Finding the best Linux solutions for new users

Right to repair: policy & activism Windows 10 End of Life
89

Bento + Calamares

After several trials and errors, I put up a Bento Openbox Remix with Calamares. I have removed more applications, added gdebi, and left zram-config installed in post-installation process.
Also, I chose the lowest compression algorythm, thus the ISO is still large, but it should boot much faster.

Having the chance here to compare Ubiquity vs Calamares. I much prefer Ubiquity. First off Calamares insists on being full screen - just a bit too much ‘in your face’ for my liking - with a daunting drop down for languages.

Importantly - Calamares doesn’t give the option to see the password you’re entering. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to install on an old laptop where some keys don’t work reliably. It can be a lifesaver.

As well - I checked the box so I don’t need to use the password to login … and now I need to enter the password to login.

Now there’s:
no Firefox (ouch)
L3afpad instead of Mousepad - though I see L3afpad hasn’t been updated since 2015?
no LibreOffice
You’ve added Vim. You’d rather Vim than Nano?

Booting

Looks like there’s just something about the old Dell it doesn’t like (Opitplex 960 + Core 2 Duo E8400). And - my bad - it isn’t the installer as the Grub menu. On the HP Pavilion both Ubiquity and Calamares quickly boot to a bare bones Grub menu - and then proceed without problem. On the old Dell it first boots to what must apparently be a highly customised Grub? It then appears to hang - unresponsive - for about 5 to 6 minutes before proceeding to desktop.

90

Thanks for your detailed feedback, Len. You raise some really good points especially about the user experience during installation and the practical aspects in a Repair Café setting.

Joyce has put a lot of effort into creating a lightweight, accessible solution, with the goal of having something functional right from the start, without needing to spend time in the terminal. Precisely for the reasons you mentioned: time is limited, and not every volunteer is a Linux expert.

Some of the choices you noticed, like L3afpad or Vim, are currently in test builds as temporary options. Your feedback is very helpful for refining that and keeping only tools that are truly useful and easy to use. Personally, I much prefer Nano, just a matter of taste, but it feels more intuitive and straightforward to me.

As for the GRUB issue on the Dell, that’s definitely worth noting. If it’s a custom GRUB, we’ll need to consider a more universal version to avoid delays or system hangs like that. Don’t WORK on last compatible i486 Ventoy… And no boot in latest version… Need Balena or Rufus (skip warning) for me…

Regarding fonts and software preferences (OnlyOffice, LibreOffice, etc.), Joyce will surely strike the right balance. She’s always been focused on simplicity without sacrificing compatibility. That said, it’s ultimately a matter of personal choice, but I also find LibreOffice more complete overall. There’s also OpenOffice (which requires Java), and while it’s still very good, it has lost a lot of ground to LibreOffice over the years.

Thanks again for your in-depth testing. Feedback like yours really helps the whole community move forward.

For the fonts

Aptos and Aptos Display are indeed very commonly used nowadays, especially in design, publishing, and modern Office documents. It’s definitely one of the trendy fonts, much like The Cove (but not free) in other creative environments.

As for Tahoma, yes, it’s been this way for quite a while, since around 2015 or 2016 if I recall correctly.

In my case, I often use Office 365 online for compatibility, then switch to Linux or Google Docs when needed. Carlito is usually auto-mapped as a fallback font for Calibri, in my case, but not for all Distro by default. It works fairly well and helps maintain layout consistency without too many headaches.

91

I used the term ‘installer’ to refer to the whole ISO. Sorry about that. Ubiquity vs Calamares is my personal likes / dislikes. But that issue about not being able to view the password can be very real on old laptops. I still want to try reproducing that Ubiquity bug later this week.

Other distros looked at recently also have issues. I think it was Endless OS where I had to remove the GPU from the HP to get it to work. Seems that’s an issue with Nvidia drivers not loading - and that it can affect anything Ubuntu based. Again - I’ll look at that as well.

Also with AnduinOS it dropped an ssh connection when it went to sleep. I didn’t think much of it at the time - thought it might have been set to hibernate. But it seems that’s a known bug where it can drop its network connection on sleep - and requires a reboot to fix.

92

Len,

Thanks for all this testing. I don’t know about the ins and outs in Calamares.

