Installations – Absolutely Baching

Build a Giocoso Pro Server

1.0 Introduction

A Giocoso Pro Server is simply a PC (or virtual PC) that runs a copy of the MySQL database (or MariaDB). Such a computer does not need to be particularly powerful or well-resourced: a single CPU, 1GB RAM and (say) 40GB of hard disk space should be more than adequate, though of course more of any of these things is always welcome!

Since it is a server, there is no need for a fancy graphical desktop to make things look 'nice': a Linux distro that provides the bare minimum of computing capabilities whilst managing to run the database is all that is really required: so Arch, or Ubuntu Server or Fedora Server are ideal candidates, because they ship 'out-of-the-box' without GUI bells and whistles. Personally, my Giocoso Pro Server runs in a FreeBSD jail, so not even Linux is a necessity! [...]

How to Build a Giocoso Pro Server with Arch Linux

1.0 Introduction

Giocoso Pro is the name given to a MySQL (or MariaDB) database that provides details of what music files exist and what plays of them have taken place, shared amongst all your computing devices that might be involved in playing classical music. It is a very lightweight implementation of a relational database, with just two tables and not a lot of relations between them! Running such a database therefore requires very little in the way of hardware resources: it's recommended to have a dual core CPU, 2GB of RAM and 20GB of hard disk space, though more of any of these resources is always handy 🙂

Since it is a server, there is no need for a fancy graphical desktop to make things look 'nice': a Linux distro that provides the bare minimum of computing capabilities whilst managing to run the database is all that is really required -and that makes Arch an ideal distro for implementing Giocoso Pro, because it starts out about as barebones an operating system as it's possible to get. You choose what to add to it (not much, as it turns out!) and the end result remains extremely minimalist, yet fully functional. As such, this article sort-of reproduces my earlier article on how to build an Arch desktop, but simplifies things dramatically, as no desktop environment is involved. [...]

Installing Giocoso on ElementaryOS

1.0 Introduction

If there is a prize for the Linux distro that most resembles macOS, then elementaryOS would likely win it hands down! This long-time Linux and Windows user would describe it as having an idiotic child-like dock and all the window controls on the wrong side... but that's how I'd probably describe macOS too! It's an odd Ubuntu-based distro, too, in that you are asked to pay for it when you download it, with the default price appearing to be US$20. Fortunately (from my cheapskate point of view!), there's an option to enter a 'custom' amount for the "purchase"... and zero is a perfectly acceptable custom amount! So you need spend nothing to take it for a spin.

At the time of writing, the distro is listed 12th in popularity in the Distrowatch page hit counter, which I find surprisingly high... but interest in a distro isn't the same thing as actually buying it and using it as a daily driver! I personally find it quirky and peculiar (and mac-like) enough to avoid it like the plague... but I also felt I owed its users the ability to run Giocoso, so Giocoso on that distro is now supported! [...]

Installing Giocoso on Solus

1.0 Introduction

Solus is one of that fairly rare breed in the Linux distro world: an independently-developed distro, rather than being yet another build atop of Ubuntu, Debian or Arch. That's certainly novel, but it also means the distro is reliant on a small band of developers who might at any time up-sticks and do a bit of throwing-in of towels. It's been known to happen!

It is a semi-rolling release distro, too, which means its software collection is kept pretty much bang up-to-date, with fresh software updates taking place weekly. Various downloads for it are available, with the main difference between them being the choice of desktop manager: all the usual suspects are available, such as Gnome, KDE (Plasma), MATE and XFCE. The most distinctive option, however, and Solus' so-called "flagship distribution" is the one that uses the Budgie desktop -and that's the one I've chosen to install for the purposes of this documentation. It's very attractive and intuitive, though a little Fischer-Price-y for my tastes! [...]

