# Xfce + DirectFB?



## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

I've decided Windows can go fuck itself with a cylindrical file, and will be running only Linux on my computer from now on; as it so happens, the only distribution I've had any luck with is ArchLinux, which is ironically power-user oriented (or so they claim ). As a result, I'm no stranger to compiling my own packages.

Now, Xfce's said to be capable of running in a framebuffer if you compile it with DirectFB.
Have any of you ever done that?


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## net-cat (Jun 24, 2009)

Er.

Yeah.

It's possible.

...but why?


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Er.
> 
> Yeah.
> 
> ...


Why not? 

In all seriousness, though? ....xorg is just unbearably annoying. I have no use for desktop compositing, in any case, and I think running it in a framebuffer might offset any performance degradation caused by running Steam games with CrossOver.


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## net-cat (Jun 24, 2009)

Oh. You'll still have to use Xorg or XFree86. (If the latter is still around.) Just use the VESA version, if memory serves. Or maybe there's a framebuffer version. I don't remember.

But. Uh. Running through a framebuffer is going to be horrible. You get no acceleration. Not even 2D acceleration. (And yes, you need 2D acceleration. Even today.) Your processor just writes bitmaps to a block of memory which your video card then outputs.

And if you don't want desktop compositing, just turn it off.


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## WarMocK (Jun 24, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Oh. You'll still have to use Xorg or XFree86. (If the latter is still around.) Just use the VESA version, if memory serves. Or maybe there's a framebuffer version. I don't remember.
> 
> But. Uh. Running through a framebuffer is going to be horrible. You get no acceleration. Not even 2D acceleration. (And yes, you need 2D acceleration. Even today.) Your processor just writes bitmaps to a block of memory which your video card then outputs.
> 
> And if you don't want desktop compositing, just turn it off.


This.
Just turn the compositor off, and the system won't even look at the routines. 8)


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

...well, thank you for stifling my desire to experiment ._.;

It's not just about the compositing, sheesh.
Are you sure it doesn't provide acceleration, though? Because the page for it would argue otherwise.



			
				DirectFB page said:
			
		

> DirectFB is a thin library that provides hardware       graphics acceleration, input device handling and abstraction,       integrated windowing system with support for translucent windows       and multiple display layers, not only on top of the Linux Framebuffer Device. It       is a complete hardware abstraction layer with software fallbacks for       every graphics operation that is not supported by the underlying       hardware. DirectFB adds graphical power to embedded systems and       sets a new standard for graphics under Linux.


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## net-cat (Jun 24, 2009)

Huh. Interesting. It's actually an alternative for X11 in general. They chose an unfortunate name, though. The term "frame buffer" is generally associated with "slow and crappy."

It seems like what you want is possible. If you want to play around with it, emulation is your friend.

The other thing to consider is that this system has very limited hardware support. If you have an ATI or nVidia card, it probably _will_ act as a frame buffer.

http://www.directfb.org/wiki/index.php/Embedded_DirectFB_Hardware


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Huh. Interesting. It's actually an alternative for X11 in general. They chose an unfortunate name, though. The term "frame buffer" is generally associated with "slow and crappy."
> 
> It seems like what you want is possible. If you want to play around with it, emulation is your friend.
> 
> ...


FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Dammit x.x
Isn't there anything less crappy than xorg, though? It's such a _pain_...


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## net-cat (Jun 24, 2009)

An alternative that's well supported? Not really.

I admit that X11 is a bit magical to me. Xorg is not well documented. That's why I rather like Ubuntu. It's Xorg distribution more or less "just works." I don't have to deal with online "tutorials" that say "well if you add this magic blob to your X configuration at sunset while sacrificing a chicken and it _might_ work."


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

net-cat said:


> An alternative that's well supported? Not really.
> 
> I admit that X11 is a bit magical to me. Xorg is not well documented. That's why I rather like Ubuntu. It's Xorg distribution more or less "just works." I don't have to deal with online "tutorials" that say "well if you add this magic blob to your X configuration at sunset while sacrificing a chicken and it _might_ work."


I despise Ubuntu >_<
It's never worked correctly on any machine I've owned, it's bloated, and I hate having to wait six months for a kernel update. Whoever devised PulseAudio needs to be taken out in the street and shot, also.
Linux Mint is nice, but it still has the "x-month-cycle" problem...Debian's just crap, doesn't seem to have any of the drivers I actually need, is almost entirely made up of outdated packages (in my experience)...OpenSUSE is just terrible, and I'm not about to try a distro that kills itself (aka Fedora)...

