Distro-hoppers anonymous

eight.bit.al · 2019-10-21 01:40:02

The latest:

8bit

Last edited by eight.bit.al (2019-10-21 02:20:25)

hhh · 2019-10-21 01:49:28

I'm down to two partitions in heavy rotation, Bl Lithium (current Debian stable) and BL Lithium (the same but as a FrankenDeb, for fun). The second will be replaced with Debian testing when the soft-freeze for Bullseye comes in a year-and-a-half or so.

Dobbie03 · 2019-10-21 04:34:17

I haven't distrohopped in roughly three years. My current AL install had it's second birthday last month. Other than playing around with distros on my craptop, my main system has been AL since I launched the first ISO.

Colonel Panic · 2019-10-24 22:21:27

I've just installed Neptune 6.0, a Debian 10-based distro which uses KDE as its desktop manager.

I had a few problems installing it because of what looks like a video driver incompatibility with KDE 5, but it's now working well with Fluxbox and Openbox taking care of the window management (I'm in Openbox right now).

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2019-10-24 22:23:02)

hhh · 2019-10-24 22:58:13

I have no complaints with KDE Plasma on Buster. It's complete, it's fast, more or less, it's gorgeous to look at, and it's lighter on RAM usage than GNOME. If BL Lithium wasn't coming along so well, ot's the desktop I'd be running. I ran it on Buster (Debian testing soft freeze) for six months with very few issues.

Colonel Panic · 2019-10-24 23:21:34

That's good hhh, it's probably just my machine that's at fault here (or not having the correct driver for the video card).

I should probably take the problem to the Neptune forum and see if they know how to fix it. For now though, it's not a major issue because all the KDE-specific programs I've wanted to use in Neptune so far have run just fine in Fluxbox.

orionH · 2019-10-26 07:48:48

SharpBang (♯!) Do not bling it, just swing it!

https://head-on-a-stick.github.io/

Last edited by orionH (2019-10-26 14:46:45)

eight.bit.al · 2019-10-27 01:27:05

Sparky Linux. Bullseye/Openbox/tint2 FTW!

8bit

Colonel Panic · 2019-11-07 22:59:42

The Trident devs have just announced their decision to ditch FreeBSD, on which their distro is currently based, in favour of Void Linux;

https://itsfoss.com/bsd-project-trident-linux/

and these are the reasons they gave;

https://project-trident.org/post/os_migration/

Question: Is this the writing on the wall for FreeBSD on the desktop, i.e. an admission that it is no longer competitive with Linux on that score? Or should we cut FreeBSD (and maybe the other BSDs too) some slack and see them as just as valid a choice for the desktop as Linux. but just different?

PackRat · 2019-11-07 23:34:14

Colonel Panic wrote:

The Trident devs have just announced their decision to ditch FreeBSD, on which their distro is currently based, in favour of Void Linux;
https://itsfoss.com/bsd-project-trident-linux/
and these are the reasons they gave;
https://project-trident.org/post/os_migration/
Question: Is this the writing on the wall for FreeBSD on the desktop, i.e. an admission that it is no longer competitive with Linux on that score? Or should we cut FreeBSD (and maybe the other BSDs too) some slack and see them as just as valid a choice for the desktop as Linux. but just different?

Cut the *BSD some slack. I've used FreeBSD and DragonflyBSD on the desktop without issues OOTB.

ohnonot · 2019-11-09 05:10:52

I see *BSD as a valid choice for a laptop/desktop GUI scenario.
Just not my choice big_smile

glittersloth · 2019-11-09 05:52:03

Back in the day (meaning before the systemd holocaust) I learned more about basic *nix system administration from the BSDs than Linux, mostly because of their (mainly FreeBSD and OpenBSD) superior documentation. For certain scenarios/people, the BSDs definitely have their place on desktops.

Fwiw, I'm a bit of an OpenBSD fanboy myself, and have run it on desktops/laptops for extended periods in the past. It won't win any Phoronix benchmarks, but stability verges on the absolute and it had better ootb power management than any Linux distro on the machines I put it on. Also, OpenBSD's sndio shits all over pulseaudio and jack (Void employs sndio as well, iirc). No longer run it on bare metal for superficial reasons (I want my flicker-free boot, sue me), but in a world filled with operating systems I hate (Windows, Android, whatever my car's infotainment system runs on) and operating systems I somewhat tolerate (GNU/Linux, iOS), OpenBSD is probably the only one I truly like.

Last edited by glittersloth (2019-11-09 06:04:29)

PackRat · 2019-11-09 10:31:06

^ yes, sndio is available with Void.

ohnonot · 2019-11-09 18:30:31

Still kinda looking for the best laptop distro for a thinkpad x250...
I want a simple no-DE setup like BL. Either Openbox, or something that can easily be changed.
Not too keen on "based on Ubuntu" either.
But the very most important thing is Laptop-specific stuff like power management (and I mean power management way beyond "how many minutes before the screen goes off"), Do The Right Thing on lid close etc.

