Ground up Linux PC build

[John B]

I think it's time to move away from Windows, as I've had no interest in updating from windows 8.1

My needs for a PC have become pretty low, mainly internet, media, and tools like KiCAD, FreeCAD, Libre office, simulators etc. Not much gaming anymore, so thankfully I don't have to worry too much about a GPU. Occasional retro gaming. I figure I'll still want some CPU power to do windows emulation to make up for the inefficiency.

So I've been mulling over a Linux build. The main question on the hardware front is compatibility and stability, rather than outright performance.

1) For the CPU, would you pick Intel or AMD? Perhaps a 5000 series AMD?

2) For the GPU I understand AMD Radeon is the way to go?

3) Are there any compatibility/performance benefits to pairing an AMD CPU and GPU?


Then to the distro, I'm fairly sure it's going to be some Debian based one for simplicity and reliability. I was thinking of going with Ubuntu as the easiest choice (plus I see that AMD Radeon has a driver package for them) but I'm open to other suggestions, vanilla Debian even?

[james_s]

While the topic is certainly welcome here, you might have better results from a more dedicated linux/workstation/PC hardware forum. The last time I built a PC was back in 2015 but I found a recipe somewhere that was all stuff known to work well together. There have got to be lists of Linux friendly hardware, although in practice I've found that just about any random desktop PC works just fine. Laptops are a bit more fiddly since they are so tightly integrated.

[xmris]

I m on a 4th gen i3 and linux mint debian works fine, did a lot of distro hopping at the past, just tired to have frequent updates, YMMV of course, I don't have any extreme gaming requirements, retrogaming mainly on real systems (c64+amiga) but emulators of them are working without any issues even on my -low spec- setup.

BTW, make sure your CPU has virtualisation extensions eg Intel VT-x , just in case you will need VirtualBox/VMware. Sometimes is cheaper to get a ex-company/refurbished system that build one by yourself.

[Karel]

Whatever you do, don't select anything from nvidia!
Intel (CPU & GPU) and AMD (CPU & GPU) works fine with Linux.
In your case a CPU with builtin GPU should be fine and saves you the extra cost of a graphics card.

[themadhippy]

recently build a bench pc with a  pentium gold 6405 and 8 g of ram running ubuntu and it  deals with the tasks youve listed just fine, win 10 on a virtual box also seems to be ok,although i aint tested that in anger.No graphics card,just the internal.Total build cost including case and ssd drive was under £200

[Lindley]

Recently got a new laptop with an AMD Ryzen 5500U  with W11 and surprised and pleased at how fast it is.

You could go for a lower spec and cheaper mobo and cpu as generally Linux need far less than Windows, but would suggest you do go for something modern that will support Win 11 as  in the future you may find you need to run Windows eg dual boot, to use a program thats windows only, unless you intend to keep your old pc just for windows ?

Always found Linux Mint, a sport of Ubuntu, very easy to use and has a good and friendly user forum and plenty of general info on how to load things up etc.

[Zucca]

Whatever you do, don't select anything from nvidia!

I am basically slowly abandoning windows as well....

even a Quadro M6000 24GB? Should I sell it?

[John B]

OK, well watch this space for a Ryzen 5950X build.

[JohanH]

I am basically slowly abandoning windows as well....

even a Quadro M6000 24GB? Should I sell it?

They will be fine, if you use Nvidia proprietary drivers. More user friendly distros like Ubuntu and Fedora handle these fine. Mostly. Sometimes there will be issues with upgrades (I haven't had issues in years on Fedora).

[JohanH]

If you start from scratch and only want to use open source drivers, AMD might be a better option. Nvidia is trying to catch up and have recently announced open source kernel modules for their newer chipsets. This will take time, though, before everyone benefits from this. It will benefit both open source and proprietary drivers in the end.

[Whales]

To give you a user's perspective on what open source vs proprietary drivers means:

"Open source" or "in-kernel" drivers: just work, pre-installed.  These are your best option for AMD and Intel graphics but slow & feature-lacking for Nvidia.

"Proprietary Nvidia drivers": have all the features and performance, and at least on popular distros like Mint/Ubuntu they should mostly behave, but historically they break things and Nvidia doesn't GAF. 

Approximately ten years ago AMD started transitioning from its proprietary fglrx driver to the open source radeon driver (ATI started paying their own people to work on it).  It ended years of head bashing unreliability and issues like not being able to update my kernel from ancient versions (which broke other packages/programs).  It's the "right" way to do drivers in Linux, but it's fundamentally incompatible with the traditional big-company driver product mindset.

even a Quadro M6000 24GB? Should I sell it?

Best thing to do is try it, see if your programs and games work ok.  If it's no good then get an AMD card. 

Fun sidenote: you can have both AMD and Nvidia cards installed at the same time and then (eg) delegate a whole card to a virtual machine.  Sometimes useful for machine learning stuff or even full-VM gaming with proper 3d acceleration.

[Zucca]

Best thing to do is try it, see if your programs and games work ok.  If it's no good then get an AMD card. 

interesting stuff Whales, I don't GAF about games... and Arch Linux is very appealing for me.
My first test will be FreeCAD/KiCAD on an Arch Linux box, and see if the M6000 quadro will play well or not.

[Zucca]

OK, well watch this space for a Ryzen 5950X build.

water cooled please

[John B]

I went with the Noctua D15 again, in black of course. I used it on a 10th gen i9 build last year and it's worked well, and is silent unless under CPU load.

Not sure I trust water cooling yet for a long term computer.

[jdwaverly]

Have you considered using VirtualBox to set up a few virtual machines to try things out?
Pluses:
Try out dozens of Linux, Free BSD and even Mac OS builds (and even Windows 7, XP)
Run old OS's with complete piece of mind about being hacked
Instantly restore virtual machines after bad installs, upgrades
No worries about drivers and hardware compatibility (host OS takes care of that).
Easy to try and throw away without messing with boot partitions
Neglibible slow down compared to running on the Iron
FREE
Minuses:
Forget about graphic intensive tasks.
You still have to maintain your Host OS

https://www.virtualbox.org

[Lindley]

My needs for a PC have become pretty low,


OK, well watch this space for a Ryzen 5950X build.

Well not sure what you would buy for a high end performance PC  if your AU$ 1000 5950X cpu  is for a simple linux machine 

[gnavigator1007]

Just a heads up that you'll likely not be able to upgrade the CPU without getting a new mobo

[Nominal Animal]

I'm personally looking at one of the Ryzens (Zen4) on AM5 with integrated graphics.
Ryzen 9 7950X would be Very Nice, but pricey and a bit hottish.  Ryzen 7 7700X is more within my meager budget, and while it doesn't reach the performance of 7950X, it does pretty well in Phoronix' review.

For the motherboard, I avoid Asus for personal reasons, and have been looking at ASRock X670E Pro RS (which is compatible with all Noctua NH-D15 series coolers, and affordable Kingston KF556C36BBEK2-32 (2×16G) memory modules).  For storage, I'm looking at dual Samsung 980 Pro M.2 PCIe 1TB's in mixed RAID0/1 configuration (in Linux, of course), plus mixed SATA stuff for offline/slow storage (including some WD spinny-rust drives even).  Something like Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 would also be a possibility for a cooling solution here, but it would generate about 40dBA noise, and I'd rather have much less.

There might be some initial driver hiccups with the sound and network drivers (Realtek ALC897 and Dragon RTL8125BG), because you need a newish mainline kernel, and some distros may lag a bit behind, but it isn't a problem for me.  Just mentioning since it is a possibility.

