[TriLUG] Mandrake frustrations

[William Sutton]

Not sure that I follow you on the subject of testing the video after 
configuring it.

For what it is worth, this is my personal workstation/development/surfing 
environment.  Any business tasks (e.g., resumes) get done on the Win95 
system, and since I'm the only one using my computers, it doesn't really 
need to be an idiot-friendly system (although as of the last day or so I'm 
feeling more and more like an idiot ;) )

William

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004, Steve Litt wrote:

> Hi William,
> 
> Others have addressed your specific questions, so as a 4 year Mandrake user, 
> let me address your frustrations.
> 
> Mandrake can be frustrating, and certainly installation is the most 
> frustrating of all, but I've found it to be a great distro for a "superuser 
> desktop". It has all the apps you could ever desire on those 3 little CD's.
> 
> I've found that as I use more and more Mandrake versions (I think I started 
> with 6.x), you get used to its little foibles. And yes, I concur with Jason 
> -- always configure via NFS to avoid CD flipping, which occasionally stops 
> the whole process.
> 
> Another thing -- never, ever, ever test the video after configuring it. 
> Testing can halt the install, requiring either a complete reinstall or some 
> very fancy footwork.
> 
> By the way, I use Mandrake only for superuser type stuff. For my kids' 
> computers, I use Knoppix, which installs reliably in 30 minutes or less.
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt
> Founder and acting president: GoLUG
> http://www.golug.org
> 
> On Sunday 26 December 2004 07:36 pm, William Sutton wrote:
> > Mandrake experts (particularly Lovelace), I started installing MDK 10.1
> > today (downloaded from a mandrake linux mirror site, 3 CD isos, all burned
> > to 700 MB CD-R disks under Red Hat 9 via command line (sorry, exact
> > utility escapes my pea brain at the moment but it's a standard CLI
> > CD-writing tool).
> >
> > Install has been somewhat painful to this point.
> >
> > The good:
> > - MDK installation automagically recognized my video card (Matrox G450)
> > and provided a chance to configure it as such, including Xinerama, as well
> > as for my two ViewSonic E90fb monitors.  Easiest time I've ever had doing
> > that, especially compared with Gentoo where I actually had to write a
> > Gentoo FAQ on the subject...
> > - mp3 playing works (hurray)
> >
> > The bad:
> > - During installation, 3 different packages were reported as being unable
> > to install, one of which was XScreensaver (didn't make a list, but the
> > reports were the same during two separate and differently customized
> > installation processes (first one I tried deselecting individual packages,
> > when that didn't work so well, I installed a second time (fresh install)
> > by starting small and adding extra packages))
> > - On initial boot and graphical login, I discovered the mouse didn't work.
> > Investigation revealed that the XF86Config file was referencing /dev/mouse
> > but the only mouse device MDK had created was /dev/mouse0.  This was
> > rectified by the simple expedient of editing the XF86Config file (simple
> > if one knows where to look, a real pita if one doesn't; fortunately I do)
> > - On logging in after setting the mouse up, I discovered that there's no
> > configuration option for the printer (!) (so I didn't select office
> > productivity...geez ya think it would still be a default item!) so I
> > tried to "install" the files from CD...woops, message 'Please insert the
> > medium named "Installation CD 1" on device [/dev/sr0]'.  Unfortunately I
> > have no /dev/sr* devices in my system...(what's going on here?)
> > - To get around the /dev/sr0 problem, I went to download the various
> > dependencies from rpm.pbone.net (google search for the various file names
> > from the rpmdrake gui tool)...found the ones I wanted but about every
> > other search I did crashed mozilla....
> > - once I had the various dependencies I (thought I) needed, I installed
> > CUPS...logged out of X, logged back in....still no gui configuration
> > options (!)
> >
> > frustration is beginning to mount...
> >
> > I can put the CDs up online as iso images (I think...if I can figure out
> > httpd under MDK) for inspection & verification but I don't think the
> > problem necessarily lies with the images themselves...
> >
> > I've got a lot of issues listed above and would dearly appreciate some
> > help and a sense that I'm not completely stupid here.
> >
> > William
>