#2661 2025-06-20 21:12:27

GalacticStone

Member

From: Oort Cloud

Registered: 2020-07-26

Posts: 132

Website

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

It read a few pages and posts in this mega-thread and realized how little I know about the vast world of distros.

My limited experience is as follows : I received a new laptop for Xmas in 2017 and I was finished with Windows already at that point. Receiving a brand new machine was the perfect time in my mind to make the leap over to Linux. I had already done some reading and research and had settled on Ubuntu (*wretch*). If I recall correctly, it was 16.04 Xenial Xerus. It was my first Linux install and I was amazed at how easy the transition was. So, I guess in that limited way, I am grateful to Ubuntu as an on-ramp into the Linux world for me.

I then experimented around a little bit with different flavors and desktops. I put Lubuntu on one of my wife's old netbooks and used it as a test platform to piddle around with other desktops. I tried Plasma, Gnome, Unity, Gnome "Flashback", LXDE, LXQT, OpenBox, MATE, and maybe one or two others that I forget at the moment.

Futzing around with OpenBox and Ubuntu back in 2019-2020 is what led me to discover BunsenLabs and first come to this forum. I liked OpenBox and it's bare bones approach, but it was also intimidating to me because I wasn't very comfortable with coding or the command line back then and I  had a lot of trouble getting it set up as a proper daily driver, so I gave up on it and went back to Ubuntu and Gnome until just recently.

I didn't like what I was hearing coming out of Canonical. The slow creep towards bloat and monetization, telemetry, corporate-like behavior, and a problematic CEO at the helm had turned me off to Ubuntu. Also, frankly, I was feeling "trapped" on Ubuntu and becoming bored with the interface. Gnome is bloated, Ubuntu is bloated, and both are resource hogs. There was a ton of processes and daemons running all the time that had no useful function for me and I wasn't knowledgeable enough to start diving into code and taking a scalpel to the unneccessary bloat. All that stuff running in the background for services I would never use was bothering me on a nitpicky level and because the machines I have are resource-limited by today's standards. (low RAM, entry-level processors, etc) .... so the decision to jump ship to BunsenLabs was made. It was the best decision I have ever made in regards to an operating system. It's like the proverbial breath of fresh air.

So, that's it. I went from DOS to Windows to Ubuntu to BunsenLabs. Barring some kind of unforseen issues, I plan on sticking for BunsenLabs indefinitely.

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Linux User #624832 : Chaotic Good Dudeist, retro-PC geek.
Daily Driver : Lenovo Ideapad 3 (8G RAM, 250G SSD, Boron)
Workstation : HP Slim Desktop (4G RAM, 1TB HDD, Boron)
Past hardware : Commodore 64, TRS-80, IBM 8088, WebTV

Sector11

Mod Squid Tpyo Knig

From: Upstairs

Registered: 2015-08-20

Posts: 8,115

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

{snip}

ME: DOS to Windows to Ubuntu (7.04) to #! to BunsenLabs to BearDog (barebone LilyDog)

Welcome.

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Debian 12 Beardog, SoxDog and still a Conky 1.9er

unklar

Back to the roots 1.9

From: #! BL

Registered: 2015-10-31

Posts: 2,832

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

I'm still actively using this Debian based Hyprland install from @JaKooLit because, yes, because I haven't found anything comparably stable on my hp laptop yet.   

By the way, Debian has removed Hyprland from testing. Due to its constant development, it is only available in unstable. If you can read German, or have a translator...
https://linuxnews.de/hyprland-aus-debia … -entfernt/

Edit:
@Sector11, dito, Welcome 

Last edited by unklar (2025-06-24 15:07:36)

dmontaine

Member

Registered: 2017-02-14

Posts: 83

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

Just trying OpenMandriva Cooker with the xlibre 25 server.  Very stable for a development version.  Glad to see that X11 will live on.  Too bad the fork is too late for Debian 13.

Last edited by dmontaine (2025-06-26 13:25:55)

hhh

Gaucho

From: High in the Custerdome

Registered: 2015-09-17

Posts: 16,638

Website

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

My laptop wont even let me run a distro from a live USB any more either.

You're going to have to explain that one. You can't get a USB device to show up in the BIOS settings?

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I don't care what you do at home. Would you care to explain?

hhh

Gaucho

From: High in the Custerdome

Registered: 2015-09-17

Posts: 16,638

Website

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

You only have the one USB drive?

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I don't care what you do at home. Would you care to explain?

DeepDayze

Like sands through an hourglass...

From: In Linux Land

Registered: 2017-05-28

Posts: 1,946

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

Just trying OpenMandriva Cooker with the xlibre 25 server.  Very stable for a development version.  Glad to see that X11 will live on.  Too bad the fork is too late for Debian 13.

Perhaps Debian could consider it for Forky?

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Real Men Use Linux

Sun For Miles

Member

Registered: 2017-04-12

Posts: 266

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

Just found out about Fork Server support in Firefox for Linux (dom.ipc.forkserver.enable config option). Enabled it and will see if there is any notable improvement in performance.

Docs: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org … ork-server

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Señor Chang, why do you teach Spanish?

unklar

Back to the roots 1.9

From: #! BL

Registered: 2015-10-31

Posts: 2,832

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

   

        My laptop wont even let me run a distro from a live USB any more either.

    You're going to have to explain that one. You can't get a USB device to show up in the BIOS settings?

It shows up, but the Laptop wont run it. It says checking.. then fails.

@marianne,
can you please show us the output of the following terminal command WITH the stick inserted?

sudo blkid -c /dev/null -o list

ratcheer

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 503

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

Thanks, Sun For Miles. I'm trying the forkserver, too.

