Observations of a distro hopper

Discussion
21

not funny :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

okay - getting fed up of Fedora 34ā€¦ itā€™s better than elementary - but - thereā€™s NO DOCK!

Thereā€™s some kinda ā€œdashā€ thingie, i.e. the gnome 3.x dash, and it floats at the bottom of the screen - hidden ALL the time till you press the super key - thatā€™s NO GOOD! I donā€™t want to press the fā€™ing super key EVERY Fā€“KING time I wanna task switch or fire up some new application! It seems the Gnome people made a decision to make sure the ā€œdash 2 dockā€ plugin is broken in Gnome 4.0 and thatā€™s the default on Fedora 34, and itā€™s also the default in Ubuntu 21.10 I believeā€¦

So - if we want a dock we have to go plank, which DOESNā€™T WORK IN WAYLAND!

Was ALMOST about to distro-surf again - but I think Iā€™ll give Fedora a longer evalā€¦ I was having to use plank in elementary anywayā€¦ So - weā€™ll stick with Fedora for a bit I reckonā€¦

Now to install Brave, remmina, Citrix, maybe VirtualBox, some themesā€¦ ResilioSyncā€¦ Oh yeah, and the shittiest of all VPN clients Chuckpint (sic) SNS SSL VPN (not having that functionality is the showstopper)

If this doesnā€™t cut the mustard by the weekend, I reckon Iā€™ll be trying out Debian 11 Bullseye - donā€™t see the point in PopOS, isnā€™t it just a reskinned Ubuntu?

Note - gestures work out of the box in Fedora 34 so long as youā€™re running Waylandā€¦ Iā€™m about to wipe Fedora - SNX VPN client install went to shit, and I canā€™t be arsed figuring out how to work around itā€¦ so itā€™s back to Ubuntu and/or Ubuntu derived (but not elementary)ā€¦ I may yet go Kubuntu :smiley:

1 Like
22

Linux Mint maybe?
:thinking:

23

No - Iā€™ve tried mint once or twice over the last couple of years and it didnā€™t ā€œworkā€ for me (i.e. I didnā€™t like it - no technical issues)ā€¦

Iā€™m getting Kubuntu 20.04 nowā€¦ I reckon Iā€™ll stay with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS based distros in the longer termā€¦ But when the torrent for Kubuntuā€™s finished, Iā€™ll be formatting Fedora 34 and replacing with Kubuntuā€¦ Also downloading PopOS - 20.04ā€¦ But - I kinda hate that ugly flat material design choice that PopOS uses (yeah - I know, itā€™s gnome 38.x, I can change that)ā€¦

So - next cab off the rank will be Kubuntu 20.04 - should be a piece of cake getting my work VPN client software installed.

hmmm - Iā€™m sitting on the fence, toss up between KDE Neon and Kubuntuā€¦ didnā€™t like the ā€œout of the boxā€ experience of KDE on Ubuntu 21.04ā€¦ so tempted to try out KDE Neon (based on 20.04)ā€¦

24

Is that Winbuntu or Ubuntows?! :laughing:

Well, I use Debian and usually recommend it. I use Bullseye since it came into testing and didnā€™t have any problems, except problems related to it being unstable, like packages missing and then later, once it came to testing, it created a couple of problems in WSL2 and on a Raspberry Pi. Again, due to package inconsistencies and incompatabilities. However, that are very special cases and basically do not even count anymore, as Bullseye is now Stable. The problems all happened when it was still Unstable or Testing.

Since I used Nix on my laptop, too, and can confirm that it kept its promises, I would recommend it, too. But there is always the warning I have to entail with that recommendation:
If you really want to change to NixOS, you will have a LOT of learning to do (if youā€™re very used to the Debian and APT world)!

Yes, they usually pull plain Ubuntu into their source and then smack some cosmetics on top. At least, thatā€™s what usually happens.

