An amazing OS for anyone brave enough to use Linux !!

[DacInBC]

Hit Smithnowt, I am pretty sure that is the theme. It is usually installed on KDE by default or added quite easily through system settings. It has always been there. That being said and it being Linux and all, I think I am using bits and pieces from several different themes. In fact before upgrading, I had actually done a VM of 18.04 and 19.04 and figured out what I needed to do to make them look like my existing 16.04 Desktop. I then took screenshots and notes and a few days later proceeded to upgrade my live desktop.

Random thought and yet another example of quirky things with Linux. Whenever I create a new text file or other link on the desktop, in the past regardless of where I right click to make the new icon, it always goes somewhere else. Well today, I did that and the new icon actually went where I right clicked. I think that has been broken for the better part of 10 years!

I know what you mean about random events with USB sticks. I have had several brick and always on the Linux side of things. Or Linux does something to them that Windows does not like. Usually when I am copying information that way (and even by SCP or other method) I do an MD5SUM to make sure what has arrived is correct. It's funny, I create an ISO for our firewall product and I always supplied the MD5Sum, but nobody in the Windows world knows about it or worries about it! I verify everything I can via md5sum.

I am using Wine4 direct from Winehq. I added their repositories to my apt and downloaded the latest Stable builds. Yes, it does not put anything in the menu. I did however add my own menu item for winecfg and it seems that Wine itself added a few programs to the menu and I had to add others myself. Considering it is a bastardized windows running on Linux I am impressed anything runs on it. On the flip side, I have not had the time to play with Windows 10 and install linux core in it. If that works well, it opens up a whole bunch of good back up opportunities to Windows. With our existing clients, we have had to put a Linux box (a QNAP actually) on site and back up windows machines to the QNAP. Then nightly we to an rsync over ssh to our back up servers. We tried cygwin and other things to try to get rsync working on windows, but it always screwed up the ownership properties. I am hoping we can have rsync over ssh using the new linux core in windows.

I had not noticed the ext4 issues and was not aware of them. I am however painfully aware of how freaking slow fat32 on a usb stick is. If my son had not bought me a 128 gig stick with exfat on it, I never would have learned how much faster exfat is! For transferring large files now, I go with exfat on the USB sticks, it is just so much faster.
I should probably research the ext3 vs ext4 more thouroughly, as always, sometimes new is not better. Ext3 has been around forever and is quite stable. I assumed that ext4 was just as robust and faster.

Well, thats all I have for this morning.
Talk to you all later.

[DacInBC]

Oh totally forgot to mention openVPN.
We use it for roadwarrior, our firewall generates the certificates and the ovpn file and you download it as a zip. Windows you have to manually put the pieces where they go, but in Kubuntu, you just import the openvpn via network manager and it is up and running. We do not use openVPN for site to site connections, it is too much overhead, we stick with ipsec VPN.

But the comment I wanted to make was that we have had issues with openVPN (the usual linux kind), where a change in openssl can make one version of openvpn no longer compatible with another. Or, a change in openVPN version has also has caused connection issues too.

Two Cases in point:
#1) Our firewall product uses openvpn 2.3.6 (going to 2.4.7 in the update I have pending) and any windows machine using 2.4.x of openvpn client will not connect. If you install openvpn 2.3.x on windows and it will connect.

#2) I was running 2.3.x on my linux Desktop and upgraded to Kubuntu 18.04 LTS, which gave me OpenVPN 2.4.4 which would no longer connect to 2.3.x running on our firewalls. HOWEVER in stunning linux fashion, if I regenerated the root/host certificate and then created a new openvpn certificate, I can get my 2.4.4 to connect to a 2.3.x server. I think openssl is the culprit here.

I had meant to add that to my previous post.

Lol, maybe its time to start a new thread about the quirks of linux or our daily lives with linux. It is odd, once you have been with Linux for so long, none of this bothers you, you are used to it and just get on with it. I think Apple users would freak at this kind of issues with their OS. And I do not think windows users would be too far behind too.

Catch you later...

[DacInBC]

Hey not been here in a while to RANT about linux :)
Just came back from 8 days of vacation, the desktop was turned off.

When I turned it on, the spacing between my icons has been adjusted for me and due to that, many icons are no longer where I expect them to be.

I wish that KDE would get the desktop sorted. When I place an icon or set the size, please leave it where I want it at the spacing I want! How hard is that. These bugs go back to Version 3 of KDE.

RANT over :)

Otherwise Linux is an awesome system. I was forced to work in Windows for 1.5 hours today to make sure my coworkers could connect to a lamp server over a VPN. Good grief, I had to install four programs to do what already exists on my Linux desktop!

[Lumos]

Hello Again DacInBC.
for your RAVES about Linux - I refuse to accept your mention of 'rant' !!

OpenVPN has been a stable and reliable thing for me for a very long time, and seeing what a PITA it can be under Linux, I may just continue to use it under win-doze as I have been.
A great discovery for me as a help for that has been that I can use pretty much any domain at Namecheap for dynamic DNS without any added costs or side effects at all.

