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I've been using Debian or a Debian derivative for over 15 years. At first, I wondered if it was a good choice because RedHat and SuSE were the "professional" di

I've been using Debian or a Debian derivative for over 15 years. At first, I wondered if it was a good choice because RedHat and SuSE were the "professional" distos. Debian was different and when Ubuntu came out, it was like Debian, but with some useful closed-source stuff. There's been drama, but it's not nearly so bad as some of the evolution that MacOS and Windows users have had to deal with. The security improvements on MacOS have really made doing simple things like a Zoom conference painful while Windows userspace is devolving to something that reminds me of Linux in 2005 or so where every window had it's own UI style and the userspace was a mess of competing ideas and ecosystems. Meanwhile over on Debian/Ubuntu/PopOS/Plasma, I can finally run the latest games (thank you Steam & Proton!), edit video with pro grade tools (thank you DaVinci) and I still have a great coding environment... Oh, and thanks to cloud based office software, that's no longer an issue.

irateswami 6y ago
Ubuntu is seriously an amazing achievement and while I've used plenty of distros, nothing compares in terms of getting work done. I'm not an OS engineer and have no desire to get granular with my OS, I just want to be able to load it up and do stuff. The linux community, however, is loaded with OS-enthusiasts who don't understand the difference between using a tool and fetishizing it.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Recently I’ve been using Linux more, as I used to. Have to say Ubuntu remains the most polished and useful of the distro’s overall. Just works most of the time.
  - ohazi 6y ago
    Maybe, but Ubuntu does have drama like the Amazon search link thing and now uncontrollable auto-updating snap packages, which arguably seem like an absolutely terrible idea for any sort of server. For almost everything, Debian works just as well as Ubuntu, but it's more boring and has less drama.
    - symlinkk 6y ago
      Except for the fact that they don’t include proprietary drivers in the official install image.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Well, that's pretty much the tradeoff you make when you use a distro that is aggressively free software.
        randomsearch 6y ago
        Yeah I wasn’t worrying about that. I don’t think proprietary software is evil.
        ghaff 6y ago
        I don't either but it's a factor that distros take into account.
      - bsd44 6y ago
        They offer non-free images on their website.
bmurphy1976 6y ago
How does MacOS make zoom conferences painful? That's a strange claim to make.
- redler 6y ago
  I suspect they're referring to the fact that after the Zoom app is updated, you may find yourself in a meeting but unable to share a window because the updated app no longer has the "Screen Recording" privacy entitlement. Turning that on again requires quitting the app and therefore leaving the meeting.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    That does sound annoying. Though to be fair, Apple has plenty of reason to distrust Zoom updates. I'm a bit surprised there's no way for Zoom to re-try screen recording without re-launching the app. Is that a fundamental limitation of Apple's security model, or a failure of Zoom?
    - indymike 6y ago
      It is all Apple. When you change a permission, MacOS forces you to quit and re-launch the app.
      - oneplane 6y ago
        It's also all-app: they can change their homemade updater to a normal non-hidden updater and have normal signed distribution that doesn't require any of this re-auth.
  - indymike 6y ago
    This is exactly the issue. It's especially problematic when you are hosting a private meeting. When you exit, it will hang up on everyone, unless you hand control of the conference to a participant.
- indymike 6y ago
  Not a strange claim. Having to exit the conference to give the Zoom app permission to share the screen is painful, and if the Zoom app updates, you have to do it again. That means you have to leave the conference to permission the app, and if you are the host, hand off control to a participant so the conference is not ended early.
apareis 6y ago
This sounds refreshing. I've been trying to convert from Mac to Linux recently and after having tried a couple of distros like Pop and Neon settled on fedora, mostly because of all the modern stuff in there (GNOME on Wayland with zoom supporting it OOTB, btrfs). After having used it for a week intensively, I have experience way too many issues (zoom freezing other windows, firefox crashing when resizing the window and DevTools open where I was thinking is it the React website that I'm just building?, Wifi dropping in the middle of a zoom session and not auto-reconnecting) let alone the different keyboard mapping which I have found too limiting (as everything is done with Ctrl when there are so many other meta keys and Ctrl is just the worst from a positioning perspective as I have to use my little finger instead of thumb like on macOS. Also, fedora asks for too many OS reboots and I don't like to restart the full dev environment all the time. So far, I have converted back to macOS, which is equally bad from UX perspective, especially the hardened security - I just don't want to opt into every program getting the permission to run, send notifications, access this and that. It's just too much. I think I will give one of the more non-corporate Linux distros a try. Or, maybe it's Pop, but ideally it should be Debian based, just not with the "outdated" experience.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  I moved my Ctrl to the Caps-lock key many years ago, it is decent that way.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    This is a great tip and possible on Windows with AutoHotKey and Mac with Karabinder Elements.
- rantanplan 6y ago
  The problem was not Fedora per se, but GNOME and especially Wayland. Wayland is slightly above vaporware and infested with bugs. Had you chosen Fedora with KDE you'd probably have 0 problems. I'm using it without any drama for 11 years and I keep suggesting it to co-workers and friends. Wayland has done so much harm in the Linux ecosystem and that gives me a lot of grief :(

