3 years with Linux OS & no freezes or lockups or other problems!!

I worked in the IT industry for a good while and am very knowledgable about computers and networks (25+ years experience). Been using Linux on and off since about 03 but made a switch about 3 years ago for my main OS and have used a Linux distro as the full time OS (at least 8 hours a day average over that time). I used to have to re-install my Windows OS about every 6 months b/c it would get so slow (corrupted??) it was unusable and would freeze up or slow to a crawl daily. I haven't had my system freeze up once in the last 3 years except for when I had a defective video card and once that was fixed, no more problems.

I can do everything on my Linux OS that I could do on Windows and it seems over-all faster. I actually run Windows within the Linux OS as a virtual machine (VM) so if there are programs that aren't available on Linux, I install on the VM. I know this system supports a lot of games but I don't know if it supports games like Windows (though it is more than capable of it, the games may not be written for it).

I also found that the system is much more secure and I haven't had a problem with viruses like I used to, nor spyware/adware as this is all blocked naturally by the OS. Now you must keep the default security setting on the OS (which are more strict than Windows) and follow standard procedures and this will basically remove the need for any AV software.

Hardware has been no problem. I havent' found any hardware that doesn't work with my OS.

I just thought I would mention this to people who may have problems with their systems freezing up.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I have looked into Linux before but I always found issues, like internet not working, etc. Plus the fact that there aren't as many programs available, but it looks like you figured a way around that. I am going to have to give it a shot again. It has been years since I last tried.

The one I tried was a bootable Ubuntu.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Nope. No problems with: freezing up, updates (taking ages and not working rolling back etc.), virusses, trojans, other mallware and or other problems since I went Linux years ago.
In fact. I'm no longer capable of ever using Windows again because it eats up my patience very fast.

originally posted by: DigginFoTroof
I worked in the IT industry for a good while and am very knowledgable about computers and networks (25+ years experience). Been using Linux on and off since about 03 but made a switch about 3 years ago for my main OS and have used a Linux distro as the full time OS (at least 8 hours a day average over that time). I used to have to re-install my Windows OS about every 6 months b/c it would get so slow (corrupted??) it was unusable and would freeze up or slow to a crawl daily. I haven't had my system freeze up once in the last 3 years except for when I had a defective video card and once that was fixed, no more problems.

I can do everything on my Linux OS that I could do on Windows and it seems over-all faster. I actually run Windows within the Linux OS as a virtual machine (VM) so if there are programs that aren't available on Linux, I install on the VM. I know this system supports a lot of games but I don't know if it supports games like Windows (though it is more than capable of it, the games may not be written for it).

I also found that the system is much more secure and I haven't had a problem with viruses like I used to, nor spyware/adware as this is all blocked naturally by the OS. Now you must keep the default security setting on the OS (which are more strict than Windows) and follow standard procedures and this will basically remove the need for any AV software.

Hardware has been no problem. I havent' found any hardware that doesn't work with my OS.

I just thought I would mention this to people who may have problems with their systems freezing up.

Be careful when plugging a smartphone into your PC. Watch out for SSDP servers in Firefox and other browsers. Always run wireshark to see if anything is being streamed anywhere.

Been a daily Linux user for about 7 years now, and I'm with the OP. Don't worry about viruses, things "just work". No registry to contend with. No hidden "phone home" actions happening or patches behind the scenes.

Linux still isn't ready for everyone. There's still a bit of fiddle factor at times. (video drivers, audio sometimes), but I seriously have a hard time now doing things on windows. I mostly do java development, and work with rpm based systems, so I'm currently using opensuse leap, but Ubuntu (debian based) would feel most familiar to someone exploring the move.

And since software is pretty much a commodity now, not finding the same programs for Linux really isn't an issue, except for maybe pc gaming. Most things are either online now (google docs, O365) or there's an open source equivalent (i.e. libreoffice)

And, as the op mentioned, with something like virtualbox (or docker!!), it's trivial to run other operating systems within your main system.

There are two big reasons I haven't switched to Linux as my main OS:
1. I play games and don't feel like dual-booting and switching back and forth.
2. I'm so used to using the macro keys on my keyboard for things like closing or re-opening tabs or closing windows, or adjusting the volume, and it seems like it'd be an absolute nightmare trying to get my keyboard to work in Linux. There was some software created to do that, but it doesn't work. The only other thing I can think of is to constantly run the keyboard software in Wine or something, but I don't think even that works. Apparently Roccat makes keyboards that are compatible with linux though, so maybe I'll get one of those in the distant future.
I wish ReactOS development would finish already so I can try that.

