Need some help - Linux distros

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khz
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by khz »

Linuxmusician01 wrote:Another downside of them is that it is very risky or impossible to use another (extra) repository other than the distro's own.
You can add more repositories in Debian testing/sid.
Linuxmusician01 wrote:Like: "Is Sid really that unstable?".
All *buntu distributions are based on Debian sid which is a bit more stable than Windows. ;-)

@--all IMHO
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

Linuxmusician01 wrote:@CrocoDuck: I absolutely agree w/ you on the rolling release distro's. Another downside of them is that it is very risky or impossible to use another (extra) repository other than the distro's own. So no KXStudio reopo's for a rolling release of Debian might be possible (I dunno for sure) but most repo's are for a specific version of a specific distro.
Excuse me if I misunderstood the rolling release definition but how would adding https://kx.studio/Repositories to Debian 10 stable be impossible?

Because some dependant library has been rewritten between KX's older release date and Debian's recent or...?
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by khz »

I am currently using Debian-10 on some machines and the KXStudio repositories do not cause any problems with dist-upgrade and generally with a Debian-10 (or testing or sid).
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by merlyn »

Fmajor7add9 wrote:Excuse me if I misunderstood the rolling release definition but how would adding https://kx.studio/Repositories to Debian 10 stable be impossible?
I think you've misunderstood 'rolling release'. Debian Stable is the opposite of 'rolling release' -- it's designed to be installed and left as it is for three years. In practice security updates are incorporated into Debian Stable through 'backport' repositories. The concept of Debian Stable is to put together a working system and leave it, updating every three years with a new version number. The system works because packagers know which libraries are there.

A 'rolling release' updates continuously. I use Arch Linux and update it at least once a week. The system works because the packagers know which libraries are there -- they are always the latest versions. In Arch language -- 'partial upgrades are not supported.'
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

khz wrote:
Linuxmusician01 wrote:Another downside of them is that it is very risky or impossible to use another (extra) repository other than the distro's own.
You can add more repositories in Debian testing/sid.
[...]
Fmajor7add9 wrote:
Linuxmusician01 wrote:@CrocoDuck: I absolutely agree w/ you on the rolling release distro's. Another downside of them is that it is very risky or impossible to use another (extra) repository other than the distro's own. So no KXStudio reopo's for a rolling release of Debian might be possible (I dunno for sure) but most repo's are for a specific version of a specific distro.
Excuse me if I misunderstood the rolling release definition but how would adding https://kx.studio/Repositories to Debian 10 stable be impossible?

Because some dependant library has been rewritten between KX's older release date and Debian's recent or...?
I have no experience (yet) w/ a rolling release. In the past I've installed software in an Ubuntu (based) distro that used it's own specific little repository ion the internet. I don't know what software, nor what distro exactly. But a repository that is made by a developer for just one piece of software is, as far as my experience goes, made for one specific distro and a specific version alone. For instance Debian 10 Buster (which is the stable version at this moment) or Debian 9 Stretch (old stable). I am by no means an expert in this, but I'm pretty sure that a repo that is made for Debian 10 will not work for Debian 9. So I think (but I don't know for sure) that a rolling release can become broken if you use a repository other than (only) the "standard" one.

The KXStudio repository may be different. As far as I can see there are no "restrictions": you can use almost any Debian or Ubuntu based distro with it (which is why I recommend it so much BTW). I don't know how the maintainer manages to pull off such a feat! I admire that.

So @Fmajor7add9: as far as I know, yes, you can use the KXStudio repo w/ Debian 10 Buster (stable). The maintainer of KXStudio is "on a break" at the moment and Debian 10 became stable just a few weeks ago. So I don't know if little problems might occur. Somebody else here will tell you if this might be the case, I'm sure. :)
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by merlyn »

IamNotROOT wrote: Help me understand the unsupported software concept in Linux.
I think the concept of 'support' is confusing because the word is used in different senses, and it's the context that defines which sense is being used.

Commercial software may use 'support' in their marketing : Ripples NoBrainComprezzor with 24/7 support. In that sense 'support' means 'troubleshooting advice'.

It may be used in a hardware context : Arch Linux does not support 32 bit hardware. In that sense it means 'doesn't work on'.

