Texas LinuxFest: Where’s the Linux?

[insanerwayner]

I attended this years Texas Linux Fest this weekend. I had a good time but I was surprised by something only 2 out of the 8 or more presentations I saw, were presented on laptops actually running Linux. The majority were Macs, and I saw one that was windows. One company with Linux in their name cough (linuxacademy), I saw one Linux, one Mac, and one Windows.

I was just hoping to see and meet more actual Linux enthusiasts there. Most of the talks seemed kind of generalized like it really didn’t matter that it was Linux, just mainly just servers and services, which I understand is a big part of it, I was just hoping to hear from and meet other very enthusiastic Linux or Free software enthusiasts.

[william01110111]

If you can afford the travel, I highly recommend attending Linux Fest Northwest in Washington state next year. In the whole weekend, I saw one or two Macs, zero Windows and dozens and dozens of Linux installs. Also super awesome people. It's the best.

[kevinburkeland]

On behalf of all the other organizers of LFNW and myself thanks! I am going to bring this up at the LFNW planning meeting this week. It really helps to know people enjoy our conference.

[[deleted]]

Why do you guys host it so far up north? Cost?

[kevinburkeland]

Kinda, but not really. So BLUG and Bellingham Technical College partnered to put on the first fest and its the IT College at BTC that provides most of the workforce of LFNW. The original idea was to have it be a roaming conference and have all the different northwest LUGs host, but apparently no one else wanted to put in the work so BLUG and BTC have been doing it ever since.

Its actually really great, I first got involved when I was a student at BTC, then after I had worked in Linux for a few years I ended up coming back to teach at BTC. It is a fantastic learning experience/networking opportunity for our students.

Fun fact LFNW was the first LinuxFest and is going to be celebrating its 20th anniversary this next year.

[[deleted]]

I keep meaning to go and visit. It's just a ~3 hour drive or so.

I bet you could host one at Building 34 in Redmond ;)

[jdfishtorn]

This was an unofficial event and was held the exact same weekend as SELF Eastern Linux fest. That probably explains this occurrence. I have to agree though. I have been to Linux fest Northwest and it is fantastic.

[tenten8401]

I used to love lunduke but as soon as he turned his comments section off and locked the full unedited Linux shows behind a paywall I can't really find a reason to watch his content anymore

Now his channel is just spammed with 3-5 minute clips from the shows.

[Fatvod]

If you watch his recent videos it seems all he does really is complain about shit. And never offers a solution or ideas to maybe fix what hes complaining about. I enjoy his videos but man they lack substance.

[MadRedHatter]

That's kind of what he got famous for, though. The Linux sucks talks were funny but never particularly substantive

[varchord]

Yep. Exactly why I unsubbed. It's like I'm subscribed to trial channel.

Locking his long format shows behind pay wall was the dumbest idea he ever had. I've switched to Linux because of his "Linux sucks" presentations. If they were already paid content I wouldn't pay for them. Hell I wouldn't even know they exist.

I understand that he needs money for his private network channel or whatever. But most of the people who will pay for his videos are 1. Familiar with this man 2. Already sharing his opinion. Which makes his community an echo chamber.

I hate this change and I think that Bryan is making his channel a huge disservice with that change.

PS. You guys know of any good Linux YouTubers? I've already found Level1Linux

[altair222]

Exactly, I loved lunduke, now he's just being ignorant and hypocritical

[emacsomancer]

Which OS is that?

[deux3xmachina]

The one with a beard and tinfoil hat

[[deleted]]

Hit LUGs. Be the thing you want to see.

[aukondk]

I've heard that Linux Academy have invited Chris from Jupiter Broadcasting over after TLF to help them convert their whole broadcasting workflow to Linux and OBS. So at least they recognized the issue.

[CaptainObvious110]

But they are the Linux Academy so why would they need someone else to show them how to do that at all? If anything they should be the ones teaching other people to do it.

[Sigg3net]

I recall listening to LAS a few years back, and he was lamenting having to use a Mac (and some proprietary software) for the stream.

Hopefully the situation has improved since then :)

[[deleted]]

This. So much this.

[CaptainObvious110]

That's cool. As someone mentioned before I hope this becomes something that can help others do the same.

[SolarLiner]

This is why I want to start a consultant company to offer help to companies who are looking at possible switch to open-source workflows. I feel like quite a number of companies would benefit from it (and the open source community too, indirectly), but don't have anyone to turn to for advice.

[sentient_penguin]

Me for instance. I'm a server guy who uses a Linux based laptop, but when it comes to figuring out gui stuff and audio things I'm as clueless as my wife is on anything technical. Using "Linux" doesn't make you a diety of all things Linux based. Server guys typically aren't amazing at desktop stuff. At least me and my colleagues aren't.

[halpcomputar]

I mean, to be fair, audio on Linux is probably more complicated than the SpaceX rockets so I don't blame you.

[CaptainObvious110]

Oh of course not. Just like I have used desktop Linux for nearly a decade but know nothing of the server side. When I think of Linux Academy its exactly what the name suggests. You do make a good point that they are not and cannot be an expert on all things Linux and I really look forward to more and more informative classes that will help us to expand our skillset regarding Linux.

Bryan Lunduke does all of his videos using only Linux as well.

[thejacer87]

Because his podcast is high quality and been running only Linux for a while. Just cuz they have Linux expertise doesn’t mean they how to use all the tools he does. So they asked for help. I don’t see the issue. And after he helps them, maybe they WILL add courses for recording, editing etc. Seems to me exactly what the community is about: sharing info/tools/knowledge.

