Why Linux? What for that Linux? Which Linux? ...on What hardware?

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This topic was inspired by @Skywalker71, his problems, and needs…

As for start of the story, few words about me. I’m a freelancer, event videographer, occasionally photographer, but TBH the photo thingy is mainly for the church.

I’m a Windows refugee, and I was strictly tied to Windows, but also was in the luck to find a hope and a way to get out. But that did not happen without any changes, and needed to learn a lot.

So to answer the first question, why Linux?

I was totally fed up with Windows 10 as I did not have enough control on what is installed on MY system, and what not. For example, I did not want to have candy crush saga installed, but it automagically came back always… I did not want to update the graphic drivers, but Windows 10 decided to update it every 2 weeks, and I found no way to stop it from doing that.

(Windows 10 home edition, that time I used MAGIX Vegas pro suite, which did not work with the updated driver set of Radeon R9 380)

It was clear that I have my computer, for whic I paid a lot, but I have near zero influence on how it behaves, rather only MS has.

Things like this pushed me away from using Windows.
As I can’tafford a Mac, only left is Linux.

That’s why the definitive answer for me: use Linux to get the freedom and control back!

But what exactly is my usage?

I’d say it is content creation, for me mainly editing videos -along with its sound, „developing” photos (more about it later in another post if someone is interested), and this is what connects to @Skywalker71, as he seems to be in a similar shoe.

What tools did I use on Windows, which I needed to drop?

I had MS Office of course, the 2007 version, which I bought when still used Windows 7.
I did drop it, but if I want, it is still usable via WINE. But I went for the alternative.

I had a Photoshop CS2 which was awfully disgusting expensive, but I needed a capable graphical editor back then, and that time I had zero knowledge of GIMP. Later I upgraded to Photoshop CS4, which was an investment again, but as time passed Windows itself changed in a way that rendered CS2 a complete unusable mess… and CS4 was still before the subscription model, so a one-time purchase…

Fun fact: that time the Photoshop CS2 worked flawlessly under WINE, but behaved wild and weird on the real Windows.

But I started to learn GIMP, and while it has its shortcomings compared to Photoshop, we mutually adapted, I learned how to use it well, changed some of its shortcuts for functions I was used to in Photoshop, so it slowly became very handy for me.

For Video editing on Linux I tried KDENlive, which was very promising, but it crashed way too many times!
I tried Lightworks, which kinda worked, but the free version was limited to 720P, and was just too expensive to test-buy it whether it really works for me…

I tried Cinelerra, it worked OK, but the way of thinking it requires was an alien to me, it worked stable, performant, but never felt comfortable and familiar.

So with video editing I was tied to Windows, all else I could do on Linux.

Then Davinci Resolve came into my sight!

That time I had a Ryzen 5 1600, 16GB RAM, some Gigabyte MOBO, I don’t remember the exact type, and Radeon R9 380 (with 2GB vRAM) – and there was the dual boot: Windows 10 for everyday work, and Linux Mint for my pleasure.

I succesfully got Davinci Resolve working on that Linux, just like on Windows to be on safe side :slight_smile:

I recorded a dancing performance in a nearby school with 2 cams. As I did this for free for my church as a charitable work, there was no big risk in doing it the alternative, untried way, there was no deadline.

It turned out like this:

This was the very-very-first creation I did with Davinci Resolve.
It was like just a proof of concept, how it can work in my situation.
I felt somehow this is a historical moment, so I recorded a „werk” how it was done.

Oh boy, what a rookie I was then! :smiley:
Today I’m much faster than that, and know much more about Davinci itself, but anyway that was that showed and prooved, that from now I can do everything in Linux.

So I ditched Windows. The early spring of 2019 was the very last time I booted Windows on bare metal (still have it in a VM just in case).

As for the quiestion, which Linux?

