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Yeah, no fancy title this time, but at least I finally made the post.
So, what's new...
Well, nothing earth shattering, been playing with other Arch spins and even a couple Manjaro spins. Seems a bit weird to have a Manjaro spin, since Manjaro is already a spin itself, that of Arch, but whatever. I did mention this last post I believe, but here's a few updates.
ArchLabs, really loving it now that I understand the problem which was a combination of me not reading, and them making a weird decision. It used to only use OpenBox for the user interface, but now it also has I3. The problem I had was that for some reason it was defaulting to I3, and since R2-D2 is the first with that, and new enough that few tutorials are out there for it, all videos showed it with the OB interface. Once I learned that from one of the 'official' tutorial videos, it was smooth sailing. Its a nice build, and very light.
So, ifn we're talking ArchLabs, then we need to talk MaBox, a Manaro re-spin that also uses OpenBox, right? There's not a lot of difference between them though, the biggest being that MaBox uses PCMan for the file manager rather than Thunar. Unless its significantly lighter, I don't get why, from a function stand point they don't seem all that different, but visually PCMan looks quite ugly, not quite 8 bit, but close. Oh, and for some reason once it was installed, all of the customizing tools stopped working. Those are minor problems, but when ArchLabs comes off feeling more polished and lighter, whether it really is or not, that sorta kills MaBox.
Antegros I still haven't tried, despite my desire to do so. It uses Calamares for the installer, and for some reason it gets to 100% on preparing the drive... And that's all she wrote, nothing happens after that. I've tried with two different Antegros DE's, and the same thing happens. Didn't really expect anything else, but its still annoying. Oh well, that's another off the list.
Bluestar Linux... not bad, quite nice, but... Eh, never really liked KDE, things never seem to work right. I tried bringing up KDE's native mail client, and it crashes the first time. Got it up the second time, added an account... and it hangs on log in. Yeah, nicely done package, really clever installer, Calamares with an added details pop up, but KDE and me have never gotten along. A shame really as I love the Dolphin file manager, which doesn't work real great outside of KDE.
SwagArch which I saw a review of, and I agree with the reviewer, damn that's a pretty build. Well done, very well thought out, and very pretty... and that's about all I can say. I already run Manjaro Xfce on my main computer, and beyond looks, there's nothing really different about Swag, so no reason to change. That said, maybe it has a better community, though Manjaro's would be hard to beat. If you were new to Linux, I'd say go for it ifn you haven't hit Manjaro yet, I don't think you'd go wrong with either of them, and it is prettier.
KiboJoe is another Manjaro spin, this time running Joe's Window Manager. Haven't played with this much, don't even remember much from what little I did with it. That said, in a way it's good that it doesn't stand out in my mind, that means there's nothing wrong with it. Sure, that might also mean that its unremarkable, but it could just as easy be that I haven't done much with it, after all I've been eyeballs deep in proofreading and editing, so not enough time to play as much as I like.
So, I think that's every Arch spin that's out there, or at least the ones it makes sense for me to try. I really do need to try ArchLabs on the main computer. I'm a bit worried about the resolution, it has Skylake graphics, and there's been an issue with the 4.8 and above kernals not offering my maximum resolution, which is why I stay with Xfce, Mate for example which would serve my needs (so long as it doesn't glitch) just fine, but it runs the 4.9 kernal.
Any other tech?
Well, umm, yeah, namely a bit of silliness. I should really not be left on my own, otherwise you get things like this:
What prey tell is this, aside from an abomination?
Well, its what happens when I look at some more or less discarded electronics and go "why let it go to waste?" Sitting on that end table is an old Roku, as in first generation, low memory POS Roku, paired with a 21" ViewSonic VGA monitor. Yes, I'll let that sink in. The Roku only has HDMI and composite outputs, so its connected via an HDMI to VGA adapter that splits off the audio. The adapter is powered via a cell phone charger since it uses a micro-USB connector. It does come with a cord, but its really short as they assume you're using the adapter with your computer, so I supplied a cord of my own and dug out a spare wall wart. The audio in turn goes to a set of computer speakers that don't work reliably that's to a bad plug, or more specifically, the wire at the strain relief. So yes, that's the most ridiculously cobbled together TV set up ever... But it works. Now if only it were possible to get YouTube on a first gen Roku...
Only thing left is the watch phone fiasco. I have three of them now. Yes, three, and none work. Let's see...
ZeBlaze Blitz, my oldest one. My sweat ate the connector on the back of it. Trying to get a replacement back, been a week or so of back and forth with the company and a lack of help from Everbuying where I bought it. Combine that with a package that went missing recently, and I'm starting to rethink them as being my source for Chinese electronics in the future.
