My 40th Thread...Linux Life

[easysurfer]

So your boot OS drive stays and you swap external for various reasons?

In the 2000's I was working on a desktop that had a boot drive for unclassified work. Then we encounter classified chapters and have to go to a locked file cabinet, fetch our red drive. Shut down, place red in the swap bay, and start up. So the swap was a complete OS. So that is the extent of my experience with swap bays.

Not sure if I understand you question. I'm not swapping the boot OS, just hot swapping data from a HDD. On the MX, there doesn't look like a scan of the mount status each time a drive that's hot swapped gets swapped in or out. Mint on the otherhand, seems to scan each time.

What I may eventually do is try Mint for about a month to see how much I like that distro then decide who much I really miss MX. I'm not going to make a knee jerk distro hop and end up cutting my nose off to spite my face .

There's only a few programs I use regular on MX since my main PC is Windoze.


I may end up having Mint for this desktop for the hot swapping and keep MX on my laptops. But then, that another distro to get familiar with.

 

[target2019]

easysurfer,
I was trying to make sure I understood you. It could have been possible you had different boot OS's set up, and swapped those some times. But I see it's just about the data, and you hot swap there.

In a drive bay like you have, the standard setup when you change drives seems to differ with MX. I was skimming a little, and could see users mentioning auto-remount difficulty. So I think what is going on is that Mint sees the drive as removable, and then behaves as you'd expect. MX is doing something different in that regard (my big guess) and you have to issue commands to get the behaviour you set.

There are various flags to control all of that. Some is in the drive setup, but the OS adds additional. So there's a bit to digest about how all that gets done with your unique setup.

And now that I've wandered this far, there's the need to set a drive letter. Whatever OS you use has some normal assignment there, and maybe that it a point of confusion for the OS as you swap drives. Some apps may have that drive info cached, and when you swap, they don't want to see a different device. Just thinking out loud...

I know that's a lot of free thought, and may or may not be relevant to you.

I just use a USB 3 enclosure now. The transfer speed is decent but nowhere near what you'd like in a lot of advanced situations.

 

[easysurfer]

Target2019,

I'm going to give Mint a try for about a month and see how much I like as my desktop (with hot swapable drives). If by that time, I'm not happy, looks like will just stick with MX and USB data transfer.

I think you're right in that Mint seems to just see the drives as removable. No need to do anything special to mount/unmount during the swapping. I can just remove and plug back in and Mint knows how to handle.

 

[easysurfer]

Spent the past few evenings installing and setting up Mint. Pretty much transferred over what I was using on my MX laptop to Mint.

One thing, but not the least important is still need to find a good desktop background . Looks like I'll be making the jump.

I have encountered a bug/quirk with Mint in that when removing some launchers on the taskbar the whole panel disappears (not the case with MX ). Isn't a show stopper though easy to bring back with a command line.

I used the same icon theme for both MX and Mint. One less thing my mind has to think about.

 

[target2019]

I have been collecting various backgrounds, screens, what-have-you and have those rotating on the Windows desktop in my office. Most of these I've resized to 1200x900 so they center on the larger desktop with empty space all around.

NASA picture of the day https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html is a good source.

I use a standard dark theme on each OS.

 

[easysurfer]

I have been collecting various backgrounds, screens, what-have-you and have those rotating on the Windows desktop in my office. Most of these I've resized to 1200x900 so they center on the larger desktop with empty space all around.

NASA picture of the day https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html is a good source.

I use a standard dark theme on each OS.

Thanks for the link.

May just be me as I know dark themes seem popular, but I tend to like the brighter themes. Easier for my eyes. Like I said, maybe just me.

As for my initial impressions of Mint vs MX, what I like about Mint are I think the software manager repository is beautiful and the forum is easier for beginners. MX may be a bit more stable and faster and like all the MX tools. The MX forum not that easy for beginners.

 

[ERD50]

Just before Christmas, I bought a new laptop with the plan to replace the current laptop (Lenovo G710) that I use as a 'desktop' (purchased that in April2014, running Xubuntu on it, went from 14.04 to 18.04), and use the G710 as my 'second' computer (the screen died on my older 'second computer' - the fix is pretty involved, not worth the time/effort).

