Post by nostawread on Aug 6, 2021 11:47:23 GMT
I’m very grateful for Bodhi! I’ll try make a long story short...ish.
The background
Two very different laptops (big old gaming machine + a small convertible touchscreen), and I wanted to run the same linux distro on both (the gaming laptop in particular needed a refresh, it was barely chugging along on Windows, even after a fresh format.)
Unfortunately, after trying many distros, they all presented problems that I couldn’t work through, not with my limited level of knowledge, despite sinking way too many hours into Googling fixes. And if I was to start spending even more time by starting to ask for specific help online, I’d want to be on a stable enough base that I thought I had a good chance of a good result, and that the distro would be a happy home for me for a reasonable time.
But with each distro, I’d hit various walls. With some distros, the laptop refused to detect the live USB at all. On other distros, the backlight wouldn’t work, leaving the screen blidningly bright. Or the wifi wouldn’t work. Or the laptop would freeze and restart before or after logging in. If one distro didn’t have problem A, it would have problem B. And when I did find one that worked well on one laptop, minus some forgiveable quirks, the other laptop wasn’t having it (yes, I was fiendishly insistant on finding one distro for both laptops!)
I was just churning through ISOs to find the most reasonably stable base to start on.
The Bodhi experience
That’s where Bodhi came in. At one point I remembered this distro that I’d first played with fairly briefly about a decade ago, before I stopped using the hardware it was installed on and basically forgetting about it completely. So I downloaded it, ran it on both laptops and… what a breath of fresh air!
Issues, or lack thereof
It was void of any of the annoying problems that I hit on all other distros that I’d tried. Sure, I uncovered a minor hiccup here or there, but nothing that I thought I couldn’t fairly easily fix with a little know-how. And, if I couldn’t fix those things, they weren’t anything that would bother me much day-to-day (unlike a blinding screen or random reboots.) I may have a crack at fixing these things in time with the help of the more technically-minded folks here, but overall it just works brilliantly out of the box! That’s the only distro I can say that about, so thank you to Bodhi and well done to the team! (Side note… Ubuntu LTS wouldn’t even boot properly for me, whereas Bodhi, based on that distro, had no trouble. Go figure!)
Look and feel
One thing that really stood out after working my way through tonnes of distros was how unique Bodhi feels. Half the time you wouldn’t really know what distro you’re using just by looking at it. Just another XFCE, or Gnome or KDE environment… but you’ve got a pretty good chance of spotting Bodhi in a group! Something about the way it looks and operates is so darn charming. I just love using it. Just even clicking around, it’s so pleasant. Customisable, full of character and very productive.
Performance
I think part of the pleasure of using it is how amazingly zippy and responsive it is (especially compared to Windows, which seemed like it barely had a pulse.) It positively flies, lets you get stuff done quickly an doesn’t hinder you or get in the way. And there’s something strangely satisfying about clicking around and interacting with the UI, something that I can’t put my finger on exactly. For the first time in years, I actually look forward to using these laptops. It’s just a pleasant experience every time, what can I say!
If that’s not enough, the team are helpful, friendly and engaged. Thank you to all who make Bodhi what it is and and for sharing it with us all to enjoy.
The background
Two very different laptops (big old gaming machine + a small convertible touchscreen), and I wanted to run the same linux distro on both (the gaming laptop in particular needed a refresh, it was barely chugging along on Windows, even after a fresh format.)
Unfortunately, after trying many distros, they all presented problems that I couldn’t work through, not with my limited level of knowledge, despite sinking way too many hours into Googling fixes. And if I was to start spending even more time by starting to ask for specific help online, I’d want to be on a stable enough base that I thought I had a good chance of a good result, and that the distro would be a happy home for me for a reasonable time.
But with each distro, I’d hit various walls. With some distros, the laptop refused to detect the live USB at all. On other distros, the backlight wouldn’t work, leaving the screen blidningly bright. Or the wifi wouldn’t work. Or the laptop would freeze and restart before or after logging in. If one distro didn’t have problem A, it would have problem B. And when I did find one that worked well on one laptop, minus some forgiveable quirks, the other laptop wasn’t having it (yes, I was fiendishly insistant on finding one distro for both laptops!)
I was just churning through ISOs to find the most reasonably stable base to start on.
The Bodhi experience
That’s where Bodhi came in. At one point I remembered this distro that I’d first played with fairly briefly about a decade ago, before I stopped using the hardware it was installed on and basically forgetting about it completely. So I downloaded it, ran it on both laptops and… what a breath of fresh air!
Issues, or lack thereof
It was void of any of the annoying problems that I hit on all other distros that I’d tried. Sure, I uncovered a minor hiccup here or there, but nothing that I thought I couldn’t fairly easily fix with a little know-how. And, if I couldn’t fix those things, they weren’t anything that would bother me much day-to-day (unlike a blinding screen or random reboots.) I may have a crack at fixing these things in time with the help of the more technically-minded folks here, but overall it just works brilliantly out of the box! That’s the only distro I can say that about, so thank you to Bodhi and well done to the team! (Side note… Ubuntu LTS wouldn’t even boot properly for me, whereas Bodhi, based on that distro, had no trouble. Go figure!)
Look and feel
One thing that really stood out after working my way through tonnes of distros was how unique Bodhi feels. Half the time you wouldn’t really know what distro you’re using just by looking at it. Just another XFCE, or Gnome or KDE environment… but you’ve got a pretty good chance of spotting Bodhi in a group! Something about the way it looks and operates is so darn charming. I just love using it. Just even clicking around, it’s so pleasant. Customisable, full of character and very productive.
Performance
I think part of the pleasure of using it is how amazingly zippy and responsive it is (especially compared to Windows, which seemed like it barely had a pulse.) It positively flies, lets you get stuff done quickly an doesn’t hinder you or get in the way. And there’s something strangely satisfying about clicking around and interacting with the UI, something that I can’t put my finger on exactly. For the first time in years, I actually look forward to using these laptops. It’s just a pleasant experience every time, what can I say!
If that’s not enough, the team are helpful, friendly and engaged. Thank you to all who make Bodhi what it is and and for sharing it with us all to enjoy.
