'Linux'.. WOW, I'm almost toltally SOLD now!!!

[GlennSprigg]

My last post was about utilizing a MacOS via 'VirtualBox' on my latest Win-10 System. (Going OK, mainly thanks to 'PushUp')...

Over the years, not only on this Forum, but throughout the vast number of 'Unix' (based!!) supporters/advocates/fans on the 'Net' have tried to get
me to change to such systems, as opposed to MS-Windows that I've been used to ALL my long life!!  I was always averse to such a change, for a
number of reasons!  Like "Having to learn something totally new", "Software available" and "compliance/usability" with most PC's/Laptops etc etc...
Obviously, on old/original systems that may have been a problem, and belonging in the World of Hard-Core Programmers/Coders, but with todays
versions, and simplistic GUI adaptations, they can 'really' feel like just what you are used to!! (Though any tech person wants to get under the Hood!!   

SO, after quite a bit of research, I chose the 'base-line' build of 'Ubuntu', with the latest version/flavor being 'Ubuntu-Mate 20.04'...  WOW !!! 
Now I'm someone who could fit everything I know about 'Unix' systems, on the back of a Match-Book up to now, and not using a small pen!!!
HOWEVER, I AM EXTREMELY IMPRESSED WITH MY EXPERIENCE SO FAR !!!

My current setup is 'still' temporarily as a Virtual Machine via VirtualBox on my Win-10 system, but even so, it is running flawlessly and FAST, and everything
is working perfectly, including installing additional software, and running countless system utilities etc.  I'd rebooted a couple of times, for OTHER reasons, but
it has been running constantly for the last few days, in the background, as a 'Guest'. I'm even using it NOW, on this Forum!

OK, it has a pretty & simple (though as complicated as you want it to be!!) GUI, and adaptations & variations are all available...  However, I quickly 'realized' that a
LOT of 'settings'/'actions' are still available under the proverbial 'Hood', (as all techs would cream for!!), and seems to be the 'norm' for Linux users!! 
(NOTE... I found amongst MANY things, to enable the 'Drop-Down' Terminal, which is absolutely fantastic, instead of relying on a 'Windowed' Menu option!!).

My only (yet!) 'beef', as a lifetime MS-Windows user, are simple & seemingly logical file/app Naming conventions!!!  For instance...  Instead of a seemingly logical
name like 'Notepad' (in Windows', MINE here is called 'Pluma' ??  It's not exactly 'suggestive' of what it does, but WOW is it powerful!!!  Too much to explain here,
but it is more like 'Sublime' text for Windows, but better ...
And the major 'File-Manager' app called... 'Caja'  here !!   etc etc...   

I intend to get into a few specific  common 'terminal' commands soon, however I will suffice for NOW by stating that this/my initial integration into 'Unix' based
systems has been VERY positive so far!!, and I;m starting to understand WHY people may/would transfer their life's needs to a totally different Operating
system, for which I am becoming grateful !!!  Virtually NO concern about such 'Viruses' etc, , constantly/immediately updated, virtually ANY type of 'APP' that
you want these days is available & open source... I'll stop here!!   

Suffice to say, that I was/am impressed!!!!  B.T.W. ... I place a LOT of the presently flawless/fast integration via VirtualBox, by allocating (my system has it
available!) plenty of RAM, HDD availability, and offering at least 3 CPU's (out of a total of for it's use... 
Terminal Commands is a WHOLE new/different issue!!!!  I would like to discuss that SHORTLY !!!   

[rsjsouza]

Congratulations in going on this path. Linux has quite a few interesting applications and utilities that sometimes allow mimicking Windows but most of the times will require a learning curve. Also, the use of command line is more prominent but the syntax of a lot of commands haven't changed in decades - for the ones that are different, the internet helps a lot.

I am personally bound to Windows due to some specific applications, but I also plan to sandbox them on a VmWare and hope to not lose too much performance in the process. 

[themadhippy]

and be greeted by a myriad of driver issues

ive had the opposite experience,install windows and it cant use the network port without a driver (would you like to connect to a network to locate the driver? ) however linux just worked,no drivers needed

[rsjsouza]

That is true for a mainstream and/or older computer. If you have a newer platform (tablet PC, super new laptop) then the device driver issues start to appear. Also, as blueskull mentioned, specific functions are either poorly implemented or not well supported. Regardless, this is a far cry from the days of yore where to setup anything other than standard VGA display was a nightmare.