Good luck. :laughing:

Doesnā€™t seem like a bad choice. KDE usually makes things work. KDE has a lot of own tools and helper apps that can improve the OS situation for users.

KDE Neon is the Linux distribution developed by KDE derived from Ubuntu Long-Term Support (LTS) releases and comes together with the Plasma version, along with other KDE software. What differentiates KDE Neon from Plasma is the fact that Neon only allows the latest KDE applications to run on it. KDE Neon is made specifically for KDE users, as it only accepts KDE applications and cannot run non-KDE programs. The plus side of this feature is that it regularly receives updates and is usually the first to experience newly-developed KDE applications. Since it also employs Plasma as its default desktop environment, Neon is extremely lightweight and has a very attractive visual appearance, further boosted by eye-catching icons, mesmerizing animations, and polished widgets.
KDE Plasma vs. Neon

25

That was way way too ā€œglass half fullā€ shit for me :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: coming from a glass is half empty type guyā€¦

Of course elementary couldnā€™t figure out there was a ZFS encrypted disk there!

So - after all that pain - still more pain - installing KDE Neon distro nowā€¦ after test driving it live for a bitā€¦

Instead of giving up when things ā€œget too hardā€ - I need to put some effort into thisā€¦ But just getting the ā€œbottomā€ panel to sit at the top like a status bar, gets me all in a tizzle, and I end up with TWO bottom panels, one floating just above the bottom one, and the bits that make up the bottom panel get dragged too far left or right and it looks horribleā€¦

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I gave up - things got too hardā€¦

Thereā€™s a bug Iā€™ve seen before in other distros - thereā€™s a configuration tool in KDE (KDE Neon) to tweak the window titlle bar controls (e.g. ā€œX _ [ ]ā€) I can drag new ones up but they donā€™t show on the preview - AND - thereā€™s no way to remove or move the default ones on the right, BECAUSE THEY DONā€™T SHOW UP ON THE FAKE PREVIEW so you canā€™t even SEE THEM TO GET RID OF THEM! (KDE in Kubuntu does NOT do this - at least you can drag the existing widgets, either off, or reposition, their location on the application window title bar).

So anway I booted Debian 11, and got a 800x600 desktop in the live session and couldnā€™t be arsed figuring out why.

So I booted DeepIN thinking ā€˜fā€“k Chinese Democracyā€™ Iā€™ll risk it - and it was kinda / sorta okay, but some rather SHITTY annoyances - and - I felt like was standing naked, in Tianenmen Square facing off a tank battallion - my default user account on my personal computers is one char long, deepin doesnā€™t like that - minimum of THREE CHARS! Why? Itā€™s my computer you Stalinist piece of shit! Oh yeah - nearly forgot - the last straw was after I changed my username back to a single char (and updated /home/ and /etc/passwd and /etc/group and /etc/shadow) - I rebooted and console would just say ā€œDisabling #IR7ā€ and then nothingā€¦

So - I find myself back in stock Ubuntu 20.04.xā€¦ and wonā€™t be straying again for a whileā€¦

In the interim Iā€™ll reseach how to disable Canonical/Microsoftā€™s ENFORCED Fascist update on boot up bullshit! Better the fascist you know, than the stalinist you donā€™tā€¦ :smiley:

3 Likes
27

I used Debian 11 XFCE and it was working flawlessly, then found that a lot of the Linux Mint xapps I use, didnā€™t want to know, so thought OK I can use alternatives. Then tried installing Pulse-Equalizer, as normal pulse audio does not cut it for me, need to be able to hear people speaking in films (Especially when actors are whispering in each otherā€™s faces.) Tried to see why it was not working? Itā€™s the same version as Ubuntu 20.04 that does not work, because itā€™s the same version as Ubuntu 18.04, which in 18.04 it works, because it was written for that. In the repos of Debian 11 is pulse-effects a fantastic app with a preset in the Equalizer setting called perfect, which it is gives you perfect clarity when watching films or listening to music but pulse-effects in Debian 11 keeps crashing. Or at least it did for me, much to my annoyance and frustration at it, the moment of chucking my computer out of the window entered my head many, many times.

