What is a good x86 Linux OS similar to the Pyra to get familiar with?


Yerffej

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I have an old dual core laptop laying around, and I want to load Linux on it. So I figured I would load it with a distro to help me get familiar with Pyra's OS. I know it would be some sort of Debian, but which one? When the Pyras are shipped I'd like to get a head start!
 
In my experience, that's not a reliable/safe way to get it. Tried it with Mint 17, and ended up having to full install Mint KDE in the end as there were too many issues.
I could think of two reasons:
1. Mint's approach at packaging is questionable at best. They usually do not compile from source, they knowingly create conflicts in the packaging system, they have a "unique" view on security matters, etc. Occasional incompatibilities should be expected.
2. If you chose the KDE desktop in the Debian installer it will install the package task-kde-desktop. This is not the same like installing kde-full, so you'll end up with different setups, depending on which way you install KDE. The same principle applies to comparing Kubuntu to Ubuntu+KDE.
 
I could think of two reasons:
1. Mint's approach at packaging is questionable at best. They usually do not compile from source, they knowingly create conflicts in the packaging system...
2. If you chose the KDE desktop in the Debian installer it will install the package task-kde-desktop. This is not the same like installing kde-full...

That's interesting, thanks, and previously (albeit more than a few years ago) I had done the same with a different repo without issues. Good to know it still might work.

@OP Sorry for the slightly off-topic conversation; I'm also keen to try out the OS, in a VM. Easier to fix it there if I end up with a broken system.
 
I used Debian in VMWare and installed XFCE.
It's definitely a good idea to test out linux first, I was pulling my hair out for a while but figured it out eventually. Even compiled some stuff which was way easier to do than in Windows surprisingly.
 
well, development is much easier in linux than windows... not surprising to me :). at least in something like debian, where you can just apt-get dependencies no problem :).

i personally use ubuntu, though i perhaps should go up to debian at some point...
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...though i perhaps should go up to debian at some point...
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I'm now thinking the same (although moving via RedHat to Ubuntu to Mint). Not sure I've got the apt-itude for the equivalent beardiness for it though, although I could probably patch that in :)
 
well, development is much easier in linux than windows... not surprising to me :). at least in something like debian, where you can just apt-get dependencies no problem :).

i personally use ubuntu, though i perhaps should go up to debian at some point...
main-qimg-9e304ad7584dc97abaee6bcaff44d2e3-c
I'm stuck on Windows 7 (I hate 8/10 quite a lot since it breaks compatibility with my software). I'd use linux as my main but that probably will never happen due to too many programs that aren't on Linux at all, and WINE isn't very compatible with most the stuff I use. However I do like it as it's a pretty good alternative. For a small handheld though, Debian/Linux is perfect, way better than an Android phone.
 
Too bad most beginners stick with Debian or Red Hat based distros now...

My recommendation: Try a bit of everything. Also, don't stick only to Linux. Give BSD and other Unices a try.
 
there's also RISC OS on ARM or an emulator, and AmigaOS on powerPC, I think
/Way off topic/
I have a soft spot for both of those. Cut my teeth programming on an Acorn Electron (so have tried RISC OS), and got through much of my college life with my trusty A1200.
 
i personally use ubuntu, though i perhaps should go up to debian at some point...
I'm now thinking the same (although moving via RedHat to Ubuntu to Mint). Not sure I've got the apt-itude for the equivalent beardiness for it though, although I could probably patch that in :)
On my 2nd attempt to move to Linux I decided to jump in at the deep end.
Debian gave me half a year of headaches. After one year I erased my last Windows installation.

The technical differences between Debian and Ubuntu are almost negligible btw, at least from my perspective.
 
Too bad most beginners stick with Debian or Red Hat based distros now...

My recommendation: Try a bit of everything. Also, don't stick only to Linux. Give BSD and other Unices a try.

Why limit yourself to the nixes/nuxes if you're that open minded? Try also ReactOS and Haiku (on x86, there's also RISC OS on ARM or an emulator, and AmigaOS on powerPC, I think).

