On 2026-01-28, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:22:41 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
It's alright out of the box, but even then it might intimidate a few
people. I know that if I presented it as is to my mother, especially
since I'm sick of her pressing the wrong thing and requiring my help,
she would probably just stop using the computer altogether because
everything appears so complicated.
And Linux Mint Cinnamon (insert any other DE here) isn't?
Linux Mint Cinnamon (as well as Mate and Linux Mint's customization of
Xfce)
look and feel a lot like Windows 7 or XP.
On 2026-01-27, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 13:43:27 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Those are simpler, but they aren't faster. KDE's code is so optimized
that there is little difference between it and Cinnamon nowadays.
However, the interface is definitely a lot busier than the
alternative,
and it might frighten a lot of people who don't feel the need to have
so much information right in front of them at all times.
??? If anything LM 22.3's start menu is busier than either of my KDE
boxes. Until I start a program it's just the wallpaper since the panel
autohides on all three.
I'm not a fan of it. That's why I'll use the "Classic Menu" when I move
to 22.3 (if I move to 22.3 — no real driving need to do so).
On 2026-01-27, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:53:52 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
Remember how bad Windows 1, 2, and even 3 were? The Atari ST and Mac
were much better.
A friend was all in on Windows but I ignored it until 3.1 which I
eventually upgraded to Windows for Workgroups 3.11, That one had a
Winsock so you didn't have to get the third party implementation from
Trumpet.
I forgot all about Trumpet. That's been a long time ago.
On 2026-01-27, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:58:38 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-27, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 26 Jan 2026 21:03:27 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jan 2026 13:31:03 -0500, DFS wrote:
"Income: The Gentoo Foundation took in $12,066 in fiscal year 2025 >>>>>> (ending 2025/06/30); the dominant part (over 80%) consists of
individual cash donations from the community."
https://www.gentoo.org/news/2026/01/05/new-year.html
I bet those Gentoo devs get hangry.
KDE ate their lunch.
https://linuxiac.com/kde-surpasses-2025-fundraiser-goal-with-record- >>>>> community-support/
I prefer KDE and contribute to the program.
Admittedly, KDE is the best desktop environment Linux has to offer.
It's not my personal cup of tea, but even I have to admit that it's
as good as it gets.
Not to my taste. A much prefer Cinnamon, or Mate, or Xfce.
Those are simpler, but they aren't faster. KDE's code is so optimized
that there is little difference between it and Cinnamon nowadays.
However, the interface is definitely a lot busier than the alternative,
and it might frighten a lot of people who don't feel the need to have
so much information right in front of them at all times.
That's how I see KDE. Too busy. I originally used KDE 2, but when they
went to 3 it was buggy, so I moved to Gnome 2 and Xfce. When I went to
Linux Mint I used Mate for the first 13 (or so) years, because it was basically Gnome 2. Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3, but it works and looks
and works pretty much the same as Mate.
On 2026-01-27, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 07:00:15 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-27, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:57:02 -0500, DFS wrote:
On 1/26/2026 3:30 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:january-2026-update-bugs-issues>
And yet they can produce a higher-quality distribution than
Microsoft can manage with an operating budget several orders of
magniture greater.
You know better than that. It's better organized and documented
than most distros, but Gentoo, like the rest, is a hobby joke full
of the same half-ass application software found all over.
eg if it's quality, why don't users donate more than $1 per year?
>> I bet those Gentoo devs get hangry.
Meanwhile, no-one can find the adults in charge at Microsoft
<https://www.theverge.com/news/867647/microsoft-windows-11-
www.distrowatch.com
Home to hundreds and hundreds of FOSS fanboi distros built because
no adults were allowed to allocate resources into creating a small
number of outstanding distros and applications.
You remember how bad Linux distros were in the 90s and early 2000s,
right? Absent free of charge, I can't imagine GuhNoo/Linux would
have EVER been adopted by more than 0.1% of users.
Admittedly, Linux seemed like a dying fad until Ubuntu released its
first edition. Once that happened, every distribution improved
significantly.
Ubuntu was pretty good when it was still using Gnome 2. Now it's
pushing Snaps and using Gnome 3.
I'm generally open-minded when it comes to what Ubuntu does, but Snaps
are absolutely terrible. The very fact that the application needs to be
closed for a Snap to be updated smells of Windows. The fact that Snaps
are unbelievably slow to load is also a humongous problem. I can
imagine that some people running servers like them for the sandboxing,
but they're awful for a user.
I'm not a fan of the current Ubuntu desktop. I don't like Gnome and I especially don't like Snaps.
-hh wrote this post by blinking in Morse code:
On 1/27/26 18:00, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 15:47:20 -0500, -hh wrote:
...has FOSS done a better job of not orphaning MS's older file
formats that MS themselves have now abandoned?
That’s a question you can easily answer for yourself. How much time
does it take to download and install an open-source office suite, and
seeing what it does with your old documents?
More time than what a Linux advocate would take, for they already have
the software installed, so just needs a test file...like this one:
<https://huntzinger.com/photo/ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt>
Their strong interest to show the superiority of FOSS means that they
should be biting at the bit for just such a golden opportunity.
Huh? It's a golden opportunity to show the difficulty of following
a Microsoft <laughing> specification.
And isn't PPT a hoary old format? PPTX came to be around 2007.
You actually kind of make Lawrence's point about proprietary
formats.
It’s not a question that’s bothered me personally, because I was never >>> that dumb as to entrust anything important to proprietary formats for
long-term archival purposes.
or ... never actually did any important work in that era. /s
You sound just like DFS.
I'm not a fan of the current Ubuntu desktop. I don't like Gnome and I especially don't like Snaps.
Yep. Linux wasn't that easy to download in those days. You could buy
Linux magazines and most months they included a Linux CD but you could
just email Ubuntu and check off how many CDs you wanted and "voila" they
came in the mail.
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then. I'd often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC.
Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive over
to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine specifically for
the installation CD.
Yeah, it actually is. It was over 5% in the U.S. last month. And there
are a lot of "unknowns" in the survey. Windows 11 has definitely gotten
a lot of people looking at Linux. Whether these people actually use
Linux or not, that may be another matter. But Windows 11 and its AI crap
in everything is definitely making people look at alternatives.
On 1/28/2026 7:39 AM, -hh wrote:
Not relevant, because I've already noted this as a shortcoming, plus
if DFS wants to claim otherwise, they can use the above link to
recover that file and provide it in a current PPT format as proof.
I don't answer to 'they'.
People who interested in Linux didn't have the easy access to Linux they
have now. As mentioned in another post, you could buy Linux magazines
that included various Linux distributions, but that was hit and miss.
When Ubuntu came out with the free CDs, suddenly everyone could get
multiple CDs to pass around.
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know
why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was
actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with
Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install
a different desktop environment.
This was back before high speed Internet was everywhere. The CDs were a
great idea.
I am quite familiar with Endeavour's initial installation screen having installed the operating system a few times. It's complete, but that fact might actually be daunting to a lot of users. Try to put yourself in the place who gets freaked out when an icon is out of place, and then ask yourself whether the Endeavour welcome screen or KDE in general is as welcoming to them as you believe it to be for yourself.
<https://huntzinger.com/photo/ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt>
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:39:29 -0500, -hh wrote:
<https://huntzinger.com/photo/ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt>
OK, I tried it. Looks all right to me. LibreOfficeImpress 25.8.4.2.
RonB wrote:
This was back before high speed Internet was everywhere. The CDs were a
great idea.
I wish I could remember the name of the company but it didn't sound like
it had anything to do with computers let alone Linux, For $7 they would
send you a CD of any distro you wanted.
On 28 Jan 2026 23:52:15 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know
why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the
community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was
actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the
community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with
Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install
a different desktop environment.
Mint was created in 2006 and was a fork of Kubuntu using KDE. It
switched to GNOME2 and was in lock step with Ubuntu. I don't know how it differentiated itself. In 2010 LMDE was released but that is still a minority product and is seen as a way out if the LM maintainers get
really pissed at Ubuntu.
2011 was the release of GNOME3, disliked by many and the start of the Cinnamon project. The switch in the leaderboard might well have been
because of Unity although Cinnamon wasn't ready for prime time in 2011.
I'm not sure it is in 2025 if running under Wayland is a requirement. I logged into the 'experimental' Cinnamon/Wayland in 22.3 and it lasted
about 10 minutes.
GNOME2 lives on in MATE that also goes back to 2011. Fickle public, MATE
is a little too traditional; they want some of GNOME3 but not all of it.
Of course Xfce goes back to the late '90s and is really old school.
Gnome 3 is actually not so bad. However, to make it great, you need to
use extensions. The problem is that once Gnome itself is updated, those extensions break and you have to wait until they too are updated. That's
what makes it a mess. Where Cosmic shines is that it integrates a lot of
the things Gnome 3 users get through extensions. The result is that it doesn't break. Also, since it's entirely written in Rust, those leftists
who consider that a pre-requisite should be overjoyed.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:39:29 -0500, -hh wrote:
<https://huntzinger.com/photo/ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt>
OK, I tried it. Looks all right to me. LibreOfficeImpress 25.8.4.2.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 06:10:22 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:39:29 -0500, -hh wrote:
<https://huntzinger.com/photo/ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt>
OK, I tried it. Looks all right to me. LibreOfficeImpress 25.8.4.2.
I just tried it on my side. The document opens as it should, but the
fonts don't fit into the document as they should. They simply need to be shrunk a little bit.
Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote this post by blinking in Morse code:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:39:29 -0500, -hh wrote:
<https://huntzinger.com/photo/ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt>
OK, I tried it. Looks all right to me. LibreOfficeImpress 25.8.4.2.
On mine (same version but build 2), the background was dark.
That's probably a setting I made. I *hate* white backgrounds
("argh it burns!").
But the text bled out of the cells.
Even "file" can't deal with it:
$ file ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt
ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt: data
Heh, I see that the file starts with the magic bytes "0b ad de ed"
("bad deed") :-D
<https://preservation.tylerthorsted.com/2023/10/13/no-bad-deed/>
-hh should read it in and export it as PPTX.
