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1 • OS | Desktop first (by Romane on 2019-01-21 00:43:41 GMT from Australia)
I select my OS first, which over the last few years has tended to stabilise on Debian. I feel that thew base of the system is the more important, as that is the first point for the stability of the entire system.
Then I select my desktop environment, based on various criteria including established stability, functionality available out of the box, ease of configuration etc.
The reality is, however, that the overall system, to be of practical worth and use, must be stable, perform tasks in a manner suitable to the user, be configurable to the satisfaction of the user, and have available the applications which serve the needs of the user. Thus, iMHO, it really does not matter whether one chooses the OS first, the the desktop environment first. Provided the two work together in a closely-knit whole, this would be the generally expected outcome for, I would consider, a majority of users (speaking subjectively).
2 • Desktop or distro? (by Roger on 2019-01-21 01:20:16 GMT from Belgium)
My first choice is Linux Mint with Mate, when Mint ever drops Mate I will change to Ubuntu Mate, for that reason I have one desktop running Ubuntu Mate to keep an eye on it.
So for me the two are linked, one thing will always sure and that's it will be Debian based.
I feel comfortably using this line of distro's and know what I have to install to have the environment that I want to use.
3 • Deskto/Distro (by Reinaldo on 2019-01-21 01:41:48 GMT from Venezuela)
Distro first, it has to be either Debian proper, or Debian based....then desktop, preferably KDE Plasma
4 • Desktop/Distro (by Dan on 2019-01-21 01:44:41 GMT from United States)
My preference is choosing the desktop first. I have tried modern, Gnome and don't like it. KDE, I feel as if I am in someone else's house, I know where things are but just not comfortable using it. XFCE, I am very comfortable here but there are a few workarounds. MATE is my choice and I feel I am the most productive. It doesn't matter what distro I try with MATE - Mint (my preferred), PCLOS, Ubuntu MATE or Gecko, all very productive for myself.
5 • Desktop/Distro (by Bones on 2019-01-21 01:49:17 GMT from United States)
No desktop, no distro: OpenBSD, and either cwm or dwm window managers.
6 • desktop preference (by Trihexagonal on 2019-01-21 02:20:44 GMT from United States)
FreeBSD from the ground up compiling ports for 3rd party programs with Fluxbox as a WM.
7 • Desktop/Distro (by Toggle on 2019-01-21 02:25:57 GMT from United States)
What matters most to me:
1. No systemd
2. Debian or Slackware base
3. any of several midweight desktops (xfce, lxqt, and their ilk.)
Then comes negotiable things like is Firefox stock or will I have to manually purge chrome?
You know, little things.
8 • Genode (by DaveW on 2019-01-21 02:30:07 GMT from United States)
I downloaded and imported the Genode virtualbox appliance. It installed and booted successfully. After connecting to the internet, I could install and start several of the applications. However, the most successful of these showed rather dimly in the background of the screen, and could not be controlled. A quick scan of the documentation on the Genode website did not uncover any useful user guide, although I admit I could have missed something. I agree that it is not ready for general use.
9 • Swapfiles on BtrFS (by Pikolo on 2019-01-21 02:35:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
BtrFS has recently had swap files reenabled in kernel(apparently it supported them before, but it was disabled while various teething issues were being fixed), but it'll take time to trickle down to users - it's a feature of the yet to be released 5.0 kernel: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Btrfs-Swap-Files-Linux-4.21 (The article was written before the major version number changed)
10 • Pleased Trident has been added; desktop/distro (by Brenton on 2019-01-21 02:53:10 GMT from Australia)
The Trident Project was well worth adding, I was actually expecting to wait longer for that, but I am happy to be proven wrong in that.
On most distros, aside from when I'm giving the major desktop environments a go (like when testing new releases of them), or when I've only just installed the distro and haven't managed to switch it out for i3, I tend to use i3. It is lightweight, stable, simple and allows for a fairly mouse-free experience. On NixOS I've found getting i3pystatus to work with my preferences, a pain, so I just stick to KDE.
11 • Desktop & Distro (by M.Z. on 2019-01-21 03:01:21 GMT from United States)
I kind of look at the DE & Distro together. More than A couple of times I've said 'that looks interesting, but why use Gnome?'. I also look at other distinguishing features like control centers.
@5
"...no distro:..."
What exactly do you think the D in BSD stands for? Might it be that the terms are interchangeable?
12 • Opinion poll (by seacat on 2019-01-21 03:15:13 GMT from Argentina)
Desktop and Distro together...
Desktop: MATE
Distro: Debian or debian-based
13 • I pick the distro, not the DE (by Jason Hsu on 2019-01-21 04:06:56 GMT from United States)
I currently use SparkyLinux, which uses LXDE. I've also used MX Linux (Xfce), Linux Mint Debian Edition (MATE at the time), and CrunchBang Linux (LXDE after I added it to OpenBox). This proves that there are multiple ways to provide a user-friendly interface. LXDE, Xfce, and MATE all provide a lightweight, simple, and user-friendly interface. I've always found that I get the best experience when I use the distro's main DE, because it's what the development team and fellow users know best. The more I deviated from this setup, the more I was on my own.
14 • Distro-DE (by Bill S on 2019-01-21 04:18:46 GMT from United States)
I choose Mint because Clem has been kind enough to include files like ia32-libs which is not available in most distros yet needed for applications I use daily and also I can use compiz reloaded for fun. Secondly, I choose Mate as the DE because it is still open to letting the users modify and change the desktop and themes and panels and icons. Mint Mate, thanks Clem and dev team.
15 • Counting Users (by Johnah on 2019-01-21 04:26:20 GMT from New Zealand)
Interesting how Fedora are trying to improve their estimate of the number of users. As I have several machines all updating, and one external IP to to world - that would seem to be like one machine updating like mad. Using a better system makes sense. We of course do not want to see Redmond-like tracking, but it would be quite interesting to see theses internal user counts for a few distros and then even more interesting to line them up and compare against the clicks-per-day counters here on DW.
Thanks for the reviews of wierd and wonderful distros like Sculpt OS. A lot of distros and products have excellent ideas and implement some great tech - but are not quite ready for the real world. In some ways all these distros are "too many" and contribute to the Dillution and Fragmentation of the Linux Desktop. Maybe that is why we are still waiting for the Year of the Linux Desktop. It has actually been and gone, become mainstream. Problem is ex-Win/Mac devs are at a loss on "so for which of the 2,000 distros / desktop combinations do I develop package for?" And the Mac guys are SO close, as OS-X is essentially BSD with the NEXXT desktop manager on top.
16 • Desktop vs Distro (by Armand Reyes on 2019-01-21 05:35:40 GMT from United States)
I have used Linux exclusively at home for about 15 years, I have installed well over 50 distros, (38 of the current top 100) Different DE and different OS, after all this time I prefer Mate followed by Xfce and KDE.
Currently I have 3 units running MATE with these three distros,
Mint LMDE3 - DEB
PCLOS - RPM
Sparky - DEB
I have spare hard drives and will keep trying different distros all the time just to see ease of installation, start time from pressing the button to desktop and the packages they provide if they are not DEB or RPM.
17 • Distro or desktop (by Simon on 2019-01-21 06:27:27 GMT from New Zealand)
Yes, distro first, because all the important stuff (reliability, stability, package availability, etc.) is determined by that. I have some strong preferences re desktop environment, but all of the popular environments can be made fairly usable with a bit of tweaking...the same can't be said for distros, some of which are great, others of which are rubbish.
18 • Distro & DE (by Peter on 2019-01-21 06:34:32 GMT from Australia)
My distro of choice is openSUSE (has been for 10 + yrs) and then DE (depending on current state of same). Started out with KDE 3.x (10.2, 10.3, 11.0, 11.1) then KDE4 on 11.2 (later in 2016 on 13.2), Gnome 2.32 (on 11.4 for 3.5/4 yrs [2012 -2015) due to hardware constraints, Plasma 5 on Leap 43.1-3 and currently on Leap 15.
My second distro of choice is Ubuntu Mate and I chose it because they do the best Mate DE according to my needs and perceptions. openSUSE does not have a team working on Mate DE and I found their version lacking the polish and usability of the Ubuntu Mate version and last I tried the Mint Mate 19 I had issues with the themes and gave up on it. Started installing (though not using much) UM from version 16.10 and I am currently on 18.04.x and staying there until next LTS release.
19 • distro and desktop (by Alejandro Paz on 2019-01-21 06:51:10 GMT from United States)
openbsd installed on a 4G flashrive. tmux wm, ted's wm, cwm, and fvwm. regex, GLOBs, find, and grep for directory and file management. works very well.
