Lightest Linux distros, easy for noob, with virtual winOS?

[pamojja]

So many jewels in this thread for beginners with linux, for finding one that works with new hardware, I wanted to summarize, 4 pages at first:

page 8: WLAN

lspci -knn | grep -iA3 net
should hopefully show some helpful info about possibly both ethernet and wlan.

.. you could try

sudo ip link set enp2s0 up

the following command will look through your system logs for messages about the wifi adapter's pci bus (03:00.0) and driver (rtw88_8821ce):

journalctl -b | grep -iE '03:00.0|8821ce'

i've not seen that before. you could try

journalctl -b -g '03:00.0|8821ce'

so the one command in regards to your wifi adapter can be two commands:

journalctl -b -g 03:00.0
and
journalctl -b -g 8821ce

the command for your ethernet could be these three

journalctl -b -g 02:00.0
journalctl -b -g r8169
journalctl -b -g enp2s0

page 9: installing/deinstalling in Q4OS

i'm not sure why it's not listed with the other installed programs. that might be because it is installed from an outside source. i searched for it with

apt list '*chrome*' -i
Listing... Done
google-chrome-stable/stable,now 115.0.5790.110-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]

and if you wanted to uninstall it, you could test that with

apt remove -s google-chrome-stable

the -s simulates the removal. if that seems to work and is what you want, you should be able to remove it with

sudo apt remove google-chrome-stable

in case it is of interest, there seems to be another web browser installed called Konqueror.

i think i recall you were trying to avoid the command line, but in case it is of interest you could try

apt list firefox-esr

if your output looks like

apt list firefox-esr
Listing... Done
firefox-esr/oldstable-security 102.13.0esr-1~deb11u1 amd64

then you should be able to install it with

sudo apt install firefox-esr

page 10: Cernel in use

in case some commands might work, these are the two i use to check the kernel version (uname -r) and if the driver for your built in wifi adapter are present (modinfo rtw88_8821ce):

page 11: Ram usage

Code:
free -m

Partitioning

i believe the easiest way to get grub to work with multiple installs is to install in uefi mode. generally i keep my bios boot settings to "uefi only" to help try and achieve that. i think that setting also works with ventoy. even so, when i boot a distribution live i usually run the efibootmgr command to make sure it works.

when installing in uefi mode, you will need an Efi System Partition (ESP - /dev/sda1 below) that is usually formatted as fat32 with esp and boot flags set. this is an image from my system with two full installs:

https://imgur.com/a/8QV7kLS

the esp will need to be big enough to hold all the efi files from however many distributions you want to install.

similarly, each separate distribution partition will need enough space for the full install. examples from my virtual machines:
in addition to the minimum amount of space, there would need to be some extra room for anything you might want to install (like a new kernel on lxle). the lxle example above includes the installation of the 5.15 kernel previously discussed.

most distributions that i have installed work with the ext4 filesystem that was mentioned. one thing to keep in mind with ext4 is that it keeps 5% of space reserved for root so you would need to add that into your base calculation for how much space to give each distribution.

in my experience with multibooting, the newest installation usually adds itself as the first boot option. as mentioned before, i usually check that with efibootmgr. where that may get a bit tricky is that not all distributions install grub in such a way that it will show other operating systems. that is usually handled by a program called os-prober and some installs have it disabled by default.

i tried to keep that from straying into info overload or overkill, but wanted to try and demonstrate that there will be a lot of moving parts to a multiboot setup.

one detail i forgot to mention is that in order to be capable of uefi booting i believe the usb will need a gpt instead of the older mbr. i think most usb's come with an mbr. or at least the one i just checked does.

in Gparted if i select the correct disk from the menu at top right, click on the View menu and check the Device Information box that shows up in the left pane and has a "Partition table:" line. for mbr it shows "msdos".

in order to create a gpt, you would need to click on Device in the menu and then Create Partition Table. converting the partition table in that way does wipe everything else off the drive if i recall correctly. it's been a while since i did that.

this is an excerpt of output from the command sudo parted -l from my system disk that has a gpt and the usb with an mbr:

sudo parted -l
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 860 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB fat32 boot, legacy_boot, esp
5 525MB 431GB 431GB ext4 mx21
4 431GB 464GB 32.2GB ext4 mint21
3 464GB 496GB 32.2GB ext4 pop
2 496GB 500GB 4295MB linux-swap(v1)
...
Model: SanDisk Cruzer Glide (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 15.4GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 16.4kB 15.4GB 15.4GB primary fat32 lba

df -h
...
/dev/sda1 499M 5.6M 494M 2% /boot/efi

Audio

in the Volume Control program other than checking to see if anything is muted, the only thing i can think of is to check the Output Devices tab to see if the Port has other options that might produce sound for you. there is also alsamixer. depending on the system, sometimes i need to use the F6 key in alsamixer to try a different sound card. as well, if there are blue arrows -> on the right side of the screen, sometimes i need to use the right arrow key to see more options.

