Linux geeks unite

[Cottontail]

As I've shared before, Linux (specifically RedHat 3.03 in 1996) saved me from having to spend countless nights in my engineering school's sweltering X terminal lab, where tens of students at a time competed for scant CPU resources on a then-ancient HP 9000-series server. There was an actual pool thermometer on the wall, and the needle was always somewhere in the mid 80's (F). It was a literal computing Hell.

So I'm very grateful.

These days, most of my "Linux" time is spent in front of my Android TV. I work from home, and my job implies Windows (which I run in a vm on my Mac).

Sorry ADISC, I don't need anyone in my life anymore. I have met Python and PiP. Real people are useless now

A package for everything, truly. I live in a remote area and share a well with nine other houses. We had a bad water leak a few years ago that spooked everybody, and I volunteered to build a system for monitoring water usage and notifying everybody when certain thresholds were met/exceeded. With what seemed like some lofty goals and without any certain implementation in mind, I bought a Raspberry Pi and started playing with Python. Whole thing, including HTTP integration with our metering solution, email and text message alerts, X10 control of various equipment in the well shack, and auto-update from Github added up to a whopping five pages of sparse code. Damn. Any other approach would've been a massive PITA by comparison.

 

[Mickey]

I use Ubuntu for my linux needs usually. I use it for home and work. I admit though to still using windows for most real applications. With windows 11 not supporting my pc, I might have to move it to linux at some point.

 

[BoundCoder]

we used to run Jira on premise and went to cloud for some odd reason.

Jira is really pushing their cloud based model (like basically everyone else). They basically stopped selling licenses for their cheaper server versions in 2021, and I think 2024 is the date when it goes EOL and won't be supported. Now if you want to self host you need to spring for their data center version, which is hella expensive even by enterprise standards.
Basically if your not a huge company, your options are move to cloud or move off Jira.
I only know this because it all went down right around when we were looking to change up our issue tracking at work and Jira /was/ the leading contender.

 

[whip]

I was curious about linux in 2004, but started using it as a daily driver since 2006. It's mostly useful for tinkering and hacking about.

I was interested in networking and fire walling and there wasn't really any decent window tools out there. Everything was Linux based. So that's why I went down that avenue.

I use it for development these days. But at work I still have to use windows because we still use a lot of engineering tools that are windows only supported. And we kind of vendor locked ourselves into them years ago, unless we want to pool in months of work to migrate off to another system. We pay licensing for a compiler in the region of 10K/year! Wouldn't it be nice if we could just use GCC?

 

[GabeG30]

I tried Linux specifically zorin os and had to wipe and reinstall several times but I always find myself going back to windows. I want to switch but feel like I can't not due to what I do on my computer but because everything I have tried to do on Linux is very hard like I tried to change the file manager on zorin to nemo and tried to remove whatever the default was I completely broke my install and no internet article would tell me how to fix it they said to access terminal but you can't from grub and the commands did not work. sorry just venting

 

[LittleBabyJake]

whoops, went a litlle off track but you get the idea for a lot of things cloud is good, as in, faster, but mixing cloud and on premise makes it a pain, plus if you work with sensitive data you have to keep security in mind and cloud may not always be a juristically allowed option (this is still a hot topic with us)

I actually love that you went into detail. Your employee is a lot bigger than mine but I'd say that the largest tech company in the Benelux also counts.

That said, your whole experience with Github Actions in Cloud vs Jenkins on Premise does not suprise me one bit. We also kept for that specific reason Jenkins on premise. I do think though having Jenkins on premise (as a developer) is a treat Blazing fast pipelines that leave a trail of smoke behind them hehe.

Azure Kubernetes is great. I do however understand where you are coming from. Kubernetes does indeed have a lot of overhead. However, things are not as monolithic as a VM. That's the whole point. It has a very steep learning curve if you've never been introduced to some of the core concepts though. That's so relatable. I've also experienced the Azure networking layer to be slow. It's a hot mess I think. Kubernetes hosted @ Google still remains superior to any other provider if you ask me. Though I understand that with a company that large you can't just switch.

