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Author Topic: Any Linux Users Here?  (Read 2095 times)
Master Venturous
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« on: December 28, 2018, 02:34:06 AM »

Just curious if there are any other Linux users on this forum. If so, what distro are you using and why? I'm currently using Ubuntu Mate, but looking at Elementary OS.
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scifidude79
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« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2018, 05:16:20 AM »

Peppermint OS for me. I've been using Peppermint for over 8 years and Linux in general for almost a decade. It's my daily use OS, though I dual boot with Windows 10 for the games I have that aren't Linux compatible, and for other software like the Obsidian Launcher.
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Master Venturous
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« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2018, 06:58:02 AM »

Peppermint OS for me. I've been using Peppermint for over 8 years and Linux in general for almost a decade. It's my daily use OS, though I dual boot with Windows 10 for the games I have that aren't Linux compatible, and for other software like the Obsidian Launcher.

Very nice. I've tried out Peppermint a while back on a low end machine and it seemed to work well. I tend to disto-hop, so that's why I never stayed with it. It sounds like you have good luck with it though if you've been using it for the last 8 years. Linux Mint was my entry point into Linux, but from there I dabbled in several and have currently landed on Ubuntu Mate for the time being. Not sure if I'll be switching again, but we'll see.
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scifidude79
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« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2018, 10:08:29 AM »

It suits my needs. It comes with little software installed by default, which I like. I liked Mint for a time, but it comes with a lot of stuff, including redundant programs, by default.
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« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2018, 12:37:59 PM »

I use Ubuntu and CentOS in the past but currently on CentOS.  Learning RedHat right now
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scifidude79
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« Reply #5 on: December 28, 2018, 01:38:54 PM »

I was never a fan of Red Hat based distros myself. I was never that thrilled with their package management, plus I don't like Fedora that well especially, with their 500 day 1 updates. (I'm not exaggerating on that, unfortunately) I tried dozens, maybe more than a hundred, distros back in 2010-2011, I tend to prefer Debian based distros with apt based package management. Though, I have played with a few distos with Pacman, Arch's package management, and it's not too shabby either.

I started with Ubuntu and Kubuntu back in 2009, good stuff there. I also played around with Mandriva, Gentoo and a few others back then but, as I said, my main distro testing started in 2010. Funnily enough, I was never that thrilled with Mageia, which was forked from Mandriva, or OpenMandriva, though I really liked Mandriva itself back in the day. I was also pretty fond of PCLinuxOS back in the day, that's a pretty good one. Interesting too, since it was a .rpm based distro but it used apt for package management. My uncle suggested Mint back in 2010, that's when I found Distro Watch, because it was included in the default bookmarks for Mint. I found Peppermint on there and stuck with that, though I had a lot of logical partitions set up with various other distros that I tried in those days. So, I was never a true "hopper," since I settled on Peppermint as my main, but I did a lot of testing out different distros. Some had good results, but others not so much.

One time, I truly went to the Dark Side and tried one of the PC-BSD spinoffs. Linux has way less support than Windows, and BSD has nowhere near what Linux has. I could never even get my WIFI adapter working, so that ended that test. I also tried Solaris back in the day. Like BSD, it had way less support than Linux.

Linux mainly suits my needs, except for a few programs like the Obsidian Launcher, and some games. I'm not a fan of running stuff in WINE, as I've had mixed results with it in the past.
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Master Venturous
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« Reply #6 on: December 28, 2018, 09:03:50 PM »

Distrowatch is good for seeing trends, but it sucks for picking a distro as a main OS. I looked on there last night and saw Peppermint way down on the list, but it's one that a lot of people recommend on YouTube. I've never had the patience to give something like CentOS, RedHat, or Arch a go, as I just need something mainly to watch YouTube vids, send emails and occasionally game on. Gaming has gotten better through Steam with the new Proton plugin for it, but for games not on Steam, I use Wine or PlayonLinux to get them going.

I came from Windows, so I wanted something similar in layout to that. That's why I started with Mint. I tried Zorin for a bit, but after one update, it bugged the whole system out and when I logged back in everything was different. I would have stayed with that one if it wasn't buggy on my system. For me, Ubuntu seemed the most intuitive to use and more natural since I use keyboard shortcuts a lot. It, along with Mint, also make more sense in terms of the settings. I hate distros that place setting panels all over the place. I should be able to open up once settings menu and have all system settings available, as opposed to right clicking the application panel for its own settings menu.

When all is said in done though, I'll probably never go back to Windows. There is no software I used on it that I haven't found a free replacement for on Linux. I thought about dual-booting for games, but I know how malicious Windows updates can be to bootloaders. I'm glad you've had success with it so far, but I've heard too many horror stories of Windows jacking up the system.
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scifidude79
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« Reply #7 on: December 28, 2018, 10:56:21 PM »

I have Windows and Linux on separate drives. This computer I'm running is the first desktop I've bought in years that I didn't build myself, because I wanted something that had Windows preinstalled on it, rather than pay $119 just for a Windows license. Roll Eyes So, I got the computer on sale at tax time. (2018) When I went to install Linux, I just installed a second 1TB hard drive and installed Peppermint and GRUB on that drive, and Windows and its bootloader are on the drive that came with the computer. Then I set UEFI to boot the Linux drive first. Of course, I can boot both drives from GRUB, but the beauty of that setup is that Windows never touches that drive, so it won't screw up my GRUB setup. Every once in a great while, a GRUB update will cause UEFI to boot the Windows drive first, but it usually doesn't happen. In fact, I think it's only happened a couple times. But, that's an easy fix.

