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Rukus
Big Dog


Registered: 06/07/11
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Loc: Canada
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Anyone running Linux? What distro? 1
#28591588 - 12/20/23 04:18 PM (4 months, 26 days ago) |
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I'm not really that tech savvy, but a weird hobby of mine is trying different Linux distros on, tinkering with them, getting them customized to how I like, etc. I have a bunch of old laptops I like to use, its awesome to see how much better they can run with a properly set up Linux than they did with Windows.
Currently positing from an older Acer Chromebook I put Fedora KDE Plasma on, and it is running flawlessly.
Anyone else enjoy using Linux?
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Big_Dub
I'm just some guy



Registered: 01/12/11
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: Rukus]
#28592077 - 12/20/23 10:31 PM (4 months, 26 days ago) |
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I really liked manjaro
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: Rukus]
#28592166 - 12/21/23 01:30 AM (4 months, 26 days ago) |
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Quote:
Rukus said: Anyone else enjoy using Linux?
Not really. I've explained elsewhere on the forum a couple of times why. Mostly for reasons of productivity and usability. OS-es aren't my hobby; they're part of the infrastructure that just needs to work and be as transparent as possible.
I do run linux on one or two servers. It's fine for that, and saves me the cost of a Win license.
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Rukus
Big Dog


Registered: 06/07/11
Posts: 1,183
Loc: Canada
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: koraks] 1
#28592997 - 12/21/23 04:47 PM (4 months, 25 days ago) |
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Quote:
koraks said:
Quote:
Rukus said: Anyone else enjoy using Linux?
Not really. I've explained elsewhere on the forum a couple of times why. Mostly for reasons of productivity and usability. OS-es aren't my hobby; they're part of the infrastructure that just needs to work and be as transparent as possible.
I do run linux on one or two servers. It's fine for that, and saves me the cost of a Win license.
I sort of get it, besides being as transparent as possible. How can you possibly be more transparent that being open source?
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: Rukus]
#28593568 - 12/22/23 01:15 AM (4 months, 25 days ago) |
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'Transparent' as in: functionality is easy to find, intuitive, it's not hidden beyond layers of (unintentional) obfuscation etc.
Linux is great in theory. In practice, it has gotten a whole lot better in the 15 or so years I've been using it, but it has a long way to go still.
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Northerner
splelling chceker


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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: koraks]
#28597676 - 12/25/23 03:28 PM (4 months, 21 days ago) |
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I run Debian at home and on my workstation and servers at work. I use the KDE desktop at work and the Cinnamon desktop at home. I have a Windows workstation at home as well for music production, though it never touches the internet.
I was just running Linux at work and Windows at home, but I got sick of cleaning up malware that my family was installing on my home PC. The final straw was about a decade ago when on a fresh Windows install it took a certain family member less than 10 minutes to reinfect our home machine with malware, I wiped it and installed Linux with Cinnamon (for ease of use) and that's what we've been driving since. A few different distros, but always Cinnamon.
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The nearest we ever come to knowing truth is when we are witness to paradox.
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huey.bluey


Registered: 01/16/19
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: Northerner] 1
#28598266 - 12/26/23 04:45 AM (4 months, 21 days ago) |
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Gentoo and I use kvm + looking glass to emulate windows 10+11 with gpu pass through for 3d graphics work
Your old chromeos is based on gentoo
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huey.bluey


Registered: 01/16/19
Posts: 1,922
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: koraks]
#28598274 - 12/26/23 05:25 AM (4 months, 21 days ago) |
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Quote:
koraks said: Not really. I've explained elsewhere on the forum a couple of times why. Mostly for reasons of productivity and usability. OS-es aren't my hobby; they're part of the infrastructure that just needs to work and be as transparent as possible.
I do run linux on one or two servers. It's fine for that, and saves me the cost of a Win license.
operating systems are just software. you can run software under any other software if you can run a compatibility layer. wine on linux can natively run all of your windows soyware. in the end, its not that difficult but it can seem so. I still prefer virtual machines to obfuscate the windows crap from my native operating system.
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CultiV8
cogito, ergo rum


