“At the risk of sounding blasé, Mandrake 9.1 is a pretty standard distribution, and consists of the latest KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice.org, Xine, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and PostgreSQL. The PowerPack version comes with 60-days of support via e-mail. The higher-priced ProSuite version of Mandrake comes with 60 days of telephone support and some additional server software.” Read the review at LinuxWorld.
Mandrake Linux 9.1: Can Installation Get Any Easier?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
That’s pretty darn blasé – I mean, does Windows come with all those equivalent features?
No windows I’ve ever seen comes packed with KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice.org, Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc… in terms of support, yeah, it’s probably got that, maybe even better support… but that’s what you get for $199 in a home edition too. Plus, Windows gives you the added comfort of knowing your $199 piece of software is only legal on a single system in your home, that way there you don’t have to worry about keeping track of a single CD as it gets tossed between more than one computer. While I’m quite sure you can get OpenOffice.org for Windows, I’m also quite sure it doesn’t come with it, or any word processing suite for that matter… in fact, if you’d like the Microsoft equivalent of that product you only need to pay $149 more… if you’re a student or teacher… and for a mere $330 more than that you can get the Standard Edition!!!! Should I continue factoring in the price of Microsoft equivalents for SQL?
Granted MS-SQL is feature rich and blah blah blah… the amount of work you can do with almost any Linux distro (assuming you’ve got the right hardware) exceeds that of Windows by far. Options are great… but at what price?
Buddy, you are right on the money! But you are wrong about one thing: Support. Windows comes with no support whatsoever. Well, I am wrong, as it comes with support at $35 PER INCIDENT. Well worth paying $150 for the non-castrated version of Windows (XP Pro)? I think not.
Another thing too… Why do people have such a hard time installing Linux? If people would try doing it alone instead of dual-booting… there would be nothing to bitch about. Try setting up Windows to dual boot during installation? Can’t do it? Aww too bad… guess Windows is harder than Linux to install.
And since we’ve eliminated the dual-boot problem by erasing Windows alltogether, that eases our partitioning problem too. Most linux distros have this neat thingy called “Auto Partition” where you click one button and its done for you.
So what’s the next hardest part about installing packages. You have so many choices! You want choices with Windows? Nope, only 9X gives you choices, and what limited ones at that. (Accessories, Minesweeper, MSN).
People also argue that linux is too hard for a computer illeterate to install. Try making them install Windows. It will be every bit as hard.
I’ve also heard the hard drive space arguement. Windows doesn’t use up as much space as linux. Well that too is complete and utter crap. If you install any distro at a base, having only what comes with Windows, it will be far FAR less. Lets see what Windows comes with… GUI, File Manager, Notepad, Calculator, Web Browser. Okay, if I check on a fresh install with all the service patches to make Windows actually secure and useable, that comes out to about 1.5GB of HDD Space. I KNOW i’ve installed hundreds of copies of Windows 2000. Not to mention all the BLOAT that comes with XP which makes it even larger. My linux system, fresh install with KDE, Kedit, Kcalc, and Konqueror, falls in under 500MB. And since it is KDE, it comes with WAY more than just that.
It has the COOLEST OpenGL screensavers, the most eye-pleasing wallpaper, the most beautiful window themes, docks, download managers, IM clients, graphical SCP, FTP, SMB, NFS, Way better games than Minesweeper and Solitare, image viewers, image previews, and SO MUCH MORE!!! Windows can’t touch this!!
Windows comes with two free support incidents.
Just look at some of the things M$ still ships, that have sucked since day 1:
1. M$ Paint – featureless and sorely outdated. Load anything but a BMP and youre in trouble.
2. Notepad – try opening a large file – then use the task manager to terminate the process. featureless by todays standards.
3. Movie Maker – poor wanna-be imitation to match
4. Wordpad – featureless. open a M$ .doc created with office and watch the ‘could not convert image’ warning boxes until you finally ctrl-alt-del and kill the process.
5. Media Player – bloat, bloat, bloat. Made to support M$ file formats. Terrible, amateur vis capabilities.
I could go on. The only two decent components that come with windows are windows explorer and internet exploder. Thats it.
I challenge anyone to prove me otherwise. And no, we’re not talking about ‘but you could run X instead’. That defeats the purpose.
