| DistroWatch Weekly |
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| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 40, 15 March 2004 |
Welcome to this year's 11th edition of DistroWatch Weekly. It comes somewhat rushed due to the fact that the hard disk with my main production system gave up on me last weekend, which meant a complete system re-install. This was the third IBM hard disk that crashed during the past three years (is this normal?), so I decided to go with Maxtor this time. Things are up and running again from a 120GB disk (plenty of space for installing new distributions ;-), so let's get on with the regular programme.
Content:
Mandrakelinux 10.0: love it or hate it?
Early reviews of Mandrakelinux 10.0, the first major distribution shipping with kernel 2.6 and KDE 3.2, appeared last week on Linux Tips For Free, OSNews and MadPenguin. Although the overall sentiment in the three reviews was overwhelmingly positive, there is no denying that Mandrakelinux 10.0 is not without its bugs. This was also reaffirmed in the discussion forums following the reviews, where many users expressed emotions ranging from a complete delight over the new release to enormous frustration when trying to install and use it. The following quotes from the OSNews forums illustrate the widely varying experiences of users:
"With some concern I upgraded my heavily customised Mandrake 9.1 machine that runs mail, web, smb and ldap servers plus a heap of desktop tools. To my relief, the upgrade went without a hitch; it even managed to keep the layout of my desktop and upgrade all the icons and decorations around it. Very cool."
"Currently my Linux machine is reinstalling SUSE 9.0. That about sums up my experience with Mandrake 10. I didn't notice any speed improvements, and the system crashed several times in an hour worth of use. It felt unresponsive and sluggish. On the other hand, SUSE runs perfectly on the system."
"I have deployed Mandrake from last Saturday and I have not one issue. Everything runs just great. Great job, Mandrake Team!"
"I tried installing Mandrake 10 yesterday and it was a long, frustrating evening. It crashes when I try to set the regional settings to Norwegian at the end of the installation, it crashes when it tries to start KDE... for me this version seems rushed. Too bad because I enjoyed Mandrake 9.1 a lot."
"Installed Mandrake 10. Now it's the third machine I've installed it on, and the only problem I've had was having to change out the CDs in the proper order. This is the most trouble-free distro I've encountered."
How is it possible that the experiences vary so widely? And why is it that some of the bugs only appear on some systems, not others?
Personally, my experiences with Mandrakelinux 10.0 were decidedly positive. It is fast, good-looking and highly useable as a desktop system. I made an effort to try and reproduce the bugs that Eugenia Loli-Queru reported in her review on OSNews, and some of them, like the Kontact bug or the BitTorrent GUI scrollbar problem, I could certainly confirm. But some others I could not. I have Frozen Bubble working great, with sound and all. I've had no problem changing the GNOME desktop theme, configuring the time zone and time server, booting from the first CD or setting up the fax. All in all, Mandrakelinux 10.0 proved to be a superb release, especially when considering that this is not the Official edition.
But others will disagree. A good example would be comparing Mandrakelinux 10.0 with Fedora Core 2 Test 1, which for me, was a total disaster, a really poor effort on Red Hat's part. Yet, the experiences of others were completely different. This is another quote from the OSNews forums:
"I just tried the development Core of Fedora2. Even I do not like the new philosophy from Red Hat, I must say that no comparison can be done: faster, better worked around etc (except for GNOME 2.6 which is still in early stage) - it looks already in a better shape than the 10.0 from Mandrake."
To reiterate the original question: how can two persons' experiences differ so widely? Anybody cares to comment?
Creating new distributions
If you are thinking of creating a new distribution, then think again. Not counting various floppy and embedded Linux projects, there are already more than 300 active distributions in existence today. Unless you have a really cool, innovative idea, don't expect to get an enormous number of followers with a yet another remastered edition of Knoppix. Instead, why not join an existing project? Here comes an open invitation from CollegeLinux:
"You've always wanted to do more on Linux, to be part of it, perhaps making your own distribution or your own package. Perhaps you didn't know it, but your very own distribution exists: CollegeLinux. The CollegeLinux development team is looking for new talent for the next release, package creation, and documentation. If you want to join a small team of developers willing to listen to your proposal or assign you a number of packages as a maintainer let us know! We are currently looking for project leaders, package developers, contributions for the new installer, documentation help (write your own how-to tutorials), support/forum moderators. Whilst for code contribution you should be familiar with C (especially for the installer) anyone can help (regardless of your coding skills). We really want to hear from you."
