But that didn't stop me from trying it and what an amazing find it has turned out to be. From the installer to desktop, everything just works. The installer itself is also quite impressive with enough options to keep power users happy but at the same time well balanced to provide a pleasant experience for newbies.
Mageia 1 (64-Bit) with a customized KDE 4.6.x desktop
Going with the KDE 4.6.3 desktop, the experience is very nippy out of the box and in my view noticeably better than Kubuntu 11.04 > openSUSE 11.4 > Fedora 15 KDE.
When it comes to administering the system Mageia features an application called Mageia Control Center, which unlike openSUSE's YaST, is more accessible, better laid out and not over complicated.
The Mageia Control Center - What YaST should have been!
And just like YaST, if you are not running in an X-server environment the Mageia Control Center has a text mode equivalent.
I have only had Mageia 1 (64-bit) on my system for a few hours but everything about this distribution has a quality feel. The art work, splash screens, the user experience, the easy to use central management application, the installation, the performance...it's more than a job well done!
My only issue was the default Mageia customized KDE appearance was not to my liking and the oxygen-gtk engine was not installed by default, this meant GTK apps like Firefox were not blending well in KDE. An issue that was quick to fix but nonetheless could have been easily avoided by providing the oxygen-gtk engine by default which makes a lot of sense if you are going to bundle applications like Firefox and LibreOffice.
I am definitely keeping Mageia installed for a while longer to see if it meets my very simple needs but in any event I seriously believe this new and recent Linux distribution has a lot going for it regardless of its origins.
Mageia is not Mandriva, its better.
I would encourage anyone looking for a KDE distribution to take Mageia for a spin.
you did probably missed a few KDE distros bro,
ReplyDeleteTry out chakra - its cent per cent KDE and a minimalist but modular KDE distro derived from Arch Linux. This distro don't even pack gtk dependend packages. Instead, those are made available as bundles that can be run directly without installing.
http://chakra-project.org/
Another option is Sabayon based on Gentoo. They but have different DEs in their fold.
Missed out because its not a KDE distribution that I would recommend to anyone, same goes for Sabayon.
ReplyDeleteIn this day and age, if you can't recognize my wireless during installation when nearly every other distro can, including the big name "KDE" distros, this hardly qualfies you as the best at anything.
ReplyDeleteI think I caught Mageia. Gotta go to the doctor.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Sabayon is trash.
Which wireless device (make / model) were you having trouble with adamoftheworld?
ReplyDeleteI know what his problem is, Adam. The same happened to me in Mandriva. Mageia uses a kernel that, I don't know why, upon install, wipes out the firmware for the wireless. I solved this way, in case you are interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://mandrivachronicles.blogspot.com/2011/05/mystery-of-missing-wi-fi-in.html
I definitely agree: Mageia is the best KDE experience I've ever had. I have run Kubuntu, Chakra, Pardus, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, Debian, PCLinuxOS and Slackware with KDE4, and though I invariably prefer KDE to GNOME (2 0r 3), none has come close to the solid dependability and functionality of Mageia. This looks like it'll be my home for the forseeable future - I hope release 2 oozes as much quality.
ReplyDelete