The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Bongocat]

What would count as an implosion?

I've tried gnome, cinnamon, mate and KDE on every machine I've ever owned (approximately 5, both laptops and desktops). All of them, within a reasonably short time, have one of the following problems:

- constant lockups that require a hard reset
- switching accounts will cause a blackscreen that never lets up
- suddenly getting myserious errors and booting to the command line instead
- shitting itself when trying to copy to USB drives
- spitting out a bunch of crash dumps when attempting to shut down (reliably), again forcing hard shutdown
- unfixable screen tearing or artifacting

Again, knock on wood, I have never experienced any of these with xubuntu or other xfce based distros.

 

[Seasoned News Reporter]

I've tried gnome, cinnamon, mate and KDE on every machine I've ever owned (approximately 5, both laptops and desktops). All of them, within a reasonably short time, have one of the following problems:

- constant lockups that require a hard reset
- switching accounts will cause a blackscreen that never lets up
- suddenly getting myserious errors and booting to the command line instead
- shitting itself when trying to copy to USB drives
- spitting out a bunch of crash dumps when attempting to shut down (reliably), again forcing hard shutdown
- unfixable screen tearing or artifacting

Again, knock on wood, I have never experienced any of these with xubuntu or other xfce based distros.

Try a minimalist one like ice window manager for a bit. If something breaks there then it might just be hardware issues cause I don't think that many desktop environments should be breaking that much,

 

[Bongocat]

Try a minimalist one like ice window manager for a bit. If something breaks there then it might just be hardware issues cause I don't think that many desktop environments should be breaking that much,

well, as I said, xfce has worked flawlessly on every one of them I've tried after botched installs of others. I just wish xfce didn't look like shit out of the box. You can make it look and feel a lot better, but it ships with some of the worst defaults I've ever seen in any software package ever.

ALSO -- why can't xfce just make the windows/super key behave how it does literally everywhere else? Is that so much to ask? I know their motto is to keep it simple, but god damn.

 

[seri0us]

Again, knock on wood, I have never experienced any of these with xubuntu or other xfce based distros.

I've been using the same Ubuntu-based distro install since April and its still fine

 

[Bongocat]

I've been using the same Ubuntu-based distro install since April and its still fine

gnome, which I believe is the default ubuntu environment, has been the least shit-itselfy, but has still failed catastrophically twice after a few months. That's enough to seriously deter me from using it.

Interestingly, on one of the laptops where gnome previously died, I've been running a gnome based distro on it for the better part of the year as a semi-headless server (that I occasionally need gui on) and it's been perfectly fine. Not entirely sure what to make of that except that gnome works fine if you don't like... use it.

 

[AnOminous]

What's the primary cause of desktop linux shitting itself and dying? Is it the desktop environment? Every distro I've tried eventually implodes except for anything based on xfce (knock on wood)

Honestly I've had more of this issue in Windows and to a lesser extent any Apple OS, although Apple shit is generally monolithic enough that a straight reinstall always works if nothing else is seriously wrong. My main issue has been with shitty NVIDIA binary blobs. I love their cards, I hate their drivers.

 

[seri0us]

gnome, which I believe is the default ubuntu environment, has been the least shit-itselfy, but has still failed catastrophically twice after a few months. That's enough to seriously deter me from using it.

Interestingly, on one of the laptops where gnome previously died, I've been running a gnome based distro on it for the better part of the year as a semi-headless server (that I occasionally need gui on) and it's been perfectly fine. Not entirely sure what to make of that except that gnome works fine if you don't like... use it.

Started with Cinnamon. Been using i3 for about a month now.

 

[Frail Snail]

I've tried gnome, cinnamon, mate and KDE on every machine I've ever owned (approximately 5, both laptops and desktops). All of them, within a reasonably short time, have one of the following problems:

- constant lockups that require a hard reset
- switching accounts will cause a blackscreen that never lets up
- suddenly getting myserious errors and booting to the command line instead
- shitting itself when trying to copy to USB drives
- spitting out a bunch of crash dumps when attempting to shut down (reliably), again forcing hard shutdown
- unfixable screen tearing or artifacting

Again, knock on wood, I have never experienced any of these with xubuntu or other xfce based distros.

Are there any common hardware/brand denominators between those machines? Same distro base on all machines save for the DE? Problems 1, 5 & 6 sound like something might be happening to the hardware. That does sound mysterious, but I have some hope that "this random combination of installed packages solves my issues" is strictly the realm of Windows still.

 

[instythot]

What's the primary cause of desktop linux shitting itself and dying? Is it the desktop environment? Every distro I've tried eventually implodes except for anything based on xfce (knock on wood)

My guess would be targeted to the guts underneath the desktop rather than the desktop itself

Are you enabling development packages on stuff in the debian family or using distros in the arch family? Do you use some unusual software that relies on old gnome or kde libraries?

