Yikes, that sounds very intimidating. I don't desire to be a linux system admin. What should a person like me do who just wants an open source system so I can do my work? Can I hire a linux system admin?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Ask me anything: I switched from Mac to Linux because of Apple's surveillance
- Thread starter crymimefireworks
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You can keep it as it is out of the box. It will work fine out the gate. It's customization and 'unpopular' themes such as my fondness for skeuomorphism that makes things much harder. Just finding a way to get very old Windows apps can be a frustrating experience, with hours wasted in the terminal. I always win in the end. I won't use something that I'm not 100% happy with. It has to reflect me, my personal values. If not, I find something else. I end up making things harder on myself. You won't want to know how long it took to finally get my S20 FE to look and feel exactly like Android 2.3, Gingerbread, from 2010. But hey, if it keeps me from wanting to buy another phone that takes equally as long if not longer (newer Android versions make it increasingly hard and convoluted) I end up benefitting from saving $$$.
This is the part that most people don't get. Disclaimer: I'm a Linux sysadmin; I have been for 27 years. Slackware has been my distribution of choice on my personal machines, while I have maintained RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, and Ubuntu distributions on all servers that I maintain.
Most people don't tend to realize that while you can get support from the vendor that supplied your distro of choice, it is up to you to get that support. I mean, they will get patches available for you, should you need them, but you have to patch your linux box, as it will not happen automagically for some to most distributions. There could be new support for hardware that comes out with the latest kernel update that your distribution did NOT come with. If you wanted that support, you'd have to compile your own kernel. That's the key and power of FOSS; it puts that power in the user's hands, regardless of if the user has the ability to use that power or not. I can't tell you how many kernels I've compiled on my own, from 1.1.31 up to the latest, at 5.14.1.
By contrast, most MacOS users only see the GUI and that's it (I'll get to GUIs shortly), and don't realize that they are dealing with a Unix OS underneath that GUI. If they learned a lot of the commands at the CLI, they'll see how easy they port to other Unix OSes. It is that portability that allows me to maintain HPUX, AIX, Solaris, and various BSD OSes.
The same with "you got the power" mindset applies to the GUI as well, where X runs the UI, but you have a choice of what window manager you want to use. This is where people get lost in their assumptions that "linux is only for servers", "Linux only has a CLI", etc., etc., and find out how completely wrong they are.. However, it does take the knowledge of what you are doing to get them to work. Once you do, it is easy to maintain. I've gone from TWM, to FVWM, to WindowMaker, to Afterstep, to KDE, to GNOME, to a full blown XTerminal, and finally back to Afterstep, to even running GUI applications on another terminal remotely from my own Linux box... from halfway around the world. Again, once you know what you are doing, it is easy to do and maintain.
However, I can tell you that it was that maintenance in it being up to me to maintain my hardware and software that had me move my personal Linux setup to a Mac, because I didn't realize how time consuming it was. I still run Slackware in a VM just to compile a kernel but that's it. The durability of my Mac has saved me a good $6000 over the course of 10 years that would have been spent in upgrading hardware and rebuilding my Linux box because of new tech, failed drives, etc. Now, granted I'm still on my mid-2011 13" MBA running Sierra, but it has been rock solid the entire time. I'll be getting the next MBP when it comes out, because I'd rather have the durability of the hardware (Linux has been shown to run on Silicon) versus having to maintain everything personally myself on top of maintaining it for my job.
My point here is that one really can't come into Linux with a Mac mindset and assume that Linux and support of it will be like one gets on a Mac, because Linux - and especially the support of it - is a different beast altogether.
BL.
Well, I love whatever beast it is. I couldn't have gotten the GUI nearly the way I wanted it to be on Big Sur. I could do no more than change icons. With Linux, I can literally make it any way I want, skeuo, flat or whatever. I could make it look like DOS if that were my thing. I don't get that level of customization with Mac or iOS. Mac and iOS used to look great and were fun to interact with up until iOS 7 and Yosemite had to happen. Then it just felt like work. But getting certain themes to work in Linux has shown itself to be an infuriating experience, yet, unlike with Big Sur, it works out in the end.
I agree; however, what I am saying is that most people misplace the onus of ownership of support when it comes to Linux, especially at the desktop level. It isn't as cut and dry as Windows and MacOS make it out to be. Not that people can't deal with it or learn how to handle it, but just that it's different and people need to come into Linux with a clear mind because their perceptions will quickly become misperceptions before too long.
BL.
Like the old UNIX error once said, "when in doubt, read the manual" I love learning. Sadly, many stop having that interest. I love Linux being made for geeks. I'm sick of dumbed down UIs that change on the whim of the creator (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc). It's still a lot easier than it was back in 2001 when I had to get X going by compiling source code or extracting tarballs.
Yo man, come to out world. In all fairness I happily will run Snow Leopard forever, but no chance doing this in production.
I get it. Linux is hard to maintain professionaly. You have to put an effort, but in my business there is no place and time when I will run the new breed of macOS surveillance on a company infrastructure. Period. All that you love in macOS is about to change, from stupidly oversized interface to integration of active machine learning surveillance build into the hardware.
Macs are just companion devices for Apple now. If they can deal with the backslash and developers outrage they will kill all apps outside the App Store immediately.
I cannot forget the feeling of waiting for the new mac pro and thermal hell of the trashcan, only to be replaced with overpriced and hardly accessible (even for me as a business) fashion towers and faulty displays with 1000 dollar stands. Oh and don't forget the wheels.
For the time period, we build custom Hackintoshes just for the freaking Final Cut to run. What a delightful situation to be in. Right?
Comparing this with running DaVinci resolve under Centos is unthinkable, Blackmagic Desig is one of my favorites, luckily for us our workflow is not done in Prores anymore and I don't live in waiting of the next restriction or "innovation" that will break all, again.
On the Linux dilemma, for the regular users. If you use for example Pop_OS as default and don't make stupid experiments, everything will work without a hitch. You have regular updates done trough pop-shop with similar to macOS way "one click of the button + password".
There is no "maintaining" in the terminal. You will get a minimal Canonical telemetry, but if you are willing to open the terminal and paste this
Bash:
sudo apt purge -y ubuntu-report popularity-contest apport whoopsie
Bash:
sudo apt autoremove -y
sudo apt-get autocleanYou are ready to fly.
Compare this with macOS where you have regular callbacks to mother ship (those who are not in the know, please install Little Snitch in alert mode and watch the show).
Last edited:
Other life issues got in the way of upgrading. And to be honest, with working at Intel and seeing the issues from the CPUs we have, I'm glad I stuck to Sandy Bridge, and am eager to jump to Silicon.
That works great; however, Slackware isn't Debian or RH based. In fact, I'd be comfortable in saying that it is the oldest maintained Linux distro out there today. But the point I have is that unless you know how to set up crontab to periodically check for and install package updates, there isn't much to offer like MacOS and Windows where they continually phone home to check for updates. One has to be active in that instead of passive like the other OSes.
BL.
Ah! I see what the problem is. Heh. Ok, my bad. Please bear with me, because I have to lay some foundation to explain.BROWSER
If you have a way to install Brave without CLI I'm all ears. Even Brave themselves gives a bunch of CLI commands:
Installing Brave on Linux | Brave
The Brave browser is a fast, private and secure web browser for PC, Mac and mobile. Download now to enjoy a faster ad-free browsing experience that saves data and battery life by blocking tracking software.brave.com
Most (?) Linux distributions ("distros") have GUI package installation and update managers. (There are also command-line analogues for the GUIs. This is, after all, Linux
) There are default repositories ("repos") that go along with them. Not all packages from all sources are included in all repos for all distros. Particularly packages that are forks from major packages.(Sidebar: Debian and Debian-derived Linux' [Debian, Ubuntu, Mint] use the "dpkg" [Debian package] package management system. Red Hat and Red Hat-derived Linux' [Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora] use the RPM [Redhat Package Manager] package management system. Ubuntu and Linux' derived from it, such as Mint [yes: Debian begat Ubuntu begat Mint, you could say] add another package management layer atop dpkg, call "apt". )
Brave is kind of a fork of Chrome. (It uses the Chrome rendering engine.)