But the main thing is "...son-of-a-gun it worked!"
On 29 Jan 2026 19:10:53 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 06:10:22 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:39:29 -0500, -hh wrote:
<https://huntzinger.com/photo/ADPA-snipertrainer.ppt>
OK, I tried it. Looks all right to me. LibreOfficeImpress 25.8.4.2.
I just tried it on my side. The document opens as it should, but the
fonts don't fit into the document as they should. They simply need to
be shrunk a little bit.
Did you install ttf-mscorefonts-installer? I don't use LibreOffice but
I do remember an article that said having the ttfs goes a long way
towards making it compatible.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:33:30 -0500, -hh wrote:
But the main thing is "...son-of-a-gun it worked!"
I still don’t understand why it was so hard to take a few minutes to
check this for yourself. Is LibreOffice that hard to download for
Windows? Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you
have to do for Microsoft Office, or something?
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:23:57 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
This was back before high speed Internet was everywhere. The CDs were a
great idea.
I wish I could remember the name of the company but it didn't sound like
it had anything to do with computers let alone Linux, For $7 they would
send you a CD of any distro you wanted.
I could picture the operation since I'd bought a Compaq laptop from 4G's Plumbing. The owner was interested in computers and that was his little sideline when he wasn't unclogging drains.
'Free' CDs were the great idea.
https://archive.org/details/mandrake-7.2-power-pack
7.2 was released in September 2000. iirc the price was around $40, not the $2 tag sale price. SUSE and others also had shrink wrapped offerings like any other software being distributed in the late '90s early 2000s. The experience was a little slicker than a CD from the back of a magazine and they were readily available at BestBuy, FutureShoppe, circuit City, etc.
But FREE as in beer? Oh yeah!
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:29:41 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
Yeah, it actually is. It was over 5% in the U.S. last month. And there
are a lot of "unknowns" in the survey. Windows 11 has definitely gotten
a lot of people looking at Linux. Whether these people actually use
Linux or not, that may be another matter. But Windows 11 and its AI crap
in everything is definitely making people look at alternatives.
So far the library program has attracted one potential convert. Not a smashing success although it is somewhat hampered by a lack of publicity.
There is a MLUG google group that's been deader than Kelso's nuts since 2007. Floating out the idea of moving it to Discord awakened the dinosaurs wondering why the switch.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:31:45 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-28, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 02:54:49 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:29:00 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
The numbers don't lie. Ubuntu was the catalyst for a great number of >>>>> people giving Linux a chance and the free CDs weren't the only
reason. Unlike most Linux distributions, both the installer and the
installed product worked as they should and it made Linux easy for
most people. That's not to say Debian and others weren't easy enough >>>>> _before_ Ubuntu's release, but Ubuntu finally attracted the
mainstream users who weren't as dedicated as we all were to getting
the operating system working for us.
Leading to the Year of the Linux Desktop, right? You may have a better >>>> chance of witnessing the second coming.
It wasn't the second coming, but suddenly Linux was an operating system
which could appeal to regular people as much as the geeks.
Yep. Linux wasn't that easy to download in those days. You could buy
Linux magazines and most months they included a Linux CD but you could
just email Ubuntu and check off how many CDs you wanted and "voila" they
came in the mail.
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then. I'd often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC. Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive over
to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine specifically for
the installation CD.
On 29 Jan 2026 00:04:17 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then. I'd
often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC.
Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive over
to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine specifically for
the installation CD.
The CD is long gone but I have the third edition of 'Red Hat Linux Unleashed' from 1998 that came with Red Hat Linux 5.2. It is 1005 pages without a lot of filler.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:31:45 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
Yep. Linux wasn't that easy to download in those days. You could buy
Linux magazines and most months they included a Linux CD but you could
just email Ubuntu and check off how many CDs you wanted and "voila" they
came in the mail.
I'd have to check the box for the version but I bought SUSE from BestBuy
in a shrink wrapped box with all the installation media and real, paper books with documentation.
I still haven't figured out Canonical's business model. I don't think they ever got the traction of RHEL or SLED in the enterprise world.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:36:16 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
People who interested in Linux didn't have the easy access to Linux they
have now. As mentioned in another post, you could buy Linux magazines
that included various Linux distributions, but that was hit and miss.
When Ubuntu came out with the free CDs, suddenly everyone could get
multiple CDs to pass around.
Question: iirc Canonical didn't follow the AOL model and bulk mail CDs
but would send them to you on request. Why were people suddenly requesting CDs? How did they even hear about Linux? Mandrake had been the previous newbie distro and came as a boxed set. If Mandrake had mailed out free CDs would it have achieved the same penetration. (ignoring the copyright suit and name change)
On 28 Jan 2026 20:00:10 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 13:52:47 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 02:54:49 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:29:00 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
The numbers don't lie. Ubuntu was the catalyst for a great number of >>>>> people giving Linux a chance and the free CDs weren't the only
reason.
Unlike most Linux distributions, both the installer and the installed >>>>> product worked as they should and it made Linux easy for most people. >>>>> That's not to say Debian and others weren't easy enough _before_
Ubuntu's release, but Ubuntu finally attracted the mainstream users
who weren't as dedicated as we all were to getting the operating
system working for us.
Leading to the Year of the Linux Desktop, right? You may have a better >>>> chance of witnessing the second coming.
It wasn't the second coming, but suddenly Linux was an operating system
which could appeal to regular people as much as the geeks.
Distrowatch's methodology is shaky but assuming page hits have some
correlation to usage, as expected Ubunutu hits the list in 2005. By
2011, a derivative, Mint, was topping the charts. However the page hits
on all distros had increased.
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with Unity.
If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install a
different desktop environment.
Recently MX Linux was the leader but was replaced by CachyOS in 2025.
That's why I take the rankings with a big grain of salt. Are people
really using CachyOS or are the page hits "what the hell is CachyOS?'
Maybe Ubunutu attracted more attention. 2005 was still Windows XP which
wasn't alienating people. Was it just the free CDs?
I've seen lots of distributions come and go. At this point, I'm content to choose either a distribution that is immensely popular like Mint, or one backed by a company like Pop_OS!. Both are good, but I see more promise
with Pop_OS! because System76 is going in its own direction and doing
what's best for productive users, not trying to please everyone at once.
The keyboard shortcuts enabled by default in Pop_OS! are kind of neat (ex: Super+T to open a terminal, Super+b to open the default browser, Super+m
to maximize the current window, etc.), but it's still not great with quick changes to external monitors.
On 28 Jan 2026 23:52:15 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know
why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the
community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was
actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the
community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with
Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install
a different desktop environment.
Mint was created in 2006 and was a fork of Kubuntu using KDE. It switched
to GNOME2 and was in lock step with Ubuntu. I don't know how it differentiated itself. In 2010 LMDE was released but that is still a minority product and is seen as a way out if the LM maintainers get really pissed at Ubuntu.
2011 was the release of GNOME3, disliked by many and the start of the Cinnamon project. The switch in the leaderboard might well have been
because of Unity although Cinnamon wasn't ready for prime time in 2011.
I'm not sure it is in 2025 if running under Wayland is a requirement. I logged into the 'experimental' Cinnamon/Wayland in 22.3 and it lasted
about 10 minutes.
GNOME2 lives on in MATE that also goes back to 2011. Fickle public, MATE
is a little too traditional; they want some of GNOME3 but not all of it.
Of course Xfce goes back to the late '90s and is really old school.
On 29 Jan 2026 03:01:46 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 23:52:15 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know
why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the
community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was
actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the
community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with
Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install
a different desktop environment.
Mint was created in 2006 and was a fork of Kubuntu using KDE. It
switched to GNOME2 and was in lock step with Ubuntu. I don't know how it
differentiated itself. In 2010 LMDE was released but that is still a
minority product and is seen as a way out if the LM maintainers get
really pissed at Ubuntu.
Except that now, they are trapped. Both Ubuntu and Debian are proceeding with a rewrite of the most common terminal tools from C to Rust, and it seems to be breaking things. For better or for worse, Mint will share in Ubuntu's mistakes.
2011 was the release of GNOME3, disliked by many and the start of the
Cinnamon project. The switch in the leaderboard might well have been
because of Unity although Cinnamon wasn't ready for prime time in 2011.
I'm not sure it is in 2025 if running under Wayland is a requirement. I
logged into the 'experimental' Cinnamon/Wayland in 22.3 and it lasted
about 10 minutes.
I used it for a bit and it worked fine... until I decided that I could
teach my class with it. Apparently, Cinnamon doesn't do well with
mirroring or extending your laptop screen because it crashed and required
a log out. I won't be using Wayland with Mint for a bit.
GNOME2 lives on in MATE that also goes back to 2011. Fickle public, MATE
is a little too traditional; they want some of GNOME3 but not all of it.
Of course Xfce goes back to the late '90s and is really old school.
Gnome 3 is actually not so bad. However, to make it great, you need to use extensions. The problem is that once Gnome itself is updated, those extensions break and you have to wait until they too are updated. That's what makes it a mess. Where Cosmic shines is that it integrates a lot of
the things Gnome 3 users get through extensions. The result is that it doesn't break. Also, since it's entirely written in Rust, those leftists
who consider that a pre-requisite should be overjoyed.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:09:55 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-27, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 13:43:27 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Those are simpler, but they aren't faster. KDE's code is so optimized
that there is little difference between it and Cinnamon nowadays.
However, the interface is definitely a lot busier than the
alternative,
and it might frighten a lot of people who don't feel the need to have
so much information right in front of them at all times.
??? If anything LM 22.3's start menu is busier than either of my KDE
boxes. Until I start a program it's just the wallpaper since the panel
autohides on all three.
I'm not a fan of it. That's why I'll use the "Classic Menu" when I move
to 22.3 (if I move to 22.3 — no real driving need to do so).
