Other Distros

[Colonel Panic]

There's a new release of AntiX, 19.1, out now just in time for Christmas. I'm posting from it now and it's working well so far although I haven't installed it yet.

[belham2]

Well, I finally took the plunge.

For $228 I bought the latest Ipad 7th generation, 10.2 inch (not the Ipad Pro). Also bought the new Apple case that has their built-in keyboard, which unfolds and becomes an instant desktop PC.

Reasons I bought the Ipad: namely, the release of IpadOS and version 13.3. Specifically, both bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless keyboards and mice, plus connecting USB drives and such, they all connect to the IpadOS without any problem. That surprised me. Along with the changing nature of the IpadOS look, feel and structure (I've been using an Iphone since summer 2007).

Setting the Ipad 7th Generation up like a desktop (I decided to connect via Ethernet), I was blown away. Apple has a real---excuse the pun--desktop killer here. Sure, this won't occur for us Puppy/Linux diehards, but for 99.99% of the world's consumers, it becomes an interesting standard.

Most everything of what my family does on the web (music, browsing, video watching, secure-financial doings, calling, etc) all are handled easily within the IpadOS. And it all follows them around the house. Aided by the incredible ecosystems of apps that all companies have put into the Apple Store since the birth of the Iphone back 13 years ago, well, lookout everyone else.

And as far as things like gaming go, it's foolish to think for one second that tablets aren't (if not almost already there) going to be able to handle even the most demanding games. To think that thought is to not have lived thru the 90s and 2000s incredible technological leaps in computing. Yes, the IpadOS is not an Xbox and/or high-end PC competitor, but like I said, ignore technological change at our own peril. Using IpadOS feels like being in on the ground floor when I first had an Iphone back in the summer of 2007. Things are going to change radically over the next few years.

I know this may be heresy, but I believe the whole Linux Universe needs to stop focusing on desktops and start attacking tablets (and, of course, phone worlds). No wonder Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora/OpenSUSE have been having this conversation more frequently every year, themselves not ever sure how to proceed.

Apple is landing & has landed squarely on Linux' beach (not to mention Microsoft's---now the Surface & SurfacePro push over the past 2 years by Microsoft makes perfect sense). Here's a glimpse: I can carry this new desktop Ipad to any HDTV in the house, and immediately start streaming (or connect via HDMI) & start watching all of the content we subscribe to. I can carry it and take a video (or picture) anywhere. And, yet, still, the desktop OS of IpadOS is still in my hands everywhere I go. I walk back to my desk, the Ipad with IpadOS immediately becomes a desktop PC again, handling nearly 99.99% of everything I do on a desktop OS. Furthermore, this can happen anywhere in the world I happen to be at the moment.

Yes, this is a game-changer........

[mavrothal]

For $228 I bought the latest Ipad 7th generation, 10.2 inch

For $228??? Where???

[belham2]

For $228 I bought the latest Ipad 7th generation, 10.2 inch

For $228??? Where???

Here is/was an example:
https://us.cnn.com/2019/11/25/cnn-under ... index.html

(Got mine on a Amazon-Walmart-BestBuy Price Match Policy)

On and off, the $228-229 specials on the latest Ipad 7th Generation 32GB have been and, according to Apple and retailers, will be run again.

My wife is now diligently watching and waiting to snag the 128GB model for $329 on the next sale.

Of course, she is going to get my 32GB model and not know it...lol.

[8Geee]

Belham2:

This can be set up as LAN?!?!
How is that done... no reference to a jack... lightning connector?

Curious
8Geee

[belham2]

Belham2:

This can be set up as LAN?!?!
How is that done... no reference to a jack... lightning connector?

Curious
8Geee

----via Lightning to USB Adapter, made by Apple and others. I stick to Apple's stuff, as some 3rd party stuff people have had problems with (read Amazon's reviews). With the USB Adapter (which has both a USB 3.0 port and an USB-C port, to bring in a charger cable from your iphone/ipad charger), and any USB-3 to ethernet dongle attached to it, ethernet is fast as my desktop OSes.

I've been connecting my iphone this way since about Fall of 2016, for anything sensitive I want to do while on the road, avoiding wifi altogether. Apple introduced ethernet ability to all Apple Iphone & Ipad devices back in 2016, ios 10 iirc.

But truthfully, I no longer worry about ethernet with the ipadOS. I used Cloudfare 1.1.1.1 + Warp. It's free. 1.1.1.1+Warp works a treat, providing VPN-encryption & DNS services from your device up to Cloudfare's server closest to you on it's backbone. This is NOT full VPN, hiding your identity; it is just protecting you (DNS & encryption) in the all important local network.