20 • Distro vs DE (by Eureka on 2019-01-21 07:04:42 GMT from Switzerland)
I first look for a good distro and then look if that distro supports my preferred DE (XFCE and KDE Plasma), and so I use Calculate Linux XFCE and OpenSuse Leap KDE, both of them very good distros.
21 • Distro or Desktop. (by Moody Mellon on 2019-01-21 07:14:55 GMT from Canada)
I neither particular about any distro as I tried plenty nor about ant particular DE as again I tried plenty. As long as it works and serves the purpose, who cares dat!
22 • distro first? (by Angel on 2019-01-21 07:14:55 GMT from Philippines)
I suppose I'll choose distro first, for repositories, packaging and facility to add outside software. I favor some DEs (Right now, KDE-Plasma) but I can usually tweak most major ones to my liking, even the dreaded dwarf, so far.
@ 11, So when I use a particular version of BSD, am I running a BSD distro, which will seem redundundant, or a BS Distro, which will read like the spreading of manure?:)
23 • Arch for me+plasma+lightweight apps (by Brad on 2019-01-21 07:26:19 GMT from United States)
I enjoy Archlinux and it's philosophy of K.I.S.S. With that, and my current specs, I enjoy Plasma w/o kde apps (but I use Mostly lightweight apps). Once I figured out arch install years ago, I haven't looked back.. & once I went from a 10 yr old computer to a 4 yr old one, I went from xfce to plasma. I tried Mint, and don't get me wrong it's nice, it just works.. but I found it hard to enjoy tinkering with things..
24 • Desktop / Distro (by RoboNuggie on 2019-01-21 07:46:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
FreeBSD exclusively with MWM as desktop.
25 • Desktop first (by DrWhen on 2019-01-21 07:56:37 GMT from Spain)
Xfce --> Debian --> Distro
26 • Swap partition vs file (by Alexandru on 2019-01-21 08:30:01 GMT from Romania)
"It only takes a few commands in a virtual terminal to make the adjustment with no need to restart the computer. By contrast, if we want a different sized swap partition we may need to shut down the system, boot off a live disc, and resize the disk partitions."
This is not entirely true. If your physical memory is sufficient, or the disk has a spare partition, you can do it without restarting the computer.
Scenario 1 (physical RAM is sufficient):
# swapoff -a
#
# swapon # you can see it used as output of "free" command before putting it in /etc/fstab permanently.
Scenario 2 (change swap partition when physical RAM is insufficient)
# mkswap
# swapon
# free # observe it is added to available memory, note the old swap partition
# swapoff
# , adjust /etc/fstab.
In this scenario you can use temporary swap partition or swap file.
A system can have as many swap spaces (both partitions and files) as desired. One advantage of using swap partition (valid for me) is one swap partition can be reused for many distributions installed on the same computer. In this case, if /etc/fstab mounts the swap partition by UUID, the swap partition *should not be formatted* on new distribution installation.
27 • Old computers (by Alburgheiro on 2019-01-21 08:50:39 GMT from Russia)
Last week there was an interesting discussion regarding distros for old hardware.
I have an old Ideapad netbook which was virtually unusable with any major modern OS. Even after upgrading the RAM to the maximum 2Gb and replacing the hard drive with an SSD, using in in an OS that was less than 6 years old was a pain, if at all possible.
Modern distros with which it became usable:
1.- Funtoo, with the full system compiled with Atom optimisations. This was by far the distro that provided the best Desktop responsiveness and overall performance.
2.- Antix. Excellent, until the wireless card stopped working all of a sudden. Hardware-locked...
3.- Bodhi, fair enough. Responsiveness may have improved with a Liquorix 9.14 kernel. I am considering recompiling a skimmed-down version of it with Atom optimisations.
Currently running Bodhi for it provides the best trade-off between usability and performance.
28 • New Kernel version is my criterion (by MCBuhl on 2019-01-21 09:11:01 GMT from Europe)
I started with Ubuntu, then I was hit by a bug in the kernel that was mitigated by next release - that never came to Ubuntu. So I looked for a distro that has new kernel releases fastly in their repos.
29 • distro or desktop (by john on 2019-01-21 09:59:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
If like me you have a system with limited ability then some of the more resource hungry desktops are not an option, therefore I have to choose desktop first.
John
30 • distro or desktop (by Argent on 2019-01-21 10:20:54 GMT from United States)
Most logical would be to choose the distro that has a netinstall or minimal install, basic kernel and install whatever you want and then configure.
Use Void, Arch and Devuan and quite happy.
31 • Re. 27 - Distros for old PCs (by Tim Parkin on 2019-01-21 11:10:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just found minimo and ToriOS
Tori is running ok on an acer inspire one with half a gig of ram and minino on an eeepc with a whole gig. But there are fewer and fewer distros for these old machines
32 • #31 Distros for Old PCs (by Paul on 2019-01-21 12:05:06 GMT from United States)
Puppy still runs fine on older gear. I tested it with a 13 year old Celeron 1.2 mhz p4 with 512 mb of ram and an old Voodoo gaming video card, worked great. I also tested Antix 17 on a pc that will be 10 years old this coming July, worked awesome.
I even gutted Debian and customized it for older gear and it ran very well on 8, 9, 10, and 11 year old pcs and laptops. Of course, lightweight DEs only.
And for the adventurous, there is always Tiny Core, the child from the dormant project Damn Small Linux.
Paul
33 • Desktop first (by Christian on 2019-01-21 12:07:32 GMT from Brazil)
I choose the desktop before the distro. Distros are, IMO, very similar nowadays. However, the desktop experience is tailored to each distro. Therefore, I currently have Peppermint, because it offers a very unique and functional desktop and ICE apps rocks (better than running proton apps, or installing snaps or flatpaks - that are also available).
I also have Fedora, because I like to have a vanilla Gnome desktop. In addition, I also have KDE Neon, because it offers the best KDE desktop.
So, first I've decided the desktops I wanted (Peppermint - vanilla Gnome - vanilla and latest KDE), then I've decided among the distros that could offer it. So, I'd say first the desktop.
34 • distro or desktop (by Fox on 2019-01-21 12:24:55 GMT from Canada)
I prefer Debian-based distros and Gnome-based desktops, as I have developed proficiency in both. I have experimented with KDE from time to time, but as #4 noted, about "I feel as if I am in someone else's house" when using it.
My regular distro is vanilla Ubuntu, as it has always been reliable on whatever computer I put it on. I liked the Unity desktop, but I now like Ubuntu's implementation of Gnome shell even more. My late 2015 iMac, is running Mint Cinnamon, which came about because at first, only Mint would boot it up without a 5 minute delay. (Problem was the video card.). Since 18.04 came out, Ubuntu now boots it up normally, but I have configured Cinnamon to work much like Gnome and I'll stick with it for now. I wanted a lightweight, reliable secondary distro for my Dell xps 13 2 in 1, and my criterion was that it had to be Debian-based. I ended up going with MX Linux, as it is light and attractive, and easily configured with the vertical dock I am used to. It's a bit buggier than Ubuntu on this laptop (Thunderbird crashed a few times at first), but is very good overall and I'm sure it will get better with time.
35 • Which comes first, the desktop or the distro? (by Jim on 2019-01-21 12:26:44 GMT from United States)
1. Mate Desktop 2. Debian based
Dual booting Ubuntu Mate and Parrot Home Security.
36 • #33 Plain Vanilla Gnome (by Paul on 2019-01-21 12:36:02 GMT from United States)
If you like plain vanilla Gnome as a desktop then the default Debian stablewith Gnome Desktop is as plain ( and IMHO ) and boring as one can get.
It works great and uses less resources than other implementations of Gnome but it is .....
Gnome "vanilla city."
Paul
37 • As A Side Note (by Paul on 2019-01-21 12:41:00 GMT from United States)
I decided to setup a virtual machine with Debian Stable and a Vanilla Gnome Desktop. My settings were boring as well.
The VM was configured with two CPU cores and 2 gigs of ram with Debian Stable and Plain Gnome.
I was amazed at how well it actually runs in the VM and how the used resources were not as heavy as in Mint or Ubuntu. ( still no LXDE )
I'll bet it is even better with some actual hardware.
I'll check that out when I have some free time and report back with the results.
Paul
38 • Distro or DE? (by dragonmouth on 2019-01-21 12:50:32 GMT from United States)
Order of importance:
1) NO systemd
2) KDE
3) Debian-based distro other than *buntu
39 • For Any Interested Party (by Paul on 2019-01-21 12:58:55 GMT from United States)
Not long ago, I gutted Debian Stable and customized LXDE under the hood.
The results is a different implementation of LXDE that made me very proud of the results.
I will admit that it is a personal idea of how I wanted to use LXDE for older hardware but it runs really well, boot and shutdown times are great, clean and efficient. I stripped all the bloat sodtware because anyone can install what they want if needed.
