LINUX---Discussions in General

[big_teee]

I don't think You're ever going to leave windows, I'll believe it when I see it!
But, it's fine either way.
I used XP and win 7 for years, but have no desire to go back.
Just updating the AV dat files, and trying to find decent free anti-malware was a pain.
Here's a pic of Thunar the FM that comes with XFCE desktops.
It does everything I need.
Also a pic of Midnight commander.\
You can do all kinds of file manipulation with it.

[Steve A.]

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.

Me, neither — at least for the past 15 years or so. In the late 80's I really enjoyed games like Wolfenstein and a scary one called something like The Seventh Guest where you were walking around a haunted mansion.
The 90's brought Doom and Quake along with Warcraft 2, Starcraft and Diablo. I hooked up a second computer and created a network to play these games with my son as multi-player, always cooperative, since he was a much better gamer than me, having started using computers in 1988 when he was 3 (his choice, not mine.)
The original Diablo had a cheat for duping gold, etc. — if you cast it down on the ground just right it would be duplicated. I think that we spent more time duping gold than actually fighting the monsters underground... well, you wanted to be able to buy the best shit!
My son is 32 and gaming is still a big part of his life, just like music is a big part of mine.

Steve A.

[Gnobuddy]

What I liked about the XP file manager was...

The nice thing about Linux is there is a lot of choice - there are plenty of different file managers to try out. Unlike Windows, you are not locked into whatever file manager came with the install CD.

Hopefully you will find a Linux file manager you like, but of course, I can't guarantee that you will.

My my own all-time favourite file manager was Konqueror on the 3.x versions of the KDE desktop. One of the things I liked about it was that it was good at letting you click on icons to select files, but it was also good at letting you type filenames - and entire directory trees - into it. So if you had two hundred music files in the folder /home/myname/music, you wouldn't be forced to stare at two hundred icons, trying to locate "Crowded_House_The_Very_Best_Of". Instead, you could type into the top of the Konqueror window "/home/myname/music/Crowd", and it would not only auto-complete the filename (show you a list of possibilities), but also take you straight to the folder you wanted once you selected the proper name and hit enter. No need to use the mouse at all, unless you wanted to.

This is exactly the kind of thing Apple - and typical Apple customers - don't want to see. If you're very right-brained, sorting through three hundred pretty translucent file folder icons may be more appealing than having to understand the logic behind a directory tree (like /home/myname/music/Crowded_House_The_Very_Best_Of). But if you're a little more left-brain oriented, like most of us on this forum, the concept of a directory tree - and the ability to type it in - can be a huge advantage in many cases.

Sadly, KDE went to hell in a handbasket when version 4 came along, taking Konqueror with it. After trying subsequent KDE versions intermittently for the next few years, only to find it continued to be slow and buggy, I finally gave up and moved on (to XFCE). XFCE comes with it's own file manager (Thunar), which I don't like as much, but such is life. The things you like best don't always stick around for the duration.

Another thing I liked about XP and Win2K was the file search module.

Xubuntu comes with a lightweight file-search utility called Catfish. It's pretty fast. I don't use file search a lot (prefer to organize my files myself, and remember them that way). But my wife uses catfish, and, for the most part, likes it.

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!

Why not put Linux on a USB3 thumb drive and boot from it, give Catfish a try, see if you like it. If you don't, no fuss, no muss, go back to your current operating system!

The Buddha was far too enlightened to care about such trivialities as anyone's operating system of choice. Baby Jesus is less sanguine, and he cries every time he finds someone using Windows.

By the way: XFCE usually comes with the "start bar" at the top of the window. I have to use Windows five days a week at work, and it has the start bar at the bottom. This is like driving a car with the gas pedal on the left on weekdays, and a car with the gas pedal on the right on weekends - very annoying, and a huge waste of time, because all your automatic "muscle memory" responses will be wrong on one operating system.