Lemfo LES1, one I was really stoked about... Until the battery crapped out. Fully charged could randomly be anything from an hour's worth of life to nine hours. Sent it back for warranty repair or replacement, and on 27 July it cleared Chinese Customs, and... vanished? Just shouted at them to find out what happened.
TenFifteen X9A Plus, another charging problem, this time because of a defective dock. The charging pins are spring loaded, or supposed to be. The positive contact has either a missing or broken spring because the pin went down, and didn't come back up. Trying to get a replacement dock for this one, and really hoping I do, because its a really kick ass watch phone. Of the three, I think its my favorite even though its heavy. Its literally a mini phone with Android 5.1 and an SD card slot. The negative is that A5 was when Google got the brilliant idea that you shouldn't be allowed to store apps on an SD card, so this means you can't use it to help with the very limited memory. Then again, its much more efficient about memory usage, so its not as big a deal as I expected after my previous experience with the Blitz which I believe has at least as much memory if not more.
So, that's all the tech news so far, but if we get the various warranty and repair issues sorted out, there'll be more, namely detailed reviews of those two newest watches.
Until next time, malamo pono...
PS
Anyone know of a tiki or Hawaiian theme for DreamWidth?
So, what's new...
Well, nothing earth shattering, been playing with other Arch spins and even a couple Manjaro spins. Seems a bit weird to have a Manjaro spin, since Manjaro is already a spin itself, that of Arch, but whatever. I did mention this last post I believe, but here's a few updates.
ArchLabs, really loving it now that I understand the problem which was a combination of me not reading, and them making a weird decision. It used to only use OpenBox for the user interface, but now it also has I3. The problem I had was that for some reason it was defaulting to I3, and since R2-D2 is the first with that, and new enough that few tutorials are out there for it, all videos showed it with the OB interface. Once I learned that from one of the 'official' tutorial videos, it was smooth sailing. Its a nice build, and very light.
So, ifn we're talking ArchLabs, then we need to talk MaBox, a Manaro re-spin that also uses OpenBox, right? There's not a lot of difference between them though, the biggest being that MaBox uses PCMan for the file manager rather than Thunar. Unless its significantly lighter, I don't get why, from a function stand point they don't seem all that different, but visually PCMan looks quite ugly, not quite 8 bit, but close. Oh, and for some reason once it was installed, all of the customizing tools stopped working. Those are minor problems, but when ArchLabs comes off feeling more polished and lighter, whether it really is or not, that sorta kills MaBox.
Antegros I still haven't tried, despite my desire to do so. It uses Calamares for the installer, and for some reason it gets to 100% on preparing the drive... And that's all she wrote, nothing happens after that. I've tried with two different Antegros DE's, and the same thing happens. Didn't really expect anything else, but its still annoying. Oh well, that's another off the list.
Bluestar Linux... not bad, quite nice, but... Eh, never really liked KDE, things never seem to work right. I tried bringing up KDE's native mail client, and it crashes the first time. Got it up the second time, added an account... and it hangs on log in. Yeah, nicely done package, really clever installer, Calamares with an added details pop up, but KDE and me have never gotten along. A shame really as I love the Dolphin file manager, which doesn't work real great outside of KDE.
SwagArch which I saw a review of, and I agree with the reviewer, damn that's a pretty build. Well done, very well thought out, and very pretty... and that's about all I can say. I already run Manjaro Xfce on my main computer, and beyond looks, there's nothing really different about Swag, so no reason to change. That said, maybe it has a better community, though Manjaro's would be hard to beat. If you were new to Linux, I'd say go for it ifn you haven't hit Manjaro yet, I don't think you'd go wrong with either of them, and it is prettier.
KiboJoe is another Manjaro spin, this time running Joe's Window Manager. Haven't played with this much, don't even remember much from what little I did with it. That said, in a way it's good that it doesn't stand out in my mind, that means there's nothing wrong with it. Sure, that might also mean that its unremarkable, but it could just as easy be that I haven't done much with it, after all I've been eyeballs deep in proofreading and editing, so not enough time to play as much as I like.
So, I think that's every Arch spin that's out there, or at least the ones it makes sense for me to try. I really do need to try ArchLabs on the main computer. I'm a bit worried about the resolution, it has Skylake graphics, and there's been an issue with the 4.8 and above kernals not offering my maximum resolution, which is why I stay with Xfce, Mate for example which would serve my needs (so long as it doesn't glitch) just fine, but it runs the 4.9 kernal.
