Hello, Mageia...
I did a bad, bad thing!
In test-driving another distro (PCLinuxOS 32-bit) on my 32-bit system I found it to be pretty fast, and slick. Being another distro out of the Mandrake-Mandriva line it had the usual excellent capabilities of managing the system at the GUI level. From a personal perspective (and I've talked about my old hardware setup in this forum before) it detected, BOTH, my (modern) monitor capabilities and (old) SiS graphics card too, so I was extremely pleased. It has been the ONLY distro to do that! Even Mageia-5 found my graphics and the MAKE of monitor - but NOT the exact model. (Nevertheless, the working-result in Mageia has been fabulous!)
So where's the problem? Why, now, my mea culpa?
Well, Mageia-5 has been the ONLY distro that I was able to install and run without a hitch, but - even better - it kept going too. Just kept going and going and going! Of course, under Mageia (5) I can manipulate any aspect I need from the GUI level, and I do that because I am reluctant to tinker in the Command Line.
However PCLinuxOS gave me pretty good control too, but even better, it was FAST! It was as fast as Win2K - when I was using that. So, I decided to run with PCLOS for a while (ie instead of Mageia-5). That is the ONLY reason for the decision - that is, it felt "light" and "very fast".
I had installed PCLOS on a smaller testing partition, but was so taken with it that I decided to:
1. reverse my current HD's for better space utilization, and reconfigure ALL partitions.
2. then bring the distro up-to-date (as advised) and see how it would run then.
Step 1. was traumatic because my existing data and setups were pretty-well set perfectly - now I had to reconfigure.
Step 2. was traumatic because I learned that the old SiS-6326 driver was no longer being supported in the updates, which left me in a bind. Without the driver upgrade, other parts of the system were "problematic" for me. You see, PCLinuxOS is a "rolling release". It has to be kept up-to-date CONSTANTLY. [I have always considered that to be an awkward prospect because (A.) that requires intensive attention to the O/S, and (B.) one wrong move and you're without a working system.] Unfortunately, I ended up without a working system.
So, my experience had mixed results. [There is a further experience that came out of it. See the other post for today.]
Mageia-5, however, never missed a beat - ever!
So, I did a bad, bad thing - but here I am, back again! (Umm... ...HI?)
Regrets,