With a typical Linux distro one can get up and running in no time, no added costs. With windows the OS install is a starter kit. Its then up to the user to shell out more money to actually make it functional.
Unfortunately I find myself using Winblows every day because many organizations standardize on it. Such a pity.
>1. M$ Paint – featureless and sorely outdated.
You don’t need anything more than that as a plain viewer/saver. Microsoft does not try to compete with its clients you see. It would be a mistake for MS to ship something as powerful as Gimp or PaintSHopPro. That would piss off all its main development houses. Also, consider that Mac OS X does not come with any Paint editing app either.
>Notepad
there is wordpad. I use Notepad all the time to edit simple small text files. I like it.
>Movie Maker
It is fine for most people. Version 2.0 is much better. Again, MS won’t compete with its clients like Premiere. They have to stay basic.
>4. Wordpad – featureless. open a M$ .doc
Wordpad is not a Word replacer. It is an RTF editor. Similar to Apple’s TextEdit. And for that, it does the job well.
>5. Media Player – bloat. Made to support M$ file formats. Terrible, amateur vis capabilities.
I disagree. Media Player is actually pretty good and capable.
You don’t need anything more than that as a plain viewer/saver. Microsoft does not try to compete with its clients you see. It would be a mistake for MS to ship something as powerful as Gimp or PaintSHopPro. That would piss off all its main development houses.
The reasons don’t matter, the only thing that matters here is, that it is a disadvantage for customers.
Isn’t this exactly your argumentation when we talk about RedHat not including NVidia drivers or MP3 players?
There is no denying that Open Source has a sound advantage here. Software can be mixed, matched and bundled without pissing anyone off. In fact, it’s encouraged.
I use Notepad all the time to edit simple small text files. I like it.
I still have nightmares of people completely killing the line breaking of source files on Unix servers because they used Notepad to edit them.
Hey all. I use RedHat exclusively at home, but I’m sick of DeadRats awfully hacked up KDE, and thinking of moving to mandrake. The only problem is I heard that custom compiled stuff is even less likely to work on mandrake than Redhat 9 (which is enough trouble).
Is it worth the move? Can you use RPM’s on redhat?
What package management does mandrake use (don’t say APT, because I don’t have broadband).
They are slightly different in terms of philosophy: RedHat is certainly more oriented towards the I.T. professionals, whereas Mandrake is more user-friendly and very easy to install and update.
If you have never used Mandrake before I do recommend you give 9.1 a try. I can point you to various reviews, but in the end it´s better to check it for yourself. The distribution is available for download from various mirrors, or you can order the CDs from various CD-ROM distributors.
If you have a free 5 GB partition on your hard disk, you can have Mandrake 9.1 up and running in about 50 minutes.
which is an improvement over the original rpm. It´s fully compatible with rpm, also.
Mandrake uses RPM also – but with urpmi. it’s quite like apt for debian. it works!
It would be better if the install didn’t crash when I click the button to configure my graphics card ( AGP GF 4200 ) !!! 🙁
I havent try linux in a while so I installed it and:
1). Locks up all the time, or random errors
2). cant find a driver for ati radeon 9700
3). painfully slow when multitasking [athlon @2.36ghz]
4). all apps seem to be 3rd rate knock off’s of windows apps
oh well, I will try it again next year back to win2k3 for now. I think linux is a fine os for server apps [command line only] but x-windows sucks as a desktop
¨… random errors…¨
¨… [email protected]…¨
Ah, I see. I don´t think it´s Mandrake that has a problem. I don´t even think it´s your computer hardware.
Ergo, it must be your brains.
>You don’t need anything more than that as a plain >viewer/saver.
I do to save in gif/jpg/pcd/tif format – hardly power user stuff. So I have to go and spend £££’s on more software…
>there is wordpad. I use Notepad all the time to edit simple >small text files. I like it.
And if you need to do some proper WP, let alone spreadsheet work…More £££’s
And don’t _THINK_ about using it to edit conf files on your linux/unix webserver!
>It is fine for most people. Version 2.0 is much better.
Jam tomorrow as usual…
>Wordpad is not a Word replacer. It is an RTF editor. >Similar to Apple’s TextEdit. And for that, it does the job
But if you want do to proper WP?
