Linux geeks unite

[nwm]

I do use Linux Mint for many years now, mostly as a parallel installation with any kind of WIN, especially on older PCs it is a big plus.

The only thing i can't do as i like is the tax declaration and some games. All office stuff is done with Linux.

Actually, it used to not be so great, but over the years - appz like Wine and Play On Linux have gotten pretty decent at running Windows programs under Linux, and even better if you actually have a copy of Windows you can copy some files from. But Yes - there is still some that won't work like that - but if you really need it, you could still save some hassle, by installing Windows as a guest OS using Virtual Box (or similar app).
I personally have not done it that way, but have talked to quite a few that have.
There is another open source OS meant to be a sort of Windows clone, but can actually (natively) use a Linux filesystem, I have done minimal experimenting with it, but it seems to be decent... While it is an actual OS - I have not been able to to just install it as a main OS, but works fine as a Guest OS.
It is called ReactOS - Maybe give it a try?

 

[winterheart01]

It's gotten so crazy at work with Linux lately that we make our own self hosted github runners (based on github's runner-image repository) and our workflows contain a crazy mixture of bash and powershell mixed into each other (I didn't even know this was possible)
So now we mainly use Ubuntu Server and Red hat Enterprise Linux

 

[nwm]

It's gotten so crazy at work with Linux lately that we make our own self hosted github runners (based on github's runner-image repository) and our workflows contain a crazy mixture of bash and powershell mixed into each other (I didn't even know this was possible)
So now we mainly use Ubuntu Server and Red hat Enterprise Linux

Sounds interesting.

 

[blaincorrous]

The only time I fiddle with Linux is when I’m playing with my RetroPie rig. I agree Linux has its uses, but if it were more prolific with the end user market, I’m convinced it would start to look more like Windows or Mac.

We all come by who we are honestly. Operating systems are no different.

 

[StoneCrab]

Arch linux since 2018. Installed it (manually) on my new build as a test before installing Windows. I never got to installing the Windows. I just kept adding whatever programs/packages I needed to get the functionality I need. I was on that first install until a couple months ago when I upgraded my boot drive and decided to make a script to "fresh" install all my packages and copy the configurations I needed + move my home folder to an encrypted partition as is. I think I've only managed to make my system unbootable once, and that was due to a GRUB update messing up some EFI systems due to configuration incompatibility. Fixed by reinstalling GRUB from the liveUSB and manually modifying EFI boot entries. Apart from that, most problems have been easy and quick to troubleshoot and fix + usually the result of my own stupidity. I haven't had any GPU issues after switching to amd as the drivers are just simply better, while Nvidia ones are hot garbage(open source has bad performance and proprietary breaks some basic functionality and needs some tweaking).

I have a KVM Windows 10 system with it's own physical NVMe boot drive, dedicated USB controller, dedicated GPU, 4 cores and 16GB RAM to run any legacy programs like some DRMed windows games. Performance is practically identical to a similarly specced "non-VM" windows system, with the added benefit of having the video output as a regular window on my desktop(which I can fullscreen ofc). I use this rarely for anything but the odd game or weird software that needs direct hardware access etc. Games are a bit GPU limited due to me not being rich enough to afford an upgrade during the shortage and I'm also looking to upgrade my CPU/MoBo soon due to a severe lack of PCIe lanes after all those PCIe devices I've kept adding... CS:GO etc. on Steam work just fine on the linux host without the VM so it's not a priority. I also have a MacOS VM setup for troubleshooting issues on iDevices or when I need XCode for something. Just has no GPU acceleration so performance is not too great. Once you have this sort of KVM setup with passthroughs going on it opens up a lot of flexibility for testing stuff quickly without risk of screwing up everything.

