Linux which Distro?

[Snowlover]

If iTunes was available for Linux, especially for iPhone/iPad backups, I would switch FULL TIME!

There really is no reason why iTunes should not be readily available for Linux, considering its macOS heritage. ?

Backup from iPhone on Linux without iTunes

Is it possible to back up short messages from an iPhone on Linux, without iTunes?

apple.stackexchange.com

Access your iPhone on Linux with this open source tool

The iPhone and iPad aren't by any means open source, but they're popular devices.

opensource.com

Not itunes but a way to connect to i devices on linux.

 

[MacBH928]

And yet the most popular server OS is Linux. Not the server OSs backed by multi-billion dollar corporations like Microsoft and Apple. Plenty of fantastic FOSS software out there too, just little to no marketing budgets. Great stuff you've probably heard of and use like VLC, Blender, 7zip.

Linux is literally free to try. I think if you gave it a spin you might understand a little bit better. You don't even have to install it and can run it straight off a USB stick.

Servers are a different beast. Linux is built to mimic Unix which afaik is built to be a server OS. I am talking about average joe desktop user. In addition, for corporations they choose Linux because its free and it will save them a ton of money than using a Microsoft solution (not sure if there is an Apple server OS). Keep in mind that the server market is backed by at least 3 corporations (Red Hat, OpenSuse, and Canonical) in addition the big tech themselves contribute to the server side of Linux because they use it themselves.

There are no 3 corporations supporting Linux as a desktop computer nor the big tech contribute to it. See the difference!? When we saw some corporate support from Valve to support Steam on Linux we have seen great jumps of improvement on gaming for Linux. This only shows a slight possibilities what could happen with Linux if it was backed by organized professional dedicated (and paid) team.

--
I agree there is great FOSS software like VLC and Transmission that I would choose over paid options because I believe its equally or better like VLC as you mentioned but we have to see the full picture and not compare on 1-to-1 basis.

I did try linux many times and gave it test runs, I am planning a move maybe in the future. Reading online sometimes scares me though as I hear some people migrate from Linux to Mac because they want something that works and hassle free. In addition many developers choose a macbook as their main driver machine which makes me wonder why since those kind of people can write the software themselves and Linux is not intimidating for them at all.

 

[MacBH928]

Has your research involved using the software, or are you just parroting the opinion of others who have a negative opinion of linux and Foss?
If you tried it and it doesn't work for you fine. Use what does, but no need to bash these fine alternatives to your precious professional programs.

Yes I did run many distros of linux for testing purposes even tried running FreeBSD. I am not bashing them, I am just simply stating the fact that software made by contributors in their free time can not match the quality of software made by dedicated paid teams.

I am very grateful for the FOSS community and the people who spend their own time for the cause of FOSS and have been using FOSS software like Firefox, Brave, VLC, Transmission and others.

Again do not take the situation of 1-vs-1 but take the whole library of applications available for say Windows against Linux.

Backup from iPhone on Linux without iTunes

Is it possible to back up short messages from an iPhone on Linux, without iTunes?

apple.stackexchange.com

Access your iPhone on Linux with this open source tool

The iPhone and iPad aren't by any means open source, but they're popular devices.

opensource.com

Not itunes but a way to connect to i devices on linux.

This is actually a real good real life situation about Linux and availability and quality of the apps. iTunes one of the most popular services world wide doesn't have an app to support it on Linux and for you to backup your iOS device you have to do backflips through the terminal and write full folder paths meanwhile on MacOS and Windows you have a nice GUI app to do it for you. It might be a simple task for you but for the average person this is just too much.

@phillytim

Linux has nothing to do with MacOS heritage. MacOS is derived from BSD which mimics Unix and Linux is another software that mimics Unix.

 

[MacBH928]

This is not so.

Compare LibreOffice to MS Office --

• Opening and editing a large document (i.e. The Bible) is much faster in LO than MSO.
• Creating, modifying and applying styles is much easier in LO than MSO.
• It is relatively easy to create and edit multi-file (Master) documents in LO than MSO.
• LO will let you autosave your documents no matter where you save them - local drive, shared drive, cloud drive. MsO will only let you autosave your documents if you use MS OpenDrive
• If you save your multi-file (Master) on MS OpenDrive it will destroy it. This doesn't happen with LO.
• The complete documentation for all modules of LO is freely downloadable, as either LO documents or as PDF. You can't do this with MSO.

