Episode 53 Show Notes
Distrohoppers’ Digest
Episode 53
INTRODUCTION
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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.
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Synopsis
- Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode
- Introductions
- Hosts: Dale Miracle, Eric Adams
- Monthly Foibles
- Updates: Debian systemd-boot future and APT updates
- Beautiful Failures: LMDE Secure Boot
- Reviews: Archman, Bluefin Project
- New Releases
- Feedback
- Announcements
- Closing
Dale**:**
Welcome to Distrohopper’s Digest, Episode 53 recorded on the 10th of June, 2024. For this show, we will be reviewing Archman and Bluefin Project.
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MONTHLY FOIBLES
…wherein we discuss what we did this month…
Dale:
I’ve been very productive and surprised at what I was able to accomplish.
One of the projects I wanted to complete was setting up Nextcloud. TrueNAS Scale has a Docker container available. I tried installing it a couple of times and then watched a tutorial to make sure I was installing it correctly. Unfortunately each time I would log in for the first time. There were different errors according to the configuration/security check. I searched and found a forum post matching my issues. I tried them with no success. They were mostly PHP-related issues with a few Docker issues. I decided that I shouldn’t need to do any of this. I don’t know PHP or Docker enough to be useful.
That is when I had to decide what I wanted to do. My storage is on Scale so I would need to use NFS, iSCSI, or Samba to export the file system to another computer. I would rather not do that. I have in the past and found local storage is faster and more reliable.
I saw that Scale had a new version and thought that might help my problem. As many of the improvements were on their Docker Apps etc. I was annoyed at the upgrade instructions. They were complex enough to consider re-installing it from scratch and re-importing the settings. Considering there was no guarantee it would resolve my problem. I needed another plan. After much consideration, I landed on Ubuntu Server 22.04. I did consider Proxmox but it is more centered around running VMs and optionally clustering the servers. Ubuntu Server is more my style being command line oriented.
One of my goals was to have two Pi-Holes for redundancy. What is better than one Pi-Hole? Two Pi-Hole’s. LoL, I was already using one Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny for Pi-Hole and my Unifi Controller. I was using my other Tiny as my desktop. Given its size and power usage. It is better suited as a server.
I had a spare desktop I wasn’t using. I moved the SSD from the Tiny to the desktop. It is an MSI Z97s Krait Edition motherboard with an Intel 4<sup>th</sup> gen i5. Well, that didn’t go as planned, and I will mention that in my Beautiful Failures.
I took my T560 laptop from my bedroom to use in place of my desktop. I had already cable-managed my future gaming pc and didn’t want to move it.
I installed Ubuntu Server on my Ryzen and my Tinys. I used the installation script for the Ubiquiti Unifi Network Controller. A forum member in the Ubiquiti forums created it. A couple of listeners of this podcast suggested to try it the next time I needed it. It worked very well, I was quite impressed. Exporting and importing settings from the Unifi Controller makes it is so easy to reinstall the controller. After installing Pi_hole and importing the settings from my other Pi-Hole. I was able to reinstall the Ubuntu Server on the i3 Tiny along with Pi-Hole.
I saw a video of Gravity Sync on the Techno Tim YouTube channel a few months ago. This was a great idea in my opinion. I bookmarked their GitHub for later use. It is pretty cool. Gravity Sync will sync block lists, local DNS records, and a couple of others. There is also an option to automate the syncing. It will not sync the main settings like the upstream DNS among others. The video is 3 years old so some of what he says is now implemented. It is still a great video.
I moved on to my main server. Due to options Scale is used in the ZFS pools. I needed to recreate them for use on Ubuntu Server. It has a recent version but not as recent as Scale.
Since TrueNAS Scale is treated as an appliance. You can not use the boot drive for anything except for Scale. On Ubuntu Server, I can use the same boot drive. This meant I could re-use the 120 GB boot SSD and the two 500 GB SSDs I was using for application/configuration storage.
I used the 120 GB SSD for a transcoding temporary space for the Plex Media Server and the two 500 GB SSDs as mirrored boot drives. I intended to use ZFS on Boot but it’s not officially supported on Ubuntu Server. I need my server to be stable and free of unsupported configurations. I instead used LVM (Logical Volume Manager) with Ext4. Which was a supported option in the Ubuntu Server installer.
I was going to install Plex and Nextcloud using native packages. However, after discussing my project with a friend. He suggested trying Snaps. I did quite a bit of reading and felt like it was worth trying.
Other than storage restrictions because of the containment design. They were easier to install. I needed to mount my ZFS pool for the Plex media in my user’s Home folder. Oddly I was able to mount my ZFS pool for Nextcloud in a folder under the /media folder.
The Snap service commands are very similar to systemd’s systemctl, which is probably by design. So far I am liking how the Snap of Nextcloud and Plex are working. The Nextcloud Snap starts and stops much much faster than the Docker on Scale. I’ve already installed updates via sudo snap refresh. It updated and restarted everything in that one command. Very much like how APT does the same.
