For me, the easiest install out of Debian, Void, Solus, and Devuan was Devuan by a long way. The most difficult was Void.
I did install MX once… it was about the same as Debian in difficulty
Cheers
Neville
Well, depends on the definition of “slow”.
I think, it’s much more time draining to have a “minimal” distribution, not having anything installed, and then you have to install stuff for hours, instead of having it already readily installed, for your convenience.
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I think Ubuntu and its derivatives inherit the slowness from Debian,
and
@Akito is right… slowness is the price you pay for comprehensiveness and stability
and
there are varieties of slowness
- slowness of booting
- slowness executing software
- slowness launching software
- slowness updating package versions and kernel
- slowness fixing bugs
- slowness responding to help requests
- slowness of the display manager screen
The Debian/Ubuntu family has all of them to some degree
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Interesting "litany’ of slowness there!
The last times i tried to install Ubuntu MATE, it stayed at the icon level or took forever to load once installed.
Mint’s version is totally better on both counts.
Based on Ubuntu - how can it improve something that appears to be “flawed” from the getgo?
I dont know, but I think Mint is a rather drastic deviation from Ubuntu. It does not have snap for example.
it stayed at the icon level or took forever to load once installed.
I think you are talking about slowness launching software… time from icon click to running. That involves disk access… obviously an ssd would speed that up. Maybe Ubuntu cluttering up its disk with snap mounts slows things up.
Also involves the dte, I hope you are comparing mate/ubuntu with mate/mint.
Other than that I just dont know
One thing I do know is that slowness booting can be due to using bash to run all the little scripts involved. Bash is slow. Void has a special cutdown shell called dash just for use in booting. Void boots in about half the time of Debian
MX has made some effort to streamline things, but it is still mostly Debian. If you really want to get away from the Debian/Ubuntu family and still have a seriously stable system, really the only choice for home use is OpenSUSE. It is build like a tank, but its a whole new world, lots to learn.
Cheers
Neviller
@nevj - think you nailed it right.
Do recall people complaining about Firefox Snap version being slow.
For the record, tried Mint MATE 21 with protocol for printer and it works (as expected) as well.
Not sure about SUSE being able to install said printer driver…
Tried yesterday with MX XFCE and then Garuda.
Both failed at installing the printer driver.
Always an error message about corrupt file.
Every snap packet you install becomes a loop mount… so 20 snap packets become 20 loop mounts , which the disk software sees as 20 partitions. lsblk shows 20 partitions in addition to your normal ones.
That must be some burden on the disk system.
Then when you run a snap package, it runs in a container. Containers are slow, even very efficient containers like Docker. Dont know what sort of container snap uses, but all VM is slow.
WhenI start up a docker container, it is not instant like a menu click or a command line. It has to do more than just load a binary .
Regards
Neville
Not sure about SUSE being able to install said printer driver…
Tried yesterday with MX XFCE and then Garuda.
Both failed at installing the printer driver.
Always an error message about corrupt file.
That is crazy. I thought HPLIP was everywhere.
Are you getting hplip thru the package system? That is the safest way.
I dont have an HP printer.
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That was a delightful insight on SNAPS bud!
Have been a distro hopper for years now.
Installing this HP LaserJet 1018 printer has been a no-brainer up until about a week ago.
HPLIP just can’t install the driver.
Luckily, that protocol for Mint has saved the day.
I’m a huge KDE fan, but the protocol won’t work on KDE Neon.
Would probably get more help at MX or Titan Linux forums to get it to work…
Just happy for now with Mint MATE.
In Debian, when I install cups, that is not enough to make all the drivers available. I have to install packages called foomatic and gutenprint. Then cups will find the drivers… for most old printers. It does not find mynold Brother printer and I have to do a hand install of its drivers.
So, question did you forget to install the driver packages for each of those distros that failed?
I cant imagine that a driver that used to be there for your printer would suddenly be taken out of the driver packages simultaneously in several distros.
FYI, posted this at DestinationLinux forum (“two heads are better than one!”):
"Just finished installing Nobara “official” with all the updates (almost 45 min. in all)!
Out of the box, it recognized the printer, but going over to HP toolbox, and try to install plugin:
“file does not match its checksum. File may have been corrupted or altered.”
Also tried downloading via terminal “hp-plugin -i”:
warning: nobaralinux distro is not found in AUTH_TYPES
error: Plugin download failed with error code = 8
error: file does not match its checksum. File may have been corrupted or altered"
Hard to believe that such a top-notch distro couldn’t cover that old printer.
-(forget how huge the iso was, almost 5G!).
