General Computer Chat v2.0 Page 3

Started by twocows March 7th, 2012 9:41 PM
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  • 103 replies

Hybrid Trainer

Age 28
Him/Them
«UK»
Seen April 12th, 2023
Posted January 27th, 2022
2,096 posts
14.5 Years
I have had bad experiences with Ubuntu and Linux Mint, though, so both of them are now out of question.
I've heard a lot of people say that lately. What is it that's so unappealing about it?

Tsutarja

Age 28
he / him
Florida
Seen 5 Hours Ago
Posted 14 Hours Ago
27,327 posts
13.2 Years
Natty Narwhal is the last version of Ubuntu I really liked.. i just dont have a taste for the new UI and at least in 11.04 you had the option to use the more traditional GUI..

Anyways, last night I installed Android ICS (4.0) on one of my two laptops, and so far I'm liking it :D You can access the market too and get apps

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years


I've heard a lot of people say that lately. What is it that's so unappealing about it?
Ubuntu's interface just doesn't go along with me. You know you're in a bit of a bind when your interface just doesn't work. Mixing Windows 7 and OS X is probably one of the worst things that you can do. :P

Also, both of them seems to have nasty performance issues on my systems even after installing updates and drivers. Oh, and have I mentioned that they somehow are crashier than Windows 98 SE back then for some reason?
Male
Seen November 6th, 2020
Posted May 17th, 2013
467 posts
11.3 Years
I can understand Ubuntu with their "Unity" interface... But Linux Mint..?

I suppose it is subjective, but I think that distro is awesome! Did you, perhaps try it when it was just a clone of Ubuntu?

And the crashing surprises me... I am not going to say that this system that I am currently running (Ubuntu 10.04) hasn't crashed, but it was my own fault when it did. It has kernel module protection so it shouldn't just crash spontaneously unless there is something horribly wrong with the installation. Windows 95 and 98 crashed a lot, not because the OS did something wrong, but because the third party drivers that were usually installed on the system were poorly coded, and when they would crash, since Windows had no real protection, you would get the rather infamous Blue screen of death.

By the way, if you need any help with Linux, feel free to ask me. :)

Hybrid Trainer

Age 28
Him/Them
«UK»
Seen April 12th, 2023
Posted January 27th, 2022
2,096 posts
14.5 Years
I'm really surprised that you've been having driver issues .-. Linux has always been the go to OS that I use when my machine isn't having it with any drivers on windows. My brothers laptop is a prime example, windows 7 just didn't want to use any of the networking drivers but I slapped ubuntu on there and it works like a charm now.
And I've been using ubuntu for a while now and I don't think it's ever crashed on me :x

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
I think it must be some sort of rare hardware combination that I have that's causing problems with these Linux distributions.

openSUSE seems to be out for me, too. Again, stability problems... during install. Strange...

I'd have a computer that works 95% of the time, so seems like my choices are getting smaller and smaller with each try.

Hybrid Trainer

Age 28
Him/Them
«UK»
Seen April 12th, 2023
Posted January 27th, 2022
2,096 posts
14.5 Years
Have you tried one of the extremely lightweight distributions like damn small Linux or puppy Linux? I doubt they won't work they have a 99.9% chance of working.

Meganium

memento mori

she/her
Houston, TX
Seen February 1st, 2023
Posted February 1st, 2023
I still use 11.04. 11.10 brought me so many bugs that I never bothered using it until the whole thing gets fixed. Drivers and other stuff worked perfectly on 11.04. :/

I still use the traditional GUI in 11.04, just so I won't be bothered with the new Unity. Best option evar. <3
Male
Seen November 6th, 2020
Posted May 17th, 2013
467 posts
11.3 Years
If you want lightweight... What about Tiny Core?

It's the most minimalistic functional GUI desktop you will ever find.