Visit the CollegeLinux web site for more information.
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| Released Last Week |
Trustix Secure Linux 2.1
Trustix Secure Linux 2.1 has been released: "This is to announce the release of Trustix Secure Linux 2.1, nicknamed "Horizon". It is the second release in the Trustix 2 series. Its main purpose is to serve as a stability release, and it is the natural successor of Trustix 2.0. In addition, we have added a few more features including Samba 3, IBM's stack protector and the XFS file system. We have also updated most of the packages to the latest stable versions." Read the rest of the announcement for further details.
Lunar Linux 1.4.0
A new version of Lunar Linux has been released: "Lunar-1.4.0 (General P. Fault) ISO is released. Large changes in this ISO compared to the 1.3.3 version. A small list of the major changes include: linux-2.4.25 kernels. gcc-3.3.3 is the default compiler supported in Lunar now; ncurses-5.4 is installed on the ISO; perl-5.8.3, gettext-0.14.1, openssh-3.8p1, coreutils-5.2.0, updated lfirsttime.8, curl-7.11.0 added and more. For a full list of changes see the ISO.Changelog. No xdelta is available from the 1.3.3 ISO as the xdelta would be around 90Meg, while the iso.bz2 file is only 114Meg." The full announcement.
OnebaseGo 1.1
A new version of the OnebaseGo live CD is out: "With the high success of the first release of OnebaseGo portable OS with its capability to add/remove applications, this version comes with olm-go-1.1, a few fixes including kernel and lots of customisations. Users who utilise OnebaseGo as a portable OS, are recommended to get this new version. Please support the development by purchasing it from the store ($9.00)." The announcement.
Screenshot: OnebaseGo 1.1: a flexible and customisable live CD with a hard disk install option.
(full image size 150kB)
BLAG 9002
A new version of BLAG (BLAG Linux And GNU) has been released. From the release notes: "BLAG9002 (trike) is a significant update of BLAG9001. The major changes are lots of Red Hat updates (kernel, XFree86, apache), many BLAG package updates, and piles of new packages. A new desktop, XFce, is now on the CD. It is lightweight, but user friendly and cute. BLAG now includes more wireless kernel drivers so more gear works out-of-the-box. Airsnort & airtraf have been added. Winmodem drivers (hsf, ltmodem, slmodem) added...."
Quantian 0.4.9.5
Quantian 0.4.9.5 is a new development version on the road towards stable Quantian 0.5. From the changelog: "Updated R packages based on the first pre-release of the upcoming 1.9.0 version, updated CRAN packages and a few new CRAN packages: multcomp, mvtnorn, relimp, and the uebercool rgl. Updated Octave packages based on the just released 2.1.56, and a matching octave-forge release. Improved support for Scientific Python, though scipy.test() still moans, we hope to sort that out shortly. The ftnchek package for Fortran'ers..."
Rubyx 42
A new stable version of Rubyx has been released: "New stable release 42. It contains loads of new packages; Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, Epiphany, Gnomemeeting 1.00, Kde 3.2.1, Gnome 2.4.2, linux-2.6.4 ... There have been some important bugfixes and improvements to the rubyx script itself, so please upgrade!" Rubyx is a new source-based distribution written in Ruby; it is, in the words of the Rubyx creator, "the most progressive Linux distro out there, with features people have yet to grasp. The package management system is, to say the least, revolutionary. If you haven't tried it yet, please do!" Find out more on rubyx.org.
Feather Linux 0.3.8
Feather Linux 0.3.8 has been released. What's new? "Fixed Sylpheed size; added MPlayer config files; added Arno's iptables script and fwb-run; fixed xterm menu colours; added online manpages and HOWTOs links on the Fluxbox menu; added wman, an online manpage viewer script; added Getting Started HOWTO; changed Opera script to work properly from HD; made small changes to the HD install script; added Mutella, fbset and Chipmunk Basic; feather now runs as user knoppix; rewrote restoration system - now you need to type restore=sda1 restore=hda1, etc; added script to install the Gimp."
Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Rubyx Interview
Rubyx is a new source-based distribution written in Ruby. The developer of Rubyx is Andrew Walrond and he has kindly agreed to answer a few questions about his project for DistroWatch. If there is anything you'd like to know, please ask in the forums below or email me directly. The interview will be published next week.
