Mandriva, an European operating system originated from France, was once the easiest to use computer OS before Ubuntu from the family of GNU/Linux. It has two popular derivatives namely Mageia and OpenMandriva from France. For dear readers who are curious about their differences and commonalities, for example to start using computer with either one, this comparison article is for you. As a starter, in this article M means Mageia and O means OpenMandriva. Let's go!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

 

About Mandriva

Mandriva was an European, Frech originated computer operating system emerged in 1997 and discontinued in 2011. It once offered free software distribution, easy to use computing, user friendly desktop as well as the famous installer (DrakX) and control panel (DrakConf). Mandriva is the base of the two distros, Mageia and OpenMandriva, which continues to be developed today. If you want to learn about Mandriva today, go to Archiveos.org they have very good information about it. 

About Mageia and OpenMandriva

Mageia is a derivative OS of Mandriva started in 2010 by a French, Paris based non-profit organization. Click here to read the first announcement and click here to learn the latest version's release notes today. It reached version 8 in 2021. Visit www.mageia.org to learn more.

OpenMandriva Lx is another derivative OS of Mandriva started in 2013 by its French non-profit organization. Its first release was in 2013 and currently it reached version 4.2 in 2021. Click here to read its latest release notes. Visit openmandriva.org to learn more.

 

1. Architectures

 

M: 32 bit, 64 bit

O: 64 bit, ARM32, ARM64

This means both distros here are available to use for PC desktop and laptop users. For old computers, such as laptops sold in 2000's, Mageia still supports 32 bit while OpenMandriva doesn't anymore. For new generation computers with better energy efficiency and smaller forms, such as Raspberry and PineBook, only OpenMandriva supports ARM for both 32 and 64 versions. In short, Mageia sticks with PC only while OpenMandriva extends itself to ARMs.

Mageia's:

OpenMandriva's:

2. Distributions

 

M: CD, DVD, Netinstall

O: DVD, SDCARD, Server

Mageia is available as CD and DVD image files as well as the netboot one. On the other hand, OpenMandriva is available as DVD only, no CD size anymore, no netboot either. Both are desktop operating systems except OpenMandriva expands further to provide server edition (ARM) as well. One more special thing here is an OpenMandriva version called znver1 which is specifically made for AMD Ryzen hardware. Last but not least, fortunately both distros already support UEFI and GPT technologies today.

However, as an aesthetic addition, while speaking about the presentations, Mageia has better presentation on their web page so we can see all the choices and easily choose which one we wish for, while OpenMandriva is very simple, we cannot see all the choices then to easily choose one we wish for there.

 

3. Installations

M: DrakX

O: Calamares

These two names are the software on screen when we're installing the operating system to computer. DrakX was known originated from Mandriva, while Calamares is well known among Manjaro users. This point is the biggest difference between the two distros. Mageia follows Mandriva more than OpenMandriva does by keeping DrakX alive, while the latter saw the benefits of the other installer, Calamares, and adopted it.

Mageia's:

 OpenMandriva's:

 

4. Bootloaders

M: see picture

O: see picture

Mandriva was the owner of pretty bootloader and splash screen. So do both OSes here, but if you look closer you will find Mageia's one is simpler while OpenMandriva's one looks more polished.

  Mageia's:

OpenMandriva's:

5. Login Screens

M: traditional looking (SDDM)

O: modern looking (SDDM)

The looks of both's login appearances look different as shown below but actually they are the same software, called Simple Desktop Display Manager, coming from KDE Plasma within both.

Mageia:

OpenMandriva:

 

6. Desktop Environments

 

M: Plasma, GNOME, Xfce

O: Plasma

In general, appearances of both distros are the same because they wear a desktop environment called Plasma (once called KDE). However, in this regard, OpenMandriva seems to follows its predecessor more as the panel has been designed to be a double stack plus 4 workspaces by default just like how Mandriva was; while Mageia looks more modern here to follow Plasma's panel white as is. One thing certainly unchanged as each OS name is displayed on each one's wallpaper you can look at.

Mageia's:

OpenMandriva's:

7. Control Panels

 

M: Mageia Control Center

O: OpenMandriva Control Center

This was the part where the discontinued Mandriva ever shone brightly, it was the Control Panel, once named Mandriva Control Center (MCC). One among the reasons why Mandriva ever became the most user friendly distro was indeed the MCC as everything was integrated in it. No wonder today the derivatives have similar ones, the contents, and even the name as well. The command lines to run it are mcc and om-control-center respectively.

Mageia's:

 OpenMandriva's:

 

8. Network Managers

M: detached, drakconnect

O: attached, Plasma's built-in

For daily use, a user will certainly feel the biggest difference in network connecting, as Mageia uniquely separates its network manager from its desktop environment by utilizing Drakconnect a separate window to connect to wifi or LAN, unlike other KDE distros like Kubuntu which simply utilizes Plasma system tray instead. In this regard, OpenMandriva follows other KDE distros by simply utilizing it (in my opinion, so user will find it quicker and easier to access).

 

9.  Documentations

M: doc.mageia.org

O: wiki.openmandriva.org/en

Mageia is professional in this point while OpenMandriva's documentation looks very incomplete and unsatisfying. Mageia's are really user guide, while OpenMandriva's only release information and no user guide yet. You should look at Mageia's Doc webpage, it is excellent, available for multiple versions of the OS even the latest one (v8), and amazingly such full documentation is also available prebuilt on Mageia itself. 

Mageia's:

 OpenMandriva's:

10.  Performance

M: can run under 2GB memory, supports 32 bit

O: cannot run under 2GB, only supports 64 bit

Mageia can, but OpenMandriva cannot, run with less than 2GB of RAM. On the other hand, Mageia also can revive your old computers with up to date applications while OpenMandriva cannot anymore. As an example, I can run Mageia 8 on 1.5GB memory but when I did the same with Lx 4.2 it refused to start by asking more memory. Perhaps it is important to note that OpenMandriva claims to be the first GNU/Linux OS which is compiled with the new LLVM technology rather than the de facto standard GNU GCC (GCC is used to produce Debian, Ubuntu, even Mandriva itself).

 

Miscellaneous 

As an afterwords, below is several information hopefully useful to you and everyone else. They are social media, community forums, few external references, and how to contribute to both Mageia and OpenMandriva. Finally, I wish you enjoy this article!

 

Communication

M: [Forum] [News] [Mailing List]

O: [Forum] [Mastodon] [Reddit] [Twitter] [Facebook]

 

Further Readings

M: [Wikipedia] [Distrowatch]

O: [Wikipedia] [Distrowatch]

Contribution

M: [Get Involved] [Donation]

O: [Get Involved] [Donation]

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

What is Chatons? Chatons (French: kitten) is a France-originated collection of free online services which have commitment in Free Software and Privacy initiated by infamous France organization Framasoft. The services available are video calls, file sharing, collaborative editing, and link shortening. Together, it can be a real good alternative / replacement to Google services. However, at the moment it presented mostly in French so most people didn't know about it yet. It is the purpose of this article, to introduce Chatons to you all computer users in English language. This article starts with the practices, then examples, and ends with a short explanation. Let's start!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates. Start

Go to entraide.chatons.org/en to start accessing the online services. It is the English portal of Chatons where we can quickly access free service among services we want. 

1. Use Collaborative Writing
This is for you who want online authoring similar to Google Docs. You can think this like LibreOffice Writer but accessible with browser. Technology used here is Etherpad.

• Focus on the COLLABORATIVE WRITING section.
• Type a document name / team you wish e.g. myAuthorsTeam.
• Click CREATE.
• A text document will be opened.  You are ready to write.
  
• Invite your writing friends by sharing the link to them and start editing. 

2. Use Video Call
This is for you to hold online meeting e.g. classroom or work similar to Zoom. Technology used here is called Jitsi Meet.

• Focus on the Video Conference section.
  
• Type a room name you wish e.g. mySchoolWonderful.
• Click CREATE. 
• You entered a video call room. 
• Finally, invite your friends by giving them the share link.

3. Create Poll

This is for you who want an online survey or collaborating a schedule almost similar to Google Forms. Technology used here is Framadate. 

• Focus on the Find A Schedule section.
• Click CREATE A SURVEY.
• Click MAKE A STANDARD POLL.
• Make a poll title e.g. 'What is your operating system?' and fill everything else.
• You can protect the poll with password by clicking Optional Parameters below it. Go next.
• Fill up the choices (choice 1, 2, 3, ...). Click CREATE THE POLL.
  
• Share the public link to your friends, students, or audience.

 

4. Use Collaborative Spreadsheet
This is for you who want to make spreadsheet documents similar to Microsoft Excel. You can use this like LibreOffice Calc but accessed via browser. Technology used here is Ethercalc.

• Focus on the COLLABORATIVE SPREADSHEET section.
• Type a document name you want e.g. ourStudentRecord if you want to make a classroom attendance for example.
• Click CREATE.
• A spreadsheet document will open.
  
• Invite your friends to join writing by sharing the link.
  

5. Use File Sharing
This is for you who want to quickly share files to your friends like what you did perhaps with Google Drive or Dropbox.

• Focus on the FILE SHARING section.
• Click UPLOAD FILES.
• Set the expiration date if you wish.
  
• Upload your files.
• Share the link to your friends.
  

