Dear Sir:
I want to let everyone who beta-tests and works for Mandrake know that they
have done an excellent job with this beta. It looks like your on the right
track with the issue of ease of use; that is currently buggering the hell out
on linux in the arena of adoption by layman.
Upon installing Mandrake 7b, their appears to be no way to backtrack in the
installation process, as was with the previous clones of RedHat6.x. The
choices between normal, custom(3 options), and expert ought to have a more
exacting description of what each means, as in development will install every
version of the kernel known to man, etc. While normal, well.. I haven't
figured that out yet. I think every library ought be installed by default, as
it hinders the compilation and/or install of software if it is not present.
Purists may find it bloated, but as an option for a normal install- I think it
would be benificial. The addition of appending lilo on install I think should
be standard- for normal installations, whereas you add the amount of RAM you
have on the machine. Or, perhaps for the next release of Mandrake, a prog can
auto-detect RAM amount, and insert it into append, if the user permits. That
would be kinky. Anyhow..
After install of Mandrake 7b, the gui under kde is lacking a selection of
menu's under right-click on screen/new/folder-as it is a beta, it's to be
expected. Also shortcuts to various apps and games are not accurate. File
not found is a fairly common occurance. The rpm'd version of Mesa does not
work with current game (Q3,for ex.) releases, and it seems that you cannot
upgrade Mesa without having linked apps choke on it. Upon upgrade of Mesa,
with a standard rpm, no other apps seem to be able to see it as present on the
system. xmms,xscreensaver,etc. This is a problem, but it doesn't break the
bank just yet. I believe lesstif lib's should be included in install... I
just remember that because some apps tend to use it. The autosetting of the
HD or disk or whatever upon install is quite annoying. Mandrake should use
the designation set up by disk-druid, or whichever was used. If you set up
another FAT partion as /mnt/d, then it should use that reference and not set
up a /mnt/DOS_hddx. It a bitch to work-around when the rpm gui tends to not
be able to detect the switch. Upon resetting the rpm gui to the /mnt/d, for
example, where the rpm's reside, it cannot access the new source of rpms. It
gives an error, and cannot install the files. A tad problematic, if you wish
to use the diskdrakerpm gui thing. This is the reason why people still use
slackware. If your hard drive is set up as /mnt/z, then it is forever more,
until linuxconf parts it, /mnt/z. Please allow people who can partition their
filesystems to be able to use the non-idiot proof setup scheme. Make is
WYSIWYG if you will.
The hardware management, linuxconf, res setting Drake gui is excellent. I'd
like to see an expanding on the prog. The hardware detect, lothar, ran
beautifully- since I beta-test for Alex.. heh, just kidding. It all ran well,
and kudos to everyone on the various projects. When it comes to vid/moitor
resolution though.. Corel has something to look into. They mimic and surpass
win9x monitor setup and res change. Very easy, fast, low overhead. The
ability to enter in your monitors hor/vert freq should be allowed via gui. I
still use XF86Setup because of this. The user needs the ability to add his
hardware variable via gui, if he/she wishes. The defaults are never quite
accurate. Easy, yes, but not accurate or to the potential of the hardware.
I'm glad Mandrake is beginning to become it's own entity with all the projects
we've been working on. It's still a RH6.1 clone, but much improved.. much,
much improved. I apologize for the size of this comment, but you know what
they say...
Thoreau
____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1
