Linux Lite
I wrote a while ago that I was impressed by Linux Lite's approach to video scaling. Both the choices of 100%, 150%, 200%, and also the separate scheme that allows the user to select a multiplier like 1.1x, 1.2x, 1.3x and so on. Now that I'm working in the VM full time, and at full-screen, I've discovered that neither of those schemes actually works. Whether I set the scaling to 150% or I use the other method and try to set it to 1.2x, the screen simply turns black for about 20 seconds, then returns to where it started and with 100% or 1.0x displayed, depending on the scheme.
So I need to take back that bit of earlier praise. These two scaling schemes look like a couple of good ideas, except for the fact that they don't work at all. The only way I can type these messages on the VM is by using Vivaldi's own scaling to increase the size of this box that I'm typing in, thereby increasing the size of the characters.
I changed my mind about not using Thunderbird for email during this test. I'm still pleased that Vivaldi provides email support that works well, and there may come a time when that becomes important to me. But this whole project is aimed at trying out the Linux Lite distro in a setting as close as possible to my daily-driver laptop with Solus Plasma on it. That laptop provides Thunderbird for email, so this VM should as well, in order to present the same user interface and user experience (UI and UX).
Besides, Thunderbird is already provided by this distro by default, just as it is on Solus. I didn't need to get it from somewhere else; I just needed to configure it a bit.
Although this VM is now probably a 90% match for Solus on my laptop, and I can pretend that I'm in Solus briefly instead of Linux Lite, that illusion tends to fall apart when the simplest things turn out to be difficult or impossible to deal with. When I want to launch a game or some other application, like Dolphin, I need to search for it in the menus.
Just to the right of the menu in the bottom panel is what looks like an icon task list that has icons for Chrome, the Thunar file manager, and the terminal. Clicking those icons actually does launch their respective applications, but I've looked hard, and I haven't found any way to pin my programs there. Not like Budgie, or Plasma, or any other DE I can remember using. Nor can I find any way to remove one of those icons, like the one for Chrome, which I wouldn't use if it meant I'd win a bet.
IN CONCLUSION: I've been able to work around some of the problems I've faced, such that I could spend more time on this VM pretending it's my laptop. I could get my email answered, correspond with forums, play the games I use to pass idle time, and so on. But I'm not convinced that the experience would ever come close to being enjoyable. I don't see any path forward that provides anything of benefit, so I'm going to bail out now. I just wish Linux Lite had lived up to its claims.
