My first Debian attempt - And a second one

Andy2 · February 3, 2021, 4:26pm

Well Roger you are one weird guy - nothing wrong with that.
I cordially reply yet this is still not good enough for you - just what is wrong with you. I even offered to…

… just how nice and kind can one guy get…? Yet you respond to this kind offer with a childish rant… and throw your toys out of your pram

Beggars belief - Dude; how pathetic can you get - better not say more…!

You are so way off the mark again - could I make a last ditch attempt to bring you back to some kind of reality…? You keep on ignoring advice known to most as I have tried to kindly point out just go to h-node - IT IS THAT SIMPLE - anyone can understand this but you; as you keep posting the same stuff over and over boring the crap out of everyone. As I said - you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink was this ever so true in your case…

Does it work with free software - no It would suggest to most people that they may have a problem and may need an adapter - but Hey; not you - you know better. Far out Dude: conceited arrogance or what…?

Again Dude - you really have lost the plot here in your tantrum. What does this sentence mean…? Do you not check with reality before posting…

Again Dude - you really have lost the plot here in your tantrum.
I am astounded Dude - do you not know how to search under a profile…? You are just so out of touch with reality - to top it all you posted here too… Jeeeeeeeez… Dude

It is well known by most and yourself that I have three computers all working faultlessly and that my Dell E6420 was dual boot Win10-Pro - ubuntu This is where I started out and know it inside out but never liked it. I have also tested Bodhi and EndevourOS to name but a few.

I think you should apologise - Don’t you? In light of all that I have corrected you on - you say unbelievably…

This coming from you …Quat You have got to be joking… I do know my arse from my elbow and the efficacy of my tests are validated by experts outside of this forum. Send PM if you need the full list. I am still waiting for Akito to provide evidence to the contrary and carry out the test to prove …

Instead all I am getting is throwing pig shit and no answers or tests that contradict real experts. Hey Dude - I can take this without even breaking into a sweat - so get real…

Do you have inside information on this…?
What do you know…?

That you ended with recommending the second slowest mainstream that I have tested distro speaks volumes

Edit; should anyone want to take the piss or criticize my tests just have a quick read at ubuntupit or here: My Tests personified …

Work your way down to the heading, yes Heading Performance & resource usage and read “RAM usage hovers slightly above 1 GB, which is a bit high. But then, as you start using the distro, it chokes up quickly. With some package management, media playback and a few other tasks in parallel, Mageia quickly hit the swap space and starting slowing down. I have not seen this with other distros on the LG RD510 laptop”
This is exactly what my tests quantify for our FOSS membership so they know a slow poke when they see it!
Yeh but “who gives a flying piece of pig shit” well I and many others do

kovacslt · February 6, 2021, 1:46pm

I don’t really understand all of the sentences above
Feels, I caused some flame-war, which was not my intention at all.

Just in defend for my much liked Debian…

If you looked at it more thoroughly, you would have found, that Debian by default omits everything that’s closed source, and the list includes firmwares too.

https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware

However, nobody trying/using Debian is forced to use only FOSS stuff.
I myself do use proprietary dirvers for my nvidia, non-free firmwares for my intel wifi too.
So that should not be a problem.
Without actually knowing your wifi dongle, I think you neded only the firmware-realtek package.
This package is preinstalled in the “unofficial images”, you could take them for example from here:

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/10.7.0-live+nonfree/amd64/iso-hybrid/

These include the non-free blobs, and are also live system, so putting them on an USB stick makes it possible to try without actually install.
I don’t think that Debian is that stupid.
Maybe it’s not for you, that’s fine. But please don’t call it stupid!

My father (73) uses Mint too, and he is quite satisfied with it.

It looks exactly you want it to look.
I use Debian with the MATE desktop, and I can setup MATE to look and behave as I used to it before.
See in the “post your desktop” topic, there’s my desktop:

Somewhat above in this topic you can see how it looks on my laptop too.

Akito · February 6, 2021, 1:47pm

Precisely. With Debian you can do whatever you want.

