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[ThatObviousUser]

The aesthetics of Unity are TouchWiz-level garbage and the workflow is horrendous. It's thankfully not as unusably slow and buggy as it used to be but it's still deeply flawed.

I love HUD though. That's a great idea.

 

[BlazinAm]

I have a i3-3110m toshiba laptop, should I run Ubuntu in dual boot or virtualization?

Totally new to the OS so all i have done is downloaded the iso.

 

[cdkee]

Just installed Gnome 3.8. Seems faster than unity. Liking it so far.

 

[Swig_]

Looking for suggestions on a Linux distro.. I currently work in IT Support and spend a lot of my time in Unix doing backend server/connectivity stuff, like remoting in to client servers for administrative/troubleshooting purposes. I hear that the product my company develops may release a Linux version in the future, so I'd like to get used to using Linux.

I'm not really sure which to try as there are a ton of different distros. I like the idea of customizability and I have a thing for cool, colored ascii command lines and art, etc.. if that matters.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Gnome is so ugly. I don't know why some of you people go apeshit over it.

 

[zoku88]

Looking for suggestions on a Linux distro.. I currently work in IT Support and spend a lot of my time in Unix doing backend server/connectivity stuff, like remoting in to client servers for administrative/troubleshooting purposes. I hear that the product my company develops may release a Linux version in the future, so I'd like to get used to using Linux.

I'm not really sure which to try as there are a ton of different distros. I like the idea of customizability and I have a thing for cool, colored ascii command lines and art, etc.. if that matters.

KuKuKu, choose Gentoo, you'll see plenty of command line



For real, just go to the wikipedia page for the more popular distros and see which philosophy best matches your own ideals.

 

[flowsnake]

I think I've only seen complaints about Gnome Shell before this thread. But now I want to try it out a bit.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Gnome is so ugly. I don't know why some of you people go apeshit over it.

The only thing I don't like about its aesthetics is how some elements, mainly buttons, have too much vertical padding. Looks sloppy (but probably to optimize for touch.)

Otherwise, how is it ugly? It's very refined and minimal, not much to even complain about.

 

[thcsquad]

Who wants to recommend me a distro? I'm currently on Bodhi but I want to try something else. So far I'm considering Arch, Elementary, Fedora (I'm a Gnome Shell fan), and maybe the newest Ubuntu. I have all data on a separate partition so I'm fine with trying some weird-ass distro that I may replace in a week.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Who wants to recommend me a distro? I'm currently on Bodhi but I want to try something else. So far I'm considering Arch, Elementary, Fedora (I'm a Gnome Shell fan), and maybe the newest Ubuntu. I have all data on a separate partition so I'm fine with trying some weird-ass distro that I may replace in a week.

Try Ubuntu Gnome Remix and report back if it's a good distro.

 

[ash_ag]

Who wants to recommend me a distro? I'm currently on Bodhi but I want to try something else. So far I'm considering Arch, Elementary, Fedora (I'm a Gnome Shell fan), and maybe the newest Ubuntu. I have all data on a separate partition so I'm fine with trying some weird-ass distro that I may replace in a week.

If you're a fan of GNOME, Ubuntu Gnome Remix would be the most accessible option. If you like being bleeding edge and receiving your desktop (perhaps GNOME, to which you're a fan of) and apps on their original scope, you might benefit from Arch (but be prepared that it will take a lot to setup and you will need to do some maintenance).

If you'd like to try elementary, go for it -- but it's still a long way from being a full desktop. I have it on a secondary setup for sometime now and it's pretty stable with relatively frequent updates, but it doesn't have all that a desktop needs (in other words, you will have to download a lot of third-party apps for basic needs that do not have the "native" feel elementary vows to provide).

 

[flowsnake]

e17 is a window manager, not a desktop environment, as far as I can tell.

 

[Polari]

e17 is a window manager, not a desktop environment, as far as I can tell.

How do you figure?

 

[ash_ag]

e17 is a window manager, not a desktop environment, as far as I can tell.

Do you mean Enlightment's Elementary? I (and I believe thcsquad) am talking about elementary OS, which is a new distribution. It's still in beta phase, though.

 

[flowsnake]

Yeah, I totally misread that, sorry. I just tried Enlightenment today, so...yeah. Incidentally it was slow and ugly, though maybe it would work better if I turned off compositing...

