miércoles, 13 de junio de 2012

La historia de la falla del disco duro de Eimi

Eimi se levantó y se robó una de mis revistas...(cortesía de Megatotoro)
A mi hija Eimi le encantan las computadoras ("pah-teh", como ella les dice). Una de sus actividades favoritas es encender su PC de escritorio y llevarme hasta ella para que la ponga a ver videos musicales.  Esta computadora corre Mandriva Desktop 2011 y, gracias a la conveniente Línea de Tiempo de ROSA, Eimi, que brinca en la silla de alegría, sencillamente apunta al icono agrandado del video que quiere ver.  A veces, ella incluso pronuncia una palabra para identificar el video.  Por ejemplo, la canción "Simplemente irresistible", de Robert Palmer es "mamá", la de Totoro es "toto" y, para mi desesperación, Eimi nunca falla en identificar el clip de Mr. Bean bailando "Mr. Bombastic" como "papá". 
"Mamá" versus "Papá"  ¡Ah no, Eimi!

Estabámos mirando algunos videos de YouTube cuando la computadora repentinamente se reinició y el sistema operativo no quiso arrancar.  Resulta ser que hubo un cambio de corriente y algunos de los sectores del disco duro se tostaron.  Sí, fue mi culpa por no haber sustituido la vieja UPS.

Por suerte, pude reinstalar el sistema en otra partición en menos de 20 minutos...era la partición de Windows, pero Eimi no va a echar de menos ese sistema operativo, estoy seguro. :-)


The story of Eimi's HD failure

Eimi got up and snatched one of my magazines... (courtesy of Megatotoro)
My daughter Eimi loves computers ("pah-teh", as she calls them). One of her favorite activities is to turn on her desktop PC and take me to it to play music videos.  This PC runs Mandriva Desktop 2011 and, thanks to the convenient ROSA Time Frame, Eimi, bouncing on the chair with joy, simply points to the enlarged icon of the video that she wants to see.  Sometimes, she utters a word to identify the video.  For example, Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistible" is "mamá", Totoro's song is "toto" and, to my distress, Eimi never fails to identify the clip of Mr. Bean dancing "Mr. Bombastic" as "papá". 
"Mamá" vs "Papá"  C'mon, Eimi!

We were watching some YouTube clips when the computer rebooted and the OS refused to launch.  It turns out that there was a power surge and some sectors of the HD fried.  Yes, it was my fault because I forgot to replace the old PSU unit.

Luckily, I could reinstall the system to a different partition in less than 20 minutes...that was the Windows partition, but Eimi will not miss that OS, I'm sure :-)


Mandriva finally died! Well, sort of...

Many Linux users have already proclaimed Mandriva deceased and buried it. But is this old Linux distro quite dead?  Well, yes.  Sort of.  Mandriva became a zombie!

Bernie, the zombie that moved only to the sound of music

That is, at least, what some developers have implied with the release of the Mandriva 2012 Tech Preview: they code-named it "Bernie Lomax", the famous character of the comedy "Weekend at Bernie's".

I know that Tech Previews are not targeted to end-users but, stung by curiosity, I gave the DVD a test drive.  I must confess that the distro, just like Bernie in the sequel of the movie mentioned above, still moves, dances, and even fights!

Let me share my impressions.

First, the DVD booted flawessly when I installed to a virtual machine.  However, I had to give it more disk space than the average 8GB because the DVD included a lot of packages (it asks you if you want an office workstation, a gaming PC, etc).  I chose a KDE desktop install.


Installation screen: language selection



The installer is the same that was included in the Mandriva Desktop 2011.  The artwork, however, has changed: there was a bunch of friendly-looking penguins that kept me company along the way until the installation process was complete and the machine rebooted.





From that moment, my question was if Mandriva would follow the line established with the 2011 release (ROSA SimpleWelcome, launcher, Time Frame) or if it would go back to the 2010 feel, now donned by Mageia.  The answer came soon enough.  When I say "soon", I mean it: the desktop became operational much faster than with the 2011 and the latest ROSA releases.
The log in screen
The ROSA launcher getting ready to dance















Once the desktop loaded, I opened Mandriva Control Center to give this Linux distro release wannabe my mandatory test: Japanese IME capability.  I had chosen iBus as the IME during the installation, but I had to download Anthy and some other packages from the repositories.  "Bernie Lomax" passed the test; it can handle Japanese input with iBus+LibreOffice perfectly.

A となりのトトロ background image I used in Mandriva 2012 TP
I have to say that although the ROSA stuff is not my cup of tea, when I saw its responsiveness here, I found it more appealing.

So there you have it: Mandriva is still moving after being proclaimed dead.  Now we have to see if the corpse finally rots or if a new, more vigorous distro is reborn from its ashes, like a phoenix.

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