Linux Distros, what's your favorites?

[kojack]

I am starting to become interested in linux distros.  I am wondering what is everyones favorite distros.  I am liking the visuals on garuda and zorin.  Both are vastly different but really cool at the same time. 

[Etern4l]

Clear Linux - the fastest

Ubuntu Mate - one of the lightest and yet nicest WM IMHO

[kojack]

Since I am mostly into graphics, photo and video editing with my systems, the lack of DirectX on linux distros make them much slower for doing graphics/video and photo editing work from what I have been witnessing.  There are numerous videos and articles discussing this. Too bad too, because I would enjoy some of them I think. 

[Sandy Bridge]

On 1/30/2023 at 2:26 PM, kojack said:

Since I am mostly into graphics, photo and video editing with my systems, the lack of DirectX on linux distros make them much slower for doing graphics/video and photo editing work from what I have been witnessing.  There are numerous videos and articles discussing this. Too bad too, because I would enjoy some of them I think. 

What about programs running Vulkan?  It's cross-platform including Linux and high performance.

 

I don't know how much of a performance hit there would be with OpenGL or running DirectX via WINE, but those might be options too.

 

I haven't explored new Linux distros in some time, but when I did most recently I settled on Mint as one that makes it pretty convenient to get up and running out of the box.  No hunting for proprietary codecs if you need them.  Several different desktop environments available - Cinnamon, MATE, and I guess they dropped the KDE edition, but they still have XFCE.  I'm not a fan of plain-old GNOME - too streamlined and not as customization-friendly as KDE - but found Mint had pretty good defaults and some additional Mint-specific software that made it easier to operate through the UI without dropping back to the command line as much.  Which as an end user I like, I don't want to be a sys admin.

 

I've heard good things about Zorin OS, and it seems to fill the same niche as being easy to use from a GUI standpoint.  Only downside is I always think of the Bond villain of the same name.

 

I've also heard good things about Pop! OS for similar reasons of ease of use.  I've long been curious about elementary OS as well, and it just had a new major-version release a few days ago.

[kojack]

2 hours ago, Sandy Bridge said:

What about programs running Vulkan?  It's cross-platform including Linux and high performance.

 

I don't know how much of a performance hit there would be with OpenGL or running DirectX via WINE, but those might be options too.

 

I haven't explored new Linux distros in some time, but when I did most recently I settled on Mint as one that makes it pretty convenient to get up and running out of the box.  No hunting for proprietary codecs if you need them.  Several different desktop environments available - Cinnamon, MATE, and I guess they dropped the KDE edition, but they still have XFCE.  I'm not a fan of plain-old GNOME - too streamlined and not as customization-friendly as KDE - but found Mint had pretty good defaults and some additional Mint-specific software that made it easier to operate through the UI without dropping back to the command line as much.  Which as an end user I like, I don't want to be a sys admin.

 

I've heard good things about Zorin OS, and it seems to fill the same niche as being easy to use from a GUI standpoint.  Only downside is I always think of the Bond villain of the same name.

 

I've also heard good things about Pop! OS for similar reasons of ease of use.  I've long been curious about elementary OS as well, and it just had a new major-version release a few days ago.

I have used Elementary and Mint.  I am going to get a system set up where I can try various distros and see if there is one I can live with. As far as directX goes, I don't think it can run well in WINE and the emulation would slow down any benefit that might have been had there.  Hopefully more linux dev's can work a directX patch into their builds or something.  The difference between the two was eye opening to say the least. Oh, and like you, I don't want to be in a command line environment.  I did that in the early 80's with my TRS-80 and early DOS. That's why we progress, to get out of that type of system. 

[Sandy Bridge]

On 2/4/2023 at 5:31 AM, kojack said:

I have used Elementary and Mint.  I am going to get a system set up where I can try various distros and see if there is one I can live with. As far as directX goes, I don't think it can run well in WINE and the emulation would slow down any benefit that might have been had there.  Hopefully more linux dev's can work a directX patch into their builds or something.  The difference between the two was eye opening to say the least. Oh, and like you, I don't want to be in a command line environment.  I did that in the early 80's with my TRS-80 and early DOS. That's why we progress, to get out of that type of system. 

I suppose I don't yet follow the focus on DirectX.  It sounds like you specifically want to run a Windows program.  DirectX is proprietary Microsoft technology, so as long as Windows is selling well and Microsoft feels DirectX is a competitive advantage, it's never going to come to Linux with native support.  And since you can only target DirectX support on Windows, you'll always have to run it via WINE (AFAIK).

