Other Interesting Distros, Part 6

brent

tomscharbach at distrowatch do an advance search and make derived from Red Hat your only criteria. You'll find 99% of distros are gnome-ONLY. still don't know why that is.

WetGeek good luck with alma, that should be Gnome. Also I was pleasantly happy to see desktop distros based on Solaris in the pile..

WetGeek

brent Also I was pleasantly happy to see desktop distros based on Solaris in the pile..

I've broken up with Alma. I knew we'd never get along well with each other.

I was intrigued to see one based on OpenSolaris, too, until I installed it and it came up as a command line only. I'm not afraid of a cli, by any means, and for a lot of tasks I actually prefer one. But that's just not why I explore these distros.

brent

WetGeek I was intrigued to see one based on OpenSolaris, too, until I installed it and it came up as a command line only. I'm not afraid of a cli, by any means, and for a lot of tasks I actually prefer one.

It's a 'life's too short' thing for these cli installs, I agree.

WetGeek But that's just not why I explore these distros.

Oh, I know.

Also, if Alt is overkill I wonder what the other Russian Rosa is? I hear high praise for it, but I know you can't believe everything you read.
I thought OpenSolaris would've been easier in a home setting because it's all GUI in the workplace. I always found it a little dated but the most rock solid linux I used (i.e. handled high-volume taxing industrial apps with no hesistation etc). Actually there were abut 3 forked distros of OpenS so maybe I'll grab one someday. Time is tight lately.

WetGeek

Peppermint OS - Observations

From their website:
"Peppermint has migrated into its own continuous delivery OS, based on the Debian/Devuan repositories. Giving you the option to pull from testing if you like and we believe this will appeal to new and experienced Linux users. Peppermint comes with nearly nothing installed other than, the core packages needed to run the system and you have the choice to which packages should best fit your build. The desktop environment is xfce with the nemo file manager set as default, but you have the option to use thunar if you prefer."

I like the idea of a minimal system with a good GUI, and being able to install just what I need for my own purposes. Every desktop distro I've installed has ranged from slightly overweight to obese. It'll be refreshing to start with nearly nothing and gradually make it my own. Here's where we get started:

Definitely lean. After installing Vivaldi and sync'ing it, less than 6 GB. Definitely very snappy performance. I just might keep this one around for a while.

Here's some neofetch info. I'm going to take a break from posting for a while, and do some more configuration.
Back soon ...

WetGeek

Peppermint OS - Summary and Conclusion

Peppermint is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting distros I've looked at in quite a while. Even with Thunderbird configured with three email accounts, Vivaldi sync'd and three tab stacks created, Aisleriot, kshisen, and gnome-mahjongg installed, a full update done, and eight workspaces created, it's still this small:

SUMMARY
I configured this distro as a daily-driver OS, with email, bowser, remote folders for data access, and several games. Most of this setup went very smoothly, except as noted below. Execution of terminal commands and installed applications was very fast.

The mouse actions were a bit gnarly, with the mouse wheel needing more movement than would be needed outside of a VM, and dragging an object, such as a playing card across the desktop, was jumpy. I attribute these mouse-related issues to the characteristics of a VM, with CPU cores shared with the host machine. I'm tempted to install this distro on a spare laptop to confirm my suspicions.

My choice of a file manager was Nemo, which exhibited the same problems I'd observed during a previous review. That is, using it strictly as a file manager worked great, with no problems accessing the contents of my NAS shares. However, when used to import address books into Thunderbird, Nemo was unable to connect with the remote Documents share at all. I removed Nemo and switchd to Thunar, but it had the same issue. Another VM problem that wouldn't exist on hardware?

CONCLUSION
Because many of its attributes are attractive -- small footprint, responsive performance, etc. -- I plan to try it on hardware. I want to find out if it will operate there without the minor issues that I found here.

brent

WetGeek it's gorgeous and I agree with your sentiment that all the deb knockoffs are more interesting than deb proper. underneath it's all the same, apt + syanptic + sid or bullseye. Dolphin has never let you down, it was born for kde. your Nemo forays are always mixed (but mostly solid). I find it a testament to Utramarine that nothing has ever unseated it🙂.

tomscharbach

WetGeek The mouse actions were a bit gnarly, with the mouse wheel needing more movement than would be needed outside of a VM, and dragging an object, such as a playing card across the desktop, was jumpy.

