RH, Cononical and SuSE boiling the GPL Frog?

[GreyGeek]

If you really want to try it out some time later, then a safe way could be to install it to an external drive (even to an reliable USB stick) without having to touch your internal installation.

Now that's a great idea!
(In the past I would have already done that, but my remaining two neurons don't work together very well)

[Schwarzer Kater]

If you really want to try it out some time later, then a safe way could be to install it to an external drive (even to an reliable USB stick) without having to touch your internal installation.

[GreyGeek]

My intent was to use dkms to compile the rtl88x2bu github code, just the way I did in Kubuntu, to see if the rtl88 code would work on the 6.1 kernel in the iso BEFORE I blew my Kubuntu installation away. If I could get my Cudy dongle working while running the Live KDE ISO then I knew I could get it running after I installed Bookworm. Installing the needed software failed.

I considered installing Bookworm into my existing rootfs by not formatting "/" during the manual configuration of the SSD. But, I've never done that before and didn't know how the Bookworm software would work along side the Jammy software, or if it is even possible to do that.

In the end, laziness (and reduced memory and thinking skills) won out. Thanks for the advice, though!

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
After weeks of laziness I gathered my needed resources and fired up the Debian Bookworm LiveUSB with the intent of replacing my Kubuntu installation. […]

I really would not use the "debian-live-XXX-kde" ISO (I am not sure if you did…), see post # 7 (https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...034#post672034).

Now I needed to install the rtl88x2bu github software and the build-tools necessary to compile it.

You did have to do that after the installation was complete? - Including checking that non-free-firmware, non-free and contrib is in your /etc/apt/sources.list and after installing firmware-linux?
Then did you additionally install firmware-realtek or check if it is installed? It contains several RTL88 stuff…

PS: If you are lazy you can just copy/paste the packages to install from my post…

PPS: GreyGeek I have changed the instrucions to English/US language packages in my post - so you can really just copy/paste now.

[GreyGeek]

GreyGeek


There also is the Debian LTS team (and has been for a decade): https://wiki.debian.org/LTS
So you have 5 years of security maintenance for every Debian release (excluding the Debian Backports) - and there are companies that expand that to 10 or more years (but this is for money then, AFAIK, like in *Ubuntu).

But this will not be long enough, because we all expect that you will explain Linux to us for at least another 25 years, of course!
So prepare to install Kubuntu 24.04, Debian 13, Kubuntu 26.04, Debian 14, …

There also is the Debian LTS team (and has been for a decade): https://wiki.debian.org/LTS
So you have 5 years of security maintenance for every Debian release (excluding the Debian Backports) - and there are companies that expand that to 10 or more years (but this is for money then, AFAIK, like in *Ubuntu).

But this will not be long enough, because we all expect that you will explain Linux to us for at least another 25 years, of course!
So prepare to install Kubuntu 24.04, Debian 13, Kubuntu 26.04, Debian 14, …

After weeks of laziness I gathered my needed resources and fired up the Debian Bookworm LiveUSB with the intent of replacing my Kubuntu installation. The 6 point font on the Bookworm plasma windows was too small for my eyes to read. In the Konsole and FireFox I could enlarge the font to a readable size. For the rest of the apps I used my magnifying glass.

My second problem was connecting to the Internet so I could connect to the repository. As usual, I strung my cat-5 cable with an ETH0 adapter on the end from my router to my 7-socket USB hub. No joy. I had to install the cable directly into a laptop USB port, of which I had two. I pulled the Cudy dongle from the USB port and plugged it into the hub, and the hub into the USB port that dongle previously used. The cat-5 cable plugged into the port the hub was using and I had an Internet connection via the cable. Now I needed to install the rtl88x2bu github software and the build-tools necessary to compile it. The installation of the build tools failed.

At this point the lazy bug hit again.

I shut down my laptop and restored my basic plugin configurations and rebooted. 16 days after I said I was going to switch to Debian I am now reversing myself and staying with Kubuntu till 2027, at which point, if I am still around, I'll roll forward to the next Kubuntu LTS.
Life is simple when one is lazy.

[Schwarzer Kater]

On topic again!

DJ Ware has published a second part: Boiling the Right Frog - The Return of the Clones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_2cMniKPqQ

[GreyGeek]

I like your optimism!

My dad lived to 94 so if I match him I've got 12 more years. However, at 82 he was still living in the cabin he built and hiked the mountains almost daily! In 1991 I went to my sister's house in Arvada, CO, to visit her, my dad and my stepmother and stepbrother. I was setting in the living room on the couch when he arrived. He walked in and sat next to me and we had about a 15 minute conversation before he excused himself and went into the kitchen to talk to my sister and stepmother. Later my sister told me that he asked her who I was and how I knew so much about him. Three years later the dementia was so bad my stepmother couldn't take care of him any more so she moved him to a rest home. She sold the cabin, which he had built in 1965, and moved to an apartment in Denver. He died in 1998.

