Glitz Posted May 13, 2003 Report Share Posted May 13, 2003 I'm debating whether or not to upgrade from LM8.1 to LM9.1. I've heard the horror stories about installation but I want to know how that version works once it is actually installed. Is the rest of the system just as buggy? Things that can be fixed by changing some minor setting don't bother me. It's the constantly crashing desktop or configuration tools that bother me the most. The main reason I want to switch is the difficulty in compiling and installing all the required packages to bring LM8.1 to the level required for installing some recent software I want to try out. I'd really appreciate any comments/suggestions. Glitz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted May 13, 2003 Report Share Posted May 13, 2003 If you have the space, try setting up a separate 9.1 partition set so you can get comfortable with it and not lose your current setup. Here's a faq on how to boot 2 distros.. http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=5082 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 13, 2003 Report Share Posted May 13, 2003 My only gripe is the prob I had with gnome2 and X consuming all of my swap causing me to have to logout or reboot. I seem to be the only one...or at least there's not enough of us to find anything with google or a few forums. http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php...t=3994&start=15 Other than this it's the best yet. Far less buggy than 8.1 & 9.0 for me. Having had an 8.1 that was almost up-to-date with 9.0 when it was released, I say definately go-9.1 :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest NSL1212 Posted May 13, 2003 Report Share Posted May 13, 2003 I have just replaced my Mandrake 8.1 to 9.1 over the weekend, and surprised by vast improvement. The DrakeX tools (especially Software Manager) are much more functional and faster than the old one; except the DrakeFirewall gave me the most trouble that I gave up and installed the latest Guarddog. And KDE 3.1 is simply wonderful and powerful. So, go ahead and install Mandrake 9.1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daveleh Posted May 13, 2003 Report Share Posted May 13, 2003 If you don't have the space to dual boot consider using Mondo Rescue, available from http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo . Back up your drive onto cdrs or cdrws and then try 9.1. If you have problems with it just restore from Mondo rescue and you'll be back to normal with 8.1 HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeoneil Posted May 13, 2003 Report Share Posted May 13, 2003 Glitz said.. I've heard the horror stories about installation but I want to know how that version works once it is actually installed. Is the rest of the system just as buggy? I just installed 9.1(clean install) from the Powerpack and can only say it was a flawless installation! It took about 30 minutes from start to finish, then another 10 minutes to get the latest nvidia drivers installed. The network was setup in about 1 minute. All other hardware was correctly detected as far as I can tell (computer is home built AMD about six months old). In less than one hour my system is up and running. As far as stability it´s; early days yet, but I had 9.1 installed for a couple of weeks as a second OS on this same PC and apart from some problems with Kylix3 and glibc versions had no serious problems. I would definetly give it a try, perhaps on a spare partition if you have one. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted May 13, 2003 Report Share Posted May 13, 2003 Sounds great,... I'm currently using 8.2 PowerPack. How are the improvements to 9.1 from 8.2??? I'm mostly concerned with getting my nVidia card running, and getting Advanced Power Management support working. Is anyone having trouble running things like Quake 3 Arena, Neverwinter Nights, SimCity 3000, or FreeSpace 2??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitz Posted May 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2003 Thanks for all the comments. Please keep them coming. :) If I decide to go with LM9.1 I will place it on my experimental partitions and then migrate my software to it over time. One of the main reasons I asked this question is because I would probably just buy the LM9.1 powerpack and save myself the trouble of downloading and burning it. I do want to know, however, if it's worth it before I shell out the money, or if I should maybe hold out for LM9.2. Does anyone know what useful packages come with the powerpack? I already have SO6.0 and installing acrobat reader is not too difficult. Is there anything else on there worth paying extra for? Glitz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hans Van der Veken Posted July 15, 2003 Report Share Posted July 15, 2003 ITS GREAT :D much better and user friendly then the 8.2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted July 21, 2003 Report