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Topic: General Unix/Linux Thread (Read 120488 times)

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #175 –
Quote from: Josh M on
Software management in Linux is incredibly efficient. Nothing compares.

It's a double-edged sword, albeit one that usually pans out in your favor.

Quote from: Josh M on
Not sure why you think that bad about GNOME

I could write down a lot of stuff, but I'm probably in 99% agreement with Dedoimedo. See e.g. http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3-6.html

In 3.14 Evince ("Documents") finally seems to have regained most or all of its previously lost functionality, albeit the GUI is still worse than it used to be. Perhaps it's finally coming together. By this point I couldn't much care. It's not like I'm going to be switching DEs yet again anytime soon.

The problem is, I suppose, that people have to justify their wages. That causes change for the sake of change. I'm not entirely sure what we can do about that. Luckily there's Linus keeping most of the junk out of the kernel. Secretly I'm just hoping he'll get so fed up that he'll write his own DE. That's how we got Linux and Git, after all. Some of the most brilliant software in the world.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #176 –
Quote from: Frenzie
I could write down a lot of stuff, but I'm probably in 99% agreement with Dedoimedo. See e.g. http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3-6.html
Sure, those who liked Gnome 2 are probably using Cinnamon or MATE. But Gnome 3 (latest stable is 3.14.2) have also lot of pros. Debian, Fedora and many others are using Gnome as a default. Not by accident.
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Gnome/GNOME-3603.shtml
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Gnome/
http://news.softpedia.com/newsTag/GNOME
http://news.softpedia.com/cat/Linux/
http://linux.softpedia.com/

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #177 –
Quote from: Josh M on
Sure, those who liked Gnome 2 are probably using Cinnamon or MATE.

If I were to say I like Gnome 2 I'd primarily mean gnome-panel. Actually I mostly like xfce-panel better than gnome-panel, albeit only in 4.8+ and not in its more primitive earlier form. But seriously, anything that requires a "GNOME Tweak Tool" to do something as simple as change the fonts is a conceptual failure. Gnome 2 had a brilliant appearance dialog. Very Spartan, yet it seemed to be able to do just about anything you might want. It also had a brilliant menu. Gnome 3 instead want you to use your fonts and theme in a way that supports their "brand image" and they keep breaking themes and APIs. Great stuff.

Quote from: Josh M on
Debian, Fedora and many others are using Gnome as a default. Not by accident.

Well, of course Fedora uses GNOME. Anyway, there are perfectly valid concerns I don't care about for myself, such as accessibility. It's possible that GNOME is better at that than Xfce, although given how iirc the GNOME accessibility API seemed to be Debian's metric of accessibility that seems like a foregone conclusion. Anything Apple is wildly superior to anything in Linux or Windows accessibility-wise. Gnome 3.14 also has better, or at least easier to use, reasonable-DPI support (what the marketing folks call HiDPI).
 

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #178 –
Quote from: Frenzie
Gnome3


I cannot mind all about Gnome from 1 review from October 2012. It is absolutely irrelevant nowadays to Gnome and especially to Gnome 3.14.2. And even so, it was only experience of single customer, what is always statistically unproven.

Every operating system and every desktop environment has its own negative reviews. As I said in my previous replies, something bad occurs to few percent of customers and nobody knows why. My horrible experience with Windows may be diminished by positive no-problem experiences of thousands others. The same applies for Linux users. I first encountered to Linux in about 2005 or so, and always gone back to Windows, at least four times until I tried it for longer than short weeks. Gradual year-over-year experience made up more than trying. That is how it works. No user is perfect and all-knowing. Neither desktop environments are perfect from initial release. It is a gradual process. Sometimes it is a progress. Sometimes it is a degress. I hope that future generations (if any) will not blame us for their Social Degress.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #179 –
Quote from: Josh M on

I heard about Manjaro a lot. It is quite high in Distrowatch.com ranking, and also it attracts me the fact, that Manjaro is based upon Arch Linux with much more user-friendly installation and using processes. Manjaro is certainly on my check list.

Manjaro has been falling in Distrowatch popularity. Its top place was sixth, right now it's 20. While Manjaro is easy to install, there are changes of direction going on that may feel uncomfortable for users. Any next release features wildly different theming and selection of software. Lately they dropped Openbox from official support, which is a shame, as I am a huge fan of it. However, if you are happy with what you installed and you don't do version-hopping, the update/upgrade experience provides a good sense of continuity.