Since I was on a roll installing and configuring everything. I moved on to reinstalling the Tailscale apps on the three servers, pfSense, and my T560 laptop. I chose my pfSense to be the Tailnet subnet router and exit node. Considering it is already doing that role for my network anyway. The exit node allows the Tailscale connection optionally to be used as a VPN. The subnet router allows access to local devices that can’t run the Tailscale software.
Having local DNS names are very handy when you have computers and services on your home network you access often. Pi-Hole makes this so much easier compared to using BIND, the Internet standard nameserver. When I started using Tailscale. My local DNS hostname resolution was broken. Although they do have their own DNS which includes hosts you add to your Tailnet.
I finally read the documentation for their DNS configuration options. Sometimes I have a better understanding after seeing practical uses, so I looked for some YouTube videos. I found this video from MRP titled “Pi-Hole HA using Gravity SYNC and Tailscale | Proxmox Home Server Series | Proxmox Home Lab”.
After learning about the Magic DNS feature of Tailscale. I found out that I did have my resolv.conf configured correctly. I noticed this when I was able to ping using my local hostname from each of my Pi-Hole servers. I purposely configured each one using Quad9 and Cloud Flare’s DNS in addition to each Pi-Hole’s upstream DNS setting. That meant the two servers didn’t know any of my local host names. I could have used 127.0.0.1 per the Pi-Hole documentation which uses the Pi-Hole. I just wanted some redundancy. Better to have DNS than to not have any at all.
The Magic DNS uses all configured DNS settings to aid in resolving requests. Now when I connect to my Tailnet using the LAN access feature and optionally the exit node. I can resolve my local hostnames as if I were home.
The last project I did was from a YouTube video by Lawrence Systems. I’ve been watching Tom’s videos for several years. He always has great videos. This video in particular was a review of one of the Storinator servers from 45Drives. They use a web gui for managing their servers called Houston. It is based on Cockpit. I had heard of Cockpit before but didn’t pay much attention to it. This is due to my command line preference of management. Although my experience with TrueNAS and recently TrueNAS Scale has me appreciate it more. Tom mentioned that 45Drives released Houston to the public. It was previously only available to their customers. I noticed it mentioned Ubuntu 20.04 and though there were claims it would work on 22.04. I opted to install Cockpit from the Ubuntu repo and manually add the 45Drives plug-ins from their GitHub page.
It works well. One cool feature is you can manage multiple instances of Cockpit on other servers. You sign into one and you can switch to another from the choices in the upper left corner of the page. The setup was fairly easy.
https://www.youtube.com/@LearnLinuxTV
https://www.youtube.com/@LAWRENCESYSTEMS
My last bit of news is that I have retired my System76 Pangolin laptop. I used it for 3 years. It has been a decent laptop with some exceptions. The right speaker stopped working and the built-in microphone was horrible. Well, most laptop microphones are horrible. I didn’t care about the microphone but the bad speaker was annoying. Pop!_OS is not my preferred desktop environment. Maybe with the new version coming out will change my opinion. The other issue is the dependence on their drivers. It made changing distros less desirable. In fairness, they do provide them from their GitHub. It would take time to adapt them to work on something that isn’t Fedora or Ubuntu-based. Lastly, the issue with resolving local DNS names is puzzling. I will re-install Pop!_OS and see if that fixes it.
Eric:
My wife is a seasoned graphic designer and has always preferred using a Windows PC with CorelDRAW for her design work. Typically, she relies on a mouse and keyboard to finalize her illustrations, which she often drafts with pencil and paper. She scans the hand-drawn item and then has to do extra work to trace it, clean it up, and so on. Recently, she asked whether my Dell Latitude 5290 2-in-1 tablet PC could function as a drawing tablet, similar to a Wacom pad, which is a digital drawing tool she has previously used. I thought it was a great idea but needed to find the appropriate electronic pen, or perhaps stylus is the more correct term?
Dell offers a few compatible pens with the 5290, and there are some third-party alternatives as well, although they aren’t well-rated. After thorough research, the Dell Active Pen model PN557W appeared to be the best option. Priced around $40, it’s reasonable for the build quality and functionality. The pen itself is quite nice, being long with a barrel about one and a half times thicker than a standard pencil. It features a top button with a satisfying tactile click and another button on the barrel near where the index finger rests. It requires one AAA battery and two tiny button batteries. Seriously, they’re the smallest batteries I’ve ever seen. My wife thinks they might be hearing aid batteries, which seems plausible. I’m curious about the battery life but I’ll have to wait and see.
