Other Interesting Distros, Part 8

WetGeek

Endeavour OS - Cassini - Plasma

I created this VM this afternoon, because I wanted to see whether an updated version of it might allow me to access my remote NFS shares. The first time I evaluated this distro, I was unable to, no matter what I tried. Sadly, that problem persists, and for what it's worth, this problem is unusual among the distros I've explored recently. In Endeavour, I actually set the ownership of the /mnt folder and its contents to jerry:jerry, which should give me full access, but I can't enter a single share.

Aside from that, I encountered no problems installing this, updating it, and configuring it. I installed Thunderbird and Vivaldi, of course, and the three games I enjoy. Because I intend to keep this VM around for a while, and experiment with it, I installed the Plasma DE (sorry, Brent). That's just one of seven choices that the Calamares installer offers for an online installation.

If anyone would like to explore a DE you're not currently using, here are the choices that the installer offers for an online (Internet) installation. From the download page:

The offline option installs a fully themed Xfce and the online option provides you with the choice of seven Desktop Environments Xfce, Mate, LXQt, LXDE, Cinnamon, Plasma, Gnome, Budgie, window manager Openbox and tiling window managers i3-WM, BSPWM, Sway, Qtile and Worm.

The online option apparently does an update as it installs, because when I tried to do that in the terminal with PacMan, I was told there was nothing to upgrade.

Because I've reviewed this distro already, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it again. but if anyone has a specific question about Endeavour OS, let me know, and I'll do my best to get you an answer. Finally, here's the obligatory system info from neofech:

brent

WetGeek The offline option installs a fully themed Xfce and the online option provides you with the choice of seven Desktop Environments Xfce, Mate, LXQt, LXDE, Cinnamon, Plasma, Gnome, Budgie, window manager Openbox and tiling window managers i3-WM, BSPWM, Sway, Qtile and Worm.

that is casting a wide net right there with that kind of DE profile...overall 'ok' budgie exp. for me but many at this Forum are very pleased with it.
Anything named Cassini deserves to be seen! Great desktop.
It's cool you giving some of these a 2nd chance. The online install option is the only option I've never been adventurous to try in distros. Gotta imagine it's the same as DIY (iso) but you made it clear instant package updates were built into the install which is pretty cool.

Brucehankins

WetGeek check and see if kio-fuse is installed. This may be the problem with the shared files. EOS takes a very "arch" approach, the install script will get you up and running with a themed desktop environment, but not much else. To get 50% of the Plasma goodies you have in Solus by default, you have to install additional packages. To get to a state similar to Neon, you have to install and configure a TON of packages.

WetGeek

brent Gotta imagine it's the same as DIY (iso)

I'm not sure whether you realize it, but there actually IS an .ISO file. It installs Calimares, and Calimares offers the choices to do an offline installation (Xfce) or to install online (all the DE options).

Except for that remote access problem (it won't even access my NAS with smb) it's an easy and very understandable distro to install. It would be a good choice to try out a DE or WM on a VM or a spare computer. If I'm sufficiently bored some day, I think I'll try out all those WMs.

It's possible to select more than one DE or WM in the installer, by checking their boxes. So one could obviously boot into one session or another when the distro is launched.

I did an EFI boot, which works fine, and created a swap partition large enough to allow hibernation, but so far that hasn't worked. I'm assuming for now that I did something wrong, though, so I'm not blaming the distro for that. Not yet.

brent

WetGeek Did not realize that. Always thought the network option (in any distro that offers it) was some all-remote dealio where you could make a few basic decisions and they did the rest. But I was aware you would start with an installer (iso).
Still can't tell if it's XFCe base that you can install your preferred DE on top of, or a seperate standalone DE like we do here. (Fedora had 2 Budgies: one you could install (via software center) over the default Gnome shell that you just installed, and a Budgie Spin that was just ootb Budgie. Of the two I gave the edge to the ootb edition). I did try Budgie and Cinnamon in Endeavor this year so I think they were standalone.
I have to admit when Solus was in limbo that I really liked Endeavor. A lot. And Fedora. dnf/rpm system a lot more agreeable to me the deb/apt yum. I realize most people are the opposite but that's the beauty of choice.
Keep on keeping on in this thread, it's enjoyable.

WetGeek

Brucehankins check and see if kio-fuse is installed.

Unfortunately, it is. I tried to install it, and that just updated it to itself. Still no access of any kind to my mounted NAS shares. And no hibernating, although I have 4 GB of RAM and 6 GB of swap partition. When I tell it to hibernate, it goes through all the motions, but when I restart, it doesn't restore anything from the previous session.

