The Most Popular Linux Desktop Programs (zdnet.com) 228
The most recent Linux Questions poll results are in. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writing for ZDNet: LinuxQuestions, one of the largest internet Linux groups with 550,000 members, has just posted the results from its latest survey of desktop Linux users. In the always hotly-contested Linux desktop environment survey, the winner was the KDE Plasma Desktop. It was followed by the popular lightweight Xfce, Cinnamon, and GNOME. If you want to buy a computer with pre-installed Linux, the Linux Questions crew's favorite vendor by far was System76. Numerous other computer companies offer Linux on their PCs. These include both big names like Dell and dedicated small Linux shops such as ZaReason, Penguin Computing, and Emperor Linux. Many first choices weren't too surprising. For example, Linux users have long stayed loyal to the Firefox web browser, and they're still big fans. Firefox beat out Google Chrome by a five-to-one margin. And, as always, the VLC media player is far more popular than any other Linux media player. For email clients, Mozilla Thunderbird remains on top. That's a bit surprising given how Thunderbird's development has been stuck in neutral for some time now. When it comes to text editors, I was pleased to see vim -- my personal favorite -- win out over its perpetual rival, Emacs. In fact, nano and Kate both came ahead of Emacs.
The Results (Score:4, Informative)
From: https://www.linuxquestions.org... [linuxquestions.org]
Desktop Distribution of the Year - Ubuntu (18.17%)
Server Distribution of the Year - Slackware (22.40%)
Live Distribution of the Year - Knoppix (18.31%)
Lightweight Distribution of the Year - Puppy Linux (29.75%)
Database of the Year - MariaDB (42.22%)
Browser of the Year - Firefox (57.84%)
Desktop Environment of the Year - Plasma Desktop (KDE) (27.83%)
Window Manager of the Year - Openbox (24.22%)
Audio Media Player Application of the Year - VLC (31.13%)
Digital Audio Workstation of the Year - Ardour (42.86%)
Video Media Player Application of the Year - VLC (68.01%)
Video Authoring Application of the Year - KDEnlive (
Network Security Application of the Year - Wireshark (33.33%)
Host Security Application of the Year - SELinux (35.71%)
Network Monitoring Application of the Year - Nagios Core (32.73%)
IDE of the Year - Geany (15.98%)
Text Editor of the Year - vim (28.32%)
File Manager of the Year - Dolphin (25.24%)
Open Source Game of the Year - 0 A.D. (17.31%)
Programming Language of the Year - Python (30.00%)
Backup Application of the Year - rsync (41.30%)
Log Management Tool of the Year - Logwatch (36.96%)
X Terminal Emulator of the Year - Konsole (22.01%)
Browser Privacy Solution of the Year - uBlock Origin (28.13%)
Privacy Solution of the Year - Tor Browser Bundle (37.21%)
Open Source File Sync Application of the Year - Nextcloud (36.92%)
IRC Client of the Year - Hexchat (33.02%)
Universal Packaging Format of the Year - Snap (38.67%)
Single Board Computer of the Year - Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (64.18%)
Virtualization Application of the Year - VirtualBox (64.53%)
Container of the Year - Docker (67.14%)
Orchestrator of the Year - Kubernetes (62.07%)
Linux/Open Source Podcast of the Year - Linux Action Show (16.00%)
Secure Messaging Application of the Year - Telegram/Signal (Tie - 38.46%)
Video Messaging Application of the Year - Skype (54.76%)
Vector Graphics Editor of the Year - Inkscape (68.97%)
Linux Desktop Vendor of the Year - System76 (63.49%)
Email Client of the Year - Thunderbird (63.45%)
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Ubuntu for the desktop and Slackware for the server? Well, that's all I need to dismiss those opinions. If anything it should be the other way around.
uMatrix is an improvement over uBlock Origin.
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gorhill, the developer of uBlock Origin and uMatrix uses uBlock Origin in Medium mode [github.com], not uMatrix.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBl... [github.com]
https://www.wilderssecurity.co... [wilderssecurity.com]
What does uMatrix do that uBlock Origin doesn't do in Medium Mode? As part of my holy war on Facebook, Google and third party javascript, I'm always interested in learning of new weapons.
