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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 22:51:02

Title: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 22:51:02
I'm using Arch at home and Ubuntu at work.

Whats the general GH Linux concensus?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Sat, 29 March 2014, 22:59:00
I primarily use Ubuntu with Gnome classic at home. At work I'm forced to use Windows. :(

I've tried most distros, and keep coming back to 'buntu, because I'm very familiar with it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:01:49
I use funtoo, and it was my first linux distro. I'm planning on trying arch some time soon on one of my spare computers though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hashbaz on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:06:43
Redhat at work, Windows at home.  If I did serious coding at home I would definitely have a linux install, but for browsing and chatting Windows does just fine.  In the past I've done dual boot setups at home with Windows + Ubuntu or Fedora, and ended up never booting into linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:07:25
I primarily use Ubuntu with Gnome classic at home. At work I'm forced to use Windows. :(

I've tried most distros, and keep coming back to 'buntu, because I'm very familiar with it.

Cant go wrong with Ubuntu, was my first Distro and still use it daily.

I use funtoo, and it was my first linux distro. I'm planning on trying arch some time soon on one of my spare computers though.

Been meaning to try funtoo, whats the longest you've had an install for?

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:08:20
Ubuntu at the moment, but all new servers are created with CentOS and I'm trying to find excuses (and time0 to upgrade Ubuntu servers to CentOS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:08:48
Redhat at work, Windows at home.  If I did serious coding at home I would definitely have a linux install, but for browsing and chatting Windows does just fine.  In the past I've done dual boot setups with Ubuntu and Fedora at home and ended up never booting them.

Do you like Redhat? I could never get into it -- the way everything is organized in the file system has always really bugged me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:10:04
Redhat at work, Windows at home.  If I did serious coding at home I would definitely have a linux install, but for browsing and chatting Windows does just fine.  In the past I've done dual boot setups with Ubuntu and Fedora at home and ended up never booting them.

Do you like Redhat? I could never get into it -- the way everything is organized in the file system has always really bugged me.

Ubuntu at the moment, but all new servers are created with CentOS and I'm trying to find excuses (and time0 to upgrade Ubuntu servers to CentOS.

Do you like CentOS. Have a few servers at work that use it but it drives me up a wall.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:12:13
I use funtoo, and it was my first linux distro. I'm planning on trying arch some time soon on one of my spare computers though.

Been meaning to try funtoo, whats the longest you've had an install for?
I only just jumped on the linux bandwagon, so I've been using it for about 4 months. Haven't really run into any problems. It's definitely worth a try, but if you don't have the time/patience to compile everything, then it's a horrible choice.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:12:47
Using Arch on my RasPi. Ubuntu at work when I have the choice. We have a lot of CentOS running in production at work, so I spend a lot of time with it. I want to spend some time with Linux Mint when I have a chance.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:13:05
Redhat at work, Windows at home.  If I did serious coding at home I would definitely have a linux install, but for browsing and chatting Windows does just fine.  In the past I've done dual boot setups with Ubuntu and Fedora at home and ended up never booting them.

Do you like Redhat? I could never get into it -- the way everything is organized in the file system has always really bugged me.

Ubuntu at the moment, but all new servers are created with CentOS and I'm trying to find excuses (and time0 to upgrade Ubuntu servers to CentOS.

Do you like CentOS. Have a few servers at work that use it but it drives me up a wall.

So far, yes.

So far I have one physical server running it, mostly just a file server.  And one VM with a few dev tools that I use for about 25% of my programming work.

What is it that drives you up the wall with CentOS?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:13:14
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that my droplet on DigitalOcean is Ubuntu Server. :D

I tried CentOS, but again the familiarity pulled me back.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hashbaz on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:15:04
Do you like Redhat? I could never get into it -- the way everything is organized in the file system has always really bugged me.

I'm ambivalent I suppose, as an end-user.  The systems folks manage everything so I can't speak to that end of it.  Mainly I love the vim + terminal workflow and tiling window managers, which will work on any distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:17:06
Redhat at work, Windows at home.  If I did serious coding at home I would definitely have a linux install, but for browsing and chatting Windows does just fine.  In the past I've done dual boot setups with Ubuntu and Fedora at home and ended up never booting them.

Do you like Redhat? I could never get into it -- the way everything is organized in the file system has always really bugged me.

Ubuntu at the moment, but all new servers are created with CentOS and I'm trying to find excuses (and time0 to upgrade Ubuntu servers to CentOS.

Do you like CentOS. Have a few servers at work that use it but it drives me up a wall.

So far, yes.

So far I have one physical server running it, mostly just a file server.  And one VM with a few dev tools that I use for about 25% of my programming work.

What is it that drives you up the wall with CentOS?

One example of my annoyence with CentOS is how they handle the network interfaces. I really like the /etc/network/interfaces file in Ubuntu. Everything in one place. In CentOS you have to go into that net-cfg folder, I think, something like that (network-scripts maybe?) and edit the different IPs, netmasks, etc for the interfaces. You then have to go to a seperate file and edit the gateway, broadcast. Like, I just dont understand why they did that, why not consolidate it all in one file? Its things like that that irritate me about CentOS. Just like, the whole file layout/hierarchy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:20:14
I use funtoo, and it was my first linux distro. I'm planning on trying arch some time soon on one of my spare computers though.

Been meaning to try funtoo, whats the longest you've had an install for?
I only just jumped on the linux bandwagon, so I've been using it for about 4 months. Haven't really run into any problems. It's definitely worth a try, but if you don't have the time/patience to compile everything, then it's a horrible choice.

What distro are you using that you have to compile everything? Most linux distro have better package managers than "modern" OSes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:22:17
I use funtoo, and it was my first linux distro. I'm planning on trying arch some time soon on one of my spare computers though.

Been meaning to try funtoo, whats the longest you've had an install for?
I only just jumped on the linux bandwagon, so I've been using it for about 4 months. Haven't really run into any problems. It's definitely worth a try, but if you don't have the time/patience to compile everything, then it's a horrible choice.

What distro are you using that you have to compile everything? Most linux distro have better package managers than "modern" OSes.

He's using funtoo -- yay compiling and c-flags!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:22:39
What distro are you using that you have to compile everything? Most linux distro have better package managers than "modern" OSes.
Funtoo, it's a derivative of gentoo. It allows for optimized performance by only compiling the features of a program that you will actually use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: oluf on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:25:41
I used Red Hat from ~96 to 2002.. Debian ever since. Personally, not a fan of all the 'extra' stuff (...and their dependencies) many distros install.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:28:30
I used Red Hat from ~96 to 2002.. Debian ever since. Personally, not a fan of all the 'extra' stuff (...and their dependencies) many distros install.

A man after my own heart. dpkg master race reporting in.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: daerid on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:34:14
Xubuntu here. I'm not a big fan of all the eye-candy that you get with K?ubuntu by default. I would use CentOS (I've got a VM because we have CentOS servers in production and gotta make sure stuff's compatible), but I tend to stay on the bleeding edge, and CentOS's packages are usually quite out of date (as they prioritize stability over having the latest features).

My main box is Win 8, run my *nix boxes under VirtualBox.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:35:00
Redhat at work, Windows at home.  If I did serious coding at home I would definitely have a linux install, but for browsing and chatting Windows does just fine.  In the past I've done dual boot setups with Ubuntu and Fedora at home and ended up never booting them.

Do you like Redhat? I could never get into it -- the way everything is organized in the file system has always really bugged me.

Ubuntu at the moment, but all new servers are created with CentOS and I'm trying to find excuses (and time0 to upgrade Ubuntu servers to CentOS.

Do you like CentOS. Have a few servers at work that use it but it drives me up a wall.

So far, yes.

So far I have one physical server running it, mostly just a file server.  And one VM with a few dev tools that I use for about 25% of my programming work.

What is it that drives you up the wall with CentOS?

CentOS is often considered to be the best for production machines. This is mainly because it is much slower to pick up recent software changes. This makes it more long term stable, but not having recent versions of software can sometimes be annoying. Eg: Python defaults to version 2.6 and yum depends on that version, so you can't upgrade the default python version or yum will break. There are ways around this, but this is the type of thing you have to deal with when using CentOS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:37:11
What distro are you using that you have to compile everything? Most linux distro have better package managers than "modern" OSes.
Funtoo, it's a derivative of gentoo. It allows for optimized performance by only compiling the features of a program that you will actually use.

I thought I was crazy for using arch.  Thats Loco. :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: daerid on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:51:04
Gentoo? psssshhh....

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:52:29
Gentoo? psssshhh....

Show Image
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png)


Lol, great strip. In all seriousness though, vim masterrace reporting in.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:54:26
Redhat at work, Windows at home.  If I did serious coding at home I would definitely have a linux install, but for browsing and chatting Windows does just fine.  In the past I've done dual boot setups with Ubuntu and Fedora at home and ended up never booting them.

Do you like Redhat? I could never get into it -- the way everything is organized in the file system has always really bugged me.

Ubuntu at the moment, but all new servers are created with CentOS and I'm trying to find excuses (and time0 to upgrade Ubuntu servers to CentOS.

Do you like CentOS. Have a few servers at work that use it but it drives me up a wall.

So far, yes.

So far I have one physical server running it, mostly just a file server.  And one VM with a few dev tools that I use for about 25% of my programming work.

What is it that drives you up the wall with CentOS?

One example of my annoyence with CentOS is how they handle the network interfaces. I really like the /etc/network/interfaces file in Ubuntu. Everything in one place. In CentOS you have to go into that net-cfg folder, I think, something like that (network-scripts maybe?) and edit the different IPs, netmasks, etc for the interfaces. You then have to go to a seperate file and edit the gateway, broadcast. Like, I just dont understand why they did that, why not consolidate it all in one file? Its things like that that irritate me about CentOS. Just like, the whole file layout/hierarchy.

I haven't had to worry about that yet.  As long as you remember to check "initialise interfaces at startup" or something, LAN connectivity is enabled at boot time (it is strange that it is not enabled by default).

Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:56:24
Gentoo? psssshhh....

Show Image
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png)


Lol, great strip. In all seriousness though, vim masterrace reporting in.

In the terminal vim is king. I usually use sublime text otherwise (but that's off topic)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hashbaz on Sat, 29 March 2014, 23:58:12
Gentoo? psssshhh....

Show Image
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png)


I had this very strip hanging outside my office for a year or two.  One of the best xkcds ever, and that's saying a lot. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 30 March 2014, 01:35:12
I prefer Debian with Cinnamon, which Mint now offers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: StylinGreymon on Sun, 30 March 2014, 01:58:21
I use Manjaro.
I also use i3 as my window manager.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sun, 30 March 2014, 11:30:12
I use Manjaro.
I also use i3 as my window manager.

I'm really impressed with Manjaro. Been using Arch for ages, but I really like how they package it, still need to check it out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nuclearsandwich on Sun, 30 March 2014, 11:32:31
Archlinux since 2008 and before that Slackware. Linux is only fun when it's hard and nothing works.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sun, 30 March 2014, 11:41:33
Archlinux since 2008 and before that Slackware. Linux is only fun when it's hard and nothing works.

Love Arch, just wondering, why did you switch from Slackware?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: eddie on Sun, 30 March 2014, 11:45:30
debian with gnome
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nuclearsandwich on Sun, 30 March 2014, 12:13:37
Archlinux since 2008 and before that Slackware. Linux is only fun when it's hard and nothing works.

Love Arch, just wondering, why did you switch from Slackware?

It got to the point where having a package manager during daily operation was actually quite nice. Slackware's package manager only exists at install time. After that it's make && make install all the way.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Smasher816 on Sun, 30 March 2014, 12:18:29
Arch Linux!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tipo33 on Sun, 30 March 2014, 12:26:20
I use debian, though I have considered trying arch as a learning experience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wyatt8740 on Sun, 30 March 2014, 12:56:52
Arch on my iMac and Linuxmint (debian based) on my homebuilt computer. I use mint for my games mostly, because it's already got most of what games need. I use arch for programming. I use MATE (a GNOME 2 fork that is actually being maintained and developed) for both of them.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sun, 30 March 2014, 13:02:38
This is a great thread. Love all the quality input and experience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: MOZ on Sun, 30 March 2014, 13:12:09
Kubuntu dual booted with Windows 7 on desktop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Sun, 30 March 2014, 16:00:52
Mint/XFCE
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CJNE on Sun, 30 March 2014, 16:12:45
I use Arch Linux with awesome wm on the laptop, at work we have a mix of Ubuntu and CentOS on the servers.
OS X for my main workstations but i'm getting tempted now and then to run Linux on there as well, i really like Awesome and there are nothing quite as good for OS X.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Sun, 30 March 2014, 16:15:57
Linux mint 16 with cinnamon here. Previously used fedora, aptosid, sidux, ubuntu and debian on my main pc.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sun, 30 March 2014, 16:24:53
Linux mint 16 with cinnamon here. Previously used fedora, aptosid, sidux, ubuntu and debian on my main pc.

This is what I want to try.  Are you enjoying this setup?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Protato_Tubby on Sun, 30 March 2014, 17:49:44
At home I dual-boot With Debian with Gnome 3 and Windows (Windows for most games, Debian for everything else). At school I'm forced to use Windows, despite my computing course demanding that we should have experience with more than one OS (Which consisted of us using a raspberry pi  with Raspbian for one hour Ughhhh - such a waste of time) which of course has been no problem for me, but for the majority of people in my Class has been difficult. First used Ubuntu at the age of 11 on an old laptop that was given to me by a relative. I think it's the reason that I'm so into computers now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: funkymeeba on Sun, 30 March 2014, 23:17:57
I've been using Funtoo for the past 3 years. My current installs are both two years old, and still running excellent. I really enjoy Funtoo. Lately, I've been giving i3 a shot as my window manager. I'm really enjoying it, but it is taking some time to get away from my e17 workflow.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Mon, 31 March 2014, 02:11:33
Linux mint 16 with cinnamon here. Previously used fedora, aptosid, sidux, ubuntu and debian on my main pc.

This is what I want to try.  Are you enjoying this setup?

Absolutley. Works very smootly on this rugged laptop:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=48024.msg1261952#msg1261952 (http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=48024.msg1261952#msg1261952)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 31 March 2014, 02:15:36
I use debian, though I have considered trying arch as a learning experience.

the only thing you learn by installing arch is arch... which is nice if you want to learn arch i suppose.

i use crunchbang for workstations and debian for servers... i like openbox and crunchbang comes out of the box with a decent font config so... that's pretty much my criteria right there. always preferred .deb distros for no particular reason but i'm mostly agnostic. use what you like, use what works... it's the beauty of linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: avtar on Mon, 31 March 2014, 02:38:16
I use CentOS for servers. I've been trying Arch and i3 for my own computer at work but I'm probably going to go back to Debian Testing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdeblese on Mon, 31 March 2014, 04:23:28
Another vote for Slackware! Been using it for the past ten years and wouldn't dream of switching. I use enough odd software that I prefer that make && make install is the standard method.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: HendyZone on Mon, 31 March 2014, 05:47:21
I used LinuxMint for my desktop
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Mon, 31 March 2014, 05:48:39
I still use Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with Gnome 2 and Window Maker ...
I am looking at other distros, but haven't decided for one yet. I have been using Window Maker since I started using Linux back in the late '90s and wouldn't dream of switching to anything sub-par.

Dual-boot with Windows 7 only for games.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: chibishin on Mon, 31 March 2014, 07:55:36
Started on slackware back in 98, then gentoo around 06, and since 10 have dropped that and gone with BSD. FreeBSD for my NAS, OSX on my MBP, and windows for general use on my HTPCs and desktop.

slackware, I get it since it's a good way to immerse yourself in the way linux works and learn it, but gentoo is just so pointless. there's so much work involved in getting that system up and running and maintained, and so little benefit. I highly doubt a fully customized gentoo system is going to run noticeably faster than, say, ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Sifo on Mon, 31 March 2014, 08:16:21
Played around with fedora for a bit, and Ubuntu for the most part before I became full time casual and stuck to windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: funkymeeba on Mon, 31 March 2014, 08:41:29
Started on slackware back in 98, then gentoo around 06, and since 10 have dropped that and gone with BSD. FreeBSD for my NAS, OSX on my MBP, and windows for general use on my HTPCs and desktop.

slackware, I get it since it's a good way to immerse yourself in the way linux works and learn it, but gentoo is just so pointless. there's so much work involved in getting that system up and running and maintained, and so little benefit. I highly doubt a fully customized gentoo system is going to run noticeably faster than, say, ubuntu.

I think this guy would disagree: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74072
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hashbaz on Mon, 31 March 2014, 12:33:20
Archlinux since 2008 and before that Slackware. Linux is only fun when it's hard and nothing works.

QFT :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 31 March 2014, 16:26:49
Started on slackware back in 98, then gentoo around 06, and since 10 have dropped that and gone with BSD. FreeBSD for my NAS, OSX on my MBP, and windows for general use on my HTPCs and desktop.

slackware, I get it since it's a good way to immerse yourself in the way linux works and learn it, but gentoo is just so pointless. there's so much work involved in getting that system up and running and maintained, and so little benefit. I highly doubt a fully customized gentoo system is going to run noticeably faster than, say, ubuntu.

I think this guy would disagree: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74072

Haha...  "Rebuild your system with sane settings and post back if you still have the problem". 

That is almost an equivalent to just responding with: PEBKAC... 

PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: funkymeeba on Mon, 31 March 2014, 16:33:53
Haha...  "Rebuild your system with sane settings and post back if you still have the problem". 

That is almost an equivalent to just responding with: PEBKAC... 

PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

In this case, PEBKAC is accurate. Look at the wild, irresponsible CFLAGS they were using. It's no wonder that system broke.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 31 March 2014, 16:36:01
Haha...  "Rebuild your system with sane settings and post back if you still have the problem". 

That is almost an equivalent to just responding with: PEBKAC... 

PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

In this case, PEBKAC is accurate. Look at the wild, irresponsible CFLAGS they were using. It's no wonder that system broke.

Haha, ya fair enough.  It is still a funny response to an issue.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: samwisekoi on Mon, 31 March 2014, 19:14:38
Desktops: LMDE (with one legacy LM 13 LTS instance) with MATE desktop
Non-PROD Servers and some VM instances: Debian 6
PROD Servers and most VM instances: CentOS 6

I'd use CentOS 6 on all servers and VM instances, but some things are just easier to deploy with Debian, mostly because the Debian folks work with more application teams than the CentOS folks.  ZFS on Linux and Request Tracker 4 are two examples of that situation.

64-bit everywhere, because why not?

 - Ron | samwisekoi

p.s. Also VIM Master Race, which is why all my custom keyboard layouts have an Insert key on the top layer.  And if you use VIM without using the tri-state Insert toggle, you are missing some of the fun!  Especially if you have to do any SQL.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Mon, 31 March 2014, 19:58:02
Work machine : Slackware /w fluxbox
Servers : centos 6.x
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hashbaz on Mon, 31 March 2014, 19:58:53
p.s. Also VIM Master Race, which is why all my custom keyboard layouts have an Insert key on the top layer.  And if you use VIM without using the tri-state Insert toggle, you are missing some of the fun!  Especially if you have to do any SQL.

On my setup it toggles between insert and replace modes.  Didn't know about that, but it doesn't seem very useful as I almost never use replace mode.  I'm probably missing something awesome though.. ?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 31 March 2014, 20:14:44
I would almost pay someone to explain how my insert key is designed to work on my fc660c. I swear that button does nothing. @samwisekoi: can you give me a simple example I can try to verify the key is even working? 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Smasher816 on Mon, 31 March 2014, 20:19:45
Usually the input button makes every character you type overwrite the one after it. Try clicking in the middle of a sentance, pressing the insert key, then typing some more. If insert mode is on it should start typing over the old text instead of inserting it in the middle.

Note: Back in the days of text only consoles (and TI's calculators today) the overwrite mode was the default and you had to press the insert key to add anything in the middle.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 31 March 2014, 20:26:15
Usually the input button makes every character you type overwrite the one after it. Try clicking in the middle of a sentance, pressing the enter key, then typing some more. If insert mode is on it should start typing over the old text instead of inserting it in the middle.

Note: Back in the days of text only consoles (and TI's calculators today) the overwrite mode was the default and you had to press the insert key to add anything in the middle.

This is what I expected. In vim I press 'i' to get into edit mode. I then hit the insert key and start typing. I expect it to overwrite the text and it doesn't. I can't get it to work in another editor like sublime either. As a coder I would totally use it if I could figure it out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Smasher816 on Mon, 31 March 2014, 20:29:23
Maybe pull up "xev" in a console and double check what they keys output is?

This is what shows up on my board:
Code: [Select]
KeyPress event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001,
    root 0x29d, subw 0x0, time 9710021, (342,453), root:(4824,474),
    state 0x10, keycode 118 (keysym 0xff63, Insert), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001,
    root 0x29d, subw 0x0, time 9710125, (342,453), root:(4824,474),
    state 0x10, keycode 118 (keysym 0xff63, Insert), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

The important part is the "Insert" in parentheses. If that part is blank you might look at the keycode to figure out what its doing. If nothing shows up at all then I'm not sure whats up (something with the board).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: angelic_sedition on Mon, 31 March 2014, 21:07:53
 
p.s. Also VIM Master Race, which is why all my custom keyboard layouts have an Insert key on the top layer.  And if you use VIM without using the tri-state Insert toggle, you are missing some of the fun!  Especially if you have to do any SQL.

Why would you use insert over R....? And does anyone actually find replace mode that useful in the first place?

Maybe pull up "xev" in a console and double check what they keys output is?

This is what shows up on my board:
Code: [Select]
KeyPress event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001,
    root 0x29d, subw 0x0, time 9710021, (342,453), root:(4824,474),
    state 0x10, keycode 118 (keysym 0xff63, Insert), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001,
    root 0x29d, subw 0x0, time 9710125, (342,453), root:(4824,474),
    state 0x10, keycode 118 (keysym 0xff63, Insert), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

The important part is the "Insert" in parentheses. If that part is blank you might look at the keycode to figure out what its doing. If nothing shows up at all then I'm not sure whats up (something with the board).

And if it isn't insert, and you want to make it insert:
xmodmap -e "keycode 118 = Insert"
(assuming it shows up as keycode 118; this change won't apply after you restart, so you can put "keycode ..." in a file and put "xmodmap /path/to/file" in your .xinitrc or whatever you use for startup)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Decaffeinator on Tue, 01 April 2014, 05:51:06
I'm currently using Arch Linux and BSPWM. I use Vim more often than emacs, but they both have they're advantages.   :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Bencze on Tue, 01 April 2014, 08:19:31
I use Centos for home server (nas, mpd, squid, whatnot).

I tried ubuntu for desktop, then debian for basically being a mature ubuntu but I always met difficulties from day 1. Like I struggled in debian to turn off the damn framebuffer text mode and bring back regular text mode console, found various solutions and none of them worked. That install lived for 1 day.
In ubuntu I never understood the different runlevels and startup scripts either, but now Fedora uses something weird as well so suddenly it's difficult to manually work with services.

I have a Fedora at home I rarely use just when I want to try something.
Somehow I never got the linux desktop thing going, it's awesome for the server tasks in text mode that's all. Maybe valve and opengl etc. will be able to change that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: samwisekoi on Tue, 01 April 2014, 10:01:12
In vim, Insert puts the editor in insert mode, and pressing again puts it into replace, etc.  Escape exits the mode.

I like it because I can hit either key while thinking of typing other letters.

Example #1: Open this file and add time (e.g. " 02:00:00") to the first date below.
<ins><<down>><end><<left>> 02:00:00
Example #2: Change "2014-04-07" to "2014-04-14".
<<down>><end><<left>><ins>14<esc>:wq

Quote
FROM
Tickets
Inner Join Users ON Tickets.Owner = Users.id
Inner Join Queues ON Tickets.Queue = Queues.id
WHERE
        Tickets.id =  Tickets.EffectiveId
        AND
        Queues.Name LIKE  'ALERT.%'
        AND
        Tickets.Subject NOT LIKE '%ACKNOWLEDGEMENT%'
        AND
        Tickets.Status NOT LIKE 'rejected'
        AND
        Tickets.Created >=  '2014-03-31'
        AND
        Tickets.Created <   '2014-04-07'
ORDER BY
        TIMEDIFF(Tickets.Started, Tickets.Created) DESC
" > $spreadsheet

I can find the arrows and the Insert and End keys without thought.

(Now that I think about it, I should remap Fire and Jump to those keys in games!)

Anyhow, those are my examples.  Also real code I modified yesterday.

 - Ron | samwisekoi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Thu, 03 April 2014, 00:08:12
Oh man, I've tried to switch to a linux desktop multiple times over the past 20 years but it never stuck. My most recent serious attempt to switch was to OpenSuse maybe about 3 years ago. I think I made it a couple of months. I've tried Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Chakra, Gentoo and probably several others as well.

I do, however, plan to try Qubes OS in the next month or two for an extended period of time. I will be virtualizing windows this time so I won't have to try to give up outlook and onenote. I am hoping that I'll have better luck this time since I'm not actually trying to give up all my favorite windows apps at the same time as well.

When it comes to servers and command line, I absolutely love linux. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands :) I use Centos/RHEL here as I need the ultra long term stability. I'm fairly comfortable on an Ubuntu LTS server as well, but I don't really consider their LTS distro all that LTS. We're getting close to the next LTS release, but I just had to install an unbuntu server with the current LTS version, and it only has 3 years of bugfixes left. That kinda sucks for a "long term" OS that I just installed. This is why RHEL/Centos has a much longer support cycle. In addition, I can work with RPM spec files and can build/adjust my own RPMs most of the time without too much issue. This allows me to run my own small repository for my needs.

The first thing I ever do on any linux install, yum install emacs-nox or apt-get install emacs-nox, never been much of a vim fan though I can do a few very basic things in there.

My firewalls are pfsense (freebsd), but I may switch to one of the vyatta forks at some point. I tried to use vyatta before pfsense, but found it more of a router OS and not super ideal for firewall use. But it's been years, and I really did love it. Managing it is similar to managing cisco or hp stuff.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Thu, 03 April 2014, 00:25:27
Oh man, I've tried to switch to a linux desktop multiple times over the past 20 years but it never stuck. My most recent serious attempt to switch was to OpenSuse maybe about 3 years ago. I think I made it a couple of months. I've tried Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Chakra, Gentoo and probably several others as well.

I do, however, plan to try Qubes OS in the next month or two for an extended period of time. I will be virtualizing windows this time so I won't have to try to give up outlook and onenote. I am hoping that I'll have better luck this time since I'm not actually trying to give up all my favorite windows apps at the same time as well.

When it comes to servers and command line, I absolutely love linux. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands :) I use Centos/RHEL here as I need the ultra long term stability. I'm fairly comfortable on an Ubuntu LTS server as well, but I don't really consider their LTS distro all that LTS. We're getting close to the next LTS release, but I just had to install an unbuntu server with the current LTS version, and it only has 3 years of bugfixes left. That kinda sucks for a "long term" OS that I just installed. This is why RHEL/Centos has a much longer support cycle. In addition, I can work with RPM spec files and can build/adjust my own RPMs most of the time without too much issue. This allows me to run my own small repository for my needs.

The first thing I ever do on any linux install, yum install emacs-nox or apt-get install emacs-nox, never been much of a vim fan though I can do a few very basic things in there.

My firewalls are pfsense (freebsd), but I may switch to one of the vyatta forks at some point. I tried to use vyatta before pfsense, but found it more of a router OS and not super ideal for firewall use. But it's been years, and I really did love it. Managing it is similar to managing cisco or hp stuff.

pfSense is awesome. I've been trying to get a FreeBSD install working on my laptop but unfortunately I cant find some drivers I need.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Thu, 03 April 2014, 01:14:07
When it comes to servers and command line, I absolutely love linux. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands :)

Couldnt agree more. The flexibility and control you can get from linux (bash, zsh etc) is way ahead what windows can offer.  I use zsh with O-my-zsh, Love it. I also find the gui to be so unessesary on an server. ssh is som much better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 03 April 2014, 04:44:17
i use ubuntu 12.04, debian wheezy and opensuse.

i am also master multiracial, since i use both vim and emacs.

Oh man, I've tried to switch to a linux desktop multiple times over the past 20 years but it never stuck.
does it mean you first tried linux desktop in 1994?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 03 April 2014, 04:49:00
i use ubuntu 12.04, debian wheezy and opensuse.

i am also master multiracial, since i use both vim and emacs.

Oh man, I've tried to switch to a linux desktop multiple times over the past 20 years but it never stuck.
does it mean you first tried linux desktop in 1994?

That would have had kernel version < 2.0 - should have been interesting!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 03 April 2014, 05:03:26
that would have had kernel version 0.99 -- 1.0 most likely. but let alone the kernel-shmernel, think about the desktop! xfree86 vs windows 3.1!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 03 April 2014, 05:06:25
I used old versions of XFree86 - where you had to configure everything, including monitor refresh rates, yourself.

Kids these days don't know how easy they have it!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 03 April 2014, 05:19:35
I used old versions of XFree86 - where you had to configure everything, including monitor refresh rates, yourself.

Kids these days don't know how easy they have it!

after my initial high school affairs with linux i basically gave it up for 3-4 years until i found out x.org configuration was pretty much automatic... it was that bad.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Thu, 03 April 2014, 06:55:23
does it mean you first tried linux desktop in 1994?

Hyperbole. I thought that would be obvious based on the list of distros I mentioned.

One of my college friends had slackware on a floppy disk. Complete with kernel config via Q&A, no ncurses "make menuconfig" easy stuff. My first exposure to slackware and redhat was 1996, my first server (redhat) was probably '99 as that would be when my friend started his company and hired me :) My first serious attempt to switch to linux desktop was some version of RedHat Linux pre-fedora, I don't recall which one. But I did make it a few months before I gave up there as well. And I know I tried fedora v1 when it came out a few years later as well. Beyond this, everything else is foggy :)

By 2001 I was comfortable enough with linux to be giving out advice on occasion:
http://marc.info/?l=linux-megaraid-devel&m=101337821612430&w=1

I used to get emailed directly from random people about monitoring megaraid controllers because of that post :)

In contrast, the only time I attempted to switch to mac was 2000ish? It was a beta of OSX with a hacked kernel so it ran on a 604e. I haven't attempted to switch to a mac since. Guess which OS I like better?  :thumb:


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Thu, 03 April 2014, 07:02:04
that would have had kernel version 0.99 -- 1.0 most likely. but let alone the kernel-shmernel, think about the desktop! xfree86 vs windows 3.1!

I definitely did not try to switch to linux for desktop before kernel 2.0
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 03 April 2014, 07:12:10
Hyperbole.
:(

i'll be switching to centos for work machine Soon™
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Thu, 03 April 2014, 07:45:47
Hyperbole.
:(

i'll be switching to centos for work machine Soon™

:) CentOS should work well for work, I don't think I could ever use it as a home desktop though.

I'm actually really excited to try Qubes OS. It's an OS for the paranoid, if you aren't familiar with it. Not "I need to be anonymous" paranoid like TAILS. More "put everything into its own box in case I'm ever hacked" paranoid. High security is accomplished by keeping everything in separate Xen domains.

http://www.qubesos.com/trac

I'm going to attempt to use a workflow similar to this:
http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2011/03/partitioning-my-digital-life-into.html

Edit: grammar correction
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jakkdl on Thu, 03 April 2014, 07:56:56
arch masterrace reporting in
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 03 April 2014, 08:41:17
is arch any better than the precious ubuntu?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Thu, 03 April 2014, 08:55:21
is arch any better than the precious ubuntu?

Ubuntu is bloatware compared to arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: samwisekoi on Thu, 03 April 2014, 08:55:48
I used old versions of XFree86 - where you had to configure everything, including monitor refresh rates, yourself.

Kids these days don't know how easy they have it!

after my initial high school affairs with linux i basically gave it up for 3-4 years until i found out x.org configuration was pretty much automatic... it was that bad.

I wasn't counting ancient distros, but...

During the early 90's, Apple and IBM were in bed together doing the PowerPC thing.  This was before Jobs came back with the Mach kernel, so with IBM came AIX.  We used it on a couple of servers (I frankly don't remember for what) but more interestingly, Apple being Apple they had do roll their own version.

Thus A/UX (for Apple Unix) was born.  It ran on the Power PC, and used Unix System V as the base.  Then the Apple engineers ported the Finder to (I'm guessing here) X-Windows for a best-of-both-worlds experience.

I was on the internal Beta test team for versions 1-3.  The project was eventually abandoned, as it should have been.  I remember two things about it:  (1) you had to actually "run" any icon you would normally have just clicked on, and (2) an important element of successful use was the Eschatology partition that the system kept for file system recovery if the system halted at any point.  It did that often.

Eschatology is the study of the dead, and this would have been 1992-1994 IIRC.  (I was at Apple from 1989-1997.)

I don't count that as using *nix on a desktop, but I used it, and it was on a Mac sitting on top of my desk.

 - Ron | samwisekoi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 03 April 2014, 10:08:26
is arch any better than the precious ubuntu?

Ubuntu is bloatware compared to arch.
well, it's a bloatware compared to my wheezy as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: FoxWolf1 on Thu, 03 April 2014, 10:38:46
I use PCLinuxOS (PCLOS) on my laptop and find it to be quite suitable for the purpose.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Thu, 03 April 2014, 12:30:37
If I were to go back to Linux, it's between Arch (or the Chakra spinoff) and Debian (or the Crunchbang spinoff). They're all pretty damn well done. Still, Windows is a smoother ride for me and I like to play games.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Thu, 03 April 2014, 16:25:03
I ran linux exclusively from 2000-2007 (until work started paying for me to have the best Mac laptop on the market every couple years).

It took a little tweaking of the memory management and video settings but my Ubuntu machine was working as a great platform for all my Windows games using WineX.  I was playing WoW at the time with about half the minimum system requirements (according to the box).  All my friends had about 4x the machine that I had and they were all lagging out in 40 man raids.  I never had a problem...

I have to admit that I had to do some serious hacking initially to get it working perfectly, but once I got it, it was rock solid...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Thu, 03 April 2014, 22:02:31
I ran linux exclusively from 2000-2007 (until work started paying for me to have the best Mac laptop on the market every couple years).

It took a little tweaking of the memory management and video settings but my Ubuntu machine was working as a great platform for all my Windows games using WineX.  I was playing WoW at the time with about half the minimum system requirements (according to the box).  All my friends had about 4x the machine that I had and they were all lagging out in 40 man raids.  I never had a problem...

I have to admit that I had to do some serious hacking initially to get it working perfectly, but once I got it, it was rock solid...

I never played a lot of starcraft, but I remember being quite happy I was able to get it running under wine. I think twice in the past couple of years I've found out someone at work uses linux at home. I offer them a super fast i7 w SSD PC and tell them they can run any linux distro they want on it. But then they ask for a mac instead :(

Samwise, even though I'm not an Apple fan, that's some serious geek cred there in my book :) I did mess around with Darwin a little bit and was upset when they canned it. I will be getting my first mac mini server in a week, already bought and paid for.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: arfink on Fri, 04 April 2014, 01:28:47
Linux Mint Cinnamon is my flavor of choice at the moment. I wish there was a killer-app window manager though to use instead of Cinnamon. Gnome ain't what it used to be.

I should probably also add, I'm a graphics/digital art guy and use Linux and FOSS tools exclusively.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 04 April 2014, 05:16:37
i run linux exclusively since 2006 at home. it was fun when in 2008 CS run in wine on my crappy laptop had higher FPS than when run on my powerful work pc with a good video card. and nowadays desktop linux is evolved more than enough to use it.

i also had a macmini at work. mac os x was all shiny and cute and sometimes making me want to smash the machine with a jackhammer. so i switched back to linux for work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Fri, 04 April 2014, 05:54:03
Linux Mint Cinnamon is my flavor of choice at the moment. I wish there was a killer-app window manager though to use instead of Cinnamon. Gnome ain't what it used to be.

I should probably also add, I'm a graphics/digital art guy and use Linux and FOSS tools exclusively.

What Foss tools do you use for graphics? I was using gimp and inkscape, but I have to admit that photoshop and illustrator are the main reasons I am not on linux full time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Game Theory on Fri, 04 April 2014, 06:53:29
Gentoo is my preferred for home with Arch a close second.  Still use Windows more than I feel I should.

Qubes seems kinda of cool.  Thanks for posting it!

Started with Yggdrasil Linux in early 1995, then Slackware, then RedHat, then Debian, then Mandrake, then Debian, then Gentoo, then Arch, then Gentoo.

At work I suggested we replace a Unix box with Linux years ago.  So RedHat AS 2.1, RHEL server 5.4, RHEL 6.5 server and will go to RHEL 7 when its released.  Small company just one Linux box.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Fri, 04 April 2014, 08:01:24
Samwise, even though I'm not an Apple fan, that's some serious geek cred there in my book :) I did mess around with Darwin a little bit and was upset when they canned it. I will be getting my first mac mini server in a week, already bought and paid for.

From what I remember of Darwin, isn't it just BSD with the mach microkernel?

Nicely wrapped in the GUI shell that is OS X. :)


Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: regack on Fri, 04 April 2014, 08:24:10
I have used other distros, but I always return to slackware. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Fri, 04 April 2014, 08:37:25
Samwise, even though I'm not an Apple fan, that's some serious geek cred there in my book :) I did mess around with Darwin a little bit and was upset when they canned it. I will be getting my first mac mini server in a week, already bought and paid for.

From what I remember of Darwin, isn't it just BSD with the mach microkernel?

Nicely wrapped in the GUI shell that is OS X. :)


Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.

I'm pretty sure you are correct. Apple still open sources all the stuff they have to, and then some, but no complete installable operating system :( I don't think there was a GUI. Maybe X11, I really can't recall at the moment. It does appear that xfree86 was ported, but I'm not sure if that was officially part of Darwin.

I was going to use it to teach myself bsd style commands. To this day, I still type "ps faux" on macs and get an error before I remember it's not linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 04 April 2014, 10:43:26
Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.
phew! it's good that i need not to!

I have used other distros, but I always return to slackware.
awesome!

I was going to use it to teach myself bsd style commands. To this day, I still type "ps faux" on macs and get an error before I remember it's not linux.
Code: [Select]
ps aux works on os x in iterm2.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Sat, 05 April 2014, 02:34:21
Samwise, even though I'm not an Apple fan, that's some serious geek cred there in my book :) I did mess around with Darwin a little bit and was upset when they canned it. I will be getting my first mac mini server in a week, already bought and paid for.

From what I remember of Darwin, isn't it just BSD with the mach microkernel?

Nicely wrapped in the GUI shell that is OS X. :)


Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.

I'm pretty sure you are correct. Apple still open sources all the stuff they have to, and then some, but no complete installable operating system :( I don't think there was a GUI. Maybe X11, I really can't recall at the moment. It does appear that xfree86 was ported, but I'm not sure if that was officially part of Darwin.

I was going to use it to teach myself bsd style commands. To this day, I still type "ps faux" on macs and get an error before I remember it's not linux.

darwin runs with X11 - apple shipped it with their developer tools back in the last decade. not sure if they still do. i only ever installed the dev tools so I could run X11 stuff once in a while :)
unfortunately apple hasn't updated the official OSS darwin in years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: snoopy on Sat, 05 April 2014, 02:35:39
Ubuntu on my notebook and at work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Sat, 05 April 2014, 05:18:50
Ubuntu on my notebook and at work.

Cool that you have ubuntu at your work pc. Do you know if they use landscape?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 05 April 2014, 05:30:57
Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.

I tried that.

I also tried Bootcamp on my Mac (to dual boot OS X and Windows).

Neither really worked, so I ended up (before I got the Mac) setting up a second PC - one for Linux to do emails and proper work, and one for Windows for games.

Then I got my Mac, and I still have the Mac for emails, surfing and other work, and Windows for games.

And Linux on the server (having tried FreeBSD and even touched on NetBSD).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 05 April 2014, 06:39:17
Ubuntu on my notebook and at work.

Cool that you have ubuntu at your work pc. Do you know if they use landscape?
What is so cool in having Ubuntu on a work PC?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Sat, 05 April 2014, 06:54:50

darwin runs with X11 - apple shipped it with their developer tools back in the last decade. not sure if they still do. i only ever installed the dev tools so I could run X11 stuff once in a while :)
unfortunately apple hasn't updated the official OSS darwin in years.

OpenDarwin is what I was thinking of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#OpenDarwin

Getting back to the topic of linux, has anyone messed around with SteamOS? Not sure if they added ATI card support but I do have an old GTX 460 I could use to run it. I haven't been following it since the first public test release.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Smasher816 on Sat, 05 April 2014, 09:57:04
Ubuntu on my notebook and at work.

Cool that you have ubuntu at your work pc. Do you know if they use landscape?
What is so cool in having Ubuntu on a work PC?

I think it's just the fact that a lot of companies will force you to use whatever they have everyone else use (Windows).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: oluf on Sat, 05 April 2014, 10:11:47
Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.

When I really need doze, I fire it up in a kvm instance... Obviously that wouldn't work for games, but for things like quickbooks, it works great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: samwisekoi on Sat, 05 April 2014, 10:20:57
Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.
Neither really worked, so I ended up (before I got the Mac) setting up a second PC - one for Linux to do emails and proper work, and one for Windows for games.

This is really the end state, isn't it?  I have a primary i7 tower running LMDE (and a little Win7 VM in VirtualBox) for normal work/office stuff.  And sitting next to it is a little Silverstone ITX i5 cube with a full-size graphics card for gaming.  Technically, my tower is dual-boot, but that just doesn't work as well.

Also, in a dedicated Windows PC, I can use an nVidia or an AMD GPU.  With Linux it is either nVidia or integrated graphics -- or compatibility problems.  So when AMD was doing its big relabel/launch last fall, I was able to pick up a couple of 7870s that work great in Windows, but that I couldn't quite make work under Linux.  (Cue Linus Torvalds: "F*** you, AMD!")

So how many of us run Linux normally, but keep a Windows machine around for critical applications like Visio, Photoshop, or Steam?

 - Ron | samwisekoi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Sat, 05 April 2014, 10:44:34
This is really the end state, isn't it?  I have a primary i7 tower running LMDE (and a little Win7 VM in VirtualBox) for normal work/office stuff.  And sitting next to it is a little Silverstone ITX i5 cube with a full-size graphics card for gaming.  Technically, my tower is dual-boot, but that just doesn't work as well.

I have loftier goals :) I just want the single tower with 2 video cards, 1 card for linux, 1 for vt-d passthrough to a windows virtual machine. Would need a good KVM as well. Of course vt-d passthrough for video cards in xen is a roll the dice type of thing, and probably still requires patching xen.

I haven't tried yet. My issue is that at work I don't have the time, and my hardware at home is just old enough to not have vt-d - a first gen i7 xeon in an x58a board.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ferociousfingerings on Sat, 05 April 2014, 10:49:21
Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.
Neither really worked, so I ended up (before I got the Mac) setting up a second PC - one for Linux to do emails and proper work, and one for Windows for games.

This is really the end state, isn't it?  I have a primary i7 tower running LMDE (and a little Win7 VM in VirtualBox) for normal work/office stuff.  And sitting next to it is a little Silverstone ITX i5 cube with a full-size graphics card for gaming.  Technically, my tower is dual-boot, but that just doesn't work as well.

Also, in a dedicated Windows PC, I can use an nVidia or an AMD GPU.  With Linux it is either nVidia or integrated graphics -- or compatibility problems.  So when AMD was doing its big relabel/launch last fall, I was able to pick up a couple of 7870s that work great in Windows, but that I could quite make work under Linux.  (Cue Linus Torvalds: "F*** you, AMD!")

So how many of us run Linux normally, but keep a Windows machine around for critical applications like Visio, Photoshop, or Steam?

 - Ron | samwisekoi


Yep! I was gonna say: "directX defeats the 'just abandon windows' argument."

Also: "...critical applications like... steam?" lol.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wycx on Sat, 05 April 2014, 13:03:57
Linux Mint Debian edition with Mate on the desktop. Ubuntu 12.04 on the Samsung ARM Chromebook-I like unity on the chromebook. Regular old Debian with XFCE or sometimes Enlightenment on my various servers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 05 April 2014, 18:00:03
My first distro was Mandrake. I switched full time around the very first Ubuntu LTS release (because damn winmodems).

Nowadays I use Kubuntu / Linux Mint KDE, mostly because I like KDE and I've been stuck with Ubuntu derivatives for ages, hence I'm quite familiar with it. However, I strongly disagree with Canonical's direction and recent (i.e. last few years) actions and the core system is horribly rotten; I experience trouble with hardware support, that don't exist elsewhere, packages in official repos are broken out of the box, etc.

I'd be already running Fedora, if Anaconda wasn't so horrible and the fedora.next software management (plus SAT solver for yum) was in place.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hypersphere on Sat, 05 April 2014, 18:46:24
Linux Mint 13 64-bit with KDE and Xfce desktops on all but my IBM server, which runs Ubuntu Server 12.04 -- previously KDE desktop, but more recently, Xfce.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Smasher816 on Sat, 05 April 2014, 19:31:02
Also, for those that find themselves using Windows over Linux at home more than they would like, just do what I do. Don't dual boot. Make the decision to use Linux exclusively on your primary machine. Then, I keep a laptop with Windows for those times I really must use it.

When I really need doze, I fire it up in a kvm instance... Obviously that wouldn't work for games, but for things like quickbooks, it works great.

It's actually possible to play games in a kvm instance. However, you have to have a second graphics card and a motherboard that supports IOMMU. With a full graphics card and virtio drivers you get near normal performance inside a VM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 06 April 2014, 04:07:06
Ubuntu on my notebook and at work.

Cool that you have ubuntu at your work pc. Do you know if they use landscape?
What is so cool in having Ubuntu on a work PC?

I think it's just the fact that a lot of companies will force you to use whatever they have everyone else use (Windows).
luckily i've never worked for such companies. ubuntu was standard for engineers at my previous workplace.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Sun, 06 April 2014, 08:14:54
Ubuntu on my notebook and at work.

Cool that you have ubuntu at your work pc. Do you know if they use landscape?
What is so cool in having Ubuntu on a work PC?

I think it's just the fact that a lot of companies will force you to use whatever they have everyone else use (Windows).

As smasher816 said and I also wonder how they implement it. Do you get support from the IT-staff? Is it managed by the IT-staff (landscape)? Is it an option to get a pc with ubuntu?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 07 April 2014, 05:17:30
Ubuntu on my notebook and at work.

Cool that you have ubuntu at your work pc. Do you know if they use landscape?
What is so cool in having Ubuntu on a work PC?

I think it's just the fact that a lot of companies will force you to use whatever they have everyone else use (Windows).

As smasher816 said and I also wonder how they implement it. Do you get support from the IT-staff? Is it managed by the IT-staff (landscape)? Is it an option to get a pc with ubuntu?

i work for a company that lets us use whatever OS we want on our workstations as long as it doesn't get in the way of the work we need to do.... which is why i don't use windows :U

but seriously i think it's more of a thing in smaller shops without centrally-managed/micro-managed IT. it's just not necessary to have total control over all systems all the time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 08 April 2014, 16:11:20
Still using Win 7 on my main rig, pretty much exclusively for games. I also have a laptop running Mint 15, which I quite like, save for the lag issues with the cursor. Mostly got that worked out now though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Oobly on Wed, 09 April 2014, 09:18:28
#!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 09 April 2014, 09:21:19
#!

#!2
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Wed, 09 April 2014, 09:44:07
#!

#!2

What hardware are you Running crunchbang on?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 09 April 2014, 09:51:14
#!

#!2

What hardware are you Running crunchbang on?

dell precision t5600. work machine. xeon or i7 or whatever, 8 gb ram i think? haven't really bothered to look at the specs, it's stupidly overpowered for what i need but w/e. unfortunately i have 2 discrete cards (DUMB) and so i cant use compositing until i get an adapter and just stop using the second card.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Wed, 09 April 2014, 10:58:50
#!

#!2

What hardware are you Running crunchbang on?

dell precision t5600. work machine. xeon or i7 or whatever, 8 gb ram i think? haven't really bothered to look at the specs, it's stupidly overpowered for what i need but w/e. unfortunately i have 2 discrete cards (DUMB) and so i cant use compositing until i get an adapter and just stop using the second card.

Well as you said that is way overpower what crunchbag needs. No doubt it will run smoothly(exept that compositing issue).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: compgeke on Wed, 09 April 2014, 21:14:15
My IRC server runs Debian 7 on an old 1 GHz Athlon 4 with 128 megs of ram. Works well enough and only uses about 25 megs of ram anyways.

I have a Latitude D630 running Xubuntu because I'm lazy and it works. I use it for programming devices and testing to see if USB hardware and such is being detected since Windows and Mac OS suck when it comes to detecting devices - lsusb is great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Wed, 09 April 2014, 21:25:13
My IRC server runs Debian 7 on an old 1 GHz Athlon 4 with 128 megs of ram. Works well enough and only uses about 25 megs of ram anyways.

I have a Latitude D630 running Xubuntu because I'm lazy and it works. I use it for programming devices and testing to see if USB hardware and such is being detected since Windows and Mac OS suck when it comes to detecting devices - lsusb is great.

Thats awesome -- cant go wrong with Debian.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Wed, 09 April 2014, 23:56:13
My IRC server runs Debian 7 on an old 1 GHz Athlon 4 with 128 megs of ram. Works well enough and only uses about 25 megs of ram anyways.

I have a Latitude D630 running Xubuntu because I'm lazy and it works. I use it for programming devices and testing to see if USB hardware and such is being detected since Windows and Mac OS suck when it comes to detecting devices - lsusb is great.

Nice, What irc server do you use?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: compgeke on Thu, 10 April 2014, 01:40:13
I use UnrealIRCd that's linked into a small network.

It's a bit confusing to configure but it's pretty much rock solid and has more features than one will ever need.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Thu, 10 April 2014, 04:16:06
ah, I see. Have only used irc clients before (irssi)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Grimey on Thu, 10 April 2014, 09:16:15
CrunchBang at home.  Xubuntu for the parents ancient box at their house, Ubuntu on my mothers laptop.  My interest in computer janitoring has nearly vanished in the last couple of years, so distributions that work out of the box are becoming more appealing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: oluf on Fri, 11 April 2014, 19:49:56
I've been using ircd-hybrid since ~1999.. It has a gazillion modules, and is actively developed. Definitely worth a look if you're shopping for an IRC server.

http://ircd-hybrid.com/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Fri, 11 April 2014, 20:05:50
I've been using ircd-hybrid since ~1999.. It has a gazillion modules, and is actively developed. Definitely worth a look if you're shopping for an IRC server.

http://ircd-hybrid.com/

Nice signature -- have you used Parabola at all?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: oluf on Fri, 11 April 2014, 20:12:18
I've been using ircd-hybrid since ~1999.. It has a gazillion modules, and is actively developed. Definitely worth a look if you're shopping for an IRC server.

http://ircd-hybrid.com/

Nice signature -- have you used Parabola at all?

Thanks! Richard Stallman for president! =)

Sadly.. I'm addicted to Debian, despite it's status w/ the FSF. =/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Fri, 11 April 2014, 20:14:39
Thanks! Richard Stallman for president! =)

Sadly.. I'm addicted to Debian, despite it's status w/ the FSF. =/

Lol Debian is awesome -- you should try Parabola though -- pacman masterrace reporting in.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 12 April 2014, 09:14:37
My IRC server runs Debian 7 on an old 1 GHz Athlon 4 with 128 megs of ram.
so does my work machine with i7 and 16gb ram.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Sun, 13 April 2014, 13:51:35
My IRC server runs Debian 7 on an old 1 GHz Athlon 4 with 128 megs of ram.
so does my work machine with i7 and 16gb ram.
What a suprise
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Sun, 13 April 2014, 15:14:18
My IRC server runs Debian 7 on an old 1 GHz Athlon 4 with 128 megs of ram.
so does my work machine with i7 and 16gb ram.
What a suprise

mine does too
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 14 April 2014, 02:28:47
My IRC server runs Debian 7 on an old 1 GHz Athlon 4 with 128 megs of ram.
so does my work machine with i7 and 16gb ram.
What a suprise
stop being silly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Oobly on Mon, 14 April 2014, 04:43:17
#!

#!2

What hardware are you Running crunchbang on?

A few different older laptops. None of them very modern or impressive, but Crunchbang runs very smoothly on them. I really like the install configuration scripts, makes it a breeze to do a new install.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Mon, 14 April 2014, 17:02:19
Crunchbang is fantastic and very snappy. Though on older PCs you will notice Firefox being sluggish as ****. I always preferred using Midori or Opera (RIP).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 15 April 2014, 02:58:19
i've been using midori for years (running on fluxbox on a slow machine) and still use it from time to time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Tue, 15 April 2014, 03:22:12
My first distro was Mandrake. I switched full time around the very first Ubuntu LTS release (because damn winmodems).

Nowadays I use Kubuntu / Linux Mint KDE, mostly because I like KDE and I've been stuck with Ubuntu derivatives for ages, hence I'm quite familiar with it. However, I strongly disagree with Canonical's direction and recent (i.e. last few years) actions and the core system is horribly rotten; I experience trouble with hardware support, that don't exist elsewhere, packages in official repos are broken out of the box, etc.

I'd be already running Fedora, if Anaconda wasn't so horrible and the fedora.next software management (plus SAT solver for yum) was in place.

Ubuntu has turned into the evil Apple/Microsoft/big-brother of the Linux world with all of the their great new personal tracking and advertising features. That's why you need to switch to Debian.  :D

I use Debian and Slackware in most cases.

So how many of us run Linux normally, but keep a Windows machine around for critical applications like Visio, Photoshop, or Steam?

 - Ron | samwisekoi

I virtualize Windows and Mac if I have specific software I need to use. It actually makes backing up, restoring, and migrations very easy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 15 April 2014, 03:30:32
slackware is still alive. impressive.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Tue, 15 April 2014, 03:38:49
My first distro was Mandrake. I switched full time around the very first Ubuntu LTS release (because damn winmodems).

Nowadays I use Kubuntu / Linux Mint KDE, mostly because I like KDE and I've been stuck with Ubuntu derivatives for ages, hence I'm quite familiar with it. However, I strongly disagree with Canonical's direction and recent (i.e. last few years) actions and the core system is horribly rotten; I experience trouble with hardware support, that don't exist elsewhere, packages in official repos are broken out of the box, etc.

I'd be already running Fedora, if Anaconda wasn't so horrible and the fedora.next software management (plus SAT solver for yum) was in place.

Ubuntu has turned into the evil Apple/Microsoft/big-brother of the Linux world with all of the their great new personal tracking and advertising features. That's why you need to switch to Debian.  :D

Debian sucks. Even experimental is sometimes months or even years behind upstream. Once I decide to compile stuff myself, I'll go with Gentoo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Tue, 15 April 2014, 03:53:55
I don't care about having the latest or greatest. Nor do I have any software projects that I want pushed upstream.

Yeah, Slackware is still being maintained. I'm amazed that it's lasted this long myself.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 15 April 2014, 04:04:21
My first distro was Mandrake. I switched full time around the very first Ubuntu LTS release (because damn winmodems).

Nowadays I use Kubuntu / Linux Mint KDE, mostly because I like KDE and I've been stuck with Ubuntu derivatives for ages, hence I'm quite familiar with it. However, I strongly disagree with Canonical's direction and recent (i.e. last few years) actions and the core system is horribly rotten; I experience trouble with hardware support, that don't exist elsewhere, packages in official repos are broken out of the box, etc.

I'd be already running Fedora, if Anaconda wasn't so horrible and the fedora.next software management (plus SAT solver for yum) was in place.

Ubuntu has turned into the evil Apple/Microsoft/big-brother of the Linux world with all of the their great new personal tracking and advertising features. That's why you need to switch to Debian.  :D

Debian sucks. Even experimental is sometimes months or even years behind upstream. Once I decide to compile stuff myself, I'll go with Gentoo.

no u
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 15 April 2014, 05:46:31
slackware is still alive. impressive.

Slackware was the first Linux distro I tried, back when it was still distributed in floppies.

Work had an old Windows NT 4 server doing email and other duties, but it was a pain to maintain.  I suggested Linux, and was given an old laptop with only a floppy drive to play with.

It took ages downloading the floppy images through the dialup connection we had back then, but I seem to recall the actual installation went fairly smoothly.

I configured sendmail, added a few mail accounts, and let everyone play with it for a couple of weeks.

I must have proved my point, as we have had at least one Linux serve doing business critical duties since then.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 15 April 2014, 06:08:51
fun that we are now discussing two distros that had their initial releases within a month... twenty-****ing-one year ago.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: welsinki on Tue, 15 April 2014, 08:24:27
 :blank::blank: :blank: :blank:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: PublicAnarchism on Tue, 15 April 2014, 18:41:11
Haha, I use arch linux at home. Works very nicely with my keyboard.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Wed, 16 April 2014, 10:28:15
I'm using Debian since Debian version 1.1 or 1.2, not too sure anymore (it was the mid-nineties or something like that).

My first Linux distro was Slackware, which I'd install from a CD coming with a book about Slackware: back then my modem (28.8 baud?) was too slow to d/l the equivalent of what was on that CD. Then I tried Debian and stick with it for a while. Then I moved to Red Hat, tried SuSE, CentOS, Fedora and so many others I don't remember and eventually I came back to Debian and now I'm a happy Debian camper since years.

Debian on my servers and on my desktop / workstation as well (I'm using the (tiling) Awesome window manager).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Wed, 16 April 2014, 15:31:31
I just started playing around with SliTaz because I wanted a super lightweight distro with a UI.  Can't beat a 35MB iso file.  :)

It is pretty good so far.  Pretty much everything I need and it is pretty intuitive.  Stuff like the networking just worked out of the box, I didn't have to do anything special.  That is always nice...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Wed, 16 April 2014, 16:22:52
I just started playing around with SliTaz because I wanted a super lightweight distro with a UI.  Can't beat a 35MB iso file.  :)

It is pretty good so far.  Pretty much everything I need and it is pretty intuitive.  Stuff like the networking just worked out of the box, I didn't have to do anything special.  That is always nice...

Nice, I used a liveusb of ophcrack (Running slitaz) and it was pretty nice considering how much space it takes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 17 April 2014, 01:20:14
I just started playing around with SliTaz because I wanted a super lightweight distro with a UI.  Can't beat a 35MB iso file.  :)

It is pretty good so far.  Pretty much everything I need and it is pretty intuitive.  Stuff like the networking just worked out of the box, I didn't have to do anything special.  That is always nice...

yes you dang well can http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

and if you're not a wimp: http://ttylinux.net/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Thu, 17 April 2014, 09:47:55
I just started playing around with SliTaz because I wanted a super lightweight distro with a UI.  Can't beat a 35MB iso file.  :)

It is pretty good so far.  Pretty much everything I need and it is pretty intuitive.  Stuff like the networking just worked out of the box, I didn't have to do anything special.  That is always nice...

yes you dang well can http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

and if you're not a wimp: http://ttylinux.net/

Woah ttylinux looks really cool, definitely going to play around with this tonight.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Thu, 17 April 2014, 10:23:15
I just started playing around with SliTaz because I wanted a super lightweight distro with a UI.  Can't beat a 35MB iso file.  :)

It is pretty good so far.  Pretty much everything I need and it is pretty intuitive.  Stuff like the networking just worked out of the box, I didn't have to do anything special.  That is always nice...

yes you dang well can http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

and if you're not a wimp: http://ttylinux.net/

TTYLinux doesn't have a UI included does it?  I use ttylinux on CloudStack cause it is tiny...

tinycorelinux is pretty ugly i must say...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Lurch on Thu, 17 April 2014, 11:37:01
I was starting to build up a CentOS server from the ground up with no pre-installed dependencies, but as a Linux novice, this proved to be very difficult. I feel like the debugging/troubleshooting aspect of a Linux environment needs to be learned from the command-line environment (from a netadmin perspective at least), to be able to support Linux for a company/enterprise.

I have a "lab environment" with two Fedora Clients, and CentOS. Fedora seems to be solid for end users in a business setting, but I probably wouldn't use it at home.

 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Fri, 18 April 2014, 10:31:45
I just started playing around with SliTaz because I wanted a super lightweight distro with a UI.  Can't beat a 35MB iso file.  :)

It is pretty good so far.  Pretty much everything I need and it is pretty intuitive.  Stuff like the networking just worked out of the box, I didn't have to do anything special.  That is always nice...

yes you dang well can http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

and if you're not a wimp: http://ttylinux.net/

TTYLinux doesn't have a UI included does it?  I use ttylinux on CloudStack cause it is tiny...

tinycorelinux is pretty ugly i must say...

Tinycore is awesome! I need to check out this ttylinux...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tricheboars on Fri, 18 April 2014, 10:40:16
arch and mainly centOS
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Fri, 18 April 2014, 19:50:59
btw... I do agree that Debian lacks behind when it comes to packages / releases. That's why I compile important stuff from sources, like Emacs. I admit it's a bit crazy: I think Debian still ships Emacs 23 (or maybe even 22!?) even though we're already at Emacs 24.3 and Emacs is not exactly a software which comes up frequently with new major releases.

The reason I use Debian is that it's rock-stable solid. My desktop regularly reaches 6 months of uptime (typically it's restarted when there's a black-out or when I move my desk, neither of which happens often). It's a desktop with a core i5 - 3450s (very low max TDP), 80+ gold alim, no GPU (only the integrated one), SSD, etc. so the electricity consumption is really not an issue (and it's ultra-quiet) and I can leave it on all the time.

I've had a dedicated server with Debian on it which reached 4 years of uptime (no critical security hole affecting its setup during these four years, so no need to restart it!). It got restarted the day the motherboard eventually died and got changed by the company I was renting the server from. That's why I'm "sold" on Debian.

Sure, they may lack a bit (or a lot) behind on software releases but they've chosen to create an insanely stable distro and they totally delivered on that front.

Easily six months of uptime for a desktop. 'nuff said  8)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Fri, 18 April 2014, 20:02:37
I figured that was a given. ;)
Yeah, you can pretty much go indefinitely with good ole Deb. Slackware, is much flakier out of the box and requires quite a bit of modding to get it stable, but when you get it there it's just as stable as you can get.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Sat, 19 April 2014, 09:30:24
Slackware flaky!? I politely disagree!

On another note. I'm going to be leaving fluxbox behind and switch to a tiling window manager. Been trying out awesome and i3 and so far i3 is taking the cake.

Hopefully I can nail down my config before Monday, for the most part.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sulonen on Sat, 19 April 2014, 10:18:59
I used Red Hat from ~96 to 2002.. Debian ever since. Personally, not a fan of all the 'extra' stuff (...and their dependencies) many distros install.

This. RedHat was popular for a variety of reasons during the DotCom era - primarily the ease of configuration provided by RPM, but I feel that Debian is actually a more mature product. The Debian community is far and away the most abusive and intolerant group of netizens I've encountered, but they do keep the distro honest.

I run Debian on systems that I have control over. Dependencies are handled (to my mind at least) intelligently. We use Suse at work for a variety of application servers, and Debian for utility boxen. I believe Suse is a RedHat deriivative; it seems to be popular among DB middleware providers tryiing to get away from Solaris. Java is a teensy bit more challenging on Debian, but not bad.

(And darn this bouncing "I" on the Black Widow ultimate I'm using right now. I'm about ready to throw this board away and go back to one of my Das or get the HHKB out of my bag... Anyone else have problems with QC on Razer boards? It's not like they cost that much less than "real" boards...)

And vim. Yes. emacs is the product of dementia.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Sun, 20 April 2014, 20:12:45
I put Lubuntu on my dad's PC today.  With all his porn spyware/etc he was getting along with it being XP it was time to get him on something new.

Not bad - especially on a single core w/ 512mb.  Most of the bloat comes from the web browser not the OS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: marcusant on Sun, 20 April 2014, 20:51:28
I use Arch on all of my home PCs and Debian on my servers.

The AUR in Arch makes it pretty much impossible for me to switch to anything else and stick to it for over a week. I also like FreeBSD (not Linux, but whatever), but hardware support is hit or miss.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sun, 20 April 2014, 20:56:09
I use Arch on all of my home PCs and Debian on my servers.

The AUR in Arch makes it pretty much impossible for me to switch to anything else and stick to it for over a week. I also like FreeBSD (not Linux, but whatever), but hardware support is hit or miss.

Nice, another Archer. Do you game on your Arch install?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: marcusant on Sun, 20 April 2014, 21:02:11
I use Arch on all of my home PCs and Debian on my servers.

The AUR in Arch makes it pretty much impossible for me to switch to anything else and stick to it for over a week. I also like FreeBSD (not Linux, but whatever), but hardware support is hit or miss.

Nice, another Archer. Do you game on your Arch install?

I hardly game much, but when I do I usually just play the games that are natively ported over to *nix on Steam (I don't bother with WINE or anything). I have a Windows partition on my desktop if I feel like playing anything that isn't supported natively (I have a lot of extra disk space).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sun, 20 April 2014, 21:04:05
I use Arch on all of my home PCs and Debian on my servers.

The AUR in Arch makes it pretty much impossible for me to switch to anything else and stick to it for over a week. I also like FreeBSD (not Linux, but whatever), but hardware support is hit or miss.

Nice, another Archer. Do you game on your Arch install?

I hardly game much, but when I do I usually just play the games that are natively ported over to *nix on Steam (I don't bother with WINE or anything). I have a Windows partition on my desktop if I feel like playing anything that isn't supported natively (I have a lot of extra disk space).

Nice. Yah the only game I really play is DoTA2, which runs great on Arch. Really impressed with the porting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fishfalcon on Tue, 22 April 2014, 22:00:00
I dual boot arch and windows 7 on my Thinkpad, and am using Debian and win8 on my desktop... I only use windows for adobe software, and  Steam.

I'm thinking of switching to debian from arch... its stability is far more valuable to me than being 'bleeding-edge' rolling release. I remember updating my gnome desktop roughly a year ago only to discover that my gdm.service broke, and had to rescue by usb :( not a dealbreaker, but an unexpected inconvenience. A bigger inconvenience is depending on AUR packages which are or are not kept up to date, which can cause breakages... Since I only really 'edit text'/code in linux, i don't need much else... my biggest extravagance is using KDE :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: samwisekoi on Tue, 22 April 2014, 22:04:48
I dual boot arch and windows 7 on my Thinkpad, and am using Debian and win8 on my desktop... I only use windows for adobe software, and  Steam.

People (ok, person) mocked me for calling Steam a mission-critical app.  It is good to see I have a brother in Windows-for-Adobe-plus-Steam!

Rock on, fishfalcon!

 - Ron | samwisekoi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fishfalcon on Tue, 22 April 2014, 22:09:49
Heck yea! MS paint hasn't been a killer app for me since kindergarten! lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Tue, 22 April 2014, 22:12:47
If it wasn't for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, I would be using a Linux machine as my daily driver.  I did for 7 years, but GIMP and Inkspace just were not cutting it for me then.  They may be better now, I should check.  Currently using a Mac as my core laptop but all my other environments are Linux.   
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: samwisekoi on Tue, 22 April 2014, 22:29:11
If it wasn't for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, I would be using a Linux machine as my daily driver.  I did for 7 years, but GIMP and Inkspace just were not cutting it for me then.  They may be better now, I should check.  Currently using a Mac as my core laptop but all my other environments are Linux.   

I have switched to GIMP and Inkscape for 90% of those tasks.  Sometimes I have to drop back to Photoshop, but rarely.  Visio and video production are Windows tasks for me still.  And some Word things that need "real" Word for compatibility with HR departments, etc.  Gimp and Inkscape are worth a re-look now.

And Steam, but don't give up your gaming machine just yet.

 - Ron | samwisekoi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Tue, 22 April 2014, 23:25:50
If it wasn't for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, I would be using a Linux machine as my daily driver.  I did for 7 years, but GIMP and Inkspace just were not cutting it for me then.  They may be better now, I should check.  Currently using a Mac as my core laptop but all my other environments are Linux.   

I have switched to GIMP and Inkscape for 90% of those tasks.  Sometimes I have to drop back to Photoshop, but rarely.  Visio and video production are Windows tasks for me still.  And some Word things that need "real" Word for compatibility with HR departments, etc.  Gimp and Inkscape are worth a re-look now.

And Steam, but don't give up your gaming machine just yet.

 - Ron | samwisekoi

I will check them out again...

Ya, I play LoL and thats pretty much it.  Working well on my Mac right now, but I have not tried on a Linux machine yet.  I played WoW on a really old Linux machine with WineX for a long time.  Performed perfectly...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 23 April 2014, 05:19:53
If it wasn't for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, I would be using a Linux machine as my daily driver.  I did for 7 years, but GIMP and Inkspace just were not cutting it for me then.  They may be better now, I should check.
you won't believe!!!!!1111111 gimp can use a single window layout now!!!!1111111
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Demetrium on Wed, 23 April 2014, 12:52:21
Debian for work, gonna try out Ubuntu on an old laptop though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: abjr on Wed, 23 April 2014, 13:00:48
I have been using Slackware at home and on my personal servers since 1994. However, within the past year I have transitioned to Mint on my desktop at home. At work it's all SuSE.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Thu, 15 May 2014, 19:22:15
The only Linux I use is Slacko Puppy, booted from a USB 2.0 drive. I use it because I can boot it on my work laptop while on the go and don't have to worry about the whole encrypted work drive/spyware/keyloggers.

It boots very quickly and seems to just work without issue. I also really like being able to instantly access multiple desktops with Alt+1-4. Might try 5.7.1 'Precise' and see if it's any good.

To be honest, though, I know very very little about Linux, and find it difficult to get into as everything is straight away over my head.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Thu, 15 May 2014, 20:02:02
I've recently moved from funtoo to sabayon. Not a huge change, but way less effort to work with. :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: physicsmajor on Sun, 18 May 2014, 23:45:24
Linux Mint for mobile, Scientific Linux on workstation. The latter is just impressive.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Mon, 19 May 2014, 00:48:46
Currently running Fedora 20 because it makes it easy to develop against GNOME bleeding edge.

I roll around Fedora, Debian and gentoo. Debian being the one I end up spending the most time on.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 20 May 2014, 09:29:18
I use Windows 98.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Tue, 20 May 2014, 09:34:34
I use Windows 98.

Garbage... go troll a different thread.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 20 May 2014, 09:35:23
I use Windows 98.

Garbage... go troll a different thread.

Windows 98 is not garbage. Don't make yourself look like a fool saying things like that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: boost on Tue, 20 May 2014, 09:40:47
mint
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Tue, 20 May 2014, 09:42:58
Ubuntu. Cuz it's the most mainstream.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 20 May 2014, 11:25:03
Ubuntu. Cuz it's the most mainstream.
y u no hipstah
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Tue, 20 May 2014, 11:54:57
I use Windows 98.

Garbage... go troll a different thread.

Windows 98 is not garbage. Don't make yourself look like a fool saying things like that.

Blue screens of garbage...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 20 May 2014, 11:59:15
I use Windows 98.

Garbage... go troll a different thread.

Windows 98 is not garbage. Don't make yourself look like a fool saying things like that.

Blue screens of garbage...

Those are purely fictional. They only happen when you use crappy browsers like Firefox.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Tue, 20 May 2014, 12:39:31
I use Windows 98.

Windows 98 != Linux

Windows 98 != a real operating system
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Tue, 20 May 2014, 12:43:24
I use Windows 98.

Windows 98 != Linux

Windows 98 != a real operating system

Windows 9x = a GUI for DOS, so you're technically right.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Tue, 20 May 2014, 12:49:28
I use Windows 98.

Windows 98 != Linux

Windows 98 != a real operating system

Yeah, it is what I meant. Just a shell of DOS, and a copycat of Apple at that.
Windows 9x = a GUI for DOS, so you're technically right.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Tue, 20 May 2014, 13:06:43
I use Windows 98.

Windows 98 != Linux

Windows 98 != a real operating system

Windows 9x = a GUI for DOS, so you're technically right.
Yeah, it is what I meant. Just a shell of DOS, and a copycat of Apple at that.

FTFY. (I do this all the time too).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Tue, 20 May 2014, 13:23:56
I use Windows 98.

Windows 98 != Linux

Windows 98 != a real operating system

Windows 9x = a GUI for DOS, so you're technically right.
Yeah, it is what I meant. Just a shell of DOS, and a copycat of Apple at that.

FTFY. (I do this all the time too).

Oooops

Yeah, it is what I meant. Just a shell of DOS, and a copycat of Apple at that.
Windows 9x = a GUI for DOS, so you're technically right.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 20 May 2014, 13:46:11
Update here: Mint 15 Cinnamon on a laptop, Mint 16 Cinnamon on my desktop -- dual boot win7 :( -- Ubuntu server 12.04.4 LTS on my new samba file server box.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: airlangga07 on Wed, 21 May 2014, 04:53:04
#! Linux, with i3wm, plus firefox+vimperator. my little setup with minimum usage of mouse.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: C5Allroad on Wed, 21 May 2014, 14:40:09
Ubuntu here... Still learning ins and outs of Linux lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Protato_Tubby on Wed, 21 May 2014, 16:53:52
Ubuntu here... Still learning ins and outs of Linux lol
Yup, most people start on 'Buntu! :D
Have fun!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 21 May 2014, 17:11:28
Ubuntu here... Still learning ins and outs of Linux lol

Enjoy it. I find it much more functional and powerful than windows. If I wasn't so tied to my games, I'd give it up entirely.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Wed, 21 May 2014, 17:51:19
Nobody has said gentoo yet. That makes me sad.

If I weren't so busy hacking on code, and needing to install libraries easily in a jhbuild for it. I would be tempted to go back.

For now debian and Fedora serve me right.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: brainT on Wed, 21 May 2014, 18:10:55
I started out on Ubuntu but have mainly stayed with Crunchbang with a few brief forays into other distro's.  I've been curious about both Arch and Gentoo so I'll probably end up giving one or both of them a go when I have the time/patience needed to do so.  I've also been meaning to play around with Mint as we sell refurbed Thinkpads with it at work and it would be good to be at least somewhat familiar with it.  So many distro's, so little time...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Wed, 21 May 2014, 18:15:24
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 21 May 2014, 18:30:51
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

Very interesting. Ubuntu feisty was one of the distros I cut my teeth on. Haven't used it much since the release of hardy. Checked out the latest release but Unity is not for me.

What flavor were you leading up? A fluxbuntu type or a suite based distro like musix?

Edit : music --> musix ... Autocorrect arggg

Welcome to geekhack
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Wed, 21 May 2014, 18:33:27
Nobody has said gentoo yet. That makes me sad.

If I weren't so busy hacking on code, and needing to install libraries easily in a jhbuild for it. I would be tempted to go back.

For now debian and Fedora serve me right.
I said funtoo, which is gentoo except it uses git instead of rsync. But I use Sabayon now, which is gentoo but without the hassle of installing the bare necessities.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Wed, 21 May 2014, 19:17:36
Nobody has said gentoo yet. That makes me sad.

If I weren't so busy hacking on code, and needing to install libraries easily in a jhbuild for it. I would be tempted to go back.

For now debian and Fedora serve me right.
I said funtoo, which is gentoo except it uses git instead of rsync. But I use Sabayon now, which is gentoo but without the hassle of installing the bare necessities.

Very interested in trying out Sabayon, it looks really cool. Always been to lazy to use Gentoo and have stuck with Arch, but now I'm starting to feel like I am missing out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: domoaligato on Wed, 21 May 2014, 19:17:55
linux mint 16 mate
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Wed, 21 May 2014, 19:24:10
Very interested in trying out Sabayon, it looks really cool. Always been to lazy to use Gentoo and have stuck with Arch, but now I'm starting to feel like I am missing out.
If you have lots of spare time, gentoo (and its derivatives) are awesome. A have a project in the works for a super light weight and pre-configured funtoo distro. Still in concept, but I hope to start real work on it over the summer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Wed, 21 May 2014, 19:48:06
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

I agree that ubuntu is not what it used to be. It was my os of choice, now I am still searching for a favorite. I don't really like centos, but I work in it every day, so I am used to it.

I miss the easy to use, but no fat distros (like ubuntu when it first came out).

Looking for suggestions.
- I want a nice package manager that has relatively new versions of software (don't want to compile everything).
- simple and fast gui. No special effects to slow things down.
- I live in the terminal and browser, so those are important.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Wed, 21 May 2014, 19:50:00
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

I agree that ubuntu is not what it used to be. It was my os of choice, now I am still searching for a favorite. I don't really like centos, but I work in it every day, so I am used to it.

I miss the easy to use, but no fat distros (like ubuntu when it first came out).

Looking for suggestions.
- I want a nice package manager that has relatively new versions of software (don't want to compile everything).
- simple and fast gui. No special effects to slow things down.
- I live in the terminal and browser, so those are important.

Arch Linux sounds like what youre looking for, PM me if you have any questions about it, been using Arch for ages.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Wed, 21 May 2014, 19:53:15
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

I agree that ubuntu is not what it used to be. It was my os of choice, now I am still searching for a favorite. I don't really like centos, but I work in it every day, so I am used to it.

I miss the easy to use, but no fat distros (like ubuntu when it first came out).

Looking for suggestions.
- I want a nice package manager that has relatively new versions of software (don't want to compile everything).
- simple and fast gui. No special effects to slow things down.
- I live in the terminal and browser, so those are important.

Arch Linux sounds like what youre looking for, PM me if you have any questions about it, been using Arch for ages.

Ya I have been playing with arch. I switched from it because I was having networking issues (which turned out to be hardware), so I should switch back to it. It seemed pretty good in the short time I was playing with it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Wed, 21 May 2014, 20:48:40
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

Very interesting. Ubuntu feisty was one of the distros I cut my teeth on. Haven't used it much since the release of hardy. Checked out the latest release but Unity is not for me.

What flavor were you leading up? A fluxbuntu type or a suite based distro like musix?

Edit : music --> musix ... Autocorrect arggg

Welcome to geekhack

Ubuntu Studio. It is still around but I was too busy at work when I stepped down and then moved on to lower level projects.

http://ubuntustudio.org/tour/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 21 May 2014, 20:54:46
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

I agree that ubuntu is not what it used to be. It was my os of choice, now I am still searching for a favorite. I don't really like centos, but I work in it every day, so I am used to it.

I miss the easy to use, but no fat distros (like ubuntu when it first came out).

Looking for suggestions.
- I want a nice package manager that has relatively new versions of software (don't want to compile everything).
- simple and fast gui. No special effects to slow things down.
- I live in the terminal and browser, so those are important.

Arch Linux sounds like what youre looking for, PM me if you have any questions about it, been using Arch for ages.

Ya I have been playing with arch. I switched from it because I was having networking issues (which turned out to be hardware), so I should switch back to it. It seemed pretty good in the short time I was playing with it.

Arch reccomendation seconded for you. Will give you power tune the distro to your liking, good documentation and package management via pacman.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 21 May 2014, 20:59:51
Debian is a very good alternative to Ubuntu. Ubuntu has become painfully "corporate" and has malware/spyware enabled out of the box. You can turn these tracking features off if you want. I choose to just use another OS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bueller on Wed, 21 May 2014, 21:04:07
Using ubuntu here but I don't really use it much. Just have it running on a Raspberry Pi so I can push my git repo's to it once a week as a backup.  Works great for that purpose.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 21 May 2014, 21:06:30
I didn't know that they had a Pi version of Ubuntu, or is it just for Arm? Why not use Raspbian?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Wed, 21 May 2014, 21:06:37
Debian is a very good alternative to Ubuntu. Ubuntu has become painfully "corporate" and has malware/spyware enabled out of the box. You can turn these tracking features off if you want. I choose to just use another OS.

+1. Debian is a classic and still strong for a reason.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 21 May 2014, 21:22:08
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

Very interesting. Ubuntu feisty was one of the distros I cut my teeth on. Haven't used it much since the release of hardy. Checked out the latest release but Unity is not for me.

What flavor were you leading up? A fluxbuntu type or a suite based distro like musix?

Edit : music --> musix ... Autocorrect arggg

Welcome to geekhack

Ubuntu Studio. It is still around but I was too busy at work when I stepped down and then moved on to lower level projects.

http://ubuntustudio.org/tour/

It is indeed still around. Just grabbed a fresh (to me) copy of the iso for the stockpile
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Wed, 21 May 2014, 21:25:43
Ubuntu isn't what it used to be. I recommend people that like Ubuntu to switch to debian.

And to think I used to lead an official Ubuntu derivative distro.

Very interesting. Ubuntu feisty was one of the distros I cut my teeth on. Haven't used it much since the release of hardy. Checked out the latest release but Unity is not for me.

What flavor were you leading up? A fluxbuntu type or a suite based distro like musix?

Edit : music --> musix ... Autocorrect arggg

Welcome to geekhack

Ubuntu Studio. It is still around but I was too busy at work when I stepped down and then moved on to lower level projects.

http://ubuntustudio.org/tour/

It is indeed still around. Just grabbed a fresh (to me) copy of the iso for the stockpile

Awesome  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bueller on Wed, 21 May 2014, 21:27:59
I didn't know that they had a Pi version of Ubuntu, or is it just for Arm? Why not use Raspbian?

You're right, I must have been thinking of when I had my microserver. It is running Raspbian, derp.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 22 May 2014, 08:11:14
Nobody has said gentoo yet. That makes me sad.

If I weren't so busy hacking on code, and needing to install libraries easily in a jhbuild for it. I would be tempted to go back.

For now debian and Fedora serve me right.
I said funtoo, which is gentoo except it uses git instead of rsync. But I use Sabayon now, which is gentoo but without the hassle of installing the bare necessities.

Very interested in trying out Sabayon, it looks really cool. Always been to lazy to use Gentoo and have stuck with Arch, but now I'm starting to feel like I am missing out.
You might be disappointed though. I tried Sabayon last year, but it didn't work out at all. After each reboot, something else didn't work; I had never seen X.Org that broken.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Thu, 22 May 2014, 08:39:10
Nobody has said gentoo yet. That makes me sad.

If I weren't so busy hacking on code, and needing to install libraries easily in a jhbuild for it. I would be tempted to go back.

For now debian and Fedora serve me right.
I said funtoo, which is gentoo except it uses git instead of rsync. But I use Sabayon now, which is gentoo but without the hassle of installing the bare necessities.

Very interested in trying out Sabayon, it looks really cool. Always been to lazy to use Gentoo and have stuck with Arch, but now I'm starting to feel like I am missing out.

Gentoo is on my list of distros to try. The reason it has not been a priority for me is that is just doesn't seem like the half of a microsecond gained in execution time is worth all of the fuss of compiling everything. Years ago, an FTP server was compromised that was running CentOS that our group maintained. The breach was probably due to a poor configuration and not the core operating system itself. A co-worker thought it would be a good idea to put a hardened gentoo install on the box instead. I appreciate the nod towards security but the initial compile took over 2 days to complete.

Granted, a Gentoo install can be done more traditionally to speed up the process. But as we all know, time = money, and in any production environment, having a 2 day downtime could impact your organization dramatically.

Seems more like a distro for tinkerers--which a lot of us are here :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tricheboars on Thu, 22 May 2014, 14:02:40
my poweredge runs centOS at home.  i tried to make it a LAMP server but that didnt work at all.  i honestly think i will throw Microsoft Server 2008 R2 on it this weekend. sorry i dont think any of you wanted to hear that.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Thu, 22 May 2014, 17:14:43
my poweredge runs centOS at home.  i tried to make it a LAMP server but that didnt work at all.  i honestly think i will throw Microsoft Server 2008 R2 on it this weekend. sorry i dont think any of you wanted to hear that.

The trick with setting up a lamp stack is that you have to do it all together. If you just install all the components it won't work. You have to setup apache, php and mysql together at the same time otherwise they don't actually know about each other. It is annoying and has bit me in the @55 before.

If you want to give it another go I can look at my chef recipe and give you the steps.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: daerid on Thu, 22 May 2014, 17:53:58
I'm back on Xubuntu right now. CentOS is solid, but I need something a bit more on the bleeding edge, package-wise
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: gcb on Thu, 22 May 2014, 18:02:54
Debian whenever i can. leave me with my old and stable packages. and get out of my lawn!

RH at work. yuck.

wife's on ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: luisbg on Fri, 23 May 2014, 00:06:23
Gentoo is on my list of distros to try. The reason it has not been a priority for me is that is just doesn't seem like the half of a microsecond gained in execution time is worth all of the fuss of compiling everything. Years ago, an FTP server was compromised that was running CentOS that our group maintained. The breach was probably due to a poor configuration and not the core operating system itself. A co-worker thought it would be a good idea to put a hardened gentoo install on the box instead. I appreciate the nod towards security but the initial compile took over 2 days to complete.

Granted, a Gentoo install can be done more traditionally to speed up the process. But as we all know, time = money, and in any production environment, having a 2 day downtime could impact your organization dramatically.

Seems more like a distro for tinkerers--which a lot of us are here :D

You got that right. It is for tinkerers.

Not only for performance gains, which with today's cpu/memory/ssd isn't much. It is more because you can tinker with the flags everything in your machine is compiled with. You can overlay anything you want. Build a system from scratch with hand-picked components.

I personally like the idea of having all the source code that runs my machine easily available. If you want to tinker with any component, you can just patch against the gentoo package and done.
Most packages have patches to make them software play nice with the system, so the package system is designed to patch -> compile -> run.
Tinker to the most minute detail. It is amazing.

That said, it is time consuming. And a rathole. Just like tweeking your keyboard. Sometimes you just need something you can plug and go. For that you have debian, Ubuntu or Fedora.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jmolino on Fri, 23 May 2014, 00:15:40
I'm using the latest stable version of Ubuntu (Trusty whatever... 14.04) and it is superb as a Desktop OS.

As for my servers, I run all CentOS release 5.9 (Final).

Most importantly on my servers I run Atomic Secured Linux:

http://www.atomicorp.com/products/asl.html (http://www.atomicorp.com/products/asl.html)

Quote
ASL is a Unified Threat Manager that hardens both your web applications and operating system in addition to incorporating numerous proprietary security functions and methodologies.

I would not put a linux box on the internet without it.  Period.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 23 May 2014, 05:40:12
gentoo is on my list of repositories that i tried and abandoned forever.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 23 May 2014, 06:05:19
Quote
in addition to incorporating numerous proprietary security functions and methodologies
What's that? Backdoors?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Fri, 23 May 2014, 08:17:21
For a server, maybe. I don't see the point of hardening or antivirus for a desktop box, with how unattractive Linux is as a target to begin with. I've been running Win 7 for years with no protection other than a router's firewall and intelligent browsing habits.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jmolino on Fri, 23 May 2014, 08:45:33
Quote
in addition to incorporating numerous proprietary security functions and methodologies
What's that? Backdoors?

I'm not sure exactly which of their feature(s) are "proprietary" - and yes - it is a closed source system (....maybe for a security product that isn't a bad thing...).  But the implication is valid: "who can we trust?"!

It's hard nowadays to trust anybody in light of the whole PRISM/NSA thing.  Working in the IT industry...by just using any operating system, website, even open-source software (see Canonical's post: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Canonical-We-Have-Root-Trust-Us-294538.shtml (http://news.softpedia.com/news/Canonical-We-Have-Root-Trust-Us-294538.shtml) we make decisions about who to trust every day. 

Regarding Atomicorp.. seems they are pretty stand-up: http://www.atomicorp.com/company/about-us.html (http://www.atomicorp.com/company/about-us.html)

Personally, I am thankful to have this software protect my servers after seeing just how many (in the *hundreds*) of hack attempts occur every day to each one of my servers!  (And yes this product is for servers primarily).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Fri, 23 May 2014, 08:53:55
For a server, maybe. I don't see the point of hardening or antivirus for a desktop box, with how unattractive Linux is as a target to begin with. I've been running Win 7 for years with no protection other than a router's firewall and intelligent browsing habits.

I too live dangerously on my dedicated win7 box at home, no AV. It's just a gaming rig though.

I don't recommend other users to run that way however. :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Tetsuo on Fri, 23 May 2014, 13:43:20
I just install Gentoo on everything.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 25 May 2014, 01:02:53
Started using Elementary OS Luna recently on a 6 year old Dell laptop that I resurrected from the grave. It's quite visually appealing and worked well right out of the gates. Hard pressed to bother with other distros at the moment, other than Slacko Puppy when running from USB drive.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Flamingchook on Sun, 25 May 2014, 07:52:55
I messed up my windows 8.1 boot partition pretty bad yesterday so I've been running Linux Mint 16 from a flash drive all day while I wait for the Windows 8.1 ISO to download. I'm super impressed with it. Some of the minor annoyances I had with previous versions of mint and ubuntu are gone and I'm really enjoying it!

I'd make the switch if I didn't need to be on Windows for some of my university stuff... And steam obviously :cool:. When I build my new PC at the end of the year I'll get a dual boot going with one flavour or another.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sun, 25 May 2014, 08:05:45
I messed up my windows 8.1 boot partition pretty bad yesterday so I've been running Linux Mint 16 from a flash drive all day while I wait for the Windows 8.1 ISO to download. I'm super impressed with it. Some of the minor annoyances I had with previous versions of mint and ubuntu are gone and I'm really enjoying it!

I'd make the switch if I didn't need to be on Windows for some of my university stuff... And steam obviously :cool:. When I build my new PC at the end of the year I'll get a dual boot going with one flavour or another.

There is steam for linux now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: D01 on Sun, 25 May 2014, 08:22:44
If, and that's a big if, I was going to use Linux I would be on LMDE 201403.  With MATE desktop.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 25 May 2014, 15:09:08
I messed up my windows 8.1 boot partition pretty bad yesterday so I've been running Linux Mint 16 from a flash drive all day while I wait for the Windows 8.1 ISO to download. I'm super impressed with it. Some of the minor annoyances I had with previous versions of mint and ubuntu are gone and I'm really enjoying it!

I'd make the switch if I didn't need to be on Windows for some of my university stuff... And steam obviously :cool:. When I build my new PC at the end of the year I'll get a dual boot going with one flavour or another.

There is steam for linux now.

There is, but many games don't run, and those that do don't always run as well. And if you're using an AMD card, you might as well not try.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sun, 25 May 2014, 16:29:19
I messed up my windows 8.1 boot partition pretty bad yesterday so I've been running Linux Mint 16 from a flash drive all day while I wait for the Windows 8.1 ISO to download. I'm super impressed with it. Some of the minor annoyances I had with previous versions of mint and ubuntu are gone and I'm really enjoying it!

I'd make the switch if I didn't need to be on Windows for some of my university stuff... And steam obviously :cool:. When I build my new PC at the end of the year I'll get a dual boot going with one flavour or another.

There is steam for linux now.

There is, but many games don't run, and those that do don't always run as well. And if you're using an AMD card, you might as well not try.

that sucks.  thanks for the knowledge...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Sun, 25 May 2014, 16:46:06
Windows is still king in proprietary graphics performance but the gap is closing. AMD setups can get a little tricky especially if you have an APU series. The trick is to blacklist the correct modules at boot.

Also don't use xinerama as it 3D is not supported.  You're better off with xrandr anyway imo
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 25 May 2014, 19:21:42
[...] so I've been running Linux Mint 16 from a flash drive all day [...]

Something you can't readily do with Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: gcb on Mon, 26 May 2014, 02:53:11
If, and that's a big if, I was going to use Linux I would be on LMDE 201403.  With MATE desktop.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

mate is overrated.

gnome was undermined a long time ago when i bet apple put moles in the project to trhow away all the good design and UI goals, and replace it with OS9 clones.  ...than the same happened with gnome 3 and osx... anyway, conspiracy-theory-jokes aside, mate does not solve the problem, they only go back to the previous OS9 clone trolling.

the day you use a tiling window manager or any other non-1970 desktop/windows concept... you will be sold.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: welsinki on Mon, 26 May 2014, 03:32:11
 :blank: :blank: :blank: :blank:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 26 May 2014, 08:25:53
If, and that's a big if, I was going to use Linux I would be on LMDE 201403.  With MATE desktop.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

mate is overrated.

gnome was undermined a long time ago when i bet apple put moles in the project to trhow away all the good design and UI goals, and replace it with OS9 clones.  ...than the same happened with gnome 3 and osx... anyway, conspiracy-theory-jokes aside, mate does not solve the problem, they only go back to the previous OS9 clone trolling.

the day you use a tiling window manager or any other non-1970 desktop/windows concept... you will be sold.

This is why I love the Unity desktop. It took the best ideas of a tiling window manager and added smart design decisions to make it work more intuitively for a mainstream audience.

Other than the blot of an engine it runs on. If you are running older hardware it runs real slow.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: FoxWolf1 on Mon, 26 May 2014, 10:51:36
If, and that's a big if, I was going to use Linux I would be on LMDE 201403.  With MATE desktop.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

mate is overrated.

gnome was undermined a long time ago when i bet apple put moles in the project to trhow away all the good design and UI goals, and replace it with OS9 clones.  ...than the same happened with gnome 3 and osx... anyway, conspiracy-theory-jokes aside, mate does not solve the problem, they only go back to the previous OS9 clone trolling.

the day you use a tiling window manager or any other non-1970 desktop/windows concept... you will be sold.

Maybe this explains why I like MATE...I was always a big fan of OS9/8/7/6. Never felt the same way about OSX...

Tiling window managers just don't do it for me. I find that having windows behave less like physical objects makes the interface less intuitive and creates a feeling of disempowerment. Tried Unity also and made it about an hour before I decided that I just couldn't deal with it anymore.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jmolino on Mon, 26 May 2014, 12:40:01
This is why I love the Unity desktop. It took the best ideas of a tiling window manager and added smart design decisions to make it work more intuitively for a mainstream audience.

Can you elaborate a bit on how Unity uses ideas from tiling WMs?  Do you mean the snapping and Super/arrow hotkeys?

I been playing with Xmonad for a few days - and it seems that it is nothing like Unity at all...

(BTW - I also tried the new Gnome desktop as well, but prefer Unity...)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: gcb on Tue, 27 May 2014, 00:54:34
Tiling window managers just don't do it for me. I find that having windows behave less like physical objects makes the interface less intuitive and creates a feeling of disempowerment. Tried Unity also and made it about an hour before I decided that I just couldn't deal with it anymore.

Yeah, osx is total garbage.

But trust me on this one. Tiling window managers are like touch-typing.

Right now you are like someone typing with two indexes fingers. of course you are going to feel limited and threatened by a non-staggered keyboard.... but once you learn to touch type you will love that non-staggered board :)

it is the same with window managers. and text editors. :)  ...maybe it was because i was already using vim's and screen's windows that i like tiling window managers so much... o well. just trust me that it is very similar to the touch typing experience. you feel safe not trying it... but after you get the hang of it, you keep questioning yourself how you lived without every time you see someone that can't.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 27 May 2014, 01:00:22
It's a shame BumpTop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BumpTop) never really saw the light of day.

Gotta wonder what Google has been doing with it all these years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Tue, 27 May 2014, 08:18:30
It's a shame BumpTop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BumpTop) never really saw the light of day.

Gotta wonder what Google has been doing with it all these years.

They may have scooped it up to avoid future competition. See threat, buy threat, kill threat, no threat :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Tue, 27 May 2014, 08:22:14
Tiling window managers just don't do it for me. I find that having windows behave less like physical objects makes the interface less intuitive and creates a feeling of disempowerment. Tried Unity also and made it about an hour before I decided that I just couldn't deal with it anymore.

Yeah, osx is total garbage.

But trust me on this one. Tiling window managers are like touch-typing.

Right now you are like someone typing with two indexes fingers. of course you are going to feel limited and threatened by a non-staggered keyboard.... but once you learn to touch type you will love that non-staggered board :)

it is the same with window managers. and text editors. :)  ...maybe it was because i was already using vim's and screen's windows that i like tiling window managers so much... o well. just trust me that it is very similar to the touch typing experience. you feel safe not trying it... but after you get the hang of it, you keep questioning yourself how you lived without every time you see someone that can't.

Tiling WMs are really great. Currently I am using i3 but there are others out there. The configs can be tailored to make it perform and behave exactly as desired.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Tue, 27 May 2014, 20:22:01
Awesome WM master race reporting in. xmonad and bspwm are awesome too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: StylinGreymon on Wed, 28 May 2014, 05:16:24
I've been using i3 for over a year now, and I love it.

However, I do miss having a set amount of workspaces that I can just flit through.
That's kinda why I miss WMFS 1 so much.

i3 with WMFS 1's  panel would be the bee's knees.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 28 May 2014, 09:47:53
I've been using i3 for over a year now, and I love it.

However, I do miss having a set amount of workspaces that I can just flit through.
That's kinda why I miss WMFS 1 so much.

i3 with WMFS 1's  panel would be the bee's knees.

i3 can be configured to launch a set amount of workspaces upon login. Of course you could always spawn new entities later.

To cycle :

# prev/next workspace
bindsym Mod1+Shift+Left workspace prev_on_output
bindsym Mod1+Shift+Right workspace next_on_output
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hjkl_over_wasd on Wed, 28 May 2014, 10:33:38
Gentoo? psssshhh....

Show Image
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png)


Lol, great strip. In all seriousness though, vim masterrace reporting in.

In the terminal vim is king. I usually use sublime text otherwise (but that's off topic)
If you know Vim, Vim is king no matter where. Nothing has even come close to mimic the modal editing scheme in Vim that allows for ninja editing powers.

On topic: Slackware 14.1 on workstation, laptop and server.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: daerid on Wed, 28 May 2014, 13:55:57
I've been using i3 for over a year now, and I love it.

However, I do miss having a set amount of workspaces that I can just flit through.
That's kinda why I miss WMFS 1 so much.

i3 with WMFS 1's  panel would be the bee's knees.

$mod+[1-9] ? i3 should just create a workspace as necessary

You can even name 'em: http://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#workspace_screen
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 28 May 2014, 14:28:12
^ congrats on 4000 posts, fellow vimitizen.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hydrospell on Wed, 28 May 2014, 15:20:24
^ congrats on 4000 posts, fellow vimian.

FTFY ... ? 

Anyway.. Arch linux + vim + xmonad for me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: brainT on Sat, 31 May 2014, 17:31:51
Does anyone have any experience with Antergos?  I plan on dong a straight Arch install when I have the time for but I would like to get a little experience with something Arch based before jumping in.  Putting the time in to install it only to find I loath it isn't all that appealing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: roaduck on Sat, 31 May 2014, 22:10:53
I'm using Arch at home and Ubuntu at work.

Whats the general GH Linux concensus?

i`ve got some sort of Linux in virtual box on my Windows Tiny XP Pro 3 desktop - it`s on something called dualtrust from a site called deepnet security.It`s a browser inside a sandbox not a sandbox inside a browser like normal lol!

http://www.deepnetsecurity.com/products/dualtrust/.

I also use WhiteHat Aviator browser on Windows which is a very secure browser.

https://www.whitehatsec.com/aviator/

My windows is so locked down with script blockers etc, I`ve not had any viruses or malware for 7  years and I have no anti-virus proggies on it.....I know my onions; I do online cloud scans with Panda. I`ve been doin `puters a long time; since 1980.

Literally in the last few days I set up an ASUS K53E lapdog with dual boot Win 7 Ultimate 64 and Linux Zorin OS8 - 32 bit.

http://zorin-os.com/

I have used live distros before like Knoppix 5.3 so I know a bit but am currently loving Zorin.I love the speed and the power of it.



Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sat, 31 May 2014, 22:15:41
Literally in the last few days I set up an ASUS K53E lapdog with dual boot Win 7 Ultimate 64 and Linux Zorin OS8 - 32 bit.

http://zorin-os.com/

I have used live distros before like Knoppix 5.3 so I know a bit but am currently loving Zorin.I love the speed and the power of it.

Never heard of this, definitely going to check it out. Does it use the standard Linux kernel? Is it based on another distro?

EDIT: Looks like an Ubuntu derivative.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: roaduck on Sat, 31 May 2014, 22:50:42
Literally in the last few days I set up an ASUS K53E lapdog with dual boot Win 7 Ultimate 64 and Linux Zorin OS8 - 32 bit.

http://zorin-os.com/

I have used live distros before like Knoppix 5.3 so I know a bit but am currently loving Zorin.I love the speed and the power of it.

Never heard of this, definitely going to check it out. Does it use the standard Linux kernel? Is it based on another distro?

EDIT: Looks like an Ubuntu derivative.
[/quote]

Yeah I think it`s Ubuntu - I tried that in the past and it was very buggy so I gave Zorin a whirl.So far it`s tickerty boo.I`m just getting my head around it.The terminal and sudo and root commands etc.Not done that for ages.I`m so rusty.You can get Zorin from a live CD and try it first.Just boot from the Live CD first.Press F2, F12 or delete every second when you start your lapdog/desktop up from power off.

Windows has 8 versions - wow - Linux only has 600 and odd LOL! Now my red lapdog is dual-boot and breathed on with Zorin Linux I`m gonna stay on it to get the feel of it esko997.I even installed Opera 12.15 on and imported 40000 bookmarks and it`s lovin it.The lapdog is only a tiny intel dual core 1.5 GIG chip but it has 8 GB memory.I`m gonna upgrade the chip to an "I5" or "I7" somat as well soon; if the motherboard and fan have room and are compatible and the bios can handle it with a flash.

If you do download it and install it esko997 make sure you give it a password you can remember and also do not forget to tick auto log on otherwise you can't access root for authentication to install proggies etc for some unknown reason.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 31 May 2014, 23:26:19
Literally in the last few days I set up an ASUS K53E lapdog with dual boot Win 7 Ultimate 64 and Linux Zorin OS8 - 32 bit.

http://zorin-os.com/

I have used live distros before like Knoppix 5.3 so I know a bit but am currently loving Zorin.I love the speed and the power of it.

Never heard of this, definitely going to check it out. Does it use the standard Linux kernel? Is it based on another distro?

EDIT: Looks like an Ubuntu derivative.

Yeah I think it`s Ubuntu - I tried that in the past and it was very buggy so I gave Zorin a whirl.So far it`s tickerty boo.I`m just getting my head around it.The terminal and sudo and root commands etc.Not done that for ages.I`m so rusty.You can get Zorin from a live CD and try it first.Just boot from the Live CD first.Press F2, F12 or delete every second when you start your lapdog/desktop up from power off.

Windows has 8 versions - wow - Linux only has 600 and odd LOL! Now my red lapdog is dual-boot and breathed on with Zorin Linux I`m gonna stay on it to get the feel of it esko997.I even installed Opera 12.15 on and imported 40000 bookmarks and it`s lovin it.The lapdog is only a tiny intel dual core 1.5 GIG chip but it has 8 GB memory.I`m gonna upgrade the chip to an "I5" or "I7" somat as well soon; if the motherboard and fan have room and are compatible and the bios can handle it with a flash.

If you do download it and install it esko997 make sure you give it a password you can remember and also do not forget to tick auto log on otherwise you can't access root for authentication to install proggies etc for some unknown reason.
[/quote]

Highly doubt you'll be able to do such a dramatic h/w upgrade for a laptop
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: roaduck on Sun, 01 June 2014, 02:37:12
The ASUS K53 series has the same motherboard and the same size case with the small Centrino chips all the way up to the big i7`s...I`ve done more radical upgrades than that; that`s just a BIOS tweak to me...replace chip/fan...screw the back back on.....problem sol-ved lol! I can take a 15 year old HP workstation, breathe on it and make it as fast as my mate`s £1300 Samsung netbook.I can do things that my local PC shop says is impossible to accomplish... I`ve been doing `puters a while - since 1980 - over 34 years; I`m 48 now.

My computer tutor was called Martin and he was a Cambridge educated professor who worked for ICL - the British version of IBM and he was a polyglot and an undoubted polymath.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 01 June 2014, 09:23:19
I somehow read that you were trying to upgrade from core2 to i5/i7, my mistake. I stand corrected.

E: £1300 netbook? Thought the point of netbooks was to be cheap and low-power. Most expensive netbook I recall ever seeing was $200 or so.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Flamingchook on Sun, 01 June 2014, 18:34:55
I spent 3 hours trying to get my third monitor working under Mint again, something that worked out of the box but isn't working now because I made the mistake of switching to my ps3 on that monitor using a KVM switch. The third monitor has been disabled ever since and I have no idea how to fix it. I spent ages trying to get it going using the Nvidia X-Config tool and trying to get Xinerama working... All I managed to do was get Cinnamon to crash on start-up...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 01 June 2014, 18:38:55
I've never used a KVM, I always just switch inputs. I find it simpler. Not sure why it would have broken though. Intel/AMD/nvidia?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Flamingchook on Sun, 01 June 2014, 19:13:19
I'm running 2x Nvidia GTX 560Ti's.

Essentially a monitor has been "unplugged" while the system was running and it's fallen back to TwinView instead of Xinerama (at least that's what it looks like). I'm a complete Linux newbie so there might have been a simple fix... I really have no idea what I'm doing. :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: esko997 on Sun, 01 June 2014, 19:20:39
I'm running 2x Nvidia GTX 560Ti's.

Essentially a monitor has been "unplugged" while the system was running and it's fallen back to TwinView instead of Xinerama (at least that's what it looks like). I'm a complete Linux newbie so there might have been a simple fix... I really have no idea what I'm doing. :p

Try using arandr (sudo apt-get install arandr). My monitors are also really derpy and this little GUI for xrandr works great for me
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Flamingchook on Sun, 01 June 2014, 19:30:54
I'll try that. Thanks!

Edit: arandr is a pretty cool little program, however it doesn't really fix my issue because the third monitor is still disabled and doesn't show up in arandr...

I have no idea what to do. Maybe I'll just reinstall.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: roaduck on Sun, 01 June 2014, 20:44:51
I somehow read that you were trying to upgrade from core2 to i5/i7, my mistake. I stand corrected.

E: £1300 netbook? Thought the point of netbooks was to be cheap and low-power. Most expensive netbook I recall ever seeing was $200 or so.



A friend has an all singing/all dancing Samsung with internal SSD etc...you can get really top-end netbooks...well over $2000.

As for my ASUS, I got it because it was solid, reliable and easy to upgrade; It can support Centrino dual-core all the way upto i7 2410 and beyond...obviously it`ll eat batteries like crazy then and the bios will have to be reconfigured or flashed...the option is there user 18.

One thing about `puters...I am always learning...you have to be very patient and have an open mind.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 01 June 2014, 21:08:41
I somehow read that you were trying to upgrade from core2 to i5/i7, my mistake. I stand corrected.

E: £1300 netbook? Thought the point of netbooks was to be cheap and low-power. Most expensive netbook I recall ever seeing was $200 or so.



A friend has an all singing/all dancing Samsung with internal SSD etc...you can get really top-end netbooks...well over $2000.

As for my ASUS, I got it because it was solid, reliable and easy to upgrade; It can support Centrino dual-core all the way upto i7 2410 and beyond...obviously it`ll eat batteries like crazy then and the bios will have to be reconfigured or flashed...the option is there user 18.

One thing about `puters...I am always learning...you have to be very patient and have an open mind.

I was confused because I thought you were upgrading from one architecture to another -- which would require different chipset and so on. If it's the same socket and chipset (Sandy to Sandy for that model #, I believe), it may be difficult but I don't see any technical reason it couldn't be done. Like I said, I stand corrected.

In terms of netbook, the paradigm is low cost, low power and small size at the expense of performance. An ultrabook is the evolution of a netbook, where modern CPU architectures allow increased performance in the same physical size and power envelope, albeit with higher cost.

It may be that the only difference is in terminology, and that's why we're misunderstanding each other, but that's no reason to talk down to me. It may not be intentional, but that's sure what it feels like.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Sun, 01 June 2014, 23:55:44
E: £1300 netbook? Thought the point of netbooks was to be cheap and low-power. Most expensive netbook I recall ever seeing was $200 or so.
A friend has an all singing/all dancing Samsung with internal SSD etc...you can get really top-end netbooks...well over $2000.
In terms of netbook, the paradigm is low cost, low power and small size at the expense of performance. An ultrabook is the evolution of a netbook, where modern CPU architectures allow increased performance in the same physical size and power envelope, albeit with higher cost.
I was also confused because of the terminology. As said Its a small ultrabook if it is in that price range. Netbooks mostly used intel atoms or processors that preformed similarly.

Wikipedia:
Quote
Netbooks are a category of small, lightweight, legacy-free, and inexpensive computers.
Hope this ends the misunderstanding of the word :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kayla on Sun, 01 June 2014, 23:56:28
I use Arch and Debian. .-.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bexleycorona on Mon, 02 June 2014, 00:59:44
I used to use Ubuntu then switched to Mint. Now I'm using Xubuntu on my laptop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 02 June 2014, 01:14:44
Update on my Ubuntu server: Something's wrong with the boot disk. Badly wrong.

System doesn't know what 'ls', 'sudo', 'su' mean. 'cd' still works for whatever reason.

Drive was flaky to begin with, so perhaps I'll just try again with a better quality HDD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 02 June 2014, 05:42:58
Update on my Ubuntu server: Something's wrong with the boot disk. Badly wrong.

System doesn't know what 'ls', 'sudo', 'su' mean. 'cd' still works for whatever reason.

Drive was flaky to begin with, so perhaps I'll just try again with a better quality HDD.
`ls`, `sudo` and `su` are all programs, which, in your case, seem to be on an inaccessible partition.

`cd` is a shell command and not a program.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Mon, 02 June 2014, 06:49:24
How is your /bin doing? try execute something in that folder.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 02 June 2014, 11:38:59
It's not that the partition is inaccessible, it's that it's getting physical read errors trying to find the programs. It won't even boot anymore. Going to boot from a liveusb and see what kind of errors I get on the drive.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Mon, 02 June 2014, 12:37:01
Yup sounds like a god idea. Let us know what the result of the hdd test was.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 02 June 2014, 12:41:43
Okay I officially have no idea what's going on anymore. Either I was tired and misinterpreting the errors I was getting (possible) or I have a magic box (significantly less possible).

No SMART errors on the drive, and it's booting just fine now. For lack of better ideas, going to stare at the terminal until something weird happens.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: linziyi on Mon, 02 June 2014, 19:12:45
Gentoo master race.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 02 June 2014, 19:25:23
Something weird happened. There's a problem with the driver for my raid card. Prepping a different drive for a new install so I can free up the mobo ports I need to use native linux software raid instead.

Sticking with Ubuntu Server 12.04.4 though. Was pretty happy with how it worked, aside from the instability attributed to the bad driver, and it's flexible enough.

Never use a Highpoint card with linux, guys. They don't work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Tue, 03 June 2014, 00:05:29
Never used a highpoint before but the integrated solutions in my rack server has worked well (hp smart array on hp dl380 g4 and 580 g2).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 04 June 2014, 14:39:55
I've never used highpoint cards in a linux build -- they do however work great in Windows.

Supposedly, they do have linux support. From the site :

<clip>

We provide pre-compiled driver packages for several popular Linux distributions such as Red Hat, RH Enterprise, Fedora, SuSE. We also provide driver source code that can be used to build the driver on other Linux distributions, and kernel versions where a pre-compiled binary is not provided.
These drivers are posted on our website, under the support-BIOS+Driver update section for each host adapter product.

</clip>

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 04 June 2014, 15:25:35
I've never used highpoint cards in a linux build -- they do however work great in Windows.

Supposedly, they do have linux support. From the site :

<clip>

We provide pre-compiled driver packages for several popular Linux distributions such as Red Hat, RH Enterprise, Fedora, SuSE. We also provide driver source code that can be used to build the driver on other Linux distributions, and kernel versions where a pre-compiled binary is not provided.
These drivers are posted on our website, under the support-BIOS+Driver update section for each host adapter product.

</clip>

They have drivers all right. They have drivers for kernel versions 2.x, at least for all the cards I've seen. User-created patches exist for 3.x, but they aren't always completely stable. As far as I know, nobody's been able to get their administration tools working reliably under 3.x, even with patches.

I have no issue at all with highpoint's windows drivers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 04 June 2014, 15:53:25
I've never used highpoint cards in a linux build -- they do however work great in Windows.

Supposedly, they do have linux support. From the site :

<clip>

We provide pre-compiled driver packages for several popular Linux distributions such as Red Hat, RH Enterprise, Fedora, SuSE. We also provide driver source code that can be used to build the driver on other Linux distributions, and kernel versions where a pre-compiled binary is not provided.
These drivers are posted on our website, under the support-BIOS+Driver update section for each host adapter product.

</clip>

They have drivers all right. They have drivers for kernel versions 2.x, at least for all the cards I've seen. User-created patches exist for 3.x, but they aren't always completely stable. As far as I know, nobody's been able to get their administration tools working reliably under 3.x, even with patches.

I have no issue at all with highpoint's windows drivers.

I has a sad now. Thanks for the info
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jamesj223 on Sat, 14 June 2014, 09:28:01
I've been using Elementary OS on my laptop for about 6 months now. Absolutely loving it! It's a Dell XPS 13, everything working properly, no driver issues or anything. It's primarily for uni so it mainly gets used for web browsing, reading lecture slides and programming (anything from C to Python to Ruby to Haskell).

And I've got a Pi running pibang, set up as an automated TV/Movie torrent box. Not much to report on there really, everything more or less works.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: brainT on Sat, 14 June 2014, 21:32:57
I just put Openbox Antergos on my x61 and am liking it so far.  Going from apt-get to pacman is a little rough but I love the challenge of learning something new!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 14 June 2014, 23:27:23
I just put Openbox Antergos on my x61 and am liking it so far.  Going from apt-get to pacman is a little rough but I love the challenge of learning something new!

Tell us how it goes.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: limecore on Sat, 14 June 2014, 23:48:29
I have used ubuntu, arch, lmde and have tried gentoo in a VM
I end up switching between lmde and Arch all the time now (arch until I break something, then LMDE until I get time to fix arch)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Sun, 15 June 2014, 08:15:31
I just put Openbox Antergos on my x61 and am liking it so far.  Going from apt-get to pacman is a little rough but I love the challenge of learning something new!
I've been using Antergos for a week or two now, and so far I like it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: brainT on Sun, 15 June 2014, 17:57:55
I just put Openbox Antergos on my x61 and am liking it so far.  Going from apt-get to pacman is a little rough but I love the challenge of learning something new!

Tell us how it goes.  :)

Going great so far but I'm sure I'll break something soon enough!  After I get more comfortable it I'll probably end up ditching Mint (Meh-int) on my other Thinkpad that I use for work. When that happens I'll probably do straight Arch on the x61 for the sake of learning the nuts and bolts of it all.

I just put Openbox Antergos on my x61 and am liking it so far.  Going from apt-get to pacman is a little rough but I love the challenge of learning something new!
I've been using Antergos for a week or two now, and so far I like it.

I found the graphical installer to be easy enough to use and the out of the box experience is really nice. It's very close to my "ideal" environment that it won't take too much time to tweak to my tastes which is good 'cause time/energy is at a premium for me right now! I like almost anything that forces me to learn and figure stuff out, and having the Arch wiki to draw on is just great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Flamingchook on Thu, 19 June 2014, 02:07:14
I've fallen back to WIndows 8.1 full time on my desktop so  decided to install ElementaryOS on my laptop. It's pretty snazzy so far and I'm enjoying it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Laiin on Fri, 11 July 2014, 01:31:41
Currently on windows (school computer)
But i normally use Arch and after using it i just cant seem to go back to anything else and enjoy it.
I do have alot of old computer which relatives/friends give me with all the "top" flavours on them, although they are not being used.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Smasher816 on Fri, 11 July 2014, 11:12:39
But i normally use Arch and after using it i just cant seem to go back to anything else and enjoy it.

Agreed. Maybe I am insane but I actually think it is easier to work with then most distributions - especially with the wealth of information on the wiki. If anything breaks then I have an idea of what caused it and know what files to look around in. When using RHEL for a server at work I realized I had no idea how to make sure PHP and MySQL were correctly configured with their fancy GUI. Personally the more "fluff" they put on a system the harder it is to get to the root of the issue. Like I said, maybe I am just crazy :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RED-404 on Fri, 11 July 2014, 11:56:54
My server runs Arch Linux, according to my server host it runs Debian, but well a chroot, reinstall seems to have fixed that problem. :)
(http://red.dazoe.net/stuff/2014-07-11_11-37-30.png)
All my servers are named after demons.

Home
Desktop/HAF = Windows 8.1/Arch
Desktop2/Black Betty = Arch
Laptop/Space Heater = Arch
Chromebook/Meh = ChromeOS/Arch
Media PC/Perdy light box = Arch
Nas/Furcas = FreeBSD

Edit: Pointlessly added system names.
Edit2: I forgot about one I have an old P3 system in mineral oil running Gentoo overclocked to all hell doing nothing at all. The strangest thing about it, isn't the mineral oil or the Rubbermaid case or even sticking your hand in mineral oil to flip the switch on the PSU. It has VC150 memory not PC133.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Bencze on Sun, 27 July 2014, 06:53:35
Wow I found this topic and thought I want to update my current status.

I still have my Centos running on HP miroserver n36l under my desk. Since about 3 years.
I also have an Ubuntu 14.04, been actively using it since about 3 weeks! By far the longest I ever went with Linux desktop. My current gaming habits probably enabled it as well, since I've been playing xcom which has this native linux port now, also playing Openttd which runs great as well. Some other stuff with Wine but I don't play a lot these days.
I am more familiar with Redhat but choose Ubuntu because I was hoping it's most mature for desktop stuff and better Steam compatibility.
I think Linux desktop concept is getting better and better, if steamos thingy succeeds we might see more and more native linux ports for games which will help a lot. I like alternatives and bored of Windows so yey...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: katushkin on Sun, 27 July 2014, 07:02:32
Weird. I just got given Centos from a Unix course I was just on and I was thinking of getting rid of Win 7 on my laptop for Centos.

I quite liked moving around easily in the CLI, and I would just mess around when we weren't doing anything on the course.

Anybody got any tips for a relative newbie who has only had a 4 day Unix course to learn stuff?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Sun, 27 July 2014, 07:17:32
Weird. I just got given Centos from a Unix course I was just on and I was thinking of getting rid of Win 7 on my laptop for Centos.

I quite liked moving around easily in the CLI, and I would just mess around when we weren't doing anything on the course.

Anybody got any tips for a relative newbie who has only had a 4 day Unix course to learn stuff?

Best tip to learn??--Keep using the os!

By saying that, simply use the computer as you normally would. This will naturally introduce you to other elements of the environment. Things like printing, watching online media, and document editing are things most of us to expect it to 'just work'. Often in the Linux world, "just working" is a phrase that is not tossed around easily.

The above is not meant to be a discouragement. The beauty you'll find is in the journey of learning a system and configuring it how you like it. After enough use, you may not consider having it any other way :)

Each flavor (distro) has its own unique set of pros and con's.  Dive in!  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Sun, 27 July 2014, 08:26:00
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: runcom on Sun, 27 July 2014, 09:12:29
At work and at home Ubuntu, when I'm around I usually carry a laptop with Kali Linux :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: katushkin on Sun, 27 July 2014, 10:07:35
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.

But you can watch movies in glorious ASCII format!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Sun, 27 July 2014, 14:52:07
I'm all about the LMDE, but I've used most majors and a new one offs. I have yet to try Gentoo, though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sun, 27 July 2014, 16:34:02
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.

Yes it does. Enter Winex...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Sun, 27 July 2014, 23:57:03
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.

Yes it does. Enter Winex...
Ok,then we have converted microsoft windows to linux. Who would have thought?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 28 July 2014, 00:02:17
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.

Yes it does. Enter Winex...
Ok,then we have converted microsoft windows to linux. Who would have thought?

Haha, can't hurt to try.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Mon, 28 July 2014, 00:39:49
If he starts to use linux he will run something weird like yggdrasil  or some other oboslete distro. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Mon, 28 July 2014, 05:23:27
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.

Yes it does. Enter Winex...
I don't think that's what "natively" means.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 28 July 2014, 05:46:48
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.

Yes it does. Enter Winex...
I don't think that's what "natively" means.

Well, wine is just a compatibility library.

Technically you are linking a Windows executable with a library to provide graphics and sound services.  Instead of interfacing with the Windows kernel, it interfaces with the Linux kernel.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 28 July 2014, 08:23:04
I do not use Linux because it doesn't natively run SimCity 2000.

Yes it does. Enter Winex...
I don't think that's what "natively" means.

Hey its close enough. I was able to run windows programs on linux with Winex with better performance than on a windows install (using the same box). Because Winex does not have to run the whole windows stack, the programs actually have access to more resources than running the same program on windows natively.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 28 July 2014, 08:53:15
I was able to run windows programs on linux with Winex with better performance than on a windows install (using the same box).
i did the same.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 28 July 2014, 20:05:56
Blew away Linux Mint 15 from my old laptop and installed #! in its place. Love how simple it is. Wish it worked better with my wifi card.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Tue, 29 July 2014, 08:10:23
Blew away Linux Mint 15 from my old laptop and installed #! in its place. Love how simple it is. Wish it worked better with my wifi card.

420 posts...nice bro!

I have a personal hate against broadcom.... good luck :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Tue, 29 July 2014, 08:16:50
Any spesific reason for broadcom hate?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: caesar on Tue, 29 July 2014, 08:17:51
archlinux + fluxbox   my best setup
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Tue, 29 July 2014, 08:19:45
archlinux + fluxbox   my best setup

Nice, what do you run it on?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Tue, 29 July 2014, 09:33:09
Any spesific reason for broadcom hate?
Recently? No idea. But their proprietary drivers were pure evil ~5+ years ago.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Tue, 29 July 2014, 10:24:21
Any spesific reason for broadcom hate?
Recently? No idea. But their proprietary drivers were pure evil ~5+ years ago.
I see. yea propietary driver isnt much fun. But recently they been nice as you said. They even made the videocore IV graphics core used in rasberry pi open source.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Tue, 29 July 2014, 10:29:46
I haven't said anything about them being nice recently. I simply gave up on their hardware and went Intel everywhere¹ four years ago.

¹  except one AMD+Atheros desktop
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Tue, 29 July 2014, 12:10:00
Specifically for users who love Arch: Any reasons you didn't use or left CrunchBang?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RED-404 on Tue, 29 July 2014, 13:04:41
I have used CrunchBang several times. I have random fits of distro-hopping and I do like what he did with CrunchBang but overall I still like to build my system.  I like fluxbox and blackbox and I am used to them so that wasn't the problem.  If you like CrunchBang you can give ArchBang Linux, Bridge Linux or BlackArch Linux a shot.

I like Arch for Pacman AUR and its just what I need it to be. You will probably find that many Arch users are former Gentoo users that just got sick of Portage or miss the guidance of our former benevolent dictator.

I also like Foresight Linux its not something I would use day to day, but I like messing with its strange package manager "Conary" it's still better than RPM and DEB.
Thanks for the reminder. I need to see about a updated version of bbLean for my Windows 8 box.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 29 July 2014, 13:38:44
Blew away Linux Mint 15 from my old laptop and installed #! in its place. Love how simple it is. Wish it worked better with my wifi card.

420 posts...nice bro!

I have a personal hate against broadcom.... good luck :D

Tell me about it. I got it working using the b43 driver...sort of. And because it's an HP laptop, I can't upgrade the wireless card to anything I like. They have a hard-coded whitelist in the bios, and it prevents booting if a wireless card that isn't on the list is installed. I might just give up and see if I can find a low-profile USB wireless dongle.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Tue, 29 July 2014, 19:05:52
Blew away Linux Mint 15 from my old laptop and installed #! in its place. Love how simple it is. Wish it worked better with my wifi card.

420 posts...nice bro!

I have a personal hate against broadcom.... good luck :D

Tell me about it. I got it working using the b43 driver...sort of. And because it's an HP laptop, I can't upgrade the wireless card to anything I like. They have a hard-coded whitelist in the bios, and it prevents booting if a wireless card that isn't on the list is installed. I might just give up and see if I can find a low-profile USB wireless dongle.

Some lenovo models also aggrivate with the whitelist shenanigans. Long live the wg511t  teehee
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ShawnMeg on Tue, 29 July 2014, 23:26:41
I like Puppy Linux.  It's the fastest OS, as it runs from RAM.  I'm using Lucid 5.2.8 (based on Ubuntu) on a 10 year old laptop, and it runs great.  I've also used Ubuntu 10.04 a couple years back on a Dell box, and I really liked it.

In the future, I would like to use Fatdog64 (a Puppy Linux distro, 64 bit) and Linux Lite.

My main computer is an HP box running Vista.  It runs great.

I'm interested in Chrome OS, and may get a Chromebook one of these days.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Tue, 29 July 2014, 23:42:58
I like Puppy Linux.  It's the fastest OS, as it runs from RAM.  I'm using Lucid 5.2.8 (based on Ubuntu) on a 10 year old laptop, and it runs great.  I've also used Ubuntu 10.04 a couple years back on a Dell box, and I really liked it.

In the future, I would like to use Fatdog64 (a Puppy Linux distro, 64 bit) and Linux Lite.

My main computer is an HP box running Vista.  It runs great.

I'm interested in Chrome OS, and may get a Chromebook one of these days.
So I'm not the only one who likes to run lightweight distros on ancient hardware? :)

Also, if you're interested in a Chromebook, you can pick up a refurb Acer C710 from Newegg for $119. I did just that about a month ago.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Thu, 31 July 2014, 16:06:29
I think lately I've given up my keyboard addiction for distro addiction - I can certainly understand the "build your own" mindset as each distro has something it does very well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Thu, 31 July 2014, 16:29:18
Chrome OS should be getting integration like iOS just announced in the near future, dock your phone and not have to look at it til your up from your Chromebook kinda function. I'm excited!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Thu, 31 July 2014, 16:30:35
Now I want to build a chromium os with the Chromebook interface, but desktop apps and wine and all. Not quite ready, but soon I will do this!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RED-404 on Thu, 31 July 2014, 17:19:04
I have a HP Chromebook 14 and for the money, it's not bad. I have not yet rooted it because the idea behind it is simply to have at least one system in my house that no one in my house including me can really mess up.
It's this one "not my pic"
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EXen1i0KL.jpg)
But yes, I frequently have to talk myself out of installing arch on it..  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ShawnMeg on Sat, 02 August 2014, 09:44:24
I like Puppy Linux.  It's the fastest OS, as it runs from RAM.  I'm using Lucid 5.2.8 (based on Ubuntu) on a 10 year old laptop, and it runs great.  I've also used Ubuntu 10.04 a couple years back on a Dell box, and I really liked it.

In the future, I would like to use Fatdog64 (a Puppy Linux distro, 64 bit) and Linux Lite.

My main computer is an HP box running Vista.  It runs great.

I'm interested in Chrome OS, and may get a Chromebook one of these days.
So I'm not the only one who likes to run lightweight distros on ancient hardware? :)

Also, if you're interested in a Chromebook, you can pick up a refurb Acer C710 from Newegg for $119. I did just that about a month ago.

Yes, there's something satisfying about being able to keep old hardware running with lightweight software like Puppy.  Just in the last week though, my hard drive appears to be failing in old laptop.

My HP box was bought used for about $50.  The seller thought the hard drive was going bad, but it was really that the OS got corrupted.  A simple reloading of the OS from the recovery partition got it working again.  It has an AMD Dual Core plus 750 GB of storage, which I barely use.  Vista flies on this and runs generally like butter.  I'm not completely happy with video playback as it will stutter if I have a bunch of browser tabs open.

I've had my eye on a C720.  That can be loaded with Ubuntu and Fatdog64.  I tried an HP 14" Chromebook at Sam's Club, and from the brief interaction, it was quite nice.  It's not quite in my budget yet, but one of these days, I would like to get a Chromebook.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Sun, 03 August 2014, 20:30:27
Why has no one told me about the new window managers out there? Some sexy things! I set up an Arch install with LXDE for now, thinking of trying out Awesome WM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 04 August 2014, 07:12:05
Why has no one told me about the new window managers out there? Some sexy things! I set up an Arch install with LXDE for now, thinking of trying out Awesome WM.
i3 seems to become popular recently.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pcandkbguy on Mon, 04 August 2014, 07:22:15
i find linux deplorable for everyday use, only ever run it iin vm when developing
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Mon, 04 August 2014, 11:42:34
I'm certain if you took your time to tweak your Linux, you'd find it elating. That being said, 'it just works' works for most. But apparently not for Geekhack. You, sir, need to tweak your Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kraksx on Tue, 05 August 2014, 12:01:21
I'm certain if you took your time to tweak your Linux, you'd find it elating. That being said, 'it just works' works for most. But apparently not for Geekhack. You, sir, need to tweak your Linux.

I agree, like a keyboard Linux must be made into your own OS for it to be truly awesome
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 06 August 2014, 02:17:50
okay, after a ****shower with ubuntu 12.04 -- 14.04 i installed mint (with cinnamon) and it works. i don't need much besides "it works".
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: StylinGreymon on Wed, 06 August 2014, 02:30:07
I miss WMFS.
I just needed a few more options, and it would've been sweet.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 06 August 2014, 02:36:55
okay, after a ****shower with ubuntu 12.04 -- 14.04 i installed mint (with cinnamon) and it works. i don't need much besides "it works".

Welcome to my favourite distro. I use it everywhere that cinnamon isn't too heavy for.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 06 August 2014, 07:48:40
well, it's a temporary measure (because i need a working machine right here right now). i am tired of **** and want a normal distro that will work for years. mint is not one of these as it's based on ubuntu. i tried crunchbang but it won't even boot on my laptop.

and there's no way that systemd crap will be installed on any hardware i own.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 06 August 2014, 08:39:56
i am tired of **** and want a normal distro that will work for years.

Debian
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 06 August 2014, 08:40:43
...or Slackware...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 06 August 2014, 08:55:45
...or Slackware...

slackware 4tw. I don't expect systemd to ever get into bed with slack
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Wed, 06 August 2014, 13:52:29
Systemd is bothersome? I'm just beginning my foray into Arch. Warn me now!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RED-404 on Wed, 06 August 2014, 14:14:08
For the most part Systemd is better it just has a learning curve and I'm still not the biggest fan of how configuration is handled it seems a little needlessly convoluted.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: katushkin on Wed, 06 August 2014, 14:30:10
okay, after a ****shower with ubuntu 12.04 -- 14.04 i installed mint (with cinnamon) and it works. i don't need much besides "it works".

Welcome to my favourite distro. I use it everywhere that cinnamon isn't too heavy for.

Mint eh? I bought a Linux magazine on a whim today and it came with Mint... I think... I'm thinking of installing it over the top of Win 7 on my laptop tomorrow.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 06 August 2014, 16:13:51
i am tired of **** and want a normal distro that will work for years.

Debian
has systemd in wheezy.

...or Slackware...
slackware 4tw. I don't expect systemd to ever get into bed with slack
fokk yea! years ago i had a slackware system with "slacko is iri's love" on the desktop. i may consider using it again.

also, a colleague offered me gentoo
DISCUSS
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Wed, 06 August 2014, 18:09:07
I mean... I think I'm fine with Arch. I need a working system too muchly. I haven't had much issue with systemd
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 06 August 2014, 18:21:46
i am tired of **** and want a normal distro that will work for years.

Debian
has systemd in wheezy.

...or Slackware...
slackware 4tw. I don't expect systemd to ever get into bed with slack
fokk yea! years ago i had a slackware system with "slacko is iri's love" on the desktop. i may consider using it again.

also, a colleague offered me gentoo
DISCUSS

Gentoo will def get you a non systemd environment

A tweaker's heaven offering complete control over your build

Haven't dove in there yet as I like to dedicate a good amount of time learning--a luxury for me currently :d

the BSD family is also an option
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RED-404 on Wed, 06 August 2014, 19:12:33
Meh the Gentoo foundation killed Gentoo years ago. [Citation Needed]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 06 August 2014, 20:41:41
Familiarity of the "gentoo way" is the main drive behind my quest. If Chromebooks ever become popular, knowing the backbone is a plus. Also adding some good info to the noggin while at it
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Wed, 06 August 2014, 21:16:10
Chromebooks are amazing man. For my internet needs it's perfect. Everything but work things are available for my use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 07 August 2014, 01:33:43
Meh the Gentoo foundation killed Gentoo years ago. [Citation Needed]
-daniel robbins
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Crazyhendrix on Thu, 07 August 2014, 02:52:02
Debian. Running a minimal install on a 6 year old Asus eeepc 900. Primarily for distraction free writing in Vim. No pictures or videos of internet kittens.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hjkl_over_wasd on Thu, 07 August 2014, 14:43:32
Debian. Running a minimal install on a 6 year old Asus eeepc 900. Primarily for distraction free writing in Vim. No pictures or videos of internet kittens.

Sounds like a good idea until you run :make .. ?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: G-Dubs on Thu, 07 August 2014, 18:30:32
Using Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS for work and LMDE on my laptop. I'm using vanilla Debian in a VM to run through the edX Linux course.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Crazyhendrix on Fri, 08 August 2014, 01:58:22
Debian. Running a minimal install on a 6 year old Asus eeepc 900. Primarily for distraction free writing in Vim. No pictures or videos of internet kittens.

Sounds like a good idea until you run :make .. ?

:make what? markdown text files? :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 08 August 2014, 05:55:53
on systemd:

http://wizardofbits.tumblr.com/post/45232318557/systemd-more-like-****-stemd
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.devel/169082
http://ewontfix.com/14/
http://ewontfix.com/15/
http://gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/archives/2013-10.html#e2013-10-29T13_39_32.txt

more links here:
http://boycottsystemd.org/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hjkl_over_wasd on Fri, 08 August 2014, 11:15:07
Using Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS for work and LMDE on my laptop. I'm using vanilla Debian in a VM to run through the edX Linux course.

Nice. Do you run Xorg? If so, you should perhaps try out the zathura pdf reader. I really like it for it's vim bindings and autoreloading whenever the file pdf file gets updated.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: zennasyndroxx on Fri, 08 August 2014, 13:07:52
kali user reporting in
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: G-Dubs on Fri, 08 August 2014, 14:31:14
Using Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS for work and LMDE on my laptop. I'm using vanilla Debian in a VM to run through the edX Linux course.

Nice. Do you run Xorg? If so, you should perhaps try out the zathura pdf reader. I really like it for it's vim bindings and autoreloading whenever the file pdf file gets updated.

Yes, I do. Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely take a look. I've been trying to transition over to using Linux as my primary desktop OS, but the move has been slow.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Fri, 08 August 2014, 16:44:14
on systemd:

http://wizardofbits.tumblr.com/post/45232318557/systemd-more-like-****-stemd
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.devel/169082
http://ewontfix.com/14/
http://ewontfix.com/15/
http://gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/archives/2013-10.html#e2013-10-29T13_39_32.txt

more links here:
http://boycottsystemd.org/

That was very illuminating, thank you.
I think for the next little while I'm going to run Arch though, since it's up and running. See where the world sits on Linux when I do an upgrade on my rig!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hjkl_over_wasd on Sat, 09 August 2014, 01:18:48
For anyone slack-curious:
http://www.reddit.com/r/slackware/comments/2cujr6/what_specifically_distinguishes_slackware_from/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Mon, 11 August 2014, 16:51:59
Brace yourselves, Lennart h8ers are coming!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ljfkidd on Wed, 13 August 2014, 15:16:16
Main desktop dualboot with windows (for gaming) and arch, also have a laptop running kali linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vimx on Sun, 17 August 2014, 07:38:59
I started on Slackware 3.0, installed from dozens of 1.44 floppies! For a while, it was Debian on servers and Ubuntu on laptops.  Now I am all about RPM, with Fedora on personal machines and Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS on work systems.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vimx on Sun, 17 August 2014, 08:12:43
Gentoo? psssshhh....

Show Image
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png)


Lol, great strip. In all seriousness though, vim masterrace reporting in.

Vim fan here.   I've been "shaving the yak" this last week, improving my .vimrc file.  I was mapping my F-keys, but changed to mapping comma as my Leader key.  Good stuff.  I also wrote a 256 color scheme for vim, inspired by the default monokai color scheme in Sublime Text.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: caesar on Sun, 17 August 2014, 08:22:12
archlinux + fluxbox   my best setup

Nice, what do you run it on?

I used it like a desktop. For servers prefer debian or centos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 17 August 2014, 10:21:56
oh, i also switched from vim to emacs. because emacs is better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vimx on Sun, 17 August 2014, 12:01:10
I used to be an emacs, now I'm a vim.  At least you're not a nano!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blackbox on Sun, 17 August 2014, 12:57:48
I use nano, U mad? Well I just use it because it gets what I want to be done and I haven't bothered learning vim or emacs.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Sun, 17 August 2014, 13:25:42
http://xkcd.com/378/ (http://xkcd.com/378/) comes to mind
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RED-404 on Sun, 17 August 2014, 14:26:00
Yeah, I'm just going to stay in the corner and use mcedit or jed or whatever is on the P.o.S. I have to fix at the time. Have fun with your editor war.

If I actually have to sit down and write something custom I tend to use Sublime Text but I can use whatever.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 18 August 2014, 02:10:57
http://xkcd.com/378/ (http://xkcd.com/378/) comes to mind
yeah.

two commands that i use the most daily:
Code: [Select]
M-x post-on-geekhack
Code: [Select]
M-x make-me-some-oolong
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vimx on Mon, 18 August 2014, 06:09:07
I use nano, U mad? Well I just use it because it gets what I want to be done and I haven't bothered learning vim or emacs.
Mad?  No.  I feel... pity.  May you someday know the joy of coding in a proper editor.  Peace be with you.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hjkl_over_wasd on Mon, 18 August 2014, 15:28:44
1998 just called and wants its stupid editor war comments back.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vimx on Mon, 18 August 2014, 19:10:53
I run dd-wrt on my wireless routers.  Does that count as a distro?

Also, have you guys experienced the awesomeness of virtualbox, vagrant and packer?  Any linux container docker fans ?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Mon, 18 August 2014, 19:32:11
1998 just called and wants its stupid editor war comments back.
This is a method with which to retort that never seems anachronistic.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 18 August 2014, 23:49:33
1998 just called and wants its stupid editor war comments back.
Oh, you are young, I see.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Mon, 18 August 2014, 23:59:15
1998 just called and wants its stupid editor war comments back.
Oh, you are young, I see.

I once mused to myself at people who didn't want a fancy GUI editor to do things, I thought they were intimidated. I know now that they aren't the ones who were misguided.

It was me who was!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 19 August 2014, 07:09:51
1998 just called and wants its stupid editor war comments back.
Oh, you are young, I see.

I once mused to myself at people who didn't want a fancy GUI editor to do things, I thought they were intimidated. I know now that they aren't the ones who were misguided.

It was me who was!
fancy gui, you say? hehehe.

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Tue, 19 August 2014, 07:16:01
1998 just called and wants its stupid editor war comments back.
Oh, you are young, I see.

I once mused to myself at people who didn't want a fancy GUI editor to do things, I thought they were intimidated. I know now that they aren't the ones who were misguided.

It was me who was!
fancy gui, you say? hehehe.

(Attachment Link)

Iri,

Do you work for a company called DataArt in St. Petersburg?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 19 August 2014, 09:14:33
i can neither confirm nor deny that

why are you asking?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Tue, 19 August 2014, 09:17:31
PM'd! :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DanielT on Thu, 21 August 2014, 05:32:14
Home: Debian on the media center/HP thin client and on Raspberry PI, Slackware on my old laptop, Solaris 11 for my NAS/Filer and running Zones for web and other stuff like that, Solaris 10 on a vintage Ultra 10 machine just because I can :D
Work: Windows7 because I don't have other options, but I have a VM running Slackware ;)
Editor: Vim  :cool: I even ran a GB for that :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Mon, 01 September 2014, 21:59:30
Running Crunchbang on my primary machine, Arch on my laptop, Slackware on my secondary desktop and I use Arch on my servers  >:D
Editor: Emacs since... well... Emacs.  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hundrakia on Mon, 01 September 2014, 23:02:02
I should try emacs.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 02 September 2014, 02:31:42
Editor: Emacs since... well... Emacs.  :p
since 1976?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Tue, 02 September 2014, 07:42:28
Editor: Emacs since... well... Emacs.  :p
since 1976?

I haven't been alive THAT Long  :))
Title: What linux distro do you use?
Post by: Air tree on Thu, 26 March 2015, 09:31:44
Curious on what everyone uses on here.

Personally I'm just trying out arch at the moment, and thus far, I really like it. I'm still in the midst of tweaking it a bit.

I've tried, Mint, Ubuntu & finally arch.

I'm really becoming better at using the command line thanks to arch forcing me too.   :p
Title: Re: What linux distro do you use?
Post by: NoblesseOblige on Thu, 26 March 2015, 09:52:03
I use CentOS as a virtual host. Only distro I use currently.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 27 March 2015, 09:28:10
I dabbled with Ubuntu for about 5 years starting about 2009, and have been using openSUSE since late last year, although the majority of my time is still spent in Windows 7.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Dihedral on Fri, 27 March 2015, 09:28:42
Ubuntu and Win 8.1 dual boot on my Main PC
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Fri, 27 March 2015, 09:30:55
Arch on my desktop as well as my servers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Fri, 27 March 2015, 12:56:55
I think Mint Xfce is my end game OS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: lagscout on Fri, 27 March 2015, 13:21:02
I use funtoo, and it was my first linux distro. I'm planning on trying arch some time soon on one of my spare computers though.

Haven't used funtoo in a while. It took a lot of time to set up but I feel like I learned a lot.

Currently using Arch. Been using Gnome instead of a tiling wm because I feel like I spend less time ricing and more time actually doing stuff.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Fri, 27 March 2015, 13:21:24
I think Mint Xfce is my end game OS.
Rolling Release is the endgame! :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: animal on Fri, 27 March 2015, 17:53:14
Been using Debian since 2000 along with Windows XP (multiple pcs) until 2008. After that plain Debian with Xfce. After all this systemd stuff I'm thinking about trying out a BSD if Devuan isn't mature enough when I upgrade.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Fri, 27 March 2015, 20:30:53
CentOS and Ubuntu without X installed. I am always working on servers without a UI.

Pretty comfortable with most *nix distros. Want to spend some more time with arch when I have some time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SL89 on Fri, 27 March 2015, 20:45:46
Debian on my server

#! on my laptop

Chrubuntu on my chromebook

lots of android if it counts

and im itching to try the new Kubuntu when the next version of Plasma is rolled into it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 28 March 2015, 00:03:46
#! Waldorf on my laptop

Debian Jessie on a testing box

Linux Mint 16 on my desktop (hopefully not for much longer)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 28 March 2015, 02:14:48
Using Puppy Linux from USB at work sometimes. It's incredibly lightweight.

Tried using Mint 17 Cinnamon recently but was pretty disappointed with its performance. Also, couldn't get wifi to work on my (older) Dell laptop, or display drivers to work properly on my newer desktop.

Not sure what to try next as I really thought Mint would be the one. Just looking to do some programming and learn the platform. Perhaps Debian.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 28 March 2015, 05:01:49
My first distro was Mandrake. I switched full time around the very first Ubuntu LTS release (because damn winmodems).

Nowadays I use Kubuntu / Linux Mint KDE, mostly because I like KDE and I've been stuck with Ubuntu derivatives for ages, hence I'm quite familiar with it. However, I strongly disagree with Canonical's direction and recent (i.e. last few years) actions and the core system is horribly rotten; I experience trouble with hardware support, that don't exist elsewhere, packages in official repos are broken out of the box, etc.

I'd be already running Fedora, if Anaconda wasn't so horrible and the fedora.next software management (plus SAT solver for yum) was in place.
A year later and I've completely abandoned Fedora, because the project apparently puts more focus into politically correct rubbish than solving actual technical issues. I prefer a working system to a system developed with contributions from elderly African American transgender lesbians—at the risk of being eaten alive by certain redhatters. For example, my webcam has gone from partially usable to unusable in three releases; surprisingly, that's one of the things that currently actually work perfectly in Ubuntu derivatives.

I'm only a bit worried about the development cycle of Kubuntu. Sitting on LTS means I'm sometimes stuck with outdated software, while the upstream actually solves issues (the case of my webcam). OTOH, latest and greatest releases bring other kinds of issues (such as broken default configuration for serial Wacom digitizers, that prohibits them from being detected correctly, or rather at all). Unfortunately, Debian (a) doesn't even have PPAs with the latest upstream software, and (b) downstream isn't any better.

In particular, I'm on the fence about 15.04. I wouldn't have to compile Emacs 24.4 by myself (yay), but I'm still wary of the "KDE 5". Not because I expect a KDE4-like "disaster", but I have a very specific workflow that makes use of some of the weirdest settings in KWin, and some of them may not be implemented… yet?

There's still Gentoo/Funtoo/whatever in the air, but I talked to some power users in autumn, and they hated on software written Haskell, because it's supposedly a PITA to compile and/or manage. That might be a deal breaker for me, because I tend to use quite a lot of data-processing tools in all sorts of very high-level languages.

/rant
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 28 March 2015, 12:21:33
I might try ChaletOS as it looks very well done and is highly spoken of.

If it doesn't work out, maybe I'll give Elementary OS another try since I last used the previous release "Luna". "Freya" looks like an improvement.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Dihedral on Sat, 28 March 2015, 12:27:19
I might try ChaletOS as it looks very well done and is highly spoken of.

If it doesn't work out, maybe I'll give Elementary OS another try since I last used the previous release "Luna". "Freya" looks like an improvement.

They both look like nice OSes, but I'd be worried about the actual support and raw power. Would be interested to hear your opinions on them however.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 28 March 2015, 12:31:12
I might try ChaletOS as it looks very well done and is highly spoken of.

If it doesn't work out, maybe I'll give Elementary OS another try since I last used the previous release "Luna". "Freya" looks like an improvement.

They both look like nice OSes, but I'd be worried about the actual support and raw power. Would be interested to hear your opinions on them however.

I'll report back after some use of each. Elementary Luna was quite nice and worked well, though I mostly used it for pretty basic stuff. Pretty easy to use and lots available for it as it has the Ubuntu software manager.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Sat, 28 March 2015, 14:41:22
Yay, finally got my sound working on arch. I have no idea what I did, but it works now. Everything is working smoothly for now.  ^-^
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Dihedral on Sun, 29 March 2015, 01:19:49
Yay, finally got my sound working on arch. I have no idea what I did, but it works now. Everything is working smoothly for now.  ^-^

That pretty much sums up linux :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 29 March 2015, 01:22:23
Yay, finally got my sound working on arch. I have no idea what I did, but it works now. Everything is working smoothly for now.  ^-^

That pretty much sums up linux :)

It's come a long way since the days of having to create your x86 configuration file by hand, cross-referencing the monitor specifications to ensure you had the right refresh rate and stuff.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dimamantra on Sun, 29 March 2015, 13:18:27
14.04 server!
 :p

Anyone play with elementaryOS on desktop? Seem pretty nice.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 29 March 2015, 13:53:40
14.04 server!
 :p

Anyone play with elementaryOS on desktop? Seem pretty nice.

Yes, it's very nice indeed. I think I'm partial to ChaletOS right now as it's even nicer yet... extremely well done.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dimamantra on Sun, 29 March 2015, 15:37:44
14.04 server!
 :p

Anyone play with elementaryOS on desktop? Seem pretty nice.

Yes, it's very nice indeed. I think I'm partial to ChaletOS right now as it's even nicer yet... extremely well done.

I'll have to check that one out. Never heard of it.

Thanks friend!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Bromono on Sun, 29 March 2015, 16:11:50
I work so many flavors of Unix and Linux... On a daily basis I will touch Solaris 9 & 10, true 64 unix, open VMS, Redhat,... List goes on..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tbc on Sun, 29 March 2015, 18:14:04
My first distro was Mandrake. I switched full time around the very first Ubuntu LTS release (because damn winmodems).

Nowadays I use Kubuntu / Linux Mint KDE, mostly because I like KDE and I've been stuck with Ubuntu derivatives for ages, hence I'm quite familiar with it. However, I strongly disagree with Canonical's direction and recent (i.e. last few years) actions and the core system is horribly rotten; I experience trouble with hardware support, that don't exist elsewhere, packages in official repos are broken out of the box, etc.

I'd be already running Fedora, if Anaconda wasn't so horrible and the fedora.next software management (plus SAT solver for yum) was in place.
A year later and I've completely abandoned Fedora, because the project apparently puts more focus into politically correct rubbish than solving actual technical issues. I prefer a working system to a system developed with contributions from elderly African American transgender lesbians—at the risk of being eaten alive by certain redhatters. For example, my webcam has gone from partially usable to unusable in three releases; surprisingly, that's one of the things that currently actually work perfectly in Ubuntu derivatives.

I'm only a bit worried about the development cycle of Kubuntu. Sitting on LTS means I'm sometimes stuck with outdated software, while the upstream actually solves issues (the case of my webcam). OTOH, latest and greatest releases bring other kinds of issues (such as broken default configuration for serial Wacom digitizers, that prohibits them from being detected correctly, or rather at all). Unfortunately, Debian (a) doesn't even have PPAs with the latest upstream software, and (b) downstream isn't any better.

In particular, I'm on the fence about 15.04. I wouldn't have to compile Emacs 24.4 by myself (yay), but I'm still wary of the "KDE 5". Not because I expect a KDE4-like "disaster", but I have a very specific workflow that makes use of some of the weirdest settings in KWin, and some of them may not be implemented… yet?

There's still Gentoo/Funtoo/whatever in the air, but I talked to some power users in autumn, and they hated on software written Haskell, because it's supposedly a PITA to compile and/or manage. That might be a deal breaker for me, because I tend to use quite a lot of data-processing tools in all sorts of very high-level languages.

/rant

sorry for spam.

testing quoting bug report
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 29 March 2015, 19:04:41
14.04 server!
 :p

Anyone play with elementaryOS on desktop? Seem pretty nice.

Yes, it's very nice indeed. I think I'm partial to ChaletOS right now as it's even nicer yet... extremely well done.

Just a quick update after spending some time with both Elementary Freya and ChaletOS:

They are both top-notch distros and some of the best looking I've ever seen. They are both based on Ubuntu, so they have that in common and have lots of software available through their software managers. They both install in similar fashions and ran without a hitch.

The only issue I had was with both of them (and any Ubuntu-based Linux, including Mint) was getting them to display native resolutions 1080p and 1440p. It required a few extra commands as it wouldn't do it on its own (I used 'xrandr' commands). I think it's to do with my video card.

ElementaryOS is strikingly similar to OS X, while ChaletOS is extremely similar to Windows 8/10. You can actually customize Chalet to use the same icons and such.

I have no idea how I'll pick just one or the other yet as they both are just that pleasant to use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Tue, 31 March 2015, 10:46:36
arch linux on my non-gaming rig. it is just aesthetically and functionally perfect for me. amazing community as well, many of the applications I use were developed by fellow/former archers (bspwm, sxiv, setroot, etc.)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Mon, 06 April 2015, 23:12:05
Yay, finally got my sound working on arch. I have no idea what I did, but it works now. Everything is working smoothly for now.  ^-^

That pretty much sums up linux :)

It's come a long way since the days of having to create your x86 configuration file by hand, cross-referencing the monitor specifications to ensure you had the right refresh rate and stuff.
Haha. Ya, the good old days. I was pretty comfortable with those configure and reboot with fingers crossed scenarios. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: lulu on Thu, 09 April 2015, 04:26:12
I'm using Lubuntu and i'm loving it.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Fri, 10 April 2015, 15:18:57
Archer here!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Fri, 10 April 2015, 15:24:09
Archer here!

awwww yeeeaaahhhh  ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nuclearsandwich on Sat, 18 April 2015, 00:55:16
I've been using Archlinux for a dang long time, but spent an extended time never upgrading during which the entire distro moved to systemd. While I can pretty much ignore arch-installed services. The stuff I do has me writing init scripts and three years on. Unit files are still a massive struggle to write.

I've been contemplating the move to voidlinux (http://voidlinux.eu) but have had trouble with dracut, the initrd creator for void that is preventing me from getting a reliable system.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Sat, 18 April 2015, 01:37:06


I've been using Archlinux for a dang long time, but spent an extended time never upgrading during which the entire distro moved to systemd. While I can pretty much ignore arch-installed services. The stuff I do has me writing init scripts and three years on. Unit files are still a massive struggle to write.

Hmm, what types of services are you running? For all the custom unit files I had to write it was fairly easy to do. The options are well documented in the man pages.

It feels better to me than writing shell scripts.

What makes you hesitant?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 18 April 2015, 22:42:42
I've been needing something with more up to date software available in its standard package manager than CentOS (which is based on Red Hat - good for longevity, but at the price of very old packages).

I tried Arch again (this is all in VMs btw), but systemd got in the way of configuring it too much, and it just felt fragile.  Although it did have all the new packages that I needed.

So I switched to openSUSE Tumbleweed.  So far so good - I used SuSE back in the day, and it hasn't changed that much.  KDE has gone really weird though, ot maybe I've been using GNOME for too long.  So I reinstalled with GNOME instead of KDE as the window manager, and that stupid thing wouldn't start the GUI.  I fiddled around with that for a couple of hours to no avail.  Then I reinstalled again with XFCE.  So far so good ...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Sun, 19 April 2015, 13:22:33
Archer here!

awwww yeeeaaahhhh  ;D
*pacman smiley*
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 19 April 2015, 16:55:32
considering gentoo vs funtoo for my work macbook.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 22 April 2015, 19:25:54

So I switched to openSUSE Tumbleweed. 
So far so good - I used SuSE back in the day, and it hasn't changed that much.
KDE has gone really weird though, ot maybe I've been using GNOME for too long.


I am just really burned out on the Micro$oft/Adobe/etc ecosystem and want to phase myself into an alternate FOSS universe.

That will take a while and/or until I retire because the business world is so locked in.

I dabbled with Ubuntu/Gnome for about 5 years but got pretty well alienated by Canonical as well.

Recently, I rebuilt my computer in a dual-boot Windows 7 /openSUSE 13.2/KDE configuration and it has not been an easy learning curve for an old man.

The openSUSE forum is far from "welcoming" but since that seems to be the predominant choice for the server universe, I feel that it may be safe and secure for the foreseeable future. So I decided to bite the bullet and try to learn something new.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: alexofthewest on Wed, 22 April 2015, 21:11:29
From a long time windows user that is curious about linux i wonder, what are the benefits of using linux for someone that knows zero programming (if any)?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 22 April 2015, 21:25:08
From a long time windows user that is curious about linux i wonder, what are the benefits of using linux for someone that knows zero programming (if any)?

self-improvement.

more serious answer: it's kind of like buying keyboards vs. building and modding your own (i'm a bit of hypocrite here, i haven't really started modding much, but i will be!). with (certain distributions of) linux you have more control of your system and you understand what is going on with it. windows (and mac even worse) is like a black box, and to really dig deep into it you gotta go through this mess of crap (think: editing the registry). i can go on and on with analogies, but at the end of the day, for me, the benefits of learning linux entails gaining a deeper understanding of how your operating system really works.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 22 April 2015, 21:44:15
For me, all of that is secondary. Understanding how things work is nice and all, but I really just wanted something that wasn't being pushed by a corporation. This rules out windows, mac and Ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: alexofthewest on Wed, 22 April 2015, 23:40:15
hmmm. i was hoping there would be more of an incentive from switching from windows. perhapse a speed boost or a massive customizability to balance out the massive incompatibilities of various programs that are designed for windows.  I suppose I can understand the want to get away from microsoft, bill gates is pretty evil (especialy common core he pioneered...) but ideology isnt a reason for me to change from one program to another, I want to switch, but I need a concrete benefit to do so.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Thu, 23 April 2015, 01:11:06
massive customizability

You can change whatever you want, i would call that massive customizability :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 23 April 2015, 03:06:26
hmmm. i was hoping there would be more of an incentive from switching from windows. perhapse a speed boost or a massive customizability to balance out the massive incompatibilities of various programs that are designed for windows.  I suppose I can understand the want to get away from microsoft, bill gates is pretty evil (especialy common core he pioneered...) but ideology isnt a reason for me to change from one program to another, I want to switch, but I need a concrete benefit to do so.
Check out nixers.net and its Unix screenshots thread. It's what got me into Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 23 April 2015, 07:48:22

So I switched to openSUSE Tumbleweed. 
So far so good - I used SuSE back in the day, and it hasn't changed that much.
KDE has gone really weird though, ot maybe I've been using GNOME for too long.


I am just really burned out on the Micro$oft/Adobe/etc ecosystem and want to phase myself into an alternate FOSS universe.

That will take a while and/or until I retire because the business world is so locked in.

I dabbled with Ubuntu/Gnome for about 5 years but got pretty well alienated by Canonical as well.

Recently, I rebuilt my computer in a dual-boot Windows 7 /openSUSE 13.2/KDE configuration and it has not been an easy learning curve for an old man.

The openSUSE forum is far from "welcoming" but since that seems to be the predominant choice for the server universe, I feel that it may be safe and secure for the foreseeable future. So I decided to bite the bullet and try to learn something new.
I find Linux Mint Cinnamon very user friendly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Wed, 29 April 2015, 20:51:28
From a long time windows user that is curious about linux i wonder, what are the benefits of using linux for someone that knows zero programming (if any)?
No programming needed. Batteries are included now days.

The benefit is that you no longer have to use winblows. :)

Personally, I never felt comfortable in windows, Linux seemed more sane to me.  I like being in control of stuff if it is bothering me. I can basically make Linux do whatever I want it to. Windows just feels slow and unwelcoming to me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 29 April 2015, 21:41:03
Windows feels more bloated to me than anything. I have a (mostly) functional Debian Jessie build running openbox, with a web browser, mail client, full office suite, a bunch of assorted tools, and I'm at less than 8GB disk space used total (almost half of which is used by dropbox for sync). A 64-bit windows install is easily six or more times that.

Another nice thing about linux is pretty much everything is available as text if you know where to look and how to interpret it. I was playing with my audio stack trying to get smooth switching between my speakers and USB headset and I was able to dump a listing of all my audio devices and channels into a text document. Makes figuring out what's going on and modifying as necessary much easier.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: steve.v on Wed, 29 April 2015, 21:45:59
Elementary OS
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 30 April 2015, 05:52:14
I have become disillusioned with openSUSE, and switches to Debian 8 (Jessie).  So far so good, in fact I have been able to migrate everything from my CentOS development VM to Debian.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 30 April 2015, 06:15:46
I have become disillusioned with openSUSE, and switches to Debian 8 (Jessie).  So far so good,

Why are you disillusioned with openSUSE?

I have been slowly working my way into it, since deciding that the preferred server platform OS was most likely to stay alive and up-to-date.

True, the forum is pretty arrogant and hostile, by and large, but that is almost to be expected. There were a handful of people there who were kind and generous in getting me started.

And I am pleased with KDE overall, in preference to Gnome, although YaST is still somewhat inscrutable.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 30 April 2015, 06:19:49
I have become disillusioned with openSUSE, and switches to Debian 8 (Jessie).  So far so good,

Why are you disillusioned with openSUSE?

I have been slowly working my way into it, since deciding that the preferred server platform OS was most likely to stay alive and up-to-date.

True, the forum is pretty arrogant and hostile, by and large, but that is almost to be expected. There were a handful of people there who were kind and generous in getting me started.

And I am pleased with KDE overall, in preference to Gnome, although YaST is still somewhat inscrutable.

1555 updates (> 800MB) a day kinda put me off.  Yes Tumbleweed or whatever it is called is supposed to be a rolling release, but that's ludicrous!  I acn't spend half the day installing updates.

Plus the default KDE is weird.  I've been away from KDE for too long and I could not become accustomed to the layout and functionality now in a short period of time.

Gnome version did not work (wouldn't boot properly after two fresh installs), so I went with XFCE.

Oh, and YaST is as bad as it always was.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Thu, 30 April 2015, 06:37:26
1555 updates (> 800MB) a day kinda put me off.  Yes Tumbleweed or whatever it is called is supposed to be a rolling release, but that's ludicrous!  I acn't spend half the day installing updates.
It isn't as bad in my experience. I run updates every sunday and never had a problem with it on Arch. I would do a weekly update with any distro actually. Unless you have to conserve bandwidth, because it's usually like 300-700MB with 900 installed packages.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Thu, 30 April 2015, 06:47:51
Is OpenSUSE the preferred server platform of the Internet nowadays? I thought it was still split evenly between Microsoft and BSD?

Most virtual server offerings I find offer either CentOS or Ubuntu now. I've always used Ubuntu, so I'm more familiar with the command line of that system, using Apt for package management, sudo for root tasks, etc.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 30 April 2015, 08:39:15
Maybe I should re-think my decision.

What I want most is long-term stability, trying to guess which platform will be most stable and well-developed a decade from now.

Canonical looked like it was spiraling down a consumer-oriented rabbit hole, chasing phones and such.

I could live with Unity, I was getting used to it after a rocky start.

People really seem to like Mint.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Thu, 30 April 2015, 09:04:54
Maybe I should re-think my decision.

What I want most is long-term stability, trying to guess which platform will be most stable and well-developed a decade from now.

Canonical looked like it was spiraling down a consumer-oriented rabbit hole, chasing phones and such.

I could live with Unity, I was getting used to it after a rocky start.

People really seem to like Mint.


I've used Ubuntu since 5.04, and I love it. I don't mind Unity, but I prefer classic GNOME or XFCE as my desktop. I don't have a problem with a corporate-driven distro, philosophically. And some of Canonical's innovations are being included in the latest Debian releases (see: LightDM).

I recently purchased a refurbished PC without an OS, and attempted to install Debian. The default installation didn't pick up the correct resolution of my monitors. :(   So I wiped it and installed Ubuntu. Everything is happy. I added the GNOME Flashback desktop, and everything I need is running along smoothly. Sometimes I install Xubuntu, just because I like the XFCE desktop, but either one is great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 30 April 2015, 10:32:46


Maybe I should re-think my decision.

What I want most is long-term stability, trying to guess which platform will be most stable and well-developed a decade from now.

Canonical looked like it was spiraling down a consumer-oriented rabbit hole, chasing phones and such.

I could live with Unity, I was getting used to it after a rocky start.

People really seem to like Mint.

Debian is built for stability. Haven't used it personally but that is what it is known for. I'd stay away from Arch if you want things to not break, unless you like fixing things and losing hair like I do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Thu, 30 April 2015, 13:11:46
ive been changing alot thorugh the years but i i think this is how it goes:

Debian -> Ubuntu -> Slackware -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Gentoo -> Arch

Gentoo takes to much effort to keep as desktop and too many circular dependencies. Thats why i went to try Arch, that and the awesome wiki. Cant compare it to any other distro.
Mint is for lazy ppl, they just make a fresh install and say oooh its looks nice. Then be happy with it.
Cant complain on debian, but i never got "stuck".
And ubuntu.... The upgrades going from one version to another, drove me nuts! Dont know if they have changed it now, have not used it since around 4 i guess.

Have always stuck to the same window manager though OpenBox with XFACE(xfce) or Gnome.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 30 April 2015, 17:44:06
Maybe I should re-think my decision.

What I want most is long-term stability, trying to guess which platform will be most stable and well-developed a decade from now.

Canonical looked like it was spiraling down a consumer-oriented rabbit hole, chasing phones and such.

I could live with Unity, I was getting used to it after a rocky start.

People really seem to like Mint.

I also lost faith with Ubuntu - silly arguments over window control positions, proprietary utilities, very short support time, an apparent growing lack of community support.

I was using CentOS as my development OS in a virtual machine, nothing wrong with it at all.  Well supported, long support (much longer than Ubuntu).  The only downside is that packages are necessarily old and not updated frequently, which is fine if you just want a stable well-supported system, but unfortunately I had an increasing need to install more and more newer packages that just weren't supported without installing an increasing number of newer libraries.

