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Post by Aj_June on Jun 16, 2020 2:36:31 GMT
I have used Linux mint as my sole operating system since well over a decade. But after they dropped support for the K desktop environment I knew I had to find a Linux OS that supports KDE. I finally settled with Manjaro - a user friendly distribution built on top of much respected Arch Linux. So far my experience has been pretty good. I had no problems in installing proprietary graphics card driver of Nvidia/Intel. There is a famous AUR repository through which almost all the most needed applications are available. Right now I have installed VLC, Firefox, Chrome, Gufw Firewall, Microsoft Teams, Zoom (for office meetings) and other apps for everyday use. The system takes slightly more time to boot than Linux Mint did but is nonetheless faster than Mint. I have 7 applications open right now and yet I see no problems with speed and no hanging or lag. It is aesthetically better looking than Mint. It seems to me that Manjaro is here to stay and I will be using it for years. Also, it is a rolling distribution so I won't have to think about every re-install it unless it breaks apart. Here's a screenshot I found of Manjaro Linux.  |
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Post by mslo79 on Jun 16, 2020 3:31:15 GMT
I won't be dropping Linux Mint anytime soon (Mint v20 is due very soon, probably by the end of this month (but I might stay on v19.3-Cinnamon for a while) as they already have a v20 BETA out) as it seems like pretty much the go-to Linux OS for those who want to leave Windows for something familiar as it's likely to have less all around issues than other Linux distro's in my guesstimations especially since it's based on Ubuntu which seems to be pretty much the standard for Linux based OS's. I never cared for VLC straight up on Windows or Linux (on Windows I preferred Pot Player x64). but on Linux I prefer SMPlayer paired with MPV and then enable 'cuda' for hardware decoding of x264 video (I got a 1050 Ti 4GB GPU using NVIDIA driver (currently is v440.59)) as that seems stable/without issues unlike 'vdpau' which locks up the system randomly. p.s. I recently ordered a used i5-3550 CPU for only $20 (it's nice the CPU's finally got to a price range I don't mind paying (i.e. $20-30 or so) as not all that long ago they were still a bit too much to where I would have been better off putting the $ towards another PC build) which will be a solid boost (especially for gaming performance) from my i3-2120 since it's quad core vs dual core and is one generation newer CPU (i.e. Sandy Bridge(2nd gen) vs Ivy Bride(3rd gen)) which is more energy efficient to. I am going to use my stock i3 cooler on that i5 CPU when it gets here, which will likely run noticeably hotter because of more cores as it will probably top out at 80-85c on Prime95 Torture Test with the i5 CPU where as on my i3-2120 CPU it seems to generally top out at 60-64c. I could get a aftermarket cooler which would noticeably help with temps but even if Prime95 tops out at 85c (that's more of a worst case scenario and will probably run cooler with general use since Prime95 really taxes the CPU) that's probably okay enough considering I heard the CPU won't throttle itself til something like 105c and if I bought a aftermarket cooler that would likely cost around $20-ish which I would rather avoid. but very recently I talked to someone on YouTube which has a similar CPU (i.e. i3-3470, which is only 100Mhz slower than the one I got (i.e. 3.2Ghz vs 3.3Ghz)) and he's using stock cooler (basically same as the one ill be using) and after he ran Prime95 for 30 minutes recently he said two cores peaked at 80c and the other two cores peaked at 84c. but I heard 105c is the limit so as long as I don't get more than about mid-80's the CPU should still be running within spec and the CPU should not throttle itself to prevent damage.
