 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 870, 15 June 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 24th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
New distributions get submitted to DistroWatch at an average rate of about one a week. Some of these projects are respins of existing distributions, some are experimental proof-of-concept operating systems, and some combine open source technologies in exciting new ways. This week Jesse Smith explores two projects, Regolith Linux and distri, currently on our waiting list. Regolith merges Ubuntu, GNOME, and i3 window management in an effort to create a special user interface while distri explores modular package management concepts. Read on to learn more about these two distributions. In our News section we talk about UBports shipping on the Pinetab tablet as the project makes it easier for developers to find and fix problems in mobile applications. The Tails project shared some updates and known issues in their monthly newsletter and we link to those details below. Linux has come a long way over the years and we conclude our News section with a look back at a classic: Softlanding Linux System from 1994. Then we explore methods for tagging files in our Questions and Answers column. Tools for tagging files on Linux tend to be rare or require work to set up and we would like to hear if you use any tagging utilities in our Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Regolith Linux 19.10.0-R1.3 and distri
- News: UBports makes fixing apps easier and ships on the Pinetab, Tails shares known issues and workarounds, revisiting SLS
- Questions and answers: Tagging files and searching for files using tags
- Released last week: SuperGamer 6, 4MLinux 33.0
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, ArcoLinux, AUSTRUMI, Endless OS, Haiku, KDE neon, pfSense, SuperGamer, SystemRescueCd, Volumio
- Opinion poll: Tagging files on Linux
- New distributions: Split Linux, Mobian, GamerOS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (14MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Regolith Linux 19.10.0-R1.3
This week I was in the mood to try something different and turned my focus to the DistroWatch waiting list to try out a couple of projects at random. The first distribution I selected was Regolith. The project describes itself as follows:
Regolith is a modern desktop environment designed to let you work faster by reducing unnecessary clutter and ceremony. Built on top of Ubuntu, GNOME, and i3, Regolith stands on a well-supported and consistent foundation.
I was intrigued by the idea as it sounds a though both GNOME and i3 window manager components are run together. The distribution's website goes on to share some other key features, including:
- Delivers a desktop with a functional yet minimal user interface that can be customized and expanded as needed.
- Combines GNOME's system management features with i3-wm's productive workflow.
- Enables new users a fast and fun way to try out a tiling window manager.
I was sceptical about what it would be like to mix these two (i3 and GNOME) desktop approaches, but I thought the result might be interesting. Regolith is available in two versions, one is based on Ubuntu 18.04 and the other on Ubuntu 19.10. I took the latter one, which is the latest release. Regolith appears to run on 64-bit (x86_64) machines only and its ISO file is a 2.2GB download. Alternatively, we are told existing Ubuntu installs can be converted into Regolith by adding a PPA to our package sources and performing an upgrade.
After downloading Regolith, I booted from the live media and, with the default settings, the distribution failed to start. The system displayed a message indicating it was applying a Spector security fix and then locked up, unable to continue or respond.
Restarting the computer I brought up the boot menu and selected booting to the live desktop in Safe Graphics mode. This time the operating system seemed to boot successfully and presented me with what appeared to be the i3 window manager with a panel at the bottom of the display and a menu to the right. This menu includes options for switching between windows and launching programs, such as a terminal, the web browser, and a file manager. Selecting any of the menu options did nothing as the graphical environment almost immediate locked up and refused to respond to mouse or keyboard input.
The third time I started the computer and booted Regolith I missed the boot menu and ended up with the default option. This time the system completed booting and loaded a graphical environment. However, instead of the i3 environment I experienced when running in Safe Graphics mode, I ended up looking at Ubuntu's welcome window with a prompt to Try the live environment or Install the operating system. Unfortunately the interface was not responsive and I was unable to use the mouse or keyboard. I was also unable to even switch to a text terminal.
Given the system's inconsistent and non-functioning nature in each of the three boot attempts, I put Regolith aside and selected a second project from the waiting list.
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distri
The other project which caught my attention this week is distri, an experimental distribution which explores fast, modular package management. The project's documentation describes the projects succinctly as: "a Linux distribution to research fast package management." It goes on to warn: "Note that due to its research project status, it is NOT RECOMMENDED to use distri in ANY CAPACITY except for research. Specifically, do not expect any support. distri is published in the hope that other, more established distributions, will find some parts of it interesting and decide to integrate those."
It appears as though distri runs on 64-bit (x86_64) computers exclusively, though there are many approaches we can take to test drive the distribution. There are installation instructions for containers and virtual machine options along with options for downloading more traditional install media. The generic download is compressed and weighs in at 1GB in size. When this file is uncompressed it expands to 7GB. We can then copy this image to a thumb drive or convert it to a virtual machine disk image.
