Cubey has screwed the pooch. Need some suggestions

MANY people use Windows desktops for years without problems.
SOME people have lots of problems with Windows desktops.
MANY people use Linux desktops for years without problems.
SOME people have lots of problems with Linux desktops.
Stats suggest otherwise.

Linux remains the only real alternative to windows however.
 
https://www.dedoimedo.com/index.html

This guy gives some great insight into Linux distros...........I have switched from Mint to Kubuntu 20.04 in my Windows/Linux dual-boot configuration and am liking it quite a bit so far.
Mint is great while it works but my experience with it has been pretty bad. It seems inevitable that some update will pork Mint especially if the user had messed with graphics drivers manually. Ubuntu based distro users should use snap installs as much as possible to avoid dependency problems.
 
Color outside the lines for a particular distro and expect problems to come out of left field. If you know the lines for the particular distro or you know the problems and can plan around them, great; but Linux isn't as simple as install OS --> update --> load your apps --> it runs forever.

If that were the case we'd all be running Linux desktops and Microsoft would have stopped developing Windows a decade ago.

Hint: that's not the case.
The only reason why everyone is not running linux right now is that they've been conditioned to think they need Windows and Microsoft has used shady or even illegal business practices to ensure that retailers offer computers only with Windows preinstalled. Failure to do so will lead to loss of kickbacks i.e. a penalty even though it's masked as a loss of kickback. Same thing goes with MS office. Many people think they can't survive without it even though perfectly functioning free alternatives exist. I haven't met a non gamer user yet who hasn't used linux happily once it's preconfigured for their needs.
 
The only reason why everyone is not running linux right now is that they've been conditioned to think they need Windows and Microsoft has used shady or even illegal business practices to ensure that retailers offer computers only with Windows preinstalled. Failure to do so will lead to loss of kickbacks i.e. a penalty even though it's masked as a loss of kickback. Same thing goes with MS office. Many people think they can't survive without it even though perfectly functioning free alternatives exist. I haven't met a non gamer user yet who hasn't used linux happily once it's preconfigured for their needs.
This is exceedingly idealistic.
Linux hasn't taken over the world because the quality and the integration just isn't there. And that's just the OS. You're still missing stuff like Exchange and Outlook, or Photoshop and Capture One, and so on. And yeah, I know that there are half-assed FOSS alternatives, I've tried them, and I'd be using them if they weren't shells of the real things.
 
This is exceedingly idealistic.
Linux hasn't taken over the world because the quality and the integration just isn't there. And that's just the OS. You're still missing stuff like Exchange and Outlook, or Photoshop and Capture One, and so on. And yeah, I know that there are half-assed FOSS alternatives, I've tried them, and I'd be using them if they weren't shells of the real things.
I'm sorry but Exchange and Outlook are not anything special. Thunderbird works much better than Outlook anyway without the security risks. For Exchange there are a gazillion options (and who needs it anyway). Photoshop is replaced easily by Gimp (and again, who really needs it) and never even heard of Capture One before... apparently also replaced by Gimp. Not only that, those apps most likely work using Wine quite easily if you must use them.

My parents and in-laws have used a linux desktop for almost a decade now so don't spew me any bullshit about the quality not being enough.
 
I'm sorry but Exchange and Outlook are not anything special. Thunderbird works much better than Outlook anyway without the security risks. For Exchange there are a gazillion options (and who needs it anyway).
I don't use them at home. I also don't know a corporate desktop that doesn't, and there are no replacements.
Photoshop is replaced easily by Gimp (and again, who really needs it) and never even heard of Capture One before... apparently also replaced by Gimp.
No. And no.
Not only that, those apps most likely work using Wine quite easily if you must use them.
Creative Cloud? Will it work once, update once, and then stop working? Lol.
My parents and in-laws have used a linux desktop for almost a decade now so don't spew me any bullshit about the quality not being enough.
If they didn't notice the difference, then 'used' may be a real stretch. I could keep a Linux desktop installation going for a long time if I simply didn't 'use' it.
 
I've recently switched from Ubuntu to Debian on my media center. It's been great so far.
 
I don't use them at home. I also don't know a corporate desktop that doesn't, and there are no replacements.

