Installing linux

[Simon]

I thought I would take the plunge. I can do most of whati need with Linux and i am getting more frustrated with windows. So i thought I'd just go with the worlds number 1 and ut ubuntu on my machine.

Well I don't think the graphics card was playing ball as I got random coloured pixels on the boot up screen and it failed to boot. On restarting my wifi dongle would not work so I had to power off and start again so it was obviously trying to do something wit the wifi dongle that did not work.

Is there a Linux distro out there that can boot on most machines without hardware issues?

[Nominal Animal]

I take it that was using a Live USB stick?

I think your computer has a relatively new Nvidia graphics card, which means that your Linux experience will be fraught with driver issues.  Not fun.

I would recommend you try Ubuntu 18.04 LTS first, using a fast-ish USB stick; booting to a Live version without installing.  If it does not work, it is unlikely Linux supports your hardware, and it is better to stick with Windows.  The proprietary Nvidia drivers are not worth the effort, even if they work fine for some.

[Simon]

It was a Live DVD, I would boot to the live disk first to see that it would work on my machine, obviously not, if it had of worked I would have initiated the install from the live DVD.

My card is a Quadro P400.

Do AMD cards work better?

[Nominal Animal]

For AMD, support varies.  Ubuntu LTS versions ought to have good support, but switching to a non-LTS version or a different distro is harder, as you may have to recompile the drivers yourself.

Due to a few posts elsewhere (people doing Tensorflow and such), I thought that Ubuntu 18.04 LTS did have Quadro P400 support via the proprietary drivers.  It could also mean your EFI BIOS (motherboard) is one of the "uh-nuh, I don't like Linux" versions, with incorrect ACPI tables and whatnot that their Windows drivers just ignore.

Keeping strictly to the latest Ubuntu LTS version, and upgrading the Nvidia proprietary drivers whenever released) would be the only way I would use it, if I had to do some Cuda stuff, so if the Live DVD wasn't the 18.04 LTS version, you could give that a try.  Any other distro versions are iffy, because Nvidia drivers are binaries, and tend to only work well with a specific kernel version.  (So, trying say Ubuntu 19.10 tells you nothing about how the Nvidia drivers work in 18.04 LTS.)

I am hesitant to suggest using Linux on that hardware, though, because I only run Linux on hardware that has no gotchas or proprietary drivers.  I want my tools to work well, so I tend to pick the hardware I know works with Linux.

I used to have an AMD 780G a decade ago that worked better with the proprietary drivers, but they were nasty enough (overwriting Mesa stuff etc.) that I switched to the then slower/less efficient, beta-quality open-source drivers, and kept updating at least once a month, just to avoid crashes.  Nowadays, the x86-based machines I have all have Intel integrated graphics (this laptop here has Intel HD 620), so I have no first-hand experience on the current state of either the original open-source drivers for AMD, nor the state of the now-opensourced AMD "proprietary" drivers.

Testing with a Live DVD/USB stick/SSD via USB3 is the only way to be sure.

[Simon]

Uh, right forget it. I will stick with windows like many others that just want an OS to do work not an OS for the sake of tinkering with the OS.

[Nominal Animal]

What I do recommend, however, is to install a virtual machine, and run Linux in that.  I occasionally use VirtualBox, and with the Guest Add-ons, even the graphics work fine in that.  Given your hardware, it's the second best choice.

Although you cannot switch right now, you can use the virtual machine to see what to expect, if you were to switch to hardware that works with Linux.  It does not do what you initially wanted to do, get rid of Windows, but if you spend some time with your typical tasks using a Linux virtual machine, by the time you get new hardware, you'll know if you'll want to stick with Windows, or get something that runs Linux well.

[Simon]

Yea I could do.

[Mr. Scram]

Pick your hypervisor with some care though. Some will allow Linux to run much smoother than others. The performance difference isn't huge but the frustration level using it can be.

[Simon]

what do you advise?

[Mr. Scram]

what do you advise?

I've had issues with Hyper-V. It works but responsiveness is off the mark and I think sound is an issue or even a no go. Apparently VMWare should be better but I haven't experimented enough with the combination to say anything useful about it.

[Nominal Animal]

I haven't used Windows in over a decade, so I don't know which supervisors work well in Windows.  I don't use VMware because of the way they ignore GPL.

On a Linux host, VirtualBox works well, and I haven't had any issues with the VMs running Linux.  Maybe try that?  But remember, I don't know how well its hypervisor works in Windows.

[Bud]

All of a sudden migrating to Linux does not look that great anymore? By running it in a VM you still using Windows which you have to continue to maintain.

[Twoflower]

Not sure but I don't think that the non-GPL drivers are used in the live versions. I think they're only installed after agree to do so during installation.

Probably it's best to install Linux on an external drive and run it from there. But be careful to not install the boot-loader on your system (windows) drive but only on the external drive. This way you can really test the compability of Linux on your system without interfere your windows setup and an easy 'undo'.

And running Linux in a VM does not reveal any compability issues with the system below.

[Monkeh]

Uh, right forget it.

Why bother starting something if you have no intention of actually putting any thought or effort into it?

[Mr. Scram]

All of a sudden migrating to Linux does not look that great anymore? By running it in a VM you still using Windows which you have to continue to maintain.

I honestly never understood the "just virtualise" crowd. Instead of saying goodbye to your Windows troubles you now add Linux and virtualisation troubles. That's not progress in my book.

[Mr. Scram]

Why bother starting something if you have no intention of actually putting any thought or effort into it?

What's wrong with evaluating something until you realise the net gain is negative? If more people did that at least half the hairbrained projects on Kickstarter wouldn't exist.

[Monkeh]

Why bother starting something if you have no intention of actually putting any thought or effort into it?

What's wrong with evaluation until the point you realise the net gain is negative?

He hasn't evaluated anything - he's encountered an issue and given up. If I did that with every piece of software, OS or otherwise, I wouldn't have a single tool to use.

I'm now waiting for the "But Windows just works" argument - which the last 20 years of my life tells me is a complete, total, and utter crock.

[Mr. Scram]

He hasn't evaluated anything - he's encountered an issue and given up. If I did that with every piece of software, OS or otherwise, I wouldn't have a single tool to use.

I'm now waiting for the "But Windows just works" argument - which the last 20 years of my life tells me is a complete, total, and utter crock.

Disagree. He wanted to simplify things and found his plan wouldn't. Accepting the sunk cost and moving on isn't the worst thing to do. Let's not make this in another one of those Windows vs Linux threads because we already have too many and nobody is going to walk away any wiser. Use whatever suits you best.

[hermit]

I generally put a new system together with older hardware because it's cheaper and I figure it will be Linux compatible by then.

Isn't there an option for 'no FB'?  No frame buffer to start the system?  Then add the drivers?  Been a long time since I've run into non compatible hardware.

[Cerebus]

All of a sudden migrating to Linux does not look that great anymore? By running it in a VM you still using Windows which you have to continue to maintain.

I honestly never understood the "just virtualise" crowd. Instead of saying goodbye to your Windows troubles you now add Linux and virtualisation troubles. That's not progress in my book.

Depends, if you're using a type II hypervisor hosted by another operating system then, yes, you are multiplying your troubles. On the other hand if you're using a type I hypervisor such as VMware ESXi or Xen hosted on bare metal then it's a very different story. I have VMware ESXi here and I can run Windows, MacOS, and Linux side by side with no problem and it takes minutes to spin up a whole new virtual machine (sometimes seconds if it's a prepared clone) and, thanks to virtualised networking too, can connect them up in whatever fashion suits. I can also snapshot and backup whole machines in next to no time. Snapshots in particular are a life saver (if you remember to take them). You can mess about with a machine and if it all goes wrong, just roll back the whole machine to the state it was in before you started messing about.

Type II hypervisors can still deliver a lot of the same benefits (snapshots, limited virtual networking, etc.) but need adequate resources (read extra cores and LOTS of memory) and are never going to be as fast, flexible or responsive as type I hypervisors. I've had good results running Virtual Box on Windows, Macs and Linux and it has the advantages of being free and having a short learning curve. Most people can figure out Virtual Box if they are just stuck in front of it - type I hypervisors like VMware ESXi or Xen on the other hand need a bit of homework before you'll get to grips with them. VMware's type II hypervisors (Fusion for Macs and Workstation for Windows) are not as user friendly as Virtual Box and cost real money too.

I tend to treat type I hypervisors as something to get real work done (nowadays almost all of the 'servers' you encounter on the net or in the corporate world are really VMs running under some type I hypervisor) and type II hypervisors as something to use for experiments or fallbacks when I'm too far away (in access or bandwidth terms) from a pukka type I machine.

[rstofer]

All of a sudden migrating to Linux does not look that great anymore? By running it in a VM you still using Windows which you have to continue to maintain.

As long as your hardware is supported by Linux, out of the box, the transition is fairly painless.  The Mint distro, for example, works a lot like Windows.  It was intended to.

OTOH, if you wireless dongle isn't support you need to buy another.  WiFi has been a weak spot in Linux for the last 10 years.  Before that, it didn't work at all.

NVIDIA graphics cards are just about out of the question.  There are some proprietary drivers, like NVIDIA, that need some post-processing to match up with the Kernel headers.  Every time the kernel changes, you lose graphics.  This was a gigantic problem years back when the kernel changed weekly (Red Hat Enterprise Linux circa '04).  I think it is still a problem.  And, given that it has been a problem for at least 15 years, you can bet it isn't going to be solved any time soon.

Telnet or SSH will be your best friend when graphics doesn't work.  Make sure the daemons are enabled.

So, try the Live version and if it works, you are good to go.  If not, you are likely out of luck given your hardware.

I always replace the HDD when I transition such that I can always move back.

[Mr. Scram]

Depends, if you're using a type II hypervisor hosted by another operating system then, yes, you are multiplying your troubles. On the other hand if you're using a type I hypervisor such as VMware ESXi or Xen hosted on bare metal then it's a very different story. I have VMware ESXi here and I can run Windows, MacOS, and Linux side by side with no problem and it takes minutes to spin up a whole new virtual machine (sometimes seconds if it's a prepared clone) and, thanks to virtualised networking too, can connect them up in whatever fashion suits. I can also snapshot and backup whole machines in next to no time. Snapshots in particular are a life saver (if you remember to take them). You can mess about with a machine and if it all goes wrong, just roll back the whole machine to the state it was in before you started messing about.

Type II hypervisors can still deliver a lot of the same benefits (snapshots, limited virtual networking, etc.) but need adequate resources (read extra cores and LOTS of memory) and are never going to be as fast, flexible or responsive as type I hypervisors. I've had good results running Virtual Box on Windows, Macs and Linux and it has the advantages of being free and having a short learning curve. Most people can figure out Virtual Box if they are just stuck in front of it - type I hypervisors like VMware ESXi or Xen on the other hand need a bit of homework before you'll get to grips with them. VMware's type II hypervisors (Fusion for Macs and Workstation for Windows) are not as user friendly as Virtual Box and cost real money too.

I tend to treat type I hypervisors as something to get real work done (nowadays almost all of the 'servers' you encounter on the net or in the corporate world are really VMs running under some type I hypervisor) and type II hypervisors as something to use for experiments or fallbacks when I'm too far away (in access or bandwidth terms) from a pukka type I machine.

I don't disagree with you but I don't think the hypervisor is the issue. When you run Windows and Linux next to each other as an alternative to going full Linux when the goal is to eliminate Windows there's no gain. You just add a new set of problems to your old ones as you now have multiple OSs to worry about.

[Simon]

Uh, right forget it.

Why bother starting something if you have no intention of actually putting any thought or effort into it?

Why use an OS that can't even handle any hardware even if in a non performance basic driver mode? I wanted an OS that just works. I am not in the game of messing with OSes, I use them so that I can run software not for the sake of the OS

[Simon]

All of a sudden migrating to Linux does not look that great anymore? By running it in a VM you still using Windows which you have to continue to maintain.

I honestly never understood the "just virtualise" crowd. Instead of saying goodbye to your Windows troubles you now add Linux and virtualisation troubles. That's not progress in my book.

I just get slightly pissed off when I update windows to discover it have removed my settings and programs have vanished not to mention changing stuff just for the sake of it. I don't know how feasible it is to use it as a VM host but me worth at least seeing what Linux can do.

[Monkeh]

Uh, right forget it.

Why bother starting something if you have no intention of actually putting any thought or effort into it?

Why use an OS that can't even handle any hardware even if in a non performance basic driver mode? I wanted an OS that just works. I am not in the game of messing with OSes, I use them so that I can run software not for the sake of the OS

Of course it can handle hardware.. Congratulations, you found some sort of bug somewhere. Do you want a medal?

There is no such thing as an OS that just works, because they're all written by humans.

[Simon]

Of course it can handle hardware.. Congratulations, you found some sort of bug somewhere. Do you want a medal?

There is no such thing as an OS that just works, because they're all written by humans.

Windows would boot any machine in a low performance basic mode. Then you would install a graphics driver. But if Linux can't handle NVidia cards or it's Nvidia that don't do the drivers what is the point?

[Monkeh]

Of course it can handle hardware.. Congratulations, you found some sort of bug somewhere. Do you want a medal?

There is no such thing as an OS that just works, because they're all written by humans.

Windows would boot any machine in a low performance basic mode.

And there's the Windows argument.

I've encountered machines Windows just won't boot on. And I can break Windows booting on most machines once installed in a matter of seconds.

But if Linux can't handle NVidia cards or it's Nvidia that don't do the drivers what is the point?

Well, uh, it can handle nVidia cards. But there's a few little quirks there (because nVidia are douchebags, mostly). Windows has similar oddities.

One way or another you will have to spend time, learn things, and maybe work your way around a bug or two, no matter what OS you choose. If you're unwilling to do that then you shouldn't have tried switching to anything.

[Whales]

For AMD, support varies.  Ubuntu LTS versions ought to have good support, but switching to a non-LTS version or a different distro is harder, as you may have to recompile the drivers yourself.

