General Linux Chat and Small Questions v. Year of the Linux Desktop! - Hardware & Software

[QUOTE=Lyoko2;52673289]No, I'm not mixing Mate and XFCE. XFCE is based on GTK2. and it tries to look like gnome2 but work faster. KDE has the best customization features and possibilities. You can change color them and download more within KDE. (Get new scheme button) same goes to window decorations, wallpapers, icon packs, workspace theme, effects. New ones always appear when you try to download within KDE's system settings. also Gnome and XFCE don't have as thorough 'System Settings' app as KDE's, gnome 3 forces you to use OpenGL compositioning when KDE allows you to select the compositioning system. oh and KDE Connect is the best android integration for daily use.[/QUOTE] No, you're definitely confusing XFCE and MATE. MATE tries to look like GNOME 2, being a fork of it. XFCE is a separate desktop that tries to be more customizable than GNOME of old, and has also been around a bit longer from what I remember. It has actually been getting updated to GTK 3 bit-by-bit and it has been actively developed, they just don't tag releases often. [editline]12th September 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=nutcake;52673169]KDE is the only consistently crashing DE. Honestly, no matter what PC, no matter what distro, every time I try KDE, kwin crashes at least 5 times a day, vsync rarely works and performance is horrid.[/QUOTE] I'm lucky, since Plasma 5.9 or so it's been pretty rock solid on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, at least on my work PC. GNOME is more unstable in my experience, though it does tend to recover more gracefully than Plasma does.

KDE is a mess, the screenshot shows multiple sizes for taskbar icons and these giant panes in the corner with empty space. I used to use it exclusively in the pass, but it's only big sell now is KDE Connect and doesn't make up for the bloat and and ui lag even with dual e5-2670's + 1070. XFCE is just simple and comfy and given the state of moving state of GTK3 maybe slow adoption of it will be beneficial.

[QUOTE=nutcake;52673169]KDE is the only consistently crashing DE. Honestly, no matter what PC, no matter what distro, every time I try KDE, kwin crashes at least 5 times a day, vsync rarely works and performance is horrid.[/QUOTE] The true FOSS experience.

[QUOTE=the backhand;52678244]The true FOSS experience.[/QUOTE] Better than being Microsoft's Prisoner for life.

[QUOTE=Lyoko2;52680233]Better than being Microsoft's Prisoner for life.[/QUOTE] I'll happily give fake information to Microsoft over constant crashing. Thankfully I don't have to because there are other working DEs. [editline]14th September 2017[/editline] (Ironic posting this from Windows, but have to use it for some of my work)

So to make apt get work, you need an internet connection, how did people get large software installers when people were on 56K.

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;52680603]So to make apt get work, you need an internet connection, how did people get large software installers when people were on 56K.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure they used DVD/CD discs as package repositories.

[QUOTE=Lyoko2;52680710]I'm pretty sure they used DVD/CD discs as package repositories.[/QUOTE]How do you install programs on Linux without apt get?

dpkg?

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;52680734]How do you install programs on Linux without apt get?[/QUOTE] `make install` Rolling release was always slow and required large downloads, but it's not like Ubuntu throws hundreds of megs of content weekly.

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;52680734]How do you install programs on Linux without apt get?[/QUOTE] You can add local repositories in apt. How do you think LiveCD installers work?

[QUOTE=Bonzai11;52680978]`make install` Rolling release was always slow and required large downloads, but it's not like Ubuntu throws hundreds of megs of content weekly.[/QUOTE] The opposite. Debian/Ubuntu are full of bloatware dependencies. you try to Install one package then next thing you get is a seizure by the length of the package dependency list.

Ah ok, I'll have to more research when I get it on this old NUC. Is centOS nore efficient than Ubuntu and Debian?

There's not much of a performance difference in distro's. It's mostly which package manager / mentality do you want. Ubuntu is certainly the easiest and has the most support all around. If you want to attach a screen I guess there's also the DE question, I'd go with something no frills for a system that you won't use daily. Just wanted to add this link, there is a little bit of difference but it's kind of all over the place: [url]https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=15-way-linux&num=10[/url] Dev/User convenience is more important than a few ms and most public/corporate clouds use Ubuntu or offer it as a best choice for Linux. Tbh if you're asking that question, the difference won't matter to you.