The distri operating system boots to a text screen where we can login using the username "root" and the password "peace". The distribution runs a very minimal shell. In fact, minimalism is one of the project's key characteristics in most aspects of its design. There are just seven user accounts (root, nobody, three systemd accounts, messagebus, and sshd). One of the few services running is OpenSSH which allows regular users to sign in while also blocking remote root logins if they use a password. As far as I could tell there is no vi text editor, in fact there may be no text editor at all. There is no pager either, such as more or less, which means we can only see the last few paragraphs of manual pages.
The operating system does ship with Python 3 and systemd. It also features some common command line tools such as cat, man, and grep. It runs on version 5.1 of the Linux kernel. One oddity of distri is that it creates a lot of system mounts. When I first started running the distribution it mounted 36 filesystems (much of it temporary storage or cgroup related) and it appears to mount more whenever we run commands from installed packages. (More on packages in a second.) All of this takes up about 285MB of RAM when signed into the text console and consumed 2.7GB of disk space.
The key feature of the distri project is its package manager which is also called distri. I was unable to find much documentation, either on the project's website or locally, explaining how distri works. The project's on-line documentation says we can run a command like "distri install <package-name>" to install new software. However, I could not find information about removing or upgrading packages. I could not find any manual page for the package manager either. Running the distri command without arguments (or with a keyword and no following parameters) will display a brief usage text. However, this text rarely explains arguments and seems more geared toward helping the developers than end-users.
I did not find any way to search for available software from within the package manager, however there is a list of packages on the distribution's GitHub account. We can then run a command such as "distri install vim" to download a new package or "distri install -root /home/jesse/bin vim" to install the vim package in my home directory.
The distri package manager downloads software very quickly. With the possible exception of Alpine Linux's package manager, this may be the fastest package manager I have encountered. I suspect this is in part because of the way distri packages are organized. The packages appear to be entirely self-contained, bundling their dependencies inside a single SquashFS archive. (I could not confirm dependencies are bundled, but it seemed this way in the packages I downloaded.) This means the package manager can skip resolving dependencies and unpacking the archive. Instead it seems the bundle is downloaded as a single file and then mounted or accessed as needed. Whenever I ran a new command, such as vim or bash, a message would appear on the console indicating the software was being mounted.
Again, there is not much documentation on how distri works, but it looks as though new software is downloaded into the /roimg directory. Then unpacked or accessed through the /ro directory. Symbolic links are set up in /sbin which point to the executables. For instance, when I install the vim package, the SquashFS archive appears under /roimg and a directory containing the bundled programs is placed in /ro. A symbolic link, called vim, is placed in /sbin which points to the appropriate program in /ro. This may seem a little complicated, but it works and appears to side-step dependency issues. This makes distri an interesting alternative to other portable packaging approaches, such as AppImage and Flatpak as distri integrates software into the rest of the operating system more seamlessly.
Most of the available packages appear to be simple command line tools or developer utilities. There are a handful of graphical utilities and applications, but most are low-level command line programs.
As the project's website warns, distri is not intended to be used as a day to day operating system. It is an experimental platform and one that does not offer support or much in the way of documentation. Some interesting ideas are presented (such as fast, minimal, portable package management). I certainly can get behind the idea of transferring programs and their dependencies through SquashFS archives. It is fast, portable and, with the use of symbolic links, seems to avoid breaking conventions the way other distributions like GoboLinux do. I'm curious to see if distri can complete with alternatives like AppImage, though first I suspect the interface and documentation will need to expanded.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
UBports makes fixing apps easier and ships on the Pinetab, Tails shares known issues and workarounds, revisiting SLS
The UBports team is trying to make it easier to develop and test applications on their mobile operating system. One of the changes to application bundles is the option of including debug information to help developers find memory errors. "Jonny is an active member of the app development team and he came along to speak about some major improvements in development infrastructure. Clickable is the name of the package used when building apps for UT. In a huge step forward, debugging functions have now been built into the Clickable package itself. GB shell works and you can analyze memory leaks etc. This really is a fundamental change if you work on apps. Many of the new functions can be run either on the desktop or on the device. Some, such as the memory leak tests are limited to the desktop side for now." Further details on Clickable, along with details on UBports shipping on new phones, can be found in the project's blog post.
In other UBports-related news, the operating system is now shipping by default on the Pinetab, a tablet made by PINE64. The new tablet ships with an optional keyboard, 2GB of memory, and a 1.2GHz ARM processor. Details on the tablet can be found in the PINE64 store.
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The Tails project published their monthly newsletter this week and shared some known issues their users have reported and workarounds: "We saw more problems for Mac computers this month, some users could not use their keyboard and touchpad, and others could not start Tails. If you plan to use a laptop for Tails, try to test it before buying it. Many Electrum users had to restore their wallet as explained in our documentation. Some ATI Radeon cards have problems to start Tails 4.7."
