Distro-hoppers anonymous

PackRat · 2024-10-07 21:17:43

Colonel Panic wrote:

I remember there was a distro a while back that tried to use FreeBSD as a base, but eventually gave up saying they found too many problems with it and they now base their work on Void instead.

That was the Trident project. I think that project is abandoned now

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-07 21:30:02

Thanks, that was the one! I didn't know it had been abandoned though, that is a shame.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-07 21:30:26)

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-09 18:16:25

I've just downloaded Sleeper OS, a Spanish distro which is based on AntiX but using the Trinity desktop (though I believe others are available), and so far it's working OK.

[Spoke too soon; Grub broke and there's no sound. I expect it's all fixable but for now I've put it all to one side and installed Bento, a spinoff of AntiX with OpenBox as the window manager, which has a Grub installer that actually works. Looks very nice too.]

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-10 08:32:54)

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-12 11:57:12

Tried a minimal version of a distro I've long been wanting to try, a Polish RedHat clone called Euro Linux, and to say I was disappointed was a major understatement; everything went wrong in spades (I'd better not say how how badly wrong in case the company wants to sue me). I find it quite funny now actually.

Anyhoo, I wiped the partition and installed AlienBob's version of Slackware instead, which is all working well.

There are no surprises with Slackware, you know what you're going to get. Quite frequently in Slack on my machine either the sound or the internet goes, but everything's fine so far.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-12 12:02:29)

Nili · 2024-10-12 12:01:21

Colonel Panic wrote:

If you want to run Gentoo but don't Have big balls smile a good way of doing it is to download ExGent, a distro created by Exton which is based on Gentoo and uses the KDE desktop environment. It has most of the initial configuration done for you.
I'm posting from it now. Here’s a link to the website;
https://exgent.exton.net/
There's also a live Gentoo disk which has most of the applications you need and allows you to try it out without having to install it (which you can't anyway, unfortunately)..

At the moment i have stopped distro-hops, cause of demotivation, lack of time and moreover i feel comfortable in Tumbleweed. However, it is never said never. Gentoo/based has been a long time wish, if i am going to land in other distro i will not forget your suggestion or other Distributions based on Gentoo.

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-12 12:06:59

Thanks for replying Nili.

Gentoo has a lot of fans in the Linux community because it's one of the few major distros that isn't systemd based, but it's very difficult to work with - definitely not a beginner's distro - and everything takes a lot longer with it than with other distros; Exton says that's why he doesn't release ExGent more often, because it takes so much work.

That list looks very comprehensive and up to date.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-12 12:08:32)

Nili · 2024-10-12 13:02:12

No prob, welcome! Thanks to you for writing and suggesting.

I stoped fighting systemd once left the Dev1 doors. I made a leap from stable Debian-based distro to Tumbleweed rolling without thinking twice about systemd. I used to have a few scripts for sysV, but burned them with ex distro. Nowdays to me systemd isn't a issue while i am at openSUSE.

Appreciate Gentoo for builing from source, i think we must have a strong hardware to build stuff. I'll have difficulties times with it That's why i stayed away, couldn't keep it up all the time. Undoubtedly, gentoo/based distro with their repositories are a lot easier.

I should have been more courageous a decade ago in distros like Gentoo, at that time i was Linux/distro/de-wm hungry.

Currently i am happy with Tumbleweed/KDE, i like the way Tumbleweed handles his newest packages stable as it gets and always updated thanks to their openQA.

Okay, sometimes packman lags behind or goes ahead the official repository. However, have understood how it works and how to deals with it.

DeepDayze · 2024-10-13 15:29:32

Nili wrote:

No prob, welcome! Thanks to you for writing and suggesting.
I stoped fighting systemd once left the Dev1 doors. I made a leap from stable Debian-based distro to Tumbleweed rolling without thinking twice about systemd. I used to have a few scripts for sysV, but burned them with ex distro. Nowdays to me systemd isn't a issue while i am at openSUSE.
Appreciate Gentoo for builing from source, i think we must have a strong hardware to build stuff. I'll have difficulties times with it That's why i stayed away, couldn't keep it up all the time. Undoubtedly, gentoo/based distro with their repositories are a lot easier.
I should have been more courageous a decade ago in distros like Gentoo, at that time i was Linux/distro/de-wm hungry.
Currently i am happy with Tumbleweed/KDE, i like the way Tumbleweed handles his newest packages stable as it gets and always updated thanks to their openQA.
Okay, sometimes packman lags behind or goes ahead the official repository. However, have understood how it works and how to deals with it.

Got to play with Opensuse a bit and packman is something akin to the Arch AUR...it's certainly hit or miss at times.

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-13 17:29:27

Another tool you might find useful when you're running OpenSUSE is opi.