[John B]

Both the Ryzen 7950X and 5950X are similarly priced at the moment, 5950X being a bit cheaper and both can be found well under AU$1000. The 7950X was very tempting, but all the supporting components blew out the budget with questionable benefit. The DDR5 memory is more expensive, though not too much. However the motherboard series I wanted was going to be nearly twice the price of the AM4 version, over $1k, with no components making use of the PCIe 5. The graphics card is only PCIe 4, and the M.2 SSD is PCIe 3.

For me the CPU and mobo are for the life of the computer, so getting a beefy CPU extends it's useful life.

I think if I spent the extra on a 7950X build, I'd probably go crawling back to windows and start gaming again and wasting my life on Cyberpunk 2077 or something 

The hardware is all purchased, so now I'm going back and forth on which distro. If I take the easy route it will be Linux Mint, but I like the idea of a plain distro. Maybe Debian, but I am giving thought to Fedora.

[Nominal Animal]

I'm typing this on Linux Mint, but have used many different ones.  I do recommend getting fast storage and lots of RAM, so you can run stuff effectively in virtual machines.  They're especially good at evaluating different distros and desktop environments/UI toolkits, not to mention testing stuff (since one can checkpoint a virtual machine and revert back to that after testing something, without having to worry about "cleanup" or uninstalling stuff).  Also, they boot/continue in seconds, so even though it isn't on bare metal, it's close enough for me to not notice the difference (except maybe in some very specific cases).

For me, the motherboard is a likely candidate for replacement.  By having future-compatible components, I can upgrade the motherboard if need be.  Or, get another compatible CPU and motherboard, and do a cross-swap, getting a second machine.

As to what is Linux-compatible, nothing beats a real-world test.  Then, one just needs to remember that Linux distributions do not necessarily run the very latest kernels, so testing more than one fresh distribution is a good idea.

[Infraviolet]

If you're looking for Linux flavour advice I can recommend Linux Mint too, all my PCs use it. Wine also works fairly well with it, if you have windows exe software that needs to be run (perhaps 50% of windows software will run under wine, that which doesn't would need windows in a VM). If I needed both Windows and Mint, I'd make Mint the main OS and put Windows in the VM, linux mint has been far more stable and low-maintenance for me than windows ever was back before I swapped. Booting in seconds seems a bit optimistic for a VM, I've always found they boot about as slowly as the OS on the actual computer, but maybe I've just been on relatively low performance hardware, even then the VM runs as quick as the main OS.

[Zucca]

mixed RAID0/1 configuration (in Linux, of course)

ZFS?

[JohanH]

I've been running Fedora on all of my private desktops and laptops permanently since about 2007, when Windows Vista arrived and it was observed to be crap. The previous main desktop was i7 4790k with various Nvidia graphics. Current is Ryzen 5 5600X, Nvidia 1070, various SSDs and NZXT Kraken X62 water cooler (moved from previous Intel setup). The desktop is used for anything from PCB design (KiCAD), some 3D CAD (FreeCAD), some programming, gaming (Steam) to web surfing, movies and music. I would stay away from ZFS until it's permanently a part of some distro (if it ever becomes), unless you want to be stuck tinkering with kernel upgrades etc. BTRFS works nicely and I haven't had issues with it for years. The water cooler was tricky on Ryzen. I had to set a very custom speed profile for it to work.

[Nominal Animal]

mixed RAID0/1 configuration (in Linux, of course)

ZFS?

Not worth the hassle.  Just ext4 on top of LVM.

[DiTBho]

mixed RAID0/1 configuration (in Linux, of course)

ZFS?

Not worth the hassle.  Just ext4 on top of LVM.

yup, it's what I do, but just ext3 or xfs-v3 on the top of LVM 
(it works great!)

[Nominal Animal]

Yup.  My use cases are such that LVM gives me all the filesystem snapshotting capabilities I need; and I've always liked ext2/3/4 performance in Linux even if it is not the most advanced filesystem out there.  On servers with lots of storage, I often preferred XFS as well, but haven't installed a proper server for a few years now.

In particular, I am not at all on top of the current statistics on SSD filesystem longevity/reliability/efficiency on the different filesystems, but having used a HP EliteBook 840 G4 with a Samsung PM961 512GB NVMe SSD for five years on top of LVM + ext4, I know it works fine for me; just like I know built-in Intel and AMD GPUs suffice well for my needs.  (I'm definitely not claiming others should do the same, because my workloads are odd and eclectic!  Computers being tools, everyone who builds one for themselves should make sure it fits their own needs and use cases, just like with any other tools.)

[Whales]

I also recommend using things like LVM or mdraid with common filesystems like ext4, instead of fancier filesystems that try to do everything in one like btrfs or ZFS.

ZFS has lots of performance gotchas.  It's a complex beast.

BTRFS has burned me a few times before.  I'm no longer excited about RedHat projects, they universally seem to be over-engineered, over-complicated and uncaring for small users.

I've heard some nice things about bcachefs, but it's still rather young so it would be unwise of me to recommend it.

[Zucca]

wow first time I hear someone suggesting something else than ZFS.

I just installed FreeBSD ZFS root in raid1 for my new Klipper (3DP) box, I keep you posted.

Now I hope google will tell me what LVM is...

EDIT: and yes....

https://history-computer.com/lvm-vs-zfs/

puh, seems having better performance and simple features.... I will give it a shot...

PS: now you see I am a noob in linux... I just have more experience with FreeBSD....

[JohanH]

The issue isn't which one is better (they are all good and mature file systems). Obviously on FreeBSD you would use ZFS. But due to the license issue, none of the Linux distributions, or the linux kernel itself, support ZFS. So you are all on your own installing the filesystem, and what is worse, keeping the software updated. That's why it's better to go with the filesystem that your favorite Linux distribution offers. Use it and forget it, skip the tinkering and tweaking. LVM+ext4 is great, we use it on all servers at work, because it has been the default filesystem on the Redhat family of distributions for a long time. On my personal computers I have btrfs (because that's the default in Fedora). And it's also great, you can expand/shrink and add disks easily. Software RAID doesn't interest me since last time (many years ago) I got a corrupted backup due to one disk failing in a RAID5 array (thereby syncing corrupted data). Software RAID1 is good enough for backup purposes, on a desktop not so much (just buy faster SSDs instead and have separate backups). Hardware RAID is another matter. On servers we run RAID 5, 10 or similar variants, always with hot spare disks (it has saved us regularly).

[RoGeorge]

I like ZFS.  Using it for a few years now, and no problems so far, in either Ubuntu or FreeBSD.

Ubuntu has a ZFS on root install (experimental, though it works), which will gave the possibility to recover/roll back the machine.  The rollback can be done at boot, from a menu in the Grub screen, or from the command line.  You can even go back and forth in time.  It autosaves a snapshot after each install, or by request from the command line.  It still let's you handle ZFS and/or Grub manually if needed.  Not perfect, but it works, helped me a couple of time along the years.

For external backup I like Borg.

FreeBSD is best for servers.  Can be used as a workstation, but with a struggle.  Some things are not available in FreeBSD.  Linux is more suitable as a desktop.  Ubuntu LTS installed with ZFS on root was virtually zero maintenance for my use.  I've added KDE Plasma on top, then removed Gnome.

[DiTBho]

Yup.  My use cases are such that LVM gives me all the filesystem snapshotting capabilities I need; and I've always liked ext2/3/4 performance in Linux even if it is not the most advanced filesystem out there.  On servers with lots of storage, I often preferred XFS as well, but haven't installed a proper server for a few years now.

weirdest ever: xfs-v3+LVM on a router microdrive, 3 years uptime
(yup, server profile)

[Zucca]

Thanks for all the info... there is always something to learn in Linux. Everyday something new.

