Rant: Does Linux actually, you know, work?

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97 posts

Master Geek

#750218 24-Jan-2013 14:23

ask.ubuntu.com is pretty good at finding your answers too as long as you're using Ubuntu or Mint. Currently the Linux nVidia drivers are the same as the Windows ones but 'stereoscopic' 3D hasn't quite been ported yet as I understand. With the introduction of Steam for Linux though apparently nVidia have redoubled their efforts in getting the best out of their hardware. There was a bug in 12.04 (which may have been fixed with 12.04.1?) where the live CD wouldn't boot with nVidia cards and the only option around it was to boot from your internal graphics chip, I'm not sure if it affected ATI or not. I've never had any serious issue that I couldn't resolve with a bit of help from Google or ask.ubuntu.com. On a lower end PC that I had previously I had performance issues but usually installing alternate software fixed it (like using Clementine rather than Rhythmbox, or for a while, using KDE rather than Gnome). In fact I think the only real issue I've had with Linux has been with WiFi which I never got around to resolving. I think it was more that I was using hardware which didn't work well under Linux more than anything else.

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Behodar

10415 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#750238 24-Jan-2013 14:50

I saw on Slashdot today that Fedora 18 is one of the worst releases, which meshes with my experience. I didn't even bother mentioning it on here until now but it was plagued with issues for me; the top of the installer window was off the top of the screen so I couldn't get to some of the options, then after eventually managing to install I was completely unable to copy files from a network share onto the Linux system (Ctrl-C/V, drag and drop, and right-click "copy to > desktop" all just created 0-byte icons in the destination rather than actually copying anything). It seems that I started with the most reliable distro (Debian) and just got worse and worse...

Klipspringer

2385 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#750247 24-Jan-2013 15:11

For me, I love Linux. And if I could its probably all I would ever use (need).

But. I have a family, kids get school homework etc ... As a family computer Linux just does not cut it.

heapsort

245 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#750252 24-Jan-2013 15:25

Behodar: I saw on Slashdot today that Fedora 18 is one of the worst releases, which meshes with my experience. I didn't even bother mentioning it on here until now but it was plagued with issues for me; the top of the installer window was off the top of the screen so I couldn't get to some of the options, then after eventually managing to install I was completely unable to copy files from a network share onto the Linux system (Ctrl-C/V, drag and drop, and right-click "copy to > desktop" all just created 0-byte icons in the destination rather than actually copying anything). It seems that I started with the most reliable distro (Debian) and just got worse and worse...

I am using Fedora 18 (with Xfce, not the Gnome 3 desktop) and enjoying it. I got through the new installer unscathed, and have had no real problems.

But I do think it was a major mistake to ship the new, almost completely rewritten installer in Fedora 18. I realise it's a bit of a catch-22, that some glitches just won't get uncovered until new software gets the exposure of a full release, but surely it would have been better seeing its debut in Fedora 19. Putting it in 18 was simply too rushed, and I think the large number of installer-related release blocker bugs that barely got fixed in time (for an already multiple-delayed release) was one of several signs that a poor decision had been made.

farcus

1544 posts

Uber Geek

#750288 24-Jan-2013 16:16

I've been using openSUSE exclusively for about eight years now. When I borrow a Windows computer I struggle to find my way around.

As for install and compatibility. I installed win7 on a friends computer last year and the installer was far less intuitive than that in openSUSE and on install completion there were more problems than I usually encounter with openSUSE installs.

I have found a lot of windows users try out linux distros - find that it doesn't work the same as windows so declare it broken and revert to windows.

toyonut

1508 posts

Uber Geek

#750310 24-Jan-2013 16:44

Yes it does, but like all things it depends on hardware I find. Every install into vmware player has been good for me. I currently run my kernel dev environment in it at home. I use ubuntu 12.04 LTS. My netbook and desktop also were happy with ubuntu and mint. Had no problems with either of them. My old laptop had endless wireless issues and the graphics card never worked right no matter what driver you used.

My take on "the year of the linux desktop" is that it will never get here unless manufacturers start pushing laptops and desktops with it on. Ubuntu for phones is going to have the same problem. Manufacturers have to pick it up and run with it. The fact that it is free and faster is not enough to convince people to try it. Windows is "free", the end user does not pay for it because it is already installed and activated. It is already fast too. Windows 7 and 8 are more than fast enough on very moderate hardware. Unless there is a compelling reason to switch what is the point.

Ubuntu is probably the closest I can see to making the breakthrough. If they can get a good manufacturer to make some cool hardware and push the convergence angle where your phone is a phone and desktop/laptop without making it clunky, they may start to win over consumers. 2014 will be the year of the linux desktop...or maybe not.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#750466 24-Jan-2013 22:20

I currently run Windows [XP, Vista] at home and Ubuntu 12.10 at work.

