Other Distros

Puppy related raves and general interest that doesn't fit anywhere else
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nitehawk
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#2541 Post by nitehawk »

Installed Absolute 14.2 on my second computer (one that I use quite a lot). Couldn't get my network going. Nothing I tried worked. Then I remembered a previous post here by Colonel Panic......
(the one where he says that a LQ thread mentioned using "dhclient eth0" in terminal). By gummie, that works! Thanks Col. P. (nitehawk very happy).

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Colonel Panic
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#2542 Post by Colonel Panic »

Thanks for telling me that too nitie, it's great to know I was able to make a difference! That's the joy of a forum like this one; you never know when something you've written in the past
about a problem you've had, and managed to find a solution to, may be of benefit to someone else having the same or a similar problem.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

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nitehawk
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#2543 Post by nitehawk »

...yes,..still very happy with Absolute. Only BIG problem, is no sound! I guess it's a problem with Slackware 14.2 itself. Nothing I try works,...but I've been over to LQ to try and find a solution. Refracta (that I have on another partition)...won't boot anymore when I added SlackO 6.3 to a partition (and added Grub4Dos). That's a "Devuan" thing, since I had that very same thing happen to an install of Devuan.
I just put on MX-16 on that partition ....problem solved. :lol:

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Colonel Panic
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#2544 Post by Colonel Panic »

nitehawk wrote:...yes,..still very happy with Absolute. Only BIG problem, is no sound! I guess it's a problem with Slackware 14.2 itself. Nothing I try works,...but I've been over to LQ to try and find a solution. Refracta (that I have on another partition)...won't boot anymore when I added SlackO 6.3 to a partition (and added Grub4Dos). That's a "Devuan" thing, since I had that very same thing happen to an install of Devuan.
I just put on MX-16 on that partition ....problem solved. :lol:
Hi again Nitie,

Slack 14.2 has moved over to PulseAudio, which I don't like and doesn't work well on my computer. Usually when distros insist on loading Pulse I can just get into alsamixer and select the sound card manually, but if I remember rightly I had to reinstall a couple of packages including PulseAudio itself and alsa-utils before I could get sound working. I agree, it's a nuisance but it might work with your machine.

Grub4DOS ... I feel your pain with that too. It doesn't seem to like booting distros based on Devuan / Ubuntu together with ones based on Slackware, and will just ignore all the non-Slack ones (or at least the kernels).

I'm not an expert on Grub and generally try and let the distros take care of it automatically when I install them, but that hasn't been working out too well recently and I might try and set the config file up manually instead next time (or use a different boot manager such as Plop).
Last edited by Colonel Panic on Tue 18 Apr 2017, 11:33, edited 1 time in total.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

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nitehawk
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#2545 Post by nitehawk »

Well,...never could get the sound working in Absolute Linux. Switched over to Salix,...and discovered that I like it a LOT! It's a keeper on my "most-used" computer (Got Windows7--MX--Salix--SlackO 6.3 on a Tb hard drive).

Now,...only problem I see with Salix,..is that it is too big for a CD now. I used a flashdrive (and unetbootin) to install. I want to put the 32 bit version on a really OLD Dell Optiplex,....but I'm all out of DVD disks,..and the Dell won't boot from flashdrives. DRATS! Maybe it's Antix and Puppy for that old computer.

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Colonel Panic
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#2546 Post by Colonel Panic »

nitehawk wrote:Well,...never could get the sound working in Absolute Linux. Switched over to Salix,...and discovered that I like it a LOT! It's a keeper on my "most-used" computer (Got Windows7--MX--Salix--SlackO 6.3 on a Tb hard drive).

Now,...only problem I see with Salix,..is that it is too big for a CD now. I used a flashdrive (and unetbootin) to install. I want to put the 32 bit version on a really OLD Dell Optiplex,....but I'm all out of DVD disks,..and the Dell won't boot from flashdrives. DRATS! Maybe it's Antix and Puppy for that old computer.
I agree nitie, Salix is too big for a CD now. Vector Light still runs (and installs) off a CD though, so that might be worth a look.

