Welcome, and feel free to introduce yourself

[isadora]

You are very welcome anduilas!!!!!
And how nice having chosen Mageia as launchpad for new Linux-experiences.
From what i can say, a very good choice.

I wish you magical times around on behalf of all of us!!!

[jimg]

Wow, one of the longest threads ever! And long may it continue!

I started using Linux just before 2000. Since I started, I've used Windows essentially none. However, I've never become a Linux expert, just an informed user.

I first installed Red Hat, but when I discovered KDE and heard that Mandrake was more user-friendly, I switched to that. I loved many things about Mandrake: the commitment to openness, the commitment to ease of use, the documentation. My Mandrake manuals are among my favorite Linux references, though they're now mostly out of date. However, Mandrake quality just wasn't good enough, so eventually, and sadly, I moved on, to OpenSUSE, then Kubuntu. I noted Mandriva and Mageia, but being burned, resolved not to be tempted.

My introduction to Mageia was by a fortunate accident. My wife's Ubuntu laptop (not her main one) was having issues, and we resolved to move to a KDE system. She made very clear that quality was a priority, so in my mind at the time anything Mandrake-derived wouldn't do. (It's much easier to suffer issues onesself than to suffer issues in one's spouse's computer!) Then one weekend, her laptop took a turn for the worse and I had to install something in short order. I tried Debian--there were serious installation issues, I couldn't get it running. I had no time to troubleshoot, so I tried OpenSuSE. Failed. Mint KDE edition: Failed. Last option: give Mageia 3 a shot. It installed beautifully and flawlessly. Hmm.

It must have been a sign. I had installed Ubuntu on this laptop beforehand with no problem. Now three mainstream Linux distro's in a row failed on the same hardware. Bizarre.

I read a little more about Mageia. I learned that the developers initially took Mandriva packages and gave them a thorough cleaning, that they were letting through no packages until they were thoroughly tested. That Mageia is serious about quality. Hmm. That some packages might not yet be present. Actually, I took that as /good/ news, as proof of commitment to quality.

In fact, to me Mageia is a dream come true: The spirit of Mandrake, with attention to quality. Even though there are known shortcomings, I'm now an enthusiastic user. I know that the known issues, of which there are several, will eventually be solved.

What was so special about Mandrake, which Mageia inherits? I couldn't express it at the time, but I can now. There are fundamentally two ways to make computers easy to use. One is to simplify and hide things. Obviously, that's the direction most of the world is going, even Microsoft, even (to some extent) Ubuntu. The other is to make the system clear and intelligible. This is the direction Mandrake followed. As a curious person who likes to know how things work, I love this, even if I haven't gone on to become an expert.

Here's to another 20 years!

Oh, and I write this from Melrose, Massachusetts, USA, near Boston. Most of my Linux experience was gathered in Baltimore, and I have to tip my hat to the wonderful Linux User's Group there.

-Jim

[isadora]

Thanks for your great introduction Jim, and very welcome to the Mageia-forum!!!!!!

Wonderful how things can fall into place in the end, after shifting to many other distro's in between.
We all had our own routes to end up in the magical world of Mageia.
And the most beautiful of this world is the community-driven approach.

Feel happy, free, and have magical times around!!!!

[Bloggsworth]

I am a 69 year-old Linux novice who doesn't do nerd or geek (not meant perjoratively), and when I jumped, I jumped, no safety net, no parallel OSs, in with both feet. My neighbour had an XP laptop which hadn't been updated for years, had 3 different AVs, all out of date, running at the same time, so I offered to look at it (having cleaned up her Vista machine which was simarly crippled). I had converted one of my laptops to Kubuntu and did the same to hers, at first all was well, except that it wouldn't retain its desktop photo. I had it on the net and printing to a Kodak ESP 5200 over the wireless network - Then Kubuntu offered an update, an update during the process of which, seemed to permanently switch off the wireless network.

