What Linux desktop (not for a hobby)? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 12:07:21 pm
content: If you have a choice what Linux desktop(not for a hobby)you would choose?1) Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation2) SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop3) CentOS4) Ubuntu*I have used CentOS to run Vivado many-many moons ago with mixed outcomes, and since then no penguins in my zoo. Honestly, I would prefer do not use Linux at all, but unfortunately (or fortunately) that's about to change. The system to get things done - stability, predictability and long term is way more important compare to latest UI themes or some experiment fancy stuff.*Ubuntu is less supportive in a vendor list, current option related to 18 LTS

author: tunk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 12:19:28 pm
content: It depends on what you are going to use it for.CentOS/RHEL has "stability, predictability and long term"(up to 10 years), but the availability of desktop softwareis a bit limited. If that's a concern, look at Ubuntu LTS.

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 12:33:04 pm
content: More details required. But usually hardened applications specifically suggest the correct OS, and version, RHEL is very popular in this space.

author: bill_c
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 04:32:34 pm
content: I have been using Ubuntu for the past 10 years and been happy with it, except I use Gnome desktop instead of Unity, but thats just my preference. Currently running 14.04, 16.04, and 8.04 on different machines. If you don't have a spare computer, try each distro in a virtual machine and see which one you like.

author: txNgineer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 06:48:47 pm
content: TL;DR = I use Linux Mint 17.3 with Cinnamon. Then run a Win7 virtual machine for the two remaining things that have no Linux equivalent (Visio & Excel Statistics).I started with Suse v4 back in the 1990's and stayed with them up to about v8. Then in 2005 I switched to Ubuntu Xfce as my daily machine and moved windows to a Virtualbox machine for the programs that would not run on Linux and did not have a good alternative.For the last 8 or so years I have been running Linux Mint with Cinnamon desktop. It is my main work from home machine and I had no problems interchanging files from the company office where I was required to run Windows. Libreoffice handled everything I threw at it.Yes Linux Mint is a heavyweight distro, but today's computers are so powerful that I never notice. Also, the Linux programs/applications have gotten so good and diverse they are way ahead of many Windows applications.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 11:09:36 pm
content: Scrap Ubuntu off the list and replace it with Linux Mint Cinnamon.

author: greenpossum
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 11:13:28 pm
content: Go with what the application suggests. When I used to manage workstations for designers using Cadence, we used CentOS/RHEL.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 11:23:53 pm
content: AFAIK Vivado should work on any of those, but it is guaranteed by Xilinx to work on Red Hat. Also, Red Hat is not free, you will need a payed subscription.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2020, 11:46:17 pm
content: The Linux Mint suggestion from others is a very good one.If I wanted to be using the latest versions of everything, I would go for Manjaro, but there is a cost. It is a rolling release based on Arch so you can find that an update breaks something and you have to fix it. If I was using Manjaro, I would definitely use a BTRFS or ZFS system drive so I can easily revert back to the system before the update. Not for an average user who just wants things to work.If I was doing a lot of programming, I would probably go for Pop!_OS Linux from System76 as it has fantastic support for smart tiling.I don't think I would go for Redhat, SUSE or Centos and I prefer Debian over Ubuntu.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 01:25:49 am
content: It depends what you are doing.In the mobile phone world, building Android probably works on any Linux distro with the correct packages installed, but the instructions and regular testing are on Ubuntu LTS 14.04 and 18.04 and Denian Testing.In the RISC-V world things are definitely the most tested and supported on Ubuntu LTS (18.04 is safe at this point), but instructions are given and probably up to date for Fedora/Centos/RHEL and Arch and MacOS.It's definitely my experience across a wide range of things you might find on github and decide to use that Ubuntu LTS is the most likely to Just Work.However in the chip making world with design, simulation, physical layout etc tools it is clear that Centos is usually the assumed distro.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 01:51:31 am
content: That always depends on what you need to do. I have been working as a professional user* with a several distros since late 2000s and I really find that Ubuntu/Debian have the best balance between support for applications and "support" from the internet due to its popularity.*Using code development IDEs and doing command line build for embedded ARM code

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 01:53:34 am
content: I run almost exclusively Ubuntu here and at my "day job". I have had Ubuntu systems stay up for over a year with daily use. I have run ubuntu as a WAN-facing web server, but am currently running a Debian install for that. That has run a number of times 180+ days before power failure or other reason to reboot. It has basically never crashed, even though hackers are constantly attacking the system.I run Protel 99 SE in a Virtual Box VM for EDA, and Xilinx iSE for FPGA design in the native Linux environment. And, I surf the web on it, too.Jon

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 03:17:39 am
content: It sounds like CentOS (which is basically Red Hat without the branding) would be the best supported for your app.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 03:25:39 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 19, 2020, 12:07:21 pm

author: Alyk
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 09:28:09 am
content: As a long time Linux user I have settled on the Thinkpad as the hardware of choice. To support that hardware I have found that Fedora is the best option for me as a workstation for general and academic use. The desktop I use is KDE as it seem very intuitive, responds well and offers all the basic features and applications I need.Added to the basic install I add VLC, Krusader - a superb file manager, Kile - a Latex editor and GIMP.In the Fedora world KDE is offered as a Spin, a variant on the standard desktop which is Gnome or Unity - not shure.The alternative Mint, or Cinnamon is ok as a desktop but these days I am less happy to go with the .deb based distros, even though I cut my Linux teeth on Debian slink.You did list RHEL or Centos - I am not sure how old their code base is but I would go Centos before Ubuntu.Welcome to choice offered by the move to Linux.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 11:06:13 am
content: I have used Linux Mint XFCE desktop for a while now and I find it has software readily available for it. It hasn't irritated me and it was an easy transition from Windows. I choose XFCE desktop because I have modest hardware and XFCE is considered easy on CPU and RAM and is an easy transition from Windows.If you need enterprise level support then Mint isn't what I would recommend. But it is a good first choice for new Linux users. Because it is very popular the problems are generally already found by someone else and if not then it is most likely something unique to your machine.Basically my advice is if you just want Linux as an OS that works and rely on the Linux community to sort out issues and updates then Linux Mint is a good choice. If you want to manage the software dependencies and stuff and in the process learn more about Linux then it is still a good choice but you'd probably not feel the need to ask.You have to pick one and based on your vague specs there isn't an obvious perfect choice. You have to pick one, every new Linux user does, and in the absence of a specific requirement you may as well start with one of the top 3 by popularity. None are perfect for everyone. You are free to change later when you know why you need to.OTOH if there is some esoteric software and/or hardware that you wish to use then make sure you choose a distro that is supported for that combo. In which case the decision is made for you. Skilled Linux users could probably shoehorn it into another distro but if you just want it to work you should pick the software/hardware first and then a distro that supports it.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 11:49:50 am
content: I voted "SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop" but actually I use OpenSuse Leap at work for hardware development.My colleagues use Linux Mint and Ubuntu (they are software developers though).

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 02:47:27 pm
content: Thank you for the suggestions.As mentioned above, these're only distros to consider due to apps/drivers vendors support.I'm not going to put on Don Quixote's boots and fight invisible enemies.All four in a scope and looks like will stay as is, so literally is not much difference for me.Also, desktop usage only, no plans to use on server-side

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 02:53:24 pm
content: Quote from: tunk on October 19, 2020, 12:19:28 pmQuote from: NiHaoMike on October 20, 2020, 03:17:39 amThought that RHELW (Self-Support) and CentOS are almost same (with some behind updates on CentOS), but I guess a devil hides in the details.For example, doesyum update --securityworks identically on both or CentOS didn't keep 'a security fix' label on packages?

