Other Distros

[Colonel Panic]

I'd still recommend that people wanting to try LXLE use the latest, 16.04-derived version, but it's good to know that the older version still works too....

I've been running LXLE for several years now on my ancient P4 Dell desktop. For the past year I've gotten good service out of LXLE 16.04 and plan to run that until Xenial goes EOL in April 2021, if the hardware doesn't fail first. Unfortunately it appears that LXLE 16.04 is likely to be the end of the line for LXLE. It's based of course on Lubuntu and LXLE's creator does not like that Lubuntu has shifted from LXDE to LXQt; he's already indicated that he has no plans for a version of LXLE based on Lubuntu 18.04.

Thanks for the info, that’s interesting. I prefer LXDE to LXQt myself and usually install it when I’ve just installed a new Debian-based distro. What I don’t understand about LXQt is why, if it’s supposed to be a combination of LXDE and Razor-qt, they’ve ditched the clock which for me was one of Razor-qt's best features.

https://www.linux-apps.com/p/1132349/

[aledie]

Unfortunately it appears that LXLE 16.04 is likely to be the end of the line for LXLE. It's based of course on Lubuntu and LXLE's creator does not like that Lubuntu has shifted from LXDE to LXQt; he's already indicated that he has no plans for a version of LXLE based on Lubuntu 18.04.

To someone in love with the old LXDE based Lubuntu, I'd really recommend to try the Russian distro RUNTU (it's version RUNTU 18.04.1 Lite). It's basically Lubuntu with LXDE, assembled with debootstrap. For all the stuff provided - FF, Gimp, Libreoffice, codecs, VLC it it fits on just 600 MB iso, is very clean, very snappy and minimal. Somehow it reminds me to Whattos. There is also XFCE version 18.04. English/Russian are both supported. The distro is around for years and is listed on Distrowatch. DD:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/runtu/ ... u%2018.04/

P.s. on some older pcs, when starting liveusb, if it gets black screen / complains about c32 something, just type 'live', and it will boot.

[Billtoo]

I updated the Manjaro install on my Macmini and installed the newest kernel:

System: Host: bill-pc Kernel: 4.19.0-3-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.4 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Apple product: Macmini6,1 v: 1.0 serial: <root required>
Mobo: Apple model: Mac-031AEE4D24BFF0B1 v: Macmini6,1 serial: <root required> UEFI: Apple
v: MM61.88Z.0106.B03.1211161202 date: 11/16/2012
CPU: Dual Core: Intel Core i5-3210M type: MT MCP speed: 1917 MHz min/max: 1200/3100 MHz
Graphics: Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: intel unloaded: modesetting resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile v: 4.2 Mesa 18.2.3
Network: Device-1: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM57766 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe driver: tg3
Device-2: Broadcom Limited BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n driver: bcma-pci-bridge
Drives: Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 11.51 GiB (2.5%)
Weather: Temperature: 10 C (50 F) Conditions: light showers rain mist
Current Time: Wed 31 Oct 2018 01:01:40 PM EDT (America/Rainy_River)
Info: Processes: 192 Uptime: 33m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 853.3 MiB (5.4%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.27

It's working well.

[Billtoo]

Also have Manjaro installed to hard drive of Acer desktop (uses hdmi2,macmini uses hdmi1 of TV),
Slacko-64 rc3 & Bionicpup64 7.9.6 beta run from flash drives on Acer desktop.

System: Host: bill-pc Kernel: 4.19.0-3-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: N/A Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine: Type: Desktop System: ACER product: Aspire M5620 v: R01-A4 serial: <root required>
Mobo: ACER model: G33T-AM v: 1.0 serial: <root required> BIOS: American Megatrends v: R01-A4 date: 12/19/2007
CPU: Quad Core: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 type: MCP speed: 1628 MHz min/max: 1603/2403 MHz
Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 430] driver: nvidia v: 340.107
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GT 430/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.4.0 NVIDIA 340.107
Network: Device-1: Intel 82566DC-2 Gigabit Network driver: e1000e
Drives: Local Storage: total: 553.14 GiB used: 9.19 GiB (1.7%)
Weather: Temperature: 8 C (46 F) Conditions: Mostly Cloudy
Current Time: Wed 31 Oct 2018 11:24:17 PM EDT (America/Rainy_River)
Info: Processes: 195 Uptime: 3m Memory: 7.79 GiB used: 538.5 MiB (6.8%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.27

Works well.

[rufwoof]

OpenBSD 6.4 (-current), set to boot direct to user/X/chromium.

For 6.4 I've dropped using dialog (that needed to be added in on top of base), to now just use tput for my console menu (first clickable thumbnail below).

Base OpenBSD + mc + chromium meets most of my desktop needs.

Console :


Chromium is in effect my desktop (+ mc for file manager and text editor).

X :


So without dialog also being installed, even more minimalist. Yet functional enough for my needs, and very secure.

