Dipping my toe into the water

[Snowhog]

Because SteveRiley has ventured over to Arch Linux, I decided to try it out in an Oracle VirtualBox VM. I'm writing this post, from Firefox, inside my newly installed (as of about 10 minutes ago) Arch Linux. It only took me about six attempts, completely riding all VM files each time, BECAUSE I DIDN'T READ THE LAST INSTRUCTION!!! Long story short, I was rebooting back into the attached .iso and NOT the newly installed system. Doh!

I'm not moving away from Kubuntu. As long as it is supported, I'll be using it. But it is 'sound practice' to not keep ones eggs in just one basket. Knowing how to use (install and maintain) other Linux distributions ensures your flexability and increases your options, if and when you need to exercise them.

With Plasma installed, there is little difference 'visually' between Kubuntu and Arch. And of course, that's likely true for any distribution using Plasma.

[vinnywright]

never tried that one ,,,,,,,,, one day

VINNY

[Rod J]

I have been wondering where Steve Riley had gone. He has been conspicuous by his absence.

[MoonRise]

I'm not moving away from Kubuntu. As long as it is supported, I'll be using it. But it is 'sound practice' to not keep ones eggs in just one basket. Knowing how to use (install and maintain) other Linux distributions ensures your flexability and increases your options, if and when you need to exercise them.

Sound advice for anything and anyone really. I agree. That is why I've been out and about. No, I'm not leaving but point above tells all.

I have been wondering where Steve Riley had gone. He has been conspicuous by his absence.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

[Qqmike]

Hey guys, there's always Mint and, and, even Puppy. Might not be the best walk in the park, but they would provide a walk. Also, Kubuntu LTS ... remembering how I kept 8.04.3 going forever (until Firefox started blinking, popping, and shrinking on me; but then, there are lighter browsers, too ...).

[Qqmike]

Now that Steve's at Arch, he might be even a better consultant for here. Arch, has, ya know, some of the best how-to's (their Wiki), usually for the most part applicable to us. I hope he's still checking in now and then, though I can't recall seeing him for quite some time.

[Snowhog]

Steve will be around 'later'. He is very busy with school, work, and pleasure (his participation in, now, four band groups in the Seattle area). He hasn't given up on us; KFN; as yet, and I think that he probably won't. He is very much valued here, and he is aware of that.

[Qqmike]

I have Steve to thank for moving forward with UEFI+GPT. I resisted until Feb 2015. He got me going through the force of prodding and shame. And that motivated me to start from scratch, build a new Desktop, and start clean with UEFI(+GPT). Otherwise, I might still be using BIOS+MBR (nothing wrong with that, just that it's eventually going to be left in the dust behind newer systems).

[sithlord48]

Wait i thought we were all on arch now

*arch/kubuntu on all my machines.

[Snowhog]

Now that Steve's at Arch,

He's running Arch; I don't think he is part of Arch.

[MoonRise]

Hey guys, there's always Mint and, and, even Puppy. Might not be the best walk in the park, but they would provide a walk. Also, Kubuntu LTS ... remembering how I kept 8.04.3 going forever (until Firefox started blinking, popping, and shrinking on me; but then, there are lighter browsers, too ...).

I have a very old laptop running Puppy. It's happy and Puppy works well with it.

[GreyGeek]

Hey guys, there's always Mint and, and, even Puppy. Might not be the best walk in the park, but they would provide a walk. Also, Kubuntu LTS ... remembering how I kept 8.04.3 going forever (until Firefox started blinking, popping, and shrinking on me; but then, there are lighter browsers, too ...).

I've been running several distros, including Arch, in my VirtualBox. As I reported, I thought that Arch running KDE5 was fast, and reliable. My only problem was that the longer I used Plasma 5 and Breeze the more I hated that pastel, flat icon look. Other themes aren't well developed in Arch KDE. And, there are only 30,000 apps in the Arch repository, compared with over 70,000 in Ubuntu's. Also, I didn't like pacman and even replacing it with Octopii GUI didn't make me happy. I've always loved Synaptic and Muon was tolerable, but pacman wasn't. For me.

