Running into a few hiccups with a vanilla 12.1 Beta 1 KDE4 install. Thought maybe it'd be worth mentioning them here (sorry, it's a long email, but it's basically a step by step log of what I encountered during my test installs).
Install was done on an Asus EEE 1005HA netbook using full DVD ISO written to USB stick (using SuSE Studio Imagewriter).
Writing the ISO to the USB stick was easy/smooth.
Initial boot worked OK, but then the install errors out requiring several additional steps in a text console to make the install continue. The error message is: - Make sure that CD number 1 is in your drive. To work around this, I had to select (in text mode): - Back > English > English (US) > Start Installation > Start Installation or Update > Hard Disk > (select USB stick), type a / in the text edit field and press Enter. After following these steps, the install switched back to GUI mode and continued normally.
I installed 3 times, and it happened each time. This is something that would be very confusing to a user who has not encountered this before.
After the install completed, I bumbled into several problems/issues:
1. Apps are not always removed from the taskbar See: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=275469 and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278891
2. Extra/duplicate launchers for Firefox and Dolphin are shown on the taskbar. You can remove them, but on logout/login, they are added back. The extra lanuchers have smaller icons than the "standard" launchers. See; https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720240
3. KNetwork manager not working as expected. The following point are the steps I followed to get WiFi working:
a. Network icon (with no connection) is a tiny dot that is almost impossible to see. See screen shot at: http://www.digitaldragon.ca/WiFi_icon.png b. Click KNetworkManager > WLAN Interface and nothing happens. I had to always click twice (not double-click, two distinct clicks) to open the WLAN Interface. c. Initial WiFi setup - selected my WiFi router, and did a normal setup. Did not use KWallet, just clicked through to use "unsafe" storage. Connection fails with a Cannot Connect error. Shows a key over the signal strength icon in the taskbar. d. Click Manage Connections, and the password request window is opened behind all other open windows. Brought it forward, and entered root password. Errors out with: "No agents were available for this request". Click OK and the Edit Network Connections window opens. e. Wireless Security password field is blank. I entered the WiFi password, made sure thatConnect Automatically is selected, and it connects. f. After reboot, a Secrets for (WiFi name) - KDE Daemon window opens asking for my WiFi password. I enter the WiFi password, and check the WiFi connection. The WiFi password field is blank again. I fill it in for the 3rd time, and save. After reboot again, the WiFi password is now saved and things work correctly.
4. Reboot fails/locks on the first install I did, requiring a hard restart. This looks similar to https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702220 but not exactly the same.
Console error message is: NetworkManager[742]: <warn> disconnected by the system bus NetworkManager[742]:<warn> quit request recieved, terminating... NetworkManager[742]: dbus_g_proxy_call_no_reply: assertion '!DBUS_G_PROXY_DESTROYED (proxy)' failed
At this point the reboot stops, and nothing happens until a hard restart.
This was not duplicated on a second clean install.
5. On reboot, I sometimes see a PolicyKit1-KDE segfault error. This is intermittent, and I haven't seen a pattern to it yet.
6. Icon for Documents (in Dolphin) is missing.
7. Flash videos (YouTube for example) do not work on initial install. The Plugin Finder fails to find a suitable plugin. Pluuin Flashplayer is installed, but is not triggering. I had to install Flash manually from the default Factory repos. The default Flash version that is installed is the old 10.3 one instead of the new 11.0.r1.129 (current RC1). Are there plans to provide the 11.0 player?
8. On initial startup of the Software Manager, it tries to connect to the DVD. This has to be manually disabled - shouldn't this be disabled by default? Or am I the only one who doesn't leave the install media in the drive (or in my case, plugged into the USB port) after the install is complete?
---------- Some observations....
The tap-to-click and right-hand touchpad scroll are now disabled by default. They can be enabled in the KDE config settings. This new default behavior is not what users are expecting in my testing - tested with users who are not familiar with Linux or KDE. They all expected tap-to-click and constantly tapped the touchpad when they wanted a left-mouse-click. Not all tried to right-hand side scroll... some did 2 finger scroll as is default in Windows 7 (and now apparently KDE4 as well).
