Why I have Xubuntu installed on my old laptop
 

I wanted something else. I wanted DSL. Or Knoppix. Or best of all Macpup Opera. But it wasn't allowed.

After fighting through incomprehensible directories and non-working mirrors I finally got DSL and Knoppix downloaded and burned only to discover a non-GUI interface with non-functional commands listed in "Help." I failed to find a straightforward installer for either. OK, then.

So on to Macpup Opera. Downloaded ( after finding a working mirror), burned and booted to live CD. Ran the "Universal installer." Way too confusing, and I'm not an absolute noob. I've had PinGuy OS (Ubuntu) on my old desktop for over a year and have become fairly comfortable with it.

But. Despite watching video instructions and carefully reading all the dialogs, Macpup Opera failed to boot. In fact, it resulted in a machine-based boot loop! POST over and over til the power button was held down. Phooey!

So on to Mint. Hey! It installed! It runs- sort of... Very slow and many of the dialogs would not display. Very disappointing.

So back to Ubuntu. I selected Xubuntu for the older machine and voila! No problem downloading for 32 bit (86)- clearly labeled. Very straight-forward install. Just a few completely understandable dialogs (keyboard, time zone, etc) and Xubuntu was installed. No GRUB loader issues, no partitioning. Just a normal install.

So~ This is why Canonical is carrying the day. Other distros need to step up. Users need a simple download page. We need a straight-forward install with automatic partitioning and automatic networking/Internet. Just like Ubuntu.

Until that happens, the other (maybe better- certainly more light-weight) distros will continue to take a back seat.

Thanks for letting me rant. I'd be very interested in you thots.

Hey there!

Join the club, I rant too at times, I consider it to be human. :D

MacPup's installer may seem daunting, but it's actually not that hard.
There is a catch: the grub does'nt get installed by default, you still need to install that yourself...
I'd expand on that if you want...

And, welcome to the forum!

Thor

Hi and welcome.

I understand your frustrations and can, in some ways, empathise. I do think though that some of your request, an automatic partitioner for example, is rather simplistic and would not cater for the wide variety of opinions that typically runs in the Linux community. I like ext4, others like jfs, while others like reiserfs and that is just 3 types and they are all different for a reason. Also the size of a partition would be very different on a machine with a 1TB hard drive compared to one with a 40 GB hard drive. The beauty of Linux is that we as individuals have a choice, taking choice out of the equation would mean Linux is no better than Windows or Mac (and we all know it is :hattip: )

Not every distribution is designed to be easy.

Some distribution - like my distro of choice, Slackware, are not trying to lead the way in use-numbers, it doesn't try to be dumbed-down so that any user can jsut install it and run it with no prior knowledge. It tries to be a very simple, clean, system that gives the user a lot of control, but also a lot of responsibility.

As for the matter of broken mirrors - well for DSL, it's a discontinued project, as such a lot of mirrors have stopped hosting it. As for Knoppix, if you got an older version then that may be why it wasn't easy to find, I've never come across a problem getting my hands on the most recent Knoppix release. I've never even looked at macpup so I can't comment on the availability.

You say "We" need this and "We" need that, but some of us don't. I don't want my distribution to automatically partition my drive, or assume I want it to install every bit of software on the CD(s)/DVD(s). As for automatic networking, well I don't particularly care about that, if it works out of the box fine, if not that's fine too, I certainly don't consider it a "need" though.

Some users do need that kind of thing, and it's good that there are distributions like mint and ubuntu for them, but the range of linux users is huge, and to say "We" users "need" this or that is a horrible generalization, because there are a lot of us who don't want any of those features.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "simple download page", but dead mirrors are rather frustrating.

By "We" I mean those who are turning to Linux fresh from Windows. My read is that more and more folks are growing frustrated by the incessant change and are ready for something else.

Didn't know that DSL was discontinued, no notice as I searched for it. I worked with Macpup Opera for over 3 hours and never got it done. Very frustrating.

Of course folks want choices, so there should be (and usually is) an "advanced" button at the beginning of an install, but noobs just want the damn thing to work, so a nice simple default would be nice.

With Ubuntu (and the standard variations) I can get grandmothers using Linux in a half-hour. Linux is the future of computing. I think that many (most) of you would agree. I don't much like Win7, and seriously doubt that I will ever use Win8 and beyond. If/when I must get a new machine I'll simply install whichever distro seems to suit me best and move on. At this point, that looks like it's going to be some variety of Ubuntu.