Andy2 · February 6, 2021, 3:02pm

Hey @kovacslt do not worry about your sanity - I have bent over backwards to help this guy @R_G Roger on the forum and by PM - he then throws it back in your face… Even more alarming he then starts posting the same crap content over and over again on different topics

I have lost count the number of times I have pointed to him and others h-node org where you can check your hardware out…

It could not be clearer even for a Noob - THE ANSWER IS NO
He then continues with his tantrum saying that he is going to buy the FsF gnulinux Wifi USB adapter just to prove me wrong - that is so pathetic. Hey Akito wants to prove me wrong too - over efficiency with RAM but has yet to do so.

Hey what can an old pensioner like me do - take no notice - carry on forwards - provide researched advice with best intentions - they throw that back in your face too…
Look at the Face - am I bovvered (bothered)
So good to see Akito now offering the same good advice as me; as she knows I use windows Serif applications under wine on part debian Trisquel - the cardinal sin OMG Please don’t tell that Catholic Moderator @johnblood else I won’t get buried in consecrated ground

OMG

Take EXTRA care to Stay Safe

johnblood · February 6, 2021, 3:48pm

Nice. One of my favorites.

kovacslt · February 7, 2021, 7:42pm

[ON]
I’ll try both Trisquel an PCLOS on VM’s with exact same attributes, assigned CPU cores, amount of RAM, etc.
I think I’ll compare boot time, applications startup time, browser speed, but also idle RAM usage.

[OFF]

I saw it in his “about”, I think i’ts allowed there.
We have to be allowed to tell such facts about ourselves. Why not?

Remember 2 Timothy 4:2:

Probably this post will be removed, banned, etc, because…
1 Corinthians 1:18

R_G · February 7, 2021, 7:53pm

I will patiently wait for a good outcome.

kovacslt · February 7, 2021, 8:04pm

I started to download them. Trisquel features MATE desktop, so I choosed the MATE flavour of PCLOS too. I don’t feel right to compare KDE or XFCE against a MATE flavour on a probably weak (virtual) machine.
This will take some time, probably days long…
I’ll provide videos on YT.

Akito · February 7, 2021, 8:10pm

No it won’t. But it’d be nice of you to refrain from issuing any further religious comments. Thank you.

kovacslt · February 7, 2021, 8:15pm

I promise, that was the only one.

kovacslt · February 8, 2021, 3:57pm

I did not finish yet. My first finding is that on a VM with 4 CPU cores, and 3GB RAM they perform just the same. I cannot really measure differences in times.
However, Trisquel tends to use about 100MB more RAM while idling. This is negligible if I have 3 GB, but now I stripped down the VM’s to 1 CPU and only 1024MB of RAM.
In this situation Trisquel seems to boot up a lot slower. GIMP on Trisquel started faster, but is an older version (2.8.2), while PCLOS has 2.10 installed. LO writer starts on PCLOS faster, but again, this is a newer version than Trisquel has (7.1 vs 6.0).
When the applications started, task switching seems instant on both sides.
At the moment I think, an extremely weak PC would run PCLOS better in general. But an only 4-5 years old PC with 2GB or more RAM won’t show remarkable difference in performance in general. I think, I’d prefer Trisquel over PCLOS on such a machine, because it “feels” more familiar to me.

kovacslt · February 9, 2021, 12:32pm

OK, here are the very first exact measurements.
According to my liking I added Debian Buster into the group.

All the three VM’s are of the exact same spec’s; 1GB RAM, 1 CPU (50% execution peak, so it’s slower), same size of HDD, chipset, etc…

So the first measurement is boot: the time from pressing [ENTER] in GRUB, until getting to the login screen:
PCLinuxOS: 14.6 seconds
Trisquel: 33 seconds
Debian: 33 seconds

Then here the stopwatch pauses, until I enter credentials for login. When pressing “login” on the greeter screen the stopwatch starts again, until the desktop fully loads. So at the end it will show the time required to boot up + login, excluding the time I spend with giving my password…

The time until fully loaded desktop:
PCLinuxOS: 51.6 seconds
Trisquel: 47.1 seconds
Debian: 42 seconds

Idle RAM usage (approximately, as it’s changing:
PCLinuxOS: 568 MiB + 9MiB swap
Trisquel: 630 MiB + 524 KiB swap
Debian: ~430 MiB + 0 swap

Videos:
PCLinuxOS:

Trisquel:

Debian:

I’ll do more tests, launching GIMP, LO Writer, browser to go to itsfoss.community, and if you have some idea what to compare, please don’t hesitate, let me know, and I’ll do it if I can.

