[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;47616653]What's the best non-Ubuntu distro? I have a laptop with a GTX 770M and Intel HD, so driver support for that is important. Steam as well.[/QUOTE]
I played around with linux distros this weekend and tried a few ubuntu and a few desktop environments. I ended up installing Debian which went pretty smooth. I was able to choose the desktop environment I wanted and such during installation (required an internet connection) and everything seemed to work fine after install. My laptop is old ish though, I have a GTX 120M. And installing the proprietary nvidia drivers seemed to boost the "FPS" in the user interface for me at least.
(please someone let me know if using Debian is stupid and why)
Or Korora? That might be good.
[editline]28th April 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=CapsAdmin;47619645]I played around with linux distros this weekend and tried a few ubuntu and a few desktop environments. I ended up installing Debian which went pretty smooth. I was able to choose the desktop environment I wanted and such during installation (required an internet connection) and everything seemed to work fine after install. My laptop is old ish though, I have a GTX 120M. And installing the proprietary nvidia drivers seemed to boost the "FPS" in the user interface for me at least.
(please someone let me know if using Debian is stupid and why)[/QUOTE]
Debian didn't work with UEFI last time I tried, so :v: I don't think I could even get the installer to work. I'm not really looking for Debian.
[QUOTE=CapsAdmin;47619645]I played around with linux distros this weekend and tried a few ubuntu and a few desktop environments. I ended up installing Debian which went pretty smooth. I was able to choose the desktop environment I wanted and such during installation (required an internet connection) and everything seemed to work fine after install. My laptop is old ish though, I have a GTX 120M. And installing the proprietary nvidia drivers seemed to boost the "FPS" in the user interface for me at least.
(please someone let me know if using Debian is stupid and why)[/QUOTE]
If your using Debian stable your going to be using a LOT of "old" software. Its intended for servers and applications where stability is paramount. Only time packages get updated is for security mostly. Its not really stupid (its still secure) but as an end user, your probably not concerned about downtime and a program crashing once in a blue moon isn't a dealbreaker. Not enough to be stuck on IceWeasel 30 (I don't know the actual version Debian Stable runs).
If upgrade your distro to "testing" and then "sid" or "unstable" you will have a lot more current software. You can find tutorials on how to do it online, so you don't need to reinstall from scratch.
[editline]28th April 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;47619661]Or Korora? That might be good.
[editline]28th April 2015[/editline]
Debian didn't work with UEFI last time I tried, so :v: I don't think I could even get the installer to work. I'm not really looking for Debian.[/QUOTE]
I tried a few months ago with a UEFI laptop, it pretty much took care of itself. I was actually expecting more issues, but it was actually just as easy as it was on the BIOS. Though, I did have to point it to the boot partition.
[QUOTE=Noi;47631029]Have you tried Fedora? It's much more better than Debian-based distros and is usually shipped with GNOME 3. It goes just well on my macbook without any hassle, except that webcam is not working due to proprietary drivers. Don't know much about nVidia support, but it must me just as good as intel.
And debian gets reallllyyy old sometimes when it comes to packages unless you switch to unstable trees.[/QUOTE]
Fedora ironically shouldn't be considered stable.
It's pretty much Red Hat's testing distro.
Also all Ubuntu's recent versions are usually based on the current debian testing branch, and that branch actually is okay for day-to-day usage, since all the volatile bleeding-edge testing is done in the [URL="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#Introduction"][I]"Sid"[/I][/URL] unstable branch.
When Debian says stable, they mean [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_critical"][I]mission critical[/I][/URL] stable
You guys should try ElementaryOS, its a new derivation of Ubuntu - current one is based on 14.04 kernel, but its ridiculously well designed and rock solid which is lovely.
That said one of the best things about ubuntu 15.04 is that ubuntu gnome now ships GTK 3.14 which has multitouch touchscreen support for touchscreen laptops in gnome. Really looking forward to installing that
[QUOTE=killerteacup;47637876]You guys should try ElementaryOS, its a new derivation of Ubuntu - current one is based on 14.04 kernel, but its ridiculously well designed and rock solid which is lovely.
That said one of the best things about ubuntu 15.04 is that ubuntu gnome now ships GTK 3.14 which has multitouch touchscreen support for touchscreen laptops in gnome. Really looking forward to installing that[/QUOTE]
Goddamn that's a even bigger OSX poser that Xubuntu.
And oh wow, they ditched synaptic completely, while the software center is still a piece of shit to use for anything beyond basic usage.
[editline]waitaminute[/editline]
OK, they [I]DO [/I]have synaptic, but it's in their not officially supported "backports" repo, this isn't promising.
[editline]waitaminute[/editline]
The concept of a "minimize window to taskbar" button in the upper right corner seems like a alien concept to them, and the "close window" button is in the upper left corner, oh god this is gonna be a trainwreck.
[editline]waitaminute[/editline]
That's it, me and Pantheon (Elementary OS' [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment"]Desktop Enviroment[/URL]) just ain't gonna be friends
I installed Elementary OS and while it is initally pretty it's functionally bleh. I had to install Chromium because for no reason chrome-stable would just exit with "Aborted (Dumped)" and no offending files in the terminal output. Also Pantheon is really lacking in features as well compared to GNOME/KDE/even Unity.
I tried it, but I didn't like various music/video/app stores integrated into it. It's like it's trying to be apple/windows, but in the wrong way.
Well, okay if that's the general opinion - I still like it though. Suits what I need as I have some issues with Gnome, and I've used XFCE and Unity in the past as well. Unity I can't deal with, XFCE is okay and Xubuntu is installed
on my other laptop, but again, I have a few issues with it. Will probably try out KDE when I get a new PC
Can't say I've had any issues with chrome at all, or any applications tbh. I don't know why you would have any issues with it either, its the same chrome used across all ubuntu OSes
[QUOTE=thegrb93;47638266]I tried it, but I didn't like various music/video/app stores integrated into it. It's like it's trying to be apple/windows, but in the wrong way.[/QUOTE]
Forgot to mention that Linux Mint is my favorite.
[QUOTE=killerteacup;47638314]Well, okay if that's the general opinion - I still like it though[/QUOTE]
I don't hate it, Freya is certainly more overall stable than Luna for me, and most other popular distros look like ass. About the only bug I've encountered that was truly annoying is when I drop a program onto the dock the cursor goes wonky.
My most anticipated distro this year howver is [URL="http://papyros.io/"]Papyros[/URL].
[QUOTE=Protocol7;47638332]I don't hate it, Freya is certainly more overall stable than Luna for me, and most other popular distros look like ass. About the only bug I've encountered that was truly annoying is when I drop a program onto the dock the cursor goes wonky.
My most anticipated distro this year howver is [URL="http://papyros.io/"]Papyros[/URL].[/QUOTE]
That looks really nice, thanks for the heads up
I guess the thing to note about pantheon and gala for elementary is that its been around only a really short amount of time and there's still a lot of changes they want to make to it. I really like it but it is very light on customisability and features. Plank is a great dock though, much better than cairo dock in my view
Can someone who has a little more experience tell me what are the benefits of systemd (other than the potential saving of boot time)? Because it seems like a new system that takes the windows approach of things. Having everything depend on each other in a huge monolithic way, compiled in a way that prevents a lot of customizing, if once part of the boot process fails it brings the entire thing down with it, right down to storing logs as binary files instead of plain text! It seems like it's the complete opposite of everything that I've grown to love about Linux.
[QUOTE=Noi;47641964]It's just better. [url]http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html[/url][/QUOTE]
I see... so It's "better" like how some consider Mac to be better. Fair enough. Still shit, but fair enough.
[QUOTE=LegoGuy;47642447]I see... so It's "better" like how some consider Mac to be better. Fair enough. Still shit, but fair enough.[/QUOTE]
I personally view it as a stopgap until something much better comes along.
[QUOTE=Demache;47594929]Ubuntu has come a loooong way since 9.10. Not to say you won't ever run into issues, but the only systems that really have issues on fresh install are bleeding edge hardware that don't have full support yet or nonstandard hardware. Laptops are a huge offender here. The OS itself is pretty rock solid. Anything outside of that like application usability is YMMV territory.[/QUOTE]
Last time I tried ubuntu (two weeks ago) it absolutely recognise my touchpad, while a few versions ago it had no problem. Googling around, I was able to find out, it's a pretty common issue.
If issues like that are able to creep into essentially the most widespread and most userfriendly linux distro, the whole system is pretty much not useable for the average user.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;47645027]Last time I tried ubuntu (two weeks ago) it absolutely recognise my touchpad, while a few versions ago it had no problem. Googling around, I was able to find out, it's a pretty common issue.
If issues like that are able to creep into essentially the most widespread and most userfriendly linux distro, the whole system is pretty much not useable for the average user.[/QUOTE]
I never said it didn't happen. Like I said, laptops are far more prone to this than more standard desktop configurations.
On the other hand, CentOS 7 pretty much removed support for Intel Fast Ethernet adapters because fuck you stop using old shit. I cannot fathom why they thought it was a good idea considering its such a stupid common ethernet adapter.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;47645027]Last time I tried ubuntu (two weeks ago) it absolutely recognise my touchpad, while a few versions ago it had no problem. Googling around, I was able to find out, it's a pretty common issue.
If issues like that are able to creep into essentially the most widespread and most userfriendly linux distro, the whole system is pretty much not useable for the average user.[/QUOTE]
"smart" touchpads are a nightmare in general regarding Linux.
Next to that is anything wireless (wi-fi & bluetooth) that uses a chipset by a dickish manufacturer.
But all the laptops I've used with such touchpad were kindof shitty even under windows anyway, so not much changing.
I miss touchpads with separate buttons.
[QUOTE=Demache;47645092]I never said it didn't happen. Like I said, laptops are far more prone to this than more standard desktop configurations.
On the other hand, CentOS 7 pretty much removed support for Intel Fast Ethernet adapters because fuck you stop using old shit. I cannot fathom why they thought it was a good idea considering its such a stupid common ethernet adapter.[/QUOTE]
pretty much why we are still going to use freebsd for our routers
also I wanted to reinstall my xubuntu today, welp good think I saw this thread
[B]
and systemd is the best fuck the haters[/B]
[QUOTE=Splatpope;47645633][B]
and systemd is the best fuck the haters[/B][/QUOTE]
... how?? Instead of making all your bloatware start up 2 seconds faster when your computer starts up while at the same time compromising freedom, customizability, and the Unix philosophy as a whole, shouldn't we just have less bloatware that runs when the system starts up?
It seems to me that those who think it's the best are either elitist, marveling something on how something is ~new~, or those who don't realize why Linux, or rather Unix is what it is. I mean, come on. It saves logs as binary files for crying out loud! I want to cat my logs or create a log interpreting tool without having to convert into text first!
Also, if someone says "look at all it's ~features~", they have to know that fact that it has so many ~features~ is what makes it terrible. It violates the modular nature that I've grown to love about Linux. If you think everything should be a monolithic shithole, look at Windows, and tell me why you use Linux. Modular things always work better.
Embedded systems don't really benefit from it's supposed faster boot times because chances are, you don't have a lot of crap to be booting up in the first place. In environments where you are starting up a lot of stuff, like servers for example, you would rather have complete control of your boot process by being able to write your own scripts that having to rely on the elephant that is systemd.
Usually, I'm all for things being compiled, but systemd seems to take things too far.
Anyway, that's just my take on it. When it comes to something technical like computers where there is a "better" way of doing things, I don't want to be on the wrong side. I used to be a die-hard AMD fanboy until I realized that my virtual machines ran better on my laptop than on my desktop even though my desktop has more cores and clockspeed.
[QUOTE=Splatpope;47645633][B]and systemd is the best fuck the haters[/B][/QUOTE]
sure, it works fine [i]now[/i]
but what about five years down the road when its logger has a showstopping bug and you have absolutely no way to drop in a different one
being a sysadmin for loads of services running on centos in some university IT circle, systemd (and firewalld hnnng oh yesssss) made my life thousands of times easier when I had to refactor all of our servers from scratch (some goof accidentally erased all of our vms duh), aswell as when we set our game servers up for our annual 200~p lan party
really, I don't care at all if it's less "unix-spirited" if it just makes my work easier and smarter [B]BUT[/B] I can see why you wouldn't like it as a programmer or super hardcore linux guy
So yeah my statement was pretty bold and dumb and really should have been "systemd may not be a good thing in regards to how things worked before it, but heck it makes people's live so much easier"
[QUOTE=Splatpope;47650058]being a sysadmin for loads of services running on centos in some university IT circle, systemd (and firewalld hnnng oh yesssss) made my life thousands of times easier when I had to refactor all of our servers from scratch (some goof accidentally erased all of our vms duh), aswell as when we set our game servers up for our annual 200~p lan party
really, I don't care at all if it's less "unix-spirited" if it just makes my work easier and smarter [B]BUT[/B] I can see why you wouldn't like it as a programmer or super hardcore linux guy
So yeah my statement was pretty bold and dumb and really should have been "systemd may not be a good thing in regards to how things worked before it, but heck it makes people's live so much easier"[/QUOTE]
SystemD solves a problem and that's good.
But it's the WAY it solves the problem that leaves many people with a sour taste in their mouth.
But does it have any performance increae/decrease?
[QUOTE=chipsnapper2;47651018]But does it have any performance increae/decrease?[/QUOTE]
over old school SysV init? hell yes, huge increase. over OpenRC? nah not really.
I couldn't tell you about runit and nobody gives a shit about upstart
I use Xubuntu. I may switch back to ubuntu when they ditch Unity
[QUOTE=proboardslol;47652286]I use Xubuntu. I may switch back to ubuntu when they ditch Unity[/QUOTE]
Why? You can just log into a Gnome session in ubuntu if you want gnome. If you like XFCE, then there's really no difference between what you're using now and installing XFCE in Ubuntu.
[QUOTE=Levelog;47652487]Why? You can just log into a Gnome session in ubuntu if you want gnome. If you like XFCE, then there's really no difference between what you're using now and installing XFCE in Ubuntu.[/QUOTE]
The hassle of uninstalling Unity is gone for one thing
[QUOTE=lavacano;47653459]The hassle of uninstalling Unity is gone for one thing[/QUOTE]
You don't need to uninstall unity to log into a gnome session...
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