Install of new KDE Plasma 5.21?

[Liam Proven]

On Thu, 11 Mar 2021 at 20:28, Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> The browser Firefox is an exception. However, I neither like KDE nor
> the RPM package management. To me the 'R' in RPM is for 'rocket
> science' (Raketenwissenschaft).

:-D

openSUSE's Zypper has some nice features,  now I'm used to it. I like
the post-update `zypper ps -s` command which gives you a list of any
open programs that are using files that were replaced, allowing you to
judge whether you need to:

• ignore it and keep going
• quit and restart a few apps
• quit and restart lots of apps and hope for the best
• really restart now, or else Bad Stuff might happen

> I've got no idea into what issues a power user like Liam should/could
> run when using Arch Linux.

I tried it. I liked it, but as it wasn't my main OS, it only got
booted occasionally and so needed big updates each time. One of these
broke wifi, making it very hard to fix as at that point I only had
wifi.

It reminded me a little of going back to MacOS 6 in the 21st century.
This is a thing some vintage Mac enthusiasts evangelise. OS 6 is tiny
by modern standards, and very fast on even a low-spec Mac.

When you first install it, it is amazing that it fits in a few
megabytes and yet has dozens of useful apps available.

But if you try to use it, you find you miss things from System 7. I
wanted a clock in my menu bar. I wanted a hierarchical Apple menu. I
wanted a screensaver. I wanted networking. Etc., etc.

But by the time I added all these – painful on a 30-year-old OS – the
result is nearly as big and nearly as slow as System 7. And since
System 7, especially the last version, 7.6.1, has built-in TCP/IP with
DHCP, multitasking and other nice things, and will just about run in
10MB of RAM, frankly, I find it a more pleasant environment and less
work.

Arch was initially tiny but once I'd added all the stuff I usually
use, it wasn't that much smaller any more.

Something pre-customised to be small, e.g. CrunchBang, was as small or
smaller, and as fast or faster.

I have one box I'd like a really lightweight distro on: a Sony Vaio P,
a sub-netbook, maxed out with 2GB RAM. But it's an Atom and only
32-bit. Arch won't help.

The modern CrunchBang++ took 230-240MB at idle and the DPI is not
readily adjustable, a big issue on a 1600 pixel 8" screen.

So I tried the Raspberry Pi desktop. It's smaller, faster and takes
less RAM, and has a full desktop.

Impressive.

-- 
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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