I have screenshots of my fresh boot using only 164 - 175 mb !
Anyway, the following link will show you how I customized LXDE with a working transparency and custom app icons.
I hope somebody out there likes it because I put a lot of time in trying something new.
This project was why I love Debian so much. All Linux is great but Debian is my
"go to OS."
Paul
https://mega.nz/#!sfYVGCYR!EWfLB_2xPQ-5Gh-CjyySjwD60QYrxwI859a1Adg9fw0
40 • Poll query (by Jordan on 2019-01-21 13:35:43 GMT from United States)
Desktop or Distro? Heck the first thing I read about a distro I might consider is whether it's got XFCE as the default or at least on the list DEs.
41 • He who really wants to all over get happy with Linux as a solid work base ... (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2019-01-21 14:32:46 GMT from Austria)
... should learn combining just those things sufficient for his individual needs and preferences!
It's not only about desktops but (among even others) file systems, boot modes and kernel versions as well. Me, I insist on using XFCE and XFS exclusively, and I always trim the spectrum of my distros - as there are OpenSUSE, Fedora, Debian Testing and, only recently, Xubuntu Next (from 19.04 daily build) - to fit all my requirements. After a six years since changing over from Windows completely, my results have become truly great with this. So guys and girls, never give you up - though the way is a hard one!
42 • Distros & DEs (by c00ter on 2019-01-21 15:24:45 GMT from United States)
Arch + whatever DE or WM suits my fancy st the time. Add in the AUR and who needs anything more?
43 • Desktop/Distro (by Lancre on 2019-01-21 16:12:39 GMT from United States)
For me:
Distro family - Ancestry must include Debian
Desktop - I prefer KDE, but Xfce is OK too.
Specific Distro - currently Solydk
44 • Desktop and Distros (by Bobbie Sellers on 2019-01-21 16:12:48 GMT from United States)
Well first I pick work-a-likes.
After running Amiga OS on Amiga computer for a considerable time
I switched to Mandriva with KDE 3.x. I learned to use that pretty
well so I moved to PCLinuxOS when Mandriva failed again with
KDE.
When that computer failed I moved to another fork of
Mandriva i.e. Mageia. When I learned that the PCLinuxOS
had learned to deal with UEFI and GPT I moved back.
45 • Desktop/Distro (by BrianG on 2019-01-21 17:09:33 GMT from United States)
Distro has to be based on Debian or Slackware. My DE of choice is Xfce.
46 • Distro or DE (by Friar Tux on 2019-01-21 17:20:10 GMT from Canada)
I'm somewhere between voting option 1 and 2. My DE of choice is Cinnamon as it's not as bloated as KDE but not as stark naked as XFCE or Mate. My distro of choice is Mint as It has never yet failed me even once. Most of the other hundred or so distros I've tried have issues. I've noted in the comments here, a lot of folks seem to like Mate. I've tried it but find it way too limited. I like Cinnamon for its applets and desklets as I find them more convenient than having programmes open and running all over the place. Oh yes, and I prefer Cinnamon over Gnome as Gnome makes my laptop look stupidly like a giant cell phone - dumb idea.
47 • distros for old equipment (by Bobbie Sellers on 2019-01-21 17:20:30 GMT from United States)
I have run Mandriva 2009.1 on an old Inspiron 4000 from the late 1990s
by reducing the graphic demands. It was barely usable with 4 Virtual
Desktops and only 384 GiB of ram, so I reduced the VD to a single one
and it was usefully functional for a long time. Graphic memory was
8 Megabytes. And this was running on a 700 MegaHertz Coppermine
processor. Call it an i686 Pentium.
There are a lot more distributions out there with less cpu , graphic and
memory intensive requirements. Many use special desktop management
systems.
4MLinux is one which started out much smaller but if you can get it
on a older machine it should be lively.
Puppy distributions are also a good thing to try out,
AntiX and MX adhere to the low memory requirements but
allow you to add in what you need. Heads is very compact
and even has a .386 version.
As to age of machines it has less to do with age than with
specifications. Older machines like my former Inspiron 4K
are more expensive to which to add memory in smaller
amounts. Parts and repairs are harder to find.
Presently running a Dell E6540 with PCLinuxOS Plasma5 on 8 GiB of
ram an full i7. Not very new no...
bliss
48 • Desktop or Distro (by Ed on 2019-01-21 18:28:43 GMT from United States)
I answered "It varies between the above" on the survey.
My goal is to get a system that works. A system that can find and install my wireless printer, and not have to reinstall it every time the printer power cycles. A system where the wifi works. A system that works with my photography workflow and my related scripts. A system that does not have programs randomly crashing. etc.
I will occasionally try shiny new desktops on different distros, but I always seem to come back to Mint with xfce or Cinnamon, because they just work for me.
49 • Desktop or Distro (by Martin on 2019-01-21 18:49:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
Order of importance:
1. No SystemD
2. Fluxbox or Openbox
3. Debian or Arch based.
50 • Desktop or Distro (by Peter on 2019-01-21 19:08:15 GMT from Netherlands)
In my case very simple...i use Xubuntu on all my machines, with the taskbar on the bottom so my wife thinks it almost windows:-)
As long it works on my weakest machine it wil work on the rest...
I try new distro's in VB but mostly for fun.
51 • Distros and desktops (by Robert on 2019-01-21 20:16:37 GMT from United States)
I also think of the disto and desktop as a complete unit.
On the distro side I like Arch and rpm distros, but I'm pretty much open to anything but debian based distros.
For desktop, I really prefer KDE, and MATE is also pretty good, but absolutely no Gnome.
After the basics, it just comes down to whether the distro can easily do what I want it to do. Mostly this is a non-issue, except sometimes virtualization with hardware pass through.
52 • DE or Distro (by Pixel S. on 2019-01-21 20:47:39 GMT from United States)
My personal order of importance:
1. KDE, LXDE, or MATE. I don't like GNOME at all.
2. RPM, but I'm fine with most Debian-based distros too. I'm not a very big fan of Arch-based distros.
At present, I'm experimenting with the Mandriva family of distros (PCLOS, Mageia, etc.) in VirtualBox. I'm pretty happy with most of them.
53 • your test of Sculpt (by Andrea on 2019-01-21 21:28:54 GMT from Italy)
I'm not a fan of the user manuals, but maybe your test was a total failure because you didn't care to read at least the first paragraphs of the manual.
Reading and following here
https://genode.org/documentation/articles/sculpt-vc#Getting_a_first_impression
I was able to install some modules, to switch from backdrop to applications (hint: it's F12) and so on.
Maybe it's not ready for everyday use, but it works.
54 • DE or Distro? (by dave esktorp on 2019-01-21 21:29:56 GMT from United States)
Before I decide either of these
I need to know it's
Ｓ Ｙ Ｓ Ｔ Ｅ Ｍ Ｄ － Ｆ Ｒ Ｅ Ｅ
55 • Distro or Desktop (by Steve L on 2019-01-21 21:57:54 GMT from United States)
Distro first with concerns in order of importance:
1 - NO systemd
2 - supports Mate or Xfce desktop
...with that in mind, my current desktop preference is PCLOS w/MATE
Now servers are an entirely different matter since having a desktop on a server is asinine. For servers I lean towards FreeBSD, but anything without the systemd virus or that insists on using a GUI desktop interface is a consideration.
Because of the minimal install ISO they provided, I was a huge fan of CentOS up thru version 6. it was mostly perfect of servers. Of course, with v7 and the inclusion of the systemd virus, my use of CentOS ended.
56 • typo in comment 55 (by Steve L on 2019-01-21 22:01:22 GMT from United States)
In that last paragraph it should say:
"mostly perfect for servers"
not
"of servers"
57 • The distro is an obstacle (by CS on 2019-01-21 22:30:09 GMT from United States)
Since the distro is an obstacle to what I need to get done I choose the one I think will cause the least grief. That means mainstream, good long term support. Mint when I have no choice but to use a Linux desktop (i.e. primary laptop has gone tits up) and CentOS all the way for containers. And since this is distrowatch I'm compelled to point out that systemd makes that startup fast and reliable!
58 • distro || desktop (by lincoln on 2019-01-21 22:54:06 GMT from Brazil)
Distro first. Even because I believe that the behavior of the desktop needs to be evaluated within the operating system. Criteria that I take into consideration for the choice of operating system include:
- 100% open source
- stability
- reliable
- quick and easy security updates
- standards of quality
- amounts of software
- community governance
- open bug tracking system
- robust package management system
- lightweight
- easily configurable
Yes, I use Debian.
59 • Berkly Software Distribution (by M.Z. on 2019-01-21 23:12:42 GMT from United States)
@22
"So when I use a particular version of BSD, am I running a BSD distro..."
