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Any Linux users around here?!

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Worm

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Basically what the title says, let's see how many of us there are around. A geeky hobby will likely attract the same kind of people who like geeky hobby operating systems surely?

I'm currently using Fedora 33 Xfce (shortly to be 34) on my PC and Linux Mint 20.1 Xfce on my laptop.
 
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mikeg

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Yes, me. Ive settled on running the LTS versions of Ubuntu but use it as.my main operating system. My first major experience with GNU/Linux was with Red hat 5.2 in the late 90s.
 

lkpridgeon

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Currently running Fedora 34 with Gnome + Wayland on all my computer's/laptops. And Debian on all my servers.

Migrating from Ubuntu to Fedora was an interesting experience however I've finally got everything where I want it.

On a side note I wouldn't go back to Windows/MacOS even if someone paid me to do so. For the first six months of my current job I was stuck on MacOS and it drove me mad. I've never had an OS so non-intuitive and so much for "it just works"...
 

david1212

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When MS announced Win10 and bi-annual updates knowing I would be dealing with the fallout as part of the day job I didn't want to be doing this at home as well.

I want to come home, switch on laptop, check email, browse railforums etc then update when convenient to me.

I first tried Kubuntu as described as more ready to go with but I didn't like it. I then tried Mint. Given the laptop ( ~2GHz core2duo & 4GB ram I recal was a few years old it struggled with Cinnamon so I then tried Mate which was much better. I had Win7 as dual boot but rarely used.

I spent a good amount of time at the start trialling programs and with tweaks but with the list I have now I can work through a new installation in at most couple of hours.

I'm sure this lapdog ( 3rd gen i5 & 8GB ram ) would have no issues with Cinnamon but I've kept with Mate. It is dual boot Win10 but I've not needed it once in anger. I just try to boot it every month or so to update.
 

3rd rail land

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In 2019/20 I assisted in the design and implementation of Linux, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to be precise, laptops as part of my job. It was my first ever encounter with Linux having never used it before.
Those laptops were an interim solution and have been superseded but my team manage loads of Red Hat servers so the knowledge I gained certainly hasn't gone to waste.

I was surprised at the amount of FOSS (free open source software) available for Linux. I think as a team we had just shy of 40 pieces of software installed on the laptops.
 

GusB

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It has been a while since I dabbled with Linux. I started off with Ubuntu 6.06 as a dual boot option to try it out, but after the hard drive failed (along with the Windows rescue partition) I decided not to bother trying to obtain a full copy of Windows and went with Ubuntu as my main operating system. I've since tried a few variations (Mint, Peppermint and a few others). I dropped Ubuntu when they dumped Gnome 2 and moved the window controls to the left, although I understand this is now sorted.

I have since gone back to Windows (work required it), but I'm in a similar situation where the hard drive on my laptop is faulty so I'll probably dual-boot again while I get myself back in the saddle. I'd imagine a fair bit has changed in the time since I last used Linux (2013-ish).
 

dosxuk

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A geeky hobby will likely attract the same kind of people who like geeky hobby operating systems surely?
I'm not really sure you can describe Linux as a hobby operating system these days, considering how wide spread and pervasive it's usage is.
 

apk55

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Normally run on Lubuntu, Works much faster than Windows and never had any problems.
If you look up on You Tube "explaining computers" website there are various guides to installing and using Linux with comparisons. An example is youtube.com/watch?v=aJcWcQ8ew6Q&t=8s which shows how you can get new life from an old laptop
 

Class172

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I'm not really sure you can describe Linux as a hobby operating system these days, considering how wide spread and pervasive it's usage is.
Indeed, it is very prevalent in certain industries such as scientific research.
 

36270k

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First used Linux at work in about 1997.
Currently use Centos 7.9 on both laptop and desktop.
Before retiring, I looked after servers running Redhat and Oracle.
Have Windows 10 in a test VM. ( VMware Player on a Centos host )
Due to very poor security. ( I have been monitoring its network connections ) I would never use Windows 10 on a production machine that was internet connected.
 

