[sf-lug] Ubuntu, GPartEd, Bad Luck with Blue Collar Linux-Help! etc.

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 2/15/19 11:42 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
>
>>      Today's News is that Distrowatch is now stocking
>> /Distribution Release: Ubuntu 18.04.2 /LTS.
>>
>>      Hopefully this will not be full of the problems that have
>> plagued Ubuntu lately.
> I haven't followed closely, but I got the impression the Ubuntistas got
> hit by mostly problems that we're really their fault, recently, but were
> visited upon them from upstream coders.  (Canonical doesn't originate
> very much.  It's a bundler, mostly.  Same is true of most distros to
> one degree or another.)
>
> It might help to review the basic concept Ubuntu promised for its
> releases (and I'm including the several *ubuntus in that).  Canonical's
> core value proposition was, 'We're going to leverage Debian, except...:'
>
>
> 1.  We'll release for only 3 CPU platforms, not 14.  (Since then,
> PowerPC has been dropped, and i386 is in the middle of joining
> it.  aarch64 is coming in.)
>
> 2.  We'll concentrate on a limited set of desktop software for each
> *buntu variant, instead of 22,000+ packages as Debian does.  (I've
> lost count of how many packages are currently in Debian's collections.)
> And those will be fairly close to the latest available for the desktop
> environment in question as of the release date, something possible
> because of our release cadence:
>
> 3.  We'll have preannounced release dates, about every six months, and
> hit the target date without fail -- in contrast to Debian, whose
> release motto is 'when it's ready' and has been known to sometimes
> go as long as 3 years between releases.  (Debian's access to very recent
> DE packages is on the testing/unstable rolling distributions, not its
> behind-the-curve 'stable' release-oriented distribution.
>
>
> Novices tend to be confused by rolling distributions and unable to
> handle the inevitable bobbles, so Ubuntu addressed that need with
> regular releases.  It addressed the dissatisfaction with old app
> versions in Debian-unstable by targeting new app versions for each
> release.  And ignoring all CPU platforms other than those vital for the
> commodity marketplace helps stick to the rapid release schedule.

     Yes I have noticed some of the people I have introduced to 
PCLinuxOS and other Linux distributions
have trouble doing the updates and in even understanding the need to 
keep the system up to date.
     One man, an author, I simply remind of the need and the new kernels 
as I have him on PCLinuxOS64
on an ancient Dell.  One other man, much less intellectual, could not do 
the Lubuntu updates on
even a weekly basis.  His computer recently died due to age, most likely 
and it is sad for him but
it was a very cheap gift for the services he rendered me and he will 
have to decide if he wants another
or will be satisfied with a tablet which he already has.  Another found 
PCLinuxOS64 to be a pain
to keep up with on her home desktop system and has moved on to Mint the 
last I heard from her.

>
> That brings us to the price, the drawback:  Shipping all recent versions
> exposes the distro to upstream bugs, and having a clockwork-like release
> schedule means that even if there are still serious bugs as October 2018
> comes to an end, because Ubuntu promised an 18.10 release, it had to
> go out the door no later than Halloween, significant bugs or not.
>
> In similar circumstances, the Debian Release Manager would just say
> 'It's not ready yet'.  Canonical doesn't do that:  It keeps its
> promises.  Which I respect, but you need to understand the price of
> that.
>
> Now, understanding that, you can also see why prudent people might give
> 18.10 and maybe even 18.10.1 a pass, and wait for 18.10.2.  ;->

     Well I now have it but have yet to run checksums on the download.  
18.04.2 is now on hand for Ubuntu,
Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu.   No checksum for the Blue Collar Linux 
and we can talk about that later.

