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I thought I'd finally have a reason to have a machine running some version of Linux on bare metal, and not in a VM. But nope, still found some show-stopper that sent me right back to Windows.
I bought a 5-bay USB-C hard drive enclosure. I thought I'd dedicate a machine to run TrueNAS, and put some of my smaller(-ish)/retired drives to use again in a software RAID configuration.
Apparently I had silly expectations. Software RAID over a USB connection is "just not reliable enough", so TrueNAS doesn't support it. Only one of the drives is showing up in the web-based admin UI. Supposedly you can drop to a command prompt and build the drive pool from there, but (a) they strongly recommend against it and (b) if you subsequently keep using the admin UI to manage it, you risk breaking things. And "breaking things", when it comes to a RAID configuration, usually means very, very bad things. So that's a non-starter for me.
I thought I had done my homework; people rave about TrueNAS; it's described as professional-grade, yet user-friendly and (bonus) open-source. I had come to the understanding you could throw just about anything at it, and it'll work. But reality is, 10 minutes after a fresh install, this is where I found myself.
Yet puny, crappy Windows sees all drives, and its decades old Disk Manager will dutifully create a software RAID out of them without a complaint, or warning.
I want to like Linux. I really do. I want to run it on a system and have it be useful. I've installed dozens of distributions on VMs, but still haven't found enough of a use for any of them to have an actual physical machine committed to running it natively. I thought this would be my way in. But no, it knows better than me and won't let me do it. I thought that was Apple's thing.
[/rant]
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A few years ago, I was trying to get Linux running on bare iron. Now my development and sysadmin days go well back into the 80s where I developed on and configured multiple Unix types, so I know a bit about it. Fast forward, and I managed to get the distribution running, but I had a display problem. Default resolution was 800x600, but I needed native - 1920x1080. After googling and reading a bit, I came across the most god-awful command to fix the problem.
And that was the end of my Linux days. Might get into some embedded linux development next year, so I might be back, but the sheer disorganization puts me off.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Way back when I did things like Kernel driver development and real-time stuff, I worked on a space related project where our servers were acting as a hub to communicate with satellite interfaces. It ran on a linux kernel with real-time extensions and after 2 days of frustrating double booting umpteen times per day, I learned to use VIM on the command line to code.
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I've found that when Linux works well, and it detects everything on its own on the first attempt, it's great.
It's when these things fail and you have to fix them yourself that Linux still to this day completely falls apart. Sysadmins will roll their eyes at this, but that's just it, they're sysadmins, they spent the time already to figure these things out. What's the average guy to do?
If someone still insists on having that Year of Linux, it still has a long way to go to be consumer-friendly.
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Is it not necessary to learn basic problem-fixing skills not only in LINUX but any OS you are interested in. You don't have to be a sysadmin to enjoy your chosen OS. Thanks and don't lose hope!!!
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And I've had the exact opposite experience. A year or so ago I got all new equipment, MoBo, GPU, Ram, NVME, etc. When I tried to install windows 10 (new DVD download) on that system I got a very helpful popup something like "Driver not found, insert Disc". No mention of WHAT driver was needed, nor any Help/Info button, just OK or Cancel. Fedora, on the other hand installed with no issues, found everything on the system, and has been rock solid ever since. I do have a windows VM I boot occasionally, but other than that I never touch it.
But then, I've been running Linux as my desktop, at work and at home, for at least 20 years.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants"
Chuckles the clown
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It was the pre-boot disk driver.
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Of course this sort of thing happens, I wouldn't pretend otherwise.
When some of fundamental things don't work as they should, there's only so many versions of Windows out there; you're likely to find someone who's gone through this already and work out a solution.
The sheer number of Linux distributions makes it downright impossible to find someone who's got the same problem, with the same hardware, and happens to be using the same OS version so his solution is also applicable in your case.
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I'm working on Fedora for a decade and had a lot of problems (just today I solved an certificate issue), but hardware problems are very rare in my experience...
In my cases if Fedora couldn't handle the hardware, than Window could not either...
"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." ― Gerald Weinberg
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Well, different distro, Linux Mint. Linux allows you to use old hardware current Windows not capable of running on, they said. Well, after replacing a Windows 10 bookkeeper's machine I have tried to make an email only machine for some pensioner friends of mom.
