Linux Club

[potato580+]

oh okey i will tried again, ive seen dd mode, never thought that would be usefull, i only know what and hows iso work, thx for the tips, iwll try let you know the result soon

 

[Aquinus]

It is completely a myth. The way you tell it people might get the idea that Debian, and thus everything it's based on, is rubbish because it's not on the bleeding edge of development which is both inaccurate and untrue. Alot of users prefer Debian BECAUSE it's not on the bleeding edge, is well tested, very stable and well supported.

So which one is it? Does it have newer versions of software or does it not? That last statement literally is like saying that it's both. Debian as a distro tends to have older versions of software with the exception of running sid (Debian Unstable.) Distros based on Debian are not required to use the same versions of software or even the same package repos. in fact they don't and Ubuntu and Mint are some prime examples of that. Debian-based does not mean Debian. It means that certain things, like package management and how the OS operates are shared. Anyone who has used Debian or a Debian based distro knows all about .deb files and using apt. However, what those source packages contain can be very different and that's why I say Debian (as a distro,) tends to use older versions of software, because it does. If I'm building a linux box where stability is paramount, I will use Debian. A great example of this would be running a gateway server or something, because having internet is kind of important. On the other hand, I use Linux for my laptop for work and desktop. In those cases, it's important for me to have up to date software and sometimes even bleeding edge when it comes to graphics drivers which is why I'll gravitate more towards Ubuntu.

Debian is prefered for systems that demand stability over others exactly for the reason you said, it's well tested, but the consequence of being well tested is that it's going to be older software because it takes time to test these things and make patches. It's hard to release something quickly and have it be stable and be without bugs in a short period of time, even more so if you're a distro doing additional rounds of QA on packages to make sure that things work. As a result Debian as a distro will always tend to have older versions of packages. That's all I'm saying and I think we're actually in agreement on this.

tl;dr: Debian as a distro tends to have dated versions of software for the sake of long term support. That does not mean that Debian-based distros are as well.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So which one is it? Does it have newer versions of software or does it not?

Sorry, I restructured that sentence for better clarification.

 

[johnspack]

Funny, I did slackware builds, Gentoo, Arch... in the end Ubuntu stomps all over them. Every app you can ever need is available on Ubuntu. I did a 2 year evaluation of linux builds, and
settled on kubuntu. After 20 years of using ms dos and ms windows products, I can proudly say I am ms free. I did have an install of win7, but finally deleted it. Windows is just
not needed any more. And mint users.... go Kubuntu or raw Debian if you want to crank. Mint is kiddie.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Mint is easy.

Fixed that for you. Kubuntu, while still easy to use for power users, is not something I would drop people who have never used Linux before into.

 

[Kursah]

I have several Ubuntu deployments between my boys' MineOS server is a 18.04 LTS VM, a 19.04 desktop OS VM I use for lab testing, 18.0.4.3 Server LTS for a virtual ELK stack I'm testing in my home lab, 19.04 desktop os on my old field engineer Lenovo laptop from 5+ years ago mostly just used for screwing around and when I need Linux for something at work, and Manjaro on my old Dell 3540 from college as I'd never used Manjaro or gone too far into gaming in Linux recently, and it was collecting dust.

Thinking about going Ubuntu or Manjaro on my Acer Predator 15 (i7-6700H, GTX980M 4GB, 16GB DDR4 2400 and 240GB SSD + 1TB HDD) for a better gaming testing environment. I do like Manjaro, but I'm so used to Ubuntu at this point I'm gonna have to mess around a bit more. Ubuntu does just work as @johnspack says, that is one thing that makes it super nice. But honestly Manjaro has been easy to work with and resolve issues on over the past couple months I've been lightly testing it (in very little spare time).

 

[bug]

Funny, I did slackware builds, Gentoo, Arch... in the end Ubuntu stomps all over them. Every app you can ever need is available on Ubuntu. I did a 2 year evaluation of linux builds, and
settled on kubuntu. After 20 years of using ms dos and ms windows products, I can proudly say I am ms free. I did have an install of win7, but finally deleted it. Windows is just
not needed any more. And mint users.... go Kubuntu or raw Debian if you want to crank. Mint is kiddie.

Correction, Ubuntu stomps the rest for your needs. There's a bonus in sticking to something that uses deb or rpm and that is most closed source software that comes to Linux is packaged in those formats.
For my needs, Ubuntu was always missing up to date Java, Maven and such. And while I could find PPAs for them, it just got tiresome after a while. So for my needs it's Arch that stomps everything else (maybe Manjaro, according to some recent findings).

An alternative to Kubuntu is Neon. Latest KDE, latest Qt and way less bloat (apparently Kubuntu doesn't clean up Gnome services properly). Unfortunately Neon stubbornly sticks to LTS releases, so you get the latest KDE, but ancient everything else

 

[Aquinus]

For my needs, Ubuntu was always missing up to date Java, Maven and such.

I don't want Ubuntu changing major versions on me just when I run a `sudo apt upgrade`, but honestly, it really depends on the release. Java 11 was supposed to be the next "long term support" version of Java, but imagine if someone is using software running on Java 8 and suddenly you're on 11 because you updated. Now your application is screaming at you because of illegal reflection warnings or whatever backwards incompatible changes they're pushing. I would agree though that it would be nice if there were say, a Java 12 package I could just install, but when it comes to software I'm writing for work, I'm more apt to stick with whatever is available for the distro. For Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, that would be Java 11 (although there is a package to install Java 8 if you really wanted that.)