Next, I needed to boot into the Windows instance I left on the tablet. I dual-booted with Ubuntu 24.04, but OS-prober didn’t detect the Windows install to add it to the boot menu. There was no entry in the UEFI boot menu either, so I had to fix Windows boot. I used Ventoy to create a bootable USB stick with the Windows 11 installation media. By the way, Ventoy is fantastic software. I recently added a dark theme plugin to avoid being blinded during boot and now it’s perfect. After booting into the Windows recovery shell, the automatic fix didn’t work. I had to fix it manually from the command line but it’s not difficult, and I have plenty of practice. It would be nice if the auto-fix worked occasionally. Anyway, I managed to boot into Windows, which I hadn’t done in about six months. No surprise, there were numerous updates, including Windows updates and various programs requesting updates. It took over an hour to complete everything. And Windows is easier than Linux? Pfft. After that, I installed the trial version of CorelDRAW. This software has a reputation for being resource-heavy, but it seems to run well on this system.
Windows 11 offers extensive configuration options for mapping the pen buttons to different functions, such as launching programs. I’m not familiar with these features, so we’ll learn together. It appears to be a very flexible solution, well-integrated with the OS. Say what you will about Windows, but its integration with professional tools is a big reason many professionals use it. The machine handles Windows 11 fairly well, although it takes several minutes for all the background processes to settle down after booting. Just typical Windows behavior, I suppose.
We have not tested it much but it seems to work well. My wife is somewhat averse to new technology, so I’m cautiously optimistic but prepared for her not to like it. If that happens, I’m sure my daughter, who has been creating digital art on her Samsung tablet since she was about five, would be thrilled to use it.
It seems like security has been a major theme for me over the past few weeks, whether through personal experiences or conversations.
One family member reached out after Windows Defender and then Experian notified them that their healthcare provider had suffered a data breach. Their email, name, and possibly date of birth had ended up on the dark web. Being reasonably tech-savvy, they had already frozen their credit and changed passwords on important sites. However, they were worried about an increase in email spam on their Yahoo account. Despite blocking the senders, it’s an ongoing struggle. Yahoo’s spam filter is pretty terrible so I suggested they switch to an email app like Thunderbird or the default Windows or Mac clients, as these are likely to do a better job filtering spam. They also asked if there was any way to remove their data from the dark web. Unfortunately, I had to tell them that once data is out there, it’s virtually impossible to remove.
Another incident involved a family member being contacted by a scammer pretending to be their bank. This happened while I was visiting them. I noticed they had received a call but didn’t recognize the number. Since it was around 7 PM, I assumed it was a friend or acquaintance. After about ten minutes, I checked on them and saw they were trying to log in to their banking website. I realized what was happening and asked if they had allowed anyone remote access to their computer or given out any credentials, and thankfully, they hadn’t. The person on the phone must have heard me because they hung up immediately. I gently explained the situation to my family member, who was grateful for the intervention. Close call.
The final incident was an attempted scam on Facebook Marketplace. I posted an item for sale and, within minutes, received a notification that someone was interested. I started chatting with the person, who claimed to be local. When I asked about when they could pick it up time, they said today and then requested my cell phone number to call or text me. This raised my suspicions, so I checked their profile. It showed a wedding photo, a different woman as the profile picture, and nothing else—no location, friends, or posts. I researched online and found that scammers can use your phone number for various frauds. I reported and blocked the profile. It’s astonishing how quickly someone responded to a random for-sale post. They have to be using web scraping tools or something to get notified of new posts that quickly. Maybe it was even an AI bot I was chatting with. Who knows? I wonder how many people fall for these scams but luckily, I didn’t.
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UPDATES
Where we discuss what we have learned about distros we’ve already reviewed.
Dale:
Debian will begin using Tmpfs for its /tmp folder. I never noticed this on other distros. It is part of the plumbing that I don’t pay attention to. The article contends Debian is a late adopter.
https://news.itsfoss.com/debian-13-tmp-mounting
Debian developer Luca Boccassi has begun working on implementing systemd-boot in the Debian installer. No news on if this will be available in the upcoming Trixie release.
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Expert-systemd-boot
Debian is working on the next major release of APT which will be version 3. It will be more colorful with the output looking better organized. The different operations will be in their own section. It does look much nicer and easier to find what it is going to do. I’ve seen the current output so much I am just conditioned on where to look.
Version 2.9.3 is the current development release. It adds the new 3.0 solver which is heart of the package conflict/dependency resolution. There are some improvements to the auto-remove and manually installed packages.
https://www.phoronix.com/news/APT-2.9.3-New-Package-Solver
Eric:
Nothing from me this month.
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BEAUTIFUL FAILURES
What we tried, and failed, to install or run this month
Dale:
My failure was when I moved my SSD from my ThinkCentre Tiny to my spare desktop. I booted it up and was placed in Grub Rescue Mode. Next, I downloaded the LMDE 6 ISO and booted to the live session. I tried the Boot Rescue utility and it told me there was a NVRAM locked. This is why I used my T560 from my bedroom to continue on with my projects.
I learned later that it is a Secure Boot issue. I don’t remember missing that setting in the Tiny. I know to turn off that and other Windows-related Bios/EFI settings. I had already finished working on that ThinkCentre and put it into service. I read that others with Lenovo computers having issues with a locked NVRAM. I learned that the NVRAM is where the Secure Boot keys are stored.
Considering that I didn’t want to chase that rabbit down the hole. I will just wipe and re-install. Everything is backed up so it will be a somewhat fast recovery. I decided on that because I read others having issues with disabling Secure Boot. Then still not being able to boot.
At least I know that Secure Boot works with LMDE, for what it is worth.
Eric:
Nada, nothing, zero.
Let’s move on to the reviews.
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REVIEWS
Eric:
DISTRO NAME:
Project Bluefin
INTRO:
Technology often follows trends, some of them being very visible and cause a lot of change in a short amount of time. A great example of this is Generative AI. Some trends are less immediate and take time to develop but ultimately lead to a change in the way something that was once seen as standard practice is altered in some fundamental way. I believe a good example of this is the concept of the Atomic or Composable Linux desktop.
I have been following what was initially called immutable distros, which have since been referred to as atomic or composable distros, for several years. The premise is that the underlying system is a static image that only changes when a newer version of that image is available. Rather than updating individual packages, the system is update wholesale by deploying an entirely new image. This is not unlike how a Chromebook or mobile device running Android functions. You may think that this is a solution in search of a problem, which is an early conclusion that I reached, but if you dig a little deeper, there is merit to this approach to operating a Linux desktop.
There are several projects currently working on this approach. One of the first and the first ones to catch my attention is Fedora Silverblue. It was first officially released as part of Fedora 29 in 2018. Since then, Fedora, which now refers to these desktops as Atomic, has expanded their offering to four different releases. Silverblue has the GNOME desktop and Kinoite has KDE Plasma, while Sway Atomic and Budgie Atomic are, of course, Sway and Budgie.
The Universal Blue project, of which Bluefin is a part, extends the work done in Silverblue with a set of its releases offering more curated and customized Atomic, or, in their case, Composable releases. One key difference between Fedora and Universal Blue is how they focus their releases. Fedora provides a similar base on all their releases while focusing on a specific desktop environment for each while Universal Blue focuses on functionality. For example, besides providing a curated GNOME experience, Bluefin also optionally provides a slew of developer tools, focusing it on that audience. Aurora does essentially the same but provides the KDE Plasma desktop instead. Then there is Bazzite, which I assume is their most popular option since it focuses almost exclusively on gaming. It offers multiple desktop options and supports Steam and Lutris by default.
But back to Bluefin. According to their website:
Bluefin is an operating system for your computer. The best of both worlds: the reliability and ease of use of a Chromebook, with the power of a GNOME desktop.
- Applications by Flathub
- Near-zero maintenance
- Included GPU drivers
Featuring automatic image-based updates and a simple graphical application store, Bluefin is designed to get out of your way. Get what you want without sacrificing system stability. The Linux client has evolved. Check the announcement blog post and introductory documentation for more information.
Images are available for PC, Framework and ASUS laptops, and Microsoft Surface devices. M1/M2 Mac Support coming soon.
Another section of the site states:
By introducing cloud-native patterns to the desktop we hope to ignite interest in desktop computing while catering to the next generation of open-source contributors.
That seems like a laudable goal. The reality is that, while there is certainly a contingent of “old heads” in the Linux world, the ones who have been using Linux on servers and the desktop for decades (myself included), the reality is that new Linux users are a different breed.
Notice that I have used the term cloud-native numerous times. These technologies are born out of the mass move to cloud computing and the specialized set of skills that are required to manage those systems. There is a considerable contingent of people using these technologies and associated skills, most of which are underpinned by Linux and Open Source by the way, that have never used Desktop Linux or, have used it and found that it didn’t meet their needs.
I will also mention the large contingent of gamers who would be more apt to use Linux if it meant, at minimum, an equivalent experience to that which they have on Windows. The Steam Deck has proven that gamers can and will use a Linux-based system if it is easy and meets their needs.
Both of these groups are the fertile ground that the Universal Blue team are hoping to plant their seed. So, let’s see how one of those old-school Linux users does with this new approach to the Linux Desktop.
MY HARDWARE:
Speaking of old school, I’m using my 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). I have to be honest and say that I have often derided the stereotypical Thinkpad and other vintage laptop collectors and I was dead wrong. I have had an excellent time using this system for just about everything I have thrown at it. Surprisingly, I enjoy typing on the keyboard cover, which I certainly didn’t expect. Considering that I spent $140, it’s a little hard to believe just how capable it is. Ironically, it’s pretty bad at doing the thing I bought it for, which is being a Linux-based tablet, but as a thin and light form factor laptop, it is fantastic.
INSTALLATION EXPERIENCE:
Oh, Anaconda. How do I dislike thee? Let me count the ways. I have complained about this installer for as long as I have been using it. At best, it has a pretty terrible UI that does eventually allow me to install some version of Fedora and, at worst, it has aided me in destroying a substantial number of perfectly good installations of Linux and Windows in the process. In this case, it wasn’t doing either of those things.
