Don't Trust 9.2 to update your smoothly running 9.1 system!!

[kurtjo]

Just got ahold of the new 9.2 release using bittorrent yesterday afternoon.

After test installing 9.2 on a fresh install at work and having it fail to boot past the point where it was loading alsa, I tested installing it at home last night.

I attempted to install it to a 60 Gig using ext3 for the /boot and reiserfs for the / partition. I used individual package selection to install lots of extra packages (unlike the simple install I tried earlier at work). This time it failed during install just after setting the user and hung. Rebooted and ran through install again and finally got it working but for some reason it would not bring up the network, nor did it install my windows drive in lilo like it should have.

Tried a third install by reformating / using the same partitions on this drive over again and did a simple install this time, except I used 9.1 This time a charm, everything worked (as I expected).

So, I upgraded this 9.1 install with the 9.2 CDs. This time it worked!

Empowered by my success, I decided to upgrade my smoothly running 9.1 system on (not a

test system - but my regular one I use all the time). Things went great until almost finished - then I got a warning screen that said mkintrc failed. I figured I was probably screwed, but went ahead and finished the install. When I rebooted all I got after a certain point was errors with init and it won't finish booting.

I'm not complaining, exactly; I know we are all guinea penguins here, but I did expect a little more of Mandrakes new version than this!

P.S. I just finished installing 9.1 on the same work computer that 9.2 failed on and am using it to post this thread.

[bvc]

I'm not complaining, exactly; I know we are all guinea penguins here, but I did expect a little more of Mandrakes new version than this!

Why would you? That's like expecting SuperMount to be fixed and work for everyone. Not gonna happen. Welcome to linux/kernel. BTW, windows can and does behave the same......maybe not as often and on as many systems....but it does.......welcome to the world of OS's. Sometimes your feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. :wink: ..but don't blame the man made OS, on a man made machine :wink:

 

Stuff happens :)

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Well, I'm gonna tell you a story. My fiance' wanted her scanner hooked up in WinXP (A UMAX Astra 1600U). Did it work? Nope. Searched for updated drivers on the net. Only ones I could find were from UMAX and you had to buy a disc to get them. Installed Win2K, same problem. Her digital camera works in Win2k and Win98, but not WinXP. So, in order for her to run WinXP or Win2k and use them for scanning, she has to upgrade her hardware or purchase a disc. Finally downgraded to Win98 to make her happy, but even that was a nightmare. Tried to install Win98, but it wouldn't because a newer version was already on the drive. Win98 install wouldn't even look at the second disk to try to install. Copied everything over to the second HD to have a backup, formatted her main drive and installed Win98. Checked her My Documents folder on the second hard drive for the stuff I was trying to save. Guess what, it wasn't there. No errors when I copied everything over, but it just wasn't there. Then her scanner didn't work, so I hooked my scanner up and went ahead and gave her a dual-boot 98/2k and it took me 5 tries to get my scanner recognized by Windows 98 and it would not be recognized by Win2k at all. So, it took me like 4 days to get her an operating system that utilizes all the hardware she needs to utilize and it's Win NINETY-EIGHT because the hardware was too old. (My scanner is about 3 years old).

[simcon]

I'm going to fresh install 9.1 tomorrow. I bought it ages ago but haven't got around to installing it yet. I see LinuxFormat will be having 9.2 on the coverdisk(s) next issue 30th October and I was going to hold off till then but I think I'll be happy with 9.1 for the moment. Most of the time I skip releases so maybe 9.2 is a good one to skip ;)

[kurtjo]

Steve, if you're still following this thread, I sympathize with you. I too have had similar experiences with Windows OS's. One of my fovorites with win 98 was you start installing with a CD and after it is almost completed, windows informs you that you have no CD drive!

