General > General Technical Chat
Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux [advice needed for a Linux workstation at home]
NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: OwO on January 18, 2019, 01:50:14 am ---Video tearing is mainly the fault of the video player. I've found mpv to be the best performing video player on linux. Also I would steer clear of nvidia at all costs. If you have intel graphics then all you need to do is remove the graphics card.
--- End quote ---
Nvidia works very well with the binary blob, but if you're looking to avoid that, AMD is a fine choice that's not underpowered. That said, I have no experience with high quality upscaling on anything other than a Nvidia GPU.
Here's my mpv config:
--- Code: ---# This is a config file for mpv, an open source media player.
# Optimized for high video quality on a 4K display with a GTX 970 GPU.
# Version: 20181225
# Content used for subjective testing/tuning provided by CaitlinV3, Joanne Chiang, Naomi Wu, Nerdphilia, and TastyPC.
audio-device=alsa/iec958:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
audio-stream-silence=yes
audio-wait-open=1
hwdec=nvdec
hwdec-codecs=h264,vc1,wmv3,hevc,vp9
force-seekable
framedrop=decoder+vo
vd-lavc-dr=yes
vd-lavc-threads=6
vo=gpu
scale=ewa_lanczossharp
cscale=ewa_lanczossharp
dscale=mitchell
tscale=oversample
correct-downscaling
deband
sigmoid-upscaling
opengl-pbo
scaler-resizes-only
interpolation
interpolation-threshold=0.01
swapchain-depth=8
video-sync=display-resample
video-sync-max-video-change=3
dither-depth=auto
gamma-factor=1.1
cache=500000
audio-channels=stereo
force-window=yes
ontop
autofit=1920x1400
geometry=1920:200
video-align-y=-1
--- End code ---
It defaults to opening a video in a window, but I press 'f' if I want it fullscreen. It uses high quality scaling when applicable, with the common case of upscaling 1080p to 4K using about 30% of the GPU. That's roughly 1 TFLOPS so an Intel GPU (other than the oddball that's actually AMD graphics) will not work, a Ryzen 5 APU might but I have not tested it.
fsr:
I'm using Lubuntu 18.04 LTS right now. It's lightweight, using LXDE. Doesn't comes with all the stuff Ubuntu has installed by default.
Or just install Ubuntu which has more stuff installed by default, and that probably makes it easier to use in some circumstances. If you don't like the desktop environment, you can do "apt install lxde" to install LXDE, and then you can choose it at login, instead of the default (gnome 3).
Most Linux distros also have a GUI software store, you normally don't need to use the command line at all, if you don't want to.
The only problem is with hardware manufacturers and software makers that don't provide support for linux, but as an OS, it's much better done than Windows.
IMHO, Windows fuck'd up when they merged the home products (95, 98, Me) with the office branch (NT). I used NT 4, and if you had a blue screen, the most likely cause by far, was a hardware problem. It was very stable. Then, they added a lot of crap that didn't needed to be installed by default. What good does the media center do in an office pc? We don't even have the option to choose what to install anymore. Up to Win 98 at least, you could choose what components to install! You didn't needed to install the calculator, if you didn't wanted it!!
In Windows Vista and then in 8 and later, the OS went to shit. Look in Windows 10 the unbeliavable amount of crap that is running on the machine from boot! And then, GBs of updates, and a stupid amount of time to install them, without even getting to the login screen!
Also, why the hell do i need to have all that tiles (advertising) on the start menu, and have the OS spy me, if i buyed the goddam OS? That's crazy.
Nominal Animal:
OP: Do it only if you are willing and able to learn a new tool. If you just need a tool that works like Windows but isn't Windows, don't bother: the switch will just aggravate you.
These are my observations over the last twenty years of helping people do the switch:
It is much easier to teach a computer-illiterate person how to use a Linux workstation than a Mac or Windows power user. The latter hate having their hard-won knowledge being useless, and will be miserable using Linux; not only do they need to learn new stuff, they need to un-learn their hard-won old knowledge first. Twice the effort, really. The same applies to using expensive software packages: not being a paying customer does not work for people who need proper customer service to do their job.
Those who use computers as tools, and pick up new tools fast and easy, especially the tinkerer types, will love the full control of their own workflow, if they can afford spending the time to optimise their own workflow. Those who use computers as tools for performing specific jobs that do not change, will be aggravated by the change, and the time needed to learn the new tool for basically no gain.
There is no right or wrong about the switch; there is no right or wrong in choosing which tools you use. Just note that Linux is not a singular tool, but a collection of modular tools that are designed to work together. It is not a single environment provided by a vendor like Windows or Macs are.
NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on January 18, 2019, 03:41:55 am ---OP: Do it only if you are willing and able to learn a new tool. If you just need a tool that works like Windows but isn't Windows, don't bother: the switch will just aggravate you.
--- End quote ---
I think the problem is that the latest version of Windows is not very good, so the only alternatives are to use an older version of Windows that will become unsupported at some point or use some other OS altogether.
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on January 18, 2019, 03:41:55 am ---It is much easier to teach a computer-illiterate person how to use a Linux workstation than a Mac or Windows power user. The latter hate having their hard-won knowledge being useless, and will be miserable using Linux; not only do they need to learn new stuff, they need to un-learn their hard-won old knowledge first.
--- End quote ---
As someone in that Windows power-user camp, I actually disagree. I found that my knowledge of DOS command line and batch files translated very well into Linux. I didn't view it as previous knowledge going to waste or having to un-learn anything, I found my previous expertise complimented Linux well.
Having taught Linux to users as well, I find those who know DOS/Windows command line will pick up Linux very quickly and are much more comfortable with it than those who just use Windows to play games.
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