After phaffing around for 4 days with WiFi Managers that either wouldn't install or didn't work when use was attempted, I installed Mageia4, and bingo, a WiFi manager that worked, allowed me to connect, disconnect and reconnect at will; and more importantly, let me see what was going on when I did. Great! Now for the printer - No luck over the wireless network, so off I went next door and plugged in the USB cable and clicked on +Add Printer, after a while I was offered a cups driver to handle the Kodak in Linux, I installed it and clicked on "Print a test page" and waited...and waited....and waited and after 10 minutes decided that it wasn't going to print. Hmm. Had I still smoked a pipe it would have suggested a two pipe problem, no matter, I am being advised by Notifications that to go to Konsole and type in /var/log/cups/error-log, so I did, but permission was denied; no suggestion as to how to obtain permission was offered, no request for the root password was made. OK, Konsole has a help button, so I clicked on that and got no help at all. So I logged on to the forum and found that an HTML manual was on offer, so I opened it, navigated down to the Konsole page on which there was a picture of what the open Konsole looked like and the information that "We think that is all you need to know...". Hmm again. If we need to know nothing about the console, why provide us with Notifications directing us to the Konsole in order to iscover what is contained within /var/log/cups/error-log? Surely, if this contains info which will help me solve my problem, I should be allowed to see it, shouldn't I? As I am the only user of this computer I am root, if the system needs a password for me to see this info shouldn't it ask for it? I will not be defeated, I will get it working, but will need help, starting with a list of commands which work the Konsole in this iteration of Linux, I have already found out that neither ipconfig, iwconfig or any other config of config which I can think of will bring up info about the LAN; how do I, in Konsole, look into a DVD or USB stick; how do I navigate around in command line. And while I'm at it, can I please be told what suffixes to look for when downloading from the net? tar/rpm/tar.gz, which programs go with which OS, is it a secret? I got Linux For Dummies out of the library yeserday, after the first two pages you have to be a dummy to realise that it is functionally useless, so I took it back this morning - I thought that the list of commands might be of some use, but only two of those that I tried worked, but then, it was published in 2006!

I don't do logic, but I do persistance, I do intelligent guesswork, I am not frightened of the new; after all, I had my first flying lesson a few weeks ago. I am not whinging, I just don't see why so much is hidden when it is needed if you want to do anything other than the mundane.

Right, I'm off the post in the printer section to ask about the Kodak and why it worked under Kubuntu but not under Mageia - You see, If I could find out where things are hidden, I could copy the printer file from my Kubuntu laptop and paste it into the Mageia laptop.

Then I'll find out where to ask why my neighbour's picture disappeared from the desktop the 10th time I turned the computer on...

[isadora]

Great to have you aboard Bloggsworth!!!!!

Indeed, this is the introduction-section of our forum, and it would be wise, to split up your questions, and announce them in the right sub-forums.

Anyway, have great and magical times around!!!!

[Bloggsworth]

Thank you Isadora, don't get your scarf caught in the wheel of a passing Bugatti...

[FreeBiker]

Hi @ all from an old Newbi

I used Mandriva for several years. but when the russians came I changed to Ubuntu.
After getting ****** by the Unity Desktop and more troubles I could shoot, I had a look for a better linux.
And here I am....

If there are any questions about streamripper/kdstreamripper, I probably can help, eg write a manual.
Hidden m3u-streams now work on my system )

Now I gonna have a look what else there is to do on my brandnew old system.

MAGEIA ROCKS.

PS: Sorry for my english, but it's a bit "rusty" like we say in Germany.

[doktor5000]

PS: Sorry for my english, but it's a bit "rusty" like we say in Germany.

No problem You may also want to look at the german forum: https://forums.mageia.org/de/

[BrotherAdam]

Hi there. I AM an old dos user who got used to windows, hush now, and used some ubuntu... am trying this out but having problems... I use gramps, and cannot even get it to install as it is saying this and that and everything else is missing,,, two days now spent...
I did manage to get python to load, I think, as I had to back out of the directory to get my password to work... not sure why or wherefores of this and in high school, I got Fortran 4 working on an apple 2e... yes, I am that old becouse the original computer I ran was a PDP8e...with teletypes using paper tape feeds...
Anyway, before I decide to jump out of this version which is cleaner looking than ubuntu, and go back to what I know... which ain't very much, unfortunately, I figured I would ask some of the betters on here for help... How do I as a dummy, make Mageia quit telling me it cannot downlod packages such as gramps, and how do I get it to work better for me... including running Gramps, etc...
Thanks, Guys, and sorry if I sound rude... I no longer build my own amatuer radios for the same reasons... I am old, tired, and just wanna do stuff and get on to my other things I need to do...Sorry.

[BrotherAdam]

Bloggsworth, I understand totally... the jumping in and such... I am a writer by hobby, not into all the drama anymore, and did not like Kubuntu but preferred Ubuntu... my wife's buddies use edubuntu as teachers some... I like the choices of many desktops etc... and this Mageia is up and running better than Mint, which I never could get to operate wireless on... but wish there was a linux that would allow you to open up and use all your various styles, under one heading... thus allowing me to run Ubuntu or Gnome, or whatever nice interfaces I like, and do everything simpler... like naming my hard drive partitions as Music, Pictures, etc... and let everything share them, instead of trying to figure out what is what as I look at three partitions that are almost identical in size, but linux will not let me name as they contain differing versions of Linux... same goes for the boot up editor... for dual boot etc...

[isadora]

BrotherAdam, very welcome to the Mageia-forum!!!!!
Great to have you aboard. Your introduction sounds like being lost in an unknown forest.

One wise advise, as this is the introduction sub-forum:
split up your questions, and make different topics for all your issues in the dedicated sub-forums.

[diplodocus]

Greetings from France !

Sorry for my bad english in advance.

[doktor5000]

I use gramps, and cannot even get it to install as it is saying this and that and everything else is missing,,, two days now spent...

gramps is in the Mageia repositories. Please check our software management MAQeia for more information on software and package management.

[isadora]

Nevertheless diplodocus, a magical welcome!!!!!

Enjoy Mageia-times!!!

[tuxpenguin8]

Hi,

I'm Daniel Phillips. I live in Norfolk, UK. I decided to convert to Linux this year. I chose Mageia because Linux Format said that the mageia community is great, and the gave it the highest rating of all top 5 distros. So I've decided to convert to mageia, because it is very configurable and has a strong community.

I decided to convert to linux because of less viruses, better stability and consistant speed.

I hope the mageia support community will be AWESOME!!!

Thanks,

[rockwoodlandpark]

Hi,

My name is Rock and I live in Colorado USA.

I am rather experienced Linux user and Oracle DBA, using Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Oracle OpensSUSE and PClinuxOS. While tinkering with video drivers on a Fedora 20 laptop I really messed it up and decided to blow away all the collection of installed distros on the hard disk and start over. Mageia looked interesting (still does!) so I tried it for a few hours before giving up with frustration over bizarre (what good are disks when we have this new invention called internet?) software updating that was focused on getting me to insert CDs and or DVDs of media. Why ? What was that for ?

It was bad enough that Mageia has no yum or apt-get or apt and has weird commands (urpmi) to install software that seems unaware that apps have dependencies! I was quite willing to learn urpmi, but since it is brain dead to dependencies was absurd.

Eventually after many demands that I use resource and/or media disks, I grew annoyed and put just Fedora 20 Mate on that laptop.

I will try Mageia when version 5 comes out.

Cheers!
Rock.

[isadora]

A very warm welcome to you both, Daniel and Rock!!!!!

Rock; just a pity you didn't try to get the information concerning software-installation in our forum.
Or giving it a try through our wiki:
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Software_man ... e_software

Anyway guys, have magical times around!!!!!!

[benmc]

Hi Rock,

I see that the systems that you are familiar with are not urpmi types so there will be learning curve for you.
Most of your frustration appears to come from not disabling the local [ disc ] media from repositories.
May I suggest that you run Mageia in a VM to see her in action as M5 will almost certainly cause you the same frustrations, but only because it is different from what you are used to.
The Mageia Control Centre=> add or remove software will certainly collect all dependancies for any requested programme if you are a Gui user.
Like-wise, if you correctly phrase the urpmi command all dependancies will be collected.

regards

Benmc

[BrotherAdam]

Rock, I do not even know what urpmi and get and such are anymore... too many years out of programming... but I had to look it up to get away from the disc media setting and get it to load the internet stuff... it took some check marks and then wait a few minutes, then do some more check marks on new stuff in the hopes I am ok... but I got it to load Gramps, which is what I wanted...
Still using Ubuntu more, because that is what I had first, well, second but did not like kubuntu... but am playing with Mageia and probably will use it for any more computers I set up myself... But I ahve to say that the other strong contender to me is Mint, except it would not find my internet... so if I find that Mageia has a clean looking workspace like Mint, with the looping pages for my programs... I will use that...
I guess after so many years of using windows and phones, windows 8.1 made sense with it's down screen but did not carry it far enough for me... I want to be able to navigate easier, and hope eventually to have a desktop system that I can 'throw' my programs from one screen to another, and be able to do loads of stuff.
But it is a big learning curve and even with basic and fortran and such to build on, there is more confusion at this stage but also more thanks to teh programmers that have made the stuff I need already.

[Hawxx]

Hi everyone!

I'm generally new to Linux, I found out about it a year ago. I was really interested in it but never took the chance to get a Linux Distro of my choice.
Recently I had picked up an old laptop for my brother to use, it was bogged up with Windows Vista and other crap, it was so bad it would take 5 minutes to boot up alone.
I then looked for a Linux distro for my brother to use, I then stumbled on Mageia. It looked really nice so he wanted that one.
I burned it to a DVD and then wanted to try the LiveCD on my laptop to boot. Unfortunately or fortunately Windows stopped working and gave up on my after 5 reboots to try to get the liveCD to boot up. I would just BSOD every time I would start it, then luckily the Mageia boot screen came up, I was saved. Then I continued to install it on both systems.
Mageia saved my laptop lol
I'm looking forward to using this forum and learning new stuff!

[isadora]

Great, you've got the old laptop cleaned, and started a fresh new start on Mageia!!!!!

A very warm welcome to the Mageia forum Hawxx.
Enjoy and have magical times around.

[geokara]

Hello everyone. My name is George and I am relatively new to linux. I started out with ubuntu back in 2010 and dropped it when it got funky. Ever since I have been using mageia and I absolutely love it! I still have windows 7 on my machine because of some programs but I've been flirting with the idea to uninstall them completely and use only linux. As a last word I would like to thank everyone involved in this magnificent distro.

[isadora]

Thanks for the kind words, and a very warm welcome to you geokara!!!!

Get the best of experience, and spread the good news.

[propolirow]

Hi, my name is Amir and it's my first day on the Mageia forum and using Mageia 4 linux. Actually, it's is not completly true because
I didn't install it yet due to some issues with DVD installation process on my old HP laptop.
But, there is no panic because I've already found the post where the same issue is covered. Little troubleshooting will help me
to understand Megeia and linux better. I didn't expect that but it's good opportunity to learn more now

I'm primary a user of OS and not devoper/troubleshooter but I make some promises to myself to learn more about kernel and
how to do an own distribution (as exercise only). I've tried some other versions of linux like RedHat, SuSe, Ubuntu, Mint, but never Mageia.
On university we used Unix (I don't remember which one) and after that Solaris on my workplace. Now we use SuSe and virtual machines.
I like to work in command line because it's is more clear what I'm doing and faster, of course, but I'm still use some GUI tools
as well. Nobody's perferct

I hope I will contribute more on Mageia forum. Cheers!

AmirO

[isadora]

Very welcome to the Mageia forum and community Amir!!!!!
Enjoy this place, and don't hesitate to contribute, when you feel to:
https://www.mageia.org/en/contribute/