Just as an FYI, I get this behavior in both Solus Plasma and Kubuntu when the computer comes out of sleep (e.g. opening the lid). It happens on both my Latitude 7390 running Plasma and my 11-3180 running Kubuntu. I got it in UBB, too, as I recall. The solution is to unplug the mouse adapter and plug it back in, which resets everything somehow. I know that this isn't directly applicable to a VM, but I thought I'd mention it. Minor problem. Drives me nuts, though.

Brucehankins

WetGeek when Peppermint was around version 8 or 9 and still running a modified LXDE desktop and ICE it was a really interesting distro. The use of PWA's and using them as system apps was great, and everything felt so snappy, even minimal hardware. Since the switch to Debian, it's felt kind of blah to me and I've lost some interest in it.

WetGeek

Peppermint OS - Addendum

WetGeek I plan to try it on hardware.

In fact, I've done that now. And I used it in place of my main laptop long enough to make it a good test drive.

I set up Thunderbird with three email accounts and two calendars, Vivaldi fully sync'd and several tab stacks created, aisleriot, kshisen, and gnome-mahjongg games. I did a full backup to the LAN and a full update.

I thought things went remarkably well, for such a "lean" distro and DE, but there were enough problems to make me want to go back to my #1 laptop. For one, I couldn't connect my Bluetooth keyboard or mouse to the laptop. When I tried, I found out that I needed to know the MAC addresses of those two devices in order to pair them and connect them to the Peppermint laptop! There's no way to use the laptop to search for local Bluetooth devices that are ready to be paired.

That's not something that would matter to a VM, of course, because the mouse and keyboard used there are those of its host machine. But it sure matters on hardware.

Because I'm an early riser, I use the "night color" setting from KDE Plasma to protect my eyes from a blast of blue-white light in the early morning. XFCE doesn't offer that among their Display settings. So I installed Redshift from the repository instead. Launching Redshift while it was still quite dark outside caused the screen color to flash back and forth on a period of about one second. Orange ... white ... orange ... white ... orange ... white ...etc.

As I suspected, the gnarly mouse problem from the VM didn't occur at all on the laptop. I'm sure it only happened on the VM because it was sharing its host's CPU and mouse driver. Context swaps undoubtedly caused the problem.

Having given Peppermint/XFCE a good test drive, I'm once again retiring my #2 laptop until there's another distro/DE that begs to be explored on hardware. It feels great to be back to Solus for a daily-driver.

WetGeek

tomscharbach The solution is to unplug the mouse adapter and plug it back in

Interesting. I'll give that a try next time it happens. I just finished a backup and update on the Latitude I installed Peppermint on. So far, the only mouse problem is that I can't connect channel 3 on my Bluetooth mouse to the laptop. It requires me to type in the MAC address of the Bluetooth device. It won't just use the radio to find the device and pair with it.

Fortunately, I have wireless mouses from before I got the Bluetooth version, so I'm just using one of those. I set up the partitioning to allow enough swap for hibernation, so I'll check out the mouse behavior the next time I open the laptop lid. Thanks for the tip!

WetGeek

tomscharbach The solution is to unplug the mouse adapter and plug it back in

My #2 Latitude (with Peppermint installed) had its lid closed overnight, and when I woke it up this morning there were no unusual mouse effects. I think I dodged that bullet for now.

Do you have yours set up to hibernate in a swap space? That's been an option when I've installed certain distros (I think Deb-derivatives), and I usually pass on it, since I'm usually working with a 32 GB virtual hard drive, but on this laptop with 512 GB of RAM, I agreed to create a swap partition that's big enough to hibernate.

I usually don't close my #1 laptop lid, because it's on a stand in front of my chair, and there's usually a camera perched on the edge of the lid, but I just checked it, and that one doesn't have the problem, either. I hope you'll be able to figure out what's causing it -- I know that's gotta be annoying.

tomscharbach

WetGeek Do you have yours set up to hibernate in a swap space?

No. I have my computers set to "sleep" when the lid is closed:

WetGeek

tomscharbach No. I have my computers set to "sleep" when the lid is closed:

I'm not sure that Peppermint offers the same set of options as KDE, but I'll check that now and try that here if I can. I'll let you know ...

tomscharbach

WetGeek Sleep saves the processor state in memory and otherwise shuts down processes, but does not shut down the computer. Hibernate shuts down the computer after saving the current state to disk.

I think that Linux (I get the behavior regardless of distro) doesn't wake the wireless mouse correctly when the computer awakens upon lid reopening. Removing and reinserting the dongle "wakes" the mouse.

