Other Distros

[Pelo]

ouah bravo...
so it is possible.. and you can run Puppy outside ? far from the box ?

[Billtoo]

I installed Slackware 14.2 rc1 64 bit version to my Acer laptop.
It's working well so far, the touchscreen is supported.
KDE,XFCE4,Windowmaker,and a couple of other window managers are
available, no LXDE.
EDIT: I'm still working on this, there were 26 updates today.
Still working well.

[musher0]

Success with PCLinuxOS (Dec. 2015) Community Edition;
no such luck with Alpine-3.3.2_64: can't launch X in it.

[Billtoo]

I installed Slackware 14.2 rc1 to my lenovo desktop pc.

Computer
Processor 2x Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
Memory 4035MB (534MB used)
Operating System Slackware 14.2
User Name bill (Bill)
Date/Time Sun 20 Mar 2016 02:28:57 PM EDT
Display
Resolution 1920x1080 pixels
OpenGL Renderer GeForce GT 430/PCIe/SSE2
X11 Vendor The X.Org Foundation
Multimedia
Audio Adapter HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
Audio Adapter HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
Operating System
Version
Kernel Linux 4.4.6 (x86_64)
Compiled #2 SMP Wed Mar 16 14:17:03 CDT 2016
C Library Unknown
Default C Compiler GNU C Compiler version 5.3.0 (GCC)
Distribution Slackware 14.2
OpenGL
Vendor NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer GeForce GT 430/PCIe/SSE2
Version 4.5.0 NVIDIA 361.28
Direct Rendering Yes

I found instructions for installing the Nvidia proprietary driver by
doing a google search.

It's working well so far.

EDIT: still working on this one too.

[dagodemon42]

Success with PCLinuxOS (Dec. 2015) Community Edition;
no such luck with Alpine-3.3.2_64: can't launch X in it.

I found this on Distrowatch. Review of Alpine Linux. The Alpine wiki includes instructions for setting up the X display server and a tutorial on enabling Xfce.

[James C]

One of my long-term installs.....

Code: Select all

[james@localhost ~]$ inxi -Fxx
System:    Host: localhost.localdomain Kernel: 4.5.0-1.el6.elrepo.i686 i686 (32 bit gcc: 4.4.7)
           Desktop: Gnome 2.28.2 dm: gdm Distro: Stella release 6.7 (Final)
Machine:   Mobo: MICRO-STAR INTL model: MS-7037 v: Ver 0A
           Bios: Phoenix v: 6.00 PG date: 06/08/2004
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium 4 (-HT-) cache: 512 KB
           flags: (pae sse sse2) bmips: 6001
           clock speeds: min/max: 375/3000 MHz 1: 3000 MHz 2: 3000 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller
           bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:2572
           Display Server: CentOS X.org 1.15.0 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1440x900@59.9hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 865G
           GLX Version: 1.3 Mesa 10.4.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller
           driver: snd_intel8x0 ports: dc00 e000 bus-ID: 00:1f.5 chip-ID: 8086:24d5
           Sound: ALSA v: k4.5.0-1.el6.elrepo.i686
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
           driver: 8139too v: 0.9.28 port: a000
           bus-ID: 01:0d.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8139
           IF: eth1 state: unknown speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full
           mac: 00:11:09:27:3b:5a
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 400.1GB (2.0% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD2000JB size: 200.0GB serial: WD-WMAEP2747647
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD2000JB size: 200.0GB serial: WD-WMAL81381041
Partition: ID-1: / size: 16G used: 5.4G (35%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb14
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.20GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2
RAID:      System: supported: N/A
           No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
           Unused Devices: none
Sensors:   None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info:      Processes: 178 Uptime: 11 min Memory: 446.2/2009.2MB
           Init: Upstart v: 0.6.5 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Gcc sys: N/A
           Client: Shell (bash 4.1.21 running in gnome-terminal) inxi: 2.2.34 

Code: Select all

[james@localhost ~]$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       2057380    1399384     657996      62868      38688     900184
-/+ buffers/cache:     460512    1596868 
Swap:      2150396          0    2150396 

Probably the most stable distro I've tried.

[Keisha]

One of my long-term installs...Probably the most stable distro I've tried.

I've found Korora to be 100% dead stable too. The thing never crashes and everything Just Works, with the exception of Google Chrome, which can't save anything. But Firefox can, and the libpepperflashplayer does work. I have mine configured to look, work, and act like Debian Dog Jessie openbox-xfce.

Of course, I do have a root account and a user account set up during install, so, unlike wonderful Puppies or Debian Dog where one always has the freedom of being root, I'm usually only the user. So, in order to do anything major, like for example write to another hard drive or install updates, I need to su to root (however, the use of beesu, and having beesu rox and beesu thunar launchers placed in the xfce4-panel launcher area, means I need to enter the root password only twice in a typical session).

I would be curious to know if you have tried either Korora or Fedora and if so do you have any observations on practical, everyday working differences between Korora or Fedora and CentOS?

