Distro most like Solus

riffer

riffer
Here's the actual link:
https://github.com/pantheon-tweaks/pantheon-tweaks

WetGeek

Brucehankins check out Elementary OS

This gave me pause at the beginning of installation:

Seems like it's saying "We can't be blamed for anything that goes wrong." Such as the file manager not allowing me to access any shares that I created? Still, I continued with it.

Looks a bit like the Ultrasound version at first, eh? I hope it behaves differently.

WetGeek

WetGeek Still, I continued with it.

And I didn't get any farther with Elementary than I did with Ultramarine. I needed to connect to my email account in order to fetch a message I sent myself a while ago containing text to use to modify /etc/fstab, and my list of .bashrc additions. I tried using Elementary's Mail app, but could not.

In the online accounts (system settings) I provided it with the same information I use to connect to my email account everyhere, but the Mail app couldn't connect. So I used apt to install Thunderbird, gave it exactly the same settings, and connected immediately.

After modifying /etc/fstab and mounting all the shares, I still couldn't get Files to access the shares. This time I realized that I'd been using the terminal as root when I accessed the shares in the terminal. I exited back to my user, jerry, and was unable to access them.

So I changed to root again and saw a listing several pages long. Here are a few examples from that list:

Notice the owner in those lines. I'm not sure who 1026 is, but I'm pretty certain it isn't me. And with an owner like that, it's no wonder that Files won't allow me access. Since other VMs I've created don't have this problem, I'm going to check one of those and see what's reported for these files.
...
Here's an example of the same share as mounted in my Solus Budgie VM.

Hmm ... I'm shocked. Apparently I AM 1026. I've always thought I should be 1000, being the only user in the system. Apparently what I've always believed was not correct. But that still leaves an important question in my mind, "how is it, if I really am user ID 1026, that I cannot access 1026's files in the Files utility"? It should be user 1026 that's logged on and using Files, no?

Here's how it works in Solus Budgie (and lots of other VMs):

I still don't know what's the root cause of this problem, but apparently it's not the distribution, since Ultramarine is based on Fedora and Elementary is based on Ubuntu. They have the same DE (in this case), but it's hard for me to understand how the DE could affect file access rights. Still, Ultramarine Budgie was perfectly happy to give me access to these same shares, and Ultramarine Pantheon was not. The difference would seem to be the DE, whethe I find that easy to believe or not.

In the end, I'll just consider this a problem I couldn't solve, and move on. It's time to take a look at Serpent OS now.

WetGeek

murbert

Thanks. As soon as I finish taking a look at the Elementary VM I just created, I'll create one for Serpent. I'm sure there are lots of others here who are also interested in trying it.

tomscharbach

WetGeek I'm guessing that this .ISO file is as old as Solus' are, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

The Elementary 6.1 ISO was released in December 2021. Since then, Elementary has issued several major updates, which probably accounts for the large number of packages requiring updates.

WetGeek As soon as I finish taking a look at the Elementary VM I just created, I'll create one for Serpent.

Don't hold your breath. As I understand it, no ISO is currently available.

WetGeek

In keeping with the theme of this thread, Elementary OS is a lot like Solus in at least one area. The first thing I do after creating a VM is to update it. To me, it doesn't make sense to have to deal with bugs that have already been fixed.

My Elementary VM has been updating for the past 10 minutes, with no end if sight. There were 400 Operating System Updates, plus application updates, driver updates, and even updates for a couple of VirtualBox items.

I'm guessing that this .ISO file is as old as Solus' are, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Apparenlly my NAS doesn't preserve a file's creation time. The ls command with --time=creation just returns a question mark for that field.

Brucehankins

WetGeek yeah it's an older iso for sure. It was (and may still be) an Ubuntu LTS base. If it wasn't for apt, I think this would be my second go-to distro. I really like what they are doing with their App Center and providing a way for developers to monetize their apps, even if it is just requesting a donation. They definitely have some interesting ideas and push their design language front and center, so no super Plasma theming there, but that's not a bad thing either. I think sometimes having a clearly defined design language and UI can be just as good as giving the user all the options available if it's done well enough. I mean, look at Apple, people complain, but they still buy the products and love them.

brent

tomscharbach As I understand it, no ISO is currently available.

my understanding as well

WetGeek

tomscharbach Don't hold your breath. As I understand it, no ISO is currently available.

Right you are. I was mentally conflating two messages. The "Here's the link" one wasn't for Serpent OS.

brent

WetGeek Serpent made me immediately recall a fantastic distro I tried called VenomOS. It's the only OS on my ventoy after Bunsen and Bodhi. You can file that for your other thread🙂 (yes I promise its not a bsd)
edit/sp.

WetGeek

brent Serpent made me immediately recall a fantastic distro I tried called VenomOS.

Based on your recommendation, I'll take a look at it. I've heard the name before, but according to my ISOs share, I haven't created a VM to try it yet. Stay tuned ...
...

Turns out that Venom is one of those distros with a text-based installer, that requires the user to do all the preparation that most installers do automatically. Like partitioning the disk to be used. Only in this case, it doesn't seem able to write the partition table.

I'm way too tired to fuss with this for now, but I'll hang onto the .ISO file I downloaded in case I develop more of an interest sometime when I'm better rested.

Do you intend to install it from your Ventoy? If so, good luck with that. Please let us know how it goes for you. Maybe this is one of those occasions when something will work on hardware, but not a VM.

brent

WetGeek I loved the ISO, I did not install it. Skip it and disregard my suggestion. Life is way too short for unforgiving, archaic, text-based installers.

mike-ward

FWIW, Elementary OS was one of a handful of distros I could boot on my 2010 MacBook Pro. It ran surprisingly well. WIFI worked without having to install broadcom drivers.

Brucehankins

mike-ward I want to put it on an early-2009 iMac as soon as I upgrade the RAM. It just feels right. I hope it runs well enough, the thing is a potato.

elfprince

brent Yeah, I expect this on a *BSD, Gentoo or Slackware, not in a modern Linux distro. Unless, they allow a default good sense partition scheme to proceed with.

WetGeek

brent I loved the ISO, I did not install it.

I think it's fair to conclude that Venom is not the distro that's most like Solus.

brent

elfprince they allow a default good sense partition scheme to proceed with.

I have successfully used a text-based installer twice (it was taxing🙂)and gave up a few other times. And I thought the partition scheme they wanted to default install was smart. Is that a hallmark of these installers? I mean, I've had GUI installers propose installs I thought were wrong sizes/places (always grateful one can DIY in these installers).

WetGeek

elfprince default good sense partition scheme to proceed with.

I actually expected to see a default option, but if there was one, I missed it.

This is what the venom-installer looks like.

How hard could it possibly be to write a little GUI wizard to handle this stuff? I thought curses died long ago.

brent

WetGeek I know. that's why I suggested ( a couple posts above ) you bump Venom to your Distro thread instead of this one. But in light of the installer, nevermind🙂

brent

WetGeek I think if you went one step further with the capital P/enter, it would have presented a default scheme, then 41 other options🙂 but I agree, that feels medieval any more..

brent

Brucehankins although I've run Macs for years I always wondered if their bios was mac-exclusive? or is bios always tried and true plain agnostic bios?

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