[ i sent this 020908, but the list seems to have been down over the weekend. someone has responded to a few of my points, but everyone should see them. they are intended to be a gentle & helpful prod to the installation guys ]
i'm new to this list, but not to Linux or Mandrake (or to lists). i've just upgraded 8.2 -> 9.0rc1 reasonably successfully, but there really are things which need polishing in the installation script. (1) the initial choice of installation/upgrade options needs clarifying. it should read something like: "You have 3 options depending on your answer: [ ] 'I am a newcomer to Linux: please install the system with the fewest questions or choices; I understand you will not delete my Windows system (if I have one) without asking me first'; [ ] 'I am experienced using Linux, but have not installed Mandrake before (or not recently): please do a full installation, but allow me to make my own choices at all points as we proceed'; [ ] 'I already have a good recent Mandrake Linux system with settings which I want to keep: please upgrade all packages to the latest versions, but don't change anything in my home directory or system settings without asking me first'. i'm not sure if these are the actual present choices offered, but they are close & surely represent the typical basic types of user. (2) configure the mouse: is this really necessary? after all, you are already using the mouse to manage the installation (?!). anyway, it's unstable & more than once i've lost the mouse-pointer & had to start installing all over again. also, the installer doesn't hilite my 'generic PS2 wheel mouse' without being told, tho' it has no problem starting the installation process. (3) CD check-list: the 3rd CD is wrongly named 'international': there doesn't seem to be anything specially international about it & the ISO is named 'CD3' on the FTP site. (4) package selection: there's no box description for 'Scientific Wk Sta'. (5) ditto: choosing OpenOffice demands the '-de' subpackage, tho' it can be removed again by hand: surely an oversight. (6) ditto: it immediately asked: "Do you want these 4 servers?", when i haven't marked any servers in the list of groups; if you hit 'cancel' urgently, it goes back to the beginning of this step. this bit of the dialog needs to be made more user-friendly. (7) installation of packages: "Time Remaining" is quite meaningless: it offered wild guesses around 1h 50m, while actually taking 46 min (it should say 'min', not just '1:50'). (8) "Summary": this is confusing: why is it included at this point? it offered me a "remote CUPS printer" (during upgrade), when i don't have a network & had a successfully defined local printer. clicking that button produced confusing messages, but then finally did show the correct local printer (now working ok). (9) services: the descriptions should be much more explicit: eg what does 'daytime' do? what is the difference between 'ntp' & 'xntp' (i have xntp working successfully, while ntp seems to have problems)? (10) bootloader: choosing 'text' makes no difference: it's still graphical. (11) boot disk: i made one, but it failed when tested as a rescue disk. (12) X server: it did not test my set-up (NVIDIA GeForce2 DDR generic, Samsung SM 550s, 1024x768, 16M colors), tho' it's working ok now. (13) 3D acceleration: whatever does this refer to? why would 3.3.6 give 3D, but not 4.2.0, and why is it "experimental"? at least, give a more detailed explanation of the choices here. some of these items haven't changed since 8.0 . i rather suspect that all the media praise for improved Linux installations has made the developers too complacent re some of the hoary details. generally, 9.0rc1 is an improvement on 8.2 , but i will report a few infelicities in later messages. and of course, thanx to all the people who do the work. -- ========================,,============================================ SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Centre for Urban & Community Studies TRANSIT `-O----------O---' University of Toronto