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Post by mslo79 on Jun 25, 2020 12:31:16 GMT
I installed the i5-3550 CPU a few days ago now and all went smoothly and easily worth it (my Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste worked well on it as I had it since March 2006). but I noticed the i5-3550 CPU actually runs at 3.5GHz when something is taxing the CPU according to the 'watch lscpu' command on Linux. but officially the CPU 3.3Ghz rated. but I noticed when watching the CPU's Mhz with that 'watch lscpu' command that occasionally, on general usage, the CPU's MHz goes higher than 3.5Ghz briefly but I think it's something to do with the CPU's turbo function which on the official specs for the CPU (i.e. ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/65516/intel-core-i5-3550-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-70-ghz.html?wapkw=i5%203550 ) it shows up to 3.7Ghz. but anyways, besides the speed boost over my i3-2120 CPU, it's also more power efficient compared to 2nd gen CPU's as while my current i5-3550 CPU is a quad core and my previous was a dual core, the quad core does not consume much more power but it's due to the die shrink (22nm(3rd gen) vs 32nm(2nd gen) (smaller the number the more power efficient it is basically)) since it's using newer CPU tech (roughly a year newer (2011 vs 2012)). but as far as Prime95... my temps are higher than expected given I talked to a couple other people with similar CPU's and they got the temps in the more expected range of 80-85c after running Prime95 for 10-15min as initially mine peaked at 95-96c not long after running it after initial boot after about 10min of Prime95 use. but after some hours passed I ran it again and it seemed to lower a bit to about 92-94c after running 10-15min or so. so in a attempt to lower CPU temps at first I tried tweaking fan speed but it did not have no effect, so I put it back to the default of auto mode. but I noticed that in the BIOS there is a option to tweak CPU voltage which did make a clear difference in CPU temps as for every 0.050v decrease it also decreased the CPU temp by about 5c+. but after I reached a 0.150v decrease (one can tweak it by 0.010 increments), once I stopped the Prime95 test, the system locked which I know is likely due to too low of a CPU voltage so I raised a bit by putting it back to 0.130v and so far everything is good as after running Prime95 for 40min or so temps peaked at 75c but were generally 71-73c, which is much better than my initial low-to-mid 90's or so that I was getting prior to the CPU voltage tweak and what's even better is that general 71-73c general temp with Prime95 is that running Prime95 in a lower mode (with AVX disabled), since it won't tax the CPU has hard, helps better gauge what real-world use temps would be if a random program/game etc were to run the CPU at 100%. so in other words... assuming my 0.130v CPU drop remains stable, my CPU temps are unlikely to get above the 60 something C range (i.e. will stay below 70c). even my idle temps have noticeably dropped after lowering CPU voltage... roughly 25-35c vs 35-40c or so. but I was surprised that helped as much as it did for such a small change in CPU voltage. NOTE: Prime95 is good for testing maximum CPU stress but it's unlikely ones CPU will reach the temps that ones CPU does with Prime95 since real world use won't stress the CPU nearly as hard as temps are at a much safer level in general. bottom line... it's easily worth upgrading ones CPU if your on similar tech as I am as the prices for CPU's are quite cheap/reasonable right now (i.e. $20-30 or so) for i5-3xxx range CPU's (the one I got (i.e. i5-3550) is nearly the highest CPU you can get for the i5 range CPU's my motherboard can use as only the i5-3570 would be higher but it's only 3.4Ghz instead of 3.3Ghz (NOTE: I am excluding overclocking stuff and just looking at best i5 CPU at it's stock/default settings)). so anyone reading this who's on say a i3-2xxx or i3-3xxx series CPU, you can upgrade for only $20-30 and it will give you a solid all around system performance boost which should extend the life of the computer for a while (I suspect years to come). p.s. some useful commands for those on Linux wanting to see some live info on their CPU... 'watch sensors' (shows each cores CPU temp along with a 'high' and 'critical' temps next to it (my i5-3550 is 'high = 85c' 'critical = 105c') for your current CPU which automatically refreshes every 2 seconds.) and 'watch lscpu' (shows MHz info etc as it's happening with refreshes every 2 seconds in terminal window). I even like the 'i7z' program to which is a bit more detailed than 'watch sensors' command but with i7z you got to install it and run it with admin rights (i.e. 'sudo i7z') but it refreshes a bit faster and shows more details and pretty much does what 'watch sensors' and 'watch lscpu' does all in one program and even shows a bit more info like current CPU voltage etc.
