[plug] Distro Wars was: Mandrake (ask Leon) was: kernel update was: USB palm pilot

[Richard Meyer]

----- Forwarded by Richard Meyer/Australia/Contr/IBM on 05/05/2003 11:23 AM
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                      "Simon Scott"                                                                                                 
                      <sscott at iinet.net        To:       plug at plug.linux.org.au                                                     
                      .au>                     cc:                                                                                  
                                               Subject:  [plug] Re: Mandrake (ask Leon) was: kernel update was: USB palm pilot      
                      05/05/2003 09:33                                                                                              
                      AM                                                                                                            
                      Please respond to                                                                                             
                      plug                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                                    



>> I have an open mind for OpenBSD. If you think the Debian zombies are bad
you
should see
>> the one for Mandrake. Just ask Leon.

>After having thoroughly used Mandrake 9.1 in both a desktop (xinerama)
>scenario and now on 2 servers, I declare it the best Linux distro of all
time
>(tm). Unless you like wasting your time (like most Debian, *BSD and
slackware
>people seem to do) this is probably the distro for you.

Distro envy causes people to pick on those of us who use the best Linux
Distro of all time (TBLDOAT (tm)). I really can't praise Mandrake 9.1
enough - it really installs easily, and it just works. It has everything I
want, and it's really pretty. I only wish I knew how to stop the dratted
thing turning off the monitor after however many minutes of inactivity -
any ideas? Screensaver starts up and a while later the screen goes blank.

And now for some Debian questions.
==================================

Having said that, I can see why people might use Debian - the apt-get type
tools look really good. Pity the installation is so non-intuitive. I have
tried about 5 times to install Debian, and given up 4 times. I came closest
over this past weekend. After interminable questions about font sizes of
Cyrillic alphabets, and what dictionaries I wanted, I was left with a
system that boots into X, but doesn't recognise my mouse. This mouse
shouldn't be too difficult to find, after all, it is plugged in to the
first serial port. I suspect that a few ln commands to link /dev/mouse to
/dev/whatever-the-serial-port-is would fix it.

Why does Debian assume that I want a million different alphabets? What does
it take to install a fairly minimal system? I have installed Slackware back
in the 1.2.0 kernel days, so I'm not a *total* moron. Debian just seems so
*difficult* to install. If I sound like I'm whining, it's because I am -
frustration does that.

<<snipped>>

>Sweet, fast, and configurable. HIGHLY recommended.

Have to agree. The new Galaxy really rocks, too. If you've got a free
partition, and a few hours, give Mandrake a try.

RichardM