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 02:57:12 pm
content: As linux noob, in the transition period from windows, and now I have dual boot drives and linux now occupied almost 50% of booting.Although I don't have any suggestion on which distro, just a suggestion, "IF" you have time, try them out on spare boot drive. I spent almost 3 months, trying various popular distros from fedora, ubuntu, open suse, manjaro, kubuntu, xbuntu and etc, and almost 1 week on every distro to get the feel, and ended up with Mint.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 03:23:39 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 20, 2020, 02:53:24 pmAFAIK there is no RHEL update possible without a payed subscription, security or otherwise. Red Hat is for those where productivity means more than a few hundreds a year per station. It is for the "rich" professionals.Second choice as in working for free and no big headache is Ubuntu LTS, IMO.LTS (Long Time Support) for Ubuntu has 5 years free support and upto 10 years support and security updates but only if you pay for those extra 5 years. You can buy support for Ubuntu for day one, too, if you want it, but you can go completly free for the first 5 years.Current Ubuntu LTS is version 20.04, not 18.04.

author: LateLesley
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 03:38:20 pm
content: Anther vote for Linux Mint.I use the cinnamon desktop variant, and find it reasonably ok. I have had niggles, partly because I tinker with stuff and break it. But I have found mint to be good at least as a daily driver. It's got all the basics covered, web/email, Libre Office, even Steam, and a wealth of apps you can add. You can add stuff not on the software manager, but thats when you start hitting the command line, and breaking stuff. Thats more to do with me being a linux "newbie" (I say that after using it a couple of years).It's solid at doing the basics, and the rest is improving all the time.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 07:48:26 pm
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on October 20, 2020, 03:23:39 pmTechnically 20.04, yes, but it's very very new. As the name suggests, it was released six months ago. My 18.04 LTS install just last week offered 20.04.1 as an automatic update (which I've refused for now).A lot of projects are still using 18.04 or even 16.04 as their "tested and supported" version.Android development supports 18.04 and 14.04 (!!) apparently having skipped 16.04. Maybe they will skip 20.04 also.It's called LTS because if what you have does what you need then you don't *have* to update to a newer version in order to get security and other critical fixes.You get kernel updates regardless, so running an old OS version on newer hardware isn't an issue. What you're keeping constant is the libraries and apps.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 09:16:58 pm
content: I have Kubuntu 20.04 LTS since 2019, when it was in development. Still have it, no problems so far, used as a daily desktop with all kind of stupid things installed. Can vouch for its stability. So far nothing broke.The only thing that bothers me is that I use it with a nVidia card, which still flickers or does video artifacts after waking up from standby. That nVidia card never worked flawless, no matter the version or the drivers. The embedded I7 video card works just fine.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 10:02:38 pm
content: Just this week, I switched from Ubuntu to Manjaro (based on Arch Linux). Recently, I've been having nothing but problems with NVIDIA graphics drivers on Ubuntu. After hours of troubleshooting and getting nowhere, I formatted and installed Manjaro and everything works flawlessly.I tried Manjaro a few years ago but there are few things I didn't like about it (overall, it was great). The latest version is much more polished and complete. The installation went smoothly and it performs really well.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2020, 11:30:11 pm
content: Never tried Manjaro, maybe I'll try it to see how it goes with my nVidia, thanks for the advice. I will be a little reluctant to switch to an Arch based distro, especially for a production PC, because I've heard too many tales about Arch being unstable, and things breaking after updates, not to say the hassle of installing and configuring an Arch vs. an Ubuntu.

author: ve7xen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 12:05:58 am
content: I am not a fan of RedHat/CentOS. They seem to make a lot of design decisions I don't like, and I find their admin tools cumbersome. Debian is a much 'cleaner' foundation. However, they are often the best-supported platform for top-tier commercial applications, and if that's the case for you, I would suck it up and use them.Of the options given, I think SuSE is the most polished for desktop use, especially if you consider the commerical support angle, but it is not often considered for commercial applications (or even open-source ones). Ubuntu is the most widely used, so you will get the most community support, and it is often the best supported platform for second-tier commercial applications and open-source solutions. Both Ubuntu and RedHat default to Gnome-based desktops, which I am not a fan of.Personally, I run Sabayon (a binarized Gentoo, basically) full time, but I really wouldn't recommend it for someone who's not already Linux-savvy and *definitely* not for random corporate users.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 04:59:40 am
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on October 20, 2020, 11:30:11 pmIf you want to use it, I would really recommend using btrfs to format the system drive and enable snapshots. Arch Linux regularly does updates that replaces parts of the installation with new different programs to do the same result. It does not always work as intended. Also Arch Linux keeps updating the Linux kernel and I have had to revert back to an older kernel when the new one would not boot. Six months later, I let the kernel update and it booted fine.With all versions of Linux, installing applications as flatpaks are a really good idea if it is available for the wanted application. Flatpaks are sandboxed version of the applications with all the correct dependencies built in. They mean you can run the latest versions of applications on an older incompatible version of Linux. Also upgrades to the distro should not break the flatpak applications in the future.https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Flatpakhttps://www.flatpak.orghttps://flathub.org/home

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 06:21:27 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on October 20, 2020, 10:02:38 pmMany people made the mistake to install Linux on windows-hardware.So, when deciding to switch to Linux, do it when it's time to replace the hardware and make surethere's absolutely nothing from Nvidia inside. Nvidia is to avoid at all costs when using Linux.I use AMD Radeon graphic cards all the time with the default opensource drivers and never had any trouble.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 08:30:05 am
content: Distro hopping because of broken drivers is kindaI assure that there is exactly nothing that Arch does to make NVIDIA work better than on whatever other distribution. They just ship the latest kernel, the latest xorg and the latest NVIDIA binaries. If that combo works, good for you, but tomorrow some new version of one or another will come out, and if it breaks your system, you will find yourself installing yet another distributionBetter to keep problematic packages on versions that work and block auto updates. Or download from the upstream if the distribution has no good version.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 09:57:41 am
content: How come Nvidia & Ubuntu part has a driver issue with all buzz around (CUDA,GPU,AI,Jetson etc) ?