But yeah, my linux laptop is great for occasionally browsing certain... sites... that tend to be riddled with malware.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I'm right there with you brother. Been in IT for a long time, fixing Windows... always fixing Windows. Updating Windows, clearing viruses, updating drivers, re-installing... When it dawned on me about 14 years ago to go somewhere else besides Windows... I figured at least I will fix something different... So went Ubuntu, stuck with that very awesome system until the GNOME Desktop was replace (I think 11.10 was my last).. Since then I have been using Linux Mint. This is an amazing system. Sometimes you have to geek it up, but, the sources, and flat out awesome things you can do. Look for Aliens, ET's no problem, Gas Chromatograms no problem just teach thyself a bit and look at sources and dig in.. Since, I am an IT person, I have to keep abreast and tech all the other OS's - Windows 7-10, Apple IOS devices.. Android flavors galore...

Mint is my favorite.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I could have written that exact post, except that I made the full switch over ten years ago. I ran a dual boot for several years with a resident Windows install just in case, but almost never booted into Windows. Finally quit wasting that space a few years ago. I've not use a Microsoft product on ages now; it's all Linux or Chrome OS. I'll never go back!

I am always hanging around here but very rarely comment but thought I would jump in to give another vote to Linux Mint. After giving up on my Amiga systems in 1999 after high school and moving to Windows computing got steadily less enjoyable. A buddy sold me a G5 PowerMac in 2005 with 10.4 and it improved my experience a bit and I used Macs full time since I used consoles for games. I kept my eye on Linux with Fedora, Ubuntu, and several other distros for years but the Mac was good enough and not Windows so that is where I stayed. Fast forward to early this year and my 2011 MacBook Pro had too many issues to resolve, I was unhappy with Apple and convinced they've lost the plot as far as power users and features are concerned, are too tightly locking everything down, macOS became a goofy brightly colored joke, and linux was not compatible with it due to hardware bugs... So I sold it, took OS X off my desktop PC which I had done the hackintosh thing quite successfully with for years and years, and moved to Mint.

Recently I got an HP laptop and put Mint on it. While well spec'd for the price and my needs it hasn't been perfect. Things are not always smooth in Linux land but then I am usually running a latest kernel, updating to daily builds of video drivers, and generally doing things that arent recommended so I keep constant backups. But when I am not messing with things both systems are pretty much Rock solid. Most games I want to run are on steam or work really well in Wine. (Except Fallout 4 which I kept windows 10 around for while I tried a Gigabyte laptop I ultimately sent back before the HP... Windows 10 is just a creepy mess of spying and flat horrible design.)

a reply to: OneBofmany

Since you seem to be into bleeding edge software, using various dailies and whatnot, why not use Arch or another Arch based distro? It's as bleeding edge as you can get.

With plain old Arch the install process can be a royal pain in the ass and you need to keep the Arch Wiki open on a separate computer to guide you in the process, but you learn a lot about how Linux, and operating systems in general, works under the hood.

If you don't want to suffer through an Arch install, wouldn't blame you as I don't really like installing it, you could use something like Manjaro. It's based on Arch so you get all of those cool features, with a simple install, and some nice extras. MHWD, Manjaro hardware detection, in particular is an awesome feature that mitigates the driver issues people tend to have with Linux. It makes everything work out of the box. Swapping drivers is as simple as running a command and if you switch kernels, which is just as easy, maybe even easier really just one click of a button, it automatically downloads and installs the correct drivers for you.

Switched to Peppermint OS 8 recently. Posting from Windows.

There are still problems inherent to linux that are as old as linux itself, that just irk me.

Yes the games could be a reason, but I rarely play games. My gripe is having to learn new things to do something I've relied on for too long. I use Paint Shop Pro as my go to graphic app. I hate Gimp, and all alternatives. Don't see the reason to learn something convoluted just to do simple things. That is a failing on my part, but when it comes down to it, I just want it done, and not have to struggle. Wine used to let me use that in 'nix, but now Wine is Worthless Incompatible Nuisance Everything..

My webcam works a treat. But the software fails miserable. I can record a video, but after 1 minute, no matter what codec I use, or format, or setting I choose, it becomes out of sync. It just seems like it's tied together with a shoestring.. It's not a performance issue, works right out of the box in windows.

