What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Inundated »

smurphos wrote: Sat Nov 03, 2018 6:23 am
Inundated wrote: Sat Nov 03, 2018 5:48 am On my Moto e5 Play, plugging in defaults to USB Charging, and the pull down menu offers options including "Transfer files". That opens up the file system on the phone to Nemo, but any attempt to access those files on LM flips up "libmtp" errors each time.
What version of Mint and what version of Android on the phone.

I'm on Mint 19 (with libmtp9 pre-installed) and the phone (Nokia 8) is on Android 8.1.0 with a 4.4 kernel. It works with no issues. It would be interesting to know what is the common factor with it not working.
Mint 19 here, and the phone is running 8.0.0.

I wonder if it's a Moto thing, though the Android version on Moto phones is pretty close to stock.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by slipstick »

Inundated wrote: Sat Nov 03, 2018 5:48 am On my Moto e5 Play, plugging in defaults to USB Charging, and the pull down menu offers options including "Transfer files". That opens up the file system on the phone to Nemo, but any attempt to access those files on LM flips up "libmtp" errors each time.
As I said in the post I linked above, the "Transfer photos (PTP) works for me. I just went back and tried the "Transfer files" option on my phones pull-down menu. Once I select that and then click on the phone icon in the left bar of Nemo, it displays a folder named "Internal shared storage". Clicking on this reveals many subfolders, one of which is "Download". Clicking on that reveals the files on my phone. I went to two pane mode in Nemo, selected the destination folder on my computer (Downloads) and was able to drag the file across from the phone to the computer using the middle mouse button and select "Copy here". No problems.

I am running LM18.3 Cinnamon - the phone is a Motorola Moto G5 Plus with Android 7.0.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by MurphCID »

He has some comments on Xubuntu (XFCE) and is not overly impressed. He strikes me as pretty reasonable in reviews: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/xubuntu-cosmic.html
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by smurphos »

For Android connection issues I'd suggest hunting around on your device specific forum over at XDA for solutions - https://forum.xda-developers.com/. It doesn't appear to be a Linux issue per-se as some people (me!) have no problem with MTP just working.
MurphCID wrote: Sat Nov 03, 2018 8:22 pm He has some comments on Xubuntu (XFCE) and is not overly impressed. He strikes me as pretty reasonable in reviews: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/xubuntu-cosmic.html
I like Dedoimedo's reviewing style - he consistently tests a subset of functions he considers important and focuses on average user experience and amount of tweaking and how difficult it to tweak to get what he considers to be useful system, including eye-candy but with a focus on usability (default font readability / theme contrast etc). I occasionally think he's a bit harsh and occasionally he is just plain wrong but overall a good reviewer and an entertaining read.

His Sylvia Cinnamon review vs his Tara Cinnamon reviews I think are pretty fair, albeit he insists that editing CSS is the way to fix contrast issues in Tara with Mint Y at the start of the review and doesn't suggest just switching theme at that point. And complaining about lack of codecs in the live session is just ill-informed. Mint could arguably be sued in some jurisdictions if they were fully baked in.

https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/lin ... ylvia.html vs https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/lin ... -tara.html
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Inundated »

smurphos wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 1:59 am For Android connection issues I'd suggest hunting around on your device specific forum over at XDA for solutions - https://forum.xda-developers.com/. It doesn't appear to be a Linux issue per-se as some people (me!) have no problem with MTP just working.
This appears to be close to a solution:

https://blog.tausys.de/2014/01/31/linux ... oto-g-mtp/

Problems: 1) It's in German! (But Chrome seems to translate it properly.) and 2) It's for the Moto G, and I have a Moto E5 Play, so I don't know the code for it.

But...as I mentioned, I can just push files through my cloud storage folders, which are automatically syncing to this system. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this.

But this DEFINITELY is on topic for this thread. Having to fix this would definitely send most "noobs" running back to Windows! :D
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Hoser Rob »

Inundated wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:37 am
smurphos wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 1:59 am For Android connection issues I'd suggest hunting around on your device specific forum over at XDA for solutions - https://forum.xda-developers.com/. It doesn't appear to be a Linux issue per-se as some people (me!) have no problem with MTP just working.
This appears to be close to a solution:

https://blog.tausys.de/2014/01/31/linux ... oto-g-mtp/

Problems: 1) It's in German! (But Chrome seems to translate it properly.) and 2) It's for the Moto G, and I have a Moto E5 Play, so I don't know the code for it.