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 10:06:48 am
content: I also use Manjaro. I am happy that NVIDIA-beta drivers for RTX3080 were available on launch day. I've been using it for 3 years, and never had a serious problem that prevented me from using my system. I did had to manually correct 2 packages at one time, partially because I don't update my system every week.(X)ubuntu was also very stable for me, and with XFCE very fast. However, I like having very up to date packages of e.g. ARM GCC or Kicad, which in my experience is easier to install and maintain on Manjaro.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 10:19:13 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 21, 2020, 09:57:41 amBecause Nvidia makes it hard to develop quality drivers by not releasing the necessary info (like hardware register descriptions and their functions etc.).AMD and Intel actively support opensource graphics driver development. Nvidia does not.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 10:29:51 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 21, 2020, 09:57:41 amnVidia has some proprietary standards that they don't want to disclose, therefore the only open drivers are from reverse engineering, which is either incomplete, too old, or used in a different way than intended by nVidia, so overall lower performance. Works reasonably OK, thought, just not top notch in performance and features.There is also a binary blob Linux driver maintained and released by nVidia, but for some reason it never worked flawless for me.On short, it's because nVidia's business model: everything closed and under NDA. I knew that, it was always like that, just that it happened that the available hardware in my desktop was nVidia.If you want Linux, the thumb rule is to avoid nVidia. nVidia on Linux is not completely broken, it will work with Linux, too, but with small nagging issues that will be annoying here and there.

author: MadTux
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 01:05:28 pm
content: Arch. Ubuntu is the M$ of Linux, bloated and slow. With Arch, you can only install what you really need and thereby get a relatively fast system with low memory usage. Currently use Mate Desktop, which is essentially the classic GTK3 Gnome desktop. Currently have about 500MB memory usage right after startup.Unfortuately Linux also gets fat and slow over the years, old VectorLinux light did run well on a Pentium 3, 128MB RAM Thinkpad.And stay away from anything Nvidia. I recently had the misfortune of installing Arch on a TP W530 with Quadro K2000. Absolutely sucked and since I use that laptop mostly for programming, (need good screen, keyboard and a nice CPU with decent memory), I disabled the Nvidia crap in BIOS and decided to use integrated Intel graphics.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 01:40:08 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 19, 2020, 12:07:21 pmThis is a strange list, really. Why is CentOS (which is pretty much RHEL without the support) listed separately? And any particular reason you didn't do the same for SUSE's free variant (openSUSE)?No Oracle Linux (RHEL clone with cheaper support) either?If this is for business use (as I assume it is) then I would strongly recommend to stick with the two largest enterprise Linux vendors, Red Hat and SUSE. RHEL or SEL if you need paid support, CentOS and openSUSE Leap if you don't (if you want cheaper support than what RH charges and don't mind getting involved with the devil then Oracle Linux is probably worth considering, too).As to which of them, that primarily depends on what your applications support. But in general, RH isn't really very interested in the desktop market, and RHEL is clearly aimed at servers. The existing desktop variant (workstation) is simply a cheaper license for the same distro with a somewhat lacking desktop experience (older version of GNOME).RH also generally expects that the admins know what they are doing, and offers very little in management tools aside from what comes with GNOME and the 'cockpit' web gui (which only covers a few areas such as networking, storage, updates and VMs, but not many others such as setting up SMB shares).SUSE Linux on the other side is much more user-friendly, and very likely more so than any other distro. It's desktop experience is a lot better than on RHEL (SUSE supports both GNOME and KDE), and with YaST there is a very powerful management tools which make a lot of the admin work which on other distros require command line use very easy (I'm surprised no other distro offers anything similar).Support from both RH and SUSE is top-notch, and if you have a problem then it's not unheard off to find yourself talking to the person who actually wrote the code. Both RH and SUSE have also very good documentation.RHEL (and CentOS) kernel version numbers suggests the kernels are very old, but RH actually backports a lot of the functionality of newer kernels so the kernel version number is meaningless. Same is true for SUSE.Also, since someone mentioned NVIDIA and that it's a no-go for Linux, I just want to mention that all our Linux workstations run on NVIDIA graphics (Quadro) and we use NVIDIA GPUs (Quadro, Tesla) in many of our servers. NVIDIA has its own driver repository for SUSE, and they are a one-click install away (it's slightly more involved with RH). With SUSE installing NVIDIA drivers it's as easy as on Windows. We run high performance graphics and large GPGPU tasks on that hardware, with zero problems.QuoteIt sounds that, provided your apps support it, SEL or openSUSE Leap (NOT Tumbleweed, though, you don't want a rolling release distro if you're interested in stability) would be a good choice for you.One thing that I think is really nice with SUSE is OBS (Open Build Service) where you can find a lot of additional packages ready for one-click install.QuoteForget Ubuntu. Seriously, it's not the same as RHEL or SEL. Ubuntu's quality control can be pretty lacking (there's a reason why it's often called "The Windows amongst Linuxes"), it's "LTS" flavor only actually offers long-term support for a small subset of Ubuntu packages, and Canonical's support appears to be somewhere between 'meh' and 'comical' (we have some clients on Ubuntu).I get that everyone knows Ubuntu, thanks to Mr Shuttleworth's marketing efforts and the "Linux for human beings" mantra. But it's clearly a consumer-oriented distro and that shows.It's also interesting that, while RH and SUSE are main contributors to Linux and other FOSS projects, Canonical has given very little back upstream (even less than Microsoft during its worst days). Go figure.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 04:35:45 pm
content: These scary Nvidia stories... Thought Nvidia provides first-class support to Linux worldGlad to hear that Quadro works well, worth extra $$$ for a piece of mind.Just as a matter of interest, I checked AMD side and looks like supported right distros toohttps://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-amdgpu-unified-linux-20-20What about HiDPI? Is it close to crappy Windows or smoothness MacOS?Also, dual- / triple- monitors setup is uncomfortable too for Linux?

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 04:51:30 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 21, 2020, 01:40:08 pmGood question, I don't know why (commercial) vendors do not bother with openSUSE support, perhaps not much popularity (yet)?Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 21, 2020, 01:40:08 pmOracle and cheap?!Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 21, 2020, 01:40:08 pmIs RH under IBM hood now? Doesn't sounds very promising knowing how "successful" IBM was on a desktop market...

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 04:56:42 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on October 21, 2020, 06:21:27 amWhat is Linux hardware?

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 05:07:57 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 21, 2020, 04:56:42 pmHardware that works well with linux?

author: Paul Moir
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 09:40:08 pm
content: I've been using Kubuntu for years so I took a chance and got a Kubuntu Focus laptop. I'm glad I did; the Focus team takes care of driver incompatibilities, conflicting packages, test NVIDIA drivers before allowing them to install, etc and so the laptop "just works" all the time. This has been ideal for a work laptop.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 10:32:41 pm
content: Quote from: Paul Moir on October 21, 2020, 09:40:08 pmI bought my self an XPS 13 from Dell with Ubuntu pre-installed.Once arrived, I checked if everything worked and then wiped Ubuntu and installed Opensuse Leap with Plasma desktop.Works like a charm.The thing is, if it works with one distro, it usually works also with other distro's.Except if you switch to a distro with an older kernel version, then you risk not having the latest drivers for the latesthardware.Lenovo has announced that they are going to start to sell notebooks with Fedora pre-installed.https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-releases-first-fedora-linux-thinkpad-laptop/

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2020, 10:47:59 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on October 21, 2020, 10:32:41 pmLenovo and their dodgy bios'.I watched the media hype regarding the immanent release of the Dell XPS 13 /w ubuntu. When it was announced that it had been released, I contacted Dell Australia so they might procure me with one only to be told that Dell Aust has some tie-up with microshaft and the laptop comes with winders like it or not.So now, I channel my inner Linus when ever anyone mentions Dell laptops and say "Hey Dell: Fu...." You know the rest.Went with a System76.

