I didn't recognize gkrellm at first. I ALWAYS have that running on one of the monitors here!
And I love Forbidden Planet.
Post a screenshot of your Desktop
- Thread starter JasKinasis
- Start date
I didn't recognize gkrellm at first. I ALWAYS have that running on one of the monitors here!
And I love Forbidden Planet.
rafales1959
New Member
MX Linux 23.5 Xfce
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@f33dm3bits :-
Oh, yeah. I know ALL about the Electron apps.....but for Teams & Zoom, especially, they're a frickin' PITA to set-up and get working in Puppy. As for Jitsi, well; ever since they introduced that stupid Firebase authentication system, where if you DON'T authenticate you sit there for ever, endlessly waiting for a moderator to make an appearance & okay things, the AppImage no longer works.....because it cannot connect to Firebase. Period.
And they STILL haven't fixed it, Even for the "official" AppImage. Ya gotta use it in the browser in order to get the authentication when you log-in.....
Zoom, as a download, is now well over half-a-gig in size unpacked.....just for a video-chat app. That is ridiculous. Okay, I have a ton of RAM here - by Puppy standards - but ya gotta remember, many of our members run far more resource-challenged hardware than I do (think 2GB DDR1/2 with a P4). If I publish anything - be it an app, or a method/way of enabling something - it HAS to work for everyone in the community.
I can't just concentrate on those with powerful hardware, Maarten. Our wee community is renowned for empowering low-resource, elderly - even ancient - hardware. I won't break with tradition, tempting as it may be.
Running these as 'windowed' webapps from Chrome, I can set-up dedicated launch scripts for each 'app', located inside the portable browser's directory.....and a single application (the browser) - will serve double-duty for multiple apps this way.
You think about it. Every Electron-based app is built around a stripped-back Chromium browser. You have a dozen Electron-based apps on your system, you've got a dozen instances of the same, identical browser taking up valuable storage space. Even in a day & age when storage, historically speaking, is relatively cheap, I fail to see the sense in voluntarily and willingly wasting it....
Anyway; our "system" works for us. As one of our members told me some years ago, when I first introduced the webapp concept to the Puppy community, it appears that I'd all unknowingly brought to Puppy what PeppermintOS was at that time offering to ITS users. And I didn't even know it!
Mike.
Oh, yeah. I know ALL about the Electron apps.....but for Teams & Zoom, especially, they're a frickin' PITA to set-up and get working in Puppy. As for Jitsi, well; ever since they introduced that stupid Firebase authentication system, where if you DON'T authenticate you sit there for ever, endlessly waiting for a moderator to make an appearance & okay things, the AppImage no longer works.....because it cannot connect to Firebase. Period.
And they STILL haven't fixed it, Even for the "official" AppImage. Ya gotta use it in the browser in order to get the authentication when you log-in.....
Zoom, as a download, is now well over half-a-gig in size unpacked.....just for a video-chat app. That is ridiculous. Okay, I have a ton of RAM here - by Puppy standards - but ya gotta remember, many of our members run far more resource-challenged hardware than I do (think 2GB DDR1/2 with a P4). If I publish anything - be it an app, or a method/way of enabling something - it HAS to work for everyone in the community.
I can't just concentrate on those with powerful hardware, Maarten. Our wee community is renowned for empowering low-resource, elderly - even ancient - hardware. I won't break with tradition, tempting as it may be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Running these as 'windowed' webapps from Chrome, I can set-up dedicated launch scripts for each 'app', located inside the portable browser's directory.....and a single application (the browser) - will serve double-duty for multiple apps this way.
You think about it. Every Electron-based app is built around a stripped-back Chromium browser. You have a dozen Electron-based apps on your system, you've got a dozen instances of the same, identical browser taking up valuable storage space. Even in a day & age when storage, historically speaking, is relatively cheap, I fail to see the sense in voluntarily and willingly wasting it....
Anyway; our "system" works for us. As one of our members told me some years ago, when I first introduced the webapp concept to the Puppy community, it appears that I'd all unknowingly brought to Puppy what PeppermintOS was at that time offering to ITS users. And I didn't even know it!
Mike.
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@Mike-W0BTU :-I didn't recognize gkrellm at first. I ALWAYS have that running on one of the monitors here!
And I love Forbidden Planet.
Oh, I don't run the standard "Hardware" theme, Mike. Mine is from the Muhri.net theme gallery; it's called "Dreamworks", by a guy name of Tony Liekins.....and like everything else, it's customized to the hilt. Which is one thing I really love about gKrellM; everything, but everything, is totally configurable. Bill Wilson got that thing SO right.
Certain stuff I remove; kernel version, system name, etc. I blow the clock uo to 54 px, and it's large enough to serve as the desktop clock on a 1920x1080 screen. Date goes as well, since I always have pWidgets' 'calendar' plugin enabled. No sense in duplicating everything...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As for 'Forbidden Planet', well; you, at least, know exactly what I'm referring to when I mention the Krell! What was it Walter Pidgeon described them as in the film? Ah, yes; "monsters from the id".....monstrosities concocted by the subconscious mind, and powered by the inexhaustible supply from the Krell's gargantuan, planet-wide power grid (which was capable of being tapped-into & controlled entirely by any sub-conscious Krell mind).