I love linux, especially Mandrake. I have my 9.1 system restored from my backup copy already. The reason I am so critical of 9.2 is that Microsoft is just now admitting they are starting to worry about linux - and the whole world is watching! It would be a majorly good thing if Mandrake made a special effort to make the 9.2 release rock solid and able to install without a hitch on as many systems as possible. I want to see M$ squirm; those bastards owe me for the countless hours I have waited for my computers to reboot!!

[bvc]

It would be a majorly good thing if Mandrake made a special effort to make the 9.2 release rock solid and able to install without a hitch on as many systems as possible.

we've hoped for that for years, just like supermount, but you'd have to either get mdk off the 6mth release cycle, or twice the users to purchase instead of download and hope they higher twice the devel. IOW, not likely :(

[kilimanjaro]

I have a f*cked up running 9.1 maybe it will update it fine

[Gowator]

In Mandrake .....

Thats an option there to make sure people are part of the club isn't it!!!!

 

Thre idea is it wrecks your whole system and then you go and findanother DISTRO or go back to windows.

 

 

A FUBAR'd upgrade is Mandrakes trademark. Its what seperates them from the server distro's where upgrade does work!!! :wink:

 

IMHO its about time they either

drop the 6 months schedule

drop having and upgrade option and just make it a new unistall OR

get the damned thing working ....

 

Perhaps they forget its in the code....

Its like the default install with acpi..... why they just can't disable it in the install kernel is beyond me. Perhaps the marketing people at mandrake have determined that loosing all your data and a few days is what their customers really want, not a clean upgrade?

 

:wink:

 

I dunno..... I don't even try pcmcia/upgrade/acpi etc anymore.... long ago i decided Mandrake just doesn't care.

[Germ]

I've done several upgrades with Mandrake. Rarely had a problem and when I did it was relatively minor and easily fixed. Usually involved upgrading a previoiusly installed app that doesn't come with Mandrake. And I always have to tweak some of the UI settings. YMMV. ;)

[sitor]

I upgraded my 9.1 to 9.2 without a problem. Indeed some UI tweaking and KDE settings were gone, Acrobat Reader disappeared, and maybe some other things I rarely use. On the other hand, all of the packages that are part of the distro (MySQL, K3B, Evolution, etc.) that I had selected on my 9.1 have been easily upgraded, so after about two hours I was up and running with 9.2. Try that with Windows! There you can be lucky if you are able to upgrade the OS only, and you loose at least an additional day installing all apps.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

[Gowator]

I upgraded my 9.1 to 9.2 without a problem. Indeed some UI tweaking and KDE settings were gone, Acrobat Reader disappeared, and maybe some other things I rarely use. On the other hand, all of the packages that are part of the distro (MySQL, K3B, Evolution, etc.) that I had selected on my 9.1 have been easily upgraded, so after about two hours I was up and running with 9.2. Try that with Windows! There you can be lucky if you are able to upgrade the OS only, and you loose at least an additional day installing all apps.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

 

Try that with Windows!

 

Thats really not the point.

I wish people woukld stop comapring Linux with windows and saying but windows does it so its OK.

Its NOT. I don't expect Linux to copy Windows in this respect, I expect it to follow UNIX.

 

What I ask is WHO has ONLY Mandrake..... no Windows, no server .just mandrake that they trust their whole electronic life to. ??

 

I learned a while ago not to upgrade unless you want to risk loosing EVERYTHING.

Unfortunately I had the same problem with a clean install.

I wiped a disk I wasn't even meaning to USE.

Somehow the compact flash messed of the fdisk and it couldn't write the partition and whallop sda gone as well.

 

I now REMOVE the IDE cable from my data drive BEFORE an install.

 

The problem with the upgrade is in keeping people in Mandrake. Eventually, after much tweaking you get it as you wanted it and then you reinstall.

All those compiles and optimisations are lost. HOw does upgrade handle a plf or texstar rpm, are you sure it didn't mess up ANYThing in mysql.

 

So now i have a second 9.1 with either only 868MB of memory or the unoptimised enterprise kernel.

