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just brew it!
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Sun Aug 07, 2016 12:19 pm

PenGun wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
whm1974 wrote:
You do have a point Captain Ned. However even I and others have given links to documentation in HTML and PDF intended for new users, they still don't want to read it.

It is not the formatting that is the issue, it is the non-newbie-friendly content.

Bingo. The proper way is to just dive in and splash around. I can recommend Slackware for this.

You get an ncurses (cute coloured command line graphical interface) install with control over everything you install. Go everything the first time. ;) Much simpler. The network questions will educate you to some extent and even if you can't understand them will probably hook you up anyway. If not running 'netconfig' after you get a prompt will allow you to try as many times as you need.

It will set up your x windows system and will install a serious suite of tools to build whatever you might want to build, from source. The right way to do things.

I'm not really kidding, but I understand most people just don't care. It's the best way to learn about *nix though. Your cute, direct to X, systemd systems, are not going to teach you much. .

If the goal is to become a Linux guru, and the person in question is OK with a "dive straight into the deep end, sink or swim" approach with (possibly greatly) delayed gratification, then I suppose there might be some merit to this. I tend to think that it is the wrong approach for the vast majority of users though; most will give up before they manage to get a truly useful system up and running, or ditch it when it eventually breaks and they can't figure out how to fix it.

OTOH, if the goal is to keep the rabble out, and limit Linux use to the high priesthood who have passed the trial by fire, yeah fine. :roll:

I tend to believe that a better approach for those new to Linux/UNIX is to provide an easy path to set up the most common desktop and server use cases, with the potential to "dive deep" if the user is curious, or has an unusual use case that isn't covered by the standard installer. Ubuntu (and its Mint derivative) generally do a pretty good job of this. Debian is a reasonable compromise between the hand-holding of Ubuntu and the minimalist approach of distros like Slackware and Arch.

I'm not terribly happy with the way systemd is being foisted on most of the Linux community, but unless Devuan manages to reach critical mass (or someone manages to make a distro based on Slackware that has the user-friendliness of Mint) I think we're kind of stuck with systemd for now, given that Redhat and Debian have both adopted it.
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synthtel2
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Sun Aug 07, 2016 12:40 pm

I'm with JBI on this. Not everyone wants the most advanced learning process available, some people just want to use an OS that's not Windows and don't want too much more absolute skill to be involved.

I think it's more like Ubuntu - Debian - Arch - Slackware in order of increasing difficulty, and I think Arch is a good place for more advanced learning. Arch in isolation is tougher than Slackware, but Arch has really excellent documentation. That'll probably result in less time stuck, more stuff accomplished, and much more learned, if you enter it with any kind of learning mindset. For people who are no more interested in learning about the guts of Linux than they were about learning the guts of Windows, Ubuntu is fine.

(FWIW, wiki.archlinux.org can be a great resource for other distros, not just Arch.)
 
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Sun Aug 07, 2016 2:34 pm

synthtel2 wrote:
For people who are no more interested in learning about the guts of Linux than they were about learning the guts of Windows, Ubuntu is fine.

Thing is, if you're motivated you'll learn regardless. You can still roll custom kernels and build packages from source on Ubuntu if you want to.
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synthtel2
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Sun Aug 07, 2016 6:51 pm

You can, but the system isn't going to work with you to help you learn. Oblig car analogy:

- Ubuntu is something modern from one of the manufacturers more friendly to shade tree mechanics. It's easy enough to work on if you know what you're doing, and the service manuals are alright, but neither aspect actively impresses, and it's got its fair share of weirdness hanging around in the electronics.

- Slackware is an old VW Beetle. It's great in its own way, and it's also a terrible mess in exactly the same ways. It's going to work a lot better if you know a lot about it, and learning everything you should probably isn't going to be easy.

- Arch is a 3/4ths-finished Locost kit with superlative documentation. (Gentoo is the half-finished one, and LFS is no more than a frame. Neither have comparable docs.) Not only does it require work to do practical stuff with, it requires work to even get it rolling. It's got everything you need, though, and it's well set up for a quick yet educational build. In operation, it's certainly going to have a few rough edges left, but you'll be pretty aware of them (and how they interact with everything else) right from the start, and it's got serious redeeming qualities (being the lightest and fastest thing around, if you set it up like I do). It's also superlatively easy to work on, and lots of the skills transfer to any other car you might want to work on.
 
localhostrulez
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:01 pm

My feeling with Ubuntu/Mint is that if it happens to like your config/use case (ex. Intel video card, running common stuff like Chrome, etc), you're basically set. If it doesn't, you're in for hell (ex. going to a command line desktop to use vim, install an nvidia driver via text, having to know how to do that if you remove said card later, etc). Then again, even Windows is getting to be that way (not CLI, but if Win10's update has good drivers for your hardware, cool; if it doesn't, it tends to fight you and screw it up over time).

But ugh, last I checked, hybrid graphics were a mess. Just the more that I want to stick with really standard/common/simple hardware configs (fewer excuses for things to not be supported).

I s'pose I could stick a little M.2 SSD in the laptop, and load Ubuntu on it - I think it'll take to the t450s pretty well. Maybe even install it to a USB drive (provided it doesn't mess with the bootloader/Windows on the internal SSD)?
 
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:38 pm

@synthtel2 -

To extend your car analogy another step...

Whichever one you choose, at least you've got all the relevant engineering drawings and parts lists. They're a disorganized mess though; instead of being neatly filed, you've been given a pile of storage cartons stuffed with papers that have been handed down through all the people who have ever worked on the design of the vehicle. Many details of how everything fits together are left for the mechanic to puzzle out by inspection. Arch at least tells you which carton to look in to find a specific drawing.

@localhostrulez -

Different strokes. I don't consider needing to use CLI or vim to be hell; heck I do that kind of stuff on a near-daily basis at my day job (and have done so for years). To this day my reflex is to open a CLI window and use vim when I need to do a quick config edit; I even have a global hotkey programmed to open CLI windows (Super-Alt-T).

And in spite of this, I still have ZERO desire to tangle with Slackware... :lol:

Give me an OS that does 95% of what I want out of the box, DOESN'T do a lot of crap I DON'T want, and allows me to tweak to get that last 5% of functionality. I'm willing to dive below the surface when necessary, but I don't want to make maintaining my OS my hobby.

And yeah, hybrid graphics are a mess. GPU support in general is still a weak link. This is one of the factors (among several) that has held back adoption of desktop Linux.
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synthtel2
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:06 am

just brew it! wrote:
Whichever one you choose, at least you've got all the relevant engineering drawings and parts lists. They're a disorganized mess though; instead of being neatly filed, you've been given a pile of storage cartons stuffed with papers that have been handed down through all the people who have ever worked on the design of the vehicle. Many details of how everything fits together are left for the mechanic to puzzle out by inspection. Arch at least tells you which carton to look in to find a specific drawing.

Why can't I upvote forum posts? :lol:
 
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Mon Aug 08, 2016 8:12 pm

User hostile, it's the only way. ;) I could not get Debian or Cinamon to give me a mouse of keyboard. I could not get them to boot to a prompt although I ripped everything I could find out of the Debian install that did GDM or whatever crap they use..They both crapped out and left me with a grub prompt as well.

Slackware 14.2 did it's usual, reel her out onto the drive, it's quick, threw the usual questions at me booted up to a prompt, let me build and install the Nvidia driver I needed for my GTX 1070, the source of many of my problems, and we are back.
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localhostrulez
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:01 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Different strokes. I don't consider needing to use CLI or vim to be hell; heck I do that kind of stuff on a near-daily basis at my day job (and have done so for years). To this day my reflex is to open a CLI window and use vim when I need to do a quick config edit; I even have a global hotkey programmed to open CLI windows (Super-Alt-T).

OK, maybe not hell, but not as obvious as other systems. Remove the dGPU on Windows (switching to IGP), and it auto detects somewhat - often WU pulls down the driver automatically (even on 7). Even if you have to load the graphics installer (and granted, you have to know about that), at least the actual installer is fairly obvious once loaded.

On linux, you might be stuck at a black screen because the GUI didn't load (I've seen this before), and you need to know to enter the CLI desktop and change the right file. Depends on if you used the driver options provided by the distro options or not. I suppose neither is an average user thing, and nerds tend to know these things, but yeah. (To be totally fair, most people have no clue what Device Manager is either.)

Wasn't there some linux distro (NOT debian based) that someone mentioned a while back, specifically built around making video drivers just work? (But as I discovered, it has to recompile other apps when installing vs quickly loading a compiled package.)
 
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Tue Aug 09, 2016 2:41 am

PenGun wrote:
User hostile, it's the only way. ;) I could not get Debian or Cinamon to give me a mouse of keyboard. I could not get them to boot to a prompt although I ripped everything I could find out of the Debian install that did GDM or whatever crap they use..They both crapped out and left me with a grub prompt as well.

Not sure what you did, or what hardware you were using, but the only time I tend to have problems like that with Debian/Ubuntu is when setting the system up to boot from software RAID. Especially on UEFI motherboards. RAID boot with UEFI can be an exercise in frustration (but is indeed doable, as evidenced by the fact that I am using such a system right now).

You may occasionally need to disable KMS if you've got a newer GPU and the system selecs a busted GPU driver OOB, but fortunately that's becoming rarer these days.
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Tue Aug 09, 2016 2:54 pm

just brew it! wrote:
PenGun wrote:
User hostile, it's the only way. ;) I could not get Debian or Cinamon to give me a mouse of keyboard. I could not get them to boot to a prompt although I ripped everything I could find out of the Debian install that did GDM or whatever crap they use..They both crapped out and left me with a grub prompt as well.

Not sure what you did, or what hardware you were using, but the only time I tend to have problems like that with Debian/Ubuntu is when setting the system up to boot from software RAID. Especially on UEFI motherboards. RAID boot with UEFI can be an exercise in frustration (but is indeed doable, as evidenced by the fact that I am using such a system right now).

You may occasionally need to disable KMS if you've got a newer GPU and the system selecs a busted GPU driver OOB, but fortunately that's becoming rarer these days.


I was quite surprised. I have done Debian on this machine before, an old i5 750 era thing, and no problem. Just SATA and USB peripherals, the only tricky thing, and it's not, is a USB DAC. It's hard to believe the new GTX 1070 was the reason, it does text just fine. Maybe the insistence on graphical booting was part of it but slack put up X before I built the Nvidia driver.

I dunno.
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Re: New Linux users should read this.

Wed Aug 24, 2016 10:53 am

localhostrulez wrote:
My feeling with Ubuntu/Mint is that if it happens to like your config/use case (ex. Intel video card, running common stuff like Chrome, etc), you're basically set. If it doesn't, you're in for hell (ex. going to a command line desktop to use vim, install an nvidia driver via text, having to know how to do that if you remove said card later, etc). Then again, even Windows is getting to be that way (not CLI, but if Win10's update has good drivers for your hardware, cool; if it doesn't, it tends to fight you and screw it up over time).

But ugh, last I checked, hybrid graphics were a mess. Just the more that I want to stick with really standard/common/simple hardware configs (fewer excuses for things to not be supported).

I s'pose I could stick a little M.2 SSD in the laptop, and load Ubuntu on it - I think it'll take to the t450s pretty well. Maybe even install it to a USB drive (provided it doesn't mess with the bootloader/Windows on the internal SSD)?

You can install the proprietary nVidia drivers from a gui window without much hassle.

They might be a few versions out of date though.

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