On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Bob Puff@NLE wrote:
:~>> No. Our beta-testing period for 7.1 was 3-4 x longer than for 7.0, and
:~>> there was nothing even near to "abrupt cesation" of testing. There were 3
:~>> public betas, and we did not receive any "critical bug reports" for the
:~>> third one, so we had all the reason to beleive that 7.1 will be a good
:~>> product (and it is).
:~>> but none are really "show stoppers" (workarounds exist), and I still think
:~>> that overal quality of 7.1 is miles better than 7.0, or any previous
:~>> Mandrake release:
:~>
:~>Well, as someone who had a little experience with 6.1, and recently did several
:installs of 7.1 (never tried 7.0), I would beg to differ with you big time. There
:are some significant bugs dealing mostly with the install that I have posted here,
:but no one has responded. And yes, they will keep 7.1 from installing! Let me see
:if I can recall these:
:~>
:~>1. The CDROM bug: once you get to where it wants disk #2, the cdrom drive will not
:eject a disk. No way whatsoever to change disks. (I did manage to change the disk
:by powering down the CDROM drive, but then Linux wouldn't recognize it. Happened
:with two out of four computers.
CDROM is supposed to auto eject. It did so on every PC i tried, and on
every PC we had in the company. I admitt that this is unpleasant, but 1-st
CD is enough for basic install, and you can always add packages later.
:~>2. The way to start the install program from a DOS prompt is broken - doesn't work
:at all.
Umpf? Does here, AFAIK. Anyone else has this problem?
:~>3. The install program starts up running in high resolution, if it sees you have a
:card that can do it. Unfortunately, it doesn't ask if your monitor can support it,
:and thus my screen turned to hash, and I was unable to install the program.
:(Thankfully I had a multisync monitor on another system that I robbed long enough to
:do the install.) THis should default to 640x480, and ask / let you try higher rez if
:you want.
RTFD: Press F1 in the beginning of the install for help, will you?
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/demos/Demo/Mandrake7.1/Install/pages/install1.php3
If I recall it correctly, option is called "vgalow"
:~>4. Setup properly detected my 3com 509 network card, then set up the wrong drivers
:for it! (Had to change from whatever it had to the 3com 509 driver, what a concept.)
Send the output of lspcidrake, and we'll fix this. This is really weird.
:~>5. Setup did not install the 75dpi or 100dpi fonts, which gave me all sorts of
:error messages when X tried to start.
This is strange. I installed this distro "more than once", and NEVER got
any problems with fonts. What have you done to our poor installer prog?
:~>6. My monitor type and card must have been screwed up somewhere in the detection,
:as I couldn't even get 256 colors at 640x480 working on one system. When I tried
:running the XF86setup, it core dumps when you tell it to list devices.
Would it help to tell us: "my monitor (type XY, specs such-and-such) and
VGA-card (type ZX, output of lspcidrake)"... Yup, it would.
:~>7. "Automatic setup" is definitely not what anyone should use.
>It skips many important steps. Also installs junk packages, and doesn't
>install ones that should be installed by default (IMHO).
Automatic setup has only one big minus: It does not configure
networking. Other than that, it is quite nice for what it is supposed to
do: install a cute desktop for unexperienced users. In next version
(7.2?), this install type will install networking, and it will also ask
people how much "junk" they want installed ("minimal/best-of/everything
except servers").
We can argue about "installs junk/does not install important" if you tell
me what is junk, and what is important... Even better: Take a look at
numbers in depslist, change those you think should be changed and send to
me.
:~>8. The KDE/X stuff looks like it was pre-configured for 1024x768 rez. WHen you're
:in 640x480, some things are off the screen,
>and other boxes are so large you can't even get to an OK or CANCEL
>button! Even in Win95, it defaults to the lowest common denominator, and
>every window is accessible.
Windows also default to i386 architecture, we do not. We are definitively
not going to optimize the KDE for 640x480. (Is there some simple way to
get a different desktop if resolution is small?)
:~>I think that any of these things would cause a newbie to give up, if
>they didn't have persistence. I am not a Win95 (or microsoft) fan, but
>for the average user, their setup works a whole lot better. From reading
>the comments here, it seems that 7.0 didn't have some of the big nasty
>bugs that 7.1 has.
Sorry to disapoint you, but I have a feeling that your hardware is
quite unique. Of all the "big nasty bugs" you numbered, only "2" is likely
to affect many people (we'll have to re-check this one, thx), and
"4" falls into "very unpleasant gaf" category (have you tried
"harddrake" after install?), but nothing that can not be
easily solved by our "install support" folks.
cu
Denis
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