Linux version recommendation

[rbk123]

I'm building a new PC (mobo is an Asrock B450 K4 gaming) and would like to run Linux on it. It'll be my first Linux build so I'm looking for version/flavor recommendations. My requirements are pretty short:
- no gaming use
- run Photoshop
- run Citrix (remote access to work)
- run 2004 Quickbooks pro
- would like to run an old 32 bit app meant to run on Win2k

Any recommendations and pros/cons?

 

[whm1974]

Both Arch and Manjaro should support your new PC OOTB. Wine might work for your older version of any Windows software you have, or you can run Win95/9SE in a VM and run those that way.

What version of Photoshop are you using?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If thisis your first Linux experience, use Mint. The community is very helpful.

 

[whm1974]

If thisis your first Linux experience, use Mint. The community is very helpful.

While I would normally agree with you, I don't know if Mint did a point release upgrading the kernel to the 4.18 or 4.19 series.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

While I would normally agree with you, I don't know if Mint did a point release upgrading the kernel to the 4.18 or 4.19 series.

That would inform my hardware choices more than my software selection. (Better to have a system that runs the software you want than "better" hardware that doesn't run the software you want.)

Ubuntu then. Still-excellent n00b-friendly documentation and it's easy to upgrade to the latest kernels if you need to via kernel.ubuntu.org or using UKUU. (Assuming the default kernels aren't sufficient, but a quick search indicates it work well enough with Ryzen 2.)

 

[whm1974]

Well the OP could do a build using the i3-8100 CPU and a B360 board as that isn't that much more instead. AFAIK Intel has better Linux support then AMD does, although AMD has come a long way.

 

[pcgeek11]

That would inform my hardware choices more than my software selection. (Better to have a system that runs the software you want than "better" hardware that doesn't run the software you want.)

Ubuntu then. Still-excellent n00b-friendly documentation and it's easy to upgrade to the latest kernels if you need to via kernel.ubuntu.org or using UKUU. (Assuming the default kernels aren't sufficient, but a quick search indicates it work well enough with Ryzen 2.)

You can do the same with Mint which is based from Ubuntu... I run Mint and use UKUU to update the kernel.

 

[lxskllr]

I think Windows is the best distro for op. He wants to run a bunch of proprietary software I'm not even sure could be hacked to run in gnu/linux. If he's willing to play around and/or change his workflow, one of the *buntus. Try them all and which suits best.

 

[mikeymikec]

I think Windows is the best distro for op. He wants to run a bunch of proprietary software I'm not even sure could be hacked to run in gnu/linux. If he's willing to play around and/or change his workflow, one of the *buntus. Try them all and which suits best.

It's a tricky one. The massively out-of-date and obsolete Quickbooks 2004 poses potential problems along the lines of being blown out of the water by a future Win10 feature update. This makes me think that an older Windows version (say Win7) running in a virtual machine is a decent idea (under whatever OS).

Also the Win95-era apps requirement is potentially tricky in my experience with getting a much older version of Windows to run in a VM. With Virtualbox, XP is the oldest version I've run flawlessly; Win98 was tricky at times with drivers and even then on one VM I didn't ever manage to get sound support working properly.

@rbk123

How are you managing at the moment, what's your setup?

 

[rbk123]

Both Arch and Manjaro should support your new PC OOTB. Wine might work for your older version of any Windows software you have, or you can run Win95/9SE in a VM and run those that way.

What version of Photoshop are you using?

Looks like Ubuntu 18.4 has good support for my Asrock, so I'll give that a go, and go the Wine/VM route for my other stuff. It's technically not my first Linux build, but probably may as well be as I haven't done one in 20 years (Redhat) back when I used to be a Unix sysadmin.

Not sure what version my Photoshop is, but it's plenty old.

I currently run Quickbooks/Citrix/Photoshop on a Win7 machine, and the one 32 bit app I need runs on an old Win2k laptop (which I'd like to get rid of). There really aren't any other 32 bit apps I need, now that I think about it so I'll update my original post.

Thanks for the info and help.

 

[mikeymikec]

32-bit apps should run without any issues on 64-bit Windows (most versions of MS Office are 32-bit, for example) no problem. A 16-bit app won't run on 64-bit Windows but will run on 32-bit Windows.

I'd avoid running 32-bit Windows as much as I possibly could; I'd prefer to have 32-bit Windows in a VM rather than deal with its limitations in any real world setting like my own. Some of my customers with 10-year-old Core 2 Duo boxes get on OK with 32-bit Windows, but they're a minority I'm pretty sure.

 

[rbk123]

Doh. It must be a 16 bit app then as once I went to Windows 7, it no longer let me install/run.

 

[whm1974]

Doh. It must be a 16 bit app then as once I went to Windows 7, it no longer let me install/run.

I really hope for sake that you don't need to use a 16-Bit application for any reason.

 

[PingSpike]

Some 32-bit applications used 16-bit installers well after 16-bit was in common usage.

 

[you2]

I've always prefer ubuntu over mint but I have a lot of friends who swear on fedora. Mind you I always find stuff broken in new distributions (I'm on 18.04 and it has a lot of issues); but I found mint a lot worse.
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I don't think there will be an issue with wine and 32 bit apps but for linux you sometime need to install 32 bit libraries (under ubuntu it is apt-get xxx:i386); in some cases.
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Not sure about amd support; I haven't run amd since thunderbird and operond (sp). I think I switched to intel in 2008.
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I had a lot of issues with mint (for ubuntu i run xfce which is what one of the mint distributions uses). Anyway kind of sad about the state of 18.04 but maybe the next point release will clean some of them up.

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm on 18.04 and it has a lot of issues

Huh. I'm running Lubuntu 18.04 LTS 64-bit without any problems. LB 18.10 apparently includes a massive rewrite of lxde to support gtk4 I think so that wouldn't surprise me if that version had shortcomings.

 

[you2]

The X server has problems. Some of it is related to wayland; but the xserver itself has a spin loop which I have confirmed. Also there is regression in support for hd3000 which will crash periodically (this bug existed about 6 years ago and was fixed). There are a few other issues but those are the ones that i find most annoying. A lot of folks on laptops also complain about overheating but from readng the bug reports I'm pretty sure it is related to the x server spin loop increasing load on the cpu.

 

[mikeymikec]

I see, good to know. AMD GPU here.

 

[you2]

The spin loop is actually, as far as i can tell, unrelated to GPU (i switched to an amd card as a work around to the hd3000 and the spin problem continues). Check if one of your core is constantly running or use top/strace to watch the xserver... careful with strace if you hang the server your system will appear to lock up since you can't update your display).

I see, good to know. AMD GPU here.

 

[mikeymikec]

99.3% idle according to top. 4690k. The consumers were top or Firefox content processes.

 

[you2]

I wonder if it is cable related. The spin is on drm checks.

99.3% idle according to top. 4690k. The consumers were top or Firefox content processes.

 

[rbk123]

I ended up building it up as Ubuntu and so far it's working well but I'm still learning it's ins and outs. Never realized how much I truly missed vi.
I'll check on top to see if I'm getting any issues, but seems fine. Probably hard for me to notice by "feel" with my mostly office automation usage, while having 8 cores. Still need to load Wine and also get a VM going.