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A Lemon


AussieJohn
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Sometimes, "deal with it" is the perfect answer for some of the whining people.
thats who it was intended for. the whole point of my post was to remind us that change is inevitable, so quit whining. i dont mind answering questions (if i know the answers). i'd rather see questyions posted, so that we, the community may contribute and help out. it also gives me (and others) a chance to learn things we may not have known.

 

Can I just suggest that remarks like 'Deal with it' are no more helpful than calling 9.2 a lemon?
you can, but then you missed the point.

 

I'm sorry, but 'Deal with it' really doesn't cut it.
then ask the questions, and lets see if we know how to resolve it. i personally believe there is a solution, a fix for everything, its about asking the right questions, and getting the people who know the answers or are willing to find the answers.

 

whining is never the way. i dont even whine about windows. i am certainly more educated about windows. i was troubleshooting windows long before i switched to linux. i just never took the time to really dig into M$. when i do talk about M$ i try not to sound whining and give clear logical reasons as to why i dont like M$ windows. i beta tested XP, then went out and bought XP. now i almost never boot into XP and am real close to deleteing that partition (if i ever figure wine out). my experience with mandrakesoft has not been good, but i still like the distro. mandrake does have a couple bugs, most of which i have been able to work out. i still got some others that need working out, and i've had this particular bug (or configuration error) since about 8.2.

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linux learner, I get your point but

"I'm sorry, but 'Deal with it' really doesn't cut it.

 

then ask the questions, and lets see if we know how to resolve it. i personally believe there is a solution, a fix for everything, its about asking the right questions, and getting the people who know the answers or are willing to find the answers. "

 

I think this comes down to two things:

Its a few questions like who's going to fix mysql after the upgrade ...

I know what happened to ... <my themes,desktop,etc.> but people shouldbe aware about what they will/might loose in a reinstall vs the chances they take with an UPGRADE.

 

Much as its fun to sort out the prob's I don't always have time.

 

secondly: What about the noobies who tried and failed and didn't find this board!

 

I'm currently making a decision for which distro to host my webserver.

I like my desktop with mandrke BUT the lack of reliable UPGRADE is a big turnoff on a server.

At the same time I'd like to have the same distro on the servers and the desktop.

 

The difference is:

"now i almost never boot into XP "

I NEVER boot into XP because I don't have a single Windows PC.

 

I made a commitment to linux which hgas been undoubtably a good step BUT there are a few quirks need sorting out.

 

Lets say I get wireless netwroking and bluetooth all working and a dozen other bug-bears. If I reinstall I loose practically everything. Its hours of work and I might even find after the install that the bluetooth device is not supported anymore because of incompatibilities between modules and kernel. Then I have to recompile a kernel ....

Then I find the nforce drivers don't work any more etc.

 

Nothings unfixable BUT when this is through NEED not WANT time is not a luxury.

 

I still maintain the UPGRADE option should be removed from the default and 'hidden' in F1

 

I'm considering running debian stable on my server (I know its old and stuff) BUT at least the server stuff will upgrade. The desktop isn't really important to me ......the question is what do I then run on the desktop's.

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*yawn*

 

we shall expect a "10.0 is a Lemon!" thread around march, then? good...we'll reiterate all these points, get hot-headed, tell each other to deal with it, and then eventually we'll get back to the actual point of this board...

 

helping people solve these problems...but for now i'll just go back to sleep. :zzz:

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tyme.

I generally agree BUT I see about 10 points again and again...

release after release....

I remember aussiejohn extolling the virtue's of 9.1 and Mandrake and telling us to stop complaining and do something....

 

Its a recurrent pattern....

1) New users with noacpi or similar problems....

2) First upgrade users who made there first upgrade after being happy with their first one. (who somehow forgot that upgrades in mandrake are like a lottery)

 

My over-riding concern is for those that don't find this board!!!

Those who do will receive the best support on the internet....

However, I strongly suspect a significant number just give up and switch back to XP....

 

Overall its a point of expectations..... If you don't expect those annoying things to go away then your unlikely to be too dissapointed.

 

I remember WHY I upgraded from 9.0 to 9.1 specifically, it was for bluetooth support...

great except I have yet to get it working....

I expected it to work..... in fact I spent my time with 300MB of downloads instead.

 

Aussiejohn's criticism (which is mild) is perfectly valid. It is what WE have come to expect from a first time upgrader..... and yes...by 10.0 someone else will be in the same position and aussiejohn will probably be saying... hey deal with it.

The whole point and reason I contributed (if indeed I have) to this thread is that the 'view' or 'impressions' of a noobie or relative noobie are very valuable becuase they make up the vast majority of new customers to Mandrake.

(Mandrake seem to tip the balance even further when we realise the pointlessness of paying for a powerpack as opposed to downloading) (excluding philanthopy which is still valid)

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:zzz:  Tyme can you wake me up then too ???  :zzz:

yeah i'll give you a nudge.

 

Gowator: my point is two fold, complaining about it here isn't going to change a damned thing. If they want help, they can go post in the help forums, if the want to whine, I'm going to take a nap. Either way, Mandrake needs to take a closer look and see if there is something they can do differently.