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No? What do you miss?
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I can't help noticing that these are nearly all the same things that have been popular for a decade or more. How many differences are there from the 2008 survey, if there was a 2008 survey?
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Yeah, essentially we now know what is most popular among a handful of bored or zealous users.
The Debian Popularity Contest automatic rolling poll has package-level info on a couple hundred thousand systems. Of course systems != users and monitoring the atime of a file overcounts things that get run automatically on occasion (e.g. if some application isn't complying with Debian standards and opens nano or vim instead of the system's "sensible-editor" default, it would affect those results even if the user h
Thunderbird (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sorry guys. Still a big fan of mutt. I know its pretty useless in the days of html email, (there is a special place in hell for who though of html email), but for straight up reading the kernel mail list it really can't be beat.
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I have mutt set up to open HTML attchments in Qupzilla upon request. Beyond that, it's fast and wonderful, giving me the text of the email and stripping out bullshit.
Re:Thunderbird (Score:5, Informative)
Claws Mail is quite a good email client and it's not bloated for a GUI client.
BTW, Thunderbird is currently neglected by Mozilla, but it's certainly not abandoned. It's still getting regular updates.
Re:Thunderbird (Score:4, Informative)
their last version is in 2018
doesn't sound abandoned
Re:Thunderbird (Score:5, Insightful)
These days people think that if the interface isn't being screwed up every other week then the software must have been "abandonded". The idea that software might mature to the point where it only needs bug-fixes and (very) occasional fine tuning is considered sacrilege.
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This is so true it should have its own place in heaven.
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mozilla deabandoned thunderbird and created a new foundation to oversee it's development, and they're hiring again:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/11/thunderbird_mozilla_future/
https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2018/01/were-hiring-a-developer-to-work-on-thunderbird-full-time/
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Luckily the T-bird is not totally abandoned yet. I think it's still the best email client out there. It doesn't need new features. e-Mail is so old, an old email client works just as good as a new one.
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I liked kmail for a while, until it went insane and eventually broke irrecoverably in progressive updates. Went back to Thunderbird because Thunderbird is reliably static. In other words, I use Thunderbird because it's abandoned. Please don't revive it, that'll lead to a strong chance of it being ruined, and email is too important to risk.
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Thunderbird is the most lightweight email client that I can see.
I moved from TB to mutt/neomutt a couple of years ago and never looked back. It took a little while to set up, but the migration was definitely worth it. TB is extremely bloated in comparison.
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+1 for this, and the Lightning CalDav plugin, for which there is no viable replacement (except perhaps Evolution).
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Sylpheed
What, did I time travel back to 2002?
The only people using sylpheed these days are Japanese folk using it out of a sense of national pride instead of the superior fork, Claws-mail.
It's not a bad client, it's just that Claws-mail is better.
So no killer apps. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually this list is rather surprising that there isn't any really popular Linux App, that isn't widely used in other platforms. This list is mostly just rather basic tools for 2018, Web Browser, Video Player, Text editor, and Windows Managers.
Back in the days.
Macintosh had its Adobe Suits for desktop publishing
DOS had its word perfect and Lotus 123
Windows had its Office Suite
Amiga had its video tools
In general the other OS's seems to have a flagship tool that stands for how the product is primary meant to be used for.
Linux doesn't seem to have that. Probably mostly because it is heart it is a server OS. So what really probably should be on the list is Apache MySQL PHP Or whatever is more popular at the moment.
Just itself (Score:5, Insightful)
It's true, Unix has never had a 'killer app': the 'killer app' was always Unix.
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It's true, Unix has never had a 'killer app': the 'killer app' was always Unix.
Yeah, I got to agree with this. Linux, and therefor unix, has lots of programs and applications. Outside of games and if you are willing to put up with its little quirks, you can work linux into a office environment.
But generally speaking when I need to get any real work done. I usually toss aside the gui and open a vt100 window. An 90% of the time us use nothing but command line tools that come with the OS to get work done.
