[snip]Been using Redhat for years (still have my 5.0 installation CD's and diskette from Redhat (am on 9.0 currently)).
My major wants/needs are:
Support for my dual-head ATI card
Gnome out-of-the-box (preferred)
Some degree of mutli-media support ("stereophonic beeps" are usually
sufficient for me)
Ability to function well as a server for Mysql/perl/cgi type stuff
Any suggestions/ideas/comments/thoughts/flames welcome...
Check out Mandrake then. It's RedHat for people who like ease of use coupled with their functionality. Mandrake9.2 was described in a review as "Easier to install than Windows" - and it was directed to the average computer user rather than typical geeks.
Gnome has always worked out of the box if I install it and the worst I've ever had to do to get stereo sound was choose an alternate sound card module and un-mute the mixer. I'm not 100% sure if the GUI will configure dual-head cards but I know it's got similar CLI support to RedHat.
Mandrake has a wonderful configuration utility called DrakConf which is easy to figure out and completely GUI-fied. It includes X configuration, hardware detection/configuration, the most common sysadmin functions, and optionally, wizards to get you set up as a web/mail/DNS/NTP server.
I'm actually using it now with Enlightenment, Mozilla, Gaim, xmms, and Eterm. MySQL/Apacche/perl run beautifully from the RPM install, and Mandrake also has urpmi, the unattended RPM installer where you indicate the "what provides" you want and it gives you a choice if there are more than one and also does a level of required packages searching and prompts if you want to install those. It's also got a GUI that can be called from DrakConf...
I've been using Mandrake since I weaned myself away from SuSE a few years ago and I love it. I've also just discovered http://plf.zarb.org
The Penguin Liberation Front is an archive of all the packages that aren't included in Mandrake because of copyright or export restrictions...
(The other) Brian _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