Also
Ubuntu's interface just doesn't go along with me. You know you're in a bit of a bind when your interface just doesn't work. Mixing Windows 7 and OS X is probably one of the worst things that you can do. :P
GNOME 2 was made before OSX or Windows 7. :V
That is what it was based off of. And you can make GNOME look like almost anything. No need to keep the default if you dislike it. :P

And Linux Mint used to be pretty much GNOME 2 Ubuntu with a new Mint Menu, not anymore.

Recently, Ubuntu changed to an interface called "Unity"... I personally don't like it, but it is the lesser of the evils when you compare it to Metro and GNOME 3 Shell. Linux Mint on the other hand, recently modified the crap out of GNOME 3 so that it was still the newer API and it acts a lot more like what most Linux users are used to. It is also quite infamous for setting everything up for you. It's interface is much more Windows-like by default than most distributions.

I think it must be some sort of rare hardware combination that I have that's causing problems with these Linux distributions.

openSUSE seems to be out for me, too. Again, stability problems... during install. Strange...
This doesn't surprise me, Red-hat based distributions like Fedora and OpenSUSE tend to work like Red Hat Enterprise Linux beta, an unstable version of it... It is it's testing phase before new releases of RHEL.

If you are going for stability, I would highly recommend a Debian-based distribution unless you are looking to do a lot of stuff from the command line. (And if you don't mind that, go for Slackware or Gentoo..! But be warned, they are brutal. But I love em anyway.)

Any Linux can be made into whatever you make of it... The kernel may have been modified some, but the base system is modular and interchangeable. With enough work, you could convert Arch Linux into Mint, or Fedora into Gentoo. Everything is editable. The main difference between the distributions is it's default settings, default desktop environment, and the package manager. (Debian-based uses dpkg and apt, RHEL-based uses rpm and yum, Arch uses pkgbuild and pacman, etc...)

Just note that Linux is not really for everyone. I like it because I am more efficient at doing things in it, plus it can do cool things that I can't do elsewhere. But if you are forcing yourself to try it and wish to stick to Mac or Windows, then stick with Mac or Windows. :)

Hybrid Trainer

Age 28
Him/Them
«UK»
Seen April 12th, 2023
Posted January 27th, 2022
2,096 posts
14.5 Years
If you want lightweight... What about Tiny Core?

It's the most minimalistic functional GUI desktop you will ever find.
I've never actually heard of that one? What's it like?

Recently, Ubuntu changed to an interface called "Unity"... I personally don't like it, but it is the lesser of the evils when you compare it to Metro and GNOME 3 Shell. Linux Mint on the other hand, recently modified the crap out of GNOME 3 so that it was still the newer API and it acts a lot more like what most Linux users are used to. It is also quite infamous for setting everything up for you. It's interface is much more Windows-like by default than most distributions.
I tried using a plain old gnome 3 desktop the other day. I was complete lost... it's pretty and everything but I had no idea how to do anything. Plus the gestures had a nastey habbit of getting stuck. Like the plugin bar I.
Male
Seen November 6th, 2020
Posted May 17th, 2013
467 posts
11.3 Years

I've never actually heard of that one? What's it like?
Really really low overhead, boots ridiculously fast, and has a minimalistic X desktop that has a decent amount of tools... If you have VMWare, you can give it a shot. :)

Hell, you don't even need to give the VM a hard drive, just make sure it has at least 64MB RAM and that it boots the ISO. This is a VM that you could run on a computer that has less than a 500MHz processor, so don't worry about having ancient technology. :P

I tried using a plain old gnome 3 desktop the other day. I was complete lost... it's pretty and everything but I had no idea how to do anything. Plus the gestures had a nastey habbit of getting stuck. Like the plugin bar I.
That would be the evil "GNOME Shell"... GNOME 3 has 2 modes, one of them is called "GNOME Shell", which is what you tried, the other is "Fallback Mode" which is like a prettier, but less functional GNOME 2. Linux Mint made GNOME Shell more like Fallback in a way, but better.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
Really really low overhead, boots ridiculously fast, and has a minimalistic X desktop that has a decent amount of tools... If you have VMWare, you can give it a shot. :)

