The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[DavidS877]

In that case, don’t touch anything. So what if you get a ms or two of extra latency, they’re HDDs, super slow regardless.

Yes, they are super slow. As a matter of fact you should all send your super slow HDDs to me. (No SMR, those really are crap.) Obviously this is bulk storage like media files where latency is less critical.

$ dd if=BIGASSFILE.mp4 of=/dev/null bs=8192k status=progress
35055992832 bytes (35 GB, 33 GiB) copied, 38 s, 922 MB/s
(10 x 10T WD RAID6 in an external array connected via 4x SAS)

Sadly I should be seeing over 1GB/sec but there's a bottleneck somewhere. But that's not a problem until I upgrade to 40Gbit at home. Probably something with how it's handling the multiple links.

Edit: Looks like it might just be the card, a SAS2008 / 9211-8i Which is now 11 years old. Guess I'll replace that first. And maybe add an NVMe for latency sensitive stuff. Then if that doesn't help maybe it's time to upgrade the MB/CPU/RAM from the E3-1270 v3 which seems to not have any CPU load problems.

Edit: Or maybe I ended up with it in the wrong MB slot. Wish it was easier to pull out of the rack. 1 PCI-E 2.0 x4 (in x8 ) slots
Er, no, correct slot... LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x8, ASPM L0s, Exit Latency L0s <64ns, L1 <1us (the card is 2.0 but at least it's the x8 slot)

 

[Susanna]

Yes, they are super slow. As a matter of fact you should all send your super slow HDDs to me. (No SMR, those really are crap.) Obviously this is bulk storage like media files where latency is less critical.

$ dd if=BIGASSFILE.mp4 of=/dev/null bs=8192k status=progress
35055992832 bytes (35 GB, 33 GiB) copied, 38 s, 922 MB/s
(10 x 10T WD RAID6 in an external array connected via 4x SAS)

Sadly I should be seeing over 1GB/sec but there's a bottleneck somewhere. But that's not a problem until I upgrade to 40Gbit at home. Probably something with how it's handling the multiple links.

Yeah, I would want to see like 1.5GB/s for a sequential read over ten drives like that.

dd if=bigfile.mp3 of=/dev/null bs=8192k status=progress
14755561472 bytes (15 GB, 14 GiB) copied, 5 s, 3,0 GB/s
2052+1 records in
2052+1 records out
17216772096 bytes (17 GB, 16 GiB) copied, 5,82243 s, 3,0 GB/s

Anyway for this old RAID card I think the impact would be more on the latency than on the bandwidth. HDDs have reasonable bandwidth, at least when you compare it to their latency. It can take seconds for an HDD to start reading if it's not specifically a NAS or enterprise drive, an obsolescent HBA is nothing compared to that.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

So a while back I gave Linux Mint a shot in preparation for Windows 10's death (I think 21.1) . Originally I seemed to have been 'blessed' with my computer taking forever to start up and refuse to shut down. I was able to solve the startup issue but could never fix the shut down one. Eventually I gave up.

Anyways, shoot to current day and I install Mint 21.2, and wow, everything JUST WORKS. Woo fucking hoo.

Also found out that Lutris now has an 'install from .exe' option so installing pirated windows games are now a snap. My only complaint is that performance isn't as good as I'd like, but that could either be a WINE issue or my NVIDIA card. Regardless I'm just happy to figure some shit out for when I build my final AMD build in 2025.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

or my NVIDIA card

More likely this. NVIDIA doesn't play nice with Linux.

 

[Creative Username]

More likely this. NVIDIA doesn't play nice with Linux.

It's quite good if you download the proprietary drivers, and IIRC the open ones have been getting better as of late too. Wine is usually extremely fast, because it simply reinterprets Windows executables in the way that Linux expects and translates library/system calls, along with other miscellanea. I vaguely remember reading that Wine programs are so close to native that they can even make Linux calls. Every day, we get closer and closer to Total Linux Viability and Total Microsoft Death.

 

[Susanna]

Every day, we get closer and closer to Total Linux Viability and Total Microsoft Death.

It's quite good if you download the proprietary drivers, and IIRC the open ones have been getting better as of late too.

Not quite. Unfortunately it's with the proprietary drivers you get Wayland issues. Nvidia just decided to stick with X. If that's okay for you, Nvidia will work fine, but reality is sticking with X is becoming less and less viable. Wayland is where things are headed, and sticking with X means consigning yourself to poor performance (desktop compositing is tacked on after the fact, so anything modern the desktop wants to do has to be reinterpreted into a framebuffer the forty year old system that actually displays things can handle), things like sleep and hotplugging monitors runs a high risk of outright crashing the system, using monitors with different resolutions is a gamble and if you want them to scale things differently you're out of luck entirely, and of course horrifying screen tearing.
Nvidia are getting good drivers soon™, but it's been coming soon™ for years. Right now, if you want graphics with good Linux support, you need to go AMD or Intel. It's just how things are.