6. Use Picture Sharing
This is for you who want to quickly share photos or images just like with Flickr. Technology used here is Lutim.

• Focus on the PICTURE SHARING section.
• Click UPLOAD PICTURES.
• You should see Lutim page and drag & drop section there. 
• Upload pictures you want and wait. 
• Share the link to your friends.
  

7. Create Postit Board
This is the kanban board similar to Trello.

• Focus on the POST-IT BOARD section.
• Give this board a name e.g. ourKanbanBoard. 
• Click CREATE.
• Click (+) button on right side to add columns separated by dashed lines.
• Name every column, e.g. yesterday | today | tomorrow.
  
• Click (+) button the bottom side to add a note. Drag this note to a column.
• Make more notes and drag them to the appropriate column.
  
• Share this kanban board by giving the link to your friends. 
  

8. Create Short Link

• Focus on the LINK SHORTENER section.
• Click SHORTEN A LINK.
• Paste a link into the box and click SHORTEN.
• Shortened link created and share this link to your friends.
  

9. Create Secure Text 

• Focus on the SECURE TEXT SHARING section. 
• Click CREATE AN ENCRYPTED MESSAGE.
• Paste or write everything you want there.
• Select expiration time you want at the top.
• Set a password at the top.
  
• Share the link of this text to your friends.
  

Examples

To help elaborate dear readers, I present you below examples on how Chatons be used for daily purposes. They are poll, kanban board, and collaborative editing services.

Poll: here's a poll about what is your operating system (GNU/Linux distro) with several participants.

Post-it: here's a simple kanban board I made myself for my past, present, and future plans these few days. 

Collaborative Editing: here's how it should look like with its ability to export document to various formats including PDF, LibreOffice Writer, and Microsoft Word. Note that different colors means different authors by 2 person writing as example.

About Chatons

"CHATONS is a collective of independant, transparent, open, neutral and ethical hosters providing FLOSS-based online services."

Chatons is actually a central place that collects multiple services by different independent providers from (currently) France, Swiss, Belgium, and Canada (thanks Chatons for this valuable correction).  and still increasing. Unlike other services, Chatons services are based on Free Software and not Proprietary ones. If you have read our articles about Alternative World and Librehost you will find Chatons very similar. It is built by the organization which built Degooglify Internet, that is, a successful movement to invite people to the alternatives to Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft or GAFAM. There is a really nice explanation from FOSDEM 2017 conference if you want to know everything about Framasoft - Degooglify - Chatons. Finally, you can join them if you are an activist of Free/Libre Open Source Software by visiting Chatons.org.

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Continuing our Fedora articles (click here and here), now here is our traditional list of tips & tricks to begin with Fedora after installing it to our computer but with the point of view of an Ubuntu user. Currently, we are having Fedora version 32 to Rawhide, ranging between versions 3.38 to 40 of its GNOME desktop, and these are applicable to any of them and hopefully in the future versions as well. Okay, now let's try Fedora together and go!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.
Summary 1. Read system details2. Software3. Setup video/audio supports4. Terminal5. Connectivity
Read System Details

 
    Apps used: About, Disks, and Baobab
 

First things first. Of course as a starter, you would want to know about your computer system's details. To do so, open up the start menu (press Super) and type About and just press Enter. Just like with Ubuntu, a window will open and tell you information about your computer hardware, operating system, and desktop environment. With Fedora 24 on my T430 as example, this About will tell me Intel Core i5 as CPU, Intel HD Graphics as GPU, 4GB as RAM, and that I use Fedora 33 with GNOME 3.38 as desktop environment with Wayland technology below the infinite logo of Fedora.

To check up your storage system, type Disks on the start menu and just press Enter. Another window will open and tell you all disk drives you have including USB flash and CDROM if any. It divides into two parts, items on left side are your drives, items on right side are a drive's information. Particular to Fedora, it might show an additional item called zram which is your swap partition. At my computer, it shows four items, first is my hard disk drive (320GB), second is my DVDRW, third is my USB flash drive (32GB), and the last is my swap. However, my Fedora 33 is stored in the USB 32GB (I deliberately made it portable) with four partitions within it.

One thing useful, type baobab on start menu and just press Enter. A window named Disk Usage Analyzer will open and tell you detailed size information of each of all directories in your computer's storage. To use Baobab, first you choose the slash (/) filesystem and let Baobab scans your system and finally the result is showing as a list of your computer folders sorted out top-bottom from the largest to the smallest by size. You will find it easy to use as every folder got its own gauge bar representing its size compared to other folder's. Just like Disks too, it is divided into two sides, items on left side are the list, and items on right side are charts representing your directories. This is useful to know which folders eat up your disk space the most and which the less. We can use it at the beginning as a "before" and anytime later we could do a check again as an "after" to compare your files growth. As an example, in my freshly installed Fedora computer the largest folder is /usr (by 5GB) followed by /boot (150MB) and /var (135MB). Yours should be similar to these and similarly these folders will grow over the time. As an addition, I myself cannot tell how many this Baobab being useful to my life as I can quickly disposes data trashes to free up disk spaces after seeing the detailed scan result (and I use similar app too on Android phone named DiskUsage it is just as useful).

Software

App used: Software

This is the most important part but it takes a lot of time and internet quota*) to do so. I advise you to be patient with it. To use Software, you need to let it idle for several minutes/hours with internet access on and then follow its Update procedures by a restart and wait for some time until it is finished. Once finished, Software will be ready like pictured below. With this you can add a lot of (tens of thousands of) applications for any purpose you can think and imagine.

Do you want Flatpak? Click here and then download the Flathub repository file at that page and finally click Install button on Software to enable access to Flatpak -- that is, plenty of additional applications. Now, every time you choose to install one application in Software, look at top-right, it will show choices between normal and Flatpak sources if any.

For Ubuntu users, there are several apps which are not present by default. Some of them you may want to install:

• Mozilla Thunderbird (email)
  
• LibreOffice Math (equations)
  
• LibreOffice Draw (diagram/illustrator)
  
• LibreOffice Base (database)
  
• Transmission (bittorrent)

 

Setup Video/Audio Supports

 

Once you do the Update in Software above, full supports of MP3/MP4 will be added, then you can play mp3s and watch mp4s you like. Otherwise you cannot play them (or you should manually install the required programs simply by opening any mp3/mp4 with the player and follow the given instructions). Please note that Fedora (just like Ubuntu) is able to play audio/video out of the box if the formats are open (OGG/WEBM) so the issues only come from non-open formats (mp3/mp4) and people who own them. 

Terminal 

App used: Terminal

As Ubuntu users, we are already accustomed to Ctrl+Alt+T key combination to open the Terminal. On Fedora, it is disabled. To enable it, we create a new shortcut key. To do so, go to Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts > scroll to bottom > click Add > name it Terminal > give it command 'gnome-terminal' without quotes > click the association key and press the combination afterwards > OK. Now test it.

 Connectivity

Basically to access a wifi internet, click the system tray > click Network > select a wifi hotspot > enter the password > OK > you are connected.

Finally, to create a hotspot from your laptop, open Settings > Network section > click Hamburger button > Turn on Wifi Hotspot > give your hotspot a name > give it a password > OK > a hotspot created > now let your friends to connect. Please note that this will disable your current wifi connection if your network device is only one and will not disable it if you have two (one to receive, one to give).

Happy computing!

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Continuing our Mageia 8 install guide and review, now this is a simple guide for beginners to begin computing with Mageia. For this first time, as we did with Ubuntu too, we learn how to search, install, and update software applications on it. The work arounds are centered on the built-in program called Mageia Control Center (MCC) which is like Synaptic and YaST programs for either Ubuntu & openSUSE user.

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

1. Start Mageia Control Center

Run MCC from the start menu. 

2. Start Package Management

Click the Install Software option on the top and a new window appears. It is your place to add, remove, and update applications on Mageia. To Ubuntu user, this is similar to Ubuntu Software today and historically like Synaptic Package Manager in the past.

3. Setup Software Download Sources

To begin with Mageia, firstly, we should setup the repositories (Mageia calls them medias).

1. First, click menubar Options > Media Manager.
2. Second, a new dialog will appear > click its menubar File > Add a specific media mirror.
3. Third, a new dialog also appears > it says "I need to contact the Mageia website..." > click YES. 
4. Fourth, a list of repositories from various countries will appear > select a country e.g. United States (US) > select an address under that country e.g. Kernel.org > OK.
5. Fifth, wait for the setup of repositories taking place. This took some <=5 minutes in my broadband internet access.
6. Mageia is ready to add and update applications.

 

 

4. Search for Application

Once the repository setup above finished, MCC will be able to help you add and update applications.

5. Install an Application

To add an application or more on Mageia:

• Run MCC.
• Open the Install Software section.
• Type a name of application you want in the search box. 
• Press Enter.
• Search result appears. If the application exists or your keyword is correct, it will show a package or more packages of the software you want you can then install.
  
• Click the check mark box beside the package name.
• Click Apply and wait until it finished.
• Check it out on your start menu and run the program.
  

Example

As an example, here is how to install several applications to edit video, named Kdenlive, on Mageia 8, followed by installing illustration and layout design programs, named Inkscape and Scribus, respectively. These are programs we Ubuntu users usually install on our computers so I hope this helps you try Mageia.

