Kitz Forum
Computer Software => Linux => Topic started by: Bowdon on November 29, 2019, 04:36:14 PM
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I'm still considering a move to Linux, but I've got a dilemma.
I have a couple of old laptops. But I was wondering if because of the age of them maybe they either aren't suitable or I wouldn't be able to experience the full abilities of Linux on the old laptops.
So then I was wondering, do people buy new pc/laptop for their Linux, or do they build their own machine?
What do the people who use Linux use? Old hardware, bought new hardware, or bought new build hardware?
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I've been building my own PCs for many years, and that's where my main computing activity is. I don't like laptops because I'm fussy about the keyboard (I use an IBM Model M (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard) which is the best keyboard ever made. By building the PCs myself I get exactly what I want, which includes low noise and good quality reliable components.
Regarding old laptops, you'll probably find that they are fine with Linux, depending on how limited their memory and disk space are. Very recent laptops may be a problem because of hardware which Linux hasn't caught up with yet.
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In my case, I have hardware that is over 20 years old, hardware that is over 9 years old and hardware that is over 6 years old. :)
The first was given to me when it was then seven years old and needed to be repurposed & refurbished. The latter two were purchased new.
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So then I was wondering, do people buy new pc/laptop for their Linux, or do they build their own machine?
What do the people who use Linux use? Old hardware, bought new hardware, or bought new build hardware?
Any/all of the above. I have never encountered a PC or laptop that does not run Linux (PCLinuxOS in my case). My two desktops, one bought and one home built, both have 2nd gen Intel chips. My laptop is a Dell XPS13 which is just over a year old, with very modern hardware.
Stck with a distribution that has a fairly up-to-date kernel and you should be OK. Old hardware that you already have can be tested with a good liveCD to see how it goes before installation.
Take courage and give Linux a try!
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Personally I’d say one needs to use hardware that is appropriate to the purpose for which a machine will be used, regardless of the operating system that will be used?
If fast number crunching is involved, you need a fast CPU.
If memory intensive you need lots of RAM.
If graphics intensive, you need a suitable combination of CPU and GPU.
If lots of data storage then plenty of disk space.
A 64 bit CPU might be mandated by memory addressing requirements, or maybe if some applications demand it.
and etc ... but all of these apply regardless of OS.
That said, on older hardware you may find that regardless of it being adequate, Linux might install where Microsoft operating systems may fail/refuse to install.
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I run an AMD 64bit quad core cpu which is now probably 5 or 6 years old, it has 8gb real memory and I find it really hard to max it out in memory terms so it uses swap, the only use I really make for swap is hibernation! I do photo editing and video editing and it never seems to strain it. I dont have any SSDs it is all real spinning disks. I currently run openSUSE Tumbleweed on it which is a leading edge distro. I have 2 laptops which run openSUSE one with an i3 which runs Leap 15.1 and the other an i7 which runs Tumbleweed and they both have 4gb real memory and again neither seems to use swap other than for hibernation. I do use the i7 one for photo editing occasionally. Again both have real spinning disks.
Stuart
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I'm still considering a move to Linux, but I've got a dilemma.
I have a couple of old laptops. But I was wondering if because of the age of them maybe they either aren't suitable or I wouldn't be able to experience the full abilities of Linux on the old laptops.
So then I was wondering, do people buy new pc/laptop for their Linux, or do they build their own machine?
What do the people who use Linux use? Old hardware, bought new hardware, or bought new build hardware?
Personally I've done all of the above. Historically Linux has been far far more compatible with older hardware than any other OS. The only catch tends to be some obscure GPUs (such as when Intel decided to license PowerVR before they got their GPU optimised), although even then it should work, just might not be good for a desktop - perfectly fine as a server.
I don't like laptops because I'm fussy about the keyboard (I use an IBM Model M (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard) which is the best keyboard ever made.
I always thought this was a porn-free forum? :D
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In my experience old Dell laptops work really well with Linux, I have a couple of e6420 which I mess around with Linux on, currently Kubuntu, typically I use the for running servers for the kids, and when I don't want to take my "nice " laptop and never had any issues.
They are a bit Bricky, but I also like the fact that compared to modern slim and light laptops they are easy to disassemble and fix and you can buy cheap parts for them.
Don't overlook dual-boot options, also works well although slight risk that occasionally things get mixed upon the bootloader (had a few panicky moments over the years with my work laptop although might just be me)
Linux is fun, but these days I use it much less because Windows is so much more reliable than 20 years ago and you can get very cheap licences
C
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Intel Nuc's are good and are very Linux friendly, and can be bought very cheaply on fleabay etc
https://clearlinux.org is a optimised distribution for Intel hardware, but I normally use Lubuntu, and every thing just works out of the box.
