Giocoso – Page 3 – Absolutely Baching

Installing Giocoso on Pop_OS!

1.0 Introduction

I am not generally a fan of any product which takes English punctuation lightly... and Pop_OS! has got both an underscore and an exclamation mark too many for my tastes! Nevertheless, this is a respectable, Ubuntu-based distro made by laptop manufacturer System76 as their 'in-house' distro: buy one of their laptops, this is the distro that will be installed on it by default. As is traditional in the open source world, however, that which was intended for in-house use has also been made freely downloadable for anyone else to install on their own hardware: and given that it is currently sitting in 5th position on the Distrowatch page hit list, it would seem quite a lot of people have taken them up on their generous offer! There is even a version tailored specifically for installation on the Raspberry Pi, though I haven't tested Giocoso on that particular hardware/software combo, I hasten to add: this article is strictly about Giocoso on Pop_OS! running on 'standard' PC hardware.

PopOS (I refuse to use the underscore or exclamation mark from this point forward) is readily available for download at the System76 website. Two mainstream versions are provided: one with nvdia proprietary graphics drivers and one without, called the 'LTS' version. I used that latter version for this documentation. PopOS ships with a modified version of the Gnome desktop, about which you don't have much choice, though you can of course bolt on other desktop environments or window managers after initial OS installation by merely installing the relevant packages (such as KDE). Here, however, I'm using only what came in the tin! [...]

Installing Giocoso on Linux Mint

1.0 Introduction

Linux Mint comes in two distinct flavours: one based on Debian (the Linux Mint Debian Edition, or LMDE, which I've discussed elsewhere) and one based on Ubuntu. This article is about the Ubuntu-based flavour!

Mint is a distro I've donated money to in the past, and used very happily, though it ditched the ability to run KDE as a desktop manager a few years back and lost my interest as it did so. It still offers a choice of Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE desktops, however, so remains justly popular: at the time of writing, it was in 3rd place on the Distrowatch page hit counter league table. Despite the loss of KDE, one of the features of Mint I admired it for was its refusal to use the Snap package 'container' approach to installing applications, which its Ubuntu parent distribution pioneered. Snaps are terrible, and if ever faced with a choice between Ubuntu and Mint, I'd pick Mint for this one reason alone! [...]

Installing Giocoso on Linux Lite

1.0 Introduction

Linux Lite is yet another distro based on Ubuntu's Long Term Support releases and using the XFCE desktop environment to be light, robust and user-friendly (though personally, I find XFCE makes Fischer Price designs look high-tech: I'm not a fan of the dumbed-down interface, basically!). It's currently listed 13th on the Distrowatch page hit list, so it's perhaps getting rather more traction than I had really been aware of. It has been around since 2012, anyway -so it's definitely got some staying power and cannot easily be dismissed as the work of a 'one-man-band' developer. It identifies itself (in /etc/os-release) as literally being Ubuntu, so it's no real surprise that Giocoso runs on it as well as it does on its 'parent' distro.

I originally downloaded my ISO for this distro back in May 2022, which meant I ended up with a version of Lite that was based on Ubuntu 20.04. Almost immediately after I'd done that, the developers went and released a new version, 6.0, that is based on Ubuntu 22.04 -so, two years more up-to-date! Giocoso worked fine on both versions, though the screenshots for this article all come from the most recent one. As ever, I installed it on a VirtualBox VM, built with 4GB of vRAM and a 2-thread virtual CPU, plus a 40GB virtual hard drive. Similarly, as I do for all my documented Giocoso installs on Linux, I began by ensuring the operating system was as up-to-date as possible. In Lite's case, you do that by issuing the command [...]

Installing Giocoso on Peppermint OS

1.0 Introduction

Peppermint is a bit of an odd Linux distro, derived from Debian (indeed, identifying itself as Debian in the /etc/os-release file), but taking configuration and utilities from Linux Mint (which is itself Ubuntu-based, though Ubuntu is of course originally Debian-based... it's turtles and Debian all the way down, basically!). It's defining feature would appear to be heavy integration with cloud applications (or, using its own choice of terminology, 'Site Specific Browsers' or SSBs). Frankly, that's not something I'm terribly interested in and I've accordingly never used Peppermint OS myself for anything more than software testing. It's currently sitting 27th on the Distrowatch page hit list, so maybe it's not something many other people are interested in, either! Nevertheless, it's been around since 2010 and is considered stable and reasonably lightweight, so for those reasons, I thought it was probably worth getting Giocoso working on it.

