I wondered why I couldn’t get the OpenCL to work in darktable…
Dolphin is the file manager of KDE. You can have KDE on Ubuntu. You can even install Kubuntu, a Ubuntu derivative where KDE is the default desktop (which is what I use).
The criteria:
- The package format: rpm for Redhat/Suse, deb for Debian/Ubuntu. There are others… The more mainstream, the better. You can always install from source and compile, but if you were skilled enough for this, you wouldn’t be here asking the question
- Ability to run on your hardware (Ubuntu is hard to beat, but you can be lucky with others)
- Refresh/upgrade policy. Goes from fossilized (Redhat Enterprise, code freeze 5 years before publish) to hemorrhagic edge (Debian unstable). There are distros with rolling releases (but one can break your install) or more stable stuff. You have to know whee you put the cursor between safety and modernity. On Ubuntu, the code is frozen in the year before publish. After that you only get security updates. But you can get recent version of packages in “Personal Package Archives”, keeping in mind that software dependencies will sooner or later hit you, so you will have to reinstall a new version every three years or so anyway. Not much of problem IMHO, this is the rate at which you can replace your hard disk to avoid break downs (or the machine update rate for my employer).
- The desktop manager (Gnome, KDE, Unity, XFCE, LXDE…) is not really a criterion. They are all available on all distros. But of course distros usually have default desktop managers. There are Ubuntu derivatives for popular desktops (Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu…)
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I am skilled enough and still have no clue as to what is the ideal distro and/or DE for me. But honestly this is mainly due to inertia. Whenever I try something else than my familiar debian&XFCE setup I keep failing due to things that neither work just the way I want and nor am I able to quickly make them work the way I want. So I tend to end up at my old setup fairly quickly. I am not saying it is the best though, because how should I know?
Whut? This is the first time if have heard debian unstable mentioned in one sentence together with hemorrhagic (or bleeding) edge without a categorical negation. Unless of course you refer to stuff like the AUR as hemophiliac edge. (Btw: Please don’t take this paragraph seriously).
What I want to say, and what was probably said before, but can’t be stated enough: There is no such thing as “the best” distro. Having choices is one big benefit of the Linux world. Even if you have no clear reason for choosing, any reason is good enough. If you end up liking it, you might become a fan, if you don’t, you can still ditch it for something else (which in that case is easy, as you won’t yearn for the past behaviour).
There is no such thing as “the best” distro. Having choices is one big benefit of the Linux world
… Which is why I expound the criteria. Among beginners there is a good deal of confusion between distros and desktop managers…
Whut? This is the first time if have heard debian unstable mentioned in one sentence together with hemorrhagic (or bleeding) edge without a categorical negation.
Remember, I’m on Ubuntu 
Now, did it occur to anyone that there is some similarity between choosing your desktop/distro and your camera brand? Once you have picked one, you tend to stick with it
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Since yesterday I have again Debian testing with Lxqt and Marco, but I am not sure if it will stay.
I think most people have Ubuntu, then the second most popular distro is Fedora. I have seen fewer people with Debian.
Oddly, I see relatively few people with Manjaro, and even fewer with MX, even though they are #1 and #2 on distrowatch.
What do you think about MX? Have you tried it? I tried it and I like it.
It is still a difficult decision for me, but I think it should be something Debian based, so MX, Debian or Ubuntu. I also tried Manjaro but apparently it cannot be installed on my new laptop.
I tried debian three times and always gave up. debian is great and the debian policy of “fundamentally” open-source is pure and important and all - but a tad difficult to live with. I want my hardware to be recognized at installation. If this means that a proprietary driver is needed, please search for it and provide it. Getting the system running is more important than the pureness of the greater idea. I once got a message during installation that I need to replace the ABC123 file in order to get my WiFi running. There was no hint where to get the newer version from, nor where to copy it to. That was the last (the VERY last) moment I wasted on debian.
ubuntu works and if it doesn’t there is a real huge number of people who can help because ubuntu probably counts for more than half, maybe two/thirds of all desktop-Linux installations, especially here in France, where parliament, police and gendarmerie are working under ubuntu exclusively.