I am typing this in a former Chromebook (Acer C720) that is quite the specialized/non-standard machine, but it is old enough that all its kinks were solved in the process of removing the former Chrome OS (not supported anymore by Google) and replacing it with a Q4OS (a lightweight Debian). All this is running on its original 16GB of SSD and 2GB of RAM.

[themadhippy]

But how is this  a linux problem?more like  lazy hardware manufacturers who cant be arsed to provide drivers,If you bought  new hardware  for  a windows machine that didn't run would you be shouting at microsoft?

[RoGeorge]

Welcome!   

[Fred27]

It's definitely worth being comfortable and familiar with both Windows and Linux. There are plenty of people who seem to take pride in rejecting one or the other. The only person losing out in that situation is themselves.

[Benta]

Wait until you installed it on physical machine and be greeted by a myriad of driver issues, worse on laptops with latest hardware.

This may be true if you try to spin your own.
But Ubuntu/Lubuntu etc. just work out of the box. The exception being nVidia drivers (who insist on being proprietary.

[Monkeh]

But how is this  a linux problem?more like  lazy hardware manufacturers who cant be arsed to provide drivers,If you bought  new hardware  for  a windows machine that didn't run would you be shouting at microsoft?

Well I can't blame Intel can I, as if I have an option.

It's their buggy hardware and their staff writing the drivers..

[PKTKS]

But how is this  a linux problem?more like  lazy hardware manufacturers who cant be arsed to provide drivers,If you bought  new hardware  for  a windows machine that didn't run would you be shouting at microsoft?

Well I can't blame Intel can I, as if I have an option.

WE DON'T ...  (have any option)

It is a whole buzz model made to launch "new modern" stuff at
an insane (totally insane) rate of incompatible obsolete things.

every 15 days or so a "new modern"  piece of stuff appears
so a new hardware should be bought and a new 'release' or version
of some "partner" OS should be licensed..

This thing caused me a lot of prejudice already in 90s and 00s
mostly..  Since I replaced the OS part with open source drivers
and software things started to work far better..

The problem is not keeping the invested money on hadware
working ... but how to make all that crappy new garbage
they release every 15 days to work... with the good stable stuff

Changing the whole hardware asset base every 4m or 6m
is ... let's  just say unprintable..

Since  the 00s I got rid of these greedy cash seekers corps which
not by chance  release buggy  software and crappy hardware.

They got rich ..  just see the numbs.

Not surprised they are steering  whole *NIX thing to match
almost identical look and behave like the old crappy ones..
In time the very same buzz will be placed on top..

Paul

[bd139]

Wait until you installed it on physical machine and be greeted by a myriad of driver issues, worse on laptops with latest hardware.

Even the safest bet (say, Intel CPU with no discrete GPU) is not safe. The latest Linux 5.11 and Mesa 21.1 has issues driving a rotated display on Intel Iris iGPU with vertical sync enabled.

With enough commitment and time, it can be largely solved, but you just have to think the *nix way and keep constantly tinkering.

This is incidentally why I use a Mac or Windows to do my Linux stuff on. It's the hardware support that's a PITA. Try Linux with a 4k display with fractional scaling - total shit show.

Incidentally most of the problems are NOTHING to do with the hardware manufacturers or the Kernel. It's the freedesktop.org project, world reinventers and the desktop environments which provide the kicks in the balls. Oh plus input management. The entire display manager input situation is a shit show as well.

[DiTBho]

NetBSD and OpenBSD are even worse.
And on Haiku and Minix 3 the support is rather zero

[bd139]

Actually the power management on OpenBSD is better than anything they've mustered on Linux so far...

[PKTKS]

This is incidentally why I use a Mac or Windows to do my Linux stuff on. It's the hardware support that's a PITA. Try Linux with a 4k display with fractional scaling - total shit show.
(..)

What to expect... ?

Fabs like NV and AMD (although AMD has an "open" stuff)  do not
release their soft to be recompiled nor they provide specs..

They release "new"  graphic things every 15 days ..
in which more likely there should be nothing really new besides
the requirement of new firmware for a design variation..

Falling the pitfall of the new gizmos is a dead end..
You stick with the closed source OS and very short lived drivers..

A new  OS "release" will soon require you again all new stuff..

otherwise you are "running obsolete deprecated OLD..."  shit..

go figure
Paul

[bd139]

No that's nothing to do with the issue.

The issue is it's not interesting fixing the thousand paper cuts when you can spend that time writing large swathes of new bugs and marketing features. And it's impossible getting anyone to fix anything or even fixing it yourself (I have tried both numerous times).