[Colonel Panic]

There's a good guide here about how to set up OpenBSD 6.4 on a laptop;

https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/

Must admit I'm not convinced yet but I may give it a go if I've got the time (I found OpenBSD slow the last time I tried it). One problem for me is that, if PC-BSD (which later became True OS) is any guide, the BSDs don't like sharing a hard drive with Linux so you generally have to give your entire hard drive over to them when you install one.

[Colonel Panic]

There's a new release of Pardus out now (17.4), based on Debian but using XFce as its window manager and which was developed with the support of the Turkish government for use in some of its agencies.

I've been trying it today and so far it looks competent on the whole and is working well. It has a rather primitive installer though; even in graphic mode it looks like a text installer is in operation and you have to know in advance which partition you want to install Pardus into as the installer won't launch GParted for you. Also, a couple of times when I was using apt-get to install a package the installation stalled and I had to stop and then restart it.

These are both fairly minor niggles though for what is, as I said before, clearly a pretty competent distro.

[Colonel Panic]

I've now carried out a full distro upgrade on Crunchbang++ and dropped conky in favour of gkrellm (which I find easier to read), and it's working well;

[Billtoo]

I installed to my HP (little) desktop:

System: Host: bill-pc Kernel: 4.19.2-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.13.2git-UNKNOWN Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine: Type: Desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: 200-009 v: N/A serial: <root required>
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 2B38 v: 1.02 serial: <root required> UEFI: AMI v: 80.03 date: 12/15/2014
CPU: Dual Core: Intel Celeron 2957U type: MCP speed: 898 MHz min/max: 800/1400 MHz
Graphics: Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: intel unloaded: modesetting resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.5
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8168
Device-2: Broadcom Limited BCM43142 802.11b/g/n driver: wl
Drives: Local Storage: total: 29.82 GiB used: 7.12 GiB (23.9%)
Weather: Temperature: -9 C (16 F) Conditions: Clear Current Time: Wed 21 Nov 2018 06:37:10 PM EST (America/Rainy_River)
Info: Processes: 164 Uptime: 28m Memory: 1.80 GiB used: 636.9 MiB (34.5%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.27

Runs great.
------------------------------------------
EDIT: I added more items to the panel, then did an update which updated Firefox,the kernel and a few others.

I'm amazed at how well it runs on this computer.

[Billtoo]

I downloaded the Ghostbsd-18.10.iso and burned it to a DVD.
Ran the installer and have begun to use it:

System: Host: bill.ghostbsd-pc.home Kernel: 12.0-CURRENT amd64 (64 bit) Desktop: MATE 1.20.3
OS: FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT
Machine: Using dmidecode: you must be root to run dmidecode
CPU: Cores: 2 model: Intel Core2 Duo E8400 (-SMP-) speed/max: 2992/3003 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 430]
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 driver: nvidia Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce GT 430/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 390.87
Network: Card: Marvell 88E8057 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: mskc
Drives: HDD Total Size: 305.2GB (0.2% used)
RAID: Device: 1: tank
Weather: Conditions: 48 F (9 C) - Overcast Time: December 3, 4:38 AM EST
Info: Processes: 42 Uptime: 41 mins Memory: 1832.8/4055.2MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.31

I've used the OctoPkg package manager to install Chromium,geany,and
mtpaint so far.
It's working pretty well, looks like linux to me

[nosystemdthanks]

for arch fans that dont like systemd:

https://hyperbola.info

just got added to the official fsf distros page.

[mikeslr]

Hi nosystemdthanks,

I just realized that your moniker was no-sytemd-thanks. I'm slightly astigmatic. Almost failed the 5th grade because of the difficulty I had reading. [Never really learned how to spell]. By now I can quickly scan and get the gist of things. But unless I concentrate I miss details. Up until now I thought your moniker was nosymethinks = nosy-me-thinks. I thought that a clever self-evaluation.

I guess I'll have to take your posts more seriously.

p.s. Don't think you were singled out. For a long time I thought belham2's moniker was bedlam. Now I have to take his posts more seriously. A world in which people always take themselves seriously is not as much fun.

[nosystemdthanks]

I guess I'll have to take your posts more seriously. :(

my handle is actually nostril-de-franks, im going to blame this misunderstanding on the w3c.

i should have also mentioned that while it is based on arch, hyperbola has the distinction of being stable and lts. im not sure what that means yet in practice, but theyre adamant about it and its quite ambitious.

[belham2]

for arch fans that dont like systemd:

https://hyperbola.info

just got added to the official fsf distros page.

I am an long time Arch user, and I downloaded Hyperbola yesterday after seeing your post. Hadn't been aware of it.

Let me just say this:

Hyperbola is to Arch what Arch is to the rest of the Linux world in terms of getting things setup and actually working.

In other words, Hyperbola (while laudable in their efforts, especially a LTS Arch with Debian-like applied security updates) is a godforsaken mess of an OS. The time I spent just trying to get basic stuff to setup & actually run was unbearable, frustrating, maddening.....and I am an "Arch" guy who loves the Arch-way of setting stuff up!

Hyperbola needs a whale-load more work and, especially, serious coding help so that the simple things upon initial booting up are not so obtuse & frustrating. What is/was maddening is that the things Arch has accomplished over the years & made straight-forward Hyperbola has suddenly made 'hard' and a "guessing game" again.

