Which flavor of operating system does everyone here use?

[SeraphimSarov]

I'm curious what people here use. Personally, I use Artix (OpenRC) with i3 and Debian with LXQt, with FreeBSD running on bare tty and Void with KDE Plasma in VMs. What about you? No wrong answers!

 

[TenthAveN]

I use Windows 10. I’ve just begun taking IT classes, and I haven’t been able to try out other OSs except for macOS on my sister’s laptop, and Linux on one of the VMs I’ve performed a lab on.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I'm curious what people here use. Personally, I use Artix (OpenRC) with i3 and Debian with LXQt, with FreeBSD running on bare tty and Void with KDE Plasma in VMs. What about you? No wrong answers!

Very interesting.

I started with Macs running Finder 4.5 on a Mac SE. Went back and even used Finder 1.0 on an old Mac 128k. Then learned Debian GNU Linux on an old Mac. I didn't even know it was hard to launch Linux on that hardware. I still have that set up on a Mac SE/30 with 80 MB RAM. (There's a trick to that.) Then on to Mac OSX on an early iMac and Red Hat Linux on a PC I built. When Fedora came out I started using that and have been using it ever since. With Gnome now but I have used it with LXDE. While using it I've gotten to be a command line junkie. And I have a laptop that runs Windows 10. An older laptop ran Windows XP until I Linuxed it and eventually retired it. I've tried OpenBSD and FreeBSD and will try them again some day. I'm waiting for the HURD to mature and want to try that. We've been around the block as far as operating systems too. So nice to see others who are unconventional.

Do you know who Umberto Eco is and what he said about operating systems?

 

[chevyontheriver]

I use Windows 10. I’ve just begun taking IT classes, and I haven’t been able to try out other OSs except for macOS on my sister’s laptop, and Linux on one of the VMs I’ve performed a lab on.

You can install Linux or BSD on a thumb drive and boot into it on your PC. When done, pull out the thumb drive and reboot back into Windows. There are instructions all over the web on how to do that.

 

[TenthAveN]

You can install Linux or BSD on a thumb drive and boot into it on your PC. When done, pull out the thumb drive and reboot back into Windows. There are instructions all over the web on how to do that.

I might just try that. I’ve heard that it requires you to use the terminal to get around, and I’ve just slightly started to familiarize myself with the Win cmd

 

[chevyontheriver]

I might just try that. I’ve heard that it requires to use cmd to get around, and I’ve just slightly started to familiarize myself with the Win cmd

Command line is so much faster for so many things but no, you do not even need to know how to use that with modern Linuxes. Everything can be done graphically now. And it's all very intuitive. Consider Ubuntu or Fedora. Probably Ubuntu because the licensing issues are more streamlined there. Fedora is more purist, so some media things need to be tweaked to work right. With Ubuntu they already figured that out.

 

[Jeshu]

i use Ubuntu 20.04. Great Distro.

 

[TenthAveN]

Command line is so much faster for so many things but no, you do not even need to know how to use that with modern Linuxes. Everything can be done graphically now. And it's all very intuitive. Consider Ubuntu or Fedora. Probably Ubuntu because the licensing issues are more streamlined there. Fedora is more purist, so some media things need to be tweaked to work right. With Ubuntu they already figured that out.

Does Ubuntu cost anything?

 

[SeraphimSarov]

I'm waiting for the HURD to mature and want to try that.

Pretty sure our Lord is gonna come back before that happens.

Do you know who Umberto Eco is and what he said about operating systems?

I do now. And I disagree. Linux is Catholic. BSD is Orthodox. Windows is old-school Protestant. MacOS is evangelical.

Don't argue, because you'll be wrong.

 

[Jeshu]

Does Ubuntu cost anything?

No, but they like you to make a donation

 

[SeraphimSarov]

Does Ubuntu cost anything?

Your soul.

No really, Canonical is an evil organization. Use Linux Mint Debian Edition instead.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

Command line is so much faster for so many things but no, you do not even need to know how to use that with modern Linuxes.