Anyway: I downloaded the 64-bit version from the distro's own website andinstalled it on a VirtualBox VM, built with 4GB of vRAM and a 2-thread virtual CPU, plus a 40GB virtual hard drive. Similarly, as I do for all my documented Giocoso installs on Linux, I began by ensuring the operating system was as up-to-date as possible. In Peppermint's case, you do that by issuing the command [...]

Installing Giocoso on Zorin OS

1.0 Introduction

Zorin OS is a Linux distro based on Ubuntu that's been around since 2009 and aims to look and feel like an operating system a Mac or Windows user could transition to with ease. It's one of those rare beasts: a Linux distro you can pay for, which again indicates an appeal to corporate customers who are looking to move away from Windows. The paid-for Pro edition seems mostly to distinguish itself from the free 'core' and 'lite' versions by providing extra layouts and theming options. Fortunately, the distro also comes in two free versions, called 'Lite' and 'Core'. Lite claims it's good for running on ancient hardware; Core is alleged to be suitable for more recent hardware. Actually, the underlying difference seems basically to be that Core comes with the Gnome desktop environment and Lite comes with XFCE. Personally, I don't find XFCE so lightweight a desktop environment that the distinction between the two free versions makes a lot of sense (had it been, say, KDE v. LXQt, it would be much more understandable).

Anyway: I decided to download the Lite version, so I ended up on XFCE, which is fine: Giocoso really doesn't care what desktop environment you're running on. That choice also means you get the X11 graphics server, rather than Wayland: but again, Giocoso doesn't care either way. [...]

Installing Giocoso on Ubuntu

1.0 Introduction

At one time, of course, Ubuntu was the Windows-killer of the Linux world; then it had a brain-spasm and decided it wanted to be the Macintosh lookalike of the Linux world; and having successfully annoyed a lot of people for doing 'its own thing' rather than chip in with other developers' efforts, it's now become once again fairly mainstream and quite popular -but nowhere near as popular as it had been around 2005ish. I use it a lot on servers, as a pure command-line only platform, but I've seldom committed to using it as a desktop operating system: it had too many peculiarities and quirks for me to find it a comfortable fit, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, it's currently sitting sixth on Distrowatch's page hit list, so it's not quite down-and-out for the count just yet!

At the time of writing, the current version of Ubuntu is 22.04 (codename 'Jammy Jellyfish') -though I've tested Giocoso running fine on 20.04, 20.10 and 21.20, too. Regardless of specific Ubuntu version, so long as it's reasonably recent, you should be fine. Ubuntu comes only with the Gnome desktop: other 'spins' are available for other desktops (Kubuntu for KDE, for example), and you can always install non-default desktops on vanilla Ubuntu, of course. These days too, of course, Wayland is the default graphics server, rather than the ancient X11... but again, all of these technical details make zero difference to Giocoso, which is happy to run on any desktop environment using any graphical server. [...]

Installing Giocoso on MX Linux

1.0 Introduction

MX Linux is not a distro I've used much, if ever... but at the time of writing, it's right at the top of the Distrowatch page hit ranking table, indicating that it's of interest to a lot of people. It was created as a merger between the antiX and MEPIS Linux distros, back in 2014 or so. It is generally available with an XFCE desktop, but can also be retrofitted with KDE or Fluxbox, making it quite usefully a 'mid-weight' distro: able to run on ancient hardware if you need it to, but also aimed at the more capable hardware of recent years. It is based on Debian -and literally identifies itself as that distro if you take a look at the /etc/os-release file.

As I do with all my Linux distros, I installed it on a VirtualBox VM, built with 4GB of vRAM and a 2-thread virtual CPU, plus a 40GB virtual hard disk. I chose to download the XFCE version from the distro's home website. Similarly, as I do for all my documented Giocoso installs on Linux, I began by ensuring the operating system was as up-to-date as possible. In MX Linux's case, you do that by issuing the command [...]

Installing Giocoso on antiX Linux

1.0 Introduction

I really know nothing much about antiX, and have never used it in anger... but it was in the top 20 list of distros on the May Distrowatch leader board, so I felt obliged to make sure Giocoso worked on it. Frankly, any distro whose home website has the strapline 'Proudly anti-fascist "antiX Magic" in an environment suitable for old and new computers' would not be a distro I'd bother with. Not because I'm a fascist, but because I personally don't see that mixing politics and an operating system makes a hell of a lot of sense!

