Looking at one Linux Distro for home

At home we use Linux on almost all of our computers.  The only exception right now is one laptop with Windows 10 so I can run my tax software.  Each machine has its own Linux that best works for that device.  That is getting to be a bit of a pain as some packages are not available for some distros (like the Pale Moon browser).

My netbook (Acer Aspire One D255E) I bought years ago as there was a chance I would be traveling and I wanted a light weight computer that would allow me to quickly pick up email, browse, chat with family.  The machine originally had Windows 7 starter and that was quickly replaced with Linux Lubuntu.  I picked that as it was very light weight and quickly launched.  While Lubuntu is a great package there are things I couldn't do easily and I had to write bash scripts to do those tasks (like turn off the touch pad when logging in).  It also would not play one of the browser based games I play (Runescape) as the latest Firefox and Chrome disabled the ability to launch Java which is why I am using Pale Moon.  I normally don't play online with the machine (which is what I am composing this blog entry with), but, it is nice to have if I start to travel again.


My wife's laptop is running Netrunner as that worked on machine as other distros had problems with the video card or the wireless network card.  It is a great distro, and worked well on her machine.

We have a media tower in the living room hooked up so that we can stream shows, plug in USB sticks for picture shows and a quick way to browse the net without having to bring down one of the laptops.  It is running PCLinuxOS and that is also an excellent distro as just about everything is there (including Pale Moon).  It is also what I am running on my HP laptop and it just works and is not too bad on system resource usage.

I wanted to consolidate everything with PCLinux, but, when I tried it on the netbook it would either crash as start or run so slow it was almost useless.  Not a problem as I could always use Lubuntu if I could get PCLinuxOS to work on the wife's machine.  When I did the launch it would crash on the video card that the machine had and I was not willing to play around with settings to make it work in case my wife did something and break the setup.

Next up i tried Linux Mint on the netbook.  I figured if it worked well there it should work well on the other machines.  It did launch and worked very well.  It is a bit slower that Lubuntu, but, not enough to be a deal breaker.  It recognized everything and just worked.  I proceeded to make a complete backup of all my folders and then reimaged the machine with Mint.  A few obervations:

• Pale moon isn't available, but, their web site does give instructions on how to download & install.  The only quirk I had was when I tried to install with my non-admin account it would accept the password for the admin account (more about that later).  I signed out and then launched the admin account and did the install there without an issue.
• The first account you define when starting up is by default the ADMIN (root) account so be very aware of that.  That is what I had to log in as when doing the Pale moon installation from.
• There are a lot of patches so when you launch for the first time do it from admin and get everything patched up.  Once you get that done define a regular account that you will use every day.
• It is slower than Lubuntu so be patient at times.  When I log in there is about a 15-20 second wait from when I supply my userid and password and when the main screen shows unlike Lubuntu which takes a couple of seconds.  The same is true for logoff.
• There is a setting for mouse where you can go to the touchpad and click the option to turn it off when it detects an external mouse.  This is much nicer than Lubuntu where I had a custom bash script written to toggle the mouse off.
• The screen is smaller than a normal laptop and some of the screens do not fit and cannot be resized to fit.  I found a workaround by holding the [ALT] key and holding the left mouse button I can move the window around.
• Most software you need is automatically installed.  The only thing was the browser I use and then the XSANE package for when I scan documents.  It does come with Scanlite that I may try later on.

Later on I will have to plug in the USB stick with Mint into my wife's machine and see how it all works.  I am hoping that it 'just works' and then I can image her machine to Mint.  I have already done a full backup of all her documents.

Last task will be later in the evening on the media box and re-image that machine to Mint.  I don't have to back up anything there as we don't save files, but, use the Internet for content.

End result is that I should be down to just two distros at most (PCLinuxOS and Mint).

Update 1:

Jane's machine has been updated to Mint.  I still have to finish configuration, but, the system boots up and her account is active.  Next up is to restore the backup of her documents, install Thunderbird for email and a number of games she likes to play.  The only machine left to convert is the media box as I think I will leave my main machine alone (PCLinuxOS).