[Nominal Animal]

On FreeBSD, I do recommend ZFS.  On Linux, LVM+ext4.

You do want your filesystem setup to be "native", so that if a problem occurs, you're unlikely to be the only person encountering such a problem, and resolutions (and developers with the same setup, and thus interested in avoiding the same problem) are easier to find.  For me personally it is not an issue, because I'm fairly familiar with kernel stuff and can and have debugged and fixed such stuff before, but overall, it is a sensible approach to a tool you use daily.

Software RAID doesn't interest me since last time (many years ago) I got a corrupted backup due to one disk failing in a RAID5 array (thereby syncing corrupted data). Software RAID1 is good enough for backup purposes, on a desktop not so much (just buy faster SSDs instead and have separate backups.

Yup, RAID5/6 is best done using dedicated hardware anyway, as it involves calculation (of the parity data).  You also want passive background checking when idle (same for when SMART is used on single drives), and offloading all that to a good, known-reliable controller, is a good idea.

RAID0 (which I intend to mainly use) is just striping, using two or more drives as one, giving increased throughput with larger I/O blocks.  It is less robust than using a single disk, but if you move around large amounts of data, it can be very useful.

RAID1 I only use for home directory, and only when not encrypted.  I'm thinking of making a separate partition for my examples/unit tests –– I do too many of them to keep a separate backup in sync ––, and it might be worth using swRAID1 for.  Especially if I encrypt my home directory.

I also like to use separate swap partitions on raw media.  This can help with hibernation in certain cases.  On my setups, it's the BIOS/EFI that takes the most time when booting or waking up from hibernation.  Wakeup from suspend (suspend-to-ram) is basically instant (less than a second), of course.

[Zucca]

On FreeBSD, I do recommend ZFS.  On Linux, LVM+ext4.

The more I read in the internet, the more the above make sense. thanks!

This here was also useful for me since I am a LMV noob

[Marco]

For more esoteric LVM shenanigans check out check out Wyng-Backup, it's like time machine except everything works with command line instructions with half a dozen options.

I wish Red Hat would adopt it and provide a nice GUI, it's such core functionality.

[Nominal Animal]

This here was also useful for me since I am an LMV noob

If you are interested in LVM snapshots (making atomic backups at leisure, while continuing to use the system without affecting the snapshot), you might find this post of mine useful; the KernelTalks How-to guide: LVM snapshot should be more so.

(I personally don't use filesystem images, I just mount the snapshot and tar-xz the parts of it I want to backup.  The DOS-vs-Linux discussion was centered around images, that's why I described how to grab a full FS snapshot image.  Some of the later posts include things I do in my backup scripts: I write my own, because they're simple enough, and my backup needs are very specific.  If I had an always-on NFS, for example, I could easily write a monitoring script to do this automatically, but right now I do not have one.)

Simply put, the LVM snapshot is a normal filesystem you can mount and access, even while the "parent" is being used and modified further.  LVM handles all the complexity of that inside itself, but you do need to remember to leave some of the space in a Volume Group unused, so that it can be used for copy-on-write storage for the snapshots you create.  (If you run out of space, you need to extend the volume group with a new storage device to be able to do that, so it's not an absolute requirement, it is just much more complicated without free space in the volume group.)

[Zucca]

I do in my backup scripts

oh yes, I need to learn how to scripts in Linux too, am I am embarrassed to say I never done it in FreeBSD as well, because I never need it.
I wasted my past in .bat or .com in DOS/Window, because those were the ones I needed for work.

[Nominal Animal]

I use bash, as it tends to be the default shell in Linux distributions.  (There are other shells you can use, though.)
For bash, having the GNU Bash manual nearby is extremely useful.

There are lots of tutorials online, varying on their approach and depth; check out a few so you get a more rounded perspective.

There are three constructs I do wish more tutorials would show, though.

First one is handling file and directory names with spaces et cetera, provided by find.  Use nul as the separator:
    find paths-and-options... -print0 | xargs -r0 command
or
    find paths-and-options... -print0 | while read -d "" Item ; do
        bash snippet using "$Item"
    done
The same applies when using a temporary file to gather file and directory paths.

The second one is using export LANG=C LC_ALL=C at the beginning of the script for maximum robustness.  This way, the shell and utilities do not check if the strings are valid UTF-8 or whatever your locale is, and just treats them as byte sequences, like the Linux kernel does.  This way all codes except 0 (nul) and 47 (/) are allowed in file and directory names.  (Very useful in backup scripts and such!)

The third is how to properly use temporary files in a script: you use a temporary directory and tell the shell to autoremove it and everything it contains when it exits:
    Work="$(mktemp -d)" || exit 1
    trap "rm -rf '$Work'" EXIT
You can then use descriptive names for temporary files, like "$Work/filelist".  The directory will be removed by Bash when the script exits, even if the script fails due to an error, as that is when the EXIT trap triggers.
The trick here is the exact form of the trap: the outer doublequotes means the shell variable $Work is evaluated/expanded when the trap is set, so that subsequent changes to $Work won't affect the trap.  You can clear or change $Work, and the trap will still always remove the original temp directory only.  The inner single quotes are just there so that the expanded path is used as-is, and not re-evaluated by the shell.  (mktemp -d outputs paths that do not need to be quoted, so they're mostly for us humans to recognise the importance of quoting in that command.)

[nctnico]

Whatever you do, don't select anything from nvidia!

Nonsense. Just load the drivers made by Nvidia instead of the open sources ones and off you go.

Since the use case is pretty light, it is a good idea to get a fanless video card.  I have one based on an NVidia Geforce GT1030 which is more than enough for CAD work.

[Nominal Animal]

Whatever you do, don't select anything from nvidia!

Nonsense. Just load the drivers made by Nvidia instead of the open sources ones and off you go.

The downside is that none of the Linux kernel developers can help if you have trouble.

This has nothing to do with licensing, and everything to do with the monolithic architecture of the Linux kernel.  With a black-box binary blob that can do absolutely anything, it just doesn't make any sense to try and investigate the problem.  So, if you have any kind of kernel-related trouble, you'd need to be able to replicate it without having had the Nvidia proprietary drivers loaded at all since the last boot.  (Just unloading them won't be enough.)

I know it sounds like kernel developers are zealots who just don't want to help users who use proprietary stuff, but all the easy bugs have been fixed ages ago, and only the complex ones are left; the kind that the exact driver set you have loaded tends to affect.  A big black box in the middle of that makes debugging difficult.  Even if the bug is nowhere near the Nvidia proprietary driver, it can still participate in the call traces, or be the cause of a timing race window leading to the bug.  In reality, even the Linux kernel developers are frustrated by how this blocks debugging.  And that, not licensing or ideological reasons, is why they cannot help: it is too frustrating to even try.

I admit, whenever I got a crash report, if the kernel was tainted, it was necessary for me to let it go, because trying to investigate the problem with such unknowns in the middle was just not healthy.  It is not like trying to piece together a puzzle you don't know the result of; it is more like trying to piece together a puzzle by having someone else describe you the piece you have in your hand.  Not impossible, but frustrating!

This means that a crash report from an untainted kernel is really needed, before a kernel dev can investigate it thoroughly.