Share Posted July 21, 2003 I have 8.2. I'm considering upgrading but am waiting until I get time and extra free cash (more the time than cash, but I want to be able to justify to my wife that we have lot's of extra money... ). I heard great things about 9.1. Since I have a seperate /home partition, I have little to no fear that I will be able to install 9.1 without ruining anything (I re-installed 8.2 a couple of times after hardware changes). If 9.1 was available in retail outlets, I'd jump at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 On the one hand if 8.2 does everything you want and its set up just the way you like it then is it really worth upgrading? On the other hand 9.1 is great distro and has a lot of improvements 8.2. If I were you I'd start off with a clean install, rather than an upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hans Van der Veken Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 i upgraded my 8.2 2 9.1 and met with a lot of problems.... On a Dell insperion 8400, dual boot with XP, after a clean install it was fixed, ... the problem i really got stuck with was it would shut down, an dpower of... Hé unmounted just fine but would not power of... after a re- install that as solved... The 9.1 is much faster also then the 8.2... Better then Gill Bates stuff anyways :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 as Nike say (Backup!!) And just do it!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 I'd probably do it but read ALL this first. First off: you mention buying the powerpack to save your self the download. The Powerpack version I bought for the same reason was absolute rubbish in this context. Firstly I had NO internet, not even a phone line. My home phone was a cell phone and in desperation I could get GPRS access through bluetooth. Secondly I was unlucky with the quality of the Cd's. They were just all ... well, not round and the edges all lumpy. when they span up in a fast drive they rattled all over the place. Thirdly, my configuation seems to be exotic. Im not sure why..... its all standard stuff AMD except USB2 card which is Belkin and SCSI card AHA2940UW. Install experience went like this: Errors reading packages ... Installer goes into endless loop ... CPU alarm goes off for the first time EVER. Try again: Clean install...left a compact flash in a reader which was unformatted so the hardware would be picked up. BIG mistake... It hung writing the partition tables.... I lost everything .... Third try: remove compact flash. Boot up in rescue... Fix the damaged partition tables by deleting ALL partitions on both the IDE and SCSI disk. Half installed but bombed out before the end ... so I ended up back in rescue, writing a lilo.conf by hand and then it worked ... more or less. Fourth try ... I paid 5euros for a magazine with the 3 disk set. I put in the first CD and booted ... Everything worked fine ... Except still 300MB+ of updates. suscpicions: Installer is serously screwed on my box-set powerpack Mandrake will not issue a recall and are continuing to sell them. Im not the only perosn to loose a partition table on install either. Basically I think Mdk got to cheap on tier CD duplication and given their financial situation have no intention of recalling the box sets or even just issuing a patch disk. Theory, it works for 90% of people and probably only 10% of the 10% left (i.e. 1%) will actually go back to the store and complain, the rest will probably just never try linux again OR download/get the disks another way. If this sounds harsh I contacted Mandrake sales, the only place you can actually get an email address nowadays and told them the CD's were physically faulty. Answer: Subscribe to Mandrake Expert. OTHER NOTEWORTHY POINTS: StarOffice has quietely been taken out of the powerpack. In fact i couldn't find much in it I actually wanted anymore. So my advice: Don't even have a disk plugged in that has anything on it you might remotely want to keep on any partition. If you don't have broadband get tymes update CD first. Theres practically half a CD or more of updates already and some of these are criticial. If youre in the unlucky 10% like me you still need the new CD1 iso. You'll lose SO6. If you want to use the firewall/internet connection sharing then download the real version, the mandrake one is screwed. Having said all this its really nice once its up and running with the updates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitz Posted July 24, 2003 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2003 Thanks everyone! I ended up downloading LM9.1 since there is nowhere around here to purchase the Powerpack edition. Having said that I am no longer using LM9.1 since I can't get ALSA working with my soundcard (SB AWE32). I will continue to use LM8.1 and hope that LM9.2 turns out better. Glitz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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