I learned more about operating systems in the 6 months after I made the switch, than in my entire life before that. No regrets. My grandma has also been on arch linux since 2019. After I did that, phone calls regarding problems have reduced 95% and all initial problems were resolved over the phone by her using the command line with my instructions(installing new programs or changing a setting). At most I had 5 machines on arch at home, now only 3(desktop, laptop, NAS). Always Ubuntu/Debian at work on company machines though, due to potential (rare) upgrade/maintenance issues over time in more critical environments I can't fully control.

The skills I learned by making my initial leap of faith with my personal machine have turned out to be an invaluable resource to me career wise. Once you get used to a linux/unix/bash -style CLI and learn what makes these systems tick on all levels, you soon realize you can do many things others can't when fatal problems occur(looking at you, ubiquiti, cisco, ...). You could say that linux has been life changing for me in more ways than one.

I would recommend (arch) linux to anyone interested in learning about (modern) operating systems or programming.
I would recommend (a polished distro of) linux to anyone who use their computer for school, web browsing, email, text editing, casual gaming(Steam) or light AV/graphics work for home use. (This is the use-case I successfully deployed Kubuntu for at my company to save a few thousand $ on simple customer service endpoints nearing EOL)
I would definitely recommend linux to anyone who fits any of the above and hate how bloated and locked down windows has become after windows 7.
I would NOT recommend ARCH linux to anyone using linux in critical environments; use debian, fedora or ubuntu.
I would NOT recommend ANY linux to someone who doesn't have any motivation to learn new things and understand the technology they use.

 

[nwm]

The only time I fiddle with Linux is when I’m playing with my RetroPie rig. I agree Linux has its uses, but if it were more prolific with the end user market, I’m convinced it would start to look more like Windows or Mac.

We all come by who we are honestly. Operating systems are no different.

Not too sure on that one. Although there is already a desktop for Linux that give it a look and feel very similar to Window (KDE), but that is part of the deal with Linux - several desktops to pick from - and if your favorite distro does not come with your favorite desktop by default, it's really not that big of a deal to install it - and then either remove the original, or leave it, and then pick what desktop at the login screen.
It is true you can also have differant "shells" under Windows that allows for the same thing, but just try to find a nob-default one! (They are available, but not easy to find) But it is VERY easy to find different desktops for any distro of Linux - in fact there is usually a bunch that can be found right in the default repository of any distro.
Also a Linux filesystem is a lot more stable and secure than and of the Windows filesystems. As well as no "phoning home" every time you turn around, and not just checking for updates you don;t have yet!
And for me, a HUGE thing is being able to boot into the OS itself (NOT just install or repair mode) from a removable media - let;s see Windows do that without a lot of hassle, as well as actually work if booted from a computer other than the one it was made with.
I also would not even consider running a 24/7/365 server with Windows! Tryed it years ago, nothing but trouble - and fairly recently attempted to set one up for someone else, some of the same issues STILL. But the one I run on Linux - sure more of a pain to initially get it configured properly - but once that was done, no problem - don't even have to reboot except for some OS updates - even updates to the server software, no need to reboot - just stop and restart the server. (I self-host a web site [with a general discussion forum] and mail)

 

[TGGirlUK]

Not a dedicated Linux user, but I quite like it running as a subsystem for Windows. It works well: I use Windows when I need the GUI, but when I need something more, I just drop into a Unix shell

 

[ShippoFox]

I agree Linux has its uses, but if it were more prolific with the end user market, I’m convinced it would start to look more like Windows or Mac.

What? No. Please no. I guess looking like MacOS would be okay, maybe, but I don't have a lot of experience with Macs. So, I can't say for sure. I considered getting a Mac, just a little, but I built a PC instead.

