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disappointing first impression

Hi all,

Having somehow joined the anti-systemd brigade (I'm usually prepared to go with the flow) and having failed to get runit working under MX21-KDE, I decided to give Artix-runit a go....

The installation went ok while I was watching., then I went away to attend to other matters during the copy process. When I came back it had restarted the system and booted into Artix... but there was no start menu and just 3 dead shortcuts on the desktop.
When I rebooted, I noticed the other Linux partition (my fallback Linux mint installation) wasn't offered by grub. Also the reboot didn't magically repair teh desktop (I never expected it to but had an open mind!).

I have since replaced Artix by MX21-KDE and confirmed that my Linux Mint installation is safe and well.

I'd like to give Artix another whirl sometime, so advice how to maybe get better results would be appreciated.

Thanks for your attention,
Larry Myerscough (aka The Papa Hippo)

Re: disappointing first impression

Reply #1 –
If I understood correctly, the main problem is that Mint wasn't shown in Grub2 menu, generated by Artix after its installation.  Then you replaced Artix by MX21-KDE, and Mint re-appeared in Grub2 menu, generated by MX.  In other words, Mint successfully survived two installations - Artix and MX21-KDE.

By default, after installation Artix does NOT show other installed OSes in its Grub2 menu.  It's not an error, it's by design.

If you want to make other OSes visible in Grub2 menu, generated by Artix, take a look here:

https://forum.artixlinux.org/index.php/topic,3113.msg20280.html#msg20280

Re: disappointing first impression

Reply #2 –
Here is some advice from a long time GNU/Linux user:
  • Don't distrohop. Choose one distro/init/DE (or no DE), install it, learn it really well, use it, master it. If you want to test different distros or OSes, use QEMU.
  • Plan some time to read documentation. For Artix, this includes Artix and Arch wikis, and for GNU/Linux in general man pages, READMEs, /usr/share/doc, websites of programs, etc.
  • Learn command line. Learn programs "less" and "man" first, then use them to learn basic Unix and GNU tools like cp, cat, find, grep, and later advanced tools like sed and awk. Learn shell.

Re: disappointing first impression

Reply #3 –
Thanks for the feedback. I now realise that my first post was rather sketchy, leaving me wide open to be patronised. Don't worry; not the first time, probably not the last.

Here's some follow-up/ background info:

I've been using Unix (later linux) since the 1980s and so am quite familiar with the command line tools like less, more, man etc. but I prefer to use a GUI these days (actually since the days of FVWM).

I'm not a full-blooded distro-hopper; more of a distro drifter, slowly drifting over the years (Yggdrasil->Slackware->... Ubuntu ->Mint->MX Linux), always with a good reason. (My Mint installation is primarily to give support to other users here in NL, where Mint is still very popular - whatever distrowatch etc. may say!).

While I was employed as a Linux consultant, I had to follow the local accepted wisdom and 'embrace' systemd. Now that I'm retired, I sometimes like to plough my own furrow; specifically, I want to move away from systemd, and of the several  alternatives, runit seems to fit my style and needs best. This gives me a number of options. I'm currently also evaluating antix, which is less polished than Mx Linux (and probably Artix), but means I can use an old - rescued from the dump - laptop for testing, and worry less about trashing existing installations.

 

Re: disappointing first impression

Reply #4 –
One of the big advantages imo of Artix over Debian based distros is package management and ease building from source, but you'd have to run it longer than a few minutes and be prepared to configure out any issues to get to appreciate this. Some versions of some software displays bugs on some hardware, this seems to be true of all distros sometimes at least. I don't think that Artix users in general have simply resigned themselves to non-functional desktops, mine works normally at least.

Re: disappointing first impression

Reply #5 –
One of the advantages of automatic including other installed distributions/OSes in the grub installation is that, when a new installation doesn't immediately function fully, one can take a sideways look at it by starting up a tried and trusted installation. This works more comfortably than e.g. doing the investigation from a live Linux session. Rightly or wrongly, when one encounters difficulties, ones instinct is to revert to ones comfort zone; a number of historic disasters - e.g. 3-mile (?) island - are attributable to this human instinct.