Based on my experience of the absolute reliability of Korora, a Puppy or Dog based on some form of RHEL or Fedora seems like it would be a dream come true.

[James C]

One of my long-term installs...Probably the most stable distro I've tried.

I've found Korora to be 100% dead stable too. The thing never crashes and everything Just Works, with the exception of Google Chrome, which can't save anything. But Firefox can, and the libpepperflashplayer does work. I have mine configured to look, work, and act like Debian Dog Jessie openbox-xfce.

Of course, I do have a root account and a user account set up during install, so, unlike wonderful Puppies or Debian Dog where one always has the freedom of being root, I'm usually only the user. So, in order to do anything major, like for example write to another hard drive or install updates, I need to su to root (however, the use of beesu, and having beesu rox and beesu thunar launchers placed in the xfce4-panel launcher area, means I need to enter the root password only twice in a typical session).

I would be curious to know if you have tried either Korora or Fedora and if so do you have any observations on practical, everyday working differences between Korora or Fedora and CentOS?

Based on my experience of the absolute reliability of Korora, a Puppy or Dog based on some form of RHEL or Fedora seems like it would be a dream come true.

I've used Fedora a bit and Korora even more. Both are much more bleeding-edge with newer apps and much better for accessing multimedia than Red Hat or a clone while still being pretty darn stable.

The Stella install (plus another CentOS install) are for actual work so I chose to go for maximum stability. When I want bleeding-edge I just boot into Arch or Gentoo.....

[Keisha]

Korora receives updates every day, so it feels like a rolling release.

I can't imagine anything more stable than Korora has been. But then again, I've never tried multimedia production, and I don't run a webserver!

[Ibidem]

Alpine Linux Edge (development) used as a router, print server, and desktop.
OpenRC for init, mdev for hotplugging, icewm for window manager...
I use the linux-vanilla kernel, though it's decidedly second-tier to the linux-grsec package.
To get X working, run setup-xorg, then add xinit, rxvt-unicode (the package name of urxvt), and a window manager or xfce.
Caveats:
-The xinitrc script (/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc) may not work right if you want anything other than xfce; apparently non-interactive ash at least used to exit if exec failed.
Simplest workaround is to drop an executable script containing the line (for example)

Code: Select all

exec icewm

in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/z-wmexec.sh
-If you'd rather use mdev than eudev, you need to add mdev-like-a-boss-xorg, disable udev, and enable mdev again.
Script if you like those:

Code: Select all

setup-xorg
apk add icewm rxvt-unicode xinit
#switch to mdev 
apk add mdev-like-a-boss-xorg xf86-input-synaptics
rc-update -q del udev sysinit
rc-update -q add mdev sysinit
rc-update -q del udev-postmount
rc-service udev-postmount stop
rc-service udev stop
rc-service mdev start
#make icewm the default wm
echo 'test -e /usr/bin/icewm && exec icewm-session' > /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/z-wmexec.sh
chmod +x /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/z-wmexec.sh

[Billtoo]

I thought I'd try Korora 23 so I installed it from the xfce4 64bit
live DVD to a 128GB usb-3.0 SSD for use on my HP desktop.
After the install I ran yum and found there were 332 file updates
that totaled 456mb, the download and installation of the updates
took a few minutes but not too long.

I added some applications with the package manager,kdegames,smplayer/smtube
and geany.

It's working well so far, and very fast.

[Billtoo]

I installed Slackware 14.2 rc1 to the hard drive of my emachines
laptop:

Computer
Processor AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 2650e
Memory 1781MB (390MB used)
Operating System Slackware 14.2
User Name Bill (Unknown)
Date/Time Wed 23 Mar 2016 03:34:15 PM EDT
Display
Resolution 1280x800 pixels
OpenGL Renderer Gallium 0.4 on ATI RS690
X11 Vendor The X.Org Foundation
Version
Kernel Linux 4.4.6 (x86_64)

It's working great with this single core AMD Athlon processor.

[James C]

Still running Vector.....

Code: Select all

james:$ uname -a
Linux vector.linux.vnet 3.18.16 #1 SMP Tue Jun 16 15:08:37 CDT 2015 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
vector:/~

Code: Select all

james:$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       2056776    1685316     371460          0     579324     778032
-/+ buffers/cache:     327960    1728816
Swap:      2150396          0    2150396
vector:/~

[Subito Piano]

ahh, good old Vector....

I forgot all about that one, haven't used it in years but remember it was a nice distro.

My home distro is AV Linux, as i use the synth stuff for live performance. Rather a poor man's all-purpose synth. It's surprisingly fast and i like it a lot, been using for almost two years now. Very good with other programs as well. Puppy (TahrPup) is for work (and often home as well.)

Would love to try Slacko but need to figger out how to get rednotebook working on it.

