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).

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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

[otherego]

Thanks to continuing and very unusual (for here) thunderstorms, I'm using an old Toshiba L100 with PCLinuxOS (MATE edition) instead of the usual Mint desktop.

Yes, if I were more conscientious about backups I'd be less nervous about exposing that one to the elements.

PCLOS is really very impresssive. It flies along despite a single core CPU and 1GB of RAM.

Updates are a bit of a pain, insofar as I've become accustomed to being spoonfed by the Mint Update Manager alerting me to available updates. As far as I can see, the only way to update PCLOS is by opening and reloading Synaptic. I'm sure I've missed something there, but hey, it's not that onerous.

Looking at my last post, I'm a little embarrassed that I can't remember which computer/SD card Ubuntu is lurking on. Perhaps it didn't float my boat that much, after all.

Mint is still my favourite, but PCLOS MATE really is most impressive.

[grumpy-cook]

PCLOS is a good distro, I used it for some time. I can't remember what made me change, I probably borked it up. I'm very happy with OpenSUSE (Gnome) which I've been using on my main PC for some months now - it's very stable and quick and it's management system (hardware, network, software), which is Yast, is very good indeed.

I would also recommend Peppermint which I use on my laptop. Also very stable and remarkably quick for a fairly low spec laptop.

[otherego]

Time to take another look at Peppermint, then. I've not tried it for a couple of years.

I came across an interesting utility called fslint. (It's available in the Ubuntu repositories.)

It searches for duplicate files on a hard drive. I left it running last night - and it found 112GB of duplicate files.

I can see how this happens. I take a bunch of pictures, and copy the XD or SDHC camera card onto the computer. I then make all sorts of folders with odd photos copied from these folders - which I daren't delete. I'm not in the least disciplined about chucking stuff onto the hard drive.

The thought of ploughing through all that lot to weed out the doubtless enormous number of files which could be binned is beyond daunting.

Still, an interesting program and one which looks at all sorts of stuff (not sure why the screenshot came out green, but never mind.)

[otherego]

The trustty old EeePC 4G was dragged out, and I installed Peppermint on it. So far, very nice indeed.

The Eee has 1GB of RAM, and, IIRC, a 900MHz CPU underclocked to 650 Mhz.

Peppermint copes happily with those specs; the 4GB hard drive was a different matter.

Although the Peppermint site says that 4GB is the minimum recommended hard drive capacity, the installer spat its dummy out and insisted that at least 4.5 GB be provided. The "Continue" button on the installer remained stubbornly greyed out.

I've enountered this before with Xubuntu (I think), and find it infuriating. Why not simply provide a suggestion that more disk space would be useful, but giving absolute minimum requirements, giving the user the option to continue or abandon the installation?

This did the trick:

gksu gedit /usr/lib/ubiquity/plugins/ubi-prepare.py

Find the line that says:

self.controller.allow_go_forward(False)

and change the "False" to "True." The installer still whinges, but the "Continue" button now works, and the installation completed normally for me.

Replacing Chromium with Firefox reduced the installation size slightly, and the "Clean" command needs to be run after updates and installations to avoid filling the hard drive. A simple enough matter to plug in an SDHC card for data storage, of course (and this could possibly have been used to fooling the installer into thinking more space was available - not too sure about that.)

With updates complete and  Abiword and Gnumeric installed (LibreOffice is just too large, alas), and after running "Clean," I've 1023 MiB free on the 4GB/3.72 GiB disk.

Just to make a point, I'm posting this from the Eee. I daresay this will result in even more typos than usual, and constantly scrolling up and down the tiny screen is a pain. Still slightly pleasanter to type on than my 7" tablet, I must say.

A jolly nice distro, so far.

[otherego]

For some reason,I'm fond of the old Eee PCs. It would be fun to add a fully serviceable 2G version - 2G referring to the 2GB SSD - to my modest collection, but for some reason, they always seem to fetch higher prices than I'd be prepared to pay.

Still - I'm typing this on a 2G with a u/s card reader - a major shortcoming so far as using it as a practical computer is concerned. A combination of the 7" screen and tiny keyboard don't make life easier, but it's still a more practical typing machine than my Android tablet.

The operating system I'm using is Slitaz 4. It takes up very little disc space, and does pretty good work with the 650MHz CPU and 512MB of RAM.

For some reason, Firefox is on the slow side. Otherwise, all pretty impressive.

The biggest annoyance so far is the fact that the bottom panel, along with the menu, occasionally disappears. Most odd, and a pain having to reinstall all the time to get it back. Next time, I'll try the "New panel" option selectable along the top panel via a right-click.