No, as an ordinary user you do not ever need compile the AMD drivers yourself.  They're built into the kernel.  The only exception I can think of are super-minimal distros like TomSrtBt (designed to fit on a 1.44MB floppy).

Generally speaking: AMD is magnitudes better on Linux than Nvidia, team red has not given me any first-boot issues in the last ~9 years whilst Nvidia is a lot more hit-and-miss.

For context: AMD dumped their proprietary drivers and starting working on the open-source ones several years back.  As a result the open source ones have been really good quality for several years now and now mostly sit in-kernel (so you get them by default, no installation/setup required). 

Source: ATI graphics user on Linux for many years, used to have to fight the previous proprietary drivers.

[Whales]

But if Linux can't handle NVidia cards or it's Nvidia that don't do the drivers what is the point?

Yep, with the equipment you have it's going to be hard.  Only go further if you want to.

[blacksheeplogic]

Last time I tried the Vega M Graphics was not supported and I had to disable it in the BIOS in order to get Linux to boot after the install on my NUC.  I think there was an experimental driver but I opted to purchase another Windows license and go with Windows 10. Now I buy off-lease desktops for my Linux systems and don't have to deal with unsupported hardware.

Unfortunately Linux often lags Windows for initial hardware support and I feel it's sometimes exasperated by unhelpful vendors. When looking into the lack of Vega support for my system there was a post by an Intel engineer who provided the BIOS setting to turn off the Vega graphics, there lead in comment was how there were users that linked to Tinker with other operating systems....  So obviously Intel did not see a potential market for Linux on the NUC and hence the unavailability of a driver.

[Whales]

USB wifi dongles: Over the years I have used dozens of different makes.  A reasonable amount do not work because the chipset maker has not made non-windows drivers available..  It's worth searching "linux <wifi_chipset>" on the web before buying. 

Of the ones that work: some are flaky.  Treat them just like the bad ones.  The good ones are cheap enough (I have some <5AUD ones I use) and rock-solid reliable, if you ignore them missing some features (eg monitor mode) that you probably don't need. 

Remarkably the cheap ones also perform very well with low signal levels compared to 10yo mini-PCI wireless cards in old laptops.  (writeup, including some concerns about build quality.).

Suggestions for getting Linux working with your Quadro P400

I will go against the LTS advice given by others and say "use something much newer".  Test to see if a more up to date distro (with a more up to date version of nouveau, the crappy-but-default-in-kernel Nvidia driver) avoids the screen corruption issue.

Otherwise: boot with nomodeset=true on your kernel command line (you can edit boot options from your bootloader).  This will lock you in 640x480 or 800x600 VESA software-rendering (ala 'safe mode' windows) so you can try and:

1. Install the distro somewhere permanent (eg a spare USB stick or old HDD), so that our changes persist over boot
2. Install the proper Nvidia proprietary drivers

These two routes should be approachable, and if either works then you are unlikely to hit more issues in future.  The initial "bootstrapping" process before you have the full (and up to date) Nvidia proprietary drivers is likely where your problems are occurring.  The default in-kernel nouveau drivers are just not very good.

N.B. you will probably get much more effective advice if you ask your questions on a Linux-related forum:
https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/
https://ubuntuforums.org/
https://www.linuxquestions.org/

[Mr. Scram]

And there's the Windows argument.

I've encountered machines Windows just won't boot on. And I can break Windows booting on most machines once installed in a matter of seconds.

Well, uh, it can handle nVidia cards. But there's a few little quirks there (because nVidia are douchebags, mostly). Windows has similar oddities.

One way or another you will have to spend time, learn things, and maybe work your way around a bug or two, no matter what OS you choose. If you're unwilling to do that then you shouldn't have tried switching to anything.

I'm not sure why you insist on making this a Windows vs Linux discussion but don't. Note that "the Windows argument" here was a response to you bringing it up. No one is going to be convinced either way by threads full of utterly superfluous holy wars. It's just a tool.

[soldar]

Windows would boot any machine in a low performance basic mode. Then you would install a graphics driver. But if Linux can't handle NVidia cards or it's Nvidia that don't do the drivers what is the point?

I would recommend you try Linux Mint which is a flavor of Ubuntu. I have been running it for a couple years now without too much problem (which is not to say with no problem). You can download the live DVD and boot from there.

Regarding NVidia, I have an NVidia Geforce GT730 video card and it worked with some generic Linux driver. Then I started having problems with a Teamviewer update and I was told it was because of the card and to try a specific driver for that card but that did not resolve the problem with TeamViewer. Then I removed the NVidia card and used the intel graphics on the mobo but the problem remained so it turns out the problem had nothing to do with the NVidia card. Still, it seems Nvidia has a bad reputation with Linux.

If you have problems with the video driver I believe there is a may to resolve that at startup but I don't remember how to do it exactly.

I suggest you give Linux Mint a try. If you run into problems don't waste time insisting; put it aside, ask for help and try again later. It will save stress and sanity.

The Linux Mint forum has been quite helpful to me.

[Monkeh]

And there's the Windows argument.

I've encountered machines Windows just won't boot on. And I can break Windows booting on most machines once installed in a matter of seconds.

Well, uh, it can handle nVidia cards. But there's a few little quirks there (because nVidia are douchebags, mostly). Windows has similar oddities.

One way or another you will have to spend time, learn things, and maybe work your way around a bug or two, no matter what OS you choose. If you're unwilling to do that then you shouldn't have tried switching to anything.

I'm not sure why you insist on making this a Windows vs Linux discussion but don't. Note that "the Windows argument" here was a response to you bringing it up. No one is going to be convinced either way by threads full of utterly superfluous holy wars. It's just a tool.

And my point that nothing is free of issues flies right over another person.

This is not about Windows vs Linux vs anything else: It's about people being unwilling to put any effort into something new and decrying it for flaws as if the alternative is perfect. Either be willing to actually try something, or just carry on as you are instead of complaining.

[Simon]

several linux distros have failed to work. Widows works with my hardware. What do you want me to say? the industry works on standards. There is a minimum standard that all hardware should work to, not the best performing but a common ground that lets any OS run any hardware in a basic mode. Once you get in you install the actual driver. I have NEVER had windows fail to use a graphics card to a minimumm standard that allows me to get going

[Monkeh]

the industry works on standards.

Bwahahahahahahahaha. The industry works on copy and pasted buggy crap which doesn't even make a good will effort of complying with any written standards.

There is a minimum standard that all hardware should work to, not the best performing but a common ground that lets any OS run any hardware in a basic mode. Once you get in you install the actual driver.

And when the hardware is broken, or the firmware is broken? You expect the software to handle all possible edge cases in all possible hardware?

I have NEVER had windows fail to use a graphics card to a minimumm standard that allows me to get going

And you have NEVER had a faulty driver on Windows cause you problems?

It is entirely possible to get Linux to fall back to various different methods of giving you a working display of some form or another until you can resolve whatever issue you've encountered. Others have been attempting to help - myself, I don't use the common distros, so I'd prefer to let those more experienced with them assist rather than learn a tool I don't use to help someone who doesn't want to learn any tool.

[Mr. Scram]

several linux distros have failed to work. Widows works with my hardware.

Monkeh forgot to quote the bit actually relevant to this thread.

[Monkeh]

several linux distros have failed to work. Widows works with my hardware.

Monkeh forgot to quote the bit actually relevant to this thread.

I didn't think it was necessary as there's nothing really to say about that. Windows works in this case - that's very nice. Linux works in my cases - that's very nice. Both have failed on hardware I've owned - that's not very nice. Welcome to reality.

Y'know, my daily driver workstation (.. which is Linux, yes..) works best if I use an nVidia card with their proprietary driver. Exactly the opposite of what I'd expected and general wisdom. But, that's the case - 'difficult' is actually easy here.

[sleemanj]

You haven't said which distros you tried, as with others I would recommend the latest Ubuntu, it has historically tended to be the best at "just working".

It sounds like you have not googled your problem, motherboard chipset and graphics card with distro.

It sounds like you have not taken basic troubleshooting steps like disconnecting external peripherals.

Yes using Linux requires some above average technical aptitude and tenacity, maybe it is not for you.

[soldar]

Simon, I understand your view and I agree. As much as I hate Windows at least you get a basic screen that allows you to get started. I have had problems with Linux where it just would not start the screen at all and that is extremely frustrating. I remember having to hit a combination of keys and input some strange commands (xrandr?) to finally get it going but that was long ago and I forget the details.

Again, my suggestion is to not rush into it. Prepare a Linux Mint live DVD and try booting from there. If it does not work put it aside and ask in the forum. That way you are not wasting time and, more importantly, not getting frustrated.  I think it should not be difficult to get it going. The thing is that you ran into a problem at the very beginning. If a similar problem happened after you were up and running it would not be so frustrating and you would look for a solution. 

[alsetalokin4017]

I've been reading this thread with increasing puzzlement. I've been using Ubuntu Linux since single-digit version numbers, on all kinds of hardware new and old, laptop and desktop and notebook, single boot just Linux and dual boot with various Windows versions. Sure there are problems... just the other day I forgot how to add the Intel sound drivers to a 16.04 installation and had to go through my notes to find the line to add to a .config file somewhere in order to get audio.

But thank goodness for Whales! That's the right approach to the problem. The internet is your friend and literally _every_ problem I've had with Ubuntu and other Linux distros has had discussions and solutions posted in various forums. As long as you have a second working computer that you can use to access the internet, you can (with 99.8 percent confidence) get your non-working Ubuntu (mint, etc) Linux installation working. I've abandoned installations that did not function satisfactorily as desired once installed, but I've never not been able to get the basic system working at all.

At present I'm using a box with AMD video with no issues.

[sleemanj]

If you are booting into a blank screen, then try adding the nomodeset boot option.

As I use linux to create my usb stick and just edit the grub.cfg/loopback.cfg directly, I don't know how you do that when using windows to create your usb stick, but I'm sure google would tell you if you ask it correctly.

[nctnico]

Why bother starting something if you have no intention of actually putting any thought or effort into it?

What's wrong with evaluation until the point you realise the net gain is negative?

He hasn't evaluated anything - he's encountered an issue and given up. If I did that with every piece of software, OS or otherwise, I wouldn't have a single tool to use.

I'm now waiting for the "But Windows just works" argument - which the last 20 years of my life tells me is a complete, total, and utter crock.

I agree. This feels like yet another 'Simon can't get Linux to work on his computer' thread.

Is there a Linux distro out there that can boot on most machines without hardware issues?

All Linux distros fit that requirement. Though the first step is not to start with cheap crap hardware for which only Windows drivers exist.

[nctnico]

This was a gigantic problem years back when the kernel changed weekly (Red Hat Enterprise Linux circa '04).  I think it is still a problem.  And, given that it has been a problem for at least 15 years, you can bet it isn't going to be solved any time soon.

This is ancient news and has been solved for a long time already. When I bought a new PC several years ago I choose for an NVidia card because the driver support looked better compared to the alternative. I don't care about open/closed source drivers. I want something which works. Nowadays NVidia even offer a Ubuntu based Linux distro for use on their Tegra (ARM64) based compute modules.

[Mr. Scram]

Summarizing the replies seem to be "Windows has issues too", "you need to be better" and "your hardware needs to be better". Does that fix your problem Simon?

[Ed.Kloonk]

Is there a Linux distro out there that can boot on most machines without hardware issues?

All Linux distros fit that requirement. Though the first step is not to start with cheap crap hardware for which only Windows drivers exist.

It's a bit like buying drums of premium petrol for your car, it's not the petrol's fault your car is a bomb. Store-bought computers and laptops are pretty notorious for being loaded with rotten cheap hardware. And the driver software quality, even though it "works" is often lousy and lazy from a efficiency and security point of view.

Remember, the pieces of hardware in computers that do play nice with Linux do so because the manufacturers were kind enough to supply help and information to Linux developers, who are kind enough to help people get away from using Windows.

[techman-001]

several linux distros have failed to work. Widows works with my hardware. What do you want me to say?

What is there to say ? If a machine only runs Microsoft Windows, then run only Microsoft Windows on it.

I have about 20 computers here, they are a mixture of servers, pc's, NAS and embedded. Every single one has run, or is running Linux or *Bsd. They range from old P3's circa 2000 to ARM hexcore i7's a few years old.

Personally, if I had a machine that only ran Microsoft Windows, I'd throw it in the rubbish bin for it would be worthless to me.

[Nominal Animal]

What. The. Holy. Fuck.

Let's see if I have the picture right.

Simon is interested in switching from Windows to Linux, but finds out he has hardware that is not supported (or only supported by proprietary drivers) in Linux.

I suggested to try a specific live DVD/USB, to verify.  I knew from previous experience with others that getting Linux to run on such hardware is possible, but is not a good experience for anyone who wants a better tool.  So, I suggested to run Linux in a virtual machine, typical tasks, often enough to find out whether moving to Linux is suitable for him, by the time he is ready to buy his next workstation.  If, at that point, he does intend to switch to Linux, it means choosing the hardware for Linux compatibility; instead of just looking at the advertisements and Windows benchmarks.  The optimal hardware for different OSes is different.

This path is known to work.  I've also used a secondary approach, giving someone an older machine that runs Linux well, to try out and see if they can find a well-working workflow on it.  It has minimal risks, and maximum benefits, since Simon has not expressed any kind of strict deadlines for anything.  Keeping him productive all through the testing and discovery phase just makes sense to me.

Instead, this thread devolved into "don't use virtual machines, they're horrible", "Linux can run anything, you're just doing it wrong", and other inanities.  Those claims can be correct or incorrect in general terms, but for fucks sake, we're talking about Simon in particular here: an individual, not in generalities as to what is possible or how.  (And possibly other individuals in a similar situation as Simon, since it is actually quite common.)

Those claims are just as silly as telling a beginner asking for help with their first switch-mode DC-DC converter circuit to forget it and buy an existing module instead; or to get some ferric chloride and etch the board like a man instead of using those Chinese spy-staffed PCB prototyping services that will steal your designs.