Quote from: Josh M on

I only dislike a bit slow implementation of new stable packages. In latest stable version of Manjaro (0.8.10 stable), I can get only Firefox 32.0.3, libreoffice 4.3.2, gnome-shell 3.12.2, kdelibs 4.14.1, linux 3.17.0, which are all obsolete versions. Although, particular packages concerning XFCE (xfdesktop) is currently in version 4.11.8, while the last stable is 4.10.3.

It seems that the team is heavily focused on the desktop experience, theming and such. Also hardware compatibility (they provide their own unique hardware detection tool) has been in focus.

You look at what the latest official release provides and you think the apps are old. But actually, as soon as you install it, you will have to update it, and then you will have fresh versions of everything. You cannot install any different apps if you have not first updated the system. This is how Manjaro works.

As I have been on it for a while and live booted to different releases over a year, it looks to me like the applications to fill the desktop are pretty much ad hoc. Apps seem to be chosen for their icon colours rather than functionality. Luckily everything is in the repos and can be changed. Under Ubuntu I never felt as generously provided as now under Manjaro/Arch.

By the way, Ubuntu is shipped with some laptops and computers here. People don't need to install Ubuntu, they can by a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. Ubuntu is Windows of the Linux-world and does not qualify as a knowledgeable self-made choice for me. It qualifies as a first taste of Linux.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #180 –
Quote from: Josh M on
I cannot mind all about Gnome from 1 review from October 2012. It is absolutely irrelevant nowadays to Gnome and especially to Gnome 3.14.2. And even so, it was only experience of single customer, what is always statistically unproven.

I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make. De gustibus non est disputandum? To some degree, perhaps. Allegedly most people's needs pretty much consist of browsing a few web pages, sending a few e-mails and occasionally typing up a text document or maybe keeping track of some finances in a spreadsheet (and that, supposedly, is advanced). To what extent that's actually still true in 2014 I'm not sure, but my requirements look absolutely nothing like that.

Quote from: ersi on
You cannot install any different apps if you have not first updated the system. This is how Manjaro works.

On Debian and derivatives it's also recommended to at least update the repositories before you install new applications.

Quote from: ersi on
By the way, Ubuntu is shipped with some laptops and computers here. People don't need to install Ubuntu, they can by a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. Ubuntu is Windows of the Linux-world and does not qualify as a knowledgeable self-made choice for me. It qualifies as a first taste of Linux.

The first Ubuntu I tried was called Warty Warthog. It was definitely a self-made choice. :P

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #181 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Quote from: ersi on
You cannot install any different apps if you have not first updated the system. This is how Manjaro works.

On Debian and derivatives it's also recommended to at least update the repositories before you install new applications.

It's recommended this way on every system, but not every system makes it near-impossible to install a new application unless you have updated the system after the first installation.

When you install a Manjaro or Arch version that is a few update cycles behind, then repos are so terribly out of sync that you cannot pull specific packages from there without first updating the whole system. The package manager will complain about dependencies that cannot be satisfied. It's very difficult to bypass it. It's far easier (and recommended) to update everything first, and only then replace some applications.

It so happened that Network Manager on my netbook ceased doing mobile modem and wired internet at some point. On the forums I figured out that a specific update stopped working the way it should, but an earlier version works. So my modest plan was to reinstall the system with an earlier version of Manjaro where I knew Network Manager still worked. I did so. Then, before updating, I blocked Network Manager from updating. It turned out this was too much. A dependency spiral into hell followed, and it was impossible to update the system. So I had to unblock Network Manager, update everything, and then begin downgrading Network Manager with extra difficulties. It's really hard to do anything on Manjaro without updating.

Quote from: Frenzie on

The first Ubuntu I tried was called Warty Warthog. It was definitely a self-made choice. :P

I'm sure it was in your case. I meant that when people buy a computer with an OS on it, then it's an imposed choice to that extent. When they overinstall it, then they are making a self-made choice.

Here we have computers in stores with Ubuntu preinstalled. It would be kind of cool if somebody sold Mintboxes too, a little bit more variety. Otherwise people think Ubuntu equals Linux.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #182 –
Quote from: ersi on
I'm sure it was in your case. I meant that when people buy a computer with an OS on it, then it's an imposed choice to that extent. When they overinstall it, then they are making a self-made choice.