Fortunately, it's very easy to move the XFCE task bar to the bottom of the screen - it only takes a couple of mouse clicks. It's one of the first things I do every time I install Xubuntu. Life's too short to waste it hunting for the task bar!

P.S. Does Linux use right-click menus as extensively as Windows?

Yes. And on Linux, middle click also has uses (every mouse I've seen in the last decade lets you click the scroll-wheel as the centre button). For example, you can select text in the usual way with the mouse, and then paste the selected text somewhere else by clicking the middle mouse button. Very quick and handy.

P.P.S. Do any of the Linux variations offer good support for a touch screen?

No experience with this, so I can't answer you. Hopefully someone else will.

-Gnobuddy

[big_teee]

I also use the XFCE desktop because it is so customizable.
I use the Xfpanel-switch a lot.
Once I get the desktop like I want it, I save it to a folder, with the xfpanel-switch. It allows you to rebuild the panel with a file download.
Then when I load another distro, I always download the XFCE desktop if it doesn't come standard, and rebuild the panel, with xfpanel-switch.
I put my panel on the bottom, and install a small autohide side panel with most of the app icons on it.
When not in use It hides to the left.
I've tried a little of everything, and like this setup the best.
Especially good for small laptop screens, where space is of importance!
See SS.

T

[Gnobuddy]

I use the Xfpanel-switch a lot.

Thank you for that tip, I had never heard of xfpanel-switch until now.

I put my panel on the bottom, and install a small autohide side panel with most of the app icons on it.
When not in use It hides to the left.

Interesting! Hey, if it works for you...

One thing I hate about Apple's OSX is the fact that, in effect, it has two panels, one on the top edge, and one on the bottom edge, of the screen. That means I never know which of the stupid panels contains the launcher for the application I want. It's like having to hunt for your clean socks in every room in the house, instead of in the top drawer of the dresser by your bed. It takes much longer, and leaves you frustrated.

I've always found Apple products quite user-unfriendly, at least to my brain. Completely at odds with their purported design philosophy. You have to drag the CD icon to the trash-can icon to eject a CD from the computer? You've gotta be kidding me! Why not require that the keyboard be held upside down at the same time, too, while you stand on one foot? That would make just about as much sense.

-Gnobuddy

[Enzo]

It only works that way in the southern hemisphere.

[Gnobuddy]

It only works that way in the southern hemisphere.

No, no, they have to stand on the other foot, and hold their Apple iThingy right side up! Everything has to be the opposite of what happens in the northern hemisphere...

-Gnobuddy

[big_teee]

Ubuntu 17.10 Official was released today.
Here are 3 different desktop versions.

Xubuntu (XFCE)
Distribution Release: Xubuntu 17.10 (DistroWatch.com News)

Ubuntu Mate
Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 17.10 (DistroWatch.com News)

Ubuntu (Gnome Signature )
Distribution Release: Ubuntu 17.10 (DistroWatch.com News)

I've ran all three of them for the past couple months.
Great Stuff!
T
**
DID I MENTION THEY'RE FREE?

[big_teee]

Here's some Screenshots of Emmabuntus, I installed a while back on my test computer.
It is built on Debian 9 Stretch, and looks like halfway between debian and ubuntu.
Ubuntu is also built from Debian, and debian and ubuntu use the same apt package manager.
I'm using the XFCE desktop with Emmabuntus Icons.
A nice alternative to Ubuntu, if you want a change of desktop look.
And, It's Free!
https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09978
T

[Steve A.]

Here's some Screenshots of Emmabuntus, I installed a while back on my test computer.
It is built on Debian 9 Stretch, and looks like halfway between debian and ubuntu.
Ubuntu is also built from Debian, and debian and ubuntu use the same apt package manager.
I'm using the XFCE desktop with Emmabuntus Icons.
A nice alternative to Ubuntu, if you want a change of desktop look.
And, It's Free!
https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09978
T

Do these different distros change the functionality of Linux or are they like using different desktops or screen savers with Windows? I don't care a hoot what my screen looks like as long as it allows me to perform tasks easily.