Registered: 08/16/14
Posts: 326
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey]
#28599321 - 12/27/23 01:26 AM (4 months, 20 days ago) |
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fedora is a great middle ground between the stability of something like debian and a rolling release distro with up to date packages like arch/manjaro.
that being said the two groups of people who tend to enjoy running GNU/linux are programmers and folks who use the computer for a few things like emailing their grandkids, playing chess, and accessing the web.
if you aren't quite from a coding background but do need to run software for gaming, music production, multimedia editing, etc it can quickly become more trouble than it's worth.
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey]
#28599343 - 12/27/23 02:42 AM (4 months, 20 days ago) |
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Quote:
huey.bluey said: wine on linux can natively run all of your windows soyware.
Windows can run all my Windows software. Why complicate matters with an OS that offers no benefit for me and an intermediate layer that I don't need if I just run Windows to begin with? It's putting the cart before the horse.
And no, Wine is not a usable substitute for me. There's no way I can use my film scanners in Linux, certainly not the old Minolta that Linux never supported and never will, but that has run fine on consecutive versions of Windows for about 2 decades now.
I also don't recognize the need to 'obfuscate windows crap' from my operating system. Sounds pretty silly to me. I've had zero problems in this century with apps bringing the system down somehow, or malware issues etc. Zero. The supposed problems with Windows are consistently massively overstated by the Linux crowd.
Not to mention that in a business context where productivity and interoperability matter, Linux doesn't offer any benefit and tends to complicate matters. LibreOffice is not a true substitute for MS Office, interoperability between the two is mediocre and functionality of the former lags far behind the real thing. Photoshop vs. GIMP is a similar situation, with GIMP getting marks for the effort but the Adobe product taking the cake for being a product that makes actual sense in a professional (as opposed to amateur/hobbyist) context. And the list goes on and on.
Don't get me wrong; I applaud the open source philosophy, and I think it's totally amazing how far the open source crowd has come with apps like GIMP. But after years of running Linux on a desktop as a daily driver, I put things back into perspective and went back to Windows. I estimate I spent about 16 hours per year on just operating system maintenance, updates, fixes for misc problems on Linux and some areas of performance were horrible because of crappy hardware support that just remained unfixed for, well, ever. On Windows, that's maybe 1 hour if I'm stretching it and virtually anything you plug into the machine just works instantly.
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huey.bluey


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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: koraks]
#28599382 - 12/27/23 04:09 AM (4 months, 20 days ago) |
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Yeah nvidia driver are all trash. Except on windows, nvidia barely maintains anything but windows drivers. And even those barely work for me.
All the gimp vs Adobe vs ms paint yeah whatever eye roll apples and oranges. You can run any of those easily in a in a compatibility layer. In the end I like control. I can control alot in Linux I can't control very well in wind. Also no useless features drawing up memory in the background. My os uses 500 mb when I start it up. Ads in the toolbar?? I think not.
Edited by huey.bluey (12/27/23 04:15 AM)
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey]
#28599410 - 12/27/23 05:16 AM (4 months, 20 days ago) |
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Quote:
huey.bluey said: All the gimp vs Adobe vs ms paint yeah whatever eye roll apples and oranges.
Paint doesn't belong in that list. Gimp vs Photoshop is a legitimate comparison as GIMP is basically a PS clone and always has been. They're still trailing behind about a decade+ after Adobe.
All the 'I can control' stuff is in your head, one day you'll realize it has nothing to do with productivity or real-world use and everything with your own psychology. What, realistically, do you need to control that Windows (or MacOS for that matter) doesn't allow you to?
Nothing wrong with taking that control complex out on whatever hobby and if that hobby turns out to be Linux, hey, whatever floats your boat. I never got much satisfaction from it since it didn't amount to anything except irrelevant bragging rights. In the end, it's all very similar to car talk etc. "This machine takes me from 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds wooaahhh" - yeah, so, realistically speaking, this may get you at the office half a second faster than some boring old pile of rust. Whoop-deee-doo.
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huey.bluey