I read about this behavior in forums a few years ago, and the standard recommendation is to remove/reinsert the dongle.

Annoying, but not the end of the world.

WetGeek

tomscharbach Hibernate shuts down the computer after saving the current state to disk.

Yep, knew that. With XFCE on Peppermint, the choices are hibernate or suspend. And an adjacent setting determines what to do for "sleep." There again, the two choices are hibernate or suspend. The only practical difference is that the computer takes longer -- much longer -- to recover from a suspend. From hibernate, it recovers is about a second. In neither case is the mouse affected. (As I mentioned, this laptop uses a wireless mouse, because I couldn't get the Bluetooth mouse paired and connected.)

Both of these laptops are 5580, in case that might matter. The mouse connected to #2 is a Logitech wireless. I wish I could provide some information that would help you to diagnose the issue, but all I can say is "it works here," and I know that's not very helpful.

tomscharbach

WetGeek Both of these laptops are 5580, in case that might matter. The mouse connected to #2 is a Logitech wireless. I wish I could provide some information that would help you to diagnose the issue, but all I can say is "it works here," and I know that's not very helpful.

The mouse issue, in my case, is computer-independent, in the sense that it happens on my Latitude 7390 and my Inspiron 11-3180, two very different computers. This has been going on for years and seems to be distro-agnostic (Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Solus Budgie, Kubuntu, Solus Plasma), but doesn't happen with Windows. It might be a driver issue for the Microsoft Wireless 3500 Mobile mouse, since it seems to be common to all Linux distros. Who knows?

I've learned to live with it.

WetGeek

tomscharbach It might be a driver issue for the Microsoft Wireless 3500 Mobile mouse, since it seems to be common to all Linux distros.

That does seem to be the only significant difference. Microsoft mouse there, Logitech mouse here. Same mouse for the Latitude and the inspiron? Maybe you could temporarily borrow a Logitech mouse to try? Or try it temporarily with a wired mouse? Either one should let you know if it's really a driver issue.

tomscharbach

WetGeek That does seem to be the only significant difference. Microsoft mouse there, Logitech mouse here. Same mouse for the Latitude and the inspiron? Maybe you could temporarily borrow a Logitech mouse to try? Or try it temporarily with a wired mouse? Either one should let you know if it's really a driver issue.

I've standardized on the Microsoft Wireless 3500 Mobile for all my computers. All identical except for the color (black, grey, blue, pink, white) depending on the computer.

I have a Logitech M325 Wireless mouse at the railroad so I can try that with the 11-3180 the next time I'm there.

I have a wired mouse in a drawer here, so I'll plug that into the 11-3180 today and see what happens. I'll let you know.

When the mouse doesn't wake up after sleep, it acts like a half-awake drunk. The cursor movements get all gnarly, and the wheel scrolls at a snail's pace. I think that coming out of sleep, the computer doesn't fully activate the bus, but that's just a guess.

Thanks for following up, and for the suggestions.

Edit/Update: Wired mouse, no problem.

WetGeek

tomscharbach When the mouse doesn't wake up after sleep, it acts like a half-awake drunk.

It makes sense that the Microsoft driver is optimized for Windows, without considering Linux. Logitech needs to consider Windows, Mac and Linux.

tomscharbach

WetGeek It makes sense that the Microsoft driver is optimized for Windows, without considering Linux. Logitech needs to consider Windows, Mac and Linux.

I've used all three Microsoft mouse models I own with Linux, but it is interesting that Microsoft doesn't list Linux as a compatible operating system for any of them:

Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse (Wired)
Win 11/10 64 bit, Win 11/10 32 bit, Win 8.1 64 bit, Win 8.1 32 bit, Win 8 64 bit, Win 8 32 bit, Win 7 64 bit, Win 7 32 bit, Win RT 8.1, Win RT 8
Mac OS 10.9, Mac OS 10.8, Mac OS 10.7
Android 5.0, Nexus 9, Android 4.2, Android 3.2

Microsoft Wireless Moble Mouse 3500
Win 11/10 64 bit, Win 11/10 32 bit, Win 8.1 32 bit, Win 8.1 64 bit, Win 8 32 bit, Win 8 64 bit, Win 7 32 bit, Win 7 64 bit, Win RT 8.1, Win RT 8
Mac OS 10.10, Mac OS 10.9, Mac OS 10.8, Mac OS 10.7
Android 5.0, Nexus 9, Android 4.4.4, Nexus 5, Android 4.2, Android 3.2

Microsoft Wireless Bluetooth Mouse 3600
Win 11/10 64 bit, Win 11/10 32 bit, Win 8.1 32 bit, Win 8.1 64 bit, Win 8 32 bit, Win 8 64 bit
Mac OS 10.10
Android 5.0, Nexus 9

brent I read all these threads and I think this and other mouse weirdness, like stuttering, would happen to me all the time includng your reports of difficulty grabbing/moving.

