Sarah's Website - GNU/Linux

Using Google Drive on Arch Linux - KDE Plasma

2025-09-25T00:00:00-04:00

NOTE: i’ve been told that problems exist with KDE, in general - not just KDE Plasma. so, if you’re having trouble getting Google Drive to work with Dolphin, these steps may just work anyway

also

i got this info from Reddit but can’t find the links - sorry about that

initial steps

first, install kio-gdrive

the following command is to install kio-gdrive on Arch Linux. i use CachyOS in particular but any pacman OS works

obviously, you can install kio-gdrive on other GNU/Linux operating systems

sudo pacman -S kio-gdrive

the problem is that simply installing kio-gdrive doesn’t work at all with KDE

however

it works just fine with GNOME

so, before you go to System Settings, Networking, Oneline Accounts, and add Google

do this first:

kate /usr/share/accounts/providers/kde/google.provider

delete all the contents (every line) and copy and paste this XML doc instead:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<provider id="google">
  <name>Google</name>

  <description>GNOME-ID, Google Drive and YouTube</description>
  <icon>im-google</icon>
  <translations>kaccounts-providers</translations>
  <domains>.*google\.com</domains>

  <template>
    <group name="auth">
      <setting name="method">oauth2</setting>
      <setting name="mechanism">web_server</setting>
      <group name="oauth2">
        <group name="web_server">
          <setting name="Host">accounts.google.com</setting>
          <setting name="AuthPath">o/oauth2/auth?access_type=offline&amp;approval_prompt=force</setting>
          <setting name="TokenPath">o/oauth2/token</setting>
          <setting name="RedirectUri">http://localhost/oauth2callback</setting>

          <setting name="ResponseType">code</setting>
          <setting type="as" name="Scope">[
              'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email',
              'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile',
              'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar',
              'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/tasks',
              'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive'
          ]</setting>
          <setting type="as" name="AllowedSchemes">['https']</setting>
          <setting name="ClientId">44438659992-7kgjeitenc16ssihbtdjbgguch7ju55s.apps.googleusercontent.com</setting>
          <setting name="ClientSecret">-gMLuQyDiI0XrQS_vx_mhuYF</setting>
          <setting type="b" name="ForceClientAuthViaRequestBody">true</setting>
        </group>
      </group>
    </group>
  </template>
</provider>

of course, be sure and save the file - it will prompt you for your sudo password and save the file just fine

next steps

now, go into System Settings

under the Networking section on the left

select Online Accounts

on the upper, right, click + Add Account and choose Google

it should look like

notice it says GNOME and not KDE

enter your Gmail account address and password on the next screens. i use Passkeys, so it’s a bit different for me, but still works

once you’re logged in and given GNOME all the settings, Dolphin will just work, as-is

in Network, Google Drive, of course

and, obviously, you can pin it as well

conclusion

yes, it’s a bit of work - but very doable

the file, above, is also available for you to just download and use as is - it’s exactly the same as above

File: google.provider

md5sum: a65ed15fb05cb710409434d5f6b87171

WinBoat for GNU/Linux

2025-09-04T00:00:00-04:00

WinBoat is a GNU/Linux app that runs various versions of Windows. i fucked up the first time installing it and had a bitch of a time uninstalling it

but first

i’ll describe how i got it running before the install

initial install, before i fucked it up

WinBoat’s GitHub repo has the current release as an AppImage

after the download, go to the download folder on the command line and execute

chmod +x winboat-X.Y.Z.AppImage

where X, Y, and Z are the version number. in my case, v0.7.1. note: this is beta software and earlier today, it was v0.6.13 but changed rn when i just now checked for this writing

before first run

install Docker and Docker Compose

sudo pacman -S docker docker-compose

sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl start docker

sudo usermod -a -G docker username

to start, i use CachyOS, an ArchLinux distro. the first line will probably be different for your distro. the username at the end is your user name that you use to login to your Desktop Environment

finally, be sure the correct Kernel Modules are running

echo -e "ip_tables\niptable_nat" | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/iptables.conf
sudo reboot

AppImageLaucher

believe it or not, i’d rather not use the terminal for launching apps and i have an apps folder to prove it. so i use AppImageLauncher. to install

sudo pacman -S appimagelauncher

then i fucked it all up

when you first run WinBoat, from terminal or otherwise, it displays some sort of BIOS or UEFI. i skipped the FreeRDP step of the pre-installation, which is required for a Remote Desktop Connection. i saw the text and the logo but it went by so fast that i couldn’t read it. by the time i went back to GitHub to read the README, i was convinced that, somehow, me not installing FreeRDP caused that text to display

by that time, the Windows 11 installer was in the middle of downloading and i closed WinBoat thinking that the next time i opened it, it would start over

but

it did not start over

it ran the WinBoat again and, of course, nothing happened

so, to uninstall the docker image

sudo docker volume rm winboat
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker/volumes

that last line might be unnecessary but i did it anyway (thx Gemini deep research)

and so i started over

WinBoat uses QEMU from your default web browser and, below are some pics of the installation and what i did after

pics

WinBoat lets you install a number of Windows versions, i picked 11 Pro

then the install begins

after some restarts, Windows opens with you already logged in

sorry that i didn’t mention it before

but

WinBoat, before it creates the Docker image, prompts for RAM, Cores, and Storage Size

