# Any Linuxers out there?



## sudo (Oct 26, 2017)

What are your favorite distros and uses for Linux?

For the last 4 or 5 years, I've mostly used Ubuntu for its adaptable and stable nature.
I've also run Manjaro, Arch (lots of fun), Fedora, Debian, and more.

Right now I'm running an Ubuntu based distro called Elementary, and I have it styled like OSX.


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## Carl_in_NH (Oct 27, 2017)

I'm one of those people that started loading up Linux in the early-to-mid-90's when you downloaded the image onto a dozen 1.44 Mb floppy discs (remember Slackware?). Had to download it at work - there was no Internet connection at home at the time. It was the flexibility of *NIX systems and the ability to code and leverage existing pieces that led me to work for Sun Microsystems for several years. 

To this day, I'm still a CLI person. GUIs have their place, but it's not what really drives me or my selection of a distribution. 

In the past, I was a fan of Red Hat - but have used Ubuntu and a myriad of other distributions. Occasionally, you'll find me on a FreeBSD machine as well. My laptop currently has Linux Mint (Ubuntu) installed - does what I need, and am not motivated to install something else given it is working for me. In the past I would change distributions just for the 'fun' of it. Old age has taken the 'fun' out of that disruption -  now I'll just use what's installed and working, and only change if there's a compelling reason. 

I would be interested in hearing what people are doing in the Linux space - is it a desktop replacement for Windows, or are you coding specific applications where UNIX-like systems provide extra flexibility? I'm a hardware designer by trade, and most of my coding in the day was 'close to the metal' in terms of being drivers and controller software and well as simulations of complex systems, as opposed to user applications.


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## sudo (Oct 27, 2017)

Carl_in_NH said:


> I'm one of those people that started loading up Linux in the early-to-mid-90's when you downloaded the image onto a dozen 1.44 Mb floppy discs (remember Slackware?). Had to download it at work - there was no Internet connection at home at the time. It was the flexibility of *NIX systems and the ability to code and leverage existing pieces that led me to work for Sun Microsystems for several years.
> 
> To this day, I'm still a CLI person. GUIs have their place, but it's not what really drives me or my selection of a distribution.
> 
> ...



Wow, early 90s...much respect. You've been using it since the beginning pretty much.
Being trained in CLI is a very important asset. and makes you much more adaptable, and sometimes more efficient.

To me, Linux was an escape from the shackles of windows. I wanted something I had almost full control over. It scratched the nerdy itch that I had. Windows is still very relevant in the gaming industry, and it will probably stay at the forefront for a while.

I did a lot of hobby coding, but never anything really serious. Looking back, it was mainly a way of exercising my brain with programmatic problems.


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## Carl_in_NH (Oct 27, 2017)

Nice! Sounds like we both came to Linux for similar reasons - I wanted to learn more about coding and software architecture. In the Windows space at the time, there really wasn't much to work with in terms of freely available tools. A friend at work introduced me to Linux and it was love at first sight. Even though the system was primitive at the time, it had everything I needed to learn what I wanted to learn. The UNIX idea of making lots of small programs with text IO and piping them together in a shell was, to me, sheer brilliance. Building blocks - all small in scope, and therefore fully understandable. Stuck together properly, they allow you to solve complex problems. Need something slightly different, just change one or more of the simple building blocks and you've got what you need.  

Those were fun times - so much learning, and very little cost; my software education consisted of spending every dollar I could scratch together at the bookstore (remember those - before Amazon) to purchase O'Reilly books on every subject in the coding and UNIX world that I could envision an application for. I worked with some great folks that had considerable software experience at the time, and learned much from them. I miss those days - staying up all hours of the night reading, learning, coding, testing, and relearning the 'right' way to do things after I'd gone off the rails and lost my way. 

Interestingly enough, it was the same thing for me when I 'discovered' Freemasonry. Beauty. Simplicity. Complexity. And so much to learn.