Another solution is to use the Windows bootloader to boot everything, but I really don't like messing with the Windows bootloader. I tried using EasyBCD, which worked great in Windows 7 and said it worked with the Windows 10 bootloader, but it wouldn't let me add my Linux partitions without UEFI being in Legacy BIOS mode, which won't boot Windows 10, so I came up with my solution to just boot the Linux drive first.

DistroWatch rankings have to be taken with a grain of salt. What a lot of people don't realize is that their ranking system isn't based on how many people install or even download an OS, they're based solely on page hits. So, if you click on the page of a distribution, it counts, even if you do nothing else. Any OS with a release announcement on the main page or a write-up or mention in DistroWatch Weekly is going to get a boost, just because people are naturally going to take a look at it. That doesn't mean they're using it, they just clicked on the page.
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Master Venturous
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« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2018, 01:35:24 AM »

I use a laptop, which is why I haven't gone the dual boot route. If I ever upgrade to a desktop, I'll probably do exactly what you did by buying a Windows 10 desktop and throwing another SSD drive in with Linux loaded onto it. I've looked at buying a dedicated Linux device from Dell or System76, but those things are just too damn expensive. You'd think a device made to solely run Linux would be cheaper than a Windows machine because they don't charge for a license. I don't even really need Windows for anything, but it'd be good to have the flexibility and option of gaming on it if I ever come across something that doesn't work on Linux.

I have one older device (an Asus notebook of some type) that I cannot for the life of me get to boot from a USB drive. No matter what I do to the BIOS, it simply refuses to boot from a flash drive, so I can't load any version of Linux onto it. It's currently running Windows 8, which I can't stand, but it works for internet usage when I don't feel like carrying a regular laptop. It probably could use a BIOS update, but I can't be bothered with that to make it work. I had another Dell notebook that ran LXLE like champ, until the WIFI card decided it was going to crap out.

Do you know what desktop environment Peppermint is based on? It seems to be XFCE at first glance, but I can't be sure. I like how lightweight XFCE is, but it can get confusing with the amount of customization that can be done to it. I have another lower end laptop that I might throw either Linux Mint XFCE or Peppermint on just to have a backup in case my main laptop ever dies on me.
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scifidude79
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« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2018, 04:11:51 AM »

You'd think a device made to solely run Linux would be cheaper than a Windows machine because they don't charge for a license. I don't even really need Windows for anything, but it'd be good to have the flexibility and option of gaming on it if I ever come across something that doesn't work on Linux.

I think Microsoft pays companies a kickback to keep including Windows by default and "recommending" it. At the very least, I don't think they pay much of anything for those licenses. After all, when you go by the price of the components and whatnot, how much do you think the license really costs them? They're buying parts in bulk to get discounts, so they still sell the computers at a markup of what they pay but not enough for them to have paid for those licenses. After all, it's not like Microsoft really makes money off of Windows. They make some money from the people who pay for the individual licenses, but they make a lot more selling their other software, peripherals and game consoles.

They've also tried other tactics to keep Linux from being offered by computer companies and stores. I've read stories where someone from Microsoft shows up and basically threatens to pull all of their products if Linux is offered as an option. The only companies who can really challenge them are bigger ones, like Apple and Google.

Dell's computers with Ubuntu are a joke. They're stupidly expensive and not all that good, specs wise. System 76 isn't any better. One thing I've heard of people doing is going to the websites of computer manufacturers themselves and live chatting with a sales representative to get a computer without Windows installed on it. If they want to sell computers badly enough, they'll sell them. Most won't offer the computers without any OS at all, but you can usually talk them into putting Free DOS on it.

I did buy a Steam Machine in 2017, when the V1 Alienware models were being phased out in favor of the V2s. I ditched SteamOS because it's awful and limiting and I put Peppermint 7 on it. I can do so much more with it than just play Steam games.

Do you know what desktop environment Peppermint is based on? It seems to be XFCE at first glance, but I can't be sure. I like how lightweight XFCE is, but it can get confusing with the amount of customization that can be done to it. I have another lower end laptop that I might throw either Linux Mint XFCE or Peppermint on just to have a backup in case my main laptop ever dies on me.

It's a mixture of elements from XFCE, LXDE and Gnome/MATE.
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Master Venturous
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« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2018, 05:05:13 AM »

I would never buy a machine from the companies like System76 unless they drastically reduced their pricing on the devices. Even if they come with Ubuntu, I'd probably throw something else on it as soon as it arrived. The only cheap option I've seen as a pure Linux device is the Pinebook, which is a complete joke in terms of specs. It could probably run Lubuntu or LXLE, but even then the device is limited in what it can do. I've heard the best option is to look at refurbished hardware, but there is always a risk there. Maybe some day I'll try my hand at assembling my own computer and be done with it.
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