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| Web Site News |
Submitting new distributions
If you'd like to see your distribution listed on DistroWatch, please fill in the Submit Distribution form in full, including the package list. Incomplete submissions will simply go on the waiting list, together with 60+ other distributions. The form was created in order to eliminate the tedious work of looking up the information, often in foreign languages, so please try helping out if you can. If you fill it in full, your distribution will be listed within 24 hours, otherwise it might take months. Also, please check that the distribution does not already exist in the database before filling in the form. You can find the complete list of all listed distributions on the Statistics page.
DistroWatch T-shirts
Order your own official DistroWatch T-shirt from Hackerthreads.
New additions
- Slavix. Slavix is an operating system based on Morphix, Knoppix, Debian GNU/Linux. Its purpose is to make it easy for anyone to switch to GNU/Linux and start using free (as in freedom) software. Slavix is oriented towards a home computer user. It is a live CD system, which means you can run it off CD-ROM without having to install anything to hard drive. All you need to do is burn the Slavix image file to a CD, put it in your CD-ROM and reboot. It will start up, auto configure itself and in about 3 - 5 minutes it's ready to use! Slavix will not touch your hard drive or mess with you data! Hard disk installer is included and it is fairly easy to use.
New on the waiting list
- Linux Octoz. Linux Octoz is a French distribution in early development.
- SciLix. SciLix is a Morphix-based live CD developed by the Faculty of Science at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia.
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of distributions in the database: 272
- Number of discontinued distributions: 31
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 65
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| Reader Feedback |
On Linux package management
"With the variety of Debian builds springing up, debs and the apt utility are also becoming unreliable. Bootable CDs with the Knoppix engine are major offenders. It's very easy to acquire enough missing dependencies and broken packages to totally disable apt. Often the only reasonable option is to rebuild (I'm doing that now).
I have to operate both Windows and Linux systems. In other respects Linux is very close to parity with, if not superior to, Windows. But, I have to note that, the typical Windows 'user' would never accept this kind of unreliability. The whole situation really needs to be resolved if Linux is to survive as a desktop OS.
Jim"
That's all for this week, see you next Monday :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comment Area | • on different views over distributions (by Peter Damoc at 2004-03-15 13:30:09 GMT)
My oppinion is that hardware might make a difference. Maybe the distros react different to hardware. From my past experience I can say that Slackware 9.1 install on a old celeron box went smooth BUT when I tryed the thing on my new box everything went wrong. Maybe it was my emmbeded video addapter (nforce2 MB) maybe it was my brand new Logitech MX Duo or maybe it was my lack of experience but the two installs differed substantially.
• Joining an existing project (by Scott on 2004-03-15 13:53:21 GMT)
The open invitation from College Linux is truely what _many_ Linux distributions need. With that said ...
Onebase Linux has some really great, innovative ideas like
-> it's OLM (Onebase Linux Management) advanced multithreaded package manager.
-> it's OnebaseGo LiveCD with incredible customization capabilities
-> Support for both binary and source packages.
-> Click-n-Pick gallery portal
This is the first free distro that I've had a strong feeling of supporting.
• Mandrake 10 (by Ronald L. Gibson at 2004-03-15 14:00:55 GMT)
Mandrake 10 will not boot up on my 200MHz machine with the Award v4.51PG BIOS. It boots up fine with my other machines. I have been able to boot up on previous versions of Mandrake, Red Hat, & Knoppix.
• mandrake (by maceto on 2004-03-15 14:04:23 GMT)
the reason MD fails on some and work on others are at least what I have found: the latest screen were one can change settings, buggy on 2 computers I have tested it on, what happens it hangs up if one does it "to fast" bouth running nvidia cards.
kernel 2.6 is making problems still on some hardware, the new intel 100 driver starts for me, but that`s it, it does not get assigned an ip, it sends recive packages etc, the old becker driver works fine. I can mention alot about this, but others are going to write here to
• Mandrakelinux 10.0: how can two persons' experiences differ so widely? (by brodders at 2004-03-15 14:22:09 GMT)
Easy - it's the hardware mix.
I've installed this on 3 boxes now:
1. Old HP Omin-series laptop - everything works.
2. Asus barebone system (512M ram, AMD 2400, integrated SiS everything - chipset, video, sound, LAN. Toshiba CDrom, + 2nd separate soundcard, Hitachi deskstar 120gig HD with 8M cache). Everything worked 1st time, could even select which sound card I wanted.
