Do you use Linux?

[Ravenfreak]

I'm wondering how many people here are using a flavor of Linux. I've been thinking about possibly dual booting with Windows 11 and either Unbuntu or Mint. I've also thought about installing Linux on one of my old gaming laptops as well, since a Windows 10 upgrade didn't install properly so I can't even use it now. (To be fair it needs some repairs as the sound board is messed up on it and has been since I got it...) If you do use Linux, what flavor do you use?

 

[Reaky]

Yes, have Ubuntu setup in a few virtual machines.

 

[Tracy]

I use it on every VPS I create to run my sites on. Right now I lean towards AlmaLinux.
I have 2 laptops running Ubuntu dektop. One on 22.04LTS and the other on 24.04LTS.
Four of the 5 mini PC's I have for my astrophotography captures are Linux based and the other is running Windows 11 Pro/N.I.N.A. The Raspberry PI4's that I have are also running Linux as is the Orange Pi3 LTS. All of the Linux based ones are Kubuntu based.
Got several older laptops that are running various flavors of Linux. Most of those use 32 bit since their processors are 32bit based. Running Peppermint on one and Linux Mint on the other two.
The Linux laptops I use for connecting to my astrophotography equipment usually as they are fairly small and make for decent use when traveling in the RV. The bad thing is they have to have shore based power as the batteries are shot and you can't find replacements for them now they are so old (older Atom based systems).

 

[Dilip]

For desktops it is better to use Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Fedora. Others are either variants or have poor driver support.

Dual booting is also fine. Help you do things that are so Windows and not available in Linux.

 

[TwitchisMental]

For desktops it is better to use Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Fedora. Others are either variants or have poor driver support.

That is false. While some distributions may have better ways of dealing with certain proprietary driver installs such as NVIDIA GPU drivers. If a driver exist for the Linux kernel it will work on all distros.

In addition to that there are many more distributions that are either independent and/or based on something other than Ubuntu or Fedora.
Ubuntu itself is based on Debian.

Slackware, Arch Linux , PCLinuxOS, and Gentoo are a few independent distros examples. Several more can be found here - https://distrowatch.com/search.php?...l&defaultinit=All&status=Active#simpleresults

I'm wondering how many people here are using a flavor of Linux. I've been thinking about possibly dual booting with Windows 11 and either Unbuntu or Mint. I've also thought about installing Linux on one of my old gaming laptops as well, since a Windows 10 upgrade didn't install properly so I can't even use it now. (To be fair it needs some repairs as the sound board is messed up on it and has been since I got it...) If you do use Linux, what flavor do you use?

Going back to the original question though lol. I dual boot OpenSuse and Windows myself. I find OpenSuse to be the most "complete" Linux Distro out there. I still use Windows because like most people... I still got that one program or game that just doesn't work on Linux.

 

[JoshB]

Dual boot both Windows 11 and Mint on my gaming PC. I find that Linux isn't this "only coders know it" os and with Steam and Proton, most games function just fine with Linux.

 

[Dilip]

That is false. While some distributions may have better ways of dealing with certain proprietary driver installs such as NVIDIA GPU drivers. If a driver exist for the Linux kernel it will work on all distros.

I have used Ubuntu and Fedora on the same machine. No display in Fedora while Ubuntu works well.

 

[TwitchisMental]

I have used Ubuntu and Fedora on the same machine. No display in Fedora while Ubuntu works well.

Not surprising especially if Nvidia. You'd need to go through the guide for it which can be found on the fedora forums.

 

[Dilip]

Not surprising especially if Nvidia.

Yes, Nvidia

 

[Tracy]

When I ran bigger computers (all of my stuff uses built in GPU since I don't game on them) I remember NVidia always being a headache for their Linux drivers. Apparently it hasn't changed much?
I do have to build up a new PC. The Mac Studio does OK on PixInSight, but I a lot of the new plugins for it can use GPU and I want something with a little more horsepower to reduce the time of stacking from 1/2-1 day to around 5-12 hours.
Of course, that box will be running Windows 11 Pro.

 

[Dilip]

For me, Nvidia been working fine on Ubuntu. It was ok through 20.04 to 24.04 out of box. No extra work done.

 

[Tracy]

For me, Nvidia been working fine on Ubuntu. It was ok through 20.04 to 24.04 out of box. No extra work done.

It's been over a decade since I ran any Linux box that had a dedicated GPU... heck, it's been that long thinking about it since I ran ANY computer with a dedicated GPU other than the Surface Book I had, and it wasn't set up for gaming, heavy duty video processing or similar. My computers are just for browsing and some light coding on my sites.
With Ubuntu, I'm thinking back to the Warty Warthog era. Didn't play much more with it until Dapper came out.
I played with a lot of others in between, and several of them on water cooled systems as I had them set up for use with Folding@home. Generally had 'em going full blast (4-6 of them at a time). That was back when I was neck deep into computers and just had gotten into IT from my prior career.

 

[Kyng]

Nope... I've dabbled in it in the distant past, but never became a regular user of it.

 

[Darth Cognus]

I like it for servers and I like it for desktop. Mint is my recommendation for the least pain to new adopters.

 

[Smokey]

I like to use Linux on older systems that aren't as strong or where the version of Windows reached their EOL with support.

 

[Tracy]

I like to use Linux on older systems that aren't as strong or where the version of Windows reached their EOL with support.

The sad thing is that it's getting harder and harder to find a decent desktop 32 bit version of Linux in this 64 bit world. Most of the older systems I have set up don't even get updates any longer. The good thing with them is they don't play on the internet at all other than to download stuff here and there.