As it turns out, the political pushiness doesn't really end there, since Wikipedia informs me that, "antiX is a Linux distribution, originally based on MEPIS, which itself is based on the Debian stable distribution [...and is...] suitable for older, less powerful x86-based systems. Unlike Debian, antiX does not use systemd. The releases of antiX are named after prominent left-wing figures, groups and revolutionaries." [...]

Installing Giocoso on Raspbian for Raspberry Pi

1.0 Introduction

The Raspberry Pi single board computer is a remarkable piece of computing technology: about the size of a 2.5" solid state hard disk, the Pi 4B I'm using manages to pack in an ARM processor, 4GB RAM, gigabit Ethernet, twin USB 3 ports, twin USB 2 ports and twin HDMI outputs. It has, in short, everything required to be a capable (if slightly slow) home PC... for about £55. (That's the usual list price when the midget computers are actually in stock: they are currently in short supply worldwide right now, so prices have sky-rocketed to £150+, which makes them much less desirable as daily driver PCs). I think that's a good deal (when you can get it!) and what the Pi perhaps lacks in raw speed and CPU power, it greatly makes up for by running entirely silently: whilst you can certainly fit fans to keep things cool, a good case can keep the temperatures down entirely passively. In a music room, silence is definitely golden!

By design and default, a modern Raspberry Pi is generally kitted out with 'Raspbian' or 'Raspberry Pi OS', which is an ARM-specific port of Debian, packaged with an allegedly user-friendly front-end that makes Fisher-Price look advanced. I am not a fan of it, put it that way! On the other hand, it is lightweight enough to make the Pi feel quite 'snappy'. That maybe because it uses the LXDE desktop environment by default, rather than a heavyweight, 'conventional' desktop such as KDE. [...]

Installing Giocoso on Manjaro for Raspberry Pi

1.0 Introduction

By design and default, a modern Raspberry Pi is generally kitted out with 'Raspbian' or 'Raspberry Pi OS', which is an ARM-specific port of Debian, packaged with an allegedly user-friendly front-end that makes Fisher-Price look advanced. I am not a fan of it, put it that way! Fortunately, you can install 'proper' Linux distros on it instead, including Ubuntu, Fedora or, making me even more happy, Manjaro. It's this distro I'll documented here. [...]

Installing Giocoso on Linux Mint Debian Edition

1.0 Introduction

Linux Mint (hereafter just 'Mint'!) is a popular desktop distro, but is usually found in its Ubuntu-derived form. That is, the Mint developers take Ubuntu and turn it into their own unique distro. What is not commonly realised, I think, is that Mint also comes in a completely separate distro that is derived from Debian. That's called, somewhat unimaginitively, Linux Mint Debian Edition... or LMDE for short. It's this Debian-flavoured distro I'm discussing in this article. If you're using the Ubuntu-derived version of Mint, please read this other article instead.

For the purposes of this article, I built a new VirtualBox virtual machine, using 4GB of vRAM and a 2-thread virtual CPU, plus a 40GB virtual hard disk and proceeded to install LMDE 5 (codenamed 'Elsie') using the ISO available via the project's website. That ships with the Cinnamon desktop by default, though others can be installed and used equally well: Giocoso simply doesn't care what desktop environment it's running on.. [...]

Installing Giocoso on Devuan

1.0 Introduction

In 2017, Debian adopted the systemd OS initialisation system and, at the same time, stripped out support for older initialisation systems such as sysvinit or openRC. This royally annoyed many Debian developers who saw the move as an unwelcome move away from Unix conventions. As was entirely their right, they therefore forked Debian and renamed their new systemd-less operating system Devuan.

Ideologically, therefore, Devuan is perhaps 'purer' than Debian, closer to both projects' Unix-y roots. Functionally, though, once you get past the business of initialising the operating system and its various processes, there's not a lot of difference between them. For that reason, since Giocoso runs fine on Debian, you might expect it to run perfectly well on Devuan, too... and it does! Nevertheless, Giocoso Version 2.x is the first version of Giocoso to support being run on Devuan: I had rather overlooked it in the past! [...]