Mageia forum

Hi there

So here is the discussion about what isos we should keep or have for final release. We had several (many!) proposals on that topics and we need to take some decisions.

Here are some prerequisites I can see for what I can read in comments and review about Mageia on the web.

- provide a full open source software version
- provide CD iso(s) so that it can be quick to download (people having low band-width or paying depending how much they use it)
- provide live version(s)
- decrease isos number. QA is just a hell on the set we had for Mageia 2
- provide localization as large as possible
- provide isos including major drivers including proprietary one to make it easier to install and configure

Keep in mind that what you want is not necessarily what another one want. So let start proposals here and discussion. Please add all explanations to your proposal.

Let say we take one week on this so until 26/09 then we will make a final proposal.

For forum users: discussion will take plave on -dev mailing-list as it's hard to drive a dicscussion on several place. But you can make comments / proposals here, it will be forwarded.

Cheers

Hello and thank you for your concern about the users.

I would say two media should be enough:
- Free DVD iso with a very simple way, at the end of the installation to download the proprietary stuff (just a click on yes or no for example)
- Live CD, what is the interest of a CD iso when you have a live CD ?

Cheers

For mee I want a PWP (PowerPack) including everything.
Of course Free DVD
I think even some CD for different languag as in Mageia 2 .

janpihlgren wrote:For mee I want a PWP (PowerPack) including everything.

PowerPack included commercial programs payed for by Mandrake/Mandriva so that will not happen.
I'm not sure what you mean by everything but in the first release of Mandrake everything fit on a CD, current Cauldron is over 25GB not including Debug so will not fit on any optical media.

What I ment was just that: commersal drivers.
OK. I understand but that's my whishes.

janpihlgren wrote:What I ment was just that: commersal drivers.
OK. I understand but that's my whishes.

Yes an install DVD with the free but not open source drivers much like the Live CD would be a nice addition but not a must have.

I think the inclusion, in some way, of nonfree drivers is really important.

This looks lke a great OS for noobs, if they can get it installed in a usable manner.

There are too many common cards that do not work well at all with free drivers. The nonfree drivers will be good enough on most hardware so you can use it and find a better driver if needed.

Hopefully most boxes are not like mine where this card will just not work without the nonfree drivers at all. I can deal with this as I suppose most here can. Could you the first time you ever install Linux?

I would really like this to be a great OS to recommend to folks coming to Linux for the first time.

For the nonfree installattion media, this is planned, but maybe not for Mageia 3, but who knows? https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Feature:Non-free_DVD_iso
Also some changes regarding the installer is planned (but not 100% sure if it will be available in time) so that it asks if one wants to also use nonfree repository for installation, so those drivers would be available during install process.

Lebarhon wrote:- Live CD, what is the interest of a CD iso when you have a live CD ?

Current dualarch cd allows to install both architectures from one cd, and also allows for custom package selection,
which is not possible with livecd.

Lebarhon wrote:- Live CD, what is the interest of a CD iso when you have a live CD ?

The difference will be that the 'Live CD' will probably not include all language. For english speaken people the 'Live CD' will be enough.

janpihlgren wrote:

Lebarhon wrote:- Live CD, what is the interest of a CD iso when you have a live CD ?

The difference will be that the 'Live CD' will probably not include all language. For english speaken people the 'Live CD' will be enough.

There are 16 different Live CD's for Mageia2, 8 for KDE and 8 for Gnome, 4 each for 32bit and 64bit. All the CD's do include English but each one has a sub set of additional languages. See https://www.mageia.org/en/downloads/ for details on what languages are on each CD.

I'm not sure if there will be additional Live CD's for Mageia3 to cover newly added languages but it looks like your concern is pretty much covered.

usb support?

is there a safer way to install mageia without mageia-seed.

do i have to use these multiboot programs. mageia-seed didnt work for alpha release I had to use a usb creator.

Voodoo wrote:usb support?

is there a safer way to install mageia without mageia-seed.

do i have to use these multiboot programs. mageia-seed didnt work for alpha release I had to use a usb creator.

I've never heard of mageia-seed only mandriva-seed.sh .

mandriva-seed.sh will only see and write to USB devices and will list all available ones,
All other methods that I know of require you to know the device that you wish to write to.

Thanks for your proposals. We are putting all this together with mailing-list proposals also. We should announce the final set byt the beginning of the coming week

Hi there

So as planned when starting discussion, here is the final set of isos that will be built for Mageia 3. We have listed all the proposals and explanations (from both this ML and forums) to find a list that would satisfy most of Mageia users.

Here is the list (Thanks MrsB for doing it first ):

2 liveCDs:

- GNOME 700M i586 - english only - Nonfree
- KDE 700M i586 - english only - Nonfree

These are mainly targetted for distribution during events or for Newspapers

4 liveDVDs:

- GNOME DVD i586 - all locales - Nonfree
- GNOME DVD x86_64 - all locales - Nonfree
- KDE DVD i586 - all locales - Nonfree
- KDE DVD x86_64 - all locales - Nonfree

Classic Installation ISOs

- LXDE DualCD - all locales - Free only
- DVD i586 - all locales - Free/Nonfree
- DVD x86_64 - all locales - Free/Nonfree

DVDs will propose by default 100% free software installation. Users will be asked if he wants to use non free drivers. This is still to be done inside drakx installer and will not be available yet for alpha 2 release.

Cheers

Not possible to do :

- GNOME DVD i586 & KDE DVD i586 - all locales - Nonfree
- GNOME DVD x86_64 & KDE DVD x86_64- all locales - Nonfree


With boot choose, for try KDE or Gnome, because new user must download 2 DVD for try the best for him ?