Around here you can really only choose between Windows and Mac OS. Even when you can get it with or without Windows it tends to make no difference in price, so you might as well get it with Windows just in case. Although then I'm talking about laptops. For desktops I hugely prefer putting your own stuff together. Pre-built might seem cheaper, but what do you want to bet that they're using some horrible cheap PSU that'll reduce the lifespan of your precious disks and other components? Besides, in my case it wouldn't be cheaper at all. A new computer means a new motherboard, CPU and RAM. Everything else is still hunky dory and can be upgraded selectively regardless of any other components.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #183 –
Here a laptop with Linux or no OS is about a 100 euros cheaper than the same specs with Windows. Honest price. As far as I know it's the same in Germany. I have no idea why it should be different in your country.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #184 –
I'm not talking about something Belgian; I refer just as much to what I've seen in Germany, the Netherlands, France, and the US. For the record, I'd never buy anything other than a US-ANSI keyboard, so I consider most European stuff junk regardless. I find the ISO layout unusable for its unequal Shift keys and ridiculously far-away Enter key. When I first used a US-ANSI layout completely by accident it was as if a veil were lifted, although after the initial euphoria wore off I'm still wondering why US-ANSI, too, is unequally balanced toward the right. But at least the problem is smaller.

Anyway, Windows for OEMs is something like half the price of Windows for consumers (<€50 as opposed to €100). Coupled with economy of scale (making a few laptops Linux-only is expensive) that leaves you with no or a negligible difference.

Linux-only laptops from dedicated sellers have the same economy of scale issue, where they are essentially selling the same chassis and hardware as some other place for the same price with Windows (or maybe they're just getting a better margin — same difference to me as a consumer), but I have taken that option in the past because I didn't want Vista — I had a perfectly good XP license anyway — and I didn't Microsoft to get any money for it.

The situation didn't seem to have changed when I last looked, but perhaps I didn't look hard enough or perhaps it didn't occur in any segment that interested me. But the concept of a laptop without an OS I don't want in the first place for €100 cheaper? Shut up and take my money.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #185 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

But the concept of a laptop without an OS I don't want in the first place for €100 cheaper?

And you don't want it just because you prefer US-ANSI keyboard? :)

Of course, I am not a master with keyboard, so I look more at the size of the buttons rather than layout. I am most used to Estonian layout, but due to my profession I sometimes need to switch to e.g. Russian, and then I literally have to hunt for the letters one by one, because the layout is unfamiliar to me (and will be forever). This is where bigger keys provide at least some imaginary ease.

With US keyboard I would be totally lost. It's unusable for typing Estonian anyway. You of course would not notice the difference because in Dutch there's just an occasional é, whereas German orthography, and even more so Estonian, is built around the umlaut letters, so it's essential to have them under a single keypress, all of them.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #186 –
Quote from: ersi on
And you don't want it just because you prefer US-ANSI keyboard?

Conceivably. Considering your keyboard, pointing device and monitor are what you're going to be interacting with on a daily basis I think they're of the utmost importance. I can't even begin to comprehend people who seem to think my keyboard which will last across many computer component upgrades was absurdly expensive, yet buy a € 300 graphics card.

Quote from: ersi on
You of course would not notice the difference because in Dutch there's just an occasional é, whereas German orthography, and even more so Estonian, is built around the umlaut letters, so it's essential to have them under a single keypress, all of them.

Dutch has frequent ï, ë, and é. More occasional would be è, ç and ü. Besides, it's not like I never type German and French. I mean the mechanical ANSI-INCITS 154-1988 layout as opposed to the ISO/IEC 9995-2 layout. You can use that with stupid layouts like AZERTY and QWERTZ equally well if you wanted to.

Letters like é, ë, ï, ß, etc. are just as much a single keypress as uppercase letters like A, B, C, etc. It's technically two keypresses, but you press them simultaneously.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #187 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Conceivably. Considering your keyboard, pointing device and monitor are what you're going to be interacting with on a daily basis I think they're of the utmost importance. I can't even begin to comprehend people who seem to think my keyboard which will last across many computer component upgrades was absurdly expensive, yet buy a € 300 graphics card.

I am one of those who buys keyboards looking at price mostly. But it's a rare purchase. I barely know what a graphics card is, so I never bought any of those.