Still, if wifi goes down, or for some reason I want ethernet, it takes all of two seconds to plug the lightning to usb adapter in, then plug in a USB Sabrent, no powered, 4 port USB-3 hub into it along with the USB-C power cable coming from my ipad or iphone charger (which provides power for all, lightning to USB-3 port cable included). Then I grab a USB 3.0 ethernet adapter, plug into it the Sabrent, plus plugin any USB thumbdrives/USB hard drives I might want plugged also inot the Sabrent. In all,, I am good to go.

Regarding IpadOS, Apple overall (both iphones and Ipads) have really has a tight walled garden...there's no way to screw with the code on all the apps you install which can only come from the Apple Store. As all these apps exist inside their own cocooned container within the cocooned IpadOS itself, it is nigh impossible (at the moment) to modify any unless you are the app developer.

I only use the big apps of the companies that I implicitly trust & do business with. I never touch anything else. Actually feel more secure on this than i do using a Linux/Pup OSes & hardened browser to access all the secure financial, health and investment stuff. Especially the financial/investment stuff.

For IpadOS, all the biggies provide their own apps. which not only use the normal login & password login all OS browsers use, but also uses your thumbprint and/or your face (your choice with most apps) to harden the apps and thus your accounts. it prevents any future login on any other device, period) without that thumbprint and/or face coming thru the encrypted app & the IpadOS. And since Apple just rolled U2F-Fido into the IpadOS, the level of security just racheted up another notch, a huge notch (see paragraph**). Overall, it makes using hardened Firefox, Palemoon browsers on OSes, Pup, Linux and/or otherwise, look positively behind the times security-wise, imho.

Even further, a thumbprint and/or face can become a more lock-downed 2fa on your investment/financial/helath account apps within the ipadOS itself. This is the jewel everyone is seeing and is starting to realize.

**Add into the above fact that Apple, with the latest 13.3 IpadOS release a few weeks back, just integrated full-on U2F-FIDO (i.e. Yubikey) into the whole Apple IpadOS ecosystem. Thus it is just a matter of time till U2F-FIDO becomes way more widely adopted than it is currently. (Disclosure: I use Fido-U2F on my email accounts, for about 3-4 years now).

Apple's size will make U2F-FIDO become the widely adopted de facto security standard. And it's about time, no less. Companies are currently re-jiggering their apps like crazy to take advantage of this U2F ability throughout the IpadOS ecosystem. Example: I'm beta testing an IpadOS app right now from my financial institution that has U2F-FIDO as the 2fa, but get this----my fingerprint is the 1st line of getting into the app (and thus logging in). My U2F-Fido key is the 2nd line of defense, hence the 2f. The old way of logging in, with names & passwords, I no longer will be using. They are son to be a thing of the past. It is clear this will, within a year or two, become the norm for many large players in the world who participate in the Apple ecosystem with apps (which is virtually everyone in the USA except the big gorilla Google).

Compared to the what occurred on a hardened laptop I used to use for all my (and my family's) this sensitive online stuff, with logins and passwords, this all is exciting not to mention comforting, providing a peace of mind that doesn't exist no matter what one does with a Linux/Pup OS & subsequent browser installed on it.


This (everything above) is what I meant when I said Apple has "landed on the beaches on Normandy", so to speak. Going forward, the Ipad with IpadOS (along with ubiquitous iphone) is going to be even tougher to ignore. No wonder Buffett bought several billions worth of Apple stock when it was $170-$190 a share. At the time I thought he was crazy, given the markets overall levels and such. But now, it looks like he was crazy like the fox, as Apple is near $300 with another (2 or 3) for 1 split soon to be hitting shareholders (the board already gave permission for the split, it's just a question of if and when now).

I know people who are and have been "short" Apple, which, at 10-11 months ago, I thought was a viable trade/investment. But after seeing what Apple is doing with IpadOS and also the medical/health combo stuff to be hitting the iphone, it all makes me realize that possibly the next 10-20 years (or possibly more) are Apple's to lose.



