Ubuntu Family – Absolutely Baching

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 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 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. [...]