Linux OS stuff Thread

What Linux distribution do you use @ HOME ?

  • Slackware

    Votes: 1 1.1%

  • Ubuntu

    Votes: 38 43.7%

  • Mint

    Votes: 18 20.7%

  • Fedora

    Votes: 13 14.9%

  • Debian

    Votes: 12 13.8%

  • SUSE

    Votes: 6 6.9%

  • Arch

    Votes: 6 6.9%

  • Gentoo

    Votes: 1 1.1%

  • Puppy

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Mandriva

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 26 29.9%
  • Total voters
    87
ShakyJake

ShakyJake

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You may have already done this, but ran your question through Claude:

That symptom — "can't fork new processes" while the system otherwise feels alive — almost always means you've hit a **resource limit**, not that you're out of CPU or RAM (which your htop confirms is fine). The keybind isn't broken; the kernel or your user slice is refusing to create the new process.

The two prime suspects, given what's on your screen:

1. **Process/task limit on your user slice.** systemd puts your user session in a cgroup with a `TasksMax` cap. Steam is notorious for leaking `steamwebhelper` processes and you've got a swarm of them plus a swarm of Chromium-style renderers. 1027 threads isn't crazy on its own, but if something's slowly climbing, you'll eventually hit the cap and new launches silently fail.
2. **DBus or `/run/user/$UID` issues.** Ctrl-Alt-T fires through your desktop environment, which talks to dbus and writes sockets under `/run/user/1000`. If that tmpfs fills up or dbus wedges, "launch new thing" breaks specifically while existing windows keep working.

Next time it happens (or now, since it's probably creeping up), run these from a terminal you already have open:

```
systemctl --user status
systemctl status user-$(id -u).slice
df -h /tmp /run/user/$(id -u)
ulimit -u
journalctl --user -p err --since "2 hours ago"
dmesg | tail -50
```

The `systemctl status user-$(id -u).slice` line is the money shot — it shows `Tasks: N (limit: M)`. If N is close to M, that's your answer, and `loginctl terminate-user $USER` (or just rebooting) clears it. Long-term fix is killing Steam fully when you're done with it, or raising the limit in `/etc/systemd/system.conf` (`DefaultTasksMax=`).

What desktop environment are you on? GNOME, KDE, something else? That changes where the keybind actually lives and whether dbus is the likely jam point.
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Kharzette

Kharzette

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ShakyJake said:
You may have already done this, but ran your question through Claude:
Click to expand...
Some good stuff in there! I had checked dmesg but there was nothing in it.

I've been booting back and forth to windows alot (fixing conan mods) so I haven't had things get goofy again yet. I think there have been a couple kernel updates too.
 
Rabbit_Games

Rabbit_Games

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I hate Windows, but I require it. 😭

Wish there was a true diagnostic feature to parse the whole setup in action and tell you where bottlenecks are, or optimizations to use.
 
Kharzette

Kharzette

Watcher of Overs
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6,156
ShakyJake

ShakyJake

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After updating CachyOS, my audio suddenly stopped working. Upon investigating, it turned out to be the same god damn problem I had encountered before with other distros.. a failure to properly configure the ALC-whatever audio on this MSI board. I remember looking into this in the past, and no amount of web searches could point me in the right direction.

This time, I decided to fire up Claude Code and let him have at it. I discovered the issue and fixed it in under 5 minutes. It also helped me submit an ALSA bug report.
 
Kajiimagi

Kajiimagi

<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
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ShakyJake said:
After updating CachyOS, my audio suddenly stopped working. Upon investigating, it turned out to be the same god damn problem I had encountered before with other distros.. a failure to properly configure the ALC-whatever audio on this MSI board. I remember looking into this in the past, and no amount of web searches could point me in the right direction.

This time, I decided to fire up Claude Code and let him have at it. I discovered the issue and fixed it in under 5 minutes. It also helped me submit an ALSA bug report.
Click to expand...
Stuff like this is why I cannot fully commit to Linux, I don't want to diagnose code issues, I just want to play my games.
 
ShakyJake

ShakyJake

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Kajiimagi said:
Stuff like this is why I cannot fully commit to Linux, I don't want to diagnose code issues, I just want to play my games.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have a dedicated Windows gaming PC. The Linux box is basically a workstation. And everything has been perfect until this recent ALSA update. This could also be something funky with this MSI motherboard. I see a few posts out there of people complaining about it but nothing has been fixed. Just interesting that AI was able to figure it out quickly.
 
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