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- Thread starter WildWestDesigns
- Start date
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
Am I going to have to be a Linux guy?
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
And is that so terrible? I use Arch by the way(I never can resist saying that).
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
I've just grown up with Windows but have always been curious of Linux. I started on DOS and Windows 3.1 as a kid so it got ingrained in me.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
I remember those days. I have died of dysentery many, many a time on the Oregon Trail(when it was new, the game that is, not the real Oregon Trail(I can envision the old man jokes already)), so I have been around.
Most people think that it's harder than it really is. Even with Arch, there are easier versions of it (although nothing beats a vanilla Arch install, even at that, there are easier ways to do that and if you remember installing via fdisk, CLI install of Arch is fairly easy). But I digress.
Pauly
Printrade.com.au
Linux is great. As long as your software works on it.
Here's the thing. Because not all software runs on linux (it can in a VM) it can be pointless to use. E.g my laptop, i have Adobe software & MS Office that i use.
Yes, Theres open office, one day i'll try it, but we all use outlook.. and im not trading Adobe illustrator, photoshop and Lightroom for alternatives. Sure i could use them in a VM, but thats pointless as those apps are open 95% of the time.
But
At my shop,
My Server runs Vmware with all Linux VMs. (which is pretty standard these days)
My mini PCs around the shop all run Ubuntu. Most would run windows 11, but we chose linux due to it being light weight and very easy to configure.
Sure, some things are a pain to set up, getting out Dymos working on linux was a mission but we got there in the end.
Texas_Signmaker
Very Active Signmaker
This has been talked about for 20 years... Isn't a Chromebook cloud based? More nonsense.
Pauly
Printrade.com.au
Nope. The OS is not cloud base.
Some of the apps are. But some can run offline also.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Personally, I wouldn't suggest thinking about it that way. Not can it run software x, but can the software that you find do function y (if it can't, you'll come to the same conclusion). However, having said that, things are moving more to browser based as it is. I'm pretty sure Office is browser based nowadays. There is a limited version of Ps that is browser based if I'm not mistaken, I would imagine that there will eventually be a paid version that is more fully featured that is browser based (especially given WASM). Once it's browser based, anything could be able to run it. Shoot even one of the better Ps alternatives out there, Photopea(closed source though), is browser based. I'm not a fan of GIMP. About the only advantage that it has it's very extensible (some people would call that hacking, but essentially all plugins out there are "hacks"(even the ones that a lot of people recommend here), as it is regardless of the source of the plugins).
I wouldn't. That hasn't seen any meaningful progress in a long time. LibreOffice would be a much better candidate. There is a paid app (not open source either, a lot of people seem to think that apps can't be paid for, but still open source, not the case at all, not the norm, but certainly not the case) on Linux that I have heard good things about, but I can't remember the exact name of it.
Like I said, if one depends on function y (whatever function y maybe) that isn't in the alternatives, not much one can do than. I would just be reluctant on the basis that it can't run a specific software (as long as it took Ai to get a larger artboard, I doubt that Adobe would switch their offerings unless it was web-based).
As to the VMing thing. As long as the workstation the appropriate resources for it, I wouldn't see a problem with it. When I was first switching over to Linux, I had to VM for the first couple of years, because I had one program, a rather expensive program, that I had to VM for until projects came along to get around that and that VM was open all day long, all week long. No issues what so ever (this workflow is the main reason why I also suggest true workstation computers versus consumer grade, but I digress)
You may want to rethink the Ubuntu if going the "light weight" route. Canonical is all in on their Snaps (even though there is wider usage is for flats (I don't care for either)) and immutable systems (which is akin to what MS is going for). May want to go with straight Debian when needing to do an upgrade.
Pauly
Printrade.com.au
I understand where you're coming from.
I'd love to move my Laptop to linux, but it's not viable. (i will try it one day though)
A lot of my adobe apps, i use at home (my laptop) and at work (RIP PC)
having 2 different apps do the same that doesn't make sense to me. that's what stops me from going linux on my personal machine.
The rest of the apps i use, it's no issue with.
But if this wasn't an issue, sure there are soo many alternatives out there.
