Hi @daniel.m.tripp
We need to avoid ‘religious wars’ over use of particular pieces of software.
You said it well
And yes the CLI is amazingly uniform . The variety is all top level stuff.
Neville
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Hi nevj,
The choice of Operating System, Desktop Environment and Software are all subject to individual requirements and personal taste. I recommended software I use every day and it just works great. I was distro and software apps hopping for a while. In the end I chose Debian based distros as most stable and reliable. The same with software - I’ve tried multiple apps and chose the ones that have the features I need and use the GUI that appeals to me. Firefox is the only browser I like (Waterfox is based on Firefox and fully compatible with Firefox add-ons. Firefox ESR is an old version and does not receive timely security updates). VLC is good, but I find that “mpv”, which runs under SMPlayer GUI has better graphics hardware acceleration support (lower CPU load compared to VLC), and I prefer SMPlayer GUI with “Dark” icon theme and multitude of features. Audacious is my favorite audio player, that can use direct hardware device (soundcard) without any conversions and output excellent sound quality. I used foobar2000 on Windows, which is the best for sound quality and Audacious is the closest match. Tixati is the best torrent client. I use LXDE desktop, which doesn’t have it’s own power manager, so I install xfce4-power-manger. LXDE is very fast and light on CPU and RAM usage. My favorite Windows was XP, so I made LXDE look and act in a similar fashion, however I added some extras like side panel, etc. (see the screenshot). Devuan is what Debian used to be before they switched to systemd instead of sysvinit. The init system is the only difference between them. I no longer like Ubuntu, since they push SNAP too hard and Ubuntu is full of bloatware. Star Linux with LXDE uses 149 MB RAM on boot and only 2.3 GB disk space in my install.
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This is not a competition, - Linux is all about the freedom of choice, which is my main reason to ditch Windows and use Linux. I have tried Linux about 15 years ago, but switched back to Windows, because Linux had serious problems with hardware drivers (sound, video, wireless, etc.), and while Windows was getting worse (since Windows 8), Linux was getting better. Now we just add non-free repositories to sources.list in Debian and all hardware works perfectly. For me Linux does everything that Windows does, while I decide what software runs on my PC and not Microsoft. Windows 10 is useless resource hog and is full of spyware from Microsoft. Google Chrome is a good browser, except that it is loaded with spyware from Google. Linux gives us a freedom of choice with open source software and a friendly helpful community of users. So, some people prefer rock music and some prefer jazz or classical music. Some people prefer .rpm based Linux and some .deb based Linux. Some prefer KDE and some prefer XFCE… Great! This is the freedom of choice!
Hi @Deby ,
I like your post and I agree about Debian and its derivatives being stable and reliable. Debian is my base system, but the two things I am trying to improve on over Debian are
- Doing a reinstall when there is a new release every 18 months is a burden, not so much the install, but redoing the configuration
- I am not happy with systemd
I have experimented with doing cross-release upgrades of Debian - that was ok going from 10 to 11
I have looked at rolling release Linux distros - Void and Solus. They upgrade smoothly for me.
I have looked at distros with runit instead of systemd - Devuan and Void - I am very impressed with runit, it was only a half hour learning curve, it keeps all its config files in text file form so you can see and edit ( unlike systemd which has binary files).
The upshot is , I am moving to Void. , but keeping Debian or Devuan as a backup. As you say, this is a personal choice. Void suits me because I mostly do programming, so all I really need is a couple of terminal windows and stuff like gcc, R, latex and vi. So your point applies, my choice is personal
My windows manager is peculiar too. I use xfce, because it is the only DTE which I can configure to save my windows session at logout and restore it at login. It matters to me because I do lots of stops and starts. Can you make ldxe do that? I failed with gnome and cinnamon.
