Zorin OS 16 gets a Beta with 'the largest library of apps' available on any Linux desktop

Quoting: BlackBloodRumStill Fedora though 👍 but missing some of the customization options of XFCE 😅

Does XFCE 4.16 make a difference? I couldn't wait for the official Fedora release, so I upgraded to the 34 beta for 4.16. No issues so far.

Quoting: slaapliedjeOBS supports building for Debian based systems as well. That is where the lutris package was up until recently when it was uploaded to Debian Sid.

Yup, it's very useful for anyone looking for a simple multi-distro way of distributing packages

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, I know you will be looking for ways to get back to your preferred desktop, but as a Mate user I'd like to say I hope it treats you well while you're a refugee.

Well.. so far so good. I mean it does miss a few things I really like about XFCE, for example, per-monitor wallpapers, or per-workspace wallpapers, "intelligent" panel hiding (hides when window is maximized, but shows when not), ability to edit the Stick/Min/Max/Close window button layout/settings etc all of which are out of the box supported on XFCE.

Ofc, these are a personal preference thing and ofc you can't expect all environments to be the same. It's also possible I missed a few settings.. but I did spend about 3 hours just going through settings editing things (even in dconf) and forcing it to allow me to disable gnome-keyring in favour of KeepassXC which works perfectly once done.

It's actually throwing me back some memories here though.. I switched to XFCE back before Gnome 3 was released, so I was using G2 prior to switching to XFCE. I think I switched around the 4.6 release period which dates to around 2009.

With that said, I've been able to almost get mate to mimic my previous XFCE setup, using a python script which auto changes wallpaper on workspace switch and hydrapaper for per-monitor wallpapers.

But I do feel a bit restricted, and it feels super weird going back to something I left years ago. I've only been on mate since Tuesday so.. yeah. I did try KDE because of mate restrictions for about 10 minutes before uninstalling it again.. then went back to Mate and decided to mod it a bit further. So I can happily say mate is better than KDE (for my preference)

But at the same time it's a relief to be able to turn my TV on again without my GUI crashing

It also appears to be very stable and so far not a single crash or bug encountered (that I noticed). So, I'm giving it as fair a try as I can

Quoting: wvstolzingDoes XFCE 4.16 make a difference? I couldn't wait for the official Fedora release, so I upgraded to the 34 beta for 4.16. No issues so far.

I've not tried 4.16 yet, I'm still on Fedora 33 with XFCE 4.14. I usually try to avoid beta releases best I can. My system needs to be a bit like a workhorse, sure it can play games, but I also need it for managing my business, so I prefer to wait a little bit and have something a little bit more stable

I will try it once F34 has had a few weeks of people reporting distro-breaking bugs after stable release :P

I have never understood why people use Fedora on anything that they wish to remain stable. It always seems to break mid-cycle for me, and in terribly fun ways that require a re-install.

It is the only distribution I have seen that will change kernel versions within the same version that claims to be a not rolling release. I think the longest I have been able to keep it working for on a system was a month on a tablet for me before a huge glaring bug appeared on it and I ended up installing something else.

It is a nice system out of the box when a new version is released, it just breaks as they update things. Like RHEL will generally not bump versions and will stick with the same version over the course of its life cycle with backporting patches. This is the reason RHEL is used everywhere for serious stuff.

I guess now that Centos Stream is a thing, maybe Fedora will be more stable though.

Well, for my desktop I've been using Fedora for so long it feels like forever. However, I tend to pick the best distro for the job.

These days for example I have "less important" servers running Debian stable, and more critical servers running RHEL (actual RHEL, not CentOS since the whole shakeup) meanwhile my laptop runs Arch (This one has broken a few times..).

Generally if a system is extremely critical it will be running an enterprise grade OS.

As for my personal desktop, I do prefer to have something quite a bit newer in terms of kernel and mesa, I mean if I tried running my ATI Radeon 5600 XT on Debian stable or RHEL it probably wouldn't be such a great experience, which is stable on Fedora 33 (but not 32).. except for the whole XFCE crashing thing.. which I thought was a kernel or mesa thing until I tried a different UI lol.

With that said, I've never had to reinstall my Fedora systems. Things have broken, mostly nvidia stuff, which is why I went ATI Radeon this time round. Since going ATI I've not really had anything break yet aside from the UI crashing, but it's been doing that since I built my system late last year.

Quoting: denyasis

Quoting: NanobangThis got me thinking about how much I'd like to read an article about what's it like to try and game on some of the less popular stalwarts of Linux. I'm talking about distros such as Mageia & Open Mandriva, Mepis, PCLinuxOS,AntiX & Tiny Core, Gentoo & Knoppix, or even Elive. (I'd try it out, but my slow internet would guarantee the whole project would take way, way too long.)