Shuttleworth came up with the idea of making Linux a bit more accessible for non-geeks and he did a good job. Others followed since, but I am still happy using ubuntu - and nothing else.
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That is weird. Manjaro is Arch-based and I did not hear yet of a new Laptop that does install something Debian-based but not an Arch-based distro.
What kind of Laptop is that?
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From “Monty Python and the Holy Thread”: “Bring out your dead thread!!” “I’m not dead yet…”
Okay 2cents: I’my using Ubuntu stable on all my little boxes, 'cept the Raspberry Pies, which get Raspbian. My primary criteria are:
- One distro to rule them all. My VPS that runs pulpitrock.net kinda drives that; they have an Ubuntu image.
- Drag-n-drop desktop: I’ve come to rely on this to use Geeqie as my DAM with rawproc; in either Windows or Linux, need to be able to drag files to a rawproc desktop icon and open them. In Ubuntu, I had to switch back to Unity from Gnome Desktop to retain that capability.
After that, just about any actively-maintained distro will work for me…
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I have no such problems with Debian. There are also the inofficial isos which do include the firmware, it’s those that I use. It’s only nvidia-settings that does not start, but I can live without that.
I dont’t know why but the Calamares installer crashes. It’s not the hardware that is not supported.
Btw, it’s pretty new, a HP Pavilion 14ce-3040ng.
I live happily married with my Manjaro distro since a few years. I like the fact that it’s a rolling release distro, and I only encountered a couple hickups with some updates, that were easily solved with the help of the Manjaro forum. I started with the XFCE desktop, and recently installed and switched to the KDE Plasma desktop environment.
There’s a lot of information, faqs and tutorials for Arch-based distros.
Edit: you can get recent binaries for many photography programs, but compiling them from source is also quite easy either from AUR packages, or by yourself.
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At the moment, with this new laptop, I actually cannot use any “stable” Linux. The Kernel in Ubuntu 18.04 and Mint 19.3 is too old.
However, I am a bit sad that Mint 20 only arrives in a few months.
What are your favorite desktop environments?
There are so many distros and DEs that for me it is very difficult to choose…
Oh man, how can you just stick to one when there are so many possibilities?
Because it works? I started off with everything on debian testing (well actually I first dabbled my toes into linux on mint, but I soon go annoyed by it being debian plus preconfigured stuff - I am a DIY guy), then at one point got even too lazy for that, and switched the homeserver over to debian stable and now that a new debian stable is around I have even been too lazy to update so I am now on debian old-stable (updating would probably be completely painless, but the probably is enough to make me delay it - after all I still have security updates). And debian has contrib and non-free, through which you can also get all the not-DFSG-pure stuff. And whatever isn’t in debian repos, you can compile, appimage, flatpak, … (I am not saying debian is the solution and everything else pales against it, I can’t, I only known debian well, I am just saying it can work and I don’t think it matters much what distro you use as long as it works for you).
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Since one year I use Manjaro on my Photo Workstation (An old Fujitsu Celsius CAE Workstation). I like it a lot, as I always have the current versions of Gimp, Digikam, Darktable, etc.
Before that I used ubuntu LTS for several years. Which is totally fine, the only disadvantage was that I needed to manually compile newer versions of darktable…
Debian is running my Backup Machine, as here I need a stable system and no updates and so.
This is my “lazy way” of using linux. I’m just an “after-work photographer” focussing on photography and picture editing
Did you try to install manjaro with XFCE Desktop environment directly from .iso?
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what do you mean directly form iso?
Marco most probably meant this
https://manjaro.org/download/
You can select XFCE or KDE or …
MfG
Claes in Lund, Schweden
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openSUSE Tumbleweed. rolling release distro which works quite well for me.
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Yes Cleas, you are right.
I downloaded the .iso and dumped (dd if=…iso of=/dev/whatsoeverUSB) it on an USB-Stick.
Then I ran the distro from the usb to check if everything works. After that I installed it…