suggestions for improved installation routine

[magfan]

After upgrading from Mandriva 20120.2 to Mageia 1 and recently to Mageia 2 I realized that there are a few things are missing in the installation routine. In all Ma* distros.

There are for sure many (mainly philosophical) reasons to disable the nonfree repositories per default. But following the comments and problems in "basic support" shows that this really causes problems for many users. The percentage of modern computers with a nvidia card for instance does not seem to be neglectable. And on two of four computers I use it was a hassle to install the original driver because the free one did not work. Once I discovered this I run into the next problem: even if you have a working network card it does not help if the computer is behind a firewall. Because before the installation you can configure the card but not a proxy. After installation you can configure the proxy but you cannot select other repositories or choose any more software packages. So you are almost lost because without a running x-server mcc starts only in console mode. And here you cannot configure a proxy as well. And yes, without a network you are lost...

Therefore, my suggestions for an improved installation routine are:

1. a minimum set of nonfree drivers should be provided with an installation DVD
2. there should be the possibility to configure a proxy when you configure a network connection before the installation
3. the user should have the possibility to enable nonfree repositories before the installation

[Max]

Hi magfan! Welcome to Mageia!

Therefore, my suggestions for an improved installation routine are:

1. a minimum set of nonfree drivers should be provided with an installation DVD

That is not going to happen. The DVD contains only free software, like you said, mainly for philosophical reasons. But we do provide a nonfree alternative: Live CDs. If you have an Nvidia card, then you know that you need nonfree packages. Therefore you should use one of the live CDs instead. My first Mandriva (2008) install failed because if my wifi card. I then tried the Live CD instead of the DVD and it worked.
Linus recently had a few things to say about Linux support for Nvidia cards, mostly that Nvidia are being uncooperative. Until they do start to cooperate, you'll just have to use nonfree packages. At the install stage, that means that you should use the Live CD instead of the DVD.

2. there should be the possibility to configure a proxy when you configure a network connection before the installation

This might be a good idea. However, if you are installing from a live CD, then you can boot the live distro, configure the proxy, then install.

3. the user should have the possibility to enable nonfree repositories before the installation

See 1.

[magfan]

Linus recently had a few things to say about Linux support for Nvidia cards, mostly that Nvidia are being uncooperative. Until they do start to cooperate, you'll just have to use nonfree packages.

Yes, I have read about Linus' very clear comments about nvidia http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linus-Torvalds-abuses-NVIDIA-over-Optimus-support-1618766.html.

After upgrading from Mandriva 20120.2 to Mageia 1 and recently to Mageia 2 I realized that there are a few things are missing in the installation routine

That is not going to happen. The DVD contains only free software, like you said, mainly for philosophical reasons. But we do provide a nonfree alternative: Live CDs.

Live CDs are good for an installation but not for an upgrade.

there should be the possibility to configure a proxy when you configure a network connection before the installation

This might be a good idea. However, if you are installing from a live CD, then you can boot the live distro, configure the proxy, then install.

This also does not work for an upgrade.

So, I conclude that as long as there is no proxy configuration step early in the installation routine it may be almost impossible to upgrade a productive system if it already uses nonfree software. Even if there will never be nonfree drivers on an installation DVD there should be the possibility to configure a proxy and - please forgive me - the possibility to enable the nonfree repositories before the software installation/upgrade takes place.

[Max]

Doing an upgrade shouldn't be a problem either.
You can use the mgaonline tool to upgrade your system, without having to download and burn a disc image.
It will also keep all your settings and files from the previous version. It behaves similarly to a regular update, just takes longer and requires a reboot at the end.

[doktor5000]

FWIW, this has already been added as a requested feature for Mageia 3: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Category:Pro ... ureMageia3
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Feature:Non-free_DVD_iso
And IMHO all installers should ask if you want to add nonfree repositories as remote or local repository during installation.


But for the record, i've just recently installed Mageia 2 x86_64 from Free DVD and nouveau driver worked just fine with my GT240M, even with 3d desktop out of the box.

