Episode 52 Show Notes
Distrohoppers’ Digest
Episode 52
INTRODUCTION
Moss: Distrohopping: The idea that Linux is fun, and the myriad ways people put distros together should be reviewed often. My name is Moss. I live in eastern Tennessee.
Dale: I’m Dale, I live in northeast Ohio.
Eric: And I’m Eric, I live in southwestern Florida.
Moss: Welcome to Distrohoppers’ Digest. We love checking distros out — new distros, new versions of older distros, and even some we may have overlooked.
Dale: We each have our preferences, in complexity or desktop or package management. Perhaps we can help you find a new distro, or better understand one which has piqued your curiosity.
Eric: The idea of this podcast is that we will each install a new distro to our chosen hardware for 3-4 weeks and use it as much as possible, perhaps even as our daily driver. We record all our trials, tribulations, fixes, and what we like and what we don’t.
Dale: I tend to take on the more advanced distros and give them a go.
Moss: While I tend to prefer looking at distros that would be kind to a new user, especially one who is hoping to move over from another operating system, such as Windoze or MachOS.
Eric: We intend to give as much information as possible on each distro, and will also mention what hardware we are using and might comment how we think the hardware may have affected the rating.
Chapters:
Intro – 00:00:00
Monthly Foibles – 00:02:11
Updates – 00:15:15
Beautiful Failures – 00:29:59
Reviews – 00:34:53
Feedback and Errata – 01:17:01
Announcements – 01:23:29
Acknowledgements – 01:24:35
Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 52
Introductions
Hosts: Dale Miracle, Eric Adams
Monthly Foibles
Updates: Replacing Fedora, Ubuntu 24.04, Solus,and Void.
Beautiful Failures: Distro searching and dual-booting Void and Tuxedo OS
Reviews: Tuxedo OS and Ubuntu 24.04
Announcements
Closing
Welcome to Orthopedist’ Digest, Episode 52 recorded on the 5th of May 2024. For this show, we will be reviewing Ubuntu 24.04 LTD “Noble Numb at” and Tuxedo OS.
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MONTHLY FOIBLES
…wherein we discuss what we did this month…
Dale:
My time at home was much more relaxed than it was last month. I didn’t do nearly as much. This was partially to prevent burn out. I’ve been giving my hobby projects unneeded self imposed deadlines. I’ve been feeling like I should accomplish more when I am home. When I should focus more on resting after working for a month. I’ve also been using more of my down time at work for resting. It has been working out well. I divide my attention to the podcast and my current project. Which has been looking into Sway again. I will talk more about this in a few minutes.
The mint Cast podcast was looking for show ideas. I suggested my experience with the Linux Mint Backup Tool. I used it when I reinstalled LADE the month before last month. I shared my backup strategy and tips for making it easier for when I reinstalled my apps and data. It can be heard on Episode 434.5 in the Innards section.
What led to me reinstalling LADE was due to me helping a friend find a clone of Mario Kart. This happened a month prior to this past month. They changed bistros and the game wasn’t in the current bistros repositories. I found the GitHub project and tried to compile it. The instructions were simple with one issue. They were from 2012 with a few comments in the issue tracker asking for compilation help in 2021. After a couple hours of tracking down dependencies and compilation error codes, I gave up.
After some searching, I found an APT rope on Ubuntu’s Launchpad that had the game. I happened to be using my Pangolin which uses Pop_OS!. So I added the rope. The game ran fine. I connected remotely to their computer and added the rope. I thought I would put it on my LADE since it was decades since I played that game. Well that was a mistake. The following day while using LADE. An update notification appeared. I tried to install the updates but it failed. The long story short, as I can’t remember all the various details, was that repo apparently caused issues with LMDE’s APT. It was the most odd thing. I couldn’t remove the repo but its existence prevented me from updating. The differences between the Debian base of LMDE and the Ubuntu base of Pop_OS! didn’t agree with the repository for some reason. That was a rabbit hole of a few hours wasted.
