[ale] mandrake

[Geoffrey]

<RANT>

There's been some discussion regarding Mandrakes new membership drive. 
I was considering paying my $60, but figured I'd give 8.2 a spin first. 
  Of late, I've been returning to Red Hat because of various quirks with 
Mandrake that just didn't sit right with me.

Well, I'm holding off on my membership.

I just installed 8.2 on a machine that previously had a perfectly 
working Red Hat 7.2.  Everything worked on RH.

I've attempted to configure X about 9 times on this box, to no avail. 
All I get is a blank screen and it does not appear that I can switch to 
another virtual terminal from X.  I've tried a couple variations here. 
The video card is recognized properly, and there is a monitor entry for 
this monitor in the XFdrake gui.  I've tried all combinations of 
resolutions/bpp, still no luck.  I'm going to stick it out and swap the 
video card out for another, and possibly the monitor.  Understand 
though, this is not the kind of thing that is going to get Windows folks 
  to the Linux world.

Also, I figured I'd print the X config file for the purpose of 
documenting this issue.  I fired up printerdrake, it properly recognized 
my remote printer.  I selected it, attempted to print a test page and it 
failed telling there was no printer spool for the printer and there 
wasn't as I noted.  So, the printer install did not work.  I exited 
printerdrake only to be presented with a core dump.  Lovely.

I then returned to printerdrake and this time, it fines no printers. 
I'm prompted with a dialog that says: 'No local printer found!, To 
install network printers, click "Cancel", switch to the "Expert'

Realize there are a couple problems here, at least two that I've 
explicitly noted.  Another that rubs me the wrong way is the 
inconsistency of the gui.  The first time I ran printerdrake, it offered 
to me the option of local printers or remote.  The second time, it 
searchs for printers and finds none, telling me to go to expert to 
configure remote printers.

Note to things here.  The text apparently is not completely displayed as 
  "Expert does not contain an ending quote.  Minor nitpick.  But, I'm 
presented with an OK button, no Cancel button as indicated in the dialog.

I return to expert mode, and start through the process of adding a 
remote printer.  The gui is still screwed up, to the point that I can't 
recognize how to set various settings when I'm prompted to select media 
type and such.

I'm presented with another print test page option, which is different 
from the previous one.  Again, inconsistent GUI.  I select to print a 
standard print, no output.  I'm returned to the expert page, where I 
choose the option to change the printer system.  Core dump.

Folks, this is frightening to me as this reminds me so much of Problems 
I have with Microsoft products. Printerdrake crashed, X won't config and 
apparently untested code is contained in this product. (core 
dump/missing Cancel button).  This is 8.2, they should have been able to 
get it right the third time around.

Yes, I'm disappointed.

-- 
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net

I didn't have to buy my radio from a specific company to listen
to FM, why doesn't that apply to the Internet (anymore...)?


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