game-changer

pun intended

Oh, are you talking about the special big picture mode or whatever it’s called? B/c I use the full desktop experience.

I use Bazzite with multiple monitors. Can you clarify what you mean when you say another distro might meet OP’s needs better if they have more than one monitor?

On immutable distros, one can still get something not available as a flatpak by installing it in a distrobox container.

try to sneakily make me register passcodes

Can you expand on this? I’m not sure what this means. Is it like instead of a full fledged password, just a four digit PIN or something? Thanks.

Thanks - this got me past the original issue. What I did is I opened up Flatseal and granted access to all system files for Virtual Machine Manager.

However, now I’m stuck at a different point. I can get past where I choose how much memory, CPU, and disk storage to allocate, but when I get to Step 5 and click Finish,

This happens:

Unable to complete install: 'internal error: process exited while connecting to monitor: 2025-06-22T17:16:36.091623Z qemu-system-x86_64: -blockdev {"driver":"file","filename":"/run/media/myusername/path/to/installers/debian-12.11.0-amd64-netinst.iso","node-name":"libvirt-1-storage","read-only":true}: Could not open '/run/media/myusername/path/to/installers/debian-12.11.0-amd64-netinst.iso': Permission denied'

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/share/virt-manager/virtManager/asyncjob.py", line 71, in cb_wrapper
    callback(asyncjob, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/app/share/virt-manager/virtManager/createvm.py", line 2008, in _do_async_install
    installer.start_install(guest, meter=meter)
  File "/app/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/installer.py", line 726, in start_install
    domain = self._create_guest(
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/app/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/installer.py", line 667, in _create_guest
    domain = self.conn.createXML(initial_xml or final_xml, 0)
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/app/lib/python3.12/site-packages/libvirt.py", line 4590, in createXML
    raise libvirtError('virDomainCreateXML() failed')
libvirt.libvirtError: internal error: process exited while connecting to monitor: 2025-06-22T17:16:36.091623Z qemu-system-x86_64: -blockdev {"driver":"file","filename":"/run/media/myusername/path/to/installers/debian-12.11.0-amd64-netinst.iso","node-name":"libvirt-1-storage","read-only":true}: Could not open '/run/media/myusername/path/to/installers/debian-12.11.0-amd64-netinst.iso': Permission denied

This message is talking about permission denied, so I checked the file permissions, and I saw that the ISO file is owned by the qemu user:

myusername@fedora:~$ ls -la /run/media/myusername/path/to/installers
total 101472336
drwxr-xr-x. 2 myusername myusername       4096 Jun 16 14:47  .
drwxr-xr-x. 6 myusername myusername      12288 Jul 29  2024  ..
-rw-r--r--. 1 myusername myusername 7547453440 Oct 17  2024  bazzite-gnome-stable.iso
-rw-r--r--. 1 qemu       qemu        702545920 Jun 12 17:00  debian-12.11.0-amd64-netinst.iso

I changed it to myusername:

sudo chown myusername:myusername /run/media/myusername/path/to/installers/debian-12.11.0-amd64-netinst.iso

When I tried the same steps again, I got stuck in the same place and rerunning ls showed that the ISO file’s ownership has reverted back to qemu.

Any ideas?

Here are the results of some commands that I believe answer your questions. When I run the ls command against that directory, it says no such file or directory. Could this have something to do w/ the fact that Virtual Machine Manager is running as a flatpak? (as the other commenter @ormith@lemmy.world has hinted)

Here’s what I tried:

what are the permissions of /run/usr/1000/doc/c0a3c3fc

myusername@fedora:~$ ls -la /run/usr/1000/doc
ls: cannot access '/run/usr/1000/doc': No such file or directory

what user are you running VMM as

myusername@fedora:~$ ps aux | grep virt-manager
myusername      17995  0.0  0.0   3688  2048 ?        S    13:05   0:00 /usr/bin/bwrap --args 40 -- virt-manager
myusername      18011  0.0  0.0   3788  1396 ?        S    13:05   0:00 /usr/bin/bwrap --args 40 -- virt-manager
myusername      18013  1.5  0.3 889968 101424 ?       Sl   13:05   0:00 python3 /app/bin/virt-manager
myusername      18147  0.0  0.0 230340  2224 pts/0    S+   13:06   0:00 grep --color=auto virt-manager

EDIT: I got past this issue by opening up Flatseal and granting access to all system files for Virtual Machine Manager; however, now I’m getting stuck on another permission issue after I choose how much RAM, CPU, and disk space to allocate. Reference my response to @ormith@lemmy.world’s comment.

I copied the ISO file to my home directory but got the same result. Any other ideas?

EDIT: I got past this issue by opening up Flatseal and granting access to all system files for Virtual Machine Manager; however, now I’m getting stuck on another permission issue after I choose how much RAM, CPU, and disk space to allocate. Reference my response to @ormith@lemmy.world’s comment.

What’s so great about Ghostty?

I love tools like this. Thank you for sharing.

ELI5?

How does one find such retired laptops? As an individual hobbyist in the US, would I just monitor eBay, Craigslist, or Facebook?

Should be.

One would think, but so you haven’t actually done it, have you? Because I might be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure I tried to install Windows onto a USB drive one time. I couldn’t get the installer to show the USB drive. I really want to be wrong, though.

It’s possible to install Windows onto a USB? I ask b/c once in a blue moon I need a Windows install for mouse firmware updates or something.

You’re right, thank you!

For example:

me@fedora:~$ gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybinding:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom0/ name
'Terminal'

Suppose those of us who’ve missed the bus want to get a copy of the content from before the 20th, is that still available? In other words, do they offer downloads of older versions of the content?

You find the nopic version is still usable? I haven’t used the offline content, but I feel like no images would leave me wanting more. Then again, for what it is, it’s still pretty awesome, and I understand that storage space is a consideration.

Well said. People all over the internet recommend Logseq as a FOSS Obsidian clone. It has a lot going for it, but the biggest thing stopping me from using Logseq is the forced bullet lists. Ugh

I know the point is to reduce waste and combat software driven planned obsolescence, but given the circumstances, is there any way for me to score an extra laptop on the cheap? In other words, come October should I look for a deluge of old Windows 10 laptops on eBay or Salvation Army or something?

Looks like OP updated the title after the other commenter had commented.