[Gloucs] Mandrake 8.2 on a Dell Inspiron 8100

[Guy Edwards]

Hi Mike,

Mandrake 8.2 was released a fair while back and more than a little flaky
in parts, there are a lot of updates to apply for it.

Mandrake 9.0 is a lot lot better, I'm using it to type this.

Re the geforce:
---------------
I use a Nvidia GForce also and I can show you what to do at the next
meeting (which I haven't put on the website yet as I've been very busy)=20

It's actully fairly straight forward. All you have to do is download a
kernel module rpm, download an rpm next to it called GLX, install with

rpm -i packagename.rpm (close X first and do it at the command line)

and then change one line in the file /etc/XF86Config-4

from driver=3D"nv"
to
driver=3D"nvidia"



On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 18:41, overs.worldonline.co.uk wrote:
> This is a shame, because I am totally bowled over by the whole Linux thin=
g, stability, speed, almost infinite user choice, freedom from the Beast of=
 Redmond, etc, etc, but at the age of 59, I don't think I can hack the comm=
and line interface in Unix, I can only speak a little DOS, and not too well=
 either.

It's possible to get by without using it. You can set linux to boot
straight into it's graphical mode. most modern distributions have all
the system administration wizards you'd expect under X.

>  There are a number of other irritants that I can probably live with, but=
 I may as well mention that the CD Re-Writer/DVD combo produces a start up =
message "cannot find dev/dvd- no such device available", when I ask to shut=
down there is a message which first of all says " CDRom open failed, recove=
ry thread got woken up", then, "Unmount Floppy, illegal request".

sounds like a floppy got taken out without umounting it? I'm not sure,
just guessing.

> This means that I then have to shut down on the off switch, which produce=
s the start up message "Your system seems to have shut down un-cleanly etc,=
 etc". No damage is done, because I always remove any CD's manually, and th=
e machine doesn't have a floppy disk drive, and I imagine all the system ha=
s received the "term" signal anyway, but it's all rather untidy.  The Mandr=
ake control centre produces a blank screen when asked to identify the Hardw=
are configured, an error message appeared when I tried to configure the pri=
nter, the Ispell appears not be available in any word processor, and so it =
goes on.

To be fair you wouldn't even receive a word processing application when
you bought windows, (notepad and wordpad don't even compare) you'd have
to buy works, Office (or of course, download the free windows version of
openoffice) and spend extra.

> I know laptops are not the easiest of things to configure, once you stray=
 from the makers installation, but Mandrake 8.2 was touted as being very ab=
le at hardware detection, and very user friendly, that's why I chose it, bu=
t this brilliant operating system will never find it's way into the wider p=
ublic domain unless it can be installed with ease on a modern, well specifi=
ed machine by people like me, curious, slightly rebellious, but not too clu=
ed up on computers!

Linux as a desktop for new people is still a growing, developing thing,
and there have been big advances since Mandrake 8.2.

> Please restore my flagging enthusiasm by telling me that another distribu=
tion would be better (Mandrake 9,0?)

Mandrake 9.0 and Redhat 8.0 will be at the next install day on CD. I
don't know what the others in the group might charge you but you can
swap me a blank cd each or =A31 per CD to cover costs.

Mandrake 9.0 is 3 CD's and Redhat 8.0 is 5 cd's

I'd recommend Mandrake.

Guy


>  extra Lion instead.

Lion support is upgraded in Mandrake 9.0 as is giraffe and zebra
control.