Linux In the News

[Todd Walter]

Well, that's definitely an improvement over previous years when you had to jump through hoops to get the nVidia drivers installed. Unfortunately, Ubuntu won't load on my main machine. I may have to try it on my secondary desktop to see how it is now.

In the past to get Netflix to work on Linux you had to get Chrome installed, which at the time wasn't as easy as it sounds. It did not work in Firefox nor any other Linux browser.

Is it an off the shelf PC? Some (*cough*HP*cough*) will only boot EFI layouts that conform to Windows' paths for such, even though it violates the standard. I know the Canonical installer is supposed to handle that scenario (it's usually on the HCL with Red Hat) but you know how IT standards go.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Which Linux distribution are you using? Slackware? Gentoo? Arch? Perhaps Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, Solus, Fedora, SUSE, Debian? CentOS, Red Hat?

You can't just say "I use Linux, and it's as easy as OS X," because Linux is just the kernel - how "easy" it is depends on the distribution. And here is the catch 22 for "Desktop Linux" - you can't just say "use Linux" without specifying which distribution, but if there is ever a point when desktop Linux becomes synonymous with one distribution, the fight is lost.

The fragmentation issue will never be "fixed," and it shouldn't be. The problem here is a communication issue, and that can be fixed. When someone complains about "all that command line stuff" don't just say "Linux isn't as bad as it used to be - because if you do Slackware or LFS - it's necessary, and both of those can be equally called "Linux." Try this - "There are certain distributions of Linux that make it easy to use, such as Ubuntu or Mint. If you want to dive in to the inner workings of your system, there are Linux distributions you can choose to do that, but if the command line frightens you, my experience is that these distributions make it unneeded for most things."

I've used everything from Mint through to Solus and many ubuntu based distro's through to Arch. I currently run an Ubuntu variant. My Linux machine has given me far less in the way of issues than my macOS High Sierra machine, wish I never installed that OS.

 

[JSumrall]

Which Linux distribution are you using? Slackware? Gentoo? Arch? Perhaps Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, Solus, Fedora, SUSE, Debian? CentOS, Red Hat?

You can't just say "I use Linux, and it's as easy as OS X," because Linux is just the kernel - how "easy" it is depends on the distribution. And here is the catch 22 for "Desktop Linux" - you can't just say "use Linux" without specifying which distribution, but if there is ever a point when desktop Linux becomes synonymous with one distribution, the fight is lost.

The fragmentation issue will never be "fixed," and it shouldn't be. The problem here is a communication issue, and that can be fixed. When someone complains about "all that command line stuff" don't just say "Linux isn't as bad as it used to be - because if you do Slackware or LFS - it's necessary, and both of those can be equally called "Linux." Try this - "There are certain distributions of Linux that make it easy to use, such as Ubuntu or Mint. If you want to dive in to the inner workings of your system, there are Linux distributions you can choose to do that, but if the command line frightens you, my experience is that these distributions make it unneeded for most things."

I had noted in my first post in this thread which Linux distributions I had tried over the years and my varying success/failures with each. As of last year, the only distribution that would install on my main machine was OpenSUSE. All others failed for one reason or another, primarily due to the newness of the hardware I was trying to install it on.

I have previously tried Ubuntu, Slackware, Fedora, Red Hat (before it became Fedora), Mint, Arch, Debian, and probably some others I don't remember. I have a pretty large collection of Live CD's collecting dust from over the years.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I have never said the command line frightens me. From the get go I have said the primary problem stopping Linux from going mainstream for desktop use is the NEED to use the command line to fix so many things that just works on a fresh Windows install, in comparison.

I have also never spoken about the fragmentation 'issue' and I agree, it's not an issue. It's part of the freedom of Linux.

The original article was about Linux getting a rave review by someone, and my comments have been about my experiences with Linux over the years, as a comparison) and why it hasn't, and most likely never will, supplant Windows.

 

[JSumrall]

Chrome is avaliable as a .deb package which is very similar to Apple's .dmg package and installed using the GUI via something like Gdebi. Essentially every bit as simple to install as it is under Windows and once again the OS takes care of Chrome updates, checking each time just in case you don't want to apply an update for whatever reason.

One point worth mentioning is that the last time I used Ubuntu (admittedly 16.04) Gdebi wasn't installed by default, which I found exceptionally stupid.

'Sudo apt install gdebi' fixes that issue.

Unfortunately, it's not recommended to try and use .DEB packages in OpenSUSE.

 

[JSumrall]

Is it an off the shelf PC? Some (*cough*HP*cough*) will only boot EFI layouts that conform to Windows' paths for such, even though it violates the standard. I know the Canonical installer is supposed to handle that scenario (it's usually on the HCL with Red Hat) but you know how IT standards go.

No, it's not an off the shelf PC. I built it myself about 2 years ago. The first big hurdle was dealing with the UEFI BIOS. Once that is switched off, a few Live CDs like Ubuntu would load, but once you start the install process, it would crash then, or just not boot once installed. The only distro I was able to install and use was OpenSUSE.

 

[ChadD]

It's not that using a command line is the problem. For the average Windows user, you just don't HAVE to use the command line. I've had to use the Windows command line maybe 3 times over the past 5 years? And all 3 times were for a weird issue with a flash drive being connected to a USB port interfering with Windows Update.

With my Linux experiences, every install required multiple uses of the command line. Heck, just google "linux nvidia driver install". The first step that shows up in the top box has 8 command line commands just to install the driver. How many command line steps are required to install an nVidia driver on Windows? Zero.

Clearly you haven't used Linux in a very long time. (and reading your other posts I see its that you have only used Opensuse... which is very open source loving distro, yes NV drivers with suse and any RPM based distro are not GUI one clicks)

Almost all distros no longer require you to do anything at all to install the latest Nvidia drivers. (other then checking one box)
Manjaro - #1 on distrowatch. Simply select "use non free drivers" when installing.
Mint - #2 on distrowatch. Simply select "use non free drivers" when installing.
Ubuntu - #3 installs using open source drivers, pops up window on first run that has a simple one click "install non free drivers" option.

Looking through the most popular distros on distro watch... 10 of the top 10 distros have one click installs for Nvidia drivers. About 15-16 of the top 20 likewise offer the same.

As for how many steps are required to install an nvidia driver on windows.
1) open a web browser.
2) got to nvidia.com
3) navigate to their driver download
4) select your exact model of video card, or download a second detection program.
5) download and save driver
6) run .exe driver install
7) go through install process selecting options.
8) enjoy your new Nvidia spyware.

I'm sorry but installing nvidia drivers on windows is NOT easier then it is on Linux. Every major Linux distro now has easy one click installs of NV drivers. There are some odd balls... like OpenSuse Tumbleweed their rolling distro which does require a long install, but OpenSuse non rolling has a no issue one click install. To top it off.... on Linux you will never ever ever have to go back and download a new driver, uninstall an old one and all the other BS that comes with windows drivers. Once you have your NV driver package installed it will update itself with the rest of your system software.

PS... not sure why no other distros would load on your machine but Suse would. Honestly a very strange issue. I have installed Linux on 100s of machines and rarely run into any issues at all. As others have said if there are issues often its because a MB manufacturer is doing something they shouldn't be. Odd.

 

[ChadD]

Unfortunately, it's not recommended to try and use .DEB packages in OpenSUSE.

Chrome can be installed in almost every distribution.

Chromium is in the repos of every single distro I have seen for the last 3+ years. I would say at least 90% of those also have a widevine drm package. Which allows you to use netflix and other DRM video sites.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Unfortunately, it's not recommended to try and use .DEB packages in OpenSUSE.

No, .deb is Debian based distro's only. As far as ease of use goes, OpenSUSE wouldn't really be my first recommendation for a beginner distro.

 

[JSumrall]

So I decided I'll give Linux another try to see if the experience has improved since my last attempt a year or two ago. I'll be documenting the experience here: https://hardforum.com/threads/my-2018-linux-test.1965095/