author: Paul Moir
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 02:55:53 am
content: They actually sometimes have Dell Ubuntu laptops available here in Canada, but they all had tiny screens which was a non-starter for my particular use case. System 76 was my next best bet but their shipping to Canada has issues. Focus had it at first too which prevented me from going with them, but eventually they changed it.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 04:38:11 am
content: In theory I like the idea of laptops coming with Linux already on them. But in practice:Which Linux? As this thread make clear, no single choice is going to make everyone happy and half the buyers are going to wipe the drive and reinstall anywayHow much does a Windows 10 Home OEM license cost the manufacturer anyway? I'm pretty sure it's not a lot these days. How much could you really save?How much is any savings by not paying something to Microsoft offset by the extra costs of having twice as many SKUs, and the Linux one surely far lower volume than the Windows one? You might end up paying *more*.I believe Lenovo, for one, tests everything with Linux, even if they ship it with Windows. That's good enough for me.I understand some people object to Microsoft getting a single cent of their money.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 07:17:09 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 21, 2020, 04:35:45 pmMost likely the issues many Linux users have with NVIDIA drivers are because non-LTS Linux distros (and especially rolling release distros) usually keep close to the bleeding edge which can break stuff if the drivers aren't updated accordingly.It also certainly helps that NVIDIA has dedicated support for SUSE Linux.QuoteIt's exactly the same for Geforce (and the drivers for Quadro and Geforce are the same anyways).QuoteWe tried AMD a few times but their binary drivers are a mixed bag as we had a range of problems.This and the (for our applications) less impressive hardware makes us stick with NVIDIA.QuoteWell, let's just say it got better. Setting up HiDPI displays in KDE is easy but there are still a number of apps that look like crap. But that's for the app developers to sort out.QuoteMultihead setup is a matter of a few clicks in the NVIDIA control panel in SUSE/KDE.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 07:38:15 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 21, 2020, 04:51:30 pmI guess it's because before openSUSE 15, SEL and openSUSE were built on different code bases, so in the past because something works fine in SEL didn't necessarily mean it does so on openSUSE. With openSUSE 15 SUSE started the process to move openSUSE onto the SEL code base, and with 15.2 the majority of packages are SEL based (15.3 should complete the move to SEL). The shift to the SEL code base has already resulted in a much more reliable distro (older openSUSE versions could be hit and miss), and means openSUSE will benefit from all the improvements that go into SUSE's enterprise Linux.This was never a problem with CentOS (which has always been based on the RHEL code base), so it was easier for vendors which supported RHEL to support CentOS as well.It's very likely that openSUSE will see wider support now that it shares the SEL code base.QuoteYes, at least in monetary terms (what it does to your soul is a different story). Oracle regularly undercuts Red Hat by 30% or more.Of course, that also gives you only Oracle level serviceQuoteYes, it is. But even before IBM bought RH they didn't care much for the desktop (RHEL Workstation has always largely been used like some kind of Linux launcher with RH support to run a specific application, not as a general purpose desktop Linux).As to IBMs influence on Red Hat, I know many people were concerned but so far we haven't seen any impact by IBM's ownership of Red Hat. IBM has said that they bought it to complete its cloud offerings and intend to leave it alone, and so far we get to talk ro the same people and get the same excellent service.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 07:58:31 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 21, 2020, 04:56:42 pmThere isn't really any.There used to be "Windows only" hardware which in general was hardware which was so weak that the majority of it's functionality had to be realized in software (driver) which was closed source and only offered for Windows. An example of such hardware are the many "soft modems" that were so common in the '90s. Still, a lot of this "Windows only" hardware was eventually made operable under Linux.Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on October 21, 2020, 10:47:59 pmDell can be difficult to deal with for consumers, and their sales droids often don't really know what models are actually available.For businesses dealing with a dedicated Dell representative it's easier as those representatives can see everything that is available and offer configurations that are not available through the website.Quote from: brucehoult on October 22, 2020, 04:38:11 amLinux laptops aren't something new, they exist for more than a decade (I think HP started offering laptops with Linux in 2007?). What's (somewhat) new is that Linux laptops are offered to consumers.In the past, Linux was offered on specific models and as BTO (Build To Order) option for many HP and Dell business grade laptops and mobile workstations. Since this was for businesses the choice of Linux was pretty much limited to enterprise grade Linux, i.e. Red Hat (if there was a second option then it was usually SUSE).The only thing that changed is that now we see consumer grade laptops offered with consumer grade Linux.

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 09:00:03 am
content: It's all the same shit

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 10:08:22 am
content: Laptop not for a hobby? OK, let's consider Linux on Lenovo Carbon X1. The support for the finger bio-metric reader is still partial working. The driver was released for Windows 10, and it has been somehow reverse engineered. But only partially.I run Debian.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 10:15:17 am
content: Quote from: DiTBho on October 22, 2020, 10:08:22 am"These days desktop Linux supports over 99% of the PC hardware. To close that gap entirely,Lenovo is working with its third-party hardware component vendors to make sure they supplythe appropriate Linux drivers. Lenovo also uses the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) tomake sure there's current firmware available for both their main system and all its componentssuch as the X1's 720p Webcam andfingerprint sensor."https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-releases-first-fedora-linux-thinkpad-laptop/

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 11:01:30 am
content: Quote from: Karel on October 22, 2020, 10:15:17 amFacts are, on Windows 10 it perfectly works, on Linux it still only partially works.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 11:38:44 am
content: Quote from: DiTBho on October 22, 2020, 11:01:30 amWell then, I consider myself lucky that I bought the XPS 13 instead. Not that I care much about fingerprint readers.I have one on my Google Nexus phone but I never use it. A simple pincode is much safer than a fingerprint reader.As I said before, switch to Linux when it's time to replace the hardware and buy something that works out of the box with Linux.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 07:24:58 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 22, 2020, 07:17:09 amLooks like KDE is not one of default to select from in SLED install and need some workaround to install it.https://documentation.suse.com/sled/15-SP1/pdf/art-sle-installquick_color_en.pdf(p.12)

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2020, 07:26:59 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 22, 2020, 07:17:09 amWow, one big-fat driver?! They separated for Windows...

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2020, 07:04:55 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 22, 2020, 07:24:58 pmGNOME is the default desktop but all you have to do is to select KDE instead, which you can do easily in the Configuration Overview (see the image on p.18 of the PDF). Just click on "Software", and then select KDE (and any other application you might want).That's it. No work-arounds required.Quote from: olkipukki on October 22, 2020, 07:26:59 pmNot really. The Windows drivers for NVIDIA are also Unified Drivers (i.e. the drivers themselves are identical), they only package specific versions of that driver for standard desktops (i.e. Geforce) and as certified drivers (i.e. what you normally select a Quadro card for).But the underlying driver core is from the same single code base. Which isn't really surprising, considering that Geforce and Quadro GPUs are pretty much identical.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2020, 07:40:03 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 23, 2020, 07:04:55 amIt's easier than I thought

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2020, 10:23:49 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 23, 2020, 07:40:03 pmYes, but I have to admit that if you look at the installation overview it's not immediately obvious that the headings are clickable

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2020, 12:14:59 pm
content: Strange that SuSE and Red Hat try to push you to use Gnome desktop while KDE Plasma is superior

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2020, 02:31:21 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on October 26, 2020, 12:14:59 pmWhile I agree that modern KDE is superior, the reason GNOME is the default for both isn't surprising. Red Hat is one of the main contributors to the GNOME project and had little interest in other desktops, also most professional graphical applications are only supported with the standard desktop which is GNOME.The latter is also the reason why GNOME is the default desktop selected for SEL.However, KDE is nevertheless a fully supported desktop for SEL, and SUSE is one of the contributors to KDE so they are actively investing in it.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2020, 02:54:44 pm
content: Unfortunately I can't find the page anymore but I remember very well that some time ago, there was an official announcement from Suse thatsaid that Gnome is backed by Suse and KDE/Plasma is backed by the community...

