Well, in the spirit of some of the recent linux conversations, I figured I'd give a little writeup on my recent experience.

So, typically I am an Arch loyalist, but I do distrohop a bit. Recently I was using Ubuntu (well, Kubuntu, actually) and was quite happy with it "just working" but naturally that wasn't enough for me, and I decided it was time to experiment.

I should mention I have two main computers. Both are laptops. One of them is in the "Ultrabook" category with a huge LCD, full keyboard with numpad, and an NVidia dGPU along with the Intel iGPU. The other computer is a simple slimbook ultraportable by Lenovo.

Both work well and are modern computers. No issues. The Ultrabook has Alder Lake processor, the Lenovo has Skylake. So you can tell by the family that these are recent machines.

Anyway, I am happily using Arch on the Ultrabook. However, I wanted to experiment with the Lenovo. First, I tried installing Windows 11 just to see what the whole experience is like these days, and...even on a highly provisioned machine, it completely runs like shit. I can't /stand/ it. It felt like adware-as-an-OS. It's terrible and I cannot believe Microsoft ships this thing to people. It's very disorganized and incoherent. The icons all have seemingly random stylings, the file manager right-click menu makes no sense, the OneDrive integration taking over your personal directories without even asking...ugh. It's terrible.

So I was watching a few YouTube reviews and folks were singing praises about Debian 12. I decided to give it a go. The installation process was pretty straightforward, but my wifi card went into powersave mode and there was no way for me to disable it, so it kind of took forever. I left the defaults and ended up booting into Gnome on Wayland.

Gnome is utter trash. It is so fucking terrible in every way. Why do distros still ship this as their default OS? It's slower than KDE Plasma (the other "big" DE), has far fewer features, relies too much on extensions to do basic things, and the theming is so complicated you can easily break shit and have an ugly desktop. No thank you.

So here I sit pondering my next move. I have basically narrowed it down to:

1. Just take it on the chin, give up, and reinstall Arch and call it a day
2. Reinstall Debian but with a different DE and see how it goes
3. Reinstall Kubuntu, since I already have an Arch dedicated machine
4. Try NixOS, a declarative and immutable OS
5. Try ClearLinux, a distro built by Intel, with some unique features
6. Maybe...Qubes? For the #security? Could be fun. Could be frustrating though.

Thoughts?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (1337:3/169)

On 22 Aug 2023, esc said the following...

Gnome is utter trash. It is so fucking terrible in every way. Why do distros still ship this as their default OS? It's slower than KDE Plasma (the other "big" DE), has far fewer features, relies too much on extensions to do basic things, and the theming is so complicated you can easily break shit and have an ugly desktop. No thank you.

Have you considered _not_ using a desktop environment at all and going with a tiling window manager? I use i3-gaps and have done for many years, it makes my work flow super streamlined and just gives me all the feels.

If you need a full desktop environment then I guess go back to something with KDE Plasma?

For me I have my main desktop PC running Ubuntu 22.04 with i3-gaps, my work laptop I put XeroLinux with i3-gaps (Arch with go faster stripes) and my own laptop I put straight Arch with i3-gaps.

---
|14Best regards,
|11Ch|03rist|11ia|15n |11a|03ka |11Me|03aTLoT|11io|15N // @meatlotion:erb.pw

|07ÄÄ |08[|10eml|08] |15ml@erb.pw |07ÄÄ |08[|10web|08] |15www.erb.pw |07ÄÄÄ¿ |07ÄÄ |08[|09fsx|08] |1521:1/158 |07ÄÄ |08[|11tqw|08] |151337:1/101 |07ÂÄÄÙ |07ÄÄ |08[|12rtn|08] |1580:774/81 |07ÄÂ |08[|14fdn|08] |152:250/5 |07ÄÄÄÙ
|07ÄÄ |08[|10ark|08] |1510:104/2 |07ÄÙ

... Light year: 1/3 less calories than your regular year

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
* Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (1337:1/101)

On 22 Aug 2023, esc said the following...

