--- Warly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mandrake Linux is based on a fixed date releasing > due to market > constraints (distributor/supplier schedules). As a > consequence the > release date was scheduled 3 months ago. On this > date we have a > very little margin of 2 or 3 days, but not more. > > So the datum is: "release date is March the 15th". > > Now we need to do it in this timeframe (and we are > the 17th), and > we have no other choice. > My probem is not as much the release of software that is not polished, as much as the fact that it never gets there after release either. If work continued on 8.2, squashing bugs, fixing annoyances, until it truly does reach stable... then by the time 8.3 came around (or 9.0), administrators could feel comfortable installing 8.2. Unfortunately, I keep getting drawn to cooker because it often runs more stable that the released version. It keeps going from broken to fixed a lot.... but at least there is always hope there.... I have had to abandon 8.1 several times in the past in favor of cooker because I found the annoyances and bugs in 8.1 a bit too much to take. > In a few days 8.2 updates will be released, and them > you will have > the real stable and polished distro you want. > As a laptop user, I am still a bit frustrated over the kernel. The last kernel that I could use where I could use the features of the laptop (such as suspend/resume) was 2.4.17-16mdk. On that one, if I disabled APIC and rebuilt the kernel, everything worked just fine. It still is that way. Our office has been migrating to the Dell laptops, and since we are using Windows terminal server, the potential is there for us to migrate away from windows desktop os. But, unfortunately, I can't. It is very frustrating since there are so many things that I like that Mandrake does, that is why I have been working so hard at trying to catch and report bugs. There are other annoyances and bugs that are also quite major, such as draksync copying over a newer local file with an older remote file when syning using "copy most recent files". Can you imagine the chaos that bug can create in the enterprise? You have worked all night on a file on your laptop it and you draksync it with your office, only to find out all of your work is gone? Not a good thing.
I know management gives a hard date, and I understand the need for deadlines so that projects can reach conclusions, however most people who might become curious about Mandrake through an article, that downloads and installs, will quickly lose interest if the amount of bugs and annoyances out of the box reach past a certain level. I recently had this problem with a co-administrator who is a big Microsoft proponent. Because of the Microsoft licensing issues, he got enthusiastic about Linux and tried to install it. He tried SUSE and Mandrake, 8.1 and cooker... and he gave up on it since he could not get even the basics working properly. Those being a graphic interface (he had an nvidia card on his Dell Inspiron 8100), suspend/resume and other things he expected to work out of the box. Even though he had me available as a resource and I could have fixed most of his problems, he chose to try it himself, quickly became disillusioned, and now it is sooo much harder to get him to try again. I feel there is a window of opportunity out there right now, but windows do close. I feel Mandrake is the closest distro out there that I can recommend on the desktop, but yet I don't feel comfortable recommending it yet. ===== SI Reasoning [EMAIL PROTECTED] A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive. -FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage http://sports.yahoo.com/
