Phoebe: a new Red Hat beta

Posted Dec 31, 2002 18:52 UTC (Tue) by joesilver (guest, #8825) [Link]

However, I can think of better reasons not to use it:

1. I tried 8.0 on my Dell Inspiron 3200 notebook, and have wiped it and replaced it with the new beta. In both versions, my PCMCIA socket drivers weren't loaded, so my PC cards aren't being recognized. (Mandrake 8.2 and 9.0, which I tried prior to Red Hat, picked up the PC cards automatically during installation.) Therefore, I haven't been able to connect to the Internet with Red Hat.

2. In Red Hat 8.0, I was able to install new RPM packages by clicking on them, or right-clicking and choosing the appropriate option from the pop-up menu. This doesn't work on my machine in the beta version; I get an "Unknown Error" message.

3. Soundconfig worked OK for me in 8.0 (although I had to choose a SoundBlaster card from the list rather than the Crystal card that my machine actually has). In the beta version, it does not.

4. I'm experiencing the usual slowness and "hanging" that I have found in all versions of Linux that I have tried so far. (My most-used Linux application to date has been Mandrake's "xKill," whose sole function is to terminate applications that aren't responding. With Red Hat I eventually found that the same result could be achieved by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Esc.)

Has anyone else had these problems?

Posted Dec 31, 2002 19:49 UTC (Tue) by joesilver (guest, #8825) [Link]

1. I installed both 8.0 and the beta from isos downloaded to my hard drive. Once the installation process is complete and one has started Linux on his or her machine, Red Hat's package management program doesn't allow one to install new packages from isos on the hard drive — only from CDs. Mandrake, on the other hand, allows the user to specify the path to the installation files.

2. In choosing packages to install during Mandrake's installation process, one can toggle between tree view (i.e., applications listed by category) or flat (alphabetical) view — a great convenience, in my opinion. Red Hat offers only a tree view, requiring that the user either know the category to which Red Hat has assigned the app he or she wants to install, or scroll through every category to find it.

3. To "slowness" and "hanging," I would add "frequent application crashes." Compared to what? Well, let's just say I have used other, non open-source operating systems since the mid-'80s (I won't name them, to avoid opening up a political can of worms), and find that, based on my admittedly limited experience with Linux, its performance lags considerably behind.