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1 • Bunsen (by Vern on 2020-08-31 01:09:19 GMT from United States)
I really enjoyed my time with Bunsenlabs. It was a very minimalist. But could easily add to its features.
I guess I just got lazy, and installed Ubuntu. I've been meaning to put Bunsen on another partition, just haven't gotten around to it.
2 • Fedora (by Andy Prough on 2020-08-31 01:23:35 GMT from United States)
I did a 1-semester class on python one year using Fedora. The gnome extensions I used to make it halfway usable got broken by updates during the semester. Package management with dnf or yum or whatever they were using then was slow and laborious. Haven't tried it since. It's probably fine now, but it doesn't offer anything I can't get just as easily with a Debian based or Arch based system. I've used btrfs a lot with opensuse Tumbleweed and I enjoyed it, but I'm sure I won't try it with Fedora. With all the cheap cloud storage and external storage available these days, I value file system speed and stability far more than any snapshot ability.
3 • BTRFS can be good news. (by Greg Zeng on 2020-08-31 01:28:09 GMT from Australia)
> "The move comes about two years after Fedora's sponsor, Red Hat, dropped support for Btrfs."
Practically all Linux & Windows operating systems can read-write BTRFS partitions. Most (all?) Linux systems can use BTRFS partitions, but some Linux utilities have trouble with recognizing BTRFS partitions; Grub Customizer type programs included.
Windows needs the freeware driver: "Winbtrfs V1.7.3". Similarly, most can read-write Microsoft's NTFS-compressed partitions. Now that Microsoft is a paid up sponsor of both The Linux Foundation, Open Source Security Foundation, and the Open Invention Network, Microsoft's NTFS is now open to Linux. Paragon's & the 3G NTFS systems are now distant history.
Both the open source (Microsoft) NTFS & BTRFS share many features: encryption, compression, meta-data journaling, etc. However BTRFS has so many other features, that it is much slower in its use than other partition systems, as tested by independent specialists.
Personally my BTRFS partitions create so much trouble with the many versions of Grub Customizer. Both BTRFS & NTFS need specialized programs to repair, defragment and maintain their respective partition systems. In this need, they are similar to EXT4, ZFS & other partition systems.
BTRFS seems to net have many business friends yet. Reports of unreliability seem common.
4 • Of btrfs and EXT4 (by tom joad on 2020-08-31 02:43:20 GMT from Austria)
A few months back I got the crazy idea to give ZFS a spin. Bad deal. Ooogly deal actually as it caused me many headaches. Many moons back I was hot to use MX linux which at the time was btrfs. That caused me to ditch that, though I really like MX linux, and run to 'steady Eddie' Mint Cinnamon using good Ol' EXT4. I gotta get stuff done and by stuff I don't mean daily troubleshooting this or that.
As a farmer once told me, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Lastly, Fedora moving from EXT$ to btrfs....yawn. Ain't no way I am ever going over there!
5 • BunsenLabs (by OneHu on 2020-08-31 03:02:43 GMT from Mali)
BunsenLabs has a place. It fills a void. LXDE seems inactive, LXQt is not yet polished, XFCE has ugly windows round corners (among other things). There is no choice on Debian other than #!++ or BL. I wish them a long life.
6 • @4 - MX and btrfs (by Hoos on 2020-08-31 03:17:28 GMT from Singapore)
"...Many moons back I was hot to use MX linux which at the time was btrfs. That caused me to ditch that, though I really like MX linux, and run to 'steady Eddie' Mint Cinnamon using good Ol' EXT4....."
MX has always had ext4 as the default file system.
7 • Target group for bunsenlabs (by Hoos on 2020-08-31 03:28:12 GMT from Singapore)
Many users, including me, remember crunchbang fondly. I think that bunsenlabs can essentially be considered the CB community's successor distro, although I believe that in the immediate wake of crunchbang's demise there were a few other distros seeking to revive that crunchbang look and feel.
