Okay I just switched to Linux Mandrake over the weekend from RedHat 6.0
and have to say I am VERY impressed. I only had to install 3 or 4
external RPM's, unlike RedHat which required a lot more than that. But it
hasn't been completely un-eventful. I have ran into 3 or more problems so
far. I'll list them just to get them out.
1. GDB 4.18 does not work with threads. If I grab the 4.17 src rpm, and
build it (and don't install it), and use it I can debug into threads fine.
4.18 is broken, and this has been reported to cygnus.
2. SOX is SERIOUSLY broken in the distro. This is easily fixed by
modifying the SPEC file to not override the CFLAGS parameter. SOX
requires some CFLAGS set and if you override CFLAGS they don't get set,
and sox does not work at all as shipped. I just removed the CFLAGS
parameter to make in the .spec file, and rebuilt and it works flawlessly
now.
3. Netscape as ships contains an app-defaults file (installed properly).
Netscape even lists at the top of this file
"! It is **STRONGLY RECOMMENDED** that you not install this file in the
! app-defaults directory unless you are really sure you know what you are
! doing. There are a whole slew of version-skew problems associated with
! app-defaults files, which are best avoided by simply not using them.
! In particular, if the app-defaults file for a program is installed, and
! you get a new version of that program, you can't properly test out the
! new version without actually installing it, since it will pick up the
! resources for the previous version, and will quite likely malfunction."
Well as shipped it breaks things. I could no longer use alt-leftarrow and
alt-rightarrow to go back and forward like you can normally. They are
listed in the app-defaults file, but it's not working. If I rename the
file and start Netscape using all the true defaults, it works fine. Also
if I copy out the lines out of the global app-defaults file into my
.Xdefaults file, it works fine. But for some reason it doesn't work out
of the global app-defaults file for Netscape. Personally I agree with
Netscape, the only thing that should be in the global app-defaults is the
10 or so lines that have been modified or added to it by the folks at
Linux Mandrake (you can do this as well, by grabbing Netscape 4.6 from
netscape, extracting the Netscape.ad file, and diffing it).
4. The default .vimrc is file is not proper for the color lines. It
contains the following lines.
if &term=="xterm"
set t_Co=8
set t_AB=<ESC>[%?%p1%{8}%<%t%p1%{40}%+%e%p1%{92}%+%;%dm
set t_AF=<ESC>[%?%p1%{8}%<%t%p1%{30}%+%e%p1%{82}%+%;%dm
endif
Note the <ESC> listed there. That needs to be a TRUE escape, not a
character string. I just merged in my previous .vimrc file which actually
uses set t_Co=16 instead of 8, and now it's okay.
5. /etc/inputrc causes problems with the escape key when using vi mode
inside of bash. I had this exact same problem with redhat 6.0, and it's
easily fixed by commenting out the 6 lines that are listed under the line
"# Keyboard configuration". I don't know why this breaks the escape key
under bash, but it does. *shrug*.
6. Sound under gnome works for 1 time, and then never works again. If
you switch to gnome from KDE, and restart X. Now proceed into the gnome
control center, and enable sound, and enable sound for events. Your sound
will now work until you exit. If you restart gnome, sound events will no
longer work. ESD is running, you can play sounds through ESD (x11amp for
example), it's just that gnome spits out errors to your console about
being unable to find the sound files (when they are definately there).
Actually I think that's it for right now. I have only been using it for 2
or 3 days now. But I am still overly impressed with it in comparison to
Redhat 6.0. I have a PIII-450 with 256 megs of ram, and the fact that
everything is built with pgcc really makes a BIG difference for me.
--
Greg Rumple
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
