Convert having a hard time moving from ubuntu
Day 2 of a non technical elderly user who has been used to ubuntu for many years has finally given up!!!
After his origional build of Ubuntu has finally broken after about 6 years I thought it would be a great chance to try him with Trisquel. Backed up his data, installed trisquel 8 MATE, restored his data and took it back. Sadly it has not gone well at all. Some of the comments I came away with are all related to the difficulties of navigating a menu and trying to remember things are. A start menu is "very windows 95". The groupings in the start menuare not logical to him.
Poor chap said he was staring at the computer screen for nearly 2 hours trying to work out hot to get online as nothign was obvious. Losing not only his patence but confidence with the laptop too.
He drew comparisons between the MATE, LXDE desktops and the ease a non technical person has with the unity desktop of Ubuntu.
It was something I never thought of, to a non technical user having a row of icons for the apps is a lot easier then trying to navigate an unfermilular non-searching launcher menu. Hes said Ubuntu is so much easier, I see the firefox icon, I click on on. I see my files I click on it. I want to go back to firefox I click on the firefox button and it comes back. Why would I go searching through menus to find what I want. It should be just click and its there.
I've just come back from helping him get online again, sadly hes asked if Ubuntu can be put back on.
I'm not sure if Unity is Open Source or its reseved for Ubuntu. Either way I think a unty or unity like version would help all sorts of people.
The person you are helping might actually be asking for GNOME Shell. Last time I checked, Unity was only a few cosmetic tweaks away from GNOME.
Gnome may be a better option anyway as Unity hasn't seen a new release since 2016 while Gnome is in active development.
WOW! thanks for your quick replies. I've got the weekend to sort a solution, Yes if I set the launcher to permanently be on screen that should take care of the unity bar. I think we maybe onto a winner!
Thanks - will let you know how it goes ;)
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Not been tweaking Gnome 3 for a while but this extension might be what you are now looking for: https://micheleg.github.io/dash-to-dock.
It might be available by default in Gnome Tweak Tool > Extensions, in which case you will only need to toggle it on and adjust the settings.
Otherwise you should be able to install it from https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock.
yeah I was thinking of using Tweak Tool to customise GNOME. Thinking from memory there is a problem booting from USB and trying to run a net install. is that working yet?
If so i think there is an old Pentium 2 I may pop Trisquel on for a samba server ;)
a
> there is a problem booting from USB and trying to run a net install. is that working yet?
I do not remember to have read anything about that recently. Or do you mean, from your own experience?
From my own experience. It was a long time ago, it was when connecting to the INTERNET IIRC, however it worked fine under the live session. Ah. Is there a guide to do a net install from a LIVE session?
I found this: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/setting-server#comment-141899
The link to the guide you are looking for leads to a non-existing page, maybe because the whole stuff was broken at some point: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/using-netinstall-image-bootable-usb-drive
The French version is still available, though: https://trisquel.info/fr/wiki/%EF%BB%BFinstallation-de-trisquel-netinstall-en-mode-texte
EDIT: in case you were wondering, the netinst iso are available here: http://jenkins.trisquel.info/makeiso-etiona/iso/
Thanks, as you say https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/using-netinstall-image-bootable-usb-drive is a broken link. I'll pursue the French version.
Thanks
Don't worry. Lomiri (formerly Unity) is being ported to Debian. We'll be able to install it some day.
You can add all launchers you want on the panel. And you can add a second panel, for instance on the top of the screen, dedicated to such launchers.
Have downloaded a copy of netinstall 9.0 - first attempt worked but it seems to keep in a graphics mode as it boots but no text. I think its because i didn't chose an environment at the end of the install.
Right. Installed netinstall 9 ok with no errors but on first boot the screen seems to go into a blank graphics mode. The laptops both appear to boot, judging from the hard disk activity light I am logging in ok and doing a disk check ok
I tried a Fujitsu lifebook s6420 and a Fujtisu lifebook Esprimo mobile - both have the same issues. Any ideas why the screen is blank? The screen was fine during install.