Oh, yeah. One part of it is called Elementary (the GUI toolkit) so I must have seen that when I installed it and then mixed that up with what you said. :/

 

[Vic]

I had to do a fresh installation of ArchLinux recently on my sister's computer. Haven't done so in a couple of years when the install was still done through a graphical interface. The new method is to my surprise much faster and easier. Also, Gnome-Shell is pretty nice, but coming from i3-wm where I can almost control everything from the keyboard, I have some usability issues. My sister loves Gnome though, more so than XFCE which she previously used.

 

[opticalmace]

So I ended up with two SSDs.

Is there any problem with installing one OS to each (Ubuntu, Win8)? If I set the Ubuntu drive as the primary boot device can I then pick which OS I want (w/ Grub, maybe boot-repair)? Any reason why this wouldn't work?

Thanks.

 

[ComputerMKII]

Any reason why this wouldn't work?

I don't see any.

 

[opticalmace]

I don't see any.

Excellent.

Next question: is there any reason to install / and /home on different partitions? Or just make it easy and use up the whole drive?

 

[flowsnake]

Excellent.

Next question: is there any reason to install / and /home on different partitions? Or just make it easy and use up the whole drive?

Yes. If you ever wanted to reinstall or install another distro, you wouldn't wipe out your data in /home (so you wouldn't have to back it up first).

 

[Kevitivity]

Excellent.

Next question: is there any reason to install / and /home on different partitions? Or just make it easy and use up the whole drive?

In the old days, partitioning out everything made it easier to backup and resore, but there really is not need for it now, especially on a home computer.

Also, it's easy to re-organize everything down the road if you decide you want /home to live somewhere else, like on NFS or a second drive.

 

[opticalmace]

Yes. If you ever wanted to reinstall or install another distro, you wouldn't wipe out your data in /home (so you wouldn't have to back it up first).

In the old days, partitioning out everything made it easier to backup and resore, but there really is not need for it now, especially on a home computer.

Also, it's easy to re-organize everything down the road if you decide you want /home to live somewhere else, like on NFS or a second drive.

Thanks. If I wanted to change which drive /home is on, how would I do that? Can you just change the pointer (or something like that)?

 

[flowsnake]

Thanks. If I wanted to change which drive /home is on, how would I do that? Can you just change the pointer (or something like that)?

There's essentially a configuration file that you would need to change (fstab). I don't know what Ubuntu does to streamline that.

 

[Aleph]

Has anyone tried Fuduntu? Been reading a lot about it lately (the 2013 release), main features include: Fedora based, GNOME 2, good battery management, etc. I'm currently using Mint, but it I'm having a bunch of problems with my laptop battery (runs out faster than in Windows) and also with screen brightness. I've always used Debian-based distributions, but I want to try other types.

 

[PandaL]

How so? I find it's fine in terms of workflow. It's not like navigating windows or opening applications takes any longer than it does with any other desktop, including Xfce. In fact I find it easier in the sense the pointer targets are larger.

Navigating windows is what I dislike in gnome 3.x and why would someone remove the minimize screen button?

I have a i3-3110m toshiba laptop, should I run Ubuntu in dual boot or virtualization?

Totally new to the OS so all i have done is downloaded the iso.

If you want to try Linux, you should try dual boot.

Looking for suggestions on a Linux distro.. I currently work in IT Support and spend a lot of my time in Unix doing backend server/connectivity stuff, like remoting in to client servers for administrative/troubleshooting purposes. I hear that the product my company develops may release a Linux version in the future, so I'd like to get used to using Linux.

I'm not really sure which to try as there are a ton of different distros. I like the idea of customizability and I have a thing for cool, colored ascii command lines and art, etc.. if that matters.

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

 

[Vanillalite]

Try Ubuntu Gnome Remix and report back if it's a good distro.

It sucks. Well it doesn't SUCK, but it seems like it needs a shit ton of work compared to Xubuntu that I was running before this. Just seems like everything is in beta stage for Ubuntu, but the Gnome-Remix got thrown in as an official build late. So it feels like it's more at an alpha state. Just a lot of random crashes and reports.

It's gotten better the past couple of days though.

