Other Distros

[Mike Walsh]

I periodically think to myself; "Eurrgh, I'm getting bored. Shall I try something new?"

And so I do.....for a very short period.

Then I keep remembering all the things I like about Puppy. Its versatility. Its ease of installation, and use. How flexible it is. How easy it is to customize, etc., etc.

(And especially how glad I was to get away from all that 'sudo apt-get' crap. Sudo this. Sudo that. Not allowed to do this. Don't have permission to do that. Mustn't do this, that or the other.....)

I read on BleepingComputer yesterday about a new 'bug' that's doing the rounds of Win 7 machines.....which have just gone EOL. It's refusing to allow users to shut their own machines off....!!

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/m ... ow-to-fix/

Yes, using Pup can be 'boring', in a way. It's just so reliable, and you just know everything's going to work the way you want it to.

Give me 'boring' any day..!


Mike.

[Colonel Panic]

I'm currently using the latest snapshot, of the 15th January 2020, of MX-19 (patito feo), which is working well.

I'm kicking myself though because the first thing I see when I load Firefox is the MX homepage which mentions the forthcoming release of MX Fluxbox, which I would have preferred to have downloaded instead. C'est la vie ...
[Edit; I've just seen that mx-fluxbox can be installed as an overlay, so I don't need to download the whole MX-Fluxbox iso.]

Great news, Colonel! I use MX on one of my main computers,..and will probably switch from Antix to MX on my older ones now. Antix is good, but it is only 32 bit. I have an old (but nice) previously Vista box with 6gb ram. Antix only sees 3gb of that. I trust MX 32bit is PAE. Fluxbox will it work fine.

Hi again nitie, good to see you again on here. There is a 64 bit version of AntiX and I've used it in the past. MX has a lot of features but has a tendency to freeze up on me (necessitating a reboot) when I'm running it in the default desktop, XFce, and that's why I'm glad of a Fluxbox option.

Here's a guide that tells you how to install the fluxbox overlay from the MX main menu;

https://mxlinux.org/blog/4585/

Now that I've got 6 GB of RAM (well, nearly) like you, I don't tend to run very much in 32 bit; it's not worth it to waste half of your RAM for no good reason.

[nitehawk]

Well Colonel,..guess I spoke too soon. MX 19 (32 and 64bit) won't even load on that computer. It justs starts from the install DVD, then goes into full-blown "Kernal Panic" every time. Other distros do the very same thing. Guess I'm stuck with Antix and wasting part of my ram. Bunsenlabs is the same way

It's an old computer, and I've got Bionic Puppy running well on it (the 32bit is PAE and runs really well).

[Colonel Panic]

Hi again nitie; good to see Bionic Puppy's working on it anyway. Just a thought; have you considered running Devuan on it (which doesn't have systemd)?

I've got a different problem in that I'm getting beeps from my motherboard for no apparent reason (but not in AntiX, Slackware or in PsychOS, which is based on Devuan), and the one common denominator all those have is systemd so I'm trying to stay away from systemd-based distros until it's (hopefully) sorted out.

[nitehawk]

Hi again nitie; good to see Bionic Puppy's working on it anyway. Just a thought; have you considered running Devuan on it (which doesn't have systemd)?

I've got a different problem in that I'm getting beeps from my motherboard for no apparent reason (but not in AntiX, Slackware or in PsychOS, which is based on Devuan), and the one common denominator all those have is systemd so I'm trying to stay away from systemd-based distros until it's (hopefully) sorted out.

That's very interesting about non systemd distros working for you,..
But I actually just tried the latest (Dec.'19) version of "BusterDog" and it's supposed to be a Puppylinux without systemd. It was a total no-go.
So I don't know,...I'm baffled. Only Antix seems to work (outside of some Puppies). I'll try Devuan next.

[rcrsn51]

But I actually just tried the latest (Dec.'19) version of "BusterDog" and it's supposed to be a Puppylinux without systemd. It was a total no-go.

I just checked the BusterDog thread to see where you reported the problem or asked for help, but I could not find anything.

Perhaps you could expand on "total no-go".

[nitehawk]

But I actually just tried the latest (Dec.'19) version of "BusterDog" and it's supposed to be a Puppylinux without systemd. It was a total no-go.

I just checked the BusterDog thread to see where you reported the problem or asked for help, but I could not find anything.

