[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting of today Sunday July 6, 2014

[Bobbie Sellers]

    I arrived about 10:40 and setup. 
    I tried booting with Mageia 4.1 KDE, this time the Hardware
detection system worked as it did not on release 4.0.
The hardware detection program works from the boot up
menu of the DVD.  It gives you a lot of information about
the system. After that since it was an Install only DVD I moved
to the 4.1 Live DVD.
    This worked well and I continued to test it for some time
and felt it was useful and a close approximation of Mandriva.
For those who do not know Mageia is a fork of Mandriva after
the company Mandriva collapsed and ceased to publish the
very-nice-for-unskillful-users, (like yours truly) distribution. 
It was one of the  earliest and best user friendly Linux systems
showing up long before the Ubuntu series which to my mind are
too fixed in their Desktop Environment arrangements.

    About 11:00 John S. showed up.  He brought along the
available Dell Latitude D520 with an Intel Core Duo at 1.6 GigaHertz
and a GiB of ram, and a 60 GiB hard disk and a CD-RW/DVD,
 15 inch 3 x 4 screen.  The  battery may need replacement soon
but it has the AC adapter.  Any one interested in such can find
his address on the mailing list or get in touch with me and I will
forward.  He was having a problem in that he had installed a
system and then forgotten the password but we got that fixed
before we finished.

    About 11:08 Ken Schaeffer showed up with his ASUS notebook
and an interesting purchase of a inexpensive SSDD of 238 GB.
When I got tired of trying the distributions I had set up on
DVDs I booted from the disk and it was a very fast experience.
Together the SSD and External SATA-USB3.0 case cost him less
 than $70. He had installed Ubuntu 14.04 to the SSD. It was of
course running Unity which I like less than Gnome.

    Besides the Mageia Live KDE I tried the Mageia 4.1 Gnome
which appears to be the latest version and while usable I
prefer KDE so much that I cannot give a fair opinion of this
late version of the Gnome Desktop Environment.
    Just as reminder this was done using my HP Pavilion
lPTP,15-N225NR, an AMD 4 core machine with Radeon graphics..
    Now when I was setting it up i tried a number of Linux
distributions and the first one I was able to test was Kubuntu 14.04
which has a KDE desktop environment over a Ubuntu core.  So
I installed that.
    Now since the last meeting  when my wireless worked well this
time when I finally booted up from my hard drive in it the wireless
 card could not be activated.  I have not been able to connect to
my wireless router at home so have had to tether myself to the
Ethernet cable.
    Additionally though it may have nothing to do with the
Kubuntu I find that neither the Hibernation nor the Sleep function
work reliably.  I have decided to seek further information on the
WiFi setup for Kubuntu but have decided at first opportunity
I will install Mageia 4.1 as I find it easier to use.  I already had
researched the Hibernation and Sleep function and did my
best to restore functionality.
    Now I have to say that in addition to the Mageia 4.1 tests
I tried a Live Fedora 20.1.  I saw unusual behavior in that as
un-attended while I discussed something with Ken without input
it booted right up. 
    I have to say that Fedora has this UEFI/EFI business down cold.
    On another boot-up it showed the DVD/CD R/W drive as UEFI
and in first place on the boot menu.

    Now I tried 3 systems in 4 configurations and every one of these
distributions were able to get on line with minimal work.  Sometime it
was as simple as adding the password to a requester and sometime
as in Mageia Control Center it took several pages of entering basic
material such as the sort of connection I was trying to make and
typing in the password.
    Fedora 20.1 Gnome x86_64.iso
    Mageia-4.1-LiveDVD-KDE4-x86_64-DVD.iso
    Mageia-4.1-LiveDVD-GNOME-x86_64-DVD.iso
    Mageia-4.1KDE x86_64.iso
    Oh and Ubuntu 14.04 on Ken's external USB 3.0 SSDD.

    Well you have all seen the notes that John S, expected to
meet with Jim to pass on a couple of towers for Eric, so I thought
that Jim was late by 12:10 and suggested John call him if he did
not want to take the towers home again.
    Jim was on the road.  As a matter of fact he had an early
errand to run in Hollister and was returning from there when we
called.
    Jim Stockford showed up finally, a bit tired wan and pale about
12:55 PM.  He ate a cheese sandwich.  And we took my packed- up
notebook to his car and cleared space for the towers in his trunk.
    John S, brought his car around and we moved the computers from
John's car to the trunk of Jim's car and parted with best wishes.
    Jim gave me a ride back to my home.
    I have to say that while only 4 people showed up besides the
wives of John S. and Ken that this was a good meeting. 

    Thanks for your attention!
   
    Bobbie Sellers