What we all must remember is that we are all using a totally free operating system, no matter what Linux OS environment we choose to use, there will be gripes along the way, that we are just not used to seeing. So the words that rhyme with Bucketty Bucket sprung to my mind and downloaded a fresh copy of Linux Mint 20.04 Ulyana plain old 20.04 before the first point release. XFCE edition. Yay everything running smoothly, as always save my panel profiles with my apps on and panel layout, saves mucking around rebuilding or time on customising. There was a plugin I wanted to remove off of my panel, the minimize windows show desktop plugin right clicked it, left clicked remove and it deleted all my panels. Once I got panels back installed NVIDIA Drivers, the latest ones, switched on Force Full Composition Pipeline in the NVIDIA settings, stops screen tearing for gaming and when scrolling documents, forums, websites, watching videos etc.
Clicked the save settings button, would not save had to copy the preview xorg.conf script and make my own in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

So I managed to fix everything, yep nice pat on the back, a Blue Peter badge given to me by the ghost of John Noakes, from Blue Peter
Still in the back of my mind was the niggly niggle feeling and questioning ofā€¦
Is the panel thing going to happen again? Yes it did, not only that, but through out of Linux Mintā€™s XFCE editions of 20.04 Ulyana, Ulyssa and Uma, when adding apps to the panel it opts to put your file manager on your panel instead of the app you asked for in the first place.

After removing File Manager from panel, without all the panels disappearing, it puts the correct app on after reselecting the original app you wanted in the first place. Iā€™ve now moved to the point release version of Linux Mint Ulyssa, as Ulyana had problems opening Login Window for Slick-Greeter. It would not open at all, even after inserting my password. Uma just keeps deleting all my panels when trying to remove a app off of the panel. Ulyssa is doing everything correctly, as it should be doing, without any headaches, also PulseEffects is running fine, for 18.04 and 20.04 scroll down the page a little. Recommended after installing to reboot, then open Pulse-effects.

For gaming Iā€™m using Manjaro XFCE edition the latest release, have just bought a USB Sound Card This just increases the sound quality even more.

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28

I think this URL : https://ubuntu.com/blog/whats-new-in-security-for-ubuntu-21-04

Might explain this behaviourā€¦ i.e. thatā€™s just a grub update? But it took so damn long (like 10 mins just to get to that 75% progress, TEN MINUTES where I CANNOT DO ANY WORK!) - I wasnā€™t going to tolerate itā€¦ i.e. a grub updateā€¦ That URL above seems to be favouring this as a ā€œfeatureā€ and not a GIGANTIC ABOMINABLE SETBACK ā€¦

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Note - RPi 4 and most ARM stuff donā€™t use grub, so Iā€™d never seen this behaviourā€¦

29

Twenty four hours on Fedora 35 - and - Iā€™m pretty happy with itā€¦ *

Just wish those COUCH POTATO SLUGGARDS at Symless (Gormless more like it) get their fat arses off their chaise longues like they PROMISED in 2014 - and get Wayland support happening in their ā€œPROFESSIONALā€ product (the source code of which, they effectively stole as OSS and rebranded it as a propietary solution for which they slug customers [like me] $$$). Note: Iā€™ve been searching for software or hardware solutions for months now - thereā€™s NOTHING out there! Shame Logitechā€™s solution only works on Windows and Mac - Iā€™d go and BUY logitech products if they worked like that on Linux.

