Distro/desktop enviroment/preferred programs

Aryvandaar

Aryvandaar

Active Member
I'm a bit curious of what people here are using.

Distribution: Manjaro
Desktop Enviroment: XFCE
Preferred Programs:

Terminal - Terminator
Torrent - Deluge
Browser - Palemoon
Net monitor - Wireshark
Virtual Desk - Virtualbox
Video Player - VLC
Music Player - Clementine

The reason that I love Xfce is that it's simple, it doesn't have a lot of dependencies (like KDE), and with that comes more choices for the user.

Initially, what I loved most with Manjaro was how well it run on my PCs, and how problem free the live CD boot was compared to other distributions I've tried. That is the main reason why I stick around. Other features that I love in Manjaro is mhwd.

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=Manjaro_Hardware_Detection_Overview

The forums are very friendly, and any question is okay to ask. Manjaro is the distro that have allowed me to grow most while using Linux.

And then there is the package manager. I really love pacman, but Arch deserves the praise for that one.
 
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Distribution: Debian (sid)
Desktop Enviroment: KDE
Preferred Programs:

Terminal - Konsole
Torrent - KTorrent
Browser - All of them... (I'm a web developer, gotta test that the frontend is functioning on most of modern browsers)
Net monitor - Nethogs (not sure if it counts, I use it rarely)
Virtual Desk - Virtualbox
Video Player - SMPlayer
Music Player - Cantata (mpd client)

I love KDE. I used to use GNOME years ago but uh... that's not a viable option now. Recently I've been thinking of moving to i3 Window Manager or maybe OpenBox, set up the usual Virtual Desktops since I use them to isolate programs by tasks. I'm just gonna sit on it until I do my proper research and come up with a desirable solution.

Before going full Debian, I considered just install Manjaro but... I ran into some problems that I couldn't fully test it. Plus even with their openbox set up I felt extremely uncomfortable not having a full desktop environment... (although I could have installed KDE and be done with it)

But well, between Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Zenwalk, etc... I just decided to go to the root of it and here I am now. A happy Debian user. Once Jessie stable is out I might just settle down and stick with that until the time to upgrade comes.
 
Distribution: Fedora
Desktop Environment: KDE
Preferred Programs:

Terminal: gterm
Torrent: don't do much with torrents any more
Browser: Chrome
Net Monitor: Wireshark
Virtual Desk: VirtualBox
Video Player: VLC
Music Player: Totem (sux for movies, but ok for music)

I loved Gnome 2, but Gnome 3 is Shite, which is why I moved to KDE. Please do not get me started on the shortcomings in Gnome 3.

I also do a lot of work on Gentoo, including contributing to the SELinux project there when I have time.
 
I haven't used Fedora, but Debian was the first distro I used when I got into Linux in 2006. I'm about to install Gentoo on my laptop, already failed once so I've been doing some more reading, and asked some questions. They didn't chop my head off in the Gentoo IRC channel.

Mind you, I had already had a bad experience with the Arch forums/IRC, so I guess I walked in fearing the same would happen, but the people there was really cool, and answered all my questions about installing with systemrescuecd & use flags.

Note: I don't think all Arch users are bad. There are many great Arch people, but there are the bad eggs, that are really bad.
 
I think everyone in Manjaro is aware of that. While they try to enjoy and share their love for Arch, there are some in the community that are just horrible, makes you question how they even operate in real life.

I remember joining their IRC channel once... I felt bad for the new users trying to get help, it was just a mocking parade. I still feel bad when people recommend Arch to new people fully knowing that their community is a tad toxic.

Gentoo users were like that in the past, in the forums at least, as far as I remember.

Like you said though, not everyone is bad. I'm sure there are great people in each community that are helpful as possible.

Don't mind me though, I don't think I'll ever understand the mind of an elitist/zealot/etc.
 
I know Arch forums are a very strict place. Mods expect forum rules to be adhered to by the letter and I have seen many new forum members have their topics locked and moved to dustbin because of this. I quickly got the expression that they expect everyone to do their own research and read the wiki. I recall my first post asking for help, that was when nvidia proprietary drivers caused my laptop to shut down with the 3.10 kernel. First reply asked me to clarify my question better before I could expect any help. It sure felt like I got an earful, haha. However, once I did what was asked and provided the info asked I found the forum to be quite helpful.