3. Asus nForce2 with integrated LAN & sound, GeForce FX5600, WD Caviar 80gig HD with 8M cache. LG 4120B CD-RW/DVD Combo, 512M ram. Will not boot. Can boot with CD2 and start CD1 installer. Install freezes at random points during system installs (tried several times) using both ext3 and RieserFS.
-but wait! This same box but using an old Maxtor 8gig drive from 1998 installs cleanly! It does not like _something_ about the WD (? the fast ATA, the chipset, the WD itself ?)
Conclusion: install sucess depends upon your hardware. Try to use the same hardware the distro was tested on....
This will always be a problem alas.
• Hardware is only one part (by Scott on 2004-03-15 14:46:12 GMT)
"Easy - it's the hardware mix."
Hardware is certainly one aspect of differing experiences, but what about the software bugs/glitches? How can this be explained?
Like Ladislav said ... "I made an effort to try and reproduce the bugs that Eugenia Loli-Queru reported in her review on OSNews, and some of them, like the Kontact bug or the BitTorrent GUI scrollbar problem, I could certainly confirm. But some others I could not."
That doesn't seem like hardware related, does it?
• Rubyx (by Penguin Domesticus on 2004-03-15 15:30:42 GMT)
Some questions for the Rubyx interview:
How does the source/package management work exactly? Are there some Rubyx binaries too or is it all about compilin from source? Is the Rubyx installaton equivalent of the Stage 1 style installation of Gentoo, i.e. everything must be compiled and configured manually? Is Rubyx targeted for experienced system admins only or does it aim to make things easy even for relatively unexperienced users?
• Mandrake 10 and 'testzilla' (by Troy Dawson at 2004-03-15 15:49:34 GMT)
Mandrake 10c (what I like to call it) is technically not their final release, it is a glorified release candidate, so I expected a few bugs. I found a few, but I also found a really nice release behind them.
Are there a few software bugs. Yep. But I'd like anyone to name one Operating System release that didn't have them, linux, opensource or proprietary. But for me, there hasn't been one show stopper.
I've installed it on 5 widely varying machines, and been able to experience all the various forms of emotion. My first install went absolutely perfect. My second hit the NVidia bug. Third, perfect, Fourth, network problem. Etc... (I plan on testing on more machines).
But something I haven't seen mentioned is Mandrakes new 'testzilla'. This is different than 'bugzilla' because you run your machine through a set of steps, and if it works, that particular piece of hardware get's marked as working, if it didn't work, you can open a bugzilla bug, and they already have all your hardware info.
Although this testzilla does have some flaws, I haven't seen any of the mainstream distro's doing this, and I do hope it catches on. (One of the flaws is the machine where the network card isn't able to be setup, I have no way of uploading the hardware info.)
My overall opinion. Of the rpm based distro's, Mandrake 10 is going to be hard to beat. I don't really consider the communitry release a real release, but it already raises the bar for other distro's to try and reach.
• ML 10 Community: NOT a Release Candidate (by Leo on 2004-03-15 16:12:55 GMT)
Ok folks, lets call things by name. Mandrake Community is NOT a release candidate. It is what Mandrake 10.0 would have been if they didn't change the release cycle scheme ... but they _did_
Mandrake 10 is the first release in a "stable" branch that has been actually stabilized for a while in the Cooker tree (which was frozen for a while, and it had its own beta/RC cycle).
Oh, I am running it in 3 machines, and I had to revert two of them to kernel 2.4.* because of different kernel issues. It is true that 2.6 is more responsive. But is is not quite there yet. Other than that, it is running great, I am enjoying Kontact and what not. Very very nice, as usual.
Some bugs ? Yes, sure. I am reporting them in qa.mandrakesoft.com ...
• Rubyx (by Sceptic on 2004-03-15 16:47:56 GMT)
I've seen Rubyx advertise itself as a progressive and revolutionary distro but I've yet to figure out if this means anything for the ordinary end user. System developers may get excited over an installation script written in ruby language but for the end users this doesn't necessarily mean much. What are Rubyx's innovations from the end user's POV? Well, perhaps the forthcoming interview will bring some light on this issue.