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But what work are you talking about?
For me it means designing and simulating circuits, or developing firmware and apps. The basic command line stuff that comes with the OS isn't great for that. Does it even include a text mode PCB layout tool?
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Unix' killer apps are bash and sh.
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sh I might grant you, but Bash is only notable because the previous shells were intolerably bad. Bash does not have typed variables, or named parameters, or classes. Its array syntax is bizarre, its conditional operator is an external program with a required last argument of ']', and it's not even all that good about parsing command line parameters. The entire Unix toolchain is extremely effective; Bash qua Bash is exceedingly primitive, and if it were a new language introduced today, no one would ever use
Re:So no killer apps. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually this list is rather surprising that there isn't any really popular Linux App, that isn't widely used in other platforms. This list is mostly just rather basic tools for 2018, Web Browser, Video Player, Text editor, and Windows Managers.
Back in the days. Macintosh had its Adobe Suits for desktop publishing DOS had its word perfect and Lotus 123 Windows had its Office Suite Amiga had its video tools
In general the other OS's seems to have a flagship tool that stands for how the product is primary meant to be used for.
Linux doesn't seem to have that. Probably mostly because it is heart it is a server OS. So what really probably should be on the list is Apache MySQL PHP Or whatever is more popular at the moment.
And Linux has LibreOffice. I've been using it for years for academic writing and creating learning and teaching resources (all my students have Windows or Mac). I haven't used MS Office for years and don't miss it one bit.
That said, Linux is sorely lacking in decent, productivity oriented multimedia editing software. Adobe still rules the roost in this department and doesn't support Linux and Wine doesn't work well enough with Adobe software. Unfortunately, I still have to dual boot Linux & Windows so that I can do multimedia editing when necessary.
No productivity apps (Score:4, Insightful)
As you noted, Libre Office wasn't even on the list. Even in the article the most popular were computer management apps and no mention of productivity apps.
This is a large part of the reason I stopped using Linux on the desktop. When the computer was the ends, rather than the means, it was great. However, at this point in my life, the computer is the means, not the ends. When I just need to get work done, Linux just isn't the tool.
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However, at this point in my life, the computer is the means, not the ends. When I just need to get work done, Linux just isn't the tool.
Rubbish. I use GNU/Linux daily for academic, professional, and personal use without ever needing to use Microsoft Windows. If an academic course requires Microsoft Windows it is a sure sign of an ill-conceive lesson plan and curriculum. That said, since I paid for a copy of Microsoft Windows when I bought my latest computer, I chose to replace it with Xubuntu Linux and install Microsoft Windows as a virtual machine instance via Oracle VirtualBox.
LibreOffice's support for MS Office file formats is pretty good. It's usually only when a new version of MS Office has just come out, you know, when they deliberately break backward compatibility, that problems arise. But those issues arise for MS Office users too.
BTW, Zotero https://www.zotero.org/ [zotero.org], the FOSS academic bibliography and citations manager, works much better with LibreOffice than with MS Office :)
Re:So no killer apps. (Score:4, Interesting)
...Linux is sorely lacking in decent, productivity oriented multimedia editing software.
I use Kdenlive+Blender for this purpose.
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You are correct, VMs are quite the thing now, but if I have to run a VM to get work done, I might as well drop the VM and run the real thing instead.
I *desperately* want to ditch Windows, and I'm willing to live with the compromises Linux brings, to a point, but some programs in Windows just don't have workalikes under Linux, and unfortunately, those are the ones I need Windows for...
Re: So no killer apps. (Score:2)
You don't seem to understand this whole VM thing at all.
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Once again, if I have to run it in a VM, I lose performance (maybe a little, maybe a lot) so what's the point? Run it natively, assuming your applications are available.
I've been running VMs of different sorts (Oracle, VMWare, etc) trying to find the best performance (or more accurately, the least performance loss) recently, and the other poster is correct, GPU passthrough is a real bitch to enable and doesn't always work right from reboot to reboot. I think all adobe applications these days work much bette
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Maybe consider GPU passthrough. In my experience it works very nicely and is more or less equivalent to dual boot but without needing to reboot all the time. (Or more accurately: equivalent to having two separate machines, but without needing two machines.)
