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"And the last thing you might expect to see here... is pengwings."

Introduction

I'm a software developer with 15+ years of coding experience, but that's almost entirely on Windows. I also love playing video games (particularly older/retro ones).

My exposure to non-Windows operating systems is limited. I did do some Mac development in the early 2010s and hated it. I've also used Ubuntu Server to run many of my various web servers since the mid-2000s, but I only learned essential stuff for server maintenance (I can use apt, vim, Apache and Docker and that's pretty much it).

When I bought a Steam Deck in Spring 2025 I got excited - the Steam Deck is an amazing piece of hardware from a technical perspective, Proton is really good honestly, and gaming on Linux finally looked viable. I wanted to explore the world of desktop Linux too.

So in February 2026 I started messing around with Fedora Linux as part of a push to learn more Linux stuff. Eventually I want to move away from Windows permanently, because Windows continues to get worse every release and all the new AI integrations are kinda the straw that broke the camel's back. Windows frankly just sucks now.

So I hereby introduce Pengwings, a wiki which contains random documentation for various Linux things I had to work out. I guess now I'm also sharing my exploration with others. If you're a techy Windows user looking to move to Linux, there might be something here you find useful. Who knows.

Documentation is for Fedora Kinoite (KDE Atomic Desktop) and Universal Blue derivatives. Some alteration might be needed for other distros depending on what the thing is.

General

• Dvorak keyboard bodge: https://github.com/Theleruby/dvorak-lock
• Linux directory structure
• Automatically mount NTFS volumes as read-only
• Using ldmtool to mount NTFS dynamic mirror
• Scroll by single-clicking middle mouse in Chromium
• Convert putty ppk to openssh (using puttygen from bottle)
• Access other ttys

Fedora

• Discord PTB install script (also needs to be run to update if it becomes outdated)
• Stop pipewire from automatically adding Sonos Beam soundbar to audio outputs
• Make audio sound good
• Software not using Dolphin open/save file picker
• Mercurial on Fedora

Atomic Desktop

• rpm-ostree layering vs flatpaks
• Writeable directories preserved during updates of Atomic Desktop
• Fix corrupt etc files stopping system from booting
• How to use rpm-ostree

Universal Blue

This stuff is specific to Universal Blue atomic images and not applicable to base Fedora

• Enroll ublue secure boot key
• Add Windows to the grub menu and increase grub timeout
• Install JetBrains IDEs
• Unbreak pip so it can install most Python packages in venv correctly without having to use Distrobox or Toolbx

Gaming

• Introduction to gaming on Linux
• Running Windows games via Proton without going through Steam or Lutris
• Proton 10 window size bug
• Run a game using gamescope
• FluidSynth as a background service (required if you need MIDI support in any of your Wine/Proton software)
• Tell SDL to use Wayland and Pipewire
• Run game with mangohud
• OBS game capture

Game-specific pages

• Old School RuneScape
• OpenTTD Windows Version
• Thelecraft
• Warcraft III
• World of Warcraft

Criticisms

Bugs, obvious missing features, design decisions that I found weird, etc

• Desktop environment bugs
• Questionable design choices