HOWTO try all the seven Desktop Environments

Post tutorials, HOWTO's and other useful resources here.
kragoth
Ronin
Ronin
Posts: 3
Joined: 17 Oct 2018, 13:45
Distribution: Porteus 4.0 32 bits

HOWTO try all the seven Desktop Environments

Post#1 by kragoth » 21 Oct 2018, 13:08

Hello people,
since Porteus 4.0 offers seven distinct DE's i thought it would be nice to have a way to try them all, without having to load all modules at once or manually swapping base modules. In fact, i tried swapping and it didn't work very well, got some problems with icons not showing up on some DE's, i think because i was saving changes, and that caused conflicts between DE's.

The best way i came up was to use one as default and the remaining as optional, using cheatcodes on porteus.cfg to load a new DE and block the default. I also used the cheatcode changes-ro to not save changes, not breaking the icons again. If you don't have a save.dat or a posix filesystem to save changes, then this cheatcode is not needed. If i want to save any change i have edit the entry and remove changes-ro.
I think it would be nice, specially for a newbie, to have a .iso with that configuration to try all the desktop environments, considering that it would add less than 170 MB to a KDE .iso.
Here is a sample of my porteus.cfg:

Code: Select all

LABEL DEFAULT
MENU LABEL Porteus KDE
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus changes-ro

LABEL CINNAMON
MENU LABEL Porteus Cinnamon
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus load=cinnamon noload=kde changes-ro

...
And here is the entire file, i also hid the remaining options in a submenu:

Code: Select all

PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 90
UI vesamenu.c32
DEFAULT DEFAULT
MENU BACKGROUND fundo.jpg
MENU TITLE Porteus-4.0 32bit

MENU WIDTH 30
MENU MARGIN 2
MENU ROWS 10
MENU HELPMSGROW 17
MENU TIMEOUTROW 28
MENU TABMSGROW 15
MENU CMDLINEROW 22
MENU HSHIFT 4
MENU VSHIFT 5

	menu color screen	37;40      #00000000 #00000000 none
	menu color border	30;44      #00000000 #00000000 none
	menu color title	1;36;44    #ffF6FF00 #30003f07 none
	menu color unsel	37;44      #ffffffff #00000000 none
	menu color hotkey	1;37;44    #ff8037b7 #00000000 none
	menu color sel		7;37;40    #ff111B78 #003f7fbf none
	menu color hotsel	1;7;37;40  #ffaf67f7 #003f7fbf none
	menu color scrollbar	30;44      #00000000 #00000000 none

	menu color tabmsg	31;40      #ffB6F538 #00000000 none
	menu color cmdmark	1;36;40    #ffff0000 #00000000 none
	menu color cmdline	37;40      #ffffffff #ff000000 none
	menu color pwdborder	30;47      #ffff0000 #00000000 std
	menu color pwdheader	31;47      #ffff0000 #00000000 std
	menu color pwdentry	30;47      #ffff0000 #00000000 std
	menu color timeout_msg	37;40      #ff809aef #00000000 none
	menu color timeout	1;37;40    #ffb72f9f #00000000 none
	menu color help		37;40      #ffD5F538 #00000000 none
	menu color msg07	37;40      #90ffffff #00000000 std

LABEL hd
MENU LABEL Windows
COM32 chain.c32
APPEND hd0 1
TEXT HELP
    Starts Windows.
ENDTEXT

LABEL DEFAULT
MENU LABEL Porteus KDE
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus changes-ro

LABEL CINNAMON
MENU LABEL Porteus Cinnamon
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus load=cinnamon noload=kde changes-ro

LABEL LXDE
MENU LABEL Porteus LXDE
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus load=lxde noload=kde changes-ro

LABEL LXQT
MENU LABEL Porteus LXQT
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus load=lxqt noload=kde changes-ro

LABEL MATE
MENU LABEL Porteus MATE
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus load=mate noload=kde changes-ro

LABEL OPENBOX
MENU LABEL Porteus Openbox
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus load=openbox noload=kde changes-ro

LABEL XFCE
MENU LABEL Porteus XFCE
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus load=xfce noload=kde changes-ro

MENU BEGIN Advanced

LABEL DEFAULT
MENU LABEL Porteus KDE not fresh
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND changes=/porteus
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus the best way we can.
    Try to autoconfigure graphics
    card and use the maximum
    allowed resolution
ENDTEXT