[Disclaimer: I am no Apple fanboy, especially not a Microsoft and/or Google/Android one, and I hope to be the Puppy & Derivatives FanBoy until I pass from this Earth. But, that said, it is hard to ignore how Apple has slightly but significantly pivoted & shifted these past 2-3 years. Hyperbole aside, today is truly the beginning of the end for the desktop, and never before I have ever felt that. My first laptop I bought and used in HongKong in 1989, and I never (like others) saw a path to obsoleting/replacing the desktop. But, now, with IpadOS (and the understanding now of why MSFT is laser-focused on its Surface & Surface-Pro push and optimizing Win10 for it, and not the desktop), the future picture is becoming clearer. All opinions are my own in this post]

[belham2]

[followup# from previous post]

For anyone interested, things like this dock (Amazon link below) already exist and exemplify what will continue to come down the pike for the Apple IpadOS (and will extend to phones soon) & Apple devices:

https://www.amazon.com/Docking-Baseus-A ... 561&sr=8-6 (this works on both Ipad Pro with its USB-C port, and also with regular Ipads via a small USB-C to Lightning adapter. This is another option rather than just using the Lightning-to-USB3 Adapter cable I currently am using on my new 7th Generation Ipad cum Desktop OS Replacement (UPDATE: Firefox and DuckDuckGo browsers fly on IpadOS, have tested both, and they are excellent alternative to Safari. Chrome browser is just as fast too. Wow, Apple & the IpadOS is changing how I think about everything).


The IpadOS desktop, powerful, sleek, follows you anywhere, no longer need a dedicated computer desk/station (anywhere) in the house and/or travelling.

[ras]

Hi Belham

Actually feel more secure on this than i do using a Linux/Pup OSes & hardened browser to access all the secure financial, health and investment stuff.

What are your thoughts about being secure from anything @ apple?

[belham2]

Hi Belham

Actually feel more secure on this than i do using a Linux/Pup OSes & hardened browser to access all the secure financial, health and investment stuff.

What are your thoughts about being secure from anything @ apple?

Hi Ras,

The Iphone/IpadOS that has been developed for years, yes, imho, the way it is structured, developed and deployed, there is no desktop OS that approaches (save for Qubes, which is a frigging nightmare to use and stay on top of---don't ask me, lol, how I know). You have to sit down and conceptually draw-out on paper how Apple handles device-OS development, actual OS coding with the idea security comes first in the OS, and then how deployment of those devices & OS system is handled. It will then dawn on you what Apple is doing from a security-perspective.

Quite simply, until Google & Android get their sh#t together regarding how Android is developed (not to mention coded), along with rubbish-binning the current structure of Android Store and apps, Apple (and a coming back Microsoft) are going to be romping through the world's cities & forests alone together.


Now, all the above said, if you are talking about desktop MacOS (i.e. like High Sierra and stuff), then, no, it is open and vulnerable to all the same problems as all Microsoft/Linux desktop OSes over the years. The problem is how the desktop OS is structured.

Interestingly, just a few years ago, Microsoft gave the "reactionary" hint (when they got wind of what Apple was thinking and going to deploy) in which direction things were moving OS and devices-wise. Anyone remember that recent Windows 10 S mode???

Good ole' MSFT was directly trying to imitate & copy what Apple had already been doing with Iphone/IpadOS.
This stuff is now second nature to Apple's ecosystem, for both developers and end-user customers. The same cannot be said anywhere else in terms of OS develoment and especially deployment. This is including the Linux world (unless you want to talk about obscurely and uber-small Linux distros, which don't even count because their market share is less than 1/1,000,000th (or worse) of Apple's.

Microsoft just flatout dropped the "S" designation, and is just going to go full bore in that direction without giving it some letter-designation. It is why MSFT has decided to focus a significant swath of their next 10 years budget towards the Surface and Surface-Pro and most especially a behind-the-scenes tweaked Win10 that will run on those devices (and Microsoft phones).

Increasingly, businesses have already and currently are turning to this....they deploy IpadPros and SurfacePros to arm their employees. You don't need to look further than companies locally all around you----heck, gulp, even the absolutely caveman behind-the-times U.S. Military is pushing tablet adoption throughout the various branches. Many small local businesses my family and i frequent do not use a desktop. They use an IpadPro and/or SurfacePro along with iphone/mst-phone/Android phone. There is no desktop anywhere. This is and has been the whole idea of the Cloud, which people still don't truly get. In Europe, this trend (no desktops) is even more advanced (disclaimer: I am a denizen of both US & EU).

So, Desktops (and every concomitant thing that comes with them)?? Load the truck up, boys! Take a few to the Smithsonian, the rest scrap and recycle anything possible.

Desktops (unlike predictions back in the early and late 2000-2010 period) will within a decade be dinosaurs on the technological road of rapid change....honestly, the confluence of events to make this happen is happening now and thus will make desktop obsolescence occur in little as another decade, in my opinion.

