Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

[shovenose]

Okay, so I have a Dell Vostro 2420 with a Core i3 processor, Intel HD graphics, 8GB DDR3, and a 160GB Intel SSD. The 14" screen has 1366x768 resolution.

So, I had Windows 7 on there, and I was having a problem with the video while running Windows 7. I replaced the RAM, put an SSD in instead of the 320GB HDD I had in there, and decided to try something besides Windows to see if the problem I was having if not resolved by the RAM or disk replacement might have been software related.

So, here I am, running Fedora 22, and so far so good. My mysterious video issue is gone, so I think the motherboards fine.

I choose Fedora because it's RHEL-based and I administer CentOS based servers every day. Ubuntu has better software compatibility but I'm not quite as familiar with it. I really like Xubuntu but I wanted to try something different.

But now, I have used this enough and here are my complaints, so I'm looking for some genius creative solutions to resolve them, because I really want to like this a Linux laptop is useful in many cases - besides, I already have a Windows laptop.

1. Fonts. Whether it's here on BCN forum or on Outlook.com, the font rendering on Linux sucks. It's either blurry, or just an ugly font in general. I am so used to how nice fonts look on Windows and Mac OS, this whole Linux thing is pretty bad.
2. Skype. I use Skype a lot and it straight-up won't work on Fedora.
3. Sublime Text 3. Not on Fedora dammit.
4. Netflix. Same thing, it doesn't work on Fedora.

Any input appreciated - I really want to have a Linux laptop as a daily driver.

[mockingbird]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

I know this isn't what you're looking for, but I highly recommend you give Windows 8 or 10 a try. Windows 7 does not support HTML5 video acceleration in Interner Explorer, but Windows 8 does. So Windows 8 + IE11 if you need good HTML5 acceleration.

The HTML5 video performance in Chrome and Firefox still needs a lot of work.

[stj]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

1:
install lots of fonts, check your video output is the same as the native monitor res.
and enable "Subpixel Smoothing".

2:
use something else, skype breaks on everything now.
specially if you message someone with "http://:" or so i'v been told

3:
what's that?

[retiredcaps]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

1. Fonts. Whether it's here on BCN forum or on Outlook.com, the font rendering on Linux sucks.

I tried a lot of linux distros in the last 12 months and some distros have really poor default fonts so I agree.

The best readable fonts, to my eye, are the ones that come with ubuntu (or my case lubuntu). You can download them at

http://font.ubuntu.com/

The fonts alone will probably keep me an Ubuntu user for a long time. I have two netbooks; one running Windows 7 and another running Lubuntu. The fonts on Lubuntu are way better to me than Windows 7.

2. Skype. I use Skype a lot and it straight-up won't work on Fedora.

Skype works on Lubuntu. I don't know about Fedora. Any error messages?

4. Netflix. Same thing, it doesn't work on Fedora.

Netflix works on Chrome with Lubuntu. Try Chrome with Fedora. You need to have the "Widevine Content Decryption Module" plugin enabled.

PS. I tried Fedora 22 for a bit, but after it booted and consumed 600MB just to boot, I decided it is not for me or the P4s with 512MB DRAM.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

I use Linux as a daily and almost only driver... then again I don't go mainstream: no skype, no netflix.

But I did notice a weird issue with fonts. At least with xfce, if you set the fonts to do anything but "slight hinting" when anti-aliasing, the kerning for fonts chokes and messes up sites like cnn.com in Firefox, so badly that it's nearly illegible. Might want to play with that in your UI. This I'm pretty sure is a bug.

Then again I'm using Gentoo Linux and this may not apply to Fedora.

[shovenose]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

Nope, Ubuntu fonts suck too! It's not really the fonts themself (though it does have something to do with it I'm sure), just how they look. I don't think 1366x768 is a great resolution but I didn't have this problem with the exact same problem under Windows.

Those of you telling me to use Windows instead of Linux are missing the point. I also realized that there is no Spotify for Linux but I am just using the web based version so far so good.

Where do I find this "Subpixel smoothing" it sounds useful but I've never heard of it...

And http://www.sublimetext.com/3 is the best text/code editor you'll ever use

PS: I just realized that Netflix does work in Chrome in Fedora 22 - I just haven't tried it in years. oops!