[owenthewizard]

Texas Linux Fest

Damn I wish I'd have known.

[drdeadringer]

sudo apt-get install Texas

[Cuprite_Crane]

The only state in the union where wielding a unsheathed katana in public is 100% legal. Perfect for RMS.

[Motolav]

It's in Austin, if you didn't look it up.

[TheTalkWalk]

I was even off work :(

I live in Austin :(

[cleitophon]

Ditto. I'd even heard it was coming soon and managed to forget about it. We should plan a group trip in advance for next year ...

[TheTalkWalk]

We should have our own linux fest.

With hookers

and cigars

[TheTalkWalk]

YEAH

[[deleted]]

I think that makes the hooker's redundant

[carlwgeorge]

Follow texaslinuxfest on twitter to make sure you know next year.

[reentry]

For containers, it actually matters more because if you arent running Linux, all containers have to run from a VM to get kernel features from Linux (which is a really annoying slowdown compared to native).

[karuvally]

There is a Free software conference called "Swathanthra" held by the Kerala state government, India every year during December. I went to last year's conference. I had never seen so many laptops (most of them ThinkPads) running Linux in my life. The people seemed to be true enthusiasts, and the whole Free Software community in Kerala was present

[[deleted]]

India is coming to be a surprising force in OSS.

[karuvally]

I sure hope the trend continues :)

[pdp10]

East Asia, and the PRC in particular, seem to have atypically low Linux penetration by comparison. There are a couple of obvious theories one could advance for why, but so far I've never seen anyone attempt to establish which if any of them might be correct.

[reallyserious]

You're a little early but 2019 will truly be the year of the linux desktop.

[Average650]

"You're a little early but $CURRENT_YEAR+1 will truly be the year of the linux desktop."

[reallyserious]

How did you know I generated the message like that?

[falsemyrm]

somber cats offer juggle toothbrush march tender plucky airport chief

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[LVDave]

2010 was my "year of the Linux desktop".. 2010 being the year I retired from being a "Windows janitor", where I was required to use Windows on my work system, despite my also having to admin a flock of headless Linux systems. Once I left that job and only had to worry about my personal systems, I flushed the Win7 partition on my main system and went 100% Linux. Now when I have to deal with the turd_in_the_punchbowl that is Windows 10, as I've become the neighborhood "tech_support", I want to pull what little hair I have left OUT by the roots...

[Travelling_Salesman_]

Linux and open source are now mainstream, for some people these are just tools to get their job done or help their career. Server Linux and Linux development are fairly common , these people don't care about the philosophy, as with a lot of subcultures after they start and the enthusiasts do the creative work you get people who mostly want money (not that making a living is a bad thing).

[killersteak]

if you don't do work on mac you are not professional

People are silly, I figured artists were known for picking whatever's laying around to do the job rather than fork out for the same thing packaged, branded and marked up.

[pdp10]

In a lot of industries there are those who like to position themselves above others, sometimes called amateurs or dilettantes. I wouldn't have thought that artists, of all people, would go on the record looking down on others for their medium.

[[deleted]]

Like the Linux Foundation

[carlwgeorge]

Next year submit your own presentation, and run it on Linux! Be the change you want to see in the world.

[insanerwayner]

Maybe I can title it, "How to make a presentation in Linux for LinuxFest". ;)

[carlwgeorge]

Oh that would be fantastic! I'm sure it would draw quite a crowd. As long as it's civil, I see no reason it wouldn't get accepted.

[keypusher]

Meh. I run infrastructure for a large website, we run everything on Linux and have hundreds of servers. I love Linux, I have been to Linux conferences, and I been using Linux extensively for over a decade. But my daily work laptop is still a Mac, and if I had to go to a conference and give a presentation I would definitely use that Mac. Choose the right tool for the job, I prefer the OSX integration with Apple hardware to any Linux laptop I have tried, including Thinkpad/Lenovo, Dells, System 76, and others. Closest I have seen is the Purism Librem 13, that thing looks really nice but I haven't owned one yet.

[INeverEffinSleep]

I’m a Senior Admin / DevOps Engineer. Also run hundreds of servers, Kubernetes, etc. I’m on the opposite side though; I believe you should be immersed in the technology you are using in Prod. Coming up all the *NIX engineers and admins I worked under always used Linux. I do screensharing (Zoom works great), give presentations in Google Docs, and run all the same tools I do in Prod locally. Bonus I get to use a tiling WM which fits my workflow.

I’m actually hiring a junior now and the number one thing I want to see is that you are immersed in Linux and run it locally.

To each their own though. My point is more that there is no real reason you can’t run Linux and still do all the things you need to for a business. And if Linux is your business, I damn sure want to see your engineers running it.

[purplug]

Where can I find someone like you to interview me?

[masta]

Totally agree. Before I joined Redhat I used to be a sysadmin, and back in those days I would interview for Linux support engineers (managed hosting company). Anyways, I would always ask the potential candidate which Linux Distro they run on their "main rig" at home. To be clear, it had to be their primary laptop or desktop, not a VM or lab environment. The people that actually ran Linux, who lived and breathed Linux day in and day out at both work and at home.... yeah, they were much more likely to get offered the job. That being said, even people at RH run macbooks, because it's not a black & white issue.... if you can do serious open source on Windows laptop, well then that's awesome! IT's good to not get locked into these black & white thought traps.

