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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Mint? (by DaveW on 2020-08-24 00:30:01 GMT from United States)
Is Linux Mint a commercial distro or a community dirstro?
It's based on a commercial distro (Ubuntu) which is based on a community distro (Debian). So which poll category does it fit in?
2 • Distro (by Arthur on 2020-08-24 00:48:53 GMT from Australia)
I assume openSUSE is considered commercial even though its not SLE.
Either way I use openSUSE Tumbleweed.
3 • Ubuntiy? debian ? (by vern on 2020-08-24 01:29:13 GMT from United States)
Yes, I think the poll is confusing a bit. Mint is community to my way of thinking. Ubuntu, which is commercial, is based on community, yet is considered commercial. Ubuntu itself is commercial, I agree.
4 • Open or closed source, Commercial? (by Greg Zeng on 2020-08-24 01:38:11 GMT from Australia)
"Commercial" is a loaded, misunderstood term. All unique productions are covered by the legal copyright laws. Some Linux kernels (including the Ubuntu kernels), & some operating systems have commercial binary bits that are commercial, closed source, with un-examined source code. Some versions of some operating systems may be closed source, but do not offer commercial support, nor demand commercial purchase before release.
Often the strict commercial products have community open source families. The Red Hat & SUSE brands offer commercial support, for commercial quality. Each RPM brand has many downstream brands, based on these upstream products.
A few operating systems avoid commercialism and closed source binary bits very clearly. Many suspect "systemd" to be so complex that it might hide these unwanted parts as well.
"Clear Linux OS" is Intel's commercial product designed to showcase the superiority of the Intel CPU, in comparative benchmark tests. This "seems" to be the case, if the examiners ignore the fact that Ubuntu has for several years, versions of the Linux kernel optimized for benchtest results. The other paradox of Intel's product is that it works just as effectively on the other brands of CPU, especially on AMD. Finally, like the VW benchtest ready cars, there really is more to an operating system than bench test results.
5 • MX GNU/Linux KDE Plasma (by Elcaset on 2020-08-24 01:39:11 GMT from United States)
I use the KDE Plasma version of MX GNU/Linux. It's a community distro, & it's based on Debian. So, a thoroughly community distro.
6 • Commercial, non-commercial (by TheTKS on 2020-08-24 02:16:38 GMT from Canada)
Voted Community, but no specific poll category fits.
In order of time I spend on each: Slackware, Xubuntu, OpenBSD, elementaryOS, Puppy (Slackware and Ubuntu compatible main versions roughly equally), TinyCore.
So "Other" probably is the best description, but Unknown doesn't apply.
Xubuntu, a "flavour" (not a "derivative", not a fork) of Ubuntu, I would consider commercial-based community, but maybe commercial is a more accurate category.
I agree with @4 Greg Zeng that "commercial" is a loaded and misunderstood term (although the poll does give a pretty clear description with examples to help distinguish for its purposes.) Slackware, OpenBSD and elementaryOS are community per the poll description, but are commercial in the sense that at least one person is employed and compensated mainly or exclusively in the production of those distros/OSs. (Excuse that awkward wording. It was the best way I could think of to capture all three in one line.)
TKS
7 • Non Commercial (by What_if on 2020-08-24 02:22:28 GMT from Australia)
I run 4 distros on 5 pc.
To the best of my knowledge only one is commercial "Ubuntu" with exception of windows, on my touch screen 2in1laptop. I might add having tried multiple OS, none of the Linux's seem ideal with touch screens. Gnome virtual keyboard is simplistic resulting limited functionality. I have dual booted with windows which rarely ever is booted, occasionally for I Tunes.
My go to Os, is Redcorelinux.org a derivative of Gentoo, from wiki " Robbins set up the non-profit Gentoo Foundation", community based distro. I have this running on 3 desktops i5 3rd & 4thGen as well as an older bios i5-2nd gen Sony laptop.
My main desktop has Win10/Redcore/Void/Artix linux. Note apart from the 2in1, no other Linux is running SystemD. Void & Artix (runit), Redcore (openRc).