I tried Arch - far too much reading, I needed this VM up and running fairly quickly.  Also you shouldn't just update Arch willy-nilly without reading all their latest updates and warnings.  Again, too much reading.

openSUSE - as described above.  I used SuSE back in the day, and work even bought a box set with thick paper manuals included (can you believe that!).

So I tried the newly release Debian which, apart from the kerfuffle around systemd, seems to be doing the job.  It is not supported for as long as I might like (not as long as CentOS), but so far so good.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 30 April 2015, 18:58:23

I also lost faith with Ubuntu - silly arguments over window control positions, proprietary utilities, very short support time, an apparent growing lack of community support.


In spite of your comments above, having re-skimmed this entire thread, I think that I may move back to Ubuntu.

Although I have a deep and abiding fear and distrust of the "corporate/Big Brother" mentality in general, I am too old and tired to fight every windmill. I am not a programmer and I do not operate a server, I am simply a "user" and nothing more.

People use Windows because the majority of the time, it "just works" - but this is an attribute that costs money and allegiance.

If most of the same "just working" part is true of Ubuntu, then I will make my selection based on minimizing my own headaches and expenses.

Out-of-the-box support for aging hardware and the ability to run on both hot new and old slow boxes is of supreme importance to me.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Thu, 30 April 2015, 19:20:59
I've gone through many distros over the last ~15 years and I keep coming back to Debian or Debian variants like Ubuntu.

- If you want something that just works and has great package support Ubuntu is hard to beat. I've recently been using Ubuntu Gnome and I really like it. http://ubuntugnome.org/ It's very minimalistic compared to standard Ubuntu or MInt and yet is still as easy to setup and support.

- If you want something that's almost as good out of the box that requires a little more know-how and is the epitome of FOSS, Debian is the way to go. I've used it for years. It's one of the oldest distributions out there. It can take a lot of time to get some software to run properly on it. So, if you have specific software requirements do your homework.

- If you want something fun as hell and don't mind getting your hands dirty and learning how stuff works...Slackware. Period.

Arch is really trendy with the "young-uns" (I'm not as old as I sound...but get off my lawn!!) lulz ;) but it's pretty boring to me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Thu, 30 April 2015, 19:24:48
I added the GNOME Flashback desktop

I used to do that to all of my Ubuntu installations too. You don't need to do it any more and the vanilla Ubuntu Gnome installation is much cleaner. http://ubuntugnome.org/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 30 April 2015, 20:28:30
I've gone through many distros over the last ~15 years and I keep coming back to Debian or Debian variants like Ubuntu.

- If you want something that's almost as good out of the box that requires a little more know-how and is the epitome of FOSS, Debian is the way to go.


How much steeper would the learning curve be if I chose Debian with KDE?

Somehow, Canonical has become distasteful to me, but I do not want to jump through hoops of aggravation for silly ideology.

*    *    *    *    *

edit - a huge plus is a good user forum.

My experience was that the Ubuntu forum was generally friendly and helpful while the openSUSE forum was mostly snotty and arrogant.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 30 April 2015, 20:37:02
I've gone through many distros over the last ~15 years and I keep coming back to Debian or Debian variants like Ubuntu.

- If you want something that's almost as good out of the box that requires a little more know-how and is the epitome of FOSS, Debian is the way to go.


How much steeper would the learning curve be if I chose Debian with KDE?

Somehow, Canonical has become distasteful to me, but I do not want to jump through hoops of aggravation for silly ideology.

Can't speak from experience, as I've never been a fan of KDE, but it should be pretty similar. I'm guessing there will be fewer options and less flexibility because many more DEs use GTK (of one version or another) than QT, but the underlying system will be the same, and the GUI seems to have a mostly logical layout. If you're already familiar with KDE to an extent, things should be similar.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Thu, 30 April 2015, 21:10:55
Is OpenSUSE the preferred server platform of the Internet nowadays? I thought it was still split evenly between Microsoft and BSD?

Most virtual server offerings I find offer either CentOS or Ubuntu now. I've always used Ubuntu, so I'm more familiar with the command line of that system, using Apt for package management, sudo for root tasks, etc.

In my experience, working at a cloud infrastructure company, CentOS and Ubuntu pretty much own the market for production servers.  CentOS is number one because of its long term support and slow update churn.  People don't want to have to worry about what the production server updates are going to do to their operations.  Update lag can be a benefit in some situations.  When the packages in CentOS are too old, I see people using Ubuntu.  For example, when an application needs a Python version > 2.7, due to yum dependencies.

I use both interchangeably now, but when given the choice, I usually pick Ubuntu.  Keep in mind that I never use a GUI with Linux, so I just care about ease of use and package availability.  When I last used Linux as my desktop, I was using Ubuntu with Gnome.  I hated what was being done to Ubuntu on the desktop side.  I want to spend more time with Arch, but I have not had the time.  Alas...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Thu, 30 April 2015, 21:16:53
Maybe I should re-think my decision.

What I want most is long-term stability, trying to guess which platform will be most stable and well-developed a decade from now.

Canonical looked like it was spiraling down a consumer-oriented rabbit hole, chasing phones and such.

I could live with Unity, I was getting used to it after a rocky start.

People really seem to like Mint.

I also lost faith with Ubuntu - silly arguments over window control positions, proprietary utilities, very short support time, an apparent growing lack of community support.

I was using CentOS as my development OS in a virtual machine, nothing wrong with it at all.  Well supported, long support (much longer than Ubuntu).  The only downside is that packages are necessarily old and not updated frequently, which is fine if you just want a stable well-supported system, but unfortunately I had an increasing need to install more and more newer packages that just weren't supported without installing an increasing number of newer libraries.

I tried Arch - far too much reading, I needed this VM up and running fairly quickly.  Also you shouldn't just update Arch willy-nilly without reading all their latest updates and warnings.  Again, too much reading.

openSUSE - as described above.  I used SuSE back in the day, and work even bought a box set with thick paper manuals included (can you believe that!).

So I tried the newly release Debian which, apart from the kerfuffle around systemd, seems to be doing the job.  It is not supported for as long as I might like (not as long as CentOS), but so far so good.
I'm probably the worst Arch user of all time. I rarely actually read before updating. I forget.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Thu, 30 April 2015, 21:37:59
I've gone through many distros over the last ~15 years and I keep coming back to Debian or Debian variants like Ubuntu.

- If you want something that's almost as good out of the box that requires a little more know-how and is the epitome of FOSS, Debian is the way to go.


How much steeper would the learning curve be if I chose Debian with KDE?

Somehow, Canonical has become distasteful to me, but I do not want to jump through hoops of aggravation for silly ideology.

*    *    *    *    *

edit - a huge plus is a good user forum.

My experience was that the Ubuntu forum was generally friendly and helpful while the openSUSE forum was mostly snotty and arrogant.


You'll run across arrogance in much of the Linux world unfortunately. Most people are pretty cool though. 

KDE shouldn't be any different other than KDE specific apps. I have only used KDE with Slackware in the last few years since I much prefer Gnome. It's "cool" to hate Canonical but it's hard to hate the contributions they have made to the Linux desktop. And the "evil" online search function is not even an option in Ubuntu Gnome. The Gnome distribution looks and feels just like Debian with better software compatibility for me. I'm still a big fan of Debian, but with the project I have going on right now I just needed to get something up and running quickly and easily and Ubuntu Gnome worked much better for me in this particular case than Debian did.

Unless you have some specific software you need to use, Debian should be just as easy as Ubuntu for the most part.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Thu, 30 April 2015, 21:47:44
...and for the user forums...I haven't used them in a long time. Debian and Ubuntu are cross-compatible for the most part though. So, you could use either one or both.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 02 May 2015, 07:14:27
I use both interchangeably now, but when given the choice, I usually pick Ubuntu.  Keep in mind that I never use a GUI with Linux, so I just care about ease of use and package availability.
i always use GUI with linux. this is why i have cinnamon desktop installed on my work macbook. looks better than mac os .
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Ngt on Sat, 02 May 2015, 08:27:30
I use Ubuntu with Gnome3 at work and at home I use windows because the games I played are not available on Linux otherwise I'll always been on Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Sat, 02 May 2015, 12:38:13
I use Ubuntu with Gnome3 at work and at home I use windows because the games I played are not available on Linux otherwise I'll always been on Linux.

Get two hard drives. One has Linux the other Windows. You can use syslinux, which is a much cleaner and understandable boot manager, IMO, to be able to select which hard drive to boot. At least that way you can use the superior kernel at home as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jerue on Sat, 02 May 2015, 15:39:49
While I normally hop around Windows and OS X, I did put Ubuntu on my work laptop (boots alongside Windows) and I have a netbook handling my networking setup (it acts as a bridge).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 02 May 2015, 19:39:13
So, my son and I are building a new/used computer for him. We have it together, 2 hard drives, 1 each for Windows (not yet installed) and Ubuntu 14.04. I went back to Ubuntu/Unity for the sake of simplicity and compatibility.

The installation went fine, and the icon shows a proper internet connection, but it is not really there. (PS - this is true with a real ethernet wire as well as a USB wireless dongle)

If you click on Firefox, it hangs and does nothing.

Type "apt-get" anything and you get nothing.

Is there a way to download and install Firefox on another computer and install it from a flash drive? I suspect that the problem is the browser software itself.

The Ubuntu forum's "networking" section is so loaded down with "wi-fi connects but no internet" questions that I do not expect a valid answer any time soon.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 02 May 2015, 19:44:21
Yes you can download for Ubu/Deb 32 or 64bit and copy to a flash drive. It's most likely not a problem with the browser though. The network manager was a little buggy in Ubuntu 14/15 until recently. I would try just rebooting the machine first.

What do you get with "sudo ifconfig eth0" (for Ethernet)?
 
Edit: do you get a valid IP for your LAN setup? You don't have to post all of the output here if you don't want to.
 ...if you do have a valid IP can you ping stuff on your LAN and the Internet? ie. "ping -c 5 10.0.1.1"  or  "ping -c 5 8.8.8.8"

Edit #2: If you plan on using Win7 or higher I would install Windows first so you can use GRUB (or Lilo), the Linux bootloader, instead of the Windows bootloader. I've had problems with the Windows bootloader seeing Linux installations before.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 02 May 2015, 19:47:56
Also, I just installed the new version of Debian 8 earlier today and it's pretty awesome. So far no trouble getting my hardware or software to run...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Sat, 02 May 2015, 20:23:12
fohat, if you have a working windows system, you can use Universal USB Installer with a downloaded ISO of your preferred distro to install it onto a USB stick. I use it all the time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Ngt on Sun, 03 May 2015, 05:24:31
I use Ubuntu with Gnome3 at work and at home I use windows because the games I played are not available on Linux otherwise I'll always been on Linux.

Get two hard drives. One has Linux the other Windows. You can use syslinux, which is a much cleaner and understandable boot manager, IMO, to be able to select which hard drive to boot. At least that way you can use the superior kernel at home as well.
Well I would have to reboot every time I want to play so it is not desirable IMO. I did have 2 partitions on the machine. One for Ubuntu and the other one for Windows but the result was that I never loaded Ubuntu pretty much.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Wed, 13 May 2015, 19:46:03
I've been using arch for a little while now, and I'm down to try  another Distro, any suggestions? I've tried Ubuntu, and mint.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 13 May 2015, 20:24:00
I've been using arch for a little while now, and I'm down to try  another Distro, any suggestions? I've tried Ubuntu, and mint.

Debian Jessie is a lot of fun -- probably not as bleeding edge as you're used to with Arch. If you use the netinstall and choose to install as little as possible when prompted, you'll end up just installing the core distro, and you can build it up much like you would with Arch.

I can't think of another distro off the top of my head that I'd recommend for desktop use. If you're looking for something a little more special than base Debian, BunsenLabs is the spiritual successor to CrunchBang Linux, and it seems to be providing an excellent experience, although it's still in development and I've yet to try it out myself. Bunsen is essentially Debian Jessie with a few decisions already made for you, but it gets you closer to a functional system than a straight Jessie netinst.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 13 May 2015, 21:34:07
I've been using arch for a little while now, and I'm down to try  another Distro, any suggestions? I've tried Ubuntu, and mint.

Debian Jessie is a lot of fun -- probably not as bleeding edge as you're used to with Arch. If you use the netinstall and choose to install as little as possible when prompted, you'll end up just installing the core distro, and you can build it up much like you would with Arch.

I can't think of another distro off the top of my head that I'd recommend for desktop use. If you're looking for something a little more special than base Debian, BunsenLabs is the spiritual successor to CrunchBang Linux, and it seems to be providing an excellent experience, although it's still in development and I've yet to try it out myself. Bunsen is essentially Debian Jessie with a few decisions already made for you, but it gets you closer to a functional system than a straight Jessie netinst.

+1 for Debian Jessie (8.0) - working well for me on a desktop (in a VM, btw).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Wed, 13 May 2015, 22:14:36
Alright, I'm going to do a full wipe and give it a go a little later, I'll share my thoughts after using it for a little while.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 14 May 2015, 06:16:07
I've been using arch for a little while now, and I'm down to try  another Distro, any suggestions? I've tried Ubuntu, and mint.
out of the debian family! try gentoo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Thu, 14 May 2015, 06:30:37
I've been using arch for a little while now, and I'm down to try  another Distro, any suggestions? I've tried Ubuntu, and mint.
out of the debian family! try gentoo.

slackware!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 14 May 2015, 06:51:40
yeah, or slackware.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 14 May 2015, 06:51:49
If you're gonna try those distros mentioned above, also try Arch LFS (joking)!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 14 May 2015, 07:45:18
which he has been using for a while.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 14 May 2015, 08:09:42
which he has been using for a while.

sorry didn't see the quote, was on phone  :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kaminbobby on Fri, 22 May 2015, 00:11:20
Arch linux :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Fri, 22 May 2015, 16:24:42
Rocking Debian like everyone said to do, and after making it all pretty, it's really nice!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 22 May 2015, 17:18:04
The upgrade to Kubuntu 15.04 seemed like a major ****-up at first, but it's okay after all… only the panel/systray is quite useless in Plasma 5.3, and I've had to get rid of (surprise-surprise) systemd.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: micr0n on Fri, 22 May 2015, 17:38:43
For home, I mostly use windows with cygwin.  All my VMs use ubuntu server for various software testing I do.  I can also still use linux software as well with good old x11.  The only real reason for windows is gaming and steam.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Fri, 22 May 2015, 17:41:44
For home, I mostly use windows with cygwin.  All my VMs use ubuntu server for various software testing I do.  I can also still use linux software as well with good old x11.  The only real reason for windows is gaming and steam.
I hope linux starts getting some real support and a large backing. I would love to use linux as my only OS. But I like to game and all that...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rm-rf on Fri, 22 May 2015, 18:16:59
its been growing a lot the past few years.
went to this a few weeks back...

http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/2015
take a look at their schedule. 2 days of seminars and more

its always fun, and every year it gets bigger and bigger. people come from all over.
and there is always a huge after party, which is pretty damn fun.
great for networking.

although the first one i went to in 1999, it was just 5 guys in a room talking about BBS's...
not so interesting. but this year there was a massive turn out. i think there was 3,000 + people that showed up

looks like there may be something similar in Seattle WA, in October.
http://seagl.org/
their site seems a bit non informational.

and i've noticed lately on steam a lot more products being available for linux
but i usually don't play games when in linux, and if i do its just in a vm anyways :P

but my distro of choice would probably be gentoo...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dimamantra on Fri, 22 May 2015, 19:17:18
For home, I mostly use windows with cygwin.  All my VMs use ubuntu server for various software testing I do.  I can also still use linux software as well with good old x11.  The only real reason for windows is gaming and steam.
I hope linux starts getting some real support and a large backing. I would love to use linux as my only OS. But I like to game and all that...

Slowly but surely my friend  ;D

There are a lot of games running on Linux these days with more being added everyday.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rm-rf on Fri, 22 May 2015, 19:41:50
i think with steam kicking off towards linux there should be more to come in time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 22 May 2015, 19:57:15
i think with steam kicking off towards linux there should be more to come in time.

Unfortunately, linux still only has less than 1% of Steam installs, and OSX only has around 3% (April Steam survey). It may come, but it's not coming quickly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Fri, 22 May 2015, 20:07:03
i think with steam kicking off towards linux there should be more to come in time.

Unfortunately, linux still only has less than 1% of Steam installs, and OSX only has around 3% (April Steam survey). It may come, but it's not coming quickly.
We would probably see a lot more if tripple A games where on linux. I'm betting a lot of people would install a free OS that you can play GTA V on..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 22 May 2015, 20:14:21
i think with steam kicking off towards linux there should be more to come in time.

Unfortunately, linux still only has less than 1% of Steam installs, and OSX only has around 3% (April Steam survey). It may come, but it's not coming quickly.
We would probably see a lot more if tripple A games where on linux. I'm betting a lot of people would install a free OS that you can play GTA V on..

Well we've got a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy here. Developers won't develop for platforms that have low market share, and gamers won't switch to a platform that doesn't have games.

Most Valve games, and a good number of indie games work on linux, although I've personally had a lot of trouble making them work as well as on Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Fri, 22 May 2015, 20:33:07
i think with steam kicking off towards linux there should be more to come in time.

Unfortunately, linux still only has less than 1% of Steam installs, and OSX only has around 3% (April Steam survey). It may come, but it's not coming quickly.
We would probably see a lot more if tripple A games where on linux. I'm betting a lot of people would install a free OS that you can play GTA V on..

Well we've got a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy here. Developers won't develop for platforms that have low market share, and gamers won't switch to a platform that doesn't have games.

Most Valve games, and a good number of indie games work on linux, although I've personally had a lot of trouble making them work as well as on Windows.
I was hearing reports of people having much better performance on CS GO with linux than windows with Nvidia, but AMD seems to be lacking on their driver front even more so with linux.

I'm glad Nvidia has stepped up to the plate for drivers for Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Ngt on Fri, 22 May 2015, 20:37:00
For home, I mostly use windows with cygwin.  All my VMs use ubuntu server for various software testing I do.  I can also still use linux software as well with good old x11.  The only real reason for windows is gaming and steam.
I hope linux starts getting some real support and a large backing. I would love to use linux as my only OS. But I like to game and all that...
Same situation here ^^.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rm-rf on Fri, 22 May 2015, 20:44:45
i think i need to install nix now.
thanks. haha
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dimamantra on Fri, 22 May 2015, 20:45:38
Quote
I was hearing reports of people having much better performance on CS GO with linux than windows with Nvidia, but AMD seems to be lacking on their driver front even more so with linux.

I'm glad Nvidia has stepped up to the plate for drivers for Linux.

I used to be all about AMD...until Nvidia came along and crushed them.

Warms my heart to see a company pushing the Linux market forward.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Sat, 23 May 2015, 05:21:59
stop windowsing, ie stop gaming :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Sat, 23 May 2015, 10:06:53
stop windowsing, ie stop gaming :)

dual hard drive boot master race.

well, except for windows stupid pesky UTC clock correction.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rm-rf on Sat, 23 May 2015, 10:12:30
dual boot is crap!
it interrupts workflow having to reboot.
i've decided that i just need one computer dedicated to games, and one for crunching.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Sat, 23 May 2015, 10:40:05
dual boot is crap!
it interrupts workflow having to reboot.
i've decided that i just need one computer dedicated to games, and one for crunching.

i do my crunching on my laptop. i just can't stand using windows as an OS. but it doesn't make sense to buy ANOTHER machine just for that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dimamantra on Sat, 23 May 2015, 10:44:55
dual boot is crap!
it interrupts workflow having to reboot.
i've decided that i just need one computer dedicated to games, and one for crunching.

i do my crunching on my laptop. i just can't stand using windows as an OS. but it doesn't make sense to buy ANOTHER machine just for that.

> doesn't make sense to buy ANOTHER machine just for that

You can never have enough computers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 23 May 2015, 12:51:06
For home, I mostly use windows with cygwin.  All my VMs use ubuntu server for various software testing I do.  I can also still use linux software as well with good old x11.  The only real reason for windows is gaming and steam.
I hope linux starts getting some real support and a large backing. I would love to use linux as my only OS. But I like to game and all that...
Use winex for gaming. I got 2x the performance on Linux playing WoW instead of windows on the same hardware.   There is no reason to not use Linux for gaming.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: micr0n on Sat, 23 May 2015, 13:00:49
dual boot is crap!
it interrupts workflow having to reboot.
i've decided that i just need one computer dedicated to games, and one for crunching.
I do agree that it does interrupt the workflow as well.  Hence the use of a mini VMware data center and cygwin.   I can use both environments at once without stopping a beat.  The dual boot method was just to inefficient for me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Ngt on Sat, 23 May 2015, 19:26:14
For home, I mostly use windows with cygwin.  All my VMs use ubuntu server for various software testing I do.  I can also still use linux software as well with good old x11.  The only real reason for windows is gaming and steam.
I hope linux starts getting some real support and a large backing. I would love to use linux as my only OS. But I like to game and all that...
Use winex for gaming. I got 2x the performance on Linux playing WoW instead of windows on the same hardware.   There is no reason to not use Linux for gaming.
Are you running it on wine?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 23 May 2015, 19:52:55
dual boot is crap!
it interrupts workflow having to reboot.
i've decided that i just need one computer dedicated to games, and one for crunching.

This - been there, done that several times.  Just doesn't work.

Now I have 2 or 3 computers, each dedicated to a single operating system.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dimamantra on Sat, 23 May 2015, 20:18:09
dual boot is crap!
it interrupts workflow having to reboot.
i've decided that i just need one computer dedicated to games, and one for crunching.

This - been there, done that several times.  Just doesn't work.

Now I have 2 or 3 computers, each dedicated to a single operating system.

It is also reasonably cheap to build computers for certain tasks (gaming, general, media, storage, etc.) You can always find decent components to build something at a price tag that doesn't make you cry.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 23 May 2015, 20:26:20
dual boot is crap!
it interrupts workflow having to reboot.
i've decided that i just need one computer dedicated to games, and one for crunching.

This - been there, done that several times.  Just doesn't work.

Now I have 2 or 3 computers, each dedicated to a single operating system.

It is also reasonably cheap to build computers for certain tasks (gaming, general, media, storage, etc.) You can always find decent components to build something at a price tag that doesn't make you cry.

My biggest problem is now multiple monitors and keyboards on a moderately sized desk.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Sat, 23 May 2015, 20:26:23
I'm just going to cave in and get windows 10 once I build my PC.

I was going to install linux, but Candy Crush sold the power of the new operating system.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 24 May 2015, 07:17:27
For home, I mostly use windows with cygwin.  All my VMs use ubuntu server for various software testing I do.  I can also still use linux software as well with good old x11.  The only real reason for windows is gaming and steam.
I hope linux starts getting some real support and a large backing. I would love to use linux as my only OS. But I like to game and all that...
Use winex for gaming. I got 2x the performance on Linux playing WoW instead of windows on the same hardware.   There is no reason to not use Linux for gaming.
amen.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nova779 on Sun, 24 May 2015, 11:00:25
I really miss crunchbang so I started using crunchbang++ and really enjoy it
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Tue, 26 May 2015, 17:53:05
Huh, that's the first time I've heard of an improvement in FPS switching to Linux. The driver situation isn't really all that hot. What kinda cards do you have, and do you see this advantage in other games as well?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Tue, 26 May 2015, 18:26:49
Huh, that's the first time I've heard of an improvement in FPS switching to Linux. The driver situation isn't really all that hot. What kinda cards do you have, and do you see this advantage in other games as well?
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/2hex11/csgo_linux_vs_wine_vs_windows_7_performance/

Of course I don't believe all games will have the same outcome. It could be bad reports also. Just interesting...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 26 May 2015, 18:42:45
I really miss crunchbang so I started using crunchbang++ and really enjoy it

Crunchbang still works fine, just point yourself at debian wheezy repos, and you're good to go. I think you'll need to remove tint2 and reinstall using the version in the repos, but it's still very usable. I know some people on the Crunchbang forums have had some success with upgrading to point at debian jessie repos as well.

Another continuation of Crunchbang is the BunsenLabs project, which is intended to turn a debian jessie netinstall into an openbox system with the same visual elements and design philosophy as Crunchbang, with a noted evolution. Once I dig out a spare hard drive, I'll be booting that up on an old laptop and seeing how she flies.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 27 May 2015, 13:21:00
stop windowsing, ie stop gaming :)

dual hard drive boot master race.

well, except for windows stupid pesky UTC clock correction.

i have 3 SSDs, one with Arch one with Windows 64 and one with windows 32 bit.

I only keep 32 bit system to program my tipro, and the 64 for when my friends forces me to play wow :P but usually never have to set my foot in there otherwise. Pretty liberating :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 27 May 2015, 13:26:10
i have 3 SSDs, one with Arch one with Windows 64 and one with windows 32 bit.

I only keep 32 bit system to program my tipro, and the 64 for when my friends forces me to play wow :P but usually never have to set my foot in there otherwise. Pretty liberating :)

very wise. to completely eschew windows is unnecessary work; i think of it like a drunken booty call: to be used when the moment calls for it.  :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: AgentNate on Wed, 27 May 2015, 16:34:58
Been using Arch for a handful of months now

I really miss crunchbang so I started using crunchbang++ and really enjoy it

Oh man crunchbang was definitely my favorite distro I had ever tried. I'm gonna have to give this a look.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 27 May 2015, 16:55:47
Why don't you just run VMs instead of having separate drives for different OSs? The only reason I could see why you would still multi-boot (so old skool, yo) is if you have apps that only run well natively (which is really rare these days even for Windows applications.) I just install Debian as a host OS and then RAID 0 multiple SSDs and then VMware Workstation any other OS I need.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 03 June 2015, 20:01:20
Quote
What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?

FreeBSD
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 03 June 2015, 20:46:55
Quote
What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?

FreeBSD

We got ourselves a badass here  :p

Joking; I always wanted to get into FreeBSD but can't bring myself to maintain another distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 03 June 2015, 21:12:03
I like Ubuntu, sort of. Tried Arch for a while, they move so fast things break. All I needs a Mac laptop and FreeBSD server.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 03 June 2015, 21:16:39
I like Ubuntu, sort of. Tried Arch for a while, they move so fast things break. All I needs a Mac laptop and FreeBSD server.

I actually enjoy when things break because it gives me an excuse to fix things, I'm weird like that. Although I find if you read the Arch news regularly you really won't get caught unawares.

How good is ports in FreeBSD for management of installed software?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 03 June 2015, 21:35:33
Ports is sweet, you'll rarely have issues but I don't manage it like some people. I do a script that deletes my packages & tree, fetch new tree, make install everything fresh when I want new software.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Wed, 03 June 2015, 21:36:48
bsd with zfs .. win!
moving more over to coreos for servers / clustering
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 03 June 2015, 22:16:58
Yo @ttzhou the new-ish "pkg" is similar to apt-get though, if you wanna manage software from the repos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 03 June 2015, 22:54:27
Yo @ttzhou the new-ish "pkg" is similar to apt-get though, if you wanna manage software from the repos.

I will put FreeBSD at the top of "install when I start getting tired of Arch" list in that case  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 03 June 2015, 23:17:36
It's a really simple slick OS I like to promote their project whenever I can.    :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 03 June 2015, 23:24:51
Is BSD actually linux? I was under the impression that it was more of its own thing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 03 June 2015, 23:28:28
It's not Linux I was messing they're descended from 4.4 the final Berkeley UNIX.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 03 June 2015, 23:32:16
It's not Linux I was messing they're descended from 4.4 the final Berkeley UNIX.

Ah, gotcha.

Have you ever tried Debian? That's what I'm using right now, and I'm extremely happy with it. If so, how would you compare it to BSD?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 03 June 2015, 23:35:45
Have you ever tried Debian? That's what I'm using right now, and I'm extremely happy with it. If so, how would you compare it to BSD?

Both conservative release cycle very stable, FreeBSD is kinda like Gentoo or Arch though.

bsd with zfs .. win!

ZFS is dope but Linux has that these days, is it 100% native yet I don't know.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Thu, 04 June 2015, 00:02:46
would not use in on linux nor btrfs
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 00:11:56
[attach=1]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: starscream on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:11:40
I use Debian myself, but It's the only distro I've actully tried other than Ubuntu

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:20:03
You should try Arch one day it's neat, that was my Lunix tasting path more or less. Debian/Ubuntu > Arch
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:20:49
Debian/Ubuntu > Arch

Them's fighting words  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:22:29
Hey naw that's not supposed to be a greater than symbol.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:37:47
The alligator eats the greater one! Should be Debian/Ubuntu <<<<<< Arch  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:40:10
as for zfs on linux .. you will experience huge mem spikes .. special if replication kicks in .. id use it on bsd / smartos ..

yet as i sayed i moved loads of the clustered computing work torwards coreos (i operate a small 48 node bare metal cluster) if you need a immutable os .. thats 1 to look out for

as for x11/ ui based linux .. arch is the true winner .. i know some of you guys hate systemd for some bizare reasions .. but .. again the major distributors going to pivot to it as init system anyway .. so better get familiar with it right away ..

as much as i love package management .. it does mess your system up .. try to containerize all the things docker/rocket/nspawn/zones/jails .. pick your flavor .. cgroups / lxc for the win
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:42:50
After Arch install OpenBSD on IBM Thinkpad and your lifelong virginity is guaranteed.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:51:11
After Arch install OpenBSD on IBM Thinkpad and your lifelong virginity is guaranteed.

luckily I met my ex before this point, should it ever arrive  :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:57:13
I feel like I'm posting on /g/ by now in this thread.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: starscream on Thu, 04 June 2015, 15:59:12
I feel like I'm posting on /g/ by now in this thread.


install gentoo
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Thu, 04 June 2015, 16:02:20
funnily enough I have never been on 4chan proper. why suffer the navigation when one can just google "best greentext" or browse /r/4chan.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 16:02:33
as much as i love package management .. it does mess your system up .. try to containerize all the things docker/rocket/nspawn/zones/jails .. pick your flavor .. cgroups / lxc for the win

You know I'm embarrassed to say I've never used a jail.

install gentoo

Everything there is like, install gentoo, richard stall man, poast your battle station, dragon dildos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Thu, 04 June 2015, 16:05:28
After Arch install OpenBSD on IBM Thinkpad and your lifelong virginity is guaranteed.
I just installed #!++ on my Thinkpad, should I rethink my decision?

Wonder if I can replace the kernel with Mach...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 16:07:48
I just installed #!++ on my Thinkpad, should I rethink my decision?

Wonder if I can replace the kernel with Mach...

I think you'll be okay, just don't install GNU Hurd.  Edit: or Plan9 something like that lol.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:15:59
After Arch install OpenBSD on IBM Thinkpad and your lifelong virginity is guaranteed.
I just installed #!++ on my Thinkpad, should I rethink my decision?

Wonder if I can replace the kernel with Mach...
I'm so glad that #!++ exists. Even though I never used #!, I was so sad when I heard it had died.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:19:39
I feel like I'm posting on /g/ by now in this thread.


install gentoo

One does not simply install gentoo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:24:01
I feel like I'm posting on /g/ by now in this thread.
install gentoo
Lel
But seriously whats the big deal with gentoo. It was the first linux distro I installed, and I had no problems. But then again I am amazing, so that might have something to do with it. :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:30:38
install gentoo, richard stall man, poast your battle station, dragon dildos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:42:21
After Arch install OpenBSD on IBM Thinkpad and your lifelong virginity is guaranteed.
I just installed #!++ on my Thinkpad, should I rethink my decision?

Wonder if I can replace the kernel with Mach...
I'm so glad that #!++ exists. Even though I never used #!, I was so sad when I heard it had died.
I never used #!, because I just thought it was a "trendy" distro for some reason. But a minimal install of some stable base distro, with Openbox for a WM, is what I really prefer. The #!++ install was straightforward, and everything on the Thinkpad works like a charm.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:42:51
Legend has it jedi wizard status is attained through gentoo install stage1 tar ball.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thefebruaryman on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:46:54
Opensuse at work and at home kde flavour. Find is pretty much all round good for databases and programming.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:48:20
My favourite page about gentoo: http://funroll-loops.teurasporsaat.org/
Quote
Welcome, this page is dedicated to the Linux Community's greatest ambassadors, Gentoo users.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Thu, 04 June 2015, 17:56:55
After Arch install OpenBSD on IBM Thinkpad and your lifelong virginity is guaranteed.
I just installed #!++ on my Thinkpad, should I rethink my decision?

Wonder if I can replace the kernel with Mach...
I'm so glad that #!++ exists. Even though I never used #!, I was so sad when I heard it had died.
I never used #!, because I just thought it was a "trendy" distro for some reason. But a minimal install of some stable base distro, with Openbox for a WM, is what I really prefer. The #!++ install was straightforward, and everything on the Thinkpad works like a charm.
I might install it on one of my older rigs to test it out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blcksqrrl on Fri, 05 June 2015, 10:33:13
For most of my programming work, I use Debian with i3, for general computing its Ubuntu with Gnome. I also have couple serves running CentOS because why not?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Fri, 05 June 2015, 13:05:01
Pardon my ignorance. What niche did #! fill?  Any others that fill the same niche?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Fri, 05 June 2015, 13:07:03
Pardon my ignorance. What niche did #! fill?  Any others that fill the same niche?
#! Filled the niche of a simple base install. It is quick to install and allows for instant use, unlike things like arch or gentoo, even if those can be more efficient. I think antergos (my current distro) also fills this void and allows you to use the full power of arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Fri, 05 June 2015, 13:10:56
Crunchbang is just Debian with Openbox is it not.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Fri, 05 June 2015, 13:11:10
Crunchbang is just Debian with Openbox is it not.
Basically
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Fri, 05 June 2015, 13:19:21
Pardon my ignorance. What niche did #! fill?  Any others that fill the same niche?
#! Filled the niche of a simple base install. It is quick to install and allows for instant use, unlike things like arch or gentoo, even if those can be more efficient. I think antergos (my current distro) also fills this void and allows you to use the full power of arch.
Cool. Thanks for the details. I have been playing with arch when I have free moments.

I want to spend more time with coreos when I have a chance as well.  I work with containers quite a bit (started working with them 8 years ago with openvz). Actually, the current implementation of builder.swillkb.com is powered by LXC in order to overcome the single tenant issues of FreeCAD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 05 June 2015, 14:56:45
Crunchbang is just Debian with Openbox is it not.
Basically

It had a few other customizations as well. It came with a bunch of fancy premade pipemenus, a newer version of tint2 than the one found in debian stable repos (no longer true as of jessie going stable), and some other minor theming and usability improvements.

Pardon my ignorance. What niche did #! fill?  Any others that fill the same niche?
#! Filled the niche of a simple base install. It is quick to install and allows for instant use, unlike things like arch or gentoo, even if those can be more efficient. I think antergos (my current distro) also fills this void and allows you to use the full power of arch.

Other distros that are attempting to replace #! are #!++ (Jessie-based), and the BunsenLabs project (in development, compiling a set of scripts that will add a bunch of the crunchbang-related usability improvements and theming to a Jessie netinstall).

I believe Manjaro (arch-based) and Lubuntu also fill similar niches, although with a little more than base openbox.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Fri, 05 June 2015, 16:26:18
Other distros that are attempting to replace #! are #!++ (Jessie-based), and the BunsenLabs project (in development, compiling a set of scripts that will add a bunch of the crunchbang-related usability improvements and theming to a Jessie netinstall).

I believe Manjaro (arch-based) and Lubuntu also fill similar niches, although with a little more than base openbox.
Have you tried manjaro? I tried it once, and it just felt like a worse more clunky version of antergos. This was almost a year ago though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 05 June 2015, 16:33:34
Other distros that are attempting to replace #! are #!++ (Jessie-based), and the BunsenLabs project (in development, compiling a set of scripts that will add a bunch of the crunchbang-related usability improvements and theming to a Jessie netinstall).

I believe Manjaro (arch-based) and Lubuntu also fill similar niches, although with a little more than base openbox.
Have you tried manjaro? I tried it once, and it just felt like a worse more clunky version of antergos. This was almost a year ago though.

I haven't tried any arch-based distros, no. My listing was just based on distros I've seen mentioned as similar on the crunchbang forums.

I'm more concerned with stability than bleeding-edge software, so debian seems like a better fit for me. I may throw arch on a spare machine sometime just to see how it runs.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Fri, 05 June 2015, 16:36:09
Other distros that are attempting to replace #! are #!++ (Jessie-based), and the BunsenLabs project (in development, compiling a set of scripts that will add a bunch of the crunchbang-related usability improvements and theming to a Jessie netinstall).

I believe Manjaro (arch-based) and Lubuntu also fill similar niches, although with a little more than base openbox.
Have you tried manjaro? I tried it once, and it just felt like a worse more clunky version of antergos. This was almost a year ago though.

I haven't tried any arch-based distros, no. My listing was just based on distros I've seen mentioned as similar on the crunchbang forums.

I'm more concerned with stability than bleeding-edge software, so debian seems like a better fit for me. I may throw arch on a spare machine sometime just to see how it runs.
People always talk about problems from bleeding edge distros, but they are all I have used and I have had a total of 2 problems over the course of 1 1/2 - 2 ish years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Fri, 05 June 2015, 20:33:04

I'm more concerned with stability than bleeding-edge software, so debian seems like a better fit for me. I may throw arch on a spare machine sometime just to see how it runs.

IMO the stability trade off is worth it for the bleeding edge nature of arch. literally all one really has to do is read the arch news page before doing a system update and 99.9% of the time you will be fine.

the only problems that might arise are for older hardware; e.g. on my old laptop, broadcom-wl (wireless package) had to be recompiled every time I updated the kernel in Arch, but this was not mentioned on the news page since broadcom-wl is an ancient package. this is where google-fu comes into play.

anyway, sales pitch over haha, i don't want to turn into a crazy arch missionary.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Fri, 05 June 2015, 21:49:36
Lubuntu

Nice lil distro, would choose that over nubuntu failsauce any day.  Can't even set macros without settings being erased constantly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 05 June 2015, 21:51:36
Well, Arch is definitely up there on my "to try" list, right after I give #!++ and Bunsen a go.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cheebs on Fri, 05 June 2015, 23:29:18

Legend has it jedi wizard status is attained through gentoo install stage1 tar ball.

I did this crazy **** once when I was in high school.  Took literally a week to compile.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Fri, 05 June 2015, 23:51:35
Team FreeBSD on the scene.   :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Sat, 06 June 2015, 01:01:16
Pardon my ignorance. What niche did #! fill?  Any others that fill the same niche?
#! Filled the niche of a simple base install. It is quick to install and allows for instant use, unlike things like arch or gentoo, even if those can be more efficient. I think antergos (my current distro) also fills this void and allows you to use the full power of arch.
Cool. Thanks for the details. I have been playing with arch when I have free moments.

I want to spend more time with coreos when I have a chance as well.  I work with containers quite a bit (started working with them 8 years ago with openvz). Actually, the current implementation of builder.swillkb.com is powered by LXC in order to overcome the single tenant issues of FreeCAD.

coreos does rocket (nspawn goodie) , now lxc for multitennants .. thats what i call brave .. well hit me up on freenode #coreos if you stuck somewhere :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Sat, 06 June 2015, 01:03:08
Pardon my ignorance. What niche did #! fill?  Any others that fill the same niche?
#! Filled the niche of a simple base install. It is quick to install and allows for instant use, unlike things like arch or gentoo, even if those can be more efficient. I think antergos (my current distro) also fills this void and allows you to use the full power of arch.
Cool. Thanks for the details. I have been playing with arch when I have free moments.

I want to spend more time with coreos when I have a chance as well.  I work with containers quite a bit (started working with them 8 years ago with openvz). Actually, the current implementation of builder.swillkb.com is powered by LXC in order to overcome the single tenant issues of FreeCAD.

coreos does rocket (nspawn goodie) or simply docker, now lxc for multitennants .. thats what i call brave .. well hit me up on freenode #coreos if you stuck somewhere :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: NeonBacon on Sat, 06 June 2015, 10:24:58
Virtualised CentOS on my servers and for now I'm running OSX on my macbook but have been planning to move it over to arch at some point.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Sat, 06 June 2015, 12:03:44
Pardon my ignorance. What niche did #! fill?  Any others that fill the same niche?
#! Filled the niche of a simple base install. It is quick to install and allows for instant use, unlike things like arch or gentoo, even if those can be more efficient. I think antergos (my current distro) also fills this void and allows you to use the full power of arch.
Cool. Thanks for the details. I have been playing with arch when I have free moments.

I want to spend more time with coreos when I have a chance as well.  I work with containers quite a bit (started working with them 8 years ago with openvz). Actually, the current implementation of builder.swillkb.com is powered by LXC in order to overcome the single tenant issues of FreeCAD.

coreos does rocket (nspawn goodie) , now lxc for multitennants .. thats what i call brave .. well hit me up on freenode #coreos if you stuck somewhere :)

I knew that coreos used systemd, but I did not realize they used any of the nspawn functionality. Do you have a reference where I can learn more about that?  I have been reading a bunch about nspawn recently. I know the container space pretty well and I didn't even know that existed till a couple days ago. Pretty interesting stuff...

To be clear, I am not using LXC for true multitenant functionality (as known in the industry). Basically what I mean is this...

FreeCAD was designed to be used on a single desktop by a single user. I did not realize how poorly some aspects of the software was written until I started trying to create multiple FreeCAD objects at the same time and realized that changes in one could effect the other. Since the builder.swillkb.com is a web based service, I needed to be able to support multiple requests at the same time, which I am referring to as multitenant because the requests should be isolated from each other.

Since I was much too deep into the implementation at that point, I just needed to find a solution to this without rewriting everything.

My solution:
Run a server that handles all of the requests from the clients, let's call it core. On a new 'build' request, I spin up a new instance of basically the same server in an LXC container and wait for this new worker server to come online (6-10 seconds) and then I have the core server offload the build request to this worker. Once the worker finishes the build and uploads the resulting files to an object store, it passes the metadata for the built files back to the core server and then the LXC worker is destroyed. The core server then updates the client with their cad files and completes the request.

Obviously this is totally inefficient and not ideal, but I just needed a solution. This is actually why I am rebuilding the tool from scratch and skipping the cad engine completely and writing a software that can just generate the output files directly. So far it is blazing fast and is looking promising, but I have not implemented the majority of the complexity yet. I will only support 2D drawings with my new tool instead of both 2D and 3D as I currently do. I think it will be worth it when I am done.

Sorry for the essay, I have been stuck in this hospital bed for too long and I am frackin bored.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Sat, 06 June 2015, 16:19:18
basicaly a regular worker model .. as it has been used since ages .. you go straight to lxc or use an orchistrated "fake scheduler" it gets tricky if you want todo that multinode as for your build stuff id look at drone ( its a CI) githubc.om/drone/drone different purpose but that can do builds and create artefacts in containers .. if you want to scale that up .. use that as build plattform via docker to example ( pass in the socket of the host) .. place the build artefact ( the finished file) on a distributed fs .. ceph to example or straight to radowsgw ( its the internal object store of ceph) and just pass the link back .. with that you separat the build and the distribution plane .. in terms of enqueing thats easy as well basicaly what you where doing


as for nspawn / rocket the appcontainer spec is your best bet ..  ( the boys invested alot of time into it )
the core diff between docker / rocket is .. that docker runs as a daemon and rocket does not

the run stages are different ..

rocket "CAN" run mutliple processes in a "container" with different cap's

and .. the container distribution is different as well

docker uses a registry to save off the layerd tarballs to build the rootfs and uses own protocolls for that
rocket uses good old straight http


if you in the hospital .. take the recordings from the coreos fest and consume them all day long

Coreos fest:
https://www.youtube.com/user/coreoslinux/videos

OSDC 2015 videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8nIBEFmjzXjXeJV_hkkeIQ/videos

gabriel had a talk about deis on the coreos fest .. which is a paas and could help you scale your stuff on coreos as for the traffic part,
im a contributor at deis so feel free to ping me ..

i think thats enough content now to get you busy for a few days :)

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 09 June 2015, 19:20:09
Virtualised CentOS on my servers and for now I'm running OSX on my macbook but have been planning to move it over to arch at some point.
Using Linux on your MacBook is so much better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Tue, 09 June 2015, 22:22:12
Virtualised CentOS on my servers and for now I'm running OSX on my macbook but have been planning to move it over to arch at some point.
Using Linux on your MacBook is so much better.
I suspect that battery life will drop significantly. At least that's what I've always seen when using Linux instead of Windows on laptops. Also Apple really doubled down on power efficiency in recent OS versions.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 09 June 2015, 22:43:12
Virtualised CentOS on my servers and for now I'm running OSX on my macbook but have been planning to move it over to arch at some point.
Using Linux on your MacBook is so much better.
I suspect that battery life will drop significantly. At least that's what I've always seen when using Linux instead of Windows on laptops. Also Apple really doubled down on power efficiency in recent OS versions.

My experience has always been the opposite actually -- although I haven't done a comparison with Win 7 or higher.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 10 June 2015, 00:54:23
I wouldn't run linux on my macbook. I like osx trackpad usability too much, battery takes a hit no question, and there's homebrew.  I want another thinkpad for running a lightweight distro, much better suited I think.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Wed, 10 June 2015, 01:34:51
Depends on which machine I'm on, and what I'm doing-

I frequently use:

FreeBSD
OpenBSD
Mint (with Mate to lighten it up a bit ;)
Kali (I mourn the passing of Backtrack....)
CentOS

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 10 June 2015, 02:41:24
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: azhdar on Wed, 10 June 2015, 02:53:13
Would Crunchbang be a good distro to start of on Linux?

I had few classes of Unix/Linux so I got the basics, but I never used it on my personnal machines.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Wed, 10 June 2015, 03:52:57
I'm on Debian and I consider giving Nix a try... Nix and NixOS both seem very interesting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 10 June 2015, 04:20:05
Would Crunchbang be a good distro to start of on Linux?

I had few classes of Unix/Linux so I got the basics, but I never used it on my personnal machines.

It depends on your commitment level, if you just want an OS to chill around and for it to work out of the box, id go with mint. If you really want to learn how things are structured and get a full understanding. id go with debian network install, or arch(by far the best wiki of the distros). Cant speak for crunchbang. But try going to distrowatch.com to check what distro suits you.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 10 June 2015, 07:07:17
Virtualised CentOS on my servers and for now I'm running OSX on my macbook but have been planning to move it over to arch at some point.
Using Linux on your MacBook is so much better.
I suspect that battery life will drop significantly.
nope.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 10 June 2015, 07:12:41
Virtualised CentOS on my servers and for now I'm running OSX on my macbook but have been planning to move it over to arch at some point.
Using Linux on your MacBook is so much better.
I suspect that battery life will drop significantly.
nope.

you will get a significantly shorter batterylife IF you do not fix necessary tools in order to swtich between cpu and gpu graphics, automatic screen brightness etc. I installed arch on my macbooks. After fixing a bunch of tools i still had issues with battery life. Even though i made it significantly better. Also had alot of problems with wifi drivers at that time it would drop from time to time. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 10 June 2015, 07:28:19
I am using mint though, not arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Wed, 10 June 2015, 07:41:57
mac osx has special battery opimisation backend in, nothing todo with the regluar cpu/gpu switching ..

so yes the battery will drop signif. faster on linux vs on macosx on ANY macbook

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 10 June 2015, 07:50:37
mac osx has special battery opimisation backend in, nothing todo with the regluar cpu/gpu switching ..

so yes the battery will drop signif. faster on linux vs on macosx on ANY macbook

In my case running the amd graphics card all the time instead of using built in graphics in the intel processor led to alot more power consumption. So it has very much to do with it..
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pkircher on Wed, 10 June 2015, 09:49:33
try to compare macosx on a mac to linux on a mac and compare the batterie life .. your statement is rather unsolicited if you drain your power for no reasion of coures it will be faster depleated, yet there is a major difference how macosx does powermanagement on a mac vs how linux handles it .

 make statements if you know what you talk about .. else its sometimes better to keep the fingers still and say nothing at all ..

no hard feelings , yet apple invested alot in better battery management special for there own hardware ..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:09:48
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:14:32
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I used Solaris with CDE on a Sun SparcStation, but that was a different life...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:15:23
apple invested alot in better battery management special for there own hardware ..

...hardware. Most of the efficiency can be attributed to the optimized hardware (ie. under-powered processors...). I haven't run any real tests but through anecdotal evidence I have noticed little difference between the battery life when running Linux vs BSD (OSX) on Macs.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:16:37
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I used Solaris with CDE on a Sun SparcStation, but that was a different life...

Yes, that was many moons ago for sure. ;)  ...but today...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:19:12
...although OSX is technically a BSD variant...So...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:22:58
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I used Solaris with CDE on a Sun SparcStation, but that was a different life...

Yes, that was many moons ago for sure. ;)  ...but today...

I miss VMS, too. But I doubt there are many VAX servers still in operation today. :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:40:26
Would Crunchbang be a good distro to start of on Linux?

I had few classes of Unix/Linux so I got the basics, but I never used it on my personnal machines.

Crunchbang is a good distro, but it's no longer supported; it's still usable, but it takes a bit of work to point it at somewhere to let it actually get security updates. You could try !#++ or BunsenLabs, they're both based on the same ideas.

I found both Crunchbang and Linux Mint to be nice and friendly for transitioning to a full time linux base.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: azhdar on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:42:56
Thanks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 10:43:20
I used to have a free OpenVMS account, but it looks like the site is down. Here is another VMS site: http://deathrow.vistech.net/

VMS was truly revolutionary. Hardware clustering and "cloud" computing way ahead of it's time.

...one of our clients was hosting some of their databases on VMS Alpha servers until they switch to one of our x86 clusters a few years ago...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 10 June 2015, 11:21:18
try to compare macosx on a mac to linux on a mac and compare the batterie life .. your statement is rather unsolicited if you drain your power for no reasion of coures it will be faster depleated, yet there is a major difference how macosx does powermanagement on a mac vs how linux handles it .

 make statements if you know what you talk about .. else its sometimes better to keep the fingers still and say nothing at all ..

no hard feelings , yet apple invested alot in better battery management special for there own hardware ..

Ok,

Iri states you dont loose battery life when installing linux on a macbook, i beg to differ and lay out some examples, then you show up and say im wrong, it seems more like you did not read the quotes properly. and misunderstood me.

Everything you are saying is right. Im fully aware. I know apple invested alot in the power management, i know it works better in oxs than in linux that  was my point. i also said there are tools which you can use to make the battery life better by using some power mangaement tools in linux, but it will not be the same as under osx. Please dont splurge insults out without a second thought.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 10 June 2015, 12:00:25
make statements if you know what you talk about .. else its sometimes better to keep the fingers still and say nothing at all ..
Great advice. Works for me all the time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 10 June 2015, 12:23:47
make statements if you know what you talk about .. else its sometimes better to keep the fingers still and say nothing at all ..
Great advice. Works for me all the time.

I lolled
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 10 June 2015, 14:25:00
i also said there are tools which you can use to make the battery life better by using some power mangaement tools in linux, but it will not be the same as under osx.

laptop-mode-tools... *shudder*

I wonder how much of the difference is due to the hardware of the battery itself as well?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 10 June 2015, 16:57:56
Changing os doesn't change the battery hardware, I was once told.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 10 June 2015, 17:01:02
Changing os doesn't change the battery hardware, I was once told.

I was referring to different batteries as well, i.e. OSX on Mac, Linux on a fairly equivalent Dell, say.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 10 June 2015, 18:44:23
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I was asking dude what's his machine and application. I used to wanna build a PF box, but OpenBSD is suprisingly good on laptops too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 18:51:22
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I was asking dude what's his machine and application. I used to wanna build a PF box, but OpenBSD is suprisingly good on laptops too.


So? ;) PF boxes are great. I love pfSense.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 10 June 2015, 18:58:48
...although OSX is technically a BSD variant...So...

People say that but its like... BSD userland & networking, franken Mach thing, the rest is basically Apple.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Wed, 10 June 2015, 19:00:47
It's definitely not stock BSD. Heavily modified.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 10 June 2015, 19:03:50
It's got what Apple calls a hybrid micro kernel whatever that means.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 10 June 2015, 19:13:09
Would Crunchbang be a good distro to start of on Linux?

I had few classes of Unix/Linux so I got the basics, but I never used it on my personnal machines.

Crunchbang is a good distro, but it's no longer supported; it's still usable, but it takes a bit of work to point it at somewhere to let it actually get security updates. You could try !#++ or BunsenLabs, they're both based on the same ideas.

I found both Crunchbang and Linux Mint to be nice and friendly for transitioning to a full time linux base.

Is Lubuntu still a nice one these days, I used to like that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 10 June 2015, 22:51:09
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I used Solaris with CDE on a Sun SparcStation, but that was a different life...

Yes, that was many moons ago for sure. ;)  ...but today...

I miss VMS, too. But I doubt there are many VAX servers still in operation today. :P

I discarded my VAXen several years ago.

They worked, but the OS licence had expired, and it didn't seem worth it to keep them running.

I still have the HDDs though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smeckledorfed on Thu, 11 June 2015, 08:08:33
I'm just starting out on Linux, my boss gave me his install DVDs of Ubuntu and CentOS so I can start learning.  Been rocking Ubuntu for a couple of weeks now but am planning to give CentOS a shot next week.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Thu, 11 June 2015, 12:02:00
I played with Red Hat a bit on my dad's computer a long time ago, but I've never really used Linux since then. My current machine has two hard drive slots, so I'm finally going to install Ubuntu on a separate drive from my main (Windows) drive. I figure that I'll probably eventually be using several different distros along the line anyway, so I might as well start with the most popular one. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:02:52
Again, why go through the trouble of separate drives and multi-booting when you can just install it as a virtual machine? It's much easier, safer, and great for testing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:25:40
Again, why go through the trouble of separate drives and multi-booting when you can just install it as a virtual machine? It's much easier, safer, and great for testing.

Well there are some reasons, usually hardware specific reasons. Example. Try gaming on a vm. Try programming a tipro bord in a 64 bit os.

So in my world. I need windows 7 64 bit for gaming. windows 7 32 bit to program my tipro. And my main os is Arch(And no i dont want to have arch in a vm.Because windows suck :)). But for testing purposes i totally agree.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:30:21
Those are all good reasons to virtualize. So, again, I don't see the point in multi-boot for the average/casual linux user.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:32:34
...especially if they are just wanting to test an OS, which is what this thread is essentially about...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:34:00
I've tried multi-booting, but ended up with multiple workstations (currently two).

The biggest simple issue was checking emails while playing a game.  With a single multi-boot OS that was impossible.

But with two separate workstations, one for gaming and one for emails and other stuff - simple :)

Here's a thought - what we need is an interface to email apps and a means of using that from within a game.

For example in a technological FPS you'd go up to the nearest computer and check your emails.  In a non-technological FPS you'd maybe go to the nearest post office or similar to check mails.

In RPG you'd go to the nearest messenger or witch doctor or something to check emails.

Others where your character is augmented, you could have a HUD option for checking emails (in the real world).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:35:53
Another good reason to virtualize (your mail machine.)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:36:13
I plan on eventually using some form of Linux as my main OS, and I'm less interested in the ease of setting it up than I am in just learning about Linux and experiencing using it as a standalone OS. While I could run it as a virtual machine, that's not what I'll be doing farther into the future, and I usually prefer to avoid intermediate steps when they don't directly help with the final result.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:39:22
That reason doesn't make much sense since you still have to install the OS as if it was on a separate piece of hardware. It's just easier because you don't need a separate machine or have to wipe out your current set up.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:39:44
Here's a thought - what we need is an interface to email apps and a means of using that from within a game.

For example in a technological FPS you'd go up to the nearest computer and check your emails.  In a non-technological FPS you'd maybe go to the nearest post office or similar to check mails.

In RPG you'd go to the nearest messenger or witch doctor or something to check emails.

Others where your character is augmented, you could have a HUD option for checking emails (in the real world).

That sounds like it could easily lead to invasions of privacy, or at least outcry from people who think that it's an invasion of privacy even if it isn't.

That reason doesn't make much sense since you still have to install the OS as if it was on a separate piece of hardware. It's just easier because you don't need a separate machine or have to wipe out your current set up.

Yes, "as if". This is probably just me, but I'm not really a fan of "as if", and since I'm eventually going to be using it on its own piece of hardware anyway, I don't see a point in delaying that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:42:08
Just check your mail on your phone, rowdy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:44:08
Dual-booting is generally OK beyond the need to boot in and out to change OS, but this probably has some security benefit.

You can use Grub and go through Linux, or have 2 hard drives and change the boot order in BIOS.

Ubuntu is the most widely used, and now has a large contract with the government of China, so it is certainly not going anywhere.

My great heartaches with Ubuntu are always getting through the initial internet setup, whether wired or wireless, it always seems like hours of unecessary agony. It almost never "just works" for me, and usually takes half a dozen iterations of exchanges with people on the help forums.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:46:10
I thought you were going to dual-boot, RRH? If you are installing it on a separate machine then it doesn't matter. What do you mean "as if" and you're not a fan of "as if?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:50:09
Dual-booting is generally OK beyond the need to boot in and out to change OS, but this probably has some security benefit.

I just want to hear a valid argument for a multi-boot set up for average Joe in this era of easy virtutalization. If you are truly that concerned about security then you definitely don't want to dual-boot either. You would want a completely separate machine. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:51:10
Here's a thought - what we need is an interface to email apps and a means of using that from within a game.

For example in a technological FPS you'd go up to the nearest computer and check your emails.  In a non-technological FPS you'd maybe go to the nearest post office or similar to check mails.

In RPG you'd go to the nearest messenger or witch doctor or something to check emails.

Others where your character is augmented, you could have a HUD option for checking emails (in the real world).

That sounds like it could easily lead to invasions of privacy, or at least outcry from people who think that it's an invasion of privacy even if it isn't.

No, it would be like using the game as an email client, except it interfaced with the email client on your game PC (with appropriate authorisation and authentication etc.).

Just check your mail on your phone, rowdy.

Way too many emails to manage that way - I've tried.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:51:43
I thought you were going to dual-boot, RRH? If you are installing it on a separate machine then it doesn't matter. What do you mean "as if" and you're not a fan of "as if?

As I said, I plan on eventually using Linux as my main (probably only) OS. At this point in time, I'm going to dual-boot with Ubuntu and Windows on separate hard drives, which is the closest thing I can get to that.

What I meant by the "as if" comment was that the real thing (running Linux directly) an an emulation of the real thing (running Linux in a virtual machine) have subtle differences that you can't really know about until you've tried both.

No, it would be like using the game as an email client, except it interfaced with the email client on your game PC (with appropriate authorisation and authentication etc.).

The problem is that any email client has the potential to do what they want with your private information, and adding each game you play to the list of email clients you use just increases the risk of one of those clients doing something you don't want. Plus, it's just another thing that game developers would need to add to each and every one their games (if they want to appeal to all audiences).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:56:17
So, you've never used VMware and you don't trust it...is basically why you don't want to do it. That's cool. I was just curious as to why. As far as *nix goes there is absolutely no difference when virtualized.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 06:58:23
And that is where you have me confused. If, as you say, "there is absolutely no difference when virtualized", why should anyone prefer virtualization over the alternative? The only reason you could possibly prefer one over the other is if there are differences.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:04:26
Unless you have some specific reason for not wanting to virtualize, and there are valid reasons for not wanting to do it but I have yet to hear any, there is no difference in functionality or performance for the average Linux user. Why go through the trouble of installing a separate drive, potentially losing data or the config of your "main" drive, and then have to reboot every time you want to switch between OSs when you can run multiple OSs simultaneously without even rebooting your machine?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:13:48
For me, all of my data and configuration that I'm actually interested in keeping is easily recoverable even if my entire house goes up in flames. As for the difficulty of switching between OSes, I'm more interested in learning to use Linux as Linux than I am in trying Linux out to augment my existing setup, so not being able to just instantly switch back and forth will make that easier to do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:15:05
It's all good, man. ;) You just don't want to. I get it...now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:35:11
Honestly, that's kind of rude. You asked me for my reasons, and I gave them to you. It's not because I "just don't want to", and I've already explained why multiple times. If you don't feel like arguing any more, then fine, don't; those kinds of belittling statements are completely unnecessary, though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:40:27
Okay, you want me to keep on going...just wanting to learn is not a valid reason for not virtualizing. You still have to install the OS (virtually) and use the OS (virtually). So, how are you missing out on learning about Linux by virtualizing?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sethk_ on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:49:14
So, you've never used VMware and you don't trust it...is basically why you don't want to do it. That's cool. I was just curious as to why. As far as *nix goes there is absolutely no difference when virtualized.
I have personally had **** luck when trying to install any form of linux on a VM, and I always get stuck with **** resolutions as well, and it is less hassle for me to also dual boot it, I don't know why, but I have had better luck and it is easier for me to just throw it on another HDD and dual boot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:50:31
Okay, you want me to keep on going...just wanting to learn is not a valid reason for not virtualizing. You still have to install the OS (virtually) and use the OS (virtually). So, how are you missing out on learning about Linux by virtualizing?

I said you could politely stop arguing if you want, but I guess you missed that. Anyway...

It's not that I wouldn't learn about Linux; it's that I wouldn't learn how to use Linux as if it were a standalone OS. Simply having the ability to switch back and forth between Windows and Linux in two seconds means that I would be less likely to learn to do things the right way in Linux and more likely to just fall back to doing them the way I've previously done them, in Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:51:45
So, you've never used VMware and you don't trust it...is basically why you don't want to do it. That's cool. I was just curious as to why. As far as *nix goes there is absolutely no difference when virtualized.
I have personally had **** luck when trying to install any form of linux on a VM, and I always get stuck with **** resolutions as well, and it is less hassle for me to also dual boot it, I don't know why, but I have had better luck and it is easier for me to just throw it on another HDD and dual boot.

That's a valid argument. I've had that experience in the past as well, but it was years ago and with a hypervisor other than VMware. Have you tried VMware within the past few years?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 07:58:29
Okay, you want me to keep on going...just wanting to learn is not a valid reason for not virtualizing. You still have to install the OS (virtually) and use the OS (virtually). So, how are you missing out on learning about Linux by virtualizing?

I said you could politely stop arguing if you want, but I guess you missed that. Anyway...

It's not that I wouldn't learn about Linux; it's that I wouldn't learn how to use Linux as if it were a standalone OS. Simply having the ability to switch back and forth between Windows and Linux in two seconds means that I would be less likely to learn to do things the right way in Linux and more likely to just fall back to doing them the way I've previously done them, in Windows.

I really think you are cheating yourself out of learning even more about Linux and computer hardware and software in general by not virtualizing. And I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about it. There is no way to do something "right or wrong" depending on whether it's virtualized or not. It's Linux and it works the same either way. I get the feeling that you may have gotten some incorrect information somewhere. Like I said, feel free to PM me if you decide you want to try virtualizing. I'd be glad to help. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:07:26
I really think you are cheating yourself out of learning even more about Linux and computer hardware and software in general by not virtualizing. And I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about it. There is no way to do something "right or wrong" depending on whether it's virtualized or not. It's Linux and it works the same either way. I get the feeling that you may have gotten some incorrect information somewhere. Like I said, feel free to PM me if you decide you want to try virtualizing. I'd be glad to help.

Out of curiosity, what sorts of things would I learn from virtualizing that I wouldn't learn otherwise? I've already set up and used virtual machines for things like old DOS and Windows 3 programs in the past, so the virtualization itself isn't new to me. I think I was a bit unclear earlier when talking about "right and wrong" ways to do things; the reason I'm trying out Linux at all is that, from what I've read, it can be helpful for productivity as a software developer. I'd like to try doing things "the Linux way" if only to see how effective they are compared to how I've already been doing them in Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:13:46
Well, with VMs you can change the hardware configuration to specs beyond what your actual hardware supports which can be beneficial for testing your software for instance. You also have the luxury of testing out experimental drivers or other software without fear of hosing your system. You have a lot of flexibility you don't have with a "native" installation.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:16:32
Is it that you just don't trust yourself having Windows so easily accessible and you fear that you may just use Windows instead of Linux because it's what you are used to? I can certainly understand that as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sethk_ on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:16:39
So, you've never used VMware and you don't trust it...is basically why you don't want to do it. That's cool. I was just curious as to why. As far as *nix goes there is absolutely no difference when virtualized.
I have personally had **** luck when trying to install any form of linux on a VM, and I always get stuck with **** resolutions as well, and it is less hassle for me to also dual boot it, I don't know why, but I have had better luck and it is easier for me to just throw it on another HDD and dual boot.

That's a valid argument. I've had that experience in the past as well, but it was years ago and with a hypervisor other than VMware. Have you tried VMware within the past few years?
I have been on and off trying different distros, with my latest try 2 months ago.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:18:35
Were you able to successfully install VMware tools, pwnnarwhal? I've had problems before dong that sometimes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:21:58
Well, with VMs you can change the hardware configuration to specs beyond what your actual hardware supports which can be beneficial for testing your software for instance. You also have the luxury of testing out experimental drivers or other software without fear of hosing your system. You have a lot of flexibility you don't have with a "native" installation.

Very good point. However, am I correct in assuming that it would be just as easy to host those sorts of VMs from directly within Ubuntu as it would be to host them from within Windows alongside a more "generic" Ubuntu VM that I would use for most purposes?

Is it that you just don't trust yourself having Windows so easily accessible and you fear that you may just use Windows instead of Linux because it's what you are used to? I can certainly understand that as well.

It's not really a fear per se, but you're right, I don't trust myself. Those sorts of psychological effects are real and apply to everyone, so I figure that I might as well remove them to make it easier to just focus on what I want to actually do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:26:31
Yes, you can do everything just as easily within Linux with the exception of Windows gaming (in a VM). That's been changing a lot recently and will likely be just as good as a native install soon. As for the not trusting yourself, I totally understand. That's why I go a blank keyboard when I decided I had to learn to type properly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:27:56
*got.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:30:34
Yeah, Valve's support of Linux (and Ubuntu specifically) will only speed up the improvement of gaming on Linux. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 08:49:30
Is it that you just don't trust yourself having Windows so easily accessible and you fear that you may just use Windows instead of Linux because it's what you are used to? I can certainly understand that as well.

This has always been my main issue with virtualization. I know which OS is native, and for some reason mentally, I would tend to use the native OS over the virtualized one.

What I do now is set up whichever OS I want to try on a dedicated machine for it. I have plenty of hardware, so finding a testbed is not really a problem. If I want to try #!, I turn my Windows machine off and stick to using the #! machine for a week.



***
Right now I'm forcing myself to use a Chromebox at home. I think for most people, who only use a computer for things like webmail, Facebook, YouTube, etc., a Chromebox or Chromebook is a perfectly usable option. The OS updates automatically, isn't really a target for viruses, and you can use web apps exactly like you would on Windows. You are supposed to keep all your storage in the cloud, so the tiny SSD is all you really need. Now, of course, Google wants you tied to their ecosystem, so things like Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides are all integrated, and you do need a Google account to log in to the OS. But you can log in as Guest to get around that. And you can easily use Microsoft's online versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote instead of the Google apps, if you prefer, and store your files in OneDrive. Or Dropbox. You are limited to using the Chrome browser, but many people use that as a matter of preference, regardless of OS. Heck, I can even do CAD modeling in TinkerCAD. :P

Now, with Chrome OS, if you lose your internet connection, you can do a few things in offline mode, but you are very limited. However, to many people today, a computer is simply an appliance for delivering the internet. These cheap little Chrome OS devices are perfectly capable of delivering that experience to the casual user.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 09:15:13
Here's what I would consider valid reasons not to virtualize.

1) If your host installation or hard drive is corrupted, or fails, it breaks all of your installations.
2) You are subjecting your environment to the overhead of running two operating systems. Essentially, all the resources you spend on the host are wasted in that you can't use them for the actual tasks you're running in the virtual system. This is much more of a problem the older the machine is -- laptops from as new as a couple years ago may only have 2-4GB of RAM.
3) It's more complicated for the user to set up. I would say that it's much easier to choose an OS from a menu at boot time than have to learn how to manage virtual machines. Navigating hardware passthrough for virtual machines has been somewhat tricky in my experience.
4) Gaming is much more difficult on a virtual machine.
5) It forces one to give the new OS a more full-fledged try, without the temptation of just doing all the work in the host.

And some valid reasons to virtualize.

1) Portability. You can move a virtual OS between hosts and it should work essentially the same.
2) Ease of testing. If you just want to play with something briefly, it's often not worth rebooting. Likewise if you want to test a program, test an OS, virtualization can be useful.
3) Ability to switch between several different systems at will.

Now, not all of these arguments are necessarily valuable for any one person. For an average consumer, I don't think that running many different OSs in VMs is necessarily useful to a consumer. Personally, I would run one host and one VM, and when I'm done with that VM (after days, months, whatever), I will either set it aside or blow it away. I'll then install the next OS I want to test out. Unless one has a powerful system, and can run multiple VMs at a time with decent system resources, the need to switch between VMs becomes essentially like dual booting again, only without a power cycle.

When I built up my OS, I did a minimal install of Debian Jessie, and added only the packages I needed to make the system work the way I wanted it to. The result was a very slim, very lightweight OS that allowed me access to the maximum of hardware resources. Running such a system as a VM on top of Windows would eliminate the benefit of a slim OS by requiring me to run Windows, which is a bit of a resource hog. I have tried using VMs for gaming in the past, and it hasn't worked, so unless I've missed some major revolution in VMs in the past couple of years, it necessitates either a separate system or a dual-boot setup to allow me to game. It would also be nice to have a separate system for the purposes of gaming, to eliminate the need to dual-boot, but a second system unfortunately isn't financially feasible for me at the moment.

I agree that a dual-boot setup isn't ideal for someone who splits their time relatively evenly between two or more environments. You do spend a lot of time rebooting that way. But personally, when the only time I make it into Windows is to play a game, the extra 20-30 seconds of boot time both booting into Windows and back into Linux afterwards is worth not having to deal with the overhead of Windows the other 99% of the time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 09:53:07
Maybe we should start a separate Virtualization thread?

I'm a big fan of virtualization if you couldn't tell ;), but I also know there are limitations. I have to say that I'm a little surprised at the lack of enthusiasm from what I consider a "techie" site.

user 18:

1. That has nothing to do with virtualization. If you have hd/fs problems then you will have problems with your host machine as well.
2. Not an issue for modern machines.
3. What? Managing  VMs is as easy as managing tabs in a browser.
4. True. If you are a serious gamer you definitely need to have a native install of Windows. Now there have been some really good improvements in graphics support with WMware in the last year or two. So, if you are a more casual gamer then you will probably be happy with a Windows VM if you use VMware Workstation on a modern PC with a fairly recent graphics card.
5. True (if you don't have another PC with your old OS close by ;))

The main things I love about virtualization are the ability to test and the ability to restore and migrate machines to different hardware and software platforms. You also have the ability to have separate machines for specific tasks or for running software that is no longer supported. There are tons of reasons to run VMs.

The biggest problem I see people run into when they try virtualization is that they want to use a free hypervisor like Virtualbox or KVM and there is huge difference between those and VMware. I've tried them all and they just don't compare. If you do want to try it out do yourself a favor and use VMware Workstation or Fusion. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 13 June 2015, 09:54:09
VMware? That's the company sued for allegedly violating GNU GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/)? No, without thanks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 09:56:08
VMware? That's the company sued for allegedly violating GNU GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/)? No, without thanks.

RMS, is that you? :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 09:56:38
VMware sounds great, if only I didn't have to spend money to get it. :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 09:59:18
VMware sounds great, if only I didn't have to spend money to get it. :(

That's it's main drawback. I don't think it's that much though. Maybe $80 for Windows/Linux and $50 for Mac?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 10:01:07
Wow, it's gone up in price. It's just under $200 for Workstation and it's still ~$50 for Mac. I get it through my company so I wasn't sure about the price.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 13 June 2015, 10:05:33
VMware? That's the company sued for allegedly violating GNU GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/)? No, without thanks.

RMS, is that you? :p
I have basic understanding why Linux has been successful (hint: GNU GPLv2), I'm not ignorant to ethical issues, and I'm not a shill. This apparently isn't true for everyone in this thread.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 10:10:12
VMware? That's the company sued for allegedly violating GNU GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/)? No, without thanks.

RMS, is that you? :p
I have basic understanding why Linux has been successful (hint: GNU GPLv2), I'm not ignorant to ethical issues, and I'm not a shill. This apparently isn't true for everyone in this thread.

I just assume everything I read is gospel without knowing all sides of the story or waiting for a case to go to trial to see what evidence is presented, but that's just me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sat, 13 June 2015, 10:23:19
I was not aware that VMware was so expensive. If, as smknjoe says, the free "alternatives" really aren't good enough, that in itself is a big reason for me, personally, not to use a VM for something that I am doing due in no small part to the fact that it's free (installing Linux).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 10:32:27
VMware? That's the company sued for allegedly violating GNU GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/)? No, without thanks.

RMS, is that you? :p
I have basic understanding why Linux has been successful (hint: GNU GPLv2), I'm not ignorant to ethical issues, and I'm not a shill. This apparently isn't true for everyone in this thread.

I really can't believe that you are calling me a stupid, amoral, shill. You are a real douche. I don't work for VMware. I've been in the hosting business for a while now and it's the standard for a reason...it's easy to use and it "just works".
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 10:53:22
Quote
1. That has nothing to do with virtualization. If you have hd/fs problems then you will have problems with your host machine as well.
My point is that if one drive fails, you still have a running drive. If you're doing windows updates and have a power failure, that can potentially bork up the install. With a dual boot system, I can boot into my second OS and carry on until I've fixed the Windows error. If my second OS is virtualized, I need to invest the time to fix the host boot drive before I can continue doing any work on that machine. Yes not directly related, but I would say still applicable.

Quote
2. Not an issue for modern machines.
I agree, however not all of us are blessed with modern machines. My newest x86 hardware is a 2-3 year old laptop, my newest desktop hardware (core system) is at least 6 years old at this point. It still does what I need it to do, so I don't see a need to upgrade. Many others are in the same situation, either for financial reasons or for simply wanting to run hardware into the ground. Much cheaper to pick up a second disk for dual boot than to execute an entire platform upgrade. Definitely cheaper to pick up a disk for dual boot than to pay for VMware.

I would also say how much of an issue the overhead is depends on how much you're trying to do in the VM. If you're editing high-resolution photos, applying image transformations and filters, you may need all the memory you can get. Additional overhead might not be acceptable in that situation.

Quote
3. What? Managing  VMs is as easy as managing tabs in a browser.
Once the setup has been completed, I agree. Determining allocation of resources, installing virtualization tools, etc. is a little more complicated than hitting the new tab button. Your response does not address my concerns regarding hardware passthrough.

Quote
4. True. If you are a serious gamer you definitely need to have a native install of Windows. Now there have been some really good improvements in graphics support with WMware in the last year or two. So, if you are a more casual gamer then you will probably be happy with a Windows VM if you use VMware Workstation on a modern PC with a fairly recent graphics card.
That may be true. I concede that improvements may make casual gaming possible using VMware possible. At that point, it would be a decision between the ~30 seconds less of gaming per session (for a casual gamer, probably only a few times a month) versus the initial financial investment into virtualization software.

Quote
5. True (if you don't have another PC with your old OS close by ;))
It makes a difference to me even when I have another machine with the old OS on my desk. I'm already using this machine, I may as well continue to use it. I concede that it may not be as simple for some people or personality types.

Quote
The main things I love about virtualization are the ability to test and the ability to restore and migrate machines to different hardware and software platforms. You also have the ability to have separate machines for specific tasks or for running software that is no longer supported. There are tons of reasons to run VMs.
These are definitely good reasons, some of which I mentioned in my previous post. However, several of these concepts go beyond the concept of simply replacing a dual boot environment and confound the issue. I do not deny that virtualization has its benefits, I am simply arguing that virtualization is not superior in all cases to a dual-boot environment. These particular advantages can apply to a dual boot environment as well, perhaps even using the same virtual machines on both hosts. Granted, if one is splitting every task into a VM, there would not be need for a dual-boot environment.

Quote
The biggest problem I see people run into when they try virtualization is that they want to use a free hypervisor like Virtualbox or KVM and there is huge difference between those and VMware. I've tried them all and they just don't compare. If you do want to try it out do yourself a favor and use VMware Workstation or Fusion.
The main draw of Linux for a casual user, in my experience, is based on two factors. The first factor is that it is an alternative to Windows that can be legally installed on their current PC, regardless of age or hardware limitations. The second factor is that it is a free alternative. Paying for virtualization software is significantly more expensive than a second hard drive (cheap SSDs can be found in the $50 range, as can 1TB HDDs), which could have use even if the user decides they don't like the other OS. It's also possible that one might have a HDD left over from an old system that they could use for free. Previewing posts tells me that this concern has already been addressed by some, but I will leave this response for completness' sake.


If you want a thread discussing virtualization, it's easy enough to start one of your own. This sort of discussion might be better suited for such a thread, the primary purpose of this thread is to discuss linux setups in general, rather than dual-boot setups.


VMware? That's the company sued for allegedly violating GNU GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/)? No, without thanks.

RMS, is that you? :p
I have basic understanding why Linux has been successful (hint: GNU GPLv2), I'm not ignorant to ethical issues, and I'm not a shill. This apparently isn't true for everyone in this thread.

I really can't believe that you are calling me a stupid, amoral, shill. You are a real douche. I don't work for VMware. I've been in the hosting business for a while now and it's the standard for a reason...it's easy to use and it "just works".

Let's all watch the personal attacks, hm? No need for throwing names around.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 June 2015, 11:09:19
If davkol's reply wasn't a personal attack, and totally uncalled for, then I don't know what is. It's not like I'm new around here.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 11:12:58
If davkol's reply wasn't a personal attack, and totally uncalled for, then I don't know what is. It's not like I'm new around here.

That was directed to the both of you. If you feel you've been attacked, there's no need to respond in the same fashion.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 13 June 2015, 11:20:10
This virtualisation thing is sounding rather intriguing.  I played around with it years ago using the free version of VMWare which wasn't supposed to support installing OSes but if you edited some text files you could.  I installed Windows in it under Linux to reverse engineer a USB driver.

Usually I just try an OS/distro on my main system and when it inevitably goes wrong I move on to the next, but perhaps I should try and make a stable install and experiment virtually.  No need for games so I'm sure an open source alternative would be quite capable of running a second OS even on my ageing desktop (i7 2600k with 16gb)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 13 June 2015, 16:22:48

My point is that if one drive fails, you still have a running drive.
With a dual boot system, I can boot into my second OS and carry on until I've fixed the Windows error.

The second factor is that it is a free alternative.

a second hard drive (cheap SSDs can be found in the $50 range, as can 1TB HDDs), which could have use

It's also possible that one might have a HDD left over from an old system that they could use for free.


For me, as a beginner, these were factors.

I would love to move away from Microsoft to free and open source software, eventually. I use LibreOffice almost exclusively now, and I am solid enough in Gimp that I did not even re-install Photoshop Elements after my last format/re-install.

And I have a pile of old small-ish hard drives sitting around.

One secondary, but important, consideration is the possibility of a virus or malware attack on my Windows install.
With an alternate OS, I can probably find a side door or back door that may let me fix something.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 13 June 2015, 22:31:17
There's been too many replies to comments above, but my input is as follows.

I've been using VirtualBox for a while on both Windows and Mac hosts.  I virtualise Windows, Linux and BSD guests.  Windows and Linux guests have "guest additions" which are basically a bunch of drivers provided by Oracle to install in VirtualBox guests to allow mouse/keyboard sharing, clipboard sharing, USB pass-through, better video support, experimental DirectX support (or something like that, I've only tried it once with Windows 7 to get Aero working).  No such drivers for BSD (FreeBSD/NetBSD), so most of those features are missing, which didn't bother me.

If you virtualise only what you need to, then the VM image doesn't need to be that big.  One huge benefit is that you can backup the VM image, and restore/import it onto a different host and just continue from when the VM was backupped.  You don't have driver issues in the virtual guest (which is a huge problem on Windows).  The only potential problem is whether the VM software allows you to create a backup of a running VM.

At work we are moving to a virtualised solution.  We have acquired a couple of fairly decent servers, and are getting a NAS.  Both servers have duel drives in RAID 1 for the host OS, which will be XenServer.  The VM images will live on the NA, which will have 4 drives in RAID 10.  XenServer allows you to create a snapshot of a running VM, and then create a VM template based on a snapshot, so at any time you can create a new VM based on that template.  XenServer supports live migration, where a running VM can be migrated to another XenServer host in the same pool with no outage.  It also supports load balancing, but only in the paid version (we are starting off with the free version).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 22:59:33
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

I've got it running on an ESXi box - and I'm using it for some dev/testing...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:04:09
Would Crunchbang be a good distro to start of on Linux?

I had few classes of Unix/Linux so I got the basics, but I never used it on my personnal machines.

Think of #! as sort of a minimalist distro- but last word was that dev on it was going to stop (ie the project was dying)- I think I remember reading about a fork of the project, but last I heard it's gone...too bad...

Depends on what you want to do with your distro-  If you want ease of use and out of the box functionality, give Mint with a lightweight WM a try-  If you are looking for a security based distro (ala pentest) then give Kali a try.  If you want good visuals, Elementary has some great devs behind it...

For real fun, set up a virtualized environment, and give the top 10 distros over at distro watch a spin (skipping all the Ubuntu variants for variety...) 

And if you're in for the long haul, do the work and learn to build Arch properly.  That's actually a good investment of your time if you want to learn more about how Linux works.  Or go all out and just do a roll your own (several guides online)

Enjoy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:07:15
What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

Not always the case.  OpenBSD is one of the most secure OSes out of the box, and many people run FreeBSD as a desktop-  to the point there are even variants now for ease of install, like PCBSD and Firefly...

If you are doing network 'development' the stacks on BSD are generally superior.  Run masscan on a BSD box ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:08:15
I did some of my first hacking/exploring on a VAX.  We used to use the VAX to keep warm in the winter ;)

Those were the days...


What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I used Solaris with CDE on a Sun SparcStation, but that was a different life...

Yes, that was many moons ago for sure. ;)  ...but today...

I miss VMS, too. But I doubt there are many VAX servers still in operation today. :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:09:24
Technically it's a hybrid.  Mach kernel.  It's more like a Frankenstein OS, with different parts sewn together, and given life :)

What do you run openbsd on,  and what do you use it for just curious.

BSD, Solaris, and variants are typically used to run network infrastructure. I don't know why anyone would use it for a "desktop" OS unless it's a new trend.

I used Solaris with CDE on a Sun SparcStation, but that was a different life...

Yes, that was many moons ago for sure. ;)  ...but today...

I miss VMS, too. But I doubt there are many VAX servers still in operation today. :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:13:17
Were you able to successfully install VMware tools, pwnnarwhal? I've had problems before dong that sometimes.

This can be an issue depending on the system. ..if you are on a Linux system, there are open source VMware tools now, heck VMWare even suggests you install them when you go to install via their environment....

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:18:22
Sorry for all the replies, was trying to catch up with the tread, and was responding as I was reading...

Interesting to see some of the thoughts about virtualization here-

A few comments- 

You can get VMWare player for free.  Many distros offer a pre-packaged VM of their os.

You can get VirtualBox for free.

It's a great way to do testing/development, and if you're at all interested in certain kinds of research it's essential.

More of the world is virtualized than you realize. 

If anyone has any issues trying out playing with VMs I'm happy to help.

(For real fun: Take a host machine, run a VM inside of it, and run another VM inside of that.  Talk about Inception! :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:21:49
Would Crunchbang be a good distro to start of on Linux?

I had few classes of Unix/Linux so I got the basics, but I never used it on my personnal machines.

Think of #! as sort of a minimalist distro- but last word was that dev on it was going to stop (ie the project was dying)- I think I remember reading about a fork of the project, but last I heard it's gone...too bad...

#! is meant was a minimal yet fully-featured distro. Lightweight, but with all of the programs its maintainer felt were required for a production-ready system.

#! itself is no longer being maintained, but multiple projects are attempting to continue in the same vein. Take a look at #!++ and BunsenLabs if you're interested in the niche #! used to fill.


The rest of your advice looks to be pretty solid.


There's been too many replies to comments above, but my input is as follows.

I've been using VirtualBox for a while on both Windows and Mac hosts.  I virtualise Windows, Linux and BSD guests.  Windows and Linux guests have "guest additions" which are basically a bunch of drivers provided by Oracle to install in VirtualBox guests to allow mouse/keyboard sharing, clipboard sharing, USB pass-through, better video support, experimental DirectX support (or something like that, I've only tried it once with Windows 7 to get Aero working).  No such drivers for BSD (FreeBSD/NetBSD), so most of those features are missing, which didn't bother me.

If you virtualise only what you need to, then the VM image doesn't need to be that big.  One huge benefit is that you can backup the VM image, and restore/import it onto a different host and just continue from when the VM was backupped.  You don't have driver issues in the virtual guest (which is a huge problem on Windows).  The only potential problem is whether the VM software allows you to create a backup of a running VM.

At work we are moving to a virtualised solution.  We have acquired a couple of fairly decent servers, and are getting a NAS.  Both servers have duel drives in RAID 1 for the host OS, which will be XenServer.  The VM images will live on the NA, which will have 4 drives in RAID 10.  XenServer allows you to create a snapshot of a running VM, and then create a VM template based on a snapshot, so at any time you can create a new VM based on that template.  XenServer supports live migration, where a running VM can be migrated to another XenServer host in the same pool with no outage.  It also supports load balancing, but only in the paid version (we are starting off with the free version).

VirtualBox is what I've used most for virtualization. I have no severe complaints about it. Guest additions are definitely a huge benefit. It's always served me well for playing with things, testing release previews, etc. In my experience, it hasn't been as snappy as running the same OS on the hardware directly, but that probably has more to do with reduced resources than the software itself.

That sounds like a very intriguing setup. I assume it would be used for testing and development work that will benefit from everyone in the team having access to the same snapshots. I'd be interested in hearing how well XenServer is working for you, once you have a bit more experience with it.

Side note -- I can't look at 'Xen' without thinking about Half-Life.

Sorry for all the replies, was trying to catch up with the tread, and was responding as I was reading...


In future, you can edit your post rather than posting 7x in a row. If you see multiple posts you want to respond to, hit the multiquote button on each, and the regular quote on the last post you wish to reply to, you should be able to quote them all in the same reply.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:30:02
Would Crunchbang be a good distro to start of on Linux?

I had few classes of Unix/Linux so I got the basics, but I never used it on my personnal machines.

Think of #! as sort of a minimalist distro- but last word was that dev on it was going to stop (ie the project was dying)- I think I remember reading about a fork of the project, but last I heard it's gone...too bad...

#! is meant was a minimal yet fully-featured distro. Lightweight, but with all of the programs its maintainer felt were required for a production-ready system.

#! itself is no longer being maintained, but multiple projects are attempting to continue in the same vein. Take a look at #!++ and BunsenLabs if you're interested in the niche #! used to fill.


The rest of your advice looks to be pretty solid.


There's been too many replies to comments above, but my input is as follows.

I've been using VirtualBox for a while on both Windows and Mac hosts.  I virtualise Windows, Linux and BSD guests.  Windows and Linux guests have "guest additions" which are basically a bunch of drivers provided by Oracle to install in VirtualBox guests to allow mouse/keyboard sharing, clipboard sharing, USB pass-through, better video support, experimental DirectX support (or something like that, I've only tried it once with Windows 7 to get Aero working).  No such drivers for BSD (FreeBSD/NetBSD), so most of those features are missing, which didn't bother me.

If you virtualise only what you need to, then the VM image doesn't need to be that big.  One huge benefit is that you can backup the VM image, and restore/import it onto a different host and just continue from when the VM was backupped.  You don't have driver issues in the virtual guest (which is a huge problem on Windows).  The only potential problem is whether the VM software allows you to create a backup of a running VM.

At work we are moving to a virtualised solution.  We have acquired a couple of fairly decent servers, and are getting a NAS.  Both servers have duel drives in RAID 1 for the host OS, which will be XenServer.  The VM images will live on the NA, which will have 4 drives in RAID 10.  XenServer allows you to create a snapshot of a running VM, and then create a VM template based on a snapshot, so at any time you can create a new VM based on that template.  XenServer supports live migration, where a running VM can be migrated to another XenServer host in the same pool with no outage.  It also supports load balancing, but only in the paid version (we are starting off with the free version).

VirtualBox is what I've used most for virtualization. I have no severe complaints about it. Guest additions are definitely a huge benefit. It's always served me well for playing with things, testing release previews, etc. In my experience, it hasn't been as snappy as running the same OS on the hardware directly, but that probably has more to do with reduced resources than the software itself.

That sounds like a very intriguing setup. I assume it would be used for testing and development work that will benefit from everyone in the team having access to the same snapshots. I'd be interested in hearing how well XenServer is working for you, once you have a bit more experience with it.

Side note -- I can't look at 'Xen' without thinking about Half-Life.

Sorry for all the replies, was trying to catch up with the tread, and was responding as I was reading...


In future, you can edit your post rather than posting 7x in a row. If you see multiple posts you want to respond to, hit the multiquote button on each, and the regular quote on the last post you wish to reply to, you should be able to quote them all in the same reply.

No problem.  Sorry about that (I know better)- Just enjoy the topic.

#! was from the UK was it not?  I ran it for a while.  I enjoyed it. 

I think there's an ArchBang now...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 13 June 2015, 23:36:25

No problem.  Sorry about that (I know better)- Just enjoy the topic.

#! was from the UK was it not?  I ran it for a while.  I enjoyed it. 

I think there's an ArchBang now...

#! was the work of Phillip Newborough, AKA Corenominal. Not sure where he's from in particular, but perhaps Google would know. I always thought it was impressive that he maintained the distro all by himself, even if it was drawing heavily from Debian. I think part of the reason he stopped maintaining #! was because he wasn't using it himself anymore, and it must be an awful lot of effort to maintain everything on your own like that.

I think there's a couple Arch-based distros in the same vein as well, I only know of #!++ because #!'s dev posted about it, and BunsenLabs because it's being built by the #! forum community.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 14 June 2015, 00:24:18
VirtualBox is what I've used most for virtualization. I have no severe complaints about it. Guest additions are definitely a huge benefit. It's always served me well for playing with things, testing release previews, etc. In my experience, it hasn't been as snappy as running the same OS on the hardware directly, but that probably has more to do with reduced resources than the software itself.

That sounds like a very intriguing setup. I assume it would be used for testing and development work that will benefit from everyone in the team having access to the same snapshots. I'd be interested in hearing how well XenServer is working for you, once you have a bit more experience with it.

Side note -- I can't look at 'Xen' without thinking about Half-Life.

Haven't got that far yet.  The servers have been delivered, and the two delivery boxes are currently sitting in the office.

Not sure if anyone has ordered the NAS yet - there was some confusion over who was going to order it and from where.

The idea is to replace 4 somewhat underutilised physical servers with the 2 new servers, virtualising the services in the process.

Then to use additional capacity on the servers for R&D purposes.

Maybe eventually to virtualise the developers' workstations, but at the moment most of us use Windows, and the licencing requirements to run that in a VM are silly, to say the least.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RedRoboHood on Sun, 14 June 2015, 17:26:16
I installed Ubuntu today, and everything works perfectly! I know, it's a small victory, but hey, I'm excited. I'm enjoying Linux already. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vizir on Mon, 15 June 2015, 08:20:42
Linux Mint on my workstations. Mix of RedHat Enterprise and CentOS servers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Mon, 15 June 2015, 08:48:44
I installed Ubuntu today, and everything works perfectly! I know, it's a small victory, but hey, I'm excited. I'm enjoying Linux already. :)

This is really the point of Ubuntu. It just works, pretty much every time. People can disparage it all they want for being a corporate distro, but IMO Canonical has done more to spread Linux to the desktop than anyone else.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 15 June 2015, 14:20:30
The only real complaint I ever had with Ubuntu was Unity and later the adware. That's why I switched to Linux Mint as it was an improved version of Ubuntu without the ugly interface. People complained about Metro on Win8 but I thought Unity was much worse.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Mon, 15 June 2015, 14:26:38
The only real complaint I ever had with Ubuntu was Unity and later the adware. That's why I switched to Linux Mint as it was an improved version of Ubuntu without the ugly interface. People complained about Metro on Win8 but I thought Unity was much worse.

Unity is not great, but then you don't have to use it. With Win 8, Metro is forced on you, and to a lesser extent in Win 8.1. But with Ubuntu, you can always install Gnome, Gnome Flashback, KDE, XFCE, or whatever you like. Having an underlying system that works 100% at install is great. By extension, Mint would also be great, as it's based on Ubuntu (or Debian).

I really think Canonical looked at the popularity of netbooks at the time as a sign on things to come, and designed the Unity UI to work with netbooks. Enter the iPad, and netbooks are all but dead.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nephiel on Mon, 15 June 2015, 14:45:15
Custom #!-gone-debian here. I like my OS lightweight and snappy.

Sadly, most distros today come by default with stuff that 1) I don't really need and 2) tends to cause more trouble than it's worth: unity, pulseaudio, systemd...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 16 June 2015, 06:46:01
IMO Canonical has done more to spread Linux to the desktop than anyone else.
Now it's their time to step aside :p

(http://i.imgur.com/RSr0jRF.png?1)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Tue, 16 June 2015, 13:10:47
Manjaro (OpenRC spin), Gentoo (OpenRC), Void (runit) and Slackware are 4 alternatives to systemd distros. I don't think any of the other alternatives are quite as functional right now. Void is the freshest one of those and comes with a very attractive set of perks, so I'm gonna try that one next.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 16 June 2015, 14:19:32
Manjaro (OpenRC spin), Gentoo (OpenRC), Void (runit) and Slackware are 4 alternatives to systemd distros. I don't think any of the other alternatives are quite as functional right now.
why are you ruling out PCLinuxOS?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Tue, 16 June 2015, 15:25:46
I just never looked at it, TBH. Looks like a user-friendly alternative. Not sure if I'd go back to an 'easy desktop' distro after I've enjoyed a lean Arch install on my old laptop, but it's good to know that beginners can still get there without the systemd stank.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dorkvader on Tue, 16 June 2015, 17:45:13
right now I'm experimenting with windows 10 preview and KolibriOS on my test laptop (neither of which is linux, but its' quite the diverse combination!). mint XFCE on one of my "main" computers since !# support was dropped. I have probably used !# more than any other distro, for about 2 years. I wasn't aware of bunsen and !#++ until user18 told me, I will probably switch to one of those once they become more concrete.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Stargorn on Tue, 16 June 2015, 18:26:05
I'm using Linux mint but have been working up the courage to try arch for a while. While I love mint, I love the idea of building from the ground up more.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Tue, 16 June 2015, 21:37:41
Arch is not difficult at all. Time consuming to setup, maybe, but not difficult. Just follow the instructions and you're golden. And since you install everything, you know what is installed, why it's installed, and what it does. And how to remove it if you don't need or want it.

Sometimes it is just easier to have someone else make those install time decisions for you, and that's why you have your simple but bloated popular distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vizir on Tue, 16 June 2015, 22:11:37
Arch is not difficult at all. Time consuming to setup, maybe, but not difficult. Just follow the instructions and you're golden. And since you install everything, you know what is installed, why it's installed, and what it does. And how to remove it if you don't need or want it.

Sometimes it is just easier to have someone else make those install time decisions for you, and that's why you have your simple but bloated popular distros.
Pretty much. Everything from Windows to MenuetOS. What I mean is, you have everything from every possible hardware and software combination to the absolute minimalist hardware/software combination!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Tue, 16 June 2015, 22:35:17
I'm using Linux mint but have been working up the courage to try arch for a while. While I love mint, I love the idea of building from the ground up more.

I think a lot of the stigma of the "difficulty" of arch is that some of its more prominent/outspoken members can be real elitist *******s. this is definitely a minority, in my experience, but they do pop up now and  then.

just fire up a VM, practice in there, and use the arch wiki. I almost never have to post on the forums anymore. what really makes arch amazing, to me, is its package manager - fast, written in C, and by a Canadian to boot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 16 June 2015, 23:47:58
I'm using Linux mint but have been working up the courage to try arch for a while. While I love mint, I love the idea of building from the ground up more.

I think a lot of the stigma of the "difficulty" of arch is that some of its more prominent/outspoken members can be real elitist *******s. this is definitely a minority, in my experience, but they do pop up now and  then.

just fire up a VM, practice in there, and use the arch wiki. I almost never have to post on the forums anymore. what really makes arch amazing, to me, is its package manager - fast, written in C, and by a Canadian to boot.

Arch wiki is beautiful no matter what distro you're using, really. Ton of good info there.

Arch is also somewhat intimidating because it starts you with a command line and nothing else. Someone reasonably comfortable with another distro and using the terminal already shouldn't be put off by that too much, but I'd still call it a factor.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 17 June 2015, 00:39:26
I'm using Linux mint but have been working up the courage to try arch for a while. While I love mint, I love the idea of building from the ground up more.

I think a lot of the stigma of the "difficulty" of arch is that some of its more prominent/outspoken members can be real elitist *******s. this is definitely a minority, in my experience, but they do pop up now and  then.

just fire up a VM, practice in there, and use the arch wiki. I almost never have to post on the forums anymore. what really makes arch amazing, to me, is its package manager - fast, written in C, and by a Canadian to boot.

Arch wiki is beautiful no matter what distro you're using, really. Ton of good info there.

Arch is also somewhat intimidating because it starts you with a command line and nothing else. Someone reasonably comfortable with another distro and using the terminal already shouldn't be put off by that too much, but I'd still call it a factor.

I found Arch mostly fine, but because I wanted something up and running quickly, I simply did not have the time to read all of the necessary reference material.

But for those that do have the time - it is great!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 17 June 2015, 02:43:04
I like the prospect of Arch and I'm good in the Debian based terminals, but I've not worked up the desire to try to actually use Arch. Typically I don't keep Linux installed long enough to make it worth my time, though I do want to try it out someday. I typically program in Windows and I get a lot of crap for it from others who think OSX is the best, but I use Cygwin which is a great alternative to an entirely different OS. I just want something that works without having to deal with multibooting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 17 June 2015, 03:04:13
I like the prospect of Arch and I'm good in the Debian based terminals, but I've not worked up the desire to try to actually use Arch. Typically I don't keep Linux installed long enough to make it worth my time, though I do want to try it out someday. I typically program in Windows and I get a lot of crap for it from others who think OSX is the best, but I use Cygwin which is a great alternative to an entirely different OS. I just want something that works without having to deal with multibooting.

You sound like an archer. ;) Why do you choose to stay in windows? Ive been coding in all three oses you have mentioned. Depending on what you are coding(if not x platform stuff, or visual studio) nix is by far the smoothest.

I prefer using VIM for most of my coding(everything except java). i do some java in IntelliJ. The rest of the stuff invloved in programming like version control, building etc are done in the terminal when youve done this a couple of times you get more effective, more so than clicking around in version control guis and click builders. You learn how to use buildflags in proper ways and so on.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 17 June 2015, 03:42:11
You sound like an archer. ;) Why do you choose to stay in windows? Ive been coding in all three oses you have mentioned. Depending on what you are coding(if not x platform stuff, or visual studio) nix is by far the smoothest.

I prefer using VIM for most of my coding(everything except java). i do some java in IntelliJ. The rest of the stuff invloved in programming like version control, building etc are done in the terminal when youve done this a couple of times you get more effective, more so than clicking around in version control guis and click builders. You learn how to use buildflags in proper ways and so on.

Well I do most of my coding on my laptop which is running Win8. I have three disks, a 16GB SSD,  500GB HDD, and 250GB HDD. I can't normally see the SSD because of the way Win8 is setup as my laptop cold boots to the login screen in about 8 seconds or so. I don't want to mess with dual/multiboot in that sense.

I also work IT so I have to be able to do things in Windows and I'd prefer to stay on my laptop than switching back and forth to the all in one at the helpdesk. Also whenever there is downtime I game on Steam and not enough games are on Linux yet. I also use OneDrive for all of my documents and such, which isn't all that good for Linux. Overall, I think it is a good prospect, but it just doesn't work for me currently.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 17 June 2015, 03:51:30
Manjaro (OpenRC spin), Gentoo (OpenRC), Void (runit) and Slackware are 4 alternatives to systemd distros. I don't think any of the other alternatives are quite as functional right now. Void is the freshest one of those and comes with a very attractive set of perks, so I'm gonna try that one next.

void is awesome. runit is awesome! if you've used arch + aur you will probably not have a hard time getting used to void, but there aren't a ton of packages right now.
i just switched my work machine from debian wheezy to void and so far i really like it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Wed, 17 June 2015, 03:57:08
Anybody tried NixOS?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 17 June 2015, 04:10:33
i haven't tried it but i have a friend that likes it. neat idea for spinning up quick VMs to do dirty work :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Wed, 17 June 2015, 04:32:55
i haven't tried it but i have a friend that likes it. neat idea for spinning up quick VMs to do dirty work :)
I guess you're right :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 17 June 2015, 05:56:09
You sound like an archer. ;) Why do you choose to stay in windows? Ive been coding in all three oses you have mentioned. Depending on what you are coding(if not x platform stuff, or visual studio) nix is by far the smoothest.

I prefer using VIM for most of my coding(everything except java). i do some java in IntelliJ. The rest of the stuff invloved in programming like version control, building etc are done in the terminal when youve done this a couple of times you get more effective, more so than clicking around in version control guis and click builders. You learn how to use buildflags in proper ways and so on.

Well I do most of my coding on my laptop which is running Win8. I have three disks, a 16GB SSD,  500GB HDD, and 250GB HDD. I can't normally see the SSD because of the way Win8 is setup as my laptop cold boots to the login screen in about 8 seconds or so. I don't want to mess with dual/multiboot in that sense.

I also work IT so I have to be able to do things in Windows and I'd prefer to stay on my laptop than switching back and forth to the all in one at the helpdesk. Also whenever there is downtime I game on Steam and not enough games are on Linux yet. I also use OneDrive for all of my documents and such, which isn't all that good for Linux. Overall, I think it is a good prospect, but it just doesn't work for me currently.

THen you have  agreat oppurtunity to virtulaize. Im in the same situation at work. I need windows in order to get into the VPN. The host checker forces windows and windows encryption. SO i got a laptop with 32 gb ram :) have a running VM with ARCH
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 17 June 2015, 06:05:34
i haven't tried it but i have a friend that likes it. neat idea for spinning up quick VMs to do dirty work :)

STH IS BACK????
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 17 June 2015, 06:12:37
i haven't tried it but i have a friend that likes it. neat idea for spinning up quick VMs to do dirty work :)

STH IS BACK????

osi has 1000 posts? :confused:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: osi on Wed, 17 June 2015, 06:19:12
i haven't tried it but i have a friend that likes it. neat idea for spinning up quick VMs to do dirty work :)

STH IS BACK????

osi has 1000 posts? :confused:

:D :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thefebruaryman on Wed, 17 June 2015, 12:59:11
Just a shout out to those that talked about ARCH, never tried it before and have fallen for it. Awesome distro. Cheers all
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Wed, 17 June 2015, 15:16:23
Just a shout out to those that talked about ARCH, never tried it before and have fallen for it. Awesome distro. Cheers all
Welcome, bruh :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Wed, 17 June 2015, 15:22:14
Just a shout out to those that talked about ARCH, never tried it before and have fallen for it. Awesome distro. Cheers all

(http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/291262i9000F3EA42C812BD/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 17 June 2015, 15:23:04
i haven't tried it but i have a friend that likes it. neat idea for spinning up quick VMs to do dirty work :)

STH IS BACK????


i've been creepin around :)

like a :llama:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 17 June 2015, 17:08:01
Many arch users here. Anyone tried to replace systemd with OpenRC or something?

I want a distributive which is 1) not Gentoo 2) can be run without systemd 3) allows fine tuning. My ultimate goal is working all day on a single charge.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1o57 on Wed, 17 June 2015, 17:55:35
I kind of collect OSes, like a fish tank but with VMs instead of fish.  It's kind of a hobby.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Wed, 17 June 2015, 23:22:20
Many arch users here. Anyone tried to replace systemd with OpenRC or something?

I want a distributive which is 1) not Gentoo 2) can be run without systemd 3) allows fine tuning. My ultimate goal is working all day on a single charge.

Check out the two stickies with Manjaro OpenRC spins (https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?board=50.0).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 18 June 2015, 00:14:32
Many arch users here. Anyone tried to replace systemd with OpenRC or something?

I want a distributive which is 1) not Gentoo 2) can be run without systemd 3) allows fine tuning. My ultimate goal is working all day on a single charge.

void linux!!! it feels like the olden days of arch (in a good way), it's fast, it uses runit and it has a ports collection.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 18 June 2015, 09:47:42
Many arch users here. Anyone tried to replace systemd with OpenRC or something?

I want a distributive which is 1) not Gentoo 2) can be run without systemd 3) allows fine tuning. My ultimate goal is working all day on a single charge.

Check out the two stickies with Manjaro OpenRC spins (https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?board=50.0).
yeah, thanks, i know about manjaro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Fri, 19 June 2015, 09:23:23
I installed Ubuntu today, and everything works perfectly! I know, it's a small victory, but hey, I'm excited. I'm enjoying Linux already. :)

This is really the point of Ubuntu. It just works, pretty much every time. People can disparage it all they want for being a corporate distro, but IMO Canonical has done more to spread Linux to the desktop than anyone else.

I tend to agree with you.  Ubuntu has always been the Linux Easy Button and because of that more people have started trying a Linux install on their desktops.  It almost always just works.  I used to like it a lot more back when it was a lot lighter, but it is still alright...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 19 June 2015, 16:05:46
I am now writing this from Manjaro on my macbook.

Concerning the battery life, here (http://loicpefferkorn.net/2015/01/arch-linux-on-macbook-pro-retina-2014-with-dm-crypt-lvm-and-suspend-to-disk/#power-saving:385892e3ac2613dca78d22bd09dbae7d) is the blog post whose author claims to reach almost 9.5 hours of battery life (he is using Arch).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cakewizard on Sat, 04 July 2015, 05:37:46
Debian + i3wm on my desktop, Arch + i3wm on a laptop, OS X/Debian on a MacBook.

<3 Tiling window managers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: flabbergast on Sat, 04 July 2015, 06:18:54
Thanks guys - I didn't know about void linux before and I love it!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 04 July 2015, 07:06:53
An actual new distro?  It's been a while since I've heard of one of them, will have to give Void a go!

On a sidenote I've tried Fedora, Suse and a couple of Ubuntu derivatives in the past year and none of them successfully boot my Windows installation without editing grub files.  Perhaps I did something weird but it doesn't seem newbie friendly and reminds me of the distant past when I installed Mandrake Linux (renamed to Mandriva in 2005, this was years before that) on the family computer, hosed the bootloader, and landed up reformatting to get Windows back and lost everything :-[
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 04 July 2015, 13:24:02
On a sidenote I've tried Fedora, Suse and a couple of Ubuntu derivatives in the past year and none of them successfully boot my Windows installation without editing grub files.  Perhaps I did something weird but it doesn't seem newbie friendly and reminds me of the distant past when I installed Mandrake Linux (renamed to Mandriva in 2005, this was years before that) on the family computer, hosed the bootloader, and landed up reformatting to get Windows back and lost everything :-[

This is my usual process:

1. Shut down the PC
2. Unplug the drive containing the Windows installation, use a second motherboard port to plug in the drive you're going to put linux on.
3. Install linux to the new drive, install grub (or other bootloader) when prompted during installation.
4. After your linux is up and running, shut down the PC.
5. Plug the hard drive containing the Windows installation back in.
6. Boot into linux (grub will not detect your Windows install yet).
7. Open a terminal, run sudo update-grub.
8. You should now be able to boot the Windows installation.

That has always worked for me for getting grub to pick up the previous installation. If the grub menu is not showing at boot for some reason, I believe editing configuration files will be necessary.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Sat, 04 July 2015, 14:55:42
Thanks guys - I didn't know about void linux before and I love it!

An actual new distro?  It's been a while since I've heard of one of them, will have to give Void a go!


yessss do it!! the installer is fudged up so you have to be a little deft but once it's on your disk it is the best thing since cup rubber
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Sat, 04 July 2015, 17:10:24
I read that as daft instead of deft and got seriously confused. I must be daft.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 04 July 2015, 17:24:42
On a sidenote I've tried Fedora, Suse and a couple of Ubuntu derivatives in the past year and none of them successfully boot my Windows installation without editing grub files.  Perhaps I did something weird but it doesn't seem newbie friendly and reminds me of the distant past when I installed Mandrake Linux (renamed to Mandriva in 2005, this was years before that) on the family computer, hosed the bootloader, and landed up reformatting to get Windows back and lost everything :-[

This is my usual process:

1. Shut down the PC
2. Unplug the drive containing the Windows installation, use a second motherboard port to plug in the drive you're going to put linux on.
3. Install linux to the new drive, install grub (or other bootloader) when prompted during installation.
4. After your linux is up and running, shut down the PC.
5. Plug the hard drive containing the Windows installation back in.
6. Boot into linux (grub will not detect your Windows install yet).
7. Open a terminal, run sudo update-grub.
8. You should now be able to boot the Windows installation.

That has always worked for me for getting grub to pick up the previous installation. If the grub menu is not showing at boot for some reason, I believe editing configuration files will be necessary.

Thanks, sounds like we have the same method - multiple drives are handy.  Grub always makes an entry for Windows but it just sits there rather with a black screen rather than booting it.  It's been a while so I just  tried to find what I had to bodge but everything's changed (running Fedora atm) so seems it now autodetects correctly, or it's copied my bodge when it upgraded...

Void is downloading as I type so I will find out shortly :)


Edit:  The Void installer uses NCurses?!  Haven't seen that since Slackware :))

It wants an EFI partition though, and the iso I download doesn't come with fdisk, cfdisk or parted so I couldn't make one.  Is there anything else I should know about the installer?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 06 July 2015, 01:49:56
i dont know about parted but the iso i had came with cfdisk. you might need to be root to run it. i am   running bios instead of uefi because lazy so i haven't had to deal with that crap in a while

you should however be able to download and install anything on the live CD using xbps-install <pkgname> as root. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Mon, 06 July 2015, 19:51:12
I went with the Enlightenment iso, it has firefox and a terminal thing but that's about it :))

Void is installed but didn't overwrite grub like I asked it to.  Running grub2-update on my old Fedora install finds Void, but it doesn't actually add it to the list.  Trying to load Void manually from the grub console when booting also doesn't work as I can't make it find the root fs (it thinks sda-f are removable so seems to be picking USB card reader first, but later letters also don't work)

Next on the list to try is chrooting into Void and installing grub there, then if still no joy it's "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda" time (if you don't know what this does don't be tempted to run it!)  I've not tried a proper distro since all this UEFI stuff came into being so not sure what I'm running and that's worrying, so the last option might actually be the best.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: t888 on Sat, 11 July 2015, 11:13:09
I use Mint Linux on my notebook PCs, Raspian on RPi (though I might try Fedora Remix on RPi2), and CentOS/RHEL or Amazon Linux for professional stuff.  I used to like to try different distributions, but now I just want something that works for my purposes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vizir on Sat, 11 July 2015, 15:06:54
I use Mint Linux on my notebook PCs, Raspian on RPi (though I might try Fedora Remix on RPi2), and CentOS/RHEL or Amazon Linux for professional stuff.  I used to like to try different distributions, but now I just want something that works for my purposes.
Pretty much what I do with my machines at with and home.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 12 July 2015, 17:27:23
Void has finally installed in a bootable state and I'm pleased to report it is the first distro to add a working entry for Windows install.

The only problem is that the installation from the Enlightenment ISO is so bare I'm lost - the terminal doesn't even have double-tab autocomplete enabled, and my arrow keys are sending character codes so I have to type everything manually and perfectly :))

Not sure whether this is a good thing as I'll have to relearn Linux and type better, or if it's just going to annoy me.

Edit: updated and the flashy double tab now works, as do arrows.  Guess the installer is newer than the image it installs...

So far - no audacity.  This is not acceptable but if it's the only problem I encounter I'll try and get it added to the repository.

Edit 2: Failed to restart after updates, even using the old kernel.  Some breakage is to be expected but this is too much I think.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 12 July 2015, 18:19:20
I use Arch on my desktop and laptop and Debian on my server.

I've never heard of Void but I think I need to check it out now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 13 July 2015, 01:20:40
Void has finally installed in a bootable state and I'm pleased to report it is the first distro to add a working entry for Windows install.

The only problem is that the installation from the Enlightenment ISO is so bare I'm lost - the terminal doesn't even have double-tab autocomplete enabled, and my arrow keys are sending character codes so I have to type everything manually and perfectly :))

Not sure whether this is a good thing as I'll have to relearn Linux and type better, or if it's just going to annoy me.

Edit: updated and the flashy double tab now works, as do arrows.  Guess the installer is newer than the image it installs...

So far - no audacity.  This is not acceptable but if it's the only problem I encounter I'll try and get it added to the repository.

Edit 2: Failed to restart after updates, even using the old kernel.  Some breakage is to be expected but this is too much I think.

installer does not enable bash completion by default, esp. not for root and root runs dash, not bash by default.

also i have audacity, i might have built it from the packages but it works fine, wish i could be more helpful. hopefully it will work out for you, if not... well, there are lots of distros   :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 15 July 2015, 16:45:54
So finally got back to this, there's a new Void iso so I installed from that and guess what?  It's renamed all my hard drives and put the USB card reader first.  I guess that's why it didn't reboot last time, though fstab is using UUID so it shouldn't have mattered.

Just as a warning to anyone thinking of installing watch out if you're adding partitions without reformatting them - despite saying no to format it marked them all as "NEW FILESYSTEM" when I chose the install option.  Going back to the mount point bit and re-doing the partition I did want formatted corrected the issue.  So close to losing all my stuff! :eek:

Edit: Audacity is now available and installing!  I'm thinking the Enlightenment iso must have been really old...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: StormyMonday on Sat, 25 July 2015, 07:07:18
I started with Red Hat, back in the mid-90's. Even though I like to explore, I've always had Mint on a machine, since ver. 7. I'm currently running Mint 17.2 / Cinnamon on my Lenovo T420.

 I've been tinkering with FreeBSD lately and it's starting to grow on me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 05 August 2015, 05:44:41
Anyone using a 4K monitor? What distro or desktop environment does high DPI scaling?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 05 August 2015, 06:47:07

Edit: Audacity is now available and installing!  I'm thinking the Enlightenment iso must have been really old...

cool thanks for the info - ive been running a build from void-packages. what version is in xbps repos?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 05 August 2015, 06:57:39
Anyone using a 4K monitor? What distro or desktop environment does high DPI scaling?
Let me look that up for you (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 05 August 2015, 07:52:08
I mean it says it works but it could be total ass. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 05 August 2015, 07:55:35
what is being a linux user if not one of the two:

you buy expensive new stuff and figure out how to get it working

you buy old stuff and stay conservative (me)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 05 August 2015, 07:55:37
It's total ****.

To answer your other question -- I use Apple's 4K monitor.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 05 August 2015, 09:03:44
Apple's 4K monitor.

You mean you got the 5K iMac?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 05 August 2015, 09:19:21
I use the macbook pro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Goggles2114 on Wed, 05 August 2015, 09:31:27
I use xbuntu 14.10

Then again I've used Mint, Vector, Crunchbang, Peppermint, puppy...

I'm on a single core atom as my linux deice so always on the hunt for something that balances usability with leanness. Just trying to keep ye olden CR48 running. It's been a fairly good box.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Wed, 05 August 2015, 10:59:20
Ha the proto-Chrome Book. Nobody kept Chrome OS, they just wanted a free computer to run X distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 05 August 2015, 12:50:08
I use xbuntu 14.10

Then again I've used Mint, Vector, Crunchbang, Peppermint, puppy...

I'm on a single core atom as my linux deice so always on the hunt for something that balances usability with leanness. Just trying to keep ye olden CR48 running. It's been a fairly good box.

most egregiously large ctrl alt to grace a laptop
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Goggles2114 on Wed, 05 August 2015, 14:24:31
It was less 'do away with chrome OS' because i ran with Chrome OS until the commercial products shipped. It was more 'I needed someting because this was the only working computer.'

I've kept it since because decent backup.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Wed, 05 August 2015, 14:35:33
Ha the proto-Chrome Book. Nobody kept Chrome OS, they just wanted a free computer to run X distro.

I kept Chrome OS on mine. :(

Until the hinge broke, and the battery wouldn't charge anymore. :'(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vizir on Wed, 05 August 2015, 20:50:00
Anyone using a 4K monitor? What distro or desktop environment does high DPI scaling?
Linux Mint Cinnamon does work, it might not always auto-detect, but you can enable/disable scaling in the preferences pane.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 06 August 2015, 06:51:05
It's Cinnamon, not necessarily in Mint. Supports HiDPI out of the box.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: StormyMonday on Sat, 08 August 2015, 18:23:32
I use xbuntu 14.10

Then again I've used Mint, Vector, Crunchbang, Peppermint, puppy...

I'm on a single core atom as my linux deice so always on the hunt for something that balances usability with leanness. Just trying to keep ye olden CR48 running. It's been a fairly good box.


Thanks for reminding me about Crunchbang. It's so sad that project was finally abandoned; that was a great distro and it is still influencing other distros to this day. If not for #!, I probably would have never learned how to write a Conky script, so I'm thankful for that. Speaking of influence, I've just got to get around to checking out ArchBang. One of these days ...

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 08 August 2015, 19:18:31
I use xbuntu 14.10

Then again I've used Mint, Vector, Crunchbang, Peppermint, puppy...

I'm on a single core atom as my linux deice so always on the hunt for something that balances usability with leanness. Just trying to keep ye olden CR48 running. It's been a fairly good box.


Thanks for reminding me about Crunchbang. It's so sad that project was finally abandoned; that was a great distro and it is still influencing other distros to this day. If not for #!, I probably would have never learned how to write a Conky script, so I'm thankful for that. Speaking of influence, I've just got to get around to checking out ArchBang. One of these days ...

BunsenLabs has a pretty solid alpha build of Hydrogen out, I need to download and play around with it at some point, but so far I really like the look of what that team has done: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=39994&p=1
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Thu, 13 August 2015, 01:22:22
Related question. I'm looking to grab a Thinkpad X200. I know it's old, but it's on eBay for 100€ whereas an X201 would be 150ish. Am I crazy for thinking a P8600 2,4 GHz dual-core is enough for most Linux tasks?

Anyway. As far as operating systems to go with it, I'd like some input from people who use that laptop. Was thinking either Manjaro as a replacement for Arch (I don't wanna deal with a manual install. RIP install scripts.), Crunchbang++ representing Debian or possibly Void. Can anyone tell me if all your important hardware worked properly on those distros? Mute-button I can do without or fix it by hand. Low power draw is very important. I'll probably undervolt it as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 13 August 2015, 10:11:35
Related question. I'm looking to grab a Thinkpad X200. I know it's old, but it's on eBay for 100€ whereas an X201 would be 150ish. Am I crazy for thinking a P8600 2,4 GHz dual-core is enough for most Linux tasks?

Anyway. As far as operating systems to go with it, I'd like some input from people who use that laptop. Was thinking either Manjaro as a replacement for Arch (I don't wanna deal with a manual install. RIP install scripts.), Crunchbang++ representing Debian or possibly Void. Can anyone tell me if all your important hardware worked properly on those distros? Mute-button I can do without or fix it by hand. Low power draw is very important. I'll probably undervolt it as well.

The machine I'm using right now is running Crunchbang on a six year old machine with a 1.6 GHz single core and 2GB of RAM. I find it to be quite capable as long as I keep those limits in mind. I've never used an x200 myself, but Crunchbang in my experience has been very kind to machines without much in the way of system resources.

The only hardware function my machine had issues with was the button to disable the trackpad. WiFi, audio, video, SD card reader, laptop brightness control, etc. all worked out of the box, so to speak.

Now, #!++ is not crunchbang, so I can't say for certain how it handles similar challenges. But I know it was designed to meet similar criteria, so I would say it has a reasonable chance of working similarly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 13 August 2015, 18:20:04
Traditionally, IBM and Lenovo has had good support for Linux.
I can't speak specifically for the X200, but I can for the individual parts in it. In terms of speed, my Sony has a P8500 and runs Linux just fine (good processor actually). Where you may have issues is with the wireless card, it's probably going to need the Iwlwifi driver, which frankly, I think isn't all that great, it works, but shutting down can be slow, it's better than it used to be though. Other than that, you should have no problems. Worst case, buy a different wireless card for $10. If you have an old SSD, throw that in, newer ones will not be any faster due to the Sata2 speed. With that, the system will perform similar to a modern mid-level notebook, or at least feel like it.

I initially wrote a post about encouraging you to reconsider the x201 for future proofing reasons but after researching it, there's almost no difference between the two. Both have an 8gig limit, ddr3, sata2, same screen resolution, Win10 support... Even battery life and processing power is similar. The only real benefit over the x200 is that the x201 adds a touchpad, 300meg wifi (vs 150), and more readily accepts 8gigs of memory (the x200 requires specific memory and/or bios tweaks to do so).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Thu, 13 August 2015, 19:12:47
I really don't think a p8600 makes a good lappy these days..

In the USA,  we have  boat loads of used T420, for  $185 USD..  this is almost always on sale at this price..


T420 has 2520m.. which is more than twice as fast as the p8600

But it's larger than the x201..


I still roll an x220 myself, also a 2520m..  but it was one of the first to get IPS screen (http://www.cute-factor.com/images/smilies/onion/063.gif) albeit low res.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Fri, 14 August 2015, 00:31:36
I'm kinda sold on the ultrabook form factor so it'd be either the X200, the 201 or the 220 I suppose. But performance isn't free and the question is - do I really need it? Running Linux of all things? That means work, word processing, internet, youtube, social, vintage and indie games.

You're right, the P8XXX line is pretty damn good. They stay cool and don't draw much power. Of course the various i5's give you a performance bump, but I'd have to pay 150-180 for one of these other two laptops.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: merfed on Fri, 14 August 2015, 14:25:09
I recently switched over to arch for my T430 and I'm liking it a bit more once I ditched the DE. It's mainly just for small projects an school related stuff. For actual classes I still have to use W7, and that's still what I'm using at home for daily use, but I am enjoying what arch has to offer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 14 August 2015, 18:45:08
you ditched the DE for what?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 14 August 2015, 18:50:28
you ditched the DE for what?
My guess would be for nothing -- DEs are optional.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 15 August 2015, 01:29:57
I really don't think a p8600 makes a good lappy these days..

High end C2D's were extremely fast, faster than most people realize, a P8600 keeps up with mid level second gen Core I5's and is barely slower than a 3rd gen.

Hardware simply has not marched on like you think it has since the Core2 era. The primary focus has really been on power consumption, performance improvements have come from SATA3, more memory, and SSD's. Not so much from the processors really.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: merfed on Sat, 15 August 2015, 02:16:44
you ditched the DE for what?
My guess would be for nothing -- DEs are optional.

Yep. I use Openbox for window management.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 15 August 2015, 05:07:07
Openbox, good.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Sat, 15 August 2015, 23:43:06
I really don't think a p8600 makes a good lappy these days..

High end C2D's were extremely fast, faster than most people realize, a P8600 keeps up with mid level second gen Core I5's and is barely slower than a 3rd gen.

Hardware simply has not marched on like you think it has since the Core2 era. The primary focus has really been on power consumption, performance improvements have come from SATA3, more memory, and SSD's. Not so much from the processors really.


Say wha...   p8600 is like 1500 cpu bench,   2520m is 3000+    double IPC
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 16 August 2015, 01:55:12
I really don't think a p8600 makes a good lappy these days..
High end C2D's were extremely fast, faster than most people realize, a P8600 keeps up with mid level second gen Core I5's and is barely slower than a 3rd gen.
Hardware simply has not marched on like you think it has since the Core2 era. The primary focus has really been on power consumption, performance improvements have come from SATA3, more memory, and SSD's. Not so much from the processors really.
Say wha...   p8600 is like 1500 cpu bench,   2520m is 3000+    double IPC
Depends on the benchmark you look at and what you are doing, not to mention processor differences get dulled by other components. Which is why you shouldn't rely so much on benchmarks that is focused only on one component.

I have several notebooks, all either had or do have the same drives (Crucial M4 ssd):
C2d P8500
I5 460m
I3 2310 (upgraded to the 2540)
I5 2540

According to benchmarks the I3 should be faster, the reality was that it made me angry how slow it felt in comparison to the C2D. I put 6 gigs in it and even then, it felt sluggish. So much that I sought out the 2540, and while it did wake it up, it was still just a step up in performance compared to the C2D. With only 4 gigs, you would be hard pressed to know the C2D from the 2540. I got the 460m later and that needed 8 gigs to match the 2540 with 6 gigs.

I'm sure benchmarking them would show the 2540 slaughtering the entire field, in the real world it just doesn't. Why? MY guess is they are starved for data, be it because of the memory, or a combination memory and Sata2 connection.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Sun, 16 August 2015, 04:57:42
I really don't think a p8600 makes a good lappy these days..
High end C2D's were extremely fast, faster than most people realize, a P8600 keeps up with mid level second gen Core I5's and is barely slower than a 3rd gen.
Hardware simply has not marched on like you think it has since the Core2 era. The primary focus has really been on power consumption, performance improvements have come from SATA3, more memory, and SSD's. Not so much from the processors really.
Say wha...   p8600 is like 1500 cpu bench,   2520m is 3000+    double IPC
Depends on the benchmark you look at and what you are doing, not to mention processor differences get dulled by other components. Which is why you shouldn't rely so much on benchmarks that is focused only on one component.

I have several notebooks, all either had or do have the same drives (Crucial M4 ssd):
C2d P8500
I5 460m
I3 2310 (upgraded to the 2540)
I5 2540

According to benchmarks the I3 should be faster, the reality was that it made me angry how slow it felt in comparison to the C2D. I put 6 gigs in it and even then, it felt sluggish. So much that I sought out the 2540, and while it did wake it up, it was still just a step up in performance compared to the C2D. With only 4 gigs, you would be hard pressed to know the C2D from the 2540. I got the 460m later and that needed 8 gigs to match the 2540 with 6 gigs.

I'm sure benchmarking them would show the 2540 slaughtering the entire field, in the real world it just doesn't. Why? MY guess is they are starved for data, be it because of the memory, or a combination memory and Sata2 connection.


I think it's probably due to power gating..

I've had this problem on many laptops,  where the aggressive power plan (windows Balanced) downclocks the cpu and possibly the chipset,  this raises DPC latency.. causing stutters..

But if I put it in High performance mode,  everything becomes super smooth..

I think that may have been the case if your i3 was feeling slow..

vs the i5,  the 2540m also has 3.3ghz turbo,  and it can actually turbo both cores to 3.3 for a short while, / when temperatures allow it. (depending on manufacturer of laptop)


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 16 August 2015, 06:09:50
Traditionally, IBM and Lenovo has had good support for Linux.
I can't speak specifically for the X200, but I can for the individual parts in it. In terms of speed, my Sony has a P8500 and runs Linux just fine (good processor actually). Where you may have issues is with the wireless card, it's probably going to need the Iwlwifi driver, which frankly, I think isn't all that great, it works, but shutting down can be slow, it's better than it used to be though. Other than that, you should have no problems. Worst case, buy a different wireless card for $10. If you have an old SSD, throw that in, newer ones will not be any faster due to the Sata2 speed. With that, the system will perform similar to a modern mid-level notebook, or at least feel like it.

I initially wrote a post about encouraging you to reconsider the x201 for future proofing reasons but after researching it, there's almost no difference between the two. Both have an 8gig limit, ddr3, sata2, same screen resolution, Win10 support... Even battery life and processing power is similar. The only real benefit over the x200 is that the x201 adds a touchpad, 300meg wifi (vs 150), and more readily accepts 8gigs of memory (the x200 requires specific memory and/or bios tweaks to do so).
Actually, the #1 reason to get X201 instead of X200 is the graphic chip. Drivers work slightly better, and esp. hardware video decoding works out of the box with Intel HD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Sun, 16 August 2015, 11:45:42
Traditionally, IBM and Lenovo has had good support for Linux.
I can't speak specifically for the X200, but I can for the individual parts in it. In terms of speed, my Sony has a P8500 and runs Linux just fine (good processor actually). Where you may have issues is with the wireless card, it's probably going to need the Iwlwifi driver, which frankly, I think isn't all that great, it works, but shutting down can be slow, it's better than it used to be though. Other than that, you should have no problems. Worst case, buy a different wireless card for $10. If you have an old SSD, throw that in, newer ones will not be any faster due to the Sata2 speed. With that, the system will perform similar to a modern mid-level notebook, or at least feel like it.

I initially wrote a post about encouraging you to reconsider the x201 for future proofing reasons but after researching it, there's almost no difference between the two. Both have an 8gig limit, ddr3, sata2, same screen resolution, Win10 support... Even battery life and processing power is similar. The only real benefit over the x200 is that the x201 adds a touchpad, 300meg wifi (vs 150), and more readily accepts 8gigs of memory (the x200 requires specific memory and/or bios tweaks to do so).
Actually, the #1 reason to get X201 instead of X200 is the graphic chip. Drivers work slightly better, and esp. hardware video decoding works out of the box with Intel HD.


Well the X201 also has a cpu that approaches  ~3000 cpu score.. 

so it's much closer to modern gen Cpu than the p8600..


But seriously.. USA,  t420,  boat loads for $180..  what's wrong with that..   It's sandy bridge 2520m..  like,  that's the best price for the most modern spec..

I'm also quite sure the t420 allows for bios modding to support non-lenovo branded intel 6300 wifi cards..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 16 August 2015, 18:17:11
I think it's probably due to power gating..

I've had this problem on many laptops,  where the aggressive power plan (windows Balanced) downclocks the cpu and possibly the chipset,  this raises DPC latency.. causing stutters..

But if I put it in High performance mode,  everything becomes super smooth..

I think that may have been the case if your i3 was feeling slow..

vs the i5,  the 2540m also has 3.3ghz turbo,  and it can actually turbo both cores to 3.3 for a short while, / when temperatures allow it. (depending on manufacturer of laptop)
I get what you are saying, however, that's not the case.

All were fresh installs using identical power plans, balanced as well as performance mode, all used Win7 configured the same as well. 
Yes, the I3 did smooth out some in performance mode, but it was still garbage, while none of the others required this. The I3 was swapped out for the 2540 without a re-install just to see if it made a difference, which it did.

Given identical memory, as I said, you would be hard to tell on a day to day basis which was which, other than the I3.  Could you tell in something seriously demanding long term, probably, but 99% of the time, you wouldn't know the difference.  It is possible that the newer processors simply needed more memory to wake up, it wouldn't be the first time I've seen that, but I don't have 8 gigs I can put into the p8500 to do a comparison. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every C2d is better, but the higher end ones, can still hold their own.

I would still rather have, and do recommend the CI series over the C2d, but I wouldn't say it's no longer worth using, especially when Intel is shipping low end C2d's repackaged (Pentium) and AMD has only just exceeded high end C2d performance with the A6 and A8 series.



Actually, the #1 reason to get X201 instead of X200 is the graphic chip. Drivers work slightly better, and esp. hardware video decoding works out of the box with Intel HD.
I agree, with you, it's the best reason, but is it worth 50% more money? probably not.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Sun, 16 August 2015, 18:42:52
AGH! I have an extra desktop that I can't get anyone to buy on Craigslist so I decided to make it a Linux machine. Used a new case since the old one is pretty bad and now the PSU cables won't reach.  :mad:

Now it'll be another week before I can get Linux Mint or Arch up and running again.  :'(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Sun, 16 August 2015, 22:35:06
AGH! I have an extra desktop that I can't get anyone to buy on Craigslist so I decided to make it a Linux machine. Used a new case since the old one is pretty bad and now the PSU cables won't reach.  :mad:

Now it'll be another week before I can get Linux Mint or Arch up and running again.  :'(

It won't reach even from the front?..

You can put the 8 pin mobo line under the graphics card where the notch is.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 16 August 2015, 23:00:08
AGH! I have an extra desktop that I can't get anyone to buy on Craigslist so I decided to make it a Linux machine. Used a new case since the old one is pretty bad and now the PSU cables won't reach.  :mad:

Now it'll be another week before I can get Linux Mint or Arch up and running again.  :'(

It won't reach even from the front?..

You can put the 8 pin mobo line under the graphics card where the notch is.

If it's a full tower case, I know some PSUs with short leads have trouble reaching even following the most direct path to the plug.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 17 August 2015, 02:59:21
It's not a full tower case but it's a large mid tower. The motherboard is a micro-ATX too which doesn't help.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Wed, 19 August 2015, 03:01:43
Cute little P8700 notebook coming in the mail this week! I can't wait to grind my soul to dust trying to install Gentoo on it. It'll be a first, but as long as the documentation holds up...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 19 August 2015, 03:10:58
Cute little P8700 notebook coming in the mail this week! I can't wait to grind my soul to dust trying to install Gentoo on it. It'll be a first, but as long as the documentation holds up...

the documentation will hold up. better have something to do while you're waiting for X to compile though :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dan002 on Thu, 20 August 2015, 07:45:40
I  run Rasbian (a distro based on Debian)  on my two Raspberry Pi. So, the model 2 is running a DNS server to block ads. I'm also very lucky to own the original model 1 model B rev. 1 I still use for hacking GPIO.

I also have tried arch linux. I think that the systemctl has potential.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 20 August 2015, 07:46:44
I  run Rasbian (a distro based on Debian)  on my two Raspberry Pi. So, the model 2 is running a DNS server to block ads. I'm also very lucky to own the original model 1 model B rev. 1 I still use for hacking GPIO.

I also have tried arch linux. I think that the systemctl has potential.

try void for pi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: swill on Thu, 20 August 2015, 08:41:52
I  run Rasbian (a distro based on Debian)  on my two Raspberry Pi. So, the model 2 is running a DNS server to block ads. I'm also very lucky to own the original model 1 model B rev. 1 I still use for hacking GPIO.

I also have tried arch linux. I think that the systemctl has potential.

try void for pi

I may actually give void a shot for the Pi.  I have been having issues getting my nic to work with Arch on my Pi's.  Maybe void will work better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Thu, 20 August 2015, 09:23:47
I  run Rasbian (a distro based on Debian)  on my two Raspberry Pi. So, the model 2 is running a DNS server to block ads. I'm also very lucky to own the original model 1 model B rev. 1 I still use for hacking GPIO.

I also have tried arch linux. I think that the systemctl has potential.
Nice setup! I have Arch running on my Pi and love it.

But, what's so special about the model 1 B rev.1? I haven't really kept up with RasbPi development. I also got one of those, and it could use some more RAM. :rolleyes:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 20 August 2015, 10:52:08
I  run Rasbian (a distro based on Debian)  on my two Raspberry Pi. So, the model 2 is running a DNS server to block ads. I'm also very lucky to own the original model 1 model B rev. 1 I still use for hacking GPIO.

I also have tried arch linux. I think that the systemctl has potential.

try void for pi

I may actually give void a shot for the Pi.  I have been having issues getting my nic to work with Arch on my Pi's.  Maybe void will work better.

void is not for the faint of heart... on x86. with raspi you get a nice preconfigured image that boots and works right away :D hope it suits you well. runit is super cool as an init system and void in general is faster than anything i've used (maybe you could eke out better performance with gentoo but as far as binary distros void is awesome).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dan002 on Thu, 20 August 2015, 11:30:42
I  run Rasbian (a distro based on Debian)  on my two Raspberry Pi. So, the model 2 is running a DNS server to block ads. I'm also very lucky to own the original model 1 model B rev. 1 I still use for hacking GPIO.

I also have tried arch linux. I think that the systemctl has potential.
Nice setup! I have Arch running on my Pi and love it.

But, what's so special about the model 1 B rev.1? I haven't really kept up with RasbPi development. I also got one of those, and it could use some more RAM. :rolleyes:
Because they're no longer made mostly. I have an aluminum case for my original pi that's been keeping it save since 2012. Check it out:
[attach=1]
I did a quick search  for Void and it supports the Raspberry pi 2, so I will test it out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Thu, 20 August 2015, 16:48:07
Cute little P8700 notebook coming in the mail this week! I can't wait to grind my soul to dust trying to install Gentoo on it. It'll be a first, but as long as the documentation holds up...

I don't understand.. why couldn't you just save some more money,  and get a better laptop.. in a month

The p8600 is very outdated TODAY,  it will be VERY VERY outdated Tomorrow,

It's a lose lose situation..  Even at $100-150 ,  price to performance ratio is no good..

A USED  x220t (the tablet version of x220, slightly thicker) with 2520m  sells for ~$200-300 on Ebay..

Sandybridge is at least still relevant,  and it has sata 3 and a much more modern GPU..


How long will it take to save another $100..    vs using a slow laptop through 1 to 2 years worth of frustration.


Seriously,  it boggles my mind how you guys think sometimes..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wlhlm on Thu, 20 August 2015, 17:03:11
I  run Rasbian (a distro based on Debian)  on my two Raspberry Pi. So, the model 2 is running a DNS server to block ads. I'm also very lucky to own the original model 1 model B rev. 1 I still use for hacking GPIO.

I also have tried arch linux. I think that the systemctl has potential.
Nice setup! I have Arch running on my Pi and love it.

But, what's so special about the model 1 B rev.1? I haven't really kept up with RasbPi development. I also got one of those, and it could use some more RAM. :rolleyes:
Because they're no longer made mostly. I have an aluminum case for my original pi that's been keeping it save since 2012. Check it out:
(Attachment Link)
I did a quick search  for Void and it supports the Raspberry pi 2, so I will test it out.
Wow, nice case!

I bet it costs trice as much as a RPi. ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Fri, 21 August 2015, 01:30:40
I don't understand.. why couldn't you just save some more money,  and get a better laptop.. in a month

The p8600 is very outdated TODAY,  it will be VERY VERY outdated Tomorrow,

Oudated, relevant.. what does that even mean? It's a CPU. It either works or it doesn't. I'm not trying to follow any tech trends here or stay 'ahead of the curve', I just wanted a cheap notebook for everything but 3D games. Also.. it strikes me as a bit of a waste to put an 2520m on a SUBnotebook with a 12 inch screen. What's gonna be the advantage here besides numbers?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 22 August 2015, 02:21:33
I don't understand.. why couldn't you just save some more money,  and get a better laptop.. in a month

The p8600 is very outdated TODAY,  it will be VERY VERY outdated Tomorrow,

Oudated, relevant.. what does that even mean? It's a CPU. It either works or it doesn't. I'm not trying to follow any tech trends here or stay 'ahead of the curve', I just wanted a cheap notebook for everything but 3D games. Also.. it strikes me as a bit of a waste to put an 2520m on a SUBnotebook with a 12 inch screen. What's gonna be the advantage here besides numbers?

It all comes down to what you need it for.
Operating system hardware requirements peaked a few years back, with a few exceptions, anything made in the last say, 5-7 years is perfectly fine doing office work/web browsing and will remain so.

While this system can handle it, if you spend your days editing video, or with your nose in Solidworks, yeah, you might want something with more grunt (even on a 12in screen).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 25 August 2015, 03:25:37
to whom it may concern

looks like icecat made it into the void repos in the last 24hrs... so far it seems to be more stable than firefox has been (there is a github issue tracker for ff but i havent check the status since temporarily switching to chromium for work stuff).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fishcola on Wed, 26 August 2015, 00:44:23
lol where's the BSD luv? you wan't the best text-adventure game known to man? load a m*thaf*ckin BSD...

I"m somewhere between Debian, fedora/centos, and arch ATM... been in and out of linux for years. I'm excited about the enlightenment project's terminology, and wayland DMs for the future...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 26 August 2015, 02:16:06
lol where's the BSD luv? you wan't the best text-adventure game known to man? load a m*thaf*ckin BSD...

I"m somewhere between Debian, fedora/centos, and arch ATM... been in and out of linux for years. I'm excited about the enlightenment project's terminology, and wayland DMs for the future...

There was some here (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=73048.0), but no-one seemed particularly interested.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 26 August 2015, 02:20:26
lol where's the BSD luv? you wan't the best text-adventure game known to man? load a m*thaf*ckin BSD...

I"m somewhere between Debian, fedora/centos, and arch ATM... been in and out of linux for years. I'm excited about the enlightenment project's terminology, and wayland DMs for the future...

i mean... this is a linux thread... bsd is great though. i use a distro which is largely maintained by an ex-netbsd guy.
wayland looks cool - hopefully i'll get around to playing with it soon.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Wed, 26 August 2015, 06:20:54
to whom it may concern

looks like icecat made it into the void repos in the last 24hrs... so far it seems to be more stable than firefox has been (there is a github issue tracker for ff but i havent check the status since temporarily switching to chromium for work stuff).

I've been checking out Void liveusb for a while now, I'd install it now but my current partitoning is a mess and one of the drives' partial corruption doesn't help. I'm tempted to just get a random small HDD(I don't need sub-second boot times anyway) and install it on that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Wed, 26 August 2015, 07:59:42
I'm excited about the enlightenment project's terminology
Some relevant reading over at Daily WTF (https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/enlightened/8795).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Wed, 26 August 2015, 16:59:47
Jesus Christ I'm never trying Gentoo with LVM & LUKS again. Plain is hard enough.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vizir on Wed, 26 August 2015, 22:28:45
Jesus Christ I'm never trying Gentoo with LVM & LUKS again. Plain is hard enough.
Hahahaha
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fishcola on Thu, 27 August 2015, 01:28:01
heh, i meant it as a half-joke, but I do like how bsds have a way more consistent manpage/anything from shell setup. thanks for the links! harder to trawl the web for good *nix info.

as far as gentoo is concerned, I still haven't taken the plunge into compiling *errything* from src... Make can be a big enough headache by itself!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 27 August 2015, 09:21:23
Jesus Christ I'm never trying Gentoo with LVM & LUKS again. Plain is hard enough.
Again? You are much smarter than I.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: godly_music on Thu, 27 August 2015, 11:37:38
I'm not smart at all, I just wasted 2 days on this ****. Lol. And that wasn't the only stop-gap. Boot-update and grub-install suddenly didn't create a grub.cfg anymore, X kept telling me that I had the wrong number of screens. I was stoked to try Gentoo, but there were just too many issues and I don't have the expertise to know the easy fixes off-hand (I'm sure they exist).

Anyway, I caved and put Manjaro with i3 on it, and it's pretty damn good. Even got the .icc profile for my laptop to load. I was hoping I'd get a lower wattage on Gentoo, but ~7,5w without wifi is good enough for me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Fri, 11 September 2015, 07:32:35
lol where's the BSD luv? you wan't the best text-adventure game known to man? load a m*thaf*ckin BSD...

I"m somewhere between Debian, fedora/centos, and arch ATM... been in and out of linux for years. I'm excited about the enlightenment project's terminology, and wayland DMs for the future...

I ran FreeBSD on my servers for several years. I have a lot of respect for BSD. Having said that, these days I'm running Linux because of Docker. I'm currently evaluating CoreOS as a base OS for Kubernetes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kebby on Sat, 31 October 2015, 08:40:07
Over the years I've used lots of different distros and BSDs, both on and off desktop. Currently really excited about NixOS but I've not had the time to install it on my workstation yet, only for a couple of servers... Debian is my trusted old go-to that I certainly wouldn't replace with anything that uses rpms. :P Anyone else looked at NixOS?

BTW, in 6 hours there will be a live stream on called Twitch Installs Arch Linux (https://www.twitchinstalls.com/). Similar to Twitch Plays Pokemon, the twitch chat will be making group decisions on what to input next into the install process. Do you think they'll make it?  ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 31 October 2015, 10:08:14
BTW, in 6 hours there will be a live stream on called Twitch Installs Arch Linux (https://www.twitchinstalls.com/). Similar to Twitch Plays Pokemon, the twitch chat will be making group decisions on what to input next into the install process. Do you think they'll make it?  ;D

I think rm -rf
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: zlittell on Tue, 03 November 2015, 08:18:27
I always tend to gravitate towards openSuSe or fedora.  I tend to run ubuntu or fedora when going headless though.  I have only installed Gentoo once and that was about 15 years ago haha.  I remember it being fun but painful! 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 03 November 2015, 08:45:16
15 years later, it's still painful.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: zlittell on Tue, 03 November 2015, 08:59:08
I have a feeling the 15 years ago thing making me a "kid" made it way more fun than time crunched adult me would have now haha.  Need to get some sort of gentoo flag for my yard.  "For our brothers of gentoo <3"
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kebby on Tue, 03 November 2015, 18:50:33
If you think Gentoo install is painful you should try Linux From Scratch (LFS). Not really a distro, just a bunch of instructions for how to build a Linux install from source archives.

I wouldn't actually use a system like that, hard to maintain with few benefits, but they do write it like you might even want to do that. I've done it once many years ago and It's a long process but also fairly educational.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ctm on Sun, 08 November 2015, 14:33:46
I use Ubuntu with Unity on my desktop and Lubuntu on my Surface in VMWare because of low available memory (I wish I bought the 8GB RAM model). I also use OpenBox sometimes when I need to save more memory.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thelectronicnub on Mon, 09 November 2015, 22:31:21
(https://i.imgur.com/yPqktPR.jpg)

even if this is old it's pretty funny

using xubuntu on my c2d dell laptop, works pretty well for general use, even with only 2gb of ram

using ubuntu server on my c2q box for octoprint, a few websites, plex, and an nginx reverse proxy so i can access my router when i'm not at home
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: umeboshi on Tue, 10 November 2015, 00:08:16
Just reinstalled the latest Linux Mint xfce on an old eeepc, and surprised that it runs pretty well...just need to get the wifi driver going though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: angelic_sedition on Tue, 10 November 2015, 00:33:48
Over the years I've used lots of different distros and BSDs, both on and off desktop. Currently really excited about NixOS but I've not had the time to install it on my workstation yet, only for a couple of servers... Debian is my trusted old go-to that I certainly wouldn't replace with anything that uses rpms. :P Anyone else looked at NixOS?

BTW, in 6 hours there will be a live stream on called Twitch Installs Arch Linux (https://www.twitchinstalls.com/). Similar to Twitch Plays Pokemon, the twitch chat will be making group decisions on what to input next into the install process. Do you think they'll make it?  ;D

Yep, I've been meaning to switch or at least start dual booting it with Arch. The attractiveness of a distro to me is pretty much just the installation process and the package manager. NixOS's config file makes a reproducible, hands-free installation trivial in comparison to the amount of scripting necessary for other distros to automatically set things up how you like. I also really like nix, but I don't really look forward to having to package a lot software.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: GuilleAcoustic on Tue, 10 November 2015, 03:25:08
I'm using Arch linux with Plasma (KDE 5) as my only OS. Converted a very old laptop (1GHz Celeron, 128MB DDR1) with Arch bang and Openbox.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: shibataken on Tue, 10 November 2015, 13:08:43
Linux mint is slowly replacing windows 10 for me :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: FreeCopy on Tue, 10 November 2015, 13:19:00
Linux mint is slowly replacing windows 10 for me :D

This is my current situation as well. Windows is used pretty much for gaming and some MS Office work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 10 November 2015, 13:55:34
If you think Gentoo install is painful you should try Linux From Scratch (LFS).
which is absolutely lovely, unlike gentoo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: chroness on Tue, 10 November 2015, 16:04:15
I run mint of my laptop. I tried arch but just wasn't quite advanced enough to use it effectively :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: geekhack360 on Tue, 10 November 2015, 18:05:42
I use xubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: S1llyC0ne on Thu, 12 November 2015, 12:00:37
I use xfce-flavoured Manjaro Linux on my laptop after a few years on Ubuntu.
I've been happily surprised with the speed and I also gained on the battery life side.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cryptokey on Thu, 12 November 2015, 12:07:30
I'm very happy with Linux Mint running KDE.  Previously I had Cinnamon but I found it to be too unstable - it would freeze, crash, and generally cause headaches.  I'd consider going to Arch in the future though.

Arch now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Thu, 12 November 2015, 12:19:47
Linux plebs. BSD is the only true way.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 12 November 2015, 19:49:33
Linux plebs. BSD is the only true way.

Which BSD?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Thu, 12 November 2015, 21:25:16
Linux plebs. BSD is the only true way.

My network runs BSD, but that's it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 13 November 2015, 07:55:43
Linux plebs. BSD is the only true way.

the only true way to what?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Fri, 13 November 2015, 11:07:42
Linux plebs. BSD is the only true way.

Which BSD?

Net and sometimes free.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 21 November 2015, 21:30:10
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jaffers on Sat, 21 November 2015, 21:44:21
Laptop: Manjaro (i3)/OSX
BIG PC: Wangblows 8/majaro (kde)
Small PC/Server/Build Testing/OthercrapPC: Everything
Elite HAXOR USB: suse studio made Os with 1337 tools
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 21 November 2015, 23:10:25
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.

Not really, no.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Sun, 22 November 2015, 01:47:58
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.

Not really, no.

But please at least switch away from Kubuntu at least, even if its only to like normal ubuntu or mint, just not Kubuntu. It's unfortunately been really broken as of late. You can still use KDE with other distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 22 November 2015, 01:50:29
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.

Not really, no.

But please at least switch away from Kubuntu at least, even if its only to like normal ubuntu or mint, just not Kubuntu. It's unfortunately been really broken as of late. You can still use KDE with other distros.

Kubuntu was dropped from the official Ubuntu derivatives at one stage - then re-added.

Did I hear that it was dropped again?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jaffers on Sun, 22 November 2015, 01:59:11
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.

MANJARO 4 LYFE! Get KDE version NOW! Feel the love for pacman and non broken repos! Everything great about ARCH in one easy package without the cancerous community!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: retrochick on Sun, 22 November 2015, 02:18:11
antergos on my x200.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 22 November 2015, 07:37:54
Laptop: Manjaro (i3)/OSX
same here, besides it's enlightenment and not i3
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Sun, 22 November 2015, 08:14:08
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.
If you want to be a bigger nerd, try building your own with Arch. And get rid of that KDE while you're at it, and use a window manager instead. I like Openbox. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 22 November 2015, 08:34:17
If you want to be a bigger nerd, build your own LFS!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Sun, 22 November 2015, 12:38:49
If you want to be the biggest nerd build your own version of Unix. That might take some time though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dan002 on Sun, 22 November 2015, 15:42:49
The raspberry pi upgraded their official OS to Debian Jessy. Super awesome because who can complain
about using a distro made for the hardware. Don't get me wrong, linux is great but sucks with hardware
compatibility. Often times simple this complicate new linux users and scare them away from a good experiance.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 22 November 2015, 16:09:12
linux is great but sucks with hardware compatibility.
That's not even wrong…
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 22 November 2015, 16:24:30
linux is great but sucks with hardware compatibility.
That's not even wrong…

What hardware doesn't work?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dan002 on Sun, 22 November 2015, 16:53:28
I guess the hardware that is not supported by the Distro.
I also believe the problem is, drivers are often closed source for NIC's, Webcams, track pads etc...
For distro developers to use the hardware features, they have to reverse engineer it. But since
the raspberry pi is open source hardware  :thumb: all the code is there to use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 22 November 2015, 16:53:35
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong)

What does work: nearly everything, including obscure architectures, a lot of really old expansion cards and peripherals… and a lot of bleeding edge hardware at the other end of the spectrum.

What does not work: a whole lot of cheap garbage from sources like DealExtreme, glued together by incompetent wage slaves; some hardware "designed" for MS Windows with various obscure hacks (ahem, ACPI is a good example) due to Microsoft's Embrace, extend and extinguish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish) policy; some common hardware, esp. GPUs and some specialized chips from companies, that deliberately choose to make life harder for the kernel community.

For example, the UVC standard is well supported in GNU/Linux nowadays, but while UVC is originally Microsoft's standard, their very own line of webcams doesn't implement it correctly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 22 November 2015, 16:58:07
The vast majority of the trouble that I have had with Linux has been getting common, reasonably modern ethernet and wi-fi gear to be recognized.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 22 November 2015, 17:01:21
Quite frankly, most of especially, but not only consumer-grade networking gear is pretty awful, as in "not very different from, say, cheap Android tablets". (LKML is often a "fun" read for that matter.)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 22 November 2015, 17:16:04
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong)

What does work: nearly everything, including obscure architectures, a lot of really old expansion cards and peripherals… and a lot of bleeding edge hardware at the other end of the spectrum.

What does not work: a whole lot of cheap garbage from sources like DealExtreme, glued together by incompetent wage slaves; some hardware "designed" for MS Windows with various obscure hacks (ahem, ACPI is a good example) due to Microsoft's Embrace, extend and extinguish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish) policy; some common hardware, esp. GPUs and some specialized chips from companies, that deliberately choose to make life harder for the kernel community.

Haha, I assumed the strange phrasing was due to English not being your first language, didn't consider it could be a quote!

Seems nothing's changed since I was last shopping for hardware, GPUs have dodgy binary drivers but for pretty much anything else you use at home you just have to check what you're buying before choosing the cheapest option.  Especially wifi and touchpads :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 22 November 2015, 18:37:43
linux is great but sucks with hardware compatibility.
That's not even wrong…

What hardware doesn't work?
macbooks' web cameras.

also, there's quite a few pieces of hardware not having open source drivers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 22 November 2015, 20:49:56
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.

Not really, no.

But please at least switch away from Kubuntu at least, even if its only to like normal ubuntu or mint, just not Kubuntu. It's unfortunately been really broken as of late. You can still use KDE with other distros.

Yea, this is the kinda stuff I don't know anything about.   Works alright for me.  I'm such a Linux newb.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 22 November 2015, 21:05:15
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.

Not really, no.

But please at least switch away from Kubuntu at least, even if its only to like normal ubuntu or mint, just not Kubuntu. It's unfortunately been really broken as of late. You can still use KDE with other distros.

Yea, this is the kinda stuff I don't know anything about.   Works alright for me.  I'm such a Linux newb.

I don't get the KDE hate. If it runs fine and you enjoy the look and feel of KDE then by all means use it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 22 November 2015, 21:26:39
It also seems like discussion of Linux distros also is subject to similar bickering among the users as any other niche hobby.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: FreeCopy on Sun, 22 November 2015, 21:33:35
Just got Linux Mint up and running. The installation went fine. The problem I had was getting Grub to recognize Win10.

The problem turned out to be the Win10 installation. It decided during install to go with MBR instead of an EFI boot partition. How it did this when the MB was set for UEFI is beyond me.

Had to resize part of the Win10 install partition to make room for an EFI partition. After that worked out I went back and Grub was able to find the Win10 drive and make it bootable. Now it all works and dual boots without issue.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: BigDov on Sun, 22 November 2015, 21:53:30
I liked Crunchbang when it was being updated / maintained, but haven't messed with anything for a while..... seeing lots of folks talking about Manjaro, I might have to give that a shot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RoastPotatoes on Mon, 23 November 2015, 07:46:48
Just got Linux Mint up and running. The installation went fine. The problem I had was getting Grub to recognize Win10.

The problem turned out to be the Win10 installation. It decided during install to go with MBR instead of an EFI boot partition. How it did this when the MB was set for UEFI is beyond me.

Had to resize part of the Win10 install partition to make room for an EFI partition. After that worked out I went back and Grub was able to find the Win10 drive and make it bootable. Now it all works and dual boots without issue.
EFI has ruined my life. Installing any OS now has become strangely complex to me. I always do it wrong. I had arch on the MBR and win on EFI so I could use the EFI menu to choose which os which would then potentially take me to grub. I'm so confused.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Mon, 23 November 2015, 08:07:53
I liked Crunchbang when it was being updated / maintained, but haven't messed with anything for a while..... seeing lots of folks talking about Manjaro, I might have to give that a shot.

You may like Crunchbang++

Just got Linux Mint up and running. The installation went fine. The problem I had was getting Grub to recognize Win10.

The problem turned out to be the Win10 installation. It decided during install to go with MBR instead of an EFI boot partition. How it did this when the MB was set for UEFI is beyond me.

Had to resize part of the Win10 install partition to make room for an EFI partition. After that worked out I went back and Grub was able to find the Win10 drive and make it bootable. Now it all works and dual boots without issue.
EFI has ruined my life. Installing any OS now has become strangely complex to me. I always do it wrong. I had arch on the MBR and win on EFI so I could use the EFI menu to choose which os which would then potentially take me to grub. I'm so confused.

I think you mean UEFI, which is what M$ crapped out after eating the EFI standard
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: RoastPotatoes on Mon, 23 November 2015, 08:11:39
I liked Crunchbang when it was being updated / maintained, but haven't messed with anything for a while..... seeing lots of folks talking about Manjaro, I might have to give that a shot.

You may like Crunchbang++

Just got Linux Mint up and running. The installation went fine. The problem I had was getting Grub to recognize Win10.

The problem turned out to be the Win10 installation. It decided during install to go with MBR instead of an EFI boot partition. How it did this when the MB was set for UEFI is beyond me.

Had to resize part of the Win10 install partition to make room for an EFI partition. After that worked out I went back and Grub was able to find the Win10 drive and make it bootable. Now it all works and dual boots without issue.
EFI has ruined my life. Installing any OS now has become strangely complex to me. I always do it wrong. I had arch on the MBR and win on EFI so I could use the EFI menu to choose which os which would then potentially take me to grub. I'm so confused.

I think you mean UEFI, which is what M$ crapped out after eating the EFI standard
I think I do, but I'm a little uncertain on everything. I was creating efi partitions yesterday and was very lost. As it currently stands I have a working dualboot with win 10 and arch. Using traditional legacy bios, not the new fancy thing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 23 November 2015, 08:12:41
I liked Crunchbang when it was being updated / maintained, but haven't messed with anything for a while..... seeing lots of folks talking about Manjaro, I might have to give that a shot.

You may like Crunchbang++

Or Bunsen Labs.

Although I know people who have had issues with getting either one or both of those projects to do what they wanted.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 25 November 2015, 05:49:05
Just jumped on the Linux bandwagon.  After trying out a few distros, I went with Kubuntu.  I'm a fan of the KDE interface. 

And do I need to switch to BSD if I wish to become a bigger nerd?  Please, I need to know.

Not really, no.

But please at least switch away from Kubuntu at least, even if its only to like normal ubuntu or mint, just not Kubuntu. It's unfortunately been really broken as of late. You can still use KDE with other distros.

I did try a couple other distros with KDE and noticed they worked quite a bit smoother and seemed more stable.  I see what you mean.

Lots of Linux choices out there.  Slightly overwhelming.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: redskull on Wed, 25 November 2015, 06:00:38
can you guys recommend me a couple of good linux distros for a noob? that would be me..  :p

im quite familiar with windows and i tinker with computer parts from time to time though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 25 November 2015, 06:36:58
can you guys recommend me a couple of good linux distros for a noob? that would be me..  :p

im quite familiar with windows and i tinker with computer parts from time to time though.
do you also make spaghetti? it's no less relevant.

anyway, just install mint.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: meow a cat on Wed, 25 November 2015, 06:58:54
I've tried a few distros, but I keep having different problems with each. Probably easily solved if it weren't for my GNU/Linux noobness.  :))

So far my favourite distro has been Fedora 23 with KDE Plasma. Except that after a few days, it decided it didn't want to boot and would lock up part way through. GRUB also wouldn't show my Win 10 installation, but that's probably something I did wrong on my end. I'm going to try again in the next few days, and I'm hoping it works - I want a stable install so I can actually get to know the OS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 25 November 2015, 13:58:08
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Wed, 25 November 2015, 14:45:09
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?

Wow, that sounds really interesting, I'll have to try it out. I'd love a more BSD like feel with the compatibility of Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Wed, 25 November 2015, 14:46:47
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?

Wow, that sounds really interesting, I'll have to try it out. I'd love a more BSD like feel with the compatibility of Linux.

i will probably try to get it running on my laptop at some point. my only concern is how robust its binary library really is (i mean, building from source is cool, but im super lazy half the time)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Wed, 25 November 2015, 15:37:05
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?

Wow, that sounds really interesting, I'll have to try it out. I'd love a more BSD like feel with the compatibility of Linux.

i will probably try to get it running on my laptop at some point. my only concern is how robust its binary library really is (i mean, building from source is cool, but im super lazy half the time)

It's not big, but it's growing, and I didn't notice any missing must-haves. It seems to have a bit of everything, from terminals to games. I recommend checking your commonly used stuff here (http://www.voidlinux.eu/packages/).

I've checked Void out a few times by now and I like it. I've been waiting on Archbang's team because they were planning on doing Voidbang some time ago, but now apparently they're slowing down with Archbang itself, so looks like I'll have to look into configuring Openbox on my own.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 25 November 2015, 16:37:11
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?
You can remove systemd's **** from arch, but it's not supported. In Manjaro it is, though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Wed, 25 November 2015, 18:20:54
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?
You can remove systemd's **** from arch, but it's not supported. In Manjaro it is, though.

But with void you can have an operating system called "void"...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ttzhou on Fri, 27 November 2015, 22:15:43
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?
You can remove systemd's **** from arch, but it's not supported. In Manjaro it is, though.

But with void you can have an operating system called "void"...

i will be the first to confess i chose arch linux mainly because of the name.

void is sufficiently cool to warrant the same choice :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deductivemonkee on Fri, 27 November 2015, 22:24:54
I call it "Windows 10".
In all seriousness, I have Ubuntu on my second drive.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bastones on Sat, 28 November 2015, 16:56:05
I primarily use Ubuntu with Gnome classic at home. At work I'm forced to use Windows. :(

I've tried most distros, and keep coming back to 'buntu, because I'm very familiar with it.

I'm in the same boat as you. A recent change in policy for the company i work at means I am now forced to use Windows. It's a real pain. Every time I use my personal computer I am reminded at how much better everything is.

On my computer I run Debian 8 Jessie with the GNOME desktop environment. Debian is an amazing distribution, I love it - its super stable and frankly I'm just familiar with apt, that's really the other reason I chose it over other distributions. The only thing I dislike is the outdated kernel in Debian 8 as it ships with an older version of nouveau that doesn't support NV117 cards like the 750 series without relying on the proprietary NVIDIA graphics :-(.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Sat, 28 November 2015, 17:04:02
I primarily use Ubuntu with Gnome classic at home. At work I'm forced to use Windows. :(

I've tried most distros, and keep coming back to 'buntu, because I'm very familiar with it.

I'm in the same boat as you. A recent change in policy for the company i work at means I am now forced to use Windows. It's a real pain. Every time I use my personal computer I am reminded at how much better everything is.

On my computer I run Debian 8 Jessie with the GNOME desktop environment. Debian is an amazing distribution, I love it - its super stable and frankly I'm just familiar with apt, that's really the other reason I chose it over other distributions. The only thing I dislike is the outdated kernel in Debian 8 as it ships with an older version of nouveau that doesn't support NV117 cards like the 750 series without relying on the proprietary NVIDIA graphics :-(.

You can use apt on arch and fedora and other distros. It's just not supported very well. And not worth it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Sat, 28 November 2015, 18:55:09
Funny I found this thread. I'm looking for a new distro. I've tried most distros, but my desktops have always run Redhat/Fedora.

Things I'm looking for are: not having to upgrade constantly, and even more important community/documentation. Debian seems to be the answer, I guess I just need to take the plunge.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Sat, 28 November 2015, 18:57:02
Funny I found this thread. I'm looking for a new distro. I've tried most distros, but my desktops have always run Redhat/Fedora.

Things I'm looking for are: not having to upgrade constantly, and even more important community/documentation. Debian seems to be the answer, I guess I just need to take the plunge.

Arch is usually the answer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bastones on Sat, 28 November 2015, 18:58:01
I primarily use Ubuntu with Gnome classic at home. At work I'm forced to use Windows. :(

I've tried most distros, and keep coming back to 'buntu, because I'm very familiar with it.

