On Wednesday 12 Nov 2003 7:33 am, Melissa Reese wrote: > > Questions: > > 1) Why would the PowerPack ship with so many things missing, while > the download site would have the more complete package? > > 2) Why was this issue not presented to those of us who decided to go > to the MandrakeStore and purchase our packages directly? > > 3) Is it really "fair", and indeed in keeping with the "Linux > philosophy" to charge those of us who did purchase the PowerPack > even more just to "complete" our installation packages? After all, > even if I join the "club" at the lowest rate, my final purchase > price will be more than if I had joined at the $120 USD "Silver" > membership rate without purchasing the PowerPack. In fact, it will > be just a few dollars less than if I had purchased the PowerPack > "subscription" package, with the next two version upgrades > included! > > As I said, I'm all for supporting Mandrake, but this "policy", if > that's what this is, seems a bit peculiar to me. > Calm down. The "download edition", and the "Powerpack edition" have always had a slightly different composition. The Powerpack include commercial packages not in the download edition such as modem and nvidia drivers.
However sometimes to make space for these there are sometimes useful packages left out of the Powerpack edition. But do not worry because **all** the non commercial packages are available on public servers already and your system can easily be configured to suck them down when it needs them. The only things not on public servers are the commercial packages (which you have) and 'iso images' which would enable people to create CDs of the download edition. For the next few weeks those 'iso images' are only available through Mandrake Club. This is a way to justify the Club membership by allowing Club members to burn iso's before the general public. As a purchasor of a Powerpack you have automatically become a complimentary member of Mandrake Club (is it 3 months?) so you could immediately start downloading and burning the download edition as much as you want. For the low cost of your Powerpack you have software that would cost many thousands of dollars in the Windows world. Believe me it is a bargain!! > And then there is this: > > http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/errata.php3 > > Apparently, in addition to the LG based CD ROM/CD-RW problem, there > are several other possible unhappy issues listed on that site that can > cause other problems during and after installation. Some of the issues > don't seem so minor. > > I'll be reading up and trying to understand all these issues more > thoroughly, and about the installation patches mentioned, but my > impending installation is making me a bit more nervous as the time > draws closer. > > A few more questions: > > 1) Are these sorts of problems just "the way it is" with this > product? Or is it just that this particular version release is > especially troublesome? Either way, I'm not feeling exactly > wonderful about all this. > > 2) Does any of this mean that my soon to arrive "PowerPack" is > expected to be kind of a "lemon" out of the box? > Yes there are bugs in Linux. Mandrake in particular is a "leading edge" distro. It has the latest and greatest of everything. In 9.2 one of the 'latest technologies' introduced was CD packet writing. (Yes I know Windows has had it for ages) The trouble is however. Whereas all hardware manufacturers pay Microsoft for the privilege of testing their hardware with the latest Windows, with Linux it is up to the community to validate hardware with the latest Linux. In this instance a very nasty firmware bug in LG CD-Roms was exposed by the packet writing software. It is entirely due to non compliance with ATAPI standards by LG. But that is no comfort to people whose drives got zapped :-( Mandrake are very good at finding these problems and fixing them. The update servers already have many updated packages. Just make sure after installing that you declare an update site and run Mandrake Update. > 3) As a total "newbie" getting ready to perform my first Linux > installation, should I be concerned enough about these various > issues that I should perhaps pay my local computer tech to come > over here and hold my hand as I go through this process? > It really is not that hard. Installing Linux is *easier* than installing Windows. At least you do not have to keep shuffling CDs and rebooting over and over again. Just make sure you do not have an LG-CDROM I hope like me you will completely 'gobsmacked' at just how good Linux is :-) > I don't want to sound like a whining Windows wimp, but I really want > to get this right, and at this point, I must say that I'm not feeling > quite as optimistic as I was just a few days ago. Any ideas and/or > encouragement would be greatly appreciated. > > Thanks! > > - -- > Melissa > > PGP public keys: > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]&Body=Please%20send%20keys > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > iD8DBQE/seItjVbXUvsE8ukRAsXaAJwNz9Tft3ZqxM7JcCD7WCspV47MiwCgvzxL > DwIE2p+jSVjB6Y8LqsyRnCo= > =LEYg > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Any Windows user who is aware enough to sign emails with a digital signature is clearly not the average dumb user. You will do fine :-) -- ---------------------------------- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org
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