No. And no.

Creative Cloud? Will it work once, update once, and then stop working? Lol.

If they didn't notice the difference, then 'used' may be a real stretch. I could keep a Linux desktop installation going for a long time if I simply didn't 'use' it.

Youre simply clueless and conditioned to be a MS slave. I pity you.
 
Mint is great while it works but my experience with it has been pretty bad. It seems inevitable that some update will pork Mint especially if the user had messed with graphics drivers manually. Ubuntu based distro users should use snap installs as much as possible to avoid dependency problems.

And this is why I gave up on Mint. It's really gone downhill as far as reliability is concerned, and it seems to be quite the resource hog too now regardless of version. Even dedoimedo has pointed out disappointment with Mint as newer versions have rolled out. Quite frankly I'm really enjoying Kubuntu 20.04 as it's what Mint used to be about 3-4 years ago, it's quite fast even on my relic of a system, and very stable. I'm happy with it! I'm finding I'm using Windows mostly for gaming now, and Kubuntu for browsing/internet.
 
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Color outside the lines for a particular distro and expect problems to come out of left field. If you know the lines for the particular distro or you know the problems and can plan around them, great; but Linux isn't as simple as install OS --> update --> load your apps --> it runs forever.

If that were the case we'd all be running Linux desktops and Microsoft would have stopped developing Windows a decade ago.

Hint: that's not the case.

I can tell you right now, I've run a number of distro's and Install > Update > Install software and it runs forever is precisely my experience. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be using it and neither would millions of others including scientists and the SFX industry.

I'm sorry, I know people claim that Linux users 'just blame the user', but hyperbole such as this is the exact reason they do. If you can't get a Linux desktop running reliabily, you need to take a good look at just what you're doing wrong - Because Linux is not Windows, thank God.
 
Gotta use the products that actually work.

Does Outlook actually work?

The number of times I've had sync issues under Outlook regarding both Exchange [cough] and Gsuite accounts, while Thunderbird has synced flawlessly, is simply laughable. Furthermore, if people cannot adapt and accept alternate software, insisting on using expensive Microsoft Office suites with poor ISO compatibility including compatibility issues with differing versions of MS Office itself; then they're baggage and it's time to move on. Also, the Adobe CC is far from reliable and Adobe's support basically sucks considering the stupid money they expect for their software. I'm always rectifying issues with the Adobe CC, I rectified one this week on a Mac.

Even Millenials are dumping MS Office in favor of cloud based solutions such as Gsuite. Personally I use a combination of Gsuite as my mail host with Thunderbird/Lightning calendar as my mail client and Libre Office as my office suite with Insync to sync Google Drive, I use this combination every single day without fail and it's never once let me down. The uptime of my PC is measured in months as I don't have to reboot to apply updates and the updating process is so fast in comparison to Windows, as a result I just keep my PC powered up 24/7 with full image backups happening at 11:00 every night.

My workflow under KDE is simply amazing.

This is, by far, the most reliable and flexible software configuration I have ever used - I am not limited by running Linux in any way whatsoever with the exception of the magnitudes of Malware, Viruses, Trojans, PUP's and Cryptolockers that aren't compatible with my OS.
 
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I can tell you right now, I've run a number of distro's and Install > Update > Install software and it runs forever is precisely my experience. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be using it and neither would millions of others including scientists and the SFX industry.
You keep comparing what you do to industry professionals; as I mentioned above, I work with industry professionals that use Linux. They definitely don't use it the way an enthusiast would. This is a bunk comparison IMO.
I'm sorry, I know people claim that Linux users 'just blame the user', but hyperbole such as this is the exact reason they do. If you can't get a Linux desktop running reliabily, you need to take a good look at just what you're doing wrong
Attempting to do the same gaming and content creation stuff I do on Windows with avowed 'equivalent' software. Here's a hint: it ain't equivalent. And between trying different software fix approaches, drivers, configuration changes and so on, throwing in updates, and I find Linux desktops when actually used as such tend to degrade fairly quickly.

