From a Windows expert to a Linux noob... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 11:32:25 am
content: So, I've been given a fairly modern laptop with an Intel Core i7 processor and 8GB RAM (it was getting thrown in the bin by a company so I rescued it).Now, I won't lie, I've used every version of Windows since 3.1 was current, desktop and server, and practically know it inside out. I can talk someone through an entire install and configuration of Windows NT as I can Windows Server 2012 on the phone, eyes closed... you get the point.However my experience with Linux is limited -- very limited. As in, I only just learnt what 'sudo' was. That said, I'd like to learn. I found installing Ubuntu Desktop 15.10 fairly painless. Is Ubuntu something worth starting with? Is it easy enough? What's the good, bad and ugly of Linux?As time goes on I'm hating what Windows is becoming and I refuse to use anything Apple as it annoys the shit out of me. I still use Windows XP and Windows 7 as my two primary machines and they do to the job well. I guess at some point, I'm going to have to upgrade.(Believe me people, this is a huge step for me!)

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 12:23:30 pm
content: sudo=Super User DOIt basically executes a command as the root (administrator in Windows) without needing to login as root. Actually you can give a user permission to execute certain commands as root (see /etc/sudoers)IMHO Windows 10 ain't bad if only it was possible to get rid of all the anti-aliased text. My eyes can't deal with that.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 12:54:36 pm
content: Halcyon it's just another OS, no harder than any other once you learn some of its ways. You're coming to it expecting to have to relearn how to do things you can already do in your sleep so that will be an advantage.For all the bad That can be said about it Ubuntu is a good choice for a first distro given its relatively vast user base, generally helpful community, and good third party support. Tbh many find it brilliant to carry on using long after they've reached an "expert" level. I'd stick with it until you feel a need to move away. If you don't like Unity you could always try Kubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu Mate, etc...Quote from: wilfred on April 09, 2016, 12:19:33 pmThis +9001

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 12:55:24 pm
content: QuoteEveryone will say different things here. Here are two points that mean a lot to me personally:Good:speed of installing programs and the culture of them being free. If I need an image editor, I can have it installed within a few minutes (or less) with minimum of fuss. No installers, no bundled software, no searching the web. I can install an image editor and then use it to colour-correct and deskew an image with my under-powered ARM laptop all faster than the guy next to me with his $1000+ laptop.Bad:The almost universal adoption of systemd. It hascaused me serious problemsand continues to go on a path of just-not-caring about users.QuoteBeautiful.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 01:09:18 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on April 09, 2016, 01:04:49 pmFrom System Settings go to Security & Privacy, select the Search tab, turns off web search from the Dash.Code:sudo apt-get remove unity-webapps-commonRemoves AmazonEDIT:Obviously only a problem for "normal" Ubuntu Desktop though.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 01:39:20 pm
content: Yes, exactly as above, separate partitions for home, filesystem and swap. I would use more for swap if you can, typically 2-3 times the main memory, so that hibernate actually has a chance of working. Mint because it has long term support, and this 5 year cycle allows you to learn easier instead of just trying to keep up with the fad of the month.By default you can encrypt the home folder, and on a laptop this is a good idea, though it has issues with hibernate at times. As it comes from the installer you will find most things work, wireless might be iffy depending on the wireless chipset, but pretty much the rest will work out of the box. Install Virtualbox and then you can put in a few VM with windows machines to do those things linux is poor at., or which is not written for it.Applications is up to you, if you like mail you have a whole lot to use, though I prefer ( and have done so for a long time now) Evolution over Thunderbird. Install Chromium ( as opposed to Chrome) as a browser in addition to Firefox, and you will have a good browsing experience. VLC as a media player is pretty good, though the built in Totem is quite usable, though you will have to install the non-free codecs to play certain content.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:11:58 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on April 09, 2016, 01:39:20 pmSee, to me swap has a different meaning. In Windows, I could quite safely disable swap altogether if I had enough RAM to cater for my needs. It seems the Linux swap does something else (it's like I'm using Windows 98 again!). I have to say, after using Ubuntu today it certainly has its positives but it still feels less "refined" than Windows does. Even little things like, such as going to fullscreen video doesn't automatically prevent the machine from going to sleep (based on system power settings). Little things like that. I also found the networking stack to be a bit odd -- In my case if I connected the Ethernet cable to my LAN (without internet) but used a WiFi hotspot for internet access, it got confused and couldn't access both at the same time (things would start timing out or not resolving at all). In Windows it usually works itself out (if DNS resolution failed on one interface, it would try on the others that were active and set the metric accordingly) but if all else failed, it's easy enough to set the metric manually.Amazon was also the first thing I uninstalled. Don't like it and don't use it. I have to say though the uninstall process was not dissimilar to the Windows Add/Remove Programs. It loses points for installing it in the first place, but I guess it's not difficult to remove.I also found under Windows, if a device driver wasn't working or didn't exist, you'd know about it in Device Manager. However under Linux (Ubuntu) things seem to work just fine, however I'm dubious whether or not their working to their full potential/capability. An example is the audio drivers on this machine, this laptop has a built-in "sub-woofer" however the audio is worse than my mobile phone loudspeaker. Is Linux just providing basic support then I have to go around installing additional crap? How do I know? At least in Windows, it either worked or it didn't and if not, you'd get a big effing exclamation mark saying "hey, I need drivers, go get them".