Debian Jessie with KDE was easy to pass on. It is barebones and barely usable, IMO. SUSE uses the RPM. I used SuSE for five years but left it when Novell bought it. After SuSE I used several distros, like Mandrake and Mandriva, Kanotix, KNOPPIX and some others, that used the RPM, and I grew to hate RPM and its tendency to create distro crashing conflicts. Many of those that were formerly RPM distros are now based on Debian and the dpkg package manager.

During my search for a Kubuntu replacement I ran the latest SUSE KDE in VB and found it to be too loaded down with the SUSE configuration system, and the way it handled Btrfs was poor, IMO. I also looked at PCLinuxOS and MEPIS, distros which I used for a couple years each. I saw no reason to retry them and a lot of reasons to pass on them. All of these distros have one thing in common, they offered a reasonable good or superior KDE DE. But they had other issues.

I also plugged Mint 17.3 KDE into VB and liked what I saw. My only complaint is that it is based off of Ubuntu. I agree with Steve's assessment of Ubuntu. LMDE is based on Debian and my guess is that the farther away Ubuntu gets from the GPL - FOSS experience the more likely Mint will switch to a Debian base. However, my hope has always been that Kubuntu would switch to Debian, sooner or later. IMO, Shuttlesworth's behavior in the next couple of years will, more than likely, force the issue. He hasn't been able to make even a nick in the smartphone market, the tablet market or even challenge Windows or Apple in the PC market. He may be turning a small profit in the Linux server market, which RH, CENTOS and SUSE dominate, but part of that market plan has been to create his own DE so that he isn't buffeted by the licensing winds of KDE, Gnome or other DE's.

If he can't get a better return on his money than what the stock market will give him I suspect, and have always predicted, that he will abandon Ubuntu after 2017. More than anything it depends on his sever licensing agreements with clients that will determine how and when he scuttles ubuntu.

So, I decided that the best distro for me at the current time is the Mint 17.3 KDE and found it very satisfying. On a lark I also installed the Cinnamon DE and to my surprise I like it as well! Will wonders never cease?

It may be a moot search, however. Since I purchased an iPhone 6 for my wife and an iPhone 6+ for me a year ago last December, I have moved 99% of what I do with my PC (Kubuntu) over to my iPhone and there are several important things I can do with my iPhone that I can not do with any DE, including Windows. Taking my wife's ECG is a very important one. The only thing I use my PC for right now is to play Minecraft with my grandsons. The thermal paste in this PC is showing signs of drying out. If this PC dies I am wondering if I will even replace it. I've had a PC since I purchased an Apple ][+ in September of 1978. Thirty eight years! A PC has been the source of my livelihood during all that time, and now I am contemplating life without it. My dad was born the same year the Wright brothers flew their airplane and died 10 years before Congress shutdown the shuttle and essentially ended America's space program. My adult life has spanned a time beginning with the IBM 402 tabulator and transistorized computers to today's current smartphone technology and Artificial Intelligence that mimics the neurons of the brain ... at least 32,000 of them. It has been an amazing ride!

[jpenguin]

He's running Arch; I don't think he is part of Arch.

I run Arch too, but the forums seem a bit elitist

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk

[LinkBot]

• Arch Discussion» Should I go Arch?

[mparillo]

First, I try to do my part for Kubuntu. Out of the box, I find it more polished than Debian KDE. And without Kubuntu, NetRunner Stable (laggy and feels strange to me, as if they customized too much) and Linux Mint KDE (feels OK to me but a bit laggy) would probably have to fold.

If Arch installation proves difficult and/or forums are inhospitable, I recommend Manjaro. Their forums and IRC channel are very helpful. And, while the official repos are not huge, the AUR is pretty awesome; it even includes proprietary software like google-chrome and dropbox. That said, Manjaro, too, seems a bit laggy. For me, either on a netbook or in a 1GB VM, Kubuntu just feels like the lightest KDE distro.