmaloney> Ugh
[18:14] <Mooncairn> Linux Mint warns me against installing because I don't have a EFI bootloader.
[18:14] <cmaloney> ??/
[18:14] <Mooncairn> Also, the Linux Mint live disc locked up on me.
[18:14] <cmaloney> You have a Mac, right?
[18:15] <Mooncairn> My desktop is an ancient Lenovo ThinkStation.
[18:15] <cmaloney> Ah
[18:15] <cmaloney> You might have EFI turned off
[18:15] <cmaloney> since I have that turned off on my laptop
[18:15] <cmaloney> iirc
[18:15] <Mooncairn> I installed Debian (which I'm in right now) okay, but hexchat crashed on me the first time I opened it.
[18:15] <Mooncairn> I think I have hardware issues.
[18:16] <cmaloney> Yeah, memtest time
[18:16] <Mooncairn> I'm not sure my computer support EFI. It's has an old BIOS.
[18:16] <Mooncairn> That's just it, memtest is coming up empty.
[18:16] <cmaloney> :(
[18:17] <Mooncairn> I'd like to figure out what's going on, but OTOH maybe it's time to hunt for a replacement desktop. :(
[18:17] <Mooncairn> This computer is 14 years old.
[18:19] <Mooncairn> Looking in the logs, the hexchat crash is associated with kernel error in the nouveau driver and a stacktrace leading to Xwayland.
[18:20] <Mooncairn> So I now have Wayland, with an NVidia card. This is not helping matters.
[18:20] <cmaloney> Ah, OK
[18:21] <cmaloney> So there is a cause, and it's NVidia
[18:21] <cmaloney> and Noveau drivers
[18:21] <Mooncairn> yeah :-(
[18:21] <Mooncairn> I'm going to switch drivers and then try to switch back to xorg.
[18:21] <cmaloney> Might be time to buy a refurb desktop as well
[18:22] <Mooncairn> The weird thing about all the crashes in Ubuntu lately is that they've all been GNOME apps.
[18:22] <Mooncairn> (Oh, and somehow my Ubuntu install got messed up in all this. It takes minutes to boot because it's searching for Btrfs and ZFS disks.)
[18:23] <Mooncairn> Okay, this is horrible. Lots of screen artifacts. Gonna have to bail out of hexchat for now.
[18:32] <Mooncairn> Ok, proper NVidia drivers. Let's see how this goes. Also, back on Xorg. No option to even run Wayland with the proprietary drivers. Interesting.
[18:32] <cmaloney> Yep.
[18:32] <cmaloney> Welcome to nvidia
[18:33] <cmaloney> Part of the reason I went to AMD (not Wayland but the whole "thou art stuck, and oh, btw, here's a crash for you"
[18:36] <Mooncairn> Debian also locked up after I logged out and logged back in with Xorg. I'm hoping this was also graphics related as I'd already installed NVidia drivers but hadn't rebooted yet and was still with the nouveau kernel module loaded.
[18:37] <Mooncairn> So far I don't see anything in the logs.
[18:38] <jrwren> 14yo computer? try a 13yo linux distro version.
[18:39] <Mooncairn> Ok, I do see nouveau tossing its cookies right around the time of the lockup.
[18:41] <Mooncairn> jrwren, I'm hoping Debian stable will be sufficient.
[18:46] <cmaloney> Honestly I'd trust a 14 y/o computer to be more supported by a modern version of Linux. ;)
[18:46] <jrwren> Yes, I wasn't being very serious.
[18:47] <jrwren> I did find it funny last week when someone on twitch chat insisted that linux ran on 286. lul.
[18:47] <jrwren> I know that there was a project 25-30yrs ago, but to think that it would be easy to just run on an old 286 made me lol.
[18:47] <jrwren> linux dropped 386 and 486 support a long time ago
[18:48] <Mooncairn> I was going to say...
[18:50] <cmaloney> Linux never ran on a 286
[18:51] <cmaloney> Minix, yes; Linux no
[19:19] <Mooncairn> GNOME under Debian is a little different. Going to take some getting used to.
[19:20] <jrwren> have you tried universalblue? ;) 
[19:21] <Mooncairn> Yea, I don'
[19:21] <Mooncairn> I don't know about that. ;)
[19:21] <Mooncairn> Naw, the biggest difference is that the dock isn't omni-present, so I need to adjust my workflow if I do things like minimize windows and come back to them later.