While spending some quality time with my couch watching YouTube on my TV. There were suggested videos about Hyprland. Despite me not wanting to use it due to its rapid development. I still watched the videos. It was mentioned in one of them, that the styling changes can be applied to Sway. That comment got my attention. Because I enjoyed my experience with Regolith in Episode 36 on 09/22 and Garuda Sway in Episode 47 on 10/23. Regolith uses the i3 Window Manager and Sway is a Wayland Compositor that is mostly compatible with the i3 configuration file. The bland look in my opinion and my lack of knowledge customizing Sway kept me away.
These videos created a rabbit hole that kept my interest during the week. I watched quite a few on how to edit the style.css file along with configuring Sway and the Sway bar. I found a fork of Sway called SwayFX. It has quite a few added compositing features like blur, corner radius, shadows, and more. I saw they had a package in Void Linux, so I installed it and started working on Sway. I needed to brush up on my 20+ year old CSS knowledge. The amount of customization and theme ability is mind blowing. It was also very helpful to look at other peoples config files to learn how they achieved their look.
Now that my eyes have been opened. I am all in on Sway, well as long as everything I use works. Given my previous experience with Gnome on Wayland. I am hoping I should be fine. It has been a couple years since I was using Gnome. The link to SwayFX will be in the show notes.
https://github.com/WillPower3309/swayfx
One of my friends had some more plumbing issues. Lucky for him I am somewhat skilled in plumbing due to being my dads helper while growing up. He knows how to do some plumbing, he is just not able to do some of it anymore. He needed the sprayer replace on his kitchen sink. Once he saw me do it, he said “That was it?!?, now I am embarrassed”. I told him not to be. I just got lucky it co-operated.
The next item was a dripping faucet. He had a Delta washer-less faucet. They are easier to replace than the previous way of doing it. We couldn’t figure out why it kept dripping when the water valve was closed. I saw that the cold and hot supply hoses were crossed and I was turning off the wrong one. Apparently when the house was built, that person wasn’t paying attention to which side the hot and cold water lines were supposed to be on.
So with that bombshell we will move along to Eric.
Eric:
Even though I am a part of several podcasts and streams, I am not very much if an audiophile. I have a few mics that I am happy with, a USB audio interface, I use some software enhancements, and I generally use Bluetooth earbuds. The earbuds have proven to be a bit of a problem sometimes, not just because Bluetooth can be a pain to deal with, but also because the sound quality from earbuds is a bit anemic compared to larger headphones. I don’t normally notice this much while just chatting or even recording but it can be very noticeable while editing a podcast. Most of the people I record podcasts or stream with are men who tend to have deeper voices so earbuds lacking a well defined low end means that I am missing an important piece when editing. I really noticed this while listening to one of the episodes I had edited in the car. The bass was overblown and difficult to listen to.
My solution to this was to try a few different pairs of wired, over the ear headphones. The wired aspect is important because Bluetooth tends to have a delay and can also be a hassle to configure and use by comparison. I also wanted to try open back headphones because I really dislike headphones that keep me from hearing what is going on around me. This led me to first purchase the Samson SR850 Semi-Open Studio Headphones. Even though they fit nicely and sounded good to my ears, I decided I couldn’t keep them because of the material covering the ear cups. They claim it is velour but it was not soft and actually felt scratchy on my ears and face. I returned them and considered some other options, including the Sennheiser HD 599, HIFIMAN HE400SE, GRADO SR60x Prestige Series, and Philips Audio SHP9500. I kept reading good things about the SHP9500 and, since they were also the least expensive, decided to give them a try.
I have been using them for about a week now and have found them to be very comfortable, with light clamping force, a well padded headband, and full coverage of my ears so there is no pressure on them. The audio quality is also very good in my opinion. All the frequencies seem to be well represented, with clear mids and highs while also providing decent low end bass. I like that the cord is removable so it can be easily replaced if need be. They can be a little warm due to their fairly large size but I don’t find myself sweating too much, even after wearing them for several hours. They also seem fairly durable so hopefully, I will have them for years to come.
