I agree with this. I feel as though it gives the developers added impetus to make the default experience as usable and polished as possible.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Linux Distro Noob thread of Linux noobs
- Thread starter Flying_Phoenix
- Start date
I agree with this. I feel as though it gives the developers added impetus to make the default experience as usable and polished as possible.
LXDE, no question.
ComputerMKII
Banned
I think it's not intuitive and even though Ubuntu usually runs fine on my Asus 1215n netbook, the various graphical effects on Gnome-shell lag a little bit.
I tested 3.4 and it wasn't any better.
Anything is lightweight compared with KDE.
Hm, I thought KDE was lightweight for some reason. I was probably mistaken. Thanks.
I've been trying different distros (Linux Mint 12, Xubuntu, Lubuntu) with my Live USB, and while it's been cool so far, I don't know if any of them could replace Ubuntu.
ComputerMKII
Banned
I tried installing Arch Linux but I gave up during the post-installation process when I realized I even had to choose and install my window manager (or else I'd be stuck with command line menus).
I hate the bloated menus in Linux Mint so I stick with Ubuntu. Haven't found anything better yet.
By the way, I realized you could edit keyboard shortcuts with Compiz so that you get a similar feature as Exposé on Mac OS. It rocks. Press F11 and bam, all your windows appear at the same time.
I hate the bloated menus in Linux Mint so I stick with Ubuntu. Haven't found anything better yet.
By the way, I realized you could edit keyboard shortcuts with Compiz so that you get a similar feature as Exposé on Mac OS. It rocks. Press F11 and bam, all your windows appear at the same time.
Yeah, I just feel Ubuntu has the best GUI, and tools for me, but I'm willing to try out other stuff.
I'm actually going to test out KDE, but I can't decide whether to try Kubuntu or Netrunner, as I'm not really sure what the major differences even are.
ComputerMKII
Banned
Here's a screenshot of the pseudo-Exposé thing:
http://i.imgur.com/REVfP.jpg
I also recommend Guake over the standard Terminal program. It feels great to have the console appear or disappear just by pressing F12.
http://i.imgur.com/gveDm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/REVfP.jpg
I also recommend Guake over the standard Terminal program. It feels great to have the console appear or disappear just by pressing F12.
http://i.imgur.com/gveDm.jpg
Shit, I downloaded Kubuntu from their official website, loaded it unto Ubebootin, but I'm not sure if it's a Live CD or what.
Every distro before has given me "try X live" or "install X" on the Unebootin screen, while Kubuntu just has "Start Kubuntu" which I'm not sure if they mean like testing it out, like a Live CD, or start the process of installing it.
Every distro before has given me "try X live" or "install X" on the Unebootin screen, while Kubuntu just has "Start Kubuntu" which I'm not sure if they mean like testing it out, like a Live CD, or start the process of installing it.
I'm pretty sure it's a live cd, but even if it isn't it probably won't start installing stuff right away
ComputerMKII
Banned
Kubuntu is just Ubuntu with KDE. You can still install Gnome on top of it.
Arch user here.
-Ugh, you gave up too easily but I understand that the command line interface can be quite daunting at first. You where maybe 3 to 5 commands away from getting a GUI up and running. Once you figure out how to setup everything, it will be just like learning how to ride a bicycle.
kubuntu was my distro of choice but I am in limbo now due to it not being supported by canonical.
I wouldn't really put much weight behind that. It was a single developer from Canonical. Not to say his contributions were meaningless but I'm sure they'll manage in his absense. The other derivatives have done just fine without any Canonical support.
There are a few Live cd's of Arch floating around that you can try that take care of the basics. I'd still recommend installing Arch from scratch because the learning curve will help you if you run into problems. It's been a few months now but I tried out Bridge Linux which comes with all 4 main desktop environments. Everything went well enough except it didn't like gstreamer with Xfce for some reason and I didn't really feel like messing around with it for more than 10 minutes.
Kubuntu will be fine and there are a lot of other, easy to use distros around with KDE on them. PcLinuxOS or Mandriva are a couple that are even more user-friendly than Kubuntu, imo.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Anyone here try Slackware? Thoughts?
Also Computer, what didn't you like about Cinnamon?