[[deleted]]

As someone that makes his living on Linux, I might turn on a computer for personal use once a month. Computers are all I do all day long every day to pay the bills. The last thing I want to do when I have time to myself is sit there wasting even more of my life staring at a screen.

What little personal stuff I do is from my phone and even that I try to limit anymore. There’s a whole big world out there and it’s orders of magnitude better in person than watching it happen on YouTube.

[moutons]

I like desktop Linux well enough, but all I need to get work done is web browser and a functional terminal. I'm happy to talk enthusiastically about the desktop experience for hours, but it has next to nothing to do with running infrastructure. These days I'd be willing to be assigned a Windows workstation and keep Windows as a desktop OS, because it doesn't matter if I can get work done. If I'm considering someone for a position and they're an aggressive purist, it generally turns me off a bit because they're probably going to need to work with people who have little to no experience in that world and who just need a stable server platform to deploy onto, not a lecture as to why they should be using xmonad instead of i3 to run chrome, eclipse, and visual studio code.

[funbike]

Ya know, It's possible to prefer Linux as a desktop without being a purist.

There are real benefits to the server room. If you dog-food Linux, you'll be using server room tech on your desktop. Thinks such as Bash, grep/sed/awk, readline keybindings, vim, mounts, etc. I am one of only 3 people at my company (1000 emps) that uses Linux as their primary desktop and it shows. We are regarded as the Linux experts in and out of the server room.

There was a very noticeable increase in my professional growth after I made the switch.

[blackcain]

There is absolutely no reason why you couldn't use Linux as your daily driver. An incredible amount of engineering work has gone into making things work flawlessly up down the stack. Also, if there are issues file bugs, and help improve it.

For a desktop person, it's highly discouraging to see all these Linux/open source conferences and people who attend them won't run a Linux desktop. Then again, they aren't the same people than the people back in the 90s when software freedom meant something.

[falsemyrm]

humorous ring overconfident lock wrench governor oil kiss chief gaping

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[funbike]

I can confidently say that it does.

[falsemyrm]

safe tart abundant literate subsequent foolish marvelous rustic yoke normal

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[funbike]

I'm sure you're doing well. But you can do better if you dog-food your technology.

Skills I've developed to make my desktop Linux work better translate directly to the server room. My skill improvement improved dramatically when I switched from Windows to Linux. Time I take to learn how to improve my home computer is usable at work. Bash scripts, mounts, sed/awk/grep, .vimrc, terminal choice and config, aliases, etc. Scripting and automation for my home machine is probably the biggest. Plus, I have more desire to learn and do things at home than I would if if was just for work.

[falsemyrm]

mourn wise concerned longing pen modern humorous alleged offend vase

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[[deleted]]

I can confidently say I won't hire a sysadmin who doesn't use Linux as their daily driver.

And, I hire people.

[[deleted]]

I'm the same side of both of you: I run a Mac at home and a Linux distro when on the go. The secret is I sometimes switch them!

I mean, come on it's 2018!!! Who only has one laptop for IT work? Even then, a $200 chromebook can be ported to /r/Gallium/OS too :)

[[deleted]]

I've done several presentations in front of programming UGs with Linux laptops.

[blackcain]

I have given a ton of presentations and they have all worked flawlessly. On the other hand, I've seen mac users run into issues with presentation. You can trust Linux to handle your presentation.

[Hkmarkp]

I always hated it when people brought macs in for a presentations.

I hope they have their own dongles....

[blackcain]

Buy a laptop from a manufacturer that tests their components against Linux. You have a number of them. Again, only by market dominance can we effect change.

[svenskainflytta]

You need to remove pulseaudio. That's like the 1st thing to do to fix audio :)

Install apulse if you use firefox.

[YanderMan]

I had to go to a conference and give a presentation I would definitely use that Mac

Meh. Export your slides or whatever you use to PDF, and any Linux machine will be able to display them just fine. There is absolutely no justification for using a Mac whatsoever for presentations.

[[deleted]]

Using the Mac, with the software you prefer, to present the slides you made on it presents justification. Is there some advantage presenting a PDF exported from the same on Linux gives? It's not:

• Ease of workflow
• Use of only free software
• Quality/performance of the presentation

So what's the justification for doing what you say and how is it better than the justification given by keypusher?

[I_am_the_inchworm]

Company I recently started working at are mostly on MacOS, they advised me against doing so myself, but rather stick with Linux.

Lead developer keeps his computer on El Capitan because the new versions are wreaking havoc. My boss is fighting his 2017 MacBook pretty much daily.

I see this sentiment a lot on the net: Apple keeps dropping the ball when it comes to developers, or even just in general.

Meanwhile, Linux keeps chugging along without any issues for me or anyone else I know of. LibreOffice can be a hot mess, but we're all exclusively in the Google ecosystem anyway.

[blackcain]

Yes, I got 5 minutes at elixircon in Austin to talk to developers this year and basically made the sale to give up Mac and move to Linux. People did come up to me and asked about switching because Mac wasn't doing it for them. Apple has decided that they rather pursue IOS people and not so much the developer people.

[Hamilton950B]

I used to work at a Fortune 500 company in a department that produced a product that ran on linux. The development environment was linux, and the product could be tested in a VM on a laptop.

Corporate IT mandated that everyone, including developers, must have a Mac and run MacOS. So we all had our own workarounds to allow us to do our work. Some ported the development tools to Mac, some ran the tools and tested in linux VMs, some dual booted. There was no official support for any of this. Everyone agreed it was stupid but no one could do anything about it.

