LQ Poll: What is still missing from Linux for you?
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One item missing is a safe browser. I use firefox, but it has issues. People talk about Chrome, written by a data collector and seller. Even the Open Source version of Chrome/Chromium has a closed source portion. Even though I do not use Chrome, Ubuntu puts files on my computer for Chrome.
In the very early eighties, about 1981, one of the "killer apps", that created a new industry of independent developers, and small business people who found that they could write software for their own companies, was a program called dBASE II, written in assembler for the CP/M operating system. Today, we have very impressive "back end" databases, but no single layer (written in 1 language, such as C) program that allows us to create our own applications. It seems that the closest would be a Gambas with a library of commands that gives us a mix of size/speed/lack of complexity/versatility.
Browser: You might want to check out Vivaldi and Brave. Vivaldi values privacy and has lots of advanced features. I love it. (It is based on Chromium though.) Brave is very privacy oriented. I haven't used it much. They have a cool micro payments option to replace some of the revenue from all the ads that they block.
Database: I managed to write a few dBaseII applications. It was fun, but buggy. I never quite graduated to SQL ... What do you think of Base (part of LibreOffice/OpenOffice)?
For me, audio capability seems to be lacking compared to Windows.
Under Windows, if you want a systemwide audio equalizer, there's Equalizer APO. You download and configure it for your output device and log out, and you can download Peace to give you a graphical parametric EQ.
With Linux, if you want a systemwide EQ under Pulseaudio, you have 2 options:
1) pulseaudio-equalizer: the underlying PA module is due for removal, and has some pretty noticeable stutter/lag (at least 1/2 sec) when playback pauses/stops, and introduces audio hitches sometimes.
2) pulse effects: has a ton of features including systemwide EQ, but on my system adds noise/distortion even without any effects enabled (just used as a passthrough).
If you ditch PA and just use Alsa, there is alsaequal, however you run into the issue of a lot of software (e.g. Firefox) requiring PA for sound.
Finally, you can pipe PA output to JACK and use Calf (so you don't have to worry about PA-mandatory applications), however this setup is fiendishly complex in terms of the amount of stuff you have to add to your audio pipeline, and if/when an application's sound doesn't work, you're hosed. I tried this and simply could not figure out why VLC worked fine but Firefox was silent.
Maybe my use case is rare.
I concur. None of those are anything near as good as any equalizer that I have experienced on Windows. It would be really nice if I could fine tune the sound coming out of my speakers. An equalizer with at least 8 different frequencies or more.
Distribution: Slackware64-current with "True Multilib" and KDE4Town.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by josephj
Browser: .....Vivaldi values privacy.....
I don't believe that is really true. You might want do a search for interviews with the founder and his comments on how the project is financially supported. I loved the original Opera, but I don't trust vivaldi or google any farther than I could pick up the Empire State Building and throw it.
I concur. None of those are anything near as good as any equalizer that I have experienced on Windows. It would be really nice if I could fine tune the sound coming out of my speakers. An equalizer with at least 8 different frequencies or more.
Me too. This got me motivated to repost this on the Pulseaudio list. We'll see what happens. Since these are really applications and not part of pulseaudio itself, they may just be off topic there.
I don't believe that is really true. You might want do a search for interviews with the founder and his comments on how the project is financially supported. I loved the original Opera, but I don't trust vivaldi or google any farther than I could pick up the Empire State Building and throw it.
I searched briefly and didn't find much. Nothing that looked evil:
Quote:
In addition to that, Vivaldi emphasises its focus on privacy and stability, claiming that no user data is either collected by the browser or sent to other parties, including Google.
From: https://arstechnica.com/information-...million-users/
The revenue source from the Vivaldi browser appears to be from advertising and search partners. Can you elaborate on why some of these particular partners were chosen, such as Bing as the default search browser and eBay as a tile on the Speed Dial interface?
We generate revenue from search and select bookmarks. We try to select the kind of partners our users will like. All our deals are revenue share, so it is important to make the right choices as otherwise people will just change search engines and delete the bookmarks. To be frank, we include a number of bookmarks as well that generate no revenue for us. We are trying to include a great set for the benefit of our users and the list has been generated based on user feedback. We have customized bookmarks for many countries.
Reliability. That's the one shame about Linux (Ubuntu and Linux Mint, anyway). I get a kernel panic, roughly, 4 times a week!