As I said above, I can put together a purpose-built Linux desktop and so long as I color within the lines, it'll work. That's not how I use my desktop.
Does Outlook actually work?
Uh, yes? If you have to ask that question...
The number of times I've had sync issues under Outlook regarding both Exchange [cough] and Gsuite accounts, while Thunderbird has synced flawlessly, is simply laughable. Furthermore, if people cannot adapt and accept alternate software, insisting on using expensive Microsoft Office suites with poor ISO compatibility including compatibility issues with differing versions of MS Office itself; then they're baggage and it's time to move on.
People don't use alternatives because for the functionality that the MS Office suite provides, there are no alternatives. We're not just talking about email here.
Even Millenials are dumping MS Office in favor of cloud based solutions such as Gsuite.
Not if they're working on a corporate network. I'm not talking about what's used at home, I don't use Outlook at home either. But at work? Yeah.
Also, the Adobe CC is far from reliable and Adobe's support basically sucks considering the stupid money they expect for their software. I'm always rectifying issues with the Adobe CC, I rectified one this week on a Mac.
I'm not going to hold up Adobe as a paragon of reliability. Quite the opposite.

But they're also the only ones that do what they do so well. There's a reason that they're still in business, and a reason that their products are the standard.
 
You keep comparing what you do to industry professionals; as I mentioned above, I work with industry professionals that use Linux. They definitely don't use it the way an enthusiast would. This is a bunk comparison IMO.

Attempting to do the same gaming and content creation stuff I do on Windows with avowed 'equivalent' software. Here's a hint: it ain't equivalent. And between trying different software fix approaches, drivers, configuration changes and so on, throwing in updates, and I find Linux desktops when actually used as such tend to degrade fairly quickly.

As I said above, I can put together a purpose-built Linux desktop and so long as I color within the lines, it'll work. That's not how I use my desktop.

Uh, yes? If you have to ask that question...

People don't use alternatives because for the functionality that the MS Office suite provides, there are no alternatives. We're not just talking about email here.

Not if they're working on a corporate network. I'm not talking about what's used at home, I don't use Outlook at home either. But at work? Yeah.

I'm not going to hold up Adobe as a paragon of reliability. Quite the opposite.

But they're also the only ones that do what they do so well. There's a reason that they're still in business, and a reason that their products are the standard.

I've also worked with industry professionals in the SFX industry, their Linux desktops run day in, day out, without issue - And they prefer DaVinci Resolve over the Adobe CC. I use Linux on my personal system at home for the running of my business among other things, and I don't have an issue - I've got countless software packages installed, no problems, at all. In fact I'd go as far as to claim that the Linux updating system is quite frankly the best updater I've ever used under any OS - It's quite simply the benchmark regarding just how an updater should perform.

I asked you before, I'll ask again - Just when should I expect my Linux desktop to fail as in your opinion (one possibly skewed by corporate perspective) "the Linux desktop just isn't ready for mainstream?" Because it's been about eight years, and with the exception of a brief stint with Linux Mint, it's all been totally hassle free smooth sailing (although I did have that GRUB2 issue, easy fixed). I don't even have problems with Nvidia drivers and compatibility under Libre Office (having said that, compatibility is a thing of the past and if individuals are still using Excel for the wrong tasks it's time for those individuals to be put out to pasture).

Do I know something you don't that keeps my system running like clockwork day in, day out? Because respectfully, you're literally the one implying that I do.

Bear in mind, I'm only after one answer to the question: When is my Linux desktop going to fail? I'm not at all interested in yourself going over everything in point form.
 
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Heh, IIC if you really think there's anything MS Office can offer that's not covered by the free alternatives you're simply deceiving yourself. The only thing that becomes a problem with the alternatives is that Microsoft is _intentionally_ making incompatible changes to the file formats in order to break compatibility with non-office products.

That then again is no news with Microsoft. They love to make sure that they lack competition and coerce users into their proprietary ecosystem.
 
Heh, IIC if you really think there's anything MS Office can offer that's not covered by the free alternatives you're simply deceiving yourself. The only thing that becomes a problem with the alternatives is that Microsoft is _intentionally_ making incompatible changes to the file formats in order to break compatibility with non-office products.

That then again is no news with Microsoft. They love to make sure that they lack competition and coerce users into their proprietary ecosystem.

Totally. At the last minute they used their leverage to break the DOCX ISO standard to the point that they introduced compatibility issues between differing versions of MS Office itself.
 
