5 ms·

I wish there was a UK equivalent. We had Station X for a while, but they seem to have disappeared now. I think System76 have showed that they understand why Li

by Zhyl 5y ago

I wish there was a UK equivalent. We had Station X for a while, but they seem to have disappeared now. I think System76 have showed that they understand why Linux hasn't gone mainstream with the creation and continued 'mild innovation' of Pop_OS!. I call it mild innovation because none of what they are doing is particularly revolutionary, but it does show an insight into modern users. UI tweaks, batteries included Nvidia drivers, excellent branding and targeting on the download page (makes it look genuinely attractive to download) and a load of other small things. At the moment, for these reasons, Pop is being recommended by the Linux Gaming subreddit that offers an easier and better out-of-the-box experience than even previous favourites such as Ubuntu or Mint (which is also based on Ubuntu, as is Pop). I feel like the only other distro that adds a 'cool factor' is Manjaro, and I feel that even though there are a thousand distros, there is still space in the market for more that focus on design and user experience in the way that Pop does.

alias_neo 5y ago
Manjaro has a huge advantage over Pop, Ubuntu, Mint et all for Linix Gaming and that is how new the packages are. I run Ubuntu on my work amd home machines because it's stable enough for working on, but I run Manjaro on my gaming desktop because of all of the recent work on things like Wine, Lutris, VK*, and whatnot, thanks in part to Valve/Steam make playing Windows games on Linux much more reliable.
- istingray 5y ago
  For someone new to all this, what makes Manjaro packages newer? I likely am missing something in the hierarchy of Linux.
  - veidr 5y ago
    That's just the choice Manjaro makes. Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Arch is one of the most popular and widely-respected distributions, but it is a fairly "you should know what you are doing, and do it yourself" kind of distributions. If you haven't done it before, you will have to read some docs and do a few web searches to get a new Arch machine spun up and configured. It's not hard, but it is not point-and-click, and you have to make some choices yourself. Manjaro adds a GUI installer and a "everything is set up for you by default after install" mentality, like Pop OS (or Zorin OS, or Elementary OS, etc). One of the things people love about Arch is the Arch User Repository (AUR). This is a community-maintained collection of software packages that work on Arch. It has a lot of software, and is well-maintained. Manjaro exposes the AUR in an easy-to-use GUI form, and makes it very easy to upgrade to very recent releases. Arch is a "rolling release" distribution, which means there are no big annual or semi-annual major updates, like Ubuntu 21.04, 21.10, etc. So with Manjaro you can easily stay closer to the latest versions of software packages. With Pop OS, since it is based on and trails Ubuntu, and the Ubuntu release cycle is semiannual major updates that tend to update a bunch of things at once, you might lag behind a little more. Note: I'm not an expert on this topic, so corrections welcome; this is just what I learned on a weekend recently while installing Ubuntu, Arch, Manjaro, and Pop OS to decide which one to go with as I moved to Linux from macOS. I chose Pop OS in the end, as I found it the most Mac-like. Coming from macOS, I thought it would be the easiest one to just get started with on Monday, doing my day job work which consists mainly of coding in VS Code, keeping some terminals open, and using Firefox, Brave, Chrome, and Slack and a few web apps. (I'm happy with Pop OS, but since my use case is basically "use the Linux PC as a generic work computer, that runs browsers and common apps on the latest hardware", probably any of the distributions I tried would have worked out well.)
    - istingray 5y ago
      This is helpful, thank you. Proof that it's helpful is that it inspired more questions about the whole Linux ecosystem. Are Arch and Ubuntu independent ie is there a ton of double work happening to build two different operating system. Will be curious to learn more about this as a new Linux user.
  - alias_neo 5y ago
