My 2018 Linux Test

JSumrall

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 19, 2011
Messages
448
Given the conversation in this thread: https://hardforum.com/threads/linux-in-the-news.1964808/ I decided I'd once again give Linux a try to see if my position regarding the OS still stands or if things have improved since I last gave it a a year or two ago.

For over 15 years I have tried to use Linux to replace Windows either completely or enough to use it on all of my machines save the one I use for gaming. This efforts have always failed to provide the results I wanted and I always ended up back with Windows on all of my machines.

So, today I'll give Linux another shot. I'm looking for the following to prove this experiment a success.

1. Installation needs to just work. While sometimes I run into problems installing Windows, it's pretty rare and for the most part it just works.

2. For the most part, once the OS is up and running, I should be able to do basic functions like check email, browse the web, access info- and enter- tainment without more than basic hassles.

3. There are some applications that are a 'must have' such as my security systems' live camera view software. Once (and if) I'm able to get Linux up and running I'll be looking into whether or not the software is supported on Linux.

The first system I'll be installing Linux on is a secondary desktop with the following hardware:

MSI Intel X79A-GD45(8D) Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3820 Processor
32GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Memory
256GB SSD
Seagate 600 SSD 240GB Hard Drive
MSI 770 GTX Video Card
 
My first decision is which distribution to use. I'm going to start out trying Ubuntu.
 
So I decided to try and install from a USB stick rather than a DVD.

I went to Pendrivelinux and downloaded the universal USB installer, formatted an 8GB USB Memory Stick and ran the application to setup the drive to install Ubuntu.
 
Thankfully the machine I'm installing Linux to was just recently setup again using a fresh install of Windows so I don't have to back up anything. Looks like I have (1) 240GB SSD, (1) 300GB Hard Drive, and (1) 1TB Hard Drive in the machine all empty save Windows 10.
 
So after going into the BIOS and changing the first boot option to USB Key, Ubuntu booted and loaded automatically into the 'Try Ubuntu' option. It would not allow me to select any other option for some reason.
 
So I decided to try and install from a USB stick rather than a DVD.

I went to Pendrivelinux and downloaded the universal USB installer, formatted an 8GB USB Memory Stick and ran the application to setup the drive to install Ubuntu.


Etcher

Ubuntu is a good choice to try, IMO. Hope you're installing to the SSD. If Win10 is already there, the Ubuntu installer should be smart enough to shrink its partition and install alongside on a second.

Everything you mention in your OP should work just fine. The only one I'm not sure of is the security cams, but I just have no experience with those.

Don't be afraid to try multiple desktop environments. If you don't like the default Gnome, there's also KDE (Kubuntu), LXDE (Lubuntu), Mate, Budgie, etc. They're all available via 'tasksel', so you don't need to do a full reinstall.
 
Etcher

Ubuntu is a good choice to try, IMO. Hope you're installing to the SSD. If Win10 is already there, the Ubuntu installer should be smart enough to shrink its partition and install alongside on a second.

Everything you mention in your OP should work just fine. The only one I'm not sure of is the security cams, but I just have no experience with those.

Don't be afraid to try multiple desktop environments. If you don't like the default Gnome, there's also KDE (Kubuntu), LXDE (Lubuntu), Mate, Budgie, etc. They're all available via 'tasksel', so you don't need to do a full reinstall.

I'm just completely wiping the machine and letting Ubuntu do it's thing. Not really a big deal if I have to reinstall Windows 10.

I've used Gnome, KDE, and quite a few others before. We'll see which one ends up as default. :D
 
The install went pretty smooth and the system booted up. Netflix is actually working in Firefox, which is a surprise. The first hiccup so far is setting up Livepatch. I setup an Ubuntu Single Sign On Account. When attempting to login it's just kind of stuck 'connecting'.
 
Looks like Amazon Video is working, something I never could get working before. So that's cool.
 
Seem to be running into a snag with HBOGo. It definitely is not working. I'll have to look into it later.
 
It looks like Ubuntu defaults to the Nouveau driver. Attempting to switch to the nVidia driver now.


Well, nVidia driver is active. We'll see how it goes.
 
What card and what version of the Nvidia driver are you running? I can tell you how to add the Nvidia PPA and get the very latest drivers for your card as opposed to the drivers in the official repos if you like.
 
What card and what version of the Nvidia driver are you running? I can tell you how to add the Nvidia PPA and get the very latest drivers for your card as opposed to the drivers in the official repos if you like.