I think that openbox Debian fans loving a certain minimalist aesthetic and the ability to tweak their desktop would enjoy bunsenlabs.
8 • Btrfs (by corcaigh on 2020-08-31 03:56:58 GMT from United States)
I have not tried Btrfs outside of Virtualbox, mostly because of not needed for my system. I have been using ext4 for my system files since its acceptance as default in Ubuntu and derivatives; xfs is used on several external HDD units, where my media and personal files are stored. I'm using Backintime for backups. This seems to work for my purposes. ZFS is a possibility, someday...
9 • Bunsenlabs (by Pete on 2020-08-31 07:42:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
Wow! Whatever happened to openbox being lightweight ? 375Mb of RAM ! My Lxqt uses less than 280 on my config of Lubuntu 20.04.
10 • filesystem for media/data storage (by usman on 2020-08-31 07:56:54 GMT from Indonesia)
Even after read the reasons, overhead and reserved space of ext4 seems too much. The overhead stuff too complicated to tweak for ordinary user like me. In my opinion too much space wasted especially my external HDD only for media & data storage.
Considered to change my storage filesystem. But reading the review above about another filesystems, seems ext4 the most stable right now. Maybe xfs worth a try, as my use case similiar to corcaigh@8.
Thanks everyone for sharing experience using another filesystem.
11 • BTRFS (by Ano69 on 2020-08-31 08:17:15 GMT from Bulgaria)
It would be nice to include in the poll the option "I will use/I use BTRFS, but not on Fedora". This is my case - I have 5 BTFS filesystems with the combined size of 60 TB, RAID6 profile.
It's OK filesystem, but I will probably move to my own (under active development) which combines in one all of the features available in different filesystems, but not on one place.
12 • BunsenLabs & choice on Debian (by kernelpanic on 2020-08-31 08:36:54 GMT from Germany)
@5 OneHu
"There is no choice on Debian other than #!++ or BL"
what a statement! because window corners are not rounded there but edgy? ;-)
Just in case you are really interested what a lean and mean debian based distro can do,
I strongly recommend you take a look on antiX!
13 • BL and Debian choices; leanness (by Hoos on 2020-08-31 09:05:42 GMT from Singapore)
Is low resource consumption the only reason for using BL?
I really don't think so, to be honest. I think the coolness of the original crunchbang black/grey and white aesthetic really did capture people's imagination, inspiring a whole lot of other distros, not just BL and crunchbang++ but also archbang and whatever other [???]bangs there are.
I never got into any of the CB successors, but I can see why people would use BL or crunchbang++.
antiX comes with quite a few window managers by default, but openbox is not one of them.
14 • Bunsenlabs (by OstroL on 2020-08-31 10:34:58 GMT from Poland)
"While Bunsen does accomplish its goals, I am not certain that I can pinpoint a good audience for the distribution." Jesse's review
Well, once #! had an audience. If it lived today, it might still have a large following. :) By the way, didn't notice the word Crunchbang in the review.
It was supposed to live through Bunsenlabs, and while the majority of the scripts are the same, Bunsenlabs doesn't live up to #! Crunchbang. There's still one distro that keeps the #! flag flying -- Crunchbang++. Maybe, Jesse should review it alongside. https://crunchbangplusplus.org
There's also Monara Linux (Google it), which was based on Debian 8.5, but can be upgraded to Debian 10.
15 • BTRFS (by jan on 2020-08-31 10:51:21 GMT from Poland)
As a home Linux user, I remember the days same 15 years ago when every couple of weeks I would hop from the then latest Mandrake version to Suse, and then repeat it the other way around. With time, I had to abandon Suse, as with every installation of a new version it was getting more and more difficult to resolve the dependency hell created by a lack of automated dependency resolution, as adopted by other distros. And then comes a miracle -BTRFS- that let's us restore the system to previous, healthy state (in theory). To me it seems like a workaround and not a real solution. I would say that without BTRFS openSuse would be an unusable distro. Waiting for Suse to clean up its act, because it is a very good distro (in theory). As with everything computers, the usecase decides what is most convenient. I'm sure BTRFS is a blessing for some - surely not for me.