 

[Betonhaus]

It's quite good if you download the proprietary drivers, and IIRC the open ones have been getting better as of late too. Wine is usually extremely fast, because it simply reinterprets Windows executables in the way that Linux expects and translates library/system calls, along with other miscellanea. I vaguely remember reading that Wine programs are so close to native that they can even make Linux calls. Every day, we get closer and closer to Total Linux Viability and Total Microsoft Death.

Nvidia drivers have a tendency to drop support for half decent GPUs in future versions of distros. Debian 13 may not support the 3060, for example

 

[StyxHexenHamster1350]

Nvidia drivers have a tendency to drop support for half decent GPUs in future versions of distros. Debian 13 may not support the 3060, for example

All the Debian repos I have ever encountered still contain old Nvidia driver versions. Just look for the driver that has "legacy" in the name.

My video card was made in 2012. Works fine, except when it gets full of dust and cat hair and becomes a space heater.

 

[Rusty Metal Skull Gun]

Not quite. Unfortunately it's with the proprietary drivers you get Wayland issues. Nvidia just decided to stick with X. If that's okay for you, Nvidia will work fine, but reality is sticking with X is becoming less and less viable. Wayland is where things are headed, and sticking with X means consigning yourself to poor performance (desktop compositing is tacked on after the fact, so anything modern the desktop wants to do has to be reinterpreted into a framebuffer the forty year old system that actually displays things can handle), things like sleep and hotplugging monitors runs a high risk of outright crashing the system, using monitors with different resolutions is a gamble and if you want them to scale things differently you're out of luck entirely, and of course horrifying screen tearing.
Nvidia are getting good drivers soon™, but it's been coming soon™ for years. Right now, if you want graphics with good Linux support, you need to go AMD or Intel. It's just how things are.

Lol. Lmao, even.
I've never had any screen tearing here with my glorious KDE X system. Stop spreading FUD - you're not going to crash the system by plugging another monitor in, and there's no problems at all with performance.

It's quite good if you download the proprietary drivers, and IIRC the open ones have been getting better as of late too. Wine is usually extremely fast, because it simply reinterprets Windows executables in the way that Linux expects and translates library/system calls, along with other miscellanea. I vaguely remember reading that Wine programs are so close to native that they can even make Linux calls. Every day, we get closer and closer to Total Linux Viability and Total Microsoft Death.

This is true. I remember a while back creating a Windows program which used inline asm and int 80 to run Linux syscalls when run on Wine. There's not much use for it, but it's a fun novelty.

 

[teriyakiburns]

I've never had any screen tearing here with my glorious KDE X system. Stop spreading FUD - you're not going to crash the system by plugging another monitor in, and there's no problems at all with performance.

I'm stuck with an Nvidia card in my work machine for the time being, but I have seen none of the issues @snov mentioned here. They're all either extreme outliers, or just plain made up by Wayland shills. The only, single, sole advantage Wayland currently has over X is per-monitor scaling; everything else is a step backwards in usability, stability, and features.

The astroturfing for Wayland is following exactly the same pattern as systemd, right down to vague insinuations of political unsoundness in its opponents, which only convinces me that there are reasons other than the technical behind its adoption.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

My only complaint is that performance isn't as good as I'd like, but that could either be a WINE issue or my NVIDIA card.

Does Lutris have any ability to enable esync? Is it enabled by default? It can make a difference if not.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Wayland is where "everything was gonna headed" for about 12 years at this point. It ain't gonna happen. I'm not saying X is the best anyone could ever possibly come up with but Wayland protocol is just not a sound model. (Although X has some very cool features I haven't seen anywhere else to this day)

All the talk about wine (short for "wine is not an emulator" btw.) made me realize that I haven't screwed around with a wine configuration in ages. Any windows program I want to run usually just works. Was *very* different at the beginning.

 

[Saddam Hussain Obama]

I'm stuck with an Nvidia card in my work machine for the time being, but I have seen none of the issues @snov mentioned here. They're all either extreme outliers, or just plain made up by Wayland shills. The only, single, sole advantage Wayland currently has over X is per-monitor scaling; everything else is a step backwards in usability, stability, and features.

The astroturfing for Wayland is following exactly the same pattern as systemd, right down to vague insinuations of political unsoundness in its opponents, which only convinces me that there are reasons other than the technical behind its adoption.

i don't hardly know anything about wayland other than its supporters being massive faggots

 

[Friendly Primarina]

All the talk about wine (short for "wine is not an emulator" btw.) made me realize that I haven't screwed around with a wine configuration in ages. Any windows program I want to run usually just works. Was *very* different at the beginning.

I've only been using Linux for around four years and it feels like WINE has come on in leaps and bounds in just that time.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Wayland is where "everything was gonna headed" for about 12 years at this point. It ain't gonna happen. I'm not saying X is the best anyone could ever possibly come up with but Wayland protocol is just not a sound model.

It blew me away when I found out that Wayland isn't even a proper display server. Every DE is developing its own "compositor" to speak the same protocol, which seems like a pointless duplication of effort, especially given it's inevitable that the gnome dev will add a bunch of extensions to the protocol for their own (or redhat's) purposes, which would obviate the entire point of the project.

