I love Linux

It's not about Windows, it's about reality. Nothing is perfect. Vermillion wouldn't be complaining about the update speed of Windows 10, not in that situation. He'd have installed Linux and been done with it.

Its about the OP already making the decision to switch to Linux. Theres no point to sell windows to anyone in this thread.
 
You like Linux and it does what you want. No one is debating that. That doesn't mean it's any more perfect for everyone than Windows. It would be nice if Linux fans understood that point.

Windows is what in car terms would be a Toyota. Except it doesn't have Toyotas reliability and safety.
 
I've actually come to like the command-line. It just seems more stable and predictable.
Yes! I've found myself using command line utilities more and more. I've especially grown fond of ncurses based utilities. It's like having a gui, but without all the fluff and overhead.
 
It's not about Windows, it's about reality. Nothing is perfect. Vermillion wouldn't be complaining about the update speed of Windows 10, not in that situation. He'd have installed Linux and been done with it.

And again completely irrelevant and has nothing to do with my original post. Please stop referring to me and changing the context of my post to make it one of your bullshit VR arguments.

You're only assuming Linux VR is not an option for us. It is an option and we will be exploring that option in the future. Right now the people involved are currently working on the Windows option as the laptop came installed with Windows 10. So back to my original point that you keep ignoring is that updating Windows 10 is nothing but a time sink even on incredibly powerful hardware. That's a fucking fact.
 
This is meant not as a dig but as a complement to BD, he really does know his stuff, at least as far as working on computers and enjoying the previous OSes like Amiga. I just wish he would stick to that and expand from there because as far as Desktop OSes go, I loved my Amiga back in the day. Too bad an Amiga subsection could not be done but that is because there are just too few of us around anymore. Loved that Amiga user group I used to go to back in the 90's, it was fun. :)

UAE runs on well on Linux! :angelic::whistle:
 
And again completely irrelevant and has nothing to do with my original post. Please stop referring to me and changing the context of my post to make it one of your bullshit VR arguments.

You're only assuming Linux VR is not an option for us. It is an option and we will be exploring that option in the future. Right now the people involved are currently working on the Windows option as the laptop came installed with Windows 10. So back to my original point that you keep ignoring is that updating Windows 10 is nothing but a time sink even on incredibly powerful hardware. That's a fucking fact.

Please by all means do a Linux VR setup. My point would be immediately obvious to anyone that's done that and used VR under Windows.
 
Why don't you go and play with your VR and/or go talk to someone who actually cares.
 
Please by all means do a Linux VR setup. My point would be immediately obvious to anyone that's done that and used VR under Windows.

And I don't give a shit about your point about VR on any platform. I only mentioned VR so that people understood that the Alienware I'm using is beastly and still takes a year to install 1709.
 
And I don't give a shit about your point about VR on any platform. I only mentioned VR so that people understood that the Alienware I'm using is beastly and still takes a year to install 1709.

Fair enough but it's not just my opinion: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=steamvr-linux-eoy2017&num=1. And it's hard to call this site a Microsoft fan boy club. The thing is I accept your complaints about Windows 10 updating for the most part, yeah it can be slow. But the kind of hardware that you mentioned connected to a Rift running under Linux, I don't see too many folks spending that kind of money thinking the performance and experience is any more acceptable than what you think of Windows update on that same hardware.

I don't understand why Linux fans have such a hard time just seeing the plain and obvious. Nothing is perfect, Windows has it flaws and so does Linux, just different ones. Sure I'd love to run Linux on a powerful gaming rig and have it update more smoothly and without some of issues related to Windows 10. But how long it takes to update a system is kind of irrelevant when a whole other set of issues comes about in doing just the routine tasks a system was designed to do. I wouldn't expect anyone to install Windows on a system where Linux works well and supports the users needs where weaknesses in Windows would just introduce problems no matter whatever else Windows might do better.
 
