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Why Linux?

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GeoffF100
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Re: Why Linux?

#331792

Postby GeoffF100 » August 8th, 2020, 7:18 pm


GeoffF100
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Re: Why Linux?

#331800

Postby GeoffF100 » August 8th, 2020, 8:05 pm

Also from Quids Up (but without Miss Quids this time), a Xubuntu 20.04 review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYnzqtPiK7s

I am running release 20.04.1 rather than the release 20.04 in the video. The AMD graphics problem should now be fixed (i believe it only affected multiple monitors), but I cannot test that. The problem with the cursor being changed by some snap applications has certainly been fixed. It is not great that these problems occurred 20.04, but it is good that they have now been fixed. In my experience, the Lubuntu team did not fix problems in point releases. A faulty LTS release remained faulty for 3 years, for the faults that I observed anyway.

I installed gedit as a snap from Software. It took ages installing the dependencies. I will install the deb version in future unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. The Synaptic Package Manager lists only the deb packages:

https://geek-university.com/linux/synaptic/

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Re: Why Linux?

#331975

Postby GeoffF100 » August 9th, 2020, 3:54 pm

GeoffF100 wrote:Also from Quids Up (but without Miss Quids this time), a Xubuntu 20.04 review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYnzqtPiK7s

I am running release 20.04.1 rather than the release 20.04 in the video. The AMD graphics problem should now be fixed (i believe it only affected multiple monitors), but I cannot test that. The problem with the cursor being changed by some snap applications has certainly been fixed. It is not great that these problems occurred 20.04, but it is good that they have now been fixed. In my experience, the Lubuntu team did not fix problems in point releases. A faulty LTS release remained faulty for 3 years, for the faults that I observed anyway.

I installed gedit as a snap from Software. It took ages installing the dependencies. I will install the deb version in future unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. The Synaptic Package Manager lists only the deb packages:

https://geek-university.com/linux/synaptic/

I have some corrections to make here. I ran:

Code: Select all

geoff@HP:~$ snap list
Name               Version                     Rev   Tracking       Publisher   Notes
core18             20200724                    1885  latest/stable  canonical✓  base
gedit              3.36.2+git3.8c9da67ab       605   latest/stable  canonical✓  -
gnome-3-28-1804    3.28.0-17-gde3d74c.de3d74c  128   latest/stable  canonical✓  -
gtk-common-themes  0.1-36-gc75f853             1506  latest/stable  canonical✓  -
snapd              2.45.2                      8542  latest/stable  canonical✓  snapd

My installed version of Google Chrome is not a snap. The problem where the mouse cursor changed colour entering a snap did not occur with gedit which is my only snap application.

I have become aware of the snap controversy. Canonical has made it so that if you install Chromium (and presumably other applications) using the apt package (or Synaptic), it installs the snap version rather than the .deb version. The Linux Mint team are not at all happy with this, and have removed support for snap (but you can restore it):

https://itsfoss.com/enable-snap-support-linux-mint/

I cannot say that I am keen snaps either. Gedit (which is a snap) is much slower to load than Mousepad (which is not). To Canonical's credit, Gnome Software does say that the version of Chromium in the store is a snap. It is possible to install Chromium as a .deb package, but it is not simple:

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/202 ... ntu-20-04/

There are some more interesting Quids Up videos here:

https://www.bitchute.com/channel/qbfNrk7CDLSU/

They have certainly prompted me to do some investigation.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338283

Postby GeoffF100 » September 5th, 2020, 10:46 am

I am still happy with Xububtu 20.04, but I decided to have a look at Mint 20. I burned Linux Mint 20 Xfce to a USB flash drive using Startup Disk Creator. I was not keen on the default appearance of MInt, and decided to experiment with the Appearance settings.

