Ok, give us the verdict, which Mandrake is most stable...?
 

Ok, it's time to do a poll. for the sake of us Newbie's here, how about answering one of the following so that we don't have to ask the same infernal question, which mandrake is most stable (and in effect, the one to use) and why....?

The time you take to answer the poll and possible supply a qualified reason for your selection will be greatly appreciated....

by yours truely,

- perry

9.2 is the most stable?

rofl

i don't think so

uh,if im not mistaken, "linux is linux" still, right? one distro shouldnt be more stable than another.

well in theory yes

but in practice no


9.2 had a LOAD of bugs
menu's disappearing
log out crashing
etc

9.1 was rock solid

10ce is more or less solid, far better than 9.2

i am running official and im happy and so far no problems yet

I've just tried 9.2, and had ALOT of problems, but I'm a totaly noob, hence som were selfinflicted.. but the dissapearing menues were interesting bugs LOL

Gonna try 10ce when I come home from work tomorrow or 9.1 depending on wich I find first.

But Linux has DEFINENTLY been more stable than XP (goes without saying) Despite all updates, defrags, ad-awareing, referencefile updates, virus scans, driver updates, patches, regcleans, cleanups, organizing, "keeping away from known issues programs" My windows XP crashed at least twice a day!! especially when least needed.

Sofare my linux distro only had 1 - one major crash in 3 days (Yes that's how long I've tried it :newbie:

I've been playing around with Mandrake since at least Version 6.0. 10.0CE was stable enough to convince me to make it my *primary* OS on my machine. ;)

Still a noob...but i only have minor problems with 9.2....probably of my own making.....9.2 has replaced m$ on my computer...and i can't tell u how happy that makes me....

can't wait to try slack, debbie and yes...LFS......

haven't gone up to 10.0...the threads still have mixed reviews....and i'm still trying out everything in 9.2....

but that's my 3 cents
Tom

ok, i see. its the mandrake software that's conflicting with the linux (kernel). modifications to KDE and other system areas causing it to be unstable. i see.

im using 10, and to me, 9.0 was the most stable, but ive only been using 10 for a day now. ill check back later when 10 is more than a week old. so far so good for 10.0....

I've only ever used Mandrake 9.2, and it works for me on three boxes. The only problem I've had is sound on my laptop, but Slackware and Arch wouldn't even boot on it - so Mandrake is by far the best solution for it (and besides, what do I need sound on my laptop for). As for the disappearing menu issue, it happened to me a few times on my old system, but on the new one I've had no problem with it. I have no intention of trying 10 for a while, since I like to stick with what works. Can't really vote in the poll, as I only have experience in one of them.

Never change a winning team huh..

Got an exelent tip from Equinox about the menu bug

login to a terminal as root and run update-menus -v

Then logout an login again

It worked for me :)

been there - done that!
 

ROTFL

- perry

If you download the updates for 9.2 after you install it you will find that the menu bug is fixed. Actually it has been for a long time.

That is not my experience... I've updated it, and after that most of the software dissapeard.. but after a quick updat-menus -v it all worked ok. but I have not been able to install ATI drivers and drivers for my nvidia chipset.. But it's almost up running perfect.. I only use windows for school and gaming now..


And by the way, it took me friggin' 4 days to even know that there was an updat feature.. Nobody told me.

All my respect to the person wich makes a REAL noob site.. REal basics!!!

Downloaded 9.1 and gonna try it soon..
Not sure about 10.0 yet...

To me 9.2 seemd a little buggy, but what do I know

ive been with 10 now since friday (3 days) and already, its the most unstable distro ive ever tried. it freezed at shutdown/reboot, programs fail to open or crash for no reason, program splash screens never go away and make the program unusable and require killing. WINE does not work at all. crossover office doesnt finish installing because it hangs, winex3 doesnt work, wine from RPM or compiled from source wont even work (i type in wine programname.exe, and it just stops there, no error message, just a blank line on the konsole).

maybe after that 200 MB update, things will be better.

oh, and did i mention im using the 2.4 kernel, in which ive already customized and rebuilt. my Xig X server doesnt support the 2.6 kernels...yet.

that about answers my question.....

the only think that bothers me about sticking with 9.1 though is how to update it to run the latest versions of Evolution and stuff. but thats a separate problem....

- perry

10.0 is the most stable out of 9.2, 9.1, 9.0, 8.2

Using mdk since...long ago, now running 9.1 at home for a year...ROCK SOLID!! :D
also, i've tried 9.2 and 10.0 but they haven't convinced me yet, i'll wait for 10.1 (maybe then i'd feel the need for upgrade ;))

9.0 was almost perfect for me. i got boot time all the way down to 20 seconds, from lilo screen to enlightenment, and this was with all the services i need turned on and no kernel recompilation. 9.0 was my favorite. it just got a little out of date, as i bought a new laptop and i needed something better.

20 secounds wow....
 

sounds like a new poll question (for the curious)

- perry

I voted slackware.. but I will probably buy mandrake 10 for my laptop :)

I voted for 10.0. Slackware is far better but this is the Mandrake section. I have a bunch of how-to's on my site that I am Redoing for 10.0. I have been running 10.0 since beta and it has come along way. I think its going to be very usable.