16 • Xfce round corners??? (by Bob on 2020-08-31 11:27:15 GMT from United States)
@5 I have seven systems with Xubuntu. Two 16.04, four 18.04, and one 20.04, and y'know, there isn't a single "round corner" to be found. You must have overlooked the "Window Manager" feature provided with every release xfce. Cheers.
17 • openSUSE unusable? (by Igor on 2020-08-31 13:22:57 GMT from Croatia)
@15 Umm, then I must be kind of mistake, as I am using it happily since 12.3 (in practice). I have used Btrfs' recovery function three to four times, and only once (kernel update) was it not because of my own fault. So how about trying it out instead of speculating about it?
When listening to people talking out their prejudices, usually about people from other countries, I always ask: "how many of them did you meet for any longer than 15 minutes?" I have noticed that many commenters here state something like "no way this is ever going to land on my machine", without having any actual experience with the thing (not only Btrfs), relying instead on various forums with the like contributors. What does such a comment actually communicate? Ill will. Who benefits from this?
18 • 0penSUSE (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-31 15:33:26 GMT from Canada)
@17 (Igor) I've tried OpenSUSE, and for more than 15 minutes at a time, and, unfortunately, I have to agree with @15. BTRFS and SUSE (or any of its derivatives) don't go on my laptop. For the same reasons @15 mentions. My present distro lets my get my work done without have to constantly fiddle with the OS to keep IT working (which was required in both SUSE, and its derivatives, and most of the BTRFS distros I've tried).
EXT4, for me, is stable and the easiest to work with. In today's OS environment backing up and restoring bricked computers is so quick and easy on ext4, there's not real reason to switch to any other system. (And, like you, most of my having to restore anything is due to MY screwing up.) So, to be sure, some of us actually DO know what we're talking about and not just making arbitrary comments.
19 • @17 Igor: (by dragonmouth on 2020-08-31 16:19:39 GMT from United States)
I've been around long enough and have tried enough distros to know what I will and will not like. I don't have to try banging my head on the wall to know it is going to hurt and give me a headache. BTRFS is going to give me a headache. Like FriarTux I'll stick with what I know and keep using ext4.
20 • CrunchBang++ (by Keith on 2020-08-31 16:53:16 GMT from United States)
@14 "There's still one distro that keeps the #! flag flying -- Crunchbang++."
WOW! Thanks for that link, OstroL. I just installed it. This is IDENTICAL to what I remember back in the corenominal days. I'm getting favorable flashbacks to the good old #! way of Linux Life. It's PERFECT! It's a keeper.
-I've got a fridge full of NOS and Monster energy drinks...it's going to be an all-nighter! :)
21 • Ext4 and Btrfs have different use cases (by Beep on 2020-08-31 18:32:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm very happy Fedora will make Btrfs the default file system. Theodore Ts'o (one of the main Ext4 developers) said years ago that - long term - there is a need for a more advanced Linux file system that supports things like snapshots, and that Btrfs is our best bet. He also predicted that it would take a long time for Btrfs to mature. I see Fedora's move as an endorsement of Btrfs and I'm hopeful this will be good for both Fedora and Btrfs.
There's an interesting interview with Ts'o at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3e03/96de4a02d47d4dc1fe3273507fc0d997ffea.pdf
22 • OpenSuse&Btrfs (by @15 John on 2020-08-31 18:36:55 GMT from Switzerland)
OpenSuse user here. Sorry to disappoint you, but OpenSuse is a perfectly usable distro, with or without Btrfs. Maybe you should try it (after 15 years) before writing funny things about it.