A new NetInstall ISO was released yesterday: http://jenkins.trisquel.info/makeiso-etiona/iso/trisquel-netinst_9.0_amd64.iso
Is it the one you used? If so (or if you can reproduce the problem with that new ISO), a bug report may be useful: https://trisquel.info/en/node/add/project-issue/trisquel
Im installing "command line" from the install menu and using the generic kernel
You might want to try one of the suggestions from the 2019 thread, or both:
- use the standard iso with the "text install" option instead of the netinst iso,
- select the HWE kernel instead of the default kernel.
Thanks i'll try that h
Got a command prompt with an Dell latitude E6410. Installing gnome-core
Cool. I am really interested in your attempt. I agree that the GNOME 3 (Shell) metaphor is a good one for many users. Less because of the icon grid than that one-click away feeling you describe. I still do not know why the categories, which had initially been "ported" to the icon grid, almost disappeared from the default settings.
For people who care about memory usage or are more comfortable with the legacy GNOME 2 experience, Mate is of course a better choice but in my view the diversity of available DEs is an important factor in the general appeal of libre software, beyond the ethics.
At some point I switched from Ubuntu to Fedora (and then "back" to Ubuntu-Gnome) mostly because Unity was too orange. This might sound a much more limited hindrance but that orange all over the place was simply killing my eyes. Of course, I was not yet aware of the direction Ubuntu had already been taking for some time.
It seems the Command Line install using Net install 9 works well. Needed to install samba-common to get samba working. I still need to install the samba connector but my instructions need me to install libreoffice ;)
Maybe installing some plymouth splash screen but its totally ok without.
I had a few issues with older laptops but I think that may need further time.
I'm 95% complete - Just need to get the wifi/network manager to behave.
An option better than "gnome-core" might have been "trisquel-gnome" and "trisquel-gnome-recommended" (you can have them in addition to "gnome-core" too). They depend on Samba, LibreOffice, the Trisquel artwork (including the Plymouth splash screen), NetworkManager, etc.
Sorry. I didn't see your post. I didn't know there was trisquel-gnome available!
I'm getting there. Just missing the network manager. Although the laptop is connected via wifi ok, the gnome menu wifi functions don't work. Normally not a problem but the laptop is going to be used across different wifi networks.
Does anyone know how to get the wifi network working ok?
In the control menu, the wifi item is there but the entry is blank. opening up the sub-menu shows
"Select Network"
"Turn Off"
"Wi-Fi Settings"
"Select Network" bring up the network list window with a swirling seach icon with the word "No Networks" shown
"Turn Off" does turn off the Wifi. Also it turns it back on
"Wi-Fi Settings" brings up the Settings window. The list of Visible Networks is empty - also it suggests WiFi is unavailable.
I'm guessing the wifi network manager is not installed? How can I get the Wifi function working, or what do I need to install?
Thanks
What wifi device are you using?
$ lspci | grep Network
Most probably, your wifi chipset requires proprietary firmware, which will thus not be provided by Trisquel.
EDIT: sorry, what did you mean by "the laptop is connected via wifi ok" ?
Tried that, Also looking around there is the Manage flag in the config file, that didn’t make any difference, it’s almost as if GNOME can’t see the WiFi card and the connection is being handled by the base install of Trisquel.
It appears that manually configuring anything in /etc/network/interfaces takes as much away from Network Manager.
People with a very similar problem to yours have been recommended to install wicd instead of network-manager. It is available in Trisquel but I am not sure how up-to-date it is. Worth a try anyway.
BINGO!!!
Notes:
The network profile file in \etc\netplan\<01-netcfg.yaml>
network:
version: 2
renderer: networkd
wifis:
wlp3s0:
dhcp4: yes
dhsc6: yes
access-points: -AP NAME-
password: -NETWORK PASSWORD-
*** Changed the renderer entry from "networkd" to "NetworkManager" leaving all the other details the same. Rebooted and Wifi menu id working as expected ****
Many thanks for finding this one. Back on track!
Hello amtrakuk, I have a collection of beginner's tutorials for Trisquel new users here[1]. It includes install guide, intro to apps and desktop, and many more. I hope it helps.
[1] https://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2020/03/all-about-trisquel-gnulinux.html
Thanks, Thats some interesting reading. Thank you all for the help on this mini project
@Malsasa: it would be great if you could have a look at the documentation pages on this website and see if some of your content could be added there. This is surely the main entry point for people looking for help or tutorials.