There's a new version of Salix Live (14.2.1) out this week, and I might test it out if I get some time this weekend. For now though, since I've had a lot of trouble getting this machine to boot recently I've taken the bold step of refomatting my hard drive and using it exclusively to store Puppy save and .sfs files - sort of a halfway house towards a frugal install, but without installing Grub on the hard drive's MBR. I'm mostly using PuppEX (Exton) Xenial, though I've also been using Tahr64 606 and PuppEX Slacko 6.3.0.

I've tried installing distros (especially MX) on a flash drive, but it's almost glacially slow to load an application from USB and I'm afraid I just don't have the patience to persevere with that.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

bark_bark_bark
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#2547 Post by bark_bark_bark »

Colonel Panic wrote:I've tried installing distros (especially MX) on a flash drive, but it's almost glacially slow to load an application from USB and I'm afraid I just don't have the patience to persevere with that.
Don't you have access to USB3? Maybe a USB SSD or USB HDD might help.
....

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Colonel Panic
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#2548 Post by Colonel Panic »

bark_bark_bark wrote:
Colonel Panic wrote:I've tried installing distros (especially MX) on a flash drive, but it's almost glacially slow to load an application from USB and I'm afraid I just don't have the patience to persevere with that.
Don't you have access to USB3? Maybe a USB SSD or USB HDD might help.
Thanks for the advice, but I've got a 2008 computer so I'm reluctant to spend a lot of money to fix anything with it. The easiest way of fixing this by spending more money would be to buy a new internal hard drive; a 500 GB hard drive is about £25 on Amazon and it would still be bigger than the one I have now.

As it is, I've got a solution that works; I've just got to remember where my Puppy disks are so that I don't mislay them for when I get up in the morning (and so far I've managed not to).

[EDIT: actually I don't even need to do that. If I leave the lupu CD in the CD drive when I power the machine down, when I boot it up again it will load itself and then its savefile of its own accord without my needing to select any.]
Last edited by Colonel Panic on Sat 15 Apr 2017, 09:10, edited 6 times in total.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

realwigums
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other OS's

#2549 Post by realwigums »

i run slackware almost exclusively anymore. im really liking slacko too

ive also dev'd on yoper linux and vector linux and am starting another which will be called principia (slackware based) which will include zfs on root and dep handling of official slackware packages

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Moat
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#2550 Post by Moat »

Just tried the new Ubuntu Gnome 17.04, released today. Ugg. :? USB live session, and Wifi detected but wouldn't connect. Fail!

I don't at all "get" Gnome 3 - everything is so "dumbed down" - too-big icons/titlebars (utter waste of screen space), clumsy finding/accessing applications via the dash/menu/launcher/whatever, severe lack of native functionality/options in many applications and widgets, difficult to customize the desktop/layout without jumping through hoops (if even then), aesthetically too simplistic and flat.

The environment makes it feel like there's a "wall" of sorts, between the user and the operating system and it's functions... and either you accept things as they are OOTB, or "...tough luck". :?:

Seems to me that Linux tends to attract "power users" - people who like full and easily-accessed features that allow setting up and customizing the system to their preferences/workflow needs (one of the great, traditional characteristics of Linux) - Gnome 3 is so dumbed down as to completely work against that kind of power and flexibility. Anti-Linux, really. Why?? I have no idea what's behind their intentions/goals (mimic the flawed Windows 10 UI, I suppose...) - but it's an overall blatant failure, IMHO. I've tried (and failed) to like it in the past, and tried again (and failed) today with the latest stable version. Yechhh!! :(

Mate, Xfce and Lxde, FTW (none of which are perfect, but still vastly superior overall) .

Bob

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rufwoof
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#2551 Post by rufwoof »

Moat wrote:Just tried the new Ubuntu Gnome 17.04, released today. Ugg. :? USB live session, and Wifi detected but wouldn't connect. Fail!

I don't at all "get" Gnome 3 - everything is so "dumbed down" - too-big icons/titlebars
In Debian Gnome you use either system-settings or tweak-tool to change those sorts of things. First off I didn't like the 'standardisation' myself, but after a while you get a better feel for commonality being a good thing.
clumsy finding/accessing applications via the dash/menu/launcher/whatever
Windows/special key then type the first letter or two of what you want to run, Windows/te for instance will show the Terminal icon.

