Hey Ron! Congrats for the new adquire! A powerfull PC!
are you going to program a new game?

First, I'm going to spend 3 days getting my terminal looking just right.

Dropbox has some Linux support: https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux

And good luck setting up the copy/pasting. I have tried multiple apps for that, but haven't found one that works consistently.

I'm not sure there's a different copy/paste process on the terminal other than select text (copy) and mouse middle button (paste).
Dropbox should work fine on Ubuntu with their official app.

For the terminal, I could remap the Windows key and I use it now for copy/paste.  There doesn't seem to be a way to do that across the whole machine.  I don't have a middle mouse button.

I forgot about xev, to see what codes generate your keyboard...

I just discovered, after many years of linux terminal usage, that SHIFT+CTRL+C for copy and SHIFT+CTRL+V for paste works as well. Nice.

> Just out of curiosity, why don't you want to work with windows?

Because windows isn't a real operating system.

Fair point.

Good luck with Linux, I hope everything works well for you. Personally I don't like Ubuntu and I hope you find a better distro to develop your games in. I know you will!!

Hej Ron. Have a look at Autokey (it's similar to AutoHotKey in Windows) for system wide key bindings. Slack and Dropbox offer install packages on their websites.
And sometimes it's easier to find programs as AppImage (https://appimage.github.io/apps/) or Flatpak when they are not in the OS-repo.
BTW: I use Debian or LMDE. What OS do you use?

I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to bring this up, but I noticed that the Thimbleweed Park development blog now points to a page that simply says, "Hi". Is this intentional? I regularly re-read the blog, and I really hope that you're not going to remove it permanently.

Oh, great! Thanks!

"Because windows isn't a real operating system."

That hasn't been true since Windows NT was released. If Windows isn't a real operating system, then what is that castrated wannabe-Unix with a Fisher Price look & feel called macOS?

Besides, with WSL, you can use Windows 10 just like you use Ubuntu - fully supported by both Microsoft and Canonical.  With WSL 2, shipped with Windows 10 2004, now even Linux-GUI-apps can be run on the Windows desktop.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/05/run-linux-apps-on-windows-10-wsl-2

But let's be frank here for a minute: All three options suck in their own individual ways. With Linux you might be in full control, but for that you pay the price that the industrial world has left you behind and it's hard to find commercial quality software. In Linux, it's not that you -can- do everything yourself, you basically -have to- do everything yourself. In Linux land, people also refuse to pay for software - that's the real reason why they are using Linux in the first place: Everything -must- be free as in beer, not speech. And most of the time, these exact same people who don't want to pay for software license fees use free and open source software to create and sell proprietary services - which unfortunately is the only feasible way to make a living with Linux.

As for things like Little Snitch: Why would you need something like that in an Open Source ecosystem? In any case, it seems this Open Source app could be what you're looking for: https://douaneapp.com/

C/C++ IDEs: I don't code in C, but Code::Blocks looked quite nice. Small footprint, fast, limited support for other programming languages, and the "good old" Borland look & feel.
http://www.codeblocks.org/

If Code::Blocks doesn't feel right, maybe you want to take a look at the C++-modes for the big Java IDEs, NetBeans and eclipse.

Visual Studio Code - or its fork VSCodium - actually is a decent code editor. Telemetry can easily be switched off in the original Microsoft build of it, and the only point of the VSCodium fork is that is has telemetry switched off by default. However, in both versions you still have to check each and every third party plugin - some of them bring their own telemetry "radios" with them.  https://code.visualstudio.com/
(In direct comparison, Atom sucks - and since Microsoft bought Github, it's now also a Microsoft product, so religious arguments don't count anymore.)

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux

Doesn't Ubuntu even have a built-in dropbox client that you can activate under "Internet accounts"? Truth be told, I trust Microsoft more and rather use OneDrive instead...

Other than that, you might want to look at Nextcloud as an alternative for --all-- these needs. There are also companies out there who host Nextcloud instances and you just rent an account there, if you don't want to host Nextcloud yourself (which you should).
https://nextcloud.com/

Those XPS notebooks are the best on the market - Enjoy the new Linux machine!

You can setup a firewall and create a specific user who has no permission to access the internet. from then on, you could run apps that should not access the internet with that particular user while being logged in as your main user.

Ye old hearties!

Welcome to Tortuga - Ye Banished Privateers - Songs and Curses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnVKiWE2ka8

As a Little Snitch replacement, I second the recommodation to look at opensnitch. (make sure to use the active fork by Gustavo, the github page was posted here by Stevo).  opensnitch has a well designed json-based config. I have never tried douane.

Hey, Slack SHOULD run, it would be good if you could contact them and tell it isn't working for you or posting online which distro you are facing problems with. Slack should be available directly from them and also through Snapstore - I don't remember if Slack is also available as a flatpak. I think mine was Installed from the website .Deb files.

Have you looked at Flatpak for some of your applications (Slack, Dropbox, etc.)? It's a distribution independent method of distributing applications, so it should work on your machine. Flathub (https://flathub.org/home) have (unofficial) ports of the slack and dropbox clients (though these are likely little more than electron clients).

The XPS13 is a great little Linux laptop, but I could never really get over the cursor keys and pgup/pgdn on the XPS13 I had. The cursor keys were so small, and the placement of pgup/dn mean I was constantly pressing them by mistake when moving around in code.