Let's see whether it will let insert a couple of screenshots. If it does - the wobbly red line on one of them indicates the disappearing panel. Interestingly, the screenshot tool allows screenshots to be saved in a variety of formats, including JPEG.

The GParted shot should show disc use with Firefox 34, Abiword and Gnumeric added to the default installation, and after clearing the download cache.

[0-anthony-0]

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otherego wrote:

I came across an interesting utility called fslint. (It's available in the Ubuntu repositories.)

It searches for duplicate files on a hard drive. I left it running last night - and it found 112GB of duplicate files.

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Have you used this "utility" much? I'm wondering if it's results can be trusted totally.

I have no experience of such things though I have a number of copies of my files and folders from this machine on a separate Hard Drive for back up purposes and I would like to tidy up the drive, leaving only one copy of each file or folder on there.

112GB seems a lot of duplicates, though I guess as you don't seem surprised, that it was no surprised to you to find so many duplicates. Did you delete them?

That is my question really, have, or had you enough confidence in the "utility" to delete the duplicates it found?

Obviously I need to do some research, though this question is the start of that research. Well the second step, as I interested my Linux tutor in it today and await his considered opinion also.

Whilst I am here I read recently you where having issues with youtube videos not playing. That has been happening to me recently as well, on both my ubuntu and Mint machines. When it says, "there has been an error, please try later", as it does most times I attempt to play a video, I just refresh the page at the address bar and they play. Another thing that has been occurring is when opening a playlist and choosing a video, it moves onto to the next video in the playlist after deciding not to play the video chosen, using the "go backward one page arrow" resolves that. I don't doubt you likely know all that already, though worth mentioning in case you didn't.

All the best.

[otherego]

I share your concerns, Anthony - and I'm too idle to plough through over a hundred gigabytes of stuff to check. Perhaps not such a useful utility for me, then.

If someone finds something safe and easy to detect and remove duplicates, I'd be interested. The trouble is that my problems are largely self-inflicted, with all sorts of pictures and things existing in numerous different folders/albums.

The YouTube problem seems to be Flashblock related. Disabling Flashblock allows YouTube to work. In all fairness, it must be a bit of a mission for the Flashblock developer to keep up with the constant Flash Player updates.

There was no error message; "Transferring from ytimg.com " simply persisted indefinitely in the lower left hand corner.

I rather hoped that YouTube's HTML5 option would kick in if I blocked Flash. Obviously more complicated than that. Perhaps it doesn't like the fact that I've disabled dom.storage, simply because I still don't know just what it does or to what extent it could be used as an alternative tracking mechanism.

The joys of being a confirmed tinfoil hat wearer...

[0-anthony-0]

Thanks for the reply. I will give fslint a try one day, eventually.

My circumstances regarding possibilities changed the other day when someone gave me a ASUS motherboard (P5N7A-VM) which supports Intel core 2 quad processors and 16GB of RAM.

When I have acquired a processor and whatever amount of RAM I decide to use and put the motherboard in a case, I will need to make sure I have copies of the files and folders I want to keep, before putting Mint 17 Mate on the Hard Drive. (overwriting the Mint 13 system currently there)

What I will do is make a pen drive copies also then scan the back up drive with fslint and see what it finds amongst the myriad of back ups and copies I have already taken.

I will file a report as soon as I am able sir.

Your youtube issues are different from what I am currently experiencing there.

I use an add-on called GoogleSharing that google sites don't seem to like and that could be the cause of the stalling I experience. Similar things occur if I am forced to use google as a search engine, I have to navigate 'round the block' to get the search page up.

GoogleSharing is a system that mixes the requests of many different users together, such that Google is not capable of telling what is coming from whom. GoogleSharing aims to do a few very specific things:

1. Provide a system that will prevent Google from collecting information about you from services which don't require a login.
2. Make this system completely transparent to the user. No special websites, no change to your work flow.
3. Leave your non-Google traffic completely untouched, unredirected, and unaffected.

I don't wear a tinfoil hat and though I agree I could be called cynical, it is not without very good reason.

I need to look into the LSO issue as well, one day, eventually.

[otherego]

It's often the little things that drive me completely doolally.

The "Save as..." dialogue has really been getting up my nose recently - you know, the dialogue that opens when you produce a document or a text file or want to save a picture or whatever and click "Save as..."

(Mint 17 Cinnamon).

It always used to give me an alphabetical list of folders under Documents, Pictures, Downloads or whatever, and that suited me fine.

For some reason best known to itself, it defaulted to something else (file size, I think.) It was impossible to locate anything in my shambolic file system.