That being said if you want Gnome Shell no reason not to go with this 1st. It's Gnome Shell default so you don't have to install along side another window manager. Plus it's Ubuntu. Hate as much as we all do being Ubuntu base means it's just easy to get access to programs and shit and get them working.

 

[flowsnake]

[B]http://www.backtrack-linux.org/[/B]

That link is broken because you put the bold tags inside the url.

 

[Billen]

How I hate the "new and improved" look most OS:es have been influenced by. From Gnome to Windows 8, giant icons and shitty ways to start apps.

 

[Massa]

Navigating windows is what I dislike in gnome 3.x and why would someone remove the minimize screen button?

It's a different workflow, supported by dynamic workspaces. If you need clear space to start a new task just try switching to the empty workspace instead of minimizing windows.

How I hate the "new and improved" look most OS:es have been influenced by. From Gnome to Windows 8, giant icons and shitty ways to start apps.

But hitting the super key, typing a couple of letters and hitting enter is the best way to start apps.

 

[opticalmace]

But hitting the super key, typing a couple of letters and hitting enter is the best way to start apps.

Definitely agree. IMO, Ubuntu does it way better than Win8. Between that and not having ALT+Tilde, I hate using Win8.

 

[PandaL]

It sucks. Well it doesn't SUCK, but it seems like it needs a shit ton of work compared to Xubuntu that I was running before this. Just seems like everything is in beta stage for Ubuntu, but the Gnome-Remix got thrown in as an official build late. So it feels like it's more at an alpha state. Just a lot of random crashes and reports.

It's gotten better the past couple of days though.

That being said if you want Gnome Shell no reason not to go with this 1st. It's Gnome Shell default so you don't have to install along side another window manager. Plus it's Ubuntu. Hate as much as we all do being Ubuntu base means it's just easy to get access to programs and shit and get them working.

Totally agree. Xubuntu 13.04 beta is like 5 times stable as Ubuntu-gnome 13.04 beta.

That link is broken because you put the bold tags inside the url.

Thanks for pointing it out. Its fixed now.

 

[dglavimans]

So im ready to get a new os. Sick of windows. Tried a couple of distro"s but switched back to 7 because of the learning curve..

But 7 annoys me so much i decided it was time to learn. But which distro has the most potential in the long term? I really like ubuntu myself but has it growing potential in the years to come?

 

[Vanillalite]

So im ready to get a new os. Sick of windows. Tried a couple of distro"s but switched back to 7 because of the learning curve..

But 7 annoys me so much i decided it was time to learn. But which distro has the most potential in the long term? I really like ubuntu myself but has it growing potential in the years to come?

Yes on the Ubuntu question.

BTW if you want to hold out for just a little longer the next version of Ubuntu hits in April. Then you can just choose which version of Ubuntu you want to try based on which UI you like the best.

 

[dglavimans]

Ah thanks. So i cannot upgrade to that new version in April? Afraid my graphics card or something doesn"t support the new version (12.04) ran fine but 12.10 did not.. Maybe things have changed since then.

Have a amd phenom btw, not the best for linux if i read online, but with a little tweaking and learning i guess it should work..

Tried mint too but tbh didn"t really like it. Imo it is a bit linux but it also wants to be a bit windows. But maybe that was because i was used to ubuntu in that time..

 

[Vanillalite]

Ah thanks. So i cannot upgrade to that new version in April? Afraid my graphics card or something doesn"t support the new version (12.04) ran fine but 12.10 did not.. Maybe things have changed since then.

Have a amd phenom btw, not the best for linux if i read online, but with a little tweaking and learning i guess it should work..

Tried mint too but tbh didn"t really like it. Imo it is a bit linux but it also wants to be a bit windows. But maybe that was because i was used to ubuntu in that time..

You can upgrade. No biggie. It was just an idea if you wanted a good jump in point that you could wait and grab the latest version when it drops. You can easily upgrade though.

 

[ComputerMKII]

So im ready to get a new os. Sick of windows. Tried a couple of distro"s but switched back to 7 because of the learning curve..

But 7 annoys me so much i decided it was time to learn. But which distro has the most potential in the long term? I really like ubuntu myself but has it growing potential in the years to come?

Pick either Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

 

[thcsquad]

It sucks. Well it doesn't SUCK, but it seems like it needs a shit ton of work compared to Xubuntu that I was running before this. Just seems like everything is in beta stage for Ubuntu, but the Gnome-Remix got thrown in as an official build late. So it feels like it's more at an alpha state. Just a lot of random crashes and reports.

