Current Events > What linux distro do you use and why?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Was browsing
https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/
and now I'm thinking I might try to mess around in linux a bit (dual boot). I haven't messed with it since 2012 or so. The last time I installed rEFInd and used Ubuntu which apparently is not the greatest distro. Ubuntu ran fine and I didn't experience any hardware issues but I guess it gets ragged on a lot in the community.

I'm comfortable using terminal for just about everything in macOS. There's definitely a level of granular control I enjoy about having a terminal to work with. Unfortunately a number of commands will be different outside of macOS.

Also it's nice to know that it doesn't have to look like a steaming pile of garbage after looking at the sub. I'll just come out and say it, the default look of Ubuntu is not so great.

So what linux distro do you use and why?
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ubuntu because I'm a scrublord
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KDE Neon
It's a spin of Ubuntu made by the dev team behind the KDE desktop environment. It's barebones Ubuntu with the most bleeding-edge version of KDE.

The Ubuntu side is pretty simple; it's easy. Iunno how Ubuntu was back in 2012, but I've been using it since about 2015 and it's been fantastic. I get why some people use Debian or Arch or openSUSE - and those upsides mean little to me compared to the ease of use I'll be losing.

KDE is my favorite DE because of, A. The level of customizability and, B. A lot of good defaults.
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Mint, purely because of how it looks.
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LinksLiege posted...

KDE Neon
It's a spin of Ubuntu made by the dev team behind the KDE desktop environment. It's barebones Ubuntu with the most bleeding-edge version of KDE.

The Ubuntu side is pretty simple; it's easy. Iunno how Ubuntu was back in 2012, but I've been using it since about 2015 and it's been fantastic. I get why some people use Debian or Arch or openSUSE - and those upsides mean little to me compared to the ease of use I'll be losing.

KDE is my favorite DE because of, A. The level of customizability and, B. A lot of good defaults.

I'll look into KDE Neon, thanks. I think Ubuntu was well supported even back in 2012. I mean my previous delve into linux was probably 2009 before that and it was a complete mess getting driver support and to be fair everything worked straight away which I found kind of surprising. I imagine because the community has grown and more people are working on support. IIRC I was on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
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Debian, because I value freedom and privacy.
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Fedora because it has always worked well for me across a variety of hardware. I've had frequent problems with Ubuntu when I've tried it.

I've always wanted to try Arch but I've never taken the time.
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Kombucha posted...

I'll look into KDE Neon, thanks. I think Ubuntu was well supported even back in 2012. I mean my previous delve into linux was probably 2009 before that and it was a complete mess getting driver support and to be fair everything worked straight away which I found kind of surprising. I imagine because the community has grown and more people are working on support. IIRC I was on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Sound is a bit janky until you edit a file related to pulseaudio but other than that, no problems with Ubuntu. (I went from 14.04 to 16.04, currently waiting on Neon's build using 18.04 to jump in.)

Excitingly, Valve has put together a special version of WINE in an effort to make more games available for Linux. They added like 1000 games in a week with it. It's fucking insane.
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Several, depends what I'm doing

I use Mint for most day to day stuff. I run a lot of distros in VMs or situationally. The ones I use most are probably Kali for testing and dicking around, Kodachi off of USB for when I need to use my grandmother's disease-ridden machine or fix her shit, Puppy Linux on old ass laptops, CentOS for server shit/remote desktop access etc.
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SpiralDrift posted...

Debian, because I value freedom and privacy.

What makes Debian better for privacy?

LinksLiege posted...

Kombucha posted...

I'll look into KDE Neon, thanks. I think Ubuntu was well supported even back in 2012. I mean my previous delve into linux was probably 2009 before that and it was a complete mess getting driver support and to be fair everything worked straight away which I found kind of surprising. I imagine because the community has grown and more people are working on support. IIRC I was on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Sound is a bit janky until you edit a file related to pulseaudio but other than that, no problems with Ubuntu. (I went from 14.04 to 16.04, currently waiting on Neon's build using 18.04 to jump in.)

Excitingly, Valve has put together a special version of WINE in an effort to make more games available for Linux. They added like 1000 games in a week with it. It's fucking insane.

Definitely good news. I don't remember if they supported linux the last time I tried, but I somehow doubt it.

AlephZero posted...

Fedora because it has always worked well for me across a variety of hardware. I've had frequent problems with Ubuntu when I've tried it.

