Mandrake 8.2 Musings
pawn
reasons why this stuff is my fault, but here is an assortment of the too
many to live with problems I've had with Mandrake Linux 8.2.
1. Computer freezes trying to boot from installation CD.
2. Had to wrestle for about an hour with the partition wizard before it
didn't try to a lot half my disk to /home.
3. After that had to start all over due to an error trying to mount the
swap partition. This continued no matter how many times I cleared the
partitions and started again. I have no idea what I finally did to make it
work.
4. Couldn't get root with password supplied at installation. Could get
root in single user maintenance mode with same password, but this password
would not work at console or with su. Finally deleted root password from
shadow file. Now I can get root from su only.
5. Can't figure out what's with the permissions for regular users. Why
would bash's autocomplete not even work? I can't list the /etc directory?
Can't use command line internet utilities like ssh? Sheesh.
6. I have no patience for figuring out yet another inetd or xinetd or
kwhatthef#cknetd implementation.
7. I have no idea where firewall rules are stored. Why install the ssh
daemon if outside traffic is filtered out by default?
8. I have zero interest in sending personal information to Mandrake. I
find it offensive and contrary to the spirit of why Linux was devised.
9. On and on and on.
I don't think I've ever wasted that much time trying to install a Linux
distro...and I remember downloading and installing Slackware with floppies.
Alan Murrell
Wow, I must admit that after reading your experience with Mandrake 8.2, my
experience has been *way* different. I couldn't have asked for an easier
and smoother setup!
> 1. Computer freezes trying to boot from installation CD.
Have you tried the CD on another computer to see if it boots from it? You
may have possibly downloaded a bad ISO, or something happened during the
burning process?
> 2. Had to wrestle for about an hour with the partition wizard before it
> didn't try to a lot half my disk to /home.
Hmmm, I've never used the partition wizard; I have always chosen the size of
my partitions myself. Most distros that "auto-allocate" partitions and
sizes have different ideas about the necessary partitions and their sizes
than I do :-)
> 4. Couldn't get root with password supplied at installation. Could get
> root in single user maintenance mode with same password, but this password
> would not work at console or with su. Finally deleted root password from
> shadow file. Now I can get root from su only.
Hmmm, not sure why the root password you supplied during setup wouldn't
work, but su'ing to root is what you should be dooing anyway, as opposed to
logging directly into root :-)
> 6. I have no patience for figuring out yet another inetd or xinetd or
> kwhatthef#cknetd implementation.
Eh, just don't used (x)inetd. I haven't used it for the longest time, and I
haven't missed it even once!
> 8. I have zero interest in sending personal information to Mandrake. I
> find it offensive and contrary to the spirit of why Linux was devised.
At what point did you have to do this? I don't recall being prompted to do
so, either during installation or booting into the OS. Was it something I
perhaps missed?
What sort of hardware did you install onto? Could there be a hardware
conflict somewhere?
Alan Murrell swa...@hotmail.com
John Reynolds
whatever distro you use!
However, I've had the same, ultra-frustrating experience with
installation CDROMs, from more than one distro.
If you aren't checking the MD5SUM before you burn the cdrom, and then
even afterwards, you could be missing something. I've had weird,
unexplicable issues due to bad iso images in the past. Just a suggestion.
> 1. Computer freezes trying to boot from installation CD. 2. Had to
> wrestle for about an hour with the partition wizard before it didn't try
<<SNIP>>
Coomsie
been there before thom... mandrake is a great distro ... but whatever you
fell comfortable with dude
Coomsie :3)
Martin Hughes
"pawn" <pa...@hanneng.com> wrote in message
news:u97v8.23492$Yt.11...@read1.cgocable.net...
Perhaps this is down to Mandrake 8.2. This release was IMHO rushed out with
indecent haste.
Firstly check your CD checksums if you are using the download edition. If
these are wrong download again, check the checksums and only burn CDs if
they are correct. Then reinstall using an expert installation where you can
pick and choose everything.
Secondly try to get hold of the download edition of Mandrake 8.0. This has
served me well since it was released and has been successfully installed on
2 different platforms:-) It may not be as bleeding edge as Mandrake 8.2 but
it is stable and seems to work well for me:-))
I have tried Redhat 7.1 but IMHO this is harder to configure than
Mandrake8.0.
Martin Hughes
Rob
> didn't try to a lot half my disk to /home.
