Mageia Linux - New and Nice

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=Mageia

So, the other day, I was sitting here and had a little free time for once, and, I decided I'd go to DistroWatch, since I haven't really gone there much in a while now, and after catching up on all the new stuff that's come out since my last visit, I saw a new Distro I'd never heard of before:

Mageia Linux.

Now, I hadn't ever heard of this one before, and quite frankly, until the other day, I've been pretty busy with stuff going on in my life that's kept me from doing much of anything.

So, anyway, I decided to look into it, as I hadn't ever heard of it as I said, and, also, it wasn't based on Ubuntu, which is always a plus, so I started reading.

I saw that it was made by some people who worked on Mandriva Linux, and that it was based on Mandriva. Well, I've always had a soft spot for that, as one of the first distros I ever used, other than OpenLinux, was Mandrake Linux 7.1.

I've always kind of liked Mandrake Linux, as they were one of the first companies to ever really try and make Linux more "pretty" other than SUSE of course, and so I used to use it on and off all the time.

Even though most of my boxes are already in use, and I lost my test machine to Power Failure, AND I lost my secondary machine to the same thing, I wanted to give it a go anyway.

My Main Desktop, is a Dual Boot machine, with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, and Slackware Linux. I didn't plan on touching that, as I like it that way, but I do have other machines.

I wasn't planning on touching my Server either, because that has been running Slackware Linux 12.0 basically since it was released. So, not touching that one either.

Then, there's the crappy slow machine my Mom stopped using when She finally upgraded, and bought a new Computer, but that's running FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE, and the HD in it isn't big enough for two OSs. Well, it IS big enough, but not for what I do with it anyway.

So that leaves my Laptop, which I was mainly using to test out PC-BSD. I'd been using that for some time now, and I like it, but I wanted to give this new one a shot, and, since it has a nice well known Nvidia card in it, I wanted to use it.

So, I grabbed the Network install CD, burned it, and went to it.

After booting from the CD, I started an installation, and started looking through what I wanted, and how I wanted it. The installation is very simple. VERY simple.

Once most of the install was done, I set up some accounts, and rebooted.

This new distro comes with the same tool Mandriva has, where you can set up the whole machine from one app, much the same way SUSE does with YaST, so no learning curve there.

The default look is nice. It's fairly sleek, and easy to understand for just about anyone. I've been using it now for two days, and, during the installation, it said it saw I had an Nvidia Video card, and would I like the Driver? Sure!

It grabbed the driver for me, and I continued on. Well, now when I boot my machine, I see that awesome looking Nvidia logo, and I have a full 3D experience.

I have nice Special FX, and I can wow people with a spinning Desktop. This is on a 7 year old Laptop mind you.

I must say I'm impressed. If you like Mandriva, you'll like it. It's actually very similar to Mandriva. It's based on it, and does have some of it's own stuff in there, but in general, it's a lot like Mandriva is.

If anyone wants to try something new, give this one a try. I've been using it for two days now, and I've liked it quite a bit. The extra software you can install from the control center is a nice mix.

I was very Happy to see not only PrBoom, but Quake 2, and Duke Nukem 3D.

It's nice to see someone out there in Linux making land, is thinking about us FPS Lovers.

Highly recommend!

Gore, a thought? With so many machines and testing platforms why have you not virtualized anything?

My Wife and I DO have quite a few machines, and we DO use a lot of OSs, and I've thought about this before, but my main issues, are:

Most of the machines I have, are kind of old. I have ONE new machine I got for Christmas two years ago that has 4 GBs of RAM, and that is the one with Windows 7 and Slackware. The rest of them are basically a mix of this:

I have a Compaq I can barely use because I need to get some new stuff for it. I need to get a new Fan and cooling system for it because it freezes up a lot. It's annoying to say the least.

The crappy 433 MHz Celeron machine I was using for testing, died on me at about the same time as my other Celeron. They have little RAM too. The 433 MHz one has 192 MBs, and needs a new Power Supply, and then the 2.40 GHz Celeron, need a new one as well.

My Laptop works good, and has 512 MBs of RAM, and a Pentium 4 M 3.06 GHz Processor, and then, my Wife's Laptop, which is actually nice, is having some issues I haven't had time to look into yet.

My Wife's other machine needs a new video card and Power Supply, and has a Gig of RAM, so it's not in use right now. Then She has a Dell that gas a few Gigs of RAM, and, until recently, we weren't using it. It needed a Monitor. We finally have one, but just haven't had time to set it up yet.