All the talk about wine (short for "wine is not an emulator" btw.) made me realize that I haven't screwed around with a wine configuration in ages. Any windows program I want to run usually just works. Was *very* different at the beginning.

I've only been using Linux for around four years and it feels like WINE has come on in leaps and bounds in just that time.

IIRC, it's had a lot of backports from the work on steamdeck. Games just werk on that thing. It's been a huge leap from the days when getting even a simple DOS game like settlers 4 to work was an exercise in futility.

 

[Betonhaus]

I have a question. I may be getting a slightly newer server then what I currently have, which has more drive bays and a newer processor with hyperthreading and limited quick sync support. Currently I have a 128gb ssd boot drive and a 1tb ssd /home drive on my old server (needed for downloading torrents), I plan to make the 1tb drive the boot drive and move that to the new server and leave the 128gb in the old server to be repurposed.
could I merge the /home folder to the 128gb ssd (I have the space when there's no active downloads), clone the 128gb drive to the 1tb drive (and either extend the partition or just make a /home partition with the remaining space), then pop the 1tb drive into the new server and largely continue on with only some minor tweaking such as updating IP address and enabling quick sync? they both have xeon processors

 

[DavidS877]

I have a question. I may be getting a slightly newer server then what I currently have, which has more drive bays and a newer processor with hyperthreading and limited quick sync support. Currently I have a 128gb ssd boot drive and a 1tb ssd /home drive on my old server (needed for downloading torrents), I plan to make the 1tb drive the boot drive and move that to the new server and leave the 128gb in the old server to be repurposed.
could I merge the /home folder to the 128gb ssd (I have the space when there's no active downloads), clone the 128gb drive to the 1tb drive (and either extend the partition or just make a /home partition with the remaining space), then pop the 1tb drive into the new server and largely continue on with only some minor tweaking such as updating IP address and enabling quick sync? they both have xeon processors

Yes. The way I usually do this is(if you blow it up, it's not my problem).
Edit fstab to comment out /home and don't reboot.
as root: "mkdir /home-new ; chmod a+rx /home-new ; rsync -av /home/ /home-new/ ; mv /home /home-old ; mv /home-new /home ; systemctl daemon-reload ; reboot"
I've never done it with systemd, so I'm not 100% sure about that part, you may just be able to leave it out. This is best done from a terminal command line and not while logged in to the gui (Control-Alt-F1) , as "root" and not sudo to root and nothing running as your user.
You'll want to set a "real" root password so if it all goes to hell and your user can no longer login you can get to a prompt and fix it, and so when you run the copy there are no running processes as your user.

The clone of the 128GB to the 1TB is left as an exercise for the reader, but usually on new hardware I want to do a new install, it may want different initrd modules for drive controllers or something.

Free advice on the Internet is worth what you pay for it.
-Me

 

[Betonhaus]

The clone of the 128GB to the 1TB is left as an exercise for the reader, but usually on new hardware I want to do a new install, it may want different initrd modules for drive controllers or something.

I'll be setting up the new server the same way as the old server, but looking into the potential difficulties involved it likely would be far less effort or danger to manually copy my anime download profiles and come up with a new server name that starts with the letter "T".
I was hoping there would be a quick clone but realistically that's too much trouble where starting from scratch is doable, thanks.

 

[Marvin]

I have been getting nvidia cards since I was a teenager (so for like 20 years) because their binary-only drivers have been dead simple to setup and had fantastic performance. Never had a problem.

I'm stuck with an Nvidia card in my work machine for the time being, but I have seen none of the issues @snov mentioned here. They're all either extreme outliers, or just plain made up by Wayland shills. The only, single, sole advantage Wayland currently has over X is per-monitor scaling; everything else is a step backwards in usability, stability, and features.

Hell, even scaling, I haven't had a problem with on X with nvidia.

I haven't had to fuck around with scaling up until very recently, with my most recent build, I fucked up and bought two different monitors with different DPIs. My fault, I fucked up, should've read the fine print.

Still, this works just fine:

#!/bin/sh
xrandr \
  --dpi 157 \
  --output DP-4 --primary --mode 3840x2160 --pos 0x0    --rotate normal \
  --output HDMI-0         --mode 1920x1080 --pos 3840x0 --rotate left --scale 1.7x1.7 \
  --output DP-1 --off --output DP-3 --off

I've got one normal monitor and then one very wide monitor that I have turned sideways to stack a bunch of web browsers for documentation and the farms and such.

 

[The Pulverizer]

You must be very special if you honestly can't get any games to work. If Wine and the DXVK scripts on github that implements D3D9/D3D11 are too niche for you, the there's still Steam's Proton that works reasonably well with most games if not. The Steam Deck runs on a distro that's based on Arch Linux so compatibility is at the top of Valve's list.
I personally think that no games should be compatible with Windows so all the Wintards kill themselves. But even with the current system Linux chads are winning.