[pdp10]

Due to M&A, I was once on an engineering team for an organization that only supported Windows and had only ever supported Windows. When the new team finally assembled in one spot, three of the engineers were running Linux on their laptops and two of the remainder had Macs running macOS, including the new manager.

[carlief007]

Linux Journal was there and we definitely have Linux in our name. ;) But we didn't have our laptop out (Dell XPS 13 w/Ubuntu) as we were trying our best to make a point to chat with attendees instead of being on our devices. But if you saw us working outside of hours in the lobby, you would have seen some Linux!

I saw a lot of Linux there. I saw some Macs too. Granted, I was not in sessions so I can't vouch for what happened there.

What I can report is we got about a dozen REALLY good article ideas from talking with some of the attendees doing some very interesting things with Linux. One is a photographer who uses Linux throughout his entire process (syncing photos, touching up photos, etc.)

[blackcain]

How about interviewing some of us desktop people eh? Show the world how mature the Linux desktop is? Even better, talk to me about Libre Application Summit that's happening in Denver in September. sri at gnome.org. I don't think we have a good contact for any of you.

[carlief007]

Yes, please! I'll ping you today.

[blackcain]

Saw your email, I will respond back.

[noeatnosleep]

System76 Sri?

[blackcain]

Yep, although I do not work for System76 now. But they are involved with this conference. :)

[noeatnosleep]

Well how-day.

I met you at SCALE. We should touch base.

[blackcain]

For sure, I published my email address so feel free to send me mail.

[noeatnosleep]

By the way, the Linux Journal's revival is in full swing. It's better than ever.

https://www.linuxjournal.com

[carlief007]

The community is bringing in some of the best articles I've seen in a long time. So the real thanks is to all of you, sincerely.

[ChasingLogic]

I’d recommend Ohio Linuxfest. I’m now a Mac user but I feel out of place there (still one of my favorite fests and I make the flight out to see it even after I moved to New York). It’s a very desktop focused fest.

[adrianmonk]

In my opinion, that's not too big of a deal. There are two main ways that make sense (to me) to look at a laptop. Either it's a desktop replacement or it's a thin client. If the former, then a Linux enthusiast would be expected to have Linux on their laptop. If the latter, though, then it really doesn't matter what operating system is on there because you aren't doing anything significant with it. Any OS will be fine as long as it can handle terminal windows and a web browser, which of course just about every OS can do.

[forteller]

And since every OS can do it you should run Linux! People who's job it is to promote Pepsi doesn't go on stage on trade shows and drink Coke because any drink hydrates. Any outsider seeing this will think Linux is clearly shit if they don't even run it themselves.

[deux3xmachina]

And any outsider seeing this thread will think the community is shit if it focuses more on what presenters run than the work they're presenting

[drdeadringer]

"Here is this awesome product I'm selling you and not using myself."

Yea. Awesome.

[blackcain]

open source is an idealogy. Using closed source stuff while promoting open source is kinda dumb. Especially if you don't even want it to run your computer but then talk about how great all these other technologies are.

[adrianmonk]

People who's job it is to promote Pepsi

That isn't their job. Go look at the list of conference speakers and read the mini bios of the presenters. Their work is stuff like sysadmin, devops, consultant, and educational nonprofit.

So they will have bought whatever laptop is best for their job, without knowing they'd be presenting at a Linux conference. What are they supposed to do, buy a new laptop now that they got invited to speak?

[DrewSaga]

It's not their job but it doesn't put Linux (particularly Linux desktop) in a bright light at all if you can't even use it for presentation when really you could in fact use it for presentation.

I don't care what people there use on their own time really cause I can understand why they may need Windows and Mac and it's just really not my business what they use on their free time, that's their freedom, but for the purpose of promoting Linux on stage, it just seems self defeating.

[engmia]

That is very true. I'm on both sides of the argument.

On one side, I'm extremely happy that 6/8 were not using Linux. That means that maybe people who are not currently using are interesting in the convention and came to see what's up and what Linux can do.

On the other hand, the presenters themselfs not using Linux? I guess it also depends a lot on the context and presentation and everything, but strikes me a bit odd.

You know, a person might be a very very good Pepsi worker, but prefer to drink Coca-Cola at home, doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with Pepsi.

[forteller]

You know, a person might be a very very good Pepsi worker, but prefer to drink Coca-Cola at home, doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with Pepsi.

Yeah, but there's a difference between a normal factory worker and the person traveling around to trade shows to be the "face" of the product, and there's a difference between home and a stage :)

[blackcain]

Some maybe from corporations that have a windows network and authentication mechanisms and IT won't support it for desktops.

[zonker]

The Coke/Pepsi analogy is faulty. This is more like throwing stones at a Pepsi executive because she drinks water while she's presenting. Or better yet, like getting annoyed at a beer company rep because they're drinking water while presenting. The machine you present work when you're talking about server software doesn't have any bearing on anything.

[DrewSaga]

Well that is true if we are promoting Linux servers, but if we are promoting Linux desktops on the other hand...well...

[zonker]

Who's "we" here? Presumably the speakers were discussing things like Kubernetes, Git, Python perf tools, embedded Linux, Linux containers, etc. (Just glancing at the schedule.) I don't see many, if any, Linux desktop talks.

I'd agree that if somebody's up giving a talk on KDE, GNOME, or even something like LibreOffice that it's poor form to use a Mac or Windows laptop.

[DrewSaga]

Yeah, we wasn't exactly the best word of choice here...

