Linux Distros, User Evaluations

[acheron]

So then, as I read it, the 5 years support applies specifically to Ubuntu, and that "All other flavours" means all of Ubuntu's 'official' variants: Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu and such. Is that correct?

Yes, except for Kylin, as it says.

There was a request on the mailing lists in April I think for each flavour to decide on it's LTS status and support length.

i.e choose what to do for Xenial, such as

- Not LTS (9 months) or
- Short LTS (3 years) or
- Normal LTS (5 years)

I only saw kubuntu's response, but I guess the other flavours also opted for the middle ground.

[claydoh]

yes, the same decisions happened for 14.04, and 12.04 (where we did go with 5 years). KDE and now Plasma 4 change too much to support for a super long time, even if it is only security fixes on the desktop side

[GreyGeek]

My first Kubuntu install was the 09.04 alpha in January of 09. My next was the 12.04 LTS alpha. "Great", I thought, "I won't have to be reinstalling every two years". But, my third was the 14.04LTSalpha, two years later. . Then Plasma 5 came along and I couldn't pass that by, so I installed the 16.04 LTS, twice! Now, because it is a 3 year LTS (and may have been all along but I wasn't aware of it), it makes me wonder if a rolling distro might be a better "LTS" distro. Something to think about over the next three years.

[dequire]

...it makes me wonder if a rolling distro might be a better "LTS" distro. Something to think about over the next three years.

This is exactly why Neon fits the bill for me! It aligns perfectly with my thoughts on how a distro should be. I don't need a 'rolling' base for any reason that I can think of. Security updates are just fine, thank you! However, I do like my KDE nice and fresh. Also, I do run the latest stable kernel (for now) as my AMD R7 series GPU needs the latest and greatest open source drivers, since AMDGPU has not landed yet with support for these few-year old cards.

[MoonRise]

This is exactly why Neon fits the bill for me! It aligns perfectly with my thoughts on how a distro should be. I don't need a 'rolling' base for any reason that I can think of. Security updates are just fine, thank you! However, I do like my KDE nice and fresh.

Same for Maui (NetRunner). They are now based on NEON with some of their own "polishes".

[oshunluvr]

I have been using LTS for my server and only upgraded from 12.04 to 14.04 to gain some btrfs improvements that weren't available if I stayed with 12.04. Now I have backported the Xenial kernel and hardware stack onto my server so I have no plans to upgrade it again anytime soon. It runs on newer hardware than my desktop does though, so I may buy myself a laptop and retire this old machine, and install a desktop on the server. If that happens, I will move to 16.04 (neon or maui).

I've been considering a move away from Canonical but now that it seems they're playing nicer so maybe I won't have to.

[woodsmoke]

The "latest and greatest" Kubu is still my work machine, I've retired the Trusty hard drive, but plug it in and update it regularly.

The only REAL problem with the Trusty drive was that, totally out of CONVENIENCE, I now want to use a bluetooth Jam Speaker for the work machine, due to space limitations, and Bluetooth on Trusty just won't hook up to it.

The only REAL problem with NEON is STARTTLS in kmail, not being an option, which is supposedly going to be quickly fixed.

The only "obvious" "problem" with Neon is that the central search bar for FF is non functional, one has to use the upper right search bar.

Almost ALL of the "music players for Neon are bing upgraded and Dragon Player is getting fast and furious upgrades to the back end.

Also the "plasma media center" (not Kmplayer) is becoming much more stable.