8 • I run a community-based commercial distro...I think. (by tom joad on 2020-08-24 02:26:33 GMT from France)
I am using Mint Cinnamon pretty much exclusively now. I stopped hopping when I left MX Linux.
But owing to the question there is a lot of cross breeding, inbreeding in Linux. That makes it really difficult to decide, define exactly what one is using.
True there are only a few main branches with Debian being one of the larger ones. And there a lot of shoots off the main branches. And those shoots come and go at will too. While the code is mostly the same I guess as I am not a programmer, the 'front ends' and degrees of customization really makes for the various 'flavors.'
And a myriad of different 'flavors' make for happiness for all concerned. And isn't happiness what it is all about anyway?
9 • MX-Linux. (by R. Cain on 2020-08-24 02:28:40 GMT from United States)
Compared to Distroatch's review of MX-Linux last year (Xfce) to this year's MX-KDE review, this one comes off as a version of "...for a fat girl, you sure don't sweat much."
In place of the closest thing to a "Conclusion" (which there isn't, but there was one last year) are some neutered comments--
"... the KDE session loads more slowly than the Xfce desktop. However, once it is up and running KDE Plasma *KEPT PACE* [my emphasis] with Xfce in the same test environment...MX just provides different desktop environments with different desktop accessories once the system is installed."
And *THIS* is worth going from a 1600 MB download size (Xfce) to 2.1 GB for the KDE version? Why?
**************
After the discussion last week regarding OS 'Bloat-Creep' it is also very instructive and informative to look at how MX's download size has increased, going from versions 17.1 to 18.3 to 19.2 to 19.2KDE:
1250, 1400, 1600, and 2100 (all numbers represent MB).
If you remember, 17.1 and 18.3 were declared to be the best Linux distros of 2018 and 2019. 2020 should be extremely interesting.
10 • Ya gotta love Linux (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-24 02:42:16 GMT from Canada)
I voted that I use a community distro, but after reading the comment, especially the first four, I'm not so sure anymore. Still, I have to agree with Jesse in the article. One of the things that attracted me to Linux WAS the fact that if you don't like something, fork it, or modify it, and return it for others to enjoy. Even if two people disagree on what changes to make, each makes his own fork, and now you make twice as many folks happy/. Like I said, ya gotta love Linux!!
11 • KDE and use in MX (by Bobbie Sellers on 2020-08-24 02:55:38 GMT from United States)
Some one worries about a small increase in the size to accommodate
KDE Plasma 5 but that is minutes of downloading even on DSL.
You should be more concerned that many of the formerly low memory
requirement Desktop Management programs like XFCE, Gnome and others
use much more memory in action than KDE's Plasma 5 does.
Of course being a long time KDE Desktop Manager user I readily admit
that KDE Plasma takes some interest in desktop appearance modification
and study of the various options including gathering the sort of themes
and wallpapers that you find interesting, Most Desktop Managers are
much more limited in this regard.
Take the matter of menu appearance.
In KDE the Menu icon can be changed.
But more importantly perhaps the Menu
presentation can be changed by right
clicking on the icon to see the menu and
left clicking on the item (Show Alternatives.
You have a full screen application launcher Application Dashboard,
an Application Launcher, an Application Menu ,a Simple Menu
or a Tiled Menu.
Which do you prefer? The Application Menu is my favorite and
I used it almost exclusively. People coming from other
systems like the ever-colorful Microsoft program launcher
may prefer the Tiled Menu or the Simple Menu.
I could rattle on in praise of KDE but I think I have better
thing to do but before I leave let me say that I run
PCLinuxOS 64 and in VirtualBox I am running MXLinux with
KDE 5 to play Angband. I found the XFCE a bit problematic
but it kept corrupting my Angband save files,
bliss - running a Dell E6540 CPU: Quad Core Intel Core i7-4800MQ (-MT MCP-) speed/min/max: 1254/800/3700 MHz Kernel: 5.7.10-pclos1 x86_64 Up: 2d 8h 02m
Mem: 6432.2/15927.8 MiB (40.4%) Storage: 4.09 TiB (28.1% used) Procs: 318 Shell: inxi: 3.1.04 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06) and VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mars XTX [Radeon HD 8790M]
12 • Poll (by jonothing on 2020-08-24 03:03:54 GMT from Australia)
Community distros, currently running MX 19.2 Xfce on sda6 but also have installed, on the same drive, Trisquel 9 Mini, Artix LXDE (Runit) and a Devuan Ceres based distro, that I am free to make my own.