• Rubyx v. Gentoo (by butters at 2004-03-15 18:49:56 GMT)
After reading the Rubyx manual, it seems to me that Rubyx is simply a Gentoo analogue. Whereas Gentoo uses Python for Portage, Rubyx uses Ruby. Both have revamped init scripts, both support flexible and distributed builds, fake builds, and support global and package configuration options (USE flags or Rubyx attributes). The main difference is that Gentoo has a massive headstart on Rubyx when it comes to its package collection, documentation, and user community. I think projects like Rubyx are great, but much of this is duplicating the work of Gentoo and other smaller source based distros, potentially fragmenting their respective communities. We will need to add the ebuild to rubyx converter to our growing list of package emulators.
On a seperate note, anyone check out SkyOS and its very impressive progress? Maybe its about time distrowatch starts promoting more revolutionary products instead of endless chains of Linux-based spinoffs. These projects need our support perhaps more than anyone in the Linux arena.
• Mandrakelinux 10.0 (by Rogelio at 2004-03-15 19:17:15 GMT)
What a disappointment Mandrakelinux 10.0 was. I mean how does a distribution have all the components to my computer work great in one version ( 9.2 ) and not in another. I installed 10 on my computor and it did not want to setup my modem ( not a winmodem ) or sound card ( c-media ). Even my mouse does not work correctly under this version. Don't get me wrong Mandrakelinux is not the only distribution that does this. My question is why or how does this happen?
• Distribution Differences (by Jay on 2004-03-15 19:29:34 GMT)
I have spent the last 18 months attempting just about every new version of every linux distro going. I have used the same box with exactly the same hardware every time. My results have been incredibly mixed. About 75% of all distros have failed to successfully install or work after installation on my box of old hardware. Mandrake 9.1 was one of the few that worked. One of these days I will have to publish a report of all my experiences.
Bottom line: It is DEFINITELY the hardware.
• Re: Rubyx v. Gentoo (by butlers) (by Sergio on 2004-03-15 20:40:19 GMT)
I agree with you about SkyOs, I am myself a beta tester.
However wheter Distrowatch should start promoting non linux OSes is very questionable, IMHO.
It has become very difficult to keep pace with all linux distros, let alone all operating systems out there.
For this purpose there is already OSNews.
• Knoppix's Hardware Detection (by Scott on 2004-03-15 20:48:15 GMT)
I've heard Knoppix's hardware detection is one of the best. Has anyone had any problem's with Knoppix's hardware detection?
Also, if Knoppix can detect most hardware, why don't the other distro's do the same?
• RE: Knoppix's Hardware Detection (by hughesjr at 2004-03-15 21:28:47 GMT)
The hardware detection depends on several things ... including the Kernel version (which effects built-in modules). Major distrubutions (Fedora, Debian, Mandrake, SUSE, RedHat Enterprise, etc.) have a support time period and the Kernel and programs are normally frozen except for updates/bug fixes ... Even Distro's where that is not the case (Gentoo, Debian Sarge/Sid, etc.) have frozen install CDs.
Knoppix, however, issues a new bootable CD (with new items on it) 2-3 times per month (28 times in the last year). Every Upadate, they can detect more hardware and use newer kernels ... look at Gentoo, they are talking about changing the boot CD's 4 times a year and that is much more than most distros.
Knoppix can detect hardware better ... and that's my theory why.
• Mandrake 10 Community (by Vern at 2004-03-15 21:42:47 GMT)
Mandrake 10 was not as great experience for me as i expected.
I had trouble configuring my modem connection(external modem) and K3b didn't recognise my burner whereas Fedora Core 1 did. My main distro is Libranet 2.8 and everything works out of the box including Nvidia drivers. Mandrake 10 was a bit of a let down for me but when all the bugs have been ironed out i will give it another try.
• RE: Knoppix's Hardware Detection (by evermuse on 2004-03-15 23:15:08 GMT)
Ive tried evey major disto outside of gentoo (I dont have the patentence) knoppix has the best hardware detection, hands down, no contest.
the only times ive had issues where with brand new oddball hardware or very old, i really shouldn't bother anyhow hardware.
the rest of the distro's really ought to get get hip on the hardware detection issue
aside from slackware... it just wouldn't be the same
• Rubyx (by andrew at 2004-03-15 23:36:47 GMT)
I really like Rubyx, though the feeling does not appear to be mutual - it's been fighting me every step of the way ... at the moment I've got it installed, but still having trouble configuring XFree. Anyway, it does have some neat ideas. My favourite: no more runlevels! No more mazes of confusing links and scripts - just start/stop/restart a service, that's it. Also it breaks with traditional structure, placing all files related to a package in its own directory, somewhat like Gobo Linux. So for example xfree lives in its own directory, /pkg/xfree86.1/, and it's configuration file will be in /pkg/xfree86.1/etc/xfree/XF86Config (from memory). If I should install a new version of xfree, it will become /pkg/xfree86.2/ ... and so on.
