Linux-Mandrake (was: Re: [techtalk] hdparm and DMA "not permitted")

[Martin.Caitlyn at epamail.epa.gov]

Hi, James,

> Yep: I tried Mandrake just over a year ago, and fell in love with it.
> SOOOO much more "refined" than RedHat, I thought. Then it disabled my
> system. Oops. How? Well, **EVERY** binary on a Mandrake system is a Perl
> script (well, almost every one - including vi!) That's fine, until
> MandrakeUpdate decides to break perl. At which point, you can't log on to
> X, you can't use vi... Oops. Break out the RedHat CDs...

Kind of a blistering condemnation, don't you think?  IMHO, it's also
probably unjustified.  No, I am not saying it didn't happen.  What I am
saying is that I have run Mandrake 7.0, 7.2, and 8.0 problem free for at
least a year now, and that included running Mandrake update regularly,
including upgrading Perl.  My question would be:  which version, which
update?

If I condemned a distro for every really bad bug they released, I'd be out
of distros by now.  Besides, would you like me to detail the bugs in Red
Hat 6.1 and 7.0?

RH 7.1 is a very nice release with just a few gotchas (which are well
documented, BTW).  For those who prefer Red Hat you cannot go wrong with
it.  It's just that Mandrake 8 is soooo much nicer.

All the best,
Caity


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Caitlyn M. Martin             martin.caitlyn at epa.gov
Systems Analyst              (919) 541-4441
Lockheed Martin
(a contractor for the US EPA)
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