LABEL fresh
MENU LABEL Always Fresh
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND nomagic base_only norootcopy
TEXT HELP
    Normally Porteus saves all changes
    to the /porteus/changes/ directory
    on the boot media (if writable)
    and restores them next boot.
    Use this option to start a fresh
    system, changes are not read from
    or written to any device
ENDTEXT

LABEL copy2ram
MENU LABEL Copy To RAM
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND copy2ram
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus the same as above,
    but first copy all data to RAM
    to get a huge speed increase
    (needs >768MB)
ENDTEXT

LABEL text
MENU LABEL Text mode
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND 3
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus in text mode and
    start the command prompt only
ENDTEXT

LABEL intel
MENU LABEL Intel ucode update
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/intel-ucode.cpio,/boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND nomagic base_only norootcopy
TEXT HELP
    This mode upgrades your intel microcode
    for use with intel processors that
    receive the TSC_DEADLINE error message
ENDTEXT

LABEL pxe-boot
MENU LABEL Porteus as PXE server
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz
INITRD /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
APPEND pxe
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus as usual, but also
    initialize a PXE server.
    This will allow you to boot Porteus
    on other computers over a network
ENDTEXT

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL plop
MENU LABEL PLoP BootManager
KERNEL /boot/syslinux/plpbt
TEXT HELP
    Run the plop boot manager.
    This utility provides handy
    boot-USB options for machines
    with vintage/defective BIOS
ENDTEXT

MENU END



User avatar
Ed_P
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 8341
Joined: 06 Feb 2013, 22:12
Distribution: Cinnamon 5.01 ISO
Location: Western NY, USA

HOWTO try all the seven Desktop Environments

Post#2 by Ed_P » 21 Oct 2018, 13:32

kragoth wrote:
21 Oct 2018, 13:08
In fact, i tried swapping and it didn't work very well, got some problems with icons not showing up on some DE's, i think because i was saving changes, and that caused conflicts between DE's.
Yup. Been there, done that.
Ed

donald
Full of knowledge
Full of knowledge
Posts: 2064
Joined: 17 Jun 2013, 13:17
Distribution: Porteus 3.2.2 XFCE 32bit
Location: Germany

HOWTO try all the seven Desktop Environments

Post#3 by donald » 21 Oct 2018, 21:05

kragoth wrote:
21 Oct 2018, 13:08
i think because i was saving changes, and that caused conflicts between DE's.
You could set a different path to save the changes for each Desktop separately.
e.g.
Porteus KDE
APPEND changes=/porteus/kde/

Porteus XFCE
APPEND changes=/porteus/xfce/

and so on.

Tolkem
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 34
Joined: 10 Aug 2019, 05:53
Distribution: Porteus 4.0 KDE

HOWTO try all the seven Desktop Environments

Post#4 by Tolkem » 30 Aug 2019, 12:19

Nice tutorial. I have a couple of questions though, I've tried the KDE and XFCE versions and both have a .xzm module which loads the desktop, however you didn't mention anything about needing .xzm modules here for that, so I'm wondering, do I need to download every .iso with the different DEs, copy the corresponding .xzm modules and create a new .iso? Then apply the changes in porteus.cfg? Or can I get them without having to do that? if so, where can I get them/download them?

EDIT: OK, so I realized I can get the modules from here http://ftp.vim.org/ftp/os/Linux/distr/p ... 0/modules/ Now, do I copy those .xmz modules into /porteus/base, edit porteus.cfg and that's it?

neko
DEV Team
DEV Team
Posts: 2109
Joined: 09 Feb 2013, 09:55
Distribution: APorteus-FVWM-ja-x86_64.iso
Location: japan

HOWTO try all the seven Desktop Environments

Post#5 by neko » 30 Aug 2019, 15:00

[Reference example] APorteus multiple desktops ISO
It is an example in which multiple DEs are accommodated in one ISO
and
English and Thai are also implemented in the same ISO.
It will be set for each DE when using inherited data.

Please refer to ArchLinux packages manager for Porteus (Post by neko #73671)


Thanks.

User avatar
Ed_P
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 8341
Joined: 06 Feb 2013, 22:12
Distribution: Cinnamon 5.01 ISO
Location: Western NY, USA

HOWTO try all the seven Desktop Environments

Post#6 by Ed_P » 30 Aug 2019, 17:10

What I use are cheatcodes and a separate directory. noload= for the the DE in the ISO and extramod=003modules. I create the 003modules directory and put the DEs that I want to test in the 003modules directory, either one at a time or all of them renamed to .xyzm and just name the one I want to test to .xzm. :)

If you intend to save changes made in each one be sure to create separate save.dat files.
Ed

Post Reply