6 ms·

Debian Testing (Stretch) with all its defaults, including its default desktop environment (Gnome 3).

by gkop 10y ago

antirez 10y ago
I admit it's a few years at this point I don't use a Linux box as my desktop. Is it at a point where, to do all the obvious things like, use Skype, configure a printer, have a decent presentation or video editing software, update my system without hacking with the drivers, I can just have it? My fear is that I'll not be able to do everything I do with my Mac now. A solution could be to install Windows 10 in dual boot maybe, to use commercial software (for video editing, just to make an example, but others may want to do gaming). Trivia: I used only Linux for more than a decade, but I quit and went to macbook because it was a bit like fighting with the system to do basic stuff.
- minitech 10y ago
  Skype for Linux has a release that’s up-to-date with the Mac and Windows ones now. Can’t help you with presentation or video editing software, though.
  - antirez 10y ago
    Thanks, I think that, while I still have a Macbook that will last a couple of years, I'll install a Linux installation in dual boot so that I can start to understand where I'm headed...
  - bonyt 10y ago
    Blender has a surprisingly good general-purpose video editor built in.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  As for video editing software: this may sound strange, but I've seen several people, some of them VFX professionals, recommend Blender as a very good tool. (Perhaps it's not so surprising when you consider it's been used for editing several feature-length movies.) For presentation software: personally I've completely switched to HTML5 based presentations (with reveal.js generated from markdown with pandoc), because even in 2016 I still see professionals at big conferences fail at playing back videos, or just plain hanging their Windows computers, when using PowerPoint. But when was the last time a video failed to play in your browser?
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Skype on linux works well, last I checked. Configuring a printer is pretty good, actually: for the most part, you plug it in, and it Just Works™. Networked printers are another matter, but by no meand impossible. Presentation on Linux can be handled by LibreOffice, Google Slides, or Reveal.js (which has become increasingly popular with developers of late) I've never had trouble with updating my system, and I'm on ArchLinux. The one thing you may have trouble with is wifi, but if your wifi chip's supported, the rest is most likely good. However, it does depend on your setup. Really, the only thing you might have trouble with is video editing, and even that's not so bad anymore: OpenShot is as good as WMM ever was, and Lightworks, the NLE of choice for many professionals, has a Linux version. As for gaming, I've been gaming on linux since 2011, when Steam on Linux was but a madman's dream. It was possible to play many exellent games (some through wine, some native), and with the dawn of Steam on Linux, that's never been more true.
  - antirez 10y ago
    Thanks, looks like things are better than 7/8 years ago.
    - mverwijs 10y ago
      > Skype on linux works well, last I checked. Nope. They (Skype/Microsoft) have not updated skype in years. It's still version 4.3, and recently on Linux Groupcall is problematic as all the other Skype clients got upgrades. Though digging around for a known workaround to that last problem it appears there is a new alpha-grade update for Skype-on-Linux: https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/Skype-for-Linux-Alpha-and-calling-on-Chrome-amp-Chromebooks/td-p/4434299 https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/Skype-for-Linux-Alpha-a...
      - Chyzwar 10y ago
        Alpha do not work very well. You still can install old 4.3 version, work better than new version under Win 10. Skype need to be some kind of amazing mismanagement where with such simple product they keep losing quality. To compare Curse/Discord for games work and look way better.
- mst 10y ago
  My current setup is Windows 10 on a Thinkpad Helix 2, with full-screen cygwin X11 for ssh-ing into other systems from an environment where I can use fvwm2 to manage my xterms, and a FreeBSD VM running under Hyper-V for when I need a real unix locally. I have no idea at all if that would be remotely close to suitable for you, but, y'know, have a random data point in case it turns out to be helpful.
  - antirez 10y ago
    For me Windows is fine as long as I don't have to deal with viruses, anti viruses, malwares that reconfigure your default search, and stuff like that. It's not that I'm particularly in love with MacOS UI, even if I think it's pretty good/consistent, I could adapt to anything else which is stable and works. Thanks.
    - mst 10y ago
      The only thing that's hit me (so far as I know) in years was an Acrobat Reader 0day that my installed antivirus missed (AVG? I think? years ago) but once I figured out how to sigkill the payload while it was still starting up, Hitman Pro ate it alive in short order. Windows Defender is apparently pretty good but it's never found anything to complain about on my systems except copies of EICAR in a local CPAN mirror. So, for me, as far as I can tell, "don't use IE" plus "don't install random crap you downloaded from the internet" plus "my mail client is mutt under screen on a server" between them are basically sufficient defense these days. How far that generalises I can't really say.
zeveb 10y ago
Well, I prefer a tiling WM over Gnome 3, and I prefer Debian Stable over Testing for anything I need to work on, but that's probably good enough for most folks.
- gkop 10y ago
  I spent two days trying to get Stable (Jessie) to work with Skylake before giving up. Meanwhile Stetch supports Skylake almost perfectly, and is quite stable for professional work; I've seen only one buggy package (ffmpeg), and it was easily rolled back, and ultimately fixed in just a couple weeks. I do use Jessie with Broadwell, and it runs quite well indeed. Gnome 3 is a full desktop environment with pretty good tiling functionality built in and enabled by default.
  - einr 10y ago
    I'm amazingly out of the loop with modern x86 processors (my laptop has a 2008 Core 2 Duo, my desktop has a 2009 Phenom II, and I have not yet felt a need to upgrade) so I gotta ask: what are the issues with supporting a new iteration of an Intel CPU on an OS level? Isn't a generic x86 CPU a generic x86 CPU that runs anything you throw at it anymore?
    - DowsingSpoon 10y ago
      The newer CPUs include fancy power management features. Operating system participation is needed to make the most of that.

