Linux... again.
Linux and I are old frenemies. Needless to say, the landscape for my needs has changed over time. I still NEED a Windows PC. But, in truth, I only need 1. My music is in Spotify, my documents are all maintained from my Windows computer and stored in OneDrive. And I really need just a single development PC.
What I want, is an OpenHAB server which doubles as an always on device display date, time, weather, tasks, etc... I can do this on Windows. But I don't want to. And the reason is perhaps partially related to past experiences with Windows.
You see, Windows, is not very kind when you screw things up repeatedly. And can be even less kind if you find yourself needing to wipe the slate clean. At the end of the day, when software installation goes south on a Windows machine, it is near impossible to clean up. My experience with openHab is that it is very easy to screw it up. And involves things like running specific versions of the JVM. And so on.
And neither of the two devices I'm thinking of this are very fun to fix. They are slow, and outdated pieces of garbage. Which is exactly why I though Linux might be the best answer. You see, Linux actually installs rather quickly comparatively. And the distros I'm thinking have no licensing cost so I can't screw anything up there. I can just wipe the slate clean if things goes south.
But, this all assumes that it is actually reasonable to even get it up and running properly in the first place.
People wonder why, while I think highly enough of Linux, that I'm simultaneously a bit of a hater and would never actually recommend it to people.
Well... wonder no more!
My IDEAL target for this test was my old Dell Venue Pro 5130. It run an Atom processor has 2GB of RAM and a sparse HD (can't remember, 64GB or 128GB). It is totally fanless, doesn't use a spinning hard drive and has a touch screen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. By all accounts it should be perfect.
It may have a low powered CPU, but it is plenty fast by Linux standards. The RAM is small for Windows, but HUGE for my limited requirements. The disk, again, is small by Windows standards, but even at 64GB would be overkill for my plans as well.
Since it would be always on, it is ideal to me that it has, overall the lowest power draw.
A quick Google search reveals... HEAPS OF PROBLEMS. Wi-Fi may not work out of the box, touch screen may not work out of the box. And then, I may not even be able to get past UEFI in the first place, though I think that is a non-issue.
OK, well, as stated, I don't really need more than one Windows PC and I have a small Yoga 11s laptop. I really only use it to browse the web. It has a solid state drive. But the i5 processor DOES have a fan. Not my ideal for an always on PC. But, Lenovo is a generally Linux friendly shop and this is a much more standard Linux target. Think it all works out of the box? Nope! Wi-Fi won't even connect. Requires me to actually blacklist the module for my Wi-Fi to get it to work. Stellar!
I have it setup, and now it is updating. My image was from 17.04 and it is updating to 17.10, which means new boot loader entries. From my experience there are several things which may happen at this point. It may totally hose the whole system in the process. Hopefully not. But, I can't say I'm not prepared for it. It may JUST re-break my Wi-Fi changes. It may break just the upgraded kernel. It may remove Windows from the boot list. Or, it may all just magically work.
The number of times I've done this dance with Linux is not quite triple digits. But definitely well into the double digits. It has NEVER just worked.
I'm still going to try and get the Venue Pro up and running. Windows is painfully slow on that machine. And it really is the ideal OpenHAB server for me.
But, whether or not I succeed is not what this is actually about (Update: appears it mostly went smoothly, I still appear to have internet and everything appears to have booted up properly, but I can't install any apps).
What this is actually about is whether or not Linux truly is stable enough and easy enough to recommend to someone who doesn't have several PCs lying around and the means to fix them when something goes south.
Unfortunately, what my experiences tell me now, as they have told me every single time past, spanning dozens of hardware configurations is a resounding "NO". Sure, on MOST machines, with the help of search engines I have been able to find help. But, in some cases, the GUI doesn't initialize. Average user is dead in the water. And far more often, the component which isn't working is... the NEWORK ADAPTER. Not to mention that most basic users wouldn't even know where to go for help or feel comfortable following the suggestions.
