I wanted to set up an encrypted partition on my machine, for my /home partition. Well, of course I'm running an old kernel, so I have to upgrade.

It took me 2.5 hours, but my new kernel is actually working and no longer using ndiswrapper. Impressive that is works after only 2.5 hours and maybe 10 reboots!

Okay, nothing in Linux is easy. I also have to upgrade my baselayout to version 2 in order to use the system cryptographic support. Well, after unmasking some packages and installing them, following the distro's upgrade guide, I rebooted, expecting to spend the next 6 hours debugging. It worked on the first try! Amazing!

I still haven't set up my encrypted partition, but I did set up an encrypted swap partition (I don't use swap though). We'll see how well that goes

The rules: post your stories about Linux. No other OSes allowed!

I was thinking about trying again to install Gentoo on my server this weekend, but then a coworker told me about the ICFP 2008 Programming Contest and I think I'm going to give that a try instead (or at least, see what I can manage...). At least the contest runs in Linux though.

I've been trying to use Linux for a while, I really do, but on my machine it's just impossible. While a fresh Windows installation takes about 70 MB of RAM, a fresh Linux installation takes over my 256 MB of RAM, plus about 100 MB more on disk/swap. How's that possible?. With all RAM saturated, doing anything becomes an impossibility.

I've tried Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, etc.. The only one that runs well is DamnSmallLinux, but it doesn't have all that's necessary for serious all-time use. So I stay on Windows.

Despite all these fallbacks, Linux is getting better, right? The distro's websites are beginning to look really slick.

It seems to me that Open Source software (and free software) will someday become a pretty powerful force if it isn't already. Establishing an OS would of course take longer than a typical piece of software since an infrastructure of say, drivers, is essential.

You prefer Windows over Mac OS?

I installed Ubuntu about a year ago. I was surprised how easy it was to install; easier than Windows. The GUI was great as well, but... there was nothing to do.

Two weeks ago I've upgraded to OpenSuSE 11 and was quite surprised that finally the wifi card works without ndiswrapper and the driver survives suspend to disk/ram. Other than that I'm quite satisfied except poor bluetooth support, unfunctional card reader for which I seem not to find any drivers and buggy graphics driver.

Besides installing a new kernel is quite a pleasure. Just one minute till it downloads and one restart.

I meant a fresh Windows XP installation. Of course after you install an antivirus, antispyware, firewall and all those things you need, it also can fill 256 MB, but even then it seems to me that Windows can manage virtual memory much more efficiently than Linux can manage swap.

If just after installing Linux it has to use swap space just to open a simple text editor, then that's a no. It also turns switching from one apllication to another into a hell, and hearing the HD working all time is really annoying.

Linux is better at managing memory period. XP is rather dumb, and will not cache any filesystem data in memory for longer than it takes to load the app or file. Linux will use "free" memory as a disk cache, XP can't. If you aren't using all your memory it's being wasted. That said, the latest Gnome and KDE are too heavy to run on 256MB unless you're only using some basic apps, and make sure certain things aren't loaded.

How linux works is this, when asked it loads a given chunk of a file into the cache, and hands it off to an application to read from. The memory allocated for the cache is immediately freeable if necessary and won't normally be pushed to swap, however the application's run-time copy can, and will be pushed into swap. After a few minutes of settling, you may notice your commonly used apps are always in memory, while ones you only touch every hour or so (or much less), are swapped in every time you use it. That said, you're better off with a slimmer less capable desktop like the old xfce or a wm like windowmaker.

Yeah, I can't stand Gimp and Blender for that reason. The UI is too hard to "discover" easily. Then again, I wouldn't know what to do even if it has a easy to use UI, as both apps/activities are inherently experience driven (sure, ms paint is easy to use, but fsck me if I can make anything usefull with it).

I agree. Though many developers seem to be incapable of a useable design of any sort, and a large lack of good design and good* usability experts.

• no, I don't think gnome has a good usuability team. They only heard one complaint (it's too complex), and took its implementation waaaay too far.

Setting up a complete web server with Apache, PHP, and MySQL, took me less than an hour (using debian netinstall); the machine in question was a laptop with a dead screen, 10 GB harddisk and a 700 MHz cpu. Then the rest of the machine in question died, so I never really got to use said web server.

My issues with Linux as a desktop OS: There is virtually no useful music software, and even worse, no drivers for any audio interface that delivers studio quality at a reasonable price (read: anything that can do 24 bits, 96 kHz sampling with zero latency, something around 100 dB SNR, and a reasonable mic preamp); most supported hardware is either crappy, or costs an arm and a leg.

I use Debian whenever I use Linux, and I found WiFi to be good. The only problems I really noticed were with games, and those are more problems with my obsolete computer.

What do you mean, "music software"? If you want to typeset sheet music, I highly recommend GNU Lilypond, and for quick sound editing Audacity is very good. I'm not posting links to those; a quick Google turns up results.

I know them both, and if you ask me, both suck for anything serious.
Lilypond, while amazing in the quality it outputs, basically requires learning a programming language. Also, since I use my computer as a musical notepad, WYSIWYG is an absolute must, something that even the finest windows programs only barely seem to be able to do in a satisfactory manner.
Audacity is OK, but not for what I need. What I need is 32+ tracks of audio, combined with VST instruments on MIDI tracks, all routed through a software mixer with all sorts of inserts, buses and master effects, with comfortable editing facilities and a complete set of studio plugins.
I hear Rosegarden can do some really fine things, and I know there are professional recording studios using linux, but the main problem is the audio interface. I have a system that works fine right now, I'm not dashing out 600€ just to be an open source hero.
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Or what jhuuskon said.

In theory, yes. I could output "America The Beautiful" in a random key on the default printer everytime someone says "Obama" into the microphone, but in practice, it just turns out that I never need to. Lilypond is way cool, but it doesn't fit my needs.

I'm the kind of guy who reads music like most people read books - hand me sheet music, and I can imagine what it sounds like. That doesn't work with lilypond syntax, I'm very sorry.

And often, you can't.

Linux would not save me any money. I already have windows, installing linux will not get me a refund. Installing linux, however, means that my current hardware will be useless, and I will have to buy a new audio interface. Last time I checked, one that had linux drivers available and was not called SoundBlasterGalacticWhatever, cost about 600 Ctrl-Meta-5.
WINE doesn't run Logic in a useable way.

Don't get me wrong, Linux is great - it's just not the best choice for my needs. For a web server, I'd take linux over windows any day.

Yeah, linux suffers from a lack of pro gear support, except for 3d rendering. Its sad really, and theres only so many people interested in pro audio and video work that are also interested in open source, or even have the time to play with a new operating system. Its also sort of a hard area to break into if you don't have excellent software, the sort of stuff that blows away the competition.. And I'm not sure if CSound or Ardour comes close. And I know that pro hardware support is spotty