Neil Marjoram wrote
{
Can I just cause a little stir?
Get some opinions maybe.
I've left the fold - I even considered the dark side for a few seconds!
What am I talking about ? RH 8.0 / RH 9.0, I am now using Mandrake 9.1,
because I'm a little fed up with problems like :
Acrobat
Realplayer
Gmplayer
HPOJ
HPIJS
WACOM
wave_lan
etc..................
Yes after hours of work I now have a system working, but ahhh it's a SMP
running usb so the printer locks up.
Oh and let me see linuxprinting.org - yes printer works perfectly -
given aprox 20 hours of stress.
So I tried SUSE - the same, but Mandrake, well thats different. Only
thing left is wacom - but can't get it off the wife to test yet!
As a server I use RH 7.3, it's good, but at the momenet I have no plans
to migrate to 8 or 9. As a desktop I want the latest fancy stuff so by
by RH.
How about before the next release (10 or is it 11) can we get the
desktop to work, instead of adding things like the redhat look and feel.
My experience, just so you don't think I'm a newbie.
RHCE on RH 8.0
With Linux since 1997 / 8
Unix admin since 1993 - AIX 3 - 4.3 / Solaris 2.5 - 9 / Tru64
Linux used RH 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 /9
Mandrake 9.1
SUSE 5 / 8
Please can we push RH to get this sorted? RH8/9 are in my list of worst
*ix's ever!
End of rant.....!
}
Sure, you can cause a stir. I have had almost as much trouble with RH9
as I had with SuSE. However, I'm pretty surprised that you're having
printing problems. I have used SuSE 8.1, SuSE 8.2, Mandrake 9, Mandrake
9.1, Yoper, FreeBSD 5.0, Slackware 9, Debian Woody, Gentoo (the newest
one), Sorcerer (also the newest one), OpenNA, Vector, and even an LFS.
I have an HP LaserJet 4, HP Deskjet 842c on USB, Canon BJC-210, Canon
BJ-2100?, Epson Stylus Color 740 on USB, and some Kyrocera and Epson
laser printers that I can't remember the numbers on now. The OS that
gave me the most trouble was SuSE, and Mandrake came in second.
I also run quite a variety of scanners, software, systems, SCSI stuff,
and USB stuff like Dongles and flash readers. Of the OSes I've used,
the worst compatibility came from SuSE. I have only been able to
successfully install on one system, and that was only if I install the
default set of packages on practically a stripped system. Networking
wouldn't even work right most of the time.
Mandrake would run on almost half of my systems, but not a single system
had everything set up properly. In fact, none of my printers ever
worked in Mandrake.
Yoper actually found a good bit of stuff, but the other problems I had
with it were unbearable.
(http://www.angelfire.com/biz/vanderjagtcomputers/Yoper_Review.html)
(http://www.angelfire.com/biz/vanderjagtcomputers/Yoper_the_Second.html)
FreeBSD took a long time to install, and it's hardware support was
pretty old. Installing drivers really wasn't very hard, and it seemed
to perform faster than any other OS I've used, but I really didn't use
it that long, since I had already fallen in love with Red Hat.
Slackware found everything, but I couldn't get the nVidia driver to
work. Everything else always worked perfectly. Really nVidia's fault,
and it's a real testament to Slackware's reliability! I'm impressed!
Debian Woody was not fun to install, but after I did, it panicked when
starting X. *gasp* However, again I think that's nVidia's fault.
Gentoo and Sorcerer...what can I say. One bad URL or one changed source
and the whole thing goes kaput. I never really had a chance to test
compatibility, but from what it seems, compatibility could theoretically
have been the best with source-based distros but usually aren't, since
there isn't enough manpower behind the distribution.
OpenNA never freaking booted! Just a Red Hat with bug fixes my ass!
Vector found everything and always worked! I'm not kidding! A few
drivers were needed, but they just dropped right in without any
trouble. I left Vector for Red Hat 'cause I like the toys.
When I installed a Linux from scratch (never used the LFS stuff), I
started by booting from the Red Hat CD, partitioning, installing GRUB,
downloading and building my own kernel (2.4.20 I think), and continuing
to use the RH CD to hold my hand through the process. I didn't get
nVidia drivers to install, and since I had gotten exhausted by that
point already, I fell back into the open arms of Red Hat and ran the
installation from the Red Hat 8.0 CD.
Needless to say, I have stuck with Red Hat for the great hardware
compatibility and wide range of operating environments.
End of, um, rant.