In the context of 'beginners' though, telling them to go reload their system over and over with multiple OS versions is not practical. I'm a fairly experienced Linux installer. I have done it dozens of times with probably 10 or so different distributions and versions of distributions. To get the OS installed is usually less than an hour. To apply updates and a solid software set can take another 2-3 hours. So - count on about 4 hours of overhead just to get 'up and running' IF the user is experienced. To state that beginners should try multiple distributions and even other *nix OS platforms - they simply want it to work and do the tasks/applications that they want it to without much fuss.

With a device like the Pyra, there needs to be a basic stock OS and DE install that is easy for the community to support. By the nature of the device and the development process, we have many advanced Linux users here. If the device is going to be successful though, it will need to attract people who can barely use the preinstalled Windows on a device bought from a store shelf. Answers to navigation and application install questions need to be point and click paths, not command line strings. In no small part to the PND system, that was one place where the Pandora excelled. To be able to have that simplified path to success for new-to-Linux users, we need to have a single default installed DE on a relatively easy to maintain default distribution.

Debian with XFCE is a pretty solid foundation. Advanced users are always welcome to do what they want, but for the community to be able to support true novice users, we need to have a known default. I don't like where Ubuntu went. Mint is OK, but their dependence on Ubuntu makes their releases wonky at times. Keep it simple. Debian with XFCE is simple.
 
Indeed, I was really responsing to rygD's point, which I would say isn't something absolute beginners should do either.

Yeah, debian+xfce is a decent starting point for me too. I started with Ubuntu and gnome 2 during those days, then switched to debian squeeze+xfce after trying fedora+xfce at work when I needed to repartition my drives, and felt like a change. I found the stable versions of software like networkmanager to be a bit primitive and buggy with my hardware though back then, and after trying out arch on my build server, went with arch+xfce once debian squeeze left long-term support. Stable network manager on newer debian stable releases probably isn't as old as the one squeeze had, so might support odd hardware better, so debian+xfce is probably a good starting point in this day and age for a good few years.
 
I consider switching to Debian at some point.
Where's the difference to Mint (since it's also Debian based)?
 
If the device is going to be successful though, it will need to attract people who can barely use the preinstalled Windows on a device bought from a store shelf.
The Pandora was a niche device and I see no reason to assume that the Pyra will be any different. Sure, there will be Windows users without any knowledge about Linux, but I don't see them making up a significant number of the total users.

Answers to navigation and application install questions need to be point and click paths, not command line strings.
I disagree.
I find the very idea of making a system "beginner friendly" (whatever that means) a flawed concept. There is nothing wrong with being a beginner, but the beginner should have the ambition to become sufficently advanced. There is nothing wrong with taking him by the hand but he should walk on his own feet. This means, the system shouldn't be dumbed-down. Instead the beginner should learn how to use it properly. And properly using a unixoid system means to get familiar with shells.
After all, people are born illiterate, but we don't design our society to work without text - we teach children how to read. Nobody starts as a good car driver, but instead of making our streets look like bumper car courts we have people go through driving schools.

What I didn't mention when I said I jumped in at the deep end with Debian on my 2nd attempt was, that my 1st attempt was with Suse, which was very popular in Germany back then. Superficially it was pretty close to Windows, but what seemed to be helpful at the beginning turned out to handicap my progress in understanding Linux. After a while I found myself constantly mixing up how things work under Windows and Linux, which was cumbersome on both systems.
With Debian it was a whole different story. It made me understand right from the beginning that I know nothing about it and that I'll have to learn quite some things from scratch if I want to work with this system. What followed was said 6 months of headaches, but when I started to see the whole picture it all felt very natural.
The point is, that beginners should embrace the new system the way it is meant to be, instead of trying to bend it until it looks like their old one.


I consider switching to Debian at some point.
Where's the difference to Mint (since it's also Debian based)?
For me personally, an important feature of Debian is its social contract. [1]
On the technical side, Debian's main advantages over Mint are its sane and stable package base, and its close following of security issues.
The only actual advantage I see in Mint is, that they really put some effort into GUI design.

Other than that there is really no big difference. Debian-based distributions all pretty much work the same, no matter if it's Debian, Ubuntu or some other derivative. If you know how one works under the hood, you can handle any of them.


[1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract
 
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