Check with the English department at Berkley if you want to be 100% sure on that one, but I'd skip the redundancy while keeping in mind that the D stands for Distribution. It may be hard to track down the UC Berkley English department, but would probably be easier than asking the FreeBSD hackers as it apparently takes 1169 of them to screw in a light bulb:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/funnies.html#idp50234360
60 • @59 BSD and light (by Angel on 2019-01-22 01:46:01 GMT from Philippines)
Funny, but must have been more than that. While there was one commit of a working light bulb, none of the 1169 screwed it in.
61 • distro or desktop (by Titus_Groan on 2019-01-22 07:17:13 GMT from New Zealand)
distro first.
must be self complete, i.e no PPAs, so Debian qualifies and most Debian derivatives.
If you need a PPA, your distro is not real distro, because it relies on input from users who may have nothing to do with "your" distros development. This includes all the 'buntus and derivatives.
another one that irritates me no end is "Distro_name_here: Ubuntu done right." if its "Ubuntu" done right, get rid of the "Ubuntu" part and start from Debian.
Funnily, you never hear (or read) :"Debian done right"
desktop : less important, or just use a window manager, as any needed applications available from distro repos can be installed as required.
taskbar at the top, bottom, or side, QT or GTK aesthetics are a non issue for me.
probably the most important requirement for me is auto-complete / memory fill when using a terminal
62 • nonsystemd -> Debian -> xyz desktop (by Moody Mellon on 2019-01-22 07:44:18 GMT from Canada)
There are many readers here who prefers nonsystemd -> Debian -> xyz desktop.
I would suggest them to have a look at Devuan Derivatives (@ devuan.org/os/partners/devuan-distros) with different DE. and, if you still wanna go extra-miles, walk through devuan/live-sdk probably you might roll-up your own flavor. Some derivative brewers have gone extra miles and did really a good job. Mostly almost all are equipped with refracta installer and refracta snapshot for customization.
I also use arch, gentoo, slack, pclos (incl.derivatives) time to time side-by-side apart from devuan or debian.
63 • non-stsemd (by Rooster12 on 2019-01-22 10:37:33 GMT from United States)
@62 Moody Mellon: Prefer Devuan derivatives also, run STAR Xfce and JWM, along with CROWZ Fluxbox and Openbox. Both are very minimalistic, fast and super unbloated. Everything just works and system(d)eath-free. These distros are built with live-build and take a look by running live. Does use the Debian-installer which I much prefer as well.
STAR also has a roll-your-own distro, called DIY and has a tar.gz and readme to support it, worked first try but don't want to get into the distro building.
64 • distro (by Tim on 2019-01-22 11:25:04 GMT from United States)
I look for MATE first, and then pick a distro. In recent years its all the same because I think Ubuntu MATE exactly hits my needs.
65 • desktop first (by Dxvid on 2019-01-22 13:24:07 GMT from Sweden)
In the nineties I was evaluating Linux and compared it to Windows. I have tried most desktop environments and window managers that have appeared since then. I liked KDE a little better than the rest and have used the distros that support it best since the nineties. Started off with RedHat, then Mandrake and all of it's following distros, then SUSE and OpenSUSE. I also like LXDE and LXQt, but today's computers have plenty of CPU-cores and RAM so I mostly use KDE.
66 • Distro or Desktop (by Dan on 2019-01-22 16:14:59 GMT from United States)
I don't use desktop environments, Awesome WM always.is my choice.
67 • Old Computers (by edcoolio on 2019-01-22 17:12:05 GMT from United States)
@27
Funtoo is a good recommendation and I'm looking forward to giving that a shot. I agree with your opinion about Bodhi - "best trade-off between usability and performance".
@31 @32
I'm going to try minimo and ToriOS. I also appreciate the recommendations.
You are right, there are fewer and fewer distros for these old machines
As for Puppy, I would really like to use it except the Chromium builds seem to be behind and not easily available on the Puppy package tool. I should not have to hunt around forums for a Chromium .pet.
I have another major problem with Puppy: for some bizarre reason, the ath5 firmware/driver is not included on the Xenial build. That is such a common piece of hardware from the time that tons of laptops require and it absolutely should be available OOTB. There is no excuse for this. Again, why am I hunting around forums for the ath5 .pet ?
It is all just too much hassle for someone that wants wireless to work OOTB and needs to use Chromium. This is especially true when Bodhi and antiX do both of these things with ease, although I have had more wireless issues (like @27) with antiX than with Bodhi.
68 • distro or desktop? (by gary on 2019-01-22 19:25:22 GMT from United States)
I don't choose by either. I choose by package manager and non- systemd, and Linux Kernel.. That is if I want to use a distro that is pre-built, but if you build your own system such as an LFS system,would this opinion poll even matter. Most distro's these days can use most desktop environments anyway. Just open your package manager and look into the repositories to find the desktop you desire. If the Distro is a good one, they will package the desktop you want. If they don't, is that the distro you want to choose in the first place? My point is, In the Linux world, You are not locked into an either or scenario. No matter the distro or desktop, You the user can change almost any distro into whatever you want, and have any desktop on almost any distro. Or not have a DE at all.
69 • Distro or Desktop (by Joe Blogs on 2019-01-22 19:45:44 GMT from United States)
Typically choose by distro first then desktop.
Though as I usually like Mate, Unity and Gnome with mate and unity being preferred over gnome. It is not very hard to find a distro be it Linux or BSD that hasn't got one of those three desktops.
70 • . (by mintard on 2019-01-23 02:46:46 GMT from Australia)
I just use whatever the default in Mint is, cinonym i think. and hope that the ISO hasn't been backdoored again.
71 • Distro or DE first... (by Mike Lovin on 2019-01-23 04:56:50 GMT from United States)
1st I prefer KDE
2nd no systemd
3rd Debian based
I used Linux Mint KDE for a long time until they decided it was best for us to drop support for KDE, I'll never understand that decision, but anyway I moved on to MX Linux and added my favorite DE KDE, it works great and now I'm happy again! Thanks MX team! :)
72 • minino not minimo sorry (by Tim Parkin on 2019-01-23 09:07:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
i suggested minino for older machines but spelt it wrong
https://minino.galpon.org/en
73 • Distro or... (by FreeAtHome on 2019-01-23 12:16:50 GMT from Australia)
At home am free to use whatever works... No DE preferred but usually choose Xfce or KDE although have played with a few others Have Ubuntu, Solus, MX, Mint and FreeBSD on various machines...
For work I need to use Ubuntu as the VPN we use only has a package for Ubuntu... even though the website of the VPN we use states "works with Linux".... yeah, as long as it's Ubuntu! Sheeesh... and even then it's a bit of a PITA as the latest Ubuntu LTS has curl3/curl4 issues.... can't have both installed as each will remove the other when installed... I think Debian has this issue as well. The VPN requires 3...
@61... Actually luckily I can use PPA's with Ubuntu as someone created a curl package that handles both 3 and 4 and so I use that PPA and can now use curl again AND have VPN working.... so not all bad news with PPA's!
74 • Distro/DE (by zykoda on 2019-01-23 16:07:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
I choose 1) distro and 2) DE to suit the target hardware. I require very little from the DE and switch off nearly all the options. The hardware and distro must support my current requirements which includes wine, anbox and virtualbox. I prefer to use nvidia drivers when they work to support cuda. In this latter respect only nouveau works with my current kernel and graphics card. This is however resolved by a newer version of the distro to which I will soon possibly migrate when other aspects are checked out.
75 • Distro DE and systemd (by Moody Mellon on 2019-01-23 20:11:11 GMT from Canada)
Just tried to get familiar and get more out of systemd distro latest release. And realized systemd manages and controls logind, journald, networkd and much more than I can ever imagine.
Here is a small piece of excerpt from systemd -> logind method:
Methods
-------
TakeControl() allows a process to take exclusive managed device access-control for that session. Only one dbus-connection can be a controller for a given session at a time. If the force argument is set (root only), an existing controller is kicked out and replaced. Otherwise, this call fails if there is already a controller. Note that this call is limited to dbus-users with the effective UID set to the User of the Session or root.
TakeDevice() allows a session-controller to get a file-descriptor for a specific device. Pass in the major and minor numbers of the character-device and logind will return a file-descriptor for the device. Only a limited set of device-types is currently supported (but may be extended). logind automatically mutes the file-descriptor if the session is inactive and resumes it once the session gets active again. This guarantees that a session can only access session-devices if the session is active. Note that this revoke/resume mechanism is asynchronous and may happen at any given time. This only works on devices that are attached to the seat of the given session. A process is not required to have direct access to the device-node. logind only requires you to be the active session controller (see TakeControl()). Also note that any device can only be requested once. As long as you don't release it, further TakeDevice() calls will fail.