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2020, 10:53:40 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 26, 2020, 10:23:49 amAlso, a painless process to change it later vis 'Software' option

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2020, 10:57:09 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on October 26, 2020, 02:54:44 pmSUSE is a KDE patronhttps://ev.kde.org/supporting-members/

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2020, 12:18:23 am
content: A few weeks ago, Explaining Computers on youtube had a video about Open SUSE. He seemed to like it a lot. I think there were seven different desktops to choose from during install. I may give it a look due to seeing more oddness from Debian now that I've used it a few months.

author: Paul Moir
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2020, 12:26:29 am
content: It's funny; SuSE is what got me into KDE back when KDE was its default desktop. Debian based systems pulled me away with what at the time was a vastly superior packaging system. I think why KDE fell out of popularity was it badly had to rewrite its code back just as desktop Linux was getting popular. It was a long trip between abandoning everything in 3 to get all the features back into 4.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2020, 07:24:41 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 26, 2020, 10:57:09 pmWhat I meant was that SuSE pays programmers to work on Gnome desktop but not on KDE & Plasma desktop.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2020, 10:08:44 am
content: Quote from: rdl on October 27, 2020, 12:18:23 amI can recommend it. openSUSE is probably the most user friendly distro out there. There are two branches, Leap (which is the stable/LTS release which now also mirrors SEL) and Tumbleweed (rolling release). Unless you like living on the bleeding edge I'd recommend Leap, though.Quote from: Karel on October 27, 2020, 07:24:41 amSUSE has had developers working on both GNOME and KDE for many years. But that was for SEL. It may have been different for openSUSE back then when both branches were separate. In fact, since you mentioned it, I do remember (vaguely) a similar statement from the openSUSE team. I guess back then the openSUSE team has worked on GNOME but lacked the ressources to work on KDE as well (and this was before Plasma when KDE was still a slow ressource hog).But since openSUSE is now migrating to the SEL branch and common development that should no longer matter.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2020, 09:55:43 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 19, 2020, 12:07:21 pmI'm missing Debian from the list which is especially good where it comes to predictability and not experimenting with the latest & greatest.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2020, 08:28:26 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 27, 2020, 09:55:43 pmI'm not sure Debian is a good choice here. Not only is Debian a lot less polished (i.e. user friendly) than most other distros, Debian Stable is also woefully outdated, which stems from Debian's tendency to have very slow release cycles which means it takes them forever to incorporate anything that's not a security fix. As a result, it also lacks support for modern hardware that is widely supported by other distros.There's a reason why most Debian installs are actually just "Debian based" distros like Ubuntu, most of which don't even use the Debian kernel.Also, Debian is a community distro so there isn't any real professional support behind it, not even at a level you get from Canonical for Ubuntu. That this community is highly political doesn't exactly help Debian's development, in fact it's community's activism has hampered progress more often than not. The slow release cycles and the general state of obsolescence of Debian stable also come from that community's crude understanding of "stability".There's also no true "LTS" version worth it's name, regular Debian Stable has a lifetime of 4 years and LTS (which is managed by a separate group of volunteers) extends this to 5 years. Beyond that there's a paid-for option by a 3rd party.Needless to say, Debian's contribution to upstream development is as meager as Canonical's.Debian might be a great choice if you grew up on Debian, your hardware is old enough and you like manually building something up from scratch, but if not then pretty much anything else out there is a better option than Debian.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2020, 11:54:33 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 27, 2020, 09:55:43 pmNothing against Debian, but there is not love between (commercial) vendors and this distro.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2020, 01:32:57 pm
content: I've been using Debian 10 for several months now as a daily driver (mainly just internet and email) replacement for Windows 7. It mostly works okay, but I wouldn't recommend it.