The Mint-Y-Aqua Style with Mint-X-Aqua icons looked best. The panel (AKA taskbar) was huge on my 1440 x 900 monitor, so I reduced its width with the slider in Panel Preferences. I still was not happy with the icons, and decided to install the popular Papiris icon set:

https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1166289/

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/07/how ... eme-ubuntu

I found the icon set by searching for “papirus” in the Synaptic package manager:

https://geek-university.com/linux/synaptic/

The Papirus icons looked good, but did not blend well with any of the preinstalled desktop styles. I decided to install the more neutral Greybird Theme (which has been the default on Xubuntu for many years).

https://www.xfce-look.org/p/1016618/

I found the Greybird theme on Mint 20 by searching for “greybird” in Synaptic.

The the edushechkina_ladybird.jpg wallpaper looked the best of the Mint 20 wallpapers to me, and I have copied it over to my Xubuntu system. (I also like jankaluza_blossoms.jpg from Mint 19.2, and have copied that over too.) I installed the Papirus icon set on the Xubuntu system. ePapirus (the version for Elementary OS) gave the best contrast for the for some of the icons on the panel with Xubuntu 20.04.

On Xubuntu 20.04, increasing the panel width from the default 26 pixels to 28 pixels changed the colour of the Papirus “show desktop” icon from grey to light blue, and made some of the icons (including the Xfce mouse "start button") much clearer. The power saving icon then looked rather big though. I did not need that (it's in the menu anyway), so I removed it.

Linux Mint has its own Software Manager for installing applications. I found this tutorial on installing applications on Mint:

https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1525

The recommendation is to run:

sudo apt-get update

in a terminal before installing an application with the Software Manager. I would have thought that would have been done automatically.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338318

Postby JohnB » September 5th, 2020, 12:18 pm

GeoffF100 wrote:I am still happy with Xububtu 20.04, but I decided to have a look at Mint 20


I am still happy with Mint Mate 19, but after your praising Xubunbtu 20.04, I decided to look at it. I didn't like the toolbar at the top (I like menu bars at top, toolbars at bottom), or the double click to select application menu/application. I also tried Lubuntu and Ubuntu, but Ubuntu still has that cartoon interface, so I'm back with Mint again.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338328

Postby Infrasonic » September 5th, 2020, 12:29 pm

Snorvey wrote:
I burned Linux Mint 20 Xfce to a USB flash drive using Startup Disk Creator

I used Rufus, but only because that's what the instructions told me to use.


I've used pretty much all of the third party options over the years but for a really simple and quick process this is hard to beat...https://www.balena.io/etcher/

GeoffF100
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Re: Why Linux?

#338340

Postby GeoffF100 » September 5th, 2020, 1:06 pm

JohnB wrote:
GeoffF100 wrote:I am still happy with Xububtu 20.04, but I decided to have a look at Mint 20

I am still happy with Mint Mate 19, but after your praising Xubunbtu 20.04, I decided to look at it. I didn't like the toolbar at the top (I like menu bars at top, toolbars at bottom), or the double click to select application menu/application. I also tried Lubuntu and Ubuntu, but Ubuntu still has that cartoon interface, so I'm back with Mint again.

It is easy to move the panel (AKA taskbar) to the bottom of the screen. Here is a twenty second video showing how to do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6VenH3lNFM

Both Xubuntu and Mint Xfce share the Xfce desktop. Mint Xfce has the panel at the bottom of the screen by default.

With Xfce, you can have shortcuts on the panel. Click ONCE to launch the corresponding application. With Xfce, you click the "start button" (little mouse in Xubuntu or LM in Mint) ONCE to bring up the Favourites menu, which contains your frequently used applications. You then click ONCE on the application that you wish to launch, or ONCE on the sub-menu you wish to open. Is Mate different?

Xubuntu and Mint Xfce are very similar. They both share the Xfce desktop and Ubuntu base. The installed themes and default settings are different, but can easily be changed. Mint Xfce has more customisation and more applications loaded by default. I cannot say which is better. Currently, I am only running Mint Xfce from a live USB drive.

