Windows vs Linux

[DGuller]

I've a built a new computer, specifically for heavy data science computation.  I figured that I may as well make it a Linux computer rather than a Windows computer, since my old computer is plenty powerful enough for gaming, and Linux seems to be a natural home to a lot of data science software packages.  So I installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Here's one thing about Ubuntu that annoys me a little:  it's a bugged user hostile pile of shit.  Nothing seems to work right out of the box.  I think I'm used to the basics by now, I figured out who the fuck that sudo guy is, but that doesn't really help much.  Trying to figure out a problem means lots of Googling, confirming that what I'm missing is some open source driver on some godforsaken github, and not some basic element of knowledge on my part.

Is there any reason to avoid wiping away Ubuntu and getting a proper operating system?

[Razgovory]

There is the smugness.

[Monoriu]

Welcome back to civilisation 

[Tamas]

My first experience with Linux was when I started at my first "proper" job. I was sent on a Windows server basic training kind of deal for 2 weeks.

A lot of the colleagues there came from a Windows Server background already so they were bored to tears. Two of them decided to take one of the unused computers in the training room and install Linux (probably Ubuntu but can't remember) on it quickly. That was around the first day.

At the end of the two weeks course, they were still not done hunting down various drivers and such to make basic functions work.

[CountDeMoney]

There is the smugness.

Our Linux team needed to do some work on one of their servers, so on a Friday they generated a test account.  With Username = Username and Password = Password, of course.
In less than 40 minutes a Brazilian script kiddie found it, and by Sunday a slew of our corporate domain addresses were blacklisted.  Monday was not pretty.

Yeah, there's smugness alright.

[CountDeMoney]

I've a built a new computer, specifically for heavy data science computation.

What is with Russians and scientific computing? Is it like Germans with accounting, just in the DNA?

[Monoriu]

With Username = Username and Password = Password, of course.

[viper37]

I've a built a new computer, specifically for heavy data science computation.  I figured that I may as well make it a Linux computer rather than a Windows computer, since my old computer is plenty powerful enough for gaming, and Linux seems to be a natural home to a lot of data science software packages.  So I installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Here's one thing about Ubuntu that annoys me a little:  it's a bugged user hostile pile of shit.  Nothing seems to work right out of the box.  I think I'm used to the basics by now, I figured out who the fuck that sudo guy is, but that doesn't really help much.  Trying to figure out a problem means lots of Googling, confirming that what I'm missing is some open source driver on some godforsaken github, and not some basic element of knowledge on my part.

Is there any reason to avoid wiping away Ubuntu and getting a proper operating system?

I would get Linux Mint instead.  It's based on Ubuntu LTS, but the community, albeit smaller, is friendlier, and the user interface is better for desktop use.  Anything that works for Ubuntu/Debian will work for Mint.

I suggest Cinnamon Mint, rather than KDE.  Mint 18.2 incorporates all the fixes Ubuntu made in 17,04.
When you are searching for information on how to do things, check the Arch Linux wiki:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/

Arch Linux in itself is a little hard to do because you need to compile everything by yourself, there are no apps and no tools.  but the doc is incredible.

Another distro you could consider is CentOS. It's based on Red Hat Linux Entreprise, it's pretty stable.  As long as you thing support and documentation are "fun to have but not essential", this is a good distro.


Still, you should know a few things:

   
• it is extremely hard to use compared to Windows, but the possibilities are limitless.
• Many drivers will come from 3rd party and be available on Github and they need to be compiled from source.
• Everytime you upgrade the kernel you need to reinstall those 3rd party drivers
• Lots of softwares are free to us, a relative minority available as paid.  That is great...
• However, these free softwares are often designed by power users who don't care about a proper GUI.  That's the least of their worry.  KDE apps often have the best user interface, but KDE is very hard to use for beginners and a lot of simple things require the command line.
• Linux is free.  No licenses.  You can code whatever you want in Linux for free.  Under Windows, you theoritically need a license for everything, although there are some free tools out there.  And there are still ways to install Win10 for free.

Whatever the distro, since the drivers are integrated into the kernel, you should upgrade to the latest version of the kernel first, as there are tons of drivers fixes in there.

[Monoriu]

I now see that all the people who told me to use Linux were trying to get me into trouble. 

[viper37]

I now see that all the people who told me to use Linux were trying to get me into trouble. 

how did you guess that? 

[Josquius]

Linux does seem to rejoice in making things complicated just for the fun of it.

[Vricklund]

I've been using ubuntu on my cfd-machines since hardy heron and I think the last couple of lts-releases has been very pleasant experiences. 16.04 was particularly smooth I think - apart from installing some very specific software I don't recall doing anything that required me to use the command line.

But then I have never been able to afford the very latest hardware, I can imagine that being a big obstacle if you didn't carefully select your hardware to be as open source as possible.

I've also installed xubuntu on some of my family members old laptops. For browsing the web, paying their bills and some spreadsheet/wordprocessing it works just as well as any windows install.

I had a hard time accepting unity at first but now I'm actually sad to see it go. My cfd days are now behind me but I'd like to keep a linux box around - for gnucash and some programming - but I haven't quite decided what to do come april 2018.

[DGuller]

I decided to have another go at Linux, although I haven't yet gone through with it.  I just got a dirt-cheap Intel SSD drive, so Linux would now have a drive all to itself, and I would have BIOS asking me which drive to boot from.  Hopefully that means that Linux won't be spreading its tentacles into my Windows partition. 

What made me decide to try again is realizing that Windows can be a bit of a pain in the ass for data science applications, especially when it comes to programming stuff to use multiple cores efficiently.  On top of that, Linux just seems to be the default OS in use for all data science applications, so if I were have to use cloud stuff like Amazon EC2 down the line, I'd have to be familiar with Linux.

Is there anything I should know to maximize my chances of Linux sticking around this time?  What's the best distro-desktop combination for someone who's getting to be too old to dick around endlessly with googling the right command line instructions to make basic things work?

[mongers]

I decided to have another go at Linux, although I haven't yet gone through with it.  I just got a dirt-cheap Intel SSD drive, so Linux would now have a drive all to itself, and I would have BIOS asking me which drive to boot from.  Hopefully that means that Linux won't be spreading its tentacles into my Windows partition. 

What made me decide to try again is realizing that Windows can be a bit of a pain in the ass for data science applications, especially when it comes to programming stuff to use multiple cores efficiently.  On top of that, Linux just seems to be the default OS in use for all data science applications, so if I were have to use cloud stuff like Amazon EC2 down the line, I'd have to be familiar with Linux.

Is there anything I should know to maximize my chances of Linux sticking around this time?  What's the best distro-desktop combination for someone who's getting to be too old to dick around endlessly with googling the right command line instructions to make basic things work?

This is a good question, especially for someone like me who is fed up of doing windows technical support for the extended family.

Current thinking is just to sort them all with various Chromebooks and deliver them into the warm spidery hands of google.

[viper37]

What's the best distro-desktop combination for someone who's getting to be too old to dick around endlessly with googling the right command line instructions to make basic things work?

I have told you before: Linux Mint, Cinnamon edition.
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3832

BUT, for science stuff, there is a distro that contains many, many softwares pre installed...
https://opensource.com/life/14/6/linux-distribution-science-geeks
https://www.linux.com/tutorials/linux-serves-scientific-and-medical-communities/

For each distro, there are ways to install the Cinnamon desktop environment to replace the default one, if you don't like it.  It could be a tad complicated though.

You will still need the sudo stuff for many commands, to initially configure your software though.  Once you got it running, it will be easier.