Not sure if it counts, but I ran Sparky Linux for about 4 years on my gaming machine. It's debian testing based.

I don't think there is much difference when the OS is based on another distro upstream. After all the upstream is mostly the same. Most of the issues I had were minor, quality of life, type issues. Presumably due to a smaller dev team, testing base, etc. Everything worked fine. But when something broke, you were a little more on your own.

Hope that helps

It's certainly the kind of thing I'd like to hear more about. I think we all could benefit by listening to each other's tales of woe and wonder gaming on obscure or niche distros such as Sparky. For example, I just hopped over to distrowatch.com to read up on Sparky. The review I found did not make Sparky sound good, but then you gamed on it for 4 years, so clearly there was something about it that kept you using it.

Thanks for your comment. I might reach out in the future if I decide to write such an article.

Peace :)

Quoting: BlackBloodRumWell, for my desktop I've been using Fedora for so long it feels like forever. However, I tend to pick the best distro for the job.

These days for example I have "less important" servers running Debian stable, and more critical servers running RHEL (actual RHEL, not CentOS since the whole shakeup) meanwhile my laptop runs Arch (This one has broken a few times..).

Generally if a system is extremely critical it will be running an enterprise grade OS.

As for my personal desktop, I do prefer to have something quite a bit newer in terms of kernel and mesa, I mean if I tried running my ATI Radeon 5600 XT on Debian stable or RHEL it probably wouldn't be such a great experience, which is stable on Fedora 33 (but not 32).. except for the whole XFCE crashing thing.. which I thought was a kernel or mesa thing until I tried a different UI lol.

With that said, I've never had to reinstall my Fedora systems. Things have broken, mostly nvidia stuff, which is why I went ATI Radeon this time round. Since going ATI I've not really had anything break yet aside from the UI crashing, but it's been doing that since I built my system late last year.

Debian Stable would be fine, you'd most likely just need to install the newer kernel through the backports repo. Debian has gotten a lot better in that respect the last release or two.

Quoting: Nanobang

Quoting: denyasis

Quoting: NanobangThis got me thinking about how much I'd like to read an article about what's it like to try and game on some of the less popular stalwarts of Linux. I'm talking about distros such as Mageia & Open Mandriva, Mepis, PCLinuxOS,AntiX & Tiny Core, Gentoo & Knoppix, or even Elive. (I'd try it out, but my slow internet would guarantee the whole project would take way, way too long.)

Not sure if it counts, but I ran Sparky Linux for about 4 years on my gaming machine. It's debian testing based.

I don't think there is much difference when the OS is based on another distro upstream. After all the upstream is mostly the same. Most of the issues I had were minor, quality of life, type issues. Presumably due to a smaller dev team, testing base, etc. Everything worked fine. But when something broke, you were a little more on your own.

Hope that helps

It's certainly the kind of thing I'd like to hear more about. I think we all could benefit by listening to each other's tales of woe and wonder gaming on obscure or niche distros such as Sparky. For example, I just hopped over to distrowatch.com to read up on Sparky. The review I found did not make Sparky sound good, but then you gamed on it for 4 years, so clearly there was something about it that kept you using it.

Thanks for your comment. I might reach out in the future if I decide to write such an article.

Peace :)

Thank you for the kind comment. I'd be more than happy to help out in the future.

Quoting: slaapliedjehave never understood why people use Fedora on anything that they wish to remain stable. It always seems to break mid-cycle for me, and in terribly fun ways that require a re-install.

I've always held the impression that Fedora was rather stable. It's on my bucket list of OS's to try.

To be fair, I think every major distro runs into it's issues. I like my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, but I've learned to never upgrade the kernel if it's first in a new series unless I want to live in the command line for a few days waiting for the graphics drivers to get a new update.

PS, I think this is literally the most polite "distro war" conversation I've ever seen. It's so nice to be here sometimes.


Last edited by denyasis on 20 April 2021 at 1:46 am UTC

Quoting: denyasisI've always held the impression that Fedora was rather stable.

That's not the impression I've had. Their server OS is stable. Far as I can tell, Fedora is Red Hat's cutting edge distro where they try all the new stuff. It tends to be quite up to date, but I wouldn't figure it for stable.

Quoting: NociferSomebody should inform them post-haste about a certain little thingy called the AUR.

(j/k, I know that this is all marketing, and marketing describes the world how you wish it to look like for your target audience, not how it really is.)

Yeah well and the target audience are windows switcher who dont necesarily want the hustle with aur, i know with manjaro for example it is pretty easy to install aur stuff, but still there is many software wich does in fact not run properly on manjaro (on arch is does, but there is no support for manjaro here). I am myself running manjaro and i am really happy about it, but for my parents zorin is a perfect fit.