Installing Giocoso on Fedora

1.0 Introduction

Fedora is something of a workhorse distro, being in the same robustness and reliability stakes as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, whilst simultaneously being generally considered pretty cutting-edge, with two releases a year and thus access to very up-to-date packages. When Linus Torvalds himself uses your distro, you can be fairly sure you're doing something right, anyway! The distro comes in various formats: Workstation and Server are the two obvious ones; there are three others of more esoteric appeal. This documentation relates only to running Giocoso on the Workstation distro. That ships with a Gnome desktop, which I can't personally stand -and that's why I don't use it as my daily driver. However, other desktop environments can be installed and retrofitted to it post-install... but I haven't done that here, choosing to stick with the default environment. Ultimately, though, Giocoso doesn't care whether you're using Gnome, KDE or something whackier and niche: it's the underlying OS's selection of packages that matter, not the desktop manager.

Right in the middle of development work for Giocoso Version 2, a new release of Fedora Workstation (version 36) dropped, and I therefore switched to that newer version of Fedora for the purposes of writing these bits of documentation. However: Giocoso Version 2 runs perfectly well on Fedora 35, too. [...]

Installing Giocoso on openSUSE Tumbleweed

1.0 Introduction

First, there was SUSE Enterprise Linux (SLES), which was expensive but reliable and business-ready. Then there was openSUSE, which was free but equally reliable as it was effectively simply a re-build and a re-packaging of the original SLES. And finally was brought forth openSUSE Tumbleweed, which isn't really built on SLES, but is more of a rolling preview of what SLES might be in the future. Tumbleweed (for that's what I shall call it henceforth) is therefore to SLES what Fedora is to Red Hat Enterprise Linux: racy, daring, cutting (or bleeding!) edge. As a 'rolling release', it gets updates to software all the time, as the updates are released, not once or twice a year when the distro developers are ready for another 'big bang' release of a new version. As such, Tumbleweed is up-to-date and modern... but with a slight tendency to be less reliable than its SLES-based cousin, because new updates can break things.

Anyway, I mention all this history and background because of a crucial difference between openSUSE-based-on-SLES and Tumbleweed: Giocoso can run on Tumbleweed, but cannot on openSUSE 'proper'. The reason is because SLES, and hence openSUSE, ship with Version 4 of the Bash shell... and Giocoso Version 2 demands and requires Bash Version 5. Tumbleweed, happily and as you'd expect from a bang-up-to-date rolling release, ships with the latest version of Bash, and thus has no trouble meeting Giocoso's requirements. (That reliance on Bash 5, by the way, isn't an example of Giocoso itself been too bleeding-edge for its own good, because Bash released that version way back in January 2019. It might be time for SLES to catch up a little!) [...]

Installing Giocoso on GeckoLinux

1.0 Introduction

GeckoLinux is not a distro with which I am very familiar. It's based on openSUSE, but with a fresh coat of paint and a lot of usability tweaks and enhancements. It comes in two distinct flavours. One is based on openSUSE Leap, which is the slightly boring version of openSUSE that itself is based on SUSE Enterprise Linux. This is known as the 'Static' version. The other is based on openSUSE Tumbleweed, which is a 'rolling release' distro -meaning that it keeps its packages much more up-to-date and modern than the static release.

Which brings us to a fairly important point: Giocoso Version 2 doesn't run on openSUSE Leap, so it won't run on the static version of GeckoLinux which is based upon it. The non-rolling-release versions of openSUSE basically use a very old version of the Bash shell, and Giocoso uses some features of Bash Version 5 and therefore has a dependency on that more modern version of Bash. If you want to run Giocoso on Gecko Linux, therefore, you must be running the Rolling version of Gecko Linux. (Note: there is a third flavour of GeckoLinux called 'Next': it too uses Bash version 4, so is also a non-starter for running Giocoso).
[...]

Installing Giocoso on openSUSE Leap

1.0 Introduction

I'll make this short and sweet: Giocoso does not run on openSUSE Leap.

The reason for this is that Giocoso Version 2 requires the Bash shell version 5 and up, and openSUSE -being based on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and thus prone to being quite conservative in its choice of software- only includes the Bash shell version 4. That is not modern enough (though version 5 was released back at the start of 2019, so I would have hoped SUSE and thus openSUSE might have gotten themselves a bit more modern by now!). Launching Giocoso on openSUSE Leap (tested on 15.3 and 15.4) thus produces only this error message: [...]

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 [...]

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