RC feedback + 1 bug

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RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby varrin » Apr 22nd, '13, 22:19

Y'all,

Installed MGA3RC today to evaluate. More detailed report to follow, but first this bug stood out as worth paying attention to:

I attempted to edit the KDE menu as a user. I added an entry. Saving was unsuccessful. I received this error: "could not write to /home/myusername/.config/menus/applications-kmenuedit.menu" The ~/.config/menus directory is owned by root. Further, there is no applications-kmenuedit.menu file there (not sure how important that is). I'm guessing the location of that file needs to be confirmed and, probably, the ownership of that directory should be fixed.

Here's the rest of my report.

Background:

I'm a long time Mandrake / Mandriva user (~10 years). I evaluated MGA1 and MGA2 and for different reasons decided not to migrate. I need to migrate soon so I'm hoping MGA3 will finally be the magic bullet. So far, I'm encouraged. There remains a handful of tests that I didn't do yet which are mentioned below. If anyone has any insights about those, feel free to share.

Installation notes:

I was installing on a Toshiba C655 laptop (not my primary machine). For what it's worth, numerous other (older) distros had one problem or another with the hardware on this machine. MGA3 worked flawlessly.

The hard drive had a 6GB partition at the beginning of the drive which contains lots of bad sectors (the rest of the drive is fine). I used custom partitioning > auto allocate to set up the rest of the drive, which it did. It asked to reboot. Upon rebooting, the partitions were present, however there were two problems: 1) the two data partitions were btrfs, and, 2) the mount points were lost. I reset them to ext4 and the appropriate mount points and there were no further problems. This was just a minor annoyance.

Nonfree release was available on the DVD and checked by default. Thank you. This was a major complaint of mine with MGA1 install media which resulted in me not using MGA1 (WiFi inop after install, couldn't update software or use computer normally).

I used the KDE default install. I didn't test custom install (though I'd usually do that). The install process took about 30 minutes. In the early minutes, the to-go meter said 1:45 remaining. At the halfway point, it said :32 remaining. Just sayin'...

At the end of the install process, it asked if I wanted to install updates. I said yes. Nothing happened. It didn't ask me to setup wifi or anything. After reboot, wifi did work right out of the box (this was one thing that didn't work on older / other distros).

Software evaluation:

Flash installed fine. Java was already installed. Initial tests of both using Firefox was quirky or unsuccessful (eg. java hung itself and firefox in the process). After additional attempts, everything worked fine.

Tried briefly to get the root service menu working in dolphin to no avail. The instructions said ruby was required, which I installed before installing the service menu. I tried to copy the resulting script to various places but none worked. It was attempting a different method that led to the K menu editing problem listed at the top of this review. If anyone has any tips for easily getting root Dolphin (or root service menus), I'd love to hear it.

Adobe Acrobat reader doesn't appear to be available directly (not included in the repos, and no task-acroread or anything like that). This (along with browser integration of same) is probably the most important missing package problem I noted. I did download the software directly from Adobe (as an RPM). It appeared to work, though I did not test it extensively. It did not create a menu entry (annoying, especially considering I can't create one of my own due to the above-mentioned problem). I did not attempt to set up browser integration. I hope that's not outrageously difficult. Also, I note that Okular, which is default for PDF, is not set up to view PDFs in the browser. That might be handy. In fact, though I need Adobe for specific tasks, I prefer Okular for every day use. Is there a browser plugin for it?

Where is MAME? Doesn't anyone running Mageia use MAME? Is it lack of demand or controversy over legality?

I didn't test VirtualBox since it would be a lot of work. I do wonder if 3D support works? I'm thinking it should based on the version number. Anyone know?

I didn't test whole disk encryption at install time. I'll likely go back and do that later. I know it worked in 1. I presume it works in 3?

I didn't attempt to use Kmail. Kmail migration is a major concern of mine. This was the reason for me not migrating to MGA2. Does anyone happen to know if this is improved over the initial akonadi migration disaster?

There was one other obscure and unimportant package that I didn't see in the repos.