Of course I use things like mailer and browser. Everyone needs that. Thunderbird and Firefox seem fine to me, but I am sure there are other good choices… One of the freedoms of foss is having a wide choice of apps. It makes the world interesting
Neville
Hi Neville,
My opinion regarding the things you are trying to improve:
- It is not necessary to reinstall every 18 months. The latest stable Debian 11 “Bullseye” LTS is supported up to June, 2026. Also, Debian stable is well tested and doesn’t receive the security updates as frequent as Ubuntu (based on Testing for LTS and Sid for regular). To make configuration easier after reinstall you can use a separate /root and /home partitions on your disk drive, since many user configuration files are in /home/user folder or save the hidden configuration folders and files to another drive and restore them after new installation.
- I don’t like systemd either. Debian used SysV init before switching to systemd, so Devuan now is what Debian used to be. I tried AntiX, Devuan, Star and they all work great, except for a few small, but annoying problems (like pulseaudio starts muted or doesn’t start at all, etc.) Void didn’t work fo me - multiple errors during installation and black screen after reboot. Star (Devuan based) is the best distro for minimalist system (129 MB RAM on boot, 1.9 GB disk space). Star uses SysV init and is rated 9.3 on Distrowatch (Devuan 9.2, Void 9.0, Debian 8.8, Ubuntu 7.6).
I like minimalist system and prefer functionality over anything else, which is why I want only absolutely necessary software packages installed on my system. I rejected Ubuntu, Mint, Zorin, PCLinuxOS and other popular distros because they are overloaded with bloatware. I didn’t like Arch or Manjaro either - pacman is not as good as dpkg or synaptic (my personal preference - some people think the other way around). I install Debian from 48 MB “mini.iso” image, uncheck all software options during install and reboot into CLI, then install as root: apt install xorg slim lxde --no-install-recommends. After installing all software I need, my system uses about 179 MB RAM on boot and 2.3 GB disk space. I prefer LXDE because it is lightning fast and looks great after a simple customization. XFCE and MATE are OK, but they are slower and heavier on system resources.
I don’t know how to save lxde session at logout and restore it at login (I have no need for that), but if XFCE works for you, no need to change - XFCE is very stable and reasonably light on CPU and RAM.
I don’t use any email clients (I use Firefox for email), but Thunderbird is one of the best. Firefox is sometimes very heavy on CPU and RAM, but many lighter browsers suffer from website compatibility and either have problems displaying the content properly or don’t load the webpage at all. Waterfox is based on Firefox and claims to be faster and more privacy oriented. Google Chrome is good, but it is loaded with tracking spyware from Google, so maybe Ungoogled Chromium is OK.
Hi @Deby ,
Thank you. Its nice to hear someone say that Debian is hard to improve on ( systemd excepted)
I do keep a separate home partition. It is the networking and printer configs that take time. Also reinstalling packages. I think the answer is to use a cross-release upgrade. they seem to work for me with both Debian and Devuan.
I have a particular problem with keeping R upgraded. R in Debian (and Devuan) as a package tends to get rather dated. I have always overcome that by installing it from source code outside of the package system. That is quite a bit of work. The attraction of Void is that it keeps R up to date as a package.
R is even more complicated, in that within R there is another package system of its own internal packages, of which there are over 3000. The R package system is not very advanced, it does not deal with dependencies, so keeping R internal packages updated is lots of work.
Both Debian and Void keep some of the important R internal packages as Debian or Void packages ( they have names like r-cran-base) , so these ones get automatically updated. Void has a better selection than Debian of R internal packages, So this is another plus for Void.
Sorry that is complicated, but thats the way it is. One package system working inside another one is a messy situation.
I was disappointed to read Void did not perform for you. Probably something to do with drivers for your hardware.
You have a lot of experience with distributions. Is there something else I should be looking at?
Regards
Neville
I just can’t stop myself from pointing out how having your sound not work at all in your GUI distribution is actually a huge issue.
Having said that, GUI Debian is a sad example of how “stable” and “well tested” mean nothing in the GUI Linux world.