That's a bit like switching from Chevy to GMC though... right?

What do you find about Ubuntu that makes Debian attractive?
Yes but I would call Ubuntu GMC and Debian Chevy. The unattractive things about Ubuntu to me had to do with installation, especially with RAID. Additionally, I had some problems with Nvidia drivers and ffmpeg that were so easy to complete on Debian. I personally feel Ubuntu is trying to be more than it should be. Debian just works for me.
 
Honestly with these things, you have to be up front with what you want. If you want eye candy and the new car/distro feel you can jump into ubuntu / fedora with the expectation that you are going to have to re-install every 6-9 months. If you want a system you are barely going to change for years, you should be on Debian / CentOS.

The middle ground seems to be the rolling releases like tumbleweed, but I always tell people to use caution when using them because it's almost inevitable that either they, or the distro will break something important.
 
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Nice video of a YouTube guy who's converted from being a career Windows guy to a Linux user. If you watch him more you'll see he's about 1 year into his switch at this point and even more a Linux fan since this video.

 
Nice video of a YouTube guy who's converted from being a career Windows guy to a Linux user. If you watch him more you'll see he's about 1 year into his switch at this point and even more a Linux fan since this video.



Most of were there once, I'm certain many Linux users here once used Windows. I find success comes when you accept that you have to leave all preconceived notions on how an OS should behave at the door and be prepared to learn to crawl before you can once again walk. Understand that you're going to fail and when you do it's no good blaming the fact that the OS isn't Windows.

The people that fail are the ones that expect Linux to be a drop in Windows replacement, they have an expectation that the devs should be the ones doing all the hard lifting for them by basically making Linux a Windows clone. The problem is: Windows is by no means the benchmark by which all other operating systems should mimic - Personally, that's why I love Linux.
 
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I run dual boot linux on all my rigs as its often faster for some distributed computing projects. I think a lot of you here are downplaying how much of a pain it can be. There are lots of things that you would expect to just work or be supported that are not. For example I wanted to have fan speed control enabled but there didn't seem to be anything like MSI afterburner, so i looked into Nvidia X server and figured that out. Turns out however that there is additional things needed command line wise if you are running 2 or more GPU. I waded through a ton of old online articles which half of them didn't seem to be supported anymore and finally found an option to enbable a specific option for coolbits. After doing this and restarting my screen would go completely black and i could not use it at all. Turns out doing this ended up changing the primary display output to the secondary card ( a known issue that has not been fixed in 10+ years) and it took much searching and wading through online posts to figure this out and then further code changes to fix this issue. Another time i ended up in a situation where my default backup program ended up overloading my drive so bad that it would no longer boot. I got into recovery and freed up some partition space after unsuccessfully trying to get enough free space by cleaning up packages and what not, and this seemed to work, but I ended up with a weird display issue where the screen would flash intermittently. I never did sort that out and ended up wiping and starting fresh. Windows has never gotten me into a situation where i could not use it due to lack of space. sure things might grind to a halt, but they wouldn't prevent the basic functions needed to address the space issue.
Additionally i have often used the windows "Shrink parition" to address similar needs and it has never caused me an issue.

Pretty much every time i try to do what i would consider something basic for windows I have to wade through a ton of misinformation and try out thing hoping that it won't break. As mentioned there is too much outdated information out there
 
I run dual boot linux on all my rigs as its often faster for some distributed computing projects. I think a lot of you here are downplaying how much of a pain it can be. There are lots of things that you would expect to just work or be supported that are not. For example I wanted to have fan speed control enabled but there didn't seem to be anything like MSI afterburner, so i looked into Nvidia X server and figured that out. Turns out however that there is additional things needed command line wise if you are running 2 or more GPU. I waded through a ton of old online articles which half of them didn't seem to be supported anymore and finally found an option to enbable a specific option for coolbits. After doing this and restarting my screen would go completely black and i could not use it at all. Turns out doing this ended up changing the primary display output to the secondary card ( a known issue that has not been fixed in 10+ years) and it took much searching and wading through online posts to figure this out and then further code changes to fix this issue. Another time i ended up in a situation where my default backup program ended up overloading my drive so bad that it would no longer boot. I got into recovery and freed up some partition space after unsuccessfully trying to get enough free space by cleaning up packages and what not, and this seemed to work, but I ended up with a weird display issue where the screen would flash intermittently. I never did sort that out and ended up wiping and starting fresh. Windows has never gotten me into a situation where i could not use it due to lack of space. sure things might grind to a halt, but they wouldn't prevent the basic functions needed to address the space issue.
Additionally i have often used the windows "Shrink parition" to address similar needs and it has never caused me an issue.