Edit: also, what do the crash dumps you describe say in them? That's going to be our best clue as to what keeps causing this for you

 

[Doppelmonger]

Remember my iBook? I have not made any progress on it since the hard drive died on me while preparing the files. I have ordered an adaptor to use a ssd without shell as replacement, so until it arives I am toying with an intel graphics MacBook and a virtual machine testing some distros for it.

 

[IamnottheNSA]

I just wish xfce didn't look like shit out of the box. You can make it look and feel a lot better, but it ships with some of the worst defaults I've ever seen in any software package ever.

I really wish Xfwm4 had an option to remember closed windows positions. It’s annoying to either have newly opened windows appear in one of the corners of the screen or dead in center, no matter where you put them before closing.
Also when you, for example, want to open two terminal windows while having centered option enabled, they perfectly overlap one another, to the point where you can only reach the first window either by moving the second window out of the way or clicking the panel button. When you open two instances of the same exact program in Windows, the second window opens a little to the down-right from the first one. I wish Xfwm4 devs added that option.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

I'm sentimental towards Xfce as that was my first unix like os desktop environment, but I can't ever go back after getting bitten by the bare naked ass Calm Window Manager.

Speaking of bare... Testing how long I can go using just the terminal as my file manager, without third party tools. The Fucking Fast File Manager (FFF) had been enjoyable but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong to make it lose the plot when I edit the variables. I can use it entirely by default, but I'd rather it sent trash to the ~/.local/share/Trash/files instead of its own directory. If I change that variable the whole thing apparently has a fit.

 

[AnOminous]

Finally broke down and installed WSL and am I just retarded and failing to grok its greatness or is this just a hot pile of vomit and diarrhea straight from Satan's asshole?

 

[Knight of the Rope]

Finally broke down and installed WSL and am I just retarded and failing to grok its greatness or is this just a hot pile of vomit and diarrhea straight from Satan's asshole?

What, you don't like being able to cd around Windows' clown directory structure (even though you already could in PowerShell anyway)? Or chmod files even though it does literally nothing because Windows won't let you change permissions from 777 for all files, which also makes sshing a pain to do from WSL by the way?

 

[Dick Justice]

Finally broke down and installed WSL and am I just retarded and failing to grok its greatness or is this just a hot pile of vomit and diarrhea straight from Satan's asshole?

running linux on top of windows is like buying a new ferrari and then trying to turn it into one of those old restored american muscle cars. the difference of course is that windows in use behaves closer to a hyundai with 200k miles on it and a clicking sound whenever you drive somewhere. you can kind of sort of turn the muscle car into a ferrari-like but you can't do it the other way around

 

[glicko45]

What has been going on with Arch, i had used arch before for 3 years and i decided to hop to Gentoo for the first time to try it out and when i decided to hop back to arch and it seemed that arch wouldn't support my wifi chip anymore (the Intel ax200). For example i couldn't enable the wifi service, couldn't scan wifi using the iwctl utility. So i naturally thought the ISO was corrupted, downloaded it and verified, still nothing so now im using EndevourOS with no issue, does anyone know why this was happening with arch?

 

[Seasoned News Reporter]

What has been going on with Arch, i had used arch before for 3 years and i decided to hop to Gentoo for the first time to try it out and when i decided to hop back to arch and it seemed that arch wouldn't support my wifi chip anymore (the Intel ax200). For example i couldn't enable the wifi service, couldn't scan wifi using the iwctl utility. So i naturally thought the ISO was corrupted, downloaded it and verified, still nothing so now im using EndevourOS with no issue, does anyone know why this was happening with arch?

No idea but my guess is the base arch install is missing drivers somewhere. I also use endeavour os cause I can't be bothered to deal with a from scratch arch setup. Also cause arch community are fucking cunts & I'd rather do anything that makes them seethe & piss tears.

 

[Knight of the Rope]

What has been going on with Arch, i had used arch before for 3 years and i decided to hop to Gentoo for the first time to try it out and when i decided to hop back to arch and it seemed that arch wouldn't support my wifi chip anymore (the Intel ax200). For example i couldn't enable the wifi service, couldn't scan wifi using the iwctl utility. So i naturally thought the ISO was corrupted, downloaded it and verified, still nothing so now im using EndevourOS with no issue, does anyone know why this was happening with arch?

I was going to respond with "should've read the news feed before installing faggot" but then I realized that I'm not even being ironic with that advice and I hate that fact. Fuck Arch.

 

[glicko45]

I was going to respond with "should've read the news feed before installing faggot" but then I realized that I'm not even being ironic with that advice and I hate that fact. Fuck Arch.

its not really archs' fault its more of the community of bullshit elitists that think their distro of choice is better because it is from scratch, like you dont even see the Gentoo community be that fucking rude and their os is truly from scratch. im fed up with this fuckery

 

[glicko45]

Even the BSD folks are better at explaing how to fix issues and bugs at people instead of being like "haha read the wiki cuck"