[sclug] Desktop distro recommendations

[Tony Sumner]

On Mon, Apr 05, 2004 at 12:29:31AM +0100, Patrick Kirk wrote:

> Now I know I could start wading through logs looking for clues but
> this is 2004, I did 2/3 of that in the 90s and hated doing it then
> and I'm too old to go through all that again.

It's time someone said these things.

> Can anyone recommend a desktop distro 

Not really. My RH8.0 has a driver nv that runs the Nvidia card though
the Nvidia driver is recommended.

> just loads its sound system without asking me any questions. 

Quite. RH8.0 runs sound (A-bit mobo, on-board sound) in the sense that
I can play jazz CDs but I failed to get RealPlayer running; it says
stupid things like 'AC97 Codec locked at 48kHz' which is not true
since Media Player runs under WinME. So if I want to listen to a radio
programme I have to shutdown and power up Windows which is a nuisance
as well as morally repugnant.

> I hate the whole idea of understanding how sound works.  It should
> just work.

Quite. If you try to get help on sound from Google you are deluged
with impenetrable jargon, ugh. What is a codec for pete's sake [OK,
it's a coder/decoder but I don't want .mpeg; for radio I want .ram.
So it goes]

> 3. Sees a USB mouse during installation and installs it

I don't know if RH installs with a USB mouse. I had a serial mouse and
when I bought a USB mouse I had to go into KDE, alter the mouse
setting (so I had two mousen) then remove the serial mouse. Odd.
[Mm, does the 'detecting new hardware' phase detect USB gear?]

Good luck in your search. 

Tony Sumner