I think some of the problems with the Arch forums is that there are so many that come asking the same questions over and over. And since no two Arch installs are the same, they will need logs and some background from people asking for help so they know where to start troubleshooting. Very often a lot of questions are already well explained in the wiki. So I think a lot of it might come from frustration.

Just to give an example, I don't know how many posts I have seen lately on Arch forums where people struggle with getting their network set up. And about 90% of the new posters are using multiple network managers at the same time, which is the source of the problem. However this does not become apparent after 8+ posts because the person asking for help never mentioned that they originally tried other network managers and failed to stop those services. But that does not excuse elitist posters, however lately I have seen Arch mods put down even long standing members for post that can come off as elitist. So I think they are trying to change that reputation.

I have no experience with the IRC channel, so I can't speak for it.

But to swing this post on topic:

Distribution: Arch Linux
Desktop environment: Xfce
Preferred programs:

Terminal: Xfce terminal
Torrent: Transmission-gtk
Browser: Firefox
Net Monitor: Don't really use one, but I have conky set up to display all inbound and outbound connections
Virtual Desk: VirtualBox
Video Player: VLC
Music Player: Audacious

I really feel at home with Arch, and Xfce is a DE I quite like. There are very few specific Xfce applications (no music player, no PDF viewer, no browser and so on) so you are free to pick the applications you want. Customizing the desktop is very easy.
 
@Daerandin

Totally understandable. Usually I do a lot of research before posting a question in support forums. I haven't posted a question in support forums in years now since most of it has been answered. New users to GNU/Linux I would expect them to ask a lot of the same questions, however, "new" users to a new distro I would expect them to do their research before asking. It varies.

I don't mind replying to silly issues, however, it also gets me when the question is so basic I wonder why the users hasn't googled at all.
 
Distribution 1: Gentoo
Desktop Enviroment: none; Xmonad tiling WM only

Distribution 2: siduction (Debian Sid derivative)
Desktop Enviroment: XFCE

Preferred Programs:
Terminal - urxvt
Torrent - qBittorrent
Browser - Chrome/FF
Net monitor - Wireshark
Virtual Desk - Virtualbox
Video Player - VLC
Music Player - Foobar2000 in WINE, or vlc

@Aryvandaar
They didn't chop my head off in the Gentoo IRC channel.
Click to expand...

The Gentoo IRC channel is excellent, as are the forums. High volume sites like the Gentoo/Arch/etc forums have to be strict to operate. And new users sometimes get hazed, yes, but if they take it in the right way they will stand to gain an enormous amount of knowledge. The IRC channel is where I go to get help when I'm in need, but you have to learn how to phrase your question, make it concise, and be patient to get results.
 
Daerandin said:
I think some of the problems with the Arch forums is that there are so many that come asking the same questions over and over. And since no two Arch installs are the same, they will need logs and some background from people asking for help so they know where to start troubleshooting. Very often a lot of questions are already well explained in the wiki. So I think a lot of it might come from frustration.

I really feel at home with Arch, and Xfce is a DE I quite like. There are very few specific Xfce applications (no music player, no PDF viewer, no browser and so on) so you are free to pick the applications you want. Customizing the desktop is very easy.
Click to expand...

There is a reason that the Arch community have the reputation that it has. If someone comes asking a question I will do everything I can do answer it without being a douche. I don't think that because a question is "noob" like that it warrants a douche reply. Mind you, I'm not talking about asking for logs, but I'm talking for actual douche behaviour, like go read or, stop asking stupid question, give us more info in a very harsh way.

Remember that it may be new to them. Do you remember all those times in life where you had to do something new? It's frightening, and it's easy to make mistakes then. I think that the Arch community forgets how it's like to be human.

At the very least people should tell people where to read, or tell them how to ask questions. This is one of the many problems that Linux face.

It's been some time since I had a bad experience with Arch a few elitists in the Arch community, so maybe it have changed. In general I don't like the idea that a question is stupid to ask.

I walk around with Linux t-shirts, and I often gets misguided questions and comments about Linux, and a lot of it is related to the somewhat poisonous elitist attitude. I don't care if it's their distro. As for the technical aspects, I think they can do whatever they want, but the way they handle the community hurts Linux as a whole.

As for Linus, and how he acts, I don't think it matters because he is one person, it's worse when a community that at least formerly have kind of endorsed elitist attitudes.
 