13 • distro features (by rolladistro on 2020-08-24 05:31:43 GMT from Australia)
Garuda Linux & RebornOS sound interesting, with rollback and other features. Good to see new features becoming a norm in some distros.
14 • From commercial to community (by Andy Prough on 2020-08-24 05:36:09 GMT from United States)
Started commercial 20-some years ago with SuSE, even though my friend urged me to go community with Slackware. Stayed with SuSE through the hybrid commercial/community transition to openSUSE. In recent years went full community distros with Debian and Artix and Trisquel and ended up with MX. Still don't understand Slackware.
15 • @#9 (by Chris Whelan on 2020-08-24 09:12:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
In testing, the first boot after install takes a bit longer with the KDE version. After that first boot, the difference is in the order of 4 seconds. That's not an MX Linux thing, by the way.
The reason why is two-fold. Firstly, the developers of MX Linux originally created it for themselves, following the demise of Mepis. It then seemed too good not to release. Some of these developers use MX with KDE, so they decided to make it official.
The second reason is that the developers are very keen on responding to user's requests, and from both the forum and the Facebook group page, it was clear KDE was wanted by some.
Of course, if performance is the priority MX Linux also provides a heavily modified Fluxbox environment that comes as an overlay in the Xfce versions.
16 • Love affairs (by Igor on 2020-08-24 09:20:26 GMT from Croatia)
@11, Hey pal, it's not fair! Guy didn't argue against KDE, he just complains that the girl who was slim when he fell in love with her tends to grow bigger and bigger.
There are various approaches to the problem like this. One can go for another girl, or stay with the same one nagging about her silhouette. That is, if the appearance is the crucial attraction. Otherwise you can just tease her about moving slower and slower and keep on loving her. Or, if you have your own idea of the ideal girl, and the complete item is not available, you can ask her to adapt: change her menu, fonts, themes, colours...
Or you can take and love her just the way she is, for her own sake. I myself am prone to bigger girls, and yet in love with a slim one. So besides openSUSE with KDE on my desktop, I use Bodhi on my laptop. Frankly, I use less than 20% of all those customisations KDE offers, but there is one that is the game winner, the Activities (KDE, not the Gnome ones). KDE is OK with me, because it is the proper face of the openSUSE which is the distro of my choice, because it brings about so many accesories that work excellently each one on its own, and together, interwoven into smooth system. I also prefer being able to do everything in more than one way. It is muuuuuch more intuitive that way.
On the other hand, with Moksha, I have to make everything work myself, but then, I choose the tools to my own liking and have a fast and beautiful (the KDE is outright ugly) system with the clear UI, making my very old laptop fit as if she were, what, six or seven? That's because I would never leave the laptop I love just because there were younger ones around. Or indeed for any other reason.
17 • Do you run commercial or community distributions? (by James on 2020-08-24 10:04:57 GMT from United States)
I run Ubuntu Mate, a community version of a commercial distro.
18 • @ Jesse (by OstroL on 2020-08-24 12:02:52 GMT from Poland)
"When companies shipped locked-down Android phones, we ended up with UBports and /e/ OS."
You are talking about two different things, hardware and software, phones and OSs.
The Android comes preinstalled on phones, and there are open source Android OSs that can be installed on older and newer phones.
UBPorts doesn't come on phones. It can only be installed very old phones. Half an year makes the phone old, 6 years makes them ancient. The only phone that everything UBPorts work is Nexus 5, but the battery life is awful. There are some 3-4 year older phone brands that can be useful with UT/UBPorts, but most important apps breaks in them, such as wifi. There's only one web browser, which cannot run google maps correctly. Most navigation apps doesn't pinpoint your location. Some even drops calls, which is the most important app in a mobile phone.
