Hello,
I realise that recently reporting anything fatal has put one into the Leper
colony, but here goes !
On three occassions now my Mandrake system has locked solid. So solid in fact
that I have had to take the power off and remove the battery (oh yes, it's a
laptop). Although Window$ can be flaky, and has on a couple of occassions
trashed my hard disk (but then so has Linux !), never, NEVER has it locked my
machine so badly that I've had to remove the battery !!! I mean, remove the
battery ? That is some kind of deep lock up ! What is more there isn't even a
core dump, so I cannot even investigate it. First time it happened I was
attempting to load a web page using Netscape. Naturally I just blamed Netscape
! Poor old Netscape, seems to be the scape goat for far to many failings.
Second time the Morph 3D screen saver was running, but the system failed
to come out of screen saver mode, instead it just locked solid ! The third time
I was typing this e-mail !
Recently there has been a flurry of e-mails critisizing Mandrake for rushing
releases to the detriment of quality. Indeed I e-mailed Mandrake just before
the release of 7.0 sounding off about the dubious quality of certain aspects.
However, on reflection, I was about to write a reply stating my revised point
of view that if you wanted rock solid stability then go to another distro.. If
you enjoy getting what's new ('cutting edge' if you will), but taking a few
risks, then stick with Mandrake. Now what should I say ? This kind of deep
seated lock up surely needs to be avoided !? I was due to give a demo of Linux
to one of my M$ centric work colleagues. However, I now feel that I cannot
while the system keeps locking so fataly. Imagine his delight if the system
were to lock in front of him. His jaundiced view would be sealed for ever.
I don't believe that I am running anything 'bad'. Indeed, how could I ? I just
use Mandrake Cooker stuff these days ! Maybe, I say with caution, Mandrake
should slow up for a while to reflect on this and other 'one off' problem
reports and just see if there is anything in them. Too often people get very
short shrift when their problem 'cannot be reproduced'. I know that these
problems are very real. Maybe people are a little cautious these days of
reporting 'one off' problems for fear of getting shot down in flames.
I now have two very bad lock up problems. A complete lockup when the BIOS
issues a suspend to disc, and now this. But does anybody really care ? I know
these types of problems are a pain in the butt. Most of my '9 to 5' work is bug
fixing, so I know ! Maybe the difference is that if I don't find a solution I
have to answer to someone ! (intentional though provoker, sorry this is
Linux, I mean flame bait ;-) )
Rant over,
Owen
