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Where do I learn modern desktop Linux? I am using it on servers since 1993 and used for desktop 2004-2017 (and was very unhappy with it) so my desktop knowledge

by chx 3y ago

Where do I learn modern desktop Linux? I am using it on servers since 1993 and used for desktop 2004-2017 (and was very unhappy with it) so my desktop knowledge is severely outdated.

blkhawk 3y ago
I would be really interested what you were unhappy with? the only major thing that truely changed after 2017 was that wine became almost universally compatible. It was freakish how little issues i had in 2019 when i switched completely.
- antod 3y ago
  2017 was in the early phase of pretty disruptive era with Linux - eg systemd, audio, wayland, app sandboxes etc etc. I get the feeling things are settling now, and stabilising / consolidating into a better place overall with less churn. But for a while things weren't as stable as they typically were before that.
  - blkhawk 3y ago
    I tried wayland maybe a little over a year ago and the copy and paste behavior was bad enough to switch back. I recently switched to get freesync to work on multimonitor and the issue is now manageable. app sandboxes I fell less positive about - I dislike them since I think they are only fixing stuff that is already unaceptable to happen. As for audio - yes while pulseaudio was working i remember some issues with that (mostly related to s/pdiv). This also has lessened with pipewire.
- chx 3y ago
  Some experiences Ubuntu distupgrade breaks my machine so badly I need to spend days putting it together again Switched to Arch Upgrade. Bluetooth breaks. MFC device breaks. One of the two almost always. Compared to this the only thing I dislike with Windows upgrades is how it can wake up the machine even from S0 state (wtf!) to upgrade and reboot. But aside from that, it's a complete nonevent when it upgrades. It's been near six years and I never had an issue. I had a client using an F5 VPN requiring MFA and there was no MFA support except on Windows. I got it working with an old Firefox running as root (because that supported old style extensions and I managed to find an old extension that worked). The only question regarding this setup was from the head of IT at this company asking but not receiving any responses on how to do this. Weird enterprise wifi always a headache. I just got a GPD G1. Here's my experience getting it to work: 1. Plug in power. 2. Plug in the Thunderbolt cable 3. Install AMD Adrenaline driver only (only step that requires a tiny bit of expertise -- don't install all the stuff) 4. Reboot 5. It works. 6. If I unplug it, machine goes back to the nVidia GPU inside the laptop. No fuss. Tell me true, is this going to work on Linux ? I seriously doubt.
LeJC 3y ago
This is almost me. I used Linux on and off over the last 15 years. Mostly in servers, but I often installed a linux partition to try it out. I always went back to windows since windows was much simpler and I thought KDE and Gnome was similar anyway, I didn't see any benefit in switching. I permanently switched to Linux in august. I found out about window managers and now I see a real benefit on using Linux over Windows. As much as I'm forced to use windows at work and I try to emulate the functionalities of a WM. What helped me is support for most of my devices. Linux progressed a lot in the last few years.
- chx 3y ago
  Can you hotplug a GPU or do you need to still (effectively) reboot? (I know it's only the windowmanager that needed a restart but if all programs run under then, well.)
  - LeJC 3y ago
    What do you mean? Switching between integrated and dedicated GPU? Or opening your case and directly removing or adding a GPU? If its the first, I think there is support for this. There's NVIDIA optimus for NVIDIA for instance. The second one, I never thought it could be a use case, even less that Windows would even support that. I always turn off my computer to do anything on my motherboard.
    - chx 3y ago
      I mean eGPU over Thunderbolt.
      - LeJC 3y ago
        Oh yeah, didn't think of that one. Following what's written on arch wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/External_GPU https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/External_GPU, Xorg doesn't support it and never will. Wayland seems to support it, but I don't know what it implies in use. The issues for KDE, Gnome and wlroot are all mergred.
orangepurple 3y ago
Install Gentoo if you want to learn how a modern functional Linux system is put together
stevenjgarner 3y ago
Depends on your focus. If it is privacy or security, you may want to consider Tails and Qubes OS recommended by Edward Snowden. [1] https://tails.net/ https://tails.net/ [2] https://www.qubes-os.org/ https://www.qubes-os.org/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8-B9d7iz1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8-B9d7iz1A
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Qubes is cool, but Tails is for Tor and is meant to be a boot-from-live-cd or flash drive. The whole point is that you want all instances of Tails to look the same on the network so they can't fingerprint you. Once you start making it a daily driver, picking up a lot of cookies, making it your own, etc. then the point of using it is moot.
trey-jones 3y ago
I'm not sure what there is to learn, if you have a good working knowledge of Linux servers. This is exactly why I prefer the terminal to any of the GUI components that may exist. Much more stable interface. As far as programs that I use daily, other than a few obscure VPN clients, I've rarely, if ever, needed anything that I couldn't find on AUR. For that reason and for reasons of having up-to-date software available, I like something in the Arch family for Desktop use. On the other hand, .deb packages are often available for more obscure software like those VPN clients...
- twic 3y ago
  > I'm not sure what there is to learn, if you have a good working knowledge of Linux servers. Everything about the graphics and windowing stack, for starters. Why isn't my external display being detected after waking from sleep? Why is it always set to the wrong resolution at boot? Why doesn't VLC have any controls? Why is this simple Unity game suddenly running at 2 fps? Thermal management, CPU governors, that sort of thing. Not really an issue on servers, occasionally misbehaving on laptops. Occasional stuff around device connectivity - bluetooth speakers, NetworkManager, etc.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by chx 3y ago