    I think veidr covered it pretty well. Distros like Ubuntu choose a kernel and some package versions at the time they release, e.g. 20.04 (latest LTS) and they don't receive major version updates until the next release. This means that while rolling distros have the latest kernel and packages within days or weeks, Ubuntu et al can be several versions behind, even months/years behind. "Out of date" packages is a stability choice, it means they're more mature and hopefully, better tested, hence Ubuntu having LTS, Long Term Stable, meaning it can be used in important places (like production servers) and a certain level of stability can be expected. Arch pretty much makes sure a package update builds and then releases it, it's up to the user to make sure it's compatible with other packages. Manjaro, I believe does _some_ testing but can still have package conflicts. Pop, Ubuntu etc do more testing and verification, and you can be reasonably certain updates will be compatible.
    - istingray 5y ago
      This is helpful, gives me a sense of an overall flow of packages. And a distro is a snapshot that contains a bunch of those packages. But at some point, say Ubuntu 25.01, it would have the relevant packages of Arch today, it's simply a matter of time. My question I'll be looking into, are distros simply defined by their selection of packages, or is there other unique code/glue that defines a distro.
      - alias_neo 5y ago
        Distros often have their own philosophies on a variety of things. Think of it like baking a cake, if everyone is given a shop full of roughly the same ingredients, each person will make something different with them, picking and choosing different things, icing or creme, blue food colouring or pink. The only part that's fixed is Linux (the kernel). I'm not sure which bit that would be in my analogy, perhaps the flour? Some distros have preferences for desktop environments, some create their own, some allow you to choose between several. Some distros chose not to switch from sysvinit to systemd, they also each have their own packaging system, deb, rpm, nix, apk etc As for the time thing, it's not quite that Ubuntu 25.0X will be what Arch is today. Assuming more development happens between now and then on each package, Ubuntu 25.0X may have packages from 2023-2025. Ubuntu even adds their own patches as they see fit, e.g. cherry-picking Open SSL commits. Here's[0] an interesting read I just came across about why a new kernel might be important for a person gaming on Linux. If you're stuck on Linux 5.2 or 5.3, you won't be getting this "Futex2" change for a while (if it made it into 5.16 for example). If you're on LTS, that could be 2+ years. [0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v5 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v...
istingray 5y ago
I like this take "they understand why Linux hasn't gone mainstream". Agree, Pop OS focuses on getting basics right.
lampington 5y ago
I was checking out Linux laptops last night and came across Star Labs (https://starlabs.systems/ https://starlabs.systems/) who look pretty interesting. They're based in the UK and seem to be focusing on thoroughly testing their machines on as many Linux variants as possible. However, they don't seem to offer machines with serious graphics cards -- Intel only. That's fine for me, but you mention Nvidia and gaming so perhaps a deal breaker for you.
- istingray 5y ago
  Interesting to compare that strategy to System76. Test machines on as many Linux variants as possible vs create a Linux distro optimized for your hardware. The first seems easy (anyone can do testing), but somewhat powerless and something customers can do themselves. The latter seems powerful (custom software, something target users don't want to do) but expensive (dev time).
  - lampington 5y ago
    Anyone can test, true, but you need the machine in front of you to do it. There's definitely value in knowing before you buy that the manufacturer has made sure that their hardware works with your favourite distro -- and that they've chosen components specifically to make that the case. That's information you can't get about most other laptops, apart from the ones that are so popular that someone somewhere has blogged their experience.
bklaasen 5y ago
Has Entroware come up on your radar? They also sell rebranded Clevo laptops AFAIK. https://www.entroware.com/store/ https://www.entroware.com/store/

