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sophisticles wrote:

Ubuntu family of crap: Pure garbage, with the exception of Linux Mint. Every build and every flavor of Ubuntu I have ever tried, even if it starts off perfect invariably breaks in odd and different ways, often unfixable without a reinstall. Things like wireless just stop working, the gui being corrupted, old themes "bleeding" into a new theme, PPA's not working, just all sorts of weird occurrences. This is true of LTS and short term releases and it's true of 16.04. The worst of them has to be Ubuntu Mate, am willing to try out Linux Mint 18 which I believe will be based on 16.04 LTS.

It seems that your opinion about whether or not a distro is good is whether or not you have issues with a very specific piece of hardware, and since distros are just collections of packages, blaming them for such issues seems really odd.

I mean, sure, some distros do a better job out of the box, but this is a seriously weird way of evaluating them. Especially if you understand linux to any degree, because if a solution is available in a different distro (though choice of related packages, configuration, patches, or simply a newer version of the kernel), it should be something you can adapt yourself.

And, in this case, picking mint is weird. Beyond just the recent issue, they have picked names that conflict with upstream as well as not bothered with security fixes. It's a really *odd* "exception" to so-called "garbage".

sophisticles wrote:

Manjaro for me is a mystery, I've tried every flavor they offer and despite their claims that it's a "new" distro not "based" on any other distro I find that it borrows so much from Open SUSE that I just don't see the point of using Manjaro.

Yeah, it's a mystery to me too...

http://manjaro.github.io/about/

"About

Manjaro is a user-friendly GNU/Linux distribution based on the independently developed Arch Linux."

Arch isn't even based on Suse either, from what I can tell.

sophisticles wrote:

For me the oldest distro (yes, SUSE predates all of them) is the best, far and away.

I just don't understand the mentality behind distro-shopping. Distros are simply a collection of coherent packages. The relevant questions would seem to be limited to support, the variety available in the main repo, "staleness", the frequency of fixes (Security and otherwise), the size of the community, and how often they make stupid mistakes.

Most of what actual distro-hoppers seem to list don't remotely fit any of those categories, which seriously befuddles me. GUIs and hardware support questions, for instance, I don't understand at all.


EDIT: I guess free/non-free and other license malarky is relevant too, for those who are sticklers for that stuff. But that's usually not what distro-hoppers mention.

whm1974 wrote:

sophisticles wrote:

I believe you have the wrong distro. Manjaro is based on Arch.

It may be "based" on Arch but I could swear that they used an installer derived from OpenSuse's installer and I could swear that their configuration tools was based on Yast.

I may be wrong, the past 6 months I have been on a marathon distro testing binge, when I get some time this weekend I'm going to download a few different Manjaro spins and give it another look.

Glorious wrote:

I mean, sure, some distros do a better job out of the box, but this is a seriously weird way of evaluating them. Especially if you understand linux to any degree, because if a solution is available in a different distro (though choice of related packages, configuration, patches, or simply a newer version of the kernel), it should be something you can adapt yourself.

I just don't understand the mentality behind distro-shopping.

If you really did understand Linux you would realize that distros are much more than just a collection of packages.

Yes, if you just look at something like Debian where all you get it the vanilla version of the kernel, desktop, window manager, etc, then sure you may wonder what the point of distro hopping is but the fact remains that the quality of distros varies greatly and is usually governed by the vision of the creator(s) and maintainers.

Mint for instance sticks with the older 3.19 kernel but backports all newer drivers to it so that it works with newer hardware whereas many distros that use older kernel versions won't do that, they expect you to upgrade the kernel if you want support for newer hardware. Mint also backports security patches to it's kernel, many distro won't do that.

There is also a significant speed difference between distros, depending on what compiler options they used, whether they used LTO's, just look at Clear Linux which smokes most other distros in most benchmarks, OpenMandriva I have found to fly on the same hardware that things like Fedora (which is one of the slowest distros I have found) just crawl.

You're kidding yourself if you think you can take a vanilla install of Debian or Slackware and turn it into something like Open Suse or Mint or Open Mandriva just by "adapting yourself".

For basic use cases, I love - and miss - Crunchbang. I need to get around to testing BunsenLabs; it may be the most headache-free solution for getting my planned MAME and console emulation box up and running. Xubuntu's also been trouble-free aside from some recent issues with the Dropbox client's notification icon. Getting that resolved took a couple of days of talking with their support staff, who ultimately came through for me.

