Distros of interest and why.

[ThistleWeb]

My wife says if I don't quit distro hopping she's going to leave ..... I'm gonna miss her

[zerozero]

Yesterday i installed PCLOS KDE miniISO, and ohh man was it fun
I don't remember the last time a distro fought so much with me to get everything up and running

First, PCLOS uses legacy grub, ok i saw that in the live-cd, so was kinda prepared, installed grub in the partition, went to LMDE, went to LMDE, updated grub , PCLOS was there, we are good to go! no
no boot into PCLOS
so here, the only way i know to fix this is go back to LMDE and create a 40_costum entry; yeahh right the notations have changed in the last grub v. and now is not hd(X,X) but hd(X,msdosX), go figure ohh the joys of grub2

After a good half hour to fix this, i finally booted PLCOS, just to find out that my sound card is not recognized
but i was kinda expecting this (acl887) is a card that is problematic in most distros i try;
Anyway in Gnome i already know the fix by heart: edit alsa-base.conf and we are good to go; in KDE there's no such file; after digging the forum i found a Texstar's post with a clue, but only worked partially in my system, so i had to invent a bit and after a couple hours all was well

Bottom line, does it worth it: yes!! it's a very clean install, you get nothing but the core system, everything you put on there is your responsibility; it's very, very up-to-date, it's rolling; and my nvidia works very well

[exploder]

zerozero, you impress me! You certainly know your way around some tough issues. I have had more luck with nvidea drivers with PCLinuxOS, the drivers just keep breaking on me with anything Ubuntu based. The last straw was when my perfectly running Kubuntu 11.04 install would hose the driver after a random number of boots from fixing plymouth with startupmanager. With PCLinuxOS my drivers stick, I do have to turn off the blur effect and set my animation speed to fast but for me this does not take away from the nice look of KDE.

Ubuntu carried on about improving the boot experience but they destroyed it in 11.04. I see some text on boot with PCLinuxOS and that never has bothered me so long as I don't see any errors. You would think Ubuntu would devote some time to fixing the plymouth issue but like so many other things they just leave it broken and for the user to try and fix. I need something dependable for day to day use. I was so tired of spending hours trying to fix plymouth, nvidea drivers and MPlayer.

Another big factor for me was package updates. With PCLinuxOS I get the latest Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, etc without adding ppa repos. With anything Ubuntu based I have to worry about the normal system updates destroying the system so I can see why they do not offer popular package updates. If they can't even keep the base system in one piece there is no point in offering popular application updates.

I have grown to appreciate the way Texstar builds packages, he builds from source and looks for patches in various distributions, he does not confine himself to any singe source distribution for answers. Texstar uses his head and takes a common sense approach that I wish other distributions would adopt. I also have to admire someone that builds his own kernels and takes the time and effort to listen to the community. I have seen Texstar go out of his way to help a single user having a problem, now that's true support.

Well, I have rambled on enough. zerozero, I appreciate your comments and I am certainly impressed with your skill.

[zerozero]

tks for your kind words exploder

yeahh keeping a up-to-date system (as in rolling) and at the same time stable is something!

as i said bebore i hadn't the time to play with the system yet (just putting running) but what i saw is good very updated software, all in one place (no need to add 3rd part repos as you say)

looks promising

[asymmetros]

Mint Xfce remains my basic choice but decided to try Slackware and installed it last night, Reasons? Ancient , stable, vanilla, no need for daily upgrades (that is importan for a secondary os), and i was intrigued by the old saying (when using rhel you are learning rhel, when using slackware you are learning linux)

[exploder]

asymmetros, how do you like Slackware? I had read somewhere that in Slackware you had to startx to load the desktop, is this true or can you configure the system to start like any other distro? I have always heard good comments about Slackware but I have never tried it myself. I have also read that you need to have a knowledge of package dependencies to install the packages you want, that would certainly make you learn how Linux works. I guess too that you would never have a cluttered system with things you do not want.

[colyn]

Another big factor for me was package updates. With PCLinuxOS I get the latest Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, etc without adding ppa repos. With anything Ubuntu based I have to worry about the normal system updates destroying the system so I can see why they do not offer popular package updates. If they can't even keep the base system in one piece there is no point in offering popular application updates.

I agree. installed PCLinuxOS KDE last night and after the updates I had 4.6.3. I'm still waiting for it on my Mint KDE machine.

I have grown to appreciate the way Texstar builds packages, he builds from source and looks for patches in various distributions, he does not confine himself to any singe source distribution for answers. Texstar uses his head and takes a common sense approach that I wish other distributions would adopt. I also have to admire someone that builds his own kernels and takes the time and effort to listen to the community. I have seen Texstar go out of his way to help a single user having a problem, now that's true support

As have I ...

Texstar has helped me twice with my Enlightenment setup so once I got my new laptop last Wednesday install went smooth as silk..

[asymmetros]

I had read somewhere that in Slackware you had to startx to load the desktop, is this true or can you configure the system to start like any other distro?

I selected KDE as my 'default' desktop and then, i have to type ''startx' in order to load the gui. But by editing the /etc/inittab file, you can boot directly to gui

From a first glance, KDE starts with far less than 250 Mb.s and Xfce seems as light and fast as an a fresh Mint Xfce install.