The last time I wanted to use GUI Debian was 2 years ago at christmas, when I wanted to install GUI Debian on a new laptop for someone.
After several hours of stress and work (during Christmas!) it simply did not work. Had to resort to Lubuntu, to make at least the GUI appear.
Lucky for the laptop owner, Linux will only be used for browsing the internet and opening e-mails. That’s it. Else, it wouldn’t be possible to use Linux, because the owner is extremely non-techy and does not know anything about computers except how to browse the internet and open e-mails.
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Hi Neville,
I am not an expert in Linux and only sharing my personal experience and my point of view. I did try quite a few distros trying to find the best one. I think that most popular distros (Mint, PCLinuxOS, Zorin, Ubuntu, etc.) are a good start for inexperienced users, but with gaining more knowledge I prefer to start with minimal system and then completely customize it according to my needs and taste. Linux From Scratch lets us build a completely custom system entirely from source code. However, it requires a lot of learning and time. Debian makes it fast and easy. Debian is stable, reliable and provides a choice of installation media from 48 MB mini.iso to full size DVD, lets me install an absolute minimal core system, then add only what I need. Debian provides wide range hardware support with non-free repositories added. Since you recommend Void, I will give it another try, however Void is based on it’s own code, doesn’t have as many users and developers as Debian and, probably, doesn’t have the same level of hardware support as Debian.
Best regards,
Deby
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Hi Akito,
Actually, on vanilla Debian everything works perfectly. I mentioned the issues I had with Devuan and Star Linux. There were a few insignificant issues, but overall Devuan and Star work great. GUI is a general term, so it depends what desktop environment, window and display managers you choose. XFCE and LXDE are tried and true. They will never crash or give you a problem. KDE and GNOME, on the other hand, will occasionally crash and/or show any other sign of buggy software. MATE is somewhere in the middle. I installed Debian with LXDE, SLiM display manager, Openbox window manager on many different desktops and laptops and never experienced any kind of instability and not a single error. Ubuntu MATE kept asking me to send a system error report to developers almost every day.
You are right. The void kernel is the same as Debian, the package system is different but it works well. You would like it as a clean minimal system. The runit init system is simpler than systemd. I use void with xfce. As you say its a personal choice. We are lucky to have such a range of choices.
And thanks for supporting me on kde
Neville
That’s a delusional statement. Please, try to attach 4 monitors to your dedicated and fairly new NVIDIA graphics card (not AMD!!) and then attach another one to the mainboard’s video output. See what happens. If you can get that setup to work “perfectly”, you should get a prize for that.
P.S.:
Doing that on Windows 10 literally just takes the time to attach the monitor cables and then adjusting the window positions in the settings. That’s it. So, if you take your time and are really slow, it will never take more than 10 minutes.
You should qualify that … everything I need works perfectly
Debian 10 had some problems with its version of CUPS. I had to wait for Debian 11 to fix it. That is the issue with Debian. Stability comes at a price, versions are not upgraded until a major release. If there is a dud version of some package , you just have to wait. If you try installing a more recent version of a package , the stability guarantee disappears.
Rolling release distros Like Gentoo and Arch) fix that issue, but the price is less stability. Managed rolling release distros (like Solus and Void) sit somewhere in between.
Neville
Last night I ran a single process in Void linux which used my entire 64Gb of ram and started to swap. It involved solving over 10 million simultaneous equations. It took half an hour. Try doing that in Windows. It can only address 16Gb of ram and afaik it does not have a swap space. Windows is a great gui with nothing behind it. To do some serious computer calculations I need an OS that gives me access to the whole machine.
Windows was invented to appease executives who were addicted to their typing pool and did not want to learn keyboard skills. Thats about all it does.
Neville
It does have “swap” space. It’s called Pagefile. Opposed to Linux, there is no noticable performance impact, when having a Pagefile on Windows.