I liked Linux Mint very much, did not know about LMDE back then…
I used couple versions of Mint before I switched to Debian.
Normal Mint is based on Ubuntu, and it few times broke something with Ubuntu updates.
I just tried Debian with the v10 (Buster), and fell in love with it.
I felt it slightly faster and cleaner than Mint was that time, so I kept it.

It never-ever broke for me, not that Mint would have ben broken too frequent, only 3 times during the years I spent with it. Debian has never been broken at all.

Today I know, that Debian has older codebase, it does not have the newest bells&whistles, but I appreciate how it never brakes ;). Unless I make some mistake, and break my own system, it is not going to go bad on its own :slight_smile:

That’s why Debian.
And because I just love it, love to use it, love to craft it :slight_smile:

As for on what hardware…

This question is harder to answer, as it depends. In my situation I need performance, I need performance from the GPU, but not that kind of performance gamers would think of.
I need computational performance (CUDA, OpenCL)
…and then performance from CPU as well.

As I have zero intention to go back to Windows, when I buy a „new” hardware, I check wether it will work OK with Debian. This limits my choices somewhat, but I concluded, that using Linux I don’t really need the very-best-of-all anyway, and I can dig on the second hand hardware market, and just get what gamers “throw” away for cheap price: so I spend fraction of the money, still get the quite good performance.

Maybe I was lucky, because at the time I switched from Windows to Linux, my hardware was well supported by Linux (actually better than Windows).

This is not the case for @Skywalker71 .

Today I use an obsolete, still good working hardware, don’t have to spend too much on it (mostly I buy HDD’s as extra pieces, but always sell my older HW on the market after I bought a newer, such as CPU, graphics card).

So my today configuration:

i7 8700
16GB RAM
AMD RX6600XT (8GB vRAM)
256GB nvme SSD for system (Debian 12 currently) and small parts of /home
128GB SATA SSD for VM images (formerly this was the system drive :slight_smile: )
2 TB SATA HDD for storage, render output, huge files and public part of /home
2 TB SATA SSD for storage, private parts of /home including Davinci projects

2 Sharkoon HDD docks with USB3 connection, and a heap of HDD’s in various sizes from 1.5TB to 4TB which take place in the docks when necessary. I put archives of currently inactive projects on them, so they don’t fill up my built-in storages. I keep eveything important on 2 drives at least.

Now I shut up, and will continue with installing Davinci Resolve 18 on Debian 12 with the AMD RX6600XT…

So, as I saw in some movies:

…to be continued.

:smiley:

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You have a video of the making of a video… clever.

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In Linux!!!
:slight_smile:

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Indeed. Congratulations, that is a really nice presentation.

The main point is, your hardware is not super-expensive. A video card that works well with modern Linux is the really essential bit.

One needs to have a certain amount of artistic talent to do such a thing. I do not have it.

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Thank you! :heart:

I’m afraid I never grew up - I’m just playing LEGO all the time, as I always did in my childhood.
Only the bricks changed.
In my childhood the bricks were small pieces of plastic which when put together correctly formed a car or a house, or whatever.
Now my bricks are sometimes clips, footages, B-rolls from here&there, sometimes gadgets I can put together to work in a way I like it, or software pieces, code snippets to build up a functionality for my comfort and liking.
I just enjoy playing with the bricks.

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In my day it was Meccano… not as flexible as LEGO. I grew out of it, but that just meant I found other toys.

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Thanks for the detailed update on your work, interesting to read and a good example to follow

Well done with the video work

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WOW!!! I am reading my story on your pre-linux life. It was exactly the mirror of my life. I also used Vegas, Sony version. But Premiere was much suited for me because I worked for some houses who used Adobe products (most of the houses do in here). So I became accustomed with Premiere Pro. @kovacslt, you were a church photographer, I was a wedding photographer. I started with Windows 3.1, ended at Windows 10 Pro and Photoshop 5 was my first, now I am using Photoshop 2023. Rest of the story… just as you have depicted except I am starting Linux much later. But I want to learn a lot of things from you regarding Linux and Davinci Resolve. In the meantime I downloaded AVLinux MX Edition 23.2 which is based on Debian 12 and Kernel 6.10 and it booted beautifully from the Live USB. But installing it using ‘Customized Partition’ is quite tricky and I have not acquired the required knowledge to do so. So, I stopped. Now, I am planning on to buy a new GPU, probably RX6400 4GB DDR6 because of limited budget and I hope I will be able to install Debian 12 or Debian 12 based AVLinux and ultimately install Davinci Resolve.

