[ltp] Distributions

[Harry Mangalam]

Hi all,

Continuing my collection of data points, I can report that the LibraNet 2.7 (a 
Debian distro) installed very well on yet another Thinkpad - an A22p with the 
builtin Intel EtherExpress 10/100 as well as a PCMCIA Xircom 10/100/Modem card 
and a DLink 650 Wireless card.  Since I'm not a gamer, I haven't tested any 3D 
apps to see if the X11 driver supports 3D operations well, altho I have to use 
OpenDX, so I'll be finding out about OpenGL support later today..  I did note 
that the KDE OpenGL screensavers did not work.

It detected the video chipset correctly (tho I had to select the 1600x1200 
screen manually), the sound configured completely automatically (and this is the 
1st time I've had the artsd from KDE (v3.03) co-exist compatibly with the sound 
requirements for xmms, and kscd).  Also, it configured the Xircom and the 
wireless card to share the IP address (as I like, so I can pull the wired one, 
stick in the wireless and carry the lappie off to the couch without interrupting 
the 17 remote sessions I usually have going).

It allowed me to stick in the compact flash card from my digital camera (tho I 
had to look at dmesg output to figure out what device it was) and better yet, 
unlike Mandrake 8.2, it allows me to pull it after a umount without freezing 
(under M8.2, I had to go thru a manual rmmod to be able to pull the card without 
locking the system).

I also set up vmware 3.0 on it (altho it required a compilation (but not 
installation) of the matching kernel to allow vmware to match its kernel 
modules), which went with no problems.

It also detected and set up the multi-boot for the original win2k partition and 
it allows mounting of that partition automatically with a simple fstab entry. 
It also allows for mounting it during the install process I think, but I didn't 
test that approach.

Downsides:
- The default KDE installation does not autoamtically allow syncing of Kpilot 
with my USB visor (altho all teh modules load and with some manual symlinking 
and chmoding of /dev/pilot), I can get Kpilot to at least recognize my Visor 
(altho not a completely hotsync set...)
- The USB connection to the camera (Nikon 990) was also not set up so that it 
worked automatically.  dmesg reported the connection and /proc reported that the 
camera (identified correctly) was a device, but unclaimed.
- I didn't test it this time, but previously the LibraNet installer had some 
hiccups with installing any file system except reiserfs.  This may have been due 
to an early problem I had with a dusty CD burner tho..

I haven't yet tried M9.0 on the thinkpad, but I've ordered a disk to try it out 
on.  Will report when this is done.

Again, the huge advantage of a Debian system is the ease of installing and 
upgrading.

I found that the Mandrake 8.2 system installed well on the a22p and supported 
most of the hardware (except the wireless card and sound) but was a bear to 
install software with all the cascading dependencies and once I upgraded the 
Perl subsystem (granted, not via Mandrake's updater, since I needed some 
specific, non-standard options), most of the Mandrake tools broke and I was stuck.

Just my 2 bits.

