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The "Linux questions (and other stuff)" thread

sorry, Moody, but I can't stand KDE)
No problem! That's the beauty of Linux and its plethora of distros, desktop environments, window managers, etc. To each their own. :D

I'm curious, though, what it is you dislike about KDE. Perhaps there are features you're unfamiliar with that--if you knew about--would make it more to your liking. Then you could have separate wallpapers per desktop like I do! :p :laugh:
 
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So, out of curiosity, what is everyone's favorite distro?
I'm pretty sure it's no secret around here what MY favorite is: Kubuntu. :D But I want to touch on why.

For one thing, it's rock solid, reliable, secure, never crashes, etc.--what you'd expect from any *nix.

But it's also beautiful and infinitely customizable. When I read things about other DEs, like 'the dock is locked on the left side taking up screen space when i'd want it on the bottom like a taskbar,' I just shake my head and think, nope, that would not work for me. I want my computers to be EXACTLY the way I want them. Being forced to accept something that someone else has decided I should like is way too much like window$, and the micro$oft philosophy. :rolleyes:

Finally, for those who think you cannot be a *nix purist if you use--and LIKE!!--a modern, beautiful, GUI, I say phooey! :p I earned my stripes in the days of command line only UNIX. I know how to deal with the innards of my OS from a command line--and still do, whenever necessary or when I simply feel like it. Contrary to popular opinion, not ALL *buntu users are window$ converts and/or computer dummies who need easy point and click computing. Some of us just like having a modern, beautiful, graphical environment--with a terminal always open for REAL work, of course. :)

I also give thumbs up to Bodhi, which I've mentioned a number of times. It's a great option for older and/or less powerful hardware. It's lightweight yet feature rich.
 
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No problem! That's the beauty of Linux and its plethora of distros, desktop environments, window managers, etc. To each their own. :D

I'm curious, though, what it is you dislike about KDE. Perhaps there are features you're unfamiliar with that--if you knew about--would make it more to your liking. Then you could have separate wallpapers per desktop like I do! :p :laugh:

I didn't like the interface, not back in the '00s nor today. Konquerer felt too retro back then, the desktop was awkward for me and if anything, there are too many options now.

Maybe the learning curve is too high for this old dog, but I just couldn't get things working the way I wanted in a timely manner. The last time I tried (what, six months, a year ago?), I was rockin' the Unity bar hard and had everything working smoothly with my separate Firefox profiles and stuff, rotating desktops and everything, and so trying to get sorted out between the four desktops in Plasma and the programmable Workspaces was beyond me. Pick one or the other, KDE!

I don't know, maybe I will take another stab at it with Plasma 2, but I have a lot of Not Like for K-stuff right now.
 
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Alright, time to pass out directions. :D

I've been running a UEFI Win8/Ubuntu dual-boot for about 6 months now. It's not a problem to do as long as you understand UEFI's quirks.

To start with, you'll need to partition your hard drive. This can be done through Disk Management in Windows8. You'll need to SHRINK your C: drive by the approximate amount of space you wish to let Ubuntu have, and you'll need to let it stay as "unallocated space". Do not format the space after shrinking it! If you need help to do this right, let us know. Do not try to do it with out having us walk you through it if you aren't already familiar with drive partitioning. You could lose your data if something goes wrong.

Now, head into the BIOS. Somewhere (probably under boot devices or boot options) they'll be a setting for Secure Boot and possibly Legacy Mode or Compatibility Mode. You want to DISABLE BOTH. This will both turn off Secure Boot AND filter out any non-UEFI boot devices available.

Next, head to Ubuntu.com and download the 64-bit, UEFI-aware version of Ubuntu 13.04, burn it to CD (or use LiLi USB Creator to put it on a USB device), and reboot your machine.

Hit F9 (or whatever Key Gateway Machine's use to select boot device, on HPs it's been F9), and select your boot device you're gonna install from. It must say UEFI somewhere in the device entry. There's a big difference in launching from "Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive" and "Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)!

Once you've launched the Installer in UEFI mode, follow the directions and select "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 8". Let the installer do its thing.

