Post a screenshot of your linux!


Interesting. I never used the VPN application under Windows as it used to give me problems. Under Linux I set things up the old way in terminal and never had a single issue, in fact performance is so good that sometimes I forget it's running!

Next machine I install Linux on I'll have to give it a go.
 
PIA uses OpenVPN like many other VPN providers so what they've provided is basically their branded front-end for it more than anything else. If you have a PIA login/password you can simply use OpenVPN's native client and get the same results.

<I'd post a Linux screenshot but I don't run Linux currently... /off_topic> :D
 
PIA uses OpenVPN like many other VPN providers so what they've provided is basically their branded front-end for it more than anything else. If you have a PIA login/password you can simply use OpenVPN's native client and get the same results.

<I'd post a Linux screenshot but I don't run Linux currently... /off_topic> :D

I've had issues using the native OpenVPN client, as soon as load was applied the VPN would drop out. The only way I found to get a stable connection was to download OpenVPN via the zip file available from PIA themselves and use that version of the client. Never went into depth diagnosing just why that was the case, but using the default OpenVPN client I definitely had issues.

[Edit] Under Linux.
 
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For myself, the PIA native software has issues and the actual TAP driver (on Windows, probably works in a similar fashion on Linux but I can't say that with any absolute certainty) that comes with the current distributions is not the best one in my experience so I had to replace just the TAP driver with an older version and I get the bandwidth I expect. If I use the one included with their installer it's complete shit, disconnects, slow speeds, etc and it's odd because the files show as having the same actual version number (9.0.0.9 on Windows) but when I compare the two files by SHA1 they're different.

Can't say that's an issue on the Linux side but swapping out the TAP driver at least for me (and other people that followed the instructions I posted at PIA's forums) got the speed back they were missing. The PIA software constantly tells me a newer version is available but damned if I'm going to update it. :)

</off_topic_again>
 
For myself, the PIA native software has issues and the actual TAP driver (on Windows, probably works in a similar fashion on Linux but I can't say that with any absolute certainty) that comes with the current distributions is not the best one in my experience so I had to replace just the TAP driver with an older version and I get the bandwidth I expect. If I use the one included with their installer it's complete shit, disconnects, slow speeds, etc and it's odd because the files show as having the same actual version number (9.0.0.9 on Windows) but when I compare the two files by SHA1 they're different.

Can't say that's an issue on the Linux side but swapping out the TAP driver at least for me (and other people that followed the instructions I posted at PIA's forums) got the speed back they were missing. The PIA software constantly tells me a newer version is available but damned if I'm going to update it. :)

</off_topic_again>

The PIA client was useless for me under Windows. Slow as a wet week.
 
For the reason I just specified. ;)

</off_topic_last_time_I_promise>
 
I've had issues using the native OpenVPN client, as soon as load was applied the VPN would drop out. The only way I found to get a stable connection was to download OpenVPN via the zip file available from PIA themselves and use that version of the client. Never went into depth diagnosing just why that was the case, but using the default OpenVPN client I definitely had issues.

[Edit] Under Linux.
I had the same issues when I was testing out KDE on Antergos. The cause turned out to be that, at least under KDE, networkmanager wasn't properly configuring the VPN settings which resulted in it not even attempting to connect. The encryption type, and something else. I'll try and find the article I found that clued me in and link it here.

EDIT: This isn't the page I initially found, but the steps seem familiar. Hope this helps. Link

Also, Bullet, I love your system specs in your signature. I'm curious. Were those the specs of your first PC that you still have around, or is it a hobby project? And it's a C64 I assume?
 
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Decisions are so difficult!

tB3Lgoe.png
 
Changed things around again. Decided to give Manjaro a go, and so far I'm really enjoying it.
2WkRZfk.png
 
Changed things around again. Decided to give Manjaro a go, and so far I'm really enjoying it.

Oh no you made your gnome look like windows. ;) kidden looks good.

I love manjaro one of my fav distros right now. Rolling Arch with a buffer and a simple GUI install, lots to love.
 
Ha! Every time I see one of these posts in the New Posts feed it always makes me switch over to Linux. It is becoming easier and easier to use it as each time I do I configure it just that little bit more. I want to try some themes and I will be back to post a screenshot!
 
https://www.gnome-look.org/browse/ord/latest/

There's so much to choose from that you end up with themers block as you can't make a decision on which one to download!

I saw one I kinda liked through the "online themes" under the Theme program. Problem is it makes my start menu see through instead of applying the theme. I KNEW there had to be other places to get them, though. Thanks!
 
