Looking for distro for laptop

[Yorus]

So here we are, giving Windows a bit of a break, I think I've had enough of it at work. For now, my desktop has Xubuntu 12.10, and it doesn't differ much from what I've always had with Gnome 2.xx (call me a classic ).

Now what I'm looking for is to do the same on the laptop, but of course, in this case I have to take into account that distros are more optimized for battery life and also that it can get along well with the Radeon HD7470m. I've always heard good things about Suse in that aspect, although I'm more of the Debian flavors but I'm not averse to Mandriva and Fedora.

As for environments, I'm still confused, I'm not convinced by the new ones (Gnome 3, Unity) or KDE, the old ones are noticeable... old (XFCE and Mate which is a fork of Gnome 2) and I still find Cinnamon not very convincing. I don't want more minimalist ones either.

What do you think?

[cobito]

I believe that choosing a distro is something much more personal than technical.

So I'll tell you why I use Mageia, which doesn't mean it's the best for you.

1. Desktop environment
First of all, I'm a KDE user and maybe Mageia is the one that has integrated this environment with all applications the best.

The reason I like this environment is because it's the closest to Windows out there. I chose it for myself at the beginning, so that the migration I made from Windows years ago wouldn't be too traumatic. Nowadays I still like it because it's very customizable and also makes the users I've migrated in recent years not cry too much about the change of environment.

On the other hand, I've gotten used to its tools and peculiarities:

·Dolphin as a file manager, which I think is a very complete tool, with very good performance since KDE 4.8.

·Kwin which offers desktop effects using very few resources. In addition, KDE's power manager allows its automatic deactivation depending on whether the PC is powered by AC or battery.

·KDE configurator: it must be recognized that some options are not very well organized, but once you know where everything is, you can configure most things at the user level with a few clicks.

·Uses QT libraries: without detracting from GTK, QT is the best. Not long ago QT 5 appeared, which heralds the appearance of KDE 5 within a short time (maybe a few months? A year or two? No one knows yet) that will bring graphic improvements, functionality and performance although with a much less radical change than the transition from KDE3 to 4.

2. Kernel
If there's something that all distros have in common, it's precisely the Kernel, but not all compile and package it in the same way. In Mageia there are several versions of the kernel and all have been useful to me at one time or another:

·Desktop i586 kernel: It's the most compatible kernel of all. It's compiled for Pentium processors (32 bits) and is especially designed for old PCs. It supports up to 4 Gb of RAM.

·Desktop i686 kernel: It's compiled for modern 32-bit processors. It supports up to 4 gb of RAM and is the recommended one for most systems with less than 4 gb of RAM.

·Server i686 kernel: Like the previous one, it takes advantage of the microinstructions of new 32-bit processors. Despite being 32-bit, it activates PAE so it supports up to 64 Gb of RAM with execution threads of up to 4GB.

·x64 kernel: Compiled for 64-bit processors.

3. Distro tools
One of the distinguishing features of the old Mandrivas and Mageia are the Drakes, tools that work in both text and graphic mode that allow system configuration: from system updates to hardware configuration, passing through boot options, etc.

This makes it one of the best distros in terms of hardware support.

If you want to know more, you can see this thread: Migrating from Windows to Linux without dying in the attempt - HardLimit

4. Distro policy
Just like in the management of anything, in distros there are also policies that one may agree with more or less. It's possible that when choosing a distro one ends up leaning towards one for purely political reasons.

In the case of Mageia, there are two editions: live-dvd where proprietary software is included and the free edition where only free software is available. Depending on your preferences (and hardware) you may find one more convenient than the other. There are distros that only offer free software by default, so configuring some drivers can become something cumbersome.

On the other hand:

·The update cycle is a new version every 9 months: I don't like this because the KDE cycle is a new version every 6 months and the Mageia cycle doesn't adapt to the cycle of its main desktop environment.

·18 months of support: correct for a release cycle of 9 months, but insufficient for certain cases. The possibility of creating an LTS edition with 3 years of support is being debated.

