LINUX---Discussions in General

[rjb]

As far as Chrome, a chromebook costs too much for what you get.
I stick with cheap laptops with a hard drive, Optic drive.

That's good advice for most folks, but it really depends on whether you need a desk jockey or a road warrior.
Is your laptop going to spend its life sitting on a nice comfy desk, suckling power from a wall socket, or is it going to be tossed into a gig or messenger bag and used to make field recordings miles from the nearest AC outlet?

When I bought the 11" Chromebook (jeez, was it 2 years ago already?) I specifically wanted SSD and long battery life. I could've gotten a 15" (with much better speakers) for a few bucks more, but the battery life would have sucked. The 13" books might have been a nice compromise, but they all had ARM (vs x386) processors. So 11" it was. I did shop Windoze laptops at that time, but none had solid state drives (or at least not at a reasonable price).

Different strokes for different folks.

-rb

[rjb]

It's not always about it being done better, but it being free....
Or not using using the corporate-fed garbage(which works well for most people)

I forgot to mention that earlier.
The main reason for using Linux is to stick it to The Man. :sardonic_faux_anarchist:

-rb

[Gnobuddy]

The main reason for using Linux is to stick it to The Man.

Not for me. I just want to be able to make my own choices about what I do with my computer, without artificial restrictions imposed by some corporation or the other.

"The Man" already has us all by the short hairs; these days "he" controls all the hardware in your PC, regardless of the operating system you use: https://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/in...ship-with.html

-Gnobuddy

[rjb]

Cloud based apps are a deal-breaker for me. How much of the more basic type stuff is cloud only?
I need something that can do everything offline (aside from actual internet browsing or email type stuff).

I'm not here to sell Chromebooks, but it appears the answer is that the number of Chrome apps that work offline is ever-growing. I reckon it depends on what "everything" means for you.

Although ChromeOS is based on the Linux kernal, it does not run Linux apps. I installed GalliumOS, a xubuntu distro optimized for Chromebook hardware, to run Audacity, TinyCAD, Quite Universal Circuit Simulator, etc.

EDIT: For a normal person, LibreOffice might cover the bases.

https://www.computerworld.com/articl...t-for-you.html

One of the most common misconceptions I hear about Chromebooks is that they're completely useless without an active internet connection. In reality, a huge and ever-expanding number of compatible apps works both online and off, including things like Gmail and Google Docs as well as calculator apps, calendar apps, news-reading apps, games, and even Google Play Movies. (You can browse through the "Offline" section of Google's Chrome Web Store for many more examples.)
The truth is that for most people, using a Chromebook offline isn't terribly different than using a traditional PC offline. You aren't going to be able to get on the web or download new content, obviously, but aside from things that inherently require an active connection, there isn't a heck of a lot you'd want to do that wouldn't be available.

[nickb]

,,,,The fascinating thing is that Steve Jobs mastered the art of ripping off his customers, while simultaneously having most of them worship and love him for ripping them off, because he managed to convince them that they were simultaneously superior to everyone else, and martyrs to the holy cause. You may have heard joking references to Steve Jobs "reality distortion field" - it is the same thing that other charismatic psychopaths throughout history have had, from Adolf Hitler to Donald Trump to the various fundamentalist televangelists and religious cult leaders.

-Gnobuddy

I thought I was the only one who despised Apple. I feel quite relieved.

[Steve A.]

As far as Enzo's question that he asks, he will only get the answer when he tries it.

Damn — wasn't that what Nancy Pelosi said about Obamacare back in 2009 that got her in trouble ?

For the benefit of Enzo and the rest of us why not post some links for us to download a few tried and true distros that we can load onto a USB drive or burn to a CD/DVD... this is to run it from the external media, not install it, at least at first.

BTW I have a laptop I have hardly ever used from 2009 with Vista. I've listed all of the details below. I was thinking of putting in a new hard drive (which I already have) and installing a distro that you would recommend for someone who loved XP and Windows 2000, hated Vista and have put up with Windows 7 Home Edition Premium for way too long! Besides the basic browser and email client I want a file manager like the one in XP for moving files around and renaming them, etc. (that is my biggest complaint about Windows 7! )

The Fujitsu has a short battery so I'll probably keep it plugged in on my dining room tablet and connect to the internet via wifi. BTW does Linux require you to set a default browser (like Windows does) or can you "play the field" as you can with Android (I use several browsers because some sites do not work well with certain browsers on my circa 2014 tablet.)

Fujitsu Lifebook A6110
A6110, T5250, 15CECVWXGA, VHP, DVD, 1G, 160G, AWLN

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fujits...10.7240.0.html

Fujitsu America - Support - LIFEBOOK A6110 Notebook PC

Steve A.

