Kitz Forum

Computer Software => Linux => Topic started by: broadstairs on March 12, 2011, 05:17:04 PM

Title: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: broadstairs on March 12, 2011, 05:17:04 PM
I've been looking for a new distro as I am a bit concerned about the future of Mandriva. Based on several things I have read here and elsewhere I decided to give PCLinuxOS a go and downloaded their FullMonty DVD.

[rant on]
I installed it to a spare hard drive but have been battling with sound. It will not play any sound form any web browser, system sounds and games and Openshot video editor all have work OK so the sound system is configured but no sound comes out form any web browser, Firefox Chromium or Opera. This time I managed to get onto the forum yesterday and have raised an entry but sadly no one has been any help despite it being a busy forum. I also tried their normal Live CD and it has no web sound either.

I just fail to see why things like this get through, sound is basic and for something like this to not work is bad. PCLinuxOS is not for me sadly as I quite liked the look of it. Sadly this kind of thing seems more prevalent these days and in a way I can see why Linux does not get looked on favourably by folks who dont have a techie background.
[rant off]

Stuart
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: silversurfer44 on March 12, 2011, 05:32:04 PM
>> I've been looking for a new distro as I am a bit concerned about the future of Mandriva <<

PCLinuxOS is based on Mandriva , so I would think PCLinuxOS will have to either fork, like Megeia is doing, or be at the mercy of whatever Mandriva decides to do. The biggest part of Mandriva's developers have now split to develop Megeia.

I have been with Mandriva since Mandrake 9 point something or other and have never had any problem with sound playing from web pages. If you tried their Live CD and the sound didn't work then it must be something in PCLinuxOS that is broken. Why not try the proper Mandriva Live CD and see if that works. I will be surprised if it doesn't.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: AdrianH on March 12, 2011, 06:13:21 PM
Is your live cd OK?  I have installed PCLINUXOS on too many machines to count and never had an issue like that.

What hardware are you using? Is your system compatible? There are several different install/Live CD options to try on the disc, using a different install like VESA may well help find the sound driver required.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: broadstairs on March 12, 2011, 11:38:05 PM
I've solved the problem, caused by having multiple sound devices - sound on motherboard and HDMI port on my gfx card, strange though that it only half failed in that only web sound did not work and all other sound worked. I believe its more of a generic problem with Linux than a distro issue, Windows does not have a problem with things like this.... usually......

I currently have Mandriva installed and have always liked it. I will probably try Mageia when it gets to beta stage.

I have another issue with PCLinuxOS now (surprise surprise) Firefox crashes instantly loading a website which works OK in Chromium and works fine here on Mandriva with the same release of Firefox so that's another issue to do with PCLinuxOS I guess since it works on Mandriva.

Overall I'm not overly impressed so far .....

My main gripe with Mandriva is that it does not keep up to date enough to allow me to keep upgrading important (to me) packages.

Stuart
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: AdrianH on March 13, 2011, 07:21:09 AM
Sorry but I think the issue is your system/install. Firefox does not crash for me or anyone else I know running PCL , I have both 32 and 64 bit versions here, my son uses 32 bit and Firefox all day long and has zero problems.

I help a group that supplies PC's to disadvantaged kids, we regularly install PCLinuxOS on all sorts of old machines and do not have these problems. Texstar keeps the repos well updated with all the latest available package versions.

This post is from my PCL desktop.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: roseway on March 13, 2011, 07:29:15 AM
Quote
I have another issue with PCLinuxOS now (surprise surprise) Firefox crashes instantly loading a website which works OK in Chromium and works fine here on Mandriva with the same release of Firefox so that's another issue to do with PCLinuxOS I guess since it works on Mandriva.

I wouldn't want Stuart to think we're ganging up on him :) but I have to say that my experience with PCLinuxOS is the same as the others - it works straight out of the box with no serious issues.

If FF crashes on particular sites, then I would guess that it's a problem with a plugin. Flash and java are often the cause of this sort of thing.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: AdrianH on March 13, 2011, 08:03:02 AM
This may well be to blame >>> Flash 10.2 proves to be crashtastic (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/flash-102-found-be-crashy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+linuxjournalcom+%28Linux+Journal+-+The+Original+Magazine+of+the+Linux+Community%29)

It is also apparently killing Windows based machines,not just the browser but crashing the system.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: roseway on March 13, 2011, 08:20:28 AM
That could be the answer indeed. According to about:plugins I've got Flash 10.3 d162, although that doesn't seem to have been released yet, so I'm not entirely sure what version it is. ???
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: broadstairs on March 13, 2011, 08:27:20 AM
Well now I have sorted my sound problem I decided to do a full update of the system. This has raised an issue that it loses all the customisation of the desktops which happens with a Full Monty system. I still have the Firefox crash but now it happens on 3.6.15 which is the same version I amusing to type this on my main Mandriva system, and also on this system the page works flawlessly with no crashes. The page in question does not use flash but does use java/javascript but even this is the same level as Mandriva now.

So it the web site works on Mandriva using the same version of FF and java the only thing I can think is that there is something wrong with what PCLinuxOS has done with the system which causes the problem. Bear in mind that this is a vanilla Full Monty install, I have made no changes to the customisation or package selection just done a full system update.

If you want to try the site then just go to http://www.gardenofenglandwoodturners.org/index.html (http://www.gardenofenglandwoodturners.org/index.html) (it does have some rather annoying music but hey I dont design or maintain this one  ::) )

Stuart
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: AdrianH on March 13, 2011, 08:46:57 AM
http://www.gardenofenglandwoodturners.org/index.html   works for me just fine.

The disappearing desktop icons etc all came back for me with a restart. the taskbar settings just needed a tweak after the latest updates.  Firefox 3.615 is working fine, no crashes problems on any of my bookmarked sites.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: broadstairs on March 13, 2011, 08:49:20 AM
There are a couple of things I need to do on the install having read some more stuff about Full Monty and I'll see what happens then. I think it has to be a missing package but not sure what right now.

Stuart
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: tuftedduck on March 13, 2011, 09:45:25 AM
This may well be to blame >>> Flash 10.2 proves to be crashtastic (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/flash-102-found-be-crashy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+linuxjournalcom+%28Linux+Journal+-+The+Original+Magazine+of+the+Linux+Community%29)

It is also apparently killing Windows based machines,not just the browser but crashing the system.

Yes. that was crashing my Opera Browser on Win. XP.......although I did not experience a system crash.

I usually update Flash over the top of an existing version.......this time it caused the crashes. I uninstalled and did a clean reinstal and all seems well now.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: roseway on March 13, 2011, 09:51:52 AM
That woodturners site needs a plugin which I don't have installed, shown as audio/x-ms-wma. I wonder if Stuart's crashes are related to this.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: silversurfer44 on March 13, 2011, 10:00:25 AM
I'm same as Roseway. The site plays fine with Opera but needs another plugin for FF.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: broadstairs on March 13, 2011, 10:01:07 AM
Not sure which plugin caused the issue but having disabled a whole raft of them the site now works. I have also gotten the customisation back as the .kde directory was saved as a .bak file when I did the update as this installed kde 4.6. Problem now is that I have lost all sound now.... Oh well more digging on their forum.

Stuart
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: silversurfer44 on March 13, 2011, 10:07:23 AM
If you can disable Pulseaudio. That has been a pain for me since getting my current PC.
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: broadstairs on March 13, 2011, 03:31:01 PM
It was the xine browser plugin which was causing the crash, now removed. Pulse works fine on my Mandriva system with no problems at all and its not installed on PCLinuxOS. I now have sound back on PCLinuxOS after the update by editing modprobe.conf to ensure the on board sound comes up first.

Now it will go on the back burner until I have more tme to play and see how things work out.

Stuart
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: geep on March 14, 2011, 01:20:22 PM
Quote
I've been looking for a new distro as I am a bit concerned about the future of Mandriva.
Look no further - http://slackware.com/index.html As an experienced Linux user it should be ideal.

Cheers,
Peter
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: broadstairs on March 14, 2011, 10:46:46 PM
Look no further - http://slackware.com/index.html As an experienced Linux user it should be ideal.

Peter this is a bit old now, KDE 4.4 is too old to run the latest digikam and I would have problems with some other stuff I guess as well.

Stuart
Title: Re: PCLinuxOS fails for me
Post by: tickmike on March 25, 2011, 12:43:55 AM
only just found this post  :-[

Hope you are getting on ok now with the full version, with rolling up-dates there are sometimes a few hic-ups
like your sound problems and with the new 'plasma' desktop update the other week, it did warn on the forum that it would wipe your desktop icons.

 If you like the full version I would use a lighter version like 'MiniMe'  http://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=180
or openbox-Bonsai-2010.11.iso     http://melodie.tyruiop.org/pclinuxos-core-cli-and-children/
http://mypclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,2833.0.html
With these you can build what you want in them via 'synaptic' package file manager.

Good luck.