Or from the Arch wiki : partial upgrades are not supported. In that sense it means 'if you've done a partial upgrade you're on your own.' :)

In the sense you're talking about : Support for Ubuntu Studio 19 ends in 2020. In this sense it means the developers have moved on to the next version and 19 will stay as it is. It will still work, but the development has moved on. This sense is related to 'active' and 'maintained'.

To put this into perspective : an Atari ST is unsupported. The company went bust, so there is zero official support. If you got hold of one and the right disks it would still work and you could make music on it.

I wouldn't worry about it. Dive in and sort out the details as you go along.
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by IamNotROOT »

thanks merlyn. Ubuntu Studio will be supporting the LTS-based Bionic Beaver 18.04 until April 2021. It seems to be a good place to start for a noob.
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by IamNotROOT »

This is probably a silly question, but can someone tell me if I should download the "Direct" version or the "Torrent" version? I would think it would be the "Direct" version, but I am guessing. thanks
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by khz »

Good call. You gain knowledge which you can transfer to all distributions. There is not "the ideal distribution", because you can tinker everywhere if you want, because everyone has individual focuses.
For example, I take different distributions from Gentoo (very DIY) to Debian (very ~conservative). Everything has advantages and disadvantages, but all distributions are fun, everything is GNU/Linux.
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by khz »

There are no stupid questions!
As you like.
I always take the iso file of the Distributions HP, so the "Direct" version, because it is faster to download. :-D
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

IamNotROOT wrote:This is probably a silly question, but can someone tell me if I should download the "Direct" version or the "Torrent" version? I would think it would be the "Direct" version, but I am guessing. thanks
I'm convinced they're both the same. I'd simply download the "direct" one. :)
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by rghvdberg »

Sometimes a distro asks you to use the torrent instead of the direct download, because a torrent uses less bandwidth (on the server side).
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by Gps »

For openSUSE I always use the torrent file.

Bit torrent is made for distributing Linux Distro's, so I like to use it once in a while for what it was made to do. :mrgreen:
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by Digital Larry »

I've been using Ubuntu Studio for about 1 week? But I've used Ubuntu as a desktop/development system for at least 5 years. Not once in that entire time did I ever get support "from Ubuntu". I usually do a web search and wind up on Stack Overflow, because I'd wager that most of my questions are just about Linux and not about Ubuntu specifically.

Unfortunately, right now, my US system crashes once a day when I'm doing something like building a package or web browsing. Unlike my Windows 10 system, running on a 10 year old Q6600 with 4 GB of RAM. W10 does not BSOD or randomly reboot (well OK maybe 1x or 2x per year) and it is always on and used daily. I looked in the /var/log/apport.log and older versions of same. Cryptic message about Ardour and another one from Xorg. I'll do an experiment and see if I can get support "from Ubuntu" on this.

First stop - Ubuntu Launchpad issue tracker. Seems like many of the support tickets are actually political spam.
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Re: Need some help - Linux distros

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

Digital Larry wrote:I've been using Ubuntu Studio for about 1 week? But I've used Ubuntu as a desktop/development system for at least 5 years. Not once in that entire time did I ever get support "from Ubuntu". I usually do a web search and wind up on Stack Overflow, because I'd wager that most of my questions are just about Linux and not about Ubuntu specifically.

Unfortunately, right now, my US system crashes once a day when I'm doing something like building a package or web browsing. Unlike my Windows 10 system, running on a 10 year old Q6600 with 4 GB of RAM. W10 does not BSOD or randomly reboot (well OK maybe 1x or 2x per year) and it is always on and used daily. I looked in the /var/log/apport.log and older versions of same. Cryptic message about Ardour and another one from Xorg. I'll do an experiment and see if I can get support "from Ubuntu" on this.

First stop - Ubuntu Launchpad issue tracker. Seems like many of the support tickets are actually political spam.
When I talk about support I always mean support from the community (you will never get support from Microsoft directly even though you paid a small amount of money for their OS). Try to determine why your PC crashes. Might be Wayland, might be something else. If everything else fails, one can always install another distro. A radical solution, but it helps sometimes.

Good luck.
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