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Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

elementary.io

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Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have run exclusively Linux and mostly on laptops for 15 years and it's been about 10 years since I have had problems with packages clashing, except for python pip. (I don't use python though)

Does it sleep nicely on closing the lid?

Oh that's a good point. It doesn't always. I'd say 2/3 times, 1/3 times something else happens. Usually I manually hibernate first.

Also connecting two HDMI monitors is wonky, monitor 2 flickers once every other minute or so (it's worth it) and sometimes isn't detected.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho, gnome is quite nice. I think I'm in the minority maybe but I would be pretty sad if gnome went away one day (or had another memory leak/slowdown issue)

I am with you. I actually love gnome a little bit. To be fair, changed theme and two extension are essential for me. It's so awesome once you got accustomed to the shortcuts and UI idea. Typing everywhere, I can pretty much never leave the keyboard if I want to, BUT if I am lazy I can also never use the keyboard. Honestly there are so many good ideas there, I wish they would rework the core and default aesthetics, to…

Where are you people trying out KDE?

I'm on KDE Neon now, after having used Mint for a while. KDE is simply a joy to use. Everything works, and the visuals are consistent and well-proportioned.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho, gnome is quite nice. I think I'm in the minority maybe but I would be pretty sad if gnome went away one day (or had another memory leak/slowdown issue)

The mostly-silent majority. KDE has some nice features but under the shiny screenshot it's still a disorganised and inconsistent jumble. GNOME gets out of your way and lets you get on with your work. Customising every last detail isn't necessary to be productive, and if it is a DE isn't for you anyway.

You should really try out KDE Neon, it is by far the best and most consistent DE available for Linux, and is so far ahead of Win10 it's sort of embarrassing for MS.

The default settings are very sensible, I only change one or two things myself, most noticably focus follows mouse, which requires a silly gconf tweak and is considered "broken" by the devs.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#384
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please define "make all the difference".

"it makes a difference" or "it matters"

I think you are quibbling about things that 99.9% of people quite frankly don't care about. A substantial group will leave everything default and for most of the rest the fact that you can change the colorscheme/style/background is sufficient.

It's somewhat like a wine aficionado discussing the 7 delicate flavors that or an audiophile considering the virtue of using a slightly more expensive cable.

So when I ask how it makes a difference I wasn't looking for a trivial redefinition of the word I was asking rather what difference it makes. Do you believe more people will use it if its pretty? Do you believe more people will enjoy using it if its pretty? To what degree and why?

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#385

Question: This may pertain more to GTK, but does gtk/elementary os have an equivalent to macOS's core animation libraries? Particularly to support interactive / fluid interfaces (see https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2018/803/ )? I did a cursory look and couldn't find much. I've been fairly familiar with macOS development particularly for trying to do more experimental UI (fluid animation) the past few year…

libdazzle (developed for GNOME Builder) has some fancy animated widgets and whatnot https://valadoc.org/libdazzle-1.0/index.htm

interesting. I think the better path (for myself at least) may be to see where people have extended libcairo for uses of interactive animation, and see how cleanly Pantheon approached problems like switching desktops (not even macOS has always gotten it right - mission control's top desktop bar was sluggish in either Yosemite or El Capitan then they decided to hide it upon initial gesture later on).

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. I run linux on an IBM Thinkpad T40 for the better part of a decade.Then I moved to a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon which also runs Ubuntu fine. IN fact installing linux takes at most 20 min and I am done. Drivers and everything are all automatic. Windows on the other hand can take hours to install from scratch. God forbid you need a service pack or to find a driver that's not easily found anymore. Peo…

That's because it's a Thinkpad. The T-series had been the Red Hat company issue laptop for years, and has had boatloads of internal support as a result. You're right in that a Thinkpad will mostly work out of the box long as you don't want that Nvidia GPU to work, but everyone else? Good luck. My XPS 15 was a lost cause, losing three quarters of it's battery life under Linux and with countless video problems. And on…

Nvidia is more trouble only that you need to install the proprietary driver rather than using what comes with the kernel. You also need vdpau if you want hardware decoding of video.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. I run linux on an IBM Thinkpad T40 for the better part of a decade.Then I moved to a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon which also runs Ubuntu fine. IN fact installing linux takes at most 20 min and I am done. Drivers and everything are all automatic. Windows on the other hand can take hours to install from scratch. God forbid you need a service pack or to find a driver that's not easily found anymore. Peo…

Has Linux changed a lot? Last I tried installing it years ago, I had to find each driver individually and had to get some stubborn ones working. At the time I thought to myself - no average Joe would figure this out, no wonder nobody uses Linux (and by nobody I meant non-devs)

99.9% of drivers are in the kernel nto downloaded from random spots on the internet. The big exception is proprietary gpu drivers which user friendly distros provide packages for in the repos.

