What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?

[CSCoder4ever]

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.

[user 18]

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.

[vivalarevolución]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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.

[Leslieann]

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.

[davkol]

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.

[dan002]

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.

[user 18]

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.

[Leslieann]

Cinnamon is based on Gnome3, which is already heavier than XFCE. All are lighter than KDE.

[CSCoder4ever]

Personally for me, I am just waiting for LXQt to be a thing, because I personally would rather use Qt applications if I can.

[KRKS]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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.

[CSCoder4ever]

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!

[iLLucionist]

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?

[xtrafrood]

     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       

[CSCoder4ever]

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!

[iLLucionist]

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.

[n__dles]

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!!! 

[iLLucionist]

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!!! 

Memories.. once compiled Gentoo with KDE on a K7 700 Mhz Athlon... took me 3 days to compile everything.

[livingspeedbump]

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.

[livingspeedbump]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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*.

[CSCoder4ever]

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? 

[iLLucionist]

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? 

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.

[hullo8d]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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?

[deduction]

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.

[Leslieann]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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)

[TacticalCoder]

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.

[sean]

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.

[Leslieann]

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.

[davkol]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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.

[xtrafrood]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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.

[xtrafrood]

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.

[Leslieann]

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".

[hullo8d]

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.

[xtrafrood]

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?

[hullo8d]

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.

[deduction]

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.

[iLLucionist]

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.

[xtrafrood]

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.   

[iLLucionist]

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.

[TacticalCoder]

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).

[TacticalCoder]

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...

[Leslieann]

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.

[deduction]

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.

[deduction]

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).