770 GTX. Driver version looks to be 390. It specifically says Using nVidia driver metapackage from nvidia-driver-390 (proprietary, tested)
 
770 GTX. Driver version looks to be 390. It specifically says Using nVidia driver metapackage from nvidia-driver-390 (proprietary, tested)

That's what he means. It's from the official repo that Ubuntu pulls from. Sometimes it's not as up to date as the Nvidia PPA. You can add the Nvidia one if you want the newest right now.
 
What card and what version of the Nvidia driver are you running? I can tell you how to add the Nvidia PPA and get the very latest drivers for your card as opposed to the drivers in the official repos if you like.
I would appreciate any help. :)
 
Ok, it took some doing but I got my security camera software running. Wine documentation said you should be able to run the .exe from file manager, but it kept trying to load the Application Manager rather than Wine. I was able to run the application by typing: Wine [appname.exe]. This allowed the application to install and run.
 
Ok, it took some doing but I got my security camera software running. Wine documentation said you should be able to run the .exe from file manager, but it kept trying to load the Application Manager rather than Wine. I was able to run the application by typing: Wine [appname.exe]. This allowed the application to install and run.

I don't think you will have any OS breaking issues with Ubuntu. I had a handful here and there, but they were usually fixed with batch files that run at startup.
 
If Ubuntu doesn't fulfill your wildest fantasies, and you want to try another Linux distribution before bowing down to Microsoft again, I recommend checking out Linux Mint 19 with cinnamon. A huge benefit to it is that you still get to use the same large repo of existing packages for Ubuntu, which are typically the most likely to be supported by developers.
I hope you find what you're looking for in Linux. If you don't, hit up the sub-forum for Linux. It's one more click, and there's a bunch of us in there with a lot of experience!
 
If Ubuntu doesn't fulfill your wildest fantasies, and you want to try another Linux distribution before bowing down to Microsoft again, I recommend checking out Linux Mint 19 with cinnamon. A huge benefit to it is that you still get to use the same large repo of existing packages for Ubuntu, which are typically the most likely to be supported by developers.
I hope you find what you're looking for in Linux. If you don't, hit up the sub-forum for Linux. It's one more click, and there's a bunch of us in there with a lot of experience!

Mint is next on my list.
 
Mint is next on my list.

For ease of use it should have been first lol

I have been running Mint since 17.x. I also run ubuntu on my folding boxes, but I like the Mint install better (even if it is basically ubuntu)
 
So, hopefully you're warmed up to the idea that Linux installs on anything and is generally pretty easy to keep going.

And I've found it to be much like Windows when it comes to running into issues- most come from software not being updated more so than the distros themselves.

For instance, I've had to run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS in order to run Unifi and actually get it to do its management job. That's a piece of software that runs splendidly in Windows, that I'd love to properly containerize (KVM, Docker?). Same hardware has run 17.10 and 18.04, as well as CentOS7, right alongside Windows 10 (different drives). Oh, and it's an old DTR laptop :ROFLMAO:.

I've also been spinning up VMs left and right for various purposes, such as pihole, pfsense, Sophos, FreeNAS, openmediavault, and others. Some are Linux based, and others are BSD based.

And I'm not really a 'Linux/BSD' person; I live on Windows :).

[these VMs are all running in Hyper-V, for instance!]
 
For instance, I've had to run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS in order to run Unifi and actually get it to do its management job. That's a piece of software that runs splendidly in Windows, that I'd love to properly containerize (KVM, Docker?).
Odd it worked fine on windows for me, I eventually migrated it to 16.04 though for the overhead and recently dockerized the unifi controller. Pretty easy to do once you get the create commands figured out and realtively painless to export/import a backup to restore functionality on the controller side. Highly recommend portainer for container management.
 
Ubuntu 18.04 has been pretty good to me so far. A few Plex issues, but they worked out in the end. Mint is a good solid OS as well. I probably will always have a few Windows boxes around but I do a lot more and more in Linux lately.
I'm glad to have a solid Linux box for learning on.

Now if Win 10 would quit killing network shares with updates, I'd be a bit more happier.
 
Ubuntu 18.04 has been pretty good to me so far. A few Plex issues, but they worked out in the end. Mint is a good solid OS as well. I probably will always have a few Windows boxes around but I do a lot more and more in Linux lately.
What Plex issues are you having/had with 18.04? I was considering upgrading soon.
 
It was having an issue with saying the server was down and log in later. It wasn't even showing local library items. It was a goof on my initial setup to begin with. After an update, a few beers, it all worked out. I wouldn't say my issue was something that might be considered typical.
I'd say do the upgrade. I'm pretty pleased with 18.04
 
It was having an issue with saying the server was down and log in later. It wasn't even showing local library items. It was a goof on my initial setup to begin with. After an update, a few beers, it all worked out. I wouldn't say my issue was something that might be considered typical.
I'd say do the upgrade. I'm pretty pleased with 18.04
Good to know, most of my stuff runs in docker anyway, but Plex I like to have on top of the OS rather than underneath.
 