[big_teee]

As per Steve A suggestions.
To run linux live, you will need a usb writing app.
USB writer works fine and is small.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/usbwriter/
It is small and has an icon that sits on your windows desktop.
Next you will need a Linux .iso image file.
I suggest starting with a Linux Mint or a Ubuntu distro.
Most of the Mint distros have the panel on the bottom.
Most of the Ubuntu distros have the panel on the top.
On some Distros, the panel can be moved to the top or bottom.
Here are a few links.
https://linuxmint.com/download.php
I would go with mint XFCE, or Mate, for a first load.
For Ubuntu:
Development Release: Ubuntu 17.10 Beta 2 (DistroWatch.com News)
A very nice Ubuntu with top panel(can be easily moved to the bottom), and lots of music recording Studio software is Ubuntu Studio.
Ubuntu Mate, & Ubuntu, are both easy to learn with top panel.
Save the file to a folder location, where you can find it, or save it to the desktop.
Next you need to burn the down loaded image .iso to the usb with the usb writer.
Then you boot your computer with the usb drive.
You will have to go into your bios, and change the boot order to boot from usb first.
When your computer boots, select try linux in live mode.
Please report back here your results.
It is actually pretty easy.
If you don't like one linux, download and try another.
The great thing about it, it's all FREE!
GL,
T

[rjb]

So, back to my original question, has anyone tried GalliumOS on a Chromebook?
No? Oh well. OK then.

-rb

EDIT:
Broader question: Has anyone tried any Linux distro on a system with Solid State Drive?
Does it fly or what?

[big_teee]

My friend Allen in CA, runs a SSD, in a desktop.
He loves it.
I run laptops with conventional 2.5 inch SATA drives.
I make up for speed, by running additional RAM.
I have no issues with speed.
Most speed issues here in my area are ISP web speed issues, not computer hardware issues.
T

[big_teee]

I downloaded Ubuntu-Kylin, which is a chinese version of Ubuntu linux.
It starts off live in chinese, but if you install it to the hard drive, you can pick the english language installer, which I did.
Here are a few pics of it, I like the XP win look, with the bottom panel.
It is as easy to use as the old win98 or winXP.
They are using a modified Ubuntu Mate Desktop, for the platform.
I have it loaded on my HP linux test computer.
T
**If you run it live, you may want to brush up on your mandarin? :<)

[Steve A.]

My friend Allen in CA, runs a SSD, in a desktop.
He loves it.
I run laptops with conventional 2.5 inch SATA drives.
I make up for speed, by running additional RAM.
I have no issues with speed.
Most speed issues here in my area are ISP web speed issues, not computer hardware issues.
T

When I booted up my NOS 2009 Fujitsu laptop this morning you could certainly hear and feel the hard drive. I have an SSD drive around here somewhere (bought for another project) and was thinking of putting it in to get more battery life.
As for RAM I've had compatibility problems in the past. Is there a good primer on modern RAM out there?

Steve A.

[Steve A.]

I downloaded Ubuntu-Kylin, which is a chinese version of Ubuntu linux.
It starts off live in chinese, but if you install it to the hard drive, you can pick the english language installer, which I did.
Here are a few pics of it, I like the XP win look, with the panel.
It is as easy to use as the old win98 or winXP.
They are using a modified Ubuntu Mate Desktop, for the platform.
I have it loaded on my HP linux test computer.
T

What I liked about the XP file manager was that it was more text-based than Windows 7 which seems to be much more pixel-based. For example when you right-click in the file list pane the results depend on exactly where in the listing that you click, like whether it is white space or not. With XP it seemed like the file manager treated the listings more like cells in a spreadsheet where it did not matter where in the cell you clicked.

Another thing I liked about XP and Win2K was the file search module. Vista and higher started searching for text inside files and creating huge indexes whereas XP/W2K evidently searched the FAT tables first which was very fast.

As a workaround with Windows 7 I've been using an app called Everything which creates an index from the FAT tables of your drives each time it loads and after that the filename searches are lightning fast. I also use FileSearchEX which can optionally search for text within files, on any drive or folder that you specify. You can also search just for certain types of files, in several preset or user-designed categories.

I imagine that you could do all or most of that from the command line in Linux but it would be really nice if someone wrote a program to do that with a GUI interface. If there is already a program that does that I will be switching to Linux immediately. Swear to Buddha!





Steve A.

P.S. Does Linux use right-click menus as extensively as Windows? IMO that was one of the most important features that MS added to their graphical interface in the past 20 years, something that the Mac never had with their single button mouse, at least until 2005. (That has been one of my biggest gripes about Adobe, their Windows apps — at least the older ones I've used — had a very limited palette of right click options since the Mac mice only had one button for over 20 years.)

P.P.S. Do any of the Linux variations offer good support for a touch screen? I picked up a Lenovo laptap with a touch screen running Windows 8.1 a few years ago, and missed the free upgrade to Window 10 by 2 days! Damn...

[big_teee]

With Linux, you can forget all about defrag, all the poweroff scanning issues, and no blue screens, that I'm aware of.
Linux has a app on the panel, called places.
From the panel, you pick what drive you want to open, and it cuts down on the file manager use.
Linux has a program call mc, or midnight commander that is good for file managetment.
It takes a little while to get out of the mindset of comparing linux programs to windows programs and tasks.
Most of the window tasks I used to do, I don't even think of anymore.
Most tasks are faster with linux.
I am impatient at times, and anytime you want a linux computer off, you can hold the power button down and it will turn off.
When it boots back up , it doesn't care how you powered it down, it just boots and works.
If you give a windows computer a hard power down, it goes ape the next time you reboot.
Do it two or three times in a row on a window machine, and it may not reboot at all.
Those are major differences in MS, and Linux.
Each linux desktop has it's own file manager, but they are all semi similar.
I can get by with most any of them.
T

[Gnobuddy]

EDIT:
Broader question: Has anyone tried any Linux distro on a system with Solid State Drive?
Does it fly or what?

Yes, and yes!

I have a refurbished, off-lease Core i5 (probably at least 6 years old) that I bought from Staples a year or so ago. It's only got 4 GB of RAM, but the "hard drive" is a Samsung 256 GB SSD. I installed Xubuntu 16.04 (a stable version of Xubuntu that is supported for several years with security updates). It boots in seconds, and every application I use is extremely responsive - there really are no noticeable lags anywhere, except occasional ones when waiting for something to download from the Internet.

My wife has a 2013 or 2014 Core i3 that I assembled myself from parts bought from NewEgg. It has 8 GB of RAM, and whatever 256 GB SSD was on sale when I bought the parts for it. It's also running Xubuntu 16.04, and it boots even faster than my (older) Core i5. Once again, every application is extremely responsive, and the only thing that's slow enough to ever notice a lag is the Internet - which has nothing to do with Linux or the PC hardware, and everything to do with our Internet provider, and the state of British Columbia's network infrastructure (it's reeling under the insanely rapid population growth we're experiencing.)

I should mention that I don't play video games - I find the real world much more complex and interesting. So I can't report frame rates while bloodily slaughtering thousands of virtual creatures.

-Gnobuddy

[Steve A.]

I downloaded Ubuntu-Kylin, which is a chinese version of Ubuntu linux.
It starts off live in chinese, but if you install it to the hard drive, you can pick the english language installer, which I did.
Here are a few pics of it, I like the XP win look, with the panel.
It is as easy to use as the old win98 or winXP.
They are using a modified Ubuntu Mate Desktop, for the platform.
I have it loaded on my HP linux test computer.
T

What I liked about the XP file manager was that it was more text-based than Windows 7 which seems to be much more pixel-based. For example when you right-click in the file list pane the results depend on exactly where in the listing that you click, like whether it is white space or not. With XP it seemed like the file manager treated the listings more like cells in a spreadsheet where it did not matter where in the cell you clicked.

Another thing I liked about XP and Win2K was the file search module. Vista and higher started searching for text inside files and creating huge indexes whereas XP/W2K evidently searched the FAT tables first which was very fast.

As a workaround with Windows 7 I've been using an app called Everything which creates an index from the FAT tables of your drives each time it loads and after that the filename searches are lightning fast. I also use FileSearchEX which can optionally search for text within files, on any drive or folder that you specify. You can also search just for certain types of files, in several preset or user-designed categories.

I imagine that you could do all or most of that from the command line in Linux but it would be really nice if someone wrote a program to do that with a GUI interface. If there is already a program that does that I will be switching to Linux immediately. Swear to Buddha!





Steve A.

P.S. Does Linux use right-click menus as extensively as Windows? IMO that was one of the most important features that MS added to their graphical interface in the past 20 years, something that the Mac never had with their single button mouse, at least until 2005. (That has been one of my biggest gripes about Adobe, their Windows apps — at least the older ones I've used — had a very limited palette of right click options since the Mac mice only had one button for over 20 years.)

P.P.S. Do any of the Linux variations offer good support for a touch screen? I picked up a Lenovo laptap with a touch screen running Windows 8.1 a few years ago, and missed the free upgrade to Window 10 by 2 days!