I should be able to choose a system at random (say at least 1+ year old to give the OSS chaps at least time to cobble together generic drivers) and it should configure 100% out of the box, say 85% of the time. Thus far I have never had a Linux distro 100% functional out of the box.
Sorry guys.
What I want, is an OpenHAB server which doubles as an always on device display date, time, weather, tasks, etc... I can do this on Windows. But I don't want to. And the reason is perhaps partially related to past experiences with Windows.
You see, Windows, is not very kind when you screw things up repeatedly. And can be even less kind if you find yourself needing to wipe the slate clean. At the end of the day, when software installation goes south on a Windows machine, it is near impossible to clean up. My experience with openHab is that it is very easy to screw it up. And involves things like running specific versions of the JVM. And so on.
And neither of the two devices I'm thinking of this are very fun to fix. They are slow, and outdated pieces of garbage. Which is exactly why I though Linux might be the best answer. You see, Linux actually installs rather quickly comparatively. And the distros I'm thinking have no licensing cost so I can't screw anything up there. I can just wipe the slate clean if things goes south.
But, this all assumes that it is actually reasonable to even get it up and running properly in the first place.
People wonder why, while I think highly enough of Linux, that I'm simultaneously a bit of a hater and would never actually recommend it to people.
Well... wonder no more!
My IDEAL target for this test was my old Dell Venue Pro 5130. It run an Atom processor has 2GB of RAM and a sparse HD (can't remember, 64GB or 128GB). It is totally fanless, doesn't use a spinning hard drive and has a touch screen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. By all accounts it should be perfect.
It may have a low powered CPU, but it is plenty fast by Linux standards. The RAM is small for Windows, but HUGE for my limited requirements. The disk, again, is small by Windows standards, but even at 64GB would be overkill for my plans as well.
Since it would be always on, it is ideal to me that it has, overall the lowest power draw.
A quick Google search reveals... HEAPS OF PROBLEMS. Wi-Fi may not work out of the box, touch screen may not work out of the box. And then, I may not even be able to get past UEFI in the first place, though I think that is a non-issue.
OK, well, as stated, I don't really need more than one Windows PC and I have a small Yoga 11s laptop. I really only use it to browse the web. It has a solid state drive. But the i5 processor DOES have a fan. Not my ideal for an always on PC. But, Lenovo is a generally Linux friendly shop and this is a much more standard Linux target. Think it all works out of the box? Nope! Wi-Fi won't even connect. Requires me to actually blacklist the module for my Wi-Fi to get it to work. Stellar!
I have it setup, and now it is updating. My image was from 17.04 and it is updating to 17.10, which means new boot loader entries. From my experience there are several things which may happen at this point. It may totally hose the whole system in the process. Hopefully not. But, I can't say I'm not prepared for it. It may JUST re-break my Wi-Fi changes. It may break just the upgraded kernel. It may remove Windows from the boot list. Or, it may all just magically work.
The number of times I've done this dance with Linux is not quite triple digits. But definitely well into the double digits. It has NEVER just worked.
I'm still going to try and get the Venue Pro up and running. Windows is painfully slow on that machine. And it really is the ideal OpenHAB server for me.
But, whether or not I succeed is not what this is actually about (Update: appears it mostly went smoothly, I still appear to have internet and everything appears to have booted up properly, but I can't install any apps).
What this is actually about is whether or not Linux truly is stable enough and easy enough to recommend to someone who doesn't have several PCs lying around and the means to fix them when something goes south.
Unfortunately, what my experiences tell me now, as they have told me every single time past, spanning dozens of hardware configurations is a resounding "NO". Sure, on MOST machines, with the help of search engines I have been able to find help. But, in some cases, the GUI doesn't initialize. Average user is dead in the water. And far more often, the component which isn't working is... the NEWORK ADAPTER. Not to mention that most basic users wouldn't even know where to go for help or feel comfortable following the suggestions.
I should be able to choose a system at random (say at least 1+ year old to give the OSS chaps at least time to cobble together generic drivers) and it should configure 100% out of the box, say 85% of the time. Thus far I have never had a Linux distro 100% functional out of the box.
Sorry guys.
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