There’s a bit of controversy regarding Ubuntu that I don’t need to get into but Fedora and Pop!_OS are also really good for Proton support. Ubuntu will work fine but I just prefer not to use it. Maybe you could let him try out the live environment for a couple distros to see what he might like in terms of UI.
All of those are still ancient systems. Arch or opensuse tumbleweed are the only systems that are reasonable for a desktop because they’re rolling releases
Fedora is still pretty frequently and recently up to date with respect to packages and kernel, not sure you’d be losing much over arch.
But the debate to me is also not that important, I’ve been running fedora and have at some few occasions gotten some instabilities due to updates (mostly Nvidia with Wayland) so I can totally understand someone wanting stability and reliability over bleeding edge).
Someone who reviewed Nobara a while back said it best: Arch is bleeding edge while Fedora is cutting edge. Both embrace new things in the Linux world like systemd, Btrfs and PipeWire, but Fedora tries to keep things stable.
I might hop back onto it if my Arch install cakes it.
I don’t know about vanilla Arch, but on Manjaro each update breaks at least one thing. I never had issues with Mint. I wonder if I’d still get more stability from Mint if I installed Plasma on it. Anyway, I already got used to AUR and not having to deal with version upgrades. But I still wouldn’t recommend Arch-based distros when stability is needed.
But that’s not really true. You get temporary stability, and then have to do a massive update which is guaranteed to break shit. Do you have a staging server for your desktop? If not, you’re not actually getting any benefit from waiting to update.
I’d rather do some maintenance every two years than once a month. I just don’t have time or willpower to deal with it because I already have a technical job with computers at work.
Also, last time I did a full upgrade on debian it didn’t break anything. Some distros just do a much better job of testing. Rolling releases have always broken something for me after a while.
The thing that rolling release distros are good for is sanitising upstream when it comes to version compatibility. Gentoo was infamous for that, sooo many things back then were bug-compatible with each other because all other distros would lock versions down and only care about their one particular combination.
Agreed. If you’re sticking to a few games and you’re mostly a hobby gamer then yeah, but I can totally see more hardcore types, pro streamers etc looking at getting rolling release systems simply for the experience especially if they’ve got the money lying around
I second popos and mint. I love fedora but if he is a gamer you want something that will just work (navida built in or a very easy one click mechanism to get it). If he has to research PPAs and installing rpmfussion it will get all too hard very quickly. Also do some expectation setting before hand, research what games he plays work on linux, better he finds out now rather than after 2 hours of pain or getting band for “hacking” because of proton triggered an anti-cheat thing.
Edit: I run fedora on all my machines except my gaming rig which is popos. Fedora works too but popos is hassle a free experience.
Fedora more or less just works. I followed, like, 5 simple steps on the top Google result for “installing nvidia drivers fedora” and that was all it took. No further configuration or fiddling required.
I’ve done it. I agree it can be done very easily. But is relying on all new users entering the right question into google and google returning a correct answer for their distro that is not 7 years out of date the best strategy in the long run?
Any distro that does not offer a option during install or on first boot to just install this stuff with a promt is not new user friendly.
You know what? I’m gonna fucking say it, GNU is a shitty name and that’s why no one uses it! Most people don’t care about credit or accuracy, Linux is just infinitely better than GNU/anything or even just GNU on its own.
Yeah people will download a patched windows iso, go through an extremely complicated install process to have everything the way they want, flip a few bits in windows with some shady ass tool and give up updates instead of just using linux.
Gaming performance on Linux is excellent, I’m getting stable 60FPS on single player games on my old 1050 equipped laptop from 2016 that weren’t even playable on the old Windows install.
Anticheat however is a different story, and CoD DMZ/Zombies is where I spend most of my gaming time so it’s difficult to just give up a Windows install.
Doing all that takes about 2 hours. The shady ass tool is also unnecessary since you can manually change the registry entries. Once it’s done I can install anything by double clicking the exe and it runs 99.9% of the time.
Linux meanwhile only takes half an hour to setup and update (if we are talking about a beginner friendly one like mint cinnamon), but you will use a lot more hours trying to get everything to run. There rarely are good drivers for peripherals, to get even slightly more then the most barebone functions of my logitech gear I have to run a shady github project someone slapped together 3 years ago. The adaptive clock on my laptop doesn’t work, I loose about 2 hours of battery life and the touch pad stops working after a few hours.
I dualboot a win10 ltsc version and mint. By now most stuff runs fine on Linux, but it has taken me 10 times the effort to get to that state compared to windows. And even now I occasionally have to fiddle with wine cause it decides that this specific programm isn’t to its liking. And that’s ignoring the issue it was to run anything with anticheat. That requires a VM with GPU passtrough to even remotely work.
