Other Linux/Unix users here?

Grarea

Forum Plod
Have you tried Manjaro before, by any chance?
It's pretty nice. :)
Actually, that was the one I am busting to try out.
I really like the sounds of it.

My distro of choice except for the Raspberry Pi is Manjaro..... It's a rolling release as well
I tried a fair number of distros and it was the one I settled on for my desktop.
Well, this is fortuitous.
Can I ask some questions about it?
As I understand, it is pretty simple to install.
Is it stable?
With the rolling release, I assume there are some downsides?
Is it as bleeding edge as Arch or does it sit behind it a little bit for when things are a bit more settled?
I like the idea of it on my desktop but want the desktop super stable. Hence why I have stuck with mint for now.
 

wintoid

Out of control
I'm sprouting Linux machines all over the place. I have 3 Raspberry Pis doing music duty, one in a FLIRC case which I agree is wonderful. I'm running Ubuntu server for my Homebridge server (let's me automate many devices around the home from my iPhone), and also for a Minecraft server for the kids. Ubuntu desktop and Arch with Cinnamon for learning. My wife uses Linux Mint on her laptop.

Many more at work. I really think Linux is something special, even though some of its limitations are frustrating. If only someone would write a decent FOSS email client for it.
 

Grarea

Forum Plod
I do like the look of the Flirc cases, but mine's in a Pimoroni coupe case with a fan shim. I like that you can see the board and the fan shim works beautifully for cooling when it's needed, it's temperature-controlled so it just kicks in when the CPU temp hits 65 degrees and runs until it drops to 55. Usually only takes a few seconds.

The Pi-hole's in an inexpensive aluminium heatsink case, as the CPU never gets much above idle it doesn't need a lot of cooling.
I also like the look Flirc cases.
My 3B+ is in one of those aluminium cases/heatsink and that works well for the most part.
I like the idea of passive cooling ideally, but if I start to push it a bit more, I will also attach a small fan to the top temp controlled.
My pi Zero raspbian cpu temperature sits at 39C :) No cooling. It is just a music player in the garage.

This was an interesting series on cooling the Pi 4:
(This was the latest he did other passive and fan cooling vids)
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJC6OpGpq0Y&t=0s
 

donnie_arko

Forum GOD!
Actually, that was the one I am busting to try out.
I really like the sounds of it.



Well, this is fortuitous.
Can I ask some questions about it?
As I understand, it is pretty simple to install.
Is it stable?
With the rolling release, I assume there are some downsides?
Is it as bleeding edge as Arch or does it sit behind it a little bit for when things are a bit more settled?
I like the idea of it on my desktop but want the desktop super stable. Hence why I have stuck with mint for now.
I found it to be much the same as any other Linux distro for installation.

Advantages - I tried a few others, and Manjaro Cinnamon seemed to have the sweet spot with working with all my hardware (took a bit of tinkering to get the very old PCI soundcard working!) and being not too resource heavy/bloated, recognised my mac formatted hard drives straight away (had issues with them with some other distros) and it seems to be the fastest OS I have ever used.

Disadvantages - the rolling updates can be a bit of a PITA as it seems every few weeks or so there's quite a chunky update to download which is fine if you have a fast internet connection but mine's not the quickest.
 

culcreuch

Forum GOD!
Actually, that was the one I am busting to try out.
I really like the sounds of it.



Well, this is fortuitous.
Can I ask some questions about it?
As I understand, it is pretty simple to install.
Is it stable?
With the rolling release, I assume there are some downsides?
Is it as bleeding edge as Arch or does it sit behind it a little bit for when things are a bit more settled?
I like the idea of it on my desktop but want the desktop super stable. Hence why I have stuck with mint for now.
I actually like the rolling release.They have 2 branches of the distro stable and unstable. If you really want to go bleeding edge you can use the unstable. The stable branch lags a little to allow for testing. You can also include the Arch repositories which increase your choice of software. You can install multiple kernels if you so desire and use whichever one you please. It really is a very fast distro
 

Grarea

Forum Plod
I actually like the rolling release.They have 2 branches of the distro stable and unstable. If you really want to go bleeding edge you can use the unstable. The stable branch lags a little to allow for testing. You can also include the Arch repositories which increase your choice of software. You can install multiple kernels if you so desire and use whichever one you please. It really is a very fast distro
Oh, I seeeeeeee, that makes sense.
Ubuntu Touch does the same.
Thanks for that.