Hell, you don't even need to give the VM a hard drive, just make sure it has at least 64MB RAM and that it boots the ISO. This is a VM that you could run on a computer that has less than a 500MHz processor, so don't worry about having ancient technology. :P
Teehee~ OK, now downloading it to try it out in a VM first. It's just 11.9 MB for the ISO itself O.o

Then again, I have heard that the Windows NT kernel in its Windows 7 incarnation is actually ridiculously light when you don't run everything else, including the GUI...
Male
Seen November 6th, 2020
Posted May 17th, 2013
467 posts
11.3 Years
Cool... I will warn you though, it doesn't have much for an interface. (Though it's a pretty good one for 12MB and considering all the stuff it has included.)

It even has a package manager. :D

And yes, the NT Kernel is a microkernel... So it has to be lightweight... But it needs a lot of additional programs to do even basic things.

Tis the nature of microkernels.

Archer

NSW, Australia
Seen January 26th, 2020
Posted January 5th, 2020
3,956 posts
16.6 Years
Upgrade time!

I just managed to unlock some of the shaders on my graphics card to turn my AMD 6950 to a 6970. It's much harder on the 1GB model.

Just in time to drive my new screen. 27" 2560x1440 resolution. Games are just so crisp and clear. :D

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
Upgrade time!

I just managed to unlock some of the shaders on my graphics card to turn my AMD 6950 to a 6970. It's much harder on the 1GB model.

Just in time to drive my new screen. 27" 2560x1440 resolution. Games are just so crisp and clear. :D
Does that bring out any meaningful increase?

*realizes that he is stuck with a 9800 GTX+*

Sooner or later my card's going to hit minspec territory :(

Archer

NSW, Australia
Seen January 26th, 2020
Posted January 5th, 2020
3,956 posts
16.6 Years
Does that bring out any meaningful increase?

*realizes that he is stuck with a 9800 GTX+*

Sooner or later my card's going to hit minspec territory :(
About 10-15%, but I'm now driving about 1.8x the pixels, so I'll take all of the performance that I can get.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
About 10-15%, but I'm now driving about 1.8x the pixels, so I'll take all of the performance that I can get.
Hmm... Well, I do hope that it does end up well for you. Me, I'm going to be stuck with this aging 9800 GTX+ for another few years. I think it's getting really close to minimum spec territory at this point, to be honest. And it just can't do 1080p gaming well (and my monitor's resolution is that), so I have to settle with non-native resolutions with newer games.

Archer

NSW, Australia
Seen January 26th, 2020
Posted January 5th, 2020
3,956 posts
16.6 Years
I think even NVIDIA IGPs are light years ahead, tbh abiut it.
Nvidia doesn't really make IGPs for computers any more. They're doing discrete PC graphics and tablet graphics.
Intel's integrated graphics have been terrible for years.
Actually the HD3000 and Ivy-Bridge's GPU are fairly good. Not at the same level as dedicated, but enough for basic games.
Norton anything. :p

Also: Seriously, Internet Explorer users like me get no respect here. :(
Funnily enough, Norton Internet Security 2012 and IE9 are snappy and effective. Thumbs up from me.
Hmm... Well, I do hope that it does end up well for you. Me, I'm going to be stuck with this aging 9800 GTX+ for another few years. I think it's getting really close to minimum spec territory at this point, to be honest. And it just can't do 1080p gaming well (and my monitor's resolution is that), so I have to settle with non-native resolutions with newer games.
Non-native is horrible :P Save up your cash and get a Nvidia GTX 560.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
Funnily enough, Norton Internet Security 2012 and IE9 are snappy and effective. Thumbs up from me..
*meanwhile, his blog post is getting messed up*
Non-native is horrible :P Save up your cash and get a Nvidia GTX 560.
I think the saved up cash is going to be headed for a tablet. :( I noticed that I can't get away with just my phone and laptop.