I'm another that always sizes my own partitions, plus I always do full
partitioning. Auto-allocate has to take a balanced approach, so it assumes a
certain sort of user. In most situations though /home and /usr are the
partitions that will grow as you add software and users add documents. www
servers obviously need to allocate more space for /var/www and maybe
/var/ftp. But really it's you that knows best what you will be most useing
the machine for.
> 3. After that had to start all over due to an error trying to mount the
> swap partition. This continued no matter how many times I cleared the
> partitions and started again. I have no idea what I finally did to make
it
> work.
Swap can be a bit fussy sometimes, on some UNIX's, such as HPUX, you put a
swap on each physical drive. Actually I don't know if this is still
essential, I do it because I used to have to do it and don't want to get to
the end of a setup and have to start again if I missed it out.
> 4. Couldn't get root with password supplied at installation. Could get
> root in single user maintenance mode with same password, but this password
> would not work at console or with su. Finally deleted root password from
> shadow file. Now I can get root from su only.
That one is odd. Though I haven't heard anyone else say they have this
problem. Ok so su is fine for most root activities, but when I know I'm in
for a long session setting something up, I wouldn't be without my proper
root log in. I wonder, do the other desktops do the same, I'm just thinking
maybe KDE itself logs you in using an sshd which would stop you going direct
as root (unless you take off much security).
Some of your other main points would then be related. But I don't want to
say much more incase I'm completely wrong on the way it's logging you in.
Except to say that, just changing to gnome may of been a better option than
RadHat, since you may get exactly the same problems for exactly the sane
reasons.
David D. Huff Jr.
> Well, that's about it. Back to RedHat. I suppose there are all sorts of
> reasons why this stuff is my fault, but here is an assortment of the too
> many to live with problems I've had with Mandrake Linux 8.2.
>
> 1. Computer freezes trying to boot from installation CD.
Sounds like you overcame that problem.
> 2. Had to wrestle for about an hour with the partition wizard before it
> didn't try to a lot half my disk to /home.
Training issue.
> 3. After that had to start all over due to an error trying to mount the
> swap partition. This continued no matter how many times I cleared the
> partitions and started again. I have no idea what I finally did to make it
> work.
So, I've installed 12-14 times to get it perfect and "I" know what I'm
doing.
> 4. Couldn't get root with password supplied at installation. Could get
> root in single user maintenance mode with same password, but this password
> would not work at console or with su. Finally deleted root password from
> shadow file. Now I can get root from su only.
User error.
> 5. Can't figure out what's with the permissions for regular users. Why
> would bash's autocomplete not even work? I can't list the /etc directory?
> Can't use command line internet utilities like ssh? Sheesh.
Two questions or two complaints. Who knows you're just bitching.
> 6. I have no patience for figuring out yet another inetd or xinetd or
> kwhatthef#cknetd implementation.
You know Red Hat eh?
> 7. I have no idea where firewall rules are stored.
Then they are wasted on you.
> Why install the ssh
> daemon if outside traffic is filtered out by default?
You're no SA, or you wouldn't have to ask.
> 8. I have zero interest in sending personal information to Mandrake. I
> find it offensive and contrary to the spirit of why Linux was devised.
You just gained back 10 points, nobody should ever ask anything ever.
> 9. On and on and on.
Sounds like it.
>
> I don't think I've ever wasted that much time trying to install a Linux
> distro...and I remember downloading and installing Slackware with floppies.
>
With that many problems, I'd say you had one of those fsck'ed up boxes
built for winblows that doesn't have any decent hardware, probably a
freaking bGateway or something.
If you've already tried at least 3 distros you should have a pretty good
idea what works and what doesn't.
At some point in your Linux career you should ask yourself:
"If there are 3.4 million successful, happy Mandrake users...what the
fsck is wrong with me?"
Steve Campbell
> I don't think I've ever wasted that much time trying to install a Linux
> distro...and I remember downloading and installing Slackware with
> floppies.
I installed 8.2 for the first time the other night....no problems
whatsoever....did it one handed while watching a movie......better than 8.1
. I haven't used it much, living in LFS at the minute and trying to build "
the grand unified windows" that can run games AND audio ( tiring work) as
well. But it seems very good, they have done a good job on the KDE
optimisation, which makes me all warm and glowy.
--
registered Linux user #212154
Don't get mad, get Linux
Newbies concise guide to all this commandline business.
