12-02-2015, 05:51 AM
Thank you gold_finger for all the good info. I very much appreciate you taking the time to lay things out. I decided to replace Manjaro with LL. Although I had a good working Manjaro install, I decided to switch because I want to install Microchip's IDE MPLAB X and the install scripts they provide are for Ubuntu derivatives (and maybe Debian). (The IDE is available in the Arch AUR, but would require may to much work to install.)
So I installed LL / over the Manjaro / in the root parition with an ext4 format and did not format the /home partition. It went pretty well with the largest visible changes to the desktop the font size, disappearance of the icons, and the replacement of the desktop background with the xfce4 default (I chose the "default" setup after install). These were all easily fixed, but I got cold feet, worrying that there might be some lurking problem beneath the surface. (There probably was not.)
So rebooted with the Live USB and deleted most of the system config files I could find in /home, leaving along those files that were obviously associated with application programs (Firefox, Guayadeque, Wine, etc.). Then I did another install, just like the first one. All seemed to go well (with the same changes as above). I was puzzled for a while because the network signal indicator disappeared, but that was another easy fix in the panel configuration. I then went on to make my post-installation tweeks and additions (tlp, thermald, swappiness=10, etc.)
One big issue with the Dell Latitude E6410 and Linux distros is very high touchpad sensitivity. This can't be addressed with the items in the Settings menu and requires copying /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/synaptics.conf as root and then (as root) adding the lines
Option "FingerHigh" "100"
Option "FingerLow" "85"
in the appropriate area in the file. (I learned this when trying out AntiX, as their settings menu selection simply opens up the configuration file in a text editor!) By the way, these values are specific for this model. On my Gateway LT40 notebook they are more like 50 and 40, resp. So if you try this, start with lower values and work your way up, or you might effectively make the touchpad unresponsive.
I had to reinstall my two Wine applicaton programs (LTSpice and Elsie) to restore their whisker menu entries, but the existing config files and libraries were unharmed by this.
Lastly, in converting from Manjaro to LL I lost some nice custom action entries in the Thunar right-click menu, like "Open as Administrator" which I use a lot. Fortunately I had these available on another machine and just copied them. If I'd stopped at the first install, I would not have had to do this.
In summary, I probably should have left the config files in /home alone, as it would have saved me some work, but it all came out OK.
So now I have Linux Lite 2.6 on two machines and think I've made a good decision in doing it.
Cheers,
Andy N1KSN
So I installed LL / over the Manjaro / in the root parition with an ext4 format and did not format the /home partition. It went pretty well with the largest visible changes to the desktop the font size, disappearance of the icons, and the replacement of the desktop background with the xfce4 default (I chose the "default" setup after install). These were all easily fixed, but I got cold feet, worrying that there might be some lurking problem beneath the surface. (There probably was not.)
So rebooted with the Live USB and deleted most of the system config files I could find in /home, leaving along those files that were obviously associated with application programs (Firefox, Guayadeque, Wine, etc.). Then I did another install, just like the first one. All seemed to go well (with the same changes as above). I was puzzled for a while because the network signal indicator disappeared, but that was another easy fix in the panel configuration. I then went on to make my post-installation tweeks and additions (tlp, thermald, swappiness=10, etc.)
One big issue with the Dell Latitude E6410 and Linux distros is very high touchpad sensitivity. This can't be addressed with the items in the Settings menu and requires copying /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/synaptics.conf as root and then (as root) adding the lines
Option "FingerHigh" "100"
Option "FingerLow" "85"
in the appropriate area in the file. (I learned this when trying out AntiX, as their settings menu selection simply opens up the configuration file in a text editor!) By the way, these values are specific for this model. On my Gateway LT40 notebook they are more like 50 and 40, resp. So if you try this, start with lower values and work your way up, or you might effectively make the touchpad unresponsive.
I had to reinstall my two Wine applicaton programs (LTSpice and Elsie) to restore their whisker menu entries, but the existing config files and libraries were unharmed by this.
Lastly, in converting from Manjaro to LL I lost some nice custom action entries in the Thunar right-click menu, like "Open as Administrator" which I use a lot. Fortunately I had these available on another machine and just copied them. If I'd stopped at the first install, I would not have had to do this.
In summary, I probably should have left the config files in /home alone, as it would have saved me some work, but it all came out OK.
So now I have Linux Lite 2.6 on two machines and think I've made a good decision in doing it.
Cheers,
Andy N1KSN