Mageia 2 (the magic continues); first impressions

[waferhead]

I pray grub2 does NOT become the default, it is incomprehensible to me that anyone could consider that mess a good idea.
It is NOT an upgrade, and adds no value, quite the opposite.

I have yet to see it work 100% correctly on ANY install, and any error is a circus to correct, usually involving a reinstall or hours wasted trying to grok/change numerous config files spread all over the file system.

There are many other bootloaders that are just bootloaders, almost any one of them would be a better choice.

With EFI becoming the standard, replacing BIOS, a standardized disk-based EFI loader (for EFI OR BIOS-based systems) would probably be a MUCH better plan.

~post merged by moderator

[aselluza]

I'm having a great experience with new Mageia 2, once I solved some minor problems in my netbook. I only experiment some speed problems in my laptop (it activated nepomuk itself when I always keep it disabled -it didn't activate it in my laptop, so I see some behaviors change from one computer to another-, and it was working veeeery slowly, but when I realized and closed nepomuk and disabled it, it started to work better), specially with amarok, I must kill it too often because it's too slow, sometimes becomes useless -at this point, Mageia 1 worked faster in my laptop, really fast-. Maybe it's because I have a too big music collection, but Mageia 1 didn't have those problems with amarok. Despite that point, all the rest is working fine and I feel I'm using the best linux distro ever. Good job!!!

[Myles]

After testing Beta 3 and RC1, boy did I have a fine time getting Mageia #2 installed! First of all I had a problem on my ADSL line which had slowed to CRAWL speed - it took 2.5 days to download the DVD iso! (But only a couple of hours after the Telephone line was fixed). Then on the Friday I finally burned a copy of the DVD iso to DVD+RW. On Friday night I tried 4 times to install it and it failed every time with about 200+ packages failing due to read errors on the DVD! So on Saturday I decided to burn to a regular DVD+R. After 3, yes 3, coasters, I finally had a DVD that would install!!!! I tested this on my Mageia #2 RC1 Test partition and it installed successflly, So I insatlled it over my Mandriva 2011.0 partition!
I am now also an ex-Mandrake/iva user since last week. I have been using Mandrake/iva since about the second release (#5.2) and every release since.
I have had a problem with no sound in the last several releases 2009, 2010.0 and 2010.2. Each time I have had to disable PulseAudio and re-enable stuff in AlsaMixer to get sound working, but otherwise everything has been great. I went Mandriva full-time (dual-booted with XP but XP rarely used) since Jan 2009.
THEN I made the mistake of not testing 2011 before blindly installing it as there was no upgrade option that I could see on the DVD iso.
I can't believe how bad 2011 has been. No sound due to PulseAudio - again! I couldn't install WINE or VLC and nobody was able to help me solve this. I tried upgrading VirtualBox from 4.0.8 to 4.1.14 and it screwed up. I tried to re-install 4.0.8 and VB was still screwed and nobody could solve that one either. I didn't have a problem installing WINE or VLC in 2010.2. The new menu system is awful and not as usable IMHO as the dynamic menu structure that was there previously + I just discovered (right berfore I wiped 2011) that I could re-enable the 'screen lock' and 'shutdown' icons into the task bar where they had been - too late! I shouldn't have to do this kind of crap. This is just not helpful! If we want to attract users to Linux this is the sort of stuff that turns them off. I tried Mageia #2 Beta3 and RC1 to see how that panned out. I had a few problems getting it installed which the community helped me sort out to get it installed with my very old nVidia card. I had had a look at Mageia #1 but didn't like what I saw. But with Beta 3 and RC1 I did like what I saw - and it all worked without having to muck around - I had sound - even WITH PulseAudio enabled! I could install WINE and VLC no problem. I have only been using Mageia #2 for a week but I like it so far.
Anyway after all that has happened with the last few installs and what has happened with Mandriva the company - i.e. not knowing whether there would even be a Mandriva 2011.1 or 2012.0 - I decided to jump ship to Mageia #2.
So where to from here? Mandriva lives (sort of a respite) but not a great future.
I really want Mandriva to survive but the 2011 release has really put me off.
I will continue to monitor Mandriva to see if a new version gets off the ground, and will test it as it becomes available.
Thanks to all at Mandriva and wish you alll the best.
Anyway, like I said, I like what I see in Mageia #2 now that I finally have it installed and right at this moment I think that I am an ex-Mandrake/Mandriva user!
Good work to everyone involved with this mammoth project.

[religion1904]

well, not really magic is it?
yes its nice, good with hardware. A little bit slower than my tweaked pclinuxos. a lit less stable according to the software installer.
making a batch file to reduce the tedious job of remastering to a single command I admit was amusing for me.
The xfce was very good because it worked flawlessly first and every time.
I am used to respinning pclinuxos.
I used some ipclinuxos rpms for notecase, handbrake, gqview. that was easy also.
Removing for ever the need of me to type passwords took let than ten seconds. they annoy me. I dont let my toys demand anything from me except "your next wish master?"
So its a bit ungainly and rough. running in virtualbox it only gives me a 8 gig hardrive, irregardless of how big it says it is.
Lots of warning on common software like libreoffice and virtualbox.
far, far too many versions of software and kernels.
The software installer gives very little information compared to synaptic.
And this error prone orphan rubbish.
But version 3 will be here soon and I have high hopes for this distro, its only young.
The vision of the young can be far and powerful. The growth is extraordinary.
The overall feel is that it will get there. What a lovely christmas present it was.
Strangely enough the next release is close to my birthday.
Thank you very much

[RST]

Mageia 2 is the first Linux distribution I have tried that would, partially successfully, bypass the Asus laptop boot loader.

The laptop in question belongs to the U47VC series, and has been preloaded with Windows 7. The UEFI can be disabled in the BIOS setup. Boot order can initially be changed. But in the end, there is a "boot override" going to the Window partition. This "override" cannot be changed.

On booting up, the user can press ESC to choose to boot from CD/DVD, USB stick, etc., but not another partition in the only HD.

I managed to install Mageia into /dev/sda7 with /dev/sda8 as /home. But on booting, I need to have the installation DVD in the drive and boot from the DVD; then I can choose to activate "Mageia 2". Afterwards the DVD is not needed any more. The situation is similar to years ago when people booted with a FD.

The openSuSE installation DVD cannot do that. The files can be installed into the same partitions, but openSuSE needs the location of Grub2 to be active. I suspect the BIOS "override" removes the active flag for that partition.

There is, however, a small problem I have not solved. During Mageia installation, I specified additional languages, and I did see those files installed. From the desktop, I have not been able to find SCIM, iBus, etc., to configure. The usual keyboard activation of character input does not work. I hope to pickup some hint here.

[doktor5000]

There is, however, a small problem I have not solved. During Mageia installation, I specified additional languages, and I did see those files installed. From the desktop, I have not been able to find SCIM, iBus, etc., to configure. The usual keyboard activation of character input does not work. I hope to pickup some hint here.

Please open a separate thread about that problem.