Any other tech?
Well, umm, yeah, namely a bit of silliness. I should really not be left on my own, otherwise you get things like this:
What prey tell is this, aside from an abomination?
Well, its what happens when I look at some more or less discarded electronics and go "why let it go to waste?" Sitting on that end table is an old Roku, as in first generation, low memory POS Roku, paired with a 21" ViewSonic VGA monitor. Yes, I'll let that sink in. The Roku only has HDMI and composite outputs, so its connected via an HDMI to VGA adapter that splits off the audio. The adapter is powered via a cell phone charger since it uses a micro-USB connector. It does come with a cord, but its really short as they assume you're using the adapter with your computer, so I supplied a cord of my own and dug out a spare wall wart. The audio in turn goes to a set of computer speakers that don't work reliably that's to a bad plug, or more specifically, the wire at the strain relief. So yes, that's the most ridiculously cobbled together TV set up ever... But it works. Now if only it were possible to get YouTube on a first gen Roku...
Only thing left is the watch phone fiasco. I have three of them now. Yes, three, and none work. Let's see...
ZeBlaze Blitz, my oldest one. My sweat ate the connector on the back of it. Trying to get a replacement back, been a week or so of back and forth with the company and a lack of help from Everbuying where I bought it. Combine that with a package that went missing recently, and I'm starting to rethink them as being my source for Chinese electronics in the future.
Lemfo LES1, one I was really stoked about... Until the battery crapped out. Fully charged could randomly be anything from an hour's worth of life to nine hours. Sent it back for warranty repair or replacement, and on 27 July it cleared Chinese Customs, and... vanished? Just shouted at them to find out what happened.
TenFifteen X9A Plus, another charging problem, this time because of a defective dock. The charging pins are spring loaded, or supposed to be. The positive contact has either a missing or broken spring because the pin went down, and didn't come back up. Trying to get a replacement dock for this one, and really hoping I do, because its a really kick ass watch phone. Of the three, I think its my favorite even though its heavy. Its literally a mini phone with Android 5.1 and an SD card slot. The negative is that A5 was when Google got the brilliant idea that you shouldn't be allowed to store apps on an SD card, so this means you can't use it to help with the very limited memory. Then again, its much more efficient about memory usage, so its not as big a deal as I expected after my previous experience with the Blitz which I believe has at least as much memory if not more.
So, that's all the tech news so far, but if we get the various warranty and repair issues sorted out, there'll be more, namely detailed reviews of those two newest watches.
Until next time, malamo pono...
PS
Anyone know of a tiki or Hawaiian theme for DreamWidth?
no subject
Date: 2017-08-09 06:37 am (UTC)From:So far I'm not really seeing any advantages over a standard CentOS7 install though? The wiki says it's a more minimalist install, but it sure feels like gnome (which is good!) with the usual stuff pre-installed.
Not sure pacman is a good idea, everyone knows yum pretty much by heart, i'm not eager to spend the time to learn yapm (yet another package manager ;-)
CYa!
Mako
PS: Nice hack on the Roku! :)
no subject
Date: 2017-08-09 09:36 am (UTC)From:Confusingly enough there's PCMan the file manager, and PacMan the package manager. Pacman isn't bad, works well enough. Octopi is used in Manjaro's KDE and QT builds, and I really don't like it. Plus you can do things in the command line with it. sudo pacman -Syuu is a good command to start with on your build.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-09 04:31 pm (UTC)From:GTG,busy day here! :D
CYa!
Mako
no subject
Date: 2017-08-10 01:09 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2017-08-29 10:45 am (UTC)From:The basic Linux is pretty much the same size regardless of whether its an RPM, DEB or Arch its the interface that makes the difference. With Linux you get three basic choices CLI (text based), windows manager and desktop environment. The line between those last two can be a bit blurry, see OpenBox for an example, but pure WM's like JWM or I3 WM are very light, albeit it comes at a cost. Tiling WM's for example don't allow Windows to over lap, and they decide the layout, which might not be for the best. Also many use the PCMan file manager as its lighter than competitors, but that comes at a cost, visually at least as I've noted.
As to PacMan, sounds like the distro you're using is a Gnome, Budgie or Xfce, can't remember how you check that though (Xfce just get info under help in the file manager, if its using Thunar, its Xfce), KDE/QT builds usually use Octopi which sucks in my not so humble opinion. All I can tell you is that when it comes to Arch builds, those are what they use, and PacMan works fairly well.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-03 08:42 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2017-09-06 02:00 am (UTC)From: