[techtalk] Mandrake 8 revisited

[Caitlyn M. Martin]

Hi, everyone,

Never being one to let something go...  :)

I've got Mandrake 8 plus all the latest updates on my box right now.   
Remember the issues raised by James before?  Here is what I've found so far:

1)  "Color in scripts":  James objected to Perl scripts being used to invoke 
gcc and vi and probably other things to get pretty, colored output.  He 
wanted to be able to invoke these commands, and not scripts, directly.  
Well...  if you don't install the gcc-color package you get gcc in monotonous 
monochrome, and avoid the whole script issue.  gcc-color is not part of the 
default development install.  It is something you'll get if you install 
everything, though.  My vi is also in monotonous monochrome, though I don't 
see what package (or how) I would change that.  Anyway, the commands 
I have checked so far are not invoked through Perl scripts.

2)  Mandrake Update breaking Perl:  It didn't for me.  In fact, there was no 
new version of Perl to update to.  So... either Mandrake withdrew the updated 
and broken version of Perl or else James installed from the Cooker.  Cooker 
is development code and does often break things, and yes... it can be 
accessed through Mandrake Update.  I always avoid it unless I have a really 
good reason to be on the bleeding edge.

Also, I've already come up with a list of reasons why I *really* like 
Mandrake 8 better than Red Hat 7.1:

- Mandrake correctly detected all of my hardware and did an appropriate 
install.  Red Hat did not.  Oh, and looking at how my Zip was setup by 
Mandrake I know what went wrong in Red Hat.  It's /dev/sda not /dev/sda4 
nowadays.  

- The build of XFree86 (v. 4.03) is newer than what ships with Red Hat (v. 
4.02?) and actually correctly supports my Trident 3Dimage 9750 based AGP 
video card.  I no longer have to run the older ATI card I was using in the 
interim.  Yes, what comes with Red Hat can be upgraded, but... it was nice 
not to have to deal with that, especially considering that Red Hat is not 
offering updated rpms yet.  I remember having to rip out an older XFree86 
3.3.something and rebuild without rpms to support that card when it first 
came out, and it was time consuming.

- Mandrake offers both cups and lpr for printing.   I like cups better:  more 
supported printers, and better support for my color printer.  Red Hat doesn't 
include cups.

- Mandrake's use of menu rather than wmconfig.  Mandrake is set up to have 
well-organized menus and submenus, and changes I make can occur in all 
supported window managers.  Red Hat throws everything in the second level 
menus and doesn't organize well.  In Red Hat changes to one wm or desktop 
environment don't effect the others, and there is no option to change that.

- Mandrake update is free.  The similar, automated process for Red Hat costs 
money.

- Mandrake comes with more useful apps and libraries that Red Hat.  I am 
comparing free, downloadable versions, BTW.  It's possible that the shrink 
wrapped store bought Red Hat 7.1 has more stuff.

What I don't like:  supermount!  Yeah, it can be ripped out :)  Red Hat was 
smart enough not to use it (at least by default) in 7.1.  Red Hat also no 
longer installs linuxconf by default, and I think that is a *good* thing.

I should say that, honestly, Red Hat 7.1 is a very good distro.  It's 
functional and it's well supported.  At this point I just like Mandrake 
better.  I should also point out that I have never tried SuSe or Debian or a 
whole lot of less popular distros, so this shouldn't be seen as a "Mandrake 
is the best" post.  It's not.  The point was that a lot of criticism was 
levelled at Mandrake, and I went and checked and decided that it wasn't valid 
criticism.

All the best,
Caity