Obligatory pump for Slackware because once you've gone to the trouble to configure it to your liking, it's rock solid. It's just the legwork to get there that's so wearying.

sophisticles wrote:

I may be wrong, the past 6 months I have been on a marathon distro testing binge, when I get some time this weekend I'm going to download a few different Manjaro spins and give it another look.

If your goal is to actually use Linux, (as opposed to distro testing being an end in and of itself), just pick one of the mainstream distros based on your primary use case, and learn its ins and outs. The more mainstream/popular distros -- while not perfect -- have the largest communities of users, so whatever problems you do encounter will have been seen by multiple other people already, and you are therefore more likely to find useful info about any issues online.

Spending days or weeks testing dozens of different distros is kind of like spending so much time optimizing your gaming system to get the best synthetic benchmark scores that you have no time left to play actual games.

sophisticles wrote:

There is also a significant speed difference between distros, depending on what compiler options they used, whether they used LTO's, just look at Clear Linux which smokes most other distros in most benchmarks, OpenMandriva I have found to fly on the same hardware that things like Fedora (which is one of the slowest distros I have found) just crawl.

Friggin' truth. Fedora's gotten a bit better over the years and a lot's dependent on your choice of Spin, but I remember a point when Fedora was easily slower than Vista on the same hardware, and shipped with terribly broken PulseAudio. I've flirted with it a few times since, but for my needs it hasn't been better than the Ubuntu community projects.

sophisticles wrote:

You're kidding yourself if you think you can take a vanilla install of Debian or Slackware and turn it into something like Open Suse or Mint or Open Mandriva just by "adapting yourself".

If your tasks ultimately need a major distro, there's little sense fighting it. But vanilla Debian / Slackware have their allure, and working to effectively backport a hunk of functionality to one's distro of choice isn't a fool's errand. It's all about picking the right battles.

sophisticles wrote:

If you really did understand Linux you would realize that distros are much more than just a collection of packages.

I am sorry, but that is *literally* what a distribution is.

sophisticles wrote:

Yes, if you just look at something like Debian where all you get it the vanilla version of the kernel, desktop, window manager, etc, then sure you may wonder what the point of distro hopping is but the fact remains that the quality of distros varies greatly and is usually governed by the vision of the creator(s) and maintainers.

I don't know what that means, as I actually almost exclusively use (personally) a Debian-derived distro but yet I regularly use two different Desktop Environments and, as necessary, use out-of-stream or self-compiled kernels. I also routinely use self-built and even self-packaged software as well, for various reasons.

There is no reason to flip randomly through a list of different distros looking for a particular combination of anything, because the singular biggest advantage (IMO) of the linux-based software ecosystem is the ability to do that yourself. To the point where I think re-installing an entire system to accomplish any of what I've done above seems to be almost self-defeating.

sophisticles wrote:

Mint for instance sticks with the older 3.19 kernel but backports all newer drivers to it so that it works with newer hardware whereas many distros that use older kernel versions won't do that, they expect you to upgrade the kernel if you want support for newer hardware. Mint also backports security patches to it's kernel, many distro won't do that.

Which, I'm sorry to say, seems like a terrible idea. 3.19 isn't a long-term support kernel, and it doesn't seem like Mint has a very big team. If there is just one or two guys doing something that, it's not something that inspires confidence. It's actually sort of worrisome.

Nor is kernel-backporting something that is even remotely unusual, I mean, really?

And what about the issues with mint that I already mentioned?

sophisticles wrote:

There is also a significant speed difference between distros, depending on what compiler options they used, whether they used LTO's, just look at Clear Linux which smokes most other distros in most benchmarks, OpenMandriva I have found to fly on the same hardware that things like Fedora (which is one of the slowest distros I have found) just crawl.

Oh, yeah. I'm totally sure.

You have actual data that backs this up, right?

...right?

sophisticles wrote:

You're kidding yourself if you think you can take a vanilla install of Debian or Slackware and turn it into something like Open Suse or Mint or Open Mandriva just by "adapting yourself".

I don't even know what that means. Why would I even *want* to transmute one distro into another? What would that even mean?

BREAKING NEWS:

SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET.

bthylafh wrote:

BREAKING NEWS:

SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET.

I'm just as scandalized as you are. To my fainting couch!

