Linked by David Donley on Wed 9th Jun 2004 18:53 UTC
I have been using Linux since 1993. I installed the first version of Slackware on a 16MB 386sx-25. Since then I have been using it almost exclusively on one or more of my PCs. So I consider myself as a bit of an expert. I have been using computers since 1982 mostly PCs, but also VAX mainframes and SPARC systems. Operating systems (and GUIs) I have been using include CP/M, DOS, Windows from Version 2 to XP, Geos, Beos, SCO Unix, Solaris, OS/2 and quite a few Linux Distros.
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I tried Mandrake as my first atempt at Windows replacement and even as an advanced user I found many OS related tasks to be extremely overly difficult. I took about a week to wait until I would form too strong oppinions about my negative experiences of using mandrake 10 but before I could start getting comfortable with not using Windows Mandrake would no longer boot after a session where I unsuccessfuly tried to install Gnome and some package managers.
Below is a short list of some of my dislikes.
1. During FTP install a package continued to be downloaded and was found to be corrupt. There was no way to go back and choose a different FTP site. instead I had to erase 2 hours installation efforts and start over with a different ftp site.
2. Figuring out which one of the 3 or 4 availble configuration utilites that has offers an option to change resolution actually resulted in the resolution chaging was a pain.
3. Getting a Japanese IME to work is a nightnamre.
4. Figuring out how to make shortcuts or links to files was sort of tough and also installing programs did not add links automatically into the panel or menu I used the mandrake package management tools.
5. Not being able to manage packages from one utility seemed strange to me and was a burden when trying to go back and fourth adding and removing programs.
6. Finding up-to-date packages for manny pieces of software like gaim wasn't possible with the Mandrake 10 package manager. I don't understand why there isn't an option to browse to a local copy or ftp of a package and install that using the package manager.
Other than the crash that stopped me from using Mandrake 10 completely and some annoyances I was really pleased with some of the benifits of using Mandrake 10 over Windows XP. I'm not checking out Fedora and if I'm not any more impressed I'll give Linux another year or so before I try to switch over agian.