The problem with Linux is quality i.e. it lacks it. Even compared to windows.

High DPI features don't work because no one has sat down and fixed them properly. And then there's a multitude of UI toolkits all held together with tape and string. I have looked, I have understood. It's a shit show underneath all that.

Even on the server side it's getting terrible with the rube goldberg machine of systemd.

[james_s]

My only (yet!) 'beef', as a lifetime MS-Windows user, are simple & seemingly logical file/app Naming conventions!!!  For instance...  Instead of a seemingly logical
name like 'Notepad' (in Windows', MINE here is called 'Pluma' ??  It's not exactly 'suggestive' of what it does, but WOW is it powerful!!!  Too much to explain here,
but it is more like 'Sublime' text for Windows, but better ...
And the major 'File-Manager' app called... 'Caja'  here !!   etc etc...   

This is one of my pet peeves about FOSS as well. A lot of the names are meaningless, or just embarrassingly stupid. GIMP, WINE, BURP, all the KDE related stuff that starts with the letter K, and all that stuff you've noticed. At best they are non descriptive, at worse they just sound stupid and in many cases it undermines the quality of the overall product. It's like giving your kid a "clever" name, it may seem funny and cute at the time but it's going to follow them around for life and cause them troubles.

[Karel]

No problems here with drivers.

But my notebook is a Dell XPS 13 that came with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled.

Just buy a notebook or workstation that is Linux certified by the manufacturer.

Here you go:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/new-xps-13-developer-edition/spd/xps-13-9310-laptop/ctox139w10p2c3000u

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/desktops-all-in-one-pcs/precision-3640-tower-workstation/spd/precision-3640-workstation/xctop3640us_vivp?view=configurations

[PKTKS]

No that's nothing to do with the issue.

The issue is it's not interesting fixing the thousand paper cuts when you can spend that time writing large swathes of new bugs and marketing features. And it's impossible getting anyone to fix anything or even fixing it yourself (I have tried both numerous times).

The problem with Linux is quality i.e. it lacks it. Even compared to windows.

High DPI features don't work because no one has sat down and fixed them properly. And then there's a multitude of UI toolkits all held together with tape and string. I have looked, I have understood. It's a shit show underneath all that.

Even on the server side it's getting terrible with the rube goldberg machine of systemd.

Like you said a while ago..   the problem w/ systemd itself is RH behind it.
The whole RH thing now is a vertical pig shit buz...

RH steered the whole thing to their only buzz solely ..
Unless they veer *NIX to look and behave like MS they can not
put their buz on top of it..  the whole buz.. so to offer a replacement

Compiled pack repository ... security as a service and proprietary solutions..
all their  stuff unfortunately entered other very good distros like Debian
and Arch.. mostly because nobody have the big pockets like them to do
things at that pace... to deal with so much hardware.

not do better .. because these distros now  impregnated with systemd_py
wayland gizmos are garbage for serious use...  they are "mainstream"..
goonies ready made..  point click and boom..  reinstall in case of trouble.

The sponsors "foundations" are no more than the same folks of ever..
MS RH IBM and other well known names..

they want to continue the very same cash model
unless they really steer linux to be the same shit as MS ...
they can say the .. see ya ?  how MS modern new competes with linux..

Then they can put videos comparing Win x Lin..
otherwise impossible

Open source coders out there would fix things readily even having
few resources.. but truth is nobody can compete at that rate of expense
they deprecate hardware....

In a matter of weeks they throw  incompatible things on our faces..
I can not see a better result for this.. 

Paul

[james_s]

Wait until you installed it on physical machine and be greeted by a myriad of driver issues, worse on laptops with latest hardware.

This may be true if you try to spin your own.
But Ubuntu/Lubuntu etc. just work out of the box. The exception being nVidia drivers (who insist on being proprietary.

That's been my experience. 20 years ago it was an issue, hardly anything would work right. In recent years though I've installed Linux on loads of different machines, desktops, laptops, whatever, and for the most part it just works, just as well as Windows, without all of the forced update nonsense.

Lately I've found myself more and more annoyed with systemd though. Seems like the guy who developed that should have got a job at Microsoft or Apple, the annoying updates installed, reboot required nonsense that pushed me away from Windows has been creeping into Linux. I hate rebooting, it's incredibly disruptive, I often go months without a reboot and have loads of different things open that I have on the back burner.

[PKTKS]

No problems here with drivers.

But my notebook is a Dell XPS 13 that came with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled.

