Tell Me About Linux

[ownyourfuture]

From The OP

1: Thanks for all the replies. I never expected so many.

2: There's been major changes since I started this thread Sunday night.
Recap: On Saturday afternoon I contacted Apple tech support. We did a screen share so the technician could see whatever I had open on the desktop. I showed him a couple of the error reports. He suggested I upgrade to the newest OS
(Big Sur)

I started the download at around 9 PM Saturday night. By 1:00 AM, it still wasn't done so I went to bed. By the time I got up Sunday morning, it had totally shut down. Major problems getting it started. Everything was screwed up. Webpages would suddenly turn solid red, & something as simple as opening up text edit to compose the message I posted here, resulted in several crashes.

I'm a night owl, so after I posted my message, I went grocery shopping.
When I got home, it had gone to sleep & I decided to open it up again. I know it sounds bizarre, but the login window came up, I entered my password, & everything was working great ?

Same for Monday, & all day today.
I even edited several storm chasing videos last night, & once again it performed perfectly.

Of course it's only been about two days so I'm not going to celebrate prematurely. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

3: In spite of this, I'm going to subscribe to this thread & for future reference, research the material you were nice enough to include.

Regards

 

[wanaberetiree]

Bought a total of 3 windows based PC's starting in 1997...

I've heard that Linux is a very stable, somewhat easy OS, but know very little about it beyond that.

Would greatly appreciate any input from experienced users.

I've been loyal Windows user for years and ~8-10 years ago added Linux to the mix.

I am very happy with Ubuntu distro and suggest you to try it out.

Main question IMHO is what you use a PC for.

Speaking of me, I have only one application left that I prefer running on Windows - Quicken. And I can run it on a VM.

 

[ncbill]

OP should buy the new 24" M1-based iMac.

Then run emulator software for a Linux VM.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/2...-24-inch-for-1219-the-cheapest-price-anywhere

 

[wanaberetiree]

OP should buy the new 24" M1-based iMac.

Then run emulator software for a Linux VM.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/2...-24-inch-for-1219-the-cheapest-price-anywhere

I went other way around - got NUC I7 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08357VWB2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 plus SSD and 64 MB RAM and run continuously 3-7 VMs including Windows 10.

Also recently was able ti deploy BigSur Mac OS VM

 

[qwerty3656]

My personal experience with Linux is it is not a set-it-and-forget-it system. It's more of a hobby requiring tinkering. You mentioned Apple, it is the opposite of Apple in how much hands on you need to be (with Microsoft falling somewhere in the middle)

 

[snowboarder]

I work with Linux for my job Red Hat, SUSE and Oracle doing fancy installations. If you just want a friendly home edition use UBUNTU for sure. I just installed it on an old laptop that had Windows Vista. I refuse to pay $500 for a Windows OS, plus McAfee/Norton Antivirus and another myriad of extra products just to be able to use it.

 

[target2019]

From The OP

1: Thanks for all the replies. I never expected so many.

2: There's been major changes since I started this thread Sunday night.
Recap: On Saturday afternoon I contacted Apple tech support. We did a screen share so the technician could see whatever I had open on the desktop. I showed him a couple of the error reports. He suggested I upgrade to the newest OS
(Big Sur)

I started the download at around 9 PM Saturday night. By 1:00 AM, it still wasn't done so I went to bed. By the time I got up Sunday morning, it had totally shut down. Major problems getting it started. Everything was screwed up. Webpages would suddenly turn solid red, & something as simple as opening up text edit to compose the message I posted here, resulted in several crashes.

I'm a night owl, so after I posted my message, I went grocery shopping.
When I got home, it had gone to sleep & I decided to open it up again. I know it sounds bizarre, but the login window came up, I entered my password, & everything was working great ?

Same for Monday, & all day today.
I even edited several storm chasing videos last night, & once again it performed perfectly.

Of course it's only been about two days so I'm not going to celebrate prematurely. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

3: In spite of this, I'm going to subscribe to this thread & for future reference, research the material you were nice enough to include.

Regards

Glad it worked for you.

Before a major upgrade it's a good idea to check the health of the disk, and repair permissions. Apple has clear instructions on doing these things.

 

[ownyourfuture]

Main question IMHO is what you use a PC for.

From the 1st post:

I want a simple desktop, don't want/need touch screen, etc. Just want a minimum 21” widescreen to get online, & a machine/OS that's capable of running Wondershare Filmora9 video editing software that I use for my storm chasing videos.

Beyond that, I keep a lot of different files/folders on my computer, but other than my storm chasing videos & GIFs, most of the folders just contain text/news stories.

If you missed it, post #26 shows that everything is working fine now.
I appreciate all the replies/suggestions, & I'm going to bookmark this thread in case I decide to consider Linux in the future.

 

[ownyourfuture]

Glad it worked for you.

Before a major upgrade it's a good idea to check the health of the disk, and repair permissions. Apple has clear instructions on doing these things.

Thanks

I did the following before the upgrade.
Applications - Utilities - Disk Utility - First Aid.
Everything was fine.

 

[ZachTB]

@ownyourfuture

Glad everything's working for you now!

Still, now might be a good time to check out alternatives. If you really like Apple's software, I understand that there's a way to install Linux on an Apple product as well, though IIRC it's more cumbersome than installing it alongside Windows. https://linuxhint.com/install_linux_on_mac/

 

[beernutzbob]

I work with Linux for my job Red Hat, SUSE and Oracle doing fancy installations. If you just want a friendly home edition use UBUNTU for sure. I just installed it on an old laptop that had Windows Vista. I refuse to pay $500 for a Windows OS, plus McAfee/Norton Antivirus and another myriad of extra products just to be able to use it.

You have DMs turned off else I'd have messaged you a regarding your post which was apparently deleted.

 

[jim584672]

My latest distro try out is Pop! OS. It is basically a more polished Ubuntu. Seems friendly to a new comer. I added in the Mate Desktop because I hate Gnome 3 and its dumbed down look and feel. It uses apt package management and Flatpak apps. Seems like its a "just works" distro.

 

[easysurfer]

My latest distro try out is Pop! OS. It is basically a more polished Ubuntu. Seems friendly to a new comer. I added in the Mate Desktop because I hate Gnome 3 and its dumbed down look and feel. It uses apt package management and Flatpak apps. Seems like its a "just works" distro.

To my surprise, I haven't distro hopped for some time.

Sticking with MX-Linux (at least for now ).

 

[ejman]

To my surprise, I haven't distro hopped for some time.

Sticking with MX-Linux (at least for now ).

Me too. My distro surfing seems to have slowed down quite a bit.