Often, packages that aren't included in a distro's default repros have alternative package sources that can be manually added to a distribution's package management system. In Debian-derived systems these are called "PPA"s (Personal Package Archives).
*whew*
All that was to explain that the command-line part of what you are seeing in "installing" Brave isn't to install Brave, per se, but to add a Brave PPA to your distro's list of repositories. After that's done you can use either a command-line package management tool or the package management GUI to install or remove the package. After that's done, updates come via the same mechanisms as updates for all other packages.
It's never going to be where MS-Windows and MacOS are, because Linux is all about choice. Think about it: Can you see MS-Win allowing one to add alternative/additional package sources to their built-in package management system? Does MacOS allow one to do that?
I don't know what went on with what you were doing. The only time a new Linux install took me more than, literally, minutes to get started was when I built the machine I'm currently using and wanted to use the Linux kernel's built-in RAID. That was a bit tricky because I wanted to boot off the same SSDs, and you can't boot off a Linux kernel RAID instance, because it doesn't exist at boot time.
I've no idea what a "Magic Mouse" is, but, yeah: If it's something non-standard-ish, support may be tricky, or even lacking entirely. E.g.: the keyboard I'm currently using uses a different method for communicating caps lock back to the keyboard to light the keyboard indicator, and my Linux kernel is too old to support it. So I have no caps lock indicator.
Holy kernel, Batman! Love that you're so into this. I don't want to take that away, I want to build on top of it. I want a version of Linux that's "it just works" and "open source". That likely means less choice (at least at the surface level). I need developers like *you* can make the choices so I don't have to.Ah! I see what the problem is. Heh. Ok, my bad. Please bear with me, because I have to lay some foundation to explain.
Most (?) Linux distributions ("distros") have GUI package installation and update managers. (There are also command-line analogues for the GUIs. This is, after all, Linux
(Sidebar: Debian and Debian-derived Linux' [Debian, Ubuntu, Mint] use the "dpkg" [Debian package] package management system. Red Hat and Red Hat-derived Linux' [Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora] use the RPM [Redhat Package Manager] package management system. Ubuntu and Linux' derived from it, such as Mint [yes: Debian begat Ubuntu begat Mint, you could say] add another package management layer atop dpkg, call "apt". )
Brave is kind of a fork of Chrome. (It uses the Chrome rendering engine.)
Often, packages that aren't included in a distro's default repros have alternative package sources that can be manually added to a distribution's package management system. In Debian-derived systems these are called "PPA"s (Personal Package Archives).
*whew*
All that was to explain that the command-line part of what you are seeing in "installing" Brave isn't to install Brave, per se, but to add a Brave PPA to your distro's list of repositories. After that's done you can use either a command-line package management tool or the package management GUI to install or remove the package. After that's done, updates come via the same mechanisms as updates for all other packages.
It's never going to be where MS-Windows and MacOS are, because Linux is all about choice. Think about it: Can you see MS-Win allowing one to add alternative/additional package sources to their built-in package management system? Does MacOS allow one to do that?
I don't know what went on with what you were doing. The only time a new Linux install took me more than, literally, minutes to get started was when I built the machine I'm currently using and wanted to use the Linux kernel's built-in RAID. That was a bit tricky because I wanted to boot off the same SSDs, and you can't boot off a Linux kernel RAID instance, because it doesn't exist at boot time.
I've no idea what a "Magic Mouse" is, but, yeah: If it's something non-standard-ish, support may be tricky, or even lacking entirely. E.g.: the keyboard I'm currently using uses a different method for communicating caps lock back to the keyboard to light the keyboard indicator, and my Linux kernel is too old to support it. So I have no caps lock indicator.
Re: Magic Mouse -- "Apple Magic Mouse", touch sensitive mouse
That's actually why I've stuck with Slackware for my distribution of choice. Ever since the early 1990s, it just worked, and still does "just work". I've seen so many distros be disk hogs, memory hogs, and be absolutely horrible and sluggish, while Slackware has been compact yet full and robust.
However, this is where distro wars are just as bad as browser wars.
