Best Linux Distro as a Guest in a Win 10 System

[Jason]

I like the clean look of the title bar and buttons but don't like those icons in the file manager, myself. It has an outdated look. In fact, I wonder if those are the icons from the class KDE 3.x desktop.

[buster]

I got the Elementary OS 0.4.1 and installed it the usual way (2 gig ram, 2 cpu cores, 42 gig of storage).

#1. Tiny bit of trouble with the mouse during the install. (Back to that later.) And after it was installed I had to figure out how a mac mouse works. Sure miss the right click that seems to solve anything.

#2. Managed to get screen resolution I wanted by my usual scientic approach - poke about and click. Took a bit of time.

#3. System froze for some reason. This is not a big deal to me. The OS has get get used to living here. Generally problems like this just solve themselves over time.

#4. After rebooting and installing Synaptic I downloaded a few things and went to make tea. When I got back the screen had shrunk to about 1/4 the size and froze. No biggy - early days.

#5. Hard reboot, installed gbittorrent, kpat, tux racer and vm guest stuff. Files transferred well, torrents worked, movie and music right out the box worked. Smooth, clean system.

#6. Mouse stopped working. Hard reboot.

#7. The two tests - TuxRacer worked really well; the celebrations for a kpat win didn't even complete. Worst I've seen.

As far as I can tell, in a virtual machine, there is a huge demand for ram or the graphics overwhelm the memory. Don't know. Much like deepin. And probably as an install on a hard drive would be fine.

For someone coming from a mac machine it would be perfect. For a Windows devotee, I think it's foreign - I'm talking beginner here. I"ll get back after I use it a while.

[Jason]

You didn't say if you had installed the updates. I'm sure there were lots. I found the system requirements here, which should be fine for your system, maybe not so good for the author's system that wrote the review you mentioned earlier. I believe he was using a system from 2009. Not sure if it was i3 or better.

https://elementary.io/en/docs/installation#installation

Btw, how much RAM did you allocate for video? I think if you allocate too much it takes it away from the system RAM that is allocated. So for example, if you have it set to 2 GB and you set 512 MB to video, then you actually only have 1.5 GB. Not totally sure about this. Just seem to recall reading something about maybe in the Virtualbox manual. Video RAM is one thing I try to play with when choosing settings for Virtualbox. Again, I think I remember reading that allocating too much can really slow things down.

Keep us updated anyway.

[buster]

Thanks for the comments Jason.

Did install updates, though the notifier never suggested there were some. And the notifier was not in the' do not disturb' mode. It froze during updates requiring a hard reboot. The downloaded DVD is a 0.4.1 from their site.

The laptop has an i7 cpu.

VMWare does not ask you to allocate ram for video. I never have done it except in VirtualBox.

qBittorrent does its job slowly. Am in the process of downloading a season of an old show. Did some episodes in Elementary and some in SUSE. No comparison really. SUSE is 3 to 4 times faster. Odd discrepancy considering they are both virtual machines.

That wasn't the only review I read.

Maybe it will sort itself out as time passes.

[Jason]

Oh, for some reason I thought you were using Virtualbox but I see you mentioned now at the beginning it was VMware. I like Virtualbox for the snapshot feature though maybe the free version of VMware has that now.

VMware has better wizards that address allocating what it thinks are the right defaults based on the distro. It will even make choices during the install for some distros so you don't have to but a Virtualbox doesn't ask how much video to allocate either during the setup for the machine but it's something you can do later and was something I remember you like to mess with.

I also prefer to use open source if it has the features I need. Otherwise, I'll be happy to use closed source programs.

Getting torrents is really hard to compare performance because so many factors are at play. If the show isn't as popular as it was when you grabbed the downloads, then, you're going to have fewer peers and therefore lower download speeds. Also depends on who the peers are. Some minimize their upload speeds to as little as 1 KB/s perhaps because of bitcap restraints. So unless you downloaded the same show in one distro and then right away in another, it's difficult to compare. If you do that or have done that and noticed a big descrepancy then it could be related to CPU/memory constraints like if the CPU is being burdened since building the torrent files can require a lot of processor tasking.