But...as I mentioned, I can just push files through my cloud storage folders, which are automatically syncing to this system. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this.

But this DEFINITELY is on topic for this thread. Having to fix this would definitely send most "noobs" running back to Windows! :D
Sure it's on topic. And it always seems to come down to poor Linbux support, doesn't it?

You could try installing KDE Connect.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Inundated »

Hoser Rob wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 1:28 pm Sure it's on topic. And it always seems to come down to poor Linbux support, doesn't it?

You could try installing KDE Connect.
There are some issues in here that I think I could overcome. But, the solutions I've found on this involve a wholebuncha terminal commands, and even then there is information to dig up (i.e. the device ID of the Moto E5 Play vs. the Moto G in the scripts I found).

If I were really invested in fixing this, I could continue along this path, or try the KDEConnect solution you offered. A quick look at its wiki shows it doesn't appear to be a plug and play solution, though I'd be willing to do it if I didn't have Plan B (using my cloud storage).

Something like importing files from a phone, if it doesn't work like it does in Windows, would be a major factor in deciding not to keep using Linux for a "noob". New users coming from Windows shouldn't have to know what "libmtp" is and have to go hunting down solutions for something as basic as this.

And no, I don't know how to fix this problem so it's just built into the distro, or maybe even a GUI program easily downloadable in Software Manager.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by lsemmens »

The point you seem to be missing here, is not a shortcoming of Linux but that of the suppliers of these devices. They develop for Windwoes and Linux does not get a look in. The only drawback of Linux in these cases is the small user base. You can't just plug an iPhone (Apple product) into a PC and it "just works" which is what you are expecting of Linux. You still have to install that piece of malware called iTunes (developed by Apple for the Windows platform). It won't work on a Commodore 64 (remember those) either.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Inundated »

lsemmens wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:23 pm The point you seem to be missing here, is not a shortcoming of Linux but that of the suppliers of these devices. They develop for Windwoes and Linux does not get a look in. The only drawback of Linux in these cases is the small user base. You can't just plug an iPhone (Apple product) into a PC and it "just works" which is what you are expecting of Linux. You still have to install that piece of malware called iTunes (developed by Apple for the Windows platform). It won't work on a Commodore 64 (remember those) either.
I remember that more than you know. :D The C-64 was a major part of my life!

I think I'm talking about something different here with "just works". I'm not talking about similar functionality to iTunes, for example. I'm talking about basic functionality to allow the Linux system to use the (standard) file system in the phone. i.e. plug in the phone, and be able to access the directories where audio files are stored. If I have mp3 files, I should be able to edit them with Audacity or play them with whatever (VLC? RhythmBox?). Windows will let you look at that directory on the phone as a folder.

That's all I'm looking for, and it does seem to work for some Linux installations and not others.

Now, I fully get the control these manufacturers have over how the thing works with external systems. But see above...it does work in some Linux situations, and for those of us where it doesn't work, the instructions appear daunting.

Imagine how they appear to a new Windows user who doesn't even have the experience I have with computers. I won't even get into how bad printers are, and THAT is 100% the fault of the manufacturers.

(and we're back to the thread title again! :D)
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by powerchord84 »

I think the amount of tinkering it sometimes takes to get basic stuff working after a fresh install that "just works" in Windows. At least for me.

I installed Mint 19 on my main PC last night and as soon as I did I had graphical issues (it wasn't using the Nvidia driver) and sound was coming out of my default laptop speakers instead of the speakers plugged into the audio port.

Both were taken care of relatively quickly, but in the past, during the many other times I decided to try Linux, this wasn't always the case.

Windows offers a "warm safety blankey" experience to people who have never operated in the world of "the other", i.e. alternative OS's like Linux. And many people are scared to let go of that safety blanket, myself included many times in the past.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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powerchord84 wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 11:40 am I think the amount of tinkering it sometimes takes to get basic stuff working after a fresh install that "just works" in Windows. At least for me.

I installed Mint 19 on my main PC last night and as soon as I did I had graphical issues (it wasn't using the Nvidia driver) and sound was coming out of my default laptop speakers instead of the speakers plugged into the audio port.

Both were taken care of relatively quickly, but in the past, during the many other times I decided to try Linux, this wasn't always the case.

Windows offers a "warm safety blankey" experience to people who have never operated in the world of "the other", i.e. alternative OS's like Linux. And many people are scared to let go of that safety blanket, myself included many times in the past.
Where's the fun in that!?!?!

Some people use computers for statistical analysis. Some use them for scientific purposes. The widest use of computers is information systems and business use, replacing the IBM 370 the Vax and the Selectric Typewriter.

I got mine for school use, in the DOS days. In a year I was a batch file master. When Windows came out (V1) I went back to DOS. I signed on with 3.1. I got so I knew the OS inside out and backwards, same with 95 and almost with NT. (OS 2, though interesting, was too much of a kludge...)

I signed on with GE on the Helpdesk and was funnelled most of the OS questions, including DOS and Novell.

To make a long story short (TOO LATE!) most of the FUN in running Linux is being able to tinker with the OS! I (sometimes) actually LIKE a crash, since it affords me the opportunity to build a new system. With Mint it's assembling the pieces, but with something like Arch it's an orchestration.


Hmmm...wonder what Linux From Scratch is like? :?
I have travelled 37629424162.9 miles in my lifetime

One thing I would suggest, create a partition as a 50G partition as /. Partition the rest as /Home. IF the system fails, reinstall and use the exact same username and all your 'stuff' comes back to you.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by carum carvi »

Arch_Enemy wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 11:54 am I (sometimes) actually LIKE a crash, since it affords me the opportunity to build a new system.
That quote reminds me of my Windows years. When I used Windows I have had several BLUE SCREEN CRASHES which scared the bejeemas out of me. Never a dull day with Windows. Linux on the contrary is rather dull and reliable. I prefer Linux. And just as Arch Enemy already said, you can make Linux as exciting as you want by tinkering with it, although I am not much of a fan of crashes, because I am still a bit too unexeperienced with Linux to save it from a proper crash, which I fortunately never have had with Linux.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Arch_Enemy »

carum carvi wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:54 pm
Arch_Enemy wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 11:54 am I (sometimes) actually LIKE a crash, since it affords me the opportunity to build a new system.
That quote reminds me of my Windows years. When I used Windows I have had several BLUE SCREEN CRASHES which scared the bejeemas out of me. Never a dull day with Windows. Linux on the contrary is rather dull and reliable. I prefer Linux. And just as Arch Enemy already said, you can make Linux as exciting as you want by tinkering with it, although I am not much of a fan of crashes, because I am still a bit too unexeperienced with Linux to save it from a proper crash, which I fortunately never have had with Linux.
Well, one thing that's easier about Linux is when it does give you a hard time, it usually TELLS you why it gave you a hard time. You don't get something like 20014578:00010256. You get an actual detail of what went wrong.

If you can at least boot to a $ prompt, you can type in dmesg | tail and get at least a partial description of what may have caused your system woes. I always have a USB stick with an ISO image I can boot from on it so I can get on line in short order and look up the error message and get a hint or two how to rectify the issue.

With Mint, a lot of the time it is issuing a few commands from the command line, or perhaps calling up nano and editing a config file or FSTAB or something.

With Arch, you can generally plan on an hour or three of fun connecting, downloading, installing and rebuilding to hopefully get close to what you had before. :D

I think the latter is far more fun! :shock:
I have travelled 37629424162.9 miles in my lifetime

One thing I would suggest, create a partition as a 50G partition as /. Partition the rest as /Home. IF the system fails, reinstall and use the exact same username and all your 'stuff' comes back to you.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by BG405 »