[magfan]

Doing an upgrade shouldn't be a problem either.
You can use the mgaonline tool to upgrade your system, without having to download and burn a disc image.
It will also keep all your settings and files from the previous version. It behaves similarly to a regular update, just takes longer and requires a reboot at the end.

Yes, this worked for my laptop (Sony Vaio) at home so I dared to upgrade two workstations (Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Celsius) in our hospital. Those upgrades did leave me with several problems - just take a look in "basic support". The older workstation did not even boot any more (it was still using lilo). So I tried to upgrade with a full DVD. Unfortunately, with no success. And a completely new installation cannot be done from behind the firewall. The newer workstation is still alive and thanks to the help of many people on this forum it runs even better than with any previous distro (Mandriva 2010.*, Mageia 1)! An upgrade of another notebook (Fujitsu Siemens Celsius) was not a problem because I could take it home and run the whole procedure without firewall.

But for the record, i've just recently installed Mageia 2 x86_64 from Free DVD and nouveau driver worked just fine with my GT240M, even with 3d desktop out of the box.

I did have problems with Quadro FX 2000, Quadro FX 3800, Quadro 4000 and Quadro FX 770M. Maybe Quadro cards do not work nicely together with the nouveau driver?

It is true that I do not use the most common hardware. But coming from Mandriva I was simply used to easy "on-the-fly" upgrades which were always possible. Well, I did not dare to upgrade to Mandriva 2011...

[doktor5000]

But coming from Mandriva I was simply used to easy "on-the-fly" upgrades which were always possible.

Well, an inline upgrade via urpmi should normally be fine, if you enable nonfree and tainted repos in the process.
But my personal experience tells me a fresh installation with a fresh /home is always more hassle-free.

[magfan]

But coming from Mandriva I was simply used to easy "on-the-fly" upgrades which were always possible.

Well, an inline upgrade via urpmi should normally be fine, if you enable nonfree and tainted repos in the process.
But my personal experience tells me a fresh installation with a fresh /home is always more hassle-free.

You are right. Comparing the downtime after an unsuccessful upgrade with the time needed for a fresh install I have to agree. But still there is no chance to "reanimate" the poor old workstation behind the firewall...

[doktor5000]

But still there is no chance to "reanimate" the poor old workstation behind the firewall...

Hmmm? Mind to share some details or is that already mentioned in another thread?

[magfan]

But still there is no chance to "reanimate" the poor old workstation behind the firewall...

Hmmm? Mind to share some details or is that already mentioned in another thread?

There is only one thread related to this problem (https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2719). But that was just the tip of an iceberg.

The system is a 7 year old FSC Celsius V810. Two SCSI drives with a Linux software RAID 1 were used for everything in "/" except "/home" and "/data". When I installed Mandriva some years ago there was only the chance to install lilo because grub did not start from /boot on a software RAID. Now after the last online upgrade from Mageia 1 to Mageia 2 lilo did not start any more and I failed trying to install grub instead. That was the reason why I decided to try an installation DVD to upgrade and to re-install lilo or install grub. But there was no choice offered to select a boot manager different than lilo. Unfortunately, lilo could not handle the newly created huge initrd file. Also I realized that the proxy settings disappeared. So, this thread started...

I am already willing to start with a fresh installation of Mageia 2, but without a proxy? Is there a chance to configure a Linux software RAID 1 with a Live CD? It seems to be my last chance.

[micko]

I have some simple suggestions for the installation routine related to the live cd.

Firstly I had trouble booting the live CD in a Compaq Presario CQ260 with intel graphics, I believe an Ark chipset.

Code: Select all

[root@localhost mick]# lspci -nn|grep -iE vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 07)

I had to back out the vga entry on the kernel line to get it to boot or else I just get black screen, I guess this issue is known and in the wiki. However, could it be an option when hitting F6?

The other issue I had is that my wireless was off on boot, "soft off". I ran rfkill unblock all and it was good to go. Could that be automated please? Not for people like me but for noobs who are stranded.

I will applaud that the settings were retained when I first booted the system from the hard disk, Incidentally, I installed from USB stick.

Other than that mageia 2 is great and will be living on this laptop until 3 arrives.

Thanks