I had placed a copy of the ublue iso file on my Ventoy stick a few months back so, since it was already there, I just tried using it. I got through configuring the partitions and attempted to install but, after about 10 minutes, was met with an error.
The following error occurred while installing the payload This is a fatal error and installation will be aborted.The command 'ostree admin --sysroot=/mnt/sysimage deploy --os=fedora fedora:fedora/40/x86_64/silverblue' exited with the code 1I thought that perhaps I had made a mistake when configuring the partition setup so I rebooted and tried again only to receive the same error. Then I questioned whether the problem was an outdated copy of the ISO file so I downloaded the latest copy and tried again. That also failed with the same error. Now I was wondering if perhaps Bluefin was at fault in some way so I tried a copy of Silverblue and got the same message yet again.
I had, of course, been trying to find a solution by searching for the error text but wasn’t finding much related to Silverblue. Some unrelated things came up but nothing that helped.
Fortunately, I eventually found bug 1575957 for Silverblue identifies the issue as occurring when there is/was a previous version of Fedora, seemingly of any type, where an EFI partition was used. This issue has existed since (at least) 2018 and has not been fixed. There are several suggested workarounds in the comments as well as a link to a short section of the Silverblue Troubleshooting Guide.
Both the suggestions and the documentation suggested manually partitioning and creating an entirely new EFI partition. I have one EFI filesystem used by Windows (with some remnants from my old Fedora install), and an entirely separate one for Silverblue. Afterward, the install worked fine. The only drawback I can see is losing 100 MiB of disk space, which is trivial.
So, needless to say, in my case, the installation process was painful and literally took hours to figure out due to a completely unhelpful error message. I was very frustrated by this experience and also in disbelief that this has been a problem since likely day one of Silverblue’s existence yet hasn’t been fixed. I hate to seem ungrateful but I also feel justified in being upset about it. But, as the saying goes, all’s well that ends well.
POST-INSTALLATION EXPERIENCE:
After installation, there is a setup process that allows you to change things like whether location services are enabled as well as creating your user account.
Quick Tip: If you prefer dark theming like I do, you can go to the top right and select the Dark Style button in the Quick Settings panel.
The default display settings for this system were to scale the interface to 150% which makes things seem a little large, even with my not-so-perfect eyesight. Setting it to 125% provides more screen space, which is not abundant on a 12” screen.
The font size, at 12 px, is quite a bit larger than the standard Ubuntu setup of 10 px for Interface Text and Legacy Titles. It is still a little large, even at 125% scaling on this system so I changed the Interface Text and Legacy Titles to 11 px. I also changed the ridiculously huge Monospace Text size of 18 px down to a more reasonable 13 px. Incidentally, changing font size in GNOME is accomplished via the Tweaks app, which is rarely installed by default by distros, even though it really should be. I contend that the settings it contains are essential to use GNOME effectively.
It then occurred to me that I hadn’t yet connected to WiFi so I went to do so using the usual Quick Settings panel however, there was no WiFi option showing. NetworkManager was running and showed no errors when using the systemctl status NetworkManager command. I was also able to plug in a USB Ethernet adapter and access the network. Obviously, the WiFi driver hadn’t loaded or was missing. I haven’t had an issue with WiFi drivers in likely a decade or more, even though it used to be one of the more tedious aspects of using Desktop Linux, one that was a frequent problem for many people. My system uses the iwlwifi driver and, as I mentioned, I haven’t had any issues with other distros so this was a bit of a surprise. After the usual course of searching the web for obvious answers, I was able to find a post on the Framework forum where a user described needing to use Modprobe to manually load the driver, which I did and, after rebooting, WiFi was working. Okay then.
After that, I changed some other default settings to those I prefer, such as changing the clock to 12-hour time and setting the scrolling type of the touchpad. These are all the same things I normally do on any fresh installation of GNOME. I also added a few of my favorite GNOME extensions, including Alphabetical App Grid, Clipboard Indicator, Just Perfection, Quake Terminal, and Vitals. Depending on the distro, I may also need to install AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support for tray icons and Dash to Dock but these were already installed.
I mentioned earlier that I had enabled Dark Style on the first boot but it was not being applied to everything. As most of the applications are flatpak based, they should be respecting the theme but I set about trying to correct this ultimately, after spending about an hour and knowing at this point that I wasn’t going to keep this Linux instance, I gracefully quit trying.