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UPDATES (Where we discuss what we have learned about distros we’ve already reviewed)
Dale:
I still keep up with the Solus project as I ran Solus Plasma and later Budgie for a couple of years each in the past. I had until this past week, a Solus Plasma installation that has successfully updated since around 2018. That is because I needed that SSD for another computer. That says a lot about the reliability and dedication that the Solus team has about their distros.
They had another State of Solus blog post and wow it is a lengthy one at that. I will mention some of the highlights.
The team is now up to 19 members. They migrated their Help Center to Docusaurus along with their IRC to Matrix. They have released their Xfce edition as part of the Solus 4.6 release cycle. It will replace their Mate edition. They have started replacing their Python based applications with non Python based versions. What they have replaced so far is using the Calamares installer framework. They also decided to use move to use the Gnome Software Center for GTK based desktops and the Discover Software Center for Qt based desktops. They have plans for replacing Eopkg, their package manager, though that will be a complicated longer process.
A link to this will be in the Updates section of the show notes.
https://getsol.us/2024/04/20/state-of-solus-april-2024
Canonical has released Ubuntu 24.04 LTS code name Noble Numbat. It will be supported for 5 years until June 2029. Here are a few of the updates. A link will be provided in the updates section.
• Kernel 6.8
• Year 2038 support for the armf architecture
The ubuntu-desktop-installer is now part of the larger ubuntu-desktop-provision project and has been renamed to ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap. It comes with an improved UI design that is customizable via a central configuration file. Default image assets automatically follow the customized accent color, or can be swapped out entirely according to the needs of flavors or OEM providers. The update includes.
• A reintroduction of ZFS Guided Installations.
• TPM-backed Full-Disk encryption
• Network Manager now uses Netplan version 1.0. It have been used in Ubuntu Server for quite a while. I find it quite easy to edit once you know the syntax. It uses the YAML configuration syntax.
• Ubuntu App Center replaces the Snap Store. Written from scratch using the Flutter Toolkit.
• Firmware updater
• Gnome version 46.
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-24-04-lts-noble-numbat-release-notes/39890
I’ve been using my Void Xfce on my T560 for the majority of the week I’ve been home. This is due to a beautiful failure that will be mentioned next episode. I needed to add some applications I usually have on my desktop computer. It was nice to see that they had recent-enough versions in the repo. So only need to use Flatpak for applications that are not in the Void package repo. The more I have used Void the more I appreciate all the effort they put into the distro. In some cases the native packages were more recent than Flatpak.
Eric:
After having spent a good bit of time in the past month trying to find a suitable replacement for Fedora on my Latitude tablet, I had gone through quite a few distros and DEs. I was also ready for a change on my XPS 15 as well. I tried several of the same options on the XPS as I had on the Latitude but wasn’t really happy with any of them. I was looking through my repository of ISO files and Pop!_OS popped out at me (haha) so I wiped Mint 21.3 and switched to Pop!_OS 22.04 NVIDIA version. It comes with the older 42.9 version of GNOME but it doesn’t feel outdated due to System76’s excellent additions GNOME by way of their custom extensions. These include Cosmic Dock, Cosmic Workspaces, Cosmic X11 Gestures, Pop COSMIC, Pop Shell, and System76 Power. They also install Desktop Icons NG (DING) and Ubuntu AppIndicators to round out the customizations. What it gives you is possibly the most capable GNOME desktop available. It also is a bit of a glimpse into the future of System76’s upcoming custom COSMIC desktop, which is close to an Alpha release. I have been using it for several weeks and couldn’t be happier with the experience so far.
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BEAUTIFUL FAILURES – What we tried, and failed, to install or run this month
Dale:
My failure involves my review of Tuxedo OS and dual-booting with Void on my T460. I already had Void installed. When using the Calamares installer option “Install along side” while installing Tuxedo OS. It wouldn’t resize the ssd. It complained that the Ext4 partition has incompatible options. I hadn’t seen that before. So I tried installing it on m System76 Pangolin running Pop!_OS. Both Tuxedo OS and Pop!_OS are using the same Ubuntu 22.04 base. I had the same error when trying to resize the partition.