I see "we" are still discussing VR not working on linux in a thread about how someone is enjoying linux...
 
I've been getting excited for Mint 19. With my home server rebooting AGAIN last night after some updates, I'm finally taking the time to migrate everything to Linux. Its not a huge migration as its just my usenet/media server but I tested in a VM on my desktop and everything I need to run does a great job and is all native in Linux. Originally I thought I would go with Ubuntu, but I just like the entire Mint package. I use a GUI for my media server for ease of organization and Mint has always impressed me.

When I installed Windows 10 right at release I never thought I would see the day where Linux was at the point where I would actually want to use it on my home server. Mint 19 looks even better.. heh maybe it will be the OS that finally pushes me completely out of Windows.
 
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Congrats! If desktop Linux works for one better than other OSes then use it. For all of debate in this thread no one said otherwise. Everyone in this thread has the ability to install and setup some desktop Linux distro on basic or better PC, it ani't that hard.
 
I installed Ubuntu 16.04 on this machine, I think I like it way better than 17.10. First, fractional scaling work (i.e. 150%) and everything looks better sized and easier to read. And little things are nicer, like having the desktop wallpaper on the login screen (not important really, but nice).

However, I was getting some crashing and freezing. First freeze happened minutes after installing. I just opened a terminal and started typing and it froze. Had to press the power button. Then when pressing the Ubuntu button on desktop the machine would crash (lost display signal and fans go to 100%). Also needed to press the power button.

I then installed the AMD Pro driver, which was the main reason I went back to 16.04 in the first place, and this definitely fixed the Ubuntu button issue. Not sure if that was the cause of the previous freeze, but things have been solid for the past hour or two.
 
I'm a big fan of Arch Linux (& any distro based on it). I currently run Manjaro Deepin & Windows 10 dual booted through grub2 on my laptop. Updating/installing software is great, especially with AUR included.

My hope is that more games work natively & with WINE since I'd love to drop Windows 10 on my desktop for Linux completely. At this time, I make due with Windows 10 since its tolerable but I'm not fond of the way it's progressing with every release.

I think the biggest draw of Linux for me is the customization, especially in regards to kernels & drivers. If only Windows was built modularly for us to customize but we're all stuck with the cookie cutter build that MS provides.
 
Yeah, the customization, especially in the desktop themes, is so nice. Feels like you can really make it your own.

Also, I think I found the source of my freezing/crashing. I had to enable this option for AMD microcode firmware.

AMD_Microcode.jpg
 
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I'm a big fan of Arch Linux (& any distro based on it). I currently run Manjaro Deepin & Windows 10 dual booted through grub2 on my laptop. Updating/installing software is great, especially with AUR included.

My hope is that more games work natively & with WINE since I'd love to drop Windows 10 on my desktop for Linux completely. At this time, I make due with Windows 10 since its tolerable but I'm not fond of the way it's progressing with every release.

I think the biggest draw of Linux for me is the customization, especially in regards to kernels & drivers. If only Windows was built modularly for us to customize but we're all stuck with the cookie cutter build that MS provides.
While I appreciate the sentiment, your statement about modularity isn't exactly correct. Windows is, technically speaking, a modular OS. That's why you're able to install drivers individually. If it wasn't modular all drivers would have to be integrated into the kernel. So, a more accurate statement would've been to stick with your initial statement that you like the customization Linux provides you, not its modularity. This is also one of the aspects I love about Linux. My desktop can be just about whatever hodgepodge of software I want. Want GNOME desktop? Go ahead. Want to replace Nautilus with Dolphin? Knock yourself out. etc.

I also would like to second the vote for Arch. I recently tried Solus on my laptop, but Solus is just too curated for my liking. As much awesome stuff as they're doing over at Solus, I also feel like they're going against the ideas Linux is built on by restricting what packages a user can install to only those that the Solus team deems worthy. From a user experience standpoint this can be a positive, but as someone who wants to be able to install what I want when I want, Arch just can't be beat. So now I have Antergos with GNOME on my laptop.
 