·Community distro: it doesn't depend on any company. That means that as long as it has a minimum audience, it will exist. In the case of Mandriva, which depended on a company, there were trust issues (at least on my part) when its old company started to crumble and the distro's future plans were unknown.

I already told you that it's something very personal. Here I've only put some reasons. Anyone could put just as many reasons for another distro.

[Yorus]

Mageia convinces me, in fact I have been a user of Mandrake and Mandriva, but KDE is what I am not clear about, not for functionality, but for appearance, although I know that it is possibly the most configurable desktop of all and it lets go of crap like Unity and Gnome3, following the classic desktop scheme but with its corresponding modernizations.

The Drakes have always been a big plus for these distros, there I agree with you.

As for the kernel in cases like this I am left wondering if it is better x64 or i686 with PAE. My laptop has 4Gb, although at the price of memory and as I only have one slot occupied I could easily expand it to 8Gb, but I don't need it either. I have the doubt about stability, because I don't know if it's my impression but lately Linux seems less stable to me, but it is also true that I always use x64 and perhaps not everything runs as well.

Is it supposed that Wine can give more problems in 64bits?, because it has been a long time since I have had the guts to run WoW on Linux, but it may be due to changes in the last expansion.

Your arguments are very well thought out

[cobito]

For compatibility issues, x64 always gives more problems. For example, flash player support is poor in 64 bits. And Wine is especially designed for 32 bits although it can work in 64.

If you have 4 gb, a 32 bit kernel would be best for you. Even with 8 gb, a kernel with PAE activated could be enough for you if you are not going to use applications that consume more than 4 gb by themselves.

If you don't like KDE, Mageia supports the main environments although if you are not from KDE, I wouldn't recommend Mageia.

[deeiivid]

Interesting topic. I have been using and changing distros for a few months now in the tower and I always end up falling back to Xubuntu or Kubuntu, mostly because of the software and because I already know apt and the debian terminal a bit. I would like to try mageia but there are fewer packages, right? For a user as beginner as me, maybe it will be a problem to find a solution to some problems...

For now, what is driving me crazy the most is getting the EMU 0202 to work correctly via usb... it works when it feels like it and on top of that, suddenly the volume is set to maximum and my cat runs away like crazy and I am left deaf and with a terrible fright...

[Yorus]

@ Cobito

For now I have downloaded the 32-bit version, although I will still wait to finish some pending game of Civilization II that appears on WineHQ as not even installable with Wine, although I managed it, but I will finish the game on the laptop with Win7 and then "migrate" to FreeCiv on Linux.

@ Deiivid

Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia has always had a very good reputation in terms of hardware detection, in fact it is the one with which I had the least problems when it came to getting my old TDT tuner to work (it was on Mandriva with Gnome 2.x environment), and although it does not have a bad community when it comes to solving problems, the one of Ubuntu is beastly and many solutions are interchangeable with Debian.

I am also more comfortable with APT, but there are not many commands to learn. As for the packages I do not know how it will be, and if it is true that applications outside the repositories (official or not) tend to be mostly DEB compatible with Ubuntu/Debian but there are also many RPMs for Fedora, which may sometimes work on Mageia, in fact the origin of Mandrake was Red Hat, which is also the origin, although closer, of Fedora.

[Yorus]

A quick question about the Kernel PAE, as I'm going to try it out on the desktop first because Xubuntu 12.10 64bits keeps crashing quite a bit (Spotify, which is understandable because it's beta, the sound in general, one of the panel applets… everything in less than two hours). I guess there's no download option that installs it by default, right?, so you'll have to install it once the distro is installed.

[deeiivid]

It installs directly when you install the distro.
The thing is that if you don't have more than 4gb it won't install it. It's only when it detects that there is more ram.

[cobito]

@deeiivid:

Interesting topic. I've been using and changing distros for a few months now on the tower and I always end up falling back to Xubuntu or Kubuntu, mostly because of the software and because I already know apt and the debian terminal pretty well. I'd like to try Mageia but there are fewer packages, right? For a beginner user like me, maybe it's a problem to find solutions to some problems...