Also Computer, what didn't you like about Cinnamon?
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Since I'm still not sure, can anyone explain to me what the benefit of linux is compared to other operating systems?
-Free
-Viruses are nearly non-existent for the most part
-Very customizable
-Full OS upgrades are free
-Open-source
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
For me the best part of Linux is the better development tools than Windows. The terminal alone puts the command line to shame (yes, there is PowerShell but it's hard to argue with what's bundled.) You also get a terminal and good dev tools on OS X but if you're going to switch to something Unix-y, I say go all the way.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
What sort of things can you do in terminal that you can't do in command prompt? I only started learning java and although some commands are slightly different, they seem to function the same. I obviously haven't done much programming. Do you only use terminal for programming?
Ah, alright. I guess I'll try linux again. I never thought it was bad but after trackpad gestures on my macbook pro things like expose and stuff it's hard to use other things. I see one of them made an expose type thing. Does any support making gestures for a trackpad by chance?
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
It's useful for other things, mostly batch processes, but I'm not a super terminal user by any means. It just feels like the better tool for the job to me, although that could be because a lot of the tutorials I read on the net over the years were geared towards Linux instead of Windows.
Also, environment variables on Windows is kind of a pain...
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Now what do yo mean by batch processes and environmental variables? I read the wiki on them but what would be an example of one you use out of curiosity?
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Batch processing: Doing a bunch of specific things on a lot of files at once. Like resizing all the images in a folder, then cropping them, etc.
Environment variables: How Windows knows where to look when you invoke a program in the command line. Meaning, if I type "mplayer <command>" it will give an error unless I edit a very long list of folders (all on one line, separated by semicolons) to include whatever folder mplayer is in.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Ah, ok. That makes sense, thanks! Ya, like I said I knew the definitions I just couldn't think of a certain use for them. Like I know batch does a bunch of things for you but when is it useful? But your examples clarified it a lot, thanks again.
Used it for around 5 years (it's wahat I used before moving on to Gentoo). I think it's a great distro with great support from its developers. If I didn't fall in love with rolling distros I'd probably still be using it. It's still the only distro I've given money too when I didn't have to. The last version I used was either 10 or 11. If you're considering it then I obviously highly recommend it.
I use OS X for work, mainly when I have to work on iOS or Mac ports of stuff.
Installing some of the tools I use for development can be a pain in the ass, where you have to resort to things like homebrew for things that are much simpler and better integrated on a Linux distrubution. And that's after you download gigabytes of stuff from Apple with a developer account to even get a C compiler installed.
OS X's interface also has annoyances of its own like not being able to have a full screen app on a secondary display, which is annoying as hell to me. For a long ass time it was also a pain to set up multiple workspaces optimally, but at least that works much better in the latest releases.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
This is how I break it down...
MS:
- Solid @ Home Desktop Environment with a ton of marketshare so a ton of apps that's widely available on a ton of devices for all price ranges
- Bread and Butter Enterprise Solutions for things employees do a lot such as Office or Exchange Servers for E-mail: Definite Market Leader in this area IMO\
- Windows Legacy which helps keep things rolling on their platform such as gaming
Apple:
- Solid @ Home Desktop Environment that's also extremely stable because of it's old school Unix underpinnings available on really premium hardware
- Solid POSIX compliant coding environment with great tools to get programming done
- Also just in general a solid environment for content creation with a ton of high quality content creation/manipulation apps
Linux:
- Open Source that's usually free and so available to all
- Large Scale Back End Server stuff seems best here
- Also a great POSIX coding environment as well
- Also really malleable which can really lend itself towards certain scientific endovors
- Generally pretty stable and hassle free in terms of bugs
Problem when recommending things these days is none of the big 3 really all focus on the exact same thing. Plus each have pluses and minuses that could really sway you one way or another. It's also worth noting that we've come so far that in general none of them do anything bad, but just being okay might not be worth it since people have such easy access to all the alternative these days.
The biggest problem Linux has IMO is the fact that it's bread and butter area is the server stuff, and that just doesn't translate well to the home user. Sure that translates greatly in terms of usage by Google to power search. Doesn't do much for the Mom and Dad who just want to do everyday things (though I swear Linux can do everyday things quiet fine now all OSes can).