author: ve7xen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2020, 05:59:30 pm
content: Debian is great for servers, though the long release cycle is starting to more detrimental than it was in years past as more server workloads go with a 'rolling release' / CI development model. I still think it is by far the best choice for infrastructure workloads (DNS servers and the like).I'd never consider it for a desktop. Too out of date, and not really set up to be easy to use for that.QuoteTBH for a non-commercial entity that's raison d'etre is more or less packaging, I'm not sure why you'd expect otherwise or consider it to be a knock on the group. I can see the complaint when we're talking about commercial entities making money on the backs of OSS projects without giving anything back to the community, but for a separate OSS project with a different focus, it doesn't make sense to me that you'd expect upstream 'contributions'. If the people wanted to contribute upstream, they'd just join those projects as individuals rather than somehow do it in association with Debian.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2020, 06:29:00 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 28, 2020, 08:28:26 amThat may be but in reality everything I plug into my Debian system just works. Using Debian is kind of like waiting until Microsoft has released a few service packs for the latest Windows version which make it stable to use in a production environment. At one of my customers everyone is using Debian on their PC because it turned out it works better for development compared to Ubuntu.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2020, 10:42:50 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 28, 2020, 06:29:00 pmThat may well be but that is more likely due to your hardware being older than anything else.And if it works on Debian it should work on any other Linux distro (although the other way around may be different).QuoteNot really. It's closer to waiting for Microsoft ending mainstream support before deploying that Windows version.Debian Stable is just that, old. Not in "slightly older to see if stuff is stable" kind of old, but in "the rest of the world has moved on" kind of old.And that's not an advantage, it's a liability.QuoteI'm not surprised, as Ubuntu, while being more current, can be pretty flakey (as mentioned before, there's a reason it's known as "Windows amongst Linuxes"). But unless your customer clings to old hardware or has any other specific reason as to why it has to be Debian then moving from Ubuntu to Debian makes zero sense. It's simply an exchange for one flaw (unreliability) with another (obsolescence).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2020, 04:58:03 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on October 29, 2020, 10:42:50 amNo. It isn't. You make it sound as if Debian only works with obsolete hardware which is at least a decade old but that is nonsense. And the reality is that open source drivers need to mature as well. Experimental support often is just that; experimental and not really useable. IOW: name an example of a piece of mainstream hardware that works with Ubuntu and doesn't on Debian. In the end generalisations & hearsay serve nobody.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pm
content: Whatever you choose, make sure you have proper support for the stuff you use.Do not choose Linux because it is cheaper.The main reason for using Linux should be because it fits the workflow better; that it is the better tool for the task at hand. An organization can save money if they find suitable Linux support people they can hire, that support exactly their workflows; for an individual, it is much harder to save money, if they do not want to do the support tasks themselves.If you assume the tools in Linux should work like they do in Windows, and that you can just transplant your workflow from Windows to Linux, you will be disappointed.While the two are just operating systems, there is a massive paradigm difference between Unix/Linux and Windows –composability over monolithic frameworks. This means that whatever your current workflows are, by switching to Linux, you will have to spend some time in examining those workflows, and seehowthose tasks could be achieved more efficiently using the Linux/Unix paradigm. This means re-learning things. Some people utterly hate it (doyoufind yourself calling stuffopen sores?), some people are elated to find new, more efficient ways to do things.Composability is the key. Whatever I do, I rarely do it in a single application. Even when I do silly-simple stuff like SVG images, I end up doing final examination/finessing by hand (in Pluma, a text editor that has SVG highlighting but is otherwise very lightweight). My data structure example programs often output graphs in Graphviz Dot (text-based descriptive) language, which I render to SVG using dot/circo/twopi etc., then edit in Inkscape. I don't recall standard C library interface details, because I have a terminal window just waiting for aman -ksubject, or a quickc 'expression'to quickly calculate the value of some C-like expression (uses Awk, though).There are many different ways to achieve each task, but composability is a key. If you often find yourself looking for an application that lets you do everything within that application, I don't think Linux will match your habits. To become truly efficient,somehabits may need to change; but the underlying idea is that you make the machine support your workflow, instead of the machine telling you what the best workflow is. And machine != application; it is a collection of applications, nowadays even OSes, through virtual machines.I am known to be one of those who bash systemd. I don't do it because I'm stuck in "olden days"; I do it because I see its faults being more important than its benefits. I agree with many of the reasons why systemd was developed, I just find its implementation to be horrible. For a new Linux user, systemd does also mean that many long-standing guides no longer apply. Instead of using e.g.sudo servicenamestart/stop/restart/reload, you now must usesudo systemctl. This can generate added aggravation, if you find having to adjust a system-level service or detail. For that reason, even though you right now do not want to do any maintenance yourself, make sure the distribution you choose has a good up to date administrator guide, and bookmark it; just as a precaution.Some users in this forum have mentioned they much prefer FreeBSD over Linux. I believe this is not because of the kernel, but how the userspace components of the operating system is managed. Linux really is fragmenting, not into "distributions" because they do not actually differ that much from each other, but into "kernel", "systemd" (or the tech underlying desktops), and "applications" (including widget toolkits like GTK+ and Qt), with all three having completely different, incompatible ideas as to what "Linux" is and should be.This, in turn, means you should do a bit of reading into the history and participation of your chosen distribution in these matters. How active are they in pushing for Political Correctness in their forums, and do they actually support Linuxdevelopment, outside of their distribution? How does this affect your choice of tools? What sort of people are active in the forums you'd have to contact for help if you don't have commercial support?For me, everything in Linux (except databases) is "comfy old slippers" stuff. I don't know everything (and I don't trust I know; I check before relying on my own understanding), but I know how to find out and learn, and have lots of experience using it in very different environments, from appliances (mostly routers, OpenWRT) to servers to desktops to HPC (cluster evaluation, installation, maintenance). Because of this, I cannot really make specific suggestions to a new Linux user; I just do not see or experience the things they do. I often help friends and acquintances with Linux-related stuff from the kernel to web stuff to GUI applications – that's why my email address is "question" – so feel free to throw me a question if you get stuck, but note that I never just examine the small detail alone; I always examine the underlying problem, and often end up suggesting something that completely avoids the asked question. Some people hate that, some enjoy the new perspective. I find it neither right nor wrong, it is just the way I personally happen to operate.Similarly, you may find that Linux is intuitive for you, because your approach matches how most Linux developers develop the applications or tools; or you may find that Linux fights you all the way, because the approach/paradigm is too different to yours. (In my experience, most Windows power users need to spend more effort to learn Linux than complete newbies, exactly because they have to first learn the things they already know are specific to Windows only, and not transferable to other OSes.) That is neither right nor wrong, just something that happens. You can resolve that by switching to some other OS, or by finding a new approach/paradigm that works better for you. All that matters for you is that you get your work done well; never forget that. (Sometimes it means co-operating with people who you don't really "like", but I personally love that facet, when it works.)Apologies for the wall of text.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 30, 2020, 10:02:03 pm
content: I like your approach to the question.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 30, 2020, 11:10:53 pm
content: I agree what nominal animal wrote but likely the 'cheaper' part needs some hair splitting. Cheaper to buy or cheaper to own? In my experience Linux is way less flaky compared to Windows and thus cheaper to own. Linux doesn't stop working for some unknown reason and then needing to spend the better part of a day figuring out what is wrong and no way to guarantee the problem doesn't happen again.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 30, 2020, 11:58:56 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 30, 2020, 11:10:53 pmSure, but there we enter into the murky depths of FOSS, and how the major currency there isn't money but time and effort spent in producing a useful result.And, how doing e.g. translations to widely used software packages will be very much appreciated and garner you help from members of that community, but likely won't have any weight on developers in other projects even under the same umbrella (say "Gnome" or "the GNU project"). It just doesn't work like money, at all. It is a completely different sort of "currency", unless you hire someone to do it for you; and even then the exchange rate depends entirely on that human or the humans you hired, their suitability to the task, your needs, the contract, and so on.In general, showing initial effort to solve a problem others (including the developers or the users that finance their work) might also encounter, is usually "worth" more than coffee money (say, a hour or two of wages). This means that people who can provide good error reports that help the developerslocate and duplicatethe problem, get much better response than someone who offers a $1k bounty but basically no information on the issue. A downside is that an anonymous or first-time reporter is often ignored, because it takes time and effort to read and evaluate the report as well, and the ratio of poor to good reports is high enough for many developers to ignore most new reports, and concentrate on the ones from people they already know. Especially so at this time of Politically Correct Rules of Conduct, as ignoring is the safest option.So, I definitely agree that using the term "cheaper" is a gross simplification, but it is thus far the best term I've found that applies here. Suggestions are welcome!

author: nightfire
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2020, 12:47:07 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 30, 2020, 11:10:53 pmYes, that is the thing of initial costs compared to TCO=Total cost of ownership. And in running a linux system (or other unixoid stuff) one has plenty of opportunities to encounter stormy waters...It also depends how that box is run. If only a handful of apps are installed and mature and stable, a Linux box will usually run around happily. But beware when installing some fresh application with a fancy GUI, that needs some obscure libs- this is the part where the fun begins that ends with sleepless nights ;-)I myself use mostly FreeBSD when I want (and/or can) use FOSS, and there are similar considerations. At some point in the past, I even had an Alpha under FreeBSD as a graphical workstation running FreeBSD 4.11 ;-)At my day-to-day job, we use Windows- alone for the reason that a) Windows Office IT Admins are available and cheaper that Linux Admins and b) we have some proprietary Apps running that Linux won't run out of the box...

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 31, 2020, 12:59:46 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmThis!!I've seen IT managed services providers fall into this trap because Linux is "better" and therefore everyone should run Linux (or some other system). They uproot their customers from a solution that currently works, whether it be the OS their desktops/servers run to their choice of firewall because the MSP believes their solution is superior (even though it adds no value or doesn't solve any particular deficiency). Then it all ends up falling over badly because maintenance and troubleshooting goes through the roof.If someone's workflow works and it happens to be Windows-based, then leave it alone.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2020, 11:04:17 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on October 31, 2020, 12:59:46 amThis is a fad like any other, unfortunately. In early 2010s, Android was being thrown at every discussion of a new embedded design, simply because it was perceived as "better" or "the solution".Everything is better when you add Bluetooth, right?

