Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 02:13:25 + MC_Sequoia dijo: >If you want a default lightweight Debian distro, I'd recommend either >BunsenLabs or Crunchbang++. > >Crunchbang is Debian 12, Bullseye w. Linux Kernal 6.1 Long Term >Support. > >Both offer an installation script so the user can decide which >packages to install based on the feature support wanted and/or use >case for the computer. Very interesting. I've never tried either one. I'm currently in the middle of getting SparkyLinux set up on my main computer. No snaps or flatpaks, although both are in the repository if you want to install them.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sun, Sep 17, 2023, at 17:45, John Jason Jordan wrote: > On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 16:19:41 -0700 > "Kevin Williams" dijo: > > >John, what was your specific error that you got when using SSH to your > >computer? What is the local SSH server not already running? > > Way too long go to remember. > > >Do I understand correctly that you got the silicondust App to see the > >TV tuner on Mint and Ubuntu, but not on Debian? > > Yes. On Debian the utility wouldn't even launch, with the error message > that it couldn't find the tuner. Then I discovered that I could ping the > tuner from Debian (192.168.1.112), and from Debian I was even able to > download new firmware and install it, with a command furnished by > Silicondust. But the command had a place to put the tuner's ID number, > and the command failed. When I replaced the ID number with the IP > address the command worked and the new firmware is now installed. I > worked on getting the utility to search for the IP address instead of > the ID number, but couldn't find a way to do it. I even played with the > utility's .desktop file, but without success. > > >You said you wanted to move away from snap and a bunch too, and you > >didn’t like the artwork on Mint. Are you still looking to try more > >distro’s? > > Maybe. Right now I want to get Debian 12 installed on the new drive. > It's installed, but I can't get it to boot. Once I solve that problem > I'll immediately see if I can get it to see the TV tuner. Everyone > blames VirtualBox for the tuner not being seen, in spite of the fact > that I found a thread on the Debian forums where over a dozen people > had the same problem, and none of them succeeded. If Debian can see the > tuner, then Debian will be my new OS. If not, then I am still distro > shopping. > > >If you prefer to stick with apt-based distributions, what about MX > >Linux? It’s based on Debian, but has many papercuts worked out, > >possibly, including the one for the TV tuner. > > I have heard of MX Linux, and it's on my list of possibilities. > > >If you’re willing to try an Linux distribution not based on apt, I can > >say that Fedora and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed have improved tremendously in > >usability and reliability in the last five years. > >If you’re not happy with Mint, and if MX Linux does not work with the > >TV tuner either, would you consider trying those rpm-based distros? > > I ran Fedora for about two years, until I finally got tired of their > forced six month upgrades. I understand why Red Hat has that > requirement, and I respect their decision. But it's not for me. As for > others, I once briefly tried OpenSUSE, but not a lot of others. I want > a combination of cutting edge, good multimedia support, yet high > stability, a tall order for any distro. I don't find those features as > readily in RPM distros as in Debian. Plus, it takes quite a lot of > different commands and ways of doing things. That’s totally fair. Thanks for answering, John! Let us know how it goes with Debian and possibly MX Linux. They are both great choices.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 16:19:41 -0700 "Kevin Williams" dijo: >John, what was your specific error that you got when using SSH to your >computer? What is the local SSH server not already running? Way too long go to remember. >Do I understand correctly that you got the silicondust App to see the >TV tuner on Mint and Ubuntu, but not on Debian? Yes. On Debian the utility wouldn't even launch, with the error message that it couldn't find the tuner. Then I discovered that I could ping the tuner from Debian (192.168.1.112), and from Debian I was even able to download new firmware and install it, with a command furnished by Silicondust. But the command had a place to put the tuner's ID number, and the command failed. When I replaced the ID number with the IP address the command worked and the new firmware is now installed. I worked on getting the utility to search for the IP address instead of the ID number, but couldn't find a way to do it. I even played with the utility's .desktop file, but without success. >You said you wanted to move away from snap and a bunch too, and you >didn’t like the artwork on Mint. Are you still looking to try more >distro’s? Maybe. Right now I want to get Debian 12 installed on the new drive. It's installed, but I can't get it to boot. Once I solve that problem I'll immediately see if I can get it to see the TV tuner. Everyone blames VirtualBox for the tuner not being seen, in spite of the fact that I found a thread on the Debian forums where over a dozen people had the same problem, and none of them succeeded. If