Calamares

I put up an Ubuntu with it, not knowing:
1 - If it could be done
2 - If it would break something else
3 - If it would be reliable

This is why it is in the experimental directory and has no user application in it. I put it up thinking you are right about Ubiquity being so slow, and that I might try to do something about it. I would not put efforts in adding all users applications while testing. This is the easy part that can be done later, once a setup is declared viable.

Some explaining

Keeping it as small as possible saves time while preparing, while building and while uploading as well, as I can’t use a tool remotely anymore on a build server : the one I used before, “Customizer”, is no longer maintained by anyone, I had no news from Kamilion, its last developer, who was from the West part of the States, since the Covid period :cold_sweat:, and now the only one left which I find usable enough is Cubic, which is only graphical, so no remote building : I have to do with my personal computer at home.

You can compare to what’s inside a full fledged Bento Openbox edition : https://linuxvillage.org/en/blog/2025/01/04/bento-openbox-remix-24-04-1-en/

(I’ll put back Libreoffice-draw later, as per your say, but as said before, you can add whatever you need using the Synaptic package manager, and / or the Gnome Software Center if your computer can handle the additional weight on the resources).

Todo

About the password, in Calamares, I didn’t know, (didn’t pay attention) but this should be reason enough to send a bug report somewhere, and ask them that they had a feature to be able to check what characters have been typed in.

Debian Live editions with Calamares

You might want to compare with a Debian edition that makes use of Calamares currently, the lightest being the one with LXDE, and just above in lightness, Xfce, very nice to have:
LXQT should be good too, I have tested the QT versions of LXDE. Here is the collection:
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/

(Hard to find from the main Debian page… There are sooo many choices! :smile:)

Please let us know if you test one, and if it behaves better in a Debian Live edition, especially on the matter of languages. If it does, I can investigate to find what package I might have missed : it is possible that the tool reflects what language packs are installed or not installed, my habbit, when building experimental versions, being to remove as many packages as possible as long as it does not break the system.

We can still have 32bits versions for them, but we need to start with a Debian 11 version and update from there. I did that in Virtualbox recently. (For another job going on with Debian).

About install parties and repair cafes

  • We can figure ways to make it more efficient and faster to install distributions
  • We will need feedback with technical information on brands and models taken care of

Is that something which is already done, or only the number of units repaired and their weight is collected? If it is not, would it be possible to collect such information, along with the month and year it is done?

Other tests and rebuilts going on:

I have been working continously during several days to put up an antiX core with the SysVinit services manager (the old way, before SystemD, that is less efficient for recent computers but muuuch lighter for old ones, hence the name of the distribution).

There is an experimental edition in the experimental directory, now. What I have noticed when trying to install the last version built, is the installer behaves in a way I was not used to, even when I did Bento editions a few years ago. I’ll have to dig deeper about that, and ask help on the antiX forum.

After a few minutes, here is my post at the antiX forum, requiring information on the installer partitioner tool https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/bento-antix-23-2-experimental-is-out-issues-with-partitioner-in-installer/

I could not follow up the last two years, because I went back to school. I did a work-study period to obtain a diploma in computing, so no way I could do anything extra.

This said, it is desirable to have an easy to use antiX editon:

  • We can have 32bits versions,
  • They are branded to be the lightest, from the start,
  • They can be rebuilt as many times as we want, using the ISO Snapshot tool inclueded
    (which is easy enough to use)

Many people put up respins of their own and get help on the antiX forum on the way.

What I look for:

  • have them look nice and not geeky (light colors, colorful, backgrounds, icon theme, windows theme, GTK theme, compliancy with QT themes and applications… and ease to change using Graphical tools)
  • have them come with a graphical tool to install / remove packages and do updates
  • have them come with a large choice of packages

Large choice of packages : Debian is the champion in this matter, antiX started using the Debian repositories since 2012.

Going down the memory lane

After about 16 years rebuilding distributions, using dedicated tools, I can say most which come with a set of uncomplicated rebuild tools can allow to be done within a few days.

When I started, it was not so easy, because from the start I always wanted them to be the lightest for old computers while the easiest for end users. And I was a complete beginner in the matter, so I had to rely much more on the help of the community and the buddies.