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Yes, I am afraid that is your only solution if you want to use Linux.
Get as good a card as you can afford.
Make sure the PSU in your machine is adequate for your chosen card.
Stay away from Nvidia… choose AMD or Intel

“probably RX6400 4GB DDR6”
At least I can confirm that one works with every Linux I have … MX, Void, Devuan, Artix, Antix.

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100%. AMD is good in performance, Nvidia is good at marketing. This is the main difference between AMD and Nvidia.

I am using AMD since their K62 processor when. Within this 24/25 years span only 1 AMD processor became dead and they replaced the processor at my doorstep. From that day, I became a whole-hearted AMD fan. I am using AMD for my entire life and I know what they are capable of. And Intel GPUs are no good for professional work. Colour calibration never work on Intel GPUs because they are not built for graphical work. They are for normal office work. But AMD… it’s an entirely different story.

This is also an expensive card in India. Actually it is the GST which are making cards more expensive. We have to pay 28% GST here, sometimes more. It is too much.

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GST in Australia is 10%… Our computer parts prices largely depend on the US dollar exchange rate.

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I have to make a search on ‘How to migrate to Australia’… just for cheaper GST. :expressionless:

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That is much like I was with Vegas.
Davinci is easy to get used to. I could get ont that train quie quickly :slight_smile:
But, there’s the strategy I followed: if you are in a hurry and under pressure, complete the job as fast as possible using the tools you are already familiar with.
If you have a comfortable deadline, try to do it with the new set of tools.
I’d suggest, install Davinci on Windows alongside Premiere. After some time you ar familiar with Davinci enough, you can switch to Linux, and Davinci there. It will be just the same, except some minor differences.

I refuse the subscription, so I did not enter that room.

To be safe, and keep your current working environment safe:
I suggest you get a dedicated drive for Linux, and upon installing unplug all drives that would be lethal to accidentally format. So you can safely experiment with Linux, repartition, reinstall, reformat, whatever, your work will be safe.
Then when finished, just replug those drives, and boot up you original working OS.
You can make the whole thing dual-boot later too.

I hope so, hope the best! :star_struck:

To be fair, nVidia is really performant. Where it falls short currently in Linux is Wayland support.
Well, assuming having a card thats supported by the prop. driver. :wink:

I love intel Quicksync with the ability to encode fullHD h264 and h265 videos, it is so fast that it leaves either nvEnc (nVidia) or AMD VAAPI standing…
And the quality is really good!

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I do just like it. Though I am new on using Linux but I am fascinated with it for a long time. I have a tendency of breaking boundaries, not in law and order but everything unconventional, in a good way, attracts me. So, Linux also fascinated me and when Microsoft announced the death of Windows 10 to push W11, which is the worst OS ever made, in my opinion and Microsoft’s greediness exposed, I decided to leave their ecosystem forever. And the same goes for Adobe also and they are WORSE than Microsoft. I think Microsoft is learning from them how to squeeze money from users. I actually don’t use Adobe’s cloud services like stock photos, motion graphics, collaboration with others etc. I don’t need those. There are plenty of resources on the internet which are either free or much cheaper.
Sorry about blabbering. Anyway, I have a 500gb SSD partitioned in 200gb and 300gb approx. The 200gb portion I am using for Linux and the 300gb, basically empty right now so that if something goes wrong, I can delete all the partitions and start a new. But till now, that didn’t happen. Before I start installing Linux, I power down all my other disks from the BIOS otherwise Linux will create a dual boot with Windows and Windows will mess up everything. So, be safe than sorry… this is my mantra. :slightly_smiling_face:

I am not feeling any problem on installing Debian and to me, it has the easiest installer. Though the installer looks dated, but a first time user cannot possibly imagine how easy and robust it is. At least I couldn’t imagine and inside, it may not fancy, like Fedora but it is far more advanced and user-friendly.

