The Linux Distro Thread (maybe)

[ej-solutions]

Thought I'd start this one off, rather than continue on another thread.

As a quick catch up for others:

Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).

---

Just skimming the surface

Opinions/guidance expressed are intended to benefit the reader (mostly) but no responsibility should be assumed for the accuracy and no warranty is implied/expressed or given - so eBay may pull this post

[grumpy-cook]

I don't bother imaging my Linux system, because I know I can replicate it fairly easily with a new install. All I do is backup essential files in my Home.

There was an article on Gizmo's this week on Linux backup.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/rsync-based-backup-tools-worth-considering.htm?utm_source=fe...

[otherego]

Cheers, g-c. I'll take a closer look.

I'm also inclined to worry less about Linux, since reinstallation is so much less of a hassle than it is with Windows.

Still useful to be able to make an image occasionally, though...

[otherego]

I've had an annoying problem with Mint Updates and VirtualBox's latest offering not getting on.

The updater insisted that the update was available; telling it to go for it generated an error along the lines of:

W: Failed to fetch http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/dists/maya/contrib/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not found

W: Failed to fetch http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/dists/maya/non-free/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not found

W: Failed to fetch http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/dists/maya/contrib/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not found

W: Failed to fetch http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/dists/maya/non-free/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not found

Much messing around and rude language later, I came across this page:

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2013/11/virtualbox-4-3-2-released-upgrade-ubuntu-linux-mint/

opened a terminal and pasted from that page:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian precise contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list'

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Seems to have done the trick (touch wood) - not the first time I've had similar hassles with VBox updates. It happens just rarely enough for me to completely forget how I sorted it out last time, leading to much googling.

Presumably it would help if they didn't keep changing things (eg repos and associated keys), but not the end of the world.

[otherego]

It looks as if the new Ubuntu long term support distro will be out soon, with the Mint LTS (17, I think) following at about the end of May. I'm looking forward to the latter. The little of 15 and 16 I've seen suggests that things are getting lighter and quicker. I hope this is the case with 17 - should keep my old machines going a while longer.

A shame Ubuntu whatever and Mint 17 weren't available in time for the end of XP - might have helped get a few more folk out from under the heel of proprietary software.

(I suppose not, really.)

[otherego]

I've not used PCLinuxOS for a while. The GNOME version seemed to fade away, and the rather attractive KDE version tends to be a little heavy on my computers.

They recently brought out a MATE version. Having greatly enjoyed MATE on Mint, I thought I'd try it out. The victim is an old Toshiba L100 (I think) with a 1.6 GB Celeron M and 1 GB of RAM.

Really very nice. There are a couple of oddities/problems. An annoying one is a tendency for windows to vanish from view when minimised, with no inication of their existence on the task bar. They're still running, though, and I couldn't figure out why memory use was so high. Turned out that I had a couple of instances each of Firefox, LibreOffice and the System Monitor running - didn't think that was possible.

After a restart, I think minimised items are visible in the taskbar again - interesting to see how long this lasts.

Updating seems more manual than in Mint, but is simply a matter of running Synaptic from time to time. If there's an update manager like Mint's, I've yet to find it.

A minor irritation is having to add LibreOffice via an installation manager instead of Synaptic. The manager was a little cantankerous, but I got there in the end. (At least the basic installation iso fits on a CD.)

It runs very nicely on this elderly machine, and could be a real possibility for people upgrading from XP. Personally, I still prefer Mint - but PCLos might run better on more machines, if its reputation for providing drivers for just about anything is justified.

[otherego]

Mint 17 Release Candidate is now available:

http://linuxmint.com/

Hopefully, that means that the distribution release will be out soon.

Meantime, I think I'll try the RC on a couple of the trusty old machines. I see the hardware requirements for both MATE and Cinnamon include 512MB of RAM, with 1GB recommended, and a minimum of 5GB of hard drive space, with 20GB recommended. PAE is needed for the 32-bit versions.

It's supported through to 2019. Hopefully a worthy successor to Mint 13, which I've generally been very happy with.