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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: koraks] 1
#28599415 - 12/27/23 05:23 AM (4 months, 20 days ago) |
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Atleast I don't have Microsoft looking over my shoulders while I work. That's all I ask.
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huey.bluey


Registered: 01/16/19
Posts: 1,922
Loc: Mississippi River
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey]
#28599426 - 12/27/23 05:52 AM (4 months, 19 days ago) |
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I guess it's your lack of control which you are accustomed to. I can build my kernel from scratch and build with only the options I want. Leave bluetooth out if I hate it whatever. You literally can't look into the nt kernel. It's proprietary. That will be 150$ for a license, please. It sounds like you can't handle control or you find it annoying. To each their own. You have your way and I have mine.
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Northerner
splelling chceker


Registered: 07/29/12
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey]
#28599593 - 12/27/23 08:49 AM (4 months, 19 days ago) |
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It's horses for courses koraks. Like my camera server, WiFi server, proxy and mail server are Linux but my file server, DNS, DC's, demilitarised zone and IP phones are Windows. The ESX clients are Linux, but the backups are a mixture of both With all the servers I maintain we tend to see better stability on Linux. The Linux ones never need reinstalling from scratch, we just update them in place. Some have been running for 20 years now, literally the same install. Try doing that with Windows.
But I wouldn't suggest trying to run a corporate desktop environment, CAD production workstation, music production workstation or gaming PC on Linux as the software support is lacking.
Also, I'm constantly updating and making complex changes to Windows computers. If we weren't as proactive they'd quite happily fuck themselves over. It's just how windows is because it's such a hulking mass of code built over so long and needs someone to clean up the nonsense and stop the crippleware model.
I really understand why people get into Linux, why root matters to a lot of people. Having control over what your computer actually does is pretty cool. Having it not rearrange itself and install shit you never asked for feels good too. The point being that I don't think for serious computer users just being cool and matrix is what it's about.
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The nearest we ever come to knowing truth is when we are witness to paradox.
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey]
#28599668 - 12/27/23 10:18 AM (4 months, 19 days ago) |
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Quote:
huey.bluey said: It sounds like you can't handle control or you find it annoying.
LOL. I do a lot of electronics engineering and embedded engineering for fun. That's a whole lot more 'control' than running Linux. It's a question of what you decide to spend/waste time on. For me, choosing to run Linux is a waste of time that provides to benefit. Embedded system engineering lets me do stuff I could otherwise not do, or I'd have to spend a fortune on. I'll gladly pay the $150 (the price of one decent restaurant dinner!) for a license that lasts me years. Not that I actually paid that license, because I just got a second hand HP desktop that had a license on it...
I'm pretty serious about the technical side of photography and I take a truckload of 'control' in that, too, making prints from just paper, gelatin and soot. I've done wet plate, which is basically glass, silver salts and collodion to make an image from. Doesn't get much more bare bones (literally!) than that. Compiling a kernel is as complicated as flushing the toilet compared to these things. If you don't believe me, go ahead and do it.
I'm fine with people liking to tinker. I tinker all the time - just in different areas. And don't forget, been there, done that, t-shirt in the bag and all that. I just realized it was a waste of time I could spend in a more useful manner. I also realize very well that this control is for the most part irrational; it's control for control's sake, without real-world utility.
The problem is whenever some guy (always a guy) comes along pointing out how cool Linux is and you say "well, maybe, but rationally, not so much", they have to resort to all kinds of FUD and erroneously information about the alternatives to justify their choice. Like Microsoft 'looking over your shoulder' (Bill, have a seat, grab a coffee - cream & sugar?), Windows machines supposedly requiring permanent interventions and maintenance (errr...not really, but OK, maybe I don't do my best to deliberately install sufficient malware!) etc. It's all a load of baloney.
Yes, horses for courses. Small, lightweight Linux servers make good sense in a home setting for domotics, as a print server, online storage etc. I use them all the time. Just not as a desktop system. Why bother?
Why not be honest about the whole thing and just say that you run Linux because you think it's cool. Same reason why you prefer a red car and wear New Balance sneakers or whatever. How about we cut the bullshit and call it what it is. Call it bragging rights, having the sense of being rebellious, the feeling of superiority because of being able to compile your own kernel - whatever. And you know what? That's all perfectly fine. Enjoy it.
Edited by koraks (12/27/23 10:29 AM)
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huey.bluey