Desktops, laptops, et all will be relegated only to holdovers----much like we all are here using Puppy Linux on old desktops/laptops!! I guess in that way this is GOOD NEWS for us Puppians here. Our worldwide computing market share will increase from 0.0003% to 0.0004% Thus I'm not sure if the servers John (murga) rents/hires will be handle the massive inflow of refugees, and nurse them through their old age until death finally becomes us all.

(All opinions are my own )

[rockedge]

Apple operating systems are hacked and modified Linux.

Apple and "security" is like saying Elon Musk is alone behind StarLink or the NSA doesn't know your name.

How many servers run OSx or OSi.... in business or the Internet?

[belham2]

Apple operating systems are hacked and modified Linux.

Apple and "security" is like saying Elon Musk is alone behind StarLink or the NSA doesn't know your name.

How many servers run OSx or OSi.... in business or the Internet?

LOL, Rockedge. Glad to see you haven't changed.

But, uh, I thought pedalling alternative realities was the purview of someone, iirc, you weren't too fond a few years ago (and yet he has kept going at it up till this very day)?

One of those words in your post I now firsthand (hint: it's not Apple), and for decades have known it firsthand, and I can tell you you don't have one clue what you're talking about (when it comes specifically to this). Just getting into a simple goddam# handheld device has made us run out of both patience and coffee more than once. Enough coffee to power several mid-sized cities, mind you.

When comparing ecosystems, it's the one ecosystem (Apple devices and their IOS---not their riddled with holes desktop OS and OS/and servers)..but its the one singular ecosystem IOS and devices where we struggle against every single day. This is not true for Softie and/or any Linux system/server and/or anything other encountered, as they are like going through butter---especially any/all Linux systems (i.e. Linux servers are ridiculously easy to penetrate, has been for decades now).

Statistics do not mean a single thing in this conversation. This statement: "How many servers run OSx or OSi.... in business or the Internet?" both just proved and slammed shut the case.



BTW, I like your nice new Puppy webpage , especially nice since John here wouldn't get off his hands. For too long now.

[Mike Walsh]

@ belham2:-

I guess I must be unusual amongst the general population of the wider 'tech' community.

My dislike of Apple devices dates all the way back to manhandling an incredibly balky Apple Lisa around in the mid-80s. The damn thing didn't seem to want to follow any of the accepted practices of the day, and appeared to have a mind of its own when requested to do anything you specifically wanted it to do.....

I know it's not representative of the way Apple's modern-day ecosystem operates, or how their hardware works. But I've always been a firm believer in first impressions counting for something.....and that was not a good 'first impression'.

I've watched, with some amusement, the way my own younger brother has been totally subsumed by the Apple marketing hype. Despite being in a well-paying job, he's the perfect consumer; the instant the latest Apple gadget hits the shelves, he's just got to have it, ASAP. And he doesn't, apparently, seem to care what it will cost him; he's more determined to satisfy his 'tech-lust' than he is to pay his mortgage or the essential household bills.....

-------------------------

Having never been in that position, financially, I've never missed it or, indeed, wanted to be in that position. I suppose I'm a bit of an 'anachronism', if you like; running old hardware, and using Linux suits me down to the ground, because I get way more personal satisfaction out of getting something to work due to my own efforts than I ever would from simply purchasing something that's guaranteed to do the job without any fuss....

Strange, huh?

On top of which, I've always been fascinated by 'older' technology; the tech of my youth or even, indeed, of yesteryear. Modern technology holds no allure for me at all, for which I'm actually grateful. If it did, I could have easily bankrupted myself a dozen times over; I can almost guarantee that modern stuff will hold no interest for me until it reaches the stage where to most people it's way past the stage of being obsolete, and is fit only for the scrap-heap. Then (and only then) do I become interested in it!

(You have somebody here who didn't buy his first CD player until such devices had been on the market for over 20 years, and were rapidly becoming obsolete in favour of solid state MP3 players.....and it was at least another 10 years before I invested in one of those.)

Mind you, I have come partially up-to-date this year. I've invested in an Amazon FireStick.....for the simple reason it's getting to the stage where's it's less of a strain for these old eyes to watch things on a nice large TV screen than it is to continue to watch NetFlix, etc, on a 15" monitor. And I can sit in greater comfort whilst doing so.....

It's a good job we're all different. Makes life more varied & interesting; if we were all chasing after the same girl, or fella, or chasing after the same job/car/house/**insert whatever**, life would soon become very, very boring indeed.....


'Dinosaur' Mike.

