Why not Linux?

[masterpi]

Seems most people who get there pc will go for windows by default. With many GNU/Linux distributions available are you able to live without windows? I know many applications like many games and other software are not available on Linux but if you do not depend on such applications are you willing to give Linux a try?

I can live without a Windows Box, I use linux for office work, virtualbox, for gaming with Steam playing Dota 2 and for music. With most applications going on cloud, it is now possible to use Linux as a desktop and Fedora is my choice of distribution.

 

[Cxpher]

GO ahead, use it. And cry over how most common desktop hardware don't have any usable drivers on Linux.

I have said this before and I'll say it again and again:

• All 802.11ac USB adapters have NO built-in drivers in the kernel
• Manufacturers do not release Linux drivers, period. If the device is not supported in Linus's mainline kernel, consider yourself screwed. That pathetic driver code dumps you're lucky to find out there are only good for building on one specific kernel version. Come next kernel update, I hope you love playing with bricks, because that's what your hardware becomes when the driver breaks with every new kernel release.
• Linux has NO separation of drivers from the kernel. That regular driver updates you take for granted on Windows? I hope you enjoy compiling the whole kernel every 2 months
• Any driver crash locks up the whole kernel. And it happens TOO GODDAMN OFTEN. Compare this to Windows where a driver can actually recover itself after crashing, and actually does so successfully most of the time.
• Core utilities, application binaries and runtime libraries are practically wielded to each other. Glibc, libstdc++ and a whole bunch of critical libraries CANNOT be upgraded for the life of an entire distribution release or all major userland items break.
• Applications and programs in repositories are always behind upstream releases unless the user is willing to recompile them himself from source code
• Need to write own config files for many daemons
• Many settings and configurations are not exposed by the GUI.
• In-kernel drivers ALWAYS regress with every new release.
• So-called 'alternative' software in Linux are ******** most of the time. LibreOffice is at v6 and STILL can't save to OOXML properly.
• Applications natively compiled for Linux have worse performance than the same software compiled for Windows.
• X (the current display stack) is a fragile piece of crap that breaks something with every new release. Wayland (a display protocol designed as the successor to X) is completely lacking at this point of time. Fallback X compatibility on Wayland is another complete mess that will take YEARS to sort out.
• Dependency hell. There is no such luxury of double-clicking an EXE and just clicking 'Next' like in Windows. In Windows, applications are distributed as self-contained bundles with all required runtime libraries and binaries packaged together. In Linux, YOU are responsible for tracking down each and every dependency before installing a package.
• The same EXE can be installed in Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 perfectly. In Linux, installing a package from targeted at a different distribution version breaks the whole damn system. For real.
• Forget about Linux on a laptop. Since 2009, I have had no luck with getting the laptop the sleep on screen close. It either hangs, refuses to sleep, refuses to wake up, or in one particularly nasty case, corrupted my filesystem. And it still happens IN 2018.

TLDR version: everything you take for granted in Windows does not work properly in Linux. Full stop.
Speaking as a Linux user since 2009 and still doing so.

Glad you're enjoying it still. Arch user here.

 

[flee0308]

You guys think too much. Just buy dell laptop can liao lol

 

[dryteletubby]

You guys think too much. Just buy dell laptop can liao lol

Do they sell their developer edition here? Not sure if they will honour warranty if not running Windows.

 

[OutBreak]

No idea whats that guy complaining about Linux.. I have been running Linux Mint for quite a long time and the only thing I am pissed is the poor support for USB wifi ac adapter. Hard to find one that is fully supported by the kernel out of the box.

 

[davidktw]

No idea whats that guy complaining about Linux.. I have been running Linux Mint for quite a long time and the only thing I am pissed is the poor support for USB wifi ac adapter. Hard to find one that is fully supported by the kernel out of the box.

Would this helps ?
https://www.asus.com/sg/Networking/USBAC56/
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/USB-AC56/DR_USB_AC56_4314_Linux.zip

If you like something smaller and you are more adventurous
https://www.asus.com/sg/Networking/USB-AC53-Nano/
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2362669

 

[Rock-kun]

Would this helps ?
https://www.asus.com/sg/Networking/USBAC56/
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/USB-AC56/DR_USB_AC56_4314_Linux.zip

If you like something smaller and you are more adventurous
https://www.asus.com/sg/Networking/USB-AC53-Nano/
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2362669

Those won't work. The official drivers are for extremely old versions of the kernel.

Most of the time the only way to get working drivers for 802.11ac USB adapters is to search github for code dumps of the official drivers that hackers have modified or patched to work on newer kernels.