My Hyperbola verdict: In its present iteration, a "not worth the effort".

[Colonel Panic]

I've just installed the latest update of Bunsen Labs Helium (4), and it's working well though it still has for me the rather gloomy dark blue / slate blue theme I criticised an earlier incarnation of it for (and which can of course be changed).

I'm still in two minds as to which I prefer between Helium and Crunchbang (to which it is closely related), but it's good that I've got enough room on my hard drive for both.

[belham2]

Have a soft place in my heart for both Manajaro/OpenSUSE and Fedora.

Last several days, have been using Fedora's latest stable (29) and, as usual, it runs really well.

Installed Fedora 29 to a USB 3.0 64GB and am running it on a laptop with low end specs (see pic):

--a 1.5GHZ Celeron with only 1.8GB of memory.

This says something about Fedora (and OpenSUSE & Manjaro).

Any Ubuntu/Debian mainstream distro just bogs and nearly locks this poor laptop down, yet something like Fedora screams on it. Even when I plug in a 2nd-HDMI-screen (again, see pic below) to this little laptop, Fedora automatically sees it and automatically places it in the correct orientation of my setup.

Now, of course, you still got the old Fedora niggles when using the OS. Like, them not installing everything they probably could/should. Or having to use admin:/// to get nautilus root. But once you get past those, and get past the rpmfusion stuff setup, get a blink browser in there (Chrome and/or Chromium), Fedora 29 & Gnome 3.30.2 (with, of course, Dash to Panel and Dash to Dock Gnome extensions installed) everything is good to go.

What's very interesting in Fedora 29 is the Boxes virtual-machine application included default by Fedora. It is unlike any vm application I know: during any startup it even links to numerous OSes ISOs that then the Boxes application (basically a KVM/QEMU frontend) will download for you and setup everything in a vm automatically. You touch and/or set nothing. Next ting you are faced with in a functioning VM of that OS. Since my ram is so limited, I downloaded myself the latest Anti-X 64-bit ISO, and Boxes ran it wonderfully.


Here's the pic:

[belham2]

Just wanted to follow up on the Boxes VM (basically a QEMU-frontend GUI) program in Fedora 29.

I've been testing numerous pups inside Boxes the best few days, weird which ones run cleanly, or run but struggle with a mouse and/or keyboard conflict with Boxes, or just plain don't run.

Below are pics of the ones I've gotten to load and basically run. I also included a pic of Porteus and Slax, which ran really well compared to many of the pups.

The thing with Boxes is you only download an ISO, click once to open with Boxes, and sit back and watch as everything for that VM session is set & then opened up. The upside is fantastic ease of use, the downside, well, if you're a VM user, you know how we want control over nearly every setting possible. Still, boxes opens up a whole new world to those who've never tried VMs and/or or who have been too afraid to try them.

(....one of the most interesting things here is running Barry's latest Easy inside a Boxes' VM, and then running his pre-setup Containerized Seamonkey in Easy. Basically you have two-levels of Containers, which would be pretty darn hard/impossible for anything to break thru while you're testing and/or surfing....)

Enjoy the pics

[ETP]

Manjaro-18-stable-x86_64 (Cinnamon community version)

Never thought that I would say this but it's current boot speed & subsequent performance trounces most Pups and Dogs that I have used.
In the YT link in my signature panel below there is a 2013 video of the XFCE version. Back then it was nice but Puppy was better.

First install was to a dedicated 30GB ext4 partition on my SSD (sdb3). Boot was provided by my old favourite Syslinux 4.04 rather
than Grub2 which I have no love for. Boot media was my usual SD card with an additional vesamenu entry as follows:

Code: Select all

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL manjaro
MENU LABEL Manjaro-18     sdb3  06/12/18
KERNEL /vmlinuz-4.19-x86_64
APPEND  root=UUID=1a56b14c-c465-4487-b899-f92f572dea8e libata.force=noncq rw acpi=force apm=power_off vga=current quiet resume=UUID=40c39eef-d87a-4b59-9fc3-9d9f0cacc772
INITRD /initramfs-4.19-x86_64.img

From a cold boot it takes 5s to reach the vesamenu. The systemd stats from that point on are attached and in conjunction with the 5s to reach
the vesamenu , shows the boot from cold in <10s.

A second install to a 14GB f2fs partition on a USB3 stick with a simple syslinux.cfg just containing a single active line came in at <25s

Full sized screen-shot here: (Press F11 to toggle into full screen then click on link)
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view ... kIMkRVE5QE
.

[Colonel Panic]

I've just installed the latest version of Debian Stretch (9.6), which went well. Here it is with one of my favourite window managers (especially with Debian), CTWM;

My next task (when I've got time, maybe over the holidays?) is to update the whole installation to Debian Testing.

[ozsouth]

Saw an online ad for XTRA-PC a fast live linux system to 'revive old laptops, save spending hundreds on a new system'. Can't work out what it is. See:
https://en.nexttech.com/XtraPC/1/?cep=z ... 4J1TS0V3DQ