Well, I have had no problems whatsoever with systemd on my other 2 machines, AFAIK. I think my/the eMMC is a special case. Have you tried those different distros on non-eMMC machines? Oh well, you know what you're doing - no need to teach grandma to suck eggs.

If you are going to check out the AntiX family for Linux beginner newbies, may I make a modest suggestion to, rather than go for AntiX, go for MX? AntiX, despite its light weight, is not really a beginner/newbie distro-friendly because it requires quite a lot of CLI work. MX, on the other hand, is much more GUI-oriented, is fast, stable, and still not really heavy-weight. It's at or near the top in DistroWatch, FWIW - just my modest, very humble opinion, FWIW ;-)

To loop back to the topic at hand here, it seems to me we have come to the end of the road of what is possible. We/you managed to get AntiX replaced by Mint, which is quite a feat considering the acrobatics involved. So, unless you see it differently, is it time to say goodbye on this one, and say talk to you again next time?

I'll do that tomorrow.

Hi,

Klaas:

I'm still researching possible solutions to your problem.. I do find this stuff very interesting. It's a very good way to learn.. I can tell you lots of ways to kill systemd after suspend, for example ;>)

I might be able to borrow the Yoga 300 to experiment with over the weekend, as the owner might be away.. No promises though.

I only have a media server running (solely) Mint. Everything else of mine has at least Slackware on it as well as Mint, so it's no problem dropping Mint at all.

The bigger problem is moving the family off of it.

You are correct in that your Yoga 300 is a slightly "special case". I'm now fairly certain that systemd actions are obstructing some otherwise valid solutions.

The Wife has a Linx 10 tablet, 2GB ram 32GB eMMC. She runs Mint 19.1 on it with no problems at all. The only thing I had to add was a manual screen rotate. I've still got to look at implementing the accelerometer specs into a kernel module. Yet another little job!

Bodge99

Ah, OK then Bodge, that is very kind, but please do not devote too much time to my problem because you have other things to do too, I'm sure.

Hi,

I said I was going to look at AntiX... I meant Artix.. No systemd!

Bodge99

Well, allow me to set you straight on 1 thing: both AntiX and MX pride themselves on NOT using systemd !!!
AntiX does not have it at all, MX does have it but it is disabled.

Hi,

I thought AntiX had systemd-shim .. unsure where I got this impression from..

Bodge99

Check out the web site.

Hi,

Klaas:

I've had access to the Leonovo Yoga 300 for a day and a bit.
Suspend won't work properly with Mint. The best I can get is one successful resume. Retrying suspend after this results in a full systemd crash resulting in a required hard power off.
Restarting various systemd services etc. didn't help much. Systemd logging showed nothing..

I then tried AntiX (after installing Xfce4, default kernel), Devuan (Mate DE, default kernel), Slackware (Xfce4 with added kernel 5.2.8) and Artix (Mate DE, kernel 5.2.8). Suspend worked perfectly with all of these.

Hibernation didn't work "out of the box" with any distro that I tried, and I didn't have time to look further as to why.

I've had to return the computer at the owner's request.

Don't say that I didn't try!

BTW, I'm now replacing Mint on all of my computers with Artix.. I'm very impressed with it... Now running Artix with Cinnamon DE on this laptop. All good so far.

Bodge99

Hi,

Klaas:

If you ever decide to try another distro do this:

Boot from the live distro flashdrive and open a terminal.
If the ls command returns a directory listing of your eMMC system drive then you can be confident that the distro install kernel and system installer sees/will see your eMMC properly. I'd recommend performing a full GPT partition creation. The installer should do all of this for you.

I'd recommend trying a non-systemd distro.

Bodge99

Yep, I recognise that ;-)

When I had AntiX installed Suspend worked fine, no issues whatsoever, so I recognise that too. Wow!

Never, ever since I have asked for help on any technical forum like this one have I had the support that you have given me. It is truly impressive. Many thanks for that.

That's quite enterprising because from what I gathered during a brief visit to the site Artix was only launched last year, that is to say, judging by the join date of the various people involved. But then, an enterprising jump like that from you does not surprise me anymore. I do wish you a lot of luck with Artix, and who knows, maybe 1 day I'll go for it myself because I know I can turn to a certain guru in case of trouble.

Bodge99[/QUOTE]

I don't think I'll try something else on the Yoga soon: it's my wife's computer and she does not want experimentation or hassles. As for my own computer, that is a different story.
I want a stable, rock-steady distro that works out of the box so the computer works as a good functioning tool, and I don't want to "have to be a mechanic to be able to drive the car". Mint fits that bill.

Having said that, ever since switching from Windows to Linux (Oct 2018) I have been intrigued by the Linux world and its many distros. Every now & then I download an iso image and run from a live flash drive. So far I have not found one that has impressed me like Mint.

I quite liked Solus (rolling release) but was disappointed by the low level of support from the forum, and I am certainly not expecting a Bodge-like support. I have Sparky on the USB now, ready to be tested. Perhaps I'll give Artix a try after that, though its young age worries me - thinking about Antergos that went belly up recently.

Anyway, once again, many thanks for all your support, and will talk to you next time.

Hi,

Klaas: Don't forget that you have come quite a long way in a short period of time. Kudos to you for sticking with all of this..
At least now, you're not scared to try something new, have some understanding of how Linux works and where to go for help and how to ask the question..

I'd recommend looking at Artix sometime.. I am genuinely very impressed with it.. One of the good bits about it.. No systemd!!

Bodge99

You have now seriously whetted my appetite for Artix. It'll definitely be the next one to download. BTW, I did not see the Cinnamon DE on their download page. There is Plasma, which also highly customisable, if I am not mistaken.

Hi,

As with everything in the Linux world, just about anything can be added (ranging from repo-supplied easy to download & install, all the way to downloading source code, compile and install).. Most folk probably just use what is available from their distro repo.

Cinnamon is in the Artix repo's.. Easy to add.. Install, logout & login with a choice of any DE that you've chosen to install.

Bodge99