My first experience with Linux was the Fedora 6 and Ubuntu 6.10 generation after building my first PC. I liked the idea of using Linux so tried it as an afterthought. Didn't persist for very long because there were no drivers for my DigitalNow Quattro S/T tuner. HTPC is a core use case for me, so that was a deal-breaker. To be fair, I probably would have stuck with Windows even if drivers did exist as the change was a bit much - cold-turkey on Windows when you've known nothing else is hard.

I next tried Ubuntu and Kubuntu in around 2010 when I started my current job. Linux on the desktop is a non-negotiable. This forced me to persist and learn. It was a steep learning curve, to say the least. There isn't a day when I don't use the terminal, but even now with roughly three years experience under my belt I wouldn't call myself proficient. At least I know how to find solutions to problems now! A quick google with good search terms usually gets me a solution very quickly, often from the online man pages or AskUbuntu.

At home, I still keep going back to Windows due to tuner drivers. Different cards, same problem. I also found the Freeview satellite video quality in MythTV was significantly worse than under Windows. Poor MPEG2 codec? I don't know. Intel non-HD iGPU driver? Maybe. In general driver availability and quality are improving. I run dual screens with a silent NVidia GPU and KVM at work; no issues whatsoever. Wired and wireless network is also problem-free on work desktop and laptop.

I have noticed that I've started to actively use cross-platform software wherever possible on Windows. For example, I now use LibreOffice even though I have a legal MSO license. I admit I do miss Notepad++, Winamp and MediaPortal under Linux... but honestly that is about it.

For me, migrating to Ubuntu at home is becoming less and less of a hurdle the more that I use Ubuntu (and Solaris via ssh) at work. Conversly, I wouldn't want to use Windows at work for the things I do. Linux is just so much better suited, mainly because of the plethora of command line utilities that make my typical tasks significantly more efficient.

Though it works for me, I totally don't think Linux is ready for the average Joe/Joeline Bloggs Windows user - I think the path from Windows to Ubuntu is still too rocky. No comment on transitioning from OSX to Linux - I've always hated Macs so I have almost zero experience with them.

That is my take on it anyway...

beaverusiv

49 posts

Geek

#750547 25-Jan-2013 08:15

@mm1352000 may I ask what field you work in?

mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#750563 25-Jan-2013 08:49

beaverusiv: @mm1352000 may I ask what field you work in?

Sure. I'm a software engineer.
-->my employer<--

quakeguy

111 posts

Master Geek

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#750569 25-Jan-2013 09:02

At Snap, I've run Linux Mint (Cinnamon) for over a year, with no intention of going back to Windows.

The company doesn't frown on this - Snap has Mac users, Windows users and Linux users, and everything coexists quite well.

It's a very nice OS if you're a network engineer, and want to punt packets using your desktop workstation (having netfilter/iptables and VLAN support on the desktop is just awesome).

I use Thunderbird with Exquilla to talk to Office365, which supports everything except calendar. For that, I use my phone.

I do spend a lot of time in shells and browsers, and participate in DevOps, so the OS suits my workload well.

“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.” - Nikola Tesla

Disclaimer: Views expressed in my posts do not necessarily reflect those views of my employer.

Dratsab

3946 posts

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#752199 28-Jan-2013 19:19

Quick update: I spent a few hours on Ubuntu 12.10 this afternoon. Like it. There's a bit of learning curve but (so far) I haven't actually found it terribly hard to get done what I want to do. In the process of installing MythTV at the moment.

Google Chrome is now installed as the default browser and with a small amount of internet searching I learnt how to create a desktop shortcut for it - which should really be a lot simpler than it was... Programs which don't need to be launched from the terminal can have desktop icons set up in seconds though.

TBH - I've found it fairly intuitive even though I've been a Windows user since 3.1. The computer I've got Ubuntu on is the one I use as an "HTPC" of sorts to stream media to my Sony TV. Hopefully I'll be able to replicate this with Ubuntu at which point I'll ditch Microsoft - from this machine at least.

mercutio

1392 posts

Uber Geek

#752210 28-Jan-2013 19:37

For me, migrating to Ubuntu at home is becoming less and less of a hurdle the more that I use Ubuntu (and Solaris via ssh) at work. Conversly, I wouldn't want to use Windows at work for the things I do. Linux is just so much better suited, mainly because of the plethora of command line utilities that make my typical tasks significantly more efficient.

I was using Linux when I got my first job, where I had to use Windows. It was a bit cumbersome back then trying to get grep, and vim, and so on working under Windows and finding that Windows console on NT4 was terrible performance wise. grep didn't seem to cache, and vim was sluggish.

Curiously I didn't find OS/2 as bad. even the default tedit on OS/2 was better than edit on windows. running "unix" apps on os/2 seemed to work better too. although, i noticed gcc was always slower to load.

TBH, I did find quite a steep learning curve with Linux, but a lot of it is stuff that lots of people don't seem to face:

* autoconf is bloody complicated, confusing, and annoying... "new" software seems to complicate things with obscure autoconfig bugs which are more complicated than Makefiles that you can just edit

* even Makefiles are a little complicated and confusing, once I started to figure out a few things, I found myself copying Makefiles between projects and editing, rather than writing from scratch.

* extracting files was confusing. "gzip -dc blah.tar.gz | tar -vtf -" to see if it creates a directory or not, oh it doesn't, "mkdir somename", "cd somename", "gzip -dc ../blah.tar.gz | tar -vxf -"

When I first used Linux I asked a friend of mine quite a few questions, a few from memory:

* How do I configure PPP server to take incoming dialup connections, and route them to the internet (you have to use something like mgetty, which calls ppp, then configure PPP; if you want them to share your normal internet connection, you have to use ipchains (at the time) or iptables (now) to masquerade the connection, otherwise they can only reach your services.

* How do I setup mail/news to download (fetchmail/leaf, with mail setup own mail server, use mutt/pine/elm/etc as client)

Looking back, hosting PPP for someone else isn't really relevant, because internet is a lot cheaper now days, and most people don't have two analogue lines, and even a single modem let alone more than one. A lot of email clients will download email for you, and host in their own proprietary formats now. Newsgroups are a waste of time now, and most people just use forums, which require you to be online all the time.

But really, if you contrast to DOS times, setting up a fidonet point based node system, and doing offline mail wasn't exactly simple. People just seem to assume things are a lot simpler than they used to.

mercutio

1392 posts

Uber Geek

#752227 28-Jan-2013 19:57

quakeguy: At Snap, I've run Linux Mint (Cinnamon) for over a year, with no intention of going back to Windows.

The company doesn't frown on this - Snap has Mac users, Windows users and Linux users, and everything coexists quite well.

It's a very nice OS if you're a network engineer, and want to punt packets using your desktop workstation (having netfilter/iptables and VLAN support on the desktop is just awesome).

I really don't understand why you'd want to do that. Also, Windows or managed switches can often work with single vlans pretty simply. (ie, bounce a port to another ethernet port on your computer so you can sniff the traffic, decide which vlan to see)

That said, I kind of like that android phones have iptables, and I have iptables on a Linux box at home, which can also act as desktop, just not primary one.

Generally, I'd say that vlans can be useful, but with Xen, Vmware, etc, you can just pass extra virtual ethernet interfaces with vlans through anyway. And use remote hosts.

I use Thunderbird with Exquilla to talk to Office365, which supports everything except calendar. For that, I use my phone.

I do spend a lot of time in shells and browsers, and participate in DevOps, so the OS suits my workload well.

Is Office365 why Snap's email times are always in GMT time?

For the shell/browser thing, I have found managing LOTS of shells/browsers way easier in Linux than Windows.

Varkk

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#752542 29-Jan-2013 11:59

mercutio:

Is Office365 why Snap's email times are always in GMT time?

For the shell/browser thing, I have found managing LOTS of shells/browsers way easier in Linux than Windows.

They are displaying in NZDT for me, perhaps go in to the webmail settings and set your timezone.

I currently use Fedora17 at my work, connect to an Exchange server with Evolution and the EWS plugin. I have a netbook I have updated to 18 and it has no real issues. I used the fedup utility so skipped the new installer which seems to be the cause of a lot of the complaints. Does everything I need and more and I prefer the workflow/interation in KDE Plasma compared to Windows.

mercutio

1392 posts

Uber Geek

#752572 29-Jan-2013 12:19

Varkk:
mercutio:

Is Office365 why Snap's email times are always in GMT time?

For the shell/browser thing, I have found managing LOTS of shells/browsers way easier in Linux than Windows.

They are displaying in NZDT for me, perhaps go in to the webmail settings and set your timezone.

I mean emails from staff... they say +0000.

I currently use Fedora17 at my work, connect to an Exchange server with Evolution and the EWS plugin. I have a netbook I have updated to 18 and it has no real issues. I used the fedup utility so skipped the new installer which seems to be the cause of a lot of the complaints. Does everything I need and more and I prefer the workflow/interation in KDE Plasma compared to Windows.

never tried kde plasma, i tried kde 3, and it was surprisingly good, then i tried kde 4 and it was terrible. i imagine it's improved since then though. (it was real early kde4) is plasma light weight?

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