Hello !

Marc, from France, 68 years old, retired and plenty of time to discover another Linux.
I had registered some years ago to chat on the Puppy Linux part of the forum.

The great trip with Linux started 14 years ago, thanks to a friend who taught me that there is something really different
My first step was with Caldera dating back to 1995, hard to install, but when it worked, a marvel, compared to W$.

I have been buying a considerable number of linux magazines with distros inside, and many hard disks too
I think I have been installing more than 150 distros, .deb, .rpm style, Slackware, Arch, Gentoo, BSD, everything !
Last year, I discovered Solus another LFS, it is still working.

I like to find exotic distros (like Momonga, an Ubuntu inspired japanse distro 100% with japanese menus) and on Distrowatch, I stumbled on Aryalinux, nice, let's taste Indian cooking !

Quickly dowloaded, burnt on a DVD and let's go !
Installation was pretty fast, Aryalinux has joined Voyager 18.04 (French distro based on ubuntu) and Arcolinux (Belgian distro based on Arch) on a new multiboot (I have 5 multiboots) and the nice surprise is that Aryalinux did not create any damage with "the neighbours"

No problem with installation, but when I looked for the packages manager .... there is none
The official site is not very ... talkative

Anyway, after learning apt, yum, pacman, my old brain has to work to digest ALPS
So far, i have added VLC, it lasted a looooooooong time !
Trying to add Firefox, there was a problem : full disk !!
When partitioning I had prepared a 12 gb for / and 30 gb for /home.
Many test diistros are on a 15 gb / and there is enough space, but not for Aryalinux.
Today, I managed to enlarge the / partition and squeeze the /home partition with the live DVD, absolutely no problem

I cannot understand what silly command I did, Firefox now refuses to join the team, so I have launched an installation of Opera (I am not a fan of Chromium).
The terminal has been spitting lines for more than a full hour !!
Is it normal ?
Something strange : my /usr directory has no less than 249062 files, totalling 8.7 gb !!!
Never seen that
Again, is it normal ?

Aryalinux is not an easy distro, but challenging, I am keeping it !

Bye for now

Hi:

Glad to hear you like Arya Linux.
I've never tried it.

Yes that is normal if you are updating a distro for the first time using the command line.

Aryalinux is a form of automated LFS. Everything is built from source and there is no proper package manager. Here's what the site says about ALPS:
All that bumf you see rolling off the screen is the builds. Of course it takes hours because you are building everything locally, not just installing binary packages.

Also a modern Firefox build with rust takes an enormous amount of space. I haven't tried it in LFS, but the last time I did in Crux, I got a disk full message too. My Crux root partition is 20 GB, but it wasn't enough. I had to download the package to my home partition and build it there. Try and see if ALPS lets you do that.

It's nice to see another oldie. I'm a few years older than you and I have been a great Linux fan for years. I think Linux is specially suited to people like us, because we didn't grow up with technology and are naturally suspicious of it. We need a system that is easy to understand, not just easy to use, and that doesn't do weird things behind your back.

Good evening ! (in France I mean)

I did not expect to update my system.
I has copied the site's tuto for installing VLC
and it worked
Later I tried to install Firefox which resulted in a full disk.

I have found the command to wipe off the data required for installation with
Then, not being a real fan of Chromium, I have installed Dillo, it worked but with display oddities, never mind in our wonderful world we have so many good things under hand .

I have seen the explanation in the site, and I have been delighted to see the great work performed by Aryalinux parents. Building, compiling with a single command, it is extraordinary
I dared to venture in compilations, sometimes successfully and I know now it is not an easy task, especially when I have to install missing libraries.

When trying to get Firefox, I have seen the enormous size of the tar file : more than 150 mb !!!
With extra space now, I must try again.

Crux ! Thank you ! You have given the name of a new toy I must try it

Another LFS distro I have successfully installed is Solus.
I has simply "pumped" Solus on Distrowatch fot sheer curiosity : the first time I read the name of Budgie as the main environment
Solus has a package manager, and for updates the "eopkg" command.
It cannot be labeled as a distro for newbies, but I think it is simpler than any window$ !

I share your opinion regarding Linux
It is good for "old" brains, you can discover a new world everyday, a good sport for brain !
Years ago, I did like 95 % of computers' owners : aside of Mac, there is only window$.
But getting strange messages of worse "your computer is dead" was irritating.
When I could install my first Linux, I ventured in the system's directories to read that everything is explained !!
Everything is open, nothing is concealed.
Something I cannot still understand : why are Linux lovers so few ?

I try to spread the word to friends, neighbours with alas limited success, but never mind I am going on

Kind regards and good night !

Like you I'm not a fan of Chromium either.

Never heard of Dillo. Is it new?

Seems that the anti Chromium club is increasing the number of its members
I have seen that on other Linux forums.

I have been knowing Dillo for a number of years now.
On Ubuntu 9.04, I have installed every browser I found in the repositories : 17 !
Among them was Dillo.
It is a light and fast browser, but being light it cannot have the capacities of "muscle" browsers like Firefox and its clones like Waterfox.
The project's page is here : https://www.dillo.org/

On Aryalinux, I have tried to install qupzilla, unfortunately it was not possible : missing .tar
A .tar file may be found on the net and after, I shall have to open the bonnet

I think you may like Crux a lot. It's long been a favourite distro of mine. For a start, it has the bsd rather than the sysv version of init, which means that it starts up fast. It's source-based, so you have a lot of local building as with Arya, but Crux has a proper package manager, which takes care of dependencies. The internal structure follows the KISS principle, so no systemd and no GRUB. You boot with good old lilo.

The official repositories are quite small (the mantra is "simplicity" rather than "choice"), so desktop environments like gnome and KDE are not officially supported, but you can install them from private repos. Personally I have no patience with that kind of thing and prefer to use fluxbox.

Thanks for the link:-