 

Other than that, I plan to be seeing threads like this for a while. And each time I'll pop my head in, say "oh, this again? ok, see you next release" and walk back out.

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I'm finiding it a whole lot slower than 9.0, and when I'd completed the upgrade I was greeted with a KDE page that had the 9.0 icons AND the 9.2 icons on it.  Further usage revealed that there were no terminal windows available, and KMail had disappeared.  Fortunately a quick 'Help' post on here fixed the former, and once I had a usuable shell I soon located and loaded KMail, but since then I have found other problems.  Audio doesn't work.  The application comes up, then either

........

etc etc

Deke you did an upgrade. You were warned before that it's a little risky. You knew that like me. And now you are complaining ?

Better stay in the 9.2 upgrade thread if you have problem or do a fresh install man and _after_ have an opinion on how 9.2 is.

 

roland :angry:

Edited by roland
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linux_learner, I agree a lot; read my story about learninglinux on my website and you'll see why I say this (you don't have to, you got the idea already).

 

Anyone not willing to put in any effort should buy a preconfigured preinstalled machine and keep it that way. And for the moment, that is going to be a windows machine. Then they will maybe get some virus and/or worm, and they may get motivated to put in more of an effort.

 

All those expecting to get a linux machine without effort and failing or not is imho not worth it.

 

 

Once I realised that linux was trouble (config etc) but not necessarily more than windows (I have never had to reinstall linux because something wasn't working, and everything (well, everything that is of at least minor importance) works on all my systems. Except my usb2 which is likely a mobo problem, I've done some searches and loads of people with this mobo on win also have problems (maybe it is the early revision..) I decided to go for linux.

Fixing things in linux is cool, since they stay fixed. In win, every time you have to run regclean and similar stuff, and one week later things behave differently, boot and shutdown times increase etcetc...

Program installation is cumbersome, you actually have to find things on the web, download, find out you got a version from the last century etcetc...

 

Basically, I don't care if no one else uses linux, as long as I can use it with hardware that is competitively priced. Unfortunately, for that last thing, more users are needed. Then I say, let that be the ones that do put in an effort.

I don't think that everyone on windows today can find what they need/want under linux. (See my switch with success story, I actually advice people in certain cases not to try to switch.)

But for more than 10% of all windows users, linux could do the job as good or better.

BTW the main thing is to advice all computer users to buy only hardware that is also supported under linux. Even if they are windows users, they may want to switch in 1 or 2 years and it would be stupid to have to stay with your old OS because you bought the wrong hardware.

 

 

Let the winers complain. Let them stay on windows.

Get the good guys on board, those who will contribute: money, helping others, translating, writing code, writing manuals. That's whats needed to make my system (linux, in my case Mandrake) better.

 

Linux is not care and/or trouble free.

Neither is windows.

 

As for hardware support, with (amongst others) China (and somewhat India) going for linux, IBM endorsing linux on the corporate desktop (they follow their customers, apparently their customers want that, this is a major sign!!!!), I see no problem in 1 or 2 years from now to get any type of hardware with support. You may still have to check, but there will be much more linux supported hardware 'out of the box'.

2004 is the year one or more major vendors (any of: IBM, HPaQ, Dell, Sony, Toshiba, etc) will come out with linux laptops - fully functional. The first one gets my money (~1500euro, already reserved -- will not spend on the first linux laptop, but will pick one from the first company that sells preinstalled preconfiged linux laptops).

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Hmmm...

There are a few points on this....

Firstly Linux does exist which is clean/easy and trouble free. Its inelegant etc. but both lycoris and lindows have proven very robust and trouble free IF you use them as intended.

 

I don't actually like either for myself and they don't encourage learning but for the windows user for who Mandrake is too much they offer an alternative.

 

aRtee states cheap/affordable hardware....

Well Mac's are not so expensive now and they UPGRADE flawlessly. An old G3 is pretty cheap AND reliable as hell.

 

aRTee... Linux has changed since me and you started out. Much as it was fun installing slackware 2 (or whatever version I tried) I was a bit stuck afterwards for something to do with it.

Linux today is not the same technical challenge as it was when we started out and in general thats progression and a good thing.

 

"Let the winers complain. Let them stay on windows." well I disagree.

Look at it this way....

Someone buys 9.2 and does the upgrade as recommended. It trashes there system. Of course they want to wine. The whole point is for something like the upgrade, if it isn't buller proof then it shouldn't be provided as a default.

Im not saying get rid of it...just a noobie is likely to 'assume' if Mandrake put it there then it must be OK. This is a first impression of a new release and many may only be noobies with 9.1. Thus this first impression is very important for them AND for Mandrake.

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"Let the winers complain. Let them stay on windows."

You're not serious? You don't think it's enough that the drones out there believe Microsoft's drivel, so you want me to go back there and start telling everyone that Linux is crap as well, just to make sure the message gets home?

 

With supporters like that Linux doesn't need any enemies!

 

And what's all this garbage about asking the right questions? I've stated some of my problems, what difference does it make whether I pose them as questions or not?