Got MS Teams working (and connected to my employer), Brave syncā€™ing to my Ubuntu 20.04 and my MacBook. Got MS Edge working, syncing across devicesā€¦ I read some review (that I read with a grain of salt) that lists most secure browsers, and Brave took 2nd place (behind ToR) and Mozilla got 3rd place, and I think Chromium 4th - MS Edge was near last place, along with Safariā€¦ The reason for the ā€œgrain of saltā€ was that the review was by one of those paid-for VPN service providersā€¦ I donā€™t see why MS Edge would be some much worse than Chromium anywayā€¦ Going to continue to use a mix of browsers anyway - 1. Brave, 2. Google Chrome, 3. Firefox (ESR as a portable app I call ā€œfuckedFoxā€), MS Edge and TOR. Iā€™d probably still use Chromium as my daily driver, if Google hadnā€™t cut the ā€œpower to syncā€ using my google identiity (I donā€™t really want yet another login ID).

VLC does ā€œproper dark modeā€ on Fedora 35 / Gnome 4.x

Got Steam installed - gonna try it out shortlyā€¦ Installing Borderlands 2 (native) now, and Age of Empires II HD (Wine / Proton / SteamPlay)ā€¦ I guess I should get Lutris, and GZDoom and Quake I, II, III and IV installed and testedā€¦

Resilio Sync syncing everything else (also syncing some data to my Brix running RHEL 8.5 server, and a VirtualBox VM running RHEL 8.5 server).

Tally so far - at home :

Ubuntu / Debian : 6
Red Hat / Fedora : 3 (includes a VM)

In a few weeks - I might only be running Debian on ARM SBCā€™s - all my x86_64 might be in Red Hat land, RHEL or Fedora (donā€™t see the point in CentOS or whatever its successor is, with a FREE developer license, you can run up to 16 RHEL instances, and subscribe them to RHN and get updates).

Iā€™m one week into my 4 weekā€™s notice to my current job. Starting a new role after Easter (and yes, Easter, the old pagan festival, etymologically related to ā€œEostreā€, not the co-opted version with people nailed to crosses type morbid stuff - although I do enjoy the odd hot cross bun) weekend - I think itā€™s pretty much 75% Red Hat, 5% AIX and 10% Solaris - and I think I get a MacBook from them for WFH (itā€™s 100% remote, but no BYOD [bring your own device]). Hence I no longer ā€œneedā€ to use Checkpoint SNX VPN client, for my job, and my ā€œoldā€ workā€™s replacing that with Azure P2S VPN soon anyway (which Iā€™ve been unable to get going in Ubuntu, never mind Fedora).

* One ā€œgotchaā€ I noticed with Fedora install - itā€™s not always ā€œon the ballā€ with writing a new UEFI config - I had to install again (i.e. took me 2 goes) after it didnā€™t update my /boot/EFI (was too lazy to troubleshoot that - installed again from scatch easier) - second time around I wiped /boot/efi, /boot, set them again from scratch (2 GB each), then 16 GB for SWAP and the rest (of 1 TB NVMe) for LUKS encrypted ā€œ/ā€ with ext4 (red hat seem to be flip flopping between ext4, xfs and btrfs).

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30

Hmmmā€¦

Hmmmā€¦ curiouser and curiouserā€¦

The lack of Wayland support for Synergy (and Barrier) is stopping me going forwardā€¦

I do kinda / sorta have a quasi solution, in ā€œhardwareā€.

I have a Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard that can BT up to three devicesā€¦ I have a Logitech M590 bluetooth mouse that can BT to two devicesā€¦ hmmmā€¦ Logitech havenā€™t ported Flow to Linuxā€¦ but may not need itā€¦ all Iā€™ll lose that Synergy provides, is spanning to switch to another machine, and shared clipboardā€¦ hmmmā€¦ Might look at a cheap 4 computer USB sharing hub tooā€¦

Note :

just ordered :

  • 1 four PC and two device USB switch-box
  • 1 four PC and two device plus HDMI switch-box (actual KVM)
  • 1 Lenovo 3 device mouse (2 bluetooth and 1 dongle)

With this kit I should be good to go and can tell Sympless (sic) Synergy to go Fā€“K itself/themself (he, him, her, she, they, them, it, those) regardless of its preferred pronounā€¦

And there may be a software solution for multi-device clipboard sharing :

(and probably not the only solution)