Now, here's where everyone's problems with Win8 and UEFI and alternate installs come from. It'll ask you to reboot. Do so. If you don't hit any keys as the system starts up, it'll go directly into Win8, with no sign of GRUB anywhere. This is because the UEFI system is set to OS Boot Manager as its default boot device, and THAT has tunnel vision only for Windows installs.

How to we stop this? Simple, really. In the current setup, every time you want to go into Ubuntu, hit the F9 key (or whatever you used to get that menu where you selected to boot off the install disc) during bootup, and the list of boot devices shows up. In this list is now an entry to Ubuntu. Select it, and you'll be sent off to grub and so forth. :D

A little annoying, yes, but stable, and works as advertised.
 
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I didn't like the interface, not back in the '00s nor today. Konquerer felt too retro back then
But why use Konqueror if you didn't like it? :thinking: I don't. *shrug*

the desktop was awkward for me
But it's 100% customizable. You can make it look/act/function however YOU want it to.

and if anything, there are too many options now.
No argument there! You're right, there are zillions of options. However, you're not obligated to use all of them. I don't! I pick and choose.

Maybe the learning curve is too high for this old dog, but I just couldn't get things working the way I wanted in a timely manner.
Yeah, I can understand that. It's frustrating when you're trying to just get to work but get caught up in figuring everything out. However, like anything else, once you're familiar with its interface and options, you can set up a new installation very quickly. It's just a matter of knowing what you want and like, and then adjusting things to make them that way.

The last time I tried (what, six months, a year ago?), I was rockin' the Unity bar hard and had everything working smoothly with my separate Firefox profiles and stuff, rotating desktops and everything, and so trying to get sorted out between the four desktops in Plasma and the programmable Workspaces was beyond me. Pick one or the other, KDE!
Again, though, you're not obligated to USE any/all of those choices. Look at a couple of my desktops:

tmp_desktop_092513_1.jpeg


tmp_desktop_092513_2.jpeg


and a shot of my desktop cube; I always set my number of desktops at nine because that's how I like it:

desktop_123112_1.png


Can you say minimalist? :D I have *NOTHING* on any of my desktops--no icons, no widgets, no activities, no plasma anything...just nothing. That's how I like it. The apps I use all the time are in my taskbar--which is the size, shape, and location I want.

I don't know, maybe I will take another stab at it with Plasma 2, but I have a lot of Not Like for K-stuff right now.
As I often say, the beauty of Linux is its infinite possibilities, so if/when you're ready, give KDE another whirl. In the meantime, stick with whatever you're happy with. Choice. I love it! :)
 
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i admit i missed it. most of my computing has been Android lately. but the addicting little Chromebook and Linux work so well. Moody, i always have issues with stuff that is often new to me. i've been in and out of Linux and am too familiar with the command line, know a little, but each distro has different means of accomplishing the same thing, and some enable things while others leave them up to the user out of the box. it's all very, well, fragmented. i used to think Android sucked because i was using it as if it were Windows or iOS
 
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my issue is never liking the default setup. then finding the solution hard as in many forums simply end with 'don't do that, it's for your own good!'.

the rest often involve trying to make one of my programs (games mainly) run in Linux and then having the awful performance. i hope Wine gets acceleration and anti-aliasing down soon. i hate gaming on what feels like an i486
 
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So, out of curiosity, what is everyone's favorite distro?

OpenSuse. I like the Yast configuration tools and find their integration with KDE excellent (a contrast to me would be earlier versions of kubuntu where KDE felt to me more like a bolt on after thought). I'm not sure where I'd go if OpenSuse disappeared but I suspect Fedora an Debain would be candidates.

As for KDE, as well as preferring the desktop, I generally prefer the KDE apps (eg. digikam, k3b, kwrite, etc.) to the Gnome equivalents (eg. f-spot, brasero, gedit, etc.).

As for user type, I'd not describe myself for example as "Linux purist" (although I really do appreciate Linux and FOSS). I just want a system that I can set up relatively easily and does what I want. Linux is more something that provides me with a solid base to achieve that.

