Anyone on Solus with a Minimal Window Manager? Which ones?

brent

elfprince of the 3 existing bsd
operating systems is there a preference?

elfprince

brent The major ones I know of are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD. Then there are the desktop oriented ones having BSD as their base: GhostBSD, MidnighBSD, NomadBSD, and some others. I would advise to check out FreeBSD, as it is imo most versatile, but need to build desktop from scratch. For ready to use desktop try out GhostBSD.
Have fun! 😆

brent

elfprince Be ready to love the terminal and editing multiple system config text files.

I love the first one!

brent

elfprince thank you. When my head is ready for a new learning curve hobby, in a couple days, this is all good to know.

WetGeek

elfprince ones having BSD as their base: GhostBSD

I've just downloaded (via torrent) the XFCE version of GhostBSD. That's another DE I'm familiar with from my days of distro hopping, so it will be a much quicker study than the FreeBSD that I just installed. There's also a MATE version of it available. It's hard to choose between those two.

elfprince

brent Pick a time when you have a good number of days available to tinker. 🤣

brent

WetGeek elfprince Kidding aside, I can take the pain (masochism) if the fun and time work together. I still will try ghost and see if I last a day. Thank you both for your hilarious input during my derailment of elf's thread🙂

WetGeek

elfprince Be ready to love the terminal and editing multiple system config text files.

Yeah. I've installed the .iso I downloaded, and it reminded me how much of a masochist I'm not.

brent

WetGeek [quietly scratches off his to-do list....]

elfprince

WetGeek Yes, that's the DE I usually used before as well on other Linux distros. I am curious how you find the GhostBSD. I am sure you will give it a little spin and testing. 😃

WetGeek

WetGeek I've just downloaded (via torrent) the XFCE version of GhostBSD

Once again, I'm reminded that BSD sure ain't Solus. No niceties at all. I'm not sure I'll be able to use GhostBSD. It requires specifying the GPU to start, and there's no option for NVIDIA. I'm going down the list to see if any of the other choices will work on the server I'm trying to install on, but it requires starting the installation again each time it ends up with a black screen.

WetGeek

WetGeek it requires starting the installation again each time it ends up with a black screen

I think I just started this adventure too late in the day. I'll try again in the morning. Not giving up altogether.

Perhaps one of the other BSD-based distros will install and work with my NVIDIA video. More on this later...

elfprince

WetGeek Yup, those desktop bsds are still limited, and less functional for general use.

WetGeek

elfprince Yup, those desktop bsds are still limited

Indeed. I installed MidnightBSD this morning, and I thought I was doing well for a while. The .ISO file is rather small, and would easily fit on a 1.0 GB USB key, if one could still be found. Turns out it installs a basic TTY system, but the last part of the installation prompts for whether to install a graphical interface.

It had no problem with my NVIDIA GPU, and spent the next 12 or 15 minutes downloading packages from MidnightBSD.org. Obviously, that's why the .ISO is so small ... most of the installation is done online.

During the original part of the installation, it asked for a password for root, of course. And later it prompts whether to add users. I tried to add myself as an ordinary user, provided my password, repeated my password, and next was prompted for a group. I had no idea what groups were present by default, but everything I tried was rejected as no such group.

I decided to finish up, and just use root for now. When I finished the installation and rebooted, I was met with a nice graphical login screen, and by that time I was pretty excited. Didn't do me any good, though, as I couldn't log on as root. I couldn't even back out with ESC or Ctrl-C, so I did a hard reset.

Having set up the graphical environment, it now boots to that, and displays the login screen that does nothing for me. That's as far as I've gotten, up to this point. I kept the USB key with the .ISO, and the SSD I'd installed to, intending to do some research and try again later.

If anyone here has some advice to offer, I would certainly not be offended. If I can figure out how to boot to a TTY interface again, instead of the graphical one, I'm pretty sure I could log on again as root. Then if I can figure out what it wants as a group for a regular user, I might be able to create a user who can log on to the graphical interface. (Maybe it wants a gid instead of a group name?)

brent

WetGeek When you figure out how the permissions work you will have it. I don't see why you are in a shutout loop (I'm making up a word).

elfprince

WetGeek With respect to groups, it was asking to add you (the user) to a group. You should select wheel group always, so you are able to use sudo, and run commands as an administrator.
To escape the graphical environment, try Alt-Ctl-F2. It will get you to a tty screen where you can login as a user, or root.

They may have a user guide, no? Keep having fun! 😀

[EDIT]: The website indicates that sudo has been replaced bydoas from OpenBSD.

WetGeek

brent When you figure out how the permissions work you will have it

Thanks, but I've known how permissions work for around 35 years or so. What I didn't know about was the "wheel" group. Also didn't know that sudo is now doas on OpenBSD.

Thanks to @elfprince, I do now.

WetGeek

elfprince

Thanks for all the help! I never would have guessed that "wheel" was the name of a group.

Ah, so getting to a TTY interface is the same as on Linux. I thought of that, but then decided it probably wouldn't work. And, as it turns out, I wouldn't have known about the "wheel" group anyway, so it would not have helped me after all.

As soon as I get through with ripping some DVDs to the NAS, I'll reload the Midnight SSD and implement your suggestions.

WetGeek

elfprince Keep having fun!

I have a feeling that I'm almost there. Has FreeBSD changed the useradd command, as they did with sudo? Do you know what it might be now? When I try to add myself as an ordinary user with that command, I get the error message useradd: Command not found. So I still can't get anywhere with MidnightBSD.

brent

WetGeek I was not being facetious. I mean permissions for that exact OS you are on. And elfprince steered you in the right direction regarding those permissions...

elfprince

WetGeek adduser perhaps?

WetGeek

WetGeek So I still can't get anywhere with MidnightBSD.

And I still can't. I used the MidnightBSD Pakage Manager to try to install Firefox, because I didn't like Midori at all, and it's not compatible with the LastPass extension, so I would't have been able to log on to anything anyway. The package manager listed Firefox as an available package, but when I selected it and clicked on Add Package, it just closed and did nothing. After four more tries, I gave up on it.

My lust for distro adventure has been well satisfied for the foreseeable future. I'm going to recycle the USB key that I used for this mess, and the SSD as well.

Thank goodness for Linux, and especially Solus. I can't understand why anyone would want to use anything else.

WetGeek

elfprince adduser perhaps?

Yeah. I think that's the only one I didn't try. No idea why they change timeless Unix commands like sudo and useradd.

Thanks again!

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