MS:
- Solid @ Home Desktop Environment with a ton of marketshare so a ton of apps that's widely available on a ton of devices for all price ranges
- Bread and Butter Enterprise Solutions for things employees do a lot such as Office or Exchange Servers for E-mail: Definite Market Leader in this area IMO\
- Windows Legacy which helps keep things rolling on their platform such as gaming
Apple:
- Solid @ Home Desktop Environment that's also extremely stable because of it's old school Unix underpinnings available on really premium hardware
- Solid POSIX compliant coding environment with great tools to get programming done
- Also just in general a solid environment for content creation with a ton of high quality content creation/manipulation apps
Linux:
- Open Source that's usually free and so available to all
- Large Scale Back End Server stuff seems best here
- Also a great POSIX coding environment as well
- Also really malleable which can really lend itself towards certain scientific endovors
- Generally pretty stable and hassle free in terms of bugs
Problem when recommending things these days is none of the big 3 really all focus on the exact same thing. Plus each have pluses and minuses that could really sway you one way or another. It's also worth noting that we've come so far that in general none of them do anything bad, but just being okay might not be worth it since people have such easy access to all the alternative these days.
The biggest problem Linux has IMO is the fact that it's bread and butter area is the server stuff, and that just doesn't translate well to the home user. Sure that translates greatly in terms of usage by Google to power search. Doesn't do much for the Mom and Dad who just want to do everyday things (though I swear Linux can do everyday things quiet fine now all OSes can).
Hmm, maybe.
Actually, I think the biggest problem with the Linux community is infighting. IDK, it always feels like there's so many quarrels and splintering, which leaves both resulting projects weaker, it seems.
I think more attention should be focused on creating standards. (like freedesktop.org)
I think there should be something equivalent for window managers (of a certain type: ie compositing, etc) (I think this might exist? For the interaction between desktop environments and window managers?)
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Oh there is that issue as well. I wasn't going to get into the whole politicing/infighting/foss debate stuff. That's just a whole can of worms I'm staying away from.
One of the reasons IMO Linux Servers do so well though is the mainly side step all of this stuff that you mentioned. Plus a lot of companies just use the kernel source and do their own crazy shit on top of it. So they don't deal with all of the FOSS crap. They just need the kernel and then they do whatever else on their own.
None of that is work that really goes back and helps positively effect the regular desktop user though.
PS: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. My love for Linux has grown a lot because of this thread. It's been really great, extremely helpful, and very sane. So basically the opposite of everything that usually goes on in the wider Linux community.
Infighting happens in all OS communities. The difference being our infighting can actually lead to change. Also projects forking is the beauty of free software IMO. As for standards not having them has always been a plus for me.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
It works great for a subset that really likes to customize things. The larger broader audience could use an OS with a little more forced guidance though.
PS: Similar to web browsers I think we hit a point around Win 7 where WIN/Linux/OSX are all more than sufficient for your average user.
I say leave that to individual distros. There isn't a one-size-fits all solution for any of the operation systems. One set of standards works better for one group while another set works best for the next. Let the distros define their own standards for their distro and users who like them will use that distro.
Well, I have no problem with forking in general. It just feels like it many times leads to both projects suffering.
As far as having no standards go, maybe it's because I'm more of a HW person, but it seems like not having standards makes everything difficult for almost everybody.
Just so we're clear, when I'm talking standards, I really only mean the interfaces between programs. As in, I want systems to be more like having many blocks (from a user standpoint) than anything else.
So, regular users can use some default set of blocks (say, Gnome) while other uses can replace some of the blocks in Gnome for something else. That would be my ideal world XD Turning a desktop environment more into the SoC approach
EDIT: As far as distros go, I actually don't really understand them that much. Like, for example. Let's say I have a Gentoo base system (so, I basically, just a terminal), what's the technical reason I wouldn't be able to grab something like Ubuntu's package manager (I forget the name), and installing a bunch of binary packages from that and have something almost indistinguishable from Ubuntu? I'm guessing there's some fundamental differences between the two distros on the lower level?