 

[nwm]

I got an interesting project I am in the middle of, involving Linux right now.
Basically just a media file player, but a little more to it.
Started out with the live OS boot from Mint 19.0 (that version because once all the right stuff is installed, it actually DOES play unencrypted blu-ray disk images with java menus fine) Xfce desktop. - Desktop removed, and replaced with FluxBox, also using PCManFM for the file manager. Remove the OS installer (the point is a live boot), obviously install all the multi-media codecs - use the desktop manager that is buiult-in to PCManFM, Totally customized the FluxBox menu - any app outside of file manager and command terminal accessed under Applications from PCManFM (and moved some stuff to different/more categories than the default).
At the moment still trying to figure out what I can remove from it (already took out a good bit).
For sure planned is to be able to set screen resolution, timezone, and if hardware clock is set to local or utc time. (Programs to do that already written - I used them on a customized GParted live boot, I doubt the code will have to change any, and if so, not much) from boot parameters.
Possibly create some sort of a menu program that would allow selecting a media file, and have it open that file with vlc in full screen mode, and look for the menu data, and media files in the /cdrom folder (so it can be changed without having to unpack and repack filesystem.squashfs).
And the idea is to boot it from a thumb drive, external hard drive, partition on internal hard drive, ex., NOT a actual optical disk (image). - Or perhaps the media files on a separate NTFS partition (so they could also be played with media plays built in to smart TVs)
Also had the thought of adding a optical disk ripper, encoder, and video editor, but likely those will end up being separate projects.

 

[winterheart01]

well the past week i've been doing nothing but patching up linux VM's, installing our fgov 's CA certificates into the ca-certificates truststore, greating github workflows that run az cli bash to create resources, get tokens, etc and then call pwsh (which is not the same shell as PowerShell btw) , pwsh is the Linux version Powershell core, we need it to call azureAD to create AzureAD groups if not exists, create access packages if not exists, create PIM role assignments if not exists etc etc.
a weird mixup of bash and powershell for sure, also been tuning up the latest build of microsoft's github runner that runs on ubuntu 22.04 jammy, they really need to work on some build issues, thanks to our premium support they already relayed some bug fixes to the actions/runner-images repository for us but dang, why overwrite libunixodbc2 twice??

anyhoo, I'm long gone from using linux for desktop, I never liked the speed of X11 and once when I went to FOSS they showcased X11 using the framebufffer which allowed for amazing rendering speeds without garbage artifacts when quickly wiggling a window around but I never heard of it again, perhaps they met too many problems, but headless linux = truly fast. To be honest, RHEL might be the enterprise preference but I preferred gentoo (back when it was stable) because for some reason it was much faster, I guess RHEL and fedora run more background services that you don't always need and the kernel is too big (as opposed to the gentoo kernel which only includes what you like)
I miss those days though

 

[ShippoFox]

There's Wayland, but I don't know how ready it is. I haven't given it a serious try. X11 has been fine for me.

 

[nwm]

Just confirmed my codecs and the BluRay libraries are working perfectly.
Had been working in Virtual box, and while it would have been easy to put a few media files on a thumb drive, and mount that on the live guest boot, no such luck for a BLuRay image - no thumb drive large enough to hold it, and creating an optical disk image just seemed like more hassle than it was worth, given I need the actual files on the internal hard drive right now anyway (and sure did not want to play with folder sharing when the idea is a live boot). SO finally, a short time ago made a bootable thumb drive with what I got so far, and used files, and the files from that BluRay already on the internal hard drive, to do a true test. And it all worked EXACTLY as I expected it to.

 

[LittleBoyCuddles]

I believe in the FSF / GNU philosophies etc but Linux will IMHO never fulfill those philosophies in the form of an accessible deliverable for the masses. Whenever I have tried to use Linux it has been nothing but pain, all the major distros, multiple machines running different hardware, team red, team blue, team green.

If the hammer is the only tool you have then every problem looks like a nail. The terminal is the hammer and everything breaks all the time.

The desktop experience has also somehow managed to completely regress since the late 90's / early naughties, compare KDE of those times to KDE now. They tore out everything and dumbed it down even though KDE distros ship on a Linux foundation primarily that is based on an overly complex UNIX mess that still relies on the terminal, but now the lack of GUI forces you to do even more in the CLI.

