The guys at the Kodi support forums appear to agree that Mint ain't the best for Kodi. I spent some time there working out issues (letting those folks help me) with Kodi problems that apparently have to do with Mint.

Way, as in doesn't work properly--or at all on my other box. The "other box" has MX17 --specs up there-- on it. And MX runs Kodi nearly flawlessly where Mint wouldn't bog down with it--get draggy and unusable in the menu system before streaming could be set up.

Sparky Linux has been thrown back "into reserve" because fonts issue (only in menus). Lubuntu next test boot-to run for a while. I've had it up before, but I don't recall which machine.

Whatever I "land on" this time will run Kodi and Mozilla without too many hitches--and I'll be able to configure the UI to have all the fonts that I need where I need them. boo Sparky.

So were the problems you experienced Mint-related or MATE-related?

no idea. I got onto a "Mate" kick because the shutdown timer and also liked it better than Cinnamon-and I had crashed the boot for the other desktop I had going in Mint.

Someday I'll get to be a digital manipulator--and learn how to set up (or import) a shutdown timer on whatever system I choose, as well as manipulate menu-panel fonts. I'm doing some command line studies in my spare time.

Booting Fedora next. Lubuntu and I had same issue as Sparky. Save those for oldest boxes maybe.

Fedora Design Suite Live 27 neat jellyfish. Catch y'all later. Thanks.

Fedora interesting, but didn't see some things I wanted. So Peppermint 8 is back on that one...Pepper is EASY to fix fonts in. So nice after all these hunts for never-October in the other OS's today.

Looking at your inxi report. Just wondering why you only have 2 gig of ram installed on that desktop. Hell. I have 4 gig of ram installed on single core pentium 4 amd acer ast-180 desktop tower model running Linux_Lite 3.6 on it. I don't use Kodi though. I got a roku unit on my TV.

Maybe the xfce version of mint may be good choice. I don't know though.

https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_sylvia_xfce.php

Because I have more needs and interests than computing. I may have "upgraded" the memory in that machine, I don't recall. And I've rarely had issues with it. Just loaded up Maui on it-from DVD (testing) and that took a bit of doing. But that was just verifying that Solus is the only "live" distro or install ISO that won't boot that machine. It (Solus) also won't boot Mom's (the remote) where everything else will boot on the #2box here.

Also because I'm in that scary place between employed by another and employed by myself and funds are rather extremely tight for now. I trust your cashflow is much better, most folks' are, but change happens and that's where I'm going (with a new OS of course).

I saw a pile of memory 'round here the other day but I'm sure it's outdated or incompatible or it'd be in a machine. I might strip #3 out if I can't get the switch to act right (and have an organ donor).

Yet running Mint on this one. Will be Solus if I can figure out how to boot it on the other box, Could be Maui or Peppermint. About to get it narrowed down for this round. Other stuff to do.

Cheers!

I hear you on the "more time than money", non of my computers cost me over $35(a pi), one man's hunk a junk is another man's treasure

My last thoughts as I left he official Solus Forums:

I'm done here. I only kept on to make a journal for my reference--AND to give curious onlookers an idea of what we have with Solus solutions. I'll put Solus down the list with Maui. Pretty to look at, and Pretty Much on your own with either as I see it. MX and AnitX would be preferred to that. And now I've gone Slack. Cheers.

And that's pretty much my dealio.

More details: I've always been the "take it apart/see how it works/make it work better for my application"* sort of guy. So I finally read up a little more on Slackware. Found that there's a live demo. Grabbed one. And it goes right on without a hitch. I'll study and make lots of notes and try to make a proper install of it next.

*mostly mechanical things, electronics(ham), vehicles(comp), guns(smith), appliances, etc. and I make stuff. Time to get digital.

Machine #2 has Peppermint installed now, but I'll be running Slack live on it for the next few days.

If I "can't handle the truth" of Slackware. I'll Likely find another KDE environment. And that's just about enough distro hopping for me this year. Cheers and thanks. HTH a few other Pilgrims of the OS's.

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Well if you can't find "The One" give LFS a try One of the most fun.

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Good to see that you have currently landed with Slackware. The sheer plethora of Linux distros certainly makes it easy to distro-hop, but I personally got to the point of realizing it was better to stick with a solid, stable distro, and work through whatever issues you might have, than to keep hopping around, in search of the "one true, perfect distro." There isn't one, although my personal faves are Slackware, Gentoo/Funtoo, and Void (note: none of these are considered beginner-friendly).

If you stick with Slackware, you'll have plenty of folks to bounce any issues you may have off of here at LQ. You'll be rewarded with a simple, stable system that doesn't hold your hand, and does what you ask of it.

Good luck!

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and by "fun" you mean of course "living hell" for one who knows too little of Linux. I get it now.


So I'd only recommend Slackware, of any flavor, to one who wants to have to _learn Linux_ for his/her applications and situations to work just like he/she needs them to.

I've learned a lot already. Like jumping between consoles during installation (and I used it). And how to fix this thing or that. Still 100,001 things to learn, but that's oh--kay as I didn't put Slackware on my primary machine. I have to have a solid way to get back to the collective to keep it sorted and I've ONLY just begun.

Tweaking Firefox now, but after 5 or 6 full installation processes, the #2 machine is now booting and running like I know what I'm doing. Hah!

And like last night when I had to "give up" and settle down and drift off to slumber (and that installation was a non-booter) I simply booted a live version of a "more mainlined" Linux, and did the streaming that I wanted to do, NP.

Hard learnin' is good learnin' because it sticks to your neurons like peanut butter on yer dog's tongue. I got a lotta new sticky neurons too.


Thanks for your inputs here.

Well not exactly, LFS is hard for people who never really looked under the gui, but all in all it is very well documented and I had fun building it. The main advantage of lfs is its great for learning Linux through and through and you get a custom system that is exactly what you decide to make it.

But I doubt you'd like it. It takes at least a week of compiling to get the base system and maybe several more for blfs

I hope slack works out for you

Tried Mageia yet? As a newbie I quite like it.

No I haven't. I've settled down quite a bit. Since I last wrote here I tried to install OpenSUSE but it crashed after install (after formatting) and would not re-start. (off the list) Then I put a Fedora on top of that and had some issues with visibility of elements at Fedora's info pages, plus didn't like the large feel of it--and was itching to get back to MXLinux.

Which is what I'm running in "extended test" mode on my #2 machine. Going to put Mint on Mom's machine and will keep my Mint install going here until she's comfy with hers.

Slackware would crash my integrated video as do some others, but MX never does, nor did Manjaro. Just now learning to read logs and finding stuff. Then I have to go figure out what the stuff means.

Here goes one (a log-reading learning situation, my first): 2nd machine-first boot (in most OS's) i8042 will not load with kernel. Restart-loads it every time, and it works perfectly for my ps/2 KB. The KB works perfectly in bios and pre-boot. Some day I'll figure out how Devuan loads it the first time, every time-because it did. Slackware wouldn't load it with consistency. So I've come to the realization that there are different sets of instructions causing these different behaviors, but haven't pursued learning how all that works yet. I'm back studying networks and security.


Have you had any "support" issues/needs with Mageia?

I agree with the perception that Mageia is probably worth a try. Fedora is nice (minus systemd, YMMV) but, as it is (more or less) a testbed for Red Hat's actual business products, it is not quite stable.

Is there a reason why your Mom shouldn't just continue using Windows? It sounds like Linux disrupts her PC experience, regardless of the particular distribution used.