>I disagree. Media Player is actually pretty good and >capable.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Let’s view all QT files in it then. Real? Ogg?
It is not my hardware ive tested prime 95 for 5 days with no error’s, also 3dmark 20x loops
my computer is stable as a rock in win2k3 and XP trust me it’s a driver or OS problem
Hi Eugenia,
Quite objectively, you have to admit that:
1) MSPaint is completely outdated, even as an image viewer. That poor little program should be put to rest and MS should include something better, after all these years, no?
2) Likewise for Notepad. Compare it to KWrite, for example, that has automatic syntax highlighting and a ton more features.
I have recently installed both Mandrake 9.1 and XP on two different computers, and even though configuring and customizing Mandrake was more time consuming, the end result was far, far superior to the default XP setup.
So, even the least expensive boxed version of Mandrake (9.1 Standard Edition costs $39) provides a ton more features and better quality software than the default install of XP.
With the added bonus of infinitely better security features.
To the guy with the TI4200 – I’d just skip configuring the gfx card during install. Worst case is you get dumped to a console on first boot. Just grab the nvidia driver using Lynx and install it, or re-run XFdrake and see if you can get the nv driver up and running.
Well, I’ve been using Mandrake 9.1 for a few weeks now and I agree, it was a pretty easy install. However, there was one ‘gotcha’ that REALLY caused some trouble. I told it during the install to put the bootloader (GRUB) on the first partition of the slave IDE drive (/dev/hdb1) *not* in the MBR of /dev/hda. Guess what ? It overwrote my MBR anyway, causing me to have to go thru a WinXP repair procedure on my dual-boot box.
Pretty rude behavior, esp. after I configured it to load GRUB at /dev/hdb1. Otherwise I like it well enough. Mandrake doesn’t screw up KDE as much as RedHat does, and comes with some features RH is too conservative to include (MP3 encoding, mounting NTFS file systems). Also detected all my hardware just fine, and the support at MandrakeExpert is polite and reasonably fast. They also give correct and useful answers, unlike the one time I tried to get support from RH on my boxed RH 8.0…
I remember when I worked for a colleges radio station and I managed to get newer computers for my department from the college. I received a PIII 450 mhz which was decent speed computer for that time period. Before we only had a Pentium I 233 mhz. This was around 1999. At that time the college was standardized with Windows NT 4 workstation. I wasnt happy with it and I was experimenting with Beos and Linux. I erased Windows and dual booted. I remmember the kids at the radio station were in shock that I did that and I was using something other than windows. Some didnt even know anything else existed except for the Mac os. They were intriqued to say the least. My bosses accepted my way of doing things and left me alone but were also surprised I axed Windows and thought I couldnt make it without it. We had honor students from high school at the radio station and I remember they were very interested in Linux especially. I remember one of them already had Linux experience using debian and was a whiz to me since I was just using learning and using Mandrake 6.5. I also remember during that time buying 3 boxes of Mandrake 6.5 and giving them as gifts to my bosses. I never did know if I ever get them to try it out at home. But they did see use Mandrake and Beos at my desk. While they dealt with windows I had everything I needed between those os’s. I was a maverick to them.
When I moved on to University. I put beos on one of my computers at that radio station. One person that was into computers and knew solaris and linux was surprised to watch Beos 5 professional run. Beos was news to her.
Now I use Mandrake 9.1 and also finally got around to trying out FreeBsd 5.0. Some before me here have written that you get more out of Linux than Windows. That was one of the reasons back then at work they were surprised of how much I had for so little ($40) for mandrake. Beos was more.
Part of the problem I think with Linux is that most people dont know what it is or what it looks like. And some that have heard about it think it is still just a command line os. I sent screenshots of Mandrake 9.1 KDE 3.1 to my friends that are not computer people and they are really surprised and as always I tell them it was a free download. They are even more shocked.