My worst problem is the apps for guitar amp emulation are just nothing compared to Guitar Rig Pro. I have to screw around with Jack and blindly drag components to other components just to hear the latency addled rubbish offered to Linux. And there is no using a VM for that, as they don't utilise Line Input. Only alternative is to dual boot.

So out of sheer frustration this afternoon, I booted into windows, and wondered why I was so determined to hit the struggle box once more. Don't get me wrong, I love Peppermint, out of all the distros I've used, this one is the least troublesome. Unless you screw up the panel by moving something and then have to run a deb package that sets it back to defaults. The clunky nature of sorting a penal to your desire has not been remedied. You still have to click, right click, drag, and hope you didn't move something else into a spot where it refuses to move back from.

The unintuitive nature of some things is still a migraine inducing factor for linux. The fonts are too small, and I can find no way to alter them, for toolbars. Dragging a window to resize it is still playing the game of "Almost got ya!" but hey someone did code a "resize" option in the tool bar, rather than make the pixel area a little bigger.

Linux is still FAR off being ready for the average desktop consumer. But IT guys with 900 years experience using Chromium and Gedit will have no problems at all.

"I can't work out how this is done. It was easy in Windows. Let me check the support forums for my distro."
*5 hours later*
"WHAT?? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? sudo apt-get install random-uncertainversion-debianpackage-dev?? I just want to change my wallpaper!!!"

One of the problems can be subtle variances in the physical and software levels, I've had machines that have gone mental due to a very small bios or software patch.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

At home, I have actually never worked with Windows at all. Even before Linux I already ran Minix and Coherent on my PC hardware. Both were Unix clones, which outperformed the alternative - DOS - in capacities (multi-user, multi-tasking), toolsets (e.g. cron, awk, sed, bc, shells etc.) and security. Actually, the basic Unix security model (rwx on user, group and others) was outstanding when compared to DOS and later Windows systems.

I have worked with Windows professionally, though. All I care to say about that is that I never understood how it was that professional companies, professional IT staff, dared to advise other professionals to work with that crappy, lame excuse for an OS in a professional environment.

My Linux systems routinely work (and keep working) for months in a row, 24 x 7. I occasionally need to reboot them to install a new kernel, but other than that, they just work.

originally posted by: Roxxo
a reply to: OneBofmany

Since you seem to be into bleeding edge software, using various dailies and whatnot, why not use Arch or another Arch based distro? It's as bleeding edge as you can get.

With plain old Arch the install process can be a royal pain in the ass and you need to keep the Arch Wiki open on a separate computer to guide you in the process, but you learn a lot about how Linux, and operating systems in general, works under the hood.

If you don't want to suffer through an Arch install, wouldn't blame you as I don't really like installing it, you could use something like Manjaro. It's based on Arch so you get all of those cool features, with a simple install, and some nice extras. MHWD, Manjaro hardware detection, in particular is an awesome feature that mitigates the driver issues people tend to have with Linux. It makes everything work out of the box. Swapping drivers is as simple as running a command and if you switch kernels, which is just as easy, maybe even easier really just one click of a button, it automatically downloads and installs the correct drivers for you.

For a while it was a toss up between Manjaro and Mint. I liked Manjaro a lot. I tried many MANY different distros and "solutions" to try to get something running on my old MacBook Pro because I loved the hardware and didn't want the expense of a new system but in the end nothing could get the hybrid graphics working. I was asking given a really terrible win 10 tablet with a dead battery that I used Manjaro on but the realtor wifi wouldn't work. (could see networks but would not connect... Had to compile the driver to even get that far.)

Arch does look like a pain to start from scratch with but if I build a new desktop in the next year I may decide to go that route since I could take my time on it and have my laptop available as my daily driver. I'd like to be as familiar with the internals of Linux as I was (and still am in many ways) with the Amiga.

I tried to go the Linux way once, but I was unable to compile anything and was left in a perpetual limbo of sorts... Went back to Windows.

I'm interested to try it again, but I want to know something, and pretend I'm a baby so I can understand please, but what is the differences between Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce and KDE versions?

Thanks.

PS: I think I still have the Mandrake books, as I got the CD version of it, but I don't understand much, bwah!

For those who may have tried Linux before 2012 and found problems with network connectivity, that was a common problem and once you learned to edit the /etc/network/config file (basically set it to DHCP or enter the IP, subnet, gateway and possibly DNS - same as Network settings in Windows) it worked fine in all linux versions since about 2004. Since 2012, much of this has been automated, especially those that operate off the Redhat packages (CentOS & Fedora) or Debian packages (Ubuntu, Mint, Cinnamon, many others).