The installer is easy. You are selecting which categories of software you want (linux base-required, kde, kernel source, games, network, x-applicastions, Emacs, FAQ lists, etc..) and then, you have many more options: install everything from the categories you 've chosen (newbie), to select manually the packages (menu) or some more "complicated" ( complicated for newbies to Slacware) options.

It is up to you if you end up with a 2-3 gb installation or to 7-8 gb's .

Unfortunately, today i am experiencing some "booting" problems. That' s because Slacware uses Lilo and a a simple sudo update-grub does not give stable results -as it proved. But, a secondary os means that you can take your time to configure everything as you want.

PS: and in my Mint installation, home is separated from root -just in case

[exploder]

I agree. installed PCLinuxOS KDE last night and after the updates I had 4.6.3. I'm still waiting for it on my Mint KDE machine.

I have the new KDE also. I had to use bleachbit to clear the icon cache before the new KDE icon set appeared. I liked the original icons better, don't know why the KDE developers decided to change them.

[exploder]

Hey, thanks for posting the comments asymmetros. Slackware sounds pretty darn nice and I appreciate you explaining how it runs and how things work in it. I have used distros based on Slackware in the past. I put Vector Linux on an old computer for a friend, it was the only distro at the time that would run on that particular machine. At first boot Vector optimized the system, it removed all the comments from all of the code on the entire system. That old machine was lightning fast! My friend was real happy with his old PII system with 64 mb of RAM.

[thouartsimple]

I agree. installed PCLinuxOS KDE last night and after the updates I had 4.6.3. I'm still waiting for it on my Mint KDE machine.

I have the new KDE also. I had to use bleachbit to clear the icon cache before the new KDE icon set appeared. I liked the original icons better, don't know why the KDE developers decided to change them.

Hmm, I should try out PCLinuxOS KDE then.

[zerozero]

go ahead thouartsimple and you won't regret
and if you fell like playing install the miniIso, that way you can build your system the way you like

[exploder]

I have to agree with zerozero. I am really enjoying having a rolling release and I can be sure that if something does not work it will be fixed. PCLinuxOS is going to use a different package manager in the future because Synaptic is no longer being developed for rpm based distros. I am interested in seeing what they choose as a replacement for Synaptic and how they handle the task scripts. PCLinuxOS has always adapted to change very well, so I am confident they will make a good choice.

[zerozero]

ohh i found the task scripts (very handy indeed) as i found the testing and special repos ( i don't know if we can say this )

PCLOS is proving to be really nice and atm is side-by-side with chakra in my booting times (what is saying a lot about PCLOS!!!)

The same strong points you pointed out about PCLOS (rolling but stable, bleeding-edge software, quick fixes) i'm also enjoying in chakra
The forum is uber-friendly and if have an issue with an update, most probably the fix comes in the same day (similar to Ubuntu )

Probably, at least for now (with my short experience in PCLOS), i see two advantages in chakra (for me):

1- is completely KDE-centric, meaning that in the base install you have zero gtk dependencies in the system; this gives you a great KDE experience (the best i saw until now), but also some "issues"- any application you need that requires gtk has to be provided as a stand-alone pkg (the bundles)

2- as far as i can see now PCLOS is a one-man-work <-i can be wrong here, it's my perception (and what a work!!!), chakra has a community packaging and coding;

[thouartsimple]

:D go ahead thouartsimple and you won't regret
and if you fell like playing install the miniIso, that way you can build your system the way you like

I might try it, I am a bit wary... but I tried Bodhi and that's a minimal distro and I think I've done OK with it... so it's doable. =D

[exploder]

I might try it, I am a bit wary... but I tried Bodhi and that's a minimal distro and I think I've done OK with it... so it's doable. =D

PCLinuxOS has "task" scripts in Synaptic for things like multimedia support, printing, etc, it makes quick work of some of the bigger things. I started with the mini edition, updated it and went from there to add all of the applications I use and turned out really nice for me.

Edit: I built the system in Virtualbox and then made my own Live / Install CD.

[thouartsimple]

I might try it, I am a bit wary... but I tried Bodhi and that's a minimal distro and I think I've done OK with it... so it's doable. =D

PCLinuxOS has "task" scripts in Synaptic for things like multimedia support, printing, etc, it makes quick work of some of the bigger things. I started with the mini edition, updated it and went from there to add all of the applications I use and turned out really nice for me.

Edit: I built the system in Virtualbox and then made my own Live / Install CD.

Awesome, I think I can do that, I'll give it a try =D

[colyn]

Hmm, I should try out PCLinuxOS KDE then.

You won't regret it.

Comparing Mint KDE to PCLinuxOS KDE I have found PCLinuxOS is more stable and updates are delivered faster...

I am unable to play videos from some websites with Mint but can with PCLinuxOS. The same flash plugin in both distros.

Be sure to join the PCLinuxOS forum for some excellent help..

[thouartsimple]

You guys are making my desktop cry for having so many operating systems on it I'll install it tonight!!

[colyn]

I have the new KDE also. I had to use bleachbit to clear the icon cache before the new KDE icon set appeared. I liked the original icons better, don't know why the KDE developers decided to change them.

Are you referring to the icons in the system tray?

I have yet to figure out how to change them..