Not if it works. It came up on r/linuxmint today that if you upgrade to
22.3 you don't necessarily get the 6.14 kernel. Apparently the 22.2 iso I installed had it but if your original install had 6.8 that what it will stay.
For the library program we'll use the 22.3 isos. Windows refugees won't
know any difference.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:11:39 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-28, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:22:41 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
It's alright out of the box, but even then it might intimidate a few
people. I know that if I presented it as is to my mother, especially
since I'm sick of her pressing the wrong thing and requiring my help,
she would probably just stop using the computer altogether because
everything appears so complicated.
And Linux Mint Cinnamon (insert any other DE here) isn't?
Linux Mint Cinnamon (as well as Mate and Linux Mint's customization of
Xfce)
look and feel a lot like Windows 7 or XP.
The default KDE desktop looks a lot like Windows 7 too. Start menu with categories, taskbar or panel, whatever you want to call it. KDE doesn't
have all the crappy icons that resulted from the bloatware installed by sellers but you can add them if you want.
MATE sort of looked like bargain basement Cinnamon. LM's take on Xfce surprised me. It's more Windows like than the stock Debian.
It's a prety short list of what doesn't look like Windows 7 besides most GNOME configurations. They look more like Windows 8.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:15:07 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I'm not a fan of the current Ubuntu desktop. I don't like Gnome and I
especially don't like Snaps.
Simple twist of fate: a couple of isos failed for whatever reason and the Ubuntu one worked on the Beelink SER4. I was sick of screwing around so Ubuntu it was.
I still don't like it but it doesn't get in my way too often. Yesterday
was an exception. I was playing around with geopandas. Assuming nybb is a set of shapefiles
nybb.explore().show_in_browser()
uses folium to export a file like folium_5a0tbao5.html to /tmp and open
it in the default browser. My default browser is Brave which is a snap.
snaps are sandboxed and /tmp ain't in their allowed sandbox. folium is buried someplace in geopandas so good luck getting it to write to
someplace in the sandbox.
Also every damn snap is a mount. I'll run the Ubuntu box until it dies but
I think OpenSUSE is next up.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:17:18 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-27, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:53:52 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
Remember how bad Windows 1, 2, and even 3 were? The Atari ST and Mac
were much better.
A friend was all in on Windows but I ignored it until 3.1 which I
eventually upgraded to Windows for Workgroups 3.11, That one had a
Winsock so you didn't have to get the third party implementation from
Trumpet.
I forgot all about Trumpet. That's been a long time ago.
My first real 'ISP' consisted of a Unix shell account on a machine in the back of a golf pro shop. It came with a floppy containing the Trumpet Winsock, Netscape Navigator, TIA and wishes for good luck.
I'd been using Delphi and they had sort of bridged to the fledgling web
but this was the real, more or less, thing.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:33:30 -0500, -hh wrote:
But the main thing is "...son-of-a-gun it worked!"
I still don’t understand why it was so hard to take a few minutes to
check this for yourself.
Is LibreOffice that hard to download for Windows?
Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you
have to do for Microsoft Office, or something?
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:23:57 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
This was back before high speed Internet was everywhere. The CDs were
a great idea.
I wish I could remember the name of the company but it didn't sound
like it had anything to do with computers let alone Linux, For $7 they
would send you a CD of any distro you wanted.
I could picture the operation since I'd bought a Compaq laptop from
4G's Plumbing. The owner was interested in computers and that was his
little sideline when he wasn't unclogging drains.
'Free' CDs were the great idea.
https://archive.org/details/mandrake-7.2-power-pack
7.2 was released in September 2000. iirc the price was around $40, not
the $2 tag sale price. SUSE and others also had shrink wrapped
offerings like any other software being distributed in the late '90s
early 2000s. The experience was a little slicker than a CD from the
back of a magazine and they were readily available at BestBuy,
FutureShoppe, circuit City, etc.
But FREE as in beer? Oh yeah!
I bought SuSE from Best Buy. Corel Linux from (I believe) CompUSA. And Caldera a couple times from... I can't remember where for sure, but I
think it was at the computer stores that used to be in Barnes & Noble... Software Etc. I also bought books that had Fedora and Red Hat CDs
included. And there was another commercial Linux distribution — can't remember its name — but it's the one that had to change its name because
it was too close to Windows. I'm sure there were some others that I
can't remember.
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:29:41 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
Yeah, it actually is. It was over 5% in the U.S. last month. And there
are a lot of "unknowns" in the survey. Windows 11 has definitely
gotten a lot of people looking at Linux. Whether these people actually
use Linux or not, that may be another matter. But Windows 11 and its
AI crap in everything is definitely making people look at
alternatives.
So far the library program has attracted one potential convert. Not a
smashing success although it is somewhat hampered by a lack of
publicity.
There is a MLUG google group that's been deader than Kelso's nuts since
2007. Floating out the idea of moving it to Discord awakened the
dinosaurs wondering why the switch.
Windows 11 has made a lot of people restless about Windows. Where they
end up, I have no idea.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:32:52 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:29:41 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
Yeah, it actually is. It was over 5% in the U.S. last month. And there >>>> are a lot of "unknowns" in the survey. Windows 11 has definitely
gotten a lot of people looking at Linux. Whether these people actually >>>> use Linux or not, that may be another matter. But Windows 11 and its
AI crap in everything is definitely making people look at
alternatives.
So far the library program has attracted one potential convert. Not a
smashing success although it is somewhat hampered by a lack of
publicity.
There is a MLUG google group that's been deader than Kelso's nuts since
2007. Floating out the idea of moving it to Discord awakened the
dinosaurs wondering why the switch.
Windows 11 has made a lot of people restless about Windows. Where they
end up, I have no idea.
I'm thinking Mint. Ubuntu used to be the default choice for most people,
but most Linux users no longer see it as "the people's Linux" as much as
they do Mint. Zorin might also attract a few, especially since it's rather easy to make it look like Windows.
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu when
they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right. Like I
say,
we'll see.
Are people really using CachyOS
or are the page hits "what the hell is CachyOS?'
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On 29 Jan 2026 00:04:17 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then.
I'd often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC.
Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive
over to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine
specifically for the installation CD.
The CD is long gone but I have the third edition of 'Red Hat Linux
Unleashed' from 1998 that came with Red Hat Linux 5.2. It is 1005
pages without a lot of filler.
I bought several of those books over the years. Never did read one
through.
I guess I got them mostly for the CDs (and later) DVDs.
Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you
have to do for Microsoft Office, or something?
For the library program we'll use the 22.3 isos. Windows refugees won't
know any difference.
I don't know what machines you're installing this on, but if they're
newer, kernel 6.14 "might" work better. (It's easy to drop back to 6.8
if the new kernel causes issues.)
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:31:05 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:23:57 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
This was back before high speed Internet was everywhere. The CDs were
a great idea.
I wish I could remember the name of the company but it didn't sound
like it had anything to do with computers let alone Linux, For $7 they
would send you a CD of any distro you wanted.
I could picture the operation since I'd bought a Compaq laptop from
4G's Plumbing. The owner was interested in computers and that was his
little sideline when he wasn't unclogging drains.
'Free' CDs were the great idea.
https://archive.org/details/mandrake-7.2-power-pack
7.2 was released in September 2000. iirc the price was around $40, not
the $2 tag sale price. SUSE and others also had shrink wrapped
offerings like any other software being distributed in the late '90s
early 2000s. The experience was a little slicker than a CD from the
back of a magazine and they were readily available at BestBuy,
FutureShoppe, circuit City, etc.
But FREE as in beer? Oh yeah!
I bought SuSE from Best Buy. Corel Linux from (I believe) CompUSA. And
Caldera a couple times from... I can't remember where for sure, but I
think it was at the computer stores that used to be in Barnes & Noble...
Software Etc. I also bought books that had Fedora and Red Hat CDs
included. And there was another commercial Linux distribution — can't
remember its name — but it's the one that had to change its name because >> it was too close to Windows. I'm sure there were some others that I
can't remember.
You're thinking of Lindows. I remember installing that for my mother on a used computer I bought her. It did the job, to an extent. In the end, it wasn't very good. You're much better off with a Linux distribution which isn't trying to copy an established operating system.
I'm thinking Mint. Ubuntu used to be the default choice for most people,
but most Linux users no longer see it as "the people's Linux" as much as
they do Mint. Zorin might also attract a few, especially since it's
rather easy to make it look like Windows.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:32:52 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:29:41 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
Yeah, it actually is. It was over 5% in the U.S. last month. And there >>>> are a lot of "unknowns" in the survey. Windows 11 has definitely
gotten a lot of people looking at Linux. Whether these people actually >>>> use Linux or not, that may be another matter. But Windows 11 and its
AI crap in everything is definitely making people look at
alternatives.
So far the library program has attracted one potential convert. Not a
smashing success although it is somewhat hampered by a lack of
publicity.
There is a MLUG google group that's been deader than Kelso's nuts since
2007. Floating out the idea of moving it to Discord awakened the
dinosaurs wondering why the switch.
Windows 11 has made a lot of people restless about Windows. Where they
end up, I have no idea.
I'm thinking Mint. Ubuntu used to be the default choice for most people,
but most Linux users no longer see it as "the people's Linux" as much as they do Mint. Zorin might also attract a few, especially since it's rather easy to make it look like Windows.
We all love to see the rising interest in installing Linux as a novelty,
but the reality is that the biggest beneficiary of the rejection of
Win11 is still Win10.
The first version of Linux Mint came out in 2006. linuxmint.com has been active since December, 2000. Clément Lefèbvre would post reviews of
Linux distributions on his site before developing his own distribution.
I guess he saw something he thought he could improve. The first version
of Linux Mint was based off Kubuntu (KDE Ubuntu). So Linux Mint predated Unity. But apparently, by the time Unity had come out, Linux Mint was
known as a decent alternative and Unity gave its surge in popularity.