I rebooted the T460 with the Void Base ISO and used Cfdisk to resize the partition. Tuxedo OS installed to the new partition I created in Cfdisk. Though it didn’t see Void on the other partition.
Tuxedo OS booted fine but Void using the UEFI boot menu booted to Grub Rescue. When trying to boot the kernel from there I kept getting the error “attempt to read or write outside of disk”.
When I tried to mount the partition from a Live ISO I kept getting the error “Wrong FS type, Bad option, or bad Superblock etc”. I then tried Fsck and e2fsck. Indeed the Superblock was damaged according to Fsck. I looked at the E2fsck man page and saw an option to use a backup Superblock. It instructed me to use mke2fs -n. It would show the other Superblock backups. Then the command e2fsck -b followed by the number of the Superblock. The intent was to use that backup to repair the partition. Unfortunately it did not help. I ended up formatting the partition and reinstalling Void to it. Followed by Tuxedo OS. I will have more details about that in my review.
I never seen a partition resizing go this wrong. I want to thank Bhikhu for his suggestions via e-mail, it was much appreciated. I contacted him due to his helpful suggestions in the past.
Eric:
My beautiful failure this month isn’t one specific thing. Rather, it is the time I spent researching and trying different distros on the Latitude tablet, only to end up on Ubuntu 24.04. It wasn’t so much that I failed in trying them, more that I spent a lot of time trying things again since it had been a few years since I last looked at them. I think the best but not only example of this is openSUSE. I have not had a positive experience with it in recent memory, stretching back at least a dozen years or so. I honestly don’t know why it is such a challenge for me since I have seen others have good luck with it. Although I suppose that I have seen just as many people have a poor experience so maybe it’s not just me. In any case, I think I have satisfied my openSUSE curiosity for at least a few more years. Also, no offense to any listeners that use and like openSUSE. I fully expect the reason it doesn’t work for me is that I’m doing something wrong.
Let’s move on to the reviews.
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REVIEWS
Eric:
DISTRO NAME: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS “Noble Numbat”
INTRO:
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS “Noble Numbat”, along with 24.04 versions of Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Cinnamon, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Unity, Edubuntu, and Ubuntu Kylin, were released on April 25.
For those of you who are curious as to what a “numbat” is, it is an endangered Australian marsupial. It is also known as the noombat or walpurti and its diet consists almost exclusively of termites.
Beyond yet another quirky mascot, this release brings the usual assortment of additions, updates, and fixes. It also has the additional distinction of being an LTS, or long-term support edition. This means that it will be supported for a minimum of five years, with options to purchase support beyond that period.
MY HARDWARE:
Dell Latitude 5290 2-in-1 tablet PC, 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8350U Processor (15W TDP Quad Core), 16GB LPDDR3 2133MHz, M.2 512GB PCIe NVMe, 12.3″ Touch 3:2 WUXGA+ (1920 x 1280)
INSTALLATION EASE AND ISSUES:
I just got a 128 GB dual type USB thumb drive that I divided in half. One half is for Ventoy and the other is just free storage so I can still use the drive for sneakernet files.
Boot ISO from Ventoy. As always, the boot screen is very polished and professional. There is no text output showing the boot progress, although you are able to press the Esc key to see this information.
The first screen presented is entitled “Welcome to Ubuntu” and asks you to choose your language. Conveniently, English was already selected for me. This screen is almost completely white and can be a little on the bright side. Fortunately, it is possible to choose “Dark Style” from the tray menu at the top right.
The next screen offers access to the accessibility features organized by category such as Seeing, Hearing, Typing, and so on. You are able to enable whichever you might want or need to before continuing. This is a welcome change, one that will make life a lot easier for those who need to use these features.
