Linux Applications

Joplin
https://joplinapp.org/

Terminator
http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/terminator-a-linux-terminal-emulator-with-multiple-terminals-in-one-window

Pinta
https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/

Guake
http://guake-project.org/

Bibisco
https://www.bibisco.com/

VS Code
https://code.visualstudio.com/download

VimAwesome
https://vimawesome.com/

Vundle
https://github.com/VundleVim/Vundle.vim

Windows Applications

Chocolatey
https://chocolatey.org/

PowerShell Core
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/tag/v6.2.2

MobaXTerm
https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

Windows Terminal
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-terminal-preview/9n0dx20hk701?ocid=AID681541_aff_7593_1243925&cid=msft_web_chart&activetab=pivot:overviewtab

Windows Subsystem for Linux
https://aka.ms/wslstore

Docker
https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install/

VMware Workstation
https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-pro.html

Visual Studio: Community Edition
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/

Desktop Environments and Distributions

What is a Desktop Environment? Tools, window managers, login managers, display managers, all of the components
What is a distribution? When I say Linux, I don't mean the kernel, I mean the operating system running on top of it.

Gnome, Gnome 3, Gnome Shell
GTK, Wayland, X11

Mac-like
+ Hot corners
+ Suite of extensions
+ Themes
+ Snappy
- Hard set to 60hz
- Poor multimonitor support

KDE
Qt, Basic Wayland, X11

Windows-like
+ Start Menu
+ Pinned applications
+ Theme store
+ A lot out of the box
+ Really smooth composite manager
- Hidden WiFi quirks
- Weird display settings quirks

XFCE
GTK, X11

Mac-like
Windows-like
It just depends
- Very basic out of the box
- Toolbar needs some work
+ Extremely customizable
+ Launcher or Start Menu
+ Versatile Themes
- Multimonitor support was not great

Cinnamon
GTK, X11

Windows-like
+ Start Menu
+ Aesthetically pleasing
- Trouble with multimonitor and discrete GPU
+ Customizable

MATE
GTK, X11

Mac-like
+ Status in top
+ Launcher in the bottom
+/- Interesting composite manager
+/- GPU
+/- CPU
+/- Other (CPU)
+ Lightweight environment
++ Very nice community

Ubuntu
+ Tons of support
+ Most widely used
+ Fast
+ Long support window
+ Optimal for games
+ Huge repository
+/- Based on Debian Testing
- Dramatic changes
- Non-LTS unstable
- Inconsistent drivers and driver support

Fedora
+ Great community
+ Enterprise development
+ Leading edge
+ Have yum and rpm available
+ Great support and development
- Enjoy patching
- Questionable release cycle
- Lack of options

Debian
+ Incredibly stable
+ Perfect for prod
+ Secure
+ Massive repository selection
- Not as sophisticated out of the box (no sudo, for example)
- Unknown release cycle
- Behind other distributions

Linux Mint
+ Tons of support out of the box
+ Based on Ubuntu
+ Stable
+ GUI options
- Sketchy past
- Green Theme

openSUSE
+ Great community
+ Great support and drivers
+ KDE Champion
+ Stable or Rolling Release
+ RPM, packman, zypper
- Limited selection
- Tough to find information

Arch Linux
+ Simple
+ Great support and documentation
+ (B)Leeding Edge (Stable upstream)
+ Versatile
- Manual installation
- Frequent updates
- Questionable reliability

Building a Linux workstation

Hardware compatability list
https://www.linuxjournal.com/supportedhardware
https://www.linux-laptop.net/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport

Things to consider:

- Browser box
++ Get away with i5 and 8GB of RAM
++ Something with a decent resolution, nice screen
=-=-= 14" go high DPI settings for ease of reading on 1080p

- Workhorse
++ i7 processor, the more cores the better (AMD is an option too)
++ 32GB of RAM
++ Discrete Graphics
=-=-= Ubuntu (mixed results)
=-=-= Debian (older version but rock solid)
=-=-= Arch Linux (never had issues)
=-=-= Fedora (Negativo17 is aweeesome)
++ 1080p - 1440p or multiple ports/easily docked (Thunderbolt 3, docking station, USB C Dock)

- Gaming/Media
++ GTX Series or Radeon Graphics, no QUADRO or FIREPRO
++ High quality screen, 1440p to 2160p
=-=-= Consider your DE when getting a higher resolution or high refresh rate screen
=-=-= Gnome hard locked a lot of times

- Admin box
++ Ethernet port
++ 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz WiFi
++ Decent RAM - 16GB

This episode I have guest Luke Brown, and he discusses his insights, experience, and opinions with communicating with virtual teams, supporting hybrid environments, and working with applications and their servers.

As a systems engineer we need to borrow and learn from software engineering:

Software methodologies

Version Control
SDLC
Testing
Tools and utilities
Algorithm Analysis

Chef is awesome :D

More on Algorithm Analysis later!

Get your VM on! Today I discuss my experience and what I think the benefits are of ESXi, Hyper-V, and KVM. Enjoy the links below!

https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/windowstoolkit/wintk40u1/html/index.html

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/try-hyper-v-powershell

https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/10-awesome-hyper-v-cmdlets/

https://linux.die.net/man/1/virt-top

https://computingforgeeks.com/virsh-commands-cheatsheet/

Any feedback, comments, or questions are appreciated! Head over to https://forum.admindev.tech or e-mail me at [email protected]

Thanks!

At the winning of the vote, I am submitting this first episode as an introduction. I dive into my work history as well as how I got into the world of I.T. Also cats.