I can't comment on 10 just yet (based on much of what I've read here, I'm personally waiting for at least a .2 relsase); but reading what others have had to say in this poll, it's interesting how different individual experiences can be.

I started with 8.2 Standard (my first Linux, marked for clearance at CompUSA for $4.88) and loved it. It took me three tries to get it properly installed (my fault, not Mandrake's); but once running, it proved to be rock-solid on my machine. 9.1 Download, on the other hand, gave me nightmares. Almost like Windows flashbacks. ;) My wife ordered me 9.2 PowerPack last Xmas, and it has been absolutely fantastic on my home and work machines. I ran into the vanishing-menu bug mentioned earlier in this thread, but the open-MenuDrake-and-save trick fixed it, and it never happened to me again. Apart from that, any trouble I've had with 9.2 has been almost completely self-inflicted.

Though I'm still trying to get scsi emulation working for my DVD-ROM drive. ;)

whats interesting is that when i tried 9.2, thats exactly what happened to me, the menus one day, started to dissappear on me. it was quite depressing.

ironically, it was trying to find a solution for it that allowed me to discover this site...

- perry

What's interesting is that when I tried 9.2, barely anything worked. I had no sound, no internet, and my ATI drivers didn't work.

I'm using 9.1 and it's PERFECT! I'm really scared to upgrade to 10.0

I've never experienced windoze-type instability in any linux distro I've tried.

On installing a new version of mandrake it is important every day to go to mandrake update to pick up the bugfixes and other updates (only for the first week or two - keep an eye on this site for reported bugs). Just like windows update but everything is fixed really promptly

Mandrake just gets better every version.

LOL-- when I said "Windows flashbacks", I meant more along the lines of frustration than instability. 9.1 didn't install well, a lot of things didn't work once installed, and things that worked fine one day would sometimes be broken the next. It wasn't an all-the-time thing; overall, Mdk 9.1 was FAR better than the Windows ME installation I'd left behind. My biggest issue under 9.1 was that LILO ate my partition table one day (though I can hardly blame Mdk 9.1 for that), and the only fix my newbishness would allow was a total reinstall of both Mandrake and Windows.

I know better today-- I use GRUB, I kicked the Windows habit altogether, and I keep a SLAX live-CD handy at all times. ;)

I've used Mandrake since 7.0. For their time 7.0 was rock solid. 8.0 was ok but 8.2 was great. then 9.1 was good but I couldn't stand how they muted sound by default. But 7.1, 7.2 and 8.1 sucked big time. Didn't try 9.2 since I've been Debian exclusively since Woody came out. Going to try 10ce this week on the backup machine when it gets here this week. Hope the choice of packages improves with 10 over 9.1. I'm spoiled by Debian's plethora of packages, included and third party.

my sentiments exactly man!

i'm in the exact same boat! started with 9.0, jumped to 9.2 and then retreated to 9.1 so i can vouche for each....

- perry

Re: Ok, give us the verdict, which Mandrake is most stable...?
 

i wonder...

does anyone here know anything about fsck...? is it safe to run on a ext3 and could it correct a size descrepancy there ?

thanks

- perry

10.0 Offiicial is the one. I've been using Mandrake for going on 3 years now.

There were some problems encountered with 10.0 Community, but there is really no reason to be using that one, and it is not supported.

I use Official versus PowerPack, by the way, because I find it easier to isolate and control 'semi-commercial' packages by downloading them as needed from MandrakeClub.

I did have a networking problem, but that was fixed simply by removing the hotplug setup. IMHO it should be DISabled at configuration.

And for what it is worth, cooker is running exceptionally well too. I am using 10.1 now without a burp. Matter of fact, it also handled Anjuta, Epiphany and Mozilla very cleanly, saving me some install aggravation earlier.

well as we speak i'm downloading 10.0 "Official", i'm wondering if thats the same as 10.1 with updates?

in any event, had a terrible experience last night, in fact,. i've been having terrible experiences all week and now that i look back on it, they are all stemming from the same problem, not keeping updated emergency repair diskettes... so the whole week has been blown on reinstalling win2k, then win98 and now mandrake. it seems last night i attempted to use the freed up space with mandrakes disk partitioning tool and it managed to somehow destroy the partition data.

so after all week, i started out this morning to start an even bigger task than what i commenced on this last week, that is, to simply reinstall win2k...

i thought about putting rh9 on my laptop (i'm writing to you now from rh9 install on my desktop) and it works great except for the sound card (it detects it, just won't use it). i tried to put rh9 on the laptop but it couldn't properly figure out my flatscreen monitor and i did not have the patience to go with a text install.

so now i'm down loading something called Mandrake 10.0 Official" hope it's worth it....

thanks much for your votes, i can see staying with 9.1 is out voted 4 to 1...

- perry




i'm tempted to

Mandrake 10.0 Official download version - NT3 status
 

NT3 as in:

Neat Technology
Nice Try
Not Today

After a 1/2 dozen install attempts and now a damaged partition i'm ready to conceed that the above mentioned distribution is simply not FUCKING ready for me....

thanks but no thanks

gone back to 9.1

- perry