author: albert22
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:23:08 pm
content: I used to work as a system administrator on unix many years ago when there was no windowing systems. Then with sun solaris and its OpenWindows which was a lot more friendly. I ended hatting the unix environment and decided not use it anymore. Until a few years ago when I was forced to use a laptop with w8, then I said to myself "let me see that unix/linux again"As in here:http://www.smart-words.org/humor-jokes/smart-jokes/genie-in-a-bottle.htmlI installed Ubuntu, it is very easy to install as you already know and very friendly to use. I tried first on a virtual machine and it is usable but rather slow. With vmware player or similar you can try different distros very easily.As someone said before there are lots of free software some are great, some are very limited and a little buggy. Depending on your application you may not find a linux version of the program that you need. As an example for some EE tools you will have to stick with window$.Life in ubuntu and perhaps other distros is very easy if you can solve most of issues at the desktop.Installing programs using the "ubuntu software center" or "apt-get" command is straightforward but only works for the versions that are already at the repositories.If you need to install something by yourself of compile from source it can become a nightmare. Then you are in the realm of the terminal window, texts commands and dependencies. That involves a steeeep learning curve. Nevertheless searching the web usually gives you some cryptic and magic commands that solves your problems.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:31:25 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 09, 2016, 02:11:58 pmIf you don't need hibernate you don't really need a swap partition if you've plenty of RAM.QuoteThat is just a setting in the video player. Probably should be the default I agree.QuoteHave you tried to change the output to 2.1 in the settings program?OT but seeing as you know Windows well how would I go about getting my PC to shutdown instead of suspend/hibernate in Windows' power management settings? Suspend and nVidia GPUs don't work well in Windows.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:34:50 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 09, 2016, 02:11:58 pmAnd you can in Linux, too. Of course, if your needs involve hibernating.. that's where you traditionally store the RAM image. Windows uses a separate file for purposes of.. wasting disk space? Who knows. There's little need.QuoteYour video player and desktop environment aren't talking. Never assume a big distro like Ubuntu has its ducks in a row (I'm fairly convinced they don't know what a duck is - does it go meow?).QuoteNetworkManager is an unrefined, godawful pig turd. You get used to it.. eventually. Or just disable it and manage interfaces manually (does Ubuntu have a sensible way to do this? I have no idea.).QuoteAudio support is.. problematic. There's a lot of voodoo magic and human sacrifice involved in HDA, and it's more or less maintained by one person. One person with a really bad habit of committing barely tested sweeping changes which end up breaking hundreds of different machines he's never used. I have, over the years and laptops (never use HDA on desktops), lost mic inputs, had massive changes to gain, lost speakers, lost and found mute controls, etc.Welcome to the fastest moving target in the OS world. And you're on the slow version.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:35:52 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on April 09, 2016, 02:31:25 pmWhich version? If you're running 2000/XP/Vista, look in Control Panel > Power Settings. That dictates how your power button/closing the screen lid/timeout works and what it does. Personally for laptops I set "When I close my screen" to do nothing. That way it just disables the LCD and keeps everything running.From Windows Vista on, I think they implemented "Power Plans" which were just some bullshit default settings. You'll need customise them to your needs.Depending on your system too, you may have BIOS settings which dictate sleep/suspend/hibernate modes. Check those too.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:44:07 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on April 09, 2016, 02:34:50 pmThis is the sort of shit I've *tried* to get used to with Linux in the past but always ended up reverting back to Windows. You install a basic OS (no bundled applications you didn't ask for), you install device drivers if needed (yes, it sometimes involved manually downloading them, but so what? You knew exactly what you were installing). Then after a few updates, you had a clean slate.Argh, I'm seriously trying to like Linux, but I feel like I'm constantly getting two steps ahead then one step behind. This is just one machine, what about the 2-3 others I use for various purposes?

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:47:45 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 09, 2016, 02:35:52 pmI only really use Windows for gaming so I'm running Windows 10. I can only find options for "sleep" in the power plans. There doesn't seem to be any options to shutdown after so long inactive.QuoteWorks OK in other OSs including Windows 7. Haven't a clue about 8 and 8.1. Sort of hoping Vulkan takes off big style so I can role back to 7Thanks anyhows.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 02:50:09 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on April 09, 2016, 02:47:45 pmHaving not used Windows 10 before... try your screen saver settings. Otherwise in order to enact a full shutdown, you might need some 3rd party software... or just hit the power button when you're done?

author: Iwanushka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 03:36:34 pm
content: Ubuntu is fine for start it's just works tm.If you have lots of free time to play around and learn linux inside out you can jump on gentoo train. My first and last linux distro is gentoo but it takes lots of time at the begining to get everything working as you want it.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 03:39:32 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on April 09, 2016, 02:31:25 pmThere isn't such a feature in the OS AFAIK. But I've had about 5 laptops with nVidia GPUs in the last 10 years and never had an issue with suspend... and they get suspended several times a day, and not rebooted more frequently than once a week or so.Quote from: Halcyon on April 09, 2016, 02:44:07 pmExactly the same here. I dabble quite a bit with it on dedicated devices e.g RPi, it's really cool to put things together, doing dev/coding but for everyday use there's no way I can do with Linux, and it didn't really get any better since the first time I said that 12+ years ago.Happily running W10 on all my machines, coming straight from 7 and XP before that... The mess in between is best kept under the carpet. Actually wrong, my laptop is a mac and I've managed to come to terms with OSX for light mobile use since Yosemite, I run Windows either on Bootcamp when really needed or as a VM for the stuff that needs it.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 03:55:34 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on April 09, 2016, 03:39:32 pmThat's an idiotic oversight.QuoteI'm on about desktop GPUs not the "m" types. Will admit it works fine with my 8800 or 680, but with my 690 and 980ti's the screens won't turn back on when resuming. Doesn't matter which output I use or what PC the cards are in. All of them work fine in Linux distros albeit with no proper SLI or MultiGPU support, though I do tend turn of suspend to ram/hibernate and just have them shutdown instead.EDIT: I'm not trying to be a "stealth fanboy" here, it's just something that really doesn't work for me.Thanks for the suggestions. Sorry for derailing things.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 04:10:56 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on April 09, 2016, 03:55:34 pmWell I can't think of a situation where I'd want my PC to shutdown on me without warningProbably dangerous to have that as a standard option for the general user who'd lose unsaved work too.Anyway there seems to be a workaround, adjust the command line to shutdown instead of logging out:https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/d358382c-e91b-4e91-a1e8-04c53cfd91ce/automatic-logout-after-inactivityidle?forum=w7itprogeneralOr there are very likely 3rd party tools for that.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 04:18:09 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on April 09, 2016, 03:39:32 pmActually Linux has become very usefull as a desktop over the last 5 years especially since virtual machines have improved a lot. I have been using Linux for about 20 years. Over a year ago I have switched from Windows to Linux as the primary OS and banished Windows to a virtual machine. However switching over takes time. It took me 3 years to gradually move & test functionalities to a Linux desktop on a seperate machine using Xming (paid version) to have a remote desktop.Currently I still use Windows (in a VM) for some things like using MS-Word, Orcad and programming NXP microcontrollers.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 04:30:46 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on April 09, 2016, 04:10:56 pmIt's no more without warning than sleep/hibernate/suspend after so long inactive is. Say I've fallen asleep watching something, I just took off forgetting to shut down the PC, I don't see the point of wasting the extra energy not having it shut down, or suspend doesn't work with some hardware* and when Windows decides to turn suspend back to 30 minutes instead of "never" behind my back I have to hard reset the PC...Windows used to give you the option to do it until Windows 10, every other OS including OSX does, doesn't cause problems.QuoteWhat programs from the past 20 years don't automatically save and let you resume from where you left off with your edit history intact? I don't use one that doesn't, not even a video player or web browser.My particular problem seems to be very common too.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 04:36:51 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on April 09, 2016, 04:30:46 pmOn a tablet which has an OS designed to work that way none, but at least half of the programs I use daily on Windows won't do that (apart from "recovery" situations after a crash) and will actually prevent a shutdown if something is unsaved, so the PC would just stay stuck on "closing applications" until I either cancelled shutdown and took care of them or manually clicked the "shutdown anyway" button and as such decided to deal with the potential consequences.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 04:47:44 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on April 09, 2016, 04:36:51 pmI don't use a tablet for any more than web browsing or reading comics, I was specifically thinking of PC (whether Windows, OSX, or Linux) programsQuoteAnd I'm genuinely surprised by that. Do they not even have an autosave feature at all? Must be murder for laptop users if they don't.