I used Mandrake Linux for a short while. That was right before we got
high speed Internet for the first time via AT&T cable. I was working in
Tulsa and my wife called from Texas and let me know that it had been installed. I told her to download Firefox, she did, there was a pause... "It's not working." I said, "maybe it's already downloaded" — she
checked and it was. So that was basically the end of buying Linux CDs.
On 1/29/26 17:43, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
Is LibreOffice that hard to download for Windows?
I wouldn't know about Windows in this context.
Not applicable, but regardless of how easy/hard that it would be for
a non Linux/FOSS advocate user to search, find, download, install
the LibreOffice App, and THEN download the reference file to test it
...
SO why did it just finally get solved in 2026?
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 22:43:58 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you have
to do for Microsoft Office, or something?
This is a lie.
Cinnamon is Linux Mint's own so, I'm guessing, it's probably got the
best integration. But I like what Linux Mint has done with Mate and Xfce
— all three look and feel pretty much the same. A lot of people use Xfce for older machines because it's lighter. But it's not hard to move from
one to the others. I think this is rare in the Linux distribution world.
It may only be Linux Mint that does this with three different desktops.
There were a few of those Linux magazines. I'm guessing they're either
dead or limping badly as the Internet has pretty much killed them.
I didn't realize Unity was still maintained. You can download Ubuntu
Unity, Manjaro Unity and even Gentoo7 Unity. Just to see what it looks
like, I'm downloading Ubuntu Unity 25.04 to put on my Ventoy USB.
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On 29 Jan 2026 00:04:17 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then. I'd >> often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC.
Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive over >> to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine specifically for
the installation CD.
The CD is long gone but I have the third edition of 'Red Hat Linux Unleashed' from 1998 that came with Red Hat Linux 5.2. It is 1005 pages without a lot of filler.
I bought several of those books over the years. Never did read one through. I guess I got them mostly for the CDs (and later) DVDs.
At Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:36:37 -0000 (UTC), RonB <ronb02NOSPAM@gmail.com> wrote:
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On 29 Jan 2026 00:04:17 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then. I'd >> often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC.
Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive over >> to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine specifically for >> the installation CD.
The CD is long gone but I have the third edition of 'Red Hat Linux Unleashed' from 1998 that came with Red Hat Linux 5.2. It is 1005 pages without a lot of filler.
I bought several of those books over the years. Never did read one through.
I guess I got them mostly for the CDs (and later) DVDs.
Mrs. vallor gave me a copy of the Nov. issue of _Linux Magazine_
as a stocking-stuffer for Christmas. They are going strong, apparently thanks to online subscriptions.
https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2026/303
November's issue included an article on how to create a virus
for Linux. Fascinating stuff, and a _lot_ about the security
measures employed in modern Linux executables.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:43:00 -0500, -hh wrote:
On 1/29/26 17:43, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
Is LibreOffice that hard to download for Windows?
I wouldn't know about Windows in this context.
So in what context *do* you know about Windows?
Not applicable, but regardless of how easy/hard that it would be for
a non Linux/FOSS advocate user to search, find, download, install
the LibreOffice App, and THEN download the reference file to test it
...
You don’t know how to find LibreOffice? There is this thing called
“web search” which, while it might not be as convenient as integrated OS-level package search, should still lead you in the right direction, eventually.
Also, I didn’t need to actually download your reference file, at
least, not as a separate manual step: I just pointed loimpress
directly at the URL, and it loaded immediately.
SO why did it just finally get solved in 2026?
It was likely “solved” long before, it’s just nobody else could be bothered with your pointless challenge.
On 2026-01-29, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:31:45 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-28, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 02:54:49 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:29:00 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
The numbers don't lie. Ubuntu was the catalyst for a great number
of people giving Linux a chance and the free CDs weren't the only
reason. Unlike most Linux distributions, both the installer and the >>>>>> installed product worked as they should and it made Linux easy for >>>>>> most people. That's not to say Debian and others weren't easy
enough _before_ Ubuntu's release, but Ubuntu finally attracted the >>>>>> mainstream users who weren't as dedicated as we all were to getting >>>>>> the operating system working for us.
Leading to the Year of the Linux Desktop, right? You may have a
better chance of witnessing the second coming.
It wasn't the second coming, but suddenly Linux was an operating
system which could appeal to regular people as much as the geeks.
Yep. Linux wasn't that easy to download in those days. You could buy
Linux magazines and most months they included a Linux CD but you could
just email Ubuntu and check off how many CDs you wanted and "voila"
they came in the mail.
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then.
I'd often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC.
Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive
over to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine
specifically for the installation CD.
There were a few of those Linux magazines. I'm guessing they're either
dead or limping badly as the Internet has pretty much killed them.
On 2026-01-28, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 20:00:10 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 13:52:47 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 02:54:49 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:29:00 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
The numbers don't lie. Ubuntu was the catalyst for a great number
of people giving Linux a chance and the free CDs weren't the only
reason.
Unlike most Linux distributions, both the installer and the
installed product worked as they should and it made Linux easy for >>>>>> most people.
That's not to say Debian and others weren't easy enough _before_
Ubuntu's release, but Ubuntu finally attracted the mainstream users >>>>>> who weren't as dedicated as we all were to getting the operating
system working for us.
Leading to the Year of the Linux Desktop, right? You may have a
better chance of witnessing the second coming.
It wasn't the second coming, but suddenly Linux was an operating
system which could appeal to regular people as much as the geeks.
Distrowatch's methodology is shaky but assuming page hits have some
correlation to usage, as expected Ubunutu hits the list in 2005. By
2011, a derivative, Mint, was topping the charts. However the page
hits on all distros had increased.
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know
why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the
community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was
actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the
community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with
Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install
a different desktop environment.
The first version of Linux Mint came out in 2006. linuxmint.com has been active since December, 2000. Clément Lefèbvre would post reviews of
Linux distributions on his site before developing his own distribution.
I guess he saw something he thought he could improve. The first version
of Linux Mint was based off Kubuntu (KDE Ubuntu). So Linux Mint predated Unity. But apparently, by the time Unity had come out, Linux Mint was
known as a decent alternative and Unity gave its surge in popularity.
Recently MX Linux was the leader but was replaced by CachyOS in 2025.
That's why I take the rankings with a big grain of salt. Are people
really using CachyOS or are the page hits "what the hell is CachyOS?'
Maybe Ubunutu attracted more attention. 2005 was still Windows XP
which wasn't alienating people. Was it just the free CDs?
I've seen lots of distributions come and go. At this point, I'm content
to choose either a distribution that is immensely popular like Mint, or
one backed by a company like Pop_OS!. Both are good, but I see more
promise with Pop_OS! because System76 is going in its own direction and
doing what's best for productive users, not trying to please everyone
at once. The keyboard shortcuts enabled by default in Pop_OS! are kind
of neat (ex:
Super+T to open a terminal, Super+b to open the default browser,
Super+m to maximize the current window, etc.), but it's still not great
with quick changes to external monitors.
I'll try Pop_OS! again in a few months. My first trial of Cosmic was
okay, but my impression was that it's still in "beta." Besides I'm so
used to Linux Mint I don't see ever moving away from it.
On 2026-01-29, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 29 Jan 2026 03:01:46 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 23:52:15 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't
know why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was
because the community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case,
Canonical was actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little
surprised that the community were against it. Similarly, there was
nothing wrong with Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could
go ahead and install a different desktop environment.
Mint was created in 2006 and was a fork of Kubuntu using KDE. It
switched to GNOME2 and was in lock step with Ubuntu. I don't know how
it differentiated itself. In 2010 LMDE was released but that is still
a minority product and is seen as a way out if the LM maintainers get
really pissed at Ubuntu.
Except that now, they are trapped. Both Ubuntu and Debian are
proceeding with a rewrite of the most common terminal tools from C to
Rust, and it seems to be breaking things. For better or for worse, Mint
will share in Ubuntu's mistakes.
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu when
they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right. Like I
say, we'll see.
2011 was the release of GNOME3, disliked by many and the start of the
Cinnamon project. The switch in the leaderboard might well have been
because of Unity although Cinnamon wasn't ready for prime time in
2011. I'm not sure it is in 2025 if running under Wayland is a
requirement. I logged into the 'experimental' Cinnamon/Wayland in 22.3
and it lasted about 10 minutes.
I used it for a bit and it worked fine... until I decided that I could
teach my class with it. Apparently, Cinnamon doesn't do well with
mirroring or extending your laptop screen because it crashed and
required a log out. I won't be using Wayland with Mint for a bit.
I have no desire to move to Wayland, so as long as Xorg works well in
Linux Mint, I'm happy.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:33:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu
when they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right. Like
I say,
we'll see.
They've been holding LMDE in reserve if Ubuntu goes off the deep end.
I've never tried it but I understand Debian with the Cinnamon DE is less polished than LMDE.
On 1/29/26 17:43, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:33:30 -0500, -hh wrote:
But the main thing is "...son-of-a-gun it worked!"
I still don’t understand why it was so hard to take a few minutes to check this for yourself.
Because:
a) COLA is a Linux advocacy group, so the advocates by effective
definition should be more than happy to do this.
b) COLA is a Linux advocacy group, and I've provided this challenge in
the past and no advocate had ever succeed before.
Case in point, here's a reminder from 2015:
"Clifford Stohl proved that belief to be false over a decade ago. And
I could re-post that old PowerPoint file with a $50 cash reward to
rove it yet again: care to make it into a friendly wager for charity?"
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.linux.advocacy/c/YB_G3oWL3xU/m/OwBDZT1rO3oJ>
SO why did it just finally get solved in 2026? So is the reason why it
was finally solved now that something changed in FOSS, or are COLA's advocates just so incompetent? Or just plain lazy?
Is LibreOffice that hard to download for Windows?
I wouldn't know about Windows in this context.
Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you
have to do for Microsoft Office, or something?
Not applicable, but regardless of how easy/hard that it would be for a
non Linux/FOSS advocate user to search, find, download, install the LibreOffice App, and THEN download the reference file to test it ...
... that its vastly easier for the COLA Linux FOSS advocate, since
they've already done those first four steps: they merely needed to right-click on the provided link & drop it on their already installed
App to run the test.
