Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Everything Else => Topic started by: Faster Master St. Pastor on May 27, 2009, 03:06:56 PM
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I've been messing around with Linux recently, and I was wondering if anyone on here was as well, or if anyone has. I'm curious about opinions, stories, or technical bones to pick. I'm still a noob, but I've been able to figure most of the things out after a while. One thing I have to say, I absolutely love the command line.
Also, I stuck this in here because it doesn't really fit into Video Games.
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Personally, I like SuSe linux, mostly because it comes bundles with some nice software out of the box.
I used to dual boot with windows/linux, but I kinda stopped doing that when I got lazy.
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SuSe is good if you're doing more industrial things.
If you just want an easy interface home use, use either Ubuntu or Kubuntu. They are both very user friendly.
Also, learn to use WINE. It is your BEST friend if there is a program you want to run if you can't find a clone or just don't want to use a clone.
I'm currently running Ubuntu on my laptop. It is nice.
I've ran Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, FreeBSD, and a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head.
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yeah, but WINE only goes so far, i've found. I havent messed with it in years, but I ran into compatibility problems all the time (i.e. programs not working with wine), like if it needs native windows drivers, which WINE can't emulate. Also, how well does it perform nowadays? I know back when I tried it, i noticed a serious performance differences between this and running it in windows (though, not as bad as just plain emulating windows through an emulation box). In college they made us work with redhat linux, that always seemed like a rather good "beginner" linux to me.
i've heard good things about ubuntu, but i've never messed with it.
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Ubuntu is very well supported and has very extensive forums.
I've never had problems with WINE and been able to make basically everything work. I even at one point had it set up to run things as if they were in a .NET framework. Granted WINE can get tricky at times, but it is possible if you try hard enough.
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That's good that WINE is improving. Like I said, i haven't messed with it in years (probably since late 90's and early 2000's) and back then I did have issues with this and that not working properly, or just plain not working at all.
Though, honestly, I hope the "cloud" architecture that's starting to get really big helps to fix some compatibility issues between OS's, since the web is universal.
For those who don't know, cloud computing is where things are stored/synced/distributed via the internet to all the electronics you use to keep them all automatically in sync and up to date, so moving from one place to another is nothing.
Steam (the online distribution service) has started implementing some of this with settings and such being attached to your account instead of to the PC.
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Have you ever used Apple's MobileME? It's kinda nice.
I've actually had some things work better on WINE. Like WoW. . . I get better fps running it in WINE than I did when I had my system running Windows. That was last year though, when I still played WoW.
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Right now I mainly use Debian. I've messed around with Ubuntu, and I put it on my little brother's box, but I don't like it myself. Too many choices are made for you, in my opinion. Its definitely a good starter distro, especially for someone coming from Windows. I'll probably will end up running it on one of my other systems, because it does have some nice features. I'm also going to try out Fedora, but I've been holding out on that until Fedora 11 comes out, which I think is in a couple days.
As far as Wine goes, I've had no complaints myself. A couple games I've tried haven't worked, but they're years old and were never popular. Everything else I've tried works well.
After using Linux though, I'm beginning to see how ludicrous it is to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an operating system. It just doesn't make sense, personally. Besides that, its just annoying that Windows and Mac don't have the multiple workspaces like Linux does.
What about desktop environments? What do you like to use? Personally I like Xfce over Gnome or KDE, but I've been thinking about trying out some others soon.
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Ubuntu is quite customizable if you do it right, but that takes some know how.
I like KDE, it seems to have more of the "glittery" things that just look nice.
Gnome is good for stability and functionality though.
I've never used Xfce so I don't know about that one.
Have you ever tried Kubuntu? I think you might like it more than Ubuntu.
Also, I really like Mac, but that's mainly because they are stable, have support, people actually make software for it. (I realize they do that for Linux too, but it's not as extensive.) Plus Mac is just a lot better than Windows.
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Well no, I know that its customizable, but too many things are automatic settings for my taste. I realize that those things are why Ubuntu is so popular, but still. I've never tried Kubuntu, but I have thought about it. I was actually on their website a day or so ago. Why would you recommend it?
Xfce is sort of the bare bones one. It looks similar to XP in a way, and can run on much older hardware than Gnome and KDE. I'll post a screen of my setup when I get on later.
Before Linux, I was a Windows fanboy, but now I can definitely see how Mac is much more elegantly coded.
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It just has a nicer layout IMO, plus (as I remember it) you can pass most of those automatic settings with one download for each thing you want changed.
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I'll probably check it out. How much do you use SuSe?
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I only had it on a box once and I didn't like it that much. It just wasn't my thing.
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Why come?
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I just didn't like it. *shrugs* I just didn't give it a chance really, saw it and was like, meh, and changed it.
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Ah, makes sense. I've had those kind of experiences before.
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I just didn't like it. *shrugs* I just didn't give it a chance really, saw it and was like, meh, and changed it.
This describes my entire experience with Linux. I've had to use it for some things for my classes, and have yet to be very impressed. The one thing I saw that was pretty elegant and cool were the various package managers. However, IMO the fact that these things are necessary is a mark against the system.
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Package managers are by no means necessary You can do it from downloading .deb file, downloading .tar files, or even from command prompt, so long as your remember to not try to invoke super cow powers.
I didn't like it at first either, but after I learned how to use it well I've come to really like it.
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I know that you can do what the package managers do manually; I think they're "necessary" because it's a pain, especially when dependencies are involved. I'm a Mac user. I believe software installation should be as simple as dragging one icon onto another. If your platform makes it harder, your platform is doing it wrong.
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I love Mac and I can't wait to get one.
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If you prefer Mac you might be better off with BSD Unix instead of Linux. The latest from FreeBSD is pretty nice, as long as you are willing to use the Gnu interface, which incidentally is patterned after the Mac Desktop. Though the finder equivalent is a little less nice. XFCE 4 is far more Mac clonish but takes a very light bit of tinkering to get it working. If you tinker enough to put afterstep or gnustep in as the desktop but keep XFCE as the window manager and taskbar etc. you have a very close clone of Mac with a much more current kernel. Mac uses FreeBSD 4.5 and the latest is something like 7.2 I think.
You don't get some of the buzzers and gimcracks that you get with Linux, and it's probably not the best gaming platform but it works well for business, graphics and multimedia. And you can always run Windows in a vm or if you are desperate for tinkerage you can hack Wine till it almost works most of the time. :)
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OS X's BSD layer was synchronized with FreeBSD 5 with 10.3, and 10.4 made it 64-bit. It doesn't exactly use FreeBSD; it draws from it and combines it with other stuff. The Darwin kernel is updated with every OS X revision.
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Yeah they have a bunch of code that serves as an API for cocoa and the Mac OS thunking layer, as well as their own boot manager which I assume is far different from the FORTH machine that boots the FreeBSD kernel. ;P
On the other hand FreeBSD has kernel support for loading and executing .net console apps. . .
Oh and I didn't mean to suggest FreeBSD over Mac, just over Linux for those who are not looking for a game console and can't afford Mac yet. Cause FreeBSD is MORE free than gnu, being subsidized as it is by the U of Cal Berkley Comp Sci dept.
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To be perfectly honest, I think Linux really shines best as a server OS. Is there a compelling reason to choose FreeBSD over Linux for that application?
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Well actually BSD is a real titan of servers. But we were talking workstation I think.