Just to drift a little into our home setup. The sort of hub of the system is the PC attached to the living room TV for playing CD/video/tv recordings. It is the mythtv master backend (the other 2 PCs have tv cards in them and can be brought in as mythtv slaves to handle extra tv recordings if needed), DNS, DHCP, IMAP (I retrieve email from our various POP3 accounts via fetchmail), CUPS and NFS server. It also runs the Java side of my experiments with home automation (the Raspberry PI runs my python bits which handle xpl to/from W800RF32AE, rfxtrx433 USB and handle emails from a cheap IPCam (enabling me to use it as a motion sensor) - http://pip.dulyn.co.uk/hometest/ should be running atm if anyone with a web socket enabled browser is interested).

I suppose where I'm trying to go with that is that I'll do what I feel I need to to get where I think I want to be but that's about as far as it goes.
 
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my issue is never liking the default setup. then finding the solution hard as in many forums simply end with 'don't do that, it's for your own good!'.

the rest often involve trying to make one of my programs (games mainly) run in Linux and then having the awful performance. i hope Wine gets acceleration and anti-aliasing down soon. i hate gaming on what feels like an i486

Even older games (like Red Alert, For example, or Diablo) don't seem to run as well under wine as under Win 98.

I had even tried installing a virtual machine in Ubuntu, and that gave me a 486DX virtual processor... you can't win for losing.
 
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my issue is never liking the default setup.
Ditto.

then finding the solution hard
Not ditto. I really just don't run into the types of problems you seem to. The last 'hard' thing I can recall having to figure out was when I got my HP dv6000 laptop, and found out about the infamous Broadcom 43xx wireless issue. It took a bit of searching online, and then a bit of command line tweaking to get wireless working, but that was about it. I'm trying to recall which Kubuntu version that was...I'm thinking 6.06, because I bought the laptop at the beginning of 2007. But a later version completely eliminated the need to manually make wireless work.

as in many forums simply end with 'don't do that, it's for your own good!'.
Yeah, like I've said, places such as Ubuntu Forums think they need to hold hands--they're assuming you're not only a window$ convert, but a hapless dummy, too. :rolleyes: It's been decades since I was in Kindergarten, and I really don't appreciate being censored and filtered, and treated like a child. I stopped going there because I got tired of the restrictions on what was 'okay' to post. They're totally into the "it's for your own good!" philosophy, while I'm into assuming people are intelligent adults who just need some guidance to accomplish what they're trying to do.

the rest often involve trying to make one of my programs (games mainly) run in Linux and then having the awful performance. i hope Wine gets acceleration and anti-aliasing down soon. i hate gaming on what feels like an i486
As I've said before, the only game I play via wine is Roller Coaster Tycoon--and it actually performs BETTER than it did the last time I ran it on a [then brand new] window$ machine. I don't know if wine will ever do what you're after, or if game manufacturers will start making native Linux versions of their software, or what. But I understand that it sucks if you're unable to play, properly, games you really like.
 
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Well, I tried again; PEAP, food a search for certificates on the Windows side off the drive, with no success...

The receptionist at the tech support center laughed at me, called the back and apparently no one has any experience with Linux.

I have Win 8 dual-booted on this machine and a tablet that can also connect to the Wi-Fi with no problems. It may take me a while, but I will get this sorted out.

If I feel generous, I might even tell tech support how to do it.
 
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Well, I tried again; PEAP, food a search for certificates on the Windows side off the drive, with no success...

The receptionist at the tech support center laughed at me, called the back and apparently no one has any experience with Linux.
That's ludicrous, to say nothing of rude. :mad: And, to add insult to injury, that school is very likely running THEIR critical apps on *nix servers.

I have Win 8 dual-booted on this machine and a tablet that can also connect to the Wi-Fi with no problems. It may take me a while, but I will get this sorted out.
There must...should?...be some way within window$ to see the settings, and then transfer those to Linux.