[musher0]

Alpine Linux Edge (development) used as a router, print server, and desktop.
OpenRC for init, mdev for hotplugging, icewm for window manager...
I use the linux-vanilla kernel, though it's decidedly second-tier to the linux-grsec package.
To get X working, run setup-xorg, then add xinit, rxvt-unicode (the package name of urxvt), and a window manager or xfce.
Caveats:
-The xinitrc script (/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc) may not work right if you want anything other than xfce; apparently non-interactive ash at least used to exit if exec failed.
Simplest workaround is to drop an executable script containing the line (for example)

Code: Select all

exec icewm

in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/z-wmexec.sh
-If you'd rather use mdev than eudev, you need to add mdev-like-a-boss-xorg, disable udev, and enable mdev again.
Script if you like those:

Code: Select all

setup-xorg
apk add icewm rxvt-unicode xinit
#switch to mdev 
apk add mdev-like-a-boss-xorg xf86-input-synaptics
rc-update -q del udev sysinit
rc-update -q add mdev sysinit
rc-update -q del udev-postmount
rc-service udev-postmount stop
rc-service udev stop
rc-service mdev start
#make icewm the default wm
echo 'test -e /usr/bin/icewm && exec icewm-session' > /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/z-wmexec.sh
chmod +x /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/z-wmexec.sh

Thanks, ibidem.

[Colonel Panic]

Spent nearly an hour today trying to configure the network card for Scientific 7.2 so that I could get online with it, but eventually decided that life was too short.

Unfortunately I can't recommend any of the Red Hat 7 spinoffs, such as SL 7 and Centos 7, for anyone without a deep knowledge of Linux (deeper than mine anyway) and a lot of patience. Centos 6, SL6 and Stella 6 are all okay as far as I know (I'm happy with Stella 6.7).

[Billtoo]

I installed Xubuntu 16.04 beta2 to a usb-3.0 hard drive:

Summary
Computer
Processor 4x Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3550 CPU @ 3.30GHz
Memory 12259MB (437MB used)
Operating System Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (development branch)
User Name bill (Bill)
Date/Time Fri 25 Mar 2016 04:06:00 PM EDT
Display
Resolution 3200x900 pixels
OpenGL Renderer Gallium 0.4 on ATI RV530
X11 Vendor The X.Org Foundation
Multimedia
Audio Adapter HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
Desktop Environment XFCE 4
Version
Kernel Linux 4.4.0-15-generic (x86_64)

No show stoppers yet.

[Billtoo]

I installed Lubuntu 16.04 beta2 to the hard drive of my emachines
laptop:

Computer
Processor AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 2650e
Memory 1789MB (288MB used)
Operating System Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (development branch)
Display
Resolution 1280x800 pixels
OpenGL Renderer Gallium 0.4 on ATI RS690
X11 Vendor The X.Org Foundation
Desktop Environment LXDE (Lubuntu)

I added some applications with synaptic.
It's dual booting with Slackware 14.2 rc1

EDIT: I downloaded the powerpc version of Lubuntu 16.04.beta2 and installed it to my G5 imac, it's working well.

[James C]

Another oldie but goodie......

Code: Select all

[james@localhost ~]$ inxi -Fxx
System:    Host: localhost.localdomain Kernel: 3.18.1-pclos1 x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.7.2)
           Desktop: MATE 1.12.1  dm: gdm Distro: PCLinuxOS
Machine:   Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M5A97 LE R2.0 v: Rev 1.xx
           Bios: American Megatrends v: 2601 date: 03/24/2015
CPU:       Hexa core AMD FX-6300 Six-Core (-MCP-) cache: 12288 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 42137
           clock speeds: min/max: 1400/3500 MHz 1: 3500 MHz 2: 3500 MHz
           3: 3500 MHz 4: 3500 MHz 5: 3500 MHz 6: 3500 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0a65
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.4 drivers: nvidia,v4l
           Resolution: 1440x900@59.89hz
           GLX Renderer: GeForce 210/PCIe/SSE2
           GLX Version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 340.96 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 NVIDIA High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:0be3
           Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1002:4383
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.18.1-pclos1
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: d000
           bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full
           mac: 1c:87:2c:5a:bb:e2
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1120.2GB (0.7% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: KINGSTON_SV300S3 size: 120.0GB serial: 50026B7256076A16 temp: 22C
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD10EZEX size: 1000.2GB serial: WD-WCC3F6XAKRLY temp: 22C
Partition: ID-1: / size: 290G used: 3.9G (2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/root
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 8.60GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb5
RAID:      System: supported: N/A
           No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
           Unused Devices: none
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 14.8C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:33C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 187 Uptime: 3 min Memory: 1027.0/15957.4MB
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.88 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Gcc sys: 4.9.2
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.331 running in mate-terminal) inxi: 2.2.21 

Code: Select all

[james@localhost ~]$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:      16340360    1479352   14861008          0      30560     431236
-/+ buffers/cache:    1017556   15322804
Swap:      8396796          0    8396796

http://www.pclinuxos.com/

[Daleb]

What Distro would be best for the new Vulcan?