In my experience everything already had drivers installed on linux. I think with the logitech stuff you mean the stupid configuration ui that would perfectly work on linux but they choose to not port it(you can still use it with wine for example). All my keyboards have qmk so that works on linux. A github project is much less shady because you can check the source code. Idk whats wrong with your trackpad. Battery life is hit or miss on linux, i get more hours on linux currently but only after installing some stuff. On ubuntu or mint the battery life should be good out of the box. Anticheat is basically anti-linux so ofc it wont work. For me backwards compatibility is better on linux than windows. When i try to run old software on windows it never works. Software support is pretty good nowadays but some professional stuff wont work. If you do that you should go mac lol.
That’s only an issue if you torrent your stuff in which case linux wont save you. A windows virus/cryptominer/keylogger/etc. won’t natively work on Linux, but it will work if used with wine.
No way the Fedora user figured out how to configure partitions in the installer without having to google it at least five times! I’ve installed Fedora a few times over the years, and that UI still makes no sense to me!
Huh. I had the complete opposite experience. I found fedora’s manual partitioner to be the worst of any distro I’ve ever used (I had trouble understanding it and it always ended up giving me some weird error when trying to finalize the partitioning step). I think I just ended up ditching fedora’s default manual partition manager.
Yeah for some reason whenever i try and install Ubuntu, the installer only sees the primary NVME drive if one is installed. Haven’t had that issue with any other distro
Lol. I tried to google it too and i still am unable to define a custom home partition for my most recent Nobara install. Gave up and just let it automatically create what it needs.
I know a little linux, but obviously I’m still learning. I’ve picked up everything I know on my own, for the most part - internet guides from the linux community tend to be pretty solid, and I know enough to not totally FUBAR my system.
Is there a listing of standard linux directories and what they’re for? Lite /etc, things like that. Because I seem to find bits of different stuff in a variety of directories.
I’ve recently moved to linux on my gaming rig, which is my daily driver - that being said, it is mainly for gaming. Anything can surf the web or play videos and shit, for the most part.
Whenever I try to use GNOME, there never seems to be a setting for the thing I want to do.
I convinced a friend to try Linux once, and she abandoned it because it didn’t have a setting that she needed for her work. Later, when I tried KDE, not only was the setting there, but it was the default.
It really sucks that desktop is the default for so many distros, because most users coming from Mac or Windows don’t even realize they can use a different desktop environment. So, if your only experience with Linux is GNOME, and you think “Linux sucks”, I can hardly blame you.
Yeah, KDE is just better in so many ways. When gnome launched kde was built on a not-fully-open-source library, but then they fully open sourced QT, and that was decades ago so now there is no excuse!
Yeah, I personally like it quite a lot, but I do find it confusing that so many distros ship it as a default.
It’s probably THE best linux user experience on a laptop with all the large buttons and gestures, but you have to be ready to adapt to the environment instead of the environment adapting to you.
And it’s a shame, because using it can be quite fun if you know what to expect and what not, but I think there is a significant lack of communication on what are the use cases it has been built for.
Also you have to like/not hate libadwaita, which I know is… controversial
My understanding is the KDE release schedule/development cycle keeps it from being a viable primary desktop environment for non-rolling release distros.
Will you’re almost free from that. I saw 6.7 uses the GSP firmware, so if you have a newer Turing card noveou (can never spell it) will be able to run games.
I keep dual windows on laptop for rare occasions cuz I don’t like dealing with passthrough for special USB cables that require their own drivers on VMs
I do. I wanted to finish something there that I couldn’t easily move to Linux. A DVD project using files scattered accross the system in DVDStyler. I didn’t notice DVDStyler works on Linux.
Now I am basically keeping it due to sunk cost fallancy. It has lots of menus and videos, plus some of them I cut myself. But I don’t even remember where I ended. There was also something about color limitation in menus I wanted to fix. I last shut it down during an update about 2-3 years ago.
But who knows, maybe later at some point…
But I could really use those extra 400GB. I only have 15GiB free right now…
As many seem to have overlooked itb this is from more than a decade ago.
And to those setting “not being toxic” == “being vague”:
Suggestion if you’re in a situation: separate the subject discussed from the person and, to the contrary to what is said in some other posts, be very specific!
Improvised example:
Hey all,
patch xyzz and its aftermath communication is unacceptable.
It’s content is not to the standards we have set here (explain).
Even worse, in the communication aftermath we blamed behavior of user space applications for bugs that are within our domain instead of owning up.
The bugs within the kernel will be focused on with highest priority by a, b and myself.