There are additional screens are Keyboard Layout and choosing an Internet Connection before being asked whether you want to Install or Try Ubuntu. If you choose to Try then it exits the installer and loads the standard Ubuntu desktop. Choosing to Install next offers a choice of how to install, either using the normal interactive method or an automated installation for users who have an autoinstall.yaml file. This is aimed at larger organizations who are deploying multiple systems.
This installer diverges from the traditional one by offering a default minimal installation or an extended one which includes a selection of common tools such as an office suite and other utilities. I chose the latter because I usually appreciate when a distro puts effort into selecting a core set of software as a convenience to their users. If you have installed Ubuntu in the past, you may remember that the Ubiquity installer usually offered a similar option however I believe that process involved installing the full suite of software choices first and then uninstalling them if you chose the minimal install option. That never made sense to me but I have to assume there was a good reason for doing it that way.
Next you are asked whether you would like to install third-party drivers and support for additional media formats. I chose to install both of these.
Now you are asked how you want to partition your disk. These choices differ depending on whether you are installing to a disk without existing partitions or one that has already been used. In my case, I was dedicating the entire disk to this installation so I chose to “Erase disk and install Ubuntu”. There are also some Advanced Features available, such as using LVM, LVM with encryption, erasing the disk and using ZFS, and erasing the disk, using ZFS with encryption. There was one additional option that was greyed out for me which was to enable hardware-backed full disk encryption. I didn’t choose to use any of these options. There was also the option to manually configure partitions which is useful if you have a use case that requires a particular setup or you are multi-booting with other OSes.
Best you are asked to create you user account, including user name, computer name, password, whether to require a password to log in, and finally, whether you are using Active Directory.
The next screen asks you to choose a time zone, which was already set to the correct option for me.
Lastly, you are shown a screen that lists the choices you’ve made. This gives you one last chance to review prior to beginning the installation process.
The installation screen is a standard slide presentation listing some of the prominent features of Ubuntu. There are buttons to control the slideshow at the bottom along with the installation progress. There is a icon near the bottom right which lets you toggle to a console view of the installation process. If I am watching the installation process I will usually switch to this mode to see what steps are being taken.
The installation time was short, taking less than 10 minutes. I didn’t set a timer so I’m not positive but it seemed to take less time than it previously did. Once it finishes, you are asked whether you like to Continue Testing or Restart Now. I chose to restart. Ubuntu and mny of its derivatives still ask you to remove the installation media which feels like a throwback to booting from CDs and DVDs, which were often set to be the primary boot device. In those days, removing the disk made sense because otherwise, the system would just boot back into the installation. I can’t remember the last system I used that had removable media set as the default boot device so it seems superfluous to prompt someone to remove the USB thumb drive but maybe there’s still a valid reason that I’m not aware of.
POST-INSTALLATION HARDWARE FACTS & ISSUES:
After rebooting and logging in, I noticed that the live session settings were remembered which included having selected Dark Style and the WiFi password. That’s a great start! A welcome screen is displayed, with the first page containing a link to view the change log. The next screen offers the option to enable Ubuntu Pro with the “Skip for now” option being selected by default. Next is whether you would like to send telemetry to Ubuntu. The default is set to “Yes, share system data with the Ubuntu team” with the other option being “No, don’t share system data”. There is also an option to “Show the First Report” as well as the “Legal notice”. The next screen reminds you that more software is available via Ubuntu’s App Center. Clicking Finish closes the Welcome screen and you are now staring at the default Ubuntu desktop featuring a typical custom wallpaper based on the release mascot. In this case, it is a stylized crown containing two numbats facing each other on either a purple or dark gray background, depending whether you have choen to use Dark Style or not.
The 24.04 release features the latest version of the GNOME desktop, which is version 46. It was released in March of this year so many people will already be familiar with it, especially those using rolling release distros such as Arch Linux. The main highlights include improvements to the Nautilus file manager such as performance enhancements and improved search capabilities. Notifications have been improved as has the Settings app. One of the more unique features of GNOME is the distro-level integration of Online Accounts, such as Google and Microsoft services. This release sees a number of improvements. Last, but not least, the core set of GNOME apps such as their Calendar, Maps, and Music, have all seen updates as well.