I've found that opi is a good tool for adding packages to OpenSUSE that aren't in the standard repositories; I've added strawberry, qalculate and other packages to it that way. I've had problems getting it to work in Tumbleweed though (less so in Leap, which is the one I normally use), but it is at least worth a try IMO.

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 89#p126289

https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comme … ally_cool/

[Edit: there's also Gecko, a distro which is based on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed but with media codecs and some extra software added, and also OpSys, Exton's spin on Tumbleweed but I haven't tried that one so can't vouch for it.]

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-13 21:36:43)

Nili · 2024-10-14 08:53:40

DeepDayze wrote:

Got to play with Opensuse a bit and packman is something akin to the Arch AUR...it's certainly hit or miss at times.

That's what i wanted to say too, there are a few quibbles with packman that should be noted. It's a matter of waiting or mostly removing any package if necessary.

Colonel Panic wrote:

Another tool you might find useful when you're running OpenSUSE is opi.
I've found that opi is a good tool for adding packages to OpenSUSE that aren't in the standard repositories; I've added strawberry, qalculate and other packages to it that way. I've had problems getting it to work in Tumbleweed though (less so in Leap, which is the one I normally use), but it is at least worth a try IMO.
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 89#p126289
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comme … ally_cool/
[Edit: there's also Gecko, a distro which is based on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed but with media codecs and some extra software added, and also OpSys, Exton's spin on Tumbleweed but I haven't tried that one so can't vouch for it.]

Yeah, i run opi, where i'll go without it? it's the very first thing i start working on a new install.
opi codecs, browser or other multimedia stuff. Honestly if it wasn't for opi i wouldn't be in Tumbleweed at all.

Really i don't need Gecko, It's something ready-made OS, ideal for Tumbleweed beginners, but i'm capable enough to build it myself from server selection. I'd like to run a minimalistic ISO without crufts.

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-14 10:38:15

Sure. When I post stuff like the one above though I'm not just addressing the person I'm answering, but also anyone else reading the thread who might be interested.

That's the one of the main reasons I keep banging the drum for Leap on here, even though I know most people aren't very interested in trying it; I think it deserves more attention than it's getting.

If you want a distro that's stable and reliable and (most importantly) where nothing breaks when you update it, Leap's as good a choice as any and there are still plenty of Linux users for whom that is what they want from a distro. The only price you pay for that is that the packages are a bit behind the curve (though in practice that's hardly ever a problem in my experience).

Back to Gecko; Gecko's dev, who calls himself geckolinux, has indicated on the forum that he wants to move away from OpenSUSE from now on, as he thinks its future is uncertain, and concentrate more on his other distro, Spiral, which is based on Debian Stable. I think Gecko's pretty good and it isn't a drastic change from the original Tumbleweed (or Leap if you use the "Static" version of Gecko, which is being phased out now).

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-15 07:07:21)

Nili · 2024-10-15 14:55:56

Good thought, posts are also for educational purposes. I know Leap only by posts talked about it, haven't tried it.
However, for a stable OS i would chose Debian over anything else personally.

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-15 15:30:04

Nili wrote:

Good thought, posts are also for educational purposes. I know Leap only by posts talked about it, haven't tried it.
However, for a stable OS i would chose Debian over anything else personally.

I agree; if I had to pick just one OS and stick to it, it would definitely be Debian (especially Debian Stable).

There's a reason why so many other distros are based on it, and as geckolinux said in his forum recently Debian's future is much more certain than OpenSUSE's (which is why he's focusing his attention on his Debian-based distro, Spiral, rather than Gecko).

A while back I tried to build my own distro from Nobara (based on Fedora 39) and found there was so much extra stuff I had to download and install before I could even install a simple program like tint2, which is straightforward and easy in Debian; it didn't even have CMake or Git as standard.

You don't realise how spoilt you are with Debian stable (and maybe Slackware too in this regard, though Slack has other issues such as dependency handling).

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-15 15:38:34)

Nili · 2024-10-16 07:41:49

I used to make a custom setup aswell with Debian with only 100 packages in the finished installation, Set it up a with startx, wm, feh for background, and many scripts to make it completed for my needs.

Updates were infrequent, or mostly security stuff. Installing and tweaking NetInst ISO was the best time for me. It worked for beautiful without selecting anything from tasksel. Just auto-login on tty1 and an auto command from .profile to make life for startX/wm. Plain and Simple. Debian is it the minimalistic king.

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-16 10:09:35

Nili wrote:

I used to make a custom setup aswell with Debian with only 100 packages in the finished installation, Set it up a with startx, wm, feh for background, and many scripts to make it completed for my needs.
Updates were infrequent, or mostly security stuff. Installing and tweaking NetInst ISO was the best time for me. It worked for beautiful without selecting anything from tasksel. Just auto-login on tty1 and an auto command from .profile to make life for startX/wm. Plain and Simple. Debian is it the minimalistic king.