Like an auto-pilot self-driving car ... passenger(s)/user(s) never know who is driving it?
Now by default linux is a multi-user operating system, and systemd normally starts the system with graphical.runlevel5.target, With tons of the remote-users already logged-in to multi-user platform, can gain full control of processes and devices running on the system either by authenticity or by previledge escalation.
Once Upon A Time
in Antarctica
Linux was a secured operating system.
PS : I still wanna try and looking for some ultra-modern advanced systemd distro, only and the only with systemd, as in systemd as bootloader, systemd as sys-initialization, systemd as drivers, modules and kernel, and finally, systemd as a complete OS with fancy DE. Just systemd. but definitely, nothing else!
76 • @73 -PPAs (by Titus_Groan on 2019-01-23 21:12:23 GMT from New Zealand)
The better option would be a bug report to Ubuntu requesting to correct the issue.
Then every Ubuntu user and derivative would immediately be able to benefit from your use-case.
77 • PPAs... (by FreeAtHome on 2019-01-24 01:36:50 GMT from United States)
@73
You're right... and these have been duly raised and nada done about it.... Was raised early 2018.. so.. PPA it is for now... and asking the VPN vendor to sort their sh*t out also falls on deaf ears ...
Joy
78 • VPN's and The Whiny Masses (by Paul on 2019-01-24 13:23:16 GMT from United States)
For the record,
I see great content here on DistroWatch but there are always the few whiny complainers that are never trying to solve problems, just bitching about them.
FolKs, This Is Linux! I have amazed myself with what I have accomplished by spending some time educating myself on various master platforms, ie. Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, and their related second / third tier distros created by some really amazing ( and sometimes solo ) groups and individuals that put some time and effort into educating themselves.
When they are alerted to, or find problems, they do not whine. They pour their hearts and souls into these projects trying to solve problems and build something.
Sometimes success and accolades are heaped upon them and sometimes all they get is constant criticism from people that never do anything themselves, at least not at the coding level.
1) On VPN's that are not supported accept on one or two platforms.
Hey folks, have you been living in a cave ?
OPENVPN is supported by every major platform and I have implemented and field tested connections so efficient with no cost vpn server configurations that run On Red Hat (Fedora) , Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Android, Windows, and countless other Distros built on the big boys and it works flawlessly. I'm certain it is available for Gentoo and LFS as well.
I used a great network protocol analyzer (Wireshark) to test the packets to make certain OpenVPN works.
Guess What ??? Fanatastic performance for ZERO COSTS. There are a number of excellent third party server configurations that can be implemented with OpenVPN. I have used almost all of them with great results. The one I am using at this moment ( for four months now ) is VpnBook. They have separate servers and configs for people who use Torrent clients and the masses that just surf the net. You have to choose the server profile that protects how you use the Internet. I have field tested almost all of them. THEY ROCK!
I also use a commercial VPN client for two specific purposes. I do not have enough time to cover that subject here.
The point of this post to to say to everyone ...................................
"Get off your A**, stop bitching, and offer some help to the organizations and individuals that have almost no support or help. Be part of the solution and stop being the problem. If coding isn't your cup of tea, then ask one or more of those projects what you can do to help. I guarantee they will be grateful for any assistance."
There is nothing wrong with expressing CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM but the excessive dribble I constantly hear about Init systems, ie. SystemD, drives me nuts. If you do not like, do not use it. If you do not like one kind of auto, pick another.
If it not found in the market, then become the farmer.
And the best part is ...........It Is Open Source folks !
Paul
79 • criticism (by Tim on 2019-01-24 14:05:39 GMT from United States)
@78
I generally agree with you about the complaining. It's destroyed the discourse that used to be here. It's also amazingly ungrateful given that all of this is provided to us for free and enables us to live better and keep devices working well for longer.
That said, I don't think @73 is really your target. He clearly stated that he's required to use a particular program, he's zeroed in on what the problem is, and he's provided a workaround (the PPA.)
At some point, all of us have something like this happen to us- a program that we need to use or want to use ceases to be maintained and that means that as soon as an underlying dependency changes, we're toast.
This is the main reason I don't use a rolling release distro. With a VNC client, obviously networking is crucial so that is an awkward position to be in. What I do for desktop applications to avoid the problem is that every five years or so I find a distro that does exactly what I want, and then I make a virtual machine of it. Once it becomes unsupported I disconnect it from the network. That way I can still use programs that I need to matter what happens to them.
Sadly I've got one ready to go for Ubuntu MATE 18.10, because I think it will be the last release with Banshee. Debian removed it a couple of months ago because it still uses very old gnome libraries. I have to use Banshee because I encoded my entire music collection as ogg files in 2012 and the only place the metadata is stored is in my banshee.db file.
80 • #79 Your comments Are What We Need ..... Quality and Dignity (by Paul on 2019-01-24 14:42:43 GMT from United States)
Thank you for demonstrating the kind of posting we need here on Distrowatch.
Positive and proactive.
Thank you.
Paul
81 • Ugly Sniping Vs Constructive Criticism (by M.Z. on 2019-01-24 18:05:35 GMT from United States)
As with others, I also see far too much ugly sniping & far to little constructive criticism. People naturally tend to look for ways to justify their positions & prove themselves right, that's just human nature. What I far prefer is actual examination of options & looking at both the strengths & weaknesses of different options. The name calling is a sad commentary on the state of conversation here & does far more to prove the weakness of ones arguments rather than the flaws of some init you don't like.
---------------
For my part I don't like systemd very much, mostly because the Mageia install on my laptop takes forever to run some timeout operation before it boots; however, the other systemd distro on there boots very quickly & I don't notice any other problems with other Mageia/Mint or other systemd init distro installs I have on other machines. It seems like on my system the init makes no difference in 9 out of 10 installs & I can generally just start using the system after a quick boot. Also from the DW hit page stats 9 out of the top 10 distros (over the default 6 mo. period) use systemd, so while it seems somewhat flawed to me it also seem to be plenty good enough for most users. I'm sure some will be outraged by the facts on 9 out of the top 10 on DW not conforming to the world view they want to init, but starting something via supporting Devuan or PCLinuxOS would be far more effective than starting a flamewar on the comments section.
82 • @78 RE: Whiners (by dragonmouth on 2019-01-24 19:19:25 GMT from United States)
There have been many constructive comments made about systemd. However, when it comes to systemd, unless the comment is laudatory, it is received as Whining by systemd proponents. When a product (systemd) is a priori declared The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread and God's (Lennart Poettering's) Gift to the Linux community then NO constructive criticism will be accepted. Popularity does not automatically imply quality. You need look no further than Windows. It is the most widely used O/S on the planet. But does that mean that it is better than all the other O/Ss?
83 • @ 82 RE: Whiners (by Steve L on 2019-01-24 19:55:48 GMT from United States)
Extremely well said... though, sadly, the folks with the greatest need to hear what you are saying are also the folks most likely not to listen.
84 • Desktop first (by Jerdle on 2019-01-24 21:44:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
Anything with KDE Plasma is better than anything without.
Shame it doesn't support Windows anymore.
85 • #78 My comments and Everyone's Views About My Feelings (by Paul on 2019-01-25 00:01:26 GMT from United States)
Another one for the record.
My rant was not about my love for SystemD. I am 65 years of age and was present in the early days of the pc revolution.
I was young and loved everything because I could see an exciting future.
I actually played around with the first AT&T Unix Workstations sporting Unix System V with the original Init.
It wasn't perfect then and it isn't perfect now.
I am tired of people complaining without actually doing something to FIX the problem or create a new and better product.
I love MX 17 / 18 and AntiX.
Guess what ? We all know they removed SystemD and those distros are loved by many, especially me. But I also love Debian even though they decided to go the route of the other major players.
I do not have issues with the people who have found a problem or bug and wish to report it here. That is not the same.
If it is constructive then by all means discuss it. Just do not "bad mouth" other people's work for the sake of complaining. Offer the project help to resolve bugs or even better, convince them to abandon SystemD or any other undesirable piece of coding using facts, logic, and research, not repeating other people's claims.
It is simple folks.
I love Linux and everything about DistroWatch. This is the place where people are supposed to be a "cut above" in knowledge and experience.
Let's work together and create something that will replace all the undesirable products with something we can all take pride in our association.
How About It Folks? Let's fix it and move on.
Paul
86 • happiness is--Linux/GNU (by gary on 2019-01-25 01:18:19 GMT from United States)
I have tried most linux distros out there, even built a couple from scratch. Most desktop environments as well, on each of them. As long as WE have the ability to thank the people and groups that built all of these things. Or even help in those endeavors, there is no room to complain about any part of what we haven't helped in building. we have the choice to use something else if we don't like one or the other. The best part of the Linux/GNU world is the freedom to make our experience our own, no matter how the code is put together. i hope everyone uses what works for them,without putting down any part of any ones code. Unless you can do a better job, making it better.
