Between wanting to do more with local LLMs, wsl annoyances, and the direction tech companies have been going lately, I think it's time I start exploring a full Linux migration
I'm a software dev, I'm comfortable in the command line, and I used to write the node configuration piece of something similar to chef (flavor/version agnostic setup of cloud environments)
So for me, Linux has always been a "modify the script and rebuild fresh" kind of deal... Even my dev VMs involved a lot of scripts and snapshots. I don't enjoy configuration and I really hate debugging it, but I can muddle through when I have to
Web searches have pushed me towards Ubuntu for LLM work, but I've never been a big fan of the window Managers. I like little flourishes like animation and lots of options I can set graphically, I use multiple desktop multiple monitors
I've tried the one it comes standard with, gnome, and kde (although it's been about 5 years since I've last given them a real shot).
I'm mostly looking for the most reasonable footprint that is "good enough", something that feels polished to at least the Windows XP level - subtle animations instead of instant popups, rounded borders, maybe a bit of transparency here and there.
I'm looking at Ubuntu w/
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kde w/ plasma (I understand it's very configurable, I don't love the look and it seems to be a bigger footprint
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budgie (looks nice, never heard of it before today)
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kylin (looks very Windows 10 which is nice, a bit skeptical about the Chinese focus)
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mate (I like the look, but it seems a bit dubiously centralized)
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unity (looks like the standard Ubuntu taken to it's natural conclusion)
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rhino Linux (something new which makes me skeptical, but pretty and seems more like existing tools packaged together which makes me think the issues might not impact actual workflow)
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anything the community is big on for this, personally I'd pick opensuze, but I need to maximize compatibility with bleeding edge LLM projects
My hardware and hard requirements are:
- nvidia 1060ti
- ryzen 5500u
- 16g ram
- 4 drives nearly full, because it's a computer of Theseus running the same (upgraded) vista license that came with the case like 15 years ago
- multi desktop, multi monitor
- can handle a lot of browser Windows/tabs
- ideally the setup is just a package mana ger install script with all my dependencies
- gaming support would be nice, but I'll be dual booting for VR anyways
I've been out of the game for a while, I'd love to hear what the feeling is in the community these days
(Side note, is pine as cool a company as it seems?)
I have used Ubuntu for about 5 years for my server, dual booting my desktop, and previously for a work laptop. In my experience, it's solid on desktops, but I always had some issues on the laptop with Ubuntu, I think related to the graphics drivers. Literally last night I installed openSUSE Tumbleweed on my laptop with KDE Plasma. Man, I love Plasma. It's so much better than Gnome. And I don't have any of the weird issues with the graphics driver, although I suspect that everything is running on the GPU, which will kill my battery. But I haven't don't any investigating yet. I did zero setup for Optimus. I just installed the proprietary Nvidia driver and launched a game to verify if it used the integrated graphics or dedicated graphics, and it was using the dedicated.
I like that literally all Linux software works for Ubuntu. By that I mean every software has a .deb package. You will always find guides for how to do things on Ubuntu. It's a great beginner's distro for this reason. There are even better distros based on it for beginners, too. I like apt a lot. It's quick. I'm used to the syntax and commands. It comes with repositories by default that give you a massive selection of software. I don't like that Ubuntu takes forever to get kernel upgrades. And the default apt repositories have very old versions of software.
OpenSUSE, while it's not nearly as popular as Ubuntu, and therefore won't have as many guides to do things, it fixes my issues with software being outdated and kernel upgrades lagging behind. Zypper is just okay imo. It's slow. But the syntax and commands make sense to me (I don't like pacman's syntax or commands at all).
Idk, I'm happy with OpenSUSE for now. But I have only had it installed for half a day now.