EDIT: after looking around, someone brought it up on another forum, which triggered my memory, and I just remembered that the heatsink on the i3, which is the one I used, is actually a bit worse than the proper stock heatsink that comes with the i5's years ago which had a copper contact between the aluminum heatsink and CPU which the i3's heatsink does not as it's just aluminum. so it's not surprising the heat is higher than it should be because it's not the proper minimum level of cooling. but... my workaround works pretty well as after my voltage decrease tweak, it does not matter because the temps are comfortably in the safe range now as earlier I ran Prime95 for 20 minutes without the AVX (so it more closely resembles real-world 100% CPU usage temps for any length of time) and temps peaked @ 71c with 67-69c being more typical and room temp was about 81f and this is running CPU @ 100% for 20 minutes straight. general use and gaming etc is not likely to do this so ill probably be 60-65c TOPS in general, which is are safe temps, and there is probably not much I can run on this i5 that's going to run all four cores at 100% either which will keep the temps down.
EDIT #2: I just finished a Prime95 24hour test (I left Prime95 (SmallFFT) running for a full 24 hours) and my temps generally were in the 73-75c range with an occasional change if room temps increased a fair amount etc. so it should be pretty safe to say my CPU is stable with the 0.130v CPU voltage decrease and more real-world 100% CPU load temps probably won't get more than around 70c tops although I would expect to see more in the 60-69c range with stuff like gaming etc.
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Post by mslo79 on Jun 27, 2020 11:31:49 GMT
Linux Mint v20 official is pretty much released even though it's not officially announced on the website yet. but it's available on the servers. SMALL EDIT: it's been available officially on their site for a few days now.
EDIT (June 30th 2020): while I am only one person, currently Mint v20 is not a option for me as one show stopper issue I have, in short, is not being able to access hard drives like one normally can through the file manager on my main PC. but even on a backup laptop I got, trying to burn a DVD+RW disc with 'xfburn' throws a error on Mint v20 but works perfectly fine on Mint v19.3. but thankfully I made a image with Clonezilla just prior to attempting the Mint v20 installations as that saved me as now my computers are back to the way it was prior to the Mint v20 attempt as it's in great running order once again on Mint v19.3 (so it's like I never even tried to install Mint v20). but until they sort out this Mint v20 issue, I won't be using Mint v20. I am hoping a worst case scenario would be... Mint v20 series does not like my computer but Mint v21 will be okay once again as Mint v20 will probably be out about 2 years from now and Mint v19 series is supported til April 2023 anyways, so I am in no rush to upgrade. who knows, maybe ill give v20.1 a shot when it's released roughly 6 months from now as by then hopefully all of the bigger bugs in v20 will be fixed.
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Post by Aj_June on Jul 1, 2020 1:46:05 GMT
Linux Mint v20 official is pretty much released even though it's not officially announced on the website yet. but it's available on the servers. SMALL EDIT: it's been available officially on their site for a few days now.
EDIT (June 30th 2020): while I am only one person, currently Mint v20 is not a option for me as one show stopper issue I have, in short, is not being able to access hard drives like one normally can through the file manager on my main PC. but even on a backup laptop I got, trying to burn a DVD+RW disc with 'xfburn' throws a error on Mint v20 but works perfectly fine on Mint v19.3. but thankfully I made a image with Clonezilla just prior to attempting the Mint v20 installations as that saved me as now my computers are back to the way it was prior to the Mint v20 attempt as it's in great running order once again on Mint v19.3 (so it's like I never even tried to install Mint v20). but until they sort out this Mint v20 issue, I won't be using Mint v20. I am hoping a worst case scenario would be... Mint v20 series does not like my computer but Mint v21 will be okay once again as Mint v20 will probably be out about 2 years from now and Mint v19 series is supported til April 2023 anyways, so I am in no rush to upgrade. who knows, maybe ill give v20.1 a shot when it's released roughly 6 months from now as by then hopefully all of the bigger bugs in v20 will be fixed.