It's gotten better the past couple of days though.

That being said if you want Gnome Shell no reason not to go with this 1st. It's Gnome Shell default so you don't have to install along side another window manager. Plus it's Ubuntu. Hate as much as we all do being Ubuntu base means it's just easy to get access to programs and shit and get them working.

So I ened up going with Arch. My cousin put together an install doc when he did it, which I pretty much followed and everything went smoothly. So now I'm on Gnome 3.6 with what seems like a 10 second boot time from a HDD No real problems with Arch yet.

 

[dglavimans]

You can upgrade. No biggie. It was just an idea if you wanted a good jump in point that you could wait and grab the latest version when it drops. You can easily upgrade though.

Ah okay, thanks for the tips going to swap it today or tommorow. Was thinking why i needed windows, games, but also got all the consoles and can use wine.

Itunes, can make a virtualbox for that, and don"t need it that much..

And thats about it really, so why shouldn"t i jump over..

Tried a few days back iatkos, it works but the video and sound are missing.. At least with ubuntu it was installing and done.

Gonna update as soon as i updated

 

[undu]

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

Backtrack has been superseeded by kali, which uses debian repositories, instead o ubuntu's.
http://www.kali.org/

 

[Vanillalite]

So is there a way to make wine the default application to open windows stuff in Gnome Shell?

Default is Archieve Manager. If right click and go to Open With it shows Wine as the option. Problem is if I go into properties then the Open With tab Wine isn't listed as one of the other options. Plus I can't seem to pick anything not already in the prepopulated list.

 

[PandaL]

Ah thanks. So i cannot upgrade to that new version in April? Afraid my graphics card or something doesn"t support the new version (12.04) ran fine but 12.10 did not.. Maybe things have changed since then.

Have a amd phenom btw, not the best for linux if i read online, but with a little tweaking and learning i guess it should work..

Tried mint too but tbh didn"t really like it. Imo it is a bit linux but it also wants to be a bit windows. But maybe that was because i was used to ubuntu in that time..

AMD properitary drivers doesn't seem to work properly. So don't install it.

Regarding the new distro, I suggest you to try Xubuntu over other distros. Xubuntu is just Ubuntu with Xfce desktop environment.

Backtrack has been superseeded by kali, which uses debian repositories, instead o ubuntu's.
http://www.kali.org/

whoa, thanks for the info.

 

[dglavimans]

Hm okay. But i do need drivers right? Or should i just keep what comes with the live cd?

 

[ash_ag]

Hm okay. But i do need drivers right? Or should i just keep what comes with the live cd?

The open source drivers will generally work for most things. To be honest, I'm not sure if you'll ever have a problem with a CPU, no matter what you use; they work in a standard way. Now, do you work with the integrated graphics? If so, you may or may not have compatibility problems, depending on how old your model is. If you have a distinct video card and plan to use that, it doesn't matter though.

What card do you have (if any)? If it's a new model (HD5000+), I'd suggest that you install the proprietary AMD drivers, because from what I've heard they work pretty well. If it's older... The legacy drivers are the only option (proprietary-wise), and that's no good news. I have an HD4890 on my desktop and even TF2 is literally unplayable without proprietary drivers -- and AMD's ones don't work well with new versions of xorg. Thankfully, there's still the option of downgrading xorg and installing the legacy drivers, but that's a bit tricky and doesn't guarantee a bug-free experience either. I've had good results in some setups, bad in others.

I'd recommend that you look at your options and see the results for each before settling. If you have a barely supported card but completely supported integrated graphics, you might want to use the latter, unless you plan to use graphics for scientific applications -- games like Team Fortress work splendid with a modern integrated graphics chipset.

 

[dglavimans]

I have a 3200 card. Installed the 13.1 drivers with a xorg downgrade( or i think it was called that, cant find the link anymore..) some lagg and changed a option in catalyst, seems smoother now.

Don"t play much games on the pc though i think it runs quite good now it seems

 

[ash_ag]

I have a 3200 card. Installed the 13.1 drivers with a xorg downgrade( or i think it was called that, cant find the link anymore..) some lagg and changed a option in catalyst, seems smoother now.