Anyone trying this--who doesn't need remote shares and doesn't use hibernation--might like it a lot. Everything else seems to work just fine, and I really like that Calamares installer.

WetGeek

Brucehankins To get 50% of the Plasma goodies you have in Solus by default, you have to install additional packages.

No kidding. I took a look at the VMs in the VirtualBox virtual media manager, and the Endeavour VM is about 4.4 GB smaller than my Solus Plasma VM, with all the same software added and configured the same. 10.87 GB for Endeavour vs. 15.26 GB for Solus. I no longer have any Fedora VMs on this laptop, but it seems to me that's getting into Fedora territory.

Funny thing, though. Fedora always accessed my remote shares with no drama at all. Maybe it's time to revisit a new version of that distro. 🙂

Brucehankins

WetGeek yeah, EOS was a learning curve for me. The typical "dependencies" you'll see installed with certain apps aren't there doing it the Arch way. If the app runs and functions, but another "dependency" is needed to some extra feature or functionality, you've got to know what it is, find it, and install it yourself. It's different for sure, but I learned a lot about exactly what I wanted out of the Plasma and KDE features I use.
I didn't have NAS or SMB shares to use, so no idea there. On the hibernate deal, I had no problem, but I had 12gb of ram and a 10gb swap partition.

WetGeek

Brucehankins On the hibernate deal, I had no problem, but I had 12gb of ram and a 10gb swap partition.

Interesting. Some instructions require creating a swap partition "as large as" the amount of RAM, but that's not really the case. One can still hibernate so long as the swap space accommodates the amount of RAM that's in use at the time. Thus you were able to use a smaller swap partition than your RAM size.

Other recommendations suggest creating a swap partition that's 150% as large as your RAM. That's said to be just in case some of your swap is already in use when you choose to hibernate. That makes sense, because if there's anything at all in swap, your RAM must all be in use. But that's why I usually select 6 GB for a VM with 4 GB of RAM, although I could probably make do with a lot less.

In the case of EOS and hibernating, I suspect there might be a different issue. I tried to install nfs-common when I started configuring this VM, but I was told it wasn't found in the repository. Yet there was no error when I tried to mount the shares to the /mnt folders I'd created as mount points, so I figured that some version of it was already installed. I think I'll try installing nfs-utils next, like Solus. Maybe if I can install this "helper" software, I'll be able to connect with the remote shares.

That would not seem to have anything to do with hibernating, though. That's likely to take some further research.

WetGeek

WetGeek Maybe if I can install this "helper" software, I'll be able to connect with the remote shares.

Nope. The nfs-utils helper that Solus uses was found in the repository, and I installed it. And rebooted, just in case, but still Dolphin could list my shares but not enter into any of them. My last attempt will be to find a "start as root" add-on for this version of Dolphin, and if that's not a possibility, I'm going to quit fussing with Endeavour, and spend my time elsewhere.

Brucehankins

WetGeek one thing I didn't think of until reading your reply, I never tried to hibernate in a VM. It wasn't until I was on metal that I used the hibernate feature.

WetGeek

WetGeek My last attempt will be to find a "start as root" add-on for this version of Dolphin, and if that's not a possibility

Apparently that's not a possibility. Not that it would have been a good option, but it would have technically been an option for solving one of the two problems I had with this distro. I had confirmed that it IS possible to access my remote shares as root, by launching Dolphin as the root user in a terminal, but could find no way to launch Dolphin as root outside of the terminal.

So, based on my personal requirements for a distro, I'm 0 for 2 this weekend, but it's still important for me to point out that for someone who has no need to access remote shares, and who doesn't make a habit of hibernating a distro, EOS would have been entirely suitable. So, maybe 1/2 for 2?

To be honest, at least I could install EOS, add desired software to it, and configure it all, so it was mostly usable. Maybe 3/4 for 2 makes sense. In contrast to that, I had no luck whatsoever with the Everything installer of Fedora. Judging by appearances, it should have selected the nearest mirror to my location, but it made no attempt to do that. Obviously the installer would know where the mirrors are located, and it knew my location by then, so that would have made sense. I would have settled for installing from a mirror in Japan, or South Africa, but instead I was left with no opportunity to continue with the installer.

WetGeek

Brucehankins I never tried to hibernate in a VM

For what it's worth, all my Solus VMs are able to hibernate. It saves me a lot of time and trouble each time I launch them.

« Previous Page