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@Bowden, don’t forget there’s another alternative, Apple’s MacOS, which takes the guesswork out of the hardware. It’s effectively Unix under the skin, so still very very similar in spirit, to Linux. And about as far as you can get from Microsoft.
In my career I worked extensively on Unix and Linux system development, at kernel and application levels. I have no hesitation in running a Linux distribution on my home server, as I’d be unlikely to find any ‘off the peg’ alternative that would fulfil my requirements.
But for a convenient, reliable and fully manufacturer-supported desktop workstation or stand alone ‘single home computer’, my choice these days is an iMac with MacOS. Costs a bit more, but so much less bother. :)
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But then you have the Apple lottery on hardware reliability. Its sadly not as good as it used to be.
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Still pretty good, though.
One of my home built Linux machines, an STB that serves as MythTV frontend in the living room, died within a year. This was a small form-factor mini ITX, with non standard parts. After dismantling it all (yes, all) of the capacitors in the PSU were bulging, and failing. The online importer failed to respond to complaints. In the end I simply dug out my soldering iron and replaced all the capacitors with specimens of a higher rating. But without wanting to sound arrogant, how many average punters could have done that?
From about about a dozen or more specimens of Apple devices, iPods, iPhones, Mac Minis and iMacs, over the past decade, the only disappointment was an iPod touch that failed after two years, and a dodgy battery in an iPhone 6s. Apple replaced that dodgy battery last week, iPhone nearly four years old, for just £50. :)
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The latest version of Apple's OS is getting more like Microsoft/Google/Android in some ways in that you have to be 'approved' to be able to run some free software. Gutenprint will not install yet as it has not been cleared by Apple! However it runs fine on Linux!
Stuart
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If there’s a reason why you need/want to roll up your sleeves and start customising things then yes, you’re better of with Linux, and I’d use it too. And emphasise again, I do use it too.
Regarding application software availability though, I’d argue that it’s swings and roundabouts. You can get a lot of free ‘community’ stuff for Linux and some of it is excellent, but if you simply want to purchase a fully supported commercial product, you might be out of luck.
For example I use Adobe Lightroom for photo processing. It’s expensive but it’s the real-deal, used by professional photographers. It has no serious competitors, I’ve tried various open-source alternatives, none of them come close to Lightroom.
Yet Lightroom’s not available for native Linux, even for people who are willing to pay for it. :(
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Still pretty good, though.
One of my home built Linux machines, an STB that serves as MythTV frontend in the living room, died within a year. This was a small form-factor mini ITX, with non standard parts. After dismantling it all (yes, all) of the capacitors in the PSU were bulging, and failing. The online importer failed to respond to complaints. In the end I simply dug out my soldering iron and replaced all the capacitors with specimens of a higher rating. But without wanting to sound arrogant, how many average punters could have done that?
From about about a dozen or more specimens of Apple devices, iPods, iPhones, Mac Minis and iMacs, over the past decade, the only disappointment was an iPod touch that failed after two years, and a dodgy battery in an iPhone 6s. Apple replaced that dodgy battery last week, iPhone nearly four years old, for just £50. :)
I'm just rather paranoid with Louis Rossman reporting that newer Macbooks have a voltage regulator that just randomly dies and cannot be replaced.
I've never been a fan of Apple, but I did used to think they were reliable, but apparently not.
Then again I've been building PCs for so long, have tons of parts lying around.
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I mostly use Windows as I play games. Game support is getting there on Linux though.
I have a number of machines here, but I'd have no issue running linux on anything, it really will run on mostly anything these days.
My first real Linux experiment was running Debian on my first NAS drive I'd bought back in 2010... :) QNAP-TS210
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As for applications on Linux there is nothing I need which is not available on Linux. For image processing I have GIMP Darktable and Digikam (mainly for quick edits but is is good for managing collections), web work and email you have legions of stuff. The only thing I am unable to do is print wirelessly to my dyesub postcard printer but I am able to run W7 in Virtualbox for that ;D For an office suite I have Libreoffice. The only thing I pay for is Turboprint which I find better than the free stuff for printing to my Canon iP7250 and does it wirelessly, this is personal choice because the pure free stuff does work. I also run Apache for testing web stuff. I use a KDE desktop which is easy to use if you come from a Windows background and is very easily customised if needed.