Much searching and cursing and swearing constructive commentary later, this seems to have done the trick:

sudo gedit ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkfilechooser.ini

Change SortColumn=size  to  SortColumn=name   and SortOrder from descending to ascending.

Save.

Seems to be working.

Touch wood.

[otherego]

A minor moan.

One of the best things about Linux is the frequent updates.

One of the worst things about Linux is the frequent updates.

It sometimes seems as if you've just completed one update and another's appeared - I can almost understand why Windows types are happy with their once a month updates.

Having said that, a quick and rough count shows over a 100 updates on this machine this month. None has presented the slightest difficulty.

Touch wood.

[otherego]

Some good Linux converstion over on another thread which started off about Windows 10. I mentioned that I thought I'd give Linux Lite a look.

So far, so nice. VirtualBox drove me batty, but I remembered I had an old Toshiba laptop sitting unused. It lacks a hard drive and a battery - I bought it cheaply for the keyboard, then found that the whole thing actually worked.

Installing LinuxLite was easy. Lacking a hard drive, I've just bunged in an old 8GB flash drive and used that. A bit vulnerable, especialy since it protrudes from the back of the machine, but fine for this sort of temporary setup.

I find one or two of the distro's quirks a little odd. It needs to be updated manually, and the update manager seems to go through quite unnecessary steps - easy, but I suspect new users would be puzzled by launching the update progress then being asked whether they really want to continue. Frankly, the Mint updater is simpler and clearer - to me, at any rate. At least LL has got rid of the dialogue that breathlessly tells you that something is trying to run that needs root rights and and and which remains an irritant with Mint - the old "Please enter your password to start Mint Update" was clearer and frankly more polite - but I still thing the Mint updater is better.

All pretty standard so far as the included programmes is concerned - the distro is based on Ubuntu - I've yet to play with the software available. Resource use seems nice and light. I must bung it on an even older computer. This one seems to have a dual core 1.6 GHz CPU and 2 whole gigs of RAM. This makes it a power house by OE standards.

I'm pretty sure Windows wouldn't install on a flash drive (or an 8GB drive from Vista on) - 5.6 GB is given as the minimum during the installation process. Still a bit bloated compared with just a couple of years ago, but that's only a problem for people like me who like old EeePCs and just can't bear to part with them. 4GB drive and all.

'Nuff messing around for tonight. It's after my bedtime.

[otherego]

Sad - Mandriva's finally given up the unequal struggle:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/27/finally_its_the_year_of_linux_on_the_span_classstrikedesktop...

Mandriva 2009 was one of my first experiences with Linux distros, and I found it significantly easier than the then version of Ubuntu. Excellent driver support, and eveything really did "just work."

At least its sort-of progeny,Mageia, lives on - even if I'm never quite sure how to spell it.

[wes.lon]

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@ej-solutions wrote:
Win2k SP2 should be fine for a repair. I'm not 100% sure but I don't think that you're asked for the key during a repair (been a while since I done one). I think that it's only Win98 keys that are not highlighted with the OS type and that Win2k would have Windows 2000 Professional, or similar under/over the key - Knawes/Countess_Vlad should be able to clarify. The barcodenumber alongside the key may give a clue (Google?)

Wireless networking is often a real PITA - in some cases you need to install a different method of connectivity. If you do a sudo lspci it should identify the wireless adapter (Network Controller). That'll be a good starting point.

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Thank you a lot!

The information is of greate help to me.

[otherego]

Nice to see a blast from the past. Anyone know what's happened to ej? Sadly missed, along with g-c and others.

Has anyone any experience of BackinTime:

http://backintime.le-web.org/documentation/

and/or Aptik:

http://www.teejeetech.in/2014/01/introducing-aptik.html       ?

As a practising hypocrite, I don't back up nearly often enough and, when I do,I simply copy everything in the /home directory to an external hard drive. The >500 GiB currently involved takes about seven hours. It's an old computer and does things sedately.

I'm wondering whether Back In Time will allow me to make a backup and then, every now and then, just add any changed files/folders instead of copying everything and deleting older backups to make space. (The fact that the old and the new backup each need just over the hard drive's capacity should make the next one an interesting exercise. Hmmmm.) Since I don't leave an external drive connected permanently, I don't need/want automated backups.

I've a real mental block when it comes to reading about backup software - just can't get my head around exactly what it does.

Aptik looks as if it could be useful for recovering all one's added software and things following an upgrade.

If anyon'es used either of these, please do tell all. I'd love to know just exactly what they do and how easy they are to use.

[oxieman]

Not used the backups you mention but on a quick view I think they are based on tar as the underlining programme..

