 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1044, 6 November 2023 |
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Welcome to this year's 45th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Slackware Linux is the world's oldest surviving distribution. The project has been around for 30 years and, in that time, has given rise to a number of derivative projects and spins. This week we begin with a look at Porteus, a live desktop distribution which is available in a range of editions. Read on to learn about the highlights of this portable distribution. In our News section we discuss changes and enhancements coming to the FreeBSD project and to the Murena mobile operating system. We also celebrate bcachefs, an advanced filesystem with a focus on performance, being accepted into the Linux kernel while OpenELA reaches an important milestone. Then we discuss how to adjust network settings to disable IPv6 connections when they are not needed. Do you currently use IPv4 or IPv6 connections? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share an overview of last week's releases and share the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we give a warm welcome to a new distribution which has been added to our database: Skudonet. The Skudonet project offers a load balancing distribution which continues on the work done by the Zevenet project. We hope you enjoy the week ahead and wish you happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Porteus 5.01
Porteus is a fast, portable and modular live CD/USB distribution based on Slackware Linux. The distribution started as a community remix of Slax, another Slackware-based live CD, with KDE 3 as the default desktop for the 32-bit edition and a stripped-down KDE 4 as the desktop environment for the x86_64 flavour. There are now several desktop flavours of the distribution, which include editions running Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE, and Xfce.
Proteus 5.01 is based on Slackware 15.0 and is available in i586, and x86_64 builds. The distribution offers Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, Xfce, and Openbox editions. I opted to try the 64-bit build of the LXQt edition. The release announcement mentions there are a few different ways to manage software included in the distribution, including the slapt-get package manager which offers APT-like syntax and dependency resolution.
Early impressions
The Porteus media begins by displaying a boot menu. We're given a series of choices, including Graphics mode, Text mode, and running the distribution from RAM. By default, Porteus will try to save changes and fetched packages on the live media (assuming the media is writeable). There is a boot menu option called Always Fresh which prevents data being written to removable media. It also blocks the reading of custom settings and packages from it. This gives us the ability to reset our Porteus experience.
The live media boots to the LXQt 1.3.0 desktop environment. A panel is placed across the top of the screen. This panel features the application menu, two quick launch buttons, the task switcher, and the system tray. The tray features icons for adjusting the audio volume, connecting to networks, and changing the keyboard layout. I especially liked seeing language and keyboard options presented in an easy to access manner on the live media. I was off to a good start with Porteus.
Porteus 5.01 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
When the Porteus live media is not writable (for example, if we use a CD or a read-only image) then the distribution displays a notice in the bottom-right corner of the desktop letting us know any changes we make will not be saved.
While exploring the live desktop, I found LXQt was responsive and I liked the default, dark theme. Everything seemed uncluttered and the colourful icons make it easily to quickly identify features and applications. With a little experimenting I found the default password for performing administrative functions was "toor".
Applications
Digging through the application menu we find the Transmission bittorent software, the qpdfview document viewer, and the FeatherPad text editor. The PCManFM-Qt file manager is included and I think it wins my award for the application with the hardest name to pronounce. The distribution includes a few media applications, including the Audacious music player, the Celluloid video player, and the mpv media player. These applications include codecs for playing popular media formats.
Porteus 5.01 -- Running Firefox and browsing with the file manager
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The LXQt settings panel is included which helps us configure the desktop and customize it to our liking. The GNU command line tools are included and Porteus runs the SysV init software. In the background we find version 6.5.5 of the Linux kernel.
There is no graphical web browser, though the Lynx console web browser is included. There is a utility called the "Browser Select and Upgrade Tool" which I will discuss later.
Porteus does not include any manual pages on the live media. Instead, running the man command launches a console web browser and displays any matching page from the https://man.cx/ collection of manual pages. This saves on disk space, though it means we need to be on-line in order to read the documentation.
