Hi there,
i will send some bug report and fixes for mandrake 7.1. This huge document also
include ideas for the next upcoming mandrake release.
At first I will also say my congratulation for Linux Mandrake 7.1, which is currently
the best available linux distibution i know (and i know many :-).
Guys, u had done a very good. Please continue in the same way.
But there is nothing on this world, that could not be done a little bit better, so i
will
give some hints, ideas and improvment for the next step.
Bug fixes:
----------
netscape has no access to the global mime.types and mailcap entrys in /usr/lib,
because netscape looks in the directory /usr/local/lib/netscape for this file.
Please make some links:
ln -s /usr/lib/netscape /usr/local/lib/netscape
ln -s /usr/lib/mime.type /usr/lib/netscape/mime.types
ln -s /usr/lib/mailcap /usr/lib/netscape/mailcap
I think it would be also a good idea to move the mailcap and mime.types files
to /etc, because there are confuguration files in my eyes.
There are also some entrys missed in the /usr/lib/mimetypes file, with make the live
easier for using acrobad read and realplayer:
/usr/lib/mime.types
audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin rpm
audio/x-pn-realaudio ra ram smi
application/pdf pdf
application/vnd.fdf fdf
application/smil smil
/usr/lib/mailcap
audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin;;\
x-mozilla-flags=plugin:RealPlayer(tm) 7.0 Plug-In
audio/x-pn-realaudio;/usr/X11R6/bin/realplay %s
application/pdf;/usr/local/Acrobat4/bin/acroread %s
application/vnd.fdf;/usr/local/Acrobat4/bin/acroread -iconic %s
application/smil;/usr/X11R6/bin/realplay %s
In the file /etc/pluggerrc is a bug in the line for audio/basic and
audio/x-basic. Remove the xanim for this entrys and add a
: play $file
There is also a problem with imwheel, which creates a /tmp/imwheel.pid file.
This file is only accessable by the user who has at last invoked the imwheel
daemon, so no other user has the right to start imwheel, because imwheel will
fail to create a new /tmp/imwheel.pid file. My current bug fixes for these is a
workaround - chown of /usr/bin/X11R6/imwheel to daemon and set the s-bit.
The glide modul is only for the mosix kernel available in the 7.1 distribution,
please install the next time the correct version. In the kernel-upgrade to
2.2.16 it is completle missing.
kmix has some trouble with my soundblaster live card, it save not with
channel is split and should show.
kpm has a bug with showing the swap space. It will alwasy show 0/0 KB used.
It does not matter if you have a swap file or if it is used. Please use the
original version qps on (http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~f91-men/qps/) with had
also support for the mosix kernel.
kdevelop is missing glimpse (http://webglimpse.net) or htdig
(http://www.htdig.org) to do a search for keywords in the documentation. This
is very important for using kdevelop. Please add one of them.
I will alwas get trouble with missing fonts using gimp, because some
script-fu depend on the freefonts-0.10.tar.gz and sharefonts-0.10.tar.gz
found on ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/fonts/.
rpmdrake crash with segfault while searching with regular expression, f.e. *test*.
install the binloader for windows, dos and dexe programms:
if [ -f /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register ]; then
if [ -x /usr/bin/wine ]; then
echo "Enable windows binary support"
echo
':BIN-win:M::MZ\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00@:\xff\xff\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xff:/usr/bin/clear:'
> /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
fi
if [ -x /usr/bin/dosexec ]; then
echo "Enable dos binary support"
echo ':DEXE:M::\x0eDEX::/usr/bin/dosexec:' >
/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
fi
fi
I miss the follwing mode lines for mpeg1 video in /etc/X11/XF86Config:
#Modes for mpeg1 fullscreen
Modeline "320x240" 15.750 320 336 384 400 240 244 246 262 Doublescan
Modeline "352x240" 15.750 352 368 416 432 240 244 246 262 Doublescan
Modeline "352x280" 15.750 352 368 416 432 280 284 286 302 Doublescan
Modeline "352x288" 15.750 352 368 416 432 288 292 294 310 Doublescan
XF86Setup will always crash on any computer i have tried.
libstdc++ is incompatible with redhats libstdc++. Binaries with are compiled
with the redhat or suse libstdc++ will output warnings to stdout or will not
work like ddd, the data display debugger.
improvments:
------------
Optimizing video memory access with /proc/mtrr:
echo "base=0x... size=0x... type=write-combining" > /proc/mtrr
Optimizing cdrom access by setting the dma and 32bit IO:
/sbin/hdparm -q -c1 -q -d1 /dev/cdrom
Optimized opengl librarys for mmx, 3Dnow and voodo 1,2 and 3 will be very nice.
Do not install static .a library, use an extra rpm file for this. Static
library normaly not needed by the a programmer, and on my notebook
installation there tooked about 50 MB (20 MB for libc.a).
Compressed docs and HOWTO's, because ther still need to much space on my
notebook hd. It is possible to decompress them on the fly by using a little
http-daemon and a cgi-script. If you are interrested on my cgi-script than mail
my.