I understand the need if you *really* need bleeding edge Java, but that sounds more like an edge case.

 

[bug]

@Aquinus First of all, apt upgrade won't upgrade you to the next version, you're thinking apt dist-upgrade. As long as you don't specifically request a distro upgrade, you'll be fine.
Second, ideally apt upgrade will upgrade your app at the same time it upgrades java. And if your app has a dependency on java8 or java11, they'll remain installed.
Third, I'm a developer, thus I am a special case, but I need to play with the latest and greatest.
Fourth, Java was just an example, there are other packages for which I needed PPAs to get the latest versions. Go for example. Thankfully Rust or Angular sidestep distro's package management and are more straightforward to keep up to date (except Angular comes with that node.js mess).

 

[GoldenX]

Ubuntu Is kind of a mess for developers. Arch or Fedora offer a much better package management.
To give some example, SDL is not compiled with Vulkan support on Ubuntu.

 

[Aquinus]

First of all, apt upgrade won't upgrade you to the next version, you're thinking apt dist-upgrade.

No, I'm not. The `default-jdk` in Ubuntu for 18.04 started as Java 10 and eventually become Java 11 after 18.04 had already been released. It's up to Ubuntu when it comes to when package versions are updated. The same deal happened with PostgreSQL. Started on 10.x and is currently on 11.5. So major versions do change if Ubuntu lets them.

Third, I'm a developer, thus I am a special case, but I need to play with the latest and greatest.

I'm a dev too and I don't use the latest and greatest because if I decide to build against Java 12, that's great until I realize where its getting deployed only has Java 11, because that's the current LTS for Java.

(except Angular comes with that node.js mess).

I think we can agree on the fact that NPM is a rarefied piece of crap.

 

[bug]

No, I'm not. The `default-jdk` in Ubuntu for 18.04 started as Java 10 and eventually become Java 11 after 18.04 had already been released. It's up to Ubuntu when it comes to when package versions are updated. The same deal happened with PostgreSQL. Started on 10.x and is currently on 11.5. So major versions do change if Ubuntu lets them.

Ah, the default. You're right.

I'm a dev too and I don't use the latest and greatest because if I decide to build against Java 12, that's great until I realize where its getting deployed only has Java 11, because that's the current LTS for Java.

I should clarify I was talking about the PC at home, the one I use to test and learn stuff. For that one, I don't care what's used in production (that would usually be Java8 if I'm lucky), I just want to take new features for a spin.

I think we can agree on the fact that NPM is a rarefied piece of crap.

You are too kind. Way too kind.

 

[Aquinus]

You are too kind. Way too kind.

The words I would like to use would likely land me an infraction.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The words I would like to use would likely land me an infraction.

And we thank you for your restraint.

 

[phill]

Guys just wondering if someone might be able to push me in the right direction...

I've been having some issues with my SR2 with Mint 18.3, it seems to be loosing connection every so often and I'm not sure why.. It can access my home network, get out online but reports back it can't connect and as a cruncher (I don't run it 24/7, the power bill would kill me!!) I've had issues returning work units..

Tried different cables, network ports (considering a network card to rule that out) but is there anything else I could try? It also feels sooo sluggish at times with a fair delay between mouse click and it doing something... I just wondered if anyone had had anything before like it or not? Be great to hear back from someone

I just thought whilst I have half a brain and I remembered, the issue I think I was having was with the network ports on the board.. Not sure if it's just Linux as I don't run Windows on it, but I managed to find a 4 port network card at home and put that in and we seem to have a stable and working PC again. It's connecting just fine and working well now
Long time coming now, so I might try updating it to 19.1 again and try it again...

Glad the thread has come alive as well Linux is such a nice OS for how it runs.. Happy days!!

 

[lexluthermiester]

Linux Mint 19.3 is out. Somehow missed it;

Linux Mint 19.3 “Tricia” Xfce released! – The Linux Mint Blog

blog.linuxmint.com

Editions for Linux Mint 19.3 "Tricia" - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable GNU/Linux desktop distribution.

linuxmint.com

 

[phill]

I've been using it for a little while, it seems to be pretty stable and decent

 

[lexluthermiester]

I've been using it for a little while, it seems to be pretty stable and decent

I too have been using it. Solid upgrade.

 

[GoldenX]

I switched to Manjaro now, it's the best distro for lazy people. Stable, rolling release, everything pre-configured. It's perfect.

 

[SomeOne99h]

Linux Mint 19.3 is out. Somehow missed it;

Birdie showed one of the issues about Linux that it can run hot and drain the battery by just watching a movie.
The new version of Linux Mint 19.3 comes with this change:
"Playing a movie on a laptop can rapidly deplete the battery. If the CPU goes too hot, the fans also kick on and the computer gets noisy. If the resolution is too high for the CPU to handle, the video gets choppy.

Xplayer is based on GStreamer/ClutterGST and can only render videos via the CPU.

Celluloid is based on the excellent MPV backend which provides much better performance and hardware accelerated playback. It can handle much larger resolutions than Xplayer on the same computer."

I switched to Manjaro now, it's the best distro for lazy people. Stable, rolling release, everything pre-configured. It's perfect.

I read a comment under a YouTube video, he says Manjaro is like Windows 10 insider edition. I take it as an OS that is developing fast and provide a near-Windows 10 experience (I don't mean the desktop theme). Thanks to GoldenX, it is one of the linux candidates that I would like to use if I ever wanted to install linux, that and Linux Mint. (I was clingy to the Ubuntu option but ... not anymore).