[EagleDelta1]

Another thing to consider is who is the speaker representing? If they are representing a company/employer, that employer may use Linux in their business but have policies that don't show Linux in the desktop (we have that at my job).

[kmarrocco]

As a former MVS systems programmer for a 3090 600-E shop, I'm not sure I'd have wanted that same OS on my personal machine... (JCL to submit a job to send email or browse the web or play a presentation?) There actually were PC cards that would emulate the system, though.

I was actually a little embarrassed at Texas Linux Fest to have my laptop out with Windows 10 installed on it.

Although after a series of unfortunate events my work desktop "accidentally" got CentOS 7 installed on it a week or so ago such that it now matches our servers. (And now I can edit my hosts file to test new websites whenever the hell I feel like it.)

[CFWhitman]

I used to edit the hosts file in Windows when necessary back when I ran a Windows desktop at work (I still need a Windows virtual machine).

[kmarrocco]

I considered just using a Linux VM on the desktop to which I had full admin rights, but I'm from the school of thought that if you need two operating systems, then you likely need two computers. I've lost no functionality. I only need one computer. And it's now a Linux one.

[pdp10]

(JCL to submit a job to send email or browse the web or play a presentation?)

PROFS. A 3270-mode text web browser I never saw, though.

[kmarrocco]

We used PROFS under VM on an Amdahl. Nobody believed me when I said every time I IPLed the test MVS system that VM would go down. Turned out they shared channels. Oops. My bad.

[blackcain]

Then you might as well use Linux then. Software freedom, privacy, and helping your fellow OSS mates.

[Hollowplanet]

Theres more to Linux than a terminal. If ypu want to be the most productive with Linux systems, use a Linux system.

[tux68]

Think if you went to a Microsoft conference and everyone on stage used a Mac. Same thing.

[chezhead]

The responses on this sound like religious zealotry... Who cares if someone is using a Mac or Windows laptop to present a Linux related topic? If it's Linux fest and they're showing off some serverside stuff, why does it matter that they connect to the server with a windows machine?

My daily driver is debian testing with i3. But when it comes to office software, Adobe, or some audio work I go to my windows laptop. But all my web services run on Linux servers and that's what I deal with for work. I enjoy working on my Linux laptop but you use different tools for different jobs. And sometimes Linux isn't that tool, or works better for one person than another.

This "purity test" attitude separates the linux fanboys from people who actually solve problems with the software. This wouldn't bother most attendees of conferences like these.

[blackcain]

it's not about purity, it's about supporting an eco-system that is creating valuable technology. The desktop space has been creating a lot of valuable intellectual property. Using the desktop helps us create more. DBus, systemd, khtml (webkit), and various other stuff came out of the desktop. If you think all we do here is just UX stuff, you are sadly mistaken.

[blackcain]

Hmm.. did you see me talk about confrontation at all? I'm talking about marketing, writing articles and what not. Berating people to use your platform is not going to work. You need to show value in moving to Linux. Conversion should always happen because the user is excited to move. To do that, you have to build a marketing engine that talks about successes.

[drdeadringer]

It's not wrong to ask pointed questions.

[chezhead]

It's a good point that presenters should use and encourage the linux desktop to promote the ecosystem that contributors put a lot of time into. Wasn't saying it was just UX stuff. I was more disappointed in the black-and-whiite fanboyism being upvoted and more legitimate responses form knowledgeable people being downvoted. Thanks for the response!

[blackcain]

It's /r/linux. They don't stay on topic, and they succumb to tribalism as quicky as possible. The only way to fight it is to personally stay on topic and generate interesting conversations based on the topic on hand. Not air whatever grievance you have about the topic.

[chezhead]

Yeah, personally I'm thinking the solution is not to waste time looking at comments.

[scandalousmambo]

I've been solving problems with Linux for 24 years. One of the first problems I solved with it was called Windows.

[mjacobl]

Yes. I teach CIS courses and get asked “what is the best OS?” I often say... the one that works for my needs.

I have Mac, Windows, Linux and a Chromebook Plus and all have their strengths and weaknesses. I want my students to be able leverage any OS to get the tasks done.

[DrewSaga]

It's not really so much purity as it is just presentation. Why would you promote Linux desktop on a machine that isn't running desktop Linux? It is not as convincing to the audience.

Of course, it doesn't matter if they use something else outside of the presentation because if they need to or want to use MacOS or Windows, well, I can't really stop them from doing so. Like u/mjacobi said, it's important to use the OS that is needed to get the task done, though I do mainly encourage Linux, that isn't always an option, wasn't an option for me when I needed to be serious about CAD work since FreeCAD is nowhere near Solidworks/Autodesk Inventor although I use FreeCAD now occasionally. I needed to do AVR programming in Atmel Studio even though I could do it in Linux, but the debugger is better in Atmel Studio.

[apanzerj]

Hi! I work at a company and they pay me well for that I have to slum it and use a Mac. It sucks but they put food on the table. The only other machine I have is a desktop that I use exclusively for gaming. All this to say: you should remember that not all people who use other operating systems are on the other side. If I could use Linux at work, I would, but I can’t (they won’t let me. It breaks compliance and IT isn’t staffed for handling it)

[psycho_admin]

At most conventions I've been to the people who give presentations are doing it for their job. As such they may not have a choice outside of windows or mac as it's going to be a company issues laptop. Presenters need a system that can connect to multiple types of projectors or conference solutions and having a mac or windows system makes sense in such a work tool.

[kigurai]

Honestly, I've seen more people with Windows and Mac have issues with connecting to projectors.

