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I will preface this by saying I don't think these are all Mandrake problems...I think it is a combination of the 2.6 kernel, buggy hardware, and even me. From what I have read though it looks mostly 2.6 related.
First problem, and the most annoying. I can crash my USB subsystem at will. All I have to do it click on the System Configuration Tool (MandrakeLinux Control Center) and if I am moving my Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer as it launch I lose all USB devices and the Control Center freezes and never comes up. If I do not move my mouse while it is starting it opens without a problem. I believe this has also happend with some of the options within the Control Center but at the time, I didn't realize it wasn't random. Although this look like a Mandrake problem I have a suspicion is it really my Asus A7V133 mobo or the usb modules. In addition, since I still have keyboard I can still peak around the system. I get USB timeouts in my logs and the load of my machine begins to steadly climb while the CPU remains 99% idle. (sounds like an IO problem)
Second problem, and I know I am not alone here. When I shut down the computer locks up when it tries to stop hotplug. Again this happens while trying to disconnect a USB device and I am guessing it is my mouse. This has me contemplating putting the USB to PS/2 converter on it, but that will not fix the problem and I hate work arounds. Are the other people having this problem also using USB mice and to be more specific an Intellimouse Explorer perhaps?
Final problem, and again I have seen posts all over the web about this and even a possible patch (but I don't feel like hacking up my kernel with unsupported patches). I have a USB mass stroage device (iRiver iFP-390) that was working fine in 2.4.x but will not mount in 2.6. I get errors that the partition table can not be read. A dmesg reveals that it is indeed being seen by the USB system when I plug it in and even assigned to /dev/sda but it is not mountable. Here I have a feeling this may be a firmware bug on the USB drive combined with stricter USB mass storage device checking in the new kernel. It just seems strange that so many people are having these problems.
So that turned out to be more of a rant and comments session that questions session, but if anyone can help me out or fill in some of the blanks here I would appreciate it. At least I could get some confirmation that the problem is not me and I can file some bug reports...especially the MandrakeLinux Control Center hang I get.
I have had some similar experiences. I assure you that these are NOT related to the 2.6 kernel. I have a Slackware 9.1 box with a custom 2.6.3 kernel that works like a champ with USB mass storage, USB mouse, firewire, you name it. It shuts down cleanly, and hotplugging works. I have been using Mandrake 10 for one day, and I am about to remove it. These were some serious bugs. I really wanted a distro that worked great out-of-the-box. Obviously, I should have interpreted the "community edition" as "beta". I just didn't realize how beta it was.
On a related note, the community edition was REALLY stripped down. Mozilla didn't even come with java plugins. In fact, java wasn't even installed! Can you believe that?! Slackware had java installed and the Mozilla plugin ready! That's got to be an end-of-the-world omen. Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! I think my choice will be PCLinuxOS when that things is finally done.
I've just reverted to 9.2. I was happy for a moment with 10 but an update of harddrake and drakxtools seems to have ruined it.
Now my network configuration changes at boot and my scanner works or doesn't work randomly.
There are a lot of new problems around printing and networking (wireless and wired) that are being reported in bugzilla right now. IT stinks. The thing that beats me is that the cooker is still frozen and the update mirrors are in a bit of a mess. Not a very controlled process imho.
Sorry to hear about the issues everyone. Out of curiousity, have you reported them to Mandrake so that they can bug-hunt before they move from the community (beta) version that you are using to the final version? I think that type of information would be extremely useful to them, and of course is the primary reason why they release community edition...
I've done reporting, updating and testing. Mdk feedback is a bit disapointing though. Not that they are not fixing bugs, but a lot of reports remain unanswered so you don't really know what's happening. Maybe they should get less testers and talk to them more. Their answer to the criticism of rpmdrake especially worried me ( in short, they don't want to upset the developper ) and they are following the same design pattern for the network tools now. Instead of showing all network connections and a list of possible actions, you get separate Add, Remove, Monitor, Manage buttons !
I am a bit bored of the whole thing. I've spent enough time on that.
I've just purchased Libranet 2.81, for their commitment to Debian compatibility and the good reviews I have read all round. I got answers from them even before I purchased the product. If it doesn't work better, I'll then try Suse (the upcoming version) and if that fails as well, I'll give the PC to a school and use my Powerbook full time, not perfect but it has minimum time wasting potential.
imho, Mandrake is a company that is eventually going to make a lot of money(I really wish them well), but finds it currently convenient to behave as a community project : core apps (like kde or mozilla) updates are up to volunteers(I thought they'd contribute more to the club to be honest), 9.2 was not stable (complete freezes) until I backported kernel 2.4.25 from cooker, but now NVidia drivers lock-up at start-up so I use nv but I don't have hardware 3d acceleration...yawnn. Exactly the sort of things why I can't stand Windows....
I think Mdk 10 will be really good in about 6 months, when the kernel is a bit more mature and that the flurry of updated draktools are debugged. It's incredible how many very new things (udev, magicdev, and so on) are in this release so it's little wonder that it should be an uphill struggle.
On the paper, Mdk is the best distro for people like me but I think they have badly suffered from past resource misuse and are now a bit thin on the ground and it shows.
The /mbr problem shows that there is not enough testing done on their side before the releases are given to public consumption. And calling the rc2 "community release" is a bit of a dirty trick to get more people testing. I've tested since snapshot 1 and it certainly improved but it seems to get out of hand for my machine now.
Last edited by dukeinlondon; 03-16-2004 at 06:54 AM.
steelerguy: your problem with the iRiver player seems to be related to the player itself, not the kernel. I've got the same player and OS you were running and also the same problem. I'm guessing its the way that iRiver sets up its UMS firmware -- 'munted' in one word. There is a workaround, I've posted the link to it on another thread ... search 'iriver' and 'rdr2000'
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