The then current Mint distro froze on the integrated nVidia with the new Open Source driver in the distro after about ten minutes of uptime. The nVidia driver for the chip required some kernel extensions, going down on the install just this package and compile a kernel rabbit's hole, welcome to the endless cycle.
So I have went back to the five generation older Mint distro, and it mostly worked. After a restart, always worked. So they can use it to this day, 130 km away, no other problems. Security updates out of question, so nothing breaks the machine - till TLS4 or something like that.
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Completely opposite situation here.
I’ve used Windows exclusively at work for the last 25 years. It’s OK but has given me plenty of silly issues over the years. I used Windows at home as well until about 12 years ago when a few of the “silly” issues became too much. I switched to a combination of Apple and Linux and have never looked back. I even added ChromeOS into the mix 5-6 years ago. IMHO all 3 OSes are more reliable then Windows.
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I tried TrueNAS (or rather FreeNAS as it was called) some years ago, but decided the Admin UI just got in the way.
I've been running Debian with ZFS and Samba for about 10 years on an HP MicroServer (model N54L) with no problems. I just completed a replacement of all the Seagate drives with ones which OriginalGriff pointed me to in a post a few months back. The old drives all had over 33,000 power on hours and one was starting to get significant revectoring.
I also have a couple of 3D printers controlled by Raspberry Pis which also run a Debian variant.
P.S.: I think I bought the last of those drives. They were down to 1 or 2 in stock.
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Quote: Apparently I had silly expectations. Software RAID over a USB connection is "just not reliable enough", so TrueNAS doesn't support it.
Yeah, it's much better to simply switch to Windows and use the unreliable mechanism ... for your important data /s.
In *my* experience, I appreciate software that warns me about using a mechanism that will lose my data.
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Member 13301679 wrote: In my experience, I appreciate software that warns me about using a mechanism that will lose my data.
Will, vs could.
You have to put things into context. Do you want to be c*ckblocked altogether, or be warned about something that might happen but then decide for yourself whether something's worth the risk to you or not?
I prefer the latter. I understand not everyone would.
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Well, okay, if you want to take the risk, fine.
But that's not what you did, is it? You called the risk aversion silly.
We all have different risk thresholds. Using the word "silly" to describe the experts' view of this risk is ... well, how would you categorise that?
Especially in light of the fact that for all the really risky stuff, avoiding Windows is considered good practice.
IOW, when you are disagreeing with people who have demonstrated more competence than yourself in a particular domain (The TrueNAS devs, and just about everyone who uses Linux over Windows for reliability), it might be wise to refrain from immature behaviour.
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I worked for a company that used Microsoft for all its servers and workstations(5000+). During this time I played with SUSE and Ubuntu at home. After retiring and Microsoft non-support for machines that were only a few years old, I decided to move over to Ubuntu for all my home. Currently running 8 server and 3 desktop machines. I even run Dotnet8 on Linux. Other than TurboTax, I have no need for Windows. I have only occasionally had an issue but usually it my own fault for a miss-configuration. I have had no issues with hardware or software, in fact keeping things up-to-date is much easier than with Window(less reboots). My current desktop took about 50 - 60 seconds to get login and another 30 after login to being able to use it with windows. On Ubuntu, the boot is about 30 second and after login I can start using almost immediately(finish loading background tasks in 20 seconds).
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It is not Linux which is disappointing, it is TrueNAS. Every now and then "user friendly" or "improved" implementations of tit or tat surface. And yes, THOSE are disappointing.
I am not even talking about TrueNAS, but for example Synology NAS which might or might not use a TrueNAS derivative. Their implementation is crappy, limited and fault INtolerant. Still it is Linux.
The plain vanilla Linux mdadm however is reliable, versatile, resilient, fault-tolerant en indestructible. Quite a few years ago I was experimenting with disaster recovery on Linux mdadm RAID. It took me an insane amount of effort to destroy the RAID so it was impossible to re-assemble.
The lesson: it is not Linux which is disappointing, it is the n-th order derivative which tried to "improve" on functionality or safety.
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Johannes Linkels wrote: The lesson: it is not Linux which is disappointing, it is the n-th order derivative which tried to "improve" on functionality or safety.
I can't disagree with that.
My point was, I was looking forward to dedicating a machine to using Linux for a specific task. TrueNAS is very well regarded in the community. Yet it fell short enough that it put the kibosh on that project.
