I think it's time for me to switch from Ubuntu to LMDE.
Lately i was thinking a lot about Canonical and the many decisions they did, which i disagreed with (i don't like Unity, i don't like the Mir "disaster", i think efforts should be combined and not made to split the Linux community).
But it's not so easy to switch, because Ubuntu really is the most desktop friendly Linux distro out there. I was considering Fedora (but i like dpkg!) and Debian (but i like bleeding edge!). So this will give me the nicely designed Cinnamon Desktop, the awesomeness of Debian, without too much breakage by using debian testing..
Yep.. Good Bye, Canonical. After years of Ubuntu usage, after switching from Debian to Ubuntu i'm switching back. Debian has goals i can identify with, Canonical tries too much to create yet-another-incompatible-replacement-for-XYZ instead of fixing stuff (upstart, lightdm, mir, unity come to mind).
It's worth noting that cinnamon is an incompatible fork of gnome shell: they don't upstream their changes, it requires mint to run, patch sets at least for fedora are not fully functional, they don't appear to be interested in a multi-distro source base.
Better than unity/cannonical by far, but not nearly as good as gnome/redhat for the community. Consider that cinnamon wouldn't be possible without the efforts of the gnome 3 team in targeting the whole community.
They need to carry distro specific patches though, that was my point. This also leads to most plugins not working without modification, at least on fedora.
Why not just use Debian testing? After Ubuntu made Unity the default I switched to Debian and was pretty happy with it. AFAIK that's what becomes Ubuntu every 6 months anyway. The biggest Canonical contribution to Linux community has always been fonts, so I just copied all my fontconfig and Ubuntu fonts to my Debian install.
But then Gnome3 happened. And it was far worse than Unity - it killed virtual desktops. XFCE and KDE are not my cups of tea either, so I tried the latest Unity again and was surprised that they've fixed the most obvious issues. So I'm back on Ubuntu for now.
But you get a list of all apps via Alt-Tab. There is no isolation, so I end up with OSX-like mess of apps. Each desktop must have its own list of apps.
I submitted that as a bug to Gnome bugzilla and they told me that's "by design". I later found a 3rd party shell extension to fix it, but it was ugly as hell and kept breaking after each version bump. So I gave up. Besides, I do not want to rely on 3rd party extensions for core functionality, like switching between applications.
There is a 2nd reason why their dynamic workspaces cannot be used as a replacement for proper virtual desktops: the desktop numbers (index) keep changing: if I have desktops #1, #2 and #3 (and I use shortcuts for them, like Win+1, Win+2, etc), and I close the last window in desktop #2, Gnome3 immediately kills #3 and moves all its windows to #2. That's insane. It won't allow me to have an empty desktop in the middle.
I switched for similar reasons (though it was before the Mir "disaster"), and have been very, very happy with it. The maintainers are very good at not passing along packages from debian-testing that will break your stuff.
I managed to actually "tame" unity. I like the concept of of it but viscerally hated the fact that they forced their lefty dock on us, seriously? I managed to permanently hide it (installed AWN instead) and configured a screen corner to summon the dash (which also features the unity dock) in essence functioning like gnome3's dash. It's a pretty neat configuration once their dock is out of sight. I love the global menu, somehow they managed to screw it up when they first released it (even though they were copying one that was perfectly functional) but now it works at it is supposed to.
Actually, the packages in Debian Testing and Unstable branches are usually the same versions or more recent than Ubuntu.
The names sound scary, but I think Ubuntu actually takes the Testing packages anyway. In 8 or 9 years I don't recall having any problems using Testing as my day to day desktop.
Unstable is also pretty solid, but every in a great while there will be some dependency problem or other breakage that can be a real PITA. It's fun to play with new features, and I use it for one of my home laptops, but I wouldn't use it to get work done, just in case.
> I think Ubuntu actually takes the Testing packages anyway.
The automatic synchronization actually picks from unstable. Not that it changes a lot, because the majority of packages end up migrating. I'm not too familiar with the ubuntu processes, but I assume that if the next ubuntu release contains uninstallable packages (or other things that can happen in unstable but should not in testing), they reimport a later package.
I have done a lot of distro-jumping, but I have been using LMDE-xfce for quite a while now, and love it. I almost liked the Ubuntu-based version of Mint, but in the end, I just like the Debian-Testing base much, much more than the Ubuntu base.
Sometimes I like my distro to "just work," and sometimes I wanna get in there and muck around a bit, and LMDE is the first distro I have used that seems ok with both "modes."
Can you elaborate what you like more about Debian-testing vs. the Ubuntu-based version?
I use a different distro for myself, but I have my family running Mint (Ubuntu version) on their computer. It works well, because they can just use it without thinking about it, and I can handle all maintenance remotely.
They have incredibly basic needs, so I don't think they'd really notice the difference, but I'm curious where the differences lie - I installed the Ubuntu version without thinking much about it because it was the default (only?) version at the time.