Make two terminfo rpm's, one with include all currently available terminfo
files and one with includes onyl the necesary terminfo's, f.e.: ansi
at386
console
crt
dump
emu
eterm
ibmpc
ibmvga
linux
lpr
minix
nansi
pcansi
printer
pty
rxvt
screen
unknow
vtxxx
xterm
As i had seen on the glide driver, you have the mandrake kernel also working
with mosix support. Please include this also in the gpl distribution
(http://www.mosix.org).
TV support is in mandrake 7.1 still very poor, there is a no assistant for
installing a tv card nor a programm to watching tv (xawtv, kwintv, gtv),
listening radio (kradio, gradio), grabbing video or videotext. tv: kwintv
(http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wenk/kwintv/) xawtv
(http://me.in-berlin.de/~kraxel/xawtv.html) radio:
radio (http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/sound/radio.html)
kradio
(http://linux.about.com/compute/linux/library/metalab/blmeta_apps_sound_radio-cards.htm)
video grabber:
vstream (http://www.ee.up.ac.za/~justin/bttv/)
bttvgrab (http://moes.pmnet.uni-oldenburg.de/bttvgrab/)
videotext:
VideoteXt (http://elektra.e-technik.uni-ulm.de/~mbuck/vtx/index.html)
alevt (http://user.exit.de/froese/
pc speaker dsp driver will be a very nice feature, because at work we have in
our PC's and embedded controller normaly no soundcard installed. I know that
the quality is very poor, but for testing and feedback this would be okay.
A more intelligent scanner support would be also very nice, f.e. automaticly
detection of scanner devices. There is also no ocr application available (do
u know a free one?)
ISDN support is still missing in the current 7.1 version of mandrake. This is
a very important feature in germany.
Support for + char selection on konsole and gpm, because this char will also
be used in filenames, which currenty can not select by a double click.
Support cable and dsl modens which use the ppp over ethernet protocoll (ppoe).
The e2compr kernel patch still working very good since years, so i think it
is time to put it in a linux distributuins, prefered Mandrake ;-)
FAX-Modem support is hard to use. Outgoing and Incoimg FAX support sould be
available like in the bloody MS Win. Printing to a fax or automatic delivering
a fax as a tiff attachment on a email should be possible.
The cdfs (http://www.elis.rug.ac.be/~ronsse/cdfs/) is a very nice kernel
modul with gives u access to all track on a cdrom. So u have access the the
boot part or the sound tracks on a cdrom.
Remove mandrake stuff from /etc/rc.d/rc.local, so that it will never touched by
a mandrake installation.
missing packages:
-----------------
There are some package missed in the gpl version, with are very important:
acrobad reader, the .pdf reader
(http://www.adobe.com)
realvideo, realtime aduio and video over ip
(http://www.real.com)
staroffice, a office suit
(http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice/5.2/get.html)
komba, a samba share browser
(http://zeus.fh-brandenburg.de/~schwanz/komba.html)
powertweak, a cpu and chipset optimizer and accelerator
(http://linux.powertweak.com/)
cfs, a cryptographic nfs filesystem
(http://www.debian.org/Packages/stable/non-us/cfs.html)
mtv, realtime mpeg-1 viewer
(http://www.mpgegtc.com)
videolan, a powerfull dvd player
(http://www.videolan.org)
broadcast 2000, a video editing swoftware
(http://heroine.linuxave.net/bcast2000.html)
ethereal, a network sniffer with gui
(http://ethereal.zing.org)
blender, a animation programm
(http://www.blender.org)
povray, a
(http://www.povray.org)
freepascel, a turbo pascal compatible ide
(http://www.freepascal.org)
A good .wav editor would bo also needed.
installation:
-------------
Do not install x-editors or x-irc clientes or x-another apps. Choose from
every category the best and install the other only, if the user wish this.
Better installation scaleability. Install only the necessary files, that are
needed for the choosen usage. For example:
-If choosing network server, allow the user to tell, what type of network
server: smb (windows), mars (novell), appletalk or unix.
-For the network acces: ethernet, modem (slip or ppp)
-For software development: C, C++, Perl, PHP, TCL/TK and so on...
Install only the language files and directorys that are necessary, to save
disk space. I think the best way is to install english always and the choosen
language as the prefered.
Clean up lib and include directory. there are to many files in this
directory, bring the gnome-libs to usr/lib/gnome, librarys requiered by kde to
/usr/lib/kde, libs only used by xmms to /usr/lib/xmms and so on.
Move all executables binaries which requieres X to /usr/X11R6/bin
Remove from all executale binaries programm the special segemnents with
sstrip, a tool found at
http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/elfkickers.html this will bring
back some MB.
Sorry, about this long mail, but i am to lazy to write for every topic an extra
mail.
Okay, thats all,
hope it will help u to make Mandrake also for the future to best Linux
Distribution.
Bye,
Stefani
