Linux Appreciation Thread

[Flubbernugget]

I have recently gotten a Raspberry Pi that I have to program in C. As such I have been doing a lot of work in Linux, particularly on my laptop, which is running Ubuntu.

I really like the Unity interface, and how customizable it is with compiz. I love using workspaces, which are smoother and more stable than the multiple desktops blatantly shoehorned into Windows 10. Virtual terminals are also handy for many of the same reasons, especially considering the fact that I do a lot of work in the command line.

Vim is a bitch to learn, but the more you work with it, the more you

force yourself to

start to love it.

Actually getting SSH to work between the Pi and my Laptop felt like a miracle! It was always really clunky to try and do things like that in Windows, and I could never 100% accomplish any projects I set out to do in a Workgroup environment.

[Kison]

I have to program in C.

Don't hear many people saying that these days. What are you working on?

Vim is a bitch to learn, but the more you work with it, the more you

force yourself to

start to love it.

I always liked Nano better, but vim is good to be somewhat familiar with because you'll eventually run into a system where it's your only option.
(or run into a situation where even that isn't an option........ )

You just reminded me too, I have a Raspberry Pi sitting in my desk. When I went home last December, my brother showed me his new ridiculous hobby of making these little bead "action figure" type things. Here are two that he gave me(a Mario mushroom and a character from a video game called Maniac Mansion):

Spoiler:

He laboriously uses tweezers to place each bead on a rack by hand before ironing the whole thing together. I was like, oh hell no, this is the 21st century, what the hell are you doing, there must be a

machine

that can just do this for you. He scoffed at the idea of automating this horrible thing he does, so it's my new little side mission to build him something that can place these stupid beads for him.

My not-yet-well-thought-out plan is basically to get a couple of raspberry pis, hook some cameras to them, then hook them to some microcontrollers guiding a hopper or something similar. Basically start off getting the thing to accurately pick up a bead and place it at any given point on the rack, then work from there. But been so incredibly busy.

[Flubbernugget]

Why bother with cameras for that setup? It would probably be simpler just to hook up bead containers for each color bead and have the arm move in pre-calibrated values based on the distance from each container to the arm. Other than that the idea sounds really cool

But as far as the programming goes, I need to take a grayscale pixel value from a webcam and raise an array of pins based on that value for a research project. The goal is to have it done in real time at a decent framerate, which is why it's being done in C instead of Python.

[Kison]

Why bother with cameras for that setup? It would probably be simpler just to hook up bead containers for each color bead and have the arm move in pre-calibrated values based on the distance from each container to the arm. Other than that the idea sounds really cool

Was more for color detection in a later phase where you wouldn't have to preload beads into specific chambers. I think the biggest challenge here will be finding hardware that is able to handle the delicacy of placing these things. They are incredibly light and need to be put into place precisely.

But as far as the programming goes, I need to take a grayscale pixel value from a webcam and raise an array of pins based on that value for a research project. The goal is to have it done in real time at a decent framerate, which is why it's being done in C instead of Python.

Sounds fun, honestly. I miss working on cool random stuff.

[Papa Zito]

bash on Windows 10

[Majiffy]

I have received confirmation that most of my audio software is now compatible with Linux so I'll probably set up Linux on my next computer.

[YawningAngel]

There are pretty robust image processing libraries for python that are implemented in C for speed, you could use python very happily for such a project

[inte]

unity is fugly and slow real talk

[Flubbernugget]

KDE is worse and GNOME is zzzzzzzzz

[Aeronaut]

I like macs

[inte]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10999335

this is what i think of when i think of linux

[tn5421]

I'm using Manjaro Linux 18.0.4 Rolling Release with Xfce.

Spoiler: neofetch

[Flubbernugget]

Well manjaro's a new one for me

[tn5421]

Well manjaro's a new one for me

It's basically newb-friendlier Arch.

[Flubbernugget]

Setting up Arch is one of the best ways to learn linux but idk how I feel about actually trying to use it

[bugspray]

I like macs

i hope you are talking about EMACS

[Awoo]

Ever since windows 10 started forcing its updates on me, I just wiped it, moved to linux, never looked back.

Good paint.net alternative for linux users: it's called Pinta. GIMP is actually terrible for making minor touch ups.

[Flubbernugget]

I might have to try that again. Last time I tried using Ubuntu as my main desktop I kept running into issues with skype and flash. Now that both of those are basically dead I shouldn't have an issue anymore. I might still run into Mp3 issues though. Updating linux is still more painful than windows updates too. Hmmmm

[Kison]

Linux is great. But not as a desktop. I tried using Ubuntu as a desktop back in 2013. Why not? I had just spent six months absorbing as much knowledge of the command line as humanly possible, it was what all our servers used, and Windows was for noobs, right?

But after several weeks I still could not figure out how to do several basic things such as opening the janky spreadsheet program(Calc??) without resorting to an arsenal of aliases I'd built up in my profile. Programs would crash sporadically. I broke all the rules, ran everything as root & had hacks to make it work. I came to the sad realization that I wasn't smart enough for this life.

One hard drive failure later & I got talked into trying a Mac. Not a fanboy but it seems to be the best of both worlds(but overpriced).

[nomnomnom]

Linux as a desktop experience got much better since 2013. I'd advise trying things out again, the experience is much better on all fronts and there are a lot more friendly distributions than Ubuntu as well!

[bugspray]

yeah like tbh if you have already some experience with doing stuff in the commandline definitely might want to go for fedora
and libreoffice is a lot nicer to use now, i definitely have gotten a lot of use out of it making spreadsheets for optimizing some stuff in various videogames :p

[Kison]

If I was 15 and had all the free time in the world again, I'm sure I'd give it another shot. These days, my general philosophy is Tried & True over Shiny & New unless there's an opportune moment or high certainty of productivity gain. Probably the only thing I'd be more reluctant to switch is my text editor (the true secret to superpowers is how quickly you can manipulate complex data)

[GeorgeBailey]

Arch or bust

[Skygazer]

i've been using gentoo since march of this year and i really really like it even got a PR fixing a broken package accepted into their repo! i used arch for a while though and it will always have a special place in my heart.

i dont really care for desktop environments so i use sway (a window manager, it's sort of an i3 clone for wayland) with wofi and waybar. 95% of the time im just using firefox and a terminal emulator anyways. might post screenshots later.

anyways arch and gentoo kind of got me stoked to use computers again. i think the problem was i'm just too much of a control freak for windows.

[Who]

I've been considering downloading Linux for a few weeks now, which distribution is best?

My impression of all the distributions:
Ubuntu is easy to install and stable but several people tell me not to do it because "proprietary bad". Also by default it uses Gnome but Mate Ubuntu also exists and doesn't use Gnome.

Debian is basically the same as Ubuntu but more difficult to install. Also the stable releases are super spread out so using old software? But that doesn't seem like a huge issue, other than security there isn't really much difference between software now and software 2 years ago. Though it isn't proprietary so all the people who say "proprietary bad" advocate for Debian.

Arch and Gentoo are shitloads of work and unstable. Manjaro removes the "shitloads of work" part of Arch but is still unstable.

Qubes has some interesting ideas, but is difficult more difficult to install than Ubuntu or Debian and also has issues with dual-booting.

Are any of these wrong? Am I missing anything important?