I also would like to second the vote for Arch. I recently tried Solus on my laptop, but Solus is just too curated for my liking. As much awesome stuff as they're doing over at Solus, I also feel like they're going against the ideas Linux is built on by restricting what packages a user can install to only those that the Solus team deems worthy. From a user experience standpoint this can be a positive, but as someone who wants to be able to install what I want when I want, Arch just can't be beat. So now I have Antergos with GNOME on my laptop.

Restricting what packages a user can install? That's entirely incorrect. Solus is Linux. You can install whatever you want. If software is not in the 3rd party or in the Solus repos all you do is open a bug report and they'll add it. I had them do it with opensc. The repos only hold software where they are allowed to distribute the software because doing otherwise is technically illegal and opens up a distro to litigation. For example Discord is in the Solus repos because Discord gave them permission to do so yet Discord is NOT in the Arch repos. It's only available via the AUR.

Sounds to me more like you're looking at the AUR and going YAY SOFTWARE instead of looking at what is actually being distributed officially by Arch.
 
Restricting what packages a user can install? That's entirely incorrect. Solus is Linux. You can install whatever you want. If software is not in the 3rd party or in the Solus repos all you do is open a bug report and they'll add it. I had them do it with opensc. The repos only hold software where they are allowed to distribute the software because doing otherwise is technically illegal and opens up a distro to litigation. For example Discord is in the Solus repos because Discord gave them permission to do so yet Discord is NOT in the Arch repos. It's only available via the AUR.

Sounds to me more like you're looking at the AUR and going YAY SOFTWARE instead of looking at what is actually being distributed officially by Arch.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Here, we have a request to add Notepadqq by a user, which I would also like to use, and they denied the request.

https://dev.solus-project.com/T917

So yes, I mean restricting what users can easily install. Sure, it's linux and you can just use an appimage, compile from source, etc, but the fact is most users don't want to deal with that. As far as the AUR, um no I'm not talking about it actually. I only have 4 packages installed via the AUR currently, and 3 of those are git versions of themes available in the Arch repo. The other is Gnome Twitch, which is not available in the Arch repos. So, yes I believe that Solus only puts in their repo's what their team deems worthy. Now, I personally don't care if that's what they choose to do. I can just use Arch or any other distro I want to that may work better for me. I will admit that the way I worded my original statement made it sound like I was saying that a user can only install software in their repo's, and that's of course not the case, but most users aren't going to bother with compiling from source or hunting down an appimage.
 
see this is why I don't like binary distro's

If I opened a bugreport for that in gentoo it may or may not get accepted - ie some developer would have to adopt it. Lets say they didn't I can make my own ebuild and it is under configuration control. I can submit this ebuild to try to encourage a developer to adopt this package or submit it to one of the community overlays


--edit--
and in this instance I wouldn't have to:
Code:
 eix notepad
* app-editors/notepadqq
     Available versions:  (~)1.0.1 (~)1.2.0
     Homepage:            http://notepadqq.altervista.org
     Description:         Notepad++-like editor for Linux
 
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Here, we have a request to add Notepadqq by a user, which I would also like to use, and they denied the request.

https://dev.solus-project.com/T917

So yes, I mean restricting what users can easily install. Sure, it's linux and you can just use an appimage, compile from source, etc, but the fact is most users don't want to deal with that. As far as the AUR, um no I'm not talking about it actually. I only have 4 packages installed via the AUR currently, and 3 of those are git versions of themes available in the Arch repo. The other is Gnome Twitch, which is not available in the Arch repos. So, yes I believe that Solus only puts in their repo's what their team deems worthy. Now, I personally don't care if that's what they choose to do. I can just use Arch or any other distro I want to that may work better for me. I will admit that the way I worded my original statement made it sound like I was saying that a user can only install software in their repo's, and that's of course not the case, but most users aren't going to bother with compiling from source or hunting down an appimage.