Nothing beats Jira. There is also no replacement for Jira. It is also very difficult to prove to someone why all the integrations Jira has will save a lot of time as most integrations do a small thing well and save little bits of time. Those resources though oef!

 

[LittleBabyJake]

damn, i forgot to reply on this one ;D
I'm a performance freak, hence I used Linux at home so much, but when it comes to games windows has been much better (not because of windows but because the games were optimized for windows and directx).
I really looked for Linux native games and actually had 2, Loki and descent 3.
but after trying to run Doom 3 in wine with failure and crashes I just gave up and ran windows.
I did disable every unnecessary feature on windows to improve performance though. (still do but they make it harder by tight coupling things, which I don't understand because they teach developers that loose coupling of your code and modules is the future of flexible code.

Nvidia has indeed always been supported much better than ATI/AMD in Linux, I once had a laptop from work and it had an ATI chip, Ubuntu crashed on it lol. and I wasn't even trying to run a game, just the desktop xD

Nvidia actually really sucks on Linux if you ask me. They have their proprietary driver that when installing you have to jump through hoops like a monkey. AMD has been rock solid. Their videocards are really running well under Linux. No suprise there I guess.

AMD's videocards are so good at the moment that my next videocard is going to be an AMD to be honest. I'm currently running a 1080Ti and it is serving me well, but dang have I had some moments with setting it up Once setup though everything has been swell.

 

[LittleBabyJake]

I used to be a big linux user when I was a teenager in the late 2000s. I used the hell out of Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10. I loved playing around with it and learning how to compile and install source code into a working "package" back when package managers were very hit or miss.

That has changed. Ubuntu has sailed into safe waters. I do know what you mean. Damn! 7.x that's a while back. I started with 13.x I think. There is no need anymore to build packages unless you really try to do something truly tropical.

I also made a slackware 14 media server years ago with PS3 media server, so I could stream music and videos on my blu-ray player and my playstation 3. It involved me learning how to install tmux and how to setup telnet, so I could have remote terminal access, so I could keep the computer unhooked from any monitor and just have the computer sitting around looking pretty.

Yes! I did this as well! Though mine was made from Ubuntu at the time and was installed on my main machine just so I could share some music or movie straight from PC

I haven't used Linux in professional settings, just for personal use. However, like Winterheart, my use of Linux as my "daily driver" desktop just didn't work anymore when I got into PC gaming. Linux is still great for in-home server needs, but gaming puts a huge damper on using a linux distro for daily desktop use.

Granted, Wine has come a long way in the past decade, but it's still far from perfect. Especially if the games you play use anticheat software that just doesn't work well with wine.

Proton my friend. If you haven't tried yet than it might be a great time to try again. I use it via Lutris and Steam. They both apply the same tricks but with different configurations. Steam works 95% of the time, Lutris works for that other 5%. Ow, don't mind that I didn't rename that installer to the game name! What can I say, I'm kinda lazy like that.

 

[LittleBabyJake]

I tried Linux specifically zorin os and had to wipe and reinstall several times but I always find myself going back to windows. I want to switch but feel like I can't not due to what I do on my computer but because everything I have tried to do on Linux is very hard like I tried to change the file manager on zorin to nemo and tried to remove whatever the default was I completely broke my install and no internet article would tell me how to fix it they said to access terminal but you can't from grub and the commands did not work. sorry just venting

It's a very valid experience. That's why I most of the time do not recommend people to switch to Linux to be honest. My best recommendation is to buddy up with someone that has some experience to help you out with the "I think I broke something" or "I have no clue what's next" kind of problems. Trust me. Been there, done that.

 

[GabeG30]

It's a very valid experience. That's why I most of the time do not recommend people to switch to Linux to be honest. My best recommendation is to buddy up with someone that has some experience to help you out with the "I think I broke something" or "I have no clue what's next" kind of problems. Trust me. Been there, done that.

Thanks for your help the only issue is I don't really know anybody IRL who knows Linux everybody so if i run into trouble I can't really ask the people I know uses windows or mac. But maybe I will give Linux another chance.

