BunsenLabs Reviews

ohnonot · 2018-06-25 07:53:53

johnraff wrote:

A very thorough and fair review I thought.

person clearly knows what they're talking about, i like that.
"It is simple and copmplicated at the same time"

Is it time to drop that Stern Warning?

no. never.
and it should be extended to skype & chrome repos and whathaveyou.

edit:
oh, i like how they immediately start researching the conky issue, as seen in the screenshot! you wouldn't see that on one of dedoimedo's reviews, yes?
and later on - this poem:
"Mitternacht heisst diese Stunde;
sie rufen uns mit hellem Munde:
Wo seid ihr klugen Jungfrauen?"

Last edited by ohnonot (2018-06-25 07:59:29)

hhh · 2018-06-25 08:56:39

MALsPa wrote:

https://www.distrowatch.com/weekly.php? … bunsenlabs

Holy derivatives, Batman!

I never thought I'd see another BL review on DW. I was really pissed at Jessie's comment in his initial review of Hydrogen, about how BL served no purpose and debian LXDE would do the same thing, more or less. I left a couple of comments at the time and was banned from posting. I was stunned when Jessie accepted my email to post the news of our Helium release, I thought we were done there.

This review is fantastic. How cool that they did it so soon after our release, and that it's the first article in the current DW Weekly! Obviously our page-hit count was a factor, as well as that of ArchLabs (that new review will be soon, you'll see... https://www.distrowatch.com/weekly.php? … #archlabs).

Who's this new reviewer? Such a cool hooman!

@MalPasa, thanks for posting!

All those gorgeous scrots, I might faint from delight.

hhh · 2018-06-25 09:29:46

@ohnonot...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkSK9tEUTxU

www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/translations_cantata/t_bwv140.htm

verndog · 2018-06-25 13:41:50

...The only choice of software that I couldn't quite understand was the office software: you get LibreOffice Writer but instead of LibreOffice Calc you get Gnumeric....

I thought the same thing when I first installed BL. I have since install LibreOffice. Good review though coming from Distrowatch. Don't know the author of the review either.

martix · 2018-06-25 19:55:13

hhh wrote:

Who's this new reviewer?

Nice review. I think there is a way to figure out the user who wrote it. At least there is a hint in the review but I will remain silent *beep*

brontosaurusrex · 2018-06-25 20:25:58

They all fail to mention how beautiful geany is.... I do agree with a lot there, tint2 launchers out of place is one thing.

hhh · 2018-06-25 22:06:24

brontosaurusrex wrote:

I do agree with a lot there, tint2 launchers out of place is one thing.

@johnraff added these to hydrogen with thought to discoverability. You could even argue that the out-of-placeness is a good thing, it will prod a new user into digging through config files.

That said, I think it's time to drop them and present a truly unified-looking desktop. To be discussed.

verndog · 2018-06-26 00:07:16

brontosaurusrex wrote:

They all fail to mention how beautiful geany is....

When I used geany was after installing BL. At first I didn't know what to think or I thought I didn't like it(usually what happens when your faced with something new). After using this on a couple of installs, I rather like it. Very unique.

MALsPa · 2018-06-26 03:53:24

The only other thing I would remove are the application shortcuts in the panel. They feel redundant and look out of place. The four launchers open the default web browser, file manager, text editor and terminal emulator, respectively. However, the icons are quite different from the icons for the applications they launch (Firefox, Thunar, Geary and Terminator). The icon for the default web browser, for instance, looks remarkably similar to the logo of the Safari browser.

In my own Openbox setups (in Debian and in Arch), I like having the same four launchers on the tint2 panel as in BunsenLabs (I mean web browser, terminal emulator, text editor, file manager), except they look the same as the icons for the running apps. So, that's one of the first things I fix up in BunsenLabs, those launchers. Also, I like to see the actual name of the app, not "BL File Manager", "BL Text Editor", and so forth.

Geany has been my favorite text editor for some time now. And I don't even attempt to use Gnumeric anymore, I replace that with Calc right away. But that's no big deal, I have a handful of apps that I always add to any Linux installation; for example, I go with Double Commander to use instead of whatever the default file manager is.

SalentOS, which also ships with Openbox, has an automatic wallpaper changer called "Yanima" (Yet Another Nitrogen Manager), which I think is very cool. I made a half-hearted attempt to get the script to run in Openbox (not in BL, but in Debian), but then I quit that idea and went with my own simple script to change the wallpapers at intervals. I wonder if someone else could get Yanima working in BL or in Debian, though.

Any distro that ships with Openbox, I'm gonna be interested, but everyone has their own ideas of how things should be set up; seems like I maybe spend about as much time tweaking their setups as I spend setting up a "stock" Openbox that I've installed myself. But that's how it goes. I save my config files and use them in new installations, which actually isn't too much of a hassle, especially after you've done it a few times. Besides BL and SalentOS, I currently have Antergos (with Openbox), along with my Openbox setups in Debian and in Arch. Generally speaking, I enjoy my Openbox setups in the "parent" distros more than the ones in the derivatives, but it's very convenient when a distro ships with Openbox, and also very interesting to me because I always seem to pick up a few tips here and there.

I figure that if Dedoimedo reviews Helium, it won't be such a nice review, lol. But I hope he does because I enjoy reading his reviews even when I don't agree with his point of view. Always lots of good info, and I've found that just because Dedoimedo doesn't like a release, that doesn't mean that I won't like it.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed this review at DW. Hopefully it'll get more users interested in BL, but perhaps this distro attracts mostly folks who are already familiar with Openbox, not sure.

Last edited by MALsPa (2018-06-26 03:54:29)

Beep · 2018-06-26 11:22:02

martix wrote:

hhh wrote:
Who's this new reviewer?
Nice review. I think there is a way to figure out the user who wrote it. At least there is a hint in the review but I will remain silent *beep*

Yep, it was me.

It's nice to read the above discussion. My two cents...

I'll post more info about the issue I had with the Grub background later.
Personally, I feel the Stern Warning is fine but I felt that having to type "I understand" was a little too stern.
The application shortcuts might be better suited for one of the BLOB configurations. That way they can still be discovered (I never realised Openbox could have launchers in the panel until I tried BunsenLabs) but it would keep the default desktop clean and simple.
The klugen Jungfrauen are indeed from BWV140! The best known movement starts at 12:40.

Anyways, I enjoyed doing the review. I still got BunsenLabs on the laptop and I have since installed it on an old Macbook as well (might need some help with the keyboard layout - Linux distros seem to always struggle with UK Mac keyboards).

MALsPa · 2018-06-26 15:00:47

Ah. Beep, thank you very much for doing that review!

I don't know, the launchers on the tint2 panel are quite convenient, seems to me. Might be best to keep them, especially since folks are used to having that sort of thing. I can go either way, though -- I didn't really like having them in Openbox at first, and I still use only the right-click desktop menu to launch apps in Fluxbox.

brontosaurusrex · 2018-06-26 17:08:26

hhh wrote:

That said, I think it's time to drop them and present a truly unified-looking desktop. To be discussed.

Ok, you got me curious now.

ohnonot · 2018-06-26 20:51:44

^ jgmenu as the only launcher left?

johnraff · 2018-06-27 06:08:30

Those launchers have been a bit divisive since the beginning - even moderately experienced users don't want them, or want to change them. OTOH I think newer users appreciate them, at least at first. I tend to use them myself, especially on a new test install. Ergonomics - if you've got the mouse in your hand it's faster to click an icon, if your hands are near the keyboard then clearly it's Super+t or whatever.

hhh wrote:

@johnraff added these to hydrogen with thought to discoverability. You could even argue that the out-of-placeness is a good thing, it will prod a new user into digging through config files.

That was the idea, yes.

hhh wrote:

That said, I think it's time to drop them and present a truly unified-looking desktop.

There are still some people who use them:

MALsPa wrote:

In my own Openbox setups (in Debian and in Arch), I like having the same four launchers on the tint2 panel as in BunsenLabs (I mean web browser, terminal emulator, text editor, file manager), except they look the same as the icons for the running apps. So, that's one of the first things I fix up in BunsenLabs, those launchers. Also, I like to see the actual name of the app, not "BL File Manager", "BL Text Editor", and so forth.

The thing about icons and naming, is that those launchers call up the generic "bl-file-manager" etc, not any specific app. This means that if someone switches from Thunar to PCManFM then the same launcher will go on working. That's why we couldn't use the Thunar icon, but had to use something more generic. I was thinking about some mechanism that would check what app a user had set, and adjust the icon to match - doable, but maybe unnecessary if we just drop the launchers and replace them with a single button to call up the BL menu, where the same four apps are right at the top.

Beep wrote:

The application shortcuts might be better suited for one of the BLOB configurations. That way they can still be discovered (I never realised Openbox could have launchers in the panel until I tried BunsenLabs) but it would keep the default desktop clean and simple.

This is another idea. And thanks for the nice review, Beep!

ohnonot wrote:

jgmenu as the only launcher left?

This sounds good too, perhaps incorporating the dreaded and much abhorred (in some quarters) dynamically updating apps menu...

hhh wrote:

To be discussed.

This.

johnraff · 2018-07-23 08:12:15

Recent review in Japanese, seems generally favourable:
https://gato.intaa.net/archives/12949

They also did one on ArchLabs:
https://gato.intaa.net/archives/12979

Döbbie03 · 2018-07-23 21:18:28

I saw that Japanese review, Google didn't translate that too well but I got the impression he wasn't overly impressed with AL.

johnraff · 2018-07-24 01:29:39

^True. Can't please everyone - BL gets some quite tepid reviews too.

Döbbie03 · 2018-07-24 02:00:57

johnraff wrote:

Can't please everyone - BL gets some quite tepid reviews too.

No you can't, oh well. It is a niche where we both sit.

Last edited by Döbbie03 (2018-07-24 02:18:43)

johnraff · 2018-08-27 06:53:20

Very enthusiastic review, bit low on specific detail maybe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLImVPkrN08

hhh · 2018-08-28 01:20:50

I was concered by the sensual beard fondling, but I lol'd at the English Bob screen name...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuK3zSxG4cs

At least he went over the menu and mentioned the shortcuts. I'll take "silky smooth.. she's a happy girl" any day and twice on Sundays.

#281 2018-06-25 07:53:53

Re: BunsenLabs Reviews

#282 2018-06-25 08:56:39

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#283 2018-06-25 09:29:46

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#284 2018-06-25 13:41:50

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#285 2018-06-25 19:55:13

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#286 2018-06-25 20:25:58

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#287 2018-06-25 22:06:24

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#288 2018-06-26 00:07:16

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#289 2018-06-26 03:53:24

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#290 2018-06-26 11:22:02

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#291 2018-06-26 15:00:47

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#292 2018-06-26 17:08:26

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#293 2018-06-26 20:51:44

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#294 2018-06-27 06:08:30

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#295 2018-07-23 08:12:15

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#296 2018-07-23 21:18:28

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#297 2018-07-24 01:29:39

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#298 2018-07-24 02:00:57

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#299 2018-08-27 06:53:20

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