I have been running Maverick alpha 2 from a LiveCD for over three hours and am using Konqueror as the browser as I write this.
Maverick from the LiveCD on this Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E has been rock solid stable.
When I ran it from the LiveCD I was presented with the usual KDE4 desktop: a folder plasma, community plasma, panel on the bottom with the usual components, and a cashew in the upper right corner. I immediately switched to the "Classic" menu and started playing. So far, nothing has crashed. Maverick presented my GM45 video chip with almost a dozen screen sizes and defaulted to my preferred size: 1600X900. 3D and all works great.
In the HD install of my fully updated Lucid Lynx I installed Oracle's version of VirtualBox 3.2.6. Using the same LiveCD I installed Maverick as a guest host. Maverick did not like the VB video driver offerings and defaulted to a vesa at 800X600.
So far, I have been unable to reconfigure it to 1024X760.
BUT, when the desktop came up it was the "Search and Launcher" option, not the classic desktop. I've never used that version of the desktop, or even seen it before. Curious concept. No menu structure, just a search box in which you type the name, or piece thereof, of the app you want to run and below the search box appears icons of it and or its closest match. Just above the search box is a screen zone with the "Favorite" app icons showing. At the top of the screen is an "Activity bar" and several system icons. If I open the plasma installer ribbon a selection box starts rapidly jumping from desktop icon to icon in a looping (racing) condition. I can continue to add plasma objects to the screen. When I close the widgets ribbon the racing condition stops. I can add a "panel" to the bottom of the screen and drag the desktop icons I've installed to it, where they promptly shrink down to panel icons. All in all, a jumbled mess. I removed my additions and got back to the basic desktop.
To convert to a classic desktop I right moused on the screen and chose "Desktop settings", where there is an option to switch the desktop to "Desktop". Doing that resulted in a empty screen with the default wall paper. I proceeded to add a panel, the KMenu launcher, the system tray, the TImeAndDate plasmoid, and several others. When I opened the widget ribbon from the panel in order to sort and position the panel icons in the order I wanted them no Cardinal Star appeared which would allow me to drag and drop the icons into the positions I wanted them.
While playiing with trying to position the panel icons the xserver crashed and I was presented with a black screen. I used VB's option to power down the guest OS. When I booted it back up all I could get was the black screen, while the KDE4 desktop music played in the background, indicating that KDE4 thought the desktop was up. Alt+ctl+F2 didn't give a console. I rebooted and called up the grub menu and chose the second option. From there I chose the failsafe graphical option, which failed, giving me the black screen again. I rebooted and chose the "Root with Network" option. Here is where it gets interesting: IF I use "startx" from the root console it starts MY desktop configuration. IF I use "/etc.init.d/kdm start" I am presented with the "Search and Launcher" desktop.
The default Search and Launcher desktop appears to be more stable than my classic desktop, although both have occasional plasma app crashes which immediately restart themselves.
So far, I suspect that all of my problems are because of the poor xserver choices that VB makes available to Maverick. BUT, the CDROM, the network, the USB ports all work well. I haven't tried the web camera yet. (note before I close: almost four hours with Maverick Alpha 2 running from the LiveCD with nary a single problem or crash!)
Maverick from the LiveCD on this Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E has been rock solid stable.
When I ran it from the LiveCD I was presented with the usual KDE4 desktop: a folder plasma, community plasma, panel on the bottom with the usual components, and a cashew in the upper right corner. I immediately switched to the "Classic" menu and started playing. So far, nothing has crashed. Maverick presented my GM45 video chip with almost a dozen screen sizes and defaulted to my preferred size: 1600X900. 3D and all works great.
In the HD install of my fully updated Lucid Lynx I installed Oracle's version of VirtualBox 3.2.6. Using the same LiveCD I installed Maverick as a guest host. Maverick did not like the VB video driver offerings and defaulted to a vesa at 800X600.
So far, I have been unable to reconfigure it to 1024X760. BUT, when the desktop came up it was the "Search and Launcher" option, not the classic desktop. I've never used that version of the desktop, or even seen it before. Curious concept. No menu structure, just a search box in which you type the name, or piece thereof, of the app you want to run and below the search box appears icons of it and or its closest match. Just above the search box is a screen zone with the "Favorite" app icons showing. At the top of the screen is an "Activity bar" and several system icons. If I open the plasma installer ribbon a selection box starts rapidly jumping from desktop icon to icon in a looping (racing) condition. I can continue to add plasma objects to the screen. When I close the widgets ribbon the racing condition stops. I can add a "panel" to the bottom of the screen and drag the desktop icons I've installed to it, where they promptly shrink down to panel icons. All in all, a jumbled mess. I removed my additions and got back to the basic desktop.
To convert to a classic desktop I right moused on the screen and chose "Desktop settings", where there is an option to switch the desktop to "Desktop". Doing that resulted in a empty screen with the default wall paper. I proceeded to add a panel, the KMenu launcher, the system tray, the TImeAndDate plasmoid, and several others. When I opened the widget ribbon from the panel in order to sort and position the panel icons in the order I wanted them no Cardinal Star appeared which would allow me to drag and drop the icons into the positions I wanted them.
While playiing with trying to position the panel icons the xserver crashed and I was presented with a black screen. I used VB's option to power down the guest OS. When I booted it back up all I could get was the black screen, while the KDE4 desktop music played in the background, indicating that KDE4 thought the desktop was up. Alt+ctl+F2 didn't give a console. I rebooted and called up the grub menu and chose the second option. From there I chose the failsafe graphical option, which failed, giving me the black screen again. I rebooted and chose the "Root with Network" option. Here is where it gets interesting: IF I use "startx" from the root console it starts MY desktop configuration. IF I use "/etc.init.d/kdm start" I am presented with the "Search and Launcher" desktop.
The default Search and Launcher desktop appears to be more stable than my classic desktop, although both have occasional plasma app crashes which immediately restart themselves.
So far, I suspect that all of my problems are because of the poor xserver choices that VB makes available to Maverick. BUT, the CDROM, the network, the USB ports all work well. I haven't tried the web camera yet. (note before I close: almost four hours with Maverick Alpha 2 running from the LiveCD with nary a single problem or crash!)
, now that i know its there yea not a big deal.
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