Distro-hoppers anonymous

Colonel Panic · 2023-05-13 15:28:18

taberacci wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:
I've never tried Spiral but I'll bet it's good. The one thing I didn't like about Gecko was the "rain rolling down green glass" wallpaper, but that's easily changed. I agree that OpenSUSE (and anything based on it) is one of the slower distros though.
Really Spiral Linux is just Debian, but instead of Debian Installer it has Calamares. It comes with 32-bit repositories enabled in case you're interested. And it uses "backports" or something like that to provide a newer Linux kernel than Debian "stable". While Debian prefer to patch the kernel v5.10, Spiral could provide one that's on v6. You could straight out change the "sources.list" from "Bullseye" to "Bookworm" and it could upgrade the system to that. By "default" Calamares offers to format "root" directory as "btrfs" in order to do those system snapshots loved so well on Garuda and other OS's.
However it's not going to allow setting "root" password. There are no window manager versions so you might be turned off by that. There is a "basic" version which doesn't install a desktop but it's all I could tell you about it.
https://github.com/SpiralLinux/SpiralLi … ect#readme
Gecko and Spiral Linux try to be consistent with the look no matter what is the D.E.
One more serious problem Gecko has is that "ROLLING" ISO is now more than nine months old. Updating to the latest might fail. A few weeks ago I was lucky I was successful with my slow Internet connection and all but it downloaded almost 2GB of packages.

Thanks for the info about Spiral. I find that using btrfs introduces more problems than it solves (if any) though because Grub probers don't always recognise partitions formatted with it and nor do some versions of Gparted. Ext4 works well enough and I can't see a good reason not to stick with it from now on.

As for Gecko, I've got the "Leap" version installed (15.4) and I find it pretty much trouble-free as long as you update it reasonably frequently. It's slightly behind the "rolling" version in terms of the software provided, but in my experience it's very stable.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2023-05-13 16:39:18)

Colonel Panic · 2023-05-13 15:38:35

jeffreyC wrote:

MX Linux does have systemd, but it also has sysvinit.
The MX devs make sure their tools work with both because some MX users use systemd.
The reason MX has sysvinit is because that is what works with the antiX and MX live USB system.

Again, thanks for the information. Dedo's written a couple of articles about MX Tools, and MX Snapshot in particular, which are worth reading;

https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/mx- … sited.html

https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/mx-snapshot.html

taberacci · 2023-05-14 04:51:22

Debian "stable" kernel got upped again, to "5.10.0-23-amd64". Just updated to that, and upped Firefox-ESR and other things on BL Beryllium.

Sector11 · 2023-05-14 19:28:34

WOW! 5.10.0-22-amd64 wasn't around long.

FF-ESR was an earlier update. Already had that.

Martin · 2023-05-15 18:48:42

johnraff wrote:

@martin I still can't help feeling there's some other difference between your openbox and i3 setups accounting for the difference in RAM use.

I have tried to understand this -- new to ps_mem and wanted to test it. I am not terribly successful though.

I have studied vanilla Openbox, BunsenLab and i3 as they are accessed by picking DE in LightDMs menu.

If I do ps -ejH I get 153 rows of output for i3, 155 rows for OpenBox and 172 rows for BunsenLabs. Almost all of this is the same.

I then tried to look at the size of what was unique for each alternative, using ps_mem -p.

This is were I run out of luck -- most likely due to lack of skill. Vanilla OpenBox and i3 do not differ much. BunsenLab is easier to understand as there are clearly more things running there (Compton, conky, Thunar etc).

I have not spent a lot of time on this as I was preoccupied with a painting project this weekend.

/Martin

johnraff · 2023-05-16 01:20:10

There's no doubt that BL runs various things that someone who was short of RAM could cut down on.

or1o9 · 2023-05-16 03:10:55

^That is probably true. But if that is the case, that the BL RAM consumption is too high, one might start to take in consideration to upgrade the hardware. Or try a more minimalistic approach to the setup. To get both is not so easy.

Martin · 2023-05-16 05:45:08

I don't run i3 on my x230 for RAM reason. I do it because I think tiling works better for me on that screen size.

Open Firefox with a few tabs and the difference between BL, OB and i3 is drowned out. Right now (FF, Thunar and two xterm) free -h tells me I use 1.6 GB of RAM.

/Martin

Colonel Panic · 2023-05-27 16:07:13

taberacci wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:
I've never tried Spiral but I'll bet it's good. The one thing I didn't like about Gecko was the "rain rolling down green glass" wallpaper, but that's easily changed. I agree that OpenSUSE (and anything based on it) is one of the slower distros though.
Really Spiral Linux is just Debian, but instead of Debian Installer it has Calamares. It comes with 32-bit repositories enabled in case you're interested. And it uses "backports" or something like that to provide a newer Linux kernel than Debian "stable". While Debian prefer to patch the kernel v5.10, Spiral could provide one that's on v6. You could straight out change the "sources.list" from "Bullseye" to "Bookworm" and it could upgrade the system to that. By "default" Calamares offers to format "root" directory as "btrfs" in order to do those system snapshots loved so well on Garuda and other OS's.
However it's not going to allow setting "root" password. There are no window manager versions so you might be turned off by that. There is a "basic" version which doesn't install a desktop but it's all I could tell you about it.
https://github.com/SpiralLinux/SpiralLi … ect#readme
Gecko and Spiral Linux try to be consistent with the look no matter what is the D.E.
One more serious problem Gecko has is that "ROLLING" ISO is now more than nine months old. Updating to the latest might fail. A few weeks ago I was lucky I was successful with my slow Internet connection and all but it downloaded almost 2GB of packages.

I've been posting on the Gecko forum recently, and the Gecko admin (I think he may be the only one) said that he thought OpenSUSE may discontinue Leap after the next version (15.5) and even OpenSUSE itself is looking uncertain, so his advice was to stick to Debian instead (and Spiral, which is also his work). I'll see if I can find the link.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2023-05-27 16:14:23)

Colonel Panic · 2023-05-27 16:11:19

Here's the thread, and the comments I'm referring to are here;

"No further GeckoLinux Static editions will be built unless there is a major change in SUSE / openSUSE's roadmap. The traditional openSUSE Leap OS as we know it will no longer exist after version 15.5. As of now, there are no concrete plans for a desktop-focused traditional (mutable and not container based) non-rolling/fixed-release offering from SUSE and/or openSUSE. So GeckoLinux Static will simply not be possible to maintain, and even users of vanilla openSUSE Leap will also probably have to look elsewhere. Users that want some assurance of long-term sustainability and predictability will not find it with SUSE / openSUSE. Debian on the other hand is still sane, predictable, and relatively free of drama. So for users that want a traditional fixed-release Linux OS, I recommend SpiralLinux, which contrary to @madmanRB 's description has quite a few major differences from other Debian-based offerings. Please see the SpiralLinux website for details."

https://github.com/geckolinux/geckolinu … ssions/503

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2023-05-27 17:17:21)

DeepDayze · 2023-05-28 01:34:43

So Opensuse thinking of going the Fedora immutable OS route?

Colonel Panic · 2023-05-28 19:17:31

Sounds like it, yes.

dolly · 2023-05-31 15:53:54

Thanks for the mentioning of Spiral Linux guys, unintended probably, but thank you anyway. It might be just what I need? Will take a close look at the GNOME Bookworm edition when it arrives. Are playing around with the current stable live session of GNOME,and it looks promising. It is a little bit too late to install it since we are so close to Debian 12.

Martin · 2023-05-31 20:45:16

Yes, Spiral is an interesting alternative.

I am currently testing Salix installed on a virtual machine (Qemu) to see if the issues I had with Slint had to do with Slint or were of a more general nature.

Salix delivers a very coherent user experience. Everything works really well including the things that did not work in Slint. The base program selection is very sane (= in my taste). Gslapt deals with dependencies both when installing and removing software.

Only fail so far: no sound to my speakers. I don't know if that is a Qemu machine configuration issue (probably) or a Salix issue.

Salix would be a top candidate for my Lenovo X230 if the set-up for full disk encryption was less intimidating.