So are you getting used to Linux and it's operation?
Yeah. I mean, I've been using linux off and on for years, but I never decided to fully take the plunge before now. The issues with NVIDIA hardware and composition on GNOME 3 based DE's still really irritates me, although I now know that this is mostly the fault of NVIDIA. I now know first hand why Linus told NVIDIA "f**k you" a few years back. Their proprietary drivers are garbage.
 
Yeah. I mean, I've been using linux off and on for years, but I never decided to fully take the plunge before now. The issues with NVIDIA hardware and composition on GNOME 3 based DE's still really irritates me, although I now know that this is mostly the fault of NVIDIA. I now know first hand why Linus told NVIDIA "f**k you" a few years back. Their proprietary drivers are garbage.

I love their proprietary drivers, in my experience they work perfectly and I'm running a Gnome based DE.

I recently wiped and reinstalled my drivers and experienced tearing, so I decided to experiment to see what rectified the issue. I found that changing the display resolution from auto to 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz on it's own from the default setting of 'auto' didn't make a difference, but as soon as I ticked 'force composition pipeline' scrolling was once again perfect with no scrolling issues whatsoever - Bear in mind this had to be done on both displays independently. So I don't know whether it was simply 'force composition pipeline' that rectified the issue or a combination of setting resolution and refresh rate as well as force composition pipeline that rectified the issue, but my scrolling is once again perfect.
 
Yeah, the force composition thing is a workaround they put in their drivers. It solves the rampant tearing problems, but it doesn't solve the issue I've been experiencing which has to do with judder while dragging windows around. I've noticed it's related only to applications that use webkit, and it appears to be specific to the composition engine of anything based on GNOME 3. You don't see the issue I'm talking about because you're running MATE.
 
MATE is just my desktop environment based around GTK 3, you can run any compositor you want under any desktop environment. I find Crompton (Marco) with hardware acceleration fantastic, having said that I've run a number of different compositors in the past and I've never seen this. Point being however, you can run any desktop environment (Gnome 3) you like with any compositor (Crompton, Compiz, Mutter) - Don't think you're tied down to a compositor just because you prefer a particular desktop environment.
 
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MATE is just my desktop environment based around GTK 3, you can run any compositor you want under any desktop environment. I find Crompton (Marco) with hardware acceleration fantastic, having said that I've run a number of different compositors in the past and I've never seen this. Point being however, you can run any desktop environment (Gnome 3) you like with any compositor (Crompton, Compiz, Mutter) - Don't think you're tied down to a compositor just because you prefer a particular desktop environment.
Based on everything I've read this is not true with GNOME 3. Everything I've seen on this topic describes the GNOME shell itself as an extension of Mutter and that it isn't replaceable anymore. The same is true with Cinnamon and Muffin. It would seem that the only DE that you can actually change the compositor for anymore is MATE.
 
Based on everything I've read this is not true with GNOME 3. Everything I've seen on this topic describes the GNOME shell itself as an extension of Mutter and that it isn't replaceable anymore. The same is true with Cinnamon and Muffin. It would seem that the only DE that you can actually change the compositor for anymore is MATE.

It can be done, although you have to pretty much drop all Gnome 3 and falback to Gnome 2, fairly counterproductive if you prefer Gnome 3. That's one of the reasons I prefer a fork of Gnome 2. It's odd that I never had this issue running Linux Mint Cinnamon? i can't remember, are your running Nvidia, AMD or Intel or are you running an Optimus solution? I run Nvidia using Nvidia drivers and I can honestly say I never had an issue running Cinnamon - That would have been really annoying.

[Edit]...I do remember this!

I did experience this issue, a judder when dragging Windows! It's been so long since I experienced the issue I forgot all about it. From memory I did exactly what you did under Mint Cinnamon and disabled hardware rendering, from that point on it was no longer an issue and I forgot all about it. I'm so sorry but I do remember this issue, I can't believe it's still a problem! Although from memory the difference between hardware and software rendering was next to nothing, hence the reason I forgot all about the issue.

Do you have to run Gnome 3? Is there something particular to Gnome 3 that you prefer?
 
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It can be done, although you have to pretty much drop all Gnome 3 and falback to Gnome 2, fairly counterproductive if you prefer Gnome 3. That's one of the reasons I prefer a fork of Gnome 2. It's odd that I never had this issue running Linux Mint Cinnamon? i can't remember, are your running Nvidia, AMD or Intel or are you running an Optimus solution? I run Nvidia using Nvidia drivers and I can honestly say I never had an issue running Cinnamon - That would have been really annoying.

[Edit]...I do remember this!