For the communication: (consequences). As explained the patterns shown here are unacceptable.
I have decided to no longer have x as a kernel maintainer on our team/enforce pairing for all communication/set up stricter consequence catalogue. Any specific action,really…
Not perfect as it’s very early here, I haven’t slept well and I’m not deep into the topic.
Just remember to separate subject to be discussed from person(s) acting please.
And always remember: bad communication is really easy and a lot of managers trained that their whole life! ♥
Reading this version I wouldn’t know the writer is deeply disappointed, frustrated and angry. It’s good you’re trying to improve the letter but this is exactly what many people don’t like about it: it changes the meaning. Perhaps you could include a paragraph which conveys this, such that the reader understands the gravity of the situation better.
I think removing someone’s maintainer status does communicate disappointment in their performance quite well.
And as for anger and frustration, these things really don’t matter in this circumstance. Work is not therapy. If you need to vent anger and frustration, get a therapist. Employees are employed to do their job, not to be the emotional punching bag for a manager who can’t control their temper.
If an employee doesn’t perform to expectations repeatedly and even after you had a few constructive one-on-ones, then demote them or fire them. No need to vent your anger on them and lose your professionalism.
Tbh, the first time a boss of mine loses their temper and verbally attacks a colleague like Linus did here, they have also lost all of my respect for them. And at that moment I will start to look for another job.
I am not and was not advocating for venting - just for communicating emotion. This can be as simple as:
“Your actions have deeply frustrated me and caused great anger on top of [technical reasons]. I would ask that you be more careful in the future.”
This ensures the reader not only understands they hurt Linux with their actions but also another human being. Many people will be more careful if they know they caused personal pain to an actual human being and not just to an abstract technical object such as a codebase.
I know I am going against established cultural norms in western business context - please don’t disregard my proposal just because it contradicts established culture.
I would disagree just because the success of the product (be it closed or open source) shouldn’t be dependent on the feelings of one person. You can be frustrated and angry, but it’s more useful to explain why you feel that way and what can be done to address it. Including your feelings only makes the person not want to do what specifically hurts you, not what is best for the project.
I do understand what you mean, and it makes much more sense than advocating for venting.
But I still feel that putting emotions into a discussion about work performance isn’t the right way, especially when done in public.
In a situation like that where something caused a lot of negative emotions (that go beyond your work performance is bad), I think you should have two separate talks. One about the factual things where one is boss and the other is employee, and one about the hurt/emotions the behaviour caused and in this talk, both are just people resolving their personal problems.
Something like the issue in the OP really shouldn’t cause anger on Linus’ side, since it’s a totally factual issue. A propper response would have been to decline/revert the change while publically saying “This change validates that rule of the project” and then privately contacting the maintainer in question and tell him, “We talked about this repeatedly, if you don’t stop, we need to take consequences.”
Emotions should really only enter the picture when personal offenses where comitted before or maybe if the employee did something with the intent to hurt the project/company/manager.
But if you get really angry because your employee did something wrong, then that’s a problem on the side of the manager and not on the side of the employee.
That said, I think it’s totally ok to tell the employee about the consequences of their actions (“We lost X amount of money” or “It took Y amount of time to correct it” or something like that).
But if you get really angry because your employee did something wrong, then that’s a problem on the side of the manager and not on the side of the employee.
This is probably taught in manager courses in order to protect their subordinates from managerial outbursts, which is a good cause, but they’re not quite right.
The Linux kernel is Torvalds life work. He literally spent most of the time he has on this planet on it, as did thousands others. Instead of watching his children grow, he made sure the planet gets a great operating system. It takes immeasurable effort to keep a vast software project in a good state - most large organisations with many times the resources fail to do so.
The maintainers behaviour represents a complete disregard for this sacrifice. They are showing through their actions that they don’t care that Torvalds and many others spent the little time they have on this planet on this software project instead of more fulfilling and joyful activities. I cannot imagine many more hurtful or disrespectful insults than this. It’s not far from saying their efforts are null and thus their life wasted.
I am saying all of this because I feel that you are speaking as a leader in a company, where you make sure other people’s money is spent productively. This not at all the same thing as what Torvalds is doing, because it’s not just a job, it is his literal life or life’s work.
This doesn’t excuse the behaviour, obviously - but it makes it very human. It’s good that he changed. I just hope we can find a middle ground between forced business speak and emotional outbreaks.
I’m not a manager (used to be team lead, but managing is not for me), but I’ve worked under a few coleric managers and some that where able to communicate in a sensible way.
One of my bosses, for example (that was the job where I was team lead) had a pretty similar style of communication as Linus.