Other than GNOME, there have been a fairly substantial number of updates to the underlying system, many of which are squarely focused at an LTS release. Canonical tends to not make larger changes between the previous point release and an LTS release so as to not introduce bugs, amongst other reasons.
I think perhaps the best way to describe my experience with this latest release of Ubuntu is that it has become a known commodity. Ubuntu looks and feels like Ubuntu. They have established a look and feel that rarely sees any drastic changes. There is a real sense of continuity which is comfortable. It helps that I like and prefer GNOME in most cases and usually add the same extension that Canonical does, like Dash to Dock and AppIndicators to name a few. Ubuntu is easy mode in a lot of ways.
That’s not to say it isn’t without its issues. One of the bigger ones for me is the reliance on snaps. It’s no secret that I don’t prefer snaps, although I did actually try to stick with them this time. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long once I realized that many of the snap counterparts to the apps that I normally get from Flathub were outdated. Not great but maybe something I could accept. What I couldn’t handle was that switching cursors resulted in snaps displaying the default tiny white cursor rather than the one I had selected, in this case the excellent Bibata-Modern-Classic. I didn’t see it as being available via snap so I was left with either changing back to Adwaita or ditching snaps. I chose to ditch snaps and replace them with either native packages, flatpaks, or appimages. I can appreciate Canonical’s strategy to use snaps to support software across numerous releases and I also appreciate that I can choose to go in a different direction.
EASE OF USE:
Choosing the Expanded install option meant that I had the usually “one app per software category” setup (i.e. an office suite, a web browser, a video player). Even though I chose to install additional software, either via the non-snap version of Gnome Software or the command line. I didn’t necessarily need to. I would have been able to complete most typical computer-based tasks using what was already included.
I didn’t run into any roadblocks or showstopping errors. Everything seemed to just work as intended.
MEMORY AND DISK USE:
Running `free -h` showed 1.0 GB of memory in use. This is about what I expect from Ubuntu and GNOME.
Running `df -h` showed 11 GB of disk space in use. This is also consistent with Ubuntu and GNOME.
EASE OF FINDING HELP:
Ubuntu is the most popular version of Desktop Linux so, as you might expect, there are a ton of resources available. From forums and IRC to Element and Telegram, there is no shortage of documentation and assistance available.
PLAYS NICE WITH OTHERS:
I didn’t test multi-booting with this release so I don’t know how well it works with this release. Normally, Ubuntu does just fine with this.
STABILITY:
I didn’t experience any crashes with the full release, however I did when testing with the Beta. It looks like the testing process did a good job of identifying the more common issues and fixed them prior to release.
SIMILAR DISTROS TO CHECK OUT:
All of the Ubuntu derivatives share this base so it’s a question of which desktop environment you prefer.
RATINGS:
Ease of Installation new user 8/10
experienced user 10/10
Hardware Support 10/10
Ease of Finding Help (Community, Web) 10/10
Ease of Use 9/10
Plays Nice With Others ?/10
Stability 10/10
Overall Rating 9/10
FINAL COMMENTS:
The way I use my computers has changed quite a bit over the past 5 years or so. I may have considered Ubuntu to be boring at one point because seemingly so little changes between releases. Now, I see that as a strength. My expectation out of a computer now is that I am able to sit down and do the things I want to do with as little time spent on maintenance and troubleshooting as possible. Ubuntu tends to fit that description almost perfectly. It has become that comfortable pair of shoes or worn-in pair of jeans. Each release is familiar and manages to introduce changes in a sensible way. This is particularly true of an LTS release like 24.04. Everything is well thought out and put together. It all looks very nice and works the way I expect it to. And, most importantly, it gets out of my way and lets me get things done. It is perhaps not the most exciting Desktop Linux experience but I suppose that’s exactly what makes it suit me so well.