Debian can see the tuner, then Debian will be my new OS. If not, then I am still distro shopping. >If you prefer to stick with apt-based distributions, what about MX >Linux? It’s based on Debian, but has many papercuts worked out, >possibly, including the one for the TV tuner. I have heard of MX Linux, and it's on my list of possibilities. >If you’re willing to try an Linux distribution not based on apt, I can >say that Fedora and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed have improved tremendously in >usability and reliability in the last five years. >If you’re not happy with Mint, and if MX Linux does not work with the >TV tuner either, would you consider trying those rpm-based distros? I ran Fedora for about two years, until I finally got tired of their forced six month upgrades. I understand why Red Hat has that requirement, and I respect their decision. But it's not for me. As for others, I once briefly tried OpenSUSE, but not a lot of others. I want a combination of cutting edge, good multimedia support, yet high stability, a tall order for any distro. I don't find those features as readily in RPM distros as in Debian. Plus, it takes quite a lot of different commands and ways of doing things.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sun, Sep 17, 2023, at 11:05, John Jason Jordan wrote: > On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 22:22:00 -0700 > wes dijo: > > >On Sat, Sep 16, 2023 at 11:02 AM John Jason Jordan > >wrote: > > > >> >>> Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're > >> >>> in the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and > >> >>> keyboard, you have no Right-Ctrl key > >> > > >> >>something is not right here. > >> > >> I'm still stuck using the power button. > > >one possible thing to try would be to connect to this system remotely. > >if you have set up ssh access, you can connect in and terminate the > >virtualbox process from the command line. it would be interesting to > >find out whether this returns everything to normal. > > Several times over the years I gave tried to get ssh working, and I > always failed. > > >I sort of doubt that the window manager really died - the existing > >windows should no longer display if that were the case. or at least > >you should lose some of the surrounding detail (title bars, clock, > >notification tray, etc). > > Good points. Let me revise my theory: Window manager did not die > completely, but some piece of it died. > > But that has become more or less moot.The Debian installation was > always temporary to let me experiment to be sure I could get all my > applications installed. That worked out reasonably well; Debian has > snap in its repositories, so it can be added, but it's not installed by > default, and I got almost everything running. > > The hangup was the GUI config program for my Silicondust television > tuner on my home network. I got the program installed in Debian, but it > couldn't see the tuner. Yet I could ping the tuner from Debian. I spent > a lot of time trying to solve this, and in the process I finally > discovered a long thread in the Debian forums, where dozens of people > had the same problem, and all of them failed, and none of them were > running in any virtual machine. Reluctantly I had to bid Debian > goodbye. Yes, I could buy a separate television set and find a place > for it on my desk, but why? > > On my Xubuntu 22.04.3 I have managed to replace the few snap packages > that I had with apt packages, and my next effort will be to see if I > can completely uninstall snap. > > I also installed Mint 21.2 Xfce in a VirtualBox machine and got it > running. Like Debian, Mint makes snap available, but discourages > installing it. But Mint has the ugliest artwork of any distro, and I > can't bear the thought of having to stare at it constantly. However, I > can minimize the Mint window and restore it without problems. > > I started this whole voyage because I have come to have a strong > dislike of snap and was looking for an alternative to Ubuntu. Assuming > that I found a good solution I was going to buy a 2TB M.2 card to > install in my Thinkpad in its second, currently unused, M.2 slot, then > install the replacement OS on it, leaving the existing 1TB M.2 card with > Xubuntu on it installed as a dual boot. I recently bought a Samsung 2TB > M.2 card from Best Buy at Jantzen Beach for $120 for my desktop > computer, and it is damn fast. John, what was your specific error that you got when using SSH to your computer? What is the local SSH server not already running? Do I understand correctly that you got the silicondust App to see the TV tuner on Mint and Ubuntu, but not on Debian? You said you wanted to move away from snap and a bunch too, and you didn’t like the artwork on Mint. Are you still looking to try more distro’s? If you prefer to stick with apt-based distributions, what about MX Linux? It’s based on Debian, but has many papercuts worked out, possibly, including the one for the TV tuner. If you’re willing to try an Linux distribution not based on apt, I can say that Fedora and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed have improved tremendously in usability and reliability in the last five years. If you’re not happy with Mint, and if MX Linux does not work with the TV tuner either, would you consider trying those rpm-based distros?