author: Len
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 05:01:51 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on April 09, 2016, 04:47:44 pmPrompting to save on app exit is standard Windows behaviour. (And Mac too.) No problem for laptops because generally the laptop just goes to sleep when you close it and wakes up exactly as you left it, unsaved files and all. I shut down my laptop way less often than my desktop.I hate apps that just silently autosave the file periodically because sometimes Idon'twant to save my changes!

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 05:22:35 pm
content: Quote from: Len on April 09, 2016, 05:01:51 pmStandard behaviour when exiting with unsaved changes, even in textmode programs. The various *nix's and DRI did that in their GUI programs long before there were Macs too.QuoteAs long as they also remember the edit history it's something I couldn't live without.

author: Macbeth
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 05:44:54 pm
content: I like Windows and can certainly raise a glass to Bill for my lucrative programming career. But I just can't help loving Linux. I have an awful 1U Xeon rack server in the spare room that I used to run with SBS2003. Slow as shit and no longer supported. I switched it over to Ubuntu Server a few years ago and have it doing all my email, torrents, usenet, file shares, and even TVHeadend with a DVB-S2 PCI card and 2x USB DVB-T2 pumping all that crappy broadcast programming to the Raspberry PI TV's in the house.All my Windows laptops/desktops have Cygwin/X installed, because I just prefer BASH over crappy DOS PROMPT.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 06:22:27 pm
content: Windows 7 can be made to turn off the PC at a scheduled time by using the Task Scheduler (don't know if Windows 10 still has that) and only if the PC is not in use, but I don't think it can do it after a period of inactivity.Which is actually pretty stupid if you think about it. How hard would it have been to implement?Now with Windows 10, Microsoft sure doesn't want you to turn your PC off. They might miss an opportunity to root through your data.

author: Syntax_Error
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 06:58:43 pm
content: Many useful things have been said already, so I'll keep this brief. I use Linux Mint 17.x (not the no-codecs version, just regular Mint, with the default Cinnamon user interface) and it just works. It's nice. Give it a try.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 08:10:59 pm
content: I made the switch after XP was a let down compared to win 2000. I had used MS stuff since dos and windows 3.1 so when I found slackware and the text installer it felt normal to me.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 09:35:56 pm
content: (I just read through this and it's very angry. Don't mind that; linux is awesome and I wouldn't use anything else!)Ubuntu is fine.Unity sucks balls. Big time. After I can't remember how many years it's still an unusable piece of shit as far as I can tell. I don't know what the fuck they were on when they decided to run with it. As far as I know it was part of the 'one OS for all devices' push. What a total fuckup. I haven't used plain Gnome for years, but I understand that went the same way. KDE was unstable at the time so I haven't used it extensively but I do have it installed. Might give it an honest attempt from today since I just got myself angry.Why thefuckis the contrast on the grabby sliders on scroll bars so insanely the same as the rest of the scroll bar?Anyway. I use it, and I don't complain.A couple of things:You'll want tint2. It's a open application bar thing for the bottom of the screen. Like windows. The unity concept down the left is shit. It doesn't work for some windows and if you're like me, with 50 things going on after a couple of days, it just doesn't cut it for the volume of windows. tint2 is quite acceptable after you configure it.Also, if you're new you'll want to install classicmenuindicator (or something like that) which gives you a gnome like menu so you can actually see what's installed that might be what you're looking for. While I'm on this topic: Why thefuckcan't I right click orsomethingon an icon in the unity panel, or whatever the slidy-openy-thing is from the top left icon, and get the fucking application name so I can run it from the command line? And why is the indexing still so poor that sometimes it fails to find an application by its bloody name?Synaptic (The gui for apt/dpkg) is the old software centre. Use it. It's a whole lot more useful.Overall I like it. It takes a while to settle in and get comfortable, and there's a lot you might want to learn, but all of the information is out there. Pick your battles in the beginning and stay focussed on the problem you're trying to solve. It can seem daunting in the beginning, but you don't have to know everything. In fact you hardly need to know anything at all to get started. Sure, things change after you've learned them (fucking networking) and upgrades break things, but I am yet to encounter a problem I couldn't solve. That's just not true for closed source software.I used mint for a while. Loved it. Then I learned they had no facility for release to release upgrades. Has this changed?And shouldn't we be getting reboot-free kernel updates by now? Wasn't that supposed to be in 4.0? They're the only reason my machine needs rebooting these days.