[stj]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

Fedora has traditionally been a problem,
being american, a lot of stuff is disabled to avoid legal problems.

it may have a crippled freetype library.

btw,
it seems that Sublime Text 3 is not final yet - that's why you cant find it..
http://www.sublimetext.com/3

[stj]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

subpixel smoothing is probably in the KDE settings for the video

btw.
http://c758482.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/s...83_x32.tar.bz2
http://c758482.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/s...83_x64.tar.bz2

[shovenose]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

KDE? Fedora doesn't use KDE...

But I just reinstalled Windows 8 Pro... I had a legit key I bought that was on my Asus laptop before I left it on the hood of my truck at night and it got run over... Now it's throwing a fit about activation but at least the computer is 3x faster and the fonts look great I would have used Windows 7 but the sticker on the bottom is for Home Premium and I need to connect to it with Remote Desktop.

The computer literally feels 3x faster running Windows 8 Pro than with Fedora 22.

[stj]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

somebody ran over the hood of your truck?

what he hell was it, a monster truck, or an APC related to Jaded Helm?

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

Red Hat used to come with KDE as a choice but it was dropped from RH 8 or 9 as I recall.

[shovenose]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

nono... back when i had the Yukon i was going to visit my aunt one night she lives not that far away. so i had my hands full put my laptop on the hood to put the other stuff inside... forgot the laptop there. drove there, came back, got inside... where is my laptop? then i remembered where i left it. drove back and forth a couple times until i found it fallen off in the middle of the road completely smashed. even the ssd was broken... never found the screen.

[stj]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

so i had my hands full put my laptop on the hood to put the other stuff inside... forgot the laptop there. drove there

that sounds even more stupid, the hood - and laptop are in your direct field of view.
didnt you think - "hey, what's that thing in front of my windshield?" ???

i see idiots putting shit on the roof while filling up, only to watch a fone or giant cup of ice & aspartame-juice flying off onto the floor, but the hood? come on!!

[shovenose]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

that sounds even more stupid, the hood - and laptop are in your direct field of view.
didnt you think - "hey, what's that thing in front of my windshield?" ???

i see idiots putting shit on the roof while filling up, only to watch a fone or giant cup of ice & aspartame-juice flying off onto the floor, but the hood? come on!!

the laptop was dark brushed aluminum didn't stand out at all against the dark burgundy color of the hood.

i was more concerned with looking at the road ahead of me than staring at the hood

it was night time and dark outside

[rhomanski]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

yikes.

[linuxguru]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

Red Hat used to come with KDE as a choice but it was dropped from RH 8 or 9 as I recall.

Linux on a laptop has been my daily-driver since about 1999, when RedHat 6.2 and the corresponding Mandrake version got good enough for all normal applications. Back then, the show-stoppers for Linux were USB support, limited browser support, and office tools compatibility - all that is now historical. I was OK with Fedora 4 i686 for many years, and stopped upgrading after Fedora 12. However, I did upgrade the kernel alone, built from source, to obtain features like tickless-timer support (important to obtain the 5-hour+ battery life I get from ancient Centrino Thinkpads - people have got to 10-11 hours with recent kernels and careful optimization with PowerTop).

KDE has been around as an installation option in most Fedora versions. You can always install it later from the repositories. However, I prefer xfce4 for a light-weight window-manager over the default gnome installation.

Chrome can handle most video-streaming formats, as noted by others. Wine can handle the few applications for which there is no equivalent native Linux app - for me, that is one solitary app (LTSpice from Linear Technology).

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

netflix can work on linux, you need to install pipelight.

[junktv]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

I use Linux as a daily and almost only driver... then again I don't go mainstream: no skype, no netflix.

But I did notice a weird issue with fonts. At least with xfce, if you set the fonts to do anything but "slight hinting" when anti-aliasing, the kerning for fonts chokes and messes up sites like cnn.com in Firefox, so badly that it's nearly illegible. Might want to play with that in your UI. This I'm pretty sure is a bug.

Then again I'm using Gentoo Linux and this may not apply to Fedora.

I've been running mint xfce for years and haven't had a problem like that.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

It nos not an xfce problem, rather some library as it shows up in Gnome as well. But it is fixed in xfce by changing the font kerning.

[shovenose]

Re: Linux as a Daily Driver - My Complaints

It wasn't the kerning so much as how it was displayed. It wasn't smooth at all. But I'm just so happy to be back on Windows, with Outlook, Photoshop, Sublime Text, Skype, working drivers (I didn't need any drivers, 8.1 Pro picked up every device from the get-go except including WiFi and audio)... everything you can't easily do on Linux