Well, in the spirit of some of the recent linux conversations, I figured I'd give a little writeup on my recent experience.

Gnome is utter trash. It is so fucking terrible in every way. Why do distros still ship this as their default OS? It's slower than KDE Plasma (the other "big" DE), has far fewer features, relies too much on extensions to do basic things, and the theming is so complicated you can easily break shit and have an ugly desktop. No thank you.

So here I sit pondering my next move. I have basically narrowed it down to:

day 2. Reinstall Debian but with a different DE and see how it goes

I have always been a Windows user, until about 3 years ago when I needed to assemble some assembly code for the Commodore 64, I was told Linux would be easiest to do it. So I created a Ubuntu with Gnome Virtual Machine and did my assembling. Worked fine, but I started to play more with Ubuntu, and eventually set up my original plan for my BBS' when I first got back into BBS'n have a Linux based machine running VM's of all of my BBS' (one on every platform). I was able to do this. Fast forward a few months, I was having issues with one of my desktops and the Commodore emulator Vice constantly crashing. A friend mentioned running Manjaro and XFCE desktop. I did and for the most part the crashing slowed down (turned out to be bot attacks that my BBS software couldn't handle). Not being a Manjaro fan, I went to Debian because it is such a light distro. I haven't looked back, Debian 12 runs on this laptop I am using to type this, i5 3.0ghz, 16 gigs RAM. Bootup time is under 10 seconds, no issues at all.. Runs very fast all the time and battery life is between 3 to 3.5 hours from 100% to dead. My experiences on this have taught me that a lighter distro customized the way you want is a better distro.. Windows 10 on this machine gave me about 2 hours battery life, and would boot in about 40 or 50 seconds..

Give Debian 12 and XFCE another look at. You might just like what you see.

Al

... The dog ate my .REP packet

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (1337:3/102)

Re: Distrohopping
By: esc to All on Tue Aug 22 2023 09:57 pm

Gnome is utter trash. It is so fucking terrible in every way. Why do distros still ship this as their default OS? It's slower than KDE Plasma (the other "big" DE), has far fewer features, relies too much on extensions to do basic things, and the theming is so complicated you can easily break shit and have an ugly desktop. No thank you.

Agreed. first thing I usually do when installing is to uninstall Gnome and install XFCE (or just select it during setup if its an option)

2. Reinstall Debian but with a different DE and see how it goes

I say that one.

Thoughts?

head empty

candycane

===
user is generated from /dev/urandom

...The only good government.is a bad one in a hell of a fright.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (1337:3/150)

Re: Re: Distrohopping
By: MeaTLoTioN to esc on Wed Aug 23 2023 08:32 am

Have you considered _not_ using a desktop environment at all and going with a tiling window manager? I use i3-gaps and have done for many years, it makes my work flow super streamlined and just gives me all the feels.

Honesty, I used to use i3gaps for years.. I didn't super like it, now I use a floating distro.

candycane

===
user is generated from /dev/urandom

...A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself. --- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (1337:3/150)

Have you considered _not_ using a desktop environment at all and going with a tiling window manager? I use i3-gaps and have done for many
years, it makes my work flow super streamlined and just gives me all the feels.

Yeah, I've used DWM in the past and then also bspwm for quite a while. I tried i3 as well but I've just never gotten into the tiling wms. I like a full somewhat traditional desktop experience :)

If you need a full desktop environment then I guess go back to something with KDE Plasma?

Yeah that's likely what I'll do.

For me I have my main desktop PC running Ubuntu 22.04 with i3-gaps, my work laptop I put XeroLinux with i3-gaps (Arch with go faster stripes)
and my own laptop I put straight Arch with i3-gaps.

Nice. Sounds like you have a pretty solid workflow if you're running i3-gaps on all your hardware :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (1337:3/169)

There are so many choices. I would love to read some big ones with more indepth info on each one. Things I would make sure work right are both Syncterm and Netrunner. Some DE's can have issues with older video modes.

