[Cialug] Mandrake 8.1

["Robert M. Zigweid" <tigran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ok, first off, I'm going to say that my favorite dist to date is Debian. 
  I will also probably continue to use this, but I would like to know 
which one to recommend to other people if they ask.  I wouldn't 
recommend Debian to new users because it is definitly not the easiest to 
get going, especially if you want to run Sid.

However, I thought that I would spend some time installing the various 
distributions on my laptop.  I haven't gotten very far yet to be honest. 
   I decided to start with Mandrake, so I downloaded the ISO's and set 
out to install.  Needless to say, I was totally unimpressed.  For a 
distribution that seems to tout it's ease of use for installation, I was 
disgusted.

Now, here's why.

Ok..so this is my big beef.  I had a BUNCH of package instal errors from 
disk 2.  Now, I didn't select 'Choose individual packages' or whatever 
similar thing it was, but I did tweak which of the basic groups I wanted 
to install (mostly turning off the server parts, and putting all the 
desktop stuff on.)  I get to disk 2, there were at least 20 packages it 
failed to install, reporting error messages.  I did not write these 
down, but it's easily duplicatable and I can regenerate these.  At first 
I thought it might have been something that I did wrong, but someone 
else I know was running into the same problem.  (Unfortunatly I'd 
recommended Mandrake based upon it's supposed ease of installation for 
him...silly me for not trying it first)

Another, it asked if I had all three disks, which I do, and didn't 
bother to request the third disk for anything.  This may be something as 
simple as I didn't request any of the packages from the disk or 
something similar, but it still sticks out in my mind.

My main question, is do others have this problem?

Ok..now, just so that it doesn't appear that I'm being all negative, 
I'll state what I think are high points too.

The user interface was nice and snappy and graphical on my laptop.  I 
had no problems with the interface giving me problems and found it easy 
to navigate

Hardware detection.  It went flawlessly.  Even to the point of 
acknowledging my printer after I initially forgot to plug the USB cable 
in.  Went back, and it redetected it without a hitch.

Robert


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Robert M. Zigweid		|  Eventually I'll find a quote I like.
tigran@internation.co.uk 
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