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 22:22:00 -0700 wes dijo: >On Sat, Sep 16, 2023 at 11:02 AM John Jason Jordan >wrote: > >> >>> Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're >> >>> in the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and >> >>> keyboard, you have no Right-Ctrl key >> > >> >>something is not right here. >> >> I'm still stuck using the power button. >one possible thing to try would be to connect to this system remotely. >if you have set up ssh access, you can connect in and terminate the >virtualbox process from the command line. it would be interesting to >find out whether this returns everything to normal. Several times over the years I gave tried to get ssh working, and I always failed. >I sort of doubt that the window manager really died - the existing >windows should no longer display if that were the case. or at least >you should lose some of the surrounding detail (title bars, clock, >notification tray, etc). Good points. Let me revise my theory: Window manager did not die completely, but some piece of it died. But that has become more or less moot.The Debian installation was always temporary to let me experiment to be sure I could get all my applications installed. That worked out reasonably well; Debian has snap in its repositories, so it can be added, but it's not installed by default, and I got almost everything running. The hangup was the GUI config program for my Silicondust television tuner on my home network. I got the program installed in Debian, but it couldn't see the tuner. Yet I could ping the tuner from Debian. I spent a lot of time trying to solve this, and in the process I finally discovered a long thread in the Debian forums, where dozens of people had the same problem, and all of them failed, and none of them were running in any virtual machine. Reluctantly I had to bid Debian goodbye. Yes, I could buy a separate television set and find a place for it on my desk, but why? On my Xubuntu 22.04.3 I have managed to replace the few snap packages that I had with apt packages, and my next effort will be to see if I can completely uninstall snap. I also installed Mint 21.2 Xfce in a VirtualBox machine and got it running. Like Debian, Mint makes snap available, but discourages installing it. But Mint has the ugliest artwork of any distro, and I can't bear the thought of having to stare at it constantly. However, I can minimize the Mint window and restore it without problems. I started this whole voyage because I have come to have a strong dislike of snap and was looking for an alternative to Ubuntu. Assuming that I found a good solution I was going to buy a 2TB M.2 card to install in my Thinkpad in its second, currently unused, M.2 slot, then install the replacement OS on it, leaving the existing 1TB M.2 card with Xubuntu on it installed as a dual boot. I recently bought a Samsung 2TB M.2 card from Best Buy at Jantzen Beach for $120 for my desktop computer, and it is damn fast.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sat, Sep 16, 2023 at 11:02 AM John Jason Jordan wrote: > >>> Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're in > >>> the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and keyboard, > >>> you have no Right-Ctrl key > > > >>something is not right here. > > I'm still stuck using the power button. > > one possible thing to try would be to connect to this system remotely. if you have set up ssh access, you can connect in and terminate the virtualbox process from the command line. it would be interesting to find out whether this returns everything to normal. I sort of doubt that the window manager really died - the existing windows should no longer display if that were the case. or at least you should lose some of the surrounding detail (title bars, clock, notification tray, etc). -wes
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sat, Sep 16, 2023, at 11:02, John Jason Jordan wrote: > On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:10:31 -0700 > John Jason Jordan dijo: > > >On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 13:37:15 -0700 > >wes dijo: > > > >>On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 1:32 PM John Jason Jordan > >>wrote: > >>> Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're in > >>> the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and keyboard, > >>> you have no Right-Ctrl key > > > >>something is not right here. there should never be a case where the > >>virtualbox guest can prevent virtualbox from acting on the "host key" > >>(right-ctrl by default, as you noted). I don't have any specific > >>suggestions at this point, but I would encourage you to peruse through > >>the settings related to this to see if anything sticks out. > > > >I currently have three other virtual machines (all Windows), and in the > >past I have had numerous others. I have never had this happen before, > >so my guess is that you are right, 'something