The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5 [UPDATE: 16/10/2012]

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arjay
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Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by arjay »

Schoelje wrote:I've uploaded a service release with all known bugs resolved so if you could test the 32-bit version:
OK - given it a go. I reckon you deserve a medal mate. This is a huge advance on the last version. Ran pretty smoothly and got everything installed OK. I have just a couple of minor things for you and then a more substantive feeling about how unintuitive some bits feel (see below). I tried to do the install as if I was an inexperienced user coming to UP5 for the first time - not so far from the truth.

First - Burned a DVD with the 32 bit rc1 iso. Undertook a fresh install with new partitions as if I was doing all this for the first time (I wish :wink: ).

Slideshow
This looked and ran great. Just a couple of things. The Safe Updates slide has no text yet? Also "Installs in about 10 minutes" looks very optimistic to me. My install on fast almost new hardware took exactly 20 minutes. It took 7 of those 10 minutes just to localize Firefox, Thunderbird and Libreoffice. Humans hate waiting for anything, especially beyond expectations. My advice - drop it altogether, or say something like "10-20 minutes".

I clicked at the "install complete - you need to reboot" dialogue but nothing happened. Clearly the user is expected to go to the menu and chose "Reboot" but most people, me included, are used to an automatic reboot when clicking at the end of an install. You normally click and get the message "Your system is going to reboot now - please confirm". Would that be possible? If not, perhaps some text to say "Please reboot your system now" and offer a reboot button or something. BTW - the Reboot option now appears on the menu OK so that's all good!!

The next action is at the message "Remove disc, close tray and press ENTER". I followed this but the first press did nothing. I waited for a few seconds to see what was what then hit ENTER again. This time it ran OK. Is there something running in the background that has to finish first and would cause the system to miss the first key press??

Log in procedure
After the reboot I got the login screen OK. I have mentioned this before but will again. If you enter your PW and press return nothing happens. Apparently you have to click on the username first. My question is why, and the second question is how the hell is a new user supposed to know that? It is completely counter-intuitive. The U/N box already has the U/N in it - is that not enough? Of course, if there are several accounts, then it is obvious that you have to select one name. But most people will only have one account. IMO:

1) the U/N box should be empty and it is then obvious that you have to type in the name (better security anyway), OR
2) if there is only one user, the U/N is pre-entered and the system accepts it as a default, only requiring the user to enter a PW, OR
3) as 2) above but text alongside the U/N box says "Please select the user name" or even better "Please click on the user name".

I appreciate that all this might be configurable, but the user has to be able to log in the first time to do it!

DDM Window

This looks fine but I got a bit confused by the options and the process. First "Get Started" to me suggests move on from this window to some new dialogue/ action. I didn't want to click on this in case I left the window as I still had to get the kernel and the video drivers. You might want to have a think about this one.

The first offer was to install the pae kernel. That looked fine - perhaps, though, when the kernel option is selected, the "Install Drivers" button could change to "Install Kernel"? This would be much clearer - could you do that?

I chose the option and up came the "Currently Nvidia, ATI.... are supported" window, with the kernel selected and the nvidia driver for my GeForce 210 unchecked. I could see the words "Checking hardware..." running at the bottom of the window but was not sure if I should now select the video driver.

So I left well alone. The kernel was downloaded and install OK but took a good 5 minutes - seemed a long time. The system then needed a reboot. My thoughts were - how many users with multicore systems would NOT want the pae kernel, supposing they even knew what it was! Would it not be possible to offer this option (or install it as the default anyway) during the main install stage. Presumably the first install requires installing a kernel - why not get it at that point, or stick it in the iso? Would this not save a reboot?

Video drivers

OK, after the reboot I got the DDM window again offering to install the video drivers for the correct card. I chose Yes and off it went. Pretty cool process I thought, though it took another 7 minutes from end to end and IIRC yet another reboot.

It began to feel a bit like installing Windows XP - all in all, from booting the DVD, through entering the user data, choosing language/keyboard etc, setting up the partitions, downloading and installing the new kernel and video drivers, three reboots, took almost an hour.

On the flip-side, the cool thing is the hand-holding through almost automated processes to get a great desktop and usable O/S all in one go. I just wonder if it could be streamlined a bit more by integrating it into the initial install? And/or just separating the stages in DDM a bit more clearly.

Hope this is what you wanted - I know I have gone on a bit....

If you want anything else tested or whatever, just ask.
Adelante

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Adelante »

I'm on 64 bit LMDE KDE 20120929. I have some notes I scratched out to put together on some small things. No crashes or freezes or anything else as serious. Music worked. Video worked. It's just beautiful. Congratulations.

For now, I have a question.

Update Manager>Update Pack Used

It says "4" - latest available "5"

I take that to mean I don't have 5. Is that right? What do I do?

Also, the bash script in the OP - am I supposed to do something with that? If so, how do I do it, please?

Thank you.
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

@arjay
This is more than I can ask for: your input is very valuable. You know, developers are not normal people and the worst testers in the world so we depend on people like you, so please, keep on doing what you're doing.

So first, let's recuperate and correct me if I'm wrong (in between you will find my comments if needed):
Live Installer
  1. Gparted button is not translated correctly.
  2. Estimated time not realistic (drop it or calculate a better estimate).
  3. Change close message to either reboot or continue working (now it's meaning is ambiguous).
  4. You need to hit "Enter" twice before you can restart/close: this seems to be a new live-boot "feature" and I would need to contact the maintainers for this - no quick resolution, I'm afraid.
  5. Slide show: mintupdate Debian does not have "safety" levels.
Caledonia KDM theme
  1. In case of one user, this user should be selected so that entering your password logs you in (now nothing happens until you manually select the user in the list): I probably have to contact the devoloper of the theme to achieve that - or is there somebody who would like to take up theming for the unofficial LMDE KDE?
DDM
  1. In case of kernel install: change button title to something appropriate.
  2. Install PAE by Live Installer (it would save a reboot in case of PAE install). Need to talk about that with Clem: what are the consecuences for LMDE?
  3. When installing from welcome screen: grey out buttons/list in DDM to show DDM is doing his thing.
Unfortunately, installing graphics drivers by Live Installer is not possible: you need to be booted into the kernel you want to install the graphics drivers for so that's when DDM comes in handy.

I need to prioritize these kind of things: LM 14 and UP6 are coming in november...
Last edited by Schoelje on Sat Oct 06, 2012 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

Adelante wrote:Update Manager>Update Pack Used
It says "4" - latest available "5"
You are running UP5, but it seems the file that says you did upgrade to UP5 was not updated...Another thing on my todo list.
For now, you can run this as su:

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echo 5 > /var/log/mintupdate.packlevel
Adelante wrote:Also, the bash script in the OP - am I supposed to do something with that? If so, how do I do it, please?
I don't know to what bash script you are referring, but I'm afraid it's a remnant of the upgrade so just leave it as is or move it out of the way.
Last edited by Schoelje on Sat Oct 06, 2012 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Adelante

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Adelante »

Thank you, Schoelje. I'll post my little bits as soon as I can. I love it :D
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tdockery97
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Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by tdockery97 »

The only thing that I found was in the installer slide show. On the screen regarding safe updates, it reads in a way that makes you think there are update levels the same as in other Mint editions. Mintupdate Debian does not have "safety" levels.
Mint Cinnamon 20.1
zerozero

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by zerozero »

just a few notes:
Schoelje wrote:Estimated time not realistic (drop it or calculate a better estimate).
afaik live-installer takes longer here (localizing FF, TB and LO) because is downloading and configuring the lang-packs (and checking the repos as well); if we do an install without internet it surely will be faster;
Schoelje wrote:install PAE by Live Installer (it would save a reboot in case of PAE install). Need to talk about that with Clem: what are the consecuences for LMDE?
lmde chose the 486 kernel for compatibility reasons: it works with old hardware (really old) and with new as well (maybe not so well with state of the art machinery but why choose 32bit in those situations?) while the pae-kernel doesn't boot with old chipsets (ok we may ask here in the lmde-kde topic if it makes any sense to keep compatibility with pentium4-era computers)
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

zerozero wrote:ok we may ask here in the lmde-kde topic if it makes any sense to keep compatibility with pentium4-era computers
That is a very valid point: we're building a distribution with a state-of-the-art desktop but you must be able to run it on an ancient machine...that does sound illogical, doesn't it?

Moreover, Ubuntu has decided to drop support on non-pae cpu's. Debian will continue to do so, but thanks to you, zerozero, I really doubt that we (as Linux Mint) should. Especially because it's taken a large chunk of my time and effort to include and test anything related to pae and I don't know for how many people I'm doing that.

These are architectural decisions and I can't make them on my own: a decision like this will have consequences for both a group of users, and for LMDE as well.
I will send Clem an email about the topic.

[EDIT]
I just sent an email to Clem with a link to this discussion.
zerozero

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by zerozero »

yes, ubuntu dropped non-pae since precise and this is just one of the bug reports against that decision

furthermore xubuntu and lubuntu don't follow that policy
Schoelje wrote:That is a very valid point: we're building a distribution with a state-of-the-art desktop but you must be able to run it on an ancient machine...that does sound illogical, doesn't it?
well chakra is dropping support for 32bit

but we can run debian kde in those ancient machines, we have users with pentium-M (re: craigevil)
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

I know there are valid points against and for keeping the 486 kernel, but I think it is important to understand the effort it takes to support both kernels and whether or not it's worth it.

I see several options:
  1. Drop 486.
  2. Keep 486, but separate from the pae kernel.
  3. Keep it as it is: distribution on 486 kernel and manually install pae if needed.
The pros and cons are obvious (I bet you can find more):
  1. Pro: maintenance of a distribution (and development of software) is concentrated on a single kernel.
    Con: 486 users must revert to older isos and upgrade from there, so they would probably choose for another distribution that still supports 486.
  2. Pro: 486 users can still use LM.
    Con: It's another distribution to maintain: development, testing, building time will increase exponentially.
  3. Pro: One distribution to maintain. We know what we have.
    Con: Maintenance is getting increasingly complicated, introducing risks of failure with every upgrade or change to the system. The system is built for a minority of users and the rest has to adapt (=install pae manually).
So...what are we willing, or not willing to give up and what do you get in return?
Adelante

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Adelante »

Again: 64-bit LMDE KDE 20120929

As I've said, no major worries to report.

Here are the few minor problems I encountered, for your information.

Install--had to manually restart before DVD was released.

Update Manager--very, very slow getting to password sign-on and then a good while before Update Manager would open.

Settings:

Synaptic>Settings>Custom application font--font does enlarge for terminal view, but does not enlarge for application view. I haven't seen this happen in other KDE distros.

System Settings>Icons>Customize KDE Icons--I installed and selected Faenza icons, as usual.

Faenza icons show on the desktop.

Faenza folder icons show in Dolphin, but their tooltips show Oxygen icons.

Faenza folder icons do not show on Firefox. Gnome icons show there. This is an unusual event in my experience.

Edit: I get this error: "GtkWarning: Theme directory of theme Faenza has no size field" so maybe it's not a problem of LMDE KDE, but of Gtk?

Any advice is welcome, but there is really little to complain about with this release.

Fantastic job, Schoelje. Thank you.
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

In my experience (so I can be wrong), the following files are important when having Gtk issues:

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$HOME/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4
Check if there are no references left to the Oxygen theme

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$HOME/.config/Trolltech.conf
Check for style=Oxygen and try what happens when you replace that by Faenza.

I haven't tried it, but if you backup the files first, no harm can be done.

Make sure you have the following symbolic links:

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ln -s $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4 $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0-kde
ln -s $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4 $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

Just for the sake of argument, I've created a PAE iso and because I feel rather bold today, I've uploaded the service release versions and posted them at the beginning of this thread for everybody to download: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 1&p=633277

Thanks to arjay I've changed some minor issues with the live-installer (the easy ones to fix).
There are more things to do but I'll be away for a few days: back to school again.
arjay
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Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by arjay »

Hi - Schoelje

Results of pae iso install:

First, I see so many great improvements:

1. Now needs only one click to restart after "Installation Complete" - and also does an automatic restart - perfect

2. "Remove disk ... and press ENTER" is also only one click - excellent

3. Time to install, 15-30 minutes, is a good change. If it turns out to be less, then the user will be pleasantly surprised.

4. After booting up the PC, I can now enter the PW and the system accepts the username as the default without having to click on it - SO much better.

5. Having a dedicated iso for the pae kernel is a great improvement. It reduces the install time considerably and saves on a reboot.

My thought (don't know if this is possible) but if both kernels were in a combined pae, could there not be a section in the install - say after creating username, PW and hostname - which had a couple of extra windows. The first would say "Now checking your hardware for the best kernel ...." and then have it run the hardware check. The second window would say "The hardware check shows you have a single-core system and will install the standard kernel... CLICK FORWARD(/OK)" OR "The hardware check shows you have a multi-core system, There is a special kernel that would enable your system to take advantage of this. Please choose which kernel you would like to install and CLICK FORWARD(/OK):

* Standard kernel
* Multi-core kernel

The final Summary Page that lists all the users choices would then also include a line that says something like Kernel choice: Multi-core kernel (or Standard kernel). Just a thought

OK - Welcome Window

Two things here -

1. one is just a typo (shows things are getting better when a tester gets picky :D ). In the Out of the Box slide I think the word "to" might be missing in the third bullet - maybe it should say "...no need to download other software....".

2. The second point is again the Safe Updates slide. This looks rather odd because it has that title but no bullets or text underneath like all the other slides. I would suggest either that it is removed altogether or, better, that something is added as a bullet point. Perhaps something like:

* All update files are maintained and closely checked by trusted developers and maintainers.

* Update files are stored in special secure repositories for your use.

Obviously you need to use your own wording here.

Now a couple of new issues

Grub Menu
After the first reboot, I got a grub menu that only had three entries: pae, pae recovery, and Win XP (on a different disk). I have lost the Linux Mint 13 entry that has always been in previous menus - this O/S sits on the same HDD as LMDE. I have read elsewhere that Grub doesn't necessarily find installs on other partitions on the SAME hard disk. That is what appears to have happened here - though strange as it was OK in UP4 and the earlier versions of UP5? Here is output of fdisk:

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Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xda995804

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048    31459327    15728640   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2        31459328   473999357   221270015   83  Linux
/dev/sdb4       473999358   755251031   140625837    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5       473999360   513060863    19530752   83  Linux
/dev/sdb6       513062912   520873983     3905536   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7       520876032   755251031   117187500   83  Linux
sdb1 and sdb2 are Mint 13 system and home partitions. sdb5 and 7 are LMDE system and home editions.

DDM - installing video drivers.

Here is something quite unexpected. The main DDM window correctly shows pae installed and offers to install nvidia drivers for GeForce 210. I select that option and hit Install - off it goes just fine.

However, being a bored user waiting for the drivers to install, I start clicking on things in the main window. I find that neither the Get Started or Support buttons are functioning, presumably because the second window is open. Of course by clicking on one of these it brings the main window into focus and hides the one installing the driver.

So I minimise the main window and find that the one behind has changed. The nvidia driver check-box is unchecked and the text underneath now says "Add item nvidia GeForce210". Oooops - I restore the main menu window from the task bar and find it is empty, no text or buttons? I was able, eventually, to close the windows by right-clicking on the title bar (got error messages about "This ?? fails to respond, terminate?" or some such). I then found the final small widow that said drivers installed OK and please reboot. Which I did and all was fine.

I tried this twice and got the same situation. Perhaps you might want to try it yourself as I am sure there will be idiots out there like me who will click on something in the main window while the driver install is going on in the background.

All in all though I was well impressed with the improvements.

Richard
zerozero

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by zerozero »

arjay wrote:However, being a bored user waiting for the drivers to install, I start clicking on things in the main window. I find that neither the Get Started or Support buttons are functioning, presumably because the second window is open. Of course by clicking on one of these it brings the main window into focus and hides the one installing the driver.
this could be "fixed" if ddm used modal windows (similar implementation to mintupdate) [ of course that is easier said than done- at least for me :mrgreen: ]
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

Hi arjay,

Thanks again for your elaborate testing. That really helps a lot.
Now, let's answer those questions:
  • PAE installation during Live install:
    That too is on my whish list, but it needs quite some extensive coding of the Live Installer, so that will have to wait after DDM is good enough for LM 14. I think it won't be necessary to ask for user permission to install the best kernel: most people won't even know what I'm taling about: "A multi-what?".
  • Slide show during install:
    The slide show was an existing application that was aborted a while ago because it was not stable enough. Even then it was a work in progress so it's still very incomplete. I could use some help here. Is there anybody who would like to write the texts for the slide show? This could then later be used for translations.
  • The grub issue:
    That is really annoying, but I really don't know why that has happened, and couldn't even replicate it: I have a disk with 14 partitions and as much different OS's, and grub was updated correctly every time. I'm afraid you'll have to edit grub.cfg your self (or does anybody else have another idea?).
  • DDM
    My bad: I prepared the code for modal windows, as zerozero suggested, but I didn't pass the parent window. This means that the message box did not know where it belonged to and could disappear behind another window. It'll be fixed in the next version.
arjay
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Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by arjay »

Schoelje wrote:Hi arjay,

Thanks again for your elaborate testing. That really helps a lot.

[*]The grub issue:
That is really annoying, but I really don't know why that has happened, and couldn't even replicate it: I have a disk with 14 partitions and as much different OS's, and grub was updated correctly every time. I'm afraid you'll have to edit grub.cfg your self (or does anybody else have another idea?).
Glad to be able to help. Wish I could do more, but anything more than css/html is beyond me.! As to the Grub Issue - I'll do a fresh re-install and see if it happens again.
arjay
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Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by arjay »

GRUB UPDATE

I have been checking out why Grub2 is not picking up other operating systems on the same hard disk. This is what I have done so far:

1. Booted up the pae iso.

2. Deleted and recreated UP5 partitions - sdb5 (/), sdb6 (swap), and sdb7 (home) - AGAIN!

3. Installed to these and chose sdb as the location for Grub2. (Didn't want to use sda as that had Win XP on it.)

4. The install went fine but, again, the first reboot only showed pae, pae recovery and Win XP. Mint 13 was not shown there.

5. Tried a manual reinstall of Grub by:

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sudo mount /dev/sdb5 /mnt
then

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sudo grub-install root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb
This said it had run without error. But a reboot still produced the reduced menu.

6. Now here is the interesting thing. I rebooted with the UP5 disk and this time, fdisk showed that the two disks had "swopped round". sda, previous shown as XP was now showing the linux partitions and sdb had switched to ntfs. I decided to try an install under these conditions.

7. So I went through the same procedure but this time installing to what was now called sda and putting grub there as well. All went well and the first reboot showed the full Grub2 menu.

8. On subsequent reboots, the boot order switches back and forth but the full menu is still showing as it should.

Not sure if this has had anything to do with it but maybe someone will know if that could be the problem/solution.
BostonPeng

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by BostonPeng »

Schoelje wrote:[*]Slide show during install:
The slide show was an existing application that was aborted a while ago because it was not stable enough. Even then it was a work in progress so it's still very incomplete. I could use some help here. Is there anybody who would like to write the texts for the slide show? This could then later be used for translations.
I'd be willing to help with this if I can. What would you need me to do?
Schoelje

Re: The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5

Post by Schoelje »

BostonPeng wrote:I'd be willing to help with this if I can. What would you need me to do?
That would be great!
I just need some texts for the slideshow.

For inspiration/example I've attached the current texts. It's in HTML but I just need the text: I'll make HTML out of them.
You probably can find the necessary inspiration on the Linux Mint site, but if you want to write it yourself, please do.

You can add more subjects (a separate file) if you want. More in this case is better.
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