Plus, almost none of the Ubuntu userbase ever seemed to know what they were talking about back when I was still trying to make it work. (As it so happens, those on the forums at the time who did were often ArchLinux users.)

Well, in any event. Xorg isn't _hard_ for me to set up, honestly, I just hate doing it...so much trial and error, ugh.

Though I suppose that's a good thing, in a way--I've never gotten used to setting it up, because I only ever do it once per install.


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## ToeClaws (Jun 24, 2009)

I am getting the distinct impression you are rather bitter about OS's Ms. Jones. 

I briefly tried Arch Linux, but ditched it on seeing that it was like installing and trying to use a distro from a decade ago.  It's not that I can't compile my own software, and customized kernels and things to my needs, it's that I don't _want_ to do that anymore.  I want the OS to just work, and install and get to this magical working stage as quickly as possible as I don't have the luxury of time to tinker endlessly anymore.

That said though, I do feel your pain with things not always working.  One of the most challenging things for _ANY_ OS is getting it to work on as many platforms as possible.  Overall, Ubuntu does a damn good job that, Mint does even better.  The few problems that crop up are usually worked around fairly easily.  PulseAudio for example often just needs additional drivers installed (cause for some reason, the install off the CD only uses a small portion of available drivers - this explains fixes for that).  Plus, both Ubuntu and Mint also fail to set up PulseAudio group memberships for the users, which is required for it to fully work.  These distros can be tweaked down and made to run smooth and efficient with less effort than is required to get a do-everything-yourself distro like Arch to actually do something.

As for Kernels - the ones that come with Ubuntu are current enough to work just fine.  I have yet to have had a reason to break from the default and good bleeding edge with the kernel, but even then, you can do it if you want.

As far as I know, no one has made ThisDoesEverythingPerfectly OS yet, so regardless of what you choose, there's going to be a little tweaking.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> I am getting the distinct impression you are rather bitter about OS's Ms. Jones.


I prefer the term "discriminating" 



> I briefly tried Arch Linux, but ditched it on seeing that it was like installing and trying to use a distro from a decade ago.  It's not that I can't compile my own software, and customized kernels and things to my needs, it's that I don't _want_ to do that anymore.  I want the OS to just work, and install and get to this magical working stage as quickly as possible as I don't have the luxury of time to tinker endlessly anymore.


See, that's sort of why I hate all these "user-friendly" ones. I _like_ tinkering, but it's downright painful--if not completely impossible--to do so when the distro not only expects you not to know where the configuration files are, but discourages you from actually doing anything with them besides what the GUI tools allow. And, in my experience, the GUI tools are often insufficient or confusing...



> That said though, I do feel your pain with things not always working.  One of the most challenging things for _ANY_ OS is getting it to work on as many platforms as possible.  Overall, Ubuntu does a damn good job that, Mint does even better.


I actually really, really like Mint. I'm running it from a live CD right now because my hard drive seems to have taken its own life. Ubuntu, however, really needs to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.



> The few problems that crop up are usually worked around fairly easily.


They might be few for you, but they're often much more numerous for me. Arch installs the bare minimum, I admit--but what it installs works right out of the box for me.

I guess this is a case of YMMV in action? 



> PulseAudio for example often just needs additional drivers installed (cause for some reason, the install off the CD only uses a small portion of available drivers - this explains fixes for that).  Plus, both Ubuntu and Mint also fail to set up PulseAudio group memberships for the users, which is required for it to fully work.


PulseAudio is a solution in search of a problem. The only reason you'd legitimately need to stream audio over the network is if you're using your PC as a media center.

As for illegitimate reasons, well, I've heard a few stories about what IT people do on break 



> As for Kernels - the ones that come with Ubuntu are current enough to work just fine.  I have yet to have had a reason to break from the default and good bleeding edge with the kernel, but even then, you can do it if you want.


I like the -rt kernels, myself. I've never been able to get one working in Arch, though, and I don't quite like them enough to even consider going back to Ubuntu.

But if there's a major bug in a kernel, I like not having to wait six months for its fix to reach my computer.



