Mandrake Strikes Again
They Struck Out
When Mandrake 8.2 came out, they had a special offer in which I could order releases 9.0 and 9.1 at the same time as 8.2; the purchase was also supposed to include an intermediate release between 8.2 and 9.0 but they never sent that release, quickly advancing to 9.0 instead.
Which brings me to my first sticking point with Mandrake: they have a dynamic enough sales organization in the United States but their production and distribution facilities centered in Paris, France, keep screwing up and falling behind on orders. I have yet to receive a product when it was supposed to arrive.
Release 9.1, when it arrived yesterday, directly from Paris, was about a month late.
Except for my very first Mandrake installation, I have yet to have a trouble-free installation. It seems to get harder each time. Their basic installation procedure is very unforgiving. If anything goes wrong at any point, the procedure goes into a loop that nothing can be done about ... except to abort the installation, replace some hardware or bypass a segment of the installation procedure, and start over.
They managed to mung up their already deficient installation procedure this time. In all past installations, the user had the option to upgrade his system, even if this meant skipping a release or two. This time, they set it up so that the user could only upgrade a 9.0 installation. What this means is that once you have upgraded your system you are stuck with it and can't add any new features. I tried it. Once you upgrade, the only thing you can do is a full installation ... unless you first "upgrade" back to the previous release.
This borders on stupidity.
It means you have to get your system set up right the very first time. This has never happened to me. I doubt if it happens to most people. I suspect that many people begin fixing their systems as soon as they start using them. There are still several options open for fixing the system, but there is no point in removing any user options unnecessarily.
The things that seemed to go well in the installation failed when the system was started up, simple things like the CUPS printer setup and the video card setup. I was able to fix CUPS quickly but I still haven't gotten the video working.
I've been installing / upgrading quite a few systems lately: Windows 98SE, Mandrake 9.0 and the Lindows / Debian package. Lindows wouldn't accept my old, obsolete video card (the last few releases of Mandrake also had problems with it and I knew when I built the computer that I would eventually have to replace it). None of these systems had any problems with the generic nVidia card I'm using. But Mandrake 9.1 won't give me a decent display and, as it turns out, it is a problem they knew about long enough in advance to mention in their book documenting the release.
According to a brief note at the back of the book, nVidia cards require a special version of the kernel to function. The installation program is supposed to detect the card and install this special kernel but sometimes fails. The user is advised to find and install the RPMs for the kernel and support modules when this happens. But almost nothing works in Mandrake Linux unless your GUI (Graphic User Interface) is up and running. Searching through the eight CD-ROMs for two unnamed RPM files based on their function is going to be a formidible task. They didn't even bother narrowing it down to a single CD-ROM which contains the files, nor did they specify the file names.
It may take me a few days to find the files.
Today I started using Lindows for my mail. As far as I'm concerned, that transition is permanent. However, I will probably now transfer all of my Web files to the Lindows system and start doing all of my Web development and writing there too. That leaves very little function for the Mandrake system. Even when I get it going, I may well wipe everything and use the hard drive for something else.
Resolving a Mail Problem
When I tried to send my first email message from Lindows, it generated an error message. The message didn't tell me very much, so I had to do some detective work. Eventually I checked in to read the setup instructions on my ISP's Web site. They had changed.
Previously, the setup had specified using all lower case for the smtp information; now some of the information was in upper case. I changed my setup accordingly and it worked.
It was a very simple solution. And it leaves me to believe that the problem I've been having with the smtp connection for my high speed Internet connection under Windows may be equally simple. As soon as I have the time to dedicate to experimentation, I intend to find out.
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Comments (1)
It often is something stupid like case. When I was having issues with the server at work back in January, a huge source of problems was inconsistencies in case.