Obviously Linux != TrueNAS. But to me it still came across as another missed opportunity.
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I understand. And you are right in expecting better performance. Unfortunately people are lured into using one of those specialized distros because it is "easier". Well, maybe it is for the unprepared user. I am running everything for which is a special distro on a general purpose Debian server. And true, I don't have fancy web interfaces.
The problem with reviews or comments is mostly that most products are easy to use, beautiful and perform very well as long as nothing goes wrong. The quality is in the solution is when you are able to recover from a seemingly total disaster. No one ever reviews that, if you are lucky someone posts such a recovery when it happened and if possible.
I don't want to land in a Windows-vs-Linux discussion, but Windows and Microsoft products are an order of magnitude more powerful, beautiful and easier to use. Until something goes wrong and then there are exactly zero recovery options except re-install and restore. All Linux solutions working toward a better (as in easier) experience run the risk of moving into that direction.
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I like to just share my Linux experience.
Since my "system" has been steadily growing as far as shear quantity of drives due to my opinion "if it is not used why bother to delete it " one of my experiments is to play with RAID. I do realize that its purpose is to build a "backup" just in case of hardware FAILURE. With that said - I have lost access to fully functioning RAID FOUR times! Not due to hardware failure - Linux just refuses to keep my RAID functioning !
My next opinion is about how Linux, and Ubuntu specifically, handles Bluetooth... or it actually does not care about Bluetooth - in my opinion.
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I've toyed around with RAID (both software and hardware) many times over the decades, and I finally swore off of it many years ago, when the hardware controller on my MB died.
I decided to give it another go with TrueNAS.
After this experience, I'm still sticking with the conclusion I had already drawn years ago - to do it right, RAID is expensive. RAID stands of Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Yeah, the disks are cheap, I have plenty. But the infrastructure around it is expensive, if you need it to be reliable. QNAS, Drobo, Synology - I have a hard time justifying the sort of money they want as a home user.
I was under the mistaken impression that you could throw just about anything at TrueNAS, and it would just make it work. Not even close.
That was my big disapointment.
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When one has thousands of possible hardware choices and thus the possible combinations can reach unimaginable numbers the reality is that things will not always work.
Rather surprising that there are not more failures.
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jschell wrote: Rather surprising that there are not more failures.
How could there have been? I was blocked right from the get-go. I only wished its inherent limitations would've been made more clearly. Like I said, I thought I had done my homework and the community at large is raving about TrueNAS.
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My experience with TrueNAS has been absolutely fantastic. I've worked with various Linux distros over the years, but TrueNAS almost hides that part of its DNA from you.
I built a NAS system several years ago, installed FreeNAS and four 3TB drives as well as a small SSD as the boot drive. Installed the software, booted it up, and was almost immediately in production. No muss, no fuss. Set the drives into a ZPool with parity, created Windows shares, started throwing files at it. Rock solid.
When the system started filling up, I started to replace the 3TB drives with 8TB versions. Took a drive off-line, physically swapped it out for an 8TB, told FreeNAS to re-silver. Array re-built, no errors. Rinse, repeat, three times. One of the beauties of FreeNAS/TrueNAs is that when the capacity of the drives in the array changes, it will automatically re-size the array after the last drive has been replaced. Again, no magical incantations needed, no chicken entrails at midnight. I upgraded from FreeNAS to TrueNAS efortlessly.
One day, the system would not boot. I don't know if it was the CPU, memory, or the motherboard, but it was completely toast. Fearing the worst, I built a new base platform, and hooked up my drives. Re-installed TrueNAS on a new SSD, loaded the last configuration backup, and bang -- all my shares, permissions, accounts, etc. were back, as if there had been no interruptions.
On a final note, I actually have two USB drives attached to the box. These are 8TB Western Digital MyBook units. They are configured as software RAID 1 (mirrored). I use them to store digital video files (no, not porn, but movies and TV series) to feed my entertainment system.
While I don't use Linux as my daily desktop, I do highly recommend TrueNAS. My main desktop is Windows, mainly because I am a Windows developer, but I do run several Linux VMs on my network for various purposes (like ISPConfig, Postfix/ClamAV/SpamAssassin).
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Your experience is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for.
My expectation was that it'd be fine with bunch of drives in a multi-drive enclosure connecting back to the PC over USB-C. It sounded simple enough in my mind...
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