I'm going to give elementary a try again right now a Virtualbox VM and see how it goes.

[buster]

"Getting torrents is really hard to compare performance because so many factors are at play. If the show isn't as popular as it was when you grabbed the downloads, then, you're going to have fewer peers and therefore lower download speeds. Also depends on who the peers are. "

Jason, the downloads weren't randomly chosen. It was a season pack, same seeders - over 40 of them. So on Elementary I downloaded an episode, logged out and into a different OS and downloaded an episode FROM THE SAME SEASON PACK. Used 3 Distros. Repeated the process because it seemed so odd.

Elementary was consistently much slower. And it also had the freezing problem on my system.

Whether you leave it or not on your list of beginners' choices is not a big deal to me. But in my eyes it's not bullet-proof like the other OS's on the list.

An edit later in the day: the specs say it needs '1 GB of system memory (RAM)', but I gave it two, and just sitting idle it uses about 950 mbs. When I open either browser, it uses about 1500 mbs ram. A torrents program boosts this up to 80 or 90 % of all the ram. My guess is that it's not handling ram well, or default programs in the background are eating up ram.

[Jason]

Jason, the downloads weren't randomly chosen. It was a season pack, same seeders - over 40 of them. So on Elementary I downloaded an episode, logged out and into a different OS and downloaded an episode FROM THE SAME SEASON PACK. Used 3 Distros. Repeated the process because it seemed so odd.

I didn't mean that they were randomly chosen though I admit I probably wasn't that clear. I assumed you used the same torrents but I didn't know you downloaded one right after the other as you didn't say that when you posted. As the eminent Lady Gaga once said, "Can't read minds, can't read minds..." :-) But you can't either so I understand and my writing often isn't very explanatory as I'm not a very good writer. But I did say following that it might not apply to your situation and acknowledged that it could be related to the CPU being overburdened. Your testing seems to show that. It can only do torrents as fast as the CPU can process them (that's the bottleneck).

So unless you downloaded the same show in one distro and then right away in another, it's difficult to compare. If you do that or have done that and noticed a big discrepancy then it could be related to CPU/memory constraints like if the CPU is being burdened since building the torrent files can require a lot of processor tasking.

You seem a bit irritated with me (the all caps) but maybe that's just how it comes across online. Please understand that when I write, I'm writing to you, but not only you. If it was only you, I'd send a message or an email. Other people reading might not know how torrents work or that you did one right after the other. I'm not trying to be difficult or trying to show anybody up.

Whether you leave it or not on your list of beginners' choices is not a big deal to me. But in my eyes it's not bullet-proof like the other OS's on the list.

I realize that. I'm not trying to be argumentative for the sake of arguing. I appreciate your concerns. I'm been giving the distro another look and checking out if I'm getting some of the same behavior you're describing. I spend a couple of hours on it yesterday doing various tasks and taking notes and I have found a few things that concern me (crashes with the AppCenter when updating or trying to update). The reason I liked it as a beginner distro was because it has a small number of applications (beginner, less choice can be good). Low number of menu options, again something that can be very helpful for beginners.

RAM usage I don't really see as as a big deal though I notice most reviewers are always going on and on about it. I mean that a system using 50% of 2 GB of RAM is not at all unusual isn't going to cause a performance drop. My experience has been that most distros unless super light require at least 2 GB for reasonable performance and I usually assign 4 GB to a VM. Linux will use more RAM if more is available though once you get over 80%, there might be a problem, as you say. That, I acknowledge.

Remember that I used the distro for probably a year or more as my main distro on an older computer, a 1.87 Ghz Core 2 Duo that I had been using for about 10 years with only 4 GB of RAM. So I put it on that list reflecting not just that but also Fox's experience. He was also the guy that got me into using elementary. I very much appreciate your comments though and am investigating. I wouldn't bother to if I didn't think you might have some valid concerns.

[Jason]

Curious. What are you using to measure how much RAM is used in elementary?