The only real downside to it - for a desktop computer - is that media is either "listed" vertically or as an "image" mashup, but since the real intent for it is to be on a tablet it is designed for swiping. The screen for "artists" presents the pictures and the songs for the particular artist, so it is a "paradigm" thing as opposed to mousing through a file structure.

woodjustsomethoughtsaboutneonsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Woody,
I applied a ton of the "hints" suggested in this link and it has made FF a lightening fast browser with no ad block addon, but no ads, functional scrolling and search. FF48 is a whole new browser. Here are my setting changes. If an Item doesn't appear then I added it.

accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar;0
app.update.lastUpdateTime.addon-background-update-timer;1473562278
app.update.lastUpdateTime.blocklist-background-update-timer;1473562398
app.update.lastUpdateTime.browser-cleanup-thumbnails;1473621565
app.update.lastUpdateTime.experiments-update-timer;1473562158
app.update.lastUpdateTime.search-engine-update-timer;1473621445
app.update.lastUpdateTime.xpi-signature-verification;1473562518
browser.bookmarks.restore_default_bookmarks;false
browser.cache.disk.capacity;358400
browser.cache.disk.filesystem_reported;1
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run;false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max;false
browser.cache.frecency_experiment;1
browser.customizemode.tip0.shown;true
browser.download.importedFromSqlite;true
browser.download.lastDir;/home/jerry/Downloads
browser.download.panel.shown;true
browser.laterrun.bookkeeping.profileCreationTime;1 473386844
browser.laterrun.bookkeeping.sessionCount;28
browser.laterrun.enabled;true
browser.migrated-sync-button;true
browser.migration.version;37
browser.newtabpage.enhanced;true
browser.newtabpage.storageVersion;1
browser.pagethumbnails.storage_version;3
browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion;8
browser.preferences.advanced.selectedTabIndex;3
browser.reader.detectedFirstArticle;true
browser.rights.3.shown;true
browser.safebrowsing.provider.google.lastupdatetim e;1473623224156
browser.safebrowsing.provider.mozilla.lastupdateti me;1473621353786
browser.safebrowsing.provider.mozilla.nextupdateti me;1473624953786
browser.search.countryCode;US
browser.search.hiddenOneOffs;Google
browser.search.region;US
browser.sessionstore.interval;30000
browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID;2 0160728203720
browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser;true
browser.shell.mostRecentDateSetAsDefault;147361773 0
browser.slowStartup.averageTime;4927
browser.slowStartup.samples;3
browser.startup.homepage;https://duckduckgo.com/
browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID;20160728 203720
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone;48.0
browser.tabs.loadInBackground;false
browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2;true
browser.urlbar.daysBeforeHidingSuggestionsPrompt;0
browser.urlbar.lastSuggestionsPromptDate;20160911
datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled;false
datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionPolicyAcceptedV ersion;2
datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionPolicyNotifiedT ime;1473386907783
datareporting.sessions.current.activeTicks;484
distribution.canonical.bookmarksProcessed;true
dom.apps.reset-permissions;true
dom.ipc.plugins.flash.subprocess.crashreporter.ena bled;false
dom.ipc.plugins.processLaunchTimeoutSecs;15
dom.ipc.plugins.reportCrashURL;false
dom.ipc.plugins.timeoutSecs;15
extensions.blocklist.pingCountTotal;4
extensions.blocklist.pingCountVersion;4
extensions.pendingOperations;false
general.smoothScroll;false
general.smoothScroll.pages;false
image.mem.max_decoded_image_kb;512000
layers.acceleration.force-enabled;true
media.getusermedia.screensharing.allowed_domains; (I deleted the contents- a bunch of URLs of screen space stealers)
mousewheel.min_line_scroll_amount;40
network.cookie.prefsMigrated;true
network.disable.ipc.security;false
network.predictor.cleaned-up;true
network.protocol-handler.app.mailto;kmailservice5 (add %U if url is not decoded)
privacy.donottrackheader.enabled;true
privacy.trackingprotection.enabled;true
privacy.trackingprotection.introCount;20
security.ssl3.dhe_rsa_aes_128_sha;false (this and the next cypher algorithms have already been broken by black hats and govs)
security.ssl3.dhe_rsa_aes_256_sha;false

[vinnywright]

The only "obvious" "problem" with Neon is that the central search bar for FF is non functional, one has to use the upper right search bar.