Suggestions would be

Kali
Parrot OS
Manjaro

Reviews of multiple DE's so for instance Manjaro comes in GNOME KDE XFCE Ect

It would be cool

|23|04Dr|16|12Claw
|16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |20|15Radio|10@|14HTTP://Noverdu.com:88
|16|10 Standard ports for SSH/Telnet |04 WEB|14@|12HTTP://noverdu.com:808 |20|15Global Chat, Global Messaging and Games! |16|10Ditch the Unsocial Media

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Noverdu BBS (1337:3/177)

On 23 Aug 2023, esc said the following...

For me I have my main desktop PC running Ubuntu 22.04 with i3-gaps, m work laptop I put XeroLinux with i3-gaps (Arch with go faster stripes and my own laptop I put straight Arch with i3-gaps.

Nice. Sounds like you have a pretty solid workflow if you're running i3-gaps on all your hardware :)

Yeah it's sweet, I love that I can just take my dotfiles from one computer and use them on the others and everything just works (from i3 perspective I mean).

If you need a full desktop environment then I guess go back to someth with KDE Plasma?

Yeah that's likely what I'll do.

Sounds sensible, I do like KDE, but I am not a window clicker, I am much more into being a keyboard jockey =)

---
|14Best regards,
|11Ch|03rist|11ia|15n |11a|03ka |11Me|03aTLoT|11io|15N // @meatlotion:erb.pw

|07ÄÄ |08[|10eml|08] |15ml@erb.pw |07ÄÄ |08[|10web|08] |15www.erb.pw |07ÄÄÄ¿ |07ÄÄ |08[|09fsx|08] |1521:1/158 |07ÄÄ |08[|11tqw|08] |151337:1/101 |07ÂÄÄÙ |07ÄÄ |08[|12rtn|08] |1580:774/81 |07ÄÂ |08[|14fdn|08] |152:250/5 |07ÄÄÄÙ
|07ÄÄ |08[|10ark|08] |1510:104/2 |07ÄÙ

... A .GIF is worth a thousand .TXT.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
* Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (1337:1/101)

Give Debian 12 and XFCE another look at. You might just like what you
see.

I may try Debian with KDE Plasma, I tend to prefer the big bloated DEs :P

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (1337:3/169)

Kali

Kali's a Debian derivative, I'd probably just rather run Debian and install the packages I need if I wanna do pentesting.

Parrot OS

Same as Kali :)

Manjaro

Similar to preferring to use Debian vs a derivative, I also prefer using Arch than using a derivative. I find a lot of people start with Manjaro and find their way to Arch, but I basically skipped that step and have been happily using Arch.

Thanks for the pointers, though.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (1337:3/169)

On 23 Aug 2023, esc said the following...

I may try Debian with KDE Plasma, I tend to prefer the big bloated DEs :P

Nothing wrong with that,, I am considering that on my main desktop when I make the move on that.. :)

... If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (1337:3/102)

Nothing wrong with that,, I am considering that on my main desktop when
I make the move on that.. :)

Honestly, my memory usage isn't substantially higher than any other WM or DE that I've put together and the "completeness" of KDE Plasma is something I find particularly nice. Considering my laptop has 64gb RAM, it's kind of a non-issue anyway :P

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (1337:3/169)

but my wifi card went into powersave mode and there was no way for me to es> disable it, so it kind of took forever.

you can disable that... of course, I don't know the exact commands. it was an option in the hyprv4 (hyprland theme) script, so the command could be found in its main script;
-----
### Disable wifi powersave mode ###
read -rep $'[\e[1;33mACTION\e[0m] - Would you like to disable WiFi powersave? (y,n) ' WIFI
if [[ $WIFI == "Y" || $WIFI == "y" ]]; then
LOC="/etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi-powersave.conf"
echo -e "$CNT - The following file has been created $LOC.\n"
echo -e "[connection]\nwifi.powersave = 2" | sudo tee -a $LOC &>> $INSTLOG
echo -en "$CNT - Restarting NetworkManager service, Please wait."
sleep 2
sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager &>> $INSTLOG