Aside from the above, my list of 48 software feature / package criteria appear to be satisfied by Mageia 3. Way to go! I'm looking forward to testing the final items and making the migration. If successful, this will be the first new OS I've used since MDV2010.0. Crazy, right?

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to Mageia. It looks like it's gone from non-existent to world-class in just three releases. Amazing!

V-
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby ghmitch » Apr 23rd, '13, 02:06

Hmmm ... I wonder HOW .config gets created? I just did a user add and there was no .config directory created as a result. So I wonder if maybe it gets created by the first application that needs to store something in it? In that case, if that application was someway running as root, it *might* create the directory as being owned by root? I am wondering WHAT is in your .config directory? If there is only one thing in there, it might just belong to the app that created the directory in the first place? It will be interesting if anyone around has had a similar experience with a new install. In my case, I always hang on to my old /home directory and mount it on my newly installed system as soon as it is reasonably stable, so my initial home directory from the install is now long gone ... deleted.

Welcome to Mageia! I still have my old Linux Mandrake 6.0 disks and Manual around produced way back when by Macmillan along with the full boxed version of 6.1. Those were the days that I started with Linux Mandrake after a brief period with Caldera. From then on it was Linux Mandrake, Mandrake Linux, and Mandriva all the way until Mageia 1, when I migrated straight across to Mageia. I still have two of four systems running older versions of Mandriva though. I much prefer Mageia due its stability and predictability. That said, it does have some limitations, mainly in the form of lack of software diversity. In the case of Mageia though, if Mageia supports a package, it works, you can't always say the same about Mandriva. NOT flaming here, just sharing my experience with the two.

I have always found installation to be somewhat unpredictable with any distro I have ever used. I really believe a lot of it has to do with the extraordinary diversity of hardware out there. To try to predict every possible installation scenario is mind boggling.

There are indeed some packages like Adobe Acrobat that Mageia does not include in their repositories. I am not sure why. It is likely due to licensing issues. It would be nice if they would package it as a meta package like they do with Flash, but perhaps that is not possible. In any case, I just download and install it from the Adobe site along with a few other apps I use on a regular basis. I don't know of any plugin for Okular. I just use the Adobe plugin.

In the case of mame, I suspect the problem has to do with finding the manpower to maintain all of these packages. Mandriva has always had a HUGE application ecosystem, so HUGE that they really did not support it very well. Here again, you probably will need to find another source for mame/xmame/sdlmame. Packages from Mandriva likely will not work with Mageia due to the use of a different rpm package manager. If I were you, I would try installing a mame package from the Fedora repository. Try the one from the latest version of Fedora first. It just might install and run on Mageia. I have successfully run Fedora packages on Mageia before. No guarantees, but you can always try. Sometimes you will run into library issues and you just have to make sure you have the Mageia equivilant installed and then install the Fedora package with a --nodeps flag.

The rest of you questions are out of my ballpark, hopefully others will offer their suggestions/solutions.

All the best to you! - George
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby Ken-Bergen » Apr 23rd, '13, 02:27

At the end of the install process, it asked if I wanted to install updates. I said yes. Nothing happened. It didn't ask me to setup wifi or anything.
That's because the update utility in the installer only looks at update repositories which in Cauldron are always empty.

Oh and welcome to Mageia. :D
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby varrin » Apr 23rd, '13, 03:54

ghmitch wrote:Hmmm ... I wonder HOW .config gets created? I just did a user add and there was no .config directory created as a result. So I wonder if maybe it gets created by the first application that needs to store something in it? In that case, if that application was someway running as root, it *might* create the directory as being owned by root? I am wondering WHAT is in your .config directory?


It appears .config is created when it's needed. I added three users. One didn't have it on first boot. One had it without having tried to add a menu item, but didn't have the menu directory in it. The other had the menu directory as root. My son has the laptop now so I can't see what's in there at the moment, but it wasn't much (a handful of directories and maybe one or two files).

