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Would you be interested in a Linux OT?

Would you be interested and participate in a Linux OT?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 63.6%

  • No

    Votes: 16 36.4%
  • Total voters
    44
Status
Not open for further replies.
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Hello!

This poll is to gauge the community's interest in creating an OT for all things linux, open source and so on.

Long gone the days of "linux desktop" meaning recompiling your OS every morning before starting your day, these days Linux offers a compelling alternative for those who:

- Do not trust MS or Apple to always have your best interests at hand
- Go beyond the mandated and two corp owned walled gardens
- Want to PC game but don't want to be under Microsoft's watch (oh yeah, you can PC game on Linux now, Valve has been doing investments in this regard see https://www.protondb.com/ for details)
- Rehabilitate and repurpose "outdated" hardware
- Want a user interface that works for them and are willing to tinker to get there
- Are interested in extreme desktop/ui ricing
- Are curious about becoming more familiar with a tool used in IT environments
- Experiment with new form factors
- And so on.

So this is what this thread is about: if enough of you vote Yes, we'll open up the OT and have a grand old party in there. We'll talk DE's, gaming, distros, issues affecting the FOSS community (like the recent CENTOS drama) and yes even terminal commands.

note to MODS: because of potentially being of interests to both gamers and non gamers, this is being posted on gaming and offtopic and it's been cleared with forum Ownership
 
M1chl

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Preferably, how to install Gentoo. On the serious note, obviously. It's interesting topic, even beyond gaming : )
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
bucyou said:
probably could of just made one instead of this and see if there is activity
Click to expand...

Spoke with owner and before going full OT mad we decided to gauge GAF's interest first.

Honestly, considering how so many people in here are distrustful of big tech I thought there'd be more peeps interested in having their desktop liberated from "the powers that be", as much as that can happen, obviously.
 
DGrayson

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
I would def be interested. Ive always been a big Windows guy, (I started with DOS myself) but each time they update it it seems to break more. Linux scares me once I get to command lines. I know there are more modern ways to do it with proper UI and stuff but wihtout knowing command lines it seems like you will never be able to get it to run properly? I could be talking out of my ass I dont know.

I recently set up a virtual machine using VirtualBox, but went with a Windows 10 based one cause i couldnt be bothered with Linux
 
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Bunker Hosted

Bunker Hosted

Member
DGrayson said:
I would def be interested. Ive always been a big Windows guy, (I started with DOS myself) but each time they update it it seems to break more. Linux scares me once I get to command lines. I know there are more modern ways to do it with proper UI and stuff but wihtout knowing command lines it seems like you will never be able to get it to run properly? I could be talking out of my ass I dont know.

I recently set up a virtual machine using VirtualBox, but went with a Windows 10 based one cause i couldnt be bothered with Linux
Click to expand...
You're not fully talking out of your ass, it can be quite overwhelming when first getting dropped into the Linux CLI. Though you are right, now a days most things can be done within UI. Anything you encounter that doesn't work, the resources online are amazing for majority of distros and will give you step by step guides on how to fix things via the command line.

I came into Linux nearly 6 years ago from a strictly Windows background, and it was very daunting for the first while when things wouldn't work. The online support within the Linux community is seriously one of the best corners of the internet their is.
 
Mexen

Mexen

Member
I'm interested, if we keep it strictly gaming on Linux. I don't want to have to tell you that ST reigns supreme, you filthy Konsole peasant.
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
DGrayson said:
I would def be interested. Ive always been a big Windows guy, (I started with DOS myself) but each time they update it it seems to break more. Linux scares me once I get to command lines. I know there are more modern ways to do it with proper UI and stuff but wihtout knowing command lines it seems like you will never be able to get it to run properly? I could be talking out of my ass I dont know.
Click to expand...

You have full graphical ui for your everyday usage like running apps, moving files, settings and so on. So as a user the terminal (which is the scary cave of commands 😝) can be ignored.

If things go bump in the night you will have to head there but as someone who’s spent 20 years doing things the mouse way the transition isn’t that scary.

A cool fun way to start getting used to it is installing and uninstalling programs, the OS is smart enough you don’t have to manually point it to every file path. For example “sudo apt install htop” will install htop (a program to see system resource usage).
 