Consider TeX/LaTeX. This has been free software for some 40 years now. It still is the best, most flexible and accurate software for laying out text on a page. It is better than QuarkXpress, Adobe InDesign and much, much better than MS Word. It is also simpler and easier to use well than MS Office.

Consider Joplin as a note-taking package. It is much better than MS OneNote, and works across multiple platforms, and can synchronise across them. It also has more, and more useful export options, and many, many more formatting options.

Afterthought.
Open source and freeware software is made by people for the love of it. Generally they do the best they can.

Commercial software is made by organisations that want to make money. They will have it created as cheaply as possible, with major parts of the software outsourced to $5/hour off-shore programmers. This cannot and will not produce quality software.

You make points on the side of LO but one could argue there are more features on the Microsoft side of things. I am sure there is a reason corporates world wide pay for Office over the free LO. Have you compared Excel to Calc for example? Surely there is a reason they are paying about $7/user for the Office Suite.

If Latex is better than Quark and Indesign why are the professionals using Quark and Indesign? there is a missing piece in this puzzle. Maybe Lyx or TexMacs but if you actually mean writing a scripting language to output a document (Like Tex) you are delusional to think desktop users will do this. This is equivalent to saying having to write your own drivers to make your hardware work.

Joplin , like Bitwarden, does not count since its backed by a business and employees. I was talking about the community made ones like Linux Solace, WaterFox, Graphene, Keepass (1 developer AFAIK).

I mean think about it. If Blender is better than Maya 3D, why would any one pay for Maya? If Gimp is better than Photoshop, why would any one pay for Photoshop? And they pay a lot, photoshop license is like $120/year.

I disagree about your comment about commercial software, it applies to some commercial software (Quicken?) but I have seen great commercial software. Here is a list:-

Photoshop (it became an adjective)
Carbon Copy Cloner
MacOS
iOS
Excel (even if you hate Office, I never heard a spreadsheet software superior to this one)
YouTube (privacy invasive but the app itself is all good)
Telegram (not foss)
Shazam (Apple)
1password
Affinity
PowerDirector

 

[Snowlover]

FOSS benefits over proprietary software:

Manufacturers of proprietary, closed-source software are sometimes pressured to building in backdoors or other covert, undesired features into their software. Instead of having to trust software vendors, users of FOSS can inspect and verify the source code themselves and can put trust on a community of volunteers and users. As proprietary code is typically hidden from public view, only the vendors themselves and hackers may be aware of any vulnerabilities in them while FOSS involves as many people as possible for exposing bugs quickly.

FOSS allows for better collaboration among various parties and individuals with the goal of developing the most efficient software for its users or use-cases while proprietary software is typically meant to generate profits. Furthermore, in many cases more organizations and individuals contribute to such projects than to proprietary software. It has been shown that technical superiority is typically the primary reason why companies choose open source software.​

10 Reasons Open Source Is Good for Business

Cost is only one of many factors that make free and open source software a better bet in the enterprise.

www.pcworld.com

 

[judgedredd20]

What with Apple now fetching out a new OS every year and my Mac Pro being long in the tooth I am thinking of installing
Linux on my 2009 Mac Pro, is it worth it and which distro should I use ? Also can this be installed externally so I can see
how it runs and what it can do ?

I would recommend Linux Mint. I intensely dislike Ubuntu as it caused me major issues a while back that took for ages to sort out, whereas with Linux Mint, even though it is built on the code base of Ubuntu, can be tried out as a Live CD/DVD and then, if one likes it, can be installed from the same CD/DVD without ANY issues. I have an old 2006 Toshiba 1.7GHz Laptop with 2GB of RAM and it works like a charm right from the get go. I am using this laptop as my only laptop to do everything on, including building websites. Linux Mint just works - no hassles no problems.