Hmm, let's see if I can do this without too much hand-waving on my part lol. To be fair, most of what I like about the debian-testing backend will probably not apply to your family (Based upon the "...they can just use it without thinking about it..." part of your comment).
Probably the biggest thing I like about debian-testing as opposed to ubuntu is the rolling releases. I really don't like the "run `do-release-upgrade` and cross your fingers" method of upgrading.
For the most part though, the ubuntu-backed version seemed to "fight" me when I would get into my "mucking-around" modes. I know, I know, it's all linux underneath, but I just find the debian version so much easier to customize.
This is an honest question: What is the use case for desktop Linux? Why would you switch to Linux? I feel like none of the tools I use are in Linux and I would spend most of my time trying workarounds rather than actually do work. Does anyone use desktop Linux? What for and what are your main tools?
It depends on what you do. For development, especially in systems/infrastructure space, desktop Linux is by far the best choice. Nearly every piece of software that Internet runs on is developed/tested on Linux first, and everything else second (if ever).
So I keep jumping between OSX/Ubuntu. I use OSX to run PhotoShop, proper Excel and (unfortunately) Outlook.
Also it's hard to beat Linux desktops for typist/coder use case. Unity/Gnome3 have made it worse, but not as terrible as OSX (yet) I just could never get nearly as productive on OSX: everything breaks apart after you open more than 5 apps, no proper virtual desktops, keyboard shortcuts are limited and not easily configurable, the list goes on and on.
This also applies to Python/Ruby libraries with native extensions. They always just work on Linux and on OSX I kept running into weird issues. Even though the solution is always a Google search away, it's still easier to just use the OS where everything works all the time.
There is another, less popular reason to use Linux desktop, and it's Thinkpads. OSX does not run on them, but - according to some fans like myself - a Thinkpad is the best laptop money can buy. But this reason is soon to become obsolete: Lenovo is discontinuing Thinkpads replacing them with cheap macbook clones.
I have been using Linux as my main OS for all of my daily tasks for a while now. I have been running openSUSE for years, and the last time I did an actual re-install (not upgrade) was with 11.3 (2010) on a Dell Vostro laptop. Everything works, including media keys etc. etc. (they do not without extra software on Windows). I am currently using openSUSE 12.3 Tumbleweed with KDE 4.10
Since I am not a programmer, my program use differs somewhat from others here:
I couldn't be happier, really, especially now that the future of gaming is looking brighter with Steam. I also practically live in Emacs for everything work-related.
"I feel like none of the tools I use are in Linux..."
Well, carry on using what you are using!
I'm an end user and I find that Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP, Audacity, R, Gnuplot, Texlive, the desktop text editor and a few other bits and pieces cover most of my simple needs. I've almost reached the point where I can copy my dotfiles over to a new installation and sync dropbox or a backup and just get to work, like the Rob Pike approach but on recycled hardware...
I use desktop Linux. I mainly do web dev (serverside, Django), devops, and tons o' paperwork (running a 7-person company). I also use it (tho' not the same machine) for leisure, including browsing and the very occasional game play.
For the things I mainly use it, it's very good for me. The tools available I mostly love. When stuck on another OS (Windows, OSX) I feel unhappy with the quality of alternatives (this is not to say that one OS is better than others - just that Linux is better at being Linux than OSX or Windows are :) and workarounds for my preferred workflow which are, unsurprisngly, tuned for the platform at hand.
Stuff I use:
* desktop: linux mint base, but openbox + tint2 "desktop environment"; terminator;
* file management: bash (yes, really)
* dev: bash; git; sublime desktop; ssh; chrome; firefox; virtualbox;
* office stuff: libreoffice, evince; I do have a Windows VM for netbanking (sadly), and the very rare occasion that libreoffice breaks when reading a doc I received
* gaming: bought most of the humble bundles featuing linux games, bought some on linux steam; i'm obviously not a hardcode gamer, tho
When did I start using desktop Linux: when I switched from Amiga :)
Should you? D'oh, it's a tool. Use what you like (and what you need).
For just a general surf the internet machine sure Linux has a lot of power that just isn't needed (and a lot of the time a lot of hassle to get it working right) and Windows does a good enough job. However I really dislike Windows for development. Perhaps I am just spoilt by the Linux (and GNU) world of tools but Windows to me is a real hassle to get working "right" for a developer machine.
Having switched from windows 2000 to FreeBSD in 2001 as a desktop OS, all i can say is there is no benefit if you want something that does stuff all pointy clicky just like Microsoft does (gnome/kde's apparent objective). My desktop is a terminal and browser and pretty much sod all else.
If you don't embrace the whole Unix philosophy and start using it as intended rather than with a layer of glitter over the top, there is no point at all.
I switched because i didn't have to spend as much time piddling around to get stuff to work. Rather than spending hours in VB/VC++, arguing with COM, dealing with horrible amounts of stateful black box configuration and absolutely no composability past defined IDL/COM interfaces, i could glue some shit together that talked lines of text in literally minutes, perform better and still be running 12 years later with no modification.