Well, we didn't end up with UBPorts or /e/OS, for only very few people use them. And, by enthusiasts, who can afford to buy an older phone and play with it. I have Nexus 5 with a quite good battery, only bought to test/play with UT/UBPorts. From full charge to it falls to 65% in 12 hours idling, and in the next 12 hours, it goes down to 30%. But, using the open-source Android from XDA, it only drops 10% in 12 hours idling. So, it looks like UT/UBPorts eats up battery by doing something offline, whereas AOSP doesn't do much. Once the battery goes off completely, I keep the N5 off until I feel like testing UT/UBPorts, just to save the (irremovable) battery.
No, we didn't end up with UBPorts or /e/OS. They are not a replacement for Android or iphoneOS. Maybe, one day PinePhone would be a replacement -- as hardware for all/any kind of open-source OSs. Right now, it comes with Postmarket OS.
19 • @Jesse - GeckoLinux (by Sam on 2020-08-24 13:50:49 GMT from Canada)
Hi Jesse, GeckoLinux creator here. Thanks a lot for the fair and open-minded review! Just a few comments in response:
Just a small detail, but the name of the project is "GeckoLinux", all one word in CamelCase. I do try to stay on top of comments by people that test or use GeckoLinux all over the internet, but it's impossible to search for it when they just put "Gecko".
Also, the first screensheet is the Cinnamon edition, not Plasma. ;-)
It should also be noted that all of the different desktop spins are offered in two main branches, GeckoLinux STATIC, which is based on the latest openSUSE Leap release, and GeckoLinux ROLLING, based on openSUSE Tumbleweed.
> I also noticed that Calamares defaults to using the ext4 filesystem rather than the more feature-rich Btrfs that openSUSE suggests.
Yes, Calamares allows for setting any filesystem to be used for the default guided installation. I chose EXT4 because I'm still not completely sold on the reliability of BtrFS, especially for inexperienced users and certain usage edge cases. I'm willing to change if there is a strong preference by the majority for BtrFS, but I don't think that's likely right now.
> Gecko has done away with the Discover software manager and instead places the YaST Software package manager in the Favourites section of the application menu. This seemed out of character for the distribution.
That was a very deliberate decision that will not be reversed until Discover uses a different backend mechanism. It uses PackageKit, which is an absolute abomination in my opinion, and most others feel the same way:
https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/539390-Using-Discover-in-OpenSUSE-Tumbleweed
It might work well enough for a quick test, but you will quickly start to see the issues that the PackageKit abstraction layer causes, including causing the RPM database to be locked, preventing the YaST and `zypper` tools from working. PackageKit is not likely to improve either, as it's long been in maintenance mode:
https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2019/02/14/packagekit-is-dead-long-live-well-something-else/
The YaST Software manager is perfectly easy to use, 100% reliable, has a great search function, and it allows for graphical management of the repositories too.
> Also on the subject of included software I found it odd that Gecko does not ship with manual pages installed.
Yep, I figure that anybody who even knows what a man page is will be fully capable of installing them if desired. Even as an extremely conservative luddite of a long-time Linux user myself, I've never found any use for the man pages, and can find much more helpful information online when needed. I'd prefer to save a bit of space on the ISO.
> I'm not sure why Gecko chose to not enable the Snapper snapshot tool by default.
The reason why it's not enabled by default is because the Calamares installer would have to deal with setting that up during installation only on systems that are installed with BtrFS, and it's not very good at dealing with those nuances. I wish that openSUSE still had their yast2-live-installer, which used to offer BtrFS with Snapper and GRUB integration, but they unfortunately jettisoned the live installer in favor of their normal YaST installer, which only installs RPM packages onto the target system, which isn't suitable for a live installable system like GeckoLinux.
> On the whole Gecko looks and acts almost exactly like its parent, though with a few changes. Most of these differences show themselves clearly in the first few minutes of exploring the distribution.
Here I would beg to differ. On the website I list a lot of other very significant changes related to low-level package management tweaks and font rendering, which make a huge difference during real-life long-term usage of the system.
> In most ways it looks like Gecko is targeting people who like openSUSE, but want an easier setup and have no plans to use the command line or advanced features.