Additionally, as you can see on the linked guide, you don’t need to use the command line at all in Windows, to adjust the Pagefile. However, you do need that in Linux, because Linux GUI is crap.
Windows is an end-user operating system. The case you are talking about does not need a GUI. Actually the opposite: it should not be done on a computer with a GUI, to make the equations as quickly as possible. Therefore, your example is faulty and does not apply. I am talking about the GUI experience on end-user operating systems. When it comes to professional or advanced usage without needing/wanting a GUI, then Linux is fine. For these purposes, I use Linux literally every day. However, whenever I tried to use GUI Linux, it just always had major issues.
That is a false statement. It delivers usability and user friendliness, which Linux GUI lacks most of the time. At least, when you are trying anything that goes beyond surfing the web and reading e-mails.
This could come from a typical blind Linux elitist, who thinks that computers should be as difficult as possible to use, to exclude everyone non-techy or simply non-interested in computers. From the comments I have read coming from you, I am sure that you are not an elitist, but just a person who uses the computer for special unusual cases. That’s why, it does not look good on you, when you are more or less quoting the elitists that keep Linux down since Unix had been still the biggest word in the computer world.
Yes. years ago I worked on a computer where to run a user program you removed the os, loaded your executable, and used the toggle switches to start executing at the base address to which it was loaded.
That really gave you all the computer. Disadvantage was your program had to drive all the peripherals itself, no os layer to help with drivers, etc.
So I do need an os, just as you say a cut down one.
And OK, I take your arguments. But be aware, I have also observed you saying that people will not get far with Linux without using the command line.
I wonder could some of this gui integration stuff be fixed by setting boot levels like Solaris used to. Instead of just multiuser and single use, could we do a couple of levels of gui configuration?
Cheers
Neville
Hi Bob, with old hardware I would recommand to use Linux Mint with XFCE Desktop. It runs also very stable and requires less hardware resources.
Dan:
Have you taken Free Office for a spin?
Looks like a possible.
As already mentioned, https://alternativeto.net/ is a great resource for finding new programs. The arch wiki also has a pretty exhaustive list of programs across every category List of applications - ArchWiki as well as a cross reference of package management commands across distros, so you can try substituting the command for your distro when following a guide or solution you found online pacman/Rosetta - ArchWiki. And whether you’re concerned about privacy or not, https://www.privacytools.io/ also lists alternatives, which usually happen to be linux/cross platform substitutes for windows/cross platform programs.
As for some of my personal recommendations:
MS Office → LibreOffice
Photo editing → Pinta, GIMP
Photo management → digiKam
Drawing → Krita
Video Editing → Kdenlive, DaVinci Resolve
KeePass → KeePassXC, bitwarden
GlassWire → picosnitch
Sending files → croc
CLI Shell → fish
Time Machine → timeshift, restic
File Sync → syncthing
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No - I still wouldn’t trust it - there’s just too much that can go wrong if we’re using ugly corporate styled templates and such rubbish… I personally detest ALL of that stuff… what’s wrong with markup / markdown anyway? But sometimes I have to collaborate on MS Office documents, most of the time online (e.g. web access to O365) works… not all the time but… I keep a copy of Office 365 on my Macbook for such use cases…
I’ve tried using Open / Libre office with ugly corporate documents, put a carriage return in the wrong place - and BINGO! All the formatting gets trashed!
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Correction: Everything works perfectly on my simple setup with one Intel CPU with integrated graphics, 4GB RAM, one 120GB SSD, Realtek Ethernet, one monitor and no printer, scanner or camera. Debian should also work well with no errors on most standard hardware that is not too old or very recent. Debian 10 and 11 also worked well on DELL and HP laptops. Some Acer laptops have a buggy UEFI, which does not let to install GRUB properly. The workaround is to add boot loader files as trusted in secure boot UEFI settings. After that everything works. Of course, there could be problems with non standard hardware. It is very easy on MAC, because they design everything including hardware, OS and software.
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