harry



Frank Roberts - SOTL wrote:
> Hi All, and especially Pam, Tod and Richard who have given me such great 
> advice.
> 
> Because several comments have been made concerning my running Mandrake 8.2 and 
> not Mandrake 9.0 I am going to stick my neck way way out and describe my 
> experience with distributions.
> 
> Note please folks these are my experiences my reasoning - not yours - so lets 
> not have a war over this. If fact most like I will not even answer a posting 
> consering this. But I say this biting tong in cheek some of these experiences 
> could help some of the more experienced and more knowledgable programmers in 
> the realm of seeing what the current situation is like from the point of a 
> long term low level armature.
> 
> Here in West Central Florida the 5 top distributions in order are: Red Hat 
> (RH), Mandrake (MD), SuSE, Debian, and Gentoo 
> (http://www.gentoo.org/index.xml).
> 
> The first distribution we ( actually the computer club) on my old computer was 
> SuSE 6.0. I found that I did not understand the configuration, could not edit 
> the configuration files, and could not get it to connect to my ISP and that 
> no amount of help (either SuSE or the computer club) could solve my ISP 
> problems. Now SuSE may be a very fine distribution if you can do things their 
> way but if you must configure your computer with a nonstandard very odd ball 
> configuration do to the applications that you are executing then it is very 
> confining. Thus for this reason I rank it a very poor 5 as for as engineering 
> (electrical power systems) usage. 
> 
> In disgust I switched to RH 6.0. After installation I was on line 20 minutes 
> after my first discussion with RH support. My old ISP was blocking non 
> Windows systems. I changed ISP; problem solved.
> 
> A year or two later I built a box and I installed RH 7.0, 7.1, 7.3, and then 
> 8.0 personal. Bluntly, I do not like 8.0; infact to put it mildly I rank RH 
> 8.0 (not RH 7.X) way below SuSE. The problems are astronomical and I do mean 
> problems and by problems I mean things that do not function correctly (as per 
> Linux standards). That was on my desktop. Three months ago for business 
> reasons I purchased an A20P Thinkpad to which I first attempted to install RH 
> 8.0. 
> 
> But before describing the RH 8.0 installation experience their came the 
> partition issue. For a number of reasons all comming down to the basic issue 
> that if it ain't MS Windows "electrical power equipment supply companies" 
> will not supply programs that are required for me to condust business I need 
> a dual boot box. I also need the data to be secure form my computer screw 
> ups. All this means that I decided that the best approach would to split the 
> HD into three sectors:MS Windows, Common Data, and Linux. To do this split I 
> purchased Partition Magic 7.0. Here became a major issue PM 7.0 did not for 
> me work correctly with Linux partitions. The final results being that I 
> partitioned the MS Windows side with PM 7.0 and the Linux side with which 
> ever Linux distribution I was attempting to install while the Common_Data 
> partition was up for grabs. 
> 
> Without going through a two week trial and error experience the issue with 
> Common_Data became "The Issue". First I set for fat32 but RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.2 
> refused to acknowledge it existence. Then I tried fat but could not get it to 
> go over 2032 MB. Then being discussed with RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.2 I bought 
> Mandrake 8.2. More on the RH and SuSE issue in a moment. Anyway back to 
> partitioning I installed the Mandrake 8.2 my partition problems as far as my 
> operating system went away (doing expert installation). But! Now after 
> installing Mandrake and adjusting my partitions RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.2 will not 
> acknowledge the existing partition structure. The machine does is and is 
> quite happy but RH and SuSE do not. That becomes latter.
> 
> Back to the installations. Well being a loyal RH addict I tried RH 8.0 on the 
> new box. Think was that it would be easy to correct the RH setup. Not so but 
> that was the thinking. Well first I could not get it to install. Now I have 
> done over a hundred RH installation generally I must admit because I screw 
> something up, haven't the fainest idea of how to fix it, and solve the 
> problem by reinstalling the system. Point is I had gotten good at it. I could 
> do an installation, take a shower, eat, and conclude it as fast as the CD 
> would read the data and install it. 
> 
> Then I hit RH 8.0 on the Thinkpad. First I couldn't get it to work - and I 
> mean basically work as a GUI installation. Here I mean the system after the 
> installation not the installation process. Solve this by installing for 
> command line (user level 3) not 5 (GUI). Started X and had GUI but what a 
> shitty screen. Two points "Bluecurve" and the level of screen flicker 
> rendered the screen unusable at times. Not all times but at times. Decided to 
> try to install XF86 from SuSE which had a perfect screen in 2D. Problem 
> appeared to be solved but not sure. Then I tried to switch to GUI start up 
> direct with out going through command line. System would start and 
> immediately crash. Solved that by removal of "Bluecurve Login" and using "KDE 
> Login GUI". Then I tried to initiate KDE. That is when I finally gave up and 
> went off to the old computer store. Note the sequence as described here is a 
> wee bit more complex but this is close.
> 
> Well at the old computer store I had a choice of SuSE 8.2 or Mandrake 8.2. Now 
> knowing that Mandrake 9.0 was out and knowing that Mandrake was similar to RH 
> I chose SuSE. Bad choice for my usage. Installation went perfectly. Programs 
> ran perfect. But! I ran head up against my old configuration problem. I could 
> not get my strange configuration to stay on the SuSE system. I would change 
> the configuration only to find upon reboot that the system restore had 
> reconfigured the box again. Having no desires I wrote my $40 off as a lesson 
> in what not to do and went and got the Mandrake 8.2 even though I had rather 
> have had the Mandrake 9.0.
> 
> Now purchasing Mandrake 9.0 I put in the same category as attempting to buy 
> cheap CD from some of the cheap CD places. Here maybe I am showing my bull 
> headiness, stupidity, or maybe my knowledge of people but I never like to buy 
> things from people I don't see. I just find it hard to do business that way. 
> This means I don't like doing business where I have to call a company unless 
> I personally know the person on the other end of the phone when I have the 
> company's address and phone number. As far as sending my credit card number 
> to a company with the hope that they will send me the product well not me 
> folks. This becomes relevant in "I don't know how to order Mandrake with out 
> doing this." Point is with no local supplier it was Mandrake 8.2.
> 
> Back to installation now with Mandrake. I installed MD 8.2 and immediately 
> noted that it installed provided I chose 2D graphics and the "high intensity" 
> driver for XF86config as chosen by MD 8.2 and 1020 x 780 resolution. No 
> problems. Several minor issues. The screen flickers a little. So I decided to 
> install XF86 and XF86 config from SuSE as I did to RH. No problem 2 simple 
> instillations 2 hours and screen flicker problem solve. Ha Ha. SuSE8.2 and RH 
> 8.0 will not read the partition table from MD 8.2 so as far as SuSE and RH 
> are concerned the drive is not partitioned. No was back to the MD 8.2 and I 
> will update after I go on line.
> 
> On a more broad scale it will be noted that the three distributions discussed 
> of the five listed all reflect commercial distributions. Each one has been 
> modified from the standard. Two SuSE with YAST and RH with the Bluecurve have 
> been modified to such an extent that they are not usable for my installation. 
> This modification is something that I have great fears about with Mandrake 
> 9.0 in light of existing experience,
> 
> It will be noted that two distribution have not been discussed. Debian and 
> Gentoo. Both are not commercial, both are only readily available over the 
> internet with a high band width connection which I don't have. It could be 
> pointed here that Debian is available from people like "Cheap Bites" but that 
> has two complications. One being my concepts of money. The other brings in 
> Gentoo sort of. Gentoo is a distribution which is really not a traditional 
> distribution but one in which you choose what you want and how you want it. 
> Which packages and how you want them installed.
> 
> As far as I am concerned I am not currently technically qualified to configure 
> Debian or download Gentoo much less configure it but developing that 
> competency is where I am headed as I find the situation, issues, and problems 
> associated with SuSE, RH and Mandrake as acceptable as the one I encounter 
> with MS Windows are.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Frank
> 
> 

-- 
Cheers, Harry
Harry J Mangalam - 949 856 2847 (v&f) - hjm@tacgi.com
             <<plain text preferred>>