|
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
On the subject of mandrake, does anyone actually use this?
I was putting together a computer for my girlfriend, and she wanted to
have "what I have" (debian linux). I thought debian might be a bit much
for her since, f.e. dselect doesn't have one decent gui, (and the whole
stable is too old, unstable isn't, etc.).
I heard of Suse and Mandrake both being good "end user" linux distros.
I played with the SuSE live eval, and was very impressed by the hardware
detection, reasonable defaults everywhere, YaST, etc. - but I didn't like
the no ISO policy.
Mandrake allowed ISO downloads, so I figured I would check it out. After
installing it, it seems worse than debian for configuring stuff. The GUI
tools were inconsistant, use KDE stuff for this, linux conf for that,
webmin was installed too... I had to look all over creation to figure out
how to change a setting. I couldn't use the config files either, since
they weren't where I am used to seeing them in debian and solaris. My
roomate looked at it and said "now I know how you feel using windows at
work".
I decided to overlook my dislike for the no-iso policy, and I got the FTP
installer ISO image and installed SUSE by FTP. Getting the ISO was
horribly slow, but once I booted that, the FTP was very fast. The
hardware detection was perfect. The installed desktop is about as
polished as it could be, and everything just works, with no tinkering. To
change any settings I might want to, everything is in one consistand and
very well made place (yast). Installing software is just as easy as with
apt-get too. Next I put red-carpet on it and installed ximian evolution
and gnome, which also worked 100% perfect.
I ran into only two minor problems:
a.) The install program is super friendly and polished in every way except
for the very first part of the FTP ISO CD, where it looks more like netbsd
or debian's installer... I had to know to install the kernal module for my
network card. This would make it more difficult for non-technical users to
install it. (There is no way around entering the network settings, but it
could find your card, since yast finds it once you load stuff from the
FTP).
b.) I installed OpenOffice.org 641C from YaST, later I installed
OpenOffice.org 1.0.0 from red-carpet. Later I installed StarOffice 6 from
red-carpet. StarOffice 6 had OpenOffice 1.0 listed as a dependancy. Even
though I already had it, it downloaded the rpm again, and then it
complained that it couldn't install SO6 because it couldn't install all
dependencies.. (and it couldn't install OO1 because it already
was!). This seems like a bug in red-carpet or its dep db, but it's the
only one I found so far, and I have used yast half the time and red-carpet
half the time, so if I were going to break something else, I probably
would have by now.
I thought since SUSE was so pre-built (compared to debian anyhow), that it
would suck if you actually DID want to compile something yourself, etc.,
but it actually seems to have a very reasonable development setup if you
choose to install it. (hey I wanted mplayer).
The more I use it, the more I think about converting my desktop too. (My
servers are safe, they will continue running debian or netbsd probably
forever).
I was also surprised that the mandrake seemed older and more patched
together because it came out more recently than suse 8 I thought.
Anyone else have experiences with Mandrake (7.2 I think) or Suse 8?
-- noah silva
On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, W. Chris Shank wrote:
> if i had waited a week i could have gotten one with mandrake loaded
> instead ;-(
______________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group - http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements-http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug
|
|