Poll

Should this become a "Unix / Unix-like General" thread? (MacOS, Linux, BSD)

Yes
14 (66.7%)
No (please note why)
7 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 17

Author Topic: Linux Thread  (Read 32052 times)

Why would I consider using Linux over Windows in any situation?
It sounds like your use case scenario just doesn't lend itself to Linux very well.

Let's take my situation, for example.
I have a desktop computer with Windows on it, and a laptop with a Linux/Windows dual boot. My desktop is the family computer, it's meant for gaming, typing up things on Word, and use for my non-tech-savvy family. Those are all things that Windows excels at, and most of those things Linux doesn't excel at, at least nearly as well.

My laptop on the other hand is for personal use. It doesn't have as powerful a GPU so I use it for gaming less often, and more often non-triple A titles, which more often are less graphically intensive. Exactly half of my steam library is available and most of my favourite games are in that mix. I also use it for programming in multiple different languages, general chatting and socializing online, school assignments and listening to music.

Almost all of these uses can be covered; I can play most of my favourite non-intensive games, I can still program in Mono C#, Python, and C/C++ (The latter is actually made arguably better by linux, and has some nice IDE's available like https://codelite.org/ http://www.codeblocks.org and https://netbeans.org ). My music is covered by DeaDBeeF, which is a highly customizable foobar2000-like music player that suits my needs perfectly. It also doubles as a music file conversion software, and there's ffmpeg for video file conversion.

I don't think it supports folder playlists, but it's quite easy to add a playlist to your playlist tabs, drag-and-drop in a folder which will automatically add in all the songs, and I believe it has an option to scan and remove songs that don't exist in the folder anymore for when you've made a change.

General chatting and socializing is good, I still have firefox which lets me access web versions of clients that I otherwise might not be able to download and there's discord steam and telegram which are the main 3 that I use. School assignments are actually made a lot easier for me in specific because I'm taking a unix C programming course, but that's unrelated to why I dual booted linux in the first place, and typing up papers and making slideshows is covered by LibreOffice, which is a surprisingly good alternative to the Office line of products if you give them a chance. I can't name any functions off the top of my head that Libreoffice Writer has that Word doesn't, but I believe the Libreoffice powerpoint equivalent is lacking in some of the features that Powerpoint has.

My use cases are generally covered by it, and if I think that I'm going to end up needing something windows exclusive that day (Like visual studio, which as far as I know can't be run in Wine) then I just boot up in Windows instead of Linux.

Just know that Linux absolutely is not for everyone. By the sounds of it, McJob, it just doesn't seem right for you. You have too many uses for Windows that include windows exclusive programs, having Linux dual booted would seem like a waste of space for you. For other people, a dual boot can work nicely (like in my case), and for yet others, you can get away with exclusively using Linux if all your windows-exclusive needs can be run in Wine.

The only thing it's really lacking imo is something like Paint.NET. GIMP is alright for general editing but if you need to actually like, draw a diagram it's really not that great because of its lack of a shape drawing tool. There are solutions but they're not as nice as Paint.NET is.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2017, 11:39:10 PM by Ipquarx »

Let's focus on this. I really can't wait to see how you respond to this. I'll grab some big ones from the top of my head. And remember, I am a BIG stickler for the SAME level of functionality. As an example, Open/Libre Office is NOT a valid substitute for the Office Suite I use.

Asset extraction tools include things like QuickBMS, Maki, Watto Game Extactor, Riveal, Gibbed's work, dotPeek and hundreds of other specialised tools for specific games. I use Unreal 4, Unity, Visual Studio (with VS Tools for Unreal/Unity), Photoshop CC 2016, Illustrator CC 2016, Maya 2016, Mudbox 2016, 3DS Max 2016, Mixamo Pro, Video Game Design Pro 2006, Microsoft Office 2013 (+Access & Publisher), Articy: Draft. For Video Production I use Adobe After Effects CC 2016 and Adobe Premier CC 2016. My audio management tools are iTunes (several iPods to manage and playlist folders), Mp3Tag and some custom apps my friend made. I also regularly use WinDirStat, PowerDirector 15, AnyDVD and VirtualBox, which in my experience doesn't handle the VMs I need as well if I'm not running Windows.
It clips off parts of the beginning and ends of the songs, it has barebones capabilities for dealing with libraries (you can load and export playlists) and its DVD/Blu-Ray support is rough. Really, really rough.
The Unity development kit (or, most of it) is supported on Linux. For Maya, you should read this: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Operating-system-compatibility-for-Autodesk-Maya.html
VirtualBox also comes on Linux, but there is alternatives like QEMU which also support Linux.
The Adobe software package is not supported on Linux.
For Mudbox, you should also read this: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-design-suite/troubleshooting/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Installation-Mudbox/files/GUID-F83B0171-CA1D-4299-9863-1E2DC15F08E2-htm.html

My question is: Why do you refuse to use alternatives or run things under WINE? If the performance of WINE applications worries you, it shouldn't. Pretty much every software thing I tried has run well under WINE.
If Linux isn't something you think you would enjoy, then don't use it. I respect your decision.