But because of the advantages of Linux, it is still worth it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tkninja
Reliability. That's the one shame about Linux (Ubuntu and Linux Mint, anyway). I get a kernel panic, roughly, 4 times a week!
But because of the advantages of Linux, it is still worth it.
Reliability. That's the one shame about Linux (Ubuntu and Linux Mint, anyway). I get a kernel panic, roughly, 4 times a week!
But because of the advantages of Linux, it is still worth it.
You need to get that sorted out. It is not normal.
Oh. Yeah, I tried Slackware, Debian, Windows, and Ubuntu, and am using Linux Mint right now. All of them (except Windows and Debian, mostly) crashed a lot .
Okay then, if that's not normal, then I'll check that out.
Oh. Yeah, I tried Slackware, Debian, Windows, and Ubuntu, and am using Linux Mint right now. All of them (except Windows and Debian, mostly) crashed a lot .
Okay then, if that's not normal, then I'll check that out.
Definitely not normal. I have been using Linux for under 2 years, but on 2 desktops and 2 laptops from 4 manufacturers I have had installed variously multiboot Slackware, and Debian and Ubuntu flavours/derivatives with Windows XP and 10, and now one of them Xubuntu single boot, as well as sometimes using Puppies and TinyCore.
I have gotten a kernel panic only a handful of times, and then only when I've been messing with something, usually on my most finicky hardware (Asus desktop and Toshiba laptop) and once when I installed a wrong kernel.
I know you said Win doesn't crash, and Debian rarely (I think?), but maybe hardware related?
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Originally Posted by TheTKS
Definitely not normal. I have been using Linux for under 2 years, but on 2 desktops and 2 laptops from 4 manufacturers I have had installed variously multiboot Slackware, and Debian and Ubuntu flavours/derivatives with Windows XP and 10, and now one of them Xubuntu single boot, as well as sometimes using Puppies and TinyCore.
I have gotten a kernel panic only a handful of times, and then only when I've been messing with something, usually on my most finicky hardware (Asus desktop and Toshiba laptop) and once when I installed a wrong kernel.
I know you said Win doesn't crash, and Debian rarely (I think?), but maybe hardware related?
TKS
I've been using Linux since the Spring of '95 or '96 and have tried various distributions, but went back to Slackware, exclusively, about 10 years ago.
In all those years the only kernel panics I've experienced were self induced, that is, I was tweaking this and that and had no one to blame but myself.
Last edited by cwizardone; 06-06-2018 at 10:59 PM.
I'm an end user, and in 10 years, Linux has allowed me to perform everything I want my computer to do, including, thanks to Steam, all the games I want to play at 70 years of age. Ubuntu MATE FTW!
Last edited by oldrocker99; 06-06-2018 at 11:41 PM.
Oh. Yeah, I tried Slackware, Debian, Windows, and Ubuntu, and am using Linux Mint right now. All of them (except Windows and Debian, mostly) crashed a lot .
Okay then, if that's not normal, then I'll check that out.
I experienced crashes on Linux OS in (at least) one f the following conditions:
- errors in the installation process;
- problems (defects) in hardware;
- my mistakes in something I did (in the beginnings, of course ) ;
- 3rdparty software that ruined the system.
My history with Linux (in summary) :
Due do lots of problems with Windows, mainly 98, ME and XP, I decided to try Linux and... I found problems with Linux SO, of course. But... I also found solutions. And those solutions were not limited to "format HD and reinstall the SO". And that new approach made me happy
Reliability. That's the one shame about Linux (Ubuntu and Linux Mint, anyway). I get a kernel panic, roughly, 4 times a week!
But because of the advantages of Linux, it is still worth it.
You definitely have a problem and it's not those distros. I have been using Linux since I switched from using Windows on Sept. 2015. That is not normal. The only time I would experience stability problems in Linux is from poorly made distros, installation went wrong, poorly made software, and if I made a mistake to cause it which is no longer the case with experience. I found MX Linux to be solid as a rock.
Distribution: Mainly Devuan, antiX, & Void, with Tiny Core, Fatdog, & BSD thrown in.
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I've been using Linux, (& on occasion BSD), since 1999 - mainly Debian/Debian based - Linux is as stable as any other O/S - Ubuntu & it's derivatives do crash sometimes because they are using some softwares that haven't had much testing - if you stick with 'stable' distros you won't have any bother.
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