@Aryvandaar My own personal experience with the Arch forums have only been good. The very few elitist posts I have seen, and mind you they have been very few, have primarily come from newer Arch users. As for being referenced to the wiki, that is something I understand very well. The Arch community made the wiki to be as extensive and informative as it is just so all the information would be readily available. A lot of common problems and solutions are explained in the wiki, along with configuration guidelines.

But to better explain the general attitude you will find in the Arch community, and perhaps it will help understand some answers you may have received I will quote a part of the Arch wiki FAQ:

I am a complete GNU/Linux beginner. Should I use Arch?
This question has had much debate. Arch is targeted more towards advanced GNU/Linux users, but some people feel that Arch is a good place to start for the motivated novice. If you are a beginner and want to use Arch, just be warned that you must be willing to invest significant time into learning a new system, as well as accept the fact that Arch is fundamentally designed as a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) distribution. It is the user who assembles the system and controls what it will become. Before asking for help, do your own independent research by Googling, searching the forum (and reading the rest of these FAQs) and searching the superb documentation provided by the Arch Wiki. There is a reason these resources were made available to you in the first place. Many thousands of volunteered hours have been spent compiling this excellent information.

Recommended reading: The Arch Linux Beginners' guide.

Arch requires too much time and effort to install and use. Also, the community keeps telling me to RTFM in so many words
Arch is designed for and used by a specifically targeted user base. Perhaps it is not right for you. See above.
Click to expand...

This is not to defend any rude replies you may have suffered. I am simply trying to explain what is expected.

But I also have full understanding for your bad experience. If I had not taken the time to read as much of the wiki as I did, and browse the forums and forum rules before my first post, I might have had a much worse experience.

Note that I'm not a particularly active Arch community member, I mainly just browse the forums daily to check if anyone have reported issues with updates. I also read on troubleshooting posts simply to better prepare myself in case something breaks my system sometime.

If we are to continue this discussion, perhaps a mod could move the off topic posts to a separate topic.

Edit: I forgot to say, I share your sentiment when it comes to helping people out on a forum. If I first decide to take the time to try and help, I don't expect the one I am helping to already know everything.
 
Well, as the OP I don't mind, and it's not really off-topic, just a bit on the far end. Maybe I should clarify that I don't shy away from using Arch because of the negative replies I got from a very few Arch users, but I like to use a distro to use on a daily basis that doesn't require a lot of management.

I don't like to stick to so many forums at once, but I will have to check out the Arch forums again, and the IRC channel. Maybe to a few tests with some silly questions and what not. :p

My laptop is getting a very careless treatment though. I've lost the count of how many times I've broken the Linux system on my laptop, and surprisingly, that has been with Manjaro.

Ever since I got into Linux I've wanted to install Gentoo on my machine. Arch is cool and all, but it's not geeky enough. I want maximum geek power.

The thing that more often surprise me though isn't exactly the negative replies, but that that other users don't stand against these elitists, at least that didn't happen when I had my visit to the Arch community. I think that what is most telling of a community is if the old users are willing to stand up for the new guy, or anyone really who needs to be defended.

And actually, I walk in around with a metal armour. To me it isn't the tone that matters to me. For all I care they could tell me that my mother is a whore (for the record she is not, or at least not as far as I know :P), and I wouldn't care if they at the same time gave me a helping hand. I guess I'm a bit crazy like that.
 
There are really only two things that grate my nerves when someone comes into a forum or IRC posting questions and asking for help:
  1. /\N 3nt1r3 p05t 1n |33t$p3@k. (An entire post in leet-speak.) I'm old enough that I remember, use, and communicate in English. I can generally work my way through Spanish and German, and even a smidgen of Chinese, but if you're asking for my help, for Deity's sake don't send me something with no syntax rules or grammar, written in Sanskrit, and expect a coherent reply. If you want to text, use a phone. If you want to be l33t, you should be figuring this crap out yourself by looking at the code. If you want help, try to adhere to the basic rules of the language. I don't even particularly care which language, as long as translate.google.com can at least give me the gist of it.
  2. When I ask for information, give me the information I requested. When I ask you to do something and give me the results, do it and give me the results. Troubleshooting is not some hit-and-miss process. It has to be methodical or any resolution is pure luck. It may not SEEM methodical, but believe me, there IS a method to my madness. If there is some other information that you feel may be relevant, by all means share it, but AT LEAST give me what I ASKED for.
Beyond those two things, I'm usually pretty laid-back. We were all n00bs once, and we are all STILL n00bs at SOMETHING. I EXPECT n00bs to do stupid things; that's why they're n00bs. As long as they are willing to follow the 2 rules above, I'm willing to try to help them.