When you can switch between Linux and Windows just by pressing a button on a HDMI switcher remote (or alt-tabbing to LookingGlass [hostfission.com]), it becomes a lot less irritating to use Windows only for the things that require it.
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Macintosh had its Adobe Suits for desktop publishing
which was used by what, 1% of the desktop users? That's not how you become popular.
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No killer apps?
bash & GNU unix cli goodies awk, you name it pipe it, here to serve you over 20 years and counting (still find non-gnu BSD utils clunky from time to time).
Maybe not visually sexy or anything, but *any* mistake improves knowledge rather than dealing with backwards incompatibility or bugs.
Fed up with waiting for the Year of the Linux Desktop, instead settling with Mate and enjoying the cli, because that's really fine and able to surprise me after 20+ years of use.
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Some tools that started on Unix moved to Linux. And they are only available in Linux. Just check most of the tools provided by Mentor Graphics, Synopsys and Cadence.
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Killer apps have been ported to different platforms too. Office for the Mac, Photoshop for windows.... And they work quite well, however these apps just don't seem to have the right feel as on their intended original platform.
Lock-in is for suckers, however the point is what actually makes Linux special other then its licensing agreement?
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Office for Windows was the port, actually. Though it wasn't an actual port, but a rewrite that was mostly-compatible with documents created on the Mac version.
vi is clearly the best (Score:5, Funny)
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Since TFA brought it up I can't wait for an evidence-based, rational discussion on the best text editor for Linux.
Hasn't Sublime basically made the vi / emacs debate a moot point?
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Back in the early '80s, I learned ed because that was the one editor guaranteed to be on EVERY F***ING UNIX BOX, even if it was one of the oddball x86 clones.
Similarly for DOS, I learned EDLIN (this was pre DOS 5 and EDIT) for the same reason.
Re:vi is clearly the best (Score:5, Informative)
The editor wars kinda annoy me, because it really isn't somewhere that we need absolutes.
For me, the "best editor" really depends on what it is that I'm editing. The best editor for configuration files may not be the best editor for source code. The best editor for a bunch of related files may not be the best editor for a single one-off file or scratch editing of a text snippet. Likewise, the best editor in a GUI might not be the same as the best editor in a terminal window.
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So the obvious choice is to then pair a decent text editor like vi with a good operating system like emacs.
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"Universality" was *the* reason I originally forced myself to learn how to use vi.
If I tried to use any random UNIX machine of any era, it was the only editor I could consistently depend on as always being there. (assuming I could run a full-screen editor, of course)
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ed is the Unix text editor.
Geany No debate... (Score:2)
Geany is the best editor.
For one thing it works on Window and Linux equally well. With plugins (download the bundle) I have everything I need... except for code folding with MORE and LESS that Kedit once had. Maybe I will write that plugin someday.
Vim sure yes if you have to over a shell connection for sys admin or something - but why anyone wants to use a mode editor from the 70's as their development platform is beyond me.
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Nice. A vi vs. emacs flame war in 2018.
We should compromise, and just run a vi emulator inside emacs.
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That idea is just E.V.I.L.
(E)macs (VI) (L)ayer
KDE Plasma? (Score:3)
Saying KDE Plasma is the most popular app is like saying that Explorer is the most popular app on Windows. While technically true, it's also the default, and you can't really use the OS without it. Could you use other window managers? Sure, but I'm not sure a window manager counts as an app.
Re:KDE Plasma? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying KDE Plasma is the most popular app is like saying that Explorer is the most popular app on Windows. While technically true, it's also the default, and you can't really use the OS without it. Could you use other window managers? Sure, but I'm not sure a window manager counts as an app.
It actually is a bit of a surprise, the major distros tend to offer Gnome as the default.
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Indeed ! It is a signal to distros that GNOME should not be the default DE. It shouldn't even be included by distros. For instance Debian installer shouldn't offer GNOME as a choice of DEs to install.
