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These are errata for Mageia 1. These issues will be fixed as soon as possible.

Installer Issues

Help not working

Clicking the "Help" buttons in the Mageia installer doesn't display the documentation as expected because the Mageia documentation has to be re-written. The "Help" buttons will likely be removed before Mageia 1 official release and should hopefully be working for Mageia 2 when the documentation is ready.

The Nonfree media sources are enabled by default when setting up the Mageia online media sources

Adding the online media sources will add and enable the Nonfree repositories by default.

Ideally, the Nonfree repositories shouldn't be enabled by default when one installs from the DVD (as the DVD almost only contains free open source software), but enabled e.g. when you install from any of the live CD's. Due to lack of time it doesn't work this way at the moment, and the situation will be improved in Mageia 2. So if you want to use only open source software make sure to disable the Nonfree sources (from drakrpm-edit-media (the Mageia Control Center -> Software Management -> "Configure media sources for install and update").

For more info see this bug.

Upgrade Issues

Packages from third-party repositories could interfere with upgrading

Users using 3rd party repositories, such as PLF, could have issues when upgrading to Mageia. As with any 3d party repositories, Mageia doesn't guarantee that the upgrade will work smoothly, i.e. the upgrade process was extensively tested for systems using only the official Mandriva 2010.1 repositories.

However due to the special nature of the PLF repositories, you can make the upgrade as smooth as possible by making sure the Tainted repositories in Mageia are enabled (ideally "Tainted Release" and "Tainted Updates"). In Mageia the Tainted repository includes almost all the packages that were in the PLF repositories (i.e. packages that infringe copyright laws or patents //in some countries in the world//... etc).

Non-free source added by default

The same situation explained in this section applies to upgrades too.

pm-utils conflicts with laptop-mode-tools

The pm-utils package conflicts with the laptop-mode-tools package; according to the upstream pm-utils developers, pm-utils now provides functionalities similar to those provided by laptop-mode-tools, and that both packages should conflict for that reason. Also note that having both packages installed at the same time can cause some bugs, for example this bug in Mageia. For these reasons, on upgrading it is very likely laptop-mode-tools will be removed from your installation as pm-utils is required by most desktop environment's core packages.

NTP configuration file may have some syntax errors not corrected on upgrading

Due to a syntax error in /etc/ntp.conf you may see some errors when the ntpd service is started:

 line 27 column 19 syntax error, unexpected T_EOC, expecting T_Ipv4_flag or T_Ipv6_flag or T_String
 syntax error in /etc/ntp.conf line 27, column 19

This has been fixed in the Mageia package, but if you're upgrading from a previous Mandriva release, the new/fixed file may get installed as /etc/ntp.conf.rpmnew (as the %config(noreplace) attribute is used in the ntp RPM package for this file). So, you'll need to fix the problem manually, simply execute the following command as root in terminal:

su perl -pi -e 's!^(multicastclient\s+# listen on default 224.0.1.1)!#\1!' /etc/ntp.conf

or edit /etc/ntp.conf manually.

Firefox Issues

In Mageia some of the customised preferences shipped in the Firefox package have been changed, however if you're upgrading from an earlier Mandriva release using an old Firefox profile, those preferences may need to be changed manually in firefox.

  • In the Mandriva xulrunner/firefox package(s), layout.css.visited_links_enabled was set to false due to some privacy invasion issues, however since then the big/scary parts of those issues have been fixed c.f.: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147777 and http://dbaron.org/mozilla/visited-privacy. So this setting has been left as upstream ships it, i.e. set to true in the Mageia package. On upgrading, and since this setting is saved in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile>/prefs.js you may need to change it manually: simply go to about:config[1] put layout.css.visited_links_enabled in the Filter box, then double click it to toggle it from true <-> false.
  • In the Mandriva xulrunner/firefox package(s), browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent was set to false. However the upstream default is setting it to true, this is a major usability improvement and it was decided to ship the Mageia package leaving this preference set to true (conforming with the upstream default value). What this preference controls is explained in the excellent Mozillazine Knowledge Base:
This preference controls where new tabs will be located.
 True (default): Open new tabs to the right of the parent tab.
 False: Restores pre Firefox 3.6 behavior where new tabs are opened at the far right of the tabs bar.
  • Again this preference maybe already in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile>/prefs.js so you may need to change it manually, go to about:config[1], put browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent in the Filter box and double click it to toggle it from true <-> false.

[1] type about:config in the Firefox location bar and press Enter or click the Go button.