> As far as I know, no one has made ThisDoesEverythingPerfectly OS yet, so regardless of what you choose, there's going to be a little tweaking.


Yes, but with Arch, it's always been "add functionality until you're satisfied". With Ubuntu and friends, in my experience, it's "Install the base system and plenty of things you don't need, then spend the rest of the month making it work to your liking--and do it all over after the next distro upgrade."

See, the biggest reason I like Arch is that it doesn't _have_ "distro upgrades"--it's rolling-release, which keep me happy.

Oh well. As soon as my external hard drive's done partitioning, I'll start installing Arch. Thanks for the replies, though, everyone--especially those with which I argued


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## CyberFoxx (Jun 24, 2009)

net-cat said:


> An alternative that's well supported? Not really.
> 
> I admit that X11 is a bit magical to me. Xorg is not well documented. That's why I rather like Ubuntu. It's Xorg distribution more or less "just works." I don't have to deal with online "tutorials" that say "well if you add this magic blob to your X configuration at sunset while sacrificing a chicken and it _might_ work."




... Xorg "just works" these days by default. For example, here's my xorg.conf


```

```
Yup, it's completely empty. Mind you, this is under Gentoo. But still, Xorg uses HAL to find everything, and is able to setup everything these days. (Hopefully using sane defaults...) Then again, this might be a fun case of "Works For Me."


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

CyberFoxx said:


> ... Xorg "just works" these days by default. For example, here's my xorg.conf
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


Oh my god, you're _so_ clever! *Gag*



> Yup, it's completely empty. Mind you, this is under Gentoo. But still, Xorg uses HAL to find everything, and is able to setup everything these days. (Hopefully using sane defaults...) Then again, this might be a fun case of "Works For Me."


It is.
That's actually kind of obvious, given that I've mentioned _needing_ to configure it a couple times now--but since you've already exhibited your dismal lack of wit in the first paragraph, I can't honestly say I'm surprised that you missed the clues.


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## CyberFoxx (Jun 24, 2009)

Satan Q. Jones said:


> That's actually kind of obvious, given that I've mentioned _needing_ to configure it a couple times now--but since you've already exhibited your dismal lack of wit in the first paragraph, I can't honestly say I'm surprised that you missed the clues.



Well, if you had mentioned exactly what you were having trouble with, maybe we'd be able to help you with it. Does it have something to do with resolutions for "dumb" monitors, keyboard layout settings, mouse button setup, etc? Only thing I wouldn't be able to help with is with those tablet things. I'm not an artist, so I've never had to futz with them.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 24, 2009)

CyberFoxx said:


> Well, if you had mentioned exactly what you were having trouble with, maybe we'd be able to help you with it. Does it have something to do with resolutions for "dumb" monitors, keyboard layout settings, mouse button setup, etc? Only thing I wouldn't be able to help with is with those tablet things. I'm not an artist, so I've never had to futz with them.


Ahem.


			
				Satan Q. Jones said:
			
		

> Well, in any event. Xorg isn't _hard_ for me to set up, honestly, I just hate doing it...so much trial and error, ugh.
> 
> Though I suppose that's a good thing, in a way--I've never gotten used to setting it up, because I only ever do it once per install.


To this, I add the following:
Even if I run the nVidia utility, I have to tweak a couple things for it to work right. 
It is time-consuming and I don't like doing it. But that's all.


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## CyberFoxx (Jun 24, 2009)

Satan Q. Jones said:


> Ahem.
> 
> To this, I add the following:
> Even if I run the nVidia utility, I have to tweak a couple things for it to work right.
> It is time-consuming and I don't like doing it. But that's all.



OK, I think I understand now. (I blame me not quite understanding things due to the allergy meds. That's my reason, and I'm sticking to it.) You want to dump Xorg because it can be somewhat tricky to get working right, and instead use DirectFB, which is a royal pain in the ass to get working in the first place? (Honestly, I've tried several times to get DirectFB working. But every time just ended in me saying "Screw it!")

Anyway, only thing I can find about getting XFCE under DirectFB is on the official DirectFB site here.


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## ToeClaws (Jun 25, 2009)

Sorry about the late response - stuck in meetings all day today...



Satan Q. Jones said:


> I prefer the term "discriminating"



*chuckles* Yes, much more articulate.  



