Which flavor of operating system does everyone here use?

[chevyontheriver]

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.

I'll have to try that.
Just a minute.


Oh, what have I done .......

 

[TenthAveN]

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.

I think I might try out Mint. How does Linux differ from Windows in security?

 

[Sketcher]

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.

But it's all still Linux.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

What makes Canonical evil?

Canonical has since rescinded their Amazon "feature," but the fact that they did it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of Linux people, myself included. And don't get me started on the fact that they stole from Debian what they wanted and made a buggy OS that is supposed to be "user-friendly" yet can't even do a simple version upgrade without pooping the bed... (at least last I checked)

 

[TenthAveN]

Also, I am in school, and the most painless way I can do school work is via Office 365, which I believe I get for free. That makes me somewhat hesitant to hop on a new OS

 

[SeraphimSarov]

But it's all still Linux.

The fact that hundreds of Linux distros exist annoys me as much as the fact that thousands of Christian denominations exist. If we are honest with ourselves, about the only things that differ between distros are package managers, eye candy (or lack thereof, as the case may be with "vanilla" distros like Gentoo, Void and Arch), and rarely init. I happen to like pacman and hate systemd, so Artix it is for me. Void is an independent distro that I also like. For the vast majority of people, Debian is fine. Or if you're averse to the CLI, Mint, preferably the Debian version so as to avoid Canonical's nonsense.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

Also, I am in school, and the most painless way I can do school work is via Office 365, which I believe I get for free. That makes me somewhat hesitant to hop on a new OS

You can use the browser version if that's enough for you. Otherwise, there are a number of office suites available in Linux that work pretty well with M$ Office, though some of them are not free as in freedom.

 

[Sketcher]

I think I might try out Mint. How does Linux differ from Windows in security?

It's connected to the way software is distributed, which is the biggest difference. Linux -does- let you install software the Windows way - download the program and then run an installer, and be responsible for all the updates yourself - but it is thoroughly inferior from the correct way to install software on Linux.

The correct way is to use a community-approved repository. These come pre-installed with most distros now. It's a searchable library of free software that you can freely install. You search for the software you want to install, put in your password, and the distro's installer will install the software and its dependencies. And the beauty of it is, it will check those repositories every day for updates, and if anything has an update pending, it will tell you what has the update, you put in your password, and then it automatically downloads and installs it. You don't ever have to worry about security breaches from a program you haven't used in six months again.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

I think I might try out Mint. How does Linux differ from Windows in security?

Well, I'm willing to bet that CF's servers are running Linux (along with the vast majority of servers on the Internet). You do the math.

 

[TenthAveN]

You can use the browser version if that's enough for you. Otherwise, there are a number of office suites available in Linux that work pretty well with M$ Office, though some of them are not free as in freedom.

Perhaps I could just dual-boot. Windows for school and Linux for misc.

 

[Sketcher]

The fact that hundreds of Linux distros exist annoys me as much as the fact that thousands of Christian denominations exist. If we are honest with ourselves, about the only things that differ between distros are package managers, eye candy (or lack thereof, as the case may be with "vanilla" distros like Gentoo, Void and Arch), and rarely init. I happen to like pacman and hate systemd, so Artix it is for me. Void is an independent distro that I also like. For the vast majority of people, Debian is fine. Or if you're averse to the CLI, Mint, preferably the Debian version so as to avoid Canonical's nonsense.

So you're a cafeteria Linux user?

 

[SeraphimSarov]

//
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

I mean...

$ su
# rm -rf /*

Just skip that sissy sudo stuff.

 

[Sketcher]

Perhaps I could just dual-boot. Windows for school and Linux for misc.

That's how a lot of people do it. Be sure to turn off Fast Boot in Windows 10 first. Not doing that caused snags for me on my Win 10 machine.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

So you're a cafeteria Linux user?

I don't know what that means. I use what I like. Most distros are nothing except a certain package manager shipped with certain desktop environments or window managers and some pretty eye candy. Totally unnecessary. I use what I use because I like pacman and I like OpenRC.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

Perhaps I could just dual-boot. Windows for school and Linux for misc.

Watch out... you may find yourself deleting your Windows partition after a few months!

 

[TenthAveN]

I’m probably not going to do any dual-booting on my laptop, and my desktop isn’t available for use until I’ve gotten a new desk

 

[Sketcher]

I don't know what that means. I use what I like. Most distros are nothing except a certain package manager shipped with certain desktop environments or window managers and some pretty eye candy. Totally unnecessary.

Well, since double-entendres were being made between Linux and Christianity, I thought I'd wedge a variation of "cafeteria Catholic" in there. Talking about Linux practices only, of course.

 

[Sketcher]

I’m probably not going to do any dual-booting on my laptop, and my desktop isn’t available for use until I’ve gotten a new desk

If you have enough CPU cores and RAM on that laptop, you can install VirtualBox and install your distro of choice as a guest OS. Very easy, and comparatively much lower risk.

 

[TenthAveN]

If you have enough CPU cores and RAM on that laptop, you can install VirtualBox and install your distro of choice as a guest OS. Very easy, and comparatively much lower risk.

I don’t think that laptop’s received an upgrade since I got it, which was probably 3-4 yrs ago. It’s also seen a lot of physical damage

 

[Sketcher]

I don’t think that laptop’s received an upgrade since I got it, which was probably 3-4 yrs ago. It’s also seen a lot of physical damage

If you have 4+ CPU cores and 8+ GB of RAM, you can still make it happen. You might be able to get away with a little less RAM if the distro you intend to run is very lightweight (which many of the more famous ones that are oriented towards noobs aren't).