As to Nvidia itself, I'm not sure how to think of them.  On one hand, they do have some Linux support, so they're not hostile towards Linux.  On the other hand, they love being the only upstream vendor for their products, and do use that leverage they have on their customers –– just look at anything Cuda. 
(Which is why I use OpenCL myself: I do not want to be tied to a single vendor.  I don't like it when it is even Red Hat, so it's not about Nvidia per se.)

In summary, I understand the reasons for both views – "never Nvidia" and "Nvidia is fine".  It is about what matters to you, regarding the tools you use.  Do you intend to use it if it works for you and discard if not, or would you prefer to spend the time and effort to fix whatever you might encounter wrong or undesirable in it?  If former, then Nvidia is fine.  If latter, Nvidia can be problematic, although the largest distributions, Fedora and Ubuntu, may be able to provide some support wrt. Nvidia drivers.

[nctnico]

Whatever you do, don't select anything from nvidia!

Nonsense. Just load the drivers made by Nvidia instead of the open sources ones and off you go.

The downside is that none of the Linux kernel developers can help if you have trouble.

This has nothing to do with licensing, and everything to do with the monolithic architecture of the Linux kernel.  With a black-box binary blob that can do absolutely anything, it just doesn't make any sense to try and investigate the problem.  So, if you have any kind of kernel-related trouble, you'd need to be able to replicate it without having had the Nvidia proprietary drivers loaded at all since the last boot.  (Just unloading them won't be enough.)

Do you intend to use it if it works for you and discard if not, or would you prefer to spend the time and effort to fix whatever you might encounter wrong or undesirable in it?  If former, then Nvidia is fine.  If latter, Nvidia can be problematic, although the largest distributions, Fedora and Ubuntu, may be able to provide some support wrt. Nvidia drivers.

Just use a stable kernel that is supported by the driver. During the NVidia driver install it looks like several kernel modules are compiled for use with the kernel. This has been trouble free for years for me and I am a big supporter of 'if it isn't broken, don't ruin it'. I'm not interested in running the latest & greatest software or fixing problems. I need my PC to work so I like to use tried and tested software which is why I have been using Debian for about 25 years or so.

Before I bought my current PC I did investigate NVidia versus AMD due to the rumours about NVidia problems but it turned out that there really aren't any issues when using stable kernels that have been out for a while (tried & tested). On top of that NVidia is updating their drivers regulary.

[james_s]

It probably doesn't matter too much for most users anyway. The last PC I built I just use the onboard Intel graphics, it's fine, I even tried some (older) games and they ran well, I'm not a gamer and don't care about any of the latest games so I didn't try. The only CAD I do is PCB work and that's totally fine on the onboard video.

[RoGeorge]

I have a nVidia GPU (GTX760), it eventually works but with a pain.  Stay away from nVidia GPUs.

In my desktop, nVidia was the only hardware because of which I had to manually fix failed upgrades/updates.  nVidia was the only trouble when I've installed KDE Plasma in FreeBSD.

nVidia can work with open source drivers (nouveau), but not very efficient.  To get the max performance out of your nVidia GPU, you'll need to use their proprietary drivers from nVidia.  For some reasons, even with Ubuntu packaging, these drivers were always problematic for me:
- sometimes incompatible with the rest of the Ubuntu distro, you'll see kept back packages that will need a manual fix
- some nVidia versions were hanging the OS while going in/out of STR standby (Suspend to RAM), only hardware Reset was working after the OS hang
- they obsoleted and make unavailable features that used to work on my card, from nVidia compute and CUDA
- each time I've installed CUDA for Python and AI experiments, after a couple of OS updates the same programs that used to work before the updates were not working any longer.    At some point my card was listed as obsolete and that was it.  Learned my lesson and using CPU acceleration now, so I can return to older project and still be able to run them.
- Firefox never managed to use hardware acceleration, it works, but after manually changing settings in about:config, and after a couple of months something else changes and nVidia HW acceleration doesn't work again, and have to google again how to enable (it's always some other setting that has to be changed, and you'll need to try a few till you find the working one)
- in FreeBSD I've run the installer about 5-10 times untill I've found the working combination for nVidia proprietary drivers to work
- nVidia uses software locks and license locks for GPU chips that can do much more, just that those features are locked down in consumer cards cheaper than $500-$1000.  For example GPU pass-through is disabled in cheaper cards.

Not to say that having a proprietary driver with binary blobs in the kernel defeats the whole idea of an open source OS.

As far as I remember, nVidia worked great with Windows (apart from annoyances like forcing users to get a nVidia account for some gaming tuning software, don't recall exactly the name of that component that use to come with the Windows drivers many years ago, yet was not mandatory).  Since I've switched to Linux and BSD, nVidia was a pain, it was and still is the main headache when updating the OS.



My advice after a few years of GTX760 (nVidia GPU card) is to stay away from nVidia.  It works, but with a never ending stream of problems, which will cost you countless hours of googling and testing how to fix that.

[Karel]

[DiTBho]

Nvidia on non x86 has even more problems

[Karel]

"My Experiences with Wayland and Nvidia in 2022"

https://blog.devgenius.io/wayland-and-nvidia-in-2022-2f0407fb34f4

[JohanH]

Yes, Wayland is still no-go with Nvidia. Slowly improving, with this rate maybe in a couple of years...

[nctnico]

I have a nVidia GPU (GTX760), it eventually works but with a pain.  Stay away from nVidia GPUs.

In my desktop, nVidia was the only hardware because of which I had to manually fix failed upgrades/updates.  nVidia was the only trouble when I've installed KDE Plasma in FreeBSD.

nVidia can work with open source drivers (nouveau), but not very efficient.  To get the max performance out of your nVidia GPU, you'll need to use their proprietary drivers from nVidia.  For some reasons, even with Ubuntu packaging, these drivers were always problematic for me:
- sometimes incompatible with the rest of the Ubuntu distro, you'll see kept back packages that will need a manual fix

IMHO Ubuntu is too far ahead where it comes to the latest software and compatibility between packages is not tested well enough. Upgrading to the latest version without giving a manufacturer time to update their drivers and expect these to work is just too much to expect / ask. I would never use Ubuntu for a desktop PC that simply needs to work. Just as I wouldn't use a newly released Windows version on a computer that needs to work.

@Karel: I don't care about Linus' god complex.

[JohanH]

@Karel: I don't care about Linus' god complex.

Linus is always straight to the point (very typical for a Finn). I wouldn't call it god complex, though. He has the guts to admit when he is wrong. His outspokenness did come to a point (in 2018) where he was criticized for it and he took time off as lead developer for the kernel and apologized for his “unprofessional and uncalled for” behavior, as he said himself. After his time off, he really changed his behavior and didn't insult people with rude language any more (from what I've seen and what has been reported). He is very respected and I would pay attention as kernel developer when he says something.

[DiTBho]

Unfortunately, people die.
Which brings us to the question: what about after Linus?
I've never thought about it 

[JohanH]

Unfortunately, people die.
Which brings us to the question: what about after Linus?
I've never thought about it 

Linus has been asked this question, and he responded that the kernel development isn't affected by the "bus factor". Meaning that if he steps in front of a bus, there is a good infrastructure of developers ready to take over. Really, the Linux kernel project must be some of the best managed and successful open source software projects in the world.

[Marco]

Without Linus it's completely a Red Hat game, but then it already mostly is (there's Google too, but they essentially work in parallel and generally don't bother trying to play kernel politics much, they stay in sync up to a point but it's never really Linux, hell Chrome OS still uses upstart).

[SiliconWizard]

Certainly development itself would not be compromised. But the strategic decisions would be very likely to change completely.