Satan Q. Jones said:


> See, that's sort of why I hate all these "user-friendly" ones. I _like_ tinkering, but it's downright painful--if not completely impossible--to do so when the distro not only expects you not to know where the configuration files are, but discourages you from actually doing anything with them besides what the GUI tools allow. And, in my experience, the GUI tools are often insufficient or confusing...



I find that issue varies a lot from distribution to distribution.  Of late, most of them are cleaning up a lot over where they were say 2 or 3 years ago, and the command line is always there to do fine-tuning with in the end.  Just comes down to a matter of which one takes more tweaking - the finished user-friendly one being tuned down, or the crufty one being tuned up?



Satan Q. Jones said:


> I actually really, really like Mint. I'm running it from a live CD right now because my hard drive seems to have taken its own life. Ubuntu, however, really needs to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.



*nods* Agreed.  The concept of Ubuntu is great, but the execution is a bit messy at times.  Mint was a surprise when I found it because being based on Ubuntu is certainly not rare, but in trying it, one see a very cleaned up, tidy execution of the Ubuntu system where everything just works.  



Satan Q. Jones said:


> They might be few for you, but they're often much more numerous for me. Arch installs the bare minimum, I admit--but what it installs works right out of the box for me.



Of course - not much to break from a base install.   I used to do that as well, but I guess as I got older and busier I just lost the patience to tinker to that extreme anymore.  I don't compile code and kenels 'cause I can anymore - more like only if I have no other choice. 



Satan Q. Jones said:


> I guess this is a case of YMMV in action?



Yep.  Operating systems are almost like religion in that they're VERY personal preferences.  Some people actually like Windows, same as some people actually believe in Creationism. :lol:



Satan Q. Jones said:


> PulseAudio is a solution in search of a problem. The only reason you'd legitimately need to stream audio over the network is if you're using your PC as a media center.



Agreed - I'm not a huge fan of the PulseAudio system, and wouldn't you know it - as fate would have it, because I posted that you could fix it, it ended up breaking on me last night while I was at CAThulu's place.  Part way through watching the latest Nostalgia Critic, it just stopped.  Granted... I have a troublesome chipset combo in my old R3000 laptop, but still - not as stable as the older ALSA system it replaced. 



Satan Q. Jones said:


> As for illegitimate reasons, well, I've heard a few stories about what IT people do on break



Uhm... we... do responsible things, of course. <_<  >_>



Satan Q. Jones said:


> I like the -rt kernels, myself. I've never been able to get one working in Arch, though, and I don't quite like them enough to even consider going back to Ubuntu.



So... Mint is your friend? 



Satan Q. Jones said:


> But if there's a major bug in a kernel, I like not having to wait six months for its fix to reach my computer.



Yes - that's the only frustrating thing.  But if you really want to, you can just get the latest kernel, build it and use it without too much hassle.  Haven't had any issue come up yet where I've needed to do that.



Satan Q. Jones said:


> Yes, but with Arch, it's always been "add functionality until you're satisfied". With Ubuntu and friends, in my experience, it's "Install the base system and plenty of things you don't need, then spend the rest of the month making it work to your liking--and do it all over after the next distro upgrade."



As I said before, it comes down to which one takes more time.  For me, I can get a distro of Mint or Ubuntu set up as I like faster than I can build something from scratch from Arch.  Likewise, if I'm building something more server-ish, I'll start from the other end of the spectrum and go with a light release and build up.  



Satan Q. Jones said:


> See, the biggest reason I like Arch is that it doesn't _have_ "distro upgrades"--it's rolling-release, which keep me happy.



Yeah, that's a definite strong point and one of the reasons I initially looked at it.  With Mint, they don't just have (at least not yet anyway) a "Distro upgrade" button when a new release comes out - you have to download a utility or go the command-line route of updating the repos and then starting to roll things to the newer versions (which I do).  Not an automatic roll, but close enough for me.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 25, 2009)

CyberFoxx said:


> OK, I think I understand now. (I blame me not quite understanding things due to the allergy meds. That's my reason, and I'm sticking to it.) You want to dump Xorg because it can be somewhat tricky to get working right, and instead use DirectFB, which is a royal pain in the ass to get working in the first place? (Honestly, I've tried several times to get DirectFB working. But every time just ended in me saying "Screw it!")
> 
> Anyway, only thing I can find about getting XFCE under DirectFB is on the official DirectFB site here.