You might as well create a small script OE using.

tar -cvf home.tar *

[for everything in your home]. without compression (gzip or bzip] as I don't think you can readily extract without unzipping. ie do a level 0 backup and then append/update say each week/month as incrementals - I would need to have a play...

then extract [xvf] - using a few more switches.

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I did see or have under Accessories > Archive Manager  on this Mint installation - but have never used it - have aplay with that if you have enough disk capacity.

Oxie...

[otherego]

Ta!

Trouble is, we lesser mortals don't know how to write scripts. I only bought my first computer when I was well into my forties, and skipped the era when it was necessary to do things without a GUI and other people's programs.

I'm still trying to catch up...

Interesting ideas - thanks for that - I wonder whether that's how the programs I mentioned do things.

[0-anthony-0]

otherego wrote:

I just had a quick look at the specs for that computer. Let's hope you end up with more than the 256MB RAM they list as the lowest fitted! I see that it will take up to 2GB.

AntiX should fly very nicely on that machine. I've not tried it for ages, but an earlier version revived a couple of ancient Toughbooks (CF-27s, I think), with their 300MB CPUs and 256MB of RAM.

I really must try a later version. The earlier editions were most impressive, if a little on the "manual" side for one of my abilities. IIRC, it used to be based on Mepis. Hopefully, you'll post your experiences in the Linux distro thread.

      ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whilst the bulk of the donated Laptops unfortunately have only 512MB installed mine has the full 2GB

I ran AntiX live briefly today to get the output of lscpu for system options though I did install it last week on a different Hard Drive, whose actions told me it needing testing, I tried running Parted Magic today which wouldn't boot so I changed the Hard Drive (Parted Magic still wouldn't boot hence running AntiX live to get that info)

I gonna be now distracted briefly running Parted Magic first to test the Drive, somehow.

      ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

otherego wrote:

Back to XP and its updates - I've not had another try yet. I suppose that we really should try to avoid XP, anyway, as responsible "netizens".

Anthony, has your charity tried convincing people to try Linux instead of XP? Unless Windows-specific stuff (Turbolister and stuff) is essential, modern Linux distros are honestly easier to use and more secure than XP, and provide all the software necessary for everyday computing. Bodhi and AntiX work very nicely on single core machines etc - most of my computers are single-core. In the case of the Eee PCs, most have a 900MHz CPU (800 in the 2G's case) - the 901 has the early Atom, which frankly isn't much faster.

      ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I updated XP (100 updates) on a machine I was listing today and it ran successful, the system says "XP professional 2002 Service Pack 3", so they are still there and can be done.

I have no interest in "convincing  people to try Linux instead of XP". From my perspective they are both operating systems that function.

I use Linux after reaching a point when acquiring an old machine (I'd only ever previously owed a notebook running XP at that point, my internet access previously being through what was known as "Internet Cafés") that I could not afford to acquire a new system for, to do what I though I needed to be able to do,  what I know as a 'clean re-installation", (it was probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me) Both systems function.

Another thing being taken into consideration is it seems that anyone likely to want a machine to run a Linux system, could, and most likely would do anyway, install any system themselves. That said, we have shipped at least ½ dozen machines over time with either Mint or ubuntu on them. I used OEM images or configurations.

Whilst I still have a ½ day tuition session there, I focus on eBay listings of bits and pieces when there, smaller devices or peripherals that weight less than 2 kilo, anything above that gets expensive to ship.

I've got a friends LG G Pad 8.3 to investigate,  it's interesting how it's functionality constructs a personal edge that builds with use. I see it as a very personal device. I did see wrote that you can have individual accounts if the device is shared. Is the advice that 'antivirus' is required correct? I know there are apps for such like. Isn't it basically a Linux system? (android)?

greetings!

[otherego]

Hi, Anthony.

Glad you got your machine, and especially that you scored 2GB of RAM. Very handy.

I don't remember trying PartedMagic, so can't venture any ideas there. Have you tried running the drive manufacturer's diagnostic program? AFAIK, these are usually available from the manufacturer's site in the form of a bootable iso. Having said that, I just use Ultimate Boot CD, which is bootable and which includes diagnostic programs for the Western Digital disks on most of my dinosaurs.

It'll be interesting to hear how you get on once you've checked the replacement drive and reinstalled AntiX, if that remains your plan.

Thanks for the gen about the XP updates. I found that by telling it to check for updates and tell me when they were available, then waiting for it to lurch into action, I was able to update. Still had no joy with the "Check for updates," which in XP, seems to work through Internet Explorer.

My anxiety about XP is its vulnerability to infection/hacking. It would be embarrassing to become part of a botnet. AFAIK, even the best antivirus provides inadequate protection against XP's built-in vulnerabilities.

