The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.

[Ares Land]

@Travis: nice !

A question for our linux users: which distro are you currently using?

I've been a Ubuntu user for ages.. but the general slowness and bloatedness is a annoying. I've had boot times close to 1 minute and general unresponsiveness on a cheap, but very recent hardware. Come on, we're in 2021. I currently run MX Linux (very good except that it's ugly as sin) and Manjaro (OK, I guess, but for all the hype, the package manage seems substandard.)

[Travis B.]

I've been a long-time Debian user, since 2002. Before then I used LinuxPPC, an offshoot of rather earlyish RedHat that was specifically for PowerPC (read: Mac) machines.

[bradrn]

@Travis: nice !

A question for our linux users: which distro are you currently using?

I've been a Ubuntu user for ages.. but the general slowness and bloatedness is a annoying. I've had boot times close to 1 minute and general unresponsiveness on a cheap, but very recent hardware. Come on, we're in 2021. I currently run MX Linux (very good except that it's ugly as sin) and Manjaro (OK, I guess, but for all the hype, the package manage seems substandard.)

Right up until yesterday, Windows, as well as Ubuntu in a VM on those occasions when I absolutely had to use Linux. But yesterday, I was a bit bored, and decided that it might be interesting to try installing a Linux distribution from scratch, in the hopes that I might learn a bit more about how Linux works on a lower level. I looked at a bunch of distributions, and eventually settled on Arch, mostly because it’s widely considered an ‘expert’ Linux distribution and has a very manual installation process. (Also, because I use MSYS2/MinGW, which is based on Arch, so I’m not a complete newcomer to it.)

The experience was… interesting, to say the least. I had very wisely decided to do it all in VirtualBox, so I could get rid of the installation when I inevitably got it irrecoverably messed up. And this indeed happened several times — once when I messed up the timezone configuration (of all things!) and couldn’t fix it, then several times when I defined my partitions incorrectly, and once again when I forgot to give my new installation internet access and thus couldn’t install anything. But as I followed through the installation guide, I started to slowly ‘catch on’ to how things work, stopped making so many mistakes and started being able to fix the ones I did make, and eventually managed to get all the way to having a (semi-)complete Arch Linux installation running XMonad, which is where I am now. Admittedly, I have no idea what I’ll be using it for, but I learnt a lot just from installing it.

[rotting bones]

These days, I've been reduced to enabling the Windows Subsystem for Linux and installing Ubuntu from Microsoft Store. I'd switch to a Linux machine if I were running a server.

[Travis B.]

I'm the opposite way around. When I first got this machine (as I did not build it myself) it came with Windows (and thus was licensed for Windows to begin with). So the first thing I did was wipe the hard drive and install both Windows and Debian on it. Since then, I have never used Windows on here - it has been a complete waste of hard drive space, such that I almost regret reinstalling it on here.

[Nortaneous]

I run Windows because I don't care anymore. I'm planning to get a desktop soon (I've only used laptops for the last ten years), and since most of the bad experiences I've had with Linux involved configuration or package management, I'll probably dualboot with NixOS or something. I used to run Arch but it was a pain in the ass.

But maybe it doesn't make sense to get a desktop yet? My uninformed guess is that the expected useful lifetime of a desktop has been getting longer, which is why I'm thinking of getting one in the first place - ideally it'd last me ten years. I don't know anything about hardware, though - how likely is it that a very good 2021 desktop will still be decent in 2031? Would it be better to wait a few more years for more Moore's Law slowdown or whatever?

[Ares Land]

I'm the opposite way around. When I first got this machine (as I did not build it myself) it came with Windows (and thus was licensed for Windows to begin with). So the first thing I did was wipe the hard drive and install both Windows and Debian on it. Since then, I have never used Windows on here - it has been a complete waste of hard drive space, such that I almost regret reinstalling it on here.

Same. I have specific issues with some Linux distros, but most of them work very well out of the box for most purposes. Whereas Windows's just a pain in the ass these days.

I don't get why there aren't more desktop Linux users.
Windows 2000 and XP were pretty good. Except it was still quite a bit of work out of the box, as you had to at the very least install a sensible browser and anti-malware/anti-virus. The alternatives were expensive (Apple) or required a lot of fiddling around (I was a early Ubuntu adopter. Installation suddenly got orders of magnitude easier, but I still couldn't get WiFi to work...)
Windows 10's a horror -- except at work, where it works well because people are paid to handle the ugly updates / licensing stuff for you.
I switched to Apple back when they sold overpriced but insanely cool stuff. Now, it's just overpriced.

Desktop Linux got really good in the interval though.

[Raphael]

I don't get why there aren't more desktop Linux users.

I'd say to a large extent it's lack of special interest software.

I used to be a very enthusiastic and evangelizing Linux user. Now I'm at a point where I still use Linux myself, but wouldn't recommend it to others anymore. There are all kinds of reasons for that, but one involves a kind of "revelation" I had years ago.

It was while I had an appointment with an ophthalmologist. When the ophthalmologist wasn't looking deeply into my eyes, he was doing stuff on a computer. I remember thinking "I bet that whatever special ophthalmology software he's using is only available for Windows and perhaps the Mac". And that was when it hit me just how big the "software gap" is, just how much software some people need is simply Windows or Mac or Windows-and-Mac only.

