Finally ready to move from Windoze to Unix, suggestions of flavor of Unix to use

[DaveC49]

Hi Jeffrey,

I have been using Linux Mint which is a Debian/Ubuntu distribution for 4-5
years with no major problems. The interface is fairly easy to transition to
from Windows particularly if prior to Windows 8. 

The RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express controller should work with the standard
Ubuntu distribution drivers. It works fine on my AMD desktop with no
inetrvention.

Some wireless 802.11ac wireless usb adapters are not supported by the
inbuilt drivers. The list of supported drivers is widening all the time and
there are prefeerred adapters for use with Linux. I have a Netgear A6100
which is based on the Realtek 8811 chipset which is not supported by the
inbuilt drivers. It uses an RTL8812 driver for which versions modified from
Realteks sources for the Windows drivers for Linux need to be used . There
are a number of repositories on Github which support drivers for chipsets
which are not supported by the distribution's inbuilt driver  (e.g. for RTL
8812 driver https://github.com/diederikdehaas/rtl8812AU). They are not very
difficult to compile and install. Sorting out which drivers need to be used 
can be a bit confusing at first. Ubuntu maintains lists of USB adpaters,
chipsets with some references to respositories but not always completely
upto date.

One way to simplify things is to avoid updating the kernel version as you
generally have to rebuild the drivers with a new kernel version. It is
generally better to stay with the Linux kernel version that the distriubtion
you use is based on. Linux Mint has a default option to not install kernel
updates to new versions automatically. Sometimes the kernel changes require
the drivers to be patched particularly changes in the major and minor
version numbers. This generally happens reasonably quickly on most driver
repositories. I try to use repositories which are being updated fairly
frequently like the above. When there is an enforced update as with the
Sceptre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, the kernel versions on which the
distributions are based are usually patched fairly quickly.

David



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David Cousens
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