I see your point but I also see in that request where they did consider it. The issue is they have plenty of other editors that fill in for Notepad++. I also see where they asked a pretty easy to answer question. What does it offer over others and it wasn't answered. Instead the answer was "I like it better" and "more options are better". So I don't take that as they only add what they deem worthy. They only add things that are beneficial. If Notepadqq offers better functionality they'll add it. But in this case I agree with their approach. There's no need to add more and more to the repos if it doesn't add anything new to the playing field.

Adding more to the repos means more things to maintain and make sure shit doesn't break. People forget that. Ikey actually talks about this quite often on the podcasts he frequents.

More isn't always better.
 
I see your point but I also see in that request where they did consider it. The issue is they have plenty of other editors that fill in for Notepad++. I also see where they asked a pretty easy to answer question. What does it offer over others and it wasn't answered. Instead the answer was "I like it better" and "more options are better". So I don't take that as they only add what they deem worthy. They only add things that are beneficial. If Notepadqq offers better functionality they'll add it. But in this case I agree with their approach. There's no need to add more and more to the repos if it doesn't add anything new to the playing field.

Adding more to the repos means more things to maintain and make sure shit doesn't break. People forget that. Ikey actually talks about this quite often on the podcasts he frequents.

More isn't always better.
I think this is a case of beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As I said before, I think the Solus team do some great work, and I support them, but I'm going to continue using the distro's that work the way I want. It's all subjective at the end of the day. You do have a point about the question that wasn't answered though. The person requesting it should've provided a much better response.
 
While I appreciate the sentiment, your statement about modularity isn't exactly correct. Windows is, technically speaking, a modular OS. That's why you're able to install drivers individually. If it wasn't modular all drivers would have to be integrated into the kernel. So, a more accurate statement would've been to stick with your initial statement that you like the customization Linux provides you, not its modularity. This is also one of the aspects I love about Linux. My desktop can be just about whatever hodgepodge of software I want. Want GNOME desktop? Go ahead. Want to replace Nautilus with Dolphin? Knock yourself out. etc.

I also would like to second the vote for Arch. I recently tried Solus on my laptop, but Solus is just too curated for my liking. As much awesome stuff as they're doing over at Solus, I also feel like they're going against the ideas Linux is built on by restricting what packages a user can install to only those that the Solus team deems worthy. From a user experience standpoint this can be a positive, but as someone who wants to be able to install what I want when I want, Arch just can't be beat. So now I have Antergos with GNOME on my laptop.

My bad on that. I just mean the ability to swap sections (like DE, bootloader, filesystem support, etc.) of the operating system out completely. Windows is severely limited with this "modularity".
 
I think this is a case of beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As I said before, I think the Solus team do some great work, and I support them, but I'm going to continue using the distro's that work the way I want. It's all subjective at the end of the day. You do have a point about the question that wasn't answered though. The person requesting it should've provided a much better response.

The other piece of this I forgot to mention was Snaps. They can't get here soon enough for more packages. then repos mean nothing. Just Snap it all. :D
 
However my laptop and tablets are running windows and windows 10 is AMAZING at those tasks, despite all it's flaws and you couldn't pay me to put linux on my P51 laptop atm.

I get to quote myself because I am a jacka$$$...

"This course requires that you have a fully setup and updated copy of Centos on your laptop prior to the first day of class. Because of the heavy requirements it is strongly recommended that you have your operating system in a dual boot configuration. You CAN complete this course using Virtualbox or similar, however it is strongly recommended that you not do this unless you have driver conflicts or other hurdles that cannot be overcome.

I also asked and no, you cannot use Fedora :(
 
I get to quote myself because I am a jacka$$$...



I also asked and no, you cannot use Fedora :(

If you can, go with a prebuilt VBox or VMware VM container & try it out. If performance is good, don't worry about the dual boot.
 