Mina · February 9, 2021, 1:46pm

The thing is: I reckon, that in order to get a real feeling for an operating system, you have to do some real stuff and for some time, say: do some real video editing, install a database and run a web server with some third party content management system and so forth.

I despise these “tests” you can see on youtube: I installed xyz Linux and the installer worked fine, the browser too, I could play this or that video game, but I don’t like the icons, so it’s crap.

In the end: Installing Linux and getting a well set up system is dead easy nowadays. The distributions’ developers have become pretty good at providing gentle entries.

R_G · February 9, 2021, 2:18pm

Dear @Nina,
I beg to differ : please try to install these nine distro, and let me see your progress :

Dragora GNU/Linux-Libre Dragora GNU/Linux-Libre, an independent GNU/Linux distribution based on concepts of simplicity.

Parabola GNU/Linux-libre Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, a distribution based on Arch that prioritizes simple package and system management.

Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre, a long-term support simplicity-focused distribution based on Arch GNU/Linux.

Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic, a GNU/Linux distribution with special emphasis on audio and video editing. This is a “static” distro, normally run from a live CD. Since it will not receive security updates, it should be used offline.

guix System Guix System, an advanced GNU/Linux distro built on top of GNU Guix (pronounced “geeks”), a purely functional package manager for the GNU system.

PureOS PureOS, a GNU distribution based on Debian with a focus on privacy, security, and convenience.

Trisque Trisquel, a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that’s oriented toward small enterprises, domestic users and educational centers.

Ututo Ututo S, a GNU/Linux 100% free distribution. It was the first fully free GNU/Linux system recognized by the GNU Project.

gNewSense gNewSense, a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian, with sponsorship from the FSF.

Akito · February 9, 2021, 2:21pm

I think you are making unfair comparisons.

You are naming an entire list of some niche Linux distributions, of which I only know 3, by name.

I think it is just normal that a tiny derivative of something will always have lacking support and UX. That’s normal.

I think @Mina mainly addressed the major distributions, like Ubuntu, Mint, etc. These are very easy to handle!

Mina · February 9, 2021, 2:39pm

As if I hadn’t better things to do, my dear!

Actually, the only one of your list that I already installed on a VM was the so much discussed Trisquel, and it was the quickest installation process ever. I had a running system in little more than 15 minutes with only one minor issue I had to fix.
However, I did not continue using it because the whole look and feel was a bit frugal for my taste and I didn’t want to spend time in tailoring it to my needs just for the sake of doing so.

R_G · February 9, 2021, 4:04pm

Well the list is just this one :

and I only I wish these were easier to install.

kovacslt · February 9, 2021, 4:08pm

You are absolutely right on this. I think I did enough real stuff on Debian, as well as on Linux Mint. When I hopped from Mint to Debian, it felt a little bit faster, a little bit more responsive than Mint before. But there was no big drama in this regard. Yet, meeting Debian was “love at first sight” for me.
I just want to see, are there really such big differences between the distros performance, that it’s worth to fight a flame war? (I doubt, but who knows?)

Mina · February 9, 2021, 4:44pm

I don’t really think so.

I reckon, when it comes to distributions for everyday use, other factors matter:

Do I like the desktop?
How well organized are the system’s settings?
Is my hardware supported?
How good is the software centre?

When you watch some Linux freaks’ videos, you can get the impression that everything based on Ubuntu is just for pussies (not that I mind), Arch is the only way to go. I call that bullshit.

Having used an Arch based distro for a while and an Ubuntu based one for years, I can say: The sheer amount of available software is bigger in the Arch repository - with a far higher chance of stumbling over missing dependencies and buggy programs.

When it comes to enterprise grade solutions, I would choose neither, but go for plain Debian or Suse.

kovacslt · February 9, 2021, 10:03pm

I never tried Arch. But I read the Arch-wiki from time to time. It soooo much helpful, even using Debian.