Then She has another one She's using now as Her main, and that is.... Liquid Cooled, few gigs of RAM, really nice. But basically, I thought about doing a Xen Kernel or something, but I don't think 512 MBs of RAM is really enough to do all that. I mean I don't know for sure because I've Honestly never even looked, but from what I understand, it would be slow as crap, if it worked at all. So for now, I just install heh.

It is times like this that I feel very lucky to have two ESX hosts at work with a combined 72GB of RAM and ~8TB memory. I can load up a distro pretty quickly, and decide if it will do the job or not.

I have moved from Ubuntu to Debian on my personal VM at work, as I am not too happy with the direction that Ubuntu is going... Sorry gore... it is not slackware, but it does what I need it to do. :-P

Westin:

Why would you say Sorry that it's not Slackware? I said I used more than Slackware lol. And, actually, I LOVE Debian. So yea, no reason to say you're sorry to me; I Like it.

My Feelings on Operating Systems, may shock some people, but, here is how I personally feel:

Windows -

I like Windows 7. It's not Perfect, and it could be better, but it is one of the best versions of Windows to come around since Windows 2000.

Windows 95; I hate it. The first Computer I ever had, came with Windows 95 on it, and I got it from my Uncle. this was in late 1999, and I was still learning, as I'd never had a Computer before. I didn't like it then either.

Windows 98; I actually sort of liked Windows 98. I'd be lying if I said I hated it. It worked well enough that I could play DooM and Quake and UT, and, with a little work, it did alright. It wasn't stable at all, and I rarely had a decent uptime, but other than that, it was actually OK.

Windows NT - I never used this. But I know a lot about it. I wouldn't use it.

Windows 2000 - I liked Windows 2000 Professional. Again, it could have been WAY better, but it was alright.

Windows XP - I hate Windows XP. It was OK for games but that's about it.

----------------------------

Unix / Unix Like:

BSD -

FreeBSD, PC-BSD - LOVE them.

Linux:

Slackware, SUSE, Debian, Mandriva, and now Mageia, are all good to me.

I HATE Gentoo, Ubuntu, and Red Hat.

That's more or less how I feel.

I still Miss BeOS. I downloaded Haiku, but it's still not BeOS.

Haha... just messing with you. :-P

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Most of the machines I have, are kind of old.

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I have pretty much the same situation. I have a small collection of "classic" machines that I keep to the original build parameters and play old games on etc. The rest of my older stuff falls in the middle, as it is not powerfull enough to run modern Windows, the peripherals aren't supported etc. However, I do have a fair number of them, so virtualisation isn't something that I consider for my modern kit, as I really haven't had to.

This does support trying out various Linux distros, particularly as Linux is generally less demanding on the hardware front (apart from finding drivers) and is scalable, which Windows, due to its monolithic architecture, is certainly not.

Basically I am talking about PI/II/III/4 or Athlon xxxx+ processors and one 1.3GHz Duron. We are also looking at 72pin EDO RAM, SDRAM and DDR1. As these machines have all started life with some flavour of Windows, only those that had Windows 2000 have 1GB of RAM.

As for Windows versions, I go back to 3.x, which was popular in its day, and performed pretty much as well as could be expected, given the hardware platforms that were available. Prior to that you used some flavour of DOS

Then came the "great home entertainment PC revolution" and Windows 95. There are some things about Windows 95 that I think ought to be taken into consideration:

1. PCs were very expensive back then ($3,000?) and the tendency was to use minimalistic hardware, hell I remember when 8MB of EDO 72pin cost $150 !!!

2. Windows 95 was delivered late.............. never a good sign with MS.

3. It went through several iterations in its short life.

4. It was Microsoft's first attempt at a domestic user OS.

5. It wasn't a true operating system in its own right as it was totally dependent on the underlying DOS. It was more transparent that 3.x, where you HAD to load DOS as your first move, or the GUI wouldn't even load.

Windows 98 was a significant improvement, but was slow and clunky, so in 1999 we got Windows 98SE. This was the classic Windows home user OS and worked very well for what it was intended for.

Then Microsoft decided to capitalise on the Millennium and monetize their investment in the last of the separate "home user" OSes. And we got the very much unfinished "Windows ME"...................hell, they knew they were releasing XP the next year, so they wouldn't have put much resource into it. Also having to develop 98SE would have diverted resource that would have otherwise been employed.