Pretty much every time i try to do what i would consider something basic for windows I have to wade through a ton of misinformation and try out thing hoping that it won't break. As mentioned there is too much outdated information out there

I've had to perform this exact same process under Windows in order to use coolbits. Granted, you don't need to manually enable coolbits to enable fan speed control under MSI Afterburner, but chances are it is enabled when MSI Afterburner is installed. One of the biggest problems is switchable graphics solutions on laptops, personally I use my laptop as a laptop with an Intel iGPU only and I have a desktop with an Nvidia 980Ti for all other tasks and I haven't experienced any problems. I don't abide by the idea of using laptops as desktops, each to their own.

For outstanding fan speed control and overclocking options on Nvidia hardware under Linux I recommend GreenWithEnvy, the easiest thing to do is install it as a Flatpak.

https://gitlab.com/leinardi/gwe

I use this on my own system and the software is outstanding.

MangoHUD is also a great GUI overlay showing on screen stats just like MSI Afterburner, it even has the capability to log data and upload the data to the MangoHUD site in graphical form. You will have to get comfortable with the terminal, however the software isn't difficult to use - I think there is a GUI control panel available for it somewhere, although I've never needed it.

I followed the instructions to clone and build the software and found it very straightforward.

https://github.com/flightlessmango/MangoHud

Furthermore, as a tech that's constantly Googling issues under Windows machines, outdated information isn't limited to just Linux. Your space issue was a result of yourself making the / partition too small when you installed the OS. As stated in my earlier post, Linux is not a drop in Windows replacement, you need to leave all preconceived expectations at the door and learn to crawl before you can walk again. If you'd run Linux all your life and were only now switching to Windows, you'd also be making mistakes. Live and learn.
 
Furthermore, as a tech that's constantly Googling issues under Windows machines, outdated information isn't limited to just Linux
With Windows, I find the biggest difference to be the ongoing UI makeover. With Linux, well, there's a half-dozen makeovers affecting any given distro, that never stop.

When you compare the number of users of Windows to the number of users of a particular release of a particular spin of a particular Linux distro, you start to get a sense of the disparity in scale.

Frankly, for all of the exceedingly low quality solutions one can find for a particular problem on Windows, one that works likely isn't too far off.

To counter the smaller communities of Linux users, documentation really needs to take a step up.

Particularly with respect to integrating all of the documentation for all of the provided software in a particular release.
 
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With Windows, I find the biggest difference to be the ongoing UI makeover. With Linux, well, there's a half-dozen makeovers affecting any given distro, that never stop.

When you compare the number of users of Windows to the number of users of a particular release of a particular spin of a particular Linux distro, you start to get a sense of the disparity in scale.

Frankly, for all of the exceedingly low quality solutions one can find for a particular problem on Windows, one that works likely isn't too far off.

To counter the smaller communities of Linux users, documentation really needs to take a step up.

Particularly with respect to integrating all of the documentation for all of the provided software in a particular release.

The thing that needs to be considered is that you're only using one distro and that's usually the distro that suits your needs the best. If it's an Ubuntu based distro including Linux Mint or KDE Neon, search for Ubuntu based solutions. It you're running an Arch based distro including Manjaro, search for Arch based solutions. Windows users believe fragmentation is an issue, but the reality is it really isn't and you're not going to avoid it when it comes to open source software.

Personally, I can't stand the Windows UI with it's mess of touch/desktop elements and doubling up on Control and Settings panels. I run KDE Neon and my workflow is amazing. I don't need to know how Gnome runs in relation to workflow as I don't run Gnome, I run KDE.

If Linux was locked down to just Gnome the way Windows is locked down to the Windows 10 UI, I'd stop using Linux as I don't like my options being taken away from me.
 
