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9.1 is Disappointing (even a disaster)


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I installed 9.0 on 3 machines without problems. There were a few issues that I had to work out but the machines were running, I learned a ton and became a Linux (mandrake flavor) disciple.

 

9.1 has been a disaster ... on all three machines.

 

1st on my Actius 150 laptop - I wanted to get KDE 3.1 onto it and thought that 9.1rc2 would be good place to start. While I did get it installed and "running" so many things did not work right that I had to reinstall the world. Since I'd never been able to get the built-in winmodem to work under Lunix nor could I get either of my Megahertz PCMCIA modems (that others said should work) working, I installed a 1.5g win98 partition and reinstalled 9.0 on the rest. Now at least I can use a modem when I travel. After experiences 2 and 3 below, 9.1 isn't getting anywhere near this machine.

 

2nd on my PII-300 (128m) - This is is my workplace Linux machine which has been my showcase for the power of Linux. Everyone in our office has spent some time on it and been impressed (other than squinting at my 1024x768 display on a 14" screen). I can't even get get 9.1 to begin the upgrade on this machine. It gets as far as "probing serial ports" then freezes. I think I'll leave 'good enough' alone on this one.

 

3rd on my Celeron-500 (324m) dual boot home desktop - The update to 9.1 went flawlessly. Installation graphics were crisp and clear. While it took almost 2 hours I was looking forward to a good experience and some fun looking at the new features HOWEVER

Once I rebooted I was unable to use the KDE environment AT ALL. The cursor would change from a clock to an arrow then back to the clock constantly. The screen would flash then settle back to my wallpaper image. I never could activate the task bar or access the start button. It looks like I'm going to have to do a fresh install of 9.0 just to get it running again.

 

Really, what a disaster!

 

3 machine that worked extremely well under 9.0 and none work under 9.1.

 

It doesn't bode well for Mandrake's survival.

 

Frankly I was very surprised to see 9.1 released so soon after RC2 given the problems I observed. Clearly not enough quality control. Too bad. I was starting to like Mandrake a whole lot and was rooting for them to pull through. I guess I still am but I'm not going to be ready to try any new releases anytime soon.

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You performed an UPGRADE and then you come here and complain that it doesn't work?

 

Have you ever tried upgrading windoze? Now there's a disaster.

 

If you came here and said, "listen guys, it doesn't work on these machines, why?" then all I would have said was "never perform an upgrade - install it fresh"

 

But you come here and say that 9.1 is a disaster because YOU don't know how it should be installed.

 

Didn't the thought cross your mind that maybe if three installs of a release that everyone else loves doesn't work that the problem might be with how you installed it instead of the distro itself?

 

I'm not being nasty, just pointing something out. Your solution: Make backups and install 9.1 from scratch - think about it and why and it will start making sense...

 

sheesh

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I find it bad decision on your part to post in a forum made for helping people only to moan and complain about what went wrong. Please, if you want help, ask for help, if you want to complain, go to the offtopic forum. And SoulSe is right, upgrades usually don't end up well. Do a fresh install, even to the point of formatting your partitions. Backup your /home partition, clean the rest out. I installed and had my system up and running configured to my liking within 4 hours.

 

p.s.-Williamsport, eh? I used to go to Lycoming College about...2 years ago.

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While I can sympathise with having an install going wrong, I don't think it entirely fair to blame mandrake. While there do seem to be the odd problem with 9.1 it looks like the majority of people are installing it relatively problem free.

 

There are two installs of 9.1 running in this house, the biggest problems so far are WineX is suling and Mark's sound card is a bit on the quiet side.

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I blame Mandrake :!: :roll: :lol: :P

 

Seriously.....they need to dump the Upgrade option for Installs and make it a Repair after an Install (for newbies). That's all it's good for anyway. When it's more refined and less buggy...bring it back. At the very least a warning should be given when an Upgrade is chosen.

 

Give tomb a break....how's someone even somewhat new that doesn't hang out at forums going to know that Upgrades don't go well? The option was there and he used it as others do. Blame Mandrake!