Funny story: I needed a Linux machine or a VM for a Unix course and a Web App development course. I ran a VM of Linux on my Android tablet, but there were no text editors with syntax highlighting for ARM processors (not a big fan of VIM). Tried using Chrome Remote Desktop to get to my Windows desktop to run a VirtualBox VM; ran slow as shit. Decided to run Chrome Remote Desktop from within the VM itself; runs buttery smooth (by comparison).

[QUOTE=huntingrifle;52686445] I ran a VM of Linux on my Android tablet, but there were no text editors with syntax highlighting for ARM processors (not a big fan of VIM). [/QUOTE] What about kate or gedit? I think even Atom works for Arm too. All open-source editors should work, as it's just a matter of compiling to the platform (which has been done already by Arm compatible distros)

[QUOTE=huntingrifle;52686445]Yes[/QUOTE] Just open up vim. By the time you close it again you will have learned to love it

You have to learn how to close it first

[QUOTE=Bonzai11;52684136]There's not much of a performance difference in distro's. It's mostly which package manager / mentality do you want. Ubuntu is certainly the easiest and has the most support all around. If you want to attach a screen I guess there's also the DE question, I'd go with something no frills for a system that you won't use daily. Just wanted to add this link, there is a little bit of difference but it's kind of all over the place: [URL]https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=15-way-linux&num=10[/URL] Dev/User convenience is more important than a few ms and most public/corporate clouds use Ubuntu or offer it as a best choice for Linux. Tbh if you're asking that question, the difference won't matter to you.[/QUOTE]I tired Ubuntu on the NUC, the GUI elements like animations and blur made it lag like crazy, do you know how to turn them off?

[QUOTE=Anderen2;52686520]What about kate or gedit? I think even Atom works for Arm too. All open-source editors should work, as it's just a matter of compiling to the platform (which has been done already by Arm compatible distros)[/QUOTE] Gedit does work, haven't tried Kate, and I've tried compiling VS Code, Atom, and Sublime on the ARM VM, and even found some projects of people releasing installation packages of their pre-built versions for ARM, yet all of them fail to even launch :v: Remote connecting also works for me since I don't have to copy files back and forth (cause coding a ton faster/easier on my desktop than on the tablet).

Picked up a cheap (250$) HP Chromebook 13 G1. Has a Core m3 and 4GB RAM, only big limitation is the 32GB eMMC, ZFS (main reason was zfs send to my NAS) with compression helps a little and the micro SD is fast enough to stick media and downloads there though. Managed to install Arch but couldn't get a "minimal" Ubuntu install working, so, Arch it is. Only issue is audio... Skylake has a software defined topology. Linux is meant to support v4+, however only v5 files work as the v4 parsing has regressed. ChromeOS ships a v4 file. An Intel engineer provided a working topology, except, headphones don't work and microphone is missing. Oh, and half the time the audio will only be on one channel (though which one is unpredictable). I hate audio.

Reminds me of the nightmare that is IPv6.

Arch has grown on me a bit. People seem happy I'm running it, but are particularly unhappy that I'm running it on an Acer laptop :v:

[QUOTE=huntingrifle;52687323]Gedit does work, haven't tried Kate, and I've tried compiling VS Code, Atom, and Sublime on the ARM VM, and even found some projects of people releasing installation packages of their pre-built versions for ARM, yet all of them fail to even launch :v: Remote connecting also works for me since I don't have to copy files back and forth (cause coding a ton faster/easier on my desktop than on the tablet).[/QUOTE] There is something that bothers me about casual arm users. they use Raspbian, raspbian is literally limited to only one Arm Architecture, try archlinuxarm it supports four Arm architectures. for the sake of performance.

[QUOTE=Lyoko2;52693065]There is something that bothers me about casual arm users. they use Raspbian, raspbian is literally limited to only one Arm Architecture, try archlinuxarm it supports four Arm architectures. for the sake of performance.[/QUOTE] Raspbian is just a distro for low power devices. You can run pretty much any distro on any CPU at this point, so I just went with Ubuntu with Xfce desktop environment. The issue isn't the distro, it's just quite a few open-source software that doesn't support ARM (not a really a surprise though).

[QUOTE=huntingrifle;52693107]Raspbian is just a distro for low power devices. You can run pretty much any distro on any CPU at this point, so I just went with Ubuntu with Xfce desktop environment. The issue isn't the distro, it's just quite a few open-source software that doesn't support ARM (not a really a surprise though).[/QUOTE] first of all, Arm devices have backward compatability with older arm binaries, you can run armhf(armv7) distro on raspberry pi 3(armv8/aarch64) but that would be a complete waste, the device will run slower. about archlinuxarm, you'd be surprised but it has the best collection of packages. and You can still build packages from AUR from source. for an example, visual studio code [URL]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/visual-studio-code-git/[/URL] [URL]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/atom-editor-git/[/URL] and there are alot of ARM packagers on AUR too.

[QUOTE=Lyoko2;52693221]first of all, Arm devices have backward compatability with older arm binaries, you can run armhf(armv7) distro on raspberry pi 3(armv8/aarch64) but that would be a complete waste, the device will run slower. about archlinuxarm, you'd be surprised but it has the best collection of packages. and You can still build packages from AUR from source. for an example, visual studio code [URL]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/visual-studio-code-git/[/URL] [URL]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/atom-editor-git/[/URL] and there are alot of ARM packagers on AUR too.[/QUOTE] Not everyone wants to fuck around with Arch on something like a RasPi. Problem with Arch Linux ARM is you still have to compile shit from source if you're grabbing stuff from the AUR. Have fun waiting for that. Using Raspbian and etc you likely have much more available by default.

[QUOTE=Lyoko2;52693221]first of all, Arm devices have backward compatability with older arm binaries, you can run armhf(armv7) distro on raspberry pi 3(armv8/aarch64) but that would be a complete waste, the device will run slower. about archlinuxarm, you'd be surprised but it has the best collection of packages. and You can still build packages from AUR from source. for an example, visual studio code [URL]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/visual-studio-code-git/[/URL] [URL]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/atom-editor-git/[/URL] and there are alot of ARM packagers on AUR too.[/QUOTE] Exactly what Lyokanthrope said. I actually did try to compile VS Code, Atom, and Sublime for armhf, and either they did not compile (and I don't have the time to debug it), or they did successfully compile but did not run at all (again, I don't have the time to fix it myself). I did report my issues to those respective text editor's open-source repos with my hardware information/distro information, but that's about all I can do. It wouldn't matter whether or not I would be using a distro optimized for armhf or for any other architecture, because I can get most major Linux distros running fine on my tablet. The issue is the software available doesn't support armhf without tinkering, which is time consuming. tl;dr: why should I bother with a different distro if the issue is not caused by the distro? Regardless, the issue is solved since I'm connecting to a Linux machine that supports those text editors I mentioned.

[QUOTE=huntingrifle;52694718]Exactly what Lyokanthrope said. I actually did try to compile VS Code, Atom, and Sublime for armhf, and either they did not compile (and I don't have the time to debug it), or they did successfully compile but did not run at all (again, I don't have the time to fix it myself). I did report my issues to those respective text editor's open-source repos with my hardware information/distro information, but that's about all I can do. It wouldn't matter whether or not I would be using a distro optimized for armhf or for any other architecture, because I can get most major Linux distros running fine on my tablet. The issue is the software available doesn't support armhf without tinkering, which is time consuming. tl;dr: why should I bother with a different distro if the issue is not caused by the distro? Regardless, the issue is solved since I'm connecting to a Linux machine that supports those text editors I mentioned.[/QUOTE] VS Code definitely does run on ARM, see [url]https://code.headmelted.com/[/url]

[QUOTE=ben1066;52712320]VS Code definitely does run on ARM, see [url]https://code.headmelted.com/[/url][/QUOTE] Tried both their pre-compiled binary and building it on the ARM machine itself, still refused to work: I would attempt to open it through either a shortcut or the terminal, my cursor woulds how that it was loading, then stop, and the program doesn't open. I even tested all those editors to see if the program process starts (it does), but then almost immediately closes itself.