is not right here.' I > >will poke at this more later today. > > OK, I have more information, although I don't have a fix. I thought the > problem had just disappeared, but today it happened again. And while > things were locked up I spent an hour trying different things to see if > I could repair whatever was wrong. One of the things I discovered was > that all running programs were still working, e.g., I was downloading a > distro by qBittorrent, whose window was still on the screen, and I > suddenly noticed numbers shifting as the download continued. In > qBittorrent I tried moving around inside the window with the tab key, > moving to different buttons to click on and it worked, except clicking > failed. Eventually I discovered that the keyboard was fully functional > unless I tried to minimize or maximize a window, or start or stop a > program, or get to a terminal. The mouse cursor was working fine, but > no clicks were possible with any of the keys or scroll wheel. At the > end I came to the conclusion that what had gone wrong was that the > window manager had been killed. On the net via my phone I read about > key commands to restart the window manager, but none of them worked. > > I also discovered that it only happens when I minimize the window that > is holding the Debian guest OS. I hadn't done this for a couple days, > which is why I thought that the problem was resolved, but today I did it > again, and sure enough, instantly I had no window manager. And since I > never found a solution I'm still stuck using the power button. > > Well, at least I've made some progress. And now I can easily replicate > the problem for testing purposes. John, I’m sorry to hear that happened. If I had relevant expert tease, our gladly help. But I’m glad that you found some more details. It is progress toward a fix.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:10:31 -0700 John Jason Jordan dijo: >On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 13:37:15 -0700 >wes dijo: > >>On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 1:32 PM John Jason Jordan >>wrote: >>> Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're in >>> the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and keyboard, >>> you have no Right-Ctrl key > >>something is not right here. there should never be a case where the >>virtualbox guest can prevent virtualbox from acting on the "host key" >>(right-ctrl by default, as you noted). I don't have any specific >>suggestions at this point, but I would encourage you to peruse through >>the settings related to this to see if anything sticks out. > >I currently have three other virtual machines (all Windows), and in the >past I have had numerous others. I have never had this happen before, >so my guess is that you are right, 'something is not right here.' I >will poke at this more later today. OK, I have more information, although I don't have a fix. I thought the problem had just disappeared, but today it happened again. And while things were locked up I spent an hour trying different things to see if I could repair whatever was wrong. One of the things I discovered was that all running programs were still working, e.g., I was downloading a distro by qBittorrent, whose window was still on the screen, and I suddenly noticed numbers shifting as the download continued. In qBittorrent I tried moving around inside the window with the tab key, moving to different buttons to click on and it worked, except clicking failed. Eventually I discovered that the keyboard was fully functional unless I tried to minimize or maximize a window, or start or stop a program, or get to a terminal. The mouse cursor was working fine, but no clicks were possible with any of the keys or scroll wheel. At the end I came to the conclusion that what had gone wrong was that the window manager had been killed. On the net via my phone I read about key commands to restart the window manager, but none of them worked. I also discovered that it only happens when I minimize the window that is holding the Debian guest OS. I hadn't done this for a couple days, which is why I thought that the problem was resolved, but today I did it again, and sure enough, instantly I had no window manager. And since I never found a solution I'm still stuck using the power button. Well, at least I've made some progress. And now I can easily replicate the problem for testing purposes.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 13:37:15 -0700 wes dijo: >On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 1:32 PM John Jason Jordan >wrote: >> Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're in >> the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and keyboard, >> you have no Right-Ctrl key >something is not right here. there should never be a case where the >virtualbox guest can prevent virtualbox from acting on the "host key" >(right-ctrl by default, as you noted). I don't have any specific >suggestions at this point, but I would encourage you to peruse through >the settings related to this to see if anything sticks out. I currently have three other virtual machines (all Windows), and in the past I have had numerous others. I have never had this happen before, so my guess is that you are right, 'something is not right here.' I will poke at this more later today.