feedback mageia RC 1

[wintpe]

OK so i have Mageia installed with no problems from the boot.iso (except one with one repository, giving a wobble).

Overall my first impressions are I love the look and feel and also pleased that the nvidia drivers are still installed, rather than as i expected the free ones.

I also really like the way is so closely follows the Mandriva look and feel, and want to switch my powerpack 2010.2 off and replace with this.

The one thing im disappointed with (as a mandriva powerpack user that is) (UNLESS i am mistaken) is that you have not offered a repository like tainted for "commercial but free", like adobe flash so ......
I now have a wonderfully slick installation , that any non techie user could cope with and I have to mess about with tar files and links to get flash working.

I would love to see a repo that you add that has this stuff all lined up and packaged so it just installs. Im aware this may be a limitation forced on you, by vendors who wont let you do this, which is a shame, if it is the case.

while i can work round this , many people just cant.

Anyhow from my personal point of view this is a great OS, and possibly, almost certainly the final nail in mandrivas coffin.

regards peter winterflood

[isadora]

Flash can be installed through MCC after enabling the nonfree-release-repository.

[wintpe]

OK so that explains why the Nvidia proprietry driver got offered automaticly, that is good news, except flash just is not part of that dist/repo.

and i did not have to add it, it was added automatcly on install.

http://mageia.nautile.nc/mageia/distrib ... ee/release

regards peter

[wobo]

OK so that explains why the Nvidia proprietry driver got offered automaticly, that is good news, except flash just is not part of that dist/repo.

It is but only in 32-bit. As you have a 64-bit system you can chose:
- either add the 32-bit repos and install the 32-bit Flash plugin (I don't know if that works with a 64-bit browser though)
- or get the 64-bit flash plugin from Adobe

[wintpe]

exactly the point I was making...

[wobo]

Which point did you make?

Both solutions I offered have their downsides:
- the 32-bit plugin is not what you may want for your 64-bit system
- the 64-bit plugin from the Adobe site is very old (Nov 2010), so it may have some security issues.

Unfortunately it seems that Adobe does not care very much for 64-bit Linux systems.

[ahmad]

One more point, adding the full set of 32bit Nonfree repos on 64bit installs is just messy, i.e. you get too many repos https://www.mageia.org/pipermail/mageia ... 04698.html

About the security issues the 64bit Adobe Flash (which is still not dubbed "stable"): https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=913

FWIW, this is already addressed in the Errata: http://www.mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id= ... yer_issues

[blas]

unfortunately 32bit flash doesn't work on a 64bit browser, at least not in opera. So I was forced to install the supposedly very old (even the tarballs name suggests its version 1.2) 64bit "preview" version. After installing it, I was surprised that the browser and the official flash plugin site reported version 10.3.162. Version 1.3 was released somewhere in March. Point is, we may reconsider adding the 64 bit preview version to the repos as it seems the only thing outdated is adobes website. Or if it is not possible, then besides the instructions on adding the 32bit flash it should be recommended to use a 32bit browser too.

[ahmad]

64bit Adobe flash is a no-go for the official Mageia repos, see the bug report I linked in my previous post.

[blas]

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. I have read all the vulnerability advisories linked in the bugreport and they were about flash version 10.2 and below. The 64bit flash plugin found here is version 10.3.162, despite the site stating "last update nov 30 2010".

[ahmad]

There're sec fixes in current 32bit plugin, that're not in the square preview.

And the 64bit plugin has always been Shockwave Flash 10.3 d162, since last November, IIRC (i.e. that's the file I have on my HDD, even if I don't use it).

[wobo]

The Square preview is really that old (Nov 2010) and has not seen all the sec fixes of the last 6 months, no matter what version number it bears.

I second ahmad's position here, although I'm using the Square preview myself on my Mageia system. But it is not matching Mageia's sense of responsibility to supply potential/obviously hazardous software in her repos. If users are ready to take the risk (like I am) they can get that software from Adobe easily. It's not a big deal.

[blas]

Thank you for clarifying. The version number confused me. It's not a big deal installing the 32bit rpm from adobes site either, but wouldn't it be more convenient to include the 32bit flash in the 64bit non-free repo? This way users don't need to enable the whole 32bit non-free repo for one package. Adobe won't release a 64 bit flash before version 11.

[ahmad]

Thank you for clarifying. The version number confused me. It's not a big deal installing the 32bit rpm from adobes site either, but wouldn't it be more convenient to include the 32bit flash in the 64bit non-free repo? This way users don't need to enable the whole 32bit non-free repo for one package. Adobe won't release a 64 bit flash before version 11.

An i586 package mustn't exist in x86_64 repo, at least from the properness point of view :)