Perhaps you could expand on "total no-go".

Oh,..it's obviously my catakerous old computer I was trying to put it on. Both 32 and 64 bit would "Kernal Panic" when starting to install from the CD. I have a laptop (HP pavilion dv2500) that I want to try BusterDog on instead. This old HP Compaq hates everything practically. I DID manage (as mentioned),
with Bionic Puppy, and also the old but goody
Precise Puppy 571
EDIT: I'm going to try installing BusterDog on the laptop right now (sounds like a really nice Puppy).

EDIT of the EDIT: laptop (circa 2006) says it looooves BusterDog! Wish this old compaq would.
That's a great little distro.

[Billtoo]

I did a new install of PClinuxOS to the hard drive of my Lenovo desktop:

Computer
Processor 2x Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
Memory 4039MB (792MB used)
Operating System PCLinuxOS
Date/Time Tue 11 Feb 2020 12:01:52 PM EST

OpenGL
Vendor X.Org
Renderer AMD OLAND (DRM 2.50.0, 5.4.18-pclos1, LLVM 8.0.1)
Version 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 19.3.3
Direct Rendering Yes

I installed a few favorite puppy applications with Synaptic (geany and
mtpaint etc.) instead of the PClinuxOS defaults.

Version
Kernel Linux 5.4.18-pclos1 (x86_64)

I intend to run the next EasyOS release from my usb SSD on this pc as well.

It's working well so far.

[Colonel Panic]

The Debian team have just released a new version of Stretch (9.12), which I've now installed. It seems very solid and, bearing in mind my recent computing hassles, there are no beeps from the motherboard when it's running, which is very welcome.

[18th February; spoke too soon. There are now. Damn it.]

I've also installed the latest version of Zenwalk, 9.0 (released on New Year's Eve). It has a very dark default theme which might not be to everyone's taste, but it works well and I've had no problems with it so far.

I really like the default wallpaper, which I think is of that very long bridge in Hong Kong; I'll see if I can get a screenshot of it up soon. I find it interesting that Salix was started by some former Zenwalk devs and for a while it looked as though it was going to eclipse Zenwalk as a distro, but Zenwalk's still putting out editions and Salix hasn't been heard from for years now.

I also tried to install the latest version of Absolute (another Slack-based distro), but sadly the installation failed; might have been a bad burn. [Edit: I've got it to install now. Second time lucky.]

[belham2]

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

For $228??? Where???

Mavrothal,

A great sale is on again for the latest 7th generation, 10.2 Ipads (using IpadOS 13+ is worth owning these):


32GB, only $249, normally $329
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPad-10-2- ... 494&sr=8-2

128GB, only $329, normally $429
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPad-10-2- ... 972&sr=8-1

[Mike Walsh]

Evening, all.

I've periodically looked at ChromiumOS - the open-source version of ChromeOS (found on Chromebooks) - which you can run from a flash drive. Previously, running it on the old Compaq tower, it was always touch & go as to whether it would even condescend to run or not. Sometimes, it wouldn't even boot. Often, if it did boot, many things wouldn't work properly; ethernet, mouse, keyboard, webcam.....etc, etc.

Always a slow business to boot, too; with only native USB 2.0 support (the USB 3.0 PCI-e adapter card I'd installed couldn't boot anything, due to deficiencies in the ROM's 'firmware.....which was NOT 'upgradeable/rewritable'), it was pretty slow with ChromiumOS.

I'd try it occasionally, and usually give it up as a bad job.

I've given it another look tonight. With brand new hardware - Pentium 'Gold' G5400 CPU (dual-core w/HT, so effectively a quad-core), running at nearly 4 GHz - 4 GB (so far; aiming for 8 GB eventually) of fast DDR4 RAM, 'on-die' Intel UHD 610 graphics (96 cores), running via HDMI to a nice big 22" 1920 x 1080 monitor, plus native USB 3.0 booting, well.....WHAT a difference. This is the very latest build from Arnold the Bat:-

https://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/chromium-os/

.....compiled and uploaded just 3 days ago, with the very latest Chromium 81.0.4028.0 browser, which I'm running from a 32 GB SanDisk Ultra 'Fit' nano-sized thumb drive. Curiously, even though this is a UEFI machine - and the .img file rewrites the flash drive with a 'pure' EFI/GPT set-up - I've had to enable 'legacy' booting to be able to fire it up. Weird, huh?