Raploz

Raploz

Member
Yes, I'm interested. I recently started using Linux again after many years with Windows and it's really good. I still use Windows for gaming, but I feel safer using Linux for everything else. I'm using KDE Neon since I really like how KDE looks similar to Windows.
 
Last edited:
Raploz

Raploz

Member
DGrayson said:
I would def be interested. Ive always been a big Windows guy, (I started with DOS myself) but each time they update it it seems to break more. Linux scares me once I get to command lines. I know there are more modern ways to do it with proper UI and stuff but wihtout knowing command lines it seems like you will never be able to get it to run properly? I could be talking out of my ass I dont know.

I recently set up a virtual machine using VirtualBox, but went with a Windows 10 based one cause i couldnt be bothered with Linux
Click to expand...

You should try a distro on a virtual machine first to see if you like it.

However, there are some things you should know:

You only have to use the command line if you plan to do something very specific (like changing time from UTC to local time, changing the boot order, installing obscure drivers or installing Windows fonts) or wants to install some programs downloaded off the web or from unofficial sources. As long as you stick with the programs offered by your distro, you most likely won't need to use the terminal.

One thing with Linux is that even though there are ways to so things through a GUI, most tutorials you'll find on the internet will show you command lines. I guess it's just easier to show them instead of making tutorials for all combinations of distros and desktop environments.

Talking about distros, there are many options to choose from. For beginners I recommend using Ubuntu or Ubuntu based ones, like the Ubuntu official derivatives like Kubuntu (they mainly just change the desktop environment), Elementary, Neon, Mint, OpenSuse and also Fedora. Manjaro is also a good option if you like your software to always be up-to-date, however, I think it's a biiiiit less user friendly than the others. Just a little.

Also, there are many desktop environments to choose from (basically they are what your desktop will look like and the set of applications you'll use). KDE and Cinnamon look more like Windows, Gnome and Pantheon look more like MacOS, and there's many others to choose from, like XFCE, LXQT, Deepin, Enlightenment, etc. The two most famous are Gnome and KDE, and you can choose a distro with them pre-installed.

One more thing, even though many games are now compatible with Linux, not all of them are (especially the most recent AAA games) and I think it's
just not worth trying to use it if your interest is just heavy gaming, however, for everything else it's an excellent option if you're concerned about privacy and security.
 
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Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Mexen said:
I'm interested, if we keep it strictly gaming on Linux. I don't want to have to tell you that ST reigns supreme, you filthy Konsole peasant.
Click to expand...

That might be tough, at least early on. If we build enough traction splitting is a possibility early on.

It all depends on activity.
 
ThatGamingDude

ThatGamingDude

I am a virgin
I'd be down

Don't really have a ton of experience myself with Linux but getting into it now

Not really that daunting if you'd played with batch scripting or powershell; just gotta learn best practices
 
Golgo 13

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
DGrayson said:
I would def be interested. Ive always been a big Windows guy, (I started with DOS myself) but each time they update it it seems to break more. Linux scares me once I get to command lines. I know there are more modern ways to do it with proper UI and stuff but wihtout knowing command lines it seems like you will never be able to get it to run properly? I could be talking out of my ass I dont know.

I recently set up a virtual machine using VirtualBox, but went with a Windows 10 based one cause i couldnt be bothered with Linux
Click to expand...
I'm a security student (almost everything network and security related is done in Linux) and you aren't imagining things; Linux command line is extraordinarily efficient but obtuse in design and flat-out unforgiving to newcomers. It's why so many people like it; it makes them feel elite and knowledgeable and superior to others who use peasant GUI systems.
 
S

Syphon Filter

Member
I tried linux not that long ago and I think it isn't good. Even though I don't like Windows 10 that much it's still light years better than linux. The reasons I don't like linux are because it doesn't have games that are made natively for it, I don't want to use something ghetto like wine since at that point why not just use the real thing. Also there is no software support for non gaming related stuff, poor to non existent backward compatibility and you have to jump through hoops to get things working.
 
Skifi28

Skifi28

Member
You should name it: A window at Linux gaming.


Or something.


Edit: Seems like this isn't really just about gaming. I've dabbled with linux myself on occasion and I've found it a great way of giving life back to ancient laptops. I'd like to know a little bit more for sure. The gaming side also interests me quite a bit, at least academically. Not quite ready to go down that road.
 
Last edited:
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Skifi28 said:
You should name it: A window at Linux gaming.


