PCLinuxOS

Discussion on Linux distributions
Post Reply
wove
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon May 04, 2020 4:47 pm

PCLinuxOS

Post by wove »

I went through the Trinity desktop site and gave a look for other distros that come with the Tritnity DE. I came across PCLinuxOS and am giving it a run.

I am not sure I have heard of PCLinuxOS, but it has a community flavor of Trinity. It is a big (3.7GB) download. My wireless is working out of the box as is everything else. Like may fan created derivitaves it come with lots and lots of fluff. However it is all just Trinity stuff, so it is not hard to move it back to a generic standard Trinity install.

It uses Synaptic for a package manager. I am not sure what the packaging system is or what if any distro that PCLinuxOS is derived from. Right now I am running on a 2009 17" MacBook Pro with a C2D processor, an SSD and 8GB of RAM. Overall it is doing well. Which I guess should be expected for the machine is period accurate for a continuation of KDE 3.5.
User avatar
dai_trying
Posts: 634
Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2018 7:44 pm
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: PCLinuxOS

Post by dai_trying »

I did try it in the past although I don't recall using trinity with it, I think from memory it might have been xfce I tried, there have been a couple of discussions about it on here,
viewtopic.php?t=2181
viewtopic.php?t=1676

My experience was not too great last time I tried installing it and so haven't looked at it since... I'm guessing (as you are already using it) installation was straight forward on the mbp?
User avatar
tlmiller
Posts: 4904
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: PCLinuxOS

Post by tlmiller »

I actually just tried the Trinity version of PCLOS a couple weeks ago. Sadly, the hardware I tried it on, my Crelander E160 (N5105, 16GB LPDDR4, 512GB m.2 SATA, Intel AC7260) it wouldn't boot to even ATTEMPT an installation.

So the weirdest thing about PCLOS is that it uses rpm's like Red Hat/Fedora/SUSE, but uses the debian tools dpkg/apt/synaptics for package management.
wove
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon May 04, 2020 4:47 pm

Re: PCLinuxOS

Post by wove »

So actually it looks like I had tried PCLinuxOS three years ago. I gather that I quickly dropped playing with it. Perhaps it is all the hardware. At that point I was using Thinkpads. On the 2009 C2D machine it runs quite well. I did notice that it used apt and Synaptic to install and remove software, but did not realize the packages were rpm.

This derivative came with Thunderbird, so I am going to install Kontact for that pure Trinity feel. Amrok V1 is a nice music player. Does anyone happen to know if Trinity had any webcam software?

I have not done anything with it but Trinity also lists TTOS as having a Trinity DE release. Visiting the site I find they do have Trinity DE as well as having a GNUStep release. I think that may be the first distro I have seen with a GNUStep desktop. TTOS is created by TTPC systems, which is an outfit that sells Unix workstations. Makes me wonder what they do not create a Unix distro.

Trinity also can be installed on FreeBSD, but you have to compile it yourself. And it is also available for DilOS which is based off a derivative of OpenSolaris.
User avatar
tlmiller
Posts: 4904
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: PCLinuxOS

Post by tlmiller »

To my knowledge Trinity didn't come with webcam software, and everyone I know that runs it uses Cheese.
wove
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon May 04, 2020 4:47 pm

Re: PCLinuxOS

Post by wove »

Cheese was my first choice, however Cheese is not in the PCLinuxOS repositories. PCLinuxOS also does not install sudo. They do include su which when used with my login password makes me root. That just feels wrong. Su should allow you to become root, but to get to root using an adminstrator password is just not the right way to do that.

I did su, became root then did apt update and apt upgrade. A huge number of kde6 packages were installed. I am liking the simple and consistent Trinity Desktop, but PCLinuxOS is not impressing me.
User avatar
tlmiller
Posts: 4904
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: PCLinuxOS

Post by tlmiller »

wove wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 12:35 pm Cheese was my first choice, however Cheese is not in the PCLinuxOS repositories. PCLinuxOS also does not install sudo. They do include su which when used with my login password makes me root. That just feels wrong. Su should allow you to become root, but to get to root using an adminstrator password is just not the right way to do that.

I did su, became root then did apt update and apt upgrade. A huge number of kde6 packages were installed. I am liking the simple and consistent Trinity Desktop, but PCLinuxOS is not impressing me.
To my recolection, from this forum, CC was the only one who really liked PCLOS. Had none of the hardware issues that I constantly seem to have with it, had none of the odd software issues you seem to be experiencing.
Post Reply