Yes, I personally do know how to get his hardware to work with Linux, but I am not going to suggest them to Simon, because it is too much effort versus the gains.  In AvE's words, you suck too much for too long, before it gets better.  It is hard enough to un-learn all the Windows-isms that especially power users get ingrained in their autonomic nervous system -- in my experience, the harder the more advanced the user is; impossible, after a certain point --, and to add hardware issues on top of that is just going to make a very unhappy, very unproductive user.  And while I disagree with Simon on many things, I want him happy and productive.

What the fuck is so complicated or hard here?

[brucehoult]

several linux distros have failed to work. Widows works with my hardware. What do you want me to say?

What is there to say ? If a machine only runs Microsoft Windows, then run only Microsoft Windows on it.

I have about 20 computers here, they are a mixture of servers, pc's, NAS and embedded. Every single one has run, or is running Linux or *Bsd. They range from old P3's circa 2000 to ARM hexcore i7's a few years old.

Personally, if I had a machine that only ran Microsoft Windows, I'd throw it in the rubbish bin for it would be worthless to me.

Yeah, I don't get it. I'm generally a pig-ignorant Apple user (desktop / laptop / phone) but I've never had any trouble getting Linux to work on PC-type hardware. Or at least not for a very long time. I bought a Pentium Pro HP server thingy back in 1997 specifically to try Linux, and I've had Linux on a variety of machines including Athlon 700, Athlon 3200+, Core i7 860, Core i7 4790K, Core i7 6700K. I've used all sorts of video cards including Nvidia, ATI, and built in Intel.

Earlier this year I bought a 32 core ThreadRipper 2990WX with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB video card which I plugged a 4K monitor into. Ubuntu 18.04LTS installed absolutely no hassles at all and everything worked. Video playback was almost perfect using whatever generic VGA driver is built in -- just a few dropped frames in full-screen 4k youtube. The GUI in general certainly worked fine. Then I installed the actual NVIDIA driver and it worked absolutely perfectly.

At work they issued me with a Thinkpad X1 Carbon with 16 GB RAM and an i7 8650U, with Windows on it. I immediately nuked that and put Ubuntu on. Everything works perfectly -- video (including watching Formula 1 etc in VLC), WIFI, sound, sleep .. you name it. In light use (e.g. editing code and web browsing) it gets about 12 or 14 hours of battery life.

I guess if you deliberately tried hard enough you could probably manage to pick hardware that Linux doesn't work on, but based on my experience you'd have to work at it.

I do *not* tweak settings or customize anything -- I just stick with it how it comes out of the box.

[Siwastaja]

Try the Linux Mint distribution, I'd specifically suggest the xfce windowing edition for the least amount of bloated UI hell bullshit.

I have had the easiest experience with xfce Mint, seems to be closest to "just works", on average, at least for me. Yes, I have seen colossal pain with Debian and Ubuntu. Ubuntu's default window UI is a PITA for anyone accustomed to working with desktop computers.

A practical example: on an exact same machine, Ubuntu corrupts USB sticks almost beyond repair (the actual repair process is very specific, and no, the usual advice as found on the 'net does not work, I won't go into specifics here), 100% of the time, if you accidentally remove the device without unmounting. Mint, on the same machine, won't do that. Both were the newest versions available at the time.

Another practical example: Debian install demands that I supply a WLAN device firmware on an external disk; no help provided. I have the option of having a non-working WLAN, which I can fix later on my own. Mint on the same machine just downloads and installs everything, and just works. There's an ideological reason why it's like that, but for a user who needs to have a working system, it doesn't matter.

Some hardware works better on Windows than on linux. Some hardware works better on linux than on Windows.

A certain CANON printer I had to install is a classical example of "works better in Windows". A 10-minute driver search and installation joke in Windows. An 8-hour job of finding, googling and modifying the drivers to install in linux.

Many USB-serial devices are the classical example of "works better in linux".

But most, maybe 99% of the devices work out of the box in linux, in seconds, without installing anything, just plug-and-play.

I was tired working with Windows, and I didn't expect linux to be a silver bullet. It wasn't. If I was expecting that, I would have been dissatisfied and angry. In fact, I expected more problems than I ever had, so end result, I'm very satisfied.

[Simon]

I'll try Mint. I don't have masses of time to play with this and it will be a work in progress. For now I have windows. My idea was to dual boot and slowly move over.

[Simon]

I agree. This feels like yet another 'Simon can't get Linux to work on his computer' thread.

Really? kindly point out the other threads? I have not as you claim started a number of threads claiming linux does not work. But then you are well known as this forums biggest liar and your membership has for a while now hung on by a thread as you are nothing but a trouble maker!

[Simon]

For AMD, support varies.  Ubuntu LTS versions ought to have good support, but switching to a non-LTS version or a different distro is harder, as you may have to recompile the drivers yourself.

No, as an ordinary user you do not ever need compile the AMD drivers yourself.  They're built into the kernel.  The only exception I can think of are super-minimal distros like TomSrtBt (designed to fit on a 1.44MB floppy).

Generally speaking: AMD is magnitudes better on Linux than Nvidia, team red has not given me any first-boot issues in the last ~9 years whilst Nvidia is a lot more hit-and-miss.

For context: AMD dumped their proprietary drivers and starting working on the open-source ones several years back.  As a result the open source ones have been really good quality for several years now and now mostly sit in-kernel (so you get them by default, no installation/setup required). 

Source: ATI graphics user on Linux for many years, used to have to fight the previous proprietary drivers.

Sounds like I need an AMD graphics card then. I don't want to have to keep fixing drivers when there are updates.

[Black Phoenix]

I'll try Mint. I don't have masses of time to play with this and it will be a work in progress. For now I have windows. My idea was to dual boot and slowly move over.

I'm using dual boot Windows 10 / Fedora 31 because I'm using a Zenbook and don't have an extra slot for another SSD/NMVE. But is a risk I'm willing to take. Windows is known for sometimes to mess around with the boot of the disks when installing new versions. Until now I've been safe but who knows. If I was able I would use separate physical drives.

In your case if you are using a Desktop and have the chance, install another SSD only with the distro you want and select the one you want to start up when you turn on the PC. That's the recommended way of doing it. And when Installing the distro check if you are creating the boot on the right disk, or if the Linux is going to write the bootloader on the disk with the Windows installed. The best is do deactivate the HDD/SSD directly on the BIOS or simply disconnect one of the cables.

Probably nowadays Linux knows that he should create the boot on the current HDD/SSD being used and I'm saying the most stupid thing in the world. If yes, then I'm sorry Linux users, I'm just trying to prevent further problems.

Then you can easily with both OSes change who boots by using ESC or F12 or whatever combination of keys your motherboard uses to access the available boot devices, or change the boot order on the BIOS.

And If you want give Fedora a try too. Normally I always see other distros being used. Rarely I see Fedora being recommended or people giving a try.

Sounds like I need an AMD graphics card then. I don't want to have to keep fixing drivers when there are updates.

The equivalent of your Nvidia P400 in the AMD side is the Radeon Pro W4100

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Radeon-Pro-WX-4100-4GB-GDDR5-Graphic-Card-4-x-Mini-DP-TFC3M-100-Tested-Grade-A/274066517361?hash=item3fcfa32d71:g:NjoAAOSw-9tdYHuD

You may find some deals online from cards pulled from pre-build systems.

[nctnico]

I'll try Mint. I don't have masses of time to play with this and it will be a work in progress. For now I have windows. My idea was to dual boot and slowly move over.

First get a PC which has hardware which is supported by Linux (perhaps it is a good reason to get a new PC anyway) otherwise trying to get Linux installed is a waste of time (in the end all distributions use the same kernel and drivers with a slightly newer or older version). Until then use a virtual machine. Dual boot is the worst option because there will be a long delay to switch from one to the other.

[Black Phoenix]

First get a PC which has hardware which is supported by Linux (perhaps it is a good reason to get a new PC anyway) otherwise trying to get Linux installed is a waste of time (in the end all distributions use the same kernel and drivers with a slightly newer or older version). Until then use a virtual machine. Dual boot is the worst option because there will be a long delay to switch from one to the other.

   Long Delay? 

What long delay, restart and choose a different OS in the GRUB? I take 5 sec from boot after choose the OS on GRUB each time, being Windows or Fedora. Long time? Not more than 15 sec restarting, choose the OS and being at the Log In screen...

[nctnico]

First get a PC which has hardware which is supported by Linux (perhaps it is a good reason to get a new PC anyway) otherwise trying to get Linux installed is a waste of time (in the end all distributions use the same kernel and drivers with a slightly newer or older version). Until then use a virtual machine. Dual boot is the worst option because there will be a long delay to switch from one to the other.

   Long Delay? 

What long delay, restart and choose a different OS in the GRUB? I take 5 sec from boot after choose the OS on GRUB each time, being Windows or Fedora. Long time? Not more than 15 sec restarting, choose the OS and being at the Log In screen...

15 seconds is a long time if all you want to do is check a something on screen (and you can't do it side by side when using dual boot). Not to mention needing to shutdown a whole bunch of applications. I usually have 20 or so windows open (datasheets, documents, programs). And how about copy & pasting text from one to the other? And let's not forget Windows update needing time to install before shutting down the computer. Dual boot just sucks. Use a virtual machine and it is instant and you basically have WIndows and Linux in one (near) seemless integration.

[Mr. Scram]

What. The. Holy. Fuck.

Let's see if I have the picture right.

Simon is interested in switching from Windows to Linux, but finds out he has hardware that is not supported (or only supported by proprietary drivers) in Linux.

I suggested to try a specific live DVD/USB, to verify.  I knew from previous experience with others that getting Linux to run on such hardware is possible, but is not a good experience for anyone who wants a better tool.  So, I suggested to run Linux in a virtual machine, typical tasks, often enough to find out whether moving to Linux is suitable for him, by the time he is ready to buy his next workstation.  If, at that point, he does intend to switch to Linux, it means choosing the hardware for Linux compatibility; instead of just looking at the advertisements and Windows benchmarks.  The optimal hardware for different OSes is different.

This path is known to work.  I've also used a secondary approach, giving someone an older machine that runs Linux well, to try out and see if they can find a well-working workflow on it.  It has minimal risks, and maximum benefits, since Simon has not expressed any kind of strict deadlines for anything.  Keeping him productive all through the testing and discovery phase just makes sense to me.

Instead, this thread devolved into "don't use virtual machines, they're horrible", "Linux can run anything, you're just doing it wrong", and other inanities.  Those claims can be correct or incorrect in general terms, but for fucks sake, we're talking about Simon in particular here: an individual, not in generalities as to what is possible or how.  (And possibly other individuals in a similar situation as Simon, since it is actually quite common.)

Those claims are just as silly as telling a beginner asking for help with their first switch-mode DC-DC converter circuit to forget it and buy an existing module instead; or to get some ferric chloride and etch the board like a man instead of using those Chinese spy-staffed PCB prototyping services that will steal your designs.

Yes, I personally do know how to get his hardware to work with Linux, but I am not going to suggest them to Simon, because it is too much effort versus the gains.  In AvE's words, you suck too much for too long, before it gets better.  It is hard enough to un-learn all the Windows-isms that especially power users get ingrained in their autonomic nervous system -- in my experience, the harder the more advanced the user is; impossible, after a certain point --, and to add hardware issues on top of that is just going to make a very unhappy, very unproductive user.  And while I disagree with Simon on many things, I want him happy and productive.

What the fuck is so complicated or hard here?

Has anyone actually claimed VMs are horrible? I don't think that's the case.

[Nominal Animal]

Has anyone actually claimed VMs are horrible? I don't think that's the case.

No, not exactly.  Your advise started really well, then Cerebus and you started to get into the theoretical positives and negatives wrt. different types of hypervisors, when the only thing Simon (and others in his situation: interested in Linux, but having hardware with poor/no support in Linux) needs a hypervisor is to see if his workflow works in Linux.

The "horrible" part describes what those who do not know about virtualization take away from those comments.

Nobody said "Linux can run anything, you're just doing it wrong", either; nctnico got closest in his post, saying "This feels like yet another 'Simon can't get Linux to work on his computer' thread." and claiming that "all Linux distros fit that requirement" (referring to booting on most machines with hardware issues).

Whales doesn't seem to realize there are a lot of older AMD/ATI graphics card still in circulation, that are not supported by AMD, but only by the open source drivers. In fact, there is no "one" driver for AMD/ATI cards, but several.  And their quality does vary by specific chipset.  If a new Linux user just goes out and buys whatever AMD card they can find, there is a small chance it is one of the ones that aren't used by many Linux developers, and doesn't have support from AMD, in which case they're hosed.  Just because Whales has hardware that works fine, does not mean one should be optimistic and assume all hardware from that vendor works fine also; that's just about never the case.

I also disagree about pointing completely new Linux users to Linux discussion forums and mailing lists, because I know most Linux old hands avoid those (exactly because they are directed to newbies), so they are basically newbies guiding other newbies.  The solutions might work, but they are rarely the best solution for the problem.  Learning how to ask specific questions -- in particular, not "How do I do X like I did in Windows?", but more like "I have Y, and I want to accomplish Z.  What tools do you suggest?" --, show your own efforts beforehand, and form your questions and follow up with a summary, to show that you wish to contribute (because if you don't, why should anyone else bother to help you?), and show your solution (or failed attempts) to those that encounter a similar problem later on.  It is communities, and the exchange medium is time and effort.  While no money is exchanged, it definitely isn't a place to demand better service.

Instead, I recommend getting at least an initial feel for it, either live-booting or running a distro in a virtual machine, read tutorials and blog posts and maybe watch youtube videos to see what others do with Linux and suggest, and most importantly learning how to ask questions efficiently, before going on the forums.  In particular, finding out how to gather the necessary logs, hardware summary, and so on, is pretty damn important.  It is also a steep learning curve; you don't want to fight hardware issues at the same time, you just get frustrated, and add noise to the everything-is-better-than-Linux "discussion" on the net.