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2020, 11:10:24 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 29, 2020, 04:58:03 pmI didn't say Debian only works on obsolete hardware, that's just your interpretation. But the matter of fact is that Debian is well behind in (not just) hardware support than other distros. Debian 10 (Buster), which was released a bit over a month ago, comes with Kernel 4.18 while Ubuntu 20.04, which is older, uses Kernel 5.4. In terms of hardware support, between both releases there is a long list of fixes and additions (for example support for AMD Navi 12/12+/14 GPUs and Nvidia GP100 and GP104 GPUs, Killer E2500 Series NICs, BCM5731X/BCM5741X NICs, SIS 9200 Series touch controllers, Apple 2018+ NVME controllers and a lot more).RHEL/CentOS 8 both also use Kernel 4.18 but here the version is pretty meaningless for comparison as RH backports drivers, functions and fixes from newer kernel into the RHEL kernel branch.Debian has backports were they take stuff from Debian Testing and port it to Debian Stable, however these backports can often be wonky as they see only limited testing. Which leaves you pretty much the choice of running Debian Stable as it is (solid but outdated) or get newer stuff which may or may not be reliable.So while your hardware may not be "obsolete" I doubt it's anywhere near "current".Don't get me wrong, if Debian works for you then great. But for the OP pretty much anything else makes more sense than Debian.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2020, 12:39:05 pm
content: My skyrocket excitement has cooled down and came back to mother earth...I just started SLED 15 SP2 trial and whole installation activities fitted quite nicely into Halloween party,here we go with my first impressions:1) You cannot install KDE without SUSE Public Hub, so just click 'Software' doesn't work (thats reason why GNOMEs and IceWM are available by default only)2) Everything from the hub, doesn't cover by SUSE support contract (yes, you're on your own here)3) Overall installation that I expected to be polished in our days a bit bumpy and buggy:- installed packages counter and remaining stats didn't work on one occasion, eventually a process stuck on ~80% completion (hard reboot)- choose to install updates during the installation, lost connectivity, SLED cannot restablish a connection (hard reboot)- selected GNOME basic only, made changes in the system and applied the latest updates - reboot 'Error start GNOME Shell on Wayland' (start over)- Next/Back jump over places and inconsistent, looks like different people implemented these without talking to each other (just annoying)- told installer I don't need a huge swap for the hibernation, a few minutes later a machine been frozen bacause accidently pressed 'Hibernate' button instead of 'Power off' (hard reboot)- why they trying to push 'experimental driver' and ask for the confirmation? Where is 'Accept/Cancel' pair - 'I agree/I disagree' buttons only found where? (confusion) ***HiDPI:- GNOME cannot do a fraction scale adjustments via UI right now (no comments)- KDE itself looks fine in native resolution with a francional scale and no issues with multiple different monitors at the moment (ok)*** - attached

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2020, 02:25:41 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmNo worries, long replyQuote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmThat might be shocked, but I would prefer to hand over $$$ to Apple to get their hardware/OS and move on,but unfortunately there is no hardware that I need and as result some hardware/software vendors don't bother with macOS...SUSE Enterprise Desktop with a basic support cost a bit over $300 for 3-years plan, Red Hat (aka IBM) wants$300$299 each year for Enterprise Linux Workstation.Where is a cheaper and compare to whom? DIY Linuxes or Win/macOS?Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmExactly, I'm not moving a house or design a new one from scratch, I'm building an annex.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmWindows stays as is (and macOS too), I cannot see how it possible to move away from these and what benefits Linux can provide instead of.Around 50% of software are not available on Linux at all and another half stay there as alternative on a paper.Literarily, will be separate boxes connected to same monitors/keyboards.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmWell, without knowing details... If this is one off artwork and can be done manualy straigh away,I would probably use Affinity Designer to do everything in the one app (and yes, it's working in same way on Windows and macOS) and export to SVG.If repetition is expected, I will prep an asset library to reuse components again,If massive datasets, I reckon somewhere already python libs available... may be slightly easy to build on macOS especially with native-os dependencies.In short, it depends.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmDo you mean for the dekstop (UI) or in general?All server-side on FreeBSD here, glad be Linux-free long time (and as said before, would be happier be like that).As per desktop, a history said sad stories - BSD GUI oriented distros disappeared, although KDE has dedicated FreeBSD contributors, not sure if it useable for more than enthusiastic level.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmI will stay away from a 'hippo' and weird stuff, as long as can simple 'sudo service name' doesn't break the system.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmHistory is good to have knowledge in, but accepting current reallity is more important for me, as example, knowing that Ret Hat is under hood IBM is not promising futureQuote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmHope these without holesQuote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmThank you, much appreciatedQuote from: Nominal Animal on October 30, 2020, 09:00:36 pmIf I can 'adopt' Linux into a zoo to share with Windows, MacOS and FreeBSD - all good then.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2020, 03:40:05 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on November 02, 2020, 11:10:24 amSo you are basically writing Debian off because a few drivers are missing? That is a steep price to pay for stability. If push comes to shove you can always choose to update the kernel to the latest stable version (hoping that the drivers are production ready). After all any Linux distribution is just a collection of programs sitting on top of the kernel.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2020, 07:41:27 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on November 02, 2020, 02:25:41 pmExactly; one needs to look at the entire picture, like you have.Quote from: olkipukki on November 02, 2020, 02:25:41 pmI don't think you'll have any issuesA practical example of composability: I dislike GIMP's color selection algorithm, when converting from RGB to indexed/paletted mode (for small PNG files). Instead of railing against it, I simply export the images as PPM (NetPBM uncompressed full-color format), remap the colors usingpnmquant, export to a temporary PNG file usingpnmtopng, then minimize the file size usingpngcrush -brute, all via a single short command (a shell script I wrote for the purpose). I could make it into a GIMP plugin, but because I happen to always have a terminal already open, it's just as fast for me to write that one command than use the GUI menu system, so I haven't bothered. I don't do it often enough to warrant the extra development time.For software development, a typical example of composability is to use Makefiles and a version control system like git, svn, etc., instead of trying to find a GUI application that contains all of that in itself. You'd be surprised how many people who haven't done it in practice yet, dislike the formeras an idea(having to use multiple programs to achieve one task) and think the latter (doing everything inside a single application) would be immensely better.It is that last one that I have seen struggle the most. I also want to be very careful in my wording around them, because in my experience, they easily label one as "a smelly long-bearded hippie" and ignore or even actively oppose your advice in principle. But, they aren't bad people; just stuck in that particular idea. (The ones I've met were also the people who tended to call FOSS "open sores".) In my experience, when they get unstuck, they become much more productive, and often very enthusiastic about the new opportunities to better their workflow; cow-orkers one enjoys working with.Quote from: olkipukki on November 02, 2020, 02:25:41 pmNeither, really; it is more that FreeBSD has a saner userspace OSmanagement, making it preferable to the split-identity Linux userspace OS stuff.It is my hope that knowing how the Linux userspace has been split paradigm-wise, helps one understand and navigate the situation if/when problems arise.No such split in FreeBSD, Mac OS, or Windows.To use an automotive analog, it is nothing like current almost monolithic car engines behind the hood. However, some of the components/subsystems insist the whole should operatethisway, and others insistthatway instead. This means that when one has to seek for help solving some issue, exactly which community you contact will affect the suggestions you get.Quote from: olkipukki on November 02, 2020, 02:25:41 pmYou already know how Win, Mac, and FreeBSD differ; adding a fourth weirdo will not be difficult.