Yes, I saw that you could go to the arch repositories and apparently the Arch wiki is great.
 

slapo

It's... alive!
The Arch wiki is great, but when updating, you might want to check the news page and forums as well, just in case there's a big change coming up that would require pre or post-update action. Else you might end up with a system you'd need to chroot into from a live image and fix it up.
I think Manjaro trails a bit behind Arch for the system-wide stuff, so you get a bit more time to check stuff out.
Having said that, I like them because they have minimal dependencies most of the time, it's fast and quite nice for a home desktop.
I use CentOS 7 at work on my workstation there, though.
 

bchaffin72

The wizard next door
Well, I've been using various Linux distros and other Unix variants like FreeBSD in dual boot with Windows since about 2000 and pretty much Linux/Unix exclusively since about 2010. My current laptop has regular Ubuntu and my downstairs guitar room computer has Ubuntu Studio for all the recording and production tools I occasionally mess around with.
 
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Grarea

Forum Plod
I had a quick go at Ubuntu, but I wasn't keen.
Am I right in thinking that it acts a bit like a tablet out of the box?
Great that it exists though for sure.
I just put Manjaro on the laptop and rather liked it instantly.
I like the multiple desktops.
I really like that you can easily pick your kernel, that is great.
(I am very much a Linux noob so these things are nice to have straight away)
Pretty interested in playing wityh it wheras I normally just load something on and just use it.
Looks really interesting.
Is that the KDE desktop or the manjaro distro, stuff like that?
I am confused by that part.
 

Cristobal

Forum GOD!
Manjaro offers a very agreeable out of the box experience and the desktop environments are really polished. Unfortunately, depending on my hardware, it is often a hit or miss... Personally I prefer to minimize the risk of breaking the system and use MX linux (based on Debian and very stable) on my laptops.

I did install Manjaro KDE edition on my backup laptop about 2 weeks ago, it is great! Furthermore, it is quite low on resource and consumption (as demanding as MX linux 19 with XFCE). The only downside (I had to remove it and put back MX) is that KDE seems to need a lot more hard disk space than XFCE. Manjaro Openbox is good too.
 

donnie_arko

Forum GOD!
Manjaro offers a very agreeable out of the box experience and the desktop environments are really polished. Unfortunately, depending on my hardware, it is often a hit or miss... Personally I prefer to minimize the risk of breaking the system and use MX linux (based on Debian and very stable) on my laptops.
Linux can be hit or miss with any hardware system, laptops in particular can be a nightmare for Linux!
 

Cristobal

Forum GOD!
Linux can be hit or miss with any hardware system, laptops in particular can be a nightmare for Linux!
Indeed, I should have been more precise, I meant the mainstream distros (Mint, Ubuntu derivatives, etc). Furthermore, I use very old Thinkpads (sold with Vista back in the day), which are most of the time quite Linux compatible.
 

donnie_arko

Forum GOD!
Indeed, I should have been more precise, I meant the mainstream distros (Mint, Ubuntu derivatives, etc). Furthermore, I use very old Thinkpads (sold with Vista back in the day), which are most of the time quite Linux compatible.
Good to hear. My current laptop is a Thinkpad (not sure how old, Windows 7 though) I bought refurb from Ebay and it's beginning to have a few gripes with W10 and I'm thinking of trying a Linux distro (or 6) to see which works the best and hopefully I'll have some success with the distro being compatible with my hardware.
 
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