[John B]

On the distro front:

The computer parts suppliers are probably swamped for christmas, so I imagine at least another week before I get any hardware delivered. In the interim, I managed to get Mint and Fedora working on virtual machines on my current potato. They're both obviously laggy, but it's enough to get a feel for the work flow.

Mint does look well polished, but I'm not to keen on the overly packaged/bundled/pre built nature, especially with it being downstream from Ubuntu, even if the Mint team does have a good rep.

I installed Fedora along with the KDE Plasma desktop environment, and it's very intuitive for both a windows or mac os user. The stock GNOME environment felt a little too much like an android tablet. I guess it probably is aimed at the laptop/tablet work environment. Both are quite clean and simple.

I like the more stock/upstream distro. I know all the software I currently use is supported on Fedora, so I don't think I need to stick with anything Debian based.

BTW I went with a Radeon RX6600XT vs anything Nvidia purely on the driver support issue alone.

[Nominal Animal]

I think you're all forgetting what kind of cat herd the Linux kernel developers are.

It's not like even Linus can tell anyone what to do.  He has his own git tree among many, and is just trusted because of the proven track record decades long.

If someone took over the position, and treated it like the business team leader position you seem to think it is, there would be absolutely no reason why the community wouldn't just move somewhere else, and do what they do right now.

Why do you think companies like Red Hat and Canonical gave up maintaining their own kernels a long time ago, and instead pooled their resources into pushing everything upstream into Torvalds' tree?  Cats.  You simply get better results by feeding the colony and letting them do their thing, and use treats and rewards towards stuff you'd like them to tackle.  Try to assert your authority over them, and you'll fail.

The real risk is that whoever or whatever comes after Torvalds doesn't have enough backbone and character to earn the trust of the community, so the community will fracture and split.  Nobody can tell what Linux kernel devs can and cannot do, because they own the copyrights to the kernel code; and the nature of the GPL license means nobody can set up a developer team whose work product is sold but otherwise off limits to anyone else.

I find it extremely funny that some think of GPL and the Linux kernel as examples of "communism", where it is exactly the opposite: a meritocracy based on continued competition on a rather fair marketplace of implementations.  As the kernel devs often say, "show me the patch and we'll talk".

[JohanH]

I installed Fedora along with the KDE Plasma desktop environment, and it's very intuitive for both a windows or mac os user. The stock GNOME environment felt a little too much like an android tablet. I guess it probably is aimed at the laptop/tablet work environment. Both are quite clean and simple.

When Gnome 3 was released, I adapted quite quickly to the workflow. It's a desktop environment where applications are in focus, not the desktop itself. It stays out of the way, I don't feel interacting with it, only with my applications. No tinkering, no tweaking, it just stays out of the way and let me do my work. If you are the person who needs to tweak the environment constantly, then use KDE, Xfce or something else. Gnome is not only for laptop/tablet, it's actually very keyboard driven, so you quickly begin starting applications by pressing Win and typing a few letters, then Enter. It is very flexible, though, so you can even run it on a phone (like Purism do on their Librem phone). I enjoy the experience on a big screen (I use a 34" ultra wide screen).

[Zucca]

it's very keyboard driven

and I will try it out only because of the above.... I believe a mouse and drag&drop should be the last thing to do, if you can do it with the keyboard it's always faster.... IMHO

[RoGeorge]

KDE Plasma is keyboard driven, too.  Even for files I hit Super then type only 3-4 letters, then Enter to open it.  Or arrow down then Enter if it's not the first in the search.  Same for moving windows, Super+arrow to make it half the screen, or Super+arrow left, arrow down to place it in lower left corner 1/4 of the screen, etc, etc.

Gnome is great if you are happy with it out of the box.  The moment you want to change something you'll need GUI hacking tools.  Even the most basic settings are missing.  Gnome has very, very, very few tuning without hacking it.

I've tried 5-10 various desktops when I switched to Linux.  Gnome and Plasma were the ones that looked more polished, IMO.  Gnome tend to have very few settings, huge buttons and large spaces, great for tablets and phones, good for desktops, too.  Plasma has more settings than anyone can wish, denser graphic with normal size buttons, so probably not the best for touch screens.  Default Ubuntu comes with Gnome, Ubuntu with KDE Plasma is called Kubuntu, with K from KDE.

You can boot the live DVD for each, without installing, to test which one is the best for your setup.  Can be installed as many desktops as you wish later, and you can switch between them without reinstalling, in case you change your mind.

Beware that the Kubuntu installer does not have the option to install on ZFS root.  That option is present only in the Ubuntu installer (they have different DVDs to download).  For my setup, where I wanted Plasma and ZFS on root, I've installed Ubuntu on ZFS root, then added KDE Plasma later.

[nctnico]

The stock GNOME environment felt a little too much like an android tablet. I guess it probably is aimed at the laptop/tablet work environment. Both are quite clean and simple.

Note that you can switch Gnome3 to classic mode as well giving a more regular desktop. I'm not a fan of having a single window in focus as I switch between several windows / applications all the time.

[JohanH]

I'm not a fan of having a single window in focus as I switch between several windows / applications all the time.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here. In Gnome 3, window focus works pretty much like in other desktop environments. On a tablet and phone you would run with windows maximized, but on my 34" screen, I rarely do, except for games and movies.

[Karel]

KDE Plasma is keyboard driven, too.  Even for files I hit Super then type only 3-4 letters, then Enter to open it.  Or arrow down then Enter if it's not the first in the search.  Same for moving windows, Super+arrow to make it half the screen, or Super+arrow left, arrow down to place it in lower left corner 1/4 of the screen, etc, etc.

I use KDE for many years but I didn't know that, thanks!

[RoGeorge]

Aside from a gazillion of keyboard shortcuts, it has a lot of mouse, or mouse + keyboard interactions, too.  A few that I use often
- alt + right click then drag to resize a window without precisely clicking on the window's edge/corner
- alt + left click anywhere then drag inside the window to drag move it
- double click anywhere on the window header bar to maximize it without reaching the maximize button
- middle click on maximize window button to maximize it only vertically
- right click on maximize window button to maximize it only horizontally
- scroll wheel on the taskbar brings to front each window
- the classical ALT+TAB (once) to change between the last two active windows
- ALT+ repeatedly TAB or Shift-TAB while ALT is kept press to go through each window, then release ALT when the desired window is selected
- ALT+F4 to close the current window
- CTRL+End or CTRL+Home to go to the end/beginning (inside an editor or a webpage)
- CTRL+Arrow to skip a word, CTRL+Shift+Arrow to select a word, etc.

There are many, many other shortcuts or mouse behaviors in KDE Plasma, all configurable.  And yes, even after years of using KDE, it still happens to me, too, to accidentally find out about very useful shortcuts or keyb+mouse controls in KDE. 

Some are inherited from who-knows-which long gone and forgotten version of KDE, they are like ancient secret magic spells. 

[Karel]

Another thing I find extremely useful is Klipper, the clipboard for copy & paste.
I configured it to remember the last 700 copies. It speeds up the workflow a lot.

https://userbase.kde.org/Klipper

[DiTBho]

Fluxbox on a simple MGA framebuffer.
I only run the windows manager.
Everything else is console-task.

[Zucca]

Sorry for the off topic again.
I am in Windows a sucker of Total Commander.
To be honest with you, Total commander and Autohotkey are the only two reasons I did not pulled the trigger to Linux in my main work horse pc.

Any of you use mc in Linux?

John B, can you post some pics of your new beast?

[RoGeorge]

What makes you think you can't have that in Linux? 
Not to say there are better Linux native alternatives.