He was quite the wood craftsman and built that cabin in the mountains by himself in 1965 for a total cost of about $15K. My daughter works in Denver and noticed a for sale listing of the cabin earlier this year. The listed price was $415K.

[Schwarzer Kater]

At least this also depends on whether you choose "use a mirror" or not during installation. If you don't, there will only be the installation medium in your /etc/apt/sources.list .

The Debian 12 "DVD-1" and "netinst" ISOs are the better installation ISOs nonetheless compared to the "debian-live-XXX-kde" ISO, at least for KDE Plasma - if you use the KDE PIM suite / Akonadi anyhow I would also recommend installing from "DVD-1" or "netinst".
Otherwise see post # 7.

In fact I quite like the partitioning tool on it (IIRC it is a front-end to partman): it is reasonably versatile, very reliable and has done what it says under any circumstances for years - the only better partitioning tool on an installation medium is the openSUSE one IMHO (I don't like the RHEL/Fedora one and the *Ubuntu and Calamares ones are both crappy and buggy).

[kc1di]

I have to add here that out of fairness one should not compare Debian to the (K)ubuntu interim releases but to the LTS releases.
Nowadays in one year (the odd years) Debian has more recent packages than (K)ubuntu LTS - and vice versa in the next year (the even years).

I don't know if they have fixed the live .iso yet, but when Debian 12 was released the live .iso image when installed to hardware did not produce a good and usuable /etc/apt/sources list. You will be better off using the .net .iso to install with. I and others had issued a bug report about it. In the debian system. Other than that it works well. This flaw produces the inability to update/upgrade the system after install. I believe it may have also been a problem with the full download .iso but now sure.

[Beerislife]

If Neon goes away I've got my eye on Endeavour OS. Since I now have a spare PC, I can test drive the Plasma version. When I get time!

[Schwarzer Kater]

GreyGeek

The "5.19 kernel Ubuntu 22.04.2" is supported until April of 2027, which is 3 more years.
Debian 12 "Bookworm" has 3 years of support.

In 3 years, at 85 yo, I may not remember how to run either distro. […]

There also is the Debian LTS team (and has been for a decade): https://wiki.debian.org/LTS
So you have 5 years of security maintenance for every Debian release (excluding the Debian Backports) - and there are companies that expand that to 10 or more years (but this is for money then, AFAIK, like in *Ubuntu).

But this will not be long enough, because we all expect that you will explain Linux to us for at least another 25 years, of course!
So prepare to install Kubuntu 24.04, Debian 13, Kubuntu 26.04, Debian 14, …

[GreyGeek]

I just discovered this video reviewing Debian "Bookworm". It is very frank and honest, and expresses an experience similar to what I had.
I'm still planning on switching to Debian 12

[GreyGeek]

Good point. I should have added the reference to LTS, which is what I run and why Debian 12 plasma desktop seems identical to Kubuntu 20.04.2 LTS. After a year on Neon and its "leading edge", I decided to return to the calmer Kubuntu LTS.

The "5.19 kernel Ubuntu 22.04.2" is supported until April of 2027, which is 3 more years.
Debian 12 "Bookworm" has 3 years of support.

In 3 years, at 85 yo, I may not remember how to run either distro. So, while I still can, I've decided to switch to Debian. I just finished burning the Live KDE iso and will probably install it to my Samsung 890 Pro SSD sometime later this week or early next week.

[Schwarzer Kater]

If push came to shove I'd walk my feet over to Debian, even though its versions are about two years behind Kubuntu, […]

I have to add here that out of fairness one should not compare Debian to the (K)ubuntu interim releases but to the LTS releases.
Nowadays in one year (the odd years) Debian has more recent packages than (K)ubuntu LTS - and vice versa in the next year (the even years).

[GreyGeek]

Just to try things out I installed Debian 12 as a VM using qemu/kvm.
The Calamares installer is NOT user friendly. It's tricky to use and will take getting used to. A line on the installs screen gives no clue as to whether it is a label or active. One has to click on it to test it out. I made a 60GB cowq2 drive and chose the graphical install (first option). Under a VM install while manually formatting the HD the option to use GPT never appears and one is not offered /boot/efi with the boot flag set. What is offered is EXT4, "/boot", and with the boot flag off. It took several clicks and space bar uses before it switched to "on". Very touchy interface. During the process I selected KDE as the desktop and the install completed without problems. A reboot brought up the plasma desktop. Since I'm running Kubuntu 20.04 it is pretty much what I am running now.
Instead of "@" Debian creates @rootfs. I su'd to root, mounted /dev/dva3 to /mnt and "mv /mnt/@rootfs /mnt/@", and edited /etc/fstab to change @rootfs to @.
Then I rebooted.
Seemed like such a simple change. Debian complained that it couldn't find /root.
Easy fix. I deleted the installation.

IF and when I install Debian to this computer I'll use the option that all the videos that install btrfs as the filesystem show. Doing a ctl+alt+F2 and doing everything manually. Doing it that why I can create @ and edit fstab to show it.