Look.  I know from a couple of decades of intensive Linux use in a number of different areas, from art to programming, that it can be a more effective tool than Windows or Macs.  It does not mean it always is, because it is completely up to the user.  The difference is that Linux, per the Unix philosophy and the KISS principle, is designed to be molded to the users workflow, whereas commercial OSes do exactly the opposite: they provide a set of workflows the user can use.  The skills, especially problem-solving skills, are completely different.  I have helped others learn how to efficiently use Linux -- and funnily enough, that makes them independent of any OS, including Linux --, so I do damn well claim I know what I am talking about here.

The absolute hardest thing when moving to Linux from Windows is to wrap your mind around the changes; to unlearn the windows-isms that one has learned and intuitively believe/feel are natural and correct way for computers to work.  That is easy for some, hard for others, and impossible for many advanced users: completely opposite to what "common sense" would say.  Yet, that is exactly what I have observed in real life.

I could list you the reasons why I believe Simon is dangerously close to being one of that group of advanced Windows users.  I don't care what OS Simon uses, but for some oddball reason, I do want him to be efficient and happy with his tools; so, I am careful in my suggestions.  In fact, I want everyone to be efficient and happy.  Call me crazy, eh?

It seems very controversial, but according to my sample of a few dozen new Linux users, it really is easier to learn how to use Linux for those who don't have much Windows experience, or have experience with more than one operating system.  It is something to do with how humans learn tools.  I know that I can show a bunch of kids, or even a bunch of old grandmas wanting to learn computers to have better contact to their grandchildren, how to use Linux to solve all sorts of problems quite efficiently, but that is because they don't have any preconceptions to overcome yet.  (Analogs, parables, and composing stories to aid in understanding works really well, unless they think you are being condescending.)  It is not an insult, nor intended as one, to point out that it is harder for long-term Windows users.  It is what it is.

[nctnico]

I agree. This feels like yet another 'Simon can't get Linux to work on his computer' thread.

Really? kindly point out the other threads? I have not as you claim started a number of threads claiming linux does not work.

Go through the other 'Linux versus Windows' threads and you'll see you have posted similar messages before which then resulted in similar lines of conversation: Tried to install Linux but failed and then start raving on about how well Windows works for you. Almost like just stirring sh*t up. If you want some serious help then at least quit the 'this works with Windows' statements. It is clear these come from frustration but it has been pointed out to you before that the first step for using Linux is getting a computer with hardware which is supported by Linux OR use a virtual machine on Windows. There is no use to try the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. Take a step back and come up with a different approach. And either way be prepared to put some time & effort into getting things like the user interface configured.

[Mr. Scram]

No, not exactly.  Your advise started really well, then Cerebus and you started to get into the theoretical positives and negatives wrt. different types of hypervisors, when the only thing Simon (and others in his situation: interested in Linux, but having hardware with poor/no support in Linux) needs a hypervisor is to see if his workflow works in Linux.

The "horrible" part describes what those who do not know about virtualization take away from those comments.

Nobody said "Linux can run anything, you're just doing it wrong", either; nctnico got closest in his post, saying "This feels like yet another 'Simon can't get Linux to work on his computer' thread." and claiming that "all Linux distros fit that requirement" (referring to booting on most machines with hardware issues).

Whales doesn't seem to realize there are a lot of older AMD/ATI graphics card still in circulation, that are not supported by AMD, but only by the open source drivers. In fact, there is no "one" driver for AMD/ATI cards, but several.  And their quality does vary by specific chipset.  If a new Linux user just goes out and buys whatever AMD card they can find, there is a small chance it is one of the ones that aren't used by many Linux developers, and doesn't have support from AMD, in which case they're hosed.  Just because Whales has hardware that works fine, does not mean one should be optimistic and assume all hardware from that vendor works fine also; that's just about never the case.

I also disagree about pointing completely new Linux users to Linux discussion forums and mailing lists, because I know most Linux old hands avoid those (exactly because they are directed to newbies), so they are basically newbies guiding other newbies.  The solutions might work, but they are rarely the best solution for the problem.  Learning how to ask specific questions -- in particular, not "How do I do X like I did in Windows?", but more like "I have Y, and I want to accomplish Z.  What tools do you suggest?" --, show your own efforts beforehand, and form your questions and follow up with a summary, to show that you wish to contribute (because if you don't, why should anyone else bother to help you?), and show your solution (or failed attempts) to those that encounter a similar problem later on.  It is communities, and the exchange medium is time and effort.  While no money is exchanged, it definitely isn't a place to demand better service.

Instead, I recommend getting at least an initial feel for it, either live-booting or running a distro in a virtual machine, read tutorials and blog posts and maybe watch youtube videos to see what others do with Linux and suggest, and most importantly learning how to ask questions efficiently, before going on the forums.  In particular, finding out how to gather the necessary logs, hardware summary, and so on, is pretty damn important.  It is also a steep learning curve; you don't want to fight hardware issues at the same time, you just get frustrated, and add noise to the everything-is-better-than-Linux "discussion" on the net.

Look.  I know from a couple of decades of intensive Linux use in a number of different areas, from art to programming, that it can be a more effective tool than Windows or Macs.  It does not mean it always is, because it is completely up to the user.  The difference is that Linux, per the Unix philosophy and the KISS principle, is designed to be molded to the users workflow, whereas commercial OSes do exactly the opposite: they provide a set of workflows the user can use.  The skills, especially problem-solving skills, are completely different.  I have helped others learn how to efficiently use Linux -- and funnily enough, that makes them independent of any OS, including Linux --, so I do damn well claim I know what I am talking about here.

The absolute hardest thing when moving to Linux from Windows is to wrap your mind around the changes; to unlearn the windows-isms that one has learned and intuitively believe/feel are natural and correct way for computers to work.  That is easy for some, hard for others, and impossible for many advanced users: completely opposite to what "common sense" would say.  Yet, that is exactly what I have observed in real life.

I could list you the reasons why I believe Simon is dangerously close to being one of that group of advanced Windows users.  I don't care what OS Simon uses, but for some oddball reason, I do want him to be efficient and happy with his tools; so, I am careful in my suggestions.  In fact, I want everyone to be efficient and happy.  Call me crazy, eh?

It seems very controversial, but according to my sample of a few dozen new Linux users, it really is easier to learn how to use Linux for those who don't have much Windows experience, or have experience with more than one operating system.  It is something to do with how humans learn tools.  I know that I can show a bunch of kids, or even a bunch of old grandmas wanting to learn computers to have better contact to their grandchildren, how to use Linux to solve all sorts of problems quite efficiently, but that is because they don't have any preconceptions to overcome yet.  (Analogs, parables, and composing stories to aid in understanding works really well, unless they think you are being condescending.)  It is not an insult, nor intended as one, to point out that it is harder for long-term Windows users.  It is what it is.

I never really said anything about hypervisor types either. Some hypervisors seem to support Linux to a better degree than others as they still need drivers to get things going. It seems fair to mention this when people are looking at the VM route. It may save them from a few nights of tinkering and a disappointment or two.

[nctnico]

But then again: what are the odds somebody is going to use some obscure (or antiquated) VM instead of a recent version of VMware or Virtualbox?

[Mr. Scram]

But then again: what are the odds somebody is going to use some obscure (or antiquated) VM instead of a recent version of VMware or Virtualbox?

By VM you mean hypervisor? I wouldn't call Hyper-V obscure or antiquated. It initially had a reputation for not being as good as VMWare's solutions but at this point a significant part of the market runs on Hyper-V one way or another. When used to run anything other than a Linux desktop replacement it's a pretty good hypervisor.

[nctnico]

But then again: what are the odds somebody is going to use some obscure (or antiquated) VM instead of a recent version of VMware or Virtualbox?

By VM you mean hypervisor? I wouldn't call Hyper-V obscure or antiquated. It initially had a reputation for not being as good as VMWare's solutions but at this point a significant part of the market runs on Hyper-V one way or another. When used to run anything other than a Linux desktop replacement it's a pretty good hypervisor.

No. I don't care what is under the hood. I just download & install a piece of software which does virtual machine for me. VMWare and Virtualbox seem to be the most used ones. Good enough for a desktop system. The difference in performance between a spinning hard drive and an SSD is huge though so I strongly recommend to run a virtual machine from an SSD.

[Mr. Scram]

No. I don't care what is under the hood. I just download & install a piece of software which does virtual machine for me. VMWare and Virtualbox seem to be the most used ones. Good enough for a desktop system. The difference in performance between a spinning hard drive and an SSD is huge though so I strongly recommend to run a virtual machine from an SSD.

The piece of software running a VM is called a hypervisor. This provides the virtual hardware and substitutes or abstracts actual hardware. The VM is the virtual machine you run on top of that. These are the OS and machine specific settings and arguably the virtual drives that make up a pretend computer. As the hypervisor substitutes the motherboard and other hardware you need drivers to get the OS going like you would on any other machine. Different hypervisors can have different levels of support for an OS. This is all a bit simplified but is essentially what Simon would be dealing with.

VMWare's solutions used to be the most used one but Hyper-V has been doing fairly well probably in no small part due to it being built into Windows. Microsoft also uses it for their cloud services.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine

[nctnico]

No. I don't care what is under the hood. I just download & install a piece of software which does virtual machine for me. VMWare and Virtualbox seem to be the most used ones. Good enough for a desktop system. The difference in performance between a spinning hard drive and an SSD is huge though so I strongly recommend to run a virtual machine from an SSD.

The piece of software running a VM is called a hypervisor. This provides the virtual hardware and substitutes or abstracts actual hardware. The VM is the virtual machine you run on top of that. These are the OS and machine specific settings and arguably the virtual drives that make up a pretend computer. As the hypervisor substitutes the motherboard and other hardware you need drivers to get the OS going like you would on any other machine. Different hypervisors can have different levels of support for an OS. This is all a bit simplified but is essentially what Simon would be dealing with.

Now you make it sound like it is a problem. In reality virtual machine software packages just work out of the box if your CPU supports running a virtual machine. The only thing I ever had to tinker with on Virtualbox was switching between USB support to get a specific USB device going but that was 2 major versions and several years ago.

[Mr. Scram]

Now you make it sound like it is a problem. In reality virtual machine software packages just work out of the box if your CPU supports running a virtual machine. The only thing I ever had to tinker with on Virtualbox was switching between USB support to get a specific USB device going but that was 2 major versions and several years ago.

I'm mostly just providing correct terminology as that seems to have some people confused. Linux doesn't seem to be supported equally well by all hypervisors like it isn't by all motherboards so mentioning this may save Simon some frustration when going down the VM path.

[drussell]

several linux distros have failed to work. Widows works with my hardware. What do you want me to say? the industry works on standards. There is a minimum standard that all hardware should work to, not the best performing but a common ground that lets any OS run any hardware in a basic mode.

Did you even TRY starting it up in a pure-VESA mode or anything?

Unless you have really strange hardware, you almost certainly can get it booted if you actually try.  You may well have terrible, useless graphics performance until you manage to find a working driver that is better than VESA/BIOS or raw frame buffer, but you almost assuredly can at least boot and install the OS!

Once you get in you install the actual driver. I have NEVER had windows fail to use a graphics card to a minimumm standard that allows me to get going

Really?  You must not get out much.   

That happens all the time on Windows, which is why you can do things like manually override via F8 to "VGA" mode, which can still fail sometimes too, though you've apparently never seen it.   

If you actually try booting some of your Linux flavors or FreeBSD or something with a generic driver, just like you say you would do with your beloved Windows, it will almost certainly run....

I think you're just annoyed that you have to do essentially the same as hitting F8 -> VGA Mode instead of it just somehow automagically working on your particular hardware. 

If you get annoyed that easily with unfamiliar annoyances, then you probably should just stick with Windows and those annoyances to which you've become accustomed instead of trying to move to something else that, while it may annoy at times, at least gives you the flexibility, tools and opportunity to make it actually work the way you want, if you actually want to bother...   YMMV.

[drussell]

Whales doesn't seem to realize there are a lot of older AMD/ATI graphics card still in circulation, that are not supported by AMD, but only by the open source drivers. In fact, there is no "one" driver for AMD/ATI cards, but several.  And their quality does vary by specific chipset.

True enough, although most work very well, especially older, more well tested platforms....

If a new Linux user just goes out and buys whatever AMD card they can find, there is a small chance it is one of the ones that aren't used by many Linux developers, and doesn't have support from AMD, in which case they're hosed.

Really?  Like what chipset?

Other than the Radeon HD 3870 and Mobility Radeon HD 5000 with their known quirks making them virtually impossible to support, the OS I know best (FreeBSD) supports all the way to VEGA, including the internal GPUs on things like the Ryzen 2 5400G.... and the graphics support on FreeBSD is derived from the Linux GPU support projects... so if even after some porting delay FreeBSD supports this list, I assume Linux probably does also:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/AMD-GPU-Matrix

[blacksheeplogic]

If a new Linux user just goes out and buys whatever AMD card they can find, there is a small chance it is one of the ones that aren't used by many Linux developers, and doesn't have support from AMD, in which case they're hosed.

Really?  Like what chipset?

Last time I checked Radeon RX VEGA M was not supported. I got caught out with this one. So I think the advise is good to check first and make sure the distro you will be using does support the hardware before you purchase the hardware.

I don't however see this as a negative towards Linux, it's more a negative against the vendor, if I want a Linux box I'm not going to buy their hardware if it's not supported.

[bsfeechannel]

I abandoned Windows gradually, in the course of one year or more back in the day (20 years ago). But I was resolute.

Linux was (and still is) my prime OS, and Windows only in case of extreme necessity.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I'll try Mint. I don't have masses of time to play with this and it will be a work in progress. For now I have windows. My idea was to dual boot and slowly move over.

First get a PC which has hardware which is supported by Linux (perhaps it is a good reason to get a new PC anyway) otherwise trying to get Linux installed is a waste of time (in the end all distributions use the same kernel and drivers with a slightly newer or older version). Until then use a virtual machine. Dual boot is the worst option because there will be a long delay to switch from one to the other.

I know some of you will cringe, but I wonder if Simon should consider a machine with Linux pre-installed from a company such as https://system76.com/

Yeah, I know the laptop hardware isn't like a ThinkPad but the hardware -is- Linux compatible with email support.

