Misc Questions

Support
1

Still testing OM ROME in a VM. Here are some things I’ve noticed that I wanted to ask about.

  1. Somehow I wound up with kernel-rc-desktop installed and active. How did this happen? Is this supposed to happen? If I try to uninstall it with dnf at the CLI or dnfdragora, it says it’s protected and won’t do it. I don’t even see where it’s defined as protected in /etc/dnf. How do I get back on the released kernel?

  2. It looks like I would have to adopt Flatpaks much more than I have so far. Work stuff like Slack, 3D printing stuff like Prusa Slicer, etc. Is there a particular strategy on what gets packaged for the distro and what doesn’t? For example, I think I saw somewhere that there’s a reluctance to package Electron apps (I don’t like them either and I try to keep them at a minimum, but sometimes they’re unavoidable).

  3. I have my wife, daughter, and 77 year-old mother on Manjaro Linux right now, because of the easy, graphical updater. Back in the day, Mandrake and Mandriva had a super-easy to use tray icon that turned red when an update was needed. You could click it and run the updates, and it would tell you if you needed to reboot. The closest thing I’ve found on OM is the DNFDrake Tray, which is kind of unfriendly. It pops up and tells you updates available, and then disappears. If you do manage to get your mouse over it in time, you’re supposed to click on the Launch DNFDrake button, but that’s not intuitive. When you launch DNFDrake, you have to know to click the Distro Sync button. For non-technical users, this process could use some refining. But please let me know if there’s another solution for this. Barring that, is there a vision for a feature like this in the spirit of the old Mandriva?

  4. Lunduke mentioned this, but the download process is still really confusing. I’ve been using Linux for 27 years, and I am not sure what to download. Do I use the Default Sourceforge button? That seems the way to go, but what if I want Slim? My work machine is Intel; my personal machine is AMD, do I have to download different versions for the two? Why, when other distros handle this with firmware files from Intel/AMD? What would happen if I installed the default version on my AMD-based Thinkpad?

Other things I’ve noticed are bugs, which I’m sure will be fixed (asking for the encryption pw twice; not prompting the second time; somehow winding up on an RC kernel) and a lack of common packages (pandoc), which the team is working on.

I want to emphasize this is feedback. I’m not knocking the distro; making a distro is hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. :slight_smile:

2

Welcome to OpenMandriva!

You can submit package requests on the github issues page. There are also some differences in how things are named compared to arch/fedora/debian, so use dnf search to see if we have something.

The OM-welcome app has a button to update the system, but it is not on the front page. The kde discover app should also be able to handle system updates for you.

The only difference between the x86_64 and znver iso’s is that one is universal for all x86 processors, and the other is optimized for amd Ryzen cpu’s. I run the x86_64 iso on an am5 ryzen 7600 without any issues.

3

Welcome message

Welcome to OpenMandriva and our forum. This forum is for users of OpenMandriva Linux operating systems.

OpenMandriva forums are mainly users helping other users.

You can talk to our developers at OpenMandriva Chat.

Users with problems need to read How to get better results when posting about problems before reporting any issues or problems. The article is not too long and Do Read.

When a new user has a problem please search the OMLx documentation. OpenMandriva wiki, Forum Resource Guide and the “Search” function of the forum.

If you don’t find what you are looking for, try an Internet search. A lot can be found in the documentation or forum posts for other Linux distributions. If the user finds something written for another distro but has a question, ask in OpenMandriva Chat.

For serious technical problems and package/feature requests please submit a bug report here.

Note: We are a small group. All contributors and developers are unpaid volunteers.
You can make OpenMandriva grow and improve by getting involved.

Any help with testing will be appreciated, whether you are a technical expert or not. The more people and hardware we can get involved, the better we can do OMLx releases and packaging. We also do a lot of testing on virtual machines. Developers tend to use Qemu, most user-level testers use VirtualBox..

Some suggestions that we hope will be useful:

We ask that problems reported in the forum or in a bug report be limited to one problem per thread or report.

We suggest that if your problem reported in the forum or in OM-Chat is not resolved within a few days, please file a proper bug report.

If you have not already done so, scroll through the “Big Warning” at the top of this page and read the information or use the links provided.

Before reporting any problems, read this.

We are simply and respectfully trying to make people aware that as a very small group we are volunteering, without remuneration, our time, expertise, etc, to help you.

Welcome message

Welcome to OpenMandriva and our forum. This forum is for users of OpenMandriva Linux operating systems.

OpenMandriva forums are mainly users helping other users.

You can talk to our developers at OpenMandriva Chat.

Users with problems need to read How to get better results when posting about problems before reporting any issues or problems. The article is not too long and Do Read.

When a new user has a problem please search the OMLx documentation. OpenMandriva wiki, Forum Resource Guide and the “Search” function of the forum.

If you don’t find what you are looking for, try an Internet search. A lot can be found in the documentation or forum posts for other Linux distributions. If the user finds something written for another distro but has a question, ask in OpenMandriva Chat.

For serious technical problems and package/feature requests please submit a bug report here.

Note: We are a small group. All contributors and developers are unpaid volunteers.
You can make OpenMandriva grow and improve by getting involved.

Any help with testing will be appreciated, whether you are a technical expert or not. The more people and hardware we can get involved, the better we can do OMLx releases and packaging. We also do a lot of testing on virtual machines. Developers tend to use Qemu, most user-level testers use VirtualBox..

Some suggestions that we hope will be useful:

We ask that problems reported in the forum or in a bug report be limited to one problem per thread or report.

We suggest that if your problem reported in the forum or in OM-Chat is not resolved within a few days, please file a proper bug report.

If you have not already done so, scroll through the “Big Warning” at the top of this page and read the information or use the links provided.

Before reporting any problems, read this.

We are simply and respectfully trying to make people aware that as a very small group. We are volunteering, without remuneration, our time, expertise, etc, to help you.

4

The first step in trying an unfamiliar computer operating system is to read the Release Notes. I know a lot of people don’t do this, but that does not make not reading a good idea. OK, so you have read that already, great, let’s get started:

No one can answer that without you providing more information. How old is your system, what version of ROME did you install, Plasma6 desktop or other, ect. Basically the information requested in the Support forum template that you did not fill out. But I’ll try to answer anyway.

Technical approach: Look in /var/log/dnf.log. If you use the find function in Kate you can find out what dnf transaction did this. Depending on how old your system is you may have multiple dnf.logs. The older ones will be numbered like dnf.log.x.

This may be related to a bug we has some time back that is discussed here.

You can not uninstall a kernel that is in use. You need to boot in to an older kernel.

Screenshot_20250414_111439
Screenshot_20250414_1114391920×1200 286 KB

If you have to ask this question then the answer if yes.

The double password thing happens with some things. This has been pointed out a gazillion time including by me. We are a small group with limited developer time. We need more people “fixing” until that happens things like this just are.

You don’t accidentally “wind up” on a kernel-rc something had to have been done by you or been done during a "dnf dsync --refresh` transaction (due to some bug) and you did not notice it. But I can assure the information was there to be seen.

I hope this information is in some way helpful. Whether it is good or bad is irrelevant the fact is that for new users whether coming from Windows, Apple, or some other Linux distro, OMLx does require some getting used to.

Edit: Recommended method to upgrade ROME systems is to ues the System Update utility in the screen-shot above or do this from Konsole with the command sudo dnf dsync --refresh --allowerasing. The System Update utility can also be found in OM-Welcome. dnfdrake does a good job of that as well.

1 Like
5

Hm; you can on other distros. Okay; problem solved.

I don’t have to ask the question. I’m asking for info I don’t see anywhere else. I’ve installed a bunch of them in VMs looking for the differences. There’s a Sourceforge release from December; it seems that was pointed to as a stop gap to help people. It’s this one that wound up on an RC after doing nothing but installing it and then updating it.

All the other links lead to abf, which seems to be populated with monthly snapshots, like Arch. After installing one of those and updating, I’m still on the desktop kernel. So yes, maybe there’s a bug in the ISO that’s on SourceForge.

What I don’t understand is if these snapshots are the way forward and thus safe to install on a daily driver. If I install the AMD snapshot, which seems to have its own repos, is that lasting, or is it just an experiment? Seems like an experiment, since I downloaded it from a build farm, and you’re hosting the “official” ISO somewhere else.

This is why I’m here asking questions.

6

That’s interesting.
Can you please share which ones? I’d like to do some experiments.
Thanks.

7

ABF is the official build source, and all packages published to OM repos are built for both the standard x86_64 and znver versions.

8

If the ISO you used is from Dec, that might explain the RC kernels showing up. Back in either late Feb or early March, there was an update, and it was recommended to remove the package “hfs-utils,” as it was no longer needed. While I’m not a dev, so I’m certainly no expert, I think that the hfs package resulted in RC kernels being downloaded. So, if you did a dsync from the Dec ISO, it likely still had hfs-utils installed, which could’ve put those kernels onto your install.

1 Like
9

Definitely Arch and derivatives. Manjaro even gives you a GUI.

1 Like
10

Thank you! So it would be safe to install znver on my personal machine and x86_64 on my work machine and have identical experiences.

1 Like
11

That would be safe, or you could even run the x86_64 on all of them. You just can’t run the znver1 on intel.

1 Like
12

That’s gotta be it. That VM indeed was installed from the Dec ISO downloaded from SourceForge. So it’s definitely better to grab the more recent snapshots.

Once I get all this working, I’m in a position to recommend OM to a bunch of people where I work, so I just want to make sure I have the right recommendations. :smile:

13

By the way, after years on Arch and Tumbleweed, I consider all of these rolling releases to be experimental. :rofl: But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

14

If you wait a day or two you can download the most recent ISO we are going to build.

15

Screenshot_20250414_175507
Screenshot_20250414_1755072082×1301 234 KB

Edit: Unless someone out there knows something I don’t, this is roughly equivalent to sudo rm -rf /. As far as I know one can only remove unused kernels not the running kernel for obvious reasons. Another example from geeksforgeeks.org:

Screenshot_20250414_181312
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They are not kidding.

16

I agree it’s not wise, but if you know you have another kernel installed and the system will fall back on it when you reboot, you shouldn’t have a problem. I was just surprised the package manager actively prevented me from doing it. I didn’t expect that behavior.

17

I would imagine that deleting the active kernel would cause an immediate system crash. Then at boot it would not automatically fall back to another kernel because grub or systemd would still be pointing to the deleted kernel. Grub would at least give you a menu to manually select another kernel, systemd boot I don’t think has this same menu.

18

The active kernel is running in RAM and you can delete the file. It is possible, but we do attempt to keep users for breaking their systems. :grinning:

2 Likes
19

Just because you can, as root, do anything it does not mean you should, wisdom-side.
You can as well do rm -rf /, not sure it’s a good idea.

Even dnf will refuse to remove the kernel in use, so why looking for troubles for no reason?
That said, the system is yours. Do what you want :wink:

1 Like
20

Unless I am mistaken, the Discover app should not ever be used for system updates. System updates should be done through dnf only.

And, as it turns out, I am in fact mistaken!