? ,,,,I do not have this problem on my Kubuntu-16.04-Neon/dev/stable

VINNY

[woodsmoke]

vinny, i apologize that is on Neon.

GG............THAT is why you ARE the great Grey One and I'm just the doof woodsmoker!

woodsmoke

[TWPonKubuntu]

To continue this thread. I've been testing Lubuntu 16.04.1 on my laptop, with mixed results.

The biggest "gotchas" are:

1) Audio does not work, although it plays the video portion, with no sound. The default driver (ALSA), is not happy with my hardware. Other drivers are available, but their are some incompatibilities which require removal of the default drivers BEFORE installing another driver. Not user friendly.

2) The actual LXDE user interface works, video display on the monitor is fine, but it looks a little un-polished, at least when compared to Kubuntu 14.04. Where KDE offers adequate choices for most configuration options (pulldown lists or text descriptions of options), LXDE expects the user to already know the options and frequently advises the use of command line for execution and configuration. There are few instances where the F1 key works and there are no (in my experience) option to request help for individual configuration options.

3) The developers have a strong aversion to allowing the user to enter root level access. They have disabled most options to execute as root. This is a PITA when I really need to do simple things like create a folder or file using root ownership. Command line is what is again advised. Sure makes working with LXDE slower than KDE.

Conclusion: I will not be using Lubuntu for website development. It may have a small footprint, but at the cost of slower work flow. Lubuntu is built by knowledgeable Linux users, who appear to know everything by rote memory...

More testing of other distros will be needed.

[GreyGeek]

IF you still have it as guest OS trying this:
systemctl list-unit-files is-failed
to see which units failed to load. Then you can look at their unit files and see what happended.
Also,
systemd-analyze critical-chain
may show a break.
systemctl list-units --all | grep sound
will show the sound services.
https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Softwar...emd/Debugging/

[TWPonKubuntu]

Greygeek, I've replaced it with Mint and am testing that at the moment.
I'll try again in a day or so.
Thanks

[TWPonKubuntu]

Testing Linux Mint now.

First thing I see is that Plasma still crashes, even during the install process.

It took three tries to get the install to complete. Poor internet connection is the probable cause here.

One good thing (kind of) is that Plasma, even though it crashes, does recover (restart) much faster than Kubuntu 16.04.1.

Another good point is that Mint now does a proper shutdown and/or restart. Kubuntu 16.04.1 will not complete either, requiring a hard shutdown (power key).

I still have to install Apache, PHP 7, MySQL, Phpmyadmin and recreate my dev environment. More later.

Speed seems to be overall faster then Kubuntu 16.04.1.

Also, Mint recognized all three of my wireless devices (internal and two external). Again, better than Kubuntu.

[GreyGeek]

My Kubuntu 16.04.1 installation shuts down or reboots properly from the desktop. My basic install booted to the login screen in 30 seconds and from there to the desktop in 15s. As I added apps the times increased. Now, with my favorite apps and services my times are 60s and 50s. If I install aiccu and connect to my IPv6 tunnel it adds 24s to my first number. My desktop snaps. My two most used apps, Dolphin and FF appear within a second or two.

I have 540GB of free HD space. While importing 5,200 emails the app got into a loop and ate ALL of the 540GB. Dolphin reported 0B free space. I was running in swap. I deleted a 1.8GB ISO file and stopped the import. I deleted the import folder and recovered the 540GB. KMail never complained. When I powered down my box it took 150s. The next boot up was normal, nothing was lost except the imported data, which I'll import another way because KMail can't eat its own dog food.
It may be that your ISO and/or burn was defective.

Oh, I installed PlayOnLinux so I could install and run a Windows based PLC system called IQAN, from Parker. POL/WINE added 10-15s to my boot time as well.

I think you'll find that Mint uses Systemd as well and every app or utility that creates a socket, service, timer, cgroup or other systemd unit will add time to the boot process. You can see what's been added by using
systemctl list-units --all

You can see the timing of the various services using
systemd-analyze blame




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