[19:58] <Scary_Guy> https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io is a distro specifically built for older hardware.
[19:58] <Scary_Guy> But really, what is the usecase of your computer?  What do you DO with it?
[19:59] <Scary_Guy> Also, swap out that card for a new AMD/ATI one.  Should solve 1/4th of issues right there.
[20:04] <Scary_Guy> I used to run hardware from 2009 with an AMD FX chip and 8GB of ECC RAM.  Didn't have EFI and still ran an older Mint just fine.
[20:05] <Mooncairn> Debian still works fine on legacy hardware. Unless I have further issues, I'll probably stick with it. (Every time I explore other distros, I keep coming back to Debian eventually.)
[20:05] <Scary_Guy> Also now I can't figure out why Seahorse wont let me unlock it.  I may have to actually call it and reinstall everything but I am NOT looking forward to that.
[20:05] <Mooncairn> Also, new GPU == $$$.
[20:06] <Mooncairn> Scary_Guy, take it from someone with a lot of "reinstall everything" going on over the last year: It sucks.
[20:06] <Scary_Guy> Okay, I did say new, but I didn't mean "new".  You can get an older one for $20-$60.
[20:06] <Mooncairn> Ah.. Okay. I was wondering. ;)
[20:07] <Scary_Guy> I know, my phone froze during an update, so now I get to reinstall that on my PinePhone too :/
[20:07] <Scary_Guy> But at least it will be upgraded.
[20:07] <Mooncairn> Yea, if I have more issues that might be hardware and memtest isn't showing anything, getting a used AMD card might be the next step (with a new refurb desktop the next step beyond that).
[20:08] <Scary_Guy> What model card do you have now?
[20:08] <Mooncairn> GeForce GTX 660
[20:09] <Mooncairn> I had a less powerful hand-me-down before that, and before *that* it was the NVidia Quadro 4000 that came with this computer.
[20:09] <Mooncairn> The Quadro cooked itself to death.
[20:09] <Scary_Guy> They do tend to do htat
[20:09] <Scary_Guy> that*
[20:16] <Scary_Guy> https://www.microcenter.com/product/673904/powercolor-amd-radeon-r7-240-single-fan-2gb-gddr5-pcie-30-graphics-card If you literally just need something for video this is $30.
[20:18] <Mooncairn> Nice
[20:22] <Scary_Guy> WTF?  I just hit download and within a few seconds I have downloaded 732.1 MB of data.  That's a nice surprise.
[20:22] <jrwren> fast internet?
[20:24] <Scary_Guy> Not that fast, makes me think there was something wrong with the download, checking the file
[20:26] <Scary_Guy> Seems fine
[20:26] <jrwren> http gzip compressing a lot of it?
[20:27] <Scary_Guy> IDK, but the other file of around the same size took a more expected time to download.
[20:27] <Scary_Guy> Now I just have to decide whether to put Gnome or PhoSh on my phone.
[20:28] <Scary_Guy> (so, Gnome or Gnome but less official)
[23:46] <Mooncairn> Yay, evolution doesn't work on Debian. It's a known issue going back to Oct 2022 and no response on bug report from maintainer.
[23:47] <Scary_Guy> What about on LMDE6?
[23:48] <Mooncairn> Haven't tried it yet. Don't really want to try installing my fourth distro today.
[23:48] <Scary_Guy> lol
[23:49] <Mooncairn> I guess for e-mail I'll be using Thunderbird (assuming that works).
[23:49] <Scary_Guy> Well it's basically Mint's version of Debian, and I used LMDE 4 (and then 5) for quite some time.
[23:49] <Scary_Guy> Thunderbird should work fine, it's just annoying to export the emails if you decide to switch.
[23:52] <Mooncairn> I now remember that packages going without active maintenance for years is one reason I keep trying to leave Debian.
[23:53] <Scary_Guy> I just left because it wouldn't do PPAs.  Now there's a way do do them securely so I'm hoping they got reimplemented.
[23:56] <cmaloney> Honestly if it were me I'd leave all of the email in a dovecot server and use it that way.
[23:56] <cmaloney> but I also swap between mutt and Thunderbird
[23:57] <Scary_Guy> mutt is old and rock solid.  I should go back to terminal email.