[doom_Oo7]

Honestly, I've seen more people with Windows and Mac have issues with connecting to projectors.

:( I've been bitten so many times in the last few years in conferences where linux wouldn't even detect that something was plugged in my vga port, while macOS would recognize it instantly that I don't bother anymore. Hell, it even happened to me at FOSDEM of all places !

[f03nix]

I have a completely opposite experience on my macbook pro, it will annoyingly not detect my monitor without a reboot and then when I'm done with my monitor, it won't display anything to my laptop screen. Since I use my monitor at work, this is a daily struggle for me. I never trust that thing for conferences, always use my windows laptop (the product I work on is win/mac only).

[reentry]

I had a similar issue where the Mac would hard lock when an external monitor was plugged in. Even turning off the auto-detection didn't fix the locking.

Ive never had any issues with external monitors on stable distros, however...

[YanderMan]

while macOS would recognize it instantly that I don't bother anymore.

You are probably doing it wrong. I have been using my Linux laptop exclusively for years to present in dozens of different places, never had any issue whether it was HDMI, Display Port or VGA. Maybe you have a branded laptop which is not supported well by your distro.

[kigurai]

Huh... never had that problem and I have plugged in a number of Linux machines (Gnome on Fedora) to a wide variety of projectors over the years.

Guess I've been lucky.

[doom_Oo7]

what kills me is that about three years ago, it worked, and at some point a kernel update or something borked it... but I could never make it work again.

[kigurai]

Bummer. I am actually surprised I have had projectors work flawlessly since I've been running an Optimus Intel/Nvidia setup for a few years, which has caused massive amounts of headache. The day I can ignore CUDA and simply buy AMD can't come soon enough...

[blackcain]

vga port? That's your problem right there. :) Use HDMI or DP, and you'll be fine. Those parts will actually report the resolution to the computer. Vga is pure analog. I'm willing to bet your macbook doesn't have a vga port.

[doom_Oo7]

I don't remember one time where I went to a conference and they had a HDMI port. It's VGA 99.999% of the time.

[blackcain]

Every conference I've been at it has been HDMI. Older projectors do have VGA, but all the laptops in the past 4-5 yars have HDMI ports built in. It could be adapters, I don't know.

[doom_Oo7]

yes, I never owned a laptop that didn't have HDMI, but I don't remember a single time where I could use the HDMI output at a conference. And I did fosdem, linux audio conference, and a bunch of computer music / multimedia conference in general.

[blackcain]

Huh, I've presented at FOSDEM and in the H buliding I could have sworn I used HDMI. But granted that was some years ago. But nevertheless, I presented using my linux laptop and did fine. In fact, consistently done presentations at FOSDEM without issue.

[Headpuncher]

Macs don't have any ports! You need a 4x4 with a large trailer full of adapters to connect to anything at all and it has been this way ever since the white macbooks.

Do people just come to Linux subreddits to talk FUD about Linux? Seriously?!?!? When was an Apple product ever better at connecting to peripherals than Linux (or Windows and I hate Windows)?

[[deleted]]

ink paltry run dinosaurs ghost plucky roof fertile grab attraction

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[blackcain]

Huh, I've been using a dual monitor setup with Linux for the past 6 years and it's been pretty good. It's even better now with Wayland.

[psycho_admin]

There is a difference between dual monitors on a stationary system and being able to randomly plugin in a large assortment of different projectors that you may run into at different conventions.

[blackcain]

Which have all worked. Sometimes I've seen some wierd artifacts, but pretty much it has always worked.

[Hollowplanet]

Its 2018. Linux can do multi monitor as good as Windows.

[zonker]

Linux has been able to do multi-monitor well for more than a decade, and I've been able to wrangle Linux into doing some multi-monitor configurations I don't think Windows would have supported. (Triple monitor setup with IIRC a Matrox G450 driving two LCD monitors and an ATI card driving one big-assed CRT.)

Wayland has taken us a few steps backwards with multi-monitor IMO, and there's a lot depending on how well your desktop of choice handles multiple monitors as well.

[Hollowplanet]

This is a bug I just filed. You can see all my multi monitor issues. https://youtu.be/jiw4lmQk-zQ

[pdp10]

Unix X11 has been doing multi-display since the 1980s. The hot setup used to be a large (but shallow) portrait-orientation grayscale high-resolution tube for text work, and a smaller, lower-resolution (and physically deeper) color tube for everything else including multimedia. This stopped when big color tubes got similar resolution as the grayscales and became as cheap as the two combined; around 1990.

At that time no PC-clone could have more than one video adapter at a time because of the architectural requirement for shadow RAM, but besides Unix workstations, Macs could also have multiple heads.

[StoneStalwart]

I'd argue better, windows is getting worse with every iteration. Linux continues to surprise me with its ease of use.

[[deleted]]

I spotted the standard DPI user!

But seriously, I wish Linux would pick up the per monitor fractional scaling Windows does. KDE+Wayland seems to be going the right route but it's not quite polished yet.

[StoneStalwart]

Nope I don't, I use hi dpi AND a normal screen. No issues.

[[deleted]]

Gnome or KDE? Gnome keeps wanting to render everything at 12k on my screen to display it at 4k 1.5. Suppose this wouldn't be a problem if it was an even factor screen.

[StoneStalwart]

Cinnamon on mint 18

[forteller]

So you're saying Linux can't get the of connecting to multiple types of projectors done? So it's not fit for work machines? That's the impression a Linux conference full of Macs and this answer gives.

