Experiences with Mandrake 9.2
 

Ok, I just wanted to drop a review/warning about MDK9.2. I know this has been done before, but I think to A.vent my frustration, and B.warn others, it should be done again.

I purchased the Mandrake 9.2 3CD set from an online distributor, you know, the ones who burn the ISOs and send it to your place for around 5 bucks.

I own two computers. One is at work, it's an old 400MHz P2 Compaq deskpro with 128mb of ram. It worked flawlessly with MDK9.1. The other is my home computer which I built myself a few years ago. Athlon 1.3Ghz 512Mb of ram. Not the best, but it works to my satisfaction.

First, I tried it on the compaq.


I don't trust the upgrade option, as it has hosed my previous mandrake installations before. As a safeguard, I kept my /home directory on a seperate partition, to save all my config files and documents, etc.


So I did a fresh install. I formatted the main partition with reiserfs. It went to look for packages. It sat there. It froze.

I tried ctl-alt-del. Nothing. I cycled the power.

CD was still in the drive. Computer started booting. No operating system found. Hm. I chesked the bios settings, the cdrom wasn't listed. I pressed the eject button. NO response. The only other time this happened to me was when I killed my dvdrom at home. The cdrom was kaput. Note: this is a plain vanilla crapfest cdrom, NOT a cd-r.
I know about the LG drive problem, and I figured I was just an idiot for ignoring the warnings. I went and got a spare in the supply closet, installed it, configured it in the bios and began the install again.

Blah blah blah. Actually got to the package selection. I always individually select the packages. You know, the dependancies are figured out for me, and I don't want to install SAMBA, CUPS, and other servers I just don't need.

Here comes the progress bar. I debated whether to nap.

After it was done, I set up passwords, network connectiuons, turned off daemons I didn't need, set up a new user account just in case my old 9.1 config files fucked with 9.2. Reboot.

Went fine. I noticed a pretty rad increase in the system's responsiveness. But thats where the fun ended. Kernel panic while I was setting up kmail.

reboot. kmail wont start. Tried evolution. won't start. played with konqueror. Froze. Checked services, made sure everything was on that needed to be. rebooted. Kernel panic. Ok, at the lilo prompt, entered 'linux single' so I could figure out what the hell was going on. I never did. I decided to re-install.

Long story short, I got to the package selection, and all of a sudden It said I required certain packages, so I went to install said packages. Not found. I gave up.

Re-installed 9.1

As for my home computer, the install went fine. But I have a crappy PcTel hsf modem, which I've got the driver in tarball form. I've got to compile it, and it compiles into a module, so I need the kernel source on my system. Of couse, its not on the damned cd. So I boot into win2k, download the source at 28.8, and install it. I insert the modules, and I've got to force them, but I had to do that in 9.1 and it worked fine.

So I reboot to the crazy realm of kernel panics and frozen comps again. The rpm database seems to hose itself every 5 minutes.

Now I'm fully aware that I have to take the award for 'the most likely cause for a fucked up OS' due to my PcTel modules, but, seriously, how hard would it have been to include the kernel source on the cd? It just seems like a nasty unnecessary emission. At least they could have excluded open office or some other nice app if they wanted to get people to buy a package for them. As for me? I'm a student and I absolutely cannot afford one.

I've found mandrake 9.2 to be incredibly buggy, and actually dangerous to one's system. 9.1 is WONDERFUL. It had me thinking that I could rely on Mandrake to put out a solid release from now on. I was wrong. If you want a newbie friendly Linux distro, go with Mandrake 9.1, but for god's sake, avoid 9.2 like herpes.

ok, I'm done venting.

a) thanks for the warning. I was going to install 9.2, but I think I'll wait (again).

b) did you have to curse? lol

lol
 

Whoops. Sorry about the language! I need to wash my hands off with soap.
But seriously, thanks for heeding my warning.
:D

In the spirit of journalistic balance......
I've installed 9.2 on my second machine. Smooth install, everything worked with no tweaking, only problem was the menus, sorted out very simply. Very nice and fast, and more responsive than 9.1.

/\ I agree. I had no problems during install and aside from the menu issue, which was easy to fix, I've had little to no problems.