23 • Well done, MX Linux 19.2 KDE (by Brian Masinick on 2020-08-31 21:05:16 GMT from United States)
I tried out MX Linux 19.2 KDE, and I now have it on one of several partitions on my Dell Latitude 5558 laptop. Debian-based distributions dominate this multi-boot setup, including the Xfce and KDE variations of MX Linux, the base and 'runit' variations of another "family member", antiX, plus a Sid implementation of Debian Buster/Sid 10.5 (that one was an "accident", I added a repo to pick up one package, not carefully examining it, only to discover that it turned on the "Sid" bits! No biggie, I love Sid and I've used it for years, and the boo-boo didn't mess up my Debian system. But the main focus of my comment here is to commend and complement all of the antiX and MX Linux developers. As solid and useful as the Debian distribution is, the Debian team tends to leave tools, appearance and customization features up to the community, and quite a few distributions that are based on Debian do very well with it. I find, nevertheless, after two decades of using Debian software, that the antiX projects that produce the antiX and MX Linux distributions do the best job of adding significant value. MX Linux creates a series of very usable, high quality distributions that well on systems ranging from new to around five-six years old (though some may be able to use it for much longer). The antiX project is specifically targeted to systems that even MX Linux may struggle to support. Though it usually works GREAT with newer systems, antiX can generally work with ten year old hardware and even works on quite a few old 32-bit systems, something that few OS, free or commercial, can do anymore.
Huge kudos to the antiX and MX Linux teams! The MX Linux KDE release is yet another high quality effort that this small, highly skilled team has expertly engineered and tuned for their users who enjoy using KDE.
24 • @Pete re:BL RAM (by hhh on 2020-08-31 21:35:16 GMT from United States)
You can easily get BL down to 280MB, start by removing some of the panel applets. Cinnamon and Plasma run at 600+MB OOTB, what's your point? RAM is there for a reason, namely to be used.
25 • antiX 19.2 (by dragonmouth on 2020-08-31 21:53:33 GMT from United States)
I wanted to resuscitate a Dell Dimension 8250 I have taking up floor space. I used Slacko 6.3.2, Bionic Pup 8.0.23 and antix 19.2. I never finished the Slacko install as, at one point, I could not figure out what to do next. The install of Bionic Pup went smoothly but I ran into problem once I got the distro going. I suppose I should have read the manual for Slacko and the Pup but I figured since they are aimed at newbies, I didn't have to. Wrong! Then I tried the antiX. The difference with the other two was night and day. The antiX install is self-documented. Every entry that can be made is clearly explained. Whereas Slacko and Bionic Pup require some Linux knowledge, antiX can be easily installed by a complete noob. IMNSHO, antiX is the easiest to install of all distros, including the *buntus.
Congratulations to anticapitalista and his gang!
26 • BTRFS Can Be Excellent (by M.Z. on 2020-08-31 22:24:05 GMT from United States)
Like some others I've actually run BTRFS on a regular desktop system. It was an option to install Mint's LMDE 3 version via Calamares with BTRFS so that Back in Time would be able to create snapshots & restore easily. I had virtually zero issues with it, as in I neither had problems with BTRFS, nor did I need to go back to a snapshot due to Mint Debian being so stable. There was however a high degree of satisfaction it gave me just from looking at all the daily & weekly snapshots that were available on the root partition just in case.
Sadly I had a fair amount of issues with trying to get it to work in LMDE 4 & getting Grub customizer in Mageia 7 to see & boot the thing. Running all my LMDEs on Ext 4 now, but BTRFS is the main thing I miss from LMDE 3, and mostly just for the feeling of the cutting edge safety net that is so much faster & easier than rsync.
27 • can't you see, it's not at all about Btrfs or openSUSE (by Igor on 2020-09-01 09:44:36 GMT from Croatia)
@19, so how do you explain the fact that John, M.Z and me all (actually, not hypothetically) banged our heads against the wall with no unpleasant consequences? Is it just because God is taking special care about fools?
@ both, 18 and 19, to start with I am not arguing against Ext4, I am actually using it on my laptop, and it is OK. You may have noticed that quite a few times Jesse concluded his reviews with the statement like "distro xyz didn't work FOR ME", only to read in comments that it worked for someone else. Also, when you take a look at Distrowatch readers' ratings of any distro that collected more than hundred reviews, you are going to meet all the available ratings from 1 to 10. What does it tell you?