Or something.


Edit: Seems like this isn't really just about gaming. I've dabbled with linux myself on occasion and I've found it a great way of giving life back to ancient laptops. I'd like to know a little bit more for sure. The gaming side also interests me quite a bit, at least academically. Not quite ready to go down that road.
Click to expand...

It's certainly interesting and the fact it exists and it is viable can mitigate some heavy handed decision making in corporate meeting rooms.
 
Bunker Hosted

Bunker Hosted

Member
basic_element said:
Why not just dual boot? Running Windows native is going to perform better than a VM for gaming.
Click to expand...
Running a dual boot is still giving access of my hard drive to Microsoft, when running KVM virtualization you will lose less than 2% of performance. Running virtualization via the Linux kernel is MUCH MUCH more optimized compared to running something like VirtualBox.

Generally I don't like to give Microsoft any information I don't need too, running Windows 10 via KVM hardly impacts performance at all. This is also coming from someone with a beefy computer so your results may very. Keeping my steam account on a VM that only gets powered on to play a few games makes me feel better that Microsoft is unable to scrap any other metadata from searches, apps, etc..
 
Kataploom

Kataploom

Gold Member
I'm totally up for that :D

Tho security is something I don't set like a given on Linux, considering some time ago I saw a report about suse (maybe? I don't remember if was this one) and other big Linux distro collecting and sending use information.

Tho I'm about to switch anyway to some GNU/Linux distro soon.

Something I feel curious about is that Richard Stallman said in a conference in my city that "Ubuntu is not free software" (and some other popular distros) but Open source, which doesn't give us any actual security in the end.

BTW, how much performance loose is between Windows and Proton?
 
alabtrosMyster

alabtrosMyster

Banned
I have not researched it, but will it let me use the epi games store as well? And what's the compatibility ratio?

I assume it will all be answered there anyway, but I'm very curious as someone who does web development part time... I find windows is a waste of hardware resources (but it has a lot of the software, and habits are hard to change).
 
Raploz

Raploz

Member
alabtrosMyster said:
I have not researched it, but will it let me use the epi games store as well? And what's the compatibility ratio?

I assume it will all be answered there anyway, but I'm very curious as someone who does web development part time... I find windows is a waste of hardware resources (but it has a lot of the software, and habits are hard to change).
Click to expand...

I'm not a developer, but Linux is considered the ideal platform for development.

Now, Epic Games Store is not compatible with Linux, only Steam. You could try to run games you bought there using Lutris, but it's not a good experience. So you better stick with Steam. As for compatibility, some games support Linux natively (mostly indies and older AA/AAA titles) while a lot of others are not native but run well using Proton, which is Valve's compatibility layer to run Windows games on Linux. By default, Steam will only shows games they've tested to run, but you can enable an option to force all games to show, however, if you do that they're not guaranteed to run. This page shows the compatible titles: https://store.steampowered.com/linux
 
johntown

johntown

Banned
I would be interested in a security context like Kali and Parrot OS but not sure if those subjects would be allowed. For gaming I have little interest in Linux.
 
SaturnSaturn

SaturnSaturn

Member
Do not trust MS or Apple to always have your best interests at hand
Click to expand...

I never understood this from linux people, most of them still use smartphones(ie android) google service(youtube, gmail chrome etc.) and complain about privacy all the time. You are still giving your info to Valve and Google with your games, search history and payment info, is it just a irrational hatred for microsoft?

If people really cared about security you would just use tails and tor all the time and not have a smartphone, and use a old proccesor without intel managment engine half messures are stupid.
 
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B

basic_element

Member
Bunker Hosted said:
Running a dual boot is still giving access of my hard drive to Microsoft, when running KVM virtualization you will lose less than 2% of performance. Running virtualization via the Linux kernel is MUCH MUCH more optimized compared to running something like VirtualBox.

Generally I don't like to give Microsoft any information I don't need too, running Windows 10 via KVM hardly impacts performance at all. This is also coming from someone with a beefy computer so your results may very. Keeping my steam account on a VM that only gets powered on to play a few games makes me feel better that Microsoft is unable to scrap any other metadata from searches, apps, etc..
Click to expand...
Hmm interesting. I wasn't aware using KVM prevents Microsoft from gaining access to your data. Do you have any additional info on how that works? Thanks.
 
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