It is true this distro is similar in idea and execution to Gentoo, but it makes Gentoo look positively bloated in comparison. Now, if only I could get it to work :)
• Mandrake 10 Community (by Gordon Pearce at 2004-03-16 00:06:53 GMT)
Just loaded Mandrake 10 on a Toshiba Satellite 2410 P4M Laptop. All went fine except my Belkin 802.11b WiFi card, it worked at install time but failed after the first boot even though all settings look OK. It works if I drop to a shell after boot and “dhclient eth0”. Anyway I’ll poke around /etc and see if I can fix it when I get some spare time.
I have swapped distros on this machine from Mepis. I would say that Mandrake feels a bit more sluggish than Mepis, even with the 2.6 kernel. But the desktop theme and menus are a lot slicker in Mandrake. Also, Mepis auto detected everything including installing Nvidia drivers, where as Mandrake, I had to manually install a few things.
I think I’ll stick with Mandrake for a while and see how things go. Can’t wait for Mepis to get the 2.6 kernel though (I know you can install it from apt but it breaks a few things).
• Re: how can two persons' experiences differ so widely? (by bxb32001 at 2004-03-16 02:17:58 GMT)
And the answer is... testing. Yep TESTING. This is one aspect of Linux use that is just killing it. What frequently happens is that the users are frequently it's testers. Now, when it's free, it's easy to overlook but when you're selling it it's a different ballgame.
Even those that don't buy it can find it very frustrating since they spend time downloading it and trying to make it work. It's even more so to those who expend time and money.
Now it's in Linux's roots to be community supported but for it to evolve successfully as a commercial desktop OS (even as a server), Distro companies should have a dedicated team of testers and not be afraid to delay their release to meet quality requirements. MS is doing this with Longhorn, Fedora with Fedora Core 2, Debian with any release.
Otherwise, some distros will just never come out of their shells.
• Mandrake 10.0 (by Gary at 2004-03-16 03:39:42 GMT)
I've been using Mandrake 10.0 now for almost a week and I say it rocks! The new kernel is faster, thus making the overall responsiveness
quicker than prior releases. I haven't experienced any of the problems I see other's posting, so it makes me wonder what's up with that....I've enjoyed this release so much, it is now the only OS on my main box! Now if I could only get Synce-Kde to work........
• re: Rubyx (by Dave T at 2004-03-16 04:00:17 GMT)
I was just wondering if Andrew Walrond had any plans
to split his source base up into smaller packages, say
50 megs a piece (approx) so as to make it easier
for dialup users to participate in the developement of
his distribution
cheers
Dave.
• Testzilla and hardware probing (by Andy on 2004-03-16 05:55:28 GMT)
Mandrake's "Testzilla" sounds like a very useful package to help with hardware compatibility.
One thing I'd **love** to see is a small stand-alone "hardware-probing" utility. This would use the same h/w detection code as the full distro. You could d/l it, and if it detects all your hardware, you'd feel much more confident to grab that distro, knowing that the chances of it working were high.
Knoppix would seem to be an obvious distro to base such a utility on. So - any keen coders out there who'd be able to put Knoppix's h/w detection code into a standalone utility? ( That'd make it mega-easy to pop into any other distro, too). Any takers ....? :-)
• re : Testzilla and hardware probing (by Benoît Audouard on 2004-03-16 10:19:01 GMT)
Great idea Andy, I would love to have it on Mandrake Move10, save the configuration to a file that I can upload later (just in case the internet access does not work and for archive sake), with all tests I could achieve, on any pc I encounter ;-)
• Mandrake 10 & LG cd-rom drives (by Ariszlo at 2004-03-16 10:23:43 GMT)
Is Mandrake 10 safe for LG cd-rom drives?