Don"t play much games on the pc though i think it runs quite good now it seems

All good then!
I suppose you used this PPA to downgrade. It seems he's already started work to get the repos on 13.04, so, we're covered!

Spoiler

Until mir arives!

 

[dglavimans]

I did use that guide indeed, loved how it was pretty much copy/paste work

I always feel more connected with the ubuntu os for some reason.. I dont go to deep (yet) cause risking to breake the os but it is nice how it handles updates and such.

Looking forward to 13.04, interested in what wil change and how they plan on keeping it open( hated the amazon search in 12.10.. Turned it off lol )

 

[-KRS-]

So is there a way to make wine the default application to open windows stuff in Gnome Shell?

Default is Archieve Manager. If right click and go to Open With it shows Wine as the option. Problem is if I go into properties then the Open With tab Wine isn't listed as one of the other options. Plus I can't seem to pick anything not already in the prepopulated list.

Yeah this is something I fucking hate with Gnome 3/Nautilus 3. It makes no sense. From what I remember there was an option in Gnome 2 to add a custom command under the Open With tab that you could just type a command into and it would be saved to the list of applications. But for some reason they removed that for 3. The removal and hiding of more and more simple and useful things like that (which were there previously but removed/forgotten probably out of lazyness when they redesigned Gnome) is what makes me reconsider my choice of using Gnome from time to time. Still haven't switched to anything else though.

In theory you should get the Wine option there if you have a .desktop file for it in /usr/share/applications or ~/.local/share/applications if I understand it correctly, but whenever I've tried to add my own .desktop file there it has not shown up in the list anyway. But it's weird that it shows up under Open With for you but not in the Properties window. Does it also show up in your applications list in the Activities view? I bet it does. If it does I would guess you do have a .desktop file for wine. Actually if you don't have one it would be weird since the package for it is supposed to install one.

So this post probably wont help you unfortunately. Sorry.

 

[zoku88]

You can also change default applications with a text file.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Default_Applications#How_it_should_work

It seems as though gnome-open also follows the xdg-open stuff.

Not sure if it follows the "how it should work" stuff or not.

 

[Massa]

So is there a way to make wine the default application to open windows stuff in Gnome Shell?

Default is Archieve Manager. If right click and go to Open With it shows Wine as the option. Problem is if I go into properties then the Open With tab Wine isn't listed as one of the other options. Plus I can't seem to pick anything not already in the prepopulated list.

Looks like the .desktop file for wine is broken by default.

Try editing it manually and removing the NoDisplay=true line. The file you have to edit is /usr/share/applications/wine.desktop.

Yeah this is something I fucking hate with Gnome 3/Nautilus 3. It makes no sense. From what I remember there was an option in Gnome 2 to add a custom command under the Open With tab that you could just type a command into and it would be saved to the list of applications. But for some reason they removed that for 3. The removal and hiding of more and more simple and useful things like that (which were there previously but removed/forgotten probably out of lazyness when they redesigned Gnome) is what makes me reconsider my choice of using Gnome from time to time. Still haven't switched to anything else though.

In theory you should get the Wine option there if you have a .desktop file for it in /usr/share/applications or ~/.local/share/applications if I understand it correctly, but whenever I've tried to add my own .desktop file there it has not shown up in the list anyway. But it's weird that it shows up under Open With for you but not in the Properties window. Does it also show up in your applications list in the Activities view? I bet it does. If it does I would guess you do have a .desktop file for wine. Actually if you don't have one it would be weird since the package for it is supposed to install one.

So this post probably wont help you unfortunately. Sorry.

GNOME didn't remove any functionality, they just don't include the functionality to work around broken .desktop files in Nautilus anymore. You can still use alacarte to properly integrate your custom applications.

 

[-KRS-]

Well alright, but it's still a weird decision in my opinion. Almost as weird as moving theme and font settings out of the System Settings into a separate application that doesn't come with the default installation and can't be reached from the System Settings once installed. And alacarte didn't come with my Gnome 3 installation either. I'm on Arch, maybe other distros do include those applications. But even so they don't feel very integrated with the rest of the desktop. I love the general design of Gnome 3 and Gnome-Shell and how it works, but some small things just bug me a bit.

Edit: i'm still on gnome 3.6 though. Perhaps I should try Gnome 3.8 before saying too much.