There are three hardware-software scenarios in the personal computing world we discuss here. All the hardware is projected to work with dominant operating system and tested against it because this is a sure bet (no, not just Windows, but Android as well). Or, a manufacturer produces both of it, so that their OS works only on their devices, and the rest of the software must be programmed accordingly to make everything work reliably. Or, brilliant guys find the way to free up almost any hardware by means of ingeniously programmed software. Only, in this case the outcome is not as predictable as the former two are. The situation is mitigated by the diversity of distros, so if some one is not working FOR ME (i.e. my particular machine), the other one is going to work. Also, if it is not working for me, it will work for someone else.
Finally, let me put my argument once again. Sweeping derogatory comments are not in tune with the collaborative nature of the free and open software. Brilliant (and maybe some less brilliant) tech guys are giving some of their work to us, to see if we can make use of it. They do not deserve to be rebuked for doing so.
Users are supposed to contribute their experiences that can help the others, not verbal tribal wars of ext4 against Btrfs, sysV init against systemd, or our good distro against the wicked monetizing one. Else we might end up like european football hooligans arranging physical fights someplace police is not going to disturb us.
28 • Has Btrfs interest waned since OpenZFS became a thing? (by Any name would smell as sweet on 2020-09-01 10:41:57 GMT from United States)
Serious questions:
With the existence of OpenZFS i.e. ZFS on Linux in today's era, is there as much of a demand for Btrfs? If Fedora was going to change to something more hip than ext4, what objective reasons would they have for Btrfs over OpenZFS?
(Serious questions. I haven't looked at filesystems since ReiserFS (3) vs ext3 was a point of conversation. I'm still running ReiserFS on my daily driver Slackware-basted distro. EXT4 for other partitions e.g. Ubuntu 20.04. JFS for storage.)
29 • Hooligans (by Otis on 2020-09-01 12:19:57 GMT from United States)
@19, yeah, those who get mad or frustrated with a distro and express their angst herein, mentioning the problems and the devs etc, are analgeous to street hooligans.
We enter the relationship with a distro usually with an iso and a lot of hope. Often, when those hopes don't pan out we feel badly directly proportionate to how much time and effort we've put into trying to make it right.
And we get to vent here there and everywhere. It's okay.
30 • BTFRS @27 (by Jan on 2020-09-01 12:58:11 GMT from Poland)
Igor - I do respect all people commenting here and their views. You are 100% correct that Suse works for you perfectly well - but I guess you are a professional programmer and an IT professional. I am only an amateur, never wrote code (only copy/paste from on-line tutorials). What I often do is installing, trying out, often uninstalling, new applications, experimenting. This has always ruined Suse, however MX Linux and Xubuntu proved to be rock solid despite heavy onslaught of new and alien stuff.
I tried open Suse (both Leap and Tumbleweed) as well as Gecko Linux just last year.
I want to stress that I respect all Suse developers and those who make Suse tick. But like many things foss and open source, what right do we have to demand and criticize, if we don't contribute or pay? But still, this is a place for sharing opinions, if they be of any value or inspire someone. So I expressed my opinion on Suse, because it does not work for me nowadays, and it makes me real sad, because I remember it used to be different before.
31 • @24, BL, RAM (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-09-01 12:59:12 GMT from United States)
"You can easily get BL down to 280MB, start by removing some of the panel applets. Cinnamon and Plasma run at 600+MB OOTB, what's your point? RAM is there for a reason, namely to be used."
Sure. I have 8 and 16 GB of RAM on my PCs, and plenty of storage. But if RAM or storage footprint don't matter, then the term "lightweight" has no meaning. So why advertise it as such? If anyone enjoy the distro, I'm glad for them, but when you start removing applets to bring down RAM, what's the point?