Excellent! Must say I'm not brave or knowledgeable enough to use NetInst; I'd rather err on the side of installing packages I don't need (from the Debian full installation DVD) than omit the installation of packages that I do.

In other news, my installation of Slackware Current met the fate of other attempts I've made in the past to get it up and working, in that something went wrong that I wasn't able to fix (in this case it was the video display). It surely can't be long now before the "official" Slackware 15.1 is released though?

Update: I tried again with Slackware Current but with more success this time, though there are still some intermittent problems with the display. Maybe I shall go on the Slackware forums soon and try to find out how to fix it?

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-16 20:57:12)

Nili · 2024-10-17 18:17:04

Heh, I've put the system down too many times by doing wrong commands or removing packs or libs, until i learned a few things How many sleepless nights.

Slackware, It has been suggested to me several times, I wanted to give it a try, but haven't done so far. Although the installation guide doesn't seem very different to Debian Expert Install.

Honestly, i would install this system for the sole fact that have installed it and that's it, i don't think would stick on it very longer. This system is one of the Linux oldest, i must have tried it earlier, today it is too late for me to turn my head back.

I'm glad you were successful in your attempts. Is not that easy distro, you have achieved something

I don't know if they use the forum, maybe try to contact them in IRC

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-17 21:24:03

Thanks for the suggestion Nili but I just can't be bothered to post anything to the Slackware forums / IRC at the moment; it's late here at the moment and it can wait. I'm posting this from Oreon (which is in its turn based on Alma, a Red Hat clone) which so far has worked without a problem.

Slackware's a lot easier to install than it used to be though; you had to edit the XOrg configuration file by hand at one time (I'm not exaggerating). That's why easy/easier to install distros like Vector and Zenwalk came along which despite being based on Slack took a lot of the strain and hassle out of setting it all up.

I agree with you about mistakes too; I once wiped the whole Linux partition by putting the wrong switch after rm (never made that mistake again). That was in Slackware too, an amazing distro called Basic Linux which was based on Slack 3.5 and could be installed from just two floppies. The last time I looked, it was still available though I don't know if anyone still uses it.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-17 21:52:31)

hhh · 2024-10-18 03:36:44

^ Here you go...

https://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/

https://archiveos.org/basic/

If anyone gets this installed and running, please post a scrot in the Monthly Scrot thread!

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-18 06:13:28

hhh wrote:

^ Here you go...
https://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/
https://archiveos.org/basic/
If anyone gets this installed and running, please post a scrot in the Monthly Scrot thread!

Thanks hhh. BasicLinux was OK for 2005, when computers had a lot less RAM and CPU power than they have now, there was no Youtube, and Web pages weren't laden down with as many ads as now. I remember surfing the Internet with just 32 MB of RAM, using the Blackbox window manager and Opera 5 for the browser; good times.

Currently enjoying; Bento, a distro / respin based on AntiX but with OpenBox as its window manager and a bright and cheerful colour scheme and wallpaper (also, how many distros have workspaces named after planets - Moon, Mars and Venus?). At the moment it's based on an old version of AntiX (19) but it still all works perfectly well and the developer, who appears to be French, got in touch with me to tell me that he or she's thinking of working on an updated version soon.

For now though I'm enjoying the fact that it uses a pre-Supernova version of Thunderbird, so still easy and convenient to use.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-19 11:12:33)

Colonel Panic · 2024-10-29 18:31:53

In other news; I looked at updating Debian Testing as it now is, and was asked to authorise a 1,106 MB download for (as far as I can see) no additional benefit over the old system (Bookworm). Should have stuck with stable.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-10-29 18:32:32)

#2481 2024-10-07 21:17:43

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2482 2024-10-07 21:30:02

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2483 2024-10-09 18:16:25

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2484 2024-10-12 11:57:12

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2485 2024-10-12 12:01:21

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2486 2024-10-12 12:06:59

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2487 2024-10-12 13:02:12

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2488 2024-10-13 15:29:32

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2489 2024-10-13 17:29:27

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2490 2024-10-14 08:53:40

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2491 2024-10-14 10:38:15

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2492 2024-10-15 14:55:56

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2493 2024-10-15 15:30:04

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2494 2024-10-16 07:41:49

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2495 2024-10-16 10:09:35

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2496 2024-10-17 18:17:04

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2497 2024-10-17 21:24:03

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2498 2024-10-18 03:36:44

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2499 2024-10-18 06:13:28

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#2500 2024-10-29 18:31:53

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

Board footer