[Zucca]

What makes you think you can't have that in Linux? 

oh I am thinking exact the opposite actually, I just have to sit down and do my homework.... instead to get everything served on a silver plate....

RoGeorge you are killing me, and I am happy to be bash(ed) from you Linux dragons...
One of the XMas goals is to get my hands dirty with a minitower PC in Linux....

I will try the metal barebone installation.... with USBs images and distros... also... anyway my first 100% Linux box in my home!



PS: my spider senses are telling me it will be a deeper rabbit hole than my 3D printer one...

[Nominal Animal]

PS: my spider senses are telling me it will be a deeper rabbit hole than my 3D printer one...

If your mind is open to investigating how you can most easily/effectively/pleasantly achieve your tasks without preconceptions, it will be; and also very satisfying.

That is the only reason I'm using Linux: I mold it to my needs, as opposed to me trying to find the way that the Powers That Be have dictated for a particular task. My imagination, and available time and effort to implement my ideas, are the only limits.  I'm not boasting, either, because this is achievable to a large fraction of technically-oriented people, and only takes time and effort to achieve.  It also explains why I dislike the idea of being dependent on a single vendor (because I've been bitten by that), and why I adamantly want things like FreeBSD to exist also.

The thing is that you will also occasionally be frustrated.  Very frustrated.  Do not let that discourage or anger you, and instead treat it as a puzzle: try to find out exactly why you get frustrated, and especially, find the difference between what you expected and what you found, and then find out why.
In my own case, there are typically unnoticed implicit assumptions involved (on both my own, as well as other developers' sides), and getting a grip on those lets you understand, and choose alternative approaches as a sort of an informed guess.

For myself, that difference is similar to being in a small lift/elevator, and having someone fart.  If it is a completely unknown person who doesn't even acknowledge they farted, it can be immensely annoying.  But, if you see that person blush in shame, it is easy to let go.  And, if it is a friend, well, you might tease them by calling them "Stinko" for a minute in good fun, and not really get annoyed at all.

[John B]

Sorry for the off topic again.
I am in Windows a sucker of Total Commander.
To be honest with you, Total commander and Autohotkey are the only two reasons I did not pulled the trigger to Linux in my main work horse pc.

Any of you use mc in Linux?

John B, can you post some pics of your new beast?

Everything was shipped yesterday, I'm not hopeful of it turning up today although I might be surprised. If not today, then it will probably be Tuesday or later due to the Christmas public holidays.

It's given me plenty of time to stew on buyers remorse for not moving to the next gen with a 7950X and DDR5 RAM   

[Ed.Kloonk]

[DiTBho]

the new Lenovo arm-laptop?

yup it's in my Xmas list, but
1) Windows11 is what runs there, Linux ... will run soon, at the moment there is just little support.
2) it's TOO expensive at the moment (1600 euro)

an Arm Lenovo's laptop more expensive than Apple's one: that's incredible 

[SiliconWizard]

An arm and a leg?

[RoGeorge]

Linux Santa was taken prisoner by the Oogie Boogie Windows! 

[DiTBho]

An arm and a leg?

and an eye 

I tried out one of those Lenovo-arm-laptops at a local Lenovo dealer today—they're kind of the Lamborghini of Laptops.

When you touch it on the body it's like touching silk.
Premium laptop. Very impressed.

[DiTBho]

(wait 1 year and you'll find it with great Linux support and for half the current price)

[DiTBho]

(wait 2 years and you'll find it with Haiku support (beta4?) and for a quarter of the current price)

[John B]

Speaking of the ARMs, one possibility I forgot to consider was re purposing a hackintosh I built into the linux build and purchasing an Apple studio box.

At the moment I really need MacOS and thunderbolt for audio work, but even spec'ing out a base CPU model with 64GB of ram and a 4TB SSD (to match the hackintosh) comes out to $5.5K.

It's a lot of extra upfront cost that comes with the risk of vendor lock in repairs and forced obsolescence with parts being unavailable down the line. Plus you know, Apple.

One thing I will work on is the audio production situation in Linux, but that will almost certainly be a multi-year project getting it to a stage where I can run hardware and software reliably.

I might need to try audio production on Windows again in future, purpose built and completely stripped and debloated. Probably in a mini ITX or micro ATX form factor.

[DiTBho]

Two days ago, friend of mine found a ThinkPad X13s (ARM) for 1200 Euro.
Second hand, from a show-room.

This is the ideal right price 

[John B]

Hello World*

*now from Fedora

Build consists of:

Ryzen 5950X
64GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3200MHz RAM
ASUS Radeon RX6600XT
ASUS Creator Proart B550 motherboard
Samsung 970 EVO  2TB + Samsung 870 4TB SSD

It will certainly be plenty of performance for me. Although AM5 was very tempting, I think it would have been throwing money away for no good reason - I'm already in that ballpark  . AM4, DDR4 etc is now the last gen stuff, so the prices are going to approach the minimum of what they will be. Even if I had bought the 7950X, AMD is already talking about releasing the 7950X3D version, and so the merry go round continues.

Fedora is quite easy to set up. All the hardware was compatible out of the box. Just needed to add the extra repos and media codecs to get websites like Odysee working.

I might even stick with GNOME for a while, to see if I can get used to it or like it.

[Ed.Kloonk]

[Karel]

Impressive!

[JohanH]

Hello World*

*now from Fedora

Build consists of:

Ryzen 5950X
64GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3200MHz RAM
ASUS Radeon RX6600XT
ASUS Creator Proart B550 motherboard
Samsung 970 EVO  2TB + Samsung 870 4TB SSD

Very nice! 64GB memory, that's something. I'm still only on 16GB.

This is my desktop that's been running for a year:

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
16 GB memory
Nvidia Geforce 1070 (from previous build)
MSI MAG B550M Bazooka motherboard
Crucial P5 NVMe 500 GB PCIe M.2 + Crucial MX500 2TB 2.5" SATA
NZXT Kraken X62 water cooler (from previous build)
Fractal Design Define 7 Compact chassis

The motherboard was a last minute budget decision, I found out too late that it lacked optical sound out (toslink). I added an internal USB hub and a small USB-toslink soundcard. It has worked fine. I've been using Fedora on my desktop for more than 10 years now (and on server consoles before that) and I always see forward to a new release.

[Doctorandus_P]

First, congratulations with you new pc. Wish you many happy years with it.

Although AM5 was very tempting, I think it would have been throwing money away for no good reason - I'm already in that ballpark 

As far as I know it's usually not a good idea to buy the latest and greates hardware for Linux. Every new platform exposes new bugs and it can take a while for those bugs to be fixed and the platform to stabilize.

I bought an AMD E350 Zacate long time ago, and it took years for linux drivers to be fixed, and by that time the platfrom was obsolete. A friend of mine bought an 2400G when it was quite new and had "random" crashes occasionally but those also went away after a few kernel updates.

I bought an AMD 5600G myself in December 2022 and that has been purring happily from the start. I've also got a 107cm 4K monitor and the internal graphics of the 5600G handles it with ease. As long as you're not a gamer or have other extreme graphics needs, there is no need whatsoever to buy a separate graphics card. I bought an Asrock Mobo with it (They used to be rock bottom low quality stuff 30 years ago, but now make lots of industrial quality stuff).  I rarely have more then 4GB of RAM in use, and 8GB would have been enough, but I bought 16GB to be "future proof".  I know that some people need much more RAM, but it completely depends on the software you want to run. Buying less than 16GB would be silly because of of it's low cost compared to the rest of a PC. It would be the wrong place to shave of EUR30.

