Switching around distros and installing new ones... a request for help

[Portreve]

In this thread I started asub-conversation about openSUSE 15.3 and Fedora 34. I kind of felt that I was thread hijacking, so I've now created this thread where this whole range of discussion can happen without taking over someone else's thread.

When I decided to set up openSUSE on my desktop, I was trivially able to get its installer to just take over the space taken up by the existing partitions associated with Linux Mint. However, when I just a little while ago decided to install Fedora 34, for some reason it seemed not to be able to do that. It acted like the only partitions which could be automatically taken over were the ones associated with Windows 10.

Is late, and I really wasn't in the mood to screw around and burn up countless hours in some ultimately fruitless effort. So, I pulled out my Linux Mint 20.1 flash drive, bored from it, and then used gparted to just wipe the entire drive and create a fresh GPT partition table. And right now, I'm using my HP-provided Win 10 Home setup flash dude to do a completely fresh install of W10. Once it's finally done, I'll use Disk Management in Windows to resize the partition down to where the recovery partition and it collectively only take up 50% of the drive's capacity, and then I'll go back and boot up from my Fedora 34 flash drive and install F34.

I'm able to do this sort of "nuke-n-pave at the drop of a hat" because I work off of an external drive which is Eubank backed up. Nevertheless, it's a pain in the ass, and it's like to learn what I could perhaps have done instead.

I would simply google for this information, but it's the sort of highly specialized/situational thing that I really have no idea how to even start such a search.

[ajgringo619]

I have Fedora 34 in a VMware VM (one of 5 so far) and its installer is the worst I've encountered. To ensure that I wasn't going to wipe out any of my other systems - all on separate vmdk disks, with another separate vmdk for EFI and swap - I manually partitioned the disk with Gparted, then went back to the installer.

I don't remember F33's install being this difficult. openSUSE, on the other hand, was an absolute breeze to install. It's my 2nd-favorite distro after Mint.

[Hoser Rob]

... When I decided to set up openSUSE on my desktop, I was trivially able to get its installer to just take over the space taken up by the existing partitions associated with Linux Mint. However, when I just a little while ago decided to install Fedora 34, for some reason it seemed not to be able to do that. It acted like the only partitions which could be automatically taken over were the ones associated with Windows 10.....

Both distros will use existing inux partitions just fine, as do all distros AFAIK, but I suspect the difference is that the Fedora installer program stinks. Tried Fedora once, never, never again. The package manager was broken and the forum gurus in their wisdom told me it was my fault for not reading the bugzillas first, like I would have installed it if I had????

I gave up distro hopping years ago.

[Portreve]

Having now used Fedora 34 for the past few days, I've decided to go back to openSUSE. Fedora works, and Wayland and Pipewire both do what they are supposed to, but I've really had enough of the whole stack.

However, this time I'm going with openSUSE Tumbleweed, and I'm going to look into installing some other desktops. In particular, I'm intrigued a bit by LXQT.

As per usual, I'm using my LM 20.1 flash drive to nuke-n-pave the drive and then I'm doing a totally fresh installation.

[absque fenestris]

...
However, this time I'm going with openSUSE Tumbleweed, and I'm going to look into installing some other desktops. In particular, I'm intrigued a bit by LXQT.
...

Followed your recommendation and am here now, virtually:

Yes - the GNOME desktop, seems specially designed for friends of monitor finger smearing...

[DisturbedDragon]

There are a few ways you can go for testing or even daily use.

Virtual machine is far and away the easiest. Install and nuke all you want. Second way is USB live with persistence enabled. This route you install almost limitless different distros on a single flash drive or USB SSD. Third is direct installation onto various flash drives or USB SSD drives. Fourth would be a PXE server to load live ISO's over the network.

My preferred is the PXE route since I already have a PXE server set up and clients configured with LTSP, although I also have about 30 distros on a flash drive using MultiSystem.

Other than Mint, which I have installed on numerous desktops and laptops, I do enjoy openSUSE the most.

[Portreve]

There are a few ways you can go for testing or even daily use.

Y'know, lately I almost felt like I've turned into something of a distro hopper, the way I've been going at it with different iterations of both Fedora and openSUSE. And yes, containing something in a VM is pretty cool. I think the only issue(s) I've had going that route come down to limitations for certain aspects of hardware support, or the fact that, with CentOS in particular, it would never remember the screen resolution it was set to, so every reboot would find it sitting back at 800x600.

Fourth would be a PXE server to load live ISO's over the network.

My preferred is the PXE route since I already have a PXE server set up and clients configured with LTSP

Sorry, I haven't got a clue what any of that is.

[DisturbedDragon]

Sorry, I haven't got a clue what any of that is.

LTSP is the Linux Terminal Server Project. With PXE, the client, often diskless, boots over the network from a tftp server. LTSP puts together everything needed a a set of packages for easy install and maintenance. You can boot from image created from the current OS. Mine is Mint Cinnamon 20.1. You can also boot from ISO and .vmdk (virtual hard drive from a VM) files.Fascinating and useful stuff. LTSP has been implemented in schools and businesses across the globe.

https://ltsp.org

[michael-hi]

Anyone interested in openSUSE might want to have a look at GeckoLinux. It is based on openSUSE, rather like Mint is based on Ubuntu, and comes in static and rolling versions. I mention it because Gecko has separate Live downloads for Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce versions among others.

An interesting thing about Gecko (and maybe this also applies to openSUSE) is that the Live USB is persistent by default - you don't have to do anything special to be able to save your settings etc between sessions.

[Portreve]

Hey ajgringo619, Hoser Rob, absque fenestris, DisturbedDragon, and michael-hi...

Some quick follow-up reactions first, then a question (or so) for all of you at the end...

I have Fedora 34 in a VMware VM (one of 5 so far) and its installer is the worst I've encountered. To ensure that I wasn't going to wipe out any of my other systems - all on separate vmdk disks, with another separate vmdk for EFI and swap - I manually partitioned the disk with Gparted, then went back to the installer.

I don't remember F33's install being this difficult. openSUSE, on the other hand, was an absolute breeze to install. It's my 2nd-favorite distro after Mint.

While I don't doubt what you've said (and my own experiences indicate exactly the same thing) it's also ironic that Fedora 34 accommodates setup on a Mac with no issues whatsoever, while the comparatively "nicer" openSUSE installer just doesn't seem to set up anything which a Mac specifically needs. I've played around with it trying different options and different approaches to doing the installation, and I just can't get anywhere. And interestingly enough, that's why I left macOS 10.13.6 on my 2011 MBP.

Both distros will use existing inux partitions just fine, as do all distros AFAIK, but I suspect the difference is that the Fedora installer program stinks. Tried Fedora once, never, never again. The package manager was broken and the forum gurus in their wisdom told me it was my fault for not reading the bugzillas first, like I would have installed it if I had????

I gave up distro hopping years ago.

“... like I would have installed it if I had????” Clearly not.

Followed your recommendation and am here now, virtually

<snip>

Yes - the GNOME desktop, seems specially designed for friends of monitor finger smearing...

Sorry, I haven't got a clue what any of that is.

LTSP is the Linux Terminal Server Project. With PXE, the client, often diskless, boots over the network from a tftp server. LTSP puts together everything needed a a set of packages for easy install and maintenance. You can boot from image created from the current OS. Mine is Mint Cinnamon 20.1. You can also boot from ISO and .vmdk (virtual hard drive from a VM) files.Fascinating and useful stuff. LTSP has been implemented in schools and businesses across the globe.

https://ltsp.org

Fascinating! Now, don't get me wrong, I know netboot as a technological concept has been around a long time, and it's used in a variety of different contexts. Honestly, the only time I ever tried it was long ago in the days of G3-based iMacs, and I set up (experimentally) two of them to net-boot off a server in a school I was working at part-time as a tech support assistant. That was actually pretty cool, and what's more, it was being done with MacOS 9.something-or-other.

I checked out the link you posted, and of course it requires a separate computer, which at the moment I don't have (well, I have other computers, but just a pair of Mac laptops) but perhaps down the road I will give that a try.

Anyone interested in openSUSE might want to have a look at GeckoLinux. It is based on openSUSE, rather like Mint is based on Ubuntu, and comes in static and rolling versions. I mention it because Gecko has separate Live downloads for Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce versions among others.

An interesting thing about Gecko (and maybe this also applies to openSUSE) is that the Live USB is persistent by default - you don't have to do anything special to be able to save your settings etc between sessions.

That's pretty cool. I'll check it out over the weekend sometime.


OK, so a question to you all (and to anyone else who might wish to give it a go):

Obviously, I want to gain experience with other non-Debian-based distros. In particular, I want to gain experience in the Red Hat environment (as I've stated elsewhere, and repeatedly, so I won't go into it again) but ultimately my question is: What's more practical: having a Red Hat-based (i.e. Fedora, CentOS, openSUSE, etc.) desktop distro to use and play with, or to set up a computer as a server with one of those distros? And what are the sort of things I should be doing to learn and re-enter the tech industry?

Now, before ANYONE here starts to post a response to this, let me back out here a bit and try to get you folks into my headspace. In fact, just read the next post after this one because this one is long enough as it is.

