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WetGeek I've seen the 16-bit color message appear when GRUB appears, so I think the OS in itself does support 32-bit color.
If not solus, what distro would you be using
WetGeek I do acknowledge that PCLinuxOS does indeed run well on hardware.
I have TDE,Xfce, and Darkstar running on 2 laptops and a desktop.
For fun I have also booted the Live USB on the System76 Thelio and everything worked perfectly.
This is why I would have no hesitation choosing a Solus replacement as I am already using it.
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[deleted] I've seen the 16-bit color message appear when GRUB appears, so I think the OS in itself does support 32-bit color.
Perhaps, but the problem may be that it defaults to 16-bit video? That's just a guess, but I suspect that the older of the two virtual video "cards" that VirtualBox provides is able to handle 16-bit video, whereas the newer one is not. Remember that I didn't get anywhere with it until I changed to the older one.
And it was installing the guest additions, in an attempt to resolve the resizing issue, that caused things to go downhill from there.
The other possibility is that the video card in your hardware supports 16-bit color. I think that might be more likely.
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WetGeek I don't think it defaults to 16-bit color. It's most probably an issue with VirtualBox.
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WetGeek Because the BIOS or GRUB defaults to 16-bit color. The distribution in itself doesn't.
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[deleted] Because the BIOS or GRUB defaults to 16-bit color. The distribution in itself doesn't.
Okay, you go with that if you want to. I've installed 30 or 40 other distributions in recent years, without ever being asked to change to 32-bit color until now. I'll continue to believe it's part of what's "reduced" about Darkstar compared with regular KDE Plasma.
If it were a BIOS setting, it would affect every distro. And GRUB simply launches OSs. It could care less about their color depth. And, to be honest, it makes absolutely no difference at all which one of us is right. 
WetGeek With a video card that can tolerate its 16-bit graphics, it could be a real contender.
I wonder how far back we would have to go to find a video card that doesn't support 16-bit graphics.
tomscharbach I wonder how far back we would have to go to find a video card that doesn't support 16-bit graphics.
No idea, but that might explain why it runs on modern hardware. (For some value of "runs.")
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WetGeek No idea, but that might explain why it runs on modern hardware. (For some value of "runs.")
I have no idea what kind of a mess you got into with the VM, but 16-bit color support has been around since EGA, which precedes VGA, and that is at least 20-25 years ago. My much-beloved Red Alert 2 uses 16-bit graphics and I started using that on Windows 95/98, 22 years so.
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If it were a BIOS setting, it would affect every distro. And GRUB simply launches OSs. It could care less about their color depth.
Like I said it has nothing to do with the distro's color depth, but instead the graphical presentation of either BIOS or the bootloader, which will then prompt the message.
tomscharbach 16-bit color support has been around since EGA, which precedes VGA, and that is at least 20-25 years ago
I'm not surprised to know that 16-bit color was available back in the day, after all, I started writing code for 16-bit PCs sometime in the late '80s. I just didn't expect that newer video cards still supported it. Thanks for enlightening me.
tomscharbach A few years of kicking tires, getting all the pieces in place. I think that 3.0 (2017) was the first version to get traction in the Linux market.
Didn't know we had a wikip page! "Solus 1.2.1 was released on October 19, 2016." That was the one I was on but OS version is not in the wiki article. 3.0 might be right.
Remember when Justin was working here? He was doing a curating project on all releases. He alluded to the fact, and I remember this, that there were versions between 3.0 and 3.999. As I remember it anyway..
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Tested Darkstar on a VirtualBox (7.0.4) VM. Can't reproduce the display issues, the live system nicely defaulted to 1280x800 and same with the installed and fully updated system. The display settings go up to 2560x1600. VirtualBox guest additions came preinstalled.
Can't point out where the message on color depth comes from, though, as I didn't see such message. I assume it's either an issue with your VM or the guest OS configuration.
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WetGeek I just didn't expect that newer video cards still supported it. Thanks for enlightening me.
As far as I know, all Intel video cards are backwards compatible to 16-bit because Microsoft requires 16-bit for Windows Compatibility Mode and won't certify the card unless 16-bit is supported. I don't know about NVIDIA and AMD.
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tomscharbach I don't know if it even matters whether the actual graphics card supports 16-bit color depth. It's a VM and the host system still runs at 32-bit color depth.
I ran Darkstar in a Live session for about an hour this morning. I like what I saw, and might take the time to install it on a portable M.2 later this week. I was glad to see that installation includes a "Don't touch MBA or ESP ..." option that means I won't have Grub2 trying to take over the computer, allowing me to use the Boot Menu, which is what I prefer to do.
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tomscharbach I have two ESPs on their respective drives and choose from BIOS what OS I'm going to boot to. I thought that's the least amount of hassle when dealing with a Linux / W10 dual boot.
tomscharbach Microsoft requires 16-bit for Windows Compatibility Mode and won't certify the card unless 16-bit is supported
After I found that out, it occurred to me that perhaps gaming could be another reason 16-bit color is still supported. For those paying a lot to get the last shred of video performance out of a computer, I imagine it's possible that using a 16-bit color depth would be an advantage. And it would still provide sufficient resolution to play a game.
After this recent adventure, I decided to revisit my exploration of the KED Plasma version of PCLinuxOS. I've replaced the Darkstar .ISO file with the Plasma .ISO file in the VM's virtual CD drive, and installed without any problems. It's now about to the middle of 555 software upgrades. It'll be interesting to explore its current state.
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WetGeek It'll be interesting to explore its current state.
I'll be interested in knowing what is included in the normal (not loaded) version, as opposed to Darkstar. Darkstar was too minimal in my opinion, missing a lot of the tools I expect to see in a working distro like Solus Plasma.
I've given this a bit more thought, and decided to install PCLinuxOS (probably the "normal" version, depending on what you report) bare metal on my 11-3180. I recently bought a Dell-refurbished Latitude 11-3120 to use with Solus, intending to use the older (and less powerful, by a lot) 11-3180 to look at distros that showed promise in a Live session. I've been holding off turning the 11-3120 to Solus because the laptop runs Windows 11 so well that I enjoy playing with it. Time to move on, I guess.