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Just because it is the default doesn't mean it is the most popular. Fedora and the rest offer the major desktops either in spins or in packages. I download a KDE spin. That was painful a while back while plasma was first coming out and I switched to lxde and mate for awhile, but plasma has stabilized and I'm back to KDE.
GNOME, on the other hand (along with the wayland backend) has just gone through its painful next iteration, so it isn't surprising that it isn't as heavily favored right now. Perhaps in a
KDE (Score:5, Informative)
KDE has earned these results. For years now KDE development has been thoughtful and conservative; no iconoclasts have been permitted to blow up everything in another doomed attempt to reinvent the desktop. Small but crucial things have survived incessant pressure from well meaning but short sighted people, such as the fact that you can still turn off fucking compositing. I hope they can stick to this pattern for a few more years and continue earning trust.
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I only wish that KDE wasn't universally shunned by most of the major Linux distro players, and thus relegated to second-class status.
That being said, a big part of why I use Fedora over Ubuntu on my home desktop, is that Fedora does a much better job with their KDE build. (even if the top-down attitudes aren't that different)
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is that Fedora does a much better job with their KDE build.
I've found Kubuntu is working well in recent releases. I plan on committing to 18.04 LTS for many years when it appears in April. I've tested Kubuntu 17.10 thoroughly and I haven't found anything that disappoints me except maybe the still young GUI package manager, a low priority issue given apt. This is relative to my experience with OpenSUSE KDE which has been the most polished KDE distro since forever.
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Does synaptic run under KDE? Or does it have to drag in a full gig or so of dependencies?
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Bit of a false dichotomy there; it runs fine and it pulls in an avalanche of dependencies. Up to you to decide if it's worth the space, but it runs fine.
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Bad phrasing on my part, but thanks.
Is there a KDE apt front end?
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I've been using synaptic with kubuntu for many years, it's my primary package manager. Installation of it went quick on my slow connection when I set up my new PC a couple months ago, so it can't have many dependencies.
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You mean the distro I ditched years ago, because every day around 4pm it would randomly decide to completely hog my system resources? Or the distro I ditched because its package manager took so long to initialize that it was faster to download and compile the friggin source code to something? Or the distro that used to be a big KDE holdout, until they decided to also throw in the towel and join the Gnome camp?
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I vaguely remember Suse Defaulting to gnome for one release, but KDE and gnome are both options now. KDE is very polished.
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Nonsense. KDE is neither fat nor slow. However it needs 3D acceleration these days so it won't work well without it, e.g. on frambruffer video.
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Actually it works fine without a GPU. You just have to turn off desktop effects (which you won't miss; they provide nothing of value) and turn off compositing. With that stuff off KDE is efficient, even over remote protocols like VNC. KDE and Mint are the two full featured non-"lightweight" desktop environments available today that you can tune to run well over remote connections, primarily because you can turn off compositing.
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Mint
I meant MATE.
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It runs great on my 6 year old low-end PC. Are you trying to install KDE on a 386?
"Popular" doesn't mean "Better" (Score:5, Interesting)
Simple as this, "Popular" doesnt mean something is "Better", it just means it is more widely used and marketed. Marketing isn't just for selling products, it is also a way to influence others to be in agreeable with you on a particular idea. In this case, it is the marketing of "use my free software because..." and whoever has the loudest, furthest reaching voice generally wins.
For one huge example, the list has text editors. Emacs? Vim? Nano? And we're talking about desktop distributions? Hands down, none of those compare to the quality of Sublime Text as a text editor.
As others have pointed out in this post already, there isn't any "killer apps" for Linux out there. So the software being ran is all console software with a prettified multi-tasking window manager to organize all of those console windows. This seems to be the current mindset of all Linux is really used for in the desktop space.
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Emacs? Vim? Nano? And we're talking about desktop distributions? Hands down, none of those compare to the quality of Sublime Text as a text editor.
Sublime Text is a commercial product, which will always put it at a huge disadvantage in overall popularity in the Linux world.
There are a lot of people who primarily use Linux because it (and everything on it) is free, with all other factors secondary. (Though they'll tend to deny it if you say it to their face.)