Sure, most people aren't ophthalmologists. But most people - in fact, all people - are something that most people aren't. And if you belong to any specific group of people that needs a specific type of specialist software for work or a hobby or other personal interest or simply to use computers at all, chances are that this specialist software is only available for Windows or the Mac or both of those.

[Ryusenshi]

I use Linux Mint on this laptop. I used to have Ubuntu, but changed after they switched to Unity (apparently they're back to Gnome?).

On my desktop I have a dual boot Linux Mint and Windows: the latter is mostly for gaming.

[Travis B.]

I don't get why there aren't more desktop Linux users.

I'd say to a large extent it's lack of special interest software.

For what I do, whether at home or at work, there is no reason I couldn't use Linux (even though I use Windows at work, because all my coworkers use Windows). For my own purposes, the main specialized software I use is the ARM toolchain, GNU Emacs, and git, which run on Linux; I also use Spotify, Discord, and Skype, which also have Linux versions. Similarly, at work I use IntelliJ, Visual Studio Code, Tomcat, git, node.js, npm, and OpenJDK, all of which have versions for Linux (the main tool I use that is Windows-specific is TortoiseGit, but I mostly use command-line git anyways).

[alynnidalar]

I don't get why there aren't more desktop Linux users.

I'd say to a large extent it's lack of special interest software.

When videogames start being routinely released for Linux, I'll consider switching

[Ares Land]

Oh, I thought Steam being available had kind of solved that issue.

(I haven't really played since... oh, 2002?)

[Ryusenshi]

Nah. Steam only manages your collection and installs: the games still have to run on your actual OS. Some games are available on Linux, but they're a minority.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Speaking of video games, I've just successfully "modded" an old NA SNES to play Japanese games. I say "modded" because this entailed taking it apart and physically removing (with some pliers and violence) a pair of plastic tags. Old-style region locking — simply don't make the cartridge fit (the cartridges also look rather different, but I've done a playtest, and the Japanese game itself now works). Now I need to get a remote control for the television so I can adjust the aspect ratio and picture size since a chunk of the screen now gets clipped off. I tried using the menu button on the television itself (I got it secondhand, so without the remote) and the option isn't there.

I feel mild annoyance with Sylvania now. Technology is both wonderful, and awful.

Oh, well, the cartridge (guy selling it thought it might not have been played it looked so pristine,but there was save data; somebody played through it at least once since the file's at the end of the game; this is neither here nor there — I bought it to play it, not for the collector's value, and it wasn't half the price of an overinflated Gamestop stock).

[Raphael]

Speaking of video games, I've just successfully "modded" an old NA SNES to play Japanese games. I say "modded" because this entailed taking it apart and physically removing (with some pliers and violence) a pair of plastic tags. Old-style region locking — simply don't make the cartridge fit (the cartridges also look rather different, but I've done a playtest, and the Japanese game itself now works).

I'm duly impressed.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Speaking of video games, I've just successfully "modded" an old NA SNES to play Japanese games. I say "modded" because this entailed taking it apart and physically removing (with some pliers and violence) a pair of plastic tags. Old-style region locking — simply don't make the cartridge fit (the cartridges also look rather different, but I've done a playtest, and the Japanese game itself now works).

I'm duly impressed.

I wish it were more impressive. The things aren't complicated at all. The biggest headache was ordering a weird screwdriver off the Internet.

I worked as an appliance technician once. Most things (unless they're badly-engineered) aren't as complicated as you would think, at least on a superficial level (I can't do anything with the actual computery parts). With a Super Nintendo, it's mostly just the reader, the main boards, and the controller ports. The rest is just a very hardy plastic shell.

[Vilike]

Nah. Steam only manages your collection and installs: the games still have to run on your actual OS. Some games are available on Linux, but they're a minority.

Those games are made available with Steam Play, a manager of compatibility tools (in this case Proton). It is possible to toggle the settings to enable it for all titles. I haven't tested it that extensively, but at least I can again play the games I purchased on my previous OS.

[Ryusenshi]

Speaking of video games, I've just successfully "modded" an old NA SNES to play Japanese games.

Hey, I did the same a few years ago. I modded a PAL SNES to play Japanese games and to run at 60Hz (by default, European models run at 50Hz, so the games are slower). I did the same with a Mega Drive (= Genesis) and a Saturn.

Those games are made available with Steam Play, a manager of compatibility tools (in this case Proton). It is possible to toggle the settings to enable it for all titles. I haven't tested it that extensively, but at least I can again play the games I purchased on my previous OS.

Does it work for the more hardware-demanding games? Games tend to take a big performance hit, because (1) the compatibility layer adds computations, and (2) GPU manufacturers don't always create drivers for Linux (or if they do, they're lower quality, or deliberately downgraded). It may not be a problem for small indie games, but the big 3D tentpoles are another matter.

Then again, I haven't played very much on PC in the past few years, so my remarks may be outdated.

[Qwynegold]

Thanks for the replies for my question about HTML btw. I have been testing this, and it doesn't quite work... If viewing the file in my browser, everything looks as expected. But in Lexique Pro two problems arise. One is that tabs don't work inside pre tags. Using spaces instead of tabs works though. But the other problem is that Japanese text and ÅÄÖ get replaced by random strings. Is there some way to define encoding in the file, or should I give up on this?

[Qwynegold]

I bought it to play it, not for the collector's value, and it wasn't half the price of an overinflated Gamestop stock).

Wait, are you saying that you bought a SNES game cheaply? Was it a crap game?