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One of the world's first Linux distributions was Softlanding Linux System (also known as SLS). The project had its humble beginnings in the early 1990s and was, for many people, the first taste of what a Linux-based operating system could look like. SLS was largely responsible for the birth of other distributions such as Slackware Linux and Debian. The NCommander YouTube channel has a video review showing what it was like to run SLS. The distribution's capabilities, and problems, are outlined in this video. We hope you enjoy this visit to Linux's early days.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Tagging files and searching for files using tags
Tag and release asks: Please recommend to me some Linux distributions with feature "tags" as in macOS (where I can search or/and organise files by tags in Finder).
DistroWatch answers: Tagging files in a generic way is something that is possible in Linux distributions, but has not really caught on as a popular feature. As such I am not aware of any distributions which ship with a file manager that includes tagging as a standard or default feature.
I think there are two reasons tagging is not generally presented as an option through the file manager on Linux. The first is that individual applications typically each handle tracking and tagging associated files. For example, the Rhythmbox audio player can use, edit, and search through tags in audio files. LibreOffice and GIMP both track recently opened and created files on their start-up screens or through the File menu. Thunderbird can tag and flag e-mails. Since each application is managing its data and files, there usually isn't a need to have a generic tagging system that works through the file manager.
The second reason that files which are used in a more generic way are not tagged is files in those situations typically get organized in directory structures. Library files, source code files, archives, etc all get set up in a directory hierarchy which largely removes the need for tagging. Likewise, many miscellaneous files on a Linux system are text and can be parsed when looking for specific data.
Tagging certainly has its uses, but it is less common on Linux due to the other ways in which files can be organized, tracked, and managed.
With that being said, there are ways to tag files on Linux. Most Linux file systems allow a type of tagging through extended file attributes. This allows programs to associate meta data (or tags) with a given file. However, most of the tools to work with extended file attributes are command line utilities and probably not what you are looking for.
There are ways to cobble together a tagging system using database or text files in directories, but this is, again, overly complicated and probably not what you had in mind.
Assuming you are looking for a graphical program that will help organize, tag, and track files with a minimal amount of effort, there are a few options. The first one I found is called TagSpaces. It is a graphical program that runs on a variety of operating systems (including Linux distributions). The project provides multiple install options, including AppImage and Deb packages. TagSpaces looks very friendly and polished and its website seemed promising. However, I was unable to get either the AppImage or the Deb package to run on my distribution so I cannot comment on the program from first-hand experience.
One program which I did get to run is TagFlow. The TagFlow application is also graphical and is available as a portable AppImage or as RPM and Deb packages. The software did install and launch for me. It offers a friendly interface for adding files or directories we wish to tag and track.
The TagFlow interface is fairly straight forward to navigate and I like that we can edit tags, perform fast searches, and mark selected files as favourites for quick access later.
TagFlow 0.5.1 -- Searching for files using tags
(full image size: 62kB, resolution: 806x656 pixels)
There is one weird aspect to TagFlow and that is the files it tracks are not, by default, the original files in your filesystem. When we add files to TagFlow to track them, the program effectively copies the files and tags copies of them. We can then "download" files from TagFlow later if we wish to access or edit them. I suspect the idea here is that TagFlow can work over networks and may be better suited to office environments. The down side to this is that TagFlow seems to need to copy files (using more disk space) and it cannot tell us the original path to a file if we want to work with the original copy. This is not necessarily bad, but it is more awkward than working with files in a file manager directly.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SuperGamer 6
SuperGamer is an Ubuntu-based distribution intended to showcase gaming capabilities and options on Linux. The distribution's latest release, version 6, is based on Ubuntu 20.04 and includes new NVIDIA vieo drivers. The release announcement on the project's forum reads: "I am proud to announce the release of the SuperGamer v6. This is using the new 20.04 base. I have included some Games as well as Game Manager Installers. This release is going forward with the 5.6.14 kernel built for Low Lattency and unpatched. NVIDIA drivers work from the Installer on this Kernel. I also included some more wallpapers and fixed some of the Ryzen 3 onboard graphics issues. This should work for both Legacy and UEFI but as always your mileage may vary with different motherboards and BIOSs." The project's ISO file is available as a compressed ZIP archive.