One of the key aspects of an immutable/atomic/composable distro is that the system is a read-only image which doesn’t easily allow you to make changes to the main OS structure. This includes installing RPM packages, which is mostly not an issue for typical user-facing software. The expectation is that you would first try using the Software Manager or flatpak in the terminal to install flatpaks. If what you need isn’t a flatpak or won’t work as a flatpak, then the next option is DistroBox. If you aren’t familiar with this software, the website describes it as such:
Use any Linux distribution inside your terminal. Enable both backward and forward compatibility with software and freedom to use whatever distribution you’re more comfortable with. Distrobox uses podman, docker or lilipod to create containers using the Linux distribution of your choice. The created container will be tightly integrated with the host, allowing sharing of the HOME directory of the user, external storage, external USB devices and graphical apps (X11/Wayland), and audio.
I have to say that it is a very impressive solution for creating containerized instances of a Linux installation that is pretty tightly integrated, there are some areas where it can either be difficult or impossible for software installed in DistroBox it to function properly. These include things like access to host configuration files, systemd and init systems, kernel modules and drivers, hardware access and performance, security and permissions, networking limitations, resource management, graphical applications, licensing and DRM, inter-process communication (IPC), and filesystem integration. That said, it does offer another layer in which software can be installed and run apart from the core system and may provide the right environment for an application to work exactly as you would expect. If it doesn’t, however, there really is only one other option.
It is possible to install native RPM packages via a command called rpm-ostree. This layers system-level software on top of the immutable image. Package layering creates a new “deployment“, or bootable filesystem root. The system must be rebooted after a package has been layered to preserve the rollback and the transactional model. What that basically means is that you can install native packages if necessary but it’s not suggested if at all possible. And therein lies the rub. Unless the distro maintainers have thought of all of how you use your system, you will likely need to install at least some packages. While I did spend a good bit of time using this instance of Bluefin, I didn’t go deep enough to get much beyond the few packages that I felt I absolutely needed. These were Ulauncher and Guake, a launcher, and a drop-down terminal. I have tried getting these to work in DistroBox without success. It may be possible but there was no obvious way to make it work due to the way containers are able to access resources on the local system.
I could keep going with this section but I feel like I have already gone into much too much detail and I fear this review has gone way too long. In my defense, I feel like much of this is new enough that it warrants detailed
EASE OF USE:
I’m going to play devil’s advocate a bit and pretend that I’m a non-technical novice Linux user is using this distro. I have all of the common and familiar aspects of a computer by way of GNOME, things like a file manager and a way to browse the software preinstalled and available by default. I have a web browser, albeit not Chrome, Edge, or Safari, which is probably what I had been using previously. I have a way to add new software from Flathub via the GNOME Software app. Are there any essentials that I would need or can I just use the system as-is? There are a few helper apps like BoxBuddy but I need to add many things myself. A big one is likely an office suite. There are several available via Software so that’s easy enough, even if it is an extra step.
Now, if I want something that isn’t there in the software center, I’ll likely go looking on the Internet and find a download that says it’s for Fedora, which is probably an RPM package. If I double-click the downloaded file, BoxBuddy asks you to choose a compatible machine in which to install it, or to create a new machine. So, for example, double-clicking an RPM file will offer you a choice of an RPM-based distro, if one is installed. This is a pretty smart way to handle this situation and should hopefully work properly. I had mixed success with apps running on a DistroBox container. As mentioned previously, it has some limitations that prohibit some kinds of applications from working properly.
I don’t doubt that this situation will improve over time as new methods of abstracting software into different types of containers or other compartmentalized technologies will enable more types of software to run on top of the immutable aspect of these kinds of distros. This project is only possible exactly because of advances like Flatpak and DistroBox.
For now, it’s a mixed bag. Some things work exactly as you’d expect while others do not and really cannot at this point, at least not without layering a native package, which I think it a little beyond what you’d expect a less experienced user to do.
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:
The default Dash to Dock setup includes a Help icon, which is just the basic GNOME help tool. There is no welcome screen or ways of any kind to find help from within Bluefin itself. Neither are there any links to additional resources on their website, beyond the announcement post and introductory documentation links, although technically the introductory documentation is on the Universal Blue Discourse forum, which is somewhere I would suggest finding help. Other than that, I honestly don’t know if there are any other resources like a chat room and so on.
PLAYS NICE WITH OTHERS:
This machine had a pre-existing installation of Windows 11 when I installed Bluefin and it did recognize it and added it to the GRUB menu.
STABILITY:
I didn’t experience system crashes but did have a few apps randomly crash. I’m not entirely sure if it had anything specifically to do with it being an atomic distro. It didn’t happen often and wasn’t a major issue.
SIMILAR DISTROS TO CHECK OUT:
I’m going to lump Bluefin and all the other Silverblue derivatives together so those don’t really count as alternatives. There are other composable distros available, such as blendOS, Vanilla OS, and Endless OS all come to mind.
RATINGS:
Ease of Installation new user 6/10
experienced user 8/10
Hardware Support 9/10
Ease of Finding Help (Community, Web) 5/10
Ease of Use 8/10
Plays Nice With Others 10/10
Stability 9/10
Overall Rating 7/10
FINAL COMMENTS:
As I mentioned to start this review, I have been interested in immutable distros for many reasons. I have a general curiosity about the concept and the possibility of having an easier, more reliable, and repeatable approach to Desktop Linux. I am impressed with the technologies and tools being utilized to make this happen and look forward to seeing continued innovation in this area.