Porteus idles at 340 MB with Plasma and 220 MB with XFCE. Redcore Plasma idles about 360. Porteus ISO is a fat 3.3 GB while Porteus is under 400 MB. Are they both lightweight, or only Porteus?
Star, based on Devuan, idles at 130 MB with Openbox and at 230 with XFCE. If I'm going to call anything "lightweight" that would be it, if it matters.
32 • @28 JFS (by curious on 2020-09-01 13:07:29 GMT from Germany)
Kudos for mentioning JFS. Its a very stable, reliable filesystem that gets too little publicity. Its a bit like XFS, but without the specialization for very big files.
JFS is in fact so stable and bug-free that Debian considered dropping support for it because there was supposedly no maintenance activity (meaning there were no bugs to be fixed)...
33 • OpenSuse and BTRFS (by anon on 2020-09-02 00:19:45 GMT from United States)
I've used OpenSUSE on many systems and I never ran into any issues, so I find it strange that others have such a bad impression of it. It was just as stable as Debian, if not more so. I used YAST during the install and it fetched and installed everything that I needed with no issues. All codecs were present, all media programs worked perfectly, and wi-fi was fast and reliable. I've encountered far more problems with the more popular distros.
I support BTRFS despite its flaws. I love the idea of a home grown linux solution, and I hope that more distros support it and contribute to it. I'd rather see Linux build its own high level file system with snapshot capability and a Linux-friendly license instead of trying to import ZFS into the ecosystem.
34 • Freedom (by Igor on 2020-09-02 09:32:59 GMT from Croatia)
@Otis: Sure, I have spent hours and hours trying to install distros on various machines and make them work, sometimes unsuccessfully, just like you. And I was swearing and cursing all along (believe me, croatian language is extremely creative in this particular respect), when things didn't work. But I wouldn't go public with it.
Rude as it is, I did not compare this behaviour to hooligans, but lighting up the flames of us against them, this or that technology that is wicked and should be rooted out of our movement. Though such a comment can be written in polished words, it is unnecessarily divisive.
In free world there is place for almost everything and everyone. In hooligans' world there is us or them. As the saying goes, it is warm in the herd and it stinks.
We all experienced occasional disappointments with FOSS, any FOSS, but this is the price of freedom. Freedom, by its nature, is seldom coupled with convenience. Every here or there I read complaints about low market share (market? Isn't it a place where people sell and buy?) of desktop Linux. It is a bit below 1% and this compares well to general appreciation of freedom versus convenience.
@Jan: It is perfectly OK to go with the software that works for you, and contribute there. You don't have to code. There are many other ways to say thank you, money being pretty close to the end of the list, though not at the very end (and tending to move forward). If the things don't go as expected, and you want to do something about it, note the error messages. Take a look at system logs looking for words like "error", "warning", "alert". Focus to the time when you experienced the problem. This is easy to learn. Sure, you don't understand this arcane techobabble, me neither. Even Jesse, and he is a pro, often can not figure out why things don't work for him. But once you collected as much intelligence as you possibly can, you can visit a distro wiki, go Google, fill up a Bugzilla or some other automated error report if it pops up, and, best of all, contact developers. If you did your homework thoroughly, your contribution is highly valuable. It may fail to resolve your trouble, but is going to help many other people.
35 • @34 Igor: (by dragonmouth on 2020-09-02 12:48:58 GMT from United States)
"In free world there is place for almost everything and everyone."
IOW, you want tolerance and acceptance for BTRFS but you are not willing to tolerate and accept those that do not wish to use BTRFS for whatever reason.
36 • Daily user of BTRFS for 10 years (by Dxvid on 2020-09-02 13:00:14 GMT from Sweden)
I've used BTRFS daily for about 10 years both on servers and desktop computer and always find it amusing to read comments from noobs about BTRFS not being stable or being bad in various ways, people spread myths in forums for some reason. I think the "5G spreads viruses and flat earth type of people" need to calm down and try the file system for a few years instead of badmouthing a file system they obviously have very little experience with. In general you shouldn't believe comments from people with little or no experience.
