Linux distributions + PCLinuxOS >

(on Wikipedia)
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=granular
https://web.archive.org/web/20200122090827/http://www.granularlinux.com/
https://granularproject.org/

I knew about Granular Linux only through Unity Linux.  It ended up being a recommendation as a base system from which I could compile various window managers[doesn’t exist] for testing.  Well, after having exhausted so many other distributions lately, I decided to give it a shot.  Since I had been so dismissive of my earlier efforts, I decided to spend more time with this one.

• 2014-08-02 – It’s gone.

• Was to have switched to Unity Linux, but I don’t think it did.

• was Blog
• Feed

• Twitter > https://twitter.com/GranularLinux

2009-04-17 – 1.0 ∞

• Horribly slow LiveCD boot! Something exploded and gave a trace.. but I didn’t see what.
• Hangs on “starting udev”, oh yeah.. it needs acpi=off. I rebooted with that.
• A clock as a “working” mouse cursor is even worse than a sandglass. It makes everything feel slow.

• The top panel immediately gets moved! Man I hate that. With English as my primary language, I read from top-left to bottom-right. The very worst thing is to put something at the top right and have it CONSTANTLY bother me every single moment of my computing experience. The taskbar is totally useless when one is consumed by an application, and so it should get totally out of the way.

  • Mind you, I guess this means that I should remove window manager titles too. Hmm. Well since I don’t even use the buttons or whatnot, i guess I could do this. Maybe I should redo a window manager and have the titles only appear when I alt-tab between windows or use a pager type thing.
• Synaptic had errors refreshing.
• Various things broke when marking all upgrades.
• Un-selecting all packages, and then selecting all with the ‘upgradable’ status just hangs synaptic while it thinks. No, it worked after a while. Then it gave the “to be removed / to be upgraded” dialogue. I scrolled a little, then moved my mouse off the dialogue and I got the busy mouse (clock) and my system froze. Sysrq keys wouldn’t even work.
• Rebooting with copy2ram (and acpi=off) and walked away.
• The “Granular StartPoint” is a nice idea, but it’s just not done right. The main page is nice. Clicking through is boring. The category view should have a tiny icon and a one-liner description. Also, why not have links within it to launch the application? It should be possible somehow..
• Ok, installing it now. Launching the installer, it says “Please wait” for a long time.
• After a minute, I ended my session to try E17. Except that wouldn’t work. It just did nothing.
• Ok, I tried control-alt-backspace .. and I got a black screen and a frozen keyboard. Sysrq worked this time.
• Booting again, copy2ram again (acpi=off again)

• Trying E17. It booted into it, then froze. Sysrq wouldn’t work.

Ok, so at this point it’s definite that there are issues with this LiveCD. I had similar freezing issues with the PCLinuxOS 2009 LiveCD, and so I wasn’t surprised to learn that Granular Linux inherited the issue.

I had recently tested my memory (17 passes) and I have zero problems. I could start doubting the media, but frankly.. I’ve seen this all before, and I troubleshot .. uh.. troubleshooted? .. it lots.

So at this point, it’s a fail.