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The "Linux questions (and other stuff)" thread

lunatic59 said:
I was okay with Ubuntu right up until they started in with the Gnome 3.0 desktop. That's when they lost me and I haven't been back since.
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Just curious, why didn't you try KDE?

Of course I was a Red Hat guy back when before the desktop was Fedora. I even have the hat's to prove it. ;)

View attachment 138316 (That pic is 10 years old. The beard is grayer and the hat is dingier, but I still have both ;) )
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Nice pic! (And, yeah, we're both a bit grayer since then...though last time I checked, I couldn't grow a beard. :eek:) My only RH artifacts are a book and installation CD.
 
LV426 said:
And yeah, we all here know that Linux is much better than Windows, just got to convince the rest of the world, and hoards of corporate users to see the light. Never going to happen though is it?
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Perhaps. After all, people are now buying Chromebooks and other Linux computers for personal use, and many companies--even some entire governments--have switched to Linux.

As we all know, virtually all supercomputers run *nix.

And last I read, factoring in Android, Linux is the most-used OS worldwide. That's not bad!
 
MoodyBlues said:
Just curious, why didn't you try KDE?
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I did give KDE a go "back in the day", but not recently. It just seemed like too many panels and pop-ups and too much work to make it otherwise, when after all, the workhorse of any Linux distro is the command line. :)
 
lunatic59 said:
I did give KDE a go "back in the day", but not recently. It just seemed like too many panels and pop-ups and too much work to make it otherwise, when after all, the workhorse of any Linux distro is the command line. :)
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It most certainly can be overwhelming with its plethora of customization options. However, once you're used to it, it's no big deal. Even though I could just copy my ~/.kde directory from one computer to a new one, I don't. I prefer going through all its settings, tweaking things as necessary; this process can easily take hours...days!...but it doesn't have to. You can do a little here and a little there, until you're satisfied. Personally, I LOVE its abundance of options--after all, Linux is all about choice!
 
lunatic59 said:
Which kind of answers your question about OSX ;)
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I beg to differ, my fine sir! Or, really, I'm just unsure of what you mean. So you don't like Apple's UNIX? It's BSD, IIRC, a mature, stable *nix, with everything you'd expect in a UNIX system.

I've never used it, except to tell my daughter over the phone to get to a command prompt and type what I told her. So I have no personal experience with it. Enlighten me!
 
These are my pretty folder icons:

Kubuntu_desktop_icons_122318.jpeg
 
MoodyBlues said:
I beg to differ, my fine sir! Or, really, I'm just unsure of what you mean. So you don't like Apple's UNIX? It's BSD, IIRC, a mature, stable *nix, with everything you'd expect in a UNIX system.

I've never used it, except to tell my daughter over the phone to get to a command prompt and type what I told her. So I have no personal experience with it. Enlighten me!
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I think the point is, that although yes, it's a solid version of Unix, and the quality is all there, it's still Apple's offering to their users, and you don't get a choice in the matter. Want to run a different flavour of Unix on a Mac? Don't think so. Well, probably technically possible, but you'd be no longer supported by Apple. Their whole philosophy is one of proprietary lock-in. It's the absolute opposite of open source. They don't even want to work with other systems, preferring to develop their own interfaces, and technology eco-system. And they'll charge you nicely for the privilege.
 
LV426 said:
I think the point is, that although yes, it's a solid version of Unix, and the quality is all there, it's still Apple's offering to their users, and you don't get a choice in the matter. Want to run a different flavour of Unix on a Mac? Don't think so. Well, probably technically possible, but you'd be no longer supported by Apple. Their whole philosophy is one of proprietary lock-in. It's the absolute opposite of open source. They don't even want to work with other systems, preferring to develop their own interfaces, and technology eco-system. And they'll charge you nicely for the privilege.
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Thank you! This makes perfect sense.
 
In the Do me a favor? LA Times related thread, @LV426 brought up X11 and asked if Wayland has been generally adopted yet. I said I'm too far out of the loop to know, but I don't think so.

Can we discuss Wayland? (Which I now know a little about after some brief searching.) Like its pros, cons, usage statistics, why it's better than X11, whatever!
 
MoodyBlues said:
In the Do me a favor? LA Times related thread, @LV426 brought up X11 and asked if Wayland has been generally adopted yet. I said I'm too far out of the loop to know, but I don't think so.

Can we discuss Wayland? (Which I now know a little about after some brief searching.) Like its pros, cons, usage statistics, why it's better than X11, whatever!
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This may be a bit esoteric for most people. It's not something that is really user visible, even to Linux aficionados. I only know about it because it was a subject that came up in Linux Format magazine a few times, as something that newer versions of Ubuntu were going to use. And I have previous experience of coding X11 clients.
The thing that amazes me is that the X11 protocol survived for so long (and still does). Main motivation for replacing it with Wayland seems to be efficiency reasons, and taking advantage of newer display technology. It appears that Wayland incorporates both a server, and window manager, whereas with X, these were separate processes. There are tons of other differences though, it's a completely new architecture.
Can't really provide any significant insight into Wayland though, other than what I read on the web.
 
LV426 said:
Hey Moody, have you ever read BOFH? With your background, you would appreciate it ;)
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No. But a quick glance at it sure looks interesting! From Wikipedia:

"The Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) is a fictional rogue computer operator who takes out his anger on users and others who pester him with their computer problems, uses his expertise against his enemies and manipulates his employer."

Oh dear...while I never did anything nefarious with my root skills (not that I wasn't tempted), one April Fools' Day I did something I thought was hilarious.

I no longer recall what the punchline was, but basically I wrote a shell script (Bourne shell back then) that put up a pseudo-login screen on all the terminals. You know, it looked and acted exactly like the real login screen. But instead of then taking each user to their normal destination, like the sales floor employees' menu or the inventory department's menu, it took them to...something...the only thing I remember for sure was that it ended with "April fools!" and then proceeded to their respective menus.

It was a one-off thing, so if they'd already seen it, logged out and logged back in later, it was back to normal. At least...that's what was supposed to happen. :eek:

The night before, at home--where I had a Wyse 60 terminal and a dedicated phone line for connecting to the server--I had thoroughly tested it, debugged it, logged in as various users to verify it worked correctly. I went to bed thinking "this is my greatest April Fools' Day accomplishment since giving birth to my 10 pound daughter!" I was giddy. :goofydroid:

My phone started ringing off the hook at 8:00 the next morning. JF, the public face of the company and one of its owners, was NOT HAPPY. Something in my brilliant, clever prank had gone horribly wrong. He couldn't get into his menu, couldn't access anything. He was pissed.

This was circa 1988. I figured out at the time what I'd screwed up in my script, but no longer recall the details. Suffice to say that--by my own choice, not because I was summoned--I sheepishly went to JF's office and profusely apologized. He was really very nice about it and, thankfully, didn't fire me on the spot.
 
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