This is actually a personal choice. I left Intel at the time of Celeron / Pentium 4. Since then I use AMD for me and for my wife and I build AMD based PCs, mostly. That doesn’t mean that Intel is not good. Intel is a giant but AMD was and still is Intel’s worst nightmare. AMD first integrated the ‘3D Now’ technolgy in their processor. I told you that I like and like to do unconventional things. I started using AMD when most of the users here didn’t even know that there are processors other than Intel. So, I am in love and you know, love doesn’t always follow rules and maths. :wink:

Now, tell me is there any such ‘Driver Manager’ in Debian like Mint has? If not, Debian developers should make one. It is really convenient and in my opinion, it is a must have.

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Drivers are kernel modules. You manage them with basic commands like lsmod and modprobe .
Drivers require very little management… you load the modules you need once, and then forget it.

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For a while I hopped between Windows and Linux. Then Microsoft added a whole new dimension to the meaning of the word “bloatware” and my fate was sealed. I switched to Linux and never looked back. My computer was an Acer Aspire XC-780 (all intel), and I was happy with it.

But all good things come to an end and the computer started having mysterious issues, so I bought a new one: an Asus MiniPC PN-50. It came with Windows 11 pre-installed. I thought: perhaps it actually improved. How wrong I was! Everything about it was absolutely horrible! From the contrast, right down to what’s a +&##-+#@@&- ad.

I wiped that computer and installed Linux Mint. Never looked back. Linux Mint has kept behaving in the exact same way through all those upgrades. Fantastic! That’s what an OS should be like: boring.

For my writing purposes I had bought Scrivener when I still had the patience with Windows. Boy, was that a bad idea. Its UI looked like it’s from the '90s. However, it does have some nice features… But I couldn’t get over the horrible UI.

Under Linux I looked for writing software, and initially found Bibisco, later NovelWriter. So, there’s no shortage of specialised software for authors. Both have a better UI than Scrivener, especially Bibisco. NovelWriter even has a nice tagging feature, which helps with overview.

LibreOffice is just not the thing for my purposes. It just does not have the features someone wanting to write a novel needs.

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Microsoft has become infamous for putting bloatwares from Windows 8.1. Win8.1 had bloatwares but not that much what they put in Win10. I haven’t used Win11 (never will as my Primary OS, may be in VM), so cannot say the amount of bloatware in there but what I heard, it’s a lot. But if you ask me for Win10, I will say that there are ways to get rid of all of the bloatwares. You can even completely renove Edge browser and everything related to it. And the way is very simple. There is a script freely available on github. Search for WINDOWS DEBLOATER. If you can’t find it, let me know and I will give it to you. It is just a batch file. So you can open and see the content.

I think, I also have to install Mint because Debian 12 is giving too much trouble.

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LibreOffice is so general-purpose that it is not the best choice for any purpose.

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Mint is a good place for a beginner to start… it glosses over some of the starting difficulties.
Debian makes you learn more rapidly.

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Well, in the past I used Gentoo. I was pleased with it as well, until I realized I’m not a programmer, nor a tweaker… perhaps I was a power user.

These days, I’m more of an end-user. I don’t mind digging to fix things. However, I’ve gotten used to how Linux keeps things the same.

Each time I returned to Windows - either forced or by free will - I just got a little bit more annoyed at how things are constantly shuffled around, constant expansion of the bloatware, adware, things being made unclear, more annoyances, etc. Microsoft seems to bend over backwards to make their OS as anti-user as possible.

At this point, I’m willing to make sacrifices to keep things just how I like them.

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