 

[judgedredd20]

You make points on the side of LO but one could argue there are more features on the Microsoft side of things. I am sure there is a reason corporates world wide pay for Office over the free LO. Have you compared Excel to Calc for example? Surely there is a reason they are paying about $7/user for the Office Suite.

Corporates use MS Office and other paid for software packages mostly because of one thing - the ability to call tech support if something goes wrong with the install or some other problem. Time is money in the corporate world and they don't want to hang around a forum a) looking for answers to the issue they are having and b) waiting for an answer to their post about the issue they are having. Corporates want answers to problems NOW not hours from now.

There is one thing about paid for software like MS Office that I personally dislike... the continual upgrade/update crap that that company, for example, foists on the end user. AND the change in User Interface (UI) between one version and another.

 

[rampancy]

I would recommend Linux Mint. I intensely dislike Ubuntu as it caused me major issues a while back that took for ages to sort out, whereas with Linux Mint, even though it is built on the code base of Ubuntu, can be tried out as a Live CD/DVD and then, if one likes it, can be installed from the same CD/DVD without ANY issues. I have an old 2006 Toshiba 1.7GHz Laptop with 2GB of RAM and it works like a charm right from the get go. I am using this laptop as my only laptop to do everything on, including building websites. Linux Mint just works - no hassles no problems.

I love Linux Mint as well. I've had some issues getting it to run/install/boot successfully on my Core Duo MacBooks, but for the Dell and Lenovo laptops I have in my collection, Mint utterly blows away Ubuntu in terms of both usability and performance.

 

[MacBH928]

FOSS benefits over proprietary software:

Manufacturers of proprietary, closed-source software are sometimes pressured to building in backdoors or other covert, undesired features into their software. Instead of having to trust software vendors, users of FOSS can inspect and verify the source code themselves and can put trust on a community of volunteers and users. As proprietary code is typically hidden from public view, only the vendors themselves and hackers may be aware of any vulnerabilities in them while FOSS involves as many people as possible for exposing bugs quickly.

FOSS allows for better collaboration among various parties and individuals with the goal of developing the most efficient software for its users or use-cases while proprietary software is typically meant to generate profits. Furthermore, in many cases more organizations and individuals contribute to such projects than to proprietary software. It has been shown that technical superiority is typically the primary reason why companies choose open source software.​

10 Reasons Open Source Is Good for Business

Cost is only one of many factors that make free and open source software a better bet in the enterprise.

www.pcworld.com

Don't get me wrong. I would love to have all software to be FOSS I am just stating that without funding and organized team behind it, it won't be able to match the quality of paid software not to mention its sustainability. We have already seen death of FOSS software for various reasons like Mandrake Linux.

FOSS model is not good enough because its under funded. You can see on the FreeBSD donation page they are hoping for $1.4M and all they received is $89K (6%) from a measly 250 people on planet earth. For Asahi Linux you can see they are all depending on 1 guy to port Linux to M1 chips but the sad part he only reached 49% of his monthly goal supported by about 1100 people. Thats it. 1100 people are willing to pay few dollars to port a whole OS to M1 chips. Out of all the linux and mac users globally (including corporate employees) just 1100 world wide cared to donate for this. Now imagine every distro, every app, every service out there like GIMP, XFCE, Audacity, and everything else will not survive on such tight budget, not only will it not survive but it just can't match millions of dollars in R&D. Making it even worse, the FOSS community keep forking infinitely and creating different projects with similar if not exact goals(check how many "secure" chat and messengers exist) diluting the efforts between them in the end creating software that is not on par with the corporate one. The ones that work are the ones that have a business model behind them like Bitwarden and SUSE or the ones that can secure funding from other businesses like The Linux Foundation .

You say FOSS is equally good but lets picture this, if both photoshop and GIMP were FOSS, how many people will choose GIMP over photoshop? If Excel was Foss , how many people will choose Calc? If iOS was FOSS , how many will Choose Graphene?

I can see someone choosing FireFox over Chrome, but again compare whole library to whole library not 1-vs-1 scenarios.