So, hopefully you're warmed up to the idea that Linux installs on anything and is generally pretty easy to keep going.

And I've found it to be much like Windows when it comes to running into issues- most come from software not being updated more so than the distros themselves.

For instance, I've had to run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS in order to run Unifi and actually get it to do its management job. That's a piece of software that runs splendidly in Windows, that I'd love to properly containerize (KVM, Docker?). Same hardware has run 17.10 and 18.04, as well as CentOS7, right alongside Windows 10 (different drives). Oh, and it's an old DTR laptop :ROFLMAO:.

I've also been spinning up VMs left and right for various purposes, such as pihole, pfsense, Sophos, FreeNAS, openmediavault, and others. Some are Linux based, and others are BSD based.

And I'm not really a 'Linux/BSD' person; I live on Windows :).

[these VMs are all running in Hyper-V, for instance!]

I don't know about it installing on everything. If something is too new Linux really struggles. I haven't tried to install it on my main rig which had so many problems the last time I tried. But I'm generally pleased that it loaded pretty easy on my 3820 desktop and I got almost everything working that I needed (Netflix, Amazon Video, Flir Cloud Client). The only thing not working is HBOgo and I haven't really dug into that yet.
 
For ease of use it should have been first lol

I have been running Mint since 17.x. I also run ubuntu on my folding boxes, but I like the Mint install better (even if it is basically ubuntu)

Why do you say that it should have been first? Personal preference, or is there something I don't know that I should.
 
Ubuntu 18.04 has been pretty good to me so far. A few Plex issues, but they worked out in the end. Mint is a good solid OS as well. I probably will always have a few Windows boxes around but I do a lot more and more in Linux lately.
I'm glad to have a solid Linux box for learning on.

Now if Win 10 would quit killing network shares with updates, I'd be a bit more happier.

I don't know what Plex is. What is it?
 
I don't know about it installing on everything. If something is too new Linux really struggles. I haven't tried to install it on my main rig which had so many problems the last time I tried. But I'm generally pleased that it loaded pretty easy on my 3820 desktop and I got almost everything working that I needed (Netflix, Amazon Video, Flir Cloud Client). The only thing not working is HBOgo and I haven't really dug into that yet.

This depends on just how niche the hardware is.

Baseline consumer stuff is generally supported 100% at the basic level, even the newest stuff.
 
I prefer Kodi to flex. I've configured a house wide multimedia setup using android tablets as controllers running Kore with an Ubuntu server running TV Headend and a combination of x64 Ubuntu and RPi3b front ends all running Kodi.

There's something truly satisfying about setting up a full house wide multimedia setup free from any corporate influence that works so well that it actually gets the wife acceptance factor.
 
This depends on just how niche the hardware is.

Baseline consumer stuff is generally supported 100% at the basic level, even the newest stuff.

Well, my gaming rig problems all seem to stem from the motherboard. The ASUS ROG Rampage V Edition 10.

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-RAMPAGE-V-EDITION-10/specifications/

I had tried with and without UEFI on and had all kinds of trouble with installation.

I think I'm going to put Linux on my laptop next and save the gaming machine with this mainboard last, if at all.
 
I prefer Kodi to flex. I've configured a house wide multimedia setup using android tablets as controllers running Kore with an Ubuntu server running TV Headend and a combination of x64 Ubuntu and RPi3b front ends all running Kodi.

There's something truly satisfying about setting up a full house wide multimedia setup free from any corporate influence that works so well that it actually gets the wife acceptance factor.

With so many things going to streaming instead of ownership, what exactly are you hosting to stream throughout your house?
 
With so many things going to streaming instead of ownership, what exactly are you hosting to stream throughout your house?

Downloaded music as well as my old CD library ripped to the server, My ripped BD collection as well as FTA DTV. I can watch FTA DTV on my Samsung Tab S2. I've ripped my SACD's to FLAC, they sound fantastic.
 
Well, my gaming rig problems all seem to stem from the motherboard. The ASUS ROG Rampage V Edition 10.

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-RAMPAGE-V-EDITION-10/specifications/

I had tried with and without UEFI on and had all kinds of trouble with installation.

I think I'm going to put Linux on my laptop next and save the gaming machine with this mainboard last, if at all.

I'm actually really surprised you have issues considering your motherboard, must be a secure boot issue? I admit, I'm not really much of a secure boot fan myself. ;)
 
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