 

OK. Mozilla's stopped working properly, KDE keeps crashing, I have no sound, I can't access the Mandrake download sites, the dictionary has disappeared from KDE, Opera is running so slowly that it takes it several seconds to catch up after I've completed a sentence... (2 seconds that time), :wall: What do you suggest I do about it?

 

Now let's see if someone can give me a sensible answer without resorting to some retort about people like me not deserving a proper answer. B)

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Well, I d/k your entire situation but if you did an upgrade like roland said, I'd say do a clean install. Upgrade is only good for when you change a MoBo or something big. It's quite useless for anything else anyway because when upgrading gnome2 and kde, and other wm's/de's, and other sys/user settings the home preference should be trashed/mv'd/bckup and used for personal reference only anyway. So, it's quite comical (not really) that Upgrade is the default when an older version is detected but guess what?....red hat is the same way. Sure the Option should be there with a warning for those that want to take a risk/try it/test and submit bug reports, but default?...devel should be backhanded 10 fold!

 

The reason for this is because new version usually means new glibc/gcc and other base/sys pkgs that when upgraded cause probs when remnants of...whatever, are left behind that are not combat with the new sys libs. The reason probs with Upgrades are so common is because most users don't upgrade glibc/gcc while upgrading everything else so they think it's no big deal to do an upgrade, they're already up to date, rt? Wrong! Packages are built based on these, and other, pkgs.

suse:~ # chroot /ml
[root@suse /]# rpm -qa | grep glib
glibc-2.3.2-15mdk
libglib1.2-1.2.10-11mdk
libglib2.0_0-2.2.3-1mdk
glibc-devel-2.3.2-15mdk
[root@suse /]# urpmf --summary glibc
glibc:The GNU libc libraries
glibc-devel:Header and object files for development using standard C libraries
glibc-i18ndata:Database sources for 'locale'
glibc_lsb:LSB dynamic loader links.
glibc-static-devel:Static libraries for GNU C library
glibc-utils:Development utilities from GNU C library


[root@suse /]# urpmf --description glibc
glibc:The glibc package contains standard libraries which are used by
multiple programs on the system. In order to save disk space and
memory, as well as to make upgrading easier, common system code is
kept in one place and shared between programs. This particular package
contains the most important sets of shared libraries: the standard C
library and the standard math library. Without these two libraries, a
Linux system will not function.  The glibc package also contains
national language (locale) support.

glibc-i18ndata:This package contains the data needed to build the locale data files
to use the internationalization features of the GNU libc.
glibc_lsb:Provides ld-lsb* dynamic loader links for LSB compliance.
yp-tools:The Network Information Service (NIS) is a system which provides
network information (login names, passwords, home directories, group
information) to all of the machines on a network.  NIS can enable
users to login on any machine on the network, as long as the machine
has the NIS client programs running and the user's password is
recorded in the NIS passwd database.  NIS was formerly known as Sun
Yellow Pages (YP).


glibc-utils:The glibc-utils package contains memusage, a memory usage profiler,
mtrace, a memory leak tracer and xtrace, a function call tracer which
can be helpful during program debugging.

If unsure if you need this, don't install this package.
nss_db-compat:Nss_db-compat is a set of C library extensions which allow Berkeley Databases
to be used as a primary source of aliases, ethers, groups, hosts,
networks, protocol, users, RPCs, services and shadow
passwords (instead of or in addition to using flat files or NIS) from
programs linked against glibc 2.0.x.

anything pop out at ya?

glibc-devel:Header and object files for development using standard C libraries

 

This particular package

contains the most important sets of shared libraries: the standard C

library and the standard math library. Without these two libraries, a

Linux system will not function.  The glibc package also contains

national language (locale) support.

 

If unsure if you need this, don't install this package.

 

 

From one version to the next, or even one kernel to the next you may or may not need to even install hdparm. One version detects everything great so optimal settings are found while the newer version sets everything to a safe standard because it's not sure what to do. That goes for your chipset and many other thing, the kernel may be severely confused causing chipsets not to function and cause bottlenecking. Could be kernel related or mandrake scripts/tools related but it's one or the other and may not have to do with Upgrading but simply how the distro as a whole works with your hardware. Easiest way to find out is to do a clean install.

 

The absolute easiest is to not Upgrade. The next option is to try a vanilla kernel and compile. "But I shouldn't have to do all that" no you shouldn't so the next option is to either downgrade, try another distro, or stick with win and try lin again in another year or so. That's what I did with ML7.2. Gave up and waited for 8.1.

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Not only is it the default to upgrade to a newer version .....its also the same version (at least 9.1 since I haven't moved to 9.2 yet) and I guess lower version too.

 

I don't care so much about the desktop, more databases and/or drivers.

My most important box doesn't even have X installed.

 

Once you start upgrade .... your commited.

It doesn't come back and say (for instance) your using phpBB2, this keeps data in mysql and (is|may) be incomptible with the upgraded version of mysql.

 

In anycase we will write over your database and screw it up anyway so why risk it....

Would you like to keep your old version of ____

 

etc...

 

A little more safe defaults here would make a world of difference to noobies!

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