Jeez, what's with all this heavy artillery. I didn't say it was junk. I 
offered the installer wasn't well written.
You came at me with guns a'blazin,  Ric!
I've been in this business a long time, and I don't appreciate judgemental 
crap about "lame" options, not R'ing TFM, etc.

>I actually do have a great deal of patience. I spend a lot of time helping 
>folks, who demonstrate a desire to help themselves, and are trying to learn.

I know you do. We all appreciate that. But don't be uncivil. Offering a 
less-than-shining opinion about a piece of code does not warrant personal 
attacks.

>  Yes, Linux is an advanced operating system. It does require spending 
> some time learning it. No experienced Linux user, or admin would say 
> differently.

And neither would I. We all have to start somewhere, and unfortunately the 
installer is that "somewhere".

>  To get the most out of Linux, and this list, spend some time educating 
> yourself before proclaiming Mandrake to be junk because it won't install 
> right, when the install error was yours.
> >

Nobody's proclaiming any such thing. If you'd stop being so blasted 
defensive on everyone else's behalf we'd get something done.

The problem was this:
I DID use the expert mode. I had created partitions using System Commander 
before starting the Mandrake install. After some minor adjustments in the 
installer I wrote the partition table and continued with the install. At 
some point I realized the installer was taking me somewhere I didn't want 
to go, but the cancel button wouldn't work, and I couldn't identify a 
backout strategy from the buttons on the dialog.

Civelene's comment about expectations was probably right on the mark :-

 > At the moment we are having more bad results from veteran installers than
 > 12-year-olds who have never seen an installer before. So we are learning
 > that there is a definite expectation induced by prior experience that may
 > distort perceptions of users into assuming they see things they do not.

Thank you, Civilene. I think you've got it in a nutshell.

Let's all get back to helping each other out and not defending Linux - it 
doesn't need it.

Julian.


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Reply via email to