i picked 8 GB, 4, and 64 GB respectively

it also asks for which version of Windows you want and a password to login - this can be anything as it doesn’t link to your Microsoft Account

the next thing i did was a Windows Update

and also updated the apps in the Microsoft Store

the apps all got updated first and then Windows Update finished and prompted for a reboot, which i did

i had to log in, with password, and was greeted with this minimal desktop and start menu

the next Windows update simply installed Defender antivirus signatures, which didn’t require a reboot

caveats

because it is running QEMU in a default web browser, gaming isn’t an option - save maybe the Microsoft games, like Mahjong, Minesweeper, Jigsaw, etc

please use Steam/Proton directly on your GNU/Linux machine for gaming, even simple games

updating WinBoat to the current version involves stopping a WinBoat Windows service and deleting 16 lines at the bottom of the ~/.local/share/applications/appimagekit_*-winboat.desktop file plus removing the old AppImage in your ~/Applications folder

no Bluetooth, microphone input, audio output

stopping QEMU from within the WinBoat app does a hard power-off, i believe (but i could be wrong). pausing works just fine. a shutdown within the Windows QEMU environment is the correct way

it’s constantly prompting me to stop the WinBoatGuestServer

the Windows 11 Pro install, upgrades and app updates consume 20.5 GB of storage

simply moving the cursor isn’t smooth

but

it gets the job done

last words

this project is off to a great start but i doubt i will use it for anything

i can run Microsoft 365 in my web browser on GNU/Linux and there’s an app for everything else i want to do

i’ve tested running games on CachyOS and the fps is the same as on my native Windows 11 partition

so, i really have no need for Windows. sorry, Microsoft

but this project is awesome, a fave, and the tech talk on Discord

hope this information helps

How To Configure Your Fish Prompt

2025-08-09T00:00:00-04:00

first of all, i love the command shell fish!!!

but

i’m a complete noob when it comes to fish and fishing as well

however

i love the way fish is setup on CashyOS but when i switched to Fedora 42, i missed all of the epic CashyOS features that made fish even better

i felt like i had to do something — something like this:

the simple solution

does’t work

and that would be transferring my existing ~/.config/fish folder to Fedora

even transferring the CashyOS config folder doesn’t work

so what did i do?

copying and pasting, mainly

the solution that worked

is kinda involved but well worth it imho

first, let’s start with aliases

aliases

CachyOS has some good ones but i came up with a few of my own

from my ~/.config/fish/conf.d/alias.fish file:

# Replace ls with eza
alias la 'eza -a --color=always --group-directories-first --icons'  # all files and dirs
alias ll 'eza -l --color=always --group-directories-first --icons'  # long format
alias lt 'eza -aT --color=always --group-directories-first --icons' # tree listing
alias l. "eza -a | grep -e '^\.'"                                   # show only dotfiles
alias lal 'eza -al --color=always --group-directories-first --icons'
alias ls 'eza --color=always --group-directories-first --icons'

# Common use
alias psmem 'ps auxf | sort -nr -k 4'
alias psmem10 'ps auxf | sort -nr -k 4 | head -10'
alias .. 'cd ..'
alias ... 'cd ../..'
alias .... 'cd ../../..'
alias ..... 'cd ../../../..'
alias ...... 'cd ../../../../..'
alias dir 'dir --color=auto'
alias vdir 'vdir --color=auto'
alias grep 'grep --color=auto'
alias fgrep 'fgrep --color=auto'
alias egrep 'egrep --color=auto'
alias hw 'hwinfo --short'                                           # Hardware Info

# Get the error messages from journalctl
alias jctl "journalctl -p 3 -xb"

# root commands
alias dnf 'sudo dnf5'
alias reboot 'sudo reboot'
alias shutdown 'sudo systemctl poweroff'
alias systemctl 'sudo systemctl'
alias update 'sudo dnf5 --refresh update'
alias yum 'sudo dnf5'

# use vim
alias vi vim
# don't use the bash version of which
alias which 'type -P'

WARNING: be sure you have eza installed as it isn’t, by default, on Fedora 42. if you don’t, your ls command will quit working due to the alias

sudo dnf install eza

finally, let’s move onto the epic CachyOS fish prompt

main prompt

this one had me racking my small, tiny brain

but

i finally figured it out

the funced fish_prompt command lets you edit your prompt

down at the very bottom of the file, i changed it to:

if set -q VIRTUAL_ENV
    set -f venv_name (basename "$VIRTUAL_ENV")" "
else
    set -f venv_name ""
end

echo -s \n (set_color red) (prompt_pwd -d 70) (set_color brblack) (echo (fish_vcs_prompt) | sed 's/[()]//g')
echo -n -s $venv_name $normal $suffix " "

what i learned is that set -q queries to see if the variable is set or unset

and

set -f sets the variable for the scope of the function

also, in order to get the virtual environment part to work

you need to add the following line to your ~/.config/fish/conf.d/environ.fish file:

set -gx VIRTUAL_ENV_DISABLE_PROMPT true

conclusion

i learned a lot about fish and got a bunch of epic aliases for my Fedora 42 OS

you can also download my fish configuration which has everything done for you

> ~/.config/
> rm -rf fish    # unless you've already made changes
> tar Jxvf ~/Downloads/fish-config.tar.xz

thank you for reading and have a fun day!!!