[Portreve]

Ok, you are now entering the headspace and history of Portreve. Please excuse the odd disused water bottle or papers scattered across a desk or on the floor.

And, for goodness' sake, whatever you do, don't step on that... aw, crap. Well, too late now.


In 1985, there was a local computer and electronics convention. That's really where I saw personal computers up close and in person for the first time. Well, at least in a context where the public was allowed to touch them. They all looked pretty neat and interesting, but honestly it wasn't until I saw a Mac (the vendor had a mix of Mac 128s and 512s) that I fell in love. This served as my own personal entry point into the world of computer technology.

About a year and a half later, I got a Macintosh Plus for my birthday. It was an entering high school-present, and of course I was all over that like white on rice. Over the years, I built up a considerable degree of expertise on pretty much all-things-Macintosh (both hardware and software and the OS itself). During my high school years, as word got around that I had a Mac, I was approached by the school newspaper teacher and asked if I'd like to take her class. This is a multi-year program, so I was involved for the next three years. This is the genesis of my knowledge of desktop publishing, printing, fonts, etc. Again, I've built considerably on that knowledge, but that's where it started.

While I was in high school, not only was I in the newspaper class, I was also in computer class. I'll hasten to add that this was in the days before the curriculum became nothing but "how to use Microsoft Office". In that class, I was exposed to TRS-80s as well as Apple IIe systems. It was also where my first brush with (incredibly primitive) networking started. Back in newspaper class, we needed a laser printer to do work, so eventually we were able to secure the funds to by an Apple LaserWriter IInt. The first thing we had was a Macintosh SE, and then eventually we got a second SE, and then a IIcx. Ultimately, I had all of them networked together over AppleTalk. Now, originally, anything having to do with Apple's Mac networking system was called AppleTalk. However, later Apple would decide that the protocol would be called AppleTalk, and the hardware would be called LocalTalk. So, for anyone here who's more familiar with the later terminology, there you go. I still think of all of it as AppleTalk. But, I digress.

In 1988, I had full file sharing (thanks to getting some copies of TOPS) and screen sharing (thanks to also getting copies of Timbuktu), and that was great because oftentimes we worked collaboratively, and being able to share one another's files instead of having lots of floppies we would have to trade back and forth was a huge improvement. (Yes, we still shared floppies, too.)

Later, I would gain some (very limited) exposure to an AppleShare network, though I really never got to play around with it that much. And, over the years, I migrated from AppleTalk to Ethernet.

Over the years, I've worked in printshops and newspapers and magazines, and I've always had one foot in one camp, and another foot in another, and somehow a third (or a fourth, or a fifth... goodness me, I think I might be a bit deformed!) in yet another camp. So, at least within the what is now called "Classic Mac OS" environment, I've done most things, from doing light graphics work, to full-on desktop publishing, to digitizing audio and editing waveforms, to Mac-specific basic networking, to hardware and software troubleshooting, installation, etc. All of this has been a very layered and progressive process for me, and (at least back then) I always gravitated towards those things which I found interesting.

[Clearly, I've done many other things too, but let's just assume that for the moment, as this post is already long enough.]

If you folks go searching for all the posts I've written here on LMF vis a vis my interest in getting back into the tech industry, what you are seeing is the result of an epiphany I had at roughly the end of 2019, which coalesced into the following:

There's a lot of things in my life that I've done; however, there's a number of things that had I known better "way back when", I would have used the basic knowledge I had at the time as a springboard. Examples of this include learning to write scripts (well, preliminarily this would have been DOS batch files); learning all about REAL networking, and I guess seeing what I might do to move the needle on getting interested in programming. I also should have gotten seriously into Linux about a million years ago, too, but as I presently am into and gaining knowledge about Linux, I will simply say I know that I need to add considerably to that knowledge in order to be of use in any actual, real job.

And, in reading the above paragraph, the thing you folks should take away from this trip into my headspace is the following sentence: I think my best use as a future professional in the tech industry is somehow connected to the infrastructure of the whole thing.


I apologize for making this drag on for so long, but what I really want are ideas and suggestions which take what I said above into account.

Lastly: I find I'm still kind of struggling to locate (even with everything said above) that "special thing" which sparks my interest and generates some excitement, like the Mac did for me back in 1985.

