Any Linux & darktable users here?

I've dabbled with Linux on & off over the years, a few flavors of Ubuntu mostly, I think I tried Mint once before, but there's always been the odd hiccup here & there with hardware that's not been properly supported. And the lack of a mainstream photo raw editor has always been a bit of a gotcha. For me anyway.
Quite a few months back, when Microsoft announced the end of life for Windows 10, I got a bit p!$$ed with the whole Windows $h!t show. I like & use mini PC's, own a couple of fairly well specc'ed for their time models, and my older Intel Skull Canyon failed the Windows 11 update criteria. With the lack of TPM 2. Now it's not some ancient old Pentium computer out of Noah's Ark, it's an i7 quad core 6770HQ CPU, with 16GB of RAM, and about 3TB of SSD HD installed.
That p!$$ed me off a bit, as I hate adding to the landfill with perfectly good and usable electronic devices, just because Microsoft said so.
A bit of reading and investigating later, I downloaded the Linux Mint Cinnamon ISO, burnt it to a USB stick, and booted up the installer. Holy cr@p, everything worked. The Blue teeth. WiFi. SD card reader. Sound. HDMI. External drives. WiFi Printer. My NAS. Everything. That's brilliant. Hit the software manager, installed a few apps, everything just worked.
Yeah, I know I could have just done a bodgey W11 install, but I'm after security. Tight security, as I travel to China a little bit, and access my Interwebz connected NAS quite a bit from there. So I don't want any hassles or issues, I can see the bank trying to weasel their way out of refunding any vanishing funds if they discover you're not using up to date protected hardware and software. I'd rather not find out either way. So Linux it was.
Installed another couple of apps through the Terminal command line, no real drama there either. That was probably the tipping point, as I use Tailscale as a VPN to access all my devices when out and about. And it (the installation) went as smooth as Silk.
Then the big one. A raw photo editor. I'd tried darktable before, and just could not get along with it. Rawtherapee seemed a bit more logical to me, but the lack of masking tools kind of put a damper on that. Installed & played with them both, in the end darktable won out.
One thing I found, is that there's very very very few starter of beginner tutorials dealing with darktable. Hours and hours of stuff where the Tech heads get right down digging around in the weeds explaining all the tiny little intricate workings of the Math behind it all, that's not what I want. And I suspect tonnes and tonnes of average photographers as well.
So the learning curve was steep. Very steep. I'm not after absolute 100% perfection and every last little detail extracted from the raw, I just want to snap a shot, adjust the highlights and shadows a bit, maybe tinker with the White balance a bit, get nice rich colours, and some good contrast without crushing up the blacks.
And I think I'm there. I can now take a shot in some pretty difficult lighting conditions, and without too much drama and effort, and not a lot of time either, produce something I'm happy with.
I only came across this video over the weekend, and by crikey I wish I'd stumbled across it months and months ago. It would have made my life so so much easier, as darktable is such a huge and unstructured program that takes forever to experiment with. I'd given up a couple of times before, this time I stuck at it, and I'm pretty happy I did.
If anyone's interested, here it is. A straightforward, 10 step process to import a raw, and export a jpeg to your own tastes. Well done Mr Tony :)
youtu.be/0RLv8NeJc2Q?si=M-mvsEaNt5xt4SR2

I'm not sure if that's a wise thing to do :) I'm just a tinkerer, with just enough knowledge to be dangerous, and break stuff :) I'm in the metal trades industry, with absolutely zero training or education in regards to computers/IT. Anything goes wrong and it's straight to professor Google to try and work out how to fix it.
One thing that really stood out to me, was just how relaxing the whole Linux computing thing is compared to Windows. There's no continuous pestering to buy this, buy that, upgrade your storage, and so on. You control it. Not the other way around. You can save your data wherever YOU want. Not where Microsoft tries to make you, and then pay for the privilege.
With a little bit of knowledge, you can customise your system to look and work just how you want. Not how Microsoft wants you to.
TBC :)

