Kitz Forum
Computer Software => Linux => Topic started by: dee.jay on October 08, 2018, 02:48:51 PM
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As subject really. I didn't really start getting into Linux until about 2010 when I picked up a QNAP NAS box and installed Debian on it. I now use Debian as my go-to OS for server needs, so any terminal servers I use to get into home runs on Debian, and I have a bunch of VM's running Debian running DSLstats etc, that kind of thing.
Outside of this, I use FreeBSD in the form of a FreeNAS VM and pfSense as a router, but up until now I have predominantly been using Windows on my desktop machine. I say it's for gaming, but I haven't done that much in the last 12 months.
At this point I want to abandon Windows, but what with? I am very comfortable with Arch Linux - I used that on my desktop previously but found that after a while things broke and it got in the way of my productivity. I use Manjaro on a laptop and that seems to work very well, but I keep thinking that Debian may become my new daily driver, so to speak for my desktop needs. I can always dual boot Windows 10 if I need to play games - I have a fairly high end machine with 64GB RAM and GeForce 1080GTX, so I can live with Windows purely for gaming.
I need to get into more network development and scripting type tasks, and I've recently taken some Cisco courses - they used an Ubuntu VM within the labs - and - my employer pretty much is about 90% open source for all the machines in their backend. I need to pick up my linux game!
So, I am curious to know what distributions everyone here is using, as I can see there is a good mix of Windows and *NIX users around the place.
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I have Ubuntu in my Raspberry Pi, and I would like to get to know xBSD on some box or other.
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I started using Linux for all my regular computing use in 2000. I used SuSE for a while when it was a privately owned independent distro, after which I distro hopped for a few years, then settled on Debian. I wanted to progress to BSD, but I was always thwarted by the difficulty of getting my preferred printers to work.
So I've been with Debian for a few years, and I'll probably stay there now.
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RHEL6 is my daily work-horse.
I also use RHEL7 and used to use RHEL5 until it went EOL. Have a R-Pi with its version of Debian.
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I have used many over the years but now settled on openSUSE Tumbleweed for my desktop and laptop, my wife uses openSUSE Leap on her laptop because Tumbleweed is very leading edge and a rolling release.
Stuart
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My original home server used Fedora, provides NAS, source control, bug logging, media streaming etc. After it died its successor was CentOS based, after I was scolded on these forums for referring to “fedora” and “server” in same sentence. Both worked well but caution is needed when updating, as things tend to break easily if a “blanket” update everything policy is adopted.
Desktops around here are the oft-forgotten Unix desendant, known as Apple Mac OS. Many likers of *Nix would like that too. Prejudices may need to be overcome, but the reward is a professionally supported commercial OS, utterly gorgeous hardware that is guranteed to be compatible, and still recognisably Unix under the skin.
My home has been microsoft-free for some time now. :)
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Lubuntu for me and any body I can persuade/ween off Windows ;) nice and simple to setup and administer :fingers:
Although I still use Windows for gaming :-[
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Yes, I have seen all these crazy implementations whereby people have been doing hardware passthrough and all sorts of craziness to put Windows in a VM out of the way.
I mean, I understand all that, but, surely it is easier to just dual boot and boot into Windows when required.
I was going to do this, but have decided against it - dual booting is the way to go. I think I will wipe my nVME and put a fresh install of Windows on that, and then use another disk for Linux. I really think I will just go Debian as I know it just works, is stable, and shouldn't ought to get in the way of my workflow.
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One of the points about a virtual machine is that both OSs run simultaneously and you can pass data between them. That's a lot quicker and easier than dual booting.
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Absolutely, but it requires the right hardware and multiple video inputs and USB etc
I've done it on Arch with an i7-2600 and GTX680 but it took a bit of doing.
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It's actually very straightforward if you use Virtualbox or the commercial (but free for private use) VMWare Player. No special hardware is required, but you need to have enough memory to support both the host and the guest systems.
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Are you just talking about simply running a Windows VM inside a Linux machine? Yes, that is very easy by itself, I've been using VMWare Workstation since around 2005/2006 and I run ESX 6 on a server.
I mean - passing through the single GPU that is running in the system so the Windows guest can access it and use it for gaming - that's what takes work.
