General > General Technical Chat
Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux [advice needed for a Linux workstation at home]
free_electron:
Does anyone here use virtual containers ?
I would think that pc hardware these days is so powerful you could just spin up a bunch of VM's , drop whatever OS you need in them and run them parallel.
i'm talking a vm that does not require a host OS for itself. (XEN )
Then you can just run whatever OS is needed for whatever apps you want to use. run that on one box and simple setup Remote desktop connections to the different os's running.
Then again for graphics intensive stuff that may not work very well...
edy:
I want to reply back to the original post... regarding my foray into Linux after also ditching Windows 7 just around the time Win 10 was being crammed down our throats. I am not an expert in all the Linux distros and features of each. However, I burned a bunch of Live DVD's at the time and then Live USB's (for my newer machines that allowed USB boot) to experiment... and here's what I found.
I ended up settling with various Ubuntu distro's depending on the hardware. For my older computers that the kids are using, I used Lubuntu (https://lubuntu.net/). I am up to the latest Lubuntu version (and continue to update/upgrade to every new release). My kids are still using an old Dell Latitude D820 laptop made circa 2006 with Lubuntu. I have also an old PC upstairs that the kids use, also Lubuntu. Lubuntu is very lightweight and uses LXDE, yet you can add on whatever you want after if you choose. Very capable on older hardware.
My newer more capable laptop and PC desktop are running Ubuntu Studio (https://ubuntustudio.org/), also I keep up to latest version. I like Studio because it also has a nice clean desktop XFCE and pre-installed with tons of graphics, office, video and audio apps. I install tons of extra things on it and it is my "daily driver" on my ASUS Core i7 laptop.
My wife has a regular Ubuntu install on her 5-6 year old HP machine but I don't like whatever desktop they put on there at the time (I think it was Unity). I think they moved on to Gnome 3 now, which I like much more than Unity. I would much rather install Ubuntu Studio from scratch and have the cleaner and faster XFCE desktop environment and all the packages preloaded than start off with a default Ubuntu install... So my preference is still either Ubuntu Studio, or Lubuntu for older hardware, or Ubuntu if they moved away from that aweful Unity Desktop environment.
I also occasionally run a Tails Live USB when I want to boot up and leave no traces (https://tails.boum.org/). Currenty I am reading through the book "Linux Basics for Hackers" (https://nostarch.com/linuxbasicsforhackers) and it provides tutorials through the use of Kali Linux (https://www.kali.org/) so I am trying to get some experience with security and penetration testing, network sniffing, etc. I run this in a VirtualBox machine on my Ubuntu Studio machine.
Speaking of VirtualBox, I also run Windows 10, Windows XP Mode, Mac OS High Sierra, and have tried a few other OS's all in VirtualBox on my Ubuntu Studio-running laptop with no issues. So as far as ditching Windows, I have not had any regrets. I managed to still install a few fun but older PC/Windows games under WINE.
I don't want to fan the flame war between Windows vs. Linux... but whatever you find useful for your needs, all the best to you! :-+ At home for my family's needs and my needs, I have found Linux to be a wonderful replacement for Windows and have taken advantage of some very old hardware, saving it from landfill. I am not as worried about them getting viruses and malware, and as far as all the major productivity and connectivity tools are concerned, they are not lacking one bit. I can sleep better at night knowing I can handle their IT issues, and I have all the tools, install disks/USB's required to manage their systems in case something goes completely to hell. I don't have to go scrambling for licenses and figure out whether it was registered, how many machines I can use the license on before issues occur, or stick to some old version. I can pick the latest version and keep updating and I can make sure we are patched up to the latest releases.
At work, I have no choice but to use Windows 10 because the specialty software used for our industry is only available on Windows, and requires a Server-Client setup (Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer with SQL and workstations running Win10). For a while I tried virtualizing Windows on Linux (with VirtualBox) and I had it working, but it made no sense since it would just run slower in VirtualBox than if I was running it straight. Also these machines do not need to be running Linux at all, the office machines are strictly using this Windows software and very little else. I spoke to our software vendor and they have no plans to make a Linux version available. So I have no choice but to be in a Windows environment at work. Do I love Windows? No... but since my software vendor doesn't support anything else, I have to invest a pile of money on it because I need to upgrade my entire office every few years to keep running the latest version of Windows and Windows Server!
Meanwhile, if I take some of those office machines home and wipe them and put Linux on them, I can extend their usefulness another 5-10 years!
BravoV:
--- Quote from: free_electron on January 21, 2019, 03:21:26 am ---Does anyone here use virtual containers ?
I would think that pc hardware these days is so powerful you could just spin up a bunch of VM's , drop whatever OS you need in them and run them parallel.
i'm talking a vm that does not require a host OS for itself. (XEN )
Then you can just run whatever OS is needed for whatever apps you want to use. run that on one box and simple setup Remote desktop connections to the different os's running.
Then again for graphics intensive stuff that may not work very well...
--- End quote ---
Have you seen this ?
Created by our local moderator Gnif -> KVM Virtualization under Linux
Set the video below to start at 4:30 for the demo action.
https://youtu.be/1MI1s4hZ_yE?t=270
tggzzz:
I'm not clever enough to run Windows 10. I wouldn't know how to deal with this kind of problem, which floated into my inbox last night.