I got SO burnt out fixing computers at my job working with all Windows PC's I needed something that "Just worked". There is a bit of a learning curve, but by now a quick google and the answer is there for every question that has been asked for the distro of choice.

As far as "not being intuitive" that has chnaged A LOT in the last 3-4 years. Ubuntu with the GNOME or KDE is SO easy to use and it has been plug and play for every computer I've put it on. Super easy install and it worked out of the box.

For those who haven't use it in some time, install a Virtual machine (VMware is good) on your system and give linux another shot.

One thing that it excels at BY FAR, is doing tech support. I can scan as many hard drives as my system supports at one time, either for viruses or hardware scans. The /etc/fstab file (and learning how to use it - very easy) makes running 50 hard drives (infinate actually I think) easy and they can be mounted far differently than in Windows where they only support drive letters or network mount points. I've just found that admining Linux is very intuitive and easy once tha path is known.

originally posted by: NowanKenubi
I tried to go the Linux way once, but I was unable to compile anything and was left in a perpetual limbo of sorts... Went back to Windows.

I'm interested to try it again, but I want to know something, and pretend I'm a baby so I can understand please, but what is the differences between Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce and KDE versions?

Thanks.

PS: I think I still have the Mandrake books, as I got the CD version of it, but I don't understand much, bwah!

well GNOME vs KDE is kind of like Coke vs Pepsi. I'd download the Live versions of Ubuntu and Kubuntu and try both. I'm a KDE fan as it is more "windows XP. Vista, 7 like" where GNOME seems more Windows 8/10.

I have found that Kubuntu 16.04 and 16.10 is a little funky at times as they depricated some network config files and automated it. I would look for 15.10 or 14.04.3 and run with those as they seemed bulletproof as far as slick installation and network working no matter what.

originally posted by: OneBofmany

originally posted by: Roxxo
a reply to: OneBofmany

Since you seem to be into bleeding edge software, using various dailies and whatnot, why not use Arch or another Arch based distro? It's as bleeding edge as you can get.

With plain old Arch the install process can be a royal pain in the ass and you need to keep the Arch Wiki open on a separate computer to guide you in the process, but you learn a lot about how Linux, and operating systems in general, works under the hood.

If you don't want to suffer through an Arch install, wouldn't blame you as I don't really like installing it, you could use something like Manjaro. It's based on Arch so you get all of those cool features, with a simple install, and some nice extras. MHWD, Manjaro hardware detection, in particular is an awesome feature that mitigates the driver issues people tend to have with Linux. It makes everything work out of the box. Swapping drivers is as simple as running a command and if you switch kernels, which is just as easy, maybe even easier really just one click of a button, it automatically downloads and installs the correct drivers for you.

For a while it was a toss up between Manjaro and Mint. I liked Manjaro a lot. I tried many MANY different distros and "solutions" to try to get something running on my old MacBook Pro because I loved the hardware and didn't want the expense of a new system but in the end nothing could get the hybrid graphics working. I was asking given a really terrible win 10 tablet with a dead battery that I used Manjaro on but the realtor wifi wouldn't work. (could see networks but would not connect... Had to compile the driver to even get that far.)

Arch does look like a pain to start from scratch with but if I build a new desktop in the next year I may decide to go that route since I could take my time on it and have my laptop available as my daily driver. I'd like to be as familiar with the internals of Linux as I was (and still am in many ways) with the Amiga.

If you are going to build a new system all you need to do is check the chipsets for the boards and cards you are buying to make sure they are supported in Linux. This was a major issue with wireless cards back in the day, as many weren't supported in Linux, so you had to make sure ot get a chipset that had drivers. I've found that just about everything Intel has linux drivers and Asus seems to pick chips supported in Linux as well.

Thank you for the info. I'll read a lot this week before attempting anything.

I'm glad my graphic cards have drivers for Linux! I might contact you on occasions if you don't mind, which is sure to happen.

Same as the OP here. I use Windows machines including Windows Servers at work but at home, I switched to Linux servers (3 in total.) I have had zero issues for the last 5 years or so. No re-installs, viruses, trojans or even crashes. For those odd programs, I use a VM as well. And, learning Linux command line has done wonders for my general knowledge. I'm not trying to bash on Windows (no pun intended) but my Linux rigs are solid.