Actually, this has got me thinking now. I have an i7-8700K which apparently can do 4K on HDMI, and my monitor is a 4K one with two inputs. One is DisplayPort that can do 60Hz, and I think I'm limited to 30Hz over HDMI - but that's enough for the desktop in Linux. I could quite likely do passthrough to the GTX1080 for when I want to fire up some games with Windows, and simply use the on-chip GPU for desktop. Might have to give this another go!
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I have been a Linux hobbyist for a long time. My main PC at home dual boots Windows 10 and Ubuntu, I have flirted with Arch Linux and Mint but always go back to Ubuntu because of the user base and support. On any given day I could be using either Windows or Linux depending on my mood /what I am doing. I know all the cool kids use Arch but the installation process is HORRIBLE, manual disk partitioning etc etc ..... really?
A while back I tried to migrate my gaming to Linux (I mainly play eve-online, CS:GO and FIFA) and I have spent a fair amount of time fiddling with Wine etc with some success but usually it breaks after a while and I have to go back windows while I take the time to sort it out.
I feel like we are on the brink of Linux (especially Ubuntu) being mainstream enough to be primary OS for the normos (i.e. not for geeks like us) but not quite there yet - but then I have felt like this for about 10 years tbh.
I also use Libreelec (https://libreelec.tv/) on the front end devices for our TV server (no I do not do dodgy stuff and watch illegal streams), its brilliant for low power devices for cheap in-room TV streaming. I also have a junk-build NAS running Xpenology (https://xpenology.org/) and I mess around with my Raspberry Pi's using different Linux based thingies.
My home-built router also runs pfsense (https://www.pfsense.org/) which is FreeBSD based and is awesome, does that count?
Linux is a lot of harmless fun imho, still for geeks though
Chunks
EDIT : For gaming I have not yet tried Proton (https://fossbytes.com/wine-based-proton-windows-games-on-linux/) which apparently is another leap in the direction of gaming under Linux with the full-blown assistance of Valve Software, apparently you need steam (which already works under Linux) and proton is an enhacned adaptation of Wine will enable you to run Windows titles.
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Yes I am very interested in Proton too.
I've seen a shift in recent years with Linux gathering more momentum. It's getting there.
pfSense is awesome, btw. I have fancied trying building an OpenBSD router for fun though with pf...
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For some reason I have never been into gaming at all. I do run Windows in Virtualbox just for a photo printer which is as yet not well supported in Linux.
Stuart
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I use Ubuntu on all my Linux machines. Used Red Hat Linux back in the day, then Fedora for desktop and CentOS for server things. Switched to Ubuntu 6 or 7 years ago and haven't looked back since. I run Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi boards.
You know you can now run Linux directly on Windows 10?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
There are some limitations, but it works well.
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Yes I use it here at work, it's not too shabby.
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It isn’t Linux - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/faq - it’s just Bash plus an emulation later that gives apps a view of a Linux-like file system space and so forth. It’s still Windows underneath and in control of everything. Cygwin was/is a similar thing. Wine is I suspect the same thing in reverse.
Right from the beginning WinNT has had multiple ‘subsystems’ - there have been others in the past, some of which were withdrawn - there was the OS/2 subsystem and the ‘POSIX’ subsystem. They each gave different kinds of alternative API views to differing types of apps.
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fedora core 28, ubuntu 18.04, raspbian etc.
To drift a bit off topic, I installed a recent version of android in a virtual machine,
(under ubuntu) just out of curiosity. I was a little surprised to see
it uses something called "toybox", much as my routers and modems use
"busybox". The layout of the filesystem is pretty unfamiliar to me.
The impression grows on me that, apart from desktops, the vast majority
of computers in the world run, at the bottom, a linux (or "unix-ish") kernel.
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You would be absolutely right in stating that.
I manage a number of serial console servers (so we can remotely manage devices in our Data Centre racks across the globe) and they too are built on some Linux.
It's everywhere.
Except on desktops.
lol.
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Just about every modem, router, smart TV, and most other types of domestic electronic devices run on Linux.
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And not forgetting your Android phone :cool: So ok not quite, Google took the kernel and re-engineered it, but it's still Linux at heart.