Just got my Power Pack Cd set only direct. Install on my Compaq 700 laptop started out flaky. I use an optical mouse with it and the cursor started freaking out when i picked PS2 wheel mouse. Couldn't find a setting at this point to get it to work so swapped it for a regular wheel mouse-fixed the problem. Did a fresh install (BTW I dual boot this machine with XP Home NTFSon win partition). No problems whatever. Did the reboot. NO PROBLEMS! Went to set up the modem. (PCTEL HSF Micromodem) The wizard asked if I wanted to install the rpm. Clicked yes put in the CD. It installed the hsflinmodem rpm. Set up kppp. Click on connect. Worked first time! Only problem I had was with sound and I haven't had a chance to tackle that yet. (although I think it's in the alsa setup ) no complaints whatever from this corner:)

Thanks for the review!

After I installed 9.2 I was dissapointed due to the bugs, but after updating 9.2 it runs really great. It looks better then 9.1, seems faster and les bugs.
It's really a missed opportunity that they didn't make updated iso's for the public. For the most of us it's no problem to update and fix some small problems, but people who just start with linux it can be discouraging.

I've come across several interesting bugs since I switched to 9.2, but nothing that has taken any real time to fix, with three exceptions. First, I can't for the life of me get the driver for my radeon installed properly, and second, I've been having problems with some media not playing sound. It seems to be in the way the media was recorded, perhaps the compression or frequency. Most of the time at least one program will play the file, but not always. There isn't any one program that I've found that will play all my video and audio files. I even have to try multiple programs with some of my mp3s! I came across one last night that wouldn't play in anything. It works fine in windows, and the other mp3s from the same album that were ripped using the same program at the same time work fine. The third and final oddity is that I have seemingly random network issues. Sometimes not all the computers will show up on the network, sometimes I'll get a could not connect to host localhost message, and sometimes it works just fine. I suspect that may be an issue with one of the switches I use though. It's fairly old and has a few bad ports. Since all my issues seem to be more or less as a result of the way I have things set up and my own hardware, I don't really completely blame 9.2, except for the sound thing. I didn't have that problem in 9.1. Anyway, I would reccomend updating to 9.2 overall.

i've been a linux user for exactly 3 days now and have no complaints with 9.2. grant it...i only have windows to compare it to but i've been able to get my winmodem and nvidia drivers going without any major problems (and from some of the posts i've seen it seems like those two thing are somewhat difficult to do on some distributions). be the linux newbie that i am i would have to say that mandrake 9.2 is pretty easy to use. no complaints so far here......

I just replaced my RedHat 9 with Mandrake 9.2.

Well, it is indeed easier to use compare to RedHat..And it also detects my printer - scanner (HP PSC 1210) and my ATI Radeon 9200 card, which RedHad couldn't.

But despite them, I found some problems.
1. Couldn't read any ZIP disk. Everytime I mounted one, the Konqueror just froze. Nothing could be done but rebooting.

2. Couldn't make a boot disk. In the end of the process, some error message always occured.

3. Couldn't install Flash plugin for Mozilla 1.4 included. I installed it without any problem with my RedHat 9 and Mozilla 1.2.1

4. Couldn't login into MSN and Yahoo with Gaim included. Need to update it, but I found that rpms for Mandrake 9.2 are still rare, unlike RedHat 9.

5. Still couldn't print though the printer is detected...

Anyway, all those above are newbie's opinions...So if anything sounds naive hope u guys understand.
And if anyone can help me solving those problems, your assistance is most appreciated.

the flash plugin rpm can be found here:
http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/macromedia/site_ru.html


and the latest gaim rpm here:
http://www.student.kuleuven.ac.be/~m9923999/
(uninstall your current gaim before installing this one)

Thx for the links. I just downloaded them, then I uninstall gaim 0.68.
When I tried installing the new version, there is an error message "/usr/lib/libgaim-remote.so.0.0.0 from install gaim 0.72-1 conflicts with files from 0.68".

Then I deleted the files, but the same error message still occurs.

As for the Flash plugin, still searching for files that needed to pass the dependency test.

Anyway, I found out another problem...I couldn't update using rpmdrake.
Error and error. It says some files are needed. The files are in the list but I checked all the files in the update list, so there shouldn't be any problem right.

I've install MDK9.1 on ten different machines. The only problems I've had so far is not being able to setup nis and the kernel dosn't support my scsi card. Other than that its faster a less prone to lock ups. On one machine when I plug in the webcam it install the drivers and the webcam work the first time.

Thx for the links S-king...They're really helpful, but still can't get the GAIM 0.72 installed..

Any other useful links you can share?