[cumbria_lug] Initial Red Hat 9 impressions...

[Schwuk]

Michael Saunders said:
> Lo all,
>
> Anyone else tried RH 9 then? What do you make of it? I installed it
> this afternoon (massively hung over from Ulverston's Carnival
> yesterday) and here are my rambling thoughts:
>
> # Text install defaults to runlevel 5, it seems. Bit crazy... Had to
> run "firstboot" by hand, but it wouldn't want to start in runlevel 3,
> so had to hand-edit the Python src.
>
> # Smart, clean little config tools. RH have done a solid job with
> these, and good to see the ncurses alternatives still around.
>
> # Slow bootup - should be easier for users to disable GPM, kudzu,
> xinetd etc. instead of delving into the runlevel service editor.
>
> # Every single RPM has been built with debug symbols enabled! Default
> flags: "optflags: i386 -O2 -g -march=i386 -mcpu=i686". Not only will
> that give a small but important performance hit and eat up more disk
> space, the GCC man pages state that it's daft to optimise AND debug
> because things won't turn out as expected. I mean, this is bizarre...
>
> # GNOME 2.2 is polished and slick, but unfortunately, the more I use
> of it, the more it seems poorly-executed. Can't disable the ugly
> minimise animation for Metacity; no wireframe mode (essential with
> networked X); main menu does not support alphabet-key navigation ala
> KDE, IceWM and even Windows since 95 (infinitely quicker than reaching
> for the mouse or jumping around with the cursor keys); taskbar is
> laughably bad (latest app window not always placed furthermost right);
> pager tooltips don't disappear when clicking; and a big, undocmented
> and unnecessary XML conf database.
>
> Looking at bug reports for many of the glaring errors, it appears that
> Havoc P won't add features (despite even requests by Sun!), because
> somehow he knows more than users about what they want. It's a bit
> worrying and sad to see in the free software community, but then
> again, if Red Hat and Sun have a big change in policy and go with KDE,
> GNOME is royally screwed. Shame, as there's a lot of cool stuff in
> there, but I'll stick with IceWM for now and recommend KDE to
> newcomers...
>
> Anyway, all things considered it has the usual RH spit-shine and
> usability, and seems reasonably robust from a few hours of playing
> around. Very sluggish though, and the limitations and flaws in the
> default desktop will not even impress WinXP refugees - someone trying
> to convert will find an equally slow, glitchy and restricted desktop.
> Software freedom doesn't matter to a lot of people, nor do they pay a
> great deal of attention to security, so the only incentive left is
> price. Aaaaaaarck.
>
> I'll stick with RH 7.3 for now and wait for Sarge to become Stable.
> It's just too much hassle to clear out all the cruft from RH 9 to get
> what I need, and though that's just my problem, looking around on
> newsgroups and forums shows a fair few people trying RH9 as their
> first Linux and being confronted by the problems listed above. Still,
> I respect RH as a company, and the work they do, and look forward to
> their Personal Desktop distro. RH 9 is clearly a "good" distro but
> doesn't always represent the svelte and rock-solid OS we like to
> advocate - their QA and quick security errata are superb though.
>
> Right, that's filled up a good 10 mins - this Lasagne should be ready.
>
> Mike
>
> --
> Michael Saunders
> www.aster.fsnet.co.uk
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Cumbria mailing list
> Cumbria@mailman.lug.org.uk
> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/cumbria
>


-- 
Schwuk