Well. It is a fresh start for me. I learned that xfs is not that good file system that comes by default in centos if you choose automatically create partitions. The problem appeared when I decided to install Dropbox on my system, and Dropbox.. decided to go Ext4. Well no biggie.

Bought more storage and decided from 250GB go 1TB for Linux, as I using it more and more. I found that my "blog" is lacking useful information as for myself when I started to put things around so here you future me. If you have a problem, read this.
Installation.. there are plenty of guides on how to install Linux on your system. I went for CentOS, as it was very stable for me. This is an amazing guide:

Installation of “CentOS 7.0″ with Screenshots

NOTICE: in the section when it creates partitions, choose ext4 for /home.

After installation is done, there is a need for a GPU driver. As I use NVIDIA cards for my 3D work, just need to download them from their website.
There are plenty of guides about how to install them. For example here:

Installing NVIDIA Drivers on RHEL or CentOS 7

but just to keep few things in mind:

# yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
# yum install kernel-devel epel-release
# yum install dkms

Disable nouveau driver by changing the configuration /etc/default/grub file. Add the nouveau.modeset=0. The line should look something like this:
#GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet nouveau.modeset=0"
And need to update GRUB configuration.
BIOS:

$ sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

EFI:

$ sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/centos/grub.cfg

After these steps are done, most of the guides suggest isolate multi-user.target to be in command line mode, but you can do this by just pressing 'e' on GRUB selection before OS boot, and in the same line 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet nouveau.modeset=0"' just put '3' after quiet. It forces a system to boot with no graphical interface.

And at this point, it should be ready to install all software packages.
Snaps not available for CentOS yet, but there is Flatpak, which for my personal view is the same shit, different colour. To install just go:
https://flatpak.org/setup/CentOS/

And yes! Spotify, Discord, Dropbox, and other small gems!

MOUNTING NETWORK DRIVE:

Oh... last time I did this.. But now I forgot, and today spent half of the day, just searching how to do this again. I'll just leave this here for mayself and maybe someone who needs it. You can mount network drive by command line:

sudo mount -t cifs //10.0.0.100/Folder /mnt/Folder -o user=user,username=username,password=password,dir_mode=0777,file_mode=0777

Obviously, IP address should be your network drive, username, and password for accessing data. Change everything accordingly. If this works, just edit etc/fstab and add lines:

//10.0.0.100/Folder /mnt/Folder cifs credentials=/home/username/.smbcredentials,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

and create a file in your home dir

# touch .smbcredentials
# gedit .smbcredentials

edit the file and set your username and password.

username=username
password=password
domain=workgroup

ACCESS NTFS DRIVES:

I have windows and windows drives I need to access, so there is no way to do it by default, and you need this:

# yum install epel-release
# sudo yum install ntfs-3g -y;

After this install, you can mount your drives with read/write access.
That's basically it. Well done

It will be just a quickie. Looks like there are no official builds made for Centos to use Spotify and Discord. Either you have to download *.deb packages(Ubuntu and Mint users quite happy there) to "alienate" them.. or use the source provided. I tried to use Discord from the source but was tired to dig into dependency issues. It's always that libffmpeg.so or another lib.soffmpeg. (I have a bad love/hate relationship with FFmpeg in general on Linux)

Luckily, there is an amazing script who saves a day!
https://github.com/RPM-Outpost/discord

I recommend installing Canary, as it works for sure. And Spotify you can get from negativo repository here:

Spotify client

But looks like there won't be updates in the future. Or at least for a while.

Just pick one and you are good to go! Well. It's not quite true.

One thing you have to have in mind is to check which distro recommends your developer. Usually, it will be some RHEL, and Debian derivatives: Ubuntu, Mint, CentOS, Fedora etc. They are stable enough to use daily, and LTS (Long Term Support) versions are the best choice. Well... it's not quite right. Usually, they are very stable, but lack of new hardware/software implementation and I having a trouble with it.

I've tried a few. Will mention just few I was able to install. Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, Manjaro.

I was in love with Manjaro actually, but... it's not supported by software I wanted to use and had massive problems installing it. Although, Blackmagic Fusion was working with FFmpeg support without any issues! I would consider this if I was a film editor I think, especially if I was an editor who hates M$ Windows.

Fedora. when RHEL released 27, I was so happy, everything was working so smoothly! Just had minor problems with Nvidia drivers, basically, reinstall each time after a kernel update. I think its a minor thing compared to other problems. But..don't fix if it's not broken rule applies here very much.

I was fancy to update. Fedora 28 broke everything.

Blackmagic Fusion wasn't working anymore, and after reading in forums, I decided to switch to CentOS, as it's supported officially.  No luck here.

Ubuntu. no luck here too. Just to mention, I had problems with SideFX Houdini here too. In general, I think, RHEL branch OS, is a little bit better for that.

Long story short - going back to CentOS. And will try to stick as much as I can on this one this time. Let's begin! 

It’s about Linux. Not only about linux but also motion graphics and 3d.

 

Why?

We all know that 3D and Macs are not going along together very well as they lack quite a bit of performance. Earlier this year, I had to make a sad decision, and replace my mac with pc workstation. Am I happy? Sort of. It’s really powerful!
So what’s the point of this blog? Well.. I was am tired of windows random restarts in the middle of my work, tired of random error dialogs, and tired of how ink and pen feature  doesn’t go along with wacom tablet. For every update I have to tweak something to get work done.
Pressure sensitivity in photoshop, Illustrator, switch off windows pen flicks now and then because it causes only problems.
That led me to look and search for an alternatives. Linux OS. 
 

What’s the plan?

The idea is to write a blog for myself, and to have links, tutorials and useful info - all in one place. Write all problems I have, and maybe a possible solution if I’ll find one. You might say “There are lots of forums for that” and you are right. But as I mentioned it’s mainly for my personal use.
P.S. You can download Linux 4K wallpaper HERE