lxle has a program in the menu -> Control Menu -> Utilities called System Profiler and Benchmark. under Devices in the left pane and then the PCI Devices section under that, it does show my "Audio device" but unfortunately not with a lot of detail. to get the helpful detail would need the output of either lspci -knn | grep -iA3 audio or possibly lspci -knnd ::0403. similar to when we looked at those for your networking connections, you are looking to see if there is a "Kernel driver in use" line.

there is a program called App Grid which looks like it will help install other programs. there is a listing in it for gnome-logs which is a graphical log viewer that may be easier to use than trying to check journalctl for messages about the audio device or sound driver.

Passwords

i've not used the others, but found this for antiX: https://antixlinux.com/quick-tips/

my usual web search is "<name of distro> live user password" or something similar.

 

[pamojja]

Another 4 pages of summary.

page 12: Audio

in antiX the Test Sound button in the Control Centre runs this command which can also be run from an open terminal
speaker-test --channels 2 --test wav --nloops 3
if i right-click on the speaker icon in the panel at the bottom right of the screen and select Open Mixer that opens the same window as the Adjust Mixer button in the control center. it is also the command alsamixer.

page 13: Mageia live persistence

some instructions for creating persistence from just the live environment: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Persistent_live_systems#Creating_persistence_using_only_Live_itself

the disclaimer there is that i don't know if Diskdrake will be any more successful or capable of changing the exfat partition on your ventoy usb so this may require a live usb that is dedicated solely to mageia.

WLAN

that looks like what you would probably see if the kernel didn't have a driver for your wifi adapter or if it had trouble loading at boot. the quickest way i know to check is with

lspci -knn | grep -iA3 net

to see if you have a "Kernel driver in use" line. i think i recall there being trouble running some commands with the | character. you could run the command without it

lspci -knn

and just look for the section that describes your wifi adapter.

page 14: Install LXLE in Cranchbangplusplus

since crunchbangplusplus (cbpp) is based on debian, that would seem to indicate that other debian-based distros could work if they had the right packages installed.

if you are referring to the desktop (cbpp uses openbox) being very minimal, you should be able to install a different desktop. the regular install used about 750 MB of ram after boot if i recall correctly. since i have heard it is lightweight, i installed the lxqt desktop following the instructions here: https://wiki.debian.org/LXQt

by running the command

sudo apt install task-lxqt-desktop

lxqt used about 850 MB (similar to mageia 8 with xfce) after boot and looked like this:

https://imgur.com/a/9cR8x9B

Correct path in limine.cfg with EasyOs

In case anyone runs in the same difficulty:

In your limine.cfg you have got
boot://easy2/easyos/vmlinuz

but it should be fslabel
KERNEL_PATH=fslabel://easy2/easyos/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=fslabel://easy2/easyos/initrd

Gladly, it does boot and work installed now just as well as in live mode. Interestingly, though, the Limine bootloader from within the EasyOS installation still doesn't recognize it.

Checking formatting of an USB:

i don't know if easyos has it, but some other distros have a filesystem check version for fat called fsck.fat. that may well be what gparted was trying to run, but could be worth a shot. you could likely check if it is installed by running

man fsck.fat

if it is installed, i believe you could just run

sudo fsck /dev/sdX#

replacing X with the drive letter and # with the partition number.

sudo fsck /dev/sdc1
fsck from util-linux 2.36.1
fsck.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)
/dev/sdc1: 9 files, 380/3569 clusters

page 16 How to set root with installer

While I see a reset and a change button there, but no direct way to determine root.

this is from an lxle virtual machine while running the installer: if you highlight the main partition and click on the Change button, there may be a "Use as" field with a drop-down menu to the right that says "do not use this partition". if i click "do not use this partition", i get a set of filesystem options. at the top is "Ext4 journaling file system" (fairly commonly used for lots of distros). if i choose that, a new field labeled "Mount point" shows up further down in the window with an empty drop-down menu to the right. if i click on that empty drop-down menu, i can choose / for a system with just one root partition (other than the esp).

https://imgur.com/a/g1rsTYQ

 

[pamojja]

The last 3 pages summarized.

There are much more details, easier accessible now at the place in this thread by clicking on the member name of a quote. Allowing for not having to read this long-winding thread with many off-topic comments as a whole again.