Such a shame. Linux had promise but it has failed to realise it's potential by moving from a hobbyist system to something useful on the desktop for normal people who don't want to read books and entire wikis to just use the damn thing. Mac OS and even Windows to some extent are very robust with self healing and zero config properties where as Linux just blows itself up.

Linux should look to what Mac OS has done and borrow some of those ideas, and even try to exceed it, but I honestly cannot see that happening. IMHO Linux may rule the internet but on the desktop it peaked a long time ago.

 

[PaigeCherubiel]

There's a user here with the Linux penguin as their avatar.

Ages ago I was pretty fluent in VAX DCL, and tried to install FreeBSD on a 1st gen Pentium. I kept getting a disk controller errror. What I thought I was going to do with I've forgotten. But I haven't used anything but Windows. for maybe 15 years.

 

[ShippoFox]

There's a user here with the Linux penguin as their avatar.

Ages ago I was pretty fluent in VAX DCL, and tried to install FreeBSD on a 1st gen Pentium. I kept getting a disk controller errror. What I thought I was going to do with I've forgotten. But I haven't used anything but Windows. for maybe 15 years.

Linux is so much easier and better now (Not that people don't run into problems sometimes). I would have never, ever switched to Linux 15 years ago. The main problem was that you could barely play any games. And I did experiment with installing it a few times back then, but I ran into big trouble and gave up. I was worried because of my past experiences, but it's good now, and I'm not looking back. And I've discovered things I like that don't/barely exist on windows. I'm not sure why people have so many problems with Linux. Two-ish years now and I have never broken anything beyond recovery. I even have Linux on my cheap laptops, one of them eight years old or so. How are people breaking Linux so easily?

I'm not persuasive, so I've never managed to convince a single person to switch away from Windows (as far as I know). But I can't stand some of the basic things about Windows anymore. Windows almost feels like a prison for a PC. I guess windows is just easier for people in general (even if several things about Linux are actually easier.) And I guess that's okay. It works for them.

I haven't really tried FreeBSD though.

 

[HappyCamper]

Try "Linux Mint" with the Mate Desktop,,, I have been using Mint for almost 23 Years for both personal and professional, and have used Linux to recover countless window machines, Did you ever wonder why NASA uses linux for there main computers on there ship's? not the laptops that they use but the main systems.

 

[LittleBoyCuddles]

How are people breaking Linux so easily?

Clicking the update button.

Did you ever see the LTT review series of Linux? Linus Sebastian tried installing Steam and it bricked his desktop LOL.

 

[ShippoFox]

Clicking the update button.

Did you ever see the LTT review series of Linux? Linus Sebastian tried installing Steam and it bricked his desktop LOL.

I guess that is a good point. I did consider posting that! It could be a big problem for some people, I have to admit that. I could probably have recovered from what he did, but that's just me. maybe I should start Shippo's Tech Tips.... I am not being serious whatsoever, it's too much trouble and I don't want that much attention. I heard they took a while to fix that glitch too. I don't know why.

There was also some kind of grub glitch a year or so ago that caused systems to not boot properly. I didn't encounter it though. Maybe I just didn't update before it was fixed.

I have known people who have had windows update break things, but I guess it's not as common. Win11 also had some big performance problems when it was first released.

 

[nwm]

Well, could not use FluxBix like I really wanted to (ended up missing too much - I know it can be done, but while I have modified other existing live boots before - first time attempting to completely make my own - it does work, but not totally the look and feel I wanted - but for sure useful.
I do NOT have it available for DL yet due to still writing the documentation for it. (I WANT them to be "idiot proof) - but it eotkd fine, and once the docs are done and proofread, it will be offered as a download on my server (btw getting a 5x upgrade on speed (both DL and UL) starting Fri, and at the same price I been paying for service so...
One thing I did not expect is a forum basically dead for some time - but once that documentation is done, and I can have ar akk 0. Will be using other served th.
But once that new sped (Equipment to sue ot ariving Friday)

 

[initramfs]

Where do I pick up my ADISC "Linux Sysadmin" badge?