One application I almost overlooked as it's tucked away in the full "System Tools" category of the application menu was the Porteus Settings Centre. This application is a sort of catch-all for various functions. The Settings Centre will help us check for module updates, enable a firewall, change boot settings, encrypt a directory, and save current settings to a file on the removable media. There is also a tab for gathering system information, providing data about our kernel and the hardware on which the distribution is running.
The Porteus Settings Centre isn't flashy or modern. But it does clearly explain most of its functions in plain text. I like this aspect as it's not always easy to intuit what a custom tool will do, but the Porteus Settings Centre is organized well and its functions are clearly explained.
Hardware
Porteus worked nicely for me in VirtualBox. The distribution's LXQt desktop was unusually responsive, the system booted quickly, and Porteus was pleasantly stable throughout my trial. Applications loaded quickly and the small collection of software worked well.
Porteus 5.01 -- Playing music files
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Porteus did not boot on my laptop, the same laptop I successfully used to test Slackware Linux 15.0 (the parent of Porteus). A little investigation revealed that Porteus was unable to boot in UEFI mode on the laptop. When I tested Porteus in VirtualBox with UEFI mode enabled, the distribution could not boot in the virtual machine either, it ran in Legacy BIOS mode only. As I mentioned, Slackware works on the same laptop so its child distro failing to boot was a surprise.
Package management
Earlier I mentioned an application called the Browser Select and Upgrade Tool. This desktop application displays a list of web browser names and their icons. Entries in the list include Firefox, Chromium, Opera, Chrome, and Vivaldi. There are a few others, along with a video downloading script and AnyDesk. Clicking on one of these entries opens a terminal window where we can see some checks being performed and then we're offered a chance to download the selected browser. Sometimes we're asked which version of a browser we wish to fetch, such as the latest version of Firefox versus an extended support release (ESR). Once the package has been fetched we're told that to keep the selected browser across reboots, it should be placed in our modules folder.
Porteus 5.01 -- Fetching new web browsers
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This instruction presented an interesting question because I was not sure at that point where my modules folder was. There isn't a directory with that name in the root directory or in my home folder. I eventually found what I believe to be the proper directory, located at /mnt/live/porteus/modules.
Once I had downloaded a few browser packages I went looking for their entries in the application menu, and did not find the newly fetched applications. I clicked the buttons for the same browsers again (I'd started with Firefox and Opera) and the terminal window announced these browsers had not been installed and offered to fetch them again.
After a little looking around, I found what the missing piece of my experience was. After I downloaded a browser, its package wasn't installed, merely placed in the /tmp directory. I could click on a button labelled File in the Browser Select and Upgrade Tool, then select the downloaded package, and it would be installed. At that point the browser's icon would show up in the application menu. I'm not sure why this final step isn't more clearly indicated or even automated, but ultimate it worked for me and I was able to run a variety of browsers.
I had less luck with the slapt-get package manager. To use it I first had to synchronize slapt-get with remote repositories using "slapt-get --update". This seemed to work. I could then search for packages and check for updated packages. Whenever I tried to fetch new packages, whether desktop software or command line tools, slapt-get would fetch the selected item and then throw an error which said "sh: line 1: /bin/spkg: No such file or directory". This happened with each package and I confirmed that the spkg file was, in fact, not on the system. So it appears slapt-get is missing a dependency on the live media.
Porteus 5.01 -- Attempting to fetch new packages
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Conclusions
In a lot of ways, Porteus was a breath of fresh air this week. The distribution strives to provide an easy to use, Slackware based, live desktop experience. It does this and does it with a very minimal (under 400MB) ISO file. I think this is impressive and I like how fast, how stable, and how clean the Porteus desktop experience is. For someone who wants to listen to music, perform some basic system recovery, or take their operating system with them on a thumb drive with the option to save files on persistent media, Porteus is a good option.
There were some problems in key areas though. Porteus was unable to work in UEFI mode, in both VirtualBox and on my laptop, limiting the experience to machines with Legacy BIOS mode enabled. Installing new web browsers worked, but the process of transitioning from the packages being downloaded to being installed was not obvious. Likewise, the slapt-get package manager did not work to fetch new software. One of the key points in the project's release announcement was the package handling options, and having what was probably the most commonly used option not work was a disappointment.