It also seems the more this thread is progressing, the more information nowhere else found is coming to the surface. To the help of all future beginner with Linux on this forum.




page 18: Finding where Grub is wrongly installed

the only way i know of to try and figure out where grub is installed and possibly direct which entry to boot from linux is to try using efibootmgr. efibootmgr -v adds a bit of extra info about the entries:

efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0017
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0017,0018,0016,0007,0008
...
Boot0017* mx HD(1,GPT,894ba3cb-9e55-4c26-9619-2db2e06f8e6a,0x800,0xfa000)/File(\EFI\mx\grubx64.efi)
Boot0018* ubuntu HD(1,GPT,894ba3cb-9e55-4c26-9619-2db2e06f8e6a,0x800,0xfa000)/File(\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi)

those entries (17 and 18) are for my mx linux and linux mint installs. if i want to know what disk this part (894ba3cb-9e55-4c26-9619-2db2e06f8e6a) refers to, i can check blkid for it's PARTUUID.

blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="DE85-DDCB" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="894ba3cb-9e55-4c26-9619-2db2e06f8e6a"

if i wanted to boot into linux mint (entry 0018) instead of mx linux, i could try

How to erase obsolete boot-manager entries

are those entries that you see in the uefi or bios boot settings? if so and if they are listed with efibootmgr, i believe you should also be able to delete the entries with efibootmgr. if they are just files left in the efi system partition, i think you should be able to delete those manually.

How to erase obsolete boot-manager entries in Mageia

in a live session of mageia 8, i had to install the efibootmgr package to be able to run the command. i found it in the Software Management program (listed as RPMdrake* in the "Welcome to Magiea" program's "Install software" tab). there was a button on the left of that screen that said "Packages with a GUI". i had to change that to All. then the search was able to find the package.

after installing, the command successfully ran and showed the efi boot entry for the installed vm.

i don't have the vm open just now, but believe i had to use

su

to get to a root prompt with the mageia live. the prompt should change from $ to #. then you should hopefully be able to run

efibootmgr -n 4

or try 04 if just 4 doesn't work like you did before.

editing to add: i have the vm with mageia live open. su does get me to a root prompt. you should be able to run commands that require root authentication from there.

page 19: making inactive boot active again

i believe the entries you are able to boot all have an asterisk * after them (Boot0007* for example) whereas that entry lacks one. i think that means it is inactive.

you should be able to make it active with

#efibootmgr -b 5 -a

where the # again indicates that you are using a root prompt after su. after that you could try it again to see if it might work.

Obsolete boot entries

But how would I know which boot files of so many are leftover and able to simply delete. I could go by the last saved date. However, can't that be added also by a later distro install, but the original file actual essential to booting already before?

to address your second question, i believe (though i have never looked at the code for) each new installation would try to install the bootloader from scratch and not attempt to rely on anything already in the efi system partition.

as to the first part, i don't tend to try and get rid of them unless i am running out of space. the windows installs i have seen lately come with a 100 MB esp so space might become an issue. this is some output i use to check space in the windows vm i have that also has q4os installed:

lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
...
sda
├─sda1 vfat FAT32 84B6-B087 46.5M 52% /boot/efi
...
sudo du -hd2 /boot/efi/ | sort -hr
[sudo] password for win10:
50M /boot/efi/EFI
50M /boot/efi/
26M /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft
21M /boot/efi/EFI/Debian11
2.3M /boot/efi/EFI/debian
1.6M /boot/efi/EFI/Boot
df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
...
/dev/sda1 96M 50M 47M 52% /boot/efi
...

in order to get those, the esp needs to be mounted. to me one of the more important to look at is that microsoft's files take up over a quarter of the space (26M). because both windows and q4os took up a good bit of space, the esp is already 52% used.

to figure out which files are most important, i look at the output from efibootmgr -v. these are some entries from my main system where i have mx linux 21 and linux mint 21.1 (labeled as ubuntu) installed:

efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0017
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0017,0018...
...
Boot0016 MX21 HD(1,GPT,894ba3cb-9e55-4c26-9619-2db2e06f8e6a,0x800,0xfa000)/File(\EFI\MX21\grubx64.efi)
Boot0017* mx HD(1,GPT,894ba3cb-9e55-4c26-9619-2db2e06f8e6a,0x800,0xfa000)/File(\EFI\mx\grubx64.efi)
Boot0018* ubuntu HD(1,GPT,894ba3cb-9e55-4c26-9619-2db2e06f8e6a,0x800,0xfa000)/File(\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi)

those last two entries are active (have a * after the #). if i want to keep them, i would avoid removing any files installed on the same date as them. the last part of those entries would correspond to the files /boot/efi/EFI/mx/grubx64.efi and /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi. linux mint (and possibly some other distros) also installs some files in /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT. i check the dates of all of those files with

sudo ls -lR /boot/efi/

i included entry 0016 to show that at least the mx installer (which is admittedly different from a lot of the others) didn't reuse the same directory or file.