The best feature of BTRFS is the snapshots (handled with snapper in OpenSUSE/SUSE), so that you can go back to a previously working state if something goes bad. For example I had a patch making an email server stop working (happened in Ubuntu) and a patch hindering network traffic to/from virtual machines (happened in OpenSUSE), and NVIDIA proprietary drivers not working (happened many times in various distros). In less than a minute you have a working server/desktop again after a patch broke some feature. No need to try to get backups to work or manually trying to undo the patch and find the problem for hours on the command-line. The second best is CRC and possibility to fix errors. The third best is the possibility to find duplicates and save space by deduplication. If the disk is getting full you can deduplicate it and suddenly you have freed up a TB of space or two.
The only disadvantage I've found in 10 years is that the CPU consumption goes up, so it's best to use BTRFS on high end machines, especially if there's constant disk writing causing a lot of CRC calculations it's important to have a good CPU. However all file systems with advanced features will use more resources, so NTFS, ZFS and BTRFS will require a slightly more powerful computer than for example XFS or Ext4. If you also turn on compression, RAID5/6 or encryption you need a high end CPU in your computer/server (and/or a dedicated RAID card)
37 • Better Poll Question (by M.Z. on 2020-09-02 22:41:11 GMT from United States)
I think this weeks DW comments bring up a better poll question:
Have you tried BTRFS & if so how was it?
[x] Yes, & it worked well
[ ] Yes, but it had some issues
[ ] Yes, but it caused big problems
[ ] No, I never tried BTRFS
It might clear up some misconceptions. If I Ctrl-F on the old poll questions I notice that about 20% of respondents use BTRFS, though that mostly implied current use.
38 • New Poll (by Friar Tux on 2020-09-02 23:05:41 GMT from Canada)
@37 (MZ) I would vote the third one. (Yes, but it caused big problems.) I HAVE come to the conclusion, though, that hardware may play a part in the 'problems'. The first time I tried BTRFS was on an older machine and yes, 'big problems'. The next try out was on a newer laptop and the issues were there, but it seemed to me, not as problematic. I still play with it, but for my everyday-gotta-get-stuff-done-system I need something stable. Still, I can't help hoping that they can make BTRFS stable and work well enough to someday become the default FS.
39 • Fedora (by Banana Bob on 2020-09-03 10:40:23 GMT from United States)
I really wanted to run Fedora on my laptop. But, I couldn't get copy and paste to work. It turns out this is a bug caused by SELinux being set to enforcing mode by default. The problem went away when I set SELinux to permissive mode, but I had already given up on Fedora by then. Now I use Linux Mint instead, because everything just works with no hassle.
40 • more of the other words (by Igor on 2020-09-03 11:43:16 GMT from Croatia)
@dragonmouth (35):
Statement 1: "I am using ext4 and I am going to stick with it because it serves me well and covers all my needs." Assertion of personal preference. Credible. Commending a software. Goes.
Statement 2: "This distro is causing troubles all the time, and the user wastes her time mending it instead of using it." Statement pleads to universal validity, therefore almost certainly false. Derogatory. No go.
Statement 3: "Btrfs is superior to OpenZFS, not to even mention ext4 ReiserFS, or JFS. It should be used by all the distros out there." Again universally quantified. Almost imposible to verify, but most probably false. Confronts good softwares. Partisan. Campaigns against diversity. No go.
Is it any clearer now?
41 • Bunsen Labs (by noar on 2020-09-03 12:06:16 GMT from United States)
@9 - yes that 375m was an eye raiser. When I tried it out, the 32-bit smaller iso, it came in on the lean side of 200m. Installed for testing had it running at about 160-170m.
So I suspect that the install Jesse did had a few more things running in the background. My daily goto Openbox installation runs at boot in a 128-132m footprint, so the fault is not Openbox.
As to why Bunsen Labs is not my goto, I have a dislike for systemd, I know, irrational as that may be. But I always look to Bunsen Labs for the ideas and tools that have made Hydrogen to Lithium such fine distros, and freely admit to 'stealing' those items for my own personal use.