Mint isn't getting a lot of raving reviews. I remember back in the days in the first decade of 2000s every Mint version would be greatly awaited and cheered. Things have not been so path-breaking lately. This current release is not something to envy. In fact, lately Mint has been displaced by others as no.1 most clicked distro on Distrowatch page. In am personally happy using Manjaro desktop with great package mangement system and beautifully made KDE desktop. |
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Post by mslo79 on Jul 1, 2020 3:46:19 GMT
Aj_JuneYeah, but after a while one can only tweak things so far before improvements will become minimal (but I see this as a good thing as means it's generally more mature/stable (although regressions can happen like in my case)). I think with Mint they are not the type to change much for the sake of change as I think it's main strength is it's setup well for the typical person as has a solid balance of included software but not so much to add a bunch of bloat. this I think why is why many people default to it when coming from Windows. it might not be the latest and greatest but it does what it does well which is keep things simple. but I think another reason why Mint is solid is it's Ubuntu based which seems to be the most popular/used/supported base to my knowledge. Mint is a better version of Ubuntu basically with less junk/smaller size. I think it has a solid balance of not too much stuff included but it's not too stripped down either. my opinion of Mint v19.3 is rock solid, but Mint v20 is off to a bad start, at least in my main PC (but it might be perfectly okay for many since I am only one person). hopefully by the time Mint v20.1 is released about 6 months from now it will be noticeably better as by then all of the bigger bugs should be ironed out. but I might go report this issue on their forums soon and hopefully someone can look into it as it's kind of weird as during the boot of the live media, it sees my hard drives as expected but after the install completes(like a full on clean install) and you reboot, so it's now running from SSD, all of the hard drives don't show up in the file manager even though the OS itself does see them as I ran the 'lsblk' command and it does see them. but when it's all out of whack it has two folders on desktop which are not normally there... 'efi' and 'filesystem root'. but I noticed if I disconnect my three other hard drives, so only the SSD (where main OS goes) is connected, and install the OS and reboot everything works as I can connect a USB thumb drive and access it like normal. but as soon as I power down the computer, connected the few additional hard drives I have (all are currently EXT4 formatted) and boot up, the issue returns where the file manager can't see the hard drives and those two folders are on the desktop that should not be there. I even tried Mint v20-Xfce but it reacts similarly but even upon it's live desktop it does not see any hard drives in it's file manager. also, I am not 100% sure but it seems like boot up times are slower on Mint v20 with 5.4 kernel vs Mint v19.3 with the 4.15 kernel which is supported for the life of Mint 19.x series. but with Mint v19.3, if someone clean installs that, it defaults to a 5.0 kernel as I think they did this for a bit more up to date hardware support, but that kernel is already 'end of life' so one will always have to opt for upgrading to newer kernels as they are released (which I think is more likely to introduce bugs vs if someone stays with the same kernel series) as the previous one expires but with 4.15 that's supported til April 2023 which is the end of support date on Mint v19.x series and one will have to move to v20 or a newer release. but anyone who clean installs Mint v19.3, if their hardware is not too recent, I suggest they immediately switch from 5.0 back to 4.15 as you basically install the 4.15 through 'Update Manager' and then reboot computer and I think you press either ESC or hold SHIFT shortly before boot and it will allow you to select which kernel you want to load at which point you load v4.15 and then from there you remove kernels newer than this and then when you reboot, it will automatically stick to 4.15 for the life of Mint 19.x series. but I did not have to do that as my current installation of Mint was shortly after Mint v19.2 released in Aug 2019 and at that time 4.15 was still the default kernel and if one upgrades to Mint v19.3, which I did, at that point it just stays on 4.15 kernel. although I could upgrade to a newer kernel if I want as it offers 4.15/4.18/5.0/5.3/5.4. but only 5.3 and newer is still supported of which support for 5.3 ends Aug 2020 as 5.4 kernel is supported til Feb 2021. but who knows... since Mint v20 is using 5.4 kernel, I might make a Clonezilla image of my current install and switch to 5.4 kernel on Mint 19.3 just to see how that works on Mint v19.3 etc etc. p.s. the last I knew Mint was one of the most used distro's, if not #1. but I am not sure if this is still true or not. even if it's popularity slipped a bit, I suspect it's still one of the most used distro's as I would imagine that typically anything Ubuntu based is a safe bet since support of that seems to be one of the top ones (if not #1) when it comes to Linux in general.