Trying with PCLinuxOS current editions, (The official one was KDE3, by striping them, as the other members of the community were doing, led me nowhere, I always ended breaking it, until one guy (who the founder of the distribution disliked, for reasons I never understood) built one core ISO, very tiny, from where I started. It had taken me 3 months of hard work on a daily basis to make it good enough for the community to be able to install it, test it, and provide feedback.

2 years later, we had versions in 32bits and 64bits, one of each fully in English and fully in French, one of each small base editions (around 300 MB) and some full (less than or around 700MB all possible to burn to CD), plus a set of “Edu” versions made with the feedback from parents in different countries : all based on the “Openbox made easy” recipe.

Then I had to quit, because the leader went on vacation for a year, leaving the community to the care of his assistants : who kicked out everybody doing stuff and bringing invaluable tech improvements (some of them were really good tech people! While the assistants were not so much… ). The boss came back one year later, un-banished everybody, but by that time we had created linuxvillage.org dedicated to all distributions.

There are still traces of that time, here and there. https://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201109/page01.html
and screenshots here : https://pclinuxos-fr.org/captures-decran/ (I was the author of the Openbox versions only, the other ones were done by buddies who wanted to have them fully in French by default).

About 32bits editions :

  • They can be installed to 32 and 64bits capable machines alike
  • The RAM will be limited to 3 GB (In a machine where there is 4GB, the system seens 3.56 or so),
  • It will run faster than 64 bits on computers with limited CPU capability and limited RAM, typically core 2 duo CPUs, and computers which can’t use more than 2 or 4 GB RAM.

Conclusion on the ongoing builds

All that said, now it is easier to rebuild some distributions in a matter of days, not months or years, and experimental means it’s a Work In Progress! ^^
So please, feel free to ask for lists of desired packages for the coming versions, meanwhile let’s see how it goes with Calamares and with 32bits versions of the distributions which can still provide them.

93

In details

No Firefox : right, this is a test edition.
No Libreoffice : same reason
l3fpad : it is the smallest GUI editor still out there, the best for tests
vim : I should have removed it for the test edition and yes I like it, I add this at the end of the /etc/vim/vimrc file to have nice colors when using it:
:colorscheme elflord
(There is a choice for sets of colors somewhere under /usr/share/, I once tested them all before picking elflord).

Questions on your test:

Looks like there’s just something about the old Dell it doesn’t like (Opitplex 960 + Core 2 Duo E8400). And - my bad - it isn’t the installer as the Grub menu.
On the HP Pavilion both Ubiquity and Calamares quickly boot to a bare bones Grub menu - and then proceed without problem.
On the old Dell it first boots to what must apparently be a highly customised Grub? It then appears to hang - unresponsive - for about 5 to 6 minutes before proceeding to desktop.

I don’t understand what you said related to Grub and to install, in it isn’t the installer as the Grub menu ?

GRUB meaning GRand Unified Bootloader, it is not concerned by the installer, so, what were you trying to say?

You tested on two different machines. Your feedback would help better with specific details for each. It might take more of your time to do that, of course.

Hardware upgrade capabilities

Here is what I get about the Dell Optiplex 960 equipped with an Intel Core2duo E8400 processor:
From this technical sheet : https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Business_solutions_engineering-Docs_Documents/ja/jp/optiplex-960-technical-guidebook_jp.pdf

in the last page: in the section OPTIPLEX 960 SFF it is provided with 2 GB DDRII 667MHz.
From that other page (in French) https://www.offtek.fr/dell-optiplex-960 it can take up to 8GB RAM.

According to the page 11 of the Dell technical sheet, the machine could run a Core Duo Quad ! This means twice as much CPU power (I changed one for a client on a laptop recently, it is night and day for the snappiness!)

We can compare the 2 processors : the highest among the Core2Quad against the one you have:
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/Intel-Core%202%20Quad%20Q9650%20AT80569PJ080N%20(BX80569Q9650%20-%20BXC80569Q9650).html

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/Intel-Core%202%20Duo%20E8500%20EU80570PJ0876M%20-%20AT80570PJ0876M%20(BX80570E8500).html

We will specifically look for the TDP, to try to see if the extra power required can be supported by the Power Supply Unit in your computer.