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 1:32 PM John Jason Jordan wrote: > On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 12:50:09 -0700 > John Jason Jordan dijo: > > > Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're in the > host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and keyboard, you have > no Right-Ctrl key > something is not right here. there should never be a case where the virtualbox guest can prevent virtualbox from acting on the "host key" (right-ctrl by default, as you noted). I don't have any specific suggestions at this point, but I would encourage you to peruse through the settings related to this to see if anything sticks out. -wes
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 12:50:09 -0700 John Jason Jordan dijo: >Nevertheless I did get it installed, and now it's on to figuring out if >Debian 12 will really work for me. :) And once more I had to power down he computer because the virtual machine had captured the mouse and keyboard, and *after* I had minimized the machine, so I had no way to make it release the mouse and keyboard. Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're in the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and keyboard, you have no Right-Ctrl key; you have no keyboard or mouse at all. If the window for the guest is minimized in the host, you are dead in the water, and sunk to the bottom. I can't remember what they're called, but they're little windows that an application pops up with some attribute that completely locks the OS until the little window gets what it wants. I suspect that one of these little windows popped up in the guest right after I minimized its window in the host. This is a VirtualBox issue, not a Debian problem. I need a solution. I can't keep having my computer locked up every half hour or so.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
Talking about installing Linux into a VM, I used to use Vagrant. I say "used to" because I haven't run my own VM hypervisor in a while as just about everything I do is either in Docker or in The Cloud. Regards, - Robert On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 1:52 PM Tomas Kuchta wrote: > On Mon, Sep 11, 2023, 05:06 John Jason Jordan wrote: > > > > > I spent two hours trying to get Virtualbox to recognize either the > > optical drive or a USB drive where I had installed the Live Debian 12 > > ISO that I downloaded. I finally succeeded at getting the virtual > > machine to use the optical drive, although I failed with the USB drive. > > . > > > Not saying that what you try to do (boot ISO from USB stick in VM) should > not be done "damn it!" - BUT - it is certainly not the easiest way to > install stuff in VM, as you have found. > > The way to go is to: > * add optical drive to vBox > * load the .iso file to the optical drive in gui or using command line > * boot from the virtual optical drive with .iso inserted. > > Hope it helps, Tomas > > > >
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, Sep 11, 2023, 05:06 John Jason Jordan wrote: > > I spent two hours trying to get Virtualbox to recognize either the > optical drive or a USB drive where I had installed the Live Debian 12 > ISO that I downloaded. I finally succeeded at getting the virtual > machine to use the optical drive, although I failed with the USB drive. > . Not saying that what you try to do (boot ISO from USB stick in VM) should not be done "damn it!" - BUT - it is certainly not the easiest way to install stuff in VM, as you have found. The way to go is to: * add optical drive to vBox * load the .iso file to the optical drive in gui or using command line * boot from the virtual optical drive with .iso inserted. Hope it helps, Tomas >
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 12:12:18 -0500 Bill Barry dijo: >> C'mon Debian people, don't you test this stuff? > >I don't see that installing from the Live OS is the recommended path >for installing Debian. The netinst method is one of the recommended >installation methods. I know that net install is more common. But if the Live ISO has a button on its main page that says 'Install Debian,' then it ought to work. I was not impressed in my installation experience with Debian 12 Bookworm. More follows. The continuing saga of a Live ISO install: I did finally get it installed. The Live ISO initially boots to a Grub menu, and one of the options is to boot to an 'Install' version. This version immediately went into installation, bypassing the need to deal with the worthless 'Install Debian' button. This presented more or less