There are only two significant manufacturers of 802.11ac USB adapters; Realtek and Mediatek. It's easier to find code repositories for the Realtek adapters. The Mediatek ones are mostly out of date and won't build for anything newer than 4.14. The official Mediatek drivers are the worst; they are written only for kernel 2.6.x even though we are already at 4.17.

Also, most of these drivers cannot utilize nl80211 and cfg80211. They rely on the deprecated WEXT and won't work on NetworkManager. I get around that by manually invoking wpa_supplicant and passing handwritten SSID config files to it.

 

[Rock-kun]

No idea whats that guy complaining about Linux.. I have been running Linux Mint for quite a long time and the only thing I am pissed is the poor support for USB wifi ac adapter. Hard to find one that is fully supported by the kernel out of the box.

You have NOT tried using Linux on a laptop or desktop with Nvidia hardware under Wayland.

 

[davidktw]

Those won't work. The official drivers are for extremely old versions of the kernel.

Most of the time the only way to get working drivers for 802.11ac USB adapters is to search github for code dumps of the official drivers that hackers have modified or patched to work on newer kernels.

There are only two significant manufacturers of 802.11ac USB adapters; Realtek and Mediatek. It's easier to find code repositories for the Realtek adapters. The Mediatek ones are mostly out of date and won't build for anything newer than 4.14. The official Mediatek drivers are the worst; they are written only for kernel 2.6.x even though we are already at 4.17.

Also, most of these drivers cannot utilize nl80211 and cfg80211. They rely on the deprecated WEXT and won't work on NetworkManager. I get around that by manually invoking wpa_supplicant and passing handwritten SSID config files to it.

lolx.... what can i say. Having “fun” in the Linux world! — Mac OS X

These days my frequent acquaintances with Linux only have CLI. So all those fanciful UI managers, I don’t really have much interest in Configuration files is what I prefer getting things together for servers of course. Workstation wise, my favourite Mac

Perhaps the NDIS approach then

 

[Rock-kun]

lolx.... what can i say. Having “fun” in the Linux world! — Mac OS X

These days my frequent acquaintances win Linux only have CLI. So all those fanciful UI managers, I don’t really have much interest in Configuration files is what I prefer getting things together for servers of course. Workstation wise, my favourite Mac

Yeah...fun.

And people wonder why I keep bitching about Linux day in day out even though I use it daily. 80.211AC USB devices have been out for more than 5 years and there still aren't any sane drivers usable.

And as usual, Nouveau does not work properly on Nvidia hardware; needs firmware and speeds are locked to the card's boot clock speeds (which are painfully slow).

If it wasn't for the fact I've invested 10 years of effort and time trying to beat desktop Linux into submission, I'd have gone straight to Windows 10 on the day of its release.

 

[davidktw]

Yeah...fun.

And people wonder why I keep bitching about Linux day in day out even though I use it daily. 80.211AC USB devices have been out for more than 5 years and there still aren't any sane drivers usable.

And as usual, Nouveau does not work properly on Nvidia hardware; needs firmware and speeds are locked to the card's boot clock speeds (which are painfully slow).

Perhaps the NDIS approach?
update: perhaps not seems to not support drivers beyond XP

 

[Rock-kun]

Perhaps the NDIS approach?

IF you are referring to NDISwrapper, that project has been made irrelevant ever since Windows adopted WDF.

Besides, NDISwrapper only works for XP drivers. Most adapters hardly provide XP64 drivers at all.

Linux works OOTB for most (but not all) USB adapters for 802.11abgn. 5.0GHz N adapters aren't very well supported though; some simply refuse to enable to 5GHz band.

And we are already moving on to 802.11ad and 802.11ax. That puts Linux compatibility at 3 generations back.

The problem with Linux is always about the kernel. Every damned distribution uses a different kernel so it's impossible to send out a single binary kernel module package that works everywhere. And we have distributions like Ubuntu modifying the kernel API to introduce even more incompatibilities.

That's why the first thing I do on any distribution I install is to download the latest kernel source from kernel.org, compile it and install it.

 

[Rock-kun]

I even run KDE neon on my desktop (ryzen 7 nvidia gtx 1070) the focusrite usb dac works by default on Linux unlike on windows 10 where I have to manually install the drivers

USB DACs are USB Audio Class devices and do not require drivers anywhere. The only reason yours has a Windows driver is to enable proprietary features or enhancements not exposed by the generic USB Audio Class driver.

Under Linux that DAC is in no way being exploited at its full potential or capability.

 

[davidktw]

IF you are referring to NDISwrapper, that project has been made irrelevant ever since Windows adopted WDF.

Besides, NDISwrapper only works for XP drivers. Most adapters hardly provide XP64 drivers at all.

Linux works OOTB for most (but not all) USB adapters for 802.11abgn. 5.0GHz N adapters aren't very well supported though; some simply refuse to enable to 5GHz band.