Lucan

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I'm using Devuan, with kde as the GUI. I have been using other versions of Linux for about 20 years; Mepis was the best ever IMHO, but sadly it was discontinued about 5 years ago

I'm not really sure you can describe Linux as a hobby operating system these days,
No, not primarily, but it is much easier to make a hobby of it if you wish to than it is of Windows or macOS. Nevertheless, the latter is a version of Unix just as Linux is. I once wandered into a high-street Apple showroom, all bling as usual, where they had a number of demo laptops you could play with. Out of curiosity, on one of them I managed to bring up the familiar BASH command screen. I left it like that, full screen :lol:
 

ta-toget

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I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS myself right now (on an Entroware laptop, not sure what I'll replace it with when the time comes, possibly something else from Entroware), and I've been using Ubuntu since Windows XP stopped being supported (the computer I used at the time wasn't powerful enough to support whatever version of Windows was current at the time), but I'd used Raspbian on a RasPi for hobby-ish purposes before that, I think (never made much useful, mind, apart from reading out departures from my local station using the Darwin API and Ivona's free tier). I haven't really customised the OS, because it's good enough and I can't be bothered, though I do sometimes consider doing so.
 

ASharpe

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I used Linux for a while and got used to debian/Ubuntu. But I found the unity release of Ubuntu that bad and in need of a new laptop went for a mac book pro. Most of the benfit I get from Linux comes from the terminal which I still got but with lots of extras.

The mac book died a little while ago and in a hurry I replaced it with a cheap chrome book from Argos that does the basics is incredibly light and the battery lasts forever. But it's slower than my phone, has a rubbish display and so I'm looking for something else.

I use Windows at work but they spent far more on my laptop than I would dream of so the bloat isn't usually an issue, there is some essential work software I need and the tech support team are good at sorting any niggles I've got no interest in looking into.

If anyone can recommend a laptop and/or distro I'd appreciate it. But I might go mac again when I've saved up enough.
 

GusB

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But I found the unity release of Ubuntu that bad
That's the one! Unity took a bit of getting used to and I was becoming quite competent with it (apart from the window controls!), but the laptop I was using at the time wasn't really up to it any more and I switched to something a bit more lightweight.

All this talk has made me want to have a bit of a dabble again. :)
 

Class172

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If anyone can recommend a laptop and/or distro I'd appreciate it. But I might go mac again when I've saved up enough.
I’ve been using Manjaro for the past couple of years on my work laptop. It’s based off Arch but is designed to be easy to use and set up, and is available to download with a range of display managers.
 

bubieyehyeh

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Been using it since early 90's started with installing slackware from a pile of floppy disks, then went to debian, with a small detour to ubuntu for a few years, then back to debian.
 

david1212

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Some, most ?, NAS ( network attached storage ) OS while proprietary are based on Linux to keep the cost down.
 

Worm

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I'm not really sure you can describe Linux as a hobby operating system these days, considering how wide spread and pervasive it's usage is.
In terms of the average Desktop user I’m framing this at. As much I like Linux I’ve never recommended it to people outside of my own group of friends, almost all of whom I met on my degree.
 

takno

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I used it on and off from the late 90s to about 2008, and full time since then. Started off on SUSE and switched to Ubuntu maybe around 2008 as well.

I tried using Gnome 3 for about 6 months after they introduced Unity, and then just got on with it because, with the best will in the world, Gnome 3 is even worse. By the time they killed it off I'd say Unity was much better Gnome 3, and the switch back was pretty annoying tbh.

If you're thinking about going back to it now I'd say give it a go. Hardware video acceleration can still be a bit of a pain, bit otherwise it really just tends to roll smoothly onto most new hardware.

Either way, both Windows and Mac are a complete mystery to me now

In terms of the average Desktop user I’m framing this at. As much I like Linux I’ve never recommended it to people outside of my own group of friends, almost all of whom I met on my degree.
I can't be bothered to recommend it to anybody, because after too many years of it I don't want to be anybody's desktop support. One of the benefits of never using windows is being able to honestly say I can't help people with problems they encounter
 

david1212

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...

I can't be bothered to recommend it to anybody, because after too many years of it I don't want to be anybody's desktop support.

Where that would happen likewise.