The new one is a ASUS Zenbook Flip 15 Q528EH, $899 plus tax, Best Buy (normal ~$1,100). This looks to be a Best Buy specific model? Manual from ASUS is "0409-E17801_UX564EH_E1_V2_A.pdf".

I've taken my time, testing Windows before I wiped the drive to install Xubuntu 20.04. And taking time to get that set up and tested. Was confident enough to move it over and replace my G710 on my desk a few days ago, getting my data copied over, and email transferred (carefully copying the various config folders from old to new, for email, LibreOffice, FireFox, etc) - that was pretty painless. Just a few tweaks that I missed, not bad.

But I was reminded of one thing that really bugs me about Linux. They are sometimes really flaky about naming applications. I had a disk tool on my G710 that was not installed by default with 20.04. SO I added it, and in the repository, it is named "gnome-disk-utility". OK, installed with a click.

But the crazy thing is to make a launcher, the program is “gnome-disks” (PLURAL!), but this isn’t anywhere in the app or docs. The app ‘about’ says “Disks” and it lists under that “gnome-disk-utility”, and the link has no ref to calling it from command line – I only found it in a search, very convoluted. The name should be how you call it, or at least list it for ref (and in 12.04 and earlier, it was “palimpsest“!!!). So just to add a launcher to my App Menu, I had to goggle to find the actual name of this thing. That threw me a bit, but when I was first learning to use Linux, it was really a mess - I couldn't figure out what was what, and I was already confused by some things. Why not a consistent name (or at least a reference to the program name if different from the display name)?

There are others like this "Files" displayed for a file manager under a different program name, text-editor "gedit", System Monitor is "gnome-system-monitor", etc.

Other than that little rant, things are going nicely. No problem getting the extended monitor set up (an HP 24") I've got a USB-C hub, so one plug to disconnect my ext HDMI monitor, keyboard/mouse hub, and a few slots open. Minor negative, but this ASUS doesn't charge through USB-C, so that's a second cable if I want to take it portable away from the desk (Oh, 1st world problems! ). I think I'll look for a cheap USB audio DAC, then I can run audio to the external speakers through USB rather than another cable in the microphone/headset plug, but again, minor.

And yes, the 500GB SSD is fast (my first SSD). With 16GB I have not hit swap yet, I'm curious how that goes. I run a *lot* of windows/tabs in FF, and when I'm researching something, can open/close dozens and dozens, and since I rarely reboot, the memory would get fragmented (I think some closed windows would still leave something behind, or maybe an unusable gap?), and I'd fill up the 12GB and hit HDD swap, which made it unusable - but quitting and restarting FF would reclaim the memory, I'd do swap-off/on, and be back OK. Just have not got close to filling up 16GB.... yet. So we will see.

... I have encountered a bug/quirk with Mint in that when removing some launchers on the taskbar the whole panel disappears (not the case with MX ). Isn't a show stopper though easy to bring back with a command line. ... .

The XFCE panel provides a GUI for config, and lets you back-up and restore panel settings, which is nice. Though probably not much different from doing that manually from command line.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

...
May just be me as I know dark themes seem popular, but I tend to like the brighter themes. Easier for my eyes. Like I said, maybe just me. ...

Dark themes show all the dust on the monitor. I hate that!

Easier on the eyes? Maybe, I haven't thought about it. Ahh, I just tried from my medium-dark background to a lighter one - far less glare!

-ERD50

 

[easysurfer]

My desktop is old hardware.

Only USB-A ports, USB 2.0. If I had USB-C, the desire to swap through a swap bay would've been less a need. The old USB connection is a 50-50 success each time whether to have to flip around and try again .

I settled on my desktop background (at least for the time being). Not too dark nor too light but a balance to offer contrast with icons.

Got the background from a placed called pexels. A good selection there.

 

[target2019]

I am also on old hardware and have paused at 18.3. It serves me well.

 

[ERD50]

I am also on old hardware and have paused at 18.3. It serves me well.

Yeah, I won't bother upgrading my old system from 18.x, it's fine. But since I was installing new on this new laptop, I went with the latest 20.04, to get longer support.

-ERD50

 

[jim584672]

One of the reasons I moved away from Ubuntu and Debian derivatives like Mint is the update cadence of every six months. Doing a distro update is a pain. Debian is stable but the packages are old. PPAs suck. The last straw was Ubuntu going to snaps, plus Ubuntu's quality control has gone down over the years.

I like the Arch packaging system. Always up to date, rolling release so it has no six month update, every day updates come in. Arch itself I am no fan of, they created it to be unfriendly on purpose. The community is condescending and unhelpful. They will send out an update that breaks systems and seldom will they admit they did anything wrong. Up until recently they had no installer so you had to laboriously go through manual steps by typing terminal commands using the Arch guide book. That is so you can learn "the Arch way", no ones got time for that kind of nonsense.

Manjaro is Arch with the problems fixed, installer, better community, more stable, packages are held back just a bit to catch bugs.

 

[target2019]

A few days ago our webcam stopped working on Windows 10 desktop. Something is wrong at the hi-speed USB ports on the rear of system. All looks good in device manager. Logitech camera is good, but had to remove/reinstall software and use an open USB port on the front. I know there's a definitive answer for why that happened, but we'll just go on without those ports.

I had to zoom to do a PCR test, so the pressure was on. I went to old boat anchor and booted that. Got distracted and went to my office. Wife said, "Do you wanna use my Fire?" Lol.

I used my Chrome tablet (Lenoveo Duet) and it worked fine. Forgot how handy that is...

Yesterday I saw chatter about this in ChromeOS on reddit:
Asus 15.6" FHD Chromebook Laptop Intel Processor 4GB RAM 32GB Flash Storage - Silver - Model C523NA-TH42F

Of course I don't need it, but I'd have a spare!

 

[ERD50]

One of the reasons I moved away from Ubuntu and Debian derivatives like Mint is the update cadence of every six months. Doing a distro update is a pain. Debian is stable but the packages are old. PPAs suck. The last straw was Ubuntu going to snaps, plus Ubuntu's quality control has gone down over the years.

I like the Arch packaging system. Always up to date, rolling release so it has no six month update, every day updates come in. Arch itself I am no fan of, they created it to be unfriendly on purpose. The community is condescending and unhelpful. They will send out an update that breaks systems and seldom will they admit they did anything wrong. Up until recently they had no installer so you had to laboriously go through manual steps by typing terminal commands using the Arch guide book. That is so you can learn "the Arch way", no ones got time for that kind of nonsense.

Manjaro is Arch with the problems fixed, installer, better community, more stable, packages are held back just a bit to catch bugs.

I haven't really done much comparison, have stuck with Xubuntu (Ubuntu/Xfce) for years now.

I'm not sure what you mean by distro updates every 6 months being a pain? I just let the auto-updater do it's thing. It asks first, I may delay if I'm busy with something, especially if I suspect it will want me to reboot (but I can also delay rebooting).

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal


-ERD50

 

[jim584672]

I haven't really done much comparison, have stuck with Xubuntu (Ubuntu/Xfce) for years now.

I'm not sure what you mean by distro updates every 6 months being a pain? I just let the auto-updater do it's thing. It asks first, I may delay if I'm busy with something, especially if I suspect it will want me to reboot (but I can also delay rebooting).

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal


-ERD50

I ran into a problem, where the boot partition ran out of room and borked the machine, this was Ubuntu. So then I did clean installs on every six month update. I like clean installs anyway.

 

[easysurfer]

I ran into a problem, where the boot partition ran out of room and borked the machine, this was Ubuntu. So then I did clean installs on every six month update. I like clean installs anyway.

I make an image of the hard drive every six months in case something goes south I have something to restore to.

 

[jim584672]

I make an image of the hard drive every six months in case something goes south I have something to restore to.

I have good backups, just a pain to get a clean install totally back to how I like things.

 

[easysurfer]

I have good backups, just a pain to get a clean install totally back to how I like things.

Once I set things up the way I want initially, I make an image and call that a pristine system. This way, if things go south, I can restore back to the pristine system instead of having to reconfigure everything.

 

[jim584672]

I have pristine bit for bit copies, but when you are doing a clean install to a 6 month release the only thing brought over is the user data. I do not want to bring over old config settings as that can mess things up.

 

[easysurfer]

I have pristine bit for bit copies, but when you are doing a clean install to a 6 month release the only thing brought over is the user data. I do not want to bring over old config settings as that can mess things up.

I see what you mean. I was thinking more of in general than a 6 month release.

 

[jim584672]

I have been trying out QEMU/KVM for virtual machines. Usually I use Virtualbox. QEMU has much faster performance, it also allows you to pass through hardware. Say you have a printer that will not work in Linux (rare). Open a Win10/11 VM and use a Windows driver for the print. Also QEMU allows cross architecture CPU emulation. Say you have an ARM OS and want to run it on an Intel processor, it can emulate the different processor. I have been trying out Win 10 IoT LTSC 2021, this is how Windows should have been made, no extras, just stripped down goodness.

 

[target2019]

Last week I was using Zoom on the Lenovo Duet 2 tablet. Simple chrombookE It handles that very well. One problem is the small screen, though. It is just 10.1", and that works well for just about everywhere in my house, except for the office.

I was in a genealogy workshop and needed to keep my desktop free. So it was Zoom on the tablet, and many browser windows open on the desktop. The presentation on the tablet was too small, and hard to read slides, etc.

Yesterday I started thinking about the 27" monitor still on my desk, mostly unused since I retired. I was using it with Linux, but moved that boot anchor to the basement.

Late in the afternoon I ordered:
Anker USB C Hub, 341 USB-C Hub (7-in-1), with 4K HDMI, 100W Power Delivery, USB-C and 2 USB-A 5Gbps Data Ports, microSD and SD Card Reader

and a 100W power adapter. They were delivered by 8AM this morning, and set up with no problems. The extended monitor is a bit fuzzy at 1280 x 700 (tablet is limited to that), but mucn more legible of course.

Not bad for $67. Extra bonus is I got to watch the wedding video on a decent screen.

 

[easysurfer]

Spent the past few evenings installing and setting up Mint. Pretty much transferred over what I was using on my MX laptop to Mint.

One thing, but not the least important is still need to find a good desktop background . Looks like I'll be making the jump.

I have encountered a bug/quirk with Mint in that when removing some launchers on the taskbar the whole panel disappears (not the case with MX ). Isn't a show stopper though easy to bring back with a command line.

I used the same icon theme for both MX and Mint. One less thing my mind has to think about.

Quoting myself with an update about that bug/quirk in Mint where the panel disappears after removing some (kinda of random) launchers on the panel. Happened to me again the other day.

Opening the terminal and entering a command line brings the panel back. But this could get old, plus I'm lazy and don't want to remember command lines.

So ... did some poking around and was able to find/create a script and set to function keys. Now when the need arrives again in the future to recover from a disappearing panel, I just press the "Ctrl+F6" key and TA DA ... panel returns .

 

[Ramen]

I just auditioned Zorin 16.1 Core from a bootable USB drive. It might be the most beautiful UI I've used. And easier to use than other Linux flavors I've tried. I would never miss Windows with this. Anyone else use this distro? Does it run as great as it looks?

 

[skyking1]

Last week I was using Zoom on the Lenovo Duet 2 tablet. Simple chrombookE It handles that very well. One problem is the small screen, though. It is just 10.1", and that works well for just about everywhere in my house, except for the office.

I was in a genealogy workshop and needed to keep my desktop free. So it was Zoom on the tablet, and many browser windows open on the desktop. The presentation on the tablet was too small, and hard to read slides, etc.

Yesterday I started thinking about the 27" monitor still on my desk, mostly unused since I retired. I was using it with Linux, but moved that boot anchor to the basement.

Late in the afternoon I ordered:
Anker USB C Hub, 341 USB-C Hub (7-in-1), with 4K HDMI, 100W Power Delivery, USB-C and 2 USB-A 5Gbps Data Ports, microSD and SD Card Reader

and a 100W power adapter. They were delivered by 8AM this morning, and set up with no problems. The extended monitor is a bit fuzzy at 1280 x 700 (tablet is limited to that), but mucn more legible of course.

Not bad for $67. Extra bonus is I got to watch the wedding video on a decent screen.

thanks Target. I will try something like that with my Lenovo Chromebook.

On another note, a friend wants me to build him a linux browsing machine. I have plenty of boat anchor hardware here to choose from. This should be fun.