BTW one of my favorite Windows "applets" from the 90's was WinBatch from Wilson Window Ware which allowed you to automate operations with batch files using plain English. (Norton licensed this product for use in their Norton Desktop for Windows.)

I understand that you can do all of that and so much more on the command line in Linux... is there anything like that in a user friendly format? (With the nerve damage to my hands I'd rather just click than type in command lines!)

Steve A.

P.S. I am finally getting somewhere in my massive condo declutter project so I will have room in my 850 sq ft space to run multiple computers with multiple OS's! I do need one running XP for my older programs like Adobe Acrobat 7 which do not run on Windows 7 and up. So is there a good Linux PDF editor which will do things like the global cropping of pages throughout a PDF file or the addition, deletion and reordering of individual pages? I really miss being able to do stuff like that these days...

Is there a place like the Google Play Store or the Apple Store to look at all of the apps or programs available for the Linux platform? Thanks!

[big_teee]

Each linux distro comes packed a little different.
Each type of linux uses its own update and package manager format.
There is pretty much a gui for everything.
No fancy PDF viewers in linux, they are all very basic.
You can view a pdf from LibreOffice program.
I use a stand alone program Atril, for pdf's.
See Screenshot of Atril.
I try not to get attached to any particular program.
Just so the app will accomplish the task at hand.
I have standard linux apps I add to any linux I install.
Aisleriot (Solitaire)
MahJongg
Pysol (More games)
Gnome-Calculator
Gnote- sticky note app
Clamtk-Antivirus
Mate-System-Monitor
GTK-Hash- (Download Hashsum checker)
Firefox, if not in factory load
PulseAudio for sound
Gnome-Screenshot app
XFCE-Terminal for command line.
MC-Midnight Commander (file manipulator)
XFCE4-Eyes program
That is most of what I always install, plus all the stock programs that come with the Distro Load.
I download all of the above with apt commands in Terminal.
I can install all of those in command line, in 10-15 minutes.
Example to install mahjongg I would input the following.
# apt install gnome-mahjongg
Very Easy inputs.
Most things I do are repetitive, and once learned, can be easily repeated!
GL,
T

[big_teee]

On an intermediate/advanced linux user theme?

On two of my Ubuntu Laptops I have Partitions with private folders and documents.
I wanted to make my linux OS ask for a root password before the partition could be mounted and opened.
I leave this partition unmounted most of the time.
If for some reason another network user got control of my OS, they could not open these files and folders, without the password.
This is built in to Debian, Redhat Fedora and some other Linux distros, but not in Ubuntu.
Root privileges are controlled by internal programs called policykits.
There are a bunch of them.
Ubuntu uses one called policykit-desktop-privileges
This policykit defeats the need to ask for any desktop root password.
So by removing it, now it asks for root password before my storage drive partition can be mounted and opened.
This is the command
#apt remove policykit-desktop-privileges
Don't know if anyone else has a need for this, but it works slick!
Good Luck all you Linux Penguin lovers out there!
T

[imf]

I run Xubuntu as my PC Desktop OS for the past few years because I have been fond of XFCE for quite some time now, which I was always running on other distros and OS's before Ubuntu. Now I am lazy and don't care for crazy setups unless it's a custom server, Ubuntu is great out of the box. You could easily switch to XFCE from Untiy on Ubuntu, or any try any other window manager or desktop environment you wish, and be able to switch back and forth at the login menu quite easily.

Though I will say Mac OS is superior in every way to Linux and I use that for my recording software, and the hardware is fantastic from Apple. I am a bigger fan of the *BSD OS's than GNU/Linux.

[Gnobuddy]

Though I will say Mac OS is superior in every way to Linux

Oh no, here we go again!

I know many people love Macs and Mac OS, and of course, they're entitled to their opinions. I accept that you find Mac OS "superior in every way to Linux".

