Linux Distros - The search continues

I suppose I shouldn't be bothered investigating various Linux distros, but the reality is that my favourite desktop is probably no longer being developed and Plasma 5 is ugly, buggy and slow on my Celeron N3150 powered Brix.

I've stuck to distributions that use the .deb package system, not because I see it as 'better', but because I got comfortable with it around 20 years go and just stayed with it most of the time.  Considering my first foray into Linuxland was with a 3.5" floppy version of Red Hat, that sometimes surprises me.    As does my move from distributions like Mandrake, Suse and other KDE distros, to distros based on Debian.  Overall though, I find the Debian/Ubuntu base is comfortable to work with.

Since I have been pushed out of work by my injuries, the computing that used to be my business for over 30 years, has become a bit of a hobby.  People used to laugh at me because I had so much of the latest expensive computer equipment, but other than the odd flight simulator, hardly a game to be seen.

Since the hit and run in 2004 I always imagined rebuilding some sort of business, so I still spent a considerable amount of money keeping my computer equipment up to date with the aim of getting myself independent of Disability support.

Now that I am at retirement age, and the Queensland health system has made it quite clear that I am not even allowed to walk or cycle 30 minutes a day for exercise - I have concluded that a return to business is not going to happen.

So over the last couple of years it is the 'fun' things about Linux I am enjoying more.

Which is where my search for a replacement for Mint KDE comes in.  In my last few posts I have been trying out various distributions running Plasma 5, after discovering that Mint KDE 18.1 and 18.3 were horrible.  Kubuntu 17.10 was worse, so I tried various distributions using XFCE and last week I even had a go at using Bodhi Linux.  Aaaarrrrgh!

At the moment I am back to Mint 17.3 KDE on my main drive, and it is pretty snappy except when it somes to certain file operations - like choosing an image to insert in this blog, which just takes far too long.  But I can live with that.

Everything else works perfectly and is crisp.  Themes and transparencies are nicely configurable.  Networking is a nightmare.  But as long as the computer doesn't have to share stuff with other computers, things are great.  I do miss the days of Mandrake where one click enabled a whole network.  But I suppose there were security issues.  These days, no amount of tweaking or setting rules has allowed me to share stuff on my network unless I disable the firewalls.

I still have a spare root partition with that awful Bodhi thing installed, so my new project will be to explore playing with some tweaks to Mint Cinnamon in the hope that I can keep an up to date kernel and packages, while still having a quick system and some eye candy.

Update 20th March 2018

I've now installed and uninstalled so many distros in my spare root partition, that my computer is like a musical chair.  I know it is easier to use a virtual machine, but honestly, having a spare 30GB root set up permanently is just as easy and means I always have a working alternative should I ever really screw something up on my main distro. 

The only downside was having to edit grub each time on two distros, until I realised that only the grub set by the last distro is active.
So now I just watch the system boot into the new distro, hit an up/down arrow when in grup to stop the timer, and count how far down the menu my 'Main' distro is.  The last installed distro will always default to Default = "0", so if my main distro appears at line 5 on the list, I count  0, 1, 2, 3, 4   and then note that I need to set Default = "4" in grub.

I then select the top (default) entry for the new distro, and let it continue to boot.

Once booted into my latest spare distro, I find out the name of the text editor.  For example, in KDE, it is usually kate.  So I simply open a terminal and type:

sudo kate /etc/default/grub

Scroll through the lines until I see Default="0"  and change it to "Default="4"  or whatever number I counted to get to my Main distro.

On a couple of distros, I ended up changing to Default="2" or Default="3"  because they created the initial grub config differently.

REMEMBER!

After editing /etc/default/grub  you have to SAVE the file and CLOSE the editor, then in the terminal type:

sudo update-grub

Now on reboot, you will go straight into the original main distro, but can easily choose the new one instead.

This is great for long term learning and setting up of a completely different distro, as I have been doing, to see what it really does.