[ltp] Mandrake 8.2 vs. TP 600e

[Steven Crane]

...You did choose an "expert" install didn't you?...

No. I am manifestly not an expert and really didn't fancy my chances at dealing with 
any questions. Knowing that it offers defaults changes a lot, but I don;t think I'll be 
running back to re-install just yet.


...You mention RH6.1 - just to check that you actually installed Mandrake 8.2 in the 
end?...

Yes. Mandrake 8.2 is in and working as well as expected (ie. no modem or network 
without a bit of research).

Something went wrong during that first install and I just couldn't make head nor tail of 
the Mandrake partitioning options (or, more imprtantly, get back out of them). The old 
RH install was plenty adequate for tidying up the mess so that Mandrake could pick its 
own settings second time around.



...They should have been installed automatically if you included the documentation 
options. To add them, use rpmdrake (under the menu of Configuration -> Packaging -> 
Software Manager), and this will allow you to search for them. (Search for "howto")...

Nope. I selected every english language piece of documation I could find on the tree. 
Repeated searches have turned up precious few pages and all of them individiual "one 
in a folder documents, no "HOWTO" folder as in Redhat and indicated the Mandrake 
manual. I can't get any better from searching under either "Installed" or "Installable".

I will give it another look, as I notice that there are a lot of duplicate entries on the KDE 
menus that appear to, but do not necessarily, point to the same programme.


...Mandrake has quite a lot of its own tools. These are called drakconf and are in 
Configuration -> Other -> Mandrake Control Center...

So far the tool has proven worse than useless.

Mysteriously the sound is now running, UNLESS you go anywhere near it with the 
MCC. The control centre still misidentifies it as a CS46xx (still doesn't offer CS42xx as 
an option) reports that it doesn't exist if you try to configure or probe it and also causes 
it to stop working until you reboot.

While poking around I did find a listing for CS42xx in the Config file although it was 
listed as "CS4232=m" instead of the expected "=y". Under other circumstances I may 
simply have changed it, but there is a warning at the top of the file not to edit it directly. 
Still, promising that it at least gets a listing in what appears to be a Mandrake 
generated config file.

Install and run "sndconfig" and it apparently works fine, even played a CD, but let the 
Mandrake Control Centre take a look at it and that's the last you'll hear from it this 
session. Something is obviously still screwy but it seems to work just so long aas you 
don't try to figure out how.

A lot of software still seems unduly quiet, but without really knowing what it is 
supposed to sound like it is hard to tell. CD works, KDE intro and environment sounds 
seem to be okay, WAV playback from a DOS partition works. Not so much as a peep 
out of any of the tested games yet (which seems strange).

The only configuration tool that has actually worked is the Monitor one... and that only 
because it allowed me to overide ALL of its defaults to select a workable LCD setting.

My overriding impression is that Mandrake 8.2 is really not geared to work with a piece 
of kit as old as the 600e. Although, my initial reasoning behind buying a 600e still holds 
good in that all of its components will work under Linux... with sufficient patience.

---Steven




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