I've been using Linux since Redhat 5.2....
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Just about every modem, router, smart TV, and most other types of domestic electronic devices run on Linux.
Many big commercial vendors actually prefer FreeBSD and not Linux for mainly licensing reasons, I've been told.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_FreeBSD
We use many of these at work - Junos, ONTAP (NetApp Filer), NetScaler, Blue Coat and so on. Someone told me that the Sky boxes run an OS based on FreeBSD. The older Sky+ HD ones anyway. Not sure about the new Sky Q platform.
Then there's the big two - macOS and iOS.
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I moved away from Windows (Vista) in exasperation in 2008...to OpenSuse (Gnome) for 2 years, then to Linux Mint MATE until last year, Debian (MATE then XFCE) for a few months, then Xubuntu currently. Since moving to Xubuntu I've been totally content with it for all my computing needs. A few years ago I moved to using low-wattage, fanless/silent mini-ITX kit and find Xubuntu best all-round for me, though I have tried Arch/Lubuntu/many others prior to settling with Xubuntu.
One of the apps that made the full move away from Windows practical was DSLstats - super stuff!
My wife initially used an Apple Mac, found it awkward, and now uses Lubuntu on a small laptop.
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Then there's the big two - macOS and iOS.
And of course, watchOS and tvOS, which also appear in just a few home gadgets. All of these can trace their ancestry back to BSD Unix, rather than Linux.
Arguably, Linux also has Unix ancestry, though it is debatable whether Linux is a “real” Unix or merely a very successful clone.
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Linux is an operating system kernel. It is not an operating system. :-X
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I'd just like to interject for a moment.............
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Linux is an operating system kernel. It is not an operating system. :-X
Hmm, I have been pondering this. :-\
Obviously, the “Linux Kernel” is a kernel. And that kernel, as I understand, was primarily Mr Torvald’s excellent work, aimed at enabling construction and distribution of Unix-like clones based upon open source software.
But when we refer to the term “Linux” on its own, without mention the word “kernel”, are most people necessarily refering to the Linux Kernel, or perhaps to some unspecified but typical Unix-like OS distribution, based upon the Linux kernel?
I quite like the definition currently stated on wikipedia...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
Linux is a family of free and open-source software operating systems built around the Linux kernel.
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The wiki page goes on to say
The defining component of a Linux distribution is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel...
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Tempted to go a bit mad and try LFS or Gentoo or something.
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I moved away from Windows back when it was moving from Win98 to XP and even then I didn't like the way Windows was moving, I think I was correct, just look at Windows 10 now-a-days.
After using various distributions over the years, these days I've settled on Ubuntu MATE for all the computers in our household. Thankfully the wife is a technophobe so doesn't know any difference and doesn't care, she likes it because it just works, any updating falls to the IT Director (me) which only generally takes a few minutes, unlike Windows 7 here at work, that seems to take half the day, slowing the computer down in the meantime.
I'm not a gamer, the only intensive program I use is XPlane but that works a treat with the big fat Nvidia graphics card installed. And my SDR radio receiver works fine. I have found my antenna modelling software actually works better through Wine than it did in Windows :-\
I can't see any good reason to go back to Windows anytime soon, but our secret must be kept ;)
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There are two reasons why I am still sadly tied to Windows.
1. At work - Well, most enterprises are using Windows these days, so not a lot I can do about that.
2. At home - gaming. Though, the situation is ever improving by the day. I just need the time to sit down and wipe the box and put some new OS on.
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PCLinuxOS 64 KDE5 https://www.pclinuxos.com/get-pclinuxos/kde/
Tried it when Eric (roseway) did the tutorials in 2007 (see above) and used it ever since.
It is installed on my main laptop and on my wife's laptop and she likes it.
My daughter uses it as well, she used it all through uni and now living and working in Kent she still finds it does all she wants.
On my spare laptop/ test laptop I have PCLinuxOS Darkstar (a cut down version) installed.
Darkstar is also used as the base OS for my backup server, that is used to backup all our home machines and including our daughters each day.
I have tried other distro's but still stick with this one.
Some machines do have Win7 installed for iTunes and access for iPhones, I also need Win7 to work software to look at our cars PID's (eg the cars computer/s data port output).