If you go into tweak-tool you can add additional extensions by downloading .zip files and installing those. I added one to make the top left hot corner with less resistance. I also added a bottom panel as mouse down and continued at the bottom centre of the screen wasn't to my liking.

When you get more used to mouse into top left or press Win key and type t for terminal, L for libre ...etc its quite nice is some ways. I dropped back to using LXDE however as I just have a top of screen panel with my more common apps/program as icons in that ... so even more productive/quicker IMO.

As a common desktop interface gnome is quite good for across a wide range of kit IMO. You can either mostly navigate using just the keyboard, or mostly navigate using the mouse (touch). I think a good way to run it is to open programs you use on different desktops and then mouse into top left corner and pick which one to switch to. In debian they only had a close button on each window and I had to hunt around to find how to add minimise/maximise buttons (in tweak-tool), but only then later 'got-it' about not bothering to minimise windows and instead just switch to another workspace (desktop).

I haven't seen the Ubuntu version so that might be totally different.

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nitehawk
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Re: other OS's

#2552 Post by nitehawk »

realwigums wrote:i run slackware almost exclusively anymore. im really liking slacko too

ive also dev'd on yoper linux and vector linux and am starting another which will be called principia (slackware based) which will include zfs on root and dep handling of official slackware packages
...ah,..let us know when you get principia going (sounds interesting). Gotta admit I love the clean, no-nonsense of Slackware. I just got lazy lately,..and prefer Salix. Doesn't Salix tout itself as: "Slackware for lazy slakers"...? :lol:

realwigums
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#2553 Post by realwigums »

i cant stand how they (salix) build packages and the fact that they rely on sourcforge
for packages. i know a couple of the salix guys from using slackware for so long.
smart people i just hate the way they build and submit packages

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nitehawk
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#2554 Post by nitehawk »

realwigums wrote:i cant stand how they (salix) build packages and the fact that they rely on sourcforge
for packages. i know a couple of the salix guys from using slackware for so long.
smart people i just hate the way they build and submit packages
Well,..I'm not a dev,...(just a happy linux user for over 10 years now). But my very favorite Slax-based used to be Vector. Then they started to deviate from basic Slackware,...and then the releases got farther and farther apart. I started with Vector back at version 5.9 (and was sold on it!). But I've had to go looking else-where for a good Slackware based distro. Salix seems to be OK so far (just started with it). Absolute is kind-of a little "raw" around the edges (or so it seems to me). Couldn't get my sound working in it. Any suggestions you could give about a decent small Slackware distro would be very appreciated!

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Colonel Panic
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#2555 Post by Colonel Panic »

nitehawk wrote:
realwigums wrote:i cant stand how they (salix) build packages and the fact that they rely on sourcforge
for packages. i know a couple of the salix guys from using slackware for so long.
smart people i just hate the way they build and submit packages
Well,..I'm not a dev,...(just a happy linux user for over 10 years now). But my very favorite Slax-based used to be Vector. Then they started to deviate from basic Slackware,...and then the releases got farther and farther apart. I started with Vector back at version 5.9 (and was sold on it!). But I've had to go looking else-where for a good Slackware based distro. Salix seems to be OK so far (just started with it). Absolute is kind-of a little "raw" around the edges (or so it seems to me). Couldn't get my sound working in it. Any suggestions you could give about a decent small Slackware distro would be very appreciated!
I agree with you about Vector; though I still use it sometimes it's been a bit disappointing recently compared to the Vector releases I remember in the past (5.9 SOHO was excellent IMO). They had a great package management system which was unique to the distro, called Quick Picks, and then scrapped it for no apparent reason.