Sector11

Mod Squid Tpyo Knig

From: Upstairs

Registered: 2015-08-20

Posts: 8,115

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

@Sun For Miles &

Thanks, Sun For Miles. I'm trying the forkserver, too.

just now set: about:config

dom.ipc.forkserver.enable    true

Have either of you seen an improvement?

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Debian 12 Beardog, SoxDog and still a Conky 1.9er

Sun For Miles

Member

Registered: 2017-04-12

Posts: 266

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

My assumption is that the biggest gain would be on machines with lower CPU and memory spec and I have fairly old CPU with 32GB of RAM so my expected gain would be mixed even in theory (because I don't care about RAM). My goal was to improve performance (speed of operations) of Firefox as much as possible, and that's how I have found this option. I haven't been tweaking Firefox on Linux desktop for about 5 years and this option was developed for Linux platform in recent years.

Personlly I have a feeling working with tabs might be snappier, but it might be placebo because I have applied many performance tweaks already. I would have to measure it in a programmatic way to confirm. I don't know about memory utilization, would have to measure that as well.

I will leave this option on. When I have some spare time I will find some benchmark and compare the results with the option on and off.

Last edited by Sun For Miles (2025-06-30 06:09:23)

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Señor Chang, why do you teach Spanish?

unklar

Back to the roots 1.9

From: #! BL

Registered: 2015-10-31

Posts: 2,832

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

I can confirm that this setting of the FF-esr results in a much smoother behavior on this 'weak' machine.
So far I have only worked with 3 TAB's at most and it was tough.

inxi -Mmxxx
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20564QG v: ThinkPad T500
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 20564QG serial: <superuser required>
    uuid: <superuser required> BIOS: LENOVO v: 6FET83WW (3.13 ) date: 03/15/2010
Memory:
  System RAM: total: 4 GiB available: 3.74 GiB used: 983.5 MiB (25.7%)
  Message: For most reliable report, use superuser + dmidecode.
  Array-1: capacity: 8 GiB slots: 2 modules: 2 EC: None
    max-module-size: 4 GiB note: est.
  Device-1: DIMM 1 type: DDR3 detail: synchronous size: 2 GiB
    speed: 1066 MT/s volts: N/A width (bits): data: 64 total: 64
    manufacturer: Elpida part-no: EBJ21UE8BAU0-AE-E serial: 30992ADF
  Device-2: DIMM 2 type: DDR3 detail: synchronous size: 2 GiB
    speed: 1066 MT/s volts: N/A width (bits): data: 64 total: 64
    manufacturer: Elpida part-no: EBJ21UE8BDS0-AE-F serial: F1131B65

Many thanks to @Sun For Miles for the tip! 

ratcheer

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 503

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

@Sun For Miles &

Thanks, Sun For Miles. I'm trying the forkserver, too.

just now set: about:config

dom.ipc.forkserver.enable    true

Have either of you seen an improvement?

It seems a little snappier, but that could just be because I want to see that.

PS - I also have a fairly high performance PC, with Ryzen 9 CPU and 32 GB RAM.

Last edited by ratcheer (2025-07-01 12:58:32)

Sector11

Mod Squid Tpyo Knig

From: Upstairs

Registered: 2015-08-20

Posts: 8,115

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 4 CPU
16GB Ram
FF-esr 128.11.0esr (64-bit)

And it "seems" to be a bit faster but as ratcheer said and Sun For Miles hinted at, "that could just be because I want to see that" 

I can confirm that this setting of the FF-esr results in a much smoother behavior on this 'weak' machine.
So far I have only worked with 3 TAB's at most and it was tough.
{snip}

Now that is good news.

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Debian 12 Beardog, SoxDog and still a Conky 1.9er

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2025-01-18

Posts: 290

Website

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

Just trying OpenMandriva Cooker with the xlibre 25 server.  Very stable for a development version.  Glad to see that X11 will live on.  Too bad the fork is too late for Debian 13.

Nice! I'm happy about that, nothing against wayland per se`, I just prefer X11.

Colonel Panic

Member

Registered: 2018-11-13

Posts: 1,503

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

In MX (XFce) at the moment, which I recently installed from a magazine cover disk.

Looking at ways to save system resources so I've installed Sarwer Ahmed Khan's MX Low Performance Pack;

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=85164

Early days yet but it all seems to be working well.

[Update on 07/07/2025: it looks like the thread on the MX forum has been deleted.]

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2025-07-07 22:00:34)

ratcheer

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2015-10-05

Posts: 503

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

I still run X on Arch Linux, and I will until they stop supporting it. When that happens, I don't know which way I'll turn.

unklar

Back to the roots 1.9

From: #! BL

Registered: 2015-10-31

Posts: 2,832

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

^I assume this is just for demonstration purposes, or, do you really want to boot that antiquated Windows XP Professional from the stick?

First of all, you can't do that with M$. 

Which ISO do you want or have you downloaded?

Last edited by unklar (2025-07-11 14:18:05)

Colonel Panic

Member

Registered: 2018-11-13

Posts: 1,503

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

Currently testing Soplos, which is a Spanish distro based on Debian Testing and using the XFce desktop manager.

First impressions are very favourable - Soplos looks very sleek with a default theme in snades of brown (sort of  coffee-come-creme brulee colours) and has a couple of well-thought out utilities which are unique to it, such as a graphical GRUB manager.

Only problem I've seen so far is that as you might expect the forums are all in Spanish.

[EDIT: unfortunately, Firefox in this distro is absolute rubbish - it displays tabs but not the associated windows, won't save my hotlists etc.

In the end my internet connection went down and I booted Spiral Oldstable instead, which I've always found to be reliable.]

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2025-07-20 12:01:21)