Windows XP was one of Microsoft's success stories as it rapidly gained global popularity. It also unified the business and domestic branches of the OS.

You should remember that all these operating systems are for laptops and desktops either in the office or at home. "Uptime" is totally irrelevant crap that Linux fanbois used to come out with (but not for long in my presence:lildevil:)

The equipment is designed to be turned on, used, then turned OFF. That is what Windows supports.

Otherwise you might as well ask what the uptime is of your gas/electric stove, television, microwave, vacuum cleaner, coffee percolator, automobile etc :rolleyes:

Also:

1. An unattended electrical appliance that is left operating is a fire hazard............errrrrr..............why do PCs have those cooling fans? :cool:

2. Not everybody has heavily subsidised energy................if you were paying $8 a gallon (US gallon) for gas, like we have to, you would soon appreciate that!!! ;)

So, we had Windows XP, that is finally being retired in January 2014............... and only 3 service packs.....................

Which brings us onto Vista. This OS should have been a success, as they had plenty of time to work on it. The first problem was that it was delivered late (see above), and OEMs were allowed to use the badging "Vista Ready" and "Vista Capable". The latter meaning that it was not really suitable for Vista at all, as it would not run most of the the Vista features.

Well, when the price of the DVDs fell through the floor I bought one to give it a try. It was abysmal, yet all components of the hardware were 100% or better above the recommended minimum.

I have finally gotten it to work by building a box that scores 5.9/5.9 on the Vista "Windows Experience Index" or whatever. That's my "Vista WTF" machine :D

And now we have Windows 7.................this one works because it is really what Vista should and would have been given more time.

As for the future? well this machine is running Windows 8 developer's preview, and it runs just fine. OK it will doubtless get the "eye candy" treatment before it goes beta, but the basics have all the feel of an upgraded Windows 7.

I think that MS have also become rather more wary of their OEM "partners"

//ASIDE

A "partership" is two thieves with their hands so deeply into eachothers pockets that they cannot independently plunder a third.

//

We have seen Windows 7 TPC (thin PC) that is intended to let enterprises continue to use old hardware as intelligent terminals for LAN, WAN and internet "cloud" applications deployments. I guess there will be the same for Windows 8.

I am not sure what the net effect will be. If I were an XP shop, I would probably be tempted to go for Windows 7, as the business edition is supposed to be supported to 2020. I certainly would not want to be looking at major hardware replacement, particularly after the Thailand hard drive disaster. Damn things have more than doubled in price in the past couple of weeks :eek:

My overall conclusion is that Microsoft let themselves down by delivering stuff before it is really ready. I suppose I could understand that if they faced serious competition in the desktop/laptop arena, but they don't. Hey there aren't many outfits who could have an ME and a Vista in the same decade and come away virtually unscathed?

AH!.................the first Mageia has just finishe downloading..see ya

I leave MY Coffee Pot on all the time. ;) But yea, I know the rest of the World pays for gas about three times what we pay. In Michigan, the price of gas depends on where you are; In my town, it's about 3.15 a Gallon right now, but if you go to Detroit, it's a lot less.

We don't pay even as much as Ontario which I can literally see from my Porch. We live so close to Canada that anywhere in town, you can basically see Ontario. Actually, to put that into perspective; I can see Ontario from my Living Room Window. And they pay much much more for Gas, and it's in Liters instead of Gallons.

They also have stuff we don't; Like Taco Bell has Fries Supreme. Some places here try and make Poutine, but they **** it up terribly. Unless you've been in Quebec you've not eaten it.

For Windows, and using a machine then turning it off when not using it, I think it sets the bar too low; An OS designed to only be on when you're using it, doesn't have to think about stability the same way one made as a Server option does.

Cars are the same way; I'll take a German car over an American one because I know that the German one, has been made to protect the people inside, at up to, and beyond, 200 MPH, where the American Car, is made to protect you to about 75 MPH, which is our highest speed limit.

That too lowers the bar. I mean why is Ford or GM going to make Cars safe enough to protect you at those speeds when you aren't legally allowed to go that fast anywhere? Well in Germany, you have the Autobahn, and over 50% of it has no speed limit, so the car makers there need to aim higher.

I don't think any of us here would say a word about the stability of Windows 9X. It was made, as you said, to be used for a time, and shut off. It was also unstable. Windows 2000, I think changed things, as it can be stable, yet the Professional edition, wasn't made to be a Server either.

