Before I get into specifics of a number of the items you bring up. You should realize that this is a port of the x86 Mandrake not an entirely different PPC distribution. As a result only changes from x86 that are absolutely necessary are made.
On Sun, Apr 07, 2002 at 11:31:43AM -0700, Justin Christopher wrote: > Modem on the iBook2/500 does not work. This is fixable > by tweaking the PPP modem timeout values. These values > are known, but this fix has not been applied to the > installer. Thus, even though the fix is known, the > installer still puts in PPP values that will not work. > Sleeping an iBook2 by closing the lid or using the > 'snooze' command does not work. When you awaken the > computer, it does not accept keyboard or mouse input. > Colin Ward has the same problem so it's not just me. Yes and it's a little too late to change the installer now. 8.2/ppc tracks with the 8.2/x86 installer. 8.2/x86 is done. No more changes to the 8.2/SRPMS can really be done. If Stew does change anything from the x86 SRPMS he has to do a dot release and hang on to the SRPMS since they won't show on the mirrors so that security updates are possible to do in the future. This once again has to do with the fact that PPC does not have a separate source base. > By default the CDROM drive cannot be opened by right > clicking (no permissions), nor by clicking the > keyboard eject key. I bet 90% of people who complete > the install process can't figure out how to put > another cd in to install more packages without a trip > to google. Frankly, in a modern GUI I don't feel I > should have to open a terminal and type "cd mnt/cdrom, > eject" to open a cd rom drive! I have no idea what you mean by right clicking to open the CDROM drive. Not all Macs have that keyboard eject key. And the ikeyd supposedly is only for iBook 2001's. So no PPC distribution can support keyboard ejects by default for everyone. > There is a known problem with selecting "do you want > to start the connection at boot" in the installer. > This is a huge bug, and you blew me off by saying "I'm > not familiar with this" despite the fact that I > provided you with an outline of steps to reproduce the > problem. > > If the user says "yes" to "Do you want to start this > connection at boot?" a line shows up in the boot > process called "checking for internet connections to > start at boot". This line appears after "getting IP > info for eth0" and "getting IP info for eth1". If > getting IPs fails, the boot process will hang on the > "checking for internet connections to start at boot" > line forever. I always say yes to that option and I've never had the hang. So there's more to it than what you've given. So in short no you haven't given us reproduction instructions because the problem hasn't been reproduced to my knowledge. > Gnome is so unstable I would not call it usable. I do > not experience this problem on x86, so something else > is wrong. Unstable how? What are you doing when it crashes? straces? logs? What? > It's my opinion that a PPC-specific distribution > should offer to configure an Apple Airport card during > the install. They are all the same, there is only one > driver - there should be a prompt for network name, > encryption key, password, and whatever else is needed > to connect. This is another PPC specific change to the installer that is just too late to make. Perhaps in the next version when x86 has better support for 802.11 cards in the first place this should be easy to implement. > In the installer, why should the user have to choose > between OHCI and UHCI USB interfaces? I only know I > have USB, I don't even know what those are? At this > point in the installer, you have already autodetected > my USB mouse, so shouldn't the installer know what to > load? The installer says to me "Hey I see you have this, do you have another USB controller?" Seems to be it already knows what I have. > Finally, I still feel strongly that DHCP should be > able to retrieve IPs from an Apple Airport base > station after the default install (especially on a > Mac-specific distribution) although I understand your > position about not worrying too much about a specific > piece of hardware. If it's not working with an Apple Airport then it's a problem with the Airport base station not with the DHCP clients in the distribution. The Airport Base Stations have been plauged by software bugs and hardware failures from day one. A friend of mine has had Apple replace his twice due to hardware failures, with the tech admitting that this is common. Stew isn't a DHCP expert. He produces a distribution. And without an Airport himself it's difficult for him to diagnose your problem. So unless you: a) Diagnose the problem and produce a patch or b) Provide Stew the hardware to do that for you. your problem probably won't get fixed. > When I installed RedHat 7.2 on a Dell Inspiron, > everything worked flawlessly with no post-install > tweaking. I would like to see PPC reach that level > (especially since there are only a couple hardware > types to support, it would seem to be possible). But > it is not there yet. You're dreaming. There are tons more users for x86 and RedHat let alone Dell Inspiron users. The PPC user base is pretty small. Add to that that Apple has a habit of using proprietary hardware and architectures (Can we say PMU or how about the software modems in the new Titanium's) that they don't like releasing details on. As long as Apple continues to do that and as long as there aren't a ton of developers out their reverse engineering things like there are on x86. There will always be things that don't work on PPC. -- Ben Reser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://ben.reser.org What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? - Ghandi