I did experience this issue, a judder when dragging Windows! It's been so long since I experienced the issue I forgot all about it. From memory I did exactly what you did under Mint Cinnamon and disabled hardware rendering, from that point on it was no longer an issue and I forgot all about it. I'm so sorry but I do remember this issue, I can't believe it's still a problem! Although from memory the difference between hardware and software rendering was next to nothing, hence the reason I forgot all about the issue.

Do you have to run Gnome 3? Is there something particular to Gnome 3 that you prefer?
Yeah, I really do prefer Gnome 3, and it's mostly just an aesthetics thing. No matter how much I've fiddled with themes and customization in MATE, I just can't stand how old it looks and feels. I know that a lot of people love it, but it and other DE's like LXDE/QT just aren't appealing to me. I do like XFCE, but the developers absolute refusal to make the window borders easier to grab with a mouse really annoys me. They have been very arrogant about it, and that just makes me not want to support them. KDE doesn't have the issues we're talking about, but KDE is just too full of bugs that I can't be bothered to use it. I mean, KDE's network manager crashes constantly when trying to add VPN connections, and their partition manager doesn't work either. How can such basic things be so broken that they either crash or don't perform the function they were created to do?

At the end of it, the DE I like the most is Cinnamon, but GNOME has fixed the issues with NVIDIA cards where Cinnamon hasn't yet. I'm hoping that Cinnamon 3.4, which is built on GNOME 3.18 as opposed to 3.10, will fix the issue. Cinnamon really feels like a DE that was designed with me in mind. It has powerful file manager that isn't cluttered, there's a level of polish in UI customization that just isn't there in most other DE's, and it just is pleasant to use for me overall. I see it as a nice middle ground between GNOME 3 and MATE. It has the modern look and design elements I want with most of the customization elements I do like about MATE. I've really tried to use MATE, but I just don't like it at all. I know that they've updated its backend to GTK 3, so the backend is modern, but the UI design just feels dated and clunky to me.
 
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I have always liked that Linux had lots of DE options. Finding one you like that has all the features you want is always the catch. I see the value of most of the popular DEs... I always feel I have to hide my own preference from the other neck beards. For me Gnome 3 is perfect. lol Running 3.22 right now and its just smooth. I used cinnammon for awhile and it was ok... in the end it just felt to much like windows to me. I know Gnome 3 feels stripped down but the more I use it every day the more I appreciate that... and its nice that it seems to get the most developer support as far as fixes go. When I setup clients in the end mainline Gnome is always the safe bet. (imo Gnome 3 running the GNO-menu extension setup to look like windows is pretty much all Cinnammon is anyway.... and I'll run now :) )
 
I agree that Cinnamon does feel a bit 'Windows like', however any DE can be tweaked to your liking to look any way you like. Honestly, I can't see enough of a difference between Gnome 2 using GTK3 based applications as opposed to Gnome 3? In default trim Gnome 2 looks a little dated, but apply some time tweaking things to your liking and I can't really tell enough of a difference between Cinnamon and MATE (for example) to put up with the inflexibility of Gnome 3 in relation to ones choice of WM.

It's not the first time I've heard someone comment that KDE is a neglected fork ATM.

However, the whole point of Linux is choice, so if one sees a benefit in running Gnome 3 than go for it! :)
 
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However, the whole point of Linux is choice, so if one sees a benefit in running Gnome 3 than go for it! :)

Ubuntu switching back to Gnome made me very happy. At least for commercial work it just makes life so much easier. All the major options are running the same DE and the extra support from Ubuntu should only make things better imo. I love all the forks... and agree choice is a huge Linux plus. The way I am seeing things more and more now though... work wise and for regular new Linux folks, I just say Gnome 3 is the standard Linux DE. Its the DE supported by all the Linux bigs, gets the most support. It is of course the least windows look alike out of the box... so it takes some selling on the typical windows switchers. Still with a bit of tweaking I guess you could make it look just like windows or macos if you wished as well. :)

Agree with you completely though choice is one of the biggest advantages of Linux... I just think every switcher should give Gnome 3 a honest run first. If people stick with it, or fall in love with it (ok some do really :) ) the tend to run into the fewest issues down the road in my experience anyway.
 
Ubuntu switching back to Gnome made me very happy. At least for commercial work it just makes life so much easier. All the major options are running the same DE and the extra support from Ubuntu should only make things better imo. I love all the forks... and agree choice is a huge Linux plus. The way I am seeing things more and more now though... work wise and for regular new Linux folks, I just say Gnome 3 is the standard Linux DE. Its the DE supported by all the Linux bigs, gets the most support. It is of course the least windows look alike out of the box... so it takes some selling on the typical windows switchers. Still with a bit of tweaking I guess you could make it look just like windows or macos if you wished as well. :)

Agree with you completely though choice is one of the biggest advantages of Linux... I just think every switcher should give Gnome 3 a honest run first. If people stick with it, or fall in love with it (ok some do really :) ) the tend to run into the fewest issues down the road in my experience anyway.