I have also used Linux on my laptop and taking it to school to take notes and and of course play games
during some of the more ponderous lectures. I play the games which of course attracts attention. But I would get some double takes when it comes to the Linux gui. Some even thought it was just some other style of windows :O
Linux is getting better and better and my Beos is gone now. Except for the the Beos projects. Linux is a great value I just wish more people would take the time to check it out. I may just start sending some iso’s to my friends to give them the temptation. I do have one that is dying to get rid of windows. I already got saved him money when he needed a word clone and told him about openoffice and abiword for windows. He choose abiword and is happy as a clam writing his papers for school and knowing he saved at least $150 for office. That friend is where a lycoris or Mandrake 9.1 is going first
maybe we should all do that to a curious friend and Linux will even grow even faster.
I am so glad that I was curious enough in 1999 to try out Linux and Beos. I realized along with others that watched me work that there is alternatives and life after windows and microsoft.
Hey David it did that to me too. I’ve posted about this twice here at OSNEWS as my usual complaint about Mandrake.
I think it copies GRUB to the MBR, then asks you where you wish to put it, and then you have 2 copies of it.
What sort of beta/bug testing did they do? How could they miss that? It is as if they didn’t test.
Also I can never get TTF fonts setup properly (hmm not at all), by using the Mandrake Control Center, so I do it the manual way.
I guess the only things I like about Mandrake 9.1 is that it is i586, and the Galaxy Theme. Which I hope becomes available for both Gnome and KDE so I can download it for other distro’s.
¨It is not my hardware ive tested prime 95 for 5 days with no error’s, also 3dmark 20x loops¨
So?
¨my computer is stable as a rock in win2k3 and XP trust me it’s a driver or OS problem¨
…¨trust me it´s a driver or OS problem¨: I am really sorry, but you are hopeless.
“so?”
so you were implying that me overclocking was the cause of my problems with mandrake 9.1 I replyed explaning that the hardware is stable under ms OS’s.
now basic troubleshooting would suggest if its not my hardware, it would be a software problem. I dont appreciate the demeaning tone of your posts I was simple sharing my expirences with this OS and there is no need for personal attacks.
Basic troubleshooting would also suggest you remove the overclocking from the problems with Mandrake. Try it on a standard system, and if it works it’s your modifications.
I’ve been running 9.1 for a month or so now on a fairly modern system (Athlon XP 2000+, nForce 2, GF4 Ti4200 etc) without incident. I just wish I could work out how to get my Playstation USB adaptor to work
– Ed
“Basic troubleshooting would also suggest you remove the overclocking from the problems with Mandrake. Try it on a standard system, and if it works it’s your modifications.”
No because I have already proved that the computer’s hardware was stable other wise It would crash in windows, but just to make you happy I will set the bios to failsafe
and try that.
Btw my hardware is
athlon xp 1.83ghz
nforce2 mobo
radeon 9700
512MB ddr
intel nic
audigy sound card
No personnal attack meant, sorry for the tone.
But simply put, if you overclock your hardware, don´t expect people to accept any vague claim that ¨it´s a driver or OS problem¨.
Random errors and lockups are usually caused by hardware that is running beyond specs – as you seem to be doing.
Also your tests – Prime95 and 3DMark – don´t really test your entire system.
So first try running your system within specs and then you´ll have some credibility to claim that ¨it´s a driver or OS problem¨.
¨Btw my hardware is
athlon xp 1.83ghz
… ¨
Check that again. If you have an Athlon XP 2200+ it´s supposed to run at 1.80GHz default, not 1.83GHz. And running it at 2.36 GHz is way beyond specs. I suppose you also increased the voltage beyond specs, right? Do you at least know which core revision your Athlon is? And is your heatsink/fan something built for that kind of power dissipation?
¨…I have already proved that the computer’s hardware was stable other wise It would crash in windows…¨
That doesn´t prove anything. In fact the more you write about your configuration, the more obvious it becomes that it´s overclocked beyond reason.
Linux runs fine on an Athlon 2200+, so why not run your system at default speed and enjoy a stable Linux install? You are just asking for trouble and you are getting it…
If I send out a Linux iso to someone, I usually send a Knoppix CD (knoppix.org). In my experience, using a live CD does two things. One is that people are impressed that a shiny desktop can be seen AND used by simply inserting a CD and rebooting. The second is that it introduces people to Linux without the stigma that comes with installing and partitioning (i.e. risk of permanent damage). If something goes wrong, turn off the computer and take out the CD. But, sometimes, it does take Windows seriously messing up (e.g. unable to boot or corrupted FAT) for someone to use the Knoppix CD. A Gentoo live CD comes with a game demo. There are several more live CDs, so google for one that you think will impress people the most.