42 • @40 Igor: (by dragonmouth on 2020-09-03 12:39:30 GMT from United States)
You continue to miss or disregard on purpose the main point. Linux is about CHOICE. I, and many others, choose to use ext4 while you, and others, choose to use BTRFS. So use what you want BUT just because you love BTRFS, do not denigrate others for using something else. I use Linux because I refuse to be dictated to by Microsoft, Apple or anybody else.
43 • fus do rah (by fonz on 2020-09-03 12:56:44 GMT from Indonesia)
i thought they were dumping BTRFS a while ago, seems i got my gossip mixed a bit. tried fedora a long time ago, but it didnt work well as i had trouble getting my drivers up and running. it may be as simple as many of the others now, but yeah, i guess im not a fedora person.
BTRFS did work well when i was using geckolinux (opensuse) TW. i could (while following guides) recover from panics and whatnot. i gave up after a year or so later after tumbleweed kept tumbling and stumbling and fumbling whereas sid and arch have yet to panic once after years.
44 • BTRFS (by Otis on 2020-09-03 18:39:12 GMT from United States)
@37 @38 Another poll response could be "Yes I had problems running BTRFS but I'm not sure if that file system is what caused those problems."
I have to admit that of the dozens of distros I have removed in frustration I'd say that the highest percentage of them were exhibiting issues repeatedly either during install or within a day or so, or much shorter, of use. The BTRFS attempts do seem to be a large portion of those failures but you can argue me down as I have not kept tract that closely, although yes I do have my suspicions.
45 • Matter of Perspective (by M.Z. on 2020-09-03 21:45:35 GMT from United States)
@38
Truth be told I could fall into any of the three categories I mentioned based on my experiences with both my laptop (buggy with certain write operations) & with my desktop, which ran BTRFS flawlessly. The laptop actually crashes with large rsync operations & when trying to do a live install (I have to pull the drive & connect it to the desktop to upgrade to a new distro). Regardless of the general laptop issues, the experience with the desktop was so smooth that it feels more true to say I had a good experience with BTRFS.
@44 - Not a bad point, but I feel like that would likely fall in to the 'had issues' category, as it is qualified & less sure than the others. A good poll gives a few general categories & doesn't dive so deep into nuance that you get overwhelmed with options, so it can be a matter of perspective.
46 • Bunsen Labs (by BK on 2020-09-05 04:52:31 GMT from United States)
+1 for Bunsen Labs Lithium
I was looking for a lightweight and functional distro to run in a VM and while I do agree that naming conventions don't make it easy but it all works and manages to look much more polished than I expected.Enough good stuff for me to consider replacing Mint as my main/host.
47 • @39 • Fedora (by Banana Bob) (by whoKnows on 2020-09-05 10:45:25 GMT from Switzerland)
“I really wanted to run Fedora on my laptop. But, I couldn't get copy and paste to work. It turns out this is a bug caused by SELinux being set to...”
That's not the Fedora issue. Fedora has no issues with copy & paste function.
Probably only the default settings (touchpad click is disabled by default) or some temporary kernel issue.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_enable_touchpad_click
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/fedora-35/fedora-28-gnome-touchpad-problem-4175638954/
48 • Dynamic linking on memory contrained systems (by .so on 2020-09-05 14:21:11 GMT from Germany)
But what about memory utilization? Will a memory constrained system work better with statically or dynamically linked libraries? Less size for programs might result in more buffers, and less swapping maybe?
Number of Comments: 48
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Linguas OS
Linguas OS was a PCLinuxOS-based Linux live CD adapted for professional translators and those working in software localisation. It includes a CAT program, full office suite, tools for manipulating PDF files, software for desktop publishing, Internet tools, dictionaries and thesauri, financial software, communication tools, and image manipulation programs. Linguas OS has tools to handle and manipulate all of the industry standard file formats, including Microsoft and Adobe files.
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