[cumbria_lug] Mandrake 9.2

[Mark Andrews]

I've been running MDK 9.2 since Thursday on my laptop, apart from 3
hardware issues that are still outstanding (Please help SCHWUK ;-) it is
an awesome distro. I am obviously a bit of a newbie but things are
progressing well.

I will write a better review later. Got a bit of reading on Samba to do
for 2morrow.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: cumbria-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk
[mailto:cumbria-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Michael
Saunders
Sent: 04 November 2003 22:06
To: Cumbria LUG
Subject: Re: [cumbria_lug] Mandrake 9.2

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Mat Brunt wrote:

> Has anyone tried out Mandrake 9.2 yet?

Not given it a run just yet, but will do soon. Worring number of
slip-ups and nightmares in this release -- the CD drive problem, while
clearly LG's fault, could have been avoided if MandrakeSoft stuck to
known, proven and stable kernels rather than using the latest untested
code. Similarly, the 150+ megs of bugfix updates already suggest that
their QA dept. (if it exists) needs to work much harder.

Other reports around the Net describe major bugs and glitches; one
user found the installer wiping his /home partition even when he
explicitly told it not to do so.

This wouldn't be such a problem, but right now we have a huge, gaping
gap for an easy-going all-round distro for newcomers and intermediate
users. Fedora is as yet unproven (and the security fix policy of
jumping to newer releases could be a disaster), and it's evidently
aimed more at developers than end-users. SUSE has been strong in
retail with a well-rounded distro, but it's not the kinda thing you
can burn and pass to a friend. Additionally, after being swallowed up
by Novell who knows what's going to happen...

Mandrake, as said, is too bug-ridden and bleeding edge to recommend as
an excellent first-time Linux experience. So that leaves us with Red
Hat 9, due to be end-of-lifed in April. Debian and Slack, top-notch as
they are, aren't an option here.

What does everyone reckon? When a Linux newcomer asks what's the best
to try, what do you suggest? And if that's Red Hat 9, what will you
recommend when it's unsupported?

Personally, I'm waiting on http://www.arklinux.com/index2.php

Mike

-- 
Michael Saunders
www.aster.fsnet.co.uk



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