Best base BBQ for my needs?

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catfood
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Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by catfood » Fri Oct 07, 2016 3:57 am

I understand best is an opinion. Please allow me to explain my wants/needs, and I'm willing to look into any suggestions you guys have.

Used windows from 96-2015. Tried Linux Mint for a month, Ubuntu for a day. Current go-to distro Debian 8.4 stable with ALL main desktop environments installed(last 6 mo) because i can't make up my mind yet. Gnome3 is my favorite because I can hit [Super], type 2-3 letters, enter, and start any program without Mouse time. XFCE with Whisker menu 2nd choice for same reasons. I love BBQ Cream for the spice of variety, but too many choices at once, and Debian unstable seems to break with cross dependencies from too many WMs/DEs. I have Cream hard installed on a USB, and about 15 live linuxBBQ cds burned (a few running fine on VMs too, lol). I enjoy them all, but don't know enough to decide on one yet.

I like and am comfortable with Debian Stable. I'm not opposed to Testing or Unstable though as long as I won't have security issues.

Want LinuxBBQ for my "new" Toshiba nb505 mini netbook. Prefer 32bit with fixed kernel (having issues getting soundcard to work with several distros...)

Loved youtube videos for Bauschpeck & Kielbasa for their appearance, but guess I missed the boat on those. Would like any distro that looks like your homepage with retro 80s/90s pastel themes!

Need at least XFCE Whisker menu for day to day use & easier to find and fix things with gui still when i break them. I do want to learn all the cool retro WMs though in the near future! I'm happy to ditch GUI in any area I can find a faster/easier way to do things via Termial though.

Questions:
Should i start with something like Bork and add XFCE, or start with Proof and add basic WMs? Which way is less likely to break?

I would like to learn Openbox, Blackbox, Fluxbox, JWM, IceWM, 2WM, and WMFS(2) (and possibly others later). Is one of them best to start learning on? I.E. skills learned from it will apply to the others as i learn?. I would like to install all these into one distro so i can use XFCE to fix things i can't find in them yet.

Lastly, which of the above WMs has the easiest to learn (or easiest to customize) keyboard shortcuts? I like Super key or 9menu style where I type to find by name. WMFS seems cool, but by the time I find something, I forget half the other shortcuts I just read. Id prefer to start with idiot-proof shortcuts...

Sorry for the long 1st topic. I will try to spare everyone stupid questions unless i get really stumped. I just wanna know the best way to start enjoying BBQ for my wants/needs... Finding Debian was the best computer experience I've had. I have a feeling it will get even better with BBQ. I look forward to learning more and being here a while. Thanks, J.
Thank You!
(I remember when debian "non-gui" installer scared me. #never-forget)

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wuxmedia
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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by wuxmedia » Fri Oct 07, 2016 8:06 am

Hi catfood, Welcome and all that.

So - you want something you can use as a 'daily driver' but dip into WM's as you fancy?
In sort of random reverse order:
First off have you tried dmenu? it's pretty much similar to the gnome magic button (I use G3 at the mo') normally alt-F3 in most bbq releases, start typing (from anywhere in the name, 'bird' for thunderbird works nice. it's tweakable too.

I would indeed use BORK and add WMs, breaking stuff is half the fun :) It's also the newest.
The thing is with unstable the updates are fast and furious, mostly. So an older spin will work on boot, and can be upgraded, but it will take quite a long time though, depending on you machine/connection, and may break (see X11 bugs)

err so I think the *boxes are related, so are the configs I would assume. I'd say install them and just get tinkering.
As for shortcuts see above for dmenu, most WMs can have custom ones, also look at .xbindkeys as a conf to play with, then it's WM agnostic (although watch out for key clashes)
on shortcuts as long as you can get a terminal up and a browser well that's it really.

Main thing for me these days is tiler or staker. I have to have a tiler for work, but play/work stackers are ok.
jump on the IRC if you want freenode #linuxbbq I'm there with a few other most of the week.
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ivanovnegro
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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by ivanovnegro » Fri Oct 07, 2016 2:10 pm

You already mentioned the spin that BBQ is famous for, Cream. I would definitely recommend to dig deeper.

Your question is very common. In reality there is no answer to it. You can only decide for yourself and that is after trying most of the WMs, if not all, like everybody of us have already done here.

WMs is really learning by doing. Install them, configure them, read about them (forums, how-to's, man pages).

If you like Debian Stable than you can install almost all of them on native Debian or on any BBQ spin. It is unbreakable and you can test and even build some from source. It will be more fun having various WMs installed onto your machine than all those bloated desktops. ;) And they take less space.