Obligatory xkcd reference:

https://xkcd.com/386/

Edit:

Glorious wrote:

sophisticles wrote:

If you really did understand Linux you would realize that distros are much more than just a collection of packages.

I am sorry, but that is *literally* what a distribution is.

I have to admit though, that part was pretty funny...

Redocbew wrote:

Obligatory xkcd reference:

https://xkcd.com/386/

Edit:

Glorious wrote:

sophisticles wrote:

If you really did understand Linux you would realize that distros are much more than just a collection of packages.

I am sorry, but that is *literally* what a distribution is.

I have to admit though, that part was pretty funny...

I have to agree with Glorious here.

Coran Fixx wrote:

Hannah Montana Linux...

Had high hopes for Ubuntu Mate 16.04 but wireless issues are not working out.

Mint seems to "just work" so I would vote for that.

Mint makes me sad every time I try it again. Everything is perfect (it's available in all of the desktops I prefer), everything "just works" on the first try, and there's even ways to upgrade it without having to run the installer.

The problem I run into is video card performance, all types.

I can pick whichever driver I like, open-source, closed-source, the default-installed option, AMD-website; whichever I decide to go with, games and YouTube are a stuttering mess at worst and "all fans on high and the lights dim" at best.

If anyone knows how to get a Radeon R9 390/290 to outperform what Windows would get from a R7 265/360 I'd love to know about it.

I have tried almost every flavor of Linux the last couple of weeks. They all work good except same problem for all. APU runs at 50% playing HD video and YouTube. Windows 7 runs 15-20%. This is after trying every driver possible. If anybody knows a distro that can play video let me know.

solo_clipper wrote:

I have tried almost every flavor of Linux the last couple of weeks. They all work good except same problem for all. APU runs at 50% playing HD video and YouTube. Windows 7 runs 15-20%. This is after trying every driver possible. If anybody knows a distro that can play video let me know.

Honestly, your problem is that AMD video drivers suck on Linux; they've gotten better but still need improvement. You'll get better results from Intel or Nvidia.

bthylafh wrote:

solo_clipper wrote:

I have tried almost every flavor of Linux the last couple of weeks. They all work good except same problem for all. APU runs at 50% playing HD video and YouTube. Windows 7 runs 15-20%. This is after trying every driver possible. If anybody knows a distro that can play video let me know.

Honestly, your problem is that AMD video drivers suck on Linux; they've gotten better but still need improvement. You'll get better results from Intel or Nvidia.

Yep, replace with a Nvidia video card.

whm1974 wrote:

titan wrote:

Gentoo Linux is the most problem free. It does and supports precisely what I tell it to.

ChromeOS and Android uses Gentoo's package manager. (Albeit, modified.)

Yeah, but isn't Gentoo real time consuming to install and setup?

Last install took 30-60 minutes.

Computers are wicked fast now.

The kernel can take a long time to tweak, but you don't have to do it all in one sitting.

titan wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

titan wrote:

Gentoo Linux is the most problem free. It does and supports precisely what I tell it to.

ChromeOS and Android uses Gentoo's package manager. (Albeit, modified.)

Yeah, but isn't Gentoo real time consuming to install and setup?

Last install took 30-60 minutes.

Computers are wicked fast now.

The kernel can take a long time to tweak, but you don't have to do it all in one sitting.

I see. Is Gentoo one of those distros where you compile everything from source?

Slackware, I guess mostly Current. No problems, it runs till I turn it off. I use win 10 for games and it works great.

sophisticles wrote:

You're kidding yourself if you think you can take a vanilla install of Debian or Slackware and turn it into something like Open Suse or Mint or Open Mandriva just by "adapting yourself".

That would be insane. Why take a real distribution and try to make it like anything? They are it's true, for actual Linux users, so most of the added cuteness will be less than useful.

I have run Slackware since 3.1 and it has never occurred to me that there was anything better, certainly anything to emulate.

Glorious wrote:

sophisticles wrote:

If you really did understand Linux you would realize that distros are much more than just a collection of packages.

I am sorry, but that is *literally* what a distribution is.

No, I'm sorry, but that is most certainly NOT what a distribution is any more than a car is just a collection of auto parts bolted together. In the past when I had time I created remasters of Knoppix (back in the day) and I even built my own mini distro the "old fashioned" way, by basically mangling together LILO, a kernel and a shell and was able to boot strap a working, let's call it a, distro. Know what? It sucked, it was barely usable, I just did it to see if I could.