That's a pretty fair assessment. It's also what I personally install for a large number of friends that I've switched to Linux, with very good results. But as you noted, it's especially made for users like myself that appreciate the many virtues of openSUSE and its incredible development community and reliable infrastructure, but aren't willing to deal with all its papercuts.
Thanks again!
20 • Mobile platforms (by Jesse on 2020-08-24 14:39:03 GMT from Canada)
@18:
"You are talking about two different things, hardware and software, phones and OSs. "
I suppose you could see it that way. I was mostly talking about the software which ships on Android phones, but the hardware is customized too.
"UBPorts doesn't come on phones. It can only be installed very old phones."
Neither of these statements is true. Several phones have shipped with UBports installed. In fact, our News section this week talked about two new devices that can be bundled with UBports. Over the past year we've occasionally posted updates about new phones shipping with UBports.
"There's only one web browser, which cannot run google maps correctly. Most navigation apps doesn't pinpoint your location."
Again, neither of these statements is true. UBports can run multiple browsers and the navigation app can pinpoint location. It just takes a while the first time you fire up the navigation app.
"Well, we didn't end up with UBPorts or /e/OS, for only very few people use them. And, by enthusiasts, who can afford to buy an older phone and play with it. "
I'm not sure of your logic here. I'm not saying everyone went out and used UBports, just that everyone has the option to do so because developers in the community created an alternative. Also, as I pointed out above, you don't need to buy an alternative phone to use UBports or /e/ OS. You can buy them pre-installed or just download the OS to your existing phone. I've done is a couple of times.
"So, it looks like UT/UBPorts eats up battery by doing something offline, "
I also owned a Nexus 5 running UBports. It did not drain the battery the way you describe. Your battery is probably failing.
"No, we didn't end up with UBPorts or /e/OS. They are not a replacement for Android or iphoneOS."
Maybe it isn't a replacement for you. They are for me. I've been running UBports and/or /e/ OS for four years now. Haven't had to use Android (or iOS) that entire time and I've been happy with the open source platforms.
21 • Poll (by David on 2020-08-24 15:33:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
The question is even more complicated than the options provided. OpenSUSE and Fedora may be controlled by commercial organisations, but the work is done by volunteers. In fact, there is no independent distro produced entirely by company staff as there was (I believe) in the early days; unless you count Slackware — or does Pat have a day job or a private income? Then we have the back-and-forth exemplified by Debian > Ubuntu > Mint. For the record, my main distro is PCLinuxOS — pure community effort.
22 • @ Jesse /e/ OS (by OstroL on 2020-08-24 15:35:00 GMT from Poland)
Checked on /e/ OS, thinking maybe, I'll install it on Nexus 5, but this /e/ OS is based on Android 7 (Lineage OS 15.1), so this /e/ OS is old. Right now, Android 10 (LineageOS 17.1) can be installed on Nexus 5, disregarding "unGoogling."
So, /e/ OS is not a replacement for Android (AOSP).
23 • haters gonna hate? (by foo2foo on 2020-08-24 17:01:39 GMT from United States)
Very nice reviews Jesse, thank you for spending the time to do them.
@9
Not sure why you are trying to rip on Jesse's review or MX Linux.
Maybe its because you created a website and do reviews that get a lot more visibility then ones by Jesse or the Distrowatch team?
Maybe its because you created or are a contributor a distro that has more users than MX Linux?
You obviously wouldn't be able to really do either of the above since you think that the ISO size has something to do with the minimally increased boot time in MX-KDE. You're just talking smack for the heck of it.
What's next? Some init discrimination nonsense about how MX defaults to sysVinit?
24 • Poll (by Otis on 2020-08-24 17:46:40 GMT from United States)
One of the most meaningful Q&A subjects, and subsequent related poll, I've seen here at DW.
5% of Linux users, as of this writing, run commercial distros.
Love that.
25 • @19 GeckoLinux (by Robert on 2020-08-24 17:53:58 GMT from United States)
Great response to Jesse's review.
I agree with your stance on btrfs an PackagKit. Btrfs seems to be improving steadily but I'm not ready to trust it just yet. PackageKit was a great idea, but always seemed to cause more problems than it solved in my experience.
