General Computer Thread

[Allyn Gibson]

I'm running Linux Mint Debian Edition, and the Cinnamon updates from 21.1 Xia dropped for LMDE today.

I like the new Cinnamon default theme, with rounded and floating popups, though it's broken for me (symbolic icons in the taskbar don't initially respect size settings and have to be adjusted back), and those rounded and floating elements, which were touted as a major design shift, aren't part of the Mint-Y themes, which is what Mint users will start out with.

I spent an hour and created a stylesheet that loadS the Mint-Y-Dark-Teal colors on top of the Cinnamon default theme, and it worked pretty well, but the broken symbolic icons in the taskbar is a problem and keeps me from using it. It was honestly easier to see the margin and border-radius settings for Cinnamon and add them to my custom MYDT stylesheet to get the same effect.

There were some minor icon changes in the Y sets.

The other under-the-hood stuff I can't really tell. Like I'm going to notice a change in Xed.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Have any of you tried "FreeBSD"?
Any thoughts on BSD vs Linux?

 

[Santaman]

Yes, I've tried a few BSD's and they're all far less refined than Linux, compared to a distro like Mint, Tuxedo, Ubuntu and even plain Debian they're less easy to work with and support for harware is also less extensive.

This might help:

Linux vs FreeBSD: An In-Depth Comparison for 2023 – TheLinuxCode

Deciding between Linux and FreeBSD for your operating system needs is no simple choice. As open source Unix derivatives, they share substantial DNA – but have different priorities. From desktop users to cloud developers, this definitive guide explores the key contrasts to inform your decision...

thelinuxcode.com

I agree with their conclusion:
For home desktop PC users focused on software variety, media support and customization freedom – Linux all the way. Choices like Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Manjaro offer outstanding new user desktop experiences.

Technically inclined server operators wanting optimized source compilation and storage reliability – FreeBSD makes sense. Significant performance advantages come available for large file workloads and networking stacks with tuning.
Embedded product designers needing proprietary control yet solid C development environments – the permissive BSD license combined with extensive reference platform support makes FreeBSD a common choice.

Aspiring kernel developers hoping to learn and "pay it forward" – picking a popular Linux distribution offers more opportunity to directly engage on new features and issues with companies like Red Hat, SUSE and Canonical.
Cloud architect roles focused on massively scalable infrastructure – the dominance of Linux under major cloud providers ensures practical transferability of hands-on technology skills compared to BSD.

As for Mint, I use a few machines with MATE but mostly XFCE because I like it clean and simple, updated one older machine and my main machine and I've not found any problems or hiccups.

 

[John Clark]

Turned on my old laptop last week (Been a while and it's a bit old and slow, so I'm doing an OS install on that. I'm trying Mint on that to see how it goes and partly as a testbed for other computers down the road.

Just as an idea as to how old it is, it has aAMD Turion 64 1.6ghz processor and pata HDD. - Still, seems to be going ok so far.

 

[Santaman]

On machines that old and slow I would recommend Bodhi Linux

Bodhi: The Enlightened Linux Distribution

Bodhi, a lightweight Linux distro featuring: Fast, fully customisable Moksha Desktop; 64-bit & 32-bit Non-PAE support; Built on top of Ubuntu

www.bodhilinux.com

I'm using it on a Sempron 145 single core machine with a HDD and a Dell D 830 from 2007, that's a Core2Duo with a PATA HDD, even Linux Mint XFCE is starting to get a bit heavy on those two oldtimers, Bodhi is a fair bit lighter and of the lightweight Linux distro's I've tried so far Bodhi is the one which resembles a fully fledged distro the most.

 

[John Clark]

Well, fot the moment, that particular version is only for testing for other (faster) machines and to be fair, even with a non ssd, it's loading speed and running hasn't been too bad. (I'll see when I start using Firefox and VLC together too later.)

If everything goes to plan, the old one'll transition to something different.

As for D830's, I may be somewhat familiar with those as my Dad has a preference for them and has run Mint, XP, Win7, Win10 and Win11 on thee two that he still uses as his daily machines (Perhaps other versions of linux too) - but he likes to experiment more

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Have any of you tried "FreeBSD"?
Any thoughts on BSD vs Linux?