 

[friendlyArm]

Sorry for the trolling. This is what my computer displays when I am not on ADISC. I forgot : what are graphic cards about ?

 

[LittleBabyJake]

Sorry for the trolling. This is what my computer displays when I am not on ADISC. I forgot : what are graphic cards about ?

and there I use Musescore to even edit/struggle one sheet of music

 

[LittleBabyJake]

Jira is really pushing their cloud based model (like basically everyone else). They basically stopped selling licenses for their cheaper server versions in 2021, and I think 2024 is the date when it goes EOL and won't be supported. Now if you want to self host you need to spring for their data center version, which is hella expensive even by enterprise standards.
Basically if your not a huge company, your options are move to cloud or move off Jira.
I only know this because it all went down right around when we were looking to change up our issue tracking at work and Jira /was/ the leading contender.

Ow yea! Now I remember. It was going EOL. For us it really wasn't an option. I know it costs the company a fortune but it beats on-boarding every client onto new software and migrating the biggest blob of project data I've ever seen in a Jira instance. Whilst also getting every team to a new way of working with it.

 

[friendlyArm]

Don't be ashamed : Musescore is free, but it is outstandingly efficient. And there is an amazing community.
The only problem with musescore is the sound libraries (professional ones are made of millions of samples, and it has a cost !), and also wannabee authors that are not so great. But I can confirm : I regularly check if someone has done this or that on musescore, just to avoid the painfull note to note copy.

Indeed, MuseScore is a brilliant example of what open-source software can bring to mankind !

 

[Chimera]

That has changed. Ubuntu has sailed into safe waters. I do know what you mean. Damn! 7.x that's a while back. I started with 13.x I think. There is no need anymore to build packages unless you really try to do something truly tropical.



Yes! I did this as well! Though mine was made from Ubuntu at the time and was installed on my main machine just so I could share some music or movie straight from PC



Proton my friend. If you haven't tried yet than it might be a great time to try again. I use it via Lutris and Steam. They both apply the same tricks but with different configurations. Steam works 95% of the time, Lutris works for that other 5%. Ow, don't mind that I didn't rename that installer to the game name! What can I say, I'm kinda lazy like that.

View attachment 80129

The package manager back then worked fine for the most part, but some packages were often not updated on the package manager, so apt-get upgrade-all did not get you the upgrades you wanted. I had trouble on v. 7.04 where the pulseaudio version it came with didn't work right, only the left side speaker worked on my laptop at the time. I had to uninstall it and download the latest beta version of pulseaudio and compile/install it from the source code. It was tough understanding package dependencies back then, but thankfully I figured it out after hours of learning. But it worked, both speakers were finally working and I was happy. Linux drivers used to really suck in 2007 lol, getting my wifi to work was another ordeal entirely. As well as getting XGL to work with my integrated ATI gpu, so I could play around with Beryl

I'm aware of proton, it is pretty much based on Wine, but much better. But again, it still struggles with games that use anticheat software... like easy anticheat for fortnite or vanguard anticheat for valorant). And my biggest worry is that even if I got it working, I might get permanently banned because I'm mistaken for a cheater when I'm just trying to play a game under Linux, lol. Imagine that!

 

[BoundCoder]

Nothing beats Jira. There is also no replacement for Jira. It is also very difficult to prove to someone why all the integrations Jira has will save a lot of time as most integrations do a small thing well and save little bits of time. Those resources though oef!

*Old school build guy enters the room
I recognize I'm approaching crusty grey beard, but I do miss when you'd build up your system with a small stack of tools you picked out and understood. Now I feel like we buy a bunch of random bits and pieces that all claim to work with each other automatically, spend a few months getting them to /actually/ work with one another, eventually hit a "good enough" point and have a system that works good-enough-I-guess but that no one person really fully understands or trusts. I can download the official monolithic gitlab images and have a full gitlab based setup running in a day. It'll use like 64G or ram and have 100 services running inside that container that I have no sweet clue what they are doing, if they are doing it correctly, and if they pose a security risk.. but for all intents and purposes it'll work. Would take me a week to stand up a basic Jenkins + Git or SVN + Some basic issue tracker like Mantis or Redmine, wouldn't be nearly as powerful but I'd understand it fully!
The space around containerization and cloud tech is neat and I do understand why it is a thing, how we got here, and why it isn't going away. In principle (and practice to be honest) it absolutely makes sense and is usually better and cheaper, but I miss the old ways