Right now, what's really driving me crazy is getting the EMU 0202 to work properly over USB... it works when it feels like it and suddenly the volume is set to maximum and my cat runs away like crazy and I'm left deaf and with a huge scare...

It's probably a bug in the ALSA drivers, so with any distro you'll have that problem until the driver is corrected. Anyway, you can always try a live-cd to test a bit: ftp://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mageia/iso/2/Mageia-2-LiveCD-KDE4-Europe1-Americas-i586-CD/Mageia-2-LiveCD-KDE4-Europe1-Americas-i586-CD.iso

And if you feel like it, you can try the Mageia 3 Beta Live-DVD which includes the latest version of all system components, so it's possible that your problem is solved there: ftp://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mageia/iso/cauldron/Mageia-3-beta2-LiveDVD-KDE4-i586-DVD/Mageia-3-beta2-LiveDVD-KDE4-i586-DVD.iso

Remember that you can use a USB stick for problems with Mageia Live-cd and dvd by following these steps:

· Download one of the images I gave you earlier.

· Put it on a pendrive with this utility: http://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.mandr…ed-windows.zip

· And boot from the pendrive.

@Yorus:

A quick question about the PAE Kernel, since I'm going to try it first on the desktop because Xubuntu 12.10 64bits keeps failing quite a bit (Spotify, which is understandable because it's beta, the sound in general, one of the panel applets… everything in less than two hours). I guess there's no download option that installs it by default, right?, so you'll have to install it once the distro is installed.

In Mageia, the Kernel with PAE enabled is installed automatically if your system has 4 or more GB of RAM. It has also been installed on PCs where the installer has detected a strange chipset even with less than 4 GB, but it's not usual.

If you want to install a Kernel manually, you can do it in the Mageia package manager in a couple of clicks.

[deeiivid]

@cobito:

It's probably a bug in the ALSA drivers, so you'll have this problem with any distro until the driver is fixed. Anyway, you can always try a live-cd to test a bit: ftp://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mageia/iso/2/Mageia-2-LiveCD-KDE4-Europe1-Americas-i586-CD/Mageia-2-LiveCD-KDE4-Europe1-Americas-i586-CD.iso

And if you feel like it, you can try the Mageia 3 Beta Live-DVD which includes the latest version of all system components, so it's possible that your problem is solved there: ftp://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mageia/iso/cauldron/Mageia-3-beta2-LiveDVD-KDE4-i586-DVD/Mageia-3-beta2-LiveDVD-KDE4-i586-DVD.iso

Remember that you can use a USB stick for Mageia Live-cd and dvd problems by following these steps:

· Download one of the images I gave you earlier.

· Put it on a pendrive with this utility: 404 - Not Found

· And boot from the pendrive.

In Mageia, the Kernel with PAE enabled is installed automatically if your system has 4 or more gb of RAM. It has also been installed on PCs where the installer has detected a strange chipset even with less than 4 gb, but it's not usual.

If you want to install a Kernel manually, you can do it in the Mageia package manager in a couple of clicks.

I'll try it to see how it goes and see if it solves anything.
The link to how to burn the image to a pen doesn't work, anyway, it wouldn't be useful to me since I don't have any computer with Windows right now. I suppose I won't have any problem doing it with DD from the OSX or Linux terminal as I did with the kubuntu images etc.

[yinz]

¡Esta publicación está eliminada!

[Yorus]

Ok, thanks for your answers. I will download a Live as recommended on the Mageia website itself so as not to have problems with the video drivers. And of course in 32 bits to see if I gain stability.

[cobito]

@deeiivid:

I'll try it to see how it goes and if it solves anything.
The link to how to burn the image to a pen doesn't work, anyway, it wouldn't work for me since I don't have any Windows machine right now. I guess I won't have any problem doing it with DD from the OSX or Linux terminal as I did with the kubuntu images etc.

Indeed, the effects of copy&paste have been reflected in the link.

The tool for Windows: http://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.mandriva.com/MandrivaLinux/official/iso/2010/mandriva-seed-windows.zip

And for Linux: http://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.mandriva.com/MandrivaLinux/official/iso/2010/mandriva-seed.sh

You can also use DD as you said.