 

 

8)

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I don't see anything wrong with complaining if the coimplain is genuine. Why blame the user if the much vaunted upgrade feature does not work ? Is this the user's fault or mandrake's fault ? Obviously, mandrake's fault. At least mandrake should warn during upgrade that every package must be upgraded to avoid a mixed system that has binary incompatibilities. I find it really stupid that instead of blaming mandrake, people are blaming the user and justifying it on the grounds that "Have you ever tried upgrading windoze? Now there's a disaster." when the user is only comparing LM9.0 to LM9.1 install, not LM9.1 and windows.

And I have upgraded windows and it was not a disaster in my case. But my mandrake upgrade (8.2->9.0) was a bad experience so that I always choose install since then. But that is because I have learnt it the hard way.

 

Also, the installer freeze described in

It gets as far as "probing serial ports" then freezes.
has been the trademark of the 9.1 release (check out http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=3863 ), not to mention other stupid bugs ( http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=3892 ) that were just not there in mandrake-9.0.
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Gonna move this to offtopic since its not addressing a specific problem..

 

I agree that Mandrake provides a feature it should work. While Linux has been a playground for those who like to tinker, Mandrake's market niche is geared to compete with Windows. It should work, not break..

 

I had 9.0 also and upgraded it with RC2. It worked fine. But my machine is a newer machine 800mhtz. Perhaps something changed with the hardware compatibility?

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Gonna move this to offtopic since its not addressing a specific problem..
How specific do u have to be ? I mean the user has clearly indicated that the upgrade option did not work for 3 different cases. It should belong in the installation section. At least other folks (specifically, newbies) who are not familiar with the fact that upgrade is a bad choice, should read this post if they face similar problems.
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as i sort of mentioned moving it to offtopic in my post, i'm gonna make a quick defense for that suggestion:

 

no questions were asked, so no solutions will be provided. if the original poster wants help, ask questions, we'll give them help. otherwise, this post wouldn't do much in the installing forum other than give people comfort in the fact that someone else ran into the same problem. and comfort ain't gonna fix nuttin' ;-)

 

that's my reasoning, atleast. cannonfodder may, and probably does, have his own reasons.

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no questions were asked, so no solutions will be provided. if the original poster wants help, ask questions, we'll give them help.
I see some very clear questions here:

- Why is the upgrade option not working for 3 different machines ?

And the answer is also provided (by many in the same thread):

- The upgrade option is unreliable. Don't use it. Use the install option instead.

 

Also, who decides that "no solutions will be provided" ? People can (and always do) suggest things even if such suggestions have not been asked for explicitly. Thats the advantage of a forum like this, where you often get useful help that is unexpected and/or implicitly asked for. And in this case, the solution was provided: don't upgrade, do install.

 

otherwise, this post wouldn't do much in the installing forum other than give people comfort in the fact that someone else ran into the same problem. and comfort ain't gonna fix nuttin'
It can act as a warning to people who will not land in the same trap and save themselves a lot of trouble. Obviously, moving the post to "offtopic" is going to solve even less problems. What I find really strange is that the "installation" section does not even have a link for this thread saying Moved to .... As if the entire thread has vanished. This is not at all a good practice.

 

Ironically, in "everything linux" section, there are two duplicate threads To Mandrake 9.1, or not????. How come nobody is doing anything about it ?

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Wow, I never meant to set off a firestorm.

 

1st, my apologies for not asking for help. Many of you have offered much help in the past and I appreciate it. I'll be more careful where I post things in the future.

 

2nd, in small defense of my choice, I did think it was important to report these difficulties. I'm gonna flush my home desktop partition later this week and try a fresh install. It should, however, be documented to be the proper way to transition to 9.1.

 

Again, I apologize for my poor choice in selecting the forum I chose.

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ndeb, the "intent" of his original posting was to say he had a bad experience rather than "I'm having a problem, tried this, am looking for help". Plus it contained experience from 3 different computers and as a result was a general complaint. Since this turned into a discussion, I moved it here. Tomb can always post specific problems if he decides to get into it.

 

On second thought though, I"ll move this to Everything Linux since it is linux related :)

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