If I feel generous, I might even tell tech support how to do it.
:)
 
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I'm going to snapshot all the Windows... er, windows, and see if there is a setting or something I am missing.

At the moment, I am thinking it is this certificate business...

I downloaded certificates from Godaddy, but maybe I have the wrong ones... I have tried a couple, but they didn't help.
 

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Moody i often like playing with the 'dangerous' parts of *nix. the stuff that even devs say don't do. because i want to make it my own 100%. same goes for Android. there are times i do not want it to do things for me. hence my AOSP ROM that allows a close button on all apps. in Linux, there are things i want to do that most would never advise. turning off things that are considered 'more secure' and turning them off means i'm risking damage. i turn off all crash notifications, disable things like hang monitors and crash protection, force the OS to run even during a kernel panic condition (don't ask) and such. i get into the system level. unfortunately, finding that level of info is rare as hen's teeth. forcing apps that are considered not compatible to work. whenever it tells me i'm out of memory, i say 'horse hockey!' because Linux and 'out of RAM' don't make sense. sure, forcing an app to run and load despite it claiming to have a seg fault, or forcing Linux to continue to run when it should kernel panic and force a reboot, might be risky. but i will tell my computer when to shut down and when i want apps to close. and no, i do not WANT a 7 digit root password, and i do not WANT to make a swap partition, and i want to boot into the CLI, not the GUI, thank you.
 
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Moody i often like playing with the 'dangerous' parts of *nix. the stuff that even devs say don't do. because i want to make it my own 100%.
Then you should be running Linux From Scratch, SourceMage or Gentoo Linux! :D

I usally keep SourceMage installed but in the past couple of years when my main system died, I haven't installed it. It is the one I would do alot of playing around with the system itself.
 
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Moody i often like playing with the 'dangerous' parts of *nix. the stuff that even devs say don't do.
That's how I learned *nix! And I firmly believe that once you know it at that level, everything else is cake. :D

because i want to make it my own 100%.
Me too, but I no longer find the need to poke around as deep in its innards as you seem to. Maybe my needs have just evolved to a point where everything I need to do is easily done...or...? I don't know. ;)

same goes for Android. there are times i do not want it to do things for me. hence my AOSP ROM that allows a close button on all apps.
I personally despise the lack of a close/exit function on Android apps. *I* want to decide when or whether to exit from an app. I frankly don't care about Android's reasoning that this 'feature' is a good thing. :rolleyes:

in Linux, there are things i want to do that most would never advise.
But here's where I'm kind of lost--you SHOULD be able to do whatever you want to do, because this is *nix, not window$ or Mac. In my 28 years of using *nix I simply have never come up against anything I couldn't do. That's kind of the whole point of *nix vs window$, i.e., that it's up to the user to decide for themselves how/what/when/etc. Well, that plus the security and stability of *nix. :)

turning off things that are considered 'more secure' and turning them off means i'm risking damage. i turn off all crash notifications, disable things like hang monitors and crash protection, force the OS to run even during a kernel panic condition (don't ask) and such. i get into the system level. unfortunately, finding that level of info is rare as hen's teeth.
I used to be very active in various *nix newsgroups. I still have them in my newsgroup client, but rarely check them any more. But maybe that's a better place for you than forums. Usenet has historically been very free and blunt when it comes to discussions. No silly "oh that's not good for you!" nonsense. Just in-depth discussions from people who know what they're doing.

but i will tell my computer when to shut down and when i want apps to close. and no, i do not WANT a 7 digit root password, and i do not WANT to make a swap partition, and i want to boot into the CLI, not the GUI, thank you.
ALL of these things are doable. Not necessarily the best idea (no swap space? why?!), but certainly doable. Again, it's *nix, which means everything is possible.
 
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i would install one of the more advanced distros if they ran on my Chromebook. so far the Google BIOS is only hackable with Ubuntu. can't install other distros or Windows or other OSs
I didn't realize it was Ubuntu only. I wonder why, since it's built upon Debian, I wonder if it would work? I'm just curious now. Maybe if and when I get a CB, I'll be able to figure it out! :D
 
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