SuperGamer 6 -- The default desktop layout and application menu
(full image size: 191kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
4MLinux 33.0
4MLinux is a miniature Linux distribution which includes tools for data rescue, multimedia, network services, and games. The distribution's latest version is 4MLinux 33.0, which now provides the TFTP daemon, improved font rendering, and the Palemoon web browser as an optional add-on. "As always, the new major release has some new features. Support for Brotli compressed data streams has been added. PCManFM in is now able to create thumbnails of PSD (Photoshop) documents. The 4MLinux server comes with a new TFTP daemon. Font rendering in JWM has been improved. Palemoon web browser is now available as a downloadable extension, while nnn (small yet powerful file manager) is included out of the box. Finally, all the 4MLinux ISO images are now hybridized, meaning that you can use the dd command to create a live USB. This should work for both BIOS and UEFI systems." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,022
- Total data uploaded: 32.2TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Tagging files on Linux
We talked about ways to tag files in our Questions and Answers column. Tagging files is relatively rare on Linux, for various reasons, and most file managers that ship with Linux distributions either do not support tags, or require some extra work from the user to effectively tag files.
We would like to know if you use file tagging on Linux. If you do, let us know which program or utility you use to tag files in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on sharing features across distributions in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Tagging files on Linux
| I tag files in my file manager: | 62 (6%) |
| I tag files in another utility: | 39 (4%) |
| I do not tag files: | 957 (90%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- Split Linux. Split Linux is a Void-based distribution which strives to provide additional security both for on-line environments and physical access.
- Mobian. Mobian is a specialized build of Debian for mobile devices, such as the PinePhone.
- GamerOS. GamerOS is an Arch Linux-based distribution which boots into Steam's Big Picture mode to provide a dedicated, console-like gaming experience.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 22 June 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Tagging files on Linux (by Alfrex on 2020-06-15 01:41:08 GMT from Germany)
For media files could be "thunar-media-tags-plugin" or "jbrout".
2 • Regolith-Linux (by Tim on 2020-06-15 02:06:12 GMT from United States)
I've not tried installing Regolith from the ISO, as I want the choice of environments. A tiling window manager is useful for some specific workflows for me but not all.
That said, I added the PPA to a pre-existing Mint 19.3 (Ubuntu 18.04) install and it's great. It's just another session you can select at login. So on tasks where tiling is more helpful I have it, and I'm back to MATE when I need it. It's a beautiful environment that's well documented and easy to use. I'm sorry you didn't get to use it, as this has been one of the first new Linux software that's caught my attention in years- this seems to be a useful project.
3 • tagging - an opposite question (by manda tory on 2020-06-15 02:25:28 GMT from New Zealand)
No, I don't see why you would want to tag files. In confused UI's like Windows, where most users have zero clue as to where on C: their actual document, audio file or photo is found; Linux has a very simple and logical structure.
Now my question. Some image and video files downloaded from the net, when viewed, cause the creation of a .comment folder with XML files for these images or videos. How can I:
* prevent / block / alert for such cases?
* what exif info tags (there you have "tags" and my dislike for them) to stop this?
Exiftool might work for images, but what tags do I kill off? But for video files?
All these .comments folders are driving me crazy. I don't want them! You want to write or cause writing to my drive. You ASK. You don't just create folders and files behind my back.
4 • Tagging (by Andy Prough on 2020-06-15 02:41:33 GMT from United States)
I tag my files by naming them properly and putting them in a proper directory structure. It's easy to find every file associated with my dog if I use his name in the file name of every photo, video, vaccine record, etc of him that I add to my files. So I tag my files by giving proper names using my file manager and using the other apps with which I create or download files.
5 • Ah, to tag files! (by mvario on 2020-06-15 05:36:45 GMT from United States)
I would like to tag files, I really would. Back in the long-ago when I used Windows I did it, I liked it, I used it. If it was something that the file managers I uses under XFCE (pcmanfm, Thunar, XFE) did then I would certainly use it.
6 • Regolith (by Any on 2020-06-15 05:48:04 GMT from Spain)
Interesting, I've tried Regolith in Virtualbox and it worked without any problem.
7 • Tags, Rating, Comment in KDE (by usman on 2020-06-15 07:04:25 GMT from Indonesia)
When i right click file/folder from Dolphin file manager, then select 'details' tab, there is Tags, Rating, Comment, etc. Which actually i little surprise why this stuff is still there because i was installed my Kubuntu with minimal install and removed/disabled the file indexer/baloo/PIM as much as i can.
But i don't know if that what the op looking for, because i don't use that features.
It seem that the Questions and Answers pretty accurate to describe my condition : the 'tags' feature is there but its not popular (at least for me), well you can say i actually hate that feature that's why i try to remove them as much as i can. (i'm sorry no offense to the developers/people who like that features).
8 • Rrgolith (by Chris on 2020-06-15 07:28:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
I too have installed Regolith desktop as a PPA on Linux Mint 19.3. I think it's fantastic and allows me to tile where necessary (which can be a godsend).
I had considered moving over to Pop to get their tiling, but this has saved me the upheaval of a fresh install.