I have a spare thinclient i can try Debian on,
i just went straight to Ubuntu as its the only one i really know.
Works well, no lag.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
No, not unless there was something like file format acceptance or if there was something that one program excelled out versus another.
Otherwise, having two would only be a stop gap until you could move fully onto one. For instance, if you are trying to deal with the "teething pains" of trying to learn a new software while keeping the old one to fall back on if needed.
What version of Ubuntu are you using? Once they are starting going in on Snaps, a lot of lag of been happening (now you may not be using the programs that are already Snaps). The next LTS (spring of next year), there is supposed to be all Snaps. Now I don't know if that is just one version/flavor that is just Snap only and the others can still be had otherwise, but who knows how that lasts.
If really wanting to go thin and lightweight though, vanilla Arch, CLI installer/partition. Reminds me off the good ole fdisk days of the 9x era.
don't you mean ALL OF THE APPS ARE?
we provide support for a free income tax filing program.
a couple years ago they bought a pile of chrome books, to expand the program.
JUNK! and a waste of our time
Pauly
Printrade.com.au
Not sure what you mean by snaps?
I only installed Ubuntu (LTS) (latest dl) as I wanted a simple UI to use remmina. Was only testing to see how plausible my idea was to RDP into my windows VM in a server.
I installed it with out all the 3rd party apps. So it's pretty bare.
Then found Ubuntu was working quite well and left it. I configured Ubuntu server for dymo drivers and a few other things as getting my dymo 5xl running on Linux was painful. And used Ubuntu to test it out. So yeah it's still running.
I have the latest vanilla arch iso. That was another i was going to use.
Pauly
Printrade.com.au
They are junk, and have a limited life AFAIK ?
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Snaps (and flatpaks, but that's IBM/RH versions) are containerized apps that supposedly are more portable compared to going thru apt, dnf/yum etc (ironically those .deb and .rpm et all files are actually quite portable as they are just archive files (think zip, rar etc) and can be extracted and "installed" on other linux variants, but I digress) by packing everything that the software needs versus depending on what may or may not be installed on the user's system. While there is some library sharing, it is a bloated mess (a la Electron, which each app has their own browser context baked into it and even the Hello World Electron apps takes 500MBs of RAM) and because library sharing is not optimized, the programs are also slow to start and will take up a lot of RAM compared to the traditional method of installation.
Now, the one positive thing is that for variants that do have a longer life span (like Ubuntu LTS or RHEL), snaps allow newer software on those older systems without having to upgrade to the latest and greatest version. So there are trade offs (but I would prefer the AppImage compared to snaps and flats).
Pauly
Printrade.com.au
Makes sense, i did look into it.
What distro(s) do you run?
Im considering a 30d challenge on running Linux on my laptop. (i dont have a home PC, my laptop is my personal computer i use for work)
If i do, my laptop runs 2 NVME drives. the 2nd one i use as data storage so nuking my drive is much simpler
If i do, might be Ubuntu due to from what i can see, is the most polished.
Graphic Extremes
Knows To Little
Let me know how it goes with Ubuntu,
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Mainly Arch. Don't have laptops, just traditional desktops and NUCs. I will VM Debian so that way I can get my glibc linkage reasonable for my programs that I've written (all other deps that I use are typically statically linked or header only libs). I do have one NUC that runs LMDE (Linux Mint Debian edition). I may add one of my desktops on that though. Probably do that this evening maybe. Like with commercial equipment, stick with your more well known variants and should be fine.
The nice thing that I like about Linux, versus even Windows, is that a lot of drivers are baked into the kernel itself, so unless you get something like Arch that does everything minimalist, things like Wacom drivers are already in the system (and Wacom has, last I heard, 4 devs that work to get that driver as good as it can be for their products and I find it far more feature packed and much more stable compared to their Windows version). I mentioned drivers being baked in, that's what's going to help with your wireless drivers etc on that laptop. I remember the days before that and one wireless desktop (we didn't have a wired connection run to that area at the time) after every update I had to compile and install the driver back into it in order to get it back on to the internet. Thankfully that is no longer the issue that it once was.
The fact that they have a limited life is one of the few good things I can say about a chrome book