[Mechatrommer]

i hoped Linux will be one day happening but i've been dreaming 20+ years now. if nobody can deal with graphics card correctly in Linux, on which millions of gamers (big market) out there are hoping for, then forget about niche or professional market. we are talking about thousands or millions of peripherals out there.. printers, cameras, scanners, stylus/pen/tablets, anything! not just GPU for playing games. if a pro have to select tools based on what an OS can support, then  they deserve oblivion. Ms provides "Standard" to vendors to follow, a Standard that wont change in a few days or weeks, even Ms staffs the insiders have to follow this Standard very closely on newer OS, and in inevitable case they cant, they will provide backward or forward compatibilitiness, this is the reason why millions of peripherals work in Windows, this is why peripherals from 10-20 years ago still work in newer Windows7 or 10, "a worthy investment". how can you make a Standard on 1001 flavors of OS? each one with their own self ego intention?

i heard someone said Linux doesnt support cheap crap devices, i have here $4000 printer, searching google on how to make it work in Linux is NIL, Zilch. let alone many others consumers grade tools and one specialized tool i have here. if you work with many hardwares, just forget it. afaik Linux is only good for internet, some type of programming environments and playing crippled grade 3D games meant for ARM processors. but i will never cease to dream, i will keep the hope open, untill LinuxES can become vendors/hardwares/pro SWs friendly. i read Steam/Origin server give much hope on Linux as gaming platform, but how specifically they do that i dont know if GPU cards alone (esp NVIDIA) cant be solved correctly.

[techman-001]

I know some of you will cringe, but I wonder if Simon should consider a machine with Linux pre-installed from a company such as https://system76.com/

Yeah, I know the laptop hardware isn't like a ThinkPad but the hardware -is- Linux compatible with email support.

Why should we cringe ?

I cringe when I walk into a big retail store lined with Windows machines, and NOT ONE SINGLE LINUX machine.

That's cringe worthy. Retail stores should be full of all kinds of choices of PC's, including preinstalled Linux just the same as preinstalled Windows. A linux PC would work from the boot up when it was taken home, just like Windows. Of course the Linux PC software would be free, unlike Windows, and $100 cheaper.

Before anyone claims "Windows is the only available choice because Windows is best", let's look at actual recorded American law instead of Windows fanboy fantasies ?

Note the reference to "Linux" below ?

The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is a United States antitrust law that regulates competition among enterprises, which was passed by Congress under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison.

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others.

United States v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001),[1] was a noted American antitrust law case in which the U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the PC market primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java. At trial, the district court ruled that Microsoft's actions constituted unlawful monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed most of the district court's judgments.

Until you CAN walk into a retail store and choose between Linux, Windows and anything else, you can be sure that Microsoft HAS NOT CHANGED, that they are still monopolists who got where they are today by limiting your CHOICE illegally.

One more thing, the Linux machine on the same hardware as a Windows one must be at least $100 cheaper ... no Microsoft tax!

[BravoV]

Until you CAN walk into a retail store and choose between Linux, Windows and anything else, you can be sure that Microsoft HAS NOT CHANGED, that they are still monopolists who got where they are today by limiting your CHOICE illegally.

One more thing, the Linux machine on the same hardware as a Windows one must be at least $100 cheaper ... no Microsoft tax!

Microsoft to us outsider views obviously not changed at all.

But ... pstt ... for sure the flow of candies for maintaining this even after the court verdict, is not cheap to those the "authorities".

So there goes your tax. 

[brucehoult]

I know some of you will cringe, but I wonder if Simon should consider a machine with Linux pre-installed from a company such as https://system76.com/

Yeah, I know the laptop hardware isn't like a ThinkPad but the hardware -is- Linux compatible with email support.

Why should we cringe ?

I cringe when I walk into a big retail store lined with Windows machines, and NOT ONE SINGLE LINUX machine.

That's cringe worthy. Retail stores should be full of all kinds of choices of PC's, including preinstalled Linux just the same as preinstalled Windows. A linux PC would work from the boot up when it was taken home, just like Windows. Of course the Linux PC software would be free, unlike Windows, and $100 cheaper.

What you've missed here is that desktop and laptop computers are now a tiny, almost irrelevant, part of the total computer market, both by value and by volume. All the action is now in mobile, and in that market Linux has an 80% market share -- and almost all the other 20% is actual official Unix.

[techman-001]

I know some of you will cringe, but I wonder if Simon should consider a machine with Linux pre-installed from a company such as https://system76.com/

Yeah, I know the laptop hardware isn't like a ThinkPad but the hardware -is- Linux compatible with email support.

Why should we cringe ?

I cringe when I walk into a big retail store lined with Windows machines, and NOT ONE SINGLE LINUX machine.

That's cringe worthy. Retail stores should be full of all kinds of choices of PC's, including preinstalled Linux just the same as preinstalled Windows. A linux PC would work from the boot up when it was taken home, just like Windows. Of course the Linux PC software would be free, unlike Windows, and $100 cheaper.

What you've missed here is that desktop and laptop computers are now a tiny, almost irrelevant, part of the total computer market, both by value and by volume. All the action is now in mobile, and in that market Linux has an 80% market share -- and almost all the other 20% is actual official Unix.

That's certainly true, I just didn't mention it because I didn't see it as relevant in my post.

The fact that Linux is *everywhere* except on PC desktops in retail stores doesn't change the fact that someone like Simon will find it much harder to buy Linux preinstalled due to the continuing illegal Microsoft retail PC monopoly.

[Mechatrommer]

linux market is nothing compared to food industries. why compare orange to apple? why compare something for real work with entertainment and human connectivity? if Adobe, Autodesk, Altium, NVIDIA, major game brands, peripherals etc are Winglows fanboys, i'd rather with them. because they produce things for real work. besides, my phone is always Linux because thats what its best at, forget Windows for connectivity and forget Linux for real work. in anyway, foods are inevitable. but wait... Winglows can connect, cant it?

[Ed.Kloonk]

I know some of you will cringe, but I wonder if Simon should consider a machine with Linux pre-installed from a company such as https://system76.com/

Yeah, I know the laptop hardware isn't like a ThinkPad but the hardware -is- Linux compatible with email support.

Why should we cringe ?

I cringe when I walk into a big retail store lined with Windows machines, and NOT ONE SINGLE LINUX machine.

That's cringe worthy. Retail stores should be full of all kinds of choices of PC's, including preinstalled Linux just the same as preinstalled Windows. A linux PC would work from the boot up when it was taken home, just like Windows. Of course the Linux PC software would be free, unlike Windows, and $100 cheaper.

What you've missed here is that desktop and laptop computers are now a tiny, almost irrelevant, part of the total computer market, both by value and by volume. All the action is now in mobile, and in that market Linux has an 80% market share -- and almost all the other 20% is actual official Unix.

That's certainly true, I just didn't mention it because I didn't see it as relevant in my post.

The fact that Linux is *everywhere* except on PC desktops in retail stores doesn't change the fact that someone like Simon will find it much harder to buy Linux preinstalled due to the continuing illegal Microsoft retail PC monopoly.

I'm not disagreeing with you about the MS dominance in retail. But I don't want Linux on sale in computers sold in a store also selling living room furniture.

The point is that the components chosen in these products are cheap. Certain restrictive choices are made in terms of variety and quality. The exception, I think, would be a iMac because it is a standardised commodity available anywhere.

Peeps gravitate to Linux because they want something better than MS. So it follows that the quality of computers made for Windows lag like the software itself.

Also, the online sellers who supply parts or whole computers with Linux expected to be run on them are now far and wide since the time of the Halloween docs.

The fact that retail still flogs that dead horse is exactly the reason why retail is dead and going away.

[nctnico]

One more thing, the Linux machine on the same hardware as a Windows one must be at least $100 cheaper ... no Microsoft tax!

Dell sells  PCs with Linux installed. Windows is optional.

[Ed.Kloonk]

One more thing, the Linux machine on the same hardware as a Windows one must be at least $100 cheaper ... no Microsoft tax!

Dell sells  PCs with Linux installed. Windows is optional.

Not here, they don't. Hence the System76 suggestion. I needed a powerful, fully setup travel laptop in a hurry. Dell dropped the ball.

 

[techman-001]

The fact that retail still flogs that dead horse is exactly the reason why retail is dead and going away.

Oh I agree with you and brucehault, the retail pc market is dead and dying and has been dying for at least a decade. Microsoft fought tooth and nail to win a dying market, a veritable no mans land.

Connectivity is what people want more than anything (in general) but PC parts will be around for a long time yet for gamers, engineers, scientists etc, all the people who can easily build their own Linux box.

It's dead easy anyway, Linux Lego.

As an aside, Linux laptops are available from Google, who call them 'a Chromebook'. Everything works out of the box, it's all preinstalled and they have high end models as well.

Of course one must accept all the Google spyware that forms the heart of the machine, which also can run a Debian based distro in a container simply by enabling developer mode.

A friend bought one recently and installed Kicad on it easily. Apt-get install kicad.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Oh I agree with you and brucehault, the retail pc market is dead and dying and has been dying for at least a decade. Microsoft fought tooth and nail to win a dying market, a veritable no mans land.

 

 

[techman-001]

One more thing, the Linux machine on the same hardware as a Windows one must be at least $100 cheaper ... no Microsoft tax!

Dell sells  PCs with Linux installed. Windows is optional.

Not here, they don't. Hence the System76 suggestion. I needed a powerful, fully setup travel laptop in a hurry. Dell dropped the ball.

 

Which is a shame as Dell make good hardware generally.

Their Linux offerings were no cheaper than Windows from what I could see on the American sites, and Dell Australia never offered Linux here that I saw.

[Ed.Kloonk]

One more thing, the Linux machine on the same hardware as a Windows one must be at least $100 cheaper ... no Microsoft tax!

Dell sells  PCs with Linux installed. Windows is optional.

Not here, they don't. Hence the System76 suggestion. I needed a powerful, fully setup travel laptop in a hurry. Dell dropped the ball.

 

Which is a shame as Dell make good hardware generally.

Their Linux offerings were no cheaper than Windows from what I could see on the American sites, and Dell Australia never offered Linux here that I saw.

I waited for months while tech journos and bloggers talked up the upcoming XPS-13? Saw a few reviews when it finally came out. Rang up Dell to pull the trigger....

[Mechatrommer]

Windows will not die anytime soon (within the context) i bet my bottom dollar. if its so, it will bring many other brand names die with it. those brand names are not fool, if they see this coming, they should already jump boat by now. do you see any Altium for Linux now? or slightly any other well known brands? in journey of trying to support Linux? imho AMD is wise to expand their OSSW driver to Linux, but if there is competition/market, we will see NVIDIA will jump along, and then the next, and next and next... we'll see..

[techman-001]

Windows will not die anytime soon (within the context) i bet my bottom dollar. if its so, it will bring many other brand names die with it. those brand names are not fool, if they see this coming, they should already jump boat by now. do you see any Altium for Linux now? or slightly any other well known brands? in journey of trying to support Linux? imho AMD is wise to expand their OSSW driver to Linux, but if there is competition/market, we will see NVIDIA will jump along, and then the next, and next and next... we'll see..

I'm not predicting the death of Windows anytime soon, however the PC market has been shrinking for years, I posted stats backing this up a while back, and everyone knows it anyway, especially the PC manufacturers.

Regarding Altium, what do we know about the ability of any Windows application manufacturer to also make a version for a competing OS such as Linux ?

Do we know anything or are the deals they make with Microsoft under NDA and highly secret ?

Can they port to Linux, what are the consequences ?

Might they lose their "Approved for Windows" certification if they do ?

Whats the financial downside for them ?

[Mechatrommer]

PC market maybe shrinking due to less attractive offering from CPU manufacturers (the collapse of Moore's Law?) but it does not prohibit users from upgrading SW/OS on their old PC. i can quick google revenue from few brand (Windows) names and they are quite happy with the figure.. otoh the trend and culture maybe changing as well, a family maybe own a PC in a house and 10s Androids, or a person maybe has 10s Androids and no PC at all, because he works in a lumberjack and the only thing that made him happy during his rest time is playing games on his many phones, before Android its all stick and stone games. maybe i guess market shrinking is in proportional to human intelligence, nerdy people on the verge of extinction. ymmv.

[nctnico]

Windows will not die anytime soon (within the context) i bet my bottom dollar. if its so, it will bring many other brand names die with it. those brand names are not fool, if they see this coming, they should already jump boat by now. do you see any Altium for Linux now?

Altium is working on a Linux version. Orcad's PCB design software already works on Linux and from the changes in the schematics tool I'm quite sure they are working on porting the schematics tool as well. Linux is very big in engineering.

[Mechatrommer]

Linux is very big in engineering.

i dont know, but maybe you are talking about IT or software/game engineering?
https://www.quora.com/How-useful-is-it-to-learn-Linux-being-a-mechanical-engineer
https://www.quora.com/How-useful-is-Linux-for-electrical-engineers
https://www.infoworld.com/article/2832315/why-are-linux-professionals-in-such-high-demand.html

[Simon]

I agree. This feels like yet another 'Simon can't get Linux to work on his computer' thread.

Really? kindly point out the other threads? I have not as you claim started a number of threads claiming linux does not work.

Go through the other 'Linux versus Windows' threads and you'll see you have posted similar messages before which then resulted in similar lines of conversation: Tried to install Linux but failed and then start raving on about how well Windows works for you. Almost like just stirring sh*t up.

And I started those threads? no, so who is stirring?. I have been told so many good things about how well linux works I decided to try it. But it seems I need the right graphics card.

[Simon]

I'll try Mint. I don't have masses of time to play with this and it will be a work in progress. For now I have windows. My idea was to dual boot and slowly move over.

First get a PC which has hardware which is supported by Linux (perhaps it is a good reason to get a new PC anyway) otherwise trying to get Linux installed is a waste of time (in the end all distributions use the same kernel and drivers with a slightly newer or older version). Until then use a virtual machine. Dual boot is the worst option because there will be a long delay to switch from one to the other.

