Hey Sup Forums, I'm buying a new hdd and I've decided to switch to Linux for the first time. I've been studying this transition and I want to hear your thoughts.
- I've chosen CentOS 7 minimal for its performance and stability. I'll add whatever packages I need on top of it.
1) I understand it will configure the network during install right? So I can use yum to download what I need.
- I'll stick to Legacy BIOS and won't go with UEFI since the features aren't worth it to complicate my install.
- I've decided to use XFS instead of ext4 or BtrFS. Ext4 doesn't store files contiguously and btrfs is slow with accessing the same file for write successively.
- As partitions I'll have swap(12GB), /boot(3GB), /(200GB) and /home(200GB). 585GB will stay unallocated for now.
2) From what I understand Linux installs software by scattering it's files in different directories right? So there's no point in creating a partition for software. That's why / is so big.
- As a DE I'm going with KDE Plasma. It's more versatile, consumes less ram and only 300mhz more CPU demanding than Gnome.
3) For extra performance I can just close Plasma and run the software from the CLI. It doesn't need Plasma for it's GUI to function right?
- And finally, for an internet browser, I'm going with Brave. It's based on Chromium so it's fast, has all the Google botnet removed and supports most of Chrome's extensions.
What do you guys think?
Hey Sup Forums, I'm buying a new hdd and I've decided to switch to Linux for the first time...
Uefi will not complicate your install. In fact, it may be easier to go with uefi
If you are new, use ext4
...
Cent is a server OS with old packages that might use older drivers on your device.
>successive access
>continuously
>scatter
>versatile, less ram
>brave
Seriously, even with all these "preparations" you are still going to face a lot of difficulties within your first week of usage. Ditch all these things and use the default instead, you wouldn't know what you like yet. I doubt xfs will benefit in any obvious way
>300mhz more demanding
What does this even mean? Programs run differently on different hardware
>I've decided to switch
Then stick to the default
>3) **
So are you trying to use gui or cli? Those two are different
this sounds so cringy it hurts
I have read up on these things on Wikipedia and arch forum. I know exactly what I need so stfu
God damn this is some of the best bait I've ever read.
>- I've decided to use XFS instead of ext4 or BtrFS. Ext4 doesn't store files contiguously and btrfs is slow with accessing the same file for write successively.
ext4 is good with avoiding fragmentation, xfs has it's advantages, but they're mostly related to gigantic volumes and large files. xfs also can't be shrunk, so be careful when using it in a home environment, that can bite you
>- As partitions I'll have swap(12GB), /boot(3GB), /(200GB) and /home(200GB). 585GB will stay unallocated for now.
damn, 200G root? that's massive
my main desktop root is 21G in use, and it's relatively big, it has a few (foss) games, a 2G benchmarking program, my emby library metadata, and of course every other non-steam program (steam stores games in your home folder by default)
>only 300mhz more CPU demanding than Gnome.
kek, DE choice shouldn't really affect any installation desicions, you can change DE at any time without touching anything else
>I'm going with Brave.
absolutely disgusting, but i'm not the one using it
oh shit, just noticed
>/boot(3GB)
what on earth are you putting on that? 60 different kernels?
This is not a bait
Nice try, OP.
You should have left that stuff about the Brave browser out. It would be more plausible
I am guessing this is for a Desktop, in such a case there should be no trouble in using CentOS, however if you wish to use some more niche peripherals (wi-fi adapter, Bluetooth, ect) you may want to just go with Fedora (or Debian if you don't want dnf).
Why are you thinking of using a SERVER OS? You should avoid CentOS at all costs.
If you want to use KDE then use KDE Neon. It's a distro based on Ubuntu, so it will have all the software you'd need, plus it's developed by the KDE team. The only KDE distro more stable than that is openSUSE.
Hey Sup Forums, I'm buying a new hdd and I've decided to switch to Windows for the first time. I've been studying this transition and I want to hear your thoughts.
- I've chosen Windows 7 Ultimate for its performance and stability. I'll add whatever software I need on top of it.
1) I understand it will configure the network during install right? So I can use Internet explorer to download what I need.
- I'll stick to Legacy BIOS and won't go with UEFI since the features aren't worth it to complicate my install.
- I've decided to use fat32 instead of ntfs. Ntfs doesn't store files contiguously and is slow with accessing the same file for write successively.
- As partitions I'll have C:(12GB), D:(3GB), E: (200GB) and F: (200GB). 585GB will stay unallocated for now.
2) From what I understand Windows installs software by scattering it's files in different directories right? So there's no point in creating a partition for software. That's why C: is so big.
- As a game launcher I'm going with origin. It's more versatile, consumes less ram and only 300mhz more CPU demanding than Steam.
3) For extra performance I can just close Origin and run the software from the explorer. It doesn't need Origin for it to function right?
- And finally, for an internet browser, I'm going with Brave. It's based on Chromium so it's fast, has all the Google botnet removed and supports most of Chrome's extensions.
What do you guys think?
No, this pajeets WANTS to use xfs, brave and other meaningless things. Meaningless to him at least
If (you) chose CentOS for a desktop system, AFTER "studying" for it, (you) are too retarded for linux.
Keep "studying" for another year and try again come 2018.
The amount of samefag in this thread is high
thanks for your blogpost
subbed!
Fuck you
It's control over booting, needless features and the problems others have encountered make using it pointless.
>If you are new, use ext4
Like I said, ext4 doesn't store files contiguously and hence increases disk usage. It also doesn't have checksum and recovery from it is more difficult.
It's being used heavily in the CG industry (main reason why I chose it) and RH says it's also a workstation OS.
>So are you trying to use gui or cli?
It was my impression that as long as you have a windows manager the software GUI will function when executed from CLI.
Not me.
>damn, 200G root? that's massive
Like I've said, I don't see the point of a software partition so I'll have to make sure I have enough space on root.
>Brave
Can you state specific reasons why you don't like Brave?
>Like I've said, I don't see the point of a software partition so I'll have to make sure I have enough space on root.
yea, i don't have a separate partition for software either (if not software, what should be on root? as far as i'm concerned, root IS the software partition) how much software are you installing? you'd have to be installing just about everything to get anywhere near 200G in your root
>60 different kernels?
Since I don't know if I'll use any other kernels I've decided to go with 3GB. Do 2 extra GB really matter?
CentOS doesn't have wifi drivers?!At all?!
>if not software, what should be on root?
The OS and nothing else?
>how much software are you installing?
CG software will be the most heavy. Sometimes, for simulations, the data is being cached on the hdd. Some simulations are very heavy, we're talking tens of GB per sim here. I don't know if I can redirect the cache to my /home partitions so / will have to big enough to take it.
>Do 2 extra GB really matter?
closer to 3 extra GB
my /boot contains memtest86+, a grub installation with basically every module there, despite using few of them, and three sets of kernels, initramfs, and larger fallback initramfs's
... and it's 91MiB of files
and do you even need a separate /boot? GRUB2 supports XFS
ps
>It also doesn't have checksum
neither ext4 nor xfs support data checksums, both support metadata checksums, ext4 support journal checksumming, not sure about xfs
>I don't know if I can redirect the cache to my /home partitions
you can have anything be placed anywhere
you could even make a separate scratch partition just for these caches
XFS is shit though.
I hope you don't plan on resizing your filesystem for any reason ever.
Also btrfs has way better snapshots compared to lvm
>... and it's 91MiB of files
Than why the hell do they recommend a minimum of 500MB?
>neither ext4 nor xfs support data checksums
I remember reading it does...anyway, the disk usage alone makes me stay away from ext4.
>It's being used heavily in the CG industry (main reason why I chose it)
for use in render farms, yeah. for use as a desktop OS, not so much. they use macOS and windows over there dude
>The OS and nothing else?
how do you define "the OS?" just what it ships with?
the way unix is set up is that there's no distinction between software that "comes with it" and software that is installed by a user, they are placed in the same directories either way
all an OS is is a collection of software
>Than why the hell do they recommend a minimum of 500MB?
idk, i go with 128MiB if i'm not tight on space, it's plenty. as low as 32MiB is "enough" for most single-kernel purposes, i play around with kernel patches a bit though, hence i have a few installed
>the disk usage alone makes me stay away from ext4.
you're talking about inode overhead? ext4 looks wasteful when first created because it preallocates the inode tables, most other filesystems create them as needed
the size of the inode tables can be reduced, at the cost of lowering the number of files you can place on the volume
xfs is a nice filesystem, and i'd probably be using it for some things if it were not for the fact that it cannot be shrunk
What I meant to say is that i don't know if Houdini let's me choose the cache location. Normally it should but I don't want to take any chances. Is there any disadvantage in having a large /?
>btrfs has way better snapshots compared to lvm
I know but btrfs has very poor successive writes due to COW which completely disqualifies it due to my work with CG and programming. It's also still somewhat new.
>What I meant to say is that i don't know if Houdini let's me choose the cache location.
it doesn't matter if the software you're using has a fixed location, you can make that location point to any volume
just look at /home and /boot, they're on root, aren't they? of course they are, everything is on root, it's what makes it root. but the files under them are sourced from separate volumes, transparently
if your program uses something like "/var/cache/houdini/", you can just mount a volume to /var/cache/houdini, or just /var/cache, and it works the same as /boot or /home.
The problem with having a large root is that you'll be backing up a lot if useless crap with the data you also want.
Given the flexibility of lvm logical volumes or btrfs subvolumes, there isn't any reason for a large root.
-- oh, and if you don't want to make a volume just for it, you can use symlinks for directory>directory relocation
for example, if you want the data in say, /home/user/.houdini_cache
you can place a symlink at /var/cache/houdini which points to /home/user/.houdini_cache
the program will keep using /var/cache/houdini, but the data under it will actually end up in your home folder
>for use in render farms
And in order to render you need good CPU and GPU drivers. RH also recommends it as a workstation OS. Both SideFX and Redshift mention it on their recommended page. Houdini users have already used it with great success getting awesome render times on both CPU and GPU (just google CentOS Houdini)
>you're talking about inode overhead?
I'm talking about how it places each file as further away from one another to prevent fragmentation. So if you have many files in a folder that have to be executed in succession ext4 will make your hdd jump all over the place for each file.
Good point, I forgot about that.
>The problem with having a large root is that you'll be backing up a lot if useless crap with the data you also want.
I already plan to store all important data on /home and back it up on an external hdd. Everything else is disposable.
Nice, I'll have to remember that.
>CentOS doesn't have wifi drivers?!At all?!
I don't think that the default installation has any wi-fi drivers, you can install them manually, however if it's some more shitty adapter, you may waste a lot of hours.
Seriously, if you don't exactly need CentOS(some "specific" or easier to setup software) and you want to fully use your PC fully I would recommend Debian/Fedora (More minimal vs CentOS workstation).
If you want everything to just work, go with Mint (Ubuntu may need a tweak or two).
Most other choices shouldn't concern you for now, outside of CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat others are just desktop ricing preference and bullshit. It isn't a path you wish to take as it only leads to being a faggot and not learning actual Linux/Unix skills.
user, use Windows.
You can use Windows Server if you're into that kind of shit.
Or even Windows Server on a VM!
I wonder, can one ssh into Windows Server on a VM via Vagrant? Hm...
>1) I understand it will configure the network during install right? So I can use yum to download what I need.
The minimal ISO does not seem to have wifi drivers (check Elrepo in case it is missing any, this happens because Red Hat wants to save their asses from patents and other copyright issues), but it gives you an option to search for packages inside an ISO image, that is where the Everything image comes in. isoredirect.centos.org
>It doesn't need Plasma for it's GUI to function right?
Never tried that, you are talking about kwin.
>brave
read this chromium.googlesource.com
>Seriously, if you don't exactly need CentOS
Houdini users praise it for its performance and stability. RHL is usually considered the most stable distro out there. Very important for me.
>and you want to fully use your PC
Considering the performance CentOS users mention I'd say it fully uses my PC, that's why I'm picking it.
>If you want everything to just work
What wouldn't work under CentOS?
>Very important for me.
Use FreeBSD then. Patch KDE2 for it.
>The minimal ISO does not seem to have wifi drivers
Thanks, so I'll have to get a larger iso like DVD or Everything and then uninstall all the packages I don't need. Does Linux suck at uninstalling as much as Windows? Because Windows leaves tons of shit on your hdd and in your registries.
>you are talking about kwin.
Yes, I understand that if I run a software from the CLI it will use kwin as its windows manager for GUI, even thou Plasma isn't running.
>chromium.googlesource.com
The Brave site says it works on Linux. Are you saying I'll have problems with it?
Loads of things don't work out of the box on CentOS regarding desktop usage. Besides wi-fi and things like bluetooth, you will need to install flash (non peppermint browsers), mp3 codecs (audio is kinda shitty as a whole), ect.
However, as long as you can google shit and become semi-competent with the CLI you should be good.
Linus Torvalds uses an out of the box setup of Fedora because he doesn't have time to waste with that kind of shit
>you will need to install flash (non peppermint browsers), mp3 codecs (audio is kinda shitty as a whole), ect.
I already researched this and from what I can see there are repositories for mp3 and I think I saw something for flash as well.
I don't get it, what's the difference between using a more standard distro vs using Centos and then just installing the packages I need. Don't the other distros basically do the same thing? Are you telling me Redhat users go around without sound, wifi and flash on their workstations? Is writing a yum command to install a package so fucking difficult?
Fedora, Ubuntu or Mint.
There are no other 'beginner' OSs.
unfortunately the repositories in EL7 are pretty small and for desktop use you will find alot of things are out of date or absent, and you run into a common problem where you have to build from source but it doesnt work because all of the dependencies are also too old. Trust me, just use fedora.
Houdini users don't recommend it.
forums.odforce.net
It's clearly not stable enough for production.
What about ElementaryOS? It's based on Ubuntu so it has good support, less bloat, but I don't know how stable or fast it is?
When ir comes to performance and stability CentOS seems to be unbeatable.
Sort of, you need to run with --no-sandbox as parameter, on CentOS at least. That page talks about ignoring sandbox by default, the kernel is old.
It seems like "just use this command", however it is not, like the reply below said:
>run into a common problem where you have to build from source but it doesnt work because all of the dependencies are also too old
As for stability, stability is regarding server usage on a production environment , CentOS is stable, because it uses old packages, not because of something else.
i.e. If you are at a level where you are asking such questions, you don't really need the presumed "stability". If you just wish to use your Houdini software and use the PC as a normal Desktop, just go with a Fedora spin.
If you don't want frequent updates, but actually have good stuff in the repos for desktop usage go with Debian.
Elementary is just Ubuntu with a reskin.
As you are new you don't exactly get the "fast" and "stable" and "bloated' parts of Linux.
The speed depends on the kernel used and DE (mostly DE), it does not directly depend on the distro used. Your software will NOT run faster on some distros and slower on others, unless their kernels differ, you are using Gentoo or have RAM constrains.
Stable is mostly the date of the packages(and kernel) in the repos and how much time has passed since they were updated/are updated on apt/yum/dnf update.
Bloated in Linux is not like Windows (100 programs running in background and 25 on startup). You just have more drivers, utilities ect that you may use when needed and you don't need to manually install basic utility.
I wouldn't call Elementary stable.
That link is from 2012 and fedora 17. A lot has changed since then. (Fedora actually has QC now)
I don't have any huge stability problems on fedora, I can say that I have experienced breakage in fedora, but it's been rare, small in scale and easy traceable to a single package update.
but my workflow is also probably very different. Centos isn't a bad system, but its not well suited to desktop use or as a daily driver. I cant attest to how well either of them will work with that particular piece of software. I can say with packages that outdated, any measure of success will like have an equal measure of frustration.
> As partitions I'll have swap(12GB), /boot(3GB), /(200GB) and /home(200GB). 585GB will stay unallocated for now.
fuck that noise. lay down one big ext4 and call it good. you don't need a swap if you have enough ram. just make as few partitions as possible.
>unless their kernels differ
Well that's exactly it isn't it, you said it yourself, the reason CentOS is stable is it's old kernel. The CG industry also uses it for its speed so I assume this is again because of the kernel.
>Bloated in Linux is not like Windows
Do all Linux distros support uninstalling packages from the OS? I like the modularity.
>Do all Linux distros
Everything is supposed to be done through the package manager (if you go with GNOME, it will give you two fancy GUIs to pick which package you want to install - GNOME Software and another is labelled only as "Software"), doing otherwise is asking for headache. You should use it in a VM to check what you can get away with before going bare metal. Regarding wifi, you can check it before install, select the option to configure the network and it will list which network interfaces it found.
Newer kernels are actually faster as they optimized more, also systems with systemd are faster (by now most of the mainstream ones) .
Yes, you can delete unneeded packages, you won't really notice much difference besides freed up disc space though.
You won't really hit a kernel panic or something similar unless you are using rolling release/whatever test branch comes after it for your distro.
I could try the CentOS live cd first.
Could someone explain what, besides an easier setup time, will I be losing if I go with CentOS?
you can still get dnf, but its the old version of dnf thats basically still yum and isnt as good.
all of your packages will be very old
RH sometimes takes a long time to follow through with security patches
older kernel means support for newer hardware is worse
having to hunt down software outside of the repositories
less support for entry level users due to smaller userbase
less prepackaged software due to smaller userbase
However you do get,
Stability
Insanely long support (10 years or something ridiculous)
>all of your packages will be very old
So this will translate into less software compatibility?
>older kernel means support for newer hardware is worse
Then why the hell are all those render farms using CentOS? They have only the best hardware used to render high end vfx.
No compatibility for newer software, and existing software may be missing important features.
Graphics hardware is only one example of hardware. Think wifi, bluetooth, soundcards etc. I don't mean to say that your setup won't work with centos, however you will want to crosscheck compatability with your kernel version when buying hardware. Wifi and bluetooth are the worst offenders, if neither matter to you and you're not on the newest intel or amd chipsets then it probably wont be an issue for you.
>No compatibility for newer software, and existing software may be missing important features
When you say "software" you're talking about pretty much any software that might run on Linux right?
>and you're not on the newest intel or amd chipsets
You see, this is what surprises me because some of those high-end servers running the latest i7s and xeons run CentOS.
>You see, this is what surprises me because some of those high-end servers running the latest i7s and xeons run CentOS.
Because they use it as a server as opposed to a desktop, user.
Running server most of the time equals running a single framework task. CentOS is designed for that purpose, so setting up a server is not a problem.
You, on the other hand, want to use it as a desktop OS which means running crapload of stuff CentOS was not designed to support. It "can" do it, because in the end it's a Unix OS, but it won't be "good" at doing it.