On Thu, 20 Jul 2000, you wrote: > > Hey Sarang, > > Your not the only one disappointed in 7.1. Out of two computers in the house, > a laptop and a desktop, the laptop had no sound and the desktop just did not get > the X server running due to incompatability with a listed video card. Also out > of a number of other desktops at a linux group I go to weekly, a lot more > failures came from various installations and upgrades. > > Looking at 7.1 from the laptop, I ask the question, why did they not improve > what they already had in 7.0 and not start from scratch? > Where was menu editor? > Why did they not install a search engine for K-menu with the tree setup > they also installed, it took a minute or two to find something (ie.kpackage) if > you happen to forget where it is? (Compare this to 7.0) > Why get rid of Application, Device, etc. from desktop mouse right-click? > > Basically you would think with a newer version you could install on any prior > installable computer plus any new ones unknown to the prior version. But NO! not > with Mandrake 7.1 or is it (7.1(Beta)). No it should be called 7.1(Failure). > > Simon > It was not ridded unless you run as root. It was one of the differences integrated into root to encourage people to run (properly) as user. It does no good to design proof against viruses if people operate in an insecure manner. It also defeats security settings to run as root. The other possibility is your security level is too high. High and paranoid settings work best with headless servers. I get along on development systems and workstations with Medium or Low (behind firewalls, of course). The menu editor, you could have discovered by reading the new and rather excellent doc. It isn't ready yet, but the new menu structure is part of standardizing and is taken from Debian. And how to work with it is documented in several locations. One place is at the "Documentation" section on your machine. Another would be to search on "menu structure" in the cooker archives. Obviously Mandrakesoft needed to tell its packagers how to deal with the new menu. Well, now you can use Kpackage as a user by going through DrakConf which you could NOT in previous versions. Probably the need to logout and login as root just to load a package with a graphic tool encourages folks to operate as root. Have your linux group bring their problems here and let's work on them. Everyone said there is too little delta for a new distro release--wait for KOffice and KDE2. Looks like Mandrake called this one right--There was enough delta that people are having problems adapting. Everyone can learn from such an interaction, including the folks at Mandrake who can see what changes cause the most problems for people. Perhaps it is time for a fork into "Designed for specific hardware installs for desktops for newer users" and "Designed for people who buy bleeding edge hardware and hack on the configuration and know how to find manuals to read (and have the knowledge to understand the terms they use)" Civileme And I have had to hack on some installs... A NEC Powermate 2000 produced a cranky video for an i810 chipset and needed to be adjusted--video memory wasn't detected properly and the BIOS would not allow setting Video memory either. Anda Yamaha OPL3 ISA PnP sound card gave 7.1 fits. There is a new edition of Harddrake out which fixes this second one and REALLY improves sound installs, but cranky videos are still pretty common. In trying to adapt current servers for new chipsets, sometimes older ones are made more difficult. For example, in 7.0 most of the Trident drivers were accelerated except in 24 bit mode. Many of my Tridents would NOT work with 7.0 though they worked fine with 6.1, because they would not sync with my monitors in accelerated mode. I had to hack on XF86Config and take out unused modelines as well as set the "noaccel" Option in the Device Section. I had 9660s 9680s 9685s, 975 and 985 AGP types, and I was wondering why this was so tiresome until I used a CyberBlade which would NOT work in 6.1 with all the tweaking I could try, and it went in smoothly and could play 3D games. Of course it is frustrating when the configuration you have does not work out of the box, but this used to be a rule--30 minutes installing and 5 weeks hacking on the configuration. Now there a lot of folks joining who haven't yet learned those tricks. Bashing on the distro makers won't improve the situation, LEARNING and interaction will. You do not have to learn enough to fix bugs, only to find them, and you can perform a valuable service to yourselfd and the computing world. For those whose taste is "click it, it might work", there is always Microsoft. If someone is stuck there, I just hope he doesn't stumble across situations where one NIC will be recognized, and another NIC will be recognized but not both together, and any attempt at a manual install has a wizard popping up saying "NONO, I have to detect that for you" and he was trying a manual install because it didn't... Grrrrr. All that said, kudzu (RH) could use some major improvements--It knocks itself out losing the same hardware every boot (and I am booting more these days to pick up on boot errors). Civ