[oxieman]

---

@otherego wrote:

Mint 17 Release Candidate is now available:

 

---

 Thanks for the 'Heads Up' OE

Am preparing for a new install [Time permiting] and was all set to use Petra - after some drastic rm -rf - Cheers

Oxie...

[grumpy-cook]

I've just rebuilt my PC having come into some new bits (like a quad core cpu and motherboard). I was tempted to just put it all together and go with the installed Zorin system, but decided to have a complete change and installed Sabayon instead  - it's a Gentoo-based distro.

It's working well and I'm impressed so far.

[otherego]

I've yet to try Sabayon, or anything Gentoo-like.

Mint 17's looking nice, so far. I think once they've had a little more time to debug it, the time has come to rescue the data on my main desktop and start from scratch. The current installation of Mint 13 works fine, but I've messed it about and cloned it a few times and odd things are starting to creep in. The most worrying is an occasional message about a missing drive during startup. So far, it's always recovered itself.

The release candidate is running nicely on an even older desktop with a 2.4 GHz P4 and 1GB of RAM. Generally pretty responsive. I expect that it will gradually update to the distribution release once that is out without needing to reinstall - but will wait and see. This machine is subject to pretty frequent distro-hopping, anyway.

A happy snap:

[otherego]

Just for Scylla - the Linux Distro Thread lives on. Much longer than ej ever planned it to, no doubt. (Haven't seen ej for ages. We need all our boffins back.) Scy, I'll try to find a spare USB drive for Mint 17, and will try it out on my old MSI Wind U100 (a cantankerous creature with a dodgy touchpad - the cursor scuttles around all over the place.) Might take a while, but I'll do my best...

[otherego]

1024 X 600 seems to be the MSI Wind U100's lot - best I could get under either XP (ugh) as installed, or with Mint 17 MATE.

I suppose Mint 17 would look better with a higher resolution screen, but the same might be said of most operating systems. I'm posting this from the live session, and will see whether it will let me add a screenshot:

Quite usable, to be honest.

Bed time - I might give Cinnamon a try later in the day, if I remember - although I generally find MATE better on lower powered machines. Having said that, the little MSI does have 2GB of RAM and a dual core processor, even if it is an Atom.

[otherego]

Mint 17 Cinnamon seems quite happy on the U100, too. It does look as if 1024 X 600 is about it.

The small screen is definitely less than ideal, with some windows (eg the system settings window) falling off the bottom of the screen and having to be dragged up in order to get at any buttons etc along the lower edge of the window.

This could be a "deal breaker" for some.

YouTube seems to be fine.

You can see how disappears from the lower part of the window.

For a live session, all quite pleasant - might even try installing it sometime. At the moment, the little MSI is host to Zorin - which I don't like as much, but can't quite bring myself to remove just yet. I can understand why it might appeal to newcomers to Linux, but honestly can't see any real advantages over Mint.

[otherego]

Yuk - my brain's definitely out to lunch at the moment.

WRT my last post - the first screenshot had, of course, nothing to do with YouTube and was simply meant to show that Mint 17 (that's one of the supplied backgrounds) looks nice on my MSI Wind.

What I tried to show on the second screenshot was the fact that some application windows seem to have trouble with the 1024 x 600 resolution. Any "Confirm" or "OK" or "Next" buttons tend to be hidden below the bottom of the screen.

The whole thing can be dragged up by holding Alt+left click, but this can be a little tedious.

It doesn't happen with everything, and I didn't find it all that annoying. It would doubtless drive some folk mad, though.

And talking about being driven mad - I'm trying out Mint 17 xfce on a virtual machine. I used to have lots of fun trying things on VirtualBox.

Now it just doesn't seem to work with Linux distros. I made all sorts of notes from a useful article I found respecting optimum settings for Linux, and have, needless to say, misplaced the notes and the article. And deleted a couple of Linux VMs without remembering to make a note of what worked for them.

*Sigh*

It's taken about an hour so far to install updates - normally a ten minute job on a new installation. Time for the usual rigmarole of getting Guest Additions working, I suppose.

Bed and a crossword are looking more and more tempting.

[0-anthony-0]

I have been advised to install only the level 1 updates first and then the others to reduced the amount of time updating takes on a new Mint installation.

It certainly didn't take an hour to update the last three times I used that method and was probably ten minutes or so.

No ideas as to the why or what makes this method quicker though the advice came from a reliable source.

I'm up to page 8 reading this thread (have read this last page as well), interesting stuff! was wondering why people where talking about using ubuntu 8.04 until I saw the date the thread was started. This even predates my introduction to Linux with ubuntu 10.04

[otherego]

Must say, I've had few problems with "real" installations. I just install the whole lot (less the level 5s that Mint excludes by default - probably not too lethal, as I think Ubuntu includes many of them as a matter of course).

My problem at the moment is essentially, I think, incompetence. Especially when it comes to VirtualBox.

The CPU on this old workhorse doesn't support virtualisation, but so far this has only brought the Windows 8 preview to a complete grinding halt. Some would argue that that was no great loss. I don't know whether modern versions of VirtualBox expect more of a CPU than I am able to offer them.

You'll have gathered I'm someone who has fun with computers, but almost zero aptitude. This makes me useful here from time to time, as I seem to manage most of the common blunders, plus some highly original ones.

When it comes to problem solving and command line stuff - hello the internet, hello copy and paste.

What I really like about Linux (talking about the easy ones) is that if you just leave them to get on with it, they will.

I can never resist trying something. Fortunately, reinstalling Linux distros is usually a doddle compared with Windows.

Two hours later, the updates on the virutual machine have finally finished installing. Time to mess around with a few VBox settings, I think.

[*scyllabub*]

Dearest OE ❤️

You wouldn't believe the times I've come here to thank you, I keep getting waylaid!

Fancy you having an MSE U100 😮  As you know, mine's the Advent 4211 Curry's equivalent.  It's in excellent condition, having had a new keyboard.  It's been upgraded by A.N. Other from XP to an illegitimate Windows 7, which I can't live with.

I'm used to 'things' falling off the bottom of the screen, as my main laptop is only 11.6" (but it's quite hunky and cumbersome).  I was concerned that when Mint said 1024x768 minimum, they meant that the distro would not even install on a lesser resolution.

Almost everything I've read has seeped out thru the holes so now I'm starting again.  What a lot of choices Mint offers 😮  Too many, IMHO.

============

I don't suppose I'd be able to see/use my Windows network? 

[otherego]

Hi, Scy.

I don't suppose I'd be able to see/use my Windows network?

Short answer - shouldn't be a problem.

Longer answer - please would g-c or someone provide or link to a suitable tutorial!

I've never networked computers - 1) no real need of it yet;  2) I have quite enough fun messing up one machine at a time...

[*scyllabub*]

---

@otherego wrote:

I don't suppose I'd be able to see/use my Windows network?

Short answer - shouldn't be a problem.

---

If experience so far is anything to go by, it probably will be a problem.  I downloaded Cinnamon and copied it to a USB stick and set netbook to boot from USB, plugged in the stick, booted... "no operating system".  So I expect I've got to "do something" to make it bootable.

Never mind, I've got lots on my plate and there's no rush.

[otherego]

So I expect I've got to "do something" to make it bootable.

Yep. If you google, there is some way of doing this manually.

A much simpler answer is to install Unetbootin on one of your machines and use that:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/154377-unetbootin-create-bootable-live-linux-usb.html

Very easy, and you can either use an image stored on your hard drive (my usual preference), or tell Unetbootin to find and download the .iso image you're after prior to copying it to your flash drive and making it bootable.

Nostalgia - this very thread began with a reference to Unetbootin by ej.

[*scyllabub*]

I remember now that I used Unetbootin years ago.  I saw something about a version of Mint that has bootin' built in, but couldn't find it when I next looked.  That's the trouble with Googling, one needs to leave a paper trail - but mine would be a terrible tangle 😮