Thinkpads Forum

Posted: **Sun Oct 19, 2008 1:58 am**

Anybody else using it yet, its fast, reliable, and you get all those missing graphics effects from Vista. Seriously, its the best thing since sliced bread, what do you guys think. First impressions? Already switched?

Posted: **Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:09 pm**

interesting...
had you tried out mint? if so, which version and how would you compare it to mandriva?

tia.

Posted: **Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:08 pm**

Mint graphics effects?

http://mysite.verizon.net/hjc56/snapsho ... nshot1.jpg

Posted: **Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:12 pm**

so you advise mint, Harry? gnome or kde interface?

Posted: **Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:54 pm**

Try GNOME. It is the default DM for Mint. There are other distros (like Opensuse) that do KDE better.

Posted: **Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:00 pm**

thanks, Harry.
to bring it back onto the original topic, have you tried mandriva? i just dl'ed the latest iso, but haven't burned it yet.

Posted: **Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:47 pm**

@sarbin:

I'm running Mandriva 2008 on my T43 which is pretty much the twin of the unit I had sold you...

...and it's GREAT...haven't tested 2009 yet.

As for Mint, I have it on both T23 and A31p and it's pure joy and bliss, especially on A31p. Gnome is the way to go in my book.

Hope I haven't confused you, old friend...

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:02 am**

not at all, George.

but since you've used both, is there some advantage (or disadvantage) to kde?

thanks, friend.

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:17 am**

I might end up sounding ridiculous, but to me Gnome and KDE are two different worlds...not that one is necessarily better or worse than the other...

In my case, there are days when I "feel like" Mint, and days when I prefer Mandriva...both are very powerful distros IMO, as well as easy to use.

Now, as I've stated many a times before: I'm NOT a Linux guru, that I leave to Harry, carbon_unit and a few others...so I'm open for criticism for having such a layman approach...

I like the way Mandriva looks on my T43. Very cool and placid, very easy to use.

On the other hand, Mint is by far the fastest full-blown OS (apart from W2K) that I've ever used on A31p...at least in my opinion.

Once you start playing and tweaking any of these a bit, you'll get the feel for your own preferences, even if it ends up with a completely different distro...as for anything else, you won't know until you try...

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:31 am**

thanks, George.

what would you say are the 3 biggest differences between gnome and kde, distro notwithstanding?

tia.

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:36 am**

Each distro has it's own personality. You have to find the one that matches your personality. Trying them out is the only way to see which one you like the best.
Run them as a live cd for a while to get a feel for them before you install to the hard drive. There is no "best distro", but there is a "best for you" distro. And like George says, you might like a different distro on a different day.
KDE and Gnome are different worlds and only you will know which one you prefer, after you try them both.

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:51 pm**

If your going to run Kde I would stick with 3.59. The latest KDE 4.2 still has some bugs to get worked out in my opinion.
In some of the distro's you can install both KDE or Gnome desktop. And just log out and pick which one you want to run.

In openSUSE, KDE 3.59 is a true winner. In Linux Mint, GNOME is perfect.
Or you could try using a live CD with KDE or Gnome desktop and see which one you prefer.
And to make things more difficult alot of people prefer the XFCE desktop. Which is pretty much a basic and simple desktop.
I am running Mandiva 2008 spring on my R61...and it runs good. Without a whole lot of work setting things up.

BTW Harry your Mint desktop is sweet

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:05 pm**

Harryc wrote:Mint graphics effects?
http://mysite.verizon.net/hjc56/snapsho ... nshot1.jpg

Two questions, Harry:
1. where do I find the 'mainframe monitor' on the right side of your screen? would it work with ubuntu (given that Mint is ubuntu "plus")?
2. how do you keep your machine so cool? HDD 32C; CPU 44C?! Are you kidding?! That's amazing! My T61 (running Ubuntu 8.04) feels like a furnace . . .

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:14 pm**

Paul Unger wrote:
Harryc wrote:Mint graphics effects?
http://mysite.verizon.net/hjc56/snapsho ... nshot1.jpg
Two questions, Harry:
1. where do I find the 'mainframe monitor' on the right side of your screen? would it work with ubuntu (given that Mint is ubuntu "plus")?
2. how do you keep your machine so cool? HDD 32C; CPU 44C?! Are you kidding?! That's amazing! My T61 (running Ubuntu 8.04) feels like a furnace . . .

The monitor is gkrellm. It's available for almost all linux distributions, as are most applications that come on Ubuntu, Mint, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GKrellM

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:20 pm**

Paul
If you go to a Konsole and type acpi -V that should give you what temp your computer..CPU is running.

My R61e is running 39-40C in Mandriva 2008 spring
My R40 runs 45-50C in Suse 10.3

I think Harry might be running GKrellM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GKrellM
But he can answer that for you.

I need a faster computer or faster fingers

Posted: **Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:31 pm**

Paul Unger wrote:Two questions, Harry:
1. where do I find the 'mainframe monitor' on the right side of your screen? would it work with ubuntu (given that Mint is ubuntu "plus")?
2. how do you keep your machine so cool? HDD 32C; CPU 44C?! Are you kidding?! That's amazing! My T61 (running Ubuntu 8.04) feels like a furnace . . .

Paul, that is indeed gkrellm. It is readily available in the Ubuntu repositories. As far as temps, this T61 has always run cool, not sure why, It does not have discrete graphics though, so that may be part of it. It has Intel integrated graphics.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:31 am**

Personally, I prefer Conky to GKrellM, but it takes a ton of configuration to get perfect....and that's not because you have to, but because there's so much to play with that you can spend hours perfecting it, and then shoot yourself in the foot.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:10 am**

So, GKrellM it is!

Thanks. Sorry to hijack your thread, i-SnipeZ . . .

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:50 am**

This thread got my curiosity up since I had not looked at Mandriva in many moons, probably since it was called something else

. I loaded up the 2009 (one) live CD on my Thinkcentre, and I have to say it is a very impressive implementation of KDE 4. Most things worked out of the box, including Compiz 3D effects. I'll try it on one of the Thinkpads next...probably a T61. I have no idea how Mandriva repositories work these days ... they used to charge for the best packages. Is it still that way? I know they tried to sell me the 'powerpack' on the way in the front door.

Edit: I see what they are up to now. They sell you a 'power pack subscription' for $70 a year just to get updates. Those stinkers ...LOL.
OK, I've seen enough, back to Opensuse

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:24 am**

Harry
I am running 2008 spring the free version and it updates my system.
.
Mandriva Linux 2009 is available in several different editions:
The Powerpack edition includes support, services, a wider range of packages, and third-party proprietary applications, including trial versions of Cedega and LightZone, and a subset of the Fluendo multimedia codec pack, providing support for MP3, WMA and WMV files.
# the Free edition is a pure free / open source software edition, without any of the non-free packages bundled with other editions, available as a free download.

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2009.0_Notes

I don't know if this answers your question or not

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:28 am**

Harryc wrote:This thread got my curiosity up since I had not looked at Mandriva in many moons, probably since it was called something else . I loaded up the 2009 (one) live CD on my Thinkcentre, and I have to say it is a very impressive implementation of KDE 4. Most things worked out of the box, including Compiz 3D effects. I'll try it on one of the Thinkpads next...probably a T61. I have no idea how Mandriva repositories work these days ... they used to charge for the best packages. Is it still that way? I know they tried to sell me the 'powerpack' on the way in the front door.

Edit: I see what they are up to now. They sell you a 'power pack subscription' for $70 a year just to get updates. Those stinkers ...LOL.
OK, I've seen enough, back to Opensuse

OpenSUSE? Fedora is great too!!!

10 is coming out in the near future, as well as OpenSUSE 11.1 and Ubuntu 8.10.

Can't wait for Fedora and OpenSUSE personally.

I guess as long as it's not Windows it's good though

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:29 am**

With this release, Powerpack does not include much to justify paying for it because of added software. You get some Fluendo codecs and not much additional software that you might otherwise have to pay for. At this point I see the purchase of Powerpack primarily as a support to the company to help keep them in business.

Here is a list someone posted at the Mandriva forum of what extras are included in Powerpack. Note that Lightzone is a 30-day trial demo. Cedega is also trial software.

acroread-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-da-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-de-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-es-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-fi-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-fr-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-it-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-ja-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-ko-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-nb-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-nl-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-pt-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-sv-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-zh_CN-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-l10n-zh_TW-8.1.2-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-nppdf-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-accessibility-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-checkers-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-comments-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-dva-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-ecmascript-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-extwin-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-forms-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-hls-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-internetaccess-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-legalpdf-7.0.9-2mdv2008.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-makeaccessible-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-multimedia-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-pddom-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-ppklite-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-readoutloud-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-saveasrtf-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-searchfind-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-sendmail-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-soap-7.0.9-2mdv2008.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-spelling-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
acroread-plugins-weblink-8.1.2-1.1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
arkeia-7.0.2-1.i586.rpm
arkwui-7.0.2-1.i586.rpm
cedega-mandriva-000132-1.i386.rpm
FlashPlayer-9.0.124.0-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
FlashPlayer-plugin-9.0.124.0-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
google-desktop-1.2.0-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
googleearth-4.3.7204.836-2mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
gstreamer-0.10-fluendo-3-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
LightZone-3.6.1-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
mozilla-firefox-ext-google-toolbar-3.1-2mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
opera-9.52.static-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
picasa-2.7.3736-15.i386.rpm
skype-2.0.0.72-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm
VariCAD_2008-en-3.01-1.i586.rpm
VariCAD_View_2008-en-3.01-1.i586.rpm
VMware-Player-2.5.0-118166.i386.rpm

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:33 am**

Harryc wrote:Edit: I see what they are up to now. They sell you a 'power pack subscription' for $70 a year just to get updates. Those stinkers ...LOL.
OK, I've seen enough, back to Opensuse

I don't know what you are saying here. You get updates with all the Mandriva versions. In fact, generally the Powerpack version does not issue additional updates for the extras.