That's much easier, so why did none of those insult-slinging monkeys
ever bother to do this for over a decade?
As I said, is the reason why it was finally solved now because:
* the FOSS App recently added ancient file format support?
* that COLA's FOSS advocates are incompetent?
* that COLA's FOSS advocates are just plain lazy?
YMMV, but I don't particularly feel like reading ~30 years of software release notes to see if its the first possibility, but you're welcome to
do it - because that's what's needed (& exist) to defend the COLA participants who've failed to show a FOSS solution for over a decade.
-hh
We all love to see the rising interest in installing Linux as a novelty,
but the reality is that the biggest beneficiary of the rejection of
Win11 is still Win10.
There will be some hard choices. Someone on a Windows ng is bitching
because TurboTax won't install on Win10. It's not going to fly on Linux either so what to do?
There will be more and more things that won't install or update on Win10. They probably would work fine but software companies aren't going to test
new releases on an unsupported OS so they'll do a version check and bail.
How many will take the leap into the great unknown versus biting the
bullet and buying a new laptop? The timing sort of sucks as AI sucks up
every last bit of RAM.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:33:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu when
they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right. Like I
say,
we'll see.
They've been holding LMDE in reserve if Ubuntu goes off the deep end. I've never tried it but I understand Debian with the Cinnamon DE is less
polished than LMDE.
On 30 Jan 2026 19:55:30 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:33:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu
when they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right. Like
I say,
we'll see.
They've been holding LMDE in reserve if Ubuntu goes off the deep end.
I've never tried it but I understand Debian with the Cinnamon DE is less
polished than LMDE.
LMDE is almost identical to Linux Mint. The only difference I recall is
that LMDE doesn't have the easy installer for restricted hardware
drivers.
On 2026-01-30, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:31:05 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-29, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:23:57 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
This was back before high speed Internet was everywhere. The CDs were >>>>> a great idea.
I wish I could remember the name of the company but it didn't sound
like it had anything to do with computers let alone Linux, For $7 they >>>> would send you a CD of any distro you wanted.
I could picture the operation since I'd bought a Compaq laptop from
4G's Plumbing. The owner was interested in computers and that was his
little sideline when he wasn't unclogging drains.
'Free' CDs were the great idea.
https://archive.org/details/mandrake-7.2-power-pack
7.2 was released in September 2000. iirc the price was around $40, not >>>> the $2 tag sale price. SUSE and others also had shrink wrapped
offerings like any other software being distributed in the late '90s
early 2000s. The experience was a little slicker than a CD from the
back of a magazine and they were readily available at BestBuy,
FutureShoppe, circuit City, etc.
But FREE as in beer? Oh yeah!
I bought SuSE from Best Buy. Corel Linux from (I believe) CompUSA. And
Caldera a couple times from... I can't remember where for sure, but I
think it was at the computer stores that used to be in Barnes & Noble... >>> Software Etc. I also bought books that had Fedora and Red Hat CDs
included. And there was another commercial Linux distribution — can't
remember its name — but it's the one that had to change its name because >>> it was too close to Windows. I'm sure there were some others that I
can't remember.
You're thinking of Lindows. I remember installing that for my mother on a >> used computer I bought her. It did the job, to an extent. In the end, it
wasn't very good. You're much better off with a Linux distribution which
isn't trying to copy an established operating system.
That was pretty much my experience with it. It installed, worked okay, but nothing special. By the time I bought it, it was already renamed Linspire. I was surprised to see that Linspire is still being sold. It looks like their website is stuck in the 90s, but the current kernel is 6.8 and they're up to version 14, so I guess they're still updating it.
You can still download Freespire 9.x, but the 10.x beta goes to dead links. So Freespire is currently stuck in 2023.
https://www.linspirelinux.com/
At Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:43:00 -0500, -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
On 1/29/26 17:43, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:33:30 -0500, -hh wrote:
But the main thing is "...son-of-a-gun it worked!"
I still don’t understand why it was so hard to take a few minutes to
check this for yourself.
Because:
a) COLA is a Linux advocacy group, so the advocates by effective
definition should be more than happy to do this.
b) COLA is a Linux advocacy group, and I've provided this challenge in
the past and no advocate had ever succeed before.
Case in point, here's a reminder from 2015:
"Clifford Stohl proved that belief to be false over a decade ago. And I
could re-post that old PowerPoint file with a $50 cash reward to rove
it yet again: care to make it into a friendly wager for charity?"
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.linux.advocacy/c/YB_G3oWL3xU/m/ OwBDZT1rO3oJ>
SO why did it just finally get solved in 2026? So is the reason why it
was finally solved now that something changed in FOSS, or are COLA's
advocates just so incompetent? Or just plain lazy?
Is LibreOffice that hard to download for Windows?
I wouldn't know about Windows in this context.
Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you have to
do for Microsoft Office, or something?
Not applicable, but regardless of how easy/hard that it would be for a
non Linux/FOSS advocate user to search, find, download, install the
LibreOffice App, and THEN download the reference file to test it ...
... that its vastly easier for the COLA Linux FOSS advocate, since
they've already done those first four steps: they merely needed to
right-click on the provided link & drop it on their already installed
App to run the test.
That's much easier, so why did none of those insult-slinging monkeys
ever bother to do this for over a decade?
As I said, is the reason why it was finally solved now because:
* the FOSS App recently added ancient file format support?
* that COLA's FOSS advocates are incompetent?
* that COLA's FOSS advocates are just plain lazy?
YMMV, but I don't particularly feel like reading ~30 years of software
release notes to see if its the first possibility, but you're welcome
to do it - because that's what's needed (& exist) to defend the COLA
participants who've failed to show a FOSS solution for over a decade.
-hh
So FOSS solves your problem, and your response is to...insult your
audience?
You might consider that the "issue" is nobody cared enough about your
problem to help you with it...and that is less likely in the future, if you're going to sling insults at your readers.
On 30 Jan 2026 18:07:54 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
I'm thinking Mint. Ubuntu used to be the default choice for most people,
but most Linux users no longer see it as "the people's Linux" as much as
they do Mint. Zorin might also attract a few, especially since it's
rather easy to make it look like Windows.
Mint works. I can live with anything but my favorite is KDE/Plasma which
is not supported on Mint. That preference goes way back, probably to GNOME 1. That was another side effect of Trolltech's arcane licensing of Qt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Desktop_Environment_1
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 13:16:29 -0500, Joel W. Crump wrote:
We all love to see the rising interest in installing Linux as a novelty,
but the reality is that the biggest beneficiary of the rejection of
Win11 is still Win10.
There will be some hard choices. Someone on a Windows ng is bitching
because TurboTax won't install on Win10. It's not going to fly on Linux either so what to do?
There will be more and more things that won't install or update on Win10. They probably would work fine but software companies aren't going to test new releases on an unsupported OS so they'll do a version check and bail.
How many will take the leap into the great unknown versus biting the
bullet and buying a new laptop? The timing sort of sucks as AI sucks up every last bit of RAM.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:13:07 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
The first version of Linux Mint came out in 2006. linuxmint.com has been
active since December, 2000. Clément Lefèbvre would post reviews of
Linux distributions on his site before developing his own distribution.
I guess he saw something he thought he could improve. The first version
of Linux Mint was based off Kubuntu (KDE Ubuntu). So Linux Mint predated
Unity. But apparently, by the time Unity had come out, Linux Mint was
known as a decent alternative and Unity gave its surge in popularity.
Do you know why he switched from KDE? Cinnamon is okay but it's also been
a hell of a lot of work and still isn't Wayland ready.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:57:38 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I used Mandrake Linux for a short while. That was right before we got
high speed Internet for the first time via AT&T cable. I was working in
Tulsa and my wife called from Texas and let me know that it had been
installed. I told her to download Firefox, she did, there was a pause...
"It's not working." I said, "maybe it's already downloaded" — she
checked and it was. So that was basically the end of buying Linux CDs.
I used Mandrake for a while. My memory is cloudy but I think it was an old Windows box I bought for $25. iirc the BIOS couldn't see the current generation of HDDs and the smaller platters were stupidly expensive. I remember hitting the local shops and asking what they did with old drives. "The dumpster." e-waste wasn't a hot topic back then.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:28:09 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
Cinnamon is Linux Mint's own so, I'm guessing, it's probably got the
best integration. But I like what Linux Mint has done with Mate and Xfce
— all three look and feel pretty much the same. A lot of people use Xfce >> for older machines because it's lighter. But it's not hard to move from
one to the others. I think this is rare in the Linux distribution world.
It may only be Linux Mint that does this with three different desktops.
My original LM install was MATE. The library laptops used Cinnamon and I wanted to see the difference. I didn't use either as daily drivers but
from casual use they were pretty much the same.
I added Xfce and that was a bit of a surprise. My Debian box had Xfce but
LM definitely tweaked it a lot. I didn't thing Xfce was that much lighter
on a netbook with 4GB.
When I replaced the HDD with a SSD I did the Cinnamon install. It works okay. I also have i3 and that's what I use for Arduino along with arduino_cli, Vim, and minicom.
Most distros can support different DEs although it can get weird when updating or mix'n'matching between GUIs. I stick to i3 or sway as an alternate. Even then it's best not to launch some of the Cinnamon GUIs
from i3 or you get stuck in some half-assed world that needs a reboot.
The EndeavourOS installer does it right. If you select the offline installation you get the default KDE. The online installation allows you
to select the DE. That seems more sensible than the 4 different LM isos,
the various Fedora spins, and the *buntu derivatives.
I'd previously had Lubuntu on the netbook, which is LXQt. That's another long story. Originally it used LXDE which was based on Gtk 2. The
developer didn't like Gtk 3 and started using the Qt toolkit. Both
projects coexisted for a while but eventually split and Lubuntu went with LXQt. LXDE is still around as an alternate on Debian, Fedora, and Arch.