Productivity waned for a year but once I'd got my shit together I'm doing the work of 5 people in half the time.
Hell even for Windows development I still use Linux with a Windows VM for Visual Studio. Windows 8 runs really smooth in VMware Workstation even on my 4 year old Core 2 Duo
I use it for everything from development to web browsing and even gaming (I don't dual boot). Off the top of my head I can't think of any Windows software that I would use which does not have an equivalent or better FLOSS alternative.
My main tools are:
* Chromium: Google Docs and Gmail
* Sublime Text 2
* The terminal (URxvt, zsh): Vim, Mplayer
* Transmission
I've tried getting back into Windows but it felt like it was missing something.
The most obvious use case is you have an x86-64 desktop machine. I've met people who have also finally given up on Apple ever updating their desktops (which I found unusual). I keep thinking the only thing between a more general migration is printer and video card support.
The big one that hasn't been mentioned yet is package management. It's a killer feature, especially if your job requires any form of tweaking. Working on windows, you have to search the internet for tool X, then figure out if you can afford it, or if it's free if there's an official page linking to a trustworthy download service, then once you install it, almost every one of these has it's own 'phone-home' mechanism to see if there's updates for it to who knows what websites.
In a package-managed system, you don't have to open a browser to starting hunting on the internet. You can search your own repository. Install it in literally seconds - particularly if you already know the name. There's only one program doing the 'phone home' - your package manager, and that only does it to sites that you can confirm with your own two eyes.
I run a windows desktop at home, but only for the games. Working with windows for work would be like tying one hand behind my back - windows makes it harder to 'get at' the system. But it really depends on what your specific tools are, there are analogues for most in the linux world if you ask around.
And licensing, oh my god, licensing. The nail in the Windows coffin for me was licensing (the joy of package management came later). "Hi Windows Support, I have this remote server that's going to expire its CALs in two days. I have applied the license code in a couple of different ways and it refuses to 'take' and demands a phone call to you guys. I can't get at this server physically. Okay, thank you for the code, I've applied it. Now, can you tell me where I can see that it has been successfully applied? Because the license box just disappeared when I clicked 'ok', there was no confirmation. This is a box in a country hospital, people's health actually depend on it - so please, I need it to remain remotely accessible - where can I actually see on the system it saying 'it is now licensed'?" ==> "Oh don't worry sir, that information is stored on our systems". It's not the Microsoft Police that I'm worried about here ==> "Oh don't worry, sir, that information is stored on our systems"
Licensing shennanigans drove me from being fearful of that crazy weird linux thing that doesn't make sense, and since then I've come to love it for all its advantages over windows. Linux has its warts, but every time I run into a problem like a dependency issue, which really isn't often these days, I remember the method of hunting Windows software on the internet, and it's much easier to deal with.
EDIT: also with package management, it's trivial to set up a new system with all the bits and bobs you want (awesome for testing stuff). You can do this with windows, but it's an ordeal getting it set up automatically - the usual process of installing in windows is manually going through each thing you want installed and every one of it's click-through windows.
Well ... Linux is acquired taste. But I can think of few points - privacy and security - with windows 8, windows store and ms kindly suggesting to link your desktop and ms accounts (and skype and facebook) windows is becoming somewhat troublesome and moving to a walled garden system.
And also a lot of stuff on linux finally works. And open source toolchains are much more prevalent nowadays and they thrive on Linux. So if your job is not chained to a ms stack and you don't mind getting your hands dirty from time to time and can suffer trough some problems with gaming, there are few arguments against switching.
Slackware is a great distro. Did you never try Gentoo during that period? Especially around 2002-2005 when the community was the most active. I'm asking since you loved compiling and troubleshooting. :)
Linux Mint seems to be a nice distribution, but I just don't see any benefits of using it compared to Debian Testing. When I tried installing it, the installer didn't even have an option to do full disk encryption, and I did not have time to try doing it myself (à la gentoo).
My needs aren't really high, all I need is a great packet manager and a simple window manager such as dwm.
Ubuntu has caused most of us to go on a distro-jumping spree, fact is the linux community has gone through a lot of changes in the past 3 years but I think most communities now know what they want cannonical/redhat,etc thus we will see more stability and developments from now
But it's not so easy to switch, because Ubuntu really is the most desktop friendly Linux distro out there. I was considering Fedora (but i like dpkg!) and Debian (but i like bleeding edge!). So this will give me the nicely designed Cinnamon Desktop, the awesomeness of Debian, without too much breakage by using debian testing..
Yep.. Good Bye, Canonical. After years of Ubuntu usage, after switching from Debian to Ubuntu i'm switching back. Debian has goals i can identify with, Canonical tries too much to create yet-another-incompatible-replacement-for-XYZ instead of fixing stuff (upstart, lightdm, mir, unity come to mind).