I am looking for a replacement for Ubuntu 10.04. It reaches end-of-life, in April, 2013. I just could not get used to the Unity Desktop Environment, simply because there is no guide on how to use it. (HINT!)
The Good
A friend suggested Bodhi Linux, which is Ubuntu 12.04 based, with the enlightenment window manager.. Enlightenment is small, compact, and very fast.
The installation of 2.1 Bodhi was quick and somewhat painless. But I will admit the grub_divmod64_full grub boot error had me in a tailspin. I had to drop back to Windows 98 Floppy to fix the problem. (fdisk /mbr) After nuking the master boot record, I tried a second time, all was well.
The Bad
Creating a desktop icon, is NOT straightforward. For example, if you are used to using the gnome-terminal, it is called “Terminology” in Enlightenment.
If you try to create a symlink to this in the Desktop folder, that won’t work! Instead, you have to copy the .desktop to your home Desktop folder. So:
cp /usr/share/applications/terminology.desktop ~/Desktop
Thanks to conspiritech and deepspeed on the #bodhilinux irc.freenode.net for solving that mystery, and the file manager mystery (below.)
Trying to put an Enlightenment File Manager (EFM) desktop icon, proved impossible. They suggested using Thunar or Pcmanfm
And the above code snippet (substituting Thunar.desktop or pcmanfm.desktop) works!
When I tried to install boinc, things got ugly quick!
Here is what I did, and the explanation below:
w@H:~$ ssh w@p w@p's password: Welcome to Bodhi Linux 2.0.0 * Documentation: https://wiki.bodhilinux.com/ Last login: Sat Jan 26 08:02:16 2013 from 192.168.1.101 w@P:~$ sudo apt-get install boinc [sudo] password for w: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: boinc : Depends: boinc-client (>= 7.0.27+dfsg-5ubuntu0.12.04.1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: boinc-manager (>= 7.0.27+dfsg-5ubuntu0.12.04.1) but it is not going to be installed libc6-dev : Depends: linux-libc-dev but it is not going to be installed nvidia-173 : Depends: linux-libc-dev but it is not going to be installed Recommends: nvidia-settings but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). w@P:~$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1 9menu gir1.2-json-1.0 gstreamer0.10-x pkg-config gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0 ratpoison libiec61883-0 gir1.2-timezonemap-1.0 gir1.2-gstreamer-0.10 gir1.2-soup-2.4 libraw1394-11 gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gir1.2-webkit-3.0 libtag1-vanilla libavc1394-0 libtimezonemap1 libshout3 libdv4 gir1.2-xkl-1.0 screen-resolution-extra libtag1c2a libxklavier16 python-xkit Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: linux-libc-dev The following NEW packages will be installed: linux-libc-dev 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 5 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 948 kB of archives. After this operation, 3,177 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y Err http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/ precise/stable linux-libc-dev i386 3.5.0-11.11 404 Not Found Failed to fetch http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/pool/stable /l/linux/linux-libc-dev_3.5.0-11.11_i386.deb 404 Not Found E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing? w@P:~$
The Really Bad
I tried to install boinc, as shown above. But it complained that the libc6-dev was actually a later version than it needed. I tried to “fix” the broken packages, but I got a 404 error. The needed file, was NOT found in the Bodhi 2.1 repository. FAIL.
While I could probably get around this, by adding the correct Ubuntu repository, this is NOT something a n00b (novice/new) user would know how to fix. The combination of the repository failure, and the methodology of adding desktop icons, gives bodhi Linux a grade of: D-. Not ready for primetime.
Another review, called it a square peg in a round hole.
When I tried to install the nvidia-173 legacy mode drivers for my graphics card, it completely broke Bodhi, so much that it would not boot. Went into recovery mode, purged the nvidia driver, and then rebooted back into Bodhi.
Kubuntu is starting to look pretty good.
Wayno
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5 users responded in this post
deepspeed: oh, and as for the boinc part of your review, bodhi does have an active software request thread on the forums. Anything you can’t find, they can make a custom version of for you.
deepspeed: but good review.
Sometimes I am amazed by how utterly lazy and miss-informed “reviewers” can be today.
Boinc Works
http://www.enlightenment.org/ss/e-51060f4085e352.45780807.jpg
Libc Works
http://www.enlightenment.org/ss/e-51060fed760095.05265136.jpg
Both these commands were done on CLEAN installs of Bodhi Linux 2.2.0 which had the current repositories updated with a simple apt-get update (as is needed before installing any software on any Debian based system). In fact based on the URL it is not finding for your libc version it VERY clear you did not sync your repos before trying to install software.
Had you used the online software center or synaptic this would have been handled automatically for you. However it doesn’t appear you are experience enough to the CLI to use apt-get properly.
EFM on the desktop
http://www.enlightenment.org/ss/e-51061032982285.29109555.jpg
Getting application launchers on the desktop is very easy. Simply copy and paste the .desktop file you want to your ~/Desktop folder from /usr/share/applications – no command line needed.
I give this blog a D-, clearly it is written by someone who has no idea what they are doing setting up a Linux system and it is not ready for prime time. Don’t confuse user error with operating system error. Both of your issues were caused by you not knowing how things work and could have easily been solved by reading our documentation or with a quick forum post.
apt-get update didn’t fix anything.
I did that before I tried this. Sorry we disagree on this.
I had brought up the issue on the irc channel, and received excellent help. It is just we were not able to get beyond this point.
Wayno
There isn’t anything to disagree on. As my screenshots clearly indicate – a system install from a valid install media has no trouble finding the properly packages after a simple apt-get update.
I wonder if there was a difference between 2.1 and 2.2?
I installed 2.1 (dated September 2012), and 2.2 came out in January, 2013. Four months later.
I would lay odds that Jeff’s install was on a 2.2 system.
I will never know. The normal release cycle is 6 months not 4 months, which makes me suspect, that 2.1 was problematic at best.