Software Issues

VirtualBox Issues

  • If using VirtualBox to test, you need version 4.0.x, as this is the version of the VirtualBox guest additions in Mageia. If the version of the host Virtualbox you're using is 3.x, as a workaround either:
    • After installation, you can configure driver "vesa" instead of "vboxvideo" in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file. be advised that this will disable resizing, and possibly shared clipboard, but mouse integration does work well. OR
    • Alternatively, you can use the upstream guest additions:
      • First make sure you don't have any virtualbox packages installed in the guest Mageia VM
      • While the VM is running open Devices -> "Install Guest Additions", download the upstream ISO and mount it in the VM
      • Follow the instructions to install the upstream guest additions http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#idp11234128 (Hint: you'll need to install kernel-*-latest, kernel-*-devel-latest and 'dkms' packages for the guest additions kernel modules to compile successfully).
  • Due to an ahci support problem on VirtualBox, rescue is not working for now. Only ide driver is working for now.

The skeleton Adobe Flash Player package only exists in the Nonfree repository

The Adobe flash player plugin can't be included in the official repositories; as a workaround a flash-player-plugin package exists in the Nonfree repositories for 32bit and 64bit as native plugin. This package doesn't include the actual flash player as the license forbids redistribution, instead it includes a script that downloads the Adobe flash player tarball from adobe.com when the user installs the package. The only caveat is that users who installed the 32bit package on a 64bit installation as this Errata suggested before release of Flash Player 11, are advised to manually remove the 32bit flash-player-plugin and install the native 64bit flash-player-plugin from the Nonfree_Updates repository.

LibreOffice Issues

libreoffice-kde Issues

The libreoffice-kde, the LibreOffice KDE integration plugin, is known to cause some issues:

  • Hovering over a button in the toolbars doesn't give the expected visual feedback, i.e the button glows a bit, or is shown as poping out of the GUI... etc.
  • In some menus the check marks aren't shown in a clear way, so you can't easily tell what's selected and what isn't (Bug#1197)
  • Using LibreOffice with the traditional Chinese locale (with libreoffice-langpack-zh_TW) the text that should appear on the status bar is shown as squares (This problem has a workaround described in Bug#815.)

And as such, it's not recommended to install libreoffice-kde for now; this plugin offered two main features:

  • Makes LibreOffice use the KDE4 file chooser instead of its native file choose
  • Makes LibreOffice use KDE4 Oxygen style; if you want LibreOffice (and other GTK+2.0 applications) to use the KDE4 Oxygen style, install the oxygen-gtk package (you can set what GTK+2.0 is used using Systemsettings -> Applications Appearance -> GTK Styles and Fonts)

So in reality, without libreoffice-kde you'll only be missing the KDE4 file chooser.

Chinese font fallback substitution issue

As described in Bug#751, there are some Chinese font issues when typing Chinese characters or opening files containing Chinese characters:

  • When typing in Chinese with a font not containing Chinese characters, the typed characters will be displayed as unreadable squares
  • When opening a file with Chinese font characters, but the font specified in the document is not present in the system, the Chinese characters in these files will also be displayed as unreadable squares.

Ideally, the Chinese characters will use the default system CJK font for fallback/substitution in the above cases. But unfortunately this does not happen in LibreOffice in Mageia at the moment.

Input Methods Issues

Setting IBus as the Input Method (using localedrake) doesn't work with GDM

Users can set the system wide input method using localedrake (aka "Manage localisation for your system"), ideally this should work, it edits /etc/sysconfig/i18n and adds the needed configuration bits; however this doesn't work with GDM (the GNOME Display Manager), Bug#942:

  • The ibus-daemon isn't auto-started when logging in
  • Some needed environment variables aren't executed

To fix these two issues, follow the following steps:

  • To make ibus-daemon autostart at login, simple copy /usr/share/applications/ibus.setup to ~/.config/autostart (~ is /home/<your-user-name>), the following command (executed as user) should do the trick:
mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart && cp -v /usr/share/applications/ibus.setup ~/.config/autostart
    • Note that if you want to make ibus-daemon start for all users on the system you'll have to copy that .desktop file to each user's ~/.config/autostart or copy it as root to the system-wide location /etc/xdg/autostart
  • To make sure the needed environment variables are exported, edit ~/.bashrc and add the following lines to it:
export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus

Bash, change in behaviour when expanding environment variables when using TAB completion

Bash-4.2, shipped with Mageia 1, has a change in behaviour when expanding environment variables when using TAB completion, for example:

echo $PWD/<TAB>

will print

echo \$PWD/

Note the extra \ before $PWD. This is an upstream change (an unintended side effect of some other changes), for the full technical details have a look at what the upstream Bash maintainer said on this topic.

The issue is tracked in Bug 237, there's no fix yet; once the issue is fixed the Bash package will be updated (if it's possible to backport the patch).

KDE Issues

Upgrade Issue

You should upgrade outside of a running KDE Session. If the upgrade is done in a running KDE session you might lose the drakconf launcher.

Configuration file not writable

On the very first start of KDE or of a KDE application under another desktop (GNOME, XFCE) users may see one or two pop ups about a non-writable configuration file (one about kdedrc, the second eventually about the KDE application configuration file): it is a known issue described in Bug#662

Terminal window resize freezes KDE

A freeze of KDE can occur when resizing or maximising an application (for example Konsole) if you are using the nvidia driver and have enabled desktops effects. Bug#608. A workaround is to disable desktop effects until nvidia can fix the issue (cf. comment of an nvidia developer on ArchLinux bugzilla and this topic on the nV News forums).

Kgpg decrypt issue

While decrypting some old files you might notice a blank window after clicking on the decrypt button. You should try to configure kgpg to use gpg2 instead of gpg to decrypt this file (cf a report on ArchLinux Bugzilla and mageia's bug report).

QuteCom crashes or hangs showing blank windows when launched

Due to a bug in the QuteCom package sometimes it crashes or hangs showing blank windows, this issue is caused by the GTK+ Qt style; the workaround for now is to use another widget style, or force QuteCom to use the Plastique theme either:

  • By loading it from terminal:
qutecom -style plastique

OR

  • By copying /usr/share/applications/qutecom.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/ and editing it (using any text editor) to change the Exec line from:
Exec=qutecom

to

Exec=qutecom -style plastique

This issue is tracked in Bug 1777.

Hardware Issues

Radeon HD Issues

  • Radeon HD based systems may be suffering from random restarts of the X session, see Bug87 for more info.

If you add radeon.modeset=0 to the kernel command line, it will boot without kms. Then when system is booted, remove the "radeon.modeset=0" and do a:

bootloader-config --action rebuild-initrds

and it will recreate the initrd with the needed firmwares added.

VIA Unichrome graphics cards

  • Playing video files with some VIA Unichrome graphics cards may crash the X server if the video XV output is used, the workaround for now is to play videos using other video outputs, e.g. X11. Here're some tips about configuring the most popular media players to use the X11 video output:
    • MPlayer, using MPlayer from terminal:
mplayer -vo x11 <path to video file>
      • Using one of the MPlayer graphical frontends:
        • SMPlayer: open Options -> Preferences -> Video, change the "Output Driver" to "x11"
        • GNOME MPlayer: open Edit -> Preferences -> Player, change the "Video Output" to "x11"
        • KMPlayer: (with the MPlayer backend), open Settings -> Configure KMPlayer -> General Options -> Output, in the upper panel, select "X11Shm"
    • VLC: open Tools -> Preferences -> Video, change the "Output" to "X11 Video Output (XCB)"
    • Totem: it uses the GStreamer backend, so you'll need to configure the GStreamer settings directly, make sure the **gnome-media** package is installed, then launch from terminal: gstreamer-properties on the Video tab change the "Plugin" to "X Window System (No Xv)"

On boot you might see a message about waiting for a hard disk device to appear

When booting the machine you might see a message like:

waiting for device sdXY to appear (timeout 1 min)

This may be caused by changing the UUID of a partition, by e.g. formatting it, while the old UUID of this partition is listed in the initrd of the kernel you're booting with.

An example would be, you installed Mageia and created a swap partition, ideally the UUID of that partition will be included in the initrd of the installed kernel; if later on you install another distro and that distro requires that you format the swap partition, or you format that partition for any other reason, then at boot the system is looking for that partition, marked by that particular UUID, but it can't find it, so it gives the above message, and waits for 1 minute at each boot.

To fix this problem follow these steps:

  • Get the UUID of the swap partition from the output of the blkid command:
su
blkid

note it down. For example if the output of the blkid command is:

/dev/sda1: UUID="07929ccf-0ab6-4857-9835-cafc2751cee7" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="a834c939-0f27-4684-85d5-e93059889df1" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda6: UUID="52fd646b-0405-4b75-ac77-010400c67d96" TYPE="ext4"

then you'll take a834c939-0f27-4684-85d5-e93059889df1 (without the quotes), and put it in /etc/fstab for the swap partition, then do the same in /boot/grub/menu.lst for all resume=UUID= parts.

You need to edit /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst as root (that is if the swap UUID isn't correct in either or both of them):

  • To edit /etc/fstab
su -
kwrite /etc/fstab

(replace kwrite with gedit in the above command if you're running Gnome, basically any text editor will do).

  • To edit /boot/grub/menu.lst:
su -
kwrite /boot/grub/menu.lst
  • Now you need to recreate the initrd for the kernel, you can do so by using this command in terminal:
su
bootloader-config --action rebuild-initrds

N.B. you won't see the "waiting for device sdXY" message if you use the graphical bootsplash, which is used by default. So if you experience unexplained long boots, where the system looks like idling, it's advised to press Esc to see the text boot messages to diagnose any problem(s).