• DLIP based Slackware (by Benjamin Vander Jagt at 2004-03-16 15:41:10 GMT)
I'd be interested in working with someone on making a Linux distribution, but out of the 300 distributions, I'd say about 280 of them only exist by way of deviations from the standard. SuSE 9.0 is remarkably standards compliant, and pretty much nothing beats Slackware for being traditional.
I might want to make a DLIP-based flavor of Slackware, though. That would interest me. By this, it would be Slackware that could be installed in whole or in part, but an extra package would be DLIP. (Alright, to be honest, I've been lacking for developers to work on this extraordinary project, so the idea would pretty much require me to find time to program.) I'm not all that interested in working on yet another distribution whose claim to fame is being *different*.
Regarding Mandrake, I saw the same thing happen with Fedora. Some people had a very good time, and others had an extraordinarily bad time. It depends on the user. Fedora was fine until you tried to mess with it. I tried to install the nVidia driver, and it complained that the kernel was unable to load ELF binaries. My jaw dropped. I tried to change the screen savers, and xscreensaver broke irreversibly. I tried to upgrade Mozilla from 1.4 to 1.6, and half of my menus disappeared. I couldn't even install some simple wireless drivers.
Mandrake 9.2 has been horrid in the past. I tried to do very very basic things, only to find out that Mandrake's insides look like a Picasso. I downloaded Mandrake 10.0, and I got ready to burn it to CD, but then I read the reviews and decided not to even try it. I'm usually the type who will try loads and loads of distributions, but I've gotten tired of messing with Mandrunk. I've seen several distributions that are much easier to install, more stable, and much easier to navigate, and I wonder what it is that keeps Mandark at the top of the HPD list. Everyone I ask who has not tried Linux says, "I'm gonna try Mandrake, because they say that's the most Windows-like." (I'll hafta say not, but even so, is Windows-like something to strive for?) I think that a lot of Mandrake's fame comes from non-Linux users curious and dying to cut their teeth. (I should probably go back and look for the distribution HPD nationality information and see if Mandrake has a disproportionate number of USA visitors. We here are, after all, very lazy when it comes to trying software, and we're way behind the times when it comes to Linux.)
• the only MADK 10 alert i've seen (by squid at 2004-03-16 22:19:21 GMT)
the only meggage I've seen after insert of first boot CD in the drive was "SYSTEM HALTED". Every other distro including previous releases of MDK works fine. ...and I hoped to install it instead of FC 1 :-(((
• MDK 10 (by warpengi at 2004-03-17 05:31:07 GMT)
I agree with others that hardware is a major factor in successful install. There is often no support for the very latest hardware and onboard chips for sound and LAN can be a problem.
One other factor is familiarity with the distribution. I had some problems with MDK 10 but none of them were "show stoppers" because after running Mandrake for almost 4 yrs. I can find a way to fix most things without a lot of thought.
It would be interesting to know what distribution is the daily use distro for each reviewer. I know, every distro should work regardless of the users experience but that is not reality. The longer you work with one distro the better it will work for you. When I install other distro's to see what they look like I don't really give them much of a chance. One little spin around the block and then I leave.
I love MDK 10.0. It is fast, stable, easy to use and a nice improvement over 9.2. It was the 1st distro that I could use the upgrade option instead of doing a complete reinstall.
• what i would like to see (by Ophidian on 2004-03-17 05:44:08 GMT)
i would like to see a distro come out that uses ldap through and through. something where setting up the ldap tree is as easy as it is setting up an nds tree on a novell server. have all samba/nfs/similar settings incorporated into the tree. i would say something like this would probably have a good level of small to medium sized business adoption.
• RE: the only MADK 10 alert i've seen (by Jerry at 2004-03-17 15:52:05 GMT)
..."the only meggage I've seen after insert of first boot CD in the drive was "SYSTEM HALTED"."...
Have you tried booting from cd 2? There's an alternate boot image there and you can just switch CD's. I've been using Mandrake 10 for a couple weeks. As with most .0 versions, it has its problems but for me they've been small and, in all but one case, related to the 2.6.3 kernel itself and not specifically to Mandrake. I usually skip the full number releases and start with the .1 and upgrade to the .2 when they come out but I wanted to give the new kernel a whirl and see how it works as a default kernel. I'd compiled it myself on 9.2 but I'm not the best at compiling kernels it seems. Right now the only problem I have with it is 3D accel with an ati vid card but that's kinda to be expected. I had to fight with it on other distros to get it to work too.
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