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Linux Desktop Setup

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Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#91

Post by lostjohnny »

jason_slack wrote: post #15
lostjohnny wrote: post #5

That's not a desktop setup. It's much more complicated than the workstation setup I use at work. A desktop setup is my Xiaomi laptop with Ubuntu 18.04 that I use as media caster or to browse amazon while on the couch. It works flawlessly, much better than the preinstalled Windows 10 in chinese.

Can you share which laptop you have from Xiaomi?

Of course!

It's a Xiaomi Air 12

I bought it almost 2 years ago, never had a problem It runs vanilla Ubuntu without a glitch

The specs are not great, but it's a nice home laptop

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#92

Post by lostjohnny »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #39
dmos62 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see at all why you're saying it's not a desktop setup. It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. In contrast to desktop, there are portable computers and servers. Today the difference between portable and desktop amounts to just additional power management tools, so it's pretty much the same. So there's just workstation and server, ignoring Andro…

> It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. What? No. A desktop is a computer sitting on the top of your desk. And on the software-side there is the Desktop Metaphor, which describes an interface that behaves like the top of your desk, with free arrangement of all meaning of your work. This article on the other side describes a workspace with multiple ma…

I would call it a PRO setup.

Definitely not Desktop.

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#93

Post by RandomGuyDTB »

xyproto wrote: post #46
virtualwhys wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love my lightweight i3 setup It's been so many years and I often take for granted what's before my eyes -- i3 is solidly in the "pry it from my cold dead hands" category.

Until you switch to sway, which is basically i3, but for Wayland. Good bye X11!

What's the appeal behind Wayland? I've been using X for a while now (linux n00b) and I really enjoy having everything like this, there even are a couple apps I use specifically for X11.

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#94

Post by agurk »

morganvachon wrote: post #52
agurk wrote: post #25

He has got a nice setup, especially as he's able to choose all of his own software. I've been using Linux as a primary OS since the 90's but I still need to interact with Windows for work. I used to dual boot my work laptop, which was made easier by Office 365 webapps becoming more usable, but still there were lots of gaps. This summer I got a new work laptop, and just cloned the existing M.2 drive onto a bigger, fas…

> I'm not sure how I'm going to explain it to the IT department if I ever have to get the laptop repaired though. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your setup, but could you not clone the Windows VM partitions to the old M.2 drive (I'm assuming you kept it), swap it back into the machine, make it bare metal bootable, and hand it to IT like that? That way your larger M.2 drive with your whole setup stays safe and secure, and…

You are right in essence, but there are a couple of complications:

- If the laptop is broken beyond use, I won't be able to write to the M.2 and I don't have an external M.2 enclosure (and the most likely fix here would be to switch out the drive to an equivalent laptop, then try and boot it up)

- I actually tried writing the image back to the M.2 at the weekend, and it it wouldn't boot, Windows had some error about a required device not being connected on one of those bootup BSODs

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#95

Post by dmos62 »

pmarin wrote: post #56
dmos62 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see at all why you're saying it's not a desktop setup. It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. In contrast to desktop, there are portable computers and servers. Today the difference between portable and desktop amounts to just additional power management tools, so it's pretty much the same. So there's just workstation and server, ignoring Andro…

It is not a Desktop because does not follow the desktop metaphor [1]. He is using just a window manager. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor

That's an interesting point, but I think it's fair to say that usually when you're talking about a desktop computer you mean a computer whose interface is on your desk, similarly to how a laptop relates to a lap.

For what it's worth, I find the desktop metaphor in UX design a pretty tiring historical artefact. A desk, as a workstation, is the way it is because of physics. Computationally driven user interfaces don't have those constraints and it's awkward, not to mention short-sighted, at least in my opinion, to force one upon the other.

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#96

Post by meddlepal »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #87
Vinnl wrote: post #29

Everyone here scoring serious brownie points with their advanced setups. And here I am, having used Linux for my personal setup for 15 years, using pre-installed Ubuntu on a practically default GNOME desktop. It's wonderful that I can do that and be satisfied with that, without significantly hampering the possibility of advanced setups like the ones here. Despite all the systemd's, PulseAudio's and whatnot's, the cus…

I've been using Linux in some form for 15 years. Like you, it's been some pre-packaged usable out-of-the-box distro (Xubuntu, Crunchbang, Mint). I've never once compiled a kernel, as I never had to, or saw the need, and it doesn't seem like fun (neither would fixing the compile errors the inevitably come up when I try to compile anything from C/C++). I've never had audio problems that everyone else seems to have, and…

15 years ago I used to do Gentoo stage 1 builds and fuck around with all that nonsense. Nowadays I slap Fedora + XFCE on my desktop and every 12-18 months I do a major lift and shift upgrade. I run mostly stock settings as well.

No you're not a noob. All the nonsense I used to go through was just that... nonsense.

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#97

Post by lunchables »

karussell wrote: post #62
perttir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why most of people love i3 as tiling wm. Just put it in top of gnome/xfce/whatever, run the first installation wizard and you are done.

On Gnome I can use "Super key" + left key if I need multiple aligned windows on my screen. Can you still convince me to try i3 :) ?

I use dwm, but it is similar. It has a master area and a stack. The windows "snap" functionality is in several DE now, including gnome. The difference in tiling wm is that 1) it is far more flexible than just one window left and one window right 2) it doesnt take an extra keyboard shortcut, it organizes them automatically.

I would say flip the question around: if I can automatically tile windows, why would I use gnome where I have to do it manually?

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#98

Post by codemusings »

lostjohnny wrote: post #90
codemusings wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a gem of a comment. What is complicated about the setup? What makes you think he can't cast media or browse Amazon on his laptop while sitting on the couch?

> What is complicated about the setup? Everything. > What makes you think he can't cast media or browse Amazon on his laptop while sitting on the couch? I never said he can't, it just took a lot more time for him than it took for me to do it. Are regular drivers going out for groceries tuning their engine to perfection everytime they need to go buy milk? That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a des…

> Everything.

Terrific non-answer.

You seem to be projecting a lot. He never mentioned that it took him a long time to do anything. And just because he doesn't use a readymade workflow or a graphical user interface for some of his applications his setup is not a Desktop setup?

> That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a desktop dedicated to a worker, not a pro, and expert, a tuner, a nerd, a geek, someone who loves machine carnally.

This has to be the weirdest bikeshedding argument I've ever seen. The only reason I can think of why you're so insistent on this distinction is to brag.

> I don't know how many of my 13 thousands coworkers would have been able to solve the problems I had with Debian and my Lenovo P-70 multi monitor setup.

Yup. There it is.

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#99

Post by Symmetry »

Uplink wrote: post #55

How does your setup work with a second monitor that comes and goes? Use case: I have a laptop that I take everywhere for me, but I plug into a second monitor while at work. I also use multiple desktops, and this pattern is sometimes causing windows to jump to another desktop when disconnecting the monitor.

My setup isn't the exact same as his but I've never had any problems plugging in a projector on my XMonad laptop. In the XMonad schema windows are always associated with one of the 9 workspaces and each screen displays one workspace with the windows all scaled to fit nicely in the display. When you unplug a screen the windows on the associated workspace stay on that workspace and don't go anywhere else.

Re: Linux Desktop Setup

#100

Post by moocowtruck »

linux user/dev here since 1995, few years ago went back to windows.. never looked back.. happier now I never have to worry about shit not working and just do my kernel dev in different ways. I'm no longer interested in tons of desktop config either, more interested in apps that can do more for me, with less of me interacting with the computer to make that happen
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