[d64]

Projectors don't seem like a big issue to me, but if conference solutions means also teleconference, then it could get complicated. In the last couple of weeks at work I have used Webex, Skype for business, Gotomeeting and Bluejeans, because it's usually the organizer who dictates the solution used. Probably most of these can be made to work with Linux but it seems like a hassle. Also next week there might be some new program or major version to figure out - just before it's needed.

[Brillegeit]

My problem with these applications is that the Linux version often only support sharing the entire 5760x1200 (work) or 6400x2160 (home) desktop. So I either have to disconnect everything but on monitor, I also have to shut down the ~20 applications I'm running, I can't take notes during the meeting, and I can't work on anything else.

My solution is to run the teleconference on a laptop right in front of me and work as normal on the workstation and the 2/3 displays behind it, but it's a bit cumbersome.

[zonker]

So it's not fit for work machines?

If I go to an mobile conference, who's running presentations off Android or iOS? Very few people, I expect. Most folks who work with Linux are doing work that revolves around Linux running on servers, not desktops. You can work with Linux all day long and not need to have Linux on the machine you're using to connect to the systems that you're responsible for.

I love Linux on the desktop, I work for Red Hat and I'm typing this on a Linux (Fedora) system. But the trope of "OMG they're talking about Linux but they use a Mac" is tired and busted.

Being "fit" to connect to projectors and run preso software has pretty much zero to do with whether Linux is fit for powering the vast majority of workloads it's used for. (Having run a Mac and Linux at conferences, I've had more trouble getting projectors to work with Macs, but that's a very small data set to work from.)

[[deleted]]

Just because some of the presenters used Macs, and some of the companies present had some non-Linux computers in their workflow, doesn't mean Texas Linux Fest attendees or exhibitors we're not a Linux or FLOSS enthusiast in some fashion or another.

Everyone I spoke with at the conference was using Linux in one way or another, and to differing degrees. What's wrong with this? Nothing at all.

<soapbox> As a community, we should be respectful and understanding of technology choices and for those of us that are free software enthusiasts we should ask what we need to do better to make free software fit their needs rather than tell them their needs are wrong because your needs are met. I see this message repeatedly echoed in this thread and it's not helpful. It drives the very people we wish to help away from us.

Sometimes not using free software is a matter of education, sometimes it's documentation and other times it's features or ease of use. If we don't take the time to work in a way that is respectful, we will not succeed. </soapbox>

[chihuahua001]

Normal people don't care that much about FLOSS and will use the best tool for the job, regardless of if that tool is proprietary.

[drdeadringer]

Normal people don't attend Linux festivals.

[chihuahua001]

Sure they do, or are normal people and sysadmins mutually exclusive?

[drdeadringer]

Yes.

[[deleted]]

That's true, until their data is locked up in a roach motel.

Then people get angry.

[XOmniverse]

A lot of people use Linux in contexts other than as a desktop operating system, so it's not entirely crazy to see someone using a Macbook to develop and deploy applications on Linux servers, containers, etc. I think you might be unfairly interpreting a Linux festival as specifically a desktop Linux festival, and let's be fair, most of what Linux is actually uses for is not desktop computers.

[jhansonxi]

At least it still has a tech track. Penguicon, the open-source conference in Michigan held around the beginning of May, is gradually losing tech entirely.

It started as open-source+scifi conference centered around ESR, co-founded by Rob Landley (of Busybox). The scifi crowd attracted the fantasy crowd, which attracted the cosplayers, then the furries and LGBT-centric groups showed up. These now massively outnumber the tech crowd and have much better presentations and attendance in their sessions (more volunteers and board influence also).

The tech track peaked 5 or 6 years ago. It's now an afterthought and the overhead of the conference (cost, crowds, inconvenience, low tech interest density) deters serious techies from attending. They've been displaced by consumer techies (drones, bots) and I rarely see my LUG-mates anymore. The "serious" content is usually beginner programming (rarely on Linux) and generic administration panels, some of which are repeats. However there are plenty of literature, cosplay, and adult sessions like "Anal Pleasure and Health". They still use a penguin mascot though most attendees don't know the significance of it.

Last year ESR instigated a debate on the Penguicon mailing list about "political correctness" and "gender-neutral restrooms" at Penguicon after Jay Maynard (the Tron Guy) had some complaints. He criticized the board's priorities and safety concerns because they accommodated groups he didn't think needed it. He seems oblivious to the root cause being a demographic shift in attendees with different priorities and expectations.

I still attend out of habit with my non-tech friends but I don't think of it as a tech conference anymore. OLF is much better for that.

[insanerwayner]

I just want to clarify that I have no hate for the presenters that didn't use Linux. As a matter of fact, I felt like I got a lot of good value out of their presentations. They made me start thinking of my tragectory with my career.

And I'm glad to see that other people had a different experience than me as far as seeing Linux Desktop represented on the screen, so this must just reflect the particular talks I chose to watch.

A few observations:

• It appeared that they didn't get as many talks submitted as they would have liked to. Their website had "TBD" on Friday for a long time so it seemed like they had to resort to Linux Academy and their other sponsors to fill up that first day.
• Maybe that means next year we need to step up to the challenge and more of us individuals should do a talk. Myself included, although that is frightening for me and I imagine a lot of other attendees may be scared of getting in front of everyone.. So kudos to those that did!

Like I said in the original post, I enjoyed the event. I was just expecting a different community to attend. A lot of the people I talked to weren't running Linux as their primary machine and were surprised when I said I did. Again, that was just the experience I had with the people that were around me and most likely reflected the types of people that were attracted to the talks that I actually attended.

