Short installation feedback 3.5 Mate 64-bit

[py-thon]

Download and installation was quick and 99% smooth. Well done!
Just a few minor suggestions:
1. The live version, even though starting "Sparky Linux German" uses the english keyboard layout and it was impossible to switch to German. "en" stayed put no matter how hard I tried. It might be coincidence that I could change it first try after putting the panel in the down-position.
2. The use of mate-netbook as standard might be confusing for those not used to it especially as there doesn't seem to exist any documentation or switch from mate's part. As far as I know the only way to get the "normal" behaviour is to purge the package. I know it from my LMDE-netbook and like it there but prefer to live without it on the big screen.
3. A preinstalled "show desktop" icon in the panel would be nice. I suppose I am not the only one using it constantly.

[pavroo]

Hi

The live version, even though starting "Sparky Linux German" uses the English keyboard layout and it was impossible to switch to German.

That's right. Any language you choose in live mode will give you your locale + en_US keyboard.
I was thinking about removing other locales from live because it's only an environment which let's you install the system on a hard drive with your localization and the keyboard.

I never used netbook before :) so installing 'mate-netbook' package in live system will solve the problem?

A preinstalled "show desktop" icon in the panel would be nice

I put it on my list of a next release.
Thank's for suggestions.

[py-thon]

The mentioned problem with the keyboard didn't happen using the live system the second time.

so installing 'mate-netbook' package in live system will solve the problem?

I would exclude mate-netbook from the standard installation and tell people using netbooks (or small notebooks) to install it afterwards.

Sadly, my praise for the installation seems to have been premature. The reason I started the live system again is that "users and groups" (I suppose that's what it is called in english) does not start, neither from the live system (where I didn't check before) nor from the installed system. I couldn't get it to start neither from menu nor terminal.
/var/log/syslog gives

Code Select Expand

.... kernel: [15137.609106] traps: mate-users-admi[15830] trap int3 ip:7fca61a68f50 sp:7fff0616c850 error:0 everytime I try to start "users and groups". Could this be because of the deprecated version of mate-conf (1.4, normally not part of mate anymore)?
To make sure this is no one-off like the keyboard I'll try again from the installed version and tell you the result later.

[py-thon]

Still the same problem and more of it.

I'll try to list what I have done today:
1. I had an installation of LMDE, downloaded the iso of Sparky 3.5 Mate 64-bit (md5sum was checked) and burnt it on DVD.  I tried the live system, didn't notice any problem (apart from the keyboard setting which doesn't count in this respect), then I installed, formatting my HDD and deleting the old installation of LMDE.
2. Installation went fine as I have already written.
3. I restored my data and installed additional packages. This is where I noticed something strange: Synaptic still had the history of my  LMDE-installation dating all the way back till April 2012 (when I installed LMDE). The history seems to be stored in some strange place, Google didn't tell me where.
4. I noticed that I can't start "users and groups", neither from menu nor terminal, both resulting in the aforementioned line in syslog.
5. I ran the live system again to try to start "users and groups" there. Impossible as well ("users and groups" appears in the panel and disappears after some seconds). So I wrote the last post.
6. I started the installed version again to doublecheck, still not possible to start "users and groups".
7. Because of synaptic's mentioned history I was afraid to have made some mistake during the install.
8.  So I started the live system again and started a fresh install from there, paying attention to the formatting.
9. I deleted all the partitions of my HDD with Gparted in a first step.
10. In a second step I created all new partitions with Gparted and made it format them.
11. I booted the new install.
11a. I still can't start "users and groups"
11b. I still have synaptic's history with all the details dating back to April 2012. Strangely this history does not contain any action from the first sparky-install a few hours earlier.
11c . I had trouble creating a mobile broadband connection. I had to try six times (first Sparky install it worked the second time so I didn't mention it). It always said "Adding/activating connection failed (32) No session found for user id1000 (unknown)" (my translation, 1000 is my ID of course). Sometimes the network icon disappeared and I had to logoff and login again to get the icon back.

Any idea how to make a working system out of it?

[pavroo]

I would exclude mate-netbook from the standard installation

So I will, just I needed to know that.

The reason I started the live system again is that "users and groups"

There is not 'mate-user-admin' package in the system.
It looks like a bug with mate packages. Upgrading mate to the newest version should remove all the 'mate-user-admin' components, but it didn't do that. There is still 'mate-user-admin.desktop' in /user/share/applications/
That's why it is visible in the menu and Mate Control Center.

This is where I noticed something strange: Synaptic still had the history of my  LMDE-installation dating all the way back till April 2012 (when I installed LMDE)

It's really strange for me too, I never seen something like that before.

I had trouble creating a mobile broadband connection

Can you activate other kind of the connection (wired, wifi) and make full system upgrade? Then try again after rebooting.

[py-thon]

This is where I noticed something strange: Synaptic still had the history of my  LMDE-installation dating all the way back till April 2012 (when I installed LMDE)

It's really strange for me too, I never seen something like that before.

I don't understand it either. I can only imagine that apt/synaptic's live version reads the history from hard disk and then saves it back to the install after partitioning. Maybe some flaw in the configuration.

Can you activate other kind of the connection (wired, wifi) and make full system upgrade? Then try again after rebooting.

I did a full dist-upgrade first thing (just excluded libreoffice, no use in downloading XXX MB to move from 4.3.1-1 to 4.3.1-3 or something like that). I could connect sometimes, but it was difficult. More often than not the network manager icon disappeared when clicking on it.

Unexpectedly MATE's own menu though more simple (and less convenient) is much slower than mintmenu.
And I frequently had trouble with the panel. Items on the panel (including minimized windows) seemed to disappear. They could be found hidden between other items on the panel when moving the latter items.

In the end (after a few hours with Sparky) I decided to move back to LMDE and jump to testing with the freeze in November.

I think you've made an interesting distribution but it is still young in comparison and needs refinement. As it's the only rolling release based on Debian Testing now I would like to see Sparky develop. Good luck!

[py-thon]

Right now I am giving Sparky another try.
I might have found the reason for the problems with nm-applet. I forget that I had started it via terminal in the end (inconvenient because the terminal has to remain open) it gives the following errors:

Code Select Expand

** (nm-applet:6446): WARNING **: Couldn't register with accessibility bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

(nm-applet:6446): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme directory scalable/stock of theme NoirCrystal has no size field
The last entry disappears when changing theme. So the problem is in the first message. The nm-applet's icon disappears unless nm-applet is started via terminal.

[py-thon]

After a dist-upgrade (bigger than after first install a few days ago, including new kernel) and change of theme I don't have problems with nm-applet anymore and hope it stays that way. Things run smooth now. Substituting Mate's menu for mintmenu worked fine, so everything's the way I like it now.

[pavroo]

That's great.
Let me know in a few days is still working :)

[py-thon]

The network manager so far has only disappeared once when clicking on it.
I think this is the corresponding line in /var/log/syslog:

Code Select Expand

kernel: [   71.241614] nm-applet[1481]: segfault at 18 ip 000000000042ffd0 sp 00007fff2d5a02c0 error 4 in nm-applet[400000+4e000].
Another thing that doesn't always work is Reportbug. Yesterday and the day before it worked, today it doesn't. According to /var/log/syslog

Code Select Expand

Attempt to unlock mutex that was not locked

[py-thon]

Don't bother with the latter. Reportbug is buggy https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=758619
Strange, that it worked for two days  :)

[py-thon]

The reason I started the live system again is that "users and groups"

There is not 'mate-user-admin' package in the system.
It looks like a bug with mate packages.

It seems that package mate-system-tools had simply been forgotten in Debian (Bug #734959) and Ubuntu, but not in Mint. It has entered sid a few days ago in version 1.8.1+dfsg1-1. This will bring (back) managing
- Users and groups
- Date and time
- Network options
- Services
- Shares (NFS and Samba)

[py-thon]

I just noticed that mate-system-tools will be dropped in MATE 1.10, whatever that means for managing the aforementioned settings. http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/roadmap
If it goes on like that half of MATE's control center is useless. At least we have Sparky tools to do that.

[pavroo]

I made upgrade all my sparky installations as I do every 2 weeks.
MATE desktop has gotten some more changes as you suggested.
Removed:
mate-netbook
libmateconf 1.4
libmatecorba 1.4
mate-conf 1.4
mate-conf-common 1.4
mate-conf-editor 1.4
mate-corba 1.4
mate-text-editor 1.6
mate-archive-keyring 1.6

Added show desktop icon to the panel.

If you find something else, simply let me know, please.