Just as well Mint doesn't have a LMDE LXDE flavor.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:35:06 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
There were a few of those Linux magazines. I'm guessing they're either
dead or limping badly as the Internet has pretty much killed them.
I think there are a couple left. The B&N brick'n'mortar store is next to
the gym so I check it out every year or so. Their tech section was
whittled down to one shelf, but some of the mags are still around.
I wonder how long magazines in general will last. The NRA rag, 'American Rifleman' is going digital with some sort of hardcopy 4 times a year. Many have went full digital.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:50:26 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I didn't realize Unity was still maintained. You can download Ubuntu
Unity, Manjaro Unity and even Gentoo7 Unity. Just to see what it looks
like, I'm downloading Ubuntu Unity 25.04 to put on my Ventoy USB.
https://unity.ubuntuunity.org/unity-on-arch/
I'll pass. KDE/Sway is good enough for me.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:35:06 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-29, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:31:45 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-28, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 02:54:49 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:29:00 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
The numbers don't lie. Ubuntu was the catalyst for a great number >>>>>>> of people giving Linux a chance and the free CDs weren't the only >>>>>>> reason. Unlike most Linux distributions, both the installer and the >>>>>>> installed product worked as they should and it made Linux easy for >>>>>>> most people. That's not to say Debian and others weren't easy
enough _before_ Ubuntu's release, but Ubuntu finally attracted the >>>>>>> mainstream users who weren't as dedicated as we all were to getting >>>>>>> the operating system working for us.
Leading to the Year of the Linux Desktop, right? You may have a
better chance of witnessing the second coming.
It wasn't the second coming, but suddenly Linux was an operating
system which could appeal to regular people as much as the geeks.
Yep. Linux wasn't that easy to download in those days. You could buy
Linux magazines and most months they included a Linux CD but you could >>>> just email Ubuntu and check off how many CDs you wanted and "voila"
they came in the mail.
That's actually how I used to get it installed for people back then.
I'd often have a friend or family member who got some hand-me-down PC.
Obviously, they understood nothing about it and wondered whether they
could get some life out of it. They wanted Windows, but it was always
going to be too slow for them, so I suggested Linux. I'd then drive
over to the closest magazine store and get a Linux magazine
specifically for the installation CD.
There were a few of those Linux magazines. I'm guessing they're either
dead or limping badly as the Internet has pretty much killed them.
Yeah, the business model was a pretty bad one: sell a magazine about a
free operating system to people who use said free operating system because they enjoy getting things for free. I jest, but I imagine that the
audience was minimal. Still, it was a wonderful way for me to learn about the operating system, and to get Linux CDs quickly.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:13:07 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-28, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 20:00:10 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 13:52:47 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 02:54:49 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 27 Jan 2026 22:29:00 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
The numbers don't lie. Ubuntu was the catalyst for a great number >>>>>>> of people giving Linux a chance and the free CDs weren't the only >>>>>>> reason.
Unlike most Linux distributions, both the installer and the
installed product worked as they should and it made Linux easy for >>>>>>> most people.
That's not to say Debian and others weren't easy enough _before_ >>>>>>> Ubuntu's release, but Ubuntu finally attracted the mainstream users >>>>>>> who weren't as dedicated as we all were to getting the operating >>>>>>> system working for us.
Leading to the Year of the Linux Desktop, right? You may have a
better chance of witnessing the second coming.
It wasn't the second coming, but suddenly Linux was an operating
system which could appeal to regular people as much as the geeks.
Distrowatch's methodology is shaky but assuming page hits have some
correlation to usage, as expected Ubunutu hits the list in 2005. By
2011, a derivative, Mint, was topping the charts. However the page
hits on all distros had increased.
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know
why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the
community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was
actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the
community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with
Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install
a different desktop environment.
The first version of Linux Mint came out in 2006. linuxmint.com has been
active since December, 2000. Clément Lefèbvre would post reviews of
Linux distributions on his site before developing his own distribution.
I guess he saw something he thought he could improve. The first version
of Linux Mint was based off Kubuntu (KDE Ubuntu). So Linux Mint predated
Unity. But apparently, by the time Unity had come out, Linux Mint was
known as a decent alternative and Unity gave its surge in popularity.
I just learned something about Mint. It's actually funny that such an influential distribution could have started as a website where Linux was being reviewed. Meanwhile, Zorin OS is also a distribution that came from two brothers thinking it would be neat to modify Linux to look like something that is more familiar to computer users. I guess that's the
magic of Linux, the fact that it is so accessible to the most regular of people.
Recently MX Linux was the leader but was replaced by CachyOS in 2025.
That's why I take the rankings with a big grain of salt. Are people
really using CachyOS or are the page hits "what the hell is CachyOS?'
Maybe Ubunutu attracted more attention. 2005 was still Windows XP
which wasn't alienating people. Was it just the free CDs?
I've seen lots of distributions come and go. At this point, I'm content
to choose either a distribution that is immensely popular like Mint, or
one backed by a company like Pop_OS!. Both are good, but I see more
promise with Pop_OS! because System76 is going in its own direction and
doing what's best for productive users, not trying to please everyone
at once. The keyboard shortcuts enabled by default in Pop_OS! are kind
of neat (ex:
Super+T to open a terminal, Super+b to open the default browser,
Super+m to maximize the current window, etc.), but it's still not great
with quick changes to external monitors.
I'll try Pop_OS! again in a few months. My first trial of Cosmic was
okay, but my impression was that it's still in "beta." Besides I'm so
used to Linux Mint I don't see ever moving away from it.
And there is truly no reason to. I like Pop_OS! simply because of Cosmic, and because I know System76 is invested in making it as solid as possible. The desktop environment gets updates frequently, and I notice that small things have already improved from the first edition (the minimizing animations in particular). I imagine that it will not only be solid but gorgeous by next year.
Of course, I'm still waiting for them to implement remember window sizes
and positions into the environment. You don't realize how useful that feature is until you no longer have it.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:33:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-29, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 29 Jan 2026 03:01:46 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 23:52:15 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't
know why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was
because the community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case,
Canonical was actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little
surprised that the community were against it. Similarly, there was
nothing wrong with Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could >>>>> go ahead and install a different desktop environment.
Mint was created in 2006 and was a fork of Kubuntu using KDE. It
switched to GNOME2 and was in lock step with Ubuntu. I don't know how
it differentiated itself. In 2010 LMDE was released but that is still >>>> a minority product and is seen as a way out if the LM maintainers get
really pissed at Ubuntu.
Except that now, they are trapped. Both Ubuntu and Debian are
proceeding with a rewrite of the most common terminal tools from C to
Rust, and it seems to be breaking things. For better or for worse, Mint
will share in Ubuntu's mistakes.
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu when
they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right. Like I
say, we'll see.
2011 was the release of GNOME3, disliked by many and the start of the
Cinnamon project. The switch in the leaderboard might well have been
because of Unity although Cinnamon wasn't ready for prime time in
2011. I'm not sure it is in 2025 if running under Wayland is a
requirement. I logged into the 'experimental' Cinnamon/Wayland in 22.3 >>>> and it lasted about 10 minutes.
I used it for a bit and it worked fine... until I decided that I could
teach my class with it. Apparently, Cinnamon doesn't do well with
mirroring or extending your laptop screen because it crashed and
required a log out. I won't be using Wayland with Mint for a bit.
I have no desire to move to Wayland, so as long as Xorg works well in
Linux Mint, I'm happy.
I'm only really hoping that they stay away from the rewrite of common terminal tools. The ones there work fine and didn't need to be rewritten
in Rust. It's only proceeding because the Rust advocates as are devoted to the language as the Apple zealots are to their company. In daily
operation, the Rust alternatives provide no benefit whatsoever and
probably never will.
< snip >
On 2026-01-30, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:33:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-29, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
On 29 Jan 2026 03:01:46 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 28 Jan 2026 23:52:15 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't
know why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was
because the community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, >>>>>> Canonical was actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little
surprised that the community were against it. Similarly, there was >>>>>> nothing wrong with Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they
could go ahead and install a different desktop environment.
Mint was created in 2006 and was a fork of Kubuntu using KDE. It
switched to GNOME2 and was in lock step with Ubuntu. I don't know
how it differentiated itself. In 2010 LMDE was released but that is >>>>> still a minority product and is seen as a way out if the LM
maintainers get really pissed at Ubuntu.
Except that now, they are trapped. Both Ubuntu and Debian are
proceeding with a rewrite of the most common terminal tools from C to
Rust, and it seems to be breaking things. For better or for worse,
Mint will share in Ubuntu's mistakes.
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu
when they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right.
Like I say, we'll see.
2011 was the release of GNOME3, disliked by many and the start of
the Cinnamon project. The switch in the leaderboard might well have
been because of Unity although Cinnamon wasn't ready for prime time
in 2011. I'm not sure it is in 2025 if running under Wayland is a
requirement. I logged into the 'experimental' Cinnamon/Wayland in
22.3 and it lasted about 10 minutes.
I used it for a bit and it worked fine... until I decided that I
could teach my class with it. Apparently, Cinnamon doesn't do well
with mirroring or extending your laptop screen because it crashed and
required a log out. I won't be using Wayland with Mint for a bit.
I have no desire to move to Wayland, so as long as Xorg works well in
Linux Mint, I'm happy.
I'm only really hoping that they stay away from the rewrite of common
terminal tools. The ones there work fine and didn't need to be
rewritten in Rust. It's only proceeding because the Rust advocates as
are devoted to the language as the Apple zealots are to their company.
In daily operation, the Rust alternatives provide no benefit whatsoever
and probably never will.
< snip >
I always figure if something works, don't "fix" it.
I may be confusing Linspire with Xandros. I think it was Xandros that I bought. Even though Wikipedia says Xandros died in 2018, they're still selling it and there's still a free "community edition." available for download. Xandros and Linspire are both owned by the same outfit now. I
think Xandros bought Linspire.
I've got Zorin on my Ventoy USB. I guess it looks more like Windows, but
I'm not a fan of the Windows look. If you pay for the pro version you
can get several more themes, but the four that come with it are kind of
blah.