I'd be particularly wary about setting up an XP machine for a vulnerable (as in even less techy than me) user, as I'd feel bad if they then fell prey to some unpleasantness.

Something like Mint is just as easy to use as XP (and  make no error, I think XP has much to like about it) - just much, much less vulnerable. Apart from the inherent resistance to attack, the system of updating everything obtained via the repositories leaves one so much less vulnerable to attack from an overlooked and out-of-date instance of Flash Player, say, or Java.

I'm interested in your remark that, "anyone likely to want a machine to run a Linux system, could, and most likely would do anyway, install any system themselves. " Would that not only apply to reasonably accomplished users who actually knew the difference between Windows and Linux? I'd tend to assume that if one were setting machines up to help folk with little or no computing ability or knowledge or experience get onto the internet and carry out basic computing tasks, then a modern distro would be just as easy for them to learn as Windows XP.

Android remains a bit of a mystery to me. I splashed out on a sub-£100 tablet about a year ago (an Asus Me176 Memopad - I think), but haven't used it much. I'm far too much of a tinfoil hat wearer to trust the extreme Googleosity of Android. This means, among other things, that I don't use the Google Store, or whatever it's called. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my impression is that once you're logged into it - via a Google account - the only way to log out is to reset the device to factory settings.

Meantime, Google presumably has a wonderful time slurping one's data and useage habits every time one connects to the internet.

No thanks!

Still, it's very pleasant for the very limited stuff I've done on it. I just don't feel confident enough in its privacy-related behaviour to do anything that involves personal details - not even logging on to an e-mail account.

To the best of my knowledge, Android is based on the Linux kernel, but contains a lot of pretty proprietary stuff. It also seems to be tailored to each "device" by the manufacturer, who decides when/if to offer updates and upgrades. Once the manufacturer loses interest, that's pretty much that unless one is skilled in hacking the appropriate hardware. Drivers and things seem far more of a problem than they are when one tries different Linux distros on conventional computers.

A significant "achievement" has been making a Linux-based system susceptible to malware infection. If you do a bit of duckduck-going, you'll be entertained to find that the free antiviruses offered are largely ineffectual (sorry, I've no links readily to hand.)

I assume the problem arises out of the fact that so many "apps" need to be installed with root permissions - which are cheerfully granted by users who've no idea what that's all about.

At least a conventional Linux-based distro  a) offers the relative safety of its repositories, even if those don't contain the vast number of "apps" beloved of Android users  and  b) makes you think before just installing any old thing you find on the internet.

Despite all that, Android's relatively slight demands on hardware are pleasant to see.

Back to conventional Linux distros - I'm finally starting to like Bodhi. For some reason, I always seem to have huge problems getting it to boot and run a live session, and the installer seems a little glitchy - whether I run it from a CD or a flash drive.

Worth persevering, though. It's a bit like an easier version of Debian (which I really need to try properly.) One installs a basic system, then adds whatever one wants. Adding Firefox (Midori is the default browser), Abiword and Gnumeric and one or two other little bits and pieces has taken up about 2.8 GiB of the little Eee PC's 3.7 GiB SSD, and it's pretty quick with the 900MHz CPU and a gig of RAM. Very nice indeed.

[otherego]

I'm wondering how Anthony's getting on with antiX and Android.

antiX has impressed me in the past, and I really should have another go at it. I've rather settled in the Ubuntu-and-derivatives rut.

Especially the derivatives.

Android - dunno. I'm a touch paranoid, and Android's very Googly. My poor Asus ME176 (or something) tablet has been sadly neglected of late.

I've had a bit of fun with the old Eee PCs. A Chinese company sells solid state drives in capacities ranging from 32 to 128 GB which actually work in the Eees (some of them, anyway.)

Mint MATE and XFCE fly along on the Kingspec drives. After a week of aggravation, hot smells and blank screens trying an Eee with Windows 7, I remain pretty much convinced that for ordinary mortals, Linux-based distros - at least the simpler ones - are actually easier than Windows.

Time to update one of the EeePCs for tomorrow's departure on the annual holiday. The tablet would make sense in many ways (easy to chuck in a carry-on bag), but I honestly prefer the Eee - having tried both. Just hope the fancy new drive holds up!

[otherego]

Very sad news in this evening's Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/30/ian_murdock_debian_founder/

Ian Murdoch, who started Debian, has died - it looks depressingly as if he might have committed suicide.

His contribution to the world of free software was huge.

And he was only 42. I suppose that at least he left behind far more than most of us will. It's still tragic.