Maybe they've improved it, or it's just not an issue for you.

There are alternatives to Little Snitch for Linux, especially Open Snitch (https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch).

Slack should work, if it does not you might want to file a bug report. It depends on the Linux distribution you use and how you get that software (and what from).  You can also try alternative clients such as Franz for example.

You should be able to copy/paste in your terminal just as well, it depends on the terminal emulator you use of course. In general CTRL+SHIT+C does copy, and CTRL+SHIFT+V does paste in most terminal emulator anyway.

"For the terminal, I could remap the Windows key and I use it now for copy/paste.  There doesn't seem to be a way to do that across the whole machine.  I don't have a middle mouse button."

No no no. Anything is possible on Linux... it's just scary and often convoluted when you're digging into these kinds of things. ;)

The second post in the following thread ended up being how i remapped my Caps Lock to function as Esc while still retaining Caps functionality (even though I never use it), for example: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=248433

There's other ways too, but that ended up being the more interesting choice for me. I imagine what you would want, if using that approach, is "ctrl:swap_lwin_lctl" (Swap Left Win with Left Ctrl).
Keep in mind also that in some contexts keys are called "Super" rather than "Win", and "Meta" instead of "Alt". Plus if you're super into extra hotkey 'layers' you can probably switch one key out to become a "Hyper" key. Check out the Space Cadet keyboard for some really outrageous keyboard history. Outrageous and frankly a bit lewd.

Wow, neat! I've been a macOS user since 1995 and have installed Linux on a new desktop the same day. Looking forward to experiencing the journey in parallel! If Ubuntu/Budgie doesn't work out for you a lot of Mac folks recommended Elementary and I personally opted for Pop_OS for the easy driver management

I'd imagine most issues you're having with apps are down to snaps with Ubuntu forces on you. If you want a nicer experience I'd recommend going for Linux Mint, install Flatpaks and go to flathub and install your software there (you'll easily get your slacks, spotifys etc from there). If something doesn't work out of the box then install a program called "Flatseal" which allows you to edit the permissions the Flatpak sandbox offers the application. Tweaking these is an easy way to sort problems out, also you can restrict the programs more and what they can access which sounds like something you might be interested in. You probably already know this as you use C++ professionally but for an IDE choice you can always go for CLion.

If you're looking for software to replace the ones you know from a Mac, I recommend https://alternativeto.net/ Go to the program you know, and see what popular alternatives there are: https://alternativeto.net/software/little-snitch/?platform=linux

There is OpenSnitch ! a clone for linux but its still a beta and not very active afaik...
I wouldnt trust cloud storage at all. If i must put somethin on the cloud it would be encrypted with a 25 char password.
Thank you master.

I just switched from 1password to Bitwarden this week. Has apps for Linux and Mac, iPhone and Android, and half a dozen browsers. Plus Web interface. Syncs between all devices. It's free and open source.

There's a way to get dropbox as a folder on your computer - you can use their WebDAV, or use a software called rclone https://rclone.org/dropbox/

I'd recommend rclone - not only because it's a fairly simple procedure:
- make a folder
- set up rclone dropbox with `rclone config`
- mount dropbox onto the folder with `rclone mount --daemon` (https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_mount/)

but also because rclone is a great tool to learn in general for moving files between computers/servers/services.

You can also try to install slack from flathub, if that one also crashes, then maybe something is wrong with Ubuntu budgie. My personal favourite is Pop OS 20.04, which is developer oriented, great laptop support, and Pop shell (Window tiling) is awesome. Whish you good luck Mr. Gilbert.

On Windows machines, you use control-c to copy, control-x to cut, and control-V to paste; not the command (or Windows) key.  

I have no idea how this translates to Linux.

I've also just begun using Linux after continual Mac disappointments.  I'm over some of the initial speed bumps, but please share if you've find a way to remap OS-wide commands from Ctrl to Cmd.  Just changing the workspace related keybinds had me change the normal keybind settings, install a keybind tweak utility, and repeat a handful of command-line incantations.
Hopefully, Macs take an unexpected turn for the better in the coming years.

Ron, if you are having issues with Slack install the "normal" version using apt install of course that means that you have to remove  snaps but removal of snaps is a good thing :) Read all about it here.
https://www.kevin-custer.com/blog/disabling-snaps-in-ubuntu-20-04/

For some better copy and paste (and potentially getting used to the clipboard vs the cut buffer, I like this tool called ClipIt. If you're familiar with ClipMenu/Clipy for Mac, it's the same idea.

There are ways to map the Super Key (or Alt key) globally to copy and paste involving xmodmap or other futzing (which terminal you use might change the copy and paste shortcuts) - i'd recommend searching for "global copy paste shortcut linux" for some good results. "Binding Super+C Super+V to Copy and Paste" seems to be an article describing what you want.

I run an old version of the Windows 1Password via WINE on Linux, but the browser extensions have started  falling apart and I'll be transitioning completely to Bitwarden soon. We'll see how that goes!

Quite, the last time I used Dropbox you downloaded the deb or whatever that was from their website, installed, it downloaded the closed source part, you logged in and that was that.

Maybe something's changed, though. I had to go off Dropbox when they limited filesystems supported on Linux to just ext4 and I'm running cryptfs and I moved to Nextcloud. As far as I know, however, they've since reversed that decision.