Well, was actually able to get quite far yesterday on the Debian
installs and Windows10-like configuration on both 32bit laptops :-)
To wit:
- Installed all necessary apps (e.g., VLC, Chromium...) as well
as created+activated a useful swap partition via a customized
and sufficiently-sized partitioning scheme...
/dev/sda1 ---> /<root>
/dev/sda2 --->swap
/dev/sda3 ---> /var
/dev/sda4 ---> /home
====
- Activated (i.e., set "Untrustworthy" to "Trustworthy")
all desktop application shortcuts and renaming some of
them, e.g., 'Evince' to 'PDF Reader' and 'Mousepad' to
'WordPad' (hope that nobody's going to turn me in to
the BSA or MS police for that :-O )
- Changed desktop and icon themes to those more similar
to a Windows 10 desktop.
- Limited XFCE (and LXDE and LXQt) wallpapers and
backgrounds to just downloaded ones most similar to
the standard Windows 10 wallpapers+backgrounds that
I've seen before on machines with that OS installed
- Used GIMP and Inkscape respectively to convert
one or two of the raster .jpeg background images to
vectorized .svg files for changing the desktop manager
LightDM's greeter background to a more Windows10
-similar greeter background *
* Note: contrary to the Debian wiki's instructions
for changing the LightDM greeter background at
https://wiki.debian.org/LightDM#Change_the_greeter.27s_background
I found that I actually had to edit the 01_debian.conf file
in the /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf.d
directory to change the greeter background instead :-\
- Made the desired edit according to
https://wiki.debian.org/LightDM#Enable_user_list
to enable the single-user laptops to solely require
that one user to enter their login password rather than
also requiring them to fill out their username first.
Sure, that could be a calculated security risk, but
one carried out for the convenience of many of
our typical Windows users :-|
-Aaron
On Sunday, August 9, 2020 at 10:49:20 AM UTC-7, rick wrote:
Quoting goossbears (acohen36@gmail.com):
> My own mini-project aim for today and this upcoming week is
> to install an i686 (i.e., 32bit x86) Linux distro or distros that will
> still be around and maintained (hopefully!) within the next
> half-dozen years onto a pair of fairly low-end laptops.
> Futhermore, and aside from possible rants from one or two
> sysadmins reading this, would like to configure the i686 Linux
> laptop installs so that they appear as close as possible similar
> to the MS Windows 10 desktop environment (DE) that the
> intended users of these low-RAM laptops prefer on their
> higher-end 64bit desktop PCs, while also allowing for easy
> desktop switching to the *non*-Windows-like,
> low-RAM-requiring DE's that _I_ prefer using.
> The top two contenders are....
> - Debian Linux https://www.debian.org/ <https://www.debian.org/>(DE's:
> XFCE, LXQt)
> +and+
> - Slackware Linux http://www.slackware.com/ (DE's: XFCE, FluxboxWM)
>
> Sorry Rick and others, for various reasons, the ultimately
> Debian-derived lightweight distros Devuan
> GNU+Linux https://devuan.org/ , Lubuntu https://lubuntu.me/ ,
> Bodhi Linux https://www.bodhilinux.com/ and a few others
> don't quite make the grade here :/
I'm not offended in any way! ;->
What's really great is that you have a fairly well thought out sense of
what you're seeking, and I'm very far from arguing with your logic or
your starting premises (not to mention that issues of personal taste are
involved).
For the record, I likewise respect LXQt, XFCE4, and Fluxbox.
The task of having desktop environments comfortable for Windows 10
desktop users, while doing so with 2020 Linux distros on low-spec IA32
laptops is sort of threading the needle, so I applaud you taking on the
challenge.
--
Cheers, "My hot flight attendant asked how I like my coffee.
Rick Moen And that's when she told me: 'That's cute, honey, but
rick@linuxmafia.com the coffee's free. You don't have to pay for it, here."
McQ! (4x80) (seen on Twitter)