I would recommend Linux Mint. I intensely dislike Ubuntu as it caused me major issues a while back that took for ages to sort out, whereas with Linux Mint, even though it is built on the code base of Ubuntu, can be tried out as a Live CD/DVD and then, if one likes it, can be installed from the same CD/DVD without ANY issues. I have an old 2006 Toshiba 1.7GHz Laptop with 2GB of RAM and it works like a charm right from the get go. I am using this laptop as my only laptop to do everything on, including building websites. Linux Mint just works - no hassles no problems.

One thing I do not get is Ubuntu gets a lot of hate online yet people seem to agree it has the largest market share, they do not use distros built on Ubuntu like Mint and Zorin but Ubuntu itself. I am wondering who is and why?

Corporates use MS Office and other paid for software packages mostly because of one thing - the ability to call tech support if something goes wrong with the install or some other problem. Time is money in the corporate world and they don't want to hang around a forum a) looking for answers to the issue they are having and b) waiting for an answer to their post about the issue they are having. Corporates want answers to problems NOW not hours from now.

There is one thing about paid for software like MS Office that I personally dislike... the continual upgrade/update crap that that company, for example, foists on the end user. AND the change in User Interface (UI) between one version and another.

If tech. support is the reason, LibreOffice could easily make a business out of this by having paid support (isn't this what RedHat is doing?) plus I believe on the proprietary side of things you have to pay for the software and then pay more for tech. support.

I never tried those corporate tech. supports, do they actually pick the phone immediately and have an answer for you?

 

[rampancy]

There is one thing about paid for software like MS Office that I personally dislike... the continual upgrade/update crap that that company, for example, foists on the end user. AND the change in User Interface (UI) between one version and another.

The other thing to also remember is the industry's movement away from software as a standalone product and towards software as a service (which we've also seen with Office 365 and Windows 365)...which is extremely customer unfriendly.

That's not to say that FOSS is a perfect 1:1 replacement, but they've evolved into not just viable, but excellent alternatives for those who've neither the means nor the ability to gain access to up to date commercial software.

Someone made the statement that Linux is a "poor person's OS". So? There are millions of people around the world who need various types of software to do their work or daily tasks, but simply don't have the ability to purchase the latest and greatest commercial software, or the hardware capable of running it. There's also the huge amount of eWaste from computers thrown out simply because they're too old to run the latest versions of Windows or OS X, or the latest versions of MS Office or the Adobe apps.

Again, FOSS isn't a perfect 1:1 replacement, but it doesn't have to be. No one is saying that people working for the New York Times should ditch their M1 Macs running Photoshop and QuarkXPress for MacBooks running Ubuntu with GIMP and Scribus. However for schools, community groups and low-income folks using older, otherwise perfectly viable hardware, Linux and FOSS is an excellent alternative.

 

[MacBH928]

The other thing to also remember is the industry's movement away from software as a standalone product and towards software as a service (which we've also seen with Office 365 and Windows 365)...which is extremely customer unfriendly.

That's not to say that FOSS is a perfect 1:1 replacement, but they've evolved into not just viable, but excellent alternatives for those who've neither the means nor the ability to gain access to up to date commercial software.

Someone made the statement that Linux is a "poor person's OS". So? There are millions of people around the world who need various types of software to do their work or daily tasks, but simply don't have the ability to purchase the latest and greatest commercial software, or the hardware capable of running it. There's also the huge amount of eWaste from computers thrown out simply because they're too old to run the latest versions of Windows or OS X, or the latest versions of MS Office or the Adobe apps.

Again, FOSS isn't a perfect 1:1 replacement, but it doesn't have to be. No one is saying that people working for the New York Times should ditch their M1 Macs running Photoshop and QuarkXPress for MacBooks running Ubuntu with GIMP and Scribus. However for schools, community groups and low-income folks using older, otherwise perfectly viable hardware, Linux and FOSS is an excellent alternative.

I do agree with you. I will go further and say some FOSS is equally or even better than commercial software.