No, and no, though I use CTWM (the default GUI in NetBSD, I think) as a distraction-free environment in Mint. It is seriously old-school -- the default config, which is basically useless these days, dates to 1991 -- and strange, but I kinda like it.

 

[Santaman]

I'm slowly moving machines to Mint 22.1 so far so good, haven't had any problems with it on any of them and I have quite a variety of machines.

 

[John Clark]

Well, for me, I've tried it on two machines.

One there is a slight issue with the wireless network card - but that seems to be the case with all the versions of Linux I've run on it so far.

(I do have instructions on how to fix it and will try at the weekend because it looks as though it's a fairly common issue on that particular network card. Ethernet is fine though). Other than that, on the Turion, it works ok, but I probably will go with a lighter weight one like bodhi once it's all sorted

As for the other machine, (an A8-4500m processor with 8gb mem), that works very well and straight off the install.

I have to test (or find alternatives) to a couple of pieces of software, but that one is going Mint Cinnamon 22.1 all the way as soon as that testing is complete.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Is there a version of Linux that's really close to windows in look and feel?

 

[John Clark]

Is there a version of Linux that's really close to windows in look and feel?

Other people have far more experience with the various types than I do, but Mint seems to do that (for me anyway). There are bits where you might have to pop in to terminal (or CMD) at least once. (So far, that's been more when I'm actually installing windows versions of programs).

Looking elsewhere, Zorin and Q4OS look very windowsy. Zorin especially with the apperance, but I haven't actually used them.

I'd bet that there's a few that you can setup to look and probably feel close

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Other people have far more experience with the various types than I do, but Mint seems to do that (for me anyway). There are bits where you might have to pop in to terminal (or CMD) at least once. (So far, that's been more when I'm actually installing windows versions of programs).

Looking elsewhere, Zorin and Q4OS look very windowsy. Zorin especially with the apperance, but I haven't actually used them.

I'd bet that there's a few that you can setup to look and probably feel close

No I mean look and feel in terms of how you use it every day, and ease of installation. I have tried various forms of linux over the years but I almost always go back to Windows after a while due to

a) lack of patience to learn haha. so many commands to do things that in a windows environment can be done with clicks
b) i find myself sometimes wishing a certain program or game was on linux only to find it isn't

I usually bump into one of those two things and then go back to windows.

Also how is linux with new hardware? I have an Asus F15 with 2 gpus. It's got one on the cpu and a discrete one it switches to when gaming or doing intensive things like video rendering for example.

 

[Santaman]

I've been off Windows for so long that not Linux but Windows is frustrating to set up, it's stupidly limited, the GUI sucks, it's also slow and heavy, filled to the brim with crap and spyware and so on.
I have one win 11 machine and it's only good for gaming, everything else I do on Linux where I have everything on the machine itself without subscription crap or adverts or other garbage.
Linux is quite good with hardware, might need to specify that you want to use a version with a bleeding edge kernel but that usually is enough to make new hardware run.
As for programs, I personally have never run into anything not having a Linux equivalent but that's just how it is for me personally.

 

[John Clark]

From my point of view (and being a Windows user for most of my time, dos before that, amiga, spectrum and oric but until recently, not linux)?

Well, my installations have gone in easily enough (Just off a boot dvd in one case, boot USB in the other).

For day to day stuff (Internet, watching video, emails), it's the same software I use for Windows.

Once installed, look in Software centre and there's a load of stuff you may recognize (For example, VLC, Thunderbird, Steam etc).

I've tried WINE for two specific items, though there are certainly alternatives for both of them, though I want to check those before I swap them completely.

My biggest issue was with commercial blu-ray playback, but WINE may take care of that and with certain addins, VLC will do it too. (It can in Windows, so I expect the Linux native to as well)

Once all setup though, you can have your day to day use much the same as windows.

My only query would be certain games, but with Steam doing it's thing, and checking various websites for WINE compatibility, I reckon you'll be able to run those too.