The OS I had posted about has been deleted from my test PC now - after waiting a good enough while for it to be able to get its 'unsynched' parts and failing each time.
That, plus no response of any sort from its dev and the screwy domains and emails for it have me thinking that if I ever get super idle (unlikely...), that I would take the time and effort to strip out all the extra mess it comes with that leads noplace, tweak it a bit, and then enjoy it - but as it is, it is too much of a mess for my liking.

I've never been a fan of KDE;
Mate and other classically shaped lightweight DEs are much better for my needs.

There are only 2 things I really miss when using Linux from the win-doze days:
1 - Two very nice animated cursors which I've always enjoyed;
2 - The total no-brainer file sharing.

Finally...
I ran into an odd situation with moving files to my replacement Linux box wherein perms and ownership got seriously in my way.
Enter exFAT.
What a relief when faced with an OS that tells me that root owns MY files - that is just nasty, and can be completely bypassed with exFAT.
Not the easiest thing to make a HDD partition for it at the win-doze source, but then again also not too complicated and TOTALLY worth the little extra effort !!

[DacInBC]

OpenVPN, don't even get me started! Lol, I might even of mentioned it in a previous ra..ve
Everytime that openssl changes significantly you have to redo all your certificates. Our firewall product uses openVPN (as well as IPSec) and I recently had to do an update so all the dummies on windows could download the latest openVPN and run it. It was too much to specific that they needed a specific version, even if it was installed on our product for download.
I'm releasing a new version of our software next week and a lot of people will have to regenerate their certificates and then their client connections. Just no way around it.

[DacInBC]

Perhaps we should start a new thread more suitable, such as "Adventures In Linux"

[Lumos]

"Adventures In Linux" - great idea - and maybe others than you and I might post there ??

Got sidetracked today away from making a win-doze config ready to do a P2V on, because I happened upon a USB stick with Mojopac on it - looked for a description as I'd forgotten it - and found some neat info about using Bochs the same way...
And off I went into serendipity land !!

The good news today Linux-wise, for me, is that I got 3 USB sticks cleaned off and formatted to exFAT for easy interoperability.

[amaire]

Interesting discussion. I have been using Linux off and on since early 2005 and really made the switch in 2011 to using it as my daily driver. I realized that I was not missing much on my Windoze machine as I really can do everything on Linux. The only thing that I want is native Adobe support. I don't use WINE or anythong along that. I edit ALOT of video using Premiere and would love to be able o do this in Linux. While I have used other editing software on Linux, I can't get away from using Premiere Pro.

Luckily I am not the only one and there has been talk about geting this done for some time. Not just for Premiere Pro but the entire suite with over 10,000 votes to get Premiere ported.

Code:

https://twitter.com/AdobeCare/status/1067509302330568704

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/36257581-yes-please-support-linux-this-would-be-a-huge-m

I currently have 3 laptops that I use on a daily.

1 Windoze machine for editing video and graphics (not using GIMP yet).

1 machine with Deepin Linux that I use on the daily. I was trying to install Linux on my old Mac and tried Ubuntu, Mint and Manjaro and they all had issues except Deepin so of course I kept it installed and love using it. Beautiful design and user friendly.

Code:

https://www.deepin.org/en/

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=deepin

https://distrowatch.com/gallery.php?distribution=deepin

1 machine with Elementary OS that I use daily for other things. Elementary is also a nice OS.

Code:

https://elementary.io/

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=elementary

https://distrowatch.com/gallery.php?distribution=elementary

Eventually I will get my Linux admin certification, as I truly use it daily, but spend a lot of time in the terminal.

[Lumos]

Great reply Amaire,

My situation is different from yours in that I do not have any need to do video editing and prefer to use a desktop PC with a large screen for the ease it gives my older eyes.

I have uses for Android devices and here again, have trouble with their little screens - yes, it is possible to use that OS in a VM, but some stuff only works from a device so my desire is to have a smoothly working method to display and control the smaller device from the bigger screen.

Rather than keeping multiple PCs with different OSes, I prefer to have my main OS (Ubuntu Mate) along with VMs of what else I may need - like XP.

Yes, I keep it around until I find really close replacements for certain things for free...
Like for example - Beyond Compare - which has a good Linux version, but I've found no working fix for that and it is very $pendy to get.

Other kinds of stuff is just quirky in ways that I prefer, like Xion MP3 player:

Code:

https://www.r2.com.au/page/products/show/xion-audio-player/

And why ??
It sits in the tray and does exactly what I need - pauses with a single click and consumes neither screen space, nor enough resources to notice - sadly it has no Linux version.

I also use WINE because some win-doze apps are fine with it - Like Atlantis word processor which is a favourite of mine and has no Linux replacement that I know of.
Also, some win-doze portable apps have no direct Linux replacements, but are 100% fine under WINE and PlayOnLinux.

I may eventually add a 2nd screen - but what I'd really like is an easy way to expand the existing single desktop screen I use beyond the display's physical borders as can be done with an XP app called Gimmespace.

What I simply adore about Linux is not distro specific:
The utter reliability of it.
Combine that with the helpfulness of some parts of the wider community and it makes it all worthwhile IMO !!

Thanks Again for replying !!