• Open MCC.
• Go to Install Software.
• Type kdenlive.
• Press Enter.
• Search result appears with one name presented: kdenlive.
• Click the small white box beside kdenlive to give check mark to kdenlive.
• Search for inkscape and do the same.
• Search for scribus and do the same.
  
• Before installing, check the detailed information below it and the size/capacity. As example, for Kdenlive, it is said to be "A non linear video editing application..." by version 20.12 and by size 95MB to be downloaded.
  
• Click Apply at the bottom.
• Mageia downloads the packages of Kdenlive, Inkscape, and Scribus applications for a while. The progress depends on your internet download speed.
• Once finished, kdenlive inkscape scribus packages will be marked green as installed.
  
• Open start menu and find programs you just installed.
• Run the programs. 

 

Below is the result when I run Inkscape, Kdenlive, and Scribus at the same time on my Mageia computer. They look cool, right?

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Second update to deepin OS Twenty released on March 31 highlighted as Beautiful and Wonderful. This article is a collection to all of its download links, several countries' mirrors, torrents and checksums so you and friends can quickly grab it and test it out on your computer. Simply click a link between links below and enjoy. Happy downloading!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.Download Deepin 20.2

Here's deepin OS from the original server in China.

[OFFICIAL DOWNLOAD]  

Mirrors

 

If you feel the official download speed unsatisfying, try to download from nearest countries choices below.

• Open Source Developer Network [DOWNLOAD]
  
• Sourceforge [DOWNLOAD]
  
• Australia [DOWNLOAD]
  
• Brazil [DOWNLOAD]
  
• Canada [DOWNLOAD]
  
• Germany [DOWNLOAD]
• Japan [DOWNLOAD]
• Russia [DOWNLOAD]
  
• Taiwan [DOWNLOAD]
• United States [DOWNLOAD]
• United Kingdom [DOWNLOAD]
• Vietnam [DOWNLOAD]

Torrents

Want fastest speed, error resistant download and contributing to the community at the same time? Download deepin using a BitTorrent link instead. Click here to learn how to download torrents.

[OFFICIAL TORRENT]

[FOSSTORRENTS]

 

Checksum

 

In computing, checksums are ways to make sure a copy of digital file as identical to the original file, hence, is ready to be used. Check your downloaded deepin OS image file by these original checksums. Click here to learn how to do so.

# MD5SUM
5db575b438d948765778cbc4af914c03 deepin-desktop-community-20.2-amd64.iso
6d9e949a8e1fa82876cf1f8da12796fb deepin-live-system-2.0-amd64.iso

Making Deepin Bootable

 

Click here to learn how to write the image file into a USB flash drive so you can install deepin. If you use other OS than GNU/Linux, on Windows you can use Rufus while on MacOS you can use the built-in Disks.

Installing Deepin

 

Click here to learn how to install it to your computer with UEFI and dualboot methods.

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Continuing the GTK3 setup, now I present a simple guide to setup GTK4 software development tools with screenshots included the instructions for Fedora and openSUSE operating systems. With this, you can start making desktop applications in C language with the latest version of this infamous widget toolkit that built GNOME. I selected Geany as the code writing tool here. Now rest easy and happy hacking!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.About OSes

• For Ubuntu it is 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo).
• For Fedora it is 32.
• For openSUSE it is Tumbleweed.

They are the OS versions known today to provide GTK4 development libraries available. Later, more OSes that support GTK4 will come for sure.

Setup on Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get install libgtk-4-dev gtk-4-examples geany

• Min. requirement: Ubuntu 21.04 Hirsute Hippo
  
• No. of packages: 120+
• Download size: 30 MB+
• Disk space used: 300MB+

 

Setup on Fedora

$ sudo dnf install gtk4-devel geany

• Minimum requirement: Fedora 32
• No. of packages: 59
  
• Download size: 34MB
• Disk space used: ?
  

Setup on openSUSE

$ sudo zypper install gtk4-devel geany

• Minimum requirement: Tumbleweed
  
• No. of packages: 75
• Download size: 30MB
• Disk space used: 165MB

The Results

By installing the packages, you should get a complete suite of all GTK4 libraries (unseen unless you code) and additional graphical applications namely:

GTK Demo

Code examples collection and ability to run the program and copy the source codes. This includes a 3D animation demo too.

Icon Browser

The tool to view and browse GTK icons in one place. This way, you can quickly see and compare an icon in various size (16, 24, 32, ...) and also copy the name to your source code.

Widget Factory

The full examples of all GTK4 widgets in one application. This is so we can see and know what we will be making later.

 
Print Editor

Tool to demonstrate GTK4 ability in printing. So you can create an application that is able to deal with printers.

Start Coding

GTK Project provides full documentation in doing programming with GTK4 with C language. Click here to get started it all.

References

• https://www.gtk.org/docs/installations/linux
• https://www.gtk.org/docs/architecture

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

GNOME 40 just released this March. For your information, GNOME is the user interface of Ubuntu, Red Hat & Fedora computer operating systems. I can tell you it is now faster and better designed worth to try. Now it is my chance to review it so our dear readers can try it and love it with friends too. Here we go!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.Download GNOME 40

Forty is available in the latest versions of hi tech operating systems namely GNOME OS, Fedora, and openSUSE. To try Forty you can try any of these three OSes and it does not require installation. Click here to download one of them and try it out quickly.

It's Lightning Fast

I am surprised! I tried to open the  start menu, apps overview ("Activities"), and search and they are now start very quickly than the yesterday's versions. This is what I like the most from GNOME Forty. As far as I can remember, this is the fastest GNOME ever since its birth ten years ago.

New Front Face

I see GNOME Shell (the front face) with subtle changes as we can see a highlight whenever we hover mouse cursor to every item on the top panel.

New Apps Overview

I see the Overview is now welcoming at startup and whenever showing it's with icon per app (for easier identification) and fast. Its shortcut is Super and now added with Super+Alt+Up.

New Dock

I am surprised that now the left-vertical dock is now moved to bottom horizontally. However, to me it is more preferred It is finally similar to KDE (for the position) or Deepin (for the form) at best. It is now features a separation between favorite apps (always-there ones) and non favorite ones as shown below.

New Start Menu

I open the Dash and am surprised. It is fast! I mean, I reviewed some of version 3.x, and I can confirm this one is far more faster than any of them. I love the brand new look too, I think it is very beautiful and polished -- with the ability to rearrange items, group them as I like, and search faster than before.

New Virtual Workspaces

I am also surprised the workspaces are now very visible and work horizontally. For about ten years after its birth at 2011, GNOME 3 was always working vertically and not too visible -- you need to hover mouse to right to show the workspaces.

New Compose Key

Now I can type ² (exponent two),  © (copyright mark), ® (registered trademark), ™ (trademark) with some shortcut keys I chose myself. I do not need to open Insert Special Characters anymore with this ability. This [Compose key] here is an arbitrary key (such as Alt) which when pressed once will show a mark on screen, and I should press Shift+C and then O to make ©. For the superscripts, for example I press Compose key once, then I should press Shift+6, and I press a number. Magic! This can be configured on Settings and Tweaks.

Weather

Is now more detailed with additional information if I click a day or hour in a forecast. Below is how it looks like for Jakarta, Capital of Indonesia, by Daily view. You can see the temperature, as well as humidity and wind speed forecasts.

Settings 

Since few versions ago, I saw Settings look responsive, that was, resizable to a smartphone screen size. The reason is, that GNOME is indeed made suitable for touchscreen devices (tablet and phones) and today it is made a reality thanks to PinePhone & Librem you can check them out. The new changes at Settings I found are under Keyboard section with Input Sources moved there and added with a new Compose Key facility, however I found Dock is missing (and missing also in Tweaks) and I don't know why -- perhaps just like in the past, GNOME developers want to make Dock position permanent unless we change it someway.

Files

Here's the ultimate tool of every desktop user -- the file manager. Files does not change much appearance wish. But I meet a fresh preference window design! It is now a single page only without multiple tabs. Aside from that, what I like the most of Files is, it's still as fast for searching.

Software

When I run it, on both Rawhide and Tumbleweed, it is unfortunately not working as usual by showing nothing on its front page. However, I can still search for applications anyway by ignoring the issue and just install everything I want. I can confirm that it is not my internet access issue. I think this is the urgent issue needs immediate improvements.

The actual improvement I find at Software is now it shows the sources of each application we select whether it is from normal packages or from Flatpak. As example, see picture below, it is GNOME SDK version 40 (the one a programmer need to develop a GNOME app) available to install via Flatpak source shown at Software, with two versions I can choose at the moment namely 3.38 and 40.

Fragments

As an Ubuntu user, we might falsely think that Transmission is a GNOME app. In fact, GNOME now has its own bittorrent download manager named Fragments. I tried it and it just works, to me it is the simplest new app of GNOME today.

Fractal

As our dear readers might know, Ubuntu Buzz often brings up Element, an internet messenger based on Matrix technology. Did you know that GNOME has its own Matrix app? It is called Fractal (not to be confused with Fragments).

Maps

It's prettier now! It got an improvement I like, that is, Wikipedia integration. Every time I click a city it shows the city name and its Wikipedia photo & information as additions. It's pretty! As my example below showing Jakarta, Capital of Indonesia, with its photos and descriptions from Wikipedia (you see the national monument there).

