Linux Distro Noob thread of Linux noobs

Massa said:
I believe those are issues with the Gnome remix as well, it's a result of the lazy-ass job Ubuntu did of forking Gnome. Hopefully it'll be fixed eventually.
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Huh really? WTF is the point then? That's the only reason I was considering switching to that was to get those fixed.

Any yahoo could take Ubuntu and Gnome, smash em together and then cut some apps out. What were they working on?
 
Andrex said:
Huh really? WTF is the point then? That's the only reason I was considering switching to that was to get those fixed.

Any yahoo could take Ubuntu and Gnome, smash em together and then cut some apps out. What were they working on?
Click to expand...

:lol

The point of any Ubuntu remix really is to provide a different experience "out of the box", which means a different set of installed packages. Nothing more. So when you get the Gnome remix you don't have to waste time uninstalling Unity and installing Gnome's Shell, theme and things like that. Each Ubuntu official remix can only use unmodified packages from the Ubuntu repository.

I think the PPA's might offer something closer to the default Gnome experience - for example, the Settings is severely downgraded by the default set of Ubuntu patches. For future Ubuntu releases they plan to fork completely from Gnome, so the Gnome guys there will be able to ship a pure Gnome set of packages. Until then you're stuck with a little frankenstein.
 
Andrex said:
Gnome OS can't get here fast enough.
Click to expand...

Gnome OS isn't a replacement for regular distros, it's just a testing ground for devs really. If you really want to run a really good Gnome distro just use Fedora, or go even further and install Arch since you'd be getting a pure installation.
 
I've used Fedora before but there's a bit of weirdness in it. Also it's hard to compete with full Steam support and the Software Center.

Gnome OS will be a dev OS at first but it's quite obvious they want to position it as "their" OS. Gnome devs have always expressed dissatisfaction at the various changes or inadequacies of various distros (hence making and bundling as many Gnome apps with the Shell as possible), such as installers and whatnot (I think I heard Fedora *finally* got a good installer recently?)

A Gnome OS convertible tablet could be super hot.
 
Fedora is still using Anaconda and I don't think they've made any major changes to it recently. Steam is supported on a variety of distros, and once it's installed you never have to re-install it since it self-updates. The Software Center is a shoddy piece of software that is actually worse than other graphical package managers, and I'm surprised in 2013 they still ship with it given the state it's in.

As for Gnome OS, as far as I've read they have no intentions of putting it out there as a competitor to other actual distros, and in fact it is meant to help them by showcasing a pure Gnome 3 experience for developers and set an example for future releases. Since we won't see it until this time next year, you might as well give Fedora 18 a shot. Personally I think OpenSuSE 12.3 is the best Linux I've used in years, and would put that out there as a suggestion despite being a KDE-oriented distro, as they still have a Gnome spin, and really, all Gnome 3 installations are ostensibly going to be the same once you customize them.
 
The appeal of Ubuntu Software Center isn't the application itself and never has been. It's hideous, barely above "usable," and doesn't even display properly in Gnome Shell. It's the content, and I believe USC still offers the widest array of programs, tools, and apps.

Steam was also just one example of developers targeting Ubuntu first or primarily. That gives a peace of mind that's hard to replicate when using other distros.

As for Gnome OS, I think the Gnome team will position it as the "Nexus" of Gnome distributions. Which is to say, I think they'll push it and favor it as much as Google favors their own Nexus phones. Other distros will certainly have a decent Gnome experience, but as everyone learned from Android, nothing beats stock.
 
There is definitely something nice about just copy-pasting some ppa in order to get newer software, like the Spotify client, rather than have to use Alien to convert it or get it through other means, but either way you're still going to get whatever Ubuntu gets because it's the nature of Linux.

Fedora is probably going to continue to be the defacto Gnome distro well after Gnome OS comes out. I really just don't see the Gnome Project trying to branch out any more than they have, especially when there's still a ton of work to do for Gnome Shell already. KDE already has Plasma Active out, and if you mean to say Gnome is going to put out something like that, sure, I can see that. But anything more than that seems very unlikely.
 