I build my own thanks! if i buy a premade machine Mr expert I will have guarantee whatsoever but building my own I can ;pick each part. It would appear that there are big issues with nvidia and graphics are always a big part of problems, I'm even having problems on windows with it now. So I buy an AMD card.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I have been told so many good things about how well linux works I decided to try it. But it seems I need the right graphics card.

Lucky for you, you didn't try Linux back in the late '90's early 2000's. You had to download two or three floppy image files, copy across to said floppies (which was unreliable) and you then had a one in five chance of booting into the desktop because of the graphics adapter. Fun.

Oh wait...

[techman-001]

I have been told so many good things about how well linux works I decided to try it. But it seems I need the right graphics card.

Lucky for you, you didn't try Linux back in the late '90's early 2000's. You had to download two or three floppy image files, copy across to said floppies (which was unreliable) and you then had a one in five chance of booting into the desktop because of the graphics adapter. Fun.

Oh wait...

My first Linux install was Yggdrassil Linux in 1993 from a Cd on a Soundblaster Pro reader with interface on the sound card. I paid $150 for the sound card and $450 for the reader (not a writer).

Yggdrassil installed itself and the machine booted up into X Windows, sound worked, mouse worked and I had some lovely games of Reversi from the gui menu, but that was all I could do because I had zero Unix experience, I didn't know how to admin Unix or even use it.

The Video card was a Trident and X did lock up from time to time, but in 1993 Linux was love at first sight for me.

I was a utterly clueless Windows user, yet Linux installed X windows, all by itself in 1993 ...

[Karel]

No need to to assemble a Linux compatible pc yourself. There are plenty workstations or laptops from different brands which are Linux compatible (guaranteed by the manufacturer).
Some of them come with Linux pre-installed if you wish. For example Fujitsu-Siemens, Lenovo and Dell.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I have been told so many good things about how well linux works I decided to try it. But it seems I need the right graphics card.

Lucky for you, you didn't try Linux back in the late '90's early 2000's. You had to download two or three floppy image files, copy across to said floppies (which was unreliable) and you then had a one in five chance of booting into the desktop because of the graphics adapter. Fun.

Oh wait...

My first Linux install was Yggdrassil Linux in 1993 from a Cd on a Soundblaster Pro reader with interface on the sound card. I paid $150 for the sound card and $450 for the reader (not a writer).

Yggdrassil installed itself and the machine booted up into X Windows, sound worked, mouse worked and I had some lovely games of Reversi from the gui menu, but that was all I could do because I had zero Unix experience, I didn't know how to admin Unix or even use it.

The Video card was a Trident and X did lock up from time to time, but in 1993 Linux was love at first sight for me.

I was a utterly clueless Windows user, yet Linux installed X windows, all by itself in 1993 ...

Slackware (False start) > Redhat > Knoppix > Mandrake.

 

Somewhere in there I also ran smoothwall as a firewall for quite a while.

[Mechatrommer]

it was pretty common to install from diskettes even for Windows. iirc the Linux i installed few years back is pretty much the same as the Linux i installed on 20+ years back, it has nice wallpaper, taskbar and some things on the desktop, can open console and built in SWs, but it pretty much only that, flavors of softwares for real work and hardwares support was pretty much zero, back then. so i occupied myself to learn any possible (usefull) SW's i can get and however possible i can configure Windows, upgrade to my heart content HW's etc, rather than trying to master an OS alone, which was not my interest. nowadays, SWs (free) availability in Linux is much better, but still way behind from what Windows can offer, hardwares supports? i guess i'll need to wait another 20+ years to see that happening.

No need to to assemble a Linux compatible pc yourself. There are plenty workstations or laptops from different brands which are Linux compatible (guaranteed by the manufacturer).
Some of them come with Linux pre-installed if you wish. For example Fujitsu-Siemens, Lenovo and Dell.

until you find out your favourite game or SW's is lagging in performance or you want top notch performance, and hence SW or latest HW upgrade. opps you have few options to make it works.. 1) you need to master kernel programming Linux OS.. 2) ask in forum with hope someone can fix it for you... 3) 1 and 2 fail, so you pray one day someone or something will fix it for you, which can usually takes years or non at all... what you dont have is option 4... 4) it works out of the box (with HW driver or SW compatibility ready without virtualization nonsense).

this is the reason why China cheap crap HW like DSO or FG etc dont gain popularity in hobbiest market, let alone professionals. even though cheap, who have time to learn how and do programming to make it works? we want to do real work, not to make something works in order to do real work.

[Simon]

No need to to assemble a Linux compatible pc yourself. There are plenty workstations or laptops from different brands which are Linux compatible (guaranteed by the manufacturer).
Some of them come with Linux pre-installed if you wish. For example Fujitsu-Siemens, Lenovo and Dell.

Last time I looked at buying new machine I tried to find an off the shelf one but found that I could easily beat the specs of anything going for the same money. When USB 3.0 was widespread so many PC assemblers were still shipping machines with no or very few ports. I just gave up as clearly these days all the assemblers do is use clearance parts and still charge the earth.

[Simon]

Luckily I still have my old AMD card a R9 285.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

This is the reason why China cheap crap HW like DSO or FG etc dont gain popularity in hobbiest market, let alone professionals.

LOL. Watt?

[nctnico]

No need to to assemble a Linux compatible pc yourself. There are plenty workstations or laptops from different brands which are Linux compatible (guaranteed by the manufacturer).
Some of them come with Linux pre-installed if you wish. For example Fujitsu-Siemens, Lenovo and Dell.

Not just that but the for-business PCs from HP or Dell also have much better cooling because they use custom motherboards and custom cases which provide optimal airflow. You can't do that with standard PC parts. I have stopped building my own PCs a long time ago. Money wise it doesn't compete and the end result is much quieter.

[Mr. Scram]

Not just that but the for-business PCs from HP or Dell also have much better cooling because they use custom motherboards and custom cases which provide optimal airflow. You can't do that with standard PC parts. I have stopped building my own PCs a long time ago. Money wise it doesn't compete and the end result is much quieter.

I'm yet to see an enterprise PC that can rival a properly built silent PC. HP designing its own parts leads to fun situations where you can only replace your broken HP PSU with an expensive replacement unit from HP because they use non standard outputs and inputs on the motherboard. They're usually fairly solid baseline computers which is an upgrade from the lower tiers consumer crap.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I've never ever in all my life built nor owned nor used any Wintel 'PC'. Nor even at work. 100% Apple all my life since 1977!

[Simon]

For just shy of £1'000 I built myself a very nice machine that is silent unless I start to run all of it's dual 8 cores at 100%. HP and DELL can keep their over rated stuff.

Yes, DELL are those wonderful guys that use exactly the same power connector but change all the pins around so that you fry your motherboard with any non DELL replacement - how nice of them. My 700W silent PSU is now 10 years old and no need to replace it and it was not that expensive either.

[Mr. Scram]

I've never ever in all my life built nor owned nor used any Wintel 'PC'. Nor even at work. 100% Apple all my life since 1977!

Thanks for sharing I guess?

[nctnico]

Not just that but the for-business PCs from HP or Dell also have much better cooling because they use custom motherboards and custom cases which provide optimal airflow. You can't do that with standard PC parts. I have stopped building my own PCs a long time ago. Money wise it doesn't compete and the end result is much quieter.

I'm yet to see an enterprise PC that can rival a properly built silent PC. HP designing its own parts leads to fun situations where you can only replace your broken HP PSU with an expensive replacement unit from HP because they use non standard outputs and inputs on the motherboard. They're usually fairly solid baseline computers which is an upgrade from the lower tiers consumer crap.

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

[Black Phoenix]

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

That is a laptop not a desktop. And I think we are talking about Desktops... Plus is a Dell 5510...

[Mr. Scram]

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

Those are baseline goals when building a properly quiet PC. There's nothing about standard casings and standard motherboards that make them suboptimal by definition. Choosing from a vast library of available parts means one can emphasize exactly those qualities most valued instead of a one size fits all. HP obviously isn't going to drop $100 on a single cooler for anything consumer or office grade whereas the sky is the limit when building your own. There is obviously also more room to mess something up which is where prebuilts come in with a reasonably balanced package without too much fuss or effort spent. Though it should be noted prebuilts aren't always flawless either.

[nctnico]

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

That is a laptop not a desktop. And I think we are talking about Desktops... Plus is a Dell 5510...

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

Those are baseline goals when building a properly quiet PC. There's nothing about standard casings and standard motherboards that make them suboptimal by definition. Choosing from a vast library of available parts means one can emphasize exactly those qualities most valued instead of a one size fits all. HP obviously isn't going to drop $100 on a single cooler for anything consumer or office grade whereas the sky is the limit when building your own. There is obviously also more room to mess something up which is where prebuilts come in with a reasonably balanced package without too much fuss or effort spent. Though it should be noted prebuilts aren't always flawless either.

Why spend $100 on a cooler where (for example) Dell just adds a $2 duct which optimises the airflow to the same level. The thing is that you'll need to spend $100 just to make a pig look pretty. Don't start with a pig and life is much easier.

[Simon]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

How much and what has it got? For under £1k I got an 8 core ryzen 16GB of DDR4 dual channel, a decent motherboard ("gamer") a graphics card and a new case. The whole thing could not be quieter. I see now why I can here the fans at 16x 100% load, it's because the CPU cooler is quite dusty now after 1 year and all fans are speed controlled on the CPU temperature.

And yes, windows is an awful OS, It's terrible. I just yanked out my nvidia card and stuffed the AMD one in and booted it up. Windows update automatically detected the need for a new driver and installed it.

[drussell]

Windows update automatically detected the need for a new driver and installed it.

Hooray for Windows Automatic Updates!

You are, of course, free to stick with Windows and all the various kinds grief that may^H^H^Hwill entail over time.

You're also free to use a free OS like Linux or FreeBSD, where if you find something you don't like, you're free to change it.  If you don't like the behavior of the installer with your particular video card, delve into the code, fix it on your system and then if you feel so inclined, share your update patches back to the others of the community like the rest of us do.

If you expect everything to work automagically "just like Windows always does for me," you're likely to be very disappointed from time to time.   On the other hand, if you run something like FreeBSD it is highly unlikely to do some bogus automatic update in the middle of the night and reboot your workstation into a brick or trick you into installing an OS you don't want and doesn't work for your workflow.  YMMV.

If you expect Linux to be Windows, you're likely looking for the wrong things in the wrong place.

I prefer something that I set up once, then sit back and read the logs. 

[Simon]

this is the problem with open source. Everyone is supposed to be able to fix the code. I explained earlier that I have neither the ability or the interest.

[drussell]

this is the problem with open source. Everyone is supposed to be able to fix the code. I explained earlier that I have neither the ability or the interest.

Absolutely not true....

You could help with documentation.  You could help maintain a project's website.  You could just help by reporting bad behavior of your particular hardware with the necessary debugging information to allow someone with the knowledge to fix it, or donate a few dollars towards someone who can fix your issues instead of paying Microsoft $129 for your next Windows license.

My point is that if you aren't even willing to go through something like one step to try booting up your machine in VESA mode to get the OS installed or whatever, you're probably best just sticking with paying for a commercial OS and their included stellar technical support.   

[Nominal Animal]

Everyone is supposed to be able to fix the code.

No, not exactly.  Everyone is supposed to be able to help fix issues, or you have to pay someone else to do it for you.

With Nvidia graphics cards, nothing helps, because only Nvidia has the information necessary to do anything about it, and they're not interested in you as a Linux user, only if you are a Windows user.

I explained earlier that I have neither the ability or the interest.

Hence my suggestions.  Now that you have a supported graphics card, give a couple of Linux distributions a go.  I recommend LXDE or XFCE desktops for a number of reasons.  Mint is definitely a good suggestion, give it a go.  Do remember, that because it is not Windows, and you have lots of Windows use under your belt, it will be different; instead, try to find out different ways of achieving your typical tasks, using different applications, consciously avoiding duplicating your Windows workflow.  There is where the jackpots can be found, if there are any for your workflows.

I have noticed that the OS discussion does go into depths that e.g. test equipment discussions do not.  At least, I haven't seen any thread where someone asks for advice in their particular situation, devolve into discussions of the various manufacturers market shares, and what they need to do to increase it.

[Simon]

Every time I say i have a probelm some smart alec says that I can just fix it myself as though I can code. This is the answer to linus torvades wondering at why linux is not desktop mainstream.

I have used linux briefly before.

[Monkeh]

And yes, windows is an awful OS, It's terrible. I just yanked out my nvidia card and stuffed the AMD one in and booted it up. Windows update automatically detected the need for a new driver and installed it.

And yet you can brick it without changing any hardware, just flipping a bit or two..

Linux can, if configured correctly, behave just the same - except it won't have to download anything. And the bit flip won't bother it.

[Mr. Scram]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

  Why spend $100 on a cooler where (for example) Dell just adds a $2 duct which optimises the airflow to the same level. The thing is that you'll need to spend $100 just to make a pig look pretty. Don't start with a pig and life is much easier.

Those are some rather extraordinary claims. Please provide some real data and comparisons which show an air duct on a basic cooler is as effective as a properly used high end cooler.

By the way, are you familiar with Puget Systems?

[Simon]

Well i booted into ubuntu. As the wifi adapter was kaput I expect I will have to look one up that supports linux before making further progress.

[alsetalokin4017]

Not necessarily. You do have a hardwire Ethernet connection available, I imagine. So you could plug in. There will be current updates to your fresh installation that will want to be downloaded and installed and this goes faster over a hardwire connection anyway.

You may know this already but:

ctrl-alt-T opens a Terminal (console) window

To read the manual page(s) for any linux command, type
man
followed by the command, at the terminal prompt.
man man
for example.

To see if your graphics card is actually working try "glxgears" demo. Ctrl-C to quit.

[nctnico]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

  Why spend $100 on a cooler where (for example) Dell just adds a $2 duct which optimises the airflow to the same level. The thing is that you'll need to spend $100 just to make a pig look pretty. Don't start with a pig and life is much easier.