Just buy a notebook or workstation that is Linux certified by the manufacturer.
(..)

Ohh  forgot to mention how these "badges" and certificates...
they managed to push play a selective role in the buz..

see ya?  CERTIFIED. 

Saw this movie way back ago.. same certificated shit of ever..
same players... same cash flow

Paul

[Bud]

This is one of my pet peeves about FOSS as well. A lot of the names are meaningless, or just embarrassingly stupid. GIMP, WINE, BURP, all the KDE related stuff that starts with the letter K, and all that stuff you've noticed. At best they are non descriptive, at worse they just sound stupid and in many cases it undermines the quality of the overall product. It's like giving your kid a "clever" name, it may seem funny and cute at the time but it's going to follow them around for life and cause them troubles.

theguardian.com:

In fact, the word ubuntu is just part of the Zulu phrase "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu"

 

[bd139]

Wait until you installed it on physical machine and be greeted by a myriad of driver issues, worse on laptops with latest hardware.

This may be true if you try to spin your own.
But Ubuntu/Lubuntu etc. just work out of the box. The exception being nVidia drivers (who insist on being proprietary.

That's been my experience. 20 years ago it was an issue, hardly anything would work right. In recent years though I've installed Linux on loads of different machines, desktops, laptops, whatever, and for the most part it just works, just as well as Windows, without all of the forced update nonsense.

Lately I've found myself more and more annoyed with systemd though. Seems like the guy who developed that should have got a job at Microsoft or Apple, the annoying updates installed, reboot required nonsense that pushed me away from Windows has been creeping into Linux. I hate rebooting, it's incredibly disruptive, I often go months without a reboot and have loads of different things open that I have on the back burner.

I think your workflow is broken rather than rebooting. We reboot/restart thousands of processes/machines every day here, all Linux. Going months without patching which is what you are suggesting is insane really in this day and age.

But yes they could do better with systemd. The point is that unix is supposed to be mostly stateless, apart from files. The new stuff is all stateful. Which is the same as windows.

[bd139]

No problems here with drivers.

But my notebook is a Dell XPS 13 that came with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled.

Just buy a notebook or workstation that is Linux certified by the manufacturer.

Here you go:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/new-xps-13-developer-edition/spd/xps-13-9310-laptop/ctox139w10p2c3000u

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/desktops-all-in-one-pcs/precision-3640-tower-workstation/spd/precision-3640-workstation/xctop3640us_vivp?view=configurations

Ubuntu certified T495s has power management issues on the supported LTS version after a month. Certifying a linux distribution doesn't mean they actually test it more than once...

[YurkshireLad]

No that's nothing to do with the issue.

The issue is it's not interesting fixing the thousand paper cuts when you can spend that time writing large swathes of new bugs and marketing features. And it's impossible getting anyone to fix anything or even fixing it yourself (I have tried both numerous times).

The problem with Linux is quality i.e. it lacks it. Even compared to windows.

High DPI features don't work because no one has sat down and fixed them properly. And then there's a multitude of UI toolkits all held together with tape and string. I have looked, I have understood. It's a shit show underneath all that.

Even on the server side it's getting terrible with the rube goldberg machine of systemd.

Putting the words windows and quality in the same sentence is hilarious. I've been using Microsoft products since the early days of DOS and quality is not a word I would use. I've had so many issues with windows, including version 10. It's a bloated mess of legacy software and it's a miracle it can work as well as it does.

[james_s]

I think your workflow is broken rather than rebooting. We reboot/restart thousands of processes/machines every day here, all Linux. Going months without patching which is what you are suggesting is insane really in this day and age.

But yes they could do better with systemd. The point is that unix is supposed to be mostly stateless, apart from files. The new stuff is all stateful. Which is the same as windows.

My point is that Linux has been going in that direction, whereas in the past it was almost never necessary. I would always update my Linux machines and unless it was a kernel update I wouldn't have to reboot. Now I have multiple machines that say "Reboot required" every time I log in, although at least they don't rudely force a reboot and the resulting data loss if I'm not around to tell it to shut up and remind me later.

Insane or not, I turned off Windows update back around 2016 and have not patched my Win7 machines since then, so far so good and so many fewer problems than I had before. I do keep my browser up to date though, and I use adblock and noscript religiously, and these machines are all behind a NAT firewall and not directly exposed to the outside world. For all the hysteria about patching, on the average desktop/laptop the user is by far the most exploitable vector. For a server that is exposed, keeping everything patched up is obviously a high priority.