Gotta vent (MDK 9.1)

[Guest xaff]

The only thing I would like to complain about 9.1 is that the graphical instalation in 16bit burned my eyes. I've also installed it using the graphical and text instalation, worked just fine for me both times. I also have the "Games" (or "Amusement") and "Networking" menu on the "K" menu.

 

What worries me is the corrupt filesystem, My "demon" is at the moment running MDK 9.1 as a workstation (I wanted to try it out before I converted all my NTFS partitions and put it on my other box that is currently running WinxXP and is the one where all my important files are) and I have yet to experience any filesystem errors. I was planing to start prepearing my other box for the conversion this weekend, but this worries me. Is this a common problem or could it be due to a bad disk?

[Gowator]

See new theread im about to start in INSTALLING.

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Well, it's this problem here:

 

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=5464

 

that I believe caused the corruption of my filesystem. Each time I would experiment with trying to get this to work different ways, I would get a kernel panic and have to push the power button. I use reiserfs, so I thought that I would have less problems with corruption, but even after trying to reinstall 8.1 on that filesystem, it would not format the corrupted partition with reiserfs and I had to go with ext3. Yes, I tried reiserfsck (or whatever it's called), but nothing helped. My network is pretty important to me, so I'm trying to get 8.1 back to where I was when I installed 9.1. Like a dummy, I didn't save my old working setup, thinking that 9.1 was going to be awesome and I'd have less tweaking to do. Yeah, right. I think it is pretty ridiculous that a newer release of a distro causes more problems with hardware that an older release handled perfectly fine. Integrating ifplugd into the core was a pretty stupid move, since it's in very early stages and has a very short list of supported drivers. As a last ditch effort, I'm going to try to reinstall 8.1, use my 9.1 disks for urpmi and see if I can upgrade a lot of stuff. The first time it asks me to install the package with ifplugd in it, I'm done.

 

I'm very upset right now. I'm even thinking about going to SuSE. Gentoo is attractive to me, too, but I only have dialup, so that's out for now.

[tyme]

Always keep in mind that MDK is _intended_ to be a "bleeding edge of technology" distro. if you want stable, go red hat-or even debian. Mandrake as always been the distro to add stuff that no other distro had, even if it wasn't fully supported. that's just how they do it, i guess.

 

just a reminder ;-)

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Always keep in mind that MDK is _intended_ to be a "bleeding edge of technology" distro.  if you want stable, go red hat-or even debian.

 

Intending to be 'bleeding edge of technology' and building something into the core of a distro that supports less hardware than the distro before are mutually exclusive. So, I can expect release 10.1 to not support my monitor or graphics card at all? I can handle a Desktop Environment or programs that are buggy/unstable, but to lose support for my hardware that had it before is assinine, IMHO. Take a look in your docs for ifplugd and see the very short list of supported drivers.

 

I'm thinking about maybe even giving it one more try to see if I can disable ifplugd somehow or maybe /etc/hotplug/net.agent is interfering and try to stop it. One more shot, maybe, but I'm so aggravated with it all. I've got nothing to lose but time.

[bvc]

OK, I'm confused :unsure: Why not just disable it? It's a service...is it not?

 

to stop;

service ifplugd stop

 

to stop at boot;

chkconfigk ifplugd off

 

I saw a site that said something about another service 'network hotplug' or something but I've never seen that one.

[tyme]

Intending to be 'bleeding edge of technology' and building something into the core of a distro that supports less hardware than the distro before are mutually exclusive. So, I can expect release 10.1 to not support my monitor or graphics card at all?

 

dude, relax. i was just making a statement. i understand you're frustrated. now try what bvc suggested. i've never even SEEN this service you are talking about, even when i did use mandrake. so, i have _no clue_ what you're talking about. i was simply pointing out what mandrake tries to do. that's all. now, take a deep breath, and try bvc's suggestion.

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Ok, I reinstalled 9.1 (this time not wiping out my working 8.1) and tried bvc's method. This unfortunately did not work. ifplugd is technically not a service. It is started automatically by coding in /etc/hotplug/net.agent (for starting it while the kernel is running) and in /etc/rc.d/init.d/network (for starting it at boot). So, I hacked into /etc/hotplug/net.agent and changed it to suit my needs and commented out the lines in /etc/rc.d/init.d/network that deal with it. Now, my network works. On to solve one more annoying problem. NVidia.

 

Edit: Because of my network card driver that uses object files that were compiled with gcc 2.x, I have to keep an old copy of 8.1 to boot to to compile things that are going to use modules for my kernel, which I had to compile with gcc-2.* on the old 8.1 install. It was fun getting the NVidia driver to work, since i had to install NVIDIA_GLX with -no-deps, so it wouldn't complain about me not having the NVIDIA_kernel rpm installed (I just copied nvidia.o over).

[Gowator]

I have a view the same as Steve's. Ive stuck with Mandrake for a long time after kicking RH ater 7.0.

 

The bleeding edge stuff not working is one thing but myself and others have had lots of problems with the installation and configuation tools.

 

I'm not complaining if the latest version of some minor but pleasant app isn't working but the installer and Mdk Config stuff is another matter. I upgraded fro exactly the same reason as Steve. Yeah, cooler interface and a few niceties but theres nothing wrong in 8.2 or even 9.0 for my purposes. I'd prefer to have gone back to 8.2 than change distro but I can't help feel let down by the sure amount of updates etc. that seem to indicate Mdk 9.1 was premature.

 

Given the amount of updates they could have made a 9.0.1 instead and included a few tools on the old kernel. Most of my problems are urmpi or drak.... and its simply frustrating that Mdk released them too early.

 

I know lots of people had no problems at all (good for them) but I don't know whether to be happy or sad that after paying for the Pwoerpack boxset the only reliable install comes on a magazine cover. I need to check but I'm presuming some of the rpm's are updated along with the install script.

 

I'm finally getting a landline so Ill have DSL at home soon but its unreasonable to expect a newbie with the same problems not to be put off. It appears that broadband access is almost mandatory to get a working version but that isn't the idea when selling box sets.

 

P.s. steve did start the thread with gotta rant... so thats what Im doing.

[Ixthusdan]

Actually, that is a really interesting observation. If you don't have broadband, and just use the disks, how well situated are you? I did that until around 8.0, when I got dsl. Until then, I was purchasing retail and www.cheapbytes.com. Everyone doesn't have broadband.

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Ok, this time through, I got it installed and hacked enough to be relatively stable with my setup (hacking out ifplugd, using a kernel compiled with gcc2.*...I think 2.96, etc.). I've still got a few problems:

 

• I booted over into 8.1 and installed the NVIDIA_kernel and then copied the nvidia.o over to 9.1. Then I booted into 9.1 and installed the NVIDIA_GLX stuff having to use --no-deps (or something like that) so it wouldn't complain about the NVIDIA_kernel RPM not being present. I used 4191 for this. Starting any X app is painfully slow (it doesn't matter which desktop environment I use or WM...I'm currently using IceWM with GDM starting it) and I have to insmod nvidia.o manually....adding the alias in /etc/modules.conf did nothing, so I assume maybe there is something in the NVIDIA_kernel package that gets installed besides just the nvidia.o

 

 

[*] Appending noapic doesn't do anything. I still see in dmesg that it says 'APIC disabled in BIOS...re-enabling.

 

 

[*] wvdial doesn't work. I had this problem with the first time I installed, before tweaking anything and it suddenly started working then for no reason, but not this time yet. It acts like it works...connects and cannot surf for anything. After about 30 seconds or so, it exits with Code 16....modem hangup(?)

 

 

[*] (This apparently is a kernel problem and not a distro problem because the same thing ahppened when I booted over into 8.1) I got a kernel oops and it said it was a kernel bug in some *.h file about trying to remove a device that wasn't in the list or something....can't remember the error. I thought it had to do with my phoneline network card, so when I checked my phoneline I found my puppy had chewed a little on it. I taped it with electrical tape and the problem occurs rarely now. It usually happens now when the box goes into suspend, but not always. It is very rare now.

 

 

[*] Installed mozgest, but there are no default gestures loaded like normally and I cannot add any...may be a java problem, since I don't have the latest java from sun installed yet, but I'm using the stuff off of the 8.1 disks....j2re, not kaffe...yes, it's there on those disks

 

I'm going to try installing gcc2.96 along-side gcc3 somehow and using it to compile both the nvidia packages while still in 9.1 and see if that solves my video problems.

 

Despite my frustrations, I like 9.1 better, because of the new stuff that I couldn't install in 8.1 and urpmi seems to work alot better. I'm hoping that I can get it running more stable. I plan on writing a story for my website about this fiasco. LOL.

 

Edit: Having edited this post a couple times, I have to say (I'm in Windows at work now)...one of the many things I love about Linux and miss when I'm in Windows is copy-paste without having to right-click.

 

Edit again: Ok, I did this in my 9.1 installation:

# mv /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc-bak

# ln -s /mnt/81usr/bin/gcc-2.96 /usr/bin/gcc

# mkdir /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux-gnu/2.96

# cp /mnt/81usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux-gnu/2.96/* /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux-gnu/2.96

 

And now I was able to compile and install the new nvidia 4363 drivers and kernel module. Cool. Still seems a little sluggish in X though.

[iphitus]

about a quarter than a year ago when i first let linux grace my box i had a terrible time. It tok me 3 installs to get a good system.

The first was 8.2 and i lost it, gone, wouldn't boot, still have no idea.

I then got RedHat. Install stuffed. Tried again, install stuffed and stuffed everything, lost my winblow partition. So far i'd lost everything on my drive. Thank god i backed up. Then i went to 9.0. It installed, the screen was a little warped, i tried getting my Winmodem to work. Never got it working. The other day when i opened my PC up i found it was ISA, not the PCI i thought. Now on cable internet. After a few weeks i botched my 9.0 install. I tried to install glibc2.3, If forced it (stupid, i know), couldn't repair it. So i installed 9.0 again and a few weeks later i upgraded to 9.1. Havven't had a problem since.

I now use Enlightenment, Mozilla, Evolution, Nautilus, Abiword, XMMS, Eterm, GAIM, Glimmer, joe, gtk-gnutella and Xine. I'm starting a LFS install next week. 9.1 aint that bad

 

James

[Gowator]

From the edition of the boxset I got you are basically stuffed when/if something goes wrong. I think it depends on your hardware config and I don't know if MDK are adding the updates to the latest boxsets or if they are all pressed and relying on broadband updates.

 

Just cos M$ does it doesn't make it right!!

 

I worry more about a first time user, what impresion would they get. Even after the updates there are lots of problems. Permissions being incorrectly set on files for instance. I had to chuser all the mysql tree for instance from root. Not the only thing, just the last one I did.

 

Also lots of security issues with root being overused.

 

Like I said earlier, this isn't just a mandrake issue. If they release to early and consumers buy a Linux and get put off it hurts the whole of Linux.... I wonder why some prominent developers/support people have left :?