 

[LittleBabyJake]

*Old school build guy enters the room
I recognize I'm approaching crusty grey beard, but I do miss when you'd build up your system with a small stack of tools you picked out and understood. Now I feel like we buy a bunch of random bits and pieces that all claim to work with each other automatically, spend a few months getting them to /actually/ work with one another, eventually hit a "good enough" point and have a system that works good-enough-I-guess but that no one person really fully understands or trusts. I can download the official monolithic gitlab images and have a full gitlab based setup running in a day. It'll use like 64G or ram and have 100 services running inside that container that I have no sweet clue what they are doing, if they are doing it correctly, and if they pose a security risk.. but for all intents and purposes it'll work. Would take me a week to stand up a basic Jenkins + Git or SVN + Some basic issue tracker like Mantis or Redmine, wouldn't be nearly as powerful but I'd understand it fully!
The space around containerization and cloud tech is neat and I do understand why it is a thing, how we got here, and why it isn't going away. In principle (and practice to be honest) it absolutely makes sense and is usually better and cheaper, but I miss the old ways

I understand my friend. That said, one is not better than the other either. Monolithic strategy is still a very viable thing. I'd say whenever you are not pushing around huge amounts of data monolithic is still the way to go. As for development it just makes sense to go the docker route and containerize already to eliminate "works on my machine" and per-machine configuration when development machines aren't running on images. Which as it happens in a modern setting a lot as most people have choice of machine and choice of operating system depending on their specialty.

So, that makes for an overlap.

 

[ShippoFox]

i3, nice! I use Xfce. It's my goto DE. All the features and customizablity I want whilst still being super snappy.

I started with KDE, which is beautiful. I had some issues, then went for the overkill fix of switching to xfce (it really wasn't necessary, but I wasn't used to things yet). I used that for a few months, then I decided to look into why people liked tiling window manager so much. Now I'm just too used to it. I hate Windows & I miss all the i3 features lots and lots anytime I try to use gnome, xfce, kde, etc. I would get rid of Windows completely if I didn't rarely need it for a thing once every few months or so. (more often if I decide to play a game that lacks anticheat support garbage) But... it's no big deal to have Windows on a small 128gb SDD, plus a little parition on another drive for games. I would not say I am boycotting Microsoft, but I don't love them, and I sometimes try to avoid MS stuff. I wish Linux were in a place where everyone could adopt it.

 

[winterheart01]

Nvidia actually really sucks on Linux if you ask me. They have their proprietary driver that when installing you have to jump through hoops like a monkey. AMD has been rock solid. Their videocards are really running well under Linux. No suprise there I guess.

AMD's videocards are so good at the moment that my next videocard is going to be an AMD to be honest. I'm currently running a 1080Ti and it is serving me well, but dang have I had some moments with setting it up Once setup though everything has been swell.

Well back in 2008 nvidia drivers for linux were great, the proprietary ones i mean.
I did hear complaints about later editions.
But my main grief is that most games are hardwired to nvidia cards or others to AMD cards, the Risen games are a prime example of having graphics bugs when you play it with the wrong card so to speak
the devs should use a more abstract layer that is card independent but that has a performance cost. though I thought directx and opengl already did this so I think it had to do with writing custom shaders specifically tuned for certain cards. The first Unreal game was a mess with that.

 

[Entity]

I started playing with Ubuntu as far back as 5.10. I have since then moved on to Linux Mint MATE when it became my daily driver. MATE sticks with the traditional desktop I'm used to so yeah a bit of a sucker there. When Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 that was the day I went full time on Linux and so far I haven't looked back yet. Unfortunately I'm a sucker for AMD hardware and I am not about to change that any time soon. I just deal with the lighting bug in Black Mesa that causes the flashlight to only kind-of work.