Linux

I wonder what it was about Ubuntu 11.10 that was giving the CPU a flogging. Pardus 2011 is much less demanding it seems.
 
Maybe. What is compositing all about? I didn't notice anything particularly flash about Unity to suspect it. Pardus doesn't exactly seem spartan in comparison either with all its transparency and window transition effects.
 
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Bram Kaandorp said:
What are the biggest advantages you experienced in using Unity over Gnome 2?
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I would argue no real advantage other than making Ubuntu familiar for 90% of population to just use it right out of box. This is what I believe has created the big Gnome vs. Unity debate, but Ubuntu is not moving backwards on this, 12.04 will be even better/worse depending on your tastes. I think it was good move to get more folks using linux, but that is what upsets freetards, there is no shortage of Linux OS for people who hate Unity.

Unity appears and works like a phone/tablet OS in my opinion, but it does chew up mega resource, but I think 11.10 is better than Natty for one reason, I can actually use it. :)

I have only 1 gig of ram on my laptop and Unity Natty 11,04 wouldn't even load, but now with Oneric 11.10 I can use it, but now if i want to watch video, I have to turn it off.

There is no shortage of Unity haters on the youtube, and they all have one thing in common, old geeky white dudes.
 
What do you all think of gnome 3. It comes Fedora 15, but I can't actually try it on this laptop as it wants better graphics hardware, maybe it's time for new computer, but this one does all I need still.

Unfortunately GNOME 3 failed to start properly and started in the fallback mode.

This most likely means your system (graphics hardware or driver) is not capable of delivering the full GNOME 3 experience.
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I would like to be delivered the full gnome 3 experience. :)

http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/
 
Bram Kaandorp said:
LXDE is less resource hungry than Gnome, so I'd say that Lubuntu is the more demanding one.
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I actually prefer XFCE over LXDE, so Xubuntu was my "-buntu" of choice for netbooks and old, resource-deficient hardware. Last year I tried out Crunchbang Linux (uses the lightweight Openbox) and I really like that UI, so that's the distro I've been sticking with for my netbook.


Sideroxylon said:
I wonder what it was about Ubuntu 11.10 that was giving the CPU a flogging. Pardus 2011 is much less demanding it seems.
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Maybe open a terminal and try:

Code: 
top

Then look for the most CPU-hungry threads?

I use the conky on all my machines. I have my conky set up to display two lists of top threads: the top 10 most CPU-intensive, and the top 10 most RAM-intensive, so I can see at a glance what is eating the most resources.

adz4f4.jpg



Bram Kaandorp said:
We were just talking about Unity. Could that be it? It uses compositing, which is usually pretty demanding, so maybe that's it.
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Ugh. I really don't like Unity. I wish they'd just stuck to regular old Gnome. Reminds me of when KDE4 came out. Just a lot of layered garbage in the UI that is totally unnecessary and impedes workflow.
 
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John Albert said:
I actually prefer XFCE over LXDE, so Xubuntu was my "-buntu" of choice for netbooks and old, resource-deficient hardware. Last year I tried out Crunchbang Linux (uses the lightweight Openbox) and I really like that UI, so that's the distro I've been sticking with for my netbook.
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I think I'm spoiled with Gnome too much, because I've tried XFCE, but I just don't like it all that much.

I use the conky on all my machines. I have my conky set up to display two lists of top threads: the top 10 most CPU-intensive, and the top 10 most RAM-intensive, so I can see at a glance what is eating the most resources.
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Until now, I have been hesitant to use Conky, but this is actually very useful. I don't need compositing for it to work, right? (using compositing sort of defeats the purpose, since I want to see how lean my computer can be with what I use.

Ugh. I really don't like Unity. I wish they'd just stuck to regular old Gnome. Reminds me of when KDE4 came out. Just a lot of layered garbage in the UI that is totally unnecessary and impedes workflow.
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Funnily enough, the Netbook Remix version which came before the full-blown Unity wasn't half bad. Only for netbooks, mind you, but still, pretty good.
 
You don't need compositing. It's totally display-only, with no user interaction whatsoever.

It does poll the system regularly and updates the display accordingly, and you can specify the frequency for that. Conky runs very lean if you set the resource polling to a low enough frequency. The conky scripting language is extremely easy to hack, and you can also use or code plugins in a variety of languages to add various functionalities and fancy display effects (like Internet weather reports, rendering pie charts, etc.). As I said, I use it on all my machines, even netbooks. Here's a pic of my netbook conky running in Crunchbang Linux:

1gk30i.jpg


You can see both conky instances (the system monitor on the left and the date/time/weather on the right) on the "top" list for CPU hoggage, probably because I caught it in the process of polling and grabbing weather data at the moment I pulled the screengrab.

If you find XFCE too lean, then stay away from OpenBox. It's pared down to the absolute minimum.

Netbook Remix was awesome. A friend of mine (non-computer techie type) uses it all the time and she loves it. I can even see Unity being alright for netbooks or maybe tablets, but I found it extremely annoying to have on a desktop machine. I actually prefer traditional desktop environments even for netbooks.