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And, i have "GNOME DVD x86_64", but after install there are x86_64 & i586 in media ( i don't know in english the name of this : http://www.mageialinux-online.org/uploa ... kype_3.png )

aranud87 wrote:And, i have "GNOME DVD x86_64", but after install there are x86_64 & i586 in media ( i don't know in english the name of this : http://www.mageialinux-online.org/uploa ... kype_3.png )

Skype is i586-Software, as well as some other in the multimedia section. That's why you need i586 packages and later are advised to activate i586/core & updates in your media list.

ennael wrote:Here is the list (Thanks MrsB for doing it first ):

2 liveCDs:

- GNOME 700M i586 - english only - Nonfree
- KDE 700M i586 - english only - Nonfree

These are mainly targetted for distribution during events or for Newspapers

As has been said but obviosly not taken into account:
These English only liveCD are suited for distribution only at events in English speaking countries - you don't expect that handing out English only cds at the Solution Linux in France or Linuxtag Germany (or any other non-English speaking country) would be a great success?
A possible solution for the people who will present Mageia at such events or elsewhere:
- download the English-only iso
- download a meta package with all needed language packs for your language
- replace the English language packs with yours
- recreate the iso

If this could be done easily (including some knowledge ) it could be a solution for any local community. Furthermore such localized ISOs could be distributed as "French Edition" (or any other language) by local user groups. Otherwise these English-only liveCDs make no sense in a greater part of the world.

wobo wrote:A possible solution for the people who will present Mageia at such events or elsewhere:
- download the English-only iso
- download a meta package with all needed language packs for your language
- replace the English language packs with yours
- recreate the iso

If this could be done easily (including some knowledge ) it could be a solution for any local community. Furthermore such localized ISOs could be distributed as "French Edition" (or any other language) by local user groups. Otherwise these English-only liveCDs make no sense in a greater part of the world.

What about the Live DVDs with all languages?
I checked locally and I can get 100 DVD-R's for 1/2 the price of 100 CD-R's.

Ken-Bergen wrote:What about the Live DVDs with all languages?
I checked locally and I can get 100 DVD-R's for 1/2 the price of 100 CD-R's.

Taking your argument into account, why then these 2 live cds at all? Special services for the English crowd? Nothing against that but then they should not be advertised as "targeted for events and newspapers", because as such they are not suited anywhere outside Englesi speaking countries..

wobo wrote:Taking your argument into account, why then these 2 live cds at all? Special services for the English crowd? Nothing against that but then they should not be advertised as "targeted for events and newspapers", because as such they are not suited anywhere outside Englesi speaking countries..

I don't know as it seems burning a DVD is cheaper than a CD.
Of course if you're making thousand you'd be stamping them and that maybe cheaper for a CD.

Ken, it is not the cost of DVDs I am talking about. It is the English-only CDs and the reason given for them which I question. Of course we can download and burn DVDs, no problem.

The main reason I came to Mageia was that package wise it seems to have just about everything there is, all in the repositories and seemingly always bang up to date.

From my perspective as a user, I think it's essential to include all the wifi drivers that you can so that a new user has no problem getting online straight away, for me that's the biggest problem with any linux. You install it and then have to spent hours scrabbling around to find firmware or drivers or bwcutter etc - distros where everything "just works" instantly feel more solid, more professional and are much more attractive from the start.

Live CD/DVD - a must.. that's how people test linux these days, without a live disk few people will bother. Installing something new an unknown is a big gamble, distros I've tried that are install only never get installed.. I've got my systems set up I don't want to lose them just testing something that I might not like.

I know some Linux people get very touch about free/proprietary drivers and software. I think that 99.99% of everyone else couldn't care less, we just want things to work and be easy (sure I love open source, but whether it's proprietary or open source doesn't really matter at all to me, if they're both free). I think it's better to give people a wonderful, easy, slick, and seemless linux experience rather than getting too lose in the whole "everything must be FOSS" belief. Is Linux geeks want 100% FOSS.. they can get it from 1000 other distros (and in reality if they're that fussy about it, probalby wouldn't be the kind of person thinking of installing Mageia in the first place?)

- I know these things are/will already included and probably will stay, but better that you get an opinion confirming what you know that no feedback at all! (i hope)

I just think: make is slick, make is easy, make it simple, make it just work and make not (ubuntu and Unity) and you'll be doing just fine

I test live multiboot from flash, instead of wasting space or burning plastic discs. I usually use syslinux for this, with relevant boot parameters. Do all Mageia isos conform to ISO standards? Are live multiboot boot parameters and methods easily found in a wiki?

In any theme, display of online items should be easily distinguishable from local, by a global display option.

When it comes to freed software versus proprietary-free versus proprietary-not-free, I prefer to always be gently made aware of the proprietary or non-freed nature of any software I choose to use, and given notice when a freed version becomes available.
I personally like to keep proprietary software under tight control.

When I try a distro, I look for clear labeling, adjusting display resolution from the center of the desktop, audio handling of multiple circuit options or cards, choice of bootloader and install partition(s), the most current version of gPartEd, fs-archiver (with gui). For me, these basics reveal much about a distro's understanding of a new user's needs. And I begin with internet physically disconnected.

Hi all,

I would suggest a LIVE CD with non-free drivers for video, flash, adobe pdf, etc.. and networking so folks can set up and run correctly. Language support would be for major language groups as usual in the live disk or the free dvd.

Then a FREE DVD for the folks who think that is important.

All other add ons could be downloads after the system is installed and running.

This would be simple and effective.

cheers

That is what we currently have ...