author: Macbeth
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 09:38:43 pm
content: Yeah, I use xubuntu - I really don't have any love for that Unity rubbish.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 10:15:33 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on April 09, 2016, 12:19:33 pmThis is very sensible. If I were starting again I might try vanilla debian. But I'd research it properly again.Quote from: Halcyon on April 09, 2016, 02:11:58 pmYoumightknow about it in device manager.linux device troubleshooting can be tricky, but you will find there is always enough information available. Can take a long time though.Sorry, I don't have any advice for your particular audio issue. When you google 'linux your-audio-chipset' you'll find the answer though. My guess is you need to blacklist some high ranking driver or pass it an option. This is a pain, but I guarantee someone has solved this problem before you and the answer is on a forum somewhere.I looked at a win7 machine that wakes from sleep immediately the other day and there's nothing in the logs. I'm sure it'll be some shit printer driver or some old nokia phone sync software or something. Can't find anything. Stopped caring after a couple of hours.Quote from: albert22 on April 09, 2016, 02:23:08 pmWhat you say is true, but I'vehadto compile maybe 1 thing in 15 years. The rest I just compiled because I wanted to, or I wanted to change something.Quote from: Monkeh on April 09, 2016, 02:34:50 pmHa! Many times yes! As for an alternative; I don't know. It seems to have been screwed for a few years. I think you can uninstall network manager and /etc/network/interfaces works as it was intended. As obtuse as that mechanism was, it worked fine.Quote from: Halcyon on April 09, 2016, 02:44:07 pmI know how you feel. Stick with it and you'll be fine. Try to focus on one problem at a time because each one may take a while to solve. Your problems are almost certainly solvable so it's OK to persist with your research. One thing I find frustrating is the changing terminology for stuff in the UI. I had a missing icon for some power indicator on the top right of the screen for ages after trying some alternative window manager. Still don't know what those icons are called.Quote from: Macbeth on April 09, 2016, 09:38:43 pmAlso worth a look. Haven't used it for some years, but it was absolutely fine for the time Iwasusing it.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2016, 10:19:20 pm
content: Another thing:I put lots of stuff in scripts. Make yourself a ~/bin directory (not strictly correct but good enough and is probably already in your path) then you can document all your long commands, give them reasonable names and tab command completion will work.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 01:58:32 am
content: That is somewhat true for some categories of home use.I'd say you're doing yourself a disservice if you're at all technical, on a budget, and not using it. Admittedly most of the biggest open source projects have binaries for windows, and most niche commercial softwareonlyhas binaries for windows, but the spectrum of open source stuff for linux is astounding in its comprehensiveness.Personally, I started just to stick it to the man. Now I couldn't go back.

author: jeremy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 02:52:59 am
content: I use all of the big three basically every day. Main computer is a MacBook Pro (with VMWare), workstation is Ubuntu, lab automation PC is Ubuntu and NAS is Ubuntu.I really like xubuntu as well, I use it in VMs as it is light on the GPU. I run Windows 8 in a VM on my laptop and workstation for all of those odd programs you need to use.Some tips:The thing I miss the most from Linux when using Windows is definitely the shell. New users seem to dislike it, but I can't live without it. Some useful commands which are perhaps a little uncommon among new users:- 'tail -f somefile.log' will continuously read somefile.log and print out any new characters that are written to it- 'ack-grep cake' will search all of the folders and files in the current directory recursively for the string 'cake'. This is extremely useful when you are working on a large code base and don't know which file defines a particular variable- 'file test.bin' will run a bunch of heuristics on a file test.bin to try to detect what kind of file it is. 'binwalk' is the advanced version of this- 'dmesg' prints the kernel log. Useful if you want to make sure a hotplug device like USB has no bizarre driver errors as it will show up in the log. 'dmesg | tail' only prints the last few lines- 'cowsay' I use this to add silly ascii pictures to some of my scripts. Not necessary, but fun. I usually have tux present the results to me- 'apt-cache search python' will search for any apt-gettable packages in your apt system which contain the string 'python' in the title- 'lsusb' prints a list of the USB devices connected to the system. 'lspci' does pci/pci-e, etc- 'top' shows a continuously updating process monitor. 'iotop' shows a similar thing but for I/O- 'netstat -vat' shows a list of all of the current connections and listening ports for the system- 'arp -a' shows the ARP table- 'nmap' helps you find all of the connectable hosts in a given IP address range. You'll need to read up on the correct arguments for this as it is complicated, but I consider it an indispensable tool. You can use it for finding new raspberry pis, etc. 'zenmap' is a nice GUI frontend.- 'ifconfig' shows ips, mac addrs , etcI could probably go on for a while, so I'm going to stop here. Best of luck, and my advice would be to not be afraid of virtual machines; rather than wasting your time with a pile of wine tweaks, just install windows in a vm and get the job done. If you want to try a new distro, try it in a VM first.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 02:59:18 am
content: Good news, bash is coming to Windows.On modern versions of Windows, with PowerShell, you can write your own versions of those common Linux shell commands, if you really wanted.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 03:07:37 am
content: Quote from: jeremy on April 10, 2016, 02:52:59 amSome comments:ack is much more complicated than suggested - simple grep will do (with the -R option) as suggested, ack is very specifically designed to handle source trees. It will ignore many file types, certain subdirectories, etc.The tail command allows specifying the number of lines with -nhtop is a little friendlier than topifconfig is pretty much entirely deprecated, replaced by the iproute2 suite (primarily, the ip command). It's a little more complex but a lot more powerful

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 03:18:24 am
content: My company laptop has 64 bit WIn7, with 8 Gb of ram and a SSD drive which is encrypted. Suspend/sleep doesn't work for me as the computer rarely woke up. When using it on the road, I simply turn it off as it boots quite quickly. When in the dock I leave it alone. If the monitors go dark, I tap the keyboard and enter password. I rarely let it power down to that so there is no issue.I might have to look at mint in a VM on my personal laptop. I have been mildly curious about Linux in the past and it might be worth a look. There is not much on it if I decide to convert but I do have 2 programs for programming Asian handi-talkies that I would have to see if there were Linux versions. I know the Arduino IDE will work with Linux. Outside of a browser for surfing, that's all I really use it for.