EDIT: The Powerpack subscription is there for getting up to three releases of Powerpack over the course of a year (depending upon timing). Mandriva has two releases per year.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:09 am**

Ok, thanks for the explanation of Powerpack. Lets say that I want a non-Fluendo codec pack for Mandriva. Is it available in a repository somewhere? I listen to Shoutcast .pls all day, and I want to use Amarok.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:40 am**

Harry
2008 plays Shoutcast out of the box. You just have to right click mouse/ open with. Then once you associate it to open with Amarok . You should be good to go.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:42 am**

Doog, thanks. I tried that exact thing with 2009 One and it did not play. I was able to get the movie player to play Shoutcast .pls right away though.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:23 am**

Mandriva has the following repositories.

Main Release
Main Updates
Main Testing
Main Backports
Contrib Release
Contrib Updates
Contrib Testing
Contrib Backports
Non-Free Release
Non-Free Updates
Non-Free Testing
Non-Free Backports

There are also Debug repositories as well as the Powerpack Restricted repository.

Here is an FTP mirror if you care to see which software is actually available.
ftp://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pu ... 586/media/

1. The Release is what comes out the day the distribution is released. This is what is included on the iso's.
2. The Updates are what is updated by the system after the release date.
3. The Testing is for when someone wants to test a package that may resolve a particular problem.
4. The Backports are newer packages that are not automatically updated by the system.

A. The Main is all "free" software. No propriatary stuff. This is the software found also on the Free DVD iso. The Free DVD has a traditional installer.
B. The Contrib is software contributed to Mandriva by others (AFAIK).
C. The Non-Free is propriatary stuff like hardware drivers and software such as Adobe Reader or Opera.
D. Powerpack restricted is only available for powerpack subscribers. Also included on the Powerpack DVD. The Powerpack DVD has a traditional installer.
E. The One live CD is an image which includes free and non-free software. It includes many hardware drivers. It will run off of the CD or you can install it to your hard drive. It does not have a traditional installer. When you install the One CD, you get everything on the CD including drivers for hardware not even on your system. IIRC you do get to choose the language, keyboard, and time zone on installation.

In addition to all the above, there are the PLF repositories which includes software not legal in some countries. This would be things such as codecs and DVD player software. Mostly stuff to get around DRM issues. The PLF repositories are not from Mandriva and not supported by Mandriva in any way. PLF is an independant organization and stands for "Penguin Liberation Front".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_Liberation_Front

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:58 pm**

Nice write up GomJabbar, thanks!

Posted: **Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:23 am**

sarbin wrote:thanks, George.

what would you say are the 3 biggest differences between gnome and kde, distro notwithstanding?

tia.

Distro notwithstanding, it's quite hard to say. Some distros customise GNOME and KDE a lot. Vanilla KDE, for example, might not be your thing, but you might try SUSE's KDE and love it.

It's quite hard to say the differences unless we reduce it to technical differences. GNOME is built on the Gtk+ toolkit, KDE on Qt.

Other than that, it's just a mess of vague and uninformed sweeping comments. Ridiculous things like 'KDE is too much like Windows' just because by default the K Menu button is on the bottom left on a panel at the bottom. Never mind you can change it.

They're both much more open to customisation than Windows, so it's really hard to make any general comments other than the fact they're built using different toolkits.

Posted: **Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:10 am**

I was running Mandriva Srpring 2008 on my R61e with very little problems.
"Intel Chipsets"
The other day I downloaded 2009 KDE4.
The install was fairly easy with no problems. With a few clicks I had wireless up and running . And 3d effects worked when I enabled them.
I still prefer KDE 3.59 over Kde 4. But I figured that I need to learn Kde 4.

Running acpi -V from a Konsole temps are 39/38 c
The one thing I found that didn't work was the FN button for sound.

Overall works well and was minimal setup. I would recommend it.

Before I installed 2009 I tried Suse 11.1 but it didn't really care for my Intel chipset. And I couldn't get Knetwork manger working.
So I never did get wireless set up.
But I'm sure with some effort I could get it working.

I might also have to give Mint 6 a try. And see how that works.
Has anyone installed Mint 6? What's your thoughts?

Thinkpads Forum

Mandriva 2009 + 1872 IBM T43 = pure awesome

Mandriva 2009 + 1872 IBM T43 = pure awesome