I love Linux but.......

[Guest Stumbles]

This is aimed at Mandrake 9.0. Now don't get me wrong, the subject line says exactly what I mean.

 

However, there is some real disappointment with Mandrake and if I had experience with RH8.0 probably it as well.

 

This IS NOT intended to start a flame war. I am not interested in who's distro is better, blah blah blah. The box this is coming from has had various versions of RH, ML, gentoo and Lunar-Linux. All of which has their pluses and warts.

 

I set here with the box and ML9.0 and hardware wise the only thing that has changed is the addition of a Yamaha SCSI burner. Now in the past regardless of which distro I used some fiddling about with groups etal was needed to get sound or cdrom access working correctly.

 

Now here ML is at rev 9.0. My expectation of any distro at that level SHOULD not require the mucking about with anything to access audio or cdrom devices.

 

A fresh install of 9.0 and I cannot play an audio disk. What's up with that? Why must I have to fiddle about to get such a simple every day use of a pc to work? I mean, come on, version 9? These mundain things should have been figured out by now. Is that such a complicated thing?

 

Any arguement about the use or not of devfs is IMO very weak. It should be a non-issue which is used. After a fresh install and popping in an audio cd......well, it should just work, period.

 

Linux distros still have a long way to go.

 

Enough of my rant I'm ready for my lumps.

[Guest anon]

What i find odd, is that while you and some others will have to config your cd devices, for others everything works straight away, i don''t know whether its the age of some boxes that cause the problem or a bad install. I agree that by version 9.00 no one should have to tinker around just to play a cd.

Linux has a long way to go ?? based on your experience yes, but for me version 9.00 is near perfect, this is the first version mdk have brought out that for me was boring, nothing to fix or adjust ( apart from commenting out my onboard sound in favour of my s-blaster ) USB scanner, 2 printers, digital camera lcd monitor, all configured for me at install, and "touch wood " nothing wrong so far.

I remember a while ago some one posting about a mouse problem, they had exactly the same mouse as me and the exact same computer, mine worked, theirs didn't. As the americans say, " go figure "

[ral]

Well I just started with Linux last May. Mandrake is the only distro I have used. Strated with 8.2 and have seen no reason to change.

 

I have it installed on two PC's. An AMD K6-2 350 with a Sounblaster soundcard and a HP Printer. I still have 8.2 isntalled on this machine and everything worked perfectly.

 

I also have it instaled in a XP1700 machine (dual booting with Win98SE) with onboard SiS7012 sound and a Canon printer. With 8.2 you had to do osme work to get the sound and printerworking. With nine only sound needs to be worked on and the fix is the same as in 8.2.

 

So all in all, my experience at it has been good.

 

I have a third PC, a Fujitsu Notebook with WinXP Home installed. I updated to SP1 and lost my sound...a little tweaking is inherent with every PC IMHO.

[Guest Stumbles]

Yea, I don't get that either. They are well by computer years ancient. NTL and I loath to say this but windoze has no problem with the same hardware. The components are all "standard" ie the real macoys. Creative AWE32, Adaptec 2940. Granted the ide cdrom is no-name but I defer to doze.

 

Oh I agree 9.0 is very likeable. The menu is IMO more coherent than RH7.3. I also like the MCC. I am glad they changed their color scheme some. I run KDE exclusivly but I seriously doubt that is the cause.

 

Perhaps it is the mobo. It's a .Soyo 5EHM. However, it has performed flawlessly from day one. Again it has handled winders 98, 2kpro/server without issue. That's the only thing IMO that could cause the discrepancies. Well, not really I think.

 

Your last point is valid. I have seen posts of a similar nature. To bad in such a situation the two machines could not set side by side for some troubleshooting. But you know, I have seen similar issues with winders. So its not just Linux.

 

I have personal experience with that last part. My last job had 530 Dell GX-1 and GX-110s. Barring hardware failure, some of those boxes were just problematic.

[DragonMage]

Well.. I'll be really surprised if there is an OS of any kind that after a fresh install, everything works outside the box. There is always something to tweak or twiddle in every installation of OS whether it is windows, linux, or macOS. In my case, I have to compile the modem driver (winmodem), make adjustment to /etc/fstab to disable supermount on floppy and zip, tweak XMMS to enable the digital cdaudio playing, create symlinks and icons to my windows partition, download the plugins for gkrellm so I can use some of the plugins, download hacked freetype to enable AA in fonts, download realplayer, flash, java, etc, etc,etc..

 

Well you get the idea :)

 

The thing is after everything is tweaked and twiddled to your heart's content, there is no need to tweak it again. That's what I want.. not an OS that force the configuration the way you don't want it to be (like XP, that reminds me.. WTH is Microsoft forcing its own driver for the UMAX ASTRA 2100U scanner. the scanner is basically dead weight now.. I am still trying to make it work.. grmbl grmbl)

[Guest Stumbles]

Your right, there isn't an OS I know of that needs a little tweaking after a fresh install. Even a fresh install of doxe needs some care and feeding.

 

Yes the idea is gotten. It is the thing that keeps me with Linux. Barring a libraary confilct with another we are free to twiddle to our hrearts content.

 

I think Microsoft is trying to help out the slump in hardware sales. I have no experience with XP but have heard boat anchors are a common by product of their work.