I think they're pretty close to having a very consumer-usable OS already. They've been building up the default Gnome apps ever since 3.0 and the selection is fairly robust now*, and they've started design work on the installer. There's lots of other areas I'm unaware of but they seem fairly close to me. They even have ideas for an app store (although, I don't think you'll be able to buy anything since, well, Gnome.) HTML demo is already complete.

software-new.png


software-app-overview.png
Click to expand...

* Full-featured apps that will be bundled with Gnome OS: Web, Files, Chat, Contacts, Calendar, Mail, Documents, Photos, Music, Videos, Transfers, Settings, Boxes, Clock, Maps, Notes, Weather, Software (app store), Calculator, Character Map, Dictionary, Disks, Terminal, Cheese (webcam), and Sound Recorder.
 
A lot of that stuff isn't even complete, though, and for all we know Mail could just be a reworking of Evolution, which is terrible and has needed an update for half a decade. I like what the Gnome Project is doing, but it feels like they keep taking steps backwards in certain places despite making great progress in others. Some of the 3.8 changes make absolutely no sense.
 
Automatisch said:
A lot of that stuff isn't even complete, though, and for all we know Mail could just be a reworking of Evolution, which is terrible and has needed an update for half a decade. I like what the Gnome Project is doing, but it feels like they keep taking steps backwards in certain places despite making great progress in others. Some of the 3.8 changes make absolutely no sense.
Click to expand...

What do you mean?

The only change in 3.8 I haven't liked so far is the reversion of Alt+Tab (making it make less sense due to multiple workspaces.)
 
It's not specific to 3.8, but I feel like every new release they go back and forth with what they want to do. Like with how you couldn't originally restart from the main menu, now it seems they've removed lock screen. Also now you have to hit Power Off, then Power Off, then Restart instead of just letting you do it by clicking a single button. They just do little things that make no sense to me, and while I really like Gnome 3 visually and think it's going to accomplish what Microsoft wanted Metro to do, right now I would rather not use it as my main DE until they start to get something more locked down for design. Gnome Classic is neat but not worth using just yet.
 
That's not really going back and forth IMO. What I see is progress. Gnome 3.0 was intentionally severely limited, partly for technological reasons (in terms of getting a release shipped on time) and partly for ideological ones. However, now that Gnome 3 has been out for a while, they're paying attention to how people are using it and what they want to do with it and revising their directives accordingly.

Such as for the restart menu, it was actually hidden before. You had to hold down Shift to even see it. That it's now a full-fledged item in the power down menu says to me they're reacting to constructive criticism.

As for removing the lock screen, umm..?

ibeTf8wn74VUxt.png


iVSh4M4gMZg6c.png
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It's there and it's the best lock screen Linux has ever had, hell perhaps any desktop OS has had. And they made it even better in 3.8 (before you had to his Esc to "slide up," now you can just start typing your password. One step removed.) It even shows notifications in a beautiful way.

Gnome 3.0, 3.2, and to an extent 3.4 were fairly shaky, I admit. I did see potential but I didn't want to try it out, until 3.4 came out. And I've seen phenomenal progress in 3.6 and 3.8. 3.8 is almost a gold-standard UI-wise as far as I'm concerned.
 
I really like Ubuntu as a OS, but the application support just is not there to make it worth installing for other than curiosity's sake. Unfortunate that Linux never really got proper foothold into consumer desktop space :(

If i could get Lightroom, Ableton Live, Photoshop and Spotify on Ubuntu, I would be so there.
 
Darkkn said:
I really like Ubuntu as a OS, but the application support just is not there to make it worth installing for other than curiosity's sake. Unfortunate that Linux never really got proper foothold into consumer desktop space :(

If i could get Lightroom, Ableton Live, Photoshop and Spotify on Ubuntu, I would be so there.
Click to expand...

I've used Spotify on an Ubuntu based distro before.
 
hitsugi said:
I think Spotify is fine on pretty much any flavor of Linux
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It seems to work with pretty much any platform, period, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Nonetheless, the primary point was that some programs are and alway be exclusive (ignoring that the aforementioned apps may very well work in Linux via the wine API and library reimplementations), so the original poster cannot move from Windows to Ubuntu in the same way that I cannot move from Arch to Windows.
 
Andrex said:
No Title Bars:


So what’s the story with the close buttons?