Thanks to all the people who have made Linux what it has become today.
Thanks to all the developers who have contributed their hard work in making the kernel, the desktop environments, the packagers, all the Coders, and the ones not mentioned.
Gary
87 • @82, RE: Paul's comments. (by Angel on 2019-01-25 01:20:48 GMT from Philippines)
"There have been many constructive comments made about systemd. However, when it comes to systemd, unless the comment is laudatory, it is received as Whining by systemd proponents. When a product (systemd) is a priori declared The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread and God's (Lennart Poettering's) Gift to the Linux community then NO constructive criticism will be accepted. Popularity does not automatically imply quality. You need look no further than Windows. It is the most widely used O/S on the planet. But does that mean that it is better than all the other O/Ss?"
And which part of the above is constructive? Reads to me like pure ad hominem.
88 • Distro > DE (by Dhoni on 2019-01-25 01:59:48 GMT from Indonesia)
Well when we build a PC, good and fast OS base is the first thing to pick for me.. after that we pick which DE will we use in it.
I used to be a debian/ubuntu based user, but it seems those distro is kinda slow with lots of freeze on my laptop (fujitsu lh531 + HP probook 348). So now im moved to rpm or arch based, which i feel more fast on my pc.
89 • Systemd (again) (by Alburgheiro on 2019-01-25 05:32:47 GMT from Russia)
Please, read the Wikipedia entry and try to understand it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd
Systemd is not just an init system. It is (quote) "systemd is a software suite that provides fundamental building blocks for a Linux operating system".
The rationale behind systemd is this: to develop some kind of administrative wrapper around the Linux kernel that aims at improving compatibility among Linux distributions. Put like that it sounds brilliant for it will make our lives easier.
Indeed. The problem is that in the near future, everything will depend on systemd. You won't be able to use most DEs without systemd, you won't be able to install third-party drivers without systemd, etc. Nothing will talk directly to the kernel, everything will pass through systemd.
So even if the idea was good in principle, it is being implemented in a way that it is taking away our freedom in order to suit the corporate interests that are behind the project. They tried to gain control over the Linux kernel but failed and now they are trying to do it indirectly. They are stealing Linux from us.
As soon a systemd become the most indispensable piece of software of a Linux distro (for it will ensure inter-distro compatibility) they will fork the kernel as well and control the whole thing. This is not about software or technicalities, this is a political putsch fellas.
For instance, how long is going to take you to train a Deep Learning network without a CUDA accelerator? And how are you going to install the drivers without systemd? It is a trap. They are stealing our freedom and our future. They will have full control over the technology we need.
Obviously, there will always be alternative DEs and distros. But using them will be a pain as it was back in the day.
90 • @ #89 systemd (again) (by Moody Mellon on 2019-01-25 10:58:02 GMT from Canada)
I am total tech-idiot and tech-dumb. I never ever read anything nor I folow any informative links. I like systemd over sysVinit bcoz systemd sounds good and modern regardless of it's internals, while init or sysV sound like old-school or out-dated to me.
I always jump into band wagons which sound me good even though I turn out completely broke and real loser without making a single penny (I do need to eat-out sometimes!). Of course, there might be bunch of more intelligent than me definitely out here who like systemd with their own justification regardless of systed features or performance of their operating sytem box. Nobody, just can NOT tell me not to LOVE systemd anymore as systemd sounds more modern to me at least.
At the end,
What all all-of-you-folks can get is exactly same as what I get.
91 • I pick a desktop first and then select a distro that has it (by Stan on 2019-01-25 12:04:50 GMT from Netherlands)
I believe this is the right way of approaching it.
The desktop environment is the core and essence if you use Linux on your desktop/laptop.
I would only go the other way around if I were about to run a server which would be headless with no DE anyway.
It does not matter what Distribution you choose if the DE is unusable and feature lacking to your needs. And not matter how many tweaks your do, the desktop environment is the only constant among all distributions.
E.g.: GNOME will always be GNOME no matter if is Arch, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, LinuxFromScratch, Gentoo, etc, etc.
92 • @91 - DE or Distro first? (by Hoos on 2019-01-25 12:14:31 GMT from Singapore)
" GNOME will always be GNOME no matter if is Arch, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, LinuxFromScratch, Gentoo, etc, etc."
But if you were running Gnome on Arch, you would be on Gnome 3.30, while in Debian Stretch, you would be on Gnome 3.22. There would be some differences, for instance, in Nautilus.
You might like the Gnome 3.30 changes, or you might not:
- icons on desktop (gone)
- no more notification icons on that pullout tab on the bottom left, plus 3rd party shell extensions to provide notification icons on the panel might not work very well now.
But yes, because of that it does matter to some extent which distro you use even if your main focus is the DE.
93 • Desktop /OS (by kc1di on 2019-01-25 12:22:09 GMT from United States)
I marked choice DE first. I use xfce the most try others, but usually come back to xfce so I look for Distro that has xfce. Right now using xubuntu.
It's solid easy and I get my work done.
94 • @92 - DE first always (by Stan on 2019-01-25 12:58:14 GMT from Netherlands)
The perspective that I have is that you are always interacting with the DE first. If the DE is on your way with many quirks it can cause you to move away from the distribution when they have no alternative DE that suits you.
What you described was a versioning issue, a debate between 'stable' vs 'rolling' vs 'release cadence'. I would say that affect both the Distro and the DE, for example, comparing GNOME (fast development) with XFCE (slow development).
After someone finds that Plasma Desktop is what they want. The next question is does my Wifi and Scanner works with OpenSuse? Battery life?. When that is clear out, Does it has XYZ software? How difficult is to install it?. Then at this point you most likely have a usable desktop/laptop.
If you go the Distro route first then you are most likely less pragmatic and willing to do sacrifices and not care much about UI usability.
Like someone interested first on Trisquel, then to realize that Plasma is not the default with no way to get it out of the box: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/installing-kde
95 • Re: 78 • The Whiny Masses by Paul (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2019-01-25 15:33:31 GMT from United States)
Re: 78 • The Whiny Masses by Paul
Re: "the few whiny complainers that are never trying to solve problems, just bitching about them."
Some of us "whine"/"complain"/bitch because there is NO POSTED EMAIL EDRESS to DIRECTLY REACH the developers!! So we hope that mentioning it here in DistroWatch, they might see what we have to say, and get the message - and do something about it! Oh, and some of us ARE NOT PROGRAMMERS, so we CAN'T "solve problems"! Duh!
96 • criticism (by Tim on 2019-01-25 16:15:55 GMT from United States)
@82
No one is asking people to love systemd. We're just asking people to stop talking constantly about how terrible every distro that adopted it is.
I love hearing posts about MX Linux and Devuan and their development. I'd love to see more posts about the BSDs. If some important piece of software actually becomes unusable without systemd, I think its entirely appropriate to comment on that and suggest workarounds.
But don't rant. It's honestly boring and is making people come here less.
I'll use an example of a recent complaint of my own.
"I really didn't like how my Atheros wirelss card worked under Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Luckily it was fixed by 18.10 so I installed the beta as soon as it was available and it's been good since."
Had this not been the case, maybe I would have written something like
"They never got it fixed, so I decided to give MX Linux a try and here's how it worked out."
But I'd never write
"Wireless in Ubuntu is TERRIBLE. What an awful distro, No one should waste their time with it."
I especially wouldn't write that 5 years after I last tried a release of it.
97 • @87 Angel: (by dragonmouth on 2019-01-25 18:35:45 GMT from United States)
Thank you for your post. You have just proven my point. :-)
98 • @96 Tim: (by dragonmouth on 2019-01-25 19:08:33 GMT from United States)
"No one is asking people to love systemd."
You're right. People are told just to accept it. By their lemming-like rush to replace all other init systems with systemd, distro developers are telling users that "Resistance is FUTILE! Just lean back and ENJOY it."
Linux is about choice. There are multiple applications to perform each and every task and nobody is hell bent on replacing any of them, no matter how out of date they may be. In fact, their right to exist is defended vigorously by one and all because "Linux is about choice". However, when it comes to init systems, all of a sudden all of them have been declared so dysfunctional and so far out of data that they MUST be replaced by systemd. So much for choice!
99 • @96, a little whine is ok (by Angel on 2019-01-25 21:41:54 GMT from Philippines)
Hello, my fellow lemming! A little disagreement before we continue our headlong flight to jump off a cliff: I don't mind people whining and/or saying bad things about systemD, or Ubuntu, or even Mother Teresa, as long as they give me a rational "for instance." No bullet points needed, but points are required. What I object to is being tagged as a lemming because I don't accept sans judgment some fire-breather's gospel that X or Y is a tool of the Devil because he and or his mentors say it is.
