Subject: Re: Mandrake 9.1 Install (review? definately a long one..)
deem@wdm.com
Date: Thu Mar 27 2003 - 09:58:02 AKST
Leif,
You are one persistant fellow for the Mandrake side :-) Hope the
9.2 ver goes better.
Dee
On 27 Mar 2003 at 9:24, Leif Sawyer wrote:
> Well, I installed Bamboo on a couple of machines, and thought I'd go
> over some of my issues:
>
> Machine #1
> IBM ThinkPad 760ED with p5-133
> 80 Mb Ram
> 20 Gig HD
> mwave modem/sound
> trident vga
> 3c5x9 PCI 10/100 in docking station
> 4x IDE cdrom
> PS/2 Mouse
>
> Machine #2
> Tyan Dual CPU m/b with 1 p6/Celeron 1G
> 512 Mb Ram
> 20 Gig IDE HD
> 2 x 80 Gig IDE HD
> 4/24/2 IDE CDR/RW/DVD
> nvidia g-force 2MX
> SoundBlaster Live
> 3c905 PCI 10/100
> USB IntelliMouse+Wheel
>
> I installed on Machine #1 first, as I had the least amount of personal
> data on it -- simply copied it over to my Win95 partition and started
> the
> install. I have to use a UniversalBoot floppy in order to boot off of
> the
> CDROM (which i find easier than trying to make a boot floppy) and this
> worked well. Selected expert mode.
>
> First thing I noticed is that the graphical installer seems to use
> 32-bit color,
> and as my card doesn't support that many colors, it looked a little
> funny. I didn't
> bother rebooting into vga-low mode, but just suffered through it. Not
> unreadable,
> just not nice-looking.
>
> The new installer is very slick. Much cleaner than previous versions. I
> quickly
> re-formatted my linux partitions and was on the way to installing the
> OS.
> The installation completed without a hitch, and I rebooted my laptop.
>
> I copied my original XFree86cfg file over, changed my default window
> manager
> from KDE to IceWM (save on some resources) and fired up X.
>
> Total time: about 3 hours (mostly due to slow machine!)
>
> Next I upgraded machine #2. This machine is more complicated, due to
> the
> /usr partition being a raid-1 meta-device of two partitions (hdb1 +
> hdc1)
>
> I booted the CD into rescue mode, mounted my root drive and copied over
> the
> raidstart/raidstop binaries, as they weren't on the rescue image (bad
> mandrake!)
> I then had to manually create the /dev/md0 node (mknod /dev/md0 b 9 0)
> I also copied my raidtab into the ramdisk /etc. I loaded the raid1
> drivers
> and started raid. mounted /dev/md0 on /mnt/usr, and proceded to rm -rf
> everything that I didn't need. (this machine had been upgraded since
> mdk 7.1, it
> was past due for a wipe.. :-)
>
> once finished, i mv'd the /mnt/etc to /mnt/etc.save, umounted /mnt/usr
> and /mnt,
> raidstop'd, and rebooted.
>
> I chose the expert installer again, and when it came time to choose my
> partitions,
> i selected my existing root partition, then switched to the console.
> I again had to cp my raidtab into /etc, create the /dev/md0 node,
> modprobe raid1
> and raidstart. raidstart/stop are on the install image, however.. I
> then
> mounted /dev/md0 on /mnt/usr
>
> switching back to the graphical installer, I picked my options and let
> run. 20
> minutes later, the packages were installed, and it asked me for my
> password.
> After defining the root and user passwords, it then proceded to the
> network setup,
> which is where I had my first hang -- insmod 3c59x was stuck
> initializing.
> I switched to the console, umounted /mnt/usr and /mnt, raidstop'd, and
> shutdown.
>
> I removed the ethernet card and restarted the install (same steps as
> previous)
> choosing to upgrade my station (as it detected a mandrake install) and
> it skipped
> ahead and seemed to complete the install without any further user
> interaction
> (bad mandrake, as you'll see)
>
> At the 'reboot' screen, i switched back to the console, umount'd and
> raidstop'd
> before letting mandrake reboot.
>
> you may be familiar with this: "LI 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
> [....]"
>
> Sigh.
>
> Boot back into the rescue disk, mount my root, discover that some
> symlinks are
> missing/incorrect, there is no lilo, no initrd. Mount my /usr
> partition,
> mkinitrd, install lilo, shut everything down and reboot.
>
> This time, I was greeted with a login prompt for "localhost". Ok, no
> networking
> config. I shutdown, install my network card, and start back up. log
> back in
> and discover that there is no /usr mounted. edit /etc/fstab, copy
> /etc.save/raidtab
> to /etc, and reboot.
>
> (are you counting? almost 10 reboots so far.. this is like windows!)
>
> login, fix /etc/modules.conf so that my network card is correct, copy my
> saved
> /etc/sysconfig/network, copy my saved
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0,
> and run ifup eth0. Phew. network connectivity.
>
> start x -- oops! no x server. mount the disk, install XFree86-4
> server. copy my
> saved XFree86 configs. try again. Oop! no nvidia module! make the
> nvidia modules
> and start x again. bingo!
>
> configure my printer via the cups web interface. bingo!
>
> try xmms.. bzzt! not working. My sound looks configured right, but I
> still
> haven't been able to get it working. (bad mandrake!)
>
> configure httpd2 to use my old webroot and server certs. bingo!
> (realize that I have to re-install the PEAR db modules for php and
> restart.. heh)
>
> try to start postfix. bzzt! can't find /usr/libexec/postfix... seems
> it's
> been moved to /usr/lib/postfix, but they didn't tell the binary that.
> Make a symlink
> and restart. (bad mandrake!) bingo!
>
> Elapsed time to a (mostly) fully functional system?
> 30 mins + 3 hours of diagnostic cleanup and workarounds.
>
> Conclusions? Expect a mandrake 9.2 shortly which will clean up some of
> these
> issues. But so far, it's been running pretty well. The 2.4.21(pre)
> kernel
> seems much more responsive than the 2.4.19 previously used. KDE 3.1 is
> nicer as well. I haven't really played much with it, but it's a little
> snappier.
>
> As soon as I get sound working, i'll start trying games again. I'll
> have to
> recompile vmware for this kernel, and see how well it runs too.
>
> Leif
>
> ( score: 8/10, 4/10 == 6/10 )
>
>
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2a23 : Thu Mar 27 2003 - 09:58:13 AKST