On Sun, Sep 17, 2023, at 11:05, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 22:22:00 -0700
> wes <[email protected]> dijo:
>
> >On Sat, Sep 16, 2023 at 11:02 AM John Jason Jordan <[email protected]>
> >wrote:
> >
> >> >>> Normally release is done with the Right-Ctrl key, but if you're
> >> >>> in the host and the guest has exclusive control of mouse and
> >> >>> keyboard, you have no Right-Ctrl key
> >> >
> >> >>something is not right here.
> >>
> >> I'm still stuck using the power button.
>
> >one possible thing to try would be to connect to this system remotely.
> >if you have set up ssh access, you can connect in and terminate the
> >virtualbox process from the command line. it would be interesting to
> >find out whether this returns everything to normal.
>
> Several times over the years I gave tried to get ssh working, and I
> always failed.
>
> >I sort of doubt that the window manager really died - the existing
> >windows should no longer display if that were the case. or at least
> >you should lose some of the surrounding detail (title bars, clock,
> >notification tray, etc).
>
> Good points. Let me revise my theory: Window manager did not die
> completely, but some piece of it died.
>
> But that has become more or less moot.The Debian installation was
> always temporary to let me experiment to be sure I could get all my
> applications installed. That worked out reasonably well; Debian has
> snap in its repositories, so it can be added, but it's not installed by
> default, and I got almost everything running.
>
> The hangup was the GUI config program for my Silicondust television
> tuner on my home network. I got the program installed in Debian, but it
> couldn't see the tuner. Yet I could ping the tuner from Debian. I spent
> a lot of time trying to solve this, and in the process I finally
> discovered a long thread in the Debian forums, where dozens of people
> had the same problem, and all of them failed, and none of them were
> running in any virtual machine. Reluctantly I had to bid Debian
> goodbye. Yes, I could buy a separate television set and find a place
> for it on my desk, but why?
>
> On my Xubuntu 22.04.3 I have managed to replace the few snap packages
> that I had with apt packages, and my next effort will be to see if I
> can completely uninstall snap.
>
> I also installed Mint 21.2 Xfce in a VirtualBox machine and got it
> running. Like Debian, Mint makes snap available, but discourages
> installing it. But Mint has the ugliest artwork of any distro, and I
> can't bear the thought of having to stare at it constantly. However, I
> can minimize the Mint window and restore it without problems.
>
> I started this whole voyage because I have come to have a strong
> dislike of snap and was looking for an alternative to Ubuntu. Assuming
> that I found a good solution I was going to buy a 2TB M.2 card to
> install in my Thinkpad in its second, currently unused, M.2 slot, then
> install the replacement OS on it, leaving the existing 1TB M.2 card with
> Xubuntu on it installed as a dual boot. I recently bought a Samsung 2TB
> M.2 card from Best Buy at Jantzen Beach for $120 for my desktop
> computer, and it is damn fast.
John, what was your specific error that you got when using SSH to your
computer? What is the local SSH server not already running?
Do I understand correctly that you got the silicondust App to see the TV tuner
on Mint and Ubuntu, but not on Debian?
You said you wanted to move away from snap and a bunch too, and you didn’t like
the artwork on Mint.
Are you still looking to try more distro’s?
If you prefer to stick with apt-based distributions, what about MX Linux? It’s
based on Debian, but has many papercuts worked out, possibly, including the one
for the TV tuner.
If you’re willing to try an Linux distribution not based on apt, I can say that
Fedora and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed have improved tremendously in usability and
reliability in the last five years.
If you’re not happy with Mint, and if MX Linux does not work with the TV tuner
either, would you consider trying those rpm-based distros?
