This is a message I posted on our local Linux bb earler today. Frank
> Hi All: > > The title of this message was Linux distributions. Based on that and my > current feelings I could not resist in responding. > > Last Wednesday at the Tampa meeting one of the strong grues help me with > installing linux on my laptop. I did not want to loose the Windows setup > and wanted this as a dual boot machine. my fear of the then current set > up. More on this latter. As I am poor with names and very good with > electrical drawings I can not name the person but I do wish to express my > sincere thanks for the help I received in learning to split a hard drive. > > Anyway back to the Linux techie evaluation. > But! Before I continue there are a number of people who are going to > violently disagree this of this evaluation of RH, SuSE, and Mandrake. > Sorry folks this is my evaluation and my opinion. If you have a different > one that is your right but this is my evaluation. > > The first distribution that was installed was Mandrake 8.2. Now, Mandrake > Professional is very fine distribution. I had tried it on my desktop test > CD and found it to be advanced version to the older RH 7.3 but as you > should have guessed by now there were a few problems. One of which is the > disk installs and runs fine but it sure messes up the Windows boot loader. > Well maybe it does; not sure here as I only installed it 5 times. The > results were I could get Windows to boot or Mandrake to boot but not both. > There could be a way to make this work; not sure but if there is it is not > immediate obvious. > > Anyway I had a copy of SuSE 8.1 Personal. Now SuSE always install perfectly > and almost everything always does seem to work. It is the parts that does > not work that bother me. First, I have no idea of how to make a win modem > work in SuSE. Yes, I know there are several organizations devoted to > winmodems and drivers are which readely available but SuSE for all its > other glories and leading edge programs apparently does not include those > with the > distribution. I find this strange as they have the IBM drivers for laptops. > The computer I am installing this on is a laptop. Nor does SuSE provide a > means to configure a scanner. I have a small scanner catridge that fits > into a Cannon portable BJC-85 printer. To me though the major problem with > SuSE is that I just don't trust them and this goes back to the 5.3 days > when I spent 6 months trying to install a modem under SuSE finally > switching to RH and accomplishing the configuration in 15 minutes. Every > time I would configure SuSe they had some program that would immediately > change my configuration back to their settings which brings me back to Win > modems.. > > Then there is the RH 8.0 distribution that I originally purchased to > installed on the laptop which has some sort of weird new interface known > only to RH. I won't express any more of my negative feelings toward this > distribution on this list. I have pretty well been drained on that score on > sever other lists but suffice it to say my best comment on this was that > "RH did a hatchet job on Gnome combined with complete distruction of KDE". > Major point here is that I feel violated for purchasing such trash. > > There are several points to this rambling with all three of these > distributions playing a far distant second fiddle to RH 7.2 and Mandrake of > the same ventage. I recall I tried one of Paul's free Mandrake > distributions and liked it as well as RH 7.2 but not having a full box set > I stayed with RH. Some are going to question the RH 7.2 over RH 7.3 but > realize here that I am not speaking of the individual programs but the > distribution and its stability. The programs can be upgraded by download. > RH 7.3 is far too unstable for me. For one thing modem connections freeze > up for no apparent reason. Kppp was stable in RH 7.2 but it is not in RH > 7.3. This should have been a tip off to the problems with RH 8.0 and KDE > since I use Kppp for the modem. > > As for attempting to install linux on the laptop. I quite well. I have > color visual screen which to most people would look quite acceptable but > here another problem enters I am color blind - nothing severe - I just can > not tell the difference in paster brown, pastel green, and pastel gray. > Well you can imagine what colors the screen of all three of the latest (RH, > SuSE, and Mandrake) screen appears in. To me it looks like shit when I am > being polite. I can not speak for SuSE but this problem did not exist in > the older RH or Mandrake. > > If the screen was all of my discust with these three then the problem would > be one thing but that in reality only masks the real problems. I can not > find Kppp. nor usermount, not midnight commander just to name a few minor > things that have been left out. The distributions have been gutted of many > highly relevant programs. Folks they just are not there. > > As far as I am concerned the only folks that would appreciate RH 8.0, SuSE > 8.1, and Mandrake 8.2 are folks who think that MS Windows XP is the > greatest thing since man has invented. These distributions have been dumbed > down, stupified, and ioditic to such an extent that I sincerely hope that > there is no one on this list with the exception of the newest of newbies > who would appreciate them. > > The problem is that I find this sad as I know that I am not currently up to > Debian but that is beginning to look like the only distribution that has > not been complified idiotified. > > As far as my current laptop the situation is exactly what one of my old > professor friends at USF ask me when I was demonstrating my dual boot > Windows / Linus laptop to him. What does Linux here (on the laptop) bring > to the picture besides a lot of un-necessary problems? > > Frankly I have no answer to this question as I am highly considering taking > that trash off my laptop. > > Boy, if only I could figure out how to put RH 7.2 on it. > > Frank - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