It seems to work pretty well, but it's not Linux Mint.
Yeah, the business model was a pretty bad one: sell a magazine about a
free operating system to people who use said free operating system
because they enjoy getting things for free. I jest, but I imagine that
the audience was minimal. Still, it was a wonderful way for me to learn
about the operating system, and to get Linux CDs quickly.
I think they did well, pre-high speed Internet. Online shopping (and
reading) have pretty much killed a lot of outfits. But it looks like the Linux magazines are still around (mostly online, see Vallor's post).
It's easy to install the full KDE Plasma Desktop (and apps) in Linux
Mint.
Just go to synaptic and install the kde-full meta package (about 1.5
GBs).
I just tested it on Live Linux Mint USB install. Everything is there,
Kate, Konsole, etc. You can choose the SSM (Plasma) login screen or the standard lightdm (Cinnamon) login screen at the end of the installation.
On my test I kept the lightdm screen.
I know. Reading an e-Magazine is just not the same. Newspapers as well.
The ones have survived have gotten ridiculously thin.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:21:19 -0500, DFS wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 22:43:58 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you have to
do for Microsoft Office, or something?
This is a lie.
Oh dear, getting a bit touchy.
That time of the month for you -- having trouble with those Microsoft
Windows updates again?
Don’t forget to add those “emergency patches”, won’t you?
On 2026-01-30, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:33:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu
when they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right.
Like I say,
we'll see.
They've been holding LMDE in reserve if Ubuntu goes off the deep end.
I've never tried it but I understand Debian with the Cinnamon DE is
less polished than LMDE.
It's not a lot different. It's just missing some of the utilities, like automatically finding drivers. I think there were a couple other
differences that I noticed, but I can't come up with them now.
On 1/28/2026 3:00 PM, rbowman wrote:
Are people really using CachyOS
I think they are. I see it mentioned more and more, like in YouTube
videos where hysterical Windows users claim they're installing Linux and "never looking back".
or are the page hits "what the hell is CachyOS?'
I planned on making CachyOS my first bare metal distro install in years
until I came across "rule" #10.
https://wiki.cachyos.org/policy/community-rules/
On 2026-01-30, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 13:16:29 -0500, Joel W. Crump wrote:
We all love to see the rising interest in installing Linux as a
novelty,
but the reality is that the biggest beneficiary of the rejection of
Win11 is still Win10.
There will be some hard choices. Someone on a Windows ng is bitching
because TurboTax won't install on Win10. It's not going to fly on Linux
either so what to do?
We just do our taxes online.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:23:50 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I may be confusing Linspire with Xandros. I think it was Xandros that I
bought. Even though Wikipedia says Xandros died in 2018, they're still
selling it and there's still a free "community edition." available for
download. Xandros and Linspire are both owned by the same outfit now. I
think Xandros bought Linspire.
I've used Xandros. It was the original OS on the Asus Eee PC 700. I
shelved it when it couldn't handle WPA2 and there was no upgrade for Xandros. It now is running Q4OS with no problem.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:58:58 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I've got Zorin on my Ventoy USB. I guess it looks more like Windows, but
I'm not a fan of the Windows look. If you pay for the pro version you
can get several more themes, but the four that come with it are kind of
blah.
It seems to work pretty well, but it's not Linux Mint.
Another twist of fate for the library project -- he initially tried to install Zorin but it failed because of Secure Boot. Next up was Mint. He
did eventually get Zorin running but preferred Mint.
On 30 Jan 2026 22:43:06 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Yeah, the business model was a pretty bad one: sell a magazine about a
free operating system to people who use said free operating system
because they enjoy getting things for free. I jest, but I imagine that
the audience was minimal. Still, it was a wonderful way for me to learn
about the operating system, and to get Linux CDs quickly.
Remember the context. In the '90s people didn't have smart phones so they read magazines. Byte was fading away but Dr. Dobbs, Circuit Cellar, and others were still going strong. People bought the magazine to read and the CD was a bonus.
Besides, if you believe your guru Stallman it was never about free beer.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:45:55 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I think they did well, pre-high speed Internet. Online shopping (and
reading) have pretty much killed a lot of outfits. But it looks like the
Linux magazines are still around (mostly online, see Vallor's post).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Shopper_(American_magazine)
Remember that one? In its later years you could roll it up and beat
someone to death with it when you were through reading it.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:22:14 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
It's easy to install the full KDE Plasma Desktop (and apps) in Linux
Mint.
Just go to synaptic and install the kde-full meta package (about 1.5
GBs).
I just tested it on Live Linux Mint USB install. Everything is there,
Kate, Konsole, etc. You can choose the SSM (Plasma) login screen or the
standard lightdm (Cinnamon) login screen at the end of the installation.
On my test I kept the lightdm screen.
It uses Wayland? I've got 2 KDE boxes; don't need another.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:41:42 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I know. Reading an e-Magazine is just not the same. Newspapers as well.
The ones have survived have gotten ridiculously thin.
The local rag was barely good for fish wrap and then it was bought by Lee Enterprises in Iowa. They fired the local people. There is a plan to tear down the physical building and build luxury condos that is as popular as herpes.
A friend at work subscribed and left a copy in the mens room. I was
puzzled and when I came out I asked him if it wasn't a lot narrower that
it used to be. Yup. So, narrower and thinner.
At Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:43:00 -0500, -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
On 1/29/26 17:43, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:33:30 -0500, -hh wrote:
But the main thing is "...son-of-a-gun it worked!"
I still don’t understand why it was so hard to take a few minutes to
check this for yourself.
Because:
a) COLA is a Linux advocacy group, so the advocates by effective
definition should be more than happy to do this.
b) COLA is a Linux advocacy group, and I've provided this challenge in
the past and no advocate had ever succeed before.
Case in point, here's a reminder from 2015:
"Clifford Stohl proved that belief to be false over a decade ago. And
I could re-post that old PowerPoint file with a $50 cash reward to
rove it yet again: care to make it into a friendly wager for charity?"
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.linux.advocacy/c/YB_G3oWL3xU/m/OwBDZT1rO3oJ>
SO why did it just finally get solved in 2026? So is the reason why it
was finally solved now that something changed in FOSS, or are COLA's
advocates just so incompetent? Or just plain lazy?
Is LibreOffice that hard to download for Windows?
I wouldn't know about Windows in this context.
Did you think you had to reboot after installing it, like you
have to do for Microsoft Office, or something?
Not applicable, but regardless of how easy/hard that it would be for a
non Linux/FOSS advocate user to search, find, download, install the
LibreOffice App, and THEN download the reference file to test it ...
... that its vastly easier for the COLA Linux FOSS advocate, since
they've already done those first four steps: they merely needed to
right-click on the provided link & drop it on their already installed
App to run the test.
That's much easier, so why did none of those insult-slinging monkeys
ever bother to do this for over a decade?
As I said, is the reason why it was finally solved now because:
* the FOSS App recently added ancient file format support?
* that COLA's FOSS advocates are incompetent?
* that COLA's FOSS advocates are just plain lazy?
YMMV, but I don't particularly feel like reading ~30 years of software
release notes to see if its the first possibility, but you're welcome to
do it - because that's what's needed (& exist) to defend the COLA
participants who've failed to show a FOSS solution for over a decade.
-hh
So FOSS solves your problem, and your response is to...insult your
audience?
You might consider that the "issue" is nobody cared enough
about your problem to help you with it...and that is less likely
in the future, if you're going to sling insults at your readers.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:58:58 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I've got Zorin on my Ventoy USB. I guess it looks more like Windows,
but I'm not a fan of the Windows look. If you pay for the pro version
you can get several more themes, but the four that come with it are
kind of blah.
It seems to work pretty well, but it's not Linux Mint.
Another twist of fate for the library project -- he initially tried to install Zorin but it failed because of Secure Boot. Next up was Mint. He
did eventually get Zorin running but preferred Mint.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:17:56 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-30, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:33:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
We'll see. Linux Mint has been pretty good at deviating from Ubuntu
when they don't like the direction they've gone. You may be right.
Like I say,
we'll see.
They've been holding LMDE in reserve if Ubuntu goes off the deep end.
I've never tried it but I understand Debian with the Cinnamon DE is
less polished than LMDE.
It's not a lot different. It's just missing some of the utilities, like
automatically finding drivers. I think there were a couple other
differences that I noticed, but I can't come up with them now.
LM did impress me with the Driver Manager. The netbook has a problematic Broadcom wifi module so I uses a Panda dongle that is recognized by the installer. Lubuntu was the same. Once installed the DM recognized the Broadcom device and installed the correct driver.
On 2026-01-31, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:23:50 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I may be confusing Linspire with Xandros. I think it was Xandros that
I bought. Even though Wikipedia says Xandros died in 2018, they're
still selling it and there's still a free "community edition."
available for download. Xandros and Linspire are both owned by the
same outfit now. I think Xandros bought Linspire.
I've used Xandros. It was the original OS on the Asus Eee PC 700. I
shelved it when it couldn't handle WPA2 and there was no upgrade for
Xandros. It now is running Q4OS with no problem.
I bought my sealed Xandros package on eBay, and I think it was pretty
much outdated. I just tested it for a while.
I never heard of Q40S before. Looks interesting.
On 2026-01-31, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:58:58 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I've got Zorin on my Ventoy USB. I guess it looks more like Windows,
but I'm not a fan of the Windows look. If you pay for the pro version
you can get several more themes, but the four that come with it are
kind of blah.
It seems to work pretty well, but it's not Linux Mint.
Another twist of fate for the library project -- he initially tried to
install Zorin but it failed because of Secure Boot. Next up was Mint.
He did eventually get Zorin running but preferred Mint.
The library project sounds interesting. I guess I missed the information about it somehow.
Admittedly, I'm considering putting Mint on this machine once I'm done playing Fallout London because it supports Secure Boot whereas Pop_OS! doesn't. As much as there is to hate about the feature, there are things
to like. I wouldn't mind at least having the impression that I'm being protected from that kind of malware.