9 • Ability to tag files is actually a good thing (by msi on 2020-06-15 08:07:38 GMT from Germany)
I don't understand the argument against being able to tag files. “Tagging” files “by naming them properly and putting them in a proper directory structure” completely misses the point of tagging.
For example, if you had a dozen notes on a variety of aspects of Unix shell scripting, would you really want to include “Unix” and “shell” in the name of each and every one of those files? I wouldn't because that way of naming files will create a mess, eventually.
Even better: Bookmarks in your Web browser. Say, you are building a collection of what you believe are well-designed Web sites (e.g., static, no Javascript, no tracking etc.). Now, you find a Web site that helps you understand how to do $thing in $programming_language in a sane way and you bookmark the respective page.
If you only used bookmark names and directories, you would either end up with the entries in your bookmark collection carrying weird and excessively long names, or you'd have to create any bookmark that serves more than a single purpose in several places, which is cumbersome and hard to maintain. Tagging just solves that completely.
So, yes, using reasonable file names in reasonably structured directory trees is generally the way to go. But it has its shortcomings (It's hierarchical!) and tagging offers a way to mitigate them and by that actually aids being able to keep file names and directory structures sane.
10 • Tagging Files (by DaveT on 2020-06-15 11:01:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
The only place I use tags is for the media files on the NAS that has all the audio and video for my hifi and TV. Very useful feature!
For 'normal' files I use a very hierarchical directory and naming structure. No need for tags there!
11 • hifi .. tagging (by Myrtle on 2020-06-15 12:27:09 GMT from United States)
@10 Well now. So, linux users aren't all just a bunch of young geeky nerds with empty wadded Skittle packages being batted around the floor by the cat.
I began tagging when I discovered it as yet another amazing control feature in OUR hands. I don't do it often, but it's there and I consider it in a long list of what's great about linux as opposed to windows and mac.
12 • Tagging files (by Tim on 2020-06-15 12:46:44 GMT from United States)
I responded that I don't tag files, and for the most part I never do. I occasionally do some tagging within applications, such as Firefox Bookmarks.
I used to use BeOS way back when it was a thing, and file tagging was one of the features. You can conceive all sorts of ways to envision your tagging, but it always ends up just being another mess. Something won't fit your scheme, so you invent a new tag. Then, nothing else ever needs that tag. In the end, you just forget about the tags.
13 • Tagging, and tiling. (by Friar Tux on 2020-06-15 13:49:33 GMT from Canada)
I voted that I don't tag. However, the file manager (Nemo) does have 'Bookmarks'. I don't use them a lot but they work rather nicely. I can bookmark any file or folder I use quite often. Works for me.
As for Regolith/tiling:- my preference is to line up my open apps on the task bar. It may take an extra click or two, but it allows me to work in maxed windows which I find easier. This works best when working with graphics, transfering colours or bits from one image to another. In text files, my editor has tags along the top for multiple opened files, as does my office suite. Again, it's a preference thing as I find tiled windows way too confusing. I did experiment with the double click/rolling up the window into its title bar. That worked quite well, but setting it up was a pain.
14 • is distri package management really a new idea? (by frimical on 2020-06-15 14:45:15 GMT from France)
Hello, and thank you for reviewing this "research" distro :'distri'.
Since long time ago, ( meaning its bearth...) TinycoreLinux distro was installing packages basically in two main ways:
1-first mounting needed package on a ro dir, then
2- incorporating/installing it either by:
a- copying its contents to the running filesystem ( then cleaning the mount ) : ram only but more ram
b- symlinking its contents into the running filesystem: less ram but not ram only, unless...
Nothing new on earth to be surprised of regarding distri's research! approach, neither of the presence of many loop mounted fs... this goes with that...
In all cases, this package integration model is very modular, light and fast.
Dependencies are known in advance and never downloaded, mounted, neither loaded/copied twice. And above all, it could be just 'on demand', meaning: 'no need to wear all our clothes. for all the seasons, at the same time, just to go the bathroom...' tiny but totally efficient.
Regards
15 • Tagging (by Tom on 2020-06-15 14:45:45 GMT from Germany)
I used to use keyword tagging in Digikam and was disappointed when I found out that the keywords are only in the exif attributes would therefore not show up in the extended file attributes in Dolphin. I remember someone working on that, not sure whether it has ever been "fixed".
16 • Tags are useful for disks (by Kingneutron on 2020-06-15 15:49:07 GMT from United States)
I don't use tags for files, but on the OSX desktop I color-tag the disks to denote which are internal/external/USB.
17 • Tags (by Cheker on 2020-06-15 17:24:06 GMT from Portugal)
Do songs count? That's about it, with EasyTag. Don't really use other types of tags.
18 • Tiling & tags (by voidpin on 2020-06-15 19:44:38 GMT from Sweden)
Tiling isn't for everyone but, that's all I use. AweswomeWM and spectrWM on two different laptops. File tags? I don't even use a file manager. There's tree, rm, mv, cp, mount, ls,...
19 • Tagging files (by Mim Yucel on 2020-06-15 21:12:06 GMT from Turkey)
I would very like tagging files in lots (batch renaming) as in Microsoft Windows, but not possible. So I do (must do) rename all files one by one which is much time consuming. I need this especially by reorganising my photos.
20 • @3 • question (by manda tory kiwi) XML files in .comment folder (by Somewhat Reticent on 2020-06-15 23:38:40 GMT from United States)
Aren't these made by file manager services like those for thumbnail image display?
(Like 2009 bug at bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gthumb/+bug/496603 ?)
21 • Tagging files (by StephenC on 2020-06-15 23:56:30 GMT from United States)
I voted "I do not tag" also. But, like @17 I tag my audio files with EasyTag so that my mp3 player can display a menu sorted by songs/artists, etc. I can see wanting tags in DigiKam so that I can query for groups of related pictures, but I haven't invested any time in it. Maybe it isn't that useful after all. I haven't found a need to tags at the filesystem level otherwise. Most files are obvious by their name or location already.
@19 By "tagging files" to rename them, I think you mean "select a group based on some commonality"? Thunar (XFCE) file manager has a bulk rename extension that might help you. A quick check of Debian packages also shows autoremname, krenamer (KDE), and mrenamer are available.
22 • File Tagging (by Woodstock69 on 2020-06-16 00:15:55 GMT from Australia)
I use file tagging extensively, where possible, for my photography workflow. The biggest bugbear I have with Dolphin FM is its superior lack of tagging functionality. Windows Explorer gives you the full range of EXIF tags that can be modified (where possible) or otherwise, displayed as columns. Dolphin? Not so much.
Now, as to why i need them? Efficient sorting! I can sort on created date, comment, photo type, GPS loc, etc, etc, right from the file manager. I don't want to load up Digikam or other huge app just to sort my photo collection into specific folders and kill duplicates.
I once wrote to Dolphin's Dev and felt like he gave me the middle finger suggesting Dolphin was a file manager only. Really? And how do you expect me to manage my photo files without EXIF accessibility and tagging functions!! I was really disappointed at his arrogant reply. In this respect Windows Explorer shines.
I'd really love to use Digikam more for tagging and sorting photos, and it's brilliant while it works, but, in Kubuntu at least, at every release, it crashes randomly, is slow and makes sorting photos cumbersome. Mind you, having several million photos to collate may be the issue. YMMV.
23 • Tagging Files (by Doug on 2020-06-16 03:03:07 GMT from United States)
"As such I am not aware of any distributions which ship with a file manager that includes tagging as a standard or default feature. "
Dolphin, and therefore any distro with KDE Plasma as its desktop, features tagging as a standard feature.
24 • regolith (by dingle-bury on 2020-06-16 03:57:01 GMT from Australia)
I've tried Regolith several times, as a distrohopper, but get thwarted by my own 'click and drag' bias. I believe those who describe tiling window managers as more efficient, and I'll continue to try, but I feel like I am missing something and there's so many choices and keys to learn.
Regolith is now up to 20.04.0-1.4.1, I get motivated to try a distro after a review hasn't worked out, maybe a bit late now, but i3 is it's own memory muscle fun..
25 • File tagging and dolphin (by randomly generated entity on 2020-06-16 05:59:33 GMT from United States)
I'll admit that I haven't dug too deeply into file tagging, beyond a meticulously tagged (using mostly Picard) music collection of some 150,000+ files. That's all organized by artist and/or album, in appropriately named folders, so it's not completely necessary, but I like having Clementine show me everything in as logical and organized a way as possible. I don't have a large collection of photos or I's probably attack those in a similar way.
As for dolphin, I hadn't really considered its tagging abilities until @22 and @23 got me thinking. It's there., just not immediately obvious. The view menu has the "Show Additional Information..." item, and there's further magic possible through the editable location area. All this without even enabling baloo, which apparently enriches the possibilities.
So yes, you can indeed sort your files in all kinds of not immediately apparent ways. Doubt I'll use it often, but it's nice to know it's there in my favorite file manager.
26 • Portable tags (by Klaus on 2020-06-16 07:09:27 GMT from Hong Kong)
I think that tagging files is useful and I would like it to be a standard feature in any operating systems, certainly on Linux.
For me the main problem that needs to be addressed it the portability of tags: (1) tags should not be application specific, and (2) it should be straightforward to backup the tags along with the files.
27 • Regolith (by Stranger Tides on 2020-06-16 09:07:43 GMT from Singapore)
I don't know why Regolith was not working for you. I had a smooth experience with Regolith.
Though, it consumes more memory comparing to i3 implementation. Because, it is GNOME fallback under hood.
28 • links instead of tags (by Ram on 2020-06-16 13:22:37 GMT from India)
Those accustomed to simple directory/files style of storage, can use symbolic liks or hard links to the original file at appropriate locations (instead of tags or weird filenames).
It will not work on non-UNIX or (may be) non-Linux systems. So don't follow this trick if using those systems also.
29 • symbolic links/tagging (by Myrtle the Devuan FanGurl on 2020-06-16 14:09:15 GMT from United States)
@28 that's all I've ever done until I poked around dolphin a while back.. no matter the distro (replace thunar, etc).
30 • Linking vs. tagging (by msi on 2020-06-16 14:12:08 GMT from Germany)
@28: The key here is “appropriate location”. Using tags instead of creating links within your existing directory tree would mean you don't have to think about appropriate locations because tagging would abstract from the directory layout.
31 • @20 - thanks for the insight (by manda tory on 2020-06-16 20:06:24 GMT from New Zealand)
@20 Somewhat Reticent, thank you for that insight.
It seems to only be a tiny number of files which trigger the thumbnailer into creating these files. So I would deduce that some metadata within those files is the cause. Hence my question.
So its a dual-front approach. (i) remove the tags that trigger this, (ii) somehow find a way to configure the thumbnailer not create additional files.
32 • Tagging (by Flavio R. Cavalcanti on 2020-06-17 01:20:12 GMT from Brazil)
As said by @7 it is an old resource for KDE & Dolphin users, but I use to disable or remove PIM / Baloo / Akonadi, too.
As @4 I prefer to use relevant key-names for files, folders and partitions, and even without Baloo indexing, a simple CTRL+F withing Dolphin works very fast to me.
33 • Tagging files (by Wally on 2020-06-17 14:06:57 GMT from United States)
I tag my mp3 files with puddletag (http://docs.puddletag.net/), a FLOSS alternative to mp3tag (https://www.mp3tag.de/en/). Unfortunately, the main puddletag implementation uses qt4 and python2, both of which are now removed by default in Debian Sid. But the Debian maintainer of puddletag has been doing a lot of heavy lifting on a python3+qt5 fork (https://github.com/sandrotosi/puddletag/tree/pyqt5%2Bpy3)
My music files are the only ones I bother to tag. Back in the olden days on a non-free OS, I would actually use the "attributes" tab of the properties window on files and give (mostly Word documents) some fields some values but I don't think I ever searched for these files. The directory structure of the common filesystems is quite sufficient for not losing files.
34 • Regolith (by Superfish on 2020-06-17 19:57:17 GMT from Isle of Man)
Disappointing review of Regolith, Jessie. I assume that the review was written a few weeks before publishing, which is a shame as their website clearly states that there is a version based on Ubuntu 20.04 (an LTS release) which may well prove to be more stable. A number of people above have commented that it works fine for them but now lots of readers will be put off trying it. I feel sorry for the developers, I wonder if you contacted them before publishing to give them a chance to explain where they are up to with the project? Moreover, their website and documentation looks pretty good and they seem to have a clear sense of direction.
I don't know about anybody else, but I come here to read a review of a distro. We all know Linux can be a PITA to either install or configure and I would have expected a bit more effort from a seasoned Linuxer! You could have done a quick Ubuntu install and then installed from the PPA - would have maybe taken a couple of hours in a VM, or tried the older release but then I don't know how much time you are prepared to spend on a weekly column.
Perhaps in future when a review has to be abandoned in that way, you could put a request out to the readership for someone to chip in with their own review?
35 • Tagging files (by cykodrone on 2020-06-17 20:20:20 GMT from Austria)
The only files I tag are music files, many of them are incorrect upon arrival, so they need to be researched and fixed. I use EasyTag or whatever, the most popular that works, they don't always tag correctly from the web located music info databases. I avoid tagging other types of files, I like my privacy.
36 • SLS Linux (by hsw on 2020-06-18 04:26:11 GMT from Taiwan)
This was the first Linux distro I tried on a 4MB 386SX notebook with 20MB HD. It was like having a real computer (MS-DOS felt more like microComputer). However it was not able to handle the LCD backlight and 30min was the longest setting in the BIOS, no always-on option. The first SLS version could not boot from its CD and cane with a boot floppy, but later release coulld. Later I upgraded to Slackware an in 1994 switched to FreeBSD. If i remember correctly the kernel was 0.9 in that first SLS release.
37 • Very first Linux (by Friar Tux on 2020-06-18 21:34:48 GMT from Canada)
@36 (hsw) The very first Linux distro I tried I can even remember the name. It sent me high-tailing back to my Windows 3.11, and while I played with the odd distro here and there, it wasn't until Windows 10 that I seriously became a Linux fan.
38 • moving from windows to linux ... (by Otis on 2020-06-19 16:22:28 GMT from United States)
@37 What distro did you end up with? Or do you hop around instead of keeping one? I hop around but had settled on debian then it went systemd so went to devuan but could not resolve machine over heading issue so went back to manjaro which runs fast and cool.
You win a lot but lose a little too with linux. Windows never over heated this laptop. Left windows for myriad other well known reasons.
39 • tagging files using Emblems (by mmphosis on 2020-06-20 01:49:47 GMT from Canada)
I tag files using the Thunar or Nemo using Emblems. It's a bit awkward to set the icon, right click, properties, Emblem tab, choose icon -- in the Finder it was Label menu, choose a label. Tags are something not very permanent that I don't care too much about for my files. It is more of a very temporary status indication. I only have at most 3 different icons (and my meaning for the icon) that I might use in a day: No icon (default), Check icon (active, current), Gear icon (active but unexpected for today). It's simply a visual clue in a working folder, I don't search, and by tomorrow I don't care and start new files and emblems.
40 • Which distro... (by Friar Tux on 2020-06-20 13:24:48 GMT from Canada)
@38 (Otis) My distro of choice is Linux Mint/Cinnamon. It consistently played nice with numerous machines. Most of the other distros, were rather picky depending on the hardware. Some worked great on one laptop but had issues on another. Eventually, I had Fedora/KDE on one machine, Manjaro/KDE on another and Mint/Cinnamon on a third. And then KDE started going wacky. (Note:- Manjaro had issues an the other two machines, Fedora worked on two but not the third. Mint worked on every machine out-of-box.) Anyway, in the end, I got tired of all the issues and just used Mint.
41 • distro/machine hopping (by Otis on 2020-06-20 15:22:22 GMT from United States)
@40 yes indeed the "linux is great" as long as you have the compatible machine/distro luck thing. I do see and hear a lot about the Ubuntu derived distros staying on more different types of hardware. I do believe they have far more public testers and bug reporters out there than most distros.
Yeah Manjaro went systemd .. don't know what to say other than I love the quick feel of Arch based experience and I confess to imagining that I will some day be able to go to Arch and build it to my liking on this machine just the same as Manjaro has done for me.
42 • @ 41 Installing Arch (by OstroL on 2020-06-20 21:35:12 GMT from Poland)
You might try the Zen Installer to install Arch. It is a type of a script that was there officially before 2013 with Arch. Just google Zen Installer and have a look. You'd have a pure Arch install together a desktop environment within 15 minutes.
43 • Zen Installer (by vern on 2020-06-21 02:27:59 GMT from United States)
I goggled the zen installer. Came across 2 for 1. One was a script unrelated to zen that looked interesting, the other was the Zen Installer. Watched a 20min vedio while the guy installed Arch the Zen way.
Very nice and easy. I did notice that the guy installing Arch through Zen was using EndeavouOS!
44 • @43 Zen Installer (by OstroL on 2020-06-21 06:51:02 GMT from Poland)
I suppose, it was once called revenge installer. https://sourceforge.net/projects/revenge-installer/
45 • Compatibility (by Friar Tux on 2020-06-21 15:03:16 GMT from Canada)
@41 (Otis) I was actually thinking of it the other way around, that if the distro doesn't work on your machine, try another, similar distro. With the amount of distros out there, you will always find one the works. It's not a luck thing, just a bit of homework. There ARE a few that seem to work fine right off the bat - Mint, Zorin, Ubuntu, Peppermint... Start with one of those and then experiment with one that's a bit more difficult. That's what makes Linux so great.
46 • Arch/Zen (by Otis on 2020-06-21 19:49:13 GMT from United States)
@44 @43 @42 I just read the Forbes article in that Zen search at google list:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/06/10/arch-linux-os-challenge-2-alternatives-install-gui-script-easy/#1e08d8744d94
Noted that the author advises to install arch by hand the arch way first! So, learn your stuff then go streamlined.. still thinking about that.
Thank you for the Zen hookup, OstroL.
47 • Arch installers (by Cheker on 2020-06-21 21:13:48 GMT from Portugal)
Speaking of Arch installers, thought I'd throw my hat in and shill for Anarchy. I haven't tried Zen, but I have tried Anarchy and I like it a lot. I've installed Arch the good old fashioned way once before, and I've never replicated it since. At some point I just f it up. Anarchy gives you a lot of choice so installing pure Arch is....unnecessary, unless you just want that experience.
https://anarchyinstaller.org/
Number of Comments: 47
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