/Martin

DeepDayze · 2023-05-31 22:15:38

Martin wrote:

Yes, Spiral is an interesting alternative.
I am currently testing Salix installed on a virtual machine (Qemu) to see if the issues I had with Slint had to do with Slint or were of a more general nature.
Salix delivers a very coherent user experience. Everything works really well including the things that did not work in Slint. The base program selection is very sane (= in my taste). Gslapt deals with dependencies both when installing and removing software.
Only fail so far: no sound to my speakers. I don't know if that is a Qemu machine configuration issue (probably) or a Salix issue.
Salix would be a top candidate for my Lenovo X230 if the set-up for full disk encryption was less intimidating.
/Martin

You could try using another disk for temporarily installing Salix to bare metal for testing and to determine if the problem with sound is fixed. Sound issues are more common in the virtual environments than on live bare metal.

Colonel Panic · 2023-06-01 06:38:53

Martin wrote:

Yes, Spiral is an interesting alternative.
I am currently testing Salix installed on a virtual machine (Qemu) to see if the issues I had with Slint had to do with Slint or were of a more general nature.
Salix delivers a very coherent user experience. Everything works really well including the things that did not work in Slint. The base program selection is very sane (= in my taste). Gslapt deals with dependencies both when installing and removing software.
Only fail so far: no sound to my speakers. I don't know if that is a Qemu machine configuration issue (probably) or a Salix issue.
Salix would be a top candidate for my Lenovo X230 if the set-up for full disk encryption was less intimidating.
/Martin

Hi Martin,

I had a similar problem with sound in Slackware a while back, and this is how I solved it;

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=8058

Martin · 2023-06-02 05:47:35

Colonel Panic wrote:

Hi Martin,
I had a similar problem with sound in Slackware a while back, and this is how I solved it;
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=8058

Scary. When I check I find a ton of things depend on pulsaudio. Removing it using gslapt would rip up the complete thing.

/Martin

hhh · 2023-06-02 08:15:30

^ Why not try using pipewire+pipewire-pulse+wireplumber?

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0 … replumber/
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0 … replumber/

https://www.linuxquestions.org/question … 175693980/

Here's what it looks like on Debian/Ubuntu...

Colonel Panic · 2023-06-02 13:42:46

Martin, I'd take hhh's advice over mine - it sounds a lot less risky. I can't really comment on pipewire because I've never used it.

taberacci · 2023-06-03 11:54:08

dolly wrote:

Thanks for the mentioning of Spiral Linux guys, unintended probably, but thank you anyway. It might be just what I need? Will take a close look at the GNOME Bookworm edition when it arrives. Are playing around with the current stable live session of GNOME,and it looks promising. It is a little bit too late to install it since we are so close to Debian 12.

About two weeks ago I installed Spiral GNOME, which comes with v38 of the desktop environment. Which means the workspaces are presented differently from later GNOME, the extensions aren't judged by an online site, by something else to install which allows telemetry and whatever... and the mouse click response is poor. At least on my 11-year-old computer.

I have installed Spiral GNOME. First I updated to the best I could for "Bullseye" v11. Then changed the "sources.list" to target "Bookworm" instead of "Bullseye". Then I did system update again. It's the best that could be done with the same look but with some GNOME things upgraded to v43 or v44. Sadly the mouse click response still isn't as good as with EndeavourOS GNOME v43 which I very sourly miss right now.

I have tried Debian GNOME from one of the "release candidate" ISO's. Didn't like it, too many dependencies intertwined so Libreoffice cannot be easily unistalled if one doesn't want it on his/her system. It could be purged but then GNOME desktop doesn't work properly. It might be another reason but it takes a lot of CPU cycles opening the file manager, visiting "Tweaks" and doing other things.

Another thing with Debian GNOME is that it installs an insane amount of language packs for Libreoffice and for Firefox ESR which take at least 500MB of valuable disk space. If the user has 100GB or more to waste then it's not much concern, but some of us would actually like to have things that we could use, thank you.

TL;DR summary: I liked "Bookwormified" Spiral GNOME, but with Debian GNOME's look right now.

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