jdd wrote: > Richard Creighton wrote: > >> Balderdash! Are you saying that because he is experienced and that he >> has other distros or OS's on his system that he can't write an objective >> review > > he can't say "I don't recommand this for a beginner, because a > beginner won't have 4 linuxes on his machine. > jdd,
I just thought I'd enclose a direct E-Mail from the person that wrote the review. I think it explains or addresses the issues you raised fairly well. At least, I think it amplifies some of the points you questioned in some of your earlier posts. Quote: > Dear Richard, > you don't know me, but you've read my work at: > http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/opensuse10.3.review.html > > I've found your comments in this thread: > http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/SuSE/2007-11/msg02200.html > If those are not your comments, please forgive me; it's not easy to retrieve > the > proper email address... but please do let me know if I messed up! > > > Since the opensuse list mentions over 100 mails per day, I don't feel inclined > to subscribe, so I'll just mention the following to you directly, mostly > related > to the tangle of words in that thread with jdd, who jumps to conclusions > several > times, even though I thought my review was actually clear enough to the > contrary. Guess not. Neither he nor I am native English speakers though. So > this > kind of misunderstanding can happen. > > First: thanks for the positive feedback. I'm quite used to getting flamed > after > mentioning negative points, and it's more rare to get praise. > > Now on to the points I'd like to make: > > 1) the installation was definitely fully fresh. The subsection named > 'installation' mentions the word 'installation' about 10 times explicitly, and > nowhere is the word update or upgrade used in that section, and where used > elsewhere it's clear from the context that it's only related to software > packages for the openSUSE 10.3 > This explains why I was seriously delighted that openSUSE could actually pick > up > the users from my other systems, including passwords! and also the systems in > the bootloader. > If it were an upgrade, I would have expected no less. > BTW it seems the user data and boot info is taken from the partition on which > one installs (from the comments in the above thread), which held a Mandriva > 2007.0 installation before with LILO. > Colour me even more impressed that openSUSE can manage that! > > 2) the problems with booting and rebooting were to do with a faulty grub in > the > root partition, and with my ignorance about whether I should relaunch the > installation from dvd or start the half installed and unconfigured system. My > only point there was that I would have liked to have some more information > than > just "now it's time to reboot". > I do not blame the faulty grub in the root partition on SUSE, and I'm not sure > if this is repeatable, and or a problem with the partitioning of my drive. > Note that I intended to use chainloading from the GRUB in the MBR, which I > also > use to start 2 of the other systems - the GRUB in the mbr is the one from the > latest Mandriva 2008.0 installation. > > 3) the reason my other system is not mentioned is that from the 3 other > partitions, all are Mandriva: 64 and 32 bit 2007.1 and 64 bit 2008.0. I tried > and managed to keep the whole name Mandriva out of the text of the review. > It's > not a comparative review, it's a review that looks at things in their own > right. > The comparative review is still coming. > Otherwise, I have two swap partitions and a /home partition - which I didn't > use > in the openSUSE installation, it was truly and completely _fresh_ and > standalone. I count on wiping it. And yes, I do count on giving openSUSE 11 a > try in about 5 months. > > 4) sax2 clearly used settings for the i810 driver for the setup with the > default > intel graphics driver; I've found out this causes problems only with laptop > screens, and maybe only those of 1280x800 resolution - so quite a few less > systems than one could think when Intel GMA950 / 945GM is mentioned. > Essentially, the modeline of sax2 works with i810 and not with intel - where > it's actually perfectly fine (at least in my case) to omit any timing and > modelines. > > 5) the locking of the system is caused by issues with the TSST drive in my > system, with the older ata driver there's no problem, with the new libata > driver > there is this issue - also seen on gentoo, ubuntu and other systems. My > Mandriva > 2008.0 is fine since they stuck with the old driver, because they _knew_ the > new > one was problematic. My guess: they knew from: gentoo, ubuntu and openSUSE > 10.3... > > 6) by the way, the hardware I used and which I bought as 'Novell Certified' > is a > transtec branded MSI Megabook s262 Intel Core 2 Duo Intel GMA950/945GM 3945ABG > 12" laptop. The main points: Intel Core 2 Duo, gma950 and ipw3945 are > mentioned. > I didn't know that the drive was a TSST at all at that point - never cared to > check, only came upon this due to the replies in the discussion thread of my > article (on some suse forums at > http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index.php?showtopic=62988) > (My hardware info is on my site as well, forgot to link it from the opensuse > review page. Sorry.) > > 7) Interesting that a lot of assuming seems to be preferable to some to the > simple questions one could ask to get cleared up - either via that forum link > for discussion or via email - via the contact link on my site. > Such as: did you do a clean install, did you mess around with x, y, z, etc. > It's > not like I wouldn't answer those... > > 8) the one problem I 'caused' which can clearly be considered uncommon is the > installation in the root partition to be chainloaded from the grub in the mbr. > The following problem are, I believe, totally repeatable: > - intel driver not working with sax2 modelines - unusable graphics > - lockups, admittedly due to faulty firmware in TSST optical drives _BUT_ this > was never seen before because the problem only raises it's head with the new > libata driver > - video playback problems > - i586 package installed instead of a x86-64 package using the one-click > installer > > 9) I did have a look at filing a bug for the graphics problems, but I found > enough that were matches for my issues that I didn't. Same for the problem > with > the lockups and video playback. > > Feel free to post this if it's useful and appropriate, > > with kind regard, > Rob Teng a.k.a. aRTee > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