Sure, the company was his life work. But I also started there shortly after the company was founded and I too spent a lot of time and was very emotionally invested in the company and the products. And my boss was just human (and on top didn’t know a lot about the subject), so he made mistakes. And his judgement was often wrong.
But he was never able to accept that he made any mistakes. He’d offload all his mistakes onto some employee, while claiming that every idea that worked out was his, and not the idea of the employee who actually had the idea and had to convince him first. And every time something went wrong, he’d slam the door of some employee open and shouted and swore at that employee.
Turns out, that’s not a great way to encourage people working there. Most of the good people quit after one especially bad explosion of his.
Back to Linus: is it human to be angry that someone disagrees with you? Maybe.
Is it in any way helpful to anyone? Clearly not.
I am pretty sure that anyone who gets to be a maintainer on the Linux kernel is heavily invested and has sacrificed a lot to get there. Attacking them like Linus did, that really renders their life work worthless.
The maintainer did nothing with the purpose to harm the Linux kernel project. He just accepted a change that he thought would improve Linux. Disagreeing on a factual topic with your boss should never trigger an explosion like that.
Oh that was in purpose! It shouldn’t matter that I personally am angry. My employees should never NEVER try to prevent me from being angry but focus on doing the best job they can.
That’s what I admire about Linus: he realized the negative impact his anger had on the performance of others - and fixed it!
To be clear: I can be angry - but my anger isn’t the reason I want things to change. Being angry is MY FAILURE as manager!
Think about it in another way: do you want your colleagues do things they thin prevent you from being disappointed, frustrated or angry - xor do you want then to move your collective goal forward no matter what you’d think.
Another example: if I’d be the one to have caused this communication mess I’d want my employees to call me out - even though I will get angry the moment I realize I’ve fucked up big time!
Ignoring emotions is very unhealthy. I understand that it is seen as desirable in a business context, but it is very unhealthy and detrimental in the long run.
I agree! Making someone aware of your feelings doesn’t mean exploding. You can just tell them. “I am very sad, frustrated and angry due to your actions. Please don’t do this again.” Is very clear and hurts no one.
I apologize - it wasn’t my intention to imply that at all! Emotional self management is a critical skill for managers - and that shouldn’t mean “go away, emotions!”. A trainer and coach I highly respect phrased it simply: “emotions are. They exist if we like them or not.”.
What I intended to convey was “do not use a public platform to channel your emotions.”
If this would’ve been a private conversation I would integrate an explanation of my current situation, feelings and context for my reaction. And also this sounds abstract it can totally be a “dude I’m absolutely pissed. I need you to work with me through this.” (this works btw in both meanings of “pissed” ;)).
Well, anything unpopular that doesn’t use any software (even low-level software) that is also commonly used in popular environments. For example, game consoles, embedded devices or car entertainment systems often use outdated versions of popular browser engines. So to hack these, you don’t need to be a highly skilled hacker, you just need to be able to try some older vulnerabilities.
And there are enough malicious websites that will just automatically check for these vulnerabilities. And then it’s enough to accidentally open one of these malicious websites and even though nobody wrote the hack specifically for your car, you might catch some malware regardless.
For example, when GNU/Linux was unpopular, there was no malware for it; when it became the world’s favourite server software or became a valuable target
I’ve been using Linux for almost 20 years, and AFAIK in all that time I’ve never encountered a Linux virus. OTOH when I run Windows, I hit a virus within the first six months.
Sounds like you have bad habits, I’ve had windows for years and no problems. Just scan with Defender after a download, occasional Malwarebytes scans to make sure, and you’re pretty safe.
Most viruses are written for windows but that doesn’t mean you’re just instantly safe. You can bet as Linux grows they’ll see far more.
Yeah last time I had a windows virus was because I got a bad Photoshop crack. But the virus was just a coin miner. Before that, I hadn’t had a virus in 13 years.
With how much Adobe infects a system, leaving multiple different traces behind even when uninstalled, I think it’s fair to say that Photoshop itself is almost a virus
Genuinely, how can you get rid of all that? How do you even find everything?
The Win10 iso that I definitely legitimately purchased has a ppApps folder that has Photoshop in it; I’ve always just assumed I would be able to delete it from there.
If you don’t have it portable-ized, though, Revo Uninstaller might help. (though I never used it for long enough for the trial to run out, so I don’t know how much it costs)
— When the Indian Amazon support guy sees you’re a junior on your first week and tells you to execute a script to install a software for a video call with him. And you do, but it needs sudo access, so you give it…
— You have sudo power here
Sadly, true story. I never told anyone. My neurons clicked a day after that and I removed everything from the computer. It was too late, they hacked some things but IT just laughed and recovered some backups. They never knew I was the virus all along.
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