And we are already moving on to 802.11ad and 802.11ax. That puts Linux compatibility at 3 generations back.

The problem with Linux is always about the kernel. Every damned distribution uses a different kernel so it's impossible to send out a single binary kernel module package that works everywhere. And we have distributions like Ubuntu modifying the kernel API to introduce even more incompatibilities.

That's why the first thing I do on any distribution I install is to download the latest kernel source from kernel.org, compile it and install it.

You don’t need to do that. Linux has drivers. You can always compile the drivers later on. You don’t need to compile the kernel. You just need to download the kernel sources and if you have any drivers with source provided, you can compile the drivers. These days, the kernel compilation don’t produce one monolithic kernel. The make process produce shared kernel libraries

 

[Rock-kun]

You don’t need to do that. Linux has drivers. You can always compile the drivers later on. You don’t need to compile the kernel. You just need to download the kernel sources and if you have any drivers with source provided, you can compile the drivers.

Some hackers make it a point to tell users that their drivers are only tested to work on mainline kernels (i.e: vanilla kernels from kernel.org without any patches or API changes), and that they will ignore all questions if the build fails / locks up / crashes distribution-specific kernels.

Also, kernel developers only entertain bug reports for upstream kernels.

Might as well do it right from the beginning and use upstream kernels from day 1, immediately after installation. Saves me a lot of future problems down the road.

Of course I know I don't have to compile a new kernel for a new driver. Unless the hacker for those patched drivers decide to be an ass and say 'Code removed for all kernel versions < 4.x' or something.

 

[davidktw]

Some hackers make it a point to tell users that their drivers are only tested to work on mainline kernels (i.e: vanilla kernels from kernel.org without any patches or API changes), and that they will ignore all questions if the build fails / locks up / crashes distribution-specific kernels.

Also, kernel developers only entertain bug reports for upstream kernels.

Might as well do it right from the beginning and use upstream kernels from day 1, immediately after installation. Saves me a lot of future problems down the road.

Of course I know I don't have to compile a new kernel for a new driver. Unless the hacker for those patched drivers decide to be an ass and say 'Code removed for all kernel versions < 4.x' or something.

Well I still wouldn’t do that just to kick start a convo with the contributors. I would have loaded a linux distribution into a VM, compile only the vanilla kernel in here and passthru the device into the VM and debug. It is not always that a distro kernel that causes issue.

There is no need to kickstart into such a path unless necessary. Compliant with the upstream has more benefits than isolating it for just one or two hardware.

 

[Rock-kun]

Well I still wouldn’t do that just to kick start a convo with the contributors. I would have loaded a linux distribution into a VM, compile only the vanilla kernel in here and passthru the device into the VM and debug. It is not always that a distro kernel that causes issue.

There is no need to kickstart into such a path unless necessary. Compliant with the upstream has more benefits than isolating it for just one or two hardware.

Regardless of how one chooses to go about with it, I'm losing my patience with desktop Linux.

And there ARE cases where the only to get a new driver is to compile a new kernel. Drivers for GPUs are one very common case. I had to build another new kernel to get my Skylake iGPUs working under Linux back in Dec 2015 because the distribution kernel in Fedora was too old.

And then I had to compile a new version of libdrm. And Mesa. and pray like mad during the make install && reboot phase that I still had a working X-based and Wayland-based desktop to boot into after the drm and Mesa drivers were installed systemwide.

 

[davidktw]

Regardless of how one chooses to go about with it, I'm losing my patience with desktop Linux.

And there ARE cases where the only to get a new driver is to compile a new kernel. Drivers for GPUs are one very common case. I had to build another new kernel to get my Skylake iGPUs working under Linux back in Dec 2015 because the distribution kernel in Fedora was too old.

And then I had to compile a new version of libdrm. And Mesa. and pray like mad during the make install && reboot phase that I still had a working X-based and Wayland-based desktop to boot into after the drm and Mesa drivers were installed systemwide.

Well the options are clear. There are times I will just buy a hammer to drive the nails, I don’t go to the blacksmith or be one myself any day soon

 

[OutBreak]

You have NOT tried using Linux on a laptop or desktop with Nvidia hardware under Wayland.

I am using Linux Mint on a desktop dude. I have stop playing games and have stop buying overpriced Nvidia graphics card.

 

[OutBreak]

Would this helps ?
https://www.asus.com/sg/Networking/USBAC56/
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/USB-AC56/DR_USB_AC56_4314_Linux.zip

If you like something smaller and you are more adventurous
https://www.asus.com/sg/Networking/USB-AC53-Nano/
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2362669

As Rock-kun said, it doesn't work. Because most OEM provided the drivers compiled with an older kernel..