Ubuntu can be made to look more like Windows:

https://www.howtogeek.com/353819/how-to ... e-windows/

Nonetheless, Xfce is faster and more Windows like, and there are distros that mimic Windows even more closely.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338344

Postby GeoffF100 » September 5th, 2020, 1:25 pm

By the way. Xubuntu 20.04 messes up its display of the desktop if you run from a live USB/DVD. You can fix that problem by typing xfsettingsd in a terminal. That is nuisance, and is one of the reasons why I put Mint 20 Xfce rather than Xubuntu 20.04 on a flash drive. If I want to reinstall Xubuntu 20.04, I can do it from a DVD.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338345

Postby JohnB » September 5th, 2020, 1:26 pm

I'd managed to unlock the panel, but didn't realise you needed to use a handle top right. With Mint MATE you click the green "lm" menu item (the developers don't like this, and hide it from you when you first install, its called "Main Menu"), and then as you move the cursor the submenus expand into new boxes.

Its all muscle memory, I'm sure you could make them all mostly look like each other, but the exceptions would niggle. Although I like MATE, I have much of KDE installed as I like Konsole, which I've used for 20 years, and I run vi in it, which I've used for 30.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338374

Postby GeoffF100 » September 5th, 2020, 3:45 pm

There are handles at both ends of the panel.

Lubuntu 20.04 has the menu behaviour you describe. I found it fiddly. My target sub-menu sometimes collapsed and I had to back-track. As you say, it is matter of muscle memory, and it was not a big problem for me. What I really did not like was the absence of the Favourites menu. Given that, I rarely use the sub-menus. You can get the behaviour you describe with Xfce by right clicking on the desktop, but you then have to go to Applications before getting to the sub-menus. It is possible to install all sorts of launchers:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/08/bes ... untu-linux

I never really got to grips with vi. I have played with vim though, because it can be configured for Python, and it is sometimes convenient to do everything from a terminal.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338420

Postby GeoffF100 » September 5th, 2020, 8:48 pm

It turns out that Linux Mint Xfce does not use the standard Xfce Whisker menu. The Mint Menu will work in both the way that you like and does everything that I want. I have checked that with a live USB drive. The Mint menu looks a little different to the Whisker menu, but I thought that was just the result of different configuration settings.

I am coming round to the view that Mint Xfce may be a better choice than Xubuntu. I will only find out by installing it and using it.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338427

Postby GeoffF100 » September 5th, 2020, 10:11 pm

I have had another play with the Mint Xfce live USB drive. Xubuntu is cosmetically better. I respects the themes better. On some windows, Mint simply ignores the theme. If I change colours in the Mint themes, the colour of the close box changes in some windows but not in others. If I set the panel width to 28 pixels, I get a huge notification icon with ePapirus. That did not happen with Xubuntu. Mint has more customisation, which is sometimes good, but sometimes it is bad too. The Ubuntu base and Xfce desktop are about as solid as you can get. The customisation is sometimes less so.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338460

Postby GeoffF100 » September 6th, 2020, 8:22 am

I have done some further investigation. Some of the icons were too white with ePapirus and did not show in the Whisker menu. Papirus-Dark was better. There is a Xubuntu specific problem with panel scaling. It is best to stick with the default 26 pixels.

Mint works best with its own themes. Mint-Y-Aqua for Style and Mint-X-Aqua for Icons was not bad, but the window close buttons were still green.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338527

Postby GeoffF100 » September 6th, 2020, 12:27 pm

The icon visibility issues stem from having a dark panel and a light sub-menu. The radical solution is to have dark theme menu to match the dark panel. That was the solution adopted in Lubuntu 20.04 which also used the Papirus icons. Xubuntu 20.04 has preinstalled dark themes, but they all make the windows theme dark too. There is a solution. It is possible customise the CSS:

https://gottcode.wordpress.com/2017/10/ ... enu-redux/

That is simple to do, and gives me a dark theme menu without affecting the light grey theme of the windows. It would probably be sufficient just to make the sub-menu panel greyer. I would have to write my own CSS to do that, but that does not look difficult.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338629

Postby GeoffF100 » September 6th, 2020, 9:28 pm

The dark theme looked good, but was not perfect. Some of the CSS did nothing and modifying other bits did not have the expected effect on the main menu. I tried another dark theme from GitHub. but that did not work at all. The dark theme solution was not ideal anyway. A couple of the icons are very dark, notably the mouse and track pad setting.