In Ubuntu 11.04, I just keep "traditional Gnome" selected in the Sessions menu at the login screen.
 
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John Albert said:
You don't need compositing. It's totally display-only, with no user interaction whatsoever.

It does poll the system regularly and updates the display accordingly, and you can specify the frequency for that. Conky runs very lean if you set the resource polling to a low enough frequency. The conky scripting language is extremely easy to hack, and you can also use or code plugins in a variety of languages to add various functionalities and fancy display effects (like Internet weather reports, rendering pie charts, etc.). As I said, I use it on all my machines, even netbooks. Here's a pic of my netbook conky running in Crunchbang Linux:

(beautiful image)

You can see both conky instances (the system monitor on the left and the date/time/weather on the right) on the "top" list for CPU hoggage, probably because I caught it in the process of polling and grabbing weather data at the moment I pulled the screengrab.
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I'll certainly give conky a try. It's a lot better than the system monitor applet for the panel.

If you find XFCE too lean, then stay away from OpenBox. It's pared down to the absolute minimum.
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Not that I would mind minimalism, but you're probably right.

Netbook Remix was awesome. A friend of mine (non-computer techie type) uses it all the time and she loves it. I can even see Unity being alright for netbooks or maybe tablets, but I found it extremely annoying to have on a desktop machine. I actually prefer traditional desktop environments even for netbooks.
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Ditto. Although, I have heard good things about Gnome 3, so maybe that will be my new desktop (if it isn't too big a hog).

In Ubuntu 11.04, I just keep "traditional Gnome" selected in the Sessions menu at the login screen.
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Even better, I just remove Unity. I never use it, so why keep it around, right?
 
OK, I'm running Linux Mint now.
It runs very well.

I've run into a weird problem though.

My windows are "fixed". As in They stick to the top of the screen.
The top bar seems to have disappeared, so I cant maximize or minimize windows.

I think it happened when I played with the compiz configuration.But I'm not sure.
 
Bram Kaandorp said:
Even better, I just remove Unity. I never use it, so why keep it around, right?
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I removed it and it borked a few things! So instead of bothering to figure out how to repair the issues (just plain laziness, I know), I just never log in with those session parameters.
 
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Eddie Dane said:
I've run into a weird problem though.

My windows are "fixed". As in They stick to the top of the screen.
The top bar seems to have disappeared, so I cant maximize or minimize windows.

I think it happened when I played with the compiz configuration.But I'm not sure.
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You must have turned off Window Decorations.
 
I think it's called "Move Window"...

While you're at it, you may want to make sure "Resize Window" is checked as well...
 
It seems that I fall outside the usual Linux stereo-types.

I like simplicity and good design, and I like to keep using my hardware for a long time.

Unlike most Linux fans, I'm not very computer literate at all. I don't even know the specs of my system by heart.

Linux has actually reached the point where someone like me can stick a DVD in a machine, choose a language and a keyboard lay out. And fifteen minutes later have a low-budget Apple.

With Ubuntu, I still had to figure out how to get Flash to work and get codecs (a major hurdle for lame users, underestimated by computer literate people).
With Mint, I literally didn't have to do anything. It just works.
 
Pardus was good like that because the other codecs are included. Naughty? It isn't like pretty much every Linux user downloads them straight away.
 
Eddie Dane said:
It seems that I fall outside the usual Linux stereo-types.

I like simplicity and good design, and I like to keep using my hardware for a long time.

Unlike most Linux fans, I'm not very computer literate at all. I don't even know the specs of my system by heart.

Linux has actually reached the point where someone like me can stick a DVD in a machine, choose a language and a keyboard lay out. And fifteen minutes later have a low-budget Apple.

With Ubuntu, I still had to figure out how to get Flash to work and get codecs (a major hurdle for lame users, underestimated by computer literate people).
With Mint, I literally didn't have to do anything. It just works.
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You'd be surprised how many Linux users aren't like most Linux fans.

I tend to use the same computer for some time as well, and even though I know how much RAM I have, how fast my processor is and what kind of graphics card I have, I don't know exactly how that affects everything.

At this point, many Linux distros are aimed at user friendliness, meaning that the old "Linux is for geeks" meme is no longer very apt.
 
Bram Kaandorp said:
You'd be surprised how many Linux users aren't like most Linux fans.

I tend to use the same computer for some time as well, and even though I know how much RAM I have, how fast my processor is and what kind of graphics card I have, I don't know exactly how that affects everything.

At this point, many Linux distros are aimed at user friendliness, meaning that the old "Linux is for geeks" meme is no longer very apt.
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1 option: ubuntu desktop on netbook, just works after install
2 option; damn small linux or like minimalist linux booting from usb stick, using 4 passport drives as a raid arrary with a usb hub, keyboard and monitor with a minipc as the boot mechanism, need lessly complicated but fun
3 option: same ubuntu netbook, backtrack 4 in emulation, different kinda fun....
 
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