One other reason I use Linux almost exclusively (I have a cube box for W7 running weather station and forecasting s/w) is that it does seem to me to be more secure by design providing you do not do silly stuff like allow root login :o and have secure passwords (OK that's sensible on any system).
Yes some people, particularly those with very specific requirements for work, may not find what they want but for Joe Public at home I can see no reason not to use Linux in one of its flavours. Even my wife has Linux on her laptop and she did not have any issues when I removed W7 and installed Linux using KDE desktop (it's hard to notice if carefully setup) ::)
Stuart
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Ah, moved another machine to full blown FreeBSD today.
My main file server was an all-in-one effort, that ran ESX 6. It then had FreeNAS with the SAS controller passed through, and a number of other VM's running on SSD's in the same box. It has worked great for a number of years, but I've found that running anything newer than ESX 6.0 causes issues with the FreeNAS VM, and whenever I wanted to change anything related to storage, I've had to shut the machine down.
So, last week I threw £190 at a Ryzen 3 3200G and Motherboard, had a spare NVMe SSD lying around, and 32GB DDR4. Bought a case, threw it all together, and it works fine with ESX6.7 - so I've moved all "internet" related VM's to that, and put FreeNAS bare metal on my server. Love it.
The storage server is a 5 year old Xeon E3-1231v3, 32GB ECC Memory, 4 x 2TB WD NAS disks.
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Interesting to see a mention of FreeBSD. :)
It’ a thing that I approve of and would like to try, but never have.
The Linux boxes I operate all participate in MythTV, the ‘server’ has tuners attached, whilst the frontends have high HD graphics that depend on well-tuned driver support from the manufacturer. Rightly or wrongly, I perceive that getting custom/hobbyist hardware to run on FreeBSD might be more arduous than with a Linux distribution?
Then again, I’ve been frustrated a few times over the years struggling with networking (eg SMB) incompatibilities between the different Linux kernels and distributions that I use. Rightly or wrongly, I perceive FreeBSD to be a little bit more tightly controlled and less chaotic?
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FreeNAS has been pretty damn awesome. My router is pfSense, so that too is FreeBSD :)
Mostly I setup FreeNAS and I've never had to touch it. It runs on ZFS and it performs its own ZFS scrubs and such.
Now, what you won't approve of... my primary desktop machine runs Windows 10, but I want to move to Linux and put Windows in a VM on top, just not got round to it. And I do have a laptop, but as I use that pretty much 99% for gaming, that will remain Windows 10, but that does need some tweaking. All my VM's that perform my various serving related tasks are ALL linux, however. (Or BSD, of course)
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Now, what you won't approve of... my primary desktop machine runs Windows 10
I can hardly criticise (this being the Linux forum), both of our desktop workstations are Mac OS, for reasons already covered. ::)
Then again, at least Mac OS has its origins in BSD and still very recognisably Unix at command line and file store layouts.
I can also understand the appeal of Microsoft for a game player, which I am not.
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And, honestly it is the only real reason why I still use Windows at this point - as a gamer I pretty much have to.
However, I keep a keen eye on support in Linux. It is getting there :)
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Rightly or wrongly, I perceive FreeBSD to be a little bit more tightly controlled and less chaotic?
Not wrong at all from what I've read, hardware support is VERY limited in FreeBSD. Its why the pfSense team do NOT recommend using it for a WiFi Access Point.
That said, even though it only supports 802.11g for the N card in my pfSense box, I put most of my IoT devices on that and they are WAY more responsive/reliable.
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Hence why I have an Ubiquiti access point. I hate wireless as a rule, but needs must, I might as well do it right. That Ubiquiti AP is brilliant.
I cable where possible, though to be fair when I can get 330Mbps down to my laptop from my server, I really can't complain.
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Hence why I have an Ubiquiti access point. I hate wireless as a rule, but needs must, I might as well do it right. That Ubiquiti AP is brilliant.
I cable where possible, though to be fair when I can get 330Mbps down to my laptop from my server, I really can't complain.
I finally caved and ordered a UniFi nanoHD, just sick of the random behaviour of OpenWRT and the ath10k drivers. I used to get 600Mbit but every time the Ath10k drivers get updated, performance gets worse. Plus being able to stick it to the ceiling above where most of my devices are seems like it might help with one of my laptops where they stupidly put the antennas in the wrist rest.
I was going to wait for WiFi 6 but I hadn't realised its not likely to be ratified until the end of next year so it seems a bad idea to buy anything until then even if they do release something, which doesn't seem likely since they just announced another AC device recently.