That can be tuned, so you can actually have a given mouse be as sensitive as you want; from a Bluetooth mouse to a serial mouse (yes, those can still be used). That's the good part about Linux; it leaves not only your software packages of choice, but any tuning of any device you want to be completely up to you.
BL.
Plenty of options I'm sure - but restricted to CLI users only. For mere mortals like me, it means my mouse doesn't work without CLI. I spent $50 on a Logitech mouse to replace it, which does work properly without needing to be an expert. I prefer to pay for Linux solutions with my money than my time.
Regarding the Librem 5, make sure to spend some time on forums like r/Purism. The behavior of the manufacturer is at times rather controversial, e.g. changing the refund terms months/years after preorders, or the remarkably expensive "USA"-model where all essential components come from other countries, and they won't tell which ones. Only a handful of barely functional Librem 5 seem to exist in the wild, and orders are bound to take months or years. Frankly, I feel at this stage the Librem 5 is closer to vaporware than a real product. But read for yourself and make up your own mind.
I am generally looking into switching to more open-source systems. At the same time I have a growing concern about hardware made in China - not the quality, but I strongly dislike how much we rely on manufacturing in a country I regard as a dictatorship. Librem 5, PinePhone, FairPhone, ShiftPhone, they are all made in China. Right now I have a Samsung that was made in Korea - a fairly decent democracy, I like that - but it has the Google-package and so far no way of deGoogling it (I try to control this a bit with sideloaded apps like NetGuard, but you never know). Seems I have to pick one evil.
With laptops it is similar. System76 are Clevos made in China, I believe, and other "open" laptops like the Framework or the MNT Reform come from there as well. I feel like I might as well stick to my used Thinkpad. They tend to work really well with Linux, too. Eventually I may switch to a ToughBook or Fujitsu, some are still made in Japan.
I would recommend Kdenlive. The previews are not smooth like the Apple software, but it has lots of flexibility and renders nicely.
Correction: Used to be into it. Not so much any more. I'm tired of it. Which is why I was going to buy us a pair of Mac desktops. Good going, Apple
I'm not a developer any more. At least: No more than absolutely necessary.
Ah. Not too surprised that an Apple peripheral has less than sterling end-user support on Linux. This may come as a shock
, but Apple doesn't necessarily go out of its way to ensure interoperability of its products with competing products. Anything anybody's done to make it happen was almost certainly the result of painstaking reverse engineering.
Purism is taking on too many challenges at once. Open source hardware AND anti-surveillance. AND for the Librem 5 USA they manufacture it in the USA. So they're spread really thin. It's possible they're "too early" to succeed.
I like System76's approach. Slow and steady, first establish awesome Linux-first hardware. They're doing assembly in the USA and aim to do more: https://blog.system76.com/post/179592732883/system76-on-us-manufacturing-and-open-hardware
Their new Launch keyboard is open source hardware and software and Made in Colorado: https://system76.com/accessories/launch
Support the future you want to live in!
This is the case with MacOS as well. Mac gaming is comically inferior to just about any dedicated hardware or Windows, iOS even more so (seriously, the app store is filled with racing games where the game drives FOR you), and many industry software titles flat out won't run on anything but Windows.
I always have to keep a Windows computer around to do the 3 things my MacBook just can't do. The exception is there is 1 thing I can do in a Windows VM, but I can't run it long before the thing overheats. Even then, I only trust the software for 1 task because of doing some shady USB passthrough to the VM. An old Dell Venue tablet running Windows 8.1 does this job better.
My Linux Mint machine can do just about anything, just not always that well. That said, one Linux distro at a time has always been adequate.
About the only OS that does everything to an acceptable level is Windows. So far, the only thing I've found that Windows won't do is host a Nextcloud server.
No, not really. What has to happen is if the driver for the mouse isn't compiled directly into the kernel, it could be compiled as a module that can be inserted into the kernel at any time after the kernel boots. That could either be done manually by CLI, or set into one of the startup scripts to run at a particular runlevel for Linux (Linux has 6 runlevels, with runlevel 3 being the one that gets you to the multiuser level, where runlevel 4 goes directly into X and starts a window manager. You could set one of the startup scripts to load the module when the OS is booting, go directly into X, and you have your driver for your mouse.