Problems with package management aside, I quite liked Porteus. It's light, fast, stable, and clean. There are some unusual design choices at play, some nice custom tools (like the Porteus Settings Centre). I wouldn't use this distribution as a daily driver, but I do think it is an attractive option for testing or rescuing older equipment, especially computers running old i586 processors.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Porteus has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.1/10 from 18 review(s).
Have you used Porteus? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD publishes status report, Murena improves app compatibility, Linux kernel merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available
The FreeBSD team have published their quarterly status report, covering changes and improvements to FreeBSD from July through September of 2023. Some of the key changes improve making it easier to set up a desktop environment, mounting SquashFS archives, and taking filesystem snapshots of UFS. "This project has made UFS/FFS filesystem snapshots available when running with journaled soft updates. The details of this project were described in the 2022 fourth quarter report. This project had two milestones: The first milestone of this project was to make it possible to take snapshots when running with journaled soft updates and to use them for doing background dumps on a live filesystem. Background dumps are requested by using the -L flag to dump(8). This milestone was completed in Q4 of 2022 and was made available in the 13.2 release as described in the 2023 first quarter report. The second milestone of this project was to do a background check using a snapshot on a filesystem running with journaled soft updates."
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The Murena project has updated its /e/OS operating system and placed a focus on improving app compatibility. The new release, version 1.16, attempts to bridge the gap in app compatibility with official, Google-supported Android devices. "In our mission, it is vital to ensure the seamless functionality of all applications in /e/OS. However, some applications seek to know whether they are running on an official, commercial, Google Android phone, before authorizing the user to access some or all of its functions. That is why we've dedicated significant effort to ensure that on /e/OS third-party apps perform just as well on our community-supported devices ('dev') as they do on our official Murena devices ('stable'). In recent /e/OS updates for community-supported phones, we have extended the compatibility techniques we have developed for official Murena devices to community-supported devices so that they now can have a better third-party app support. For example, NFC payment that didn't work so far in some apps, will now function seamlessly."
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The bcachefs advanced filesystem is a relatively young filesystem which provides several modern features while striving to provide better performance than over advanced filesystems. The bcachefs project offers copy-on-write (CoW), built-in compression, filesystem snapshots, and encryption. The filesystem has been merged into the Linux kernel and is expected to be part of Linux 6.7, the next major release of the kernel.
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OpenELA is a joint effort by SUSE, Oracle and CIQ to provide open access to source code required to make distributions compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project has announced source code packages are now available, making it easier for others to create their own RHEL compatible distributions. "OpenELA is excited to announce that the source code for all packages necessary for anyone to build a derivative Enterprise Linux operating system is now available. The initial focus is on EL8 and EL9, and packages for EL7 are forthcoming. The project is committed to ensuring the continued availability of EL sources to the community indefinitely. To access repositories, visit: https://www.github.com/openela-main."
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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) |
Disabling IPv6 and distribution-specific applications
Turn-it-off asks: I've run into networking problems with connecting to my home server since my desktop started setting up both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. How can I disable IPv6?
DistroWatch answers: You can usually disable IPv6 networking on your desktop machine by using Network Manager. The Network Manager application is typically the utility used on most distributions to set up and configure networking.
Typically, you can right-click on the networking icon in your desktop's system tray, then select Edit Connections from the context menu. In the window that pops up, highlight the active network connection and click the Settings button. (The Settings button usually looks like a gear.) This will open a new window which displays a series of tabs, each one containing settings specific to the selected network connection. The last two tabs will be labelled IPv4 and IPv6.
Disabling IPv6 in Network Manager
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At the top of the IPv6 Settings tab is an option called "Method". Set the Method field to "Disabled" (it should be the last entry in the drop-down list). Then click the Save button. If you then disconnect and re-connect to the network, you should no longer have an IPv6 address.
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Exclusive-club asks: Are there software applications that are unique to, and usable on only specific distros?
DistroWatch answers: There are applications which are specific to one distribution or operating system, though they are rare. Platform-specific applications are usually closely tied to a specific component or aspect of the operating system, or developed in-house for a distribution by its own team.
For example, when it was first released, the Unity desktop only ran on Ubuntu and members of the Ubuntu family because the desktop was developed specifically for Ubuntu and used specially modified versions of libraries. As another example, I once worked on an application which would create and manage swap files on FreeBSD. This application used FreeBSD-specific features that wouldn't run on Linux distributions. Snap packages, which have become more commonly used on Ubuntu, are tied to the systemd init software so distributions which use other init implementations cannot make use of Snap packages.
While it is possible for an application to work on one Linux distribution (or flavour of BSD) and not others, it is rare. Most applications are created with a more general-purpose functionality in mind. In addition, Linux distributions share a lot of low-level components and so most applications will either work across most distributions or can be made to work with some minor adjustments and patches.
While most applications can run on most Linux distributions, this does not mean most applications are packaged for most distributions. Each distribution team has finite resources to use toward packaging and maintaining software in their repositories. This means that a lot of mainstream applications, such as Firefox, are available on virtually all distributions while some lesser known applications might only be packaged for a few distributions or packaged in unofficial (and unverified) community repositories.
Unfortunately, most packages and package formats are tied to specific distributions. This means a copy of the Thunderbird e-mail client packaged in RPM format for Fedora will not install and run on Arch Linux which uses the pacman package manager. Even if the RPM package is reformatted to be recognizable to pacman, the dependencies (mostly libraries) which are required might not be the same across both distributions and the application will not run.
This is largely why portable package formats (such as Flatpak). which include dependencies, are becoming more popular. They allow most applications to be installed and run on most distributions without worrying about the distribution's native package format or platform-specific dependencies.
In short, while it is rare, it is possible for some software to run on one Linux distribution, but not another. What is more common is an application can run across most distributions, but might only be packaged for a few of the larger distributions and not yet packaged to run natively on others.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Garuda Linux 231029
Garuda Linux is a rolling distribution based on the Arch Linux operating system. The project has published a new snapshot which facilitates the handling of updates and streamlines the distribution's install media. "As of now, garuda-update should be able to handle any conflict that recently occurred mostly due to the already mentioned Arch package name changes. In case you missed it, please read the announcement to understand what is going on. Furthermore, it applies the Archlinux repo migration which happened since our last release, and fixes a few more update potential update blockers. For everyone still using 'pacman -Syu' without being able to work around issues like this manually, please ensure always using garuda-update as it was made exactly for this purpose :blush: A few editions have been dropped from our line-up. The reason behind this is quite simple - they are not getting necessary maintenance or are missing a maintainer. The logical choice is to no longer offer them to the public." Additional details and highlights are presented 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: 2,923
- Total data uploaded: 43.8TB
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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) |
Do you use IPv4 or IPv6 connections?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about disabling IPv6 connections which were causing network issues. While IPv6 has been slow to replace the aging IPv4 addresses, it has slowly gained ground and been adopted all around the world. This week we'd like to hear whether you currently access the Internet over IPv4, IPv6, or use a hybrid of both.
You can see the results of our previous poll on whether an application's toolkit plays a role in how appealing an application is to use in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you use IPv4 or IPv6?
| IPv4: | 888 (60%) |
| IPv6: | 46 (3%) |
| Both - together on the same network: | 381 (26%) |
| Both - on separate networks: | 12 (1%) |
| Unknown: | 151 (10%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
Skudonet
Skudonet is a load balancer and application delivery system based on Debian. Originally forked from Zevenet, the platform provides HTTP and HTTPS connections for web applications as well as load balancing services for TCP and UDP traffic. Skudonet is available in community and commercially supported editions.
