Distros you tried but didn't like

[Artim]

Omygosh, Devuan was a train wreck for me. Of the three installation methods available to me,

• The Refracta installer just stalls for hours, no joy.

• Using Peppermint's Calamares to install it was again, no joy, multiple failures.

• The Text installer worked, yay! But I couldn't get etc/apt/sources to work, and

• The username and password I set up during installation didn't work the next day.

GhostBSD is still a favorite (admittedly not a Linux distro), but simple things like adding a printer are arcane and far behind Linux in most respects. I still like it and use it occasionally because some of the software I want is newer than here in Debian-Stable, but it ain't "ready for prime time" yet.

[DukeComposed]

Omygosh, Devuan was a train wreck for me. Of the three installation methods available to me,

• The Refracta installer just stalls for hours, no joy.

Devuan is an ideal distro on paper, but I've had serious problems with refracta I was never able to easily resolve. Legend has it that refracta could take a system and make a copy of it, but I had trouble with it, even while trying to follow the instructions. Devuan remains a distro I want to support on principle alone, but I find I just don't end up running it in production very often and some of its whiz-bang features aren't quite so whiz, nor do they bang. I maintained debootstrappable copies of jessie, ascii, beowulf, chimaera, and daedalus builds until it occurred to me that all my preparation wasn't resulting in, y'know, functional working Devuan installs. I still keep eyes the project and I'm happy to do so.

"Doesn't run systemd" is worth quite a lot these days and that's not going to change any time soon. But I do wish the project was more put together than it really is. The gopher joke for April Fools Day is one indicator they have a ways to go. The lack of a followup around that stunt is a much bigger problem.

Fairness where fairness is due: I found the minimal daedalus ISO useful as a regular ol' Linux maintenance CD-ROM until I found out about the Debian Admin CD project and in an evening or so of tinkering I got a bespoke, working Devuan ISO that contains all the tools on it I need to be nefarious. It's genuinely hard to find a run of the mill Linux ISO these days that has scp, rsync, tmux, and git and that works solely from a command prompt in 512 MB of DRAM.

[CharlesV]

Has anyone ever tried Winux? https://winuxos.com/

The first time I read about this project (years ago), I figured it would drop into obscurity but they are still around.

I tried it to see how Winux would do for my windows peeps and was pretty horrified of it. First, it has a $35 price tag to get the "professional version" which supposedly added more functionality. Somethings were very close to windows look feel, but there were some major quirks to it in many areas as I recall - as in didnt work properly or were too different from windows to be of help.

When I got under the covers I discovered it was ubuntu driven and that pretty much killed it for me.

I had to bite my tongue using Edge, Teams and OneDrive (all applications I cannot stand!), but was impressed with OnlyOffice. (My first real use of that application.)

I was struck at how much it all looked / felt / smelt like a rebranded linuxFX, and later learned that it was actually WAS a version of LinxFX and Wubuntu apparently. When I did a look around at reviews and such, many were saying it was under copyright infringement and to stay away. (Validating my feelings of it. )

I did more looking around and looked at Zorin, AnduinOS and BlendOS as distro's "closer to windows" for people, but they all had things I really didnt want to subject my people too, and felt (and still feel ) that MX is FAR better. (And with my typically desktop mods most of my people that have tried it have had no problems changing over either.)

Two more thoughts on this type of thing I feel I need to say though
- First, I think while the interface / desktop might "feel like windows" to people... it isnt, and trying to lead in with 'the same feeling" ... I believe is a bad idea. (Or maybe better said - a poor idea). I think most people easily get the difference in look and feel as MX is already awesome in this fashion.

- Second, I tout 'moving away from windows' as a very good thing for many people - and I explain the why of this to them. The LAST thing I want to do is to drag over windows applications!! I would much rather get people learning new things and then walk them across "the bridge" then attempt TO bridge them.

An example: I attempt to move many of my Windows users to use Firefox, Thunderbird, Libreoffice, and other opensource applications. (PDF viewers, image / video / music editors etc etc). And I do this to not only break the reliance of MS / Adobe / Others bound tools, but eliminate the security and support issues of those applications, and to start moving people in the direction of linux.

It has been my experience that this works! Doing the move "all at the same time" can overwhelm many people that just want to get their work done, and moving slower like this helps to transition them for the move.

[oops]

I dislike now all distribs with a too heavy system init concept, and distrib not enought stables. (so I like the multi-init concepts but not the full rolling concept)
Linus philosophy is to do only one thing per one thing perfectly, but in a simple way as possible.