Registered: 01/16/19
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: koraks]
#28599730 - 12/27/23 11:53 AM (4 months, 19 days ago) |
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You lost me at "I do alot of electronics engineering" it's ok I am happy we both are at the very least electrons existing in some place at some time. I literally don't care anymore.
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Northerner
splelling chceker


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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey] 2
#28599954 - 12/27/23 03:30 PM (4 months, 19 days ago) |
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There being low amounts of malware created for Linux is a selling point for desktop installations. Your average Joe who just wants to visit some websites, check their email, do online shopping and banking and manage personal photos has good reason to consider Linux over Windows. Not having to deal with antivirus, obfuscated malicious files, online remote control scams and general malicious code is a big deal for these people. General security is a big deal. Clicking the first link on Google search results with Linux will not fuck your computer.
I have family in their 70's who I've given laptop computers to with the same Cinnamon on Debian setup that I have on my general use pc. I didn't have to explain how to use it more than clicking the single update button when it appears, which updates all software on the system. No more support calls or drama. So much simpler than Windows.
Desktop environments have come a long way too, many are very simple and user friendly. It wasn't always like this, and even established power user environments like KDE have had some questionable releases that have made me turn my back on them for years. Gnome is still terrible imo, even though it's the default for many distros.
There really is a whole heap privacy concerns around Windows desktops too. Maybe some people don't care about these privacy concerns, they trust that big tech has their best interests at heart or think they are too small to matter. European governments get it though and are constantly making Microsoft back off, even though individuals can fail to grasp the implications. Microsoft have retaliated by doing things like packaging device USB drivers with their spyware. Sure Europe, you don't have to have all your media scanned by us, but have fun unfucking your computer so it will connect to your mobile phone. Lol.
Linux isn't just small lightweight server ideal, it is the powerhouse that lifts big data. Our internet backbone runs on Linux. Google servers are Linux. Amazon servers are Linux. Facebook servers are Linux... just pick your big data company and their backbone is Linux. Many of these companies don't even bother with Windows domain controllers, they are big enough to get over that, which means their file servers, video servers, IP phones and more don't need Kerberos and are free from the inherent instabilities and vulnerabilities that go with Windows server. Your average company is mostly technically illiterate though, they use the windows ecosystem because the trade between difficulty of implementation and uptime expectations doesn't mean that they need to spend money on hiring people who have the knowledge of these less well known systems. They can pick and choose out of the masses who know windows. It's easier and cheaper to implement, but that's where the advantage ends.
None of that means that your home gamer should use it, nor your lab guy running scientific equipment... they run into significant compatibility issues. Just like malware programmers can't be fucked with Linux most legitimate programmers can't be fucked making their software work on it either.
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huey.bluey


Registered: 01/16/19
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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: Northerner]
#28599996 - 12/27/23 04:16 PM (4 months, 19 days ago) |
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I used to study computer science but I couldn't get an internship or job. I made stuff but it got me no where's. LOL
Also yeah I'm not saying linux is perfect. But it's getting there, fast. I use dwm mainly but also KDE for Wayland. Nvidia is fucking everything up and my experience is ruined by their shifty drivers. In the end. I still emulate windows so you could say I never left but I also never left linux it's a very clusterfuck.
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Northerner
splelling chceker


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Re: Anyone running Linux? What distro? [Re: huey.bluey]
#28600029 - 12/27/23 04:37 PM (4 months, 19 days ago) |
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On my Linux workstations I run older quadro graphics cards, the driver compatibility is fine. Obviously not playing games, the card type isn't even for that.
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The nearest we ever come to knowing truth is when we are witness to paradox.
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