The beauty of the Linux ecosystem

[Eigenvektor]

11 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

When did that happen and on what distro lol?

Could've potentially been a very recent card at a time the open source driver didn't support it yet.

[Nayr438]

27 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Could've potentially been a very recent card at a time the open source driver didn't support it yet.

Or they could be a victim of versioning. Doesn't matter if the open source stack supports it if was added say a month ago but your distro packages are 6+ months old.

 

When you have static releases and long term support cycles you don't get the latest up to date software and drivers. For most distros you're software is out of date the day the distro is released. A partial solution is Flatpak, but that doesnt really help with drivers or system software.

[PDifolco]

6 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Or they could be a victim of versioning. Doesn't matter if the open source stack supports it if was added say a month ago but your distro packages are 6+ months old.

 

When you have static releases and long term support cycles you don't get the latest up to date software and drivers. For most distros you're software is out of date the day the distro is released. A partial solution is Flatpak, but that doesnt really help with drivers or system software.

54 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

When did that happen and on what distro lol?

One year ago, Linux Mint

Maybe a versioning issue as it was a 7900XTX that was released 3 months before

 

[Ultraforce]

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

One year ago, Linux Mint

Maybe a versioning issue as it was a 7900XTX that was released 3 months before

 

Just checked, yeah Linux Mint is fairly conservative with it's kernel updates, in GUI the update manager should have had an option to update kernels.

[CosmicEmotion]

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

One year ago, Linux Mint

Maybe a versioning issue as it was a 7900XTX that was released 3 months before

 

Yeah, Mint is great and all but for bleeding edge hardware you need something based on Fedora or Arch.

[PDifolco]

8 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

Yeah, Mint is great and all but for bleeding edge hardware you need something based on Fedora or Arch.

Yeah so now I need a new distro... See the problem?

Nothing like that with Windows 

[AA.koploper]

6 hours ago, Kilrah said:

They see it very well and that's why they don't use it. Most people don't want to make choices, and the whole point of a computer is that it's able to do about anything you want, having different distros for different purposes is precisely unwanted.

 

People who value that flexibility/choice already use linux, so i't not going to be more prevalent because of that. Quite the opposite, for it to become more prevalent there needs to be a "one size fits all" that fits even more than the more mainstream distros do today.

You could call bedrock linux the "one size fits all" distro, but at that point you might as well call Gentoo a beginner distro. 

[CosmicEmotion]

2 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Yeah so now I need a new distro... See the problem?

Nothing like that with Windows 

This is an absolutely correct observation. People need to know what distro they are installing when using Linux. I never said otherwise, but if you do your research you can find an optimal distro just for you. If the hardware manufacturers or resellers do this research for the customers the end result is the same. You end up with an optimal system, personalized for your needs, out of the box.

 

Installing a newer kernel on Linux Mint is the same as installing any kind of drivers on Windows. The only difference is the methodology to do it.

As I have said countless times, Linux is not Windows, so if you go in with that mindset you will always be disappointed.

 

This was not your fault obviously but as Linux gets more popular, big distros like Mint will find a way to notify the user of what they need to do or simply apply the update automatically.

 

I personally prefer a Fedora base, stable and cutting edge. Best of both worlds.

 

But if you're claiming that other distros shouldn't exist just because Mint has an issue with newer hardware, that's a big no no from me. Each well known distro serves a purpose and that's the essence of the amazing potential of Linux.

[PDifolco]

6 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

This is an absolutely correct observation. People need to know what distro they are installing when using Linux. I never said otherwise, but if you do your research you can find an optimal distro just for you. If the hardware manufacturers or resellers do this research for the customers the end result is the same. You end up with an optimal system, personalized for your needs, out of the box.

 

Installing a newer kernel on Linux Mint is the same as installing any kind of drivers on Windows. The only difference is the methodology to do it.

As I have said countless times, Linux is not Windows, so if you go in with that mindset you will always be disappointed.

 

This was not your fault obviously but as Linux gets more popular, big distros like Mint will find a way to notify the user of what they need to do or simply apply the update automatically.

 

I personally prefer a Fedora base, stable and cutting edge. Best of both worlds.