I'm agnostic in most things. I enjoy using my systems. I like mine to look pleasant as well as work efficiently. I also install Linux on some other people's PCs, and what I ask of those is that they work simply and require little care. Until this systemD flap became big, I never gave a thought to init. My systems systemD and non-systemD installs still work as they did prior, so I see little if any reason to care one way or the other. That said, I don't want to contribute by my passivity to the crucifixion of Linux, or Linus, or the despoiling of virgins and such. (Willing virgins of proper legal age excepted.) So I've been paying attention.
I've done network installs of Debian and Devuan, different DEs, with equally acceptable results. MX Linux gives you a choice at boot. I booted with and without, and so no discernible difference. I thought I heard the cackle of daemons and smelled sulfur on systemD boot, but that may have been my imagination or my cat. In any case, I continue as I have, headlong onto the abyss.
For those interested:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/systemd
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-Byfield-s-Blog/Learning-to-live-with-systemd
https://thenewstack.io/systemd-vs-linux-kernel/
100 • @99 Angel re your systemd links (by Newby on 2019-01-26 03:03:37 GMT from Canada)
Appreciate the links you provided. Between the information from previous edition of Distrowatch, and that contained in your links, feel I have learned a lot that I couldn't locate in the "standard" textbooks.
For those getting tired of the whole systemd controversy, I am guessing you just use your system and don't give it a further thought. For those of us who like to understand how things work, and how to fix things when they don't, the past 2 weeks comments have been a "goldmine" of useful and helpful information.
Compared to some other websites, this site seems conservative, well-maintained, and serves as a valuable resource to the whole linux community. I don't get upset about controversies over systemd, or previous ones concerning alsa and pulse audio, or xfree vs xorg, etc. Rather look at them as interesting history and a chance to learn. Also starting to grasp the value of a consistent and conservative engineering design philosophy. So a huge thanks to all who contribute here.
WAS disappointed to learn from one of your links that systemd wasn't part of a redhat conspiracy. I mean, we all love a good conspiracy theory. May have to resort to perusing UFO conspiracy sites for that kind of entertainment :) oooh, maybe Lennart Pottering is an "alien"? (insert fire extinguisher here).
101 • As predicted, "R Cain" has been defenstrated. (by Jorge on 2019-01-26 03:59:18 GMT from Austria)
No dissent is tolerated here. Now we are unanimous.
102 • Off of 'systemd'. You're welcome. (by R. Cain on 2019-01-26 05:40:02 GMT from United States)
You’ve got to hand it to Jesse Smith and DistroWatch. This latest opinion poll (as well as last week’s, which was about *serious* long-term distro users) is validation of something which they--and we all--have been seeing for quite some time, and which is probably causing them some serious concern.
I condensed the Opinion Poll (1/25/19; 2250 EST) down to two major categories DF (distro first) and DEF (desktop environment first). the numbers in the remaining choices (“It varies...”; “...find a way to make it work...”) were split evenly, and added to the DF and DEF numbers. Here are the results:
“I Pick the Distro First”: 57%
“I Pick the Desktop First”: 43%
This says that most Linux ‘users’ don’t care any more--if the 'Linux user' ever did; the Distro-First contingent is only 7% above the 50% median, and the Desktop-First proponents are only 7% below the median.
Linux is dying, and simply because the serious Linux user is a dying breed, with most all Linux distro houses feeding into the hysteria for unsupportable glitz twice a year. As long as it’s NEW.
And we wonder why Linux hasn’t taken over the computing desktop? It’s simple: half of all Linux ‘users’ are not really Linux users at all, they’re hobbyists whose only ‘use’ of Linux is to hop from one distro to another (simply read the comments here, last week) ; they don’t really care about Linux--only the nice, flashy “Desktop” which has taken the place of a Linux distribution.
103 • Lennart Poettering SUCKS (by Desconhecido on 2019-01-26 09:38:30 GMT from Brazil)
Systemd is the main reason why I started to flirt with the BSDs.
104 • @100, conspiracies (by Angel on 2019-01-26 10:48:45 GMT from Philippines)
Life would be duller without. Here's an old one:
"According to a conspiracy theory long popular among ITS and TOPS-20 fans, Unix's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in the "back door" entry.
In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer viruses (see virus) — but a virus spread to computers indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and networks. Adherents of this ‘Unix virus’ theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation “Unix is snake oil” was uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began actively promoting its own family of Unix workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)"
http://catb.org/jargon/html/U/Unix-conspiracy.html
http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/back-door.html
105 • obsolete (by Tim on 2019-01-26 12:09:16 GMT from United States)
@98
The problem with your argument is that software gets obsoleted all the time. I’ll go back to my beloved Banshee, currently on its last legs (it’s been on every one of my Linux computers since 2005, I’m really feeling this one.)
It’s going away because no one wants to update gtk2 libraries anymore.
For me that’s frustrating. But at the end of the day, I can’t force a developer to work on something they don’t find interesting or profitable. So I had to find a workaround for me.
This isn’t unique to Linux. Remember when Windows 7 came out and millions of peripherals no longer worked due to lack of drivers?
Again, like my compatriot Angel said, posts about things systemd has actually broken for non systemd users would be interesting. Is there software you used to run but can’t now? Is there something the non systemd distros are hurt by?
By the way, for any would be Linux users reading these comments, Linux isn’t dying. As I said above, I keep virtual machines representing every era of my Linux usage. So I can make it 2005, or 2011, or 2014 at will. (GNOME Blackjack, anyone?) The current offerings are not only vast improvements, but I believe give better experiences than commercial alternatives.
106 • @105 Tin: (by dragonmouth on 2019-01-26 13:35:09 GMT from United States)
" software gets obsoleted all the time"
Your argument might hold more water if other Linux projects were as readily scheduled for replacement as the init systems. To paraphrase The Lord of the Rings, systemd is the one init system to rule them all. All others must be replaced. No other Linux software is so targeted.
107 • @105 (by anticapitalista on 2019-01-26 14:26:02 GMT from Greece)
xmms is still the default audio player on antiX and that uses gtk1!
108 • no (by Tim on 2019-01-26 14:53:25 GMT from United States)
@106
Five years ago, a bunch of projects independently decided systemd was the best solution for them and freely chose to adopt it.
Five years later there’s still several good choices for people that didn’t like this.
Unless you can name something that other people chosing to adopt systemd took away from you, I’m not really sure what your point is. As Angel said, from the end user’s perspective systemd barely made a noticeable difference. It’s not worth the constant vitriol.
109 • @ #108 What did they do? (by Moody Mellon on 2019-01-26 17:54:13 GMT from Canada)
@ #108
As you said,
"Five years ago, a bunch of projects independently decided systemd was the best solution for them and freely chose to adopt it.
Five years later there’s still several good choices for people that didn’t like this."
What did they do, I mean developers of systemd and those bunch of projects during lengthy span of FiVE years?
Nobody want to lead Debian and OpenSUSE, and IBM is still not clear what to do with additional annexure of RedHat, apart from keeping their developers busy. Sooner or later IBM will get rid of RedHat surplus overheads except support.
110 • @ #89 and #104 Revisit to Distros and DE. (by Moody Mellon on 2019-01-26 23:04:28 GMT from Canada)
My distros and DEs are:
Debian & Co. -> Gnome.
Deepin -> Deepin
CentOS -> Gnome
PCLOS -> kde or mate depends on available system resources.
MX Linux Vector & Salix -> xfce
Rosa -> Plasma
Bodhi and Austrumi-> Enlightenment
Calculate -> mate
Antergos -> Gnome
Solus -> Budgie
@ #89
"So even if the idea was good in principle, it is being implemented in a way that it is taking away our freedom in order to suit the corporate interests that are behind the project. They tried to gain control over the Linux kernel but failed and now they are trying to do it indirectly. They are stealing Linux from us."
@ #104
""According to a conspiracy theory long popular among ITS and TOPS-20 fans, Unix's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in the "back door" entry.
In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer viruses (see virus) — but a virus spread to computers indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and networks."
The proof of your statements for both of you guys made is just as follows:
For who wanna dig more in details can search for The UNIX - Haters Handbook.
MATE desktop in Debian buster becomes remote desktop aware (RDA)
(@ sunweavers.net/blog/node/82)
The MATE desktop environment in Debian will be the first desktop environment in Debian that has (still basic) support for detecting its graphical context (esp. detecting, if it is run inside a remote session).
With the packages mate-panel 1.20.4-2 and mate-screensaver 1.20.3-3, two new (preview) features entered Debian recently.