Slackware is awesome. Its software is as vanilla as it gets. I used it for several years and it's still one of my favorite distros.
Easily one of the best if you want to learn about Linux and how it works. I switched from Ubuntu to Slackware 10.1 because I found Ubuntu to be rather boring after a while. Everything just worked, and that was fine, but I wanted something to get my hands dirty with so to speak. I ran Slackware for 2 years or so, and I'm really happy that I did because otherwise I probably wouldn't know as much as I do today.
I'll never forget the time I compiled VLC with all its dependencies by hand and made packages out of them using checkinstall. It took me maybe a week before I got it all running because I had never done such a thing before, but when I finally did it felt really great and I learned how to install applications that doesn't have a pre-made package, and work around compilation errors. Another thing slackware taught me really well was configuring things with configuration files and what all the folders in / are for and such things. It also forced me to get to know the terminal better.
One could have learned these things on Ubuntu as well, but it's just set up in such a way on slackware that you have to learn about these things. That way you learn things much faster. Everything just works on Ubuntu so there's not much reason to try to change things yourself.
After using Slackware I feel as if I could switch to any linux distro and be able to use it without any problems. Now I use Arch Linux because it's a rolling release distro and also because I got a bit tired of not having a proper package manager. Arch also uses the bsd-init initsystem, just like Slackware, so the switch was pretty much seamless.
I forget where, was it fake?
I dunno if this is it, but there were rumours about steam coming to linux, but valve debunked that IIRC. It's a shame really but I guess it was just too good to be true.
The different distros are all built with the same basic tools (bootloader, init system, etc) and the differences are which distros use which tools (openrc vs systemd, lilo vs grub, etc). Aside from that there are structural differences like depending on files being in certain places or relying on specific configuration tools that happen for various reason such as because of chosen tools or simply because the developers thought it would be easier to manage. Technically the structural differences (and making sure it's built for your architecture) is the only preventing you from using another package manager. Gentoo itself has a few binary only packages that are only available in rpm or deb and it installs them normally while only correcting things like configuration file or init scripts where necessary.
Talking about this?
Thanks for that. I've always wondered this. (Not that I would actually want to use Ubuntu's package manager. I switched to Gentoo specifically because of package management style.
Could also be this: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_steam_announcement&num=1
Or the other Steam articles from this site.
Anyway, I was laughing because I wouldn't trust anything regarding Valve from Phoronix.
linux 'promotional' video from the linux foundation. pretty cool.
sauce; The Linux Foundation on Google+
sauce; The Linux Foundation on Google+
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Very much sort of illustrates my point I was trying to make about Linux above. Linux is great for companies to use because of it's free and open source nature and semi modular setup that they can put it to great use in things like science, gadgets, and servers. Problem is none of that work is really stuff that can filter back down to what your average user thinks of as their "computer desktop" experience (outside of Android).
Everyone uses stuff that uses Linux, but Linux is used in this way that nobody really knows about it. Like the Linux bread and butter works extremely well, but that bread and butter use cases aren't usually in things that can filter great ideas down to someone's Mom wanting to just do everyday computer tasks.
PS: I'll reiterate though that I think all 3 of the main OSes hit a point a few years ago where they are more than enough for 90% of the average home users needs.
ComputerMKII
Banned
I'm installing Debian in a virtual machine, let's see if it's as good as people say it is. Ubuntu does get boring...
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
If your bored by Ubuntu I wouldn't really say moving to Debian is going to change things. It's just going to look like OG Gnome 2.32 Ubuntu. You'd be better off trying Mint or Fedora quiet honestly.
It's things like this that are the use cases that can frustrate average user that honestly can do 3/4ths of what they need on any OS. Linux plays music, surfs the web, checks e-mail, watches videso etc... just fine. Certain apps like iTunes or Steam can really put a damper on what would honestly be an experience just as good for the average user as OSX or Windows.
If you're at this point in jumping off the bridge I'll simply push you to save you the time.
Go get yourself Fedora and start learning YUM.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
:bow Fedora FTW :bow2
Making the switch on all my computers when 17 is released. Going full monty on Linux finally after all these years.
Making the switch on all my computers when 17 is released. Going full monty on Linux finally after all these years.