Those of us who work on GNOME design have been pushing to reduce the presence of window titlebars for some time. The main driver for this is to use screen space more efficiently. The average titlebar includes big swathes of empty space, and they take up valuable vertical pixels. We’ve already seen the result of this direction in our treatment of maximised applications, where the titlebar is hidden.
Click to expand...


loooooool


Douchebag gnome:
complain about empty space, make apps with mostly empty space.
 
Any words on how AMD is handling enduro on Linux.
Its the biggest reason why i don't have Linux on my laptop yet.
It feels my laptop gets castrated and 90% of the performance is not accessible without tinkering with it for 3 days. Really frustrating given it took AMD February this year to partially fix it on windows.

For reference laptop contains a i7 and 7970m non alienware which has a mux to disable the integrated gpu. Hope this is the right thread to ask. Want to have some experience using gnu toolchain.
 
itxaka said:
loooooool


Douchebag gnome:
complain about empty space, make apps with mostly empty space.
Click to expand...

Can't you remove title bars in most window managers? Before KDE fucked up their window menu, doing it for an in....

Wat. KDE supports the Alt-` modifier for switching windows in a single application. When did they do this??? Eh, it's kind of missing the point when the regular Alt-Tab works with all windows instead of switching between entire applications. I'm over it now.

...anyway, I got really used to hitting Alt-F3 V N to toggle whether or not my current window had a titlebar. It was more helpful back in the day when not all media players had their own "borderless" option, but I used it in other limited cases, as well. But in this particular environment, the option is still in the window's Alt-F3 (or right click on titlebar) menu, just a little more deeply hidden. And it turns out that it's not very hard to set up a Window Rule that forces all newly created windows to have no title bar.

Mind, I like the titlebar because I use titlebar tabs, wherein you put multiple windows in the same geometry, and their titlebars appear as tabs where the window's titlebar would be. It's a nice way to force SDI apps to act a little more like MDI apps. I also use the "double click to shade/rollup" window a lot, to the extent that it annoys me when double-clicking on a bare area of a web browser overrides system behavior and causes a window to maximize. :|


edit: Wow, having a cold really makes my posts a lot more aimless than usual. Here's a more constrained summary of the point/query I was trying to get across:

brain without ADD and viruses said:
Which of the titlebar-oriented window managers (eg, not ratpoison or twm) allow you to hide titlebars in all windows if you don't like the waste of screen real estate?
Click to expand...
 
Maybe an odd question, also not sure if it can be done but any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have a headless server with Ubuntu Precise Pangolin installed (server edition), i kind of want to blat it and start again with either the latest ubuntu version or plain debian but i don't have a monitor, mouse or keyboard i can plug into it, atm i just ssh via my macbook. Is there anyway to essentially wipe it and start again all via remote means (ssh or otherwise?).
 
qwerty2k said:
Maybe an odd question, also not sure if it can be done but any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have a headless server with Ubuntu Precise Pangolin installed (server edition), i kind of want to blat it and start again with either the latest ubuntu version or plain debian but i don't have a monitor, mouse or keyboard i can plug into it, atm i just ssh via my macbook. Is there anyway to essentially wipe it and start again all via remote means (ssh or otherwise?).
Click to expand...

http://serverfault.com/questions/208128/how-to-remotely-install-linux-via-ssh

Sounds easy to completely break everything though.
 
I'm using Arch right now and it is starting to piss me off. They removed catalyst from their repository and pushed Xorg 1.14, so I'm stuck with either using the free driver to be able to update / install xorg related packages or keep my catalyst and xorg package and wait while the issue is resolved.

Is there a distribution that offer good support for KDE 4 or Gnome 3, is reasonably up-to-date, uses systemd and is not too restricted in regard to codecs / patents?
 
Hugh Buelow said:
I'm using Arch right now and it is starting to piss me off. They removed catalyst from their repository and pushed Xorg 1.14, so I'm stuck with either using the free driver to be able to update / install xorg related packages or keep my catalyst and xorg package and wait while the issue is resolved.

Is there a distribution that offer good support for KDE 4 or Gnome 3, is reasonably up-to-date, uses systemd and is not too restricted in regard to codecs / patents?
Click to expand...