PC-BSD isn't made to be a Server either, but it too, is very stable. I found it funny that Microsoft put Trademarks on the Hosts file. I don't think anyone would really have much issues admitting that they never really raised the bar on Stability. Unix has been around since 1969, and though version 1 wasn't exactly the most stable thing ever made, we're still using it's offspring to this day. No one is trying to make DOS into much anymore. Maybe FreeDOS, but even that isn't actually inherited code; It's a re-writing.

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For Windows, and using a machine then turning it off when not using it, I think it sets the bar too low; An OS designed to only be on when you're using it, doesn't have to think about stability the same way one made as a Server option does.

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I think that we have two things to consider here?

1. Windows is, and always was, a commercial OS.
2. The versions we are talking about were always intended to run in a desktop environment.

The big problem with commercial is it brings in the marketeers, who are only interested in monetization and profit. :(

If there is no money to be made out of scalability they will opt for a monolithic "one size fits all" solution, along with lots of "features" (eyecandy) both of which tend to lead to bloat and performance issues.

Windows is as stable as it needs to be given its intended market and purpose. Let's face it, at least 90% of computer end users boot Windows. Apple have always been around, but haven't made any impression on the Windows market share?

The bottom line is that the Windows marketeers pretty much got it right?

As for "stability", there really wasn't much of a problem with the home user versions if you installed them on adequate hardware and used them as intended.

"Unstable" isn't a word that I normally use with Windows rather than "fragile". By that I mean that it was pretty easy to get it to crash, but you had to provoke it in some way. maybe I am just splitting hairs, but I do see a difference there.;)

Now, the one exception that I would note is Windows ME. That would be unstable if you had less than 128MB of RAM (memory leaks?) or more than 512. OK, none of the 9x/ME family liked more than 512MB, and the much vaunted Microsoft "fix" was a load of crap if you actually looked at it............ all it did was tell Windows to only use 512MB...........hell you could set that in the advanced options of Control Panel!!!:rolleyes::D

Windows 95 did have its problems , but I built loads of systems that ran just fine.

1. 32~64MB RAM.
2. Stand alone video card.
3. Stand alone audio card.
4. Clean install of the OS....I never came across an "upgrade" that worked properly afterwards.

Do remember that we are talking marketeers here, and many users of 95 had no experience of NT 4.0 or 3.x, so they didn't know any better, and the marketeers didn't give a rat's ass :D They are certainly not interested in stability or performance over and above the intended use of the product they are selling. Basically, if there's no money in it it won't be there.

Let's face it; if Windows would run stable for 6 months at a time without being turned off, would it sell any more copies? Hell, I live in what I would consider to be relative civilisation and I still expect at least 5 power supply "events" that would take out any working computers each year.

I think that the saviour of Windows has been the unification of the commercial and domestic flavours. This has meant that the marketeers can no longer foist any old crap on the unsuspecting public.

Windows XP has been an undeniable success, as has Windows 7, and, from my experiments so far, I would predict that Windows 8 will be as well.

That's three in a row, which for Microsoft, ain't bad. :cool:

I DO see the difference actually. OSs in general, is one of my main areas of interest in Computer Science. If I could, I'd have written my own by now. I've designed one, but never coded it.

Now, with that said, I've got experience in Windows 3, 95, 98, and ME, though when I got my very first Computer, Windows 2000 was coming out already, and this thing had Windows 95 on it.

It was terribly out of Date to say the least, and Windows 95, wasn't exactly something that LIKE running for long periods. I rarely pushed that machine because I knew it wasn't very good.

It had shitty hardware, and the fact my Uncle sold this thing to my Mom for me, I was a little iffy about the hardware, but I wanted a Computer so bad I didn't care. I didn't know a damn thing. I'd never taken Computer Courses and actually listened to anything a teacher said, and I never bothered to try learning about something I didn't have at home.

Basically, once I had the Computer started, I only really knew how to open Word to type crap up. After about a week, I was spending almost all night sitting at the desk, screwing around. I had no manuals really that I knew of (Once we moved, I realized we did in fact have a few.... There was a Windows 95 Manual, and a MOBO Manual) but I didn't know about that until we moved.

So instead of reading manuals, I'd sit down each day, and spend all night clicking on the start Menu, going to Programs, and then opening every one of them, and then sitting there staring at it and messing with different options and stuff until I'd figured it out. Once I'd have one figured out, I'd move on to the next until I'd mastered all of them except one, which I couldn't quite figure out; MS-DOS Prompt. I sat there staring at that thing for 2 days, which is longer than it took me to learn Office, trying to figure it out. I knew nothing of Commands, Command Lines, or anything like it, so I couldn't figure it out.

After another week, which is now two weeks into owning this thing, my Uncle went up North, and while he left, I opened up IE, and saw his username, and guessed his password to get online.

Now, I've had a Computer for two weeks at this point, and now I'm using his ISP account to go online for the first time ever. This was September of 1999. I know because I made a free account on a web site that kept my join date.

So, in September of 1999, I got my very first Computer. That also means that when I joined AntiOnline, I'd only even OWNED one for like 3 years lol. I learned fast ;)

BTW; That's actually True; I did in fact only have a Computer for 3 years when I joined this place. I actually consider that learning pretty damn fast.

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So, in September of 1999, I got my very first Computer.

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OMG.................you got your first computer 3 months after I first installed S.u.S.E. Linux? Still got the CD somewhere as it happens........................

I never really went into Linux that deeply as it was the "Millennium Panic" at the time, and I was using my home time on work projects helping out other guys. After all, I was working with a nicely balanced team, but with a preponderance of younger members................. I was one of the "grey hairs" who knew DOS, 3.X and Office 4.3. That meant that I knew Access 2, whereas we used Access 8................. trust me, converting "user mushrooms" from Access 2 to Access 8 isn't an easy task........ and there isn't any systems documentation of course, or even the template file. When I look back on it now, I must have been bloody mad :D

I delivered the last 2000 compliant application with 15 minutes to spare before our corporate deadline:eek:. we had 100% site Y2K compliance, and were the only site in the group to do so.

I was then asked to do the 3 day "Millennium Weekend" and I asked the boss if he didn't trust me.............I pointed to one of my test rigs and he saw it was running at 28 May 2000. "Why that date Johnno?" he asked.......so I explained that because a millennium year is also a leap year there might be a 29th February issue, so I had covered that as well, and 28th May happened to be my birthday, so he had better not forget a card!:lildevil:. He just told me to come in and help anyone else who had problems ............there was $6750 + expenses in it. Not bad for a weekend I thought?

I guess I am a Windows fanboi because it has provided me with one hell of a lot of beer vouchers over the years :D:drink:
I am very interested in Linux, and I have worked with Unix for quite a few years, but neither are "user facing", so it is hard to stand out from the crowd in most commercial environments. Unfortunately, that is how you get the money to pay the bills and :drink:
Don't worry gore, when you get to be an old fart like me you will be just as cynical.

Anyways, if you had immediately deleted Win95 and loaded Win98SE you would probably have never gotten into Linux and OSes in general.............. so Win95 and your uncle did you a big favour?

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Originally Posted by nihil

OMG.................you got your first computer 3 months after I first installed S.u.S.E. Linux? Still got the CD somewhere as it happens........................

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LOL yea, I did.

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I never really went into Linux that deeply as it was the "Millennium Panic" at the time, and I was using my home time on work projects helping out other guys. After all, I was working with a nicely balanced team, but with a preponderance of younger members................. I was one of the "grey hairs" who knew DOS, 3.X and Office 4.3. That meant that I knew Access 2, whereas we used Access 8................. trust me, converting "user mushrooms" from Access 2 to Access 8 isn't an easy task........ and there isn't any systems documentation of course, or even the template file. When I look back on it now, I must have been bloody mad :D

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Yea, as someone who can say they hate access and it would be mild compared to how I feel about it, I can understand. I don't like Access. I bought a real version of Office XP; The whole version including Front Page, as I needed that for a class, and it took me all of 5 minutes to think "SQL must mean stupid Queer Language...." lol.

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I guess I am a Windows fanboi because it has provided me with one hell of a lot of beer vouchers over the years :D:drink:

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Unix has provided a lot of Beer and stuff as well. I would love to be able to work on Unix and be paid for that. ****ing Michigan basing an entire economy on cars when the ones we build are gas hogs (up until the last few years when they finally pulled their heads out of their asses anyway) when before, we were mostly wood based; Logging was huge in the UP of Michigan.

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I am very interested in Linux, and I have worked with Unix for quite a few years, but neither are "user facing",

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User Facing; I don't know if I'd go that far anymore Nihil; After what I've seen on my Laptop in the last month, I can't say either anymore. Linux has SUSE, and Mandriva, and of course, Mageia now, and those truly are easy enough that anyone can use them.

My Mom, who knows little about Computers, can use those.

As for Unix, well, we've got Mac OS X, and PC-BSD, and though I don't own a Mac, and have only used OS X ONCE for a stupid Graphics class I took and never showed back up to, I DO have a lot of experience with PC-BSD.

I didn't think I'd EVER say this, but; There exists now, a BSD OS, that is actually easy enough for a normal basic user, to not only use, but actually understand. Now, the reason I thought I'd never say it, is purely and simply because the BSD people in general, care a WHOLE lot less about making something easy to use, as they do about stability and security.

That's until PC-BSD came around; Imagine if you will; FreeBSD, with all that stability and power, but with a totally new paint job, a complete set of VERY nice and easy to use GUI tools for setting everything up, AND!!!!!!!! Out of the box support for your sound, video, and everything else.

Installing software is as easy as loading that app, and clicking on what you want. And, if you came from another BSD; pkg_add -r anypackage works too, as do the Ports Collection.

I can't say enough about PC-BSD; I'm truly impressed. Actually, impressed isn't enough; Shock is more like it. You download the CD, it's very small, and when you boot from it, it's got a nice GUI that asks if you want to install FreeBSD for a Server, or, PC-BSD for a Desktop System.

Right away, I like that; I can keep just one CD with me to install BOTH OSs!

Then, imagine that once you've installed PC-BSD, all your Windows stuff is available, and, you load up a default desktop, which is KDE 4, and customized in a manner that it works better and faster.

I know, I use it on the SAME Laptop, and it's not the same.

Now, John, I've known you a pretty damn long time, and we've always had a mutual respect for each other, and, you've basically ALWAYS downloaded any OS I happened to put my own stamp of approval on. I know because when I talked about a version of Mandriva a long time ago, you grabbed that too ;) So let me make it VERY clear; DOWNLOAD PC-BSD!!! You won't be sorry, I promise you.

Grab the PC-BSD CD, burn it, and install it on something. I think you'll be VERY impressed that a BSD is on this Earth that's THAT easy to use and work with.

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so it is hard to stand out from the crowd in most commercial environments. Unfortunately, that is how you get the money to pay the bills and :drink:
Don't worry gore, when you get to be an old fart like me you will be just as cynical.

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Well in 4 days, I'll be 29 lol.

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Anyways, if you had immediately deleted Win95 and loaded Win98SE you would probably have never gotten into Linux and OSes in general.............. so Win95 and your uncle did you a big favour?

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Basically yes; I sat there as I was saying, basically every night, LATE into the night, working away on something. After 6 Months, I'd accidentally killed it lol. I then, the next day, went to Best Buy, and bought myself an HP Pavilion, which was NOT top of the Line, but, it was pretty damn close!

It came with Windows 98 SE, and 128 MBs of RAM, and a 43 GB HD, all of which are still in the machine, which, I might add, is STILL in operation. Now, the reason that's impressive, is THAT is the machine I learned MOST of what I know on; I've formatted that HD probably over 2,000 times, without exaggerating at all.

The Power Supply it came with, all 75 Watts, is still working and installed, as is the rest of the Hardware, except my little 16 MB Nvidia Video Card, which started to take a **** a few years ago; The GUI of any OS had lines everywhere, and menus would then have something follow the lines in some weird way; Basically it was telling me it was time for something new.

I still use it though; You can't tell really without a GUI, so, leaving X off, works fine.

Though the last time I actually turned on the Monitor, it did seem to blow on me. So it may now be dead lol, but I don't know if it's the monitor or the card; The Monitor is not exactly brand new.

I don't even use it though, I log into it over SSH to do all the admin stuff, and then, it sits there as my FTP Server.

Hmmm,

Well, I'll give it a try, but a 3.6GB download isn't favourite at the moment. It looks as if my ISP is doing some sort of major upgrade and I keep losing the connection. Obviously this happens in the evenings and Sundays as they look after their commercial cash cows very nicely thankyou :(

I must say that I was impressed with the Mageia site as I got d/l speeds of 1.2MBps whereas you usually only get around 300~600KBps from download sites due to the traffic throttling?

Time to develop a hardware strategy I think.................:cool::D

3.6 GBs? Nihil; grab the Net Install CD, it's only like 200 MBs. Not only is it small, but it's VERY small, even compared to some Net Installer Discs, and that's with TWO OSs on it.

When you boot from the Net Installer CD, it will ask if you want FreeBSD or PC-BSD, and then you install.