Running Non-GNOME Apps

Finally, I try to run non-GNOME or non-GTK applications on Forty. It works! As an example, I run KeePassXC, an application created not with GTK but Qt running as an AppImage. It goes well with the GNOME appearance as a whole.

Conclusions

GNOME Forty is fast I encourage you to try it! Everything feels seamless, looks better designed. Maps, Weather, Settings, and Files after the user navigation are now faster and better. However, there's still some issues and in my opinion the most unpleasant is Software as mentioned above. Overall, it is worth trying and waiting for the inclusion on Ubuntu in particular and on GNU/Linux distros worldwide in general. Finally, enjoy your computer with GNOME! Congratulations and thank you to all GNOME developers!

Hardware & Software Details

My computer specification for this review is ThinkPad T430 with Intel Core i5 CPU, 4GB RAM, and Intel Graphics HD GPU. I also run both Rawhide (Fedora 33+) and Tumbleweed (March 2021) on virtual machines with QEMU with 4 cores and 2GB of RAM each. I can confirm for both bare metal and virtual machine of mine GNOME Forty works very well. That's all. 

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

I am pleased to witness the coming of GNOME 40 (also spelled Forty) the user interface of most prestigious GNU/Linux computer operating systems. Below you can download and quickly try it from the latest GNOME OS or alternatively Fedora or openSUSE in live session right from the bootable medium or simply run it on a virtual machine. Welcome GNOME Forty and congratulations to all GNOME developer for this awesome release!

(Forty | Picture taken from the GNOME OS website)Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.The Information

Officially GNOME 40 released on Wednesday, 24 March 2021 and announced first at the mailing list by Matthias Clasen and published its Release Notes at the same day as always. This version is a continuation to the previous GNOME 3.38 (which was released along with Ubuntu 20.10 and Fedora 33 operating systems). This release is as gorgeous as always with so many improvements and nice things brought along.

The Website

This new release brings many new things and as an example now GNOME has a new website addressed forty.gnome.org you can visit.

 The GNOME Operating System

Forty brought a special product came to live named GNOME OS. With this, we can immediately download the OS to test out the latest GNOME desktop environment without waiting for the packages coming to Ubuntu or other GNU/Linux distro we currently using. This is the long awaited product we all want, after its rival Plasma had KDE Neon as the testbed OS for so long. Visit the OS at the new address os.gnome.org.

Grab GNOME 40

We can download computer operating systems which include GNOME Forty right right now so we can test it, love it, and later use it for our daily life. If you have a 32 bit computers, you can choose openSUSE straightly below.

GNOME OS [DOWNLOAD]

Fedora Rawhide [DOWNLOAD]

openSUSE GNOME:Next [DOWNLOAD]

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This is my experience on installing openSUSE, the green chameleon operating system, Leap Edition version 15.2 to my computer. It is a family of GNU/Linux hence a distant sibling to Ubuntu with a distinct feature called YaST, the green tapir control panel, on top of its RPM software package basis. I installed it on a virtual machine in normal method as I used on Ubuntu. However, this can be used for actual installation to the real hardware directly including in dualboot mode. Thus, I share this with you by wishing it to be useful. Let's go!
Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

1. Download openSUSE
2. Create an openSUSE
3. Boot openSUSE
4. Start openSUSE installer
5. Create Partitions
6. Create Username Password and Begin Installation
7. Setup Timezone
8. Wait for the Process
9. Finished
10. Result
PreparationsBelow is the plan of hard disk partitions I would make with my openSUSE Leap computer. You can follow this to install openSUSE yourself.

• First partition by 200MB as EFI
• Second partition by 1GB as SWAP
• Third partition by 18GB as ROOTGPT technology hard disk drive by 20GB as the storage

1. Download openSUSE
I downloaded the Full Installer by 4GB under x86_64 (alias 64 bit PC) architecture.

2. Create an openSUSE
One can use Disks tool that is available on Ubuntu to create a USB flash drive bootable of openSUSE. Once created, this openSUSE USB is the installation medium required one can use to install openSUSE in any computer. Click here to learn how to burn the image file to USB yourself. However, for virtual machine (QEMU) installation as this experiment went, I did not need to make it.

3. Boot openSUSE
One should fire up the computer by booting into the USB so openSUSE Leap shows up on the screen and then select Installation among the selections. In my experiment, I just need to fire up my virtual machine with CDROM choice enabled so I show openSUSE Leap right on the screen. 
4. Start openSUSE installer
Once fired up, openSUSE Installer will appear on screen by showing the first page is License Agreement, the second page is System Role, the and third page is Partitioning. It is a Free Software license with mainly GNU General Public License so it is okay to accept.

- In the License Agreement, I let the keyboard & language as is and just click Next to accept the license.
- After that and before the next page, there was System Probing, so I selected NO for the online options. This made the installation went offline.
- In the System Role, I selected KDE Plasma selection.
- In the Suggested Partitioning, I selected Expert Partitioner > Existing Disk Space.
- After this, I went to Create Partitions section below.

5. Create Partitions
I created three hard disk partitions just as planned in the beginning here. First thing I did was creating partition table "GPT" as the hard disk drive is still a brand new empty one. Second thing I did was making the EFI partition. Third thing was making the SWAP partition. Fourth thing was making the ROOT partition. Here's the explanation.

- Making GPT partition table
I selected the hard disk > clicked Modify button > Create New Partition Table > select GPT from the selections > Next > hard disk has been formatted with GPT and ready to create partitions within. At this point, my hard disk was addressed as /dev/sda by 20GiB capacity.

- Making the EFI partition
I selected the free space available on the hard disk > Partitions > Create New Partition > I specified Custom Size 200 MB > Next > I selected EFI Boot Partition among other options > I made sure that the Formatting Options were Filesystem=FAT, Partition ID=EFI System Partition; and Mount Point=/boot/efi > Next > an EFI partition created. At this point, there were this EFI partition /dev/sda1 and the hard disk free space /dev/sda.

- Making the SWAP partition
Similar to EFI partition, I made the SWAP partition by Custom Size=1 GiB and selected Swap instead of EFI System Partition option. The rest was just the same.

- Making the ROOT Partition
Similar to either SWAP or EFI partition, making the ROOT was just by selecting Operating System option instead of SWAP or EFI option, letting the size as the rest of hard disk capacity (in this example, 18 GiB), selecting the Filesystem=EXT4, and selecting the Mount Point=/.

As a summary up to this point, there were three partitions created by four makings above:
- /dev/sda1 as EFI system partition by 200MB
- /dev/sda2 as SWAP partition by 1 GiB
- /dev/sda3 as ROOT partition by 18 GiB or the rest of disk space 
Ending the partitioning, I clicked Next to go to the next section.

6. Setup Timezone
I selected Asia/Jakarta as my timezone as always. I clicked Next.

7. Create Username Password and Begin Installation
This is the final setup. I created my username and my password and I gave check marks to both 'Use this password for system administrator' and 'Automatic login' options. The last option left unchecked 'Skip User Creation' is beneficial and specially created for computer manufacturers so they can install openSUSE as OEM which the buyers could create their own username/password after buying the computer.  


8. Wait for the Process
I waited the installation progress for no less than 30 minutes. It was far longer than average Ubuntu installation time which is around 10-15 minutes at best.

9. Finished
Once finished, openSUSE would restart itself and finally I saw my openSUSE Leap computer I want. 

10. Result
Here's my Leap 15.2 computer!

Happy installing!

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This is LibrePCB, a complete electronic design suite that is free software, featureful and cross platform. It is still a new application at the moment and not yet available on Ubuntu and other major GNU/Linux operating systems. For that purpose, this simple tutorial explains where to grab it and run it instantly on Ubuntu computer --without installation nor an administrator right--.

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

Requirements 

LibrePCB needs a GNU/Linux operating system on a 64 bit computer and can run under 2 GB memory.

Download LibrePCB

Go to the download page (click here) and download the AppImage version of LibrePCB which is by >=36MB at the moment. 

Permit

Once downloaded, the file name is like librepcb-0.1.5-linux-x86_64.AppImage. Right-click the AppImage file then Properties then Permissions and give Executable permission to it (usually, just give check mark to it) and OK.

Run

LibrePCB runs after you double-clicked the AppImage file. 

Note: if you wish to add LibrePCB to the start menu, simply use Alacarte program on GNOME or right-click the start menu itself on KDE to add it by hand.

Happy designing!

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

In this list below, you can instantly download OpenMandriva Lx computer operating system version 4.2 codenamed Argon by all choices of edition available. This includes the x86_64 Workstation as well as the special AMD Ryzen editions, aside from the other ARM editions for ROCK Pi and Raspberry Pi single board computers. This list also includes the mirrors and torrents aside from the checksums for your convenience. Happy downloading!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

OpenMandriva

This is the OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 original edition. Choose this if you don't know which one to choose among the choices.

[DOWNLOAD]

OpenMandriva znver1

This is the OpenMandriva special version for AMD Ryzen computers. 

[DOWNLOAD]

OpenMandriva Server ARM64

This is OpenMandriva Server version with ARM architecture.

[DOWNLOAD]

[DOWNLOAD QEMU]

OpenMandriva Raspberry Pi

This is OpenMandriva 4.2 for the single board computers Raspberry Pi.

[DOWNLOAD 4B]

[DOWNLOAD 3B+]

[DOWNLOAD 400] 

 

OpenMandriva Pinebook Pro

This is the special edition for the currently popular, energy efficient yet modern and powerful, PINE64 PineBook laptops.

