+- Linux Lite Forums (https://www.freecinema2022.gq/forums)
+-- Forum: General (https://www.freecinema2022.gq/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: On Topic (https://www.freecinema2022.gq/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=14)
+--- Thread: Distro hopping and Linux Lite (/showthread.php?tid=2266)
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - n1ksn - 11-29-2015
First time post. Hi everyone. Well, this topic caught my eye because after a year of using Linux Mint MATE I just spent two weeks trying out other distributions, mostly on my little Gateway LT-40 notbook (I think the same as the ASUS Aspire One). I tried Linux Mint XFCE, Manjaro (from the Arch camp), AntiX and the AntiX/Mepis MX-15 hybrid, PCLinuxOS, and Debian 8 "Jessie."
Of course Mint worked well out of the box, but for some reason I was bored with it. All the others had one or more problems after the install (sound, display backlight, wifi, suspend recovery, etc.) that required research and tweeking. This was all very educational, but in the end I found that Linux Lite 2.6 had the XFCE desktop I like and didn't require any extra work to get going. My only real complaint was NumLk being on by default, which had me tearing my hair the first few times I tried to enter my sudo password.
I have done some tweeking on LL (touchpad sensitivity control in synaptics.conf, swappiness=10 in sysctl.conf, "elevator-cfg" in grub--the usual optional stuff. Due to the small 1024 x 600 display I have one narrow panel on the left side of the screen containing battery, weather, volume, and wifi notifications, clock, menu button, and a small collection of program icons. I installed maximus so most windows open full screen (except for the panel) and I use Alt-Tab to switch between windows. The setup is very simiiar to the default Manjaro Netbook display. I also went into Appearance and jacked up the custom DPI setting for easier reading.
Well, that's it for now. I'm considering putting LL on my "pawnshop rescue" Dell Latitude E6410 which is currently running Manjaro, but I'm going to wait a bit and enjoy my notebook.
Best regards,
Andy N1KSN
Menahsa, WI
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - Valtam - 11-30-2015
Nice one Andy
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - n1ksn - 11-30-2015
Thank you, Jerry, for creating such a nice distro. So far I've noticed only one teeny weeny tiny bug in LL. The display backlight control buttons work just as they should, but when the pop-up display for the brightness appears it doesn't indicate the level. Considering all the hassle I went through to get brightness control to work at all in Manjaro, this little nit is nothing. I suspect the root cause is "upstream" (as the Arch people say).
I forgot to say in my original post that my distro shopping marathon left me with a much greater appreciation for those of you who labor to make Linux work with such a variety of PC hardware. I've done plenty of application programming (starting with GOTRAN on an IBM 1620 back in the dark ages), but never any system programming. The complexity looks daunting.
Finally, I joined your LL Facebook page to keep up with the latest news and made some comments on that dualboot article.
Cheers,
Andy
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - Valtam - 12-01-2015
You're welcome Andy, thank you for being part of our community
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - regularfella - 12-03-2015
Yeah, same here. I was distro hopping since being dissatisfied with windows. Was using Ubuntu and Windows until Ubuntu went to Unity. I hate Unity. Always having errors in Windows 7 and it became slow and bloated. Then Windows 10 came out and I don't feel like giving my personal data to Microsoft. That whole deal with Windows 10 is very dodgy and super shady.
Then, I found Linux Lite and wow. I'm done distro hopping. In fact, I'm going to donate right now.
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - n1ksn - 12-07-2015
As an addendum to my previous posts on distro hopping, I wanted to say that I recently tried a couple more distros from a live usb stick, namely Lubuntu and LxPup. The test platform was my Gateway LT40 notebook (essentially an Asus model).
Lubuntu was OK, as sound, wifi, etc., worked out of the box as you'd expect from a distro based on Ubuntu. But it seemed kind of blah for some reason. Certainly it would useable.