[ajgringo619]

<snip>
OK, so a question to you all (and to anyone else who might wish to give it a go):

Obviously, I want to gain experience with other non-Debian-based distros. In particular, I want to gain experience in the Red Hat environment (as I've stated elsewhere, and repeatedly, so I won't go into it again) but ultimately my question is: What's more practical: having a Red Hat-based (i.e. Fedora, CentOS, openSUSE, etc.) desktop distro to use and play with, or to set up a computer as a server with one of those distros? And what are the sort of things I should be doing to learn and re-enter the tech industry?

openSUSE is not Redhat-based; in fact, it's actually quite different (snapper/btrfs by default, zypper/yast for management). The one I'd try if you want to get a good feel for Redhat is Oracle Linux. It's binary-equivalent to RHEL (currently on v8.4).

[Portreve]

openSUSE is not Redhat-based; in fact, it's actually quite different (snapper/btrfs by default, zypper/yast for management). The one I'd try if you want to get a good feel for Redhat is Oracle Linux. It's binary-equivalent to RHEL (currently on v8.4).

Holy s...... that's like literally the holy grail right there, vis a vis what I'm trying to find for an OS to run and learn more about

I'm so glad I put up my hand here and "asked the question" so to speak. Thank you!

I'm still interested in what you might have to say about my overall quest and question above. And btw, thanks in advance and I apologize for writing a book.

[ajgringo619]

No worries - your posts are always a good read.

For me, I was also stagnating on computers. You can only install so many distros in VMs before you being to lose track of why you were doing it in the first place. I was fairly proficient in scripting - Bash, and Perl way before that - so I took a stab at Python and everything just opened up from there. My current project is to run as many systems as I can with systemd-boot and automatically create/update the systemd-boot config files. I've got this working great on LM 20.1 and (mostly) working on 5 other distros; trying to get 3-4 distros of every major type running/working together.

You mentioned networking - that's another great field. I'm about to install a couple of Powerline adapters so I can get rid of the 100-foot CAT6 cables I've got laying around the house. You should really consider taking a look at Cisco's networking course/certifications. There's a ton to learn and the industry never stagnates.

[Portreve]

No worries - your posts are always a good read.

For me, I was also stagnating on computers. You can only install so many distros in VMs before you being to lose track of why you were doing it in the first place. I was fairly proficient in scripting - Bash, and Perl way before that - so I took a stab at Python and everything just opened up from there. My current project is to run as many systems as I can with systemd-boot and automatically create/update the systemd-boot config files. I've got this working great on LM 20.1 and (mostly) working on 5 other distros; trying to get 3-4 distros of every major type running/working together.

You mentioned networking - that's another great field. I'm about to install a couple of Powerline adapters so I can get rid of the 100-foot CAT6 cables I've got laying around the house. You should really consider taking a look at Cisco's networking course/certifications. There's a ton to learn and the industry never stagnates.

Ha ha! I have a pair of those myself.

TL;DR: The rental modem/router/wifi I got from Comcast a few years ago is defective. Specifically, the wireless router subsystem has problems which cause it to overload and lock up, and eventually restart. I'd always put my problems down to something else (didn't really put a ton of attention into it) and so I lived with a long-ass ethernet cable running from a planter shelf down to my office for, like, years. I bought a set of power line adapters from Office Depot for about $50, and they worked great. However, I wound up returning the Comcast modem and setting up my own gear, so now I'm fully wireless and the adapters are redundant. Oh well, such is life.

Yeah, I know I'm going to need to get into Cisco at some point. I am trying to save up my money for them and Network +.

Bash, Perl, Python: Yeah, I know I'm going to have to do something with that. Thanks for getting my mind back on-topic.

[deepakdeshp]

Hi Portreve,
It was nice reading your posts. You have used Mac quite extensively.You have also used Mint. How will you compare Mac with the Mint machine in ease of use? I gather that Mac is the king for DTP and Mint is no match for it?
I haven't used the Mac at all.

[Portreve]

Hi Portreve,
It was nice reading your posts. You have used Mac quite extensively.You have also used Mint. How will you compare Mac with the Mint machine in ease of use? I gather that Mac is the king for DTP and Mint is no match for it?
I haven't used the Mac at all.

I suppose that depends, deepak, on if we're comparing the Macintosh of old, or the present-day animal. And I use the word "Macintosh" instead of saying something like "Classic Mac OS" because the OS and the hardware really were two halves of a greater whole.

If you and the rest of the people here on LMF and I were in a classroom-style lab with a bunch of old school Macs, instead of here on a message board, I could lecture and train everyone and turn you all into highly competent Mac users, and accomplish this with relative ease. And, arguably, I think it would probably even be kind of fun to do. Nevertheless, that's not the environment in which we find ourselves, so instead let me try and answer your questions as I believe you intended them.

For the era in which it existed, Motorola 680x0-based Macintoshes, and later their PowerPC-based successors, were fairly good quality, easy to troubleshoot and maintain, and depending on the model, fairly robust. x86-based PCs of the era required a fair amount of expertise in the arcana of both hardware and OS underpinnings to configure and run well. For example, you had to manage the assignment of interrupt request (IRQ) and memory address settings on any expansion card(s) you might want to use. This was often complicated by the fact that PCs only had a total of 16 IRQs available (0-15) and some of those were already pre-allocated to motherboard assets, such as CPU and RAM. Oftentimes this would result in two or more devices not being able to both be used at the same time (i.e. a modem card and a sound card). And bear in mind, at the time, there was a greater need than exists now to actually use expansion cards because many of the things which are now included on the motherboard (like video and sound) had to be added via a card.

Honestly, there's no way, if we're looking at this with the benefit of hindsight from the year 2021, that this hardware was truly "ready for the masses".

The Mac had 32 physical IRQs, and on top of that, the OS managed them in conjunction with (on Macs with expansion slots) the NuBus controller. We used to laugh at our PC-using buddies who had to struggle with a lot of this stuff, and while we were able to experience legitimate digitized audio playback and polyphonic synthesized sound, they often didn't even have a sound card installed, or wouldn't have speakers, or whatever.

We also had a fully graphical OS from day 1, whereas anything graphical in the PC world was, basically, extra software they had to run on top of MS-DOS. Classic Mac OS made configuration of other things, such as device drivers and other system-level add-on components, so brain dead simple to install, remove, or disable, that troubleshooting issues (and make no mistake: there were definitely things to troubleshoot) was a generally faster and more intuitive process.

Classic Mac OS had a lot of issues, particularly as time wore on and there was an ever growing number of demands placed on the system. It wasn't a multitasking OS in the modern sense until System 6.0 came out, and even then it would take another generational release before it didn't completely suck, and then at least one more generational release before one could argue it was a really good multitasking OS. That said, there were still a lot of ongoing problems, kind of largely of a legacy nature, and it took Apple switching to Mac OS X (later renamed to macOS) to get us a modern, super solid OS. I mean, basic things like memory protection simply didn't exist in Classic Mac OS.

You brought up desktop publishing, and yes, you're right to point out that it's very hard to beat software such as QuarkXPress and InDesign. Scribus has matured a lot over the years, but it still has a ways to go before I would put it in quite the same league overall. However, consider that InDesign is the product of an extremely well-heeled company with ties to many different areas of art and design, just like its predecessor, PageMaker.

Scribus has a lot going for it, and you won't hear me diss on it. If anything, I champion its existence and continued progress because I believe, as is the case with many other companies and their software, that Adobe and Quark both need competition. What use is an open source, libre licensed OS, if every time you turn around, you have to install and use a closed source, proprietary program on it?

However, there's a lot more to the story of desktop publishing than what I've talked about here, and much of that has required a number of other things to come into existence, many of which are at a parity of sophistication and support in Linux with anything you'll find in macOS or Windows.

Now, to your overarching question about what's easier to use, I don't think at this point that there's a meaningful difference. So much is handled in one way or another by the OS that used to be a manual chore for the user. So many modern OS design concepts eliminate altogether various crazy workarounds we had to come up with (like lack of proper protected memory, or sophisticated memory management, leading to serious memory fragmentation problems). Apple has put a lot of little extras in, like Siri on the desktop, or content-aware file searching, or a really nice system for being able to build scripts, and while these things don't necessarily make using macOS easier per-se, they can and for many people make using it nicer.

[deepakdeshp]

Thank you Portreve for your detailed post. It looks like it was technically challenging using the Mac in the olden times before Mac OS 6. What with managing the interrupts, memory etc. But that way you would have more and deeper understanding of the working of the machine. Now a days whether Windows , Mint or Mac it's a smoother experience for the user with the OS managing these things.
In 1984 I was hired as a hardware engineer to maintain 16 bit machine TDC 316 for which I had to input diagnostic programs through binary switches. I learnt about interrupts,stack,FIFO,memory, microcode etc. We had core memory and it was a nightmare maintaining it. The size of the machine was very big. It also had an advanced Disk , all of 7.25 MB and as big as half a dining table. The company I worked for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro ... ia_Limited

So what I gather is that Mint is almost on par with the Modern Mac os, taking into account the software packages including DTP, manging or creating videos , creating and editing movies etc. What may be the special areas where the Mac os excels over Mint? Mac is a costly affair compared to a Mint machine as a package.

Arranging a virtual class on the Mac os is very much possible now a days with the current technology. You have an eye for details which is apparent from your post, I would have very much liked to attend the class.