>I disagree. Media Player is actually pretty good and >capable.
What i have found anoying is that Media Player does not support quicktime, real media, dvd, mpeg2, video cd, vorbis and so on.
mediaplayer does not support fast forward or skip or frame grab and things like that on all media formats.
xine and Mplayer does that..
in mplayer xine you can also use the arrow keys to
skip ahead and fast forward and things like that.
For those of you bitching about MS including mostly sub-par apps by default:
1. Sure, let them include something like MS Office as part of the default OS install and they would quickly be sued right off the planet. Anytime they do something like this, there’s always at least 1 million rabid zealots screaming about bundling and illegal monopolies. Use your brain, folks.
2. Most people actually get Windows as part of a computer purchase, which is the way I got my copy. Along with my new computer, included were all the media apps (Real Player, Quicktime, etc), Word Perfect Office, PowerDVD (how many Linux distros actually come with DVD software?), Quicken, Taxcut, Britanaca, and an buttload of other apps to go with it.
3. I actually LIKE the fact that Windows comes with pretty much a barebones install, because once the OS has been out for about 3 months, most everything is outdated anyway. And this is something I’ve noticed about Linux – distros like Redhat have a nice repository for keeping track of your the RPMs that came with the distro CDs, but don’t work as well when you start trying to add downloaded RPMs to the mix, and I’ve never seen any ‘easy-as-pie’ installers for Linux that will let you get the latest version of anything without first hacking a config file or dropping to the command-line. Sure, such methods are probably easier than GUI installs once you learn how it’s done[/i], but they’re about as intuitive as Chinese Calculus.
Kevin,
Sorry for the typo it is a athlon xp 2100+ @1.73
voltage is at 1.8
with a thermalright slk-800 with a 50cfm fan and
the core is a AIUHB 302
Yes this is way beyond spec, my fsb is also at 194mhz I tested it upto 2.4 stable and backed it off a little bit but the t-bred axp are very good overclockers and is not uncommon to reach over 2.4 on air.
guys I have been running this setup for months but like I said earlyier I will set everything to defaults and give it another try.
sorry 197fsb
Those comments about instability of Linux, I find them funny.
Linux runs perfectly for me. It never crashes, or well, it has crashed once in half a year. And I use it a lot…
Windows 2000 should be stable, but it is not. 1/3 of the times, it spontaneously reboots just before or after the login screen appears. Sometimes it also reboots suddenly when I am just working. And it often freezes, more often when using the soundcard and the internet at the same time, but otherwise also sometimes.
So which OS is unstable? And no, I have not overclocked my PC or any such things.
The FSB is way too high. Your Athlon XP 2100+ was designed to run at 133MHz fsb, and your mainboard was designed to run at 166MHz max.
Similarly, if you are using DDR 333 RAM, you are beyond specs. Also make sure your RAM is running with its default timing parameters (CAS2, 2.5 or 3), not overclocked ones.
Linux is less tolerant than Windows XP when it comes to overclocking, probably because Linux developers tend to optimize their code in every possible way. The advantage is that one gets better performance with standard hardware. So overclocking is not really necessary.
I tried to install it the other day on my girlfriend’s Sotec 3123, and it hung on PCMCIA, which is no good since she needs to use a linksys pcmcia wireless card.
It works under Slackware and Vector… I wonder what the heck is going on. Granted, it isn’t a high quality laptop to begin with.
On a related note, I am always surprised at how badly modern distributions handle the wireless thing. To be sure, they are getting better, but considering how widespread wireless is, I’d expect it to ask more questions about it at install time (what is your SSID? your WEP key?)…
So which OS is unstable? And no, I have not overclocked my PC or any such things.
Depends on who you ask. I haven’t experienced a crash or lookup in Win2k since mid-2001. I can lock up any of the newest distros simply by attempting to run the pre-installed games (whole screen goes black, never recovers). Of course, I know the reason why this happens in Linux is because I don’t have something set up properly, which is the same reason why your Win2k install spontaneously reboots
If Win2k were to spontaneously reboot when set up properly, then how come mine doesn’t ?