[DOWNLOAD] 

OpenMandriva ROCK Pi 4A

This is the OpenMandriva 4.2 for the single board computers ROCK Pi.

[DOWNLOAD 4A]

[DOWNLOAD 4B]

[DOWNLOAD 4C]

Torrents

Use these links to download professionally --faster and error resistant-- with your favorite BitTorrent program (click here to learn using one). These torrents are generously provided by IBiblio mirror.

[OPENMANDRIVA PLASMA]

[OPENMANDRIVA ZNVER1]

MirrorsIf the original download links above didn't work, you can download from these mirrors instead. Additionally, to increase BitTorrent download speed, you can add links below as web seeds in your favorite BitTorrent program.

OSDN [DOWNLOAD PAGE]

IBIBLIO [DOWNLOAD PAGE]

BRAZIL [DOWNLOAD PAGE]

RUSSIA [DOWNLOAD PAGE]

Checksums

Below is list of MD5SUM values of OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 images. Click here to learn how to verify an image's checksum so you are sure your image file is authentic before doing a thing.

fa4b545425803f1f4e512a6a7e171792  OpenMandrivaLx.4.2-final-plasma.x86_64.iso
24f40beeca0666038ef0ff335b71f894  OpenMandrivaLx.4.2-final-plasma.znver1.isoThis article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This is my experience on installing Fedora 33 on my laptop with Btrfs and full disk encryption technologies. I use the Workstation 64 bit flagship edition that has GNOME user interface choice. As an addition, I included a short glossary at the end too. I've waited for a fairly long time to try out Fedora and now is my chance. I wish all dear readers o Ubuntu users will like it!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.What I do

We will make our computer runs Fedora with these internal hard disk partitioning scheme:
- UEFI based computer or laptop
- GPT 30GB hard disk
- /boot/efi  200MB for UEFI
- /boot  500MB for Fedora's kernel
- /home  10GB for user's data
- swap  2GB for virtual memory
- /  10GB for Fedora system itself and made encrypted

The result wished from this installation is a Fedora computer where we must input a password to open our hard disk when the computer starts (booting) even before we login to Fedora. Otherwise, one cannot use this Fedora computer nor access the hard disk drive from the outside.

What I prepare

This installation has been done with a computer with a hard disk drive of 30GB with UEFI and GPT technologies (in reality, it is a virtual machine but is applicable to the actual bare metal computer too). I did maximum preparation by making the 30GB space empty as in unformatted.

How to make a Fedora

I downloaded Fedora version 33 edition Workstation architecture x86_64 (you can grab it too by clicking here). Once finished, I got a big sized file with the name Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-33-1.2.iso. Then, I should burn this image (iso) file into a USB flash drive. A Fedora is done. Now we are ready to install Fedora to computer.

Boot Fedora

I started my computer with the Fedora USB plugged in. I checked up the BIOS (UEFI) to make USB as the first device to boot. A correct BIOS setup will make the computer runs Fedora Live and finally I see two options on screen "Try Fedora" and "Install to Hard Drive". I chose Try Fedora so I could enter into Fedora Live Session. Here, I click Activities (on top-left) and then click Install Fedora (on left-vertical panel) so I began the Fedora installer. The fun is starting right now.

1st

First page of Fedora installer, I select English US as my language and keyboard. Then, I click Continue.

2nd

Second page of Fedora installer, I select Jakarta, Indonesia as my timezone as always. Then, I also click Continue.

3rd

Third page of Fedora installer, I click the disk partitioning section, and the disk selection will appear. Then, I activate the Advanced Installer by choosing it on the bottom and click Done (on top-left). The real fun is starting here!

4th

Fourth page of Fedora installer, this is the time I should make the partitions (numbered five of them) I planned in the beginning. If you wish to create the bare minimum, you can skip the /home creation.

Picture below lists the goal of my partitioning plans:

Creating the 1st partition:
First one is making the EFI partition. To do so, select the empty disk space available > click plus button on the toolbar > a dialog will appear > specify the size by 200MB > specify the filesystem by VFAT > specify the mount point by /boot/efi > and specify the label by EFI > click OK > now I see there is one first partition and one free disk space on screen.

Creating the 2nd partition:
Second one is making the BOOT partition. To do so, I select the empty disk space available > click plus button on the toolbar > a dialog will appear > specify the size by 500MB > specify the filesystem by ext4 (in my experiments it was automatic) > specify the mount point by /boot > and specify the label by BOOT > click OK > now I see there are three partitions which are first, second, and the remaining free disk space.

Creating the 3rd partition:
Third one is making the SWAP partition. To do so, I select the empty disk space available > click plus button on the toolbar > a dialog will appear > specify the size by 1GB > specify the filesystem by SWAP > and specify the label by SWAP > click OK > now I see there are four partitions which are first, second, third and the remaining free disk space.

Creating the 4th partition:
Fourth one is making the HOME partition. To do so, I select the empty disk space available > click plus button on the toolbar > a dialog will appear > specify the size by 10GB > specify the filesystem by btrfs > specify the mount point by /home > click OK > now I see there are five partitions which are first, second, third, fourth and the remaining free disk space.

Creating the last partition:
Fifth one is making the ROOT partition and this is the encrypted one. To do so, I select the empty disk space remaining > click plus button on the toolbar > a dialog will appear > specify the size as is (it should be 20GB or as remaining free space available) > specify the filesystem by btrfs > specify the mount point by / > and give check mark to Encrypt option > new options will appear below it > I type my desired password twice as the password of the full disk encryption >  click OK > now I finally see there is no free disk space remaining and are five partitions as planned in the beginning.

Start the installation:
I click Done button and begin the installation.

5th

I wait for 12 minutes at best for this first stage of Fedora installation to take place. Once finished, it says "Fedora Installation Finished" and I just restart my computer anyway by removing the USB installation medium.

6th

Once restarted, I see the password box on screen before going into Fedora, and that is the full disk encryption. I enter the password and go to Fedora desktop. Here the second stage of Fedora installation begins.

7th

I make my own username and password in this second stage and finally everything finished properly. Now my Fedora computer installation has been finished.

 

Result

Here's my Fedora 33 Workstation.

Glossary

BIOS is computer initialization software that starts before the OS starts. With BIOS, a user controls the computer where and how to boot (to initialize) for example to boot using USB instead of HDD. Old computers before 2010 are equipped with BIOS. Today effectively no more computers produced with BIOS as it has been replaced by UEFI by all brands since 2010.

BOOT as in boot partition (/boot) especially in Fedora operating system is an additional disk partition where Fedora places its kernel files.

EFI is a disk partition located in the hard disk (/boot/efi) by 50MB size at least which is required for an OS to boot (to initialize) in a computer with UEFI technology.

GPT is a choice of technology for hard disk drives and other disk storages so that it can be partitioned and then store data within. GPT hard disk is a requirement for a UEFI computer. The advantage of GPT is a user can make any number of partition in the hard disk without limitations.

ROOT as in root partition (/) is the main disk partition where an OS is stored.

SWAP as in swap partition is the additional disk partition which acts as an additional memory whenever the main RAM space insufficient or as a storage for system hibernation.

UEFI is the modern computer initialization software that starts before the OS starts which is a continuation to the legacy BIOS technology. Computers sold after 2010 are included with UEFI.

Afterwords

By reading this, you and me can learn to make a disk encryption in the other than the root (/) partition for example in the HOME (/home) or any other disk drive.

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

I am honored to review Mageia 8 today as an ex-Mandriva user and long time Ubuntu user at Ubuntu Buzz. Mageia version 8 just released this year in February with a ton of useful features and improvements by an enormous worldwide team of developers. Mageia is a French originated, desktop computer operating system that is user friendly and looks very beautiful derived from Mandriva GNU/Linux and is a Red Hat family thanks to its RPM software package format.Now it's time to the review that I divide into several parts below. I wish you will like it.

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.
About This Review
Hardware set used in this review are Lenovo ThinkPad T430 with Intel Core i5 CPU, Intel HD GPU, and 4GB of RAM. Operating system version used here is Mageia 8 x86_64 Plasma Desktop Live edition.

1. Where to Get Mageia 8
2. Availability
3. System Installation
4. Mageia Specials
5. Software Availability
6. Software Installation
7. Internet & Connectivity
8. Multimedia & Amusements
9. Comparison with Mandriva and Ubuntu
10. Conclusions


1. Where to Get Mageia 8
Download Mageia version 8 by clicking here.

2. Availability
- Full Installer 4GB no LiveCD for x86_64
- Full Installer 4GB no LiveCD for x86_32
- Live Installer 2GB x86_64 Plasma
- Live Installer 2GB x86_64 GNOME
- Live Installer 2GB x86_64 Xfce
- Live Installer 2GB x86_32 Xfce
- Netboot installer

Mageia 8 is available for both old and modern PC computers -- meaning it as a whole is available for your 64 and 32 bits architectures including the software and the updates too. For the sake of user's tastes, Mageia is available in three edition choices of desktop environments namely KDE Plasma, GNOME, and Xfce. For users with technical advantages, Mageia is also available as Netboot just like Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora are. Important thing to notice is that right now Mageia is no longer available for CD as the smallest installer size is now 2GB (CD is 700MB) and this follows how Ubuntu now is. Technically, in short Mageia 8 supports x86 completely but does not support other than that such as ARM -- that means we can run Mageia 8 on PCs but not in Raspberry Pi and PineBook-like computers -- when at the same time Ubuntu and Mageia sibling, OpenMandriva, is now dropping x86_32 and already embracing ARM32 as well as ARM64.

