Linux Format forums

sentient_one · LXF regular Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2007 6:51 am Posts: 103

Just installed. Sound (sound blaster usb) detected. Nvidia graphics card detected and set up. RT73 usb wireless easily set up with wep hex encryption. Windows drives detected and mp3s instantly played.

It's KDE4. Not too struck that one seems to need to go to tools, system . . . dolphin to find windows drives, but all in all, as personal desktop OS looks very good indeed.

Mandriva? Ubuntu? Sabayon?

There are always the others for those who like typing text into black boxes

AdamW · Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:45 am Posts: 51

Glad to hear you're having a positive experience so far!

I actually agree with you on the KDE 4 desktop - when I finally got to testing it out on a clean install a few days ago, the same thing struck me, that there's no obvious way on the default desktop to just browse around your system in a file manager, which most people expect to have. But it was too late to change it by then...
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Adam Williamson
Mandriva
Community manager | Newsletter editor | Bugmaster | Proofreader | Translator | Packager

Marrea · Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:41 pm Post subject:

AdamW · Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:45 am Posts: 51

lok1950 · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:02 am Post subject:

You have to drill deep though Wink

someone posted a few links in the help area this week after i suggested he look there for guidance.
Edit: here is the thread http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=8708

Enjoy the Choice Smile

Marrea · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject:

pwbrum61 · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject:

Rhakios · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 8:01 pm Post subject:

Successfully installed 2009 Free under VMWare Workstation 6.5. Only a couple of little glitches along the way: during the install process the Preparing Bootloader screen stayed for an awefully long time, while processor usage went up to 100%, I was on the point of thinking that I would have to kill the thing, when it decided to resume normal procedure Confused

hmm. The other thing is that during the install process and subsequently, update fails with:
Unable to add medium, errors reported
... retrieving failed: aria 2 failed: exited with 1
problems reading synthesis file of medium "Main Updates (Official2009.0-2)"

I assume this is down to there not being any updates yet, and thus no synthesis file.

After installing kernel-devel-latest and dependencies all modules for VMWare tools compiled and installed just fine. The only trouble along the way with that one was that opening the mounted VMWare tools iso in Dolphin was extremely slow and processor intensive, so I killed it and used Konqueror - I can see that happening a lot more often given past experience of Dolphin.
I think I'll have to read the latest issue's article on KDE4 before I decide whether I can stand it, or if I will have to migrate to XFCE (my second favourite DE after KDE3.5.x).

Next, I must get around to trying it out on my EeePC 900, which has been running 2008 Spring fairly successfully up to now.
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Bye, Rhakios

Marrea · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the initial feedback, Rhakios.

I downloaded 2009 One (rather than Free) today and will probably do a native hard drive install within the next few days. Your comment about the "Preparing Bootloader" screen alarms me somewhat (you may remember I had problems with this particular aspect of installation in 2008 Free). However, forewarned is forearmed - as they say. Wink

Marrea · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject:

Rhakios · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject:

spaceyhase · LXF regular Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:07 pm Posts: 116

I 'upgraded' my 701 from Mandriva 2008 to 2009 and it broke the poor little thing. I couldn't get another distro to boot so went for 2009 and it all works, sort of Wink

I quite like the initial look of KDE4.1 though and some of the stuff does make sense so I can see where they're wanting to go with it. It is far less cluttered than the previous KDE desktop! Wireless seems to be a bit flaky though and it doesn't show my wireless even when details are entered manually, a known problem according to the errata. Xfce is only an install away though...

But I'm happy with it so far!

captainsisko · Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:40 pm Posts: 5

This is the 3rd Linux distro i've tried and for a N00b it's really good and worked for me out of the box.
I tried Ubuntu once before but didnt get wireless access then when I tried the latest distro on my new rig it didnt want to install.
So I tried Freespire but didnt work with my wireless or soundcard.

Read Linux format and found out about Mandriva.
Installed and got my wireless working (WPA encypted) with ndiswrapper and I have sound.
I now have everything except my printer. but I'll get there.

It takes getting used to but I'm liking Mandriva

Marrea · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:46 pm Post subject:

Loaded Mandriva One 2009 today and am pleased to report there were no problems with the bootloader installation - no hanging, no MBR being overwritten. Smile

After the initial reboot I too received an error similar to the one experienced by Rhakios:

Error: Unable to add medium, errors reported: … retrieving failed: aria 2 failed: exited with 1. Problem reading synthesis file of medium “Non-free Updates (official2009.0-18 )"

However it then went on to update rpmdrake and urpmi, followed by 12 other packages, so I assume it was the Non-free Updates only which were affected.

Ran into the same problem with Nvidia Display Settings as I did in 2008 Spring, ie I was unable to load the X server display configuration page until I had changed "false" to "true" in the "DynamicTwinView" line in xorg.conf

Other than that, everything looks pretty good so far. Very impressive.

Now to try and master KDE4. Laughing

Rhakios · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject:

I tell you what Marrea, you send me your Main Updates, and I'll send you my Non-free Updates. Wink

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Bye, Rhakios