On Wed, 16 Jul 2003, paul mccarthy wrote: > I do not understand what part of the message you consider a "useless rant" > or why you say that I am not being sufficiently "polite".
Calling software "a booby-trap" isn't quite a compliment ... and the rest of the text contributes nothing in terms of addressing the problem, and doesn't constitute a favourable perception of your complaint (ie it's in your interest to have it removed from furrther discussion, unless I cut a technical detail of interest). > I have always > considered the Mandrake packaging of Linux to be the best available and the > installation script especially helpful. I have also noticed that Mandrake > keeps changing the install script, probably in an attempt to make the > installation even smoother and easier. > Indeed, one of those steps was to remove the expert/normal mode dialog, since user using expert mode should be able to find expert mode, and likely many newbies used expert mode and then complained about complex installation. I think there are some issues with the current setup (such as no-one ever sees advanced authentication options, which aren't available after installation), but you may want to consider posing your question after in a less critical manner ... > I was always able to install previous versions of Mandrake Linux without > difficulties. I am merely reporting what I consider to be an unhelpful > change in the script. My suggestions are: > > 1. The expert install should be an option in the script rather than a > command line parameter, as it was before. > I suspect there are good reasons for the change. Maybe a better solution is to have help text at the bottom of the screen telling you where expert mode is? > 2. Options like which partition to install the bootloader on, and whether > or not to create a boot floppy, should be clearly visible on the screen > rather than something one has to scroll off the screen to find, or click an > advanced tab. Probably 80% of users won't need this, and of those, probably 60% would make the wrong choice if forced (ie install bootloader on floppy instead of in mbr or something). > > I did not know about the various technical ways to fix the problem once it > had occurred. Did you even try the rescue mode as suggested in the INSTALL.txt? > I just reinstalled windows xp (I had pressing work that had > to get done) and basically lost the registry settings. I still don't know > why I could not fix things based on what I knew. I was able to get back > into linux and tried pointing the bootstrap at the right partition, but it > did not boot back into the windows partition. You should always carefully consider reinstalling windows, it shouldn't be necessary for something like this, and if you do decide to, you should try and extract some information beforehand. Regards, Buchan -- |----------------Registered Linux User #182071-----------------| Buchan Milne Mechanical Engineer, Network Manager Cellphone * Work +27 82 472 2231 * +27 21 8828820x121 Stellenbosch Automotive Engineering http://www.cae.co.za GPG Key http://ranger.dnsalias.com/bgmilne.asc 1024D/60D204A7 2919 E232 5610 A038 87B1 72D6 AC92 BA50 60D2 04A7 ****************************************************************** Please click on http://www.cae.co.za/disclaimer.htm to read our e-mail disclaimer or send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a copy. ******************************************************************