I love linux too, but unfortunately there ARE legitemate reasons for requiring Windows 10 as much as many of you would like to bash it. I prefer Mint/Cinnamon over Windows 10, but honestly, Windows 10 is the best Windows OS they have released thus far. It may be quite annoying out of the box, but nothing some decent power users can't fix with customizations (you do this for Linux distros anyway), powershell scripts, and GPOs.

I manage desktops/servers of every flavor. I prefer *nix, but there are valid reasons for Windows desktops and servers. A true Admin must wield the power to control all of them.

I don't know if it still does, but at one point Ubuntu 'called home' as well. Also, Windows 10 can be configured to be just as 'secure' as your Ubuntu desktop. Just because you have a *nix desktop doesn't mean it is automatically secure. If you don't put the effort into configuring it correctly, it is just as vulnerable to certain types of attacks. (STIGs must be applied to Linux machines just as well as WIndows machines)

SolidWorks 2018
MATLAB 2017b
Fusion360
Lightroom (well, there is Darktable, but not as many plugins that are available for Lightroom)
etc..

Yes, there may be alternatives, but many alternatives really cannot deliver what some of these other 'windows-only' apps deliver.

//sits back and waits for the roasting// :rage:
 
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The other piece of this I forgot to mention was Snaps. They can't get here soon enough for more packages. then repos mean nothing. Just Snap it all. :D
So, I don't know how I missed this before, but I have to disagree. I've been playing with snaps for a while now that I'm on Ubuntu, and I can't say I'm impressed. I love the idea in concept, but the fact that snaps can't use the system theme makes them a non starter for me. I'm very particular about the look and feel of my desktop, and snap apps just stick out like a sore thumb. I understand why they can't use the system theme currently, and I also realize that they are trying to address the issue, but until then snaps are a non-starter for me with a few exceptions. I do like the sandboxing of snaps, and I think it's interesting that they are implemented by running on a containerized instance of ubuntu (Ubuntu on Solus anybody?), but they still have a ways to go in my opinion.
 
I don't know if it still does, but at one point Ubuntu 'called home' as well.
Have a citation for them doing it in the past? The only thing I could think of was the Amazon lens debacle, and that direction was reversed quickly. There is a recent development (for 18.04) in collecting some data where the option is presented to the user at install time. They've been very transparent about it, but they are indeed trying to gather data that other OSes have been for a while.


MATLAB 2017b
This is available for Linux.
 
When I started this thread I was on Ubuntu-Mate. Unfortunately that romance ended when an update totally trashed the system and after a fresh reinstall, I couldn't get VirtualBox working. Finally had to give up. I then moved to Mint-MATE and VirtualBox installed and worked without any issues at all. Everything else is working also. My only beef is Caja, it's slow as Molasses and all the alternatives I've tried won't allow me to browse network shares. Sooner or later I'll iron out the glitches and one thing is for certain, I'm not compelled to go back to Windows at all. There are certain things I still need Windows for at least 95% of my time is spend in Linux, this is a good thing.
 
So, something happened:

I was able to install Steam on my Ubuntu Budgie box, which I haven't used much this year yet. Now downloading Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor :D
 
When I started this thread I was on Ubuntu-Mate. Unfortunately that romance ended when an update totally trashed the system and after a fresh reinstall, I couldn't get VirtualBox working. Finally had to give up. I then moved to Mint-MATE and VirtualBox installed and worked without any issues at all. Everything else is working also. My only beef is Caja, it's slow as Molasses and all the alternatives I've tried won't allow me to browse network shares. Sooner or later I'll iron out the glitches and one thing is for certain, I'm not compelled to go back to Windows at all. There are certain things I still need Windows for at least 95% of my time is spend in Linux, this is a good thing.

I honestly don't know why you want virtual box. Don't get me wrong, it's good if you want to try an os real quick or something, but VMWare Workstation is faster and more stable. You can download it off of the vmware website with a trial. You can regularly pick it up for < $200, and ~$100 to upgrade. I upgrade every few versions unless there is something I just really want in the newer version.
 
The only thing I need Virtualbox for is occasional Windows use and even this is temporary. It works fine for me. All I need, really.
 
I really like Linux, and I'm trying to use it more, but in some ways it's still not there. Mostly in terms of 3rd party software.

I'm toying around with game development and working on a 3D engine. Tools for compilers and libraries are great on Linux, so no issue there. However, support for DCC apps like Photoshop, etc. is bad.

Photoshop doesn't have a Linux version, and GIMP is honestly not that good in comparison. Maya has a Linux version, but I'm using the cheaper Maya LT, which only has Window/Mac builds.

Tried to check out Blender again and the user experience is probably the worst of anything. It makes no sense, even simple things like selecting an object might as well be cracking AES with a TI-84 calculator.

Sure, I know some people can use GIMP or Blender with enough experience, but when I was first learning Photoshop or Maya for the first time things quickly started to make sense.

I think the really successful open-source apps are like OpenOffice or LibreOffice, where they are very similar or the same as MS Office in the basic functionality so it's an easy switch. GIMP and Blender just don't make sense.
 
You ever tried to get it working with all of the Simulink packages? o_O

There is "Well, technically it is on Linux and 'works'," and then there is "It works perfectly fine right out of the box."

Sometimes this debate gets way more heated than worth the subject. Everything has its issues, it just a matter of which issues one can and can't deal with. When it comes to 3rd party support for applications Windows is simply the best there is in the desktop space because of its market share, its not rocket science. If Linux supports what someone needs then its not a problem. It's a HUGE problem if you have a ton of Windows software that's doesn't have Linux versions, trying to piecemeal together alternatives can be extremely time consuming with no guarantees.
 
I really like Linux, and I'm trying to use it more, but in some ways it's still not there. Mostly in terms of 3rd party software.

I'm toying around with game development and working on a 3D engine. Tools for compilers and libraries are great on Linux, so no issue there. However, support for DCC apps like Photoshop, etc. is bad.

Photoshop doesn't have a Linux version, and GIMP is honestly not that good in comparison. Maya has a Linux version, but I'm using the cheaper Maya LT, which only has Window/Mac builds.

Tried to check out Blender again and the user experience is probably the worst of anything. It makes no sense, even simple things like selecting an object might as well be cracking AES with a TI-84 calculator.

Sure, I know some people can use GIMP or Blender with enough experience, but when I was first learning Photoshop or Maya for the first time things quickly started to make sense.

I think the really successful open-source apps are like OpenOffice or LibreOffice, where they are very similar or the same as MS Office in the basic functionality so it's an easy switch. GIMP and Blender just don't make sense.

Blender's workflow is great, if you can get used to it. That's a substantial "if", btw, but I like it. A number of studios use it for pre-viz and motion-tracking (you can see it running in the 'making of' video for Spider-Man). GIMP is GTK is GIMP; that's the best that can be said for it. It gets the job done in a pinch but the pro's I worked with relied on Photoshop (and a lot of Windows-only third party plugins) to get work done. Haven't seen it on Mac for awhile, can't comment. Use what works for you; if time is money then the mainstream tools are probably the better choice (although if asked again, in fine *nix tradition I will call you 100% Pure Organic Literally Hitler! ;))
 
Sometimes this debate gets way more heated than worth the subject. Everything has its issues, it just a matter of which issues one can and can't deal with. When it comes to 3rd party support for applications Windows is simply the best there is in the desktop space because of its market share, its not rocket science. If Linux supports what someone needs then its not a problem. It's a HUGE problem if you have a ton of Windows software that's doesn't have Linux versions, trying to piecemeal together alternatives can be extremely time consuming with no guarantees.
It's true. I can't haul everything ever created in a car, but I do not wish to own a truck.
 
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