That said, I did not enjoy my time with Bluefin. And “time” is definitely an apt way to phrase it because I spent more time working on this review than any others that I yet have for this podcast. Everything was much more difficult than it would normally be for me on a traditional Linux desktop and I got to a point where my level of frustration made it difficult to move forward. Had I not been doing this as part of a review, I almost certainly would have just given up and moved on to something else. The out-of-the-box experience isn’t well-rounded and the software management necessary to add the missing pieces is time-consuming and confusing. There were a few small delights but overall, it was mostly a frustrating experience.
I attribute at least part of this to not being proficient in cloud-native technologies and practices, which is what underpins Bluefin. Another large contributor to my frustration I believe is just the newness of it all, not only from a philosophical standpoint of overhauling the traditional methods of creating and managing a Linux desktop in favor of a cloud-native approach but also just the decisions made around what the end user experience should be like and essentials like which packages to include by default. I suppose you could consider these types of distributions to be more a collection of ideas, ideals, and concepts rather than one that is more or less just updating what is already there.
So, I won’t be running Bluefin, or any other variation of Silverblue on one of my main systems for now and likely for the near future. I may try a few of my suggested alternatives like blendOS and Vanilla OS, just to compare how they do things. I don’t doubt that the very clever people behind Silverblue and Universal Blue will continue to push forward and improve things and I look forward to being able to use a distro of this type in the not-too-distant future.
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Let’s hear now from Dale
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Dale:
DISTRO NAME:
Archman
INTRO:
Archman is an independent Arch-based distro from Turkey. They offer Xfce, KDE Plasma, Mate, Deepin, Gnome, Lxde, and Lxqt desktops. Xfce is their main desktop of choice. The name comes from the combination of the names Arch from Arch Linux and Man from the package management system Pacman. They pronounce Archman as Archmen.
According to their website. The team of 4 is tulliana, alic Sergeant, hkapi, and mustafa. The project is 5 years old.
I am reviewing the Xfce edition.
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:
They are using Calamares which is the usual installation steps. I chose to use the partition that Busenlabs occupied from the last episode. It was a normal installation using Calamares.
POST-INSTALLATION HARDWARE FACTS & ISSUES:
I needed to disable the touchpad and slow down the Trackpoint. I would have needed 5 Red Bulls and a pot of coffee to use a Trackpoint that fast.
They are using version 4.18 of Xfce with the Arch Kernel version 6.9.2-arch1-1.
It is a highly customized panel located at the bottom. It includes the Whisker Menu, Show Minimize/Maximize desktop, Firefox, and the Thunar File Manager on the left side. A workspace switcher, clipboard, Network Manager, Pacman updates, weather, and the usual System Tray icons. The desktop shows Home and Trash icons. The wallpaper is interesting and I am at a loss effectively describing it. Many colored circles and cogs.
Here are some applications you will find that are not common on other distros. However, this is not a complete list.
- Catfish File Search (local file search utility)
- Sensor Viewer (Displays hardware sensors)
- XFburn (CD/CD-R writing utility)
- Notes (Stick notes for your desktop)
- Inkscape (Drawing application)
- uGet (Download managers)
- Ex Falso (Edit tags in audio files)
- VokoscreenNG (Screen Recorder)
They also include the full LibreOffice suite at version 7.6.7.2 which is one release behind the current version and Firefox 126 which is the current version.
EASE OF USE:
The Super key is set to the Whisker Menu. That is about the only shortcut that made any sense to me. They like using the CTRL key instead of the Super key. I couldn’t get used to that. One thing that annoyed me was their use of CTRL L to lock the screen. This is the same shortcut web browsers use to move the cursor input to the address bar. I kept locking my screen when I wanted to enter a website address. While I was in keyboard shortcut settings changing that. I looked at what they set along with the window manager keyboard shortcut settings. Let’s just say the Archman devs and I don’t agree. They also like using the function keys in their shortcuts. That is a bit of a reach in my opinion. I guess I have smaller hands.
I did wait about a week or so before updating. This is kinda dangerous to do with an Arch-based distro. There were about 212 updates at 1 GB. Luckily I had a faster than normal connection so I downloaded and installed them. I am happy to report that it rebooted and didn’t break anything. The update notification was a red gear with ‘!’ in the center. It caught my eye. The Pacman GUI update application is a welcome addition. Considering my dislike for their command line switches. Though I will not rant about that again.
They don’t have Flatpak and Snap installed. The AUR is disabled by default and can be reenabled via the Pacman GUI settings.
They are using the Arch repos and one of their own. Mostly for custom configurations.
According to their website. They have a QA process for the Arch packages, so I am to assume there should be minimal chance of breakage.