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Generally speaking I agree with a lot of your sentiments Mazzspeed, but there is definitely more things that i believe seem like such basic concepts to a UI that work without you having to think about them in windows and are not even an afterthought in linux. Here is another thing that i would consider basic quality of life stuff. Lights on your keyboard are not turned on by default and the switch doesn't work until you run a command. I hate RGB but sometimes i need to see my keyboard in the dark. Another one that really irked me was the speed at which the mouse scroll wheel worked for me in Mint (not cursor speed) . by default it was so slow to scroll by the mouse wheel that i found myself dragging the scrollbar instead. I would expect to be able to adjust the mouse wheel page scroll from the gui mouse menu but this is absent for some reason and i had to find an app package to do this. Yes I will continue to live and learn and eventually get better but things like this are why windows will continue to dominate. FYI i agree about the current windows UI being a mess. I have been resorting to using command line tricks / registry settings and other things more than ever with windows 10 then i needed to in the past with windows 7. Mostly to permanently remove a lot of garbage that is enabled by default.
 
I'm just in the process of setting up a Kubuntu laptop for my daughter (school) and I'm so happy to see Wobbly windows option is back! :ROFLMAO:
 
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Generally speaking I agree with a lot of your sentiments Mazzspeed, but there is definitely more things that i believe seem like such basic concepts to a UI that work without you having to think about them in windows and are not even an afterthought in linux. Here is another thing that i would consider basic quality of life stuff. Lights on your keyboard are not turned on by default and the switch doesn't work until you run a command. I hate RGB but sometimes i need to see my keyboard in the dark. Another one that really irked me was the speed at which the mouse scroll wheel worked for me in Mint (not cursor speed) . by default it was so slow to scroll by the mouse wheel that i found myself dragging the scrollbar instead. I would expect to be able to adjust the mouse wheel page scroll from the gui mouse menu but this is absent for some reason and i had to find an app package to do this. Yes I will continue to live and learn and eventually get better but things like this are why windows will continue to dominate. FYI i agree about the current windows UI being a mess. I have been resorting to using command line tricks / registry settings and other things more than ever with windows 10 then i needed to in the past with windows 7. Mostly to permanently remove a lot of garbage that is enabled by default.

My Razer keyboard is supported fully under Linux using the Open Razer drivers and the Polychromatic software, the implementation is so good it looks like it's made by Razer themselves and my keyboard lights up as soon as I unlock the PC and turns off once the PC locks itself. The thing is: I researched my purchace to ensure this would be the case. What you're describing in terms of RGB lighting is related to driver issues, considering most implementations are made by manufacturers that refuse to support Linux, this isn't really in any way an issue with Linux as such. I have a magnitude of perfectly good hardware here that used to work just fine under versions of Windows prior to Windows 10, but don't work properly under Windows 10, yet they work under Linux. MacOS can't even run Nvidia hardware anymore, that's a vastly bigger issue than RGB lighting.

WvG9kh1.png

What is cool is my Daughter's Warcom drawing tablet is supported fully out the box under KDE Neon, you can remap keys and access all functionality of the tablet from within KDE itself. That's not the case under Windows, under Windows you have to install third party software.

As for mouse scroll issues, Imwheel will rectify your issue perfectly. This is what I used to use myself until I realized that it was only my browser that was scrolling slowly and that can now be rectified from within Firefox itself. Since discovering this I haven't had a problem.

Lmwheel fix:

http://www.webupd8.org/2015/12/how-to-change-mouse-scroll-wheel-speed.html

Firefox mouse scroll speed adjustment (recommended over Lmwheel):

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/8ir5kk/how_to_change_scroll_speed_in_firefox_600/

No one should be using Chrome, any browser that has functionality for advertising popups to be implemented within the browser itself by default is best avoided. I have Chrome installed, I only use it to test certain configurations for clients.

I'm just in the process of setting up a Kubuntu laptop for my daughter (school) and I'm so happy to see Wobbly windows option is back! :ROFLMAO:

Wobbly Windows never left KDE! It's awesome.
 
