KDE adventure

Ages ago, back between 2005 and 2011, I had switched from Macs to an All-in-one IBM pc.  What I ended up installing on it was PC-BSD because the networking that came with it out of the box worked very well with my company's firewall/network security.

It came with a KDE interface.  I used it for a year until I switched back to a mac and purchased a product that I was able to log into work with...  But while I have not been a KDE fan in recent times, mostly GTK/Gnome, I did have fond memories of that year.

A week or so ago I began hunting around for a good KDE distro.  The caveat was that I did want to be able to install WINE and PLAYONLINUX so I could play a couple of my favorite games.  I tried Neon, KaOS, OpenSUSE, Kubuntu and Fedora.

KaOS is, without a doubt, the best looking KDE distro (of course that is subjective).  But it was limiting when it came to getting gaming software set up.  OpenSUSE was OK but the actual installation did not end well for me.  Neon is the KDE kitchen sink and worked alright, but I did run into one or two struggles with Ubuntu software.  Kubuntu was loaded to the hilt, and it worked well, but I felt there were some KDE performance issues.  Finally I installed the KDE spin of Fedora 31.  I always have a love/not-love-so-much relationship with Fedora as I always end up breaking something in some update.  But so far it has been very nice.  KDE performs very well, and Fedora performs well in general.

There is also a KDE version of Solus that I might try...

Anyway, just an update of my computing adventures.

Zen kernel on Fedora 31 part 3

Tonight I booted back into normal kernel and immediately noticed the "lack of snappiness".  I wish I had a way of measuring this... because to the human eye it is actually very obvious that the Zen kernel I built and use is much more responsive (or at least gives you the impression it is) than the standard kernel.

It is probably because the standard kernel is geared toward more generic use, which could include server use... while the zen kernel is geared toward a desktop/single-user system.

Whatever the case may be, the difference is very obvious.

On a less favorable note, I don't know what happens whenever I update Fedora, but it seems to corrupt my grub boot process.  It happened today and I was certain I would have to rebuild, but I booted into Pop!_OS off of my thumb drive and it seemed to fix the problem, somehow.  When I then rebooted, grub did not fail and I was able to select my custom kernel and boot.  It is very strange.

Zen kernel on Fedora 31 part 2

Since building my zen/muqss kernel and running on my Fedora 31 build I have noticed a couple of interesting things.

1. Memory usage seems to be lower in general, however it no longer caches as much in RAM.

2. CPU usage seems a little higher in general and most noticeable is the NVidia queue thread.  I had read that some people were seeing that, especially with composition pipeline enabled (I have comp-pipe enabled but not full force comp-pipe).  I do not remember seeing this at all prior to building the zen kernel.  So I find it interesting.  Supposedly if I uncheck the comp pipeline switches it will come down.  Not worried about it though.  Kworker threads seem a little more active as well.

It does seem a little snappier.  But since I did not run any kind of tests before hand that is heresay.

Anyway, I will write more if I have time....

Pop and Fedora and Stuff

I have been running pop 90% of the time, sometimes trying out new distros.  So a week ago I saw that Pop_OS! was updated to match the latest release of Ubuntu and decided to perform a full upgrade.

The upgrade process worked but for some reason it felt more like Ubuntu than Pop... (all in my head, I am sure).  So I decided, now was a good time to try out Fedora 30 which was recently released.

So I did.  I installed Fedora 30.  I think without a doubt this was the worst release of Fedora in awhile.  Performance was sketchy.  My tracker processes were constantly failing.  Base memory usage was > 2 GB.  Right now, running multiple applications on Pop I am using 2.2 GB (multiple terminals, browsers, etc.)  I do not have tracker failures.  Everything is smooth.

Prior to this I had sung praises over how smooth and performant Fedora was, but not this time.

I did a full install of Pop (twice actually as I did not like the partitioning they default to and they do not allow you to interfere very much in that regard).  Back to what I enjoyed for 90% of the past year with linux.

I haven't had a lot of time to write lately as work has been taking between 10 and 14 hours of my day recently, consistently.  But to be honest, the work I am doing right now is fun!  So the days are flying by.

Well, that is about it for now.  God bless you an keep you and yours safe!

GNOME 3 on Fedora

One thing I found interesting on Fedora is that the window buttons (minimize/maximize) are missing, like on Pop!_OS.  On Manjaro and Ubuntu they are present.

Nothing important, I just noticed it today when I was trying to minimize Thunderbird... GNOME Tweaks allows me to enable a minimize button so I did.  I just find that convenient.

HAD A FREEZE!  BOOOOOOOO!  It was completely random and all that was running was a Chrome window, not even a video.  Although there might have been an Ad video running, so there is that.

Since then I have applied TWO Fedora kernel updates so... we shall see if it happens again.  But it is so random... it might not happen now for days.

This seems to be an issue with every version of linux I have tried.  Some are worse than others.  I've run memory tests and my memory is fine.  Disks are all healthy.  Power supply is steady (it is a platinum-badged power supply so it should be decent).

Still not sure then if it really is a kernel thing (scheduler issue of some sort) or something with my NVIDIA 1080 card... drivers... no idea.  Annoying though.

Heck, maybe it has nothing to do with graphics or kernel at all, maybe it is my network driver.  Streamed videos also hit up the network... so...

General updates and ramblings...

Still on Pop!_OS.  I recently tried (in live mode) Manjaro Openbox, Mabox, Manjaro Deepin... and I just cannot get into them.  MX Linux is still out there as one of my favorites though.  But I don't know... Pop has just been THERE and out of my way.  It isn't super special in any way.  It just has enough tweaks and conveniences that set it apart from Ubuntu.

I really like XFCE and distros that use it.  I am not a huge fan of KDE even though I did use it for a year a number of years ago.  Openbox seems usable... but I remember when GNOME 3 came out I really did not like it.  I have bounced around Mac OS, Linux and Windows for awhile now but when Windows 7 came out I moved to that and stayed on it for years, through to Windows 10 (I even own a copy of Windows 10 Pro now).  But I have always preferred unix-like, posix-standard-meeting systems over Windows or OS/2, etc.

I am rambling.  But where I was going with that previous paragraph was that perhaps getting used to Windows 8 and then Windows 10 interface along with the more recent versions of Mac OS X, GNOME is no longer a "shock" to my system.  I don't know.  But I even like it now.

I think that Fedora puts out a decent GNOME 3 workstation but it is more difficult (ie. I am lazy) to configure graphics drivers and to get Steam working the way I like it.  Manjaro GNOME is also very good.

I could hunt around for the "best G3 linux" and see what else is out there, but so far Pop!_OS has been very good.

I really want to like Deepin.  I have tried Deepin OS, I have tried Manjaro Deepin, but I just can't bring myself to stick with it.  It has some gorgeous design elements but...  it just feels a little rough to me.  Maybe I will play with a few more distros over the rest of my vacation.

Vacation is almost over and then it is back to work.  Of course I developed an ear infection (again) over the holidays.  :)  Alas.  Didn't really slow us down though.  We got to hang out with family and do some other fun things.  Sandi and I went on a short trip with some other Mini Cooper enthusiasts.

We joined a local Mini club and they did a run up to Prescott via Wickenberg and Peeples Valley.  The city center is all lit up.  There was also a gingerbread house competition at the local casino.  While we were there Sandi and I ate at a somewhat famous restaurant (we've eaten there before) and enjoyed the evening before heading back down to Phoenix.

That's all I have for now!  Shall write more soon.