Efibootmgr on EasyOs

Asked on Easyos Puppy forum, if there is a way to make efibootmgr variables work.

Huch that was a quick answer:

First mount efi partition to /boot/efi then try again

Interestingly, in EasyOs 'lsblk -f' doesn't mentions it detailed.

to get the details of how much space each one was using, i ran

sudo du -hd2 /boot/efi/ | sort -hr

that was on mx as a regular user. if your easyos is running as root with a # prompt in sakura, you shouldn't need sudo.

How to configure VMs with Aqemu in EasyOS

i didn't think to mention yesterday that my trials with aqemu were on linux mint. i don't believe that should make a difference, but just wanted to let you know in case it does.
for boot device in the VM tab i have it set to Boot: CD-ROM near the top in the second column:

in the Media tab i have two devices. the first is the CD-ROM that points to the iso image and the second is HDA that points to the disk image:

the smudge or erased part is just my username. i get a similar error to your first one, but the vm still runs. my second error is different.

i'll add shots of the properties for the CD-ROM and HDA. this is after double-clicking on CD-ROM then clicking the Advanced button:

these are the Advanced settings for HDA:

hopefully you will be able to see it in the images, but i was incorrect about needing to change any file extension. the .iso stays as is as does the .img file.

the result is:

page 20: Qemu by command-line in EasyOS

There is actually a detailed instruction how to get a VM Linux running in EasyOS on top of the Puppy EasyOS forum.

Setting up Aqemu in EasyOS

the process was fairly similar in easyos as it was in mint. these are the Advanced details for the CD-ROM:

that's the same iso that worked on mint. i just copied it to the downloads folder of easyos. i think it would have worked in any folder. that's just where it ended up.

these are the Advanced details of the HDA that was created when making the vm:

my first two attempts refused to start because of the Audio. so in the VM tab i selected "Sound Blaster 16":

after that was set, lxle finally started:

More options for set-up of VM with command-line in EasyOs

i know you've stated from the beginning that you preffered gui. i just wanted to point out that if you consider trying other options at some point it might be worth a look. part of the reason i mention that is sound choices seem somewhat limited in aqemu. in this link for setting up a win10 vm there are some others shown: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=9028

Show free RAM and disk space

you should be able to show amount of RAM with

free -m

and possibly disk space with

lsblk -f

or

sudo parted -l

How to copy/paste from a VM in MX-Linux

with virt-manager that requires installing a package (usually spice-vdagent) in the vm itself and i believe some other spice packages installed on the host machine. of course that would be after installation where it seems like you are stuck at present. in case you get that far though, these are the spice packages installed in my mx linux host system. the first one is also installed on my mint host:

apt list 'spice*' -i
Listing... Done
spice-client-glib-usb-acl-helper/oldstable,now 0.39-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
spice-vdagent/oldstable,now 0.20.0-2 amd64 [installed]

page 21: how to resize the disk image in qemu

how to resize the disk image or i would have added this to the previous post, but if easy has the command i used

qemu-img resize .aqemu/name_of_file.img +10G

so for yours i would try +18G at least.

Risk of boot-repair

i installed boot-repair in my robolinux vm to try to see what win-legacy-basic-fix would do, but didn't understand the code. it does look like it will probably attempt to make some kind of changes to a windows boot file or files...

i realize that's a longwinded way of saying that i do believe there is some risk to your windows installation if you accept that suggestion.

Better choice of HDA setting in Aqemu

with the previously created lxle vm, at one point i suggested setting the HDA Interface to "ide". however, after doing some more reading and seeing what virt-manager vm's use think "virtio" may be a better choice.

i have the antiX full iso version and this is on my mint system, but the vm runs. for the CD-ROM's Advanced properties, i have the check mark in front of File and the field points to the path of the iso. i have a check mark in the Media box. this time i chose CD-ROM. for the disk (HDA) i have a check mark in front of File and that points to the .img file. this time i only also put a check mark in front of Interface and chose virtio. i don't know if that may make a difference.

Working better for AntiX VM in CD-Rom choices of Aqemu

i have the antiX full iso version and this is on my mint system, but the vm runs. for the CD-ROM's Advanced properties, i have the check mark in front of File and the field points to the path of the iso. i have a check mark in the Media box. this time i chose CD-ROM. for the disk (HDA) i have a check mark in front of File and that points to the .img file. this time i only also put a check mark in front of Interface and chose virtio. i don't know if that may make a difference.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Thanks to the OP @pamojja for the summaries in those last couple of Posts.

This thread is now closed.

Thanks as always to all of our willing Helpers, and a particular commendation to @z7vl7abxc for the extraordinary effort put in.

If other members have any questions on the subject content, please start your own thread - just try not to let it go for 22 pages.

Cheers all and

Avagudweegend

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz