PCLinuxOS with Trinity Desktop

[wove]

When I checked my iso downloads the only Trinity iso I could find was PCLinuxOS with Trinity and so I installed it on the X240. PCLinuxOS is a very oddly put together distro, it installs NVidia drivers, Radeon drivers, along with all the libraries for the latest Qt5 and GTK3, non of which it seems would be of any use with Trinity. And on top of that it uses gdm for a window manager.

But ignoring all that it is very nice implementation of Trinity. After install it immediately updated to 14.0.9. It includes a fully functional Trinity control panel, a very basic Trinity setup, and sane defaults. I found it odd that the live CD used a different theme than what gets installed, the live CD theme is not even include in the install.

The X240 is a nicely appointed machine and the Trinity Desktop just flies on the hardware. Resource usage is very very light. I currently have a half dozen applications open and RAM usage is at ~700MB. I have had a couple nice surprises. I never thought highly of DigiKam, but I gave it a try on my photo collection and I have found it very snappy and quiet useful. I am also getting much closer to figuring out how to use Konqueror as a file manager

bill

[crosscourt]

Ive been a long time member of the PCLinuxOS community and its difficult sometimes to describe the oddities with it but indeed it just works. Ive talked about the Trinity version onsite before and got chastised for mentioning it over at Q4OS but its a nice community distro. I still use the Darkstar minimalist KDE version which also has a lot of speed.
I prefer PCLinuxOS TDE over Q4OS TDE and they are quick to update to newer app versions and kernel. resource usage at GUI after boot was around 287mbs last time I ran it. Its also odd they use Synaptic for RPM but it works well.
Looking forward to your comments as you use it more.

Ive been running RPM based distros a lot more lately as Ive always liked them and love the control center they offer. Mandriva later PCLinuxOS were the two distros that gave me my early start in Linux.

[bin]

I re-tried PCLOS a couple of years back. I must admit I found the PCLOS TDE a bit too odd - plus I have so much software in deb format that switching to an rpm based distro was too much pain

However, I have just been working with vanilla Debian Bullseye CLI install then adding Trinity 14.10 from the Trinity SB repos and it really does work very well - 250mb RAM ticking over in a VM.

I have tried over the years to get DigiKam to behave - but gave up a long time ago. Having an app crash at odd moments just cos you click a window in the wrong place is no fun.

Interesting info about the X240 as that is on my radar to replace my aging Acer. I had heard that they suffered from a lot of fan noise/activity with Linux....?

[crosscourt]

It takes getting use to with PCLOS but for many users its a good alternative to other distros. Im running mostly RPMS right now. Adding to my list above Im also running Gecko Linux a user friendly version of OpenSUSE, and Ill be taking a quick look at Fedora, but their version cycle is way too short for my liking. Overall I prefer the Mandriva based/forked distros.

Im using Dell E6400/6420/6430/6440 laptops with Linux and havent had any issues with fan noise /activity. I like at least a 13.3-14inch screen with my old eyes.

[wove]

PCLOS does use apt for package management which I am familiar with so overall it does not matter to me if the format is rpm or deb, it just matters if I can figure out how to get them installed. Now if I had to deal with YAST or Drax, I would probably run for the hills.

I had to do some digging to get power management working. The Trinity desktop is a community edition and it is missing a few things I expect it should have. It did not come with a video player. I was not sure what Trinity could use, so I grabbed Codeine, and it works great at playing mp4 videos.

I am a Thinkpad snob. I have been using them for a couple decades and have always found them reliable, of excellent quality, easily fixable and very versatile. I bought this X240 as a working but cosmetically very flawed device. In the process of making it A1, I fully cleaned the fan and replaced the thermal paste. I have felt warm air blowing from the exhaust port, but have not noticed the fan. It is pretty quiet.

The base model X240 came with a non-IPS lcd panel, which is horrid. Get one with the IPS panel which are generally 1366X768 which I find very usable on the 12.5" screen. I spent $110 on the laptop, and then another $130 on a new keyboard, bottom case plastics, hard drive cage and new SSD along with another charger and a dock.

bill

[crosscourt]

Most of the PCLOS community distros are minimalist installs so you have to add a few things, just as I had to do with the official Darkstar KDE version. Its nice to have such a great selection of apps that you dont always get with other RPM distros like Mageia. Ive used Thinkpads a long time ago but after working for Dell Ive been using their hardware for a long time and I would have to say Im also a bit of a snob. I also like Acer as Ive had a few of them over the years including my most recent Chromebook and they are great products.