Distro-hoppers anonymous

Mx. Alba · 2024-02-27 09:15:09

Back in the 1990s I started with Debian with classic X-windows and later Gnome. I've also used SuSE and Ubuntu through the years but hadn't used Linux for a few years apart from Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi. When I came back into the Linux desktop game, I first went for Debian 12 Xfce, then tried Tuxedo OS (but realised that just like in the 1990s, I didn't like KDE) and seem to have settled on Bunsenlabs Boron for now.

Colonel Panic · 2024-02-27 09:33:11

I've just followed this set of instructions for upgrading Gecko from its base (on my system) of OpenSUSE Leap 15.4 to 15.5;

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:System_upgrade

It was all slightly tedious to do but it worked smoothly and without a hitch.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-02-27 09:35:27)

Colonel Panic · 2024-02-29 09:22:25

Coming back to Arch; we had a discussion on the Gecko forums about which was the best main distro to use if you want / need to move away from OpenSUSE, and Gecko's developer said he wouldn't use Arch because of its erratic upgrade model which can break the system (and I agree, having had a similar experience with ArchBang about twelve years ago). He now develops Spiral, which is based on Debian Stable.

https://github.com/geckolinux/geckolinu … ssions/526

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-02-29 16:33:20)

shortarcflyer · 2024-02-29 20:38:11

Well, I will stick with my Arch based distros and forego the debian based ones for several reasons.

1-Arch distros are not as "unstable", or claimed to be as "unstable", as they were in the past (like 12 years ago or more).
2-Arch distros are not as "overloaded" with apts, files, scripts, dependencies as debian distros are.
3-Arch distros are not as resource hungry as debian distros are on my pcs.
4-Arch distros work better for me than debian distros do.
5-What works for you may not work for me and vice versa.

And finally, I have used spiral and I was not impressed with it.

hhh · 2024-03-01 02:49:09

shortarcflyer wrote:

3-Arch distros are not as resource hungry as debian distros are on my pcs.
4-Arch distros work better for me than debian distros do.

Yeah, no offense to Arch users, but those points are completely subjective. What do you mean by either of those statements?

Also... Arch is unstable...

Arch Wiki wrote:

Is Arch Linux a stable distribution? Will I get frequent breakage?
It is the user who is ultimately responsible for the stability of their own rolling release system. The user decides when to upgrade, and merges necessary changes when required. If the user reaches out to the community, help is often provided in a timely manner. The difference between Arch and other distributions in this regard is that Arch is truly a 'do-it-yourself' distribution; complaints of breakage are misguided and unproductive, since upstream changes are not the responsibility of Arch devs.
See the System maintenance article for tips on how to make an Arch Linux system as stable as possible.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Freque … _questions

upstream changes are not the responsibility of Arch devs.

hhh · 2024-03-01 02:54:46

Kind of tempted to download this Live KDE, Gentoo based distro...

https://redcorelinux.org/

Colonel Panic · 2024-03-01 09:04:21

shortarcflyer wrote:

Well, I will stick with my Arch based distros and forego the debian based ones for several reasons.
1-Arch distros are not as "unstable", or claimed to be as "unstable", as they were in the past (like 12 years ago or more).
2-Arch distros are not as "overloaded" with apts, files, scripts, dependencies as debian distros are.
3-Arch distros are not as resource hungry as debian distros are on my pcs.
4-Arch distros work better for me than debian distros do.
5-What works for you may not work for me and vice versa.
And finally, I have used spiral and I was not impressed with it.

Sure (and thanks for replying). Everything I say on here (and particularly in this thread) carries the subtext "your mileage may vary", and certainly Arch is very popular here, to the point where Arch Labs has its own subforum.

For me though, Debian stable and Debian-based distros like Bunsen will always have a place on my hard drive because administering them is so easy and trouble-free. I know that if I update the distro or install a new package, nothing will break as for example the sound did when I last updated Fedora 39, and for me that level of reliability matters; it's also why I use OpenSUSE Leap, another very stable and reliable distro.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-03-01 10:00:27)

shortarcflyer · 2024-03-01 15:23:59

Colonel Panic wrote:

shortarcflyer wrote:
Well, I will stick with my Arch based distros and forego the debian based ones for several reasons.
1-Arch distros are not as "unstable", or claimed to be as "unstable", as they were in the past (like 12 years ago or more).
2-Arch distros are not as "overloaded" with apts, files, scripts, dependencies as debian distros are.
3-Arch distros are not as resource hungry as debian distros are on my pcs.
4-Arch distros work better for me than debian distros do.
5-What works for you may not work for me and vice versa.
And finally, I have used spiral and I was not impressed with it.
Sure (and thanks for replying). Everything I say on here (and particularly in this thread) carries the subtext "your mileage may vary", and certainly Arch is very popular here, to the point where Arch Labs has its own subforum.
For me though, Debian stable and Debian-based distros like Bunsen will always have a place on my hard drive because administering them is so easy and trouble-free. I know that if I update the distro or install a new package, nothing will break as for example the sound did when I last updated Fedora 39, and for me that level of reliability matters; it's also why I use OpenSUSE Leap, another very stable and reliable distro.

Sure, I should have added the "YMMV" to my post. I understand what works for me does not work for others and vice versa. I am just more satisfied with my Arch based distro installs than I have ever been with my past Debian based distro installs. There may come a time in the future when that is not the case.

Last edited by shortarcflyer (2024-03-01 15:24:38)

hhh · 2024-03-02 02:09:44

^The case for me was when I came back to a sid install after having been away for six or seven months. I should have done more due diligence before upgrading, because a bunch of major system changes had come in. The upgrade borked the whole system. I know more now, and could have probably resurrected it, but at the time it was out of my league. Now that a lot of programs have AppImages available for their current release version, I'd rather have a stable OS as a base than monkey with a rolling release. YMMV!

unklar · 2024-03-02 18:41:55

Since Conky under sway/labwc will certainly not become friends in the future, I have been working on the swaybar in the last few days because I wanted to have the weather in it

swaybar is the original bar that is installed with sway.

siduction-nox with wayland/sway, in the middle 'fuzzel' (it's always a good idea to look for packages in the debian repo's first)

hhh · 2024-03-02 23:35:25

unklar wrote:

Since Conky under sway/labwc will certainly not become friends in the future...

Wait, is that a Wayland thing? Because conky is working fine for me on GNOME/Wayland. I'm just using a basic one, though, no fancy lua stuff.

johnraff · 2024-03-03 06:32:58

Conky on Wayland still seems to be a work in progress: https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/issues/56

hhh · 2024-03-03 07:16:59

^ Interesting, the issue was raised in 2014 but was nearly dead until January 5th. The Arch Wiki on Conky links that github link for conky on Wayland. So... to be determined?

Just today I decided to switch to the GNOME Wayland session instead of Xorg because videos (mp4 and mkv) on both mpv and vlc looked radically better, with major screen tearing on xorg and none on Wayland. I tried everything to get X11 to match Wayland (20-intel.conf and mpv options) but it wasn't even close. And this is with a Tiger Lake GPU, which is, what, 11th generation Intel integrated graphics? Not cutting edge but not exactly legacy.

However, that means I've had to drop thunar for nautilus and xfce4-screenshooter for gnome-screenshot.

Let's hope Xfce on Wayland gets some serious attention.

https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/wayland_roadmap

But isn't Xfce basically a one-man project? That seems like a dour prospect.

unklar · 2024-03-03 10:11:39

hhh wrote:

unklar wrote:
Since Conky under sway/labwc will certainly not become friends in the future...
Wait, is that a Wayland thing? Because conky is working fine for me on GNOME/Wayland. I'm just using a basic one, though, no fancy lua stuff.

Yes, this is 'real' Wayland.
No Xwayland in between.

Of course I meant conky with images, lua etc. No simple text conky.

What version of Conky are you currently using with GNOME? And, do you have Wayland or Xwayland?

unklar · 2024-03-03 10:17:26

johnraff wrote:

Conky on Wayland still seems to be a work in progress: https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/issues/56

Exactly!
Somewhere in there someone feared that Conky's code would have to be rewritten because of this...

unklar · 2024-03-03 10:32:58

hhh wrote:

...
Just today I decided to switch to the GNOME Wayland session instead of Xorg because videos (mp4 and mkv) on both mpv and vlc looked radically better, with major screen tearing on xorg and none on Wayland. I tried everything to get X11 to match Wayland (20-intel.conf and mpv options) but it wasn't even close. And this is with a Tiger Lake GPU, which is, what, 11th generation Intel integrated graphics? Not cutting edge but not exactly legacy.
...

That is exactly the point.

With Wayland, tearing is a thing of the past, as a first point.
And, secondly, the greater security of the system by eliminating communication between the display server and the window manager (ssh protocol ?).

It will probably be a 'radical change' like the introduction of systemd.

el_koraco · 2024-03-03 20:32:56

unklar wrote:

It will probably be a 'radical change' like the introduction of systemd.

The arguments are the same. Wayland works for a large majority of use cases (I have been using it for six years or so), the idea that it is untested buggy software which offer no benefits is getting a bit ridiculous.

Colonel Panic · 2024-03-03 21:10:54

How big a change is Wayland from the point of view of rewriting software though? Will we need, for example, Wayland- and X-Org-compatible versions of Firefox and LibreOffice to run concurrently?

I know I'm showing my ignorance here but I honestly haven't a clue about this topic.

hhh · 2024-03-04 00:49:00

unklar wrote:

And, do you have Wayland or Xwayland?

GNOME 45 on Ubuntu Mantic provides Xwayland, so that's why it's working for me, I assume. Conky 1.19.4, a few versions behind current 1.19.8

hhh wrote:

However, that means I've had to drop thunar for nautilus and xfce4-screenshooter for gnome-screenshot.

So thunar runs, but the type-to-search feature (open thunar, type "V" and Videos is selected, for example) is broken even under Xwayland, the search box that appears at the bottom of the window is cut off. xfce4-screenshooter opens but doesn't take a screenshot.

ratcheer · 2024-03-04 13:26:29

A huge change is that X does high quality color management, while Wayland does not. I know this from my participation in a raw image processing community, but I don't know enough about it to discuss the technicalities.

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