[8Geee]

belham2:

I have always thought and practice that any 'decent' mini laptop is the way of the future (thus my 2009 EEE Atom). Apple has done quite a job here at a resonable price. If it'll go 10 years like mine, its worth it. but then again its the battery. A removeable one is a clincher, otherwise, sans degradation programming, 5-6 years?

Regards
8Geee

[Colonel Panic]

Hi Mike,

I pretty much agree with everything you said there (except that it took me 10 years after CD players first came out instead of 20 to get one!).

I was in a town recently that I haven't visited for some time and, coming across a computer shop, called in and asked how much their machines started at. They didn't have any reconditioned ones and I was quoted £450 as a starting price for a new one (8 GB of RAM minimum). By contrast, the machine I'm using to write and post this message with cost me £20 in May last year (spec details in my sig) and the guy in the computer shop was almost embarrassed to sell it to me because it was so old (2006). It was only meant as a stopgap computer to last the summer whilst I looked for a newer one, but I'm still using it and apart from occasional video freeze-ups where I have to shut it down and reboot it, it's giving me very good service.

I still don't have a smart 'phone, though I do carry a basic mobile (a TTFone Star) for emergencies. I just don't see the need.

[Billtoo]

I installed Manjaro to the hard drive of my Acer desktop a few months
ago:

Computer
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 540 @ 3.07GHz
Memory 6015MB (730MB used)
Machine Type Desktop
Operating System Manjaro Linux

Display
Resolution 3840x1080 pixels
OpenGL Renderer Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Desktop
Session Display Server The X.Org Foundation 1.20.6

Version
Kernel Linux 5.4.6-2-MANJARO (x86_64)
Version #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Dec 24 15:55:20 UTC 2019
C Library GNU C Library / (GNU libc) 2.30

It's been working well, I added a 2nd monitor tonight and used arandr
to configure the screens.

Edit:
I run easy2 on this pc from an sdhc card and I installed arandr with
petget and put the monitors.sh file in the startup directory, works well.

Edit:
There was a big update today Jan 16th over 800mb:

Version
Kernel Linux 5.4.12-1-MANJARO (x86_64)
Version #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Jan 15 08:05:08 UTC 2020
C Library GNU C Library / (GNU libc) 2.30
Distribution Manjaro Linux

[ndujoe1]

Long ago when I first began using Puppylinux I tried out other distros and have in recent times, but I always end back in calm, sane LInux waters Puppylinux :)

[Lobster]

... but I always end back in calm, sane LInux waters Puppylinux

Tee Hee.

I resent the implication that us crazies, heretics and uncalm can not use Linux Puppy, Puppi (Linux on Raspberries) and even an Ipad.

Like @belham2 I highly recommend the Ipaid over the Andydroid clone, despite its closed Jobber the Apple Stevie Hut and extortionate over hyping/pricing/fan boy cultism.

Recently (newish laptop) I was given a 'free' Widows 10S non-operating system. I say non operating because unless you bought, upgraded or used their software what happened?
Use Edge (browser spyware). Yuk. Do you get options, yes pay us money (so easy to pay with a credit card of your choice) - that is an Apple trick.

Now the last OS from Microtheft that I used AND liked was XP. I took a lot of Puppy fanboy criticism for still using this OS, until I finally went cold penguin/turkey and went totally Puppy.

What happened to Windows 10S? Oh I played with it. I tinkered and explored and formatted it out of existence ...

... back in calm, sane LInux waters Puppylinux

Puppy and Proud

[jafadmin]

Now the last OS from Microtheft that I used AND liked was XP.

Same here, but I was also quite fond of Se7en

[Colonel Panic]

There aren't many 32-bit distros still being developed but I've just installed one of them; a new distro called PsychOS, which is based on Devuan and advertised as being especially good for older computers (like mine). It's early days yet but it seems to be working well although it has a somewhat unsettling theme (very dark), and the distro's code name is "Insanity". Here it is;

https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/index_modern.html

and screenshots;

https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/screensh ... shots.html

[Fridge]

Wow, an old topic, but a good and perpetual one!

Besides various pups, old and newer, I've tried Q4OS and Peppermint Linux.

I'm especially happy with Peppermint, since it feels like an improved version of Linux Mint, and especially if you like darker themes. XFCE is a pleasing and light window manager. I'm keeping Peppermint 10 on one of the machines.

On my daily craptop, I have BionicPup64. Quite nice, that one!

I'm gonna make the leap to trying out EasyOS one of these days, once I have some time and an empty USB stick. Maybe give Fatdog another try as well?