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I had a client drop a Windows 10 laptop off last night for an issue that I knew I could resolve via System Restore due to a corrupt driver issue as a result of third party 'Driver Manager' software (always of major concern when it comes to Malware, as compromised security certificates allow Malware coders to install software above that of super user). Well...

It took a good half an hour of spinning balls of infinity just to restore the registry to a previous state, and I'm talking a good half an hour on an SSD. Then I had to wait another good 10 - 15 mins while files were restored to a previous state, all the while I had absoultely no idea on progress or whether the process was even going to work or not as all I had on the screen were spinning balls of infinity.

Compare that to my Linux desktop running Timeshift, and I can fully restore both my separate root and home drives from snapshotted images in around 10 mins, 15 mins tops and be back up and running with absolutely no data loss and total reliability. And my home drive is a mechanical spinner.

I've rarely had to make use of Timeshift, but such things are of paramount importance when it comes to running a business.
 
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Oh? I've been using Mate for so long, they removed it for some reason.

They removed Compiz? Really? One of the things I loved most about Mate was the fact that they never dropped Compiz as part of the OS. The blur effect on KDE is also nice, just don't go overboard with it or the transparency makes menu's difficult to read under certain circumstances.
 
They removed Compiz? Really? One of the things I loved most about Mate was the fact that they never dropped Compiz as part of the OS. The blur effect on KDE is also nice, just don't go overboard with it or the transparency makes menu's difficult to read under certain circumstances.
They didn't remove Compiz but a couple of features like wobbly windows and burn effect. I read that their maintainer quit and nobody replaced them. Burn seemed to be missing also on KDE.
 
They didn't remove Compiz but a couple of features like wobbly windows and burn effect. I read that their maintainer quit and nobody replaced them. Burn seemed to be missing also on KDE.

Burn has been gone for quite some time unfortunately, under both Compiz and KDE. Under Mate, if you set the compositor to Compiz in Mate Settings you could still enable wobbly windows - Although that was under Ubuntu Mate. Were you running Ubuntu Mate or were you running another distro with the Mate DE?
 
Burn has been gone for quite some time unfortunately, under both Compiz and KDE. Under Mate, if you set the compositor to Compiz in Mate Settings you could still enable wobbly windows - Although that was under Ubuntu Mate. Were you running Ubuntu Mate or were you running another distro with the Mate DE?
Ubuntu Mate. There was a period when both burn and wobbly were disabled on Mate. I didn't bother to even check the compiz after that.
 
Ubuntu Mate. There was a period when both burn and wobbly were disabled on Mate. I didn't bother to even check the compiz after that.

Ubuntu Mate came shipped with Compiz as an alternate compositor selected via GUI in the settings panel. Once you switched your compositor to Compiz all the effects became available again, with the exception of burn - For some reason that's been dropped entirely, which is a shame as it was pretty cool.

Kwin supports many of the Compiz effects out the box. In fact out of all the desktop compositors I've used Kwin is hands down the best, I don't even use force composition pipeline running Nvidia hardware and experience no tearing whatsoever.
 
Ubuntu Mate came shipped with Compiz as an alternate compositor selected via GUI in the settings panel. Once you switched your compositor to Compiz all the effects became available again, with the exception of burn - For some reason that's been dropped entirely, which is a shame as it was pretty cool.

Kwin supports many of the Compiz effects out the box. In fact out of all the desktop compositors I've used Kwin is hands down the best, I don't even use force composition pipeline running Nvidia hardware and experience no tearing whatsoever.

Compiz and Compton were dropped back in 19.10 because they were no longer needed by default for a good desktop experience.

Compiz & Compton
The main reason we’ve been shipping shipping Compton and Compiz in Ubuntu MATE was to offer a solution to screen tearing or improve game performance. Compiz has invisible window borders and also has a great screen magnifier suitable for visually impaired users. However, now that…

  • Magnus (see below) provides screen magnification
  • Marco supports invisible windows borders
  • Marco has improved Alt+Tab behaviour
  • Marco is free from screen tearing
  • Marco frame performance when gaming is further improved
  • Using Compton and Compiz with MATE Desktop introduces other bugs and integration issues
…it is time to remove Compiz and Compton from the default Ubuntu MATE install. The fundamental reasons for including them no longer exist.
 
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