the same questions (time zone? language? etc.), but the screens asking these questions were different. Things still did not go well. When I got to how to partition the 20GB VirtualBox .vdi image I told it to create / of 6GB and the remainder for /home. It errored on formatting these partitions, claiming that the media could not be formatted. I spent an hour trying to get past partitioning, and finally succeeded when I went back to the beginning of the partitioning section and chose the option to let it just create one partition whatever way it wanted. Too many bugs in the 'manual' partition process. Finally it started copying files from the DVD, but after fifteen minutes or so it stopped and popped up an error message that the source refused to deliver data. I tried again, and after half an hour the mouse became locked to the guest so I couldn't do anything in the host, not even powering down the guest was possible. Eventually I decided the only way out was to use the computer's power button, killing everything. After rebooting the host I opened VirtualBox and proceeded with attempts to install Debian 12. I opened the Debian machine and tried again, and this time at about halfway through the Live ISO apparently had a power manager timeout and locked the screen, demanding my password to continue. At the very beginning I had told it to boot automatically without a password, so I had never created one. I couldn't get the screen unlocked, but the optical drive was still grinding and clucking along, so I let it sit. When the drive finally went silent I killed the VirtualBox window, and then rebooted. It came up complete without error messages, so evidently I had finally gotten it installed. The first thing I did was to turn off screen locking, and then I went on with configurations. I quickly needed to install some things, so I launched Synaptic, which popped up a little authentication window asking for my non-existent password. Eventually I discovered that if I left the password blank and just proceeded the Synaptic window came up anyway. Not the smoothest way to handle a user without a root password, but eventually it worked. The whole installation took about six hours, although maybe a third of that was because VirtualBox refused to boot from the USB drive, so I had to install from the much slower DVD. Another third or so was clunking around fixing failures to install. My main purpose in this exercise was to see if Debian 12 Bookworm would provide an alternative to my current Xubuntu 22.04.3, and a big part of the answer is determining if all the applications I need are available in the repos or otherwise; and if I can stay completely away from snaps. Xubuntu 22.04.3 is the host, so I can just pop back and forth to make sure I don't leave out any critical applications. It has been about three months since the Xfce Live ISO went public, and I'm not terribly impressed. Bugs happen, bad design decisions happen, and lots of other problems crop up, but three months after the public started downloading the ISO I would not have expected all the issues that I experienced. Admittedly, VirtualBox was responsible for some of them, like not being able to boot from the USB drive (which it does see). If Debian labels the Bookworm installation as 'not supported as a virtual machine,' that's a cop out and they can forget about me as a possible user. Nevertheless I did get it installed, and now it's on to figuring out if Debian 12 will really work for me. :)
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 4:06 AM John Jason Jordan wrote: > > On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 22:26:42 -0700 > John Jason Jordan dijo: > > >On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 16:55:57 -0700 > >Keith Lofstrom dijo: > > > >Re Debian 12 Hookworm > > > >Just for kicks I downloaded the Live Xfce ISO and burned it to a small > >USB 3.0 drive. I may see what happens if I try to install it in > >VirtualBox. Meantime I'm trying to find out details about it, > >specifically its potential snapitude, and a few other things. > > I spent two hours trying to get Virtualbox to recognize either the > optical drive or a USB drive where I had installed the Live Debian 12 > ISO that I downloaded. I finally succeeded at getting the virtual > machine to use the optical drive, although I failed with the USB drive. > > Once I finally got the Live OS to boot there was an 'Install Debian' > icon, so I clicked on it. That popped up an error message that > 'Calamares' (the install program) was not executable. There was a > button to make it executable, so I clicked on it and things progressed. > It finally got to the end of the questions and answers and presented a > summary of what it was going to do in the install. I looked all over > for a button that said 'OK' or 'Continue,' or anything to move on and > let it install the OS, but there was no way to get past that point. > > C'mon Debian people, don't you test this stuff? I don't see that installing from the Live OS is the recommended path for installing Debian. The netinst method is one of the recommended installation methods. https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ This downloads a minimal install image that then allows you to choose other packages that get downloaded and installed after the system is installed enough to have network access. Bill
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
Stuff like this happens more and more. Is the reason just because orgs are cutting costs? Or that volunteers are just too pressed for time? The expertise is there. It's just not being used. I share your frustration ... not in this particular case ... but I have my own stories. -Mark -Original Message- From: PLUG On Behalf Of John Jason Jordan Sent: Monday, September 11, 2023 2:06 AM To: plug@pdxlinux.org Subject: Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM) On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 22:26:42 -0700 John Jason Jordan dijo: >On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 16:55:57 -0700 >Keith Lofstrom dijo: > >Re Debian 12 Hookworm > >Just for kicks I downloaded the Live Xfce ISO and burned it to a small >USB 3.0 drive. I may see what happens if I try to install it in >VirtualBox. Meantime I'm trying to find out details about it, >specifically its potential snapitude, and a few other things. I spent two hours trying to get Virtualbox to recognize either the optical drive or a USB drive where I had installed the Live Debian 12 ISO that I downloaded. I finally succeeded at getting the virtual machine to use the optical drive, although I failed with the USB drive. Once I finally got the Live OS to boot there was an 'Install Debian' icon, so I clicked on it. That popped up an error message that 'Calamares' (the install program) was not executable. There was a button to make it executable, so I clicked on it and things progressed. It finally got to the end of the questions and answers and presented a summary of what it was going to do in the install. I looked all over for a button that said 'OK' or 'Continue,' or anything to move on and let it install the OS, but there was no way to get past that point. C'mon Debian people, don't you test this stuff?
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 22:26:42 -0700 John Jason Jordan dijo: >On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 16:55:57 -0700 >Keith Lofstrom dijo: > >Re Debian 12 Hookworm > >Just for kicks I downloaded the Live Xfce ISO and burned it to a small >USB 3.0 drive. I may see what happens if I try to install it in >VirtualBox. Meantime I'm trying to find out details about it, >specifically its potential snapitude, and a few other things. I spent two hours trying to get Virtualbox to recognize either the optical drive or a USB drive where I had installed the Live Debian 12 ISO that I downloaded. I finally succeeded at getting the virtual machine to use the optical drive, although I failed with the USB drive. Once I finally got the Live OS to boot there was an 'Install Debian' icon, so I clicked on it. That popped up an error message that 'Calamares' (the install program) was not executable. There was a button to make it executable, so I clicked on it and things progressed. It finally got to the end of the questions and answers and presented a summary of what it was going to do in the install. I looked all over for a button that said 'OK' or 'Continue,' or anything to move on and let it install the OS, but there was no way to get past that point. C'mon Debian people, don't you test this stuff?
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 16:55:57 -0700 Keith Lofstrom dijo: Re Debian 12 Hookworm Just for kicks I downloaded the Live Xfce ISO and burned it to a small USB 3.0 drive. I may see what happens if I try to install it in VirtualBox. Meantime I'm trying to find out details about it, specifically its potential snapitude, and a few other things.
Re: [PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
> On Sun, Sep 10, 2023 at 05:18:11PM +, Ben Koenig wrote: > > > Mint is a popular choice for people who are familiar with Ubuntu but don't > > want these higher level changes. "Anyway, Ubuntu was and is a nightmare. Three minute boot, huge memory footprint, imposed updates that break things, especially my kludgy things. Mouse driven." There is a Debian based Linux Mint, LMDE, Linux Mint Debian Edition. Although, you could install any window manager you like, for example OpenBox, the default is the Cinnamon GUI Desktop Environment, which is designed for mouse navigation. If you want a default lightweight Debian distro, I'd recommend either BunsenLabs or Crunchbang++. Crunchbang is Debian 12, Bullseye w. Linux Kernal 6.1 Long Term Support. Both offer an installation script so the user can decide which packages to install based on the feature support wanted and/or use case for the computer. Cheers!