author: med6753
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 03:20:51 am
content: I have an old Dell E310 running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS here. It runs well but configuring things, especially when trying to "talk" to Windows PC's, can be a real PITA. I never could figure out the proper protocol to get it to find Windows printers. I gave up and installed a USB switch to have direct access.I use Red Hat in a Desktop at work to perform system test on IBM Z13 Mainframes. It serves as an interface between the SE (Service Element) in the mainframe and the test cases downloaded from a host server. Most of the testing is GUI driven but every once in a while you have to resort to Terminal commands which can get tricky.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 10:14:42 am
content: Quote from: GreyWoolfe on April 10, 2016, 03:18:24 amThere is, it is called Chirp, and will work with almost all USB serial converters ( even the fake FTDI ones) to program your 2 way radio. Not the fanciest GUI but it does what it says on the tin.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 01:29:59 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on April 10, 2016, 10:14:42 amChirp is one of the 2 that I use and I like the program. However, I have a problematic converter that I will replace one day. Sometimes I have to replug the cable into a different port to get the software to see the radio but it hasn't yet annoyed me enough to replace it. I checked the website and I saw the Linux version. I also have software for Wouxun radios as a couple of older hams in the club have them and, unless I am reading wrong, there is no Linux version but I guess I could do a VM for WIn7 if necessary. Definitely something to think about. I see from med6753 that printing to windows printers can be problematic. I print from the laptop to a Brother laser through an old HP Jet Direct print server. That would have to work also.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 02:08:14 pm
content: Should print to the Brother provided it speaks HP, as there is good support of HPGL5,6 and PS built in.Works for a number of the HP small lasers as well, and pretty much every networked HP printer.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 02:12:42 pm
content: You probably won't have that USB issue in Linux, that is one of the reasons I switched. Windows you plug you device in each day for a few weeks then all of a sudden it doesn't work. Usually a reboot fixes but after a few times you have to remove an reinstall drivers. When I ran XP I was plugging in a USB drive to backup. Every few weeks was the reboot to make it work, then every few months was the remove and let it reinstall the drivers to work. Same device, its just that after many many uses it did this.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 03:04:40 pm
content: Quote from: eugenenine on April 10, 2016, 02:12:42 pmI have the same experience with various USB equipment and XP. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Under Linux everything just works out of the box. camera, scanner, USB-serial dongles, USB sticks, etc.

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 03:54:51 pm
content: The biggest advantage I've seen with linux is It's sheer speed, and how well it runs on machines that keel over and die on windows 7. In addition, I've found that it still operates very similarly to the day you've installed it. (No need for further explanation there windows...)In addition, the amount of time it takes to get an os up and running is miniscule. Installing ubuntu on a pentium 4 with a patheticly slow pata drive, and a pata disk drive is faster than installing xp, 7, 8, or 10 on a much faster sata III based system (using dvd or usb2/3) at which point you would have to suffer the wrath if the panic driver while you use internet explorer (insert version here) to install your video drivers, a decent browser, and any other drivers you may need.Jump back to the 'nix system and you're already up and running with the somewhat competent vesa/altium drivers included with the system, and easy access to the proper video driver and or browser via terminal (apt, yum, rpm, tazpkg, whatever), synaptic, or a software center. Total time to get a fully capable linux desktop setup? < 30 minutes. Windows? Eh.... Let's not go there.That being said, i find linux in general is more for power users.Side note, manu windows programs are faster in wine than on windows.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 05:32:27 pm
content: I have heard this "oh, Windows gets slow, you need to reinstall it all periodically" thing my entire IT career and I have NEVER EVER had to do that on any of my computers. Not once. But then, I don't willy-nilly click on every link on the internet, I pay attention when I install software so I don't get the optional extra crap that even Oracle now pushes with java installs, and I periodically use the disk cleanup tool to wipe out temp files and old restore points. I've also never had a virus on any machine under my control (ie, those only I use, not others). Think about this - Windows is used by everyone and their brother, including those who can barely figure out where the power button is (and even that can be a challenge to some). Linux is more like the earlier days of computing where it took some level of knowledge to use effectively. Forearmed with such knowledge, you are more easily able to avoid the common traps that cause problems. I DO have a Linux machine, certainly runs better than Windows would on such a low power box, which is why I decided to go with Linux on it in the first place. It runs my model railroad. The software is Java based, so it runs on anything, the exact same program is also running on my Windows machine, and shares data files with the Linux one. The USB interface device worked fine on Linux - after I set the port permissions. Out of the box, the application did not have permission to access the USB port of the interface.

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 05:53:08 pm
content: Contrary, i don't click willy nilly and all my windows installs still slow down eventually. Takes much longer than the massively bloated images i deal with on a daily basis, (Lazy netadmins making ridicoulous images on already underpowered computers) but it still happens.The fact is, when a computer has to be used by many people, there is no reason for the averagerestrictedand locked down user to be able to operate normally and manage to bog down the system by such an incredible amount.Doing the same tasks on tiny little arm based chromebooks with a 5th of the processing power without being wiped for over three years, they still chug along happily.Go figure.I'm not anti windows, i do use it as my primary os, but there is a considerable folly to it. I do strongly believe that given a company willing to clean up and automate some frustrating procedures for the end user (Taking for example, Zorin, a bit further.)

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 06:00:49 pm
content: Quote from: rrinker on April 10, 2016, 05:32:27 pmThat's because you have the prerequisite knowledge and know how to look after your install. Because no matter how much people like to make out Windows is so much more noob friendly than Linux it isn't, they probably balance out about the same. Once people move beyond web browsing and word processing this:Quote:applies to Windows just as much. And OSX. And pretty much any useful full OS.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 08:22:11 pm
content: Quote from: botcrusher on April 10, 2016, 05:53:08 pmI agree -again-. It's just that Windows gets slower and slower gradually so you don't notice it. I think this is even on purpose so new Windows versions feel faster than the old ones. However once you have been behind a Linux machine and experience how snappy everything works (and keeps working) compared to Windows the gradual slow down is not working in Microsoft's favor.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 09:58:25 pm
content: Windows definitely gets slower over time. It seems fast when first installed (or is a new version) because 150+ updates have yet to be installed. Also, every time software is installed, many additions and changes are made to the registry, but uninstalling (or removing) the software never completely removes all the changes. This results in Windows having to sift through more and more debris as time goes by. This is why I much prefer software that doesn't have to be "installed".

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2016, 10:15:19 pm
content: I love being that one guy who shows up to school with a custom livecd while everyone else sits there banging their heads on the table during their 15 minute+ startup&login time.MUHUHAHAHAHAH!!!

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 12:10:45 am
content: Rrinker, you are right, they barely know where the power button is but they know where the cup holder is

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 12:58:26 am
content: I try to remember to reboot my Linux systems at least once a year whether they need it or not.

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 01:18:18 am
content: This one outlived it's hardware rotation on 2nd (install first boot, custom kernel install, reboot) boot:

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 01:44:39 am
content: Speaking of hardware, I'd like to see a windows drive be plugged into a completely different chipset and still boot on the first try.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 01:57:16 am
content: I would have videoed it had I known someone would have been interested. I took the drive out of my Core 2 Duo laptop and put it in a second gen i5 laptop and it booted right up. It's worked at least since Windows XP, this happened to be Win 7 at the time.

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 02:07:16 am
content: How odd.. I thought only 8+ could *sometimes* do that when jumping to pchI've seen 2k, xp, 7, and 8 all keel over with a bsod when switching chipsets and/or AMD/Intel. I've never had a problem with my nix' installs. For awhile i hauled my system disk everywhere with me. i5 -> Pentium 4 -> C2D -> Pentium D -> pentium Dual core, and then back to i5.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 02:19:22 am
content: I dunno about going AMD to Intel or vice-versa, but it can handle the different chipsets within Intel processors just fine. Maybe what I did is the maximum difference it can accept. Prior to XP, there were different kernels for single and multi processor, there was a bunch of voodoo you had to do to take a single processor server with NT or 2000 and add a second processor later. I actually wasn't expecting it to work, but it actually booted up, and then did some "new hardware detected". I still had to load the proper chipset driver for the new machine before all the warnings went away in Device Manager. What I think happens is it defaults to generic drivers - much like doing a fresh install on a new machine. It boots and runs but is not optimal until you install the appropriate Intel or AMD chipset drivers. Well, just guessing on AMD, I haven't used an AMD CPU in over 12 years. Nor any ATI/AMD video cards, their OpenGL performance is horrible. I have a 3D CAD program for model railroads (also drew my workbench in it), way back when I upgraded from a P3-500MHz system with some original nVidia card (before they called them GeoForce) to a then current AMD XP1700+ and an ATI 9500 video card. In 3D mode in that CAD program, the old P3 machine managed something like 20FPS. THe new machine which was otherwise WAY faster? About 3FPS. That's about the time I got back into Linux (I had previous played with it back around 0.89A when it came on floppies and you had to compile the kernel yourself. And a 386 machine was pretty plush) and tried out some of the distros that had the run from CD option. Again, that old P3 machine ran it FASTER than that nice new machine. A graphical desktop was almost unusable on the ATI card.

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 10:38:20 am
content: Yeah, I was on a budget to ditch my baked potato of a gpu, the GT-610, so I took the first and cheapest (yet reasonably powerful) thing i could get, figuring it would be powerful enough to overcome the nix AMD drivers. That card was the 7850, and no, i haven't touched that card with nix since *shudder*

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 10:47:08 am
content: Quote from: botcrusher on April 11, 2016, 01:44:39 amBeing a Windows user from a long time ago (as per my original post), people don't give Windows credit where credit is due.Windows was made to work on all sorts of weird (and cheap) hardware combinations, because that's the shit people bought. As long as you're not throwing a pre-installed Windows installation into a machine with a different architecture, the worst that's happened is you need to go in through Safe Mode, delete the old device drivers and start again with the new hardware. Overall, I think it did a pretty damn good job and still does to this day.You try and throw Linux on something it doesn't agree with and all you get is a kernel panic (if it doesn't completely freeze during boot). Trying to get a recent Intel NUC booting on an older version of Ubuntu proved impossible, it'd just sit at blank screen and only CTRL+ALT+DEL had any affect.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 11:18:29 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 11, 2016, 10:47:08 amChange from AHCI to one of the many crusty old IDE interfaces, or vice versa. Whoopsie, BSOD.QuoteThat tells you it successfully booted. It may have failed to get video working because the hardware is a moving target, but it booted.Linux will adapt far more easily to achangein hardware. Now, new hardware which nobody's been paid to write drivers for yet, you're on your own. Much like Windows, frankly, except they release the drivers they shouldn't have paid for, and leave you to enjoy the broken.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 12:56:52 pm
content: Changing from IDE to AHCI (why in the world would you go BACKWARDS?) is a driver problem, not a Windows problem. That's like asking your wifi driver to handle the USB port.As for handling new devices - I just got a new printer over the weekend, it connects via wifi so I didn't need to plug anything in other than the power cord (though a 1 meter Ethernet cable would reach to plug it in). After I set up the SSID and password and got it on the network, I went to my computer to install eh drivers and - it was already installed and working. Windows saw the new device on the network and installed the required drivers to communicate with it. That's how crappy Windows is at handling new hardware.I've also just switched hardware, like upgrading my laptop from a spinny disk to an SSD - I just used partition cloning software to copy the partition to the SSD, swapped the drives, and it booted. Later on I swapped the brand X SSD for a brand Y much larger SSD, via the same procedure. Also no problems. Or when I upgraded my video card to the GTX970 I run now, from a GTX480. It booted right up, without resorting to plain VGA mode - but then that was the same family of cards, NVidia uses just one driver for all their cards. I've swapped before, in which case Windows just starts up using a standard VGA resolution until you install the drivers for the new card. It does, generally, 'just work'. The issues I see some people have, I can't figure out how they got into such situations. I don't have to reboot my Windows machines every other day just to keep them running, either.

author: med6753
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 02:04:34 pm
content: I've been using Ubuntu since 10.04 and there's one thing it does NOT do well. Upgrade to the next LTS. I've never had a smooth upgrade. And that's across different PC's. Problems ranging from drivers FUBAR'ed and flat out refusing to boot. Re-imaging and loading from scratch fix the issues. Just yesterday I decided to upgrade from 14.04 LTS to 15.10. Fingers crossed. NOPE!It refused to boot. I had to download the ISO and start all over. Then spend all the time again setting it up to my liking and of course it STILL won't connect to my Windows printers even though it sez it found it and connected. Go to print a test page and get nothing but crickets.I just recently upgraded my laptop from Win7 to Win10. (Sidebar....of course full backup run first). Smooth as silk. Saved my settings, files, etc. All programs worked. The only thing that didn't work was for some reason it dropped out of my homegroup. 5 minutes and that was fixed. Can't argue with that.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 03:42:09 pm
content: Quote from: med6753 on April 11, 2016, 02:04:34 pmMy experience is exactly the opposite to this. Not saying your experience is BS just that YMMV.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 04:34:06 pm
content: Quote from: rrinker on April 11, 2016, 12:56:52 pmNo, it's a Windows problem. Changing in either direction shouldn't matter. Why? A drive is a drive. It's on an interface. Okay. It's a drive. It holds data. WHY DOES IT MATTER what driver it uses?Linux simply doesn't care. It's a drive, it's on an interface, it appears as a block device.. and we don't even care what the block device is, because we look for a label or UUID to identify the filesystem. It can be a SCSI block device, an old ATA (if anyone still uses that subsystem.. certain people on this forum smashing their head against ancient PPC hardware need not apply) device, an md device, one of the various flash block devices..QuoteI built a brand new system with a Realtek NIC. Windows downloaded the driver - oops, didn't work, the version Microsoft carry doesn't have the right firmware.I built a brand new system with an Intel NIC. Windows supplied the drver - oops, too old, doesn't work.I built a brand new system with an AMD GPU Windows didn't even have a driver for yet - went and downloaded the latest driver from AMD - oops, BSOD on boot. Go back for the previous version - oops, not on the mirrors. Or the one before that. Three versions further back, hey, it works again.That's how crappy Windows is with new hardware.QuoteSwapped a 660 Ti for a 680 just the other week. Complete fail, had to clean all traces of the driver - and the one Windows went and downloaded and failed to install properly. Three reboots later..Admittedly the 660 Ti went in over the previous 660 without a hitch, and that 660 went over the 470 before it without a hitch. It's like playing the lottery, only when you win it costs you time and money.QuoteNor do I. Just every few weeks when the driver (driver? WHY?!) needed to mount an iso decides to have an aneurysm and eat all my RAM. Or when Windows somehow fails to unload it cleanly, so it stops working.Windows isn't perfect. And nor is the software we have to bolt on to give it utility.E: Oh, and I just had to kill Explorer, it decided it needed 2G of RAM to itself.. That could be a runaway thumbnailer, but it wouldn't run those in the same process if they'd thought about it for more than five minutes.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 05:26:06 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on April 11, 2016, 04:34:06 pmOf course, the fact that on Linux it's often easier and cheaper to throw a Wi-Fi card away and replace it because it would take 2 days of fiddling including recompiling the kernel and the driver to get it to work makes it sooooo much better.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 06:40:19 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on April 11, 2016, 05:26:06 pmBlame the manufacturer, who decided that it would be fine to save on ROM and only include 16K in the adaptor, to get a bootloader that would give an USB endpoint so the bloatware on the computer could download, at every USB disconnect ( hopefully, that often borks untill you pull it out then reconnect it 20 seconds later), to fill the 48k of RAM with the firmware. Should have spent the 10c extra and gotten the bigger MCU so the firmware ( which would be in flash in any case, so not exactly hard to upgrade in any case) would be on board and ready to go within 10milliseconds after plug in, even before the USB subsystem actually realised there was new hardware installed, and as a bonus it would keep connected when you plugged something else into the same hub.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 06:41:46 pm
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on April 11, 2016, 01:18:18 amI had a Netware server that had similar uptime until I pulled the plug on it, usage for the last 1000 days had been zero.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 06:42:05 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on April 11, 2016, 05:26:06 pmAs opposed to playing the driver lottery with Windows, which I've had to do numerous times..Not that recompiling a kernel and driver takes 2 days.. but then, there are those who can, and..

