Page Category: Installations

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. [...] 

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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. [...] 

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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 [...] 

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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." [...] 

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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. [...] 

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Installing Giocoso on Manjaro 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! 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. [...] 

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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.. [...] 

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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! [...] 

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Installing Giocoso on Debian

1.0 Introduction

Debian has been around for years and doesn't look like it's going away any time soon, so it's a good, reliable choice for a desktop distro. It comes with access to a vast library of software; is generally considered very stable; and can be used with just about every desktop or window manager known to mankind. It has never been my choice of desktop distro for my main PC, it's fair to say: but there's zero reason why it can't run Giocoso effectively.

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 Debian 11 using the 'complete installation image' ISO available from the Debian website. During the installation, I chose to install the Gnome desktop, but the specific choice of desktop doesn't really matter: Giocoso will run on all of them equally well. Of note, however, is that I ended up running the Wayland display server, rather than the ancient X11. Giocoso doesn't do a lot with graphics... but it does some, and it is therefore good to know that Giocoso functions equally correctly no matter if you're using Wayland or X11. [...] 

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Installing Giocoso on Garuda Linux

1.0 Introduction

I don't really know a lot about Garuda Linux, apart from the fact that its logo is pretty neat! Garuda being a Hindu word for 'Eagle, King of Birds', it's quite fitting, too! It is a 'child' distro of Arch, but fits that otherwise quite tricky-to-install distro with a nice graphical installer, making it far more approachable. Logos aside, Garuda using the "dragonised" KDE Plasma desktop is notable for using a completely bonkers desktop theme, involving colours and colour-combos that first went out of fashion in the 1960s (but seem to be back in fashion now!) I don't honestly think I could live with it as a daily driver, but I thought the screenshots would look cool, so decided to run with it for the purposes of this article! Saner -but very beautiful- desktop themes are available, however, when using desktop environments such as Cinnamon, XFCE and so on: the specific choice of desktop doesn't really matter, though: Giocoso will run on all of them equally well.

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 Garuda Linux using the full 'dragonised' KDE ISO available from the Garuda Linux website. [...] 

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Installing Giocoso on EndeavourOS

1.0 Introduction

For many years, though Arch was widely considered a great distro, it was also widely regarded as too hard to install properly! A number of 'derivative' distros were spun up to rectify that problem, perhaps chief amongst them being Antergos: Arch with a GUI installer, basically. Unfortunately, back in 2019, Antergos developers announced they were pulling the plug, and the distro died. Except that, as in most things Linux-y, it didn't really die but was transformed by a group of keen former Antergos enthusiasts, into EndeavourOS... still Arch+a nice GUI.

I can't say I use EndeavourOS myself (I'm more a Manjaro man!), but it certainly has its attractions and as such, deserves to be able to run Giocoso in a supported manner. So, from Version 2.x onwards, Giocoso supports installations on this distro. [...] 

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Installing Giocoso on Manjaro

1.0 Introduction

Manjaro has been, for many years, my own personal distro of choice (with occasional bouts of infidelity that were swiftly rectified!). It offers all the power of Arch, but presented in a user-friendly manner, with most software packages you could ever want to use being readily and easily available. It makes for a fine platform on which to run Giocoso, basically, and there will be zero issues arising when you attempt to do so!

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 Manjaro+KDE and the Plasma desktop, using the full ISO available from the Manjaro website. That said, the choice of desktop is irrelevant from Giocoso's perspective: it will run perfectly fine with any of their other desktop environment options, too. [...] 

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