I'm using System Monitor and allocating 2 GB of RAM and just starting up, I'm getting only 32% of memory being used right after startup according to the Monitor program that I had to install in the VM. Using the CLI free -h command shows only 463 M/1.9 GB being used (or 25%). The difference is in buff/cached RAM which is another 622 MB. I think so, anyway; I haven't done the calculations. Cached RAM is what I mean about Linux using more RAM if it's available. If I had a 4 GB system, it would probably be "using" even more when it's not really.

That's why I disagree with reviewers talking about how much RAM a distro uses. If they're not using a tool that shows the difference between used and cached, they're going to get different results depending on how much RAM is in the system. Also, the whole point of having RAM is to have it used. RAM is faster than hard drive reads/writes. The OS knows this and tries to plan ahead via caching. If you run a bunch of applications and then shut them down.

Started up Monitor, Terminal, Firefox, Spotify, Files, Transmission (doing 3 torrents now) and System Settings. Monitor reads 83% "used" RAM. However, free shows that 1.3 GB is used (about 70%), and 615 MB is cached. CPU usage is fluctuating between 23 and 29% after watching it for a few minutes. Realized just now that I should have been adding the 'shared' amount of RAM in buff/cache in free. It started out small but is growing in size as I open more things while buff/cache actually dropped after increasing for a bit.

Started up AppCenter which also handles updates. CPU usage shot up when it first loaded but not over 85%, going to use free mem values for now on. Using 1.4/1.9 GB. Installing LibreOffice Writer, that should be a memory pig after I run and also a way to check the AppCenter when it's installing something. Up to 1.5 GB used in free now (when installing, not downloading). The actual installing part of Writer seemed to make elementary less responsive but forgot to note CPU usage. Clicking on Windows takes longer to focus them. The Applications menu took longer to come up. After installation, 'used' drops to 1.3 GB. Monitor app reads 83% for anybody keeping tabs. Installed another program, some educational program, and CPU never went over 55% installing it.

Closed everything except Transmission, Monitor, and Terminal. Free reports 544 MB used (and 800 MB cached/shared). Monitor reports 36%. An HD video torrent downloaded. Going to try it now. This might hurt. Full screen at HD is too laggy to watch. CPU is at 95-96%. That's probably why. Monitor reports 42% usage. Free shows 653 MB RAM used. Curiously, pausing the video only causes CPU usage to drop to 63-67%. Well, that's enough for now. Try VLC later and see if that's better than their homebrew video player.

Update: Forgot to try LibreOffice Writer and did so now. Surprisingly, it barely changed memory usage, even in Monitor.

[buster]

"Curious. What are you using to measure how much RAM is used in elementary?"

If you can click Plank in the right spot, you get the option to add a cpu monitor applet. When you hover the mouse over it, the ram usage is shown.

[Jason]

"Curious. What are you using to measure how much RAM is used in elementary?"

If you can click Plank in the right spot, you get the option to add a cpu monitor applet. When you hover the mouse over it, the ram usage is shown.

Clever. Didn't notice that.

[ssfc72]

This sounds like a good demo for the next plug meeting.

[buster]

When you choose applets to add to Plank, be very careful not to add a bad one, or all of them will stop working, because, as everyone knows

"One bad applet spoils the bunch."

(By the way, it is bad manners to groan.)

[Jason]

This sounds like a good demo for the next plug meeting.

Do you mean Buster showing his concerns with elementary OS or me just showing off the distro generally?

[Jason]

When you choose applets to add to Plank, be very careful not to add a bad one, or all of them will stop working, because, as everyone knows

"One bad applet spoils the bunch."

(By the way, it is bad manners to groan.)

No groaning here. That was pretty funny and clever actually! Have to steal this one.

[ssfc72]

A demo of the Elementary Distro and how to allocate resources with the VMWare or Virtualbox and that Plank thing and CPU usage. :-)

This sounds like a good demo for the next plug meeting.

Do you mean Buster showing his concerns with elementary OS or me just showing off the distro generally?