• SaaS is actually good for FOSS since now they can charge money for the server costs. Its the model that Bitwarden is living on. If its not a server/cloud based one, yeah I do not believe in renting software. Rarely, except for those that cost hundreds of dollars bought out right like Adobe Suite
• I said Linux is a poor man OS. Its not because a person can't afford to buy software, its because the community is living off software that is extremely under funded and have no source of income (poor funding) . FOSS come from kind people donating their time and effort to create FOSS and thus no guarantees or tests can be performed and customers can't demand anything (beggars can't be choosers). Its just community effort.
• I am not sure why the linux community fancy using linux on older hardware. The number of "light" distros is overwhelming and surprising. There are so many people dedicated to making Linux work on ancient hardware for some reason. I am not against it and think its great, it just seems that they fancy it so much.

 

[Snowlover]

I don't know where you get the idea that linux and Foss developers don't and can't do any testing.

There is a lot of perfectly good hardware out there that is no longer supported by "pro" Oses , especially Mac.
I salute linux developers for making it possible to continue safely using the older machines with fast and lean distros that continue to get security updates.

You don't have to choose the lite distros. It's all about choice.

 

[MacBH928]

I don't know where you get the idea that linux and Foss developers don't and can't do any testing.

There is a lot of perfectly good hardware out there that is no longer supported by "pro" Oses , especially Mac.
I salute linux developers for making it possible to continue safely using the older machines with fast and lean distros that continue to get security updates.

You don't have to choose the lite distros. It's all about choice.

Am not saying they don't do ANY testing I am saying they do not have the budget or funds to do thorough testing and experimenting. Here is an example of Microsoft spending $20B per year on R&D. Of course, I do not ask them to have that kind of budget but compare it to their proprietary competitors like Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Quicken, Google, Facebook, and soon you will see its a no match between the two.

I am not against light distros, I am happy to have the option, I am just making a comment that Linux community seem to have a fascination with light distros so much so they have a plethora of them.

 

[Snowlover]

And again I say Apple and Microsoft regularly release OSes and updates with many bugs and problems even with their huge budgets for testing.

 

[rampancy]

And again I say Apple and Microsoft regularly release OSes and updates with many bugs and problems even with their huge budgets for testing.

One need only look at the modern AAA video game industry's practices with regards to testing and QA to see that big budget commercial software does not necessarily equal superior quality.

 

[millerj123]

I am not against light distros, I am happy to have the option, I am just making a comment that Linux community seem to have a fascination with light distros so much so they have a plethora of them.

So, the dev teams can work on anything they want. Literally. Anything. You don't want a plethora of light distros? Don't use them.

Simple.

 

[MacBH928]

And again I say Apple and Microsoft regularly release OSes and updates with many bugs and problems even with their huge budgets for testing.

One need only look at the modern AAA video game industry's practices with regards to testing and QA to see that big budget commercial software does not necessarily equal superior quality.

You are right but logic dictates that a dedicated team backed with millions of dollars software must surpass in quality (at least bugs) software that is made by people in their free time backed with almost no money. Am I wrong or am I right?

Of course this would flip over if the FOSS team is actually larger than the commercial team, say a commercial password manager has a team of 5 dev's but the FOSS alternative has 150 people working on it.

So, the dev teams can work on anything they want. Literally. Anything. You don't want a plethora of light distros? Don't use them.

Simple.

You are correct I am just thinking the FOSS community could be more efficient instead of releasing forks and new distros trying to solve the same problem, to redirect their efforts where its needed more ex. Asahi Linux that is being ported to M1 has like 1 guy working on it.

 

[dmr727]

I am not against light distros, I am happy to have the option, I am just making a comment that Linux community seem to have a fascination with light distros so much so they have a plethora of them.

My preference for a light distro is more a reaction to my overall disdain for bloat on the Windows/MacOS side. I'm not running low end hardware so bloated instantaneous isn't noticeably different than efficient instantaneous, but my nerdy side bristles at the thought of all the cycles lost to making stuff prettier, catering to the lowest common denominator, and layer upon layer of random crap that attempts to integrate my machine into the Microsoft/Apple ecosystem. I can tolerate this with my phone or tablet - I see them as essentially smart appliances - but I'm very resistant to being pulled in that direction on my computers. Since Linux/BSD is already my way of scratching nerdier itches, I tend to embrace the ability to select leaner distros/desktop environments, even on modern hardware.