ConnochaetOS is still going, and although I found it a bit rough around the edges it still works; it's a Slack-based distro for older computers and which uses free software only. Zenwalk released a new version in February this year; though it's now 64-bit only it might be worth a look.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.

realwigums
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#2556 Post by realwigums »

Well,..I'm not a dev,...(just a happy linux user for over 10 years now). But my very favorite Slax-based used to be Vector. Then they started to deviate from basic Slackware,...and then the releases got farther and farther apart. I started with Vector back at version 5.9 (and was sold on it!). But I've had to go looking else-where for a good Slackware based distro. Salix seems to be OK so far (just started with it). Absolute is kind-of a little "raw" around the edges (or so it seems to me). Couldn't get my sound working in it. Any suggestions you could give about a decent small Slackware distro would be very appreciated!
vector went sideways for a couple versions. from 7.0 on it is back to being slackware based again and actually uses the slackware toolchain. what theyve been up to lately i dont know. one nice thing thats been done is adding dependancy handling using slapt-get.

as far as my opinion of a good slack based distro i have to say slacko
is my fav so far. it needs some updating imo but i do love PPM and also ive installed sbotools which handles deps for 3rd party packages i.e. apps that dont actually ship on the slackware iso for example
https://slackbuilds.org/

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nitehawk
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#2557 Post by nitehawk »

Thanks for reminding me of Zenwalk, Col. P! I had forgotten about that one,....and I use Slacko on another old computer I have,...(I still long for a really good Vector release, though.)

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Billtoo
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Other Distros

#2558 Post by Billtoo »

I'm running Mint 18.1 on my 9 year old iMac, it runs Vlc,Kodi,etc great.

$ inxi -b
System: Host: bill-iMac Kernel: 4.4.0-72-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3
Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena
Machine: System: Apple product: iMac8 1 v: 1.0
Mobo: Apple model: Mac-F226BEC8 v: PVT Bios: Apple v: IM81.88Z.00C1.B00.0802091538 date: 02/09/08
CPU: Dual core Intel Core2 Duo E8135 (-MCP-) speed/max: 1600/2400 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV610/M74 [Mobility Radeon HD 2400 XT]
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1680x1050@59.88hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV610 (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0) GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0
Network: Card-1: Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n driver: b43-pci-bridge
Card-2: Marvell 88E8058 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: sky2
Drives: HDD Total Size: 376.4GB (4.6% used)
Info: Processes: 187 Uptime: 2:13 Memory: 405.0/3948.2MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.35
$

I like Slackware too :)

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Moat
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Re: Other Distros

#2559 Post by Moat »

Billtoo wrote:I'm running Mint 18.1 on my 9 year old iMac, it runs Vlc,Kodi,etc great.
Mint's been my installed-on-HD daily driver for a few years now. Many old-school Linux stalwarts may pooh-pooh it as being nothing more than a "beginner friendly" distro, but the fact is that it just works - better that anything else out there at the moment, IMHO - and has a huge, useful application repo (Mint's own plus Ubuntu's). You can make it anything you desire, with less trouble than other OS's.


What else does one want/need? There's a good reason it's been #1 at Distrowatch for years. It's really, really excellent!

Bob

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rufwoof
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#2560 Post by rufwoof »

Just trying out LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) 64 bit Betsy 2 MATE version. Booted it in a Virtual Box then did a Install using the 6GB of VM disk space (1GB RAM/256K video memory) I'd assigned (only got to see that they recommend 9GB min disk space (20GB preferred) after I'd run through the install). Applied all updates (apt-get update;apt-get upgrade) and whilst it did fail the first time (large amount of updates), a apt-get -f install and another apt-get upgrade finished it off ... with 150MB free disk space to spare :)

Runs really nicely and looks great ... well polished (even though its now down to around 90MB of free space remaining after the browser has been started).

Oddly, whilst based on Debian Stable the LXDE gets Mint updates early (and they say it runs a little faster also) ... so very stable on the Debian side of things, but the more unstable on the Mint side (front run changes earlier). Bit of a odd contrast/choice. I guess you could always opt out of upgrades until after Mint point releases before upgrading i.e. uninstall update-manager and update-manager-core and just run apt-get update;apt-get ugrade manually whenever you prefer.

They do say there's much less of a user-base and hence help ... its more for the more experienced user ... but that's relative ... being more familiar with Debian going the standard Mint route would be a greater learning curve for me.
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