GNOME again

WetGeek

I was starting to feel bad about disparaging one of Solus' releases, so I decided to try again to see whether my problems with GNOME were my own fault, not GNOME's. So I tried once more, from the very start, to install GNOME on a VirtualBox VM. I'd had no trouble at all with Budgie, Plasma, or MATE.

Once more, I failed. I was careful to specify far more than the recommended resources when I created the VM. More disk space, more processors, more video memory, etc. And when I tried to run the installer, I got no farther than selecting my time zone. Before I could go any farther, the installer crashed.

I'm thinking this might be a big factor in the unpopularity of the GNOME DE, especially among users who were happy with GNOME on other distros and wanted to try it here. Perhaps it would do better on hardware, but lots of folks try out new distros on a VM first.

You won't be hearing this from me again, at least until the next .ISO is released. I'd really like to have an example of all our DEs in use. If I try to help a GNOME user with a problem I'm pretty sure I know the answer to, I'd like to be able to confirm that before I try to help.

tomscharbach

WetGeek I was starting to feel bad about disparaging one of Solus' releases, so I decided to try again to see whether my problems with GNOME were my own fault, not GNOME's. So I tried once more, from the very start, to install GNOME on a VirtualBox VM.

Have you considered the possibility that VirtualBox might be the problem, not you or Solus Gnome?

I used to use VirtualBox (running under Windows) to test distros, with decidedly mixed results. I set up VirtualBox instances manually and using OSBoxes VDI images. It didn't seem to make much difference. Sometimes it worked okay. Sometimes it didn't.

I switched over to Gnome Boxes (running under Solus Budgie) two-three years ago and get a lot better results. A Boxes VM is a lot less complicated to set up than VirtualBox VM, at least for limited purpose of looking at distros, and that is what I use Boxes to do.

I haven't tried to use a Boxes instance as a full substitute for a bare metal OS installation, but I think that a Boxes VM would be sufficient for "help desk" purposes on this forum.

valst

Try Gnome Boxes, it works well for me.

Brucehankins

I second Boxes. I have a terrible time with VirtualBox and others, but Boxes just works. I even installed it as a flatpak on my Plasma machine to try other distros.

Hope you have luck and can enjoy Gnome. The only way it's usable for me is with a ton of extensions, which break with every stack update. The closest I've got to liking it was with Pop and SUSE. Pop uses Cosmic which doesn't need much customization for me and SUSE leap is pretty stagnant so extensions weren't an issue.

WetGeek

tomscharbach Have you considered the possibility that VirtualBox might be the problem, not you or Solus Gnome?

It seems odd that Solus Budgie, Solus Plasma and Solus MATE don't have a problem with VirtualBox. Just Solus GNOME. Anyway, I'll let somebody else figure it out, if anything needs to be figured out. I'm pleased that GNOME works for somebody under some circumstances.

tomscharbach

WetGeek It seems odd that Solus Budgie, Solus Plasma and Solus MATE don't have a problem with VirtualBox. Just Solus GNOME. Anyway, I'll let somebody else figure it out, if anything needs to be figured out. I'm pleased that GNOME works for somebody under some circumstances.

It is odd, but it probably doesn't need to be figured out.

As a side note, Solus OS Gnome works fine on Gnome Boxes. I installed it in December to compare Solus Gnome with openSUSE Tumbleweed Gnome. I hadn't touched it since then, so I had to run a gazillion updates when I opened it just now. "Fine" is a relative term, though, as far as I am concerned. I really don't like the Gnome DE.