RDA in MATE's panel
If MATE is running inside an X2Go session, the MATE panel will (a) hide the "System" menu's shutdown menu item from users and (b) offer a menu item that allows users to suspend (disconnect) the X2Go session. See upstream PR #824. More integrations may come, patches welcome.
RDA in MATE's screensaver.
Same with MATE's screensaver. If the MATE screensaver locks a MATE session running inside X2Go, it will offer a [ Disconnect X2Go ] button in the screensaver unlock dialog. See upstream PR #159.
Code Example (from rda.c)
rda_session_is_remote (void)
{
if (rda_session_is_local())
remote_technology = REMOTE_TECHNOLOGY_NONE;
#ifdef WITH_REMOTE_AWARENESS_X2GO
else if (rda_session_is_x2go())
return TRUE;
#endif
#ifdef WITH_REMOTE_AWARENESS_OGON
else if (rda_session_is_ogon())
return TRUE;
#endif
While working on this code, I noticed another flaw in MATE screensaver that looks like a variant of CVE-2018-20681. MATE's screensaver reveals the desktop session's content when (a) resuming a suspend session and (non-critical IMHO, resuming requires user auth) or (b) when resizing the X2Go session window (critical, resizing requires local access to the X2Go client host only). See upstream issue #177.
Remote Desktop Awareness
The concept of these features have been designed in a 3rd party shared library called RDA (Reemote Desktop Awareness).
Future Prospects
All this RDA stuff is still work-in-progress and it is neither limited to X2Go nor limited to the MATE desktop environment. Please consider this implementation a proof of concept that may grow in the near and far future.
Notes from Security Expert Joseph Pizzo - a veteran of the InfoSec and CyberSecurity.
How do attackers exploit RDP?
One of the most common breach scenarios, whether by an insider (a rogue employee) or by an external attacker who has successfully breached the perimeter, happens through RDP.
In addition, there are several vulnerabilities that are associated with RDP. These start at credential losses, hijacking, and even MS15-067 – a vulnerability in RDP that allows remote code execution by cyber attackers.
The first thing an attacker will do when successfully entering an organization’s perimeter is to scan the network to identify what systems are available and what servers are running on these systems. I strongly a deception strategy that will account for these scans immediately, however, if there is a passive reconnaissance running, these network scans could be harder to detect.
111 • init & Unix (by M.Z. on 2019-01-27 07:47:44 GMT from United States)
@99
From the Linux-Magazine link:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-Byfield-s-Blog/Learning-to-live-with-systemd
"I am still not enthusiastic about systemd. However, having explored it, I can find aspects to admire about how it was implemented and I can accept the rest. By contrast, much of the discussion of it during the last year was out of proportion to reality, and shows free software at its worst."
I don't admire much of anything about systemd, but otherwise that sums up the situation just about perfectly. Nice link & a decent, balanced & informative read.
@104
"conspiracies ... Life would be duller without."
That's just what we need. 'Did those kids die of a preventable illness? Oh well, tin foil hat wearing anti-vaxers make things interesting, so who cares!' /s
No thanks. Also quite aside from that 'virus' nonsense, there was a very real & direct link between the spread of Unix & it's licensing & the creation of Linux & BSD as they are today. It was all to do with the way the U.S. government pressured Bell Labs/AT&T to _Not Undermine Competition_, which is of course the exact opposite of what you were going on about above.
Of course such a claim deserves evidence from an actual bona-fide source, so I give you something from Ars Technica, who give actual link to peer reviewed research in their science section:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/should-we-thank-for-feds-for-the-success-of-unix/
Which includes tasty tidbits like these:
"Central to the consent decree was a provision that Bell Systems patents be licensed to competitors on request. AT&T had 8,600 patents cross-licensed to General Electric, RCA, and Westinghouse. These were now to be licensed without royalty payments to applicants other than the aforementioned companies, and future AT&T patents had to be licensed to applicants at "reasonable royalty" rates, and necessary technical information had to be shared.
...
Unix was a "godsend" for university computer divisions, observes computer historian Paul Ceruzzi. For a nominal license fee they could obtain the source code, run it through a C compiler, and farm debugging and development out to cheap graduate student labor. "By contrast, most computer vendors guarded source code as their family jewels, seldom gave it out, and did all they could to lock a customer into their products."
In other words, AT&T's Unix policies helped Unix become the operating system that we've all come to know, and, if not love, understand as empowered by a philosophy that also informs the "open source" movement of our time.
...
Further reading
Peter H. Salus, A Quarter Century of UNIX
Gerald W. Brock, The Telecommunications Industry
Paul E. Cerruzi, A History of Modern Computing"
Of course if I wanted some made up story I would stick with quality Sci-Fi like the new BattleStar Galactica, numerous Star Treks, or other works of well crafted fiction that make one think about the world around them & consider the possibilities of what the future can look like. That's a rather stark contrast to conspiracy theories that prey on the weak minded & often work to tear society down with their foolish garbage.
112 • @111, conspiracies (by Angel on 2019-01-27 09:53:15 GMT from Philippines)
I fail to see what anti-vaxxing has to do with conspiracy theories about Unix or systemD. I also fail to see how my tut-tutting and tsk-tsking about it on this forum would do to make it any different. Accepted mainstream belief systems have led to the slaughter of hundreds of millions, and still include the selling or gifting of advanced weapons to opposite belief holders so they can massacre each other, that's whenthe "advanced" ones are not busy doing the same to them and each other. Conspiracy theorists like anti-vaxxers are small-time pikers.
I wasn't "going on about" anything concerning Unix. I simply quoted a piece about some people believing it was created as a form of virus.
113 • One always has options. (by R. Cain on 2019-01-27 17:54:42 GMT from United States)
@103 -- (by Desconhecido on 2019-01-26 09:38:30 GMT from Brazil)
"Systemd is the main reason why I started to flirt with the BSDs."
My advice is to take the flirting to the next stage, and the next, and...
To *paraphrase* one of the "Linux Hobbyists" a few issues ago (here) who thought he'd add another notch to his distro-hopping gun by 'hopping' on BSD--
"Hey, this is 2018! If they (the BSD developers) can't give me a graphic installer to make my installation really easy, then they can just forget the whole thing. Forget my ever using BSD!"
What this rocket scientist doesn't realize is that this is exactly what the entire BSD organization--from top to bottom--absolutely desires; they want ONLY people of a professional frame of mind; and absolutely do NOT want dilettantes--dabblers.
It appears as though the BSD troops got an early indication of where Linux was being driven by a toxically high number of its 'users'; the dabblers. And...it took no major leap to realize that this mentality ('mental set') would end up negatively affecting the very people who *it absolutely should NOT affect*, those who should be responsible for the purity of the Linux franchise--the distribution developers. Sure enough...
If you want to use BSD, you'd better be serious. There is every indication that BSD will always keep the cost of entry very high and will never allow BSD to be taken over by hobbyists.
114 • BSD and defenestration. (by R. Cain on 2019-01-27 19:00:39 GMT from United States)
@101 -- As predicted, "R Cain" has been defenstrated. (by Jorge on 2019-01-26 03:59:18 GMT from Austria)
I have been? Predicted where; when? And I wasn't even kissed!
Seriously, I'm sure you meant 'defenestrated', but your use of the English (and Latin) language is admirable.
Speaking of 'Language' closer to our subject here, @ 59 wrote--
"... Berkly Software Distribution (by M.Z. on 2019-01-21 23:12:42 GMT from United States)...
"...Check with the English department at Berkley if you want to be 100% sure on that one... It may be hard to track down the UC Berkley English department..."
It may be hard indeed to track down the UC 'Berkley' English department.
'BSD" is an abbreviation of BERKELEY Software Distribution. BSD was developed at the University of California at BERKELEY, California, most often shortened to UC BERKELEY.
Even though BSD does not use the term 'UNIX' due to legal restrictions because of ATT's UNIX SVR4, BSD is oftentimes referred to as 'Berkeley Unix'...just not (usually) in print.
115 • Conspiracies etc. (by M.Z. on 2019-01-27 23:54:58 GMT from United States)
@114
So you are saying typos are bad then? Not exactly a huge revelation there, & it's been known to happen everywhere.
@112
"I fail to see what anti-vaxxing has to do with conspiracy theories about ..."
You can't see a connection between deluded conspiracy theorists? Could it be a common way of foolish & ignorant thinking?
While you're going on about lives lost, how many lives have been saved by crackpots? Call me skeptical that it anywhere near what fearmongering conspiracy theorists have destroyed; however, if you can find a widely accepted fact checked source that says otherwise I don't mind being proven wrong on occasion.
Number of Comments: 115
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Litrix Linux
Litrix was a desktop Linux distribution and live DVD based on Gentoo Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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