I put together my own minimalist solution, leaving as much unchanged as I could. I have darkened the sub-menu panel so that it matches the rest of the window, and I highlight the target sub-menu with a gentle blue when the mouse hovers over it. The CSS I used is:

Code: Select all

#whiskermenu-window treeview {
   background-color: #ccc;
   color: #444;
}
#whiskermenu-window treeview:hover {
   background-color: #85C1E9;
   color: #444;
}

I saved that as:

~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

and restarted the panel with:

xfce4-panel -r

The Papirus-Dark icons are all very clear now. Perhaps someone will find this useful one day!

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Re: Why Linux?

#338750

Postby GeoffF100 » September 7th, 2020, 2:08 pm

I am back to ePapirus. The icons did not show up well in GPicView with Papirus-Dark. ePapirus is fine in the Whisker menu with my modifications.

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Re: Why Linux?

#338881

Postby GeoffF100 » September 8th, 2020, 9:05 am

I have looked at the CSS for the Greybird theme, and set my grey scales to the exact values:

Code: Select all

#whiskermenu-window treeview {
   background-color: #cecece;
     color: #3c3c3c;
}
#whiskermenu-window treeview:hover {
   background-color: #85C1E9;
     color: #3c3c3c;
}

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Re: Why Linux?

#338971

Postby GeoffF100 » September 8th, 2020, 1:07 pm

JohnB wrote:I am still happy with Mint Mate 19, but after your praising Xubunbtu 20.04, I decided to look at it. I didn't like the toolbar at the top (I like menu bars at top, toolbars at bottom), or the double click to select application menu/application. I also tried Lubuntu and Ubuntu, but Ubuntu still has that cartoon interface, so I'm back with Mint again.

We have already addressed moving the panel (AKA taskbar) to the bottom of the screen. There is also a simple way of fixing the other issue. The setting is well hidden, but I have just found it:

(1). Right click on the Xfce mouse (start button).

(2). Click Properties.

(3). Click Behaviour.

(4). Click Switch categories by hovering.

The menu then behaves as you want. It also works well for me. It is much better than the Lubuntu 20.04 menu.

I am now using a Mate application: Eye of Mate. Ristretto insists of loading all the images in a directory to show previews. That is a real pain if there are lots of them, particularly if they are on my mobile phone.

I have had a further look at the Greybird theme in /usr/share/themes. I have set my hovering colour to the standard light grey #e8e8e8 rather than the blue. The icon contrast is still good.

I thought that editing icons might be simple, but there are thousands of them. I do not know why the ePapirus "minimise all windows" icon looks the way it does. Perhaps I have not found the right file.

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Re: Why Linux?

#339111

Postby Infrasonic » September 8th, 2020, 10:28 pm

https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/08/ ... tfs_linux/
Paragon has submitted code for a read-write NTFS driver in the Linux kernel, and told The Register that it also plans to provide its NTFS tools and utilities as open source.
Cont.

GeoffF100
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Re: Why Linux?

#339189

Postby GeoffF100 » September 9th, 2020, 10:55 am

Pinebook Pro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9WyYJU4j2A

Interesting, and there is a less capable laptop for $99. A used laptop would make more sense, but would not be so geeky. Something like this from Bree's favourite supplier might be fun for £60:

https://www.cashconverters.co.uk/shop/p ... 0catalogue


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