As a contrast, LxPup refused to find my wifi, even after trying several Broadcom drivers offered in a list (which admittedly is more than Debian 8 gave me). Perhaps if I'd attached a wired ethernet connection it would have helped me more (which Debian did), but I didn't try as I lost my patience. Frankly, it floors me that they wouldn't at least offer an applicable open source driver like that LL and others use, even if they wouldn't bother to detect the hardware and install something that works.
Just for fun, I decided to try AntiX-15 again, as I'd gained some experience since I last tried it. Wifi worked right away, but I could not get sound to work, so that was a repeat bust. Funny, but the hybrid MX-15 had no trouble with sound (or wifi).
In summary, the non-LL distributions that I've tried on my notebook that worked immediately were Linux Mint (MATE and XFCE), MX-15, and Lubuntu. I got Debian 8 working with a bit of extra work (initially using a wired ethernet connection to download a wifi driver). After trying these I still prefer Linux Lite.
I now have that notebook and a ("pawnshop rescue") Dell Latitude E6410 running LL. I also have a ("hand me down") Dell Latitude D820 running Linux Mint MATE which I would probably switch to LL if it weren't so much darn work to re-install the all applications I use on it. (Oh, if I'd only known to also put /opt in a separate partition.) I did spend considerable time making its desktop look just like the Dell running LL and found caja a bit less convenient to configure than XFCE. So maybe...
Cheers,
Andy N1KSN
Just about ready to stop mucking around with distros and desktops and get back to the work I have the computers for in the first place.
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - torreydale - 12-07-2015
On your latitude D820, look into the app called "Aptik". It can help with backing up and reinstalling apps.
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - n1ksn - 12-07-2015
Thanks, torreydale, I took a look at the program you suggested. Seems pretty nice, but I'm not sure it would work when changing distros, as opposed to upgrading a distro. But I'll definately keep it in mind.
Cheers,
Andy
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - n1ksn - 12-15-2015
I recently set my Gateway LT40 up for dual boot with two Linux distributions, LL 2.6 and MX-15. I installed MX-15 so I could do a somewhat longer comparison of it with LL, as it was one of the distros I tried that worked out of the box. Also, it uses the xfce4 desktop as does LL.
First, I was concerned because my previous install of AntiX-15 had clobbered the grub menu items for LL. However, I was a bit smarter this time and skipped the grub install section of the MX-15 installer. Afterwards I rebooted but used the old grub menu to go to LL, then ran update grub there. This picked up the MX-15 installation and kept my LL entries clean and working.
Anyway, I configured MX-15 to be similar in look and feel to LL, adding my favorite program icons and notifications to a small left-hand vertical deskbar, with the rest of the desktop clean. This is my favorite way to compensate for the small 1280 x 600 screen. I then tried out my favorite games, Guayadeque music player, and Firefox browser.
Everything performed very similarly to LL until I tried playing Youtube videos in Firefox. The videos played very poorly. Since MX-15 comes with SMTube, I tried that, with very mixed results. Some videos had audio but no picture, etc. I messed around and made sure that MX-15 and LL were using the same flash plugin and installed SMTube in LL to see how it played Youtube videos through VLC. LL played videos inside Firefox and using SMTube/VLC just fine while MX-15 yielded variable results, some quite poor.
It may be possible to fiddle with things in MX-15 and get better performance, but I did what I could to make that happen, and it didn't. I have identical conky displays in both distros, and it was clear from them that MX-15 was maxing out the CPU at 100% during video play while LL did not (it was high, but not 100%).
I don't know the underlying causes. It could be a Ubuntu vs. pure Debian thing I suppose. And on faster equipment it might not matter. But for my little Atom notebook Linux Lite proved itself to be capable of delivering good video play while MX-15 came up short, both in Firefox and it SMTube/VLC.
Cheers,
Andy
Re: Distro hopping and Linux Lite - Wirezfree - 12-15-2015
Hi,
pure guesswork...
In LL have you installed the "restricted extras" in "Lite Software", if yes that maybe why LL Video is O.K
The question is, Does MX-15 have them by default, or is it something that also needs to installed.
I'm trying to remember,
But I'm sure there is a regular poster here who was involved with MX-15..??.. They may spot this.