The default behavior of the KDE4 desktop is confusing to new users. Dragging a file to the desktop, the user is presented with a menu of choices - the choices are dependent on the file contents. Most choices are widget related. These files are not dropped into the Desktop directory - they are converted to widgets... this is not intuitive since you end up with some files in the /home/$USER/Desktop directory, and some on the Desktop... but neither one contains the same files. I can see this causing some interesting and annoying support issues until people are used to this somewhat unintuitive and backwards behavior.
Contents of the Desktop directory are not shown on the KDE desktop (in default configuration). If I add a Folder View widget to the desktop and configure to show the contents of the Desktop directory, then the contents of the Desktop are displayed. Again, this is confusing to new users who expect that the Desktop directory contents are actually shown on the Desktop.
The new artwork for 12.1 is very nice. It's clean and very professional looking - a MASSIVE improvement over the 11.4 artwork.
Connecting to Samba shares (eg my NAS drive) was relatively simple - just typing smb://<IP Address> worked without any drama or pain.
KDE4 performance is snappy and fast even on the relatively modest hardware of the EEE netbook - it's even able to manage the default Desktop Effects without any noticeable slowdown.
All features for the netbook are working (sound, WiFi, NIC, video, Function keys etc) right from install - which is a LOT more than I can say for a clean install of Windows 7 (where most things don't work from initial install).
Overall, it's a really solid Beta 1 that is working very well. :-)
C.
On 2 October 2011 09:35, C smaug42@gmail.com wrote: Running into a few hiccups with a vanilla 12.1 Beta 1 KDE4 install. Thought maybe it'd be worth mentioning them here (sorry, it's a long email, but it's basically a step by step log of what I encountered during my test installs).
Install was done on an Asus EEE 1005HA netbook using full DVD ISO written to USB stick (using SuSE Studio Imagewriter).
Writing the ISO to the USB stick was easy/smooth.
Initial boot worked OK, but then the install errors out requiring several additional steps in a text console to make the install continue. The error message is: - Make sure that CD number 1 is in your drive. To work around this, I had to select (in text mode): - Back > English > English (US) > Start Installation > Start Installation or Update > Hard Disk > (select USB stick), type a / in the text edit field and press Enter. After following these steps, the install switched back to GUI mode and continued normally.
I installed 3 times, and it happened each time. This is something that would be very confusing to a user who has not encountered this before.
After the install completed, I bumbled into several problems/issues:
- Apps are not always removed from the taskbar See:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=275469 and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278891
- Extra/duplicate launchers for Firefox and Dolphin are shown on the
taskbar. You can remove them, but on logout/login, they are added back. The extra lanuchers have smaller icons than the "standard" launchers. See; https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=720240
- KNetwork manager not working as expected. The following point are
the steps I followed to get WiFi working:
a. Network icon (with no connection) is a tiny dot that is almost impossible to see. See screen shot at: http://www.digitaldragon.ca/WiFi_icon.png
Technically this isn't a bug and it's been around for about a year or more. Though I agree that the little circle is too small and it doesn't explain its' purpose very well.
Look at some of these well known icons (as well as some random ones from Google Images):
http://freewindowsvistatutorials.com/i7/Windows%207%20confirming%20that%20yo...
http://clarkbw.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/network-offline.png
http://cdn-img.easyicon.cn/png/5429/542903.gif
http://www.wisair.com/troubleshoot/scr/Icons/grayicondisabled.bmp
b. Click KNetworkManager > WLAN Interface and nothing happens. I had to always click twice (not double-click, two distinct clicks) to open the WLAN Interface. c. Initial WiFi setup - selected my WiFi router, and did a normal setup. Did not use KWallet, just clicked through to use "unsafe" storage. Connection fails with a Cannot Connect error. Shows a key over the signal strength icon in the taskbar. d. Click Manage Connections, and the password request window is opened behind all other open windows. Brought it forward, and entered root password. Errors out with: "No agents were available for this request". Click OK and the Edit Network Connections window opens. e. Wireless Security password field is blank. I entered the WiFi password, made sure thatConnect Automatically is selected, and it connects. f. After reboot, a Secrets for (WiFi name) - KDE Daemon window opens asking for my WiFi password. I enter the WiFi password, and check the WiFi connection. The WiFi password field is blank again. I fill it in for the 3rd time, and save. After reboot again, the WiFi password is now saved and things work correctly.
This problem has been around for a few major releases of KDE as well. I thought I had a bug report about it, but I can't find it. You should file a bug report since you can reproduce it.
- Reboot fails/locks on the first install I did, requiring a hard
restart. This looks similar to https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702220 but not exactly the same.
Console error message is: NetworkManager[742]: <warn> disconnected by the system bus NetworkManager[742]:<warn> quit request recieved, terminating... NetworkManager[742]: dbus_g_proxy_call_no_reply: assertion '!DBUS_G_PROXY_DESTROYED (proxy)' failed
At this point the reboot stops, and nothing happens until a hard restart.
This was not duplicated on a second clean install.
- On reboot, I sometimes see a PolicyKit1-KDE segfault error. This
is intermittent, and I haven't seen a pattern to it yet.
Icon for Documents (in Dolphin) is missing.
Flash videos (YouTube for example) do not work on initial install.
The Plugin Finder fails to find a suitable plugin. Pluuin Flashplayer is installed, but is not triggering. I had to install Flash manually from the default Factory repos. The default Flash version that is installed is the old 10.3 one instead of the new 11.0.r1.129 (current RC1). Are there plans to provide the 11.0 player?
Also has existed for a while. And using RC1 in a stable release of openSUSE is not the best thing, due to possible (and unforeseen) stability/security problems. So I say let Adobe do there thing and wait for a stable release of Flash 11. But it's not up to me to decide.
- On initial startup of the Software Manager, it tries to connect to
the DVD. This has to be manually disabled - shouldn't this be disabled by default? Or am I the only one who doesn't leave the install media in the drive (or in my case, plugged into the USB port) after the install is complete?
Some observations....
The tap-to-click and right-hand touchpad scroll are now disabled by default. They can be enabled in the KDE config settings. This new default behavior is not what users are expecting in my testing - tested with users who are not familiar with Linux or KDE. They all expected tap-to-click and constantly tapped the touchpad when they wanted a left-mouse-click. Not all tried to right-hand side scroll... some did 2 finger scroll as is default in Windows 7 (and now apparently KDE4 as well).
The default behavior of the KDE4 desktop is confusing to new users. Dragging a file to the desktop, the user is presented with a menu of choices - the choices are dependent on the file contents. Most choices are widget related. These files are not dropped into the Desktop directory - they are converted to widgets... this is not intuitive since you end up with some files in the /home/$USER/Desktop directory, and some on the Desktop... but neither one contains the same files. I can see this causing some interesting and annoying support issues until people are used to this somewhat unintuitive and backwards behavior.
Contents of the Desktop directory are not shown on the KDE desktop (in default configuration). If I add a Folder View widget to the desktop and configure to show the contents of the Desktop directory, then the contents of the Desktop are displayed. Again, this is confusing to new users who expect that the Desktop directory contents are actually shown on the Desktop.
The new artwork for 12.1 is very nice. It's clean and very professional looking - a MASSIVE improvement over the 11.4 artwork.
+1000
Thank you artwork team :)
Connecting to Samba shares (eg my NAS drive) was relatively simple - just typing smb://<IP Address> worked without any drama or pain.
KDE4 performance is snappy and fast even on the relatively modest hardware of the EEE netbook - it's even able to manage the default Desktop Effects without any noticeable slowdown.
Thank you KDE devs and kwin optimization :)
All features for the netbook are working (sound, WiFi, NIC, video, Function keys etc) right from install - which is a LOT more than I can say for a clean install of Windows 7 (where most things don't work from initial install).
Overall, it's a really solid Beta 1 that is working very well. :-)
C.
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org
-
C -
Steven Sroka