3. System Installation
The installation is as quick and easy as Ubuntu's by about 10 minutes -- with device drivers included. All my hardware detected completely, for example, my wifi works, as well as my 3D graphics acceleration and bluetooth. Tools included in the LiveCD are GParted partition editor as well as basic commands like lsblk and df. Click here to learn how to install Mageia.
 
4. Mageia Specials
- The Sound Effects
- Mageia Welcome Screen
- Mageia Control Center- Mageia Documentation
- Desktop appearance
- Start menu
- File manager
- Oxygen & Wonderland Themes
- Parental contol
- 3D desktop

First login, I greeted by the old Mandriva's welcome sound effect that now lives within Mageia 8. What a nostalgic experience!  (Plasma, the desktop of Mageia)
Then, I welcomed by the Mageia Welcome -- a thing similar to the Welcome Screens of Ubuntu Budgie and Ubuntu MATE-- that explains nicely what Mageia is and where to get help. Such a friendly welcome!  (Mageia Welcome that greeted me when I logged in for the first time)

Next, I see my favorite desktop of all, Plasma, which is the user interface of Mageia 8 by the latest version 5.20. All the user experience here is mostly sculptured by this Plasma.  
(3D cube desktop effect is still awesome with Mageia 8)
 Following that, the thing I wait for long, finally Mageia Control Center (an obvious continuation of Mandriva Control Center) and I see it got improved a lot since the last time I saw it before. This MCC was the thing that made Mandriva the most user friendly distro before Ubuntu and now it is on my hands once again! It is a graphical collection of all user settings in one place and right now even includes Parental Control when we can set which apps forbidden, which websites blocked, in a certain duration of time.  (M.C.C.)
 Not only that, MCC was known for its easiness to control hard things like services and security, so you can quickly enable/disable any systemd services, and also shape your firewall allow/disallow rules so conveniently by clicks only not Terminal. We do not find that on Ubuntu's or Fedora's system settings and that's a Mageia's advantage over them.

5. Software Availability
- Firefox web browser
- LibreOffice 7
- KDE Plasma Desktop 5.20
- Clementine and Elisa audio players
- Dragon and VLC video players
- Digikam and Hugin photography tools
- Epson, HP, and Lexmark printers supports
- PhotoRec file recovery/undelete

Starting from first step, we see the Plasma 5.20 as our user interface of Mageia 8. Then, when we work we frequently use Dolphin (the file manager) and Gwenview (picture viewer) aside from the audio players if we want to play some MP3 and the video players if we want to watch some movies. For office workers, we got the document maker LibreOffice as well as the enormous printing supports for HP and Epson built-in -- so you can produce high quality letters, faxes, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs just fine and got them as physical papers immediately. It is important to me to remind you that the original format of LibreOffice, called Open Document Format (ODF), is a worldwide standard with high interoperability and in some countries, for example my country Indonesia, it is a national standard as well as recommended by the governments for public purposes.  
For photography workers, we got the Digikam (camera & photo processing tool) as well as GIMP (the GNU photoshop) -- two things we knew recommended by the professional photography community PIXLS.US.  Last but not least here, I want to mention it even brings GNU Emacs the legendary text editor which even the fully free distros do not include -- that means, it of course a positive value for Emacs lovers to try Mageia 8. Because of all these built-in applications, I can say it is a complete suite of desktop OS we all want. Finally, for software availability I say Mageia 8 is good.

6. Software Installation
Mageia allows you to get more software easily. It has a kind of "Play Store" that is a place you open to search, select, and install apps and games you want -- from inside the Mageia Control Center (MCC).

7. Internet & Connectivity
Mageia can connect you to both wired and wireless (LAN and WLAN) networks. To connect to a network, first click the Network Manager (globe logo) and wait a second and Network Manager window appears and finally on here you can select a hotspot among hotspots available and press Connect button. To disconnect, just do the same but click instead Disconnect. This detached NM is the distinguishing feature of Mageia compared to other KDE-based distros.

(Network Manager is a little bit unique at Mageia)
Mageia can also connect you conveniently via wifi to Android phones. This means you can remotely control your desktop (phone as touchpad & keyboard) as well as easily transfer files (copy and paste) between both devices. This ability is surely needed in daily basis today as our live with smartphones are vast today. This is because it brings KDE Connect built-in.


8. Multimedia & Amusements
Mageia can play MP3 and MP4 as well as other sounds & movies just fine. Interestingly, it brings four different applications to do so namely Clementine, Elisa, Dragon, and VLC Media Player -- and they work well. Mageia can also convert or resize multimedia files thanks to VLC's conversion features so you can, for example, reduce your MP3s size or convert videos to audios. 
(Mageia playing MP3 of a Wikipedia page read out loud and a video of me watering my plants)


9. Comparison with Mandriva and Ubuntu
I missed the ability to "restart to the other OS" of Mandriva which was very useful to me in the past. Also, the nostalgic cursor only Mandriva had is not the default (although it is available on System Settings) here and I think it should be the default. Speaking about Ubuntu, I honestly missed the normal Network Manager rather than the separated one like in here.
(Why didn't these lovely cursors be the default?)

Conclusions
Mageia 8 is an easy to use computer operating system. Everything works well from the system installation, work spaces, default applications, software installation, to the real daily uses. A plus It is worthy of the name 'Mandriva successor' thanks to all experiences it gives as a whole by keeping the old traditions with the Mageia Control Center. For the future, just like what Ubuntu and Fedora made reality, I wish Mageia got mass produced by computer manufacturers too as purchasable desktops and laptops.

Contributing to Mageia
Finally to close this review, as a Free Software Community member I want to remind us all that, Mageia invites all people worldwide to get involved in its development by donation, software engineering, language translations, documentation writing, infrastructure building, art creations and marketing, testing and many more (click here). Lastly, I say thank you very much and congratulations to all Mageia Developers you all did great job with Mageia 8!

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Continuing the AQEMU guide, it is more efficient to make running virtual machine into single window (attached) instead of double (separated) and this simple note explains how to configure that. Let's go!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

Before:

 

After:

To configure:

• Turn of the running virtual machine.
  
• Go to menubar File > Configure. 
• Go to User Interface section. 
• Select In AQEMU main window with embedded display. 
• OK. 
• Turn on any virtual machine and you are good. 

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Completing the AQEMU VM guide, now it's a how to do folder sharing on it. With this, guest OS can transfer (copy-paste) files with the host OS. It is surprisingly easy and does not require proprietary software so you can do it on completely free operating systems like Trisquel too. Now let's go.  

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

 Basics

• Host: the operating system where you run AQEMU on it. Host is also called hypervisor.
  
• Guest: the operating system that is installed and running inside AQEMU. 

This tutorial uses Kubuntu as host and Fedora as guest. The versions are 20.10 and 33, respectively. You can, however, do this with any other operating system such as Windows and MacOS as well. 

1st

Turn off the virtual machine you wish to share folder with.

2nd

Select the virtual machine > go to Media section > Folder Sharing > empty folder list appears.

3nd

Click Add Folder > select a folder you wish to share with the guest >  OK > selected folder added to the Folder Sharing list. In this example, I wish to share my ~/Pictures folder with my Fedora guest so I can easily transfer screenshots for my review works.

4th

Select the shared folder > a short message saying "How to mount on the guest" appears on the bottom > the message contains a command line:

$ mkdir /tmp/shared0; mount -t 9p -o trans=virtio shared0 /tmp/shared0 \ -o version=9p2000.L,posixacl,cache=mmap

Above is the command line to connect ("mount") a host's folder with a guest's folder.

p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }

5th

Copy the command line from the first word to the last word. 

6th

Run the virtual machine. 

7th

Open a Terminal > go to AQEMU menubar Send Keys > Clipboard > the command line pasted into Terminal > press Enter > now the host's folder has been shared with the guest on the /tmp/shared0/ folder.

8th

Go to /tmp/shared0/ folder in the guest OS to see, copy, paste, and transfer files with the host OS.  Finished!

 Happy working!

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This article reports you a collection of Fedora's Electronic Engineering software. They are tools you can use to create electronic circuits, schematics, drawings, and simulations as well as to produce the Printed Circuit Boards -- and the good news is they are all Free Software. We see here same set of applications, such as Kicad and NGSpice, as well as the ones only Fedora had currently, like KTechLab and Qucs, compared to the electronics sets of Debian and Ubuntu. Finally, I write this article as a tribute to Fedora Electronic Lab (FEL) -- the special OS for electronic engineering that was dismissed years ago and is planned to be released along with Fedora 34 -- as I want this distro to be available once again.

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

Install Electronic Engineering Apps on Fedora$ sudo dnf groupinstall 'Electronic Lab'

The 'Electronic Lab' is the keyword to install the electronic engineering applications on Fedora. Comparatively, it is equal to 'science-electronics' on Debian and 'electronics-all' on Ubuntu -- when you install it you got all the electronic tools. I did this on Fedora Workstation 33 and it gave me download by 1GB, 900 software packages, and 4GB disk space to use. Click here to see the full list of packages.

Common Applications

Below is list of Fedora electronic engineering applications which are commonly available on Debian (see here) and Ubuntu (see here) as well.

• Arduino
• AVR Dude
• Electric
• Fritzing
• KiCAD
• Geda
• Octave
• GNU Radio
• NGSpice
• TkGate

Arduino

"The open-source Arduino Software (IDE) makes it easy to write code and upload it to the board". You need this to drive your Arduinos, the microcontroller based educational creativity devices. [WEBSITE] 

AVR Dude

"AVRDUDEis a utility to download/upload/manipulate the ROM and EEPROM contents of AVR microcontrollers using the in-system programming technique (ISP)." [WEBSITE]

Electric

"Electric is a sophisticated electrical CAD system for the design of integrated circuits. It can handle many forms of design [...] " [WEBSITE] [WEBSITE2]

Fritzing

The awesome electronic drawing for breadboard, schematics, and PCBs without simulations. [WEBSITE]

KiCAD

"Schematic capture, PCB layout, 3D viewer, and simulation". Your complete electronic studio of GNU/Linux platform. [WEBSITE]

GEDA

"[...] the gEDA project offers a mature suite of free softwareapplications for electronics design, including schematic capture, attribute management, bill of materials (BOM) generation, netlisting into over 20 netlist formats, analog and digital simulation, and printed circuit board (PCB) layout." It is available on Fedora when it's no longer available anymore on latest Ubuntu. [WEBSITE]

Octave

"Scientific Programming Language [...] largely compatible with Matlab." [WEBSITE]

GNU Radio

"[...] a powerful framework for developing streaming, real-time signal processing applications for Software Defined Radio (SDR) on general purpose processors. " [WEBSITE]

NGSpice

The best circuit simulator which can work with KiCAD, Geda, and other programs. [WEBSITE]

TkGate

"TkGate is a event driven digital circuit simulator with a tcl/tk-based graphical editor. TkGate supports a wide range of primitive circuit elements as well as user-defined modules for hierarchical design." This is the alternative to either Geda, KiCAD, or Qucs to draw and simulate circuits -- it is simple and fast. [WEBSITE] [WEBSITE2] [WEBSITE3]

More Applications

Below is list of Fedora electronic engineering applications which are only found on Fedora (version 33). Some of them are difficult to obtain with Debian or Ubuntu OS but fortunately available on Fedora.

• Alliance CAD System
• Dia
• Julia
• KTechLab
• Icaro
• Linsmith
• Qucs
• DrRacket
• GNU PIC Simulator
• SmartSim

Alliance CAD System

"Alliance is a complete set of free cad tools and portable libraries for vlsi design. It includes a vhdl compiler and simulator, logic synthesis tools, and automatic place and route tools." [WEBSITE]  

Dia

GNOME Dia is a diagram drawing software with electronic schematic drawing ability. Not included on Ubuntu 'electronic-all'. [WEBSITE]

Julia

The programming language for numerical analysis & technical computing which is a backend of Cantor which is also included with Fedora 'Electronic Lab' . [WEBSITE]

KTechLab

"KTechlab is an IDE for microcontrollers and electronics. " This is the graphical simulator app which had not been available on Debian & Ubuntu for years. [WEBSITE] 

Icaro

"An educational robotic software aimed to develop robotic and programming fundamentals. " [WEBSITE1][WEBSITE2]

Linsmith

"linSmith is a Smith Charting program, mainly designed for educational use. As such, there is an emphasis on capabilities that improve the 'showing the effect of'-style of operation." This is a software to learn impedance of anntenna in radio frequency study.[WEBSITE] 

Qucs

"Qucs is an integrated circuit simulator which means you are able to setup a circuit with a graphical user interface (GUI) and simulate the large-signal, small-signal and noise behaviour of the circuit" [WEBSITE] 

GNU PIC Simulator

"gpsim is an open sourced simulator for Microchip's PIC microcontrollers. It supports all three families of PICs: 12-bit, 14-bit, and 16-bit cores." [WEBSITE] [WEBSITE2]

Not Included

• LibrePCB
• Lepton EDA

LibrePCB, the KiCAD alternative, is a considerably new software so it doesn't available either on Ubuntu or Debian. Lepton EDA, the continuation of GEDA, is already available on Debian right now and on Ubuntu too. It is very good if these two included in Fedora in the later releases.

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This tutorial explains how to install Mageia 8 operating system to your computer. This will be a little bit different to installing Ubuntu as the installer requires two stages of installation separated with a restart (similar to Fedora's one). You can practice this to be normal, dualboot, or virtual machine as you wish for either 32 bit or 64 bit type of computers. Now let's go!

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.Download Mageia 8
What you need and where to get it? Get Mageia 8 Live Plasma Edition. Click here to visit a collection of Mageia 8 all download links.

Preparations
Create an empty partition by at least 20GB. You can do it with GParted program inside the Mageia LiveCD.

Create a Mageia installation medium. Nowadays, a USB Flash Drive is the best medium as it is the cheapest and most reusable one. You can make it on any computer by using the program Rufus (Windows) or GNOME Disks (GNU/Linux) or Disks (MacOS). Click this tutorial to learn how to make it on Ubuntu.

1. Start Mageia Live
To start the Mageia installer you should land to the Mageia Live first: plug your Mageia medium in (CD or USB), then turn on your computer and boot the Mageia Live. Once the blue background appears, select the first option 'Boot Mageia Live' by pressing Enter. 

2. Accept the initial options such as license and timezone.
- Select language English (American).
- Select Accept license and then click OK.
- Select timezone New_york (Default) and click Next.
- Select the time according to your time and click Next.
- Select the keyboard US keyboard.
- You landed to the Mageia Live Desktop and is greeted by Welcome to Mageia.

3. Start Mageia Installer
Double-click the Install Mageia logo on the desktop. It will say "This wizard will help you to install the live distribution". Go Next.

4. Do Disk Partitioning
Select Custom disk partitioning and go Next.
4.1 Create EFI partition.[ONLY IF YOUR COMPUTER IS UEFI OTHERWISE SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION]

• Select the empty disk partition prepared.
• Click CREATE button.
• Make the size in MB 200.
• Make the filesystem type FAT32.
• Make the mount point /boot/efi.
• Click OK.
• The EFI partition created and the empty disk space decreased.

4.2 Create SWAP partition.

• Select the empty disk space left.
• Click CREATE button.
• Make the size in MB 1000 (or 1GB).
• Make the filesystem type SWAP.
• Click OK.
• The SWAP partition created and the empty disk space decreased for the 2nd time.

4.3 Create ROOT partition.

• Select the empty disk space left.
• Click CREATE button.
• Make the size in MB as is (or simply the rest of the disk space left).
• Make the filesystem type EXT4.
• Make the mount point /.
• Click OK.
• The ROOT partition created and this will be the place of Mageia 8.
• Click DONE to finish the disk partitioning. 
  
  

Correct partitioning will be looking like picture below.

 Notice the blue, green, and red partitions on the top side.

5. Continue, accept the options such as packages removal.
- Once DONE pressed, unused packages will be detected on screen.
- Accept everything by clicking Next.

6. The installation takes place and this needs about 15 minutes (5 minutes on virtual machine).
- The blue Mageia banner will appear on screen with a progress bar & percentage of the process being held.
- Wait until the next step appears.

7. Accept the bootloader (GRUB) placement and continue.
- Still on the Mageia Installer, it asks for GRUB placement.
- Accept everything by going Next.
- Wait for GRUB bootloader being installed to you computer.
- Select default operating system of your computer. This enables you dualboot.
- Select NO for updating online. This can be setup later anyway.
- Click Finish.
- The 1st stage of the installation finished.

8. Installation stage 1 finished, restart, and continue to the next stage.
- Shutdown your computer.
- Remove the installation medium (USB or CD).
- Turn on your computer and enter Mageia 8.
- The 2nd stage of the installation started.

9. After restarting, create a username, a password, plus an admin password too.
- Select Wired (Ethernet) from the network options and go Next.
- Click Finish.
- Create a root (administrator) password.
- Create a username. This will be you.
- Create your own password. This will be your password.
- The 2nd stage of the installation finished. 

[ TIPS: it is better to use username & password pair that is easy to remember and hard to forget. ] 

Installation finished completely.

10. Login to your Mageia computer.
Congratulations! Welcome to the Mageia system.

For Dualboot
You can install more than one operating system (OS) in one computer. This is called dualboot. Then, every time you fire up your computer, there is a selection screen, that says more or less "do you want to enter this one or that one?" so you can select the OS among the OSes. Mageia can be installed alongside Ubuntu or Windows or any other OS existed in your computer. To install in dualboot method, there are few things to consider:

• Make sure you only touch the disk partition already prepared for Mageia and not touch existing partitions that belong to the other OS.
• On the 7th step above, you can select either Mageia as your first OS or the other OS as the first one.

For Virtual Machines
You can install Mageia 8 on a virtual machine like VirtualBox, QEMU (see tutorial here), or Virtual Machine Manager (see tutorial here). There are several things to be considered:

• Make sure the free disk space is sufficient where the VM disk is stored. 
• The installation procedures are just the same as explained above.
  
• Mageia is available also in 32 bit architecture aside from 64 bit ones if you grabbed either the Full Installer (4GB) or Xfce Live (2GB) one instead of the Plasma Live edition.

 

References
https://doc.mageia.org/draklive/8/en/content/index.html


This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Continuing Ubuntu Electronics article, this is Debian with full electronic engineering tools installed. I installed the special 'Science Electronic' section of software packages on Debian and I got many a lot of tools such as circuits, schematics, and PCBs designers as well as the simulators. By this, you can just install the software you need instead of install the whole OS. Here I report it in this article several of them with screenshots and valuable information.

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

 

Tools Installation

$ sudo apt-get install science-electronics

A command above gives you full electronic engineering tools on Debian computer. This takes up to 1400MB (1.4GB) on Debian version 10 "Buster". The good news is that all these software packages are Free Software as defined by the Free Software Foundation and The GNU Project.

Arduino

The IDE to write programs for Arduino AVR-based microcontroller devices. [Website] 

BOSSA

Flash programmer for Atmel SAM Devices. [Website]

GNU Electric

Electric is a sophisticated electrical CAD system for the design of integrated circuits. [Website 1][Website 2]

 

Fritzing

A genius user friendly CAD software to design electronics devices with multiple templates (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc.) but no simulation. [Website]

GEDA

It is a suite of electrical circuit design, schematic capture, simulation, prototyping, and production for GNU/Linux. The difference is, right now GEDA is still available in the latest Debian but not anymore in Ubuntu. [Website] [Video GEDA Simulation with NGSpice]

 

 

KiCAD 

It handles Schematic Capture, and PCB Layout with Gerber output  and is able to do simulations (with NGSpice or other SPICE simulators addition). [Website]

Below is a video of KiCAD with an electronics simulator:

 

 

Lepton EDA

Lepton is a continuation of GEDA, it includes schematic capture, netlisting into over 30 netlist formats, and many new features. [Website]

NGSpice

The best electronic circuit simulator. It is Free Software, available for all OS platforms, and is able to cooperate with other software -- and technically is able to do electronic simulations well. [Website]

Below is a video of NGSpice simulation: 

   

 

QElectroTech

It create electric diagrams (no simulation). [Website]

SimulIDE

Real time electronic circuit simulations with AVR, Arduino devices. [Website]

TkGate

Digital circuit simulator with classical user interface. [Website]

Visolate

It is a tool for engraving PCBs using CNCs (machines to produces materials). [Website]

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This article is a collection of electronics software available on Ubuntu computer operating system. This is for you students who want to know what tools you can obtain to learn electronics, draw circuits, create schematics, do simulations, and produce printed circuit boards. The golden saying is that every software available for Ubuntu users are also available for GNU/Linux users in general who use other than Ubuntu.

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

 

Operating Systems

Electronic engineering is a rare topic within the very diverse GNU/Linux distros. We proudly have specific distros for security, say Kali and Qubes, or distros for multimedia, say Ubuntu Studio and AV Linux, but in fact we cannot easily find distros for electronic engineering. For that reason, I mention here some information I know so people with interest and capacity have chances to cooperate with them. Here are operating systems (distros) which specifically bring electronics tools built in so far.

Fedora Electro

Actually named Fedora Electronic Lab, it's a choice of Fedora flavors with built-in electronic tools for desktop computer. Planned to be released at the next version 34, unfortunately currently it is not downloadable. [Website] [PDF1] [PDF2]

Debian Electro

Actually named Debian Edu, it is a choice of Debian flavors with educational and also electronics tools for desktop computer. It includes many tools mentioned below. It can be downloaded right now (however, it is either a small online installer or a huge 5GB installer). [Website] 

Raspberry Pi OS

Formerly named Raspbian, it is the OS to be installed in Raspberry Pi the infamous ARM architecture devices. It mainly used to build extended electronic devices like robots and Internet of Things (IoT). [Website]

Group of Packages

Good to know, metapackage is Ubuntu's way to group packages in a certain topic. This means if you install the metapackage for electronic tools then all electronics tools will be installed in your computer. For example, if you install the metapackage science-electronics on Ubuntu, you turned Ubuntu computer into a complete electronic engineering lab full of electronics tools. This example is the same to the other distros as well so you just need to know the name of the metapackage of each distro you currently use.

Ubuntu: science-electronics

$ sudo apt-get install science-electronics

Debian: education-electronics

$ sudo apt-get install education-electronics

Fedora: Electronic Lab

$ sudo dnf groupinstall 'Electronic Lab'

openSUSE: read Scientific Electrical Engineering 

Tools

KiCAD

"A Cross Platform and Open Source Electronics Design Automation Suite."

KiCAD is a complete solution to design, simulate, and produce electronic products with ability to integrate with other software like NGSpice.

$ sudo apt-get install kicad

NGSpice

"Circuit simulator." 

The best free software circuit simulator. Can be added to KiCAD and other tools.

$ sudo apt-get install ngspice

 

Geda

"A full GPL'd suite and toolkit of Electronic Design Automation tools." 

The most famous electronic engineering suite on GNU/Linux.

$ sudo apt-get install geda #Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04
$ sudo apt-get install gerbv gtkwave iverilog pcb #Ubuntu 20.04

Lepton EDA

"Lepton EDA is a suite of free software tools for designing electronics. It provides schematic capture, netlisting into over 30 netlist formats, and many other features."

Lepton is the actively developed continuation of Geda with full compatibility. If you made schematics with Geda (Gschem) and cannot find Geda works on Ubuntu, you can open it no problem with Lepton.

$ sudo apt-get install lepton-eda

LibrePCB

"LibrePCB is a free EDA software to develop printed circuit boards."

Just like Libre plus Office is equal to LibreOffice, then Libre plus PCB means LibrePCB. It is a new alternative to KiCAD with easier library management and promising features. However, LibrePCB is not available on Ubuntu repository right now but fortunately it is easily installable from the website. [Website]

Fritzing

"Fritzing is an open-source hardware initiative that makes electronics accessible as a creative material for anyone"

Fritzing is a genius tool to electronic engineering education/teaching. You have a breadboard with a complete set of components to drag and drop but without simulation -- while at the same time automatically produce the schematics and PCB too. It includes Arduino, Intel, Raspberry and other board microcontrollers & ARM computers too plus many available projects can be downloaded freely. For such wealth of features, I think Fritzing should be taught at schools and universities. To install Fritzing on Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install fritzing

KTechLab

"KTechlab is an IDE for microcontrollers and electronics."

KDE's electronics suite with circuits, ICs, microcontrollers and schematics creations & simulations. However, it is not meant to produce printed circuit boards.

$ sudo apt-get install ktechlab #Ubuntu 21.04

GNU Electric 

"Electric is a sophisticated electrical CAD system for the design of integrated circuits."

[Website1][Website2]

$ sudo apt-get install electricGNU Electric | Source: official website

Geany

"Geany is a powerful, stable and lightweight programmer's text editor that provides tons of useful features without bogging down your workflow." 

You can use Geany to write C codes for AVR (microcontrollers) devices and easily upload them with AVRDude. To install Geany on Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install geany

 

AVR Dude

 "AVR Downloader/UploaDEr."

You use this to upload your C programs to AVR microcontrollers. This is what you want to create robots in the school and university. 

$ sudo apt-get install avrdude

 

Arduino

"The open-source Arduino Software (IDE) makes it easy to write code and upload it to the board."

$ sudo apt-get install arduinoArduino device | Source: Wikipedia

QEMU

"QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer."

You will need QEMU to emulate Raspberry Pi, Cubieboard, and such ARM-based or IoT computer devices on your Ubuntu desktop. To install a complete QEMU suite:

$ sudo apt-get install aqemu

Emulating Raspberry Pi on an Ubuntu laptop is possible with QEMU

References

- Electronic Design Automation / EDA (Wikipedia)

- Comparison of EDA Software (Wikipedia)

- List of Electronic Circuit Simulators (Wikipedia)

- Fedora Electronic Lab Wiki

- Debian Science Electronic Packages

- Ubuntu Science Electronic Packages

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This tutorial is for you computer users who love exploring operating systems. This explains step by step to try GuixSD, The GNU Operating system, in graphical ways on a virtual machine on existing Ubuntu laptop. We will use the free software Virt-Manager as the VM and see the GuixSD's Xfce desktop. You will learn where to download the GuixSD, which image file to grab, and how to use it within a VM. Finally, I am glad I brought GuixSD here on Ubuntu Buzz! I hope you will enjoy this.

Preparations

Have Virt-Manager installed properly in Ubuntu. Click here to read the guide. 

Download GuixSD

Get the GuixSD VM Image and not the GuixSD System Installer. In this example, we use GuixSD version 1.1.0 and the file should be around 400MB by size and in the xz compression format.

Notice the yellow button and pointing hand cursor.

Extract GuixSD

Get the QCOW formatted file out of the downloaded file in xz format. In this example, we extract the file so we get the file with same name except the tar xz extension by some GB in size.

Setup Virt-Manager

- Add new VM.

- Select Import existing disk image.

- Select architecture x86_64.

- Select image file and point to the QCOW file.

- Determine memory 1024 MB and CPU 2 cores.

- Run.

- GuixSD now runs.

First Time

"This is the GNU system."

After seeing that awesome message, you will be asked to login to this gnu computer. Type gnu as username and press Enter as password and wait anyway for the system to boot up.

 Voila! Welcome to GNU Operating System!

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.