 

But if you're claiming that other distros shouldn't exist just because Mint has an issue with newer hardware, that's a big no no from me. Each well known distro serves a purpose and that's the essence of the amazing potential of Linux.

Well, I installed Mint mostly because my stepson knows the French guy behind it

Had no idea swapping GPU was more complicated than reinstalling drivers neither, or rather that installing them was such a hassle

[CosmicEmotion]

13 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Well, I installed Mint mostly because my stepson knows the French guy behind it

Had no idea swapping GPU was more complicated than reinstalling drivers neither, or rather that installing them was such a hassle

Hahaha, these are all logical things to do/think. It's normally not a hassle, but this was just a special case. It's an omission  on Mint's part not to have a mechanism so the user is notified about what they need to do. But I'm sure as Linux progresses all these things will be taken into account in the future.

[Kilrah]

42 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

People need to know what distro they are installing when using Linux.

44 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

You end up with an optimal system, personalized for your needs, out of the box.

The problem is that needs change. You could choose the "right one that's optimized for your needs" initially, but something you need later would make the "right choice" be a different one. Not gonna switch or go back and forth every few months.

 

45 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

Installing a newer kernel on Linux Mint is the same as installing any kind of drivers on Windows.

No because other things you need may not yet be supported on the new kernel. 

 

Just been through one of those, thing A needs kernel >6.6, thing B isn't supported on >6.4 yet, no way to use both in a stable config...

[CosmicEmotion]

7 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

The problem is that needs change. You could choose the "right one that's optimized for your needs" initially, but something you need later would make the "right choice" be a different one. Not gonna switch or go back and forth every few months.

 

No because other things you need may not yet be supported on the new kernel. 

 

Just been through one of those, thing A needs kernel >6.6, thing B isn't supported on >6.4 yet, no way to use both in a stable config...

 

I mean if your needs change isn't it better to switch than use a generic OS anyway with the potential prospect that your needs might change? Linux is not that specialized in any case, you could still use a different distro than the one optimal for your needs. But the best way is to use what serves you best.

 

This is the first time I'm hearing something like that. Could you explain what the exact issues were?

[Kilrah]

10 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

Could you explain what the exact issues were?

Don't remember the exact versions, but the gist of it was that support for Intel ARC GPUs needed a kernel newer than {version}, but OpenZFS did not support versions that new yet.

 

  

10 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

I mean if your needs change isn't it better to switch than use a generic OS anyway with the potential prospect that your needs might change?

The point is that the generic OS should be able to handle all of it over time, so no.

[CosmicEmotion]

5 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Don't remember the exact versions, but the gist of it was that support for Intel ARC GPUs needed a kernel newer than {version}, but OpenZFS did not support versions that new yet.

 

  

The point is that the generic OS should be able to handle all of it over time, so no.

 

Interesting. I didn't think of such a possibility. Pretty special need but I guess it can happen when things are still cooking in the kernel.

 

Most Linux OSes can handle everything software wise. If you look at my categorizations they mostly concern OS features like security and optimal hardware support. If you use an older system then Mint is fine, if you want security though something immutable is the way to go. If you get new hardware and want to use it optimally CachyOS is  what you use.

 

Software wise all Linxuses can run the same programs with Flatpak. So I don't understand your point I guess. Can an OS provide optimal hardware support for older and newer systems, be secure and free to modify completely at the same time without too much hassle? I don't' think Windows provides any of these features. Diversity is always good and allows for more freedom of movement.

[RollyShed]

10 hours ago, CosmicEmotion said:

I recently had overheating issues on Linux and thus booted into Windows when trying to play any games. Until that also didn't work anymore.

Overheating - simple. Use a compressed air blower and blow out all the dust.

 

A very common problem. A laptop can go from just about burning a finger on the underside to just about being able to tell that it is running after cleaning as it is so cool.

 

As for others and installation of Linux Mint. What problems? Simple and straight forward.

I had a Windows7 laptop to look at the past few days, what a mess, so limited.

[wasab]

I distro hop in the past. Fedora and ubuntu are by far my go to when I just want something reliable. I ditched fedora recently because I don't really like having to deal with rolling release in which I am force to upgrade my system every year. Ubuntu LTS with its half decade support life works better.