BunsenLabs Reviews

johnraff · 2020-08-27 07:56:22

^Looks like it.
The guy speaks very quickly, but in the 0.1% I caught, I couldn't detect anything that sounded like criticism.
(In the comments he said it was a good choice for reviving an old machine.)

He certainly seems to know what he's doing, and takes the viewer right through the install process, step by step.
Interesting that instead of going through menu>applications he checks out the keyboard shortcuts shown in conky.

dbvolvox · 2020-08-28 21:59:45

Good review of Lithium in Linux Format LXF267.

hhh · 2020-08-28 22:02:03

Sorry for the bad link, I was dizzy from all the mouse-cursor swirls. I edited my post to point to the good one.

johnraff · 2020-08-31 05:34:47

Distrowatch review by Jesse Smith:
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20200831
Fair, if not over-enthusiastic.

Take-aways:

*) The new "applications" submenu is confusing a lot of first-time users into thinking that's the go-to place for everything, rather than a last port of call when what they want is nowhere else.

*) No-one seems to get the purpose of the bl-* aliases, and thinks eg that bl-media-player is just another way of referring to VLC.

distrowatch wrote:

(about bl-welcome) I think, perhaps, it would have been nice if the script had collected all my answers first and then performed its tasks at the end, that way I would not need to wait while new packages were fetched.

That's exactly what the Lithium version of bl-welcome is supposed to do! I don't understand this at all.

There is a menu entry called Mail Reader, though no e-mail client is installed.

This is coming from /usr/share/applications/exo-mail-reader.desktop whose menu entry should (?) be suppressed by 'OnlyShowIn=XFCE;' We need to think about this.

hhh · 2020-08-31 06:45:01

I'm slightly surprised that DW reviewed us so quickly, we only released a month ago. And as a feature story! It seems BL is starting to be taken seriously as an official Debian distrolet.

Jessie at DistroWatch wrote:

I'm not suggesting Bunsen is bad - it's doesn't really do poorly at anything it sets out to do. However, I do think there are other distributions which accomplish similar goals with friendlier interfaces. So what I'm suggesting is that Bunsen probably really appeals, almost exclusively, to people who like minimal window managers and who like Debian. It can be useful in other situations, but this seems to be the project's niche.

I think this is fair. Plus, he included some really nice screenshots.

This is an important review, and it's generally favorable and currently puts us at #56 in the DW hit-count list. Job well done.

damo · 2020-08-31 07:00:50

Jessie at DistroWatch wrote:

.... So what I'm suggesting is that Bunsen probably really appeals, almost exclusively, to people who like minimal window managers and who like Debian.....

That's me! Looks like we hit the bullseye

hhh · 2020-08-31 07:04:42

damo wrote:

Jessie at DistroWatch wrote:
.... So what I'm suggesting is that Bunsen probably really appeals, almost exclusively, to people who like minimal window managers and who like Debian.....
That's me! Looks like we hit the bullseye

Me too, so I agree. I'm using Buster Cinnamon on my main laptop, so Jessie is on point there, but booting into my second laptop running Lithium with jackd to record my radio show is a pleasure. I love it.

-edit- I love this screenchot...

https://distrowatch.com/images/screensh … ttings.png

Last edited by hhh (2020-08-31 07:47:08)

GalacticStone · 2020-09-02 18:13:17

hhh wrote:

I'm slightly surprised that DW reviewed us so quickly, we only released a month ago. And as a feature story! It seems BL is starting to be taken seriously as an official Debian distrolet.
Jessie at DistroWatch wrote:
I'm not suggesting Bunsen is bad - it's doesn't really do poorly at anything it sets out to do. However, I do think there are other distributions which accomplish similar goals with friendlier interfaces. So what I'm suggesting is that Bunsen probably really appeals, almost exclusively, to people who like minimal window managers and who like Debian. It can be useful in other situations, but this seems to be the project's niche.
I think this is fair. Plus, he included some really nice screenshots.
This is an important review, and it's generally favorable and currently puts us at #56 in the DW hit-count list. Job well done.

I don't know if this put a bug in Jesse's ear, but I emailed him a couple of weeks ago and asked him to review Lithium. I forgot about it afterwards, and now boom.

hhh · 2020-09-02 18:35:35

^ I'm sure you weren't the only one, we have a lot of support out there. Also a lot of detractors, I think Crunchbang ++ is still bent about our treatment of them back in the day (I was not receptive). Some comment brigading by them over that review, maybe...

https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20200831

sleekmason · 2020-09-02 20:28:03

It certainly seems to be a matter of expectations. Simply put, Bunsenlabs is awesome. It does everything needed with minimal fuss or setup.

lowrider · 2020-09-05 23:13:04

A bit long but he likes us.
The OldTechBloke on Youtube about Lithium.
Bunsenlabs - A "RECOMMENDED" Openbox Distro

hhh · 2020-09-06 00:27:44

Nice review, very fair and concise.

damo · 2020-09-06 00:38:17

^ It helps that he is an Openbox fan, so none of the knee-jerk criticisms. And he really likes your themeing

hhh · 2020-09-06 00:42:56

Yeah, he's been following us and understands OB and what we're doing, and I liked that he praised the default theme. His studio setup is awesome, did you note that mic and all the sound treatment on his walls? He liked the Fever-room wallpaper as well!

A crazy amount of ads, looks like Google thinks we're worthy of being monetized. My 78 year old mother keeps saying the same thing. And I keep saying "No ma, we're a small Debian derivative. We're not Red Hat about to be bought by IBM for $34 billion USD."

Fact, IBM bought Red Hat for $34 billion with a "b"...

https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-r … oud-future

"Mom, we can't offer enterprise OS integration and support to global corporations." And she's all "Well, what about ... (insert insane, out-of-touch Boomer idea here)". It would be funny if it wasn't so frustrating to explain.

damo · 2020-09-06 01:07:32

Remember that guy when we first started BL who reckoned we were being "unprofessional" because we didn't have a "business plan", and how on earth were we going to "monetize" the distro? He left in a huff IIRC

hhh · 2020-09-06 01:19:51

That might have been my mother.

lmao

ohnonot · 2020-09-06 07:00:45

^^ I do remember that guy.
And a few more from other forums (or maybe they're all the same person behind the avatars? ); unfortunately it's a fairly common occurence in "the opensource community". Some people cannot accept it for what it is without seeing a business opportunity and getting into that motivational lingo; or the notion that this is the nerd revolution they've been waiting for, and it just needs a "wake-up call"... only yesterday I saw one of my older posts replying to a person who seriously suggested that GNU/Linux has the power to bankrupt Microsoft, Google and Apple:

I'd personally like to see Microsoft, Google and Apple bankrupt though. The low quality they deliver and the money they get for it is ridiculous.
GNU/Linux for everyone could literally bankrupt all those companies. Just hardware companies would survive, and they would have to adapt to the needs of the people who buy them.

Ouch.

johnraff · 2020-09-07 09:53:56

lowrider wrote:

A bit long but he likes us.
The OldTechBloke on Youtube about Lithium.
Bunsenlabs - A "RECOMMENDED" Openbox Distro

Encouraging to read something complimentary!

Though both these still apply:

johnraff wrote:

*) The new "applications" submenu is confusing a lot of first-time users into thinking that's the go-to place for everything, rather than a last port of call when what they want is nowhere else.
*) No-one seems to get the purpose of the bl-* aliases, and thinks eg that bl-media-player is just another way of referring to VLC.

Especially the latter. I left a note about it on the YT page.

hhh · 2020-09-08 23:07:04

Not a BL review, but Mabox Linux, a BunsenLabs based Manjaro spin. It uses Openbox, tint2, conky, jgmenu, dmrun, xfce4-power-manager and BLOB with some very nice tweaks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW52qfLIeDQ

Maddening that he reviews BLOB on this OS while skipping it entirely in his recent review of Lithium. In fact, he ignores all similarities between the distros other than mentioning the connection during the intro.

An intriguing distro, I love the default theme. Curious if they're even aware of Archbang...

https://maboxlinux.org/about/

johnraff · 2020-09-09 04:53:15

hhh wrote:

Mabox Linux...
Maddening that he reviews BLOB on this OS while skipping it entirely in his recent review of Lithium. In fact, he ignores all similarities between the distros other than mentioning the connection during the intro.
An intriguing distro...
https://maboxlinux.org/about/

Really. Apart from BLOB they've also ported the conky and tint2 managers from BL, which we should take as a compliment of course.

I'd like to have a look at the code to see what changes have been made but can't find a public git repo anywhere. That's where BL stands out over some of the other small distros I guess.

#421 2020-08-27 07:56:22

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#422 2020-08-28 21:59:45

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#424 2020-08-31 05:34:47

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#428 2020-09-02 18:13:17

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