Arch_Enemy wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 8:35 pm With Arch, you can generally plan on an hour or three of fun connecting, downloading, installing and rebuilding to hopefully get close to what you had before. :D
I'll have to find the logs of what I had to reinstall to get my Mint 17.3 KDE system working again .. :shock: :oops:
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by MurphCID »

carum carvi wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:54 pm
Arch_Enemy wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 11:54 am I (sometimes) actually LIKE a crash, since it affords me the opportunity to build a new system.
That quote reminds me of my Windows years. When I used Windows I have had several BLUE SCREEN CRASHES which scared the bejeemas out of me. Never a dull day with Windows. Linux on the contrary is rather dull and reliable. I prefer Linux. And just as Arch Enemy already said, you can make Linux as exciting as you want by tinkering with it, although I am not much of a fan of crashes, because I am still a bit too unexeperienced with Linux to save it from a proper crash, which I fortunately never have had with Linux.
I like predictability, stability, and a system that just works. So far Mint 19 gives me all of those. My days of wanting to get under the hood are going away, since I no longer have the time nor really the desire to tinker.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by MurphCID »

Arch_Enemy wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 8:35 pm
carum carvi wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:54 pm
Arch_Enemy wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 11:54 am I (sometimes) actually LIKE a crash, since it affords me the opportunity to build a new system.
That quote reminds me of my Windows years. When I used Windows I have had several BLUE SCREEN CRASHES which scared the bejeemas out of me. Never a dull day with Windows. Linux on the contrary is rather dull and reliable. I prefer Linux. And just as Arch Enemy already said, you can make Linux as exciting as you want by tinkering with it, although I am not much of a fan of crashes, because I am still a bit too unexeperienced with Linux to save it from a proper crash, which I fortunately never have had with Linux.
Well, one thing that's easier about Linux is when it does give you a hard time, it usually TELLS you why it gave you a hard time. You don't get something like 20014578:00010256. You get an actual detail of what went wrong.

If you can at least boot to a $ prompt, you can type in dmesg | tail and get at least a partial description of what may have caused your system woes. I always have a USB stick with an ISO image I can boot from on it so I can get on line in short order and look up the error message and get a hint or two how to rectify the issue.

With Mint, a lot of the time it is issuing a few commands from the command line, or perhaps calling up nano and editing a config file or FSTAB or something.

With Arch, you can generally plan on an hour or three of fun connecting, downloading, installing and rebuilding to hopefully get close to what you had before. :D

I think the latter is far more fun! :shock:
This is true. BSODs are cryptic at best.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by BG405 »

BSODs .. ugh, bad memory but just that, now, unless I see one when messing with a VB install. Those surely send people running away from Windows! :mrgreen:
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by MurphCID »

BG405 wrote: Thu Nov 08, 2018 12:08 pm BSODs .. ugh, bad memory but just that, now, unless I see one when messing with a VB install. Those surely send people running away from Windows! :mrgreen:
When I built my current system I would have two to three a day, and nothing seemed to point to the problem, until weeks later when I discovered that my Gigabyte Gaming K7 AMD motherboard was defective. Since switching to the Crosshair VI Hero board, I only get one rarely.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Inundated »

BG405 wrote: Thu Nov 08, 2018 12:08 pm BSODs .. ugh, bad memory but just that, now, unless I see one when messing with a VB install. Those surely send people running away from Windows! :mrgreen:
Oh, I definitely agree with that! I haven't seen an BSOD in some time, but when this computer (now on LM 19 Xfce) had Windows XP, ouch!

(I had suppressed that memory...thank goodness it is only a memory now...)

I think I'm becoming allergic to Windows. My laptop over there ---->, the one that had a dead screen for a while, I am still using the LM 19 Cinnamon live USB every day. I'm inching closer to either trying to set up a dual boot or wiping Windows entirely.

I don't want to USE Windows 10, and really have no programs I NEED that need Windows 10, but I provide family tech support on it...so I'm reluctant to wipe it out entirely.

This desktop is 100% Windows-free, which was easier to do since it was on XP (EOL years ago). I have found a Linux alternative/solution to nearly everything and I feel liberated from Windows. All the problems with the latest Windows 10 updates, which seem to have been programmed by trained seals, are now more amusing than concerning!
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by lsemmens »

One good advantage to running Linux exclusively is the fact that those Windwoes users gradually get the idea that you cannot help them any more. ;)
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