New Laptop, two questions, search engines less than useful.
1: Since sources.list is very different from the old days, one cannot simply copy paste the file into /etc. If there are sources that are missing, will I still be able to allow synaptic to read the file, ignoring the things like Skype, Chrome, &c, that need the sources installed from the downloaded deb, or must I try to recreate all my packages by installing them from scratch?
Not to insult Nvidia, but the list of possible drivers is longer than the New York Civil Practice Law and rules. Does anyone here know whether I want the "open" or other version of 525.xxx for the Nvidia driver, supporting the 4060 GPU card? Or should I wait and install that from apt or synpatic after completed install?
I surely miss the days when everything was a simple text file.
I maybe missing something, and I don't know what you're referring to as the "old days", but old days to me are Ubuntu 10.10 (ie. late 2010; I hadn't used Ubuntu before then) and I can't think of what is different from then to now. I've used Debian since the late 90s, and beyond Debian & Ubuntu repositories having different names, again I can't think of any differences from say '98 to 2023 either.
I learnt vi back in the early 80s as terminals at university mostly didn't have arrow keys, so treating my sources as a text file is where I'm comfortable & thus use it that way (just as I did when I started using Debian GNU/Linux in late 90s). I just use vim now instead of vi.
Not really. It is still the same textfile it ever was.
Besides that you probably meant /etc/apt, you actually can.
Yes, but it will complain about the missing sources.
You are probably better off to comment-out the lines of the missing sources and re-add these repositories when you need them.
Dang, I wish you did
If you are using the 4060 for demanding games or CUDA, you have no choice but to use NVidia's proprietary drivers and try to live with the consequences, like:
recompiling their shim every kernel update
(No worries, this is automated by DKMS)
delaying kernel updates because you have to wait for the matching Nvidia driver/shim to be published.
Being robbed of Xrandr functionality like custom screen resolutions.
lots of small incompatibilities, bugs, blackscreens etc.
For all other uses: Use the Nouveau drivers which are, although slower, much better integrated and much less of a headache. Nouveau is the "open" driver.
As a general rule of thumb: Practically all open "in-tree" drivers are higher in quality and reliability than their proprietary counterparts.