Updating my machine

For the last couple of months I have been looking at the various distros that are out there and how they work on my machine here.  The one I really wanted updated was PCLINUXOS so that all of the machines at home run with the same distro.  The 2009.2 version still won't boot on my machine so I had to look elsewhere.  My current distro was Mint 5.

Mandriva just came out with their latest and I downloaded and burned the ISO and gave it a shot.  It looks very nice visually and it detected most of my hardware without a problem.  The only two things were my palm pilot and the TV card which it didn't detect (like every other distro so far).  I then downloaded Mint 7 KDE and gave it a shot.  It was as visually appealing to me as Mandriva and had the same issues with the palm pilot and TV card.  The area it was ahead was that Java was installed automatically (I have to install that on Mandriva) and the ATI card driver was there for me.  I opted to keep with Mint so far and I upgraded to version 7.

One of the bonuses of this is now I have two more CDs that I can then pass out to friends and family when they have more problems with windows. 

It will take a bit of time to get used to KDE 4, but, so far it has not caused me any problems.  Firefox with Java still plays Runescape in HD mode without a problem.  Digikam works fine along with Thunderbird and XSANE.

When I get some time I will try to dig and see if I can get the palm pilot to work.  I thought I saw something about 'VISOR'.  If that doesn't work I really want to get my TV card to work.  I have a lot of home videos I would like to hook up to the input and make into MPG files and have them transferred to DVD for the family.

Update 2009/11/08:

I have moved off of Mint over to Mandriva.  I have been using Mint for a day and I have noticed a few things that make it a bit less usable for me.

1. Runescape log in flickers wildy and it cannot be stopped unless I take HD mode off.
2. The shutdown function at times (about 50%) does not work and the system locks.
3. I cannot access system services to manually define what I want to run.  This is a critical one for me as I want complete control over what is running.  Mandriva allows me to do this.

The first two items may be something that I did when I configured the system, but, so far Mandriva is not doing those things and I will use that for now.

In Mandriva it didn't auto-detect my printer (SAMSUNG ML-2010), but, after going to WWW.SAMSUNG.COM I found the driver, downloaded it and installed.  It wasn't as smooth as Mint, but, it worked and I now have a printer.

Linux and Runescape HD - Update

When I wrote about using HD in Runscape I didn't give you all of the software and hardware being used.

I am Running Linux Mint - Elyssa KDE Community Edition. I let the system figure out what ATI driver to install and configure. Firefox 3.0.13 and java 6 Update 14 (1.6.0_14_b08). The hardware is a Dell inspiron 530 with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT card. The monitor is an Acer AL1717. I applied all of the patches to keep the system up-to-date. So far I have not had any problems with running Runescape in HD mode and I can swap between my desktops and resize the Runescape session without causing any problems or crashes.

The only thing we cannot do now is play various games that are Windows specific and I hope it is only a matter of time before the gaming companies figure out that Linux is a more-than-viable environment for their games. I prefer running Linux as we don't have to worry about trojans and viruses like when we are using windows. Even if there is an exploit the community comes up with fixes/patches much faster than proprietary operating systems.

Linux and Runescape HD mode

I did a minor update this week for Java and the ATI driver to see if the HD mode in Linux works yet. To my surprise it did and it was very stable. I have been running this for the week and I have not had any problems yet. One more item that I can remove from the list that didn't work well (if at all). The only things now are my palm pilot and TV tuner to get working and everything that works in Vista will work in Linux. The other major item is income tax software that will run on Linux. Once I get all three items to work I can then think about removing Vista from my machine.

On a similar note I downloaded LinuxMint 7 KDE RC1 and I will be burning a CD and testing that out to see how it works. I also downloaded and burned PCLinuxOS 2009.2 and burned it on to a CD. I tested it out on my wife's machine and it looks good and solid. After backing up her machine I will be upgrading her and my daughter's machines. The distro still does not boot on my machine and I will need to take an inventory of the hardware and check out PCLinuxOS knowledge base to see why. I would prefer that all of our machines use one distro just to make it easier for me to support and keep up-to-date.