Civileme wrote:
>
> I haven't seen much to impress in Caldera as far as smoothing
> rough edges. I install a LOT of linux systems, and Caldera is
> smooth only to the point of where you have hardware it isn't
> preprogrammed for. Then the tools are inadequate, the
> documentation doesn't match the performance and the telephone
> support can't pull up its own socks. The supposedly prepaid
> email support has never once responded to a registered inquiry in
> my experience, which encompasses 6 systems, 2 with 2.2 and 4
> hopefuls (wishful thinking) with 2.3.
>
> Tis a fine thing that they include StarOffice in their distro
> because it is annoying to try to install Sun's edition there.
> The number of symlinks you have to make to get the error messages
> to go away is, I suppose, manageable in a script file once you
> discover them all, but why bother?
>
> These are self-help lists, and the presence of Mandrakesoft
> personnel here is NOT obligatory on their part. In other words,
> after his 14-hour day, the Mandrake programmer might skim the 200
> or so emails on the various lists and respond to something that
> catches the eye, but then their status is another expert trying
> to help someone for basically altruistic reasons. Response to
> "issues" in the software usually should be expectable from the
> email support address for that purpose when you send email with
> your registration number.
>
> Moreover, some of the issues on install have a solution
> unpalatable to the folks who are at the helm for this distro.
> They involve returning to 386 code because a number of
> manufacturers have been cutting corners they should not have cut
> in little things like drive timing. The result is that the 586
> code linuxes and the 686 code linuxes and even the 486 code
> linuxes are evoking these problems. Notable is the timing of the
> Western Digital IDE drive and the Seagate IDE Ultra-DMA drives.
> A slow WD master and a fast Maxtor slave will destroy each
> other's data with timing chatter, for example. Seagates are the
> source of many of the "lost interrupt" signals you see. And this
> happens with the Stampede distros as well. It is a HARDWARE
> problem. This distro is one of those that is pointing to it, and
> I would expect you will see disk drive manufacturers and other
> hardware manufacturers flock to the banner of compliance with
> standards to preserve their sales in the near future.
>
> But if for your needs you are satisfied with a 386-code linux,
> Caldera is the least likely to cause you complaint, even though
> they will fall well below your obviously high standards for
> answering issues and offering documentation.
>
> Civileme
> --
> experimentation involving more than 500 trials with an
> ordinary slice of bread and a tablespoon of peanut butter
> has determined that the probability a random toss will
> land sticky side down (SSD) is approximately .98
Hello Civileme,
I enjoyed your response to the above situation. Even us
"rookies" can grasp some of what you are saying. Your
reference to the hardware issues is well taken. It is my
hope to gain enough knowledge to understand more of what
you "experts" have to say. Thanks for taking the time to
explain some of the more advanced issues of Linux. I've
been windoze free for almost two weeks now, and I'm loving
my penguin more and more as time goes by!
Vern