They are following the trend to request a reboot after installing packages. It is a bit like Windows except you don’t need to way 20 minutes during multiple reboots to use the computer.
I’ve been pleased with the updates. As I have purposely waited several days to a little over a week between updates. Each time I would have 400 to 700 MB’s of updates. It has rebooted each time.
MEMORY AND DISK USE:
7 GB of space used
915 MB memory was used which leveled off at 877 MB using Free -hm
EASE OF FINDING HELP:
They have a forum on their website. It is in Turkish and the live translation in my Firefox worked well. They also have a Telegram channel, YouTube channel, and Facebook. I didn’t seek any help.
PLAYS NICE WITH OTHERS:
I had no problems dual booting with Void. This was a surprise considering Arch-based distros usually don’t play nice.
STABILITY:
I didn’t have any issues. Longer use would see how the QA process on the Arch updates limits or prevents breakage.
SIMILAR DISTROS TO CHECK OUT:
Manjaro
Archlabs
RATINGS:
Ease of Installation new user 7/10
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 8/10
FINAL COMMENTS:
I have enjoyed using Archman overall. Keyboard shortcuts are a subjective thing subject to muscle memory and general memory. I shouldn’t be to hard on their choices. Though I do find them a bit odd as I’ve already said. I think between ArchLabs and Archman. They are two of the best Arch-Based distros I have used. If I were to use an Arch-based distro. I wouldn’t have many issues with using Archman or my previously reviewed ArchLabs. This would be contingent on updates not breaking the system.
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FEEDBACK AND ERRATA
(This is in response to Bhikhu’s email on grammar and spelling utilities)
Emma
Hello,
I saw you mentioned languagetool.org/ on your page here distrohoppersdigest.org/show-notes/episode-47-show-notes/.
I really struggle with grammar, so I’m always searching for ways to check my emails, etc. without bothering others.
Another great tool I recently found is:
https://www.websiteplanet.com/webtools/spell-checker
I was amazed by the features: not only can you spot your mistakes, but you can also implement the edits it suggests automatically and just copy the fixed content. And it supports many languages.
I thought it was worth sharing with you, as I believe it could be a great additional resource for your site, and I’m sure your users will appreciate it too.
I hope this will help you as much as it helped me!
Best,
Emma
PS: In complete transparency, I used the tool to check my email before I sent it to you 🙂
[PAUSE TO ALLOW INSERTION OF SHOW MUSIC]
NEW RELEASES:
AlmaLinux 9.4
SparkyLinux 2024.05
FreeBSD 14.1-BETA1
NetBSD 8.3
BlueOnyx 5211R-20240506
Linux Lite 7.0-rc1
Calculate Linux 20240508
TrueNAS 13.3-BETA1
CachyOS 240512
openmamba 20240510
EuroLinux 9.4
NST 40-13973
Rocky Linux 9.4
Daphile 24.05
FreeBSD 14.1-BETA2
Rescuezilla 2.5
Runtu 24.04 “Lite”
BR-OS 24.04
Manjaro 24.0
EasyOS 5.8.2
Endless OS 6.0.0
XigmaNAS 13.3.0.5
Br OS 24.04
Mabox 24.05
deepin 23-rc
NuTyX 24.05.0
Oracle 9.4
TUXEDO OS 3-20240515
Tails 6.3
Liya 1.0
Calculate 20240518
FreeBSD 14.1-BETA3
4MLinux 46.0-beta
MX Linux 23.3
Elive 3.8.42 (beta)
GhostBSD 24.04.1
Linuxfx 11.4.6
Damn Small 2024-rc4
Alpine 3.20.0
KDE neon 20240523
Ultramarine 40
Br-OS 12.5
FreeBSD 14.1-RC1
EuroLinux 8.10
Armbian 24.5.1
PakOS 2024-05-27
Rhino 2024.1
Calculate 20240528
Manjaro 24.0.1
Linux Lite 7.0
AlmaLinux 8.10
Berry 1.39
KaOS 2024.05
KDE neon 20240530
Gnoppix 24.5.15
Rocky Linux 8.10
Arch 2024.06.01
Dr.Parted 24.06
Voyager 24.04.1
OSMC 2024.05-1
Absolute 20240602
ALT 11 (testing)
FreeBSD 14.1
TUXEDO OS 3-20240604
TUXEDO OS 3-20240605
Parrot 6.1
Kali 2024.2
Regata 24.0.6
Exe 20240604
NixOS 24.05
Calculate 20240606
KDE neon 20240606
T2 SDE 24.6
Thinstation 6.2.14
CachyOS 240609
Damn Small 2024-rc5
ExTiX 24.6
Live Raizo 15.24.06.08
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Eric:
For chatting with us further, you may choose to join 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 the mintCast and Linux OTC podcasts, as ell as the weekly Linux Saloon stream. 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].
<begin pre-recorded section>
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.
<end pre-recorded section>
