Linux General Questions

pneuman wrote:

I was running Debian on my desktop for a while, but it just feels too much like you're at the mercy of the release timeline. Stable is, of course, fairly crazy on a desktop, but even testing and unstable are fairly static at the moment, while the developers are in a freeze ahead of wheezy's release. Once wheezy is out, we'll hopefully see more regular updates to both unstable and testing, but that might not happen for a couple of months; meanwhile, unstable is still rocking GNOME 3.4, even thought 3.6 has been out for months.

Yeah, I think Debian on a desktop is not viable since the default philosophy is to only release "stable" package updates. For example, iceweasel on stable is 3.5.16 (really!), on backports / unstable 10.0.12 and on experimental it's 19.0.2. So unless you enabled the experimental repo, you would be stuck with a 1 year old version of Firefox at the minimum and and 3 year old version if you only used stable.

That's pretty old... are they just not tested enough, or do they need a year or two of testing to consider to "stable"?

avggeek wrote:
pneuman wrote:

I was running Debian on my desktop for a while, but it just feels too much like you're at the mercy of the release timeline. Stable is, of course, fairly crazy on a desktop, but even testing and unstable are fairly static at the moment, while the developers are in a freeze ahead of wheezy's release. Once wheezy is out, we'll hopefully see more regular updates to both unstable and testing, but that might not happen for a couple of months; meanwhile, unstable is still rocking GNOME 3.4, even thought 3.6 has been out for months.

Yeah, I think Debian on a desktop is not viable since the default philosophy is to only release "stable" package updates. For example, iceweasel on stable is 3.5.16 (really!), on backports / unstable 10.0.12 and on experimental it's 19.0.2. So unless you enabled the experimental repo, you would be stuck with a 1 year old version of Firefox at the minimum and and 3 year old version if you only used stable.

Yep, I had experimental enabled to get a recent Firefox. I tried pulling GNOME 3.6 packages from experimental, too, but ran in to a bunch of problems with no easy solutions. It was at that point I realised I'd been spending far more time pissing about with the OS than I wanted to; I decided to cut my losses and scurried back to Ubuntu.

Citizen86 wrote:

That's pretty old... are they just not tested enough, or do they need a year or two of testing to consider to "stable"?

Debian's releases are very conservative -- packages in the "stable" release are of software versions that are perhaps 6-12 months old when stable is released, but stable never incorporates newer versions, so when you're near the end of a cycle (as we are now -- a new stable is due very soon now), the versions of software packaged can be years old. The advantage is, as the name suggests, stability: packages in Debian stable are generally very well tested, and it's extremely rare for a security patch or bug fix to cause any problems at all, since the Debian maintainers backport those fixes in to the existing packaged versions rather than updating to newer versions that include those fixes (and possibly other, unrelated changes).

On a server, this is brilliant; you rarely need the very latest software, but you do want a system that's going to run reliably and predictably for months or years without problems. It's just too conservative for most desktop users.

Spent way too much time last night and this morning setting up the system, getting stuff installed, finding out which window manager I can make dance the way I want it to (KDE4 thus far), and now dealing with a few other "fun" items, like mucking about getting MySQL tuned and importing data.

Definitely better for my Optimus setup, tho. Still futzing around with getting multi-monitors to work on my W520...

Otherwise, not missing Ubuntu yet.

2 big hangups for me: can't get my IDE to not crash (Zend Studio 9) and having trouble figuring out how to create launchers for programs (really, Sublime Text in the context menu too).

Those are two big hitches though the first hugely so, since that's where I can spend a majority of my time working.

The problem with having your OS so customizable is I would not know where to help with troubleshooting. Oh, you're using KDE4? I haven't used KDE for a few years... can't you do it from the command line? Well I have no idea how you installed Sublime Text... is the terminal command subl, or sublime-text?

You get what I mean

Citizen86 wrote:

That's pretty old... are they just not tested enough, or do they need a year or two of testing to consider to "stable"?

Debian takes as long as it takes to make the software work right. You can trust a stable version Debian system more than any other variant of Linux, with the possible exception of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Maybe. They take the time to do it right, to nail things down until they are nearly perfect, and then, and only then, do they release a new Stable version.

The problem is that the open source community is not very good at writing stable software, at least not when you're trying to simultaneously bugfix fifteen thousand packages. They're rarely stable at the same time, so Debian has to choose a version of something, lock down with it, and just stick with that while everything else settles. This means that it's usually a bit out of date, but you can trust it.

Ubuntu releases every six months, whether it's ready or not, and that's why it's always broken, and you always have tens or even hundreds of megs to download every time you run your update tool.

Everyone going to rolling releases is really, in my opinion, messing software up. Firefox has been screwed up for me since they started doing that, and they never fix it. It just keeps getting worse.

Personally, I want software that works. I want software I can trust. I don't want flashy features in a package I can't depend on. A lot of the younger crowd seems to disagree with me, and they're going in some really unfortunate directions with open source. Like all young people, they think they're smarter than they actually are, and they don't see the long-term stability and especially security consequences of implementing new features at such speed. They need more battle-tested veterans, but I guess the veterans are off fighting bugs in commercial software, instead.