That being said, the two most used applications (that I paid real money for) on my Linux desktop are Sublime Text and Beyond Compare.
I'm also one of those rare folks who would gladly pay real money
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Sublime Text? Come on... all of the cool kids are using Atom now. Atom has so damn many development plugins that it feels more like an IDE once you're done customizing it.
In my day (Score:3)
You kids don't know how lucky you got it. When I was coming up, we didn't have any fancy Linux to use.
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While each time XFCE is used, a mouse is slaughtered. Poor mice.
Saying that, my Linux install regularly kills mice.
Server Distribution (Score:2)
CentOS is nothing more than a free version of RedHat. So, as far as "popularity" goes, they should be counted together. Just like one is bundling up different versions of the same distribution.
That would give us:
RedHat EL (+CentOS) = 33.34%
Slackware = 22.40%
PS: Oracle could also be grouped with RedHat and CentOS, but no one care because no one uses it anyway :)
PS2: Considering the very low total number of votes (366) and the different in votes between CentOS and Slackware, statistically speaking, even if yo
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Even if Slackware made 2nd place, that's pretty huge.
Wood and Formica (Score:3, Funny)
I made my own desktop. Two epoxy-glued layers of 3/4 inch plywood, covered and edged with off-white formica. It is supported by 2-drawer file cabinets. Size is 8 ft wide and 3 ft deep. I have 2x4 reinforcements underneath the top. Holes in the back for cables. It is a solid thing you can jump on. From Amazon I got a pull-out drawer unit for pencils, and some other bric-a-brac. I have a keyboard hutch, and the monitor used to be on top of the hutch, but now is on an arm from the wall. I like this desktop, rugged, custom and ample enough to do work, including soldering up things from time to time. www.xalaska.com Nome, Alaska, USA
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Soooooo...... not using vi or emacs, then...
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As posted above checkout Geany... I too like notepad++ but Geany works equally well in both environments (Linux and Windows). You will need to download the plugin packages to get things like "highlight all instances of variable when i click on it" feature.
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indirect linking (Score:3, Interesting)
Pre-installed? (Score:2)
Isn't half the point of Linux that you fresh install your own version of Linux, getting rid of any bloat that came with the computer?!
Music production software (Score:2)
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The point for Linux for the desktop is to show that Linux can be used for the Desktop.
It has been this way from day 1.
Linux on a personal computer is more of a Workstation OS then a Desktop OS. Outside the server/appliance role Linux is a good OS for software development, and just serious computing tasks.
Can it work as a desktop, yes, however for the average person why bother? The PC they get has Windows installed by default anyways, and most of their devices they will want on it will indeed work with Windo
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You experience is not uncommon. However trying to get windows working on an older PC, often has similar problems.
Being that you are trying to put a newer version a system, there may be things that you may not be able to get drivers anymore for. A google search finds that that particular driver isn't supported on the version of Windows. And links to the old windows version is gone. This is common with a lot of older Win-Devices. where the PC and the driver do all the heavy work, and the device itself is r
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Because vim:
1. Runs natively on linux
2. doesn't require a net connection (if you're using Visual Studio Online, which I understand is the only way to use it on Linux)
3. Isn't a fucking resource pig
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I write software, which is just a series of text files. I don't need much more than a text editor and my own wits.
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Why would I want to become dependent on the product of a corporation in a foreign country?
Because you're not a xenophobic nationalist?
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Well, all right, why would I want to become dependent on a single corporation even if it were in my own country?
Agreed. You can't trust a corporation. I was going to say something flippant like "You can only trust a corporation to make money". But I realized that you can't even trust them to make money, Sometimes they blow up out of stupidity and leave users stranded. (Commodore Amiga still stings for some decades later)
Most of the time when you "buy" software you're only paying for the right to use it temporarily. It seems that without fail the software loses compatibility with libraries and operating systems and ev
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/bin/login is not normally used if your using X for your display manager (GDM, xdm, LightDM, etc). /bin/login is probably launched and remains idle for days at a time on most systems.
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Why do you think AMD is really the best choice for a laptop? I don't think this should be a subjective decision.