--- Quote ---I came in this morning to the dreaded Windows 10 update. After waiting just under and hour, unfortunately the Fall Creators Update has been re-applied for some reason.
I attempted re-installing the driver (with driver signing disabled) to no avail. It appears something in that update blocks what ever that driver is interfacing with. I didn't have any further time to get into it after already burning time waiting for the update to apply.
So it is not working in it's current state. Perhaps someone who has looked this before can have another stab. Otherwise we are going to have to roll back again but it seems Windows 10 updates cannot be disabled indefinitely.
--- End quote ---
There are videos of important presentations being scuppered by Windows updates.
How can people deal with being stopped in their tracks like this? Why do they put up with it?
EDIT: apparently the fix is
--- Quote ---the trick was to uninstall the hidden drivers through registry, reinstall everything and to place the missing dll it complains about in the root folder.
--- End quote ---
Obvious, isn't it. And editing the registry is much simpler and less error prone than editing an application's config text file or deleting its directory. Isn't it?
Nominal Animal:
--- Quote from: rsjsouza on January 21, 2019, 02:52:08 am ---Financially for us it makes zero sense to "spend a few hours" with each distro, validate and properly document and provide continuous support for absolutely everything on the marketplace.
--- End quote ---
That is a fair statement I can accept.
However, I don't understand how that ties in with your other statements.
As a practical example, when your users clamor for a Linux version, or a package for a particular distribution, you tell them how much it would cost to produce, and how many units you'd need to sell for that to be practical, in rough numbers. There is no appeasing needed. If that is a regular question, I'd put it in a FAQ section for that product.
--- Quote from: rsjsouza on January 21, 2019, 02:52:08 am ---Your post only showcases a typical Linux fan that cannot take criticism for someone that lives a different reality than yours.
--- End quote ---
Criticism? I missed that. All I saw was demands for change for your particular business to be easier.
(I also would not label myself as a "fan", more like developer. And please do bear in mind that I did run a successful IT business, part of which was developing, customizing, and installing Linux stuff, for almost a decade. It did break me -- not the Linux part, I still do that for fun; the business part did. I am too much of a problem-solving-junkie rather than a business person to be able to run a business successfully without damaging myself. Nevertheless, the business was profitable up to the year I broke, and was shut down in an orderly manner, not via bankrupt or similar. I think I've described this in detail elsewhere on this forum.)
The problem I have with a few businesses is that they refuse to make profit when it comes to Linux, because they are unwilling to change their business practices to match the sector. I do not understand why they refuse to make a profit. It does not compute.
I have that same problem with many, many other business fields. Media, and their insistence on "protection" (which is not), is a good example. I thought otherwise until I read Baen Books' Eric Flint's essays about the effect of Digital Rights Management, and how getting rid of it increased their sales (for some authors, like 5×). The same observations match my own experiences in other media fields.
Consider, for example, the fact that even now, there is no officially licensed way of playing Blu-Ray discs on Linux. That is, you cannot buy an officially licensed player for Linux. The reasons for this are not technical (if you disagree, I can explain exactly how a player strictly licensed for one combination of hardware can be implemented, and how to implement the surrounding licensing in a way that keeps the users well "appeased"), so they can only be political. And I do not understand why a company would refuse to make money; I am surprised why their shareholders are not putting the executives to task.
The only explanation for that political stance I have, based on my discussions with people in Finland who make large-scale software choices and invariably lean towards Microsoft or other large firms (that have as low as 33% success rate with large-scale software projects in Finland, but which does not seem to have any effect in their business), is that the untrue statements spread by Microsoft between 1997 and 2015 or so, have been integrated into the minds of the nontechnical decision-makers. That annoys me.
From your (rjsouza) description I understood that your business counted among those. That the profit margin would be there, except that you see it as "wrong" to provide packages for individual distributions, because they "should" instead provide one package format that worked for every Linux distro; that Linux being fragmented to a number of distributions is harmful, because it does not work for you.
If I misunderstood, and providing localized/distribution-specific packages is simply non-feasible financially, I do apologize: I know that situation as well, and it can be very irritating; but it only applies to rather small/low-cost software projects. It is, also, not nearly as common as the profit-exists-but-we-refuse case, the examples for which I've listed above.
Thus far, I have not encountered a single business that does the cross-distribution packaging right. I do count my Canadian friend selling proprietary Linux stuff in this category; he too does not have the resources to do it right yet. I have discussed the matter with him, but providing it as a simple encompressed tar archive works for him for now.
TL;DR:
If the problem is that packaging the software for different distributions is too expensive (there is not enough profit to do that), there are better ways of lowering that cost than demanding the business sector change, or lambasting Linux users or developers as difficult.
One way to do that is to put a call out for users/developers to repackage the software and/or port the documentation for their preferred Linux distribution, with the express intent of finding out how expensive it would be to verify and maintain those. Some businesses have a separate section for community-maintained packaging/documentation; that could be an option.
Another way would be to pay an one-off fee for a proper Linux consultant to package and document the software for the top five widely used distributions. This is a business risk, but a very simple and easy to manage one. This would be my suggestion.
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