author: nightfire
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2020, 08:09:38 pm
content: Fun fact: Back in 1999, Suse was indirectly the reason I turned to FreeBSD for an open source Unix system.The philosophy is different: Linux is strictly speaking a kernel, and then there is the GNU operation system around that. (Fun fact: Debian had once a port with the FreeBSD kernel...) The packaging is left to the distributor, which decides, which packages will fit on the "default install". After that, you usually can customize every and whatever package on that system, but you have to keep track on dependent libs sometimes yourself.Nowadays ist better, but years ago you could run into traps like upgrading one lib because app #1 needed it, and it broke app #2...A BSD system consists of the kernel AND the userland as whole, which ensures that the basic utilities are always automatically compatible to the rest of the base system- and it makes updating easier. There are other tradeoffs to that approach, but I personally found it simpler as it saved me lots of hassle and time.Fun fact #2: From 2001-2014 I worked at two employers with own datacenters, and we mostly worked on Unix desktops- I have seen Solaris, FreeBSD and some flavours of Penguin by that way.Practically speaking, an OS can be a variety of things: It can be a lifestyle, personal expression of freedom, or simply a tool that is needed to achieve some results.And in that case, when it comes to a graphical workstation that is needed to earn money, FIRST the applications that generate that money should be named, and as a second step the OS that has the best and stable support (and generates hopefully not much administrative overhead) should be chosen.And nowadays, when it comes to support of commercial packages, Ubuntu or sometimes a Redhat derivative seem to be the way to go for certified packages etc.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2020, 12:34:30 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on November 02, 2020, 07:41:27 pmHaving worked with both worlds in embedded development, in my experience each has its own advantages. To me, the command line approach is much faster to build and customize the process through scripting, while the GUI is much better to navigate complex code spread around multiple source files. I tend to use Windows in a similar fashion as in Linux: work on Eclipse and switch to a command line to build.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2020, 03:02:26 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on November 02, 2020, 03:40:05 pmI'm writing Debian off because it's the worst choice for the intended use case (which, we remember, was using a non-hobby desktop system for running a certain application).I'm also not sure why you think Debian was pronouncedly more stable (as in "reliable") or secure than other Linux distros, because that's not the case. Debian is "stable" in a way that there is little change in the packages, but that doesn't mean it's more reliable. It's not. Packages aren't like wine, they don't get better with age, they just get old. On top of that, especially Debian has a solid track record of introducing issues that don't exist up-stream from time to time. For example, Debian fucked up pretty badly with the OpenSSL/Valgrind disaster. This is because in Debian quite often patches come from inexperienced people which end up breaking them. Which isn't surprising, Debian is, after all, a community distro.I'm not denying you can work around most of Debian's limitations but for a business desktop system that is only economically viable if your time is worth nothing, and even then you all you did was wasting time on implementing things most other distro's do better out of the box, and you still end up with a Linux distro that has no business-class support, questionable quality control, and has to be constantly baby'd to prevent it from quickly becoming outdated again.You do remember that the question was about a non-hobby desktop system for Xilinx Vitis/Vivaro? Which liststhe following Linux distros as supported:QuoteFor the build machine the reqs are similar:QuoteI yet have to see how Debian should fit in there, considering that it is neither supported nor does it offer any advantage (more to the contrary) over just using a distro like RHEL/CentOS which not only isn't obsolete out of the box and has much stricter quality control than any community distro, it's also fully supported by the application in question.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2020, 03:13:30 pm
content: Quote from: nightfire on November 02, 2020, 08:09:38 pmI remember back then SUSE had often been quite buggy, which really only got better in the last 10 years (now with openSUSE sharing the SEL code base it's as solid as RHEL).QuoteBack then I mostly worked on HP-UX on HP 9000 workstations and servers (we had two big V-Class quad-plex machines in our DC), but also with Sun Solaris (SPARC and x86), SGI IRIX, DEC Tru64, VMS and Siemens ReliantUNIX. I still miss some functionality I had on these systems in modern day Linux.QuoteAmen to that.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2020, 04:38:55 pm
content: Quote from: nightfire on November 02, 2020, 08:09:38 pmThere was a conscious effort to avoid letting Linux (and BSD also) from falling into the trap of "DLL hell" by checking not only the existence of a lib but the version also when compiling.Added to that, the inclusion of the ability for multiple versions of the one lib to coexist on the system helped so much for forward and backward compatibly.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2020, 08:52:01 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on November 03, 2020, 03:02:26 pmAll that software runs just fine on Debian (or any other Linux distribution). 'Supported distributions' is just ass covering since such software comes with all of it's own libraries so it only needs extremely basic support from the system itself.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2020, 10:16:01 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on November 03, 2020, 12:34:30 pmSure, multi-file editor interface is vastly better than a simple one. An excellent example is Elixir: When I am looking for a specific C symbol within the Linux kernel, I do not grabgrep, but go toelixir.bootlin.comand use the Search Identifier facility. It provides a list of not only the files and lines where it occurs, but also whether it is defined or referenced there. Built in to an editor, even partially, that can be a big boost in developer efficiency.BTW, Eclipse does support both Makefiles and Git if told to do so, and behaves as a simple user interface for those when wanted. This is a good thing, an example of composability and modularity within an application: just another interface to those tools, that happens to be integrated into Eclipse, but neither the only nor the required way of doing it. (That is, if your project uses Makefiles and Git, you do not need to do it through Eclipse. You can, but you don't have to. This is the difference: the single-framework types would be frustrated at giving multiple options for doing the same thing, without any obvious preference as to which one is "right".)

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 01:26:07 am
content: Thanks for the tip on elixir; I'll take a look.I use the Eclipse build system at times and it is indeed fully integrated, but sometimes the build gets in the way of other major operations on the IDE. The flexibility is really nice.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 01:46:53 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on November 04, 2020, 01:26:07 amIt's atlxr.sourceforge.io.It is fairly odd in that it is designed to work through a web interface only (as CGI scripts, so you can use whichever server you like). But, for more complex projects, where your documentation includes diagrams and graphs, using HTML and SVG (possibly as a separate makefile target) is a good choice anyway.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 12:39:03 pm
content: Quote from: nightfire on November 02, 2020, 08:09:38 pmI remember met SUSE guys at CEBIT public opening day and they dressed (literally) Armani suits, ties and shiny shoesMeanwhile, M$ people in smart casual and, weirdo t-shirts and jeans

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2020, 08:40:52 am
content: Wonder if people who voted for CentOS would change it knowing...https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2020, 11:31:51 am
content: It will certainly be forked from that "stream"...https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/12/15/0218245/cloudlinux-to-invest-more-than-a-million-dollars-a-year-into-centos-cloneI ditched RedHat forks long ago when IBM acquired RedHatwhich mostly would follow the IBM interestsBTW Where is Arch linux on the options above ?forgotten ? of just taken as a hobbyist ?Paul

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2020, 05:22:24 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on December 25, 2020, 08:40:52 amIsn't Rocky Linux the new "drop in" replacement for CentOS? Not sure if that's going to be the new norm or if users will just switch over to Ubuntu LTS or similar.Quote from: PKTKS on December 25, 2020, 11:31:51 amNot the best option for a work PC that needs to be reliable. It's great if you want something to tinker with.