Distro-hoppers anonymous

Colonel Panic · 2022-02-16 23:00:21

eight.bit.al wrote:

^ Which basically said if your desktop want to go back in time, get slack.
8bit

Yes, I'm glad that there's still a properly "old school" distro like Slackware around. I'll probably get the new one at some point but I can't imagine using it as my main distro; Debian is so much easier to manage now. Why on earth too does Slackware stick with Calligra as its office suite, which has frankly been awful every time I've tried it, rather than LibreOffice?

I've recently discovered that Crunchbang++ has been updated to Debian 11 (Buster). As far as I can see, it hasn't changed at all from when I used the Debian Stretch version, i.e. it's more or less a straightforward updating of the original Crunchbang and resolutely monochrome (apart from different shades of grey) throughout.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2022-02-17 08:46:58)

hhh · 2022-02-16 23:43:38

Crunchbang++... Anything remarkable about it other than original theming? Anything BL should take note of, for instance?

lowrider · 2022-02-17 00:14:45

hhh wrote:

Crunchbang++... Anything remarkable about it other than original theming? Anything BL should take note of, for instance?

Nope. Nothing, same as ever.

Colonel Panic · 2022-02-17 00:27:01

lowrider wrote:

Nope. Nothing, same as ever.

I've not installed it yet but I agree. It's clearly for people who want CrunchBang the way it was with as few changes as possible from the original apart from an updated base and software.

There's no theming (just different shades of grey throughout) and a lot fewer pipe menus than Bunsen has.

It comes with abiword and gnumeric as the office suite; if you want LibreOffice you have to install it from the menu. There's also the option to install Dropbox and Chromium (and I think Google Chrome too) from the menu.

[EDIT: I've just seen this review on Youtube;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrP2I4v1U-M
]

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2022-02-19 00:36:53)

Colonel Panic · 2022-02-22 16:15:59

I've had problems with an earlier version of Mabox in the past, but I have to say that the latest version, 22.01, is very good; the only problem I've had so far is that the font used to display the key bindings doesn't show up very well on my system, and it's easily changed.

(Hang on - this was meant for the "Distrohoppers" thread. Can one of the mods move it please? Sorry.)

MOD EDIT: moved.

Last edited by johnraff (2022-02-23 04:19:38)

Colonel Panic · 2022-02-26 14:48:47

PackRat wrote:

I always wondered about those testing-based distributions.
It's not a good idea to use Synaptic to update in testing/unstable -- the command-line is your friend!
For Debian Testing-based distros, I have always used aptitude instead of apt or synaptic. I think it's actually the official Debian recommendation - check the Debian forum.
In a terminal
aptitude update

aptitude safe-upgrade
the safe-upgrade is a more rigorous checking of dependencies, libraries etc (layman's terms).. so if all an apps dependencies have not reached testing, the app isn't upgraded. Never had an issue with breakage using aptitude.

Thanks! I didn't know about aptitude, I'll try that the next time I upgrade Siduction.

PackRat · 2022-02-26 15:02:56

Colonel Panic wrote:

PackRat wrote:
I always wondered about those testing-based distributions.
It's not a good idea to use Synaptic to update in testing/unstable -- the command-line is your friend!
For Debian Testing-based distros, I have always used aptitude instead of apt or synaptic. I think it's actually the official Debian recommendation - check the Debian forum.
In a terminal
aptitude update

aptitude safe-upgrade
the safe-upgrade is a more rigorous checking of dependencies, libraries etc (layman's terms).. so if all an apps dependencies have not reached testing, the app isn't upgraded. Never had an issue with breakage using aptitude.
Thanks! I didn't know about aptitude, I'll try that the next time I upgrade Siduction.

I'm not sure if aptitude is still maintained. Probably should check he Siduction site for their preferred way to keep the system updated.

Colonel Panic · 2022-02-26 19:15:22

PackRat wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:
PackRat wrote:
For Debian Testing-based distros, I have always used aptitude instead of apt or synaptic. I think it's actually the official Debian recommendation - check the Debian forum.
In a terminal
aptitude update

aptitude safe-upgrade
the safe-upgrade is a more rigorous checking of dependencies, libraries etc (layman's terms).. so if all an apps dependencies have not reached testing, the app isn't upgraded. Never had an issue with breakage using aptitude.
Thanks! I didn't know about aptitude, I'll try that the next time I upgrade Siduction.
I'm not sure if aptitude is still maintained. Probably should check he Siduction site for their preferred way to keep the system updated.

Thanks for replying. The Siduction team is a small one, and there wasn't any current information about aptitude that I could find.

I tried aptitude but I didn't fancy going ahead with a 1.13 GB upgrade at this time (that indicated by apt was slightly bigger - 1.154 GB), so I left it.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2022-02-26 19:19:07)

hhh · 2022-02-27 01:05:32

Siduction manual (in German, sorry)...

https://manual.siduction.org/sys-admin- … apt-update

https://manual.siduction.org/sys-admin- … %C3%BChren

So they recommend apt, and they still recommend dropping out of the DM for full-upgrades to prevent video upgrade problems. That's an over-precaution these days, IMO, but better safe than sorry.

This is all the same as aptosid back in the day, except apt didn't exist yet so it was apt-get...

http://manual.aptosid.com/en/sys-admin- … pt-upgrade

Note, aptosid specifically did NOT recommend aptitude for maintaining debian sid...

The Reasons NOT to use anything else but apt-get for a dist-upgrade
Package managers like adept, aptitude, synaptic and kpackage are not always able to account for the huge amount of changes which happen in Sid (depedency changes, name changes, maintainer script changes, ...).
This is not the fault of the developers of those tools though, they write a excellent tools and fabulous for the debian stable branch, they are simply just not suitable for the very special needs of Debian Sid.
Use whatever you like to search for packages, but stick with apt-get for actually installing/removing/dist-upgrading.
Package managers like adept, aptitude, synaptic and kpackage are at the least, non-deterministic (for complex package selection), mix that with a quickly moving target like sid and even worse an external repository of questionable quality (we don't use or recommend those, but they're a reality on your user systems) and you will be courting disaster.
The other item to note is that all of these types of GUI package managers need to run in in X, and in doing a dist-upgrade in X, (or even an 'upgrade' which is not recommended), you will end up damaging up your system beyond repair, maybe not today or tomorrow, however in time you will.
apt-get on the other hand strictly does what it is asked to do, if there is any breakage you can pinpoint and debug/ fix the cause, if apt-get wants to remove half of the system (due to library transitions) it's the admin's call (that means you) to have at least a serious look.
This is the reason why debian builds use apt-get, not the other package manager tools.

unklar · 2022-02-27 13:27:40

Colonel Panic wrote:

PackRat wrote:
Colonel Panic wrote:
Thanks! I didn't know about aptitude, I'll try that the next time I upgrade Siduction.
I'm not sure if aptitude is still maintained. Probably should check he Siduction site for their preferred way to keep the system updated.
Thanks for replying. The Siduction team is a small one, and there wasn't any current information about aptitude that I could find.
I tried aptitude but I didn't fancy going ahead with a 1.13 GB upgrade at this time (that indicated by apt was slightly bigger - 1.154 GB), so I left it.

siduction has nothing to do with debian-testing, nor does it recommend aptitude/synaptic.
apt is the measure of all things!

And, if you don't do a dist-upgrade/full-upgrade until you have 1.15 GB of package updates, it's your own fault. But, I had already written all this to you once.

Colonel Panic · 2022-02-27 15:21:02

unklar wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:
PackRat wrote:
I'm not sure if aptitude is still maintained. Probably should check he Siduction site for their preferred way to keep the system updated.
Thanks for replying. The Siduction team is a small one, and there wasn't any current information about aptitude that I could find.
I tried aptitude but I didn't fancy going ahead with a 1.13 GB upgrade at this time (that indicated by apt was slightly bigger - 1.154 GB), so I left it.
siduction has nothing to do with debian-testing, nor does it recommend aptitude/synaptic.
apt is the measure of all things!
And, if you don't do a dist-upgrade/full-upgrade until you have 1.15 GB of package updates, it's your own fault. But, I had already written all this to you once.

In my experience, EVERY TIME I use Siduction I have 900+ MB of updates to download; my previous one was about 950 MB. Maybe it's because I don't use it all that often.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2022-02-28 11:59:54)

Colonel Panic · 2022-02-27 15:22:06

hhh wrote:

Siduction manual (in German, sorry)...
https://manual.siduction.org/sys-admin- … apt-update
https://manual.siduction.org/sys-admin- … %C3%BChren
So they recommend apt, and they still recommend dropping out of the DM for full-upgrades to prevent video upgrade problems. That's an over-precaution these days, IMO, but better safe than sorry.
This is all the same as aptosid back in the day, except apt didn't exist yet so it was apt-get...
http://manual.aptosid.com/en/sys-admin- … pt-upgrade
Note, aptosid specifically did NOT recommend aptitude for maintaining debian sid...
The Reasons NOT to use anything else but apt-get for a dist-upgrade
Package managers like adept, aptitude, synaptic and kpackage are not always able to account for the huge amount of changes which happen in Sid (depedency changes, name changes, maintainer script changes, ...).
This is not the fault of the developers of those tools though, they write a excellent tools and fabulous for the debian stable branch, they are simply just not suitable for the very special needs of Debian Sid.
Use whatever you like to search for packages, but stick with apt-get for actually installing/removing/dist-upgrading.
Package managers like adept, aptitude, synaptic and kpackage are at the least, non-deterministic (for complex package selection), mix that with a quickly moving target like sid and even worse an external repository of questionable quality (we don't use or recommend those, but they're a reality on your user systems) and you will be courting disaster.
The other item to note is that all of these types of GUI package managers need to run in in X, and in doing a dist-upgrade in X, (or even an 'upgrade' which is not recommended), you will end up damaging up your system beyond repair, maybe not today or tomorrow, however in time you will.
apt-get on the other hand strictly does what it is asked to do, if there is any breakage you can pinpoint and debug/ fix the cause, if apt-get wants to remove half of the system (due to library transitions) it's the admin's call (that means you) to have at least a serious look.
This is the reason why debian builds use apt-get, not the other package manager tools.

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind next time.

hhh · 2022-02-28 00:09:15

aptosid/sidux/siduction all recommend updating sid weekly. It's why I'm such a fan of stable.

I couldn't update aptosid for several months because I was away from home, and when I finally tried I was left with a horribly broken computer.

Never again, Debian stable for life.

However, if you want to run newer packages on Debian, choose sid. The testing package criteria means that when things break it can take quite a while for them to get fixed. sid is usually much quicker to get fixed (days instead of weeks), especially if you add the siduction repos and follow the upgrade-warnings forum there...

https://forum.siduction.org/index.php?board=22.0

DeepDayze · 2022-02-28 03:52:27

hhh wrote:

aptosid/sidux/siduction all recommend updating sid weekly. It's why I'm such a fan of stable.
I couldn't update aptosid for several months because I was away from home, and when I finally tried I was left with a horribly broken computer.
Never again, Debian stable for life.
However, if you want to run newer packages on Debian, choose sid. The testing package criteria means that when things break it can take quite a while for them to get fixed. sid is usually much quicker to get fixed (days instead of weeks), especially if you add the siduction repos and follow the upgrade-warnings forum there...
https://forum.siduction.org/index.php?board=22.0

Yes that's due to the many transitions that can occur within Sid and sometimes with a lot of packages to upgrade apt can get horribly lost sometimes resulting in a broken system. Sid's great if you are willing to give it the love and feeding as well as paying attention to what apt tells you. There are times where Sid will be temperamental thus patience is also needed until updated dependencies are uploaded and available.

This should apply to any rolling distro such as Arch or Void too.

PackRat · 2022-02-28 10:45:41

DeepDayze wrote:

hhh wrote:
aptosid/sidux/siduction all recommend updating sid weekly. It's why I'm such a fan of stable.
I couldn't update aptosid for several months because I was away from home, and when I finally tried I was left with a horribly broken computer.
Never again, Debian stable for life.
However, if you want to run newer packages on Debian, choose sid. The testing package criteria means that when things break it can take quite a while for them to get fixed. sid is usually much quicker to get fixed (days instead of weeks), especially if you add the siduction repos and follow the upgrade-warnings forum there...
https://forum.siduction.org/index.php?board=22.0
Yes that's due to the many transitions that can occur within Sid and sometimes with a lot of packages to upgrade apt can get horribly lost sometimes resulting in a broken system. Sid's great if you are willing to give it the love and feeding as well as paying attention to what apt tells you. There are times where Sid will be temperamental thus patience is also needed until updated dependencies are uploaded and available.
This should apply to any rolling distro such as Arch or Void too.

Void has a more stringent QA/QC program than bleeding edge distros like Sid or Arch. Breakage is actually rare and the fix comes through in a couple days.

Leatherman · 2022-03-01 20:28:12

Generally speaking.. LMDE is absolute last on the list to make it to the latest Debian, "Bullseye".They got there a couple days ago.
Bunsen is now in first place !
\
Maybe Ubuntoon is a better option for Bunsen ???

Bearded_Blunder · 2022-03-01 21:32:48

LMDE have a development release (beta) BL has a development release, manual install process here

There's still the possibility they get beaten to actual release.

Colonel Panic · 2022-03-08 21:06:57

Finally installed CrunchBang++, which is working well, and also Absolute 15, a distro or Slackware 15 respin (no I'm not going there again) which has a small number of changes from Slack 15 such as a disabled Caps Lock key and icewm as the default window manager.

I think most people here would prefer to install vanilla Slack 15 and make their own modifications (especially since additional workspaces are disabled by default), but it works well enough and has LibreOffice included, which Slackware doesn't.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2022-03-08 21:09:41)

Colonel Panic · 2022-03-15 10:32:07

I've recently installed Slackel Openbox 9.5, which is a Greek distro based on Salix and Slackware. There are two other versions of Slackel based on KDE and Mate respectively, but unlike the Openbox version neither of them have been updated yet.

Networking didn't work "out of the box" so I had to find a fix for it, but once that was sorted it turned out to be a good, lightweight and yet fully featured distro with an attractive interface if you like green (it's heavily green-themed). I don't think the underlying Slack version is 15, though, because it was released earlier (Slack 15 was released on the 3rd March whereas Openbox was released on New Year's Day), so if that's important to you it might be worth waiting for a later version of Slackel.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2022-03-15 11:06:21)

PackRat · 2022-03-15 17:03:32

^
Slakel has always been based on Slackware current, and the sister project of SalixOS which is based on the stable release of Slackware. SalixOS 15 should be available soon. Dimitris Tzemos is a developer for both projects.

Used to be that the Slakel repositories could be used with Slackware current so a user could configure gslapt for use with Slackware current and not rely on Slackbuilds.

#1661 2022-02-16 23:00:21

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1662 2022-02-16 23:43:38

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1663 2022-02-17 00:14:45

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1664 2022-02-17 00:27:01

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1665 2022-02-22 16:15:59

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1666 2022-02-26 14:48:47

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1667 2022-02-26 15:02:56

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1668 2022-02-26 19:15:22

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1669 2022-02-27 01:05:32

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1670 2022-02-27 13:27:40

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#1671 2022-02-27 15:21:02

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#1672 2022-02-27 15:22:06

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#1673 2022-02-28 00:09:15

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1674 2022-02-28 03:52:27

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#1675 2022-02-28 10:45:41

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#1676 2022-03-01 20:28:12

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1677 2022-03-01 21:32:48

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1678 2022-03-08 21:06:57

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1679 2022-03-15 10:32:07

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#1680 2022-03-15 17:03:32

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

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