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newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Jun 27th, '17, 19:43
by uberzilla
Hello, I am a fairly long time Linux enthusiast and Mageia is one of my favorites. It take a bit more work to set up - gathering codecs for DVD and audio, but once set - and in MATE dt - IMHO it is great! I lean more towards lower overhead desktops XFCE, LXDE, E, Fluxbox (specifically when set up nicely like in AntiX). I tried MATE in Mageia as well as Ubuntu and grew fond of it. Both are good representations, but the Mageia version runs faster on my old hardware and I like the fact the Mageia is keeping the old - dead in water but still highly functional - even today - XARA LX (sad that a compromise was not reached).

I look forward to Mageia 6 - especially after taking a look via a live thumb drive test (was unable to install on the hard drive).

The only things I still wrestle with are the log in screen - how to customize. In other distros there is a link in the menu opening a panel to allow you to easily customize the login screen.
The other is wifi connection - can't seem to get it to set to automatic start and re-link if the signal glitches.
So will look through the forum and tutorials to see I I can find the above.

All that said - I have been a distro hopper testing as many as possible and Mageia is in my top six - which I have trouble deciding from so swap out periodically.
So look forward to version 6 but in no rush - would rather see version 5 get some style additions and latest application versions of Inkscape, Mypaint, etc. added in a new ISO release and wait for a highly polished version 6. I have seen other distros try to rush to meet a made up release date and take a couple steps backwards along with some steps forwards.

Linked a screen cap of my daily web laptop (an old mini dinosaur Dell D430) - I like to set up the style in every distro I use - part of being a Linux Geek :D

Best regards,
Ron

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Jun 27th, '17, 22:08
by benmc
Hi uberzilla and welcome to Mageia.

Just post on the forum regarding the login screen customisation and wifi, I'm sure some-one will know how.

distrohopping, given it away, now I just trial other distros in a vbox, just to keep an eye on "the competition" ;)

best regards

Benmc

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Jun 28th, '17, 19:03
by uberzilla
I have never used virtual box. Keep thinking I should try it. Instead I have all my systems as multi boot systems. The D430 is a triple boot - have to use windows for work - then two Linux distros. One my other dell Laptops I use the optional media bay for a second hard drive and have had up to six distros running - again on one drive - one having to be windows.

Cheers!

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Jun 28th, '17, 20:06
by morgano
uberzilla wrote:Hello, I am a fairly long time Linux enthusiast and Mageia is one of my favorites.

Welcome to the forum :)
It take a bit more work to set up - gathering codecs for DVD and audio.

Depending on where you live and your state on patent issues you may want to enable the tainted repo.
You can install the two packages task-codec-audio and task-codec-video that are meta packages that pulls in all of the most usual codecs.
The only things I still wrestle with are the log in screen - how to customize.

There are so many ways. First, you can choose from different DM, the program that logs you in; see Mageia Control Center, last section.
Some of them can be themed, i remember i altered something via the KDE Plasma control center, and probably most can be altered by configuration file, i never tried myself.
So will look through the forum and tutorials to see I I can find the above.

Good idea :)
All that said - I have been a distro hopper

I tried a few during twenty to eleven years ago, used Lindows and Suse but very little and since i found Mandrake, Mandriva, Mageia i have used them as main OS at home and for work since 2006 and last tried any other distro many years ago... (except fighting with SteamOS for my son for a short while)
So look forward to version 6 but in no rush - would rather see version 5 get some style additions and latest application versions of Inkscape, Mypaint, etc. added in a new ISO release and wait for a highly polished version 6. I have seen other distros try to rush to meet a made up release date and take a couple steps backwards along with some steps forwards.

Me and family have been using cauldron in production (2 one man companies and 2 gaming PC) for a year now :)

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Jun 29th, '17, 18:34
by Germ
Welcome to the Forum :mrgreen:

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Jun 29th, '17, 20:12
by uberzilla
Thanks morgano and Germ,

One codecs - yeah I learned to open the repository selection and check the tainted and back ports and also found repositories that have most of the video and audio codecs and then I did a search install of Libdvdcss (I think that was it - did it a while back) to be able to watch commercial DVDs.
Not sure if this is in the Mageia wiki - and keep meaning to check - and if not do a series of step by steps with screen caps for newbs if the would want to do so. Not sure given that in some areas this is not strictly legal - as far as I understand. It was probably the most frustrating aspect of Mageia when I first tried it. That said - in version 6 they might be doing what Mint does - just have one link that allows an auto install of all such codecs.

On version 6 - hit a strange problem trying to install on my old hardware. I am not enough of a tech geek to easily find a solution - I am actually a starving illustrator/artist/graphics/once a web coder front end - so although I have opened and altered interface code directly in a couple of distros for my own pleasure - that is about as far as my geek skills go. So I will wait for the final release of version 6. I will look forward to testing the XFCE (which I tested briefly on a live thumb drive), and the MATE desktops. Odd admission: the only distro I found Cinnamon desktop like-able has been in Mageia. Might seem odd as Mint group was the initiator of it - if I have my facts correct.

Best regards!

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Oct 26th, '19, 02:28
by tanu19
Hello:
I'm I TanU and am new to Mageia. I must say I do like the look of this distro and "what is under the hood." Good and useful apps. I have enciountered an issue though. When I first turn on my computer before grub starts I get the black boot screen where Megeia splash starts. I am asked to login ask for user and login info. I found that I have to use root and my password to get to the Megiea login screen. Then and there I use my user and password to login again. What is this and how to fix it.

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Oct 28th, '19, 19:51
by doktor5000
Hi there, please create a separate thread for your issue in one of the support subforums, thanks in advance.

Re: newb to Mageia forum

PostPosted: Oct 29th, '19, 15:43
by tanu19
doktor5000 wrote:Hi there, please create a separate thread for your issue in one of the support subforums, thanks in advance.

Oh sorry and thank you. I just did. =-)