Tested Manjaro Openbox today and didn't like it one bit... It's all very "look what cool stuff we can do with CLI", but underneath it still uses networkmanager, just the TUI that doesn't work very well for manual wifi setup.
Polybar is so cool, but then it doesn't have a classical taskbar (list of open windows), so there's a tint2 at the bottom just for that ... WTF?
And then the installer froze after the first step.

I might bite the bullet and do an Arch install after all.

Last edited by ohnonot (2019-11-09 18:32:14)

Dobbie03 · 2019-11-09 18:41:59

ohnonot wrote:

Still kinda looking for the best laptop distro for a thinkpad x250...
I want a simple no-DE setup like BL. Either Openbox, or something that can easily be changed.
Not too keen on "based on Ubuntu" either.
But the very most important thing is Laptop-specific stuff like power management (and I mean power management way beyond "how many minutes before the screen goes off"), Do The Right Thing on lid close etc.
Tested Manjaro Openbox today and didn't like it one bit... It's all very "look what cool stuff we can do with CLI", but underneath it still uses networkmanager, just the TUI that doesn't work very well for manual wifi setup.
Polybar is so cool, but then it doesn't have a classical taskbar (list of open windows), so there's a tint2 at the bottom just for that ... WTF?
And then the installer froze after the first step.
I might bite the bullet and do an Arch install after all.

Is it worth trying ArchLabs?

eight.bit.al · 2019-11-09 19:19:06

The snappiest distro I've ever used. (still waiting to try BL on this lappy) Bullseye/Openbox/tint2.
990MiB ISO

8bit

Edit: I could do without the menu icons, or maybe a different icon set. Nah, just kill'em. Next thing on the to-do list.

Last edited by eight.bit.al (2019-11-09 19:47:09)

Martin · 2019-11-09 20:13:59

ohnonot wrote:

Still kinda looking for the best laptop distro for a thinkpad x250...

I have an x230 running BL with i3wm. For my use of this machine this is pretty optimal, me thinks.

/Martin

clusterF · 2019-11-10 15:11:20

ohnonot wrote:

Tested Manjaro Openbox today and didn't like it one bit... It's all very "look what cool stuff we can do with CLI", but underneath it still uses networkmanager, just the TUI that doesn't work very well for manual wifi setup.
I might bite the bullet and do an Arch install after all.

Ever since i discovered setnet.sh ive not installed anything else for net connectivity, its set and forget, not sure about VPN as i dont use it but might be a deal breaker if you do.

https://kalos.mine.nu/setnet/

Ive always been a fan of a minimal install and choose my own components, Arch would be a good choice imo, although Void is getting better and better lately, especially the musl libc versions.

beaker · 2019-11-10 19:34:31

ohnonot wrote:

Ever since i discovered setnet.sh . . .

Thank you. Will give this a try.

ohnonot · 2019-11-11 04:00:46

Thanks 8bit Al & Dobbie:
- downloading sparky now
- any statements about laptop optimisation for archlabs?

Dobbie03 · 2019-11-11 04:31:01

ohnonot wrote:

any statements about laptop optimisation for archlabs?

To be honest, no. I don't use a laptop and neither do any of the team. Sorry I am of zero help here.

eight.bit.al · 2019-11-17 22:03:25

ohnonot wrote:

-downloading sparky now

Stable or semi-rolling?

8bit

ohnonot · 2019-11-18 15:46:07

Stable. Installed it, works well.

Dobbie: the Archlabs installer got stuck on "formating /dev/sda2 to ext4".

orionH · 2019-11-21 16:59:26

Awesome Openbox, official release is out now. Based on Buster.

https://head-on-a-stick.github.io/

MALsPa · 2019-11-22 01:48:49

orionH wrote:

Awesome Openbox, official release is out now. Based on Buster.
https://head-on-a-stick.github.io/

SharpBang (♯!) is a live ISO image that can be used to install a pre-configured Openbox/Tint2 desktop running on Debian stable.

Nice! Just the way I like it, from the way this sounds! I'll have to take a look at this one, even though I've already got a Buster installation with Openbox and tint2.

Edit: Don't recall seeing this other thread: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=4334

Last edited by MALsPa (2019-11-22 08:10:29)

#826 2019-10-21 01:40:02

Re: Distro-hoppers anonymous

#827 2019-10-21 01:49:28

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#828 2019-10-21 04:34:17

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#829 2019-10-24 22:21:27

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#830 2019-10-24 22:58:13

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#831 2019-10-24 23:21:34

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#832 2019-10-26 07:48:48

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#833 2019-10-27 01:27:05

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#834 2019-11-07 22:59:42

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#835 2019-11-07 23:34:14

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#836 2019-11-09 05:10:52

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#837 2019-11-09 05:52:03

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#838 2019-11-09 10:31:06

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#839 2019-11-09 18:30:31

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#840 2019-11-09 18:41:59

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#841 2019-11-09 19:19:06

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#842 2019-11-09 20:13:59

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#843 2019-11-10 15:11:20

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#844 2019-11-10 19:34:31

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#845 2019-11-11 04:00:46

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#846 2019-11-11 04:31:01

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#847 2019-11-17 22:03:25

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#848 2019-11-18 15:46:07

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#849 2019-11-21 16:59:26

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#850 2019-11-22 01:48:49

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