The enterprise kernel won't compile my nforce drivers !! becuase the makefile ignores the -EXTRAVERSION

 

A reliable UPGRADE is absolutely necassary .... RH manage it. (or did when I used it) abd Debian does!! So why can't Mandrake.

 

Just becuase it worked for a couple of people doesn't mean it will work for everyone. Plenty of people have had bad experiences as well.

 

The problem then comes when eventually you get bored of the REINSTALL - you either have to stop and freeze or change distro.

Which is why I suspect a lot of the old timers here also run another distro..

[Guest G3ck0G33k]

No, I did not manage to do a simple upgrade either. It simply just refused and stalled the machine, despite half a dozen tries.

 

Luckily, I keep my /home directory on a separate partition, so, I just re-formatted anything kept on the other. However, it also means I have to re-install all non-Mandrake programs...

 

I did have problems with ReiserFS, however, too. I was a keen Reiser user, but the latest upgrade to 9.2 did not work well at all, so, I ended up with ext3 on all new partitions.

 

Well, I still don't notice from a user point of view.

[Crashdamage]

Gowator wrote:

"All those compiles and optimisations are lost. How does upgrade handle a plf or texstar rpm, are you sure it didn't mess up ANYThing in mysql.

A reliable UPGRADE is absolutely necassary .... RH manage it. (or did when I used it) abd Debian does!! So why can't Mandrake."

 

Well, you just can't expect urpmi to handle upgrading systems that have been modified with unsupported rpms like PLF or Texstar, or stuff that's been installed from source, etc etc.. There's just too many variables, too many customizations people do to their boxes to ever hope to cover all the possiblities than can trash an upgrade. Debian will trash itself trying to upgrade a a box that's been modified in such ways - it has to be running Debian-supported "official" packages if you want a clean upgrade, and that's only reasonable. If you want to be able to do upgrades instead of reinstalls, doesn't matter what distro, ya gotta stay with supported packages.

 

I just don't see how we can ever expect reliable upgrades from any OS except to (at least relatively) standard installs. Upgrading a fairly "stock" install made up of supported packages IS reasonable to expect though, and Mandrake should make sure it works in those cases.

 

That said, I never do an upgrade to a Windoze install either, I always do clean installs. Ya just can't trust upgrades not to go bad, and the more things have changed since the original install, the more likely Windoze will barf trying to upgrade, and for about the same reasons Mandrake will. Can't blame M$ for everythng, they can't control what people change or install.

 

Steve Scrimpshire wrote:

"Well, I'm gonna tell you a story. My fiance' wanted her scanner hooked up in WinXP (A UMAX Astra 1600U). Did it work? Nope. Searched for updated drivers..."

I know the feeling. My business is a mix of Win2k and Win98SE machines 'cause we can't run some stuff on Win2k, some stuff won't run on Win98, some stuff breaks other stuff if it's loaded on the same machine...it's friggin' nuts. Windows is no better than, and maybe worse, than Linux has been for me in that regard. At least with Linux I get some clues about what's going on if things go bad...Windoze just sits there, broken...

[Gowator]

Well I see the point over official/unofficial but the UNIX architecture is built for upgrade.

 

This is why you have a /local and /usr on seperate partitions (you do have them on seperate partitions don't you)....

 

Thus a distro shouldn't try and upgrade and local progs.

Nor it it impossible. If I upgrade Solaris I don't expect Oracle to be wiped out!

A great deal is down to testing and more testing...

When you upgrade and have a mysql database the upgrade needs to tell you that mysql is going to be upgraded, do you want to risk upgrading the binaries, where do you want to keep the config files etc.

 

Same with apache, it should take your local httpd.conf and attempt to test it, if something isn't working it should be simple to switch back....

 

However this only works when packages are put where they are meant to go by the programmers AND the programmers think someone might try and upgrade their product. eg. RH move the KDE stuff, Mandrake copy them so RH or MDK KDE RPM's need to be specially made. More importantly a source install needs these locations to be known.

 

Linux is 90% standards and 10% new. Unfortunately it tries to look 90% new and 10% standards on occaisions.

 

Some argue for a single linux, saying it will be stronger and better. Personally I think distro competition is good BUT only so long as they remain based 90% on standards.

Comparisons of Linux Win on this just aren't valid. WinBlows is a joke OS, not designed to be upgradeable as such, commercially they prefer you keep buying each new release .... you can't just say het I like Win98 but I want NTFS.... or a newer type of something else becuase windows just isn't built that way. Linux is however, its a big advantage .... but its important it keeps it.

 

Every UNIX type machine from OS-X to AIX keeps the same directory structure. All can run the same programs from source.

Sticking to these standards is important. Apache on Solaris and Apache on Mac or Apache on Linux distro X should all look and function the same.

Those OS-s which add extra tools (like OS-X) NEED to also keep the advanced tools.

 

I can't imagine replacing say Webmin with a Mandrake Wizard becuase it wouldn't run on Solaris or AIX or any other UNIX. If Mandrake is to scale from being a first Linux to being a long term life partner then they have to work on the UPGRADE thing.... otherwise, sooner or later you willl get bored of recompiling the kernel every time you upgrade and then reconfiguring your apps etc. When your only access to your bank account etc. is through your machine then REINSTALLING is an option you need to be desperate to do. YOu need to REALLY need something in the new version.

 

This is even more important in the office ...

[AussieJohn]

I have noted in all Linux forums that nearly all the rants and raves about not being able to successfully upgrade rather than do updated reinstalls, come from people who download the OSs from the internet . I have bought all my Mandrakes 8.0, 8.1, 9.0, and 9.1 CDs from Mandrake outlets AND I HAVE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM DOING EACH AS AN UPGRADE OF ONE OVER ANOTHER. I notice that most of the complainers practically never do a data checksum test of their downloaded CDs and this is where the problem is usually found. When they find this to be the case they download again and often the problem is resolved, but you don't hear any apologies from them to the OS assemblers such as MANDRAKE. And this on top of the fact that the biggest complainers don't contribute a single cent to Mandrake or even contribute any code to the Linux world.

 

Those who do contribute code, write programs and such do not make these kind of rants.

To the contributors I say god bless you .

To the ranters and ravers I say god help you because nobody else will.

 

95% of all Mandrake install problems and user problems stem from the user and not from the OS. I am no computer geek and only started in computers about 3.5yrs ago and I am only using the command line to install occassional TarBalls during this past year. I am 69years young.

 

I tried the various versions of RedHat and forever had troubles installing but with the same hardware and usage I HAVE NEVER HAD INSTALL PROBLEMS WITH MANDRAKE. I WONDER WHY THAT IS ???

 

I admire and respect the patience and effort people put into the Linux world and to Mandrake in particular

 

I may have built my own computer, this is my third, but I don't imagine for one minute that I am a computer expert........ ((ASUS A7N8X Deluxe. 1Gb Corsair 400 DDR Memory, Matrox G400 Video, AMD Athlon1600 XP CPU (soon to be Athlon 3200 XP), 2 of WD 80gb (8mb cache) Hard Drives, Pioneer DVD-ROM, ASUS 48/16/48 CD-R/RW, Mitsubishi 21inch Monitor, EPSON Stylus PHOTO EX Printer (A3 size), EPSON Perfection 2450 Photo Scanner, Logitech Dual beam laser USB Mouse, Logitech USB Internet Keyboard (latest) and finally a NETCOMM Roadster 11 Serial Modem ))

 

Sorry Moderators but my rant has been building up for a long time after seeing what you and other helpers have to put up with and still smile and while Mandrake continues to hang in so tenaciously for all of our benefit.

 

This time round I will be BUYING the full 9.2 Power package to do my little bit to help the battler, Mandrake "keep on keeping on".

 

Cheers to all good folk and folk of goodwill. John