[Mageia-dev] 3.0 release - some initial notes; failure

Mon Jan 7 08:46:39 CET 2013

Tried installing 3.0 beta over a Mandriva Cooker system today.
+Mageia-3-beta1-x86_64-DVD.iso
+
+Some notes. Mostly about problems because I never got to see a working
+system, so the tone is probably more negative than I'd like.
+
+
+On boot, there was a long delay followed by "Loading program" and a
+progress bar appearing and disappearing again almost before I had time
+to read the message. This didn't seem optimal.
+
+Choice of keyboard - there was a link to wikipedia in the Help text, but
+it gave me an error that there was no network. There are two entries for
+US Keyboard with no obvious reason, and a third for US International
+(which I chose since I'm not in the US :-)) 
+
+I have 2 disk drives. the installer wanted to use the spare space on my
+Windows drive, when the other drive already had Linux. Yes, I could
+choose from the drop-down, but it wasn't clear that I was choosing where
+to put Mageia. Suggest add,
+Multiple disk drives found. Choose which one you want to use for the
+main Mageia system.
+
+The disk was formatted. That was actually what I wanted, in this case,
+but please add a warning that data will be lost - most humans on the
+planet won't know that.
+
+There's no indication of how long the formatting will take, or how much
+has been done. I'll leave it running for an hour or two (it's a 250G
+SATA hard drive) and see if it finishes, or maybe it crashed.
+Please add a note that this may take a long time, preferably with an
+OK/Cancel/Skip since (1) it wasn't needed here, and (2) users may well
+give it a minute or so and then move on to the next Linux distribution
+on the magazine, saying "Mageia hung my computer, it's crap."
+
+Suggest progress bar or at least some quotes from Moliére.
+
+Note: eventually the bad block scan started giving a progress percentage
+on another virtual terminal, but most users won't find that, of course,
+even if they wait half an hour or more for it to begin.
+
+I'm assuming the graphics and ugly font are not final. If they are, the
+pink stripes look like an error. Maybe caused by running my monitor
+(1920x1200/"deep colour") in 800x600 16-bit mode.
+
+The long list of packages being installed - would be nicer to show the
+name of the current package, and its description, and more slowly to
+show a more detailed description of just one program.
+
+If there was a clear and obvious option to choose the LCD's native
+resolution, a font like Matthew Carter's Bitstream Charter Italic would
+look more sophisticated and also get more information on a line.
+
+Choosing a desktop - help said "broken link"
+
+Choosing a desktop - please add versions, not just KDE, GNOME, Other.
+
+Also, I might want both KDE and GNOME installed, so I don't want to
+choose just one and not the other. If I'll get a chance to install more
+desktops later in the installer, please say so more clearly, not buried
+in help (once the link to help is fixed)...
+
+The installer seems much slower than it used to be, but maybe that's
+changes in rpm? Three hours to install packages is a long time. Although
+having said that, maybe the estimates were just wrong.
+
+At the end, several hours later, the DVD is ejected and the system tries
+to reboot...
+
+PANIC cannot mount proc on /proc! Compile the kernel with
+CONFIG_PROC_FS!
+
+Hmm. Well, I saw something go by about this on the mailing list so maybe
+I can fix it without another 7-hour download of the DVD image.
+
+Overall, though, the installer needs a huge injection of "slickness".
+It's_almost_ there, but in graphic design "almost" doesn't get you a
+cigar.
+
+Liam
+
+
+
+-- 
+Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
+Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
+Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
+
+