Success, at last

[Ofnuts]

So, this summer, I started noticing that the cap of the E key of my keyboard was getting loose. By September it would come off regularly and was a PITA.

So I ended up on the Lenovo site looking for spare parts. Fresh new AZERTY keyboard, 93€. Ordered, received, and doh! wrong AZERTY. Ask for a return, order the good AZERTY, and receive it.

Open the PC, remove the old keyboard and one of the connectors seems a bit stubborn. I eventually disconnect the keyboard. Ready to put the new one back, and doh! in fact I had broken the stubborn connector. So the PC is dead... well not quite since it will boot with a USB keyboard attached. At least I can also return the 2nd keyboard.

Not too much a problem as long as I keep the PC home, but that makes it hard to move, so I will have to find a new PC. That PC is 4 years old and heavily used so fairly worn out anyway and that won't be such a loss. So I go back to the Lenovo site for some additional shopping, and find my dream PC (60€ off since I don't want windows on it)

The PC is eventually delivered (straight from China) and now the question is what I put on it. Not too happy with Ubuntu recently with the snap-for-everything trend so I try a Debian. Unfortunately the new PC is using very recent components that aren't well supported on a pure Debian, so booting, yes, graphics, perhaps, and network, nope.

So that's back to Kubuntu, because the PC is Ubuntu-certified. And I have to say, that works. Everything is fine (even though I installed 24.04 while the certification is for 22.04). I even manage to find most of my favorite apps a DEB packages, and even in 24.04, some apps are still .DEB.

Now for the end-of-level boss: Gimp 2.10 non-snap, non-flatpak, non-AppImage, with Python support. On My old PC it is a self-compiled thing but at that point I don't want to recompile it on the new system. So, I transplant the Python 2.7 runtime from the old one, start  Gimp, get a few complaints about missing libs, import these as well, restart, re-complaints, re-import some more, and after a couple of hours I eventually succeed and see one of my scripts started with a parameter dialog.

Time for a beer. Cheers!

[Krikor]

Since I am a layman in this subject and I don't understand anything about Linux, this adventure seemed much more complicated than it really should have been.

The good thing is that having a new machine is more than enough to make up for the inconveniences that preceded it.

The E key on my keyboard is fine, so I will have to wait to get a new and more powerful PC. :-)

[denzjos]

Windows 10 will no longer be supported in October 2025. I still haven’t been able to install Windows 11 because my PC (7 years old) with an i7 processor doesn’t meet the requirements, but all the programs on my Windows 10 PC meet my requirements. I’ll have to buy a new PC next year. It’s going to be a hassle to install everything and find alternatives for programs that don’t work on the new PC. Always a hassle. And I don’t want to try Linux, even though I have a very old laptop with Mint on it with some basic programs.
So you succeed with your laptop: happy days!

[Tas_mania]

What I learned from my time in the computer business is 'don't rely on just one computer'. When those old Windows machines reach their planned obsolescence date and still have good specs I add them to my collection of 'sacrifice if needed' systems. I also bought 6 or so SATA laptop drives and installed different Linux OS's on them and they are totally 'plug-n-play' into desktop PC's. It's quicker plugging 2 connectors than loading-up a VM in my opinion. Also Linux is not designed to put you under surveillance because it was free to start with.

So why do I need many machines? If you look at the Gimp3 development library it is massive. Even though Gimp3 is not released it is a lot more complex than earlier Gimps. I think 2 factors are at play here. People expect more from software and the people providing this tech are getting fewer. I could elaborate on that but it maybe smart to leave it there