One of the benefits of never using windows is being able to honestly say I can't help people with problems they encounter

If only I could say the same .....
 

lkpridgeon

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I can't be bothered to recommend it to anybody, because after too many years of it I don't want to be anybody's desktop support. One of the benefits of never using windows is being able to honestly say I can't help people with problems they encounter
Hear! Hear! Finally got to the stage where none of the family/friends ask for my help because of this despite my "working in IT" because of this. :)
 

johntea

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I'm a full time IT 'sysadmin' and whilst Windows 10 is an absolute nightmare to try and manage across 5000 devices I've had no real problems using it at home, in fact you can install a fresh copy in under 10 minutes on modern hardware and it'll automatically sort out most of your device drivers on first boot assuming it has a driver for your network / wireless card of course!

Funny how things have changed over the years though, it probably doesn't matter what OS I run as 99.9% of my activity just seems to be via a web browser these days anyway! I miss the late 90s / early 2000s in some ways, tinkering about with hardware and trying every OS under the sun...now it all feels too simple!

Although having worked in IT my whole career my enthusiasm for new tech is probably at an all time low anyway ;)

We have a handful of Linux servers at work of course and I always forget pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del on them just sends an instant restart command to them...oops!
 

D365

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I’m using System 76’s ”Pop OS” on my AMD Ryzen tower. This is a variant of Ubuntu that System 76 develops for their own hardware but also makes available to the public for free. Two selling points include out-of-box support for Nvidia graphics cards and the ”Pop Shop” package manager which offers one-click downloads for all the usual Linux software as well as Steam, Wine and Lutris.
 

nlogax

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For home purposes I gave up with Linux some time ago, much prefer the convenience of a Mac knowing that under the covers it's still Unix if I need to get down and dirty with scripts or certain apps. Meanwhile my job gives me all the Linux time I could possibly want.

Lots of Windows hate here which I can understand though Microsoft is getting ever more Tux-y all the while. It's been a fun journey to watch.
 

takno

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For home purposes I gave up with Linux some time ago, much prefer the convenience of a Mac knowing that under the covers it's still Unix if I need to get down and dirty with scripts or certain apps. Meanwhile my job gives me all the Linux time I could possibly want.

Lots of Windows hate here which I can understand though Microsoft is getting ever more Tux-y all the while. It's been a fun journey to watch.
I dislike Windows and Mac about equally tbh. Can't get anything done on either of them. At least Windows computers generally come with a proper UK keyboard though
 

Lucan

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whilst Windows 10 ..... I've had no real problems using it at home, in fact you can install a fresh copy in under 10 minutes on modern hardware and it'll automatically sort out most of your device drivers on first boot assuming it has a driver for your network / wireless card of course!
Funny, just yesterday I was setting up Win 10 on a new laptop for Mrs Lucan. It was pre-installed (of course) but, among other things like changing from logging on via Microsoft to local logging on, it took me more than 10 minutes just going through the settings to disallow Microsoft, app publishers, everybody else, and their dogs, from having access to the web browsing history, emails, photos, and files generally. Maybe most people don't care about this stuff. And there is no Win10 driver for my oldish HP printer (yet Linux has!).
 

Class172

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Funny, just yesterday I was setting up Win 10 on a new laptop for Mrs Lucan. It was pre-installed (of course) but, among other things like changing from logging on via Microsoft to local logging on, it took me more than 10 minutes just going through the settings to disallow Microsoft, app publishers, everybody else, and their dogs, from having access to the web browsing history, emails, photos, and files generally. Maybe most people don't care about this stuff. And there is no Win10 driver for my oldish HP printer (yet Linux has!).
Support for HP printers on Linux seems to be very well developed, with the hplip utility coming pre-installed on some distros. You're definitely not alone in going through all those Windows settings to turn features off.
 

D365

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You're definitely not alone in going through all those Windows settings to turn features off.
Are there more settings that I need to opt out of, once I’ve completed a clean Win10 installation?
 

lkpridgeon

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Are there more settings that I need to opt out of, once I’ve completed a clean Win10 installation?
Depends how much privacy you want to be honest. The vast majority will be okay with a standard install however those that want privacy there's a bunch of post install hoops to jump through
 
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