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by machinebacon » Fri Oct 07, 2016 4:54 pm

Welcome catfood,

- for testing (not installing) WMs I'd pick "Cream" and run it live until I find a WM that fits my needs. Estimated time to get there: 3 days
- to jump right into a working STABLE installation with X11 and a no-crap WM, take "Space Oddity" http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2436
- to try sid with X11 and a no-nonsense WM, take "Swikee" http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2567
- to sleep yourself up the career ladder on a sid without X11, there's Anorexia http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2563
- to learn living outside of X there's Adipositas http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2574
- if you want 64bits, we only provide Cardboard http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2323

By all means, always check the last posts of each thread to see if there are news about recent upgrades. The sid releases get quite a bunch of them, and some might break when skipping software versions. To get the barbecue taste without too much sweat, take "Space Oddity" and post in the SUPPORT thread if you need help. Also, check:

http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2074
http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2407
etc.

One more thing about keeping XFCE4 to fix shit that the WM's don't have:
- it is technically possible to run XFCE4 with a different window manager. Of course you can have as many WMs installed as you have space on your hard drive, though only one can run at the same time on the same display. Usually, quite surely, the *box window managers are very comfortable to use and behave as good as xfwm (XFCE4's own window manager).
- When you really just need a "menu" there is - as said before - dmenu installed and automatically set up to open applications. You can add/use grun2 for the typical "Run..." dialog.
- I do really recommend not to rely too much on "desktop environment specific tools" that for example XFCE4 brings: changing keyboard layouts, setting date & time, configuring printers etc. can always be carried out as terminal applications that *always work the same* independently of what Desktop Environment or Window Manager is installed.
- The BBQ encourages you to use these old-fashioned terminal tools and commands, because they not only work across installations, but also across distributions. They are resource-friendly (you mentioned you run a mini netbook) and can be troubleshot much easier than GUI applications.
- a personal note: one of my main computers is an Eeepc. It runs a beefed up Adipositas with X11 and spectrwm plus google-chrome and gpicview as only GUI applications. From the workflow/productivity aspect it beats my MacBook. Give yourself a week's time - with our assistance - to learn and love the terminal, and you won't look back. You will forget the existence of Whisker menu, and you will be wary of installing GTK apps :)

So, once more: welcome and I hope you read the last point twice ;)
..gnutella..

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catfood
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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by catfood » Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:09 am

Thanks for the quick and thorough replies everyone!

To clarify, I don't want to run XFCE on top of other WM's, but rather log out of them and log into it if I get really stuck trying to set something up. I keep LinuxMint on my Dell for times when I need to edit external drives and Debian refuses permissions. I prefer a GUI network setup just to get it over with, but after it's done, I'd like to go back and play with CENI til I get it. I also like looking at config files with nano after I let an app change something, so I learn what I can type in interfaces, resolv.conf, etc. Things like these are why I'd like a fallback DE. Some days I'm just lazy and want to get something done without learning something new too.

Basically want a login manager like Cream has where I pick between 3-5 WM's or XFCE based on what I wanna do that day. I'd rather install a few into one distro than have dual boot. Would like to use full disk encryption later.

Are GTK applications likely to break things I don't touch with them? I basically only want them for immediate fixes. Like will XFCE break anything if it just sits in the corner and isn't used often? Or Synaptic if I just use it to view package details, not for installs (as other thread stated)?

Also, can I upgrade Space Oddity to Testing or Unstable later like regular Debian if I start there?
Thank You!
(I remember when debian "non-gui" installer scared me. #never-forget)

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by catfood » Sat Oct 08, 2016 4:04 am

Also, want to thank MachineBacon and everyone who makes BBQ!

Didn't wanna make a new thread for this, but wanted to mention it.
Just got Netbook back together after hardware malfunctions.
Got to try my BBQCream USB on it for the first time tonight.

Thank you for keeping it old school and remembering old hardware! Wifi works out of the box(Uncommon). Soundcard works immediately too(Rare).

The only other distro that I got to recognize soundcard before was Knoppix, and only the 64 bit version which I didn't really want/need. Not fond of Knoppix anyways for its issues with updataing and using installed vs live...

So, I will definitely be installing LinuxBBQ on this machine after I get Windows backup USBs done (in case I sell it later). And after I make up my mind on a version, lol.

Anyways, thank you all, I look forward to being here a while!
Thank You!
(I remember when debian "non-gui" installer scared me. #never-forget)

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by vic » Sat Oct 08, 2016 8:02 am

Hi catfood and welcome to the bbq. Lots of good advice here, so go on have fun. Have patience, give yourself space and time to fail. Remember to backup important data. Take your time to read the documentation pages and read here on the forums, there are a lot of interesting stuff that might be useful. It can also be good to take notes the very analog old skool way, with pen and paper of what you do or install. You get the picture.

I guess you can upgrade "Space Oddity", but it will be quite a big jump though. If you want you can check out "BREAK", from early this year. I upgraded it a week ago or so and everything works fine. So enjoy your bbq!
Sorry guys, no signature for a while, too busy with life. :|

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by darry1966 » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:24 am

Welcome aboard catfood.
LinuxBBQ is Sexy. Runs BBQ Stable.

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by machinebacon » Sat Oct 08, 2016 11:54 am

catfood,

of course you can keep XFCE4 installed even though you don't use it. Remember though: GTK3 is a potential source of problems, mostly fixable (by waiting or switching to another application), and if you are on a slim network these additional updates/upgrades that GTK3 (or qt) apps pull in might play a role. They certainly do for users who have no broadband. And that's also the reason we offer noX releases and generally no-GTK releases since 2014 or so. GTK usually does not impact non-GTK applications, I cannot remember a case where this happened. So, you are usually safe.

The login manager in Cream as a special script pidsley and I put together to have a comfortable way of browsing through all WMs on the live ISO. We needed different wm-starter scripts because some WMs did not accept certain options.
In real life, you would simply edit ~/.xinitrc and there change the command that calls the window manager in question (the last like, starting with "exec ..."), so for example "exec spectrwm" or "exec openbox-session". In fact, keeping "exec x-window-manager" in .xinitrc but choosing the wished WM using "sudo update-alternatives --config x-window-manager" is the sanest way. This pops up a dialog, lets you pick your WM and set it as "x-window-manager", so the command in ~/.xinitrc would execute whatever WM was selected as "x-window-manager"

"Space Oddity" can be made testing or unstable, however if you decide to remaster it (usually 9 of 10 people do NOT remaster) it will take extra steps. If you plan to remaster an existing install, stay with the base it comes with (for example "Greatest Hits" for stable, any other sid-based release for unstable)

To simplify the decision making process:
- if you are willing to learn Debian From Scratch, take Anorexia or Adipositas. They are noX releases, so you will also see what steps are required to get from the console login to a working Xserver with window manager. Anorexia has a readme file named "X11" or so that helps you with that.
- if you want to explore terminal applications as alternatives to bloat, take anything else

Hope it helps ;)
..gnutella..

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by pidsley » Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:10 pm

^ Everything bacon said. Less crap installed means less crap to break. Display managers break things on a regular basis.

To switch weindow managers, I just edit my .xinitrc (I have a bash alias that opens the file in nano, I edit and go.) Once you find a (few) WMs you like I'll bet you don't switch that often.

If you still want to easily switch between WMs at X start, you can do something like this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xi ... w_managers

Or you can edit the pick-wm script and remove window managers you don't use. Xfce will be a special case though, because it requires "exec startxfce" instead of just "exec xfce" -- you can add it as a case in pick-wm (like tmux.) And openbox is also a special case if you want the session, not just the window manager.

https://github.com/linuxbbq/toolbox/blob/master/pick-wm

Finally, please ditch synaptic. It is really only a GUI front end for apt-get, and almost anything you can do with synaptic (including searching descriptions and viewing package details) can be done from the command line using apt-get or apt. Less crap installed means less crap to break.

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by ivanovnegro » Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:00 pm

pidsley wrote:
Finally, please ditch synaptic. It is really only a GUI front end for apt-get, and almost anything you can do with synaptic (including searching descriptions and viewing package details) can be done from the command line using apt-get or apt. Less crap installed means less crap to break.
Above all else, I second that. Here on the grill using apt is a *must*. If you know apt you know Debian. Then do whatever you want. Especially on Unstable I do not recommend using Synaptic or any other graphical tool to communicate with and maintain your system. Sure you can browse the packages but apt is the golden standard and does it all, better and faster. It has even a colored progress bar. ;)

We are just pointing you into the right direction.

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by GekkoP » Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:07 pm

Can't really add anything more useful than what's already been said.

I'll just say: take your time with the command-line and as many different command-line tools you can put your fingers on. You'll get a better understanding of your system and learn how to maintaining it with less clutter.

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by wuxmedia » Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:08 pm

yes, synaptic confuses the shit out of me now.
The bbq does have good aliases to speed up things, try;

Code: Select all

search <package name, or app function>
like 'search chess' brings a bunch of chess apps (which aren't just terminal apps) might need to pipe through grep if it's a page or two (even if it complains about it)

Code: Select all

search chess | grep chess/
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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by machinebacon » Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:11 pm

^ I noticed that

Code: Select all

search term1 | grep term2 | more
yields different results from

Code: Select all

search term2 | grep term1 | more
I think I remember it for "window" and "manager", eg.

^^ And of course the optimal setup would be <any Linux> with <Emacs> :D
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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by catfood » Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:52 pm

Anorexia or Adipositas look cool, but those will have to be usb installs for a while. I don't know near enough to start that fresh. I think I only used cmd for ipconfig on windows. Didnt even realize that was a terminal until recently, lol. Im learning quick for 6-8mo on Linux, but got a long ways to go.

I figured if XFCEs login manager didnt work on its own, I would just copy parts Cream's startup file and edit it to the few WMs I choose to use.

I have OCD, so i overanalyze everything. More and All options is how my brain likes to work. If one media player is good, ten must be great :D. I hope to one day narrow down to one WM I really like, but so far, I like being able to hop back and forth trying multiple on one system. Almost everyday i get on Debian I pick a different DE. Have different themes/setups for each. Im used to high performance computers where I can fill the HD sky high with junk and not suffer. I still barely see swap file use on my Dell with 30 firefox tabs open and 2 VMs running. Its gonna take a withdrawl process to get away from bloated thought patterns, especially if i don't want netbook running at current horrid win7 speed.

Just gonna take some time to wean myself off GTK, so I like having it to fall back on while i learn.

I did read threads here about not using synaptic. I don't mind apt-get install. I even did searches for packages in terminal. Some packages gave me like a 3pg terminal output that was hard to navigate though. I like being able to lookup specific names and read package desc/notes 1st. Then go back and apt install. I've googled package info b4 too, but that doesn't always give me accurate info for current systems actual repo packages.

I was curious though. Does synaptic bring systemd with it's install? I didn't think BBQ used systemd, but my test Cream usb showed it during upgrade list today. (I know Cream's not meant for installs/upgrades; doing entirely at my own risk knowing I will break it eventually, lol). Also wondered if i could hashout some of the buttons code for synaptic to disable accidental installs through it.

I still don't really understand systemd, x11, etc. I want to give myself a comfortable transition into BBQ, but i also don't want to install things that are guaranteed to break it once i put it on hard drive. So any particular depencies or required additional packages to avoid would be helpful.
Thank You!
(I remember when debian "non-gui" installer scared me. #never-forget)

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by pidsley » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:30 pm

Synaptic doesn't depend on systemd, as far as I can tell. Some things do, even when systemd is not used as init. It should not be used as init unless you specifically install it.

You can tell if systemd is installed using this command:

Code: Select all

apt-cache policy systemd
And see what is being used as init this way:

Code: Select all

ls -l /sbin/init
pstree
If the first command reports a 35k file (not a link) and the base of the pstree says "init" you are still using sysv.

You can view the dependencies for synaptic like this:

Code: Select all

apt-cache depends synaptic
Finally, it's not entirely accurate to say "bbq doesn't use systemd" -- the most recent releases don't use it as init, but some of the older spins do, and we don't think systemd is absolutely evil, so don't count on it never being used again. And even the releases that don't use systemd as init use some parts of it (like udev) -- we haven't moved completely to eudev. So you will see pieces of systemd if you use "locate systemd" or "find / -name systemd" even on the newer spins.

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by wuxmedia » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:42 pm

systemd link for comparison:

Code: Select all

wux@nargothrond:~$ ls -l /sbin/init
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 Sep  2 23:02 /sbin/init -> /lib/systemd/systemd*
maybe a dist-upgrade on cream would go to systemd - inline with current Jessie (that I installed/am running)?
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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by machinebacon » Sun Oct 09, 2016 4:19 am

As said, you can have systemd installed and still not using it as init, so don't worry about this detail first.

too much out put in the terminal? add

Code: Select all

| more
behind your command, for example

Code: Select all

search terminal | more
I would use two terminals side by side (either with a tiling WM or a stacking WM, or with tmux split), saves you a lot of hassle.
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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by machinebacon » Sun Oct 09, 2016 9:56 am

catfood,

here's something for your "window manager hopping" needs: http://www.linuxbbq.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1097
It's basically a set of scripts that:
- prints a menu after logging in
- enables the user to pick a WM or a terminal session
- uses a replacement for ~/.xinitrc to start a set of applications at start

If you need help, post in the thread there.
..gnutella..

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Re: Best base BBQ for my needs?

Unread post by ivanovnegro » Mon Oct 10, 2016 12:04 am

As for Synaptic again. If you like seeing infos about the packages. There is another way of doing that faster than opening Synaptic. Open it in a browser, the browser often is already opened.

Either in Chrome or Firefox with a search shortcut like deb for Debian packages. My example uses mplayer on the official Debian site.

https://packages.debian.org/search?lang ... ds=mplayer

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