I've always wanted to try Arch but I've never taken the time.

Is Arch better than Fedora in any way? From what I've read Arch requires more work to get set up properly with most distros which can be kind of cumbersome. There were at least a few posts in that sub describing Arch this way but it seems to be the most popular option there.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjGSMUep6_4" data-time="
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Kombucha posted...

SpiralDrift posted...

Debian, because I value freedom and privacy.

What makes Debian better for privacy?

Other distributions like Ubuntu send your search data off for advertising purposes and other such things. Debian doesn't do anything like that and aims to use nothing but free and open source software. You can still install non-free, closed source packages with questionable privacy policies if you want, but the basic install is free and clear of any of that.

"It's 'free' as in 'freedom'."
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Xubuntu

it just werks
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linux lite because I use it on a netbook with 1gb of ram and also I like it's smaller size
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Mint, it's the most well rounded.

SpiralDrift posted...

Kombucha posted...

SpiralDrift posted...

Debian, because I value freedom and privacy.

What makes Debian better for privacy?

Other distributions like Ubuntu send your search data off for advertising purposes and other such things. Debian doesn't do anything like that and aims to use nothing but free and open source software. You can still install non-free, closed source packages with questionable privacy policies if you want, but the basic install is free and clear of any of that.

"It's 'free' as in 'freedom'."

Did any other distributions end up doing this? I was under the impression that Ubuntu stopped doing this after it pissed off a bunch of people. Maybe Im thinking of something else.

Debian only has a small handful or derivatives compared to others, though most are privacy oriented theyre a bit too much for my needs. PureOS looks like the only one offering a regular desktop and functionality for regular people not needing to use an Edward Snowden threat model.
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KDE Neon on my main laptop, Arch/Artix on my second laptop as a plaything, and Proxmox on my home server (which primarily uses Debian/Ubuntu containers for various tasks)

I'm thinking of getting a tablet for work, but it'll have to be Windows-based

Kombucha posted...

Did any other distributions end up doing this? I was under the impression that Ubuntu stopped doing this after it pissed off a bunch of people. Maybe Im thinking of something else.

There was an Amazon thing built into Unity which I think was pulling searches and whatever. They might have something similar in their version of GNOME but Ubuntu derivatives (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, KDE Neon, etc.) don't have it.

It isn't all *buntus that was sketchy with that.
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Do any have better driver support for Nvidia? Last time I tried Linux out it was Ubuntu and I couldn't get the display right.
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mint
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I mostly use Linux Mint and Xubuntu.

I really like CentOS, and if I decide to reinstall it'll be the next one I use.
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I use Mint, does what I need
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Hexenherz posted...

Do any have better driver support for Nvidia? Last time I tried Linux out it was Ubuntu and I couldn't get the display right.

My laptop's nvidia card has worked fine with Neon. openSUSE Tumbleweed was sketchy (every update was preceded by a warning literally saying "Your setup might break completely because of that driver" but they fixed that, apparently.
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Hexenherz posted...

Do any have better driver support for Nvidia? Last time I tried Linux out it was Ubuntu and I couldn't get the display right.

I just know in 2012 under 12.04 LTS my Nvidia card gave me no issues.
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The issue is maybe not in the drivers but in my display which has no manual overscan options in the menus. Even on Windows certain video codecs and games will screw up the image on the display (the contrast gets jacked up, image goes over the screen). But when I used Ubuntu the picture was always like that.
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LinksLiege posted...

Kombucha posted...

Did any other distributions end up doing this? I was under the impression that Ubuntu stopped doing this after it pissed off a bunch of people. Maybe Im thinking of something else.

There was an Amazon thing built into Unity which I think was pulling searches and whatever. They might have something similar in their version of GNOME but Ubuntu derivatives (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, KDE Neon, etc.) don't have it.

It isn't all *buntus that was sketchy with that.

Seems pretty minor compared to what Microsoft has been doing with Windows. Apple does some shady stuff too on OS X but at least you can opt out of it and kill communication with Apple's servers.
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Yeah if Microsoft starts doing a monthly sub to use Windows 10 I'm gonna jump ship which is why I need to line up a suitable replacement.
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Hexenherz posted...

The issue is maybe not in the drivers but in my display which has no manual overscan options in the menus. Even on Windows certain video codecs and games will screw up the image on the display (the contrast gets jacked up, image goes over the screen). But when I used Ubuntu the picture was always like that.

