Windows 11 - Karmi's Musings & Tech

Vanilla OS 22.10 — Ubuntu-based Linux Distro

August 10, 2025April 1, 2023 by Karmi

Vanilla OS 22.10 is a new Ubuntu-based Linux OS, using the GNOME 43.1 Desktop: ‘Designed to last over time and always be faithful to you. Vanilla OS is an immutable and atomic Ubuntu Linux-based Point Release distribution, that receives updates at the right time, neither before nor after, without sacrificing security and functionality‘. It uses the latest stable Linux Kernel ‘n has an ‘integrated driver management, whether it’s an AMD®, Intel®, or NVIDIA® GPU‘. I had a NVIDIA GPU and installing the driver was a breeze. Lots of interesting new options are offered, e.g., the Apx package manager, a utility which can install software from multiple distributions, such as Arch Linux, Fedora, Ubuntu.

Who writes most of the Open Source software — including Linux?

August 10, 2025March 2, 2023 by Karmi

Microsoft & Google are ‘neck-and-neck‘ for the top spot — \o/ ‘Hippity hip Hoorah‘ \o/ — then comes #3 Red Hat, #4 Intel, #5 Amazon Web Services (AWS), and last but not least #6 IBM. Mostly all are companies *HATED* by the radical ‘n vocal Linux regular users. Regular users are what Linus Torvalds calls ‘normal people‘, and says Linux isn’t made for them to use, i.e., it’s mainly made for ‘Technical people’ such as Developers, Programmers, Sysadmins, IT Specialists, Maintainers, etc. Regular users are mainly the guinea pigs who test Linux desktops for free—without realizing it. 😉

Many of the regular Linux users are beyond being just ‘Fanatics‘ so I enjoy clowning around wid ‘n about them 🤡. Heck, Linux has never even mastered the ‘basic Wheel Mouse‘:

Tails – ‘Portable Operating System that Protects against Surveillance & Censorship’

August 10, 2025February 1, 2023 by Karmi

Tails = The Amnesic Incognito Live System. It is a ‘security-focused Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at preserving privacy and anonymity.‘ If you’ve never tried Linux then Tails may be an easy way for you to test it.

On my ‘KM&T‘ Blog ‘Hub‘ page dropdown menu there is the Linux ‘Hub‘ listed, and that link leads to my old Linux Newbie – since 1996 blog. Lots of handy Linux info there so I have made it a ‘Hub‘ to this new self-hosted KM&T blog. At that old Linux blog is a page located on the sidebar – Special *PURPOSE* Linuxes. There are some interesting ‘Specialty‘ Linuxes listed in the articles there.

Nobara Linux 37 – ‘Keep an Eye on this Up & Coming Linux OS!’

August 10, 2025January 15, 2023 by Karmi

Nobara Linux hasn’t been out very long (less than a year), but its “simple point-and-click user experience” keeps getting better! I first reviewed ‘Nobara Linux 36‘ at my Linux Newbie blog hub on 9/19/2022, and then ‘again‘ at my new self-hosted Karmi’s Musings & Tech blog on 11/7/2022.

Windows 11: Create & Pin “This PC” icon to the Windows 11 Taskbar

July 28, 2025November 9, 2022 by Karmi

Pinning This PC to Windows 11 taskbar is easier than you think…just follow this guide. Have mainly just upgraded all my computers to Windows 11 Pro from Windows 10 Pro, since it was so easy ‘n reliable to do, but have also done some tests on doing a clean install of Windows 11. Spotted the “This PC” problem right away when doing the clean installs.

The upgrade method allows the “This PC” icon to stay and/or be added to the Taskbar, but the clean install method doesn’t offer the “Pin to taskbar” option. Can pin “This PC” to the Desktop and/or to the Start menu, but not to the Taskbar where I use it a lot…a *LOT*!!!