As far as Gentoo's IRC, I've always found it to be very helpful, but yeah, you have to kinda learn how to phrase your question and maybe wait a while for a response.
 
Yeah, I totally get that GIzmo. It annoys me when people intentionally use poor writing as well. I can overlook it if someone just doesn't know good English, or has dyslexia, but not people who intentionally use poor grammar. It's kinda like shooting yourself in the foot, because more often than not, the purpose of communication is to be understood, not misunderstood. The only ones who thrive on misunderstanding and confusion are trolls.

Yes I agree on this point as well, because people have to do it themselves in the end.

If I seemed hostile to other distributions that wasn't what I wanted to convey. Just to clarify, I do have a lot of love and respect for any Linux distribution, because we all have to stand together against Microsoft and Apple.

And yeah, cheers to that. We have all been noobs once, and chance is that we are noob at something at any time, so I think that it shows hubris to be hostile to noobs.
 
Totally Off Topic:
Interesting $2 Gizmo...
My troubleshooting methods usually require hit-n-miss or trial-n-error because I don't know how everything works.
So I'll try this patch, that libraries, this version, that version, break it, re-install, rinse and repeat.
Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.
This requires more time as opposed to someone who knows the inner workings, but its a great way to learn.
Learn from errors... This also reduces all the posting questions online. Instead of posting questions I try to figure it out myself.
______________________________________________
Distribution: Mint 17 64-bit
Desktop Enviroment: Cinnamon or Openbox
Preferred Programs:
  • Video Chat - Skype
  • Browser - Chrome
  • Video Player - VLC
  • Music Player - VLC
  • Games - PlayOnLinux & DosBox & Desura & Steam
  • Remote - Remmina
  • Video Recording - SimpleScreenRecorder
  • Graphics - Gimp 2.8
  • Office - Libre Office
  • Screenshots - Scrot
  • Tex Editor - nano & Gedit
Other Computers:
  • SuperMicro Server - Fedora 16 64-bit
  • Family Laptop - Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit
  • Chromebook - ChrUbuntu 12.04
 
More for my list

Graphips: Gimp
Office: LibreOffice
Screenshot: xfce4-screenshooter - a nice tool that has an optional time delay
Text editor: Vim & Mousepad
 
booman said:
Totally Off Topic:
Interesting $2 Gizmo...
My troubleshooting methods usually require hit-n-miss or trial-n-error because I don't know how everything works.
So I'll try this patch, that libraries, this version, that version, break it, re-install, rinse and repeat.
Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.
This requires more time as opposed to someone who knows the inner workings, but its a great way to learn.
Learn from errors... This also reduces all the posting questions online. Instead of posting questions I try to figure it out myself.
Click to expand...

Sometimes troubleshooting requires trying something and seeing what effect it has. There's nothing wrong with throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, as long as that is the intention and you are observing, cataloging, and analyzing the results. It's still part of a deliberate, thoughtful process.
 
Distributions: Linux Mint 16 KDE 32bit - Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon 64bit (http://www.linuxmint.com/)
Desktop Enviroments Used: KDE on 32bit - Cinnamon 64bit
Most Used Applications:

Browsers: Firefox: - Maxthon (http://es.maxthon.com/) - Chromium

CD/DVD Emulators: Acetone - CDemu (https://launchpad.net/~cdemu/ archive/ubuntu/ppa)

Games: Wine (vanilla most time) - KDEgames

Graphics: Kolour Paint - Pinta - Converseen (Image Converter - https://launchpad.net/~faster3ck/ archive/ubuntu/converseen) - Gwenview (Image Visualizer and used too for simple cut images )

Music Players: Audacious - Exaile - QMPlay2 - OSDLyrics

Office: Kingsoft Office (http://wps-community.org/) - Libreoffice

Other Things: Java (https://launchpad.net/~webupd8team/ archive/ubuntu/java) - FatRat - Ktorrent

Screencasting: Simple Screen Recorder (https://launchpad.net/~maarten-baert/ archive/ubuntu/simplescreenrecorder)

Screenshots: Ksnapshot

Text Editor: Kate - Nano in console

Video Chat: Skype - Ekiga

Video Players: SMPlayer - VLC - QMPlay2 (https://launchpad.net/~samrog131/ archive/ubuntu/ppa) - Totem


:)
 
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