Debian Testing (Stretch) with all its defaults, including its default desktop environment (Gnome 3).

by gkop 10y ago

Debian Testing (Stretch) with all its defaults, including its default desktop environment (Gnome 3).

I admit it's a few years at this point I don't use a Linux box as my desktop. Is it at a point where, to do all the obvious things like, use Skype, configure a printer, have a decent presentation or video editing software, update my system without hacking with the drivers, I can just have it? My fear is that I'll not be able to do everything I do with my Mac now. A solution could be to install Windows 10 in dual boot maybe, to use commercial software (for video editing, just to make an example, but others may want to do gaming). Trivia: I used only Linux for more than a decade, but I quit and went to macbook because it was a bit like fighting with the system to do basic stuff.

minitech 10y ago
Skype for Linux has a release that’s up-to-date with the Mac and Windows ones now. Can’t help you with presentation or video editing software, though.
- antirez 10y ago
  Thanks, I think that, while I still have a Macbook that will last a couple of years, I'll install a Linux installation in dual boot so that I can start to understand where I'm headed...
- bonyt 10y ago
  Blender has a surprisingly good general-purpose video editor built in.
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
As for video editing software: this may sound strange, but I've seen several people, some of them VFX professionals, recommend Blender as a very good tool. (Perhaps it's not so surprising when you consider it's been used for editing several feature-length movies.) For presentation software: personally I've completely switched to HTML5 based presentations (with reveal.js generated from markdown with pandoc), because even in 2016 I still see professionals at big conferences fail at playing back videos, or just plain hanging their Windows computers, when using PowerPoint. But when was the last time a video failed to play in your browser?
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Skype on linux works well, last I checked. Configuring a printer is pretty good, actually: for the most part, you plug it in, and it Just Works™. Networked printers are another matter, but by no meand impossible. Presentation on Linux can be handled by LibreOffice, Google Slides, or Reveal.js (which has become increasingly popular with developers of late) I've never had trouble with updating my system, and I'm on ArchLinux. The one thing you may have trouble with is wifi, but if your wifi chip's supported, the rest is most likely good. However, it does depend on your setup. Really, the only thing you might have trouble with is video editing, and even that's not so bad anymore: OpenShot is as good as WMM ever was, and Lightworks, the NLE of choice for many professionals, has a Linux version. As for gaming, I've been gaming on linux since 2011, when Steam on Linux was but a madman's dream. It was possible to play many exellent games (some through wine, some native), and with the dawn of Steam on Linux, that's never been more true.
- antirez 10y ago
  Thanks, looks like things are better than 7/8 years ago.
  - mverwijs 10y ago
    > Skype on linux works well, last I checked. Nope. They (Skype/Microsoft) have not updated skype in years. It's still version 4.3, and recently on Linux Groupcall is problematic as all the other Skype clients got upgrades. Though digging around for a known workaround to that last problem it appears there is a new alpha-grade update for Skype-on-Linux: https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/Skype-for-Linux-Alpha-and-calling-on-Chrome-amp-Chromebooks/td-p/4434299 https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/Skype-for-Linux-Alpha-a...
    - Chyzwar 10y ago
      Alpha do not work very well. You still can install old 4.3 version, work better than new version under Win 10. Skype need to be some kind of amazing mismanagement where with such simple product they keep losing quality. To compare Curse/Discord for games work and look way better.
mst 10y ago
My current setup is Windows 10 on a Thinkpad Helix 2, with full-screen cygwin X11 for ssh-ing into other systems from an environment where I can use fvwm2 to manage my xterms, and a FreeBSD VM running under Hyper-V for when I need a real unix locally. I have no idea at all if that would be remotely close to suitable for you, but, y'know, have a random data point in case it turns out to be helpful.
- antirez 10y ago
  For me Windows is fine as long as I don't have to deal with viruses, anti viruses, malwares that reconfigure your default search, and stuff like that. It's not that I'm particularly in love with MacOS UI, even if I think it's pretty good/consistent, I could adapt to anything else which is stable and works. Thanks.
  - mst 10y ago
    The only thing that's hit me (so far as I know) in years was an Acrobat Reader 0day that my installed antivirus missed (AVG? I think? years ago) but once I figured out how to sigkill the payload while it was still starting up, Hitman Pro ate it alive in short order. Windows Defender is apparently pretty good but it's never found anything to complain about on my systems except copies of EICAR in a local CPAN mirror. So, for me, as far as I can tell, "don't use IE" plus "don't install random crap you downloaded from the internet" plus "my mail client is mutt under screen on a server" between them are basically sufficient defense these days. How far that generalises I can't really say.

zeveb 10y ago

Well, I prefer a tiling WM over Gnome 3, and I prefer Debian Stable over Testing for anything I need to work on, but that's probably good enough for most folks.

gkop 10y ago
I spent two days trying to get Stable (Jessie) to work with Skylake before giving up. Meanwhile Stetch supports Skylake almost perfectly, and is quite stable for professional work; I've seen only one buggy package (ffmpeg), and it was easily rolled back, and ultimately fixed in just a couple weeks. I do use Jessie with Broadwell, and it runs quite well indeed. Gnome 3 is a full desktop environment with pretty good tiling functionality built in and enabled by default.
- einr 10y ago
  I'm amazingly out of the loop with modern x86 processors (my laptop has a 2008 Core 2 Duo, my desktop has a 2009 Phenom II, and I have not yet felt a need to upgrade) so I gotta ask: what are the issues with supporting a new iteration of an Intel CPU on an OS level? Isn't a generic x86 CPU a generic x86 CPU that runs anything you throw at it anymore?
  - DowsingSpoon 10y ago
    The newer CPUs include fancy power management features. Operating system participation is needed to make the most of that.