I am not an AMD fanboy, but I despise Intel because of their anti competitive behavior. I still remember that they wrote a compiler that slogged down intentionally if it did not find the string "genuie intel" in the processor identification. They've also been blackmailing computer manufacturers with threatening with higher prices if those manufacturers also sold AMD PC's.

[Doctorandus_P]

Ryzen 5950X
64GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3200MHz RAM
ASUS Radeon RX6600XT
ASUS Creator Proart B550 motherboard
Samsung 970 EVO  2TB + Samsung 870 4TB SSD

 throwing money away for no good reason - I'm already in that ballpark  .

Indeed. If you're not an active gamer or have other extreme needs that configuration is a complete waste of money.
I would not even want to exchange the PC I bought a year ago (5600G 16GB Ram 500Gb SSD with 2Gb/s or so transfer rate) with yours for free. I assume it will suck an extra few hundred euros of energy out of the wall socket over its lifetime compared with my configuration.
The processor I bought has now halved in price. It sells now for EUR130, while I paid EUR240 for it. In the middle of  coronageddon it peaked at EUR300 and video cards were simply unobtainable. I paid around EUR650 for all the hardware in my PC, and I put it in an old windoze XP box (still has the stickers on it). The money I saved on the PC, I added to the monitor budget and I invested EUR1000 in an Aorus 43 something someting monitor. (I forgot the brand but it sais "AORUS" on the front and it's big an high quality with very crisp and beautiful colors. Only weird thing is I have to turn the brightness down to 6% to avoid needing sunglasses or getting blinded by the thing).

[John B]

Discrete graphics cards are required with the 5950X, which is fine because that is probably the one thing that will get upgraded in the system over time. I wanted to keep gaming potential in there, plus the RAM will be used for video editing, virtual machines and RAM drives. I'm now working on Kdenlive and Blender, formerly just using an ancient version of Sony Vegas but with difficulty due to the lack of system performance. New hardware has opened some new avenues for me.

[SiliconWizard]

So is a NVidia card *that* bad these days on Linux, or is it a viable option?
I have a workstation that I'm planning on switching to Linux and it has a NVidia graphics card. The card itself works plenty fine for this use so I would like to avoid having to replace it.

[JohanH]

So is a NVidia card *that* bad these days on Linux, or is it a viable option?

There is not much trouble with a discrete Nvidia GPU (don't mention laptops...). It has gotten better through the years. I've been using Nvidia cards as long as I can remember (and I've been using Linux on the desktop for soon 15 years). It mostly depends on how good distributions/driver packages are handling the installation and compilation of the Nvidia kernel module. Whenever you upgrade the kernel and/or the Nvidia driver, you have to make sure that the kernel module is recompiled. This is handled by the driver scripts mostly, but sometimes the compilation fails and you are greeted with a black window. It hasn't happened to me for a couple of years, though.

For newer Nvidia graphics cards, there is a new open source kernel driver coming (presented by Nvidia themselves), which means that the driver has the potential to become as user friendly as AMD. But there is some time before this becomes reality.

One downside is that the Nvidia driver still works most reliably with Xorg (X11). It has issues with Wayland (although it's being worked on). This means for example in Fedora, I have to select an Xorg session when logging in for everything to work.

[SiliconWizard]

I'll be using Arch, and they have an official nvidia package so there should never be issues with the kernel, updates are pretty clean for the most part.
I'd like to use Wayland though.

[JohanH]

I'll be using Arch, and they have an official nvidia package so there should never be issues with the kernel, updates are pretty clean for the most part.
I'd like to use Wayland though.

You can try out Wayland, it depends on the software that you use. I like to enable Gnome Nightlight and it doesn't work in Wayland, although Nvidia has an internal bug open and promised to work on it. There are also sometimes issues with some applications, e.g. flatpaks. But you will notice it when the application window is blank.

Edit. Just to emphasize (for avoiding misunderstanding), it's the Nvidia driver that is the issue. It's just a matter of priorities. If Nvidia want to fix it, they will. And I'm sure they will, eventually. Wayland is fine, I had a phone already in 2014 that used Wayland (Jolla with Sailfish OS).

[RoGeorge]

If this is the first Linux desktop, maybe start with Ubuntu instead of Arch.  Arch is OK, just that I wouldn't recommend as a distro to switch to when leaving Windows.  Arch might require at least average Linux admin skills, and might brake at some updates.  Ubuntu requires zero skills and never brakes.  At first you'll probably jump through a few distros anyways, unless you look for set and forget (that will be Ubuntu).

nVidia works in Linux, just that here and there nVidia drivers might make problems.

You can try Wayland together with any other desktop (in Linux you can install all of them and pick which one do you want to use today, just like the Internet Explorer "Where do you want to go today" ), but I think Wayland is too young.  Only comes with incompatibilities and no real advantage.  Maybe in 5-10 years from now it will worth switching to Wayland.  'Till then, Gnome for big buttons, tablet style and almost no settings, Plasma for desktop style and a gazillion of settings.

When switching from Windows to Linux, the distro, the file system and the desktop environments are not that important and can be changed later.

The most important thing when migrating is the mindset:
Do not try to make Linux look and behave like Windows.

Take Linux as it is, make new usage habits and use new tools appropriate for the new OS.  If you want it to be like Windows, then use Windows.  Got this advice from somebody here, on EEVblog, while I was keep installing and agonizing between Linux flavors and desktop environments.  Once I've let it go, Linux become a joy to use.  You'll see, it will be slightly different, and better.

Except if you are a hardcore gamer.  If so, then Linux is not a good choice, stay windows Windows.  Some games might work with Linux, but Windows is way ahead at gaming.

[themadhippy]

  Ubuntu requires zero skills and never brakes.

your obviously a ubuntu newbie,although the amount of failures has been extremely low,and its certainly improved a lot  there has still been a few times were its done a mighty fine impression of being very broken.

[Zucca]

*now from Fedora

I just installed Ubuntu for my bench PC. Just beacuse I have the Picoscope SW running out of the box.

Fedora looks nice as workstation horse

drooling about arch... yes I want problems because solving problems is the best way to learn for me.
Once I made my bones in arch, I will punish myself trying Gentoo....

[SiliconWizard]

Once I made my bones in arch, I will punish myself trying Gentoo....

I tested Gentoo a long time ago. The idea was interesting but it was much too time consuming for installations and updates, since it compiles everything. Sure with more recent hardware, that's probably not as much of a problem, but still. Just compiling a modern web browser will take a good hour with recent hardware, unless you can afford the top of the range CPUs (I think Firefox takes about 9 min to build with an AMD EPYC CPU!)

Note that you can have the benefits of the Gentoo approach on Arch if you invest the time, and only on the packages you want that. Thanks to the AUR on Arch, you can make your own source-based packages (if they don't already exist.) They perfectly co-exist with the official binary packages.

With Gentoo, your computer will spend half of its run time on compiling stuff.

[John B]

So far I can definitely recommend Fedora even for a newbie. There's only a few things which aren't "out of the box" ready, ie non-free and proprietary software,repositories,media codecs and drivers. Once the RPM fusion and flathub repositories are installed just about everything is taken care of.

When embarking on a project I try to keep in mind what the goal of the project is. The idea was to be able to perform all my daily tasks independently of the microsoft ecosystem. So the OS should be stable, simple and well maintained. Only a couple of programs haven't worked for me (the RPM version didn't, but flathub versions did).

If you want a tool to perform a task, making the tool shouldn't supercede the task. I'll no doubt try out an Arch build at some point in a VM, but I don't want it to become a toy OS where trying to keep it running becomes the goal.