I'm in the same boat as you. A recent change in policy for the company i work at means I am now forced to use Windows. It's a real pain. Every time I use my personal computer I am reminded at how much better everything is.

On my computer I run Debian 8 Jessie with the GNOME desktop environment. Debian is an amazing distribution, I love it - its super stable and frankly I'm just familiar with apt, that's really the other reason I chose it over other distributions. The only thing I dislike is the outdated kernel in Debian 8 as it ships with an older version of nouveau that doesn't support NV117 cards like the 750 series without relying on the proprietary NVIDIA graphics :-(.

You can use apt on arch and fedora and other distros. It's just not supported very well. And not worth it.

I used to run Ubuntu but I've always found it a lot less stable compared to other distributions I've used. No matter what computer I had Ubuntu installed on, on some occasions Unity might become unresponsive requiring me to restart the shell, or more commonly, the bug report dialogue would appear often relating to a problem with Unity. That, and for a few other reasons, forced me to move away and try Debian and it's been great ever since :).

I've given Fedora a spin and it seems interesting. If I can get past the apt familiarity barrier I might get off the fence and try other distributions apart from Debian and its derivatives ;).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Sat, 28 November 2015, 19:13:46
Funny I found this thread. I'm looking for a new distro. I've tried most distros, but my desktops have always run Redhat/Fedora.

Things I'm looking for are: not having to upgrade constantly, and even more important community/documentation. Debian seems to be the answer, I guess I just need to take the plunge.

Arch is usually the answer.
Arch has the community and documentation, that's for sure. Before narrowing to just Debian, the two distros I was considering were Arch and Debian. I've used Arch once before, and enjoyed it. But Arch needs too much TLC. I have a problem getting distracted with config files (I'm starting at you .emacs), I need something that requires little attention or I'll never get anything done.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 28 November 2015, 19:46:02
Arch wiki has some of the best documentation I've encountered. I usually find it to be a real pleasure to use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bastones on Sat, 28 November 2015, 20:37:58
Funny I found this thread. I'm looking for a new distro. I've tried most distros, but my desktops have always run Redhat/Fedora.

Things I'm looking for are: not having to upgrade constantly, and even more important community/documentation. Debian seems to be the answer, I guess I just need to take the plunge.

Arch is usually the answer.
Arch has the community and documentation, that's for sure. Before narrowing to just Debian, the two distros I was considering were Arch and Debian. I've used Arch once before, and enjoyed it. But Arch needs too much TLC. I have a problem getting distracted with config files (I'm starting at you .emacs), I need something that requires little attention or I'll never get anything done.

Well considering Arch is on a rolling release schedule I can imagine it being a great choice for those wanting bleeding-edge features but I guess that comes at the sacrifice of a higher risk of package breakages. I'd be worried an update would damage my Arch install!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Sat, 28 November 2015, 21:16:19
Well considering Arch is on a rolling release schedule I can imagine it being a great choice for those wanting bleeding-edge features but I guess that comes at the sacrifice of a higher risk of package breakages. I'd be worried an update would damage my Arch install!

Arch is all about choice. You don't have to receive a single update if you don't want, or you can just pick and choose the ones you feel like you need.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Sat, 28 November 2015, 21:30:58
Arch wiki has some of the best documentation I've encountered.
And the majority of it isn't distro specific. Without any question, I've read more Arch documentation than my own distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: trenzafeeds on Sat, 28 November 2015, 21:32:20
Arch wiki has some of the best documentation I've encountered.
And the majority of it isn't distro specific. Without any question, I've read more Arch documentation than my own distros.

Couldn't agree with that more. Just like how I use the freebsd wiki for basically all of my bsd endeavors.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 28 November 2015, 21:56:34
Arch wiki has some of the best documentation I've encountered.
And the majority of it isn't distro specific. Without any question, I've read more Arch documentation than my own distros.

Couldn't agree with that more. Just like how I use the freebsd wiki for basically all of my bsd endeavors.

Yes -- I have never touched Arch in my life, but I love the wiki. Helped me out a lot when I started poking around with openbox and tint2.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: new_to_theinternet on Sat, 28 November 2015, 22:23:31
At home I don't use linux as my primary OS, but I primarily use Ubuntu in a VM for various activities. I'll be starting a new job in mid-December, where the primary OS is Debian.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 28 November 2015, 22:32:28
Funny I found this thread. I'm looking for a new distro. I've tried most distros, but my desktops have always run Redhat/Fedora.

Things I'm looking for are: not having to upgrade constantly, and even more important community/documentation. Debian seems to be the answer, I guess I just need to take the plunge.

So, to answer your question, your best bet is definitely Debian Stable. I'll update my server once every six months or so and Debian handles it no problem. Updating from release cycles is also a breeze and never causes any problems. Although I use Arch I can say with absolute certainty it's not the distribution you want if one of the primary things you're looking for is stability. It's a pretty easy distro to install also, so I think it's worth trying it out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 29 November 2015, 08:32:27
Arch wiki has probably the best article on HiDPI. And that's important for me since I am a Macbook user.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Sun, 29 November 2015, 09:12:37
i'm getting more and more interested in void linux; it's basically arch without systemd (YES) and a pretty nifty package management system that supports binaries and a ports-like system. it feels like BSD and linux had a child.

anyone give it a spin?

Wow, that sounds really interesting, I'll have to try it out. I'd love a more BSD like feel with the compatibility of Linux.

the lead dev is ex-netbsd so it's very bsdish. runit is really cool.

void peeps: are you on #voidlinux/#xbps and/or fourm.voidlinux.eu?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 14 December 2015, 23:36:35
Well, I settled on a KaOS, a singularly KDE-focused distro, because it looks good, works fast, is simple, and has what I need for now.  I found it interesting how the developers optimized the distro to work with only KDE rather than overextend with too many desktop environments.

I was going to start out with the Manjaro KDE, but the live USB wouldn't boot on my computer.  I could try Manjaro with some other DE, but I feel the most comfortable with KDE starting out.  These windows managers seem interesting, too.

As my Linux experience progresses, I'll try out other distros and maybe switch to a different distro, but KaOS seems like it will allow me to get things done out-of-the-box and mess around with other distros, with my current limited free time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Nalor on Tue, 15 December 2015, 21:10:51
I'm a Kubutu, Mint, and PC-BSD user myself. Mostly though its all KDE.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SL89 on Tue, 15 December 2015, 21:41:43
Well, I settled on a KaOS, a singularly KDE-focused distro, because it looks good, works fast, is simple, and has what I need for now.  I found it interesting how the developers optimized the distro to work with only KDE rather than overextend with too many desktop environments.

I was going to start out with the Manjaro KDE, but the live USB wouldn't boot on my computer.  I could try Manjaro with some other DE, but I feel the most comfortable with KDE starting out.  These windows managers seem interesting, too.

As my Linux experience progresses, I'll try out other distros and maybe switch to a different distro, but KaOS seems like it will allow me to get things done out-of-the-box and mess around with other distros, with my current limited free time.

I saw KaOS and might give it a whirl. Thanks for reminding me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: notbrain on Thu, 17 December 2015, 11:23:44
Ubuntu 14 LTS at work, a bunch of smaller distros for Pi at home.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Thu, 17 December 2015, 17:48:58
Well, I settled on a KaOS, a singularly KDE-focused distro, because it looks good, works fast, is simple, and has what I need for now.  I found it interesting how the developers optimized the distro to work with only KDE rather than overextend with too many desktop environments.

I was going to start out with the Manjaro KDE, but the live USB wouldn't boot on my computer.  I could try Manjaro with some other DE, but I feel the most comfortable with KDE starting out.  These windows managers seem interesting, too.

As my Linux experience progresses, I'll try out other distros and maybe switch to a different distro, but KaOS seems like it will allow me to get things done out-of-the-box and mess around with other distros, with my current limited free time.

I saw KaOS and might give it a whirl. Thanks for reminding me.

Fyi, I've had some issues with Plasma crashing, but I don't think that is a KaOS problem, but more a KDE problem.  Which probably makes it a KaOS problem, considering how much the two are linked together.  Regardless, Plasma restarts without all my currently open windows and I haven't lost any data except for the small inconvenience.

I'm not exactly sure about the advantage of KaOS, considering that many other great distros offer a decent KDE experience (Linux Mint, Manjaro, for example).  But I appreciate the focus and simplicity that the developers put into optimizing KaOS for KDE, rather than tacking it on as another DE only receiving a portion of care and attention.  With KaOS, it receives ALL the attention.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Connly33 on Sat, 19 December 2015, 01:34:38
Im not new to linux, but i'm definitely not an experienced linux user, i tend to go on and off with it, though it is on all of my machines now except for my main desktop. All 3 of my laptops ( A core 2 duo fujitsu lifebook, a dual core haswell celeron chromebook, and a  core 2 duo dell inspiron)   run Kubuntu, it is one of my favorite desktop linux distros. My Dell mini 9 netbook and lenovo thinkpad x100e netbook/sub notebook is running xubuntu , my media server is running open media vault which is a linux spin off server OS. My main media playback PC is running Kodibuntu, and i have a linux mint machine that i use occasionally, i've started dual booting on my main desktop but i still stick with windows 7. Though when i do move from 7, it is 80% likely that it will be over to something like kubuntu as soon as i have a motherboard that plays happily with ubuntu based distros.  I have learned a lot through trial and error, and i like having to fix issues that arise with different configurations. I have been playing with OpenSUSE a bit trying to get deeper into linux.

I have a slight issue with collecting cheap obsolete laptops, especially netbooks which i have a weird obsession with.....  The wood case on top of my desktop is a combination of dell inspiron and HP parts in a ghetto wooden box i made that i usually have mounted on the wall as a digital photo frame running kodibuntu
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: minhtt159 on Sat, 19 December 2015, 09:28:20
Backbox Linux
Kali Linux
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 19 December 2015, 11:58:24
Im not new to linux, but i'm definitely not an experienced linux user, i tend to go on and off with it, though it is on all of my machines now except for my main desktop. All 3 of my laptops ( A core 2 duo fujitsu lifebook, a dual core haswell celeron chromebook, and a  core 2 duo dell inspiron)   run Kubuntu, it is one of my favorite desktop linux distros. My Dell mini 9 netbook and lenovo thinkpad x100e netbook/sub notebook is running xubuntu , my media server is running open media vault which is a linux spin off server OS. My main media playback PC is running Kodibuntu, and i have a linux mint machine that i use occasionally, i've started dual booting on my main desktop but i still stick with windows 7. Though when i do move from 7, it is 80% likely that it will be over to something like kubuntu as soon as i have a motherboard that plays happily with ubuntu based distros.  I have learned a lot through trial and error, and i like having to fix issues that arise with different configurations. I have been playing with OpenSUSE a bit trying to get deeper into linux.

I have a slight issue with collecting cheap obsolete laptops, especially netbooks which i have a weird obsession with.....  The wood case on top of my desktop is a combination of dell inspiron and HP parts in a ghetto wooden box i made that i usually have mounted on the wall as a digital photo frame running kodibuntu

How do you like Open Media Vault? I considered using it but ultimately went to FreeNAS for the ZFS support.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Connly33 on Sat, 19 December 2015, 14:33:57
Im not new to linux, but i'm definitely not an experienced linux user, i tend to go on and off with it, though it is on all of my machines now except for my main desktop. All 3 of my laptops ( A core 2 duo fujitsu lifebook, a dual core haswell celeron chromebook, and a  core 2 duo dell inspiron)   run Kubuntu, it is one of my favorite desktop linux distros. My Dell mini 9 netbook and lenovo thinkpad x100e netbook/sub notebook is running xubuntu , my media server is running open media vault which is a linux spin off server OS. My main media playback PC is running Kodibuntu, and i have a linux mint machine that i use occasionally, i've started dual booting on my main desktop but i still stick with windows 7. Though when i do move from 7, it is 80% likely that it will be over to something like kubuntu as soon as i have a motherboard that plays happily with ubuntu based distros.  I have learned a lot through trial and error, and i like having to fix issues that arise with different configurations. I have been playing with OpenSUSE a bit trying to get deeper into linux.

I have a slight issue with collecting cheap obsolete laptops, especially netbooks which i have a weird obsession with.....  The wood case on top of my desktop is a combination of dell inspiron and HP parts in a ghetto wooden box i made that i usually have mounted on the wall as a digital photo frame running kodibuntu

How do you like Open Media Vault? I considered using it but ultimately went to FreeNAS for the ZFS support.

Its kind of on par with freeNAS for the most part aside from native ZFS support, i believe you can add it though, my only real reason for going with OMV was that it was a bit easier to configure plugins for what i wanted to do, and i had never touched any freeBSD based OS so it was a bit confusing to me. When i go from my cobbled together server to something with a respectable hard drive configuration i'm definitely going to go to freeNAS for ZFS
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 19 December 2015, 16:17:21

I have a slight issue with collecting cheap obsolete laptops, especially netbooks which i have a weird obsession with.....  The wood case on top of my desktop is a combination of dell inspiron and HP parts in a ghetto wooden box i made that i usually have mounted on the wall as a digital photo frame running kodibuntu

You have an issue with collecting cheap obsolete items?  Welcome to geekhack!  You'll fit right in.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 19 December 2015, 16:39:30
Im not new to linux, but i'm definitely not an experienced linux user, i tend to go on and off with it, though it is on all of my machines now .... run Kubuntu,

I have been playing with OpenSUSE a bit trying to get deeper into linux.


I have dabbled with Ubuntu for 5-6 years, and am fairly happy with it, although it is strictly secondary because I need Windows for the "work world" for the time being. I do look forward to ditching Microsoft one day. I have already ditched Office in favor of Libreoffice and taken up Gimp in place of Photoshop Elements.

For philosophical reasons, unhappiness with Ubuntu's decisions and directions, at my last re-format-re-build I tried switching to OpenSUSE, and while it was mostly good, I found that the community and forum were spectacularly snarky and unhelpful to a newcomer. Most of my questions were (never-solved) hardware issues that should have been fairly straightforward, but I also got a lot of insults and "Why would you want to do X and not Y like I do?" when I asked "How do you do X?"

Since I was a newbie, and requested step-by-step instructions, they delighted in giving me cryptic, incomplete directions that guaranteed failure.
It was a very frustrating experience, because I really wanted to make it work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Connly33 on Sat, 19 December 2015, 17:38:26
Im not new to linux, but i'm definitely not an experienced linux user, i tend to go on and off with it, though it is on all of my machines now .... run Kubuntu,

I have been playing with OpenSUSE a bit trying to get deeper into linux.


I have dabbled with Ubuntu for 5-6 years, and am fairly happy with it, although it is strictly secondary because I need Windows for the "work world" for the time being. I do look forward to ditching Microsoft one day. I have already ditched Office in favor of Libreoffice and taken up Gimp in place of Photoshop Elements.

For philosophical reasons, unhappiness with Ubuntu's decisions and directions, at my last re-format-re-build I tried switching to OpenSUSE, and while it was mostly good, I found that the community and forum were spectacularly snarky and unhelpful to a newcomer. Most of my questions were (never-solved) hardware issues that should have been fairly straightforward, but I also got a lot of insults and "Why would you want to do X and not Y like I do?" when I asked "How do you do X?"

Since I was a newbie, and requested step-by-step instructions, they delighted in giving me cryptic, incomplete directions that guaranteed failure.
It was a very frustrating experience, because I really wanted to make it work.

I definitely dislike it when the community of a certain distro is like that. Thats one reason i do like ubuntu distros, though i also dislike the direction ubuntu and Canonical is going in.  Is the community is generally very accepting of newcomers and are fairly helpful.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Connly33 on Sat, 19 December 2015, 17:40:21

I have a slight issue with collecting cheap obsolete laptops, especially netbooks which i have a weird obsession with.....  The wood case on top of my desktop is a combination of dell inspiron and HP parts in a ghetto wooden box i made that i usually have mounted on the wall as a digital photo frame running kodibuntu

You have an issue with collecting cheap obsolete items?  Welcome to geekhack!  You'll fit right in.

I guess so : p lol. Though the keyboard side of things isn't too cheap. I really like making obsolete things useful for some purpose again even if it is impractical.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 19 December 2015, 19:58:06
Im not new to linux, but i'm definitely not an experienced linux user, i tend to go on and off with it, though it is on all of my machines now .... run Kubuntu,

I have been playing with OpenSUSE a bit trying to get deeper into linux.


I have dabbled with Ubuntu for 5-6 years, and am fairly happy with it, although it is strictly secondary because I need Windows for the "work world" for the time being. I do look forward to ditching Microsoft one day. I have already ditched Office in favor of Libreoffice and taken up Gimp in place of Photoshop Elements.

For philosophical reasons, unhappiness with Ubuntu's decisions and directions, at my last re-format-re-build I tried switching to OpenSUSE, and while it was mostly good, I found that the community and forum were spectacularly snarky and unhelpful to a newcomer. Most of my questions were (never-solved) hardware issues that should have been fairly straightforward, but I also got a lot of insults and "Why would you want to do X and not Y like I do?" when I asked "How do you do X?"

Since I was a newbie, and requested step-by-step instructions, they delighted in giving me cryptic, incomplete directions that guaranteed failure.
It was a very frustrating experience, because I really wanted to make it work.

During my recent beginner's foray into Linux, I also noticed that a few distro forums were snarky towards newbie questions, and that is the exact kind of thing that is going to turn people away from the distro, the forum, and Linux in general.  Yea, you might asking a question that has been answered many times before, but a newbie may not understand how to access all available resources in their newbness.

I've also read that Ubuntu is going in a direction that may jive with other preferences and philosophies (kinda like take it or leave it, we won't let you customize to your tastes).  I don't have the long term experience with Unbuntu or Linux to support that statement, but that is what I am reading.  However, if they are going for maximum adoption from the average computer user, the quality aesthetics and ease of use are a good route.  For uber nerds like us, no thanks.

I also tried out openSUSE , but I found it more robust and feature rich (especially Yast) than what I need from a Linux distro, so I went with something simpler.  I did not venture into the forums, so I cannot speak to that atmosphere, but I found it to be a solid offering.  Yast as an installer and package manager were the easiest I encountered with Linux distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Connly33 on Sat, 19 December 2015, 20:14:44
I noticed there are generally two types of Linux enthusiasts, those who want to share linux and get everyone else on it, whether it be simplifying some distros enough for the slightly above average PC user, or helping inexperienced user's that are having issues. ( acctually i've noticed it can be easier to get a very inexperienced PC user to switch to something like ubuntu because they dont use a lot of advanced features or functionality, and if they start to while there on linux its not like a shock from going from the way windows works to the way linux works)  of course that can lead to issues to, like the over simplification of interfaces, but that's the beauty of linux, if one distro does not match with someone's tastes anymore there is sure to be one that will.   But anyway that leads to the second type of linux enthusiast, the kind that likes to keep the platform closed off to newbs, like they enjoy being an advanced user on a " harder to use" platform and they dont want any form of linux simplified to the point where an average user can use it effectively.

I am kind of at the point where i dont need something as robust as openSUSE, but i want to get into distros where i guess im kind of forced to do a little more problem solving.  Though at least for now ubuntu and it's variants are still my favorite. Being used to kubuntu i could install the KDE desktop environment on openSUSE and it would feel fairly familiar.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 19 December 2015, 20:27:11
I noticed there are generally two types of Linux enthusiasts, those who want to share linux and get everyone else on it, whether it be simplifying some distros enough for the slightly above average PC user, or helping inexperienced user's that are having issues. ( acctually i've noticed it can be easier to get a very inexperienced PC user to switch to something like ubuntu because they dont use a lot of advanced features or functionality, and if they start to while there on linux its not like a shock from going from the way windows works to the way linux works)  of course that can lead to issues to, like the over simplification of interfaces, but that's the beauty of linux, if one distro does not match with someone's tastes anymore there is sure to be one that will.   But anyway that leads to the second type of linux enthusiast, the kind that likes to keep the platform closed off to newbs, like they enjoy being an advanced user on a " harder to use" platform and they dont want any form of linux simplified to the point where an average user can use it effectively.

I am kind of at the point where i dont need something as robust as openSUSE, but i want to get into distros where i guess im kind of forced to do a little more problem solving.  Though at least for now ubuntu and it's variants are still my favorite. Being used to kubuntu i could install the KDE desktop environment on openSUSE and it would feel fairly familiar.

I think you summarized geek enthusiasts in general.  Geekhack is nice, because it has most of the first type.  Which is why I stick around.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Connly33 on Sat, 19 December 2015, 20:57:45


That's why i decided to join , most of the community seems more than willing to help anyone with related issues   :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 19 December 2015, 22:16:13
I didn't know the OpenSUSE users were snarky, but for sure the people on the Arch forums are not very kind to newcomers. You'll often see posts of somebody looking for help, and the only response they'll get is to read the wiki. But I know even as an experienced user that the wiki can look like hieroglyphs. Well, that's the main reason why I don't participate in those forums, and why I love GH. I may be a keyboard newb but all the old hats are happy to share their knowledge.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 20 December 2015, 09:07:27
I didn't know the OpenSUSE users were snarky, but for sure the people on the Arch forums are not very kind to newcomers. You'll often see posts of somebody looking for help, and the only response they'll get is to read the wiki. But I know even as an experienced user that the wiki can look like hieroglyphs. Well, that's the main reason why I don't participate in those forums, and why I love GH. I may be a keyboard newb but all the old hats are happy to share their knowledge.

Well, not every Linux forum dweller is like that, but I know what you mean.  In the time it takes to be rude and snarky, you could create a macro that copies and pastes the links for useful resources for beginners. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tchevass on Sun, 20 December 2015, 09:37:04
I want to use debian, but I can't install debian on my laptop because some of the component in my computer are not supported in the kernel.

I will have to wait for kernel 4.4 to install it..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Sun, 20 December 2015, 22:56:41
I noticed there are generally two types of Linux enthusiasts, those who want to share linux and get everyone else on it, .. the second type.. likes to keep the platform closed off to newbs, like they enjoy being an advanced user on a " harder to use" platform
I think those might be the 2 types who answer questions in the newbie sections of forums.

Personally, I don't care what OS others use, and I think most of the people I know feel the same way. If someone wants to create a user friendly distro, my thoughts are: OK. If they want to create a "harder to use platform" I feel the same way. That's the good thing about OSS, anyone can fork and do what they want. It's also the bad thing since it causes fragmentation.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 20 December 2015, 23:03:31
Guess who's reinstalling Arch Linux! (to get rid of all the crap that's accumulated on it) Woohoo so much fun!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 21 December 2015, 01:36:23
I noticed there are generally two types of Linux enthusiasts, those who want to share linux and get everyone else on it, whether it be simplifying some distros enough for the slightly above average PC user, or helping inexperienced user's that are having issues. ( acctually i've noticed it can be easier to get a very inexperienced PC user to switch to something like ubuntu because they dont use a lot of advanced features or functionality, and if they start to while there on linux its not like a shock from going from the way windows works to the way linux works)  of course that can lead to issues to, like the over simplification of interfaces, but that's the beauty of linux, if one distro does not match with someone's tastes anymore there is sure to be one that will.   But anyway that leads to the second type of linux enthusiast, the kind that likes to keep the platform closed off to newbs, like they enjoy being an advanced user on a " harder to use" platform and they dont want any form of linux simplified to the point where an average user can use it effectively.

I am kind of at the point where i dont need something as robust as openSUSE, but i want to get into distros where i guess im kind of forced to do a little more problem solving.  Though at least for now ubuntu and it's variants are still my favorite. Being used to kubuntu i could install the KDE desktop environment on openSUSE and it would feel fairly familiar.



these two types of people are just  vocal subsets of linux users - there are a lot of people out there who just don't care to share their opinions on the web OR help new people that get along just fine using linux for whatever reason they want :) forum-based communities are not often geared towards all groups of linux users- there's a lot going on in IRC channels and mailing lists that you will probably never be exposed to on the web.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 21 December 2015, 02:22:35
So I am running a dual boot on my laptop with an SSD. I had no issues with the SSD for about a year in my desktop, but I got a new one for the desktop so moved this one over. Been having some issues with Windows randomly freezing and BSODing and GRUB not being able to detect Windows. After a hard reset it usually comes right back on. Anyone know if it's a GRUB issue or just a problem with the SSD?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Mon, 21 December 2015, 02:34:47
So I am running a dual boot on my laptop with an SSD. I had no issues with the SSD for about a year in my desktop, but I got a new one for the desktop so moved this one over. Been having some issues with Windows randomly freezing and BSODing and GRUB not being able to detect Windows. After a hard reset it usually comes right back on. Anyone know if it's a GRUB issue or just a problem with the SSD?
If Windows is BSODing it definitely isn't a grub issue.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kekstee on Mon, 21 December 2015, 10:52:59
Arch since 2007, and if it wasn't for hard drive and parition changes while I was still inexperienced it might as well be the original installation. Works pretty well.

Also exherbo, which has a neat package resolver but a bit ambitious goals in terms of layout and features. So I can't even run Steam there since nobody managed to make it play along last time I checked.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hypersphere on Mon, 21 December 2015, 10:58:16
It's still Linux Mint Xfce for me. It is easy to install and use, the forums are friendly and helpful, and yet it is suitable for serious work. I use it for both my server and my desktops.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bastones on Mon, 28 December 2015, 13:46:48
Im not new to linux, but i'm definitely not an experienced linux user, i tend to go on and off with it, though it is on all of my machines now .... run Kubuntu,

I have been playing with OpenSUSE a bit trying to get deeper into linux.


I have dabbled with Ubuntu for 5-6 years, and am fairly happy with it, although it is strictly secondary because I need Windows for the "work world" for the time being. I do look forward to ditching Microsoft one day. I have already ditched Office in favor of Libreoffice and taken up Gimp in place of Photoshop Elements.

For philosophical reasons, unhappiness with Ubuntu's decisions and directions, at my last re-format-re-build I tried switching to OpenSUSE, and while it was mostly good, I found that the community and forum were spectacularly snarky and unhelpful to a newcomer. Most of my questions were (never-solved) hardware issues that should have been fairly straightforward, but I also got a lot of insults and "Why would you want to do X and not Y like I do?" when I asked "How do you do X?"

Since I was a newbie, and requested step-by-step instructions, they delighted in giving me cryptic, incomplete directions that guaranteed failure.
It was a very frustrating experience, because I really wanted to make it work.


You'll definitely get those kinds of people on IRC, and they can get quite nasty. Thankfully, not everyone is like that but some just don't realise how unhelpful they are and it is extremely frustrating to witness. I've seen it firsthand and it boggles my mind how some folks can't pick up the signals that they need to simplify their explanations. It's not difficult.

Put it this way, I fully understand you and it can be a frustrating experience. It's just finding the right crowd to ask your question.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 30 December 2015, 02:34:18
openbsd: what a revelation!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Wed, 30 December 2015, 16:40:01
I've been very much enjoying ChaletOS (Ubuntu-based). It's quite polished and easy to live with. You can make it look a lot like Windows, actually.

I also use ElementaryOS Freya (which looks a lot like Mac OS X), and it looks decent but I've found the performance isn't too great on it for some reason.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 30 December 2015, 18:32:07
Ian Murdock, creator of Debian, has passed today.  :(

http://blog.docker.com/2015/12/ian-murdock/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 30 December 2015, 20:21:16
Ian Murdock, creator of Debian, has passed today.  :(

http://blog.docker.com/2015/12/ian-murdock/

That is extremely unfortunate if the rumoured events leading up to it are even remotely true.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hypersphere on Thu, 31 December 2015, 07:59:53
Very sad to see the news of Ian Murdock's passing. All who use Debian or any of the great number of linux distros derived from it owe him a debt of gratitude.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 31 December 2015, 18:44:16
Very sad to see the news of Ian Murdock's passing. All who use Debian or any of the great number of linux distros derived from it owe him a debt of gratitude.

Including Ubuntu!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 05 January 2016, 10:10:35
openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Wed, 06 January 2016, 02:18:31
Remember these?

(http://i.imgur.com/9nuHOC9.jpg?1)

I found them underneath my bed. All the disks are missing, not that it matters. I had a BeOS one that wasn't with them, hopefully it will turn up, old school esoteric.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 06 January 2016, 02:22:24
openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?

yeah and other than javascript in any browser being dog-slow, i love it!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 06 January 2016, 03:10:10
Remember these?

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/9nuHOC9.jpg?1)


I found them underneath my bed. All the disks are missing, not that it matters. I had a BeOS one that wasn't with them, hopefully it will turn up, old school esoteric.

I have a full box set of SuSE installation, including CDs and manuals.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Wed, 06 January 2016, 04:54:00
Remember these?

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/9nuHOC9.jpg?1)


I found them underneath my bed. All the disks are missing, not that it matters. I had a BeOS one that wasn't with them, hopefully it will turn up, old school esoteric.

Oh man, my first distro was Red Hat Linux 6.1. I wish I'd kept the box and manuals.

This is the only thing that I've kept, circa 2003:

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: madhias on Wed, 06 January 2016, 05:13:37
Typing from my Arch installation, which is now the main OS on my battlestation. But I also do have a Windows VM, only for Lightroom. Works good so far, I just need to 'rice' up my desktop. Using i3 WM, again Firefox since years of using Chrome, some tools, but really not that much. I like it! It is like a never ending project, and there is always something to do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Wed, 06 January 2016, 10:04:39
Oh man, my first distro was Red Hat Linux 6.1. I wish I'd kept the box and manuals.

This is the only thing that I've kept, circa 2003:

(Attachment Link)
At the local Hackerspace there's a bookshelf and I found an original printing of 2nd ed. K&R C! For those that don't know, the 2nd edition of K&R came out 1988 and there's been more than 50 printings.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: OfTheWild on Wed, 06 January 2016, 14:15:55
I just tossed the guts of my old server that was running Mandrake 10. Great distro that lost its way. I now have a SteamOS box that i've bricked a few times with their updates but otherwise keeping it simple.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Wed, 06 January 2016, 14:25:18
I just tossed the guts of my old server that was running Mandrake 10. Great distro that lost its way. I now have a SteamOS box that i've bricked a few times with their updates but otherwise keeping it simple.

Ouch, I heard that SteamOS had some problems, but I didn't think it was that bad...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: OfTheWild on Wed, 06 January 2016, 17:05:03
I just tossed the guts of my old server that was running Mandrake 10. Great distro that lost its way. I now have a SteamOS box that i've bricked a few times with their updates but otherwise keeping it simple.

Ouch, I heard that SteamOS had some problems, but I didn't think it was that bad...

I'm also using old hardware. An HP HPE410F (http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02481315); non-uefi mobo and an old junk AMD/ATI GPU so i cant really complain. Its still a beta anyway so i dont mind.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Wed, 06 January 2016, 17:35:33
I just tossed the guts of my old server that was running Mandrake 10. Great distro that lost its way. I now have a SteamOS box that i've bricked a few times with their updates but otherwise keeping it simple.

Ouch, I heard that SteamOS had some problems, but I didn't think it was that bad...

I'm also using old hardware. An HP HPE410F (http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02481315); non-uefi mobo and an old junk AMD/ATI GPU so i cant really complain. Its still a beta anyway so i dont mind.
What compelled you to run SteamOS on this kind of hardware?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: OfTheWild on Wed, 06 January 2016, 19:26:05
I just tossed the guts of my old server that was running Mandrake 10. Great distro that lost its way. I now have a SteamOS box that i've bricked a few times with their updates but otherwise keeping it simple.

Ouch, I heard that SteamOS had some problems, but I didn't think it was that bad...

I'm also using old hardware. An HP HPE410F (http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02481315); non-uefi mobo and an old junk AMD/ATI GPU so i cant really complain. Its still a beta anyway so i dont mind.
What compelled you to run SteamOS on this kind of hardware?

It allows me to use my gaming rig upstairs to do all the heavy processing and then just stream the video over the network to my steamOS box connected to the 4K TV downstairs where i can play on the couch. It was a win win situation for me since 1. I wanted to play games with the graphics of my desktop but on the 65" screen and 2. Most importantly my wife can sit on the couch and watch, play 2player, do her own thing... and generally not feel like she's being ignored.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nephiel on Fri, 08 January 2016, 00:57:55
Giving Devuan a try on an old desktop machine.

I really hope this Debian fork stands the test of time. I don't need no systemd and nearly every other distro is switching to it.

Also removing Pulseaudio while I'm at it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: daerid on Sat, 09 January 2016, 13:19:31
Giving Devuan a try on an old desktop machine.

I really hope this Debian fork stands the test of time. I don't need no systemd and nearly every other distro is switching to it.

Also removing Pulseaudio while I'm at it.

Would love to hear your experiences. I really don't like systemd, and have yet to find a distro without it that I like
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 11 January 2016, 09:53:31
I'm new to Linux, so i'm not too familiar with this systemd tiff.  Do you all recommend any resources you could point me towards that are a good primer?  So far, I've found this resource somewhat useful:

http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Mon, 11 January 2016, 11:16:15
Most of them are linked in the wiki you posted. there also was one nice gif with a plush animal(forgot what exactly) of some kind with systemd written on it "eating" other programs/services/daemons/etc. in chronological order, but the link I have 404s.

In other words, I wussed out of Void because it's void(w) of documentation and will probably go with PCLinuxOS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: gorebrush on Mon, 11 January 2016, 11:32:54
Giving Devuan a try on an old desktop machine.

I really hope this Debian fork stands the test of time. I don't need no systemd and nearly every other distro is switching to it.

Also removing Pulseaudio while I'm at it.

Would love to hear your experiences. I really don't like systemd, and have yet to find a distro without it that I like

Gentoo...?

I'm an Arch/Debian user myself
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Tue, 12 January 2016, 10:53:54
Btw anyone here on Linux with a 2560x1440 or 3440x1440 monitor? Just bought a 27" 2560x1440 screen (not there yet) and thinking about selling it to a client and go directly for a 34" 3440x1440 one.  I won't be gaming at all: it's for my workstation (don't even have speakers connected: no game, no sound).

I think I'll have to buy a new GPU with DisplayPort and mess up with my Linux configuration quite a bit (tried a 34" with a thunderbolt adapter on a MacBook Air: worked immediately... I know that sadly it won't be that easy with Linux).

I'm interested if anyone has feedback on such a setup with Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 12 January 2016, 12:29:35
I test out distros on live USB sticks on my 13.3" Macbook Pro Retina (2560x1600).  While this is smaller than the displays you are describing, it looks sharp but the text is REALLY tiny and the first I do is change the display resolution to 1600x900 or so. 

I've been looking into Linux compatibility with hi-res monitors and laptops, and the general theme seems to be that you can change the desktop theme and browser font to work with hi-res, but there might be inconsistencies across different software applications and desktop environments.

However, on my 21" 1080p monitor, Linux shows up well without having to make any adjustments.

Considering the spotty results, I probably won't go higher than 1080p on my monitors and laptops in the near future for using Linux distros.  Of course, I'm no authority, so others may have different experiences than me.

Just Google "Linux and hidpi" or "Linux and 4k" and I think you will find plenty of helpful info.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 12 January 2016, 13:03:59
Or you could buy the monitor of choice and simply set a lower display resolution until support is more consistent for higher resolutions. Which is what I might do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Tue, 12 January 2016, 16:36:12
Or you could buy the monitor of choice and simply set a lower display resolution until support is more consistent for higher resolutions. Which is what I might do.

Ah... Thing is: I always run my monitors at native resolution (and use bigger fonts if the pixels are too tiny). Only on a screen with really tiny pixels (like a Mac retina display) can I withstand the "scaling") and on the 34" I'm thinking of (a Dell U3415W, same panel as the LG 34uc97 I think) the pixels aren't *that* small :)

Also 3440x1440 is not even 4K if I'm not mistaken: 4K starts at 4000x2160 I think. But I'll double check: I take it that if I can make 4K work, then I can do 3440x1440 too.

It's for a desktop: so my concern is which GPU to buy and which cable (and which cable version etc.) to use... I think I need to go DisplayPort 1.2 at least. And then, on top of it, I'd like a passive GPU for my workstation is close to silent (SSD, passive heatsink, no fans on the GPU, BeQuiet alim, etc.).

Fun evenings ahead I guess :-/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Tue, 12 January 2016, 16:40:00
Remember these?

I raise your bet with this, first distro of Linux I ever used (and dang, I used it a lot: learned Un*x commands, emacs, LaTeX, etc. all from within Slackware), installed Slackware from the CD (it was also possible to download slackware --70 disks IIRC-- with my 33.6 K modem but that would have been too slow):

[attachimg=1]

By the way that's a pic I found on the Internet: I'm pretty sure mine was the first version of the book, not the updated one as in this picture :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 12 January 2016, 19:07:06
Or you could buy the monitor of choice and simply set a lower display resolution until support is more consistent for higher resolutions. Which is what I might do.

Ah... Thing is: I always run my monitors at native resolution (and use bigger fonts if the pixels are too tiny). Only on a screen with really tiny pixels (like a Mac retina display) can I withstand the "scaling") and on the 34" I'm thinking of (a Dell U3415W, same panel as the LG 34uc97 I think) the pixels aren't *that* small :)

Also 3440x1440 is not even 4K if I'm not mistaken: 4K starts at 4000x2160 I think. But I'll double check: I take it that if I can make 4K work, then I can do 3440x1440 too.

It's for a desktop: so my concern is which GPU to buy and which cable (and which cable version etc.) to use... I think I need to go DisplayPort 1.2 at least. And then, on top of it, I'd like a passive GPU for my workstation is close to silent (SSD, passive heatsink, no fans on the GPU, BeQuiet alim, etc.).

Fun evenings ahead I guess :-/

Whatever works, I suppose.  I found this archwiki article very useful.  Gave me a little more confidence if I wanted to purchase a higher resolution monitor or laptop:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cryptokey on Tue, 12 January 2016, 19:09:22
openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?

yeah and other than javascript in any browser being dog-slow, i love it!

Since when? I've never had any problems like this - are you sure it's not just your hardware?  If it's a big issue, try out the advanced mode of ublock origin where you can block scripts.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Tue, 12 January 2016, 19:41:49
openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?

yeah and other than javascript in any browser being dog-slow, i love it!

Since when? I've never had any problems like this - are you sure it's not just your hardware?  If it's a big issue, try out the advanced mode of ublock origin where you can block scripts.

Javascript just doesn't work that well on BSD. Linux suffers from the same too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nephiel on Wed, 13 January 2016, 01:31:04
openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?

yeah and other than javascript in any browser being dog-slow, i love it!

Since when? I've never had any problems like this - are you sure it's not just your hardware?  If it's a big issue, try out the advanced mode of ublock origin where you can block scripts.

Javascript just doesn't work that well on BSD. Linux suffers from the same too.
s/Javascript/Adobe\ Flash/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 13 January 2016, 02:32:50
openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?

yeah and other than javascript in any browser being dog-slow, i love it!

Since when? I've never had any problems like this - are you sure it's not just your hardware?  If it's a big issue, try out the advanced mode of ublock origin where you can block scripts.

firefox on openbsd is slow, period. chromium on openbsd is slow, period. every web browser on openbsd is slow, period.

openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?

yeah and other than javascript in any browser being dog-slow, i love it!

Since when? I've never had any problems like this - are you sure it's not just your hardware?  If it's a big issue, try out the advanced mode of ublock origin where you can block scripts.

Javascript just doesn't work that well on BSD. Linux suffers from the same too.

it's worse on openbsd. really bad. like, browser is  non-responsive for up to 10 seconds sometimes when using sites like Facebook.
thankfully there's youtube-dl because streaming video in a browser is basically impossible on this machine, where it was completely smooth with linux. youtube's not everything though :P

openbsd: what a revelation!
Show Image
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZvvasIYAAdlQW.jpg)


So you made the switch finally?

yeah and other than javascript in any browser being dog-slow, i love it!

Since when? I've never had any problems like this - are you sure it's not just your hardware?  If it's a big issue, try out the advanced mode of ublock origin where you can block scripts.

Javascript just doesn't work that well on BSD. Linux suffers from the same too.
s/Javascript/Adobe\ Flash/

no... keep javascript in there.
there's no flash on openbsd. maybe pepper flash works. i don't care... can't use a handful of sites here and there but it's a good tradeoff.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dan002 on Thu, 14 January 2016, 12:49:27
Do you mostly use 'lite' distros without the GUI and SSH in or use the GUI?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: JonnyPolygon on Thu, 14 January 2016, 12:54:57
I switched to ubuntu for a while but realised I wanted to game lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Thu, 14 January 2016, 14:21:32
I switched to ubuntu for a while but realised I wanted to game lol

I use a virtualized instance of qemu-kvm for stuff like that
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Sat, 16 January 2016, 10:22:24
Do you mostly use 'lite' distros without the GUI and SSH in or use the GUI?

I'm using Debian and always booting without a GUI, then I "startx" which launches a pretty basic X: no Gnome, no KDE.  I'm using a tiling window manager (the Awesome WM, but I may switch to XMonad): so I have no icons for example.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Sat, 16 January 2016, 19:47:08
Do you mostly use 'lite' distros without the GUI and SSH in or use the GUI?

I only use Linux on servers, so headless. Last year I started using CoreOS. Going forward this is probably going to be my base distro for servers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Sat, 16 January 2016, 19:56:22
Anybody using Docker?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dan002 on Sun, 17 January 2016, 17:13:12
Anybody using Docker?

I really like Docker, it was the only menu bar that worked on ARM laptop for me!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Sun, 17 January 2016, 18:35:40
Anybody using Docker?

I really like Docker, it was the only menu bar that worked on ARM laptop for me!

I meant this Docker (https://www.docker.com/what-docker):

Quote
Docker is an open-source project that automates the deployment of applications inside software containers, by providing an additional layer of abstraction and automation of operating-system-level virtualization on Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 27 January 2016, 20:39:18
Anybody use the Enlightenment desktop?  I've played around with it on a few live USBs, and it seems interesting enough for a beginner like myself.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Wed, 27 January 2016, 21:53:54
Anybody use the Enlightenment desktop?  I've played around with it on a few live USBs, and it seems interesting enough for a beginner like myself.
Enlightenment's zenith was back in the late 90s. Memories of sitting in the dev chat, thinking I was a prodigy for writing some E widget that displayed temp. or load or something...

If you're looking for a clean Win95 style desktop enviroment there's XFCE which is what I was using after Gnome 3. But I switched to i3, a tiling window manager, a couple years ago and haven't looked back. It's like going from rubberdome to mechanical.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thatllbeme on Thu, 28 January 2016, 05:15:09
I'm a big fan of Fedora nowadays - my Ubuntu LTS install crashed far too regularly to be useful. Fedora's been crashing a bit too lately (I think running a VM on my laptop is too much of a demand, really) - any other distros I should try?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 28 January 2016, 06:21:59
Anybody use the Enlightenment desktop?  I've played around with it on a few live USBs, and it seems interesting enough for a beginner like myself.

not since like 2004 heh. doesn't look like their visual paradigm has gone much further than that, either. but i know some people swear by it!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 28 January 2016, 06:23:59
Anybody use the Enlightenment desktop?
Nope, absolutely not. But here's a ridiculous Daily WTF on, well, Enlightenment code base (https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/enlightened/8795).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: leon on Thu, 28 January 2016, 09:22:14
I use ElementaryOS on my PC since it's the most like OSX which I am using on my macbook air. 
I also have arch installed on this harddrive somewhere but I never use it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: lishi on Thu, 28 January 2016, 10:17:38
Currently using Antergos because my Windows 10 drive died and I don't wanna go through the hassle of setting up Arch  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 28 January 2016, 14:36:19
For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Thu, 28 January 2016, 19:41:56
Well it's been quite a while since I posted here, so I figure I'll post what I use again.

After around 3 years of distro hopping and using Arch quite a bit of that time, I find that Anything Debian/Ubuntu-based for my desktop/laptops and Debian for my server(s) is good enough for me.
And I am looking at FreeBSD on my secondary desktop just to see what ZFS is all about.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 28 January 2016, 20:16:24
For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..
My android build server has been running LTS as well for a similar time, ridiculously stable. Though my old web server, which ran Cent was similar, I'm just not a fan of it. I liked Red Hat and Cent until I had that server for a while. When it fell a bit too far behind, all advice I found flat out said do NOT update it as it would probably break. That ended that.


Well it's been quite a while since I posted here, so I figure I'll post what I use again.

After around 3 years of distro hopping and using Arch quite a bit of that time, I find that Anything Debian/Ubuntu-based for my desktop/laptops and Debian for my server(s) is good enough for me.
Kind of an update for me as well, but also follows what you found...
While I love Debian w/Cinnamon, I found Mint Cinnamon to function a bit better (ignoring the installer bug on some systems), it's integrated better. I won't use Ubuntu, but there is a ton of help for it, so using Mint is sort of a best of the bench for me. It's on two of my laptops now, and I'm quite happy with it. I expect it'll be on that on my desktop by the end of the weekend now that I have it sorted.

Like you, I tried Arch and others, and in the end, many are just not maintained well enough or require far more effort than I need to expend on maintaining an os. It's an OS, it may be fine for others, but to me, the OS has become background noise to what I do on the computer and therefor should not require that much focus to keep it running. I just want it to do what I need and disappear into the background.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 29 January 2016, 04:35:04
Remember these?

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/9nuHOC9.jpg?1)


I found them underneath my bed. All the disks are missing, not that it matters. I had a BeOS one that wasn't with them, hopefully it will turn up, old school esoteric.

Right in dem nostalgia.. I had Suse 7.2 Pro boxed. With that paperback manual of 500+ pages. Hmm... the goodness. Shouldn't have discarded it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 29 January 2016, 04:38:17
Well it's been quite a while since I posted here, so I figure I'll post what I use again.

After around 3 years of distro hopping and using Arch quite a bit of that time, I find that Anything Debian/Ubuntu-based for my desktop/laptops and Debian for my server(s) is good enough for me.
And I am looking at FreeBSD on my secondary desktop just to see what ZFS is all about.

I thought of switching to FreeBSD coz of ZFS as well. But then I found out that ZFS and all its newer goodness is owned by Oracle. And they do not always (or in a timely manner) backport to FreeBSD and the lot. So I decided to stick with EXT4 and wait till BTRFS becomes more stable I guess.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 29 January 2016, 05:18:31
Anybody use the Enlightenment desktop?  I've played around with it on a few live USBs, and it seems interesting enough for a beginner like myself.
I used it with a 4K display because it has a global scaling setting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 29 January 2016, 06:51:14
Btw no to flame, but how is linux on the desktop? I am getting increasingly tired of Apple's practices (glueing everything, making you buy the most expensive configuration to future-proof, etc.) and was thinking of building my own powerhouse rig with linux. But then I noticed that there are still many issues on the desktop. Is this still true?

For instance: http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

List is really scaring the crap out of me.. I need stuff to work. I can do sysops and figure the **** out of my installation, but I do not want to break stuff continuously when I'm working on deadlines.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Fri, 29 January 2016, 07:19:04

Btw no to flame, but how is linux on the desktop? I am getting increasingly tired of Apple's practices (glueing everything, making you buy the most expensive configuration to future-proof, etc.) and was thinking of building my own powerhouse rig with linux. But then I noticed that there are still many issues on the desktop. Is this still true?

For instance: http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

List is really scaring the crap out of me.. I need stuff to work. I can do sysops and figure the **** out of my installation, but I do not want to break stuff continuously when I'm working on deadlines.

I haven't kept a Linux workstation for several years now, so I'm a bit out of touch. However, Linux was already perfectly fine on the desktop even when I first tried it over 15 years ago. I can't imagine why things should be any different these days.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 29 January 2016, 08:15:43
Almost all of the headaches that I have ever encountered with Linux have revolved around devices not working, and sometimes never working, even after considerable troubleshooting, especially LAN, wireless, and audio cards, etc.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Fri, 29 January 2016, 08:22:52
Well it's been quite a while since I posted here, so I figure I'll post what I use again.

After around 3 years of distro hopping and using Arch quite a bit of that time, I find that Anything Debian/Ubuntu-based for my desktop/laptops and Debian for my server(s) is good enough for me.
And I am looking at FreeBSD on my secondary desktop just to see what ZFS is all about.

I thought of switching to FreeBSD coz of ZFS as well. But then I found out that ZFS and all its newer goodness is owned by Oracle. And they do not always (or in a timely manner) backport to FreeBSD and the lot. So I decided to stick with EXT4 and wait till BTRFS becomes more stable I guess.

ZFS seems to shine in the server world, so I am very curious about it, with the potential to run that as well as debian on my servers ;)

And I actually just switched to btrfs on my laptop, it's pretty good. My main desktop though is still on EXT4, I'll be waiting on the next LTS release of mint to switch that over to btrfs as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 29 January 2016, 09:09:57
Btw no to flame, but how is linux on the desktop? I am getting increasingly tired of Apple's practices (glueing everything, making you buy the most expensive configuration to future-proof, etc.) and was thinking of building my own powerhouse rig with linux. But then I noticed that there are still many issues on the desktop. Is this still true?

For instance: http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

List is really scaring the crap out of me.. I need stuff to work. I can do sysops and figure the **** out of my installation, but I do not want to break stuff continuously when I'm working on deadlines.

Looking at that particular article, I don't see anything glaringly inaccurate. But don't just consider the list, consider the entire article.

My reading is that the author does not intend to say that linux is garbage and it's impossible to use for real work. Rather, linux is one of many imperfect operating systems. For me, and for most of the work I do, I have found that the initial time investment of getting a linux workstation set up the way I want it has been worthwhile in terms of my enjoyment of the system overall. And while I can do well over 90% of the work I need to using linux, I've found it useful to keep a windows machine around for the other 5-10% of tasks.

Linux gaming is much improved from a few years ago, but it's definitely not a strong point of the platform. The solutions for using Windows-only software are poor, and provide a diminished experience. Audio is a bit of a mess to get working, but usually it's fine once one finds the configuration that meets their needs.

Articles like that one aren't intended to scare you off from using linux entirely. Rather, they should encourage you to reflect on your use case, and determine if linux is a viable option for your situation. If, after doing your own research, you feel that the benefits of linux outweigh the negatives, and represent an improvement from your current situation, I would encourage you to give it a try. If you choose hardware with a view to having well-supported and well-documented processes, I think you can avoid a fair number of the most frustrating pitfalls.

tl;dr that article is factually correct, but remember that every OS has problems. Whether linux is right for you rests on what you hope to do with it, and you need to decide for yourself if the time to set up a linux machine will be worthwhile to you or not.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 29 January 2016, 11:27:41
Enlightenment is interesting to me because it seems minimal and has some nice windows management feature, and you can jazz it up if you want.  I don't care too much about the ancient appearance, I'm more worried about function.  But if it has that lots of bugs and issues, well, screw it.  That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

I've tried nearly all the main desktop environments, and I think it's time to dive head on into a tiling windows manager, that's seems like what I'm looking for.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 29 January 2016, 11:58:14
Btw no to flame, but how is linux on the desktop? I am getting increasingly tired of Apple's practices (glueing everything, making you buy the most expensive configuration to future-proof, etc.) and was thinking of building my own powerhouse rig with linux. But then I noticed that there are still many issues on the desktop. Is this still true?

For instance: http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

List is really scaring the crap out of me.. I need stuff to work. I can do sysops and figure the **** out of my installation, but I do not want to break stuff continuously when I'm working on deadlines.

Thanks! Insightful. I would mainly use desktop for latex, R, python, and terminal tools. But, unfortunately, I also use Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop, and I **need** the real MS Office.

Best solution I've come up with is use OSX with tmux + vim in terminal for real work and then I can just use other Adobe / MS apps. But I miss the raw horsepower in Linux.. El Capitan is VERY LAGGY on my 2010 MBP (fully specced and maxed out).

Looking at that particular article, I don't see anything glaringly inaccurate. But don't just consider the list, consider the entire article.

My reading is that the author does not intend to say that linux is garbage and it's impossible to use for real work. Rather, linux is one of many imperfect operating systems. For me, and for most of the work I do, I have found that the initial time investment of getting a linux workstation set up the way I want it has been worthwhile in terms of my enjoyment of the system overall. And while I can do well over 90% of the work I need to using linux, I've found it useful to keep a windows machine around for the other 5-10% of tasks.

Linux gaming is much improved from a few years ago, but it's definitely not a strong point of the platform. The solutions for using Windows-only software are poor, and provide a diminished experience. Audio is a bit of a mess to get working, but usually it's fine once one finds the configuration that meets their needs.

Articles like that one aren't intended to scare you off from using linux entirely. Rather, they should encourage you to reflect on your use case, and determine if linux is a viable option for your situation. If, after doing your own research, you feel that the benefits of linux outweigh the negatives, and represent an improvement from your current situation, I would encourage you to give it a try. If you choose hardware with a view to having well-supported and well-documented processes, I think you can avoid a fair number of the most frustrating pitfalls.

tl;dr that article is factually correct, but remember that every OS has problems. Whether linux is right for you rests on what you hope to do with it, and you need to decide for yourself if the time to set up a linux machine will be worthwhile to you or not.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 30 January 2016, 00:44:09
Btw no to flame, but how is linux on the desktop?...

Years ago, wifi support was terrible, as was printer support. At this point, printer support is probably better than Mac and wifi support rivals Windows, sometimes better, sometimes worse, depending on the device and distro. Ubuntu based distros have really good support for both. If you use lots of pen source programs (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) you can often move between operating systems with relative ease really.

As User 18 said, it's perfectly capable of day to day use, it's that 10% where it has trouble.  Here is where you may need to get creative.

Photoshop and Ilustrator
You can get some versions of Photoshop to work in Wine, and some work quite well. You just need to find the ones that do work.  I've had 6, CS2 and CS4 working just fine, and I understand CS6 will work, but 5 is terrible.  My Wacom Penabled tablet functions perfectly with Ubuntu and Cs4, which is funny since it cannot run Windows newer than Winxp. On the other hand, have you looked at Krita and Gimp (both have Mac and Windows versions)? There is even a Gimp made to have a Photoshop interface (Gimpshop). Most things people do in Photoshop is simple editing, which these can easily do, you just need to adapt. Illustrator is much the same, except you use inkscape, which has made steady progress into Illustrators realm.


Your other stumbling block... Office.
Open Office is actually darn good, however if you need REAL office, it depends on the version you can get away with. 2010 can run pretty good in Wine. Word runs Excellent, Excell, Access and Outlook work well enough.



Overall though, you can run linux from a thumbstick with these alternate programs, why not download a popular distro and see just how it works on your system. You won't be able to install much on it without a few tricks, you can actually install a fully working, and usable Linux onto a thumbstick or create a stick with room to act as a hard drive using tools like Pendrive Linux. These will let you give it a try and see if it can do what you need.

I would recommend Lubuntu or Mint with Mate (this) as they have a more standard interface. I say that just so you won't get dismayed because of a funky interface you dislike (Unity is very polarizing). I'm not saying it's an easy switch, especially for power users, and you may not even pull it off, but considering you can do it for free and not disturb your current system, why not give it a try and see how close you can get.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 30 January 2016, 02:33:50
Plasma 5.5 has recently landed in Kubuntu Backports, and although the upgrade didn't go too well, it seems that I'll be leaving Xfce/Cinnamon again after a year on my laptop.

Xfce has terrible multihead support, if you need more than occasionally connect a projector; there are no hotkeys for moving between screens either. High-level support for Wacom tablets/digitizers is non-existent—everything has to be scripted.

Cinnamon is much better in these regards. Multihead configuration is straightforward and persistent, screen rotation is synchronized with digitizer orientation and has left me impressed. The main downside is that it has origins in Gnome's Hell and the whole GTK3 mess.

So yeah, Plasma it is. It's not 100% perfect yet, we're getting there.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dan002 on Sat, 30 January 2016, 17:26:38
Does the laptop require more CPU power to run cinnamon? I remember on my ARMv7 laptop, xfce was one of the few solid desktop environments that worked. I don't remember if cinnamon was available at the time. However, I checked and the packages are there. I only wish I tried it out. Let me know how it runs on ARM if you can.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 30 January 2016, 18:25:12
Does the laptop require more CPU power to run cinnamon? I remember on my ARMv7 laptop, xfce was one of the few solid desktop environments that worked. I don't remember if cinnamon was available at the time. However, I checked and the packages are there. I only wish I tried it out. Let me know how it runs on ARM if you can.

I believe (although I am not sure) that Cinnamon is generally more resource-intensive than xfce. In my experience, xfce is fairly lightweight in general.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 30 January 2016, 23:32:59
Cinnamon is based on Gnome3, which is already heavier than XFCE. All are lighter than KDE.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Sat, 30 January 2016, 23:37:38
Personally for me, I am just waiting for LXQt to be a thing, because I personally would rather use Qt applications if I can.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Sun, 31 January 2016, 02:12:59
Personally for me, I am just waiting for LXQt to be a thing, because I personally would rather use Qt applications if I can.

Ever heard of Lumina? Yes, it's still in development, but it's already becoming "a thing" because of BSD's.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 31 January 2016, 05:19:04
I just use i3. But that's only good for coding, like tmux. I can image that it is a struggle for day-to-day casual browsing and stuff.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Sun, 31 January 2016, 10:16:24
Personally for me, I am just waiting for LXQt to be a thing, because I personally would rather use Qt applications if I can.

Ever heard of Lumina? Yes, it's still in development, but it's already becoming "a thing" because of BSD's.

Wow that's a beaut! I'll be keeping a close eye on that.

I just use i3. But that's only good for coding, like tmux. I can image that it is a struggle for day-to-day casual browsing and stuff.

I was able to do it for day-to-day use for quite a while, but then reality came in and made me realize it's not the most productive, just give me dmenu basically and I'm happy!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 31 January 2016, 10:19:12
Personally for me, I am just waiting for LXQt to be a thing, because I personally would rather use Qt applications if I can.

Ever heard of Lumina? Yes, it's still in development, but it's already becoming "a thing" because of BSD's.

Wow that's a beaut! I'll be keeping a close eye on that.

I just use i3. But that's only good for coding, like tmux. I can image that it is a struggle for day-to-day casual browsing and stuff.

I was able to do it for day-to-day use for quite a while, but then reality came in and made me realize it's not the most productive, just give me dmenu basically and I'm happy!

Curious... what made your i3-experience unproductive?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 31 January 2016, 10:22:22
     I first read of Ubuntu the year after I graduated high school (2004), but at the time dual booting scared me a little.  I tried Mint/Cinnamon eight years after reading of Ubuntu.  A few years after trying Mint/Cinnamon I realized what I needed was a distro that I could build up, Mint had too many layers added for my tastes.  I settled on dual booting Linux Lite, I could build that up and watch my hardware resource monitors as I add new layers.  I suppose I'll try Arch on my spare computer sometime this year  ;)     
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Sun, 31 January 2016, 10:42:54
Curious... what made your i3-experience unproductive?

I was wanting to customize i3 more than I wanted to do my work.  :))

     I first read of Ubuntu the year after I graduated high school (2004), but at the time dual booting scared me a little.  I tried Mint/Cinnamon eight years after reading of Ubuntu.  A few years after trying Mint/Cinnamon I realized what I needed was a distro that I could build up, Mint had too many layers added for my tastes.  I settled on dual booting Linux Lite, I could build that up and watch my hardware resource monitors as I add new layers.  I suppose I'll try Arch on my spare computer sometime this year  ;)     

Arch is definitely something I would say everyone should try at least once, have fun with it!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 31 January 2016, 10:56:19
Arch is definitely something I would say everyone should try at least once, have fun with it!

I really used to like Arch, but it used to break too often for me, distracting me from my actual work. Yes, I know it's rolling release. Perhaps it's better now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n__dles on Sun, 31 January 2016, 11:26:59
Curious... what made your i3-experience unproductive?

I was wanting to customize i3 more than I wanted to do my work.  :))

Arch is definitely something I would say everyone should try at least once, have fun with it!
Keep this man away from Gentoo!!!  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 31 January 2016, 11:31:14
Curious... what made your i3-experience unproductive?

I was wanting to customize i3 more than I wanted to do my work.  :))

Arch is definitely something I would say everyone should try at least once, have fun with it!
Keep this man away from Gentoo!!!  :p

Memories.. once compiled Gentoo with KDE on a K7 700 Mhz Athlon... took me 3 days to compile everything.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: livingspeedbump on Thu, 04 February 2016, 10:54:20
I have cards with just about every OS the Pi 2 can run laying around the house. Generally I use Mate.

I've been running Ubuntu on my old desktop for years now, and generally toy around with OS' on my Laptop. Currently running Arch on it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: livingspeedbump on Thu, 04 February 2016, 10:57:30
tl;dr that article is factually correct, but remember that every OS has problems. Whether linux is right for you rests on what you hope to do with it, and you need to decide for yourself if the time to set up a linux machine will be worthwhile to you or not.

Precisely this, when considering for a more "professional" use. For those cases Ubuntu is generally the way to go as well.

If you have a cheap/old desktop or laptop laying around, you can always try out a few of the distros you are considering on that before making the full switch over as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 04 February 2016, 13:38:15
Precisely this, when considering for a more "professional" use. For those cases Ubuntu is generally the way to go as well.

If you have a cheap/old desktop or laptop laying around, you can always try out a few of the distros you are considering on that before making the full switch over as well.

That's my experience as well. So far, ubuntu updates (dist upgrades as well as regular updates) never broke anything for me so far *knock on wood*.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Thu, 04 February 2016, 13:44:19
Precisely this, when considering for a more "professional" use. For those cases Ubuntu is generally the way to go as well.

If you have a cheap/old desktop or laptop laying around, you can always try out a few of the distros you are considering on that before making the full switch over as well.

That's my experience as well. So far, ubuntu updates (dist upgrades as well as regular updates) never broke anything for me so far *knock on wood*.

LTS or non-LTS release?  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 04 February 2016, 15:22:00
Precisely this, when considering for a more "professional" use. For those cases Ubuntu is generally the way to go as well.

If you have a cheap/old desktop or laptop laying around, you can always try out a few of the distros you are considering on that before making the full switch over as well.

That's my experience as well. So far, ubuntu updates (dist upgrades as well as regular updates) never broke anything for me so far *knock on wood*.

LTS or non-LTS release?  :p

LTS.. I use it on the servers of my own business. Rock solid so far, even with kernel updates and reboots. But no X11 of course.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hullo8d on Thu, 04 February 2016, 19:35:32
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 05 February 2016, 18:19:31
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Sat, 06 February 2016, 00:53:19
Former Gentoo dev (2005-2008) checking in... Arch for my desktop laptop and userland boxes.  Ubuntu stable for servers that require milestone release models.  Network devices (especially edge) are either FreeBSD or, more likely, OpenBSD. 

Working environment is i3wm, vim (with about two dozen plugins, half of which are active based on filetype) and that's about it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 06 February 2016, 03:44:20
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?
There are still some things where Linux is severely lacking, video editing, cad, and photo editing to name a few.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 06 February 2016, 06:07:53
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?
There are still some things where Linux is severely lacking, video editing, cad, and photo editing to name a few.

True, that's why I still rely on OS X as my main host os.. Adobe + MS Office (and some other apps)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Sat, 06 February 2016, 13:55:21
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?
There are still some things where Linux is severely lacking, video editing, cad, and photo editing to name a few.

video editing and photo editing I agree that OS X's story is much better (for example with the various Adobe tools) but... Is Linux really lacking in the CAD space? I was under the impression that some of the very best 3D tools like Autodesk's Maya were available under Linux (and also the free Blender). I also know for a fact that some top-notch 3D firms do use Linux-only servers in their rendering farms (which I know ain't the same as 3D modelling but it's related).

For example I was under the impression that some impressive 3D short movies had been made on Linux, using only open source tools.

For sound editing (which you didn't mention) apparently Linux has some very good free tools too btw.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 06 February 2016, 14:47:07
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?
There are still some things where Linux is severely lacking, video editing, cad, and photo editing to name a few.

video editing and photo editing I agree that OS X's story is much better (for example with the various Adobe tools) but... Is Linux really lacking in the CAD space? I was under the impression that some of the very best 3D tools like Autodesk's Maya were available under Linux (and also the free Blender). I also know for a fact that some top-notch 3D firms do use Linux-only servers in their rendering farms (which I know ain't the same as 3D modelling but it's related).

For example I was under the impression that some impressive 3D short movies had been made on Linux, using only open source tools.

For sound editing (which you didn't mention) apparently Linux has some very good free tools too btw.

Yes, Linux very much is lacking in the CAD space. Sure, we have FreeCAD, and whatever other free CAD software there is out there. I've tried them all and none stack up to what Autodesk has to offer. Also, sure you can make really nice looking 3D films using Blender but it lacks the intuition for it to be used more often in the professional world.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 06 February 2016, 16:44:08
video editing and photo editing I agree that OS X's story is much better (for example with the various Adobe tools) but... Is Linux really lacking in the CAD space? I was under the impression that some of the very best 3D tools like Autodesk's Maya were available under Linux (and also the free Blender). I also know for a fact that some top-notch 3D firms do use Linux-only servers in their rendering farms (which I know ain't the same as 3D modelling but it's related).

For example I was under the impression that some impressive 3D short movies had been made on Linux, using only open source tools.

For sound editing (which you didn't mention) apparently Linux has some very good free tools too btw.
Yes, Linux very much is lacking in the CAD space. Sure, we have FreeCAD, and whatever other free CAD software there is out there. I've tried them all and none stack up to what Autodesk has to offer. Also, sure you can make really nice looking 3D films using Blender but it lacks the intuition for it to be used more often in the professional world.

It's been a few years since I last looked at Linux video editing and wow has it changed.
Cinelarra is comparable to Premier and Final Cut, however the one that stands out is Lightworks, which is what studios are using. It's been around for over 20 years, but it was only released to the public in the last couple years. Pulp Fiction, Departed, Wolf Of Wallstreet  were edited on the pro version of Lightworks as have many other blockbusters. This is the one we kept hearing about studios using but where unable to get.


For Cad, Freecad has actually made some impressive strides with the latest iteration, and seems usable, but you are right, to say it plays in the ranks of Autodesk, Solidworks and Catia is an insult to those programs. There is also Openscad, which if you're a programmer can be quite good and powerful, but not only is it also not in the same ranks, but if you aren't a programmer (or are dyslexic), it can be an exercise in frustration (or a nightmare). Mac is pretty much in the same boat as Linux.


For Photo editing, Windows still rules. Mac isn't far behind, but sorry Mac guys, Windows is better for Photoshop. You can thank Apple and Adobe for that situation, they started off great but slowly turned into that couple in the trailer park with 5 kids who keep trying to kill each other. They won't break up, but do all they can to piss each other off.

For Linux users, people either love or hate Gimp. It's plenty capable for most things, but if you have been using Photoshop or Corel, it's a pretty big departure. I found Gimpshop easier, but installing it on Linux is sort of a hassle. Personally, I would rather spend that time getting CS4 working and have a working Photoshop, than a skinned Gimp (never expected to say those two words together). Krita is also interesting, and while impressive, in a way it's like Gimp, it does things different than Photoshop, and not always in good ways. If you are in a hurry, re-learning isn't always an option.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 06 February 2016, 17:26:44
Gimp and Krita are aimed at very different use cases. The latter is a drawing application and it's supposedly excellent as such. Gimp, on the other hand, is what the name suggests: an image manipulation app; color-space support just isn't there for professional usage, e.g., with DTP ecosystem. Speaking of DTP, there's nothing even remotely comparable to InDesign on GNU/Linux.

The CAD/CAM market is a weird one for a change. I know, for instance, that Catia has existed for GNU/Linux, even quite recently, but without a public release or anything along the lines of that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 06 February 2016, 18:32:15
For Photo editing, Windows still rules. Mac isn't far behind, but sorry Mac guys, Windows is better for Photoshop. You can thank Apple and Adobe for that situation, they started off great but slowly turned into that couple in the trailer park with 5 kids who keep trying to kill each other. They won't break up, but do all they can to piss each other off.

What's wrong with Photoshop on a Mac? Or put differently, why is Photoshop so much better on Windows? I do not heavily use Photoshop btw. I use Illustrator and InDesign on a Mac.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 06 February 2016, 18:42:29
Gimp and Krita are aimed at very different use cases. The latter is a drawing application and it's supposedly excellent as such. Gimp, on the other hand, is what the name suggests: an image manipulation app; color-space support just isn't there for professional usage, e.g., with DTP ecosystem. Speaking of DTP, there's nothing even remotely comparable to InDesign on GNU/Linux.

The CAD/CAM market is a weird one for a change. I know, for instance, that Catia has existed for GNU/Linux, even quite recently, but without a public release or anything along the lines of that.
Inkscape is what I use for all my avatars and such, I like it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 06 February 2016, 18:47:29
Gimp and Krita are aimed at very different use cases. The latter is a drawing application and it's supposedly excellent as such. Gimp, on the other hand, is what the name suggests: an image manipulation app; color-space support just isn't there for professional usage, e.g., with DTP ecosystem. Speaking of DTP, there's nothing even remotely comparable to InDesign on GNU/Linux.

The CAD/CAM market is a weird one for a change. I know, for instance, that Catia has existed for GNU/Linux, even quite recently, but without a public release or anything along the lines of that.
Inkscape is what I use for all my avatars and such, I like it.

I used to like Inkscape but it was too buggy for me for serious professional work. But I do like the color palette of Inkscape very very much. Reminds me of the original COREL color palette in COREL Draw.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 06 February 2016, 19:07:43
Gimp and Krita are aimed at very different use cases. The latter is a drawing application and it's supposedly excellent as such. Gimp, on the other hand, is what the name suggests: an image manipulation app; color-space support just isn't there for professional usage, e.g., with DTP ecosystem. Speaking of DTP, there's nothing even remotely comparable to InDesign on GNU/Linux.

The CAD/CAM market is a weird one for a change. I know, for instance, that Catia has existed for GNU/Linux, even quite recently, but without a public release or anything along the lines of that.
Inkscape is what I use for all my avatars and such, I like it.

I used to like Inkscape but it was too buggy for me for serious professional work. But I do like the color palette of Inkscape very very much. Reminds me of the original COREL color palette in COREL Draw.
I would definitely take Adobe Illustrator over Inkscape any day. Restarting because a tool stopped functioning can be time consuming.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 06 February 2016, 20:23:25
For Photo editing, Windows still rules. Mac isn't far behind, but sorry Mac guys, Windows is better for Photoshop. You can thank Apple and Adobe for that situation, they started off great but slowly turned into that couple in the trailer park with 5 kids who keep trying to kill each other. They won't break up, but do all they can to piss each other off.

What's wrong with Photoshop on a Mac? Or put differently, why is Photoshop so much better on Windows?

Since around Photoshop 4, I believe, it's been (generally) faster on Windows. Certain plugins and filters however sometimes do run faster on Mac.

The reason for this goes back to Adobe and Apple's relationship. When Apple switched to the PowerPc, Adobe simple ran PS through a converter, instead of re-writing it, this caused some serious problems and took a while to correct, though never fully. As time went on, they piled bad code on top of bad code. During this time, relations between Apple and Adobe soured, there were threats of Adobe leaving Mac, in the end, they shifted focus to PC and merely kept PS plodding along. When Apple switched to Intel chips, Adobe once again fed PS through a converter, this pretty much broke PS, finally forcing them to do a re-write.

I don't know where current versions stand in head to head performance, and frankly, I think people are foolish for switching to the newest versions. "You didn't pay your monthly fee, so you can't access your files. Sorry".
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hullo8d on Sun, 07 February 2016, 00:36:22
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?

well this has been pretty much answered at this point, but occasionally yeah. my use of it mostly comes from video editing and a couple of other special programs that i need for work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 07 February 2016, 00:53:36
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?

well this has been pretty much answered at this point, but occasionally yeah. my use of it mostly comes from video editing and a couple of other special programs that i need for work.
Would you mind telling us which program you use to edit videos with?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hullo8d on Sun, 07 February 2016, 01:08:22
i dual boot windows 10 enterprise ltsb and arch linux on my main pc. for general use (browsing, music, videos) i default to arch. i find that having a system that simple and powerful really helps me get stuff done. plus messing with arch is just fun.

also, i run armbian cli on my banana pi. makes for a cute nas setup.

What do you still need Windows for? Gaming?

well this has been pretty much answered at this point, but occasionally yeah. my use of it mostly comes from video editing and a couple of other special programs that i need for work.
Would you mind telling us which program you use to edit videos with?

well it depends, but i mainly use premiere. i occasionally use vegas and pinnacle when the need arises, vegas for when premiere doesn't play nicely with mixed bitrate things and pinnacle for when i'm feeling masochistic and need hilariously stupid effects and transitions. for basic editing though i just cut things up with ffmpeg on arch and call it a day.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Sun, 07 February 2016, 15:11:02
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 07 February 2016, 15:51:24
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.

You are completely right and I am fully aware of that, but thanks. What I meant to say is not that it is running 3 years WITHOUT REBOOTS, but that it has been running even with kernel updates not bricking the boatloader or other config.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 07 February 2016, 16:11:05
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.

You are completely right and I am fully aware of that, but thanks. What I meant to say is not that it is running 3 years WITHOUT REBOOTS, but that it has been running even with kernel updates not bricking the boatloader or other config.
The whole bricking the bootloader is the reason I quit dual booting Linux. I hate reformatting.   
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 07 February 2016, 17:37:41
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.

You are completely right and I am fully aware of that, but thanks. What I meant to say is not that it is running 3 years WITHOUT REBOOTS, but that it has been running even with kernel updates not bricking the boatloader or other config.
The whole bricking the bootloader is the reason I quit dual booting Linux. I hate reformatting.   

That's why I usually hold of for a week and check whether there are issues with a kernel update. You can never be too sure when your server is a production machine. I'm always scared to hit the Y on updating on my servers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Thu, 11 February 2016, 11:02:24
Yes, Linux very much is lacking in the CAD space. Sure, we have FreeCAD, and whatever other free CAD software there is out there. I've tried them all and none stack up to what Autodesk has to offer.

So Autodesk's Maya on Linux doesn't stack up with Autodesk's Maya on non-Linux systems?  I don't know much in this space: all I know is I've got friends running a huge advertising company (for TV ads) and doing short movies and they're using Maya and this is professional grade 3D software.  Once again I don't know much: maybe your referring to AutoCAD and Maya is "3D and not CAD" and AutoCAD sucks on Linux (or doesn't exist).  All I know is Autodesk makes Maya and Maya runs on Linux and Maya is one of the top-notch 3D editing software that exists (used for many movies, ads and even computer games).

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Thu, 11 February 2016, 11:17:07
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.

Not necessarily. I've had Linux servers (Debian) which I monitored closely reach 4 digits days of uptime without a single security exploit / kernel bug requiring a reboot affecting my setup. It would be interesting to see how regularly there are kernel updates requiring a reboot or leaving you exposed to a security exploit. But this is dependent on the setup. For me it was only HTTP / HTTPS and port 22 open and that's it IIRC. I had several Java patches (for Apache Tomcat, patches against DoS) requiring a reboot of Tomcat (but not the entire Linux box) and several Linux patch, but no kernel patches ones during that uptime.

It would be interesting to see how often there are kernel patches requiring a reboot that would otherwise leave you open to security exploits depending on your setup but I'm pretty sure that it's not "every 6 months". Granted, 1100 days of uptime may be a bit of a stretch, but I did it and AFAIK I saw nothing affecting me (and that machine never gave any sign of not working correctly or suspicious activity, as monitored both externally by the hosting company and by me).

Now I'd consider anyone besides me logging into SSH, in a non-root account, to be a full compromise of the machine (but that'd mean my login credentials would have been stolen or that SSH itself would have an exploit

Eventually what happened is the motherboard died and the company I was renting the server from "upgraded" my server to new a system... Debian distribution was so old that the new motherboard's network chipset wasn't recognized: was fun figuring it all out because at first I didn't realize the hardware had been changed :)

I'm not saying it's always possible but when there are no critical kernel patches, Linux is that stable...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 11 February 2016, 17:22:15
So Autodesk's Maya on Linux doesn't stack up with Autodesk's Maya on non-Linux systems?  I don't know much in this space: all I know is I've got friends running a huge advertising company (for TV ads) and doing short movies and they're using Maya and this is professional grade 3D software.  Once again I don't know much: maybe your referring to AutoCAD and Maya is "3D and not CAD" and AutoCAD sucks on Linux (or doesn't exist).  All I know is Autodesk makes Maya and Maya runs on Linux and Maya is one of the top-notch 3D editing software that exists (used for many movies, ads and even computer games).
From the outside, yes they perform the same basic functions, but one is meant for drawing a 3d object from an art perspective, the other is designed for high precision engineering multi-part assemblies where you can test clearances operation, flow rates and stress test.


Easy way to think of it...
Maya can be used to design a ship and sail it on film. Does it matter if the Maya object is actually functional, precise down to a tenth of a millimeter or even if it would actually float? No. It's a representation of a ship, if it is physically impossible, it doesn't matter.

Cad such as Catia lets you actually design/plan a working ship you can build in real life, test it's properties and tolerances, and even make sure that the bathroom door on deck 5 doesn't hit the counter top behind it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Fri, 12 February 2016, 13:08:20
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.

Not necessarily. I've had Linux servers (Debian) which I monitored closely reach 4 digits days of uptime without a single security exploit / kernel bug requiring a reboot affecting my setup. It would be interesting to see how regularly there are kernel updates requiring a reboot or leaving you exposed to a security exploit. But this is dependent on the setup. For me it was only HTTP / HTTPS and port 22 open and that's it IIRC. I had several Java patches (for Apache Tomcat, patches against DoS) requiring a reboot of Tomcat (but not the entire Linux box) and several Linux patch, but no kernel patches ones during that uptime.

It would be interesting to see how often there are kernel patches requiring a reboot that would otherwise leave you open to security exploits depending on your setup but I'm pretty sure that it's not "every 6 months". Granted, 1100 days of uptime may be a bit of a stretch, but I did it and AFAIK I saw nothing affecting me (and that machine never gave any sign of not working correctly or suspicious activity, as monitored both externally by the hosting company and by me).

Now I'd consider anyone besides me logging into SSH, in a non-root account, to be a full compromise of the machine (but that'd mean my login credentials would have been stolen or that SSH itself would have an exploit

Eventually what happened is the motherboard died and the company I was renting the server from "upgraded" my server to new a system... Debian distribution was so old that the new motherboard's network chipset wasn't recognized: was fun figuring it all out because at first I didn't realize the hardware had been changed :)

I'm not saying it's always possible but when there are no critical kernel patches, Linux is that stable...

Somehow I think you're missing my point that Linux root level local privilege escalation vulnerabilities are found pretty frequently.  Each of those vulnerabilities requires a reboot to patch, unless you're live patching your kernel or using some mitigating technology (Tomoyo, SELinux - hopefully they're not affected by the exploit).  Live patching a kernel is never something I would recommend for production servers.  kpatch etc can have massive unintended consequences for the userland.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Fri, 12 February 2016, 13:11:46
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.

You are completely right and I am fully aware of that, but thanks. What I meant to say is not that it is running 3 years WITHOUT REBOOTS, but that it has been running even with kernel updates not bricking the boatloader or other config.
The whole bricking the bootloader is the reason I quit dual booting Linux. I hate reformatting.   

What do you mean by "bricking" your bootloader?  If you are already chainloading your other OS (assuming Windows), the absolute worst case scenario is having to re-run grub-install (or similar MBR-paving tool if you're using a different bootloader).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 12 February 2016, 14:36:27
For CAD I've found FreeCAD to be decent enough.  I've never tried my hand at using a libre CAM control software.

For stability purposes I use Ubuntu LTS on my server. Server's running now for 3 years day-in-day-out.. no one single config or update break. Holy miracle..

On desktop, I mainly now use OS X with a terminal with tmux+vim+tools, but I used to use Arch Linux. But now they got rid of the installer in base, I do not like it that much anymore. I can do the manual install, I've done it multiple times, but I simply don't like it. A bit too barebones for me. I also always had update breaks like 1-2 times every 3 months. Became too annoying for me, so I took the plunge, emptied my wallet and bought a mac somehere in 2008.

Started with SuSE 7 somewhere in 2000, proceeded with Mandrake, RHEL, Debian. Tried Gentoo / Penguin Linux on the side. Ultimately sticked with Arch because of i686 and it's speed and xubuntu coz of laziness.

I would not advise chasing uptime.  3 years between reboots on Ubuntu LTS means you're forgoing critical kernel security patch backports.  I would be quite careful about what services you run on machines that are not receiving regular kernel security updates.  Sure, if your userland is fully patched you may consider that a mitigating factor, but the likelihood that your userland is impervious to penetration is extremely low.  There have been a myriad of local root escalation vulnerabilities disclosed in the last several years, many of which likely affect your running kernel.

You are completely right and I am fully aware of that, but thanks. What I meant to say is not that it is running 3 years WITHOUT REBOOTS, but that it has been running even with kernel updates not bricking the boatloader or other config.
The whole bricking the bootloader is the reason I quit dual booting Linux. I hate reformatting.   

What do you mean by "bricking" your bootloader?  If you are already chainloading your other OS (assuming Windows), the absolute worst case scenario is having to re-run grub-install (or similar MBR-paving tool if you're using a different bootloader).
I was testing the limits of my graphics card using a tool I've never used before.  A few kernel panics/freezes later and I couldn't fix the bootloader.  I had to do a fresh install. I assumed that "bricking' was similar to what people experience after bricking their Android phone. My intention wasn't to say, "hey, dual booting is a bad idea." I'm just not comfortable with the issues I'd had in the past with dual booting. Please keep in mind that my experience with Linux as a whole is limited to basic distros. If I were to dive back in I would learn more about the environment that appeals to me, and build it up myself.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 12 February 2016, 14:54:58
You cannot image what a show stopper "just rerun grub-install" is. First, I need to boot from a cd / USB stick. For that, I need to get into the bios of my server, because I disable boot from something else than my GUID hdd for physical compromise security. Then, I need to manually mount my software raid setup. Then I need to find chroot into that environment and rerun grub-install.

And I still have not figured out how I can properly ensure that grub is OK before I reboot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Fri, 12 February 2016, 15:21:44
Grub sometimes get overwritten on the MBR but that's pretty rare because something else (Windows) has to write to the same MBR.  Doing a Linux to Linux reboot should never affect your MBR and if it is, you should file a distro bug on whatever update hosed your boot record.  But, Windows has been known to write to the MBR when applying updates.  I know, booting to a LiveCD/USB can be a bit of a pain, all for the sake of running grub-install.  However, there are lightweight boot environments that might ease this pain.  Alternatively, don't boot to OSes that you don't control (Windows).  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Fri, 12 February 2016, 15:23:15
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 12 February 2016, 15:35:21
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Fri, 12 February 2016, 15:41:25
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 12 February 2016, 15:52:24
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

I don't know that I'd call either one more customizable out of the box. Linux as a whole is essentially as customizable as you want it to be, whether that means installing packages from the package manager, compiling from source, or writing your own scripts and apps.

To my knowledge, Mint and Ubuntu draw on a lot of the same repositories for precompiled software, so there shouldn't be a ton of difference in that regard. What sort of customization are you asking about in particular?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:06:17
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

I don't know that I'd call either one more customizable out of the box. Linux as a whole is essentially as customizable as you want it to be, whether that means installing packages from the package manager, compiling from source, or writing your own scripts and apps.

To my knowledge, Mint and Ubuntu draw on a lot of the same repositories for precompiled software, so there shouldn't be a ton of difference in that regard. What sort of customization are you asking about in particular?

Actually, I dunno. That's just what people have said.Will read up on the two and decide which to try.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:06:46
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:28:25
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.

Mint is basically a distro built on the foundation of Ubuntu, which isn't a bad starting point since there is so many tutorials, support and installers built around Ubuntu.

While Ubuntu tries to give you everything, Mint is a bit more barebones... Here's what you need, nothing more. Besides the desktop itself, other changes are a few tweaks and improvements here or there, and removal of Ubuntu's shared search results. Mint offers more desktop options, but once installed your options to customize any Linux distro is pretty much unlimited really, with most having similar options, it's just a matter of starting point.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:41:07
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

Out of the box, Linux Mint aims to provide a fuller and completed experience compared to Ubuntu and other distros. For instance, back in the day you had to manually install Microsoft fonts and codecs, which Linux Mint already installed by default.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:43:25
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.

Mint is basically a distro built on the foundation of Ubuntu, which isn't a bad starting point since there is so many tutorials, support and installers built around Ubuntu.

While Ubuntu tries to give you everything, Mint is a bit more barebones... Here's what you need, nothing more. Besides the desktop itself, other changes are a few tweaks and improvements here or there, and removal of Ubuntu's shared search results. Mint offers more desktop options, but once installed your options to customize any Linux distro is pretty much unlimited really, with most having similar options, it's just a matter of starting point.

I would say that for a complete newcomer who wonders "how it looks like" (e.g. graphical desktop experience), Linux Mint is more close to Windows XP / 7, whereas Ubuntu is more close to Windows 8 by trying to be both desktop and tablet compatible to a certain extent.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: skitty on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:45:10
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.


I think Ubuntu's Unity is much prettier than Mint's Cinnamon or Mate but I know that's kind of a controversial opinion. You can try both out before installing though!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:47:14
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.


I think Ubuntu's Unity is much prettier than Mint's Cinnamon or Mate but I know that's kind of a controversial opinion. You can try both out before installing though!

Curious.. What do you actually like about Unity? I really hate it myself and I have always wondered what people may like about it.. (no flame intended)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:48:59
While Ubuntu tries to give you everything, Mint is a bit more barebones... Here's what you need, nothing more. Besides the desktop itself, other changes are a few tweaks and improvements here or there, and removal of Ubuntu's shared search results. Mint offers more desktop options, but once installed your options to customize any Linux distro is pretty much unlimited really, with most having similar options, it's just a matter of starting point.

This helps a lot, thanks. Sounds like Ubuntu has more than I need, and I can always tweak here and there later. I'd like to try out as barebones as possible and then modify later.
Mint it is!


Edit:
Ooh, and thanks to everyone else! Didn't refresh my page after this last post.  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:50:09
While Ubuntu tries to give you everything, Mint is a bit more barebones... Here's what you need, nothing more. Besides the desktop itself, other changes are a few tweaks and improvements here or there, and removal of Ubuntu's shared search results. Mint offers more desktop options, but once installed your options to customize any Linux distro is pretty much unlimited really, with most having similar options, it's just a matter of starting point.

This helps a lot, thanks. Sounds like Ubuntu has more than I need, and I can always tweak here and there later. I'd like to try out as barebones as possible and then modify later.
Mint it is!

You'll like it. I've used it for years and liked it more than Ubuntu for the default out of the box experience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: skitty on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:55:14
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.


I think Ubuntu's Unity is much prettier than Mint's Cinnamon or Mate but I know that's kind of a controversial opinion. You can try both out before installing though!

Curious.. What do you actually like about Unity? I really hate it myself and I have always wondered what people may like about it.. (no flame intended)

I really love Dash and the dock/launchbar thing on the left of the screen. I kind of prefer it to a standard toolbar. I do kind of value looks over functionality though so I know a lot of people don't like Unity since some actions are a bit slower to perform.

Also, I'm not sure if this is strictly a Unity feature, but I love the way you can move between four workspaces in Ubuntu. It's really easy to manage windows and I couldn't find anything as nice back when I was using Linux Mint with Cinnamon.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 12 February 2016, 16:57:06
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.


I think Ubuntu's Unity is much prettier than Mint's Cinnamon or Mate but I know that's kind of a controversial opinion. You can try both out before installing though!

Curious.. What do you actually like about Unity? I really hate it myself and I have always wondered what people may like about it.. (no flame intended)

I really love Dash and the dock/launchbar thing on the left of the screen. I kind of prefer it to a standard toolbar. I do kind of value looks over functionality though so I know a lot of people don't like Unity since some actions are a bit slower to perform.

Also, I'm not sure if this is strictly a Unity feature, but I love the way you can move between four workspaces in Ubuntu. It's really easy to manage windows and I couldn't find anything as nice back when I was using Linux Mint with Cinnamon.

Cool, thanks, interesting to know. The dock / workspaces is what drove me to a Mac for desktop. I can see how you like that. But indeed, I do not find unity aesthetically pleasing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Fri, 12 February 2016, 17:34:58
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.


I think Ubuntu's Unity is much prettier than Mint's Cinnamon or Mate but I know that's kind of a controversial opinion. You can try both out before installing though!

Unity is nice... but my problem with Ubuntu is it doesn't always remember my keybindings, and the ones I desire are taken up by something I don't care about.  :mad:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 12 February 2016, 17:45:37
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

Ubuntu is decent. I personally like Linux Mint, as it was the one that got me into using linux full time (something Ubuntu was never able to do). Both are fairly common and well-supported distros, and I was happy with how both were put together.

I hear Linux Mint is more customizable, yes?

If you're looking at Ubuntu's Unity desktop compared to Mint's Cinnamon desktop then they are actually about on par in terms of customization.


I think Ubuntu's Unity is much prettier than Mint's Cinnamon or Mate but I know that's kind of a controversial opinion. You can try both out before installing though!

Curious.. What do you actually like about Unity? I really hate it myself and I have always wondered what people may like about it.. (no flame intended)

I really love Dash and the dock/launchbar thing on the left of the screen. I kind of prefer it to a standard toolbar. I do kind of value looks over functionality though so I know a lot of people don't like Unity since some actions are a bit slower to perform.

Also, I'm not sure if this is strictly a Unity feature, but I love the way you can move between four workspaces in Ubuntu. It's really easy to manage windows and I couldn't find anything as nice back when I was using Linux Mint with Cinnamon.

One of the things that bothered me the most about Cinnamon was that I couldn't find a way to put the panel to the side, like the dock in Ubuntu.

Cinnamon definitely has workspaces though -- I used two when I had Mint installed last year.

Also -- just a heads up that anyone who uses the Austere theme (so about half the forum) will have difficulty reading your posts, because that theme uses a white background. The pink is almost invisible (at least to my bad eyes).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 12 February 2016, 19:06:34
Yea, I can't read Skitty's pink text.  I'm sure it looks pretty with the default Geekhack theme, but I can't read a darn thing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 12 February 2016, 19:28:35
Also, romevi, I would recommend just googling "Linux for beginners" or something along those lines and you will find lots of information about your query.  I'm quite the Linux beginner myself, and I found that somewhat useful.

If you like to mess around the arrangement of your desktop, the default Ubunty Unity can feel a little bit ...constricted.  Both Ubuntu and Linux Mint (and others) can be highly customized if you dive deeper than the default.  Linux can be a black hole, if you are the curious type.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: skitty on Fri, 12 February 2016, 19:39:10
Yea, I can't read Skitty's pink text.  I'm sure it looks pretty with the default Geekhack theme, but I can't read a darn thing.

What's the background color of the theme you're using? Is a light color like white?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 12 February 2016, 20:29:11
Yea, I can't read Skitty's pink text.  I'm sure it looks pretty with the default Geekhack theme, but I can't read a darn thing.

What's the background color of the theme you're using? Is a light color like white?

I'm using the Thoriated theme, which is a light brown/tannnish theme.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: skitty on Fri, 12 February 2016, 20:37:58
I'm using the Thoriated theme, which is a light brown/tannnish theme.

I guess I'll stop using pink then... :(
Also, why do you use a theme with a light background color? I find that light text on dark backgrounds is much easier on my eyes.

One of the things that bothered me the most about Cinnamon was that I couldn't find a way to put the panel to the side, like the dock in Ubuntu.

Cinnamon definitely has workspaces though -- I used two when I had Mint installed last year.

Doesn't Cinnamon have those workspaces that only let you move windows left and right though? In Unity you can move them up and down.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 12 February 2016, 20:44:20
One of the things that bothered me the most about Cinnamon was that I couldn't find a way to put the panel to the side, like the dock in Ubuntu.

Cinnamon definitely has workspaces though -- I used two when I had Mint installed last year.

Doesn't Cinnamon have those workspaces that only let you move windows left and right though? In Unity you can move them up and down.

I had two workspaces, so one was left, and one was right. I'm not sure if it's possible to have up and down spaces as well, I never checked. I didn't know that was an option in Unity either, so good to know!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Fri, 12 February 2016, 20:50:50
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

The Ubuntu variants, as others have pointed out, are a great place to start.  Mint and Ubuntu are based on the same package management architecture.

I would advise playing around with a few different desktop environments, no matter what distro you pick.  Install KDE, XFCE, Mate, etc., so you can try a few for yourself.  The desktop environment is going to "feel" the most different to you between the distros that have been suggested.  The CLI structure won't differ much (if at all) as long as you stay in the apt package management family (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, etc etc).  Even if you decide to get adventurous and branch out into different distro families, all of the common utility commands will be the same.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 12 February 2016, 21:42:29
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

The Ubuntu variants, as others have pointed out, are a great place to start.  Mint and Ubuntu are based on the same package management architecture.

I would advise playing around with a few different desktop environments, no matter what distro you pick.  Install KDE, XFCE, Mate, etc., so you can try a few for yourself.  The desktop environment is going to "feel" the most different to you between the distros that have been suggested.  The CLI structure won't differ much (if at all) as long as you stay in the apt package management family (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, etc etc).  Even if you decide to get adventurous and branch out into different distro families, all of the common utility commands will be the same.

Command line and package management are a little confusing to newbs, let's take it easy here. Coming from Windows and Mac OS, you don't even know about packages, you just think in terms of updates.

But when you start getting serious with Linux, you learn that command lines and packages are the essential parts of any distro.

Also, this is my 2K post, and I would not have wanted it happening any other way except talking about Linux and keyboards.  If we could throw the viola and my girlfriend into the mix, I would be in heaven.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Sat, 13 February 2016, 01:46:43
This already may have been asked, but what's a good distro for someone who's never used Linux, and has grown up using Windows and Mac? Is Ubuntu a good place to start?

The Ubuntu variants, as others have pointed out, are a great place to start.  Mint and Ubuntu are based on the same package management architecture.

I would advise playing around with a few different desktop environments, no matter what distro you pick.  Install KDE, XFCE, Mate, etc., so you can try a few for yourself.  The desktop environment is going to "feel" the most different to you between the distros that have been suggested.  The CLI structure won't differ much (if at all) as long as you stay in the apt package management family (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, etc etc).  Even if you decide to get adventurous and branch out into different distro families, all of the common utility commands will be the same.

Command line and package management are a little confusing to newbs, let's take it easy here. Coming from Windows and Mac OS, you don't even know about packages, you just think in terms of updates.

But when you start getting serious with Linux, you learn that command lines and packages are the essential parts of any distro.

Also, this is my 2K post, and I would not have wanted it happening any other way except talking about Linux and keyboards.  If we could throw the viola and my girlfriend into the mix, I would be in heaven.

I totally agree.  Sometimes I get a bit carried away when talking about the differences between distros. You're absolutely right that, at the end of the day, package management is the largest difference, yet it may be something completely invisible to the average user.

Happy 2k!!  I made you a present in gimp.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 13 February 2016, 05:53:36

Happy 2k!!  I made you a present in gimp.

Nice! Thanks!  I'll frame it and put it on my wall.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 13 February 2016, 06:27:17
I'd like to clear up some confusion I notice. Some people seem to think that Ubuntu has a specific graphical user interface and Linux Mint has another specific graphical interface.

But technically, you could get Unity on Linux Mint and Cinnamon / Mate on Ubuntu.

The only difference between the two distros is what they have INSTALLED BY DEFAULT.
Since both even share the same package manager (apt), you could easily install another desktop environment / window manager on either of the distributions to whatever you like (KDE, Unity, LXME, Fluxbox, evilwm, i3, Mate, Unity, whatever!).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 13 February 2016, 07:09:26
I'd like to clear up some confusion I notice. Some people seem to think that Ubuntu has a specific graphical user interface and Linux Mint has another specific graphical interface.

But technically, you could get Unity on Linux Mint and Cinnamon / Mate on Ubuntu.

The only difference between the two distros is what they have INSTALLED BY DEFAULT.
Since both even share the same package manager (apt), you could easily install another desktop environment / window manager on either of the distributions to whatever you like (KDE, Unity, LXME, Fluxbox, evilwm, i3, Mate, Unity, whatever!).

A few months ago, coming from Mac OS, I didn't even know what a desktop environment or windows manager was.  And when you do learn about them, you realize how much of a constricted computing experience you have with Windows and Mac.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 13 February 2016, 10:50:07
I'd like to clear up some confusion I notice. Some people seem to think that Ubuntu has a specific graphical user interface and Linux Mint has another specific graphical interface.

But technically, you could get Unity on Linux Mint and Cinnamon / Mate on Ubuntu.

The only difference between the two distros is what they have INSTALLED BY DEFAULT.
Since both even share the same package manager (apt), you could easily install another desktop environment / window manager on either of the distributions to whatever you like (KDE, Unity, LXME, Fluxbox, evilwm, i3, Mate, Unity, whatever!).

Absolutely true -- But for someone new, I would recommend they pick a distro where they're happy with as many of the defaults as possible. The more things you strike out on your own to change, the more difficult it will be to get support if necessary, and the more effort you'll have to put in to get your system how you want it. While it's certainly possible, it's not the most newbie-friendly way of doing things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 13 February 2016, 15:37:41
I'd like to clear up some confusion I notice. Some people seem to think that Ubuntu has a specific graphical user interface and Linux Mint has another specific graphical interface.

But technically, you could get Unity on Linux Mint and Cinnamon / Mate on Ubuntu.

The only difference between the two distros is what they have INSTALLED BY DEFAULT.
Since both even share the same package manager (apt), you could easily install another desktop environment / window manager on either of the distributions to whatever you like (KDE, Unity, LXME, Fluxbox, evilwm, i3, Mate, Unity, whatever!).

Absolutely true -- But for someone new, I would recommend they pick a distro where they're happy with as many of the defaults as possible. The more things you strike out on your own to change, the more difficult it will be to get support if necessary, and the more effort you'll have to put in to get your system how you want it. While it's certainly possible, it's not the most newbie-friendly way of doing things.

It's also, at times, the more reliable way to do it.

You can get Debian with Cinnamon, and Mint Debian base with Cinnamon (LMDE).  They should be the same other than included apps and installer, but they are actually quite different when using them. The most obvious of which is that Cinnamon is better integrated in the Mint version.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 13 February 2016, 19:12:09
I am setting up an older box to utilize some older gear with Mint 17.3 and I have one of these  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Promise-Tech-Ultra100-IDE-Hard-Drive-PCI-Controller-Card/262287757452?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3Dcd64ef245d4d4393b3742bc4bd14b0cc%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D272121654679 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Promise-Tech-Ultra100-IDE-Hard-Drive-PCI-Controller-Card/262287757452?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3Dcd64ef245d4d4393b3742bc4bd14b0cc%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D272121654679)   that I would love to have available for some various drives, but the OS can't seem to find it/them.

Any ideas?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Sat, 13 February 2016, 22:55:08
I am setting up an older box to utilize some older gear with Mint 17.3 and I have one of these  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Promise-Tech-Ultra100-IDE-Hard-Drive-PCI-Controller-Card/262287757452?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3Dcd64ef245d4d4393b3742bc4bd14b0cc%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D272121654679 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Promise-Tech-Ultra100-IDE-Hard-Drive-PCI-Controller-Card/262287757452?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3Dcd64ef245d4d4393b3742bc4bd14b0cc%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D272121654679)   that I would love to have available for some various drives, but the OS can't seem to find it/them.

Any ideas?

Does lshw reveal anything interesting? Some legacy hardware support has been deprecated as of late, even in modularized distribution kernels.  Are you sure that kernel exists for this particular IDE controller?  If you can identify the name of the module that should support your controller (if one exists), then try doing `sudo modprobe <modulename>` and see if that affects anything (watch dmesg).  If the mainline kernel contains support, but your system does not provide the module, you may have to recompile your kernel which is not that terrible on a Debian-based distro like Mint.  But, it's probably going to be more work than one would want, unless one is into that kind of thing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 13 February 2016, 23:35:42
I am setting up an older box to utilize some older gear with Mint 17.3 and I have one of these  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Promise-Tech-Ultra100-IDE-Hard-Drive-PCI-Controller-Card/262287757452?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3Dcd64ef245d4d4393b3742bc4bd14b0cc%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D272121654679 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Promise-Tech-Ultra100-IDE-Hard-Drive-PCI-Controller-Card/262287757452?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3Dcd64ef245d4d4393b3742bc4bd14b0cc%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D272121654679)   that I would love to have available for some various drives, but the OS can't seem to find it/them.

Any ideas?


If you just want to pull data off of the drive then these types of adapters will work with just about any modern OS: http://www.directron.com/usbdsc5.html

I wouldn't trust used parts from ebay. Here is a brand new one for half the price: http://www.directron.com/sdvia1a2s.html If you still want to use PATA instead of SATA (they are both IDE actually) then I'd guess that  you'll have better luck with "server" versions of Linux OSs. It could be that your adapter is bad or that there is no native support for the chip(set) the adapter uses. I haven't used PATA in a long time, but I'd be surprised if support was completely removed from the kernel.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: PQTran on Sun, 14 February 2016, 01:16:40
I've mainly been on Windows my entire life, and last year had a chance to play with a macbook. Now I'm trying out ArchLinux, I really hope it'll be my next big OS  ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Matt3o on Sun, 14 February 2016, 04:33:42
Arch Linux is the only distro I can live with on desktop/laptop.

My file/backup server runs on debian.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 14 February 2016, 06:31:16
I am setting up an older box to utilize some older gear with Mint 17.3 and I have one of these  (trimmed)   that I would love to have available for some various drives, but the OS can't seem to find it/them.

Any ideas?

A lot of older drivers have been culled from some distros, Ubuntu in particular has removed a LOT of older drivers you would expect to be there considering how Linux evangelists tell you more hardware is supported than Windows. I have an old HP server with a scsi card which was considered almost a mainstay in it's day, nope, won't run, same with an old 3com nic. 

Your options are find a driver and insert it, try another distro, Debian, Gentoo or Arch are the 3 biggest and most likely to support it, however, Gentoo and Arch are really not a beginners distro. Neither is Debian when compared to Ubuntu and Mint, but Arch and Gentoo are on a whole other level.

I would probably try Debian just to see if it can find it, if not I would probably just look for a driver. Odds are, if nothing else, i would bet the network Debian installer would do it. Gentoo and Arch are good, but for someone new to use them, it isn't like diving in head first into the deep end, it's more like diving head first into the deep end from the high dive, backwards. If you know exactly what you want from your distro, great, by all means, have at them, but if you are new, a more common distro is going to be A LOT easier. Even if it means having to manually install a driver or two.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 14 February 2016, 11:16:59

Does lshw reveal anything interesting? Some legacy hardware support has been deprecated as of late, even in modularized distribution kernels.


Thanks guys, but it seems to have worked itself out. After taking it all apart and carefully re-seating all the parts, and a couple of re-boots, the hard drives are recognized and working.

Now if I can get my floppies (3.5" and 5.25") to mount I will be good. The mobo has a floppy receptacle, and the OS seems to see that there is at least one floppy drive (cable length/bay locations/etc dictate that the 5.25" has to be "A" and the 3.5" has to be "B") but after lighting up the lights (at least on A) I eventually get an "unable to mount" error.

Maybe I am silly for wanting the native ability to read ancient disks, but I have not found a simple way to make it happen with the 5.25" floppies or to house them externally. I have a couple of outboard USB 3.5" drives that work fine for their part.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 14 February 2016, 12:37:08
I'd like to clear up some confusion I notice. Some people seem to think that Ubuntu has a specific graphical user interface and Linux Mint has another specific graphical interface.

But technically, you could get Unity on Linux Mint and Cinnamon / Mate on Ubuntu.

The only difference between the two distros is what they have INSTALLED BY DEFAULT.
Since both even share the same package manager (apt), you could easily install another desktop environment / window manager on either of the distributions to whatever you like (KDE, Unity, LXME, Fluxbox, evilwm, i3, Mate, Unity, whatever!).

Absolutely true -- But for someone new, I would recommend they pick a distro where they're happy with as many of the defaults as possible. The more things you strike out on your own to change, the more difficult it will be to get support if necessary, and the more effort you'll have to put in to get your system how you want it. While it's certainly possible, it's not the most newbie-friendly way of doing things.

I agree with this sentiment.  As a newbie, trying to customize too much at the start might turn you away from Linux, considering all the problems you run into.  Find something you like out of the box, then start messing around from that base.  You don't want to have a non-functioning computer, that's super frustrating.

Also, my Broadcom wireless card was a huge hassle when I was started out.  I couldn't even get openSUSE to recognize and connect with my Broadcom card.  And openSUSE is a Top 5 distro.  I ended up buying an Intel wireless card so I didn't have to worry about downloading the proper packages and drivers every time I tried out a new distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 14 February 2016, 13:10:10

Find something you like out of the box, then start messing around from that base.  You don't want to have a non-functioning computer, that's super frustrating.

Also, my Broadcom wireless card was a huge hassle when I was started out.  I couldn't even get openSUSE to recognize and connect with my Broadcom card. 


Internet connectivity was the one over-riding reason that I abandoned OpenSUSE even though there was a lot to like there and I really wanted to make it work.

The final straw was when my son and I built a computer out of obsolescent but by no means antiquated gear (as I recall, something on the order of an AM2 socket mobo (probably Gigabyte or Asus) with plenty enough RAM and a good-sized hard drive) about a year ago. Under OpenSUSE I could not connect to the internet, and I tried the onboard ethernet socket, a NIC in a slot, and 2 different USB wireless dongles (all of which worked elsewhere).

The OpenSUSE forum was a monumental and epic fail - not only were the "answers" cryptic and incomplete, but almost every member who even tried to "help" me was breathtakingly arrogant and condescending and usually indicated that I was simply too ignorant and stupid to be there at all. And the 1 or 2 members who were slightly nice to me had no clue about the actual solution. They just tossed out random thoughts, but when it was a matter of showing somebody pages-long output of commands when you cannot connect - well - about all you can do is take screen shots and go to another computer with a flash drive or something equally kludgy.

Although I do not have experience with that many online forums, I always felt like they were usually built as helpful communities. But the OpenSUSE forum is definitely an aggressive wall of gatekeepers determined to keep ordinary civilians and casual users out of the club.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 14 February 2016, 13:44:10

Find something you like out of the box, then start messing around from that base.  You don't want to have a non-functioning computer, that's super frustrating.

Also, my Broadcom wireless card was a huge hassle when I was started out.  I couldn't even get openSUSE to recognize and connect with my Broadcom card. 


Internet connectivity was the one over-riding reason that I abandoned OpenSUSE even though there was a lot to like there and I really wanted to make it work.


Yea, that's the one reason I abandoned openSUSE as well.  Beginner's don't need this hours long process just to connect to the Internet.

Any online forum can be like that, they tend to thicken your skin.  Geekhack is friendly anomaly, in that respect.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ResonantPixel on Sun, 14 February 2016, 14:07:00
Arch Linux is the only distro I can live with on desktop/laptop.

My file/backup server runs on debian.

Currently using arch, but god-damn, setting it up on a RAID zero array is basically impossible(been trying to get it to boot on my desktop) : L, having said that I have been running it on my laptop for the best part of a year and I love how quick it is! (admittly gnome doesnt help on that front), I am thinking for my desktop I am going to hopefully get nixos to install; because apparently it has pretty solid RAID support. I guess that shouldn't be suprising though considering it is quite popular for use on servers. That'll have to wait though as currently not in the same place as my desktop, until then arch will rule!  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Mon, 15 February 2016, 11:43:25
Some legacy hardware support has been deprecated as of late, even in modularized distribution kernels.

Gee, I wonder if it was inspired by a certain person removing readahead because "nobody uses HDD's nowadays".

In other words, your best bet is Debian Wheezy(NOT the newest one, Jessie) or Gentoo
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Mon, 15 February 2016, 15:02:45
Or just use a different unix entirely  :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Mon, 15 February 2016, 17:00:59
Arch Linux is the only distro I can live with on desktop/laptop.

My file/backup server runs on debian.

Currently using arch, but god-damn, setting it up on a RAID zero array is basically impossible(been trying to get it to boot on my desktop) : L, having said that I have been running it on my laptop for the best part of a year and I love how quick it is! (admittly gnome doesnt help on that front), I am thinking for my desktop I am going to hopefully get nixos to install; because apparently it has pretty solid RAID support. I guess that shouldn't be suprising though considering it is quite popular for use on servers. That'll have to wait though as currently not in the same place as my desktop, until then arch will rule!  :thumb:

Still using Debian and Slackware for just about everything, and OSX for work. Fully encrypted RAID 0 is doable on both (it's downright easy on Debian). I tried Arch years ago and didn't care for it...super popular though...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xondat on Mon, 15 February 2016, 17:14:29
Tried Mint in college for a few days, I like it but I feel like I'd never switch simply because so much more is supported for windows. Feel free to enlighten me though, I'd love to hear why I should switch to Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 15 February 2016, 17:51:23
Tried Mint in college for a few days, I like it but I feel like I'd never switch simply because so much more is supported for windows. Feel free to enlighten me though, I'd love to hear why I should switch to Linux.
There isn't necessarily "more", it's just that you are used to your windows programs. The Android Play store has "more" than the Itunes store, but how much of the Play store is garbage? Do we need 90 fake fart sound apps, 80 of which are the same exact app?

On the surface, Windows has more than Mac and Linux and in some specific things it does, but think about it more deeply. For graphics it's Photoshop, for office it's MS Office. There's Corel, Krita, Gimp, Open Office, and more for Windows, but how many know they even exist? Same with Office. Ask most office workers what text editor they use and most will say Word. Even when they have options, they don't even know they exist. So is there really more? Or is 90% of that just perception. The fact that the programs you know are not on Linux doesn't equate to significantly less options, just not the options you're used to.

Unless you play the latest trendy games or need something specific for work, odds are you could get by on Linux every bit as good as Windows. I'm not saying you should, you like Windows, you're familiar with it and see no reason to change, which is fine, just don't mistake quantity for quality.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xondat on Mon, 15 February 2016, 18:01:34
Tried Mint in college for a few days, I like it but I feel like I'd never switch simply because so much more is supported for windows. Feel free to enlighten me though, I'd love to hear why I should switch to Linux.
There isn't necessarily "more", it's just that you are used to your windows programs. The Android Play store has "more" than the Itunes store, but how much of the Play store is garbage? Do we need 90 fake fart sound apps, 80 of which are the same exact app?

On the surface, Windows has more than Mac and Linux and in some specific things it does, but think about it more deeply. For graphics it's Photoshop, for office it's MS Office. There's Corel, Krita, Gimp, Open Office, and more for Windows, but how many know they even exist? Same with Office. Ask most office workers what text editor they use and most will say Word. Even when they have options, they don't even know they exist. So is there really more? Or is 90% of that just perception. The fact that the programs you know are not on Linux doesn't equate to significantly less options, just not the options you're used to.

Unless you play the latest trendy games or need something specific for work, odds are you could get by on Linux every bit as good as Windows. I'm not saying you should, you like Windows, you're familiar with it and see no reason to change, which is fine, just don't mistake quantity for quality.

I meant that for things that I download I rarely see a 'Download for Linux' section - it sounds like I was horribly wrong though, didn't mean to sound offence whatsoever, just that on the surface to me W10 looks better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Mon, 15 February 2016, 19:44:48
Tried Mint in college for a few days, I like it but I feel like I'd never switch simply because so much more is supported for windows. Feel free to enlighten me though, I'd love to hear why I should switch to Linux.
There isn't necessarily "more", it's just that you are used to your windows programs. The Android Play store has "more" than the Itunes store, but how much of the Play store is garbage? Do we need 90 fake fart sound apps, 80 of which are the same exact app?

On the surface, Windows has more than Mac and Linux and in some specific things it does, but think about it more deeply. For graphics it's Photoshop, for office it's MS Office. There's Corel, Krita, Gimp, Open Office, and more for Windows, but how many know they even exist? Same with Office. Ask most office workers what text editor they use and most will say Word. Even when they have options, they don't even know they exist. So is there really more? Or is 90% of that just perception. The fact that the programs you know are not on Linux doesn't equate to significantly less options, just not the options you're used to.

Unless you play the latest trendy games or need something specific for work, odds are you could get by on Linux every bit as good as Windows. I'm not saying you should, you like Windows, you're familiar with it and see no reason to change, which is fine, just don't mistake quantity for quality.

I meant that for things that I download I rarely see a 'Download for Linux' section - it sounds like I was horribly wrong though, didn't mean to sound offence whatsoever, just that on the surface to me W10 looks better.
You typically don't download things from a web browser. Everything is done through the packages manager. There are numerous reasons why using a package manager is better than downloading and installing a program like you would on Windows. The biggest reason (for me) is that your programs will update while you update the rest of your system. I will assume though that the programs you were looking for were not available for Linux and it is more likely that the Linux alternatives are just as good as what you are using on Windows. Like Leslieann said if you're comfortable with Windows then that's perfectly fine but I'd encourage you to have fun trying different stuff out in Linux and expand your mind a little.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 16 February 2016, 10:06:06
Or just use a different unix entirely  :))

YUP
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Tue, 16 February 2016, 12:34:38
Or just use a different unix entirely  :))

YUP

I think I can hear RMS shouting from here! GNU(/Linux) is Not UNIX. :)  But I do love me some OpenBSD and FreeBSD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 16 February 2016, 12:46:27
Other unices suck.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Tue, 16 February 2016, 13:20:20
Or just use a different unix entirely  :))

YUP

I think I can hear RMS shouting from here! GNU(/Linux) is Not UNIX. :)  But I do love me some OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

Meh lol, Sorry RMS, as much as I respect you I have ideas myself. ;D

Other unices suck.

Install suckless tools and they'll suckless.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Tue, 16 February 2016, 14:27:58
Other unices suck.

Install suckless tools and they'll suckless.
It sounds funny (kinda like Schiit), but those guys are on crack.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Wed, 17 February 2016, 02:31:05
Well I am interested in trying BSD's at some point(especially since I have very high hopes for Lumina)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 17 February 2016, 02:34:03
Other unices suck.

computers suck universally
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Wed, 17 February 2016, 02:39:15
My ext4 partition (which contained everything) on my laptop just straight up corrupted while I was using it. I honestly never though that would happen to me. I lost a lot of stuff but I don't think I lost anything critical. Currently reinstalling Arch at 3:30 AM so I have a laptop for class tomorrow! :S
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 17 February 2016, 04:03:40
Well I am interested in trying BSD's at some point(especially since I have very high hopes for Lumina)

I used to use FreeBSD a lot, even had a few servers at home and work running it.  But Java support became more important, and we had some problems with the hardware running FreeBSD at work, and I retired the FreeBSD servers at home, and gradually moved over to Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Matt3o on Wed, 17 February 2016, 05:28:02
My ext4 partition (which contained everything) on my laptop just straight up corrupted while I was using it. I honestly never though that would happen to me. I lost a lot of stuff but I don't think I lost anything critical. Currently reinstalling Arch at 3:30 AM so I have a laptop for class tomorrow! :S

storage always fails, it's just a matter of when not if.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Wed, 17 February 2016, 10:14:45
Well I am interested in trying BSD's at some point(especially since I have very high hopes for Lumina)

I used to use FreeBSD a lot, even had a few servers at home and work running it.  But Java support became more important, and we had some problems with the hardware running FreeBSD at work, and I retired the FreeBSD servers at home, and gradually moved over to Linux.

If I can take a guess as to what the reason was for java support becoming important, Was it because of Jenkins?  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Marizen on Wed, 17 February 2016, 10:37:32
Mostly using Ubuntu GNOME, but I switch around a lot. I just always end up going back to Ubuntu GNOME because I really like the interface and in terms of compatibility Ubuntu is the easiest. I used to love Manjaro, but I don't entirely trust yaourt.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 17 February 2016, 10:48:58
Well I am interested in trying BSD's at some point(especially since I have very high hopes for Lumina)

I used to use FreeBSD a lot, even had a few servers at home and work running it.  But Java support became more important, and we had some problems with the hardware running FreeBSD at work, and I retired the FreeBSD servers at home, and gradually moved over to Linux.

If I can take a guess as to what the reason was for java support becoming important, Was it because of Jenkins?  :p
(http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/images/c/c3/Commander_Keen_4_-_DOS_-_Rescue_Council_Member.png)
Java became important because legions of children (like myself) where trained to save the parent company. See? It was written.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Moistgun on Wed, 17 February 2016, 13:20:25
I've never used Linux before, only been chained to Windows my whole life.
And now, I'm required to use a Mac for work.

Thinking about getting some distro to dual boot at home.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: G-Dubs on Wed, 17 February 2016, 14:32:02
I'm currently running Xubuntu on a Thinkpad T420. I don't do anything out of the ordinary with it, but it's nice to keep up what little Linux skill I have.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Wed, 17 February 2016, 16:47:41
My ext4 partition (which contained everything) on my laptop just straight up corrupted while I was using it. I honestly never though that would happen to me. I lost a lot of stuff but I don't think I lost anything critical. Currently reinstalling Arch at 3:30 AM so I have a laptop for class tomorrow! :S

storage always fails, it's just a matter of when not if.

Yeah... That's why I have a triple redundant ZFS drive array on FreeNAS. All of my important stuff was backed up. I originally thought it was my old OCZ Vertex 4 that finally gave in but it turned out to be ext4 (which is known to degrade over time). I guess I'm lucky that I don't need to scrounge together some money for a new SSD...! (yet)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Wed, 17 February 2016, 18:27:35
if ext4 can degrade overtime, I wonder how much worse btrfs is about it.  :eek:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Wed, 17 February 2016, 20:04:10
if ext4 can degrade overtime, I wonder how much worse btrfs is about it.  :eek:

It's actually supposedly much better thank ext4, rivaling ZFS. Except for a few flaws such as not being able to accurately tell how big files are on the disk. You know, small inconveniences like that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 17 February 2016, 20:05:41
if ext4 can degrade overtime, I wonder how much worse btrfs is about it.  :eek:

It's actually supposedly much better thank ext4, rivaling ZFS. Except for a few flaws such as not being able to accurately tell how big files are on the disk. You know, the little stuff.

I keep reading it as "betterFS", although it's supposed to be "butterFS", right?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Wed, 17 February 2016, 20:08:07
if ext4 can degrade overtime, I wonder how much worse btrfs is about it.  :eek:

It's actually supposedly much better thank ext4, rivaling ZFS. Except for a few flaws such as not being able to accurately tell how big files are on the disk. You know, the little stuff.

I keep reading it as "betterFS", although it's supposed to be "butterFS", right?

Either or is correct. You can also throw "bee-treeFS" into the mix
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Wed, 17 February 2016, 22:16:18
Add B T R F S too lol.

if ext4 can degrade overtime, I wonder how much worse btrfs is about it.  :eek:

It's actually supposedly much better thank ext4, rivaling ZFS. Except for a few flaws such as not being able to accurately tell how big files are on the disk. You know, small inconveniences like that.

I also hear it's still full of bugs itself lol, but oh well, Once the 16.04 LTS releases of some *buntu I'll switch my desktop's SSDs to btrfs lol.
I mean my laptop already went btrfs, so why not just follow the trend I figure.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 17 February 2016, 22:37:44
So butterFS has some kind of checksum? I see. I see.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Sun, 21 February 2016, 02:46:23
I think I'm at a bit of a loss here.

I'm going to be changing my system soon. So I've been looking around at systemd-less distros. And the sight ain't pretty.

KDE4(pre-systemd dependency) version of PCLinuxOS might as well be called PCBloatOS. A lot of stuff, including either control center or the settings manager(two cog icons next to each other on the desktop bar, no wonder I can't tell which is which) hard-depends on webkit. And it ships with a lot of crap like Skype or Flash out of the box. But then again, it's appealing to first time Linux users, and I guess it'd be good at that. I may try the LXDE version, but I have a bad feeling about it since as bloaty as KDE is, most of it wasn't KDE's fault and I'm afraid LXDE version will have it too.

Void is void of documentation. Also, the default menu for Openbox has exactly ONE program that comes with the system, and that's Firefox. Yup, can't even open a terminal without editing the menu file outside of OB and then coming back. This clearly shows that they don't care at all about *box workflow. Probably too busy wth tiling, cause that's what all cool kids do. Also, not sure if it's just a live boot issue, but xbps always reported Lumina needing exactly 7MB more than I had free.

Devuan is behind schedule. It'll probably be a strong contender for best distro around(not just systemd-less) once it's done, but right now there aren't even security updates.

I also considered installing Debian Wheezy and then transforming that into Devuan, but trying to install a media player convinced me against it. A bunch of VLC and Mplayer packages were missing. On the other hand the players for KDE(Dragon Player) and GNOME(forgot the name) are there, but they depend on their environments, which depend on systemd.

Elementary is listed on Distrowatch as systemd-less but it's not.

I'm not even touching Arch because my friend does that, and he says that systemd is pushed into dependencies of more and more stuff and frankly he's considering installing Gentoo because he reckons it'll take less time for everyday use.

To see why I haven't tried Manjaro, please set your system clock back a bunch.

So it seems like all I have left is waiting for Devuan, installing something advanced like CRUX/Slax/Gentoo, or going BSD. Although I haven't tried Antix, Puppy and possibly LXDE-based PCLOS.

Any remarks or suggestions?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Sun, 21 February 2016, 04:04:12
Void is void of documentation. Also, the default menu for Openbox has exactly ONE program that comes with the system, and that's Firefox. Yup, can't even open a terminal without editing the menu file outside of OB and then coming back. This clearly shows that they don't care at all about *box workflow. Probably too busy wth tiling, cause that's what all cool kids do. Also, not sure if it's just a live boot issue, but xbps always reported Lumina needing exactly 7MB more than I had free.

void ships with man pages :/ the lead dev uses GNOME3 - nobody on the dev team cares what you do with void, they just make it work. almost every package is upstream so if you need documentation on anything, you know where to find it. the only thing that really makes void 'void' is xbps and that has extensive docs on their website.
Devuan is behind schedule. It'll probably be a strong contender for best distro around(not just systemd-less) once it's done, but right now there aren't even security updates.
devuan has been behind schedule since they started. their mailing list is a room full of monkeys throwing **** at each other.

So it seems like all I have left is waiting for Devuan, installing something advanced like CRUX/Slax/Gentoo, or going BSD. Although I haven't tried Antix, Puppy and possibly LXDE-based PCLOS.

Any remarks or suggestions?

you are going to be disappointed in CRUX if you don't like void. even less handholding there - you do EVERYTHING yourself.

openbsd is great except for the awful web browser performance. everything is really well documented in openbsd via man pages :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sun, 21 February 2016, 04:32:54
Slackware
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 21 February 2016, 06:42:04
openbsd is great except for the awful web browser performance. everything is really well documented in openbsd via man pages :)

Yeah... why is it actually that web browser performance is so awful on *BSD?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 21 February 2016, 07:59:44
Slackware
Is the way to go.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 21 February 2016, 12:38:58
Bit of a noob question here:

Is pretty much all the software for Ubuntu also available for its derivatives? For example, Xubuntu, or even more specifically, ChaletOS (which is based off Xubuntu).

I much prefer the ChaletOS layout at the moment but want to make sure that I'm not limiting myself with it. I'm also looking at using Lubuntu on an older laptop since it's said to be more lightweight... but again, I don't want to be affected in terms of software availability.

Thanks!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Sun, 21 February 2016, 12:46:52
Bit of a noob question here:

Is pretty much all the software for Ubuntu also available for its derivatives? For example, Xubuntu, or even more specifically, ChaletOS (which is based off Xubuntu).

I much prefer the ChaletOS layout at the moment but want to make sure that I'm not limiting myself with it. I'm also looking at using Lubuntu on an older laptop since it's said to be more lightweight... but again, I don't want to be affected in terms of software availability.

Thanks!

Short answer: Yes. 

Slightly longer answer: All Ubuntu derivatives use the same package repositories.  The distinguishing feature between Ubuntu derivatives is the default desktop environment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Sun, 21 February 2016, 12:51:46
Had to stop using linux  :'( becuase I love my vidya games to much. Been playing around with cygwin though. Never really realized how powerful it was. It's (almost) like I never left linux.



Bit of a noob question here:

Is pretty much all the software for Ubuntu also available for its derivatives? For example, Xubuntu, or even more specifically, ChaletOS (which is based off Xubuntu).

I much prefer the ChaletOS layout at the moment but want to make sure that I'm not limiting myself with it. I'm also looking at using Lubuntu on an older laptop since it's said to be more lightweight... but again, I don't want to be affected in terms of software availability.

Thanks!

Similar to what deduction said. Yes, though you may run into small  problems specific to a distro though. For Ubuntu based distros, those should be few and far between.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 21 February 2016, 12:56:33
Had to stop using linux  :'( becuase I love my vidya games to much. Been playing around with cygwin though. Never really realized how powerful it was. It's (almost) like I never left linux.

How dedicated were you to using Linux? There are definitely ways to run any and all Windows games within Linux if you have the hardware required.

Edit: My post kinda sounds disdainful, which is not my intention.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:04:12
Had to stop using linux  :'( becuase I love my vidya games to much. Been playing around with cygwin though. Never really realized how powerful it was. It's (almost) like I never left linux.

How dedicated were you to using Linux? There are definitely ways to run any and all Windows games within Linux if you have the hardware required.

Edit: My post kinda sounds disdainful, which is not my intention.
I know there are ways (I've pretty much used them all at some point or another), but I got tired of fixing problems with them. And I guess I should have stated I still use linux on some of my pc's, just not my main rigs or main laptop.
EDIT: Also cygwin really is powerful. I lived mostly in terminals, and it feels almost identical.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:09:38
Had to stop using linux  :'( becuase I love my vidya games to much. Been playing around with cygwin though. Never really realized how powerful it was. It's (almost) like I never left linux.

How dedicated were you to using Linux? There are definitely ways to run any and all Windows games within Linux if you have the hardware required.

Edit: My post kinda sounds disdainful, which is not my intention.

Most of the people I know that need winders for gaming end up using KVM virtual machines and PCIE passthrough.  I don't really care about gaming, but I hear it performs on par with booting to winders.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:20:24
Had to stop using linux  :'( becuase I love my vidya games to much. Been playing around with cygwin though. Never really realized how powerful it was. It's (almost) like I never left linux.

How dedicated were you to using Linux? There are definitely ways to run any and all Windows games within Linux if you have the hardware required.

Edit: My post kinda sounds disdainful, which is not my intention.
Is this true? I did everything I could to emulate an mmorpg. I lost 10 fps on average when I compared my emulated copy to my non-emulated copy. At the time 10 fps seemed like a lot, I suppose 10 fps is negligible for those that can max out graphics settings for newer titles. (http://i.imgur.com/6fdCfTx.gif) (I used Wine/PlayOnLinux for emulation)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:24:57
Thanks Vibex and deduction. I'll stick with ChaletOS until I encounter a problem.

I'm still fairly unfamiliar with the real workings of Linux. Linux is to me what Windows is for the average Windows user, for the most part I'd say. I know how to get around, do updates, and install stuff... but there's so very much I still don't really know or am not comfortable with.

I am trying to get better but I find that so much of the discussion and information I find is immediately over my head.

Ex: I want to make 1080p a resolution and use it at startup.
Answer given: "Since Kernel 3.2.14523.34.23 subset 5 of the flux capacitor means you need to write a shell script to call new packages that utilize the tar files..."  :eek:

I embellish slightly but that's often how it looks to me.  :-X
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:27:30
Had to stop using linux  :'( becuase I love my vidya games to much. Been playing around with cygwin though. Never really realized how powerful it was. It's (almost) like I never left linux.

How dedicated were you to using Linux? There are definitely ways to run any and all Windows games within Linux if you have the hardware required.

Edit: My post kinda sounds disdainful, which is not my intention.

Most of the people I know that need winders for gaming end up using KVM virtual machines and PCIE passthrough.  I don't really care about gaming, but I hear it performs on par with booting to winders.

Yeah, that was what I was getting at. I'm using KVM-QEMU with vga passthrough to play mostly Halo: Online and to do schoolwork (Microsoft Visio and SQL Server). I think boot and load times could be on par with a bare metal solution but since I'm using virt.io loading times are slower.

Also I should mention there have been some big strides in getting 3D acceleration to Qemu without vga passthrough. Maybe in the near future we'll be able to run virtual machines for gaming without the need for a dedicated graphics card.


Is this true? I did everything I could to emulate an mmorpg. I lost 10 fps on average when I compared my emulated copy to my non-emulated copy. At the time 10 fps seemed like a lot, I suppose 10 fps is negligible for those that can max out graphics settings for newer titles.
Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/6fdCfTx.gif)
(I used Wine for emulation)

WINE: Wine Is Not an Emulator. Windows libraries are translated so that Windows programs can be run natively in Linux. I'm not surprised by the performance drop either. I remember playing Skyrim a few years ago under Wine and there was about a 50% performance hit.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:36:11
I'm still fairly unfamiliar with the real workings of Linux. Linux is to me what Windows is for the average Windows user, for the most part I'd say. I know how to get around, do updates, and install stuff... but there's so very much I still don't really know or am not comfortable with.

I am trying to get better but I find that so much of the discussion and information I find is immediately over my head.

Ex: I want to make 1080p a resolution and use it at startup.
Answer given: "Since Kernel 3.2.14523.34.23 subset 5 of the flux capacitor means you need to write a shell script to call new packages that utilize the tar files..."  :eek:

I embellish slightly but that's often how it looks to me.  :-X

I still feel the same way whenever I try something new in Linux, My best advice would be to have patience and to not be afraid to break something. Most of the stuff on Linux isn't very hard to do; what is hard is setting a knowledge precedence. When I don't have prior knowledge on something then I have a hard time figuring out how to get it working. Then when I run into problems it's very had to troubleshoot what's causing those problems, again because I'm missing that prior knowledge. But once you start to understand how things work I guarantee you it will start being much easier for you.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: deduction on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:38:33
Thanks Vibex and deduction. I'll stick with ChaletOS until I encounter a problem.

I'm still fairly unfamiliar with the real workings of Linux. Linux is to me what Windows is for the average Windows user, for the most part I'd say. I know how to get around, do updates, and install stuff... but there's so very much I still don't really know or am not comfortable with.

I am trying to get better but I find that so much of the discussion and information I find is immediately over my head.

Ex: I want to make 1080p a resolution and use it at startup.
Answer given: "Since Kernel 3.2.14523.34.23 subset 5 of the flux capacitor means you need to write a shell script to call new packages that utilize the tar files..."  :eek:

I embellish slightly but that's often how it looks to me.  :-X

That's not unusual.  Don't feel bad - you're certainly not alone and I think many of us have felt the same way at one point or another.

The good news is that, because we're all using open source software, and the documentation is equally free and open source, you can almost always find detailed and accurate guides by formulating good searches for the technical phrases you do not understand.  Having strong Google-fu is an invaluable asset to the Linux learning process.

Google generally does a really good job of correcting typos and finding results it thinks the user wants, rather than the results for which the user queried.  This can be a huge pain the ass for the Linux and BSD world.  (I'm looking at you, OpenBSD, for calling my favorite load balancer 'relayd'.  >:D)  Google will often interpret your error logs when you want to search for occurrences of the exact same log message.  You can revert this 'feature' by switching into verbatim search mode, as shown in the attachment below.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 21 February 2016, 13:39:58
Had to stop using linux  :'( becuase I love my vidya games to much. Been playing around with cygwin though. Never really realized how powerful it was. It's (almost) like I never left linux.

How dedicated were you to using Linux? There are definitely ways to run any and all Windows games within Linux if you have the hardware required.

Edit: My post kinda sounds disdainful, which is not my intention.

Most of the people I know that need winders for gaming end up using KVM virtual machines and PCIE passthrough.  I don't really care about gaming, but I hear it performs on par with booting to winders.

Yeah, that was what I was getting at. I'm using KVM-QEMU with vga passthrough to play mostly Halo: Online and to do schoolwork (Microsoft Visio and SQL Server). I think boot and load times could be on par with a bare metal solution but since I'm using virt.io loading times are slower.

Also I should mention there have been some big strides in getting 3D acceleration to Qemu without vga passthrough. Maybe in the near future we'll be able to run virtual machines for gaming without the need for a dedicated graphics card.


Is this true? I did everything I could to emulate an mmorpg. I lost 10 fps on average when I compared my emulated copy to my non-emulated copy. At the time 10 fps seemed like a lot, I suppose 10 fps is negligible for those that can max out graphics settings for newer titles.
Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/6fdCfTx.gif)
(I used Wine for emulation)

WINE: Wine Is Not an Emulator. Windows libraries are translated so that Windows programs can be run natively in Linux. I'm not surprised by the performance drop either. I remember playing Skyrim a few years ago under Wine and there was about a 50% performance hit.
Ah I see, they might as well call it Windows Emulator like it was called initially. Perhaps I should find better alternatives in the future
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vibex on Sun, 21 February 2016, 14:05:22
Thanks Vibex and deduction. I'll stick with ChaletOS until I encounter a problem.

I'm still fairly unfamiliar with the real workings of Linux. Linux is to me what Windows is for the average Windows user, for the most part I'd say. I know how to get around, do updates, and install stuff... but there's so very much I still don't really know or am not comfortable with.

I am trying to get better but I find that so much of the discussion and information I find is immediately over my head.

Ex: I want to make 1080p a resolution and use it at startup.
Answer given: "Since Kernel 3.2.14523.34.23 subset 5 of the flux capacitor means you need to write a shell script to call new packages that utilize the tar files..."  :eek:

I embellish slightly but that's often how it looks to me.  :-X

Honestly I would reccomend installing gentoo or arch on a spare pc (or vm if you dont have an extra computer laying around). My first distro was funtoo, and it really helped me learn how to use and understand linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Sun, 21 February 2016, 14:19:02
going back to the Systemd discussion, I think you'll want to avoid FreeBSD at some point since it seems like it wants to create an init that imitates systemd (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg0ODE).

Although as much as I despise systemd, I guess in some ways you can't get away from it. That or I just don't care anymore, one of the two.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 21 February 2016, 14:41:48
going back to the Systemd discussion, I think you'll want to avoid FreeBSD at some point since it seems like it wants to create an init that imitates systemd (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg0ODE).

Although as much as I despise systemd, I guess in some ways you can't get away from it. That or I just don't care anymore, one of the two.

FreeBSD is much more monolithic when compared to Linux, so something like systemd would make a bit more sense if implemented on FreeBSD. The biggest reason why systemd's bad is because of how much it replaces other GNU/FOSS software which is completely against Linux philosophy.

I'm writing about systemd in my tech writing class as if I were making a recommendation to the Arch Linux devs to stop using systemd as its default init system. I've learned how it's insecure, bloated, and how it's monopolizing itself within major OS's among other things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 22 February 2016, 21:49:53
Thanks Vibex and deduction. I'll stick with ChaletOS until I encounter a problem.

Ex: I want to make 1080p a resolution and use it at startup.
Answer given: "Since Kernel 3.2.14523.34.23 subset 5 of the flux capacitor means you need to write a shell script to call new packages that utilize the tar files..."  :eek:

I embellish slightly but that's often how it looks to me.  :-X

lol, this made me laugh.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Sun, 28 February 2016, 17:26:05
https://notehub.org/klz3i

Sad but true, not even sure if I should've posted it here, but I thought it was relevant enough.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Matt3o on Mon, 29 February 2016, 02:24:13
this leads to an incontrovertible truth:

Linux sucks, but it's okay.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Mon, 29 February 2016, 02:28:53
https://notehub.org/klz3i

Sad but true, not even sure if I should've posted it here, but I thought it was relevant enough.

This article is confusing to say the least. First the author complains about Steam not working quite right on an obscure Window Manager, Fluxbox. In fact the only actual complaint the author has is that the window will not resize beyond a certain point because it isn't using a standard toolkit. The argument is false either way because you can still limit window sizes with either toolkit. The rest of the problems are specific to his WM since I couldn't replicate them in Gnome 3. In fact I would assume the issues are closer related to X and not Steam.

The author then goes to complain that Steam doesn't use commonly used toolkits like QT4/GTK3 which makes it look different from other applications that are using a specific toolkit. Maybe I'm in the minority here but I want and expect Steam to act and look exactly how it was designed to act and look. It doesn't use a toolkit because it's supposed to feel exactly like it does on Windows, and it does a damn good job at doing just that. In fact the rest of the article goes on about how its bad that Steam is ported to look and feel exactly the way it's supposed to look and feel. Now I could be wrong here but I am certain that just about all Steam users on Linux actually want it to look and feel as it does on Windows, because that is what users are accustomed to.

The author claims that SIGKILL risks corrupting Steams data but I haven't seen any indication of that by anyone.

They then go on to complain about how the Steam client works exactly how it is designed and expected to work. The argument just makes no sense.

Then they complain about how it lacks command line options but doesn't go into what useful command line options it could include. --version may make sense to add but it's just so nitpicky.

Then they complain about Steam being 32 bit. Alright sure they're totally right on that one.

I don't feel like going on anymore, I feel like every answer to the authors complaints are that Steam is the way is is because it is the way it's supposed to be and is what everybody wants it to be(say that ten times fast). If they don't like it so much then they should use a Steam Pidgin plugin and launch games through a shortcut. You don't need the client open to do either of those things.

I get that Steam violates the Unix philosophy in just about every way, but I have a slight feeling gaming in general violates Unix philosophy. I'm sure when Steam was ported Valve wasn't sweating to make sure every possible thing was compatible with Fluxbox, but was rather focused on expanding its client to a market that has been desperately awaiting its arrival for years. It should be no surprise to anyone that when Valve said they were porting Steam to Linux they, well, ported Steam to Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bricomaz on Mon, 29 February 2016, 03:44:07
https://notehub.org/klz3i

Sad but true, not even sure if I should've posted it here, but I thought it was relevant enough.

This article is confusing to say the least. First the author complains about Steam not working quite right on an obscure Window Manager, Fluxbox.
[...]


I've been using fluxbox at work and at home for YEARS now and I've never had any issues the author describes so I agree with sean here. I really had any issues whatsoever using it with fluxbox (or any other WM) but since the guy looks like he knows (more than) something about unix I don't know what to think. Inside the steam package there are copies of libraries handling the X protocol normally found on any linux distro so my guess here is Valve is using some old copies in respect to the author's distro. Like a windows program using dll from win 3.1 ;)

Anyway since the thread was about the linux distro I can add:


And for anyone else complaining about poor linux performance on games: are you still dual booting just to play games? In that case virtualization is the way to go:


You have a computer capable of playing modern games ==> linux on the Virtual Machine is as fast as the real thing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Mon, 29 February 2016, 06:32:57
an obscure Window Manager, Fluxbox.
uwotm8

Also I've heard of similar problems on much more popular tiling managers, and since as the article says, what they did costs them more effort than just not giving a crap and letting the WM figure it out, that point is moot. And if you follow this issue in i3wm closely, you'll notice that quite a bit of code exclusively for handling steam was added between versions 4.4 and 4.11

As for the rest, well, Linux is NOT Windows. (http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm) I think this article, as old as it is, should be compulsory reading before one's first install. Even though it's almost 10 years old, and there are a lot of distributions catering to Windows users, they make what my friends and I call "Windows users currently not on Windows". Some use the word "secondaries" as most of us come from the Touhou fandom(a "secondary" is someone who hasn't played the Touhou games and only knows derivative works, and threrefore only has second-hand experience and/or knowledge about Touhou which leads to a lot of misconceptions).

I used to frequent the linuxmasterrace subreddit. For the longest time the sidebar had no mention of any Linux subreddits, adding linux4noobs and linuxquestions only after they became bored of doing tech support. Meanwhile they always looked up to the PCMR subreddit. There were a bunch of people visibly displeased about that, including one guy who wrote the wisest words to ever be there:
Quote
Linux isn't PCMR because we're not limited to PC's
But they quit, one by one, because the jerking was too strong, even after a bunch of anti-Linux threads on PCMR. Although the author of the aforementioned quote was bullied out of reddit entirely after pointing out in a linux_gaming thread about VM pass-throughs that virtualisation of Windows isn't Linux gaming, and in fact hurts Linux gaming because it fuels the "they'll play it on Windows anyway" argument against it. Both subreddits' users are mostly the aforementioned "Windows users currently not on Windows"/"secondaries".

It may also be the reason why the systemd assimilation went so easily - it does so many things "the Windows way", that "Windows users currently not on Windows" might've just felt right at home with it, and people catering to them decided to go with it(with exception of PCLinuxOS).

That's also why the legendary "Year of the Linux desktop" never came and became a meme - "easy" became synonymous with with "Windows-like", and people are playing catch-up instead of improving their own system.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: funderburker on Thu, 10 March 2016, 05:48:09
Been using ElementaryOS Freya 3.2 for about a year now. Before that Ubuntu 14.04LTS for about six months.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Thu, 10 March 2016, 06:06:36
Debian user since 1998, developer since 2000 (with a minor hiatus in 2010). But nowadays, I live in Emacs, and Debian is a glorified bootloader for the One True Operating System.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 10 March 2016, 07:48:29
Debian user since 1998, developer since 2000 (with a minor hiatus in 2010). But nowadays, I live in Emacs, and Debian is a glorified bootloader for the One True Operating System.
I'm so sad that your OS lacks a decent editor.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Thu, 10 March 2016, 13:50:29
Debian user since 1998, developer since 2000 (with a minor hiatus in 2010). But nowadays, I live in Emacs, and Debian is a glorified bootloader for the One True Operating System.
I'm so sad that your OS lacks a decent editor.

Shouldn't be as #Vimmasterrace

 :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Fri, 11 March 2016, 01:07:27
Debian user since 1998, developer since 2000 (with a minor hiatus in 2010). But nowadays, I live in Emacs, and Debian is a glorified bootloader for the One True Operating System.
I'm so sad that your OS lacks a decent editor.

Shouldn't be as #Vimmasterrace

 :))

The best editor is neither Vim nor Emacs. It is Vim AND Emacs. All hail the Spacemacs (http://spacemacs.org/)! (Also serves as a great, portable OS you can boot with Windows, MacOS, Linuxen and the various BSDs!)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: philphilphil on Fri, 11 March 2016, 17:10:12
OpenBSD Users also welcome here? (not on my primary notebook thought)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 12 March 2016, 00:36:41
OpenBSD Users also welcome here? (not on my primary notebook thought)

Why not? :)

I haven't tried OpenBSD, but I had a bunch of servers running FreeBSD a few years back, and a few running NetBSD too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Sat, 12 March 2016, 11:16:15
Debian user since 1998, developer since 2000 (with a minor hiatus in 2010). But nowadays, I live in Emacs, and Debian is a glorified bootloader for the One True Operating System.
I'm so sad that your OS lacks a decent editor.

Shouldn't be as #Vimmasterrace

 :))

The best editor is neither Vim nor Emacs. It is Vim AND Emacs. All hail the Spacemacs (http://spacemacs.org/)! (Also serves as a great, portable OS you can boot with Windows, MacOS, Linuxen and the various BSDs!)

touche, everything I like about vim and emacs in one editor
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: philphilphil on Sat, 12 March 2016, 15:12:19
OpenBSD Users also welcome here? (not on my primary notebook thought)

Why not? :)

I haven't tried OpenBSD, but I had a bunch of servers running FreeBSD a few years back, and a few running NetBSD too.
i was just joking :D sometimes you just get weird looks from other linux users because all your software is so old (and secure and stable!) and much is missing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 13 March 2016, 04:55:56
OpenBSD Users also welcome here? (not on my primary notebook thought)

Why not? :)

I haven't tried OpenBSD, but I had a bunch of servers running FreeBSD a few years back, and a few running NetBSD too.
i was just joking :D sometimes you just get weird looks from other linux users because all your software is so old (and secure and stable!) and much is missing.

That's why I switched back to Linux, plus Linux seems to support more hardware.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: philphilphil on Sun, 13 March 2016, 05:19:09
OpenBSD Users also welcome here? (not on my primary notebook thought)

Why not? :)

I haven't tried OpenBSD, but I had a bunch of servers running FreeBSD a few years back, and a few running NetBSD too.
i was just joking :D sometimes you just get weird looks from other linux users because all your software is so old (and secure and stable!) and much is missing.

That's why I switched back to Linux, plus Linux seems to support more hardware.

Yeah thats true. Luckily the hw-support of openbsd is pretty good for the Thinkpads. But if i had to use it as my main computer i would probably go back to Gentoo or Arch. I got to OpenBSD in the first place after a friend showed me http://suckless.org (http://suckless.org) and i liked the idea of well written software which sucks less.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 13 March 2016, 06:03:12
lol at suckless
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 14 March 2016, 03:42:20
Suckless seems like an even lazier version of slack.. How does that work?  :-[ Will it seek and destroy my computer?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: philphilphil on Mon, 14 March 2016, 03:52:30

Suckless seems like an even lazier version of slack.. How does that work?  :-[ Will it seek and destroy my computer?
Its not a linux distribution, its just software. For example dwm, a window manager, or surf a browser etc. the goal of suckless is to build quality software with a clean and simple approach, see here: http://suckless.org/philosophy
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: n0rvig on Mon, 14 March 2016, 03:54:24
<3 the suckless movement!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 14 March 2016, 04:01:47

Suckless seems like an even lazier version of slack.. How does that work?  :-[ Will it seek and destroy my computer?
Its not a linux distribution, its just software. For example dwm, a window manager, or surf a browser etc. the goal of suckless is to build quality software with a clean and simple approach, see here: http://suckless.org/philosophy
I tuned out when I read the word Manifest. I'm sorry, too many retail overnights spent unloading trucks. I'm still wondering what this software has to offer that the most basic of Ubuntu can't offer. I've installed Chromium on Ubuntu, web browser, check. Window manager? Visually I prefer Gnome, but for lightness I prefer XFCE. Very basic stuff.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: philphilphil on Mon, 14 March 2016, 07:10:12

Suckless seems like an even lazier version of slack.. How does that work?  :-[ Will it seek and destroy my computer?
Its not a linux distribution, its just software. For example dwm, a window manager, or surf a browser etc. the goal of suckless is to build quality software with a clean and simple approach, see here: http://suckless.org/philosophy
I tuned out when I read the word Manifest. I'm sorry, too many retail overnights spent unloading trucks. I'm still wondering what this software has to offer that the most basic of Ubuntu can't offer. I've installed Chromium on Ubuntu, web browser, check. Window manager? Visually I prefer Gnome, but for lightness I prefer XFCE. Very basic stuff.

Well, at the end its all personal preference. I don't use suckless's window manager or browser because i like awesomewm more and the browser is afaik just a window which renders webkit which is also to less for me. But as a software developer whos coding overthinked business apps all day i like the idea of having small applications which only do one thing and this thing they do good and secure and stable.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 14 March 2016, 07:28:29

Suckless seems like an even lazier version of slack.. How does that work?  :-[ Will it seek and destroy my computer?
Its not a linux distribution, its just software. For example dwm, a window manager, or surf a browser etc. the goal of suckless is to build quality software with a clean and simple approach, see here: http://suckless.org/philosophy
I tuned out when I read the word Manifest. I'm sorry, too many retail overnights spent unloading trucks. I'm still wondering what this software has to offer that the most basic of Ubuntu can't offer. I've installed Chromium on Ubuntu, web browser, check. Window manager? Visually I prefer Gnome, but for lightness I prefer XFCE. Very basic stuff.

Well, at the end its all personal preference. I don't use suckless's window manager or browser because i like awesomewm more and the browser is afaik just a window which renders webkit which is also to less for me. But as a software developer whos coding overthinked business apps all day i like the idea of having small applications which only do one thing and this thing they do good and secure and stable.

surf isn't bad with a few extensions but unfortunately pretty much every 'minimal' browser ****s the bed when it comes to JS, making a ton of (arguably not-suckless) websites basically unusable - surf would crash reliably on facebook every time i used it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Mon, 14 March 2016, 07:29:11
The point of suckless is to circlejerk. There's nothing beyond it.

Take, for example, dwm:
Quote from: http://dwm.suckless.org/
Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 14 March 2016, 07:30:38
The point of suckless is to circlejerk. There's nothing beyond it.

Take, for example, dwm:
Quote from: http://dwm.suckless.org/
Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though.

for once i agree with you
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: philphilphil on Mon, 14 March 2016, 07:42:28
The point of suckless is to circlejerk. There's nothing beyond it.

Take, for example, dwm:
Quote from: http://dwm.suckless.org/
Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though.

maybe true. I like it anyway, its a good idea and they produced some good applications like dmenu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: G33K on Mon, 14 March 2016, 15:11:33
Desktop: Windows 10
Personal servers: Debian (always)
Work: Windows 10, El Capitan, Redhat (nothing non-Redhat allowed)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Tue, 15 March 2016, 01:22:36
Desktop: Windows 10
Personal servers: Debian (always)
Work: Windows 10, El Capitan, Redhat (nothing non-Redhat allowed)

What's running on your server if I may ask?  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: G33K on Tue, 15 March 2016, 07:14:54
Desktop: Windows 10
Personal servers: Debian (always)
Work: Windows 10, El Capitan, Redhat (nothing non-Redhat allowed)

What's running on your server if I may ask?  :)


Home server is just Plex, Samba, SSH, mostly a media server and homelab.  It's old junk hardware though, so I shut it off when I'm not using it to save on the power bill until the eventual i5 upgrade.  Then I'm going to get some home automation, maybe some coding and such going on.

Also I have a bottom barrel DigitalOcean droplet soon to be a website for some friends and my small YouTube channel, and some team software like password managers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 15 March 2016, 21:07:09
The point of suckless is to circlejerk. There's nothing beyond it.

Take, for example, dwm:
Quote from: http://dwm.suckless.org/
Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though.

for once i agree with you

Wonderful harmony we just had here.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 15 March 2016, 21:13:08
Also, does Chrome OS count as a Linux distro?  I bought a Chromebook and I'm happy with it for the basic stuff.  Just can't do much multitasking because of the only 4GB of RAM and the RAM-hog Chrome browser.  Although if I use Crouton to install Ubuntu or Debian, there is less stress on the RAM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Tue, 15 March 2016, 22:04:18
Also, does Chrome OS count as a Linux distro?  I bought a Chromebook and I'm happy with it for the basic stuff.  Just can't do much multitasking because of the only 4GB of RAM and the RAM-hog Chrome browser.  Although if I use Crouton to install Ubuntu or Debian, there is less stress on the RAM.

Absolutely put another OS on it and give it functionality!!!

Desktop: Windows 10
Personal servers: Debian (always)
Work: Windows 10, El Capitan, Redhat (nothing non-Redhat allowed)

What's running on your server if I may ask?  :)


Home server is just Plex, Samba, SSH, mostly a media server and homelab.  It's old junk hardware though, so I shut it off when I'm not using it to save on the power bill until the eventual i5 upgrade.  Then I'm going to get some home automation, maybe some coding and such going on.

Also I have a bottom barrel DigitalOcean droplet soon to be a website for some friends and my small YouTube channel, and some team software like password managers.


My Debian server doesn't do a whole lot right now. I used to run a Halo CE server vm, Folding@Home vm, and Minecraft server vm for my sister, but nowadays it only runs the Minecraft server without a vm. While it has an 8 core FX processor and dedicated graphics the power draw is only 100w according to the UPS. I have a FreeNAS box for all of my media server needs which is hassle free.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: widdlekitty on Tue, 15 March 2016, 23:31:11
At work I run a modified version of CentOS, with the craziest parallel file system. 8 node based servers, booting off a master system.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: LiquidEvilGaming on Wed, 16 March 2016, 04:08:14
Mint, Solely and only use it on my laptop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: G33K on Wed, 16 March 2016, 08:12:10
Also, does Chrome OS count as a Linux distro?  I bought a Chromebook and I'm happy with it for the basic stuff.  Just can't do much multitasking because of the only 4GB of RAM and the RAM-hog Chrome browser.  Although if I use Crouton to install Ubuntu or Debian, there is less stress on the RAM.

Absolutely put another OS on it and give it functionality!!!

Desktop: Windows 10
Personal servers: Debian (always)
Work: Windows 10, El Capitan, Redhat (nothing non-Redhat allowed)

What's running on your server if I may ask?  :)


Home server is just Plex, Samba, SSH, mostly a media server and homelab.  It's old junk hardware though, so I shut it off when I'm not using it to save on the power bill until the eventual i5 upgrade.  Then I'm going to get some home automation, maybe some coding and such going on.

Also I have a bottom barrel DigitalOcean droplet soon to be a website for some friends and my small YouTube channel, and some team software like password managers.


My Debian server doesn't do a whole lot right now. I used to run a Halo CE server vm, Folding@Home vm, and Minecraft server vm for my sister, but nowadays it only runs the Minecraft server without a vm. While it has an 8 core FX processor and dedicated graphics the power draw is only 100w according to the UPS. I have a FreeNAS box for all of my media server needs which is hassle free.

Nice, mine is just a Phenom x4 9500 I had spare.  Are you using Debian as the host OS?  What hypervisor?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 16 March 2016, 15:43:51
Also, does Chrome OS count as a Linux distro?  I bought a Chromebook and I'm happy with it for the basic stuff.  Just can't do much multitasking because of the only 4GB of RAM and the RAM-hog Chrome browser.  Although if I use Crouton to install Ubuntu or Debian, there is less stress on the RAM.

Absolutely put another OS on it and give it functionality!!!



I was running Ubuntu on it for awhile, but took it off because, I wasn't sure which version Ubuntu I wanted to run on it and promised myself to come back to it at a later time.

Chrome OS is turning out to have sufficient functionality for basic task, and it works out of the box with my wireless printer, which is nice.  But yea, for anything more than the basic tasks, I have to bust out the desktop.  Chrome OS provides the basics, but definitely lacks full functionality.

And the RAM situation, good lord.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Bithor on Mon, 21 March 2016, 14:57:59
Arch on my main desktop and antergos on my laptop. Gentoo on all of the crappy computers i find in dumpsters :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: mdmcaf on Mon, 21 March 2016, 17:14:33
I'm primarily a Mac user as my requirements for a computer have changed quite dramatically over the past couple years or so. But I still have my trusty X201 for when I need to get my nerd on and do some "real" computing.

I was running Crunchbang on it even after they'd stopped supporting it because I just couldn't find an OS I found comparable - I didn't look very hard as I wasn't breaking out my ThinkPad very often, but I tried Bunsen Labs in a virtual machine for a while and didn't really like it, I think it was a half-hearted attempt to recreate Crunchbang. But then I discovered Crunchbang Plus Plus and it's all I've ever wanted. It's exactly like Crunchbang: they haven't really messed with anything on it - it operates with the same paradigm and I can get it to look largely the same I had it originally, so I'm quite pleased with it.

I don't do a whole lot of hardcore nerd stuff - no programming (I'm hopeless at that)...mostly just data recovery type stuff and endless tinkering around with the system trying to learn how Linux works. I've found Crunchbang is about the most forgiving for the kind of tinkering I do - I used to be a Xubuntu user and I trashed my system to the point I had to reinstall I don't know how many times. Crunchbang is much more forgiving, or maybe I've just gotten to the point where I'm better at putting things back the way they are.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Connly33 on Mon, 21 March 2016, 17:24:40
Right now im using KaOS on my laptop, ( keep switching to different KDE distros) , unfortunatly i had to go with windows 10 on my main PC, its going to be a little while before i can go full linux like i want to.


Just got my new NAS setup running OpenMediaVault again, which is Debian based, been having some issues but its been forcing me to learn a bit more bout Debian. Im running a 9 TB raid 5 array and trying to get the enterprise Hitachi ultra stars to spin down like i want has been a pain, i may just let them spin 24/7 even though ill only be accessing that pool a couple times a day. hdpram isn't playing nice with my drives weather i do everything in the GUI or at the command line. Trying to find another program that will do drive power management that is relatively easy to setup.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vkulla on Thu, 24 March 2016, 19:02:30
I run Ubuntu Mate on my Desktop and OpenBSD on my notebook with a separate ssd for Ubuntu with xfce which i use for work.
I also running Raspbian on my "homeserver" (Raspberry PI2) and RecalboxOS on my other Raspberry PI2 for playing old games with emulation station.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 26 March 2016, 08:10:15
Debian user since 1998, developer since 2000 (with a minor hiatus in 2010). But nowadays, I live in Emacs, and Debian is a glorified bootloader for the One True Operating System.
I'm so sad that your OS lacks a decent editor.

Shouldn't be as #Vimmasterrace

 :))

The best editor is neither Vim nor Emacs. It is Vim AND Emacs. All hail the Spacemacs (http://spacemacs.org/)! (Also serves as a great, portable OS you can boot with Windows, MacOS, Linuxen and the various BSDs!)

Amen to that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 26 March 2016, 08:12:42
Other unices suck.

computers suck universally

Multiplan, LISP, and WP5.1 were the peak of computing. Only downhill since then :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 26 March 2016, 12:55:08
I so long the days of my ZX Spectrum.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 04 April 2016, 08:44:01
Not trying to troll here, but this weekend I put stock Ubuntu on my Chromebook using Crouton.  I'm actually finding Unity to not be that awful, as long as you become familiar with the keyboard shortcuts and don't mind the lack of customization options.  Could be worse.

On the other hand, if this is the desktop environment that Ubuntu developers hope to appeal the masses, you shouldn't make the typical computer user have to memorize a bunch of shortcuts in order to make the desktop work efficiently.  Just make it easy for point and click, please.

On another note, this Gallium OS  (https://galliumos.org) seems like another appealing Chrome OS alternative.  Might give it a try.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 04 April 2016, 18:27:27
Not trying to troll here, but this weekend I put stock Ubuntu on my Chromebook using Crouton.  I'm actually finding Unity to not be that awful, as long as you become familiar with the keyboard shortcuts and don't mind the lack of customization options.  Could be worse.

On the other hand, if this is the desktop environment that Ubuntu developers hope to appeal the masses, you shouldn't make the typical computer user have to memorize a bunch of shortcuts in order to make the desktop work efficiently.  Just make it easy for point and click, please.

On another note, this Gallium OS  (https://galliumos.org) seems like another appealing Chrome OS alternative.  Might give it a try.

Honestly, don't you find unity immensely disgustingly distastefully ugly? I mean, there was a time when there was hope for the linux desktop, before the default KDE 4 theme (IMHO) turned out to be ugly. When we had compiz and when we finally had almost-smooth animations like OSX. And then Unity happened. Eye-candy wise, it felt like a great step backwards. Also, that default font. What's up with that?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Mon, 04 April 2016, 21:20:12
Who needs Linux anyway, Windows 10 has Bash now! /s
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: FlukeNukem on Mon, 04 April 2016, 23:03:34
Not trying to troll here, but this weekend I put stock Ubuntu on my Chromebook using Crouton.  I'm actually finding Unity to not be that awful, as long as you become familiar with the keyboard shortcuts and don't mind the lack of customization options.  Could be worse.

On the other hand, if this is the desktop environment that Ubuntu developers hope to appeal the masses, you shouldn't make the typical computer user have to memorize a bunch of shortcuts in order to make the desktop work efficiently.  Just make it easy for point and click, please.

On another note, this Gallium OS  (https://galliumos.org) seems like another appealing Chrome OS alternative.  Might give it a try.

Honestly, don't you find unity immensely disgustingly distastefully ugly? I mean, there was a time when there was hope for the linux desktop, before the default KDE 4 theme (IMHO) turned out to be ugly. When we had compiz and when we finally had almost-smooth animations like OSX. And then Unity happened. Eye-candy wise, it felt like a great step backwards. Also, that default font. What's up with that?
Unity is awful.  KDE is a mess.  Don't get me started on compiz and beryl.  Maybe I'm just a cremudgen but nothing will ever look as good as fluxbox with a diagonal gradient.  All the flashy crap and bells and whistles in newer WMs reminds me of this:

 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Dekotora.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 05 April 2016, 06:05:32
Not trying to troll here, but this weekend I put stock Ubuntu on my Chromebook using Crouton.  I'm actually finding Unity to not be that awful, as long as you become familiar with the keyboard shortcuts and don't mind the lack of customization options.  Could be worse.

On the other hand, if this is the desktop environment that Ubuntu developers hope to appeal the masses, you shouldn't make the typical computer user have to memorize a bunch of shortcuts in order to make the desktop work efficiently.  Just make it easy for point and click, please.

On another note, this Gallium OS  (https://galliumos.org) seems like another appealing Chrome OS alternative.  Might give it a try.

Honestly, don't you find unity immensely disgustingly distastefully ugly? I mean, there was a time when there was hope for the linux desktop, before the default KDE 4 theme (IMHO) turned out to be ugly. When we had compiz and when we finally had almost-smooth animations like OSX. And then Unity happened. Eye-candy wise, it felt like a great step backwards. Also, that default font. What's up with that?

Not that ugly, but I think I have a great tolerance for ugliness.  I also do not mind a bit of eye candy.  The lighter Radiance theme is not as bad as the stock theme:

[attach=1]

Yea, the default font is awful and looks like a comic strip.   Unity does some things that immediately make people run away upon first glance, which is the exact opposite effect Canonical should shoot for if they intend for Unity to be the default, most widely used desktop.  And a lot of simple things, like letting the user move the dock to a different edge.  Seriously guys.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 05 April 2016, 07:09:37
Maybe I'm just a cremudgen
You sure are.

All the flashy crap and bells and whistles in newer WMs
Some newer WMs are tiling, they are free of flashy things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 05 April 2016, 07:37:11
People still talk about things being "intuitive" but now, 3+ decades into "the computer age" it seems that "intuitive" would be better described as whatever you (personally) are accustomed to.

If Ubuntu wants to lure Windows users, they might have tried to mimic Windows' "look and feel" but Microsoft has made that a moving target with drastic changes every other time, at least.

Going for an Apple-esque appearance is a waste of time, Apple is a religion and they are accustomed to paying a top-dollar tithe, so "free" means little to them.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 05 April 2016, 08:04:39
People still talk about things being "intuitive" but now, 3+ decades into "the computer age" it seems that "intuitive" would be better described as whatever you (personally) are accustomed to.

If Ubuntu wants to lure Windows users, they might have tried to mimic Windows' "look and feel" but Microsoft has made that a moving target with drastic changes every other time, at least.

Going for an Apple-esque appearance is a waste of time, Apple is a religion and they are accustomed to paying a top-dollar tithe, so "free" means little to them.

Agreed. You "expect" toolbars and menus and dialogs in a certain place. It becomes some sort of muscle memory. So I was extremely disgusted with the ribbon "interface" with the back then "new" office. And Win 8 of course.

What I do like about Apple, is consistency in the UI, mostly. That is one thing I really have to give Apple credits for: still top menubar, same Finder, same UI concepts.

Another thing that is extremely annoying with Windows, is how they obfuscate and change control panel more and more with every Windows release. It is like they LIKE you not knowing how to change settings.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 05 April 2016, 09:36:54

extremely annoying with Windows, is how they obfuscate and change control panel more and more with every Windows release


Absolutely. Just like "the ribbon" did away with the "Format" and "View" tabs and scattered their functions all over the place.

I have spent the last couple of days setting up a new laptop with Win10 for my boss, who is wildly anti-tech and cannot stand even the slightest change in anything.

This was my first real serious encounter with 10 and it was unbelievably disorienting, far worse than ever before. I am feeling the urge and need to move my own primary desktop to 10 in the coming weeks (I have been saying that for months) as my several-years-old 7 install keeps getting slower and kludgier, but this did not encourage me.

I never did find the Control Panel. I even asked my teenage son, who has been using 8.1 for nearly a year, and he couldn't find it either. Eventually I installed a 3rd-party piece that cobbles on a 7-esque desktop and that will suffice for the immediate present.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 05 April 2016, 17:34:04

extremely annoying with Windows, is how they obfuscate and change control panel more and more with every Windows release


Absolutely. Just like "the ribbon" did away with the "Format" and "View" tabs and scattered their functions all over the place.

I have spent the last couple of days setting up a new laptop with Win10 for my boss, who is wildly anti-tech and cannot stand even the slightest change in anything.

This was my first real serious encounter with 10 and it was unbelievably disorienting, far worse than ever before. I am feeling the urge and need to move my own primary desktop to 10 in the coming weeks (I have been saying that for months) as my several-years-old 7 install keeps getting slower and kludgier, but this did not encourage me.

I never did find the Control Panel. I even asked my teenage son, who has been using 8.1 for nearly a year, and he couldn't find it either. Eventually I installed a 3rd-party piece that cobbles on a 7-esque desktop and that will suffice for the immediate present.

I wish you the best of luck. If even your son cannot find it, nobody can. I've tried fixing networking on Win10 recently.. it wasn't working. Oh man.. the places I had to look, the obfuscating going on. I felt 10 years older when I was done.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: FlukeNukem on Tue, 05 April 2016, 17:49:12
All the flashy crap and bells and whistles in newer WMs
Some newer WMs are tiling, they are free of flashy things.

Yeah if I ever feel the need to reformat my Debian box I'll probably check out something like Notion or wmii.  But for now fluxbox is serving me well as it has for years.  I spend most of my time on Linux in a terminal running tmux so that's basically a tiling wm already.


extremely annoying with Windows, is how they obfuscate and change control panel more and more with every Windows release



I never did find the Control Panel. I even asked my teenage son, who has been using 8.1 for nearly a year, and he couldn't find it either. Eventually I installed a 3rd-party piece that cobbles on a 7-esque desktop and that will suffice for the immediate present.


I don't know if there's a ui button you can click on to get to the control panel, but Win+R to bring up the run box then typing "control" still works.  For me that's always been faster than clicking through the start menu so I prefer accessing it that way anyway.  I dread the day ms decides to remove it completely and force people to use the new "settings" panel.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 05 April 2016, 19:19:26

I dread the day ms decides to remove it completely and force people to use the new "settings" panel.


I found the settings panel but it did not include whatever it was that I needed to do (such as find the control panel).

All the usual headings such as "Appearance" and "User Accounts" seem to have been stripped of 80% of their contents.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 05 April 2016, 21:51:36
People still talk about things being "intuitive" but now, 3+ decades into "the computer age" it seems that "intuitive" would be better described as whatever you (personally) are accustomed to.

If Ubuntu wants to lure Windows users, they might have tried to mimic Windows' "look and feel" but Microsoft has made that a moving target with drastic changes every other time, at least.

Going for an Apple-esque appearance is a waste of time, Apple is a religion and they are accustomed to paying a top-dollar tithe, so "free" means little to them.

I seem to sound like I'm a rabid Apple fan these days :))

But since the start of OS X, the look and feel of OS X has not changed much at all.  The biggest change was reversing the vertical scroll direction, done to make touch pads seem more intuitive, but ended up making mouse wheel scrolling backwards.  This is easily corrected in Preferences.

Apps running under OS X always have a menu at the top of the screen.  And the Apple menu is always there to access System Preferences, About This Mac, restart/shutdown and so on.

This is a consistent user interface that is not difficult to learn.

I agree that Microsoft are losing the plot, with wild sweeping changes that make each new iteration of their operating system radically different to try to use, and involves a learning curve for even technical people.

Being perhaps a little cynical, I sometimes wonder if they keep altering the UI to hide the fact that under the hood 99% of Windows is the same as it has been for about 20 years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 05 April 2016, 22:00:06

I dread the day ms decides to remove it completely and force people to use the new "settings" panel.


I found the settings panel but it did not include whatever it was that I needed to do (such as find the control panel).

All the usual headings such as "Appearance" and "User Accounts" seem to have been stripped of 80% of their contents.
I gave up trying to find everything through the new settings hierarchy. I remember most of the settings I need by name so I tap that windows key and search for it :-[

I can totally see Windows 10 as a turning point for people that were on the fence with Linux or Apple
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Tue, 05 April 2016, 22:09:13
KDE has been bad for a long time. It's the worst part of Slackware (by default). Plasma is pretty cool looking when it's not "bugging" out on you.

I don't have a problem with Gnome or Gnome "fallback" in Debian.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 06 April 2016, 04:52:27
Please stop discussing ****ing Windows in the thread about Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 06 April 2016, 05:17:08
KDE has been bad for a long time. It's the worst part of Slackware (by default). Plasma is pretty cool looking when it's not "bugging" out on you.

I don't have a problem with Gnome or Gnome "fallback" in Debian.

https://www.trinitydesktop.org/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 06 April 2016, 05:33:22
KDE has been bad for a long time. It's the worst part of Slackware (by default). Plasma is pretty cool looking when it's not "bugging" out on you.

I don't have a problem with Gnome or Gnome "fallback" in Debian.

https://www.trinitydesktop.org/

KDE has been a mixed love story for me. In the time of gnome 2 and KDE 3, I liked KDE 3 more for a while. But it was so buggy and unstable, that I eventually switched to gnome 2. Then they f**ked up gnome and I went to xfce.

The thing is, I think both GTK AND QT are horrible widget sets. GTK is a nightmare to develop for and QT is just ugly when it is rendered IMHO.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Wed, 06 April 2016, 08:30:36
My next build will run Ubuntu Mate with Btrs and WindowMaker.

I chose to use Linux because it gives me control and it gives me choice. Gnome 3, Unity, Cinnamon - they are all crap. Even the Mate-flavour of Linux Mint is crippled in that regard.

The thing is, I think both GTK AND QT are horrible widget sets. GTK is a nightmare to develop for and QT is just ugly when it is rendered IMHO.
I would be interested in hearing what widget sets you think are better.

Granted... GTK is object-oriented C and your code has to be very verbose because all those things that are implicit in an OO language has to be implicit in GTK (or rather, glib).
It has been a while since I wrote code for it, but other than that I found it to have a sound architecture and the code and interfaces to be of high quality. Maybe things have changed since then ...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Wed, 06 April 2016, 08:39:25
The thing is, I think both GTK AND QT are horrible widget sets. GTK is a nightmare to develop for and QT is just ugly when it is rendered IMHO.

While I am a GNOME user (but I do not develop for it), I believe QT can look amazing. Have a look at what Papyros (http://papyros.io/) are doing with it: https://plus.google.com/photos/photo/113262712329378697012/6234567346563234850
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Marizen on Wed, 06 April 2016, 10:52:41
I was a big fan of old GNOME before Ubuntu switched to Unity.

Now for whatever reason I just can't find one that I really like. I've tried MATE a couple times and it was buggy. I love the workspace management in new GNOME, but I don't like how thick the tops of the windows are (takes up more space than they really need to and just looks bad in my opinion). Cinnamon and KDE feel slow because of the animations.

I don't like to have to do a whole buncha customization to get stuff to look and feel how I want it to. I know that's one of the big advantages to Linux, but personally I just want to be able to set it up and go.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 06 April 2016, 12:19:30
Papyros looks like it is heavily inspired by Chrome OS, which brings me to my next point.  Using Chrome OS and some other distros with minimal, modern interfaces (GalliumOS, Cub Linux, Solus) has modified what I think works best as a UI.  Chrome OS provides you with the basics, then gets out of the way and let's you work, as opposed to being clunky and obtrusive and too robust.  It mostly works (so far) with minimal hangups, notifications, updates, and bloat.  It looks pretty smooth and slick, too.

Obviously, Chrome OS has shortcomings and limitations, which leads me to try out other Linux distros/DEs with similar interfaces but more customization that can function as a full Linux operating system.  I know my eventual Linux resting place is a tiling windows manager, but I have to finally settle upon a distro before I get there.

When I step back and think about, what do you actually need in a basic home desktop setup that works for most of us?  You want it to work well, be familiar, and easy to use, but at least offer some customizations for the more discerning user.  You want easy access to your apps, files, settings/utilities, open windows, and additional software.  And you want all your media to frickin work out of the box.  That's pretty much it.

Most of us would be perfectly fine with a Chrome OS type of system with a tad more software choices, rather than jacking around with Windows or paying out-the-ass for a Mac.  The main impediment to this scenario is our familiarity with what we've used all our lives, and lack of willingness to just take a week or two to adjust to a slightly different user interface.  But whatever, we're human.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Wed, 06 April 2016, 12:27:49
Most of us would be perfectly fine with a Chrome OS type of system with a tad more software choices, rather than jacking around with Windows or paying out-the-ass for a Mac.  The main impediment to this scenario is our familiarity with what we've used all our lives, and lack of willingness to just take a week or two to adjust to a slightly different user interface.  But whatever, we're human.

That is how I work: I live in a full-screen emacs. That is my IDE, my shell, my email client, my slack client, my browser (with a bit of WebKit help), my spreadsheet, my word processor, my music player, and so on. The odd other program I may need gets their own workspace, and runs at full screen. Things get out of the way. I have no menu bars, no taskbar, no nothing. Windows with no decorations, borders or buttons.

Incredibly productive system :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 06 April 2016, 12:31:10
Most of us would be perfectly fine with a Chrome OS type of system with a tad more software choices, rather than jacking around with Windows or paying out-the-ass for a Mac.  The main impediment to this scenario is our familiarity with what we've used all our lives, and lack of willingness to just take a week or two to adjust to a slightly different user interface.  But whatever, we're human.

That is how I work: I live in a full-screen emacs. That is my IDE, my shell, my email client, my slack client, my browser (with a bit of WebKit help), my spreadsheet, my word processor, my music player, and so on. The odd other program I may need gets their own workspace, and runs at full screen. Things get out of the way. I have no menu bars, no taskbar, no nothing. Windows with no decorations, borders or buttons.

Incredibly productive system :)

How do you do spreadsheets in emacs? Please tell me. I've been trying to get rid of excel for at least 2 years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 06 April 2016, 12:41:57
Please stop discussing ****ing Windows in the thread about Linux.
Relax pls, I was explaining why I think people will migrate to Linux.. in a Linux thread. I will stick to the topic from now on :-[
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cryptokey on Wed, 06 April 2016, 16:54:09
Please stop discussing ****ing Windows in the thread about Linux.
Relax pls, I was explaining why I think people will migrate to Linux.. in a Linux thread. I will stick to the topic from now on :-[

(http://i.imgur.com/PzbXr45.gifv)

So what distro do you use, csmertx?  ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: LiquidEvilGaming on Wed, 06 April 2016, 16:57:52
Papyrus looks like it is heavily inspired by Chrome OS, which brings me to my next point.  Using Chrome OS and some other distros with minimal, modern interfaces (GalliumOS, Cub Linux, Solus) has modified what I think works best as a UI.  Chrome OS provides you with the basics, then gets out of the way and let's you work, as opposed to being clunky and obtrusive and too robust.  It mostly works (so far) with minimal hangups, notifications, updates, and bloat.  It looks pretty smooth and slick, too.

Obviously, Chrome OS has shortcomings and limitations, which leads me to try out other Linux distros/DEs with similar interfaces but more customization that can function as a full Linux operating system.  I know my eventual Linux resting place is a tiling windows manager, but I have to finally settle upon a distro before I get there.

When I step back and think about, what do you actually need in a basic home desktop setup that works for most of us?  You want it to work well, be familiar, and easy to use, but at least offer some customizations for the more discerning user.  You want easy access to your apps, files, settings/utilities, open windows, and additional software.  And you want all your media to frickin work out of the box.  That's pretty much it.

Most of us would be perfectly fine with a Chrome OS type of system with a tad more software choices, rather than jacking around with Windows or paying out-the-ass for a Mac.  The main impediment to this scenario is our familiarity with what we've used all our lives, and lack of willingness to just take a week or two to adjust to a slightly different user interface.  But whatever, we're human.

Honestly outside of PC gaming even Chrome OS would suit most of my needs just fine.  If it were not for PC gaming i don't think i'd have a use for windows anymore :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cryptokey on Wed, 06 April 2016, 17:11:57
The problem that I have with Chrome OS is that Google controls it, the company that makes ~96% of their revenue from advertisements and is in the business of selling your personal information.  Most of the data with Chrome OS is stored in the cloud which is not only insecure, but gives Google both control and rights over all of your data.  I think I'll stick with my trusty Linux distro. ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: LiquidEvilGaming on Wed, 06 April 2016, 17:19:56
The problem that I have with Chrome OS is that Google controls it, the company that makes ~96% of their revenue from advertisements and is in the business of selling your personal information.  Most of the data with Chrome OS is stored in the cloud which is not only insecure, but gives Google both control and rights over all of your data.  I think I'll stick with my trusty Linux distro. ;)


As i said earlier i do use Linux Mint on my laptop i was just stating for most things Chrome Os is fine (granted outside of things you wish to keep secure i'll grant you that)

Rest assured though for certain other things i use Mint + a VPN
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 06 April 2016, 20:06:22
Please stop discussing ****ing Windows in the thread about Linux.
Relax pls, I was explaining why I think people will migrate to Linux.. in a Linux thread. I will stick to the topic from now on :-[

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/PzbXr45.gifv)


So what distro do you use, csmertx?  ;)

I said it earlier in this thread I think. Linux Lite is what I settled down with. I'll probably try Gentoo when I have a spare SSD though :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 06 April 2016, 23:06:17
The problem that I have with Chrome OS is that Google controls it, the company that makes ~96% of their revenue from advertisements and is in the business of selling your personal information.  Most of the data with Chrome OS is stored in the cloud which is not only insecure, but gives Google both control and rights over all of your data.  I think I'll stick with my trusty Linux distro. ;)

Yea, I totally understand that sentiment.  I am activity seeking out and using alternatives, but I still use Chrome OS for convenience, mostly.  One of the main reasons I got a Chromebook was to put Linux on a laptop for a lower cost than a Macbook Air/Pro.  From what I have gleaned, Linux choices for Chromebooks are somewhat limited right now, but I slapped GalliumOS  (https://galliumos.org/)on there so I could access Linux packages and software, and utilize the limited Chromebook keyboard (which lacks a lot of keys and requires some key remapping in a standard Linux distro to use standards keys like Delete or all the F-keys).  I was using Crouton, but GalliumOS truly is optimized for Chromebooks and has some useful features.

I know that I sound like a Chrome OS fanboy, but I will say that it has swayed my preferences towards wanting/needing very little from an OS, way less than I thought that I previously needed.  My preferred traditional Linux DEs probably will go the wayside for me.

All that said, I will be shopping for tiling windows managers soon enough.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Thu, 07 April 2016, 01:17:24
How do you do spreadsheets in emacs? Please tell me. I've been trying to get rid of excel for at least 2 years.

http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-spreadsheet-intro.html

With org-mode & calc.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yasuo on Thu, 07 April 2016, 04:49:32
Using linux after often got crash in windows it was smooth though
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 07 April 2016, 05:44:58
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 07 April 2016, 09:51:38
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 07 April 2016, 10:43:03
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.

How long does it take these days to compile a whole system including the desktop? Back in the day when I had an Athlon XP it took me like 7-8 hours to get everything compiled and up and running.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 07 April 2016, 11:03:43
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.

How long does it take these days to compile a whole system including the desktop? Back in the day when I had an Athlon XP it took me like 7-8 hours to get everything compiled and up and running.
That sounds much better than tweaking a pre-built distro. I would often spend more than 24 hrs dealing with various compatibility problems or downloading packages that other packages need :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 07 April 2016, 11:50:00
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.

How long does it take these days to compile a whole system including the desktop? Back in the day when I had an Athlon XP it took me like 7-8 hours to get everything compiled and up and running.
That sounds much better than tweaking a pre-built distro. I would often spend more than 24 hrs dealing with various compatibility problems or downloading packages that other packages need :(

Never thought of it that way... Indeed compiling from scratch you make package dependencies yourself which may be better indeed.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 07 April 2016, 11:54:16
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.

How long does it take these days to compile a whole system including the desktop? Back in the day when I had an Athlon XP it took me like 7-8 hours to get everything compiled and up and running.
The first thing my colleague did upon moving to the UK was compiling a Gentoo system the way he likes. Took him three days, one of which was solely spent on compiling Firefox.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 07 April 2016, 12:22:52
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.

How long does it take these days to compile a whole system including the desktop? Back in the day when I had an Athlon XP it took me like 7-8 hours to get everything compiled and up and running.
The first thing my colleague did upon moving to the UK was compiling a Gentoo system the way he likes. Took him three days, one of which was solely spent on compiling Firefox.

Is Firefox so bloated?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 07 April 2016, 12:24:19
Oh yes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 07 April 2016, 12:30:54
Btw. How's font rendering these days on linux? And how is hardware acceleration? Are both NVIDIA and AMD camps finally providing the good stuff?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 07 April 2016, 14:16:56
It's not 2000 any more.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 07 April 2016, 15:14:16
It's not 2000 any more.

No it's an honest question: is font rendering good nowadays? Is subpixel hinting proper now? Since 2006, I've only done terminal linux. The rest has been Mac up until now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 07 April 2016, 15:27:14
Fonts look good on my cinnamon desktop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 07 April 2016, 18:18:23
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.

How long does it take these days to compile a whole system including the desktop? Back in the day when I had an Athlon XP it took me like 7-8 hours to get everything compiled and up and running.
The first thing my colleague did upon moving to the UK was compiling a Gentoo system the way he likes. Took him three days, one of which was solely spent on compiling Firefox.
It shouldn't take an entire day to compile Firefox, that's three to four times longer than average (or more). The same applies to Gentoo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 08 April 2016, 07:22:17
It's not 2000 any more.

No it's an honest question: is font rendering good nowadays? Is subpixel hinting proper now? Since 2006, I've only done terminal linux. The rest has been Mac up until now.
Different distros apply different patches; some are supposedly excellent, others not so much. Personally, I don't care.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 08 April 2016, 07:28:51
It's not 2000 any more.

No it's an honest question: is font rendering good nowadays? Is subpixel hinting proper now? Since 2006, I've only done terminal linux. The rest has been Mac up until now.
Different distros apply different patches; some are supposedly excellent, others not so much. Personally, I don't care.

Thanks for the info!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 08 April 2016, 07:29:15
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?
Yes.

How long does it take these days to compile a whole system including the desktop? Back in the day when I had an Athlon XP it took me like 7-8 hours to get everything compiled and up and running.
The first thing my colleague did upon moving to the UK was compiling a Gentoo system the way he likes. Took him three days, one of which was solely spent on compiling Firefox.
It shouldn't take an entire day to compile Firefox, that's three to four times longer than average (or more). The same applies to Gentoo.
That depends on the build parameters though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 08 April 2016, 07:30:56
Gentoo makes me think about manual kernel config.. Is it still worth it these days to manual configure a kernel? Are stock kernels from distros better? Are there too many options in the kernel nowadays? Last time I did it was 2005 or so.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 08 April 2016, 07:47:40
Gentoo makes me think about manual kernel config.. Is it still worth it these days to manual configure a kernel?
No, not at all. I didn't do it on my Macbook.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 08 April 2016, 07:54:59
It's not necessary, unless you have very specific demands. The process is much more straightforward than a decade ago, but still generally considered annoying (even by many kernel developers).

Although, it might be worth trying, for instance, the alternative I/O scheduler (BFQ).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 12 April 2016, 13:18:05
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?

are these separate, unrelated questions? emerge is not manual...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 12 April 2016, 13:30:33
Does anybody here still use gentoo? Is manual compiling still hawt here?

are these separate, unrelated questions? emerge is not manual...

Gentoo is typically chosen for manually compiling (as in not using stock binaries) kernel and packages. So that is my question: who is still doing this?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 04 May 2016, 09:38:39
I think that I need a Linux counselor.  I settle on a distro and/or OS for awhile, but the urge to try more creeps in and I lose hours of my life jacking around with a different distro or trying to setup a windows manager.  I have the feeling that I will never be satisfied until I've tried them all.  I know that this is not an effective or efficient way of approaching this matter.  I literally lose too much sleep and brainpower over generally trivial Linux-related matters.  I'm at the point that I get nothing done except messing around with Linux.

I'm considering just going with stock Ubuntu to prevent myself from continuously jacking around with things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 04 May 2016, 11:23:30
I hear you. I am no code jockey and just need something that I can use, although I am fine with moderate tinkering.

Ubuntu was where I started, 6-8 years ago, and although I dislike most of their "philosophy" they do offer a stable environment. When Unity came along I was unhappy, but it is really not too hard to get used to.

I really wanted to make OpenSUSE/KDE happen about a year ago, but hardware problems (eg I was never able to get one of my computers, a completely normal, ordinary desktop a few years old but completely serviceable, to connect to the internet, neither through ethernet nor wirelessly) and a monumentally rude and unhelpful forum that finally drove me away. There were some things about it like Yost that were really good, once you figured out how to navigate your way through them.

In my latest build, I am dual-booting Windows 10 and Mint 17.3/Cinnamon and so far it is working out very well. Mint has effortlessly handled everything that I have thrown at it, including an old scanner that 10 wouldn't touch. There is a "Linux Mint Community" which I joined but I can't seem to find a forum where you can ask questions. Fortunately, Google has found anything I needed and I have had very smooth sailing for a month or so.
Also, Cinnamon makes an old-school Windows user feel comfortable.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Wed, 04 May 2016, 11:55:45
I use LPS or Lightweight Portable Security (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lps) which has been my main desktop Linux OS.

It's a no BS OS that looks like Win 95/98 (call me old fashioned - I like that interface the best), runs entirely in RAM, and leaves no trace of activity.  I use this on PC's without HD/DVD storage - or any kind of writable - storage.

If I need more than this I SSH out to SDF or some other Unix server.

I don't think of myself as a Geek or Hacker for using it; I just find the idea of RAM based Operating Systems extremely cool.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 04 May 2016, 13:22:59
I use LPS or Lightweight Portable Security (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lps) which has been my main desktop Linux OS.

It's a no BS OS that looks like Win 95/98 (call me old fashioned - I like that interface the best), runs entirely in RAM, and leaves no trace of activity.  I use this on PC's without HD/DVD storage - or any kind of writable - storage.

If I need more than this I SSH out to SDF or some other Unix server.

I don't think of myself as a Geek or Hacker for using it; I just find the idea of RAM based Operating Systems extremely cool.

Operating entirely from RAM is cool.

I switched my Windows 7 computer at work to the Windows Classic theme (mid to late 90s look).  After a few weeks, I actually prefer it.  it's a minimal distraction environment.  But I should stop discussing this matter in the Linux thread.

Then again, a part of me cannot resist a well functioning bit of eye candy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 04 May 2016, 13:32:29

Windows Classic theme (mid to late 90s look).  it's a minimal distraction environment.  But I should stop discussing this matter in the Linux thread.

Then again, a part of me cannot resist a well functioning bit of eye candy.

I would love to find the 98 "science fiction" screen saver again!

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 04 May 2016, 15:11:34
I think that I need a Linux counselor.  I settle on a distro and/or OS for awhile, but the urge to try more creeps in and I lose hours of my life jacking around with a different distro or trying to setup a windows manager.  I have the feeling that I will never be satisfied until I've tried them all.  I know that this is not an effective or efficient way of approaching this matter.  I literally lose too much sleep and brainpower over generally trivial Linux-related matters.  I'm at the point that I get nothing done except messing around with Linux.
Don't worry, many people come through this stage.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 04 May 2016, 17:08:50
Don't worry, many people come through this stage.
Some never leave that stage.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 04 May 2016, 17:58:39
That's perfectly fine as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: robotmaxtron on Wed, 04 May 2016, 22:24:17
Fedora user here. I always run the latest stable version, both for work and home user for the last few years. I moved over to Fedora full time during the Windows XP to Vista transition but well before Windows 7 was available.

I'm probably one of the few, but I really like Gnome 3, I've themed it a bit using a material-esque design theme and even do a fair amount of gaming on Linux (though I do have a PS4 for the occasion game I really want to play without Linux support).

I suspect within the next few months or so I'll finally cave and buy a secondary ssd for my main rig and install Windows 10 on it. There's a few games I'd like to play that are PC only and the occasional issue where I need something to run but absolutely cannot run it on Linux. The idea of using Windows with a mostly complete Bash is pretty appealing to me, so I'd like to continue to see that grow as well.

I had initially stopped using Windows basically because all I had at the time was a Atom powered Netbook and XP simply became too heavy for it. Eventually working with Linux became my full time career so I'd call it a win.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Thu, 05 May 2016, 10:24:01
I think that I need a Linux counselor.  I settle on a distro and/or OS for awhile, but the urge to try more creeps in and I lose hours of my life jacking around with a different distro or trying to setup a windows manager.  I have the feeling that I will never be satisfied until I've tried them all.  I know that this is not an effective or efficient way of approaching this matter.  I literally lose too much sleep and brainpower over generally trivial Linux-related matters.  I'm at the point that I get nothing done except messing around with Linux.
Don't worry, many people come through this stage.

I guess acceptance is the next step.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Thu, 05 May 2016, 10:44:25
Fedora user here. I always run the latest stable version, both for work and home user for the last few years. I moved over to Fedora full time during the Windows XP to Vista transition but well before Windows 7 was available.

I'm probably one of the few, but I really like Gnome 3, I've themed it a bit using a material-esque design theme and even do a fair amount of gaming on Linux (though I do have a PS4 for the occasion game I really want to play without Linux support).

I think tweak tools for Gnome and Unity can make the DEs way more usable.  They may not have the full customization or productivity or low RAM of some options, but mostly usable.  And they look pretty!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: robotmaxtron on Thu, 05 May 2016, 13:26:37
Fedora user here. I always run the latest stable version, both for work and home user for the last few years. I moved over to Fedora full time during the Windows XP to Vista transition but well before Windows 7 was available.

I'm probably one of the few, but I really like Gnome 3, I've themed it a bit using a material-esque design theme and even do a fair amount of gaming on Linux (though I do have a PS4 for the occasion game I really want to play without Linux support).

I think tweak tools for Gnome and Unity can make the DEs way more usable.  They may not have the full customization or productivity or low RAM of some options, but mostly usable.  And they look pretty!

I haven't used Unity at all since I'm pretty happy with Gnome but the gnome-tweak-tool was invaluable and of course the knowledge on how to correctly manage applications/desktop launching icons and .desktopfiles to have them do what you intend. Gnome extensions is also pretty neat for a few must haves like caffeine and being able to monitor weather, proxies/vpns, system temps, etc.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 06 May 2016, 09:11:35
I'm steadily trying to learn Linux again, so I'm familiarizing myself with Ubuntu at the moment.
My goal is to get familiar enough with it that I can run debian on my server at home.
It's currently doing all kinds of stuff, but I'm saving up for a few things before I will have disposable cash to buy a machine more (would love to try a xeon build) so I can split up the tasks.

I would love to run Linux on my personal computer as well but I just like gaming too much to switch.
I am going to be so happy if there comes a day where Linux is as strong on the gaming front as Windows is today.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 06 May 2016, 11:22:55
I'm steadily trying to learn Linux again, so I'm familiarizing myself with Ubuntu at the moment.
My goal is to get familiar enough with it that I can run debian on my server at home.
It's currently doing all kinds of stuff, but I'm saving up for a few things before I will have disposable cash to buy a machine more (would love to try a xeon build) so I can split up the tasks.

I would love to run Linux on my personal computer as well but I just like gaming too much to switch.
I am going to be so happy if there comes a day where Linux is as strong on the gaming front as Windows is today.

I'm a relative Linux newb, jumping in during the last quarter of 2015, so I can speak to the adjustment period.  For personal computing use, I had to become comfortable with using a package manager for software and command line for some tasks.  I was used to clicking one button in one place for all install and update tasks.  (Well, there is the Ubuntu Software, similar to the App Store, but I find that clunky to use). The other challenge was finding replacements for my usual applications and software.  Also, figuring out where everything is in the OS, but they just takes some clicking around to figure that out.  Plus, there are plenty of documentation and forums to help with a mainstream distro like Ubuntu.

And I guess it all depends on what you are trying to do with Linux to determine how long it takes for you to become familiar.  For basic personal computing, I think it takes an open mind, a willingness to deal with some frustrating moments, and less than a month of tinkering around
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 06 May 2016, 14:11:08
I'm steadily trying to learn Linux again, so I'm familiarizing myself with Ubuntu at the moment.
My goal is to get familiar enough with it that I can run debian on my server at home.
It's currently doing all kinds of stuff, but I'm saving up for a few things before I will have disposable cash to buy a machine more (would love to try a xeon build) so I can split up the tasks.

I would love to run Linux on my personal computer as well but I just like gaming too much to switch.
I am going to be so happy if there comes a day where Linux is as strong on the gaming front as Windows is today.

I'm a relative Linux newb, jumping in during the last quarter of 2015, so I can speak to the adjustment period.  For personal computing use, I had to become comfortable with using a package manager for software and command line for some tasks.  I was used to clicking one button in one place for all install and update tasks.  (Well, there is the Ubuntu Software, similar to the App Store, but I find that clunky to use). The other challenge was finding replacements for my usual applications and software.  Also, figuring out where everything is in the OS, but they just takes some clicking around to figure that out.  Plus, there are plenty of documentation and forums to help with a mainstream distro like Ubuntu.

And I guess it all depends on what you are trying to do with Linux to determine how long it takes for you to become familiar.  For basic personal computing, I think it takes an open mind, a willingness to deal with some frustrating moments, and less than a month of tinkering around
Currently it's running a small website I use for some personal stuff.
It also has Kodi but I use it as an all round desktop system as well since it's hooked up to the TV in the living room.
Finding the replacement programs has been a very positive experience, had to rip som dvd's since we are moving and don't plan on having them up anywhere in the new house - found what I needed and it was extremely effecient compared to what I've tried on Windows machines.
Although the last time I tried to encode stuff on a Windows machine was a couple of years ago. - Now I just need a BluRay reader so I can rip all of our BluRay's as well.
I enjoy having one big catalog with all my stuff which I can sift through on my phone and just put on anything I feel like.

The basic stuff I think I have down, I use the terminal daily at this point and am getting alright with it.
I just don't know what I'd like to try next, ideally it'd be nice to try and configure an Arch installation myself, but it seems a bit too complicated for me at the moment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2016, 16:52:08

And I guess it all depends on what you are trying to do with Linux to determine how long it takes for you to become familiar.  For basic personal computing, I think it takes an open mind, a willingness to deal with some frustrating moments, and less than a month of tinkering around


I am delighted with Mint/Cinnamon so far.

Based on Debian/Ubuntu, most of the software is an immediate match, and if you have used Ubuntu the regular stuff like sudo and synaptic package manager is there. Also, the Cinnamon desktop is quite possibly more like Windows 7 than Windows 10 is like Windows 7.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 07 May 2016, 16:39:27
Looks like I have settled on Ubuntu Mate for the time being.  Simple, configurable, attractive, lowish RAM, and x-tile allows for some modest tiling.  I am happy with it so far and will use it as my main operating system. 

In the meantime, I am experimenting with tiling windows managers and am hoping to settle upon that I like.  So far, bspwm probably is my favorite.  I like the binary space partitioning tiling system, easy-to-use keyboard commands, and also flexibility to use the mouse for some tasks as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 07 May 2016, 17:13:49
Looks like I have settled on Ubuntu Mate for the time being.  Simple, configurable, attractive, lowish RAM, and x-tile allows for some modest tiling.  I am happy with it so far and will use it as my main operating system. 

In the meantime, I am experimenting with tiling windows managers and am hoping to settle upon that I like.  So far, bspwm probably is my favorite.  I like the binary space partitioning tiling system, easy-to-use keyboard commands, and also flexibility to use the mouse for some tasks as well.

Nice choice in a distro. Gnome 2 was my first desktop environment and there really is nothing else to compare it to.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 07 May 2016, 21:24:41
Looks like I have settled on Ubuntu Mate for the time being.  Simple, configurable, attractive, lowish RAM, and x-tile allows for some modest tiling.  I am happy with it so far and will use it as my main operating system. 

In the meantime, I am experimenting with tiling windows managers and am hoping to settle upon that I like.  So far, bspwm probably is my favorite.  I like the binary space partitioning tiling system, easy-to-use keyboard commands, and also flexibility to use the mouse for some tasks as well.

Nice choice in a distro. Gnome 2 was my first desktop environment and there really is nothing else to compare it to.

Desktop environments are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good window manager.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 07 May 2016, 21:47:10
I don't care as long as it works. I've used Gnome for probably 5+ years without trouble. I used to use KDE but it's pretty unstable for me these days.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 08 May 2016, 19:48:24
Looks like I have settled on Ubuntu Mate for the time being.  Simple, configurable, attractive, lowish RAM, and x-tile allows for some modest tiling.  I am happy with it so far and will use it as my main operating system. 

In the meantime, I am experimenting with tiling windows managers and am hoping to settle upon that I like.  So far, bspwm probably is my favorite.  I like the binary space partitioning tiling system, easy-to-use keyboard commands, and also flexibility to use the mouse for some tasks as well.

Nice choice in a distro. Gnome 2 was my first desktop environment and there really is nothing else to compare it to.

Desktop environments are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good window manager.

I agree, I think the differences between desktop environments are not that substantial:  appearance, RAM usage, the ability to tweak a few things here and there.  Windows managers have a lot more productivity value, which is why I am most interested in those

Desktops environments certainly have their value for the Linux beginner or casual user, though.  We can't all joining the tiling windows manager master race (which I hope to be a part of one day).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 08 May 2016, 23:24:34
Looks like I have settled on Ubuntu Mate for the time being.  Simple, configurable, attractive, lowish RAM, and x-tile allows for some modest tiling.  I am happy with it so far and will use it as my main operating system. 

In the meantime, I am experimenting with tiling windows managers and am hoping to settle upon that I like.  So far, bspwm probably is my favorite.  I like the binary space partitioning tiling system, easy-to-use keyboard commands, and also flexibility to use the mouse for some tasks as well.

Nice choice in a distro. Gnome 2 was my first desktop environment and there really is nothing else to compare it to.

Desktop environments are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good window manager.
Windows managers are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good terminal with Links to access geekhack :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 09 May 2016, 07:21:26
With w3m.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Mon, 09 May 2016, 09:36:58
Desktop environments are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good window manager.
I agree, I think the differences between desktop environments are not that substantial:  appearance, RAM usage, the ability to tweak a few things here and there.  Windows managers have a lot more productivity value, which is why I am most interested in those

Desktops environments certainly have their value for the Linux beginner or casual user, though.  We can't all joining the tiling windows manager master race (which I hope to be a part of one day).
That completely ignores a large portion of modern DEs.

A window manager doesn't
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 09 May 2016, 09:39:16
Windows managers are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good terminal with Links to access geekhack :p

Command line, ftw! Anything more is superfluous!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 09 May 2016, 09:39:53
Desktop environments are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good window manager.
I agree, I think the differences between desktop environments are not that substantial:  appearance, RAM usage, the ability to tweak a few things here and there.  Windows managers have a lot more productivity value, which is why I am most interested in those

Desktops environments certainly have their value for the Linux beginner or casual user, though.  We can't all joining the tiling windows manager master race (which I hope to be a part of one day).
That completely ignores a large portion of modern DEs.

A window manager doesn't
  • (un)mount storage devices and potentially even, e.g., turn off unmounted drives;
  • provide complex screen management;
  • index data;
  • allow better integration of apps (see, e.g., KIO slaves);
  • centralize shortcut configuration;

I never claimed to know what I'm talking about or be omniscient.  Just sharing my offhand thoughts.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: zcmy on Thu, 26 May 2016, 20:04:16
I use Mint/Cinnamon on my 10 year old laptop. It runs perfectly fine so i'm happy with it. I'm OS agnostic, it just takes me a couple minutes to get used to the changes on different distros. The only thing I'm not used to is a no DE distro, since I'm too lazy to setup.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Thu, 26 May 2016, 23:38:57
Windows managers are overrated, IMO. All you really need is a good terminal with Links to access geekhack :p

Command line, ftw! Anything more is superfluous!
Hehe I am actually trying this. I have a VPS that runs a website and I use it for other fun projects, like setting up a VPS and stuff. It's running debian server and all I have is command line.
You learn a lot of the commands really quick by just using it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Fri, 27 May 2016, 09:24:06
Does anybody have anything nice to say about PC-BSD?  (I know it's not Linux)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 27 May 2016, 13:27:02
Does anybody have anything nice to say about PC-BSD?  (I know it's not Linux)
Heathen! Heathen! Go away!

I just used FreeBSD. Customised the way I want and being a pretty good desktop OS. Flash didn't work but I didn't care.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 28 May 2016, 13:43:40
I'm steadily trying to learn Linux again, so I'm familiarizing myself with Ubuntu at the moment.
My goal is to get familiar enough with it that I can run debian on my server at home.
It's currently doing all kinds of stuff, but I'm saving up for a few things before I will have disposable cash to buy a machine more (would love to try a xeon build) so I can split up the tasks.

I would love to run Linux on my personal computer as well but I just like gaming too much to switch.
I am going to be so happy if there comes a day where Linux is as strong on the gaming front as Windows is today.

Couple of years ago I built a server again, running Ubuntu LTS on it. It was VERY smooth. My linux was rusty back then, but I thought like well just gonna try it and reinstall and try again if I fail. But it was really easy with ubuntu, especially with the forums where I could find everything. Only thing that was REALLY difficult for me to figure out is how to properly align sectors for large (4TB) harddrives. Still don't really understand it. I have mdadm with raid6, and AFS (believe with avahi daemon) so that my Macs think it's a legit file server. Works great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 28 May 2016, 15:18:15
Only thing that was REALLY difficult for me to figure out is how to properly align sectors for large (4TB) harddrives.
You don't have to understand it, just do it according to manual.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ramnes on Sat, 28 May 2016, 16:21:58
Gentoo.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thecolorblind1 on Sat, 28 May 2016, 17:44:31
Manjaro on my main rig and Ubuntu on my laptops. The wife needed something a bit more user friendly, so Ubuntu it is.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 28 May 2016, 17:58:07
Debian is just as user friendly as Ubuntu, or Mint, without all of the bloatware.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 29 May 2016, 00:36:25
Does anybody have anything nice to say about PC-BSD?  (I know it's not Linux)
Heathen! Heathen! Go away!

I just used FreeBSD. Customised the way I want and being a pretty good desktop OS. Flash didn't work but I didn't care.

We were using FreeBSD for a while at work.

It performed very well, was extremely stable, but lacking a bit in hardware support, so we switched to Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 29 May 2016, 02:03:15
Debian is just as user friendly as Ubuntu, or Mint, without all of the bloatware.
One could argue, that Ubuntu is de facto a slightly modified snapshot of Debian testing, with a bit tuned live images (although there are other live images based on Debian).

However, there's one thing I miss in Debian: PPAs.

I could live with Arch, which at least isn't half a year (or more) behind upstream, but I'm not interested in configuring everything.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 29 May 2016, 03:17:27
I could live with Arch, which at least isn't half a year (or more) behind upstream, but I'm not interested in configuring everything.

Try Manjaro, it gets you up and running Arch as quickly as Mint. It's not as fast as pure Arch, but still faster than Mint. You could also try Architect (sp?), which automates the install for you easily and quickly. It's very fast, but takes a bit longer to install, however, you don't have to be a Linux expert and you end up with pure Arch (or darn close).

Unfortunately, if you use Cinnamon and Virtualbox, do not use Arch, that combination crashes the desktop on boot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 29 May 2016, 05:52:11
The hell is a 'faster distro'?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 29 May 2016, 05:59:01
I'm steadily trying to learn Linux again, so I'm familiarizing myself with Ubuntu at the moment.
My goal is to get familiar enough with it that I can run debian on my server at home.
It's currently doing all kinds of stuff, but I'm saving up for a few things before I will have disposable cash to buy a machine more (would love to try a xeon build) so I can split up the tasks.

I would love to run Linux on my personal computer as well but I just like gaming too much to switch.
I am going to be so happy if there comes a day where Linux is as strong on the gaming front as Windows is today.

Couple of years ago I built a server again, running Ubuntu LTS on it. It was VERY smooth. My linux was rusty back then, but I thought like well just gonna try it and reinstall and try again if I fail. But it was really easy with ubuntu, especially with the forums where I could find everything. Only thing that was REALLY difficult for me to figure out is how to properly align sectors for large (4TB) harddrives. Still don't really understand it. I have mdadm with raid6, and AFS (believe with avahi daemon) so that my Macs think it's a legit file server. Works great.
Ubuntu is great because as you said finding solutions to your problems is probably 100% easier than for some other distros.
I am planning on using it as a file server as well as a web server for some small personal website. Currently it's doing a little bit of everything. I need to figure out if you can remove the desktop environment from it and have it run as a server. (Though I'm sure looking it up will give me the answer in 2 minutes.)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ramnes on Sun, 29 May 2016, 07:03:31
You can just use ubuntu-server.  ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 29 May 2016, 07:26:03
I could live with Arch, which at least isn't half a year (or more) behind upstream, but I'm not interested in configuring everything.
Try Manjaro, it gets you up and running Arch as quickly as Mint. It's not as fast as pure Arch, but still faster than Mint. You could also try Architect (sp?), which automates the install for you easily and quickly. It's very fast, but takes a bit longer to install, however, you don't have to be a Linux expert and you end up with pure Arch (or darn close).
I'm afraid, that it doesn't address my issue.

Last time I checked, Arch (or Manjaro) packages didn't feature ready-to-go defaults with associated scripts, that would automate configuration. For example, if I install, say, a webserver in Debian/Ubuntu, it's up and running… which is not the case in Arch/Manjaro. The result might be bloated for some, but I prefer to avoid *any* extra work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 29 May 2016, 07:33:52
You can just use ubuntu-server.  ;D
Sure but then I'd have to make all my customizations and settings etc. Right now it's pretty much set up as I want it, but won't be needing the GUI in a couple weeks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 29 May 2016, 15:42:52
The hell is a 'faster distro'?
Boot, shutdown, load times are faster, and yes, it is noticeable. It's actually quite impressive, but it's also lot of work.

I'm afraid, that it doesn't address my issue.

Last time I checked, Arch (or Manjaro) packages didn't feature ready-to-go defaults with associated scripts, that would automate configuration. For example, if I install, say, a webserver in Debian/Ubuntu, it's up and running… which is not the case in Arch/Manjaro. The result might be bloated for some, but I prefer to avoid *any* extra work.
Architech might, and it wouldn't surprise me if someone has a script to automate it. Arch users are quite creative.

But, I agree with you, it's one of two reasons I'm not running Arch. It's nice in theory, it's great, but if you want to just set it up and get on with things, Debian and derivatives are a quicker, simpler path. Mint/Ubuntu/Debian almost seem boring by comparison.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 30 May 2016, 07:15:42
The hell is a 'faster distro'?
Boot, shutdown, load times are faster, and yes, it is noticeable.
That hugely depends on the software and hardware setup on the machine. A 'fast' distro where more software is loaded on boot time is slower than a stripped 'slow' distro.

Also, who cares about boot times?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ramnes on Mon, 30 May 2016, 07:16:32
The hell is a 'faster distro'?
Boot, shutdown, load times are faster, and yes, it is noticeable.
That hugely depends on the software and hardware setup on the machine. A 'fast' distro where more software is loaded on boot time is slower than a stripped 'slow' distro.

Also, who cares about boot times?

^ this
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Mon, 30 May 2016, 07:50:36
Also, who cares about boot times?

Boot times are important when you want to bring up a new machine within a second. Eg, when your allow your users to start and stop VMs an demand, boot times are very, very important. But I agree, pretty much any distro can be made to boot insanely fast, with some work, and the amount of work required is about the same across the board.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 30 May 2016, 16:19:31
The hell is a 'faster distro'?
Boot, shutdown, load times are faster, and yes, it is noticeable.
That hugely depends on the software and hardware setup on the machine. A 'fast' distro where more software is loaded on boot time is slower than a stripped 'slow' distro.

Also, who cares about boot times?
Way to focus on one aspect.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 30 May 2016, 17:00:34
Well, shutdown is boot in reverse, and I'm not sure what is a 'load time' and how is it different from 'boot time'.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 30 May 2016, 17:07:27
Well, shutdown is boot in reverse, and I'm not sure what is a 'load time' and how is it different from 'boot time'.

The first thing I noticed with my fresh Windows 10 install a few weeks ago was how quick the boot time was, and how much slower was shutdown.

Before it had been that shutdown was much faster than startup.

The I realized that Microsoft had changed "Shut Down" to some weird hibernation, and that it took a registry tweak to make "shut down" real!

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: livingspeedbump on Mon, 30 May 2016, 18:45:28
Currently on a Pi2 running noobs using links2.
long live the terminal!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Mon, 30 May 2016, 18:48:49
lynx man, lynx. I still use it for diagnostics sometimes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: livingspeedbump on Mon, 30 May 2016, 19:25:43
lynx man, lynx. I still use it for diagnostics sometimes.
Lynx. Links. Links2. elinks. There are more than enough to go around haha.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Mon, 30 May 2016, 20:27:42
I've got components for my next PC on back-order, but when I have built it, I will install Ubuntu Mate LTS.
Right now, I am using a really old version of Ubuntu which is no longer supported.
I did install Linux Mint Cinnamon and then Mate on my netbook to try them out but I did not like them -- they felt too dumbed down for me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 31 May 2016, 01:22:11
Well, shutdown is boot in reverse, and I'm not sure what is a 'load time' and how is it different from 'boot time'.
Program load times.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 31 May 2016, 09:52:33
Well, shutdown is boot in reverse, and I'm not sure what is a 'load time' and how is it different from 'boot time'.
Program load times.
I guess you can compile a program with bare mininum of options on any distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 01 June 2016, 04:38:32
If it's not installed, it can't run.
If you have no intention of using SSH remote access, why have ssh server running or installed, it's just using resources.  Linux may handle memory better, but why manage something you aren't using in the first place. That's the idea of Arch, minimalism = speed. Can you make Ubuntu do it, yes, and while it may take as much work, removing stuff is never as clean as never having been installed in the first place.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Thu, 02 June 2016, 08:18:33
That completely ignores a large portion of modern DEs.

A window manager doesn't
  • (un)mount storage devices and potentially even, e.g., turn off unmounted drives;
  • provide complex screen management;
  • index data;
  • allow better integration of apps (see, e.g., KIO slaves);
  • centralize shortcut configuration;

I'm using Linux back since when it came on floppy disks and I need none of these things to be managed by a desktop environment. I'm running "icon-less" Linux since as far as I remember and a tiling window manager since a few years.


I'm also running several Linux servers (and Raspberry Pis too).


For any advanced user mounting/unmounting drives/peripherals is trivially done from the command line (I've got a hard time remembering when, if worse came to worse, a dmesg / lsblk / fdisk / mount (with the correct parameters) / umount didn't work.


Regarding screen management: if anything compared to 20 years ago configuring screens from the command line, while running X (oh, yup, I also always boot my workstation in text mode first, then only startx), has become much easier. You could, say, use xrandr, choose your GPU, choose your output (HDMI, whatever...), choose your resolution and you're done.


Regarding the data indexing: I've got something like four different user accounts on my machine right now all logged in at the same time, with different data in their accounts (one user account, for example, isn't allowed to have the process he's running to connect to the Internet at all: I'm using a "REJECT" all by default firewall rule and then I'm whitelisting to whitelist user IDs / ports allowed to emit packets and there's one user that is not whitelist). I've also got VMs, tmux sessions to remote servers, etc. and often a second X session (Xephyr). All these systems/accounts have their own data. Is a desktop environment's "data indexing" going to help me there? And what does it do that I couldn't do by going the Un*x-way and piping commands to search ("don't index, search") that one user account? With 16 GB of RAM (soon 32 or 64) and now M.2 SSDs with crazy fast read speeds, it's not as if local searching was any slow.


I mean: I honestly cannot remember if I ever thought "zomg, I cannot find something, I wish I had the equivalent of OS X's spotlight indexing so that I could find it back or more easily!".

As for the shortcuts: I've got my HHKB JP configured so that one of the "switch to whatever japanese characters" key acts as an "hyper" key and that one key is dedicated to the WM's shortcuts and to the WM's shortcuts only, which is ultra-convenient. Sure it took some time to configure my VM's shortcuts and my apps' shortcuts, but it's something you do once and then go with for years (to give an idea: I think my workstation, also always doing some number crunching on two cores, is at 6 months uptime right now).


Nobody said "people using desktop environments are noobs". You may be an advanced user and happen to like to drap-and-drop icons and to visually manages your file and enjoy a desktop environment that mounts drives for you and allows you to switch screens/resolution without needing the command line (xrandr or whatever): fine.


But don't make it sound like advanced users who decides to not use a desktop environment are missing anything.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Thu, 02 June 2016, 08:43:52
removing stuff is never as clean as never having been installed in the first place.

I agree. When I install a new Linux system I always install a minimal Debian system and work from there. If it's for my workstation, I always install it text-only first and then add X etc. First thing I do is to see what services are running and removes everything that's not needed. And, indeed, I never ever allow to SSH into my workstation (which is being NAT anyway, without any port forwarding), so there's no sshd runing on my workstation. Of course I do SSH out, all the time, from my workstation to my dedicated servers (also running Debian and who also all started as a minimal install).

Also by default the firewall is rejecting everything: blacklisting (allowing everything by default and then trying to block bad things) can never be as clean as whitelisting (disabling everything and only letting through what's specifically allowed).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 02 June 2016, 14:23:54
Plot twist: TacticalCoder is actually Gasche.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 02 June 2016, 14:47:48
Nobody said "people using desktop environments are noobs".
Please, reread vivalarevolución's post.

I only pointed out the difference between window managers and desktop environments, which he apparently missed.

More
For any advanced user mounting/unmounting drives/peripherals is trivially done from the command line (I've got a hard time remembering when, if worse came to worse, a dmesg / lsblk / fdisk / mount (with the correct parameters) / umount didn't work.
Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Regarding screen management: if anything compared to 20 years ago configuring screens from the command line, while running X (oh, yup, I also always boot my workstation in text mode first, then only startx), has become much easier. You could, say, use xrandr, choose your GPU, choose your output (HDMI, whatever...), choose your resolution and you're done.
Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Ditto for screen rotation synchronized with Wacom digitizer. Of course I could write a script, but why?

And what does it do that I couldn't do by going the Un*x-way and piping commands to search ("don't index, search") that one user account? With 16 GB of RAM (soon 32 or 64) and now M.2 SSDs with crazy fast read speeds, it's not as if local searching was any slow.
Semantic desktop.

As for the shortcuts: I've got my HHKB JP configured so that one of the "switch to whatever japanese characters" key acts as an "hyper" key and that one key is dedicated to the WM's shortcuts and to the WM's shortcuts only, which is ultra-convenient. Sure it took some time to configure my VM's shortcuts and my apps' shortcuts, but it's something you do once and then go with for years (to give an idea: I think my workstation, also always doing some number crunching on two cores, is at 6 months uptime right now).
A window manager doesn't, for example, address global shortcuts for a multimedia player… Sure you can (ad absurdum) figure out configuration for mdp… or have it work out of the box in a desktop environment.

edit: formatting
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Thu, 02 June 2016, 18:33:02
I'm not saying it's not convenient in your case (I haven't used a Wacom device since 20 years, for example). All I'm saying is I'm not missing anything by not having icons and global shortcuts etc.

Now of course my workstation is really just that: a workstation. I don't even have speakers connected to the mobo's audio output. (I do have a cool standalone stereo setup to listen to music when I work).

Regarding Linux configuration and scripts: configuration is typically something I only do when I buy a new Linux machine and then I'm pretty much done with it.

It seems like you're more after some OS-X'ish like experience: icons, spotlight (indexing), multimedia center, etc. in addition to work-related stuff. I'm just after work-related stuff and browsing. So YMMV.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 02 June 2016, 18:37:18
I'm not saying it's not convenient in your case (I haven't used a Wacom device since 20 years, for example). All I'm saying is I'm not missing anything by not having icons and global shortcuts etc.

Now of course my workstation is really just that: a workstation. I don't even have speakers connected to the mobo's audio output. (I do have a cool standalone stereo setup to listen to music when I work).

Regarding Linux configuration and scripts: configuration is typically something I only do when I buy a new Linux machine and then I'm pretty much done with it.

It seems like you're more after some OS-X'ish like experience: icons, spotlight (indexing), multimedia center, etc. in addition to work-related stuff. I'm just after work-related stuff and browsing. So YMMV.
Don't you use a computer at home?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 03 June 2016, 04:13:43
It has little to do with "work" anyway. For example, I like semantic desktop for going back to papers, because it works with extra metadata.

The point is that some tasks are automated out of the box.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 03 June 2016, 09:06:15
BTW for newbies, Linux Journey (https://linuxjourney.com/) is a very nice new educational website. It's been recently announced in /r/linux and the author is accepting corrections/suggestions.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Fri, 03 June 2016, 09:42:24
And it needs a lot of them, In just the first chapter I found a lot of hilarious mistakes, like claiming Mint doesn't have proprietary software.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 03 June 2016, 10:13:02
And it needs a lot of them, In just the first chapter I found a lot of hilarious mistakes, like claiming Mint doesn't have proprietary software.

did you lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 03 June 2016, 13:50:22
BTW for newbies, Linux Journey (https://linuxjourney.com/) is a very nice new educational website. It's been recently announced in /r/linux and the author is accepting corrections/suggestions.

I used and abused Linux Mint and a few other distros; and learned a few things but I know there is so much more to learn. Thanks for the link
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 03 June 2016, 22:43:27
BTW for newbies, Linux Journey (https://linuxjourney.com/) is a very nice new educational website. It's been recently announced in /r/linux and the author is accepting corrections/suggestions.
Thank you so much for this. The Text-Fu part seems like it would be awesome.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KRKS on Sat, 04 June 2016, 15:12:47
did you lol

More like a mix of lols, facepalms and straight up WATs
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: appleonama on Sat, 04 June 2016, 15:13:20
none linux is for baddies
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 06 June 2016, 23:24:28
Nobody said "people using desktop environments are noobs".
Please, reread vivalarevolución's post.

I only pointed out the difference between window managers and desktop environments, which he apparently missed.

More
For any advanced user mounting/unmounting drives/peripherals is trivially done from the command line (I've got a hard time remembering when, if worse came to worse, a dmesg / lsblk / fdisk / mount (with the correct parameters) / umount didn't work.
Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Regarding screen management: if anything compared to 20 years ago configuring screens from the command line, while running X (oh, yup, I also always boot my workstation in text mode first, then only startx), has become much easier. You could, say, use xrandr, choose your GPU, choose your output (HDMI, whatever...), choose your resolution and you're done.
Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Ditto for screen rotation synchronized with Wacom digitizer. Of course I could write a script, but why?

And what does it do that I couldn't do by going the Un*x-way and piping commands to search ("don't index, search") that one user account? With 16 GB of RAM (soon 32 or 64) and now M.2 SSDs with crazy fast read speeds, it's not as if local searching was any slow.
Semantic desktop.

As for the shortcuts: I've got my HHKB JP configured so that one of the "switch to whatever japanese characters" key acts as an "hyper" key and that one key is dedicated to the WM's shortcuts and to the WM's shortcuts only, which is ultra-convenient. Sure it took some time to configure my VM's shortcuts and my apps' shortcuts, but it's something you do once and then go with for years (to give an idea: I think my workstation, also always doing some number crunching on two cores, is at 6 months uptime right now).
A window manager doesn't, for example, address global shortcuts for a multimedia player… Sure you can (ad absurdum) figure out configuration for mdp… or have it work out of the box in a desktop environment.

edit: formatting

Please don't reread my post, I never claimed to know what I'm talking about, I just talk.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: livingspeedbump on Thu, 09 June 2016, 11:06:25
retrochick just gave me 2 old mac laptops so I have even more computers to play around with linux on.

I used to use Mint heavily, but have been using Arch the most recently, but I've really enjoyed having another computer with Mint on it again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: mike52787 on Fri, 10 June 2016, 20:12:19
I have mint on my thinkpad, But I cant use anything but win10 on my desktop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jal on Fri, 10 June 2016, 20:49:37
Both my personal and my work laptops are OS X, but my primary home machine is vanilla Debian.  When running X on it, I use the Afterstep window manager, but a lot of the time I don't bother with a GUI. (I'm a systems engineer, and old.) That machine also runs a Win7 VM that I use to run CAD software, so I guess in a twisted way my primary Linux desktop on that machine is Windows. But most of the time when not designing, the command line is just more natural to me.

My home storage server runs FreeBSD, and most of the rest of my machines end up running whatever's best for what I'm playing with - right now, four of them are Centos because until recently, RHEL-flavored distros were required for oVirt, which I'm writing some software against. But Red Hat's approach to things makes me sad in my special angry place, so I avoid it whenever possible.

At work, we run a mix of Debian, Ubuntu and Centos, and OpenBSD on select systems.

For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: livingspeedbump on Fri, 10 June 2016, 21:05:31
For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

I prefer tmux over screen, but admittedly haven't really used screen nearly as much. Definitely worth learning for sure though, especially since linux is all about the command line  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 11 June 2016, 10:57:53
For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

I prefer tmux over screen, but admittedly haven't really used screen nearly as much. Definitely worth learning for sure though, especially since linux is all about the command line  :rolleyes:

I haven't used tmux, but I have used screen. I enjoy it for remote access machines, but when I'm doing local access, I find it much more comfortable to just pop open X and use a few terminal emulators.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 11 June 2016, 11:24:29
For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

I prefer tmux over screen, but admittedly haven't really used screen nearly as much. Definitely worth learning for sure though, especially since linux is all about the command line  :rolleyes:

People typically prefer screen, as it has more features. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be the case that screen only did vertical splits, not horizontal (or the other way around).

Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 11 June 2016, 11:25:54
For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

As a matter of fact, tmux made me cringe less on OS X as tmux basically provides me with a "tiled window manager" for the console. So I miss i3 less on my OS X machine now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: livingspeedbump on Sat, 11 June 2016, 14:32:02
Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.

That was one of the main reasons i used tmux. I found it first, it worked well for me, so i never really looked into other options.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jal on Sat, 11 June 2016, 23:33:53

People typically prefer screen, as it has more features. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be the case that screen only did vertical splits, not horizontal (or the other way around).

Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.

I think it really doesn't matter which one you choose - they both do the job. I switched to tmux probably six years ago;  there was this weird proprietary app (for a client's data capture board) that I had to work with that did unspeakable, criminal things to the terminal. screen couldn't deal with it; tmux could, sort of. Another, minor benefit for those who use OS X: iTerm2 integrates with tmux in a kind of interesting way.

And keeping sessions live when you're away is one of the most important tricks they offer, IMHO. I usually only restart sessions when the host on which they're running reboots. It is like my workshop - everything stays the way I left it. Actually, better - making my workshop that way required some, ah, operant conditioning of the other plains apes in my home.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 11 June 2016, 23:39:17
We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 12 June 2016, 05:18:20

People typically prefer screen, as it has more features. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be the case that screen only did vertical splits, not horizontal (or the other way around).

Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.

I think it really doesn't matter which one you choose - they both do the job. I switched to tmux probably six years ago;  there was this weird proprietary app (for a client's data capture board) that I had to work with that did unspeakable, criminal things to the terminal. screen couldn't deal with it; tmux could, sort of. Another, minor benefit for those who use OS X: iTerm2 integrates with tmux in a kind of interesting way.

And keeping sessions live when you're away is one of the most important tricks they offer, IMHO. I usually only restart sessions when the host on which they're running reboots. It is like my workshop - everything stays the way I left it. Actually, better - making my workshop that way required some, ah, operant conditioning of the other plains apes in my home.

Interesting. Personally, I try to keep my software purist and to avoid things like iterm speaking to tmux. Probably some superstition, but I'm always afraid that when tmux or iterm changes its interface, the other will broke and I'm stuck with my broken workflow.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jal on Sun, 12 June 2016, 15:53:34
Another, minor benefit for those who use OS X: iTerm2 integrates with tmux in a kind of interesting way.

Interesting. Personally, I try to keep my software purist and to avoid things like iterm speaking to tmux. Probably some superstition, but I'm always afraid that when tmux or iterm changes its interface, the other will broke and I'm stuck with my broken workflow.

As far as the iTerm2 features, I don't actually use them myself. Neat, but in conflict with my muscle memory. I only mentioned it because it is nifty.

I understand the "keep it simple" impulse completely - I do systems for a living. On the other hand, everything in software is accretive. Your remote session is already balanced on top of init, some variant of getty, whatever bull**** the Systemd authors think needs to get in your way this week, your shell, etc.  Its turtles all the way down.

I don't have a rule for things like this; when the worst outcome is me being annoyed with my shell, I'm pretty quick to experiment, at least when I'm bored. Very different than things I write for work.

I seriously doubt you have much to fear with tmux changing radically - it is pretty mature, and the legions of pitchfork-wielding graybeards who would rise up against any major incompatible change is a pretty good insurance - there'd be a fork before most folks noticed the controversy. Screen is much older and even less likely to change. iTerm is different, but the author seems to have good instincts.

But again, I completely understand that bit of conservatism. And again, systemd comes to mind... I still have to fight with that particular exercise in narcissism occasionally, and those %*$&s are apparently intent on finding exciting new ways to break things until their fingers stop working: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=825394 (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=825394).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Mon, 13 June 2016, 07:41:32
We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat :)

What are you using for container orchestration?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 13 June 2016, 21:52:45
We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat :)

What are you using for container orchestration?

Um, still a bit new to Docker terminology, but if I understand the question correctly fleet on CoreOS with etcd2 as the distributed data store.

Looked briefly at Docker Swarm, but it was still marked as "experimental" or something when I started, so I moved on to other things.  Maybe time to look at it again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Tue, 14 June 2016, 09:01:21
We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat :)

What are you using for container orchestration?

Um, still a bit new to Docker terminology, but if I understand the question correctly fleet on CoreOS with etcd2 as the distributed data store.

Looked briefly at Docker Swarm, but it was still marked as "experimental" or something when I started, so I moved on to other things.  Maybe time to look at it again.

I usually recommend Kubernetes. It's Google's second stab at this (the first one being Borg), and the result is a level of polish and maturity that belies the age of the project. CoreOS decided to join the project instead of building their own solution. Since you're already using CoreOS, check out coreos-kubernetes (https://github.com/coreos/coreos-kubernetes).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nephiel on Tue, 14 June 2016, 15:21:01
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vyshane on Tue, 14 June 2016, 19:18:01
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

You should be able to install the Docker engine on your favourite distro. Alternatively, you can try it out via Docker Machine (https://www.docker.com/products/docker-machine).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jal on Tue, 14 June 2016, 20:04:09
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

I don't know RancherOS, other than reading about it some. But the problem is that a lot of the management and orchestration tools assume systemd is your init. Oracle Linux (another canker sore on the face of Linux) is the only distro I know of that provides/provided(? last time I looked was 6.5) tools out of the box to manage Docker without it.

If you're comfortable rolling your own, there's nothing that intrinsically ties Docker to systemd, but there would be a fair amount of work involved in building out all the infrastructure. Still, basic functionality should be fairly straightforward.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 14 June 2016, 22:04:06
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Tue, 14 June 2016, 22:48:34
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 15 June 2016, 06:01:15
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 15 June 2016, 07:02:29
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).
That's awesome. I really should download centOS or coreOS and fiddle around with those, maybe make some virtual environments here at home for a start until I get the hang of it.
This seems to have given me yet another project for my home server.
Thanks for this. :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 15 June 2016, 21:54:21
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).
That's awesome. I really should download centOS or coreOS and fiddle around with those, maybe make some virtual environments here at home for a start until I get the hang of it.
This seems to have given me yet another project for my home server.
Thanks for this. :D

Just to throw something else in the mix - technically we're running CoreOS inside XenServer on two physical servers.

I was nearly going to run XenServer at home, but decided against it.  I don't really do that much experimentation at home any more, and it was just adding another layer of maintenance to a server that I barely have time to maintain already.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 15 June 2016, 22:28:17
I caved and installed Debian 8.5/Gnome; my god, it just works. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 15 June 2016, 23:00:10
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).
That's awesome. I really should download centOS or coreOS and fiddle around with those, maybe make some virtual environments here at home for a start until I get the hang of it.
This seems to have given me yet another project for my home server.
Thanks for this. :D

Just to throw something else in the mix - technically we're running CoreOS inside XenServer on two physical servers.

I was nearly going to run XenServer at home, but decided against it.  I don't really do that much experimentation at home any more, and it was just adding another layer of maintenance to a server that I barely have time to maintain already.
XenServer seems like that would be a worthy project for now then. Thanks for the tip. :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jal on Thu, 16 June 2016, 02:14:37
Just to throw something else in the mix - technically we're running CoreOS inside XenServer on two physical servers.

I was nearly going to run XenServer at home, but decided against it.  I don't really do that much experimentation at home any more, and it was just adding another layer of maintenance to a server that I barely have time to maintain already.

I find it easier to deal with virtualized systems. Especially Windows - hate managing Windows systems. (Not trying to bash, really; I just don't use it much.) So I built out my Win VM the way I wanted (basically, as soon as I got VGA passthrough working and the things I use installed) and saved a copy of the machine. When Windows inevitably breaks, I just revert it to the saved copy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sat, 18 June 2016, 03:01:51
I caved and installed Debian 8.5/Gnome; my god, it just works. :)

That's Debian for you!  :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sun, 19 June 2016, 02:36:14
I caved and installed Debian 8.5/Gnome; my god, it just works. :)

Yep
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: lancre on Sun, 19 June 2016, 17:14:17
I use Xubuntu in Virtualbox on Windows. Every 6 months or so I think to myself: this is ridiculous, why am I not just using Linux natively, then I get rid of Windows and install Linux, and then after a month I remember, some specific games don't run in Linux (e.g. Endless Legend, Diablo 3) and the ones that do are ports that don't play very nicely with my graphics card (e.g. Civ 5)... so then I go back and install Windows again  :))

I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 19 June 2016, 18:31:28

Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.


This is the really bad part, and it is mostly Windows' fault.

If you use 2 hard drives, with a different OS on each, you can just tap into BIOS at boot and use the other boot drive.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 25 June 2016, 18:36:59
I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This about the 1000th time I've seen this post and I just don't get it...at all. Is this something spread around on Reddit or in gamer circles? It's not 2003 anymore. There are several free or cheap virtualization options out there. There is almost no reason to dual, triple, quad boot anything. Run a VM - done.

You also don't have to manually set partitions.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ramnes on Sat, 25 June 2016, 19:57:28
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

Wow, that's pretty incredible to read that, because a very similar thing happened to us.

My company switched from Windows servers to Gentoo servers after my CTO, who was just an intern at that time, tried to implement a service to handle email bounces.
It was a PITA on MS, and so easy on Gentoo (patches on Gentoo are awesome), that the company decided to mostly abandon MS servers after that show of strength.

That was something like ten years ago, and nowadays most of our servers are running Gentoo, as well as every dev/ops computer. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 25 June 2016, 21:44:01
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

Wow, that's pretty incredible to read that, because a very similar thing happened to us.

My company switched from Windows servers to Gentoo servers after my CTO, who was just an intern at that time, tried to implement a service to handle email bounces.
It was a PITA on MS, and so easy on Gentoo (patches on Gentoo are awesome), that the company decided to mostly abandon MS servers after that show of strength.

That was something like ten years ago, and nowadays most of our servers are running Gentoo, as well as every dev/ops computer. :)

Most of our workstations are still Windows-based, as our main applications are Windows-based.

But the next version is written in Java, and more than half the group are running Linux or OSX now (with Windows in a VM for legacy support as required).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sat, 25 June 2016, 21:48:54
I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.
Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

Wow, that's pretty incredible to read that, because a very similar thing happened to us.

My company switched from Windows servers to Gentoo servers after my CTO, who was just an intern at that time, tried to implement a service to handle email bounces.
It was a PITA on MS, and so easy on Gentoo (patches on Gentoo are awesome), that the company decided to mostly abandon MS servers after that show of strength.

That was something like ten years ago, and nowadays most of our servers are running Gentoo, as well as every dev/ops computer. :)
It would be amazing if I could get some Linux into our work environments because I just know it'd run better than it does at the moment.
They outsourced it to another company, which IMO sucks because we don't know **** about how they set it up really.
But it's all being managed offsite now so I doubt I'll ever get to work in a linux server environment. I would love that though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sun, 26 June 2016, 01:53:11
I doubt I'll ever get to work in a linux server environment. I would love that though.

Linux servers will run great with a single core and 512MB RAM if you just want to experiment. Set up a virtual cluster on your laptop or workstation.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 26 June 2016, 09:15:21
I doubt I'll ever get to work in a linux server environment. I would love that though.

Linux servers will run great with a single core and 512MB RAM if you just want to experiment. Set up a virtual cluster on your laptop or workstation.
I've got a server at home I'm thinking about doing that to.
I get windows licenses from work so shouldn't be a problem to set up a few test environments.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 26 June 2016, 16:17:09
I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This about the 1000th time I've seen this post and I just don't get it...at all. Is this something spread around on Reddit or in gamer circles? It's not 2003 anymore. There are several free or cheap virtualization options out there. There is almost no reason to dual, triple, quad boot anything. Run a VM - done.

You also don't have to manually set partitions.
I completely disagree.
VM's work great for server environments or smaller programs you need but no alternative exists, but really, thats becoming more and more rare as Linux becomes more and more on par with Windows.

Here's the problem.
You use Linux for security and stability, it can do most of what Windows can do. Pretty much anything common will work just fine in Linux.
You use Windows for gaming and Cad. For games you need performance, and a VM is not going to run as well as a real OS for gaming, and while I can't speak for others, Solidworks 2016 will not run in a virtual environment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 26 June 2016, 16:25:38
Back to basics: If somebody is coming to this thread for advice on how to break free from Micro$oft Windows .....

In my opinion Linux Mint/Cinnamon will give you the quickest transition with the easiest learning curve.

I dabbled with Ubuntu for years but it just got weirder and weirder.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 26 June 2016, 17:47:22
I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This about the 1000th time I've seen this post and I just don't get it...at all. Is this something spread around on Reddit or in gamer circles? It's not 2003 anymore. There are several free or cheap virtualization options out there. There is almost no reason to dual, triple, quad boot anything. Run a VM - done.

You also don't have to manually set partitions.
I completely disagree.
VM's work great for server environments or smaller programs you need but no alternative exists, but really, thats becoming more and more rare as Linux becomes more and more on par with Windows.

Here's the problem.
You use Linux for security and stability, it can do most of what Windows can do. Pretty much anything common will work just fine in Linux.
You use Windows for gaming and Cad. For games you need performance, and a VM is not going to run as well as a real OS for gaming, and while I can't speak for others, Solidworks 2016 will not run in a virtual environment.

Completely agree with this. I use linux practically all of the time now, and I only boot into Windows on my desktop to play games. On my other machines, all but one are linux-only, with the one Windows laptop for when I need to deal with Word documents and the appropriate formatting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 26 June 2016, 18:28:04
I never boot Windows, AMA.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 26 June 2016, 20:56:02
Back to basics: If somebody is coming to this thread for advice on how to break free from Micro$oft Windows .....

In my opinion Linux Mint/Cinnamon will give you the quickest transition with the easiest learning curve.

I dabbled with Ubuntu for years but it just got weirder and weirder.
+1 for Linux Mint.
I'm currently running a big mix of ubuntu and Linux Mint + Ubuntu Mate for my slower machines.
I would recommend Mint for people wanting to get into Linux but are worried about taking the plunge.
If you've got an old, like really old, pc then Ubuntu Mate is really good.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: armatus on Mon, 27 June 2016, 00:21:49
Archlinux, bcs it makes you understand the basics of linux
(uses only text file configs)
it's rolling releases, so you don't need "distr upgrade" anymore
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Mon, 27 June 2016, 01:06:29
I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This about the 1000th time I've seen this post and I just don't get it...at all. Is this something spread around on Reddit or in gamer circles? It's not 2003 anymore. There are several free or cheap virtualization options out there. There is almost no reason to dual, triple, quad boot anything. Run a VM - done.

You also don't have to manually set partitions.
I completely disagree.
VM's work great for server environments or smaller programs you need but no alternative exists, but really, thats becoming more and more rare as Linux becomes more and more on par with Windows.

Here's the problem.
You use Linux for security and stability, it can do most of what Windows can do. Pretty much anything common will work just fine in Linux.
You use Windows for gaming and Cad. For games you need performance, and a VM is not going to run as well as a real OS for gaming, and while I can't speak for others, Solidworks 2016 will not run in a virtual environment.

You are making my point...run Windows as your host and Linux as guest(s). Why would you NEED to run Linux natively if all you are doing is playing around with it or using it for some mundane server platform?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 27 June 2016, 05:23:56
Archlinux, bcs it makes you understand the basics of linux
(uses only text file configs)
it's rolling releases, so you don't need "distr upgrade" anymore


Welcome to Geekhack!

I used Arch for a little while at work, but found myself reading too much about the Arch way and worrying that some updates would break the system, than actually using it for work.

It's like Linux From Scratch (is that still around?) but more polished.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Mon, 27 June 2016, 17:41:33
By the way did anyone try Nix (the "functional packager manager": functional as in deterministic, atomic upgrades, etc.) or NixOS?  I read some good things about it and I like their philosophy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 28 June 2016, 00:21:54
I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This about the 1000th time I've seen this post and I just don't get it...at all. Is this something spread around on Reddit or in gamer circles? It's not 2003 anymore. There are several free or cheap virtualization options out there. There is almost no reason to dual, triple, quad boot anything. Run a VM - done.

You also don't have to manually set partitions.
I completely disagree.
VM's work great for server environments or smaller programs you need but no alternative exists, but really, thats becoming more and more rare as Linux becomes more and more on par with Windows.

Here's the problem.
You use Linux for security and stability, it can do most of what Windows can do. Pretty much anything common will work just fine in Linux.
You use Windows for gaming and Cad. For games you need performance, and a VM is not going to run as well as a real OS for gaming, and while I can't speak for others, Solidworks 2016 will not run in a virtual environment.

You are making my point...run Windows as your host and Linux as guest(s). Why would you NEED to run Linux natively if all you are doing is playing around with it or using it for some mundane server platform?

Windows has a lot of overhead, which isn't something I want in a VM host. If I was going back and forth all the time, I might consider a virtualized solution (and I did exactly that, when all I was doing with linux was playing around). But now I spend months without ever booting Windows on my desktop, and I see virtualization as just an unnecessary use of system resources and another potential point of failure. I quite frequently use enough RAM or CPU time that the overhead of a bulky host system like Windows would have a noticeable impact.

I agree that virtualization is better in most cases if you just have a single drive -- I have never had long-term success setting up dual boot between Windows and linux from a single physical drive. But I have two drives, and boot to grub on the drive with linux. Grub defaults to loading debian, but can switch me over to the Windows drive with one button. It's a very simple system, and it gives me everything I need to do what I need to do, whether it's work or just messing around online.

Beyond all that, for those who are more security-minded than myself, I'd assume that using Windows as a host defeats many of the security benefits of using linux, as all your data passes through the Windows environment at some point.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Tue, 28 June 2016, 09:19:57
Archlinux, bcs it makes you understand the basics of linux
(uses only text file configs)
it's rolling releases, so you don't need "distr upgrade" anymore
Welcome to GeekHack!
Arch is good if you have decent Linux knowledge beforehand. I wouldn't recommend it to someone just learning linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Tue, 28 June 2016, 15:07:48
Archlinux, bcs it makes you understand the basics of linux
(uses only text file configs)
it's rolling releases, so you don't need "distr upgrade" anymore


Welcome to Geekhack!

I used Arch for a little while at work, but found myself reading too much about the Arch way and worrying that some updates would break the system, than actually using it for work.

It's like Linux From Scratch (is that still around?) but more polished.

I don't know how long ago you used it, but after 2012 Arch stabilized (coincidentally after they went to systemd and purged their ncurses installer). These days it's really stable considering it's a bleeding edge rolling release distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Tue, 28 June 2016, 19:48:27
I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This about the 1000th time I've seen this post and I just don't get it...at all. Is this something spread around on Reddit or in gamer circles? It's not 2003 anymore. There are several free or cheap virtualization options out there. There is almost no reason to dual, triple, quad boot anything. Run a VM - done.

You also don't have to manually set partitions.
I completely disagree.
VM's work great for server environments or smaller programs you need but no alternative exists, but really, thats becoming more and more rare as Linux becomes more and more on par with Windows.

Here's the problem.
You use Linux for security and stability, it can do most of what Windows can do. Pretty much anything common will work just fine in Linux.
You use Windows for gaming and Cad. For games you need performance, and a VM is not going to run as well as a real OS for gaming, and while I can't speak for others, Solidworks 2016 will not run in a virtual environment.

You are making my point...run Windows as your host and Linux as guest(s). Why would you NEED to run Linux natively if all you are doing is playing around with it or using it for some mundane server platform?

Windows has a lot of overhead, which isn't something I want in a VM host. If I was going back and forth all the time, I might consider a virtualized solution (and I did exactly that, when all I was doing with linux was playing around). But now I spend months without ever booting Windows on my desktop, and I see virtualization as just an unnecessary use of system resources and another potential point of failure. I quite frequently use enough RAM or CPU time that the overhead of a bulky host system like Windows would have a noticeable impact.

I agree that virtualization is better in most cases if you just have a single drive -- I have never had long-term success setting up dual boot between Windows and linux from a single physical drive. But I have two drives, and boot to grub on the drive with linux. Grub defaults to loading debian, but can switch me over to the Windows drive with one button. It's a very simple system, and it gives me everything I need to do what I need to do, whether it's work or just messing around online.

Beyond all that, for those who are more security-minded than myself, I'd assume that using Windows as a host defeats many of the security benefits of using linux, as all your data passes through the Windows environment at some point.

What are you talking about? Windows "overhead"? Security, but you want to use Windows? Everything passes through Windows from the VM?????

Linux is just as vulnerable to malicious code as Windows...

Anyway, for those who want to get their feet wet with Linux there is no reason to go through the hassle of resizing partitions and dealing with boot managers, and having to reboot every time you want to switch OSs.

I assume most of the "guys" here are Windows gamers with quad core rigs running at least 8-16GB RAM. If you allocate 1-8GB RAM to a VM (which it will use just a fraction of) you will notice 0 degradation in performance of either OS. Why not "try before you buy?"

I wish I could have virtualized all of the OSes I tried when I started playing with Linux without having to wipe or multi-boot every time...

.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smokemm on Tue, 28 June 2016, 20:04:18
I primarily use xubuntu - but I have dual booted Windows 10 for some video games.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 28 June 2016, 21:56:50
What are you talking about? Windows "overhead"? Security, but you want to use Windows? Everything passes through Windows from the VM?????

Linux is just as vulnerable to malicious code as Windows...

Anyway, for those who want to get their feet wet with Linux there is no reason to go through the hassle of resizing partitions and dealing with boot managers, and having to reboot every time you want to switch OSs.

I assume most of the "guys" here are Windows gamers with quad core rigs running at least 8-16GB RAM. If you allocate 1-8GB RAM to a VM (which it will use just a fraction of) you will notice 0 degradation in performance of either OS. Why not "try before you buy?"

I wish I could have virtualized all of the OSes I tried when I started playing with Linux without having to wipe or multi-boot every time...

Okay, it seems like we're talking about fundamentally different things here. It seems to me that you're talking about someone who just wants to get their feet wet and play around. I agree that for that purpose, VMs are better than playing around with dual booting and partitioning and all that stuff. What I take issue with is your claim that there is no case in which dual boot is a better choice, and I'm just trying to state that has not been my experience. I'm using linux full time because I tried it in a VM and found I liked it better than Windows. I just keep my Windows install around for the few times I want to play a game or need some Windows-only software -- and even then, only because I had a spare drive that I didn't mind tying up. For me "every time I want to switch OSs" is at most once a month. I've booted Windows twice in 2016.

Quote
Windows "overhead"

On my machine, from a cold boot, Windows uses significantly more memory just to idle at the desktop. Perhaps I could optimize some of that away. But the extra resources that it takes just to run Windows compared to running the Linux core is what I refer to as the extra overhead of the OS.

Quote
Security, but you want to use Windows? Everything passes through Windows from the VM?????

I don't want to use Windows, that's why I use linux. I only use Windows when I can't do what I need to do with linux, which, as mentioned above, is quite rare. My understanding is that when I send keystrokes, they are captured by the Windows OS and then sent to the VM. Perhaps that's wrong, and there's some direct tunnel from the hardware to the VM that I don't know about, but I've never seen any evidence of that. Similarly with any network data I send or receive from the VM, I assume data passes between the external network and the VM via some sort of bridge connection or virtual switch on the host machine, which could expose data sent or received to the host. I don't think VMs run inside a host OS get complete direct access to hardware. If they do, that's my error, and I concede the point.

Quote
Linux is just as vulnerable to malicious code as Windows...

Yes, linux is just as vulnerable to malicious code which targets linux as Windows is to malicious code which targets Windows. Last time I checked, there was a lot more malicious code targeted at Windows than at linux.

Quote
Anyway, for those who want to get their feet wet with Linux there is no reason to go through the hassle of resizing partitions and dealing with boot managers, and having to reboot every time you want to switch OSs.

Agreed, but that's not my situation. I do use grub, but all of the default settings worked fine for me, and it's completely transparent to my everyday use.

Quote
I assume most of the "guys" here are Windows gamers with quad core rigs running at least 8-16GB RAM. If you allocate 1-8GB RAM to a VM (which it will use just a fraction of) you will notice 0 degradation in performance of either OS. Why not "try before you buy?"

I agree with this in terms of just getting a feel for the desktop environment and messing around online. However, it's not the case for everything involved in my day-to-day use. I can't tell the difference between virtual and real in terms of a few tabs on firefox or chrome, but I can easily tell the difference when I've got my whole workflow going.

Quote
I wish I could have virtualized all of the OSes I tried when I started playing with Linux without having to wipe or multi-boot every time...

Again, no argument here. But not everyone who uses linux is just doing it to play around. Some people do it because they want something to replace Windows for day-to-day use. And if the latter is the goal, I don't see a reason to spend 100% of my time in a VM for weeks on end just because I might need to use Windows sometime next week.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Tue, 28 June 2016, 22:45:43
I never said never. :)

I'll bet that 95% of the people who dual boot could do just fine with VMs though. Again, if you are just using Win once a week...why have a native install? I juggled dual, triple, and even quad booting (with a Macbook) for years and it was a ***** to manage backups and share files. With VMs you backup and restore entire "machines" with ease. And if you go with VMware the guest tools make it almost impossible to tell any difference between a native machine and virtual in terms of performance...including graphics.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: clankgy1 on Tue, 28 June 2016, 23:12:32
I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 in two VMs (home and work).   Not good with it, but I'm working on it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 28 June 2016, 23:14:02
I never said never. :)

I'll bet that 95% of the people who dual boot could do just fine with VMs though. Again, if you are just using Win once a week...why have a native install? I juggled dual, triple, and even quad booting (with a Macbook) for years and it was a ***** to manage backups and share files. With VMs you backup and restore entire "machines" with ease. And if you go with VMware the guest tools make it almost impossible to tell any difference between a native machine and virtual in terms of performance...including graphics.

The games I want to play don't work on linux. I added linux to a pre-existing Windows install, so it was easier to get set up this way than to also try and reinstall Windows in a VM. My biggest concern is that support for my graphics card isn't the greatest under linux, and so I can't get the same performance I do under Windows. Would I be wrong to assume that my graphics performance in linux would limit any performance I could see in the VM? Because even if I got 100% of the performance that I get under linux in a Windows VM, it wouldn't be good enough.

Regarding backups, I don't bother backing up the Windows drive anymore. Everything that's on it is either contained in an old backup, synced to other machines using dropbox, or game data that's synced to steam. If I was actively using the Windows side, it would be different, but if I needed the Windows side more often I would be looking for a different solution anyway. I handle all of my file backups from linux, no differently than I would if I wasn't running Windows at all.

E: forgot to mention -- apologies for misinterpreting what you were saying. Looking back, your point of view is a bit clearer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Tue, 28 June 2016, 23:32:40
I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 in two VMs (home and work).   Not good with it, but I'm working on it.
Basically it's like anything else. You just have to use it enough.
I've had a Linux server at home that I've done all kinds of things to. Probably messed more stuff up than I've fixed, but I'm having tons of fun and learning a lot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 29 June 2016, 04:36:43
Long segmented reply
Very well said.

I'll bet that 95% of the people who dual boot could do just fine with VMs though.
And 99.999% of people could get by JUST using Windows without any VM or Linux (or Mac) at all, including myself.

It's a Windows world, if something works on Linux, odds are, it either works on Windows or there is a functional equivalent. VERY, VERY little works on Linux but not Windows. So working from a Windows perspective is relatively simple. Working from a Linux perspective, that's where it gets tricky, but it also happens to be where the real benefits come into play.

We aren't saying Linux is easy, or that people shouldn't try it or use, it took me a LONG time to wean myself off Windows (literally decades), but in the end, especially with Windows 10, I'm much happier as a result.


The games I want to play don't work on linux. I added linux to a pre-existing Windows install, so it was easier to get set up this way than to also try and reinstall Windows in a VM. My biggest concern is that support for my graphics card isn't the greatest under linux, and so I can't get the same performance I do under Windows. Would I be wrong to assume that my graphics performance in linux would limit any performance I could see in the VM? Because even if I got 100% of the performance that I get under linux in a Windows VM, it wouldn't be good enough.

Regarding backups, I don't bother backing up the Windows drive anymore. Everything that's on it is either contained in an old backup, synced to other machines using dropbox, or game data that's synced to steam. If I was actively using the Windows side, it would be different, but if I needed the Windows side more often I would be looking for a different solution anyway. I handle all of my file backups from linux, no differently than I would if I wasn't running Windows at all.
Pretty similar to me.
It's been a while since I gamed, but I do use cad programs, which don't like VM's or Linux. I keep a VERY bare minimum Windows install on my notebook and desktop, though my desktop is only on Linux since my big ssd died (to be fixed soon). It doesn't get updates, it doesn't have an AV, in fact other than IE, it doesn't even have a browser (I could argue IE isn't a browser, but actually a virus factory, but that;s another conversation). The only reason I allow it internet at all is to stream music when I use it or access files on my server, where I keep the cad files. There is literally, nothing in Windows to backup.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 29 June 2016, 05:54:24
I used to dual-boot Windows and Linux back in the day.  Windows for gaming and Linux for everything else.  It was a real pain, especially things like wanting to check my emails without quitting a game and rebooting.  So I ended up getting a second PC and having one operating system on each.

Many years later I ended up with a Mac as my main workstation, and setup Bootcamp to dual-boot Windows (as the Mac was faster than the other computers I had at the time).  Again Windows for gaming and OS X for everything else.  That continued to be a real pain, so I got another computer again.

To this date I still have two computers - one for Windows (games) and one for OS X (everything else).

Plus the odd VM here and there when I cbf to have both computers running all the time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 29 June 2016, 07:18:53
I used to dual-boot Windows and Linux back in the day.  Windows for gaming and Linux for everything else.  It was a real pain, especially things like wanting to check my emails without quitting a game and rebooting.  So I ended up getting a second PC and having one operating system on each.

Many years later I ended up with a Mac as my main workstation, and setup Bootcamp to dual-boot Windows (as the Mac was faster than the other computers I had at the time).  Again Windows for gaming and OS X for everything else.  That continued to be a real pain, so I got another computer again.

To this date I still have two computers - one for Windows (games) and one for OS X (everything else).

Plus the odd VM here and there when I cbf to have both computers running all the time.
You know this isn't a bad idea at all, I might do this.
I'm currently just using Windows because I like to play video games, and I get free licenses from work. But I really want to replace all the tasks I can and move them to a *nix system.
Do you have any experience with multiple monitors on a system like Debian?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Wed, 29 June 2016, 09:01:46
Do you have any experience with multiple monitors on a system like Debian?

Works like a charm, and has been for years. Though, I have not used it with more than three - but I can't see why that wouldn't also work flawlessly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 29 June 2016, 09:02:48
Do you have any experience with multiple monitors on a system like Debian?

Works like a charm, and has been for years. Though, I have not used it with more than three - but I can't see why that wouldn't also work flawlessly.
Well that's great news. Thank you.

Sent from my stinky butt.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 29 June 2016, 10:17:23
Do you have any experience with multiple monitors on a system like Debian?

Works like a charm, and has been for years. Though, I have not used it with more than three - but I can't see why that wouldn't also work flawlessly.
Well that's great news. Thank you.

Sent from my stinky butt.

Quadro or GTX? Other inquiring minds might want to know..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 29 June 2016, 20:03:12
Do you have any experience with multiple monitors on a system like Debian?

Works like a charm, and has been for years. Though, I have not used it with more than three - but I can't see why that wouldn't also work flawlessly.
Well that's great news. Thank you.

Sent from my stinky butt.

Quadro or GTX? Other inquiring minds might want to know..

My desktop is running 3 monitors with Debian 8 and a R9 280x. I remember having some minor issues with the drivers, but I believe it's working fine with fglrx and using arandr to set the arrangement and resolution.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Thu, 30 June 2016, 01:16:20
Would I be wrong to assume that my graphics performance in linux would limit any performance I could see in the VM? Because even if I got 100% of the performance that I get under linux in a Windows VM, it wouldn't be good enough.

E: forgot to mention -- apologies for misinterpreting what you were saying. Looking back, your point of view is a bit clearer.

You are not wrong...and no problem, man. It's easy to do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Thu, 30 June 2016, 01:26:23
Long segmented reply
Very well said.

I'll bet that 95% of the people who dual boot could do just fine with VMs though.
And 99.999% of people could get by JUST using Windows without any VM or Linux (or Mac) at all, including myself.

It's a Windows world, if something works on Linux, odds are, it either works on Windows or there is a functional equivalent. VERY, VERY little works on Linux but not Windows. So working from a Windows perspective is relatively simple. Working from a Linux perspective, that's where it gets tricky, but it also happens to be where the real benefits come into play.

We aren't saying Linux is easy, or that people shouldn't try it or use, it took me a LONG time to wean myself off Windows (literally decades), but in the end, especially with Windows 10, I'm much happier as a result.


The games I want to play don't work on linux. I added linux to a pre-existing Windows install, so it was easier to get set up this way than to also try and reinstall Windows in a VM. My biggest concern is that support for my graphics card isn't the greatest under linux, and so I can't get the same performance I do under Windows. Would I be wrong to assume that my graphics performance in linux would limit any performance I could see in the VM? Because even if I got 100% of the performance that I get under linux in a Windows VM, it wouldn't be good enough.

Regarding backups, I don't bother backing up the Windows drive anymore. Everything that's on it is either contained in an old backup, synced to other machines using dropbox, or game data that's synced to steam. If I was actively using the Windows side, it would be different, but if I needed the Windows side more often I would be looking for a different solution anyway. I handle all of my file backups from linux, no differently than I would if I wasn't running Windows at all.
Pretty similar to me.
It's been a while since I gamed, but I do use cad programs, which don't like VM's or Linux. I keep a VERY bare minimum Windows install on my notebook and desktop, though my desktop is only on Linux since my big ssd died (to be fixed soon). It doesn't get updates, it doesn't have an AV, in fact other than IE, it doesn't even have a browser (I could argue IE isn't a browser, but actually a virus factory, but that;s another conversation). The only reason I allow it internet at all is to stream music when I use it or access files on my server, where I keep the cad files. There is literally, nothing in Windows to backup.

I think you are still missing my point.

This thread is largely consists of "noobs" and experienced users of Linux asking and giving Linux advice.

Just about every time anyone experienced suggests installing Linux, to a "noob", they say to dual boot...as if it's their only option. 

I say, that if you are running Win, have one box, and just want to try Linux...try it in a VM first.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 30 June 2016, 04:40:27
Long segmented reply
Very well said.

I'll bet that 95% of the people who dual boot could do just fine with VMs though.
And 99.999% of people could get by JUST using Windows without any VM or Linux (or Mac) at all, including myself.

It's a Windows world, if something works on Linux, odds are, it either works on Windows or there is a functional equivalent. VERY, VERY little works on Linux but not Windows. So working from a Windows perspective is relatively simple. Working from a Linux perspective, that's where it gets tricky, but it also happens to be where the real benefits come into play.

We aren't saying Linux is easy, or that people shouldn't try it or use, it took me a LONG time to wean myself off Windows (literally decades), but in the end, especially with Windows 10, I'm much happier as a result.


The games I want to play don't work on linux. I added linux to a pre-existing Windows install, so it was easier to get set up this way than to also try and reinstall Windows in a VM. My biggest concern is that support for my graphics card isn't the greatest under linux, and so I can't get the same performance I do under Windows. Would I be wrong to assume that my graphics performance in linux would limit any performance I could see in the VM? Because even if I got 100% of the performance that I get under linux in a Windows VM, it wouldn't be good enough.

Regarding backups, I don't bother backing up the Windows drive anymore. Everything that's on it is either contained in an old backup, synced to other machines using dropbox, or game data that's synced to steam. If I was actively using the Windows side, it would be different, but if I needed the Windows side more often I would be looking for a different solution anyway. I handle all of my file backups from linux, no differently than I would if I wasn't running Windows at all.
Pretty similar to me.
It's been a while since I gamed, but I do use cad programs, which don't like VM's or Linux. I keep a VERY bare minimum Windows install on my notebook and desktop, though my desktop is only on Linux since my big ssd died (to be fixed soon). It doesn't get updates, it doesn't have an AV, in fact other than IE, it doesn't even have a browser (I could argue IE isn't a browser, but actually a virus factory, but that;s another conversation). The only reason I allow it internet at all is to stream music when I use it or access files on my server, where I keep the cad files. There is literally, nothing in Windows to backup.

I think you are still missing my point.

This thread is largely consists of "noobs" and experienced users of Linux asking and giving Linux advice.

Just about every time anyone experienced suggests installing Linux, to a "noob", they say to dual boot...as if it's their only option. 

I say, that if you are running Win, have one box, and just want to try Linux...try it in a VM first.

I'm still a noob but I will probably advise against dual booting in the future. Trusting the Ubuntu forums for my Linux Mint problems was probably my first mistake. I was dual booting Linux Mint/Windows 7 at the time and I guess I was allergic to documentation for some reason. All the reformatting of Linux Mint somehow corrupted the boot partition of my Windows 7 so I reformatted for Windows 7 and left it that way for nearly a year.

I couldn't understand that maybe I was reading the right answer for me, but I had to modify the information to fit my distro. Or the silly things like oh, I'm tired of Cinnamon I think I'll try Gnome; afterwards I apt-get autoremove.. people on all the forums will say, "Go ahead, there's no way it could cause any harm." So I restart the computer and I'm missing an entire environment and a slew of other important packages because they're somehow linked to everything because everything was automatically installed and is no longer needed.

These days I hotswap between Linux and Windows. I don't want the boot menus to mingle at all. Hell, I even keep the OS backups separate.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 30 June 2016, 04:50:35
I think you are still missing my point.

This thread is largely consists of "noobs" and experienced users of Linux asking and giving Linux advice.

Just about every time anyone experienced suggests installing Linux, to a "noob", they say to dual boot...as if it's their only option. 

I say, that if you are running Win, have one box, and just want to try Linux...try it in a VM first.
The thread was what Linux distro does GH users use, and how they use it, not recommend a distro for people who have no experience with it. 

As for dual boot...
I agree, if you want to test or play, but I kind of look at dual booting as a test. If you can't handle some Googling, partitioning and making backups, Linux may not be such a good idea.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 30 June 2016, 05:17:29
I'm still a noob but I will probably advise against dual booting in the future. Trusting the Ubuntu forums for my Linux Mint problems was probably my first mistake. I was dual booting Linux Mint/Windows 7 at the time and I guess I was allergic to documentation for some reason. All the reformatting of Linux Mint somehow corrupted the boot partition of my Windows 7 so I reformatted for Windows 7 and left it that way for nearly a year.

I couldn't understand that maybe I was reading the right answer for me, but I had to modify the information to fit my distro. Or the silly things like oh, I'm tired of Cinnamon I think I'll try Gnome; afterwards I apt-get autoremove.. people on all the forums will say, "Go ahead, there's no way it could cause any harm." So I restart the computer and I'm missing an entire environment and a slew of other important packages because they're somehow linked to everything because everything was automatically installed and is no longer needed.
I did that as well once, ok twice, second time I knew how to fix it. And yes, I had probably read the same threads as you, which lead to it. :))

Here's why it happened, and you are somewhat correct on why, you were reading Ubuntu's help.
Ubuntu uses the Unity desktop, if you put Cinnamon on it, you still have Unity. Remove Cinnamon and you can fall back to Unity.
Mint uses Cinnamon, which is built on top of Gnome, it's a fork of it. So when you tried Gnome, you overwrote parts of Cinnamon but it would still function (somewhat). Then when you removed Cinnamon, it removed HUGE chunks of Gnome. It's possible to do what you wanted, it just needs to be done in a certain order, or you need to repair Gnome (reinstall) after you removed Cinnamon.

The big question though is did you learn from it and did you have backups?
You're going to make mistakes, big ones, this is kind of why I see partitioning as sort of a baptism or test. Windows and Mac users typically buy a computer with an OS already installed and optimized, this time it's you having to do that and it doesn't always go perfect, especially with an open source os, things will go wrong and you need to be able to deal with it.  Think of it this way, you already experienced the worst that can happen and you passed. If you didn't kill it then, you probably would have later (and still could again).

Even with the best documentation things happen.
I was experimenting with Arch and put Cinnamon on, all was great, and then I installed Virtualbox. There's a little known conflict between those three, and it causes the entire system to dump. Unless you look it up the right way, you wouldn't know it existed and who would expect it.

Remember, with great freedom comes great risk, this wouldn't happen on Windows, but remember, you can't change the entire desktop on Windows. It's why IOS is so stable, you can't do much to it and muck it up. Open IOS up to the customization Android has and  you would see it come crashing down. That's not an insult to Android or IOS, what you prefer is personal.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 30 June 2016, 06:43:21
I'm still a noob but I will probably advise against dual booting in the future. Trusting the Ubuntu forums for my Linux Mint problems was probably my first mistake. I was dual booting Linux Mint/Windows 7 at the time and I guess I was allergic to documentation for some reason. All the reformatting of Linux Mint somehow corrupted the boot partition of my Windows 7 so I reformatted for Windows 7 and left it that way for nearly a year.

I couldn't understand that maybe I was reading the right answer for me, but I had to modify the information to fit my distro. Or the silly things like oh, I'm tired of Cinnamon I think I'll try Gnome; afterwards I apt-get autoremove.. people on all the forums will say, "Go ahead, there's no way it could cause any harm." So I restart the computer and I'm missing an entire environment and a slew of other important packages because they're somehow linked to everything because everything was automatically installed and is no longer needed.
I did that as well once, ok twice, second time I knew how to fix it. And yes, I had probably read the same threads as you, which lead to it. :))

Here's why it happened, and you are somewhat correct on why, you were reading Ubuntu's help.
Ubuntu uses the Unity desktop, if you put Cinnamon on it, you still have Unity. Remove Cinnamon and you can fall back to Unity.
Mint uses Cinnamon, which is built on top of Gnome, it's a fork of it. So when you tried Gnome, you overwrote parts of Cinnamon but it would still function (somewhat). Then when you removed Cinnamon, it removed HUGE chunks of Gnome. It's possible to do what you wanted, it just needs to be done in a certain order, or you need to repair Gnome (reinstall) after you removed Cinnamon.

The big question though is did you learn from it and did you have backups?
You're going to make mistakes, big ones, this is kind of why I see partitioning as sort of a baptism or test. Windows and Mac users typically buy a computer with an OS already installed and optimized, this time it's you having to do that and it doesn't always go perfect, especially with an open source os, things will go wrong and you need to be able to deal with it.  Think of it this way, you already experienced the worst that can happen and you passed. If you didn't kill it then, you probably would have later (and still could again).

Even with the best documentation things happen.
I was experimenting with Arch and put Cinnamon on, all was great, and then I installed Virtualbox. There's a little known conflict between those three, and it causes the entire system to dump. Unless you look it up the right way, you wouldn't know it existed and who would expect it.

Remember, with great freedom comes great risk, this wouldn't happen on Windows, but remember, you can't change the entire desktop on Windows. It's why IOS is so stable, you can't do much to it and muck it up. Open IOS up to the customization Android has and  you would see it come crashing down. That's not an insult to Android or IOS, what you prefer is personal.

Scrambling my copy of Linux Mint has definitely tightened my impulse control. Now I can sometimes save my system from crashes and a few other mishaps (knock on wood). I also have some backups just in case. I'm pretty content with Debian and the only problem I can see happening in the future would have to do with new Debian release upgrades or changing GPUs (Radeon to GTX kind of changes)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Thu, 30 June 2016, 07:26:21
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Will one day be 2020, 2025, etc... and Linux will still be behind graphic card compatibility?  I'm not trolling I'm sincerely curious.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Paspie on Thu, 30 June 2016, 07:36:10
Debian Jessie, though I'm aspiring to complete an Arch install someday. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: zcmy on Thu, 30 June 2016, 07:42:45
Scrambling my copy of Linux Mint has definitely tightened my impulse control. Now I can sometimes save my system from crashes and a few other mishaps (knock on wood). I also have some backups just in case. I'm pretty content with Debian and the only problem I can see happening in the future would have to do with new Debian release upgrades or changing GPUs (Radeon to GTX kind of changes)

I must be a horror story then. I've resurrected my linux PC by just nuking it and starting over (yay for media backups)...and by switching GPUs, mobos, and hard drives (copy, paste, go)...without updating drivers and whatnot. I had a linux build that had so much unused stuff that I think I may have accidently killed it once or twice just by trying to back it up.

I'm currently running manjaro as my "downloading hue hue hue" server. Does the job. Also burns whenever I sit in front of it too long. Yay clunky 2006 computer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 30 June 2016, 08:20:27
Scrambling my copy of Linux Mint has definitely tightened my impulse control. Now I can sometimes save my system from crashes and a few other mishaps (knock on wood). I also have some backups just in case. I'm pretty content with Debian and the only problem I can see happening in the future would have to do with new Debian release upgrades or changing GPUs (Radeon to GTX kind of changes)

I must be a horror story then. I've resurrected my linux PC by just nuking it and starting over (yay for media backups)...and by switching GPUs, mobos, and hard drives (copy, paste, go)...without updating drivers and whatnot. I had a linux build that had so much unused stuff that I think I may have accidently killed it once or twice just by trying to back it up.

I'm currently running manjaro as my "downloading hue hue hue" server. Does the job. Also burns whenever I sit in front of it too long. Yay clunky 2006 computer.

The icon pack for Manjaro/Gnome looks pretty amazing
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 30 June 2016, 08:46:41
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Will one day be 2020, 2025, etc... and Linux will still be behind graphic card compatibility?  I'm not trolling I'm sincerely curious.

I have never had a problem with graphics but have had tremendous problems with connectivity in general and wireless in particular.
Last time I checked, which was recently, Mint 17.3 still failed to talk to my 2015 Galaxy phone via USB!

There is no doubt in my mind that in the "paid" world people expect that the gear that they paid good money for to work properly, and so the people who are being paid to make it so do their jobs. If nobody is being paid to make FOSS work, then somebody may or may not get around to it in their spare time.

On the opposite end of the timeline, I have some Windows 98/XP-vintage hardware that Microsoft orphaned long ago that the Linux geeks easily keep running.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: zcmy on Thu, 30 June 2016, 09:03:36
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Will one day be 2020, 2025, etc... and Linux will still be behind graphic card compatibility?  I'm not trolling I'm sincerely curious.

I have never had a problem with graphics but have had tremendous problems with connectivity in general and wireless in particular.
Last time I checked, which was recently, Mint 17.3 still failed to talk to my 2015 Galaxy phone via USB!

There is no doubt in my mind that in the "paid" world people expect that the gear that they paid good money for to work properly, and so the people who are being paid to make it so do their jobs. If nobody is being paid to make FOSS work, then somebody may or may not get around to it in their spare time.

On the opposite end of the timeline, I have some Windows 98/XP-vintage hardware that Microsoft orphaned long ago that the Linux geeks easily keep running.

Yep, 2004 thinkpad I have is still supported in Linux. It's great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 30 June 2016, 18:40:14
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Will one day be 2020, 2025, etc... and Linux will still be behind graphic card compatibility?  I'm not trolling I'm sincerely curious.
Money.

On top of what Fohat.digs said, Microsoft has a huge market share, and even larger gaming share. It helps too that MS works directly with them, and provides tools to make 3d rendering in Windows easier than other os's. So in MS you have people who pay, expecting it to work, a huge demand, and a company helping make their product work, all of which Linux lacks.

While we may not always like what Google and Canonical they have given Linux a boost in those areas.

Debian Jessie, though I'm aspiring to complete an Arch install someday. :)
Try Manjaro, it's an easy way to play with Arch, similar to Debian or Ubuntu. I recommend tossing it into a VM and installing the tings you normally would, because while Arch has it's similarities, it has some quirks.  If you want a more pure Arch experience, try Architect, which builds Arch from scratch for you, you get pure Arch, just as if you had compiled it yourself, but without the time and hassle.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 02 July 2016, 06:21:15
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Will one day be 2020, 2025, etc... and Linux will still be behind graphic card compatibility?  I'm not trolling I'm sincerely curious.

This is why:

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 02 July 2016, 06:25:04
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Will one day be 2020, 2025, etc... and Linux will still be behind graphic card compatibility?  I'm not trolling I'm sincerely curious.

This is why:


He must have REALLY wanted to impress her
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Sat, 02 July 2016, 09:21:58
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Linux is powering 99.5% of the Top 500 supercomputers. It's powering billions of phones. It's powering something like 70% of the active web servers of this planet. It's pretty much powering the Google / Amazon / Facebook infrastructure. It's powering hundreds of millions of routers. It's powering Raspberry Pi's and other tiny devices.

And many, many things I forgot. I guess gaming is simply one of these domains where Linux isn't on top yet and it's probably not the main focus.

Now even if it may be hard to believe, the whole GPU / graphic thing on Linux has gotten way better today than it was 15 or 20 years ago: back then it was really very very painful. I remember fighting with drivers and computing modelines manually to get this or that graphic mode supported on my GPU / CRT. I'd even hang on to know supported GPUs (and Ethernet cards too) and move them from PC to PC when upgrading (back then you were upgrading PC way more often: Moore's law was still true).

Now I just got a new PC a few days ago: plugged in the DisplayPort cable and, boom, native resolution and everything working on the first try.

So, yup, maybe 2030, maybe 2050. In any case it's going to be total world domination : )
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Sat, 02 July 2016, 09:29:38
So right now in July 2016 - what is the absolute best graphics card that is 100% supported by Linux?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 02 July 2016, 10:08:50
Does anyone know what Microsofts secret sauce is in relation to graphics drivers; and why are these such a struggle in Linux?

Linux is powering 99.5% of the Top 500 supercomputers. It's powering billions of phones. It's powering something like 70% of the active web servers of this planet. It's pretty much powering the Google / Amazon / Facebook infrastructure. It's powering hundreds of millions of routers. It's powering Raspberry Pi's and other tiny devices.

And many, many things I forgot. I guess gaming is simply one of these domains where Linux isn't on top yet and it's probably not the main focus.

Now even if it may be hard to believe, the whole GPU / graphic thing on Linux has gotten way better today than it was 15 or 20 years ago: back then it was really very very painful. I remember fighting with drivers and computing modelines manually to get this or that graphic mode supported on my GPU / CRT. I'd even hang on to know supported GPUs (and Ethernet cards too) and move them from PC to PC when upgrading (back then you were upgrading PC way more often: Moore's law was still true).

Now I just got a new PC a few days ago: plugged in the DisplayPort cable and, boom, native resolution and everything working on the first try.

So, yup, maybe 2030, maybe 2050. In any case it's going to be total world domination : )

I'm wondering what is powering the other 0.5% of supercomputers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Sat, 02 July 2016, 10:15:15
Custom OSs.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 02 July 2016, 17:22:41
So right now in July 2016 - what is the absolute best graphics card that is 100% supported by Linux?
S3 or Matrox, followed by Intel.
Seriously, no current ones are 100% supported, though Intel actually does quite well.

Nvidia despite being the worst supported actually works the best if you want to game in Linux. That said, I refuse to support that company after seeing others and myself repeatedly burned by them (bad drivers, bad hardware, lying to customers and investors, they can give Comcast lessons on how to screw people). If anyone wants to know more about this I would be glad to expand on it, but basically, my attitude towards that company is identical to Linus' in the above video. I avoid that company like the plague, I'll take the performance hit just to make sure they don't get my money and I push my customers to not give them any money.

AMD has stated they intend to put more into Linux, however, they've said this a few times in the past and while they make gains each time and performance has greatly improved, they still need significant work. They just haven't put enough engineers on the project. They do work okay though. AMD is not perfect, they make mistakes, and you won't get quite the same performance as Nvidia, but at least they don't actively try and screw you over just to save 2 cents.

Intel, despite being seriously outgunned in terms of hardware and research (and in some ways hostile towards Linux one minute and friendly the next), has made HUGE strides in Linux (and Windows), and in some tests, Intel can beat both of them. Depending on the benchmark in question, Intel 4000 has outperformed the Nvidia GT 740, AMD 6570, even an R9. I'm not saying if you want to game in Linux use Intel, those video cards have features Intel doesn't even offer, and while a synthetic benchmark, it gives you some idea just how bad Nvidia and AMD drivers really are and how good the Intel ones are by comparison.

I use AMD in my desktop and Intel in my laptops, if a customer needs a graphics card, or a card fro multiple monitors and such, I try to buy AMD for them.

Bottom line, if you want real world gaming performance in Linux, use Nvidia, just be prepared to make Linus sad and sell your soul in the process.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 05 July 2016, 14:41:14
When you are referring to Intel graphics cards, you are talking about the integrated GPUs, correct?  Because I didn't think they made stand alone graphics cards.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 06 July 2016, 05:55:22
When you are referring to Intel graphics cards, you are talking about the integrated GPUs, correct?  Because I didn't think they made stand alone graphics cards.
Yes I'm fairly certain he means the HD graphics that they have within the CPU.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 11 July 2016, 17:50:24
When you are referring to Intel graphics cards, you are talking about the integrated GPUs, correct?  Because I didn't think they made stand alone graphics cards.
Yes I'm fairly certain he means the HD graphics that they have within the CPU.

Yea thanks, I know it was kind of a dumb, obvious question.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vadisi on Tue, 12 July 2016, 18:56:25
I use mostly use Manjaro because I'm too lazy to install Arch myself.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Tue, 12 July 2016, 19:11:48
Is there anything other than Arch?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Tue, 12 July 2016, 19:33:38
So right now in July 2016 - what is the absolute best graphics card that is 100% supported by Linux?
if a customer needs a graphics card, or a card fro multiple monitors and such, I try to buy AMD for them.

Do you have a business that builds custom PC's?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 12 July 2016, 19:37:22
One month of Debian and only three crashes due to my actions (all GPU related - nothing to do with Debian). Swoon
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Tue, 12 July 2016, 21:37:46
I use mostly use Manjaro because I'm too lazy to install Arch myself.
Architect Linux
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Tue, 12 July 2016, 22:00:07
Is there anything other than Arch?

Uhhh..... Antergos? :shrug:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Tue, 12 July 2016, 22:07:57
Is there anything other than Arch?

Uhhh..... Antergos? :shrug:
Which is Arch-based... not Arch.

--
DG

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Tue, 12 July 2016, 22:16:12
Is there anything other than Arch?

Uhhh..... Antergos? :shrug:
Which is Arch-based... not Arch.

--
DG

Way to be a buzzkill!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Tue, 12 July 2016, 22:37:37
Is there anything other than Arch?

Uhhh..... Antergos? :shrug:
Which is Arch-based... not Arch.


Way to be a buzzkill!

;-)


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 13 July 2016, 01:31:12
So right now in July 2016 - what is the absolute best graphics card that is 100% supported by Linux?
if a customer needs a graphics card, or a card fro multiple monitors and such, I try to buy AMD for them.

Do you have a business that builds custom PC's?
I'm an independent tech supporting home to small and medium businesses, among other things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 13 July 2016, 05:40:10
So right now in July 2016 - what is the absolute best graphics card that is 100% supported by Linux?
if a customer needs a graphics card, or a card fro multiple monitors and such, I try to buy AMD for them.

Do you have a business that builds custom PC's?
I'm an independent tech supporting home to small and medium businesses, among other things.

And to the odd keyboard forum here and there ... ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 13 July 2016, 06:22:15
Is there anything other than Arch?
There is no Arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Wed, 13 July 2016, 10:35:48
There is no Arch.

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160713/5798449ba7cee7c02d31b07bb4752f82.jpg)

(diversion from doing work...)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 13 July 2016, 10:52:22
There is no Arch.

Show Image
(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160713/5798449ba7cee7c02d31b07bb4752f82.jpg)


(diversion from doing work...)
[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 13 July 2016, 10:55:26
I keep hearing about this Arch thing, what is Arch? Seriously
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 13 July 2016, 10:56:07
I keep hearing about this Arch thing, what is Arch? Seriously
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Linux
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 13 July 2016, 10:57:53
I keep hearing about this Arch thing, what is Arch? Seriously
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Linux

Thank you, I will read now
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Wed, 13 July 2016, 11:06:35
I keep hearing about this Arch thing, what is Arch? Seriously
Arch is a rolling release Linux distribution with a huge repository (both distribution and community maintained) of current and bleeding edge packages. They adhere to the mantra of simplicity (see: The Arch Way, KISS)

Best from the horses mouth...

https://www.archlinux.org/about/ (https://www.archlinux.org/about/)


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 13 July 2016, 12:15:00
I use mostly use Manjaro because I'm too lazy to install Arch myself.

Me too.  For the moment, at least.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Fri, 29 July 2016, 00:48:20
I keep hearing about this Arch thing, what is Arch? Seriously
Arch is a rolling release Linux distribution with a huge repository (both distribution and community maintained) of current and bleeding edge packages. They adhere to the mantra of simplicity (see: The Arch Way, KISS)

Best from the horses mouth...

https://www.archlinux.org/about/ (https://www.archlinux.org/about/)




Noob version of Slackware. ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Fri, 29 July 2016, 08:45:21


I keep hearing about this Arch thing, what is Arch? Seriously
Arch is a rolling release Linux distribution with a huge repository (both distribution and community maintained) of current and bleeding edge packages. They adhere to the mantra of simplicity (see: The Arch Way, KISS)

Best from the horses mouth...

https://www.archlinux.org/about/ (https://www.archlinux.org/about/)


Noob version of Slackware. ;)

Ha! Actually Gentoo/Funtoo would be more correct as Slackware isn't a rolling release distro.

But I feel what you're trying to imply... even if it's wrong. ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 29 July 2016, 09:12:27
There's no 'X version of Slackware'. There's just Slackware and everything else.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nZx-mxaCcqc/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAACM/mtAdWxXVam8/photo.jpg)

патрег бох!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 29 July 2016, 17:41:42
Got a new laptop for work. Running Linux Mint 18 instead of Debian because I need kernel 4.4 and some newer packages for hardware support and I didn't want to mess with sid on a work machine.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 29 July 2016, 23:50:29
Does anyone have any experience with puppy linux? Thinking of trying it out because I've got a really old pc that I'm trying to use in my 'office' it's more of a big mess with a desk that I try to work with keyboards at.
And when I say old pc I mean pci express 1.0 old.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Sat, 30 July 2016, 10:27:59
Not sure if this really deserves it's own thread, so, since it's relevant I'll post here...

What (distro +) window manager do you all use?

Mine:
Arch / i3
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Sat, 30 July 2016, 10:34:07
Does anyone have any experience with puppy linux? Thinking of trying it out because I've got a really old pc that I'm trying to use in my 'office' it's more of a big mess with a desk that I try to work with keyboards at.
And when I say old pc I mean pci express 1.0 old.
I used Puppy as a rescue tool for a couple years,  and have an old Dell Mini 9 kicking around with it on it somewhere... nice lightweight, little distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 30 July 2016, 11:04:46
Not sure if this really deserves it's own thread, so, since it's relevant I'll post here...

What (distro +) window manager do you all use?

Mine:
Arch / i3

This topic pops up occasionally is this thread.  I have been using Manjaro bspwm on one of laptops.  I like it.  I tried to build bspwm without the pre-built version, but I failed miserably.  I don't know how much I care to try again, because Manjaro bspwm is fine with me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 30 July 2016, 12:29:53
Does anyone have any experience with puppy linux? Thinking of trying it out because I've got a really old pc that I'm trying to use in my 'office' it's more of a big mess with a desk that I try to work with keyboards at.
And when I say old pc I mean pci express 1.0 old.

I haven't used it myself, but I know people who have. It's supposed to be fairly snappy, but don't expect miracles out of your hardware.

Not sure if this really deserves it's own thread, so, since it's relevant I'll post here...

What (distro +) window manager do you all use?

Mine:
Arch / i3

Debian / Openbox
Mint / Muffin
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 30 July 2016, 15:42:28
Does anyone have any experience with puppy linux? Thinking of trying it out because I've got a really old pc that I'm trying to use in my 'office' it's more of a big mess with a desk that I try to work with keyboards at.
And when I say old pc I mean pci express 1.0 old.
I've used it on a laptop I bought in... 2006 I guess. No complaints at all, very nice distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Sat, 30 July 2016, 15:51:57
Saw this thread, reminded me i havent -Syu in 5 weeks, due to vacation(Holding thumbs)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 31 July 2016, 01:37:33
Saw this thread, reminded me i havent -Syu in 5 weeks, due to vacation(Holding thumbs)
OI BRACE FOR IMPACT.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: smknjoe on Mon, 01 August 2016, 15:00:13


I keep hearing about this Arch thing, what is Arch? Seriously
Arch is a rolling release Linux distribution with a huge repository (both distribution and community maintained) of current and bleeding edge packages. They adhere to the mantra of simplicity (see: The Arch Way, KISS)

Best from the horses mouth...

https://www.archlinux.org/about/ (https://www.archlinux.org/about/)


Noob version of Slackware. ;)

Ha! Actually Gentoo/Funtoo would be more correct as Slackware isn't a rolling release distro.

But I feel what you're trying to imply... even if it's wrong. ;)

Slackware was the "go to" for those "in the know".  Now it's Arch.

Someone obviously needs to find more time for Bob Dobbs in his life...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Ciemnika on Mon, 08 August 2016, 12:51:14
Debian, of course.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Tue, 09 August 2016, 20:49:10
I never said never. :)

I'll bet that 95% of the people who dual boot could do just fine with VMs though. Again, if you are just using Win once a week...why have a native install? I juggled dual, triple, and even quad booting (with a Macbook) for years and it was a ***** to manage backups and share files. With VMs you backup and restore entire "machines" with ease. And if you go with VMware the guest tools make it almost impossible to tell any difference between a native machine and virtual in terms of performance...including graphics.

I think the best setup for these kinds of situations is having two drives, one for Windows and one for Linux.

Install VMWare Workstation on Windows and set up the Linux partition as a VM. This will allow you to boot directly to Windows or Linux, as well as run your Linux partition live while running Windows through VMWare Workstation.

I prefer to boot into just the OS that I will be using but there are certainly times where I need to access resources/software from both in the same time frame and this saves from having to shut down one to boot the other.

I first learned you could do this when I booted my Windows bootcamp partition on my Mac as a VM in OS X, allowing me to use both at the same time or boot directly to either. Very handy indeed.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 10 August 2016, 06:31:45
Getting a new pc tomorrow that's going to control one of my screens.
Already bought Synergy and am just waiting on parts.
It'll be running Linux Mint. - Can't wait to fiddle around with it.  :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: joey on Wed, 10 August 2016, 06:36:40
Considering running Voidlinux on a Macbook..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Wed, 10 August 2016, 06:52:47
Already bought Synergy and am just waiting on parts.

Absolutely love Synergy. Have been using it for a number of years now... I'd include it as one of my few essential tools.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 10 August 2016, 07:29:25
Considering running Voidlinux on a Macbook..
Just do it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: joey on Wed, 10 August 2016, 07:32:24
Considering running Voidlinux on a Macbook..
Just do it.
That's the motivation I need.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 10 August 2016, 08:14:48
Already bought Synergy and am just waiting on parts.

Absolutely love Synergy. Have been using it for a number of year now... I'd include it as one of my few essential tools.
That's what I've heard. I can't wait to try it out and play around with everything.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 10 August 2016, 17:25:56
Already bought Synergy and am just waiting on parts.

Absolutely love Synergy. Have been using it for a number of year now... I'd include it as one of my few essential tools.
That's what I've heard. I can't wait to try it out and play around with everything.

Oh man this.. I was just thinking about a KVM switch and I read this--definitely bookmarking :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 10 August 2016, 17:58:25
I just looked into this... Why had I not heard of this before.
Seriously I could have used this years ago and skipped buying a KVM (actually I'm on my second KVM).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Wed, 10 August 2016, 20:55:22
Does anyone know if I can do the following:

On a MacBook Pro with OS X and Windows 7, I want to have a virtual machine of Lubuntu that I can run from either Windows or OS X. I'm wondering, if I install it under Windows, can I also boot the VM from OS X? Or am I best setting up a shared drive, locating the VM folder there... then perhaps I can access it from each Windows and OS X?

Sidenote: My MBP is from 2010 and only a dual-core i5 with 8GB of RAM. Oddly enough, I can upgrade to 16 GB of RAM but only Windows will recognize it. I've tried running my Windows bootcamp partition as a VM in OS X and while it works, the performance is too poor to be useful.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 10 August 2016, 22:01:35
Does anyone know if I can do the following:

On a MacBook Pro with OS X and Windows 7, I want to have a virtual machine of Lubuntu that I can run from either Windows or OS X. I'm wondering, if I install it under Windows, can I also boot the VM from OS X? Or am I best setting up a shared drive, locating the VM folder there... then perhaps I can access it from each Windows and OS X?

Sidenote: My MBP is from 2010 and only a dual-core i5 with 8GB of RAM. Oddly enough, I can upgrade to 16 GB of RAM but only Windows will recognize it. I've tried running my Windows bootcamp partition as a VM in OS X and while it works, the performance is too poor to be useful.

The way I'd approach it would be to use virtualization software that runs on both OS X and Windows, or at least software that can read the same formats, and to put the virtual hard disk on a shared partition. It may not be the best way, but it seems to me that would be the easiest way to get things up and running.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Darkshado on Wed, 10 August 2016, 22:53:35
If you're not going to boot the Windows partition in a VM while in Mac OS, and Mac OS can mount that NTFS read+write, it'd be easier to just leave the Lubuntu VM's image on that partition.

Unless you insist on Lubuntu being able to run both in a VM and physically, then, partition for it as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Thu, 11 August 2016, 07:37:06
Thanks to both of you.

Looks like VirtualBox runs on both Windows and Mac. I think I'll try that and see if I can use both while the VM files are on the Windows partition so that both can access it; else I'll create a shared partition and try it there.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pmck on Mon, 22 August 2016, 05:40:42
Got a new laptop for work. Running Linux Mint 18 instead of Debian because I need kernel 4.4 and some newer packages for hardware support and I didn't want to mess with sid on a work machine.

Love Mint, wish I could use it at work. We have a RHL and an Ubuntu image but both are... bleugh bloated and ruined by corporate security software
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 22 August 2016, 06:30:49
Two months of Debian. I'm finally past my duck and cover phase of testing out a new distro. Ubuntu was WAY too user-friendly for me--I broke mine during the first month :))

Looks like I'll be on board for Stretch
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Mon, 22 August 2016, 17:55:54
So I got a thinkpad x220 about a week ago and for one reason only, FreeBSD! One of the known laptops to work flawlessly with it (https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops/Thinkpad_X220), since I can't always be using my FreeBSD desktop!

Is there anything other than Arch?

it's called FreeBSD  ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Tue, 23 August 2016, 07:04:26
Really enjoying Linux mint so far, been using it for about a week or so and for a plug and play os it does the job quite well.
I'm freeing myself from Windows one step at a time. :D
Also: Synergy is ****in' amazing.
There are a few glitches here and there, my biggest gripe right now being that I can't copy/paste from one screen to the other without stopping and starting the service every once in a while.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 23 August 2016, 07:37:39

Really enjoying Linux mint so far, been using it for about a week or so and for a plug and play os it does the job quite well.
I'm freeing myself from Windows one step at a time.


I dabbled with Ubuntu for 5-6 years but it went off in a direction that wasn't for me.
Tried OpenSUSE but had a number of hardware issues, and the "community/forums" were monumentally arrogant and unhelpful.

I have been using Mint/Cinnamon for the better part of a year and am extremely pleased, although I think that the the forum is very poorly organized and extremely difficult to search. Fortunately, the OS seems to work so well that I have not needed much help.

My first step breaking free from the Windows universe was to drop Photoshop Elements in favor of GIMP, a few years ago, and although the learning curve was painful it has worked out well. Then I started using LibreOffice in place of Office 2010, and today I am about 90/10, although I am an "easy" user and rarely do anything besides word processing and spreadsheets.

The best thing that I did though, 6-7 years ago, was to drop Outlook. That thing is a heartless bastard.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: henz on Tue, 23 August 2016, 14:38:25
Dont update to Arch Linux - linux 4.7.1-1 (x86_64) its toxic, killed a bunch of stuff on my computer at work, tried to fix but was a no go.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Tue, 23 August 2016, 19:11:35
Dont update to Arch Linux - linux 4.7.1-1 (x86_64) its toxic, killed a bunch of stuff on my computer at work, tried to fix but was a no go.

Define "toxic" and "killed"...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Tue, 23 August 2016, 19:24:13


So I got a thinkpad x220 about a week ago [...] one of the known laptops to work [...] with [FreeBSD]

That says everything about why FreeBSD isn't an option for me with my laptops... I like things to *work*.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 24 August 2016, 05:15:50
The best thing that I did though, 6-7 years ago, was to drop Outlook. That thing is a heartless bastard.
I'm still using Outlook. I haven't found a good Linux alternative.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Wed, 24 August 2016, 10:31:02


So I got a thinkpad x220 about a week ago [...] one of the known laptops to work [...] with [FreeBSD]

That says everything about why FreeBSD isn't an option for me with my laptops... I like things to *work*.

lawl, I also wanted something I'd have no qualms about leaving in the trunk of my car when I work, I call it a win win on my part!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Wed, 24 August 2016, 12:21:31


So I got a thinkpad x220 about a week ago [...] one of the known laptops to work [...] with [FreeBSD]

That says everything about why FreeBSD isn't an option for me with my laptops... I like things to *work*.

lawl, I also wanted something I'd have no qualms about leaving in the trunk of my car when I work, I call it a win win on my part!
In seriousness, I should revisit BSD as a desktop... I do manage a few pfsense devices, but that's just a lazy toe in the water.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Wed, 24 August 2016, 12:27:35


So I got a thinkpad x220 about a week ago [...] one of the known laptops to work [...] with [FreeBSD]

That says everything about why FreeBSD isn't an option for me with my laptops... I like things to *work*.

lawl, I also wanted something I'd have no qualms about leaving in the trunk of my car when I work, I call it a win win on my part!
In seriousness, I should revisit BSD as a desktop... I do manage a few pfsense devices, but that's just a lazy toe in the water.

and an understandable one, I wouldn't use anything else ( although maybe OpenBSD ) for a firewall lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 24 August 2016, 12:38:25
Do BSDs support HiDPI?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dustigroove on Wed, 24 August 2016, 12:46:30


Do BSDs support HiDPI?

As far as I'm aware you can use GNOME 3 with FreeBSD which has pretty decent HiDPI support.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Wed, 24 August 2016, 12:48:02
atm no, but if steam ever ports steam to FreeBSD, that will probably accelerate development quickly
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 27 August 2016, 07:18:48
I really didn't want to make a new thread for this question since so few probably use Gnome, so here is my question - what do you guys think of Wayland?

I tried the non-default version that came prepackaged with Debian 8/Gnome. At first, it seemed snapper but then my mouse cursor disappeared. I noped through a restart and switched back to default Gnome in my grub menu. Does this make any sense? Am I just being silly or does Wayland have ways to go before I can take advantage of those yummy graphical gains that may or may not be possible with a functional Wayland/Gnome? I'm still very much a noob
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 27 August 2016, 20:28:49
Seriously, the only thing I can think of when anyone mentions BSD is BDSM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 28 August 2016, 04:43:41
Seriously, the only thing I can think of when anyone mentions BSD is BDSM.

We have BDSM at work.

Bugs & defects + support & maintenance.

Literally charge codes BD + SM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 28 August 2016, 06:31:08
Seriously, the only thing I can think of when anyone mentions BSD is BDSM.
kinky
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sean on Sun, 28 August 2016, 12:45:53
I haven't updated Arch in three months, and at this point I'm too afraid/lazy to.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 28 August 2016, 17:17:38
Seriously, the only thing I can think of when anyone mentions BSD is BDSM.

We have BDSM at work.

Bugs & defects + support & maintenance.

Literally charge codes BD + SM.

Nice.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Mon, 29 August 2016, 03:36:31
Seriously, the only thing I can think of when anyone mentions BSD is BDSM.

We have BDSM at work.

Bugs & defects + support & maintenance.

Literally charge codes BD + SM.
Hah that's awesome. :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: algernon on Mon, 29 August 2016, 03:50:25
I really didn't want to make a new thread for this question since so few probably use Gnome, so here is my question - what do you guys think of Wayland?

I tried the non-default version that came prepackaged with Debian 8/Gnome. At first, it seemed snapper but then my mouse cursor disappeared. I noped through a restart and switched back to default Gnome in my grub menu. Does this make any sense? Am I just being silly or does Wayland have ways to go before I can take advantage of those yummy graphical gains that may or may not be possible with a functional Wayland/Gnome? I'm still very much a noob

I have tried Wayland a couple of times, because it is interesting, and is technically superior to X. It has some nasty bugs from time to time, so I'll give it another year or so. By the looks of it, it should be pretty solid by then. (I used it for a month in the past, with very few issues, but then I switched from an Intel GPU to Nvidia, and things went downhill)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 29 August 2016, 04:20:27
I really didn't want to make a new thread for this question since so few probably use Gnome, so here is my question - what do you guys think of Wayland?

I tried the non-default version that came prepackaged with Debian 8/Gnome. At first, it seemed snapper but then my mouse cursor disappeared. I noped through a restart and switched back to default Gnome in my grub menu. Does this make any sense? Am I just being silly or does Wayland have ways to go before I can take advantage of those yummy graphical gains that may or may not be possible with a functional Wayland/Gnome? I'm still very much a noob

I have tried Wayland a couple of times, because it is interesting, and is technically superior to X. It has some nasty bugs from time to time, so I'll give it another year or so. By the looks of it, it should be pretty solid by then. (I used it for a month in the past, with very few issues, but then I switched from an Intel GPU to Nvidia, and things went downhill)

Oh cool someone has checked it out. I saw a bit of what you mean although I'm running Radeon with OpenGL, it suffered from a few issues as well. I'll probably wait a bit to try it with Ubuntu/Gnome or something like that in a year or so too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 29 August 2016, 05:35:00
Every time I hear about Wayland I think of https://www.weylandindustries.com/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 29 August 2016, 21:20:12
Every time I hear about Wayland I think of https://www.weylandindustries.com/

Well, at least we know where the LInux guys got the name.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 29 August 2016, 22:01:29
Every time I hear about Wayland I think of https://www.weylandindustries.com/

Well, at least we know where the LInux guys got the name.

Almost.

Got an A instead of an E.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 30 August 2016, 06:54:18
Every time I hear about Wayland I think of https://www.weylandindustries.com/

Well, at least we know where the LInux guys got the name.

Almost.

Got an A instead of an E.

I'll take the name Wayland over Mir any day :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 30 August 2016, 06:56:12
Every time I hear about Wayland I think of https://www.weylandindustries.com/

Well, at least we know where the LInux guys got the name.

Almost.

Got an A instead of an E.

I'll take the name Wayland over Mir any day :))
It's the other way round for me :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 30 August 2016, 07:11:26
Every time I hear about Wayland I think of https://www.weylandindustries.com/

Well, at least we know where the LInux guys got the name.

Almost.

Got an A instead of an E.

I'll take the name Wayland over Mir any day :))
It's the other way round for me :P

Hehe, Mir reminds me of cat sounds
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 30 August 2016, 10:41:27
it's just a word for 'peace' :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 30 August 2016, 10:53:54
Fair enough :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 30 August 2016, 21:56:00
it's just a word for 'peace' :p

And this little thing ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 31 August 2016, 05:54:11
Also, this little thing:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Earth_Eastern_Hemisphere.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 31 August 2016, 06:17:02
it's just a word for 'peace' :p

And this little thing ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir

Well, I guess it's safe to say that Mir will probably beat out Wayland stability wise. From what I've read and seen Ubuntu is basically Linux's productivity/gaming powerhouse. Just a quick glance at the Wine compatibility list will kind of verify that claim. Maybe I should check out Unity 8 before I download a copy of Ubuntu Gnome. I'll keep my eyes on the Phoronix benchmarks just to be sure, but still.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Giorgio on Wed, 31 August 2016, 06:23:45
Ubuntu 14.10 (Yes, I'll update it very soon).

Raspbian on my two raspberries.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 31 August 2016, 07:34:15

Maybe I should check out Unity 8 before I download a copy of Ubuntu Gnome.


Mint is Ubuntu-based and Cinnamon is Gnome-based, so Mint/Cinnamon is not too far afield yet so much nicer to use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 01 September 2016, 03:47:37
Well, I guess it's safe to say that Mir will probably beat out Wayland stability wise. From what I've read and seen Ubuntu is basically Linux's productivity/gaming powerhouse.
lol, where are you getting this?

Ubuntu is just a common distro based on Debian. Meanwhile, Canonical has a long history of reinventing the wheel and detachment from upstream/communities. As a result, there are plenty of components that are fundamentally broken in Ubuntu, ranging from kernel to DE components.

Mir is only a part of Canonical's attempt to break into the portable-device market, which has been a major failure thus far. Nobody else really cares.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 01 September 2016, 04:26:46
Well, I guess it's safe to say that Mir will probably beat out Wayland stability wise. From what I've read and seen Ubuntu is basically Linux's productivity/gaming powerhouse.
lol, where are you getting this?

Ubuntu is just a common distro based on Debian. Meanwhile, Canonical has a long history of reinventing the wheel and detachment from upstream/communities. As a result, there are plenty of components that are fundamentally broken in Ubuntu, ranging from kernel to DE components.

Mir is only a part of Canonical's attempt to break into the portable-device market, which has been a major failure thus far. Nobody else really cares.

Mir is a branch of Wayland. From what I've read Mir and Wayland are bits of code used to pass off some high-level computing to the kernel to basically relieve the middle man of the burden. Who knows, maybe one day it will completely replace X. Kind of kills all my middle mouse emulation for the moment, though :-[

My point was Mir is probably going to be stable before Wayland because more people use Ubuntu/Unity rather than Debian/Gnome. If you want to check out some Phoronix benchmarks you'll see that Unity-based distros are simply leading the pack in productivity/gaming. I can't even install the latest version of Blender for 64bit Jessie but if I rolled Ubuntu on another HDD I could include the Blender PPA and have the bleeding edge releases. I love Debian/Gnome don't get me wrong but I'm keeping my mind open to the next level of Linux productivity. I'm not talking about benchmarks for equipment running Raspbian. Raspberry Pi 3 or Odroid clusters look really cool but only something like a Jetson TK1 or TX1 could even run Blender so those ideas are completely out the window for me. I'm not about to pay $200-600 per node when I could just build a single system with 200x the computation power. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 01 September 2016, 05:34:22
Mir is a branch of Wayland.
Here's your problem. Mir is a display server, whereas Wayland is a protocol.
Wayland is widely supported by upstream projects and there are plenty of related tools (e.g., Weston, libinput).
Nobody except Canonical cares about Mir. They either have to rely on the rest of the world, or completely reinvent the wheel. Ironically, they're currently just repackaging others' work at this point (XMir, reliance on libinput, libhybris,…)

Phoronix benchmarks
I hope you're joking.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 01 September 2016, 06:35:35
Mir is a branch of Wayland.
Here's your problem. Mir is a display server, whereas Wayland is a protocol.
Wayland is widely supported by upstream projects and there are plenty of related tools (e.g., Weston, libinput).
Nobody except Canonical cares about Mir. They either have to rely on the rest of the world, or completely reinvent the wheel. Ironically, they're currently just repackaging others' work at this point (XMir, reliance on libinput, libhybris,…)

Phoronix benchmarks
I hope you're joking.

Ah, I see. I kind of get why Mir is further along in general desktop deployment. I'm not joking when I mention Phoronix. They're the first company I've heard of that routinely does benchmarking with Linux using pretty powerful equipment. If you know of another website that shows what nearly all 9 series Nvidia GPUs (Also 10 series and Titans) can do on various Linux distros as well as Windows 10 please let me know! Seriously! I would love more benchmarking sources. I'll try to work on my hopelessly optimistic approach, this is all so new to me.

Phoronix - Deep Learning & CUDA Benchmarks On The GeForce GTX 1080 Under Linux 
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=gtx-1080-cuda&num=1 (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=gtx-1080-cuda&num=1)

They run more general use benchmarking tests in other articles, the link above is just an example of how far Phoronix is willing to go
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 01 September 2016, 09:48:24
Ah, I see. I kind of get why Mir is further along in general desktop deployment.
Mir isn't "further along" anywhere on desktop. It might show up as an option along with Unity 8 in Ubuntu 16.10 (they already claimed this before 13.10/14.04 too).

Meanwhile, Fedora has been showcased with Wayland for several releases. You can use KDE Plasma or GNOME Hell with Wayland right now. No, it's not entirely production-ready, but it's a real thing—a story similar to, say, PulseAudio.

I'm not joking when I mention Phoronix. They're the first company I've heard of that routinely does benchmarking with Linux using pretty powerful equipment. If you know of another website that shows what nearly all 9 series Nvidia GPUs (Also 10 series and Titans) can do on various Linux distros as well as Windows 10 please let me know! Seriously! I would love more benchmarking sources. I'll try to work on my hopelessly optimistic approach, this is all so new to me.
Look up Moronix.

Larabel's benchmarks are fundamentally flawed (https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4g49xn/meta_lift_phoronix_ban/d2eglp4) and he has his own agenda (example (http://www.draketo.de/light/english/free-software/phoronix-distort-results-gcc-llvm-clang-amd-vishera)).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 01 September 2016, 10:04:19
Ah, I see. I kind of get why Mir is further along in general desktop deployment.
Mir isn't "further along" anywhere on desktop. It might show up as an option along with Unity 8 in Ubuntu 16.10 (they already claimed this before 13.10/14.04 too).

Meanwhile, Fedora has been showcased with Wayland for several releases. You can use KDE Plasma or GNOME Hell with Wayland right now. No, it's not entirely production-ready, but it's a real thing—a story similar to, say, PulseAudio.

I'm not joking when I mention Phoronix. They're the first company I've heard of that routinely does benchmarking with Linux using pretty powerful equipment. If you know of another website that shows what nearly all 9 series Nvidia GPUs (Also 10 series and Titans) can do on various Linux distros as well as Windows 10 please let me know! Seriously! I would love more benchmarking sources. I'll try to work on my hopelessly optimistic approach, this is all so new to me.
Look up Moronix.

Larabel's benchmarks are fundamentally flawed (https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4g49xn/meta_lift_phoronix_ban/d2eglp4) and he has his own agenda (example (http://www.draketo.de/light/english/free-software/phoronix-distort-results-gcc-llvm-clang-amd-vishera)).

Unfortunately, I'm not the type to use Fedora. My loss I guess. Yea I've tried Gnome with Wayland and things did not function as they do without Wayland. I looked up Moronix. I'm not finding a lot of objective information I'm afraid. I recently found Phoronix but I'm not married to the site just yet. Thanks for the clarification
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 18 September 2016, 13:38:46
I installed Elementary OS on my old laptop for the sole purpose of trolling my Apple-obsessed family at a wedding this weekend.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Sun, 18 September 2016, 18:32:50
I installed Elementary OS on my old laptop for the sole purpose of trolling my Apple-obsessed family at a wedding this weekend.

were you successful?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: captsis on Tue, 20 September 2016, 01:42:32
Well, currently running custom kernel with Arch. Still use windows for gaming but have been running dual boot with Linux for several years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 20 September 2016, 10:17:16
I installed Elementary OS on my old laptop for the sole purpose of trolling my Apple-obsessed family at a wedding this weekend.

were you successful?

No, elementary OS trolled me first and freezes at the login screen when I wake up from suspend or a locked screen.

I actually don't mind the elementary OS experience, it isn't bad.  Looks great, easy to use, and the stock keyboard shortcuts actually make sense.  But very locked down on the customizability, as expected because it is intended for first time Linux users.  I added a GUI package manager and x-tile to make it usable for myself, and by the time I made some adjustments, it was basically Linux Mint.  If the login screen didn't freeze, I would probably still have it on my laptop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 23 September 2016, 10:23:39
So I went on a bender this week trying out eye candy DEs and distros, because I wanted something pretty on my laptop.  I tried the following: 

Ubuntu Unity
Ubuntu GNOME
Manjaro KDE
Linux Mint Cinnamon
Solus Budgie
Elementary OS (Pantheon)
Deepin

Overall, they all look attractive, and my favorites were Deepin and Elementary OS.  I admire a design that is visually attractive, easy to navigate, and is something you can work with, rather than work against.  But the tradeoff for all of them is limited out-of-the-box customizability and flexibility, as expected.  Except Cinnamon and KDE, they both can look pretty and have plenty of customization options, I just annoyed with having to configure my desktop to work how I want.  I was looking for something attractive and ready to go for my laptop without much configuration.

I know that I'm repeating well known info, just wanted to share some thoughts about my Linux adventures this past week.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 23 September 2016, 11:57:04
So I went on a bender this week trying out eye candy DEs and distros, because I wanted something pretty on my laptop.  I tried the following: 

Ubuntu Unity
Ubuntu GNOME
Manjaro KDE
Linux Mint Cinnamon
Solus Budgie
Elementary OS (Pantheon)
Deepin

Overall, they all look attractive, and my favorites were Deepin and Elementary OS.  I admire a design that is visually attractive, easy to navigate, and is something you can work with, rather than work against.  But the tradeoff for all of them is limited out-of-the-box customizability and flexibility, as expected.  Except Cinnamon and KDE, they both can look pretty and have plenty of customization options, I just annoyed with having to configure my desktop to work how I want.  I was looking for something attractive and ready to go for my laptop without much configuration.

I know that I'm repeating well known info, just wanted to share some thoughts about my Linux adventures this past week.

Deepin window manager is absolutely gorgeous! It's a shame that I'll have to support the more 'gamer friendly' (Mint/Cinnamon) distros and window managers because of my needs. But a part of me wants to switch from Debian/Gnome to Arch/Deepin as my new 'non-gaming distro' for when I start dual hot swapping. So purty :eek:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 23 September 2016, 13:31:30
Deepin is quite gorgeous.  I configure it to look like Chrome OS, as I prefer the simplicity of that interface.  The keyboard shortcuts on Deepin and Elementary also are quite logical, whereas a lot of the DEs have nonsensical shortcuts that I end up changing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 23 September 2016, 18:49:28

Except Cinnamon and KDE, they both can look pretty and have plenty of customization options, I just annoyed with having to configure my desktop to work how I want.


I found that KDE was good but the learning/adapting curve for Yast was steep and help is hard to get.

Cinnamon seems excellent in almost every way and I have had very few complaints.

However, if you are an Apple guy, then I don't know what to say. Whenever my wife (an Apple worshiper) asks me for help I feel like I am lost in a hostile alien universe. Of course, 90% of her questions are for things that I would do simply in Windows with Control Panel, Disk Management, or add-on utility programs. In Linux, I have to Google for instructions, but they are usually available.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jal on Fri, 23 September 2016, 20:02:54
That says everything about why FreeBSD isn't an option for me with my laptops... I like things to *work*.
lawl, I also wanted something I'd have no qualms about leaving in the trunk of my car when I work, I call it a win win on my part!
[/quote]

Typing this on a Mac Pro, so you know my tastes in laptops. But in general, I disagree...

As I see it, hardware is transient; ultimately disposable. The OS (and keyboard!) is what I interact with, and I've learned buy the hardware to best serve the OS. It doesn't hurt that I tend to build biggish systems, so I generally don't care about the latest driver needed to support some cost-cutting crapification of some subsystem.[1]

Coincidentally, the motherboard on my (FreeBSD) storage server died about a month ago, and I'm hoping I can make time to rebuild it this weekend, now that all the parts are finally in. While changing OSes at this point would be really painful (something like 22-ish TB of data on sitting on ZFS), I'm extremely happy with FreeBSD, and almost always have been since I started using it in the 90s, so making sure the hardware was compatible was a no-brainer.

So yah. Started rambling a bit, forgive an oldster. But my point is that you spend more of your precious time using your OS of choice than you do the hardware, which dies or becomes obsolete. So modulo a need for some specific hardware with OS requirements (I'm thinking proprietary data acquisition boards, some robotics platforms, that sort of thing), match your hardware to your OS.

[1] One painful exception to this is my main desktop. I'm running Ubuntu on it now, due to a highly aggravating conjunction of software/hardware that I went out on a limb with. Briefly, I'm running virtualized win7 on it to support win-only software, and configured VGA-passthrough for an Nvidia Quadro K4000. Due to complicated issues I didn't anticipate related to Nvidia being poopy-heads, and to the IOMMU and the way my PCI bus ended up configured, I had to patch the kernel with an Nvidia-specific hack as well as a PCI patch. Never figured out why, but I couldn't get the combination working on vanilla Debian, which is my preferred workstation OS, but could when I tried it with Ubuntu. (Also had some stupid issues with the Nvidia driver under virtualized Windows, but I expect that, because I'm so very not a Windows person.) And after ripping out Gnome and some of the other Ubuntu crap I don't like, it it close enough.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 23 September 2016, 21:27:03

As I see it, hardware is transient; ultimately disposable. The OS (and keyboard!) is what I interact with, and I've learned buy the hardware to best serve the OS. It doesn't hurt that I tend to build biggish systems, so I generally don't care about the latest driver needed to support some cost-cutting crapification of some subsystem.[1]

I completely agree with this sentiment.  The laptop I spoke of earlier is a Lenovo T420 released in 2012, pulled from a business environment (The T420 is one of the last models with old-style Thinkpad keyboards, by the way).  For basically any distro that I use, it works perfectly fine, even the ones that have more eye candy and are heavy on system resources.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Fri, 23 September 2016, 22:29:07

As I see it, hardware is transient; ultimately disposable. The OS (and keyboard!) is what I interact with, and I've learned buy the hardware to best serve the OS. It doesn't hurt that I tend to build biggish systems, so I generally don't care about the latest driver needed to support some cost-cutting crapification of some subsystem.[1]

I'm not sure who you are disagreeing with, but I too agree. At the same time though, if I can get one year out of my y700 that would be incredible  :-X
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 23 September 2016, 22:47:46

Except Cinnamon and KDE, they both can look pretty and have plenty of customization options, I just annoyed with having to configure my desktop to work how I want.


I found that KDE was good but the learning/adapting curve for Yast was steep and help is hard to get.

Cinnamon seems excellent in almost every way and I have had very few complaints.

However, if you are an Apple guy, then I don't know what to say. Whenever my wife (an Apple worshiper) asks me for help I feel like I am lost in a hostile alien universe. Of course, 90% of her questions are for things that I would do simply in Windows with Control Panel, Disk Management, or add-on utility programs. In Linux, I have to Google for instructions, but they are usually available.

KDE and Cinnamon both do a great job of being visually attractive and thoroughly configurable.  I admire some wiz-bang type stuff every now and then.

I found Yast entirely too comprehensive and powerful for my OS administration needs.  I know that OpenSUSE tried to make a bigger play for a more casual computer user with the whole Leap/Tumbleweed thing, but I think the OS needs more refinements to make inroads with the casual user.  I also had some of the wireless connection issues that you have mentioned in your posts.

I used to be an Apple guy, until they moved all their machines to soldered on RAM and storage drives, which meant buying a new machine for performance upgrades, and also made operating system changes that inhibited my workflow.  I reached my limit with their forced adoption, sold my Macbook Pro, and haven't looked back.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Tactile on Fri, 23 September 2016, 23:45:46
I found Yast entirely too comprehensive and powerful for my OS administration needs.

So many times back when it was just SuSE linux I would goof things up by confusing YAST. I had just come over from Red Hat & was used to doing things manually. So, when there was a config I wanted to change I'd (completely without thinking) just roll up my sleeves, edit a file or two, and go on down the road.

Then, some time later, I'd pull up YAST to do something and it would throw a hissy fit because some of the config files it used & monitored had been modified outside of YAST.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kekstee on Sat, 24 September 2016, 13:48:06
Laptop & Server: exherbo
Desktop: Arch

Parents PC I don't have an eye on constantly: Fedora... something. Probably time for another dist-upgrade again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 24 September 2016, 16:54:01

I know that OpenSUSE tried to make a bigger play for a more casual computer user

but I think the OS needs more refinements to make inroads with the casual user.

I also had some of the wireless connection issues that you have mentioned in your posts.


If OpenSUSE wants to attract casual users, they need to encourage the "gurus" on their forum to not be such epically smug arrogant condescending *******s. I tried to get help on several issues, and generally followed the unspoken rules of being polite, setting the context of the question and the situation where help was needed, and thanking those who helped me.

Of a couple of dozen people who I interacted with over a couple of months' period, there were about 2 who were actually "nice" but not necessarily all that helpful, and quite a few who responded to my questions as if I had invited them to lambast and insult me, without even offering any sort of help. Or cryptic partial/incomplete "answers" that would only be intelligible to an insider.

And worst, some of my problems, such as connectivity issues (wired and wireless) were simply ignored altogether. The whole reason that I selected OpenSUSE was because it seemed to be deeply ingrained in servers and such, so I assumed that help and support in connectivity would be forthcoming.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wsaile on Sat, 24 September 2016, 17:02:42
Debian and Arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 24 September 2016, 17:24:20

I know that OpenSUSE tried to make a bigger play for a more casual computer user

but I think the OS needs more refinements to make inroads with the casual user.

I also had some of the wireless connection issues that you have mentioned in your posts.


If OpenSUSE wants to attract casual users, they need to encourage the "gurus" on their forum to not be such epically smug arrogant condescending *******s. I tried to get help on several issues, and generally followed the unspoken rules of being polite, setting the context of the question and the situation where help was needed, and thanking those who helped me.

Of a couple of dozen people who I interacted with over a couple of months' period, there were about 2 who were actually "nice" but not necessarily all that helpful, and quite a few who responded to my questions as if I had invited them to lambast and insult me, without even offering any sort of help. Or cryptic partial/incomplete "answers" that would only be intelligible to an insider.

And worst, some of my problems, such as connectivity issues (wired and wireless) were simply ignored altogether. The whole reason that I selected OpenSUSE was because it seemed to be deeply ingrained in servers and such, so I assumed that help and support in connectivity would be forthcoming.

From what I've read in Debian/Ubuntu/Arch forums what you're describing is pretty common. A new user asks a question and the first response is either something like "thread closed - question has been asked previously by another user" or "your question is incorrect and here is why.." I guess there are a lot of people out there that are frustrated regarding the massive amounts of users that install Linux simply because it is free rather than wanting to get their hands dirty.

My first Linux OS was Linux Mint (Mate) back in 2013 so I'm not exactly a Guru myself. Once I find a few extra HDD/SSD I'll install Distrowatch.com's #1 once again simply because of Ubuntu's (and Ubuntu fans) massive repository. I try to download the large ISOs options to avoid as many driver issues as humanly possible /shrug

Four months of Debian atm. I feel like I'm years behind all other distros but at least I'm not downloading updates that break my packages
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 24 September 2016, 18:44:31

From what I've read in Debian/Ubuntu/Arch forums what you're describing is pretty common. A new user asks a question and the first response is either something like "thread closed - question has been asked previously by another user" or "your question is incorrect and here is why ..."


Back around 2010, when I started in on Ubuntu, I actually found the proper Ubuntu forum to be quite good.

Connectivity issues are particularly perplexing and frustrating when you need help online. I was out of town on a 3-month project living in a hotel with a brand-new laptop that I could not get connected (it worked fine under Windows 7).

An instruction like: "show the results of "x" command" involved things like screenshots to flash drives, re-booting to Windows, etc, etc. Absurd kludge level frustration.

But yes,

"something like "thread closed - question has been asked previously by another user"

or

"your question is incorrect and here is why ..."


are prompts to go postal.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 25 September 2016, 09:15:16
Okay, so you're actually complaining about normal *technical* troubleshooting? Good to know, because…
An instruction like: "show the results of "x" command" involved things like screenshots to flash drives, re-booting to Windows, etc, etc. Absurd kludge level frustration.
…is n00b level 9000.

Been there, done that. Back when I was stuck with a winmodem in 2005-2006. I'm deeply ashamed of some garbage I posted as questions back then.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bullfiniche on Sun, 25 September 2016, 09:43:06
I've used many. At work, there is Redhat, Solaris (I fecking HATE Solaris!), CentOS and even Ubuntu.

At home, at the moment I'm using Deepin.  Pretty nice OS. Before that, it was Antergos and even before that, pure Arch.

I would install Deepen or Antergos at work if I could.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 25 September 2016, 10:20:59
Okay, so you're actually complaining about normal *technical* troubleshooting? Good to know, because…
An instruction like: "show the results of "x" command" involved things like screenshots to flash drives, re-booting to Windows, etc, etc. Absurd kludge level frustration.
…is n00b level 9000.

Been there, done that. Back when I was stuck with a winmodem in 2005-2006. I'm deeply ashamed of some garbage I posted as questions back then.

I am not sure what you are saying, but what else can you do if you can't connect?

My frustration was when I felt like the "advisers" were simply watching me jump through hoops for their own sadistic entertainment. If my efforts are rewarded with answers, then I have no problem, but the majority of the time after giving them what they asked for, they simply went dark. On the OpenSUSE forum, that is. On the Ubuntu forum people seemed genuinely concerned and helpful.

Perhaps my questions were not polished, but they were real and realistic. Perhaps today I might be "embarrassed" that I did not yet "get" some obvious things, but everybody has to start somewhere.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 25 September 2016, 12:16:00
I am not sure what you are saying, but what else can you do if you can't connect?
Command output is *text*, thus copy it into a text file instead of making screenshots, if nothing else. A camera is useful for dealing with kernel panics, but that's not the deal here.

From a different perspective, I would also recommend virtualization (esp. in 2010) for getting familiar with the system… and a shared disk partition.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 28 September 2016, 22:35:20
Finally resized my Debian/Gnome partition to make way for Linux Mint/Cinnamon. glmark2 score doubled but I'm not surprised. And I really like the workspace features of cinnamon
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Happylomo on Thu, 29 September 2016, 08:19:04
I'm running ubuntu 16.04 on my old dell e4300  ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: chancellorr on Tue, 04 October 2016, 23:39:37
Linux Mint user here.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Thu, 27 October 2016, 08:34:43
Linux Mint user here.

Another Linux Mint user here. However:

I switch from their main distro to the Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), which is based on Debian.
Have to wait for something like 2 years for the LMDE 3 to come out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 27 October 2016, 08:47:50
Traded out my Debian Gnome partition for Windows 10 because I'm a traitor. I still have the Linux Mint Cinnamon partition, though. I actually think I'm set for cloning for when I build a new pc
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 27 October 2016, 16:14:41
Linux Mint user here.

Another Linux Mint user here. However:

I switch from their main distro to the Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), which is based on Debian.
Have to wait for something like 2 years for the LMDE 3 to come out.

As someone who uses both Mint (cinnamon) and Debian (openbox), LMDE looks quite nice. However, one of the reasons I use mint over Debian on some of my boxes is because I need the newer kernel for hardware support, and LMDE doesn't provide that out of the box.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 05 November 2016, 18:44:30
I've been looking for a decent lightweight distro to run as a VM over OSX on my 2010 MacBook Pro (dual-core i5, 8GB RAM). Priorities are performance, reliability, and software availability.

Right now I've settled on Linux Lite as it works very nicely so far, having no problems at all. It doesn't seem to have a software center like Ubuntu, on which it's based, though... this makes it a bit more difficult for a nub such as myself.

I did try Lubuntu as it's even more lightweight with LXDE but it had problems as a VM due to having 2 monitors.

I still use ChaletOS sometimes as it's really pleasant to use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 05 November 2016, 19:13:31
I've been looking for a decent lightweight distro to run as a VM over OSX on my 2010 MacBook Pro (dual-core i5, 8GB RAM). Priorities are performance, reliability, and software availability.

Right now I've settled on Linux Lite as it works very nicely so far, having no problems at all. It doesn't seem to have a software center like Ubuntu, on which it's based, though... this makes it a bit more difficult for a nub such as myself.

I did try Lubuntu as it's even more lightweight with LXDE but it had problems as a VM due to having 2 monitors.

I still use ChaletOS sometimes as it's really pleasant to use.

I still have my Linux Lite live cd. That distro would be so amazing on a usb 3.0 flash drive. Linux Lite loads amazingly fast on an older computer like the one I have! Even the Live cd loads quickly on my pc! The distro logo is not so bad as well
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 06 November 2016, 00:04:24
I did some battery testing on various distros a while back, what I found was that most were pretty similar. Despite being "lite" or low resource" they rarely did much better than Ubuntu or Mint with Cinnamon (which are actually quite well optimized). These numbers are a couple months old, I no longer even have the laptop so please do not ask for more tests.

Method:
Tests were done using TOP which isn't a perfect way to get accurate numbers, but I did run the tests 3 times for consistency so numbers may not match real world numbers 1 for 1, they do still tell a tale.

Warning:
If you are going to read this, please read my comments as well, if you only look at the data itself, you will get an incomplete view and draw some incorrect conclusions. The summary at the end is especially important.

TL:DR Read the summary at the bottom


System:
Lenovo X220, 2nd gen Core I5, 16gb ram(?), stock 320 hard dive, bluetooth, with IPS screen

Windows 8.1 @ minimum brighness
Out of the box 10 watts
Lenovo Power management brought it down to 9.8 watts
With an SSD and heavy tweaking I got it down to 6.8 watts.

Out of box wattage use with no power optimizations…
 LXDE  (low power Ubuntu)  - - - - - - - - - 11.3   (I think this was Lubuntu)
Apricity  with Cinnamon (Arch distro)  - - 11.3
Mint Cinnamon - - - - - -  - - -  - - -  - - - -  - -12.3

With TLP and Intel Pstate
LXDE   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11.6  (actually went up!)
Apricity - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - - 11.3  (change was within what I considered margin of error)
Mint Cinnamon - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 9.95  (largest drop) 

With more tweaking and an SSD I got Mint down to 6.8, putting it on par with Windows 8.1
Yes, these are idle numbers, however, real world use the battery life was about 90% of Windows 8.1, which is rare in a Linux laptop, a bit more tuning and I bet I could get it even closer. On the stock 6 cell battery, I could get between 4 and 5 hours, and with the extended 9 cell I could almost reach 9 hours. Remember, this is a 5 year old laptop that weighs under 3 pounds and has a full power I5 processor, not a U series. It can hold its own with modern U series processors. For a total investment of about $300, it's a cheap, workhorse Linux machine.

Strangely, Intel pstate loves PCs and hates Macs, I think usage of it actually interferes with the internal power management or something. Basically if you want to run Linux on mac, research as it's just not quite the same as on a PC and what you do can backfire.

Notes on Peripherals
Sdcard used 0.1 watts
Bluetooth consumed less than 0.1 watt
Logitech Unifying Receiver (older model) 0.5 watt (I have yet to test the newer micro versioon)

This kind of shocked me. I expected bluetooth to be almost on par with the receiver.
 Advice, use Bluetooth instead of a receiver!


Various distro info
Distro  - - boot time min/sec - - - -  % cpu at idle - - - - memory at idle
Mate - - - - - 1:23 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  0-0.1 - - - - - - - - - - - 7.3%
XFCE - - - - -1:13 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0-0.7 - - - - - - - - - - - 11.8%
LXQT - - - - -1:50 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0-0.7 - - - - - - - - - - - 15%
Manjaro Arch Linux distros
KDE - - - - - - 0:21 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  0.7-2.0 - - - - - - - - - 12.7%   (very fast for some reason)
Cinnamon - 0:22 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2-2.5 - - - - - - - - - - 14.7%   (Before installing all updates)
Cinnamon - 1:34 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1.4-2.3 - - - - - - - - - - 14.7%   (not sure why the huge change after updates, CPU load dropped, boot time increased)
Budgie - - -  1:32 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  0.7-2.0 - - - - - - - - - 12.7%     (didn't see if there was a difference before vs after updates)

Nope, not typos!
These numbers are all over the place, however idle is not where you drain your battery, it's when you are under load. So what's the point of these numbers? To prove that they are all over the place and that you shouldn't assume anything.

Regarding memory... You want to use it to make the system fast and efficient, so don't assume it using more ram is a bad thing. By this I mean if using 3% more ram for the system results in a 10% speed increase on every app you run, that's a good tradeoff, whereas if lowering system memory use by 2% causes every app to run 10% slower, did you really make it more efficient?  How it's used is far more important than how much is used, however a lot of people equate using more as instantly meaning less efficient and it's simply not true.

Note regarding Manjaro:  Despite saying not to assume anything, I can assure you, a true Arch install with Cinnamon would run better/more consistent than Manjaro did here (If you did it right!). I used Manjaro because it made for an easy way to test various desktop environments on Arch quickly and I thought consistently, however, it's obvious not all are created equal. This is not meant to criticize or disparage Manjaro or its users, these are just the numbers I recorded at the time.  It's a good way to try Arch, which can be a bear to install, and may have just been a fluke. Regardless, if you love it, by all means keep using it.


Summary, so what does this all mean?
While these do give an indication as to how efficient the underlying OS runs, they tell a very incomplete story, the reason for that is optimization. Looking at these numbers you would think that Mate or another older environment would be the lightest to use, and that's true, at idle and if you're building a file server, it makes a great choice. Where things get dicey is when you need to render something like a web page or video, at which newer protocols and optimizations actually make Gnome3 and the like more efficient, IF you have a newer processor that supports them.

My advice, if you have and an older system such as an Atom powered netbook or a VM without VT, sure, use Mate or LXDE. the processor is too old and slow to really take advantage of newer protocols and optimizations so it's going to use extra cpu to browse and watch video. However, if you have a newer processor/video card, use a newer desktop environment and take advantage of those optimizations as they can actually consume less battery than those older environments when doing more cpu intensive tasks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 06 November 2016, 11:07:51
I've been looking for a decent lightweight distro to run as a VM over OSX on my 2010 MacBook Pro (dual-core i5, 8GB RAM). Priorities are performance, reliability, and software availability.

Right now I've settled on Linux Lite as it works very nicely so far, having no problems at all. It doesn't seem to have a software center like Ubuntu, on which it's based, though... this makes it a bit more difficult for a nub such as myself.

I did try Lubuntu as it's even more lightweight with LXDE but it had problems as a VM due to having 2 monitors.

I still use ChaletOS sometimes as it's really pleasant to use.

I still have my Linux Lite live cd. That distro would be so amazing on a usb 3.0 flash drive. Linux Lite loads amazingly fast on an older computer like the one I have! Even the Live cd loads quickly on my pc! The distro logo is not so bad as well

The latest release (3.2) is very quick and attractive. It runs well on only 2-3 GB of RAM so it works on my old MBP with only 8 GB of RAM (OS X is a resource hog IMO).

With no applications open, it uses around 250-300 MB of RAM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 10 November 2016, 17:29:04
Today I installed the new Linux Mint 18 compatible low latency kernel/headers. I'll test it for the next week or so but so far a lot of my audio artifacts are gone. We'll see

edit (Nov. 17, 2016) - Yep. That actually solved my artifacting problem :)

edit (Dec. 22, 2016) - A month into low latency kernel usage. Still ok
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 10 November 2016, 20:57:50
hm, still using void here. never had a distro work so well and make me not want to touch anything else since the old rc days of arch and pre-systemd debian :O
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: danwomansan on Fri, 11 November 2016, 22:13:52
arch with xfce
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 13 November 2016, 10:07:05
hm, still using void here. never had a distro work so well and make me not want to touch anything else since the old rc days of arch and pre-systemd debian :O

Void, ftw.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SpAmRaY on Wed, 16 November 2016, 22:28:30
Shout out to everyone talking about Mint  with Cinnamon, this is pretty sweet.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 17 November 2016, 07:20:51
It's not that it's sweet, it just works fine. And has decent 4K integration.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: armatus on Sun, 20 November 2016, 09:39:01
my wife use LMDE - rock stable as debian, usability of mint
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 20 November 2016, 10:42:23
Looking for help.

Decent but aging Acer laptop dual-booting Windows 10 (upgrade from factory Windows 7 install) and Mint 18/Cinnamon.

It has worked perfectly since my last major upgrade a few months ago, but now it will not boot into Mint.

It almost gets there, but then it tells me that Cinnamon has crashed. Regardless of where I try to go from there, it hangs dead until I shut it down with the power button.

Booting into Windows works properly, and grub seems to be doing its job.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 20 November 2016, 11:18:57
my wife use LMDE - rock stable as debian, usability of mint

I still prefer XFCE, always have. It is SO friggin' fast and got everything you need from a DM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 20 November 2016, 13:59:32
Looking for help.

Decent but aging Acer laptop dual-booting Windows 10 (upgrade from factory Windows 7 install) and Mint 18/Cinnamon.

It has worked perfectly since my last major upgrade a few months ago, but now it will not boot into Mint.

It almost gets there, but then it tells me that Cinnamon has crashed. Regardless of where I try to go from there, it hangs dead until I shut it down with the power button.

Booting into Windows works properly, and grub seems to be doing its job.

Since it's a laptop, I assume it's two partitions on the same drive?

Have you tried switching over to tty after booting mint? ctrl-alt-f1 should get you to a shell that would at least allow some troubleshooting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 20 November 2016, 16:27:47
It almost gets there, but then it tells me that Cinnamon has crashed. Regardless of where I try to go from there, it hangs dead until I shut it down with the power button.
Sounds familiar...
Did you happen to update yesterday and what level are you using for updates?
Default is level 3 for Mint Update, apt update is level 4, experimental/testing is level 5.

I know upstream there is a bug that causes this, but I'm not sure it's even in the Mint/Ubuntu repos yet. If it is, it would be level 5.
Here is the bug.
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/51818
If it does sound familiar, let me know, their solutions are either bad (rolling back) or incomplete (lacking specifics because they assume you know).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 20 November 2016, 16:29:30

Since it's a laptop, I assume it's two partitions on the same drive?

Have you tried switching over to tty after booting mint? ctrl-alt-f1 should get you to a shell that would at least allow some troubleshooting.

Yes, 2 partitions on a single hard drive.

Mint will not boot.

Before I ever get an opportunity to do anything, I get the "Cinnamon has crashed" screen with something like "Do you want to go to fallback mode: yes or no?" and the computer is dead at that point. Neither "yes" nor "no" produces any response at all.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 20 November 2016, 16:36:23

Did you happen to update yesterday and what level are you using for updates?
Default is level 3 for Mint Update, apt update is level 4, experimental/testing is level 5.


No, I am a "Plain Jane" user and only want stable releases. There was an 18 to 18.1 update for Mint a while back that I did, but I am pretty sure that it has been working properly since then.

I use Windows 10 at least half the time on the laptop, and when I feel like updating Mint (about once every 2 weeks or less unless something comes up) I use "update" and sometimes "dist-upgrade" so maybe that nabbed a more experimental level than I was expecting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 20 November 2016, 17:17:29
Using Apt upgrade and dist-upgrade is level4, which Mint considers unsafe, keep in mind, they're definition of unsafe is VERY different than Microsoft's but could be where the trouble came from.

Give me a few minutes and I will check and see if mine suffers the same fate.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 20 November 2016, 17:58:07
The only thing I saw today was a firmware update.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 20 November 2016, 18:24:11
I guess you're not able to enter into a tty session? I avoid level 5 and install level 1-4 pretty much when they're available.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 20 November 2016, 19:18:58

Using Apt upgrade and dist-upgrade is level4,


Holy cow! I did not know that.

I might just re-install, I can survive the loss of whatever little is there.
I rarely keep anything of real importance on the laptop only.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: YoshiCaps on Wed, 23 November 2016, 09:29:06
I tried ubuntu and it was nice but I didn't like the lack of progams. I  dual booted on an old computer of mine but I gave up after lack of programs. At work I'm forced to use chrome os.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 23 November 2016, 15:59:15
Actually, Linux may not have as much, but what it does have is often comparable and sometimes better than Windows.

The problem is your familiarity with windows, you would have the same problem had you switched to Mac. So why don't you hear Mac users complain?  Because Mac users didn't have the option of switching back to Windows to make things easy, it was sink or swim. With Linux, it's easy to just give up after a quick search and boot back into Windows to get the job done, so you never had to dig deep and actually learn where to find these programs. I did this, as have most people who tried Linux, it's human nature, we stick to what we know.

Besides top tier games (it has plenty of games, just not new top tier),  I've only found one place Linux truly lacks compared to Windows, and that is Cad programs. Mac only has slightly better CAD support, but what it gains in CAD it gives up in 3d printing support.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: YoshiCaps on Wed, 23 November 2016, 16:00:30
Actually, Linux may not have as much, but what it does have is often comparable and sometimes better than Windows.

The problem is your familiarity with windows, you would have the same problem had you switched to Mac. So why don't you hear Mac users complain?  Because Mac users didn't have the option of switching back to Windows to make things easy, it was sink or swim. With Linux, it's easy to just give up after a quick search and boot back into Windows to get the job done, so you never had to dig deep and actually learn where to find these programs. I did this, as have most people who tried Linux, it's human nature, we stick to what we know.

Besides top tier games (it has plenty of games, just not new top tier),  I've only found one place Linux truly lacks compared to Windows, and that is Cad programs. Mac only has slightly better CAD support, but what it gains in CAD it gives up in 3d printing support.

Youre right.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 23 November 2016, 19:08:34
Actually, Linux may not have as much, but what it does have is often comparable and sometimes better than Windows.

The problem is your familiarity with windows, you would have the same problem had you switched to Mac. So why don't you hear Mac users complain?  Because Mac users didn't have the option of switching back to Windows to make things easy, it was sink or swim. With Linux, it's easy to just give up after a quick search and boot back into Windows to get the job done, so you never had to dig deep and actually learn where to find these programs. I did this, as have most people who tried Linux, it's human nature, we stick to what we know.

Besides top tier games (it has plenty of games, just not new top tier),  I've only found one place Linux truly lacks compared to Windows, and that is Cad programs. Mac only has slightly better CAD support, but what it gains in CAD it gives up in 3d printing support.

i say this as a dedicated and experienced linux user - dedicated bitmap graphics manipulation and audio recording are also definitely not up to par on linux. i keep a macOS machine around pretty specifically for photoshop and logic pro. yes, there are OPTIONS for linux but still nothing that comes close to professional bitmap graphics or daw software available for macOS or windows.

and yeah i have spent many hours using gimp productively but anybody who argues that gimp is comparable to photoshop hasn't used either enough to convince me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 23 November 2016, 19:34:33
Actually, Linux may not have as much, but what it does have is often comparable and sometimes better than Windows.

The problem is your familiarity with windows, you would have the same problem had you switched to Mac. So why don't you hear Mac users complain?  Because Mac users didn't have the option of switching back to Windows to make things easy, it was sink or swim. With Linux, it's easy to just give up after a quick search and boot back into Windows to get the job done, so you never had to dig deep and actually learn where to find these programs. I did this, as have most people who tried Linux, it's human nature, we stick to what we know.

Besides top tier games (it has plenty of games, just not new top tier),  I've only found one place Linux truly lacks compared to Windows, and that is Cad programs. Mac only has slightly better CAD support, but what it gains in CAD it gives up in 3d printing support.

i say this as a dedicated and experienced linux user - dedicated bitmap graphics manipulation and audio recording are also definitely not up to par on linux. i keep a macOS machine around pretty specifically for photoshop and logic pro. yes, there are OPTIONS for linux but still nothing that comes close to professional bitmap graphics or daw software available for macOS or windows.

and yeah i have spent many hours using gimp productively but anybody who argues that gimp is comparable to photoshop hasn't used either enough to convince me.

What are your thoughts on Inkscape? I know that as far as brushes and plugins go there's no contest between Gimp/Photoshop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 23 November 2016, 19:35:24
Actually, Linux may not have as much, but what it does have is often comparable and sometimes better than Windows.

The problem is your familiarity with windows, you would have the same problem had you switched to Mac. So why don't you hear Mac users complain?  Because Mac users didn't have the option of switching back to Windows to make things easy, it was sink or swim. With Linux, it's easy to just give up after a quick search and boot back into Windows to get the job done, so you never had to dig deep and actually learn where to find these programs. I did this, as have most people who tried Linux, it's human nature, we stick to what we know.

Besides top tier games (it has plenty of games, just not new top tier),  I've only found one place Linux truly lacks compared to Windows, and that is Cad programs. Mac only has slightly better CAD support, but what it gains in CAD it gives up in 3d printing support.

i say this as a dedicated and experienced linux user - dedicated bitmap graphics manipulation and audio recording are also definitely not up to par on linux. i keep a macOS machine around pretty specifically for photoshop and logic pro. yes, there are OPTIONS for linux but still nothing that comes close to professional bitmap graphics or daw software available for macOS or windows.

and yeah i have spent many hours using gimp productively but anybody who argues that gimp is comparable to photoshop hasn't used either enough to convince me.

What are your thoughts on Inkscape? I know that as far as brushes and plugins go there's no contest between Gimp/Photoshop.

i dont really have any experience with vector graphics, but i have heard good things about inkscape (better comparisons to illustrator than gimp to photoshop).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 23 November 2016, 23:37:10
Actually, Linux may not have as much, but what it does have is often comparable and sometimes better than Windows.

The problem is your familiarity with windows, you would have the same problem had you switched to Mac. So why don't you hear Mac users complain?  Because Mac users didn't have the option of switching back to Windows to make things easy, it was sink or swim. With Linux, it's easy to just give up after a quick search and boot back into Windows to get the job done, so you never had to dig deep and actually learn where to find these programs. I did this, as have most people who tried Linux, it's human nature, we stick to what we know.

Besides top tier games (it has plenty of games, just not new top tier),  I've only found one place Linux truly lacks compared to Windows, and that is Cad programs. Mac only has slightly better CAD support, but what it gains in CAD it gives up in 3d printing support.
i say this as a dedicated and experienced linux user - dedicated bitmap graphics manipulation and audio recording are also definitely not up to par on linux. i keep a macOS machine around pretty specifically for photoshop and logic pro. yes, there are OPTIONS for linux but still nothing that comes close to professional bitmap graphics or daw software available for macOS or windows.

and yeah i have spent many hours using gimp productively but anybody who argues that gimp is comparable to photoshop hasn't used either enough to convince me.

I totally agree with you, my point was just that it's not the wasteland it can appear to be.
Gimp drives me insane, but I do know people who actually do incredibly well with it (I run Photoshop through Wine). I've heard good things about Krita, but I believe it's geared more towards drawing than photo manipulation.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 24 November 2016, 07:57:09

Gimp drives me insane,


I have gotten used to Gimp and like it pretty well (the un-re-learning curve was difficult) but occasionally I run into something completely retarded.

Recently, for example, I (re-) discovered that a simple "photomerge" of splicing a panorama of 3 photos side-by-side is a heartbreaking nightmare kludge.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Thu, 22 December 2016, 13:01:32
Interesting development in the openSUSE world that I completely missed.  Some folks have attempted to make openSUSE a little more user friendly with Gecko Linux.   I welcome this development, because stock openSUSE seems to always have some annoying problems for the average user.

https://distrowatch.com/table-mobile.php?distribution=gecko
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 22 December 2016, 19:50:19
I've been trying Fedora 25 in a VM recently.

Reasonably nice, performs very well, good selection of software available.

Bit there are hundreds of MB of updates every few days (including kernels that require a reboot), and the yum command has been replaced by dnf with subtly different options.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Steinberg2010 on Thu, 22 December 2016, 22:09:48
Arch - Pacman all the way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 23 December 2016, 07:00:02
I've been trying Fedora 25 in a VM recently.

Reasonably nice, performs very well, good selection of software available.

Bit there are hundreds of MB of updates every few days (including kernels that require a reboot), and the yum command has been replaced by dnf with subtly different options.

for some reason i was under the impression that fedora didn't update that often because of their aggressive release schedule. but i have never really used it unless it was already installed on a machine i was temporarily using.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 23 December 2016, 19:15:42
So I got one of those convertible laptop things.  I tried out Unity, GNOME, and KDE for their touchscreen functionality.  GNOME actually does a pretty good job for touchscreen functionality if you add a few extensions.  I never thought I would say this, but GNOME isn't that bad.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: happylacquer on Sat, 24 December 2016, 21:28:40
Debian for machines I use, sometimes KNOPPIX.

Gentoo or CentOS for servers I run.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 27 December 2016, 04:24:28
I've been trying Fedora 25 in a VM recently.

Reasonably nice, performs very well, good selection of software available.

Bit there are hundreds of MB of updates every few days (including kernels that require a reboot), and the yum command has been replaced by dnf with subtly different options.

for some reason i was under the impression that fedora didn't update that often because of their aggressive release schedule. but i have never really used it unless it was already installed on a machine i was temporarily using.

I have no idea.  I started using it recently as a replacement for CentOS 7, which although a recent version still has a lot of legacy software.  I needed something a bit more cutting-edge, but not as extreme as Arch (which I've also tried).

It didn't hurt to try Fedora in a VM, but I have found that there are a couple of hundred MB of updates every week or so.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 27 December 2016, 06:01:50
Debian for machines I use, sometimes KNOPPIX.

Gentoo or CentOS for servers I run.

I used Gentoo until about 10 years ago, anytime I've tried to install since has failed (it's been at least a couple of years since the last attempt...) but it's tempting to try it when I get a working computer again.

Can't help wondering why you only use it on servers though, it was always a bit experimental with stuff randomly breaking so not something I'd want on my server - have things changed that much?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hgoel89 on Tue, 27 December 2016, 06:56:09
Ubuntu at home and office

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 27 December 2016, 14:41:04
Can't help wondering why you only use it on servers though, it was always a bit experimental with stuff randomly breaking so not something I'd want on my server - have things changed that much?

job security

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Wed, 28 December 2016, 10:21:40
my wife use LMDE - rock stable as debian, usability of mint

That's also my choice, paired with MATE.
LMDE3 release is probably in 2018 though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Wed, 28 December 2016, 10:24:42
Not Linux but I've been toying with the idea of FreeBSD + XFCE.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 28 December 2016, 16:20:51
Not Linux but I've been toying with the idea of FreeBSD + XFCE.

do it then homey

i really liked openBSD but some of its security features don't lend themselves to desktop usage. if i need to set up a server for near anything in the future i'd use it in a heartbeat. the documentation alone is unbeatable -- you get man pages for config files and everything! plus centralized style guides and editing means no wimpy docs like a lot of linux programs come with.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ramnes on Sun, 15 January 2017, 09:53:37
Debian for machines I use, sometimes KNOPPIX.

Gentoo or CentOS for servers I run.

I used Gentoo until about 10 years ago, anytime I've tried to install since has failed (it's been at least a couple of years since the last attempt...) but it's tempting to try it when I get a working computer again.

Can't help wondering why you only use it on servers though, it was always a bit experimental with stuff randomly breaking so not something I'd want on my server - have things changed that much?

In my company we're running something like a hundred servers (I think, maybe more) on Gentoo for some years now, and we really don't want to change. We're also all using it as our desktop system in my team.

Gentoo is not experimental at all, but clearly you have to know what you're doing. And if you want to be serious about security on Linux, a hardened Gentoo is probably one of the best experience you can get.

Using Gentoo on servers is exactly where it makes the most sense to me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _BMW_M3_ on Sun, 15 January 2017, 20:42:05
Ubuntu 14.04 w/ Remnux :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 16 January 2017, 17:14:40
I talked about this earlier in this thread, but I've finally done it: moved out of Apple's ecosystem and built my own rig (i7 6700K - 64GB DDR4 - 512GB NVME SSD + 512 GB 850 Pro, 980 GTX OC).

I'm now running Xubuntu with XFCE alongside Win7. Man, XFCE is the BEST desktop environment ever, really. I'm a power user, I want to manage windows, launching apps, stitching windows, etc effectively. That's all. And XFCE does JUST THAT. Everything has sane default behavior.

OS X always slowed me down because of "animations" and so-called "usability". But XFCE is just... so nice and clean. It's like Win95 on steroids.

And guess what? There is this thread about on what linux lags behind on the desktop. But Xubuntu turned out to be the ONLY distro that worked right out of the box. Because my motherboard no longer supports AHCI and switched to EHCI or XHCI? not sure how it's called.. anyway. Win7 didn't recognize my hardware.

Xubuntu just worked. Everything. Out of the box. Sound, accelerated graphics, NVME even. Immediately. I was amazed. Within 10-15 minutes or so I was up and running at the maximum resolution of my screen (2560x1440), with accelerated graphics and even out-of-the box support for my Scarlett 2i2 external sound card (interface).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 16 January 2017, 17:30:20

Xubuntu just worked. Everything. Out of the box.


So far, this has been my experience with Mint/Cinnamon, with more pleasing interface to boot.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 16 January 2017, 17:37:10

Xubuntu just worked. Everything. Out of the box.


So far, this has been my experience with Mint/Cinnamon, with more pleasing interface to boot.

Couldn't agree more, I've been using Mint as well only not on my new rig. Both work extremely well so far.

I also have a server still on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS that has been running 24/7. Never a single hiccup or issue *knock on wood*.

Even though people argue that linux quality is downhill because the kernel is becoming more bloated and the "hobbyists" don't like maintaining their code and thus not fixing bugs enough, I still have the feeling that GNU/linux distros are far superior in stability than windows or even macos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 16 January 2017, 19:41:56
I'm a power user
Why don't you use a tiling window manager then?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Mon, 16 January 2017, 20:50:21
Linux Lite has been working beautifully for me as a desktop OS (mostly in VM). Lighweight, attractive, runs like a champ in VM on a 2010 MacBook Pro 17" 8GB i5.

It hasn't missed a beat so far.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ramnes on Tue, 17 January 2017, 09:35:11
I'm a power user
Why don't you use a tiling window manager then?

This. :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 17 January 2017, 17:50:17
I'm a power user
Why don't you use a tiling window manager then?

This. :D

I do. I switch between i3 and XFCE. My whole remark was more about how win10 and OS X Sierra got it so "wrong" in my opinion and that if you want a REGULAR DE for real work, XFCE is superior (compared to OS X and windows nowadays).

When I do writing and research online, I use XFCE.

When I am programming I use i3 and/or terminal using tmux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Tue, 17 January 2017, 22:28:51
I do. I switch between i3 and XFCE. My whole remark was more about how win10 and OS X Sierra got it so "wrong" in my opinion and that if you want a REGULAR DE for real work, XFCE is superior (compared to OS X and windows nowadays).

When I do writing and research online, I use XFCE.

When I am programming I use i3 and/or terminal using tmux.

XFCE is really hard to beat. Fast, efficient, flexible, attractive.

MacOS seems to be getting slow and bloated these days, unfortunately (as has iOS).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 17 January 2017, 22:33:17
Rendering with Blender is faster on Linux praise the gods. Seven months--this may be the start of something grand :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 18 January 2017, 12:43:00
I do. I switch between i3 and XFCE. My whole remark was more about how win10 and OS X Sierra got it so "wrong" in my opinion and that if you want a REGULAR DE for real work, XFCE is superior (compared to OS X and windows nowadays).

When I do writing and research online, I use XFCE.

When I am programming I use i3 and/or terminal using tmux.

XFCE is really hard to beat. Fast, efficient, flexible, attractive.

MacOS seems to be getting slow and bloated these days, unfortunately (as has iOS).

Yeah exactly. MacOS now feels like Vista. I always thought OS X was more optimized so one day I was using somebody's i5 PC and I was like "wtf it's fast". So then I decided to build my own rig again. It is SOOO FAAAST. Whenever I use my 2010 MacBook Pro (WITH SSD) now, I become agitated because it's so slow.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: happylacquer on Wed, 18 January 2017, 15:12:52
Apparently Debian8.7.0 is out now so I did a clean install of that on my spare SSD. All my laptops are running Debian 8.6.0 and i have one ARM TV Box running ARMbian instead of Android.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 18 January 2017, 16:33:14
Apparently Debian8.7.0 is out now so I did a clean install of that on my spare SSD. All my laptops are running Debian 8.6.0 and i have one ARM TV Box running ARMbian instead of Android.

I haven't touch vanilla debian since the death of it's founder and alleged NSA infringement. I stay the hell away from that sh*t.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Wed, 18 January 2017, 18:20:54
I do. I switch between i3 and XFCE. My whole remark was more about how win10 and OS X Sierra got it so "wrong" in my opinion and that if you want a REGULAR DE for real work, XFCE is superior (compared to OS X and windows nowadays).

When I do writing and research online, I use XFCE.

When I am programming I use i3 and/or terminal using tmux.

XFCE is really hard to beat. Fast, efficient, flexible, attractive.

MacOS seems to be getting slow and bloated these days, unfortunately (as has iOS).

Yeah exactly. MacOS now feels like Vista. I always thought OS X was more optimized so one day I was using somebody's i5 PC and I was like "wtf it's fast". So then I decided to build my own rig again. It is SOOO FAAAST. Whenever I use my 2010 MacBook Pro (WITH SSD) now, I become agitated because it's so slow.

I have a 2010 MacBook Pro as well (17"). MacOS Sierra runs poorly on it, so I have El Capitan still. But even that runs pretty dismal -- especially Safari.

But when I boot to either Windows or Linux Lite, it runs like a champ. I can smooth stream 3 YouTube videos in 1080p simultaneously and scrub through them quickly with no hiccups, while OSX Safari struggles heavily with just one 1080p video.

I might ditch OSX from it altogether at some point and just use Win/Linux on it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 18 January 2017, 20:36:26
not to go too OT but i'm curious about all this sierra hate, other than performance which is totally reasonable. maybe my workflow is just totally unaffected by recent changes but honestly i can't really tell the difference between sierra and the last few revisions.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 19 January 2017, 05:13:51
I do. I switch between i3 and XFCE. My whole remark was more about how win10 and OS X Sierra got it so "wrong" in my opinion and that if you want a REGULAR DE for real work, XFCE is superior (compared to OS X and windows nowadays).

When I do writing and research online, I use XFCE.

When I am programming I use i3 and/or terminal using tmux.

XFCE is really hard to beat. Fast, efficient, flexible, attractive.

MacOS seems to be getting slow and bloated these days, unfortunately (as has iOS).

Yeah exactly. MacOS now feels like Vista. I always thought OS X was more optimized so one day I was using somebody's i5 PC and I was like "wtf it's fast". So then I decided to build my own rig again. It is SOOO FAAAST. Whenever I use my 2010 MacBook Pro (WITH SSD) now, I become agitated because it's so slow.

I have a 2010 MacBook Pro as well (17"). MacOS Sierra runs poorly on it, so I have El Capitan still. But even that runs pretty dismal -- especially Safari.

But when I boot to either Windows or Linux Lite, it runs like a champ. I can smooth stream 3 YouTube videos in 1080p simultaneously and scrub through them quickly with no hiccups, while OSX Safari struggles heavily with just one 1080p video.

I might ditch OSX from it altogether at some point and just use Win/Linux on it.

Interesting... perhaps if I install xubuntu it will fly again. Weird. Wonder what happened to the codebase of OS X. Or "software implemented planned obsolescence"..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 19 January 2017, 05:15:52
not to go too OT but i'm curious about all this sierra hate, other than performance which is totally reasonable. maybe my workflow is just totally unaffected by recent changes but honestly i can't really tell the difference between sierra and the last few revisions.

Great that Sierra works for you, but if you would build a new decent PC now and then compare side by side commont tasks: open a filebrowser, open a webpage, click through menus and dialogs in applications, saving a file, emptying trash, etc. you will notice a large gap in "responsiveness". Sierra on my macbook pro from 2010 is extremely slow. My new build is snappy and extremely fast. And by that I don't mean computations or a high workload, just the regular stuff already.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 19 January 2017, 16:49:56
not to go too OT but i'm curious about all this sierra hate, other than performance which is totally reasonable. maybe my workflow is just totally unaffected by recent changes but honestly i can't really tell the difference between sierra and the last few revisions.
It needs more ram than many Mac users have and it's quite fickle in regards to the hardware it supports. Apple is using it and El Cap. to purge older hardware from their ranks.

It also implemented some new security features that are causing problems for hardware and software, and some were simply not well thought out. A lot of video cards simply no longer work, others will not resume from suspend, there's really only a handful of video cards that work problem free now out of the box. As of Sierra, connecting to a server's shared drive requires authentication after each restart, Apple eventually released of command line code to reverse it, but if you use a lot of shared drives, especially across multiple servers, it was/is a nightmare.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 20 January 2017, 07:51:12
not to go too OT but i'm curious about all this sierra hate, other than performance which is totally reasonable. maybe my workflow is just totally unaffected by recent changes but honestly i can't really tell the difference between sierra and the last few revisions.
It needs more ram than many Mac users have and it's quite fickle in regards to the hardware it supports. Apple is using it and El Cap. to purge older hardware from their ranks.

It also implemented some new security features that are causing problems for hardware and software, and some were simply not well thought out. A lot of video cards simply no longer work, others will not resume from suspend, there's really only a handful of video cards that work problem free now out of the box. As of Sierra, connecting to a server's shared drive requires authentication after each restart, Apple eventually released of command line code to reverse it, but if you use a lot of shared drives, especially across multiple servers, it was/is a nightmare.

It really IS a nightmare. I have a U2713HM and that is recognised as a TV with only 1920x1080. So What I have to do is manually install a device identifier file into the system files so that the resolutions are recognized properly (2560x1440). Guess what? You can't do it because system files are protected. So you have to (1) reboot into safe mode (2) disable system file protection (3) reboot back into normal mode, copy the ESID-file into play (4) reboot back into safe mode (5) turn system file protection back on (6) reboot. If only there was a way you could temporarily disable it WHILST running wtf apple. Reminds me of Win 95/98 with constant rebooting even to update the registry sometimes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Mon, 23 January 2017, 14:28:38
What do you guys think of the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop?

link to a review (http://www.zdnet.com/article/2017s-best-linux-laptop-the-latest-dell-xps-13/)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 23 January 2017, 14:52:53
What do you guys think of the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop?

link to a review (http://www.zdnet.com/article/2017s-best-linux-laptop-the-latest-dell-xps-13/)

I don't trust Dell laptops anymore after the XPS 13/15 2016 fiasco: a lot of issues with drivers, hardware support, and even hardware issues (overheating for instance).

So although it looks enticing (it does), I'll probably try to stay away from them. Such as shame.. really looks like a MacBook "Pro" competitor.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: asym on Mon, 23 January 2017, 15:37:19
What do you guys think of the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop?

link to a review (http://www.zdnet.com/article/2017s-best-linux-laptop-the-latest-dell-xps-13/)

I have a 2015 XPS 13 Developer Edition and I had to deal with wifi hardware and intermittent blank screen issues early on. After those were worked out it has been relatively smooth sailing. I'm currently running 16.04.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 23 January 2017, 20:46:48
It's a nice laptop on the surface, but like iLLucionist said, they have had some issues.

My advice is grab a last generation Lenovo X series (X250). Is it perfect, does it have all the bells and whistles, is it as cool? Nope, but you will get a great deal on it (half the price of the new Dell), it will be less likely to be stolen yet more durable, reliable, and cheap to repair if anything does happen. Which is why I regularly see 10 year old Lenovos still being used on a semi-regular basis. Also, it will take Linux better than most, it's even certified by Ubuntu as being fully compatible.

Blah blah blah Lenovo spyware... The spyware you know (and remove) is better than the spyware you don't.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Arallu on Mon, 23 January 2017, 21:03:22
..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 24 January 2017, 19:55:53
It's a nice laptop on the surface, but like iLLucionist said, they have had some issues.

My advice is grab a last generation Lenovo X series (X250). Is it perfect, does it have all the bells and whistles, is it as cool? Nope, but you will get a great deal on it (half the price of the new Dell), it will be less likely to be stolen yet more durable, reliable, and cheap to repair if anything does happen. Which is why I regularly see 10 year old Lenovos still being used on a semi-regular basis. Also, it will take Linux better than most, it's even certified by Ubuntu as being fully compatible.

Blah blah blah Lenovo spyware... The spyware you know (and remove) is better than the spyware you don't.

... unless they are still shipping it in the firmware ...

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenovo-busted-stealthily-installing-crapware-via-bios-fresh-windows-installs.shtml
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 25 January 2017, 05:45:37
Again, the spyware you know is better than the spyware you don't.

You can bet Lenovo isn't the only one.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: joey on Wed, 25 January 2017, 05:46:21
Got a new PC on the way, so going to be using voidlinux again soon!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 25 January 2017, 07:47:35
The spyware that doesn't exist is better than the one that does.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 25 January 2017, 10:29:42
Checked out Cruchbang/Bunsen earlier today. Pretty slick indeed
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 26 January 2017, 00:46:57
The spyware that doesn't exist is better than the one that does.
Dell shipped desktops with pre-installed malware, they also shipped ENTERPRISE servers with malware.
Sony was infecting pc's with a rootkit (you can thank them for all modern rootkits).
HP was shipping ENTERPRISE switches and usb sticks with malware.
Asus shipped laptops with malware.
Apple shipped Ipods with Malware and BBC claims 4k apps are infected on their store.
Samsung shipped laptops with a keylogger and cell phones and picture frames with malware.

So tell me again how you're sure your system is clean.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 26 January 2017, 09:45:24
It's a nice laptop on the surface, but like iLLucionist said, they have had some issues.

My advice is grab a last generation Lenovo X series (X250). Is it perfect, does it have all the bells and whistles, is it as cool? Nope, but you will get a great deal on it (half the price of the new Dell), it will be less likely to be stolen yet more durable, reliable, and cheap to repair if anything does happen. Which is why I regularly see 10 year old Lenovos still being used on a semi-regular basis. Also, it will take Linux better than most, it's even certified by Ubuntu as being fully compatible.

Blah blah blah Lenovo spyware... The spyware you know (and remove) is better than the spyware you don't.

I'm probably going for the new X270 with nvme SSD. It has h264/h265 on-die in the cpu (kaby lake) if i'm correctly, so it shouldn't have issues playing 1080p/4k youtube content.

And the keyboard is awesome.

I have to do ACTUAL WORK on laptops, mostly statistiscs (SPSS / R), development (python), and writing, so I want a good keyboard as well.

I HATE the new mackbook pro 2016 keyboard.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 26 January 2017, 09:48:16
The spyware that doesn't exist is better than the one that does.
Dell shipped desktops with pre-installed malware, they also shipped ENTERPRISE servers with malware.
Sony was infecting pc's with a rootkit (you can thank them for all modern rootkits).
HP was shipping ENTERPRISE switches and usb sticks with malware.
Asus shipped laptops with malware.
Apple shipped Ipods with Malware and BBC claims 4k apps are infected on their store.
Samsung shipped laptops with a keylogger and cell phones and picture frames with malware.

So tell me again how you're sure your system is clean.

Ever since there were rumors that win95 came with backdoors, I just accepted that Orwell's 1984 is a reality and that now we're always online, your basically f**ked.

You can think "but I shot facebook down and I avoid google like the plague". But still whenever you visit a site that has google ads or facebook like-button, you are STILL being tracked. And if you could even factor THAT out, you still have ISPs or the mere fact that the NSA monitors all internet traffic anyway since they own the superblocks.

You can't win, you don't have privacy. You can only try to make it more difficult for them, via encryption perhaps.

I haven't figured a way out of this.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 27 January 2017, 00:08:38
Ever since there were rumors that win95 came with backdoors, I just accepted that Orwell's 1984 is a reality and that now we're always online, your basically f**ked.

You can think "but I shot facebook down and I avoid google like the plague". But still whenever you visit a site that has google ads or facebook like-button, you are STILL being tracked. And if you could even factor THAT out, you still have ISPs or the mere fact that the NSA monitors all internet traffic anyway since they own the superblocks.

You can't win, you don't have privacy. You can only try to make it more difficult for them, via encryption perhaps.

I haven't figured a way out of this.

In regards to internet privacy, there are now two schools of thought, hide among the people or stick out and protect yourself.
By burying yourself among the herd, you flood them with data. Use Win10 and Edge, with nothing else installed the idea is that you will get so lost among the herd, no one will ever ID you from your neighbor without a hell of a lot of work. You will also get infected with crap, just like your neighbor. While true on the surface, researchers have been able to sift through AOL data dumps and ID individual users, so it can be done, but sifting through raw data is much more difficult than finding the sore thumb among the crowd.

So really the option is be an easy to spot Linux user, or be a sheep among the flock, hard to spot, but easy to infect. This was proven when the FBI said TOR users are immediately zeroed in on, because why else would you use it and try to be so covert. You may as well paint a target on your head.


If you use Chrome on Windows, you may as well just admit you're part of the herd, but with a numerical ID painted on you, in hot pink. If you do use Chrome on a Mac, you're a hot pink cow with lime green dollar signs. If you use Firefox and Linux, you stick out like an orange cow sitting off to the side like the social outcast you are, but at least you won't catch the fever (or herpes) spreading through the herd.


As for the OS spying on you, realistically, it's not difficult to detect or even stop, spying is pointless if it can't relay information back to a central location. However, to do it right, requires a proxy server where you can analyze everything that comes and goes. I've used them to detect rootkits in the past.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 27 January 2017, 05:44:30
Ever since there were rumors that win95 came with backdoors, I just accepted that Orwell's 1984 is a reality and that now we're always online, your basically f**ked.

You can think "but I shot facebook down and I avoid google like the plague". But still whenever you visit a site that has google ads or facebook like-button, you are STILL being tracked. And if you could even factor THAT out, you still have ISPs or the mere fact that the NSA monitors all internet traffic anyway since they own the superblocks.

You can't win, you don't have privacy. You can only try to make it more difficult for them, via encryption perhaps.

I haven't figured a way out of this.

In regards to internet privacy, there are now two schools of thought, hide among the people or stick out and protect yourself.
By burying yourself among the herd, you flood them with data. Use Win10 and Edge, with nothing else installed the idea is that you will get so lost among the herd, no one will ever ID you from your neighbor without a hell of a lot of work. You will also get infected with crap, just like your neighbor. While true on the surface, researchers have been able to sift through AOL data dumps and ID individual users, so it can be done, but sifting through raw data is much more difficult than finding the sore thumb among the crowd.

So really the option is be an easy to spot Linux user, or be a sheep among the flock, hard to spot, but easy to infect. This was proven when the FBI said TOR users are immediately zeroed in on, because why else would you use it and try to be so covert. You may as well paint a target on your head.


If you use Chrome on Windows, you may as well just admit you're part of the herd, but with a numerical ID painted on you, in hot pink. If you do use Chrome on a Mac, you're a hot pink cow with lime green dollar signs. If you use Firefox and Linux, you stick out like an orange cow sitting off to the side like the social outcast you are, but at least you won't catch the fever (or herpes) spreading through the herd.

This is all very interesting, thanks! I guess you are right. I thought about doubling down on security and going all the way.. using a secure linux, using tor, encrypting all my stuff etc. But like you said, it looks like you have something to hide.

You say it is difficult if you blend into the crowd to notice you. Statistically, that would mean that you deviate little from the mean. As with every algorithm, outliers or extreme deviations from the mean may be interesting. In terms of regression, everybody browsing kittens and 9gag is the mean, but those two persons browsing kiddie pron stand out and do not fit the regression line. So the more you deviate, the more interesting you become for NSA I believe, if you put it in terms of algorithms.

Sorry if that was too much statistics, I'm trying to reason about how the NSA would actually pick you out of the herd, and I guess it is via algorithms, typically based on machine learning and discriminatory analysis. So they need to quantify a way to distinguish the herd from interesting data points (people).

As for the OS spying on you, realistically, it's not difficult to detect or even stop, spying is pointless if it can't relay information back to a central location. However, to do it right, requires a proxy server where you can analyze everything that comes and goes. I've used them to detect rootkits in the past.

I'm NEVER going back to Mac in the near foreseeable future and I'm now running Win7, which I really like. But in the future I will be forced to upgrade to Win10 or what else we will have. (Alongside, I run xubuntu alongside and/or virtualized within windows to do serious programming work).

So I'm thinking about building my own hardware router, using iptables etc and then monitoring what win10 tries to do.

Would that be possible? Or is it also technically possible to make particular ip addresses "undetectable" by commonplace network software?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 27 January 2017, 06:40:24
The spyware that doesn't exist is better than the one that does.
Dell shipped desktops with pre-installed malware, they also shipped ENTERPRISE servers with malware.
Sony was infecting pc's with a rootkit (you can thank them for all modern rootkits).
HP was shipping ENTERPRISE switches and usb sticks with malware.
Asus shipped laptops with malware.
Apple shipped Ipods with Malware and BBC claims 4k apps are infected on their store.
Samsung shipped laptops with a keylogger and cell phones and picture frames with malware.

So tell me again how you're sure your system is clean.
It has an OPEN SOURCE BIOS and an OPEN SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEM. Also I wipe it with a CLEAN CLOTH.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 27 January 2017, 08:45:45
It's a nice laptop on the surface, but like iLLucionist said, they have had some issues.

My advice is grab a last generation Lenovo X series (X250). Is it perfect, does it have all the bells and whistles, is it as cool? Nope, but you will get a great deal on it (half the price of the new Dell), it will be less likely to be stolen yet more durable, reliable, and cheap to repair if anything does happen. Which is why I regularly see 10 year old Lenovos still being used on a semi-regular basis. Also, it will take Linux better than most, it's even certified by Ubuntu as being fully compatible.

Blah blah blah Lenovo spyware... The spyware you know (and remove) is better than the spyware you don't.

I'm probably going for the new X270 with nvme SSD. It has h264/h265 on-die in the cpu (kaby lake) if i'm correctly, so it shouldn't have issues playing 1080p/4k youtube content.

And the keyboard is awesome.

I have to do ACTUAL WORK on laptops, mostly statistiscs (SPSS / R), development (python), and writing, so I want a good keyboard as well.

I HATE the new mackbook pro 2016 keyboard.

I would just bump up to a quad core if you have to do actual work.  Everytime I try to do actual work on a dual core laptop, there are just too much throttling and bottlenecks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 27 January 2017, 08:48:26
It's a nice laptop on the surface, but like iLLucionist said, they have had some issues.

My advice is grab a last generation Lenovo X series (X250). Is it perfect, does it have all the bells and whistles, is it as cool? Nope, but you will get a great deal on it (half the price of the new Dell), it will be less likely to be stolen yet more durable, reliable, and cheap to repair if anything does happen. Which is why I regularly see 10 year old Lenovos still being used on a semi-regular basis. Also, it will take Linux better than most, it's even certified by Ubuntu as being fully compatible.

Blah blah blah Lenovo spyware... The spyware you know (and remove) is better than the spyware you don't.

I'm probably going for the new X270 with nvme SSD. It has h264/h265 on-die in the cpu (kaby lake) if i'm correctly, so it shouldn't have issues playing 1080p/4k youtube content.

And the keyboard is awesome.

I have to do ACTUAL WORK on laptops, mostly statistiscs (SPSS / R), development (python), and writing, so I want a good keyboard as well.

I HATE the new mackbook pro 2016 keyboard.

I would just bump up to a quad core if you have to do actual work.  Everytime I try to do actual work on a dual core laptop, there are just too much throttling and bottlenecks.

Yeah that's probably true. My Late 2010 MacBook Pro with dual core i7 is not really good at multithreading for some reason. It always fails me.

Also, I have the feeling that virtualization works waaaaay better with 4 cores: 2 for main os, 2 for guest os.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Fri, 27 January 2017, 09:13:03
SDF (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDF_Public_Access_Unix_System) a Public Access Unix Shell provider uses NetBSD on primarily DEC Alpha in an attempt to hide from hackers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iwantatrophy on Fri, 27 January 2017, 10:21:33
I am using and loving AntergOS. Feels refreshing from someone coming from KDE and Unity.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 27 January 2017, 11:07:44
It's a nice laptop on the surface, but like iLLucionist said, they have had some issues.

My advice is grab a last generation Lenovo X series (X250). Is it perfect, does it have all the bells and whistles, is it as cool? Nope, but you will get a great deal on it (half the price of the new Dell), it will be less likely to be stolen yet more durable, reliable, and cheap to repair if anything does happen. Which is why I regularly see 10 year old Lenovos still being used on a semi-regular basis. Also, it will take Linux better than most, it's even certified by Ubuntu as being fully compatible.

Blah blah blah Lenovo spyware... The spyware you know (and remove) is better than the spyware you don't.

I'm probably going for the new X270 with nvme SSD. It has h264/h265 on-die in the cpu (kaby lake) if i'm correctly, so it shouldn't have issues playing 1080p/4k youtube content.

And the keyboard is awesome.

I have to do ACTUAL WORK on laptops, mostly statistiscs (SPSS / R), development (python), and writing, so I want a good keyboard as well.

I HATE the new mackbook pro 2016 keyboard.

I would just bump up to a quad core if you have to do actual work.  Everytime I try to do actual work on a dual core laptop, there are just too much throttling and bottlenecks.

Yeah that's probably true. My Late 2010 MacBook Pro with dual core i7 is not really good at multithreading for some reason. It always fails me.

Also, I have the feeling that virtualization works waaaaay better with 4 cores: 2 for main os, 2 for guest os.

Yea, the argument that I've seen around the web is that if you worried about the performance of dual core i5 vs. i7, just bump up to a quad core because that's where you will get a sizeable performance bump.  You lose on size and battery, but will have definite improvements in performance.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Fri, 27 January 2017, 12:18:36

Yea, the argument that I've seen around the web is that if you worried about the performance of dual core i5 vs. i7, just bump up to a quad core because that's where you will get a sizeable performance bump.  You lose on size and battery, but will have definite improvements in performance.

Size yes..  Battery... we got pretty good gating on the intels nowadays..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 27 January 2017, 13:28:54

Yea, the argument that I've seen around the web is that if you worried about the performance of dual core i5 vs. i7, just bump up to a quad core because that's where you will get a sizeable performance bump.  You lose on size and battery, but will have definite improvements in performance.

Size yes..  Battery... we got pretty good gating on the intels nowadays..

If I'm doing CPU-intensive work, I'm plugged in anyway. Ever since I started using notebooks, I am aware when I'm on battery. On battery, I typically stick to (non-flash, non video) webbrowsing and text editing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 28 January 2017, 04:19:35
This is all very interesting, thanks! I guess you are right. I thought about doubling down on security and going all the way.. using a secure linux, using tor, encrypting all my stuff etc. But like you said, it looks like you have something to hide.

You say it is difficult if you blend into the crowd to notice you. Statistically, that would mean that you deviate little from the mean. As with every algorithm, outliers or extreme deviations from the mean may be interesting. In terms of regression, everybody browsing kittens and 9gag is the mean, but those two persons browsing kiddie pron stand out and do not fit the regression line. So the more you deviate, the more interesting you become for NSA I believe, if you put it in terms of algorithms.

Sorry if that was too much statistics, I'm trying to reason about how the NSA would actually pick you out of the herd, and I guess it is via algorithms, typically based on machine learning and discriminatory analysis. So they need to quantify a way to distinguish the herd from interesting data points (people).

Sticking out doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong, it just puts a spotlight on you, IF someone is looking, and few are,. and even if they do, they shouldn't just because you use Linux or anything else. It's a choice, not a criminal's tool. You can hack just as much in Windows as you can on Linux, possibly more due to all the scripts out there for it.

At this point Linux is common enough to not make you stick out too much, but on top of that, with database sorting and queries, if you REALLY want to drill down and find someone, they can.

My advice, run what you want, block what you can, and stop worrying about the things you cannot change. It's more than most people bother to do.

Another trick I do is use Opendns, if you never ping their site, they can't track you.


I'm NEVER going back to Mac in the near foreseeable future and I'm now running Win7, which I really like. But in the future I will be forced to upgrade to Win10 or what else we will have. (Alongside, I run xubuntu alongside and/or virtualized within windows to do serious programming work).

So I'm thinking about building my own hardware router, using iptables etc and then monitoring what win10 tries to do.

Would that be possible? Or is it also technically possible to make particular ip addresses "undetectable" by commonplace network software?
Funny, I recently switched to a (used) Mac (I looooove the battery life), but I still prefer Linux, and Macs are stupid fickle about which ones are good and which are not (hint, most are pure garbage).

Anyhow...
Win7 will become outdated, at some point you really won't have a choice and will have to go to Win10. Companies will not support it on newer hardware, and unlike XP which they waited a long time to kill, this has already started with Win7 thanks to MS, AMD and Intel (Thanks jerks!). Now that they have stopped, other companies will soon follow their lead. I give it 2 years before the average person and even casual enthusiast has to throw in the towel and go to Win10. I hate to say that, but that just seems how it's going. If MS stopped it would be one thing, but Intel and AMD as well, yeah, you're screwed. And it won't be overnight, all will seem well, and then one day you need a new printer or wifi card and you will be scouring store shelves looking for the rare one that still has support.


As for Win10, why build an entire system to monitor and filter it, I find that an insanely complex and costly solution. Shut it off at the source!
Get something like Win10Privacy and have it disable updates, all the IP addresses and domains (you can actually shut down MS updates just by killing the service, but it won't kill telemetry like this will). It's not the easiest or most obvious thing to use, but it's not too terrible. If you can install Windows or Linux or even consider building your firewall/proxy server, you can do it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 28 January 2017, 04:53:14
It has an OPEN SOURCE BIOS and an OPEN SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEM. Also I wipe it with a CLEAN CLOTH.
A clean cloth solves everything!  :))

But seriously, if you actually took the time to install open bios, I tip my hat to you sir, that takes dedication.
If I still had my x220, it would do it, still could happen depending on if I keep the Mac (which I have a love hate relationship with).


Yeah that's probably true. My Late 2010 MacBook Pro with dual core i7 is not really good at multithreading for some reason. It always fails me.

Also, I have the feeling that virtualization works waaaaay better with 4 cores: 2 for main os, 2 for guest os.
Well if Apple knew how to add actual ventilation... I mean seriously, every other system with an I5 or 7 has vents, but Apple? "We have vents, right behind this plastic hinge cover blocking your view of it".  Yeah, that works, what a bunch of morons. Macbook Air speakers also exhaust there.

Check your bios settings, sometimes they conflict with virtual environments. Some manufactures took heat for permanently disabling virtualization in bios (Sony was one of them). It took a decent bios hack to fix it.


In most cases, the jump from I5 to I7 isn't a big deal unless you are doing virtualization. Virtualization is one of the few places where hyperthreading and multi-cores (both help) will really come into play and make a truly noticeable difference.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 28 January 2017, 05:54:51
Sticking out doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong, it just puts a spotlight on you, IF someone is looking, and few are,. and even if they do, they shouldn't just because you use Linux or anything else. It's a choice, not a criminal's tool. You can hack just as much in Windows as you can on Linux, possibly more due to all the scripts out there for it.
NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance (https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extremist-forum-and-its-readers-get-flagged-extra-surveillance)

Anyway, the only solution is to make security the default option. Security without (corporate-governmental) backdoors. Then, idiots won't be able to spout the nonsense, that only suspects encrypt.

Happy Data Protection Day!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 29 January 2017, 06:17:41
Funny, I recently switched to a (used) Mac (I looooove the battery life), but I still prefer Linux, and Macs are stupid fickle about which ones are good and which are not (hint, most are pure garbage).

I switched to PC (Linux or Win7) because of 3 reasons. Not to bash, but to give some insight into why I made my choice, because I thought 2 years about switching away from Mac. Have been using mac since 1997:

1) I cannot buy satisfactorily quick Mac hardware. To top it off, if you push a mac to its edge, it becomes very hot and noisy.

I do stuff like statistical simulations, deployment testing where I have multiple virtual machines automatically testing my software. And I do photography with Lightroom. Macs just don't cut it. You pay 4 times what you would pay for a PC AND STILL have half the specs. Which brings me to price.
 
2) Price. Macs are 4 times more expensive and still have less features.

My machine cost me 2700 dollars. For that I have 512GB nvme ssd, 512GB normal ssd, GeForce 980 DC2 OC, 64GB DDR4, 6700K AND all Noctua cooling and a Fractal Define R5 with a sick power supply. My computer consumes max. 380-420W and I have a 700W power supply that stays 100% silent (no fans running) up to 80%, so around 560W. My fans and CPU cooler stay around 12 dbA, so inaudible. It bumps up to 15 dbA under full load. If you literally hang your ear near my case, you won't hear anything.

It used to be with Mac that you got all these extras that gave it personality and made it worthwhile. The small Jobs-era details: Mag safe, caps lock button that only enables after 2 seconds of holding the button down preventing accidental presses, keyboard lighting that adjusts to your ambient lighting conditions, etc.

But today the laptops at least are just a PC laptop with an aluminium case with a crappy keyboard and no connectivity (yes I get that USB-c is getting big and mainstream soon). And for the USB-c part, it used to be that at least for a small period of time Apple gave you adapters IN THE BOX. Now, you don't get nothing. You have to buy everything separately.

3) Repairability.

My mum's Mac Mini died. I opened the bad boy up. Guess what? GPU fried. Can I fix it? No. What should I do? Buy a new Mac Mini that is 1.5 times the original price AND get 70% of the performance, with this time the storage and memory soldered on.

I built her a homebrew PC with linux (Xubuntu) and vmware on top of it for MS Office for around 1000 dollars. She got a top-end i5, super silent Noctua everything, 16GB of ram and a 512GB SSD.

Whenever something dies, I can replace it. Myself.

Anyhow...
Win7 will become outdated, at some point you really won't have a choice and will have to go to Win10. Companies will not support it on newer hardware, and unlike XP which they waited a long time to kill, this has already started with Win7 thanks to MS, AMD and Intel (Thanks jerks!). Now that they have stopped, other companies will soon follow their lead. I give it 2 years before the average person and even casual enthusiast has to throw in the towel and go to Win10. I hate to say that, but that just seems how it's going. If MS stopped it would be one thing, but Intel and AMD as well, yeah, you're screwed. And it won't be overnight, all will seem well, and then one day you need a new printer or wifi card and you will be scouring store shelves looking for the rare one that still has support.


As for Win10, why build an entire system to monitor and filter it, I find that an insanely complex and costly solution. Shut it off at the source!
Get something like Win10Privacy and have it disable updates, all the IP addresses and domains (you can actually shut down MS updates just by killing the service, but it won't kill telemetry like this will). It's not the easiest or most obvious thing to use, but it's not too terrible. If you can install Windows or Linux or even consider building your firewall/proxy server, you can do it.

Well, security analysts found that even if you block ip addresses and lock down win10, it has hardcoded telemetry ip addresses into it. So you literally need some way external to you Win10 machine to block off all telemetry communication with the internet.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 29 January 2017, 06:21:53
Well if Apple knew how to add actual ventilation... I mean seriously, every other system with an I5 or 7 has vents, but Apple? "We have vents, right behind this plastic hinge cover blocking your view of it".  Yeah, that works, what a bunch of morons. Macbook Air speakers also exhaust there.

I still feel that Apple computers remain quiet... IF YOU DON'T DO stuff with them (like browsing or text editing). Whenever I run virtual machine, or even a python interpreter in the terminal the fans kick in.

And when I start up Lightroom? Oh man.. it is like a helicopter flying around in my living room.

Check your bios settings, sometimes they conflict with virtual environments. Some manufactures took heat for permanently disabling virtualization in bios (Sony was one of them). It took a decent bios hack to fix it.

In most cases, the jump from I5 to I7 isn't a big deal unless you are doing virtualization. Virtualization is one of the few places where hyperthreading and multi-cores (both help) will really come into play and make a truly noticeable difference.

Multi-cores also really help with applications that are built to support it, particularly Lightroom (well, up to 5 cores, but I only have 4 with my 6700k so I'm good).

Python of course has the GIL, which you can work around, but mostly it flies only on single core performance.

I actually do virtualization - I run linux inside windows (and the other way round). So I RELALY want virtualization.

But other than that yeah an i5 is more than plenty.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 29 January 2017, 10:11:25
I only get flying helicopters from the Haskell compiler on Mac.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 29 January 2017, 10:37:14
I only get flying helicopters from the Haskell compiler on Mac.

Mmmmm haskell. Now that's a fine language that I haven't used in a while. So functional!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 29 January 2017, 18:08:16
I switched to PC (Linux or Win7) because of 3 reasons. Not to bash, but to give some insight into why I made my choice, because I thought 2 years about switching away from Mac. Have been using mac since 1997:
Actually I only got it (used) because there's pretty much nothing comparable to the Macbook Air (which is fantastic for travel), but yes, they are terrible for repairs, it scares the hell out of me (to the extent I may sell it). I wouldn't buy a Mac new, especially the latest one and unless you are willing to give up doing real work, I don't recommend them to anyone really, I just found it funny we went opposite directions.

Well, security analysts found that even if you block ip addresses and lock down win10, it has hardcoded telemetry ip addresses into it. So you literally need some way external to you Win10 machine to block off all telemetry communication with the internet.
This is why you use something like Win10Privacy to strip those systems from the OS. It doesn't block them, it removes and disables all of it.

I still feel that Apple computers remain quiet... IF YOU DON'T DO stuff with them (like browsing or text editing). Whenever I run virtual machine, or even a python interpreter in the terminal the fans kick in.
I find it hilarious that people buy them for video work when they are such terrible workstations.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 29 January 2017, 18:51:50
Anyone using Slacko?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 30 January 2017, 20:43:49
The spyware that doesn't exist is better than the one that does.
Dell shipped desktops with pre-installed malware, they also shipped ENTERPRISE servers with malware.
Sony was infecting pc's with a rootkit (you can thank them for all modern rootkits).
HP was shipping ENTERPRISE switches and usb sticks with malware.
Asus shipped laptops with malware.
Apple shipped Ipods with Malware and BBC claims 4k apps are infected on their store.
Samsung shipped laptops with a keylogger and cell phones and picture frames with malware.

So tell me again how you're sure your system is clean.
It has an OPEN SOURCE BIOS and an OPEN SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEM. Also I wipe it with a CLEAN CLOTH.

and i take it in THE BATH every DAY.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 05 February 2017, 15:24:46
Does anybody like modern KDE?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 05 February 2017, 19:54:00
Does anybody like modern KDE?

No.

Waaay back, I tried GNOME but it was too confusing and inconsistent, so I stuck with KDE.

Many years later GNOME had improved, and I wanted to run a few things that needed GTK, so I tried it again and liked it.

Never looked back at KDE until relatively recently, and couldn't work half of it out.

Mind you, I don't like GNOME shell either.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Mon, 06 February 2017, 06:12:23
Does anybody like modern KDE Plasma?
FTFY

I use it. There are bugs. As in almost any complex software (esp. non-critical). But that's the tradeoff. I can't be bothered to configure all that basic stuff (mounting, network management, multihead,...) manually, and don't share GNOME dev's world view.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 09 February 2017, 14:32:41
Does anybody like modern KDE?

KDE 3.3 was pretty, 4 was prettier. 5+ is basically KDE raped as USA is raped by Trump right now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 09 February 2017, 17:21:42
Currently dipping my toes into i3wm with Manjaro. I needed to make a few adjustments to configs and set Blender's window draw to triple buffer but after that.. Holy moly

edit - screenshot added

[attach=1]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Alline Cliff on Thu, 09 February 2017, 21:18:46
currently using Loki, which is much prettier and neater than Freya.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bmmcwhirt on Fri, 10 February 2017, 12:40:06
Server OS of choice:  FreeBSD
Desktop OS of choice: OS X
Other OSes: Mint, DesktopBSD, AmigaOS

When I run Mint, I usually prefer Cinnamon.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SJHL on Sat, 11 February 2017, 16:01:53
I've been using Mint more on my everyday laptop. Also trying out CentOS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 12 February 2017, 09:07:56
I recently made the switch on my server from Debian to Ubuntu server, not much of a switch I know but I'm finding it very satisfying to use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hypersphere on Sun, 12 February 2017, 10:24:39
Does anybody like modern KDE?
I used KDE for a while. It does one thing better than any other desktop, which is managing multiple monitors. It is the only DE I've tried that can deal properly with assigning the primary monitor in a 3-monitor setup to the right-hand display. With KDE, you can use folder view with the folder being the Desktop folder and keep the desktop icons on the right-hand monitor. With all other desktop environments that I have tried, the icons end up on the far left-hand monitor -- a consequence of the multiple monitors being seen as one large display.

Nevertheless, I gave up using KDE because it remains buggy and crash-prone. Moreover, although just about every aspect of the desktop is configurable, the number of options can be bewildering. Furthermore, I found that there were simple features available in other desktops that were lacking in KDE.

After trying various window managers (e..g, awesome, i3, openbox, and xmonad) and desktops (e.g., Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE, LXDE, MATE, Unity, and Xfce), I finally settled on Xfce.

The Linux Mint implementation of Xfce is beautiful and functional right out of the box. Oddly enough, a distro like Xubuntu whose default DE is Xfce has rather ugly default settings (IMO). In any event, Xfce does everything I want (with the exception of being able to make optimal use of the right-hand monitor as primary in a multiple-monitor setup), it is easy and intuitive to configure, and it is highly stable.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kekstee on Sun, 12 February 2017, 13:28:20
I've abandoned Gnome in favour of KDE Plasma (+ xmonad). It's actually a nice modular Desktop these days.
Gnome really just tells you to use desktops their way or gtfo, at least it feels like it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sat, 18 February 2017, 18:38:15
I started using GNOME because I bought a 2-in-1 and I find GNOME to be the most touch friendly desktop environment out there.  I also tried Unity and KDE for this laptop, but KDE is still very desktop oriented and Unity is, well, Unity.  GNOME can become somewhat flexible with the right extensions, and Ubuntu GNOME includes a number of useful extensions right out of the box that got me going.

But if I'm going for the full desktop experience, I still favor a different DE or window manager.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Air tree on Sat, 18 February 2017, 22:08:36
I think I'm going to go ahead and dual boot Elementary OS, anyone use it? I've heard good things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Rykno on Sat, 18 February 2017, 23:31:15
Any user preferences on a lightweight Linux distro to run off a thumb drive IE on a keychain?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 19 February 2017, 00:53:36
Any user preferences on a lightweight Linux distro to run off a thumb drive IE on a keychain?
Ubuntu based, if only for the drivers it has, lighter distros often skimp on drivers. I used to use Ubuntu, but I'm using mint for that now.


I think I'm going to go ahead and dual boot Elementary OS, anyone use it? I've heard good things.
I have a love hate relationship with it.
As it has aged, they removed more and more of the ability to customize it, and because of this, on some systems, the menu/start screen/whatever they want to call it, can look fine, or it can be comically large.

That said, if you want an OSX interface, try Mint, move the taskbar up top, use an OSX theme, and install Cairo dock. I find this combo MUCH more usable and tuneable.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Rykno on Sun, 19 February 2017, 00:58:21
Any user preferences on a lightweight Linux distro to run off a thumb drive IE on a keychain?
Ubuntu based, if only for the drivers it has, lighter distros often skimp on drivers. I used to use Ubuntu, but I'm using mint for that now.
thank you, so something Ubuntu based so I have broad driver compatibility?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 19 February 2017, 01:31:58
Tahrpup or Slacko (Puppy Linux) persistence works on pretty much any system that can boot from USB. Puppy Linux might need some additional configuration to stop video tearing though. I switched from Slacko 6.3.2 to Tahrpup 6.0.6 for my oops thumb drive. Because Ubuntu repositories. Compiling is amazing but I can't even. Yet.

Elementary OS is weird. The Elementary OS website is weird. Pantheon DE is.. idk. Plank is cool though.

edit - Had a few issues with the touchpad in Tahrpup/JWM+i3wm but it's lightning fast when everything works
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 19 February 2017, 07:27:43

I think I'm going to go ahead and dual boot Elementary OS, anyone use it? I've heard good things.
I have a love hate relationship with it.
As it has aged, they removed more and more of the ability to customize it, and because of this, on some systems, the menu/start screen/whatever they want to call it, can look fine, or it can be comically large.

That said, if you want an OSX interface, try Mint, move the taskbar up top, use an OSX theme, and install Cairo dock. I find this combo MUCH more usable and tuneable.

Yea, my thoughts are about the same as this.  I used Elementary OS on a laptop for awhile, I think it looks and feels great, but decided to stop using it because customization was so restricted.  Because the Pantheon desktop is GNOME based, I believe there are guides to customize GNOME to look and feel just like Pantheon.

The Cinnamon desktop used in Linux Mint also is a good choice for a modern looking Linux OS that allows plenty of customization.  Want to make it look and feel like Mac OS?  Probably can if you want.  I bet others already made guides on this. (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=make+cinnamon+like+mac+os)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 19 February 2017, 17:32:00
Any user preferences on a lightweight Linux distro to run off a thumb drive IE on a keychain?
Ubuntu based, if only for the drivers it has, lighter distros often skimp on drivers. I used to use Ubuntu, but I'm using mint for that now.
thank you, so something Ubuntu based so I have broad driver compatibility?
Yes.
As mentioned, Puppy and some others also have some pretty good driver compatibility, but pure open source doesn't always cover everything. Hate the idea of proprietary stuff all you want, but it exists and sometimes you have no alternative.

We live in an age where 4gig thumbsticks are available for pretty much pennies and most desktops have several gigs of ram (many even have USB 3). In an age where you can have a full Windows or MacOs running from a stick at nearly full speed, why fight with a minimal desktop when you can have a full, comfortable OS with all of the utilities you're familiar with and a full compliment of drivers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Flyersfan1 on Wed, 08 March 2017, 11:48:14
I have been using Ubuntu MATE for the past two months and can't see myself changing anytime soon.  It runs beautifully on my x230 and has everything I could possibly want.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 08 March 2017, 21:28:18
I have been using Ubuntu MATE for the past two months and can't see myself changing anytime soon.  It runs beautifully on my x230 and has everything I could possibly want.

I was a Ubuntu MATE devotee for my laptop experience.  Then I switched to Ubuntu GNOME because touchscreen 2-in-1.  GNOME seems to be the only DE that works well with touchscreens and a traditional laptop experience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 09 March 2017, 12:53:19
I've been playing with openmediavault for a NAS. I haven't been pushing it too hard, but I've been quite happy with it so far.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 17 March 2017, 12:08:34
I am a bit embarrassed about installing Linux Mint on wife's laptop after her Windows started failing. We had to downgrade from 18 to 17.3 because the former was insufferable; and even in the latter, there is a bug on a bug  :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 17 March 2017, 13:35:43
i just installed slackware for the first time (only took me about 15 years of using linux to get around to it) and holy cow, it "just works" better than ubuntu as long as you don't mind some old stable packages.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 17 March 2017, 20:38:22
I am a bit embarrassed about installing Linux Mint on wife's laptop after her Windows started failing. We had to downgrade from 18 to 17.3 because the former was insufferable; and even in the latter, there is a bug on a bug  :(

What changes did you have issue with in Mint 18? I installed it on a couple of my machines because I needed the new kernel and it was easier to just install 18 than to try to upgrade the kernel from 17.3. I've only noticed one problem I'd consider major, and it's an issue with my touchpad (which I never notice because I use a real mouse most of the time anyway).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 18 March 2017, 04:10:28
I am a bit embarrassed about installing Linux Mint on wife's laptop after her Windows started failing. We had to downgrade from 18 to 17.3 because the former was insufferable; and even in the latter, there is a bug on a bug  :(

What changes did you have issue with in Mint 18? I installed it on a couple of my machines because I needed the new kernel and it was easier to just install 18 than to try to upgrade the kernel from 17.3. I've only noticed one problem I'd consider major, and it's an issue with my touchpad (which I never notice because I use a real mouse most of the time anyway).
Not sure about the changes. The most annoying issue was the machine hanging when trying to change users.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 20 March 2017, 13:15:20
I am a bit embarrassed about installing Linux Mint on wife's laptop after her Windows started failing. We had to downgrade from 18 to 17.3 because the former was insufferable; and even in the latter, there is a bug on a bug  :(

What changes did you have issue with in Mint 18? I installed it on a couple of my machines because I needed the new kernel and it was easier to just install 18 than to try to upgrade the kernel from 17.3. I've only noticed one problem I'd consider major, and it's an issue with my touchpad (which I never notice because I use a real mouse most of the time anyway).
Not sure about the changes. The most annoying issue was the machine hanging when trying to change users.

Ah -- I've only got the one account on both my laptop and my desktop, so that's not something I've come across. I can see how that would be frustrating though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 20 March 2017, 19:51:27
i just installed slackware for the first time (only took me about 15 years of using linux to get around to it) and holy cow, it "just works" better than ubuntu as long as you don't mind some old stable packages.

15 years to install slackware?  Slacking off a bit, slacker.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 20 March 2017, 23:16:51
i just installed slackware for the first time (only took me about 15 years of using linux to get around to it) and holy cow, it "just works" better than ubuntu as long as you don't mind some old stable packages.

15 years to install slackware?  Slacking off a bit, slacker.
:-[ :-[ :-[

but at least now i'm getting paid to do it  :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: wangledorf on Tue, 21 March 2017, 02:19:08
Used Arch for a while and it's great for learning more about Linux, but ultimately went back to working on Ubuntu with i3wm 90% of the time because it's easier to maintain.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Thu, 23 March 2017, 18:35:33
Does anyone know of a good way to have Linux installed on its own drive as a second OS, but be able to run it through the other via virtualization sometimes?

For example, on Mac, you can install Windows on its own partition and boot directly to it, but you can also use Paralells/VMware to boot that same Windows partition from Mac.

Can this be done with Linux? I like to be able to boot to Linux and maximize computing power/efficiency, but I also would like to be able to quickly boot it up while I'm running Windows/OSX in order to perform quick tasks.

Thanks!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 24 March 2017, 00:45:27
Does anyone know of a good way to have Linux installed on its own drive as a second OS, but be able to run it through the other via virtualization sometimes?

For example, on Mac, you can install Windows on its own partition and boot directly to it, but you can also use Paralells/VMware to boot that same Windows partition from Mac.
Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VMware_Fusion_and_Parallels_Desktop
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Fri, 24 March 2017, 15:40:41
Does anyone know of a good way to have Linux installed on its own drive as a second OS, but be able to run it through the other via virtualization sometimes?

For example, on Mac, you can install Windows on its own partition and boot directly to it, but you can also use Paralells/VMware to boot that same Windows partition from Mac.
Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VMware_Fusion_and_Parallels_Desktop

Thank you for the reply. I can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for there.

I know they can both run a fully installed bootcamp partition of Windows as a virtual machine in Mac, and it's very easy to do.

It seems that running a full install of Linux on your second drive as a VM is different. I've found a few things on it that show some complex steps and many critical warnings because of how delicate it can be.

I'm hoping to find that it's easier to do now, just as easy as it would be with bootcamp Windows as virtual on Mac via Parallels/VMware.

Heck, I'm not even sure how well I can triple-boot my Mac with Windows and Linux as it seems you need a new bootloader. I'm slowly learning here.  :-X
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 24 March 2017, 16:40:14
Does anyone know of a good way to have Linux installed on its own drive as a second OS, but be able to run it through the other via virtualization sometimes?

For example, on Mac, you can install Windows on its own partition and boot directly to it, but you can also use Paralells/VMware to boot that same Windows partition from Mac.
Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VMware_Fusion_and_Parallels_Desktop

Thank you for the reply. I can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for there.

I know they can both run a fully installed bootcamp partition of Windows as a virtual machine in Mac, and it's very easy to do.

It seems that running a full install of Linux on your second drive as a VM is different. I've found a few things on it that show some complex steps and many critical warnings because of how delicate it can be.

I'm hoping to find that it's easier to do now, just as easy as it would be with bootcamp Windows as virtual on Mac via Parallels/VMware.

Heck, I'm not even sure how well I can triple-boot my Mac with Windows and Linux as it seems you need a new bootloader. I'm slowly learning here.  :-X

you can use rEFInd to triple boot. i'm not sure running linux from a disk and in a VM is a great idea. but what you could do is have a shared partition/disk that you keep your home directory and maybe a few things in, then mount that from a base linux install that you keep otherwise fairly uncluttered. then you can clone that install into a VM and have both! its a bit more upkeep but as long as you use the same distro and packages, you wont notice too much of a difference.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 25 March 2017, 01:11:40
Does anyone know of a good way to have Linux installed on its own drive as a second OS, but be able to run it through the other via virtualization sometimes?

For example, on Mac, you can install Windows on its own partition and boot directly to it, but you can also use Paralells/VMware to boot that same Windows partition from Mac.
Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VMware_Fusion_and_Parallels_Desktop

Thank you for the reply. I can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for there.

I know they can both run a fully installed bootcamp partition of Windows as a virtual machine in Mac, and it's very easy to do.

It seems that running a full install of Linux on your second drive as a VM is different. I've found a few things on it that show some complex steps and many critical warnings because of how delicate it can be.

I'm hoping to find that it's easier to do now, just as easy as it would be with bootcamp Windows as virtual on Mac via Parallels/VMware.

Heck, I'm not even sure how well I can triple-boot my Mac with Windows and Linux as it seems you need a new bootloader. I'm slowly learning here.  :-X
Actually, despite what Wikipedia says Parralles stopped supporting Linux on Boot Camp partitions a release or two ago or it's an older Ubuntu, I forget, but it's not current one way or another. I haven't tried it in VMWare. Either way, even with Boot Camp Windows, you really should decide if you want to use it through Paralells or boot direct and not flip back and forth, not only because of possible data corruption, but because it messes with Windows and licensing.

As for triple booting your Mac, it can be done.
As mentioned, rEFInd will do it. My advice though, is to backup EVERYTHING and plan on spending a weekend setting it up, including re-installing Mac (because you have a high chance of messing it up).

Last time I did it (I think this was how i did it), I installed Mac (or used existing Mac), then Windows using Boot Camp. When partitioning for Windows, make the drive how large you want Windows and Linux combined, so if you want 60gigs for Windows and 40gigs for Linux, make a 100gig Boot Camp partition for Windows. One Windows is installed, I used a Mint install disk to shrink the Windows partition and create my Linux partitions. Now use Linux to install rEFInd, as installing through Mac or Windows causes weird problems with security, this bypasses that problem. You may have to install rEFInd a second time, but it works fine after. Then restart, using the rEFInd boot menu, launch the Linux installer and install into the new partition. Done.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 25 March 2017, 12:42:18
Does anyone know of a good way to have Linux installed on its own drive as a second OS, but be able to run it through the other via virtualization sometimes?

For example, on Mac, you can install Windows on its own partition and boot directly to it, but you can also use Paralells/VMware to boot that same Windows partition from Mac.
Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VMware_Fusion_and_Parallels_Desktop

Thank you for the reply. I can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for there.

I know they can both run a fully installed bootcamp partition of Windows as a virtual machine in Mac, and it's very easy to do.

It seems that running a full install of Linux on your second drive as a VM is different. I've found a few things on it that show some complex steps and many critical warnings because of how delicate it can be.

I'm hoping to find that it's easier to do now, just as easy as it would be with bootcamp Windows as virtual on Mac via Parallels/VMware.

Heck, I'm not even sure how well I can triple-boot my Mac with Windows and Linux as it seems you need a new bootloader. I'm slowly learning here.  :-X
Actually, despite what Wikipedia says Parralles stopped supporting Linux on Boot Camp partitions a release or two ago or it's an older Ubuntu, I forget, but it's not current one way or another. I haven't tried it in VMWare. Either way, even with Boot Camp Windows, you really should decide if you want to use it through Paralells or boot direct and not flip back and forth, not only because of possible data corruption, but because it messes with Windows and licensing.

As for triple booting your Mac, it can be done.
As mentioned, rEFInd will do it. My advice though, is to backup EVERYTHING and plan on spending a weekend setting it up, including re-installing Mac (because you have a high chance of messing it up).

Last time I did it (I think this was how i did it), I installed Mac (or used existing Mac), then Windows using Boot Camp. When partitioning for Windows, make the drive how large you want Windows and Linux combined, so if you want 60gigs for Windows and 40gigs for Linux, make a 100gig Boot Camp partition for Windows. One Windows is installed, I used a Mint install disk to shrink the Windows partition and create my Linux partitions. Now use Linux to install rEFInd, as installing through Mac or Windows causes weird problems with security, this bypasses that problem. You may have to install rEFInd a second time, but it works fine after. Then restart, using the rEFInd boot menu, launch the Linux installer and install into the new partition. Done.

Thank you for the detailed advice Leslieann!

I don't really want to risk messing up my Windows or Mac installs trying to install Linux as a third boot.

Maybe the best thing to do is run it in a VM only. My MacBook Pro is a 2010 i5/8 GB, though, so I'm not sure how well it will run.

It's also my understanding that if you give 2 CPUs to a VM (which is actually 2 out of 4 threads), it has to wait for both to be available which can cause worse performance... so is it better to just allocate 1 CPU to the VM, I wonder.

Thanks again!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 25 March 2017, 15:03:50
Thank you for the detailed advice Leslieann!

I don't really want to risk messing up my Windows or Mac installs trying to install Linux as a third boot.

Maybe the best thing to do is run it in a VM only. My MacBook Pro is a 2010 i5/8 GB, though, so I'm not sure how well it will run.

It's also my understanding that if you give 2 CPUs to a VM (which is actually 2 out of 4 threads), it has to wait for both to be available which can cause worse performance... so is it better to just allocate 1 CPU to the VM, I wonder.

Thanks again!
You're welcome.

Processors only do one thing at a time, it may need 10% of it's power or 100%, but it can only do one thing at a time (hence clock cycles). Hyperthreading allows you to take advantage of that remaining cpu power. So if say, you are adding a filter in Photoshop and that job needs only 30% of the processor, instead of flipping back and forth between your music stream and that render, it can load a second thread and use that remaining 70% to deal with the music stream without interrupting the render. If it runs out of data or the system needs the whole processor, the processor stops hyperthreading and operates as a single core again until there is enough headroom to operate again.

It's just a way to split a processor into two jobs or multi-task. Like people though, multi-tasking is not the same as having two people.


As for your hardware, you should be fine, Linux is less resource hungry than Windows and Mac has better memory management than either Windows or Linux, the latter of which excels in VM environment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 25 March 2017, 22:10:47
Well, my i3 Manjaro is still ticking after a month+. Somehow I've refrained from killing it with fire. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 25 March 2017, 22:29:31
Any opinions as to whether VirtualBox or VMware Workstation Player (ie. the free one) would be better for running a lightweight, desktop instance of Linux?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 26 March 2017, 21:05:23
Any opinions as to whether VirtualBox or VMware Workstation Player (ie. the free one) would be better for running a lightweight, desktop instance of Linux?

I'd go with VirtualBox, simply because it's the full version with all capabilities.

I do use it a lot, mostly on Mac hosts with Windows and Linux clients.  Works well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: m3ll3n on Mon, 27 March 2017, 17:33:24
i'm an arch guy  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 27 March 2017, 23:18:46
Any opinions as to whether VirtualBox or VMware Workstation Player (ie. the free one) would be better for running a lightweight, desktop instance of Linux?

Definitely virtualbox. Perhaps it's just because it's what I'm used to, but I found it was much easier to get things set up and working properly than using VMWare player
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 28 March 2017, 00:05:16
My puppy/i3 started to get a bit funky so I kinda dove headfirst into SUSEstudio. I finally have an OS on a usb drive that won't load into ram at startup yet it saves all changes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: No_joke on Wed, 29 March 2017, 14:33:39
Sadly I have to use Windows at work (MSVC...) even though I consider myself much more of a linux guy.
At home I'm running arch because the wiki is so great and the package manger is soo good.  ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 29 March 2017, 19:16:33
But, systemd :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: KnightDX on Wed, 29 March 2017, 19:50:54
Ubuntu, I keep it simple
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 29 March 2017, 20:09:43
Ubuntu, I keep it simple

< insert elitist definition of simplicity here >
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 29 March 2017, 20:24:27
Ubuntu, I keep it simple

< insert elitist definition of simplicity here >

I just borked my Manjaro/i3 by updating Linux Mint. Same HDD, different partitions.. I'm feelin' some Ubuntu right about now :'(

edit - grub was acting up. dang
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 29 March 2017, 21:02:31
But, systemd :(

You kinda get used to systemd, although I do sometimes miss simply grepping log files.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 31 March 2017, 08:25:14
Ubuntu, I keep it simple

< insert elitist definition of simplicity here >

I'm pretty sure that clean and simple is the selling point of every new or updated Linux distro at the moment.  In fact, they are so clean and simple that I can't find anything and the whole cleanliness is ruined because I have a bunch of windows open at any one time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: drakche on Fri, 31 March 2017, 08:42:05
Hi guy.
Mint and Antergos Arch user here.

Linux user for the last 10ish or so years :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 31 March 2017, 12:40:11
Hi guy.
Mint and Antergos Arch user here.

Linux user for the last 10ish or so years :)

How do you like Antergos?  Work smoothly for the most part?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 31 March 2017, 15:36:28
Hi guy.
Mint and Antergos Arch user here.

Linux user for the last 10ish or so years :)

How do you like Antergos?  Work smoothly for the most part?
I've found both to be quite good.
I like Antergos, it's a tad faster than Mint (just barely), but it's a quite a bit less noob friendly and much more likely to trash itself.

Antergos is great, but it tends to be far more on the bleeding edge so odds of you downloading an update that kills it, is far more likely, and when it does, the support channel is not nearly what Mint/Ubuntu's is because Antergos is based on Arch and Arch expects you to know what you are doing. So instead of someone handing you a solution in a forum post, you end up trolling the bug lists and trying to figure out the problem. While easy to install, upkeep and troubleshooting is still Arch Linux and not for the feint of heart.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: drakche on Fri, 31 March 2017, 16:49:42
Yeah. It is more or less like that.

I always try to find an alternative for cinnamon and mint, but the stability and customisation and speed always pulls me back.


They made a kick ass job of it. And I'll probably will always​ be my go to distro.

Sent from my Redmi Pro using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 31 March 2017, 17:02:42
How is Linux Mint with Cinnamon speedy? So far Linux Mint with Cinnamon is one of the bulkiest distros I've tried. Stable and easy customization yes, but I wouldn't call it speedy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 31 March 2017, 19:02:29
Hi guy.
Mint and Antergos Arch user here.

Linux user for the last 10ish or so years :)

How do you like Antergos?  Work smoothly for the most part?
I've found both to be quite good.
I like Antergos, it's a tad faster than Mint (just barely), but it's a quite a bit less noob friendly and much more likely to trash itself.

Antergos is great, but it tends to be far more on the bleeding edge so odds of you downloading an update that kills it, is far more likely, and when it does, the support channel is not nearly what Mint/Ubuntu's is because Antergos is based on Arch and Arch expects you to know what you are doing. So instead of someone handing you a solution in a forum post, you end up trolling the bug lists and trying to figure out the problem. While easy to install, upkeep and troubleshooting is still Arch Linux and not for the feint of heart.

Yeah. It is more or less like that.

I always try to find an alternative for cinnamon and mint, but the stability and customisation and speed always pulls me back.


They made a kick ass job of it. And I'll probably will always​ be my go to distro.

Sent from my Redmi Pro using Tapatalk



Thanks for the replies.  I've tried Antergos and like it, but I prefer more hand-holding and don't need bleeding edge for my Linux usage.  For what it's worth, I have been using Manjaro for probably six months now and had very few issues that I didn't cause myself.  I know that it's not as pure Arch as something like Antergos, but I like it for what it is.

And I agree, Linux Mint does a great job for what it is trying to accomplish.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 31 March 2017, 19:05:09
Just went through another void install and it reminded me again of why i like it so much.
if i need a distro with EVERYTHING i'll use slackware. for anything else void fits in very well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 31 March 2017, 20:07:15
Thanks for the replies.  I've tried Antergos and like it, but I prefer more hand-holding and don't need bleeding edge for my Linux usage.  For what it's worth, I have been using Manjaro for probably six months now and had very few issues that I didn't cause myself.  I know that it's not as pure Arch as something like Antergos, but I like it for what it is.

And I agree, Linux Mint does a great job for what it is trying to accomplish.
Use what works for you.
Don't let the hardcore crowd tell you you "need" to be using something else.

How is Linux Mint with Cinnamon speedy? So far Linux Mint with Cinnamon is one of the bulkiest distros I've tried. Stable and easy customization yes, but I wouldn't call it speedy.
I've never seen an issue with speed on it.
Are there faster? Of course, but I've never really seen it run slower than any other distros, including light weight ones.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 31 March 2017, 20:31:29
Thanks for the replies.  I've tried Antergos and like it, but I prefer more hand-holding and don't need bleeding edge for my Linux usage.  For what it's worth, I have been using Manjaro for probably six months now and had very few issues that I didn't cause myself.  I know that it's not as pure Arch as something like Antergos, but I like it for what it is.

And I agree, Linux Mint does a great job for what it is trying to accomplish.
Use what works for you.
Don't let the hardcore crowd tell you you "need" to be using something else.

How is Linux Mint with Cinnamon speedy? So far Linux Mint with Cinnamon is one of the bulkiest distros I've tried. Stable and easy customization yes, but I wouldn't call it speedy.
I've never seen an issue with speed on it.
Are there faster? Of course, but I've never really seen it run slower than any other distros, including light weight ones.

In my experience, it runs about that same as Gnome/KDE/Mate when I turn off compositing, animations, etc. Something changed somewhere between 2012 and now. Mint 13 with Cinnamon used less system resources iirc
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 31 March 2017, 23:28:48
Thanks for the replies.  I've tried Antergos and like it, but I prefer more hand-holding and don't need bleeding edge for my Linux usage.  For what it's worth, I have been using Manjaro for probably six months now and had very few issues that I didn't cause myself.  I know that it's not as pure Arch as something like Antergos, but I like it for what it is.

And I agree, Linux Mint does a great job for what it is trying to accomplish.
Use what works for you.
Don't let the hardcore crowd tell you you "need" to be using something else.

How is Linux Mint with Cinnamon speedy? So far Linux Mint with Cinnamon is one of the bulkiest distros I've tried. Stable and easy customization yes, but I wouldn't call it speedy.
I've never seen an issue with speed on it.
Are there faster? Of course, but I've never really seen it run slower than any other distros, including light weight ones.

In my experience, it runs about that same as Gnome/KDE/Mate when I turn off compositing, animations, etc. Something changed somewhere between 2012 and now. Mint 13 with Cinnamon used less system resources iirc
That could be par of it, I turn off animations right away on any os I use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: drakche on Sat, 01 April 2017, 14:05:23
No animations whatsoever.
I run it totally plain.
And from 4gb i3 machines, to 32gb monsters it works like a breeze.

Idling, it's about the same as a Gnome for RAM usage, at least on things I've tried.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: drakche on Sat, 01 April 2017, 15:56:57
Oh my god.
I haven't used windows since w7.

And just today built a new living room pc for gaming...

W10 is horrendous​.

Why...


As soon as I fix up thr PSU I'm dual booting this baby.


On another note, every game I own on ultra high is amazing.



I just needed to share my frustrations.
Sent from my Redmi Pro using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 02 April 2017, 22:24:51
Did anyone use the (now defunct) distro CrunchBang (https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=crunchbang)?

I heard about it on a podcast and tried it - it was great, but I needed something else at the time and so removed it.

Later on when I went back to try it again it had gone away for good.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: northpark on Mon, 03 April 2017, 00:45:24
I wouldn't call myself a "user," but I'm trying to deploy Mattermost on an Ubuntu server and I have no idea what I'm doing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 03 April 2017, 00:59:07
Did anyone use the (now defunct) distro CrunchBang (https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=crunchbang)?

I heard about it on a podcast and tried it - it was great, but I needed something else at the time and so removed it.

Later on when I went back to try it again it had gone away for good.

I did, for several years. Nice little lightweight distro. When it went by the wayside, I made myself a minimal, openbox-based Debian Jessie install for my main rig. While that's no longer my primary machine, I really enjoyed it.

If you're interested in something along the same lines, take a look at BunsenLabs or Crunchbang++. BunsenLabs seems to be a bit more actively maintained.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Mon, 03 April 2017, 13:48:25

If you're interested in something along the same lines, take a look at BunsenLabs or Crunchbang++. BunsenLabs seems to be a bit more actively maintained.

I was going to say this, but user 18 beat me to the punch.  I tried BunsneLabs and liked it, but Openbox is not my favorite thing, I prefer a tiling window manger or traditional DE over a stacking window manager like Openbox.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 03 April 2017, 21:25:19
Did anyone use the (now defunct) distro CrunchBang (https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=crunchbang)?

I heard about it on a podcast and tried it - it was great, but I needed something else at the time and so removed it.

Later on when I went back to try it again it had gone away for good.

i was pretty into crunchbang for a while. i even made one of the wallpapers that shipped with it for a long time :O
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 03 April 2017, 22:02:35
I did, for several years. Nice little lightweight distro. When it went by the wayside, I made myself a minimal, openbox-based Debian Jessie install for my main rig. While that's no longer my primary machine, I really enjoyed it.

If you're interested in something along the same lines, take a look at BunsenLabs or Crunchbang++. BunsenLabs seems to be a bit more actively maintained.

I noted that there were some replacements, but my need for a minimal distro has expired.  For what it was at the time it was great!

i was pretty into crunchbang for a while. i even made one of the wallpapers that shipped with it for a long time :O

Awesome!  Great that the community can contribute to a distro in ways like that, especially the artwork that would be seen by thousands or more people everywhere.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Thu, 06 April 2017, 07:11:08
So did anyone else hear the news?  Unity is dead.  Ubuntu is giing back to GNOME as the default desktop.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 06 April 2017, 16:33:35
So did anyone else hear the news?  Unity is dead.  Ubuntu is giing back to GNOME as the default desktop.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/

Sure did. Sounds like a good idea to me. A few days ago I installed the new vanilla Arch iso via WM. Gnome behaved really well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dubious on Thu, 06 April 2017, 16:48:49
Did anyone use the (now defunct) distro CrunchBang (https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=crunchbang)?

I heard about it on a podcast and tried it - it was great, but I needed something else at the time and so removed it.

Later on when I went back to try it again it had gone away for good.

YES! #! was one of my favorite distros! I loved the ez flat file configs, and conky....mmmmm conkyssssss...
I've tried bunsenlabs and #!++, but I dunno... they just haven't felt the same.

I'm still looking for a distro to stick with, I've just been using ubuntu+mint right now with gnome (good riddance unity) I'll have to scroll through this thread some more, and give some a shot when I have more time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sat, 08 April 2017, 03:47:23
So did anyone else hear the news?  Unity is dead.  Ubuntu is giing back to GNOME as the default desktop.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/
Doesn't bother me that much tbh. I always liked gnome.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Jhors2 on Sat, 08 April 2017, 17:03:10
Ubuntu, just because of ease of use and community support for most HTPC packages using deb.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: madhias on Sun, 09 April 2017, 01:19:37
Since October 2015 my PC is sporting Arch as main OS, yesterday I switched to LTS kernel. Not that many thing broke using the latest kernel all the time, but things like hibernate mode for example sometimes work, sometimes not. But in general I still like it, and learning all the time. What I like most is that I can read on the Wiki, and it feels like sitting in front of the PC :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: profanum429 on Tue, 11 April 2017, 15:46:00
I started with Slackware a long time ago and then eventually migrated to Arch which is where I've stayed for the past number of years. I enjoy it :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 15 April 2017, 10:29:24
My wife's laptop, which runs Mint 17, would call a random Skype contact on wake up... Without unlocking. Or even showing a log in window. Or any other controls.

I decided that this behaviour is unacceptable and moved on with my quest after a usable Linux distro. The next one I installed for her this morning is Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. I already saw two bugs: the UI says the current keyboard layout is 'En' while it's actually 'Ru', and bluetooth settings not showing any devices around while bluetooth itself actually works (I've checked that with bluetoothctl).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 15 April 2017, 16:35:58
My wife's laptop, which runs Mint 17, would call a random Skype contact on wake up... Without unlocking. Or even showing a log in window. Or any other controls.
This sounds like a Skype bug (shocker!). Don;'t forget, underneath Mint is Ubuntu, so your new system could very well have the same bug.



I finished my Mac experiments and have gone back to Linux (glad that's over).
I keep coming back to Antergos, so long as you run LTS and not bleeding edge, it works fantastic. All of the benefits of Arch and Ubuntu/Mint, without the hassle.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 15 April 2017, 18:03:15
My wife's laptop, which runs Mint 17, would call a random Skype contact on wake up... Without unlocking. Or even showing a log in window. Or any other controls.
This sounds like a Skype bug (shocker!).
The machine wakes up, but there's no login screen in the X session and no available controls.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: lzrdwzrd on Sat, 15 April 2017, 18:14:13
Parabola GNU/Linux libre with i3gaps and XFCE for laptop.

Debian stretch on desktop with the same window managers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 16 April 2017, 07:39:17
My wife's laptop, which runs Mint 17, would call a random Skype contact on wake up... Without unlocking. Or even showing a log in window. Or any other controls.
This sounds like a Skype bug (shocker!). Don;'t forget, underneath Mint is Ubuntu, so your new system could very well have the same bug.



I finished my Mac experiments and have gone back to Linux (glad that's over).
I keep coming back to Antergos, so long as you run LTS and not bleeding edge, it works fantastic. All of the benefits of Arch and Ubuntu/Mint, without the hassle.

What do you mean by "Mac experiments"?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 16 April 2017, 17:10:11
What do you mean by "Mac experiments"?
I was running Mac laptop (nothing PC competes with the 11in Air) and built a hackintosh for a bit but it was more to see if it stuck.
It didn't.

One interesting thing to note...
Compared to Linux and Windows, Macs do not scale well. While they are very memory efficient (better than Linux and Windows), adding a faster processor, drive and even more memory did very little in terms of performance gains.

I'll probably be doing a write up on the experience soon, probably be a good read for those considering an OS swap as I'm well versed in Mac (and Hackintosh), Linux and Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 16 April 2017, 17:18:53
What do you mean by "Mac experiments"?
I was running Mac laptop (nothing PC competes with the 11in Air) and built a hackintosh for a bit but it was more to see if it stuck.
It didn't.

One interesting thing to note...
Compared to Linux and Windows, Macs do not scale well. While they are very memory efficient (better than Linux and Windows), adding a faster processor, drive and even more memory did very little in terms of performance gains.

I'll probably be doing a write up on the experience soon, probably be a good read for those considering an OS swap as I'm well versed in Mac (and Hackintosh), Linux and Windows.

Lately I've developed a desire to know more about Unixy systems. I'd sign up to read that. The last Apple desktop I used was a G3 back when it was still relevant in the Mac world. IIRC it wasn't a bad experience at all.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 17 April 2017, 06:37:11
What do you mean by "Mac experiments"?
I was running Mac laptop (nothing PC competes with the 11in Air) and built a hackintosh for a bit but it was more to see if it stuck.
It didn't.

One interesting thing to note...
Compared to Linux and Windows, Macs do not scale well. While they are very memory efficient (better than Linux and Windows), adding a faster processor, drive and even more memory did very little in terms of performance gains.

I'll probably be doing a write up on the experience soon, probably be a good read for those considering an OS swap as I'm well versed in Mac (and Hackintosh), Linux and Windows.

Interesting you say that. My "true" mac is a late 2010 MacBook Pro. Recently, I built a hackintosh for my mom: i5 6500 3.2 GHz, 16GB DDR4 2333 MHz, Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB, and the Asus H170 Pro. I expected it to be amazingly fast with OS X. You know... not mobile hardware like all Apple products except the Mac Pro (iMac, Mac Mini all use mobile versions of intel hardware and graphics).

I always first install xubuntu or some other linux to see how the system performs. It was sick fast. Fast boot, instant everything.

Then I installed Sierra. There is noticeable lag with EVERYTHING. *click* system preferences --> 4 second wait. *click* finder --> 3 second wait. *click* safari already open, new window --> 2 second wait.

Why is it not instant? Why the wait? It really feels like vista. I mean, why has OS X been so slow since Yosemite? Why is an UI make-over so taxing on the OS's performance?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: bastones on Mon, 17 April 2017, 13:37:50
What do you mean by "Mac experiments"?
I was running Mac laptop (nothing PC competes with the 11in Air) and built a hackintosh for a bit but it was more to see if it stuck.
It didn't.

One interesting thing to note...
Compared to Linux and Windows, Macs do not scale well. While they are very memory efficient (better than Linux and Windows), adding a faster processor, drive and even more memory did very little in terms of performance gains.

I'll probably be doing a write up on the experience soon, probably be a good read for those considering an OS swap as I'm well versed in Mac (and Hackintosh), Linux and Windows.

Interesting you say that. My "true" mac is a late 2010 MacBook Pro. Recently, I built a hackintosh for my mom: i5 6500 3.2 GHz, 16GB DDR4 2333 MHz, Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB, and the Asus H170 Pro. I expected it to be amazingly fast with OS X. You know... not mobile hardware like all Apple products except the Mac Pro (iMac, Mac Mini all use mobile versions of intel hardware and graphics).

I always first install xubuntu or some other linux to see how the system performs. It was sick fast. Fast boot, instant everything.

Then I installed Sierra. There is noticeable lag with EVERYTHING. *click* system preferences --> 4 second wait. *click* finder --> 3 second wait. *click* safari already open, new window --> 2 second wait.

Why is it not instant? Why the wait? It really feels like vista. I mean, why has OS X been so slow since Yosemite? Why is an UI make-over so taxing on the OS's performance?

I have an iMac with similar hardware to yours - i5 6500 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 1867 MHz, 1 TB 7200-rpm - and I definitely notice how resource-heavy newer versions of OS X are. My first Apple computer was a Mac mini running Mac OS X Tiger and I never recall the operating system - particularly the user interface - being quite as resource-heavy as it is today.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 17 April 2017, 18:09:23
What do you mean by "Mac experiments"?
I was running Mac laptop (nothing PC competes with the 11in Air) and built a hackintosh for a bit but it was more to see if it stuck.
It didn't.

One interesting thing to note...
Compared to Linux and Windows, Macs do not scale well. While they are very memory efficient (better than Linux and Windows), adding a faster processor, drive and even more memory did very little in terms of performance gains.

I'll probably be doing a write up on the experience soon, probably be a good read for those considering an OS swap as I'm well versed in Mac (and Hackintosh), Linux and Windows.

Interesting you say that. My "true" mac is a late 2010 MacBook Pro. Recently, I built a hackintosh for my mom: i5 6500 3.2 GHz, 16GB DDR4 2333 MHz, Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB, and the Asus H170 Pro. I expected it to be amazingly fast with OS X. You know... not mobile hardware like all Apple products except the Mac Pro (iMac, Mac Mini all use mobile versions of intel hardware and graphics).

I always first install xubuntu or some other linux to see how the system performs. It was sick fast. Fast boot, instant everything.

Then I installed Sierra. There is noticeable lag with EVERYTHING. *click* system preferences --> 4 second wait. *click* finder --> 3 second wait. *click* safari already open, new window --> 2 second wait.

Why is it not instant? Why the wait? It really feels like vista. I mean, why has OS X been so slow since Yosemite? Why is an UI make-over so taxing on the OS's performance?
I think Apple is gimping their systems intentionally, or at least ignoring it.
It's possible Apple is primarily focused on efficiency in order to facilitate the switch to ARM chips without a performance loss. Doing so however may be crippling high end performance.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 17 April 2017, 18:12:57
What do you mean by "Mac experiments"?
I was running Mac laptop (nothing PC competes with the 11in Air) and built a hackintosh for a bit but it was more to see if it stuck.
It didn't.

One interesting thing to note...
Compared to Linux and Windows, Macs do not scale well. While they are very memory efficient (better than Linux and Windows), adding a faster processor, drive and even more memory did very little in terms of performance gains.

I'll probably be doing a write up on the experience soon, probably be a good read for those considering an OS swap as I'm well versed in Mac (and Hackintosh), Linux and Windows.

Interesting you say that. My "true" mac is a late 2010 MacBook Pro. Recently, I built a hackintosh for my mom: i5 6500 3.2 GHz, 16GB DDR4 2333 MHz, Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB, and the Asus H170 Pro. I expected it to be amazingly fast with OS X. You know... not mobile hardware like all Apple products except the Mac Pro (iMac, Mac Mini all use mobile versions of intel hardware and graphics).

I always first install xubuntu or some other linux to see how the system performs. It was sick fast. Fast boot, instant everything.

Then I installed Sierra. There is noticeable lag with EVERYTHING. *click* system preferences --> 4 second wait. *click* finder --> 3 second wait. *click* safari already open, new window --> 2 second wait.

Why is it not instant? Why the wait? It really feels like vista. I mean, why has OS X been so slow since Yosemite? Why is an UI make-over so taxing on the OS's performance?
I think Apple is gimping their systems intentionally, or at least ignoring it.
It's possible Apple is primarily focused on efficiency in order to facilitate the switch to ARM chips without a performance loss. Doing so however may be crippling high end performance.

Interesting. I could completely see that being true.

Regards high end, let's be honest. Except for the outdated mac pro, all apple computers have mobile tech (intel, graphics). sure, they bench in high. But if you push macs to the limit, fan kicks in, they become hot, and they throttle.

When my i7-6700k does heavy crunching it is still inaudible. When I do "brew update" on my mac, I am afraid it will fly out of my window so loud as it is.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 18 April 2017, 05:52:55
My macbook is completely silent on brew update.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 18 April 2017, 06:27:58
My macbook is completely silent on brew update.

What MacBook do you have?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 18 April 2017, 13:27:53
My macbook is completely silent on brew update.

What MacBook do you have?
MacBook Pro, mid 2014, i7 3GHz, 16GB 1600Mhz DDR3, Intel Iris 1536MB, Yosemite.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: elcubismo on Tue, 18 April 2017, 13:53:35
I use CentOS at work (typically just SSH'd in from Win10) and Rasbian on my Pi.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 18 April 2017, 16:41:45
I use CentOS at work (typically just SSH'd in from Win10) and Rasbian on my Pi.

WHY CENTOS. Why not Ubuntu LTS.

Seriously.. I'm about to reinstall my server do everything properly (I did some nasty stuff to it to get some services working properly). I don't get why people would choose CENTOS because in my experience yum sucks. Is that fixed? Is there a good package manager on redhat/centos nowadays?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dubious on Tue, 18 April 2017, 18:13:01
no yum still sucks
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Abstractions on Tue, 18 April 2017, 18:51:18
Debian user reporting in.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Wed, 19 April 2017, 04:01:38
in my experience yum sucks. Is that fixed? Is there a good package manager on redhat/centos nowadays?
DNF isn't even new.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 04:02:40
no yum still sucks

Respectfully, for the love of god why do SYSADMINS use CentOS if the thing that you are doing very often sucks the most, which is the package manager 'yum'.

Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 04:03:20
Debian user reporting in.

Plain vanilla debian?

I used it for sooo long until I switched to Arch then Ubuntu
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 19 April 2017, 04:35:05
From Arch to Ubuntu? That's odd
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 04:40:42
From Arch to Ubuntu? That's odd

Arch broke to often for me. It was fast, but also to bleeding. And I found pacman very slow with increased dependency resolution complexity.

I had to fix my xorg config so many times, and losing my apache config because arch overwrote it that I had enough of it. Combined with unresolved package conflicts. I even had it once that I couldn't use my mouse because xf86 mouse package was conflicting with the rest of xorg. Turned out arch maintainers were in between uploading the new version, but I was updating in the middle of their uploading. So my system was borked. So yeah..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Wed, 19 April 2017, 06:26:55
Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?
Support.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 06:58:05
Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?
Support.

Community or paid? Is corporate support from red hat really that better than from canonical?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Wed, 19 April 2017, 07:52:35
Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?
Support.

Community or paid? Is corporate support from red hat really that better than from canonical?
It's an entirely different league, if you're running something critical enough. It's the whole ecosystem, though, with standardized admin certifications and what not. Only SUSE comes close.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 08:06:38
Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?
Support.

Community or paid? Is corporate support from red hat really that better than from canonical?
It's an entirely different league, if you're running something critical enough. It's the whole ecosystem, though, with standardized admin certifications and what not. Only SUSE comes close.

I can see that yes. I've been doing everything myself, including for my own business. I never had the money for corporate support but then I know what I need to do as sysadmin myself and I don't have 24/7 production systems.

Even though red hat is the standard, I never liked to use it on servers, including centos. It just didn't click for me. Everything debian-like is fine.

For me, Ubuntu LTS has been very stable. On my home server I have been running LTS since 2013, never an issue. But it was mostly a file server and an dev integration / test server, so nothing exciting nor mission critical (well except for losing files.. but you know.. not like 1 min outage is a million USD damage for my business).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: elcubismo on Wed, 19 April 2017, 08:44:26
I like CentOS, guess I'm just used to it. Personally don't have a problem with yum.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Jaymanlp on Wed, 19 April 2017, 15:04:13
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 19 April 2017, 15:53:56
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.
I found the same with my mom.
Put her on Linux Mint, and no problems other than a sound issue, it was FAR less problematic than I expected.

However, handing her an Ipad. Oh god...
Apple has seriously lost touch with their old ethos of being easy to use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 16:53:35
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.

This was 7 years ago, but my experience is just the opposite. I had an ubuntu linux box for my mom. But somehow she managed to always just break something (she didn't had root access). Stuff just almost did not work: not unmounting an usb stick, firefox crashing after update.

And it all lay in the fact that we have this routine (close firefox after update because libraries updated, quickly fix 1 2 things in terminal and you are all set) that you forget about.

But perhaps nowadays it is much better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 16:56:00
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.
I found the same with my mom.
Put her on Linux Mint, and no problems other than a sound issue, it was FAR less problematic than I expected.

However, handing her an Ipad. Oh god...
Apple has seriously lost touch with their old ethos of being easy to use.

Well.. you know... even though I bailed on Apple on the desktop, i still think they are king mobile. Because an iPhone is a small iPad. It works exactly the same. I tried an Android phone today and I just couldn't intuitively figure out where **** was. And mind you, I am used to a lot of desktops and manual config: fluxbox, i3wm, xfce, gnome, kde, /etc/*, lxde, openstep, etc.

It was one big graphical mess for me, stuff littered all over the place. I was appalled by iOS 7 initially, but then I took a look at Android and no way I want to switch.

Perhaps premium android is different..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 19 April 2017, 16:57:46
sysadmins are really not installing packages all the time. occasionally, sure, but yum is Good Enough given the other advantages.

there's really no reason to be so flabbergasted that some people have different vendor requirements when it comes to their distro of choice!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 17:00:42
sysadmins are really not installing packages all the time. occasionally, sure, but yum is Good Enough given the other advantages.

there's really no reason to be so flabbergasted that some people have different vendor requirements when it comes to their distro of choice!

I respect all that. But my memories of yum are SO SO BAD that I cannot imagine people PREFERRING it over alternatives.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 19 April 2017, 17:09:17
But perhaps nowadays it is much better.
It's come a long ways in the last few years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 19 April 2017, 17:09:32
sysadmins are really not installing packages all the time. occasionally, sure, but yum is Good Enough given the other advantages.

there's really no reason to be so flabbergasted that some people have different vendor requirements when it comes to their distro of choice!

I respect all that. But my memories of yum are SO SO BAD that I cannot imagine people PREFERRING it over alternatives.

yeah i don't have any love for yum, but i dont think there are too many people out there touting it as THE reason to use an rhel-based distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 19 April 2017, 17:12:22
But perhaps nowadays it is much better.
It's come a long ways in the last few years.

Good, perhaps I'll try CentOS on my server reinstall. Although I find it scary to change a winning recipe (Ubuntu LTS).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: digi on Wed, 19 April 2017, 17:12:56
CentOS
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Thu, 20 April 2017, 02:10:16
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.
I have some really cheap clients, ubuntu was perfect for them.
They had to compromise on some things (she used some edu site that didn't work on anything but win) but all in all they're satisfied.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 20 April 2017, 04:39:47
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.
I have some really cheap clients, ubuntu was perfect for them.
They had to compromise on some things (she used some edu site that didn't work on anything but win) but all in all they're satisfied.

Fingers crossed now Canonical is taken Shuttleworth back as CEO, the employee firing, and the ditching of unity in favor of gnome (like that's progress imho unity sucks as much as modern gnome, but ok).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 20 April 2017, 05:36:38
Still on Manjaro i3 as I config Arch i3 in VM. The Vanilla only uses 90mb of ram (100mb < Manjaro i3). That's nice.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 20 April 2017, 05:41:58
But Manjaro doesn't use systemd :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Thu, 20 April 2017, 06:00:46
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.

Lol, write to the Ubuntu people and they can use it as a testimonial.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 20 April 2017, 06:47:45
Still on Manjaro i3 as I config Arch i3 in VM. The Vanilla only uses 90mb of ram (100mb < Manjaro i3). That's nice.

But Manjaro doesn't use systemd :P

I'm fine with systemd. As it turns out, my Manjaro i3 utilizes systemd. I'm not fine with lightdm and other things I don't need that come bundled with Manjaro. I don't need a GDM. I'm fine with startx. If I need to expand what I do, I want a system I can clone without spending tons on RAM/energy for each node. I'm cheap; and slightly masochistic.

For me, an OpenRC install would lead to a full Gentoo install. Arch Wiki provides me with all the juice I need atm :eek:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Jaymanlp on Thu, 20 April 2017, 08:29:57
Got my grandma to use Ubuntu since her laptop was so old Windows 7 was too demanding for it.
Her time with Ubuntu has proven to me that end users can definitely use Linux perfectly fine. She's been using Ubuntu for months and has had no issues performing day to day activities on it. She also enjoys the overall look and feel of Ubuntu more than Windows 7.
Lesson to be learned here: If my grandma can learn to use Linux then so can you.

Lol, write to the Ubuntu people and they can use it as a testimonial.
Grandma approved

Sent from my ASUS_Z00TD using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dubious on Thu, 20 April 2017, 11:50:18
no yum still sucks

Respectfully, for the love of god why do SYSADMINS use CentOS if the thing that you are doing very often sucks the most, which is the package manager 'yum'.

Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?

It's just like the windows kids ... They want someone there to hold their hand while they venture into computerland and will give them support when things go TU

Our manager tried to get us to standardize on CentOS because "everyone" in the industry is using RHEL... but we just told him to shove it and ran ubuntu lts  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 20 April 2017, 17:16:04
no yum still sucks

Respectfully, for the love of god why do SYSADMINS use CentOS if the thing that you are doing very often sucks the most, which is the package manager 'yum'.

Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?

It's just like the windows kids ... They want someone there to hold their hand while they venture into computerland and will give them support when things go TU

Our manager tried to get us to standardize on CentOS because "everyone" in the industry is using RHEL... but we just told him to shove it and ran ubuntu lts  :p

Yeah... niceeeee. I like Ubuntu LTS very much. Never a hiccup so far **knock on my wood**
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 21 April 2017, 00:55:31
Yeah... niceeeee. I like Ubuntu LTS very much. Never a hiccup so far **knock on my wood**
Yeah I haven't had a single error so far with my Ubuntu LTS server install.
Usually clone it each month so I can always go back if I need to. So far I haven't.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 21 April 2017, 04:29:54
Yeah... niceeeee. I like Ubuntu LTS very much. Never a hiccup so far **knock on my wood**
Yeah I haven't had a single error so far with my Ubuntu LTS server install.
Usually clone it each month so I can always go back if I need to. So far I haven't.

Tell me about cloning... you clone the partitions? And then set them back if things go haywire?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 21 April 2017, 05:42:13
Yeah... niceeeee. I like Ubuntu LTS very much. Never a hiccup so far **knock on my wood**
Yeah I haven't had a single error so far with my Ubuntu LTS server install.
Usually clone it each month so I can always go back if I need to. So far I haven't.

Tell me about cloning... you clone the partitions? And then set them back if things go haywire?
Basically yes.
I clone the entire drive where the install is (120gb ssd) to a storage drive.
Then if I **** something up I just go back a month. :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 21 April 2017, 05:45:32
Yeah... niceeeee. I like Ubuntu LTS very much. Never a hiccup so far **knock on my wood**
Yeah I haven't had a single error so far with my Ubuntu LTS server install.
Usually clone it each month so I can always go back if I need to. So far I haven't.

Tell me about cloning... you clone the partitions? And then set them back if things go haywire?
Basically yes.
I clone the entire drive where the install is (120gb ssd) to a storage drive.
Then if I **** something up I just go back a month. :P

Do you use dd? How do you put it back? live cd --> mount internal volume --> mount external volume --> dd from external to internal --> run grub-install --> reboot?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 21 April 2017, 05:49:38
Yeah... niceeeee. I like Ubuntu LTS very much. Never a hiccup so far **knock on my wood**
Yeah I haven't had a single error so far with my Ubuntu LTS server install.
Usually clone it each month so I can always go back if I need to. So far I haven't.

Tell me about cloning... you clone the partitions? And then set them back if things go haywire?
Basically yes.
I clone the entire drive where the install is (120gb ssd) to a storage drive.
Then if I **** something up I just go back a month. :P

Do you use dd? How do you put it back? live cd --> mount internal volume --> mount external volume --> dd from external to internal --> run grub-install --> reboot?
I use CloneZilla. I've found it to be the easiest method for me.
I'm around the server a lot so the fact I have to be physically present isn't an issue at the moment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: mnmlisme on Wed, 26 April 2017, 00:09:43
ABOUT to use linux mint. complete noob.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: G-Dubs on Thu, 27 April 2017, 15:01:47
I gave Fedora another chance on my Lenovo T420, which I'm really liking. I'm not a fan at all of Unity, so I can't wait until Ubuntu goes back to Gnome as its default DE, which will also probably be around the time I'll be in the market for a new desktop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 27 April 2017, 15:30:34
I gave Fedora another chance on my Lenovo T420, which I'm really liking. I'm not a fan at all of Unity, so I can't wait until Ubuntu goes back to Gnome as its default DE, which will also probably be around the time I'll be in the market for a new desktop.

You know you can just install another desktop environment anytime right? Whatever you like. Ubuntu, Fedora, every gnu/linux distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 27 April 2017, 15:36:21
even though i'm probably being monitored by the chinese government, deepin linux is preeeeeeeeetty slick if you can forgive the lack of english language 'polish'. it's like what elementary has been trying to do all along but nicer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 27 April 2017, 15:41:17
even though i'm probably being monitored by the chinese government, deepin linux is preeeeeeeeetty slick if you can forgive the lack of english language 'polish'. it's like what elementary has been trying to do all along but nicer.

i just bought a Lenovo X1 Carbon... so I guess I'm gonna be monitored as well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 27 April 2017, 17:35:04
I gave Fedora another chance on my Lenovo T420, which I'm really liking. I'm not a fan at all of Unity, so I can't wait until Ubuntu goes back to Gnome as its default DE, which will also probably be around the time I'll be in the market for a new desktop.

You know you can just install another desktop environment anytime right? Whatever you like. Ubuntu, Fedora, every gnu/linux distro.

Just a side not here...
You kind of have to be careful switching between Budgie, Cinnamon, Unity and Gnome, since all are based on Gnome 3 (Budgie may no longer be), each can and often will overwrite key files wrecking one or all of the desktop environments.


Oh, and there is an official Gnome edition of Ubuntu that is available.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 27 April 2017, 17:54:33
I gave Fedora another chance on my Lenovo T420, which I'm really liking. I'm not a fan at all of Unity, so I can't wait until Ubuntu goes back to Gnome as its default DE, which will also probably be around the time I'll be in the market for a new desktop.

You know you can just install another desktop environment anytime right? Whatever you like. Ubuntu, Fedora, every gnu/linux distro.

Just a side not here...
You kind of have to be careful switching between Budgie, Cinnamon, Unity and Gnome, since all are based on Gnome 3 (Budgie may no longer be), each can and often will overwrite key files wrecking one or all of the desktop environments.


Oh, and there is an official Gnome edition of Ubuntu that is available.

I've nothing but good experiences with Gnome 3 and laptop touchpads. I think I tried Unity a few years ago and switched to Linux Mint shortly after because of reasons. Be sure not to install the current (unofficial) Ubuntu Gnome as your primary (if you decide to check out the ISO..). That project is going to be abandoned in the wake of the official Ubuntu Gnome release.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 27 April 2017, 23:24:12
I gave Fedora another chance on my Lenovo T420, which I'm really liking. I'm not a fan at all of Unity, so I can't wait until Ubuntu goes back to Gnome as its default DE, which will also probably be around the time I'll be in the market for a new desktop.

You know you can just install another desktop environment anytime right? Whatever you like. Ubuntu, Fedora, every gnu/linux distro.

Just a side not here...
You kind of have to be careful switching between Budgie, Cinnamon, Unity and Gnome, since all are based on Gnome 3 (Budgie may no longer be), each can and often will overwrite key files wrecking one or all of the desktop environments.


Oh, and there is an official Gnome edition of Ubuntu that is available.

I've nothing but good experiences with Gnome 3 and laptop touchpads. I think I tried Unity a few years ago and switched to Linux Mint shortly after because of reasons. Be sure not to install the current (unofficial) Ubuntu Gnome as your primary (if you decide to check out the ISO..). That project is going to be abandoned in the wake of the official Ubuntu Gnome release.
Since it's an official release, it would probably be rolled right into the next update, so support and updates shouldn't be a problem.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 28 April 2017, 00:13:38
lol deepin was cute but it lasted about a day. back to void + cwm + lemonbar. i'm using the musl version now!! i don't know what difference it's making but hey there you go.
(https://u.teknik.io/4MsP7.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: madhias on Fri, 28 April 2017, 00:39:18
Never heard from Void, as I read a little bit now it sounds interesting!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 28 April 2017, 01:11:28
Never heard from Void, as I read a little bit now it sounds interesting!

i always come back to void. it's just the best for me!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Skull_Angel on Fri, 28 April 2017, 04:03:28
New Linux user

Decided to start with Antergos and using it as my main OS. Haven't done much aside bumble around; I'm loving the speed and stability, but it's got me looking forward to building an Archlinux box eventually which I can already feel is going to be time consuming the first time around, haha.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 04:46:25
I gave Fedora another chance on my Lenovo T420, which I'm really liking. I'm not a fan at all of Unity, so I can't wait until Ubuntu goes back to Gnome as its default DE, which will also probably be around the time I'll be in the market for a new desktop.

You know you can just install another desktop environment anytime right? Whatever you like. Ubuntu, Fedora, every gnu/linux distro.

Just a side not here...
You kind of have to be careful switching between Budgie, Cinnamon, Unity and Gnome, since all are based on Gnome 3 (Budgie may no longer be), each can and often will overwrite key files wrecking one or all of the desktop environments.


Oh, and there is an official Gnome edition of Ubuntu that is available.

That's a good point, didn't think of that. That's quite annoying actually.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 04:49:39
New Linux user

Decided to start with Antergos and using it as my main OS. Haven't done much aside bumble around; I'm loving the speed and stability, but it's got me looking forward to building an Archlinux box eventually which I can already feel is going to be time consuming the first time around, haha.

But it would be worth it! You'll learn so much!

First time I tried linux was SUSE Linux 7.2. I thought linux was just another kernel with another graphical shell. I heard about this "KDE" vs "Gnome" thing, but I thought that - like with windows - the "command prompt" was an app you ran on top of gui, not the other way round.

So obviously things started to break quickly (back then linux required more manual admin than nowadays... there was no ubuntu also). So I dived right in and started to fix every issue one at a time. It was horrible but then I mastered linux and it was great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 28 April 2017, 06:34:38
New Linux user

Decided to start with Antergos and using it as my main OS. Haven't done much aside bumble around; I'm loving the speed and stability, but it's got me looking forward to building an Archlinux box eventually which I can already feel is going to be time consuming the first time around, haha.

While I agree with iLLucionist, doing an Arch install is not a bad idea, I would learn a bit more before you do it. Can you? Absolutely, however if all you have done is bumble around, Arch will be a very serious project. You will learn a lot, the problem is that at this point, you may or may not be as familiar with the correct terminology as would be helpful when searching up advice when it borks...

And you WILL bork it.
Probably more than once.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 28 April 2017, 06:42:40
First time I tried linux was SUSE Linux 7.2. I thought linux was just another kernel with another graphical shell. I heard about this "KDE" vs "Gnome" thing, but I thought that - like with windows - the "command prompt" was an app you ran on top of gui, not the other way round.

So obviously things started to break quickly (back then linux required more manual admin than nowadays... there was no ubuntu also). So I dived right in and started to fix every issue one at a time. It was horrible but then I mastered linux and it was great.
I remember when Windows was a gui and the prompt was the main system!
(Wasn't really that long ago, they just hid it better).

Pre-Ubuntu Linux was a nightmare. Of all the things Ubuntu did, creating a support forum that didn't have FTFM for every answer was a big improvement.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 06:48:13
First time I tried linux was SUSE Linux 7.2. I thought linux was just another kernel with another graphical shell. I heard about this "KDE" vs "Gnome" thing, but I thought that - like with windows - the "command prompt" was an app you ran on top of gui, not the other way round.

So obviously things started to break quickly (back then linux required more manual admin than nowadays... there was no ubuntu also). So I dived right in and started to fix every issue one at a time. It was horrible but then I mastered linux and it was great.
I remember when Windows was a gui and the prompt was the main system!
(Wasn't really that long ago, they just hid it better).

Pre-Ubuntu Linux was a nightmare. Of all the things Ubuntu did, creating a support forum that didn't have FTFM for every answer was a big improvement.

I know I know.. I've also used win 3.0 / 3.1 / 3.11 / 95 / 98. Yeah, before Ubuntu everybody was like "you got man, you noob. go to man." And than I was like "where are my binaries even?" And they were like "/bin, duuuhhh". And then I had a weird / non-default distro and I was like "no no... you're wrong". And some nerd on the forum told me "you suck you noob wtf you think you know your stuff." And then a day later he came back "oh right sorry... that distro does put binaries in /usr/bin and sometimes /usr/sbin".

So those were my first linux experiences.. But I was persistent, but that's what you need. In the beginnen I had no idea what booting was, or how lilo / grub differed etc. And man pages are often useless. Unless you are using freebsd, which provides rather complete online documentation.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 28 April 2017, 06:48:37
I gave Fedora another chance on my Lenovo T420, which I'm really liking. I'm not a fan at all of Unity, so I can't wait until Ubuntu goes back to Gnome as its default DE, which will also probably be around the time I'll be in the market for a new desktop.

You know you can just install another desktop environment anytime right? Whatever you like. Ubuntu, Fedora, every gnu/linux distro.

Just a side not here...
You kind of have to be careful switching between Budgie, Cinnamon, Unity and Gnome, since all are based on Gnome 3 (Budgie may no longer be), each can and often will overwrite key files wrecking one or all of the desktop environments.


Oh, and there is an official Gnome edition of Ubuntu that is available.

I've nothing but good experiences with Gnome 3 and laptop touchpads. I think I tried Unity a few years ago and switched to Linux Mint shortly after because of reasons. Be sure not to install the current (unofficial) Ubuntu Gnome as your primary (if you decide to check out the ISO..). That project is going to be abandoned in the wake of the official Ubuntu Gnome release.
Since it's an official release, it would probably be rolled right into the next update, so support and updates shouldn't be a problem.

Quote
As a result of this decision there will no longer be a separate GNOME flavor of Ubuntu. The development teams from both Ubuntu GNOME and Ubuntu Desktop will be merging resources and focusing on a single combined release, that provides the best of both GNOME and Ubuntu. We are currently liaising with the Canonical teams on how this will work out and more details will be announced in due course as we work out the specifics.

Wow, the web page even says it's an official release of Ubuntu. Don't I feel sheepish :-[ I read that they were halting the project but I didn't read the blog post afterward. Thanks for the clarification.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Skull_Angel on Fri, 28 April 2017, 07:10:50
@ILLucionist&Leslleann

I won't get around to it untill I'm comfortable with using the terminal, but I do want to really get into it; getting things like non-free graphics divers to play nicely gave me some good practice (mostly in trying to find the right commands to use). I've been trying to cause problems to diagnose and fix, but it seems harder to mess simpler things up than I immagined it would be! Lol

I think my next project will be gitting Wine running since I do enjoy playing games that don't have native Linux support.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 08:24:12
@ILLucionist&Leslleann

I won't get around to it untill I'm comfortable with using the terminal, but I do want to really get into it; getting things like non-free graphics divers to play nicely gave me some good practice (mostly in trying to find the right commands to use). I've been trying to cause problems to diagnose and fix, but it seems harder to mess simpler things up than I immagined it would be! Lol

I think my next project will be gitting Wine running since I do enjoy playing games that don't have native Linux support.

You already got some terminal practice, great! No worries, there will inevitably come a time when apt-get wants to overwrite existing files, so you'll get some more terminal experience by then.

You really have to go wild to mess up simpler things today in linux. It's not as fragile as it used to be around 2000-2004. Autoconfiguration has become better also.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 28 April 2017, 08:46:54
@ILLucionist&Leslleann

I won't get around to it untill I'm comfortable with using the terminal, but I do want to really get into it; getting things like non-free graphics divers to play nicely gave me some good practice (mostly in trying to find the right commands to use). I've been trying to cause problems to diagnose and fix, but it seems harder to mess simpler things up than I immagined it would be! Lol

I think my next project will be gitting Wine running since I do enjoy playing games that don't have native Linux support.

You already got some terminal practice, great! No worries, there will inevitably come a time when apt-get wants to overwrite existing files, so you'll get some more terminal experience by then.

You really have to go wild to mess up simpler things today in linux. It's not as fragile as it used to be around 2000-2004. Autoconfiguration has become better also.

 Does apt (I like apt) or apt-get have an option similar to --needed?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 08:52:04
@ILLucionist&Leslleann

I won't get around to it untill I'm comfortable with using the terminal, but I do want to really get into it; getting things like non-free graphics divers to play nicely gave me some good practice (mostly in trying to find the right commands to use). I've been trying to cause problems to diagnose and fix, but it seems harder to mess simpler things up than I immagined it would be! Lol

I think my next project will be gitting Wine running since I do enjoy playing games that don't have native Linux support.

You already got some terminal practice, great! No worries, there will inevitably come a time when apt-get wants to overwrite existing files, so you'll get some more terminal experience by then.

You really have to go wild to mess up simpler things today in linux. It's not as fragile as it used to be around 2000-2004. Autoconfiguration has become better also.

 Does apt (I like apt) or apt-get have an option similar to --needed?

Do you refer to pacman: " If a package in the list is already installed on the system, it will be reinstalled even if it is already up to date. This behavior can be overridden with the --needed option." ??

If so, I'm not sure. Never needed such an option.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 28 April 2017, 09:21:33
@ILLucionist&Leslleann

I won't get around to it untill I'm comfortable with using the terminal, but I do want to really get into it; getting things like non-free graphics divers to play nicely gave me some good practice (mostly in trying to find the right commands to use). I've been trying to cause problems to diagnose and fix, but it seems harder to mess simpler things up than I immagined it would be! Lol

I think my next project will be gitting Wine running since I do enjoy playing games that don't have native Linux support.

You already got some terminal practice, great! No worries, there will inevitably come a time when apt-get wants to overwrite existing files, so you'll get some more terminal experience by then.

You really have to go wild to mess up simpler things today in linux. It's not as fragile as it used to be around 2000-2004. Autoconfiguration has become better also.

 Does apt (I like apt) or apt-get have an option similar to --needed?

Do you refer to pacman: " If a package in the list is already installed on the system, it will be reinstalled even if it is already up to date. This behavior can be overridden with the --needed option." ??

If so, I'm not sure. Never needed such an option.

Yep. That's what I'm referring to. About a week ago I installed fakeroot and didn't realize that I reinstalled pacman until I noticed that I couldn't install anything with pacman. So I reinstalled Arch from my recipe and installed fakeroot with --needed; after that I was able to use pacman without issue. I'm sure something like that would save a few headaches.

edit - "So in reinstalled" changed in to I .. smh
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 28 April 2017, 10:17:54
Pre-Ubuntu Linux was a nightmare.
A word.

Mandrake
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 13:19:33
Pre-Ubuntu Linux was a nightmare.
A word.

Mandrake

Mandrake was the best in terms of ease of use. after suse I switched to mandrake. Then I switched to debian, then ubuntu, then arch, then back to ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 13:20:47
@ILLucionist&Leslleann

I won't get around to it untill I'm comfortable with using the terminal, but I do want to really get into it; getting things like non-free graphics divers to play nicely gave me some good practice (mostly in trying to find the right commands to use). I've been trying to cause problems to diagnose and fix, but it seems harder to mess simpler things up than I immagined it would be! Lol

I think my next project will be gitting Wine running since I do enjoy playing games that don't have native Linux support.

You already got some terminal practice, great! No worries, there will inevitably come a time when apt-get wants to overwrite existing files, so you'll get some more terminal experience by then.

You really have to go wild to mess up simpler things today in linux. It's not as fragile as it used to be around 2000-2004. Autoconfiguration has become better also.

 Does apt (I like apt) or apt-get have an option similar to --needed?

Do you refer to pacman: " If a package in the list is already installed on the system, it will be reinstalled even if it is already up to date. This behavior can be overridden with the --needed option." ??

If so, I'm not sure. Never needed such an option.

Yep. That's what I'm referring to. About a week ago I installed fakeroot and didn't realize that I reinstalled pacman until I noticed that I couldn't install anything with pacman. So I reinstalled Arch from my recipe and installed fakeroot with --needed; after that I was able to use pacman without issue. I'm sure something like that would save a few headaches.

edit - "So in reinstalled" changed in to I .. smh

that's why i'm no longer a fan of arch tbh. i had these weird quirks after updating so many times.. it was really not worth the trouble anymore imho. I also had many package conflicts back in the day. Like gnome needed this version of gtk but then xfce needed this version. it was annoying
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 28 April 2017, 14:51:23
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: madhias on Fri, 28 April 2017, 15:18:04
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 28 April 2017, 15:19:44
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 15:21:39
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

looks cool, will definitely vm that ***** to see what's it like
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 28 April 2017, 16:06:18
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

That wiki is the main reason I was pulled into Arch. I was tired of translating Arch wiki info for other distros. So much information it's unreal. Five years in and I'm already installing Arch wtf
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 28 April 2017, 16:13:31
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

That wiki is the main reason I was pulled into Arch. I was tired of translating Arch wiki info for other distros. So much information it's unreal. Five years in and I'm already installing Arch wtf

at a certain point, really, you go from needing the wiki to understand how things are Supposed to Work to already having an idea of how things are Supposed to Work, and then the wiki just becomes a nice 'sane config options' reference that explains things a bit better than some man pages.

if openbsd ran a bit faster on my laptop i would be using it for the man pages alone. if you've only ever used linux manpages, you owe it to yourself to check out how well openbsd is documented.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 28 April 2017, 16:35:19
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

That wiki is the main reason I was pulled into Arch. I was tired of translating Arch wiki info for other distros. So much information it's unreal. Five years in and I'm already installing Arch wtf

at a certain point, really, you go from needing the wiki to understand how things are Supposed to Work to already having an idea of how things are Supposed to Work, and then the wiki just becomes a nice 'sane config options' reference that explains things a bit better than some man pages.

if openbsd ran a bit faster on my laptop i would be using it for the man pages alone. if you've only ever used linux manpages, you owe it to yourself to check out how well openbsd is documented.

Ninja Fish logo? Done deal. I'm an OpenBSD person now. ^-^. One of these days I'll setup a router with some form of BSD. I'll be sure to include OpenBSD in my reading material before I decide on a distro
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 16:44:10
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

That wiki is the main reason I was pulled into Arch. I was tired of translating Arch wiki info for other distros. So much information it's unreal. Five years in and I'm already installing Arch wtf

at a certain point, really, you go from needing the wiki to understand how things are Supposed to Work to already having an idea of how things are Supposed to Work, and then the wiki just becomes a nice 'sane config options' reference that explains things a bit better than some man pages.

if openbsd ran a bit faster on my laptop i would be using it for the man pages alone. if you've only ever used linux manpages, you owe it to yourself to check out how well openbsd is documented.

Ninja Fish logo? Done deal. I'm an OpenBSD person now. ^-^. One of these days I'll setup a router with some form of BSD. I'll be sure to include OpenBSD in my reading material before I decide on a distro

Do you OpenBSD with a graphical environment? Does that work properly with drivers and hardware acceleration and all?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 28 April 2017, 17:04:02
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

That wiki is the main reason I was pulled into Arch. I was tired of translating Arch wiki info for other distros. So much information it's unreal. Five years in and I'm already installing Arch wtf

at a certain point, really, you go from needing the wiki to understand how things are Supposed to Work to already having an idea of how things are Supposed to Work, and then the wiki just becomes a nice 'sane config options' reference that explains things a bit better than some man pages.

if openbsd ran a bit faster on my laptop i would be using it for the man pages alone. if you've only ever used linux manpages, you owe it to yourself to check out how well openbsd is documented.

Ninja Fish logo? Done deal. I'm an OpenBSD person now. ^-^. One of these days I'll setup a router with some form of BSD. I'll be sure to include OpenBSD in my reading material before I decide on a distro

Do you OpenBSD with a graphical environment? Does that work properly with drivers and hardware acceleration and all?

i use a thinkpad and all of the hardware works great. i'm not sure if it supports bluetooth. also not sure what the state of things is with nvidia/amd but i can't imagine needing a more powerful GPU than what the new intel integrated graphics does. openbsd is not for gaming after all.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Fri, 28 April 2017, 17:28:46
pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

That wiki is the main reason I was pulled into Arch. I was tired of translating Arch wiki info for other distros. So much information it's unreal. Five years in and I'm already installing Arch wtf

at a certain point, really, you go from needing the wiki to understand how things are Supposed to Work to already having an idea of how things are Supposed to Work, and then the wiki just becomes a nice 'sane config options' reference that explains things a bit better than some man pages.

if openbsd ran a bit faster on my laptop i would be using it for the man pages alone. if you've only ever used linux manpages, you owe it to yourself to check out how well openbsd is documented.

Ninja Fish logo? Done deal. I'm an OpenBSD person now. ^-^. One of these days I'll setup a router with some form of BSD. I'll be sure to include OpenBSD in my reading material before I decide on a distro

Do you OpenBSD with a graphical environment? Does that work properly with drivers and hardware acceleration and all?

i use a thinkpad and all of the hardware works great. i'm not sure if it supports bluetooth. also not sure what the state of things is with nvidia/amd but i can't imagine needing a more powerful GPU than what the new intel integrated graphics does. openbsd is not for gaming after all.

Hmmm.. perhaps it'll work on my new X1 carbon gen 5.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 28 April 2017, 19:14:53
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/5644
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 28 April 2017, 20:06:14
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/5644

the attitude systemd devs show toward their actual target userbase is mindboggling
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Skull_Angel on Fri, 28 April 2017, 21:17:57
@ILLucionist&Leslleann

I won't get around to it untill I'm comfortable with using the terminal, but I do want to really get into it; getting things like non-free graphics divers to play nicely gave me some good practice (mostly in trying to find the right commands to use). I've been trying to cause problems to diagnose and fix, but it seems harder to mess simpler things up than I immagined it would be! Lol

I think my next project will be gitting Wine running since I do enjoy playing games that don't have native Linux support.

You already got some terminal practice, great! No worries, there will inevitably come a time when apt-get wants to overwrite existing files, so you'll get some more terminal experience by then.

You really have to go wild to mess up simpler things today in linux. It's not as fragile as it used to be around 2000-2004. Autoconfiguration has become better also.


I'm starting to pick up on that! I've alreready experienced the apt-get issue when I tried to install multiple DEs trying them out (using MATE atm, but haven't tried XFCE or KDE yet); conflicts and crases galore, but wasn't ready to try to sort them out, haha.


pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

pssst if you like arch but have any complaints whatsoever, try void

I might give it a try sometimes. I just went with Arch because of the Wiki.


void is nice for learning because other than learning the init system (which seriously takes 15 minutes) and package manger (very similar to pacman) , everything else is pretty much vanilla packages with the occasional tweak.
i still refer to the arch wiki for some things even though i haven't used arch in years!

That wiki is the main reason I was pulled into Arch. I was tired of translating Arch wiki info for other distros. So much information it's unreal. Five years in and I'm already installing Arch wtf

I'm liking Arch/Antergos a lot so far, but definitely going to keep other builds in mind to eventually try out. Void does sound enticing from the description on the main page; I like the K.I.S.S. mentality for basic farmeworks, let's the end-user build up the way they want and give them the ability to more easily troubleshoot/fix/maintain what they're working with.

That's one of the things thet pulled me into Archlinux and Antergos too. I like info and the more the better! The thought of a rolling release OS is anothre thing I'm enjoying, esp. when most seem to run into very few issues with current updates.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dante on Fri, 28 April 2017, 22:24:07
Are modern Linux distributions smart enough to optimize SSD drives [for lifespan] from the get go or do they still require further tweaking?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Skull_Angel on Fri, 28 April 2017, 22:46:00
Are modern Linux distributions smart enough to optimize SSD drives [for lifespan] from the get go or do they still require further tweaking?

Current builds should be good enough not to need much tweaking, as long as the SSD supports TRIM (which any new SSD should). Furthermore, I remember reading that Intel and Samsung have the largest support, but any newer branded-SSD shouldn't give you any issues.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 29 April 2017, 06:10:15
Are modern Linux distributions smart enough to optimize SSD drives [for lifespan] from the get go or do they still require further tweaking?

Current builds should be good enough not to need much tweaking, as long as the SSD supports TRIM (which any new SSD should). Furthermore, I remember reading that Intel and Samsung have the largest support, but any newer branded-SSD shouldn't give you any issues.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives)

It does depend on the distro though, so you should check to make sure. Most distros ok, but I had it sometimes with an obscure distro that trim kernel support wasn't compiled in for some reason.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 29 April 2017, 07:36:02
Are modern Linux distributions smart enough to optimize SSD drives [for lifespan] from the get go or do they still require further tweaking?

Current builds should be good enough not to need much tweaking, as long as the SSD supports TRIM (which any new SSD should). Furthermore, I remember reading that Intel and Samsung have the largest support, but any newer branded-SSD shouldn't give you any issues.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives)

It does depend on the distro though, so you should check to make sure. Most distros ok, but I had it sometimes with an obscure distro that trim kernel support wasn't compiled in for some reason.

Trim might be a bit easier to setup on Linux compared to Windows. If the distro doesn't do it for you just add discard to your fstab file. Usually found in /etc/fstab. Obviously accessing fstab is a good way to check to see if it's enabled. Take care that changing the wrong thing could cause a kernel panic at startup. There's probably a few more steps for maintenance but discard enables trim on linux iirc.

Example: rw, discard, relatime (or noatime on some distros)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sat, 29 April 2017, 07:44:04
Are modern Linux distributions smart enough to optimize SSD drives [for lifespan] from the get go or do they still require further tweaking?

Current builds should be good enough not to need much tweaking, as long as the SSD supports TRIM (which any new SSD should). Furthermore, I remember reading that Intel and Samsung have the largest support, but any newer branded-SSD shouldn't give you any issues.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives)

It does depend on the distro though, so you should check to make sure. Most distros ok, but I had it sometimes with an obscure distro that trim kernel support wasn't compiled in for some reason.

Trim might be a bit easier to setup on Linux compared to Windows. If the distro doesn't do it for you just add discard to your fstab file. Usually found in /etc/fstab. Obviously accessing fstab is a good way to check to see if it's enabled. Take care that changing the wrong thing could cause a kernel panic at startup. There's probably a few more steps for maintenance but discard enables trim on linux iirc.

Example: rw, discard, relatime (or noatime on some distros)

Still - unless I'm mistaken - you need that feature compiled into your kernel otherwise changing your fstab doesn't do sh*t.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 29 April 2017, 08:22:42
Are modern Linux distributions smart enough to optimize SSD drives [for lifespan] from the get go or do they still require further tweaking?

Current builds should be good enough not to need much tweaking, as long as the SSD supports TRIM (which any new SSD should). Furthermore, I remember reading that Intel and Samsung have the largest support, but any newer branded-SSD shouldn't give you any issues.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives)

It does depend on the distro though, so you should check to make sure. Most distros ok, but I had it sometimes with an obscure distro that trim kernel support wasn't compiled in for some reason.

Trim might be a bit easier to setup on Linux compared to Windows. If the distro doesn't do it for you just add discard to your fstab file. Usually found in /etc/fstab. Obviously accessing fstab is a good way to check to see if it's enabled. Take care that changing the wrong thing could cause a kernel panic at startup. There's probably a few more steps for maintenance but discard enables trim on linux iirc.

Example: rw, discard, relatime (or noatime on some distros)

Still - unless I'm mistaken - you need that feature compiled into your kernel otherwise changing your fstab doesn't do sh*t.

A kernel that is patched for security updates but not for SSD? 2017? Seems unlikely. And there are plenty of other options besides discard.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 29 April 2017, 08:37:14
Are modern Linux distributions smart enough to optimize SSD drives [for lifespan] from the get go or do they still require further tweaking?

Current builds should be good enough not to need much tweaking, as long as the SSD supports TRIM (which any new SSD should). Furthermore, I remember reading that Intel and Samsung have the largest support, but any newer branded-SSD shouldn't give you any issues.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives)
That's with Mint 17.3 and a 4 years old SSD:

Quote
➜  ~  lsblk -D
NAME   DISC-ALN DISC-GRAN DISC-MAX DISC-ZERO
sda           0      512B       2G         0
├─sda1        0      512B       2G         0
├─sda2        0      512B       2G         0
├─sda3        0      512B       2G         0
└─sda4        0      512B       2G         0
➜  ~  uname -a
Linux iri 3.19.0-80-generic #88~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 13 14:54:07 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rasmusx on Fri, 05 May 2017, 15:57:32
Arch linux. 10 years and going on :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 05 May 2017, 21:40:03
Switched to Manjaro GNOME on my laptop after using Ubuntu GNOME.  Overall, I have experienced less problems with Manjaro than Ubuntu, and prefer the rolling updates. 

In other news, Deepin works pretty good with a touchscreen laptop, just needs one of those pop-up touch keyboards to round it off.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 07 May 2017, 22:11:28
Arch linux. 10 years and going on :)

Dedication!

Ever tempted to try a different distro?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rasmusx on Mon, 08 May 2017, 00:20:14
Arch linux. 10 years and going on :)

Dedication!

Ever tempted to try a different distro?
At this point not really. Feels very home with Arch and I can always configure it the way I need.

But I do use other distros on servers usually and run emulated win10 with gpu passthrough for gaming :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 11 May 2017, 19:19:20
Overall, I have experienced less problems with Manjaro than Ubuntu, and prefer the rolling updates.
:eek:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: WarCommand on Fri, 12 May 2017, 05:05:49
Loving Ubuntu 17.04 GNOME. Completely wrote off GNOME in the past but it's rock solid compared to some of the other DEs out there.

I want to eventually transition back to Debian but the ease of use with Ubuntu and availability of packages is making it hard for me to leave.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: killyou on Fri, 12 May 2017, 11:03:16
I started using Linux at the university since around 2007/2008 and I converted my desktops around 2012. This is my distro hopping path:

Debian -> Linux Mint -> Cinnarch -> Arch -> Antergos & Fedora

I'm using both Antergos and Fedora nowadays but most ofter Fedora as their latest releases are super solid.

If it comes to the DEs:

Gnome 2 -> Early Gnome 3 -> Cinnamon -> Gnome 3 since 3.16/3.18

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jjanssen1 on Sun, 11 June 2017, 09:04:15
I am currently using Mint/Cinnamon on my 2015 Macbook air that I use every day for school :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 11 June 2017, 10:43:06
I am currently using Mint/Cinnamon on my 2015 Macbook air that I use every day for school :)

How do you find the battery life compared with running OSX/MacOS?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 11 June 2017, 16:36:30
I am currently using Mint/Cinnamon on my 2015 Macbook air that I use every day for school :)

How do you find the battery life compared with running OSX/MacOS?

Generally, Linux tends to get around 60%, maybe 70% battery life compared to OSX, however, with some tuning, you can get 80-100% of the battery life (depending on how aggressive y0u go).

The reason for this is that MS and Apple use very aggressive power reduction when running in battery mode (Windows limits the processor to 50%, Apple is around 30-40%). If you use a good distro, Ubuntu based distros are actually almost as good as distros claiming to be power efficient(!), install ThermalD and P-state then do some tuning using TLP you can get almost all of it back.

Beware though, Airs use some odd hardware combinations which can give Linux (and Windows) problems.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jjanssen1 on Mon, 12 June 2017, 00:06:54
I am currently using Mint/Cinnamon on my 2015 Macbook air that I use every day for school :)

How do you find the battery life compared with running OSX/MacOS?

I get around ~9ish hours on OSX (I have alot of power hungry apps runnng most of the time) and maybe 4-6 hours on Linux at the moment (depending on what I am doing on it of course).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: skaloola on Wed, 21 June 2017, 23:12:31
sysadmins are really not installing packages all the time. occasionally, sure, but yum is Good Enough given the other advantages.

there's really no reason to be so flabbergasted that some people have different vendor requirements when it comes to their distro of choice!

I respect all that. But my memories of yum are SO SO BAD that I cannot imagine people PREFERRING it over alternatives.

ok, so I read some stuff in this thread that people clearly just pulled out of their ass which was pretty disappointing.. I really don't have it in me right now to set people straight/argue.. instead I'll try to answer this question as it's not something you can just find on Google easily.

Me: I manage ~150-200 nodes on EC2 (aws).  We run Ubuntu LTS.

Some companies prefer RHEL for a few reasons:

- reputation as an enterprise grade distro
- paid support, paid software offerings, long release cycles
- big hardware vendors formally "support" RHEL (Oracle, Dell, HP).. meaning they test their servers against OS's.  (used to work for Sun, we supported RHEL and SLES.  There is a ridiculous amount of work done before vendors claim to support an OS).  Each time a new OS version or system comes out, all that testing needs to be done again.

We run Ubuntu as it's free, well supported w/ open source software/tools, and is widely deployed on EC2


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: skaloola on Thu, 22 June 2017, 00:54:59
no yum still sucks

Respectfully, for the love of god why do SYSADMINS use CentOS if the thing that you are doing very often sucks the most, which is the package manager 'yum'.

Is it like... a religion? Like CentOS is based off of the "most widely used red hat distro in the whole industry". And people are like "shiiiit i must have this yo" amongst sysadmins?

It's just like the windows kids ... They want someone there to hold their hand while they venture into computerland and will give them support when things go TU

Our manager tried to get us to standardize on CentOS because "everyone" in the industry is using RHEL... but we just told him to shove it and ran ubuntu lts  :p

ok, so I read some stuff in this thread that people clearly just pulled out of their ass which was pretty disappointing.. I really don't have it in me right now to set people straight/argue.. instead I'll try to answer this question as it's not something you can just find on Google easily.

Me: I manage ~150-200 nodes on EC2 (aws).  We run Ubuntu LTS.

Some companies prefer RHEL for a few reasons:

- reputation as an enterprise grade distro
- paid support, paid software offerings, long release cycles
- big hardware vendors formally "support" RHEL (Oracle, Dell, HP).. meaning they test their servers against OS's.  (used to work for Sun, we supported RHEL and SLES.  There is a ridiculous amount of work done before vendors claim to support an OS).  Each time a new OS version or system comes out, all that testing needs to be done again.

We run Ubuntu as it's free, well supported w/ open source software/tools, and is widely deployed on EC2



[/quote]

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: riktors on Sat, 24 June 2017, 22:52:02
Definitely bounced around a lot but I've come back to Arch several times and been on it consistently for about 5 years now. Just really enjoy building up the system how I want, the AUR and the rolling release model. My personal flip flop is always around the DE. Can't ever seem to be happy and change every few months.  :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 25 June 2017, 03:01:17
Definitely bounced around a lot but I've come back to Arch several times and been on it consistently for about 5 years now. Just really enjoy building up the system how I want, the AUR and the rolling release model. My personal flip flop is always around the DE. Can't ever seem to be happy and change every few months.  :D
I used to be like you, I was never happy with how it looked and I spent so much time customizing that I usually borked the system.  :))
I've been running my Linux machines with pretty much the same OS' for about a year now and I haven't changed anything, that's huge for me. :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hypersphere on Sun, 25 June 2017, 15:55:22
From time to time, I try out a new distro by testing it in Virtualbox and/or VMware Workstation, but I keep coming back to Linux Mint 17.3 64-bit with the Xfce desktop. This is based on Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit LTS.

Recently, I tested Ubuntu MATE 16.04.2 LTS 64-bit. Very nice. If I ever had to stop using Mint and Xfce for some reason, Ubuntu MATE would be my next choice.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: antquinonez on Sun, 25 June 2017, 16:11:26
I use Manjaro with Mate on my desktop. I'm running Mint with Mate on my netbook. I prefer Manjaro's pacman based app installer vs the apt-get (needlessly complicated).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 26 June 2017, 14:17:59
Code: [Select]
apt install <software>
Is it really that complicated?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 26 June 2017, 14:58:36
Code: [Select]
apt install <software>
Is it really that complicated?

Typing apt is much easier than typing apt-get if you ask me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 26 June 2017, 16:17:36
the whole bloody four symbols of difference!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: antquinonez on Mon, 26 June 2017, 17:28:51
pacman -Syyu and my computer is happilly up-to-date. Seriously, pacman was designed with simplicity in mind. Apt has bigger challenges in mind.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 26 June 2017, 19:17:11
When a red star shows in my status bar I click it. Gnome even displays a notification tooltip with total updates available. #lazysauce--Bam, update Manjaro like a boss :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Tue, 27 June 2017, 07:26:39
I find apt quite nice to work with honestly. I've never had any issues with it that weren't my own fault.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 27 June 2017, 19:55:44
pacman -Syyu and my computer is happilly up-to-date. Seriously, pacman was designed with simplicity in mind. Apt has bigger challenges in mind.
Yeah, an upgrade with apt will require two commands.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: robotsokk on Tue, 27 June 2017, 20:01:27
Been using Korora for the past few months. I like it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Hund on Tue, 27 June 2017, 20:14:55
Long time Arch Linux user. :) It's a competent, straightforward and stable rolling release distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Fri, 30 June 2017, 10:59:51
This week, I finished a new computer. On my old one, I have ran Gnome 2.0 and Window Maker for years. On the new one, I installed Ubuntu Mate, because that is supposed to work like the old one and not be screwed up like Gnome 3.

Now, the latest Mate uses GTK+ 3.0... which apparently the Gnome 3 developers have been on, and royally screwed up.
Scrollbars don't work like they do on every other toolkit (GTK 2, Qt, Windows, etc...): clicking does not move a page. If you move a window's resize-bar somewhere and then back again, then the scrollbar will not be restored to its previous position. Menus don't keep submenus open if you move the pointer diagonally, like they have done since GTK+ 1.2.10 days.
I search the forums and see that there have been numerous bug reports and discussions about it. GNOME developers replied with "Getting scrollbars right is hard".
Not it isn't!!! If it is too hard for you then LEAVE IT THE **** ALONE, YOU INCOMPETENT ****TARD!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 30 June 2017, 11:28:27
This week, I finished a new computer. On my old one, I have ran Gnome 2.0 and Window Maker for years. On the new one, I installed Ubuntu Mate, because that is supposed to work like the old one and not be screwed up like Gnome 3.

Now, the latest Mate uses GTK+ 3.0... which apparently the Gnome 3 developers have been on, and royally screwed up.
Scrollbars don't work like they do on every other toolkit (GTK 2, Qt, Windows, etc...): clicking does not move a page. If you move a Window's resize-bar somewhere and then back again, then the scrollbar will not be restored to its previous position. Menus don't keep submenus open if you move the pointer diagonally, like they have done since GTK+ 1.2.10 days.
I search the forums and see that there have been numerous bug reports and discussions about it. GNOME developers replied with "Getting scrollbars right is hard".
Not it isn't!!! If it is too hard for you then LEAVE IT THE **** ALONE, YOU INCOMPETENT ****TARD!

If I was to reach that level of frustration I believe I'd install arch or something similar, add a tiling wm (i3wm, etc.) to the xinit script, and avoid a DE/GDM altogether. Lordy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: antquinonez on Fri, 30 June 2017, 11:29:15
pacman -Syyu and my computer is happilly up-to-date. Seriously, pacman was designed with simplicity in mind. Apt has bigger challenges in mind.
Yeah, an upgrade with apt will require two commands.

It's also what you have to work with (the output) from the program, the decisions you have to make. I don't want to hear about some stuff...just update, already. Some people like the options, I don't.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 30 June 2017, 13:59:07
Runs (basically) Arch, doesn't like reading output and making decisions. Good luck with that. You might be surprised, once an update completely screws up your system.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: antquinonez on Fri, 30 June 2017, 14:24:07
Runs (basically) Arch, doesn't like reading output and making decisions. Good luck with that. You might be surprised, once an update completely screws up your system.

Das right. About program behavior: don't say nothing if you have nothing to say; have reasonable defaults; don't break stuff. Updates have screwed up my system and then I go looking for answers. Not my favorite activity. I don't like to fiddle with my system. I like to be running the latest/greatest stable apps and libraries.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 30 June 2017, 14:54:10
Runs (basically) Arch, doesn't like reading output and making decisions. Good luck with that. You might be surprised, once an update completely screws up your system.

Das right. About program behavior: don't say nothing if you have nothing to say; have reasonable defaults; don't break stuff. Updates have screwed up my system and then I go looking for answers. Not my favorite activity. I don't like to fiddle with my system. I like to be running the latest/greatest stable apps and libraries.

Part of the fun of Arch is deciphering what went wrong and why. Manjaro might simplyfy the installation process but eventually you'll run into an update that causes indigestion
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 30 June 2017, 15:23:07
I don't like to fiddle with my system. I like to be running the latest/greatest stable apps and libraries.
Why are you running Arch, those two statements really don't work well together.

Arch isn't stable, it's more of a rolling Release Candidate, which falls between beta and gold release.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: antquinonez on Fri, 30 June 2017, 17:37:58
I don't like to fiddle with my system. I like to be running the latest/greatest stable apps and libraries.
Why are you running Arch, those two statements really don't work well together.

Arch isn't stable, it's more of a rolling Release Candidate, which falls between beta and gold release.

I'm not running Arch. I'm running Manjaro, which is billed as more user-friendly extension of Arch. I like the frequent updates. Occasionally, I get pre-built package problems but I've been able to overcome them. I'm careful with installing from the Arch User Repository, which introduces complexity, but there's the odd thing from there that I use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Fri, 30 June 2017, 18:35:44
Debian 9 is out, looking forward to Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 3 to be released soon.

Want to follow the church of Richard Stallman - but it's like being Vegan, quite hard to survive. Would rather be just a vegetarian.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Sat, 01 July 2017, 06:06:33
If I was to reach that level of frustration I believe I'd install arch or something similar, add a tiling wm (i3wm, etc.) to the xinit script, and avoid a DE/GDM altogether. Lordy.
Don't be snotty. It is not regression that I want. I want well-designed user interface that works well, and works well along established principles. Convention is an important principle, because it allows users to keep their habits and work efficiently. Now instead, we have some apps with scrollbars that work one way and other apps with scrollbars that work another way.
Requiring users to use a scrollbar that does not work like a scrollbar should is like exchanging all their keyboards with chiclet keyboards.
This change is not development but regression to a more primitive behaviour, like how it worked in some toolkits that are now really arcane ... except for a new behaviour that is triggered when you hold down the button for a second, and will only make it appear as if the scrollbar is buggy.

The GNOME 3 developers have hijacked the development of the user interface toolkit GTK+ and imposed their ideas on everyone.
The GNOME 3 devs do not "own" GTK. They have no right to impose these changes on others.
There are tens of thousands of non-GNOME apps that use GTK+. It was originally developed for the painting program The Gimp - and the change of GTK+ has changed also that program's behaviour.

The right way to introduce a new behaviour of such a basic widget would have been to implement it to be enabled by an option in a config file distributed with GNOME 3, leaving the original default behaviour intact - not requiring that everyone else should conform to them.
This change is disrespectful to the users, to previous developers of GTK+ and to other developers of GTK+ programs.

(Edited for grammar and to make the point clearer)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 01 July 2017, 07:02:56
In other words, GNOME in a nutshell. It's not like they didn't make such decisions in the pre-Shell days either. After all, they, for example, moved from Sawfish to Metacity.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 01 July 2017, 10:27:47
If I was to reach that level of frustration I believe I'd install arch or something similar, add a tiling wm (i3wm, etc.) to the xinit script, and avoid a DE/GDM altogether. Lordy.
Don't be snotty. It is not regression that I want. I want well-designed user interface that works well, and works well along established principles. Convention is an important principle, because it allows users to keep their habits and work efficiently. Now instead, we have some apps with scrollbars that work one way and other apps with scrollbars that work another way.
Requiring users to use a scrollbar that does not work like a scrollbar should is like exchanging all their keyboards with chiclet keyboards.
This change is not development but regression to a more primitive behaviour, like how it worked in some toolkits that are now really arcane ... except for a new behaviour that is triggered when you hold down the button for a second, and will only make it appear as if the scrollbar is buggy.

The GNOME 3 developers have hijacked the development of the user interface toolkit GTK+ and imposed their ideas on everyone.
The GNOME 3 devs do not "own" GTK. They have no right to impose these changes on others.
There are tens of thousands of non-GNOME apps that use GTK+. It was originally developed for the painting program The Gimp - and the change of GTK+ has changed also that program's behaviour.

The right way to introduce a new behaviour of such a basic widget would have been to implement it to be enabled by an option in a config file distributed with GNOME 3, leaving the original default behaviour intact - not requiring that everyone else should conform to them.
This change is disrespectful to the users, to previous developers of GTK+ and to other developers of GTK+ programs.

(Edited for grammar and to make the point clearer)

The Gimp? I'm only five years in as a linux user (my local stores did not carry box copies of Linux iirc) so perhaps I can't comprehend the differences and the disrespect you mentioned. I've heard others in podcasts almost match your level of frustation in regards to Gnome's past and future and I also see that continual trend towards touchscreens and active digitizers so I took a different route for short period of time and whittled everything down to the basics.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jjanssen1 on Sun, 09 July 2017, 20:50:01
Just got Arch linux and GNOME working on my old 21.5" iMac :)

(http://i.imgur.com/4WTqLxe.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 09 July 2017, 22:51:09
Just got Arch linux and GNOME working on my old 21.5" iMac :)

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/4WTqLxe.jpg)

Lookin' sexy!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Mon, 10 July 2017, 11:47:57
Just got Arch linux and GNOME working on my old 21.5" iMac :)

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/4WTqLxe.jpg)


Panel / Taskbar >> Dock

 :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Mon, 10 July 2017, 12:06:01
I am not a fan of taskbars. First of all, using multiple workspaces obviates the need for minimized or overlapping most windows. With multiple workspaces, it is much easier to navigate in two dimensions where windows stay put than in a one-dimensional task bar that constantly changes.
Second: when you need to look up a particular window, a vertical "window menu" is more effective: Window titles aren't abbreviated (as much) and window menus are often smarter: Windows ordered by workspace and with icons to show which windows are minimized.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 10 July 2017, 13:27:42
Just got Arch linux and GNOME working on my old 21.5" iMac :)

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/4WTqLxe.jpg)

Lookin' sexy!

Seconded. I think the Brobot wraps it all together rather well
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 11 July 2017, 14:34:45
Definitely bounced around a lot but I've come back to Arch several times and been on it consistently for about 5 years now. Just really enjoy building up the system how I want, the AUR and the rolling release model. My personal flip flop is always around the DE. Can't ever seem to be happy and change every few months.  :D
I used to be like you, I was never happy with how it looked and I spent so much time customizing that I usually borked the system.  :))
I've been running my Linux machines with pretty much the same OS' for about a year now and I haven't changed anything, that's huge for me. :p

same here for about 2.5 years, and for much of that with a VERY similar void+cwm+lemonbar config. it's very comfortable for me now on a single monitor setup (though i did have some problems trying out multimon with linux cwm, i bet openbsd's handles it just fine).

(http://i.imgur.com/mKRvl13.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 12 July 2017, 12:07:18
Definitely bounced around a lot but I've come back to Arch several times and been on it consistently for about 5 years now. Just really enjoy building up the system how I want, the AUR and the rolling release model. My personal flip flop is always around the DE. Can't ever seem to be happy and change every few months.  :D
I used to be like you, I was never happy with how it looked and I spent so much time customizing that I usually borked the system.  :))
I've been running my Linux machines with pretty much the same OS' for about a year now and I haven't changed anything, that's huge for me. :p

same here for about 2.5 years, and for much of that with a VERY similar void+cwm+lemonbar config. it's very comfortable for me now on a single monitor setup (though i did have some problems trying out multimon with linux cwm, i bet openbsd's handles it just fine).

Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/mKRvl13.jpg)


Hmm, perhaps I'll give Void a try after Gentoo. Really digging the minimalism
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: raxander on Wed, 12 July 2017, 20:47:34
I'm running Mint right now with fluxbox.  Arch is probably my favorite and I was running that for a long time, will probably switch back to that at some point. I like the philosophy and their wiki and forums are the best - very easy to get high-quality help if you're willing to do some basic investigation before posting.  The reason I switched to it in the first place was that I had been running Ubuntu, and I noticed that as I was searching for stuff on my box, they were showing me wares they wanted me to buy!  Ewww, I thought, were they really looking at my local search and deciding what to market to me?!  And doing a ps -Af there were all sorts of processes running that I didn't know what they were.  So I loved Arch because you're building it up from a minimal core and making conscious decisions about what you want running on your box, and I learned a lot in the process.  I wasn't so excited about the switch to systemd (and pulseaudio for that matter), but I guess I'm over it.  Though I seriously considered switching to another *nix around that time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tricheboars on Fri, 14 July 2017, 13:29:23
3 computers at home run Ubuntu Gnome. two are attached to tvs and one is my personal laptop. i have two arch linux boxes with gnome running at my office. i use to run gentoo at the office but they became too problematic over time.

i have one windows box at home and one at work as well. the one at home is strictly for gaming and VR as the Oculus SDK and SteamVR SDk do not really support linux at all. also i steam link my games from windows to my linux laptop all the time at home. i also have a work laptop with windows because i have to have one as a sysadmin to support my users.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Centropyge loriculus on Fri, 14 July 2017, 22:25:09
Running Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. It's my 7th Pi and I like it. Still working on acclimating to Linux though, and all it's distributions. My goal for August is to build my own Linux kernel using Linux From Scratch. I'll have plenty of time while I'm home with my daughter who should be born in the coming weeks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sat, 15 July 2017, 00:54:23
Running Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. It's my 7th Pi and I like it. Still working on acclimating to Linux though, and all it's distributions. My goal for August is to build my own Linux kernel using Linux From Scratch. I'll have plenty of time while I'm home with my daughter who should be born in the coming weeks.
Congrats on the little one. :D
Building a kernel from scratch is quite the undertaking I would imagine. You a programmer by trade?

3 computers at home run Ubuntu Gnome. two are attached to tvs and one is my personal laptop. i have two arch linux boxes with gnome running at my office. i use to run gentoo at the office but they became too problematic over time.

i have one windows box at home and one at work as well. the one at home is strictly for gaming and VR as the Oculus SDK and SteamVR SDk do not really support linux at all. also i steam link my games from windows to my linux laptop all the time at home. i also have a work laptop with windows because i have to have one as a sysadmin to support my users.
Yeah same here basically.
All other PC's than my gaming one runs Linux in some variant or another.
Also have a small server set up for all sorts of random tasks.

Planning on setting up a pi for surveillance.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 15 July 2017, 05:37:23
Building a kernel isn't difficult at all and you don't need LFS for that. It is possible to build a custom kernel and use it with your current distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Centropyge loriculus on Sat, 15 July 2017, 13:03:51
Quote
Congrats on the little one. :D
Building a kernel from scratch is quite the undertaking I would imagine. You a programmer by trade?

Thanks, and it apparently isn't that bad. I worked in an emergency department and one of our volunteers got me into all of this. I'm by no means a programmer. I just enjoy breaking stuff and figuring out how to put it back together. So I feel this was just a natural progression. Also, the Linux From Scratch is rated for anyone with a highschool diploma and up by what I gathered from a bunch of Raspberry Pi and Linux forums.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: robotsokk on Sat, 15 July 2017, 14:38:09
Also, the Linux From Scratch is rated for anyone with a highschool diploma and up by what I gathered from a bunch of Raspberry Pi and Linux forums.

Hadn't heard of this resource before -- will definitely be checking it out. Thanks for sharing :) Seems it will not only be a good way to get familiar with the process of rolling my own Linux system, but will also be helpful for getting more familiar with its inner workings. And I'm sure it could prove useful for projects where I'd like to use a low-resource system and have lots of control over the config.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Centropyge loriculus on Sat, 15 July 2017, 16:24:20
Yeah, it's pretty cool. My buddy who introduced me to it told me he's made kernels as small as just a couple hundred kB. I realize this still might be huge to some, but I can't imagine you can't truncate it even further to your liking once you're comfortable.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 15 July 2017, 18:56:02
I tried to upgrade Kubuntu from 16.10 to 17.04, because support is ending this month. It didn't go too well. Basically, I disabled backports but forgot to downgrade packages from there, and then ended up with dependency hell. Lesson learned, I guess.

Anyway, I'm on 17.04 now and things seem to work fine. Some slightly annoying bugs and broken packages are fixed, so it's even slightly better thus far.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tricheboars on Wed, 19 July 2017, 15:25:19
I tried to upgrade Kubuntu from 16.10 to 17.04, because support is ending this month. It didn't go too well. Basically, I disabled backports but forgot to downgrade packages from there, and then ended up with dependency hell. Lesson learned, I guess.

Anyway, I'm on 17.04 now and things seem to work fine. Some slightly annoying bugs and broken packages are fixed, so it's even slightly better thus far.

yeah i do data backup and fresh install all my linux and windows boxes. hell i even do this for the 250+ people i support at my job.  fresh installs all the way man.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pluplog on Sun, 23 July 2017, 09:42:03
My work and home boxes run NixOS, and I have a laptop that I carry around with Xubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yuppie on Sun, 23 July 2017, 10:05:51
Main workstation is latest OS X. Everything at work right now is Ubuntu. I cut my teeth on Arch back in the day. Great way to learn.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: __red__ on Sun, 23 July 2017, 13:32:59
My work and home boxes run NixOS, and I have a laptop that I carry around with Xubuntu.

NixOS here too... /high-five/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: antquinonez on Mon, 24 July 2017, 09:33:26
My work and home boxes run NixOS, and I have a laptop that I carry around with Xubuntu.