On 2026-01-31, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:22:14 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
It's easy to install the full KDE Plasma Desktop (and apps) in Linux
Mint.
Just go to synaptic and install the kde-full meta package (about 1.5
GBs).
I just tested it on Live Linux Mint USB install. Everything is there,
Kate, Konsole, etc. You can choose the SSM (Plasma) login screen or
the standard lightdm (Cinnamon) login screen at the end of the
installation.
On my test I kept the lightdm screen.
It uses Wayland? I've got 2 KDE boxes; don't need another.
No, I think it runs X11.
The fact that I didn't know the Idaho Statesman was only coming out
three days a week pretty much shows how much interest I have in these
thin newspapers anymore. The Idaho Statesman, from the 80s at least, was
the bastion of "liberal" BS in Idaho, so it never was my paper of
choice.
On 31 Jan 2026 12:53:40 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Admittedly, I'm considering putting Mint on this machine once I'm done
playing Fallout London because it supports Secure Boot whereas Pop_OS!
doesn't. As much as there is to hate about the feature, there are
things to like. I wouldn't mind at least having the impression that I'm
being protected from that kind of malware.
I turned Secure Boot off in the BIOS, or I guess the correct term is
UEFI now. The old netbook and Dell box have legacy BIOSs.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 10:17:25 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-31, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:22:14 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
It's easy to install the full KDE Plasma Desktop (and apps) in Linux
Mint.
Just go to synaptic and install the kde-full meta package (about 1.5
GBs).
I just tested it on Live Linux Mint USB install. Everything is there,
Kate, Konsole, etc. You can choose the SSM (Plasma) login screen or
the standard lightdm (Cinnamon) login screen at the end of the
installation.
On my test I kept the lightdm screen.
It uses Wayland? I've got 2 KDE boxes; don't need another.
No, I think it runs X11.
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/11/26/going-all-in-on-a-wayland-future/
So far...
On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 23:33:35 -0500, DFS wrote:
$276K in one year isn't bad. As I recall, KDE is a big piece of
sofware, or at least has a lot of apps.
And it offers better versatility and configurability than Microsoft,
with an operating budget orders of magnitude greater, can manage.
On 1 Feb 2026 02:03:09 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 31 Jan 2026 12:53:40 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Admittedly, I'm considering putting Mint on this machine once I'm done
playing Fallout London because it supports Secure Boot whereas Pop_OS!
doesn't. As much as there is to hate about the feature, there are
things to like. I wouldn't mind at least having the impression that
I'm being protected from that kind of malware.
I turned Secure Boot off in the BIOS, or I guess the correct term is
UEFI now. The old netbook and Dell box have legacy BIOSs.
Is there any reason why you are not bothered by the fact that you aren't getting the additional protection of Secure Boot?
On 01 Feb 2026 13:09:48 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
On 1 Feb 2026 02:03:09 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On 31 Jan 2026 12:53:40 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:
Admittedly, I'm considering putting Mint on this machine once I'm
done playing Fallout London because it supports Secure Boot whereas
Pop_OS!
doesn't. As much as there is to hate about the feature, there are
things to like. I wouldn't mind at least having the impression that
I'm being protected from that kind of malware.
I turned Secure Boot off in the BIOS, or I guess the correct term is
UEFI now. The old netbook and Dell box have legacy BIOSs.
Is there any reason why you are not bothered by the fact that you
aren't getting the additional protection of Secure Boot?
I sometimes ride motorcycles without a helmet. Exactly what is Secure
Boot protecting me against? Counting the Eee PC and the Raspberry Pis 5
out of 7 of my Linux systems don't have Secure Boot. 3 have legacy
BIOSs, and Secure Boot on a Pi is sort of experimental. Screw it up and nothing will boot.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 10:07:25 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-31, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:58:58 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I've got Zorin on my Ventoy USB. I guess it looks more like Windows,
but I'm not a fan of the Windows look. If you pay for the pro version
you can get several more themes, but the four that come with it are
kind of blah.
It seems to work pretty well, but it's not Linux Mint.
Another twist of fate for the library project -- he initially tried to
install Zorin but it failed because of Secure Boot. Next up was Mint.
He did eventually get Zorin running but preferred Mint.
The library project sounds interesting. I guess I missed the information
about it somehow.
It started last summer. The library has a Makerspace and the laptops they use for Arduino programming and other projects were Win10 and couldn't be updated to Win11.
The volunteer reached out on the local reddit and another Linux user
helped him get started. The seed was planted that if Linux could save the library's laptops, starting a program to walk people through the install might be a good idea. Linux Mint was selected as the most user friendly.
It's slowly gaining momentum. The first couple of meetings only had a
couple of people show up. Today there were about 8 people. Several have
used or are using Linux, a couple are interested.
We'd started a LUG on google groups in 2007 but it petered out with only sporadic activity. Hopefully this attracts more fresh blood.
https://www.repaircafe.org/en/linux-repair-cafe/
We aren't connected to this one but the idea is similar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martine_Postma
Postma is fairly well known in the Netherlands and when she appeared on their version of NPR it kicked the Linux Repair Cafe into high gear. Unfortunately we don't have that sort of reach.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 10:17:25 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-31, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:22:14 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
It's easy to install the full KDE Plasma Desktop (and apps) in Linux
Mint.
Just go to synaptic and install the kde-full meta package (about 1.5
GBs).
I just tested it on Live Linux Mint USB install. Everything is there,
Kate, Konsole, etc. You can choose the SSM (Plasma) login screen or
the standard lightdm (Cinnamon) login screen at the end of the
installation.
On my test I kept the lightdm screen.
It uses Wayland? I've got 2 KDE boxes; don't need another.
No, I think it runs X11.
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/11/26/going-all-in-on-a-wayland-future/
So far...
On 1 Feb 2026 02:14:13 GMT, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 10:17:25 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
On 2026-01-31, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:22:14 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
It's easy to install the full KDE Plasma Desktop (and apps) in Linux >>>>> Mint.
Just go to synaptic and install the kde-full meta package (about 1.5 >>>>> GBs).
I just tested it on Live Linux Mint USB install. Everything is there, >>>>> Kate, Konsole, etc. You can choose the SSM (Plasma) login screen or
the standard lightdm (Cinnamon) login screen at the end of the
installation.
On my test I kept the lightdm screen.
It uses Wayland? I've got 2 KDE boxes; don't need another.
No, I think it runs X11.
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/11/26/going-all-in-on-a-wayland-future/
So far...
I find that XWayland actually works better than X11 in gaming. I know that I'm not supposed to like Wayland at all, but I find that it's rather good.
Good point. I guess I won't be bothered that a distribution doesn't
support Secure Boot then. I have it enabled on the ThinkPad running Mint
I use at work, but I have to admit that Secure Boot just makes more
tedious if you're running something proprietary.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 10:38:46 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
The fact that I didn't know the Idaho Statesman was only coming out
three days a week pretty much shows how much interest I have in these
thin newspapers anymore. The Idaho Statesman, from the 80s at least, was
the bastion of "liberal" BS in Idaho, so it never was my paper of
choice.
The Missoulian used to have a free weekend events thing that came out on
Thursday that sort of competed with the Independent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Independent
Not only was the price right but it had better coverage than the Missoulian's effort. Lee bought that one too and shut it down.
Currently Lee owns The Billings Gazette, Missoulian, Helena Independent- Record, the Montana Standard (Butte) and the Ravalli Republic, iow every major paper in the state. That hasn't changed. The Anaconda Company sold them all to Lee. Only the Billings and Missoula papers ran in the black
but it was a take them all deal.
Like you, I didn't even notice it became a three days a week rag in 2023. Also, it's mailed now although you still see the tubes the delivery people used to put it in.
Radio isn't any better Townsquare Media own 37 stations in the state.
They've got one of these Repair Cafes in Boise. I think I'll look into
it.
Thanks.
I guess Linux Mint does something to make KDE use X11. I didn't have the
Live USB "install" up and running long enough to do much experimenting.
But I do remember it saying something about X11 when I logged out.
On Mon, 2 Feb 2026 01:01:10 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
They've got one of these Repair Cafes in Boise. I think I'll look into
it.
Thanks.
It also isn't associated with the Repair Cafes but
https://www.homeresource.org/event/fixit-clinic-10/
Some of the clinics are also hosted at the library and the library guy
went to one of their events to try to get some cross pollination.
On Mon, 2 Feb 2026 01:08:41 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
I guess Linux Mint does something to make KDE use X11. I didn't have the
Live USB "install" up and running long enough to do much experimenting.
But I do remember it saying something about X11 when I logged out.
$ env | grep XDG
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/xdg/xdg-ubuntu:/etc/xdg
XDG_MENU_PREFIX=gnome-
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=ubuntu
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME
XDG_SESSION_CLASS=user
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000 XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/ubuntu:/usr/share/gnome:/usr/local/share/:/usr/ share/:/var/lib/snapd/desktop
That's the Ubunut box I'm on but on the LM laptop it's
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
at least with i3. fastfetch also shows 'WM: Mutter (Wayland)' but
neofetch only shows i3 for the WM. I don't know why LM doesn't have fastfetch. neofetch hasn't been touched it 5 years.
https://itsfoss.com/news/neofetch-rip/?s=09
You can add it:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:zhangsongcui3371/fastfetch
sudo apt udate
sudo apt install fastfetch
fastfetch on the LM box shows
WM i3 4.23 (2023-10-29) (X11)
which is more useful than just WM i3.
On 2026-02-02, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 2 Feb 2026 01:01:10 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
They've got one of these Repair Cafes in Boise. I think I'll look into
it.
Thanks.
It also isn't associated with the Repair Cafes but
https://www.homeresource.org/event/fixit-clinic-10/
Some of the clinics are also hosted at the library and the library guy
went to one of their events to try to get some cross pollination.
I can't find a Fixit Clinic in Boise. But I might not be looking in the
right place.
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