As I wrote, my initial installation of Linux Mint was as a dual boot with Windows 10 on my Skull Canyon i7 NUC. The plan was to keep Windows on the system and keep it offline for security, but still be able to use my favoured Silkypix few photo editor. It worked, but it is a fair PITA booting in and out of both OS's, downloading my raw files from camera SD card so that they are accessible to both, and so on. It's very doable, just more work, and a bit harder to keep track of everything.
Anyway, I had Linux set up to do automatic system image backups, I think I ran out of SSD space for the system image, and it failed to proceed. A rethink was required. I settled on a fresh install of Linux after an SSD format. And running W10 inside a virtual machine just for the occasional times I wanted to run a Windows program.
And that worked nicely. No more rebooting from one OS to the other, just a more click to switch between the two. You do get a bit of a performance hit, noticeable more on the Windows side VM.
So a little bit of a hassle accessing raw files between the two, but quite workable.
The thing that I did notice, was that Linux ran much nicer as a standalone OS rather than a dual boot. Yeah, it shouldn't, but it really does. Things like my Logitech wireless keyboard and Ergonomic ball mouse working better. Smoother, just "better"
I suspect that Windows does stuff in BIOS behind the scenes, to optimise the hardware for its own purpose. I know this to be true, as after booting into Windows and it doing a few updates, things on the Linux sure will break. Consulting professor Google will reveal a fix, but it does confirm it's (Windows) is a bit of a bully as far as hardware configuration is concerned.
I noticed that I was going many months, and not even using Windows at all. Or even thinking about it. Another decision, the Virtual machine was axed from my system, and HD space reclaimed. And I don't miss it in the slightest.
I have another little mini PC that runs Windows 11 Pro, is my coffee table/couch computer, and I'm dual booting that with Linux Mint also. It's a magic little bit of tech. Only about 120mm square by 50mm tall, but it flies. Runs a Ryzen 7 7735HS 8 core 16 thread CPU at up to 4.8 GHz, with 32GB of RAM, and I think I've got about 4TB of SSD in it. It's noticeably faster than my Intel Skull Canyon. And it got me thinking 😁😁
TBC

Agreed.

After years of wasted time here, Windows and Linux don't belong in the same box, not even on separate drives.
Dual boot in any form is asking for trouble, and with Win11 it's only going to get worse.
Microsoft should never have been allowed into the BIOS, but too late now !

We went the other way.
El Cheapo Mini PC powered by rubber band for securer banking on Mint; and the grunty Desktop for Windows Photo programs. They share my Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse without any special KVM being required.

Only major Linux gripe ?
Mapping a remote Network drive, alledgedly possible, but a PITA and then they tell you there's a few bugs left in the code. This is at least a decade late,
It's a couple of clicks in Windows. Not good enough, and a warning that the focus at Linux is waning just as much as at Microsoft.
Troubling times, going forward.

Ron

As I'm not a Techie, just a amateur tinkerer, I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to in regards to mapping a remote Network drive.
If I'm not misunderstanding it, then you're meaning accessing say NAS files remotely?
What I have found to be utterly brilliant, is Tailscale VPN. You install it on the devices/machines you want to access your NAS with, there's a native App for Linux, but it does require a Terminal command to install which is very very simple though, I use a Synology NAS so there's a native App you install on the NAS box as well, log into the Tailscale dashboard, copy the provided address for the NAS it generates for you, paste it into a Browser, and you're there. Make a shortcut/bookmark in your browser, one click to access.
For access on my local network, it's just there in the file browser under network. As long as you have Samba installed. I've created bookmarks/shortcuts for specific files/folders on the NAS on a couple of different machines, one click to access.
When you initially set up Tailscale, you use a Microsoft, Google or whatever account to log into Tailscale, so you can have 2 factor authentication for that, and then 2 factor authentication for your NAS/remote device. Making it extremely secure. Apparently it uses Wireguard technology, which I understand it as being developed for secure business usage.
The great thing about Tailscale that is if you're on your own, local network, it creates direct peer to peer connections to your devices, bypassing any external servers, and only uses them once you go outside your local network. So it's fast on your local network.
I used an existing Microsoft account as I travel China a little bit, and nothing Google works over there. Apple & MS no problem. I travel with one of my mini PC's, access my NAS from there, it's connected for hours at a time, and I've never seen any login attempts on the Log files other than my own. The NAS has been internet connected 24/7 for the last 6? or so years at a guess, not a single problem