Programming is no longer a full-time activity for me - and I want to keep it that way. So I'm not prepared to put in the work to morph Artix into something that fits my preferred way of working. I'm currently evaluating Antix - what a difference a letter makes - with good results so far.

I'm not 'dissing' Artix; its just now what I want.

While on the one hand I think there are too many Linux flavours out there, it does make it easy to customize ones user experience with little time and effort.

Good luck with Artix!

Larry


Re: disappointing first impression

Reply #6 –
Quote from: thepapahippo – on
Hi all,

Having somehow joined the anti-systemd brigade (I'm usually prepared to go with the flow) and having failed to get runit working under MX21-KDE, I decided to give Artix-runit a go....

The installation went ok while I was watching., then I went away to attend to other matters during the copy process. When I came back it had restarted the system and booted into Artix... but there was no start menu and just 3 dead shortcuts on the desktop.
When I rebooted, I noticed the other Linux partition (my fallback Linux mint installation) wasn't offered by grub. Also the reboot didn't magically repair teh desktop (I never expected it to but had an open mind!).

I have since replaced Artix by MX21-KDE and confirmed that my Linux Mint installation is safe and well.

I'd like to give Artix another whirl sometime, so advice how to maybe get better results would be appreciated.

Thanks for your attention,
Larry Myerscough (aka The Papa Hippo)

Unlike colorful opinions of which I have no shortage, I don't really qualify to give advice but in embareassing grub situations I save my hide by breaking into the grub menu with "C" and then doing a manual boot. I also use the SuperGrub frisby as it can  often boot what otherwise seems unbootable (especially since grub2): https://www.supergrubdisk.org/

spanish (eManuel) grub boot (edit as per your situation):

Code: [Select]
set root=(hd0,2)
linux   /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2
initrd   /boot/initrd
boot

To ease the use of this lifesaver I create in every used distro's /boot folder a link named vmlinuz and one named initrd pointing to the applicable files (most distros already do this except as you know Slackware which admirably has never even bothered with any initrd at all)
 
hth

As for 1st impressions, hold the static.  When I first saw Suse fork from Slackware I thought "WTF is this joke?", then dumped Slackware and stuck to Suse for over 20 years ...until they got systemd'd  :-)

Who, has loved us more?
 

Re: disappointing first impression

Reply #7 –
Quote from: thepapahippo – on
Hi all,

Having somehow joined the anti-systemd brigade (I'm usually prepared to go with the flow) and having failed to get runit working under MX21-KDE, I decided to give Artix-runit a go....

The installation went ok while I was watching., then I went away to attend to other matters during the copy process. When I came back it had restarted the system and booted into Artix... but there was no start menu and just 3 dead shortcuts on the desktop.
When I rebooted, I noticed the other Linux partition (my fallback Linux mint installation) wasn't offered by grub. Also the reboot didn't magically repair teh desktop (I never expected it to but had an open mind!).

I have since replaced Artix by MX21-KDE and confirmed that my Linux Mint installation is safe and well.

I'd like to give Artix another whirl sometime, so advice how to maybe get better results would be appreciated.

Thanks for your attention,
Larry Myerscough (aka The Papa Hippo)
If you do want to try it again, you should post how your disk was partitioned.  My guess is that you are trying to use the same /home directory that Linux Mint is using, which might be the reason for the screwy desktop.  I've never had such a problem with multiple Artix installs, but I've also always did a fresh install with no other OS present.  Artix has several desktop settings that are installed in order to create a uniform look.  You can see a list of the Artix specific packages with:
Code: [Select]
pacman -Q | grep artix*
There are some Artix presets for both gtk and qt apps.  Artix also has some environment variables set in /etc/environment that are used to create a uniform look for qt and gtk applications.  Artix might also be missing some themes or packages that Linux Mint is using for configuring your desktop.  Artix is pretty bare bones with the basic install, but that is something I like.  My guess is that is where you should start to look for the problem, but it sounds like you may have already moved on to Antix.