Those are some rather extraordinary claims. Please provide some real data and comparisons which show an air duct on a basic cooler is as effective as a properly used high end cooler.

There is no point to even start a comparison. The whole purpose of a custom designed case + motherboard is to have ducting to take airflow from the case fans directly to where it is needed. There is no basic cooler because it simply isn't needed! It is entirely different way of building & designing a PC.

[Simon]

In otherwise your usual troll self, you make wild claims but never willing to back them up or explain the detail.....

[nctnico]

No, a T5510 is a midi-tower higher end workstation.

How much and what has it got? For under £1k I got an 8 core ryzen 16GB of DDR4 dual channel, a decent motherboard ("gamer") a graphics card and a new case. The whole thing could not be quieter. I see now why I can here the fans at 16x 100% load, it's because the CPU cooler is quite dusty now after 1 year and all fans are speed controlled on the CPU temperature.

The one I have is already about 4 years old. It has a quad core Xeon, ECC memory and a basic K620 desktop video card from NVidia. I don't play games so I don't need any gaming performance. IIRC the price was around 2k euro including 1TB SSD and 2TB regular hard drive. The front has 3 fans running at low speed and the grille seems to be designed to keep the dust on the outside (at least that is where the dust is collecting). Unlike my self build PCs there is no dust building up inside. Due to the ducting it pumps much less air (and dust) into the case. And it is insanely quiet. I have an external hard drive somewhere under the desk which makes more noise than the entire PC.

[Simon]

Not necessarily. You do have a hardwire Ethernet connection available, I imagine. So you could plug in. There will be current updates to your fresh installation that will want to be downloaded and installed and this goes faster over a hardwire connection anyway.

Yea, have a cable somewhere, might have to buy one again as I need a few metres not jut 1.2m

[nctnico]

In otherwise your usual troll self, you make wild claims but never willing to back them up or explain the detail.....

And there you go again  Not willing to learn anything.

[Simon]

The one I have is already about 4 years old. It has a quad core Xeon, ECC memory and a basic K620 desktop video card from NVidia. I don't play games so I don't need any gaming performance. IIRC the price was around 2k euro including 1TB SSD and 2TB regular hard drive. The front has 3 fans running at low speed and the grille seems to be designed to keep the dust on the outside (at least that is where the dust is collecting). Unlike my self build PCs there is no dust building up inside. Due to the ducting it pumps much less air (and dust) into the case. And it is insanely quiet. I have an external hard drive somewhere under the desk which makes more noise than the entire PC.

My setup is similar. the case alone was £90 but the fans are filtered and there are plenty of them so they can run low speed and push plenty of air in. With the low power consumption and high performance of the processor regular use does not require much cooling. Your hard drives were probably a substantial amount of the price.

[Simon]

In otherwise your usual troll self, you make wild claims but never willing to back them up or explain the detail.....

And there you go again  Not willing to learn anything.

Been trying to learn but you just claimed voodo, turns out you just have a decent spec system with over price hard drives.

[Mechatrommer]

I've never ever in all my life built nor owned nor used any Wintel 'PC'. Nor even at work. 100% Apple all my life since 1977!

good for you and good for them. dont be like us, because once you be, you'll never look back...

This is the reason why China cheap crap HW like DSO or FG etc dont gain popularity in hobbiest market, let alone professionals.

LOL. Watt?

i mean the open source or USB PC type, with retarded SW/API or nonexistence at all.

Why spend $100 on a cooler where (for example) Dell just adds a $2 duct which optimises the airflow to the same level. The thing is that you'll need to spend $100 just to make a pig look pretty. Don't start with a pig and life is much easier.

i recently got a HP brand Z800 because it dropped down to affordability. yes it has nice ducts and wind deflector but i wont say its as quiet as a whispering wind, in fact i feel at home since noise level is about the same as my old brandless PC. the funny thing is i upgraded it with another old radeon RX580 card and the wind deflector doesnt fit anymore. i guess those brand name PCs are not meant for limitless upgrade. and i dont think those ducting cost $2, it was simply unaffordable. and i have a decommissioned yet a working DELL OptiPlex 745 unit here that i got basically for free, that is simply not worth my time improving, ready for scrapyard or for kids to learn. albeit i guess a cheap line up in DELL, i believe this Dual Core machine can easily costs much more than my Quad Core setup 10 years ago.

IIRC the price was around 2k euro including 1TB SSD and 2TB regular hard drive.

with that money, i can get 5 usable multicore PC new, maybe 3 if complete with monitor and descent wireless keyboard. afaics, only gamers need 1TB fast type storage to store 10s GB of CODEXes. 2TB only can be filled up with years worth of HD movies/videos. with those overpriced overblown storage, lets say i can build 2 machines incl monitors. btw currently my old PC has 3TB+ total storage capability (expandable to sky limit if needed) with 120GB SSD for OS. the 2TB are on externals, 2 drives because i dont want to shorten their usefull life by sitting dormant inside only to heat the PC and eat electricity bills. they only for long term storage when less used data start filling up my internal storage. the old PC has been running cool faithfully for 10 years now with your so called crap cooling system. otoh the Z800 requires 250GB SSD because its on 64bit W7 and i was going to install some CODEXes maybe not for too long..

[rsjsouza]

My $0.02

I regularly use multiple Linux installs on VMWare and I can recommend if you are interested in learning more about the OS or doing work in parallel with whatever you do on the host OS (building kernel or SW components, for example). My VMs are also placed in an external USB3.0 HDD as the main laptop does not have enough space on its SSD. Performance is great for my needs.

For a better experience, especially if you are interacting with non-standard hardware connected via USB (certain logic analyzers, JTAG Debug Probes, etc) there's also the chance to get an older hand me down host (things complicate a bit more if it is a desktop due to space). I also have this setup for these special cases and regularly connect to it from Windows via VNC, but you need to have a spare keyboard and mouse for the offending maintenance/recovery task.

A separate hard disk could also work, but the dual boot is disruptive if you are constantly switching between the OSes. I have done this but you are limited to desktops (rare are the laptops with multiple disks).

Also, dual booting on a single system was never for the faint of heart, even in the old times. I still remember using the OS/2 bootloader (the best in my opinion) and booting to the three OSes: Slackware, Windows and OS/2. It was quite good but a dog to properly setup. Newer UEFI systems can still present issues.

Overall, there is very little argument against configuring a Linux host to experiment, play and see if it works well for you. Yes, you will need Google for gobs of things and will occasionally find the hardcore idiot that thinks everybody else is stupid, but we all have some thick skin and can take it.

Good luck in your ventures.

[nctnico]

IIRC the price was around 2k euro including 1TB SSD and 2TB regular hard drive.

with that money, i can get 5 usable multicore PC new, maybe 3 if complete with monitor

But they will all be crap, slow and unreliable. For starters the Xeon CPU has double the memory bandwidth compared to it's i7 counterpart. ECC memory helps stability and repeatabilty. Among other things I use this machine to compile large firmware builds which can take up to several hours. It has to be error free and reliable. It also serves as a file server. Part of the idea behind buying this PC is to have one machine which does everything instead of having several PCs running (which take maintenance, make noise and cost electricity).

and descent wireless keyboard. afaics, only gamers need 1TB fast type storage to store 10s GB of CODEXes. 2TB only can be filled up with years worth of HD movies/videos. with those overpriced overblown storage, lets say i can build 2 machines incl monitors.

Try to run some VMs and do development work. You'll run out of space quickly. Meanwhile I have added a 2nd 1TB SSD because I ran out of space. No, there isn't a single game or video stored on the SSDs. It's all business related data.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I've never ever in all my life built nor owned nor used any Wintel 'PC'. Nor even at work. 100% Apple all my life since 1977!

good for you and good for them. dont be like us, because once you be, you'll never look back...

Be a Windozes user? Thanks but no, thanks.

[Mechatrommer]

no, be a diy PC builder. choose whatever hardware we like and snap them together. thanks to people like you to keep competition going, so we can dig what HWs used in those brand name, improve the spec ie strip away what we dont need or unsuitable to our taste, beef it with what we really need at a reasonable price, the factory price with minimal middle man charges. i wont ask people in the island to buy car, nor to ask people on the land to buy boat, but i know what vehicle that i need and which bolt to loosen or tighten.

[Mr. Scram]

In otherwise your usual troll self, you make wild claims but never willing to back them up or explain the detail.....

I was at least expecting some hastily dug up benchmarks that were obviously not that relevant but this is just an outright self elimination.

[Mr. Scram]

But they will all be crap, slow and unreliable. For starters the Xeon CPU has double the memory bandwidth compared to it's i7 counterpart. ECC memory helps stability and repeatabilty. Among other things I use this machine to compile large firmware builds which can take up to several hours. It has to be error free and reliable. It also serves as a file server. Part of the idea behind buying this PC is to have one machine which does everything instead of having several PCs running (which take maintenance, make noise and cost electricity).

Try to run some VMs and do development work. You'll run out of space quickly. Meanwhile I have added a 2nd 1TB SSD because I ran out of space. No, there isn't a single game or video stored on the SSDs. It's all business related data.

Both Xeons and ECC RAM is for sale and regularly used to build computers. Certain Xeon models were popular for a while as they offered a good bang for their buck.

[nctnico]

In otherwise your usual troll self, you make wild claims but never willing to back them up or explain the detail.....

I was at least expecting some hastily dug up benchmarks that were obviously not that relevant but this is just an outright self elimination.

Why would I? Just take a professional workstation apart and you can see the result of using ducts and clever placement (and the engineering that went into it) to direct the airflow yourself. Clinging to the idea that you can do better with a self built PC is just stupid. You know what they say about horses: you can guide them to the water but they have to start drinking by themselves. I did look at the Puget systems to see if they came up with something new but it is just more case modding compu-phoolery mixed with marketing wank.

Look at the thermal impedance versus airflow of a heatsink and you'll see that at the low end the amount of airflow has a huge impact on the cooling effect. Now take a fan which just blows into a computer case like in a standard PC. Without a duct 95% of the air doesn't get where it has an effect. With a duct you can increase the airflow over a hot component many times so you need a much smaller (quiter!) fan to achieve that airflow. Is that so hard to see? It is pretty obvious to me.

[Mr. Scram]

Why would I? Just take a professional workstation apart and you can see the result of using ducts and clever placement (and the engineering that went into it) to direct the airflow yourself. Clinging to the idea that you can do better with a self built PC is just stupid. You know what they say about horses: you can guide them to the water but they have to start drinking by themselves. I did look at the Puget systems to see if they came up with something new but it is just more case modding compu-phoolery mixed with marketing wank.

Look at the thermal impedance of a heatsink and you'll see that at the low end the amount of airflow has a huge impact on the cooling effect. Now take a fan which just blows into a computer case like in a standard PC. Without a duct 95% of the air doesn't get where it has an effect. With a duct you can increase the airflow over a hot component many times so you need a much smaller (quiter!) fan to achieve that airflow. Is that so hard to see? It is pretty obvious to me.

Show us some numbers instead of hot air. Any prebuilt PC is cost optimised which is a friendly term for cutting corners to the point of being just acceptable. That's pretty obvious too. That's fine and results in serviceable machines catering to common denominators. It also leaves room for improvement or fulfilling specific needs. You make it sound as if custom PC builders don't plan for airflow and just slap parts together in an open feedback loop. She'll be right!

Attempting to casually dismiss Puget Systems shows you haven't actually looked at what they do and how they do it. Coincidentally those guys actually do testing and have numbers backing their claims up.

[Simon]

There is not a lot you need to do for a quiet system these days. The power consumption are much lower and most decent cases have good airflow. So long an the processor has a stream of fresh air towards it "she'll be right" indeed.

[Mechatrommer]

even if you do need extra cooling... big quiet like 12cm fan can be had for as cheap as $5...

But they will all be crap, slow and unreliable. For starters the Xeon CPU has double the memory bandwidth compared to it's i7 counterpart. ECC memory helps stability and repeatabilty. Among other things I use this machine to compile large firmware builds which can take up to several hours. It has to be error free and reliable. It also serves as a file server. Part of the idea behind buying this PC is to have one machine which does everything instead of having several PCs running (which take maintenance, make noise and cost electricity).

Try to run some VMs and do development work. You'll run out of space quickly. Meanwhile I have added a 2nd 1TB SSD because I ran out of space. No, there isn't a single game or video stored on the SSDs. It's all business related data.

Both Xeons and ECC RAM is for sale and regularly used to build computers. Certain Xeon models were popular for a while as they offered a good bang for their buck.

i'd be willing to do some exercise for nctnico on currently brand model and active cpu/mb/ram parts, but i cant do it right now as i have job outside... if we take into account used part/ discontinued model... i have 12 cores 3.46GHz xeon 96GB DDR3 at crap load consumer grade price here. but i dont think used part can be counted in price competition. one funny thing i realized when browsing these brands name is they dont provide exact price for an exact spec, at most they will provide price range like $1000-$10000 range for example. my guess is they are afraid of price competition, like the rest who are not willing to publish the price plain clear, we need to PM just to get it my -2cents.

[rsjsouza]

Show us some numbers instead of hot air. Any prebuilt PC is cost optimised which is a friendly term for cutting corners to the point of being just acceptable. That's pretty obvious too. That's fine and results in serviceable machines catering to common denominators. It also leaves room for improvement or fulfilling specific needs. You make it sound as if custom PC builders don't plan for airflow and just slap parts together in an open feedback loop. She'll be right!

I fully agree. As a user of Dell systems for about 20 years, initially they brought something really good to the table, but seeing my home built 10 year old PC with a gigabyte EX58 Extreme and running a quad core i920 for most of its life (upgraded last year to a six core Xeon W36something) still going strong, I really think the edge is simply not there anymore. Oh, and it is silent as well on a full tower Antec case with a Corsair 600W power supply (forgot the model).

Sure, there were fiascos with the fragile Latitude C610 or the crap Nvidia chipset on the otherwise excellent Latitude D620/D630 series, but the norm were excellent laptops and workstations such as the Latitude D400/D410 and the Precision T3500 and T5500. Nowadays, my experience is much less impressive with the otherwise "full custom optimized" Optiplex 7010 with its flimsy connectors or the Precision 5500 with its bulging batteries after 1-1/2 years of use.

[rsjsouza]

even if you do need extra cooling... big quiet like 12cm fan can be had for as cheap as $5...

But they will all be crap, slow and unreliable. For starters the Xeon CPU has double the memory bandwidth compared to it's i7 counterpart. ECC memory helps stability and repeatabilty. Among other things I use this machine to compile large firmware builds which can take up to several hours. It has to be error free and reliable. It also serves as a file server. Part of the idea behind buying this PC is to have one machine which does everything instead of having several PCs running (which take maintenance, make noise and cost electricity).

Both Xeons and ECC RAM is for sale and regularly used to build computers. Certain Xeon models were popular for a while as they offered a good bang for their buck.

i'd be willing to do some exercise for nctnico on currently brand model and active cpu/mb/ram parts, but i cant do it right now as i have job outside... if we take into account used part/ discontinued model... i have 12 cores 3.46GHz xeon 96GB DDR3 at crap load consumer grade price here. but i dont think used part can be counted in price competition.

I think it is fair... The Precision T5500 is discontinued and my upgrade Xeon processor (bought on eBay) may be at around half of its lifetime, but if it goes bad I can go to eBay and fix that for $40~$60. That or spend $0 and go back to the i920.

Try to run some VMs and do development work. You'll run out of space quickly. Meanwhile I have added a 2nd 1TB SSD because I ran out of space. No, there isn't a single game or video stored on the SSDs. It's all business related data.

That I fully agree. VMs can become quite large. IMHO it is a small price for the huge convenience.

[techman-001]

Get a Dell T5510 for example. It makes the same amount of noise whether working at full load or sitting idle. I had to get used to the absense of noise in my office after I bought it. And it is not just about being quiet but also maintain low noise while working at full load AND keeping the temperatures low at all the places with hot components. Standard casings and standard motherboards are sub-optimal by definition.

Those are baseline goals when building a properly quiet PC. There's nothing about standard casings and standard motherboards that make them suboptimal by definition. Choosing from a vast library of available parts means one can emphasize exactly those qualities most valued instead of a one size fits all. HP obviously isn't going to drop $100 on a single cooler for anything consumer or office grade whereas the sky is the limit when building your own. There is obviously also more room to mess something up which is where prebuilts come in with a reasonably balanced package without too much fuss or effort spent. Though it should be noted prebuilts aren't always flawless either.

I have to agree with troll-boy here.

I've worked with PC's and computers since the 70's and I've seen good and bad cooling in everything from my own units to factory units by all the manufacturers.

You people wouldn't believe the things I've seen, I've seen HP factory servers on fire off the shoulder of Orion ... ok, slight exaggeration 

I don't get why people assume that because hardware was made by HP, Dell or IBM that it's in some way perfect. Commercial companies build to a price and if the price won't allow decent quality or design, then you won't get it. End of story.

This workstation is a 8 core i7 with 32GB of ram and 12 TB of ZFS Raidz running FreeBSD.

It's in a brilliantly designed Enthoo Pro case and the CPU is water cooled. the box is sitting next to my left shoulder right now, and I can't hear a sound except a small buzz when a drive decides to work hard. This unit with the current hardware has survived a 46 degree C (114.8F) summer here in Australia and is not in a air conditioned area, but rather on a workshop bench in my steel factory shed.

I built this unit in 2012 using the latest tech at the time and I still don't need or want anything more. I probably paid around $2000 for all the parts, but can't remember exactly as it was nearly 8 years ago. However it has run 24/7 since the day it was built, it *never* gets turned off.

The Enthoo Pro case has air 'strainers' and is built for easy maintenance and cleaning. I open it up about once a year to clean the filters and vacuum out any dust. I live in a really dusty area and there is a sand blasting company down the road (their grit is *everywhere*), but this Enthoo case is like a clean room inside when I look.

My point is that money and skill *always* beats commercial offerings in PC's in every way you can afford, providing you have the skill.

[brucehoult]

I agree that there is nothing special in the cheap HPs and Dells in a retail store and you can easily beat them on quality yourself, and maybe even on price.

Apple is a different matter though. They actually do care about things such as acoustic design and reliability (with a few prominent failures) and are not any more expensive than the other big name brands when you compare machines with comparable components -- they simply do not play in the cheap low quality end of the market.

I personally haven't bought an Apple desktop for over a decade, but that's because they put components in them that are targeted at graphics and video professionals that I, as a programmer, don't get any benefit from.

In late 2009 I built an i7 860 (Nehalem) quad core box and Hackintoshed it. Apple had an iMac with the same CPU just a month or so later, but as it necessarily included a (lovely) screen, it cost far more. Screens are one of the things I buy and then use for a decade -- and at that stage I already had an Apple 30" 2560x1600 screen that was well depreciated.

In July 2014 I built an i7 4790K (Haswell) which I also Hackintoshed. I could have reused most of the parts, but in fact I found a local buyer for the old machine. Again, Apple came out with a 27" iMac with the same CPU in October that year.

Same again in late 2017. I built a machine with an 18 core i9 7980XE in November. Apple again announced an iMac with an 18-Core Xeon W-2191B at the end of December for an eye-watering $7400 base price in the US (mine was about $4500 fully loaded with 64 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD, and that was in Russia with 30% import duty and 20% VAT).

My current home office work machine is a 32 core ThreadRipper that I built in April. Apple announced a 29 core Xeon W Mac Pro in June but I think hasn't yet shipped it. I haven't Hackintoshed my Threadripper because I'm doing more work directly with Ubuntu these days, and my 2011 17" i7 MacBook Pro does everything I need MacOS for.

I want to be clear that in each of these cases I think Apple's prices were entirely justified by the hardware they sold you. It's just that I didn't want to buy all of that hardware, every time. And I was more than happy with an ugly traditional PC box under my desk instead of everything built into a monitor on my desk.

[brucehoult]

As for quality...

Last month I visited my parents in New Zealand. Among other things, my father (who will be 80 in January) complained that about 600 photos had gone missing from his iPhoto (now Photos) library. I took a look at his 2018 MacBook Pro (touchbar) and established that the photos in question were from between May and December 2009.

I looked at his TimeMachine backups (he actually had backups!) and found that the photos in question were already missing in the oldest snapshot, in January 2011.

I took the old 2001 model PowerBook G3 400 MHz "Pismo" off the shelf. It started up no problem. The last photo in its iPhoto database was the same as the last photo still present in Photos before the gap. Aha!

I took the 2009 Core 2 Duo 17" MacBook Pro off the shelf. Sadly, it went *bong* and the screen showed the Apple logo but it did not boot. I think that's why Dad replaced it with the current machine. I turned it off and back on, holding the T key and sure enough it came up in FireWire Target Disk Mode. I found a firewire 400 cable in a box and connected the 2009 Intel machine to the 2001 PowerPC G3 machine. Boom! The disk mounted fine. Sadly, the same photos were missing from its iPhoto database.

My suspicion is that the missing photos (by date range and camera DSC* id) may simply have been on a memory card that was never uploaded to the computer. But I don't know :-(

The 2009 machine didn't boot. But it looks as if there's not much wrong with it. I could mount and browse the disk fine from the 2001 machine using FireWire. And the screen and KB and trackpad worked. Maybe reinstalling the OS would revive it.

Impressive I think that the 2001 machine is still absolutely fine. It's just ... you know ... 400 MHz. And worse with a Rage128 mobile GPU. I myself have a 1998 266 MHz G3 PowerBook that also still works perfectly. It's just even slower (and FX9200...). And hard to connect to these days except by ethernet (build it) or WIFI (I have a very slow PCMCIA card pluged into it). At least these machines run OS X so you can ssh etc.

[gnif]

My current home office work machine is a 32 core ThreadRipper that I built in April. Apple announced a 29 core Xeon W Mac Pro in June but I think hasn't yet shipped it. I haven't Hackintoshed my Threadripper because I'm doing more work directly with Ubuntu these days, and my 2011 17" i7 MacBook Pro does everything I need MacOS for.

Ever thought of running a Hackintosh in a VM? It's pretty easy these days with QEMU. If you need decent GPU performance you can use VFIO to pass a Vega 56/64 through to the VM.

My point is that money and skill *always* beats commercial offerings in PC's in every way you can afford, providing you have the skill.

I agree mostly with this statement, however you also need to factor in time and maintenance. If a HP/Dell/Whatever has a failure within it's warranty period everything is handled for you, no need to rip the machine apart and start pulling/swapping parts to diagnose what has failed. Sometimes you simply don't have the spare parts on hand to swap for testing, or your life is already simply too busy to have the free time to spend researching parts, building the machine, diagnosing any faults.

I am all for building your own PC, and I have never owned a brand name PC, but I have serviced enough of them to know they are generally well built (usually Dell are pretty decent) even if they are expensive for the parts they contain. The consumer range of HP/Compaq equipment, especially laptops, I avoid like the plague as they are some of the cheapest built junk there is, however the business range is far better, but you pay for it.

I've seen HP factory servers on fire off the shoulder of Orion ... ok, slight exaggeration

Interesting, I'd love to hear the details on this as I work in this industry. That said however this is like comparing apples to oranges, the enterprise server market is completely foreign to the home computer market. Many enterprise servers are designed to be in actively cooled racks (industrial air conditioning & humidity control) due to their size constraints. Cooling considerations for a rack server must be taken into account or the lifespan of said device is likely to be very short.

OTOH, a general mass produced home PC must be designed to just work, even if they are in a room with a heater keeping grandma warm while she browses eBay smoking a cigarette filling the PC with sticky tar dust that blocks all airflow.

Regarding Apple's value... I am sorry it's just not there. And then when they do stuff like this it just reinforces it:
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/6/3/18651001/apples-mac-pro-xdr-display-monitor-stand-expensive-dongle-not-included-wwdc-2019

[techman-001]

I've seen HP factory servers on fire off the shoulder of Orion ... ok, slight exaggeration

Interesting, I'd love to hear the details on this as I work in this industry. That said however this is like comparing apples to oranges, the enterprise server market is completely foreign to the home computer market. Many enterprise servers are designed to be in actively cooled racks (industrial air conditioning & humidity control) due to their size constraints. Cooling considerations for a rack server must be taken into account or the lifespan of said device is likely to be very short.

I used to be the guy repairing and configuring servers and networking gear in server cool rooms, the guy with the woolly jumper and noise canceling headphones.

There is nothing special about commercial servers, it's all just hardware engineered for a price. In fact because the server room is always filtered and air conditioned, the actual cooling performance on server gear is usually quite pedestrian in my experience.

Most commercial servers wouldn't last long on my desk because they don't have the cooling for my hot shed, even at their usual 180 dBa noise levels!

Ever bought a second hand commercial server from a server coolroom ? They're like new inside, but after 12 months in a home they're filthy, rusty and just yuk!

[Simon]

what really pisses me off is that virtually every laptop ships with only one stick of RAM even though every processor now is dual channel and with integrated graphics you really need that extra channel. Often the RAM speeds are lower than those supported.

I use a HP laptop but I bought it off a guy on ebay that souped up standard machines. For less than HP would have ripped me off for he shipped a machine with full speed dual channel RAM and an SSD. Very happy with it and has been going strong since 2016. I can even do some light 3D CAD work on it for electronic design.

[brucehoult]

My current home office work machine is a 32 core ThreadRipper that I built in April. Apple announced a 29 core Xeon W Mac Pro in June but I think hasn't yet shipped it. I haven't Hackintoshed my Threadripper because I'm doing more work directly with Ubuntu these days, and my 2011 17" i7 MacBook Pro does everything I need MacOS for.

Ever thought of running a Hackintosh in a VM? It's pretty easy these days with QEMU. If you need decent GPU performance you can use VFIO to pass a Vega 56/64 through to the VM.

Yes I've done that before and have XP and OSX images for virtualbox sitting around somewhere. I haven't actually run them on this machine yet...

[Electro Detective]

what really pisses me off is that virtually every laptop ships with only one stick of RAM even though every processor now is dual channel and with integrated graphics you really need that extra channel.
Often the RAM speeds are lower than those supported.

It's where they try save a buck to meet a marketing dept. price point,
and other stupid penny pinching **** they get up to, that just succeeds to scare off future customers to look around for 'better value' 
not that any coffeeholic marketing team of iced fools would ever pick that up 

Ram speed aside, I usually hunt down an exact matching ram stick for cheap on Ebay from another frustrated owner  that's upgraded to some killa ram, and wack it in.

Dual channel, twice the ram, -CHEAP-
hey, I can live with any speed downsides 

[Simon]

Thing is my laptop although a few years old is perfectly fine for me. But it was souped up to the hilt on arrival. it will last twice as long as a cheaper laptop two of which would have cost more than this one anyway and i have a more pleasant experience for years....

[Mechatrommer]

since i cant build a laptop from zero (no generic hung low casing and generic hardwares for that), so its always a brand name, not the high end though. i wont pick the name, but the spec and affordability (bang per buck). it just happened recently Acer Aspire 5 was picked for the wifey due to latest Intel gen among whats around the shopping mall. what i did i will go round the mall looking at the best at each shop, compare and go back to the shop who got the best option among them. since SWMBO cant catch up i asked her to stay put where she is and later drag her to there to make the purchase. there's empty slot for RAM and upgradable to nvme but thats for later. whats nice is laptop brand or hung low will always/usually have panel with a screw to easily open to make the upgrade. so i'd rather laptop with empty slots than full beefed laptop but expensive. though, i never need a laptop, but i can recommend to others and point to someone who can repair it since i dont repair laptop since its a dog arse to dismantle wholly, please dont ask me to repair spilled keyboard and btw, my old Q9400 running XPx86 runs much faster than the wifey's Aspire 5 running Win10x64 i guess due to bloatwareness of Win10.

[Simon]

Well mine was upgraded by a third party so was cheaper than what I would of paid HP for a fully speced machine