Malor wrote:

Firefox has been screwed up for me since they started doing that, and they never fix it. It just keeps getting worse.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo... (downloads)

Also, early tests with Manjaro show that, while Optimus is supported, getting the external display detected is still going to take some hacking around.

I'm seriously tempted to throw Win7 back on this thing and just run Linux via a VM. I don't want to have to, but that's probably where I'm headed if I can't make Manjaro work for me and my needs by the end of the week (probably sooner, if I want to get any development work done...)

nooooooo, it must be Windows in the VM!

Malor wrote:

Debian takes as long as it takes to make the software work right. You can trust a stable version Debian system more than any other variant of Linux, with the possible exception of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Maybe. They take the time to do it right, to nail things down until they are nearly perfect, and then, and only then, do they release a new Stable version.

The flip side of that, and the reason I never just use Debian on the desktop, is that while the software packages are stable, the driver support is heavily out-of-date. The kernel is old, the packages for external binary drivers are old, and the result for modern desktop systems is that it's a worse experience than a distro that's more software-unstable but current on hardware drivers.

What I really want is a distribution where the application packages are extremely well-tested before going stable, but the kernel and driver packages are kept modern. I find that I tend to get closest with Ubuntu LTS releases, which tend to be less unstable application-wise than the interim releases, and are more up-to-date with the kernel & driver packages than other less-unstable distro choices.

I could, of course, probably get even closer if I were willing to make the process more manual, but the time I used to invest in tinkering with Linux is time I prefer to invest in writing software now. I still want to use Linux, much more so than any other desktop OS, I just no longer wish to do so at the tinkerer level.

Well, for a long time, I was using Debian on servers and Ubuntu on the desktop, but then all the desktops went insane. So now I use Debian and Windows.

I've been having an issue with installing Virtualbox on Ubuntu. I went from Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, to 12.10 64-bit, to 12.04 32-bit. (Don't ask why, but it's because it's easier to play games... srsly). Anyways, I thought that doing the Ubuntu deja vu backup and restoring was causing issues, so I did a super-clean reinstall. Installed 12.04.2 LTS, got the basics up and running, went to install Virtualbox from the repo's, and whaddya know, same problem about the kernel drivers not correct. And the suggestion that Virtualbox gives leads to a file that doesn't exist.

The community wiki suggests a few things, but it doesn't solve the issue. Finally after quite a few hours spread out over a couple days, I find that the VBox from the repo's doesn't work with the 3.5* Linux kernel. Suggestion is to download an updated version from Oracle, or use a PPA. *shakes fist* damn you Ubuntu, damn you!

Well, if VirtualBox won't run on a 3.5 kernel, I'd call that Oracle's fault, not Canonical's. It sounds like they're getting awfully deeply married with the kernel, which is generally not considered good practice. They may have no choice, but 3.5 has been out for almost six months, so I'd expect at least a patch by now.

Well, if VirtualBox won't run on a 3.5 kernel, I'd call that Oracle's fault, not Canonical's. It sounds like they're getting awfully deeply married with the kernel, which is generally not considered good practice. They may have no choice, but 3.5 has been out for almost six months, so I'd expect at least a patch by now.

Malor wrote:

Well, if VirtualBox won't run on a 3.5 kernel, I'd call that Oracle's fault, not Canonical's. It sounds like they're getting awfully deeply married with the kernel, which is generally not considered good practice. They may have no choice, but 3.5 has been out for almost six months, so I'd expect at least a patch by now.

It does, just not the version that's in the Ubuntu repositories (which I believe Canonical are in charge of), hence the ppa recommendation.

Side note: after being back on Windows for a few days, I'm seriously missing Linux right now. Definitely looking at putting a VM back together for it, just wish I could get the Nvidia Optimus junk working correctly so I could use an external monitor.

While I'll be headed back to Linux on my work laptop, I picked up a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook this week, and loaded Ubuntu 13 on it.

So far, so good - Dell's Sputnik changes have been rolled into this release, so it's a fantastic default install where I don't have to worry about drivers (I hope).

Also, since this isn't a work laptop, I'm running a dual-boot setup for those rare times I do want to get in some gaming on Windows, and if I hose something, I don't have to worry about losing development time.

It's nice that Linux is getting so good on laptops.

I had an older Dell laptop that was physically falling apart, but it ran the then-current Ubuntu very nicely. I had some issues with the sound driver overdriving the 'subwoofers' (in truth, just regular woofers, and wimpy at that), on the bottom of the unit. I eventually solved that, after a long time of just tolerating it.

I didn't, at the time, like Ubuntu as much as Windows XP, but it was only a little inferior. I was too lazy to ever re-convert it back; it worked well enough that I just didn't bother replacing it. There have been other times when I've forced myself to stay with Linux at home, to Prove a Point, and of course I've preferred Linux machines in the workplace since probably about 2001, but that was the first time, at home, that was actually good enough. I didn't stay with it to prove a point, I stayed with it because the pain of a reinstall was so much greater than dealing with its foibles.