#wait for services to restore (looking at you DNS)
for i in {1..6}
do
echo -n "."
sleep 1
done
echo -en "Done!\n"
sleep 2
echo -e "\e[1A\e[K$COK - NetworkManager restart completed."
fi
-----

1. Just take it on the chin, give up, and reinstall Arch and call it a
day 2. Reinstall Debian but with a different DE and see how it goes
3. Reinstall Kubuntu, since I already have an Arch dedicated machine
4. Try NixOS, a declarative and immutable OS
5. Try ClearLinux, a distro built by Intel, with some unique features
6. Maybe...Qubes? For the #security? Could be fun. Could be frustrating though.

I hope a bit, too, and always end up back on Arch... I recently checked out Rhino Ubuntu. (rolling-release Ubuntu) Its really neat, but just not far enough in dev to use reliably. I found 3 ways to crash it easily;

Install with LUKS encryption; B00M.
Install any 'rhino-xxx' package after a good install; B00M.
Install on top of a HDD w/ a LUKS encrypted partition; B00M.

- But I hope it keeps getting work. Its really neat.

Out of all yer thoughts, I'd really suggest NixOS. You save yer entire configuration into two TEXT files and can take those files and spin up the exact same system on another PC... so rad. I'm currently trying to figure out FLAKES and home.manager (The 'new' NixOS way??) but its tough for me, a non-developer, to grasp - that being said, I thought I was gonna completely switch to NixOS at one time... its just really hard to run packages outside the Nix eco-system. (Syncterm, Netrunner, etc.)

About Qubes... yea, I wanna be super hacker and cool - but i just can't wrap my head around it - I get all weird and can't even UNDERSTAND the underlying way of the warrior on it. ;P

I also like Debian 12 w/ FlatPaks for newer packages... it CAN be a really clean setup.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (1337:3/129)

Have you considered _not_ using a desktop environment at all and going with a tiling window manager? I use i3-gaps and have done for many
years, it makes my work flow super streamlined and just gives me all the feels.

I'm a broken record, but... I have been LOVING hyprland TWM. For TWM newbies, the hyprv4 theme is a great way to learn HOW to customize them, and use helper applications... I've switched from most of the helpers hyprv4 uses, and added a lot of my own stuff;
https://github.com/soldoestech/hyprv4

Also, since you were just talking about it, NixOS and hyprland can play nice together... its just a line in configuration.nix... adding hyprv4, however, is not so easy; best to know how to customize it first. :P
(Not all packages line-up, so modification was needed... it ALMOST made a video, but I couldn't figure all the tidbits out... yet.)

hyprland is really cool and I suggest it!



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (1337:3/129)

Give Debian 12 and XFCE another look at. You might just like what you
see.

Bouncing all around here, but RhinoLinux uses a fairly modified XFCE that looks a lot like GNOME, but feels much better. Worth spinning up a VM for a l00k, IMO!



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (1337:3/129)

but my wifi card went into powersave mode and there was no way for me

disable it, so it kind of took forever.

you can disable that... of course, I don't know the exact commands. it
was an option in the hyprv4 (hyprland theme) script, so the command
could be found in its main script;

Thanks! Yeah, I can disable it, but couldn't do so during the installation process which made installing it take forever. I suppose a workaround would be to use a real livedvd iso instead of a netinstall, which would have more applications/features I could use during the installation itself.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (1337:3/169)

On 23 Aug 2023, paulie420 said the following...

Bouncing all around here, but RhinoLinux uses a fairly modified XFCE
that looks a lot like GNOME, but feels much better. Worth spinning up a
VM for a l00k, IMO!

Hmmmm I will have to take a look at it.. I have been spinning up VM's of a lot of different distro's lately before I make the final jump and do away with Win 11 on my main desktop..

... Unzip... expand... What kind of pervert came up with this?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (1337:3/102)

and find their way to Arch, but I basically skipped that step and have been happily using Arch.

Same, but endeavor.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Bottomless Abyss BBS * bbs.bottomlessabyss.net (1337:3/106)