by Zhyl 5y ago

alias_neo 5y ago

Manjaro has a huge advantage over Pop, Ubuntu, Mint et all for Linix Gaming and that is how new the packages are. I run Ubuntu on my work amd home machines because it's stable enough for working on, but I run Manjaro on my gaming desktop because of all of the recent work on things like Wine, Lutris, VK*, and whatnot, thanks in part to Valve/Steam make playing Windows games on Linux much more reliable.

istingray 5y ago
For someone new to all this, what makes Manjaro packages newer? I likely am missing something in the hierarchy of Linux.
- veidr 5y ago
  That's just the choice Manjaro makes. Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Arch is one of the most popular and widely-respected distributions, but it is a fairly "you should know what you are doing, and do it yourself" kind of distributions. If you haven't done it before, you will have to read some docs and do a few web searches to get a new Arch machine spun up and configured. It's not hard, but it is not point-and-click, and you have to make some choices yourself. Manjaro adds a GUI installer and a "everything is set up for you by default after install" mentality, like Pop OS (or Zorin OS, or Elementary OS, etc). One of the things people love about Arch is the Arch User Repository (AUR). This is a community-maintained collection of software packages that work on Arch. It has a lot of software, and is well-maintained. Manjaro exposes the AUR in an easy-to-use GUI form, and makes it very easy to upgrade to very recent releases. Arch is a "rolling release" distribution, which means there are no big annual or semi-annual major updates, like Ubuntu 21.04, 21.10, etc. So with Manjaro you can easily stay closer to the latest versions of software packages. With Pop OS, since it is based on and trails Ubuntu, and the Ubuntu release cycle is semiannual major updates that tend to update a bunch of things at once, you might lag behind a little more. Note: I'm not an expert on this topic, so corrections welcome; this is just what I learned on a weekend recently while installing Ubuntu, Arch, Manjaro, and Pop OS to decide which one to go with as I moved to Linux from macOS. I chose Pop OS in the end, as I found it the most Mac-like. Coming from macOS, I thought it would be the easiest one to just get started with on Monday, doing my day job work which consists mainly of coding in VS Code, keeping some terminals open, and using Firefox, Brave, Chrome, and Slack and a few web apps. (I'm happy with Pop OS, but since my use case is basically "use the Linux PC as a generic work computer, that runs browsers and common apps on the latest hardware", probably any of the distributions I tried would have worked out well.)
  - istingray 5y ago
    This is helpful, thank you. Proof that it's helpful is that it inspired more questions about the whole Linux ecosystem. Are Arch and Ubuntu independent ie is there a ton of double work happening to build two different operating system. Will be curious to learn more about this as a new Linux user.
- alias_neo 5y ago
  I think veidr covered it pretty well. Distros like Ubuntu choose a kernel and some package versions at the time they release, e.g. 20.04 (latest LTS) and they don't receive major version updates until the next release. This means that while rolling distros have the latest kernel and packages within days or weeks, Ubuntu et al can be several versions behind, even months/years behind. "Out of date" packages is a stability choice, it means they're more mature and hopefully, better tested, hence Ubuntu having LTS, Long Term Stable, meaning it can be used in important places (like production servers) and a certain level of stability can be expected. Arch pretty much makes sure a package update builds and then releases it, it's up to the user to make sure it's compatible with other packages. Manjaro, I believe does _some_ testing but can still have package conflicts. Pop, Ubuntu etc do more testing and verification, and you can be reasonably certain updates will be compatible.
  - istingray 5y ago
    This is helpful, gives me a sense of an overall flow of packages. And a distro is a snapshot that contains a bunch of those packages. But at some point, say Ubuntu 25.01, it would have the relevant packages of Arch today, it's simply a matter of time. My question I'll be looking into, are distros simply defined by their selection of packages, or is there other unique code/glue that defines a distro.
    - alias_neo 5y ago
      Distros often have their own philosophies on a variety of things. Think of it like baking a cake, if everyone is given a shop full of roughly the same ingredients, each person will make something different with them, picking and choosing different things, icing or creme, blue food colouring or pink. The only part that's fixed is Linux (the kernel). I'm not sure which bit that would be in my analogy, perhaps the flour? Some distros have preferences for desktop environments, some create their own, some allow you to choose between several. Some distros chose not to switch from sysvinit to systemd, they also each have their own packaging system, deb, rpm, nix, apk etc As for the time thing, it's not quite that Ubuntu 25.0X will be what Arch is today. Assuming more development happens between now and then on each package, Ubuntu 25.0X may have packages from 2023-2025. Ubuntu even adds their own patches as they see fit, e.g. cherry-picking Open SSL commits. Here's[0] an interesting read I just came across about why a new kernel might be important for a person gaming on Linux. If you're stuck on Linux 5.2 or 5.3, you won't be getting this "Futex2" change for a while (if it made it into 5.16 for example). If you're on LTS, that could be 2+ years. [0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v5 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v...

istingray 5y ago

I like this take "they understand why Linux hasn't gone mainstream". Agree, Pop OS focuses on getting basics right.

lampington 5y ago

I was checking out Linux laptops last night and came across Star Labs (https://starlabs.systems/ https://starlabs.systems/) who look pretty interesting. They're based in the UK and seem to be focusing on thoroughly testing their machines on as many Linux variants as possible. However, they don't seem to offer machines with serious graphics cards -- Intel only. That's fine for me, but you mention Nvidia and gaming so perhaps a deal breaker for you.

istingray 5y ago
Interesting to compare that strategy to System76. Test machines on as many Linux variants as possible vs create a Linux distro optimized for your hardware. The first seems easy (anyone can do testing), but somewhat powerless and something customers can do themselves. The latter seems powerful (custom software, something target users don't want to do) but expensive (dev time).
- lampington 5y ago
  Anyone can test, true, but you need the machine in front of you to do it. There's definitely value in knowing before you buy that the manufacturer has made sure that their hardware works with your favourite distro -- and that they've chosen components specifically to make that the case. That's information you can't get about most other laptops, apart from the ones that are so popular that someone somewhere has blogged their experience.

bklaasen 5y ago

Has Entroware come up on your radar? They also sell rebranded Clevo laptops AFAIK. https://www.entroware.com/store/ https://www.entroware.com/store/