If I may (humbly) applaud this statement - Linux is a choice-driven concept. You choose how the disk gets laid out, you choose what you install, ect...

I, as an Arch Linux user, even have the choice of desktops. Arch Linux does'nt even come with a graphical environment. After install, there's only a command prompt. Then, you choose (again) the DE you want...

But, a quick-do like Puppy/MacPup that snoops out the box all by itself...well, there's something to say for it... ;)
But, it's far from the fun/educational center where the real thought of Linux radiates from...

Thor

The Slackware install disks come with a few WMs and DEs (TWM, FVWM, fluxbox, blackbox, KDE, XFCE..), but if you chose to customize your install, you can easily opt to not install any of them, and go get whatever desktop(s) you want on your own. So, we slackers can pick our own DE too, but if we decide to download one after install, we get to manage our dependencies on our own too if we decide not to install a 3rd-party package manager. :)
I like Arch, and I have to say the arch wiki is a great resource even if you're on another distribution. I tend to shy away from it because on the occasions I have used it the rolling-releases can sometimes be a problem, and I don't really want dependency handling package management.

I understand having older hardware makes it harder. But with a little bit of research and knowledge you can take any distro and strip it down and run what you wish, install what ever you wish. http://linuxfromscratch.org is easy too. But this will be time consuming if you don't know what your doing and well still time consuming if you do but..

The best option quit ranting and catch up to technology or you'll be ranting for the rest of your life because technology is advancing with or with out you ;). But I do feel your problem. I actually have a dell optiplex gx110 with 256MB of memory and a intel 3 processor. I run install centos on it and stripped of stuff I don't use so I actually only run around 100mb memory idle now. But its only fun and holding files now so don't need much more.

@ Jenni

Now, that's just a step further. But, it allows you to stay "on top of things" - the main reason I choose Arch Linux. Great! :)

In fact, I'm in a (dormant) project where I intent to install everything (as much as possible) starting from source code. Loosely following the "Linux from Stratch" method.
It's dormant now because something more pressing is taking center stage, but, dormant is not dead by any means :D ...

Welcome to the forums, 1101doc!

Ubuntu was my first distro, so I understand your enthusiasm. :)

I just wanted to reply to your comment that "This is why Canonical is carrying the day. Other distros need to step up. Users need a simple download page. We need a straight-forward install with automatic partitioning and automatic networking/Internet. Just like Ubuntu. Until that happens, the other (maybe better- certainly more light-weight) distros will continue to take a back seat."

This doesn't mesh with what I see on LinuxQuestions, Ubuntuforums, and the other places I visit. In fact it would appear that Ubuntu has recently lost the #1 spot and long-time users are deserting like rats from a sinking ship. The main reason I hear repeated over and over again is that Ubuntu treats their users like children by providing fewer and fewer options and opportunities to customize the desktop with each new release. "We don't want choices, we just want to click a button and everything works" only seems to get new users through the first few months or so, by the end of 6-12 months I think most Ubuntu users end up switching to a different distro (or back to Windows/Mac). Over and over again I hear criticisms like: "Canonical needs to start listening to their users and become a better team player in the open-source community."

Other, arguably less "user friendly" (I hate that term!) distros existed long before Ubuntu and will probably exist long after.

Ah the echos of UF, there are many of us here who said those exact, or similar, words only to be told we could use another distro if we don't like where Ubuntu is going. The problem was many of us were testers and what we were telling others was the new features just weren't working as they should. Look at Ubuntu now, it has Unity (yuk) it is going back to Rhythymbox (yuk), it swaps between Google and Yahoo without even saying anything only to swap back again when the chorus of dissent is over-whelming, it introduces features (ureadahead and Plymouth are 2 examples) that crippled some systems and they push on with them into a new release automatically stopping approximately 1/2 their user base from upgrading.

The business model was, past tense, brilliant. I think however they have lost sight of the original goal. Instead they are pushing people, as you say, back to Windows etc. Bug number 1 will never be fixed, not that it was ever going to be but dreams are nice, the way they are going.

LFS is fun, if you get some time I definitely encourage you to do the whole project. :) It takes a while, but if you can afford the time it's a very interesting experiance.
I personally use source for a lot of things that aren't on the Slackware mirrors, just because slackbuilds and such are occasionally a version or so behind where I want to be (or a version or two ahead, lol)