Today is my second day using the newly released OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 Argon in my desktop computer and I'd like to start by saying that this is NOT a technical review.
Please do not misinterpret me. I do not mean that I under appreciate the hard work of the OpenMandriva developers and community in making sure that everything under the hood of this distro functions smoothly; it's quite the opposite. I, for one, truly value their commitment and effort. However, I cannot pretend to grasp the technicalities. I am one of those users who do not understand what "Qt Framework 5.15.2, LLVM/clang 11.0.1, systemd 247, Java 15, Calamares 3.2.35, binutils 2.36.1, gcc 10.2." imply on the system.
My perspective is, then, one of a non-technical user and this is what I have seen so far:
1. Installation
After booting the live usb on a computer with secure boot and UEFI, I ran the installation process, which I found considerably faster this time. I believe that the whole process took less than 15 minutes from start to end and it was very straight forward (well, providing that I have some experience installing other distros and OpenMandriva Lx in the past). The only weird thing was that, when the installation was complete, despite I clicked on "restart the system," nothing happened and I had to reboot the computer manually.
2. Configuration
I chose to wipe out the root partition and keep the home partition. In the past, this has given me some problems but this time was different. Argon kept my desktop settings (wallpaper, effects, panel configurations, etc. with the obvious omission of the programs that were not installed) to the point that I doubting if I had booted to 4.2 or if I was still using 4.1. Had not been for the Falkon icon pinned to the task bar, I would have assumed it was 4.1 even though I saw 4.2 in the splash screen.
After I installed my personal use programs (Firefox, Steam, Insync, WINE), I was pleased to see that everything was preserved: bookmarks, games, and synchronized files. This means that my computer was practically the same after less than an hour.
3. Responsiveness
The system is working faster than before. However, I did notice two issues: the wired connection would come to a halt and the print screen key was not working.
I launched the network configuration and browsed over the tabs without knowing what I was doing. Yet, I found that, under general configuration, the priority of the connection was set to -100. I changed it to 3 and the issue was fixed.
Regarding the print screen key, the situation is that the key assignation for that key points to "launch screen capture tool" and this instruction does not seem to call KDE Spectacle. I reassigned that to "launch spectacle" and it took care of the problem.
There were some problems getting some Steam games to run. Those are Windows games but I tweaked some WINE settings and managed to get Tomb Raider IV to function. I did not have luck with Crayon Physics Deluxe. Even so, the rest of the programs that I run with WINE are fine. Bendy and the Ink Machine runs fine out of the box.
Conclusion
From my humble perspective as a non-technical user, I find OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 a solid release and I am extremely pleased with its practically seamless transition and usability. It is going to stay as the OS of my production desktop computer for sure.
Kudos to everyone who made it possible and BIG THANKS!!
