replaced linpus with madriva 2009

Hi
following weeks of frustrating experience with either Linux Linpus and/or Windows XP on my AAO (8 GB/512 MB),
last night I downloaded the new Mandriva 2009 distribution including KDE 4.1 desktop. Sunday morning I burnt the ISO-file (702 MB). afterwards I installed the programme, which took more than one hour to complete.
the result: after my mostly negative experience with Linpus, Madriva is quite a revelation. the performance on my 512 MB RAM version may be slightly sluggish at times, but the programme works like a dream, compared with linpus. installing programmes and uninstalling is simple. installation of my G3 Huawei Modem - quite complicated on the Linpus - extremely simple: just plug it in and check the network-box. youll find your Huawei-driver there waiting to be configured.......

The Mandriva-People seem to have managed to get rid of most bugs. the fully installed version 2009 only uses 3 GB of my limited space.

you'll get the free version with lots of programmes pre-installed. meanwhile I have installed Skype and easily aded it to the autostart folder. Firefox 3.0 is preinstalled, Thunderbird is included in the big softwarepackage waiting for installation

altogether a great improvement on Linpus and almost as userfriendly as windows XP.
cheers
Christian

 

Hows the wifi? LED working? All the AAO hardware working? Been contemplating on installing this since I'm getting bored with XP. How's the boot time?

 

Hi,

yes, wifi is working, but you'' first have to connect to your network manually (like in Linpus) the signal seems slightly weaker than with linpus but that may depend on the grafics.

I will certainly stick to it, but would consider expanding RAM

 

The speed issue is with KDE 4. There are reports that Gnome performs better. However, both are not lightweight environments and maybe XFCE would be the best option with Mandriva. Remember that XFCE is designed to be lightweight as used in Linpus. Give it a try.

 

How about LXDE?

 

yes, I believe even the Mandriva guys suggested LXDE as replacement for small machineas like the AAO, but I will use it now for some time, may be, to upgrade RAM rather.

Could you tell me how to replace KDE with LXDE for "just in case", please?

this morning, I configured the Huawei-Modem with the Huawei-driver supplied with Mandriva, and it seems to work finde

 

Download LXDE via the package manager.
After you let it install, restart your PC (maybe logging out is enought but hey, better save than sorry ), and wait until you see the login window where you have to enter your password.
Notice the little notepad-like icon in the right corner?
Clicking on it allows you to chose which desktop-environment you want to start (of course, you can only chose the installed ones). If you want to try the "drak3" option, you should connect your netbook via cable to the net, because it will have to download some things and wireless does not work in this case( at least with me).

 

More LXDE info on the Mandriva wiki here: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2009.0_Tour#LXDE

 

I have tried Mandriva 2009 since RC2 and I have gone back to linpus... I have tried Mandriva with KDE, Gnome, and LXDE and they all work just fine, but the boot time is what does it for me. Linpus does everything I need it to do plus it boots in 20 secs or less, compared to the 50-60 sec boots of mandriva. Mandriva does work out of the box, and is a nice distro... but until the mandriva netbook release (which is supposed to have similar boot times to Linpus) I will be a Linpus user... and the results are the same compared to Mandriva One and Powerpack, I use Powerpack on my main PC...

 

Since hard to find LXDE for Fedora 8, decide to build it from source. It's fast and easier than XFCE mod! To keep netbook taste, we can install lxlauncher (tab browsing application launcher). After KDE and LXDE experience, who need distro replacement for Linpus?