My problem with Linux installs is that they are very inflexible. In most cases with Windows, and all cases with Mac OS (9 or 10, although having complete hardware control is kind of cheating in this respect), everything comes up right away.
A Windows XP install will recognize all but the most exotic/legacy hardware, while Linux installs from all distros routinly miss very common hardware, often requiring a fairly complicated process to remedy (beyond the ability of most computer users).
RedHat 8.0 didn’t recognize my AC97 audio on my Giga-byte motherboard. Mandrake 9.1 saw my AC97 audio, and saw my scanner, but the X installation crashed on my DVI-connected nvidia Ti4200 (using generic VESA driver). RedHat 9.0 saw my AC97, worked with the generic VESA driver, but didn’t see my scanner.
I keep hearing the myopic: “My installation is fine, you must be stupid” or “You fool! You should be using insert distro here, clearly the superior distro!” whenever someone dare criticize a Linux install.
Not only is this shortsighted, but the snotty attitude runs contradictory to any desire to have Linux a mainstream desktop operating system, where average users will find it as useful and even moreso than any MS offering.
Linux is still has work to do before it can become a mainstream desktop system; denial and placaytion isn’t going to help this.
Darius himself says “If Win2k were to spontaneously reboot when set up properly, then how come mine doesn’t ?” which means Windows users shoot off about how good their OS is too. On the machine I’m running now, AthlonXP 2000+, Gigabyte GA-7VAX mobo, 512 DDR333, ASUS TI4200 128MD DDR video, 48x24x48 burner, 16x dvd, Mandrake 9.0, 9.1 and Gentoo all picked off the hardware. VIA 8233 sound, VIA onboard nic, onboard USB, all the drives, all I had to setup was the video card, and the latest NVIDIA drivers do pretty much all the work (no more symlinks! 🙂 ). I had installed WinXP (now shelfware) on this very same machine, and it needed ALL the driver disks that came with the hardware (and a couple reboots).
Now I agree that regular desktop users would find any modern Linux just as, or even more, useful as a Windows OS, the problem is that regular users do not want to install any OS. The OEM deals that MS has basically prevents any supplier from installing anything but Windows. Go to any electronics store and try getting a laptop with Mandrake preinstalled, or one without an OS period. Linux is desktop ready. MS is just doing all they can to prevent this from happening. My wife is dual-booting between Mandrake 9.1 and W2K. I’m completely lost as to why W2K on her machine occasionally forgets it has a printer attached to it when it is left on for an extended amount of time. My wife is really very impressed with Linux (she dosen’t go near the CLI), and she is a regular user.
Now, can someone please tell me why there isn’t a C/C++ compiler with Windows??
http://www.gentoo.org
Now what did I just say:
I keep hearing the myopic: “My installation is fine, you must be stupid” or “You fool! You should be using insert distro here, clearly the superior distro!” whenever someone dare criticize a Linux install.
Not only is this shortsighted, but the snotty attitude runs contradictory to any desire to have Linux a mainstream desktop operating system, where average users will find it as useful and even moreso than any MS offering.
Because that was exactly your approach. That helps nobody and the Linux community continuing to stick it’s head in the sand over usability issues will only further relegate the OS to that of ubergeeks and wannabe nerds, while the masses are forced to use Windows because Linux is still beyond their ability.
The fact remains that Linux installs aren’t nearly as robust and dynamic as installs for other operating systems: Windows, MacOS, BeOS, etc. They work great for a number of users, but when it encounters a problem, the install stops, or the install fails to configure a piece of hardware, leaving that up to the user.
I’d love for Linux to be beating the pants off Windows in the desktop market; we’d finally see some innovation if that were the case. There are plenty of suppliers that aren’t betroven to OEM deals, yet few of them offer Linux to the populace. Lindows is probably the only offering that makes using Linux easy enough for the regular populace, but that’s through a heavy layer of non-widely-accepted installation mechanisms. At the same time, most die-hard Linux users wouldn’t be caught dead using the “newbie” Lindows system.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be elitist and inclusionary.
Mandrake 9.1 saw my AC97 audio, and saw my scanner, but the X installation crashed on my DVI-connected nvidia Ti4200 (using generic VESA driver).