I haven't used opensuse in some years now. Too many papercuts as you call them. Feels like they're using their impressive automated testing in lieu of any hands-on, causing many things to slip through the cracks.
Never tried GeckoLinux before, but if I feel the desire to go back to opensuse I will definitely check it out.
26 • Re: community projects (by Jim on 2020-08-24 18:49:35 GMT from United States)
While community projects do still abound, corporate influence in the Linux ecosystem is unavoidable. Avoiding systemd, for example, requires a fair amount of work and necessitates the use of a literal handful of very small distributions (one of which, Void, has lost its lead dev and is most likely on its way to shutting down). Soon Gnome will not even function without systemd installed, and other DEs based on Gnome will follow suit. Let's not forget that Linux is big business. From smart phones to the servers that make up most of our modern internet, Linux is ubiquitous.
27 • Poll needs a "yes" response (by CS on 2020-08-24 19:37:01 GMT from United States)
RHEL on production containers/VMs
Centos on development containers/VMs
Linux Mint on old laptops
So I choose "yes".
28 • MX review (by Otis on 2020-08-24 20:04:30 GMT from United States)
Nice to see comparative distro reviews now and again. For me the MX and openSuse glances provided a needed contrast (and lack thereof) 'tween two with the self-same environment: KDE (not exactly the same, of course).
Slower boots compared to XFCE are predictable, but nice smooth operation as the operator moves forward is also predictable given the ongoing very professional development of KDE over the years.
As to this R.Cain fellow (@9), I guffawed a bit at the bloat/growing iso thing and then read his or her:
"1250, 1400, 1600, and 2100 (all numbers represent MB)," which is rather pompous, bloated way to just say:
1250mb, 1400mb, 1600mb, and 2100mb.
29 • Nature of the Beast (by M.Z. on 2020-08-24 23:31:04 GMT from United States)
@11 & @16
Let's be honest, complaining about a KDE version being hundreds of MB more than the XFCE version of the same distro is just a way to find a complaint. It's like complaining that Florida is muggy & has too many more clouds than Arizona. So what? Some of us enjoy growing back yard pineapples & watching rocket launches & landings, or feature rich desktop environments. If you want a more feature rich desktop doing a bigger download is just the nature of the beast.
From what little I can tell KDE just as popular as XFCE & both are at the top of the DE options list. Having both as an option is probably a smart move for most distros, & far from being worthy of complaint so long as your preferred option is still available. If anything, when your preferred distro gets a slightly expanded portfolio of DEs, the project should see expand interest & could gain users if all the options are well executed & reasonably popular. That being the case attacking a new option is a rather silly move in as much as you're advocating against the expansion & growth of the project.
30 • Gecko Linux (by UptheduffJohnson on 2020-08-25 00:33:02 GMT from Mexico)
A distro that is bone jarringly ugly. It's 2020, not 2013. Time for a new theme? Using Faenza is almost criminal at this point.
I tried Gecko a few times as a live distro, the only redeeming feature is that it has persistant storage. Everything else, horrendous.
I suppose everything has its place in this fragmented Linux world.
I wonder when some people will yell in protest about the fact that Debian broke the AppImage format?
31 • Sweeping statements (by Arctic Troll on 2020-08-25 11:31:59 GMT from Germany)
Oh really? I happen to like Faenza and still have it in all installations, in its various theme forms for Cinnamon, Xfce and KDE. Even the newly released Bunsen still includes the gray Faenza #! theme.
So I guess as always beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me it's a timelesse design and I can't stand all the new flat themes.
As to "Everything else, horrendous" is far too vague a statement. Care to elaborate and give reasons?
32 • thought it was going to be a double disaster (by fonz on 2020-08-25 12:41:28 GMT from Indonesia)
as it was a double review. IIRC the last 1 ended with the 1st distro test as not successful, then moved on to the next. was actually surprised to see both tested ok. my current go to distro was puppy, but it was changed to mx recently as things were just easier to manage in a more familiar environment.
the last time i tried KDE was when both them and numb3 were taking ~1GB idling, surprisingly its just a bit heavier than XFCE as of this article. ill probably switch over as GTK is pretty disappointing cutting out a bunch of stuff while KDE adds more. my preferred DE is actually LXQT (huge upgrade from LXDE) then installing dolphin, probably the best file manager ATM.
went with other for the poll as there werent combos. wandows just for gaming, community for the rest with debian, mx, and puppy...
