Linux Life Episode 41
Hello folks and welcome back to the world of Linux Life. So as I said last episode I have been running ArcoLinux B Cinnamon. Now most of the time it's been without issue but lately it is not always playing ball.
So it seems the Arch database system is being a little problematic. First it would not update due to it not finding the appropriate servers. So I adjusted it so it was searching the UK servers rather than the Belgian ones it was.
Now I figure it uses them as the guy who maintains the ArcoLinux distribution is Belgian hence why I had strange keyboard issues when I installed the other versions.
However once I changed to the UK servers all seemed fine for about a week or so. Sometimes it just stalls while trying to access the servers. Whether that's a servers issue or an issue with my WiFi I have not been able to ascertain.
However after a few restarts it seems to resolve itself but is annoying to say the least. I will need to investigate further.
Also it seems certain times when I delete files. Cinnamon decides to crash and needs to restart. This I can not fathom why. Maybe it's a bug in the new Cinnamon 4.0.2 and will be fixed shortly. The crazy thing is it doesn't happen every time which is confusing.
Also it seems the AUR has changed its setup. It seems to be using GCC version 6 and now everything seems to be compiled using g++. It still works but is weird when you are used to walls of text when compiling stuff.
I had to uninstall Focuswriter (a plain style word processor) and reinstall it using the new build method as it actually stopped working. This is the first time I have had the Arch issue of updating breaking something but it was easily resolved.
Now as a man who has championed the Arch system and always said I did not have the issues others had. It slightly concerns me when it starts happening to me.
As I said before I have kind of got used to a rolling release and up until recently I had only minor issues more to do with my preference to the way certain things looked rather than software issues.
Now I don't know if this is to do with Cinnamon, Arch or ArcoLinux itself. I will keep an eye on it and hope nothing else breaks. Everything I normally use seems to work. So I figure Focuswriter just needed a file that was missing due to update. The recompile must have rebuilt it.
I did have a look at something different using Virtualbox (which I had to manually update the Vbox extensions to the latest ones). The distribution in question was Fedora Jam it seems very similar to Ubuntu Studio which I used previously for a short while.
It is a Fedora version with a low latency kernel designed for people who want to use Linux for audio creation. Obviously the lower latency the kernel the better the overall recording response is. It comes with Pulseaudio and Jack preconfigured so you don't have to play around with settings.
It uses KDE and is based on the latest version 29 build of Fedora. Now me and KDE in the past have not seen eye to eye. The last time I ran it, it regularly crashed on me or corrupted the display. So I have no desire to return to it.
However Fedora Jam is an interesting idea. I may run it on one of my other machines such as the Xeon for a bit of an experiment. Although I don't really like fixed distributions. Fedora has a good reputation.
Obviously being a Red hat derivative they have a reasonably good record. Mind you people swear by Debian but I have had nothing but trouble with it and will avoid it like the plague.
I really hope I don't have to go back to a fixed distribution but if ArcoLinux does not fix itself I may have to resort to looking elsewhere.
Shame really as I was going to start playing with Davinci Resolve 15 now up to version 15.2.1 and try out playing with the LaTeX system which I have not messed around with since the Slackware days.
It's been a while so maybe it has improved. However I am reluctant to mess about too heavily until I can figure why my system keeps having silly moments.
Normally issues like this resolve themselves in a few days at most a week so not too worried at the moment . Bugs are normally fixed quickly in Arch which is why I like it.
Also installed Natron which they say is a video editor with interesting effects available. It's no longer updated but will be interesting to see what it's all about.
Well I think that's enough waffle for this episode. So until next time... Take care.