 

Thus it's more difficult to get good reliable performance for DirectX on Linux than it is to get, say, compatibility with 3dfx's Glide API on non-3dfx cards on Windows.  You not only have to emulate the graphics API, but have to emulate the rest of the system API via WINE.  There will always be a performance disadvantage, the question is how much of one.

 

If you are serious about potentially switching to Linux and performance parity is important, finding Linux-native programs for your workflows is what I would advise.  I've heard GIMP can replace Photoshop effectively (after a bit of a learning curve), for example.  There's probably an equivalent in video editing too, although I don't really know much about that on either platform.

 

I gather that neither Elementary nor Mint made that livable standard?  I'm curious as to the reasons why.  That might also help others identify which other distros are promising for your needs.

[kojack]

10 minutes ago, Sandy Bridge said:

I suppose I don't yet follow the focus on DirectX.  It sounds like you specifically want to run a Windows program.  DirectX is proprietary Microsoft technology, so as long as Windows is selling well and Microsoft feels DirectX is a competitive advantage, it's never going to come to Linux with native support.  And since you can only target DirectX support on Windows, you'll always have to run it via WINE (AFAIK).

 

Thus it's more difficult to get good reliable performance for DirectX on Linux than it is to get, say, compatibility with 3dfx's Glide API on non-3dfx cards on Windows.  You not only have to emulate the graphics API, but have to emulate the rest of the system API via WINE.  There will always be a performance disadvantage, the question is how much of one.

 

If you are serious about potentially switching to Linux and performance parity is important, finding Linux-native programs for your workflows is what I would advise.  I've heard GIMP can replace Photoshop effectively (after a bit of a learning curve), for example.  There's probably an equivalent in video editing too, although I don't really know much about that on either platform.

 

I gather that neither Elementary nor Mint made that livable standard?  I'm curious as to the reasons why.  That might also help others identify which other distros are promising for your needs.

No I am not wanting to run windows software.  I am stating the fact that direct x makes creative apps work MUCH FASTER.  The videos I watched where they were testing video editing software were using native for each OS.  With direct x off, the Linux systems were around 10% quicker than the windows system using the same software.  Move to direct X for coding, and the windows systems were 30-40 % faster doing the same task.  I hope linux software dev's can figure this out. 

 

When I get home from work, I will put up a few videos I have watched so I can get your opinion on if I am correct in my deductions from them.  Or am I missing something!

[Reciever]

Manjaro 

[Etern4l]

On 1/30/2023 at 7:26 PM, kojack said:

Since I am mostly into graphics, photo and video editing with my systems, the lack of DirectX on linux distros make them much slower for doing graphics/video and photo editing work from what I have been witnessing.  There are numerous videos and articles discussing this. Too bad too, because I would enjoy some of them I think. 

 

Move to direct X for coding, and the windows systems were 30-40 % faster doing the same task.  

 

That doesn't make much sense to me. DirectX is primarily a gaming API. Linux relies primarily on the professional API OpenGL, with things like Vulkan growing in popularity. Even if we are talking about hardcore application in games, I don't recall seeing a huge difference in performance when running say Heaven Benchmark in DX and GL modes (it supports both).

 

Also, in my experience. Application GUIs are noticeably more responsive when running on Linux as opposed than Windows, and on some Linux distros you can expect to see up to ca. 30% more CPU performance from the same software running on Linux (not to mention the difference in I/O performance).

 

Maybe you have a link to one of those videos of reference? You know, if you formulate virtually any thesis, there will be a video on YT to support it for you.

 

If I were to do any serious photo work, my primary concern would be the lack of native Photoshop - not sure if and how well that would run on Wine, or whether any truly competitive alternatives exist (Gimp more than covers my current modest requirements, although I did some studio-level Photoshop work a while back and knew the software inside-out then). Things look better on the video editing side, e.g. there is a Linux version of Davinci Resolve.  

 

 

  

1 hour ago, Reciever said:

Manjaro 

 

I really like the feel of Manjaro, probably one of the most fun distros to use, unfortunately in my testing about 6 months ago, it turned out to be one of the slowest, possibly due to all the cool bells and whistles, or there was an issue with Alder Lake support (although the kernel was as recent as would be expected from an Arch derivative). 