Skudonet 7.0.1 -- The Skudonet web console
(full image size: 126kB, resolution: 1477x744 pixels)
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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, 13 November 2023. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. 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)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • IPV? (by DaveW on 2023-11-06 02:02:25 GMT from United States)
IPV4 and IPV6 are both set to automatic in my network manager. Does that mean they are both being used?
2 • Porteus should have been my top distro (by mnrv-ovrf-year-c on 2023-11-06 02:21:44 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I am chicken to use Slackware like the "brothers"... "Alienbob's" instructions on how to install "multilib" are too deep for me. I agree that "slapt-get" shouldn't be incorporated into the Slackware ISO for the next version, because I have had a few issues with it. But Porteu(s/X) could give me Wine with "multilib"! Otherwise, for my hobbyist sensibilities, I had to install Slackware 32-bit. It limits very much what I could use such as AppImages.
Porteus is precisely the distro I keep around to jump into a desktop to do stuff. Because all others I have are taking much longer than 30 seconds to boot, then let me log in and then even more time to show me the desktop. Porteus is a good plan for people who dislike upgrading and are satisfied with what they have on their limited equipment. It's good for me once I cannot have my own paid Internet any further. To follow Slackware "current" it is advised to go with PorteuX. That one should be updated more frequently.
I really wanted to go further checking out the mutation called Nemesis, which is based on Arch Linux instead.
3 • IP6 (by Jan on 2023-11-06 02:27:33 GMT from Netherlands)
According to an explanation at PCLinuxOS, enabled IP6 causes a slow down of the PC-system.
If you open the Network Manager Application in PCLinuxOS you can set an IP4 DNS (for instance from a DNS provider with malware protection), but setting IP6 DNS is disabled.
4 • IP6/IP4 setting @3 (by Jan on 2023-11-06 02:33:44 GMT from Netherlands)
If you change the IP4/IP6 DNS, you have to open ¨Method¨ and choose the item with ¨Adresses¨
5 • @1 (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2023-11-06 06:08:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Check with:
ip -6 a
^ That will show any active IPv6 connections.
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/IPv6#Disable_IPv6 for distibtion-agnostic instructions that don't presume NetworkManager is in use.
6 • IPV4 and IPV6 (by Romane on 2023-11-06 08:26:03 GMT from Australia)
My network is all IPV4. The main reason is that I find the IPV4 syntax familiar and simple, while that for IPV6 is, to put it simply, just too complicated (for all its advantages and reason for existence).
That, and my service provider only provides me with IPV4 - my plan does not include IPV6, though my router is capable. I am happy with that situation for the same reasons given for my network in the paragraph above.
7 • Porsteus package management (by Otis on 2023-11-06 11:23:23 GMT from United States)
They want a temp file removed: /tmp/.ppmlock to address one of the package management issues.
Worked for me after a restart.
8 • Do you use IPv4 or IPv6? (by James on 2023-11-06 12:31:54 GMT from United States)
I believe I use IPv4 as it is the default.
I would have no idea how to switch that too IPv6. Though like @1 said, it is set to automatic. I recognize the IPv4 IP address, but do not recognize the IPv6 IP address. It has never showed up when I have done an online or terminal IP check.
9 • IPv4 vs IPv6 (by Some Random User on 2023-11-06 13:13:20 GMT from United States)
@6 As long as you are not the DNS server or use an app/service that requires you to type in the IP Address, just use the domain name.
10 • Distro "Proprietary" Software (by John Lamb on 2023-11-06 17:35:52 GMT from United States)
My hobby/passion is meteorology. There is one radar display app that is free (but is an electron app) for Linux.
However, the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) of the US National Weather Service is also available for use by the general public. There is a cloud data feed of all the information necessary to use it and the only feature missing is the ability to "send" warnings out for obvious reasons.
However, it was developed solely for RHEL 7.x but is set to move to RHEL 8.x with the new v20 release coming soon (tm). As it was a government contract, the developers (Raytheon Corp) had one OS to build for and support so that's all there is. I've never seen any attempts to port it to a more general Linux environment.
As an Artix user, I have two choices: a VM (performance and graphics hit) or a separate machine to dedicate to it. Both are lousy options to be honest, yet, I'm looking at the dedicated machine for it.
I've been tempted to install FreeBSD and see if the Linuxulator will run it but that's just another layer of PITA I don't want to resolve and maintain.
11 • IPv6 (by mehdi on 2023-11-06 19:22:21 GMT from Algeria)
IPv6 is not available in my country (Algeria)
We don't have a choice.
12 • IPv6 (by Vukota on 2023-11-07 07:18:26 GMT from Serbia)
It is just too much hassle to chase down issues when things gets routed wrong way, and/or something doesn't work or is not configured right for IPv6. IPv4 is easy to type and understand, IPv6, not so, and with mix it gets really complicated. I explicitly disable IPv6 on all devices I have control of, even the ones I do not fully control, I have a script to disable all IPv6 configs in order to avoid headaches that pops out after updates, unless I disable v6 end to end.
13 • IPv6 (from Brazil) (by Douglas Silva on 2023-11-07 17:46:52 GMT from Brazil)
The only complication comes from my ISP - they don't give me a static prefix. That results in unpredictable global-unicast addresses with the default address generation method (stable-privacy). To work around this I use the "eui-64" method, which generates the interface identifier based on its MAC.
And in the OpenWrt router firewall I have to use a wildcard-like (or mask) address to refer to a specific device:
::d7a6:3dff:fa9c:b7da/::ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
I think it's about time we moved away from IPv4. It's ridiculous how long it's taking. It sure takes a lot of effort to learn how IPv6 works, but it's very interesting and powerful to know. Not many people know it, not many people care - and that's more of a reason to try it, because we need it.
14 • IPv6 (from Brazil) - complementing (by Douglas Silva on 2023-11-07 18:04:43 GMT from Brazil)
The unstable prefix given by my ISP interferes with the default interface identifier generation method, and produces ever-changing global-unicast and ULAs (Unique Local Addresses).
Them bastards charge me for a static public ipv4, and can't give me a static ipv6. I don't know if it's a technical limitation or they're just unqualified to configure it. I'm sure it wouldn't cost them anything, as ipv6 addresses are abundant.
15 • Disabling ipv6 via grub (by Bashful Banana on 2023-11-08 02:36:55 GMT from Netherlands)
Easily disable ipv6 by adding this to your grub boot line options:
ipv6.disable=1
One and done!
16 • ipv6? ugh (by Will on 2023-11-09 01:18:43 GMT from United States)
Ha, IPv6 sucks and it's pretty worthless. Unless you are the IT guy who has to implement it, it serves no purpose for general computing (IOT is a different story). First thing I do on a new device on my network is disable it completely, the speedup on resolution alone is worth it.
17 • Trying linux installers (by Jan on 2023-11-09 17:05:09 GMT from Netherlands)
I have tried to install different popular linuxes from USB-sticks.
I am using an old notebook with defect display, connected to an external monitor, the BIOS ordered to connect to this external monitor.
Generally the installers almost all did not detect the external monitor. They used the (defect) notebook display. This gave on the external monitor a background but without any essential icon.
I used safe-video or compatibily mode or safe mode (or whatever trick), in the hope that after install the booted linux would detect the second monitor, at which I could set the correct monitor to use.. Mint (if I remember well) plopped up a window at right-click which contained an option to go to Display-Settings (very convinient).
This worked at a few linuxes (Mint, PCLinuxOS). However at some installed distros I was unable to get my preferred monitor, making the installed distro unusable (a.o. Fedora 39 Mate).
I find this nuissance, unable to detect/go to an external monitor, remarkable. With GParted and Window-install media I have never had this problem.
So if GParted is able to come to my external monitor in the correct way, or at the install-screen there is a way to go to Display-Settings (Mint), why do a lot of linux -installers fail at this point?
By the way: Mint-Cinnamon was very slow, Mint-Mate was better but still slow, Mint-XFCE had weird problems, Linux-MX was also a little slow, PCLinuxOS was fairly perfect (and with everything working). And Fedora-Mate seemed to be not irritating slow and interesting to use (a.o. because of the solid backing of the disto), but was unusable because of the failed correct monitor detection.
18 • @17 • Trying linux installers (by Jan on 2023-11-09 17:11:02 GMT from Netherlands)
PCLinux in the version MATE. The PCLinuxOS-KDE installer did also not boot, it stalled.
19 • Speed (by Friar Tux on 2023-11-10 00:03:25 GMT from Canada)
@17 - @18 (Jan) And here I am with just the opposite issue. My Mint/Cinnamon is quite fast, while The Wife's Mint/Mate is slow as molasses in January. (She refuses to change as she doesn't really care about the speed at her age.) We have the same HP Pavilion model laptops.
20 • @17 Trying Linux Installers (by AdrienM on 2023-11-10 02:14:48 GMT from United States)
Can you provide some specs on your machine? I've found many 'modern' Linux distros to perform like syrup on most hardware older than 10+ years that is otherwise entirely functional. (internal monitor not withstanding) There are exceptions of course.
While a modern distro may end up being suitably snappy and recognize your external display with little difficulty, you may also be relegated to an older version/kernel.
For example, something like ClassicPup is super fast on even a 20+ year old machine as it runs in RAM. (though HDD installation is possible)
For a more modern version, I've successfully used Q4OS Trinity version on an ancient 32bit tower that made it speedy like the Road Runner. I'm sure it never ran Win95 that fast for sure.
I've tested both with external monitors, though not with the external as primary, sorry. There may be a way in your BIOS to default to the external, though you may have to step through those keys blind with lots of research to make it work. (only once though) You might get lucky as even some old laptops have a key combo to enable an external monitor and you might at least mirror the main display once in the BIOS.
As for Desktop Environments, depending on your hardware specs, you might be better with one of the super light-weight options like LxQT, LXDE, or some lesser used variants (like what Puppy uses) JimsWM, etc.
Another option is to investigate eschewing a full-bloated 'DE' for a simple window manager and login-manager pairing. Check out Openbox and Fluxbox, or if you are really adventurous and text oriented: i3. You can then add-in missing functionality one app at a time until you get too slow for your tastes, then decide on the trade-off costs for each convenient app.
And on that final note, check out Bunsen Labs which uses Openbox. It should be relatively snappy on older hardware and you might get lucky with the external display issue.
21 • IPv6 (by Adrienm on 2023-11-10 02:17:07 GMT from United States)
I disable IPv6 as a matter of course on all new installs now since I invariably have to do it at some point anyway.
Networking *always* gets mucked up at some point with it enabled and disabling magically solves the problem.
I'm not sure what the problem is across multiple machines, interfaces, or ISPs, but I'm simply not in the mood to figure it out when I can just turn it off and do work.
22 • @19 Mint/MATE vs. Mint/Cinnamon (by AdrienM on 2023-11-10 02:28:22 GMT from United States)
I've tested these a few times, both in a Vbox VM and on bare metal. (same version for each DE for several trials)
My conclusion is that MATE is simply slower than Cinnamon. (and, if I recall correctly, more memory hungry) I only started this in the last few years, so maybe that wasn't the case early on, but it has held fairly consistently.
MATE is old tech - based on Gnome 2.x. Cinnamon is modern Gnome made to remotely resemble Gnome 2.x visually. (or even exactly if you like, I think)
It seems few if any speed improvements either have made it to MATE, or else, they simply aren't possible with that old codebase.
I always viewed MATE as a transition DE until Cinnamon could be fully featured, but it seems to have stuck around past its originally conceived end-of-life. More power to it, but I see no compelling reason to ever use it. (But if you already are and are happy with it, there's not really a reason to change it either)
23 • Speed @17+@18+@19 Trying linux installers (by Jan on 2023-11-10 02:23:23 GMT from The Netherlands)
I judged the speed of the tested linux installs by looking if in the Firefox browser smooth scrolling is possible (in Chrome-based browsers at old hardware smooth scrolling seems impossible).
Of course also starting/stopping/running programs should not be slow/lagging, but at this OK, bad smooth scrolling in the browser proved possible, so the better test.
I hate jumpy scrolling/moving (also lagging of the mouse pointer).
PS: The hardware on which I tested this was a Lenovo X200 (P8400) with 8GB RAM and an 250 GB SSD, so an old processor but enough memory and fast disk drive.
This is the weakest PC I have. If I can find a good working linux (with a solid backing/continuity) on this , I can make any of my PC's good working with linux (preparing w.r.t. the demise of Win10).
24 • @23 - Trying Linux Installers (by AdrienM on 2023-11-10 02:49:40 GMT from United States)
Wow, that's an otherwise capable laptop with a seriously hobbled processor. (I'm guessing for thermal/power/price-point reasons)
You should still be able to find a reasonably modern distro to run on it with acceptable latency.
If you get tired distro hopping, consider going back to a distro you prefer, but trying a different scheduler. There are some which might considerably reduce system latency.
Also, Firefox at least has a 'smooth scrolling' feature which depending on version, may not be enabled out of the box. You'll find it in settings. Sometimes, enabling hardware acceleration improves this, sometimes it hampers it, at least that has been my experience.
Some external wireless mice introduce considerable latency compared to an internal trackpad, or wired mouse. I've experienced a few models/brands that are practically unusable. When working one someone else's machine, I always remove the dongle to pep things up and just use the trackpad.
25 • Speed + Testing installers/linux @ AdrienM (by Jan on 2023-11-10 05:09:23 GMT from The Netherlands)
AdrienM
Thanks for your interesting advises.
I was indeed getting tired of distro-installer-hopping. Of each 3 installer-start-ups I think 2 failed (for my hardware situation). It is good possible that I have had 30-40 try outs in 2 weeks.
As mentioned earlier, PCLinuxOS-Mate was the only distro which succeeded to install and behaved OK.
Puppy and Q4OS and LxQT/LXDE are on my waiting list.
And I hope the distro-suppliers try to copy in their installer the way GParted is able to start without any problem.
26 • Speed and distro installers (by Ennio on 2023-11-10 15:10:57 GMT from The Netherlands)
Frankly it's a 2/3 years that an installation goes not grinding on some kind of hardware. After leaving Realtek stuff behind cannot remember issues, including external monitors (still having nightmares about that MKLinux install on Apple's LC models...). About speeds assorted, now that KDE is surprisingly less sluggish - and leaving my preventions behind - I would also use it. If you consider Q4OS the |Trinity version is surely springier than the KDE one, but not so much, and maybe I do not care anymore since now more than 4 GB is standard. Before, it was the classic trimming out, choosing partitions and filesystems ad libitum. Memory lane about speed is a couple of years old, so doesn't count. Now I am using WMaker Debian for the lulz, and my perception is biased. Anyway, if MX XFCE is the Ford Capri then, say, Mageia is like a sedan thus I wouldn't expect snippy performances, so is Deepin etc.
Please everyone consider using the excellent Ventoy system, the guy responsible for it, longpanda, is doing a very good job and the forum is not neglected at all.
PS If not incorrect, I remember that it was OpenSuse the first to lift the rock on KDE speed and memory usage, as Jesse noted in his review .
27 • @26 USB-linux installer Ventoy (by Jan on 2023-11-10 16:52:42 GMT from The Netherlands)
Initially I used Rufus to make USB-lunux-installers. For Fedora this however failed, at USB-booting an error occured.
Then for Fedora I used their Fedora USB maker, it worked. However after a few time using this installer the USB-stick had a problem, because of which it seemed unusable anymore (I succeeded in repairing this). This was not the first distro which seemed to make a USB-stick unusable for other things.
I then went for Ventoy, this was a succes. Only do not leave the stick in the PC at rebooting, The reboot (Windows) appears to hang. Boot with a Ventoy-stick from a PC which was off.
Number of Comments: 27
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