Distro-hoppers anonymous

eight.bit.al · 2020-11-13 04:30:50

^ Q4OS does a nice Trinity Desktop Environment on Debian. Very light and fast, 250 MB.
https://q4os.org/downloads1.html

I don't care for the TDE menu, too many clicks to get to what one is looking for. One can put frequently used programs in Favorites, which helps. Minimal offerings in the Software Center. Use Apt or install Synaptic.

8bit

ohnonot · 2020-11-13 18:57:28

^ +1 for Q4OS, it was the one that worked best ootb on my Pinebook.
Definitely one of those "Windows-like, great for newbies" distros, and: Don't. Mess. With. The. Defaults.

hhh wrote:

ohnonot wrote:
+1 for a terminal with a flashing cursor!
Lol, I like non-flashing. Different strokes for different folks, literally. Well, really close. Different cursors for different persons.

woosh!
(not that it was a very good joke to start with)

eight.bit.al · 2020-11-16 19:51:18

Pop OS! https://pop.system76.com/

I was looking at System 76's rather expensive hardware thinking, yeah, when I win the lotto; but got intrigued by Pop OS!
With the garish name and Gnome on *buntu, it had two strikes against it from the start, IMO. But I was surprised by what I found.

Gnome's ugly "wharf", dock, or whatever it called is not on the desktop by default. Using the SuperKey activates it..

It's easy to drag and drop the programs one wants into the dock, and the SuperKey followed by the first letter of the program brings us to this screen:

I entered SuperKey then 'f'. Both Firefox and Files along with other choices are offered. Now the user has the options: hit Enter for the first highlighted porgram (Firefox), CRSR Keys to move the highlight to the desired program, or continue to type in the upper text entry box. The highlight will move to the matching text entry, where the user can hit Enter to run the program.

I can't say if this is default Gnome or a Pop! OS enhancement of Gnome. I found the keyboard shortcuts easy to adopt and quick to use.

The installer did not ask for a host name. Something very few installers get wrong in this way. There's a GUI option to set the host name, but it's reported to be problematic. Rely instead on the set hostname command and editing the /etc/hosts file.

Files is the GUI file manager and it has sensible defaults, IMO. Thumb sticks are automatically mounted and drag-n-drop copies files instead of moving them. Would like to see some root actions added to the right-click menu.

Now for the best part, the minimal tiling window manager.

A little slow to create and move windows but nothing prohibitive. Dedicated tiling managers are just a little more refined.

All in all an enjoyable experience; fast and buttery smooth.

8bit

Last edited by eight.bit.al (2020-11-16 20:18:22)

hhh · 2020-11-16 20:52:07

^ I'm loving Cinnamon on Buster. It's been rock-solid and, as you said, silky smooth. Glad to see another nice GNOME spin. I love KDE and Qt and all, but GTK 4-evah.

DeepDayze · 2020-11-16 21:15:16

hhh wrote:

^ I'm loving Cinnamon on Buster. It's been rock-solid and, as you said, silky smooth. Glad to see another nice GNOME spin. I love KDE and Qt and all, but GTK 4-evah.

Lol thus the everlasting KDE vs Gnome wars for entertainment :-)

hhh · 2020-11-16 23:35:25

I was intrigued by @johnraff's quick post on Mabox, so I installed it. It's really nice, everything works OOTB, including my outdated Broadcom WiFi driver, and the theming is great...

https://i.postimg.cc/nL9kZ9RQ/Mabox-202 … 569403.png

I'm a fan, this is a really easy live-build of Manjaro/Arch with a lot of attention to detail.

Uh, not a light Openbox distro (1G RAM using Openbox, really?), but certainly user-friendly and functional. An easy way to install and use Arch.

https://i.postimg.cc/wMCTsP5V/Mabox-202 … 575589.png

https://i.postimg.cc/SQCFGDhH/Mabox-202 … 579843.png

https://maboxlinux.org/

hhh · 2020-11-17 03:10:07

Almost the same RAM running Cinnamon. Better.

https://i.postimg.cc/0jFT9WL1/Screensho … -22-53.png

Hello yeah. Way better...

https://i.postimg.cc/50hwS8zS/Screensho … -01-48.png

johnraff · 2020-11-20 08:04:17

This morning ran into a proposal to add an option for the Gnome Flashback DE to Debian Installer:
https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team … s/14/diffs

I'd never heard of it, but Gnome Flashback seems to have been around some years already, keeping a low profile. I've not tried this, but it might be of interest to people who like MATE or Cinnamon. (RAM usage said to be lower if you use the metacity login instead of compiz.)

GNOME Flashback continues the traditional desktop interface which was used in GNOME 2.x, but using modern GNOME technologies.

Debian package: https://packages.debian.org/buster/gnom … -flashback
Article: https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2 … -Flashback

DeepDayze · 2020-11-21 02:01:48

OT: one snag I ran into updating Lithium to Sid: the bl-pipemenus package depends on python-paramiko which is no longer in sid so I no longer have the pipemenus.

In more research this is due to Python 2 being totally removed from Sid so as a result bl-compositor is also gone as it is in that package as well so compositing doesn't start. Wondering how to rebuild this package to use python 3 version of python-paramiko aka python3-paramiko.

Edit: I manually copied over some of the missing bl-scripts over to my new bun-sid install and placed them into my ~/bin dir to test and was able to get most menus working except for the recent places pipemenu. All but the bl-xdg-autostart scripts worked fine as-is under Python 3 but had to convert the bl-xdg-autostart to Py3 to get it to work properly.

Still going thru some gotchas for updating Lithium to Sid.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2020-11-21 04:12:06)

ohnonot · 2020-11-21 08:45:07

johnraff wrote:

I'd never heard of it, but Gnome Flashback seems to have been around some years already, keeping a low profile.
(...)
Article: https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2 … -Flashback

Interesting indeed!

DeepDayze wrote:

updating Lithium to Sid.

Sorry but that's just the wrong way to phrase it.
Firstly, I wouldn't compare BL releases to Debian releases.
But most importantly: Changing from stable to unstable development is not a distro update (or rather upgrade in Debian-speak), it's a change in paradigm.
Changing from oldstable to stable would be an upgrade.

hhh · 2020-11-21 23:50:55

^ This is correct, but a bit nitpicky, meaning very specifically accurate.

BL buster to sid should be a straight dist-upgrade, except that we have not produced, or even decided upon, any BL berylium (I think? I never took chemistry) testing/sid/bullseye packages, and there is no straight dist-upgrade path since bullseye testing/sid are still early in development. When a dist-upgrade is forthcoming, Debian releases a manual that explains obsolete packages, changes in the OS, upgrade precautions, etc...

Nitpicky, but correct and completely accurate. Carry on criticizing and correcting, @ohnonot!

I'd bet an upgrade could be done ATM, but it would take some trial and error, and it would most likely break soon. Wait until the next Debian soft-freeze for this discussion. Things get very stable testing-wise, even average user-wise, after that.

Also, track sid, not testing. sid breaks hard, but fixes come in. Testing just breaks and the system-wide fixes get implemented in sid, from my experience. Of course, watch the siduction forums if you track sid...

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

PackRat · 2020-11-22 17:30:39

hhh wrote:

BL berylium (I think? I never took chemistry)

You think correctly, beryllium will be next. You can revisit your green themes from the past, or maybe go with something a little more on the blue side. Either way, looking forward to some good looking stuff.

hhh · 2020-11-23 03:38:42

^ Ooo! Thanks for the inspiration! ll, not just one, got it.

Man I love fonts. What did I just type?

johnraff · 2020-11-24 01:38:01

DeepDayze wrote:

the bl-pipemenus package depends on python-paramiko which is no longer in sid...
...had to convert the bl-xdg-autostart to Py3 to get it to work properly.

We're working on Python3 conversion at the moment, and hoping that all our scripts will be migrated and relevant packages upgraded soon, and certainly well before the Beryllium release.

DeepDayze · 2020-11-24 03:03:04

johnraff wrote:

DeepDayze wrote:
the bl-pipemenus package depends on python-paramiko which is no longer in sid...
...had to convert the bl-xdg-autostart to Py3 to get it to work properly.
We're working on Python3 conversion at the moment, and hoping that all our scripts will be migrated and relevant packages upgraded soon, and certainly well before the Beryllium release.

Cool and I copied all the bl-* scripts to my ~/bin and made edits to get them working and now they work fine in Sid. Looking forward to trying out the new scripts once they are all ready :-)

Python 2 is not in Bullseye...all gone.

ratcheer · 2020-12-03 14:57:36

I am trying to install Gentoo on my old PC. It is a real trip. I have gotten all the way to installing the bootloader. I thought I had booted in UEFI mode. But it turns out, the old (ca 2011) PC can only boot into UEFI mode from CDROM or DVDROM, while I was booting from a USB stick. So, I have been stymied.

I will try to reinstall Grub2 for BIOS mode, just so I haven't wasted all that effort. But, I was really doing this exercise as a proof-of-concept before possibly installing Gentoo on my new PC.

Or, maybe I could burn the Gentoo iso to a CDROM, then try to use it to boot into UEFI mode and establish UEFI bootability. But I damned sure don't want to do a full reinstallation on that old i5 host. It took hours and hours to install the first time.

Why am I doing all of this? Because I find that, after years of trying to get used to it, I still hate systemd. I no longer argue against it, I just don't want it for myself.

Last edited by ratcheer (2020-12-03 15:00:23)

unklar · 2020-12-03 16:31:14

ratcheer wrote:

...
Why am I doing all of this? Because I find that, after years of trying to get used to it, I still hate systemd. I no longer argue against it, I just don't want it for myself.

^^ I have enjoyed your reading! big_smile

Here someone describes in a funny way the current installation of Gentoo WITHOUT systemd (the steps with systemd were added later wink )
There is only one difficulty, it is in german. Maybe you can help yourself with https://www.deepl.com/translator

rbh · 2020-12-03 19:44:01

ratcheer wrote:

But I damned sure don't want to do a full reinstallation on that old i5 host. It took hours and hours to install the first time.

Yes, compiling everything from source, takes some time with older hardware. But, does it not work most ot time without needing to intervene?

What computer model is it? Seems strange that it can boot uefi from dvd-drive but not from usb-disk...

But, when you have booted to uefi, you can chroot to your installation and install bootloader (I think... have only used Gento as system-rescue-cd).

cog · 2020-12-04 05:57:13

@hhh

Saw this green theme recently and thought of you.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngynL … scrot2.png

ratcheer · 2020-12-05 18:49:59

rbh wrote:

What computer model is it? Seems strange that it can boot uefi from dvd-drive but not from usb-disk...
But, when you have booted to uefi, you can chroot to your installation and install bootloader (I think... have only used Gento as system-rescue-cd).

It is a Cyberpower PC built on a Gigabyte Z68A-D3-B3 with an Award BIOS.

I finally did get it completely configured as UEFI, but then it would not boot in UEFI to the HDD. Maybe I still had something misconfigured, but I worked on getting everything just right for about two days.

In the end, I punted and redid the boot configuration for BIOS boot. It is now working just fine.

I must say, whether I end up actually using this system, I have learned a lot about actually installing and configuring Linux. IMO, it has been worth the trouble.

DeepDayze · 2020-12-05 23:50:32

@ratcheer your issues with UEFI may be due to the rather buggy implementation in BIOS. Have you checked to see if there was a BIOS update for that board? Also UEFI implementations from 2011-ish were pretty buggy and it wasn't till recently things in UEFI-land stabilized. So it may be best for just going with BIOS boot with that older mobo.

If you have this version: U1D(UEFI BIOS) from 2013/03/06 then this may been the root of your UEFI issues as the notes indicate beta UEFI support so the implementation may have some serious bugs.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2020-12-05 23:54:53)

ratcheer · 2020-12-06 15:42:05

Thanks, DeepDayze. My BIOS is version F11, but I don't know its date.

I could look for a newer BIOS, but at this point, I'll probably just stick with BIOS booting. I probably won't keep the system very long, anyway. FreeBSD was easier to install and maintain.

Yesterday, on Gentoo, I installed a new terminal font. I assed around with it for about two hours, but nothing I did would get it to display. Looking at instructions for other, different fonts, I finally discovered that I had to "eselect fontconfig enable <myfont>". Bang! It worked, immediately. Gentoo is really intricate to configure.

rbh · 2020-12-06 17:25:43

ratcheer wrote:

Thanks, DeepDayze. My BIOS is version F11, but I don't know its date.

If you ever need to know bios version/date:

# dmidecode -t bios
or:
$ inxi -M

DeepDayze · 2020-12-06 20:31:56

rbh wrote:

ratcheer wrote:
Thanks, DeepDayze. My BIOS is version F11, but I don't know its date.
If you ever need to know bios version/date:
# dmidecode -t bios
or:
$ inxi -M

Here's how inxi -M works for my particular system:

Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B450-PLUS v: Rev X.0x 
  serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 2202 
  date: 07/14/2020 <-- this is the BIOS version date.

hhh · 2020-12-07 01:01:01

I really want to try Regolith but the live ISO didn't work for me...

https://regolith-linux.org/

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