33 • Opinion Poll (by Diego Azeta on 2020-08-25 14:45:13 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I run Mint 19.3, so I answered Unkown/Other. Confused was more like it.
34 • Gecko Linux (by Carlos Felipe Araujo on 2020-08-25 15:32:46 GMT from Brazil)
The original theme from OpenSuse is better than Gecko's themes and visual tweaks. Why change the vainilla theme if the new theme is worst?
35 • MX Linux (by Carlos Felipe Araujo on 2020-08-25 15:37:57 GMT from Brazil)
By default MX Linux (XFCE) places a panel along the left-border of the screen, which personally I wasn’t a fan of. But using their KDE version is "normal". Non sense choices
36 • @ 20 - Not replacements (by OstroL on 2020-08-25 16:44:50 GMT from Poland)
>> I also owned a Nexus 5 running UBports. It did not drain the battery the way you describe. Your battery is probably failing. <<
I still own one. The battery is quite good, with its battery health at 91.7%. I said that in my other post (#18). With UBPorts, the battery dies very fast, while with Android, it doesn't. This N5 was bought for only one purpose, to play/test UBPorts.
>> "There's only one web browser, which cannot run google maps correctly. Most navigation apps doesn't pinpoint your location."
Again, neither of these statements is true. <<
Well, you are not using it, so how do you know? :)
Regarding /e/ OS, its OS implementation is based on Android 7 (Lineage OS 15.1) for N5, which is more than 2 years old, whereas there's an Android 10 (Lineage OS 17.1) for N5, so /e/ OS is too old. And, cannot be a replacement. Ungoogling is just a headache than a virtue.
37 • @30 Gecko Linux: (by dragonmouth on 2020-08-25 16:56:08 GMT from United States)
Functionality is way more important than looks. Themes can be changed and/or customized, functionality can't. It's like a woman who looks great but is dumb as a post.
38 • @35 Carlos Felipe Araujo: (by dragonmouth on 2020-08-25 17:01:13 GMT from United States)
The placement of the panel in MX XFCE can be changed in Panel Preferences.
39 • MX KDE (by John on 2020-08-25 18:43:30 GMT from Canada)
Been using the new KDE version of MX since it was released and LOVE IT! Smooth, fast, looks great and perfectly stable. Also handles my nvidia optimus dual graphics flawlessly. Will be sticking with this one for the long term :-)
40 • @20 Alternative OS (by OstroL on 2020-08-25 19:11:49 GMT from Poland)
>> Also, as I pointed out above, you don't need to buy an alternative phone to use UBports or /e/ OS. You can buy them pre-installed or just download the OS to your existing phone. I've done is a couple of times.<<
OK, I have good phone lying around at home, Asus Zenfone Go X007D running Android 6.0.1. I'd like to run UBPorts on it, or even /e/ OS. I'd delighted, if you (or anyone else) can show me how to do that.
41 • I run the holiest of holy distros (by Dr. Dave on 2020-08-25 21:47:07 GMT from United States)
I use TempleOS; directly supported by God. All these other operating systems think they have to continually reinvent the wheel, to keep the audience entertained, while TempleOS was actually finished and will still function in 40 years. Keep chasing closed-source gpu drivers and the bloat of ever-increasing display resolutions while I will be comfy with the divine 640x480.
42 • Android and pomp (by Angel on 2020-08-26 00:01:01 GMT from Philippines)
@20, 40, I'd also be interested in finding out just how one downloads an alternative OS to any Android phone.
@28, Otis, aside from the pomposity, "mb" would be millibits. Now that would be a tiny distro.
43 • @ 42, et. al.--Pomp And Circumstance. (Misguided circumstanceS, to be sure) (by R. Cain on 2020-08-26 02:03:08 GMT from United States)
Some are so LITERALLY consumed by the Dunning-Kruger effect that it is pathologically necessary to justify their erudition as expediently as possible, even at the expense of egregious, ridiculous mistakes (such as, for example, NOT KNOWING *ANYTHING* about the consequences of "OS Bloat")...which are, of course, explained by the Dunning-Kruger effect.