Wireless adds a layer of complexity to any peripheral because wireless inserts send/recieve radio transmission, almost always at 2.4 Ghz, between the device and the peripheral. In a modern household, 2.4 Ghz is crowded and wireless peripherals are subject to all sorts of interference. Wired peripherals, on the other hand, involve wires, which can be a real PITA.

brent Once I went back to wired I never had a problem again. That cannot be a coincidence. Wireless mouse/keys weirdness is distro-agnostic and very much a linux (driver) thing.

It makes sense that issues for any peripheral -- mice, keyboards, monitors, earbuds, headphones -- would be distro-agnostic to some extent because the drivers are in the kernel, as you point out.

What's interesting about the "flicker" issue being discussed in another thread, which might have a mouse-related component but doesn't seem to in the end, is that the issue is not distro-agnostic. The issue seems to be confined to Solus for some reason. Don't know why.

WetGeek

Quite a while ago I reviewed Q4OS, both with Plasma and with Trinity. I was impressed with both, and of course both of the reviews were done with VMs. That meant that many required resources came from the host, not from Q4OS itself.

Having just finished using my #2 laptop to give another distro a road-test, and with Q4OS now having released version 11, I decided to give it a try on hardware. That turned out much differently than the VM experience did.

I booted the USB flash drive and started the installer. Right away it complained because the laptop wasn't connected with the Internet -- one of the prerequisites for the installer. So I clicked the icon in the system tray to connect to the web. My SSIDs were found, and I selected the one I wanted to use, whereupon the wait cursor spun for a while and stopped. Instead of prompting me for a password to connect, it told me that the "SSID was not found." I decided to move on with a limited installation and deal with the network connection later.

The next thing to happen was the disconnection of the wireless mouse. I unplugged its dongle and plugged it back in, whereupon it began working once more -- for a minute or two. The next time it happened, the previous fix didn't work, so I decied to just use the thumbpad no matter how much I hate doing that.

I got through the installation finally, clicked the [Done] button, and waited until the screen blanked before I pulled out the USB flash drive. When I powered the laptop back on, I got an error saying that an OS was not found, and I should press any key to continue. So I continued, and used the F12 boot selection dialog to boot from the SSD in the laptop, but just got the same error. That's when I figured enough is enough, and once again retired that laptop.

This was a big disappointment, not only because I didn't end up with a working laptop, but because I'd thought so highly of Q4OS the first time I'd encountered it (version 10). Sort of a David to all the Goliath distros out there. I'm used to accepting that some things might work better on hardware after having issues on a VM, but this was just the other way around.

brent

WetGeek I'm used to accepting that some things might work better on hardware after having issues on a VM, but this was just the other way around.

in my experience all the mouse issues you and tom and others have discussed are the simple limitations of wireless in linux. I read all these threads and I think this and other mouse weirdness, like stuttering, would happen to me all the time includng your reports of difficulty grabbing/moving. Once I went back to wired I never had a problem again.
That cannot be a coincidence. Wireless mouse/keys weirdness is distro-agnostic and very much a linux (driver) thing.
I've accepted I can't use wireless keys and mouse in Linux consistently, no matter the product, no matter the distro, no matter which brand computer I had. Not sure, in other words, if it can all be blamed on the virtual software/

tomscharbach

WetGeek I got through the installation finally, clicked the [Done] button, and waited until the screen blanked before I pulled out the USB flash drive. When I powered the laptop back on, I got an error saying that an OS was not found, and I should press any key to continue. So I continued, and used the F12 boot selection dialog to boot from the SSD in the laptop, but just got the same error. That's when I figured enough is enough, and once again retired that laptop.

Many distros have a process to disengage from USB and engage to SSD during the post-installation reboot.

Ubuntu and Ubuntu flavors, for example, are well into the reboot processes before giving the user a "Please remove installation media ... then press ENTER" message part way through the reboot process. I've learned that I have to wait until I get the message before I remove the installation USB. If I don't wait, I get exactly the "no operating system found" error that you got when the reboot completes.

I'm not sure exactly why waiting is necessary. It might have something to do with setting up the EFI.

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