PD: If you're going to go for Mageia, I inform you that at the beginning of April the new version will be released, Mageia 3 which will include:

· Kernel 3.8
· Systemd 195
· Grub 2
· KDE 4.10
· GNome 3.6
· Libreoffice 4
· ALSA 1.0.26
· […]

On the other hand, as a novelty, in addition to including the classic Free versions (only free software) and live-cd (with proprietary software), a new live-dvd edition is added with proprietary software and more applications as standard than the live-cd.

[deeiivid]

Well, for the moment I'm going to see if with kubuntu 12.10 32b (I was with 12.04 64b) I improve something about the sound issue and if not, I'll wait for mageia 3 and I'll jump into the pool to see what can be done.

[Yorus]

@cobito:

PD: If you are going to go for Mageia, I inform you that at the beginning of April the new version will be released, Mageia 3…

I suppose that like in other distros if I install the beta when the time comes it will be updated to the final one without having to reinstall everything, right? I don't mind having some bugs at first since the first thing I have to convince myself of is KDE, and for that I will need to tinker a bit.

[cobito]

@Yorus:

I guess that like in other distros, if I install the beta when the time comes, it will be updated to the final version without having to reinstall everything, right? I don't mind having some bugs at first, since the first thing I need to convince myself of is KDE, and for that I'll need to tinker a bit.

Indeed. By installing the beta, it updates from a repository called "cauldron" where the software is updated as new versions come out (before the "freeze version" that has already taken place) and bugs are fixed after that date with packages that have not gone through the usual quality control and may have bugs.

When the final version comes out, the "cauldron" repository will be automatically deactivated and will become a rolling release repository (for adventurers and for those who want to install software from recent versions or that are not included in the previous version) and the system will activate the stable repository of the version in question, where updates already go through strict quality control.

Anyway, if you are going to use the beta, I don't recommend that you update much because in one of the updates your system could become unusable and you would have to format (this usually happens when new features are tested). So install the beta and don't update until the final version of Mageia 3 comes out (scheduled for April 2).

[Yorus]

Ok, thanks for the advice. I'm thinking then it's better to install Mageia 2 and if I like it then I'll install the stable 3. In that time I have plenty of time to know if it convinces me or not, at least with KDE.

[Yorus]

Well, I already have Mageia 2 with KDE running on the desktop, although the thread was about the laptop.

So far it's not bad, although I'm still fighting with the appearance because those electric blues that sometimes accompany KDE give me retina pain, like the halo around the active window, which I've changed to a whiter and fainter one. I'm looking at different guides and tinkering so that little by little I get the appearance I like, which honestly is the only thing that bothered me about KDE, because I've always had it as the most complete of the desktops, although I usually go for the minimalist.

I'm sure that with KDE I can achieve both things.

Otherwise, I think this distro is more user-friendly than Ubuntu, since it has everything more centralized in the control panel, like for example the option to share on the network.

As for programs, I started with Firefox, but for email I'm trying Kmail, which I used back in the days when I had Mandrake and a Wanadoo email account. A lot of time has passed...

I will continue to comment on my experiences both on the desktop and on the laptop.

[cobito]

If you have any problems with Mageia you can ask here, I've been using Mandriva/Mageia for a few years now and I know it reasonably well.

KDE can be customized in a thousand different ways. You can play around with the plasmoids and with the KDE configurator you can download dozens of styles for window decoration, transparencies, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure there are guides to make it look like Gnome, LXDE and co.

One of the main reasons I like KDE is for the K tools it comes with. I have the look modified from the original Mageia setup.

Good luck (and patience, which is always needed when changing).

[Yorus]

Thanks, the truth is that when everything works fine it's even fun to tweak things, and more when you see so much potential.

I've had a look at this theme but it needs QtCurve, which to install I'll have to look for a repository that has it or compile it:

http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Kawai+%5BQtCurve%5D?content=141920

I love that look because it's similar to the classic Dust of some Ubuntu but at least in the screenshots I like it even more.