     Ubuntu 18.04.1 on Flash Drive is working ok for Jim as he waits for 
his machine to be returned.
     The problems seems to be with the installed copy and first updates.
>
>
> Anyway, long as I got you on the horn, Bobbie, I wanted to consult you
> on something.  CABAL has always kept a distro library, and I've recently
> been bringing it up to date again:
>
> Liten-Datamaskin:isos rick$ ls -lh *.iso | awk '{ print $5 "  " $9 }'
> 952M  antix-17.3.1_amd64-full.iso
> 987M  antix-17.3.1_i386-full.iso
> 2.7G  blue-collar-linux-initial-release.iso
> 706M  bodhi-linux-5.0.0-amd64.iso
> 918M  centos-7-1810-amd64-minimal.iso
> 507M  centos-7-1810-amd64-netinstall.iso
> 3.4G  debian-gnome-unofficial-with-nonfree-firmware-9.7.0-amd64-dvd1.iso
> 3.5G  debian-gnome-unofficial-with-nonfree-firmware-9.7.0-i386-dvd1.iso
> 2.2G  debian-live-lxde+nonfree-9.7.0-amd64.iso
> 2.2G  debian-live-lxde+nonfree-9.7.0-i386.iso
> 326M  debian-unofficial-with-nonfree-firmware-9.7.0-amd64-netinst.iso
> 413M  debian-unofficial-with-nonfree-firmware-9.7.0-i386-netinst.iso
> 641M  debian-xfce-9.7.0-amd64-cd1.iso
> 641M  debian-xfce-9.7.0-i386-cd1.iso
> 647M  devuan-ascii-2.0.0-amd64-cd1.iso
> 298M  devuan-ascii-2.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso
> 2.9G  fedora-server-29-1.2-amd64-dvd.iso
> 593M  fedora-server-29-1.2-amd64-netinst.iso
> 1.8G  fedora-workstation-29-1.2-amd64-livedvd.iso
> 593M  fedora-workstation-29-1.2-amd64-netinst.iso
> 318M  gparted-live-0.33.0-1-amd64.iso
> 1.8G  kubuntu-18.04.2-lts-desktop-amd64.iso
> 1.8G  kubuntu-18.04.2-lts-desktop-i386.iso
> 1.8G  linuxmint-cinnamon-19.1-amd64.iso
> 1.8G  linuxmint-xfce-19.1-amd64.iso
> 1.6G  lubuntu-18.10-desktop-i386.iso
> 717M  lubuntu-alternate-18.04-amd64.iso
> 715M  lubuntu-alternate-18.04-i386.iso
> 1.1G  lubuntu-desktop-18.04.2-amd64.iso
> 1.1G  lubuntu-desktop-18.04.2-i386.iso
> 1.6G  lubuntu-desktop-18.10-amd64.iso
> 1.9G  manjaro-xfce-18.0-stable-x86_64.iso
> 1.7G  siduction-lxqt-18.3.0-201805132142-patience-amd64.iso
> 559M  systemrescuecd-5.3.2-i386.iso
> 888M  systemrescuecd-6.0.0-amd64.iso
> 1.9G  ubuntu-desktop-18.04.2-lts-amd64.iso
> 1.9G  ubuntu-desktop-18.10-amd64.iso
> 834M  ubuntu-live-server-18.04.2-amd64.iso
> 881M  ubuntu-live-server-18.10-amd64.iso
> 1.4G  xubuntu-desktop-18.04.2-amd64.iso
> 1.4G  xubuntu-desktop-18.04.2-i386.iso
> Liten-Datamaskin:isos rick$
>
> At times in the past, it's been a lot bigger than that, and I don't mind
> grabbing things CABAL attendees might want, but am not going to grab
> _everything_ on speculation someone might want it.
>
> Way back in days of yore, I would have dutifully fired up the CD/DVD
> burner, burned each to as many optical discs as required, jotted the
> contents description on each with a Sharpie, made a library reference
> copy, and filed that in a set of soft cases I kept around for that
> purpose, filed alphabetically.
>
> Man, that was a lot of work, and the _real_ solution was to load them on
> a dedicated CABAL installfest server to serve them for network installs,
> but I never quite got around to that.  But meanwhile, the world changed:
> People no longer use optical disks, mostly because USB flash drives
> are on balance better for most things.
>
> And here's what I'd appreciate knowing, Bobbie:  How do you do physical
> management of USB flash drives, in the context of your big library of ISOs?
> (I'm assuming you aren't burning CDs/DVDs, as if it were 1998.)

         Well I had a old food plastic container that I no longer care 
to use for food and I have a
lot of my single drives in that to bring to meetings.  Some came in 
plastic bubble cases and
  I trimmed away the excess cardboard and used the bubble to write on, 
tossing those into
a internal side pocket of my wheeled case.  A lot of my drives are large 
bodied with room
to write notes on.
     Toward the end of last year I bought a couple of 10 drive lots of 4 
GB and 8 GB Flash
  Drives, 10 of each size and was happy to find that they came with a 
plastic divider that
  held them inside light cardboard boxes. When the boxex fail i think 
flat plastic sandwich
boxes will accomodate the plastic dividers.
>
> Probably like me you have a dozen or more flash drives sitting around,
> of various capacities.  Each is a tiny little thing -- ergo, no room
> for external labels.  Blessedly, each can be just overwritten if it
> doesn't have what you currently need, a large number of times, in fact.
> But how do you avoid having a dozen little widgets each with
> uknown-to-you contents?
     I have about a dozen or more in the plastic food container, and 20 
or so in the shipping
boxes which I have found so handy.   Now the later purchases have room 
to write the
necessary to me information of Name, version, architecture so that 
"Fedora 29 wksn amd64"
seems clear enough to me.   These drives will be supplemented with 
another batch or more,
they are cheap at  $35 per 10 drives.  They will be reused much as I 
reused DVD/CD r/w
optical disks from the begining of adding this service.  I will, for a 
$5.00 deposit loan them
to any member and return that deposit on return of the Flash Drive.   If 
they do not return
the drive I have funds to replace the drive already collected.
     I have almost all of my check-summed iso files stored on half of an 
external 2.5 inch
USB 3.0 drive of 1 terabyte and I bring this to the meeting along with 
my functional but
  ancient  Dell system and can easily make a copy to your media or to a 
specific flash drive.
Looking at your list I realize that I am currently behind on Debian but 
few people ask for
it so I tend to be neglectful but have a disk 1 on hand.  I think it is 9.6.
>
> Pondering that problem, just now, I had an idea:  Small ziplock bags.
> You can either write directly on the bag with a Sharpie, or just insert
> a slip of paper saying what this drive currently contains.
     I have used such measures in the past.
>
> A different routine would be to _not_ have distros installed on flash
> drives in advance, but just plan on writing to one from your collection
> of ISO files at time of needing to use one.  Could work, too.

     The ddCopy to USB is pretty fast and much faster than writing to 
DVDs or CDs.
A Flash Drive (USB) can make an install or simple evaluation much 
quicker.  That
is why I started using my first Flash Drives as one member was very 
tired of waiting
for a disk to load.
>
> How do _you_ handle that, Bobbie?
     I hope I have answered your question Rick.

     Bobbie Sellers

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