Web browsing, Libreoffice, Kicad, Freecad, video editing all seem to work perfectly fine. The only crashes I've had seem to be associated with VLC, but it's needed because it has the necessary codecs for most formats you'll come across.

The only thing which I haven't found is a good circuit simulator for Linux. I did get LTspice working through wine, but it uses a single CPU core only. I haven't used Kicad's simulator yet.

Also I may or may not be in the process of trying to get Skyrim to work.

[SiliconWizard]

The only thing which I haven't found is a good circuit simulator for Linux. I did get LTspice working through wine, but it uses a single CPU core only. I haven't used Kicad's simulator yet.

LTSpice is multi-threaded on Windows, but it doesn't make a particularly efficient use of multi-threading, so the difference with single-threaded is not huge.

KiCad uses ngspice, which is rather good but is single-threaded. KiCad only provides a GUI front-end to it.

ngspice can be built for multi-threading, but it's not the version that ships with KiCad or with most official packages of ngspice. I suppose the multi-threaded option is still kinda experimental, and having tried it (building it accordingly), it's only multi-threaded for parts of the simulator and is not particularly efficient either. I didn't notice a significant boost in simulation speed.

You can also try Qucs on Linux. Development seems to be lagging a bit though.

[JohanH]

When embarking on a project I try to keep in mind what the goal of the project is. The idea was to be able to perform all my daily tasks independently of the microsoft ecosystem. So the OS should be stable, simple and well maintained. Only a couple of programs haven't worked for me (the RPM version didn't, but flathub versions did).

Yes, works really well in recent years. Keep in mind that Fedora, at least in the past, had the reputation of being a bleeding edge distribution. And it still is, so there might be quirks in obscure places. For instance, I wanted to use EQ profiles for my headset, so I installed "easyeffects" equalizer that can load preset EQ sound profiles (profiles are available to download for virtually any headset or headphone). At least on Xorg, the flatpak is broken due to some gtk4 issues (dialogs get stuck and such). However, the version from Fedora's own rpm repository works fine. The flatpak supposedly works better in wayland, but I haven't tried.

For comparison, I tried a similar software on Windows (Equalizer APO) that can load the same sound profiles and I couldn't get it to work in the short time I tried it. Had to reboot the PC multiple times and finally gave up. This has probably to do with how the sound system works in Linux vs Windows. The software on Linux just hooks up on high level to Pulseaudio and you can turn it on and off and change settings during runtime, whereas on Windows it has to do some low level stuff with sound drivers (at least I got that impression), which needs a reboot for change of settings.

[barelectricbear]

No one uses Xfce here? Its a great minimal desktop like the old Gnome.

Gamers recomendation - Steam:Proton

Nebie distro recomendations
Linux Mint > Ubuntu
CentOS 7 - still a few years till retirement.

Medium user:
Artix > Arch
Alpine

Hard mode:
BSD

[John B]

Small update on the desktop environment:

I've had 2x unsuccessful forays into the KDE plasma environment. It seems to downgrade a lot of packages and I think there was some issue with a QT5 webengine package that was causing some of the KDE packages to quit on login, rendering a few things inoperable, like shut down, reboot and logout functions, changing active windows etc. Apparently others had issues with KDE lately, so maybe I installed at a bad time. However it did highlight to me that GNOME is probably the more reliable environment when updating the Fedora kernel.

On the upside I am feeling more comfortable now with GNOME. It's still a little clunky when dealing with lots of open windows but I might get used to that. Keyboard shortcuts speed up the workflow, but it's still easy to lose whichever window you were on.

Also, a useful tool I've found is called Solaar. It is used to customise Logitech devices. I have an MX Master 3 mouse in which I was able to bind the bind the 2x additional side buttons using Solaar. One is bound as the super key, which brings up the activity overview screen, the other button simulates super+tab (or alt+tab) which functions similar to MS windows where you can select between active programs/windows.

[SiliconWizard]

KDE tends to be a bit less stable than current Gnome, but a lot more featureful. Gnome still drives me crazy for its rigidity and lack of configurability and very minimal features compared to KDE, but it looks clean and is more stable.

For KDE, I would recommend a distribution that has frequent updates - a rolling release ideally, as KDE plasma is more "bleeding edge" and fixes come relatively quickly, but if you are on a distro that will update the desktop environment very infrequently between major versions, then I'd suggest sticking to Gnome or XFCE. I have Arch on my laptop, and had Gnome for a few years, but recently switched to KDE. I find it eons more usable. But in Arch, we get the very latest version of KDE plasma within just a few days.

XFCE is alright, but very minimal compared to KDE as well. So, your pick. IMHO, only KDE at this point is somewhat "on par" with MacOS or Windows in terms of desktop usability.

[DiTBho]

With Gentoo, your computer will spend half of its run time on compiling stuff

Yup, I confirm it, 60% time spent on compiling and re-compiling stuff.

[John B]

KDE tends to be a bit less stable than current Gnome, but a lot more featureful. Gnome still drives me crazy for its rigidity and lack of configurability and very minimal features compared to KDE, but it looks clean and is more stable.

For KDE, I would recommend a distribution that has frequent updates - a rolling release ideally, as KDE plasma is more "bleeding edge" and fixes come relatively quickly, but if you are on a distro that will update the desktop environment very infrequently between major versions, then I'd suggest sticking to Gnome or XFCE. I have Arch on my laptop, and had Gnome for a few years, but recently switched to KDE. I find it eons more usable. But in Arch, we get the very latest version of KDE plasma within just a few days.

XFCE is alright, but very minimal compared to KDE as well. So, your pick. IMHO, only KDE at this point is somewhat "on par" with MacOS or Windows in terms of desktop usability.

Yeah the lack of customisation on GNOME is a little disappointing, I was surprised there wasn't a native way to bind the mouse keys as I described - or at least I haven't found a native way. To be fair I'm not sure how universal extra mouse buttons are, and since Solaar is designed to interface with Logitech's proprietary communication protocol, perhaps it's a necessary intermediary.

It's also a shift in my workflow, in the sense of only adding features when I feel I really need them, rather than having a ton of interface features which I don't use. Now with the mouse tweaks I can navigate the open windows using the mouse in a comparable number of steps compared to MacOS or Windows.

[Zucca]

Inspired by this thread, my turn

AMD 5900X
Thermalright Le Grand Macho RT
ASUS PRO WS X570 ACE
2x32 GB ECC RAM UDIMM DDR4 3200MHz
2xNMVE 1TB and 2TB
Corsair HX750 Gold
M6000 Quadro (soon I will upgrade to P6000 Quadro)

al lot of stuff used from Ebay, wish me luck.

Interesting point of view for Archlinux



yes I am a begineer, wish me luck. again...

[Ed.Kloonk]

yes I am a beginner, wish me luck. again...

Good luck!

There once were a time where I don't know if I could recommend diving into Arch and setting up a new hardware rig.

That said, hardware is more well-behaved than ever and Arch, too, is very good especially with it's on-line support. Have fun.

 

[John B]

Yeah keep us up to date with the Arch install. I guess the test for me will be when I have to update to Fedora 38, and whether there's any breakage. If that's all easy then I'll sit cozy with Fedora on this machine then perhaps try Arch in a virtual machine when I have the time.....which isn't now.

[Zucca]

There once were a time where I don't know if I could recommend diving into Arch and setting up a new hardware rig.

First memtest86, then W10 (also to check if all the hardware is recognized properly) with prime95 for 24h.
If the above will pass I know I can pull the trigger on Arch.