Where do I learn modern desktop Linux? I am using it on servers since 1993 and used for desktop 2004-2017 (and was very unhappy with it) so my desktop knowledge is severely outdated.

blkhawk 3y ago

I would be really interested what you were unhappy with? the only major thing that truely changed after 2017 was that wine became almost universally compatible. It was freakish how little issues i had in 2019 when i switched completely.

antod 3y ago
2017 was in the early phase of pretty disruptive era with Linux - eg systemd, audio, wayland, app sandboxes etc etc. I get the feeling things are settling now, and stabilising / consolidating into a better place overall with less churn. But for a while things weren't as stable as they typically were before that.
- blkhawk 3y ago
  I tried wayland maybe a little over a year ago and the copy and paste behavior was bad enough to switch back. I recently switched to get freesync to work on multimonitor and the issue is now manageable. app sandboxes I fell less positive about - I dislike them since I think they are only fixing stuff that is already unaceptable to happen. As for audio - yes while pulseaudio was working i remember some issues with that (mostly related to s/pdiv). This also has lessened with pipewire.
chx 3y ago
Some experiences Ubuntu distupgrade breaks my machine so badly I need to spend days putting it together again Switched to Arch Upgrade. Bluetooth breaks. MFC device breaks. One of the two almost always. Compared to this the only thing I dislike with Windows upgrades is how it can wake up the machine even from S0 state (wtf!) to upgrade and reboot. But aside from that, it's a complete nonevent when it upgrades. It's been near six years and I never had an issue. I had a client using an F5 VPN requiring MFA and there was no MFA support except on Windows. I got it working with an old Firefox running as root (because that supported old style extensions and I managed to find an old extension that worked). The only question regarding this setup was from the head of IT at this company asking but not receiving any responses on how to do this. Weird enterprise wifi always a headache. I just got a GPD G1. Here's my experience getting it to work: 1. Plug in power. 2. Plug in the Thunderbolt cable 3. Install AMD Adrenaline driver only (only step that requires a tiny bit of expertise -- don't install all the stuff) 4. Reboot 5. It works. 6. If I unplug it, machine goes back to the nVidia GPU inside the laptop. No fuss. Tell me true, is this going to work on Linux ? I seriously doubt.

LeJC 3y ago

This is almost me. I used Linux on and off over the last 15 years. Mostly in servers, but I often installed a linux partition to try it out. I always went back to windows since windows was much simpler and I thought KDE and Gnome was similar anyway, I didn't see any benefit in switching. I permanently switched to Linux in august. I found out about window managers and now I see a real benefit on using Linux over Windows. As much as I'm forced to use windows at work and I try to emulate the functionalities of a WM. What helped me is support for most of my devices. Linux progressed a lot in the last few years.

chx 3y ago
Can you hotplug a GPU or do you need to still (effectively) reboot? (I know it's only the windowmanager that needed a restart but if all programs run under then, well.)
- LeJC 3y ago
  What do you mean? Switching between integrated and dedicated GPU? Or opening your case and directly removing or adding a GPU? If its the first, I think there is support for this. There's NVIDIA optimus for NVIDIA for instance. The second one, I never thought it could be a use case, even less that Windows would even support that. I always turn off my computer to do anything on my motherboard.
  - chx 3y ago
    I mean eGPU over Thunderbolt.
    - LeJC 3y ago
      Oh yeah, didn't think of that one. Following what's written on arch wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/External_GPU https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/External_GPU, Xorg doesn't support it and never will. Wayland seems to support it, but I don't know what it implies in use. The issues for KDE, Gnome and wlroot are all mergred.

orangepurple 3y ago

Install Gentoo if you want to learn how a modern functional Linux system is put together

stevenjgarner 3y ago

Depends on your focus. If it is privacy or security, you may want to consider Tails and Qubes OS recommended by Edward Snowden. [1] https://tails.net/ https://tails.net/ [2] https://www.qubes-os.org/ https://www.qubes-os.org/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8-B9d7iz1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8-B9d7iz1A

red-iron-pine 3y ago
Qubes is cool, but Tails is for Tor and is meant to be a boot-from-live-cd or flash drive. The whole point is that you want all instances of Tails to look the same on the network so they can't fingerprint you. Once you start making it a daily driver, picking up a lot of cookies, making it your own, etc. then the point of using it is moot.

trey-jones 3y ago

I'm not sure what there is to learn, if you have a good working knowledge of Linux servers. This is exactly why I prefer the terminal to any of the GUI components that may exist. Much more stable interface. As far as programs that I use daily, other than a few obscure VPN clients, I've rarely, if ever, needed anything that I couldn't find on AUR. For that reason and for reasons of having up-to-date software available, I like something in the Arch family for Desktop use. On the other hand, .deb packages are often available for more obscure software like those VPN clients...

twic 3y ago
> I'm not sure what there is to learn, if you have a good working knowledge of Linux servers. Everything about the graphics and windowing stack, for starters. Why isn't my external display being detected after waking from sleep? Why is it always set to the wrong resolution at boot? Why doesn't VLC have any controls? Why is this simple Unity game suddenly running at 2 fps? Thermal management, CPU governors, that sort of thing. Not really an issue on servers, occasionally misbehaving on laptops. Occasional stuff around device connectivity - bluetooth speakers, NetworkManager, etc.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]