"I'd rather argue against a hundred idiots, than have one agree with me."-Winston Churchill
"An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head."--Eric Hoffer
44 • follow the money (by Raving Lunatic on 2020-08-26 11:28:17 GMT from Sweden)
"I find it tricky to find examples of corporate interests pushing out or taking over open source projects successfully" - here is a case of corporate interests pushing out - LibreOffice Personal Edition - https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/254802/what-about-personal-edition-in-v-70/
45 • Bloat Vs Context (by M.Z. on 2020-08-26 22:27:00 GMT from United States)
From DW Weekly:
"The KDE edition of MX Linux is available for 64-bit (x86_64) computers exclusively at the moment ...
... The KDE Plasma session uses 450MB of RAM, up from 400MB for the Xfce edition."
So given the full weight of 50MB in the context of most 64-bit systems where RAM is measured in GB, I don't think it should be too hard to judge the effects of 'OS Bloat', not to mention various other effects, on both users & DW comment makers.
46 • MX's KDE bloat (by barnabyh on 2020-08-27 00:03:33 GMT from Germany)
My reading stays around 560 MB, in line with other reviews and video reviews just watched. Those may be the figures for running in Virtualbox though. Still, not a lot. I think we can all live with that. If not you should be running Fluxbox or JWM or something similarly small.
47 • Bloat?? (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-27 01:10:33 GMT from Canada)
@45 (MZ) I totally agree, but let me go one step farther. In today's storage capacity on most laptops, there is no such thing as bloat. I have stuff on my laptop that I only use, maybe, once a year. It takes up a few hundred MB's of real estate. Heck, my music takes up GB's and most is only listened to once in a long while. AND, I once installed a 4GB iso distro that was loaded with apps and programs for every conceivable thing. (Can't remember which distro.) It worked just as well as my present 2GB, middle-of-road distro. It just had more stuff to play with.
For me, the main concern is that it WORKS. That's it.
48 • Bloat definition (by Hoos on 2020-08-27 06:13:25 GMT from Singapore)
There seems to be 2 definitions:
1) how big the iso is and how many apps are included by default
2) the installed system's resource consumption (eg CPU and RAM), how many processes are running, whether those processes are necessary for the user, etc
For me, no. 2 is more important, but I can see why some people just want a lean and mean iso and want control over what else they choose to install. I suspect the latter group consists mostly of more technical and experienced users.
However, I can never understand why such users complain about this in the context of a distro that is meant to be a newcomer-friendly, install-and-use, operating system that comes with a reasonable default set of user applications to do things people might need to do at home or for work.
The experienced users can always uninstall the applications they don't need, but the uninitiated may not always know what apps are available to do what they want.
49 • compat layers (by u r free 2 b free on 2020-08-27 06:24:00 GMT from Australia)
That's at least two distros now - rebornOS and Extix - that are set up to use anbox for running android apps on linux. There's also a snap package of anbox. Could this be the next big thing after wine for running apps from other operating systems on linux?
50 • snap naming (by Jay on 2020-08-28 02:03:44 GMT from United States)
Whats with calling snapcraft.yaml and manifest.yaml? Why the secretive byzantine naming,, neo-witchcraft? What cant call it sourcelist.yaml and recording.yaml or similar that says whats inside.
51 • Gecko Linux (by UptheduffJohnson on 2020-08-28 16:59:19 GMT from Mexico)
Me: can't we all just get along and agree to disagree about which distro is better?
Linux Community Members: sure, as long as you agree that [Debian, Fedora, Arch, Suse, LFS, etc] is best .......
Me: FFS! walks away
52 • Passion (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-28 21:16:32 GMT from Canada)
@51 (UptheduffJohnson) I believe it's called 'passion'. That's why I come here. I haven't seen this much passion since the British Armada came home to shore and Madam Rosa's House Of Romance worked a couple of weeks of overtime.
So don't walk away. Jump into the fray... with whatever distro YOU'RE passionate about.
Number of Comments: 52
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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