Core 2 Duo E8500 2 / 2 3.16 GHz 6 MB 65W VT, TXT, ESS

Page of comparision:
https://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/713/Intel_Core_2_Duo_E8500_vs_Intel_Core_2_Quad_Q9650.html

TDP in your's is 65watts
TDP in the highest is 95watts

The socket is 775 : old enough to find a decent core 2 quad for a small price on Ebay, I guess.

About RAM:
If it can take 8 GB, that means 4 x 2GB modules, which should also be rather unexpensive at Ebay.

About storage:
There is a CD device. I find them not useful anymore, I take it out, dismantle it to keep the box and the face (I do it delicately so to keep it whole and I glue again the small part on the front), then stick a 2.5" SATA SSD inside for the system, leaving the connectors a bit out, to make them easy to reach for the SATA connectors (a 60 GB capable SATA disk is enough for a system, and can cost from 5 to 12 euros max, depending on where you buy it - not more expensive than an ordinary USB stick!), then I’d keep a 7200rpm hard drive inside that machine for the /home.

To check if the actual power supply is enough, there are Power Supply Calculators out there. Here is one that seems to provide options for the CPUs quoted here : https://www.bequiet.com/en/psucalculator

Conclusion

This machine, when fully upgraded on the hardware side, could even run an Official Ubuntu with Gnome (the heaviest of them), without getting tired.

BTW, maybe you should try to test the RAM, using Memtest86, on the Dell.

PS: I realized I have looked for the CPU 8500 instead of the Core 2 duo 8400, but the specs in terms of TDP are the same, and of course the Socket type/chipset is also the same.

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/Intel-Core%202%20Duo%20E8400%20EU80570PJ0806M%20-%20AT80570PJ0806M%20(BX80570E8400).html

94

About Calamares

The answer I got from a developper at their chat, is that it is perfectly possible as it is, to get the password to show, with a toggle switch.

As for the languages, same, I’ll have to install all kinds of language packs in a final edition.

But doing what it takes for a toggle show/hide password is out of my league, and out of range for the time I can use for it.

So if someone here can, wants to, has the know how/ability, (@Joslet_Nicolas maybe?) these are the information I collected from @demm on the Calamares salon:

  1. Configuration file with examples: https://codeberg.org/Calamares/calamares/src/branch/calamares/src/modules/users/users.conf#L67
  2. https://codeberg.org/Calamares/calamares/src/branch/calamares/src/modules/users/users.conf#L124
  3. Documentation : https://calamares.codeberg.page/docs/documentation/
  4. Collection of modules : https://codeberg.org/Calamares/calamares/src/branch/calamares/src/modules
  5. Settings.conf file under /etc/calamares : https://codeberg.org/Calamares/calamares/src/branch/calamares/settings.conf => This one belongs to the calamares-settings-* where * can stand for debian, lubuntu, or any other. (We would need something such as a calamares-settings-bento)

This was the official page of the Calamares project https://calamares.io/ - I could not enter the Matrix chat directly : https://webchat.kde.org/#/room/#calamares:kde.org because the registration there is closed, but I entered #calamares:kde.org in my Element Matrix client, and could find the salon there.

The code is being more up to date here : https://codeberg.org/Calamares/website than the one at Github which will not be used anymore.

Quoting demm:

don’t link to calamares.io for now, use the link I gave cala is in the process of moving all to codeberg, calamares.io still point to github, so is not accurate now this is the most up to date webside code https://codeberg.org/Calamares/website
The Calamares website on Codeberg Pages
and for custom toggle/switches, the QML modules are the easiest to customize (cala has what seems many duplicate modules, like users & usersq, all ending in q are QML modules)
packagechooserq is probably what you are looking for

95

Based on the documlentation, redit and other dev forums…

In the users.conf file, you simply need to add the following lines. Not in Calamares directly I think…

showPasswordStrength: true/false
allowWeakPasswords: true/false
showPasswordToggle: true/false

For showPasswordToggle: true you need to test it, depend the version and the distro

No need to add an intro like [calamares] inside the config file… Just place these keys directly within the YAML structure under the appropriate section. Make sure indentation and syntax are respected (YAML is strict about formatting).

I test it this afternoon and it work for me but:

You need to create, if not exist:

/etc/calamares

OR

calamares-settings-bento/
└ modules/
    └ users.conf
└ settings.conf

In your custom modules/ folder, open or create users.conf and add the following lines in the correct indentation (normally under the main YAML node)… Code in top of the answer with show…

Ensure your settings.conf includes the users module and test it with Calamares test mode or build your ISO and test it!

96

This is a good job, however if we want it integrated in a Bento Openbox Remix (built in Ubuntu), and eventuelly other ones too, I’ll need someone to prepare it entirely in a way that will allow me to integrate it using only one command line. I few words : I need a package, with the bells and whisles. :stuck_out_tongue:
It can be done using an already made calamares-settings-* package and adapting it.

97

For new system with dedicated GPU : https://endeavouros.com/

It’s a good alternative too… But SO MUCH DISTRO OMG

98

I used the term “installer” loosely to refer to the whole ISO. Didn’t realise it’d cause the confusion that it obviously has. My apologies.

It’s the grub menu that was hanging. The reason for the hang was RAM. I reseated the RAM sticks and the problem went away.

Have been wrestling with these old computers all day. Will do a proper write up tomorrow.

99

EndeavourOS: « terminal centric system ready to personalise»
I don’t think that one fits all users. :slight_smile:

100

I see, it is always a good idea to test the memory, when something does not behave right in a Live Linux.

About the missing «toggle» option for the password during the installation with Calamares, if you want to test further, you can always make use of l3fpad to type the desired password in it, then from there copy/paste it to the target field. I often use this trick for different needs.

And sorry about the window of the installer jumping right away once on the desktop, you can close it and restart it when you feel ready, using the launcher.

It is an easy fix, which I will do if and when a new version is made available.

101

Just in case you’re not aware of this. Happens with the ISO on Ventoy (Boot in normal mode). Boots to a plain Grub.

Bento_Grub
Bento_Grub1000×750 120 KB

Happens on the HP Pavilion (p6-2414a with AMD A6-5400K dual-core APU) - both with Secure Boot on (& Legacy disabled) - or Secure Boot off (& Legacy Support either on - or off).

Some other odd behaviour - when the Bento ISOs are burnt directly to a USB stick - the HP’s not seeing them for Boot Menu unless Secure Boot is off and Legacy enabled (but does see them in the BIOS menu under Device Configuration). It sees other ISOs to boot from just fine (Debian 12 & AnduinOS). I’ll double check with all three of the Bento ISOs tomorrow. Using Balena.

It’s a very reflective screen. Had to take the “screenshot” from this angle to avoid bright reflections.

I cleared the HP’s NVRAM earlier today because it was clogged up with so many previous installs.

BTW - having just used Krita to resize this image - it’s not that bad.

102

This is the expected behavior when using Ventoy, as Ventoy is compatible with both UEFI and legacy BIOS boot.
And the Ubuntu distributions also provide both : GRUB boot and ISOLINUX boot.

If you are even more curious, you can open the ISO file using file-roller (not while using it of course, but from within your usual Linux session), and look inside the directories how it is done.

BTW - having just used Krita to resize this image - it’s not that bad.

The tools from the KDE project are quite good. You can also resize images using a bunch of other tools. Do you know ImageMagick?

103

I first started the Linux Migration Wiki page over 10 years ago and have occasionally tweaked it (with a few other contributors) in the years since, but the list of distros (in the final section), in particular, needs an overhaul.

It would seem that there are those around here who would have the info at their fingertips, and could save me quite a lot of rummaging.

Distros listed are:

  • Mint
  • Elementary
  • Ubuntu
  • Zorin
  • Xubuntu
  • LinuxLite
  • Lubuntu
  • Puppy
  • RaspberryPi OS

For each, I have a brief description and applicability, minimum hardware requirements and a screenshot.

I guess there will have been a certain level of inflation in the hardware requirements since I did the original research, so updates to that would be particularly valuable. In particular, differences between standard and lightweight (Xfce or Mate versions of any distro). And which (if any) still support 32bit?

Please feel free to update the Wiki yourself (updates are moderated - if you can’t see yours, look in the page history). Or if you prefer, reply to this thread or DM me.

– Philip