But that is not at all the case for me!

Some years ago, my wife had a Mac, and I had a PC I built myself, running Linux (Mepis, I think). Her Mac, after the educational discount, still cost more than twice as much as the PC I assembled from parts bought from Fry's Electronics (California chain). My half-the-price PC ran rings around her slow Mac - Intel CPUs of the time were so much faster than Apples outdated Motorola PowerPC G4 that it wasn't even funny.

And the styling? I found the mouse-grey Mac housing very ugly (see attached Powermac G4 pic). As for the vulnerable, grille-less, Cyclops speaker, I found it both ugly and idiotic. My PC wasn't a thing of beauty, but had a reasonably smart-looking Antec case in black and brushed silver. To me it was much less ugly than the G4.

What about the oh-so-brilliant Apple operating system? I have a fairly typical engineering/analytical personality like so many on this forum, and I've worked on a lot of operating systems over the years, from ancient Russian main-frame computers, to DOS on early PCs, to Solaris on Sparc hardware, and even oddballs like the BeOS on PC hardware. I managed to get to terms with all of them, enough to use them.

But the Mac? Of all of the operating systems I ever used, it was the the Mac that most often drove me mad with frustration. Nothing worked in any kind of logical way, and everything was hidden from you, so when it failed, (which happened fairly often), you had no idea what had gone wrong, or how to fix it.

Want to eject a CD? Oh, you have to drag the CD icon to the trash can icon. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like having two panels, one on top of the screen and one on the bottom, wasting precious screen real estate, and forcing you to hunt for twice as long to find anything. Or like the stupid hockey-puck circular mouse that was cartoonish, stupid, and ergonomically toxic. Or the network printing based on the same CUPS software as Linux, only completely unreliable, while the free CUPS versions in my free Linux distributions were all rock-solid.

and I use that for my recording software,

This is one area where I do agree with you. Audio on Linux is still an ugly mess. Windows is loathsome because of its insecurity, the ugly corporate attitudes behind it, and its constant attempts to spy on you. Apple is "least worst" of the bunch.

the hardware is fantastic from Apple.

When it comes to desktop hardware, in the PowerPC days, Apple hardware cost two and a half times as much, and ran at one-third the speed. Nowadays, Apple hardware costs twice as much, but basically consists of entirely generic Intel motherboards and CPUs and video subsystems, so it runs at the same speed.

The only real difference is a chip Apple puts on their motherboards to announce to the operating system "Yes, I'm a real Apple motherboard!" on every boot, and to force you to pay twice as much for the same hardware. Just ask the Hackintosh crowd, they routinely run OSX on generic Intel-based hardware...all they have to do is play a minor trick at boot time so OSX thinks it is hearing from that worthless chip on the motherboard.

I am a bigger fan of the *BSD OS's than GNU/Linux.

I wanted to be - I liked some of the philosophy around BSDs, in particular, the fact that all the software was integrated and packaged together, rather than the piece-meal assembly of a Linux distribution. I tried FreeBSD a number of times. It was always rock-solid, but also always limited compared to Linux, particularly when it came to drivers for some piece of hardware that worked perfectly under Linux. Either it would be my digital camera, or my USB scanner (remember those?), or my Wacom tablet, or something.

In the end, it was all too obvious that FreeBSD development was painfully slow compared to Linux, which shot ahead in leaps and bounds. The other BSDs were even worse off than FreeBSD, and have mostly retreated to the level of hobby operating systems.

FreeBSD, at one time, at least used to be a great, rock-solid server OS. These days? I have the feeling Linux caught up in the stability department, and exceeded BSD in other software capabilities (like virtualization). For whatever reason, I rarely hear about FreeBSD servers any more.

-Gnobuddy

[imf]

What about the oh-so-brilliant Apple operating system? I have a fairly typical engineering/analytical personality like so many on this forum, and I've worked on a lot of operating systems over the years, from ancient Russian main-frame computers, to DOS on early PCs, to Solaris on Sparc hardware, and even oddballs like the BeOS on PC hardware. I managed to get to terms with all of them, enough to use them.

But the Mac? Of all of the operating systems I ever used, it was the the Mac that most often drove me mad with frustration. Nothing worked in any kind of logical way, and everything was hidden from you, so when it failed, (which happened fairly often), you had no idea what had gone wrong, or how to fix it.

Want to eject a CD? Oh, you have to drag the CD icon to the trash can icon. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like having two panels, one on top of the screen and one on the bottom, wasting precious screen real estate, and forcing you to hunt for twice as long to find anything. Or like the stupid hockey-puck circular mouse that was cartoonish, stupid, and ergonomically toxic. Or the network printing based on the same CUPS software as Linux, only completely unreliable, while the free CUPS versions in my free Linux distributions were all rock-solid.

I'm not sure what you are talking about here with any of this. Are you arguing about OSX from > 10+ years ago? If so we can we remember how bad Linux was with a lot of things at the time, and way worse with drivers than BSD is at the current time... that's not even getting into the mess they call the Linux kernel - which is still a mess today IMO.

Furthermore, find me one off the shelf PC notebook that can touch a Mac... again maybe 10 years ago when IBM was making thinkpads, but not anymore. Maybe Dell precisions are close? But I've had my fair share of problems with Dell. This Mac over here is as solid as it gets. Nobody uses PC laptops that have the ability to buy macs unless they are absolute Mac haters... like yourself

I wanted to be - I liked some of the philosophy around BSDs, in particular, the fact that all the software was integrated and packaged together, rather than the piece-meal assembly of a Linux distribution. I tried FreeBSD a number of times. It was always rock-solid, but also always limited compared to Linux, particularly when it came to drivers for some piece of hardware that worked perfectly under Linux. Either it would be my digital camera, or my USB scanner (remember those?), or my Wacom tablet, or something.

In the end, it was all too obvious that FreeBSD development was painfully slow compared to Linux, which shot ahead in leaps and bounds. The other BSDs were even worse off than FreeBSD, and have mostly retreated to the level of hobby operating systems.

FreeBSD, at one time, at least used to be a great, rock-solid server OS. These days? I have the feeling Linux caught up in the stability department, and exceeded BSD in other software capabilities (like virtualization). For whatever reason, I rarely hear about FreeBSD servers any more.

-Gnobuddy

I agree the drivers can be an issue depending on your needs, which is why I think for a PC desktop OS, Ubuntu or the like is perhaps the better choice. As far as BSD, I'm actually partial to NetBSD and OpenBSD over FreeBSD. There are other interesting BSDs on the up as well. I disagree that the development is painfully slow, but it doesn't really sound like you keep up on them much.

The question is, where is it that you think Linux shot ahead "leaps and bounds"? I'd argue it's on the desktop mostly. They have come a long way as big companies invested to do so. It's network stack still isn't as good to this day, and they have opened a can of worms with systemd.

The only Linux distro I'd actually use on a personal server is one without systemd. Gentoo is good with openRC... maybe Slackware, but I'd still take BSD all day on my own server. There are various other reasons why small startup companies and even some big names are choosing Linux now over BSD in some areas... which have nothing to do with Linux being better suited for the job in any way. Like the fact it's cheaper to hire linux sysadmins than BSD, and there are corporate companies supporting it (Canonical and Redhat) which had much to do with the success Linux has had over BSD.

BSD is definitely still used at some big names and for good reason... storage systems, firewalls.

And lastly... I'm not sure what you mean with "exceeded BSD in other software capabilities (like virtualization)", if you care to explain.

Linux has its place as does BSD and OSX... I will absolutely stand by my comment in every way that OSX is the best Desktop OS currently in existence.


Edit: I'd like to add, my Mac notebook did not cost twice as much as a PC at all. It was in the same ballpark as a PC with similar specs.