 

[Snowlover]

You are right but logic dictates that a dedicated team backed with millions of dollars software must surpass in quality (at least bugs) software that is made by people in their free time backed with almost no money. Am I wrong or am I right?

Of course this would flip over if the FOSS team is actually larger than the commercial team, say a commercial password manager has a team of 5 dev's but the FOSS alternative has 150 people working on it

More people working on something does not necessarily make it better.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

You are right but logic dictates that a dedicated team backed with millions of dollars software must surpass in quality (at least bugs) software that is made by people in their free time backed with almost no money. Am I wrong or am I right?

Of course this would flip over if the FOSS team is actually larger than the commercial team, say a commercial password manager has a team of 5 dev's but the FOSS alternative has 150 people working on it.



You are correct I am just thinking the FOSS community could be more efficient instead of releasing forks and new distros trying to solve the same problem, to redirect their efforts where its needed more ex. Asahi Linux that is being ported to M1 has like 1 guy working on it.

I commend to you 'The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks.

 

[millerj123]

I commend to you 'The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks.

Read. And/or understand...

 

[MacBH928]

My preference for a light distro is more a reaction to my overall disdain for bloat on the Windows/MacOS side. I'm not running low end hardware so bloated instantaneous isn't noticeably different than efficient instantaneous, but my nerdy side bristles at the thought of all the cycles lost to making stuff prettier, catering to the lowest common denominator, and layer upon layer of random crap that attempts to integrate my machine into the Microsoft/Apple ecosystem. I can tolerate this with my phone or tablet - I see them as essentially smart appliances - but I'm very resistant to being pulled in that direction on my computers. Since Linux/BSD is already my way of scratching nerdier itches, I tend to embrace the ability to select leaner distros/desktop environments, even on modern hardware.

Which is your distro of choice? I hear slackware is the one of the most efficient and stable ones. Which DE do you use?

More people working on something does not necessarily make it better.

You are correct to say 5000 developers working on MS Office might not produce a better app than 2000 developers working on LibreOffice , but a minimum has to be met because 2 people working on LibreOffice for sure will not be able to handle this big app versus MS Office's 5000 developers.

I have asked why no one creates an independent community made browser and was told a browser is updated too much you can only rely on a professional organization to create it (Google for Chrome, Mozilla for Firefox) and fork it from there.

I commend to you 'The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks.

will look into it , thank you

 

[Snowlover]

Thanks for the tip. I'm downloading it now and will maybe give it a whirl. I mainly ask because I've discovered that while a given distro may have a 32-bit/i386 option, it still won't necessarily like Apple's 32-bit EFI implementation on Core Duo Macs. Matt Gadient's isomacprog utility might help in some cases, but it's not a guarantee.

I'm also looking forward to trying out Crunchbang++ too. I have an old Core Duo MacBook 1,1 with a faulty memory slot limiting it to 1 GB RAM, for which I'd love to find a good modern memory-efficient Linux distro.

I'm curious if you got 32 bit mx linux to work on your MacBook and what you thought of it?

 

[tornado99]

I love Linux Mint as well. I've had some issues getting it to run/install/boot successfully on my Core Duo MacBooks, but for the Dell and Lenovo laptops I have in my collection, Mint utterly blows away Ubuntu in terms of both usability and performance.

I am baffled why a Mac user would recommend Mint to anyone. It arose as some people didn't like the direction that Gnome was taking with GTK 3, so it basically froze the UI at GTK 2. It has an incredibly ugly 1990s interface, and uses a very old kernel so won't run well on hardware less than 2 years old, and is insecure.

There are two games in town when it comes to a modern Linux desktop. Gnome (GTK 4) and KDE (Plasma). Both are very nice looking in their own way, but also very different from each other.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

I must admit that I started off using Linux Mint because it was the only distro that worked nicely on my 2015 iMac.
Since then I have generally moved across to Ubuntu Mate, with Plank as the dock. However, I have to start it with 'nomodeset', otherwise it takes too long to start up and shut down. Cinnamon, however, doesn't play well with 'nomodeset'.
The benefit is that, of all the distros I have tried, Ubuntu Mate is generally the fastest.