NixOS here too... /high-five/

It says it's a declarative operating system. I like declarative (don't worry about the how, just tell me what you want). I'll have to try this out...I'm buying a new (used) computer on eBay by the end of the week. I'm going from buying keyboards to buying computers. I better watch out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Mon, 24 July 2017, 12:50:31
My work and home boxes run NixOS, and I have a laptop that I carry around with Xubuntu.

NixOS here too... /high-five/

It says it's a declarative operating system. I like declarative (don't worry about the how, just tell me what you want). I'll have to try this out...I'm buying a new (used) computer on eBay by the end of the week. I'm going from buying keyboards to buying computers. I better watch out.
In my experience you end up with enough PCs after a while. I can never get enough keyboards though. :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: pluplog on Mon, 24 July 2017, 14:17:57
My work and home boxes run NixOS, and I have a laptop that I carry around with Xubuntu.

NixOS here too... /high-five/

It says it's a declarative operating system. I like declarative (don't worry about the how, just tell me what you want). I'll have to try this out...I'm buying a new (used) computer on eBay by the end of the week. I'm going from buying keyboards to buying computers. I better watch out.

Can't complain about more boxes..  :))
Give it a go. I like how my boxes all share one configuration file. If you do development, you'll quickly come to like nix-shell. The folks at the irc channel could help you out if you run into issues.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: JohanAR on Wed, 16 August 2017, 04:56:14
Xubuntu (with arc-theme) on main/gaming PC at home. HTPC is running Arch. Planning on setting up a home server which will probably run Debian. Regrettably I had to install a Win10 dual boot for Vive usage but hopefully there will be better Linux support for VR in the future.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ojrask on Sun, 08 October 2017, 09:54:42
Ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 08 October 2017, 10:02:07
Anybody here use any of that CLEAR LINUX?

Benchmarks look amazing. Don't like that it is owned by Intel though.. But imagine what could be done to linux if we drop backwards compatibility and optimize for fast modern hardware. Like arch with i686 only, already a step in the right direction.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 08 October 2017, 14:21:52
Nope.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 08 October 2017, 20:33:44
Anybody here use any of that CLEAR LINUX?

Benchmarks look amazing. Don't like that it is owned by Intel though.. But imagine what could be done to linux if we drop backwards compatibility and optimize for fast modern hardware. Like arch with i686 only, already a step in the right direction.
Anytime someone claims they have a faster or more efficient Linux, take it with a GIGANTIC grain of salt.
It's using the same underlying OS and since it's open source, they all can use those same tweaks to make their system just as fast, if it was true.


Linux doesn't really have any backwards compatibility dragging it down like Windows, at least not in the same way. Linux is in a constant state of flux and upgrade, which renews itself. It's not perfect, because on occasion it does cause a system failure, but it's usually not too difficult to fix. It just doesn't carry the baggage like Windows does.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: funderburker on Mon, 09 October 2017, 03:35:09
Still running elementary OS Loki and don't wanna switch.  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 09 October 2017, 13:23:39
Anybody here use any of that CLEAR LINUX?

Benchmarks look amazing. Don't like that it is owned by Intel though.. But imagine what could be done to linux if we drop backwards compatibility and optimize for fast modern hardware. Like arch with i686 only, already a step in the right direction.
Anytime someone claims they have a faster or more efficient Linux, take it with a GIGANTIC grain of salt.
It's using the same underlying OS and since it's open source, they all can use those same tweaks to make their system just as fast, if it was true.


Linux doesn't really have any backwards compatibility dragging it down like Windows, at least not in the same way. Linux is in a constant state of flux and upgrade, which renews itself. It's not perfect, because on occasion it does cause a system failure, but it's usually not too difficult to fix. It just doesn't carry the baggage like Windows does.

That's really insightful, thanks!

I must say, however, back in the day (early 2000s), choosing a different scheduler on a kernel build and building some drivers into kernel (e.g., network) really made a significant difference.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Mon, 09 October 2017, 14:24:16
It still does.

Leslieann doesn't appear to follow LWN, not to say LKML.

There's a lot of weird **** in the Linux kernel. Tons of undocumented stuff, tons of dubious error paths, tons of subsystem-specific obscurities,… it's a miracle that it works so well… or at all.

"We don't break user space."

Well, yeah.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 09 October 2017, 17:12:42
It still does.

Leslieann doesn't appear to follow LWN, not to say LKML.

There's a lot of weird **** in the Linux kernel. Tons of undocumented stuff, tons of dubious error paths, tons of subsystem-specific obscurities,… it's a miracle that it works so well… or at all.

"We don't break user space."

Well, yeah.

That is what I remember about it. In the 2000's I still did menuconfig for kernels myself, believing I knew what I were doing. And that is not even reading / modifying / extending the kernel code. Even in menuconfig, there are SO many choices to make. I never thoroughly understood all of them. Heck, I couldn't even do it now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 09 October 2017, 17:46:03
I'm so glad I don't have to use menuconfig anymore.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 10 October 2017, 17:39:30
I'm so glad I don't have to use menuconfig anymore.

It was super awful. Worst experience ever. 10/10 do not recommend.

I did feel like a "hacker" though, convincing my friends that custom compiling the kernel is the best way (I was 13 at that time). It felt "hardcore". Like when I and my friends switched to Gentoo coz "manual compiling is always faster", tuning gcc with custom flags.

And then wait 10 hours before you basically compiled a bootstrap and perhaps firefox.

Ahh the nostalgia..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Zobeid Zuma on Tue, 10 October 2017, 18:47:36
Linux doesn't really have any backwards compatibility dragging it down like Windows, at least not in the same way. Linux is in a constant state of flux and upgrade, which renews itself. It's not perfect, because on occasion it does cause a system failure, but it's usually not too difficult to fix. It just doesn't carry the baggage like Windows does.

From where I sit, Linux is almost nothing but legacy baggage going all the way back to 1970s mainframes -- and many of its underlying design decisions were based on that computing environment, so long ago and so different from most of what we use today, and there's no way to fix any of it without breaking everything.

I mean, how long have we been saddled with X?

Who today would design an OS where every additional storage device appears to be a sub-directory somewhere on the system drive?

Even "ls" to get a directory listing. . .  Because it was invented by guys using teletype machines as terminals, and they never learned to touch-type and were deathly fearful of having to press an extra key or two.

And then there's all the dependency chaos. . .

But the good news is that Ubuntu MATE does a pretty good job of hiding its Unix roots from me most of the time, and so does Mac OS X, so I can live with them -- better than Windows, which makes no credible attempt to hide Windows from me.    :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 10 October 2017, 19:23:03
Linux doesn't really have any backwards compatibility dragging it down like Windows, at least not in the same way. Linux is in a constant state of flux and upgrade, which renews itself. It's not perfect, because on occasion it does cause a system failure, but it's usually not too difficult to fix. It just doesn't carry the baggage like Windows does.

From where I sit, Linux is almost nothing but legacy baggage going all the way back to 1970s mainframes -- and many of its underlying design decisions were based on that computing environment, so long ago and so different from most of what we use today, and there's no way to fix any of it without breaking everything.

I mean, how long have we been saddled with X?

Who today would design an OS where every additional storage device appears to be a sub-directory somewhere on the system drive?

Even "ls" to get a directory listing. . .  Because it was invented by guys using teletype machines as terminals, and they never learned to touch-type and were deathly fearful of having to press an extra key or two.

And then there's all the dependency chaos. . .

But the good news is that Ubuntu MATE does a pretty good job of hiding its Unix roots from me most of the time, and so does Mac OS X, so I can live with them -- better than Windows, which makes no credible attempt to hide Windows from me.    :p

From my perspective, large production quality animation/effects studios utilize the linux kernel for good reason. And not because the multipurpose kernels are build with legacy support in mind. Nearly instant startup on my ancient LGA775 that spins rust is not a bad thing too.

edit - *And not because of the multipurpose kernels that are built with legacy support.* halp
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: mnmlisme on Tue, 10 October 2017, 20:46:04
i have been always interested in linux due to it being freeware. for basic office work and internet, it's enough. tried both linux mint and currently ubuntu mate. but I think i'm more into linux mint. too bad my NUC 5CPYH is struggling with current mint release. Celeron N3050. what to expect huh?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 11 October 2017, 03:58:57
Leslieann doesn't appear to follow LWN, not to say LKML.
Should  I.
I didn't say it doesn't, I said just not the same way. Anything with that much code will have garbage in it.

The Linux Kernel is now 26, imagine if MS had carried forward the same kernel for that long, can you imagine not only the size, but the garbage it would have in it? Would it even function at all by now?


From where I sit, Linux is almost nothing but legacy baggage going all the way back to 1970s mainframes -- and many of its underlying design decisions were based on that computing environment, so long ago and so different from most of what we use today, and there's no way to fix any of it without breaking everything.

I mean, how long have we been saddled with X?

Who today would design an OS where every additional storage device appears to be a sub-directory somewhere on the system drive?
That's because you are looking at it from a desktop perspective while using a server OS.


Who today would design an OS where every additional storage device appears to be a sub-directory somewhere on the system drive?
Who today would design an internet capable OS without a method of updating built in...

Engineers, especially software engineers, do not think the same way you do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 11 October 2017, 04:43:17
There's plenty of linux distros with built-in update capabilities though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 11 October 2017, 10:14:33
There's plenty of linux distros with built-in update capabilities though.

Which I hate is this auto-update functionality by Ubuntu. I even had security updates that broke stuff.

Luckily, I could turn it off. I wasn't even aware of this functionality.

I deployed to production on a VPS with Ubuntu Server and then all of a sudden something stopped working and I was like: I changed literally nothing.
And then I ran top and saw this service running.. but why..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 11 October 2017, 17:31:16
Yeah, but she said nothing about AUTOupdates.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 11 October 2017, 18:07:02
What's it like to update applications that were installed with snap or flatpack?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 11 October 2017, 18:33:04
There's plenty of linux distros with built-in update capabilities though.
It was actually an Android joke, meant as an example of how software engineers don't always think like a normal person, or even logically all the time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 11 October 2017, 20:56:22
i have been always interested in linux due to it being freeware. for basic office work and internet, it's enough. tried both linux mint and currently ubuntu mate. but I think i'm more into linux mint. too bad my NUC 5CPYH is struggling with current mint release. Celeron N3050. what to expect huh?

Depends on your definition of free - GPL comes with a set of obligations.

The BSDs are far more free, as in less obligations.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 12 October 2017, 11:23:18
Yeah, but she said nothing about AUTOupdates.

True, it was just something that came up when I thought about it.

I don't know of any distro that DOES NOT have an upgrade mechanism in place (or a package manager built in, for that matter).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 12 October 2017, 15:34:03
i have been always interested in linux due to it being freeware. for basic office work and internet, it's enough. tried both linux mint and currently ubuntu mate. but I think i'm more into linux mint. too bad my NUC 5CPYH is struggling with current mint release. Celeron N3050. what to expect huh?

Depends on your definition of free - GPL comes with a set of obligations.

The BSDs are far more free, as in less obligations.

bsd ensures more freedom for people
gpl ensures more freedom for the code
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 12 October 2017, 16:37:16
i have been always interested in linux due to it being freeware. for basic office work and internet, it's enough. tried both linux mint and currently ubuntu mate. but I think i'm more into linux mint. too bad my NUC 5CPYH is struggling with current mint release. Celeron N3050. what to expect huh?

Depends on your definition of free - GPL comes with a set of obligations.

The BSDs are far more free, as in less obligations.

bsd ensures more freedom for developers
gpl ensures more freedom for users
FTFY
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: mnmlisme on Fri, 13 October 2017, 19:11:11
i have been always interested in linux due to it being freeware. for basic office work and internet, it's enough. tried both linux mint and currently ubuntu mate. but I think i'm more into linux mint. too bad my NUC 5CPYH is struggling with current mint release. Celeron N3050. what to expect huh?

Depends on your definition of free - GPL comes with a set of obligations.

The BSDs are far more free, as in less obligations.
good enough. always struggling with linux though, many said it's easier than windows, yet sometimes not long before installing it, I have to google how to solve problem X and it usually involves terminal and copying long string of commands told by other people that I have just to put faith on (ie. no idea what am I writing or what does the command does)

bsd ensures more freedom for people
gpl ensures more freedom for the code
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tristinDLC on Sun, 12 November 2017, 21:21:17
I've used a few variations of Ubuntu in the past just for exploration of Linux, but I still run OSX on all my machines. The only distro I currently run is live-booting TAILS off a USB sometimes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 17 December 2017, 17:26:02
I recently installed Mint 18.3 Cinnamon to try it out (as a dual-boot on a separate SSD). It was quite good and I didn't have any major problems.

Mint 18.3 Xfce just got released so I installed that. It worked but I had complications with my graphics card (GTX 970) -- it got sorted out in the end with a GRUB modification.

I do have a question though if anyone knows:  I'm looking to RDP to a school Windows 2012 Server. It uses the RDP protocol but I can't get any remote desktop application to connect.

The closest I've come is using rdesktop and freerdp, but I get an error about the lack of CredSSP (required by server) or SSL library problem. I tried messing around with Kerberos (krb5) but it didn't make a difference.

If anyone knows what can be done, I'd appreciate it! I'm trying to use Mint Xfce as my main desktop and I actually quite like it. I did manage to get it to boot Mint as a virtual machine from my Windows partition using VMWare -- that was really great and I might just need to do that when I want to work with both for cases like RDP.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Sun, 17 December 2017, 17:30:16
IT SEEMS LIKE QUITE A FEW PEOPLE ARE ADOPTING LINUX MINT THESE DAYS. HOW DO YOU ALL LIKE IT?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: JP on Sun, 17 December 2017, 17:37:11
IT SEEMS LIKE QUITE A FEW PEOPLE ARE ADOPTING LINUX MINT THESE DAYS. HOW DO YOU ALL LIKE IT?

BURN THE HERETIC! WINDOWS 98 IS THE CLEARLY THE SUPERIOR OPERATING SYSTEM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Sun, 17 December 2017, 17:49:33
IT SEEMS LIKE QUITE A FEW PEOPLE ARE ADOPTING LINUX MINT THESE DAYS. HOW DO YOU ALL LIKE IT?

BURN THE HERETIC! WINDOWS 98 IS THE CLEARLY THE SUPERIOR OPERATING SYSTEM.

IT IS THE BEST OPERATING SYSTEM, BUT ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN CRAPPLE® MAC-OS. LINUX USERS ARE INFINITELY SMARTER THAN MACINTRASH USERS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 17 December 2017, 21:10:57
IT SEEMS LIKE QUITE A FEW PEOPLE ARE ADOPTING LINUX MINT THESE DAYS. HOW DO YOU ALL LIKE IT?

I went for Mint since it seems to be well supported as it's among the most popular desktop distros. However, in my experience, Linux Lite has been the only one to not give me any troubles.

I like the Xfce desktop environment as it's like classic Windows in terms of layout and operation, and even the look, if you so choose.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 18 December 2017, 07:01:47
IT SEEMS LIKE QUITE A FEW PEOPLE ARE ADOPTING LINUX MINT THESE DAYS. HOW DO YOU ALL LIKE IT?

I like it a lot. I dabbled with Ubuntu for several years, but I got frustrated with the direction they headed off in.

And my complaint was not Unity, which I didn't particularly like it but it wasn't awful.

Mint/Cinnamon has been my choice for about 3 years now, and I have really grown to like it.
I feel that it is certainly the easiest transition from Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Mon, 18 December 2017, 13:55:47
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Mon, 18 December 2017, 15:25:54
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.

Cinnamon is slow, even on good hardware. It's kind of like how macOS has gotten these days.

Xfce is the way to go  :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Mon, 18 December 2017, 15:33:20
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.

Cinnamon is slow, even on good hardware. It's kind of like how macOS has gotten these days.

Xfce is the way to go  :cool:

barebones xfce DE with i3 wm is the way to go.  :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 18 December 2017, 17:48:35
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.

Cinnamon is slow, even on good hardware. It's kind of like how macOS has gotten these days.

Xfce is the way to go  :cool:

barebones xfce DE with i3 wm is the way to go.  :cool:

These days I prefer no DE but I can see the appeal behind xfce/i3wm. I've also read that openbox/i3wm is pretty great as well.

One year of Manjaro i3, and I'm about to remove the training wheels. No more installing vanilla arch to usb or vm while Manjaro i3 guards the bare metal. The Arch Wiki compels me  :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Mon, 18 December 2017, 22:34:17
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.

Cinnamon is slow, even on good hardware. It's kind of like how macOS has gotten these days.

Xfce is the way to go  :cool:

barebones xfce DE with i3 wm is the way to go.  :cool:

These days I prefer no DE but I can see the appeal behind xfce/i3wm. I've also read that openbox/i3wm is pretty great as well.

One year of Manjaro i3, and I'm about to remove the training wheels. No more installing vanilla arch to usb or vm while Manjaro i3 guards the bare metal. The Arch Wiki compels me  :))

I actually did everything backwards. I STARTED with Arch, learned as much as I could carry, and switched over to Debian a little while ago. I love Arch, but I don't want to put that much time into configuring everything anymore.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Mon, 18 December 2017, 22:54:29
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.

Cinnamon is slow, even on good hardware. It's kind of like how macOS has gotten these days.

Xfce is the way to go  :cool:

barebones xfce DE with i3 wm is the way to go.  :cool:

I haven't used i3wm much but I'm not sure I have a need for it with window snapping already part of the OS. I guess it can speed up certain workflows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Tue, 19 December 2017, 00:40:05
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.

Cinnamon is slow, even on good hardware. It's kind of like how macOS has gotten these days.

Xfce is the way to go  :cool:

barebones xfce DE with i3 wm is the way to go.  :cool:

I haven't used i3wm much but I'm not sure I have a need for it with window snapping already part of the OS. I guess it can speed up certain workflows.

Personally, I can't stand wasted screen space and GUIs. So I love i3 because I never have to position windows, use an entirely macro/keybound based workflow, and rarely have to touch a mouse. It's also just so damn clean and simple. It gives me everything I need and nothing more in a highly customizable platform. I get that it's not for everyone, but I think that folks should give it a try and stick with it for a week. There's a bit of a learning curve, but boy is it worth it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 19 December 2017, 16:08:17
I tried installing Linux Mint Cinnamon on my netbook some time ago. It was really slow and I did not find the user interface agreeable.

Seriously, even if a netbook is old and not very powerful, it should not be bogged down by a simple user interface.

Cinnamon is slow, even on good hardware. It's kind of like how macOS has gotten these days.

Xfce is the way to go  :cool:

barebones xfce DE with i3 wm is the way to go.  :cool:

These days I prefer no DE but I can see the appeal behind xfce/i3wm. I've also read that openbox/i3wm is pretty great as well.

One year of Manjaro i3, and I'm about to remove the training wheels. No more installing vanilla arch to usb or vm while Manjaro i3 guards the bare metal. The Arch Wiki compels me  :))

I actually did everything backwards. I STARTED with Arch, learned as much as I could carry, and switched over to Debian a little while ago. I love Arch, but I don't want to put that much time into configuring everything anymore.

Starting with Arch would have been much better than finding a distro and stripping defaults out until I had something I was comfortable with. I'm close to the set and forget stage; hopefully everything translates well when I reinstall/configure everything.. lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 19 December 2017, 16:51:48
How does Arch Linux perform on low-end computers?

(https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=46529.0;attach=184575;image)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 19 December 2017, 18:17:03
How does Arch Linux perform on low-end computers?

Show Image
(https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=46529.0;attach=184575;image)


I used an Arch (Manjaro) kernel when I rendered out keyset images for SA Rebel and SA Utopia without hiccups. From my very basic glmark2 (LGA775/rad 5450 | usb live iso's) testing, Arch/i3wm (and Manjaro/i3wm) matched Fedora rather well in terms of graphical performance. I prefer less overhead at the moment so I tend to avoid Fedora and Gnome 3
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 20 December 2017, 05:32:49
I use Fluxbox when working on slow machines.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 20 December 2017, 05:39:11
How does Arch Linux perform on low-end computers?

Show Image
(https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=46529.0;attach=184575;image)

Arch tends to be one of the faster base systems, however the desktop will make the largest difference in performance, but that too depends on the system itself.

On older systems, the older, lighter desktop environments tend to rule, however, a newer system can use newer optimizations to help level the playing field a bit. The same is true in regards to battery life on laptops.

Basically, if you have an older system, use an older desktop, if you have a newer system, you can pretty much use what you like with almost no hit to performance.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Wed, 20 December 2017, 14:17:29
How does Arch Linux perform on low-end computers?

Show Image
(https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=46529.0;attach=184575;image)

It doesn't if I assume correctly what ancient low-end stuff you mean.

Arch was one of the first distros to cut off support for pre-i686 architecture, and even i686 itself has recently become de facto deprecated. (https://www.archlinux.org/news/phasing-out-i686-support/)

A decade-old Core 2 Duo will still run alright, but I don't think that's what you mean based on your post history.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 21 December 2017, 16:44:59
I recently installed Mint 18.3 Cinnamon to try it out (as a dual-boot on a separate SSD). It was quite good and I didn't have any major problems.

Mint 18.3 Xfce just got released so I installed that. It worked but I had complications with my graphics card (GTX 970) -- it got sorted out in the end with a GRUB modification.

I do have a question though if anyone knows:  I'm looking to RDP to a school Windows 2012 Server. It uses the RDP protocol but I can't get any remote desktop application to connect.

The closest I've come is using rdesktop and freerdp, but I get an error about the lack of CredSSP (required by server) or SSL library problem. I tried messing around with Kerberos (krb5) but it didn't make a difference.

If anyone knows what can be done, I'd appreciate it! I'm trying to use Mint Xfce as my main desktop and I actually quite like it. I did manage to get it to boot Mint as a virtual machine from my Windows partition using VMWare -- that was really great and I might just need to do that when I want to work with both for cases like RDP.

You probably need to set your RDP hosts to use the less-secure older connection method (System Properties > Remote > somewhere near the bottom) - then you should be able to rdesktop to it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 21 December 2017, 19:09:47
It doesn't if I assume correctly what ancient low-end stuff you mean.

Arch was one of the first distros to cut off support for pre-i686 architecture, and even i686 itself has recently become de facto deprecated. (https://www.archlinux.org/news/phasing-out-i686-support/)

A decade-old Core 2 Duo will still run alright, but I don't think that's what you mean based on your post history.
Good point...
There are distros meant for systems older than C2d, even Arch can do it, but most are pretty handicapped and the rest usually need some extra work, but anything less than 4gigs is really going too be handicapped because even with Linux, modern web browsers eat ram for breakfast.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Fri, 22 December 2017, 00:28:16
I recently installed Mint 18.3 Cinnamon to try it out (as a dual-boot on a separate SSD). It was quite good and I didn't have any major problems.

Mint 18.3 Xfce just got released so I installed that. It worked but I had complications with my graphics card (GTX 970) -- it got sorted out in the end with a GRUB modification.

I do have a question though if anyone knows:  I'm looking to RDP to a school Windows 2012 Server. It uses the RDP protocol but I can't get any remote desktop application to connect.

The closest I've come is using rdesktop and freerdp, but I get an error about the lack of CredSSP (required by server) or SSL library problem. I tried messing around with Kerberos (krb5) but it didn't make a difference.

If anyone knows what can be done, I'd appreciate it! I'm trying to use Mint Xfce as my main desktop and I actually quite like it. I did manage to get it to boot Mint as a virtual machine from my Windows partition using VMWare -- that was really great and I might just need to do that when I want to work with both for cases like RDP.

You probably need to set your RDP hosts to use the less-secure older connection method (System Properties > Remote > somewhere near the bottom) - then you should be able to rdesktop to it.

I don't control the servers so this won't work.  :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Sun, 24 December 2017, 11:53:18
Has anyone tried Pop!_OS? I know it's supposed to be an iteration on Ubuntu:17.xx + Gnome 3, but I've heard it's put together very well. I feel like it could be too simple, but it really seems like the folks over at System76 know what they're doing. Also, I know some of their team develops for ElementaryOS, so that should be an indication of how well the UI end runs.

I have a feeling it's a quite heavy distro otherwise....
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Brammm87 on Thu, 28 December 2017, 13:00:52
I've tried moving from OS X to Ubuntu but I've become too dependent on the eco system. Too many tools I use in regular life that aren't available...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Vloshko on Thu, 28 December 2017, 14:35:45
I started with Gentoo because other than making a distro from scratch it seemed like the best option to learn and achieve a better understanding in the long run when I had been only using Windows throughout my life. Currently, I'm using Arch Linux as my main distro, I made the switch a year and a half ago after using Gentoo for 3 years.

edit: I do have a system that uses windows that is required by work. In addition, I often switch back to Gentoo. Both Gentoo and Arch have their pros and cons.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rasmusx on Fri, 29 December 2017, 08:24:47
I started with Gentoo because other than making a distro from scratch it seemed like the best option to learn and achieve a better understanding in the long run when I had been only using Windows throughout my life. Currently, I'm using Arch Linux as my main distro, I made the switch a year and a half ago after using Gentoo for 3 years.

edit: I do have a system that uses windows that is required by work. In addition, I often switch back to Gentoo. Both Gentoo and Arch have their pros and cons.
I used also Gentoo long time ago and then moved to Arch Linux.
What you like about Gentoo? :)

For me endless compiling/optimizing was not needed at one point.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 01 January 2018, 23:45:25
I've tried moving from OS X to Ubuntu but I've become too dependent on the eco system. Too many tools I use in regular life that aren't available...

Moving operating systems sometimes means compromising.

I used Windows at home for years, then moved to Linux for a while.

Then I moved back to Windows, and them to OS X (now macOS).

I still have a Windows machine around for games, and my servers are mostly Linux.

At work we are moving away from Windows to cross-platform development, and three of us now have Macs.

Mostly open source software, which is generally cross-platform.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Tue, 02 January 2018, 12:40:37
I've tried moving from OS X to Ubuntu but I've become too dependent on the eco system. Too many tools I use in regular life that aren't available...
.
.
Moving operating systems sometimes means compromising.
.
.

I can't stress this enough to people making the switch. The reason the apple/google ecosystem has such a decisive grip on consumers is because they've built out everything to their specs. Their hardware/software/cloud is all made to play nice.

It will never be an easy transition, but it feels great breaking from that grip. It can be uncomfortable at times, but I say it's worth the switch.

.... And their are always alternatives to Mac software etc, just gotta look around.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 02 January 2018, 19:23:03
I've tried moving from OS X to Ubuntu but I've become too dependent on the eco system. Too many tools I use in regular life that aren't available...
.
.
Moving operating systems sometimes means compromising.
.
.

I can't stress this enough to people making the switch. The reason the apple/google ecosystem has such a decisive grip on consumers is because they've built out everything to their specs. Their hardware/software/cloud is all made to play nice.

It will never be an easy transition, but it feels great breaking from that grip. It can be uncomfortable at times, but I say it's worth the switch.

.... And their are always alternatives to Mac software etc, just gotta look around.

Different operating systems have different usage patterns, different controls and so on.  Different Linux distros are wildly different - Gnome, KDE, LXDE, XFCE etc. are all enormously different.  Windows changes sometimes drastically between versions.  macOS, I must say, has remained pretty much exactly the same since 10.0 (released in 2001, currently up to 10.13 released in 2017), with only minor incremental changes to window decorations and included tools.

When considering a migration, make a list of all the software you regularly use, say in a spreadsheet, and try to find if each application is cross-platform, or what the most common alternative is.

That should give a good indication how feasible an OS migration would be.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: MKULTRA on Tue, 02 January 2018, 22:34:41
Arch
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 03 January 2018, 03:36:39
When considering a migration, make a list of all the software you regularly use, say in a spreadsheet, and try to find if each application is cross-platform, or what the most common alternative is.

Switching to cross-platform software ahead of time also helps, in fact, switching to it in the first place is best since it ensures everyone else can also read what you send them.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Thu, 04 January 2018, 13:21:01
When considering a migration, make a list of all the software you regularly use, say in a spreadsheet, and try to find if each application is cross-platform, or what the most common alternative is.

Switching to cross-platform software ahead of time also helps, in fact, switching to it in the first place is best since it ensures everyone else can also read what you send them.

It's also good advice not to be too deep into any "ecosystem" so that getting out or changing becomes a colossal hassle.

It doesn't help that so many "services" (even software is a "service" these days) want to glue you in to their "ecosystem" these days.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 04 January 2018, 16:22:09
When considering a migration, make a list of all the software you regularly use, say in a spreadsheet, and try to find if each application is cross-platform, or what the most common alternative is.

Switching to cross-platform software ahead of time also helps, in fact, switching to it in the first place is best since it ensures everyone else can also read what you send them.

It's also good advice not to be too deep into any "ecosystem" so that getting out or changing becomes a colossal hassle.

It doesn't help that so many "services" (even software is a "service" these days) want to glue you in to their "ecosystem" these days.

Good point - there's services also.

If you rely on iCloud, or Microsoft's equivalent (is there one?) then that would be challenging to move across to a different platform.

Something like Google's suite of online apps should just migrate - if you use Chrome on all platforms for the best experience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Thu, 04 January 2018, 20:34:09
macOS, I must say, has remained pretty much exactly the same since 10.0 (released in 2001, currently up to 10.13 released in 2017), with only minor incremental changes to window decorations and included tools.
Mandatory autosave (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/7/#document-model), which changed the official document loading model, introduced in MacOS X 10.7 "Lion".
I would say that's a pretty significant user interface change. But yes, not something that pops up in your face.

Then there have been numerous things under the hood: application signing, file versioning, new file system etc.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 04 January 2018, 22:25:58
macOS, I must say, has remained pretty much exactly the same since 10.0 (released in 2001, currently up to 10.13 released in 2017), with only minor incremental changes to window decorations and included tools.
Mandatory autosave (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/7/#document-model), which changed the official document loading model, introduced in MacOS X 10.7 "Lion".
I would say that's a pretty significant user interface change. But yes, not something that pops up in your face.

Then there have been numerous things under the hood: application signing, file versioning, new file system etc.

But not things like completely redesigning (or removing) the primary means of starting applications ("start menu") from version to version, completely redesigning the control panel between versions, keeping graphics from 20 years ago in the latest and "greatest" version.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 05 January 2018, 02:46:10
Something like Google's suite of online apps should just migrate - if you use Chrome on all platforms for the best experience.
Beware... be very aware..
Google has started playing games using non standards complaint items in Chrome, so while that is fine and dandy so long as you have access to Google Chrome... Some of those features do NOT work with the open source Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Vivaldi, I.E. or Edge. So yes, it is cross platform, but it still is proprietary and if they decide to drop it or shift focus, you may be screwed.

Also, Google Docs are tied to Google Drive.
Linux users are still waiting for a native Google Drive client, which was promised years ago.

The best cross platform cloud system I have found so far has been Mega, lots of space, works on anything, though the trash system has some issues if you have multiple files of the same name.


macOS, I must say, has remained pretty much exactly the same since 10.0 (released in 2001, currently up to 10.13 released in 2017), with only minor incremental changes to window decorations and included tools.
Then there have been numerous things under the hood: application signing, file versioning, new file system etc.
Network shares were re-worked (in a very bad way) as was Disk utility (oh god what have they done!) and the entire keyboard management system (which broke Karabiner).

I (and many others) would actually argue MacOs has actually become less and less intuitive as it has aged. A long time, typical user would not see much due to them being incremental, but going back and forth between ecosystems over the years it's easier to see, especially under workstation, admin or Hackintosh use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 05 January 2018, 08:28:33
Mac OS is offtopic and an annoyance.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Fri, 05 January 2018, 09:03:29
Many years ago at the end of the Mac/PPC days right before they announced their switch to Intel, I was lured into getting a Mac because I thought that MacOS X would be a reasonable Unix system comparable to the Linux system I had before. I was wrong then, and all I have heard about MacOS X since then has only confirmed by belief that it is far from being decent substitute for a Linux installation.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 16 January 2018, 22:27:30
Installed Void on a Pentium 4 machine. Hey, Void is not bad. I now understand why sth recommends it. Xmonad works with i686 Void but I wasn't able to install xmonad-contrib. Which I assume contains the modules to load bars. I guess bspwm/dwm/i3wm will work for now. One of these days I'll have a working xmonad/bar. Void tho :thumb: Lovin' XBPS
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Wed, 17 January 2018, 06:25:32
Installed Void on a Pentium 4 machine. Hey, Void is not bad. I now understand why sth recommends it. Xmonad works with i686 Void but I wasn't able to install xmonad-contrib. Which I assume contains the modules to load bars. I guess bspwm/dwm/i3wm will work for now. One of these days I'll have a working xmonad/bar. Void tho :thumb: Lovin' XBPS


Pentium 4, really needs dat nvidia Ti4600 to really shine on retro..

If it's a 4ghz overclocked pentium 4,  That would push all the way up to 6800 Ultra.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 17 January 2018, 10:49:08
Installed Void on a Pentium 4 machine. Hey, Void is not bad. I now understand why sth recommends it. Xmonad works with i686 Void but I wasn't able to install xmonad-contrib. Which I assume contains the modules to load bars. I guess bspwm/dwm/i3wm will work for now. One of these days I'll have a working xmonad/bar. Void tho :thumb: Lovin' XBPS


Pentium 4, really needs dat nvidia Ti4600 to really shine on retro..

If it's a 4ghz overclocked pentium 4,  That would push all the way up to 6800 Ultra.

The OS takes up 96mb/2.5G of ram. No too shabby for a modern distribution. I may spring for some newer components but I'm not much of a gamer to be honest. The real end game was to install Void on a i686 system. Maybe emulate soundblaster for those wolf3d/keen/larry sessions. :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 17 January 2018, 13:39:41
Installed Void on a Pentium 4 machine. Hey, Void is not bad. I now understand why sth recommends it. Xmonad works with i686 Void but I wasn't able to install xmonad-contrib. Which I assume contains the modules to load bars. I guess bspwm/dwm/i3wm will work for now. One of these days I'll have a working xmonad/bar. Void tho :thumb: Lovin' XBPS

welcome to the void :)

try xmonad + lemonbar and call your bar script from .xinitrc. lemonbar in void-packages has the xft patch available for smooth fonts:
(https://i.imgur.com/OpKq57t.png)
cwm is also very nice if you like floaters!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 17 January 2018, 13:54:09
Installed Void on a Pentium 4 machine. Hey, Void is not bad. I now understand why sth recommends it. Xmonad works with i686 Void but I wasn't able to install xmonad-contrib. Which I assume contains the modules to load bars. I guess bspwm/dwm/i3wm will work for now. One of these days I'll have a working xmonad/bar. Void tho :thumb: Lovin' XBPS

welcome to the void :)

try xmonad + lemonbar and call your bar script from .xinitrc. lemonbar in void-packages has the xft patch available for smooth fonts:
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/OpKq57t.png)

cwm is also very nice if you like floaters!

Oh my, that desktop.. :) Haskell is neat albeit a bit intimidating. Thanks for the advice! From what I understand of lemonbar I might be able to switch over my i3block scripts without much hassle.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Wed, 07 March 2018, 16:36:25
Decided it was time to finally try it. I was intimidated by it for years, but wanted to just sit and do it.
(Actually, what got me into keyboards here was going on a different site and looking up how to customize Android after I switched from iOS, and then discovering all the ways you could set up Linux. Then I started seeing desktop setups and got curious about keebs.)

Anyway, I installed the default Ubuntu. It was only a few days before I tinkered with different desktop environments before finally settling on Xfce so far. I love it. So much customization out of the box.
I'm still learning a lot. I messed up something the other night and my screen was blank after rebooting. Took me an hour to get it running correctly, and even now I'm still not sure what I did but I fixed it (I think).

I love being able to match the themes to what I have in my phone. It's nice working on school stuff on a screen that I customized. I don't know anything about terminal commands, either, but thanks to the internet and having spare laptops at home I'm able to keep other computers open to find help and resources.

Would still like to try Arch one day but for now I'm content with Ubuntu + Xfce.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Wed, 07 March 2018, 17:22:50
My recent journey of Linux led me to Devuan, while previously I was using LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition 2.0), and again before that was using simply Linux Mint.
Devuan is basically Debian. It is very stable, and somewhat "conservative" because this projects "Devuan" (stands for "Debian for Veteran Un*x Administrators") started from the idea of sticking to SysVinit and staying away from the counter-unix philosophy aspects of Systemd; So Devuan is by definition Debian with SysVinit and without any 'contamination' by Systemd.
My fear is only that as more and more applications / packages / projects are built based on common popular system dependencies, part of which Systemd will become, then Devuan may run into some technical challenges of supporting packages that are not built upon SysVinit in mind at all.

I started with RedHat 4.0, when I still had to compile hardware feature supports into the kernel. I also played a little with CentOS and FreeBSD. And then played with Ubuntu a little when it was popular, and I hated to decide between KDE vs Enlightenment - which were the biggest two while windows manager like IceWM and Window Maker were not so appealing. Currently I am either running MATE or Xfce mostly.

I highly recommend Devuan; but there are more Free Software complying distributions with more customization options in terms of build and dependencies from the ground up if you have time to invest.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 07 March 2018, 20:14:29
I'm being recruited for a QA job with RedHat. Might contact them back.  :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Thu, 08 March 2018, 02:53:22
When considering a migration, make a list of all the software you regularly use, say in a spreadsheet, and try to find if each application is cross-platform, or what the most common alternative is.

Switching to cross-platform software ahead of time also helps, in fact, switching to it in the first place is best since it ensures everyone else can also read what you send them.

It's also good advice not to be too deep into any "ecosystem" so that getting out or changing becomes a colossal hassle.

It doesn't help that so many "services" (even software is a "service" these days) want to glue you in to their "ecosystem" these days.

This is interesting. Two years ago I was at the point where I thought: if I can improve my productivity using linux (you know.. going to a tiling wm, doing everything withing emacs/vim, etc.), perhaps I can do the same using iOS and apps. Boy was I proven wrong. I used todoist for todo's, Apple's Note app for taking notes, iBook for pdfs, Airmail for mail (actually the least worst on iOS IMHO), and fantastical 2 for calendars and meetings.

It was freakin' horrible. Graphical UIs may look pretty, but they literally drag you down in productivity. All these apps have their best intentions, but this "it's so usable check out our super simple UI"-hype works counterproductive. All apps have their own UI concepts, their own places for common tasks. Everytime you open one of the apps you have to think. And then everything looks different on iOS versus OS X Desktop. And it is SLOOOW.

I truly think that opening my laptop, waiting it to resume from suspend, and then entering my emacs session again in tmux is faster than unlocking my phone or ipad and checking out notifications. And then there's the question "where's my data". Now my university went Google everything, so I'm fine with that, it's their responsibility. I'm not fan of the privacy policy but google apps work way better than what the university was providing us with. But privately I try to stay away from these ecosystems / data platforms.

Long lesson short: stick to emacs or vim as your OS for productivity. It's one concise UI, you can customize it exactly to behave as your mind is wired.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 08 March 2018, 20:02:45
I'm being recruited for a QA job with RedHat. Might contact them back.  :cool:

Cool!  Congrats :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Mon, 12 March 2018, 01:19:15
Switched from Linux Mint to Manjaro.
Really enjoying Arch so far.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Mon, 12 March 2018, 10:27:03
Switched from Linux Mint to Manjaro.
Really enjoying Arch so far.

It took me four days but I finally have Arch installed. Granted, I know next to nothing about computers but told myself to just sit down and do it.
Looking into the -BSD distros right now, but not before I learn how to use emacs and vim.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 12 March 2018, 11:49:37
I've found that NetBSD is fairly great for a slightly pkgsrc deficient BSD platform. There was no need for me to install anything extra to enable compiling from various sources, so that's Kinda neat.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kgolden on Mon, 12 March 2018, 12:22:08
I've run a few distros... Ubuntu, fedora, Manjaro, Solus, debian, and Arch. I love to distro hop but I always come back to Arch(installed the Arch way). But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 12 March 2018, 13:09:28
I've probably used 40-50 distros over the years. Almost always end up on a lightweight Ubuntu derivative though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 12 March 2018, 15:38:02
Guess what.. I have never been fan of rolling releases because previously (around 2005-2008) stuff kept breaking (I look at you, Arch). Once every two months or so I had to resolve conflicts and so forth.

But now I'm about to switch to Arch. Why? Coz upgrading Ubuntu to new releases isn't great either. It was just brought under my attention when I wanted to install a package that my short term release is not supported anymore. Yes, I was able to update my sources.list with archived ubuntu repos.

But a rolling release may be better... never have to upgrade to a major release ever again. Fingers crossed that Arch's rolling releases are better than previously..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 12 March 2018, 15:53:44
Guess what.. I have never been fan of rolling releases because previously (around 2005-2008) stuff kept breaking (I look at you, Arch). Once every two months or so I had to resolve conflicts and so forth.

But now I'm about to switch to Arch. Why? Coz upgrading Ubuntu to new releases isn't great either. It was just brought under my attention when I wanted to install a package that my short term release is not supported anymore. Yes, I was able to update my sources.list with archived ubuntu repos.

But a rolling release may be better... never have to upgrade to a major release ever again. Fingers crossed that Arch's rolling releases are better than previously..

*psssst*

tryyyyy voooooiiiiiid
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 12 March 2018, 16:05:34
I had x glitch artifacts with Manjaro on the eight month, but nothing to phone in during the past few months running Vanilla Arch (installed the Arch way).

sth speaks the truth though, there's something magical about Void and runit.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Mon, 12 March 2018, 16:05:44
Guess what.. I have never been fan of rolling releases because previously (around 2005-2008) stuff kept breaking (I look at you, Arch). Once every two months or so I had to resolve conflicts and so forth.

But now I'm about to switch to Arch. Why? Coz upgrading Ubuntu to new releases isn't great either. It was just brought under my attention when I wanted to install a package that my short term release is not supported anymore. Yes, I was able to update my sources.list with archived ubuntu repos.

But a rolling release may be better... never have to upgrade to a major release ever again. Fingers crossed that Arch's rolling releases are better than previously..

*psssst*

tryyyyy voooooiiiiiid


That looks AWESOME. What does it provide over Arch, besides SystemD-free (appealing in and of itself already).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 12 March 2018, 18:51:08
Guess what.. I have never been fan of rolling releases because previously (around 2005-2008) stuff kept breaking (I look at you, Arch). Once every two months or so I had to resolve conflicts and so forth.

But now I'm about to switch to Arch. Why? Coz upgrading Ubuntu to new releases isn't great either. It was just brought under my attention when I wanted to install a package that my short term release is not supported anymore. Yes, I was able to update my sources.list with archived ubuntu repos.

But a rolling release may be better... never have to upgrade to a major release ever again. Fingers crossed that Arch's rolling releases are better than previously..

*psssst*

tryyyyy voooooiiiiiid


That looks AWESOME. What does it provide over Arch, besides SystemD-free (appealing in and of itself already).

a faster package manager (with an awesome package selection), really novel AND useful build system, an assumption that you don't need a wiki full of config examples to just do whatever you need to do with it however you want to

it feels a lot like pre-systemd arch. very bsd-ish for a linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 12 March 2018, 20:17:30
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 12 March 2018, 20:58:13
I've found that NetBSD is fairly great for a slightly pkgsrc deficient BSD platform. There was no need for me to install anything extra to enable compiling from various sources, so that's Kinda neat.

I've poked around with NetBSD a few times, mostly to get something modern running on random ancient hardware, like DEC and Sparc machines.

It's ok, small and self-contained.  pkgsrc can be a pain if you need to do a bulk update, especially on slow systems.  pkgin is supposed to alleviate that somewhat, being a binary package manager (of sorts).  I am yet to try pkgin in any serious way.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 12 March 2018, 23:53:12
I've actually considered putting NetBSD on my Sharp X68000 but before I can even do that I need to replace the PSU. Still undecided whether I want to:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yuppie on Mon, 12 March 2018, 23:54:23
alpine
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 13 March 2018, 05:29:10
I've found that NetBSD is fairly great for a slightly pkgsrc deficient BSD platform. There was no need for me to install anything extra to enable compiling from various sources, so that's Kinda neat.

I've poked around with NetBSD a few times, mostly to get something modern running on random ancient hardware, like DEC and Sparc machines.

It's ok, small and self-contained.  pkgsrc can be a pain if you need to do a bulk update, especially on slow systems.  pkgin is supposed to alleviate that somewhat, being a binary package manager (of sorts).  I am yet to try pkgin in any serious way.

At the moment I try to install with pkgin first if possible. A few linux packages (for NetBSD) took 5-12hrs to compile due to dependencies. Praise SUSE integration.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Tue, 13 March 2018, 06:28:48
alpine

I believe you are talking about the linux distribution, but not this thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_(email_client)  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_(email_client))

And then this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_(email_client)  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_(email_client))

I still have some mails archived in this format - but really want an indexed solution.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kgolden on Tue, 13 March 2018, 07:19:43
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Tue, 13 March 2018, 10:04:00
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Tue, 13 March 2018, 10:11:34
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sleepy on Tue, 13 March 2018, 11:48:54
I use Gentoo at work (and at home). It's my favorite distro! Also makes compiling specific bits into packages (I do this at work a lot) much easier.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Tue, 13 March 2018, 11:50:47
Been curious about using Gentoo before but never actually have. Will have to try someday.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Tue, 13 March 2018, 11:53:02
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.

To be fair, Windows 10 offers quite decent user experience for me on older systems (x64 still).
I still use windows mainly for a few native Windows applications, e.g. OneNote, Words. But I stick mostly to cross-platform packages, such as Emacs, Mendeley; and I cannot tolerate using Windows with Cygwin.

I haven't tried Arch Linux.
But for user experience, I highly recommend Linux Mint over most other distributions - I know it is not 100% FSF compliant though.
Linux used to be very robust, and it was quite easy to maintain and save a system when something goes wrong. The switch to Systemd from SysVinit makes things more compact and centralized, all in all much like Windows registry. It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
Let's see where will mainstream Linux go.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sleepy on Tue, 13 March 2018, 11:56:35
Been curious about using Gentoo before but never actually have. Will have to try someday.

I really like it. A lot of people joke about compile times, but honestly I've not had anything more than 10 minutes or so on newer hardware. I've also got a binary host setup with pre-compiled packages according to my USE flags.

But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.

To be fair, Windows 10 offers quite decent user experience for me on older systems (x64 still).
I still use windows mainly for a few native Windows applications, e.g. OneNote, Words. But I stick mostly to cross-platform packages, such as Emacs, Mendeley; and I cannot tolerate using Windows with Cygwin.

I haven't tried Arch Linux.
But for user experience, I highly recommend Linux Mint over most other distributions - I know it is not 100% FSF compliant though.
Linux used to be very robust, and it was quite easy to maintain and save a system when something goes wrong. The switch to Systemd from SysVinit makes things more compact and centralized, all in all much like Windows registry. It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
Let's see where will mainstream Linux go.

You should try Gentoo Linux, you're able to choose your own init system! I use OpenRC.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Tue, 13 March 2018, 12:03:36
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.

To be fair, Windows 10 offers quite decent user experience for me on older systems (x64 still).
I still use windows mainly for a few native Windows applications, e.g. OneNote, Words. But I stick mostly to cross-platform packages, such as Emacs, Mendeley; and I cannot tolerate using Windows with Cygwin.

I haven't tried Arch Linux.
But for user experience, I highly recommend Linux Mint over most other distributions - I know it is not 100% FSF compliant though.
Linux used to be very robust, and it was quite easy to maintain and save a system when something goes wrong. The switch to Systemd from SysVinit makes things more compact and centralized, all in all much like Windows registry. It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
Let's see where will mainstream Linux go.

I'm dedicating this week to learning emacs. I'm no coder or programmer by any means, but I've been reading articles and watching videos showing how emacs with org mode can be a better writing tool, and so I would like to see how that is for me as a student with taking lecture notes and writing papers. The goal would be to untether myself from the mouse and Word, and then see if I can use Vim and emacs with org mode (through evil mode in Spacemacs or Doom emacs). Of course, since my professors more than likely use Word I would need to convert everything, but baby steps first.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sleepy on Tue, 13 March 2018, 12:13:10
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.

To be fair, Windows 10 offers quite decent user experience for me on older systems (x64 still).
I still use windows mainly for a few native Windows applications, e.g. OneNote, Words. But I stick mostly to cross-platform packages, such as Emacs, Mendeley; and I cannot tolerate using Windows with Cygwin.

I haven't tried Arch Linux.
But for user experience, I highly recommend Linux Mint over most other distributions - I know it is not 100% FSF compliant though.
Linux used to be very robust, and it was quite easy to maintain and save a system when something goes wrong. The switch to Systemd from SysVinit makes things more compact and centralized, all in all much like Windows registry. It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
Let's see where will mainstream Linux go.

I'm dedicating this week to learning emacs. I'm no coder or programmer by any means, but I've been reading articles and watching videos showing how emacs with org mode can be a better writing tool, and so I would like to see how that is for me as a student with taking lecture notes and writing papers. The goal would be to untether myself from the mouse and Word, and then see if I can use Vim and emacs with org mode (through evil mode in Spacemacs or Doom emacs). Of course, since my professors more than likely use Word I would need to convert everything, but baby steps first.

If you're looking to learn VIM, there's a really awesome interactive tutorial here:

http://www.openvim.com/ (http://www.openvim.com/)

It's totally helpful for getting used to the basics! This plus a cheatsheet on your desk should help you get started in no time.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Tue, 13 March 2018, 12:17:20
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.

To be fair, Windows 10 offers quite decent user experience for me on older systems (x64 still).
I still use windows mainly for a few native Windows applications, e.g. OneNote, Words. But I stick mostly to cross-platform packages, such as Emacs, Mendeley; and I cannot tolerate using Windows with Cygwin.

I haven't tried Arch Linux.
But for user experience, I highly recommend Linux Mint over most other distributions - I know it is not 100% FSF compliant though.
Linux used to be very robust, and it was quite easy to maintain and save a system when something goes wrong. The switch to Systemd from SysVinit makes things more compact and centralized, all in all much like Windows registry. It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
Let's see where will mainstream Linux go.

I'm dedicating this week to learning emacs. I'm no coder or programmer by any means, but I've been reading articles and watching videos showing how emacs with org mode can be a better writing tool, and so I would like to see how that is for me as a student with taking lecture notes and writing papers. The goal would be to untether myself from the mouse and Word, and then see if I can use Vim and emacs with org mode (through evil mode in Spacemacs or Doom emacs). Of course, since my professors more than likely use Word I would need to convert everything, but baby steps first.

If you're looking to learn VIM, there's a really awesome interactive tutorial here:

http://www.openvim.com/ (http://www.openvim.com/)

It's totally helpful for getting used to the basics! This plus a cheatsheet on your desk should help you get started in no time.  :)

Yeah! I've been doing that yesterday and today. Last night I went through the Vimtutor in Spacemacs.
This morning I found myself wanting to navigate through Vim and using other keybinds...on my Windows 7 work computer...

(Also, neverending quotations ftw.)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Tue, 13 March 2018, 12:35:04
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.

To be fair, Windows 10 offers quite decent user experience for me on older systems (x64 still).
I still use windows mainly for a few native Windows applications, e.g. OneNote, Words. But I stick mostly to cross-platform packages, such as Emacs, Mendeley; and I cannot tolerate using Windows with Cygwin.

I haven't tried Arch Linux.
But for user experience, I highly recommend Linux Mint over most other distributions - I know it is not 100% FSF compliant though.
Linux used to be very robust, and it was quite easy to maintain and save a system when something goes wrong. The switch to Systemd from SysVinit makes things more compact and centralized, all in all much like Windows registry. It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
Let's see where will mainstream Linux go.

I'm dedicating this week to learning emacs. I'm no coder or programmer by any means, but I've been reading articles and watching videos showing how emacs with org mode can be a better writing tool, and so I would like to see how that is for me as a student with taking lecture notes and writing papers. The goal would be to untether myself from the mouse and Word, and then see if I can use Vim and emacs with org mode (through evil mode in Spacemacs or Doom emacs). Of course, since my professors more than likely use Word I would need to convert everything, but baby steps first.

If you are going that path (untether from Word), there is an easy path and a hard core path:
[easy] - use LibreOffice which allows you to collaborate with common users (ODT, DOC, DOCX, compatibility); it is really a relic of the now dead Sun MicroSystem.
[hardcore] - use LaTeX, a dinosaur but still alive doc processing system - and you offers mostly PDF and image files to common users.

There are many LaTeX packages, and a few offers easy integration with Emacs.
In Linux, I have success with TexLive when paired with Emacs.
There is a well-known Emacs package (yes, there are hundreds of packages to try out or to experiment with WITHIN Emacs) called AUCTex which facilitates using LaTeX / TeX within Emacs.
Learning Emacs usually involves learning how to config your initialization file (the .emacs file in your home directory) and therefore understanding a bit of Emacs Lisp, via which the whole extensible and flexible Emacs application is built upon. Learning curve of the hard core path is steep, but you will rejoice after getting used to the slope, and many other techs will be at your fingertips.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 13 March 2018, 12:44:59
Been curious about using Gentoo before but never actually have. Will have to try someday.
I really like it. A lot of people joke about compile times, but honestly I've not had anything more than 10 minutes or so on newer hardware. I've also got a binary host setup with pre-compiled packages according to my USE flags.
I used to run Gentoo a long time ago, couldn't get it to work with GPT when that was new so had to change.  Compiling a kernel on a 2.0ghz P4 laptop took significantly longer than 10 minutes :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kyi195 on Tue, 13 March 2018, 12:54:42
I just recently made the move from Debian 8.2 to 9.-whatever's out now after upgrading my laptop (latitude E6410 to E7450).  Stretch or something?  Anyways, I really only use it on my school/work laptop because I play too many games on my desktop and do some slight music recording and such so I need to have a dedicated Windows box.  There are some things that I need for school that require programs that are Windows-only so I keep a small VM on here too for those few things.  Beyond that though, it's pretty much stock Debian with gnome.  I uninstalled a bucha stuff that came with the non-free version (because I didn't want to deal with finding wireless firmware).  One thing that I did that's non-stock is I threw the numix theme on it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sleepy on Tue, 13 March 2018, 13:05:06
Been curious about using Gentoo before but never actually have. Will have to try someday.
I really like it. A lot of people joke about compile times, but honestly I've not had anything more than 10 minutes or so on newer hardware. I've also got a binary host setup with pre-compiled packages according to my USE flags.
I used to run Gentoo a long time ago, couldn't get it to work with GPT when that was new so had to change.  Compiling a kernel on a 2.0ghz P4 laptop took significantly longer than 10 minutes :))

Hehe, I remember reading about someone finding their roommate's laptop in the fridge compiling a Gentoo kernel. The kernel compiling always takes quite a bit. There's much better GPT support now if you'd want to try again, there's sections in the handbook for it!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 13 March 2018, 14:24:13
But i also use win10 ltsb on my gaming rig.
Only way I can stand Win10 these days.
This is about how early betas were, free of the junk and it made for a pretty decent OS.

Same here. I really like this version. No store, cortana or feature upgrades. Hopefully one day I can completely switch to linux. If it weren't for the games I like, I'd be linux only.
Same here.
Linux is just so much more fun for me, on all fronts.
Only thing keeping me on Win is the vidja games.

I had no idea what I was doing with Arch so I wound up wiping my laptop's HDD rather than trying to dual-boot Linux and Win10. That laptop is the only one I had Windows installed, and now I have no access to my Steam account (unless I install it on my work computer...but probably not).
But Windows was so sluggish and slowing down my computer. I had no idea how fast it could be--even at six years old--until I started using Linux without all that bloat.

To be fair, Windows 10 offers quite decent user experience for me on older systems (x64 still).
I still use windows mainly for a few native Windows applications, e.g. OneNote, Words. But I stick mostly to cross-platform packages, such as Emacs, Mendeley; and I cannot tolerate using Windows with Cygwin.

I haven't tried Arch Linux.
But for user experience, I highly recommend Linux Mint over most other distributions - I know it is not 100% FSF compliant though.
Linux used to be very robust, and it was quite easy to maintain and save a system when something goes wrong. The switch to Systemd from SysVinit makes things more compact and centralized, all in all much like Windows registry. It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
Let's see where will mainstream Linux go.

I'm dedicating this week to learning emacs. I'm no coder or programmer by any means, but I've been reading articles and watching videos showing how emacs with org mode can be a better writing tool, and so I would like to see how that is for me as a student with taking lecture notes and writing papers. The goal would be to untether myself from the mouse and Word, and then see if I can use Vim and emacs with org mode (through evil mode in Spacemacs or Doom emacs). Of course, since my professors more than likely use Word I would need to convert everything, but baby steps first.

If you are going that path (untether from Word), there is an easy path and a hard core path:
[easy] - use LibreOffice which allows you to collaborate with common users (ODT, DOC, DOCX, compatibility); it is really a relic of the now dead Sun MicroSystem.
[hardcore] - use LaTeX, a dinosaur but still alive doc processing system - and you offers mostly PDF and image files to common users.

There are many LaTeX packages, and a few offers easy integration with Emacs.
In Linux, I have success with TexLive when paired with Emacs.
There is a well-known Emacs package (yes, there are hundreds of packages to try out or to experiment with WITHIN Emacs) called AUCTex which facilitates using LaTeX / TeX within Emacs.
Learning Emacs usually involves learning how to config your initialization file (the .emacs file in your home directory) and therefore understanding a bit of Emacs Lisp, via which the whole extensible and flexible Emacs application is built upon. Learning curve of the hard core path is steep, but you will rejoice after getting used to the slope, and many other techs will be at your fingertips.

Last month I used vim-latexsuite to assist me with a resume/cover letter. From my limited experience latex can be very rewarding. The power of Libreoffice with the speed of a text editor.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Tue, 13 March 2018, 14:47:08
Just installed arch for the first time in about 3 years on an old thinkpad and love it

Installing Antergos on an old Macbook that was given to me tonight as well, because I dont feel like the hassle of an Arcxh install again so soon haha.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Tue, 13 March 2018, 15:07:26
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Tue, 13 March 2018, 15:10:20
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X

https://www.archlinux.org/download/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Tue, 13 March 2018, 15:23:02
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X

https://www.archlinux.org/download/

Well I mean obviously but I was never able to figure out how to make it bootable or install it or something. Yes I know there are guides everywhere, etc. but I don't have the time for it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Tue, 13 March 2018, 15:33:03
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X

https://www.archlinux.org/download/

Well I mean obviously but I was never able to figure out how to make it bootable or install it or something. Yes I know there are guides everywhere, etc. but I don't have the time for it.

If you etcher the iso onto a usb and follow a recent guide you can prolly get it done in around 30-45 minutes.
Title: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Tue, 13 March 2018, 15:39:05
I spent yesterday afternoon rebuilding a broken PC so I could make it into a dedicated Linux box. It’s got Ubuntu MATE on it for now. Feels like home being back on Linux desktop.

2018: the year of Linux on the desktop!  :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Tue, 13 March 2018, 15:49:01
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X

https://www.archlinux.org/download/

Well I mean obviously but I was never able to figure out how to make it bootable or install it or something. Yes I know there are guides everywhere, etc. but I don't have the time for it.

It's a royal PITA. I've been complaining to people both on the 'net and IRL (IT guys) about it and how I wanted to kill myself.
"Just follow the official wiki!"
Yeah, if you're an expert.
"It's easy for newcomers to install if you just read everything there."
Man alive; that guide needs a For Dummies version because the guide is so convoluted; there's no clear-cut way. You have to know half the terminology in order to follow okay, and even then I know people had a hard time installing it and they know way more than me. I had to look up almost ten different wikis and multiple videos to configure it. Then found out I did something wrong so had to do it three-four times before it's finally installed.

I haven't touched a command line since DOS, so this was a HUGE learning experience. I still don't know why the Wi-Fi works at home but not at work...  :confused:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 13 March 2018, 15:50:53
Hehe, I remember reading about someone finding their roommate's laptop in the fridge compiling a Gentoo kernel. The kernel compiling always takes quite a bit. There's much better GPT support now if you'd want to try again, there's sections in the handbook for it!
That does not sound healthy, my laptop was good back in the day, no heat issues despite having a proper Radeon with a whole 32mb of RAM!

I will have to give gentoo another go when I get a decent computer working, don't fancy waiting on an i3 (though compared to back in the day I guess even that will seem speedy...)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 13 March 2018, 16:52:43
For me, the year of Linux on the desktop was 2007...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Tue, 13 March 2018, 17:04:42
Been curious about using Gentoo before but never actually have. Will have to try someday.
I really like it. A lot of people joke about compile times, but honestly I've not had anything more than 10 minutes or so on newer hardware. I've also got a binary host setup with pre-compiled packages according to my USE flags.
I used to run Gentoo a long time ago, couldn't get it to work with GPT when that was new so had to change.  Compiling a kernel on a 2.0ghz P4 laptop took significantly longer than 10 minutes :))

Hehe, I remember reading about someone finding their roommate's laptop in the fridge compiling a Gentoo kernel. The kernel compiling always takes quite a bit. There's much better GPT support now if you'd want to try again, there's sections in the handbook for it!

That is epic...  :))

Although the kernel will be more efficient if it is tailor-compiled for every desktop or laptop build, I am not ready to go back to do these royal PITA testing and proofing installation steps that I thought was necessary in the mid to late 1990s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loadable_kernel_module (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loadable_kernel_module)
Of course, when some functionality and supports should be or are part of the core, they are probably not modularized.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Tue, 13 March 2018, 17:17:10
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X
[/spoiler]

https://www.archlinux.org/download/

Well I mean obviously but I was never able to figure out how to make it bootable or install it or something. Yes I know there are guides everywhere, etc. but I don't have the time for it.

It's a royal PITA. I've been complaining to people both on the 'net and IRL (IT guys) about it and how I wanted to kill myself.
"Just follow the official wiki!"
Yeah, if you're an expert.
"It's easy for newcomers to install if you just read everything there."
Man alive; that guide needs a For Dummies version because the guide is so convoluted; there's no clear-cut way. You have to know half the terminology in order to follow okay, and even then I know people had a hard time installing it and they know way more than me. I had to look up almost ten different wikis and multiple videos to configure it. Then found out I did something wrong so had to do it three-four times before it's finally installed.

I haven't touched a command line since DOS, so this was a HUGE learning experience. I still don't know why the Wi-Fi works at home but not at work...  :confused:

You can probably use this for ArchLinux, it works for other distros:
https://unetbootin.github.io/ (https://unetbootin.github.io/)

I was initially a bit obsessed about fast booting within 10 seconds, but after I have experienced and used systemd and how it decreases the robustness and the transparency when problems arise, I want to stay away from systemd as far as possible, and that diminished my interest in ArchLinux.

Again, preferring SysVinit vs systemd is more about taste and preference about how each system works and the philosophy behind.

There are projects similar to unetbootin, but this project seems to have more consistent maintenance and support.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 13 March 2018, 17:30:26
For me, the year of Linux on the desktop was 2007...

My favorite year of Linux was definitely 2013
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Tue, 13 March 2018, 18:04:28
It's a royal PITA. I've been complaining to people both on the 'net and IRL (IT guys) about it and how I wanted to kill myself.
"Just follow the official wiki!"
Yeah, if you're an expert.
"It's easy for newcomers to install if you just read everything there."
Man alive; that guide needs a For Dummies version because the guide is so convoluted; there's no clear-cut way. You have to know half the terminology in order to follow okay, and even then I know people had a hard time installing it and they know way more than me. I had to look up almost ten different wikis and multiple videos to configure it. Then found out I did something wrong so had to do it three-four times before it's finally installed.

I haven't touched a command line since DOS, so this was a HUGE learning experience. I still don't know why the Wi-Fi works at home but not at work...  :confused:

Good to know I'm not the only one. I'd like to think that I'm really good with Linux but I never even figured out how to get the install started, much less get through the installation process.

You can probably use this for ArchLinux, it works for other distros:
https://unetbootin.github.io/ (https://unetbootin.github.io/)

I was initially a bit obsessed about fast booting within 10 seconds, but after I have experienced and used systemd and how it decreases the robustness and the transparency when problems arise, I want to stay away from systemd as far as possible, and that diminished my interest in ArchLinux.

Again, preferring SysVinit vs systemd is more about taste and preference about how each system works and the philosophy behind.

There are projects similar to unetbootin, but this project seems to have more consistent maintenance and support.


I use LiLi when building ISOs on Windows and unetbootin on Mac. I prefer the UX of LiLi though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 13 March 2018, 18:15:09
The Arch forums have answered a few of my questions that were beyond the scope of the wiki. Thought I would through that out there. I've never posted but I gleamed enough info to fix some issues here and there. Those Arch forum folks know their way around a Linux system.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iMav on Tue, 13 March 2018, 19:10:04
For me, the year of Linux on the desktop was 2007...
My favorite year of Linux was definitely 2013

I first installed Linux in 1994.  It was an early version of Slackware...on, what seemed to be, a million floppy disks (for the installation).  I dual-booted slackware and Windows 3.1 on an 84MB hard drive.  LOL

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 13 March 2018, 20:53:40
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X

https://www.archlinux.org/download/

Well I mean obviously but I was never able to figure out how to make it bootable or install it or something. Yes I know there are guides everywhere, etc. but I don't have the time for it.

That's the point of arch, isn't it?  To read all the documentation and work it out for yourself.

There are dozens, probably hundreds, of other Linux distros aorund that are pre-built.

These days they even detect your monitor settings for you, not like the (good) old days where you had to refer to the monitor's timing specifications when settings up XFree86 to avoid configuring incompatible settings that might damage the monitor.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 13 March 2018, 21:28:58
For me, the year of Linux on the desktop was 2007...
My favorite year of Linux was definitely 2013

I first installed Linux in 1994.  It was an early version of Slackware...on, what seemed to be, a million floppy disks.  I dual-booted slackware and Windows 3.1 on an 84MB hard drive.  LOL

I want to say I installed 3.1 around 2002 (Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CX--pcmcia sound card too lol). I read about Ubuntu around 2005-ish but I figured it wasn't for me at the time. I guess I would have eventually tried SUSE or Slackware and loved it. Damn shame
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 14 March 2018, 02:54:26
It can be said its more compact, but it is a lot harder to sort out problems, and also save a system when something has gone wrong.
A lot of that is due to a change in grub using disk identifiers. If you strip them out, it makes it far easier to backup and restore to another drive.


I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X
If you just want the experience of using it, try Antergos.

Tip, once installed, use Gparted to look at how the partitions are setup, take a picture, screen shot whatever, if you later decide to install Arch you have a guide on how the partitions should look. Or install Antergos or Mint and let that handle your partitions then install arch over that.

Bottom line... cheat!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 14 March 2018, 03:04:44
For me, the year of Linux on the desktop was 2007...
My favorite year of Linux was definitely 2013

I first installed Linux in 1994.  It was an early version of Slackware...on, what seemed to be, a million floppy disks (for the installation).  I dual-booted slackware and Windows 3.1 on an 84MB hard drive.  LOL
First time I saw Linux was 1997 or so, Red Hat 6? Not enterprise, this was pre-Fedora. My first install was between 1998 or 2000,  spent the next 15 years or so trying to move to it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Wed, 14 March 2018, 03:35:32
First time I saw Linux was 1997 or so, Red Hat 6? Not enterprise, this was pre-Fedora. My first install was between 1998 or 2000,  spent the next 15 years or so trying to move to it.
I installed Linux the first time in 1997 or 1998, and that was Red Hat 5.0 which was the latest Red Hat at the time.
(The same distro for server and desktop. I dunno why they restarted numbering...)

A friend had been using Slackware for over a year at that time, I think. Another guy had been using Linux on his Amiga (!).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 14 March 2018, 04:07:00
My first install was Mandrake on a Pentium 2, probably in 1999.  All was going well until I tried to boot windows and realised I'd messed up lilo, I panicked and wiped everything on the family computer when a simple 'fdisk /mbr' would have fixed it :-[  Was a couple of years until I was brave enough to try again, my first success was slackware and I've never looked back for main desktop duty though I usually have windows available for gaming.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Wed, 14 March 2018, 05:08:11
For me, the year of Linux on the desktop was 2007...
My favorite year of Linux was definitely 2013

I first installed Linux in 1994.  It was an early version of Slackware...on, what seemed to be, a million floppy disks (for the installation).  I dual-booted slackware and Windows 3.1 on an 84MB hard drive.  LOL

My Linux year was 1996 - that was when a Finnish student introduced me to Linux. And I had to choose between Slackware and RedHat (4.0 or something before that).
In those days, getting every extra piece of hardware to work probably involved some hack in the C source code and countless number of compiling and testing and "segmentation fault (core dumped)", and it was a big success if something happened to work and that was not known before.
You are probably some of the earliest Linux adopters I heard of.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 14 March 2018, 08:08:08
I first installed Ubuntu back in 2007. I messed Windows up badly on my first laptop and didn't know nearly as much as I do now about computers so I tried fixing it myself. Ubuntu back then was excellent, though I've hated it ever since they went to Unity.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Wed, 14 March 2018, 08:30:09
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X
If you just want the experience of using it, try Antergos.

Tip, once installed, use Gparted to look at how the partitions are setup, take a picture, screen shot whatever, if you later decide to install Arch you have a guide on how the partitions should look. Or install Antergos or Mint and let that handle your partitions then install arch over that.

Bottom line... cheat!

That was my biggest issue the first time. I had no idea how to partition my hard drive, let alone doing it correctly.
The first two times, once I figured it out, I didn't partition them correctly. I kept running into issues with the swap space and installing programs. I became irate because I had spent a while customizing Arch, only to realize I had to wipe everything again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 14 March 2018, 10:18:04
I've wanted to install Arch many times in the past but never could figure out how to download it. Oh well.  :-X
If you just want the experience of using it, try Antergos.

Tip, once installed, use Gparted to look at how the partitions are setup, take a picture, screen shot whatever, if you later decide to install Arch you have a guide on how the partitions should look. Or install Antergos or Mint and let that handle your partitions then install arch over that.

Bottom line... cheat!

That was my biggest issue the first time. I had no idea how to partition my hard drive, let alone doing it correctly.
The first two times, once I figured it out, I didn't partition them correctly. I kept running into issues with the swap space and installing programs. I became irate because I had spent a while customizing Arch, only to realize I had to wipe everything again.

Even with the community i3wm Manjaro in mind I'd still recommend Antergos well before Manjaro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kyi195 on Wed, 14 March 2018, 10:26:57
I first installed Ubuntu back in 2007. I messed Windows up badly on my first laptop and didn't know nearly as much as I do now about computers so I tried fixing it myself. Ubuntu back then was excellent, though I've hated it ever since they went to Unity.
IIRC they dropped Unity a little while ago.  I don't know what they default to now though, maybe KDE?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Wed, 14 March 2018, 10:36:07
I am not really part of the cult.

But for those who are beginning and who want to support genuine free software, there is an officially endorsed list of Linux distros:
https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html (https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html)

And a list explaining why some of the major distros are not in the endorsed list:
https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html (https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 14 March 2018, 10:45:48
When it comes to using FOSS, I get it, I do, but I'm not someone who believes that every piece of software on my machine has to be free in order to have a genuine experience. I have been perfectly happy with Linux Mint in the past and even though it's not considered a free OS, it's about as close to Windows as you can get in a Linux package.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Wed, 14 March 2018, 11:23:21
First time I saw Linux was 1997 or so, Red Hat 6? Not enterprise, this was pre-Fedora. My first install was between 1998 or 2000,  spent the next 15 years or so trying to move to it.
I installed Linux the first time in 1997 or 1998, and that was Red Hat 5.0 which was the latest Red Hat at the time.
(The same distro for server and desktop. I dunno why they restarted numbering...)

A friend had been using Slackware for over a year at that time, I think. Another guy had been using Linux on his Amiga (!).

Same for me. It was Red Hat 5.0 that I was first able to install.

I tried to install Slackware in 1995 sometime, by using the ~100 Mb ZipSlack installer, but I never could get that Zip drive to boot. :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Wed, 14 March 2018, 11:30:17
I, too, don't care if everything on my computer is FOSS. In fact, I much prefer Photoshop over GIMP. I used both and just thought GIMP was not as polished--which makes sense considering how much money power Adobe has to remit a polished product.

I tried LibreOffice and, while I love the side panel and the ability to customize the windows to match my GUI theme, it was sluggish and didn't work as finesse-ly as Word--again, which makes sense considering how much money power Microsoft has.
But I'm trying to learn Emacs to take over most of my writing anyway, so I hope that won't be an issue. As for other things, I wouldn't mind getting non-FOSS programs/applications if it makes my life easier so I can focus on being productive. If I have time to work on learning something else to get one step closer to have a 100% FOSS computer, then sure; but until then I will take things piecemeal.

I also am interested in installing a BSD OS, but that's for another day.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 14 March 2018, 12:09:15
I, too, don't care if everything on my computer is FOSS. In fact, I much prefer Photoshop over GIMP. I used both and just thought GIMP was not as polished--which makes sense considering how much money power Adobe has to remit a polished product.

I tried LibreOffice and, while I love the side panel and the ability to customize the windows to match my GUI theme, it was sluggish and didn't work as finesse-ly as Word--again, which makes sense considering how much money power Microsoft has.
But I'm trying to learn Emacs to take over most of my writing anyway, so I hope that won't be an issue. As for other things, I wouldn't mind getting non-FOSS programs/applications if it makes my life easier so I can focus on being productive. If I have time to work on learning something else to get one step closer to have a 100% FOSS computer, then sure; but until then I will take things piecemeal.

I also am interested in installing a BSD OS, but that's for another day.

There is some commerical software that I cannot live without for reasons:
(1) MS Word: track changes.
(2) Adobe Photoshop: luminosity masks, proper colour space support, and focus stacking
(3) Adobe Lightroom: digital photography, amateur-pro level. There is just no software that is on par with lightroom, even though lightroom is slow
(4) IBM SPSS: theoretically R, but SPSS is great for quick-dirty explorative data analysis.

If it weren't for academia, I would do EVERYTHING in emacs/vim and latex.
IBM SPSS I can do without eventually when I'm more comfortable in R. I don't like R.. the language is weird.
But Lightroom and Photoshop? I really don't know what PROPER alternatives are. I mean gimp is nice, but not great for actual photo editing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 14 March 2018, 12:17:26
Man, now I want to find another Compaq 4/75 laptop or an era appropriate Thinkpad and install Slackware to get a feel for what I missed out on. Of course I would use duckduckgo to help with configuring but the hardware will be somewhat the same.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 14 March 2018, 12:33:34
Slackware's still there and last I checked still had the old school non-X installer, not much has changed except things unpack so quickly on a modern CPU you don't get time to read the desctiption of each package as it flashes by.  You could chose it to ask about each package if you have a day to spare :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 14 March 2018, 13:44:34
Speaking of Compaq, I'd love to find an old Compaq Deskpro EP/SB, it was my first PC. Blazing fast Pentium II with Win95!  :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 14 March 2018, 17:45:36
In those days, getting every extra piece of hardware to work probably involved some hack in the C source code and countless number of compiling and testing and "segmentation fault (core dumped)", and it was a big success if something happened to work and that was not known before.
You are probably some of the earliest Linux adopters I heard of.

Anything before the mass adoption of broadband was a challenge.
Modems were a pain in the rear end, especially winmodems and hardware modems were expensive and you still had to deal with the serial port.



but I never could get that Zip drive to boot. :(
When I worked at the dotcom they were just phasing out, thankfully.
Absolute garbage.

Your experience was more the norm than the exception from what I saw of those.  I wanted one, but decided to spend the extra money and go straight to CD burning instead.



I first installed Ubuntu back in 2007. I messed Windows up badly on my first laptop and didn't know nearly as much as I do now about computers so I tried fixing it myself. Ubuntu back then was excellent, though I've hated it ever since they went to Unity.
IIRC they dropped Unity a little while ago.  I don't know what they default to now though, maybe KDE?

The current release still uses Unity, the next release will use Gnome. However, while betas are out for the next one, they have yet to release the Gnome version, it was probably held up waiting for the latest Gnome to drop, which which was released in the last day or two.



I dunno why they restarted numbering...
They didn't restart the numbering.
Red Hat split their offering, the server side became Red Hat Enterprise Linux (REL) and the home version became the Fedora Project.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Wed, 14 March 2018, 20:13:12
More
In those days, getting every extra piece of hardware to work probably involved some hack in the C source code and countless number of compiling and testing and "segmentation fault (core dumped)", and it was a big success if something happened to work and that was not known before.
You are probably some of the earliest Linux adopters I heard of.

Anything before the mass adoption of broadband was a challenge.
Modems were a pain in the rear end, especially winmodems and hardware modems were expensive and you still had to deal with the serial port.

Oh, I forgot that lots of those bit were done via modem downloading during the super painful world-wide-wait era; I took even for granted having a wireless connection, instead of having to get near to BOTH the Ethernet port and the power outlet.

More
I, too, don't care if everything on my computer is FOSS. In fact, I much prefer Photoshop over GIMP. I used both and just thought GIMP was not as polished--which makes sense considering how much money power Adobe has to remit a polished product.

I tried LibreOffice and, while I love the side panel and the ability to customize the windows to match my GUI theme, it was sluggish and didn't work as finesse-ly as Word--again, which makes sense considering how much money power Microsoft has.
But I'm trying to learn Emacs to take over most of my writing anyway, so I hope that won't be an issue. As for other things, I wouldn't mind getting non-FOSS programs/applications if it makes my life easier so I can focus on being productive. If I have time to work on learning something else to get one step closer to have a 100% FOSS computer, then sure; but until then I will take things piecemeal.

I also am interested in installing a BSD OS, but that's for another day.

There is some commerical software that I cannot live without for reasons:
(1) MS Word: track changes.
(2) Adobe Photoshop: luminosity masks, proper colour space support, and focus stacking
(3) Adobe Lightroom: digital photography, amateur-pro level. There is just no software that is on par with lightroom, even though lightroom is slow
(4) IBM SPSS: theoretically R, but SPSS is great for quick-dirty explorative data analysis.

If it weren't for academia, I would do EVERYTHING in emacs/vim and latex.
IBM SPSS I can do without eventually when I'm more comfortable in R. I don't like R.. the language is weird.
But Lightroom and Photoshop? I really don't know what PROPER alternatives are. I mean gimp is nice, but not great for actual photo editing.

While vi & vim is a must to learn, they can't do really everything, like Emacs.
I would like to stick to Emacs and LaTeX too, but I have to said, sometimes I still feel the invention of WYSIWYG editors can be a blessing. LaTeX is very efficient in scaling up once you get used to certain templates; but with those very incapable untechnical colleagues, they might have very specific nitpicking requests of moving things around a bit, some of which can then become quite complicated in LaTeX - and they just don't understand - fxxk them. They can't do shxt, and have to hire people to do it for them always, connection is their everything; but in the real world, connection is really everything...
Haven't heard of IBM SPSS, but I used SPSS will never want to use it nowadays unless I have to; R is weird, its' core deep down is Lisp / Scheme but its manifestation is not Lisp enough. But R is definitely the language and system of choice nowadays for tasks involve statistical analyses and statistical modelling. It's co-creator Ross Ihaka had a few reflection of how R can be improved.
https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/New-System.pdf (https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/New-System.pdf)
https://www.r-bloggers.com/%E2%80%9Csimply-start-over-and-build-something-better%E2%80%9D/ (https://www.r-bloggers.com/%E2%80%9Csimply-start-over-and-build-something-better%E2%80%9D/)

MS Word track changes is the reason I still boot into Windows and use Word from time to time. Be sure to give LibreOffice a revisit every now and then - its track changes compatibility with MS Words (doc & docx format) has improved a lot - I believe especially when fancy formatting has not been done on a document yet.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 14 March 2018, 21:02:05
I also started with an early version of Slackware, can't remember the version though.  It was one of the few distros still available on floppy disks, and I recall downloaded each one over the company's dial-up connection before anyone else arrived, so I wouldn't slow down the internet for them.

I was given an old laptop to install it as a proof of concept, and, after only the first try IIRC, it was working.

The initial purpose was as an email server, as the Windows-based solution we were using (on NT 3.51 or something) was very limited and awkward to use.  Slackware performed superbly.

So I was given an old server and allowed to commission it as a new email server, as well as a dial-out gateway.

We have had Linux-based servers providing most network services ever since.

In 2002 I was fiddling around with Slackware 8.1rc1, so most of the above happened some time before that, probably late 1990s.  My timesheets do not have as much detail going back that far.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kyi195 on Thu, 15 March 2018, 07:18:39
I first installed Ubuntu back in 2007. I messed Windows up badly on my first laptop and didn't know nearly as much as I do now about computers so I tried fixing it myself. Ubuntu back then was excellent, though I've hated it ever since they went to Unity.
IIRC they dropped Unity a little while ago.  I don't know what they default to now though, maybe KDE?
The current release still uses Unity, the next release will use Gnome. However, while betas are out for the next one, they have yet to release the Gnome version, it was probably held up waiting for the latest Gnome to drop, which which was released in the last day or two.

Ahh,alrigt. I just remember seeing people on /g/ talking about Unity being killed off a few months ago.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 15 March 2018, 08:12:17
Aren't you guys a bit late to the party? Canonical dropped Mir & Unity 8 on desktop about a year ago (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/ubuntu-unity-is-dead-desktop-will-switch-back-to-gnome-next-year/).

I don't follow the official Ubuntu desktop, but I believe 17.10 already shipped with customized GNOME Shell by default. It was Wayland that got delayed.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Thu, 15 March 2018, 09:05:04
Aren't you guys a bit late to the party? Canonical dropped Mir & Unity 8 on desktop about a year ago (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/ubuntu-unity-is-dead-desktop-will-switch-back-to-gnome-next-year/).

I don't follow the official Ubuntu desktop, but I believe 17.10 already shipped with customized GNOME Shell by default. It was Wayland that got delayed.

I downloaded Ubuntu a few weeks ago and it still came with Unity.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 15 March 2018, 09:20:02
Pre-17.10, sure (including 16.04 LTS), but from 17.10 release notes: (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes)
Quote
The Ubuntu Desktop now uses GNOME instead of Unity.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Thu, 15 March 2018, 09:48:04
Aren't you guys a bit late to the party? Canonical dropped Mir & Unity 8 on desktop about a year ago (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/ubuntu-unity-is-dead-desktop-will-switch-back-to-gnome-next-year/).

I don't follow the official Ubuntu desktop, but I believe 17.10 already shipped with customized GNOME Shell by default. It was Wayland that got delayed.

Perhaps but I also haven't cared about Ubuntu enough to check in the last year.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kyi195 on Thu, 15 March 2018, 12:32:51
Aren't you guys a bit late to the party? Canonical dropped Mir & Unity 8 on desktop about a year ago (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/ubuntu-unity-is-dead-desktop-will-switch-back-to-gnome-next-year/).

I don't follow the official Ubuntu desktop, but I believe 17.10 already shipped with customized GNOME Shell by default. It was Wayland that got delayed.

Perhaps but I also haven't cared about Ubuntu enough to check in the last year.

Kinda where I am too.  I started using linux on my school/work laptops about 5 years ago or so with Fedora 20 and then I switched to Debian for whatever reason.  I honestly don't remember anymore but it works great for me so I'm not planning on switching anytime soon so I haven't really kept up with what everything has anymore.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ojrask on Thu, 15 March 2018, 16:35:46
Just upgraded my home office Ubuntu from 14.04 to 17.10. And I was a stupid idiot who forgot `cp` does not copy dotfiles. So much for proper backups. Gladly the most important ones are stored in a remote git repo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 15 March 2018, 17:03:53
I downloaded Ubuntu a few weeks ago and it still came with Unity.

Pre-17.10, sure (including 16.04 LTS), but from 17.10 release notes: (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes)
I see what happened, if you go to download it, they are pushing LTS at the top of the page so last time I grabbed it, I got LTS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 15 March 2018, 17:19:10
I downloaded Ubuntu a few weeks ago and it still came with Unity.

Pre-17.10, sure (including 16.04 LTS), but from 17.10 release notes: (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes)
I see what happened, if you go to download it, they are pushing LTS at the top of the page so last time I grabbed it, I got LTS.

I usually go for LTS as well. For some reason unknown to me I had audio artifacts with the Arch LTS kernel. Didn't have that issue with Ubuntu or any of the other Debian based distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Fri, 16 March 2018, 14:52:14
[attach=1]
[attach=2]

Comfy  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Fri, 16 March 2018, 15:40:52
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

lol Gave up on Arch?

I hear Antergos is an easier way of delving into Arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 16 March 2018, 15:46:02
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

let us know when you're done distrohopping and settle on a legit one breh

choices include slack, void, gentoo, lfs and crux (if it's still maintained)
everything else is trash
fite me
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 16 March 2018, 16:08:20
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

let us know when you're done distrohopping and settle on a legit one breh

choices include slack, void, gentoo, lfs and crux (if it's still maintained)
everything else is trash
fite me

I see that you forgot to mention Hannah Montana Linux
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 16 March 2018, 16:10:48
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

let us know when you're done distrohopping and settle on a legit one breh

choices include slack, void, gentoo, lfs and crux (if it's still maintained)
everything else is trash
fite me

I see that you forgot to mention Hannah Montana Linux

you mean pedo linux? i dont **** with /g/ memes (gentoo's on the list cause i respect the amount of time gentoo users waste on ricing)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 16 March 2018, 16:19:46
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

let us know when you're done distrohopping and settle on a legit one breh

choices include slack, void, gentoo, lfs and crux (if it's still maintained)
everything else is trash
fite me

I see that you forgot to mention Hannah Montana Linux

you mean pedo linux? i dont **** with /g/ memes (gentoo's on the list cause i respect the amount of time gentoo users waste on ricing)

:shrugs: I downloaded a Gentoo Live ISO a few days ago. I was basically in a full blown KDE environment just a few minutes later. So idk about Gentoo users 'these days'.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 16 March 2018, 16:46:14
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

let us know when you're done distrohopping and settle on a legit one breh

choices include slack, void, gentoo, lfs and crux (if it's still maintained)
everything else is trash
fite me

I see that you forgot to mention Hannah Montana Linux

you mean pedo linux? i dont **** with /g/ memes (gentoo's on the list cause i respect the amount of time gentoo users waste on ricing)

:shrugs: I downloaded a Gentoo Live ISO a few days ago. I was basically in a full blown KDE environment just a few minutes later. So idk about Gentoo users 'these days'.

yeah they're probably suckas. i retract gentoo from the list.
that said, other than partitioning, slack is pretty easy to install to a KDE environment.... but it's slack. so that's cool.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Fri, 16 March 2018, 19:44:57
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

lol Gave up on Arch?

I hear Antergos is an easier way of delving into Arch.

(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

let us know when you're done distrohopping and settle on a legit one breh

choices include slack, void, gentoo, lfs and crux (if it's still maintained)
everything else is trash
fite me

pls bois, I just didn't wanna do another arch install on this thing. Already did one last week on my thinkpad  :-[

Antergos is basically just arch with a gui installer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 16 March 2018, 19:51:48
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

lol Gave up on Arch?

I hear Antergos is an easier way of delving into Arch.

(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Comfy  :)

let us know when you're done distrohopping and settle on a legit one breh

choices include slack, void, gentoo, lfs and crux (if it's still maintained)
everything else is trash
fite me

pls bois, I just didn't wanna do another arch install on this thing. Already did one last week on my thinkpad  :-[

Antergos is basically just arch with a gui installer.

Well, with Antergos you have access to the Zen kernel, so that's kinda neat I guess.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ander on Sat, 17 March 2018, 04:29:21
Linux Mint, baby.

Okay, it's not very imaginative. But when I use a different OS like that (which is fun now and then), I don't want to spend 90% of my time fussing around with tersely written documentation, editing arcane config files, and doing most of my computing from a command line. I want GUIs, stuff that works, and a big community where I can ask questions and someone can answer them in language I understand.

Having said that, I realize many of you have nothing better to do than spend hours and hours tinkering with the kind of stuff I mentioned. If you do, I hope you're also creating something (i.e. programming) as part of it—producing something of benefit to others—and not just frittering away the precious time you've been given on earth doing fussy, pointless, hobbyist busy-work.

If not, why are you here? So you can consume resources, spend your life doing a bunch of little Linux-y stuff, then get old and die? What's the point of something like that? I'm just saying.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 17 March 2018, 07:53:56
Having said that, I realize many of you have nothing better to do than spend hours and hours tinkering with the kind of stuff I mentioned. If you do, I hope you're also creating something (i.e. programming) as part of it—producing something of benefit to others—and not just frittering away the precious time you've been given on earth doing fussy, pointless, hobbyist busy-work.

If not, why are you here? So you can consume resources, spend your life doing a bunch of little Linux-y stuff, then get old and die? What's the point of something like that? I'm just saying.
That's like asking people at a keyboard forum to write something meaningful on their fancy keyboards…  :-X
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Sat, 17 March 2018, 09:12:59
...

Well, with Antergos you have access to the Zen kernel, so that's kinda neat I guess.

Isn't Zen kernel accessible from Ubuntu and Debian as well, e.g. via liquorix package?
https://github.com/zen-kernel/zen-kernel/blob/4.15/master/Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst

Having said that, I realize many of you have nothing better to do than spend hours and hours tinkering with the kind of stuff I mentioned. If you do, I hope you're also creating something (i.e. programming) as part of it—producing something of benefit to others—and not just frittering away the precious time you've been given on earth doing fussy, pointless, hobbyist busy-work.

If not, why are you here? So you can consume resources, spend your life doing a bunch of little Linux-y stuff, then get old and die? What's the point of something like that? I'm just saying.
That's like asking people at a keyboard forum to write something meaningful on their fancy keyboards…  :-X

I do believe some people here write or create meaningful things with their fancy keyboards.
But it is true that real busy people do not always have much time to bother about their keyboards, or that they are just slow or having that as real low priority, or both.

I have 20+ vintage keyboards and kits, excluding switches and caps and tools, but none of those are 100% finished. When I see people who live streamed and finished building a keyboard from sketch within 1 hour (only a handful of people can do that in GH / DT), and with real neat results, I felt just like a big failing procrastinator on my keyboard projects.
Title: Re%253a%2bWhat%2bLinux%2bDistro%2bdo%2bthe%2bLinux%2busers%2bof%2bGH%2buse%253f
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 17 March 2018, 11:27:32
Why would a Debian user want to use the Zen kernel?

Edit - phone browser issues
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 17 March 2018, 11:44:39
If not, why are you here? So you can consume resources, spend your life doing a bunch of little Linux-y stuff, then get old and die? What's the point of something like that? I'm just saying.
I'm here because my parents were too unimaginative to have anything better to do than reproducing, thus my genes did not grant me any imagination either.  To compound the tragedy they chose to live in a society where there are no threats to life so I survived to adulthood and in their society of choice families live independently so my loss would be very painful to them, so I still don't really have a choice in the matter.  Put a live grenade in front of me in a crowded room and I'll be the first to jump on it - I won't have to go on living this pointless existence and my parents can be consoled knowing I died for the benefit of others.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 19 March 2018, 13:35:12
I have managed to get back up to probably 20-30 keyboards again (most of which I'll be selling again once I get around to it) and the keyboard I use the most is the one with absolutely no customization. Frankly, it's really quite a boring keyboard, Matias Laptop Pro. Maybe someday I'll get around to the 15-20 projects I have going on at any given time but frankly the people who have time to build boards from scratch have much more free time than I do. I rarely have more than 10-15 minutes of free time every day these days.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 19 March 2018, 13:42:35
Linux Mint, baby.

Okay, it's not very imaginative. But when I use a different OS like that (which is fun now and then), I don't want to spend 90% of my time fussing around with tersely written documentation, editing arcane config files, and doing most of my computing from a command line. I want GUIs, stuff that works, and a big community where I can ask questions and someone can answer them in language I understand.

Having said that, I realize many of you have nothing better to do than spend hours and hours tinkering with the kind of stuff I mentioned. If you do, I hope you're also creating something (i.e. programming) as part of it—producing something of benefit to others—and not just frittering away the precious time you've been given on earth doing fussy, pointless, hobbyist busy-work.

If not, why are you here? So you can consume resources, spend your life doing a bunch of little Linux-y stuff, then get old and die? What's the point of something like that? I'm just saying.

is telling people their hobbies are pointless on a keyboard forum your pointless hobby?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sleepy on Mon, 19 March 2018, 21:02:58
If not, why are you here? So you can consume resources, spend your life doing a bunch of little Linux-y stuff, then get old and die? What's the point of something like that? I'm just saying.

It is a hobby and I enjoy it
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 20 March 2018, 04:58:14
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but, OpenSUSE liveDVDs have persistent storage (tumbleweed tested with the OpenSUSE imagewriter). I was able to strip out the gnome things, add a user, change the root password, ssh into my arch box, update, and install lightdm/i3wm/git/make. My reason for caring: it's fun.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: roosta on Thu, 22 March 2018, 19:23:31
Arch Linux with i3wm on my laptop, dual-boot Winblows and Arch on my desktop :thumb: I just can't get away from Arch. Takes maybe an hour to do a fresh install, and another few hours for a quick, usable rice and I have something setup over a weekend that I can use every day with no problems. Bumblebee is setup for the laptop GPU and everything is encrypted :D The stigma that Arch is hard to install is honestly annoying, the wiki explains the entire process.

I like Ubuntu, but every update makes me feel like it's turning into the Windows of Linux. So much bloat. I understand they're catering to an audience that I'm not really included in, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I use it. Also, Archwiki is a godsend. I feel like as big as Ubuntu is now that they should have something even remotely comparable at this point. But I digress...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 22 March 2018, 21:11:32
I've got to admit: I was definitely eyeballing Ubuntu as I was installing a nextcloud server on the arch box. *whistles* I get it now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Fri, 23 March 2018, 08:31:21
With the recent approval of the CLOUD Act, we might be looking into building our own redundant storage server soon. It would need to be accessible from the net but with local encryption so that only those with access can get the data. Anyone have a suggestion for a good Linux system that supports this out of the box? For reference, I will probably drop in 4x8TB HDDs with RAID 5 or 6 to begin with, maybe more storage later if our needs change.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 23 March 2018, 13:40:28
Void linux sound like the right distro candidate for the job
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Fri, 23 March 2018, 14:53:42
Actually I'm going to start a new thread for this.  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Fri, 23 March 2018, 16:16:39
The stigma that Arch is hard to install is honestly annoying, the wiki explains the entire process.

The thing is the wiki assumes you know exactly what they're talking about and how to run the commands. For beginners Arch is not.
I used Ubuntu as my very first distro about a month ago. A week later I wiped the computer and did an install of Arch. Took me almost ten wikis (outside of Arch) and a handful of videos before I got everything done. Then I messed up somewhere down the line--twice.
So three or so installs later I have Arch running on my five-year-old laptop. It's nice, fast, and lightweight, but man was it a nightmare. That wiki gets way derivative; for a distro that prides itself on being minimalistic, the wiki is bloated and exhaustive at times.

I finally have my ol' 2010 MBP running again, so I'm going to install Antergos on it this weekend. I thought I would do Arch on it, but then I read that the proprietary Nvidia drivers must be installed with some weird workaround (cf. https://askubuntu.com/questions/264247/proprietary-nvidia-drivers-with-efi-on-mac-to-prevent-overheating/613573#613573), and with school and everything else I've got going I don't feel like bothering with that at the moment.
I much prefer the hardware of my MBP compared to my HP (the latter being the guinea pig for Arch), and I'm eager to get some install of Arch on it, even if it is a "cheater's" version, so I can get to work on it for school studies.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 23 March 2018, 16:17:03
Void linux sound like the right distro candidate for the job

(https://i.imgur.com/14COhR2.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 23 March 2018, 20:44:42
Void linux sound like the right distro candidate for the job

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/14COhR2.png)


Fine. Next time I'll recommend NetBSD

(https://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/33247833_74532997e3_z.jpg?zz&#x3D;1) (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv)NetBSD Toaster (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv) by Scott Beale (https://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/), on Flickr
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 24 March 2018, 16:41:12
Void linux sound like the right distro candidate for the job

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/14COhR2.png)


Fine. Next time I'll recommend NetBSD

(https://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/33247833_74532997e3_z.jpg?zz&#x3D;1) (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv)NetBSD Toaster (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv) by Scott Beale (https://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/), on Flickr

(https://preview.ibb.co/kqOMjn/who_is_this_nutball.png) (https://ibb.co/m0q1jn)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 24 March 2018, 17:58:41
Show Image
Void linux sound like the right distro candidate for the job

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/14COhR2.png)


Fine. Next time I'll recommend NetBSD

(https://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/33247833_74532997e3_z.jpg?zz&#x3D;1) (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv)NetBSD Toaster (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv) by Scott Beale (https://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/), on Flickr

(https://preview.ibb.co/kqOMjn/who_is_this_nutball.png) (https://ibb.co/m0q1jn)

:shrugs: No one in particular, I'm just spreading the good word of NetBSD (unix-y so somewhat on topic).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 24 March 2018, 21:05:37

(https://preview.ibb.co/kqOMjn/who_is_this_nutball.png) (https://ibb.co/m0q1jn)

:shrugs: No one in particular, I'm just spreading the good word of NetBSD (unix-y so somewhat on topic).

It was just an excuse to put that meme together.

In any case, BSD couldn't be more off-putting... especially FreeBSD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: seva1385 on Sat, 24 March 2018, 21:07:19
After I grew dissatisfied with Slackware, I switched to Ubuntu.
Only writing that because I need to get to 25 posts to post in classifieds.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 24 March 2018, 21:44:00

(https://preview.ibb.co/kqOMjn/who_is_this_nutball.png) (https://ibb.co/m0q1jn)

:shrugs: No one in particular, I'm just spreading the good word of NetBSD (unix-y so somewhat on topic).

It was just an excuse to put that meme together.

In any case, BSD couldn't be more off-putting... especially FreeBSD.

Oi, yea. Some of those FreeBSD volunteers seem to have.. issues.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 25 March 2018, 20:54:28

(https://preview.ibb.co/kqOMjn/who_is_this_nutball.png) (https://ibb.co/m0q1jn)

:shrugs: No one in particular, I'm just spreading the good word of NetBSD (unix-y so somewhat on topic).

It was just an excuse to put that meme together.

In any case, BSD couldn't be more off-putting... especially FreeBSD.

Oi, yea. Some of those FreeBSD volunteers seem to have.. issues.

We used to run FreeBSD at work, and I used to run it on Sun Sparc servers at home.

We stopped using it at work due to (lack of) hardware support, and the need to run Oracle Java as seamlessly as possible.

I stopped running it at home when I disposed of the Sun servers.

I still run NetBSD on a couple of old Cobalt machines, although I have run Debian on there too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 26 March 2018, 01:37:11

(https://preview.ibb.co/kqOMjn/who_is_this_nutball.png) (https://ibb.co/m0q1jn)

:shrugs: No one in particular, I'm just spreading the good word of NetBSD (unix-y so somewhat on topic).

It was just an excuse to put that meme together.

In any case, BSD couldn't be more off-putting... especially FreeBSD.
bsds are great. shush.

Void linux sound like the right distro candidate for the job

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/14COhR2.png)


Fine. Next time I'll recommend NetBSD

(https://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/33247833_74532997e3_z.jpg?zz=1) (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv)NetBSD Toaster (https://flic.kr/p/3Wpqv) by Scott Beale (https://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/), on Flickr

for a server? yes.
for toast?

yes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 26 March 2018, 08:09:31
I've considered installing NetBSD to my Sharp X68000 but first I have to actually get the system up and running...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Mon, 26 March 2018, 14:21:40
Installed Arch on my MBP in 3-4 hours. Not bad.
Especially since last time--which was my first--took me two days...  :p

(https://i.imgur.com/AQP7s4j.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 26 March 2018, 16:05:29
I've considered installing NetBSD to my Sharp X68000 but first I have to actually get the system up and running...

please post your progress if you do!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ScaredFolks on Fri, 30 March 2018, 22:07:02
Kali, Arch, Ubuntu and SUSE.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 07 April 2018, 09:54:40
Finally built up the courage to try a Slackware install (VM of 14.2 Current). Wifi must be a pita to configure with older hardware/software. Part of me wants to clone the img to a hdd.. #1updateayr

(https://i.imgur.com/GTgOOJt.png) (https://i.imgur.com/R509b1w.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/frizW7J.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Sun, 08 April 2018, 19:50:33
Finally built up the courage to try a Slackware install (VM of 14.2 Current). Wifi must be a pita to configure with older hardware/software. Part of me wants to clone the img to a hdd.. #1updateayr

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/GTgOOJt.png)
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/R509b1w.png)

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/frizW7J.png)


>VM

Coward

 :p Joking Joking

But that looks great though, might be worth trying out if I ever venture past arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 08 April 2018, 20:49:30
Finally built up the courage to try a Slackware install (VM of 14.2 Current). Wifi must be a pita to configure with older hardware/software. Part of me wants to clone the img to a hdd.. #1updateayr

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/GTgOOJt.png)
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/R509b1w.png)

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/frizW7J.png)


>VM

Coward

 :p Joking Joking

But that looks great though, might be worth trying out if I ever venture past arch.

 :)) I'm not gonna lie, the setup was tricky even for a VM. Not like a compiling Linux from scratch kind of tricky, for me it (slackware) was a bit tricky to install and setup with the tiling precious.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Sun, 08 April 2018, 23:54:41
I envy those who use BSD and Slackware and such.

Meanwhile I'm slowly moving away from Xfce dependency toward strict i3 in Arch. I still use Xfce as a backup, but thus far I'm already getting used to using just i3.

But now that I realize it most of the configuration is relied on using Xfce's terminal and general desktop settings, so maybe I'm not that detached.
Now if I can figure out how to start Ranger automatically from a keybind instead of opening a terminal and executing "ranger"...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Mon, 09 April 2018, 21:19:49
I gotta stop hopping

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 10 April 2018, 04:12:42
I'm looking for a new distro for my main PC as OpenSUSE is incapable of running the new version of EasyAVR (https://github.com/dhowland/EasyAVR/releases/tag/v3.00.00-beta.3) due to Python requirements - it still uses Python2 as default and having upgraded to tumbleweed and added a repo offering hundreds of Python related packages it's still not playing, so I'm giving up.

The only other requirement is that I need to use the nvidia driver and would appreciate that being managed by the package manager.

I would suggest any distro should be able to meet these but as above it's not so.  I'm thinking Arch/Gentoo/Void but having used newbie friendly distros since UEFI I'm expecting a dual boot installation to be less than easy so want the first one I chose to be guaranteed to work...

Any recommendations?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Tue, 10 April 2018, 06:19:35
I'm looking for a new distro for my main PC as OpenSUSE is incapable of running the new version of EasyAVR (https://github.com/dhowland/EasyAVR/releases/tag/v3.00.00-beta.3) due to Python requirements - it still uses Python2 as default and having upgraded to tumbleweed and added a repo offering hundreds of Python related packages it's still not playing, so I'm giving up.

The only other requirement is that I need to use the nvidia driver and would appreciate that being managed by the package manager.

I would suggest any distro should be able to meet these but as above it's not so.  I'm thinking Arch/Gentoo/Void but having used newbie friendly distros since UEFI I'm expecting a dual boot installation to be less than easy so want the first one I chose to be guaranteed to work...

Any recommendations?

I expect I'll get pushback, but I personally recommend Arch. Admittedly never fully installed gentoo so I can't comment there, and overall I'm a linux noob.

Idk, I just like Arch.

Easy to maintain, and as far as I can tell the nvidia drivers are in the official repo. Plus tons of legacy support in the AUR.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jdcarpe on Tue, 10 April 2018, 08:50:40
I gotta stop hopping

"Oh look, all the software I want to use has compiled binaries for Debian/Ubuntu."

/me switches to Ubuntu, doesn't look back.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Tue, 10 April 2018, 09:29:45
That's the primary reason I tend to stick to Ubuntu-based distros like Mint. It has the most compatibility with things I want to do or use.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 10 April 2018, 10:56:13
I expect I'll get pushback, but I personally recommend Arch. Admittedly never fully installed gentoo so I can't comment there, and overall I'm a linux noob.

Idk, I just like Arch.

Easy to maintain, and as far as I can tell the nvidia drivers are in the official repo. Plus tons of legacy support in the AUR.
Thanks for the non expert opinion - I'm not a newbie having tried most distros through the years but never got UEFI and GPT booting manually, so as good as for this.

Does the new EasyAVR definitely work?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Tue, 10 April 2018, 11:37:08
I have Arch booting from UEFI (MBP). It wasn't too bad. There were instructions for my exact computer so I used that and the main guide, as well as a couple of supplemental instructions.

What was the most painful was replacing systemd-boot with GRUB2. The Nvidia drivers were not compatible with my computer unless I played with a workaround--and that was to use GRUB2 as the bootloader on my UEFI partition. Thankfully I wiped my entire computer, but I can imagine it would be 2x-3x more stressful on a dual-boot.

In other words, I personally wouldn't recommend it. Installing the Nvidia drivers successfully presented more problems, but I found workarounds.
For instance, I can't seem to use any other DE now besides Xfce (which is fine since Xfce is my favorite, but would be nice to have the option), and the Wi-Fi tends to be a bit wonky. At least my computer is a lot cooler now, however, than when I used the Nouveau drivers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 10 April 2018, 14:21:45
I expect I'll get pushback, but I personally recommend Arch. Admittedly never fully installed gentoo so I can't comment there, and overall I'm a linux noob.

Idk, I just like Arch.

Easy to maintain, and as far as I can tell the nvidia drivers are in the official repo. Plus tons of legacy support in the AUR.
Thanks for the non expert opinion - I'm not a newbie having tried most distros through the years but never got UEFI and GPT booting manually, so as good as for this.

Does the new EasyAVR definitely work?

I used Manjaro as my daily for eight months then switched to Arch for three months (current--EFI only). Linux Mint (Debian derivative)/Manjaro (Arch derivative) dual boot was finicky after kernel updates. Hopefully the distros you use run OS probe. I guess some newbie friendly distros avoid each other for some reason. I shouldn't have to chroot into a distro to fix grub after every kernel update. Although, the process familiarized me with tmux/w3m before I ditched Linux Mint so that's a ++. Why not try a VM with USB passthrough before going though a massive distro overhaul?

edit - Yep, I don't have the hardware to test further but here's the GUI on Arch. It'll need python3, pip, and wxpython (wxpython appears to contain wxgtk4) to complete the installation. I extracted the tar, cd'd to the dir and then sudo python setup.py install.

(https://i.imgur.com/CPqOjfZ.png) 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 10 April 2018, 17:12:45
Thanks for the non expert opinion - I'm not a newbie having tried most distros through the years but never got UEFI and GPT booting manually, so as good as for this.

Cheat.
Install Mint, use that as a template or just reformat the partitions with Arch then do your install or just use Antergos.


Side note
Antergos is straight up Arch while Manjaro uses their own repos, so there is a difference.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 10 April 2018, 17:35:35
Seriously, steer clear of Manjaro unless you really enjoy their offerings.

edit - forgot to show the screenfech of my vanilla Arch stuff alongside EasyAVR (kernel, driver's license, etc.)

More
(https://i.imgur.com/ThtxmeB.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 11 April 2018, 02:20:40
Thanks all for the thoughts on Arch - I'll have to read up on nvidia but lots of people use that compared to EasyAVR so there will be something to read :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Wed, 11 April 2018, 06:56:16
Quote
Side note
Antergos is straight up Arch while Manjaro uses their own repos, so there is a difference.

Antergos is very nice, and you can do a bare bones install that starts you off at the same point a regular arch install would have you at after reboot. Add your own wm, etc.

Used for a little while and liked it a lot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 11 April 2018, 07:57:39
Thanks all for the thoughts on Arch - I'll have to read up on nvidia but lots of people use that compared to EasyAVR so there will be something to read :))

If my crusty AMD card has no troubles you'll no doubt be successful with nvidia. But as you know, most seem to avoid the nvidia open source drivers. Damn shame. :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Wed, 11 April 2018, 08:07:37
Thanks all for the thoughts on Arch - I'll have to read up on nvidia but lots of people use that compared to EasyAVR so there will be something to read :))

If my crusty AMD card has no troubles you'll no doubt be successful with nvidia. But as you know, most seem to avoid the nvidia open source drivers. Damn shame. :))

nouveau is basically dead AFAIK.

relevant: Nouveau Developers Remain Blocked By NVIDIA From Advancing Open-Source Driver (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nouveau-XDC2017) (even though it's on Moronix)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 11 April 2018, 08:11:58
I might give Antergos a try on my Chromebook. Would make a pretty neat machine.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 11 April 2018, 15:04:55
What's currently the best distro without systemd?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Wed, 11 April 2018, 15:54:50
What's currently the best distro without systemd?

Gentoo.

Or Android.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 11 April 2018, 16:37:29
What's currently the best distro without systemd?

Gentoo.

Or Android.

Android?

(https://i.imgur.com/Ge9iQvQ.gif)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 11 April 2018, 18:32:01
What's currently the best distro without systemd?
There is a systemD free Debian (Devuan) and you can do a systemd free install of Arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Wed, 11 April 2018, 19:19:24


Android?


Yes it actually works really well on PC. It's the last OS I installed.

http://www.android-x86.org
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 11 April 2018, 19:43:40


Android?


Yes it actually works really well on PC. It's the last OS I installed.

http://www.android-x86.org

Aye, I played with Android x86 several months back when I needed to post an Instagram picture (after many headaches due to Bluestacks and Andy not playing nice with the Play Store).

Why back Android when there are a plethora of distros to choose from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd)

I've gotta say I enjoyed Slackware and Puppy Linux (Slacko is my favorite version of Puppy Linux).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 11 April 2018, 21:41:13
What's currently the best distro without systemd?

BSD?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 12 April 2018, 04:59:28
What's currently the best distro without systemd?

BSD?
okay-face.jpg
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Thu, 12 April 2018, 06:50:44
FreeBSD has a cool logo, and imo that's a great reason to try it.  :p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Thu, 12 April 2018, 09:17:40
Aye, I played with Android x86 several months back when I needed to post an Instagram picture (after many headaches due to Bluestacks and Andy not playing nice with the Play Store).

Why back Android when there are a plethora of distros to choose from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd)

I've gotta say I enjoyed Slackware and Puppy Linux (Slacko is my favorite version of Puppy Linux).

I was using it more as an emulator than as a full time OS. If I were to choose one OS today to download, it would probably be WattOS. Keep in mind that I haven't been paying much attention to Linux in the past year or two.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 12 April 2018, 15:13:17
Aye, I played with Android x86 several months back when I needed to post an Instagram picture (after many headaches due to Bluestacks and Andy not playing nice with the Play Store).

Why back Android when there are a plethora of distros to choose from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd)

I've gotta say I enjoyed Slackware and Puppy Linux (Slacko is my favorite version of Puppy Linux).

I was using it more as an emulator than as a full time OS. If I were to choose one OS today to download, it would probably be WattOS. Keep in mind that I haven't been paying much attention to Linux in the past year or two.

Ah, I see
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 12 April 2018, 20:32:19
If I were to choose one OS today to download, it would probably be WattOS.
I did some testing on that and it pretty much was no more efficient that straight Ubuntu or Mint (which are pretty good out of the box).
We're talking 10 minute battery difference over the course of 3-5 hours*.

I'm not saying don't use it, just that if you are using it for their claim of efficiency, you may be happier with something else and eating the small battery gains. This may not hold true on older hardware and netbooks (or AMD E series), but on something like a first gen I5 or newer I3 or better, there's very little to gain by using it over another Buntu' flavor or distro.

*tested on a 2nd gen I5 Lenovo X220.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 12 April 2018, 21:50:41
FreeBSD has a cool logo, and imo that's a great reason to try it.  :p

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Thu, 12 April 2018, 22:39:14
FreeBSD has a cool logo, and imo that's a great reason to try it.  :p

(Attachment Link)

So either one female or five males?

I think you've answered for us all.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Fri, 13 April 2018, 07:09:42
FreeBSD has a cool logo, and imo that's a great reason to try it.  :p

(Attachment Link)

So either one female or five males?

I think you've answered for us all.

I remember my school's linux club had an attractive female salesperson.

but when you got there, she was THE ONLY attractive female in the club..

I remember feeling dooped..

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 13 April 2018, 08:53:01
This is why I like NetBSD. Try to find a NetBSD meme that isn't an amazing toaster (forgets about Sidekick phones.. <_<). Unix-y is Linux right? This is totally fine.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 20 April 2018, 23:43:56
I gotta stop hopping

(Attachment Link)

now you can
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Sat, 21 April 2018, 00:04:36
Latest kernel update wiped my backlight config. Couldn't figure out why my backlight wasn't adjusting, then I simply reinstalled the graphics drivers backlight package. And it's working now.

Linux is weird.

Cool.

But weird.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kaorix on Sat, 21 April 2018, 04:16:35
I use ubuntu headless for my webserver/nas rig, and linux mint cinnamon  for general day to day.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Skull_Angel on Sat, 28 April 2018, 00:10:16
Alright, after having an updated taste with Arch and Antergos then going on a gaming binge on the old Win7 drive (several months...), I ended up forgetting my Antergos pw... SO! I figured I'd take the opportunity to check out another distro or two.

What are people's impression of Solus? I've read a little about it and like the idea behind it's direction. My main focus will likely be gaming (native and Wine/PoL) in the end, so having a distro with development/a repository that supports such is something that interests me quite a bit.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Sat, 28 April 2018, 13:00:09
This is why I like NetBSD. Try to find a NetBSD meme that isn't an amazing toaster (forgets about Sidekick phones.. <_<). Unix-y is Linux right? This is totally fine.

Do you actually run BSD? Is it to be eclectic, or do you have practical reasons?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 28 April 2018, 13:34:47
This is why I like NetBSD. Try to find a NetBSD meme that isn't an amazing toaster (forgets about Sidekick phones.. <_<). Unix-y is Linux right? This is totally fine.

Do you actually run BSD? Is it to be eclectic, or do you have practical reasons?

Why do you feel the need to question my computing habits?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sat, 28 April 2018, 13:48:39
Can you install Linux (Mint Xfce) to a USB thumb drive?

I have the ISO "installed" to a USB 3 drive that runs in Live mode very well. But it always offers to install it to the hard drive.

I'm wondering if I can do a complete install of it to the thumb drive, or is there even a difference when you do so?

I'd installed to the internal drive but it's only a 128 GB. I may change it for the 512 GB in my 17" MacBook Pro that I'll be selling, but I'd rather sell those together since it will have both Mac and Windows installed on it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Sat, 28 April 2018, 13:58:23
This is why I like NetBSD. Try to find a NetBSD meme that isn't an amazing toaster (forgets about Sidekick phones.. <_<). Unix-y is Linux right? This is totally fine.

Do you actually run BSD? Is it to be eclectic, or do you have practical reasons?

Why do you feel the need to question my computing habits?

I'm actually just curious. I've never run BSD before (unless I was doing simple router stuff), and I'm wondering if it has any advantages / if I should even bother learning it?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 28 April 2018, 14:44:42
This is why I like NetBSD. Try to find a NetBSD meme that isn't an amazing toaster (forgets about Sidekick phones.. <_<). Unix-y is Linux right? This is totally fine.

Do you actually run BSD? Is it to be eclectic, or do you have practical reasons?

Why do you feel the need to question my computing habits?

I'm actually just curious. I've never run BSD before (unless I was doing simple router stuff), and I'm wondering if it has any advantages / if I should even bother learning it?

Oh, I see. I liked the NetBSD's ncurses style installer (VM--the intention was to eventually install to a PATA drive but the ole ThinkCentre 8193's PSU crapped out). My attempts at installing it to a usb drive through VM/USB passthrough was unfortunately unsuccessful. Darn thing didn't detect the formatted drive as an installation candidate. I downloaded and loaded FreeBSD, OpenBSD, GhostBSD, DragonflyBSD, and TrueOS. TrueOS was... different. NetBSD seemed to stand out the most in my eyes. After one gets past the whole Sidekick phone thing, and learns that Juan Romero Pardines had a part in maintaining NetBSD, it's not so bad.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Sat, 28 April 2018, 15:22:35
This is why I like NetBSD. Try to find a NetBSD meme that isn't an amazing toaster (forgets about Sidekick phones.. <_<). Unix-y is Linux right? This is totally fine.

Do you actually run BSD? Is it to be eclectic, or do you have practical reasons?

Why do you feel the need to question my computing habits?

I'm actually just curious. I've never run BSD before (unless I was doing simple router stuff), and I'm wondering if it has any advantages / if I should even bother learning it?

Oh, I see. I liked the NetBSD's ncurses style installer (VM--the intention was to eventually install to a PATA drive but the ole ThinkCentre 8193's PSU crapped out). My attempts at installing it to a usb drive through VM/USB passthrough was unfortunately unsuccessful. Darn thing didn't detect the formatted drive as an installation candidate. I downloaded and loaded FreeBSD, OpenBSD, GhostBSD, DragonflyBSD, and TrueOS. TrueOS was... different. NetBSD seemed to stand out the most in my eyes. After one gets past the whole Sidekick phone thing, and learns that Juan Romero Pardines had a part in maintaining NetBSD, it's not so bad.

It seems like choosing between BSD and Linux these days is like choosing between shells. In their early days, they had different functionality and uses, but today they largely do the same stuff. Shrug.

Also, isn't Juan Pardines the lead contributor to Void? Is there some dirt around him that I don't know about?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 28 April 2018, 16:08:23
This is why I like NetBSD. Try to find a NetBSD meme that isn't an amazing toaster (forgets about Sidekick phones.. <_<). Unix-y is Linux right? This is totally fine.

Do you actually run BSD? Is it to be eclectic, or do you have practical reasons?

Why do you feel the need to question my computing habits?

I'm actually just curious. I've never run BSD before (unless I was doing simple router stuff), and I'm wondering if it has any advantages / if I should even bother learning it?

Oh, I see. I liked the NetBSD's ncurses style installer (VM--the intention was to eventually install to a PATA drive but the ole ThinkCentre 8193's PSU crapped out). My attempts at installing it to a usb drive through VM/USB passthrough was unfortunately unsuccessful. Darn thing didn't detect the formatted drive as an installation candidate. I downloaded and loaded FreeBSD, OpenBSD, GhostBSD, DragonflyBSD, and TrueOS. TrueOS was... different. NetBSD seemed to stand out the most in my eyes. After one gets past the whole Sidekick phone thing, and learns that Juan Romero Pardines had a part in maintaining NetBSD, it's not so bad.

It seems like choosing between BSD and Linux these days is like choosing between shells. In their early days, they had different functionality and uses, but today they largely do the same stuff. Shrug.

Also, isn't Juan Pardines the lead contributor to Void? Is there some dirt around him that I don't know about?

I enjoyed Void's xbp package manager. From what I've gleamed thus far BSD by default is a bit more focused on security hardening the system by walling off user programs. I wish someone would have told me that Linux also had desktop environments back when I was a kid (decades ago--although that could be up for debate I suppose). I thought it was all Kingdom Of Kroz type server based CLI for some reason.

tl;dr
I like that Juan Romero Pardines helped to maintain NetBSD, and I like pkgsrc (alias-ing all the things) in NetBSD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sat, 28 April 2018, 16:11:14
Can you install Linux (Mint Xfce) to a USB thumb drive?

I have the ISO "installed" to a USB 3 drive that runs in Live mode very well. But it always offers to install it to the hard drive.

I'm wondering if I can do a complete install of it to the thumb drive, or is there even a difference when you do so?
It shouldn't make any difference what (conventional) storage device you select to partition for installation, as long as it has the right partition table (you might have to create it).

But, what kind of "USB drive" do you mean? An external hard drive? A "flash" thumb stick? Beware of reliability issues: many sata-to-usb controllers for hard drives don't support SMART, not to mention flash-memory sticks that often use cheap/slow controllers with poor sector reallocation (i.e., the system might die on you, because you wear out the flash memory).

There are interesting approaches other than traditional installation: some tools for writing images to thumb sticks let you create a persistent-storage partition for data, or you can create the image from scratch (with the various special filesystems) to load the system to tmpfs and then perhaps write changes to the image and so on.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 29 April 2018, 00:52:25
Can you install Linux (Mint Xfce) to a USB thumb drive?

I have the ISO "installed" to a USB 3 drive that runs in Live mode very well. But it always offers to install it to the hard drive.

I'm wondering if I can do a complete install of it to the thumb drive, or is there even a difference when you do so?
It shouldn't make any difference what (conventional) storage device you select to partition for installation, as long as it has the right partition table (you might have to create it).

But, what kind of "USB drive" do you mean? An external hard drive? A "flash" thumb stick? Beware of reliability issues: many sata-to-usb controllers for hard drives don't support SMART, not to mention flash-memory sticks that often use cheap/slow controllers with poor sector reallocation (i.e., the system might die on you, because you wear out the flash memory).

There are interesting approaches other than traditional installation: some tools for writing images to thumb sticks let you create a persistent-storage partition for data, or you can create the image from scratch (with the various special filesystems) to load the system to tmpfs and then perhaps write changes to the image and so on.

Does the persistent data include any software I install?

The USB 3.0 thumb drive runs very quickly in Live mode, leading me to wonder how it would run with a full install on it. You make a good point regarding long-term reliability, which if nothing else would make me not feel very good about doing it. The drive isn't too expensive, but it's the only one I have that's 32 GB and very fast.

Since having written that post, I realized my backup external hard drive seems to have failed and won't place nice. I snagged a $15 USB 3 to SATA 2.5" connector that I'll be using with a spare drive for backing up stuff, but I'm thinking I could use another spare drive to see how Linux runs on it as this wouldn't cost anything extra... though I dread the thought of booting from a hard drive rather than SSD. Plus, they're pretty large and awkward.

The only other thing I could think of is the SD/[other cards] slot as it accepts them fully recessed, though they're probably even less reliable and more expensive than a USB 3 drive.

Maybe I'll just get a larger SSD at some point so I can dual-boot with plenty of room to spare. I am hesitant to do this as I've been hearing that Windows can sometimes ruin your Linux partition following an update.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 29 April 2018, 02:55:27
Maybe I'll just get a larger SSD at some point so I can dual-boot with plenty of room to spare. I am hesitant to do this as I've been hearing that Windows can sometimes ruin your Linux partition following an update.
Windows has been known to replace the boot sector so you can't boot Linux (until you boot an installer and fix it) but I've never heard of it damaging a partition it can't even read.  That sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen...

If you're only dual booting you can install the windows bootloader as primary on the drive and the Linux one on the partition then add Linux to the windows list which would be immune to wiping at the expense of slightly increased boot time (you have to wait for two timeouts to boot Linux, assuming it's the default option in both bootloaders)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Sun, 29 April 2018, 04:32:26
Does the persistent data include any software I install?
It depends what method you use.

The checkbox in Ubuntu's Live USB Creator (now discontinued btw afaik) made it create a partition only for data (home directory?). You can manually "install" stuff into your home directory too, though. Changes to the system (i.e., system-wide installs) weren't persistent.

However, if you do it some other way, you can enable persistent changes too. I would look into Arch wiki or how distros like Slax are implemented.

Since having written that post, I realized my backup external hard drive seems to have failed and won't place nice. I snagged a $15 USB 3 to SATA 2.5" connector that I'll be using with a spare drive for backing up stuff, but I'm thinking I could use another spare drive to see how Linux runs on it as this wouldn't cost anything extra... though I dread the thought of booting from a hard drive rather than SSD. Plus, they're pretty large and awkward.
Keep in mind that USB or the controller will bottleneck a modern SSD.

BTW this is why I love the caddy (formerly UltraBay) on my thinkpad: I have replaced the optical drive by a bracket for a 2.5" HDD, while the laptop came with a 2.5" SSD. I'm not even sure, if it has an M.2 slot too.

The only other thing I could think of is the SD/[other cards] slot as it accepts them fully recessed, though they're probably even less reliable and more expensive than a USB 3 drive.
There are reliable industrial SD cards. Not cheap though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 29 April 2018, 08:07:48
Does the persistent data include any software I install?
It depends what method you use.

The checkbox in Ubuntu's Live USB Creator (now discontinued btw afaik) made it create a partition only for data (home directory?). You can manually "install" stuff into your home directory too, though. Changes to the system (i.e., system-wide installs) weren't persistent.

However, if you do it some other way, you can enable persistent changes too. I would look into Arch wiki or how distros like Slax are implemented.

Since having written that post, I realized my backup external hard drive seems to have failed and won't place nice. I snagged a $15 USB 3 to SATA 2.5" connector that I'll be using with a spare drive for backing up stuff, but I'm thinking I could use another spare drive to see how Linux runs on it as this wouldn't cost anything extra... though I dread the thought of booting from a hard drive rather than SSD. Plus, they're pretty large and awkward.
Keep in mind that USB or the controller will bottleneck a modern SSD.

BTW this is why I love the caddy (formerly UltraBay) on my thinkpad: I have replaced the optical drive by a bracket for a 2.5" HDD, while the laptop came with a 2.5" SSD. I'm not even sure, if it has an M.2 slot too.

The only other thing I could think of is the SD/[other cards] slot as it accepts them fully recessed, though they're probably even less reliable and more expensive than a USB 3 drive.
There are reliable industrial SD cards. Not cheap though.

You'll probably figure it out. But, if everything else fails or bums you out, there's always Puppy Linux for full usb persistence (iirc Tahrpup is almost 1:1 with apt-get).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 29 April 2018, 11:29:05
Thanks for the input csmertx, davkol, and suicidal_orange.

I didn't know you could add Linux to the Windows bootloader somehow. I'll have to look into this.

It seems like there are many ways to go about it, but each with their own cautions and limitations. If I had a second drive bay, I'd just toss it on there and use the BIOS to select which drive to boot.

Sadly, it is tempting to just run Windows on it and not use Linux, since it's easier and gets the job done. Linux is more of a want, so I'd like to make it work somehow. I know the USB3-SATA will not give SATA speeds, but USB 3.0 speeds seem to be good enough for Linux if my thumb drive is any indication. I wouldn't be using tons of software or files anyways.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Sun, 29 April 2018, 11:41:38
Thanks for the input csmertx, davkol, and suicidal_orange.

I didn't know you could add Linux to the Windows bootloader somehow. I'll have to look into this.

It seems like there are many ways to go about it, but each with their own cautions and limitations. If I had a second drive bay, I'd just toss it on there and use the BIOS to select which drive to boot.

Sadly, it is tempting to just run Windows on it and not use Linux, since it's easier and gets the job done. Linux is more of a want, so I'd like to make it work somehow. I know the USB3-SATA will not give SATA speeds, but USB 3.0 speeds seem to be good enough for Linux if my thumb drive is any indication. I wouldn't be using tons of software or files anyways.

If you're computer can handle it and you are hard-set against messing with your partition, I would highly recommend playing with Linux in VirtualBox. It'll let you learn the nitty gritty without fear of messing anything up. That, and you can get up in running in minutes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 29 April 2018, 12:29:24
Thanks for the input csmertx, davkol, and suicidal_orange.

I didn't know you could add Linux to the Windows bootloader somehow. I'll have to look into this.

It seems like there are many ways to go about it, but each with their own cautions and limitations. If I had a second drive bay, I'd just toss it on there and use the BIOS to select which drive to boot.

Sadly, it is tempting to just run Windows on it and not use Linux, since it's easier and gets the job done. Linux is more of a want, so I'd like to make it work somehow. I know the USB3-SATA will not give SATA speeds, but USB 3.0 speeds seem to be good enough for Linux if my thumb drive is any indication. I wouldn't be using tons of software or files anyways.

If you're computer can handle it and you are hard-set against messing with your partition, I would highly recommend playing with Linux in VirtualBox. It'll let you learn the nitty gritty without fear of messing anything up. That, and you can get up in running in minutes.

I thought about it, but it still means needing a larger internal drive (only 128 GB), and the CPU is only dual-core (6200U I think) -- though 8 GB of RAM would suffice. I got the machine nearly-new forCAD$375 ($291 USD) all-in, so I can't complain!

On my desktop, Linux is on its own second SSD. I can boot to either, or I can even boot the Linux system from Windows using VMWare Workstation. I love the setup but, alas, only have one drive bay in the ThinkPad.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 29 April 2018, 17:23:40
It seems like there are many ways to go about it, but each with their own cautions and limitations. If I had a second drive bay, I'd just toss it on there and use the BIOS to select which drive to boot.

Use a usb stick.
There are two ways to do it, either format it with a usable area (this has some limitations but will work), or use it like a hard drive. This requires two usb sticks, one to use and the other for the installer.

There are two ways to do this as well.
Disconnect your windows drive, then boot from the stick and install to the usb stick as if it was a drive, this is the safest and lest likely to mess with your windows install but requires you to manually add the entry to the windows bootloader (Win2Grub makes this easy) or you can install to the usb and let it install grub to your windows drive.

Is it fast?
You might be surprised, it's not smoking obviously, but it's not bad either. The bonus is that Linux uses less space than Windows, so even a 32gig drive will have enough room to install almost anything you want.

That said, as I said in my switching guide (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94156.0), use what works for you. dual booting is a hassle. Personally, I hate it so I always setup virtual systems to deal with problems without dual booting. I would also recommend reading my switching guide as it has some tips that may help you.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: templanet on Mon, 30 April 2018, 00:30:42
I was interested in security so I installed OpenBSD on my main PC. I find it simple and it has very good documentation. The big downside is because it is security  and research focused, they don't support programs that use bad coding practices. Also video card support is really dated at the moment and Nvidia will never be supported, because it's closed source.

Currently I surf around on an old laptop using Devuan but want to change it to OpenBSD. I just have to get motivated to install it. I think the best way to use OpenBSD is to keep your main computer offline with whatever OS makes your life easiest and use a very basic computer running OpenBSD just for surfing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: DALExSNAIL on Mon, 30 April 2018, 09:34:06
Getting the itch.

The itch to switch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Mon, 30 April 2018, 18:32:23
I'm a big fan of FreeBSD. Not an expert, mind you, but a user and a fan.  :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Mon, 30 April 2018, 18:33:26
I still want to get NetBSD running on my X68000 at some point.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: MrMen on Thu, 03 May 2018, 11:37:39
Still in love with my 2009 archlinux station  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Thu, 03 May 2018, 11:58:45
I used Arch for a couple years on a laptop. I remember it was kinda finicky and things broke a little more often than other distros. Right about the time they axed the rc.conf (like FreeBSD uses) is when I lost interest. It's a good one if you want to customize every little thing from the ground up, though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: MrMen on Fri, 04 May 2018, 11:49:26
It's true that losing the rc.conf was a big hurt for me.

It breaks probably more often, but if you follow carefully the update news on website, you have rare issue.
And with time, small issues are easily solved.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Sat, 05 May 2018, 19:04:59
Does/has anyone here run plan9 or any of the variants. I've considered giving it a try for the longest time, but I really can't see a reason to. It's mostly dead in the water with the exception of  /r/unixporn.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 05 May 2018, 19:51:37
Does/has anyone here run plan9 or any of the variants. I've considered giving it a try for the longest time, but I really can't see a reason to. It's mostly dead in the water with the exception of  /r/unixporn.

Fossil file system? Venti file system? Acme text editor? Father of Wmii?! Holy frijoles, if only X11. Albeit, Plan9 is an interesting (wikipedia) read, it appears that even Inferno (sucessor to Plan9) was abandoned in 2015.

http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/downloads.html (http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/downloads.html)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 08 May 2018, 15:28:00

Currently I surf around on an old laptop using Devuan but want to change it to OpenBSD.
How do you like Devuan?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: templanet on Thu, 10 May 2018, 10:18:14

Currently I surf around on an old laptop using Devuan but want to change it to OpenBSD.
How do you like Devuan?

I don't feel like it is different to Debian in user experience, though I was not a long term Debian user. If you have ever used Debian it should be the same. Devuan is just Debian without system d.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Tue, 15 May 2018, 06:14:04
I upgraded to Ubuntu Mate 18.04 LTS last week on x86-64. The new kernel has the Meltdown patches. It appears to me that it takes longer to boot. It used to boot in under 30 seconds. Now it takes about 50 seconds to login screen.

Back in the early '90s, my Amiga booted to desktop in 30 seconds and back then I thought that was a long time ... and it had a 14 MHz CISC single-core CPU and mechanical harddrive. No machine I have had after that has started up any faster.

Edit: My x86-64 machine does have a SSD, just not a NVME SSD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Aerizu on Tue, 15 May 2018, 07:39:35
ElementaryOS at home, Ubuntu LTS for work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Tue, 15 May 2018, 09:34:41
Grab an SSD for quick boots, even if it's only 64GB. The first time I dropped one in a laptop, boot times went from about 55 seconds to about 12 seconds. My latest desktop boots almost instantly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Tue, 15 May 2018, 09:41:46
Grab an SSD for quick boots, even if it's only 64GB. The first time I dropped one in a laptop, boot times went from about 55 seconds to about 12 seconds. My latest desktop boots almost instantly.
There are machines at work are equipped with cheap 64GB SSDs from Kingston and they're awfully slow running default Linux Mint. Much slower than my old desktop with a 2.5" WD Black.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Blaise170 on Tue, 15 May 2018, 09:45:16
To be fair, I don't trust Kingston anymore after the **** they pulled a few years ago.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184253-ssd-shadiness-kingston-and-pny-caught-bait-and-switching-cheaper-components-after-good-reviews
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 15 May 2018, 11:01:54
Slow SSDs eh? I wonder if someone forget to implement trim in fstab. iirc trim has been in the kernel for a few years now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Tue, 15 May 2018, 11:06:38
I wonder whether people have never used, or have managed to forget about super slow SSDs in ultraportables from around/before 2010.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 15 May 2018, 11:49:21
I wonder whether people have never used, or have managed to forget about super slow SSDs in ultraportables from around/before 2010.

The pre-Trim days *shudders* (actually, I've never used an SSD with Linux)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 16 May 2018, 14:57:51
OK, now I have four linux machines at home (one running Ubuntu, and 3 Mint).

This Thinkpad 240's screen is so low contrast :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Wed, 16 May 2018, 17:25:45
This Thinkpad 240's screen is so low contrast :(

I'll take it.

Do you accept pictures of me drinking alcohol in public places?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 16 May 2018, 18:04:53
I'm not in the USA so yes. Bonus points if you are an attractive woman (though I imagine you aren't)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 16 May 2018, 19:21:13
I'm not in the USA so yes. Bonus points if you are an attractive woman (though I imagine you aren't)

Hehe
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: strider8 on Sat, 19 May 2018, 11:32:25
I use ubuntu. Have looked into other distros but if I'm being honest I just want something simple and easy to install to get me away from Windows/Mac.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: aya3154 on Fri, 01 June 2018, 23:51:23
Gentoo, occasionally tails 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: floatingskull on Thu, 07 June 2018, 11:25:11
Ubuntuu personally, Debian and Red Hat for work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 12 June 2018, 10:52:32
Well, I'm going back to Ubuntu MATE on my desktop after a couple years of using different flavors of Manjaro, most recently Manjaro Deepin.  While every Linux distro has its bugs, I've grown tired of Manjaro's bugs. Dependency conflicts, random UI issues that come and go, programs that suddenly don't work, issues with hardware functionality, and some other annoying bugs. Some of this is Manjaro, some of this is Deepin. While I prefer the rolling release model over the fixed release model of Ubuntu, the bugs are just too annoying.

Obviously, Ubuntu MATE has its bugs and annoyances, but I find them less distracting than my experiences with Manjaro.  Manjaro is a great concept and works well most of the time, but I'm not sure if ready to keep as my workhorse distro wirh all the issues I have encountered over the past year or so.  I don't like to spend a lot of time fighting against my OS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 12 June 2018, 11:25:41

Well, I'm going back to Ubuntu MATE on my desktop after a couple years


Why not use Linux Mint / Cinnamon?

It is Ubuntu-based and well-refined.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Tue, 12 June 2018, 12:05:20

Well, I'm going back to Ubuntu MATE on my desktop after a couple years


Why not use Linux Mint / Cinnamon?

It is Ubuntu-based and well-refined.

Mint also has a MATE version, if that would be preferable.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 12 June 2018, 12:47:07

Well, I'm going back to Ubuntu MATE on my desktop after a couple years


Why not use Linux Mint / Cinnamon?

It is Ubuntu-based and well-refined.

Linux Mint has too much crap I don't care for and more refinement than I prefer.  It is too refined and user friendly for my tastes.  The way that I judge a Linux distros is by the "wtf is this crap" threshold.  Basically, when I am taking a distro for a test ride, if I find myself throwing up my arms and saying "wtf is this crap" too many times, I am less inclined to use the distro.  And when I use Linux Mint MATE and Ubuntu MATE, there is an increased amount of WTFs with Linux Mint.

Although I might take Linux Mint for another ride tonight on the ole Virtual Box before making my final decision.  Refinement always is sexy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 12 June 2018, 13:03:00

Well, I'm going back to Ubuntu MATE on my desktop after a couple years


Why not use Linux Mint / Cinnamon?

It is Ubuntu-based and well-refined.

Linux Mint has too much crap I don't care for and more refinement than I prefer.  It is too refined and user friendly for my tastes.  The way that I judge a Linux distros is by the "wtf is this crap" threshold.  Basically, when I am taking a distro for a test ride, if I find myself throwing up my arms and saying "wtf is this crap" too many times, I am less inclined to use the distro.  And when I use Linux Mint MATE and Ubuntu MATE, there is an increased amount of WTFs with Linux Mint.

Although I might take Linux Mint for another ride tonight on the ole Virtual Box before making my final decision.  Refinement always is sexy.

I have my "wtf is this crap" moments when I find myself working to remove more than a handful of packages after installing distro X.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 12 June 2018, 14:13:15

Well, I'm going back to Ubuntu MATE on my desktop after a couple years


Why not use Linux Mint / Cinnamon?

It is Ubuntu-based and well-refined.

Linux Mint has too much crap I don't care for and more refinement than I prefer.  It is too refined and user friendly for my tastes.  The way that I judge a Linux distros is by the "wtf is this crap" threshold.  Basically, when I am taking a distro for a test ride, if I find myself throwing up my arms and saying "wtf is this crap" too many times, I am less inclined to use the distro.  And when I use Linux Mint MATE and Ubuntu MATE, there is an increased amount of WTFs with Linux Mint.

Although I might take Linux Mint for another ride tonight on the ole Virtual Box before making my final decision.  Refinement always is sexy.

I have my "wtf is this crap" moments when I find myself working to remove more than a handful of packages after installing distro X.

It's either so bloated that I'm overwhelmed with features and apps and a flashy UI or so minimal that it lacks everything beyond the basics and I spend hours modifying the thing.  Ubuntu MATE hits the sweet spot for me among the major distro offerings: has all the basics and a few extras that I like, but not so much that I uninstall half of the apps and modify the entire look and feel. 

And I am a fan of MATE, which has all the functionality and customizations that I want without trying to be overly modern (Hello KDE and Cinnamon) or straight out of the 90s (any DE that advertises itself as lightweight).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 12 June 2018, 15:09:22

Well, I'm going back to Ubuntu MATE on my desktop after a couple years


Why not use Linux Mint / Cinnamon?

It is Ubuntu-based and well-refined.

Linux Mint has too much crap I don't care for and more refinement than I prefer.  It is too refined and user friendly for my tastes.  The way that I judge a Linux distros is by the "wtf is this crap" threshold.  Basically, when I am taking a distro for a test ride, if I find myself throwing up my arms and saying "wtf is this crap" too many times, I am less inclined to use the distro.  And when I use Linux Mint MATE and Ubuntu MATE, there is an increased amount of WTFs with Linux Mint.

Although I might take Linux Mint for another ride tonight on the ole Virtual Box before making my final decision.  Refinement always is sexy.

I have my "wtf is this crap" moments when I find myself working to remove more than a handful of packages after installing distro X.

It's either so bloated that I'm overwhelmed with features and apps and a flashy UI or so minimal that it lacks everything beyond the basics and I spend hours modifying the thing.  Ubuntu MATE hits the sweet spot for me among the major distro offerings: has all the basics and a few extras that I like, but not so much that I uninstall half of the apps and modify the entire look and feel.

And I am a fan of MATE, which has all the functionality and customizations that I want without trying to be overly modern (Hello KDE and Cinnamon) or straight out of the 90s (any DE that advertises itself as lightweight).

If I can get away with it I'll usually only settle for a DE with a total ram usage of < 400MB. So I guess I generally settle for a Window Manager that loads enough stuff to function as a makeshift DE. I can fill in the gaps with shell scripts if need be, sometimes I'll cut shell scripts in lieu of playing video games. I'd rather trade a bit of CPU usage to conserve on RAM usage. Seems like every Linux/shell scripting book I read brings me one step closer to substituting bashrc/zshrc for a window manager. Eventually my desktop will be the shell prompt.  *scratches head*
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 12 June 2018, 17:56:32
If I can get away with it I'll usually only settle for a DE with a total ram usage of < 400MB.
This is actually not a good way to judge and is old thinking.

Not only can the OS scale memory usage when needed, you have ram expressly for the purpose of being used. You are building fast machine, then tying one arm behind it's back because you don't want it using both when it actually needs to use both. Not only can the system scale up and down memory use as needed, but by picking a D.E. based on memory means you are ignoring a lot of other things as well, primarily hardware rendering and CPU enhancements which can pay off greatly while under load. This is even more important on laptops where that efficiency translates to battery life, if you can trade a bit of unused memory to conserve battery, why would you not do that?

Unused is the key to all of this, if your memory isn't being used, it's being wasted. I can understand wanting this on a system with little ram, but if you have a modern system with modern enhancements you probably also have the ram to match. You may actually be doing more harm than good.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Tue, 12 June 2018, 19:48:56
Well, just took Linux Mint MATE for another spin and it re-affirmed my earlier thoughts.  For one, MATE Tweak Tool is not included out of the box and the one downloaded from the repos has a lot less options than the stock MATE Tweak Tool in Ubuntu MATE.  Are you kidding me?  Don't make me create my own panels, come on, what is this.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 12 June 2018, 19:53:24
If I can get away with it I'll usually only settle for a DE with a total ram usage of < 400MB.
This is actually not a good way to judge and is old thinking.

Not only can the OS scale memory usage when needed, you have ram expressly for the purpose of being used. You are building fast machine, then tying one arm behind it's back because you don't want it using both when it actually needs to use both. Not only can the system scale up and down memory use as needed, but by picking a D.E. based on memory means you are ignoring a lot of other things as well, primarily hardware rendering and CPU enhancements which can pay off greatly while under load. This is even more important on laptops where that efficiency translates to battery life, if you can trade a bit of unused memory to conserve battery, why would you not do that?

Unused is the key to all of this, if your memory isn't being used, it's being wasted. I can understand wanting this on a system with little ram, but if you have a modern system with modern enhancements you probably also have the ram to match. You may actually be doing more harm than good.

My hardware rendering and CPU enhancements are all handled by kernel modules, and drivers that are DE egnostic. I don't see the harm in avoiding DEs (or sticking to lightweight ones) altogether when I can tie together several tools (compton, udiskie, clipit, dunst, nitrogen, unclutter, stardict, etc.) that take the place of DE tools and services. If you ask me the handicap metaphor is a bit much. My system purrs along with 11yr+ hardware; maxes at ~55c under load (60c GPU); loads into ~700MB (which includes email/music player/calendar/youtube rss, four terminal emulators, stack stuff, etc.); serves up a Nextcloud/Startpage/and few script generated pages; renders out (1080p) images with Blender; plays TV shows/Movies, compiles with gcc just fine; etc.. I would build the same installation on a modern PC (would switch from AMD FOSS to NVIDIA proprietary) if I had one at my disposal (laptop would use TLP--and extra msata for swapon. Would mostly use battery for browser/file editor/PDFs anyway). Heck my DM is just a script that launches when I login to tty1 (but it plays nice with xinit). I should probably mention that I include buffered memory when reading RAM usage (total - free). What I have is not much but I try to make the best of it. Also, living in Florida has me solar flare paranoid for some reason. Most of my RAM thoughts evolved around stepping up to ECC and limiting any useless data loss as much as possible. Keeping my 'DE' as modular and as light as possible seemed like a good idea at the time. Perhaps a bit overkill, however, over the past 14 months I haven't run into any of the disadvantages you mentioned. I guess I'm legally obligated to mention the hypervisors: QEMU works (no IOMMU groups tho), and so does Virtualbox (atleast the CPU has virtualization).

I wasn't commenting as if I thought everyone should use my configuration. It took me six years to build up to the point of where I am; I'm not about to tell anyone that it's my way of the highway. I wouldn't expect any Linux user to install their system from scratch. That's just crazy talk. Now if I could just kick the systemd habit I would totally switch everything over to runit (although I would miss the ease of restarting certain 'stack' services). Why does systemd even have some of the features it has? Who doesn't use cron? But I digress.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 12 June 2018, 20:47:30
I wasn't commenting as if I thought everyone should use my configuration. It took me six years to build up to the point of where I am; I'm not about to tell anyone that it's my way of the highway. I wouldn't expect any Linux user to install their system from scratch. That's just crazy talk. Now if I could just kick the systemd habit I would totally switch everything over to runit (although I would miss the ease of restarting certain 'stack' services). Why does systemd even have some of the features it has? Who doesn't use cron? But I digress.
I forgot you were in so deep (sorry), you're way beyond what most people are looking at or for.

I just didn't want anyone getting the idea that memory was the only thing to watch for, it's kind of a pet peeve of mine. It used to be extremely common for Linux users (especially new ones) to use memory use to bash Windows by claiming Linux was faster because lower memory requirements (there are/were plenty of legitimate ways to bash Windows).  This sort of FUD is still being used today, one distro even uses similar thinking as one of their main selling points.

Systemd hasn't been a big deal for me really and while I can see it being problematic for some things, I've gotten the distinct impression a lot of people are just angry because something they are used to has changed. They don't care why, they just don't want to have to change their ways.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 12 June 2018, 21:32:39
I wasn't commenting as if I thought everyone should use my configuration. It took me six years to build up to the point of where I am; I'm not about to tell anyone that it's my way of the highway. I wouldn't expect any Linux user to install their system from scratch. That's just crazy talk. Now if I could just kick the systemd habit I would totally switch everything over to runit (although I would miss the ease of restarting certain 'stack' services). Why does systemd even have some of the features it has? Who doesn't use cron? But I digress.
I forgot you were in so deep (sorry), you're way beyond what most people are looking at or for.

I just didn't want anyone getting the idea that memory was the only thing to watch for, it's kind of a pet peeve of mine. It used to be extremely common for Linux users (especially new ones) to use memory use to bash Windows by claiming Linux was faster because lower memory requirements (there are/were plenty of legitimate ways to bash Windows).  This sort of FUD is still being used today, one distro even uses similar thinking as one of their main selling points.

Systemd hasn't been a big deal for me really and while I can see it being problematic for some things, I've gotten the distinct impression a lot of people are just angry because something they are used to has changed. They don't care why, they just don't want to have to change their ways.

Fair enough, I see what you mean. And with systemd, I guess it's fine as long as it lets me restart or reload services without having to reboot (althought I still wonder about some of the features).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: barrel on Wed, 13 June 2018, 10:57:15
I use Gentoo, Arch and GuixSD, Depending if I feel like reinstalling, I rarely use Arch though because it's not good at package splitting and some other silly things that I don't like about it, mainly revolving around it not being a source-based distro ( An example being that you can't compile vim with +xclipboard support natively, having to install gvim to get it )
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: microsoft windows on Wed, 13 June 2018, 15:33:44
I USE WINDOWS 98.

(http://img10.deviantart.net/a33b/i/2011/151/7/7/windows_98_boot_screen_by_pkmnct-d3hkkxk.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Wed, 13 June 2018, 15:40:10
I USE WINDOWS 98.

Show Image
(http://img10.deviantart.net/a33b/i/2011/151/7/7/windows_98_boot_screen_by_pkmnct-d3hkkxk.jpg)


You mean this?

(https://i.redditmedia.com/C9RSsxSS7KygJQbN53bBYfEeq5YWBB3ZxpIBKo_1htY.png?s=d0d52ef580ff97f5a73d5fd952ef1795)

https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 13 June 2018, 15:49:20
I USE WINDOWS 98.

Show Image
(http://img10.deviantart.net/a33b/i/2011/151/7/7/windows_98_boot_screen_by_pkmnct-d3hkkxk.jpg)


You mean this?

Show Image
(https://i.redditmedia.com/C9RSsxSS7KygJQbN53bBYfEeq5YWBB3ZxpIBKo_1htY.png?s=d0d52ef580ff97f5a73d5fd952ef1795)


https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

Jane has the most incredible window decoration style. A++ :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 13 June 2018, 17:17:44
@csmertx - i'm all for ditching DEs but if you are looking for a nice DE that doesn't totally hog all your RAM, kde/plasma is real nice. whenever i have machines setup with a full DE it's either KDE or XFCE these days.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Wed, 13 June 2018, 17:23:47
@csmertx - i'm all for ditching DEs but if you are looking for a nice DE that doesn't totally hog all your RAM, kde/plasma is real nice. whenever i have machines setup with a full DE it's either KDE or XFCE these days.

Dude, KDE hogs so much of my memory. Xfce4 is supah lightweight. Downloaded in like two minutes with all the goodies. KDE took four times as long.

No...thanks...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Wed, 13 June 2018, 17:28:12
@csmertx - i'm all for ditching DEs but if you are looking for a nice DE that doesn't totally hog all your RAM, kde/plasma is real nice. whenever i have machines setup with a full DE it's either KDE or XFCE these days.

Dude, KDE hogs so much of my memory. Xfce4 is supah lightweight. Downloaded in like two minutes with all the goodies. KDE took four times as long.

No...thanks...

well KDE is still heavier than xfce for sure but they've made great strides with plasma 5 to reduce overhead. depending on your distro and how much of KDE you pulled, there might be lots of other services running that are ripe for disabling.

/goes back to cwm/chrome/urxvt environment
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 13 June 2018, 17:53:35
Ahh, XFCE. Fast, lightweight and memory efficient.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 13 June 2018, 17:55:14
@csmertx - i'm all for ditching DEs but if you are looking for a nice DE that doesn't totally hog all your RAM, kde/plasma is real nice. whenever i have machines setup with a full DE it's either KDE or XFCE these days.

Dude, KDE hogs so much of my memory. Xfce4 is supah lightweight. Downloaded in like two minutes with all the goodies. KDE took four times as long.

No...thanks...

well KDE is still heavier than xfce for sure but they've made great strides with plasma 5 to reduce overhead. depending on your distro and how much of KDE you pulled, there might be lots of other services running that are ripe for disabling.

/goes back to cwm/chrome/urxvt environment

Oh man, KDE dependencies, the gift that keeps on giving. Although, Plasma's frosted glass transparent look thingy might be worth 2GBs of RAM..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 13 June 2018, 18:16:59
I USE WINDOWS 98.

Show Image
(http://img10.deviantart.net/a33b/i/2011/151/7/7/windows_98_boot_screen_by_pkmnct-d3hkkxk.jpg)


You mean this?

Show Image
(https://i.redditmedia.com/C9RSsxSS7KygJQbN53bBYfEeq5YWBB3ZxpIBKo_1htY.png?s=d0d52ef580ff97f5a73d5fd952ef1795)


https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

I run the Windows 98 theme on my Windows 7 computer at work.  Nothing beats it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 13 June 2018, 20:00:29
@csmertx - i'm all for ditching DEs but if you are looking for a nice DE that doesn't totally hog all your RAM, kde/plasma is real nice. whenever i have machines setup with a full DE it's either KDE or XFCE these days.

Dude, KDE hogs so much of my memory. Xfce4 is supah lightweight. Downloaded in like two minutes with all the goodies. KDE took four times as long.

No...thanks...

well KDE is still heavier than xfce for sure but they've made great strides with plasma 5 to reduce overhead. depending on your distro and how much of KDE you pulled, there might be lots of other services running that are ripe for disabling.

/goes back to cwm/chrome/urxvt environment

Oh man, KDE dependencies, the gift that keeps on giving. Although, Plasma's frosted glass transparent look thingy might be worth 2GBs of RAM..

Holy dependencies, KDE.  I looked to install a couple KDE apps that I like, but the list of dependencies was about as long as my current amount of installed packages.  Wtf.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Thu, 14 June 2018, 03:51:11
@csmertx - i'm all for ditching DEs but if you are looking for a nice DE that doesn't totally hog all your RAM, kde/plasma is real nice. whenever i have machines setup with a full DE it's either KDE or XFCE these days.

Dude, KDE hogs so much of my memory. Xfce4 is supah lightweight. Downloaded in like two minutes with all the goodies. KDE took four times as long.

(a) Plasma memory consumption in current releases is on par with Xfce4
(b) there are KDE Applications (that share memory) and Plasma features entirely missing from Xfce4—to achieve parity, one needs to get a bunch of GNOME/MATE libraries and utilities (or look up lightweight alternatives)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 14 June 2018, 04:50:48
...
I can tie together several tools (compton, udiskie, clipit, dunst, nitrogen, unclutter, stardict, etc.) that take the place of DE tools and services.
...

For the first time when reading what someone uses I have no idea what any of these are - I'd ask for a screenshot but sounds like there wouldn't be much to see :))  I'll have several long reads and see if any of it could be useful...

Reason being I'm looking for a new distro coming from OpenSUSE with KDE (seriously, who designs an applet to tell you there are updates available which pops up over the easiest button you can click to install said updates?  And if it must could it not have a close button so you don't have to wait 5 seconds for it to disappear??)  I'm still leaning towards Arch or Gentoo with no major xxx-desktop package to avoid updating all the 'user friendly' config utilities and apps/games I'll never use, but any rolling distro would do.

Is distrowatch.com (https://distrowatch.com/) still the best list?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 14 June 2018, 12:17:46
...
I can tie together several tools (compton, udiskie, clipit, dunst, nitrogen, unclutter, stardict, etc.) that take the place of DE tools and services.
...

For the first time when reading what someone uses I have no idea what any of these are - I'd ask for a screenshot but sounds like there wouldn't be much to see :))  I'll have several long reads and see if any of it could be useful...

Reason being I'm looking for a new distro coming from OpenSUSE with KDE (seriously, who designs an applet to tell you there are updates available which pops up over the easiest button you can click to install said updates?  And if it must could it not have a close button so you don't have to wait 5 seconds for it to disappear??)  I'm still leaning towards Arch or Gentoo with no major xxx-desktop package to avoid updating all the 'user friendly' config utilities and apps/games I'll never use, but any rolling distro would do.

Is distrowatch.com (https://distrowatch.com/) still the best list?

Distrowatch seems to be one of the best (oh wow, BSD is almost in the top ten). A few of those packages I mentioned are unique but most of them aren't. Unclutter might be unique iirc. If you want screenshots I could try to capture whatever it is that the tool does and send to PM (my source for screenshots is usually /r/unixporn).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Fri, 15 June 2018, 09:39:13
I think Distrowatch is a good resource to understand what is popular and might have the most support and resources.  Although it tends to favor recent hype, to some extent, and may not reflect the user base for each distro.  For example, Manjaro is top of the list right now, but it is the most commonly used distro? Probably not. Most of those visits are probably out of curiosity after hearing about it. A lot of the most popular distros on Distrowatch are more polished distros that will attract converts from Windows/Mac.  What regular Linux users actually stick with probably would a little different.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Fri, 15 June 2018, 10:01:57
@csmertx - i'm all for ditching DEs but if you are looking for a nice DE that doesn't totally hog all your RAM, kde/plasma is real nice. whenever i have machines setup with a full DE it's either KDE or XFCE these days.

Dude, KDE hogs so much of my memory. Xfce4 is supah lightweight. Downloaded in like two minutes with all the goodies. KDE took four times as long.

(a) Plasma memory consumption in current releases is on par with Xfce4
(b) there are KDE Applications (that share memory) and Plasma features entirely missing from Xfce4—to achieve parity, one needs to get a bunch of GNOME/MATE libraries and utilities (or look up lightweight alternatives)

For me, the KDE dependencies are too heavy, and the GUI interface seems bloated and RAM-heavy, albeit pretty. Seeing as I'm trying to move toward a tiling window manager anyway, I really appreciate Xfce4's minimalist and bare-bones approach.

I experienced some lagging and freezing when using and switching applications on KDE; I've yet to encounter such a problem with Xfce4. It just werks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davkol on Fri, 15 June 2018, 10:09:29
xfwm4 is relatively primitive, for the better or worse. It's only one of many DE components, though.

Also, let's not forget it's still possible to replace the window manager in multiple DEs, Xfce4 and Plasma included.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 15 June 2018, 10:39:28
I'd say that tinywm is primitive (damn impressive for 50 lines though).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 15 June 2018, 23:08:26
Holy dependencies, KDE.  I looked to install a couple KDE apps that I like, but the list of dependencies was about as long as my current amount of installed packages.  Wtf.

that isn't a real problem

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: voight-kampff on Sat, 16 June 2018, 02:50:09
I use pop! Is
It is based on Ubuntu, but I like the UI more.


Sent from my MIX using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 16 June 2018, 06:15:21
@sth -- Oh, you were serious about KDE. Whoops, I thought you were joking. :-[ To be fair I'm not a fan of KDE or Gnome so take that as you will.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Sat, 16 June 2018, 08:54:51
And when I use Linux Mint MATE and Ubuntu MATE, there is an increased amount of WTFs with Linux Mint.
That's partly why I too chose Ubuntu Mate. I had tested both and had WTF moments with Mint.

Also, if there is any game I want to install, it is likely to support Ubuntu only. Maybe would work on a Ubuntu-derived distro, but...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 16 June 2018, 20:23:52
That's partly why I too chose Ubuntu Mate. I had tested both and had WTF moments with Mint.
There isn't a desktop interface out there without some WTF moments, and that includes Mac and Windows as well.
The only difference in Linux is you get to pick which one annoys you the least.

And yes, almost anything running on Ubuntu will run on a Buntu based distro, for the most part. It often depends how far from Ubuntu (and to a lesser extent Gnome 3) they strayed. May want to try Peppermint, it's pretty much Lubuntu cleaned up with a nicer panel and application menu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Sun, 17 June 2018, 20:15:37
Since Xfce is the only way I fly, Mint Xfce, ChaletOS, and Linux Lite have all been great for me.

Mint is my install at the moment but I'm thinking of having ChaletOS for the ThinkPad.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Sun, 17 June 2018, 22:07:24
Since Xfce is the only way I fly, Mint Xfce, ChaletOS, and Linux Lite have all been great for me.

Mint is my install at the moment but I'm thinking of having ChaletOS for the ThinkPad.

What is the appeal of ChaletOS over Mint Xfce for you?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: gorauskas on Mon, 18 June 2018, 01:21:47
Arch Linux
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Mon, 18 June 2018, 09:57:35
Arch Linux

Float high, brother.

(https://i.imgur.com/tjbZkRj.jpg)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 18 June 2018, 12:58:02
Just survived a GPU meltdown (desktop PC) while using Arch Linux. #flexkarma

edit - Actually, as a last resort I pulled the old as dirt p5kpl-cm out of the chassis and re-applied thermal paste to the southbridge. So far so good (until the mobo dies).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 18 June 2018, 16:15:40
@sth -- Oh, you were serious about KDE. Whoops, I thought you were joking. :-[ To be fair I'm not a fan of KDE or Gnome so take that as you will.

haha that's all you had to say.

i wont lie, KDE is pretty and honestly my favorite of the current DE offerings, but i always come back to cwm + lemonbar. no need for the bells and whistles...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Mon, 18 June 2018, 19:24:23
Since Xfce is the only way I fly, Mint Xfce, ChaletOS, and Linux Lite have all been great for me.

Mint is my install at the moment but I'm thinking of having ChaletOS for the ThinkPad.

What is the appeal of ChaletOS over Mint Xfce for you?

I just liked the way it looked and ran (and it had lots of very nice desktop backgrounds). Otherwise it's much like using any other Ubuntu-based Xfce distro.

My biggest concern with Linux is software support/availability, so I gravitate towards Mint Xfce just to be using such a popular and well-supported distro.

I'm actually not sure what the state of upkeep is on ChaletOS as it seems to be falling by the wayside, so it might not be a great option anymore, sadly. I hadn't looked at it in a while, and it looks like last release was 2016-07-12.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 18 June 2018, 22:53:49
@sth -- Oh, you were serious about KDE. Whoops, I thought you were joking. :-[ To be fair I'm not a fan of KDE or Gnome so take that as you will.

haha that's all you had to say.

i wont lie, KDE is pretty and honestly my favorite of the current DE offerings, but i always come back to cwm + lemonbar. no need for the bells and whistles...

Oh that's right. Your mention of lemonbar led me to a dual bar setup haha
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 20 June 2018, 07:09:23
Since Xfce is the only way I fly, Mint Xfce, ChaletOS, and Linux Lite have all been great for me.

Mint is my install at the moment but I'm thinking of having ChaletOS for the ThinkPad.

What is the appeal of ChaletOS over Mint Xfce for you?

I just liked the way it looked and ran (and it had lots of very nice desktop backgrounds). Otherwise it's much like using any other Ubuntu-based Xfce distro.

My biggest concern with Linux is software support/availability, so I gravitate towards Mint Xfce just to be using such a popular and well-supported distro.

I'm actually not sure what the state of upkeep is on ChaletOS as it seems to be falling by the wayside, so it might not be a great option anymore, sadly. I hadn't looked at it in a while, and it looks like last release was 2016-07-12.

That's the story with so many Linux variants.  Apricity OS comes to mind.  A nice spin on making Arch usable for the newb. And now gone. The beauty and tragedy of Linux is the ability for anyone to create anything, and then simply disappear.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Wed, 20 June 2018, 08:44:33
Since Xfce is the only way I fly, Mint Xfce, ChaletOS, and Linux Lite have all been great for me.

Mint is my install at the moment but I'm thinking of having ChaletOS for the ThinkPad.

What is the appeal of ChaletOS over Mint Xfce for you?

I just liked the way it looked and ran (and it had lots of very nice desktop backgrounds). Otherwise it's much like using any other Ubuntu-based Xfce distro.

My biggest concern with Linux is software support/availability, so I gravitate towards Mint Xfce just to be using such a popular and well-supported distro.

I'm actually not sure what the state of upkeep is on ChaletOS as it seems to be falling by the wayside, so it might not be a great option anymore, sadly. I hadn't looked at it in a while, and it looks like last release was 2016-07-12.

That's the story with so many Linux variants.  Apricity OS comes to mind.  A nice spin on making Arch usable for the newb. And now gone. The beauty and tragedy of Linux is the ability for anyone to create anything, and then simply disappear.

I suspect it's part of the curse of having so many variants -- the smaller distros often suffer lack of support and/or outright abandonment.

That's why I've stuck with Mint Xfce for a while now. It's not like they're all that different at the end of the day, but the support/updates can be the most important factor.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 20 June 2018, 16:34:41
That's the story with so many Linux variants.  Apricity OS comes to mind.  A nice spin on making Arch usable for the newb. And now gone. The beauty and tragedy of Linux is the ability for anyone to create anything, and then simply disappear.
I liked Apricity, but it seemed to have more and more (minor) problems.

Antergos is very similar to Apricity, it's been around longer and not likely going anywhere.
If you still want the Mac look, install Cairo, otherwise you get almost the same thing with Antergos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 20 June 2018, 20:31:28
That's the story with so many Linux variants.  Apricity OS comes to mind.  A nice spin on making Arch usable for the newb. And now gone. The beauty and tragedy of Linux is the ability for anyone to create anything, and then simply disappear.
I liked Apricity, but it seemed to have more and more (minor) problems.

Antergos is very similar to Apricity, it's been around longer and not likely going anywhere.
If you still want the Mac look, install Cairo, otherwise you get almost the same thing with Antergos.

