My people colonized a new planet after fleeing from a world where technology almost destroyed our entire civilization. Here in our new home, we use very very little technology and frankly, we’re scared of technology. There’s a movie about our civilization, the Ba’aku, called Star Trek: Insurrection. Star Trek fans know exactly what I’m referring to. At home my name is Artim, but here on Earth my human family calls me Robin. Anyway…
Just trying Linux out for the first time was terrifying for me, but I was so frustrated with Windows® that I was willing to risk something new. Especially after Commander Data, my friend from the starship Enterprise, helped me get past my fear of the technology.
I’m still a technophobe! I hide a secret fear that I might hit the wrong key in a terminal and accidentally ignite the planet’s atmosphere or something and destroy all life on Earth. So I’m the last kid anyone would expect to find installing Linux, partitioning a hard drive, and doing all that super-razoo-techno-geeky stuff! I keep a blog about my adventures (and misadventures) in tech. Tomorrow I’ll write a review - from a technophobe’s point of view - of my first forays into OpenMandriva!
Commander Data suggested that learning KDE on this modest little computer - “one step upwards from an abacus,” he called it - would be too much for me and my computer, so I found the Xfce spin of ROME and adapted it to my own special likes and needs. I can do all my schoolwork on it as effortlessly as the other kids do on Windows®. Only I’m doing it without spending all those credits on software that hates me.
@Robin I had a quick read of your blog. I respect your opinion.
Just wish to ask something.
You don’t like that much KDE, did you try the Gnome edition?
You found some issues, ok. Did you ask for support? In such case did you receive any useful reply? Did you read documentation?
In the Plasma edition menu you can find System > System Update that’s a tool which basically does upgrade the system without to write commands in console.
Never tried BSD so I don’t know much, I think it is pretty different both as system and as approach.
Of course nobody/nothing can satisfy everyone. People just take what fits for them.
Cheers,
I tried the Xfce edition, not the Gnome one. But rather than bother everyone with a new support question, I decided to try downloading and installing the System Update tool from the repositories. Actually there are two such update tools - one for KDE and the other not - and I tried each of them in turn. When they failed to work, and then when even a copy-and-paste of the update commands from the Big Fat Warning didn’t work, I abandoned any further effort because:
I was already very hesitant about continuing with an OS that uses systemd, and
Searching the forums and documentation left me feeling that OM, ROME at least, would just not suit me.
There’s a lot to really like about OM, and there’s obviously some big developments and changes underway that will make it as “newbie friendly” as any of it’s rivals very soon - but not yet.
I honestly thought OM would be a heckuvalot easier than GhostBSD because it’s Linux, after all. I was truly stunned to find that there’s so much more to do in the CLI than through a GUI. Not that I mind “the dreaded Terminal” so much really, but in a rolling distro it’s scarier for me. Besides, like I say, I’m still every bit a technophobe as I was before I ever tried any Linux OS.
I also understand fully that the Spins are low-priority because they lack maintainers except for the Gnome edition right now. I didn’t pursue OM further since I find KDE to be full of extra features I would never ordinarily bother using, and “bling” that I simply dislike. This is a KDE/Plasma distro, which is fine - for people who like KDE/Plasma.
has its weight in not being 100% impartial. You already had doubts - and that’s legit.
That’s fine too
You prefer a point-and-click approach, ok.
You don’t like KDE Plasma, ok.
As you said, OM it’s not your distro. Simple as is.
What I find a bit unfair is to make a review about a clearly stated unmaintained/alpha product (and complain because it’s not working) instead of the edition we keep suggesting to new users, ROME Plasma6 x11, after reading the documentation which covers most of the common use cases, like a fair reviewer/content creator would do.
That is unfortunate. I think if there are official spins that don’t have a maintainer, and so no one is caring for them, they really need to be discontinued. A spin is more than just an image with a different desktop environment; it is supposed to be a co-equal version of the OS with all of the care and testing that involves.
I don’t know what the situation is with development on OpenMandriva. Can anyone say how many developers there are?
Unrealistic expectations are an unfortunate byproduct of the usability standard set by companies that don’t really care about their product anymore. As far as how many developers we have, it would be fair to say a handful with hopefully more from the mass influx of people interested in the product for what it could be, not what it is right now. In my own personal opinion, technology should be something you grow into with peers, not something to be feared or abused. This community has strength and determination to deliver something great, and it will. It would be great to educate others and have them be a part of this process. Some people just want to install a no-cost operating system and have it do everything they want it to do.
They aren’t just alpha stage: they’re unmaintained. So, yes, OM should remove them, not from the project necessarily, but from availability, until there is at least one dedicated team member. It gives the impression that OM is trying to do too much for the size of the team.
I’m curious how many people are on the team and if OM has enough manpower to properly patch Rock.
It’s absolutely great that the people here at OM want to keep the Mandrake/Mandriva dream alive, but I think it is also important to be realistic about what can be competently delivered given the constraints.
What I find a bit unfair is to make a review about a clearly stated unmaintained/alpha product (and complain because it’s not working) instead of the edition we keep suggesting to new users, ROME Plasma6 x11, after reading the documentation which covers most of the common use cases, like a fair reviewer/content creator would do.
Fair enough! I have added a comment to that blog post. But also to be fair, I did mention that the community spins come with warnings and that I downloaded it anyway which may have been a big factor in my issues. I did mention that I would have done better to download the “Slim” version and then add Xfce to it. Did you not read the full post?
OM is a KDE distro. Other desktops are available for it, but they should be added after installation of the “Slim” version.
Nice