Oh that's a pain in the ass. I owned a TV that worked like that with a set top box, frustrating to no end. Someone forgot to build in manual controls to adjust for overscan, lol magnavox.
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I've used a few but I'm over linux
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Tried Arch, then I accidentally broke it when I did a system-wide update. Didn't bother trying to fix it.
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Ubuntu, mainly because babby's first linux distro

Haven't used it in a while tbh
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Hexenherz posted...

Yeah if Microsoft starts doing a monthly sub to use Windows 10 I'm gonna jump ship which is why I need to line up a suitable replacement.

Is there rumors that they are going in this direction? I don't think that would be very wise, considering they already make considerable income selling their OS to many companies developing hardware. I mean the price gets rolled into the cost of the system in prebuilt stuff.
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Kombucha posted...

Seems pretty minor compared to what Microsoft has been doing with Windows. Apple does some shady stuff too on OS X but at least you can opt out of it and kill communication with Apple's servers.

They joined PRISM. Their supposed "privacy friendly" actions are peanuts compared to what they're still doing.
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Kombucha posted...

Hexenherz posted...

Yeah if Microsoft starts doing a monthly sub to use Windows 10 I'm gonna jump ship which is why I need to line up a suitable replacement.

Is there rumors that they are going in this direction? I don't think that would be very wise, considering they already make considerable income selling their OS to many companies developing hardware. I mean the price gets rolled into the cost of the system in prebuilt stuff.

There are some rumors about it because of how they're changing up their Enterprise subscription models and introducing Microsoft Managed Desktops, but they're just very very thin rumors for now.
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LinksLiege posted...

Kombucha posted...

Seems pretty minor compared to what Microsoft has been doing with Windows. Apple does some shady stuff too on OS X but at least you can opt out of it and kill communication with Apple's servers.

They joined PRISM. Their supposed "privacy friendly" actions are peanuts compared to what they're still doing.

It's still easy to cut out phoning home with little snitch. You can easily go into the system kexts to entirely disable and neuter iCloud & location services if you're not content with just leaving it unchecked, same with remote desktop capabilities. Spotlight Suggestions/Safari Search Suggestions are easy enough to remove. Hell, for the ultra paranoid it's even possible to remove VDCassistant and have no webcam entirely. Same with the microphone. It's still a cloud based OS so yeah, people trade their privacy off much like they do in Windows when they use it but their privacy practices are far more forgiving than what I've seen from both Google & Microsoft.

For the most privacy conscious groups patching Windows and macOS is one in the same, but I still think it's easier to remove spying in macOS.
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Damn this is nice

https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/8v9r19/oc_ive_just_created_a_program_for_drawing_process/

Also a lot of the submissions on that subreddit seem to be made with openbox, which is only for gnome or kde. Hmm.
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Kombucha posted...

Also a lot of the submissions on that subreddit seem to be made with openbox, which is only for gnome or kde. Hmm.

...? Pretty sure openbox can be used with more than that. It can be used on its own, even.
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LinksLiege posted...

Kombucha posted...

Also a lot of the submissions on that subreddit seem to be made with openbox, which is only for gnome or kde. Hmm.

...? Pretty sure openbox can be used with more than that. It can be used on its own, even.

Oh can it? I was just going by what I was reading on the main page of their wiki. I'm kind of a n00b at this, maybe it can be.

http://openbox.org/wiki/Main_Page
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ubuntu or centos for server

ubuntu desktop

Beefy Miracle.
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I use Kubuntu because it is lightweight, has the most software available and has the most support.
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Kombucha posted...

Oh can it? I was just going by what I was reading on the main page of their wiki. I'm kind of a n00b at this, maybe it can be.

http://openbox.org/wiki/Main_Page

I don't know if every WM and every DE work together, but you can mix and match a lot of them together to create different workflows. Most WM's can be used on their own without a DE to go with it, if you want a much simpler and lighter experience. i3, Awesome, bspwm, etc. are common ones which are used as standalone things.
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I'm going to use this guide for a basic dual boot setup. Everything seems covered well. I've also found a few other resources for getting desktop environments up and running and some that are redundant in setup procedures for this model. The level of support out there documenting this is actually pretty good.

https://0xadada.pub/2016/03/05/install-encrypted-arch-linux-on-apple-macbook-pro/

Hopefully all goes well. If not I'll just do a derivative of some kind.
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