I wonder if you are blaming the wrong party.
When you downloaded the hp-plugin, were you not dealing with HP?
The error message seems to indicate HP is not recognising nobara as one of their approved linux varieties.
On a more general note, you seem to be looking to solve a problem by searching for a distro that handles it.
It may be more fruitful to settle on a distro for other reasons, and then just dig into,the problem and solve it the hard way.
He is absolutely blaming the correct party. It is a myth and a huge misconception mostly propagandised by Linux fanatics, that “tHeY ShOuLd jUsT ReLeAsE A BeTtEr liinUx dRiiVeR”. The reason for that is, that Linux and its distributions are mostly maintained by people who do not care for the average Joe. So, if they don’t care about the average Joe, those distributions won’t be nearly as popular as the proprietary alternatives.
Now, there is a company that needs to make money to survive in the capitalistic system. Like for example Hewlett Packard, in this specific case.
They need to make money, so they invest, where required. They may produce a driver for Linux, but don’t have to, because Linux is too unpopular. Its market share is too small.
That said, HP’s market is several times bigger than the market of all possible Linux distributions combined.
Therefore, Linux has to account for what is missing. HP does not have to move a single finger. Linux and its distributions’ maintainers are to blame here. They put their products in this position and now they have to accept, that they need to accommodate for the lack of hardware support and other issues.
As outlined above, I would strongly recommend everyone, that they stop blaming companies for not putting too much money into the Linux situation, when its market is that small. Linux is at fault. It’s the maintainers’ job to fix Linux issues, until they turn around their head by 180° and finally allow the systems to acquire a larger market share on the end-user market, where such end-user printers are used.
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I’ll explain it with a metaphora, for everyone to understand.
If I’m going to build a super special space rocket, that can only travel to a specific moon of Jupiter, but only in a very specific way, which is not suited for everyone, which makes it an even more fringe object, where probably only a few people around the entire world would care enough to even look at it, then I cannot expect every single car repair shop on earth to offer replacement parts for my super special space rocket. It just wouldn’t make sense.
However, when it comes to Linux, suddenly people start complaining, that companies don’t do much for Linux. It’s just mind-boggling to guess where all this entitlement comes from.
One thing that would be a huge step in the correct direction is the following.
Linux maintainers should pull their heads out of their asses and increase the time/effort/money investment into GUI development from 0.1% (current value) to AT LEAST 50%. This is the absolute minimum. Ideally, it should be like 60% or even 70%. Then Linux would become tons better for the average Joe within 1-3 years and raise its market share in the end-user market by a significant & undeniable amount.
The average Joe does not care about Kernel features. At all. The average Joe does not even know which Kernel version is installed or if it needs an update. It does not matter.
The average Joe cares about usability, workability and convenience.
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I was not talking about what companies should do.
I wanted to pinpoint which piece of software was at fault in this particular case.
Sounds to me like you were saying, that HP should’ve made a wider range of drivers available.
Not quite
I read that message
Also tried downloading via terminal “hp-plugin -i”:
warning: nobaralinux distro is not found in AUTH_TYPES
error: Plugin download failed with error code = 8
as implying that somewhere in wherever the plugin comes from ( I think HP) there is a list called AUTH_TYPES and nobaralinux is not in the list.
Do you read it that way?
If so, the fix is to
- get it added to the list, or
- find a distro that is in the list.
- and it might help if we could find out what distros are in this mysterious AUTH_TYPES list
There is a list:
https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/gethplip?language=fr
The way i see it now…
It’s neither HP’s nor the distros fault.
Sounds like a no-fault car accident insurance!
HP can’t be expected to bend over to the little 1 or 2 % who use Linux.
And Linux doesn’t have the manpower to assure every single printer works.
Presently testing MX KDE 21 (can’t stand Gnome!) .
It’s on the list, but driver still will not install (just as it did not so long ago - a few months maybe).
Will be content with Windows 10 for now.
Speed and security were once a big issue with Windows.
With SSDs, at least half of my grievances with M$ are over.
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It is a rather short list. Dont know what Other means
So if you stick to the list, you at least get past that issue
It’s neither HP’s nor the distros fault
Yes , either could fix it.
When you get MX setup, make sure you install foomatic and gutenprint, then try and set up your printer with CUPS. I bet CUPS at least discovers the drivers.
Windows isn’t very secure. However, compared to Linux it’s fine. Linux is in some parts extremely insecure. If people would suddenly write as much malicious software as for Windows, it would nuke the end-user Linux world.
Speed is the biggest issue with Windows. It’s pretty much always slower than Linux.