Quote from: Frenzie on

Letters like é, ë, ï, ß, etc. are just as much a single keypress as uppercase letters like A, B, C, etc. It's technically two keypresses, but you press them simultaneously.
If letters like é, ë, and ï take "technically" two keypresses, then their uppercases take three. Not quite the same as a single keypress and two for uppercase :)

Speaking more about Xfce, looks like VLC does not obey global hotkeys under Xfce. There may be a hack available, but I want to do without a hack. Do you use a media player with global hotkeys? I need a player that can play things at higher-than-normal speed, so I guess VLC will still be pretty much the only option.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #188 –
Quote from: ersi on
If letters like é, ë, and ï take "technically" two keypresses, then their uppercases take three. Not quite the same as a single keypress and two for uppercase  :)

I consider keypresses mostly consecutive affairs. Alt Gr + e (é) is pretty much the same as one keypress, as is Shift + Alt Gr + e, while Compose, ', e (or Shift+E) is three. In the past I've also dabbled with dead keys and Alt + ####. The only thing that matters is whether you've mastered your layout and whether you're comfortable with it, but at least for AZERTY and QWERTZ the differences with basic QWERTY are ill-conceived.

Quote from: ersi on
Speaking more about Xfce, looks like VLC does not obey global hotkeys under Xfce. There may be a hack available, but I want to do without a hack. Do you use a media player with global hotkeys? I need a player that can play things at higher-than-normal speed, so I guess VLC will still be pretty much the only option.

To my knowledge VLC is the only player that can easily output video on two screens at once (functionality stripped out of the drivers by those idiots at Nvidia and ATI) and possibly the only player that can easily transcode and redistribute streams on the fly from within a simple GUI, but if it's just playback speed you're after you might want to check out MPV or another variety of MPlayer? I'm pretty sure most also do global hotkeys.

As to (re)gaining control of hotkeys in Xfce, see e.g. here.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #189 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

The only thing that matters is whether you've mastered your layout and whether you're comfortable with it, ....

This was where I was getting at. And admittedly I have not mastered even my own layout. I have all along had different keyboards to work with. At first other people's computers and public computers in the era when I had no plans of acquiring my own computer, so I had no interest in mastering any keyboard. This era was rather long and when I finally had my own computer, I was already old. And even now I have three fairly different keyboards daily, a big laptop, netbook, and the box at work. I have simply gotten used to type as compared to writing with pen, but not properly mastered the keyboard in the pianist fashion.

Quote from: Frenzie on

As to (re)gaining control of hotkeys in Xfce, see e.g. here.

It makes no difference to the accessibility of VLC. I will probably have to try SMplayer under Xfce.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #190 –
SMPlayer has no global keys at all :(

Now for something totally different.

Xfce development has been practically at standstill lately. Only extras, such as the whiskermenu and power manager, got updates. Looks like the developers ran out of ideas and are now asking for ideas from the general public.

Quote
Hi,

I'm writing as a member of the Xfce Design SIG to invite the Xfce users and
enthusiasts among you to participate to user research we're doing on sessions,
login and autostart applications. Each survey takes under 10 minutes
to complete.

By completing these surveys, you help us understand what's useful for you and
make Xfce more usable and enjoyable!

Questionnaire on logins and session saving: http://goo.gl/forms/3oYrPQNDEt
Online task on the app autostart settings:  http://goo.gl/forms/c7qYcIE0EQ

Cheers,

https://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce/2014-November/033853.html

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #191 –
Quote from: ersi on
Xfce development has been practically at standstill lately.

I don't follow the actual Git (?) repositories or anything, but stable, complete software doesn't need much other than the occasional bug fix (and as far as I can tell there are plenty of those about).

Quote from: ersi on
Looks like the developers ran out of ideas and are now asking for ideas from the general public.

They could always port it to Gtk 3 or something if they're bored. :P Anyway, thanks for the surveys. I'll make sure to indicate that as far as I know I'm quite happy with session handling.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #193 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

So now there's this: https://devuan.org/

You mean you enjoy following Debian politics?

About developments in the desktop environments section, here's Maui, a new KDE-based desktop http://www.maui-project.org/

Maui provides its own ISO. And Manjaro has a prime KDE release, plus a bleeding edge Plasma 5 ISO.

My first proper hands-on encounter with Linux was Fedora 6, IIRC. It provided both Gnome and KDE out of the box, plus other desktops, most of which I could not figure out. I at first preferred KDE over Gnome, but these days I have sided with the leaner Gnome-like Xfce. At work I have Cinnamon.