irateswami 6y ago

Ubuntu is seriously an amazing achievement and while I've used plenty of distros, nothing compares in terms of getting work done. I'm not an OS engineer and have no desire to get granular with my OS, I just want to be able to load it up and do stuff. The linux community, however, is loaded with OS-enthusiasts who don't understand the difference between using a tool and fetishizing it.

randomsearch 6y ago
Recently I’ve been using Linux more, as I used to. Have to say Ubuntu remains the most polished and useful of the distro’s overall. Just works most of the time.
- ohazi 6y ago
  Maybe, but Ubuntu does have drama like the Amazon search link thing and now uncontrollable auto-updating snap packages, which arguably seem like an absolutely terrible idea for any sort of server. For almost everything, Debian works just as well as Ubuntu, but it's more boring and has less drama.
  - symlinkk 6y ago
    Except for the fact that they don’t include proprietary drivers in the official install image.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Well, that's pretty much the tradeoff you make when you use a distro that is aggressively free software.
      - randomsearch 6y ago
        Yeah I wasn’t worrying about that. I don’t think proprietary software is evil.
        ghaff 6y ago
        I don't either but it's a factor that distros take into account.
    - bsd44 6y ago
      They offer non-free images on their website.

bmurphy1976 6y ago

How does MacOS make zoom conferences painful? That's a strange claim to make.

redler 6y ago
I suspect they're referring to the fact that after the Zoom app is updated, you may find yourself in a meeting but unable to share a window because the updated app no longer has the "Screen Recording" privacy entitlement. Turning that on again requires quitting the app and therefore leaving the meeting.
- wtallis 6y ago
  That does sound annoying. Though to be fair, Apple has plenty of reason to distrust Zoom updates. I'm a bit surprised there's no way for Zoom to re-try screen recording without re-launching the app. Is that a fundamental limitation of Apple's security model, or a failure of Zoom?
  - indymike 6y ago
    It is all Apple. When you change a permission, MacOS forces you to quit and re-launch the app.
    - oneplane 6y ago
      It's also all-app: they can change their homemade updater to a normal non-hidden updater and have normal signed distribution that doesn't require any of this re-auth.
- indymike 6y ago
  This is exactly the issue. It's especially problematic when you are hosting a private meeting. When you exit, it will hang up on everyone, unless you hand control of the conference to a participant.
indymike 6y ago
Not a strange claim. Having to exit the conference to give the Zoom app permission to share the screen is painful, and if the Zoom app updates, you have to do it again. That means you have to leave the conference to permission the app, and if you are the host, hand off control to a participant so the conference is not ended early.

apareis 6y ago

This sounds refreshing. I've been trying to convert from Mac to Linux recently and after having tried a couple of distros like Pop and Neon settled on fedora, mostly because of all the modern stuff in there (GNOME on Wayland with zoom supporting it OOTB, btrfs). After having used it for a week intensively, I have experience way too many issues (zoom freezing other windows, firefox crashing when resizing the window and DevTools open where I was thinking is it the React website that I'm just building?, Wifi dropping in the middle of a zoom session and not auto-reconnecting) let alone the different keyboard mapping which I have found too limiting (as everything is done with Ctrl when there are so many other meta keys and Ctrl is just the worst from a positioning perspective as I have to use my little finger instead of thumb like on macOS. Also, fedora asks for too many OS reboots and I don't like to restart the full dev environment all the time. So far, I have converted back to macOS, which is equally bad from UX perspective, especially the hardened security - I just don't want to opt into every program getting the permission to run, send notifications, access this and that. It's just too much. I think I will give one of the more non-corporate Linux distros a try. Or, maybe it's Pop, but ideally it should be Debian based, just not with the "outdated" experience.

mixmastamyk 6y ago
I moved my Ctrl to the Caps-lock key many years ago, it is decent that way.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  This is a great tip and possible on Windows with AutoHotKey and Mac with Karabinder Elements.
rantanplan 6y ago
The problem was not Fedora per se, but GNOME and especially Wayland. Wayland is slightly above vaporware and infested with bugs. Had you chosen Fedora with KDE you'd probably have 0 problems. I'm using it without any drama for 11 years and I keep suggesting it to co-workers and friends. Wayland has done so much harm in the Linux ecosystem and that gives me a lot of grief :(