Again, this puts the power to get this to work up to the user, as Linux gives you the opportunity to learn, instead of having everything done for you.
BL.
Last edited:
Not everyone wants that "opportunity"... and frankly that is a poor defense of Linux. But that is not a unique sentiment... it's quite popular in the Linux world.
There is no virtue in having to troubleshoot device drivers. There is no shame in having things "just work".
The days of truly personal personal computers are long gone. Computers are appliances. As long as there is resistance to having Linux become an appliance-like OS, it will never be a viable option for the mainstream.
True, but Linux can't be blamed for that. This is equivalent of looking the gift horse in the mouth. If the offer that would result in giving a person more knowledge is there, but that person doesn't take it, that is on the person, not the offer.
Sometimes to have things "just work", you have to make it "just work". Case in point: If I want to run Linux on a Playstation 4 (which can be done), I can just drop the CD or USB installer stick in, format the drive, install, and off I go. That "just works".
If I wanted the PS4 controller to work, I'd have to load the driver to make it work, because it doesn't get loaded by default. That is "making it work".
If I want it to always work for me when I start up the PS4, I add the line to load the driver into the startup scripts, and when I start the PS4, it is there and loaded. That is "making it work to just work".
True, but that resistance breaks down to naivety or refusing to want to learn about Linux, because people have been programmed into only using what is easy. That's what made the Mac quick to grasp back in 84, as well as MS Windows, while everyone and their mother had the hardest time with MSDOS, Apple DOS, ProDOS, etc.
BL.
It's not a defense. It's a reality. Every OS has its realities, pluses, and minuses.
It's not "popular" in the Linux world. It's simply a reality expressed by those familiar with Linux.
If you want something that "just works," than perhaps Linux isn't for you? Many things do "just work." Other things do not. It is what it is.
You do realize, I hope, that most of the work that goes into any Linux distribution is done entirely by volunteers, often hobbyists like me, as opposed to paid, professional development staff, right? (There are bits of code I wrote, and maybe even still a complete package, on Linux distros.)
It's not resistance so much as lack of interest. Very few people in the Linux dev community really care about Linux being "mainstream." Much of the work that goes into Linux is done by people that want to see a certain thing for their own reasons. So they design it to work the way they want it to work. They put as much work into it as they feel necessary to satisfy their goals or needs. Are you suggesting these people are beholden to your wants and needs? Good luck with that
(I many times over the years had people try to convince or coerce me, by one means or another, into putting stuff into code I wrote I did not wish to. I essentially politely told them to go away
)
(I many times over the years had people try to convince or coerce me, by one means or another, into putting stuff into code I wrote I did not wish to. I essentially politely told them to go away
Perhaps you should refer these people to that admistrative assistant you have pictured in your avatar, who might have a good glare for those people!
This thread has been helpful for me. There's a delicate balance that users like @sracer and I will need to walk.
No, Farmer John, I do not want to grow my own vegetables, till my own land, and plant my own seeds. Yes, Farmer John, I want to pay you to do this on my behalf. And Yes, Farmer John, I massively respect what you do. I also would appreciate mutual respect of my work as well, even though like me, you aren't interested in doing my work yourself.
There's not much more to it than this. "Linux culture" means created by and for mechanics.
What's a non-mechanic to do? What about people that don't want to know how their car works, they just want to get to work?
Buy System76 I'm gonna go hang on the System76 and PopOS subreddits. They seem full of people like @sracer and I!
No, Farmer John, I do not want to grow my own vegetables, till my own land, and plant my own seeds. Yes, Farmer John, I want to pay you to do this on my behalf. And Yes, Farmer John, I massively respect what you do. I also would appreciate mutual respect of my work as well, even though like me, you aren't interested in doing my work yourself.
There's not much more to it than this. "Linux culture" means created by and for mechanics.
What's a non-mechanic to do? What about people that don't want to know how their car works, they just want to get to work?
Buy System76
I'm gonna go hang on the System76 and PopOS subreddits. They seem full of people like @sracer and I!
Last edited: