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A Lemon


AussieJohn
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Yes. Regardless of all the possible flames I will get , I have to say that reluctantly I have concluded that Mandrake9.2 is a real lemon. I will be going back to setting up 9.1 which I found to be reliable and easy to install and look after.

 

Here are some of the problems (there are too many to list them all. And all despite over 10 to 12 installs and reinstalls on a number of partition arrangements and using 2 different hard drives -------hda and hdd........each 80gbs by WD

 

Inability to make a working bootable BootUp disk. Even on reformatted floppys made to 1.93mbs. (Thanks to PMPATRICKs help)

Scanner settings repeatedly dropping out after a reboot.

Screensavers disappearing after a 2nd reboot after restoring the.directory in screensavers.

Error15 :"file cannot be found" ---- during bootup after selecting a kernel other than the default. (2.4.22-21)

And it gets even worse after installing ALL the errata updates and upgrades etc.

 

I started using Mandrake 9.1 within 2 weeks of it being released and almost never had any problems installing or using it and have installed it on four other peoples (ladies) computers with no trouble at all. This has made them new devotees of Mandrake. With Mandrake 9.2, I have had nothing but trouble from the very first reboot so I have absolutely no intention of upgrading or installing it on their computers. To do so would potentially lose these new Linux users.

 

No doubt there will many of the purists that say each of the problems can be overcome by doing this and that. I just don't happen to be a programmer or a Computer Technician. Why should I spend my time trying to fix things in 9.2 that worked excellently in 9.1. And by the way, I bought my Mandrake disks--the official and authentic Mandrake ones.

 

The main visual advantage of the 2.4.22-21 kernel from the errata site over the 9.2's 2.4.22-10 was that the GL screensavers such as Euphoria and Fireworks ran normally smoothly whereas in 9.1 they ran at about a frame per second......a real pain.

 

I tried installing 9.1 and only installing the new kernel but by the time uprmi had installed what had to go with it from the 9.2 CDROMS, it finished up as a pseudo 9.2 install............hardly any good for anything.

 

I am still a totally dedicated Mandrake devotee and will stick with 9.1 as my main Linux OS until Mandrake 10 comes out and see if they make a better hash of it than they did with this one.

 

In the meantime I will continue to play around with 9.2 and keep up to date on its forlorn progress. I just think it is such a shame that Mandrake keeps pretending that everything is AOK when it is painfully obvious that it isn't.

 

Cheers. John (69yrs young)

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Sounds pretty awful! I am using 9.1 as my main system, but I have also set up 9.2 on its own separate set of partitions with no problems. 9.1 has been very solid for me, much more so than 9.0, but 9.2 is easier on my eyes.Printing (via a hp932 on a win xp box) and scanning (epson usb using iscan) seem to work well. I am also using 9.2 on my dell inspiron 4000 without any problems. I'd be interested in what your hardware setup is. I am actually planning to switch my 9.1 system to 9.2 after my try out of it today. Wish me luck.

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1) did you do md5sum checks on the iso's that you downloaded? if yes and they were fine, did you burn the disks again go make sure it wasn't a bad burn?

 

2) Western Digital drives are notorious for not liking linux. I had some issues with mine a while back, although I haven't since, but nonetheless.

 

3) Sorry you ran into these issues. We all know how it can be, some versions of Mandrake just have odd problems here and there (or everywhere ;) ). I had no issues with 9.2, and I know many others who had no problems.

 

Everyone please keep in mind that one bad experience doesn't make it a bad release, it's just one person who had a bad experience for whatever reason. But obviously if others had no problems at all the release as a whole may not be as bad as one persons report makes it seem.

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Guest kuchwas

I've been watching quite a few problems with 9.2 installs. This is not a flame, but a perspective. ;)

 

1) The 9.1 had as many bugfixes as 9.2 did just before the boxes are released.

This appears to be a deliberate strategy to make sure that any package

problems are fixed before the boxes get out. If you don't recall, check out

this SecTeam release from April 10, 2003

 

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisorie...e=MDKA-2003:004

 

40 packages were updated less than a month after release. How does that

compare to 9.2:

 

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisorie...e=MDKA-2003:020

 

60 packages updated. Now I'll qualify that and say that since KDE was split

in 9.2, it is not apples to apples. kdebase was 16 packages in the 9.2

updates but would have been only 5 in 9.1, qt was 7 in 9.2 but only would

have been 3, the kernel update was 9 and anybody only really needs to install

two, kernel and source. So, if I subtract the differences of 11, 4 and 7,

you can see that a comparable number of packages was updated in both

releases. Why then is 9.2 so bad compared to 9.1, and why is it such a

horrible thing that all those packages were updated for 9.2, but for the 9.1

it was okay.

 

2) Remember how printing didn't work, KDE couldn't be used in VNC, harddrake

didn't work properly, problems with some wireless cards, shorewall was

blocking ppp when ics was enabled, supermount problems, missing

kdeartwork,etc., etc. .

 

All these issues made 9.1 not ready for prime time, done to soon, not cooked

long enough, released to soon, etc.

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Coming from the board where I do most of my posting surrounded by most of the available distros, I have decided to cut Mandrake some slack on this one despite an initial horrified reaction. Since I have dumped Red Hat and Fedora and since Mandrake is now almost alone in distros for new users who are not yet ready for Slackware, Debian or Gentoo, I see the importance of Mandrake and this board as increasing significantly. Only here will users get the answers they need bypassing the softheads in the executive suite and the club. This release is a fiasco I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy and was clearly a management decision who mistakenly thought that the release of Fedora and Suse 9 would eclipse the release of 9.2. The were proven right for the wrong reasons. I sincerely hope this does not impact their arrangement with HP and the forthcoming decisions of the bankruptcy court in January. Maybe support here will prove to be a small factor in these much larger arenas and I want a 2.6 kernel in version 10 of Mandrake.

 

Counterspy

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As I said in my post, I am using OFFICIAL GENUINE paid for DISKS made by Mandrake.

 

I have only ever used Western Digital HDDs and NEVER had troubles with them in either Red Hat or Mandrake8.0/9.0 or 9.1. ALL my friends use WDs and also have never had troubles involving Linux from an HDD standpoint.

 

I use Mandrake solely as a desktop computer and for such use 9.1 has been near perfect even before I installed recommended updates.

 

Frankly I am not interested in the debate about which version had how many updates and bug fixes versus the other one. To me it is irrelevant. 9.1 worked flawlessly for what i used it for and 9.2 does not (before or after installing updates).

 

Since you ask about my system, here it is: 2 of 80gbs Western Digital Hard Drives, 1 of 8.1gbs WD HDD and run from a Promise ULTRA66 card (used as an exchange partition between Mandrake and Windows2000Pro), ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe Main Board, Corsair 1Gbs (2 x 512mbs) 3200 DDR low latency Memory, AMD1600 Athlon XP CPU with Thermalright SLK-900U Cooler (plus 90mm fan), Pioneer 16 x DVD/cdrom, ASUS 48/16/48 CD-R/RW, Creative 5.1 Digital Live Audio, Enemax 400watt Power Supply, APC Back-Ups 500 UPS. Next we have a Mitsubishi Diamond view 21" Monitor, Epson Perfection 2450Photo Scanner and an Epson Stylus PhotoEX A3 Printer, and finally an Altec Lansing ACS56 4+1 Sound system.

 

If you can blame any part of my system for all the troubles then you must be pretty clever. I would certainly like to be enlightened how it could work with 9.1 and be faulty under 9.2.

 

I built this system myself and is my 5th version so I think I have a little bit of knowledge of what works and what doesn't work with Mandrake by now.

 

Yet I always remain open to new advice and information because I do not claim to know all or many of the answers.

 

Cheers. John (69yrs young)

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Guest kuchwas
Frankly I am not interested in the debate about which version had how many updates and bug fixes versus the other one.  To me it is irrelevant.  9.1 worked flawlessly for what i used it for and 9.2 does not (before or after installing updates).

Then stay with 9.1

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Thank you Counterspy.

 

In my equipment summary I neglected to include Matrox Millenium G400 Max Video card.

 

I too hope and trust that Mandrake come out of the bankruptcy situation AOK in January.

 

Cheers... John (69yrs young)

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I have to agree John. Drake 9.2 is a piece of crap. I'm a long-time Mandrake user ....... ( since about version 6) but this this version has really soured my taste for Mandrake.

 

KDE is severely hacked & broken, Screensavers are missing, kernel source is missing, menus severely hacked & cut down, & too many other bugs to mention. This piece of junk should never have been released as 9.2 final, but as RC4. With ~300 MB worth of fixes, a week after release .......... what does that say about Mandrake's Q.A. ?

 

I'm sorry, but I'm moving to SuSE. :furious3:

Edited by drake_guru
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I'm sorry,  but I'm moving to SuSE.

no need to be sorry my friend. each linux is to his own. as long as you are using linux then i dont see any harm between choosing distros. like what everybody has known, what might work for you might not for another person. its just a matter of luck and good reading skills. :)

 

ciao!

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(This should not be construed as a flame)

I think 9.2 is the best release so far (I've only been using MDK since 8.1, though)

 

I dunno why everyone has so many problems. On my old Gateway, I had problems with MDK's 2.4.* kernels, but not 2.2.*. Upon building a new system with an Asus A7V600, 9.2 installed flawlessly. No DVD problems, nothing. Very stable. I don't like how certain things are no longer installed by default, but that's minor. It even installed on my new Toshiba Satellite laptop. I would think if it were going to have problems, it would be with these two new computers with lots of new hardware.

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You can read elsewhere on the board about my initial thoughts concerning 9.2. I have found that after a fresh install and all of the updates, it works fine. I have been using Mandrake since 7.0. I have used several distros, and always have at least one Mandrake on my drives. I also found 9.1 to be an excellent release. The smoothest release for me was 8.2

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