What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?

[MKULTRA]

Arch

[Leslieann]

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.

[Altis]

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.

[rowdy]

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.

[Findecanor]

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, 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.

[rowdy]

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, 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.

[Leslieann]

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.

[iri]

Mac OS is offtopic and an annoyance.

[Findecanor]

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.

[xtrafrood]

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 Lovin' XBPS

[tp4tissue]

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 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.

[xtrafrood]

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 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. )

[sth]

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 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:

cwm is also very nice if you like floaters!

[xtrafrood]

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 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

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.

[romevi]

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.

[menuhin]

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.

[Blaise170]

I'm being recruited for a QA job with RedHat. Might contact them back. 

[iLLucionist]

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.

[rowdy]

I'm being recruited for a QA job with RedHat. Might contact them back. 

Cool!  Congrats

[SBJ]

Switched from Linux Mint to Manjaro.
Really enjoying Arch so far.

[romevi]

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.

[xtrafrood]

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.

[kgolden]

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.

[Blaise170]

I've probably used 40-50 distros over the years. Almost always end up on a lightweight Ubuntu derivative though.

[iLLucionist]

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..

[sth]

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

[xtrafrood]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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).

[sth]

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.

[Leslieann]

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.

[rowdy]

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.

[Blaise170]

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:

• Sell the system.
• Repair the system and leave it on Human68k OS.
• Repair the system and install NetBSD.
• Gut the system and put in custom hardware running Linux or similar.

[yuppie]

alpine

[xtrafrood]

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.

[menuhin]

alpine

I believe you are talking about the linux distribution, but not this thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_(email_client)

And then this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_(email_client)

I still have some mails archived in this format - but really want an indexed solution.

[kgolden]

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.

[SBJ]

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.

[romevi]

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.

[sleepy]

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.

[Blaise170]

Been curious about using Gentoo before but never actually have. Will have to try someday.

[menuhin]

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.

[sleepy]

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.

[romevi]

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.

[sleepy]

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/

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. 

[romevi]

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/

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.)

[menuhin]

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.

[suicidal_orange]

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 )

[Kyi195]

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.

[sleepy]

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!

[xtrafrood]

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.