The big issue is thus. If you intend to run linux don't buy random hardware and hope it supports linux then complain linux is hard to make work. This is a natural course because people have all sorts of existing hardware and no real desire to buy new. It's also reasonable to try because linux does support a lot of hardware. Try it and if you like how the environment but not how works with your machine buy your next machine with linux in mind.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#388
post #81

Some of the comments here feel weird. Elementary OS has picked a specific niche, and its arguably the best distribution in it. It has a really well designed and consistent UI experience, and you can't break it. I think most of you just don't realize how difficult linux is for people who barely understand how to use a Mac or Windows machine. Furthermore, linux is a world where mainstream distributions still release wi…

As someone who has actually used elementaryOS for some time(both previous versions about 6 months each) I have to disagree with your "doesn't break if you do X" claim. You can break elementaryOS' nice graphics just by putting it into sleep mode and waking it up again - say hi to at least 2 different kinds of graphics glitches and possibly a randomly appearing bug in the file manager. And I'm not sure if it was a bug…

Used Loki for 6+ months here, In my case the main problem was that it took too much time to shutdown the system. I don't know if that's an elementary specific issue, but I've noticed it on multiple systems with the OS. Again, I've seen hardisk issues propping up while using elementary. It was really easy to use but then it had issues.

(Did anyone else have these issues?)

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. I run linux on an IBM Thinkpad T40 for the better part of a decade.Then I moved to a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon which also runs Ubuntu fine. IN fact installing linux takes at most 20 min and I am done. Drivers and everything are all automatic. Windows on the other hand can take hours to install from scratch. God forbid you need a service pack or to find a driver that's not easily found anymore. Peo…

Has Linux changed a lot? Last I tried installing it years ago, I had to find each driver individually and had to get some stubborn ones working. At the time I thought to myself - no average Joe would figure this out, no wonder nobody uses Linux (and by nobody I meant non-devs)

Had less problems with Linux tyan with Windows for about 10 years now.

Installation is quicker.

No bloatware/scareware to uninstall (bundled McAfee etc).

I've spent more time hunting for drivers on Windows than on Linux the 10 last years.

Linux is also significantly faster for some of my workflows (git commits, anything with maven or node).

For me (partially colorblind, never cared much about fonts, everything is an improvement from what I grew up with) I also find certain Linux DEs a lot nicer and easier to use than Windows and even MacOS. Again this is my personal opinion, but I have used Windows for years before I switched to Linux and I've also been enthusiastic about Mac and Apple and have used it for years, I just happen prefer KDE or a well tuned Gnome, Cinnamon or elementary

The downsides? In my experience Linux is slightly less stable. And there exist stuff that is only supported on Windows (an old scanner I have. Although I should add it is not great under Windows either.)

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. I run linux on an IBM Thinkpad T40 for the better part of a decade.Then I moved to a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon which also runs Ubuntu fine. IN fact installing linux takes at most 20 min and I am done. Drivers and everything are all automatic. Windows on the other hand can take hours to install from scratch. God forbid you need a service pack or to find a driver that's not easily found anymore. Peo…

That's because it's a Thinkpad. The T-series had been the Red Hat company issue laptop for years, and has had boatloads of internal support as a result. You're right in that a Thinkpad will mostly work out of the box long as you don't want that Nvidia GPU to work, but everyone else? Good luck. My XPS 15 was a lost cause, losing three quarters of it's battery life under Linux and with countless video problems. And on…

I have a Dell XPS 15 running Pop!_OS, and it’s great[1]. No issues. It’s a much better experience compared to setting up Kubuntu[2].

[1] http://bryangrohman.com/pop-os-dell-xps-15/

[2] http://bryangrohman.com/kubuntu-dell-xps-15/

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