However, absolutely everything just 'works'; mouse, keyboard, system drive access, ethernet, webcam (I'm not surprised at this, because I always select my cams to have UVC driver support in the kernel).....etc, etc. I'm quite impressed with it, I must say. For the first time ever, I can properly experience what it'll be like to live with a Chromebook for a little while.

Should be, um.....interesting, shall we say?


Mike.

[Colonel Panic]

I recently installed ExGent, a Swedish distro based on Gentoo (and from the same developer, Exton, who is behind PuppEX), and I'm learning a bit about Gentoo as a result. It doesn't have as big a repository as Debian has (I couldn't find a way to install Osmo, for example), and compiling a package such as Thunderbird or LibreOffice takes literally hours, but once it's all up and running it seems to be trouble free. And it doesn't beep!

[Colonel Panic]

On the other hand, trying to install a new package in Sabayon (also based on Gentoo) involved having to negotiate a seemingly endless procession of software licences (or maybe I was unlucky in my choice of package). Sabayon's very well designed visually though so I don't want to give up on it until I've had a chance to find out whether there's a better way of doing this.

[Billtoo]

I've installed Manjaro to my hp desktop:

Computer
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-6100T CPU @ 3.20GHz
Memory 3890MB (880MB used)
Machine Type Desktop
Operating System Manjaro Linux
User Name bill (Bill)
Date/Time Tue 03 Mar 2020 03:00:33 PM
Display
Resolution 1920x1080 pixels
OpenGL Renderer Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2)
Session Display Server The X.Org Foundation 1.20.7

Operating System
Version
Kernel Linux 5.5.7-1-MANJARO (x86_64)
Version #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Feb 28 22:01:16 UTC 2020
C Library GNU C Library / (GNU libc) 2.31
Distribution Manjaro Linux

Works well.

[Colonel Panic]

Another good one, Mint Debian 4.0, codenamed Debbie.

It's only a beta so far but I can't find anything wrong with it except (usual gripe) the default theme and wallpaper are too dark for my liking, and it tried to mount both my pendrives onto the same folder (which meant only one of them was), though I managed to find a fix for it;

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic. ... &p=1774111

https://www.linuxmint.com/pictures/scre ... nnamon.png

[Colonel Panic]

Mike; I was using Xenial 7.5 XL for most of yesterday and if I had to I reckon I could easily stick to that one and use nothing else. It's got everything I really need.

[Billtoo]

I downloaded the Slackware 14.2 DVD and installed it to my 13 year old
HP desktop.
I added a few slackbuilds of favorite programs (mtpaint,geany,youtube-dl,
ltris).
It's working well.

[Colonel Panic]

Hi Bill,

I like Eric Hameleers's ' Alienware' Slackware spins. They're very similar to the official release but more up to date with the software. Here's a snapshot of my installation of Eric's Christmas release, with Mate installed as the desktop manager;

Mate works well with my installation of Slackware except that (as you might be able to see at the top left of the snapshot) there's no space between adjacent menu headings, a problem I'm hoping to find a solution to. I've generally struggled with slackbuilds in the past but may give them another go now.

[Billtoo]

Hi Bill,

I like Eric Hameleers's ' Alienware' Slackware spins. They're very similar to the official release but more up to date with the software. Here's a snapshot of my installation of Eric's Christmas release, with Mate installed as the desktop manager;

Mate works well with my installation of Slackware except that (as you might be able to see at the top left of the snapshot) there's no space between adjacent menu headings, a problem I'm hoping to find a solution to. I've generally struggled with slackbuilds in the past but may give them another go now.

Hi CP,

Thanks for the info, I'll give that a try.

I'm using the Slackware Current repository so it's up to date, it took a long time to update the first time with slackpkg (about 2 hours) but there were only a dozen or so updates this morning so that was only a couple of minutes.

They warn that with Slackware Current Repository you could break your install but okay so far.

[Colonel Panic]

You're welcome Bill. Here's the link in case you or anyone else is interested;

http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackw ... rrent-iso/

I think the approach you've taken is more economical than mine in terms of the number of Slackware isos you have to download and burn off, even if as you say there is a risk of the install breaking.