Heh. Great stuff. It's a bloody good film..!
Mike.
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Arch Linux with KDE.
KInfocentre with some transparency:
Konsole with some transparency:
Weather3, from AUR:
Some details from Conky and Conky2:
Just htop shows a different RAM usage:
Dualbooting / Multibooting 8 distros — all with KDE, and almost the same configurations:
KInfocentre with some transparency:
Konsole with some transparency:
Weather3, from AUR:
Some details from Conky and Conky2:
Just htop shows a different RAM usage:
Dualbooting / Multibooting 8 distros — all with KDE, and almost the same configurations:
Fooling around with AI and a photo of miss Georgie and I came up with a new wallpaper for the new version of Tiny Core. I even remembered to leave room for conky and the icon bar to the right of the lil princess...
PalomarJack
New Member
I was inspired by Nikita's Linux desktop from the TV show of the same name. Except hers was gold and a different pattern. It's been this way since then. It's the Mate window manager with modified Blue-Joy theme. Considered Conky, but the System Monitor showing CPU, memory, storage and Netspeed applet shows all I want to know. The top panel is a strip from a wide photograph of the Orion region and the bottom panel is a strip from a photograph of the Milky Way and normally auto-hides. All simple and to the point. All eight of my machines have the same layout except the desktops have a link for desktop access to a large on board storage drive, between .5 and 1TB.
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I ALWAYS have that running on one of the monitors here!
I'm late to the game but I too used to have that running. It used to auto-hide on one DE I was using and only show up when I moused over the right part of the screen. The last dozen times I tried it, it just took more screen estate than I liked.
So, I used conky for a while.
Now, I just don't worry about it. The system will tell me if there's something amiss. Plus, if I'm using something like Cinnamon, there are applets that give me plenty of information.
I understand. But my dog is still with me.
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909mjolnir
Member
I bit the bullet and printed up my desktop. It's pretty minimal, but I like how the windows shade. This is my XFCE desktop. I have a different setup as MATE that I'll post some other time:
Alexandriteia
New Member
Resources used include KDE Plasma 5 on Debian 12, EliverLara's Dracula global theme, my custom Zafiro Nord Purple icons (modified from zayronXIO's Zafiro Nord Dark icons), SuperMarioFPS's Miku Cursor, and 胖大's digital painting of Renne from the Trails series.
Some software I haven't used in years (namely Blender, it's been quite a while since I last made 3D art); some software I haven't really used yet (namely Godot Engine, I still need to make some resources before I get started on the programming part of my passion project).
Some software I haven't used in years (namely Blender, it's been quite a while since I last made 3D art); some software I haven't really used yet (namely Godot Engine, I still need to make some resources before I get started on the programming part of my passion project).
theLegionWithin
Well-Known Member
I've been playing about with this thing on & off for years.
Current "ChromeOS-Flex"
I'm a "Googler" of long-standing - almost 25 years! - and spend much of my computing time online. Since funds have always been tight, I long ago began investigating ways to run Google's ChromeOS without necessarily having to buy a Chromebook.
I started playing with ChromiumOS builds by "Hexxeh" back in the early 2010s.. These didn't last above a couple of years, but they gave a taste of what the experience was like, using Chromium itself as a base instead of its sibling Chrome. When Hexxeh packed in, I investigated Arnoldthebat's ChromiumOS builds.
ChromiumOS was always a bit hit'n'miss. Sometimes a build was totally useless; wouldn't even boot. On occasion, absolutely everything worked as it should. More often than not, it was somewhere between the 2 extremes. Arnoldthebat has also since quit the scene.
I didn't get around to trying Neverware's "CloudReady". By the time I became aware of it, Google had bought them out, absorbed the project & basically pulled the plug....
A couple of years ago, Google themselves announced ChromeOS-Flex......designed to turn ANY older laptop (with suitable specs) into a Chromebook, and essentially "extending" the functionality 'CloudReady' had already put in place. The beauty of this is how simple it is to install. Instead of having no option but to go through all the Chromebook recovery garbage, via the browser + extension in order to create a special 'recovery' USB, you can now download the latest image direct from Google:-
Having done so, unzip it, then use "dd" to write it direct to the device of your choice (not a partition; ChromeOS-Flex needs an entire drive to itself, since it creates a LOT of small, GPT-formatted partitions). You can use an SSD or a decent modern USB 3.0/3.1/3.2 flash drive.....but it MUST be solid-state. Plate-spinners are NOT 'recognised' as valid storage.
Since I'd rescued the old 64GB PATA/IDE KingSpec SSD drive from ye anciente Inspiron lappie when it popped its clogs 3 years ago, and turned it into a home-made "external SSD" mounted in an old Compaq floppy-disk travel case, I decided to use this. It works beautifully. I plug it in via a SATA-to-USB 3.0 cable, when I want it, and launch it from the Grub4DOS menu's 'Advanced section'.....