Fedora has the first 3 covered but someone else will have to answer about codecs and patents. I've never had a problem running stuff on it though. Well, apart from SELinux being a bully about things.
 
Hugh Buelow said:
I'm using Arch right now and it is starting to piss me off. They removed catalyst from their repository and pushed Xorg 1.14, so I'm stuck with either using the free driver to be able to update / install xorg related packages or keep my catalyst and xorg package and wait while the issue is resolved.

Is there a distribution that offer good support for KDE 4 or Gnome 3, is reasonably up-to-date, uses systemd and is not too restricted in regard to codecs / patents?
Click to expand...

ATI drivers simply don't keep up with both kernel updates and Xorg releases in a timely fashion so if you go to a bleeding edge distribution you will have problems. If you want a stable environment you should try Debian Wheezy or something like it.

That said, it should be very easy to use Catalyst on Arch, whether you want the latest release or the latest beta version of the drivers. You'll just have to add a couple of repositories (one for catalyst, one for legacy Xorg) and other than that it's Arch business as usual.
 
freddy said:
Fedora has the first 3 covered but someone else will have to answer about codecs and patents. I've never had a problem running stuff on it though. Well, apart from SELinux being a bully about things.
Click to expand...

The last time I tried fedora, it was really bad in regard to codecs and patents. For example, it wouldn't let me drag a formula in OpenOffice because it is potentially covered in a patent.

Massa said:
ATI drivers simply don't keep up with both kernel updates and Xorg releases in a timely fashion so if you go to a bleeding edge distribution you will have problems. If you want a stable environment you should try Debian Wheezy or something like it.

That said, it should be very easy to use Catalyst on Arch, whether you want the latest release or the latest beta version of the drivers. You'll just have to add a couple of repositories (one for catalyst, one for legacy Xorg) and other than that it's Arch business as usual.
Click to expand...

Thanks you! It seems to be a great solution; I'll give that a go. Do you know if the third party repositories are reliable? Most of the 3rd party repositories that I used on other distributions where great, so I guess that it is similar for Arch.
 
Hugh Buelow said:
The last time I tried fedora, it was really bad in regard to codecs and patents. For example, it wouldn't let me drag a formula in OpenOffice because it is potentially covered in a patent.



Thanks you! It seems to be a great solution; I'll give that a go. Do you know if the third party repositories are reliable? Most of the 3rd party repositories that I used on other distributions where great, so I guess that it is similar for Arch.
Click to expand...

For Arch using these third party repos should be an exception - since Xorg and catalyst are core parts of a system the repos are good to get things to just work without having to waste time. In 99% of the cases you should stick to the official methods of installing packages - the official repositories and the AUR system.
 
I just installed 13.04 Ubuntu and I can't get used to it. I kinda need status bar at the bottom. Oh and Skype got changed up a bit, but the worst thing is no bottom bar with all the windows and such.

What other distros still have such bar? I thought of trying Mint, how does the software installing work on it?
 
Melhisedek said:
I just installed 13.04 Ubuntu and I can't get used to it. I kinda need status bar at the bottom. Oh and Skype got changed up a bit, but the worst thing is no bottom bar with all the windows and such.

What other distros still have such bar? I thought of trying Mint, how does the software installing work on it?
Click to expand...

Gnome Shell puts notifications for things like Skype on the bottom, but you need to mouse to reveal them or press Super + M.
 
Melhisedek said:
I just installed 13.04 Ubuntu and I can't get used to it. I kinda need status bar at the bottom. Oh and Skype got changed up a bit, but the worst thing is no bottom bar with all the windows and such.

What other distros still have such bar? I thought of trying Mint, how does the software installing work on it?
Click to expand...

Software installs work as they do in Ubuntu. Cinnamon and other mint alternative have the bottom bar you are talking about. (unless I'm mis-interpreting)
 
Madtown_ said:
Software installs work as they do in Ubuntu. Cinnamon and other mint alternative have the bottom bar you are talking about. (unless I'm mis-interpreting)
Click to expand...

Yeah bottom bar is Taskbar I have learned now :) I don't know I kinda need it to see my tasks all the time or so I think :P I will try and get used to this new thing and see how it goes. Just wish I didn't compare it so much with Windows.
 
Just installed Lubuntu 13.04. This is what I have been wanting!

Real lightweight, thus super fast. More features than elementary OS, while looking just as good and running even better.
 
Not installing Ubuntu 13.04 until someone tells me that LibreOffice can be used in a reasonable way.

I use keyboard shortcuts all the time, and there is a kludge to get that working in 12.10 but it apparently still wasn't working in 13.04 betas last I heard.

Follow the bug here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/739184

Just insane that 6 months after this bug was in a major release, it's still in another major release. Almost enough to make me try another distro. :(
 
Cinnamon 1.8 Released
May 5th, 2013

On behalf of the team and all the developers who contributed to this build, I am proud to announce the release of Cinnamon 1.8!

Cinnamon 1.8 represents 7 months of development and 1,075 commits. It features a lot of bug fixes but also brand new features and many improvements.

Here’s a quick overview of some of the new things in Cinnamon 1.8.

Have a lot of fun with this new release and don’t hesitate to give us some feedback! Enjoy
Click to expand...
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=261

So how do I actually upgrade to Cinnamon 1.8?

Edit: found my answer:

Cinnamon 1.8

Cinnamon 1.8 is out:

http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=261

Grab the source and compile it from GitHub or wait for packages to reach a distribution near you.

Mint users:

Cinnamon 1.8 will hit “Romeo” in Mint 14 and Mint 13 in the days to come
Linux Mint 15 RC will be out mid-may
Cinnamon 1.8 will then hit “Backport” in Mint 13
Click to expand...
http://linuxmint.com/planet/index2.php
 
jvm said:
Not installing Ubuntu 13.04 until someone tells me that LibreOffice can be used in a reasonable way.

I use keyboard shortcuts all the time, and there is a kludge to get that working in 12.10 but it apparently still wasn't working in 13.04 betas last I heard.

Follow the bug here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/739184

Just insane that 6 months after this bug was in a major release, it's still in another major release. Almost enough to make me try another distro. :(
Click to expand...

It's a bug in Unity. Just get "Ubuntu GNOME" and it'll work fine. :)
 
Massa said:
It's a bug in Unity. Just get "Ubuntu GNOME" and it'll work fine. :)
Click to expand...
Is that variant as well supported? I actually get along fine with Unity. I just don't understand the idea of putting lots of nice keyboard shortcuts into the overall shell but then breaking individual programs. ;)

Edit 1: These release notes make me sad:
What’s New

Firefox has replaced GNOME Web (Epiphany) as the default browser.
The Ubuntu Software Center and Update Manager have replaced GNOME Software (gnome-packagekit).
LibreOffice 4.0 is available by default instead of Abiword and Gnumeric.
Click to expand...
Man, I remember when Epiphany was a thing. And Abiword was awesome. I always hoped Gnumeric would become a serious OpenOffice contender, because its SVG charts were so much smoother looking.

Edit 2: Just had a flashback to when Galeon was new. Such awesome times, the browser wars on a niche OS. :D
 
jvm said:
Is that variant as well supported? I actually get along fine with Unity. I just don't understand the idea of putting lots of nice keyboard shortcuts into the overall shell but then breaking individual programs. ;)

Edit 1: These release notes make me sad:

Man, I remember when Epiphany was a thing. And Abiword was awesome. I always hoped Gnumeric would become a serious OpenOffice contender, because its SVG charts were so much smoother looking.

Edit 2: Just had a flashback to when Galeon was new. Such awesome times, the browser wars on a niche OS. :D
Click to expand...

It's pretty well supported, it's nearly identical to the main Ubuntu release. It was a bit more unique in previous releases, but now with Firefox and Libreoffice it's mostly the same OS with a different, better shell.

Gnumeric and Abiword are still available if you want to give them a go. :) I actually use Abiword myself.
 
Seanbob11 said:
How hard is it to set up a server using an old pc? Any version of linux that is best?
Click to expand...
The only issue I had when I did it with a PC from ~2006 was compatibility issues with the graphics card. I had to download Nvidia's Legacy drivers to get it to work at higher resolutions. Ubuntu Server worked fine for me and it was very easy to setup.
 
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