Congratulations, sir. You have missed the entire thread.



ToeClaws said:


> Sorry about the late response - stuck in meetings all day today...


Gah, that must have been horrible.



> I find that issue varies a lot from distribution to distribution.  Of late, most of them are cleaning up a lot over where they were say 2 or 3 years ago, and the command line is always there to do fine-tuning with in the end.  Just comes down to a matter of which one takes more tweaking - the finished user-friendly one being tuned down, or the crufty one being tuned up?


...crufty?



> *nods* Agreed.  The concept of Ubuntu is great, but the execution is a bit messy at times.  Mint was a surprise when I found it because being based on Ubuntu is certainly not rare, but in trying it, one see a very cleaned up, tidy execution of the Ubuntu system where everything just works.


I thought exactly the same thing when I first tried it<3
I think the only reason I never gave it more of a look was that the Xfce desktop metapackage is broken in the 64-bit version of Mint 6...or, at least, the dependencies are.
As it so happens, I wound up installing it this morning because my Arch disc never seems to boot past "Starting Syslog-NG" anymore.
...is a system logger even _needed_ for a bare-minimum live CD? ._.;
And, wouldn't you know, Mint 7 x64 was released just last night 

GNOME's...not nearly as bad as I remember it being. I'll have to try KDE again sometime, though.



> Yep.  Operating systems are almost like religion in that they're VERY personal preferences.  Some people actually like Windows, same as some people actually believe in Creationism. :lol:


Hey now, _I_ like Windows.........on the increasingly rare occasions that it works XD



> Agreed - I'm not a huge fan of the PulseAudio system, and wouldn't you know it - as fate would have it, because I posted that you could fix it, it ended up breaking on me last night while I was at CAThulu's place.  Part way through watching the latest Nostalgia Critic, it just stopped.  Granted... I have a troublesome chipset combo in my old R3000 laptop, but still - not as stable as the older ALSA system it replaced.


I used EsounD instead, back when I had a choice. It's not like Pulse added any truly vital features over it...
Though, Mint installed Pulse and it actually works just fine. (Black magic at work?)



> Uhm... we... do responsible things, of course. <_<  >_>


Of course you do 



> So... Mint is your friend?


So it would seem 
Though I don't think there's an -rt kernel available right now.
Must remember to investigate further...



> Yes - that's the only frustrating thing.  But if you really want to, you can just get the latest kernel, build it and use it without too much hassle.  Haven't had any issue come up yet where I've needed to do that.


Ehh, I don't think my machine likes compiling kernels. I tried it in Arch and it ate itself endlessly every time.

Plus, I can't find the configuration file for the GNU compilers, so I can't set any optimizations.



> Yeah, that's a definite strong point and one of the reasons I initially looked at it.  With Mint, they don't just have (at least not yet anyway) a "Distro upgrade" button when a new release comes out - you have to download a utility or go the command-line route of updating the repos and then starting to roll things to the newer versions (which I do).  Not an automatic roll, but close enough for me.


Yeah.
Ubuntu's distro-upgrade tends to break stuff anyway, in my experience.


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## ToeClaws (Jun 26, 2009)

Satan Q. Jones said:


> Gah, that must have been horrible.



Yes - stuck in meetings with auditors for PCI compliance is not likely to be found in or around the definition of "fun" anytime soon.



Satan Q. Jones said:


> ...crufty?



Hehe - old geek term.  Usually means "poorly built and or over complicated" though can also refer to a state in which one has to do a lot of manual work to get things going, which is more what I mean.  Arch is actually very well built, just requires too much work to get going. 



Satan Q. Jones said:


> I thought exactly the same thing when I first tried it<3
> I think the only reason I never gave it more of a look was that the Xfce desktop metapackage is broken in the 64-bit version of Mint 6...or, at least, the dependencies are.
> As it so happens, I wound up installing it this morning because my Arch disc never seems to boot past "Starting Syslog-NG" anymore.
> ...is a system logger even _needed_ for a bare-minimum live CD? ._.;
> And, wouldn't you know, Mint 7 x64 was released just last night



Yep, but I run 32-bit for now.  Unless you need to address more than 4 gigs of total memory, there's little justification for moving to a 64 bit OS yet - especially given the terrible availability of some commonly used applications and plugins.

