|
It hasn't been 3 fulls weeks since I've posted a message here in the lounge praising the current state of Linux. The short version of that post is that I have an old machine dedicated for watching media hooked up to a projector, and it's been sluggish with Windows 10, which had also been giving me trouble with updates, so I installed Lubuntu on it (a lightweight version of Ubuntu) and it's performing a lot better--at least in terms of always remaining responsive. Everything "just worked" and the machine served its (single) purpose again beautifully.
Cue to today. Now that I've had a few weeks of "real use" out of it, the review isn't so glowing anymore.
a) Video drivers. Even though the machine is old, it played back 1080p video just fine, so long as I had Nvidia's ION driver installed, which is trivial to install on Windows. Nvidia has a version for Linux, but it looks like it's a few kernel versions behind, so it doesn't install on the current Lubuntu (17.10). I'm no Linux kernel developer, which you apparently have to be in order to figure out how to get things working in this sort of situation. I had to give up on that, which is pretty much a showstopper as, without hardware acceleration, 1080p video stutters all over the place and is basically unwatchable. 720p, with just the basic video driver, "works", but it's definitely glitchy here and there.
b) LAN connections. Again, I'm no Linux expert, but I do know enough so that using "smb://machinename" in the file browser was all that was needed to access shares on other machines on my LAN. It worked well for about a week. Then it simply refused to access anything from the machine hosting my media files (some generic timeout error, even though it's clearly not spending any time waiting for a response, as the error is immediate). However, other machines on my LAN remained accessible to it. The consistent fix was to reboot the machine hosting my media files, even though other (Windows) machines could read everything with no issue. That machine is also hosting other files that are needed elsewhere, and rebooting all the time is going to upset some processes, so that's not a long-term solution.
c) The straw that broke the camel's back: One day the machine booted at 640x480 only, and refused to go back to whatever native resolution my projector is using (it's not a monitor+projector configuration - only the projector is hooked up to it). No amount of rebooting would change it back, and given the other two problems I already had, I knew that even if I managed to solve this by messing around with video configuration files (which I've done exactly once, years ago), this machine was destined anyway to get flattened/rebuilt from scratch.
I just so happened to have a recent version of CentOS on a bootable USB stick. I figured why not try another distribution altogether. The installation went fine, only, after the first reboot, I was looking at a blank screen (not even a blinking cursor). I've used the same image to set up VMs, so I know it works.
Now...I'm the guy who will spend hours, if not days, of his spare time digging into technical problems and keep looking long after others have given up. However, this is a machine I use when I simply want to kick back, turn off my brain, and watch something for an evening--in other words, this is the machine I use when I want to walk away from problems I'm trying to solve. So in this particular case, I simply have no patience for fiddling with OS settings.
So this week, back to Windows 10 I went. It's not without its own problems, but I can at least get it in a state where it's functional, it'll play 1080p flawlessly, and then I can leave it alone. Updates be damned if they start breaking - this machine isn't used to access the internet.
Linux...you're so close, yet still so far from actually being usable.
Rant over.
|
|
|
|
|
I rant a bit about MS, because they have a "don't care about the user" attitude.
But Linux? That actually hates the user! 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
|
|
|
|
|
I have a logitech audio server setup on a Ras Pi 3 which has been on constantly for nearly three years now running ( just upgraded it and didn't even take it down to do it ) Debian Stretch and it performs beautifuly, it also has Postgres and Samba installed. I wouldn't use Linux for the desktop but as a server I think it's fantastic.
We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
|
|
|
|
|
That's about my position. Every 9 months or so I swap the sata cable on my primary desktop to a linux drive, boot it up, run updates and noodle around with it for a few days before getting furious and going back to windows.
I love developing FOR it and running it as a server OS. But the desktop drives me to drink.
|
|
|
|
|
Quote: keep looking long after others have given up.
My gawd! I wish I had known you in the old days when I was hiring computer experts like you. But now I'm retired. Sorry! 
By the way: I dumped Ubuntu years ago, when it did not have a driver for a plain Soundblaster card. I never tried it again.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
|
|
|
|
|
Not surprising. It also missing drivers for all sort of graphic cards other than Intel, making gaming / video editing / photo editing a pain in the butt because of how sluggish it is.
|
|
|
|
|
win 7
Signature ready for installation. Please Reboot now.
|
|
|
|
|
The problem with 7 nowadays is that there's hundreds of updates waiting to be downloaded and installed even if you clean-install from the latest ISO you can get from Microsoft. Based on my own observations of doing clean installs of Windows 7 nowadays, there's a 50-50 chance you can't just start the update process and walk away for a few hours--something will be broken. Being lucky means being able to restart the update process a few times and it'll manage to complete cleanly.
|
|
|
|
|
Win 7 and hirens' boot CD
Install, update, image... new updates come? restore image, delta update, image.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
Win 7 and hirens' boot CD and turn off windows updates because nothing actually necessary or important has come out since the latest ISO.
Signature ready for installation. Please Reboot now.
|
|
|
|
|
Nothing you NEED has come out since the iso. 
|
|
|
|
|
Good CD, very good actually, but I prefer Macrium.
Or you can just turn off updates...
|
|
|
|
|
For the Win10 Laptop I have changed to Macrium too... Hiren's was not working anymore and I needed a substitute. Pity 
I tested the one that OG recommends, the software was nice, but the boot CD sucked.
Macrium is a bit more complicated, but the Boot CD worked fine for me.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
Turn off updates, thats what I do, and win7 is my principle OS.
|
|
|
|
|
dandy72 wrote: Linux...you're so close, yet still so far from actually being usable.
Exactly. The thing that drives me nuts about Linux is that to get something working, I have to spend more time figuring out the right sudo command, the right package to install because the command is missing, the right compiler to install because the package doesn't have the right binary distro for the version of the OS, the right dependencies to install because the package source gets the latest which has some API changes with the package source as it was last "maintained", and if I'm lucky enough to build it, basically start back at square one with googling and taking random shots in a dark black hole to figure out the right esoteric (you need to be Rudolf Steiner so you can ask the dead for help) OS configuration file/command/parameter/parameter switches to set up, at which point I've forgotten about the problem I was trying to solve and just go back to my nice W10 (did I say that) and C# projects.
|
|
|
|
|
How depressingly true.
Even when, for example, people have exhaustive notes in a blog somewhere to get something going...at least half of it is no longer going to be applicable a few versions down the road.
|
|
|
|
|
Ain't that the truth!
Even the blogs that list the build process for the kernel over 3 or 4 versions finally give up.
|
|
|
|
|
I used it years ago when I had to buy a server for our company...
Using RHEL5 was perfect for us: it saved us a lot of money in Microsoft licenses (internal e-mail, backup, user quantity...).
It worked perfectly until id did not... when it stopped working we had a couple of pages of bash commands that were super useful to reinstantiate the samba, change permissions...
It was a server so no one got close to it except to change the backup tapes...
for anything that someone has to put a finger on it... Windows...
|
|
|
|
|
Why don't you just install windows 7? If home cinema is all the use you do to that machine, you should have no problems if you don't get more updates.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
Could I please make a few representations for the defence? It's not surprising that a PC built to run Windows does not run Linux as efficiently. Also, it takes two to network, if Linux doesn't network well with Windows it's equally true that Windows does not network well with Linux. As for the final statement, 'Linux...you're so close, yet still so far from actually being usable.' How can you explain that, according to Wikipedia, 'Linux has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems. Linux is also the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers'?
|
|
|
|
|
George Swan wrote: a PC built to run Windows
In what way? It is juts an instruction set, how it is used is up to the software vendor.
|
|
|
|
|
The problem is not with the CPU, it's the lack of driver support for the bungled hardware. See this piece regarding Nvidia.
|
|
|
|
|
Right, that is something different then.
Of course in the linux world anyone ca write a driver for an Nvidia card, if they have access to the register documentation.
I have put 17.10 on a laptop with Nvidia, it has been a bit of a faff, but it works.
|
|
|
|
|
That middle finger salute is laughable. Nvidia is a money making corporation, it is not a charity foundation. They have no obligation to make drivers for open source OS, which gives them zero income. They have workers who have families to be fed.
|
|
|
|
|
I think the main complaint is that Nvidia do not disclose sufficient information to allow others to build efficient drivers for its hardware.
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