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Post by mslo79 on Jul 8, 2020 14:23:53 GMT
Aj_June That's one thing that has me a bit concerned switching from Mint to considering stuff like Manjaro is that Mint has proven reliable for me since I have been using it on my main PC in Jan 2019 as it's nice having Ubuntu as a base since it seems to be the most popular. because I wonder if things are more likely to break from updates on Manjaro than they would be on Mint? ; because on Mint I have not had a single thing act up updates. only reason I might consider Manjaro is the hard drive issue I got with Mint v20. because while I could always continue on using Mint v19.3-Cinnamon for a while, since it's supported til like April 2023, eventually ill have to upgrade. but I am just hoping if the issue I am experiencing is not fixed in Mint v20.1, chances are the entire Mint v20.x series will be the same on my system, which at that point I have to hope Mint v21.x series works because if that continued to act up, I would not have much choice but to try a different Linux distro like say Manjaro etc. but I guess there is always the alternative version of Mint, 'LDME' which is Debian based as that could end up being a real possibility if the new mainline Mint versions (i.e. Mint 20 and so on) don't like my hardware for the foreseeable future. with that said... since you have been using Manjaro roughly a few weeks. how has it been? ; updates go smoothly etc?
EDIT: but in the last some odd hours I have been looking at Mint LMDE 4 edition as I suspect that will be a good alternative to the mainline Mint since it's Debian based where as mainline Mint is Ubuntu based and Debian and Ubuntu ain't too far apart in general it seems. so I suspect if I did have to leave the main Mint release, hopefully the LMDE version would work. Manjaro could be a possible backup to LMDE though for me as I don't plan on going back to Windows especially once I change a large portion of my hard drives to EXT4 format after using Linux about a year. so going back to Windows 10 at this point would be a pain in the butt as it would be quite time consuming. but I figure worst case, I can still use my current Mint v19.3 installation to as late as April 2023 since that's when support for it ends as I suspect by then ill figure something out etc.
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Post by Aj_June on Jul 10, 2020 19:47:56 GMT
Aj_June That's one thing that has me a bit concerned switching from Mint to considering stuff like Manjaro is that Mint has proven reliable for me since I have been using it on my main PC in Jan 2019 as it's nice having Ubuntu as a base since it seems to be the most popular. because I wonder if things are more likely to break from updates on Manjaro than they would be on Mint? ; because on Mint I have not had a single thing act up updates. only reason I might consider Manjaro is the hard drive issue I got with Mint v20. because while I could always continue on using Mint v19.3-Cinnamon for a while, since it's supported til like April 2023, eventually ill have to upgrade. but I am just hoping if the issue I am experiencing is not fixed in Mint v20.1, chances are the entire Mint v20.x series will be the same on my system, which at that point I have to hope Mint v21.x series works because if that continued to act up, I would not have much choice but to try a different Linux distro like say Manjaro etc. but I guess there is always the alternative version of Mint, 'LDME' which is Debian based as that could end up being a real possibility if the new mainline Mint versions (i.e. Mint 20 and so on) don't like my hardware for the foreseeable future. with that said... since you have been using Manjaro roughly a few weeks. how has it been? ; updates go smoothly etc?
EDIT: but in the last some odd hours I have been looking at Mint LMDE 4 edition as I suspect that will be a good alternative to the mainline Mint since it's Debian based where as mainline Mint is Ubuntu based and Debian and Ubuntu ain't too far apart in general it seems. so I suspect if I did have to leave the main Mint release, hopefully the LMDE version would work. Manjaro could be a possible backup to LMDE though for me as I don't plan on going back to Windows especially once I change a large portion of my hard drives to EXT4 format after using Linux about a year. so going back to Windows 10 at this point would be a pain in the butt as it would be quite time consuming. but I figure worst case, I can still use my current Mint v19.3 installation to as late as April 2023 since that's when support for it ends as I suspect by then ill figure something out etc.
Hey sorry about the late reply m-slovak. Manjaro has been working like a charm. It has multiple package management system. One is pacman - the package manager of very highly respected Arch Linux. It is true that Arch Linux is for elites but Arch's derivative Manjaro is very beginner friendly distro. So even non-geels like you and me can work well with Manjaro. All you have to do is click one button which will enable the AUR repository in the package manager. It will give you access to non-free or non-opensource softwares that you need. All in all, Manjaro is very stable, fast and easy. I have read that Mint LMDE has gotten very good lately. I even saw one reviewer praise LMDE mint but criticise the latest Mint (Ubuntu based). |
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