There is no reason to flip randomly through a list of different distros looking for a particular combination of anything, because the singular biggest advantage (IMO) of the linux-based software ecosystem is the ability to do that yourself. To the point where I think re-installing an entire system to accomplish any of what I've done above seems to be almost self-defeating.

This is the type of statement that just drives me up the wall. You can't "do that yourself" unless you have a strong coding background. If you think you can install Debian and apt-get yourself to Ubuntu you have another thing coming. If you think you can install Slackware, add some .txz's and get to Vector you're kidding yourself.

Which, I'm sorry to say, seems like a terrible idea. 3.19 isn't a long-term support kernel, and it doesn't seem like Mint has a very big team. If there is just one or two guys doing something that, it's not something that inspires confidence. It's actually sort of worrisome.

Nor is kernel-backporting something that is even remotely unusual, I mean, really?

And what about the issues with mint that I already mentioned?

I can prove your claims wrong very easily. Linux Mint is a one man operation, as far as I know; he makes his money solely from donations and corporate sponsorships. In the month of Feb 2016, he pulled in over $16000 just from donations, in March of this year he pulled in just over $14000, that's over 30 grand in 2 months just from donations.

If you really believe that you can achieve the same type of functionality as a Linux Mint just by installing Debian vanilla, installing some packages and calling it a day then why don't you do it and create your own branded distro and start raking in some serious cash? I'm sure that no matter what you do for a living a you can probably use an extra 30 large no?

Or maybe it's not as easy as you are trying to make it out to be.

Oh, yeah. I'm totally sure.

You have actual data that backs this up, right?

...right?

You know who does have the data? Phoronix.com, Fedora is routinely among the slowest distros out there or you could always, you know, run your own tests on your own hardware and see for yourself.

I don't even know what that means. Why would I even *want* to transmute one distro into another?

I don't mean literally convert one distro to another, I thought it was obvious that I meant take a plain jane distro and get it the the same functional state as a more polished distro just by adding packages.

Yeah, I don't think of a distro as just its software repositories.

Installer, Boot-loader, Drivers, underlying programming Library, Shell, custom GUI (..like fugly Unity).

As far as problems with Distros - I've had problems with ALL of the above, and typically different problems with different distro's and builds.


Ex. try comparing Alpine Linux to something like Ubuntu Mate,

-it's not just the software repositories.

(..though that's not to "down-play" their importance.)


Also, searching for the near "right" distro for your use isn't a waste of time. Even 12 hours of time spent trying various desktop distro's (if that's all you are interested in) *might* yield something beneficial for the "long haul". At some point though it's likely to become a real waste of time, but you don't know until you've tried.


When looking over openSuse in my own "search", I rather like SuseStudio (and Leap). Still, I didn't select it because it's "Live" build-option was reputed by their own developers as being less than suitable for long-term stability. (..it also lacked some configuration features with regard to its Live system, which again - falls under "NOT A SOFTWARE REPOSITORY" distinction.)

whm1974 wrote:

bthylafh wrote:

solo_clipper wrote:

I have tried almost every flavor of Linux the last couple of weeks. They all work good except same problem for all. APU runs at 50% playing HD video and YouTube. Windows 7 runs 15-20%. This is after trying every driver possible. If anybody knows a distro that can play video let me know.

Honestly, your problem is that AMD video drivers suck on Linux; they've gotten better but still need improvement. You'll get better results from Intel or Nvidia.

Yep, replace with a Nvidia video card.

or an Intel CPU/GPU

CScottG wrote:

Yeah, I don't think of a distro as just its software repositories.

Installer,

As long as it is capable of getting a basic system with network access up and running, everything else can be fixed after-the-fact. How often are you installing, anyway? Unless you have a use case that requires you to re-install from scratch every few days, all that really matters is whether the installer works or not.

CScottG wrote:

Boot-loader,

AFAIK pretty much everyone uses GRUB these days. (Maybe there are still one or two LILO holdouts?)

CScottG wrote:

Drivers,

The vast majority of drivers come from upstream. Beyond that, it's just a matter of which proprietary drivers (if any) the distro is willing to install for you automatically. And if you have hardware that requires out-of-tree or proprietary drivers, you're probably going to need to jump through some hoops eventually, regardless of distro.

CScottG wrote:

underlying programming Library,

Uhh... what? All desktop distros rely on the standard C runtime library, and the same higher-level libraries on top of that. Unless you're talking about the differences between embedded/Android and desktop, there's very little differentiation, other than whatever may be specific to the DE used by the distro. And if the distro wants to be compatible with the vast majority of desktop applications out there, they'd better support X (or X emulation), and the underlying widget toolkits used by GNOME and KDE, since that's what most Linux GUI developers code to.

CScottG wrote:

Shell,

Any distro that isn't a "fringe" distro with limited applicability has some derivative of the Bourne shell available, since so much of the userland functionality relies on it. Bash, dash, and BusyBox are all Bourne shell clones. And if you prefer something else as your login shell, you can just install it from the repos.

CScottG wrote:

custom GUI (..like fugly Unity).

Custom GUIs are still "collections of packages" which sit on top of the common underlying C runtime (and typically X Windows as well) foundation.

FWIW I would argue that the package management system and how well the distro curates their repositories are more important than anything you listed.

CScottG wrote:

As far as problems with Distros - I've had problems with ALL of the above, and typically different problems with different distro's and builds.

Different distros have different bugs, because they use different versions of upstream packages and/or configure them differently, or (in some cases) have their own buggy custom code (as with Mint's Cinnamon DE).

CScottG wrote:

Also, searching for the near "right" distro for your use isn't a waste of time. Even 12 hours of time spent trying various desktop distro's (if that's all you are interested in) *might* yield something beneficial for the "long haul". At some point though it's likely to become a real waste of time, but you don't know until you've tried.

Not a complete waste, no. But once you start getting into the more esoteric/obscure ones, you've got to consider the fact that finding info and getting assistance online will likely be more difficult, just because the user community is very small. Unless you have a very specific use case that requires features only found in that distro, what have you gained besides "distro hipster" cred?

Mainstream distros like Ubuntu have multiple spins/versions to suit different use cases. Hate Unity? Install Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu. Need a headless server or want to build up a custom DE piecemeal? Start with Ubuntu Server or drop back to vanilla Debian. Sure, some people *like* to play with different distros. Nothing wrong with that. But if you're trying to *use* Linux, instead of playing with distros as a hobby or educational exercise, you're better served by doing a little research first to narrow it down to a handful of (probably mainstream) choices so you're not spending weeks learning the foibles of distros you'll end up ditching in the end.

whm1974 wrote:

Last install took 30-60 minutes.

Computers are wicked fast now.

The kernel can take a long time to tweak, but you don't have to do it all in one sitting.

I see. Is Gentoo one of those distros where you compile everything from source?[/quote]

Yes, but some of the larger softwares, like Firefox and LibreOffice, have binary versions that can be emerged instead.

bthylafh wrote:

solo_clipper wrote:

I have tried almost every flavor of Linux the last couple of weeks. They all work good except same problem for all. APU runs at 50% playing HD video and YouTube. Windows 7 runs 15-20%. This is after trying every driver possible. If anybody knows a distro that can play video let me know.

Honestly, your problem is that AMD video drivers suck on Linux; they've gotten better but still need improvement. You'll get better results from Intel or Nvidia.

I think most Linux installations will ship with only the open source AMD video drivers. I think they don't support video decoding in hardware - for that you need the proprietary drivers ("Catalyst"). At least for Ubuntu, there's a relatively recent set of instructions here for configuring hardware video decoding.

Sadly, AMD still doesn't have Linux drivers that are up to the same quality level as those from Intel and Nvidia. It's awful to have to recommend to someone in your situation, "Buy different hardware," but it might be the best (if unreasonable) option.

Sad to say, I've given up on the AMD proprietary Linux drivers. While performance was somewhat better, stability was terrible. My new Linux desktop build (which I'm not cut over to yet) has an nVidia card in it.

Sorry. I had a reply to all this but upon preview it was just lost (like 20 minutes worth of typing + cut and paste). Too much length + formatting to respond to.

just brew it! wrote:

CScottG wrote:

Yeah, I don't think of a distro as just its software repositories.

Installer,

As long as it is capable of getting a basic system with network access up and running, everything else can be fixed after-the-fact. How often are you installing, anyway? Unless you have a use case that requires you to re-install from scratch every few days, all that really matters is whether the installer works or not.

CScottG wrote:

Boot-loader,

AFAIK pretty much everyone uses GRUB these days. (Maybe there are still one or two LILO holdouts?)

CScottG wrote:

Drivers,

The vast majority of drivers come from upstream. Beyond that, it's just a matter of which proprietary drivers (if any) the distro is willing to install for you automatically. And if you have hardware that requires out-of-tree or proprietary drivers, you're probably going to need to jump through some hoops eventually, regardless of distro.

CScottG wrote:

underlying programming Library,

Uhh... what? All desktop distros rely on the standard C runtime library, and the same higher-level libraries on top of that. Unless you're talking about the differences between embedded/Android and desktop, there's very little differentiation, other than whatever may be specific to the DE used by the distro. And if the distro wants to be compatible with the vast majority of desktop applications out there, they'd better support X (or X emulation), and the underlying widget toolkits used by GNOME and KDE, since that's what most Linux GUI developers code to.

CScottG wrote:

Shell,

Any distro that isn't a "fringe" distro with limited applicability has some derivative of the Bourne shell available, since so much of the userland functionality relies on it. Bash, dash, and BusyBox are all Bourne shell clones. And if you prefer something else as your login shell, you can just install it from the repos.

CScottG wrote:

custom GUI (..like fugly Unity).

Custom GUIs are still "collections of packages" which sit on top of the common underlying C runtime (and typically X Windows as well) foundation.

FWIW I would argue that the package management system and how well the distro curates their repositories are more important than anything you listed.

CScottG wrote:

As far as problems with Distros - I've had problems with ALL of the above, and typically different problems with different distro's and builds.

Different distros have different bugs, because they use different versions of upstream packages and/or configure them differently, or (in some cases) have their own buggy custom code (as with Mint's Cinnamon DE).

CScottG wrote:

Also, searching for the near "right" distro for your use isn't a waste of time. Even 12 hours of time spent trying various desktop distro's (if that's all you are interested in) *might* yield something beneficial for the "long haul". At some point though it's likely to become a real waste of time, but you don't know until you've tried.

Not a complete waste, no. But once you start getting into the more esoteric/obscure ones, you've got to consider the fact that finding info and getting assistance online will likely be more difficult, just because the user community is very small. Unless you have a very specific use case that requires features only found in that distro, what have you gained besides "distro hipster" cred?

Mainstream distros like Ubuntu have multiple spins/versions to suit different use cases. Hate Unity? Install Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu. Need a headless server or want to build up a custom DE piecemeal? Start with Ubuntu Server or drop back to vanilla Debian. Sure, some people *like* to play with different distros. Nothing wrong with that. But if you're trying to *use* Linux, instead of playing with distros as a hobby or educational exercise, you're better served by doing a little research first to narrow it down to a handful of (probably mainstream) choices so you're not spending weeks learning the foibles of distros you'll end up ditching in the end.

So what was the point of just reposting the whole thing verbatim, then?

just brew it! wrote:

Sad to say, I've given up on the AMD proprietary Linux drivers. While performance was somewhat better, stability was terrible. My new Linux desktop build (which I'm not cut over to yet) has an nVidia card in it.

Are you using nVidia supplied drivers?

I stopped using the nVidia supplied drivers for my Ubuntu rigs a few years ago because once in a while the kernel would get an update and I'd loose access to the GUI on the next reboot. It was a well known issue with a solution but it was a pain in the ass to deal with. I'd go back if the issue is resolved (I should get off my ass and check).

End User wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Sad to say, I've given up on the AMD proprietary Linux drivers. While performance was somewhat better, stability was terrible. My new Linux desktop build (which I'm not cut over to yet) has an nVidia card in it.

Are you using nVidia supplied drivers?

I stopped using the nVidia supplied drivers for my Ubuntu rigs a few years ago because once in a while the kernel would get an update and I'd loose access to the GUI on the next reboot. It was a well known issue with a solution but it was a pain in the ass to deal with. I'd go back if the issue is resolved (I should get off my ass and check).

I honestly don't know whether that's been fixed or not. But my rig prior to the one with the AMD GPU had an nVidia one, and I had the routine down. I kept a recent nVidia installer in the root account's home directory at all times, and could probably have installed it from a text mode console in my sleep. I hope I don't have to start doing that again, but it is preferable to the random stability issues of the Catalysts.