The only downside to this is the need to manually update the thing. I don't get auto-updates because it's
Very neat.
I suspect Google were already thinking ahead to EOL for Win 10, realising there would be a LOT of laptops suddenly stranded with no way to run the new offering, Win 11.....but still fully-functional, for all that.
ChromeOS is not to everybody's taste, but I like it! ChromeOS-Flex definitely works for me....
Posting from it now.
Mike.
Current "ChromeOS-Flex"
I'm a "Googler" of long-standing - almost 25 years! - and spend much of my computing time online. Since funds have always been tight, I long ago began investigating ways to run Google's ChromeOS without necessarily having to buy a Chromebook.
I started playing with ChromiumOS builds by "Hexxeh" back in the early 2010s.. These didn't last above a couple of years, but they gave a taste of what the experience was like, using Chromium itself as a base instead of its sibling Chrome. When Hexxeh packed in, I investigated Arnoldthebat's ChromiumOS builds.
ChromiumOS was always a bit hit'n'miss. Sometimes a build was totally useless; wouldn't even boot. On occasion, absolutely everything worked as it should. More often than not, it was somewhere between the 2 extremes. Arnoldthebat has also since quit the scene.
I didn't get around to trying Neverware's "CloudReady". By the time I became aware of it, Google had bought them out, absorbed the project & basically pulled the plug....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A couple of years ago, Google themselves announced ChromeOS-Flex......designed to turn ANY older laptop (with suitable specs) into a Chromebook, and essentially "extending" the functionality 'CloudReady' had already put in place. The beauty of this is how simple it is to install. Instead of having no option but to go through all the Chromebook recovery garbage, via the browser + extension in order to create a special 'recovery' USB, you can now download the latest image direct from Google:-
Having done so, unzip it, then use "dd" to write it direct to the device of your choice (not a partition; ChromeOS-Flex needs an entire drive to itself, since it creates a LOT of small, GPT-formatted partitions). You can use an SSD or a decent modern USB 3.0/3.1/3.2 flash drive.....but it MUST be solid-state. Plate-spinners are NOT 'recognised' as valid storage.
Since I'd rescued the old 64GB PATA/IDE KingSpec SSD drive from ye anciente Inspiron lappie when it popped its clogs 3 years ago, and turned it into a home-made "external SSD" mounted in an old Compaq floppy-disk travel case, I decided to use this. It works beautifully. I plug it in via a SATA-to-USB 3.0 cable, when I want it, and launch it from the Grub4DOS menu's 'Advanced section'.....
The only downside to this is the need to manually update the thing. I don't get auto-updates because it's
- Not on their 'certified' laptop list (this is a desktop rig)
- Not 'fully installed' ( this is essentially a permanent 'Live' session, albeit with persistence)
Very neat.
I suspect Google were already thinking ahead to EOL for Win 10, realising there would be a LOT of laptops suddenly stranded with no way to run the new offering, Win 11.....but still fully-functional, for all that.
ChromeOS is not to everybody's taste, but I like it! ChromeOS-Flex definitely works for me....
Posting from it now.
Mike.
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FWIW, a used Chromebook is relatively cheap on sites like eBay.
Cyberbleuet
Member
Ubuntu 24.04
909mjolnir
Member
@ rafales1959: I like the 3D folder icons.
Don't worry. It's not 'real'. It's in a VM.
Even in a VM, it installed much faster than I remember it installing in the past. It took less than 15 minutes, even though I'd only assigned 2 GB of RAM and 2 CPUs to the VM instance.
I only have IE as the browser. Most browsers aren't going to work with XP these days.
It seems to poorly support the modern web.
Also, it cracked me up. The first time I went to visit a secure page, that is with https, it threw up a warning to let me know that I was visiting a secure page. Can you imagine that? LOL Instead of visiting the insecure web, we're going to warn you when yo visit a secure page.
I'm not sure why, but I had to lower the number of colors in order to get a better resolution. Instead of 32 bit colors, it's 24 bit colors. That let me pick a larger resolution. I also couldn't find the control panel immediately. I missed that it was right there in front of me and looked in the sub-menus for it. I did that for almost a minute before I remembered where it was.
To think, I was once fluent in the workings of XP.
Also, not even Slashdot would load. I didn't put any real effort into downloading a browser that still supports XP. I'd have had to download it on the regular system and copy it over because every site I tried to visit (except Google) failed to load in that version of IE.
Heh. Point taken. However:-
I think I prefer my current set-up. Not only is the hardware considerably more powerful, but I can still access all my media stuff AND other interconnected drives this way....which means I can continue to get other things done while I'm there. And that includes accessing stuff on my other machine, courtesy of SimplePythonHTTP server.....because all you need to access it is.....a browser.
And that's what a Chromebook basically is. A glorified browser...
Mike.