I'm not so sure about that. I've done a little bit of reading since Microsoft ended support for W10, and apparently the interest and downloads for Linux has absolutely exploded. Exponentially. I can't lay my hands on the links right now, but it makes interesting reading. The highest uptake of Linux by far in its history if I remember correctly.
There's also some interesting articles out there regarding the French? Government ditching Windows/Microsoft, and going all in on Linux. Apparently they already use it within the Police Force, they're just going further with it. So I don't really think Linux is going anywhere anytime soon.
Just had a really quick look, first thing I came across www.zdnet.com/article/france-leaves-windows-for-linux-desktop/

More Government ditching Microsoft. Interesting reading. It's not about the money www.zdnet.com/article/this-european-military-just-ditched-microsoft-for-open-source-libreoffice-heres-why/

No doubt.

But a User Base is one thing, and a Support/Development Structure is another.
Many things need fixing in Linux, now more than ever before,
but that doesn't mean the staff to do it have suddenly materialised.
My guess is, after decades, the missionary zeal has faded and people are finding they have real lives to live.
You can only cope with 200 opinions on one OS for a finite time.

Ron

Microsoft and windows is one of those marketing frauds that the general public (and those who should) never quite understood. Over all the years it has been around, windows has been sadly lacking. Security, speed, stability - everything has been just another layer added after the fact.
The snappiest windows computer I ever had was an AMD 586 with winders '95 and with probably about 16 MB of memory. At the time (and as always) ms would have everyone believe that it was the best thing since sliced bread. That was a single core 125 MHz CPU. Today, this laptop has a multi core 2.1 GHz CPU with 16 GB of memory. That's essentially multiple CPU's each nearly 1,000 times as fast as the 586 with 1,000 times as much memory. I remember being forced to upgrade to winders 98 and hanging off but finally had no choice to upgrade to 98 SE. Winders 98 was passable but 98 SE ran like a dog and was the end for that computer and I was forced to buy a faster machine, with the 586 sitting in the corner as my first file server. What was the difference in those versions of windows? What was it that brought a very capable (at the time) computer to it's knees? It was just eye candy features that should never have been in the core of the operating system.
I remember around the year 2,000 and announced with much fanfare, ms received a security clearance from the American military for their flagship network OS winders NT. What wasn't mentioned at the time (but was a source of much amusement in the wider IT community) was that that security clearance was for a standalone machine - NOT connected to any network!! The people who needed to know knew that windows was best left to desktop duties. An OS designed for networking that couldn't be trusted on a network... Back then the hackers loved windows as there was always another vulnerability waiting to be discovered.
A question I often ponder is how much extra electricity does a windows machine use to just sit there doing nothing, let alone active tasks. Sure the chips are more efficient today but globally, what is the GWh difference between all the windows computers compared to if they were running Linux or anything more efficient?

Quoting from under the tinfoil, monitoring your router's activity would be the best guide.
Measure it in BIOPPS (Background invasions of privacy per second) as the new metric.

(You can also use a simple mains plug to measure your rig, most power companies used to hand them out for free.
TAPOs does it as well, if you have any)

Ron

Honestly, I can't agree with you there. You've sort of preempted my next post. Newer hardware. After seeing how smoothly and flawlessly my first couple of Linux installs went, it got me thinking about building a dedicated Linux box.
Now, this is not the first time I've been down this road. Quite a few years back, I had a crack at building a home theatre computer to record TV shows, and store all my music and movies etc. I did plenty or research and study on suitable Linux compatible hardware, bought all my parts, screwed it all together, and had all sorts of trouble with it. TV tuners not being recognised, or randomly not working. All sorts of headaches trying to get a remote that would connect, and allow button mapping to suit various programs. In the end, I gave up and installed Windows 7 media center. What a revelation. That would have to be one of MIcrosoft's best bits of software ever. It was fantastic. Smooth. intuitive, smart, looked great, everything just worked. And then they killed it.
Anyway, that sort of put me off building a dedicated Linux box for years. But the itch had hit, why not try building another box at about the worst time in recent history for parts availability and exorbitant prices hey :)
Parts were ordered, and the waiting game began. I think it took about 3 1/2 weeks for a pretty standard parts order to arrive. Sourced from a couple of different shops, due to the AI boom causing memory shortages, and supply issues.
So what did I build? A mini ITX Cooler Master N100 Air case. Mini ITX AM5 MSI MPG B650I WiFi motherboard. Ryzen 7 8700G 8 core 16 thread CPU running at I think 5.2 GHz. Crucial P510 Gen 5 1TB SSD running at up to 11,000MB/s, 16GB of Crucial Pro DDR5 RAM at 6400 MTs. Yeah, you pay a small form factor tax on mini ITX stuff, but that's what I wanted. A fashionable, relatively small, quiet box, rather than a big, bright, noisy box with flashing lights and so on. And I reckon I succeeded.
I deliberately went with the Ryzen 8700G CPU as I'm not a gamer, I have no interest in gaming, no interest in editing video, so no need for a dedicated GPU. The Ryzen 7 Radeon 780M is the most powerful integrated graphics AMD does, apparently it's capable of running 1080P games at very respectable frame rates, plenty good enough for me.
Windows users will probably be horrified at only 16GB of RAM, but Linux is a very efficient OS, I watched RAM usage on my other mini PC's for quite some time, and decide 16GB is plenty for my use case. And it saved me about 400 bucks at todays prices in the process.
Once again I downloaded the latest Linux Mint ISO, did all the security checks, burned it to a USB stick, and screwed all my shiny new bits together, plugged it into the wall socket, and hit the power button. Nothing. F#{<. 5 seconds later, it burst into life. Must have just been identifying all the hardware.
Set the boot order in BIOS, restarted, the Linux installer popped up on the monitor, filled in a few details, and less than 10 minutes later a shiny new OS presented itself on the monitor.
And. Everything. Just. Worked. WiFi. Printer automatically detected. Keyboard and Logitech Ergonomic wireless ball mouse. External drives detected. Even the Blueteeth -which can be problematic at the best of times on mainstream devices, just worked. All the USB ports worked. Front panel, back panel, USB-C, everything. One tiny issue with the sound, I simply had to change the sound output in settings from USB/SPDIF to HDMI and it was away. Extremely slick, smooth fast and painless install experience. And that's using some pretty up to date hardware.
In the background Mint was installing all the latest updates etc, quick and painless. I won't bore you with any more talk about installing all my favored software etc, setting up my NAS on the network etc etc, zero issues there.
So no, I really can't agree with you about Linux -well Mint anyway, losing there way. Yeah, I've read articles that they've been a bit slow on updating from X11? to Wayland? graphics etc, but it is coming. And the system still works fine as it currently stands. Yeah, Mint is not the absolute latest and greatest bleeding edge release, but that's what makes it attractive to me, and plenty of other users as well. I don't care about the Windows similarities, I'd rather something different. It's relatively small. Snappy. Stable. And well supported. I don't want all the fancy AI bull$h!t that hogs resources, slows your system down, and tries to take over your system. Even Microsoft has learned that apparently, and backed off a lot with their push to introduce it in their software.
After using Mint for coming up to a year now (I think) I've been very pleasantly surprised at just how nice it is to actually use on a day to day basis. Libre Office suite is more than sufficient for me for all my Word processing requirements, I think you can still use the Web based Outlook suite anyway, at home I use Onshape, which is Browser based, for any of my AutoCAD 3D modelling I want to do, sure, it was quite a difficult transition to darktable to the point where I felt I was proficient, fast and happy with the results I was getting, but honestly, I think it was very well worth the effort to do so. It's just so refreshing to sit down and use a system that's not bombarding and pestering you you buy this, buy that, update this and that, and so on.
That's just my own experience, this time round it has been by far the best Linux experience so far, and with the likes of Government etc taking it up (Linux) I can only see hardware support etc improving from here on in.
Yeah, I know I sound like a raving Linux Fanboi, but I'm absolutely not. Just relating what I've experienced over the last few months