Hi list,
After a recent partition table oops, I had to reinstall my entire HD
:-(. I chose mandrake, partly to see what all the fuss is about, and
mostly because my previous distro (debian) didn't carry KDE 3 in any
conceivably convinent manner. Follows is my impressions from the
distribution, followed by a couple of questions. I installed Mandrake 9
from the 3 CDs.
I was VERY impressed with the install process. I chose "Advanced" mode
installation, but the bottom line is that everything was autodetected
(except for the fact that my mouse has a wheel, for some strange
reason). This even includes a USB HP scanner! Very impressive. The only
problem I found was that sane integration with GIMP was only installed
after I clicked on the "Scanner" configuration icon for the first time.
Since it installed both packages seperately, I don't really understand
why that wouldn't install the integrating package, but so be it.
I never got a chance to see whether it detected and auto-installed SCSI
emulation for my CD-R, as it is an ancient SCSI device, and does not
require SCSI emulation. It did detect both CD-R and DVD, though. I was
slightly missing a player capable of playing DVDs out of the box, but
such are life.
The switch back to the RPM system is a bit traumatic for me. I MISS
APT-GET!!!!! I managed to find a tool that will let me install a package
by name if it's on the Mandrake CDs, and that's fine as far as it gets.
The only tool, so far, I needed that did not come on the Mandrake CD is
something called "CVSUP". I was mightly suprised to find it didn't have
any form of binary package on the web site or elsewhere. It was only
distributable as binary FILES, or as source (MODULA-2, yuch). This only
causes me to apretiate Debian that much more, as the process there
involved a simple "apt-get install cvsup". I had to install Mandrake to
apretiate just how much work the Debian team put into their supplied
packages.
I also didn't like the fact that it turned on autologin. Maybe it's
becase I only defined one user during install. In any case, the install
didn't ask me about doing so, and I had to look quite a bit in order to
turn that off. That's no way to behave. At least it wasn't a root
autologin, like some other distributions do.
Conclusions - Mandrake is a very nice package. Ease of use and ease of
installation are amazing, compared to any standard you may wish to
provide. This is defenitely going to be my distribution of choice for
novice Linux users.
On the down side, it is not exactly not my cup of tea. As an advanced
user, some of the things there a slightly annoying. It configured a FW
with three options "standard", "server", and "ultra secure". From the
help, it would appear that "Ultra secure" means the machine is
unworkable. I would rather have a more detailed explanation of what each
of these modes mean. As I have said before, I miss apt. I know I can
install apt over Mandrake, but the real power in Debian is not apt
itself, but the packages available through it.
In short - while I won't be reformatting intentionally anytime soon (the
same Debian installation lasted on my computer for several months, and
was only installed because of a new computer), I don't think I will
install Mandrake the next time around. Debian, with all it's
disatvantages, is still my distribution of choice for Linux savy users.
Now, the questions:
1. KDE 3 supports Hebrew. In KDE 2, however, I had the choice of
defining the codepage to support Hebrew, while the user interface was
english. I cannot seem to locate that option any more. It seems that the
only way I'll be able to get Hebrew characters is if the user interface
is Hebrew as well. Is that really the case? Am I missing something?
2. The package maintaner software for Mandrake has an option of using an
external site for updates. Is there a repository that contains the CD
files as well (in case I don't want to CDs handy, and I have a fast
internet connection)? Is there a place where I can find extra packages
not shipped on the CDs?
Thanks,
Shachar
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