If not, there's always dual-boot

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Cool thanks for the posts. Something to look into and try

 

[John Clark]

If nothing else, at least some of them, you can also run off the usb stick/boot dvd to see if navigating and using some of the programs is to your taste (That's what I did before swapping to a spare HD and just hitting the install button for a bigger test).

 

[Marc]

guess in this day and age if you want a ultra wide monitor they think you must be gamer.

Looking to move from dual 27" to a single 49" monitor but seems the panel are either VA or OLED and I'm looking at the $600 premium for the later inc tax (got the money but I tend to be a bit of scooge).

Just want a decent screen and IPS panel would be nice (my current Samsungs are IPS) but only found one ultra wide with IPS and I can't find anything anything on the brand and amazon.ca has 2 ratings and no reviews which is a yeah not happening for me.

But least the wife is despite my other recent expenditure.

when I'm in the mood pull the server from the rack, replacing my dual E5-2650v2 with a Ryzen 9 7900 and 128GB DDR5 which will be twice as fast as both Xeons combined and bring me in the 2020s.

be bit sad the current setup hasn't missed a beat in nearly 6 years depsite using a motherboard that's old enough for junior high.

 

[John Clark]

Certain people at work have gone that way.

It's usually seriously wide spreadsheets. They tend to just stick the rest of us with a pair of 24 inchers though

 

[Haggis and tatties]

guess in this day and age if you want a ultra wide monitor they think you must be gamer.

Looking to move from dual 27" to a single 49" monitor but seems the panel are either VA or OLED and I'm looking at the $600 premium for the later inc tax (got the money but I tend to be a bit of scooge).

Just want a decent screen and IPS panel would be nice (my current Samsungs are IPS) but only found one ultra wide with IPS and I can't find anything anything on the brand and amazon.ca has 2 ratings and no reviews which is a yeah not happening for me.

But least the wife is despite my other recent expenditure.

when I'm in the mood pull the server from the rack, replacing my dual E5-2650v2 with a Ryzen 9 7900 and 128GB DDR5 which will be twice as fast as both Xeons combined and bring me in the 2020s.

be bit sad the current setup hasn't missed a beat in nearly 6 years depsite using a motherboard that's old enough for junior high.

Nothing wrong with that, i built mine in 2014, I7 core 4770, and apart from one of the 8 gig memory sticks failing only last year, i still use it today for with a RTX4060 for the likes of Star Trek online or actually starting to play my insane game backlog at last, i just completed Borderlands 2. Lol

But i will say you really should look at oled, as i bought a 14in oled panel which was supposed to be for the steam deck, but i am using it for the pc and consoles as the colour quality is just stunning, and going back to my 1 year old LG ultea 27in ips 1440p monitor has been hard because oled is such a improvement in every way..........i am sorry now i let that genie out the box now as oled prices here in the UK are still very high and all it did was seal the fate of my lcd based monitors. Lol

 

[Santaman]

guess in this day and age if you want a ultra wide monitor they think you must be gamer.

Looking to move from dual 27" to a single 49" monitor but seems the panel are either VA or OLED and I'm looking at the $600 premium for the later inc tax (got the money but I tend to be a bit of scooge).

Just want a decent screen and IPS panel would be nice (my current Samsungs are IPS) but only found one ultra wide with IPS and I can't find anything anything on the brand and amazon.ca has 2 ratings and no reviews which is a yeah not happening for me.

But least the wife is despite my other recent expenditure.

when I'm in the mood pull the server from the rack, replacing my dual E5-2650v2 with a Ryzen 9 7900 and 128GB DDR5 which will be twice as fast as both Xeons combined and bring me in the 2020s.

be bit sad the current setup hasn't missed a beat in nearly 6 years depsite using a motherboard that's old enough for junior high.

Dell UltraSharp 49 Curved USB-C Hub Monitor - U4924DW | Dell USA

Dell Ultrasharp 49-inch dual QHD monitor with IPS Black panel technology. Equipped with a curved screen & USB-C hub for easy connection. View on Dell.com.

www.dell.com

What about this one? I think it ticks all the boxes, no it isn't cheap...