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Let’s hear now from Dale
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Dale:
DISTRO NAME: Tuxedo OS
INTRO:
Tuxedo OS is based off of Kubuntu 22.04 by Tuxedo Computers, a German computer retailer. Until 2022, the only way you could get Tuxedo OS was to buy one of the Tuxedo Computers. Prior to the 22.04 update they were using the Budgie desktop. This was to offer better customizations for their customers.
MY HARDWARE:
I used my Lenovo ThinkPad T460. It has an Intel Dual Core i5-6200U 2.8 GHz CPU, a 14″ display using Intel HD Graphics 520, 16 GB of RAM, and a 1 TB Crucial BX500 SSD.
INSTALLATION EASE AND ISSUES:
I noticed when I wrote the ISO to the USB stick. It wouldn’t appear in the file manager. I thought it was odd, so I tried it on my Pangolin with Pop!_OS. It did the same thing, though it boots fine.
So after booting the ISO, there are two options. One for those that need the Nvidia drivers and a second option for those who don’t. They are using the default Ubuntu installer. Since they are based in Germany, the language is German. A simple change to English resolved that issue.
It was kinda odd at first. After changing the language. The live environment appeared with only an installation icon present. I clicked on it and again the installation was in German. I selected English and it proceeded. Once it was finished, then I was presented with the live environment. In hindsight it made sense since they a person can select the language they prefer. As a resident of the US, I am accustomed to having things in English first. The remainder of the installation was the normal you would have in an Kubuntu installation.
POST-INSTALLATION HARDWARE FACTS & ISSUES:
They are using Plasma version is 5.27.10 with Org. Frameworks version 5.114.0, and Qt version 5.15.12. The kernel is version 6.5 customized by Tuxedo. Flattop is installed with Flat hub already configured for use. Snaps are not installed. They have five additional APT repositories configured. It took quite a while for the initial apt update to finish. After the initial update the update time was normal.
EASE OF USE:
Overall it was my usual experience with Plasma. It is a functional desktop despite the occasional glitches. I tried to use Discover a few times. I noticed that clicking on the update notification launched Discover. It immediately started refreshing while prompting me for my password. I like the feedback of the bar graphs as it is downloading the packages. Where the user experience falls down in my opinion is during the installation. All of the downloaded updates are marked installing. Which results in no feedback as to when it will finish. Enough about my gripes with Discover. Let’s move on to the positives.
Tuxedo includes their Tuxedo Control Center which is a nice utility. The dashboard by default shows CPU temp, frequency, fan speed, power, and the integrated graphics frequency and power. That is if your computer supports that data from its sensors and are compatible with the Tuxedo Control Center.
Under the profiles tab there are power management options. They were enabled for use on both laptops. They included Default (Full performance), Cool and breezy (reduced power and less fan noise), Power-save extreme (heavily reduced power and near silent fans). There is also an option to edit the profile for custom settings. There is a list in the top right to select the profiles.
One nice feature that I wish others would offer is a webcam viewer and settings control. With this you can adjust the brightness, contrast, and the resolution. There are even more detailed setting such as exposure, Dynamic range, color to name a few.
When I booted the live ISO on my Pangolin. I noticed that the sensors were all working where they weren’t on my T460. I believe Tuxedo could be sourcing their laptops from Cleo or hardware that shares similarity to Cleo. So your mileage may vary on your computer.
The Firefox they are using is the DEB package. LibreOffice is the current version which is impressive as other bistros tend to lag behind. Thunderbird is included by default in addition to K Torrent. Elisa is the music player, I haven’t heard of it until reviewing Tuxedo. It appears to be one of the many KDE community apps I am not aware of. VAC is the default video player, a good choice since it is the Swiss Army Knife of the video players. The other applications are the same you would find on Kubuntu.
The theme is pretty nice if you like darker themes. There are three they provided. They still have the default KDE Breeze themes.