It clips off parts of the beginning and ends of the songs, it has barebones capabilities for dealing with libraries (you can load and export playlists) and its DVD/Blu-Ray support is rough. Really, really rough.
never heard it clip off anything at all


"media library" is a... a library. it persists after closing the program. playlists aren't your only option

never had any trouble with dvd either, but I have admittedly never had a computer with a blu-ray reader so I can't really share my experiences with that (who uses either of those, though?)

i used to have raspbian on my raspberry pi

i used to have raspbian on my raspberry pi
What happened to it?

having Linux dual booted would seem like a waste of space for you
Mainly because Windows 10 has Ububtu available through PowerShell, so if I needed to use a Linux non-GUI tool, I have access already.

The Unity development kit (or, most of it) is supported on Linux.
If the Mac version of Unity is any indication, it's probably a mess. I also generally only stick with Unity for doing work at home. Unreal 4 is my engine of choice.

For Maya, you should read this: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Operating-system-compatibility-for-Autodesk-Maya.html
For Mudbox, you should also read this: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-design-suite/troubleshooting/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Installation-Mudbox/files/GUID-F83B0171-CA1D-4299-9863-1E2DC15F08E2-htm.html
Similar situation as above, except it's not something I've witnessed, but is something my old 3D teacher kept telling me since he occasionally contracts out to production studios running all kinds of environments.

The Adobe software package is not supported on Linux.
And I consider it Mission-Critical.

My question is: Why do you refuse to use alternatives or run things under WINE? If the performance of WINE applications worries you, it shouldn't. Pretty much every software thing I tried has run well under WINE.
Because the alternatives are never anywhere near as good as the software that I paid for and learnt how to use (Example: compare Blender to Maya), and I run multiple heavy applications at one time. I can't imagine the kind of overhead that would be generated from trying to run Unreal 4, Photoshop, Maya and whatever other tool I'm using at the same time all through WINE instances.

Keep in mind that I didn't mention applications like Firefox, Chrome, Discord and the millions of other bits of software I use which are working fine on Linux. That's all great, but I can't use a system that's not capable of running the mission critical applications I need to do my job (or have fun, ala all of my most played Steam games).

never heard it clip off anything at all
It's not noticeable on long music files. When you're trying to test small audio clips (under 10 seconds), it becomes a major problem.


Are you guys complaining about linux game development?

get some sense before using linux


Why ya gotta come in here and piss people off
Just use what you want

until linux can actually run more than 15% things outside of an emulator, it's not the best operating system.
sure microsoft does some weird stuff, but it's stuff that you wouldn't notice having an impact on your research hardcore gaming experience.
your data that windows may or may not collect is with loving millions of other pieces of data, the chances of them picking your data is like one in a loving million. i should also include that the data they take is completely anonymous and does not reveal personal information about you or what you are looking up online.
if you really don't want your data to be seen, you must be doing some weird stuff online and i don't want any part of that.
mcjob sums up my opinion about this whole "windows is bad because muh data and adwares!!";
See above. You are a tin-foil wearing rooster-jockey.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2017, 12:43:01 PM by Refticus »

if you have a high powered computer you use for gaming, and always gaming, then linux really isn't your thing for that computer. linux isn't exactly FOR that, it's mainly made for people who do very lightweight things, such as coding, source stuff, or even just basic office programs like libreoffice or other things.

if you use stuff like photoshop, sony vegas, or other things that came on windows, then by all means, use windows.

but if you have a small netbook that you only use for like, office programs or something similar, then i'd honestly recommend getting something like Lubuntu, Debian, or something similar, as it can run the programs you need and run them well.

if you do coding, then use linux as well. it's practically made for that, and once you learn around terminals and all the various tools, you can perform some really cool things on it. certain distros are made for customizations through terminal and other console tools, allowing you to do a lot.

that's just my say. i used to dual boot it on my old laptop, but i didn't really need it, as i figured out. i was going to plan to try playing TF2 on it with ultra low settings just to see how it ran, but i never went through with it.

as another note, some distros i'd recommend:
Linux Mint (an OS with lots to look at. very user-friendly, and is similar to ubuntu but isn't.)
Arch (requires a lot of work to install, but very customizable. not user friendly.)
SLAX (for USBs. modular, as in it lets you move files onto the USB and load them in, rather than installing them.)
Lubuntu (nice for any computer. nice desktop environment, nice speed, nice everything.)

i tend to stay from default/original ubuntu. they've been known for some privacy issues. fixubuntu shows how to fix them, if you actually feel like using ubuntu anyways.

should I dual-boot? I'm learning to program better and might need to figure out how the heck stuff works on this "lynookz" thing everyone keeps talking about

should I dual-boot?

if you feel like it, go ahead

i'd really only do it if you do stuff that requires a specific linux distro, though

should I dual-boot? I'm learning to program better and might need to figure out how the heck stuff works on this "lynookz" thing everyone keeps talking about
Ask yourself if you really want to first. If you genuinely want to start using linux, then go ahead and try a dual boot, but at the very least do a couple setups in a virtual machine first so that you have a general idea of how to use something like Ubuntu. That way, when you dual-boot, you'll know the basics of how to get around the operating system.

Also, make sure you confirm whether your current OS is set up in UEFI or BIOS mode. If your linux distro isn't in the same mode as your current OS, then that'll screw things up pretty badly.

i was
about
to make a linux thread
you ficky figgit

i use arch am i cool yet

should i also install gentoo instead