The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Car Won't Crank]

Let me be clear, when I installed Mint I went into it knowing that the proprietary drivers were the way to go, the problem was that the software manager was bugged or it wasn't giving me the correct driver. That's what I meant by "kept giving me the Noveau driver", I could select proprietary drivers, but I don't think it replaced them on a reboot. Instead, it defaulted to the Noveau driver and stayed that way, despite my choice. I would reboot my system only to find the Noveau checkbox ticked in driver manager. It wasn't properly installing the proprietary drivers. I tried everything including removing the files, messing with Nvidia config files, installing third party scripts and configs, nothing. It just got worse.

Mint uses the same driver manager as Ubuntu, and Ubuntu gave me the proprietary driver as soon as I selected it in the graphical installer. No problems.

That's strange as I've never had that issue using Nvidia cards. Perhaps it's some odd bug on your end.

Snap Store gets removed in two terminal commands. Since when did Linux tinkerers lose the ability to use the terminal?

And sure I heard some bad things about how Snaps used to be, but I didn't see much of a problem with Snapped Firefox when I used it (granted, I did use it for only five minutes max). It functioned okay, I still ended up replacing it with a Flatpak out of habit.

Yes you can do that, but that doesn't fully solve the problem. Remove snapd with apt and try installing something common like firefox or nginx, apt will default to the snap repositories when you attempt to install. You have to find the urls Mint and Popos use for the regular distro's software repository and add them, which isn't guaranteed to work with whatever packages you may want to download due to potential dependancy issues. When you want to use the normal binaries, sometimes it's better to go with the distro that has something important like that already configured. This all may change though if the last few holdouts decide to switch to snap/flatpak containers for easier maintainability in the next major releases so in the end I guess do what works for you.

 

[Mr. Lambert]

Remove snapd with apt and try installing something common like firefox or nginx, apt will default to the snap repositories when you attempt to install. You have to find the urls Mint and Popos use for the regular distro's software repository and add them, which isn't guaranteed to work with whatever packages you may want to download due to potential dependancy issues

Or you could simply just add the Firefox/Nginx PPA, Firefox also can be installed via the Mozilla Firefox website. Snapd/Snap repository dependent packages are fairly few and far between from my experience.

When you want to use the normal binaries, sometimes it's better to go with the distro that has something important like that already configured.

Any Linux distro requires important configuring because all of them are using different packages and dependencies in their repos. Snaps were made to solve this problem, containerizing all the dependencies and distributing them as single packages across multiple distros. For the average person who doesn't really have a reason to hate Snaps, they just work. Configuring dependencies and packages is a hassle for both users and developers, and placing a focus on these solutions might be what is needed for the platform to see growth. Red Hat is trying the same thing with Flatpaks, because that's the solution that is just most convenient at the moment for distribution on Linux.

By all means, if you hate Flatpaks/AppImages/Snaps, go ahead and install a distro that allows you to completely ignore them, but I think most people would like to keep their system compact, clean, and simple. I don't think you should fault Ubuntu or Canonical for simply doing what is the most logical next step for package distribution on Linux.

I replace Snaps with Flatpaks because I'm used to them having spent a lot of time on Fedora. My computer is clean and stable and rarely sees a fault. Ubuntu required less configuration for me out of the box since it comes with GNOME40+ out of the box, unlike say, something like Debian Stable or Linux Mint, both of which require additional repos and PPAs to get modern DEs.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

Or you could simply just add the Firefox/Nginx PPA, Firefox also can be installed via the Mozilla Firefox website. Snapd/Snap repository dependent packages are fairly few and far between from my experience.

The way snaps are baked into the Ubuntu derived distros is a little more insidious. Often times it's not just a simple purging of snapd and installing ppa. For a lot of 22.04+ distros, you have to also change the priority of the source per package, otherwise you will still end up installing the snapd version through apt.

Any Linux distro requires important configuring because all of them are using different packages and dependencies in their repos. Snaps were made to solve this problem, containerizing all the dependencies and distributing them as single packages across multiple distros. For the average person who doesn't really have a reason to hate Snaps, they just work. Configuring dependencies and packages is a hassle for both users and developers, and placing a focus on these solutions might be what is needed for the platform to see growth. Red Hat is trying the same thing with Flatpaks, because that's the solution that is just most convenient at the moment for distribution on Linux.

Yes we are in the dockerization of the Linux desktop experience. Like anything it has pros and cons. Main issue with Canonical and snaps is that they alone control the source repo and I believe you can't use other snap repos.

By all means, if you hate Flatpaks/AppImages/Snaps, go ahead and install a distro that allows you to completely ignore them, but I think most people would like to keep their system compact, clean, and simple. I don't think you should fault Ubuntu or Canonical for simply doing what is the most logical next step for package distribution on Linux.

I don't think the extra space each snap install makes a system compact. It reduces dependency issues but that also creates other issues like relying on the devs for each package to make sure all the libraries are kept to date.

I replace Snaps with Flatpaks because I'm used to them having spent a lot of time on Fedora. My computer is clean and stable and rarely sees a fault. Ubuntu required less configuration for me out of the box since it comes with GNOME40+ out of the box, unlike say, something like Debian Stable or Linux Mint, both of which require additional repos and PPAs to get modern DEs.

Everyone has a workflow. There's no right or wrong way to go about it. That's the beauty of Linux. However Canonical's monopolizing of snap is the antithesis of that. Flatpak is more open at least and same with appimages. Cinnamon is a pretty modern DE on par with Gnome and the others. Maybe you're thinking of Mate or Xfce versions of Mint which are more old school in design.

 

[DavidS877]

Ahh, the intent of shared libraries to improve loading times, reduce memory usage and improve CPU cache hit rates in heavily used libraries have just gone out the window, haven't they. (My lawn, get off it.)

I've switched back to pure Debian partially for the Snap reason.

I admit, I do use AppImages for some things, but that doesn't require a root level daemon to use them, or a store.

 

[Knight of the Rope]

The Snap Store? Literally removed with two lines in the terminal.

I'm one of the resident Ubuntu fanboys in the thread and even I'll admit that the shit they're doing with Snaps is bullshit and I wish they would stop.

My one solace is that I'm sure that Snaps are on borrowed time, just like every other Canonical-monopolized 'innovation' that they've ever had. Just like Unity, Mir, Ubuntu Phone, Ubuntu Edge, Ubuntu One (remember when that was going to be a cloud-storage thing?), LXC/LXD ('debatable'? Hah!), and every attempt they've made to launch their Ubuntu Professional Linux Certifications over the last decade. I'm pretty sure Snaps will soon be yet another project carcass for their pile; something annoying that gives you a reason to avoid 22.04 specifically, but other than that is never mentioned again.

Red Hat is trying the same thing with Flatpaks, because that's the solution that is just most convenient at the moment for distribution on Linux.

The difference there is that Red Hat doesn't own the idea of Flatpaks (which is probably obvious because we're referring to them as Flatpaks, and not Red Hat™ Flatpak™s). Canonical owns (and advocates hard for) Snaps, and as @Car Won't Crank mentioned this means they insidiously try to force Snaps into everything and have a strict monopoly on how the technology is used and developed. Which would be arguably okay, if the technology was any good, and if they actually had developers that weren't just soyjaks and trannies.

 

[Ahriman]

Because you're a BBC fanatic.

I like Derek but I can't stand the gatekeeping attitudes that he has. I got my damn mom hooked on Linux Mint and she finds it super easy to use - I can't expect her to use i3. Moreover, I get paid to fix Linux shit so I want a Linux workstation that doesn't get in the way of my productivity, and both KDE and XFCE have been extremely comfy for those purposes.

 

[pylosurf]

Ahh, the intent of shared libraries to improve loading times, reduce memory usage and improve CPU cache hit rates in heavily used libraries have just gone out the window, haven't they. (My lawn, get off it.)

Also pretty great for security updates. If (when) a security vulnerability is found in a library, and a program statically links it, you're fucked until someone re-builds the program.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Because you're a BBC fanatic.

I like Derek but I can't stand the gatekeeping attitudes that he has. I got my damn mom hooked on Linux Mint and she finds it super easy to use - I can't expect her to use i3. Moreover, I get paid to fix Linux shit so I want a Linux workstation that doesn't get in the way of my productivity, and both KDE and XFCE have been extremely comfy for those purposes.

For the love of all that is holy, don't make "shill" the thumbnail footnote for your video. I might not actually watch this because of that. I use Neovim instead of Emacs, not for the sense of being a guru, but because it's easy to turn it into a decent markdown editor. Emacs is not comfortable to configure at all, plus it would do far more than I need/want it to do.

I'm back on a desktop environment as a proxy to my choices in system management and workflow, but it's not hard to be keyboard efficient on any desktop environment. These things are just built around a window management scheme anyhow. Not every difference has to matter. In fact, I like even-grounding with keyboard AND mouse. I'm certain the vast majority of desktop users don't give a shit either way.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Also pretty great for security updates. If (when) a security vulnerability is found in a library, and a program statically links it, you're fucked until someone re-builds the program.