The wallpaper selection is too numerous to mention. They are various abstract art, outdoor scenes, and geometric shapes. The default doesn’t seem to match in my opinion. It is a mosaic of what looks to be a grass covered hill side with a single pink flower in the center.
They have two work spaces enabled which something you normally need to do with other distros. I tended not use the work spaces as much with Plasma. They don’t make adding or changing keyboard shortcuts as easy compared to other desktop environments. To change work spaces I needed to press CTRL F1 and CTRL F2. Honestly I would forget and wouldn’t bother using the work spaces. Seriously, CTRL F1???
MEMORY AND DISK USE:
I observed on a fresh boot around 880 MB. I used free -hm -s 30. Apparently free has the ability to take readings at a time interval you select.
The disk usage using sudo du -hm / was a little over 13 GB.
EASE OF FINDING HELP:
I didn’t seek out any help. Given how this is Kubuntu, any of the Ubuntu forums would be fine. In addition to other support forums that cater to Ubuntu.
PLAYS NICE WITH OTHERS:
It did once I reinstalled everything. I still don’t know what happened the first time. I like how Tuxedo enabled the OSprober so that Grub will detect other operating systems. I think they did that to lessen the support calls from their customers.
STABILITY:
I didn’t have any issues
SIMILAR DISTROS TO CHECK OUT:
Kubuntu
RATINGS:
Ease of Installation new user 8/10
experienced user 10/10
Hardware Support 10/10
Ease of Finding Help (Community, Web) x/10
Ease of Use 8/10
Plays Nice With Others 10/10
Stability 10/10
Overall Rating 9/10
FINAL COMMENTS:
Like I mentioned in the Ease of Use. Overall it was a good experience. Though in full disclosure I am getting kind of meh about Plasma. It is more of a, it’s not you its me. I have a friend who recently switched back to Plasma and loves it. He is a dyed in the wool Gnome fan. I know many others that really enjoy it.
I think the care they showed in their choices was good. I read their website press release of their change to Plasma. It was translated into English. They had many good reasons and I would agree with most of them. Budgie isn’t as configurable as others. It is actually less than Gnome, of which it is based off of. Tuxedo has more ability to customize the desktop experience for their customers with Plasma. I believe they did a good job. The control center is a big value add. I liked the ability to change the web cam settings. I am wondering if there is way I could add that to my Void installation. Seeing recent enough package versions or the most recent versions is another big win. Especially considering they are using a mix of the Ubuntu repos and their own. Which like Debian doesn’t always have the most recent package versions. In my opinion that is what LTS is meant for.
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FEEDBACK AND ERRATA
Dave Wagler via E-mail:
Congratulations on 5 years of distro hopping.
Any interest in trying NixOS?
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ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Eric: We’d love to hear from you, dear listener. Join us on our Telegram group, Discord channel, or Email the show at [email protected]. Our website is https://distrohoppersdigest.org.
Dale: I’m @Dale_CDL on Telegram and Discord. My email is [email protected].
Eric: You can hear more of me on other podcasts and streams like mintCast, Linux OTC, Linux Saloon, and LinuxLUGCast. I also have a YouTube channel @ericadamsyt. I can be reached on most social media and chat platforms under my full name, Eric Adams. You can also reach me by email at [email protected].
BEFORE WE GO:
Moss: We would like to thank all those who make this project possible,
Dale: Archive.org for storing and helping to distribute this program;
Eric: Audacity, which we use for recording and editing the show
Moss: Tony Hughes, for managing the website and Eric Adams for audio editing services;
Dale: Joshua Lowe for work on our logo;
Eric: All those who work on the teams which are creating, adapting, and maintaining the Linux distros we have reviewed this episode;
Moss: Mid-Air Machine, creators of the song, “Streets of Sant’ivo”, used as our music under Creative Commons license;
Dale: Thanks to Linus Torvalds for the Kernel, Richard Stallman for the GNU Toolkits, and all those who have worked behind the scenes on Free and Open Source/Libre Software;
Eric: We will be back next month. Thank all of you for listening.
