Alt Linux (KDE) 10.1 - Summary, Conclusion
When my VM locked up tight while installing the Vivaldi .RPM file, it did so very thoroughly. I couldn't do anything with the mouse or the keyboard. I needed to use the host machine to kill the client VM very impolitely. I didn't realize until I'd restarted the VM that the installation of Vivaldi actually had worked, and I was able to configure its settings and do a sync. The RPM installer just quit indicating any progress, while it continued to do its job. With four CPU cores assigned to the VM, I found it quite believable that the UI thread became unresponsive while one or more background threads continued to completion.
SUMMARY
Mostly by using Synaptic Package Manager, I was able to install and/or configure all the software I needed in order to explore Alt Linux. That includes the micro cli editor, Thunderbird email, and several solitaire games. I tried to install nfs-utils with Discover, but that failed. Later I found out that it was already installed by default when I tried again using Synaptic.
(I was tempted to spend more time learning to use rpm at the command line, but since I'd never seen it used by any other distro, and might not see it ever again, I decided to pass up the chance. Even Red Hat derivitives like openSuSE and Fedora use cli package managers like zypper or dnf instead of rpm, except as a package format.)
With micro and nfs-utils available, modifying /etc/fstab to give me access to remote folders was trivial, and that worked perfectly with Dolphin, as I mentioned in an earlier post. I was able to access my NAS shares just as if they were local folders on the VM's file system. (And just as if I were working with a Solus VM instead.)
In summary, nothing I set out to do was impossible, and most of it not even difficult. Alt was well-behaved, and an excellent introduction to a Russian OS - my very first. I ended with a very compentent, if boring (see below), Linux implementation.
CONCLUSION
Although I installed and sync'd Vivaldi, I didn't go so far as to create tab stacks, as I have in the past with distros I intended to use for a more extensive "test drive." I don't plan to do that with Alt, as I've found out all I want to know about it already.
In retrospect, it may turn out to be a mistake to install and configure KDE Plasma versions of all the distros I explore, because after so many of those all with the same DE, things get pretty boring. Plasma seems like a good idea at first, because I know it well. But looking back, the distros I've really enjoyed were the ones that don't offer KDE, and I've gotten to learn more about DEs like Cinnamon and others. I very much enjoyed Bunsen Labs editions, even without a DE.
In future, I now plan to look for DEs that I've never see or used before. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy figuring out those sessions more, become less bored with exercising them, and learn a lot more along the way.