As for XFCE, I've not tried installing it on a Mint box - I like Gnome.  You might give it a whirl after enabling the Ubuntu Juanty repos and, and use "aptitude" to grab the packages, as it will install not only stated dependencies but suggested packages as well.  



Satan Q. Jones said:


> GNOME's...not nearly as bad as I remember it being. I'll have to try KDE again sometime, though.



Heh, yes - it's grown up of late.  Gnome is very tweakable.  You can make it very fancy, or very simple.  KDE used to be the shell I liked ( a decade ago ), but it has since become much too bloated.  I can't help but cringe and think of how many resources it must chew up to run KDE 4.X stuff on a box.



Satan Q. Jones said:


> Hey now, _I_ like Windows.........on the increasingly rare occasions that it works XD



Heh, yes - plays games okay... mostly.  



Satan Q. Jones said:


> I used EsounD instead, back when I had a choice. It's not like Pulse added any truly vital features over it...
> Though, Mint installed Pulse and it actually works just fine. (Black magic at work?)



I know - Ubuntu 9.04 had a slew of issues (as like all previous Linux versions) on my Presario R3000 box, yet Mint 7 (based on Ubuntu 9.04) worked.  I still had to do some custom work with the sound, but the thing is I could actually get it to work.  Mint is just a more polished product.



Satan Q. Jones said:


> Ehh, I don't think my machine likes compiling kernels. I tried it in Arch and it ate itself endlessly every time.



Ouch. :/  I've not mucked with compiling a kernel in years.



Satan Q. Jones said:


> Yeah.
> Ubuntu's distro-upgrade tends to break stuff anyway, in my experience.



I find it's a toss up - 50/50 chance of coming out unscathed, but that's no different than any major upgrade.  Updating Windows from 98 to XP or XP to Windows 7 and so on always leaves a tone of stuff broken.  That's why I like doing the command-line route in Mint - you can manually control what's upgraded, deal with any issues that crop up, and basically hand-hold the box through the process.  Of course, the charm of Linux or Unix is also that you can just backup your /home directory and completely reinstall stuff, then dump it back.  Heh, guess that comes down to the time and patience factor again.


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## Rigor Sardonicus (Jun 26, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Hehe - old geek term.  Usually means "poorly built and or over complicated" though can also refer to a state in which one has to do a lot of manual work to get things going, which is more what I mean.  Arch is actually very well built, just requires too much work to get going.


Ah, understood.



> Yep, but I run 32-bit for now.  Unless you need to address more than 4 gigs of total memory, there's little justification for moving to a 64 bit OS yet - especially given the terrible availability of some commonly used applications and plugins.


Oh, come on. I've had no trouble there.

Besides, I run a multimedia PC with 6GB of RAM. There's no justification for _not_ using a 64-bit OS on it, and I highly doubt a 32-bit one would even work at this point.



> As for XFCE, I've not tried installing it on a Mint box - I like Gnome.  You might give it a whirl after enabling the Ubuntu Juanty repos and, and use "aptitude" to grab the packages, as it will install not only stated dependencies but suggested packages as well.


Oh, I should definitely do that. Thank you.



> Heh, yes - it's grown up of late.  Gnome is very tweakable.  You can make it very fancy, or very simple.  KDE used to be the shell I liked ( a decade ago ), but it has since become much too bloated.  I can't help but cringe and think of how many resources it must chew up to run KDE 4.X stuff on a box.





> Heh, yes - plays games okay... mostly.


Eh, I just use CrossOver now and don't see a difference.

...well, Steam won't start lately, for some reason, but other than that, it works fine.



> I find it's a toss up - 50/50 chance of coming out unscathed, but that's no different than any major upgrade.  Updating Windows from 98 to XP or XP to Windows 7 and so on always leaves a tone of stuff broken.  That's why I like doing the command-line route in Mint - you can manually control what's upgraded, deal with any issues that crop up, and basically hand-hold the box through the process.  Of course, the charm of Linux or Unix is also that you can just backup your /home directory and completely reinstall stuff, then dump it back.  Heh, guess that comes down to the time and patience factor again.


Hm, true. I've been making /home a separate partition ever since I first installed and configured ArchLinux. (I don't think I got it configured until the second or third install, though )


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