Essential reading!!! ( and short and quite funny too:) )
http://www.cmm.uklinux.net/steve/ntt.html
pawn
1. There's no possibility of user error on the root password. A quick
Google search reveals I'm hardly the only person having trouble with this.
What user error could you imagine? "Enter password." "Enter Password
Again." Hmmm...
2. Son, I was installing Linux when you were taping your first hockey stick.
pawn
The root apssword has nothing to do with KDE. I'm booting by default into
Level 3.
The partitioning: I agree, it would be wise to use auto allocation for most
situations, however, I have a disk contraint problem. The I believe the
problem is that the swap partition must be place between the / and /home
partitions. Strange.
I guess I wasn't clear enough to get across my biggest problem: why mess
with the stuff that already works? Like the inetd daemon, or the xinetd
daemon, or whichever one people already know how to use? Why change the
entire rc.d startup script structure? I simply don't have time to relearn
the entire sys admin structure in order to try a new distro.
Rob <rob...@expamet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:I8cv8.1313$b5.2...@newsr2.u-net.net...
Rob
most
> situations, however, I have a disk contraint problem. The I believe the
> problem is that the swap partition must be place between the / and /home
> partitions. Strange.
That is a bit of a strange move to limit the position of swap. Though I
wonder if it was always limited and I simply haven't known because of the
size of disks I've used. I'm thinking more in terms of a limited offset on
the disk.
> I guess I wasn't clear enough to get across my biggest problem: why mess
> with the stuff that already works? Like the inetd daemon, or the xinetd
> daemon, or whichever one people already know how to use? Why change the
> entire rc.d startup script structure? I simply don't have time to relearn
> the entire sys admin structure in order to try a new distro.
The changes between 7 and 8 made my life difficult. Quite a few utilities
had to be recompiled to take into account some moved system files, some of
which disapeared altogether. The sudden change in use of /var meant that
even volume restructureing was needed.
MDK have to try to remember there are not simply reconfiguring a toy, Linux
servers are working machines and major changes need to be discussed with
user groups to see how there impact on the real world situations.
It's a long time since I used RedHat so I don't know if their users suffer
the same, I suspect they do to at least some extent since I know that some
of the latest software versions, such as samba, assume the latest system
structures.
pawn
Rob wrote:
> > The partitioning: I agree, it would be wise to use auto allocation for
> most
> > situations, however, I have a disk contraint problem. The I believe the
> > problem is that the swap partition must be place between the / and /home
> > partitions. Strange.
>
> That is a bit of a strange move to limit the position of swap. Though I
> wonder if it was always limited and I simply haven't known because of the
> size of disks I've used. I'm thinking more in terms of a limited offset on
> the disk.
>
>
I never had a problem with it when doing it manually with fdisk (the linux
version). Probably just some glitch. 99.9% of people wouldn't have a problem,
because they would have the disk capacity to live with the auto allocation.
> > I guess I wasn't clear enough to get across my biggest problem: why mess
> > with the stuff that already works? Like the inetd daemon, or the xinetd
> > daemon, or whichever one people already know how to use? Why change the
> > entire rc.d startup script structure? I simply don't have time to relearn
> > the entire sys admin structure in order to try a new distro.
>
> The changes between 7 and 8 made my life difficult. Quite a few utilities
> had to be recompiled to take into account some moved system files, some of
> which disapeared altogether. The sudden change in use of /var meant that
> even volume restructureing was needed.
>
> MDK have to try to remember there are not simply reconfiguring a toy, Linux
> servers are working machines and major changes need to be discussed with
> user groups to see how there impact on the real world situations.
>
> It's a long time since I used RedHat so I don't know if their users suffer
> the same, I suspect they do to at least some extent since I know that some
> of the latest software versions, such as samba, assume the latest system
> structures.
Redhat from 5 to 6 to 7 wasn't a big deal. The biggest pain was switching from
a distro like Slackware to RH 5.1, or whatever. The two are night and day.
Timothy Daniel
video card (S3 Savage 2000 chipset). RH 7.2 worked fine. Then I
upgraded to a new SOYO MB, Athlon 1400 w/1gig ram, IBM 60g HD. Red Hat
wouldn't boot or re-install, so tried Mandrake 8.2 (even after disliking
8.0). Worked like a charm, running it as we speak. New NVidia GeForc4
video card is somewhat a pain, but it works!
I can't imagine what you could have done to make Mandrake 8.2 difficult.
Between that and Win2k I prefer to stay in Mandrake!
Tim