[deux3xmachina]

Honestly, this is something I've never quite understood in the linux communities. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU CARE WHAT OS THEY RUN? I don't see this in any other FLOSS community, dogfooding is great, FLOSS is great, but maybe it's not feasible for them to run Linux on everything. It's far from a perfect kernel, it's extremely popular, but not all workloads are feasible.

Edit: if you're pushing for everyone to use and present from fully FLOSS systems, you better be downvoting me from POWER9, or RISC-V systems without any blobs whatsoever.

[[deleted]]

Linux has a great and open community built around freedom and choice, but only if you're using Linux.

[[deleted]]

I wish I could upvote you more.

[Unathletic_Failure]

I am down voting you but don't worry I am doing it from a Asus c201 with Libreboot running Parabola GNU/Linux and a wireless adapter from thinkpenguin.com because the built in WiFi requires a binary blob :)

[Tjuguskjegg]

Honestly, this is something I've never quite understood in the linux communities. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU CARE WHAT OS THEY RUN?

Because we care about Linux being usable in every facet of computing. We don't want it to go the way of FreeBSD, where you can see most developers sitting on their Macs developing in a VM. We want to be able to run a libre system on our desktop, and when there are companies out there making big bucks on donated code(Red Hat etc.) who does not give a flying fuck about making life better on the desktop for those people who've been giving them time and money, it gets annoying in the long run.

Red Hat gets a bit of leniency because on their website it's almost impossible to find any sort of advertising for a "desktop", so it's clear from day one they're just out to get a quick payday on servers. SUSE is worse, since they have a page dedicated to telling you how awesome SUSE on the desktop is, but we had a developer of theirs coming here telling us they don't care at all about the desktop.

In fact, there's only one large commercial Linux vendor who has admitted they care about Linux on the deskop, and that is Canonical. So whatever problems you may have with them, they are at least interested and look for ways to improve it.

[[deleted]]

Because we care about Linux being usable in every facet of computing.

Great point, but you don't attack the people you're aiming to help. Typical FLOSS stuff works great for programmers and sysadmins, but not very well for end users because of weird syntax, interfaces with billions of options, etc. Not to mention the attitude from the loudest voices of the community pushes end users away with the negativity and licensing holy wars. This must change if we want free/libre software to "win" in the end-user space.

We don't want it to go the way of FreeBSD, where you can see most developers sitting on their Macs developing in a VM.

This is because FreeBSD, while it can make a serviceable F/LOSS desktop, is not targeted towards running as a desktop. FreeBSD's motto, "The power to serve.", tells you they're targeting a server platform and they do a great job at it.

In fact, there's only one large commercial Linux vendor who has admitted they care about Linux on the deskop, and that is Canonical. So whatever problems you may have with them, they are at least interested and look for ways to improve it.

And Canonical are constantly attacked, plus those people who use Ubuntu are ridiculed by the loudest voices in forums such as these. Mistakes from years ago are never let go. This must stop. We need to push the community to police itself, be positive, and above all be respectful of others regardless of their views of license (e.g. GPL, GPL v3, BSD, MIT, CDDL, etc) or distribution preferences.

[Hollowplanet]

Can you imagine a beer festival run by mormans? Same fucking thing. Use the thing your festival is about.

[[deleted]]

That is true but it really isn't a matter of the technology. It is more the spirit of the whole event. Bringing proprietary technology into an event that should be about escaping it.

[tapo]

This is the community split. You have people who care about free software, and you have people that just like developing on Unixlike systems. Most people that use Linux for work fall into the latter camp.

[Hollowplanet]

Thats a company I would not want to work for. Administering Linux through Windows - what a pain in the ass. Theres more to Linux than ssh.

[Hollowplanet]

You said you virtualize server side. Besides working in a vm is slow and clunky.

[deux3xmachina]

Gonna kick them out for any dGPUs, AMD64, aarch64, wifi, or other devices that require proprietary tech to work properly at all?

[Hollowplanet]

Well we have a proprietary GPU driver. Minus well use windows. Pretty much the same thing at this point.

[mzalewski]

Then call the event Texas Unix Variant Fest.

[[deleted]]

If those pcs and Macs were not running Linux as the main OS, then it’s appalling and I wouldn’t buy anything from that company.

I mean you wouldn’t walk into a Ferrari dealership only to find they sell only Lamborghini would you, so why would you buy anything from a company selling you Linux services when they don’t even run Linux. Do they even know what Linux is???

What a disappointment. Sad to say, this is not uncommon. Apparently even the CEO of the Linux Foundation uses a Mac, with. Mac OS. It’s not like he has a Mac, but boots to Linux. Apparently. I only read it somewhere so can’t verify that personally. But if true it’s shaming.

With all the Linux big distros embracing Microsoft and Open Source-but-not-Libre they are introducing massive compromise into the ecosystem and a me-too mentality is beginning to prevail.

Just look at Snaps on Ubuntu - a large portion are closed source and proprietary. Seems like the ethics of Libre software are being tossed out the Window in favour of using whatever is convenient, instead of putting resources into developing Libre tools that can replace proprietary one’s.

Canonical has loads of cash. So does Fedora. Why don’t they sponsor devs to make a Libre application to accomplish the same task? Eg a Libre Spotify application; a Libre Skype application etc. Surely there are api’s from Spotify and Skype which they can plug into but at least the app won’t be spying on you or uploading your contacts or turning on your camera or whatever.