 

[kojack]

1 hour ago, Etern4l said:

 

That doesn't make much sense to me. DirectX is primarily a gaming API. Linux relies primarily on the professional API OpenGL, with things like Vulkan growing in popularity. Even if we are talking about hardcore application in games, I don't recall seeing a huge difference in performance when running say Heaven Benchmark in DX and GL modes (it supports both).

 

Also, in my experience. Application GUIs are noticeably more responsive when running on Linux as opposed than Windows, and on some Linux distros you can expect to see up to ca. 30% more CPU performance from the same software running on Linux (not to mention the difference in I/O performance).

 

Maybe you have a link to one of those videos of reference? You know, if you formulate virtually any thesis, there will be a video on YT to support it for you.

 

If I were to do any serious photo work, my primary concern would be the lack of native Photoshop - not sure if and how well that would run on Wine, or whether any truly competitive alternatives exist (Gimp more than covers my current modest requirements, although I did some studio-level Photoshop work a while back and knew the software inside-out then). Things look better on the video editing side, e.g. there is a Linux version of Davinci Resolve.  

 

 

  

 

I really like the feel of Manjaro, probably one of the most fun distros to use, unfortunately in my testing about 6 months ago, it turned out to be one of the slowest, possibly due to all the cool bells and whistles, or there was an issue with Alder Lake support (although the kernel was as recent as would be expected from an Arch derivative). 

 

As I mentioned, the videos I watched are what I am judging this speed difference on.  I have no personal experience with linux besides a small stint with older elementary OS about 4 years ago with my old macbook. I will go through youtube now to try to find what I watched so I can get some feedback from people who use linux.  Also, I have not used real photoshop in years.  There are much better options right now. 

[Reciever]

@Hiew is a big fan of it, AUR and it's quicker rolling updates were a big plus.

 

I used it in a live session for pulling Mac addresses off of windows systems we didn't have access to. The PM in charge of the project didn't mention needing that info until right before we shipped and I didn't want to redeploy windows. 

 

I am planning to put manjaro on my AM4 system and see how that goes, I don't have any desire to move to windows 11 but also going cold turkey is equally discouraging lol

[Etern4l]

@kojack Cool, what are the current favorable Photoshop replacements BTW? Always good to know. If native Linux versions exist, I would have very few upfront performance worries. 

[kojack]

Right now I use luminar neo, Affinity suite, polarr, resolve and videoProc vlogger as my main creative software. None of which are subscription based services. Up front cost and done for life. \

 

I am actually wanting to try the linux free software available. Just from what I have been seeing is that it's really slow compared to windows.  I have been scouring youtube trying to find the exact video I watched but can't find it.  If I do, I will put it up!

[kojack]

Damn, I just went through everything I would need software wise, I could get everything I needed besides affinity suite.  I use this and NEED it for my graphics creation. I have literally 1000s of affinity based rasters for clothing design and I cannot move them to another program as they will not work correctly.  OH well, tied to windows.  I will install linux and try one of the files in another graphics suite and see if they work correctly but I have my doubts.  

[Sandy Bridge]

Huh, those are some interesting applications.  I'm never going to have the same level of trust of night sky photos after looking at Luminar Neo's sky enhancement technology though!

 

As a software developer, the blanket statement about DirectX doesn't make sense to me.  From the benchmarks I have followed, mostly on Phoronix, a Linux journalism site, the key factor that can result in much lower Linux graphics performance, particularly for games, is using less optimized drivers.  Use open-source nVIDIA drivers, and you can indeed be looking at a 30% performance loss, but the problem is in the drivers, not the graphics API.  Last I checked (and it's been a while), AMD open-source drivers had less of a disparity with their closed-source drivers and with their Windows drivers, and nVIDIA closed-source drivers were pretty good too.  No idea about Intel, I've never run Linux with Intel graphics.

 

How much of that "drivers matter a lot more on Linux" carries over into video and photo editing, I'm not sure, but that is something to do some research on.  Especially if you're on nVIDIA, I'd recommend the proprietary drivers.

 

For DirectX versus OpenGL/Vulkan... DirectX12 and Vulkan are the highest-performance options for those willing to spend the time to implement them well.  They're both low-level and high performance.  DirectX 11 and earlier, as well as OpenGL, are older, higher-level APIs.  For a while OpenGL may have been trailing a bit behind DirectX 10 and 11, but it was on Mac where that was really noticeable as Apple fell a long way behind current OpenGL support.

 

Not that there aren't instances of programs where the development team wrote the application on Windows first and knew DirectX quite well, and then ported it to Linux but didn't really know OpenGL well and wound up with a much less performant port, I am sure that has happened.  And maybe the elusive videos you've mentioned were benchmarking applications where something like that had happened.  But I wouldn't expect that to be the case across the board.

 

In terms of specific benchmarks, Puget Systems (a Seattle-based builder of boutique PCs) did a detailed Linux vs Windows (with nVIDIA graphics) comparison a few years ago, which you can read here.  Their tl;dr conclusion was they were surprised to see a slight edge (single-digit percentage) for Windows 10, but not enough that they would recommend anyone choose Windows 10 just for that slight edge.  Although they did touch on the "drivers on Linux" challenge:

 

The second is that we used a completely fresh install of CentOS 7.4 rather than the CentOS 7.3 ISO provided by Blackmagic. We actually tried that ISO initially, but we were seeing extremely low performance – often half of what we achieved in Windows 10. We tried updating the kernel and drivers to see if that would resolve the issue, but we ran into major issues with the OS becoming unstable. So instead, we did a fresh install using CentOS 7.4 and installed the video and other drivers ourselves.

 

That kind of issue is a significant part of why I haven't looked much at Linux in recent years - updating graphics drivers was never as reliable as on Windows.  I'd update my open-source AMD graphics drivers and the graphical user interface wouldn't work any more.  Maybe my card was too old, maybe it was too new, but it wasn't worth my time debugging.

[kojack]

Yes, Luminar is awesome for real estate photography which is what I would be using it for.  Also yes, Most night sky photos now are luminar/software produced and not an actual photo.  I am doing more research on the linux thing for sure. I want to load it up on my workstation on dual boot and see how I like it. 

[cylix]

So lets revive the thread a little bit. Just got a cheap HP Z640 for 90 Euros from ebay (e5-2620v3, 16gb ), was broken. It had 4 pins bend on the CPU lol, 10 min later it working :D. I got a cheap M4000 Quadro and a e5-2667v4 for 100 euro both and some 2x2tb Iron wolfs and now im thinkin to put an nvme pcie on it and get Win Server2022 on half of it and a Linux on the other half. Now i need your help cus last Linux that i installed was 15 years ago (ubuntu). 😄

Which distro is the best and noob friendly for a Server? Also can i dual boot without problems on win and Linux on this machine?

 

 

 

 

[Linux]

After some back and forth i have finally settled with debian-based TuxedoOS. Everything is running fine, even a nice control-center with fan controls. They sell laptops and desktops for Linux, but the software is running on my Clevo without issues.

[crz]

I used Ubuntu about 10 years ago and was surprised that moving to it from Windows did not cause me any significant problems, it had a very convenient and pleasant user interface and immediately made me love it. In the future, I want to try something else such as Debian or Manjaro, in particular due to the increasingly heavy, limiting capabilities and overgrown with unnecessary functionality of Windows.

[ryan]

feet are wet in linux finally, just installed zorin 2 days ago. Im liking the IO speed as @Etern4l mentions. reasons I converted one of my 4tb drives was because now it will be used as my primary gaming OS as the experience is smoother on my omen, no microstutters and buttery smooth. grid autosport never dipping below 60 at 4k ultra is a perfect example whearas on windows constant lag spikes and hang ups.

 

LINUX 4 THE WIN

[Eban]

Hey fellas, the gamer girl,

I'm looking for advice on a linux home file server distro.

I was reading about it a few months back and an idea got stuck in my head. Now of course I can't find the article I was reading.

 

Anyway scenario is this. I have a bunch of small ssds, hdds and even a sshd, all different sizes (2tb, 1tb, 512, 265). I want them all in 1 file server that will connect to my tv via usb and treat all those small hdds as 1 big one.

 

I have found some distros that will do this but with caveats eg 2tb hdd PLUS x2 1tb hdds.

 

The distro I read about would take all shapes and sizes without the need for "balance".

CasaOS maybe?

 

Does anyone follow my badly phrased question? An idea of what I'm even looking for?

 

Thanking you in advance

 

Edit: Drivepool is the "keyword" I'm looking for. 

Edited November 4 by Eban
Concept

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, Eban said:

I want them all in 1 file server that will connect to my tv via usb and treat all those small hdds as 1 big one.

 

You should be able to do this with MDRAID on pretty much any distro.  Set up the drives in a single RAID 0 pool.  Requires a bit of terminal work to get it set up.  https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-raid-arrays-with-mdadm-on-ubuntu

[Eban]

@Aaron44126 thank you I will check it out