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The GNU/Linux thread

DanRoM said:
You make me want to return to Debian even more...
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I can assure you that in everyday use (web browsing, e-mail, IM, word processing, watching movies) debian testing (and probably debian unstable, as well) is more stable than the current Ubuntu release my girlfriend runs.
 
Dr_Grip said:
I can assure you that in everyday use (web browsing, e-mail, IM, word processing, watching movies) debian testing (and probably debian unstable, as well) is more stable than the current Ubuntu release my girlfriend runs.
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Honestly, I'd believe it. There's a feeling of "non responsiveness" in the latest Ubuntu on my system. Apps like chrome "graying out", some Flash weirdness, and none of the "snappiness" I have associated with Linux in the past.

I may try another distro. OpenSuse seems meh so I may try Mint again. Maybe Debian.
 
rickhamilton620 said:
Honestly, I'd believe it. There's a feeling of "non responsiveness" in the latest Ubuntu on my system. Apps like chrome "graying out", some Flash weirdness, and none of the "snappiness" I have associated with Linux in the past.

I may try another distro. OpenSuse seems meh so I may try Mint again. Maybe Debian.
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That's because Unity is a POS not to mention Ubuntu getting bloated.
 
prizrak said:
That's because Unity is a POS not to mention Ubuntu getting bloated.
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Reportedly, only six percent of the ubuntu codebase is different to debian's. How they are able to get a system (and even core applications like LibreOffice) that broken with changing s few things is beyond my understanding.
 
I switched from Ubuntu to Mint and I am never looking back.
 
Dr_Grip said:
I can assure you that in everyday use (web browsing, e-mail, IM, word processing, watching movies) debian testing (and probably debian unstable, as well) is more stable than the current Ubuntu release my girlfriend runs.
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It's not that my Kubuntu is not stable, I just feel that Canotical's focus is shifting away from what I want from my operating system. I don't care about integrated cloud storage, unified searches and such nonsense...
 
DanRoM said:
It's not that my Kubuntu is not stable, I just feel that Canotical's focus is shifting away from what I want from my operating system. I don't care about integrated cloud storage, unified searches and such nonsense...
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Which is exactly why I've got Xubuntu installed on my machine instead of Ubuntu. I can still follow all the *buntu guides and get good 3rd-party support, while still flying under the Canonical BS radar...for now, at least.
 
The one time I tried Debian, no USB devices worked.... including keyboard and mouse. They worked during the installation, of course, or I wouldn't have been able to complete it :?

This was quite a few years ago though.
 
So, tomorrow Ubuntu 13.04 is going to be released. I'm not terribly excited, mainly because I'm not using Unity anyway. However, I've had a couple of friends ask whether I could help them install "Linux". Naturally, the question now becomes: which distro? Imho, it has to be *buntu-based, not necessarily because I think its easier, or more beginner-friendly, but as chaos386 mentioned, a lot of tutorials & guides are for *buntu. Basically, this leaves Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint Mate and Mint Cinnamon. Personally, I'd narrow it down to Ubuntu & Xubuntu. Ubuntu is probably more "impressive", and Xubuntu the seemingly saner environment. Any thoughts?
 
I think Ubuntu would be a good starting distro, Mint could be another. I wouldn't suggest Xubuntu for a newbie as XFCE is a bit confusing for anyone coming from Windows/Mac. Not sure if I would suggest Unity or Gnome though, there is some appeal to Unity for newbies but I feel like Gnome would be a closer match to what they are familiar with.
 
I will have to strongly disagree with ubuntu and it's derivates like Mint. They are just too buggy. I'd go for Debian 7 (which is only a few weeks from release).
 
It's not as newb friendly though and there is nowhere near as much easily accessible documentation.
 
prizrak said:
It's not as newb friendly though and there is nowhere near as much easily accessible documentation.
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Not sure about that. The installation with the new graphical installer is mostly "click ok" and once you're in gnome3 everything is just point and click in control panel.
 
Dr_Grip said:
I will have to strongly disagree with ubuntu and it's derivates like Mint. They are just too buggy. I'd go for Debian 7 (which is only a few weeks from release).
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Agree 100%. I was not pleased with the performance and general stability of the last version of Ubuntu.

Dr_Grip said:
Not sure about that. The installation with the new graphical installer is mostly "click ok" and once you're in gnome3 everything is just point and click in control panel.
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Gnome3 *shudders*
 
Last time I tried Debian (few months ago) I never got the wi-fi working.
Might give it a try when Debain 7 comes out.
 
prizrak said:
It's not as newb friendly though and there is nowhere near as much easily accessible documentation.
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Redliner said:
Last time I tried Debian (few months ago) I never got the wi-fi working.
Might give it a try when Debain 7 comes out.
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Debian 7 is officially released, includes a graphical installer and everything else. On the desktop I am working on right now, I had to manually install libdvdcss2 an Skype, everything else worked out of the box. But I am running unstable by now because I just love to live on the edge :p

@Redliner: Sometimes you have to manually (as in apt-get/Synaptic) install binary firmware blobs because debian can't ship them for copyright reasons.
 
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So I've been running a Linux based Minecraft server for a while, unfortunately MineOS (a CentOS based disctribution specifically for Minecraft) has become unstable and I am fed up with it constantly deleting the server for no apparent reason, as well as the web interface not syncing up with the files.

So I'm going with a KISS method, the lightest usable distro I can find that I can get Java and the server running on, that has a GUI to which I can VNC. That way I can also set up VNC on the other player's PCs (we're a small group) so they can troubleshoot the server themselves without dumping it on me, without having to learn the intricacies of SSH.

But for the life of me, I cannot get a VNC server listening for connections at startup. The machine is completely headless so that needs to be there before anything else.

It really shouldn't be that hard. On Windows, you just drop a shortcut in the "startup" directory. I am currently using Lubuntu for this project, as I am at least a tiny bit familiar with Ubuntu and Lubuntu promises to be lightweight (the server is a Pentium 4 with 2 GB RAM). Sure enough, the PC boots to desktop in under 10 seconds and best of all, it looks like in Lubuntu, you just drop a shortcut into home/.config/autostart, exactly the same as Windows.

But nothing happens when I place a shortcut there.... or in any of the other 3 or 4 autostart directories I find in various places and recommended by various forum posts. I just don't get what I could possibly be doing wrong, it's so simple.

Finally I add a line to /etc/xdg/lxsession/Lubuntu/autostart, which is a config file. The line reads:
Code: 
@x11vnc -gui -password ***** -rfbport 5900 -bg -forever -display:0 -o %%HOME/.x11vnc.log

I don't understand the intricacies of x11VNC but I do know, that when I create a desktop shortcut with that line (minus the @ symbol), it launches perfectly, server is up and listening. But when I reboot, the server launches and says can't connect to display :0. If I try to start it manually, same message. Close the server and re-open using the desktop shortcut, works perfectly.

But in writing this, I realize the whole thing is moot, because now I can't launch x11vnc at all. Uninstall/reinstall, launch using the "start" menu shortcut, nothing. Nothing at all happens. I have no idea when this started.

So sorry for the rant that is now useless... my question is this: can anyone give me an easy way to install a distro (don't care which) and get it to launch a ready-to-connect VNC server at startup? As long as the thing runs Java that is all it needs to do. I am extremely open to ideas.

PS beware the -loopbg command of x11vnc. At one point I had infinitely spawning VNC servers that refused to connect to the display and just sat there as another instant spawned on top. They appeared faster than I could click the windows to close them and always took the active window position so I couldn't even type in terminal :lol:. That was an OS reinstall.....
 
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