[PLUG] Mint, Ubuntu, Debian (and Centos and Redhat/IBM)
On Sun, Sep 10, 2023 at 05:18:11PM +, Ben Koenig wrote: > Mint is a popular choice for people who are familiar with Ubuntu but don't > want these higher level changes. On Sun, Sep 10, 2023 at 03:20:13PM -0700, Keith Lofstrom wrote: > I agree with Ben's observation ... I will agree more on the plug > list rather than the plug-talk list, because surprisingly, this > is actually about Linux and computers, rather than "Off-topic". > > It might be flammable, however, distro wars often are :-( > > See y'all over there ... Summary of below: Try Debian 12 Bookworm. - Hello again, Linux geeks! I am a recovering ScientificLinux/RedhatEnterprise/CentOS user, with many ancient machines and virtuals requiring modernization. I don't update often enough, one of the (not net exposed) machines is a 15 yo distro. I do NOT like streaming distros - my own code and kludges do not "stream". I do not know how to package them for automatic update, or even maintainability - my focus is on the differential equations driving them, numerical accuracy, and runtime (some run for weeks with multiple threads), not coding style, or lack thereof. My favorite programming language is solder. So that is where I come from. What's maybe interesting to the rest of you is where I plan to go. My first "Redhat camp escape attempt" was Ubuntu, since so many PLUG people use it. I considered Mint, but that is built on top of Ubuntu, and will only be better than Ubuntu until Mark Shuttleworth "snaps" derivative distros out of existence. Anyway, Ubuntu was and is a nightmare. Three minute boot, huge memory footprint, imposed updates that break things, especially my kludgy things. Mouse driven. Personally, instead of mousing menus, I type on keyboards. Mouses (the plural invoking the hardware, not the mammals) do not have "backspace keys", which is my most frequently used keyboard key. Stick your GUI in something else gooey ... and brown. In Ubuntu despair, I tried installing Debian 11 Bullseye on a desktop and a laptop ... and the SHIT WENT AWAY. The same GUI apps are available, but the underlying text functionality is available as well. I can use gnome3 or gnome2-like desktops, or boot to text. Boot takes 10 seconds. Shutdown less than 2 seconds. Suspend Just Works, but who needs it? Small RAM usage. Works fine with 20yo laptops. All the apps I need. WHY DIDN'T I SWITCH TO DEBIAN A DECADE AGO? Debian 11 works fine, but won't forever. Curious, I distro-updated a test machine to Debian 12 Bookworm. Probably incorrectly. The update scrolled thousands of lines of text and stopped about six times to ask questions. Questions taking time and web research to answer properly. What ARE they TALKING ABOUT? Nothing broke during or after update, but I would design the distro-update process to ask the questions up front, with explanatory text available. And if I would do that, there is probably a Proper Debian Way to do that. Ubuntu distro-update just broke. A reinstall and restore- home-partition was faster. Probably PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) for both of my amateurish Debian and Ubuntu updates. ALL (TOO MUCH OF) THAT SAID, where I plan to end up is a stack of old archived Redhattish SATA drives, ten deployed Debian 12 Bookworm machines (including ready spares and extra SSDs), 25 years of backups ... and one bare-bones Ubuntu machine, because a very few app developers target Ubuntu in Debian-incompatible ways. Migrating and translating those apps to Debian will need a "before" and an "after". I hope I find superior Debian apps, and the Ubuntu machine will gather dust. The Ubuntu MATE 22.04.03 LTS machine I have deployed now freezes and needs a (three minute) reboot about twice a week. Again, I am not an Ubuntu or a Mint adept, so Your Mileage May Vary. However, if you prefer speed to tailfins, think about test driving a Debian Bookworm system for a while. Running on an old jalopy 586/Pentium, it might just blow the doors off your 8-core 32GB-RAM Ubuntu race car. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com