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 07:11:00 pm
content: Every single one of those fails is a driver, not Windows core.If only people could write proper software.AHCI, ATA, IDE, each interface uses a different (sometimes overlapping) command set and has different features. Hence a different driver for each one - though it IS actually possible to slipstream in a driver when changing so that Windows can boot when you switch interfaces, so a full reinstall is not the only resort. It IS a hassle but outside of switching motherboards it's not something that happens often, and it's only a problem with the boot drive. ANy other drive, you just install the driver and it reappears.I doubt Microsoft wrote the Realtek driver, they include one Realtek provided. All the other fails - bitch at the idiotic programmers at ealtek who can't get it right, it's not a Windows failing. It's a Realtek failing. If they can't write a driver tht correctly identifies their own hardware, they have some issues. See also why I try to only buy motherboards that use Intel NICs, although they have a similar issue in that for 10 different models there are 10 different drivers. The chipset integrated ones generally aren't a problem, since if it's in a Z77 chipset, it's always the same one, so you just need the chipset driver. The standalone cards though - you need to find the model number and get the specific driver for that chip. Again this is not a Windows problem. It's whoever Intel has writing their drivers. If the Linux version just uses one driver for any Intel Ethernet card under the sun, that just means whoever wrote that is a better programmer than whoever Intel is using. There's no fundamental design issue with Windows that would not allow the driver to be universal.Video card, no clue. Unless the existing driver predated the newest video card. Which again makes it NVidia's problem, not a Windows one. They use all one driver, but as they come out with new video cards they sometimes drop older ones off the list (meaning if you've stuck with a really old card you would need old drivers, not the latest). But if you have a driver currently installed that was new when the 670 was new, odds are pretty high that it will fail if you swap out for a 900 series card. WINDOWS can handle it by falling back to a generic driver that works on all video cards.I'm not saying Linux sucks. I'm saying Windows is FAR better than so many naysayers want you to believe. I've used Windows since 1.0 on floppies when it was only embedded in certain software and not even available as a standalone. I was an early adopter of NT, from which the current versions all descend - the DOS based stuff that was 3.1, 95, 98, and ME has thankfully died. Upgrades can be wishy washy - I usually stick with one version until I build new hardware, but I did upgrade back in the day from 2000 to XP and the machine continued to work well until it was replaced with newer, faster hardware. And I've upgraded to Windows 10 3 times now, once on a laptop from 8.1, once on a desktop from 7, and once on a desktop from 8.1, all with no problems. It has always 'just worked'.My Linux box - I had to compile my own driver for the wireless NIC in it, because it wasn't available anywhere. It came with a Windows driver. And it was a current card at the time of purchase, not some old leftover junk. Also why I haven't upgraded it. I got it to work once, with the release of Ubuntu that's on it now, but who knows if I will be able to make it work on a newer version.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 07:25:10 pm
content: QuoteBy claiming it has no problem with new hardware - then saying it has nothing to do with it, because Microsoft don't write the drivers. Make up your mind! The fact is, it is not plain sailing with Windows either.QuoteNot being driver-agnostic for the boot drive is a Windows problem.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 08:05:51 pm
content: Quote from: rrinker on April 11, 2016, 07:11:00 pmActually it is Windows failing because Microsoft has decided a lot of high level functionality goes into the driver. This makes writing a good Windows driver a complicated job because it is not easy to deduct which functionality Microsoft expects you to implement. Trial & error...

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 08:52:15 pm
content: Quote from: med6753 on April 11, 2016, 02:04:34 pmOh, dude, you're unlucky. I've hadone.FWIW I've always been able to recover from a borked upgrade within a couple of hours and at least get the machine booting. What really pisses me off is release to release dicking with fundamentals like networking.Actually, another thing that pisses me off is the continual dumbing down of the software, which is unrelated, but I've started now...Any idea why ubuntu went with the disks thing instead of working on gparted? I have no idea what the disks thing is because I can't work out how to find it's fucking command name from the gui. Faark! Right clicky properties. Gimme!And the fucking abortion that is nautilus. Bastards! But I still use it. Tried cinnamon, which seems acceptable, but needs half of Mint installed to work, and that borks other things. Must get another file manager. Will look into it when I switch to KDE.Accidentally killed my x session yesterday, but in my annoyance I forgot to switch to KDE. Next time. I'm sure there'll be a kernel security patch shortly.

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2016, 09:52:42 pm
content: All i ask is that you keep the abomination call Unity TF away from me.this is why your first command should be to either remove unity, or to use an ubuntu based distro. My personal fave being Zorin!

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 12, 2016, 01:38:21 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on April 11, 2016, 04:34:06 pmWindows is only as crap as the hardware you run it on and the drivers you give it. Not saying you did anything wrong, but it honestly doesn't surprise me that you're having driver issues with an AMD video card. I had similar issues, ended up ditching the card for an Nvidia chipset.In my experience, Windows has been far less choosy and more forgiving with drivers than Ubuntu has (so far). I'm still trying to work out a small issue of, if I turn off the WiFi card (either through Ubuntu or the hardware switch) it never sees networks again until a reboot. As I mentioned before, if a particular hardware driver is faulty, the incorrect one, Windows will refuse to start the driver. There is none of this "half-working" hardware crap to contend with. It either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't its usually some fault of the hardware manufacturer or the user. Sometimes certain combinations of hardware make for an unstable and/or slow user experience, but again, I don't think you can blame Windows for that either. People buy cheap stuff and expect it to perform like the high-end gear.As I've always told people; Cheap, Fast and Reliable -- Pick two.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 12, 2016, 01:45:40 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 12, 2016, 01:38:21 amLaptop? Can't remember the start of the thread. Tried this?Code:sudo network-manager restartThere is a long standing bug with regard to wifi coming up after sleep with certain chipsets. Can't remember the specifics off hand, but it affects one of my boxes.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 12, 2016, 01:53:10 am
content: Quote from: apelly on April 12, 2016, 01:45:40 amYes, it's a laptop. It's fine after waking up from sleep, it's just if I turn off the Wi-Fi, it won't come back on. It says it's on but it just doesn't see any networks.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2016, 01:58:13 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 12, 2016, 01:38:21 amAnd how is that any different to Linux?Oh, and the drivers you give it? They're the ones you're given. You don't really get a choice.Quote from: Halcyon on April 12, 2016, 01:38:21 amFaulty? No, it doesn't refuse to start faulty drivers.. if you're lucky, they'll decline to continue and throw an error. Half-working hardware is real and present on Windows just like Linux, only you paid someone for those broken drivers.If you want to bring up the audio issues, I suggest you take a long, deep look into how HDA works, and blame the firmware people - it's their mess usually.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 12, 2016, 02:16:47 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on April 12, 2016, 01:53:10 amStill worth restarting network manager. It's kind of a sledge hammer to kill a mouse, but you might get interesting logs. And at the end of the log file where you can find them.Sounds like firmware not re-loading or initialising properly. in the bowels of ifup you'll probably find what's happening. Usually the easiest solution is to google with a log entry, read 20 forums and 100 posts, fine tune search, rinse and repeat. Although obtuse, networking is well understood in the community.Good luck.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2016, 02:19:51 am
content: Card firmware shouldn't get touched, it's more likely a firmware bug on the laptop. Possibly the EC not letting go of the radio kill signal. Not all drivers and/or card firmwares report a hard kill properly.