[rod178]

Arch is not worth the required investment of time

[Mauser]

Has anyone ever tried Winux? https://winuxos.com/

The first time I read about this project (years ago), I figured it would drop into obscurity but they are still around.

I tried it to see how Winux would do for my windows peeps and was pretty horrified of it. First, it has a $35 price tag to get the "professional version" which supposedly added more functionality. Somethings were very close to windows look feel, but there were some major quirks to it in many areas as I recall - as in didnt work properly or were too different from windows to be of help.

When I got under the covers I discovered it was ubuntu driven and that pretty much killed it for me.

I had to bite my tongue using Edge, Teams and OneDrive (all applications I cannot stand!), but was impressed with OnlyOffice. (My first real use of that application.)

I was struck at how much it all looked / felt / smelt like a rebranded linuxFX, and later learned that it was actually WAS a version of LinxFX and Wubuntu apparently. When I did a look around at reviews and such, many were saying it was under copyright infringement and to stay away. (Validating my feelings of it. )

I did more looking around and looked at Zorin, AnduinOS and BlendOS as distro's "closer to windows" for people, but they all had things I really didnt want to subject my people too, and felt (and still feel ) that MX is FAR better. (And with my typically desktop mods most of my people that have tried it have had no problems changing over either.)

Two more thoughts on this type of thing I feel I need to say though
- First, I think while the interface / desktop might "feel like windows" to people... it isnt, and trying to lead in with 'the same feeling" ... I believe is a bad idea. (Or maybe better said - a poor idea). I think most people easily get the difference in look and feel as MX is already awesome in this fashion.

- Second, I tout 'moving away from windows' as a very good thing for many people - and I explain the why of this to them. The LAST thing I want to do is to drag over windows applications!! I would much rather get people learning new things and then walk them across "the bridge" then attempt TO bridge them.

An example: I attempt to move many of my Windows users to use Firefox, Thunderbird, Libreoffice, and other opensource applications. (PDF viewers, image / video / music editors etc etc). And I do this to not only break the reliance of MS / Adobe / Others bound tools, but eliminate the security and support issues of those applications, and to start moving people in the direction of linux.

It has been my experience that this works! Doing the move "all at the same time" can overwhelm many people that just want to get their work done, and moving slower like this helps to transition them for the move.

These LINUX Distros that are Windows lookalikes usually end up in trouble in court and or with people who try them because they give the false perception they work just like Windows by running all Windows programs. Every time I see these kind of LINUX Distros the first thing comes to mind is "Lindows" which we all know how that worked out.

[CharlesV]

These LINUX Distros that are Windows lookalikes usually end up in trouble in court and or with people who try them because they give the false perception they work just like Windows by running all Windows programs. Every time I see these kind of LINUX Distros the first thing comes to mind is "Lindows" which we all know how that worked out.

lol. ayup

[Colonel Panic]

Arch is not worth the required investment of time

People who like Arch tend to stick with it and don't want to use anything else. For me, it was the difficulty in upgrading it that ruled it out as a serious proposition.

I used to have an old Pentium 3 computer with just 512MB of RAM. Despite that ArchBang (which is basically a thinly respun version of Arch) ran really well with Fvwm-Crystal as the window manager, until I was unwise enough to carry out an across the board system upgrade (all the packages at once), and the whole thing broke.

[asqwerth]

People who like Arch tend to stick with it and don't want to use anything else. For me, it was the difficulty in upgrading it that ruled it out as a serious proposition.

.... until I was unwise enough to carry out an across the board system upgrade (all the packages at once), and the whole thing broke.

You are supposed to update the whole system (except AUR packages) in Arch whenever you do an upgrade. Partial updates -- where you only update some selected packages -- is what will mess up your Arch install eventually. And combining the system upgrade with rebuilding AUR packages in the same step is also unwise. Rebuild AUR packages (only where necessary; deprecated packages can be removed) as a second step only after updating the native packages.

But before you upgrade your system, best practice is to check the Arch news page for important update announcements. For instance, the latest news item tells you that you need to run 2 commands (listed on the page for you to copy and paste) as a manual step, before upgrading the system.

I'm no techie expert but I can follow instructions and best practices.

I can also like Arch and also like other distros, in particular, MX.

[Colonel Panic]

You are supposed to update the whole system (except AUR packages) in Arch whenever you do an upgrade. Partial updates -- where you only update some selected packages -- is what will mess up your Arch install eventually

Thanks for replying, That's what I did (or thought I was doing, although I cant remember the exact command I used, it was several years ago). I take your point about Arch News though.