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## sudo (Oct 27, 2017)

Carl_in_NH said:


> Nice! Sounds like we both came to Linux for similar reasons - I wanted to learn more about coding and software architecture. In the Windows space at the time, there really wasn't much to work with in terms of freely available tools. A friend at work introduced me to Linux and it was love at first sight. Even though the system was primitive at the time, it had everything I needed to learn what I wanted to learn. The UNIX idea of making lots of small programs with text IO and piping them together in a shell was, to me, sheer brilliance. Building blocks - all small in scope, and therefore fully understandable. Stuck together properly, they allow you to solve complex problems. Need something slightly different, just change one or more of the simple building blocks and you've got what you need.
> 
> Those were fun times - so much learning, and very little cost; my software education consisted of spending every dollar I could scratch together at the bookstore (remember those - before Amazon) to purchase O'Reilly books on every subject in the coding and UNIX world that I could envision an application for. I worked with some great folks that had considerable software experience at the time, and learned much from them. I miss those days - staying up all hours of the night reading, learning, coding, testing, and relearning the 'right' way to do things after I'd gone off the rails and lost my way.
> 
> Interestingly enough, it was the same thing for me when I 'discovered' Freemasonry. Beauty. Simplicity. Complexity. And so much to learn.



I'm glad you pushed yourself and achieved all that you did with your career, and your personal success. It must be nice looking back on it all. 
Old-school knowledge and perseverance. Now almost everything is digitalized and a bit too easy to attain. 

I can understand the connection you had when discovering freemasonry, because I'm sort of experiencing the same thing right now.  
Recently a lot of things changed for me spiritually, and I've been digging deeper into freemasonry and the like. When I know I'm ready, I'm going to make contact with the local lodge and see what comes of it. 

We are like sponges for information. 
Thanks for sharing your experience!


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## sudo (Nov 1, 2017)

Okay, so an update.
I can't completely migrate to pure CLI, but I have moved to just a simple window manager, and I'm in love.
i3 has a learning curve, but it makes productivity SO much more efficient.

It also looks awesome!


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## dfreybur (Nov 7, 2017)

I've been doing IT since 1978 when UNIX was unknown.  It's not my first or even my third OS.  I've been doing SysAdmin since 1982.  VMS was loaded from reel to reel mag tape at the time.  So were BSD and SysV.

Linux is just one more version of UNIX-like systems to me.  Distro?  Folks who care about what distro it is are new to the field.  Distros supported by puppet are slam dunk not even typing the commands.  Distros not supported by puppet are slam dunk by typing the commands.

At home I use Fedora because it's easy as a desktop, but mostly I use the laptop issued to me from work.  At work, OEL, RHEL, Debian, Solaris on the severs. ESX, OnTap, IOS on the other gear.  This year.  Subject to change year by year.


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## crono782 (Nov 11, 2017)

I'm currently a Linux engineer/admin for the daily grind, mostly RHEL. I use CentOS and Deb in my home lab. Use Arch and CoreOS on the regular too. Back in the day I was working with SLES, AIX, and Gentoo. Ubuntu is fun to dink around with.


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## sudo (Mar 21, 2018)

Ubuntu was a wonderful introduction into this platform. I've used CentOS as a home server with samba and it was quite nice. 

Arch with I3 is still my go-to. I find it hard using regular desktop managers now. I3 is so lightweight and geared towards productivity. I love it.


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## dmurawsky (Aug 27, 2018)

I'm an IT Architect and use Ubuntu at work on servers as well as a bit of Centos. Mac user there because the windows images are terrible, but I do like windows as a platform in general for certain things. 
At home I dual boot windows and Ubuntu. I started back in the mid to late 90s and have some familiarity with slackware, arch, Debian (and raspbian), suse, redhat, centos, free and open bsd, and Solaris. 
*Nix is fantastic.


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## JohnXRV (Aug 27, 2018)

Using it since 1998 (Definite Linux) but settled on Mint for about 4 years now. Did a C coding night class to learn to code. Mine is just home use - Web browser, email, writing, spread sheets etc


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## dmurawsky (Aug 28, 2018)

One of these days I have to check out Mint. I've heard a lot of good things about it. 
I've been on a python kick lately. really liking the devops tools that are built around it, like ansible, cookiecutter, etc.


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## Bro. David F. Hill (Aug 28, 2018)

I have two Ubuntu servers and some virtual machines. I also carry a few Live USB's for different things. I have tried different distro's but I always return to Ubuntu. 

Sent from my SM-G955U using My Freemasonry mobile app


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## bro.william (Mar 28, 2019)

Linux isn't currently my daily driver – I'm a Mac guy who has enough command line experience to have respect but not fear – but I keep up to speed with the distros, and my boy (who inherited my geek genes) uses Ubuntu as his daily driver.  I tend to use Ubuntu or major derivatives when I need something with stability and predictability; after using Red Hat/Fedora and Mandrake as my daily drivers in the early- to mid-2000s I became well wary of .rpm hell.  But I've been playing with Manjaro and Deepin, of late.


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