Hey guys, I’m just an ordinary dev looking for something to work on. While messing around with my hobby projects, I couldn’t help but notice that under the surface, there are a lot of places that the libre desktop can be improved. I’d like to take on your suggestions on what I should seriously consider working on and helping out with.

Thanks for any comments and suggestions.

(For those wondering, I’m still working on my other stuff.)

  • SuperSpruceEnglish
    71·
    7 months ago

    The ease of making a RAID array!

    I wanted to set up two used hard drives in RAID 1, and the only way to do that was through obscure command line stuff. I tried following a tutorial but I would always divert from it somehow. So I turned to ChatGPT, and it seemed to set it up fine, but then when I tried to reboot, I couldn’t enter a GUI, even though the OS booted from a separate SSD.

    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      In NAS related software there’s plenty of nice UIs to make a raid array. I’m guessing not many people bothered making it for “normal” OSes since the subset of people who want raid on a desktop, and people who aren’t happy digging through the command line is pretty low.

      • SuperSpruceEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        The thing is that I’m not primarily running the computer as a NAS. It’s a used computer with a desktop OS and with two used 2TB HDDs, so I want the redundancy.

    • jabjoe@feddit.ukEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      mdadm is not bad, it’s just command line. There is loads of help out there too. Not obscure link: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/A_guide_to_mdadm

      I get the impression your real problem is the command line. I can’t emphasize enough how much it is worth getting comfortable on the command line. It’s where the power is, on all platforms, and is fundamentally simplier than GUIs. The big secret is that it isn’t hard.

      • SuperSpruceEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        Most of the mdadm commands look like some kind of wizard’s spell to a noob like me. I have no idea what I’m actually doing with the commands.

        • jabjoe@feddit.ukEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          It’s all documented what it all means. If you keep using all this stuff, it will become normal. Like anything does. When you’re familiar with the command line, it is a leveling up in what you can do and how much computer you need to do it.

          Did you try a search for “mdadm GUI”? I found Webmim that has a mdadm GUI (https://webmin.com/docs/modules/linux-raid/) but no idea if it’s ok.