My sister Terry sent down her laptop PC because it was running Windows XP which is no longer supported…support ended 4/6. I wanted to install Linux Mint but the current LTS is just ending and the new isn’t out yet. Wiped off XP after backing up data. Laptop is an older Dell Dimension. So I installed SolydX which seems to run very peppy on it. It’s a rolling release so theoretically it can stay updated forever…however the very first thing I had to do was update sources.list so it could update! Updates a little confusing, because the one in the menu updated much more than the one on the main screen. Time was wrong and very hard to fix on the command line. Got wireless working. Got her wireless router setup and working. Put buttons under address bar in Firefox for Facebook, Yahoo [for her email] and Youtube. Installed Google chrome also and installed the “LastPass” browser plug-in so she can easily manage her passwords. Trying to make Linux as easy as I can for a not very tech savy person.
Solydk
Found out when I got the Networking “waiting for authorization” problem in Solydk that I can simply log off then back on to fix the problem rather than reboot. Then reenter the Kwallet password. Much quicker. SolydK seems pretty nice!
SolydK
Replace my fall back Linux Distro [see 11/19/2013] from Suse to solydK 64 bit.
SolydK uses Debian as their base. Solydk is their KDE version. It’s a rolling release.
It comes with a Steam installer.
Comes with all codecs installed.
Major updates:
Gimp from v2.6 to v2.8 [single window mode]
LibreOffice from v3.5 to v4.0
Suse is just not sitting right with me. What’s with the continuous gstreamer updates? Like everytime!
And Some updates fail with dependency issues. And Virtualbox was hard to install.
I installed the latest version of Virtualbox on SolydK with the 64 bit version of Debian wheezy and it works great.
I may try Suse again someday because its run by a large community.
The one problem I’m having with SolydK is Networking/KDEwallet. One time Networking comes up…the next it’s “waiting for authorization”. Rebooting seemed like the only option [see above]. I guess I could disable the KDEwallet, but I read somewhere the Network password is stored as plaintext.
openSUSE 13.1: Frustrations
openSUSE 13.1:
Frustrations. Trying to install Oracle VM Virtualbox. Found RPM and
install seemed to go OK. However trying to start existing VMs report
that Kernel modules may need to be recompiled. Command gived errors
out reporting “Make” not installed. Once again trying to
install “make” using YAST shows a rediculous amount of
dependencies needing to be installed. Such as
libre-office-icon-themes libre-office help, samba-client [32 bit no
less], flash-player, java and once again 77MB of KDE wallpapers.
Really? Really? The web one-click install worked and seemed much more
reasonable. Installing software using YAST seems absurd. After all
this it still fails. Googling each problem seems to point to another
fix.
Once again if I had to install this in
openSUSE, I’m sure I could. Went through similar steps to install
many software packages…ten years ago! In Linux Mint I
believe the only thing I had to do after installing was to add a user
to a group.
I don’t want to work this hard in 2013 when I
know I don’t have to! So once again I need to re-evaluate openSUSE as
a fall back distro. Why is this getting such great reviews?
openSUSE 13.1: Recap!
openSUSE 13.1: Recap! Codecs required a little work to get working. Still, probably at least 50 times easier than older distros from a few years back. But still, harder than it should be in 2013. This stuff just worked in Linux Mint. This is a long term supported release…at least 3 years. After installing…some applications required me to manually add them into menu.
So I intend [at least initially] to primarily run a Linux Mint LTS. A new one should be available in a few months. The 32 bit version now requires PAE mode which will access more memory. But I will continue to update and play with openSUSE 13.1 as a fall back option for Linux. This will allow me to be more comfortable with it should the need arise to switch. As far as a skill, knowing openSUSE is probably more valuable than knowing Linux Mint.
openSUSE 13.1
openSUSE 13.1: Finally got VLC and mPlayer working, using 4 terminal commands:
I think the link was:
This also resulted in many packages [157]…but they all seemed to make sense [lib…] and most were small downloads. No 80MB of wallpaper.
If history is any indication…VLC or codecs will be just as hard to install the next release, beause you will have to try many crappy recomendations before you find the one that works!
openSUSE 13.1
openSUSE 13.1: Tried to install VLC again with “one click” install. Webpage had changed some. Noticed it defaulted to “Yast 1-click install” instead of the previous “apper”. This time it installed OK…but still having codec problems trying to play YouTube videos. Found a “one click” install for codecs. But once again it wanted to install an insane amount of dependencies, from things IMHO having nothing to do with codecs. Judging from my Google research this is an ongoing problem with openSUSE. Solution seems to be to use the VLC site itself instead of the openSUSE site. VLC has a “one click” install, but they still don’t for this version. So will wait again! This is very frustrating especially when you read all the glowing reviews. VLC is a very popular program. Installed Stellarium fine. Celestia install seems to go good but it dosen’t. The only thing the local search finds [after the so called install] is kde3-celestia.ymp…which just seems to reinstall it again with the same results. I guess I shouldn’t be an early adopter for openSUSE. I should wait a week or two for other people to smooth out problems. I can only assume it’s a openSUSE problem. After all it’s one-click and dosen’t require a great amount of thinking. Also some of the other programs install fine. Unless it’s a 64 bit problem?
I try install on real my hardware and a VM [which I assume duplicates the same virtual hardware for everyone]. I used Clonezilla for real hardware and VM Clone for the VM, so I can backout incomplete or weird installs. It’s extra work but I feel necessary while I wrap my head around openSUSE’s way of doing things.
openSUSE 13.1
openSUSE 13.1: Installed Thunderbird and Krita with no problems!
openSUSE 13.1
Restore openSUSE 13.1 from a stable Clonezilla image. Tried to “one click” install of VLC again from openSUSE. The VLC site also has “one click” installs…but not for this version yet. This time failed “Dependency resolution failed”. Also tried to install with YAST2 but it wanted to download everything including the kitchen sink….77 MB of kdeartwork4-wallpapers? Bash and Digikam docs? Really? WTH! Will try again in a few days.
openSUSE 13.1
Download/Install openSUSE 13.1 64 bit. Linux Mint is basically headed by one person, and I felt it might be good to have another distro to fall back on. Suse is one of the oldest distros. Wanted to install Flash and VLC to start. Flash installed fine. VLC installed but wouldn’t play any of my existing YouTube videos.
Networking gave me a little problem. Wouldn’t work until I switched YAST>Network Settings>Global Options>User Controlled with Network Manager.