[ral]

Well to be honest about it I was hoping the SiS 7012 onboard card would be properly configured on install since a lot of boards have this card, and was a bit dissapointed for awhile.

[bradcarter]

I have the ks75a board with SIS 7012 and sound was properly functional with a fresh install. It wasnt for mandrake 8.2

[Guest Stumbles]

I have the ks75a board with SIS 7012 and sound was properly functional with a fresh install.  It wasnt for mandrake 8.2

 

With 8.2 and a Creative AWE32 (ISA) I did not have to do anything with the card detection. Afterwards launching KDE I could hear the startup sound.

 

Now on 9.0, during the install, it said I had to run sndconfig after the install. Why? Now we are talking about the same card in the same box here. Didn't have to do that before. Even RH7.3 doesn't make me do that but it did detect that card on the first reboot and had to configure it then.. So I do as the install says but still do not hear the KDE startup sound as root or anyone.

 

In fact with MD9.0 what I do hear with the speaker volume at normal levels is a rumbling/buzzing type of noise. I normally associate that sort of thing to DMA or IRQ conflicts. Verified and validated there are none of those issues present.

[DragonMage]

Well, you have to understand that not only mandrake 9.0 is a .0 release, there are so many fundamental changes in the software itself (like gcc 3.2, new libraries, new mandrake tools, and such) With all those fundamental changes, I am not surprised if it doesn't work as well as previous version. I too feel bitten when my pctel winmodem driver refuse to compile in mandrake 9.0 and found out that it is not compilable with gcc 3.x version yet, forcing me to change modem. I am still trying to find out whether my favorite linux bible study program (gnomesword) is compatible with gnome 2.x.

 

But at least the problems are solvable, even if it requires you to go back to old methods to solve it. Mandrake 8.2 is one of the most boring distro I have tried since everything is setup so easily. If it weren't for kde 3.x series and security patches, I would never do anything at all to 8.2. Let's hope that 9.1 will be better.

[Guest Stumbles]

Well, you have to understand that not only mandrake 9.0 is a .0

 

Doh! It just dawned on me about the .0 part.

 

To a point I can agree about the number of changes. Some are quite major. Like a complete switch of compilers. However, what was the various RC's for then? Granted not all bugs are ever stomped out but....

 

Anyway.

 

It has been a very long time since I fiddled with a winmodem (like RH7 or something like that). Anytime I am asked about modems the answer is external. A lot less hassles all around, I don't care about the cost, they are worth it.

[Guest josetann]

About Mandrake 9 being a .0 release...remember when Win2k came out? It was based on WinNT4 (just like Mandrake 9.0 is based on 8.2) but how many things did not work out of the box? I had to go through a lot just to get my USB scanner to work...and it was a long time (a year or more maybe, I don't remember) until my ATI TV-Wonder worked. And don't get me started on software compatibility, lol!

 

So yeah it may take some fiddling here, some tweaking there, but it's like that for any system. It takes me about as long to setup a Linux box as it does a Windows box. Personally I believe Linux is ready for the desktop, that's why I started a site dedicated to custom linux computers (though I still sell more windows boxes, go figure).

 

I recommend Linux to most everyone I know. I run Mandrake 8.2 on my server, 9.0 on my desktop machine, and when I gave my little brother a PC, it had Mandrake 8.2 on it. Have to keep explaining to my step-mom why they can't run windows games on it, but with programs like GCompris and frozen bubble, I don't think they miss Windows at all.

 

My point? Ok by now I forgot, but I think it had something to do with Mandrake's come a long way. Not perfect, but definitely ready for prime time.

[Counterspy]

One of the sources of these differences is the fact that Mandrake does not have 2000 machine configurations like M$. I am not even sure they match Redhat. This is the only way you get a relatively bug free release although as has been well stated before in this thread even M$ has problems.

 

Counterspy.

[Guest Nitrox]

Great thread...

 

Thought for sure it would turn into a "****** sucks, use this."

 

But as far as Mandrake being ready for laptop prime-time, no way. Even with the great support you get from other users... There is still all kinds of tweaking involved. In my instance, Im still trying to get a full workable version up on my Compaq 900z, a laptop that's not that old, but not that new. Its been 6 days, and Im still browsing forums, FAQs, etc. in my spare time. Im also keeping a log of all the things necessary to get it up and running.... A 8.2 release should for the most part be up and running, with performing personal tweaks, not tweaks to get your hardware running. :(

 

Without another running OS on that box, it would be useless. Now that would be VERY frustrating for someone who just plopped down the cash for it.

[spiedra]

I have to think MDK has potential to take over the desktop, but I don't think it will or at least not any time soon. Most people don't want to learn another OS, especially Linux since there are all these myths around about how hard it is to use and install and blah, blah, blah. For them it's safer to stay with what they are use to. Also there is tweaking you have to do in Windows like editing the registry to get some hardware to work, software updates, etc. I remember when my roommate installed Windows XP, none of his usb devices worked. A fresh install didn't fix the problem. He had to edit the registry, so every OS has some tweaking that must be done. On MDK 8.1, I had to do a lot of tweaking since it was so buggy, but once I got the bugs worked out, I did nothing else. MDK 8.2, there was nothing for me to tweak except getting my palm to hotsync using a usb cradle. MDK 9.0, nothing for me to tweak. I found a couple of bugs that were easily fixed. I expect MDK 9.1 to be even closer to perfect.