It's not strictly necessary these days, but if something breaks, may Heaven help you if you are afraid to open the terminal.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Does Ubuntu cost anything?

Absolutely free as in free beer. No cost at all. If you want, you can certainly send them some money though. It's a nice thing to do. You can also figure out some other way of paying it forward like being a beta tester or assisting others.

So it's free. And the software is free too, from LibreOffice to GIMP to a huge depository of imaging and music and other software. Most all of it is Open Source software under variations of the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). Which means that the source code is always free, and you have a right to tweak or re-write the source code any way you like AS LONG AS you make your tweaked source code available for free to others. So basically nobody can make any money on selling compiled software so they all give it away for free.

 

[chevyontheriver]

It's not strictly necessary these days, but if something breaks, may Heaven help you if you are afraid to open the terminal.

//
cd /
sudo rm -rf *.*
//
BETTER THAN A HAMMER
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
DO NOT TRY THIS AT WORK
DO NOT TRY THIS AT A FRIEND'S HOUSE
Hopefully you don't know how to set sudo up if you don't know what this command does

 

[TenthAveN]

Your soul.

No really, Canonical is an evil organization. Use Linux Mint Debian Edition instead.

What makes Canonical evil?

 

[prodromos]

I'm curious what people here use. Personally, I use Artix (OpenRC) with i3 and Debian with LXQt, with FreeBSD running on bare tty and Void with KDE Plasma in VMs. What about you? No wrong answers!

I'm lazy. I don't do much digging below the surface and need things to be compatible with work, plus most of the software I have to use for work only exists in Windows. Decades ago I was working with Unix workstations and having to figure out how to transfer files between different hardware platforms. I still have a soft spot for Silicon Graphics and I assure you it has nothing to do with the fact that every workstation they sold came with a flight simulator installed (I never did get the hang of landing).
One day I'll start tinkering with Linux again but probably not until I retire. I've forgotten so much that it will be like starting from scratch.

 

[Sketcher]

//
cd /
sudo rm -rf *.*
//
BETTER THAN A HAMMER
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
DO NOT TRY THIS AT WORK
DO NOT TRY THIS AT A FRIEND'S HOUSE
Hopefully you don't know how to set sudo up if you don't know what this command does

The only problem with that is it leaves the data you have in /var intact. If you want complete destruction of a system, you have to take care of /var first.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

The only problem with that is it leaves the data you have in /var intact. If you want complete destruction of a system, you have to take care of /var first.

Yeah, that's pretty much the problem with Suicide Linux. Oh sure, it'll render your OS unusable, but mostly it's going to spit errors at you that you can't delete /var data.

Also I totally dig your avatar. I used to listen to those guys in high school all the time along with Extol, Lengsel, Antestor, Crimson Moonlight, Frosthardr, Mortification, Tourniquet, Horde... (I was and am totally into unblack metal!)

 

[Sketcher]

As for what I use personally, Debian with KDE, and Windows 10. I work with CentOS regularly.

 

[chevyontheriver]

What makes Canonical evil?

Microsoft bought Canonical, the parent of Ubuntu, in 2016. Which doesn't sit well with Linux purists. Imagine if the Southern Baptist Convention reported to a Vatican office. Lots of Linux users are very unecumenical. If we do have to use Windows we like to wash our hands afterwards.

Actually that was an April Fools joke from four years ago. That Microsoft bought it and was going to shut Ubuntu down. Not so. Their real issue is that Ubuntu seems to not play well with the other Linux distros and they invent their own workarounds rather than contributing to finding common Linux solutions all can use. They are a bit schismatic in that regard and the Linux Oecumene doesn't like them.

I suggested Ubuntu as a trial distro on a flash drive. For a real installation I would go with Debian or Fedora. Of course there are hundreds of Distros and Unixes too, so there is something for every taste and preference. Kind of like all the varieties of Protestantism.