When I realized that, I thought the Year of the Linux Desktop was finally here, and started evangelizing Ubuntu somewhat, basically telling this story.... "I couldn't be arsed to switch back, so it's pretty much there." But within a year or two, everyone decided they wanted to chase tablets, and totally fouled the desktop up, and now I don't recommend Linux for normal people anymore.

And everyone's doing it, there's no place to hide. Pisses me off fiercely.

trueheart78 wrote:

It does, just not the version that's in the Ubuntu repositories (which I believe Canonical are in charge of), hence the ppa recommendation.

I use Virtualbox daily, and my recommendation is to use Oracle's apt repository. They maintain .debs specific for Ubuntu and Debian releases.

*Legion* wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

It does, just not the version that's in the Ubuntu repositories (which I believe Canonical are in charge of), hence the ppa recommendation.

I use Virtualbox daily, and my recommendation is to use Oracle's apt repository. They maintain .debs specific for Ubuntu and Debian releases.

Thanks for the link. It's crazy because Virtualbox was running fine for me (the deb from Oracle). I went to a PHP meetup here locally though, and they want to start a project with everyone, but they suggested everyone download Vagrant. Well, Vagrant comes packaged as a .deb, and it is in the Ubuntu repo's as well, but they both wanted the Ubuntu version of Virtualbox.

*shrug*, I wasn't sure what Vagrant was that night so I was just trying to get it going. Then one of the more experienced devs came over and said "why don't you just run your own LAMP stack?" IS THAT ALL VAGRANT IS?!?! (not all, but basically....) so I was able to get Virtualbox running again... with Oracle's .deb

There seems to be a lot of cargo-culting with Vagrant. It has its use cases for sure, but it seems like people want to work in using Vagrant to do anything VM related. No, you don't need to fuss with Vagrant to set up a basic VM and install a few packages.

Citizen86 wrote:

*shrug*, I wasn't sure what Vagrant was that night so I was just trying to get it going. Then one of the more experienced devs came over and said "why don't you just run your own LAMP stack?" IS THAT ALL VAGRANT IS?!?! (not all, but basically....) so I was able to get Virtualbox running again... with Oracle's .deb

It's just an environment management / deployment tool, and you really don't need it to do basic things if you've already got (or already know how to set up) your own environment.

Of course if the project you want to work on has esoteric requirements, it might save you some pain down the road to drink the kool-aid.

*Legion* wrote:

There seems to be a lot of cargo-culting with Vagrant. It has its use cases for sure, but it seems like people want to work in using Vagrant to do anything VM related. No, you don't need to fuss with Vagrant to set up a basic VM and install a few packages.

I just get devops to do work out the fiddly bits.

Anyone looking for a Linux-friendly laptop, gotta say, the XPS has been great for me in Ubuntu 13. Still monitoring battery life, but otherwise, everything that I read about having potential issues (lid state, wifi resuming when re-opening the lid, etc) are non-existent now.

The screen could be better (I've got the non 1080p one), and having seen the other, kinda wish I could afford it, but I can live with what I've got

Working better than I expected, and in a Linux system, that's pretty great.

Well, I haven't been able to figure this out. There are some much more experienced and smarter people who watch this thread than I. Help!

I bought 10,000,000 on Steam, it's a native Linux game. I first started the game I think while my laptop was connected to the TV. Not sure if that caused an issue or not. But... when I start the game, I only see half the game. Like so:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/YWMRTzE.png)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/HZGsBqQ.png)

I was hoping to find a config file somewhere, but so far I haven't been able to find anything. The usual buttons to try to get it out of fullscreen mode don't seem to work. Alt+Enter I guess. The game does take some inputs. I can click a bit and the guy will move. I press escape and the menu comes up. But I can't press escape again, it seems to sort of lock up after that.

Deleting and reinstalling doesn't fix the issue either.

Not sure where to go from here

I was hoping to find a config file somewhere, but so far I haven't been able to find anything.

Try doing an ls -lart in your home directory. That will list, long format, all files, reverse-sorted by time, so the newest files are at the bottom. If the game has a config file or a config directory, it will probably start with a period, and it should be very near the bottom of the list.

Remove that file; if that doesn't help, when the game makes a new one, see if you can manually edit it.

Malor wrote:
I was hoping to find a config file somewhere, but so far I haven't been able to find anything.

Try doing an ls -lart in your home directory. That will list, long format, all files, reverse-sorted by time, so the newest files are at the bottom.

Don't know why I always do ls -t | less to see what's most recent. It achieves a similar result, allows me to search and stuff, but if I just want to find the newest file just reverse sort and catch it at the end of the command execution.

Eh, whatever works and sticks in your head. This is Unix, so there's about eight thousand ways to do everything. You only need to know one.

Thanks for the tips guys. I was able to find the hidden steam directory, I'm poking around there now. Although when I run the game I don't see any config files changing. I'll have to check it out again later when I'm not supposed to be working.

It may make its own directory, not under the Steam one; many Unix-native games do so. Minecraft, for instance, puts everything in a ".minecraft" folder in your home directory, so just transferring that folder around is enough to move all your Minecraft data.