If KDE were not so heavy on resources, I would probably still be looking into it. As to Gnome, I have not even thought about it for rather long. Very long.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #194 –
Quote from: ersi on
You mean you enjoy following Debian politics?

Nah, this kind of thing just pops up. I have no reason to switch from Debian Xfce as my main OS in the foreseeable future.

Quote from: ersi on
About developments in the desktop environments section, here's Maui, a new KDE-based desktop http://www.maui-project.org/

Ooh, Wayland.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #195 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Quote from: ersi on
You mean you enjoy following Debian politics?

Nah, this kind of thing just pops up.

It's just that there's been several posts from you already linking to Debian politics, systemd controversy, and such, without much comment :)

So, if you actually follow politics, here's some Arch vs. Manjaro politics http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg1MTQ The comments link will take you to a forum thread with the real bashing going on.

Manjaro's update cycle this month was rather long. The update/upgrade finally arrived yesterday. The one before that was October 25th. Manjaro team cites work on the new releases (v. 0.8.11) as a reason, but there's been most likely a bit more happening. Anyway, at least the new Xfce release is more awesome than ever and has clearly received tons of attention, so I don't complain. And they have been putting out ISO's with OpenRC init, testing if a move away from systemd is feasible.

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #196 –
Quote from: ersi on
So, if you actually follow politics, here's some Arch vs. Manjaro politics http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg1MTQ The comments link will take you to a forum thread with the real bashing going on.

See, and it just popped up on Phoronix: a site many Linux users probably pass by every once in a while. :) Anyway, it's like money. It's a means to an end (having a place to live, proper food on the table, etc.) but not something that is enjoyed by itself. These Debian politics concern me in the sense that the pervading camp seems to be moving in the direction of doing just those kinds of things for which I left Windows. I don't enjoy following (most) news in general, but I'd sure feel mighty silly if I stepped out the door expecting to find public transit when there's a strike on. :P

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #197 –
Perhaps this is mostly a note to self, but these are some useful youtube-dl flags:

Code: [Select]
youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCTL7BebBbE


Code: [Select]
youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCTL7BebBbE

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #198 –
From my .bashrc:
Code: [Select]

alias udll='youtube-dl -F'
alias udl='youtube-dl -g -e'
alias udlf='youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -f'

The first lists the available formats.

The second I use rarely. It displays the title and the exact url from which the download would occur.

The third I use to select the format which to download.

Lately I have added one more alias, because I usually tend to download the best available format:
Code: [Select]

alias best='youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -f best'

Re: General Unix/Linux Thread

Reply #199 –
On YouTube itself the "best" is 720p video nowadays, and it doesn't seem to include the actual best audio. The -f bestaudio+bestvideo flag grabs the actual best available from YouTube, but because it comes in separate streams it requires ffmpeg or avtools to be installed to mux them together. To what extent YouTube's 1080p is better than its 720p is debatable, I suppose. The quality looks fairly similar to me and the bitrate of either option is a tad on the low side. I think 1080p is maybe a tad sharper on a 1980x1200 monitor. More important is the audio quality:

Code: [Select]
139         m4a       audio only  DASH audio   49k , audio@ 48k (22050Hz), 2.27MiB
171         webm      audio only  DASH audio  124k , audio@128k (44100Hz), 5.02MiB
140         m4a       audio only  DASH audio  129k , audio@128k (44100Hz), 6.04MiB
172         webm      audio only  DASH audio  187k , audio@256k (44100Hz), 7.63MiB
141         m4a       audio only  DASH audio  256k , audio@256k (44100Hz), 11.99MiB


This is the audio in the 720p file:
Code: [Select]
$ ffmpeg -i QWOP\ \(Elders\ React\ -\ Gaming\)-NCTL7BebBbE.mp4 
[…]
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 191 kb/s (default)


And this is the audio for what may be the best (in past listening tests I've preferred Vorbis, so it's conceivable that I'd prefer the "WebM" option):
Code: [Select]
  Duration: 00:06:34.18, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 255 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 253 kb/s (default)


It's a pity YouTube makes you jump through such hoops, and that its video quality is so much lower than on Vimeo. On the plus side, youtube-dl also supports Vimeo and various other sites I use.

PS Ignore any of the lower quality audio files like the plague. I've heard they cut off at 16 kHz instead of 20 kHz.