I tried installing the new beta, so I figured the results could be
useful. I'm running a Quicksilver G4/733 with the GeForce2MX video card.
Sorry if I seem critical, I really do appreciate all the work that
people have put into Mandrake, I mean all my criticism to be
constructive :-). If you have anything you'd like me to test out, or if
you need more information about anything, I'll do what I can.
Video:
- install-riva doesn't work, when second stage install starts the
graphics are huge, and "stretched" horizontally. There are also small
thick vertical black lines all over, and.
- install-novideo makes everything in the second stage into this
really ugly shade of blue; mouse tracking is bad also.
- My monitor, a Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 73, is listed when I'm
asked to select the monitor I'm using. It wasn't listed in either the
Yellow Dog or Debian installers, so good job :-)
- X won't start up properly. When the system boots and the display
manager tries starting X, my monitor seems to stop receiving any signal.
Using "Cmd-Ctrl-FKey" to switch to a tty doesn't work after this, so I'm
forced to reset my computer.
Hard Drive partitioning:
- My partition setup before installing looked like this (as gleaned
from pdisk):
hda6 HFS+
hda12 HFS
hda7 HFS+
hda8 HFS+
hda9 10 MB yaboot bootstrap
hda10 128 MB swap
hda11 ext2
Yes, the partition that's physically earlier on disk is hda12, that's
because of the order I set it up with pdisk. The Mandrake installer just
numbered them in physical order, eg hda12->hda7, and every partition
after that has its number incremented by one.
- I wanted to initialize the ext2 partition, and it wasn't clear at
first how to do so, so I selected "Custom partitioning" and deleted it,
then wanted to add it again...but there wasn't any obvious way to add a
partition. I still don't know how to do so through the installer.
- After experimenting with the partitioner a bit, I decided to back
out and set up the partitions myself before installing again. But after
hitting "cancel" or "exit" a few times, and hitting "no" when asked
whether to write the new partition map, I found on restart into OS X
that my partition map was changed.
Miscellaneous:
- The package lists seems very up-to-date including a recent
kernel, Nautilus, etc.
- I like the ability to set up automatic log-in.
- When I get to the printer setup dialog, I get the message "An
error occured: foomatic rpm not found."
- There doesn't seem to be any way to select a timezone. There's a
label on the screen that details my mouse, keyboard, printer settings
that says "timezone", but there's nothing in the associated selection
box.
- After installation, I had to set the boot device in OF; booting
with yaboot was not autmoatic. Note that the Debian and YDL installers
seem to have this working.
- I get a few errors during startup:
- "Finding module dependencies: unresolved symbols" and then a
list that included something about fdomain_cs in a scsi module, and
something else. Sorry I can't be more specific, the X problem above
meant that I crashed just after startup, so I couldn't really access
system logs.
- "Loading USB interface (modprobe): Can't locate FAILED"
- At one point I saw a "starting pcmcia" error. I'm on a
desktop, I'm not sure why pcmcia support is being started.
UI:
- "Cancel" buttons during the installer often do nothing. It might
make more sense for them to quit the installer and reboot. At some
points I got stuck during the install, it would have been nice to have a
way to reboot cleanly.
- During the first stage, there's a message on the bottom of the
screen that says "Alt-F4 for kernel logs", etc. At least on my computer,
it's really Cmd-Ctrl-F4 instead.
I hope this is of use,
Dave Vasilevsky