Do you happen to have 1 GB of RAM or more? Then it’s a known problem with Mandrake kernels as distributed with version 9.X. The graphical installer does not crash per se but you lose the image (which amounts to the same thing). The solution is to do a text install. Note that it’s the framebuffer mode that doesn’t work, not X. X works fine with NVIDIA cards (and the new NVIDIA Linux installer is a breeze to use). NVIDIA obviously likes Linux, since they’ve made numerous efforts to bring top-notch quality drivers to the platform (even though they’re not open-source…)
There is a patch available for the framebuffer problem. Expect the problem to be solved in the next official kernel releases (an in Mandrake 9.2).
Also, for those who criticize the testing of Linux distros such as Mandrake…remember that these are community-produced and tested distros. The more people involved, the better the distro will turn out ot be. So don’t bitch – get involved. This is something you definitely can’t do as a Windows user…it’s a completely different approach, with its own advantages and shortcomings. It’s more democratic, therefore somewhat less efficient on certain aspects (but way more efficient on others).
The fact remains that Linux installs aren’t nearly as robust and dynamic as installs for other operating systems: Windows
I strongly disagree – especially as I’ve had to install Windows 98 and 2000 recently. The installation of Mandrake 9.1 is a lot smoother (and faster!) than any Windows installation I’ve recently had the misfortune to undergo. My experience mimics that of Joe Barr in recent LinuxWorld columns: Linux is easier to install than Windows.
Then again, there should be a golden rule before installing any OS: check on the Internet to make sure every piece of hardware is supported and has drivers available for them. That will save a lot of pain down the road…
No, I only have 768 GB of RAM. My Nvidia card is connected via DVI to a flat-screen (which it recognized correctly as a digital Dell 1710), which is something most people don’t do. Both Mandrake and one of the RedHat versions (8.0 I believe) had a problem with this, and switching to the analog VGA port for the install fixed it for one, but not the other. I can’t recall for certain which one was which.
The Windows installer is still far more dynamic than any Linux installer. Easier? Windows does have that annoying “reboot 2 or 3 times” habit, but it’s able to handle a great number of scenarios on a variety of hardware that has made other Linux installations crash, stop, or panic.
For instance, when RedHat found bad blocks on one of my hard drives (there are a total of 10 bad blocks on my drive), it just said the equivalent of “sorry! you’re screwed!”. My Windows installer just marked them bad, and then moved on. In Linux, I could go in and boot in rescue mode, and run badblocks. But that’s not very elegant, nor is it something that most users could do.
That’s just one of many possible scenarios where a Linux install will turn from easy to “requires some sysadmin skill”. I think I saw someone mention something about an install dying on the PCMCIA card section, another example.
And I’m glad you brought up Nvidia drivers. While yes, the new Nvidia drivers are much easier to install than the old drivers, it’s still at the level Windows 3.1 was (and MacOS, NeXTSTEP, or BeOS never were) almost 10 years ago: Command line installation. And often you still have to edit /etc/X11/XFree86(-4) manually to replace “nv” with “nvidia”.
With MacOS, BeOS, or NeXSTEP, you never had to touch the command line. Driver installs/upgrades on MacOS (<9 or X), NeXTSTEP, Windows, and BeOS, while not risk-free (although they have much better recovery capabilities), is a much more user-friendly and elegant experience.
Linux, beyond a narrow scope of use, is too difficult for most users. Hell, Windows is too difficult in many respects, yet Linux is still catching up. It doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of innovating, as open source does in many areas, Linux is still playing catchup and copy-the-leader in most respects.
Linux lacks any kind of universal graphical VISE-like or simliar-style graphical installation. Some distros have their own home-brewed versions for various bits and pieces here (such as RedHat’s graphical RPM manager), but they’re still a far, far cry from basic features that other commercial operating systems have enjoyed for many years.
That’s not a problem at all with servers, which is why Linux and other open source operating systems enjoy such prolific use.
But the needs of the average user are much different, and no one has completely addressed this in any significant, meaningful, or consistent way.
I don’t think it’s impossible, I think it’s quite doable with the open source community, coming together to get it done. Denial of the importance of those features, denial even that those features don’t exist, and the dichotomy of rabid advocacy/rabid snobbery are a factor in helping prevent this from occuring.