What surprised me the most is that the main Antergos LiveISO includes CLI as one of the desktop options. Literally something for everyone. I tried to find some Apricity ISOs about a year ago without much luck. From what I read it wasn't a bad distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 21 June 2018, 03:06:20
What kind of desktop is CLI?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Thu, 21 June 2018, 06:05:12
"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: vivalarevolución on Thu, 21 June 2018, 09:05:59
That's the story with so many Linux variants.  Apricity OS comes to mind.  A nice spin on making Arch usable for the newb. And now gone. The beauty and tragedy of Linux is the ability for anyone to create anything, and then simply disappear.
I liked Apricity, but it seemed to have more and more (minor) problems.

Antergos is very similar to Apricity, it's been around longer and not likely going anywhere.
If you still want the Mac look, install Cairo, otherwise you get almost the same thing with Antergos.

Apricity looked pretty and was easy to use, but I'm sure it had issues under the hood because the developers lacked the time to refine it.  Which is the story of so many distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 21 June 2018, 12:41:06
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 21 June 2018, 19:21:10
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol

i urge you to get familiar with the partitioning/formatting process... it will save your ass down the road at one point or another, guaranteed :D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 21 June 2018, 19:32:17
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol

i urge you to get familiar with the partitioning/formatting process... it will save your ass down the road at one point or another, guaranteed :D

btw, I use Arch Linux :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Thu, 21 June 2018, 19:40:06
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol

i urge you to get familiar with the partitioning/formatting process... it will save your ass down the road at one point or another, guaranteed :D

What a pain it was. I mean, I definitely learned a lot doing it on both an HP and Mac, but I do not look forward to doing it again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 21 June 2018, 19:55:51
I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol
The partitioning system is so bad I honestly think it was done that way on purpose just to keep away the casuals.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 21 June 2018, 20:01:19
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol

i urge you to get familiar with the partitioning/formatting process... it will save your ass down the road at one point or another, guaranteed :D

What a pain it was. I mean, I definitely learned a lot doing it on both an HP and Mac, but I do not look forward to doing it again.

Yep, my excuse is laziness. The fdisk tool was how I partitioned a few VMs (1st step), weathered 4GB USB drive (2nd step), and the desktop PC (3rd step) I'm using now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 22 June 2018, 22:55:52
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol

i urge you to get familiar with the partitioning/formatting process... it will save your ass down the road at one point or another, guaranteed :D

btw, I use Arch Linux :cool:

sorry im on the new meme distro, arch is officially fuddy duddy material now
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 23 June 2018, 08:40:33
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol

i urge you to get familiar with the partitioning/formatting process... it will save your ass down the road at one point or another, guaranteed :D

btw, I use Arch Linux :cool:

sorry im on the new meme distro, arch is officially fuddy duddy material now

xbps-query -Rs void-meme-wallpapers.... dang nothing. Well, atleast Arch users aren't worried about hugs.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 25 June 2018, 15:47:31
Well, atleast Arch users aren't worried about hugs.

oh boy you're one of them  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 25 June 2018, 16:48:34
What kind of desktop is CLI?

"Command Line Interface" ? ... so.. the console?

A few days ago I installed Antergos on a new USB drive and one of the 'desktop' options from the LiveISO installation media (XFCE, MATE, KDE, GNOME, etc.) was just install what I need for a tty1 (CLI). I'm not sure if Antergos saved me any time when compared to installing a base system with Arch Linux but my brain thanked me during partitioning/formatting. Now I have a full bug-out OS on my keychain. lol

i urge you to get familiar with the partitioning/formatting process... it will save your ass down the road at one point or another, guaranteed :D

btw, I use Arch Linux :cool:

sorry im on the new meme distro, arch is officially fuddy duddy material now

xbps-query -Rs void-meme-wallpapers.... dang nothing. Well, atleast Arch users aren't worried about hugs.

Well, atleast Arch users aren't worried about hugs.

oh boy you're one of them  :rolleyes:

Yep, you caught me. I was actually taking a break from painting an I <3 Arch Linux wall mural in my living room when I read your post. lol. But seriously, I still have quite a few more books to read before I would ever call myself an expert. Take whatever I say with whatever IPA.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 25 June 2018, 17:16:01
LOL that's not what i meant. i was referring to your pithy nod to the freebsd CoC "conflict" between people who want people to treat each other with respect, and *******s.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 25 June 2018, 18:30:33
Ah, I was too familiar with tongue-in-cheek references. Once again I apologise for my perceived brashness. Now that's out of way, can we continue with relevant Linux discussions?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 26 June 2018, 01:17:36
Ah, I was too familiar with tongue-in-cheek references. Once again I apologise for my perceived brashness. Now that's out of way, can we continue with relevant Linux discussions?

yes. teamviewer 13 beta for linux has terrible issues with mod keys sticking between window focus/unfocus events. will i complain to teamviewer or file a bug report? of course not
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 26 June 2018, 10:00:31
Ah, I was too familiar with tongue-in-cheek references. Once again I apologise for my perceived brashness. Now that's out of way, can we continue with relevant Linux discussions?

yes. teamviewer 13 beta for linux has terrible issues with mod keys sticking between window focus/unfocus events. will i complain to teamviewer or file a bug report? of course not

Did you check the upstream for any mention of the bug?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 26 June 2018, 15:51:16
Ah, I was too familiar with tongue-in-cheek references. Once again I apologise for my perceived brashness. Now that's out of way, can we continue with relevant Linux discussions?

yes. teamviewer 13 beta for linux has terrible issues with mod keys sticking between window focus/unfocus events. will i complain to teamviewer or file a bug report? of course not

Did you check the upstream for any mention of the bug?

NO ID RATHER JUST COMPLAIN >:(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 26 June 2018, 16:04:28
Ah, I was too familiar with tongue-in-cheek references. Once again I apologise for my perceived brashness. Now that's out of way, can we continue with relevant Linux discussions?

yes. teamviewer 13 beta for linux has terrible issues with mod keys sticking between window focus/unfocus events. will i complain to teamviewer or file a bug report? of course not

Did you check the upstream for any mention of the bug?

NO ID RATHER JUST COMPLAIN >:(

dang
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Skull_Angel on Sat, 30 June 2018, 19:46:00
Ah, I was too familiar with tongue-in-cheek references. Once again I apologise for my perceived brashness. Now that's out of way, can we continue with relevant Linux discussions?

yes. teamviewer 13 beta for linux has terrible issues with mod keys sticking between window focus/unfocus events. will i complain to teamviewer or file a bug report? of course not

Did you check the upstream for any mention of the bug?

NO ID RATHER JUST COMPLAIN >:(

Doin' it the right way  :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Mon, 09 July 2018, 16:24:27
Does anyone here use OpenBSD? Or have in the past?

If so, how did you use it (what for) and what kind of computer?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Mon, 09 July 2018, 16:43:23
Charger for my machine came in and it's been about a month since I've touched any Linux distro. Thankfully, and issue I was having with the Nvidia driver has been fixed since my last tinkering, but now yaourt is borked.  :blank:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 09 July 2018, 17:34:51
Does anyone here use OpenBSD? Or have in the past?

If so, how did you use it (what for) and what kind of computer?

Yeah i dabble in obsd. Purely theoretically, it's my favorite operating system. The lack of "features", while I can't really complain about given the scope of the project, can make transitioning into desktop usage a bit more effort than linux or other BSDs. it's also great for plenty of server applications as long as you don't mind doing things "old school".
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 09 July 2018, 17:54:35
My thoughts on BSD  have always been that it's best left to servers and special purpose workstations.

It's not really a good desktop OS in the traditional sense if that's what you are after.
It's got a great mascot though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 09 July 2018, 18:33:06
Does anyone here use OpenBSD? Or have in the past?

If so, how did you use it (what for) and what kind of computer?

I have a few books on the subject (Absolute OpenBSD, The Book of PF--skimmed for a second haven't really dove in) that make me believe that most use OpenBSD as a router/firewall. I have zero experience with most BSDs aside from the VM of NetBSD I have on my system atm. NetBSD is a BEAST of an installation for the average linux user (and that one is the most portable of the BSDs!), maybe not Slackware level beastiness but close. As silly as r/unixporn may sound I have seen a few OpenBSD desktops appear on that subreddit. That'll give you an idea of what hardware they run it on I guess. GH needs a dedicated sub-thread for BSD. Bring those BSD folks out of the woodwork so the rest of us can feel ridiculous.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Mon, 09 July 2018, 20:43:50
My thoughts on BSD  have always been that it's best left to servers and special purpose workstations.

It's not really a good desktop OS in the traditional sense if that's what you are after.
It's got a great mascot though.

OpenBSD was supposed to have good support for the ThinkPads. I briefly messed around with it, when I had one. It's super easy to install, and the documentation is good. There's never been an official forum though, for when you feel like asking something but don't want to disturb mailing lists.

Building a router / firewall was on my list of projects but I canned that idea. Probably a little over the top for my usage. I already had a fileserver with FreeBSD that's a pain to administer from time to time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Thu, 12 July 2018, 19:55:03
My thoughts on BSD  have always been that it's best left to servers and special purpose workstations.

It's not really a good desktop OS in the traditional sense if that's what you are after.
It's got a great mascot though.

OpenBSD was supposed to have good support for the ThinkPads. I briefly messed around with it, when I had one. It's super easy to install, and the documentation is good. There's never been an official forum though, for when you feel like asking something but don't want to disturb mailing lists.

Building a router / firewall was on my list of projects but I canned that idea. Probably a little over the top for my usage. I already had a fileserver with FreeBSD that's a pain to administer from time to time.

openbsd forums aren't usually necessary for troubleshooting/tutorials given the quality of documentation it ships with :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 12 July 2018, 20:19:54
openbsd forums aren't usually necessary for troubleshooting/tutorials given the quality of documentation it ships with :)
RTFM? Who the heck does that?
Another reason is because the people using it are generally not noobs to the Unix environment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cryptokey on Thu, 12 July 2018, 20:47:46
openbsd forums aren't usually necessary for troubleshooting/tutorials given the quality of documentation it ships with :)
RTFM? Who the heck does that?
Another reason is because the people using it are generally not noobs to the Unix environment.

I agree that generally OpenBSD users aren't new to Unix and learning on your own is part of the culture.  However, I feel like RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 12 July 2018, 21:11:41
openbsd forums aren't usually necessary for troubleshooting/tutorials given the quality of documentation it ships with :)
RTFM? Who the heck does that?
Another reason is because the people using it are generally not noobs to the Unix environment.

I agree that generally OpenBSD users aren't new to Unix and learning on your own is part of the culture.  However, I feel like RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.

In my mind RTFM pretty misleading. Of all the documentation I've read 1/2 of the information I'm looking for is on another man page nested within the initial man page. RTFMs

Here's an example: man mutt provides the user with possible command line arguments. If the person in question is looking for .conf variable options, they would have to scroll down to the bottom of the mutt man page and find that there is a muttrc man page. And from there they could procede to read the 3687 lines of text to find whatever .conf variables they might need.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 13 July 2018, 00:02:26
However, I feel like RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.
In many cases that's exactly what they are hoping for.
It also creates a mess for people searching for an answer when Google returns 500k results and they all simply say RTFM instead of giving an answer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 13 July 2018, 15:46:12
However, I feel like RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.

that's fine, i want my peers in the professional linux/unix community to ask questions the smart way (http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SpAmRaY on Fri, 13 July 2018, 15:56:58
Anybody using galliumos on a chromebook??

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 13 July 2018, 16:49:52

RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.


As if there actually WAS an FM that you could read. As always, the answer that you get depends on the question that you ask, and a newbie rarely knows precisely what and how to ask.

That was my experience, a few years ago, after piddling around with Ubuntu for a couple of years, I concluded that I wanted to try to work with OpenSUSE. What I encountered in the (so-called) Help section of the forum was a shark tank of clearly angry and frustrated (mostly) males who were simply drooling for the opportunity insult and humiliate anyone less knowledgeable than themselves. Probably around half the time, the "answers" that I got consisted of long ranting insults that never even addressed my question, and most of the other half were cryptic single lines of code with no other instructions or context. And this was for inquiries about things like how to get the wireless card in my laptop recognized.

It was a singularly ugly and off-putting experience, I am not sure that I have ever encountered anything quite like it.

Afterwards, I moved to Linux Mint Cinnamon and have been very happy since, since I am an ordinary user and don't particularly want to have to delve very deep into code.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 13 July 2018, 16:59:00

RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.


As if there actually WAS an FM that you could read. As always, the answer that you get depends on the question that you ask, and a newbie rarely knows precisely what and how to ask.

That was my experience, a few years ago, after piddling around with Ubuntu for a couple of years, I concluded that I wanted to try to work with OpenSUSE. What I encountered in the (so-called) Help section of the forum was a shark tank of clearly angry and frustrated (mostly) males who were simply drooling for the opportunity insult and humiliate anyone less knowledgeable than themselves. Probably around half the time, the "answers" that I got consisted of long ranting insults that never even addressed my question, and most of the other half were cryptic single lines of code with no other instructions or context. And this was for inquiries about things like how to get the wireless card in my laptop recognized.

It was a singularly ugly and off-putting experience, I am not sure that I have ever encountered anything quite like it.

Afterwards, I moved to Linux Mint Cinnamon and have been very happy since, since I am an ordinary user and don't particularly want to have to delve very deep into code.

i would definitely like to postscript my previous post by saying end-user /desktop linux etc support communities SHOULD exist and currently are often awful. i draw a line between:
-sysadmin/devops style professional linux/unix work which SHOULD have a high experiential/knowledge barrier to entry, because the nature of the work is often very complicated
-desktop linux usage, which should ideally not force the user into using a shell or be arduous in nature just to do day-to-day tasks.

that said, most linux is free. paid support is available and exists because support is work, full stop.

glad you found a distro that works for you!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 13 July 2018, 17:09:22
However, I feel like RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.

that's fine, i want my peers in the professional linux/unix community to ask questions the smart way (http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html).

Quote
Don't waste your time, or ours, on crude primate politics.
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#idm46060474128336

Seriously? I get the need for clear and concise questions, but Jesus Christ--this 'the King will read your questions now' kind of maddness is maddening.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Fri, 13 July 2018, 17:50:24
However, I feel like RTFM is the quintessential toxic reply that comes out of the Unix community and causes any genuinely ignorant new users to not walk, but run back to Windoze.

that's fine, i want my peers in the professional linux/unix community to ask questions the smart way (http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html).

Quote
Don't waste your time, or ours, on crude primate politics.
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#idm46060474128336

Seriously? I get the need for clear and concise questions, but Jesus Christ--this 'the King will read your questions now' kind of maddness is maddening.

esr is a ****in ****nut but most of that article is pretty spot on. that part is definitely a little dumb though haha.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Senthura on Tue, 24 July 2018, 01:41:55
Not just the hacky aspect but I really like Kali.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 4sStylZ on Tue, 24 July 2018, 10:51:39
Elementary OS here :

Pros

I find the UI better than Ubuntu.
Ubuntu based so very stable and many package.
Very simple.
Very fast on slow computer : I run it on some Intel core 2 duo notebook find in a trash.
Very light in term of preinstalled app.

Cons

Rythm of release is slow.
The support isn’t very good.

I wait for the stable release after my version called Loki. It will come soon.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Ridingmac on Thu, 26 July 2018, 23:07:49
Fedora on my laptop and desktop and porteus on usb for everywhere else.....when no linux is installed i bring my own

Sent from my SM-N915W8 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: redleaf on Fri, 27 July 2018, 00:06:57
ubuntu on my web server
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 30 July 2018, 05:56:23
I distro hop a lot at work - basically whatever has the packages I need and performs reasonably well.  For various reasons I need a GUI, usually running in a VM on my main workstation.

I was using Fedora, but switched back to Ubuntu.  One of our clients setup an Ubuntu server in Azure and I was encouraged to duplicate their setup to test our app in Azure.  Ubuntu seemed reasonably stable, so I setup an Ubuntu Mate desktop in a VM for miscellaneous purposes.

Although a lot of what I used Linux for I am now doing with Docker, like installing a certain combination of Python packages without corrupting the Python install on my main workstation.  Previously done in a VM, now done in Docker.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Wed, 01 August 2018, 02:18:02
I distro hop a lot at work - basically whatever has the packages I need and performs reasonably well.  For various reasons I need a GUI, usually running in a VM on my main workstation.

I was using Fedora, but switched back to Ubuntu.  One of our clients setup an Ubuntu server in Azure and I was encouraged to duplicate their setup to test our app in Azure.  Ubuntu seemed reasonably stable, so I setup an Ubuntu Mate desktop in a VM for miscellaneous purposes.

Although a lot of what I used Linux for I am now doing with Docker, like installing a certain combination of Python packages without corrupting the Python install on my main workstation.  Previously done in a VM, now done in Docker.
Docker seems pretty awesome, if you're a programmer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 05 August 2018, 13:17:47
I rarely have a Linux system around. Currently, I am evaluating Gentoo and I might keep it. The community is absolutely awesome and it does not force me to do anything, which is great.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Tue, 07 August 2018, 10:24:23
Man alive. I leave my distro untouched for a couple of weeks, come back, and there's a snafu. I should never have installed the f**kin' proprietary Nvidia driver...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Jackorias on Tue, 07 August 2018, 10:51:57
Only time I've ever used Linux is on my Raspberry Pi... so Raspbian! Has made me want to try other linux distros though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Tue, 07 August 2018, 11:07:40
Only time I've ever used Linux is on my Raspberry Pi... so Raspbian! Has made me want to try other linux distros though.
I'm sure you could get some good recommendations as to where to start. And there's always the option of running them in a VM like Virtualbox.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 07 August 2018, 11:18:29
Only had 9 updates on the 5th. Yet, one day later I had 300 updates waiting for me on the desktop, and 199 updates on the laptop. No AUR, all pacman.  0_0
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 20 September 2018, 12:11:04
Sounds like a stupid question but how do I know what I'm using when it comes to booting these days?  I have a flashy UEFI bios and thought I was using it but the Arch install guide talks about adding grub to the list of UEFI OSes held in bios, accessed by a hotkey on boot.  I don't use this menu, instead I think I have grub installed on the MBR as has been the way things were done since grub took over from lilo.

Only confused because openSUSE is what I'm currently running and it has the 100mb partition windows created mounted at /boot/efi, so that's what I've copied :confused:


(In case anyone's trying to follow I have two drives - one dual boots Win7 for my old i3 and openSUSE, the other has win7 for my new mobo and I'm adding Arch to it)

Edit:  Succesfully used 'grub-install /dev/sda' which claims to use UEFI mode as it's default but to add Windows I had to use the msdos entry as that's apparently what my partition table is.  Was created by Windows 7 so I would have expected GPT but apparently not...  I still have no idea how my computer works but it does so can't complain!  So far I have firefox and audacity installed, not much use without any WM/DE :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Thu, 20 September 2018, 12:24:52
I guess this is progress...

(https://i.imgur.com/oUAk165.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 20 September 2018, 12:55:01
I guess this is progress...

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/oUAk165.png)


Nice :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 20 September 2018, 18:51:00
Sounds like a stupid question but how do I know what I'm using when it comes to booting these days?  I have a flashy UEFI bios and thought I was using it but the Arch install guide talks about adding grub to the list of UEFI OSes held in bios, accessed by a hotkey on boot.  I don't use this menu, instead I think I have grub installed on the MBR as has been the way things were done since grub took over from lilo.

Only confused because openSUSE is what I'm currently running and it has the 100mb partition windows created mounted at /boot/efi, so that's what I've copied :confused:


(In case anyone's trying to follow I have two drives - one dual boots Win7 for my old i3 and openSUSE, the other has win7 for my new mobo and I'm adding Arch to it)

Edit:  Succesfully used 'grub-install /dev/sda' which claims to use UEFI mode as it's default but to add Windows I had to use the msdos entry as that's apparently what my partition table is.  Was created by Windows 7 so I would have expected GPT but apparently not...  I still have no idea how my computer works but it does so can't complain!  So far I have firefox and audacity installed, not much use without any WM/DE :))
If you open a disk partitioning program you should be able to see if it's partitioned using GPT (uefi) or MBR (dos). Windows 7 can use Uefi, but it's tricky to do and was really only done by a few OEM manufacturers, generally you don't see UEFI boot until Windows 8 or 8.1. Copying the UEFI parition or files will not make a disk UEFI, this goes deeper as to how the partitions are actually created and identified to the system.

Basically, if the disk was first initialized with Win7 or older, it's going to be MBR unless you specifically went in and purposely recreated the partition table (not the partitions) to GPT, and doing so will destroy the partitions and data on the disk (this does not wipe the data, do not use it and think your data is now safe!). Windows generally will not format it to something other than it already is and tends to default to MBR unless you are using 8.1 or Win10, so if you do want to convert it, setup your Windows install stick using Rufus and set the stick to use GPT or use a Linux Distro with Gparted to set the drive partitioning to GPT.

Grub works in UEFI and MBR.


All that said, it's not a big deal.
I've looked into it many times to see why GPT was supposed to be better, and not once has anyone really made any compelling argument as to why GPT is actually better. Yes, UFI has some advantages (less than people think) but UEFI is not GPT, it's just the preferred partitioning system for GPT, UEFI will boot MBR just fine.  What I wish they would do though is fix the darn bios/uefi load time, I find it insane that for all these "imrpovements", bios load times have gotten longer while the system load time has gotten shorter. At this point bios loading takes up almost 50% of my boot time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 20 September 2018, 21:31:56
Sounds like a stupid question but how do I know what I'm using when it comes to booting these days?  I have a flashy UEFI bios and thought I was using it but the Arch install guide talks about adding grub to the list of UEFI OSes held in bios, accessed by a hotkey on boot.  I don't use this menu, instead I think I have grub installed on the MBR as has been the way things were done since grub took over from lilo.

Only confused because openSUSE is what I'm currently running and it has the 100mb partition windows created mounted at /boot/efi, so that's what I've copied :confused:


(In case anyone's trying to follow I have two drives - one dual boots Win7 for my old i3 and openSUSE, the other has win7 for my new mobo and I'm adding Arch to it)

Edit:  Succesfully used 'grub-install /dev/sda' which claims to use UEFI mode as it's default but to add Windows I had to use the msdos entry as that's apparently what my partition table is.  Was created by Windows 7 so I would have expected GPT but apparently not...  I still have no idea how my computer works but it does so can't complain!  So far I have firefox and audacity installed, not much use without any WM/DE :))
If you open a disk partitioning program you should be able to see if it's partitioned using GPT (uefi) or MBR (dos). Windows 7 can use Uefi, but it's tricky to do and was really only done by a few OEM manufacturers, generally you don't see UEFI boot until Windows 8 or 8.1. Copying the UEFI parition or files will not make a disk UEFI, this goes deeper as to how the partitions are actually created and identified to the system.

Basically, if the disk was first initialized with Win7 or older, it's going to be MBR unless you specifically went in and purposely recreated the partition table (not the partitions) to GPT, and doing so will destroy the partitions and data on the disk (this does not wipe the data, do not use it and think your data is now safe!). Windows generally will not format it to something other than it already is and tends to default to MBR unless you are using 8.1 or Win10, so if you do want to convert it, setup your Windows install stick using Rufus and set the stick to use GPT or use a Linux Distro with Gparted to set the drive partitioning to GPT.

Grub works in UEFI and MBR.


All that said, it's not a big deal.
I've looked into it many times to see why GPT was supposed to be better, and not once has anyone really made any compelling argument as to why GPT is actually better. Yes, UFI has some advantages (less than people think) but UEFI is not GPT, it's just the preferred partitioning system for GPT, UEFI will boot MBR just fine.  What I wish they would do though is fix the darn bios/uefi load time, I find it insane that for all these "imrpovements", bios load times have gotten longer while the system load time has gotten shorter. At this point bios loading takes up almost 50% of my boot time.

I think I had dual boot issues when Windows tried to fix a 'boot problem'. Nope, in the future Windows will (if any) reside on a separate hotswap drive. I automate daily snapshots with Borgbackup but I'd rather not go through the trouble of restoring Arch. Even if it only takes a few hours--it's still a headache I'd rather avoid.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 21 September 2018, 00:48:43
Arch, it's a headache.
Fixed that for you.  :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 21 September 2018, 04:24:00
Thanks for the explanation Leslieann - I've been a mainly Linux user for so long I don't really know what Windows does but Win7 creating an EFI partition lead me to believe it was using something new and flashy when it wasn't.  After a drive failure I read it was easier to install Windows first then Linux and sure enough it worked with all the 'newbie friendly' distros (no need to recover grub and sometimes Windows was even added automatically) so I've stuck with it.  Now I'm looking for something a bit more interesting I actually have to know - UEFI/MBR it is.

Arch, it's a headache.
Fixed that for you.  :))
This is more worrying, I thought most people loved Arch?  Hopefully I'm with them not you :))

I think I had dual boot issues when Windows tried to fix a 'boot problem'. Nope, in the future Windows will (if any) reside on a separate hotswap drive. I automate daily snapshots with Borgbackup but I'd rather not go through the trouble of restoring Arch. Even if it only takes a few hours--it's still a headache I'd rather avoid.
Boot live DVD/USB, mount and chroot to the installed Linux, run grub-install, reboot?  Windows only kills the bootloader, it's annoying but shouldn't take more than 15 mins to fix.  Unless you need to download/burn an ISO...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 21 September 2018, 06:16:16
Thanks for the explanation Leslieann - I've been a mainly Linux user for so long I don't really know what Windows does but Win7 creating an EFI partition lead me to believe it was using something new and flashy when it wasn't.  After a drive failure I read it was easier to install Windows first then Linux and sure enough it worked with all the 'newbie friendly' distros (no need to recover grub and sometimes Windows was even added automatically) so I've stuck with it.  Now I'm looking for something a bit more interesting I actually have to know - UEFI/MBR it is.

Arch, it's a headache.
Fixed that for you.  :))
This is more worrying, I thought most people loved Arch?  Hopefully I'm with them not you :))

I think I had dual boot issues when Windows tried to fix a 'boot problem'. Nope, in the future Windows will (if any) reside on a separate hotswap drive. I automate daily snapshots with Borgbackup but I'd rather not go through the trouble of restoring Arch. Even if it only takes a few hours--it's still a headache I'd rather avoid.
Boot live DVD/USB, mount and chroot to the installed Linux, run grub-install, reboot?  Windows only kills the bootloader, it's annoying but shouldn't take more than 15 mins to fix.  Unless you need to download/burn an ISO...

Meh,  chrooting every other time I recieve a Windows update that needs multiple restarts is not my preferred cup of tea. You're braver than I am. :confused:

And automating a pacman log isn't that difficult. I use a wrapper script I wrote (5-10min) that records package names/date/size before every update on both of my arch boxes. I have had more headaches with my Debian netinstall to be honest. Trying to wade through all the bad ubuntu/debian advice has been a treat. Thankfully I'm only using Buster (deb10 works fine--It's just been a while since my last full debian install) to test out Proton/protontricks and a few esoteric scripts.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Fri, 21 September 2018, 06:21:45
I thought most people loved Arch?

I can only imagine that this is some kind of Stockholm syndrome. The way to a running Arch installation is so painful that they won't even dare to go anywhere else when it's done.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 21 September 2018, 06:26:26
Arch is not for everyone.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 21 September 2018, 06:55:45
Meh,  chrooting every other time I recieve a Windows update that needs multiple restarts is not my preferred cup of tea. You're braver than I am. :confused:
Pretty sure I've not had this problem this year, maybe win8/10 are worse though.  When I started in Linux you had to remember to update the config file and reinstall lilo after a kernel update (compiled from source after carefully going through the new feature options by hand) as lilo didn't read the options from a file as grub does.  Couple this with a small hard drive and the irresponsibility of youth meaning the old kernel was deleted without trace while the new one was compiling and the ratio of kernel updates (at least weekly to play with the latest patchset) to times you needed to do a liveCD/chroot recovery was probably 80%.  I feel like the old guy telling a 'back in my day...' story :))

I can only imagine that this is some kind of Stockholm syndrome. The way to a running Arch installation is so painful that they won't even dare to go anywhere else when it's done.

Arch is not for everyone.

I see.  So far it's ok - I'm typing this as a user in enlightenment and it was easier to get here than I remember the gentoo installation being.  Time will tell...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Fri, 21 September 2018, 06:57:54
Installing Gentoo only took me four days.  ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 21 September 2018, 06:58:27
Thanks for the explanation Leslieann - I've been a mainly Linux user for so long I don't really know what Windows does but Win7 creating an EFI partition lead me to believe it was using something new and flashy when it wasn't.  After a drive failure I read it was easier to install Windows first then Linux and sure enough it worked with all the 'newbie friendly' distros (no need to recover grub and sometimes Windows was even added automatically) so I've stuck with it.  Now I'm looking for something a bit more interesting I actually have to know - UEFI/MBR it is.
You're welcome.
I haven't messed with Win7 on GPT enough to tell you how it goes I only know it wasn't native to it, it was patched in long after launch, and that it doesn't install to it the same way Win8 does. I didn't bother experimenting with it because it really wasn't necessary. Usually if I want Win7 I just use MBR for everything and if I use anything newer I set everything to UEFI, there's no performance lost really.

I could spend the time to figure it out and mess with it, but generally I recommend people switch to 8.1 with an alternate start menu if they don't want to switch over to Win10 (which I don't blame them for). Win7 support is going to dry up fast, evangelists will try and keep it alive just like they did with Xp, but honestly, they can't, it's not up to them. At some point in the very near future if you want new hardware or peripherals you will be forced to update if you stick with Windows. While 8.1 it has fewer users (by A LOT), Win10 uses it's driver and power management subsystems so it can use the same driver most of the time so it's easy for companies to make one driver for both or you can force backwards compatibility.

I use Antergos which is basically Arch without all the installation hassle (still not as easy as Mint), but I'm familiar with and work with a variety of operating systems from Windows servers down to Arduino and Android (sooo many Isos on file). I don't hate Arch, I just tend to look at it as a hobby OS, it's great, it's fast, it's cutting edge, which is the problem. Stability is generally good until a developer forgets to cross a T or dot an I and crashes the system, or like last time, they didn't flag it to update grub after installing an update causing it to not boot. It has far fewer levels of checks than something like Mint, which if you like messing with operating systems can be downright boring due to how stable it is. I don't hate Arch, it's just more work to keep it running than something like Mint.

Use what works for you.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 21 September 2018, 07:12:25
My Arch install took about 1.6 years to 'complete' :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 21 September 2018, 07:42:28
Installing Gentoo only took me four days.  ;)
Four days?!  I did it in two on a 2ghz pentium 4 laptop with 512mb back in the day :p

My Arch install took about 1.6 years to 'complete' :))
This, however, sounds like a different level of completeness - are you sure it's done?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 21 September 2018, 07:58:37
Installing Gentoo only took me four days.  ;)
Four days?!  I did it in two on a 2ghz pentium 4 laptop with 512mb back in the day :p

My Arch install took about 1.6 years to 'complete' :))
This, however, sounds like a different level of completeness - are you sure it's done?

Maybe. Though it might need a few more tweaks, heh.

edit - side note: (pre-hidpi binge) I tried Kubuntu and liked it but some calendar things were meh imo; I'll try KDE Neon instead (same startup ram--liveiso); Elementary is still not for me; and Pop OS might be the one. I won't be sure until I've exausted the possibility of using my bspwm fraken desktop with hidpi, and or I've actually installed all of the above. Some liveISOs ship with notificationy things pre-installed and some do not, etc..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 27 October 2018, 17:27:48
Manjaro is #1 on DistroWatch for the last 12 months. Looks like it's been long since I have last checked that website.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sat, 27 October 2018, 17:41:38
The DistroWatch "top" list only counts access statistics. The ranking (https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=ranking) is different. :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 27 October 2018, 17:47:24
Star Linux, Slackware, and Shark Linux are the top three reviewed distros of Distrowatch? Atleast Slackware has 141 reviews.. so that's probably legit--totally not botted at all.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sat, 27 October 2018, 17:51:28
That's why DistroWatch is generally unreliable in the top lists. Slackware is quite legit though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 27 October 2018, 17:58:23
I see.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 28 October 2018, 06:16:17
Yeah, the fact that Manjaro gets twice as many hits as Mint was very surprising to me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Sun, 28 October 2018, 10:31:14
Yeah, the fact that Manjaro gets twice as many hits as Mint was very surprising to me.

Manjaro is #1 on DistroWatch for the last 12 months.

I left Arch and went back to Debian some 3 years ago because I didn't have enough time in my day to keep up with it/fiddle with everything. I switched to Manjaro a few months back and (I think) I'm here to stay.

Not sure if there's a major difference, but the ease of installation/out of box feature set makes it perfect for someone who wants to use arch, but doesn't care too much about the 'little stuff'
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 28 October 2018, 17:18:48
One problem with Distrowatch stats is that only people looking for a different distro go there, not those who are perfectly happy with the one they have.There is also the obvious problem of people who have no idea that site even exists and still another problem with ranking on that site is age, some of the distros listed are no longer developed. Apricity (ranked 27) last saw an update 2 years ago and is marked inactive on Distrowatch.

Going based on Google (based on traffic, inbound links and Google rank), the most popular is:
1. Ubuntu
2. Mint
3. Debian
4. Redhat
5. Gentoo
6. Fedora,
7. Slackware
8. Suse
9. Arch
10. CentOs

Going by Alexa (which is based solely on traffic):
1. Ubuntu
2. Redhat
3. Mint
4. Debian
5. Cent
6. Arch
7. Gentoo
8. Elementary
9. Fedora
10. Suse

Note that Manjaro doesn't even make top 10 on either list, yet has almost as many votes as Mint (#2) and Elementary (#3) combined, that screams manipulation. I'm not saying Manjaro isn't popular, but to say it's almost as popular as Mint, Debian and Ubuntu combined? Not a chance.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 28 October 2018, 17:25:58
Not sure if there's a major difference, but the ease of installation/out of box feature set makes it perfect for someone who wants to use arch, but doesn't care too much about the 'little stuff'
There is.
Manjaro uses their own servers for updates, this makes them a bit less bleeding edge than Arch, which is good for stability, but not so good for zero day threats.

Compared to Arch it's way easier to install, though almost every time I used it I've had to fix their security key to get updates which didn't inspire a lot of confidence (seriously, WTH?).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 28 October 2018, 17:27:40
Yeah, the fact that Manjaro gets twice as many hits as Mint was very surprising to me.

Manjaro is #1 on DistroWatch for the last 12 months.

I left Arch and went back to Debian some 3 years ago because I didn't have enough time in my day to keep up with it/fiddle with everything. I switched to Manjaro a few months back and (I think) I'm here to stay.

Not sure if there's a major difference, but the ease of installation/out of box feature set makes it perfect for someone who wants to use arch, but doesn't care too much about the 'little stuff'

I suppose I did the opposite. I used one Manjaro GUI tool to try to install the proprietary gpu rather than a few minutes on the arch wiki which caused me to fubar my graphics stack. So after eights months of Manjaro and installing arch in vms I finally made the switch to vanilla. Although, the Manjaro i3wm community edition and the Calamares installer are both pretty great.

As far as the differences between Manjaro vs. Arch: some package updates are tested a bit longer before release when compared to arch, and some are injected with Manjaro-ness (for better or worse). Completely different repos. So you might see less instances in which an application is borked due to dependency point releases. Or they might hold on to a package while they inject Manjaro-y css/xml/art assets/etc..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 28 October 2018, 17:32:16
I suppose I did the opposite. I used one Manjaro GUI tool to try to install the proprietary gpu rather than a few minutes on the arch wiki which caused me to fubar my graphics stack. So after eights months of Manjaro and installing arch in vms I finally made the switch to vanilla. Although, the Manjaro i3wm community edition and the Calamares installer are both pretty great.

As far as the differences between Manjaro vs. Arch: some package updates are tested a bit longer before release when compared to arch, and some are injected with Manjaro-ness (for better or worse). Completely different repos. So you might see less instances in which an application is borked due to dependency point releases. Or they might hold on to a package while they inject Manjaro-y css/xml/art assets/etc..

I tended to use the Cinnamon community edition, which is probably why I had issues with security keys, but still.

As for vanilla Arch... Just use Antergos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 28 October 2018, 17:33:06
Anyway, I installed MX Linux and my battery life extended by 100%.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 28 October 2018, 17:56:37
Anyway, I installed MX Linux and my battery life extended by 100%.

Oh my, I swear I've used that Conky config before (MJRDarkConky?). I enjoy the heck out of Lubuntu but I do need to take MX for a spin one of these days. Debian based huh? Interesting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 28 October 2018, 18:48:48
And no systemd!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 28 October 2018, 19:27:30
Nice. I guess non-systemd would be confusing at first when people need to restart server stuffs. I make use of a systemd weekly SSD trim timer--other than that timers seem like an industry thing. crontab -e ftw
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 28 October 2018, 19:28:05
Now Gentoo has a systemd flavor if you insist.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 28 October 2018, 20:50:31
IBM just bought Red Hat (https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-buys-red-hat-in-us34-billion-deal-514631).

Is anyone going to switch to, or from, Red Hat or a derivative because of this?

We use CentOS around here, which was absorbed into Red Hat a while ago.  Unlikely that we'll change.  I'm just hoping that IBM doesn't kill off CentOS to focus on Red Hat and cloud.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 28 October 2018, 23:40:09
IBM just bought Red Hat (https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-buys-red-hat-in-us34-billion-deal-514631).

Is anyone going to switch to, or from, Red Hat or a derivative because of this?

We use CentOS around here, which was absorbed into Red Hat a while ago.  Unlikely that we'll change.  I'm just hoping that IBM doesn't kill off CentOS to focus on Red Hat and cloud.

Holy moly, I feel for those Red Hat employees (indirect or direct) that read about the sale before the internal emails were sent out. And yea, Fedora is in my practical top five list for when I switch to hidpi.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Mon, 29 October 2018, 02:12:39
"What do you get when you add a Red Hat to Big Blue? You get a Big Purple Hat, obviously. I wonder if they're thinking of adding an ostrich feather?"
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 29 October 2018, 06:24:07
Now Gentoo has a systemd flavor if you insist.
ewwwww
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Mon, 29 October 2018, 21:19:31
IBM just bought Red Hat (https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-buys-red-hat-in-us34-billion-deal-514631).

Is anyone going to switch to, or from, Red Hat or a derivative because of this?

We use CentOS around here, which was absorbed into Red Hat a while ago.  Unlikely that we'll change.  I'm just hoping that IBM doesn't kill off CentOS to focus on Red Hat and cloud.

I think we'll largely be fine for a year or two before any major changes are made. After that, I'm banking SUSE starts developing an enterprise distro... no well and hell I'm relying on Ubuntu :puke:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 29 October 2018, 21:26:04
IBM just bought Red Hat (https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-buys-red-hat-in-us34-billion-deal-514631).

Is anyone going to switch to, or from, Red Hat or a derivative because of this?

We use CentOS around here, which was absorbed into Red Hat a while ago.  Unlikely that we'll change.  I'm just hoping that IBM doesn't kill off CentOS to focus on Red Hat and cloud.

I think we'll largely be fine for a year or two before any major changes are made. After that, I'm banking SUSE starts developing an enterprise distro... no well and hell I'm relying on Ubuntu :puke:

https://www.suse.com/products/desktop/ (https://www.suse.com/products/desktop/)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: _rubik on Mon, 29 October 2018, 21:39:53
IBM just bought Red Hat (https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-buys-red-hat-in-us34-billion-deal-514631).

Is anyone going to switch to, or from, Red Hat or a derivative because of this?

We use CentOS around here, which was absorbed into Red Hat a while ago.  Unlikely that we'll change.  I'm just hoping that IBM doesn't kill off CentOS to focus on Red Hat and cloud.

I think we'll largely be fine for a year or two before any major changes are made. After that, I'm banking SUSE starts developing an enterprise distro... no well and hell I'm relying on Ubuntu :puke:

https://www.suse.com/products/desktop/ (https://www.suse.com/products/desktop/)

Enterprise "Desktop"
Title: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Belfong on Mon, 29 October 2018, 21:41:56
IBM just bought Red Hat (https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-buys-red-hat-in-us34-billion-deal-514631).

Is anyone going to switch to, or from, Red Hat or a derivative because of this?

We use CentOS around here, which was absorbed into Red Hat a while ago.  Unlikely that we'll change.  I'm just hoping that IBM doesn't kill off CentOS to focus on Red Hat and cloud.
I’m hoping IBM wise up and leave Redhat alone, much like how every other successful acquisitions behave - eg Dell and VMware

Nice read:
https://www.cringely.com/2018/10/29/red-hat-takes-over-ibm/

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 29 October 2018, 22:10:17
IBM just bought Red Hat (https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-buys-red-hat-in-us34-billion-deal-514631).

Is anyone going to switch to, or from, Red Hat or a derivative because of this?

We use CentOS around here, which was absorbed into Red Hat a while ago.  Unlikely that we'll change.  I'm just hoping that IBM doesn't kill off CentOS to focus on Red Hat and cloud.

I think we'll largely be fine for a year or two before any major changes are made. After that, I'm banking SUSE starts developing an enterprise distro... no well and hell I'm relying on Ubuntu :puke:

https://www.suse.com/products/desktop/ (https://www.suse.com/products/desktop/)

Enterprise "Desktop"

I'm not sure what you want me to say here. It's an Enterprise distro. And the support subscriptions are pretty reasonable.

Well, there's always  SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (https://www.suse.com/products/server/)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Fri, 09 November 2018, 22:19:11
I question whether there's any point to using FreeBSD. OpenBSD I have avoided due to lack of features and general oddness. But it's a pretty niche thing. Why couldn't I "just use Linux"? I dunno. FreeBSD has a certain charm. Debian is probably the most similar distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Sat, 10 November 2018, 00:08:48
I question whether there's any point to using FreeBSD. OpenBSD I have avoided due to lack of features and general oddness. But it's a pretty niche thing. Why couldn't I "just use Linux"? I dunno. FreeBSD has a certain charm. Debian is probably the most similar distro.

Install Gentoo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: danwomansan on Sat, 10 November 2018, 00:18:52
freebsd has a much better and faster userspace, fairly much better security, a cleaner codebase, and better x86 usage than linux.

on the other hand, linux has more support and drivers, and is far superior in usage on non-x86 platforms to any other modern OS

I run openBSD on my old x86 computers (comfier than freebsd), linux on my gaming/work desktop (though possibly soon to be freebsd), and linux on my arm machines (currently a server, two phones, and possibly soon to be a laptop)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 10 November 2018, 06:57:14
I question whether there's any point to using FreeBSD. OpenBSD I have avoided due to lack of features and general oddness. But it's a pretty niche thing. Why couldn't I "just use Linux"? I dunno. FreeBSD has a certain charm. Debian is probably the most similar distro.

You know, I had some issues with how the new FreeBSD code of conduct was handled. But after installing NetBSD to a usb drive and using that for a while I was kinda pulled into BSDs, so I had to give FreeBSD some love. The short answer: user ports (firmware support) and full out OpenZFS support (UFS is neat too--though NetBSDs FFS just sounds cool). Go with OpenBSD if you avoid bluetooth (thinkpad for wifi), and want a system with the least amount of security vulnerabilities. Go with TrueOS, GhostBSD, or MidnightBSD if you want GUI stuff without the fuss (can't confirm). Or just avoid Unix altogether and use Linux if that's what you want to do. I guess one could say that the stable FreeBSD ISO is somewhat similiar to the Debian net install (https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/) ISO. Although, good luck with trying to integrate systemd into FreeBSD (BSD init is built-in). With all that said, the FreeBSD team releases a free to the public definitive handbook. The handbook is updated with every new release, and it's available as a PDF (https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/doc/en/books/handbook/) (728 pages atm). So that's pretty dang neat when you don't want to wade through wiki(s) to set up a server. Also, there's a decent chance that FreeBSD scripts will work with OSX boxes. Maybe not binaries, though from what I understand OSX utilizes a lot of opensource tools from FreeBSD like sed, awk, etc.. However, there is a joke about porting a shell from linux to make a linux script work in FreeBSD. Even though my startx wrapper bash script is only ~250 lines, it took me a few hours to port it from Arch to FreeBSD (still not done with debugging lol). Someone please shout out if I'm wrong about something. I'm triple booting Arch Linux, Lubuntu, and FreeBSD (UFS) atm--so obviously I'm still new to FreeBSD.

Sorry for the long winded post--if Netflix loads appliances with FreeBSD (https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/testimonial/netflix/) then the FreeBSD team must be doing something unique.

edit - Correction regarding the 'joke'. I was thinking of this quote: "It is easier to port a shell than a shell script." -Larry Wall
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sat, 10 November 2018, 07:01:14
Why couldn't I "just use Linux"?

Because Linux lacks the QA which all of the BSDs have. I replaced my FreeBSD server by a Solaris server though. Their politics (mirrored in the Code of Conduct) are not mine.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Sat, 10 November 2018, 10:51:09
Why couldn't I "just use Linux"?

Because Linux lacks the QA which all of the BSDs have. I replaced my FreeBSD server by a Solaris server though. Their politics (mirrored in the Code of Conduct) are not mine.

Politics and COC aside, they are both monolithic OS's with a large following.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sat, 10 November 2018, 11:43:54
With Solaris being incredibly more reliable, especially after upgrades.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Sat, 10 November 2018, 12:31:13
You mean like Illumos.. or the one that Oracle bought from Sun?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sat, 10 November 2018, 12:33:28
More like illumos, but I truly prefer the Solaris utilities on it to the GNU ones.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 10 November 2018, 13:00:30
I have no idea what I wasted my own time--clearly, Gentoo was the correct answer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Sat, 10 November 2018, 13:18:52
Gentoo is probably the distro that most resembles FreeBSD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 10 November 2018, 13:49:59
Someone must be having a bad week.

In other news: I checked out Antix (introductory video.. interesting) recently to see if I can find a distro that could perhaps replace arch/bspwm on the laptop. I think I ended up using wicd for wifi which was fine, but I'm not about to jump ship just yet.  Though it is compelling to switch to something with a full blown DE like experience that takes up less than 200MB of RAM. I have no idea how it works with multiple displays though, didn't check that out. Antix definitely presents lots of settings options; one could get lost in those for several minutes. My bswpm has been set it and forget it in regards to multiple monitors. So it goes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ShawnMeg on Sat, 10 November 2018, 14:55:35
Over the years, I've used Puppy Linux (incredibly fast as it runs from RAM) but I found some of the newer releases to be fussy and unpolished.  For the past couple of years, I've used Linux Lite 3.X (based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS) on one of my other secondary boxes.  It's a lightweight distro, very stable and fast.  My main home computer is a little HP Pavilion Mini that ran OK with Windows 10, but one day, the wireless suddenly started giving me problems despite me changing to another wireless card.  I tried reinstalling Win 10, had problems and got fed up.  I installed Linux Lite 3.8 64-bit, which took < 10 minutes, and it's running unbelievably smoothly.  I'm very happy with this distro.  I may eventually upgrade to Lite 4.X soon.

Anyways, I'm pretty much 100% Linux at home with Linux Lite and a Chromebook obviously on Chrome OS and Crouton.  I still have some Puppy Linux distros with frugal installs to USB drives.  I may try some of those again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 10 November 2018, 15:25:23
Over the years, I've used Puppy Linux (incredibly fast as it runs from RAM) but I found some of the newer releases to be fussy and unpolished.  For the past couple of years, I've used Linux Lite 3.X (based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS) on one of my other secondary boxes.  It's a lightweight distro, very stable and fast.  My main home computer is a little HP Pavilion Mini that ran OK with Windows 10, but one day, the wireless suddenly started giving me problems despite me changing to another wireless card.  I tried reinstalling Win 10, had problems and got fed up.  I installed Linux Lite 3.8 64-bit, which took < 10 minutes, and it's running unbelievably smoothly.  I'm very happy with this distro.  I may eventually upgrade to Lite 4.X soon.

Anyways, I'm pretty much 100% Linux at home with Linux Lite and a Chromebook obviously on Chrome OS.  I still have some Puppy Linux distros with frugal installs to USB drives.  I may try some of those again.

I wish Slacko had the same amount of pets as the Ubuntu based Puppy distros (I know--completely different bases). Slacko is still my #1. Sure Puppy might take a few more seconds to boot and shutdown while it shifts information to or from RAM but the system is fantastic for portable media drives of practically any speed. And yea, I can totally understand wanting to shift over to Linux Lite. Puppy GUI can be a bit polarizing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sat, 10 November 2018, 15:30:48
I can totally understand wanting to shift over to Linux Lite. Puppy GUI can be a bit polarizing.

I thought one of the "advantages" of Linux is that you can have 83534796 desktops without changing the distribution?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 10 November 2018, 15:55:40
I can totally understand wanting to shift over to Linux Lite. Puppy GUI can be a bit polarizing.

I thought one of the "advantages" of Linux is that you can have 83534796 desktops without changing the distribution?

Correct, there are literally 83534796 different window managers to choose from.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Sat, 10 November 2018, 17:05:12
Correct, there are literally 83534796 different window managers to choose from.
As there should be.

(Wayland can go F itself)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Sun, 11 November 2018, 14:01:33
This is a pretty good thread btw, as far as shooting the s*** about unix. Plenty of info, insights, and even just general blabber about operating systems.   :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 11 November 2018, 14:07:21
I wish people would talk about Unix more.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 11 November 2018, 14:18:16
I wish people would talk about Unix more.

I've heard that the BSD conferences are a bit more intimate when compared to linux conferences. Sounds like fun either way.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Sun, 11 November 2018, 15:33:31
I wish people would talk about Unix more.

You mean ones that trace back to AT&T and/or UC Berkeley? I consider Linux a variant of "Unix", despite it not having any connection to UNIX development-wise.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 11 November 2018, 15:36:55
Linux is not a variant of Unix.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Sun, 11 November 2018, 15:43:59
Yeah well you're arguing semantics, it's heavily inspired by it. It sure looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Sun, 11 November 2018, 16:13:22
Linux is not a variant of Unix.
I would argue that Linux is more Unix than MacOS is.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 11 November 2018, 16:18:38
It probably is. But they deliberately don't try to. Actually, even GNU/Hurd is more Unix than Linux is.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 11 November 2018, 16:55:07
Sucks that OSX has support for OpenZFS yet Linux is some years behind before full support for OpenZFS becomes a thing (Antergos?). I'm close to halfway through FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS, and damn near sold that the future is literally OpenZFS.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 11 November 2018, 17:00:27
OpenZFS's CDDL is still incompatible with the GPL. Canonical is still violating its own license. Well...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 11 November 2018, 17:08:26
Makes me wonder how Antergos gets away with including ZFS as a filesystem option.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 11 November 2018, 17:12:34
Probably this is another case of "nobody cares enough".
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dndlmx on Sun, 11 November 2018, 18:35:03
I would argue that Linux is more Unix than MacOS is.

There's some pretty "legit" Unix pieces involved in Darwin though. A kernel largely developed at CMU, for Unix. Bunch of stuff lifted from FreeBSD, and then there's the NeXT OS which was it's own legit variant.

Sucks that OSX has support for OpenZFS yet Linux is some years behind before full support for OpenZFS becomes a thing (Antergos?). I'm close to halfway through FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS, and damn near sold that the future is literally OpenZFS.

Maybe for mission-critical servers with terabytes upon terabytes of data. I plan to ditch my multi-mechanical drive ZFS for a single large SSD and just use UFS2. With backups of course. Although the check summing, and "scrubs" are cool. With 10G ethernet becoming more accessible, I might actually stand to benefit from an SSD on the network.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 11 November 2018, 20:01:15
I would argue that Linux is more Unix than MacOS is.

There's some pretty "legit" Unix pieces involved in Darwin though. A kernel largely developed at CMU, for Unix. Bunch of stuff lifted from FreeBSD, and then there's the NeXT OS which was it's own legit variant.

Sucks that OSX has support for OpenZFS yet Linux is some years behind before full support for OpenZFS becomes a thing (Antergos?). I'm close to halfway through FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS, and damn near sold that the future is literally OpenZFS.

Maybe for mission-critical servers with terabytes upon terabytes of data. I plan to ditch my multi-mechanical drive ZFS for a single large SSD and just use UFS2. With backups of course. Although the check summing, and "scrubs" are cool. With 10G ethernet becoming more accessible, I might actually stand to benefit from an SSD on the network.

I'm already benefiting from dedeplication via nightly borgbackup snapshots so in my eyes it would be lovely to have that functionality just built-in to the filesystem. I understand it's not a perfect situation but it would be nice not to need to install an Arch Linux base and borgbackup in order to restore via borgbackup (caveat: I've restored a ~15GB usb install of Arch Linux using borgbackup.. not exactly a sure thing--the Arch migration from HDD to SSD was done with gparted). Really as of pg ~100 of FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS dedupe is barely the tip of the iceberg for OpenZFS. Like not needing raid hardware because the functionality is already built-in to the filesystem? How is that not awesome? Couple these thoughts with like you said, a filesystem that checks itself and if you script for it will alert the user on a binary level of WHAT FILE IS AFFECTED. Not like, oh gee, there's an error but rather oh gee file X is corrupted. But yea, my FreeBSD installation is UFS because installing a new grub just to satisfy the needs of a single ATA FreeBSD/OpenZFS drive seems kinda obsessive. Blah, blah, etc., etc..


(https://i.imgur.com/UlSDU6C.png)
tonights backup is complete (7 days worth of backups for a ~35GB filesystem == 18.5GB)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: JP on Mon, 12 November 2018, 10:40:20
I am not a regular Linux user but I have dabbled mostly with Centos and Ubuntu. Interests are more home lab related. I am in desperate need to redo my NAS setup. I had a hacked Synology setup running their DSM software on my own hardware with Raid 10 and btrfs. It worked great until I decided to install an update on an impulse. No data loss just not a robust solution. I am thinking I should implement my storage backend with Ubuntu server and ZFS. I have the proper hardware for this setup (server grade hardware with ECC memory and a HBA). I am thinking I could setup later the Synology software again or use FreeNas to connect to shares I setup in Ubuntu server.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Flame on Mon, 12 November 2018, 13:48:43
I mostly use Ubuntu and Raspbian (on my Pis). Many people have recommended I use Gentoo though, but I've been hesitant to switch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Tue, 13 November 2018, 06:00:56
I guess I am the only one Devuan (Debian fork) user here. Currently at 2.0
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Tue, 13 November 2018, 06:02:52


I guess I am the only one Devuan (Debian fork) user

FTFY
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 13 November 2018, 06:29:35
I guess I am the only one Devuan (Debian fork) user here. Currently at 2.0

I'm currently downloading an ISO. Default XFCE and sysinit should be interesting :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 13 November 2018, 17:10:05
I tried Devuan but the kernel that it shipped with didn't work with my laptop. So I installed MX Linux in the end, another Debian derivative without systemd.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 13 November 2018, 21:55:49
That's strange. Devuan XFCE LiveISO worked fine with my rando 2007 Acer laptop. Wifi wasn't a problem, actually the only issue I had is damn XFCE and tap to click. Even the Frickin Linux Mint team enables tap to click by default for their XFCE variant. It's beyond me why distro teams (Fedora XFCE spin too) don't enable tap to click by default for XFCE. I wasn't able to poke around with sysinit but what I saw of Devuan is decent.

edit - Nuked and paved Lubuntu 18.04 for Lubuntu 18.10

The process was fairly quick. Picking a partition to nuke and pave is pretty neat (same as Lubuntu 18.04 installer), though I was able to uninstall grub without built in update software reinstalling grub seconds later (I use multiple Linux OSs--one grub to rule them all). So from what I can tell the move from LXDE to LXQT seems to have nudged Lubuntu more into tinkerer territory.  :thumb: I mostly use it for gaming and the occasional Windows 7 VM. Basically I just I drop in some dotfiles, install steam, enable proton for all the things, install a few games and login whenever I'm ready to relax.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Eldr1tch on Wed, 14 November 2018, 18:45:45
Slackware for the longest time, currently giving Void Linux a try after all the /g/ shills.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Little4Real on Sun, 25 November 2018, 19:40:47
Ubuntu for home, and CentOS+FreePBX at work
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fossilcodger on Wed, 28 November 2018, 17:16:46
Hi, formerly, I used GoboLinux, for years, actually, I have translated even their webpage from English to Hungarian... But in the last years (approx. in the last 4 years) I'm using my OWN "distro". It is based on LFS, but with a very, very modified filesystem-hierarchy. This hierarchy is similar to GoboLinux, but not perfectly the same, so I'm not "compatible" with it. I use in my "distro" my own scripts of course for installing/uninstalling programs (from source naturally), and generally for all works.

As the desktop environment, I use DWM window manager, with my own statusbar-program, and I use even the XBindKeys prog. So I do no need any real "DE". I do not like bloatware stuffs... no, not at all... I have enough memory (16GB), so the reason is not as if I wouldn't have enough, but simple I like simplicity! :)

I do not even have any filemanager prog, except MC. (In mostly cases even it is superfluous...)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 28 November 2018, 17:43:55
Switched over to Antergos with KDE the other day, been a while since I've been happy using something other than Cinnamon.

Cinnamon doesn't scale well on 1440p monitors (either too large or too small), and tends to dislike dual screens (needs work arounds). KDE is kind of a hassle to get setup but once done seems to be fine. It's certainly a bit heavier on boot times (3 more seconds OMG!), but offers a nice experience otherwise.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 02 December 2018, 23:24:08
Switched over to Antergos with KDE the other day, been a while since I've been happy using something other than Cinnamon.

Cinnamon doesn't scale well on 1440p monitors (either too large or too small), and tends to dislike dual screens (needs work arounds). KDE is kind of a hassle to get setup but once done seems to be fine. It's certainly a bit heavier on boot times (3 more seconds OMG!), but offers a nice experience otherwise.

What problems were you having with Cinnamon and multiple monitors? I've been running 3x 1080p screens on Mint 18 with Cinnamon for the past couple years, and I've had next to no trouble in that time.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 03 December 2018, 03:44:56
What problems were you having with Cinnamon and multiple monitors? I've been running 3x 1080p screens on Mint 18 with Cinnamon for the past couple years, and I've had next to no trouble in that time.
There is a bug, confirmed by a few people now, that if you have two monitors and the primary is on the left, then the left screen will not always come on, regardless of video system you have. A work around is to manually start an instance of Nemo on Cinnamon startup which triggers the screen to come on, then you simply close the window manually. It's very specific to this layout apparently and seems the developers have largely ignored the issue as it's been around a while, probably because it's inconsistent and hard to catch. Doesn't happen on single or triple screens or if your primary screen is on the right. Also, Cinnamon, since it's not using Wayland (sp?), has limited scaling ability, so if you switch to a 1440p monitor (which I did recently), you end up with a choice or very small taskbars (around 30% smaller) or very large ones (about 70% larger), this has to do with xorg or GTK or something so it can't be fixed by Cinnamon itself.

These may seem minor, but but it can also be a bit buggy here and there at times, usually after a major Gnome 3 update gets pushed and they try to integrate it. Mostly though I just wanted to try something new, particularly Wayland based in hopes of fixing the scaling issue.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 03 December 2018, 19:16:04
There is a bug, confirmed by a few people now, that if you have two monitors and the primary is on the left, then the left screen will not always come on, regardless of video system you have. A work around is to manually start an instance of Nemo on Cinnamon startup which triggers the screen to come on, then you simply close the window manually. It's very specific to this layout apparently and seems the developers have largely ignored the issue as it's been around a while, probably because it's inconsistent and hard to catch. Doesn't happen on single or triple screens or if your primary screen is on the right. Also, Cinnamon, since it's not using Wayland (sp?), has limited scaling ability, so if you switch to a 1440p monitor (which I did recently), you end up with a choice or very small taskbars (around 30% smaller) or very large ones (about 70% larger), this has to do with xorg or GTK or something so it can't be fixed by Cinnamon itself.

These may seem minor, but but it can also be a bit buggy here and there at times, usually after a major Gnome 3 update gets pushed and they try to integrate it. Mostly though I just wanted to try something new, particularly Wayland based in hopes of fixing the scaling issue.

Ah, that sounds like a bit of a mess, glad I haven't run across that then. Interesting that it's only on that particular layout though, I wonder what would cause that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 04 December 2018, 03:59:09
Ah, that sounds like a bit of a mess, glad I haven't run across that then. Interesting that it's only on that particular layout though, I wonder what would cause that.
Probably just a bad default config, I may even have an idea on how to fix it, but I only found a potential fix while tweaking KDE so I haven't had a chance to test it.

With the workaround, it wasn't a big deal.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kango_V on Tue, 04 December 2018, 17:10:33
I've been using Ubuntu since 5.04  :cool:. Before that i used to distro hop between Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake etc. I now get lost on Windows having used Linux at home and at work for the past 13 years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: impaktor on Tue, 25 December 2018, 10:05:10
started on Debian, now 10 years deep into Arch.

Thinking about testing the *BSDs next.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 26 December 2018, 14:26:24
Alright. Here's the thing. I installed Pop!_OS because I had an extra PATA HDD laying around and wanted to check out Retropie.  After a few days it stopped booting (HDD is fine), so I installed vanilla Ubuntu 18.10.  And well damn, < 700MB at startup with Gnome 3 + dash2dock. That's pretty neat.  Ubuntu has come a long way even in the six years since the last time I installed it to metal.  I still wouldn't use Gnome 3 as my daily because I like crash-less desktops but still, not bad Canonical (and ofc previous Ubuntu Gnome team). Well done.

edit - Also Kubuntu is totally not unusable.  Around 400MB at startup on my system, looks gorgeous (Plasma 5.13 == yum disc), and does oddly well via 7.2k rpm PATA HDD.  Damn.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 28 December 2018, 03:56:16
what is 'yum disc'?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 28 December 2018, 06:04:19
Thinking about testing the *BSDs next.
How are they for every day desktop use?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Nagato on Fri, 28 December 2018, 06:25:23
I use Ubuntu Budgie at home and Xubuntu at work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 28 December 2018, 09:52:04
what is 'yum disc'?

Yum disc is doggo slang for pizza.

Thinking about testing the *BSDs next.
How are they for every day desktop use?

Depends on which one you want to start with. TrueOS is suppose to be an install it and forget it experience, though I've only installed FreeBSD and OpenBSD. For hands dirty types the ports collection and FreeBSD is pretty great. I've even had success with esoteric packages like bspwm and polybar. OpenBSD is damn near an install it and forget it experience sans wifi. I had about as much luck with wifi on OpenBSD as I did with wifi on HaikuOS (zero--I'd imagine thinkpads would be ideal). However, if your every day desktop includes gaming... well, I've read and heard through podcats that console emulation and DOSBox are a thing on FreeBSD. Steam and PlayOnBSD (or Wine) are not exactly 1:1 with the Linux variants.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Fri, 28 December 2018, 09:56:54
OpenBSD has good WiFi support - if you have ethernet during the first installation so you can run fw-update.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 28 December 2018, 10:25:33
OpenBSD has good WiFi support - if you have ethernet during the first installation so you can run fw-update.

I found the vendor driver I needed for my wifi, moved that to a usb thumb drive and gave it a go. Still wouldn't work. Same issue I had with HaikuOS. I'm not saying that OpenBSD is a bad option. I'm implying that those coming from the linux side of things might want to investigate the wifi situation first. I KNOW.. John Carmack donated $10K to OpenBSD this year. I get it. That's fantastic for OpenBSD--but the wifi situation compared to FreeBSD is pretty bad. But what do I know.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sat, 29 December 2018, 03:18:20
what is 'yum disc'?

Yum disc is doggo slang for pizza.

Thinking about testing the *BSDs next.
How are they for every day desktop use?

Depends on which one you want to start with. TrueOS is suppose to be an install it and forget it experience, though I've only installed FreeBSD and OpenBSD. For hands dirty types the ports collection and FreeBSD is pretty great. I've even had success with esoteric packages like bspwm and polybar. OpenBSD is damn near an install it and forget it experience sans wifi. I had about as much luck with wifi on OpenBSD as I did with wifi on HaikuOS (zero--I'd imagine thinkpads would be ideal). However, if your every day desktop includes gaming... well, I've read and heard through podcats that console emulation and DOSBox are a thing on FreeBSD. Steam and PlayOnBSD (or Wine) are not exactly 1:1 with the Linux variants.
Alright thank you.
It wouldn't include gaming, I have windows for that. It would be as a second boot option on the windows pc when I am not gaming.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 30 December 2018, 07:19:34
what is 'yum disc'?

Yum disc is doggo slang for pizza.

Thinking about testing the *BSDs next.
How are they for every day desktop use?

Depends on which one you want to start with. TrueOS is suppose to be an install it and forget it experience, though I've only installed FreeBSD and OpenBSD. For hands dirty types the ports collection and FreeBSD is pretty great. I've even had success with esoteric packages like bspwm and polybar. OpenBSD is damn near an install it and forget it experience sans wifi. I had about as much luck with wifi on OpenBSD as I did with wifi on HaikuOS (zero--I'd imagine thinkpads would be ideal). However, if your every day desktop includes gaming... well, I've read and heard through podcats that console emulation and DOSBox are a thing on FreeBSD. Steam and PlayOnBSD (or Wine) are not exactly 1:1 with the Linux variants.
Alright thank you.
It wouldn't include gaming, I have windows for that. It would be as a second boot option on the windows pc when I am not gaming.

Yep. I should probably add that although the FreeBSD Handbook is a fantastic reference, it may not include things like how to enable utf-8 support. b1c1l1 - Using UTF-8 (Unicode) on FreeBSD (https://www.b1c1l1.com/blog/2011/05/09/using-utf-8-unicode-on-freebsd/)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 30 December 2018, 07:28:06
what is 'yum disc'?

Yum disc is doggo slang for pizza.

Thinking about testing the *BSDs next.
How are they for every day desktop use?

Depends on which one you want to start with. TrueOS is suppose to be an install it and forget it experience, though I've only installed FreeBSD and OpenBSD. For hands dirty types the ports collection and FreeBSD is pretty great. I've even had success with esoteric packages like bspwm and polybar. OpenBSD is damn near an install it and forget it experience sans wifi. I had about as much luck with wifi on OpenBSD as I did with wifi on HaikuOS (zero--I'd imagine thinkpads would be ideal). However, if your every day desktop includes gaming... well, I've read and heard through podcats that console emulation and DOSBox are a thing on FreeBSD. Steam and PlayOnBSD (or Wine) are not exactly 1:1 with the Linux variants.
Alright thank you.
It wouldn't include gaming, I have windows for that. It would be as a second boot option on the windows pc when I am not gaming.

Yep. I should probably add that although the FreeBSD Handbook is a fantastic reference, it may not include things like how to enable utf-8 support. b1c1l1 - Using UTF-8 (Unicode) on FreeBSD (https://www.b1c1l1.com/blog/2011/05/09/using-utf-8-unicode-on-freebsd/)
Thanks again. I'll definitely look into it.
Seems like an interesting project for when I am not gaming.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: mattlach on Fri, 25 January 2019, 16:03:39
I briefly experimented with Linux in 1994, but it wasn't until 2001 I switched over permanently.   Since 2001 I have constantly been dual booting, keeping a Windows install around just in case I need it.  Over the years that need has drastically declined until today when I have a Windows 10 install solely for the purpose of the occasional game I play.

My Linux History on my Desktop:

1994(?): Slackware - Got a free Slackware CD on the cover of a computer magazine.. Decided to try it.   Did not like it.  Went straight back to DOS.  Didn't try Linux again for many years.

2001 - 2002: Red Hat 7.3 Valhalla (pre-fedora/RHEL fork) - I was in college. I got tired of constant windows crashes and wanted something more reliable.  I didn't care for the RPM package manager.

2002 - 2005: Gentoo Linux - Being a hardware tuning and performance enthusiast, the idea of compiling with custom hardware specific compiler flags appealed to me. Eventually it grew old.   Didn't really feel any faster than binary distributions, and my habit of using bleeding edge hardware forced me into unstable builds, and constant troubleshooting and workarounds.

2005 (briefly): Ubuntu 5.04 - After my Gentoo fatigue I wanted something easy, and had heard good things about Ubuntu.  I liked it a lot.  I was amazed how much stuff "just worked" out of the box.  No more troubleshooting to get sound to work, etc.  After a month or two I rolled back to Gentoo - however  - because there was some bug in this version of Ubuntu that kept corrupting my hard drive.  (Storage controller Kernel driver?)

2005 - 2006: Gentoo (again) - After repeated drive corruptions under Ubuntu that didn't occur on any other systems, I decided to temporarily go back to Gentoo.

2006 - 2011: Ubuntu - After a year break from my corruption issues, I decided to give Ubuntu another try.  This time it worked fine, no drive corruptions, and I was sill astonished at how easy it was, just detecting my hardware and working.  Eventually in 2011 Ubuntu switched over to Unity being the default desktop, and I HATED unity.   I didn't want to have to mess with installing my own desktop environment, so I decided to switch.

2011 - present: Linux Mint - I originally chose Mint because it was Ubuntu based, and I was always impressed with how hardware compatibility always just worked on Ubuntu.  It also used Gnome 2, just like I was used to and liked from early Ubuntu releases.   So I started out with the Gnome edition, and then when forced to choose between Cinnamon and Mate in 2012, I thought Cinnamon looked snazzier, so I went with that.   I've been on Linux Mint Cinnamon edition ever since.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: JeremyLLawson on Sun, 10 February 2019, 19:01:08
Like others I've played around with many flavors but I'm currently using Ubuntu MATE 16.04. 

For several years I dual booted with a Win install but I finally ditched MS completely on this latest computer, though I do keep a couple virtual installs handy just in case I need it for something.  I also keep a laptop running Ubuntu in my travel bag and have a all-in-one PC running 16.04 with Pi-hole as my network DNS sinkhole blocking malware sites, tracking and ad sites, etc.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Wed, 13 February 2019, 14:16:16
I HATE that I cannot switch over completely. I do photo editing in lightroom, and I DO need Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel because that's what academics in my field (social science) use. I cannot get around that. And SPSS (though there used to be linux versions of that).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: mta on Sun, 03 March 2019, 13:37:54
I mostly use Mac OSX but when I use Linux, it's usually Ubuntu. I've tried a few other distros out but kept finding myself coming back.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Sintpinty on Mon, 04 March 2019, 11:54:18
In my programming class, i remembered we used an old version of Red Hat to emulate CentOS. Problem was, it was a terminal.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 04 March 2019, 12:09:58
In my programming class, i remembered we used an old version of Red Hat to emulate CentOS. Problem was, it was a terminal.

Be careful.  Once you load your conscious into a terminal emulator again you may never leave...  Whatever you do, DONT TRY VIM.  Seriously..

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) might be the new hotness but one can't even run a decent console based music player in WSL.

Have to SSH into the Linux box, and at that point why even bother if you're not required to use WSL..  Sad.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Mon, 04 March 2019, 12:14:11
Mpxplay is a good console player for Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 04 March 2019, 12:36:18
I understand those words you wrote.. but I don't understand what those words mean when used in that configuration.

How can one even console in Windows?  I know one can't drop to a DOS prompt (in Redstone anyway), those days are gone.  Is there another way?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 05 March 2019, 20:01:24
I understand those words you wrote.. but I don't understand what those words mean when used in that configuration.

How can one even console in Windows?  I know one can't drop to a DOS prompt (in Redstone anyway), those days are gone.  Is there another way?

Install a third party SSH server?

Or by "console", Windows users assume you mean a GUI console.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 08 March 2019, 15:06:51
I've got this 10+ year old hand-me-down department store laptop that I don't have the heart to toss (I'll try to throw a pi in it (https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-USB-Laptop-Keyboard-Controller/) first..).

I've tried: Arch Linux/bspwm, kubuntu, xubuntu, BSDs (NetBSD was +1), various Puppy Linux (not a fan of JWM), and Debian testing/XFCE.

Of all the distributions I've tried, Debian Testing/XFCE (4.19.0-2 amd64) has exceeded my expectations.


edit - Of course after saying this I performed a full update for Debian testing and it not only removed qjoypad from my system but also the two xfce keyboard macros for qjoypad profiles.

I have other xfce shortcuts added that were unaffected.. so weird.  Debian 9.8.0 Stable should be fine for most people. (btw, I use Arch)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 18 April 2019, 17:07:15
Obtained a ****ty netbook, installed the latest Puppy on it. Now netbook is not so ****ty.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Thu, 18 April 2019, 17:24:21
When compared to Puppy?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 18 April 2019, 17:49:08
Joe's Window Manager is a magical incantation in of itself.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 19 April 2019, 03:14:53
What's so wrong with it? JWM has typical look and feel. A-la Windows XP. Or a dozen other WM's on Linux. And it's not that I really need to manage windows on a 10.1" laptop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 19 April 2019, 10:39:53
What's so wrong with it? JWM has typical look and feel. A-la Windows XP. Or a dozen other WM's on Linux. And it's not that I really need to manage windows on a 10.1" laptop.

I meant no sarcasm.  I recently built a toram Debian ISO because why not, that alone was a challenge.  I should have said that both Puppy and JWM are magical incantations that I hope to one day understand.  Slacko is still my favorite, though the artwork for the latest Puppy ISO is insanely awesome.  After writing this I kinda want to take another shot at ISO building with WoofCE.  Building an ISO with busybox init would be interesting.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 19 April 2019, 18:44:17
Bionic pup looks nice, yes. Better than Slacko.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 19 April 2019, 19:04:20
No way.  Slacko is best distro :cool:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thearctican on Fri, 19 April 2019, 21:49:25
Straight Debian babies.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: omuerte on Fri, 26 April 2019, 22:04:36
Almost entirely Debian/Ubuntu across 15~ machines. I tried to get into CentOS, I really did, but everything is *so* old. There are features I want that don't exist in kernel 3.14, thanks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 26 April 2019, 23:57:57
Just had to reinstall my Antergos box because it started ****ing up majorly with my network connection.
I need to learn to diagnose such problems better in Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thearctican on Sat, 27 April 2019, 13:05:06
Almost entirely Debian/Ubuntu across 15~ machines. I tried to get into CentOS, I really did, but everything is *so* old. There are features I want that don't exist in kernel 3.14, thanks.
You're fancy if you got 3.14 in CentOS. Most of our production machines at work still run CentOS 6 and Kernel 2.6.x

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 23 May 2019, 21:14:46
For whatever reason I've gone from Arch Linux and i3-gaps or bspwm to Arch Linux Gnome 3.x.x with Adapta.  So it goes.  Backup system is Debian with i3-gaps (i3blocks bar) and kernel 5.1.x.  Definitely my favorite for VMs
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 24 May 2019, 00:06:37
For those unaware Antergos has been discontinued.

I'm experimenting with Chakra, Manjaro and Arco as a replacement, so far Chakra is leading.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 24 May 2019, 06:54:39
For those unaware Antergos has been discontinued.

I'm experimenting with Chakra, Manjaro and Arco as a replacement, so far Chakra is leading.
Well ****.
I'll check out Chakra, thanks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 24 May 2019, 08:07:21
What I didn't like about Manjaro was Arch Wiki compatibility issues.

Maybe some kind soul will fork the Antergos project.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 24 May 2019, 09:02:32
What I didn't like about Manjaro was Arch Wiki compatibility issues.

Maybe some kind soul will fork the Antergos project.
What kinds of wiki compatibility issues?
I stopped using Manjaro after it borked itself after en update for like the umpteenth time, but I'll give it another go.
Pretty dependant on aur.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 24 May 2019, 09:55:03
What I didn't like about Manjaro was Arch Wiki compatibility issues.

Maybe some kind soul will fork the Antergos project.
What kinds of wiki compatibility issues?
I stopped using Manjaro after it borked itself after en update for like the umpteenth time, but I'll give it another go.
Pretty dependant on aur.

Pamac to auto update all the things?  Updating packages and repos with a GUI is not for me (great notifier tho). 

As for wiki compatibilty, there were often mismatches in file names, directories, design choices, etc.  Like reading Debian Wiki articles for Ubuntu problems (though ubuntu wiki is dense compared to manjaro wiki).  Sometimes Archisms translated to Manjaroisms, sometimes not.  Which was frustrating.  Even more so for a first time user of i3wm..  After 9 months I gave up and installed Arch.  That seemed like a good idea at the time.

Lots of Arco Linux in the ole r/unixporn as of late, must be something to it if those crazy penguins like it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 24 May 2019, 10:09:50
What I didn't like about Manjaro was Arch Wiki compatibility issues.

Maybe some kind soul will fork the Antergos project.
What kinds of wiki compatibility issues?
I stopped using Manjaro after it borked itself after en update for like the umpteenth time, but I'll give it another go.
Pretty dependant on aur.

Pamac to auto update all the things?  Updating packages and repos with a GUI is not for me (great notifier tho). 

As for wiki compatibilty, there were often mismatches in file names, directories, design choices, etc.  Like reading Debian Wiki articles for Ubuntu problems (though ubuntu wiki is dense compared to manjaro wiki).  Sometimes Archisms translated to Manjaroisms, sometimes not.  Which was frustrating.  Even more so for a first time user of i3wm..  After 9 months I gave up and installed Arch.  That seemed like a good idea at the time.

Lots of Arco Linux in the ole r/unixporn as of late, must be something to it if those crazy penguins like it.
Yeah I don't like updating via GUI either, but I can live with it.
Actually yeah I was doing a full upgrade. Should prolly stop doing that. Or at least research if there are problems before I install. :D Lesson learned I guess.
Checking out Arco Linux now, looks interesting!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CaninoDev on Fri, 24 May 2019, 13:47:09
Back in the 90’s and early aughts, I used Slackware. Took a hiatus until 2012 where I went Ubuntu, then to Debian and as of last year settled on Manjaro


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 24 May 2019, 14:33:59
Back in the 90’s and early aughts, I used Slackware. Took a hiatus until 2012 where I went Ubuntu, then to Debian and as of last year settled on Manjaro


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why Manjaro?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 24 May 2019, 18:33:53
So I was going to reply to a few things on here, but I have so much to add and all this is going to clutter this thread, so I'm going to finish some testing and start a new thread for finding an Antergos replacement.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 24 May 2019, 20:35:40
Ok, scratch the above...

For the moment you may want to try RebornOS.
It's a fork of Antergos with more install options, it's still new, and just getting started so who knows if it will stick around but so far it's basically Antergos with more install options. I wouldn't install it over your current system just yet, especially since Antergos isn't a problem yet. I'll be testing it more this weekend.


For those wondering about the others I was looking at.. (a recapp plus new)
Arco -  Nice and uses the Arch repos but it borked the autologin and has a crap ton of preinstalled software (WHY?!).
Chakra - Less preinstalled software but still a lot and does not have access to Arch repos (only AUR).
Endeavour - Antergos fork in the planning stages, it's going to use a new install system from PortergOS and it will have access to Arch repos.
Manjaro - Manjaro left a bad taste in my mouth after I tried it 3 different times and all 3 had repo key problems, it may have just been that variant (Cinnamon) as the KDE variant I tried the other night was fine. It too uses it's own repos which are not always up to date. I want to like it, but it never feels right to me.

Others you may be interested in:

Architect - This basically installs raw Arch, however it was discontinued in 2017 (but still available). It still works however it's not nearly as noob friendly as Ubuntu or even Antergos. This is not really a distro but more of an install script for Arch that keeps you from having to lookup commands. While better, it's still very easy to screw up the install and it's going to take just as long to install as pure Arch.

Manjaro Achitect - Build your own Manjaro, this is basically Architect but using Manjaro repos. All the same warnings apply to it as they do to Architect.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 24 May 2019, 23:17:59
Lots of Arco Linux in the ole r/unixporn as of late, must be something to it if those crazy penguins like it.
Currently using ArcoB-Awesome.
Took some getting used to but I really like it now that I've got it all set up. Thanks for the tip!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: CaninoDev on Sat, 25 May 2019, 09:31:08
Back in the 90’s and early aughts, I used Slackware. Took a hiatus until 2012 where I went Ubuntu, then to Debian and as of last year settled on Manjaro


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why Manjaro?
I had, at the time, a relatively new video card that just came out to market. I tried Debian/Ubuntu but was having trouble with getting the video card recognized. Then I heard about Manjaro having access to cutting edge drivers so tried that. It worked without a hitch. All I had to learn was instead of `apt install` it was `yay -Syu` followed by package name to update AND install. Much more convenient. Plus can open up access to the AUR. So haven’t really looked back to the other distributions.

Oh and another benefit: it makes the inimitable Arch wiki more relevant as Manjaro is Arch based.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 25 May 2019, 12:15:54
Back in the 90’s and early aughts, I used Slackware. Took a hiatus until 2012 where I went Ubuntu, then to Debian and as of last year settled on Manjaro


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why Manjaro?
I had, at the time, a relatively new video card that just came out to market. I tried Debian/Ubuntu but was having trouble with getting the video card recognized. Then I heard about Manjaro having access to cutting edge drivers so tried that. It worked without a hitch. All I had to learn was instead of `apt install` it was `yay -Syu` followed by package name to update AND install. Much more convenient. Plus can open up access to the AUR. So haven’t really looked back to the other distributions.

Oh and another benefit: it makes the inimitable Arch wiki more relevant as Manjaro is Arch based.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've had the opposite experience with Manjaro and the Arch Wiki, but I can see why some folks like Manjaro over other Arch based distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 25 May 2019, 12:20:52
Lots of Arco Linux in the ole r/unixporn as of late, must be something to it if those crazy penguins like it.
Currently using ArcoB-Awesome.
Took some getting used to but I really like it now that I've got it all set up. Thanks for the tip!

Awesome, and apparently the project uses Arch repos so AUR and Arch Wikk should be nearly 100% compatible.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sat, 25 May 2019, 14:21:40
Lots of Arco Linux in the ole r/unixporn as of late, must be something to it if those crazy penguins like it.
Currently using ArcoB-Awesome.
Took some getting used to but I really like it now that I've got it all set up. Thanks for the tip!

Awesome, and apparently the project uses Arch repos so AUR and Arch Wikk should be nearly 100% compatible.
I've had no problems using yay to install a few programs I really enjoy. :D
Great to hear about the Arch wiki though, will keep that in mind for when I inevitably will have to troubleshoot something.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 31 May 2019, 17:30:15
I wasn't aware of this until recently; from what I've heard the Antergos team (https://antergos.com/blog/antergos-linux-project-ends/) will push a final update that converts an Antergos installation into a full vanilla Arch Linux installation.

So according to plan, anyone running Antergos will end up with a true vanilla Arch Linux installation if you accept the final Antergos update.

Thought someone might find this interesting.  I needed an Arch VM for testing something unrelated but decided on Antergos just to see what happens.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 31 May 2019, 21:08:38
I wasn't aware of this until recently; from what I've heard the Antergos team (https://antergos.com/blog/antergos-linux-project-ends/) will push a final update that converts an Antergos installation into a full vanilla Arch Linux installation.

So according to plan, anyone running Antergos will end up with a true vanilla Arch Linux installation if you accept the final Antergos update.
I think that was mentioned above, maybe not.
The only problem is while this works for current installs, at some point the installer could become outdated or break.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 01 June 2019, 01:43:09
I wasn't aware of this until recently; from what I've heard the Antergos team (https://antergos.com/blog/antergos-linux-project-ends/) will push a final update that converts an Antergos installation into a full vanilla Arch Linux installation.

So according to plan, anyone running Antergos will end up with a true vanilla Arch Linux installation if you accept the final Antergos update.
I think that was mentioned above, maybe not.
The only problem is while this works for current installs, at some point the installer could become outdated or break.

I've heard the news from a few Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts as well as the Ubuntu Podcast--also read via several RSS feeds.  Their press release was all over the Linux news for a bit.

I have faith in the Antergos team to deliver as promised.  And of course the installer won't work a little while after the final update.. their server(s) will be disconnected or repurposed.  Works fine right now if you don't want to install to ZoL zroot (grayed out forever I reckon).

Hopefully I'll notice that script in the updates before I update.  Would make for an interesting read.

IIRC, stripping out the Antergos bits is a pita; lots of outdated guides on the subject.  Might as well install good ole Arch if that's the end goal anyway. 

I needed a clean Arch based VM to install both Arch to ZoL zroot and Arch to encrypted ZoL zroot to test a custom Debian ISO build, and didn't feel like reading all my past notes.  Thought I might as well see how the change is executed while I isolated my main system from potential Zedfs on Linux newb mistakes. Shame the option was switched off in the current Antergos Cnchi installer, would have saved me a few steps :-[
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 04 June 2019, 22:00:32
My older Ubuntu MATE VM is becoming a bit slow, so I'm investigating alternatives.

Tried OPenSUSE, but the installed crashed or hung or was not usable several times, so I gave up.

Installed Solaris as a joke - I've tried it before on Sun hardware but couldn't get used to the differences between it and, say, Linux.

Installed Kubuntu (used to be a KDE user before GNOME became usable, but now GNOME has gone off the rails), but haven't done much with it.

I've tried CentOS on the (virtual) desktop, but the packages are generally too old for my needs, hence something a bit more up to date.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 05 June 2019, 01:07:44
IIRC, stripping out the Antergos bits is a pita; lots of outdated guides on the subject.  Might as well install good ole Arch if that's the end goal anyway. 

Simplest/fastest method I've found so far... ArcolinuxD..
Use that to get an easy, minimal CLI setup then install your D.E., I have KDE to just a few commands and only a few minutes total.




My older Ubuntu MATE VM is becoming a bit slow, so I'm investigating alternatives.
These are very fast/bare installs.
I do a base install, then after the reboot clone it before installing the desktop. Saves you from having to start from scratch each time.

KDE:
Install with Arcolinuxd
restart
sudo systemctl disable lightdm.service 
sudo pacman -S sddm plasma-meta   (use defaults)
sudo systemctl enable sddm.service
sudo shutdown -r now  (restarts the system)

Not sure why they enable lightdm (desktop manager) by default, it's not installed, but leaving this messes with sddm (desktop manager).


Mate:
Install with Arcolinuxd
restart
sudo pacman -S lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings marco mate-extra   (use defaults)
sudo systemctl enable lightdm.service
sudo shutdown -r now  (restarts the system)

Vbox packages:

sudo pacman -S linux-headers
sudo pacman -S virtualbox-guest-dkms
sudo pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils
sudo systemctl enable vboxservice.service
restart

Note: you will need to enable bi-directional clipboard and such in the VM interface
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 05 June 2019, 01:15:49
Debian is remarkable with a bleeding edge Linux kernel.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Wed, 05 June 2019, 22:07:58
Tried Devuan for fun (basically Debian but without systemd) but... Trial ran short when I tried to install Docker CE and ran into issues. I'm a big Docker user (my workstation runs ****load of Docker containers) so that experiment didn't last long.

Just installed Debian Buster (it's not stable yet but should be Real Soon Now [TM]) on my new NVMe M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 lanes SSD (Samsung 970 EVO Plus) and it rocks even more than my old setup. Only package I couldn't get to work is "subuser" but I take it this may be because Buster ain't in "stable" status yet.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 06 June 2019, 04:19:58
Yep, it's interesting to note that Ubuntu LTS syncs with Debian testing (https://askubuntu.com/questions/1147/is-ubuntu-based-on-debian-unstable-or-debian-testing), and non-lts syncs with Debian unstable (currently Sid).  Some folks will urgue that EXT4 is still unproven even though Google and Ubuntu upgraded from EXT2 to EXT4 nearly ten years ago.  Must have been a nightmare to use EXT2 as a backbone for Google servers.  I'd imagine they had some kind of internal file system logging.  Though it probably goes without saying that EXT2 makes for a decent USB based file system.  What I dislike as a Debian desktop user is that without testing I couldn't use a flatbed scanner.  Once I upgraded to testing I could actually.. test things. And with a fresh 5.1.x kernel compiled with 4.19 configurations (default debug off--I'm not a kernel developer) and default all new options I can say the graphical performance for Radeon with Debian testing can be nearly a match for Arch or Fedora.  Granted I've only found solid ground with this setup using XFCE4 and i3wm.  KDE should be fine, Kwin appears to recover gracefully when compared to Mutter (gnome 3).  I've gotta say though, for several months I've used bleeding edge Gnome 3 with vanilla Arch without needing to bail out to another tty session because of freeze ups.  I had to do that a bunch back in 2016 with Debian stable, not my idea of a good time.  I'd wager that was just Gnome 3 doing Gnome 3 things.  Anyway, could be all the stability comes from the special Ubuntu LTS sauce; I have a sneaking suspicion that Debian Testing (currently Buster) is just as stable as Ubuntu LTS.  Not that I'd trust anything said on a KB forum with a $20k+ 44u rack decision.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Sat, 08 June 2019, 08:01:46
Not that I'd trust anything said on a KB forum with a $20k+ 44u rack decision.

Just to be clear: I never implied Debian Buster was ready to be deployed on production servers at the moment ; )
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 08 June 2019, 14:51:29
Not that I'd trust anything said on a KB forum with a $20k+ 44u rack decision.

Just to be clear: I never implied Debian Buster was ready to be deployed on production servers at the moment ; )

Talk about an out of context quote--the link I gleamed earlier shows a post from Popey (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AlanPope), who (with some cursory Google foo) works for Canonical. Yet again I've no clue what's in the Ubuntu LTS special sauce, though LTS is in fact synced with Debian Testing (currently known as codename Buster--soon to be known as codename Sid).  I'd be curious to know the number of LTS production workstations vs everyday LTS production servers.  I not exactly sure what the cloud combatibility situatuion is with Debian.  I have one test Debain (testing or codename Buster) VM with LAMP stack/Nextcloud Docker containers up and running and managed with Cockpit (Arch host with KVM hyper), but never ran it through any kind of benchmarking.  Anyway, I'm rambling like an idiot again.  I really should check out some formal training, this Linux kernel thing is like LEGO technics without the messy cleanup :)

edit - Bullseye is the new codename for testing, not Sid. *shrugs*
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: coralof on Wed, 10 July 2019, 11:21:17
Just found the Linux thread!  :cool: I've been using Debian Stable for a while now. When I first started using Linux in 2008, I started with Ubuntu 8.10, and continued using Ubuntu up until a year or two ago, when I switched to Debian after everything started getting infiltrated with snap packages on Ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Wed, 10 July 2019, 12:58:40
Tried Devuan for fun (basically Debian but without systemd) but... Trial ran short when I tried to install Docker CE and ran into issues. I'm a big Docker user (my workstation runs ****load of Docker containers)...

Devuan 2.0 user here

I'm only a basic Dock user - as long as there's a dock for my most frequent Apps.
And I'm a keyword-based Appfinder and launcher person, e.g. press Super+Spacebar and then "Fire..." to locate Firefox and then press just Enter to launch it.

What kind of Docker and Docker containers do you use?
What are the good characteristics that you like about them?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Mr.Elli0t on Tue, 16 July 2019, 08:32:03
I primarily stick with Mint, but I've used Ubuntu, Qubes, Whonix, and from time-to-time will use Kali.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: thearctican on Tue, 16 July 2019, 08:48:21
I primarily stick with Mint, but I've used Ubuntu, Qubes, Whonix, and from time-to-time will use Kali.
Most of which are Debian-based!

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ilovecats on Fri, 19 July 2019, 08:57:51
At the moment, Ubuntu 19.04 via a VPS; I used to be a really big fan of Cygwin too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: valkyr1e on Fri, 19 July 2019, 09:49:38
Long time Linux user here, started with Slackware somewhere around 2001.

I use Debian nowadays, because I'm lazy

LFS is still the best because I like to do everything my way (like package management), but I just can't keep up with security updates.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 20 July 2019, 16:55:33
Currently enjoying Arch with fresh Gnome 3.XX.X.  Arch on main since 2018-01-25, and Gnome since 2019-03-26 (i3-gaps/bspwm before that).  Still running nightly snapshots with borgbackup. 

Moved all gaming to Ubuntu 19.04 partition (steam/proton/deb compatibility).  Older laptop is running Debian Testing (bullseye) with custom compiled i3-gaps and i3blocks.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Sun, 21 July 2019, 03:05:35
Currently enjoying Arch with fresh Gnome 3.XX.X.  Arch on main since 2018-01-25, and Gnome since 2019-03-26 (i3-gaps/bspwm before that).  Still running nightly snapshots with borgbackup. 

Moved all gaming to Ubuntu 19.04 partition (steam/proton/deb compatibility).  Older laptop is running Debian Testing (bullseye) with custom compiled i3-gaps and i3blocks.
Currently messing around with i3wm myself, boy do I love it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: no, the other guy on Sun, 21 July 2019, 09:27:23
Try dwm
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: valkyr1e on Sun, 21 July 2019, 10:47:46
Try TWM
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 21 July 2019, 11:43:38
Currently enjoying Arch with fresh Gnome 3.XX.X.  Arch on main since 2018-01-25, and Gnome since 2019-03-26 (i3-gaps/bspwm before that).  Still running nightly snapshots with borgbackup. 

Moved all gaming to Ubuntu 19.04 partition (steam/proton/deb compatibility).  Older laptop is running Debian Testing (bullseye) with custom compiled i3-gaps and i3blocks.
Currently messing around with i3wm myself, boy do I love it.

Good stuff.  i3wm allows folks to go beyond video hardware maximum horizontal resolution in order to use all the pixels in multi-monitor setups.  Gnome 3 seems to limit based on video card max spec.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 21 July 2019, 21:59:19
I tried the new Debian in a VM, didn't quite work out as I hoped.

The start menu (for want of a better name) highlights each entry as the mouse moves over it, but making the menu entry slightly lighter.  Trouble is, it doesn't unhighlight it when the mouse moves on.  So after a few seconds of moving the mouse up and down on the menu the whole thing gradually turns bright white.

This could be a VirtualBox problem, or a Debian problem.  Probably the former.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 21 July 2019, 22:20:36
I tried the new Debian in a VM, didn't quite work out as I hoped.

The start menu (for want of a better name) highlights each entry as the mouse moves over it, but making the menu entry slightly lighter.  Trouble is, it doesn't unhighlight it when the mouse moves on.  So after a few seconds of moving the mouse up and down on the menu the whole thing gradually turns bright white.

This could be a VirtualBox problem, or a Debian problem.  Probably the former.

Debian Testing XFCE, i3wm, and Virtual Box paired with KVM hypervisor works for me.  With both built in kernels and custom latest stable kernels (plus arandr).  Adapta-Nokta GTK theme and Papirus Icon theme *whistles*
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 22 July 2019, 05:28:59
I tried the new Debian in a VM, didn't quite work out as I hoped.

The start menu (for want of a better name) highlights each entry as the mouse moves over it, but making the menu entry slightly lighter.  Trouble is, it doesn't unhighlight it when the mouse moves on.  So after a few seconds of moving the mouse up and down on the menu the whole thing gradually turns bright white.

This could be a VirtualBox problem, or a Debian problem.  Probably the former.

Debian Testing XFCE, i3wm, and Virtual Box paired with KVM hypervisor works for me.  With both built in kernels and custom latest stable kernels (plus arandr).  Adapta-Nokta GTK theme and Papirus Icon theme *whistles*

Cinnamon.

Probably should have said.

There's a VirtualBox update out too ...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Surefoot on Mon, 22 July 2019, 06:13:17
Ubuntu at home, latest version, mostly due to native Steam support. Since this is going to change, i'll probably change my distro too... I like the no-nonsense, no-headache approach of Ubuntu, everything works out of the box and without having to resort to command line - which is perfect for my parents PC :) (they love it, and it's zero maintenance)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Mon, 22 July 2019, 09:33:57
I tried the new Debian in a VM, didn't quite work out as I hoped.

The start menu (for want of a better name) highlights each entry as the mouse moves over it, but making the menu entry slightly lighter.  Trouble is, it doesn't unhighlight it when the mouse moves on.  So after a few seconds of moving the mouse up and down on the menu the whole thing gradually turns bright white.

This could be a VirtualBox problem, or a Debian problem.  Probably the former.

Debian Testing XFCE, i3wm, and Virtual Box paired with KVM hypervisor works for me.  With both built in kernels and custom latest stable kernels (plus arandr).  Adapta-Nokta GTK theme and Papirus Icon theme *whistles*

Cinnamon.

Probably should have said.

There's a VirtualBox update out too ...

Oh Cinnamon..  Heh, forgot about that one.  Good luck :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xeronu on Mon, 22 July 2019, 11:36:18
see attached...

details about my setup can be found here:
https://git.io/nord-scrot
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Thu, 01 August 2019, 16:49:35
Still running Debian on my servers, laptop and workstation (and still running Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi's).

I tried Devuan (the Debian fork without systemd) out of curiosity but couldn't make Docker work under Devuan and was kinda in a hurry so I threw the towel on Devuan for the moment. But when I get the time I may try it again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Thu, 01 August 2019, 16:51:49
see attached...

details about my setup can be found here:
https://git.io/nord-scrot

Ah "Nord" is such an elegant color theme. I use it as my Emacs theme (and I spend my life inside Emacs).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: valkyr1e on Fri, 02 August 2019, 09:02:00
Anyone know a good way to keep up with security updates in LFS? I know many uses Slackware changelog
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 02 August 2019, 11:13:24
Installed EndeavourOS on a whim yesterday.  The polish reminds me a little of Puppy Linux, while the operation reminds me of Arch with a nicely tricked out XFCE desktop (fork of Antergos--makes sense).

Anecdotal info aside, for a project that's existed for a few months they're already IMO close to a better install experience compared to Antergos.  No ZFS as root atm, but I did see manual partitioning options for: luks2, btrfs, xfs, ext4, lvm2, ntfs, etc.

Also: updated my test Antergos VM to see if they pushed out the last update that converts systems to vanilla Arch..  Not yet, info via Antergos forum points to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as the date for the conversion update.  Groovy.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: quadcube on Mon, 07 October 2019, 09:47:59
debian..rock solid stability
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 19 October 2019, 02:28:09
Started running cbpp (CrunchBang++) in a VM at work for miscellaneous purposes.

So far so good - very fast, all the software I need, low resource usage.

I gave up on Ubuntu with MATE in a VM on the same host - it was just to abysmally slow.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: 1391401 on Mon, 21 October 2019, 23:30:07
I used to try everything for kicks (linux, bsd, unix, etc) but now I just install ubuntu LTS until it's out of support and upgrade.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: menuhin on Tue, 22 October 2019, 03:59:25
Anyone know a good way to keep up with security updates in LFS? I know many uses Slackware changelog

Wow, you're one of those still doing this...?
I think this is perhaps your answer: https://serverfault.com/a/2098 (https://serverfault.com/a/2098)

I did something from source for the kernel and modules and some parts of the system in 1996-98 on my Laptop with a Pentium II processor.
I want an easier life, right now using [Debian - Systemd = Devuan 2.0 ASCII] and I am glad there are more and more options without Systemd out there.

Wanted to try ArchLinux and some of those cool Tiling WM, but keep getting back to my Emacs and its packages.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 22 October 2019, 05:53:19
My 'Debian without systemd' distro is MX Linux :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Tue, 22 October 2019, 07:45:00
Used OpenSuse and Debian on my laptop until the graphics driver crapped out (from what i read there is no way of running linux > 3 on a GCN1 graphics card) now this laptop is on win7 and my tower on OpenSuse tumbleweed so i do not have to worry much about upgrading.
I did try Ubuntu and its derivative but i missed zypper/Yast2 and Debian's flexibility.
I am kind of planing to try to get windows in a Xen vm on my tower for gaming as some games i like do have native linux client that were not updated when linux 5 came out and do not work anymore but i have not yet managed to do the gpu pass through without everything crashing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rolito223 on Wed, 23 October 2019, 07:39:47
I'm using Ubuntu on my desktop and Linux Mint in a small notebook only for run SSNES, DOSBox and Scummvm. ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Deadboy on Wed, 23 October 2019, 14:20:29
I installed Ubuntu as a side partition on my office pc, and at home I've using Kali and W10.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Wed, 23 October 2019, 15:25:58
Still can't believe that fresh Plasma runs as well as it does on older 64bit hardware (XRender backend for this 2007 single core pebkac special).  Aside from 'bespoke' tiliing wms tied with targeted compton configurations, I generally have to switch off or remove the compositor.  Basically after a year+ of Arch Linux and daily dedup snapshots before updates I'm not comfortable with running anything else.  I've tried almost everything--nothing seems to fit quite right.

Pretty sure I've said all this like a hundred times already, but Arch/Plasma fits me like an old pair of jeans.  And the holes provide the perfect amount of ventilation :))
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Thu, 24 October 2019, 00:54:04
plasma has gone a long way in optimization, or it might just have not grown in requirement and our PC have become more powerful, either way it has become a decent option even for old-ish hardware
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 24 October 2019, 04:26:10
Yeah, I also want my old PC's to become more powerful.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 24 October 2019, 05:40:28
Arch/Plasma fits me like an old pair of jeans.
Agreed.
There is a lot of hate for it but I think it's people who remember old KDE/Plasma, which was heavier and buggy.


2007? Single Core?
Look around for anything ddr3/ssd or better (2nd gen Intel, AMD am3), you can buy that stuff dirt cheap now, if not free and it runs Linux great. Ask around, check Ebay, Craigslist, thrift shops, yard sales, recyclers, Goodwill...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: appaboy on Thu, 24 October 2019, 08:32:33
I use kde neon sometimes but fl studio not working well on wine has discouraged me from using Linux currently. Kde neon is my favorite out of other distro I’ve tried but I’m not sure how unpopular of an opinion that is
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Thu, 24 October 2019, 09:03:00
I use kde neon sometimes but fl studio not working well on wine has discouraged me from using Linux currently. Kde neon is my favorite out of other distro I’ve tried but I’m not sure how unpopular of an opinion that is

I tried it, i somewhat liked it but kde is available on pretty much all major distros so i switched back to OpenSuse with kde on top so i could get yast as well, i do not quite understand the appeal of neon but it is not bad per say.
And windows compatibility have increased quite a bit with Valve's proton (at least for games) i would recommend giving it a try if you have some disk space or a spare PC lying around (with kubuntu or debian KDE if you like KDE and for better steam compatibility).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 24 October 2019, 13:18:11
Arch/Plasma fits me like an old pair of jeans.
Agreed.
There is a lot of hate for it but I think it's people who remember old KDE/Plasma, which was heavier and buggy.


2007? Single Core?
Look around for anything ddr3/ssd or better (2nd gen Intel, AMD am3), you can buy that stuff dirt cheap now, if not free and it runs Linux great. Ask around, check Ebay, Craigslist, thrift shops, yard sales, recyclers, Goodwill...

Yep 2007 64bit single core.  This is all good advice for folks with minimal resources.  Not everyone is in the same financial situation--even those in their 30s can become stuck at times.

I grabbed the latest Arch Linux iso to see how much was changed.  According to a few news outlets quite a bit was removed--we'll see.  Planned to use some of the weekend to alter my install notes :))

Thankfully my Nextcloud instance now has that new markdown editor.  Joplin and Simplenote are handy but I'd rather have something self hosted and consistent across multiple distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: guneyd on Thu, 24 October 2019, 13:20:50
Debian with KDE at work and currently Win10 at home. Waiting to buy a good AMD GPU (if I can save a little bit money NOT buying anything keeb related for a month..) in order to use Arch with Sway again :).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Thu, 24 October 2019, 17:44:56
I installed Plasma and it looked a bit sheet
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Thu, 24 October 2019, 17:55:55
Arch
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Thu, 24 October 2019, 18:31:55
Sheet metal?  Sheetrock?  I use: default light breeze qt theme, papirus-light icons, breezemite light window decorations, and default breeze light for gtk decorations.  So basically sheetrock with Event Calendar.

I'd agree with anyone that says that the Kool cigarettes naming scheme is a bit tired and dated at this point.

When I learned that KDE/Plasma is used at CERN is kinda when I tried it out.  Not sure how Arch/Plasma is in a VM--I installed it direct to SSD.

Here be sheetrock themed dragons.  I like it.
More
(https://i.imgur.com/C7J289k.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/s3HV25S.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/myrdMty.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 24 October 2019, 23:46:05
I installed Plasma and it looked a bit sheet

I admit, first few times I went to use it wondered why it looked like a Win 2k ripoff but it takes only a bit of tweaking to look better. Oxygen is a terrible theme (I.M.O.).

I usually use Breeze Dark with Gnome Icons, but I also ditch the default app launcher and switch to Application Menu, then an icons only task manager which I center (one set per screen). Here's my primary screen task bar and app menu.
[attach=1]

Note I don't use a lower taskbar. The layout is built to minimize traversing the entire screen vertically. I did it as an experiment after coming to the realization I pretty much only went to the bottom to change tasks and ended up liking it to much to return. Basically my mouse rarely ever drops much below mid screen with this layout making mousing more efficient.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 25 October 2019, 04:35:11
lol Chromium

Sheet metal?  Sheetrock?  I use: default light breeze qt theme, papirus-light icons, breezemite light window decorations, and default breeze light for gtk decorations.  So basically sheetrock with Event Calendar.

I'd agree with anyone that says that the Kool cigarettes naming scheme is a bit tired and dated at this point.

When I learned that KDE/Plasma is used at CERN is kinda when I tried it out.  Not sure how Arch/Plasma is in a VM--I installed it direct to SSD.

Here be sheetrock themed dragons.  I like it.
More
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/C7J289k.png)

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/s3HV25S.png)

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/myrdMty.png)

Nice wallpaper. Mine looked like yours OOTB, but with worse fonts.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: audiosl4ve on Fri, 25 October 2019, 04:53:03
now i have urge to install some distors again. Havent's used Linux in a few years but i might give it a shot again since i rarely game these days. Was using I3 mostly, am in love with tiling WMs  :eek:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 25 October 2019, 14:24:56
lol Chromium

Sheet metal?  Sheetrock?  I use: default light breeze qt theme, papirus-light icons, breezemite light window decorations, and default breeze light for gtk decorations.  So basically sheetrock with Event Calendar.

I'd agree with anyone that says that the Kool cigarettes naming scheme is a bit tired and dated at this point.

When I learned that KDE/Plasma is used at CERN is kinda when I tried it out.  Not sure how Arch/Plasma is in a VM--I installed it direct to SSD.

Here be sheetrock themed dragons.  I like it.
More
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/C7J289k.png)

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/s3HV25S.png)

Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/myrdMty.png)

Nice wallpaper. Mine looked like yours OOTB, but with worse fonts.

'Summer 1am' wallpaper had been part of the wallpaper collection since Plasma 5.4.95. :)

edit - has been.. grr
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 26 October 2019, 05:47:07
Ah, so now I know why it looks familiar. I've seen it outside!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 26 October 2019, 10:24:21
Ah, so now I know why it looks familiar. I've seen it outside!

Lucky doggo :)

edit - Finished a ~2hr Arch/Plasma VM install with the latest Arch Linux image (seems aight in a basic VM)

To me it looked like some packages were removed from base (kernel, man page stuff, network stuff, filesystem utilities..), and perhaps some from base-devel as well.  The .iso has bash, vi, and grep still *phew*
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: carlos.elegado on Wed, 30 October 2019, 06:09:57
CENTOS 7.  Redhat is used extensively in a lot of the systems we work on. Even though other distros have features that make them more user-friendly, I find not having to keep straight what is distro-specific works better for me. 

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: valkyr1e on Tue, 12 November 2019, 09:44:45
Anyone know a good way to keep up with security updates in LFS? I know many uses Slackware changelog

Wow, you're one of those still doing this...?
I think this is perhaps your answer: https://serverfault.com/a/2098 (https://serverfault.com/a/2098)

I did something from source for the kernel and modules and some parts of the system in 1996-98 on my Laptop with a Pentium II processor.
I want an easier life, right now using [Debian - Systemd = Devuan 2.0 ASCII] and I am glad there are more and more options without Systemd out there.

Wanted to try ArchLinux and some of those cool Tiling WM, but keep getting back to my Emacs and its packages.

That's not an answer. I can easily say "just buy a production keyboard - why build it yourself", but we are not in this hobby for that. We are building keyboards because we enjoy the process. Same thing with Linux. I am running Debian because it's easy, but LFS is where I take the joy in customizing, writing my own scripts and doing things my way.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jacethesaltsculptor on Mon, 30 December 2019, 13:47:20
I use Windows 10 on my main station at home, but my workstation at work runs the latest version of Ubuntu.

My servers at home run Ubuntu, with the exception of my Hypervisor server which runs Proxmox.

I've had my various dalliances with other Linuxes, and started once upon a time on Mandriva.

But I always came back to Ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 30 December 2019, 16:10:55
as soon as openbsd gets a good hypervisor i'm never looking back.

until then i'm stuck using ubuntu derivatives for work machines these days :(

and i made the stupid decision to buy a brand new X1 carbon and really don't feel like going through the effort of getting all of the newer hardware working by hand so... pop_OS has actually been kind of nice in terms of not having to worry about every little thing. it works pretty well, but it's taking me a while to get used to GNOME.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jacethesaltsculptor on Mon, 30 December 2019, 16:21:48
I recently got a co-worker who exclusively uses pop and he speaks very very well of it. I've poked at it and it looked just like a superfriendly Ubuntu.

I can't hate that hardware is getting easier to setup. I remember that my first Linux machines were repeatedly borked by me attempting to install graphics drivers, and not having any idea how to do that properly, and there not being the most documentation on that.

We live in much nicer times for getting graphics drivers working.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Mon, 30 December 2019, 17:44:03
I recently got a co-worker who exclusively uses pop and he speaks very very well of it. I've poked at it and it looked just like a superfriendly Ubuntu.

I can't hate that hardware is getting easier to setup. I remember that my first Linux machines were repeatedly borked by me attempting to install graphics drivers, and not having any idea how to do that properly, and there not being the most documentation on that.

We live in much nicer times for getting graphics drivers working.

it's definitely not 'cool' by masochistic standards but tbh, it takes very little time to install and tweak to my liking and does everything I need it to with minimal fuss, once you get used to GNOME.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jacethesaltsculptor on Mon, 30 December 2019, 18:06:53
it's definitely not 'cool' by masochistic standards but tbh, it takes very little time to install and tweak to my liking and does everything I need it to with minimal fuss, once you get used to GNOME.

I'm in the same place, I distro hopped, and explored, and now I just want something that works, I'm a big linux proponent, but I don't have the time to configure everything, I do if I need to, otherwise I stick with something that works and works well.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 30 December 2019, 18:25:09
Pop! isn't just super friendly, it's better equipped out of the box for gaming.
If you want to game on Linux, it's the easiest place to start, followed, surprisingly, by Arch based distros, which have also been gaining traction.

Unfortunately Pop! is still a Debian/Ubuntu derivative and after a few bad upgrades on Ubuntu/Mint in the past I'm of firm belief that their "rolling release" method of updates is a broken system. Which is the other reason Arch based distros have been gaining traction, there is no major upgrades, it just smoothly moves forward.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Surefoot on Tue, 31 December 2019, 04:35:38
there is no major upgrades, it just smoothly moves forward.
This is why Linux is still not gaining any traction on the desktop. No stable platform and version to build on, from a software editor point of view is a no-go. Ubuntu with their LTS system had the right idea actually.
This is also why servers are all using older RHEL / Ubuntu LTS distros...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Tue, 31 December 2019, 05:59:49
Which year was the Year Of Linux Desktop for you? 2007 here.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jacethesaltsculptor on Tue, 31 December 2019, 09:26:09
my year of the desktop was 2008, I got one of those ubuntu CDs:
[attachimg=1]

I had installed Mandriva before that, but had no end of trouble getting it running stably, because of graphics drivers, but I had learned enough to work with.

Ubuntu was a surprise, it just worked for me.

I didn't keep it on my Desktop for longer than perhaps half a year, but I went back to it quickly as a server OS for Minecraft as that was exploding at the time.

After this I distro hopped on and off ubuntu, but always came back. Eventually I settled down into Ubuntu full time around 5 years ago, and never looked back. I still run other Linuxes from time to time, but Ubuntu has my heart.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 31 December 2019, 17:31:57
there is no major upgrades, it just smoothly moves forward.
This is why Linux is still not gaining any traction on the desktop. No stable platform and version to build on, from a software editor point of view is a no-go. Ubuntu with their LTS system had the right idea actually.
This is also why servers are all using older RHEL / Ubuntu LTS distros...

Linux on desktop has nothing to do with stability or even software development and it has everything to do with marketing and availability.
There is no company pushing it like MS does. Ever see/hear a  commercial for Ubuntu or Arch? You see them for Microsoft and Apple. Without marketing there's no demand without demand there is no market. All other points are irrelevant, it's all about marketing and knowledge, just look at Android and ChromeOs for examples of this working.


Servers use Redhat and Ubuntu LTS not so much for stability, but one very important reason. Support.
They don't use Windows because Linux is WAY more efficient but they still want a company who is required to fix it when there's a problem. You can put any update system you want, develop any software you like, it's not going to gain traction if they have no recourse when something goes wrong. This is why companies pay so much for Oracle, there's plenty of far cheaper of alternatives.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 31 December 2019, 18:09:55

All other points are irrelevant, it's all about marketing and knowledge, just look at Android and ChromeOs for examples of this working.


I remember a brief period (about 10-15 years ago?) when a modest but sizable portion of entry-level desktops and laptops were being sold by 2nd-tier economy manufacturers with Ubuntu pre-installed as the OS to save the $100 (which would have been a major chunk of the final price) that Windows cost.

My recollection is that it was slowly gaining a bit of momentum until Android came along, and then it just withered away.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jacethesaltsculptor on Tue, 31 December 2019, 18:20:00
I remember a brief period (about 10-15 years ago?) when a modest but sizable portion of entry-level desktops and laptops were being sold by 2nd-tier economy manufacturers with Ubuntu pre-installed as the OS to save the $100 (which would have been a major chunk of the final price) that Windows cost.

My recollection is that it was slowly gaining a bit of momentum until Android came along, and then it just withered away.

I remember that period, where netbooks were all the rage, and were coming out with Linux on them because Vista couldn't run on them comfortably, so Microsoft Extended XP's life, and eventually built a Starter edition of Windows 7 just for them. I loved those little guys, even if the build quality was almost never any good.

I used a small white Acer aspire from that time for years.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Surefoot on Wed, 01 January 2020, 13:43:26
Linux on desktop has nothing to do with stability or even software development and it has everything to do with marketing and availability.
It has a lot to do with platform stability, from a software editor point of view. You actually further my point in your post by mentioning support, which is paramount when trying to sell to enterprise. Stable distros are the only way to be able to train support teams and provide proper service to companies.
For the same reason all "more serious" pieces of software are only developed for IOS leaving the fragmented Android platform behind.
The inability to understand realities of market from linux community is what is keeping it behind.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 01 January 2020, 18:22:26
I remember a brief period (about 10-15 years ago?) when a modest but sizable portion of entry-level desktops and laptops were being sold by 2nd-tier economy manufacturers with Ubuntu pre-installed as the OS to save the $100 (which would have been a major chunk of the final price) that Windows cost.

My recollection is that it was slowly gaining a bit of momentum until Android came along, and then it just withered away.
Netbooks, loved the form factor, hated the speed.

Android didn't kill them, Intel and Microsoft took over the market with the intention of destroying it from the inside. They were low profit and instead of trying to figure out how to make it profitable, they chose to simply destroy it. Intel saddled them with a 10 year old single core cpu that they refused to update, while they did eventually upgrade it to a dual core in most situations the processor was actually slower. Microsoft, fearful of it eating into future Vista sales offered them Windows XP at a discount, but with the stipulation it be unable to use any more than 2gb ram and uses a 10in(?) or smaller screen. Vista wouldn't run on them with so little ram and computing power and MS knew this when they did this, they just needed them to last long enough to self destruct. This stipulation remains in place today for low cost Windows, which is why the (new) Atom powered Windows tablets that debuted when Android tablets came out as well as the new netbooks like HP Stream never have more memory. These were further gimped with low storage.

$100 is the retail cost for oem without a volume license. Suppliers such as Dell have a volume or reseller license and only pay about $50, at one time you could actually call Dell and get a refund for the Windows License, which amounted to $50.



It has a lot to do with platform stability, from a software editor point of view. You actually further my point in your post by mentioning support, which is paramount when trying to sell to enterprise.
No one, from end users to the corporate C.E.O. care about the issues on your end when it comes to choosing an OS. That's a you problem, not theirs. If you say you support then as far as they're concerned that's the end of it on their end.

If people cared about the developer side no one in their right mind would be using MacOS or Android.

IOS is a whole other story, but one that has fallen from grace in many sectors, Apple's shenanigans with repairs has cost them dearly. Software support doesn't help when half your devices are out of service waiting on repairs.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Surefoot on Fri, 03 January 2020, 12:34:01
No one, from end users to the corporate C.E.O. care about the issues on your end when it comes to choosing an OS. That's a you problem, not theirs. If you say you support then as far as they're concerned that's the end of it on their end.
Not only you totally misunderstood what i've written, or didnt read it at all.. but you are mentioning the opposite of what i said. I am talking about the point of view of a software editor or publisher that would consider Linux as a platform for distributing their product. The reason why it's still left alone (despite considerable market penetration in some specific sectors) is no support, and fragmentation.
Also when addressing the community, they tend to have answers similar to yours, which prompts an immediate big "NOPE" from any sound business.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 03 January 2020, 17:25:16
No one, from end users to the corporate C.E.O. care about the issues on your end when it comes to choosing an OS. That's a you problem, not theirs. If you say you support then as far as they're concerned that's the end of it on their end.
Not only you totally misunderstood what i've written, or didnt read it at all.. but you are mentioning the opposite of what i said. I am talking about the point of view of a software editor or publisher that would consider Linux as a platform for distributing their product. The reason why it's still left alone (despite considerable market penetration in some specific sectors) is no support, and fragmentation.
Also when addressing the community, they tend to have answers similar to yours, which prompts an immediate big "NOPE" from any sound business.
I stand by what I said.

Don't confuse Linux penetration on servers for penetration on desktop. Completely different market, completely different needs. If it translated easily, Microsoft would own the tablet and phone sector and we all know how that turned out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iMav on Fri, 03 January 2020, 21:22:53
I first installed Linux in 1994.  It was an early version of Slackware...on, what seemed to be, a million floppy disks (for the installation).  I dual-booted slackware and Windows 3.1 on an 84MB hard drive.  LOL

I got serious with Linux on the desktop when Redhat 3.0.3 was released. 

These days, I run Manjaro with cinnamon. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Sat, 04 January 2020, 02:50:35
I first installed Linux in 1994.  It was an early version of Slackware...on, what seemed to be, a million floppy disks (for the installation).  I dual-booted slackware and Windows 3.1 on an 84MB hard drive.  LOL

I got serious with Linux on the desktop when Redhat 3.0.3 was released. 

These days, I run Manjaro with cinnamon.

I was thinking of running Manjaro with Xfce. I'm so sick of fixing Arch every update because something breaks, but I like Arch's KISS ideology; Manjaro seems like a good bridge.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Surefoot on Sat, 04 January 2020, 04:37:37
Don't confuse Linux penetration on servers for penetration on desktop.
I do not. Please quote where i made any confusion here.

Completely different market, completely different needs.
Wrong. Platform fragmentation and lack of support = no market. I simplify a lot here but obviously you didnt read longer posts..

If it translated easily, Microsoft would own the tablet and phone sector and we all know how that turned out.
That turn out catastrophically because MS went in very late to a saturated market, with a non-competitive product, and mosty importantly, poor software support (undocumented APIs, terrible OS choices) and no support from software editors ! Back to square one, see above.
I stand by what i said = no adherence from market forces means no penetration. Platform fragmentation and lack of support is always, always the first reason invoked by CIOs when asked why they would not invest on linux platform.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jacethesaltsculptor on Sat, 04 January 2020, 07:30:40
I was thinking of running Manjaro with Xfce. I'm so sick of fixing Arch every update because something breaks, but I like Arch's KISS ideology; Manjaro seems like a good bridge.

Most of the new guys I'm seeing get into Linux in my job, seems to be coming now from Arch and Manjaro. I'm honestly impressed as they seemed at the time not like the easiest point of entry, but that didn't stop people.

I run manjaro in a virtualized instance on my Proxmox server, I do enjoy it, and poke at it from time to time. I do think it's one of the more interesting distros nowadays.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 04 January 2020, 17:42:45
Back to square one
I've read everything you wrote, 5 times now... So yeah, I read it.
Took me that long to realize you were presenting a chicken or egg situation (I think) and arguing egg (or chicken, doesn't matter).

You are right developers may stay away because fragmentation (false) but I'd argue so long as there's enough users there to make money from some CEO will try to find a way to capitalize on it. Unfortunately even if Linux was 80% easier to support than Windows, it only has 3% the users. Don't forget, it's an established ecosystem with lots of free software you have to compete with. Worse, Linux users are known to shun paying for software. It's the complete opposite of MacOs where users will actually tell you it's better to not only pay for software but beneficial to pay more than you would for Windows programs*.

As annoying as it is, marketing almost always wins.
Look back at history and rarely does the first or best product win, it's almost always the mediocre one with the better promotion and modest cost. Apple was better, Microsoft Windows had better promotion and lower cost. IOS is (arguably) better, Android came from behind due to better promotion and lower cost. You can apply this to movies, politics, almost anything.


*You pay extra to avoid spying and ads, such as tracking and ads.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Surefoot on Sun, 05 January 2020, 09:37:49
You are right developers may stay away because fragmentation (false)
Here we disagree strongly. I am a software dev. I did talk to quite a few software publishers. I stand by my point of view and the answers i've been given by those publishers.

Linux users are known to shun paying for software.
Wrong, it's a common misconception. So yeah the handful of neckbeards that inhabit the forums will cry outrage but the vast majority of people who i have talked to actually, do not care at all (to be polite) about the OS, i'll further it, they have NO IDEA of what OS they are running and they do NOT want to care or know about it. Can they buy Photoshop and run it ? Yes or no, there you go, their choice is made. If they can run the available software (like Chrome, Thunderbird, etc.) then they'll be fine and actually do not even notice they switched away from Windows.

It's the complete opposite of MacOs where users will actually tell you it's better to not only pay for software but beneficial to pay more than you would for Windows programs*.
Again, generalizations lead nowhere, also it's a quite obvious tangent. We are talking Linux on the desktop...


As annoying as it is, marketing almost always wins.
And look, Ubuntu do have a lot of marketing...

Android came from behind due to better promotion and lower cost.
Definitely not promotion, actually most people have no idea they are running android. What made the platform so ubiquitous was its relatively lax distribution model that allowed armies of chinese clones to flood the market.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: el_murdoque on Mon, 06 January 2020, 08:56:09
I grew up on Debian and have one or two machines still running it (smoothly, of course).
When I took over IT at work (nothing much, just supervising half a dozen machines and two servers),
I switched all the machines to Ubuntu. In my experience, users coming from Win/Mac have an easier time transitioning to Ubuntu than to Debian (at least they had back then, when I made the leap). I also switched my main machine at home to Ubuntu at the same time, to get more hands on experience.
Can't say I have anything to complain about. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: snozberries on Mon, 06 January 2020, 09:27:05
My usual flavor is Ubuntu, but I'm always open to try others. I need to reinstall it on my home setup.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: equalunique on Mon, 06 January 2020, 10:45:18
At work I get involved with RHEL and Tiny Core Linux.

At home I have Ubuntu for general tasks and NixOS for any kind of systems and/or programming.

Also am pretty happy with my FreeBSD-based NAS. From time to time I spin up a FreeBSD Jail (like a Linux container) for small unix-y tasks. The Bhyve virtualization helps me with visualizing Windows VMs if I ever need one, mostly for work. While Ubuntu and NixOS offer ZFS support, I'm a lot happier with the stable ZFS support on FreeBSD. I've also had a great time with ZFS & virtualization on the Illumos-based (successor of OpenSolaris) SmartOS - but the virtualization component there is overblown for my needs at home. Eventually I want to try Hammer2 on DragonFlyBSD.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Tue, 25 February 2020, 10:30:08
bah... mah old laptop won't install linux in uefi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 25 February 2020, 18:03:28
bah... mah old laptop won't install linux in uefi
Secure boot?
Or is it one of those bastardizations where Intel and MS conspired to use a 32bit efi with 64bit OS (Baytrail/Cherrytrail)?

Secure boot can sometimes be disabled, even without the option for it by using a bios hack, which is not quite as hard as people think. Though it can be a hassle, I had to do it years ago on an laptop to get virtualization working.

If it's a 32bit bios, there are patches for some OS, Ubuntu variants will work, and probably Arch.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Tue, 25 February 2020, 19:07:36
it's one of the earlier efi bios solutions. it just flat won't work with some stuff.

installed in legacy mode.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 26 February 2020, 04:53:51
Ah okay.
Yeah, some early EFI has all sorts of quirks, had all sorts of weird hardware problems with it. Seen problems with Windows with it but never Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: tp4tissue on Wed, 26 February 2020, 05:20:40
Ah okay.
Yeah, some early EFI has all sorts of quirks, had all sorts of weird hardware problems with it. Seen problems with Windows with it but never Linux.

Linux can work with it, if you're one of those super genius hax0r guyzus. But when they build the auto installers, over time, general compatibility inevitably drifts away from older hardware.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Wed, 26 February 2020, 07:01:41
Ah okay.
Yeah, some early EFI has all sorts of quirks, had all sorts of weird hardware problems with it. Seen problems with Windows with it but never Linux.

Linux can work with it, if you're one of those super genius hax0r guyzus. But when they build the auto installers, over time, general compatibility inevitably drifts away from older hardware.


If you want to run a linux on a very old machine and do not mind it being out of date, there is damn small linux
And yeah i have not tried installing anything out of legacy mode since those out of spec efi era, i had much more trouble with installing windows on most of those machines than linux though.
and the era of the haxor linux guru is long gone, it has become quite easy nowadays
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 26 February 2020, 20:25:35
Linux can work with it, if you're one of those super genius hax0r guyzus. But when they build the auto installers, over time, general compatibility inevitably drifts away from older hardware.
Someone probably makes a distro specifically to work with it, they have distros for Chromebooks, Baytrail, Pis, and more. No need to hack anything.

What computer is it?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yuppie on Wed, 26 February 2020, 20:56:55
I mainly work with containers -- Kinda makes the underlying distro practically disappear. Distros don't matter anymore.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: meiosis on Wed, 26 February 2020, 22:20:20
sabayon
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: audiosl4ve on Thu, 27 February 2020, 04:57:21
sabayon

that thing is still alive? I remember using it ages ago  :confused:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nathanchere on Thu, 27 February 2020, 05:03:18
arch btw
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: romevi on Thu, 27 February 2020, 11:27:59
arch btw

Same tbqh.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: epicfacethe3rd on Sun, 01 March 2020, 18:23:10
Ubuntu. easier to play games on and there's enough software to do a lot of useful things with. package manager may suck according to other people but tbh i'm fine with apt
only downside is there's zero cad programs because according to autodesk fusion 360's web client is "good enough" lmao
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 15 March 2020, 18:59:43
Been playing Borderlands 3 since it's on Steam now and while not officially supported it does work in proton.

It's not perfect, but is very playable. 
First issue is a Linux one, it has micro stutters, it's not bad and after a few minutes it's almost unnoticeable, this will get ironed out soon most likely.

The second issue is actually due to Windows and 2k Games, it seems they used a video codec (Media Foundation) that is only included with some versions of Windows, why is a video codec in one version of Windows and not another? This was an issue for Pc Build Simulator and Resident Evil, so it's not unheard of. Unfortunately this problem if you encounter it is a show stopper as you can't progress in the game.

It's an easy fix, though the documentation of it is terrible, so here it is step by step what worked for me.

This should work on pretty much any distro.
More
Obviously you need Steam and the game, my understanding is that you will also need Wine to assist in this install (any version) but it can be removed later.
Download this (https://github.com/z0z0z/mf-install) and this (https://github.com/z0z0z/mf-installcab) (github) as a zip to your downloads folder, then extract both to their own sub folders.

In terminal go to the first directory then run:
WINEPREFIX="/home/{username}/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/{folder number}/pfx" ./mf-install.sh
(use the path above to find out which is the correct folder you need, and note that there may be an extra steam in there, just follow as best you can, you will get there)

Then go to the second folder and run:
WINEPREFIX="/home/{username}/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/{folder number}/pfx" ./install-mf-64.sh

Copy mfplat.dll from cab installer folder into the directory where Borderlands3.exe resides:
/home/{username}/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Borderlands 3/OakGame/Binaries/Win64/

Now give it a go, mine is using Proton 5.
Of you see Claptrap dance across the screen during intro, it worked.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 17 March 2020, 08:25:55
Slightly off-topic but tangential:

The fingerprint reader on my Thinkpad T440P works great under Windows 10 but is pretty much useless in Mint 19/Cinnamon. Sometimes it will finally register after swiping the finger a dozen times, but usually not at all.

Is there some software fix for this problem?

PS - I am an old man with dry skin and my fingerprints are probably "weak"

Thanks!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: monteyalps on Tue, 17 March 2020, 11:25:25
Arch on my laptops (although my work laptop is a mbp).
Proxmox server with a couple different VMs (CentOS, Debian, PFSense).

Jod: Linux admin & Webdev
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sth on Tue, 17 March 2020, 18:30:59
Slightly off-topic but tangential:

The fingerprint reader on my Thinkpad T440P works great under Windows 10 but is pretty much useless in Mint 19/Cinnamon. Sometimes it will finally register after swiping the finger a dozen times, but usually not at all.

Is there some software fix for this problem?

PS - I am an old man with dry skin and my fingerprints are probably "weak"

Thanks!


Fingerprint reader support in linux is practically nonexistent even to this day. There are some drivers out there but no real unified effort has been made to implement them as an authentication system platform-wide.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 17 March 2020, 18:59:47
I don't think the tech community trusts it so they've not bothered putting in the effort into making it work.

The problem is that unlike a password, once it's compromised there's no way to change it. You may wonder how can it be compromised? It's surprisingly easy, you leave your prints all over the place and duplicating it and fooling the technology has proven surprisingly easy. Even the good ones are merely okay at the task and the ones in laptops are  CHEAP, CHEAP sensors.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: jseyfert3 on Sat, 28 March 2020, 15:59:13
I've been running Mint Cinnamon for the few years now. I'm not remotely a Linux expert, I just want an OS that's easy to use and Mint has fit that bill wonderfully.

I was introduced to Linux in my early teens (so around 2004) with Knoppix. I'd use it to get in and fix Windows XP machines that wouldn't boot cause some driver got corrupted. Never used it beyond that for a while. Eventually got Ubuntu as a dual boot. Tried to use it as my primary OS for a while but I gamed more back then and eventually gave up when Ubuntu went with the "touchscreen style" desktop as default (was that Unity, back in 2010?) and went back to only using Windows. Stuck with Windows 7 through the whole 8 fiasco, eventually upgraded to 10. A little while later after installing 3D modeling software for school (roundabouts 2015) Windows crashed on me. "No problem" I thought, "I'll just use the new restore mode from the recovery menu." Well, that failed. I swore off Windows 10, found and installed Linux Mint, and it's been my primary OS every since.

I've kept Windows 7 as a dual boot (this past year changing that to Windows 10 finally), but only use Windows the few times I actually do some gaming or need to remote into my work computer from home. And of course I use Windows 10 at work. My work would be okay with me using Linux (it's extensively used by certain teams) but I need to use SolidWorks on a semi-regular basis for looking at 3D models so Linux is pretty much a no-go.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Bot Hack Berlin on Wed, 29 July 2020, 14:20:23
Arch for almost a year now. After the sixth broken install of Windows 10 I had enough of the Windows experience and jumped staight into Arch and haven't looked back.
I'm currently switching back and forth between GNOME and BSPWM and am trying to fully switch to BSPWM.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dddeeaatthhh on Wed, 02 September 2020, 08:01:53
been running manjaro/plasma on both my work computer and the "throw-around" laptop and i love it. last week i tried out a few distros i had never used on the raspberry pi, but nothing really jumped out at me like manjaro has. i've got ubuntu on there now and it's basically just a qmk config/flasher setup
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 06 September 2020, 02:27:59
Seeing this thread in Spy reminded me that I've not messed with my OS in a long time and on checking it's been nearly two years since I installed Arch, most of that running XFCE.  That has to be some kind of record and I've not had any problems so it will be extended.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 06 September 2020, 03:20:32
Seeing this thread in Spy reminded me that I've not messed with my OS in a long time and on checking it's been nearly two years since I installed Arch, most of that running XFCE.  That has to be some kind of record and I've not had any problems so it will be extended.

This is why I call Linux boring.
Within 6-12 months my Windows installs were always trashed.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 06 September 2020, 03:52:25
Seeing this thread in Spy reminded me that I've not messed with my OS in a long time and on checking it's been nearly two years since I installed Arch, most of that running XFCE.  That has to be some kind of record and I've not had any problems so it will be extended.

This is why I call Linux boring.
Within 6-12 months my Windows installs were always trashed.

I've ran Linux as my primary OS for about 16 years, trashed many installs going too bleeding edge like running CVS XF86 (I think that's what Xorg was called back then?) so the graphics in my laptop worked and similar when transparency was nearly available.  Or there was a new desktop environment to check out and I didn't want the mess of updating multiple or the allure of Gentoo's complete optimisation bit me so that meant a new install on a second partition sharing /home...  New job means less time at home so I'm now just a user rather than a tweaker.  Maybe there is nothing to play with and it's got boring but I'm sure I could find something to break if I looked :thumb:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 06 September 2020, 21:48:05
Seeing this thread in Spy reminded me that I've not messed with my OS in a long time and on checking it's been nearly two years since I installed Arch, most of that running XFCE.  That has to be some kind of record and I've not had any problems so it will be extended.

This is why I call Linux boring.
Within 6-12 months my Windows installs were always trashed.

I've ran Linux as my primary OS for about 16 years, trashed many installs going too bleeding edge like running CVS XF86 (I think that's what Xorg was called back then?) so the graphics in my laptop worked and similar when transparency was nearly available.  Or there was a new desktop environment to check out and I didn't want the mess of updating multiple or the allure of Gentoo's complete optimisation bit me so that meant a new install on a second partition sharing /home...  New job means less time at home so I'm now just a user rather than a tweaker.  Maybe there is nothing to play with and it's got boring but I'm sure I could find something to break if I looked :thumb:
Oh, it can break, I've done it many times but it's not the same as Windows where there's a registry that just gets more and more bloated with garbage.
Not that Linux purges perfect, but it just doesn't get bogged down by it like Windows does.

The other big difference is Linux, as strange as it may seem to Windows users, actually adheres to stricter control of data than Windows. Sure a program may get placed in a different place but al MY data is in the home folder, if I copy that everything is backed up. If you do that in Windows and paste it back into another Windows install ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. There are things that should never be copied in there, save files in random places, for as much as Windows users thing Windows is standardized it's really a gigantic mess because companies and users are free to place anything anywhere. It's maddening.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sharktastica on Fri, 18 September 2020, 13:29:16
I run a bunch of old and new ThinkPads, for which I usually default to either TinyCore or Mint respectively. TinyCore is extremely lightweight - it takes a while to set up right, but I find it squeezes out every bit of an old machine's performance and allows me to save money with upgrading old machines storage with makeshift IDE SSDs. TinyCore with FLTK/FLWM is 16MB by default, however, I use the 106MB CorePlus since it has wireless and non-US keyboard support built in.

Mint just works. 'Nuff said.

I also presently have single machines running Arch, Kali, Kubuntu and Manjaro at the moment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hong@RebultKeyboards on Tue, 13 October 2020, 11:51:47
Windows on desktop (mainly for gaming and Adobe suite) Fedora on my laptop, been loving it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hvontres on Tue, 13 October 2020, 14:16:27
Started off on Redhat many moons ago (possibly Fedora 6), eventually switched my laptop and desktops to Kubuntu. I also run straight up debian on my Rpi's and a couple of other servers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Wed, 14 October 2020, 01:03:38
Started off on Redhat many moons ago (possibly Fedora 6), eventually switched my laptop and desktops to Kubuntu. I also run straight up debian on my Rpi's and a couple of other servers.
i am the only one being completely inept at installing and using ubuntu? don't get me wrong i have plenty of debian and opensuse machines but when i want to give a pc to someone i'd rather it run ubuntu because most of any help online is for ubuntu or ubuntu based distro, but i always end up with a stuck boot screen or kernel panic every time i try to install it... and when i am on an ubuntu machine i can't make heads or tails of the interface...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 14 October 2020, 02:24:48
i am the only one being completely inept at installing and using ubuntu? don't get me wrong i have plenty of debian and opensuse machines but when i want to give a pc to someone i'd rather it run ubuntu because most of any help online is for ubuntu or ubuntu based distro, but i always end up with a stuck boot screen or kernel panic every time i try to install it... and when i am on an ubuntu machine i can't make heads or tails of the interface...
You have to shut down half your brain, then it will make sense, I have to do the same with HP printer and scanning software.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 14 October 2020, 02:52:57
Started off on Redhat many moons ago (possibly Fedora 6), eventually switched my laptop and desktops to Kubuntu. I also run straight up debian on my Rpi's and a couple of other servers.
i am the only one being completely inept at installing and using ubuntu? don't get me wrong i have plenty of debian and opensuse machines but when i want to give a pc to someone i'd rather it run ubuntu because most of any help online is for ubuntu or ubuntu based distro, but i always end up with a stuck boot screen or kernel panic every time i try to install it... and when i am on an ubuntu machine i can't make heads or tails of the interface...
If that doesn't work for you, then why do you keep doing this?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Wed, 14 October 2020, 03:19:56
If that doesn't work for you, then why do you keep doing this?
well it is not for me, my favorite are OpenSuse for virtualization and development and Debian for when i do want to deal with instabilities. being able to install Ubuntu would be nice for others, as when you are new to it having forums online with solutions that you do not need to translate to zypper or/and add repos would be nice, although i had put OpenSuse on my mother's computer and the only problems she had with it were printers, I guess that Ubuntu is nice for newbie power-users, kinda like myself
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hong@RebultKeyboards on Wed, 14 October 2020, 03:29:43
i am the only one being completely inept at installing and using ubuntu? don't get me wrong i have plenty of debian and opensuse machines but when i want to give a pc to someone i'd rather it run ubuntu because most of any help online is for ubuntu or ubuntu based distro, but i always end up with a stuck boot screen or kernel panic every time i try to install it... and when i am on an ubuntu machine i can't make heads or tails of the interface...
You have to shut down half your brain, then it will make sense, I have to do the same with HP printer and scanning software.

I would say that with most printer software our there.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sloth. on Sat, 17 October 2020, 03:55:40
Oh a linux thread, glad to see more keyboard enthusiasts using linux!

I am currently using Gentoo since half year or so, having a blast. Portage gives every customization possible, USE flags are here to stay, every package I want is there or in layers, fast as crazy and no systemd among other advantages  ^-^

I love using my keyoboard with a tiling wm like bspwm and gives me a lot of productivity.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: davidbachman on Tue, 20 October 2020, 14:05:10
Oh a linux thread, glad to see more keyboard enthusiasts using linux!

I am currently using Gentoo since half year or so, having a blast. Portage gives every customization possible, USE flags are here to stay, every package I want is there or in layers, fast as crazy and no systemd among other advantages  ^-^

I love using my keyoboard with a tiling wm like bspwm and gives me a lot of productivity.

Same here ! Gentoo user Gentoo is life !
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Sup on Fri, 13 November 2020, 15:02:47
Running elementary OS on my laptop and Windows on my main computer  :) .
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: gorauskas on Sun, 15 November 2020, 15:15:20
Vanilla Ubuntu 20.04
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: qiAip on Sun, 27 December 2020, 05:00:52
It depends on what computer.  My casual desktop runs Manjaro and the workstation runs OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.  In WSL2 I run Debian and OpenSUSE 15.2 and server at work CentOS (for now).   But what really made the biggest difference and help me get more into keyboards was actually window managers - being able to really get the environment and keyboard to work in sync to do exactly what I want in a workflow that's unique to how I use it was just revolutionary.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yqqdrasil on Tue, 29 December 2020, 05:09:51
I distro-hopped quite a bit when I was younger, and again when I was going to uni.

Arch was fun for a minute. LFS and Gentoo drove me crazy.

Eventually I just started using the minimal install of Debian and trying different tiling window managers. Stuck with it for a good bit before I got fedup of switching back to Windows whenever I wanted to play games.

After my Thinkpad T420blazeit died I gave up and just use only Windows now lol. At least I didn't have to study for any of my Linux courses. However I always keep a USB with Ubuntu or Debian on it for when I do something stupid like reformatting the HDD my bootloader is on. I did it again last month when I rebuilt my PC. You'd think I'd know better but I tend to surprise myself with new levels of stupidity quite often.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Tue, 02 February 2021, 09:37:25
Ubuntu 20.04 (mostly work), and Manjaro KDE (games, VLC/MPV, Jellyfin, etc.).


edit - Thought I'd share my transition from Xorg to Wayland


Though Ubuntu's Hirsute Hippo 21.04 is still in development, the feature freeze is in a few weeks, so why not give it a try for non-video work purposes.


I'm using libinput-gestures (https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures) for my USB Jelly Comb glass touchpad (my config (https://github.com/csmertx/dotfiles/blob/master/config/libinput-gestures.conf)), and key-mapper  (https://github.com/sezanzeb/key-mapper)as a stop gap before I install a custom controller in my Kinesis Advantage2.  Whew, no more xmodmap.


Why I like Wayland/Hirsute Hippo:
Better general touchpad support in Wayland.  Cursor speed can be cranked up so that highlighting text never requires two hands.  I forget I'm using an operating system, much like Focal Fossa 20.04.


My Hirsute Hippo gripes so far are:
Nvidia GPU support (Firefox), no kinetic scrolling (inertia, etc., which was fine in 20.04), Night Light and or Redshift is not functional (for me), and the wallpaper is not out yet.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: missalaire on Tue, 02 March 2021, 21:26:23
Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04 (work)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: MelonBred on Wed, 07 April 2021, 00:24:48
Been using PopOS 20.04 on my personal machine.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Andrew_Debbie on Sat, 10 April 2021, 12:20:26
Ubuntu 20.04 (Home)

Ubuntu 20.04 and 18.04 (Work)

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: econeuler on Sat, 10 April 2021, 16:02:06
Nice to see people posting in this thread :)

To add,
- Debian + i3 for work (desktop)

I'm running Arch on a laptop at home, but have though of switching to Arch on my work desktop as well,
because I'm getting tired of installing from source (plus bloat).
The only reason why I'm hesitating is that I need stuff to work nearly 100% of the time for efficiency. How
is the probability of messing up dependencies etc on Arch if you use it as a main system? Any thoughts?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 11 April 2021, 01:53:22
I'm running Arch on a laptop at home, but have though of switching to Arch on my work desktop as well,
because I'm getting tired of installing from source (plus bloat).
The only reason why I'm hesitating is that I need stuff to work nearly 100% of the time for efficiency. How
is the probability of messing up dependencies etc on Arch if you use it as a main system? Any thoughts?
Moving away from Debian because of compiling from source and bloat? :confused:

My Arch has been running for 2.5 boring years of near daily use and I've not had a single problem, its the equivalent of windows + office + a couple of mature audio related programs + 1 game (which should be run in Windows) so you wouud hope it would work.

Have you had problems on the laptop?  What is work?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 11 April 2021, 02:39:00
I'm running Arch on a laptop at home, but have though of switching to Arch on my work desktop as well,
because I'm getting tired of installing from source (plus bloat).
The only reason why I'm hesitating is that I need stuff to work nearly 100% of the time for efficiency. How
is the probability of messing up dependencies etc on Arch if you use it as a main system? Any thoughts?
Arch makes it easy to install TONS of things, much more than Debian, and dependencies are much less of an issue, I hated that on Mint. On occasion the AUR will bork an install because of a dependency or soemone forgetting to flag something in the kernel but once installed it's usually fine from then on, it's that first install that's kind of iffy once in a while. Still less hassle than dealing with Debian and Ubuntu repos and such, I don't miss that at all. I probably run into this more than most as I experiment a lot.

That said Debian is way more reliable.
Don't get me wrong, Arch is at least as stable as Windows 7 or 10 and is easier and faster to fix (downgrade and timeshift are lifesavers), I'm usually back up in a minute or two and happens about once a year but that's still not as good Debian, but I mean, how good is good enough?

I'm with S.O. though, what bloat? Debian should be lean and mean.

If it's mission critical, stick to Debian or switch to RHEL or RHEL derivative. If you's your personal desktop go with Arch/Arco/Manjaro/Endeavour.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: econeuler on Sun, 11 April 2021, 10:44:20
I'm running Arch on a laptop at home, but have though of switching to Arch on my work desktop as well,
because I'm getting tired of installing from source (plus bloat).
The only reason why I'm hesitating is that I need stuff to work nearly 100% of the time for efficiency. How
is the probability of messing up dependencies etc on Arch if you use it as a main system? Any thoughts?
Arch makes it easy to install TONS of things, much more than Debian, and dependencies are much less of an issue, I hated that on Mint. On occasion the AUR will bork an install because of a dependency or soemone forgetting to flag something in the kernel but once installed it's usually fine from then on, it's that first install that's kind of iffy once in a while. Still less hassle than dealing with Debian and Ubuntu repos and such, I don't miss that at all. I probably run into this more than most as I experiment a lot.

That said Debian is way more reliable.
Don't get me wrong, Arch is at least as stable as Windows 7 or 10 and is easier and faster to fix (downgrade and timeshift are lifesavers), I'm usually back up in a minute or two and happens about once a year but that's still not as good Debian, but I mean, how good is good enough?

I'm with S.O. though, what bloat? Debian should be lean and mean.

If it's mission critical, stick to Debian or switch to RHEL or RHEL derivative. If you's your personal desktop go with Arch/Arco/Manjaro/Endeavour.

I see, yeah this has been my impression as well. Do you continuously back up your computer then, so you always can roll back if you mess something up?

I'm running Arch on a laptop at home, but have though of switching to Arch on my work desktop as well,
because I'm getting tired of installing from source (plus bloat).
The only reason why I'm hesitating is that I need stuff to work nearly 100% of the time for efficiency. How
is the probability of messing up dependencies etc on Arch if you use it as a main system? Any thoughts?
Moving away from Debian because of compiling from source and bloat? :confused:

My Arch has been running for 2.5 boring years of near daily use and I've not had a single problem, its the equivalent of windows + office + a couple of mature audio related programs + 1 game (which should be run in Windows) so you wouud hope it would work.

Have you had problems on the laptop?  What is work?

What I mean is that at some point it gets annoying to install new software by cloning git repos etc, instead of just be able to use the package manager, from my understanding the packages available with pacman is pretty much up to date? And with bloat I mean that there are programs on my system that I don't use :) feels cleaner to install only what you need.
What would you say are the main reasons for people switch to Arch, from, e.g., Debian?
Work is some software development and academic stuff (grad student).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 11 April 2021, 11:08:03
What would you say are the main reasons for people switch to Arch, from, e.g., Debian?
Work is some software development and academic stuff (grad student).
I started with Slackware, then used Gentoo for years while at uni before losing my love of computers having failed to get a job in the field, then I was forced to get a new motherboard with UEFI bios and couldn't be bothered to learn how to make it boot.  That forced me to try various flavours of Mint and OpenSuse but coming from command line updating the 'helpful' GUIs irritated me and whenever I had a problem it was back to the command line to find that (after re-learning the commands) there were more updates available without updating the repositories which annoyed me further.  Arch kept being mentioned in this thread so thought I'd give it a go.

I guess most people would go from Windows to a friendly GUI distro, what their thinking process might be for going further so anything pre-packaged isn't available I have no idea - when put like that it sounds stupid.  If you want really lean Gentoo's use flags are (were?  As above I'm out of touch...) the best way of only having exactly what you need.

Software devel means a text editor and compiler?  You're unlikely to break that and if you do it can be done on a live CD/USB.  Or put /home on a separate partition and most of your program config will stick across multiple distros anyway so if you have a bit of space dual booting Debian/Arch while testing is a perfectly viable option, and you can chroot in from Debian to run updates while being productive in another window.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: econeuler on Sun, 11 April 2021, 11:57:11
What would you say are the main reasons for people switch to Arch, from, e.g., Debian?
Work is some software development and academic stuff (grad student).
I started with Slackware, then used Gentoo for years while at uni before losing my love of computers having failed to get a job in the field, then I was forced to get a new motherboard with UEFI bios and couldn't be bothered to learn how to make it boot.  That forced me to try various flavours of Mint and OpenSuse but coming from command line updating the 'helpful' GUIs irritated me and whenever I had a problem it was back to the command line to find that (after re-learning the commands) there were more updates available without updating the repositories which annoyed me further.  Arch kept being mentioned in this thread so thought I'd give it a go.

I guess most people would go from Windows to a friendly GUI distro, what their thinking process might be for going further so anything pre-packaged isn't available I have no idea - when put like that it sounds stupid.  If you want really lean Gentoo's use flags are (were?  As above I'm out of touch...) the best way of only having exactly what you need.

Software devel means a text editor and compiler?  You're unlikely to break that and if you do it can be done on a live CD/USB.  Or put /home on a separate partition and most of your program config will stick across multiple distros anyway so if you have a bit of space dual booting Debian/Arch while testing is a perfectly viable option, and you can chroot in from Debian to run updates while being productive in another window.

Yeah that's probably a good idea, I've tried it out on my laptop and vm, but I guess dual boot is another option to get comfortable with it! Thanks for the reassurance, I my only worry has been if something messes up when updating and I need to roll back and it takes time off work etc..
Yes exactly, and that's why it feels unnecessary to have a lot installed, especially stuff I don't use. I use it sort of minimalistic, with a WM, some terminal programs, and vim.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 11 April 2021, 18:10:14
Do you continuously back up your computer then, so you always can roll back if you mess something up?
I use Timeshift but also add script called timeshift-autosnap (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/timeshift-autosnap/) which automatically triggers a timeshift backup every time I run an update or install something, it may also run on uninstall (I forget). When used to restore (rollback) it sometimes takes an extra reboot and it seems like it has a permissions glitch for a day afterwards but it clears up on it's own you just can't really update for a few hours.

That only works for the OS though and does nothing for my personal data. I keep most of my stuff on my file server and I use Kbackup to backup my home folder to the file server. I use it manually because it can eat up a LOT of space with backups but it too can be completely automated.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: econeuler on Mon, 12 April 2021, 05:28:21
Do you continuously back up your computer then, so you always can roll back if you mess something up?
I use Timeshift but also add script called timeshift-autosnap (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/timeshift-autosnap/) which automatically triggers a timeshift backup every time I run an update or install something, it may also run on uninstall (I forget). When used to restore (rollback) it sometimes takes an extra reboot and it seems like it has a permissions glitch for a day afterwards but it clears up on it's own you just can't really update for a few hours.

That only works for the OS though and does nothing for my personal data. I keep most of my stuff on my file server and I use Kbackup to backup my home folder to the file server. I use it manually because it can eat up a LOT of space with backups but it too can be completely automated.

I see, thank you! I'll look into Timeshift seems like that is what I'd want if I were to switch to Arch!
Yeah that's nice, I have a script using rsync for backup of /home on a couple of raided disks which works quite nicely, having it running as a cron job.
Is your file server local?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 12 April 2021, 16:07:57
I see, thank you! I'll look into Timeshift seems like that is what I'd want if I were to switch to Arch!
Yeah that's nice, I have a script using rsync for backup of /home on a couple of raided disks which works quite nicely, having it running as a cron job.
Is your file server local?
You're welcome.

Yes, it's local, it's just an old desktop with a laptop drive for the OS and a large drive for storage.
Mine uses a 2nd gen I5 with a power brick and dc-dc power supply, total power from the wall rarely breaks 20 watts but only because I never spin down the drives.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: econeuler on Tue, 13 April 2021, 01:22:54
I see, thank you! I'll look into Timeshift seems like that is what I'd want if I were to switch to Arch!
Yeah that's nice, I have a script using rsync for backup of /home on a couple of raided disks which works quite nicely, having it running as a cron job.
Is your file server local?
You're welcome.

Yes, it's local, it's just an old desktop with a laptop drive for the OS and a large drive for storage.
Mine uses a 2nd gen I5 with a power brick and dc-dc power supply, total power from the wall rarely breaks 20 watts but only because I never spin down the drives.

Nice though, I have 2 raid1 hhds in my desktop that spin up for backup and then spin down afterwards. But I've been thinking of tinkering a better solution, e.g., building a NAS, but I don't have a permanent home/apartment atm so maybe that is required first:p
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: foxieze on Thu, 22 April 2021, 06:11:54
Favourite distro I've used has been Kubuntu, which is just Ubuntu but uses the KDE desktop environment. Have also used Kali linux in the past but didn't love it. At home I primarily use Windows, as I play a lot of video games with friends.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Thu, 22 April 2021, 06:16:45
just installed OpenSuse on my new gaming PC, if you plan on using discord, forget it, it just fails to open, and if you plan on using steam in small picture mode, same, your game library will not display (works perfectly fine in big picture mode though), but otherwise i have not found a game that would not work yet so rather happy so far :)
(for context my previous PC was Debian 10.7, both steam and discord works flawlessly on it)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: foxieze on Fri, 23 April 2021, 04:46:32
just installed OpenSuse on my new gaming PC, if you plan on using discord, forget it, it just fails to open, and if you plan on using steam in small picture mode, same, your game library will not display (works perfectly fine in big picture mode though), but otherwise i have not found a game that would not work yet so rather happy so far :)
(for context my previous PC was Debian 10.7, both steam and discord works flawlessly on it)

can vouch for discord being crap on linux - in my experience it has managed to open but it has crashed incredibly frequently (to the point where it was unusable). hopefully they can sort this at some point, however small the linux userbase may be.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Fri, 23 April 2021, 04:52:05
can vouch for discord being crap on linux - in my experience it has managed to open but it has crashed incredibly frequently (to the point where it was unusable). hopefully they can sort this at some point, however small the linux userbase may be.
apart from the updates not going through the package manager i had no problem with it on Debian, although i ended up making a small script that grabs latest canary version and it never crashes, sometimes steam does when i run low on ram but never Discord
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: foxieze on Fri, 23 April 2021, 05:05:10
can vouch for discord being crap on linux - in my experience it has managed to open but it has crashed incredibly frequently (to the point where it was unusable). hopefully they can sort this at some point, however small the linux userbase may be.
apart from the updates not going through the package manager i had no problem with it on Debian, although i ended up making a small script that grabs latest canary version and it never crashes, sometimes steam does when i run low on ram but never Discord

what desktop environment were you using - i think i remember debian having multiple choices during installation. maybe that has something to do with the crashing?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: blondie on Fri, 23 April 2021, 18:27:17
I use Arch.

My first distro was RedHat, before they had an Enterprise version in the late '90s. After getting hacked because I just installed every single package, and WU-FTP I think it was had a major vulnerability, I switched to Linux From Scratch. Talk about distro whiplash. After a few long, educational, tedious installs, I found Gentoo. It's like LFS, but with scripts to do all of the compiles for you.

After several long, less educational, and less tedious installs of Gentoo, I found Arch. It's like Gentoo, but with most of the packages already compiled for you.

I don't know if these statements are accurate, but that's how I've viewed the distros I have used so far.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: sneakyfox on Sat, 24 April 2021, 04:00:10
I'm using Linux Mint, and I love it. Very easy to use and maintain, works fine pretty much out of the box.

I used debian for a while a decade or so ago, but then went back to windows. Don't really remember why, but I think it was about knowing all the apps I needed on windows and picking the devil that I new. (of course debian is not a devil at all, but it can appear to be until one has worked it out)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: danwomansan on Sun, 25 April 2021, 22:30:12
using gentoo again. as I've gotten more experienced with system setup I've found myself liking it more; it lets me control things i want to be in specific ways, but with automation. it feels to me like how something like manjaro feels to someone who isn't as much of a cranky tryhard nerd.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 26 April 2021, 01:12:00
apart from the updates not going through the package manager i had no problem with it on Debian, although i ended up making a small script that grabs latest canary version and it never crashes, sometimes steam does when i run low on ram but never Discord

what desktop environment were you using - i think i remember debian having multiple choices during installation. maybe that has something to do with the crashing?
i use KDE on all PC capable of running it (more than 2GB of ram and at maximum a 15 years old dual core, anything older will struggle and so goes to IceWM) and yeah Debian let you choose between Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, LXQT and KDE if i remember right from the installs i see it is more common to use gnome or xfce. pretty much all major distros will give you the choice either at install (Debian, Suse) or before (Ubuntu)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: foxieze on Mon, 26 April 2021, 02:38:58
apart from the updates not going through the package manager i had no problem with it on Debian, although i ended up making a small script that grabs latest canary version and it never crashes, sometimes steam does when i run low on ram but never Discord

what desktop environment were you using - i think i remember debian having multiple choices during installation. maybe that has something to do with the crashing?
i use KDE on all PC capable of running it (more than 2GB of ram and at maximum a 15 years old dual core, anything older will struggle and so goes to IceWM) and yeah Debian let you choose between Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, LXQT and KDE if i remember right from the installs i see it is more common to use gnome or xfce. pretty much all major distros will give you the choice either at install (Debian, Suse) or before (Ubuntu)

huh. when i tried running discord on my kubuntu machine (ubuntu but with KDE) it would continuously crash. maybe i'll try again. did you say you were using canary?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 26 April 2021, 02:53:30
huh. when i tried running discord on my kubuntu machine (ubuntu but with KDE) it would continuously crash. maybe i'll try again. did you say you were using canary?
yeah when i made the script i did not really pay close attention to what .deb i was getting and so got the "wrong" one in my copy paste, but then it may be part of the reason, or that Ubuntu is a bit more like OpenSuse and that chromium based apps tend to crash on it? (steam and discord both are chromium based, and both get the same series of crash when i start them on OpenSuse, steam deals with them better, and actually start, discord just completely fails)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: foxieze on Mon, 26 April 2021, 04:06:41
yeah when i made the script i did not really pay close attention to what .deb i was getting and so got the "wrong" one in my copy paste, but then it may be part of the reason, or that Ubuntu is a bit more like OpenSuse and that chromium based apps tend to crash on it? (steam and discord both are chromium based, and both get the same series of crash when i start them on OpenSuse, steam deals with them better, and actually start, discord just completely fails)

yeah that could be a good idea - i'll launch up a VM when i get home and test it out using a different distro other than anything based upon Ubuntu or openSuse
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 26 April 2021, 04:28:48
if you launch it from a console (emulator, not the actual TTY) it will give you a trace of the crashes in the console, could help you finding what fails, it could be a simple library incompatibility, on Suse it fails at even displaying its splashscreen window, just gives a white rectangle and crashes, from the sound of it it goes a lot further on Ubuntu, so maybe quite different failure modes, especially if steam works properly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 26 April 2021, 06:31:26
huh. when i tried running discord on my kubuntu machine (ubuntu but with KDE) it would continuously crash. maybe i'll try again. did you say you were using canary?
Discord is a horrible metric to judge, it's known to be terribly problematic.
Your problem there is with Discord, not Linux or Ubuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 26 April 2021, 08:20:55
huh. when i tried running discord on my kubuntu machine (ubuntu but with KDE) it would continuously crash. maybe i'll try again. did you say you were using canary?
Discord is a horrible metric to judge, it's known to be terribly problematic.
Your problem there is with Discord, not Linux or Ubuntu.
what we are trying to achieve is to try to understand what make it work on some distros and not others, it never was advertised as working on debian but seems to work better there than on ubuntu. i think we both know that the main problem is that discord is calling something wrong or something, but what is the interesting part.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: foxieze on Mon, 26 April 2021, 08:31:22
huh. when i tried running discord on my kubuntu machine (ubuntu but with KDE) it would continuously crash. maybe i'll try again. did you say you were using canary?
Discord is a horrible metric to judge, it's known to be terribly problematic.
Your problem there is with Discord, not Linux or Ubuntu.

i'm not saying that discord isn't absolute crap on linux - what i am saying is that there must be a reason for why discord is crashing, and why it seems to be working fine on a different machine using a different distro.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 26 April 2021, 19:31:00
Not every distro follows the exact same naming scheme and tree, it's gotten better, but there are still some differences. Another issue could be in the repositories, some are further behind than others.

Mint 18 - VLC 2.2.2 - Firefox 88.0
Mint 20 - VLC 3.0.12 - Firefox 88.0
Kubuntu - VLC 3.0.12 - Friefox 88.0+build2
Arch - VLC 3.0.12-5 - Firefox 88.0-1

And it only gets worse when you look at dependencies, naming conventions vary greatly and some have even changed names entirely, for example a recent change was many switching to a "lib" at the start rather than at the end or adding it where it was missing before. While a name change may break dependencies it may not, depending what called for that dependency, and while X may be compatible with y 2.0, that doesn't mean it works properly when combined with z 1.3 compared to how it works with z 1.2 or the other way around.

You may want to try the appimage before changing distros.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 26 April 2021, 19:59:20

Mint 18 - VLC 2.2.2
Mint 20 - VLC 3.0.12


Just out of curiosity and laziness, I have both my desktop and laptop set to dual-boot into Windows and Mint Cinnamon, but generally use Windows.

In your opinion, which recent release of Mint is most superior for the casual user? I keep my Linux directories lean and clean, and could upgrade with minimum drama (aka trauma).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: foxieze on Tue, 27 April 2021, 03:44:28
Not every distro follows the exact same naming scheme and tree, it's gotten better, but there are still some differences. Another issue could be in the repositories, some are further behind than others.

Mint 18 - VLC 2.2.2 - Firefox 88.0
Mint 20 - VLC 3.0.12 - Firefox 88.0
Kubuntu - VLC 3.0.12 - Friefox 88.0+build2
Arch - VLC 3.0.12-5 - Firefox 88.0-1

And it only gets worse when you look at dependencies, naming conventions vary greatly and some have even changed names entirely, for example a recent change was many switching to a "lib" at the start rather than at the end or adding it where it was missing before. While a name change may break dependencies it may not, depending what called for that dependency, and while X may be compatible with y 2.0, that doesn't mean it works properly when combined with z 1.3 compared to how it works with z 1.2 or the other way around.

You may want to try the appimage before changing distros.

i understand what you're saying there, and it is definitely worth a try, however, why would it be crashing at random points in time if it is a problem with dependencies. it loads up perfectly fine, and sometimes will work for a decent period of time (very rarely), but it almost always crashes at some point, even when i have not given any user input to change anything. is discord trying to do something in the background? if it is, why does it sometimes work for a good amount of time, and sometimes not ¯\_(ツ)_/
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 27 April 2021, 17:45:06
understand what you're saying there, and it is definitely worth a try, however, why would it be crashing at random points in time if it is a problem with dependencies. it loads up perfectly fine, and sometimes will work for a decent period of time (very rarely), but it almost always crashes at some point, even when i have not given any user input to change anything. is discord trying to do something in the background? if it is, why does it sometimes work for a good amount of time, and sometimes not ¯\_(ツ)_/
It may only be crashing when it makes a specific call to that resource/dependency or another program steals a specific resource/dependency it needs.

The Appimage is probably your safest and easiest thing to try but ultimately I'd point the finger at Discord.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 27 April 2021, 18:17:48
Just out of curiosity and laziness, I have both my desktop and laptop set to dual-boot into Windows and Mint Cinnamon, but generally use Windows.

In your opinion, which recent release of Mint is most superior for the casual user? I keep my Linux directories lean and clean, and could upgrade with minimum drama (aka trauma).
The most recent tends to always be the recommendation.
Mint is pretty consistent with user experience and interface, I didn't spend a lot of time in Mint 20 (just long enough to check that) but it all seemed the same. It's Mint (and Linux), nothing changes very quickly.