That's the theory anyway, but that assumes you're actually using a shared copy of the library and not a Linux-style DLL Hell situation where everyone keeps their own copy of their favorite version of the dynamically-linked library inside a chroot/flatpak/docker/Qubes VM/airgapped build server.

 

[Ahriman]

In a way, I owe KDE for getting me interested in Linux back in the day, so I'll always have a soft spot for it (no shill).

But yea, if you take some time to learn its ins and outs, it's pretty damn useful and it just works.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

In a way, I owe KDE for getting me interested in Linux back in the day, so I'll always have a soft spot for it (no shill).

But yea, if you take some time to learn its ins and outs, it's pretty damn useful and it just works.

KDE is my favorite DE hands down, and I'm so happy the Steam Deck defaults to it.

It's just a damn shame every distro I've tried on my desktop literally falls apart due to my Nvidia GPU.

 

[Rusty Metal Skull Gun]

KDE is my favorite DE hands down, and I'm so happy the Steam Deck defaults to it.

It's just a damn shame every distro I've tried on my desktop literally falls apart due to my Nvidia GPU.

KDE is so much better than any of the alternatives I don't really understand why anybody uses anything else. I'd rather use Windows than GNOME.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

KDE is so much better than any of the alternatives I don't really understand why anybody uses anything else. I'd rather use Windows than GNOME.

As I said, for some reason KDE distros (specifically Neon and Kubuntu) did not play play nice with my 3070 at all. Neon in particular completely deflated in less than 24 hours. The only one that seemed to work was Manjaro, but that distro seems to be a bit controversial.

I've been needing to get back into learning Linux, but Mint seems like the only option I like for this rig.

 

[teriyakiburns]

In a way, I owe KDE for getting me interested in Linux back in the day, so I'll always have a soft spot for it (no shill).

But yea, if you take some time to learn its ins and outs, it's pretty damn useful and it just works.

Same. My first serious dabble was Mandrake, with whatever version of K Desktop it had on it. This was when RPM hell was a real thing and rm -rf / would do exactly what you told it as root. I think it was KDE 2. So probably around 2000, early 2001. It sounds silly, but it felt a little like Amiga Workbench, even though it looks nothing at all like it. It was comfy, especially compared to Windows (which, at the time, was still good enough and not utterly retarded).

 

[SilentDuck]

KDE is so much better than any of the alternatives I don't really understand why anybody uses anything else. I'd rather use Windows than GNOME.

I was a KDE 3.x fanatic until KDE 4.x came out, still can't ever trust it to not morph into a pile of random non-working autism again. Once bitten. So I stay walled off in my own shrinking corner of the linux user space, with all the other exhausted simpletons using MATE and fantasizing that it's Gnome2 and Mark Shuttleworth has AIDS and will be gone soon enough.

 

[DavidS877]

Personally I need my "desktop environment" to do very few things: Let me move and resize windows. Give me a window list(usually at the top or bottom of the screen), let me launch new windows and manage virtual desktops. twm was just about enough.

 

[Carpe Jugulum]

I’ve been needing to get back into learning Linux, but Mint seems like the only option I like for this rig.

I removed cinnamon from Mint and installed KDE. It was relatively easy to do as a newfag so consider it a possible learning opportunity.

Additional: I have a 3080 and it’s played ball so far.

 

[Uncle Ted's Cabin]

Personally I need my "desktop environment" to do very few things: Let me move and resize windows. Give me a window list(usually at the top or bottom of the screen), let me launch new windows and manage virtual desktops. twm was just about enough.

View attachment 4279679

I'm going to guess that you are joking, as you posted the twm screenshot from wikipedia, but in case you aren't, Is this some kind of special use case machine that is not being used as a desktop computer? If not, why wouldn't you use something that is more configurable such as dwm, bspwm, icewm, fvwm, etc.?

 

[DavidS877]

I'm going to guess that you are joking, as you posted the twm screenshot from wikipedia, but in case you aren't, Is this some kind of special use case machine that is not being used as a desktop computer? If not, why wouldn't you use something that is more configurable such as dwm, bspwm, icewm, fvwm, etc.?

As I said, twm almost works for my desktop needs. If I cared I'd use FVWM again, but really I'm running XFCE stripped down.

 

[PlugsPugs]

The arguments for and against are already in the thread, but +1 me for Mint w/ the Mate desktop.
It just works for me. Maybe one day I'll go full wizard and become a Slackware acolyte, but really Mate just works well for me and it's my recommendation for anyone curious and wanting to break free if the Windows world.