Guest asrequested Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 I'm a GUI guy, too. I'm sure I can learn the command line, but I'm not sure I want to. That's why I'll build a test machine, before I make a final decision. I've wanted to mess with Linux for a long time. But I keep finding that a lot of the softaware I've wanted to use, can't be used on Linux. I definitely can't use it for my desktop everyday use. But for the storage, it might be just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdiesel 1114 Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 (edited) I have been playing around with Linux for the last 15 years, for the most part I've always used Ubuntu or Debian. I started off by copy and pasting online tutorials word for word to get something done which actually worked surprisingly well but when something went wrong I had no idea why or how to fix it. Over time I started to learn what I was pasting in was actually doing and I was able to do things that were different than the tutorials online. Now I am by no means an expert but I can setup a Linux server pretty quick to do exactly what I need it to do. My advise from a casual Linux user is: Latest is not the greatest. Stick to the LTS releases as bleeding edge is likely to bring issues you won't find simple answers to. Pick a popular distribution like Ubuntu to learn on. There is much more information out there to learn from. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I have done so many fresh installs over the years because I completely buggered things up. Once you get things working just leave it alone unless you have a good reason to change things. If you decide to go with something like FreeNAS or unRAID you don't need to know Linux at all as everything is included in their web GUI just like how your router likely runs Linux but you aren't required to know how to run terminal commands. Edited March 25, 2018 by Jdiesel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 Yeah, that was my thinking. I figured Ubuntu was the place to start. I feel like it's mostly a matter of getting used to character function. It just isn't something I enjoy, or have interest in. But it would be good to have some Linux knowledge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharleyVarrick 277 Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 (edited) But for the storage, it might be just fine. That was also my primary need. And as my storage space need were increasing alarmingly fast, I was constantly adding/upsizing drives, and this was probably what frustrated me the most about Linux. Installing a drive partition can actually be done thru gui (if I remember correctly), but some genius decided that after a reboot, your newly added drive disappears. To have the new drive still show up after reboot, you need to spell out (terminal) to the system to "automount" it. Why this is not a default Linux behaviour is beyond me. My friend sputtered some pretty weak reasoning about security, to which I responded like yeah, in my neighbourhood, we get this all the time: breaking and entering, and the criminals are adding hard drives to linux computers. But fortunately, they suck at terminal, so all is well because the new drive won't show up as soon as you reboot. Edited March 25, 2018 by jlr19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 What? Criminals don't break into my home to install new drives? Now you're just talking crazy! lol 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharleyVarrick 277 Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 (edited) I've always used Linux on servers and headless machines, but about two years ago switched to Linux on the desktop due to it becoming increasingly difficult to work outside the workflow Microsoft expects of you i.e. Bing, Edge, Microsoft account integration. Bing, Edge and M$ acct integration are indeed enough reasons on their own to drive away any sane mind from Windows... Fortunately, they can all be avoided. Just for kicks, using Edge and Bing, do a search for Firefox, the "top" search results are bound to make you laugh! //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Edited March 25, 2018 by jlr19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mastrmind11 717 Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 I dunno, CLI whether windows or linux, is significantly more productive than having to click through menus. mv whatever.file to/here/ versus click, click, click, right click, drag, click, ok.... I just want to get shit done. That's the benefit, regardless of OS. Don't get me started on scripting, batching, etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 lol....and then there are usage preferences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tur0k 143 Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 (edited) I am pretty system agnostic. If you put Unix, Linux, OSX, or M$ in front of me, chances are, I can get them to do what I want. I am a bit of a command line cowboy. At work and at home my preference is generally Linux and M$. At home my family prefers M$ for their desktop experience. Oddly most everything else runs a flavor of Linux (usually CentOS or Debian based) FreeNAS makes a great low overhead product that just works. You don’t have to be a command line cowboy to run it either. Most things are supported in the web UI. I am nearing completion of my newest project in which I am refreshing nearly all my existing back end hardware. I am building a new beefy server off of an AMD Ryzen 1700 CPU (8 cores 16 threads), a Taichi ASROCK motherboard, 16 GB of RAM, PLINKUSA IPC-G3370S case, a PLINKUSA TL-535 Backplane 3x5.25” bays to 5x 3.5” drive cage, a 4 port Intel NIC, LSI 8 port Sata controller, 5x 8TB Seagate 7200RPM iron wolf HDDs (data Array), 1x 480 GB SATA SSD (VM swap file), and and an NVME m.2 SSD (System drives). My plan is to build it as a VMWare ESXi 6.5 VM host. Once complete I am moving all duties from my NAS, network monitor, unifi controller, home automation server, and moving my Emby server off my HT room HTPC to it. I will then be adding an M$ domain controller, M$ direct access remote access server, a new DB server, Freenas, and a security camera NVR, and another 4x 2.5” 4TB 5400 RPM drives to it. Once complete I will end up having to pop open the VMHost and work on creating a job to backup the system and data drives on live VMs. After this is done I am planning on creating a second VMHost next year to ensure I have redundancy in the event of an outage. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Edited March 26, 2018 by Tur0k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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