One thing I will recommend though is if/when you move more into Linux as your primary system is to get off Mint.
I love Mint, it's FANTASTIC for new Linux users but long term it's got a massive Achilles heel and that is updating to new versions. The upgrade from 16 to 17 was the last time it went remotely smooth for me on any system I've worked on and pretty much always required a re-install, I think it was 18-19 that even flubbed a fresh Virtualbox install upgrade I did as a test. I just don't get it, I know of no other distro that consistently screws this up, which is all the more unacceptable considering Mint is the distro of choice for people coming from Windows and that Linux makes it so darn easy to backup and move your data. Most people who left ended up on an Arch based distro which doesn't use distro version updates.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 27 April 2021, 19:18:26

pretty much always required a re-install,


For now, I don't keep anything of value in the core Mint ecosystem for long. Generally I have various internal and external hard drives where everything important goes, and so any new OS installation goes onto a new hard drive bought fresh for the project. These days hard drives are cheap enough that springing for a new one for the OS every 2-3 years seems like a no-brainer.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Wed, 28 April 2021, 00:39:49
i had the same experience with OpenSuse leap, keeping the /home in a separate partition helps a lot with not losing much though, and having switched to tumbleweed that problem is pretty much existent (rolling release, should never need to upgrade but i get huge updates everyday)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Altis on Fri, 30 April 2021, 16:28:57
I'm still on Mint Xfce for most of what I do and it's by far the best distro and one of the best operating systems I've ever used. It's super fast, stable, and seems to just work with my hardware and software.

I still do use Windows 10 for certain software, though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 03 May 2021, 01:18:35
last update on Opensuse tumbleweed and steam made steam work fully :) i do not know for how long, but it does, right now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: rowdy on Fri, 28 May 2021, 20:37:49
We'd sort of standardised on CentOS (mostly for servers) at work and home, but since the debacle with CentOS 8 we've switched back to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is also more similar to Raspbian on my Raspberry Pis, so it's all good.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: BlueberryIsHere on Fri, 04 June 2021, 07:38:34
I use Arch  :cool:. No particular reason other than the fairly minimal install (which immediately dies once I'm through with it)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: kizuna on Fri, 04 June 2021, 20:39:00
I use Arch with gnome on my thinkpad and MX linux on my desktop Xfce. After alot of distro hopping I do like MX linux the best.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 21 June 2021, 07:49:41
do anyone ever tried to run an LTO drive on linux? i have trouble with MT, when i try to get the status of it i get activity on the wrong port on my HBA (HBA being an HP P800 and the LTO drive an HP Ultrium 448 on port 3 drive 0, i get activity on port 4 that has nothing plugged).
wondering if someone here tried and managed to make something like that work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Fri, 09 July 2021, 04:17:59
Switched out Windows on my main PC for Pop!_OS - damn that is awesome.
The only game I play at the moment is WoW and it runs fantastic.
Other than that the OS doesn't get in the way at all. Just works.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Fri, 09 July 2021, 22:26:55
Any recommendations for a user-friendly rolling release distro? Is Manjaro a good way to go? I don't have any major requirements other than having basic development tools available in repositories, but don't want to spend a bunch of time vetting software updates for compatibility with my system. If it matters, I don't need bleeding-edge hardware support, the hardware I'm considering is about 5 years old.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 10 July 2021, 05:47:30
Any recommendations for a user-friendly rolling release distro? Is Manjaro a good way to go? I don't have any major requirements other than having basic development tools available in repositories, but don't want to spend a bunch of time vetting software updates for compatibility with my system. If it matters, I don't need bleeding-edge hardware support, the hardware I'm considering is about 5 years old.
Depends on your skill level and how much definition you want for the software.


Manjaro is good, it fights me a bit here and there but many absolutely love it and it has a big community and buffers you from the latest bugs similar to other major distros.
Endeavour is another good one, though it's still a bit new, it takes over from Antergos, which was an absolute favorite of mine. While stable it's a bit more bleeding edge than Manjaro but only by the smallest of margins.

Arco is another good one, I personally prefer it since I can use the Type D version to install kernel, wireless and networking and install everything by hand from there, meaning it's absolutely stripped to the bone other than enough to get going but they offer standard installs as well. Arco is about as close to pure Arch as you will get without going pure Arch, meaning it's a bit more bleeding edge than the other two but I like not having anything extra but without the hassles of pure Arch.

If you're experienced any of the 3 will work, if you're still new to Linux, go with Majaro, it's by far the most noob friendly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Surefoot on Sat, 10 July 2021, 06:16:49
Or just go Ubuntu, it works. Everything is fine out of the box and stays that way.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 10 July 2021, 07:06:23
Or just go Ubuntu, it works. Everything is fine out of the box and stays that way.
Did they make it rolling release then or is it still number and associated alliterative animal?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: MajorKoos on Sat, 10 July 2021, 09:17:23
Or just go Ubuntu, it works. Everything is fine out of the box and stays that way.
Did they make it rolling release then or is it still number and associated alliterative animal?

Hirsute Hippo...
They're still doing the 3 year LTS, 9 month standard support thing.

I can't remember the last time I ran across someone running Linux on their desktop at work.
Finding a decent laptop that ships with Linux and a warranty is hard, so people usually opt for a Mac.
Server side I usually see Ubuntu, CentOS and CoreOS.  And lots and lots of containers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: nuudul on Sat, 10 July 2021, 10:31:35
I use funtoo, and it was my first linux distro. I'm planning on trying arch some time soon on one of my spare computers though.

Funtoo? First distro?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 10 July 2021, 11:54:56
Or just go Ubuntu, it works. Everything is fine out of the box and stays that way.

I've been using Linux Mint for the past 5ish years, and have no major complaints. I have nothing against it, just looking to try out something a bit different.

Any recommendations for a user-friendly rolling release distro? Is Manjaro a good way to go? I don't have any major requirements other than having basic development tools available in repositories, but don't want to spend a bunch of time vetting software updates for compatibility with my system. If it matters, I don't need bleeding-edge hardware support, the hardware I'm considering is about 5 years old.
Depends on your skill level and how much definition you want for the software.


Manjaro is good, it fights me a bit here and there but many absolutely love it and it has a big community and buffers you from the latest bugs similar to other major distros.
Endeavour is another good one, though it's still a bit new, it takes over from Antergos, which was an absolute favorite of mine. While stable it's a bit more bleeding edge than Manjaro but only by the smallest of margins.

Arco is another good one, I personally prefer it since I can use the Type D version to install kernel, wireless and networking and install everything by hand from there, meaning it's absolutely stripped to the bone other than enough to get going but they offer standard installs as well. Arco is about as close to pure Arch as you will get without going pure Arch, meaning it's a bit more bleeding edge than the other two but I like not having anything extra but without the hassles of pure Arch.

If you're experienced any of the 3 will work, if you're still new to Linux, go with Majaro, it's by far the most noob friendly.

I like the sound of Manjaro having a bit of a buffer, so will likely give that one a try. What you describe with Arco Type D sounds like what I did with a Debian netinstall about 6 years ago. That was fun, but more work than I'd like to do again at this point.

I hope I've got enough experience with linux to make the transition not too difficult. It's been a lot of years since I used a non-Debian-based distro, so I'm interested in seeing what the other side looks like.

I can't remember the last time I ran across someone running Linux on their desktop at work.
Finding a decent laptop that ships with Linux and a warranty is hard, so people usually opt for a Mac.
Server side I usually see Ubuntu, CentOS and CoreOS.  And lots and lots of containers.

Dell used to sell (and still might) a version of their XPS 13 with Ubuntu and full warranty/support -- I think they called it the 'Developer Edition'. In my experience, their support was very accommodating about using other distributions on that hardware as well, but for major issues they would typically want you to revert back to their Ubuntu image for troubleshooting.

Linux is probably more common in my environment than a typical office though. I do still see a lot of macs used for remote access to CentOS servers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 10 July 2021, 22:35:04
I like the sound of Manjaro having a bit of a buffer, so will likely give that one a try. What you describe with Arco Type D sounds like what I did with a Debian netinstall about 6 years ago. That was fun, but more work than I'd like to do again at this point.

I hope I've got enough experience with linux to make the transition not too difficult. It's been a lot of years since I used a non-Debian-based distro, so I'm interested in seeing what the other side looks like.
Arco D takes planning, same as Arch or Debian or Slack or.... Arco D just removes the hassle of the initial install, similar to Ubuntu Server. I pretty much can guarantee I can backup, reinstall, and have all my data back in place other than games in less time than most users or even most distros can really even get started putting everything back. While it sounds daunting to have to install all your programs, if you keep notes, it's really just a simple command.

Here's my install process
Install Arco D with zero extras.
update
. . . (you literally type update on Arco)
sudo pacman -S sddm plasma-meta libreoffice-fresh dolphin-plugins ark
. . . (installs desktop manager, kde, libreoffice, file manager and de/compression program, this can be split up to simplify it but there's a reason it's so much to do manually)
sudo systemctl enable sddm
. . . (enables desktop manager)
reboot
. . . (type reboot)

Once inside I restore my data (this is why I needed dolphin and ark), open my cheat sheet (this is why I install libreoffice-fresh) and copy this one large command that installs all my apps at once. This is not technically everything, I install a few things from the AUR later but you get the idea.
sudo pacman -S gparted thunderbird filezilla openscad gimp gthumb gnome-disk-utility traceroute gdmap okular pavucontrol spectacle htop nano firefox i7z glances kbackup keepass cura qbittorrent prusa-slicer galculator kate gedit vlc gnome-keyring kwalletmanager uget audacious freecad vinagre cura falkon

Enable bluetooth (disabled by default)
sudo systemctl enable bluetooth
sudo systemctl start bluetooth


Total time about 15-20 minutes if I hurry, but I can be back and running for the most part in 10 minutes.
From this I tweak the look, install video drivers if needed, Steam, start my games installing, all this takes another 10 minutes but it takes a while for the games to download. BUT... This whole thing only works if you keep a USB installer handy, easy to access backups, have a cheat sheet/notes for your list of apps to install and aren't constantly having to go search for commands. If you take the time to build a cheat sheet and have a good backup system in place it can really streamline things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 11 July 2021, 03:33:15
Here's my install process
Your first set of installs before rebooting don't seem to handle networking (though maybe they do through dependencies) so why not install, reboot, login as root (nothing's running and it's your house so hopefully no security risk) and run a script from the command line to do everything?  Would only save seconds of interaction but you could be doing something else.  Though I guess you wouldn't be back in X(?) quite as quickly (you could switch to another terminal and start it) and it could go wrong early without you noticing so actually take longer...

Think I answered myself - it depends on your priorities, and as a user who's not reinstalled for nearly 3 years mine are probably very different to yours :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 11 July 2021, 21:38:42
Here's my install process
Your first set of installs before rebooting don't seem to handle networking (though maybe they do through dependencies) so why not install, reboot, login as root (nothing's running and it's your house so hopefully no security risk) and run a script from the command line to do everything?  Would only save seconds of interaction but you could be doing something else.  Though I guess you wouldn't be back in X(?) quite as quickly (you could switch to another terminal and start it) and it could go wrong early without you noticing so actually take longer...

Think I answered myself - it depends on your priorities, and as a user who's not reinstalled for nearly 3 years mine are probably very different to yours :)
The base install of Arco installs networking.
I have considered making a script to do it but by the time you get to that point it's just as easy to copy/paste.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 12 July 2021, 08:01:52
my new favorite distro is OpenSuse Tumbleweed, even though it is not great for gaming the not having to upgrade version every 1, 2 or 3 years is very attractive to me
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Sun, 15 August 2021, 02:53:30
Void linux.. super fast in itself, super fast package manager. It's the only rolling major release that didn't break anything for me in the last 3 years. Only once had to manually update some perms due to changes in sudo's behavior. Sooo it probably breaks this week then now I have said that..
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Mon, 16 August 2021, 11:20:50
Still Debian Linux...  Currently experiencing a little issue on my new Ryzen 3700X but it's very likely due to the proprietary NVidia drivers: when the screen goes in suspend/hibernate/off mode, then when I come back at the computer and move the mouse/type on the keyboard, the picture doesn't come back: it doesn't correctly detect the signal for the 3840x1600 mode of my 38" monitor.  This worked fine on my previous machine: Core i7 6700K with integrated GPU.


I found a workaround: I toggle to tty2 / console / text mode whatever you call it, then I toggle back to X.  Works fine.  So basically I already got used, when sitting back at the computer, to "unlock" it doing ctrl-alt-F2 / ctrl-alt-F1.  This way the monitor picks the signal fine.


I don't know what the root cause is but, anyway, I'll soon be replacing the GTX 2060 Super (selling it to a friend who wants it) with an AMD GPU and getting rid of the proprietary NVidia drivers so I take it the issue shall be gone soon anyway.


Now Debian 11 "Bullseye" is stable (since a few days?), but I'm still on Debian 10 "Buster".  No hurry.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Mon, 16 August 2021, 11:35:53
Install Arco D with zero extras.


My install process with Debian is to use the "netinst" installer (which I burn on a good old DVD or put on a USB key), then install a minimal system at first, not even an UI at first (I start with the text mode only, then I install Xorg / the Awesome WM).


Then I apt-get install everything as needed.  I always compile Emacs from source (btw down from 15 minutes to compile the "native-comp" of Emacs on a six years old (?) 6th gen Core i7-6700K to 4m45s on the Amd Ryzen 2 3700X, so one third of the time.  The "native-comp" branch is notoriously "heavy" to compile).  I install one app using it's "AppImage".  I install a few things like Rust using "curl" (not a big fan that but, hey...).  Then some thing I download the .deb, like ripgrep (guys, ripgrep is way, way, way faster than grep in most cases).


I'm using Linux (and Debian) since 20+ years so I've got no problem finding my way around ; )


And then Debian is so stable that I don't re-install often at all.  Typically only when buying a new machine.


I like to do that "manual" install: it keeps me in the loop!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 16 August 2021, 23:23:04
I like to do that "manual" install: it keeps me in the loop!
This is a big part of it for me as well.

If you install Windows or Linux once using an installer you really don't learn much from it, though most have no need or want.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 17 August 2021, 05:50:42
Currently experiencing a little issue on my new Ryzen 3700X but it's very likely due to the proprietary NVidia drivers

Are you sure it's that? I had similar issues (including whole random computer lock-ups), but that was due to the stability of early Ryzen and stepping states. There is a tool for that: ryzen-stabilizator. I run this at boot in a shells script:

Code: [Select]
sudo modprobe msr
sudo ryzen-stabilizator -disable-c6 -enable-psicworkaround -enable-boosting
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Tue, 17 August 2021, 06:54:04
I like to do that "manual" install: it keeps me in the loop!
This is a big part of it for me as well.

If you install Windows or Linux once using an installer you really don't learn much from it, though most have no need or want.
i did once install a linux manually, so i know it possible, but how do you install windows manually? the only 2 ways i know of is to use the windows installer or clone an install
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Tue, 17 August 2021, 07:35:44
Are you sure it's that? I had similar issues (including whole random computer lock-ups), but that was due to the stability of early Ryzen and stepping states. There is a tool for that: ryzen-stabilizator. I run this at boot in a shells script:

Code: [Select]
sudo modprobe msr
sudo ryzen-stabilizator -disable-c6 -enable-psicworkaround -enable-boosting
Not sure and haven't tested with another GPU yet.
But that's very interesting... I'll give it a try.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 17 August 2021, 21:57:20
I like to do that "manual" install: it keeps me in the loop!
This is a big part of it for me as well.

If you install Windows or Linux once using an installer you really don't learn much from it, though most have no need or want.
i did once install a linux manually, so i know it possible, but how do you install windows manually? the only 2 ways i know of is to use the windows installer or clone an install
I did not mean to imply installing Windows manually just that many people only do it once and move on or think setting up a new Dell is the same. It's an accomplishment doing it but in terms of learning things about your computer and keeping your skills fresh it actually ranks pretty low.

Most people would also be surprised what all you can do with a Windows installer.
Besides shrinking install media, pre-installing a serial, drivers, software or updates, you can put multiple versions on a single disk (not like Ventoy but in the actual Windows installer) and if you get really creative you can even swap out sub systems such as ACPI to get Windows running on things it shouldn't run on.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iaji on Sun, 29 August 2021, 09:02:14
i use arch. currently on the fourth year for this installation.
other distros that i've used:
- ubuntu: 2010 / 2011 (unity) on really weak laptop with sis video card.
- arch: 2011 on the same laptop
- arch: 2013 on desktop
- funtoo: 2014 on the same desktop
- arch again on the same desktop to this moment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ideus on Sun, 29 August 2021, 09:48:46
I used Pop-OS (based on Ubuntu) for a couple of months. I have to get back to Win-10 due to a few minor inconveniences to get my personal set of applications working. The main caveat, keyboard-wise, was how cumbersome is to get a custom definition of a keyboard layout up and working; on the other hand, there is the nice Ms-Keyboard-Layout-Creator in windows that is so easy to use and friendly that you can get the layout exactly as you need in minutes. It is a shame that Linux lacks this basic feature for customizing the experience. Another drawback was how cumbersome is to get R and RStudio working, also, the R packages take a lot longer than in windows to get installed. Another shame-shame-on Linux, that an open statistical programming environment may run better on Windows than in Linux. The last and final, but not minor, inconvenience is how slow the pc gets when using Zoom for teaching. In summary, I cannot do my job easier in Linux, but much more difficult, so there is no reason to run with the hassle.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: dankthropod on Tue, 22 February 2022, 02:42:38
My first distro was linux mint, although I am currently using Arch with openbox for my daily driver, manjaro for my laptop, and fedora server for my home server, (which is also my passion-project server). I used fedora because I have a book about server administration that uses fedora, but I really like arch-based distros, so I'm not sure if I should choose another one.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Tue, 08 March 2022, 15:05:30
Commenting here again...  Still running Debian mostly everywhere but on my latest toy (AMD 3700X, nothing crazy fancy but it's the most recent computer I have) I'm running "Devuan" atm.  It's a Debian fork, where everything "systemd related" has been removed.  I have nothing against systemd but I'm not either a "pro systemd" fanatic (as in: I really don't care much about my init system as long as everything works).  Anyway so I've got several Debian installs and, so far, one Devuan install.  Seems to be working perfectly fine but YMMV.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: econeuler on Thu, 10 March 2022, 12:01:52
Commenting here again...  Still running Debian mostly everywhere but on my latest toy (AMD 3700X, nothing crazy fancy but it's the most recent computer I have) I'm running "Devuan" atm.  It's a Debian fork, where everything "systemd related" has been removed.  I have nothing against systemd but I'm not either a "pro systemd" fanatic (as in: I really don't care much about my init system as long as everything works).  Anyway so I've got several Debian installs and, so far, one Devuan install.  Seems to be working perfectly fine but YMMV.

What Kernal do you run? My server runs Debian 10 (LTS to 2024), but I had some problems with kernel 4.19. However, Debian 11 has LTS on kernel 5.10. I think I need >5.4 unfortunately. I will just upgrade to a later kernel now, but at some point I think I will change OS to something more cutting edge. Any thoughts?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Findecanor on Thu, 10 March 2022, 17:02:40
What Kernal do you run?
The only "Kernal"s I've seen, spelled with an 'a' were the ones in Commodore 's 8-bit machines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KERNAL) such as the Commodore 64. ;)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: cultofjosh on Fri, 11 March 2022, 00:49:37
Oh man, I've tried to switch to a linux desktop multiple times over the past 20 years but it never stuck. My most recent serious attempt to switch was to OpenSuse maybe about 3 years ago. I think I made it a couple of months. I've tried Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Chakra, Gentoo and probably several others as well.

I went through about 10 distros a few months ago, 5 or 6 different desktop environments. I finally settled in Budgie Ubuntu (not an official remix at this point.) I installed the numix circle icon pack and I absolutely loved it. I ended up going back to macos for now for some graphics programs I'm used to but I'm psyched I finally had a great time with a linux desktop.

Quote
I do, however, plan to try Qubes OS in the next month or two for an extended period of time. I will be virtualizing windows this time so I won't have to try to give up outlook and onenote. I am hoping that I'll have better luck this time since I'm not actually trying to give up all my favorite windows apps at the same time as well.

I never did get around to this. It never liked any machine I wanted to run it on. The machines where it installed for me had too little RAM and I gave up quickly.

Quote
When it comes to servers and command line, I absolutely love linux. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands :) I use Centos/RHEL here as I need the ultra long term stability. I'm fairly comfortable on an Ubuntu LTS server as well, but I don't really consider their LTS distro all that LTS. We're getting close to the next LTS release, but I just had to install an unbuntu server with the current LTS version, and it only has 3 years of bugfixes left. That kinda sucks for a "long term" OS that I just installed. This is why RHEL/Centos has a much longer support cycle. In addition, I can work with RPM spec files and can build/adjust my own RPMs most of the time without too much issue. This allows me to run my own small repository for my needs.

Not much changed here except I swapped out Centos for Rocky linux since Redhat retired Centos and only has Centos-Stream. I still use and love RHEL and Ubuntu LTS.

Quote
My firewalls are pfsense (freebsd), but I may switch to one of the vyatta forks at some point. I tried to use vyatta before pfsense, but found it more of a router OS and not super ideal for firewall use. But it's been years, and I really did love it. Managing it is similar to managing cisco or hp stuff.

I left pfsense for OPNSense. It surprises me that netgate lets their pfsense employees behave like they do, but it is what it is.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: econeuler on Fri, 11 March 2022, 01:17:57
What Kernal do you run?
The only "Kernal"s I've seen, spelled with an 'a' were the ones in Commodore 's 8-bit machines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KERNAL) such as the Commodore 64. ;)

I'm glad you found it amusing ^^
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Fri, 11 March 2022, 03:04:47
Code: [Select]
4.19.0-18-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.208-1 (2021-09-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux
Not Devuan, but another Debian spin-off without systemd (MX Linux).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Fri, 11 March 2022, 07:23:49
i started using proxmox recently, tried multiple competitor as i do not like that they expect you to pay for freely available software and community support (not support by them but access to a community forum) but to be fair the competition just does not see to work at all, or at least not on my very early 64 bits server... so i guess they have somewhat a point.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 12 March 2022, 03:14:45
i started using proxmox recently, tried multiple competitor as i do not like that they expect you to pay for freely available software and community support (not support by them but access to a community forum) but to be fair the competition just does not see to work at all, or at least not on my very early 64 bits server... so i guess they have somewhat a point.
What are you trying to set up?  All the software is the same regardless of the distro, maybe the config files move and how to start it on boot will change but that's it.  The beauty of Linux is that hardware is irrelevant, there is no "that was built for Windows 7 of course it doesn't work in 10" nonsense so your old server is not a problem - it's 64bit so good as new.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 12 March 2022, 06:19:59
i am trying to setup a homelab with a web server + game servers on the one physical server. i have a 2nd server but i want to play with VM so yeah only one is running :) the other one is 32 bits, and 64 bits can not be as good as new, ILO2 that is on it for example has become completely useless (uses Java applets), and the thing does not like usb stick larger than 4 GB (or maybe 8, only tried with 16 and 4, worked with 4 so i did not try further) i did try XCP-ng that installed but its management interface could start on this old hardware and 2 others that never managed to even boot. sadly hardware is not that irrelevant anymore with most distros dropping support for anything older than 5 to 10 years, the kernel itself i think only recently dropped compatibility for 386 but it is hard to find a 32 bits distro these days (32 bits is only the most visible example, i have not yet found a distro working on an old HP 8570p since OpenSuse 11.3 and it is a 64 bits system).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 12 March 2022, 07:25:02
Ok, didn't think you'd have proper server hardware with random management interfaces.  I have much to read to even know what you're talking about such has been my disenchantment with computers in the past 10 years but XCP-NG is Citrix so hoping it works with their rival HP sounds like a long shot.

What are you putting on the USB stick?  My first thought was it's a new stick formatted as exfat but I think you're better than that.  Maybe the 16gb is USB3 and the old server doesn't put out enough power?  It should be backwards compatible to USB2 but maybe the server has some USB1 ports and that's a step too far.

Many laptops rely on binary drivers will reach end of life when the manufacturer wants you to buy a new one, if you want one that lasts forever chose carefully.  Seems yours is a  business/security focussed so perhaps disabling some of that in bios will make it more friendly?  Hard to say without knowing what doesn't work.

Arch32 (https://archlinux32.org/) is still actively maintained if you really want to torture yourself with something that old :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 12 March 2022, 08:05:02
the USB thing both had been dd-ed with the same iso (at that time the proxmox iso) both are USB2 and work on my more modern PCs but yes it could be sightly out of spec device for power or something.
and for the old HP laptop the problem is the GCN1.1 gpu in it, i kinda gave up last year so maybe it finally is working but last i check GCN 1.1 was supported by neither AMDGPU-PRO, AMDGPU, Mesa or legacy drivers, making anything after linux 3 kernel (last kernel compatible with old proprietary AMD drivers) completely impossible to install with graphics. only other things that never worked in linux was the bluetooth and the fingerprint reader.
As far as i thought XCP-ng was the Linux Foundation (maintainers of Xen) response to Citrix's XenServer (just learnt it is now called Citrix Hypervisor) although i never knew that Citrix were selling hardware, and given that a while back HP documentation listed XenServer as a compatible OS so i do not think they were ever competitor.
and nice to know that at least one distro still can be ran on my old machines :) i had the bad idea to take the time to repair the board before reading on it and discovering it was 32bits only (Pentium 4 and will not boot a Pentium dual or core2duo) so now i want to use it :) although it will be my 1st time trying arch
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Mon, 14 March 2022, 11:52:51
dding an iso, nice.  I think that would start at a default sector and overwrite everything after, a bigger drive would have a bigger partition table which would get corrupted?  That could be completely wrong, it has been a long time since I played with dd or partition tables for that matter.

GCN 1.1 seems to be supported by AMDGPU since at least 2020 just broken by default with an alleged fix here (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMDGPU-GCN-1.0-Analog-Block), the parameters would need to be added to your grub (bootloader) config.  You could swap out the bluetooth module for a Linux friendly one if that's useful.

I'm on my fist time trying Arch too - it's been nearly 5 years without anything breaking which I still struggle to believe.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 14 March 2022, 16:05:38
the Bluetooth is compatible with later versions of the kernel :) but anyway the motherboard in that laptop is dead, i am at my 4th board and the last one i bought was password locked on arrival, so the seller managed to argue it was working even though it is pretty much a brick, so i got tired and found a 5euros dell around that time so abandoned it. i was giving it as an example for hardware that is too old to properly work on most distros.

in my experience only 2 things breaks stable linux distros, user failures (forcing debian 10 and 11 packages on debian 9 for example) and hardware failures (very bad bitrot for example, happened to me on an old laptop). so 5 years seems doable, i had a suse install that lasted in those times too (Suse 11.3 on an old pentium 4 system, my 1st linux pc) but i have had many install killing experiments making 2 years my best since i quit school.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 05 April 2022, 16:11:19
Starting to make Linux Mint to really work for me, but I have run into something that has been problematic for me in the past: shortcuts

I am an avid user of keyboard and desktop shortcuts, and they are my primary method of working and using the computer. I know that there must be a trick for this, but I am having trouble finding it. I use Firefox and remember that a shortcut needs to point to both Firefox and a URL, but I can't remember the way to ask the question to get the answer I want.

Thanks for your help, experts.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 05 April 2022, 16:24:02
Starting to make Linux Mint to really work for me, but I have run into something that has been problematic for me in the past: shortcuts

I am an avid user of keyboard and desktop shortcuts, and they are my primary method of working and using the computer. I know that there must be a trick for this, but I am having trouble finding it. I use Firefox and remember that a shortcut needs to point to both Firefox and a URL, but I can't remember the way to ask the question to get the answer I want.

Thanks for your help, experts.
Web shortcuts vary depending on D.E.
Simplest way on most is to drag the tab to the bookmarks toolbar, creating a bookmark, then drag the bookmark to the desktop.

That usually works.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 05 April 2022, 17:01:49

drag the tab to the bookmarks toolbar, creating a bookmark, then drag the bookmark to the desktop.


That put something on the desktop, but it didn't simply open when I clicked on it. I think that the question that I am trying to ask is how to point to Firefox as the program to open it.

For example, in Windows, I can use "control-alt-g" and it opens the Geekhack index page, whether or not Firefox is already open.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 05 April 2022, 22:13:45

drag the tab to the bookmarks toolbar, creating a bookmark, then drag the bookmark to the desktop.


That put something on the desktop, but it didn't simply open when I clicked on it. I think that the question that I am trying to ask is how to point to Firefox as the program to open it.

For example, in Windows, I can use "control-alt-g" and it opens the Geekhack index page, whether or not Firefox is already open.
The method I posted just worked in a vm for me but sounds like what you want is keyboard shortcut and I'm not good with those.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 06 April 2022, 08:24:27

what you want is keyboard shortcut and I'm not good with those.


Aarrgh!

Not what I was hoping to hear. I use keyboard shortcuts for Everything. Avoiding the mouse as much as possible is a big deal for me.

Window makes shortcuts SO easy, and merely adding a key combination to a desktop shortcut in "Properties" gives you a keyboard short too.

Here, in Cinnamon, I created a desktop shortcut to Writer but I can't find a way to turn on a keyboard shortcut, and although it looks like I created a keyboard shortcut to GH it doesn't actually work.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 06 April 2022, 10:37:29
Glad you found the box to put it in and clarified your Desktop Environment as the most fun thing about Linux is that nothing you see is Linux (Linux is the kernel which communicates with the hardware) so every desktop is different. :thumb:

The command you are looking for is something like "firefox www.geekhack.org" where firefox is your browser - it can be found in "Command:" like you showed for libreoffice but with a specific url rather than the %u.  If you want to open it in a new tab (assuming your browser is already running) you would add " --new-tab" in the middle or for a new window " --new-window" - not sure these will work if you use another browser, you can see all the options by running the program name followed by --help in the terminal (you can also do this in Windows to have more complicated shortcuts)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 06 April 2022, 12:12:03
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH !

I have spent 2 hours on Linux Mint forums looking for that very simple answer to what I thought would be a very simple question.  "firefox www.geekhack.org" worked perfectly with no need for -new-tab or any other such modifier.

Now if I can get the keyboard shortcut to work for programs like Writer I will be very pleased. When I go to Preferences>Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcuts>Custom Shortcuts it appears that I have created something but it doesn't actually work. In Windows, executable files usually end in .exe or .com but I have never learned how to discover what file in Linux actually opens a program like Writer, and/or how to force it to execute.

I really appreciate your help on this - and hope that others in my shoes will also benefit from it.

 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 06 April 2022, 14:18:20
I have never learned how to discover what file in Linux actually opens a program like Writer
Code: [Select]
libreoffice --writer
How to discover: click on whatever opens the equivalent of the start menu in your desktop environment, find Writer, right click on it. The context menu that would pop up should have an option like 'edit command' or 'command info' or similar. That option will show you the command line call like the one I shared above.

Now, I haven't used anything but XFCE in a few years, but the above is 95% guaranteed to work in any modern window environment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 06 April 2022, 14:30:19
No problem, simple questions are often the hardest to search for.  In Linux and similar whether a file is a program or not is controlled by the permissions, usually visible on a tab when you right click a file and choose properties (again, there are many different file managers so wording may vary)  The owner can do some things, people in the same group can do other things and everyone else can do something else (or nothing) where the options are read, write and/or execute.  If you have execute permissions on a file you can run it - though obviously if you mark your spreadsheet as executable it will error when you try.  If you want to get technical you can open a terminal and run "echo $PATH" which will show you anywhere a program could be to be called just by name, and if you have a command that works (like firefox or libreoffice) you can run "which [name]" and it will tell you where it is.

I'm not sure what the %U in your screenshot is for but as iri said "libreoffice --writer" should work.

I haven't used anything but XFCE in a few years, but the above is 95% guaranteed to work in any modern window environment.
Interestingly my XFCE doesn't let me right click on things in my menu, or rather when I do it treats it like a left click and opens it.  Hopefully it works in Cinnamon!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Wed, 06 April 2022, 17:33:53
Wait, I didn't see fohat's screenshots. He's got all the pieces of the puzzle now.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 06 April 2022, 18:13:35

fohat's screenshots. He's got all the pieces of the puzzle now.


Those screenshots - they were all dead at the time, none of them actually worked although they supposedly should have.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Mon, 11 April 2022, 18:26:57
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH !

I have spent 2 hours on Linux Mint forums looking for that very simple answer to what I thought would be a very simple question.  "firefox www.geekhack.org" worked perfectly with no need for -new-tab or any other such modifier.

Now if I can get the keyboard shortcut to work for programs like Writer I will be very pleased. When I go to Preferences>Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcuts>Custom Shortcuts it appears that I have created something but it doesn't actually work. In Windows, executable files usually end in .exe or .com but I have never learned how to discover what file in Linux actually opens a program like Writer, and/or how to force it to execute.

I really appreciate your help on this - and hope that others in my shoes will also benefit from it.

 

In an older version of Mint/Cinnamon, I think I recall using the command `lowriter` to open Writer. I'm away from my Mint machine right now, but can help troubleshoot next week when I'm back home, if you're still having trouble.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 11 April 2022, 18:55:23

using the command `lowriter` to open Writer.


Thanks, but I am only interested in keyboard shortcuts. I think that I have it mostly sorted out now.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Fri, 15 April 2022, 18:22:51
What Kernal do you run? My server runs Debian 10 (LTS to 2024), but I had some problems with kernel 4.19. However, Debian 11 has LTS on kernel 5.10. I think I need >5.4 unfortunately. I will just upgrade to a later kernel now, but at some point I think I will change OS to something more cutting edge. Any thoughts?

Good question: I only see your message now.  I should be "reunited" with my Devuan-running 3700X in a few days and I'll check which kernel it's running.  Now...  I certainly don't think Devuan is "cutting edge": for a start it's based on Debian and Debian is ultra-conservative.  Then Devuan tends to "lag" a bit compared to the Debian release.  Others will have ideas hopefully!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: s8erdude on Sun, 17 April 2022, 08:43:46
Ubuntu, RedHat at work
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 22 April 2022, 19:20:18
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 23 April 2022, 05:41:54
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)

Does this count as 'I use Arch BTW'?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 23 April 2022, 10:27:57
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)

Does this count as 'I use Arch BTW'?

Hey, I used the system to recover my Win10 key (https://xtrafrood.github.io/Windows_and_DOS/win_dos_vm/), and now I have Win10 running via VFIO with dual monitors.  Damn that wonderful Fusion 360 (https://i.imgur.com/RewazzA.gif)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 23 April 2022, 10:59:31
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)

Does this count as 'I use Arch BTW'?

Hey, I used the system to recover my Win10 key (https://xtrafrood.github.io/Windows_and_DOS/win_dos_vm/), and now I have Win10 running via VFIO with dual monitors.  Damn that wonderful Fusion 360
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/RewazzA.gif)

Booooy, do you have lots of stuff on your website.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 23 April 2022, 11:10:47
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)

Does this count as 'I use Arch BTW'?

Hey, I used the system to recover my Win10 key (https://xtrafrood.github.io/Windows_and_DOS/win_dos_vm/), and now I have Win10 running via VFIO with dual monitors.  Damn that wonderful Fusion 360
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/RewazzA.gif)

Booooy, do you have lots of stuff on your website.

It's a damn mess too.  My plot of website needs tending lol
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 23 April 2022, 11:47:41
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)

Does this count as 'I use Arch BTW'?

This applies to any Arch based distro.
[attach=1]


Most "Arch users" are not using Arch and it's just ridiculous elitism that turns off potential Linux converts.
All those complaints about Linux users being elitist jerks, most of that spawned from Arch users.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 23 April 2022, 12:04:43
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)

Does this count as 'I use Arch BTW'?

This applies to any Arch based distro.
(Attachment Link)


Most "Arch users" are not using Arch and it's just ridiculous elitism that turns off potential Linux converts.
All those complaints about Linux users being elitist jerks, most of that spawned from Arch users.

Also, it's a joke for fun.  You know.. for kicks.  I don't know what's worse, someone using "I use arch btw" to be elitest, or someone pointing out the fact that people do this.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 23 April 2022, 14:36:17
Show Image
(https://i.imgur.com/LYQSlCS.png)

Does this count as 'I use Arch BTW'?
Most "Arch users" are not using Arch and it's just ridiculous elitism that turns off potential Linux converts.
All those complaints about Linux users being elitist jerks, most of that spawned from Arch users.

Also, it's a joke for fun.  You know.. for kicks.  I don't know what's worse, someone using "I use arch btw" to be elitest, or someone pointing out the fact that people do this.
A joke told nearly 12 million times according to Google.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sat, 23 April 2022, 17:06:23
I used Arch btw (https://xtrafrood.github.io/Linux/Distros/arch/).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 23 April 2022, 18:03:02
I used Arch btw (https://xtrafrood.github.io/Linux/Distros/arch/).
all girls are yours
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 23 April 2022, 18:19:53
Most "Arch users" are not using Arch and it's just ridiculous elitism that turns off potential Linux converts.
All those complaints about Linux users being elitist jerks, most of that spawned from Arch users.
I never realised Arch was that old - 20 years ago I was using Slackware and the other big names were Debian, Red Hat and Suse, all the elitism I saw was Linux > Windows which was less true than it is today.  Having come to Arch after using most other distros at least briefly I wonder what anyone thinks is different enough to warrant elitism as aside from being newbie friendly (I read hardly anything and haven't managed to break it) I'm not seeing it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Darthbaggins on Sat, 23 April 2022, 22:33:49
Loaded Ubuntu Jellyfish (22.04) on an old Acer laptop (is running on DDR2) I had lying around, definitely breathed new life into it.  Runs alot better compared to the pig win10 was on it - plan on using it to get more comfortable with the distro and get reacquainted with it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 24 April 2022, 05:29:06
I never realised Arch was that old - 20 years ago I was using Slackware and the other big names were Debian, Red Hat and Suse
Mandrake!!!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 24 April 2022, 06:15:56
Oh yes, Mandrake - that was actually the first distro I installed.  Unfortunately I messed up the bootloader on the only computer in the house at the time attempting to setup a dual boot with Windows, neither would boot and had no way to ask for help.  Don't think I ever actually ran it before the name changed to Mandriva many years later :-[
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 24 April 2022, 13:00:23
Loaded Ubuntu Jellyfish (22.04) on an old Acer laptop (is running on DDR2) I had lying around, definitely breathed new life into it.  Runs alot better compared to the pig win10 was on it - plan on using it to get more comfortable with the distro and get reacquainted with it.

I just upgraded a two year old work partition on my laptop from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04.  I can barely tell the difference, and I love that!

And while Ubuntu is great, Ubuntu Mate may bring a bit more life to that DDR2 system.  I mean, that's not taking into account whether or not you prefer Gnome 3 over Mate.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 24 April 2022, 14:10:05
I wonder what anyone thinks is different enough to warrant elitism as aside from being newbie friendly

You have to *gasp* install it yourself from command line.

Seriously, that's really it, I guess they never heard of Gentoo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Darthbaggins on Sun, 24 April 2022, 14:19:25
Loaded Ubuntu Jellyfish (22.04) on an old Acer laptop (is running on DDR2) I had lying around, definitely breathed new life into it.  Runs alot better compared to the pig win10 was on it - plan on using it to get more comfortable with the distro and get reacquainted with it.

I just upgraded a two year old work partition on my laptop from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04.  I can barely tell the difference, and I love that!

And while Ubuntu is great, Ubuntu Mate may bring a bit more life to that DDR2 system.  I mean, that's not taking into account whether or not you prefer Gnome 3 over Mate.

I normally tend to run a Mate version of Debian distros (Ubuntu/Mint etc) since I prefer the looks and feel of the Mate addition to the OS - I haven't felt the need to swap it over as of yet, but more than likely I will.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 24 April 2022, 14:40:16
I wonder what anyone thinks is different enough to warrant elitism as aside from being newbie friendly
You have to *gasp* install it yourself from command line.

Seriously, that's really it, I guess they never heard of Gentoo.
I see.  Yes Gentoo was much more "fun" but it still has automatic dependencies - if you want to do it properly try Linux From Scratch (I never went that far but had a friend who got to Fluxbox before realising just how many things were needed for real apps)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Sun, 24 April 2022, 15:36:52
As seasoned Linux users, which distribution do you recommend for a Linux from scratch installation?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 24 April 2022, 16:28:01
if you want to do it properly try Linux From Scratch (I never went that far but had a friend who got to Fluxbox before realising just how many things were needed for real apps)

I looked into it at one point, nah, no thanks.

Arco (or Endeavour) for base install (No D.E.) and build up from there, fast and easy with zero bloat.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Sun, 24 April 2022, 19:02:18
What Kernal do you run? My server runs Debian 10 (LTS to 2024), but I had some problems with kernel 4.19. However, Debian 11 has LTS on kernel 5.10. I think I need >5.4 unfortunately. I will just upgrade to a later kernel now, but at some point I think I will change OS to something more cutting edge. Any thoughts?

Good question: I only see your message now.  I should be "reunited" with my Devuan-running 3700X in a few days and I'll check which kernel it's running.  Now...  I certainly don't think Devuan is "cutting edge": for a start it's based on Debian and Debian is ultra-conservative.  Then Devuan tends to "lag" a bit compared to the Debian release.  Others will have ideas hopefully!

I just checked and it's running 5.10.0-11-amd64 atm.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 29 April 2022, 10:44:46
I am retiring from Windows and moving to Mint/Cinnamon but I have a problem in Nemo.

My goal is to rename a cluster of files such as "image00051.jpg-image00061.jpg" to "Sunday-hike001.jpg-Sunday-hike010.jpg"

Linux forums tend to be obtuse and the "fixes" that are suggested often do not work (or cannot be invoked at all).

There must be an easy way to do this. Don't people do it all the time? I certainly do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Fri, 29 April 2022, 14:04:33
I am retiring from Windows and moving to Mint/Cinnamon but I have a problem in Nemo.

My goal is to rename a cluster of files such as "image00051.jpg-image00061.jpg" to "Sunday-hike001.jpg-Sunday-hike010.jpg"

Linux forums tend to be obtuse and the "fixes" that are suggested often do not work (or cannot be invoked at all).

There must be an easy way to do this. Don't people do it all the time? I certainly do.
to be fair i know it exists, but last 3 times i had to do that i either used a script because i had no X (it was over SSH on a pi) or at work on windows... and i really dislike both Nemo and Dolphin (not the GC emulator, but KDE's file manager), my favorite were EmelFM2 and now Krusader (both are Norton commander clones)

a quick google search and if you do not want to use CLI, Thunar (i think it is XFCE's default file manager) allows mass renaming, and is rather close to Win7 explorer (6th entry in https://www.makeuseof.com/batch-rename-files-in-linux/)(and i just tested on Debian 9 with KDE, it installed without issues, 4MB and does indeed include the bulk renaming utility).
one of the thing i do like about linux is that if you do not like a basic part of your OS you can change it whenever you want. (if you like old windows 9x style and do not fear text file config, IceWM allows for a very lightweight and very customizable desktop, 2nd favorite of mine, after KDE Plasma)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: xtrafrood on Fri, 29 April 2022, 14:52:17
The way I rename files is with the TUI based Ranger (https://ranger.github.io/) file manager.  Select files with spacebar or select everything in the directory with the v key, and then :rename.  I believe it loads up whatever variable is set for $EDITOR (for me that's Vim).  From there I rename all the files with :%s/oldname/newname/g.

I uh, just use what I know from my days of running everything out of 4GB of RAM.

According to professional photographer and Linux user Wendy of Linux Out Loud (https://tuxdigital.com/podcasts/linux-out-loud/lol-10/): Rapid Photo Downloader (https://damonlynch.net/rapid/) is a great GUI tool for renaming photos.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 29 April 2022, 18:01:08
I am retiring from Windows and moving to Mint/Cinnamon but I have a problem in Nemo.

My goal is to rename a cluster of files such as "image00051.jpg-image00061.jpg" to "Sunday-hike001.jpg-Sunday-hike010.jpg"
It's old but does this still work (https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=236118)?  I know Thunar still has the bulk renamer but I don't have Nemo to see if the config has changed.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 29 April 2022, 18:40:19
Tried some of these but they didn't work properly or at all. There must be something wrong - with me, with it, I don't know. Am I asking the wrong question?

I absolutely cannot believe that an operation so basic and fundamental is this obscure and convoluted. In Windows it is literally 2 mouse clicks then start typing the name you want. I do it multiple times every day.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 30 April 2022, 01:35:52
if you can do it in windows with 2 clicks i think i did not understand you, i do not think windows has any mass renaming tool integrated, does it? (i have not used windows in months now, and i only ever used it at work for years before that)
what you did was slow double click on the mane and change it?
like
image00051.jpg to Sunday-hike001.jpg
image00052.jpg to Sunday-hike002.jpg
...
image00061.jpg to Sunday-hike010.jpg
one by one
or had something to rename them all at once? (if so i did not know windows had that, and knowing so would have actually been very helpful in the past...)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 30 April 2022, 07:46:33
if you can do it in windows with 2 clicks i think i did not understand you, i do not think windows has any mass renaming tool integrated, does it? (i have not used windows in months now, and i only ever used it at work for years before that)
Same - except it's been years.  Did they actually put something useful and intuitive into Windows explorer when they removed all the useful stuff like control panel?

...

What exactly "didn't work" fohat?  I would hope Thunar installed so run that and select your files then right click and choose rename.  Then you choose "search and replace" in the dropdown and in your example type image and Sunday-Hike in the boxes and press rename.  When you next select rename it remembers what you last did so it would be right click, click, type click - I don't see how Windows could be any quicker.

If that works and is acceptable you just need to get that box to show up in Nemo, I'll install it if I have to.

Edit:  Nemo and dependencies was <10mb so I installed it and in Edit -> Preferences on the Behaviour tab (on the left not across the top) scroll down and the last item is custom command for bulk rename, which is "thunar -B" without the quotes.  Perhaps Thunar didn't install?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 30 April 2022, 07:55:36

do it in windows with 2 clicks


I was wrong, being careless and flip. It is actually about 4 clicks depending on how you count.

Let's say that I am in the directory "Downloads" looking at the recent photos. I can click on the first photo in the group from my hike, then hold Shift and click on the last one. The group is now selected and I can right-click on any one of the files and get a drop-down that includes "Rename"

When I start typing the files are primed to receive their new name "hike-photo", eg "hike-photo (1), hike-photo (2), etc"

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 30 April 2022, 08:03:53

to get that box to show up in Nemo


The box shows up in Nemo. When I select the group I can't get any choice that gives me an opportunity to type in new names. But only one at a time, and I have to type in the whole thing which is a problem on files with long and/or weird names.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 30 April 2022, 08:12:24
Oh I see - didn't notice the numbers were changed to start at 1.  Looks like this is how you want it to work, maybe with a different number format :thumb:

(https://imgur.com/tBEoEKN.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 30 April 2022, 09:11:46

do it in windows with 2 clicks


I was wrong, being careless and flip. It is actually about 4 clicks depending on how you count.

Let's say that I am in the directory "Downloads" looking at the recent photos. I can click on the first photo in the group from my hike, then hold Shift and click on the last one. The group is now selected and I can right-click on any one of the files and get a drop-down that includes "Rename"

When I start typing the files are primed to receive their new name "hike-photo", eg "hike-photo (1), hike-photo (2), etc"
well you learn something new everyday, i never thought windows allowed renaming like that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 30 April 2022, 09:12:14

Looks like this is how you wan


Yes! What is that? Thunar looks similar to that but all the choice boxes are different and the ones I need are like yours.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 30 April 2022, 09:37:31
It's Thunar - you're in "Insert / Overwrite" mode in the top dropdown, you want "Numbering" :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 30 April 2022, 11:08:42
OK great. That works the way I want.
It looks like it has to be done from within Thunar rather than Nemo, but that is not a problem.
Thank You Very Much !
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 30 April 2022, 11:14:17
No problem.  If you want to use Nemo (I think Nemo will open if you click on a folder on your desktop and that's harder to change...) this should work:
Under Edit -> Preferences in Nemo on the Behaviour tab (on the left not across the top) scroll down and the last item is custom command for bulk rename, which is "thunar -B" without the quotes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 30 April 2022, 11:56:39

Under Edit -> Preferences in Nemo on the Behaviour tab (on the left not across the top) scroll down and the last item is custom command for bulk rename, which is "thunar -B" without the quotes.


Even better.
Thanks, again

- why don't Mint forums give out such concise information?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 30 April 2022, 12:13:54
- why don't Mint forums give out such concise information?
a mix of not being suicidal_orange, overestimating the user's capabilities and gatekeeping, at least this is my guess :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 30 April 2022, 12:56:57

i never thought windows allowed renaming like that.


Right-clicking to get to "Rename" works the same with any selection set, regardless of whether it is one or many. If it is singular, there is no number (eg (1),(2) ,,,, ) suffix.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 30 April 2022, 16:01:06
why don't Mint forums give out such concise information?
I think the problem is multi layered.  First many of those who know Linux probably use it and are not aware how the Windows renamer works in the latest version to know what you're trying to emulate (I'm 100% sure this didn't work in XP...) and of those who are aware (as well as those who aren't) many are not native English speakers so there is always going to be some misunderstanding there.  Then you have a very specific scenario which you are searching for an answer to while the real answer of to how to add a custom command is more vague - you need the same answer as someone looking to rename their music collection based on the tags, though in that case the recommended command is probably going to be easytag.  What are the chances you'd find that thread?  Also every newbie thinks that whatever distribution they're running is really important but once you're in a graphical interface it really isn't - your question is about Nemo, a file manager, and the way to add the command is exactly the same in your Mint install as my Arch one so you'd may as well search on your search engine of choice as the Mint forum then maybe you find someone using another distro trying to renaming their pictures and you find exact answer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sat, 30 April 2022, 17:27:46
every newbie thinks that whatever distribution they're running is really important but once you're in a graphical interface it really isn't
Once you're in TUI, it matters even less.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 30 April 2022, 17:40:07

I'm 100% sure this didn't work in XP

how to add a custom command


I am very surprised to hear that this is not how I have been doing it for as long as I have used Windows, that is since 98, but I do not doubt you. At any rate I have been doing it as described regularly for many many years.

The other thing that surprises me is that this is a "custom command" ....

It seems like it is part of the most basic level of file management, along with - OPEN SELECT SAVE CUT COPY DELETE - RENAME

You can select a group of files to copy or delete, why not rename?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sun, 01 May 2022, 02:30:02
You can select a group of files to copy or delete, why not rename?
i may play devils advocate, but i never knew it worked that way in windows because i do not expect renaming to work on multiple files, to me changing what identify a file is inherently an action that act on that one file, so i never thought of selecting 10 files and try to rename them.
on krusader if you do select multiple files and press rename it only renames the last file you selected, which is more along the lines of what i expected to happen, well i expected nothing to happen at all tbh.
And i did not know it would do that even after searching for mass renaming on windows and ending up creating a VBA macro to do it (well it the end it needed to do more than mass renaming, also it needed to find clues about the name it should use in the files, but that was not in the project at the start).
Another explanation comes from the Unix philosophy, a program should do one thing and do it well, there are already a few linux programs that do mass renaming very well, why then take the risk of making it worse by adding it to your program instead of using those? (yeah integration and user experience, but that was not talked about when unix was created :))

also if you want to have a little insight, renaming is not that basic, you do not have rename in CLI or in most computer languages, it is either move, or even copy and delete depending on the level. the real basics are open, write and delete.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 01 May 2022, 04:13:57
I'm 100% sure this didn't work in XP
I am very surprised to hear that this is not how I have been doing it for as long as I have used Windows, that is since 98, but I do not doubt you. At any rate I have been doing it as described regularly for many many years.
i never knew it worked that way in windows because i do not expect renaming to work on multiple files, to me changing what identify a file is inherently an action that act on that one file, so i never thought of selecting 10 files and try to rename them.

I'm now thinking fohat may well be right and like yui I didn't expect it to work so never tried.  If I want to rename a group of files I wouldn't want them all to have a predefined suffix, especially one containing special characters (was more important in Win98/DOS)  Most of my mass renaming through the years is of music files, either using tags or adding/removing spaces or making capitalisation consistent so the built in Windows function is useless to me.

The joy of living - people think differently and do different things.  A well paid programmer at Microsoft assumes they know best and codes one set action while (probably) an unpaid student writes a really flexible renamer that can do many things.  Fohat doesn't want Thunar so wouldn't it have been better if the renamer was standalone, in the old Unix way?  To me it would.

Once you're in TUI, it matters even less.
TUI = Text User Interface?  If I'm in text mode either I'm still installing things to get to graphical so I don't want to translate every apt-get command to RPM while hoping the package has the same name when reading a guide, or I'm on a server in which case I'm more interested in finding config and log files for services and configuring what starts at boot which are (or at least used to be when I last messed with stuff) less standardised.

If you're happily using text mode on a daily basis then I agree - it's whatever program you're using that you need to know about, not what it's running under :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 01 May 2022, 07:50:45
Fohat doesn't want Thunar

Oh no, not true. Now that I know it exists and see its possibilities I will enjoy using it.
The opposite of what you guys said, I never thought that it would require a "custom command" so I did not know to look for it.
And yes, getting song names the way you want them is the most fussy and convoluted renaming.

the Unix philosophy, a program should do one thing and do it well

I like that thinking very much, but am accustomed to Windows with all of its barnacles.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 05 May 2022, 10:09:47
Back again with a question that makes me look like an idiot.
I need to install a driver for my printer, which I have downloaded from the Brother site.

It is in Downloads but I can't get to it.
cd /home allows me into the home directory, but /home/harry/Downloads will not let me into the Downloads directory

I am the owner and sole user of this computer and would prefer to just "give myself" permission to do anything that I want, but I understand that Linux can't handle that concept.
su and sudo don't seem to help

Where do I go from here? I don't think that I am articulating my question properly on the forums.
Thank you again for your patience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 05 May 2022, 10:19:52
What is the error when you cd /home/harry/Downloads?  It would be very strange if you can't get into that folder as it's part of the installation...

You can give yourself permission to do everything you want (including filling the whole drive you're booting from with zeros...) by logging in as root, but it's highly not recommended.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 05 May 2022, 12:28:09
Well, I shut down and went out for a while. When I came back and rebooted I was able to go straight into Downloads without drama and follow the instructions from the Brother web site. There were some suggestions on settings and I did that as well.

Things were going well until I got this.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Darthbaggins on Fri, 06 May 2022, 06:05:47
Looks like it's not happy with your printer driver. . .




Just moved from a Ubuntu build on that old Acer I'm trying to repurpose, the 20.03 build of Mint is nice - so far the improvements/performance is much better than when I was running Ubuntu/Lbuntu.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 06 May 2022, 06:13:57
I see a printer and it has a tick on it, does it work?  I doubt you have lots of printers at home to struggle to find the right one so failing to give it a nice name is not really a problem, though it would be nice.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2022, 07:45:58
Thank you for you comments. I only have 1 printer and it works fine, I recently replaced the cartridge. I suppose that I could rename it "east window" or something but it doesn't matter.

I got the driver from the Brother support web site and it appears to be the most recent one. I don't know what else to do.

What is CUPS? I have Googled it but I am having trouble understanding what it is and what it does. And how do I install it in/on/under/around the printer driver?

Thanks for your patience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 06 May 2022, 08:34:40
CUPS stands for Common Unix Printer S(ervice?), I'd be lying if I said I knew exactly what it does but I guess it translates settings and commands from programs into specific ones for different printer drivers.  It runs on the computer not the printer and is almost certainly installed by default on a desktop distro, unlike everything else in Linux land I don't know of any alternative to CUPS which means it must be really good at what it does.

The Driver Install Tool says it includes a wrapper which may mean it uses the Windows driver and the wrapper translates Linux to Windows but you shouldn't need to worry about that.  Is this what you used?

Not for the first time I feel we're talking different languages so I'll try again :)

In your screenshot it looks like you have a printer installed and from searching it is a Brother model number so I'm assuming it's the printer you're trying to install.  Does it disappear when you close the window that's causing the error?  If not try printing something as it looks like it should work.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2022, 08:46:09
So, I am sitting here 34 minutes after my earlier attempts at printing, and suddenly the printer wakes up and prints 1 test page.

But I still can't get it to print an actual document. Or scan the test page ("No PC Found"), so I took a picture and attached it in case that is a help.

It all seems so close yet just out of reach. For another example, Audacity is clearly registering the music that I am playing because I can see the meter pulsing along, but it will not record no matter what settings I change. This is a hardware setup that is unchanged from what has worked under Windows for many months.

I can't help but think that it is frustrations like these that are the greatest stumbling block to people wanting to migrate to Linux from Windows and Apple.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 06 May 2022, 09:52:48
I guess when you press scan in Windows a Brother program starts?  There is no such program for Linux.  To see if the scanner works open Writer and in the top menus Insert -> Media -> Scan -> select source and it should show your scanner.  There are surely better options depending what you want to scan into what format but I'm not aware of them as I don't scan.

Audacity is another fun one as it has so many options, in addition to general system ones.  So many ifs buts and maybes here I'll ask some questions instead and hopefully we can come up with some settings that will work

What sound device(s) do you have? (onboard soundcard, actual soundcard, USB soundcard, webcam with mic in...)
What are you trying to record? (Line in socket, Microphone socket, whatever's playing on the computer...)
Do you want to use that input for other things (external microphone also used with webcam, perhaps?)

I can't help but think that it is frustrations like these that are the greatest stumbling block to people wanting to migrate to Linux from Windows and Apple.
Sadly, you're right :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2022, 10:43:06
I always use the "Scan" button on the scanner (since I am standing there anyway after loading the paper) and it asks me whether I want to send it to the PC (I always do) or fax it or email it or whatever that I never do. Now under Linux I get "No PC Found" on the printer's screen although it is all there. Within Writer as you described I find "Device Used" as escl:http//192.168.1.100:80 which should be correct.

As for Audacity (which I have used a lot for probably 20 years under Windows) the recommendations I found online for Linux suggested using "pulse" for recording and playback, and here are my other choices:

Audio Host – ALSA
   there are no other choices

Recording Device – pulse
   HD-Audio Generic: ALC1220 Analog (hw:1,0)
   HD-Audio Generic: ALC1220 Alt Analog (hw:1,2)
   pulse
   default

Recording Channels – 2

Playback Device – pulse
   HDA ATI HDMI: 5 (hw:0,11)
   HD-Audio Generic: ALC1220 Digital (hw:1,1)
   HDMI
   pulse
   default

What I have read also told me to clear all the selections under "Transport Options"

Under Windows I had many choices such as Line-in (my primary one) and others that are all gone under Linux.

To your question:
sound devices : onboard soundcard, webcam with mic in
What are you trying to record : Line in socket, Microphone socket, webcam, whatever's playing on the computer
Do you want to use that input for other things? not sure what you mean, but I would very much like to record what is playing on the computer

I have a very nice but old Creative X-Fi Elite sound card gathering dust because Windows 10 refused to play properly with it. I dread the thought of dismantling my box to install it, but if Linux Mint will accept it I would consider trying it.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 06 May 2022, 11:31:16
Scanner - yes.  If the button doesn't work it doesn't work, you may have to get used to pressing "scan" with your mouse.  Not enough people use Linux so manufacturers don't support it as well, where if they did more people would use it.  Nothing's changed in the 20 years I've been around.

For Audacity to record what is playing you need to record the monitor of the output which probably doesn't exist by default.  More "newbie friendly" stuff I'm afraid...

In the terminal run
Code: [Select]
pactl list | grep monitorand copy the text after name: (cool Linux trick - if you highlight text it is automatically copied to a separate clipboard and you can paste it by pressing the middle mouse button)

Fire up your basic text editor (pluma?) and paste in the below, changing the device lines to what you copied if it's different.  Save the file as /home/harry/.asoundrc then logout and back in so it notices.

Code: [Select]
pcm.pulse_monitor {
  type pulse
  device alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor
}

ctl.pulse_monitor {
  type pulse
  device alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor
}

This will add some pulse_monitor devices to the bottom of the device list in Audacity and choosing line:0 or line:1 as the recording device works with my onboard soundcard.  It's strange that you don't have more devices - what motherboard are you using?  Your nice X-Fi should work nicely if you want to go that route.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2022, 13:07:50

pressing "scan" with your mouse

This will add some pulse_monitor devices to the bottom of the device list in Audacity


Where would I press "scan" with a mouse? "Administration" shows a printer but not a scanner. And that would be problematic when doing something like scanning pages from a book where I need to be holding it open and positioning it on the platen as I press "scan" ....

Your Audacity process added "pulse_monitor" to the recording and playback lists, but nothing else. And they still seem dead as far as actually recording anyway.

The one I most want is "Line-in" because most of the time I am working off "Record Out" from my stereo system, but I also want to record what is playing on the computer itself.

I can't get my mind around why this stuff is not on by default. There is a program named "Audacity" installed on the hard drive that will play music but not record, even though all the pieces are attached directly to the motherboard. Presumably we are just trying to say "Hey, Dude, look for the signal HERE" but Audacity isn't listening.

Just complaining because I don't know all the tricks (hardly any of the tricks, actually) that give my computer the ability to do real-world things.

Although I feel guilty for temporarily hijacking this thread, I feel certain that there are many other potential users that might have the same questions/problems.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 06 May 2022, 14:22:06
I don't understand what you are seeing - I have so many options I had to add a second screenshot to show them all!  As you can see the line and mic options you expect to see are among them.
[attach=1]
Maybe you just got unlucky with your choice of motherboard, please post the output of the below so I can look into it.
Code: [Select]
lsmod | grep snd
As to the scanner further down the page is Scan-key-tool 64bit (deb package) (https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us_ot&lang=en&prod=dcpl2550dw_us&os=128#SelectLanguageType-570_0_1) "With this tool, you can start a scan by the button on the machine." - did you scroll that far?  Try running brscan-skey as it may be included in the package, if not download and install it.

Once installed you will need to add brscan-skey to your startup applications, there should be something in the admin section of the menu to do that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2022, 14:59:02
Audacity had several sources in Windows, the 2 that I usually used were Line-in and What-U-Hear but I would have like a cleaner choice for the 2nd one that would filter out the random bleeps and blurts that are sometimes generated when things open and close, etc. And I know that there were multiple options under Audio Host in Windows.

The scanner seemed to install, foolish of me not to go to the bottom of the list on the Brother site. But I usually stay near the top of the list to get latest drivers, and, again, I would never have dreamed that I had to install a driver for a physical button on the machine itself !

That said, I still get the error message on the little screen of the Brother that says "No PC Found"

I really appreciate your holding my hand through this.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 06 May 2022, 15:21:08
Did you run brscan-skey to enable the button?  If there's a module you might need to restart the computer to make it load first (a driver for a button does seem very extreme but what can you do! (https://cdn.geekhack.org/Smileys/solosmileys/laugh.gif)

Your soundcard uses the same drivers mine does, standard Intel onboard.  Do you have anything sound related for the whole system in the main menu?

Also I haven't checked what it actually does when you press record.  In my messing about today I've had it silently crash and in the past I've had the button become disabled but no soundwave appeared and nothing was saved.  The stop button worked to reset it.

Edit: New screenshot.  Did the button open the "scan" window?  That's not particularly useful...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2022, 15:54:47
The screen button in the dialog box does nothing. The physical button responds with "No PC Found". I rebooted to see if that helped but it didn't.

The "Sound" section in the main menu shows both playback and recording to be active. Audacity plays music files as it should.

When I press the "Record" button in Audacity whatever you call the vertical "moving line" opens and moves from left to right but the sound wave is a flat line.

Am I understanding that Audacity is failing to find the record portion of the sound card even though it uses the play portion properly?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 06 May 2022, 18:01:35
Veering back towards "on-topic" what is the consensus on Mint 20.3? I am using 20.2 but it looks like there are some improvements.

If I decided to take the plunge, is it similar enough to be a mere "upgrade" or should I "nuke and pave" for a completely clean install?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 06 May 2022, 18:51:43
Scanning software absolutely sucks.
We have standards for it, many companies agree to it, and yet it never works. Even on Windows.
Nothing I work on in IT annoys me more than scanners.

As for Audacity...
They were recently acquired by a company and first thing they announced was adding telemetry/spyware, while they reversed course, beware.



Slowly switching all my system over to Endeavour, Arco works great but getting tired of pgp key issues every 6-12 months.
While their tutorials on fixing it are good, I HAAATE having to watch a 20 minute video, much less three 20 minute videos to get an answer I could get in 30 seconds had it been written.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 07 May 2022, 02:13:03
20.2 -> 20.3 should be painless, 20.x -> 21 might not be.  Nothing groundbreaking in the changelog (unless 20.2 has an older kernel) but it is a LTS release so you could ignore the effort of major updates until 2025, if you want to.

Given what Leslieann said about audacity I've had a look and I'm running 2.4.1 while the bad stuff happened in 3.0.2.  I can't find what version Mint uses...

If you get the line moving across recording silence it's just using the wrong source to record from.  Mint being friendly I thought it had a sound dialog like this
(https://i.stack.imgur.com/wcxQN.png)
which is from Mint 18, but that doesn't seem to be anything like what you found with recording and output being "active" (I'm seeing a tickbox when you say that)  Everything says to use pavucontrol which may work for you but I can't get anything to appear on the recording tab whatever I record from, and nothing I change in there changes anything in Audacity so I can't suggest anything.  Sorry :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 07 May 2022, 03:30:48
20.2 -> 20.3 should be painless, 20.x -> 21 might not be.
It won't.

I know several Linux users all of whom started on Mint, not a one remains, in fact all of them left the entire Ubuntu ecosystem over the upgrade experience. I love Mint, but they have got to fix that and forcing updates is not the answer.


Audacity claims to have reverted the changes to privacy, the fear is them re-reverting. The version included will depend on the version of Mint, each having it's own software repo. This was another issue, if you stayed on LTS and didn't upgrade, you could start getting stuck with some rather old software about midway through it's life. They held VLC at v.2 for quite a while.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 07 May 2022, 15:04:49
Scanning software absolutely sucks.
We have standards for it, many companies agree to it, and yet it never works. Even on Windows.
Nothing I work on in IT annoys me more than scanners.

As for Audacity...
They were recently acquired by a company and first thing they announced was adding telemetry/spyware, while they reversed course, beware.



Slowly switching all my system over to Endeavour, Arco works great but getting tired of pgp key issues every 6-12 months.
While their tutorials on fixing it are good, I HAAATE having to watch a 20 minute video, much less three 20 minute videos to get an answer I could get in 30 seconds had it been written.
for scanners the best are the ones that scans to a SMB share, it is always compatible with all OS as long as it does have some SMB support, although it seems that only pro and semi-pro models do have that feature, and it is not even a guarantee.
as for Audacity, i thought it was open source, if they try that they are going to have the same problem as Oracle with OpenOffice, the community will fork and the original will be abandoned, well it is my guess.
and if you do not want to ever upgrade look for a rolling release, like opensuse tumbleweed or even arch, for a long time tumbleweed was rather unstable but nowadays it is a painless existence, if you do not plan to use FreeCAD that is...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 07 May 2022, 18:45:39

for scanners the best are the ones that scans to a SMB share, it is always compatible with all OS as long as it does have some SMB support, although it seems that only pro and semi-pro models do have that feature, and it is not even a guarantee.

as for Audacity, i thought it was open source, if they try that they are going to have the same problem as Oracle with OpenOffice, the community will fork and the original will be abandoned, well it is my guess.

Audacity is open source, didn't take long for them to figure out it was a bad idea to do this.



The Brother B&W laser fax/scanner supports scan to SMB, which is what I'm using on mine.
This is pretty much best printer you can buy, cheap to buy, cheap to operate, can sit for years without use and never dry up, supports ethernet and wifi. Yeah, it lacks color, but color home printing is rarely economical and should only be done if you do lots of it. Take it to Walmart or something if you need color.  If you only use a printer on occasion get the Brother, so many techs are using these it's almost comical.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 07 May 2022, 20:33:24

Brother B&W laser fax/scanner supports scan to SMB


Pardon my ignorance, but what is SMB and how do I set a printer/scanner to it? I don't see any setting like that in Administrator.

When I try to scan the tiny screen on the printer says "No PC Found"
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 07 May 2022, 23:19:00
SMB or SAMBA is basically just the traditional Windows shared drive or shared folder.
It can also be called CIFS or SMB/CIFS (details below for those curious).

On Brother scanners it's labelled "scan to network" at least in the manual.
No PC found is using scan to computer (or drive), for that to work the computer requires the factory software to receive the file. I have seen this mess up so darn much. You install it to one, then a second and that messes up the settings on the first. Install on a third and it messes up the second... And then it just seems to stop working. In every office I've worked in that absolutely HAD to have a working scanner we ended up installing a server with a shared folder if only to receive scans. These days that can just be a Raspberry Pi but even when it meant a full dedicated desktop acting as a file sever it paid for itself in uptime. It has been the only reliable way to keep scanning from getting screwed by firewalls, AV, OS changes, etc... 

Tech details...
SMB = Server Message Block
Samba = open source version of the above.
CIFS = Common Interface File System
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Kevin-3992 on Sun, 08 May 2022, 05:11:57
Ubuntu is my favorite. I hope it can do better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sun, 08 May 2022, 13:04:03

for scanners the best are the ones that scans to a SMB share, it is always compatible with all OS as long as it does have some SMB support, although it seems that only pro and semi-pro models do have that feature, and it is not even a guarantee.

as for Audacity, i thought it was open source, if they try that they are going to have the same problem as Oracle with OpenOffice, the community will fork and the original will be abandoned, well it is my guess.

Audacity is open source, didn't take long for them to figure out it was a bad idea to do this.



The Brother B&W laser fax/scanner supports scan to SMB, which is what I'm using on mine.
This is pretty much best printer you can buy, cheap to buy, cheap to operate, can sit for years without use and never dry up, supports ethernet and wifi. Yeah, it lacks color, but color home printing is rarely economical and should only be done if you do lots of it. Take it to Walmart or something if you need color.  If you only use a printer on occasion get the Brother, so many techs are using these it's almost comical.
i actually managed to score an HP 4200N that came from a school with its original cartridge for 10 euros from Emmaüs. it lacks scan but it does have very good Linux support, and as far i as read is rock solid, cheap very large cartridge and prints really fast. and looking at used Ricoh pro copiers with their universal postscript drivers
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 08 May 2022, 13:45:11
Nice!
Older HP corporate/box (shaped) laser stuff is almost always great with some being near legendary in tech circles.

If you can find one, (not too hard really), great, just beware that they aren't always practical for other everyone. They're often power hungry, no wifi and as you said, no scanning so for most people a Brother is a better deal, but those are fantastic, universal printers if all you need is a simple B&W printer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 09 May 2022, 13:53:39

20.2 -> 20.3 should be painless, 20.x -> 21 might not be.

It won't.

It seems that it would make sense for me to wipe my T440p laptop and move up to Mint 20.3 (currently it has Win10 and Mint 19.x in various partitions on a new-ish SSD).

In the past I have gone through the contortions of partitioning drives, and back then there were recommendations to give Linux separate partitions for /home, /boot, swap, etc.

Is that concept obsolete these days? Is it tolerable or preferable to just let Linux wipe the whole disk and let it install itself as it desires?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 09 May 2022, 17:32:26
If you have more than 8gigs ram (often even just 4gb), you can almost always ditch the swap, I haven't used one in years.

Separate home, in my experience is more hassle than it's worth.
It's nice to think you can wipe, re-install and not lose that, but I always spend more time trying to work around it than just copying it off to another drive and putting it back. Another downside, and this was the final nail in it for me was several ISO's (at least Arch based) were creating too small of a main partition and I ran out of space while doing updates. After the second time, almost right after install I said enough of that.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 11 May 2022, 11:43:11

20.2 -> 20.3 should be painless, 20.x -> 21 might not be.

It won't.

It seems that it would make sense for me to wipe my T440p laptop and move up to Mint 20.3 (currently it has Win10 and Mint 19.x in various partitions on a new-ish SSD).

Mint 21 is expected this summer. If it were me, I would skip 20.x entirely at this point, rather than committing to the older base or dealing with the upgrade between major versions.

Personally, I always do new clean installs for new major releases, rather than dealing with the headache of upgrades. For the last several years, I've been doing this every second version, since the LTS releases have 5 years of support, and come every 2 years. It does sometimes get a bit tough to be using older software near the end of my 4-year cycle though. I also usually install to a new drive, so I could still boot the old OS or access settings if necessary.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Fri, 13 May 2022, 09:32:13
If you have more than 8gigs ram (often even just 4gb), you can almost always ditch the swap, I haven't used one in years.

Separate home, in my experience is more hassle than it's worth.
It's nice to think you can wipe, re-install and not lose that, but I always spend more time trying to work around it than just copying it off to another drive and putting it back. Another downside, and this was the final nail in it for me was several ISO's (at least Arch based) were creating too small of a main partition and I ran out of space while doing updates. After the second time, almost right after install I said enough of that.
swap really depends on the distro, when i had debian on my old dual CPU workstation with 32GB of ram it was very unstable without swap, while opensuse on the same hardware did not care in the slightest. and on my laptop with 8GB the system just completely hangs when it runs out of ram because the OOM daemon is still trying to swap to disk...

at one point i liked having separate /tmp to limit the space used by temporary files, and used to have it with /home on the larger hdd while the rest of / was on the ssd.
other than for limiting space, spreading on multiple disks or encryption, i do not really see the point anymore of using partitions anymore, my main rig and laptops both have only one partition, + game hdd on /steam for my main rig, and network drives.

(about the workstation, long story short, got a dual cpu board with 2 cpu and 32G of ECC ram for very cheap back then, the motherboard died 2 months after i started using it...)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 13 May 2022, 10:27:12

my laptop with 8GB the system just completely hangs when it runs out of ram because the OOM daemon is still trying to swap to disk...


I think I have 8GB on my laptop but can't remember for sure. Maybe I am going blind, but it seems that neither System Monitor nor System Reports shows RAM. How can that be?

And was yours an old problem or something that is happening currently?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 13 May 2022, 12:22:25
I think I have 8GB on my laptop but can't remember for sure.
run "free -h" in the terminal, that will show you how much you have :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 13 May 2022, 12:45:56

with 8GB the system just completely hangs when it runs out of ram


Thanks, SO, it is 8GB.

Since I don't game or do video editing, and strive to keep a minimum of operations and tabs open at any given time, what else would consume that amount of RAM?

(thinking back to 1985 when people were envious of my 80286 with 1MB of RAM and a 10MB hard drive .... ) ( .... that cost $3K without a printer or mouse .... )
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Fri, 13 May 2022, 17:08:00

my laptop with 8GB the system just completely hangs when it runs out of ram because the OOM daemon is still trying to swap to disk...


I think I have 8GB on my laptop but can't remember for sure. Maybe I am going blind, but it seems that neither System Monitor nor System Reports shows RAM. How can that be?

And was yours an old problem or something that is happening currently?
well, i am running debian 9, so it is rather old and close to end of support, i do not know about newer version as i only ran them as headless servers, and opensuse on my older laptop did not have any issues running with no swap and 8GB of ram, really seems to be a debian thing, although depending on if you have an hdd you could spare a 1GB swap partition on it to make sure to never run in that problem, swap is rather bad for ssd though so if you are only running on an ssd i would recommend trying without the swap 1st.
and there should be a way to make the oomd on debian behave correctly, i tried a few guides but none worked for me, but then my install is rather borked in other ways too (the freezing because of oomd was from day one, but since then i forced some way too recent/ubuntu ppa packages to install making some programs rather unhappy)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 13 May 2022, 18:12:58
there should be a way to make the oomd [on debian] behave correctly
This is another of those things where the distro really doesn't matter - oomd is oomd.  If you never use all your memory you surely can't have a problem however badly it's configured though?

Since I don't game or do video editing, and strive to keep a minimum of operations and tabs open at any given time, what else would consume that amount of RAM?
I've loaded a light game in wine, a 10 minute stereo wav in Audacity, a big picture in gimp and 20 tabs in Firefox including a 1080p youtube video and that's 5Gi used - I'm surprised as I've been under the impression 16GB has been the sensible choice for years but it's clearly still not required.  As a test you can run "sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=0" which will disable swap until you restart (a crash is a restart), if it doesn't crash you can make it permanent.

Also on partitions I have kept the same /home across many distros - during the install you select manual partitioning/mounting and only chose to format / which means whatever partition sizes you carefully chose on your first install are maintained.  Once I couldn't log in which required logging in as root and chown'ing /home/me/* and /home/me/.* to fix the permissions but you'd probably have to do that if you copied the files elsewhere and back too.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Fri, 13 May 2022, 21:48:35
Since I don't game or do video editing, and strive to keep a minimum of operations and tabs open at any given time, what else would consume that amount of RAM?
Web browser.
8 gigs in Linux is actually okay, FAR better than it would run with Win10 or 11. My laptop only has 8, it does fine.

Not sure which browser you use but Chrome is by far the WORST browser for eating ram. Brave is okay, add in Ublock Origin and it runs pretty close to Firefox with Ublock Origin but no amount of blocking keeps Chrome from being a hog. There is no fixing Chrome as too much spying is baked in and always running.


but you'd probably have to do that if you copied the files elsewhere and back too.
Depends on what you transferred them to.

If it's a Windows file system it was copied to, no. It doesn't retain any ownership.
If it's a Linux file system, permissions need to be reset. Unless you compressed it, then it would depend on the compression settings used.


It's not a Windows issue, neither OS respects the others file permissions.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 14 May 2022, 02:54:23
If it's a Linux file system, permissions need to be reset. Unless you compressed it, then it would depend on the compression settings used.
If the copy was done to a folder created on a Linux partition as the user and the UUID in the new distro is the same as the old one permissions should stick? (Unless copying back as root wipes them...) Copying to a Windows partition is just silly, not only do you lose ownership you also lose any read only or executable permissions.  I guess if you're doing it because you keep your music and photos in /home it's fine but the whole point, to me, is config files and scripts.  I hadn't considered filesystem differences aren't obvious to someone coming from Windows.

Quote
It's not a Windows issue, neither OS respects the others file permissions.
I don't think Windows gets a pass here, rather both Linux and Windows have an issue built in too deep to fix (or more likely neither is willing to put in the significant effort required when they think theirs is the best way)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 14 May 2022, 08:10:30

permissions need to be reset.

the old one permissions should stick?
you lose ownership you also lose any read only or executable permissions.

considered filesystem differences aren't obvious to someone coming from Windows.

And I had thought that I was making my way out of the woods.

I am committed to transitioning from Windows to Linux, and I have a colossal backlog of "stuff" that I seldom/rarely/never use but don't want to lose. Much of it is in the form of retired hard drives gathering dust on the shelf. (I have various outboard devices that they can be plugged into and output USB) A few years ago I started formatting (most of) my data drives to exFAT but there are many others that are NTFS and pretty much all of them were created and filled via Windows.

My current C:\ drive (created during a Windows 10 install) has a lot of current/recent stuff that I definitely don't want to lose. Am I wrong to think that the safest move would be to copy my important files onto a disk formatted to exFAT? Is it better to do this using Windows or Linux?

Presumably these are core questions that anybody contemplating making the move will want to understand.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 14 May 2022, 08:39:30
exFAT is probably the worst choice and NTFS is only better because it's been around longer - this is because they are both closed source so only Microsoft knows fully how they work (this is simplified)

You will be able to access your data on either it just wont be fast and may require setting up FUSE (File System in Userspace), writing to those drives will also be slow if it's even possible.  Again, feel free to copy the big thing back to C: to test.

If you're ditching Windows you'd do best to use Ext4 which can be mounted in later versions of Windows 10 (and assumedly still works in 11) if necessary.  If you're still sat on the fence do nothing for now.

Permissions are only a big issue on config files and scrips rather than actual data like music or pictures and if it the file is on a Windows formatted drive you'll be able to read it without worrying about them.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 14 May 2022, 12:26:12
If the copy was done to a folder created on a Linux partition as the user and the UUID in the new distro is the same as the old one permissions should stick? (Unless copying back as root wipes them...) Copying to a Windows partition is just silly, not only do you lose ownership you also lose any read only or executable permissions.  I guess if you're doing it because you keep your music and photos in /home it's fine but the whole point, to me, is config files and scripts.  I hadn't considered filesystem differences aren't obvious to someone coming from Windows.

When you copy back you do so as user into your own home dir, Linux needs to assign ownership so everything gets set to you.

As for UUID, it might work with the same uuid while doing Linux to Linux but I'm not sure the file permissions are that simple. I could be wrong, it's just not something I've looked into enough.


I don't think Windows gets a pass here, rather both Linux and Windows have an issue built in too deep to fix (or more likely neither is willing to put in the significant effort required when they think theirs is the best way)
Linux actually respects Windows permissions same as it's own, it just cannot set them.

If you've only ever accessed Windows files using a live disk you get the impression Linux doesn't respect ownership, but when you use a live disk you're operating as root. If you slave a Windows drive into a Linux system you will not have access, you need to access it as root, same as if it was another user. I've not use Windows Linux subsystem, so I can't speak of the other way.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 14 May 2022, 12:49:42
And I had thought that I was making my way out of the woods.

I am committed to transitioning from Windows to Linux, and I have a colossal backlog of "stuff" that I seldom/rarely/never use but don't want to lose. Much of it is in the form of retired hard drives gathering dust on the shelf. (I have various outboard devices that they can be plugged into and output USB) A few years ago I started formatting (most of) my data drives to exFAT but there are many others that are NTFS and pretty much all of them were created and filled via Windows.

My current C:\ drive (created during a Windows 10 install) has a lot of current/recent stuff that I definitely don't want to lose. Am I wrong to think that the safest move would be to copy my important files onto a disk formatted to exFAT? Is it better to do this using Windows or Linux?

Presumably these are core questions that anybody contemplating making the move will want to understand.

As S.O. said, exFAT is probably not the best choice, NTFS is pretty much the easiest most universal.

I think you're over thinking it, just leave the stuff on your old drives as is.
It's pretty hard to get locked out of anything so long as you have physical access to it.

Just leave it, it's not going anywhere and you can always revisit it if you need to.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 14 May 2022, 14:21:04
there should be a way to make the oomd [on debian] behave correctly
This is another of those things where the distro really doesn't matter - oomd is oomd.  If you never use all your memory you surely can't have a problem however badly it's configured though?

Since I don't game or do video editing, and strive to keep a minimum of operations and tabs open at any given time, what else would consume that amount of RAM?
I've loaded a light game in wine, a 10 minute stereo wav in Audacity, a big picture in gimp and 20 tabs in Firefox including a 1080p youtube video and that's 5Gi used - I'm surprised as I've been under the impression 16GB has been the sensible choice for years but it's clearly still not required.  As a test you can run "sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=0" which will disable swap until you restart (a crash is a restart), if it doesn't crash you can make it permanent.

Also on partitions I have kept the same /home across many distros - during the install you select manual partitioning/mounting and only chose to format / which means whatever partition sizes you carefully chose on your first install are maintained.  Once I couldn't log in which required logging in as root and chown'ing /home/me/* and /home/me/.* to fix the permissions but you'd probably have to do that if you copied the files elsewhere and back too.
i do have some apps that are huge memory hogs in the long run, like FF with 400+tabs (depending on what is loaded, using from 2 to 6GB), discord (seen it hit 4GB on some versions) and steam (also sometimes hits in the 3GB used if ran for long enough), and i tried vm.swappiness=0, seems to have done nothing, also telling OOMD to start only after memory is completely full, none worked, still hangs the system at 6.5GB used, it is why i say my system may be a bit borked... maybe updating to debian 10 packages without a full system reinstall is not a great idea, what made me think it was a debian thing is that other distroes even on much tighter memory constraints never displayed that kind of bugginess, even suse/kde on a 2GB laptop with no swap do not (the debian installer will not start on it, so can't try, well i could but it is not worth the time).
and i may be a bit too lazy to reinstall that system because it should get replaced in a few months, but then it always was going to be replaced in a few months, 2 years later still on it...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 15 May 2022, 03:42:55
It may just be depression speaking but everything I "know" seems to be wrong so I'm done here.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 15 May 2022, 07:28:01

everything I "know" seems to be wrong

Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. Many questions have multiple answers.

Q: Is it better turn turn your computer off at night or to leave it on all the time?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 15 May 2022, 13:18:03
It may just be depression speaking but everything I "know" seems to be wrong so I'm done here.
Welcome to Windows Linux I.T.

None of us have all the answers, especially Linux, it kicks my rear end on a regular basis.
The reason I know so much about Linux to Windows permissions is because early on I found that it was a way for me to bypass having to deal with Linux user permissions, I feel like an idiot when working with them and you might very well know them better than I do. Linux file permissions are one of the biggest reasons I still run a Windows file server rather than a Linux file server.

And if that sounds like I cheat Linux permissions by using Microsoft. Yes. Yes, I do.
Should I learn more about Linux permissions, of course, but do I want to? Absolutely maybe no.


Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. Many questions have multiple answers.
So much this.

And often as soon as you find an answer and get used to using it someone will probably change it or another program will break it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sun, 15 May 2022, 14:11:33
It may just be depression speaking but everything I "know" seems to be wrong so I'm done here.
Linux does evolve fast, and every system can be unique tailored by the person using it to its own needs, and if you were making allusions to the NTFS and FAT permissions, i do remember not that long ago some versions would not take permissions at all on those, and i think i have also seen settings to disable and enable support for that feature (not quite sure about that last one), you may not be completely wrong, just maybe either have used an outdated version of the ntfs driver (is it still ntfs3g?) or use a distro with different default parameters for it, or some other things, happens to all of us, well maybe not all, most of us, and you may be one of the most knowledgeable and eager to help member of the community, so you are bound to sometimes be wrong. look at me, i am far less often helpful and far more often wrong :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 28 May 2022, 17:22:37
I have USB drive that I use to watch downloaded videos on TV, but under LInux I have trouble sometimes deleting videos (usually MP4) from the drive. This was never a problem under Windows.

If I right-click on the file, the "Delete" choice in the dialog box is grayed out. What is that about? This is the same rig that I used to load the file a few days ago.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 29 May 2022, 03:49:18
Just to be clear you downloaded a video in Linux while logged in as you and put it on the USB then put the USB in the TV to watch it then put it back in the computer and can't delete it as the same user?  What filesystem is on the drive?  Can you put a file on the drive and delete it without unplugging?

It might want to put the file in your .trash folder (like Windows recycle bin) but there's not enough space on the partition to do it, so try holding the shift key and see if delete un-greys.  Doing this skips the "oops - I needed that!" protection in both Windows and Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 29 May 2022, 08:43:30

Just to be clear you downloaded a video in Linux while logged in as you and put it on the USB then put the USB in the TV to watch it then put it back in the computer and can't delete it as the same user?

What filesystem is on the drive?  Can you put a file on the drive and delete it without unplugging?


Thank you for the response, and it seems that you are asking the pertinent questions. To the first question, yes, the system is the same and nothing changed over those few days.

The file system appears as "msdos" - I didn't know that. I just bought the drive recently by mail and just plugged it in and started using it. It seems that now I can neither read nor write to it.

There is nothing irreplaceable on it. Should I re-format it and start over?

What is "msdos"? I remember DOS, and knew that NTFS came in with Windows NT, but I thought that FAT is the oldest and simplest in the "modern family".
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 29 May 2022, 16:19:56
msdos on the properties in Nemo?  That's what it shows for FAT32 which is probably what's on your stick (unless it's new and huge when it might be exfat, I have no exfat to confirm)  If you run the command below in a terminal after plugging it in the bottom line will be the USB stick and the third column is the filesystem.

cat /etc/mtab

If it's exfat I'd reformat it, though leslieann seems to think it works now (when I last tried it it said it mounted ok but didn't show any files, so I reformatted....)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 29 May 2022, 17:26:16
Thanks, I re-formatted it and it seems to be working. Just another one of those weird things.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 07 June 2022, 12:40:22
Music question :

I want to rip some CDs and it seems that K3b is considered the standard, but there are woefully few choices in "Options" and "Preferences". I ripped a CD and never found an option for bit rate but the file sizes seem to indicate that it created MP3s at 128K which is not at all what I want.

And, in conjunction with a larger and ongoing annoyance, the "Properties" response to file inquiries are always woefully inadequate compared to what I am used to in Windows, regardless of file type. In the case of MP3, I should see (and be able to edit - but which should have been embedded in the first place) title, artist, album, composer, number, etc, and attributes like length (in hours/minutes/seconds), bit rate, etc, should be easily seen. About all I actually seem to get in file size.

Can this be right? No sort of geek could be satisfied with so little information. Or is this another case where there is some sort of outside program that I need to download to probe the attributes of my files?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 07 June 2022, 15:40:54
K3B is a KDE program, you've probably installed a lot of dependencies you didn't need to get that to run.  For CD ripping I use Asunder which is GTK and has plenty of options, should be available in Mint.

File properties would depend on your file manager, sounds like you're still using Nemo?  Thunar (which you installed for the renamer) has an audio tab with more of what you're expecting to see.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 07 June 2022, 16:06:36

File properties would depend on your file manager, sounds like you're still using Nemo?  Thunar


Asunder seems to be the proper program for what I want to do, it is chugging away now.

How do I "use" Thunar? After I installed it per your instructions, I can select multiple files, right-click, and the "rename all" or whatever it is comes up.

Is there a place that I can't find that selects which file manager I am using? And set it as default?

Thank you again, profusely! I truly appreciate your help and patience, and hope that these answers are helping more people than just me.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 07 June 2022, 16:23:35
There surely is something to choose your default file manager, it's just where they hide it.  I found a screen shot of something called "Control Center" in the MATE desktop with default programs at the bottom of the left panel - does that still exist?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 07 June 2022, 16:43:04
I found it and tried it but it didn't seem to "take" - it didn't seem to change anything.

Will I need to restart to kick it in?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 08 June 2022, 17:16:13
I found it and tried it but it didn't seem to "take" - it didn't seem to change anything.

Will I need to restart to kick it in?

You shouldn't need a restart. How are you opening the file manager? If you're using a shortcut from the taskbar or menu, I suspect that shortcut is hardcoded to launch nemo, rather than launching whatever your default file manager is.

For example, I use nemo on my system, but the launcher I use for it is hardcoded to nemo, rather than more intelligently selecting my default. If I wanted to change it, I would right click on the launcher icon, select edit, and change the command (see attached). In your case, the command you want is probably

Code: [Select]
thunar %U
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 08 June 2022, 18:21:40

I would right click on the launcher icon, select edit, and change the command (see attached). In your case, the command you want is probably

Code: [Select]
thunar %U

Why is it that the thing that I want always seems to the the thing that isn't there, or is grayed out?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Wed, 08 June 2022, 18:42:15
What version of Mint/Cinnamon are you running? There should be a system info page somewhere on that settings menu you posted earlier
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 08 June 2022, 20:33:01
It is Mint 20.2 and Cinnamon 5.0.7

I was planning to upgrade to Mint 21 when it comes out.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 09 June 2022, 01:27:59
Is the panel locked?  Right click on an empty part of the bar and there might be "unlock" (or similar), it's supposed to stop you dragging and moving things by mistake.  This is a thing on at least one desktop but I don't remember which.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 09 June 2022, 07:47:36
It is Mint 20.2 and Cinnamon 5.0.7

I was planning to upgrade to Mint 21 when it comes out.


I'm still on 20.0, with Cinnamon 4.x. That would explain the difference. Let me see if I can find a changelog.

E: ooh, I think I know what the issue is. Cinnamon 5.x defaults to the 'Grouped Window List' applet, instead of having separate applets for panel launchers and open windows. This applet works a little bit differently. Let me see if I can figure it out.

E2: Okay, try this: Open Thunar, it should appear with its own icon in your panel. Right click, and select 'pin to panel' on the Thunar icon. See if this new Thunar icon has all the behaviour you expect.

Is the panel locked?  Right click on an empty part of the bar and there might be "unlock" (or similar), it's supposed to stop you dragging and moving things by mistake.  This is a thing on at least one desktop but I don't remember which.

On my older Cinnamon, I believe that what you're referring to is 'panel edit mode'. I'm able to get the screenshots I posted without turning edit mode on, but it's possible that this is one of the changes in 5.x
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 09 June 2022, 08:54:46

Right click, and select 'pin to panel' on the Thunar icon. See if this new Thunar icon has all the behaviour you expect.


Thank you.
Thunar is now pinned to the panel, but it still doesn't give me anything but the most fundamental information about a file when I right-click on it. For example, it still does not give me anything about a music file except its full path and size in bytes. I am looking for "Length" and "Bit Rate" in particular, but Windows Explorer gave me tons of information.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 09 June 2022, 09:02:31
You don't get the Audio tab with the information button?  This is Thunar 4.16

(https://imgur.com/twgdI5c.png)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 09 June 2022, 09:12:46
Try installing 'Thunar-media-tags-plugin' from the software manager.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 09 June 2022, 09:31:29
Try installing 'Thunar-media-tags-plugin' from the software manager.

Excellent! This is what I was looking for.
Again, I am perplexed, why is this so arcane that it takes multiple questions to multiple experts?
My searches on Linux Mint forums never even got me close to this.
Shouldn't be included by default? Wouldn't everybody want to know it?

edit -
Issues like this that hardly rise to the level of "trivial" to experienced users like you guys are colossal barriers to entry for Windows users who don't think in terms of having to chase down and install "assistance" programs for things have "always seemed like defaults" in M$. It just makes them throw up their hands and run back to what they know. I am speaking for myself, of course, but I suspect that I am pretty typical of millions of others out there.

If there was an easy-to-find and easy-to-read Linux compendium of "How to do basic computer things .... " it might catapult Linux forward in popularity by an order of magnitude.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 09 June 2022, 10:08:01

it might catapult Linux forward in popularity by an order of magnitude.


Your generous help with these frustrations have been an immense help to me, and I am extremely grateful that I accidentally fell into such a valuable resource.

I have dabbled with Linux for a decade in a dual-boot scenario, but I never got very far because I invariably ran into snags like these and turned back. Linux forums are notoriously snarky and unhelpful (the openSUSE forum is probably the worst) even when they are pretending to be helping newbies.

Of course, since there is no significant monetization available to anyone in a FOSS environment, by definition, then there is no reason for anybody to distribute information or help.

I get that, I do. I am just sorry that it is such an intractable conundrum.

PS - I never did get my (modern common standard 2020 Brother) printer/scanner to work until I snaked a USB cable around the room to it.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 09 June 2022, 10:42:59
On printers/scanners on networks

Pre-install any printer driver you need, there's usually a second generic one for scanning, you also need cups, but that will likely install as a dependency.
Then in add printer, if it doesn't find it automatically, you want to use "URI" or "manual URI", URI being the IP address. Just pop in the address and point to the driver. If you still can't do it let me know, I can fire up a Mint system and make a small guide. Hopefully this is enough.

I've had better luck with Linux than Windows when it comes to printing, scanning is a mixed bag, but scanning is ALWAYS problematic regardless of OS.



It took me 6 months of full time Linux to REALLY get comfortable, no amount of dual boot or VM use shortened that, as you learn the lingo though your ability to troubleshoot improves and it gets easier. Take notes, write down things that work and store them somewhere safe.  Also once you learn one distro well enough, it's easy to go from one to another with only minor adjustment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 09 June 2022, 10:59:14
I also find it strange that a big distro ships it's flagship version which it admits is resource heavy with such a limited file manager.  Had you chosen the XFCE version of Mint you would have had Thunar as standard so your renaming would have worked (although very differently than in Windows) and I strongly suspect the media plugin would be included too - worth considering when you install Mint 21?

The printer problem is entirely on Brother as they provide their own driver, if it can work with a cable it should be able to work without one.

You do highlight the main problem of Linux though - there are two big graphical toolkits (QT and GTK) with multiple desktops using each toolkit (that's why K3B looks different) and each desktop has it's own filemanager, though you don't have to use it.  This is ignoring Enlightenment which has been doing it's own thing forever, it's by far the prettiest and very light on resources but it's also the least popular because no-one used their toolkit to make programs.

If the community can't decide on a toolkit there's no way they're going to agree on the best way to do anything to put it all in a newbie friendly book.  You just have to get used to everything being in pieces - when you typed "Thunar" into the package installer there was probably a list of packages, why not have a quick look through through them now and see if anything sounds useful?  As with renaming the Windows way is often not the best, it's just what you're used to :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 09 June 2022, 11:01:16

Excellent! This is what I was looking for.
Again, I am perplexed, why is this so arcane that it takes multiple questions to multiple experts?
My searches on Linux Mint forums never even got me close to this.
Shouldn't be included by default? Wouldn't everybody want to know it?

edit -
Issues like this that hardly rise to the level of "trivial" to experienced users like you guys are colossal barriers to entry for Windows users who don't think in terms of having to chase down and install "assistance" programs for things have "always seemed like defaults" in M$. It just makes them throw up their hands and run back to what they know. I am speaking for myself, of course, but I suspect that I am pretty typical of millions of others out there.

There is always some performance tradeoff for reading and displaying this extra metadata. I suspect the philosophy of the people writing these programs and extensions is to build a fast core program, and allow for customization. But that customization comes at the cost of needing to know how to find it -- and I agree this is completely unhelpful for a large group of users.

There's also a contingent who don't want Linux to be like Windows, because they don't like Windows. That's all well and good, but it ignores the freedom in Linux to choose your own distribution and programs. If you're an advanced user looking for something different from Windows, I don't think that should impact the availability of distros that are designed to be easy to transition Windows users to. This has definitely been getting better over the last decade or so, but it's definitely still not where it needs to be, and most distros don't have the resources to keep up with new features in Windows.

Quote
If there was an easy-to-find and easy-to-read Linux compendium of "How to do basic computer things .... "

I think the trick with this is that there often isn't just one way of doing things on linux, there are several. And any two people may not agree on the 'right' way to do any given thing. This is partially why we have so many distributions, for all the different combinations of ways that things are set up.

For instance, if you wanted similar data for audio files in nemo, I think the right thing to install is 'nemo-media-columns' -- a totally different naming convention, and it doesn't work in quite the same way. In this case, I suspect it's not included by default because of the performance issues some people have with it.

Of course, since there is no significant monetization available to anyone in a FOSS environment, by definition, then there is no reason for anybody to distribute information or help.

There are some organizations that have paid user support as an income model -- Red Hat comes to mind. But in general, this is part of the problem, and ties back to not necessarily having the resources to keep up with Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 09 June 2022, 13:04:09

Issues like this that hardly rise to the level of "trivial" to experienced users like you guys are colossal barriers to entry for Windows users who don't think in terms of having to chase down and install "assistance" programs for things have "always seemed like defaults"

I agree this is completely unhelpful for a large group of users.

There's also a contingent who don't want Linux to be like Windows, because they don't like Windows.


I also find it strange that a big distro ships it's flagship version which it admits is resource heavy with such a limited file manager.

Of course you guys are right.

I am just looking at it from the perspective of a casual but experienced computer user who has had a steady, if rocky, relationship with MicroSoft since DOS 2, but who is done with MS and just wants to be free (literally and monetarily). My needs are pretty simple: general basic office stuff like word processing and spreadsheets along with serious but simple straightforward audio and photo manipulating. And, being from the prehistoric times when RAM was measured in hundreds of KB and drive storage in tens of MB, I feel a "moral" desire to keep my computer "lean and clean" at all times - so I want to fully understand its files and structure so that I can regularly take out the garbage.

So I feel like I should be an ideal candidate for the transition, and the Linux world has been calling out to me for decades. Now that I am retired and don't have to interface with a Windows environment at work, it is time. But these barriers to entry are monumental, and starting to understand how much handholding MicroSoft has been doing all these years makes it daunting.

Perhaps the most bewildering part is the realm of "permissions" and all its related roadblocks. I live alone and am the sole user of my desktop (which I built myself from parts!) and laptop computers, the concept that I can't just give myself "permission" to do whatever I want any time is profoundly perplexing. Why am I not the apex "super user" everywhere all the time?

Sorry for the rant, but I can't help but think that I am a very representative example of the potential user that the Linux world would want to court.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Thu, 09 June 2022, 14:21:51
Perhaps the most bewildering part is the realm of "permissions" and all its related roadblocks. I live alone and am the sole user of my desktop (which I built myself from parts!) and laptop computers, the concept that I can't just give myself "permission" to do whatever I want any time is profoundly perplexing. Why am I not the apex "super user" everywhere all the time?

As I understand it, this is a security thing more than anything else. Similar to Windows Vista and onward having UAC and similar. Basically, trying to make sure you aren't accidentally running something malicious, and reducing the damage that can be done by something malicious pretending to be you. I have found that most GUI software I need higher privileges for under linux is good about prompting me for escalation, and in the terminal if something yells at me, it's easy enough to retry with sudo. If you really want to, I think it's possible to set up login as root, but I've never found it necessary, personally.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 09 June 2022, 14:34:35
The reason you are not the superuser the whole time is security - if someone walks into your room or you get a virus it can't break the system as it only has your permissions.  In your situation you'd probably be more upset about losing your data but not much you can do about that.  If you want to log in as root there shouldn't be anything stopping you from doing so, look for a "login as other user" link on the login screen and use the username root (not recommended) and your files will be stored in /root instead of /home/username

If you're trying to keep your computer "lean and clean" you'll want to get rid of k3b ("purge" gets rid of the config files, you can use "remove" instead to uninstall the program but keep the config) then check for and remove any orphaned dependencies (things which are installed that are no longer used by anything)

Code: [Select]
apt-get purge k3b
apt-get autoremove
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 09 June 2022, 14:46:02

apt-get autoremove


Thanks, I did purge K3b.
Does this autoremove just refer to k3b or does it clean out the whole system?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 09 June 2022, 14:54:07
autoremove checks all the installed packages, it will probably be a long list as k3b was probably the only thing using the QT toolkit, but maybe it wasn't in which case it will do nothing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 09 June 2022, 15:19:51

autoremove checks all the installed packages


Cool, it is vaguely similar to "chkdsk" in DOS/Windows. Sounds like something good to run every once in a while.

Off-topic, when do you think that Mint 21 might come out?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 09 June 2022, 16:49:28
Chkdsk checks for filesystem errors, the Linux equivalent would be fsck.  There is no Windows equivalent for apt-get (autoremove) as Windows software is self contained and you have to update every program yourself rather than being able to do all at once.

Mint 21 is supposed to have a beta late May/early June and that's still not been released and the final version wont be released for weeks after that to allow for mass testing.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: hvontres on Fri, 10 June 2022, 03:27:33

Perhaps the most bewildering part is the realm of "permissions" and all its related roadblocks. I live alone and am the sole user of my desktop (which I built myself from parts!) and laptop computers, the concept that I can't just give myself "permission" to do whatever I want any time is profoundly perplexing. Why am I not the apex "super user" everywhere all the time?


It also protects you from yourself to some degree. The last thing you want to do is be logged in as root and then somehow end up typing "rm -rf /". or other stupid things you might do at o-dark thirty while not thinking. Having to type sudo first makes you think a bit before hitting enter.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 10 June 2022, 04:05:35
The last thing you want to do is be logged in as root and then somehow end up typing "rm -rf /". or other stupid things you might do at o-dark thirty while not thinking.
I ran "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda" to test the speed of an SD card once, it wiped my Windows partition then started on / before crashing :-[  Luckily /home was later on the drive so restoring the partition table recovered it.  I'd have typed sudo just as easily though - some things just shouldn't be done late at night or after drinking...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 19 June 2022, 14:57:54
OK, here is another less-than-critical question :

I feel like the choices in LibreOffice Writer fonts are lame and boring, but I am having a heck of a time finding the real list of (what I feel like must exist) optional fonts. A Google search shows some "lists" that do not show what the fonts listed actually look like or how to get them.

For now, I am looking for something along the lines of Cooper, Benguiat, or Vagabond, but I would like access to better selections than what appear by default.

Thanks again ....

 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 19 June 2022, 17:00:06
As with everything "missing" have you looked in the package manager? ttf stands for True Type Font so that's a good thing to search for, the description should say whether it's fonts or something to use fonts in a specific program.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 19 June 2022, 17:05:52
OK, here is another less-than-critical question :

I feel like the choices in LibreOffice Writer fonts are lame and boring, but I am having a heck of a time finding the real list of (what I feel like must exist) optional fonts. A Google search shows some "lists" that do not show what the fonts listed actually look like or how to get them.

For now, I am looking for something along the lines of Cooper, Benguiat, or Vagabond, but I would like access to better selections than what appear by default.

Thanks again ....

The only extra fonts I've ever installed is the 'ttf-mscorefonts-installer' package, which included some basic fonts for better MS Office compatibility. Just searching for 'ttf' comes up with lots of packages, but the previews are often lacking.

This (https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/455) appears to be a guide for the more Windows-like way of installing fonts, if you can find a download for the font you want.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 19 June 2022, 17:55:42

The only extra fonts I've ever installed is the 'ttf-mscorefonts-installer' package, which included some basic fonts for better MS Office compatibility.

This (https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/455) appears to be a guide for the more Windows-like way of installing fonts


Thank you, but I had found that (without the "ttf-") and tried it, and got "something", but there is still something unhinged.

It appears that I have a file with some fonts in it, but LibreOffice does not seem to be picking it up. Will waiting for a reboot bring it in?



Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sun, 19 June 2022, 17:58:13
A reboot is probably worth a try. Been a long time since I've done this myself, so don't remember if that was necessary or not.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 20 June 2022, 10:00:36
There's tens of thousands of fonts.
They do not need to be Linux or MS, just search for fonts.

Beware, you will get overwhelmed quickly.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 20 June 2022, 10:25:46
There's tens of thousands of fonts.

No doubt about that. My question is how to get them incorporated into LibreOffice Writer.

For example, if I wanted to type "This is a Test" and print it in Cooper Black (or a clone of it).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Mon, 20 June 2022, 19:47:35
In Plasma and Cinnamon, double click a TTF file and the viewer should offer an install option. Worked for me in both, probably other D.E.'s as well.

In both cases you will need to restart Office.
Also, many font places are scams, so beware, first place I downloaded from (first hit in DuckDuckGo) wasn't actually a font.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 20 June 2022, 20:20:53

double click a TTF file and the viewer should offer an install option.


Excellent, thank you. Worked fine in Cinnamon/LibreOffice and I didn't even have to restart.

So it will be a matter of installing fonts one at a time, no particular problem beyond tracking them down.

This whole thing is a slow process for a long-time MicroSoft user, you guys are a priceless resource. I just hope that others can follow in these footsteps and cut down on their own time and frustration.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 21 June 2022, 12:03:10
You're welcome.

Did some more digging (ran out of time yesterday)....
As soon as you install a single font (for personal, not for all users, this is the default install) it creates a folder in home to put them in. The folder is .local/share/fonts

You can either install one and find that folder or create it yourself (may need to hit CTRL-H to see .local) then you can just drop all TTF fonts into that folder. Tested on Cinnamon and Plasma and they did show up in Writer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 28 June 2022, 07:56:42

The "Sound" section in the main menu shows both playback and recording to be active. Audacity plays music files as it should.

When I press the "Record" button in Audacity whatever you call the vertical "moving line" opens and moves from left to right but the sound wave is a flat line.

Am I understanding that Audacity is failing to find the record portion of the sound card even though it uses the play portion properly?

I am necro-ing this problem that I have never gotten anywhere with - I can't record from my computer and/or the internet using Audacity (which I have done under Windows for many years).

You guys gave me numerous suggestions when we went through this before but none of them worked. Can we please try it again?

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

 * Here is what my system reports in terms of audio hardware:
Device-1: AMD Ellesmere HDMI Audio
      [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590]
       vendor: Sapphire Limited driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 09:00.1
           chip ID: 1002:aaf0
           
Device-2: AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio
   vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 0b:00.4
      chip ID: 1022:1487
 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-113-generic

 * Here is what my system reports for the motherboard, etc:
System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-113-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.4.0
           Desktop: Cinnamon 5.0.7 wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma
           base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal

Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING v: Rev 1.xx serial: <filter>
           UEFI: American Megatrends v: 3003 date: 12/09/2019

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

Audacity has no problem with playback and opening existing files for editing, but will not record properly.
When I attempt to record from my computer, I get nothing. The sweeping bar goes from left to right but shows only a flat silent line.

When I attempt to record from my stereo, for example a record on the turntable, via RCA jacks from "Tape Out" out to a 3.5mm plug in to the "Line In" jack on the computer, I get a small squiggly line in Audacity but only static noise when I play it back. I think that I have tried all the permutations but I may have missed something. BTW, Audacity does not give me any option but ALSA.

This same hardware configuration has always worked properly under Windows with no drama or hang-ups.

Do you guys have any additional suggestions? Thank you again in advance.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 28 June 2022, 09:22:59
ALSA is correct, it replaced OSS long ago as the standard soundsystem in Linux.  You have two scenarios to fix - recording what's playing and recording from line in.  No reason you shouldn't be able to do both but we'll debug separately for now.

It looks strange that the HDMI device comes first and even stranger that it appears to offer it as a recording device.  Run pavucontrol and on the configuration tab set it to off and click the padlock, this will stop pulseaudio from trying to use it if it is.  You need re-open Audacity otherwise it doesn't notice otherwise then try recording pulse and pulse_monitor while something's making noise.

Then the other scenario is getting your line in to show up.  Do you get any "line in" devices if you disable pulseaudio?  Again, you need to re-open Audacity to get it to notice.

Code: [Select]
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.service
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 28 June 2022, 15:36:31

It looks strange that the HDMI device comes first and even stranger that it appears to offer it as a recording device. 

Run pavucontrol and on the configuration tab set it to off and click the padlock, this will stop pulseaudio from trying to use it if it is. 

then try recording pulse and pulse_monitor while something's making noise.

Then the other scenario is getting your line in to show up.  Do you get any "line in" devices if you disable pulseaudio?


After killing pavucontrol I don't get any response in trying to record from the computer. There is also no sound when attempting to play music or Youtube video.

Audacity will record "something" from the 3.5mm plug from the stereo, but while it is the correct signal, it is very low in volume and sounds muffled as if it was coming from the bottom of a barrel.

I use 2 monitors coming off the Radeon card, 1 uses HDMI and the other DVI.


Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 28 June 2022, 16:14:39
So pulse is blocking direct access to the soundcard inputs, that's a start.  When you say "killing pavucontrol" was that disabling the HDMI audio or running the command to kill pulseaudio entirely?  Disabling HDMI in pulse wont affect the picture but if you send sound to speakers in the monitor over HDMI you can't disable it.  Also probably should have checked you have the built in soundcard in pavucontrol on "analog stereo duplex".  Surely that's default...

I guess your volume is turned down on the input, you can see it by running alsamixer -c1 (c1 being the second card, the first is numbered 0 as with everything in Linux) then pressing tab to see the output screen.  You might also be able to swap what physical sockets the two inputs are, this is done using up and down arrows just like the volume.  If you can't get a good recording without pulse it is a driver issue, don't think it will be though.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 28 June 2022, 17:22:13
Thank you.

I'm not sure how to interpret what I am looking at here.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Tue, 28 June 2022, 18:02:42
There are three things in alsamixer - volume sliders (the long bars), multiple choice options (text) and on/off boxes (below some volume sliders and alone like "S/PDIF" in your second pic.  Pressing left and right arrows moves your focus (shown by the < LABEL >) and up and down moves the sliders and swaps between the options above the focused item.  Obviously (:confused:) to toggle the on/off boxes you press M!

Sounds like you're recording from the "Input" device which is set to massively amplify the rear mic socket, which is already amplified by "Rear mic boost".  Amplifying an empty socket will definitely result in a signal that sounds like static.

So change "Input source" to front or rear line in (or similar, depending where your cable goes) and set the volume of "Capture" to the top of the green which should be loud enough to see/hear and select the top option in Audacity (the 1 device and volume would be the second option in Audacity, so if you plan on using a mic set it to that socket) and try recording again.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 28 June 2022, 18:31:46
OK, so I took a stab at that, but do I need to reinstate pulseaudio?

Just entering "pulseaudio" doesn't seem to be enough.

Thank you so much for all your help.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 29 June 2022, 03:57:57
We're still going without pulse for the line in, once you get the soundcard setup in the background re-enabling pulse might make it just work.  Or it may still be trying to use your HDMI, if you're not able to disable it.

To re-enable pulse change "stop" to "start" in the two commands, or it will be back on if you reboot.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: appleonama on Wed, 29 June 2022, 05:44:26
fedora 36  :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 29 June 2022, 11:11:50
Audacity is still borked, but I can listen to music and websites on the computer sound system.

Pavucontrol seems to show that Line-in is active but Audacity seems to refuse to find or recognize it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 29 June 2022, 11:59:43
I wonder why you have no monitor devices showing even though they were visible in Audacity earlier.

"borked" and "refuse to find or recognize" don't really describe the problem, do I assume that as you're back in pulse you got line in recording working with it disabled?  Or are you now back trying to record what's playing on the computer?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 29 June 2022, 13:02:53
I am sorry, I am frustrating and being flip.

To be clear: Audacity has never recorded anything properly in Mint since I switched over - but the exact same hardware setup has worked properly in Windows (with no drama) for years. But I can open, edit, and play back existing files in Audacity with no problem (using "pulse" as the playback option).

Some of the "recording" options seem to give me squiggly moving lines of some description but it is either pure static or a grossly distorted and muffled version of what is playing through the speakers.

At some point yesterday, after I had shut everything down, I could not even play back sound on my computer's speakers, but that is now back up and we are just down to Audacity not recording.

Thank you for your patience.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 29 June 2022, 16:40:49
You probably couldn't play anything while pulse was disabled, nothing to worry about.

How about we swap out your config for mine and see what happens?  Lots of auto detection so it will probably be exactly the same because that's what you have installed but it's worth a try and easy enough to put it back.  Download the attached file (it's like a .zip but keeps the permissions from the Linux filesystem) then run the below to go to the config directory, move the current version in case you want to go back to it, and extract my config.

Code: [Select]
cd /etc
sudo mv pulse pulseold
sudo tar xzvf /home/harry/Downloads/pulse.tar.gz

Then reboot and see if anything changes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 29 June 2022, 17:39:46
I downloaded the file to /Downloads and extracted it, but I can't copy the extracted folder to /etc

Copying the unextracted file to /etc worked, but then I was not allowed to extract it there.

Obviously I am not skilled at these basic operations.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 30 June 2022, 03:33:46
I gave you the three commands you need to run, just copy and paste them in a terminal :)

You can't change things in /etc as your user because doing so could break everything which is why two of them use sudo.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 30 June 2022, 09:14:32
Thanks, I was expecting to have to extract the files and do something with them.

Doing as you said restored sound to my system in general, including being able to listen to MP3s and YouTubes, but the recording problem in Audacity remains.

Its struggles to record seem slightly different however. The "wave" (I don't know what to call the squiggly blue line wave that depicts the sound, is there a technical term for it?) is taller (ie louder I suppose) but drastically compressed and still distorted and muffled.

And it looks like I am back to the the same playback and record selections as before. Even though Pavucontrol shows Line-in up and running, Audacity can't seem to find it.

I am truly sorry to be so tedious.




Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 30 June 2022, 11:55:36
Are you trying to record what's playing or line in?

Have you changed the device and volume in alsamixer and did it change back after you rebooted?

I'm confused why your device names in the list in Audacity aren't the same format as mine - do you still have the .asoundrc?  If the command below outputs something you do.
Code: [Select]
cat /home/harry/.asoundrc
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 30 June 2022, 12:55:59
It does appear that the process wiped the slate clean, although .asoundrc was present.

In alsamixer I tried to add some devices to "capture" via F6, but for whatever reasons it refuses to allow me to add anything to "Input Source" or "Input Source 1" although it seemed happy enough to let me add playback sources.

After doing that, I got the picture that is all green and white. Then I opened Audacity and pressed the "Record" button for a few seconds and got garbage. When I went back to alsamixer I see that it bumped the "Capture" column all the way up to the top of the red and dropped "Line Boost" to zero.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 01 July 2022, 03:46:42
Pressing F6 to add sources doesn't work anywhere for me - are you talking about alsamixer or pavucontrol or Audacity?  In alsamixer you can't add you can only toggle between things in the list, Line look like a good option but without the list it may not be (and no, I don't know any way to output the list)

As Audacity is (indirectly?) changing the right volume slider and you're now getting "garbage" instead of "static" I'm tempted to say we're getting somewhere though I'm not sure.  Can you upload a short sample recording?

You could try disabling pulse again then recording from all the possible looking inputs, it's just gets rid of one layer that could go wrong.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 01 July 2022, 09:00:13
Alsamixer specifies F6 as the way to select sound card, I don't see any other sort of "add" option.

Static is probably the better description, I don't seem to be getting that distorted version of the actual signal any more. It is almost certainly just some form of feedback.

In Windows the old list of recording inputs in Audacity had things like "Line-In" and "What U Hear" and other such options that are nowhere to be found any more. Clearly Audacity was somehow sensing the hardware that is hardwired in the computer, but can't seem to find it now.

At least that is the only way I can wrap my mind around it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 01 July 2022, 09:42:27
Ah, that F6.  Yes you can switch between "soundcards" but you only have one plus an HDMI port which if it's like mine has no inputs in alsamixer.  HDMI audio is encrypted and I can't help thinking that's what it's trying to record.  Do you ever send sound to your monitor via HDMI or can we attempt to blacklst that device?

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 01 July 2022, 09:56:07
Ah, that F6.  Yes you can switch between "soundcards" but you only have one plus an HDMI port which if it's like mine has no inputs in alsamixer.  HDMI audio is encrypted and I can't help thinking that's what it's trying to record.  Do you ever send sound to your monitor via HDMI or can we attempt to blacklst that device?

The HDMI monitor is a Dell SE2719HR which does not even have speakers (I thought that was the major difference between monitors and TVs).

Are you implying that the card is trying to send or receive sound to or from the monitor but there is nothing to accept it?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 01 July 2022, 10:03:48
There is no difference between monitors and TVs, that's why we're forced to use widescreens.  You can send sound over HDMI but if there are no speakers it's not going to get past the receiver chip.

The below stops pulse, removes the driver for HDMI audio then re-enables pulse, which will then only have one soundcard so no excuse for getting confused - if that works we can make it permanent.  If the recording sounds the same the search goes on...

Code: [Select]
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.service
sudo rmmod -f snd_hda_codec_hdmi
systemctl --user start pulseaudio.service
systemctl --user start pulseaudio.socket

Please try all the options in Audacity for the input device - you don't really care what it's called as long as you know.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 01 July 2022, 12:43:06

code

sudo rmmod -f snd_hda_codec_hdmi


I got to this point but got a message that says "temporarily unavailable"

Does that mean "ain't gonna happen" or is there something that I need to do? Looked up "rmmod error" online and it's out of my league.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 01 July 2022, 15:24:14
Tried to replicate that error - I get it when trying to remove a module that's used by another, so your HDMI audio is different to mine.  ATI card vs nvidia so I'll believe it.  Please post the output of the below, hopefully that will confirm it.

Code: [Select]
lsmod | grep hdmi
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 01 July 2022, 15:36:32
I see "intel" in every line, but as far as I know everything in my box is AMD. Is that any problem?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 01 July 2022, 16:17:52
Seeing Intel is not a problem - it's a standard for many onboard soundcards, intel used it first.  The original 64bit x86 processor architecture was called AMD64 because in that case AMD did it first.

What is a problem is the empty fourth column on the top line, which means no other module relies on the hdmi module.  If nothing else is using it why can't you unload it?  I have no idea.  Maybe user18 will know as they use Mint.

I've not found any way to prevent the module loading and you can't just unload it in a script as that doesn't work which leaves the brute force option that will break when you update your kernel - removing the module. I've done it and rebooted, somehow I still have an HDMI soundcard but it only has S/PDIF.  It may work differently for you so give it a go?

Code: [Select]
mv /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound/pci/hda/snd-hda-codec-hdmi.ko.zst /root
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 13 July 2022, 17:01:55
Is it me? What is it with Audacity on Mint? I have used it for 2 decades on Windows XP/7/10 with no drama at all.

My laptop is a device that I use temporarily when I need to be away from home, but I don't keep anything of value on it so at any time I could wipe it and start over.

So, given that nothing has worked in my attempts to use Audacity on my strong modern desktop since I moved to Linux Mint, and given that Mint is about to get an upgrade, I decided to try my laptop. A friend of mine has a radio program on Wednesday nights that I really enjoy and would like to record. Just that. And the station plays it online, directly.

I did a totally clean wipe and install of Mint 21 beta on my laptop, installed Audacity, with no connection to any sort of hardware (except wireless to my home wi-fi only) outside of the laptop's native components.

And guess what? Audacity is behaving exactly the same way that it did before -  using "pulse" or "default" I can record "something" of the radio program but it is deeply muffled and distorted. And there are no options for "Line-in" or "What U Hear" or other viable choices.

Now that I can see that this problem rears its ugly head in an entirely different environment, I feel that there is something else going on. Do I live in the "upside-down"?

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 13 July 2022, 17:31:59
Try something other than Mint.
Debian, LMDE, even Ubuntu... something.

Mint is often long behind on updates and you may be getting a new-ish version of Audacity and older versions of everything else. I have had lots of trouble with this problem, even something as universal as VLC has problems. Mint is like Apple, it's great if you're looking for something stable but as soon as you start trying to do anything outside the norm expect problems.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 13 July 2022, 19:10:26

as soon as you start trying to do anything outside the norm


Installing Audacity is outside the norm?

Current version of Audacity is too new for bleeding edge Mint?

Maybe I just never stopped to ask the question - What is the simplest and most straightforward Linux distro for a mid-level user who has been with MicroSoft for several decades?

I dabbled with Linux for over a decade, first with Ubuntu but then they changed everything and I heard that they went "corporate" so I bailed. I spent a few disastrous weeks attempting openSUSE but was driven away by the haters. Mint has generally been fine except for 2 things that really get under my skin - (1) my new-ish Brother printer/scanner seems to be banished to the Phantom Zone and (2) Audacity will not record properly. Other than that I have been pleased with it, after the heartache of getting it up and running with basic accoutrements like dual monitors keyboard shortcuts.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 14 July 2022, 00:55:30
Installing Audacity is outside the norm?

Current version of Audacity is too new for bleeding edge Mint?

Maybe I just never stopped to ask the question - What is the simplest and most straightforward Linux distro for a mid-level user who has been with MicroSoft for several decades?

I dabbled with Linux for over a decade, first with Ubuntu but then they changed everything and I heard that they went "corporate" so I bailed. I spent a few disastrous weeks attempting openSUSE but was driven away by the haters. Mint has generally been fine except for 2 things that really get under my skin - (1) my new-ish Brother printer/scanner seems to be banished to the Phantom Zone and (2) Audacity will not record properly. Other than that I have been pleased with it, after the heartache of getting it up and running with basic accoutrements like dual monitors keyboard shortcuts.

Bleeding edge Mint is like a dull banana compared to what is actually bleeding edge in linux, I think the only think less bleeding edge is Debian stable.
It's one of the most conservative distros you can run, it's why it gets recommended, it's like training wheels for Linux and it sounds to me like it's time to take them off. I'm not trying to bash Mint, Mint is absolutely great to get people onto Linux and some people are quite happy with it long term, same with Ubuntu, they are both very capable the problem is that it takes a lot of effort to remove the training wheels and when you do things can go wonky, which is what I think you're seeing. Meanwhile something with less guiding hand would allow you a bit more freedom to correct problems.

As for Audacity,
It's what Audacity does, you're stringing together lots of different programs and systems and working at hardware level, even on Windows it goes wrong. The same happens with OBS Studio. And yes, current version Audacity, probably meant for some of the latest kernels and drivers may not work with the older stuff Mint uses.


Regarding distros
Once you understand it, all Linux is about the same, the real difference is the package manager and repos (which are curated for compatibility), both of which can be changed just like the desktop environment, it's just not always easy or advised. If you can use Mint you can use Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Arch, etc. with almost little difference, including stability. Raw bleeding edge Arch (for better or worse) is about as stable as Windows and it only gets better from there as you go downstream be it Arch based or anything else.

My advice, and this will sound weird, but an Arch based distro, but not raw Arch(!). The AUR (https://aur.archlinux.org/), it makes the PPA system of Ubuntu look tiny and difficult to use, giving it the greatest software compatibility. It does PPAs, it does RPM, it can handle almost anything.  Yes, I know Arch users have a horrible reputation but the Arch Wiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org/) is easily one of the best resources for Linux users on the net, I often used it when I was on Mint and if you use Manjaro, Endeavour or Arco (probably the most popular Arch based distros) they have nice support forums that are every bit as good as Ubuntu and Mint without almost any of the toxicity. Install one of them with Cinnamon desktop and you get pretty much the same experience with Mint but on newer (or older if you choose) software and easy access to so much more software without using ppas or flatpacks. You have enough knowledge you can easily make that leap now whereas had you tried any of these on day one, who knows if you would have stayed.

Endeavour is probably the most bleeding edge, it's darn near pure Arch, annoyingly so, any fresh bugs, it gets them. Manjaro is probably the least bleeding edge but it felt a bit limited to me as a result, almost like it was hand holding, less so than Mint, but still a lot of hand holding, some prefer this, you might. Arco falls in between, it's almost pure Arch but with a few tweaks to help with things.  It's just off bleeding edge enough that you miss the worst of the problems.


I use the AUR to install my Brother, works great though I've never used it to scan, just print. You will probably need brscan4 for scanning (yay -S brscan4). Some of these may also need bluetooth enabled, it's usually installed but turned off by default.
sudo systemctl enable bluetooth
reboot or then do   
sudo systemctl start bluetooth
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 14 July 2022, 05:10:14
If you're swapping distro don't forget that you like Thunar so you should consider choosing XFCE as your desktop environment to get it as default.  It's different but the layout is pretty much like old Windows by default.

...

I must be incredibly lucky to have updated my Arch installation (my first time using the distro) regularly for many years without hitting a single problem - more years than months any regularly used Windows install ever lasted.  While I would like to keep up to date with other options it feels rude to replace something that's so reliable!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 14 July 2022, 10:16:43

Manjaro is probably the least bleeding edge but it felt a bit limited to me as a result, almost like it was hand holding, less so than Mint, but still a lot of hand holding, some prefer this, you might.

I use the AUR to install my Brother, works great though I've never used it to scan, just print.


I have installed Manjaro with KDE on the laptop. It seemed to go well enough, but it seems disorienting in many ways.

Installing Audacity went smoothly (it took 18 minutes to download - that seems pretty strange), and I can record from a website, although it is about 20+db too low and still seems to have a bit of "whoosh" noise in the background, although far less than on the desktop rig.

My printer/scanner has a "Wi-fi" button that I press and it just keeps blinking as if it cannot remember how to connect and eventually times out (remember when I switched to Mint I eventually gave up and ran a USB cable around the walls, although the modem is only about 4 feet away from it?). Can a Brother DCP-L2550DW not cope with being plugged in and accessing Wi-fi at the same time?

Is there a significant difference between pacman and yay?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 14 July 2022, 10:57:02
I have installed Manjaro with KDE on the laptop. It seemed to go well enough, but it seems disorienting in many ways.
This is a desktop environment issue, not a distro issue. You can install KDE on Mint and Cinnamon (Mint's desktop) on any other distro.


My printer/scanner has a "Wi-fi" button that I press and it just keeps blinking as if it cannot remember how to connect and eventually times out (remember when I switched to Mint I eventually gave up and ran a USB cable around the walls, although the modem is only about 4 feet away from it?). Can a Brother DCP-L2550DW not cope with being plugged in and accessing Wi-fi at the same time?
The wifi button is used in connection with the quick connect (WPS) button on your router, not the computer.

Most systems do not deal well with dual net connections without you doing some tweaking. Printers and scanners are dumb.


Is there a significant difference between pacman and yay?
YAY accesses the AUR but it's just another package manager.

Apt, Yay, Pacman, Yaourt, Trizen, are all just package managers.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 14 July 2022, 10:58:16
KDE is QT based while Audacity is GTK.  If you had chosen Cinnamon, Mate, Pantheon or XFCE as your desktop you wouldn't have had to download all the graphical toolkit packages in addition to whatever extra audio stuff it needed so it would have been quicker.

Laptops often record noise picked up from mains power while plugged in which could explain the whoosh - easy to test that one.  Could also be the result of plugging a line level signal into a microphone port?
Low volume - have a look in alsamixer.  It works so you're looking for low volume sliders or a disabled/low boost slider.

Another thing you could try is plugging the laptop hard drive into the PC in place of your normal boot drive and switching it on.  90% chance it will boot to desktop, may not load proper accelerated graphics drivers in which case it will do strange things graphically (think Windows 98 resizing windows on a go slow...) but you should be able to see what sound devices show up and record something to test.

From what Leslieann said wherever you land up you will get newer versions of CUPS and kernel so the printer might work better but it definitely shouldn't be worse as it's Brother's driver, so probably best to find a distro you can record on then worry about the printer.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 14 July 2022, 12:16:42

Another thing you could try is plugging the laptop hard drive into the PC in place of your normal boot drive and switching it on.

you should be able to see what sound devices show up and record something to test.


When I "made the switch" to Linux I never changed anything. I have had Linux on a separate hard drive for years, and alternated between Windows and Linux by going into the boot menu in BIOS and booting from the other one. It seemed cleaner and safer than Grub with partitions and all that.

So my Windows 10 install is still active and valid, I just stopped using it. As I have said countless times, there is no hardware problem.
Everything worked perfectly in Windows from day 1, straight out of the box.
 
The problem is that in Linux, for whatever reasons, Audacity refuses to recognize what is sitting there.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 14 July 2022, 12:24:24
:confused:  were all your recent questions about sound and the printer using this laptop?  That it was in a room and you could run a cable to the printer and it was connected to a monitor had me thinking you were on a desktop and saying you switch in BIOS sounds even more like a desktop.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 14 July 2022, 12:37:33
My questions starting yesterday concern the laptop.

When the beta release of Mint 21 came out I installed it on the laptop (since there was nothing to lose in a clean install) in hopes that the Audacity problem would have found a solution.

Leslieann suggested that Mint/Cinnamon might be problematic going forward, so I downloaded Manjaro/KDE and put that on the laptop to see how it felt, in hopes that it might be somewhere I could land and stay permanently. I am an old man and I don't want to keep hopping around with computer OS's in my life.

Beyond mundane "clerical" tasks I want to be able to do mid-level editing and manipulation of images and music. And I have a fairly large collection of "stuff" dating back to the time when my kids were born which I need to keep stored and accessible. That is pretty much all that I need to be able to do.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 14 July 2022, 17:28:20
Leslieann suggested that Mint/Cinnamon might be problematic going forward, so I downloaded Manjaro/KDE and put that on the laptop to see how it felt, in hopes that it might be somewhere I could land and stay permanently. I am an old man and I don't want to keep hopping around with computer OS's in my life.

Manjaro has a community edition with Cinnamon but a net install of Manjaro, Arco and Endeavour will also do Cinnamon without problem.

Cinnamon is nice but it and pretty much any Gnome 3 based desktop has issues with dual screens, every now and then one will just not come on or it will flip them. There's fixes for it, I just got tired of messing with it. Anything single screen though it should be fine. Were it not for that I'd probably still be on Cinnamon.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 14 July 2022, 18:06:48
After I bought a 2nd monitor for $10 from my next-door neighbor's yard sale 15 years ago, I have always used 2 monitors.

After reading about the distros it seemed like there was no sure sweet spot but Manjaro/KDE looked like the best sweet-ish mix for my needs. Cinnamon was quickly usable with very little learning curve, in part because I had dabbled with Ubuntu/Gnome long enough to be moderately comfortable, but I get the feeling that KDE is going to be stronger in the long term. Just when I was freely able to type "sudo apt-get" without even blinking ....

Besides LibreOffice, the only 2 programs that I just wouldn't want to live without are GIMP and Audacity. Other various utilities and "assistance" type programs need to work for me but I am not particularly loyal to any one, although being accustomed to VLC I get frustrated when I try to stumble around in other players.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 14 July 2022, 21:16:01
"sudo apt-get" without even blinking ....
In most instances you can skip the "-get", yay is even faster, it's a shorter command and doesn't even need sudo ("yay -S ____").
For updates pacman is also better, no need to update, then upgrade then update again then dist-upgrade, it's all handled by simply "sudo pacman -Syu". One command and it's done.

And then there's Arco... update is simple "update". No sudo, no apt, no pacman it's all just simply "update" and it does everything. This is actually just a script and could easily be done by all distros but they don't for some reason.

Speaking of updates, (I spaced on this earlier)
That was probably the biggest reason I left Mint and went Arch based. There is no version, no hassle with major updates, it just rolls along. This was a major sore spot for me with Mint and to a lesser extent Ubuntu and Debian, Mint in particular just can't get them right. I had 2 major updates in a row that just borked my system and forced a re-install and after I left I had to deal with it again on another person's system. After that I was done with it and apparently I wasn't alone, Mint has now instituted a more strict update policy because people were refusing to update. Well gee, I wonder why... I understand they want to fix the problem, but this is essentially victim blaming in my opinion and the wrong direction. Note, I don't criticize Mint out of hate but out of love. I love Mint and I want it to be better.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 15 July 2022, 03:26:27
My questions starting yesterday concern the laptop.

When the beta release of Mint 21 came out I installed it on the laptop (since there was nothing to lose in a clean install) in hopes that the Audacity problem would have found a solution.
As I've said a few times in the past it seems like we're speaking different languages at times (don't worry it's my problem not yours as it happens with lots of people.  I went for Autistic spectrum assessment and that side fits, but I'm not anxious so can't possibly be that...)

I think what you want at the end of the day is your home computer recording from line in or whatever sound is playing through the speakers (or meaning choosing one not both at once) and a working printer, preferably wirelessly with a "scan" button.  Is this correct?

If so fixing the laptop beyond where it is (Audacity can record recognisable sound) isn't going to prove that your computer motherboard soundcard works in Linux so to me fixing it is a waste of time.  You could install Manjaro on the computer to test but it would be quicker to undo a couple of screws and take the drive out of the laptop and use that installation in the computer.  This also means so you can swap back without losing anything.

Gimp and Audacity are both GTK apps so running them under KDE will mean longer updates as you'll need to update both toolkits - what about KDE makes you think it's better for you?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 15 July 2022, 10:47:05
I think what you want at the end of the day is your home computer recording from line in or whatever sound is playing through the speakers (or meaning choosing one not both at once) and a working printer, preferably wirelessly with a "scan" button.  Is this correct?


That's right. That is exactly what I have been doing under Windows for years on this same equipment.

Gimp and Audacity are both GTK apps so running them under KDE will mean longer updates as you'll need to update both toolkits - what about KDE makes you think it's better for you?


My reading has led me to believe that KDE is a stronger and more versatile system with a cleaner future.
I don't mind a one-time learning curve if it gets me to a good place.
Also, I don't mind waiting some reasonable amount to extra time for a download if it yields a better result.

And I detest constantly having to (1) learn about the existence of, (2) find, and (3) install add-ons or extensions for every little thing that I always assumed to be fundamental and universal actions that almost any computer user would perform.
 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 15 July 2022, 11:55:26
I detest constantly having to (1) learn about the existence of, (2) find, and (3) install add-ons or extensions for every little thing that I always assumed to be fundamental and universal actions that almost any computer user would perform.
Let me guess, Konqueror (the KDE file manager) handles file renaming like Windows? (https://cdn.geekhack.org/Smileys/solosmileys/laugh.gif)

I haven't used KDE in many years, I tried it a few times and it always annoyed me and with each new release the default theme looked increasingly plasticy.  Gnome 3 was also annoying so I tried Enlightenment (still fast, still beautiful - still couldn't stick with it) before settling on xfce.  Having a quick read it sounds like KDE now includes lots more programs than Gnome (42?!) so if you're looking for an all in one solution it does sound the better choice.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 15 July 2022, 12:19:46

handles file renaming like Windows?


Haven't gotten that far, but I thought that Dolphin was the default file manager?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 15 July 2022, 14:33:55
I thought that Dolphin was the default file manager?
You're right.  Maybe Konqueror was the old file manager, maybe it was a text editor, or maybe I'm confusing it with something completely different just because it starts with a K - as I said it's been a while.  Dolphin is wrong though, everything in KDE used to start with a K.  Makes it easy to know what programs to avoid!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 16 July 2022, 07:45:16
Just thought I should share that I've finally got an issue with my years-old Arch installation - they've renamed some wxgtk packages and now it can't satisfy dependencies to do an update!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ideus on Sat, 16 July 2022, 09:50:19
Just thought I should share that I've finally got an issue with my years-old Arch installation - they've renamed some wxgtk packages and now it can't satisfy dependencies to do an update!
I have tried to use Linux (4 forks already) just to reach a point where it is so frustrating to do some tasks that I have skinned my boring but efficient win 10 to look a bit better, and I have quit trying to use anything else. It is incredible that some open source software—like R—are just easier to use in Windows than in Linux. Even some cloud services are just to hard to configure in Linux, while their windows counterparts run smoothly. It is a shame.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sat, 16 July 2022, 10:02:40

It is a shame.


I hear you.

Leslieann put her finger directly on it, though. MicroSoft pays an army of people to ensure that "most" things "work" ?properly? just enough of the time to keep users in the corral.

If even a for-profit company like Brother can't be bothered to make my 2-year-old printer-scanner available in Linux Mint, so how can I expect developers of something like Audacity to enable it to listen to my sound card?

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 16 July 2022, 13:21:38
Just thought I should share that I've finally got an issue with my years-old Arch installation - they've renamed some wxgtk packages and now it can't satisfy dependencies to do an update!

It's already fixed.
Just updated mine and it went, just need to approve the change.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 16 July 2022, 14:41:09
I have tried to use Linux (4 forks already) just to reach a point where it is so frustrating to do some tasks

Linux is NOT Windows, nor is it a replacement.
Stop expecting it to be.

It is a different operating system. Yes, some things are similar and they can often do the same things but they are not designed to do the same things the same way. If you stick with it long enough you will find Linux does a lot of things well that Windows is horrible at. Same for Mac, it too has strong and weak points. Distrohopping is a good way to make sure to never find those good point, you're too busy evaluating the distro. Understand you WILL have to make compromises, you may have to replace some hardware or software to get to a place that works "well enough".

What finally stopped me from distro hopping was making a list of things I HAD to have in order to switch, obviously you can ignore normal things like browsers. Then start experimenting to find which distro (or at least base I.E. Debian, Arch, Fedora) could best handle those things. In my case, at the time I needed Photoshop and one specific game. Once I got those to work in a distro I switched. The other thing I needed was a push from Microsoft, I tested Win10, I knew where things were going so it gave me a purpose.

So long as you expect Linux to absolutely replace Windows, you will never leave Windows and if it ever did become a Windows replacement there would be no reason to switch.


Even some cloud services are just to hard to configure in Linux, while their windows counterparts run smoothly. It is a shame.
Corporations love Linux but hate Linux users.

Mega drive runs fine.
Googleis all but hostile towards Linux.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sat, 16 July 2022, 23:43:18
I thought that Dolphin was the default file manager?
You're right.  Maybe Konqueror was the old file manager, maybe it was a text editor, or maybe I'm confusing it with something completely different just because it starts with a K - as I said it's been a while.  Dolphin is wrong though, everything in KDE used to start with a K.  Makes it easy to know what programs to avoid!
Konqueror was the default web browser and an option for a file manager, i only ever known it as an option and not the default, but it was a far better file manager, even if a bit less elegant, only recently it lost the file manager preset allowing the file manager sidebar (like on dolphin or on windows)
Just thought I should share that I've finally got an issue with my years-old Arch installation - they've renamed some wxgtk packages and now it can't satisfy dependencies to do an update!
that is rather annoying, i have some similar problem with my hybrid 9/10 debian install, some packages searching old dependencies with = version or renamed dependencies, but then i kinda asked for it.
I have tried to use Linux (4 forks already) just to reach a point where it is so frustrating to do some tasks that I have skinned my boring but efficient win 10 to look a bit better, and I have quit trying to use anything else. It is incredible that some open source software—like R—are just easier to use in Windows than in Linux. Even some cloud services are just to hard to configure in Linux, while their windows counterparts run smoothly. It is a shame.
well it is not that incredible, a lot of open source software is made with Windows in mind, not that it has the widest user-base or anything, and that R from what i know is a annalist language, not a computer science oriented one, i'd say it make sense that they would focus on windows. even MS have opensource projects, would you expect those to be working well on Linux?
although on the opposite side, for the 1st 2 months MS teams worked much better on my Linux machine than Windows 10 and 7 machines, i do almost never use those machines because of how frustrating i find Windows bugginess and lack of customization nowadays, and because most of what i do can be done on linux often easier and faster.
Linux is NOT Windows, nor is it a replacement.
as an OS it somewhat is, though, and does a very good job at it all things considered
Google is all but hostile towards Linux.
i find that statement rather strange though, Google uses Linux as the base for their most successful product (Android), participate a lot to the security of the kernel and were part of the transition to real-time (what makes Linux sometimes pretty much the only option for time critical applications, other than a home codded OS). I do not see any of it as hostility, although they are very hostile towards Firefox yes.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 17 July 2022, 02:22:44
Linux is NOT Windows, nor is it a replacement.
as an OS it somewhat is, though, and does a very good job at it all things considered
An OS by definition has to perform certain tasks similar to it's competition, they all have their specialties though.
A truck can carry people like a car, a car can carry cargo like a truck, they're still have different purposes.

You don't ask Mac to play games like Windows.
You don't ask Linux to battery manage like Mac.
You don't ask Windows to be a good server like Linux.


Google is all but hostile towards Linux.
i find that statement rather strange though, Google uses Linux as the base for their most successful product (Android), participate a lot to the security of the kernel and were part of the transition to real-time (what makes Linux sometimes pretty much the only option for time critical applications, other than a home codded OS). I do not see any of it as hostility, although they are very hostile towards Firefox yes.

Corporations love to use Linux, it saves them money on development.
Corporations hate Linux users because they see them as cheap (not actually true, they're just more difficult to market to as they're not as easily swayed by marketing fluff).


Google has repeatedly dangled a carrot to Linux users claiming native apps were coming then either never dropping or releasing half baked cloud based versions that only work through Chrome (and no other browsers).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Sun, 17 July 2022, 04:04:41
I haven't used Windows on my personal machines for 15 years, so I guess Linux is a good replacement.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 17 July 2022, 09:40:32
[Arch updates] already fixed.
Nope, I still get this!
Code: [Select]
pacman -Suy
:: Synchronising package databases...
 core                                                              157.2 KiB   734 KiB/s 00:00 [########################################################] 100%
 extra                                                            1720.0 KiB  7.21 MiB/s 00:00 [########################################################] 100%
 community                                                           6.7 MiB  7.62 MiB/s 00:01 [########################################################] 100%
 multilib                                                          171.7 KiB  3.90 MiB/s 00:00 [########################################################] 100%
:: Starting full system upgrade...
:: Replace wxgtk-common with extra/wxwidgets-common? [Y/n]
:: Replace wxgtk3 with extra/wxwidgets-gtk3? [Y/n]
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing wxgtk-common breaks dependency 'wxgtk-common' required by wxgtk2

Too long for it just to be waiting for it to pull through to a mirror, might actually have to investigate :eek:

Edit:See what uses wxgtk2:
Code: [Select]
pacman -Qii wxgtk2Nothing handled by pacman.  Great - remove it:
Code: [Select]
pamant -r wxgtk2Update complete :thumb:

I haven't used Windows on my personal machines for 15 years, so I guess Linux is a good replacement.
Nice.  It's been my main OS for at least 18 years but I used to "have to" use Windows for games.  The only thing Windows had going for it was consistently being able to find all the settings in one place (Win98, 2000, ME, XP...) but once they started "simplifying" the control panel that was no longer true.  You could also say printer drivers and games but in reality that was an advantage earned by being most popular OS so the other companies did the work for them; no credit belongs to Windows.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Tue, 19 July 2022, 14:03:06
Google has repeatedly dangled a carrot to Linux users claiming native apps were coming then either never dropping or releasing half baked cloud based versions that only work through Chrome (and no other browsers).
honestly, i did not know google had any desktop app since the discontinuation of google desktop, to me they only made phone and web apps, but then linux user :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 19 July 2022, 17:25:53
Google Drive Sync for desktop was killed off, now it's called Backup and Sync.
Both are horrible but at least the original never tried to do more than it could really handle. The new one is like Apple and HP Printer software teams joined forces to make the absolute worst system they could.

We used to say you wouldn't want to fly a plane running Microsoft code but if Google ever built a plane they'd probably abandon it half way down the runway and forget to give the pilot any controls. I'm not sure how a company so capable is so inept.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: controller-works on Wed, 20 July 2022, 20:32:44
I use Ubuntu 22.04 on a dual boot system with Windows 10. I started using Slackware Linux in 1996, I think.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ideus on Wed, 20 July 2022, 20:44:50
I concur with most of the comments, yet, computing needs vary beyond kernel and OS basic services. From that point on, users need particular software to work; therefore, it is not a matter of hoping an os replace another; you have to be productive with your hardware-software combo of choice. What I said, framed by these previous statements, is that the Linux forks I have tried did not make my work chain more productive; in some cases, they even downgraded it. So, I am afraid that the set of software I lean on the most does not work well with Linux. So, maybe Linux is not an option for me; it does not matter how hard I want it to be.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 21 July 2022, 10:43:32
Now I am back to whining and begging again - about "permissions" - surprise !

I can't even comprehend what this is talking about, and going online to places such as Linux forums shows me things to do, but what they show is not what comes up on my own screen when I follow their instructions.

(My apologies, again, and should I just start a "Harry whining about Linux" thread so that I am not turdposting on this one?)

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Thu, 21 July 2022, 13:21:04
Now I am back to whining and begging again - about "permissions" - surprise !

I can't even comprehend what this is talking about, and going online to places such as Linux forums shows me things to do, but what they show is not what comes up on my own screen when I follow their instructions.

(My apologies, again, and should I just start a "Harry whining about Linux" thread so that I am not turdposting on this one?)
i have used k3b extensively on multiple distroes and never managed to get this error, i guess cdrom is not as popular as it used to be :)
my guess is that your user does not have cdrom permission, try to type groups in a terminal and look if you are in the cdrom group? (as i said never seen this error, but the fact that there is a cdrom group written in the exact same way the error writes it makes me think it may be that)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 21 July 2022, 13:51:43

i have used k3b extensively on multiple distroes and never managed to get this error, i guess cdrom is not as popular as it used to be :)

my guess is that your user does not have cdrom permission, try to type groups in a terminal and look if you are in the cdrom group? (as i said never seen this error, but the fact that there is a cdrom group written in the exact same way the error writes it makes me think it may be that)

As an owner of an older car, I want CDs for the road and I sometimes like to make my own compilations, and also I don't want to trust my original disks in the heat ....

It appears that I should be "on the list"
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Thu, 21 July 2022, 14:05:25
yeah you should have the permissions, i am all out of clues, sorry. and i use CDs for my older non usb PCs, my cars are too old for those newfangled optical disk :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 21 July 2022, 16:30:33
What is in the device settings in k3b?

I also see you're not in the audio group and that doesn't sound good, could be why you can't record.

Code: [Select]
gpasswd -a harry audio
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 21 July 2022, 17:27:23

What is in the device settings in k3b?

I also see you're not in the audio group

Thank you, I have been added to the audio group, but it doesn't seem to change anything.

WTF is a group?

And I cannot find "device settings" in k3b, that is why I posted that screen shot.

Every time I turn around I am struck, yet again, how astonishingly opaque every little thing is, like walking along the bottom of a lake of tar.

Clearly, from the other side, the response is that I am learning how thoroughly I have utilized (and been dependent on) MicroSoft's hand-holding all these years.

I'm sorry to vent so childishly, but I am frustrated to be so helpless.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Thu, 21 July 2022, 17:51:53
You need to log out and in again for it to notice you're now in the audio group, should have mentioned that.

As you're back in Mint I'm not sure why you're in k3b - assuming all screenshots are from the same computer.  In the absence of menus across the top I guess they hid the settings in the cog top right?  Alternately you could install xfburn which is a simple GTK frontend for things you'll already have installed.

Groups are used in both Linux and Windows, visible in the "permissions" tab (Linux) or "security" tab (windows) of the properties after right clicking on a file.  If there were lots of users on your computer or you were sharing files over a network you could own a file and have read/write access but allow anyone in a chosen group to read it without fear of them deleting it.  When it's just you on a computer you just own everything so they are irrelevant, except that In Linux devices also have a "file" in /dev and that file is owned by root then access is managed by being in the right group.  You would expect a user friendly distro to have sensible defaults, but the lack of "audio" is dodgy.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Fri, 22 July 2022, 06:29:13

What is in the device settings in k3b?

I also see you're not in the audio group

Thank you, I have been added to the audio group, but it doesn't seem to change anything.

WTF is a group?

And I cannot find "device settings" in k3b, that is why I posted that screen shot.
a group is a way to handle permisions in a nicer and more (super)user friendly way, instead of having to change the permissions per individual user per file you assign files and users to groups, in a single user system it is less useful but still easier than having to go and give yourself the rights to all files associated with audio. and as SO pointed out windows uses the same system, just behind a deep menu that not many peoples know about :)
Every time I turn around I am struck, yet again, how astonishingly opaque every little thing is, like walking along the bottom of a lake of tar.

Clearly, from the other side, the response is that I am learning how thoroughly I have utilized (and been dependent on) MicroSoft's hand-holding all these years.

I'm sorry to vent so childishly, but I am frustrated to be so helpless.
i have the same issues when i try to use windows nowadays, i get frustrated at how hidden and dumbbed down everything is and feel hopeless. when you are used to things being one way them being completely different seems opaque, it is kinda normal, although it is much more normal for a penguin than for a window to be opaque :)
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 01 August 2022, 11:50:59
After messing around with Manjaro KDE for a bit, I feel like Mint Cinnamon is probably going to be adequate for my modest needs and won't add more learning curve aggravation to my transition from Windows. And it looks like 21 was finally released so I will plan to do some housecleaning and then a fresh clean install. Fun!

Now for a new irritant - I bought a DVD collection of magazine back issues and it came with a "Bondi" installation disk that runs in Windows, of course.

The files are in .djvu format which theoretically might run in Mint with "djview4" but I can't get it to work. I have tried several techniques that I found online, but none of them have worked, yielding error codes that are mostly along the lines of "unknown format - cannot decode" ....
 
Do you have any suggestions?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Mon, 01 August 2022, 12:50:15
.djvu files - never heard of them but just read Evince can open them and that's what I use for pdfs, I suggest you test it on your old install to keep the new one nice and clean.

If that doesn't work post the output of the below, lets see what type of file it really is:

Code: [Select]
file /path/to/file.djvu
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 01 August 2022, 15:43:32
It says that there is no such file or directory.
This is a DVD and is clearly locked down very tight.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 05 August 2022, 16:30:55
If you pasted that command it would say there's no file - you need to change /path/to/file.djvu to wherever the file is - you can drag the icon into the terminal if you're unsure.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 17 August 2022, 18:53:40
I did a clean install of Mint 21 on my main desktop and things are going, well,  just barely OK ....

It seems like every time I go through something and it actually works - I can't get back there the next time. I have 2 monitors (I know, Linux loses its mind on dual monitors) and although the larger HDMI on the left is set as the primary and the smaller DVI on the right is set as the secondary, I can't get my toolbar onto the primary monitor. I know that it is possible because I somehow managed to get it to work under Mint 20.

Neither "Preferences/Display" nor right-clicking on the display mentions a method for moving these things around. Do you have any suggestions?
 
Thank you. As always, I appreciate the help.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Wed, 17 August 2022, 22:00:17
To set your main you have to set that screen as your main, that should bring the toolbar.
Then create a new one on the second screen.


Gnome 3 loses it's mind on dual screens, that also means Cinnamon and anything else based on it does.
KDE does not (at least not anymore).
Gnome 2 does not (as far as I know).

This fixed it on older KDE and I think Cinnamon, it was in an old troubleshooting sheet I had from when I had issues with duals. You may need to tailor it to your system.
go to .local/share/kscreen
Delete the file
go to etc/x11/xorg.conf.d/50-monitor.conf

if it doesn't exist
create 50-monitor.conf using text below. After restart select "extend to left"
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "DisplayPort-0"
    Option      "Primary" "true"
    EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "DisplayPort-2"
    Option      "LeftOf" "DisplayPort-0"
EndSection

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Darthbaggins on Sun, 21 August 2022, 18:05:27
I'm not a fan of Gnome 3 due to that reason right there, just want my panels to be as close to plug-n-play as possible.  Gnome 2, I have had few issues running with compatibility issues (mainly used the Mate environment).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Sun, 21 August 2022, 21:34:01
After trying what seemed like the same things several times, it suddenly began to work properly. Linux still seems quite opaque to me until I learn the tricks, and it feels like there is an obscure trick for EVERYTHING.

Still haven't gotten Audacity to record.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 26 August 2022, 03:56:19
Still haven't gotten Audacity to record.
Contrary to Leslieann I don't think your recording requirement is at all "advanced" but we're still no closer to knowing if the problem is the "soundcard" or Mint.

Either boot the Manjaro laptop drive or put in the X-Fi.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 26 August 2022, 08:40:46
Still haven't gotten Audacity to record.
Contrary to Leslieann I don't think your recording requirement is at all "advanced" but we're still no closer to knowing if the problem is the "soundcard" or Mint.

Either boot the Manjaro laptop drive or put in the X-Fi.

I can now record my favorite radio station via streaming over the internet using pulse and default, but it comes in at very low volume even with the sliders up full on.

The old (early 2000s) sound card does not fit, it looks "almost" right but the track and socket are slightly different lengths.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 26 August 2022, 10:29:40
Well that's something!  Is the sound clean enough to amplify? (ctrl+a then click effect -> amplify)  I would think that is the more complicated option compared to just recording a line in or mic.  Maybe they too are quiet and just need the volume of whatever you're recording turned up?

Sounds like a PCI soundcard, you can get adaptors to the modern PCI-Express but looks like they're designed for thin cards while yours probably isn't.  By the time you also buy a ribbon to relocate it you could probably buy a new soundcard...
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 26 November 2022, 03:37:59
I made the mistake of thinking about upgrading to an M.2 SSD and within hours had my first problems with my years old Arch install - Firefox repeatedly crashed locking up X when either copying or pasting a few words using right click.  Switching to a real terminal and killing Firefox resulted in a strange "black screen of death" with red writing when returning to X but of course being Linux it offered click to recover rather than needing a reboot :P
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Sun, 27 November 2022, 12:52:43
I made the mistake of thinking about upgrading to an M.2 SSD and within hours had my first problems with my years old Arch install - Firefox repeatedly crashed locking up X when either copying or pasting a few words using right click.  Switching to a real terminal and killing Firefox resulted in a strange "black screen of death" with red writing when returning to X but of course being Linux it offered click to recover rather than needing a reboot :P
yeah i loved that "Restart X" there was in IceWM, when something is wrong with the DE no need to reboot the whole system, although i never needed it in Ice, and would have loved it in KDE :)
Forgot, now on SteamOS 3, it is rather good, but unfinished, and does not have printing support.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iri on Mon, 28 November 2022, 02:41:23
Doesn't Ctrl-Alt-Backspace do just that, restart X?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Mon, 28 November 2022, 06:38:06
Doesn't Ctrl-Alt-Backspace do just that, restart X?
Yup.  I didn't need to though, killing Firefox recovered the rest of the session.

Still happening, might be time to try something new :eek:
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Mon, 28 November 2022, 11:25:40
Doesn't Ctrl-Alt-Backspace do just that, restart X?
well you taught me something new
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 03 December 2022, 05:21:57
Still crashing, time for another distro!

Guess I need to read up on general changes, Wayland(?) being one I've heard of but ignored (unless Arch seamlessly transitioned for me...)  Anyone know of anything else I should know about?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sat, 03 December 2022, 13:53:01
While some of this may be a distro issue or drive issue FF has had a bug recently where it just locks up.
Haven't had it take the desktop with it though.

If it's been years and a major drive change, a re-install is probably not a bad idea anyhow, Linux isn't Windows but it still does occasionally benefit from a cleanout.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 03 December 2022, 15:55:34
While some of this may be a distro issue or drive issue FF has had a bug recently where it just locks up.
Haven't had it take the desktop with it though.
Oh!  The desktop kinda crashed but fully recovered the first couple of times where I killed the Isolated Web Content processes as one was showing high CPU load, since straight killing Firefox it's not happened.

From reading around Wayland is still not compatible with everything and I'm intrigued how long this install can last as it's showing no signs of age related slowdown, it can surely survive until I have to "upgrade" the mobo so may as well leave it for now.  Would never have thought such a big bug could make it into Firefox, sad times.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Sun, 04 December 2022, 03:19:38
While some of this may be a distro issue or drive issue FF has had a bug recently where it just locks up.
Haven't had it take the desktop with it though.
Oh!  The desktop kinda crashed but fully recovered the first couple of times where I killed the Isolated Web Content processes as one was showing high CPU load, since straight killing Firefox it's not happened.

From reading around Wayland is still not compatible with everything and I'm intrigued how long this install can last as it's showing no signs of age related slowdown, it can surely survive until I have to "upgrade" the mobo so may as well leave it for now.  Would never have thought such a big bug could make it into Firefox, sad times.
It may not be a FF bug but a copy paste bug in the OS, or Wayland, hard to say.
I had something similar a while back, I reloaded one system before finding a cure and it fixed it, but I don't remember what did it on the other but did fix it without a re-install. It was something stupid if I remember right. And yeah, Wayland needs time to mature, it's getting there though.

With how many different projects Linux relies on, by so many different people, the fact that Linux even works at all kinda blows my mind.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sun, 04 December 2022, 06:27:55
Having checked I don't have Wayland and nothing else has crashed (text editor, audacity, gimp and terminal have all seen use, though not as much as Firefox) so pretty confident Firefox is the problem.

With how many different projects Linux relies on, by so many different people, the fact that Linux even works at all kinda blows my mind.
It is impressive, especially when there's at least two of pretty much everything from the lowest level CPU scheduler to GUI toolkits!
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: yui on Thu, 08 December 2022, 17:12:38
i have had much better luck lately with firefox not filling up the ram and crashing my whole system (yes still on my broken debian with broken oomd), until yesterday when it crashed twice, still better than chrome but still
With how many different projects Linux relies on, by so many different people, the fact that Linux even works at all kinda blows my mind.
It is impressive, especially when there's at least two of pretty much everything from the lowest level CPU scheduler to GUI toolkits!
I do understand where you are coming from but to me it make sense that it would work, all the projects aim to be Unix/POSIX compatible (at least should), and aim to do one (or a few) thing(s) well, when you have a theoretically infinite number of peoples working on something, that seems like the best way to get anything done :) still impressive though
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Sat, 10 December 2022, 03:10:08
Just as an update my crashing seems to have stopped, I've updated the system a couple of times but Firefox was not upgraded.  Strange but not going to complain

Correction - it just  crashed :(
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: iLLucionist on Tue, 20 December 2022, 06:43:57
Is it just me, or do other people also experience that Fedora often has kernel hangs? I suspect it is how NVIDIA is patched into stock kernel. Oftentimes when doing GPU intensive stuff OR Firefox, I have kernel hangs. It always starts with firefox locking up, then I cannot open terminals or do anything, and then the mouse freezes.

When I don't touch firefox for hours, but mostly stay in neovim or tmux in terminal (urxvt), it's fine. When I am in Firefox longer times, always a freeze at some moment.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Tue, 20 December 2022, 12:21:24
The FF bug I was seeing when highlighting/copying is an older bug that returned and was a result of libx11, not FF.


Only time I see FF crash otherwise is if I spent far too long on eternal scroll, specifically Reddit which is poorly coded.* My systems is pretty rock solid.


*Blame management for the typical "I don't care how, just get it done" attitude.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: SBJ on Mon, 09 January 2023, 02:25:04
Wanted to try something fresh so switched one of my VMs from Ubuntu to Fedora.

Fedora went the windows route with their update system, I don't mind, works well.

I'm ashamed to say that I sold my Linux server - during this period where electricity just costs too much in my country I had to retire it.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Mandan on Thu, 12 January 2023, 11:40:17
at home:

1986-1996 DOS, beginning with IBM DOS 2.1, ending with DR-DOS 5, 4DOS command interpreter, DESQview multitasker, and QEMM memory manager

1996-1999 Windows 95, though the only Windows software I had was Netscape.  I ran all my DOS software in console windows.

2000-2011  Mandrake/Mandriva Linux, until it was discontinued

2011-2020  OpenSUSE Linux (KDE)

2020-present  KUbuntu

Not counting brief flings with IBM OS/2 1.3, Red Hat, and Debian.

I think KDE went seriously downhill when they did the rewrite between 3.10 and 4.0; it lost both features and stability.  In return, it got a bunch more eye candy cruft to seek out and turn off. 

at work:

I was a SCO sysadmin in the mid-90s.  IT's budget wouldn't stretch for more copies of SCO, so I set up a couple of Slackware servers with the SCO emulator package.  They ran just fine.

I'm retired and only have a couple of clients now; I have all their servers running OpenSUSE, some of them hosting Windows 10 servers in virtual machines, and some VNC terminals running Raspbian on Raspberry Pis. 
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Thu, 16 March 2023, 12:45:33
It seems to me that youtube-dl has completely stopped working in recent days. I have un-installed and re-installed it multiple times and it always returns errors.

Has YouTube just gotten angry about it and shut it down?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Leslieann on Thu, 16 March 2023, 13:12:26
Youtube (and Docs)  is where Google experiments with ways of damaging the competition, they regularly "test" new things that break everything other than Chrome.

It may work again in a few days, it may not, depends on the developer and Google.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: spippy71 on Fri, 24 March 2023, 15:25:01
Fedora and Raspberry Pi OS
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: ideus on Sun, 26 March 2023, 13:14:30
I have been using Zorin Pro (A Ubuntu fork) for a month with no major issues so far. I think that I found my silver bullet.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 11 April 2023, 10:24:39
Is Vera better than Vanessa, and, more importantly, is it a worthwhile upgrade?
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: user 18 on Sat, 15 April 2023, 12:22:23
Is Vera better than Vanessa, and, more importantly, is it a worthwhile upgrade?

I updated an older Dell XPS 13 from Vanessa to Vera a few months ago. Most of the changes are to the GUI, and I had to do some work to get my preferred mouse cursor back. Flatpak support in the update manager is nice, if you're a fan of flatpak.

My typical philosophy is usually not to care too much about the point releases, but they are fairly straightforward upgrades compared to changing major versions.

Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: TacticalCoder on Mon, 17 April 2023, 16:35:19
Still all kind of Debian or Debian derivatives / fork.

I just build a new PC: AMD 7700X.  I installed Debian Bookworm (it's not considered "stable" yet but should be soon, it's in testing but "hard freeze" already, so in Debian's world that means quite stable already).  Working flawlessly so far (been using that 7700X since a few days).
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Terrysko on Tue, 02 May 2023, 08:15:02
I just build a new PC: AMD 7700X. I installed Debian Bookworm (it's not considered "stable" yet but should be soon, it's in testing but "hard freeze" already, so in Debian's world that means quite stable already). Working flawlessly so far (been using that 7700X since a few days).
About 1½ years ago I faced a similar task, building a powerful HTPC: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X. The implementation of this project took almost four months in total, but it paid off, as the energy consumption and its key data were very important to me. Although it wasn't initially clear whether I should choose Linux Mint or Debian, I decided at the last minute in favour of the ingenious compromise LMDE and have not regretted it to this day.
Title: Re: What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?
Post by: Marboard on Sat, 06 May 2023, 09:36:25
I use Manjaro with Gnome.