I still have my old Linux Mandrake 6.0 disks and Manual around produced way back when by Macmillan along with the full boxed version of 6.1.


Wow. You're ahead of me. I started experimenting with the 8s and I think 9.1 or 9.2 was my first full-time-use version (I came over from Windows).

There are indeed some packages like Adobe Acrobat that Mageia does not include in their repositories. I am not sure why. It is likely due to licensing issues. It would be nice if they would package it as a meta package like they do with Flash, but perhaps that is not possible. In any case, I just download and install it from the Adobe site along with a few other apps I use on a regular basis. I don't know of any plugin for Okular. I just use the Adobe plugin.


Yeah, add me to the meta/task package advocates. I'll see if I can figure out the Adobe plugin when I get a chance.

In the case of mame, I suspect the problem has to do with finding the manpower to maintain all of these packages. Mandriva has always had a HUGE application ecosystem, so HUGE that they really did not support it very well. Here again, you probably will need to find another source for mame/xmame/sdlmame.


It's a lower priority for me. If it becomes important enough, I'll figure out a way to get it (worst case, compile... I'm probably not that motivated though).

Ken-Bergen wrote:That's because the update utility in the installer only looks at update repositories which in Cauldron are always empty.

Oh and welcome to Mageia. :D


Ahh, I guess that would change with the final release. I added the updates after the fact. Hope that's appropriate. And thanks for the welcome. I've used it off and on for a while now, just not full time. It's looking likely that it'll be my new full time OS soon. Can't wait!

V-
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby doktor5000 » Apr 26th, '13, 19:12

ghmitch wrote:In that case, if that application was someway running as root, it *might* create the directory as being owned by root?

It's not relevant if a file/directory belongs to root, as long as it has the correct permissions for "others". (minimum: read&execute for directories, read for files)
The menu gets refreshed via /usr/bin/update-menus which is run as root when a .desktop file is added or removed in the systemwide menu directories.
And as with every application, on first run it creates the default config files/directories if they are not already present.

If you add a new user, he will only have what's inside /etc/skel/ plus the default XDG directories (Documents, Downloads, Pictures ...)
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby varrin » Apr 26th, '13, 19:41

doktor5000 wrote:It's not relevant if a file/directory belongs to root, as long as it has the correct permissions for "others". (minimum: read&execute for directories, read for files)
The menu gets refreshed via /usr/bin/update-menus which is run as root when a .desktop file is added or removed in the systemwide menu directories.
And as with every application, on first run it creates the default config files/directories if they are not already present.


Maybe, but the process of adding a new menu item failed. I used the gui. I didn't try any terminal-based method but I think if the gui is there it should work, right? Don't have time at the moment to continue troubleshooting, but if I have some time later I'll try to get more details. If I come up with something interesting, I'll post it here.

V-
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby doktor5000 » Apr 27th, '13, 08:48

varrin wrote:Maybe, but the process of adding a new menu item failed. I used the gui. I didn't try any terminal-based method but I think if the gui is there it should work, right?

Please next time open a bug report for that, so it can be fixed before the release is out.
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby benmc » Apr 28th, '13, 04:54

Just installing M3RC - 32 now and notice that the i in Mageia next to the cauldron is upside down on the installation page.
I see that it is also upside down in the installation slideshow.
Also the splash and login pages and the desktop.
Is this the new logo?

Its just that it is different from the webpage logo.
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby doktor5000 » Apr 28th, '13, 10:27

benmc wrote:Is this the new logo?

Yes, it is.
Cauldron is not for the faint of heart!
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby varrin » Apr 30th, '13, 02:18

doktor5000 wrote:Please next time open a bug report for that, so it can be fixed before the release is out.


I'll try to learn how to do that one of these days, especially since it seems I might be using this full time soon. My apologies for not doing it sooner.

V-
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Re: RC feedback + 1 bug

Postby doktor5000 » Apr 30th, '13, 22:08

Well, it's quite easy and described here: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/How_to_report_a_bug_properly
Sorry for not directly linking to that the first time ;)
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