No arguments here, I was never a big Unity fan and I see only good coming from Ubuntu switching to Gnome 3.
 
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Ubuntu switching back to Gnome made me very happy. At least for commercial work it just makes life so much easier. All the major options are running the same DE and the extra support from Ubuntu should only make things better imo. I love all the forks... and agree choice is a huge Linux plus. The way I am seeing things more and more now though... work wise and for regular new Linux folks, I just say Gnome 3 is the standard Linux DE. Its the DE supported by all the Linux bigs, gets the most support. It is of course the least windows look alike out of the box... so it takes some selling on the typical windows switchers. Still with a bit of tweaking I guess you could make it look just like windows or macos if you wished as well. :)

Agree with you completely though choice is one of the biggest advantages of Linux... I just think every switcher should give Gnome 3 a honest run first. If people stick with it, or fall in love with it (ok some do really :) ) the tend to run into the fewest issues down the road in my experience anyway.
I'm running Gnome 3 on my desktop due to issues with Cinnamon and NVIDIA, and while it is beautiful, the workflow of it just annoys the crap out of me. I think it's because they dumbed things down too much. The file manager is very limited (still working on figuring out how to replace it with nemo), and it just feels like the DE was designed to look pretty more than actually be functional.
 
I'm running Gnome 3 on my desktop due to issues with Cinnamon and NVIDIA, and while it is beautiful, the workflow of it just annoys the crap out of me. I think it's because they dumbed things down too much. The file manager is very limited (still working on figuring out how to replace it with nemo), and it just feels like the DE was designed to look pretty more than actually be functional.

I really wish the Gnome folks would add file manager to the GUI software list in settings->details->default applications. Lots of people end up asking how to do this. I don't mind nautilus but ya its pretty basic.

Still its not a hard change to make via the terminal. First of course use your package manager to download which ever file manager you want... your PM should grab the files and dependencies I imagine a few Cin files will be required.

First type this and see what it returns;
$xdg-mime query default inode/directory

Likely it will return: nautilus.desktop

So for instance I use thunar from XFCE... to set it as default I simply type
$xdg-mime default thunar.desktop inode/directory

Or if you want to set it back you simply have to type this... you can double check anytime with another query command.
xdg-mime default nautilus.desktop inode/directory

And of course remember to change your file link in your favourites if you have one there.

Nemo should just be nemo.desktop
 
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I'm running Gnome 3 on my desktop due to issues with Cinnamon and NVIDIA, and while it is beautiful, the workflow of it just annoys the crap out of me. I think it's because they dumbed things down too much. The file manager is very limited (still working on figuring out how to replace it with nemo), and it just feels like the DE was designed to look pretty more than actually be functional.

My findings exactly, I have to agree with this. Gnome can be productive, but it takes some tweaking. When you first fire it up with defaults it feels a little like you're using an ipad.
 
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My findings exactly, I have to agree with this. Gnome can be productive, but it takes some tweaking. When you first fire it up with defaults it feels a little like you're using an ipad.

As a gnome lover I can't even argue. The default gnome setup, and even the tweaked versions some distros install with are pretty bla. When you get used to all its ins and outs though, it is still my fav. I love XFCE... yet it still isn't so polished that I would put it on clients machines. I feel the same way about all the gnome forks as well.. but that's just my opinion. I know lots of people love them, they just don't feel as polished to me. Although ya I rarely see people using a stock Gnome setup.
 
As a gnome lover I can't even argue. The default gnome setup, and even the tweaked versions some distros install with are pretty bla. When you get used to all its ins and outs though, it is still my fav. I love XFCE... yet it still isn't so polished that I would put it on clients machines. I feel the same way about all the gnome forks as well.. but that's just my opinion. I know lots of people love them, they just don't feel as polished to me. Although ya I rarely see people using a stock Gnome setup.

However, I personally find Gnome to be a far nicer environment than Unity and for that reason I think it'll attract more people switching from other operating systems to Ubuntu.
 
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my /home drive finally failed and while my data was backed up... I forgot my dot files :)
I liked my old desktop so it is almost the same, just a tighter setup

7nvWBTi.png
 
XBmPIWo.png


Shifted from Ubuntu 16.10 back to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Playing a bit with PCSX2 and the Logitech F310. Next up is to see if I can get it to work over the Steam Link for some couch action.
 
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